Played SE IV long ago, and considering SE V.

[Ironmanbc]

I'm a fan of Stars and SE4 and I still play them today I have also bought SE5 and yes it had a lot of bugs at first, but with the help of players the bugs have been almost stamped out

I would say get SE5 and play it and judge for yourself, it will be fun learning a new way of the 4X game that we all know and love.

[Dogboy]

Ironmanbc,

Thanks for your reply. I'm really hoping to get replies that will help my players judge whether or not they want to join the game. I want to encourage them to play, but don't above all want to be 50 turns in and have someone bail because the game is not what they expected. We're all familiar with 4X games, and love them, but if, e.g., the game winds up taking hours per turn of micromanagement, some players will bail.

Thanks!

[Fyron]

Even the biggest SEIV PBW games I played never took hours per turn to play..

I'd also appreciate perspectives on game balance. I remember with some of the earlier games, where you started had a heck of a lot to do with your success in the game.

This is the same for every single strategy game ever made, unless you use custom maps that are explicitly set up to be as even (and bland) as possible.

In terms of general game balance (techs, components, etc.), I would highly recommend getting the Balance Mod right off the bat, and not bothering with the stock game.

Additionally, BM includes an earlier version of FQM, which has several benefits for map-related balance. If you play with the "Paradise" quadrant type, you can eliminate all of the uninhabitable and dangerous system types, thus ensuring that no player can have a Tesco Start.

In SE5, the planet types and atmospheres are kept rather balanced on the map overall, but there will still be instances of clustering of certain types in certain areas due to the random generation. In FQM, individual solar systems have more uniform distributions of planet types. The planet types are based on the orbitals, with rocks in the inside, gas in the middle, and ice on the outside. This doesn't change the overall balance of planet types on the quadrant level that is in the stock game, but it does insure that individual systems are a little more balanced.

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

It's mostly an improvement. The UI is more clicky than SE4, but you do get used to it. The orders button panel is a mess, but you should be using hotkeys anyways in strategy games. Construction point spillover in queues is a great addition. No more need for hte obsessive-compulsive types to build Mineral Miner IIs, then upgrade them all to Mineral Miner IIIs once the planet is full. Customizable layouts in nearly every report screen are quite handy. Sadly, the construction queues window no longer lists the next 2 items in build queues. Component slot layouts are a rather dubious feature, especially since damage is only directional on a "sectional" basis (and outer hull slots are a magic wall protecting inner hull slots). The lack of percentage/slider based racial characteristics makes race design far more boring; the best solution would have been to simply balance the costs rather than nuking the setup altogether. Alas... Bases no longer have magic quantum reactors built-in, units and facilites now require maintenance, etc.

Really, the best bet is to just download the demo and see the differences for yourself. It is many versions out of date and will have some bugs that are fixed in the latest version, but its a risk-free way to see the game for yourself.

Also, you can control ground combat. Is that a really cool part of the game, or just a distraction?

It's no more or less a distraction than tactical space combat is. Since both are in pauseable real time instead of turn-based, it takes a lot less time to go through them in tactical mode.

[Raapys]

I don't know, I think there are few direct improvements over SEIV, and none of them major. And there are many dubious changes, and some that are simply bad( like the UI ). Stuff like the new "3D" combat system wont even be noticed much if you play simultaneous mode or multiplayer. The turn processing times are much longer than SEIV's, making single-player a chore. Some of the new game features cripples the AI so that it becomes even worse than in SEIV.

On the bright side, the modding capabilities of the game have been improved greatly.

To sum it up for my own part, had SEIV had the same modding capabilities and the continued patch support from the developer then I'd see no reason at all to go for SEV; SEIV is simply a better game in most areas. As it is though, SEV has both these things and is thus slowly improving.

[Fyron]

No game features cripple the AI; what you are seeing is that SE5's stock AI is even more poorly developed than SE4's. Its theoretically capable of handling everything in the game, but the code isn't there yet. Kwok has made a lot of progress in BM's AI, for example. He even has it doing remote mining now, something impossible in SE4.

The new combat system is definitely noticeable in multiplayer games, as it is far more than just a "3D" change. The real time execution is the important bit, as it eliminates all of the idiosyncrasies of SE4's ultra-primitive phase-less combat. Combat resolution is certainly slower in strategic mode though, as Aaron has not yet figured out how to compute it at the speed of math (as opposed to a sped-up real time clock).