You know, maybe 1.5X would be enough...

[Aiken]

geoschmo said:
Expanding? Am I the only one not waiting breathlessly for the log report that I've started another 5 colonies this turn? Score = 0 X

Exploiting? Hmmmm, let's see. Should I build four mineral miners on this 92% mineral planet, or use it for reseearch instead? Jeez, what am I an accountant? Score = 0 X

Both of these items are scored as 1X for me. As in any strategic game SE4 players could be divided into 2 faction: Warriors and Builders (and various mixes of them). I'm a Builder, so both exploiting and expanding are important for me.

[geoschmo]

aiken said:

Both of these items are scored as 1X for me. As in any strategic game SE4 players could be divided into 2 faction: Warriors and Builders (and various mixes of them). I'm a Builder, so both exploiting and expanding are important for me.

That's a good point. And I'll admit when I first started playing this game it was all fun, even what I now consider the boring empire managment stuff. I guess it's just that I've been playing this for what, four years now? Or maybe I've gotten into somewhat of a rut. I still get a huge kick out of the tactics and strategy of the wars, it just seems like the 30 turns at the start of the game have gotten too predictable for me. That's why I was saying it would be cool to have the option to fast-play through those turns and get to the good parts.

It's also why I enjoy taking over abandoned games on PBW.

[David E. Gervais]

I dissagree on the exploration aspect. I like to explore, but I don't like seeing the whole map and only finding out what is in them. I would much prefer that I start off only knowing the systems I own. and as I explore the new systems get added to the map. I'd go so far as to say that I shouldn't know the mineral content of a planet until I sent a ship in orbit and made a full scan of the surface. I think the reason exploration is a tad dull in se4 is that the 'fun' aspect has been stripped away for simplicitie's sake. I want to scan things, to probe things, I don't want to know what all the planets in-system have revealed to me as soon as I enter a system. Not that it will ever happen in the SE games, but I loved the planet exploration aspect of Starflight, and another game called Alien Legacy.

IMHO exploration when done right is worth 1.5 points on your scale. Expand? well, that is actually a part of exploration and not really a 100% separate entity. It scoores .5 Exploit, is another gray-area X-factor, do they mean exploit the enemy? exploit the mineral rich planets? I give this a 0.0 And for Exterminate, Well, all I can say is "There can be only one!" definately worth 2.0 points.

My total is 4.0x but with the interest balanced to my liking.

Another fun part of SE is the research and dev. Which 'X' is that tied to? Exploit? if so then it might merrit a full point for technology exploitation. which would make the Ideal 4x game actually 5x

Just some thoughts, Cheers!