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- Space Empires: IV & V (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20)

- - In All (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=25901)

How many of you have ever finished a game of SE IV?

A couple of times, and it's never pretty. Massed glassings as I can't be arsed to capture the enemy planets any more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I have a huge goal when I play that often takes about 2,000 turns or so to do. I tend to play my games until they are done DONE.

By done I mean, games with up to 255 systems using FQM Deluxe set to Warp Point Medium, Dense Midlife galaxies with Warp Points located any where.

I play until the following goals are met;

1. All enemies have been crushed beneith my boots.
2. All asteroids have been converted to planets
3. All planets have been colonized
4. All nebula, black holes, organic infestations, and stellar events have been destroyed thus leaving empty systems.
5. Created a star in all empty systems
6. Built Ring Worlds and Sphere Worlds around EVERY star in every system. (Ring Worlds for habitted systems, sphere worlds for systems with just stars.)
7. I have reached Max population on all worlds
8. All worlds have reached optimal climate and value
9. All worlds have Troops, Mines, Fighters, and Weapon Platforms.
10. All mining facilities have been upgraded to Monoliths.
11. All Research is completed and all research faclities have been converted to other facilities.
12. I have reached the 20,000 ship limit, all Baseships.

I often organize my warp points into a logical pattern as well, but its not a game goal.

I normally play with the victory condition of player 1 has X% of player 2 set at 300% or so. So the answer is pretty much always. I figure if you are 3X bigger than the 2nd place guy, then it's just a matter of time so I call it a win.

I think I did once, first game I ever played of SE4 Classic, back when I first got the game...

Hangs head in shame�..I finish most of my games against the AI, even when playing Proportions.

I think I glassed their one homeworld in the game I won, because I didn't feel like bringing transports over there. Odd when you find out that all their planets are rioting...

I have played two PBW games to a victorious end, though both were ended well before the final extermination of all my foes. The first one, RTV Dertran, was declared over when it became obvious that I had more military might than every other player combined (I had a strategic reserve bigger than anyone else's entire navy) and had safeguarded my core worlds against raiding/riot run tactics. The second, All Rock 3, was ended by the score % of second player victory condition just when my nearly invincible crystalline dreadnoughts were about to hit the front lines. It was a foregone conclusion at that point anyway, as I don't think anyone else had the technology to do the required 180 damage per shot to even scratch those dreadnoughts, much less numbers to match mine.

I have finished a game 3 or 4 times. They were all a long time ago. I remember wiping everybody out and getting the victory message and it asked if I wanted to keep playing. That was against the A.I., before I installed TDM. I think that happened maybe twice. Nowadays, I keep starting new games and don't get that far. If I'm really ahead of the A.I.'s, so that I'm sure that I'll win, I bored of continuing so I restart. Or if I'm badly losing and know I'm dead, I restart a game instead of continuing until I'm wiped out.

I also had a couple of games that finished because I lost. I think I got killed by Tessellates once, and another time by some other race, I forgot who. Ah, glorious defeat! I remember losing multiple ships to lack of maintenance each turn, and several successful intel attacks destroying facilites and damaging planet conditions each turn, with most of my world rioting. Each turn I lose a couple of planets. It was hopeless but I fought to the very end.

The other reason that I keep restarting new games is because the turns keep getting slower and slower and I get tired of waiting for the A.I's to finish their moves. At the start of the game, the turns process in seconds and it's great. Then as the game progresses, it takes longer and longer. In the beginning, I sit and stare at the screen during the A.I.'s turns. Then, when it gets slower, I start doing other things like getting a snack or tidying my desk. Then it gets even slower and I do stuff like eating dinner, doing my laundry, reading books, practising piano, and so on between turns. Then I get tired of the game because it's too slow so I start a new game and the cycle repeats.