One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

Everyone has at least one thing that just bugs them about the game. Some its an AI issue, others graphics; etc, but for me it's the GRID.

Today, while promoting the game at work, I came to realize that the one thing that has illusively bugged me about SEIV is that damned GRID map. I simply hate it.

I truly wish that Aaron would replace the GRID map with a map of space with different color stars representing systems much the same way the white boxes do now.

Jump Point lines could stay, but would be masked in a "fog of war" until used much the way they are now.

The other thing that truly bugs me about the game is the general lack of planets with alien populations on them. As it stands now, all planets are unihabitted, except for Random Neutrals, and those are limited to six.

What I would love to see here is up to60 random RACES, each at different levels of technology randomly placed throught a large galaxy.

Give them some special tech, like:
War College - Gives an increase in training
Peace Shrine - Increases happyness
etc. that could become part of your empire as you open trade or establish alliances, or simply conqure them.

(I have a rather large list but I'll save it for now.)

These two things are really the only things about Space Empires that I do not like.

My intent with this post was not to open the flood gates of "I hate this" but rather to point out specific items that could use some serious improvement, and perhaps, if Aaron choose to make another game,incorperate it into Space Empires V.

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"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard
New Age Ship Yards

[This message has been edited by Atrocities (edited 13 June 2001).]

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

The feature that I HATE most, at least in the demo, is the group movement in combat. I curse it at least 10 times a day! It has a nasty tendency for messing up your battle plan big time when you forget to clear group assignments AND move the group leader. I admit that this function is pretty useful when there are a lot of ships to move, all I'm asking for is, there should be a dialog box that askes me if I want to move the whole fleet when I move the group leader. In the heat of battle it is too easy to forget simple things like this.

CW

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I hate how SE4 consumes my time and destroys my social life. My boss hates it because he thinks I have some medical problem that leaves me unable to sleep enough. Is a patch coming out for the social life bug?

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> Everyone has at least one thing that just bugs them about the game. Some its an AI issue, others graphics; etc, but for me it's the GRID.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I'm not quite sure I understand what your complaint is; you do know that you can turn off the grid display in Empire Options? Or are you talking about something else entirely?

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I am talking about something else entirely.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I hate scrolling down the same list over and over and over.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I don't hate anything about the game, I love it. There are things I would like to see changed / added but that's what this forum is for.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I hate after a while of playing in the combat screen, the mouse will F-up and be offset about one game square to the left. This then carries back over to the game interface.
Only way to fix it is to reboot it.
Don't know if it's a game bug, or a personal problem.
I'd rather see a real galaxy too honestly.
Also, allow ships to be larger then 1 square.
I hate trying to make escorts look like fleas.

-Steve

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I hate how those damned pink elephents won't leave me alone.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

The one thing I don't like is not being able to remove planets from my list that are not in my claimed systems when I want to search for new colonies. I would like to tell it to exclude all planets outside my borders.
(yes I have suggested this to MM)

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The one thing I don't like is not being able to remove planets from my list that are not in my claimed systems when I want to search for new colonies. I would like to tell it to exclude all planets outside my borders.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I usually use the Systems to Avoid markers to get around that, but I agree that more display options would be nice.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I like the funny comments in this post. However, I don't like the Selection Boxes (in the game, not the Posts) and how they deal with clicking in the scroll bar. For instance, in the log window - how if you have a long log, you can't just click in the open space of the scroll bar. It should (like 99% of other Win apps) just do a 'Page Down' kinda' thing.

Also, as said many times before:

I WANT MY RIGHT CLICK BACK!!!! (Please, please, please, etc.)

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I really HATE having to click every weapon "off" individually on a ship/base/sat group with many weapons when I want to micro-manage fire control in tactical mode. Why can't there be a global 'toggle' switch beneath the combat weapons control box? Then you could turn them all off with ONE click and then turn on only the ones you want to fire. SE3 had global targetting toggles.

For that matter, why can't we have SEPERATE switches for auto-movement and auto-fire control? Maybe I'm happy with the AI fire control but want to control the fleet's movement because of the brain-dead way that formations are handled? Nope, it's all or nothing, meaning you have to put up with much more tedious micro-management than really necessary. This is another very nice feature of SE3 that was lost in SE4.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 June 2001).]

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
...why can't we have SEPERATE switches for auto-movement and auto-fire control? Maybe I'm happy with the AI fire control but want to control the fleet's movement because of the brain-dead way that formations are handled? Nope, it's all or nothing, meaning you have to put up with much more tedious micro-management than really necessary. This is another very nice feature of SE3 that was lost in SE4.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My favorite trick in SE3 was to turn on automatic targetting (especially for battles with lots of fighters), and then "tweak" the targetting before resolving weapons fire. That way, I could let the computer decide on the fighter's targets, and I would manage the ship targetting.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I hate how sometimes even if you click on the build one turn's worth for WP's it will only build one even if you have the production capacity to build two or three. Along those lines I wish there was a selection for choosing that you want 1, 2, 3, or 4, of a unit.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jc173:
I hate how sometimes even if you click on the build one turn's worth for WP's it will only build one even if you have the production capacity to build two or three. Along those lines I wish there was a selection for choosing that you want 1, 2, 3, or 4, of a unit.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It would be so much better if you could just give the order to build a number of units, say 20, and the ones that get finished each turn actually does get finished each turn. ie, if you have the capacity to build 3 units/turn and you order 20, each turn 3 will be built and a 4th will be started on. Same goes for upgrading facilities. Upgrading 30 facilities takes forever. I would really like it if that worked as I described with units above. That way you could actually abort half way through in case of emergency without losing 6+ turns of work.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

Come to think about, the thing I really really dislike is the fact that as soon as you have no presence in a system all information about that system is lost. Suddenly you don't know what you knew Last turn. It's like leaving a room and instantly forgetting there's a TV and a bar in there. I think that all info about colonies, bases and sats should still be there for review even though you have no presence with red text in the upper left or right corner stating how old the information is. If you have a presence in the system the age info text should be green and say current. I hate having to write this stuff down on paper and I shouldn't have to.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

I dislike how Counter Intel (mal)functions in the game and I finally would really like to get some declaration from Aaron about that.

Also I hate to remove every ship seperately from a fleet to trigger emergency supplies and E-movement, if I mistakenly remove every ship then the fleet experience is lost. Also if I select a ship and press the scrap/mothball button, I have to reselect the ship again... hundreds of mouseclicks...

I dislike to have to keep track of the system wide facilities, I would like to see an overview with these facilities somewhere in the build queue.

But I must say also: I really like most of the rest of the game (e.g. research depth, infinite possibilities to mod things,...)

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jubala:
Come to think about, the thing I really really dislike is the fact that as soon as you have no presence in a system all information about that system is lost. Suddenly you don't know what you knew Last turn. It's like leaving a room and instantly forgetting there's a TV and a bar in there. I think that all info about colonies, bases and sats should still be there for review even though you have no presence with red text in the upper left or right corner stating how old the information is. If you have a presence in the system the age info text should be green and say current. I hate having to write this stuff down on paper and I shouldn't have to.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree, I brought this up awhile ago. I think that recon data about planets should persist no matter how you acquire it, ie intel op, allies, or actually orbiting the planet. I think that the long range scanner should also give you info on the facilities on a planet.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jubala:
Come to think about, the thing I really really dislike is the fact that as soon as you have no presence in a system all information about that system is lost... I hate having to write this stuff down on paper and I shouldn't have to.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can use the Notes feature in the mini-map. Right click on the map, and then right-click on the system you want to write down stuff for. I use this to keep track of enemy homeworlds. However, I agree that it's annoying and I do like the suggested system.

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

Yeah, I know about the notes feature. Don't use it. I prefer to have the info easily accesable. Which means on paper in front of me and not a million mouseclicks away.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 17 June 2001).]

Re: One thing that I really dislike about SEIV
 

Yes, it would be nice if the picture of a system when Last visited would persist. Even more cool would be if the date of the Last visit would be displayed.

Something I dislike is the way the AI seems to have a problem realizing the danger inherent in blackholes. I've had enemies seperated from me by a black hole, but with a perfectly usable but longer alternate route, but the AI will throw away fleet after fleet trying to attack through the black hole system. I put some ships on the other side of a Warp point leading into the system, then every turn I peek through the warp point and watch the enemy fleet slowly getting flushed down the black hole.