[Kamog]

There are two types of games that are my favorite: RPG's and strategy. I prefer thinking-type games to other types that require fast reflexes or hand-eye-coordination. So I don't play much of those shooting games or ones that require you to jump around and land perfectly on little platforms or fall to your death. I'm not good at those; I get frustrated if I keep dying after many attempts and I don't feel like spending hours practising.

I like games in which you can improve yourself by your efforts within the game. So in an RPG you complete quests or defeat enemies to gain experience and improve your character's skills and strengths. In SEIV you make your empire stronger by researching technology, colonizing, capturing enemy ships and planets, successfully using diplomacy etc. I find that a game is less interesting if your character or whatever you're controlling stays the same while the challenges you face keep getting harder as the game progresses. I want my character or empire to get better though the things I do, so that I can prepare for more difficult challenges as the game progresses. There is great satisfaction in looking back to an earlier time in the game and noticing all the progress you have made, and how you overcame all the earlier challenges that were difficult at the time, but are now insignificant because you're so much stronger.

Also, it's nice to have flexibility in the game, in that there is more than one way to successfully solve a problem or deal with a particular challenge. So in an RPG, when faced with some sort of quest, it's nice to have different choices. For example, say there's a locked door and the guard won't let you in unless you go and kill a certain monster and bring back an item and give it to him. Can you do other things besides killing the monster? Can you steal the key to open the door? Can you pick the lock on the door? Can you use persuasion to get the guard to let you in without doing the quest? Can you get the item without killing the monster? Is there some alternate entrance besides that door? Can you decide not to do this at all and go do something else?

SEIV has a great deal of flexibility in that you have complete freedom in what to research, how you spend your resoures, how you design your ships, what to build on your planets, what worlds you colonize, etc. That is great. A game loses replayability when there's few choices or if there's only one or only a few ways to win.

Another thing is that in a great game, if you keep replaying it, every so often you think of new and better ways of doing things that you haven't thought of before. So for example, in SEIV you might suddenly come up with a new way to design ships that's better, and so your strategy completely changes from the last time you played. Or in an RPG you think of a new way to use a magic spell that you haven't thought of before that gives you an advantage.

If there is some sort of puzzle to solve in the game, I want it to be solvable by using reasoning or investigating, not by tedious effort. For example, in an RPG say there's a combination lock that you need to open. I want to be able to figure out the combination by searching for clues and thinking. It's not fun when there are no clues available (or the clues are incredibly obscure) and you just spend hours mindlessly trying every combination.