Moo3's Death by a Thousand Cuts

[RolandtheMad]

Originally posted by Craig P.

...At least one BT has stated that this will seldom be an issue.

I wonder if it's something that they just didn't run into in time, or if it was on the "gee, it'd be nice" list and just didn't make it in.

That isn`t very comforting. Sounds like 'it will seldom be an issue' so 'don`t expect it getting fixed'.

[kalbear]

Well, it's one of those things that isn't necessarily a huge impediment to gameplay but would require a lot of rewriting. Or I could see it as such.

I'm much more upset about the idea that it doesn't give you a check on whether you should intrude through another players' systems. That's a flaw, plain and simple.

[RolandtheMad]

Originally posted by kalbear
Well, it's one of those things that isn't necessarily a huge impediment to gameplay but would require a lot of rewriting. Or I could see it as such.

I'm much more upset about the idea that it doesn't give you a check on whether you should intrude through another players' systems. That's a flaw, plain and simple.

Yes, it isn`t a huge impeditment to game play if you`re forced to stop expanding in a certain direction because the retarded AI wants to force you through the New Orions, Guardians, and enemy AIs. Blah!

I think being able to force the ships to go on certain pathways would fix your problem also.

[kalbear]

Well, that's easily worked around, right? Just send them to each system along the way. It's vaguely annoying but should solve it, so long as you're not wanting to go off-roading.

[RolandtheMad]

Originally posted by kalbear
Well, that's easily worked around, right? Just send them to each system along the way. It's vaguely annoying but should solve it, so long as you're not wanting to go off-roading.

The point being there was no other way around..

Your suggestion may work in other circumstances. I`ve done similar in other games. Still annoying and it should be fixed though.

[Craig P.]

Basically, the "don't intrude" falls under the same issue. If intrusion is an issue, then the other player's systems are an obstacle same as Orion was in kebzero's AAR. I guess the option isn't so much "force offroad" as "force not through a hostile system".

[Harry Seldon]

If I understand correctly, the AI always chooses the quickest route. You'd still be screwed with a bad galaxy position and bad starlane placement even if you tried to system-hop, i.e. you have a three system cluster with one starlane that leads through the New Orions and your in a corner. How hard would it have been to pop a box up asking "Quickest Path or Straight Shot?"

[kalbear]

Well, it's one of those things that kebzero just noticed after playing for months and months. It's very likely that the thought of not choosing the quickest path and instead wanting to take the offroad path never came up.

Also, if 99.9% of the time I want to take starlanes, I will be HIGHLY annoyed if I have to hit a pop-up box saying 'yes, I am okay with going here, dumbass'.

My big gripe isn't that - it's the idea that your ships will blithely wander into enemy territory without you telling them to explicitly, if it involves a faster path. That's a bad deal. Simple way would be to weight enemy-held systems to make them far more expensive to travel through in terms of flight time - say 100 turns vs 2. You could still travel to them directly, but you'd almost never go through them unless you were taking something like a 50-lane hop.

The pain would be getting the information about whether a system was hostile to you. Also would be a judgment call - do you fly through systems that are likely not to attack you because of their diplomacy rating towards you? Dunno.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Jack Frost
I mean there are thousands more, failed ideas, annoying implementations, in HoI the tech tree has like 400 seperate technologies to research. The fact that there are 400 seperate highly detailed technologies instead of 40 abstracted ones makes almost no difference in STRATEGY or play, but is a micromanagement nightmare since every 30 seconds you need to que up 5 more technologies that each individually have very little impact on the game.

I have no problem with the tech tree. I am highly critical of some aspects of Hoi (especially the fact that the ai seems not to know where its Capital is, among other things), but the techs are great!

You have realistic, detailed inventions that you pursue because they give you a direct benefit or lead to other inventions. The enormous background detail, description and pic and all, contributes to the atmosphere. Atmosphere is why I still play the game, despite a not (yet) really working ai. If they had cut this and other similar things, I would probably lose all interest in the game. I rather like HoI, because, at least as far as it does succeed (55% right now), it is a SIM and not another sports competition.

[kalbear]

Wow, CT, you're quite the interesting fellow. You'll condemn a game you've not played despite glowing reviews from those who have played it because it doesn't fit what you wished it would be, but will play a game that has broken AI and pointless complexity because it has an excellent background story?

And how is a game where the opponent cannot locate your capitol city a sim? What, SimDumbAndDumber? What does this simulate, the education level of most Americans?

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I disagree. The system was far from perfect but it allowed countries with historically strong trade links to punch harder than their weight. Venice would not be a player in the early game without its Centre of Trade, nor would it decline as easily were that CoT not diluted as time goes by. Ironically the system was much smoother as first conceived and released. It was a certain type of player that persuaded Paradox to make many nations far more competitive over trade in patches that led to some of the repetition you refer to.

This post made me think. Must make a mental note to be even more cautious in my critique of HoI bugs -they might turn out to be features.

But you are right: In a complex game like this, and with Paradox listening to feedback, there is the possibility that some of us present them with well-meaning ideas that ultimately change the game to the worse.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Sikander
I like this sort of breadth, because it is impossible to analyse the game in the same manner as chess, whether I am trying to do it or the tireless AI is trying to do it. You are left with something that approaches art rather than science in the way you might approach it. There is no perfect move, or rather there is no way to prove that any particular set of decisions made during a turn is in fact the best set of decisions, simply because you don't have the time to calculate all of the alternatives. Neither does Big Blue for that matter. This I find somehow freeing. I don't have to build my decisions from the bottom up, but can entertain thoughts about where I want to be in X turns, and try to get there via a hundred decisions that carry toward that goal over time.

Very well said.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by darcy
And the worst thing is, if Moo3 really does turn out to be crap and doesn't sell, the "market analysts" will conclude that nobody wants to play TBS anymore, although the only thing we don't want to play are badly designed TBSs.

Hear, hear!

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by kalbear
Wow, CT, you're quite the interesting fellow. You'll condemn a game you've not played despite glowing reviews from those who have played it because it doesn't fit what you wished it would be, but will play a game that has broken AI and pointless complexity because it has an excellent background story?

And how is a game where the opponent cannot locate your capitol city a sim? What, SimDumbAndDumber? What does this simulate, the education level of most Americans?

Heh, I wouldn´t disagree much about Americans.

The Ai knows *my* capital city, it just doesn´t care enough to protect its own. Forgive me for not explaining that well, I was assuming HoI expertise as a given.

HoI currently has a weak ai, especially if you play Germany, but they have a history of patching the game up to standard, the ai is very moddable and there are already mods around that improve things, but most of all: Very unlike, say, CivIII, the weak ai stems from the game being incredibly complex.

What you perceive as 'background story' is what HoI is all about: It´s a History Simulation.

Of course, had World War Two never happened, HoI wouldn´t have a reason for existence, but I fail to see where the argument is here, really. I buy HoI for the same reason I would buy a book about World War Two. View it as an interactive history lesson. (With a few broken parts, but chances are they will be repaired.)

[kalbear]

I guess I'd have a hard time playing a WW2 sim, as complex as it is, where Germans didn't defend Berlin all that much. Admittedly, I'm just an American and don't know all that much about history, but I do seem to recall some amount of hullaballoo regarding Russians and Americans fighting in Berlin.

Must've been just anti-American propaganda.