Is Space Empires IV Worth Buying?

[Taipan]

lol Emperor Zodd. Nah, couldn't move from this place. Much too much the lucky country.


WendellM, thanks for the link to Chips & Bits. Makes it a bit cheaper.


Atrocities, yeah I am enjoying the demo. Need to play it a bit more to make sure it is worth forking out the $$ for it. Looks good so far, but I only downloaded it on Thursday night.

Again, thanks for the replies.

Taipan

[jimbob55]

Tricky question....

The game has great potential. As it is though, without mods. It's pretty crap. There is no balancing of weapons + techs. There is no decent AI. The graphics, while new + improved over SE3 are still not superior to civ2... In fact in many was the interface is inferior to civ2. There are few sounds, some of the menu systems are clunky to get where you want to go...

All that said. Add a few mods or wait a while for patches and it will become one of the better / best 4x games on the market for some time. It's always going to be lacking in eye candy, it's always going to be lacking 3d surround sound but it will (eventually) have depth. It's possible to set up an entirely original tech tree, AI + construction set for yourself or to share with friends..
So if you like playing a challenging AI out of the box, or zipping round in 3d terrain sims then you probably wouldn't be here. If you are prepared to deal with its little imperfections, it will keep you busy. I say buy it, but it's a game for life not just for christmas.

Hmmm, sounds a little more gushing than I intended.

[Instar]

"It's pretty crap. "
Disagreee, the game is wonderful without mods (or with if you want)

[raynor]

I played Civ, CivII and Alpha Centauri. I think each one is a great game. Civ was a DOS game with not too many frills. It had VGA graphics but that's about it. CivII added slightly prettier graphics and better music and nice cinematic sequences for these special projects called 'Wonders'. The first time through the game, I watched every movie but then I skipped over them to get back to the gameplay. Alpha Centauri had similar quality graphics and sound and the movies. It added some neat sound effects to combat. The first couple of games, I left that turned on. But after that, I turned it off so that combat would resolve faster so I could get back to the gameplay.

Then, by chance, I read about SEIV on http://www.gamespot.com and downloaded the Demo. Finally, I thought, here is a program author who really 'Gets' it. He realized that a lot of us strategy gamers think the eye-candy and 3D sound is pretty impressive the first few times through the game. But after that, we just turn it off so we can get on with the game. He realized that he would probably make us happier if he instead wrote a deeper and more detailed game.

If you want all that glitz but don't care to play a very deep and detailed game, go checkout Imperium Galactica. This game has the graphics and sound but no depth. I played one game but not a second. I still have it and would probably *GIVE* it to you if you lived nearby.

What SEIV does that is so much more incredible than anything I could have ever imagined is allow you to customize the game. Hmm... don't like the way the Xiati race's ships look like? You can replace them with ships that look like Star Wars, or Star Trek or Babylon 5 or whatever. You can also customize how races behave--what they research, what the build, etc. You can even change fundamental rules of the game. Isn't that amazing?!? Do you know how hard it is to create a game that lets you change so much?!?

Bottom line: if you 'claim' to like playing strategy games, then you are made a liar if you don't buy this game.

[Hymirl]

The only thing that needs help is the AI. Otherwise I think the game is pretty well balanced, apart from the explosive warheads, which aren't damaging enough to be worth it.

[God Emperor]

Taipan,
As a fellow Aussie, I too had that decision to make around christmas time and was baulking at the cost. Even through Chips and Bytes the price was more than I would normally pay.

In the end, the discussions about patch 1.19 and the modibility (???Is that a word??) of the game convinced me to take the plunge. I havent regretted it for one moment.

As the others have said, the AI is weak due to a number of blind sides but the degree of modibility means that you can largely overcome the AI's blind sides. Add a few house rules to that and you can have some very fun and challenging games.
I was addicted to MOO2 for about 2 years (played across modem with a friend)but am finding this game even more addictive (I seem to spend a third of my time in amongst the txt files thinking of new fun mods!).
Bottom line is, if you enjoy the demo, long term I dont think you will be disappointed.
Short term, there are so many mods available, that I reckon you will have many fun and enjoyable games (and thereby get your moneys worth).
As I said, long term, this a game that will be unlikely to gather dust due to its modibility (that word, or non word, again!).

As you gather I have become a convert (addict?) to this game but I've tried to be objective as possible with my summary and pretty much agree with the other comments people have made.

[Drake]

Modifiability.

It's a great game. Has some balance problems, but it's easy to modify, and will probably keep you occupied a while if you like Civ, MOO, Stars!, etc...

-Drake