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Well, got the game and sat down and played it a few hours, heres my intial thoughts...
Now I know everyones been saying read the manual, but the only reading I did of it was during the install. I'm more of a trial and error guy I guess. Went through, saw the nice intro, which has greatly detailed alien races but didn't tell me a whole lot. Setup a game and went with the default options, besides for choosing Sakkra as my race.
Though I did claim to be trial and error, I let the master tips explain things first. Nothing seemed too complicated, though I was left with a few questions reading the manual or checking online will probably answer.
Then to test what my biggest concern was, I turned off the viceroys and so forth. I then waited for the doom of AI contradicting me at every turn to happen... It didn't. I don't know what game some reviewers played, but maybe it wasn't this one. The only thing you have no control over getting built with the AI off is the improvement structures like Hydroponic Farms and so forth, its just an auto-upgrade to your DEAs that gets built.
You can build some other buildings however, that affect different things. My economy went a bit odd as the game progressed, built too many Mining DEAs without enough Industry, and my ships were quite outdated because of it. I can't tell if any of this is really informative, but i'll continue.
The game isn't as some said too complicated to micromange, it just doesn't seem to lend itself to it at first. The 3 queue max for planetary/military builds is annoying. At least until you realize you can select for 1,5, or 10 of a selected military item to be built, then its not quite so annoying.
The DEAs get built just how you tell them to. I'm not sure if theres some downside to setting up all the DEAs intially or not, I didn't notice one if there was. One thing I will need to do is research more the type of places(Hostile,Arable,Aluvial, etc...) so I can be sure whats best to go there.
You can get a quick summary of what planets are doing, check locations of task forces, oversee spys, etc... The only place where I still don't feel I have alot of control is research. Reminds me of SMAC when setting it to random field. You are getting a new technology, which means its better in some way, but you're not quite sure what its going to be most of the time.
Most tech descriptions were alright, you can figure out what they do, but you won't have the numbers. Maybe thats something they can patch, for us number obsessed? All these numbers that are said to terrify you into thinking its a spreadsheet aren't so terrifying. Nor are they that hard to figure out, players of Stars! will easily adapt i'm sure, while those that just stuck to the MoOs might have a harder time.
Combat is still a bit undecided at present. The task force system does bare some merit, but I still need to work out all the uses of it. Fighting itself is alright, though control is a bit awkward. I won't kid you though, it looks like total crap. As other reviews have said, only the weapons fired really look that impressive. Ships are just varying blobs of color spaced around the map.
In closing the game seems somewhat of a combination of MoO2, Space Empires IV, and Stars! 2. If that makes any sense. Its not a bad mix, but its hard to say if everything works well together after a few hours. If you're unsure about wether you want to buy it, or unsure about strategy in general i'd wait. If you're a fan of strategy games i'd already be at the store buying it. :P
Now I know everyones been saying read the manual, but the only reading I did of it was during the install. I'm more of a trial and error guy I guess. Went through, saw the nice intro, which has greatly detailed alien races but didn't tell me a whole lot. Setup a game and went with the default options, besides for choosing Sakkra as my race.
Though I did claim to be trial and error, I let the master tips explain things first. Nothing seemed too complicated, though I was left with a few questions reading the manual or checking online will probably answer.
Then to test what my biggest concern was, I turned off the viceroys and so forth. I then waited for the doom of AI contradicting me at every turn to happen... It didn't. I don't know what game some reviewers played, but maybe it wasn't this one. The only thing you have no control over getting built with the AI off is the improvement structures like Hydroponic Farms and so forth, its just an auto-upgrade to your DEAs that gets built.
You can build some other buildings however, that affect different things. My economy went a bit odd as the game progressed, built too many Mining DEAs without enough Industry, and my ships were quite outdated because of it. I can't tell if any of this is really informative, but i'll continue.
The game isn't as some said too complicated to micromange, it just doesn't seem to lend itself to it at first. The 3 queue max for planetary/military builds is annoying. At least until you realize you can select for 1,5, or 10 of a selected military item to be built, then its not quite so annoying.
The DEAs get built just how you tell them to. I'm not sure if theres some downside to setting up all the DEAs intially or not, I didn't notice one if there was. One thing I will need to do is research more the type of places(Hostile,Arable,Aluvial, etc...) so I can be sure whats best to go there.
You can get a quick summary of what planets are doing, check locations of task forces, oversee spys, etc... The only place where I still don't feel I have alot of control is research. Reminds me of SMAC when setting it to random field. You are getting a new technology, which means its better in some way, but you're not quite sure what its going to be most of the time.
Most tech descriptions were alright, you can figure out what they do, but you won't have the numbers. Maybe thats something they can patch, for us number obsessed? All these numbers that are said to terrify you into thinking its a spreadsheet aren't so terrifying. Nor are they that hard to figure out, players of Stars! will easily adapt i'm sure, while those that just stuck to the MoOs might have a harder time.
Combat is still a bit undecided at present. The task force system does bare some merit, but I still need to work out all the uses of it. Fighting itself is alright, though control is a bit awkward. I won't kid you though, it looks like total crap. As other reviews have said, only the weapons fired really look that impressive. Ships are just varying blobs of color spaced around the map.
In closing the game seems somewhat of a combination of MoO2, Space Empires IV, and Stars! 2. If that makes any sense. Its not a bad mix, but its hard to say if everything works well together after a few hours. If you're unsure about wether you want to buy it, or unsure about strategy in general i'd wait. If you're a fan of strategy games i'd already be at the store buying it. :P
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