"eXperience: the 5h X" is a catch phrase used for advertising the new Master of Orion 3, but the discussion I am starting here goes beyond just MOO3 and will attempt to address the gaming concept in general, and how to implement more challenge into SE4 specifically.
This thread was actually started under the topic "Your History With SEIV", if you want more background info. For convenience, I will quote myself here:
"It certainly is a challenge for a game designer to create a good gaming experience. Ideally, a game should not have a preset difficulty level. Rather, the game should adapt the difficulty as the campaign unfolds.
Think about this imaginary situation: you have struggled in a SE4 game and overcome all the challenges the AI has thrown at you. You know you have won the game, and what is left of it is only hours of boring "insect crushing" of the Last enemies, as you lazily finish to research the Last technologies, and you spend more time micromanaging your 200 colonies than doing exciting stuff...
Sounds boring? It is... But, suddenly, out of nowhere, a warp point from another galaxy appears and an alien invasion fleet strikes your empire with fiery destructive force... What are you going to do? Sounds cool? It would be... This is an example of how the game decides that you must be bored and it gives you a new challenge. Unfortunately, such a game is yet to be invented. Just think about it..."
I didn't really think about implementing such a thing into a SE4 Mod but some of you actually took it seriously, and now I think "why not?". I just gave the situation as an example of a new challenge in the "boring phase" of most strategy games. But let's take a closer look; mac5732 mentioned we could actually implement it.
For those of you familiar with MOO2, such a challenge would be similar to the appearance of the Antareans (only we'd need to make them much, much, tougher
than in MOO2). So let's call the invading race "Antareans" for convenience. I am not sure how to implement them into SE4 because I haven't tried to "mod" the game at all yet. But here are a few ideas that I hope will kick-start the discussion:
1) If we make it into a scenario, the Antareans could start the game confined in a system with no warp points. Then their AI would give them some kind of incentive to research "warp point technology". Timing would be essential here.
2) Obviously, they would need some kind of superiority: in numbers, in technology, or both. The technology could be unique, and should be devastating. In fact, their appearance should be devastating enough to challenge the whole outcome of the game.
3) One problem I see is the lack of surprise: if one knows the Antareans are coming, one can prepare for it... This is not good.
4) So maybe there should be other challenges too. How about "space monsters" or internal revolts, or enemy alliances to face the player's empire, or a combination of these? Natural catastrophes? Some of these already exist but a) with a low magnitude and b) they are not necessarily triggered during the "boring phase"...
5) How about this: the "Antareans" are a race that cannot be challenged by conventional weapons (or only in a very limited way), requiring the discovery of a new technology tree, with prerequisites that change from game to game (so it is harder to "prepare" for the attack). Maybe the prerequisite is found in the ruins in the Anatarean home system (on a planet they cannot colonize). Or maybe the ruins are somewhere else. Maybe the prerequisites should be scattered around the galaxy, and gathering them all would require a mix of exploration/diplomacy/conquest (since some of the ruins will be found by other races before you).
eXperience: the 5h X
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