On-line tactical combat idea
There has been some discussion about MM introducing a multiplayer mode. However the problem with multiplayer is often the time it takes to play a complicated game like SEIV. But how about a simplified Version that is restricted to one-on-one tactical combat? This would be far simpler to program and tournaments could be arranged with many variations, similar to AOK. Two players could, for example, play the best out of elleven with predesigned fleets limited to some total cost, say 300,000 resources. And be finished within two hours max on-line, probably faster than that. Or maybe just one ship, maximum Dreadnought class costing no more than 40,000 resources, etc. etc.
Designing ships and tactical combat are two of the most attractive and distinguishing features of SEIV, but the AI is just too primitive to offer a challenge. I cannot evaluate the technical costs of doing this, but surely it is not that big a deal, and I am sure it would be a big hit with many people who avoid multiplayer games because of the time factor. It could also attract a lot of new customers to SEIV and the single player game. Has this ever been discussed? What do you think?
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