Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

I am an experienced 4x player but new to SE IV and am having a difficult time playing the demo. It is extremely under-documented – the tutorial doesn't get you far at all. I understand that the full game has an HTML-style manual on the CD – is it reasonably comprehensive?

I have "The Dubious "Strategy Guide" of Space Empires IV" but it assumes that you know about SE 3 or earlier to some extent, alas. Is there a user guide floating around elsewhere on the net? I am particularly interested in something that would explain what each of the ministers do and the difference between individual and global ones.

At the moment what I really need to know is what some of the icons mean. I noticed on more than one of the planets I colonised I see a little red icon that looks something like a battered red filing cabinet. Ever-hopeful I guessed perhaps it is a ruin so I built a research facility on those but nothing happened. What is the meaning of the icon?

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

The red "trash can" means you don't have a spaceport in the system. If you go to start/programs/shrapnel I think the manual is there, but it has been a long time since I played the demo so I could be wrong.

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

And if you want to find ruins -- look up the Planet listing (the button looks like, well, a planet, if memory serves), select Special, and it'll list the known worlds that have ruins on them. It's also mentioned in the statistics panel when viewing the planet (usually a reference to deserted alien cities or something like that).


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

Thanks for the help, guys!

"The red "trash can" means you don't have a spaceport in the system" - well that's intuitive!

And if I colonise a planet with ruins on it do I get the tech free or do I have to put research on it?

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

The tech is free and can be quite valuable, like a new colonization type. Colonize all ruins as soon as possible, even if you can't hold it. The tech goes to the first owner.
Also, under the empire button, crown, are the ministers and the empire options. Use the minister button to enable any specific minister you want to use. Use empire options to set options like showing where spaceports, resupply and shipyards are, remove confirmation dialogs for certain actions etc.

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Taqwus:
And if you want to find ruins --
&lt;snip&gt;
It's also mentioned in the statistics panel when viewing the planet (usually a reference to deserted alien cities or something like that).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There's also an icon that kinda looks like Stonehenge on the statistics panel for planets that have ruins.

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

Go to the "?" icon it has access to the manual there.

Also if you start a new game with high tech for all players , select all the fields such as organic, temporal etc in the race for youreself you get all the tech's, then allow access to the tech tree in the game setup.

Start the game with your race and just one other player, deselect the option for the computer to put in other AI's.

With the game started, go to the research area (the beaker) and then to the tech tree.

You will get a look at all the buildings and components that go on the ships. You will also get a level readout of the different tech's.

Hope that this helps!

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

The minister names are somewhat self-explanatory.

eg. "resupply" sends your ships home when they're running outta ammo & fuel, etc.

Global ministers will grab any ship that applies to their job, and do stuff with it.
Individual ministers require you to give your ship orders to obey the minister.
(click on a ship and hit 'y' or the face icon, and individual ministers can now play with the ship)

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

The red icon that marks a planet without a spaceport also is used to mark a ship that is out of supplies; a similar yellow icon means the ship is running low on supplies.

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Cap'n Q

Re: Demo user seeks a few pointers
 

I am getting a little disillusioned...

Is it true that in combat there is an "edge of space" and there appears not to be a "disengage" command so if there are two ships with the same speed and one of them is unarmed all the armed ship has to do is to chase it around until it runs into a "corner" and kill it.

Also, it seems that if your planet is unarmed that no matter how large it is a scout with a pea-shooter will be able to wipe it out in a single "strategic" game turn.

I read as well that in multi-player (which I haven't tried yet) you can't replay the combats that occur because they are all "strategic" ones so you can't see why the computer thinks you would have lost a battle.

As for what I need from "Help" it is true that one can more or less see the tech tree through "help" and "research" but there doesn't seem to be a way to search it so you can easily see "what should I be researching so I can get fighters?"