Space Empires V post-mortem

MarkSheppard · #1 January 12th, 2009, 06:09 PM

I've tried many times over the years since it's release in 2006 to play SEV in single player mode; including some attempts with the latest 1.77 patch.

In all my attempts; they've ground to a halt after about 10-15 turns into the game; simply because of the ASTRONOMICAL time to compute a turn, even with the latest patch, compression disabled, and multi-threading enabled on a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Compared to Space Empires IV Deluxe, which I got for free with my SEV Purchase:

-- it takes a while to generate a quadrant map, even a small one; whereas with SE IV Deluxe, you can generate a large quadrant map in a second or two.

--running a human vs AI game in SEV is an exercise in sadomachoism, it takes at best 15-20~ seconds to generate a turn with 10 AI players, while in SE IV Deluxe with 17 AI players, about 2-3 seconds; depending on what happens; AT THE BEGINNING of the game.

This is critical, because at the beginning of a normal game; you are going to spend a LOT of turns waiting for R&D to finish developing, ships to be built, etc.

Black_Knyght · #2 January 12th, 2009, 06:51 PM

Regrettably, I agree with you completely.

These, and several other points, are why SE5 seems stillborn to me. It just never worked for me in the way SE4 did, and never had what it took to grab me and keep my attention and ongoing interest.

Too bad too, it could've had so much potential.

Gandalf Parker · #3 January 12th, 2009, 07:06 PM

Actually I like games with long processing times. It keeps me from starving, starving my kids, starving my pets, exploding my bladder, etc etc. In other words I need games that make my look up and look around at least a couple times every hour. I can check work-windows and such.

But SEV still hasnt hooked me either. I admit I havent tried the latest patch or looked at the mod list yet. Are the mods for SEIV in SEV yet? Not specifically but do we have really large galaxies? Do we have lots of nations? I really didnt need the fancy graphics, sound, and box-on-the-shelf. Id much rather have had the more moddable version.
IMHO

MarkSheppard · #4 January 12th, 2009, 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Actually I like games with long processing times. It keeps me from starving, starving my kids, starving my pets, exploding my bladder, etc etc. In other words I need games that make my look up and look around at least a couple times every hour. I can check work-windows and such

The problem is that Space Empire's design as it is, ensues a lot of "Dead turns", where you're exploring solar systems at the beginning of the game, waiting for ships to be built (3 turns a ship), or waiting for your research to crank over, etc.

Fyron · #5 January 13th, 2009, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Id much rather have had the more moddable version.

Not entirely sure what that means, but SE5 is much more moddable than SE4. Formula-based data files, a scripting language for AI and events, etc. It's just much more painful to play.

Black_Knyght · #6 January 23rd, 2009, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fyron

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Id much rather have had the more moddable version.

Not entirely sure what that means, but SE5 is much more moddable than SE4. Formula-based data files, a scripting language for AI and events, etc. It's just much more painful to play.

That's a sad truth. It's very moddable, but certainly a nuisance to play. The poor playability is what's a killer.

Captain Kwok · #7 January 23rd, 2009, 04:11 PM

I think for a lot of SE4 players there is a threshold of playing time that has to be invested in SE5 before they become efficient enough to make the game enjoyable. Once they reach that level, they start figuring out all the small nuggets of info and shortcuts that SE5 makes available which alleviate a lot of the turn-to-turn management that SE4 has.

Black_Knyght · #8 January 23rd, 2009, 04:19 PM

I don't know about that. SE4 grabbed me right out of the box, and kept my attention every since.

SE5 just never worked for me, and still has nothing to hold my interest.

There's just a certain combination in SE4 that worked, a combination that for me just never materialized in SE5.

Captain Kwok · #9 January 12th, 2009, 09:10 PM

The movement phase is a lot more taxing in SE5 versus SE4. Not only are the systems 3 times larger and the average movement amounts 2 times more, the game also has to update the sight and pathing for each ship every single movement.

SE5 in simultaneous mode is a lot quicker than sequential. On a non-Vista system, it's not far off SE4 speeds.

MarkSheppard · #10 January 12th, 2009, 10:12 PM

Quote:

SE5 in simultaneous mode is a lot quicker than sequential. On a non-Vista system, it's not far off SE4 speeds.

If by "not far off", you mean taking 3 times the length of SE4 speeds, yep.

It seems the only way to get a reasonably workable SE5 game is to start your games with SE4 Sensor settings: "Players can see all sectors of any system they are currently in"; which eliminates one of the major changes of SE5 -- making sensors actually useful.