Your History With SEIV

[Atrocities]

My history with SEIV:

For me it started with a short thread in a forum that has long since disappeared. The poster stated that Malfador had just released the SEIV Demo, and that it was quite good. So I visited the site, read up on what the game was about, and download the demo. That was August 2000.

I played the game one time, and was hooked. I played through the 100-turn demo a dozen times before I started posting at SE4 Forums. I posted there until about October of 2000 when one of the posters recommended that I join the Shrapnel Forum. I did, and haven’t looked back.

In late November just after receiving my copy of the game in the mail, I happened to mention to a long time ICQ buddy that the game I was now playing was very addictive. He asked about it, and when I said SEIV, he knew exactly what I was talking about as he too had been playing the demo. Both of us enjoy Star Trek and he sent me my first Star Trek ship. It was the Sovereign (Enterprise E). From there, we both worked on Star Trek ship sets, he based his off of the ships in Armada, and I off of schematics that I had.

My first contribution to the SEIV Ship Set family was my Dominion Battle Cruiser and Attack Ship. Both of them I created using nothing more than an old draw program and paint. It took me days to sketch out the designs. But it was worth it.

Along with the Dominion ships I also generated several other ships and a few bases. All of theses, with the exception of the Dominion ships, have either been scrapped now, or modified to better fit the races they ultimately ended up in.

I don’t recall what races I made first, but I do know that the Dominion was one of my most prized sets. I compiled many new and unique images for many races including the Federation, Ferengi, Klingon, Romulan, Borg, Breen, 8472, and others.

The Breen were a from scratch race. Everything with the exception of one ship came from the work I did. I gathered the images, and compiled them into the Breen Race. Many of the ships that were left over I used for Species 8472 along with a few that Warp 9 had made.

In fact, I owe a lot of my work to the inspiration and design of Warp 9 as his demo Trek Races were the utter foundation of most of my ship sets.

Looking back on this Last year, I get a sense of great accomplishment when it comes to SEIV. I may have never finished a game of SEIV, but I have compiled 12 of the best Star Trek races for this game, and 2 Non Trek races that are among many others that are now out

Granted non-of my races are genuine true creations, but many of the ship images I have used, are one of a kind, and that does speak well of my dedication to my work.

SEIV has had a great influence on my life over this Last year, both through the interaction at this forum, through hours and hours of game play. Never had I considered that a year from the date I loaded the game onto my computer that I would still be playing it. A game that is as much fun now as it was when I first download the demo a year and a half ago.

In all honestly, Aaron has created a game that many happily call a great and powerful game for all, a true one of a kind.

That’s my SEIV story.

[ZeroAdunn]

Are you saying you just got on-board for SEIV? Man you missed out!

I found SEIII when it was reletively new, I was looking for another game when Stars and some other space game (now long since forgotten) was growing stale. I found the game, downlaoded it, couldn't figure it out, deleted it. A couple of weeks later I rediscovered, downloaded it, figured out how it worked and never stopped playing untill SEIV (well actually I stopped playing it about six months before SEIV came out but still)

SEIII still remains the game I spent the most hours playing...

[President_Elect_Shang]

Ha to both of you! You missed SE2! Well so did I sort of, I found and played it shortly before I discovered that SE3 was out. I was hooked since then. Heck I still have my old copy of SE2 around here somewhere.

[Spyder]

I'm also a late-comer

I've been hooked on Logistical Puzzles (otherwise known as Strategy Games) ever since Empire. I'd been looking for a MOO II replacement for quite awhile when my wife saw a review of SEIV in one of the Gaming Magazines we regularly buy and showed it to me Last year (2000) about December. I read the review and then ordered the game.

I played it awhile and was a little disappointed in the AI and put it down until recently when I got a little burnt out on EverQuest where I am the Guildleader of a fair-sized guild. I picked it back up about a week ago and noticed that there had been about 4 patches since I Last played. I downloaded the latest patch and I am impressed by the improvements

[TacticDragon]

As for me, I was a big Master of Orion fan. I played MOO for hours (still remember the day I bought it) and MOO2 ruled my life for years.

Eventually, I think this was back in 97, I read about the SE series in articles comparing MOO2 to other games. At the time, SE3 was the most recent one, but SE4 was already 'in preparation'. I downloaded my copy of SE3, but I kept on coming back to MOO2 because of the graphics (at the time) and the amazing gameplay experience it offered. Something I hate is what I call 'unnecessary micromanagement', and I must say that I have yet to encounter a better balanced game than MOO2 in this aspect.

I guess I never grew into SE3 because SE4 was announced and I said to myself "why bother learning this game when SE4 is coming and promises to be a killer?". Plus, in the meantime, I had MOO2...

I remember I also tried Imperium Galactica (1 & 2 & 3 or was it just 1 & 2?), which are real-time and not turn-based. The Last two IGs (this would be 2 and 3 I think) were cool because of the storyline and I just loved the way the tutorial was built into IG2. But it had a very limited replay value. I'm not a fan of real-time strategy games but the IG series was very well made in this aspect as you could pause the game and still issue orders.

Then there was Star Wars Rebellion (as many here, I am a SW fan). Interesting because of the SW universe, but what a nightmare in micromanagement! It was a real time game but would have been much better if it were turn-based. In fact the game is built like a turn-based game but the turns just drift by automatically. I think LucasArts made it real-time just because real-time was "in" at the time. Kind of stupid.

But back to SE4. I am European, and I am currently studying for an MBA in the US. Unluckily, SE4 (finally) came out during my 1st year in MBA so I don't have a lot of time to play it. But it certainly fulfills its promises, and is easily the best 4X type of game on the market. It is the first game of the genre that made me uninstall MOO2 from my hard disk. Mind you, I still think MOO2 is one of the greatest games ever, but I have beaten MOO2's AI to death soooo many times that I'm almost sick of it.

So how does SE4 score in micromanagement? Well, not bad after all. It doesn't beat MOO2, but that is understandable because it is richer. And it is 'manageable enough'. I love the game.

I think 'user modpacks' became a reality with Civilization 2, and I am glad SE4 was conceived with this aspect in mind. It is hard to find a good mod though: one that has a balanced feel to it.

A funny thing is that I have played maybe 15-20 games of SE4 but never finished a single one. I tend to pick a favorite race to play (currently: propulsion experts/psychic/religious) and develop a 'perfect strategy' with this race, and then I just can't let go of it. As a result, I struggle A LOT in the beginning of each game (I put AI settings on the hardest possible; I used to play on the "impossible" level in MOO2), but I invariable reach a point where I know I have won the game and it is just not challenging to keep on. So I start a new one...

However, I am very, very excited about MOO3 which will soon hit the market

[mac5732]

I never heard of the SE series at the time, I was always looking for a good space game, played both Moo's (still like 1 little better then 2), Pax Imperia 2, Birth of Federation, etc, then one day I read a review in I believe it was computer gaming world about SE4, sounded good, started looking for reviews in mags. At the time, my kids used the net, I very rarly. Then went on the net looking for more info on SE4, went to MM, Shrapnel sites, went to this forum, started reading the threads and Posts,which by the way, convinced me more then anything to buy the game. Sent for it, loved it, been playing it ever since,
even tho I take a break from it once in awhile and play something else, I always come back to it.
Introduced to 3 of my friends, they liked, bought, and the same with them. It is the best one out. I just wish I had known about the other SE games sooner. In addition, its thanks to SE4 and this forum that I now use the net and have become involved in other game forums, BUT, this one is my #1 favorite, it has everything all the others lack and I have found that MM and Shrapenl have the best support then any other game company out there, in addition, the vets and modders on this forum are the best in helping newbies and anyone who has questions or discussions on the game and its infrastructure. This is VERY lacking in other game forums, and there is no flaming, I hope it remains this way..

just some ideas mac

[Spyder]

quote:

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Originally posted by TacticDragon:
However, I am very, very excited about MOO3 which will soon hit the market

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Yep, me too....but I heard that it was going to be an RTS game

[ZeroAdunn]

One of my fondest memories from highschool is playing SEIII mutliplayer in the computer lab while I was supposed to be doing research... Ahhh, the fun never stops.

[ 29 November 2001: Message edited by: ZeroAdunn ]

[Nscaler]

Why not?

First turn-based game I really got into was the X-COM series. Then the friend who introduced me to that, showed me the first MOO but MOO2 was about to hit the shelves so I waited for that instead, and still love it, although the Last part of the game gets boring. 18 doomstars taking out the max number of enemy units (all but a dozen were doomstars and the rest titans) allowed in the combat screen in 1 turn with no return fire gets boring.

Again my friend comes to the rescue by introducing me to SEIV over the holiday. (He was a big Starfire nut and loved seeing something so close to it.)

And now MOO3 is on it's way (checked the site, battles will be real-time with the game itself is turn-based for whoever it was that asked).

There goes my freetime....

By the way, this is the first reference to 4x games, what does 4x stand for?

Nscaler

[ZeroAdunn]

X-ploration
X-pansion
X-???? poliation maybe?
X-termination