Imperium Galactica III

[Cookie Monster]

Are there any Imperium Galactica fans out there? What do you think of the upcoming IGIII?

I have IG II and played that game for many hours. Their approach to the 4x space games was intriguing. I love their combat system, both space and ground combat.

[Asher]

I was looking forward to it, but apparently it's mostly mission based?

[General Ludd]

I don't know much about the series, but I hear that it's not the same people making it, and they are going a completely different way then the past games of the series.

[DarthVeda]

I was thrilled to death to see they were doing an IG3 and I pooped my pants when I saw the graphics. Then I read the part about no multiplayer and decided that the game was probably not worth getting until it dropped to $15

[ravagon]

Re: Imperium Galactica III

I enjoyed both IG1 and IG2 (although 1 won't run on my current PC anymore).
I basically found 2 too easy on easy and too hard on med/hard unless I was playing as the Kra'hen.
If playing against them they always started too far away and assimilated too many worlds before I met them to give me a chance of stopping their fleets.
There was a trick to using those paralyzers/jammers that I could never master. They could always spot my cloaked fleets too. Their fleets of 60-100 battleships and heavy cruisers armed with destructor rays wiped out anything I could throw at them.
My main strategy ended up revolving around constructing large numbers of laser/heavy fortresses and tanks on the targetted planets and keeping my fleets away from the enemy. Kept wiping out their ground forces and sent their fleets running for home to get some more.
Thank goodness the bombard options were so limited.

[Cookie Monster]

Those Kra'hen were always my downfall as well. I had similar experiences with assimilating a lot of planets but never getting a chance to build up my defenses. Yes, easy was too easy and all the other levels were very hard.

[DarthVeda]

I found in IG2 that I would normally have regular taxes on all of my fringe worlds and once they reached a certain population (about 15k), I would set taxes low enough to cause a boom and get like 93k people within a short time. This way I could seperate some worlds that I wanted to build up to become industrial powerhouses (say like 10-12 factories of one or more types and a number of defensive structures).

[Grumbold]

I didn't find the Kra'hen insurmountable opponents on normal mode (haven't tried hard.) Provided you are prepared to be patient you can keep their fleet ping-ponging between two planets by grabbing them back as soon as the Kra'hen have got some distance away. Your other planets can then keep pumping out ships and cash until you are strong enough to send out more fleets to reduce their worlds to rubble. You can eventually reunite your many fleets into one bigger than the Kra'hen taskforce and reduce them to pulp.

An alternative or complementary tactic is to build multiple heavy fortresses on your key worlds in the city centre so the enemy cannot charge them with all its units simultaneously. If the monster fleet breaks off from ping ponging to rampage it will not get too far before it has to head home for more tanks, giving you time to repair the damage.

I tended to do something similar on growing my worlds, except I would start the tax rate at zero and leave it that way for as long as I could afford to. That would get the planet to 10-20k fast so it could then be put to use with a reasonable number of research facilities or factories. I also think building trade centres immediately on your first few planets is a must. Thier added income in the first few years is a huge boost.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I found the interface in 2 to be quite nasty to use.
1 wasn't quite as bad...but 2 only lasted for 3 hours on my hard drive...then bye-bye!

[Cookie Monster]

I fired up IGII this weekend and thought I'd have another go at it. Boy building trade centers early really helps out with income. Income was always my bane before but now I am doing better. Damn, Apolyton is a great site!

Now I'm just waiting for the inevitable Krahen onslaught!

[Spaced Cowboy]

HD,

You don't have any issues with the interface?

Hmm...maybe I'll give it another try on my faster computer.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL
HD,

You don't have any issues with the interface?

Hmm...maybe I'll give it another try on my faster computer.

RPMisCOOL:

Yeah the only issue I have with the interface is the fact when you select certain commands. I hate having to left-click and hold on a pulldown window then drag the mouse to a command in that window. I'm sure you know what I mean. As far as manipulating fleets and planets I have no problem.

I continue to play my game. I choose to play as the Shinari and having never tried them before am pleasantly surprised. The manual says they lack the military but the fact that they can make more money then anyone else makes up for it. They can just buy techs from others or buy advanced weapons from the trader. I'll post more later as I slowly start to asses how things are going.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Hmm...

Maybe I'm thinking about another game, but isn't this the one where you constantly have to send your spies out on missions?

[Grumbold]

I never had interface problems as such although it is tedious not being able to jump from planet to planet instead of going via the starmap every time.

In my most recent Solarian game I was far more warlike and actually took out the Kra'hen before fighting the Shinari. The random scientist plotline gave me an early corvette design and such a research boost that I could afford to expand early and stay well ahead of everyone else for the rest of the game.

[Cookie Monster]

RPMisCOOL:

Spying is but one part of this space exploration game. I was refering to the quirky diplomacy and research screens with all their pulldown menus. check out this site to verify we are talking the same game.

Grumbold:

Yeah jumping from planet to planet via the starmap is tedious. Did you ever try doing the same from the information screen (f9 I think)? Simply right click on the tiny planet icon in the list and you instantly go to that planets surface. When you exit out it takes you back to the info screen, at least I think it does. Will verify this.

Getting that early ship design really helps out quite a lot, I agree.