Game Comparrisons.

Phier · #1 June 2nd, 2001, 07:26 AM

In order that I remember playing them....

Reach for the stars - first 4X game I played, limited tech tree, no tactical combat, wasted MANY hours on it.

Pax Imperia - Don't remember if this is the name but it was on the amiga and all I recall is that it got boring and your best planetary minister always rebelled.

Stars! - Cool game in many ways but I could never really get into it. I actualy bought it as shareware and then gave my password/copy out to a friend and never played again.

Moo1 - Oh how I loved this one. I still remember having 'genocide days' when I would place a few massive ships over every one of an allies planets and then declare war. Wipe out the entire race in 1 turn. AI not bad but cheated like a mother.

Moo2 - I liked this one too, but the cheating AI again. I don't mind some cheating, the comptuer needs it I think, but the difference from easy to impossible seemed to be only production cheating. Taking out ship initative was a big mistake.

SE4 - My first SE game to date. While I like it a lot I wish the AI was a bit more challanging. TMD mod pack on moderate bonus and hard and not breaking a sweat. Seems the bonus matters in those first few turns but after that its inability to deal with mines, and rather happazard attacks make it easy to win. Think I"m going to try a game without taking any abilities myself to see how I do.

PsychoTechFreak · #2 June 2nd, 2001, 08:41 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Richard:
BOTF has faults but the overall game design makes it rather addictive.

...

BOTF is still one of my Favorites (maybe 5% of the time that I spend for SEIV). But I guess the AI is cheating, I remember a game test where they have proved it, especially with Intel attacks, which makes Intel almost worthless in my opinion.

P.S.: Cheating AI; this seems to be the only way for some software developers to (almost) beat the human brain.

[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 02 June 2001).]

Askan Nightbringer · #3 June 2nd, 2001, 05:18 PM

BOTF?
Baah.
Played it for a while with a mate on cheapernet but the memory leaks were horrendous and we had to save and reboot periodically. The later patches seem to fix it a bit but by then I'de mastered the AI so it didn't matter.
AI in modern games will never be great, not because of poor programming but because these new fangled games are so complex. The player will always find a tactic the AI is not good at countering.
So I think cheating is alright if it makes a game more challenging. I just wish games had more options on how you would let the computer "cheat".

So my final list for the Spacey strategy games would be -
1. SE4 (Of course)
2. Moo2
3. Moo1
4. The original Reach for the Stars (AI was hard, gotta support my countrymen too!)
5. BOTF
6. Imperium Galatica 2 (never did it for me)

Askan

kosh · #4 June 2nd, 2001, 08:03 PM

I would like to add some other games to the list:

1. The original Imperium Galcium (not the PC Version but the C-64 Version). For its time is was great.

2. Imperium Galatica I. I thought the battle system was excellent. The rest was either avarge at best.

3. VGA Planets - stricly PBEM (my second fav. game after SEIV, nothing is like fighting other humans, graphics are ok, the battle system is very bad, simple model but somehow the game works

I was very unhappy with RFTS II (the first was a classic).
I also felt the BOTF was somehow limited, Did they ever release a patch or mods of any sort for that game.

Anyway in my humble openion my ranking:

1. SE IV
2. VGAP
3. MOO 2
4. MOO 1
5. Imp Gal (c64)
6. RFTS I / SE III
7. BOTF
8. Stars!
9. Pax Imp I(Mac)
10. Imperium Galatica 1

Somebody should compile a list, I own most of these games- it would be great to see the history of these great 4x games.

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Atrocities · #5 June 2nd, 2001, 10:00 PM

Yes, there were several mods released for BOTF as well as two patches.

Most of which can be found at most hard core trek forum sites or links from there.

tictoc · #6 June 2nd, 2001, 10:07 PM

Gotta say S.E.4, but also gotta say cause it's not mentioned here is Sid (the man) Meier's SMAC & SMACX they are up there with it, please don't berate me for it, it's purely a personal thing.

tic

capnq · #7 June 3rd, 2001, 07:35 PM

quote:
Gotta say S.E.4, but also gotta say cause it's not mentioned here is Sid (the man) Meier's SMAC & SMACX they are up there with it, please don't berate me for it, it's purely a personal thing.

Why would anybody berate you for that? SMAC/X is another great game. I'm looking forward to the roleplaying sourcebook for it that Steve Jackson Games has licenced for GURPS as well.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"