?? regarding minesweeping

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

The original is playable as-is, but there are some minor things that could need improving. For example, Intel could be much improved (Puppet Political Parties is exceptionally powerful, just to name an example), Point Defense is too uberpowerful (so fighters, combat sats and seekers become basically useless when PD is first fielded) and the Quantum Reactor is too bloody cheap for such a powerful device (never having to resupply is powerful, and it only takes up a small space).

Alternatively, instead of looking for mods which balance out stock, you could also go with one of the themed mods. Of course, the Star Trek Mod is an easy example, but you should try the Carrier Battles Mod if you want good fighter combat, the Dark Nova 4 mod for a heck of a lot of hulls (and lots and lots of other new stuff, but the hulls are probably the first thing you'll notice) or the Eclipse Mod which makes the game slightly more realistic. Last but not least, I recommend the Adamant Mod, which is too much to explain in a few sentences - but lemme just say you can also play as a race of organic sentients (i.e. sentient plants, or living spaceships, et cetera) and even as a race of magic users.....

(P.S. Would that be this Empire you're talking about? Would you recommend it?)

[Suicide Junkie]

It should be noted that too much familiarity with stock can actually be detrimental to your play in a mod such as carrier battles.

Naturally familiarity with the interface, and how to do things is good.
You will probably not be hung up on your old "best weapon", since you are consciously re-analysing the weapons.

Its not the obvious things, but the hidden subconscious assumptions that you build up over time. Things like the "fact" that there can only be one weapon at the top of the hill. Or that you can have a single warship class to comprise 90% of your military, because it is the best design so far.
Or the importance of spreading your fire to cripple lots of enemy ships rather than vaporize one at a time.

[MrAnon]

Strategia_In_Ultima said:
The original is playable as-is, but there are some minor things that could need improving.

I didn't mean to imply SEIV was unplayable in the original form - but we've all seen games that were. Like anything by Derek Smart....:>

[b][i](P.S. Would that be this Empire you're talking about? Would you recommend it?)

Yes, it is! I'd recommend it for a trip down nostalgia lane. The AI is actually pretty good, considering it was nearly 30 years ago (my, how the years have flown!). The endgame becomes a "hunt the last unit" situation but it is a fairly challenging game. It was JOMT material before anyone knew what JOMT was . Getting it to run on a modern box, however, might be problematical. IIRC, the best the graphics ever got were lo-res EGA.

Historical note: I actually bought Empire (on 360k 5 1/4" disks....) becaquse of a review by Jerry Pournelle in Byte magazine...how many readers remember the disks or the mag?

[Captain Kwok]

The original Empire first got me interested in this line of games - except I found it in the late '90s cleaning out someone's garage. They didn't have the manual anymore, so I used to have the guess the "Enter the word" from page X line Y.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I've got games where I don't know where the copy protection is (Well, it's in the computer room, but...)

Anyway, yeah, you can crack those pretty quick just by guessing. (Pretty quick, compared to a whole day. )

Welcome to the forum.