My impressions... Reactions?

[John Hough]

quote:

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I said this in the 'other forum':
Having read a few good reviews, I checked out the SE4 demo, and I was pretty disappointed. They all said stuff about the game being amazingly complex, and I just didn't see it. At all. Having to worry about logistics was kinda nice, but didn't make it all that deep.

And then it hit me: The combat parts of the game are wonderfully complex, with myriad options for various sorts of weapons and such, each with their advantages and disadvantages, and many with special effects, making thoughtful ship and fleet design an important part of the game. Or would, if the AI weren't such a sucker in tactical combat. As is, the complexity there is wasted if you don't have the patience to play a several hundred turn game by email.

Unfortunately, the other parts of the game, the expanding and building and research, aren't nearly so complex. There's a few basic types of planetary facilities, and a small number of either absolutely necessary or completely unnecessary facilities with special effects. So there's very little to actually decide about how you want to develop your colonies.

The star systems have way too many habitable planets, imo, and the choice about where to colonize is easy: everything you can within range. Once you've conquered a few people, there's some choice about matching race to atmosphere to get more space for building on the planet, but it doesn't really matter, because by that time, you should be out-producing everyone else anyway. Planetary populations, which you can move around to get maximum growth for your empire, unfortunately, just don't matter that much, giving you a small bonus to the productivity of your planetary facilities, so you might as well not bother with that part of the game.

The tech tree, alas, is a tree, not the interconnected tangle that made Civilization work so well, letting you research one type of technology way ahead of the rest and gain a decisive advantage. Which might break the game, if it weren't already broken by not needing any sort of advantage to crush the AI in tactical combat.

That said, I still enjoyed playing the demo, despite being easy and shallow, and it'll go right beside the Horse and Musket demo on my hard drive, for when I'm feeling like playing something kinda fun and way too easy. And so I can't entirely recommend against buying the game, but I'd suggest playing the demo and seeing if the AI gives you a bit of a challenge.

-John

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I posted this earlier on the Combat Mission forum in response to a question about this game. Being curious, and this being a better place to talk about it, I reposted it, and ask: Am I right? Does this view of the game, gotten from playing the demo, accurately reflect the full game? Is there something I'm missing here? Is it worth buying if you don't like playing this sort of game by email?

Thanks,

-John Hough

[This message has been edited by John Hough (edited 17 December 2000).]