Anyone still play SE III?

[Young Zaphod]

I played SEIII a fair amount, and beat the game soundly...but I was in for a big surprise when it came to the new tech tree. I assumed that the technologies would be essentially the same, and they are, but a few unpleasant surprises turned up becasue the manual led me to believe that Contraterrine engines were the only comp that gave a movement bonus.

Oh, well, I guess it will only happen once, eh? But it would be nice to know the rules of the game without having to mine the forums. Strategic combat for instance, which I always used in III and use now in PBW, has been made more complicated and I just don't get it; I keep thinking that if I have some obscure box left unchecked my ships will run away. Or that they will try to hold a formation instead of shooting enemy vessels.

So a couple of things are fristrating....but for the most part the game is just more and better of what I loved before.

[Arboris]

Well, it's been a year since I originally made this post. I have SEIV Gold, I continue to love the series but find I still enjoy SE III.

Anyone else still playing SE III?

[Skulky]

It was actually what started me on the whole thing. Searching around one day after being bored out of my mind. Went to PCG and found an article about SEIV coming out. Went and go the SE3 demo. Played it until everyone had massive cruiser fleets with best weaposn available (demo limitations) and mega mine fields to keep everyone out.

Basically it went something like massive WP assault followed by minelayers to keep any counter attacks away all through the system. Repeat.

At that point I got the SEIV demo (it had come out at that point obviously) and bought it within a week. So since i never owned the original i can't really play. Sure wish i could buy it though. I jsut can't find it for purchase anywhere (same goes for SEIV).

[disabled]

I play SE1 from time to time, but SE3 and 4Gold I tend to play now and then.

[PvK]

I was playing SE3 PBEM for a long time after SE4 came out, until eventually the players got so unresponsive that I stopped nagging people to turn in their turns. SE3 has some things I prefer over SE4 (e.g. Construction queues, tactics options, some AI features, ability to send multiple diplo Messages per turn, ability to retreat from tactical combat, build times not entirely linked to resource costs, etc.). I think we would have played that PBEM game to completion, if it hadn't been for the non-simultaneous PBEM sequence (have to wait for each player in turn, instead of all playing at once).

PvK

[Kamog]

Originally posted by Andrés Lescano:
Yes that was brillant as the construct/repair window to manage that. I wish I had that in SE4.
I haven't played SE3 in a looong time.

Yes, the construct/repair window was really handy. I remember having a whole screen full of constructions going, and I'd move the blocks around every round to try to "smooth out" the edges on the right so that all the constructions finish at around the same time. (You know, some constructions are partially done, and some small ships take only a few tenths of a year to construct, so they're small rectangles, and big things like bases have really long blocks, and so you put the long blocks by themselves on the fast-rate shipyards, move the small blocks to fill in the gaps on the other rows, and so on. Sometimes, if one block sticks out from the others, you can still move things around so that the edges line up, and get ahead by 1 turn by optimizing the construction assignments to that each ship yard is using close or equal to its build rate.)

I know this sounds confusing, but if you've done this you'll know what I mean.

[ZeroAdunn]

Wierd that you should mention this, I just started playing SEIII again recently. I keep getting killed, I used to consider myself quite proficient at the game, now I can't even get a decent empire running.

I agree about constrcution/research, definetly something that needs to be brought back. Also, the seperation of space based and planetside construction was nice. Something about building troops in a space yard just doesn't seem right.

The right click menu - bring it back!

[Ruatha]

I tried SE1 and SE2 but I never thought it was as good as VGA planets.
SE3 I never tried, started on Winplanets instead.
But now it's only SE4 that I play, and when SE5 comes out I'll preorder it as fast as it can be done!

[kalthalior]

I haven't played SE3 in quite a while, although I started a game Last spring for fun. SE3 was what really got me into PC gaming, I had always used a console for gaming before that -- PCs were strictly for work until I discovered MM and downloaded the demo, got hooked, then bought the full Version and been playing SE (upgrading as time passed) ever since. I do miss some of the SE3 features previously discussed in SE4.

[ November 26, 2002, 17:39: Message edited by: kalthalior ]

[Ragnarok]

I've never played SEIII. I think I'll download the demo though. Mess around with it see what it's like.