Space Empires V Demo!!!!

[Jason]

<strong>[ Demo ]</strong>

<p>Strategy First and <a href="http://www.malfador.com/" target="_blank" title="Malfador">Malfador</a> decided to brighten everyone's weekend by releasing the demo for <a href="http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/SpaceEmpiresV/" target="_blank" title="SE5">Space Empires V</a>. The 128 Mb download includes a tutorial and 100 turns of spacefaring 4X fun. Grab it from <a href="http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/SpaceEmpiresV/downloads/" target="_blank" title="SFI">Strategy First</a>, <a href="http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096485863/" target="_blank" title="3D Gamers">3D Gamer</a>, or <a href="http://www.gamershell.com/download_15511.shtml" target="_blank" title="GH">Gamer's Hell</a>. </p><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p><a href="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/gallery.php?dir=Space%20Empires%20V&file=se5screen_30.jpg"><img src="http://www.tacticularcancer.com/screenshots/Space%20Empires%20V/thumbs/se5screen_30_thumb.jpg" alt=" " width="200" height="150" /></a>
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[Naked_Lunch]

Not only is it gonna be a great game, but the demo's not extremely bloated and fluffed up for no apparent reason! Whoo yay!

 

[Deathy]

First impression: AWESOME.

But who's suprised that I think that?

The interface is a lot better than the previous games in the series, and the game seems to be a lot more detailed.

 

[Nicolai]

A pleasant suprise. Was worried about them not being able to handle the jump from 2D to 3D very well, but the demo certainly exceeded my expectations. Looking forward to the day this one hits the shelves.

 

[Oarfish]

Yeah, that's some sweet 4x goodness. Everything looks really solid except for the ground combat, which I imagine will be on auto resolve.

 

[Dmitron]

Customisation at game start is staggering..

 

[Greatatlantic]

In my first game I played the civ with the latent Psyhic abilities and researched the Psychic tree. It doesn't seem to do anything, though. Is this something they've held out of the demo or something?

 

[Human Shield]

Can anyone mention how trade and dimploacy is handled, and how interactive and interesting AI races are? 4 felt like a pure wargame.

 

[Norfleet]

I don't think trade and diplomacy has ever been done really well in a game: The AI has always come across as either psychotic or bipolar. Or both at once. The interface has often been quite slick, but inevitably they do weird shit like declaring war on you for no apparently sane reason...and then not actually doing anything about it.

 

[Oarfish]

Trade and diplomacy

Diplomacy is very detailed by the look of it. Treaties can have combinations of multiple clauses i.e "members of your species can immigrate to my empire, but you can't use cloaking devices or enter into alliances with other empires". Alliances also seem to look like discrete civ style united nations, with internal voting on issues, but I have not managed to con anyone into one within the 100 turns.

Not sure about trading either, not entered into the appropriate treaty.

 

[whatusername]

I clicked a random button and- WHAM! My computer instantly reboots.

 

[Deathy]

Wrong button, I guess. ... Was it the reboot button on the front of your PC? Mine tends to do do that.

I'm finding that the AI in the demo isn't really aggressive enough to be challenging. As long as I haven't pissed them off, they're receptive to any treaty I offer them, a couple of them even went for subjugation-type treaties when I'd just encountered them. I haven't been attacked, for some reason, and keeping a fleet of around 10 ships total has been all that is necessary to put the beatdown on AI's that I do get into wars with (either by pissing them off or of my own decision)

As far as bugs go, it can be annoying. I've had several crashes, which aren't really a big deal if you save your game often.
Getting a treaty hammered out with the AI can be confusing, since they'll often send another treaty proposal after you've offered a counter-proposal and before they've responded to your counter-proposal. Also, some of the treaties that the AI will offer you are completely retarded. I've had an AI offer me a 'Trade Pact' that was nothing but a request for me to promise not to use planet destroying technologies and that we would both cease all research activities.
If you do get to the point where you have a shared technology treaty with another empire, I noticed an error in the log message notifying you of what technologies you're giving the other party which is written in such a way to imply that you're the one who is recieving these technologies from them. Also, you don't get a message when they give you technologies, so it can be a bit unclear as to what is actually going on.

Aside from these problems, the game is pretty damn awesome. Hopefully there will be some bugfixing and tweaking before the game is released. When is that, anyway?

 

[Greatatlantic]

This demo is annoying the heck out of me, even as it sucks up my time. First off, there seems to be numerous holes in the research trees. Why have it as an option to research stellar manipulation when there is no "effect" or new technology to be had. I was hoping I could get black hole creators out of that one.

Also, the UI leaves something to be desired. For example, lets say I research "advanced research". I now can upgrade all my research centers to generate more research points. However, the only way I've figured out to do so is check out each planet individually and check ther facilities to see if any of the obsolete research centers are there to be upgraded. Beyond that, I'm just having a difficult time keeping track of everything. This is definitely a hard core strategy game and not for the feint of heart.

P.S. Was combat realtime in SE4? I don't remember it being real time. Also, I can't make heads or tails out of those formations.

 

[Deathy]

This demo is annoying the heck out of me, even as it sucks up my time. First off, there seems to be numerous holes in the research trees. Why have it as an option to research stellar manipulation when there is no "effect" or new technology to be had. I was hoping I could get black hole creators out of that one.

That kind of interesting stuff was probably cut for the demo, and even if it weren't, 100 turns is barely enough to get a game rolling, let alone to start doing interesting stuff like that.

Also, the UI leaves something to be desired. For example, lets say I research "advanced research". I now can upgrade all my research centers to generate more research points. However, the only way I've figured out to do so is check out each planet individually and check ther facilities to see if any of the obsolete research centers are there to be upgraded.

Theres a screen for overall construction queues for your empire, it has a button that will upgrade all your facilities empirewide. Look for the wrench icon in the top button panel.

Beyond that, I'm just having a difficult time keeping track of everything. This is definitely a hard core strategy game and not for the feint of heart.

Space Empires III was one of the first games I ever really got into. I don't understand how people can be so intimidated by all of this detail and depth, even if it is obfuscated by a subpar user interface.

P.S. Was combat realtime in SE4? I don't remember it being real time. Also, I can't make heads or tails out of those formations.

It was turn based, but annoyingly so. I can't judge the combat in SE:V yet, since the AI is so pissy that I haven't had a challenging fight, but it seems kinda nice.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Theres a screen for overall construction queues for your empire, it has a button that will upgrade all your facilities empirewide. Look for the wrench icon in the top button panel.

Thanks, after posting this I'll go look for it right away. I guess I was spoiled by GC2 and the ease in which it made planet build orders.

Space Empires III was one of the first games I ever really got into. I don't understand how people can be so intimidated by all of this detail and depth, even if it is obfuscated by a subpar user interface.

Its not so much the details or the depth, its the numbers. I like to plow ahead in these games to try to get better and better technology to build better and better ships. Having to assign jobs for 20 or 30 ships and planets can make turns drag on for close to half an hour, and when I'm first trying out a game its all about experimenting with the technology.

P.S., is there a way to speed up production on a planet, i.e. build things faster? Right now its set at about 2,000 minerals a turn with only citizen morale providing bonuses as far as I can tell.

 

[ekolis]

There is an "emergency build" option on the individual queues; it says it doubles production for up to 10 turns but halves it for the same time afterward. A bit unbalanced if you ask me... why could they not keep it 150%/25% like it was in SE4???

 

[Deathy]

Well, you can't build space yards on space stations to begin with (only after 10 levels of space yards research) so it's the only way to get the ships churned out right fast in the early game.

It should be at least a bit harsher, though.

On the research/technology front, it's kind of annoying that a level 1 destroyer is worse than a level 5 frigate, especially since you need the level 5 in light hull construction before you can research the medium-light hull construction stuff. I thought it was going to be cool having a ship size that I'd be able to cram even more weapons and armor onto, but in light of the fact that it was actually smaller and easier to hit than my frigates, I might as well have just kept on with the light hull research.

 

[Oarfish]

Has anyone figured out how to mod the research rate yet? I tried messing with the research centre formulas, but I think the program is taking checksums of the game files. I wanna see all the tech.

 

[puke]

well, yes. if you want to change the research rate, you'll have to mod the formulas.txt file.. the demo seems to take checksums on some of the data files, including components, facilities, tech areas, and a couple others.

But you can certainly mod any of the stuff in settings.txt (100 starting planets, or change your interface colors, or more starting point to buy special abilities at race creation). to lower research costs, put a * 0.0005 (or something) on the end of the medium cost formula in the formulas.txt

and be sure to turn off news updates for each turn, otherwise the demo is prone to crashing when trying to populate thousands of tech advancement news items every turn.

and it does look like the demo tech tree is significantly pruned... I'm trying to convince one of the guys to post a screenshot of the ringworlds and sphereworlds from the full beta version. We'll see if it gets the thumbs up from Malfador.

also, if you're looking for more detailed info, the SE grognards mostly sloth about over on the www.shrapnelgames.com forums, and those at www.spaceempires.net. If you can stomach talking to us in realtime, checkout #spaceempires on freenode.net, which is frequented by a few of the games beta testers.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Whoa, way over my head this game.

 

[Human Shield]

Diplomacy is very detailed by the look of it. Treaties can have combinations of multiple clauses i.e "members of your species can immigrate to my empire, but you can't use cloaking devices or enter into alliances with other empires". Alliances also seem to look like discrete civ style united nations, with internal voting on issues, but I have not managed to con anyone into one within the 100 turns.

Not sure about trading either, not entered into the appropriate treaty.

That sounds neat. Does it still use the SE4 messaging system where you have to give a blind offer and see yes or no? Can you trade direct resources, tech, and star maps with a better system, anyone?

 

[chaedwards]

Blind offers with no feedback is the major stumbling point for me as well. Anybody got an answer?

 

[Oarfish]

They are blind, yes.

 

[chaedwards]

Rats. Oh well, one less game to buy.

 

[Shagnak]

For some reason NZ stores are already selling boxed versions of SE:V; I spotted it on this NZ store site, but I've also sighted it "in the flesh" so to speak.

Yet all the online sources say 16th October, and no announcements from the usual culprits.
Strange.

And you can't even pre-order it online yet.

Edit:
Oh, you can "pre-purchase and save" on Steam now:
http://storefront.steampowered.com/v2/i ... pId=1690&#
But not through StrategyFirst etc...