GalCiv2 Expansion

[Renegade 13]

I agree. I'm not sure how gravity wells, etc would provide any benefit to gameplay. I'd think it would make things more complicated without any real gameplay reward to justify the pain in the arse it would likely turn out to be.

[Captain Kwok]

You could also argue the 1-month lag in communications in the SE series represents the delay in transmitting messages.

And at this point, I will envoke the Fyron equation:
realism not= good gameplay always

[Phoenix-D]

Nats said:

??? The whole point in having a minefield is to either to slow the enemy down so you can attack them at your leisure, or to effectively block certain avenues of approach. In SE its far to easy to put a minefield on all the warp points and compeltely prevent entry into your systems. Is that fun? No.

Hmm, sounds like that's "blocking certain avenues of approach" to me. The real complaint here is that minefields are sector-based, not smaller. Think about it- in SE4 a minefield is detonated whenever you move into the sector, in any direction. That's the reason you can't lay mines in combat- they'd either blow immediately or do nothing.

Homeworld 2 has tactical minelayers, but I don't think they'd fit SEV well.

Similarly planets acting as communication/radar blocks, gravity effects, communication limitations due to warp point distances, etc alal is missing in the game which is supposed to feature gameplay over graphics (sorry Im blending into the other post about graphics here!). All of these concepts are done really really well in Traveller the role playing game. If SE wants to really truly become a great game it should perhaps be integrating some of these fundamental gameplay ideas instead of tinkering with little addon concepts.

None of them would really work given the scale of the SE series; see the other posts for reasons.

This kind of thing would make me want to buy the game. At the moment I cant really see much to buy it for other than the real time battles.
Nats

The combat in SE has always been a bit second fiddle. Its more about the lead-up to that.

[Suicide Junkie]

More like blocking all avenues of approach...

Which is why I highly encourage the use of leaky minefields!
Step 1: Remove minesweepers!
Step 2: Reduce mine warhead damage.
Step 3: Limit mines to 10 per sector!

Now, mines will have to be spread around in many sectors. Any single invasion force will miss most of the mines, but they will hit some, and those *will* do damage. Light damage for each sector, but some damage nonetheless. The ships will have to slow down for repairs, or suffer ever-accumulating damage.
The defender will quickly fill the warppoint sector, and then have to decide which paths to mine... lots on the path to likely targets, or spread them around thinly to catch the sneaky fleets that try to second-guess your mine placement.

[Hugh Manatee]

I thought the point of mines was to set a "boobytrap" for your enemy, then leave it for them to find. Mines in real time are kinda dumb and ineficient, if the enemy sees you drop a minefield then whas the point?

On another note you could try Drones, they are suicidal fire and forget units that are dropped and chase the enemy around, not entirely unlike mines, just they move(can units cloak? cloaked drones sond fun, you couldn't use the cloak in combat but it would be a fun surprise in the system).

[Kana]

Minefields in modern warfare are not intended to kill or disable assets (vehicles/troops), yet it does happen. Mostly you setup a minefield, the same reason you would make a big ditch, berm, barbed wire, or some kind of wall or fence. That is to manuver or guide you enemy into a location for you to hit them with other weapons. Basically you use them to deny the enemy that portion of the battlefield.

Mine warfare

U.S. Army soldier removes fuse from a Russian-made mine to clear a minefield outside of Fallujah, Iraq.In military science, minefields are considered a defensive or harassing weapon, used to slow the enemy down, to help deny certain terrain to the enemy, to focus enemy movement into kill zones, or to reduce morale by randomly attacking matériel and personnel.

Land mines (sometimes called area denial munitions) are used to secure disputed borders and to restrict enemy movement in times of war. Tactically they serve a purpose similar to barbed wire or concrete dragon's teeth vehicle barriers, channelling the movement of attacking troops in ways that permit the defenders to engage them more easily. From a military perspective, land mines serve as force multipliers, allowing an organised force to overcome a larger enemy.

[Nats]

Hugh Manatee said:
I thought the point of mines was to set a "boobytrap" for your enemy, then leave it for them to find. Mines in real time are kinda dumb and ineficient, if the enemy sees you drop a minefield then whas the point?

Well this is the only point in using them in SE! That you set a minefield at a warp point and anything that goes through it gets blasted. But thats not how mines work in real life. In real life mines are quite easy to find. But the reason for them is that they slow down/prevent access through becuase of them being so risky to enter.

To be honest I dont mind that mines themselves jsut the warp points really. I dont think they are very good for fun gameplay. You can easily blockade them from the thick AI civs and thereby protect your systems completely. I prefer the Stars! and GC2 mechanics of being able to travel between the stars without the help of warp points and therefore invide from any direction. This makes fields of mines far more sensible.

Youve just got to play Stars! for a week to realise that the gameplay ideas etc are far better than any other 4x game to date and its only the graphics that make the game rather unplayable for most.

Both GC2 and SE4 are reasonable games in themselves but neither are better than Stars!

Nats

[Suicide Junkie]

Stars! Is quite good. Its main weakness is combat, however.

A very tiny combat grid, with some ship designs capable of effectively moving all the way across it in one turn. Ship stacking in combat is also way out of control. No manoeuvering or formations, just pile on and trade blows, may the biggest guns & armor win.

Stars!, with SE4's UI, ship design, combat, research and moddability would rule. Throw in SE3 style ship construction and intel, too.

[Hugh Manatee]

oh yeah stars!, I played 1000s of hours on that, a moment of silence for Stars! Supernova Genesis.....

[Fyron]

I dunno... having to build transports to haul around resources explicitly kinda killed it for me.