Played SE IV long ago, and considering SE V.

[capnq]

Dogboy said: One issue is that some players have busy schedules and are worried that what starts out as a manageable 20 minute a day game could turn into a 2 hour daily marathon in order to micromanage their empires.

Unlike Fyron's experience, I've routinely seen two-hour turns late in my SEIV PBW games; my personal record is about 2:45. For me, a one hour turn is about average for midgame.

The way to avoid daily grinds is to not use 24-hour turns. I prefer 72-hour turns in my games. If that's too slow for your players' tastes, the host can always start the game with a shorter interval and then increase the turn limits later as the empires grow larger.

Also, does the game give significant rewards to taking a "munchkin" approach (e.g. if you spend hours reading the forums can you find quirky approaches that are pretty much undefeatable?

You can find threads where people claim that a particular strategy is unbeatable, but those threads usually also produce suggestions of ways to defeat that "perfect" strategy.

Finally, what are best parts of the game? Is it an improvement or a step backward from SE IV?

The changes are a decidedly mixed bag. I still play both games, and overall spend more time playing SEV, but I can play more solo turns in a single sitting in SEIV, because my lack of familiarity with the (IMO) more awkward UI makes SEV more mentally fatiguing.

Improvements in SEV include:

1) the ability to customize the layouts of the information screens. Once you've figured out what data you most often need to access, you can set things up to get at that data easily.

2) managing your research is a lot more flexible. Instead of SEIV's limit of dividing evenly between a maximum of 12 techs, SEV lets you allocate 1% increments of your research to as many techs in whatever proportions you want to work on them, and you can gain multiple levels in a single turn if you've allocated enough points to do so.

3) the intelligence system has been completely overhauled in SEV, making it actually playable. (SEIV PBW games routinely ban intel because of its "all-or-nothing" nature.)

4) you have a lot more diplomatic options, at least when dealing with non-AI players.

5) the graphics are generally flashier, if you care about that sort of thing. I was impressed when I discovered my first black hole system.

Some of the negatives in SEV are tied to the improvements:

1) the UI is generally more "fiddly" in SEV. Actions that could be done in SEIV in one or two clicks often require 3-5 clicks in SEV, and using the hotkeys only helps with some of these. There are also some odd inconsistencies in the UI's behavior, like some columns being sortable, but others on the same display screen not sortable.

2) The flexible research can be a trap if you're an obsessive micromanager. There's a constant temptation to tweak the allocations to "optimize" your results.

Some people also dislike the switch to "infinite" tech levels. Every stock technology goes to level 100; some techs end up needing multiple levels researched before you actually get any benefits. Other people dislike the changes that Kwok's Balance Mod makes to the tech tree to deal with this problem.

3) Intelligence can only be targeted in wide categories now; there's no way to focus your efforts on a specific ship, planet, or system. (This is probably more realistic, but it can be frustrating at times.)

4) The AI generally doesn't know what to do with all the additions to diplomacy, and will make and accept all kinds of absurd proposals. (I get particularly annoyed at the AI when it repeatedly asks to renegotiate the title of your current treaty, with no other changes to the terms.)

5) The new diplomatic alliances still have enough unfixed bugs that many players don't bother to try to use them.

Overall, I'd be hard pressed to say that SEV is better or worse than SEIV; each has different strengths and weaknesses.

[Fyron]

capnq said:
4) The AI generally doesn't know what to do with all the additions to diplomacy, and will make and accept all kinds of absurd proposals.

This goes back to the under-developed stock AI scripts; the AI in Balance Mod is much better at handling diplomacy and treaties (though is still being improved). It even has some fear factors where larger empires can cow smaller empires into accepting less desirable terms (or override their never-ending love of war when they are nearly dead ).

[Raapys]

Well, however one puts it the net result is the same; the AI is ill-equipped to handle the game.

Indeed though, Kwok has made some serious progress with the AI. However, I still have yet to lose a single game, and it's not because I play well, which I don't, it's because the AI isn't really capable of coordinating attacks well enough to actually kill someone off. This, along with the long turn processing times and the rather tedious UI, sort of ruins single-player in SEV for me.

Agreed though, the combat part is definitely something that needed a change from SEIV. However, I'm not really happy with the current system either.

Then again, there are not so many 4x games where I'm pleased with the combat system. I had the most fun with Master of Orion 2's combat, but that one was horribly unbalanced even fully patched.

[Fyron]

Raapys said:
...the AI isn't really capable of coordinating attacks well enough to actually kill someone off.

Isn't SE4 the same way? All the AI does is amass ships and pseudo-randomly throws them around the map at all of its enemies. It doesn't really have any long term planning, and frequently redirects fleets sent against an enemy in the west to an enemy in the east, before they reach the destination.

[Raapys]

True, SE4 did suffer some from some of that. However, it was far less noticeable in SE4; the AI moved its ships around more( and further, it seems to me; I've never seen an AI fleet in SE5 more than one, max two systems away from one of its colony-systems ) and there was no fog of war in to cripple the AI either. Granted, the fog of war in SEV can be turned off.