Love and Hate

RobO · #1 November 23rd, 2003, 11:09 AM

I love the flexibility of SE4 and Hate the user interface. I haven't bought the game but am considering it now, as I need a change from other games. I played SE3 to death and modded it a great deal - it has a UI that suits my style better (I did the Innova mod, just in case any of you might remember it - it did gain some popularity).

I checked out the SE4 gold demo again and it left me with a few detailed questions. I'd appreciate a comment on those.

1. I have a problem getting rid of the the rightclick popup info windows. It seems that I have to move the mouse to the window (it always appears in the center of the screen) and rightclick on it again to dismiss it - then move the mouse back again to complete what I was doing in the first place. Esc and Enter doesn't work. Neither does clicking or rightclicking elsewhere. Has that changed from the demo?

2. Similarly for the main game windows (F2 and onwards). I'd expect that hitting e.g. F3 with one of these open would dismiss the current window and open the design window. But it doesn't - I have to close the open window first. Has that changed?

3. The AI seems to be of the juvenile Category. Much like Civ3. An example: In a demo game, one AI offered a trade treaty, then declared war a turn or two later. They seem to know how to beat me with a stick, not how to deal with me diplomatically. As I said, much like Civ3

I know there are some AI mods out there - do they change the diplomatic aspect or do they simply make the AI more powerful?

4. I tried using ministers to construct facilities to reduce my workload. How well do they do that? Can they scrap facilities to make room for new, better ones (not just upgrade)?

In short - way too much mouse work for my taste, but lots of flexibility and opportunity for trying out different strategies.

primitive · #2 November 23rd, 2003, 12:14 PM

1: The latest patches has helped a lot with this. All the most used popups now close properly, but there are still a few (mostly error Messages) that has to be closed by pointing and clicking.

2: You still got to close first, but as esc closes its no big deal anymore.

3: TDM modpack will improve the AI beyond recognition. Give them a bonus and they will be quite a handfull. Diplomacy is still not their strong side though, so if you want diplomacy; play against humans.

4: The ministers in SEIV are closely modelled by RL politician/civil servants. If you want the job done properly, do it yourself.

As a carpal tunnel syndrome sufferer, I can symphathise with your consern about to much mousework. Even if the UI has more mousework than stricktly neccessary it is no problem for me to play this game (a lot). Features like waypoints, copying building queues, all the hotkeys (like space for moving through the ships available for orders), and Multi-adding both reduces and breaks up the workload, giving the neccessary rest to the mouse hand.

RobO · #3 November 23rd, 2003, 12:39 PM

Thanks, primitive, that's helpful. Aaron et.al. have always been helpful in listening to requests, but it saddened me to see the UI go in the "wrong" direction (IMO).

Now, SE4 is expensive (for it's age) and only available by mail order. And before I decide to go for the expensive solution I'd like to hear what all that talk about SE5 is about. Is there anything official? There's bound to be a lot of rumours. What is the substance (reliable stuff, not wild speculation)?

primitive · #4 November 23rd, 2003, 01:08 PM

SEV is not scheduled for another 1 - 1.5 years, so there is plenty of time for SEIV first. Except for it using the Starfury engine for battles, everything is guesswork at this point.

If you like slow-paced turn-based strategy games with a lot of depth, SEIV is IMHO still the best game around (if there is something better, please tell me

)

RobO · #5 November 23rd, 2003, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by primitive:
If you like slow-paced turn-based strategy games with a lot of depth, SEIV is IMHO still the best game around (if there is something better, please tell me )

The closest I have come to that recently is Civ3 with the Double Your Pleasure (DyP) mod. Civ3 in itself is boring (though I have been told that the Conquest expansion is very good), but DyP turns Civ3 into a very interesting experience. (I helped make DyP but that's not why I recommend it - I helped make it because it was worth the effort).

[ November 23, 2003, 11:24: Message edited by: RobO ]

primitive · #6 November 23rd, 2003, 01:48 PM

Thanks for the tip, but I'm afraid my copy of Civ3 hit the garbage can a long time ago. I won't support a company that can release such a POS by purchasing it again

Taera · #7 November 23rd, 2003, 06:40 PM

Hello RobO, and welcome to the forums - i'd just like to comment on the UI - yes, there is a horrible amount of mousework. BUT! Almost everything has a hotkey attached to it. If you learn some of those, the game will go considerably faster, and you wont use the mouse as much. And just a tip, dont compare it to SEIII - its a whole different game.

edit: Re: ministers - the ministers follow text files that guide them through building stuff. THey dont scrap facilities for newer ones, no.
If you realy like working with the ministers, forget the standard ones - find a race you like (or in full game, choose a custom? your own? race) and edit their ai construction files - so they will work the way you wanted them to.

[ November 23, 2003, 16:42: Message edited by: Taera ]

PvK · #8 November 24th, 2003, 07:23 AM

SE4 Gold is definitely worth it. I miss the good parts of SE3 too, but SE4 Gold has plenty of stuff that make it worthwhile, especially if you play against a modded AI, and/or play with humans.

As for other good turn-based conquest games - see Dominions II!

PvK

gregebowman · #9 November 24th, 2003, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by primitive:
Thanks for the tip, but I'm afraid my copy of Civ3 hit the garbage can a long time ago. I won't support a company that can release such a POS by purchasing it again

Besides SEIV Gold, I can't think of another game that has given me so much pleasure and loss of sleep than Civ3. I can't understand why you two are against it, it's a great game. I have both expansion discs, and although they have added some elements to the game, I could play the original game forever. But like with SEIVG, I just can't find the time to play these games as much as I'd like to.

Fyron · #10 November 24th, 2003, 05:00 PM

Play Civ 2 (plus expansions, esp. ToT) and you will understand why Civ 3 is a POS. It is a major step backwards in the genre.

[ November 24, 2003, 15:01: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]