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Space Empires V
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Ausitn, TXRegistered User regular
Ausitn, TXRegistered User regular
Has anyone played this?
I recently purchased it on steam. From the reviews I read, it basically comes off as a MUCH deeper version of Galactic Civilizations II.
While this is true, I am almost starting to think that there are too many options. I just don't know where to begin honestly.
So for those of you who own this, do you have any tips?
Currently I'm a bit confused on how production works. What determines how much a planet can produce in a turn? What should I be researching?
So far I really like the game, but I just kind of feel like I'm feeling my way around in the dark.
I recently purchased it on steam. From the reviews I read, it basically comes off as a MUCH deeper version of Galactic Civilizations II.
While this is true, I am almost starting to think that there are too many options. I just don't know where to begin honestly.
So for those of you who own this, do you have any tips?
Currently I'm a bit confused on how production works. What determines how much a planet can produce in a turn? What should I be researching?
So far I really like the game, but I just kind of feel like I'm feeling my way around in the dark.
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Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
What you build is obvious. Mineral miners for minerals, research for research, etc.
The rating is only for organics, minerals, and radioactives. Its a number from 1-300, and it multiplies your production of that resource by that amount. So you want to put your miners on the planets with good values.
Population is a set bonus that applies to everything. The larger the population, the bigger the bonus.
Yeah, each system is seperated from the other. I actually kind of like it.
Coolness. Is there any point to me building up storage for more materials? I don't think I've ever come down from the 50,000 cap that you start at.
Also, is it bad if I have some planets where it shows them to have negative production of a material? They'll just take what they need from the overall empire storage right?
Finally, is there a point to colonizing tiny planets with a different atmosphere? You can only build one facility on them, and it just seems to be useful to keep other empires from taking it.
Not really, except if you've got a few extra colony ships lying around or you've got a cheap-o model designed specifically for those. Terraforming and the like got nerfed something awful (something like 50-100 turns now as opposed to 20-30 in IV) so there's almost no way to utilize them in a regular game. Depending on the scale of the game, you're probably better off building a repair-capable ship with a few gravity spheres and tetonic bombs and just blowing the little bastards to hell and back until they reform with an atmosphere you can use. Also fun for pissing off enemy players in games with high tech from the get-go.
I haven't gotten terribly far into the game so forgive me for asking so many questions:
What is the point of satellites?
How do I build/deploy starbases? I want to put some in those starless systems to keep an eye on enemy movement.
Are there certain weapons that are better suited for different kinds of enemy types? Currenly I've just researched the crap out of depleted uranium guns.
Finally, how do I keep my ships from auto attacking another ship when it comes out of a wormhole? It's really annoying to get in a fight with a new race from the get go.
Thanks for the info. I'm loving the game so far, just wish I knew what I was doing.
Already own it. Granted it's a fun game, but after playing a bunch of civilization games and alpha centari, it just seemed a bit shallow.
It isn't as complex, but the complexity of Space Empires IV was a bit overwhelming for me. It also made by eyes bleed. I'm really looking forward to the 4X game Sins of a Solar Empire in August, though. It's made by the team that developed Homeworld: Cataclysm.
To whore it off a little bit, an entire fully 3D galaxy is your playing field with orbiting planets, clustering asteroids, rare comets, and more. And there's a wide range of diplomatic options, too, such as forging and breaking alliances, trading resources, placing bounties on backstabbing ex-allies and over-powered tyrants, blockading enemy planets, establishing trade routes, and manipulating the commodities market. Ten players can go online for control of the galaxy, so I'm really looking forward to that aspect.
You'll need to build a ship equipped with a shipyard/construction module thing, then move it to where you want to build it and then select the design after opening the ship's construction option.
Not particularly, though weapons tend to come in tiers of power and efficiency - DUCs are good for the beginning, but anti-proton beams tend to be the standard fare of weaponry due to their good range and power and that you don't need seperate ammo for them, though you've also got the options of various missile and torpedo types and specialty weapons like phased poleron cannons (skips normal shields) point-defense cannons that target missiles and fighters, a whole bunch of different cannons that target specific component types but leave others untouched, and a few racial-tech weapons which usually have some advantages to them like armor-piercing, low energy cost, and so on.
In the end, it's not really so much what advantages there are against enemy types as what advantages there are for the roles you use the equipment in - a good combination of different ship types (plus technological parity or superiority) combined with a sound game plan are what tend to matter the most.
Hmm. To be honest, I'm not sure - I haven't touched the game in a few months, but I THINK it always does it unless the other ship is in some kind of an alliange with you - you can just order your ship to fly off in a different direction and then fast-forward it, and you'll eventually flee from the battle and usually wind up in a random sector around the one with the enemy ship.
No problem. The only thing to remember is that most folks rarely play the vanilla game multiplayer - the real fun is in the various mods people have (and will) cook up for it, which take care of balancing issues and give the game a new flavor. It's also terribly easy to mod it yourself provided you've no aversion to codemonkeying for a few dozen hours, so if you've got any ideas you can try and impliment them yourself.
It's been a while since I empired space, so forgive me if I fuck up.
Satellites can be used as nifty little base defenses. Just toss the biggest weapon you can find on them, and toss them into orbit.
This will hold off any enemy for a bit while he tries to find a way through them.
The real beauty of them is that if the front moves, or you find a nice chokepoint, you can just load them into your boot and fly them over there for added pew pew.
Also, don't underestimate them for remote mining. If you don't want to clutter your bases with all kinds of mining building, you can load up some sats with mining equipment and drop them in a belt somewhere. Doesn't need a Spaceport either.
Edit: TL;DR
Sats are versatile, and retardedly cheap. Use them in the beginning, and move or reassign them as needed.
Edit #2:
This might help you out a bit:
http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/Main_Page
I remember one other question. What is the point of freighters? When would I use them?
If you want a huge amount of stuff moved somewhere qu...err slowly, toss it in a transport and send your population/drones/satellites/hamsters to a better place.
I also like to put a shitload of fighters in them and use them as a carrier-lite. >_>
Just realized this thread is about SE5, which I've never played, so everything I say might be bullshit, in which case I apologize. >_>
I liked GalCiv2... for the 2-3 hours it took me to grow bored of it. Very few games manage to combine the complexity to keep strategy gamers interested for long with style, a nice interface, and all the other things that are important but useless if there's nothing inside.
You can start a game wherein all systems start out explored as soon as you enter them. Virtually everything in the game can be customised, actually.
As long as you're running positive resources, storage only helps with retrofits (and then only if you're doing 50,000 or more worth in a turn). OTOH, it'll save your bacon if someone manages to nuke your best resource planet and you start pulling a deficit!
All the sat advice is good. In SE5, I've found them really helpful as sesnor platforms, since you can't see the entire system you're in by default.
You can't not auto-fight a race you've just met, sadly. Weapon types is personal preference (lots of bang really quick or more bang that takes longer) plus target type. You can't use heavy missiles on fighters, for example.
Galciv was a massive disappointment for me. After hearing all these amazing things about it, I found out it was basically Civilization with spaceships. Which, mind you, isn't necessarily a bad thing, but completely unlike what I expected and wanted.
I mean, I like MoO3 better as a 4x game than Galciv, and I don't even think MoO3 was technically a 4x game.
Edit: Galciv 2, however, has little options that intrigue me.
Good game?
Only major downside is that (I think) it's play-by-mail only, though V gives you serial, modem, TCP/IP, and IPX directplay.
Gal Civ 4 eh? I didn't realize it was 2012.
I liked galciv2, but like someone else said, it was just civ4 in space....except not nearly as in depth imo.
In SEV, you pretty much have control over any and every thing imaginable. It's a bit overwhelming.
IRT original questions: What would you guys recommend for research? Should I focus on one thing at a time, or spread it out some?
Also...I love sabotaging my enemy's research. I'm pretty much keeping him in the dark ages while I build up for a nice attack.
Oh yeah...what do I need to attack/takeover a planet?
A fleet to knock out defending ships and weapon platforms (three or so ships filled to the gills with missile launchers and ammo stores guarded by a few gunships work wonders for this) and then a transport or two loaded with ground units to do the fighting. Once the fire's died down in orbit, move on in and drop your load - you then switch to ground combat mode, and provided you can take out any defending units and the local civilian resistance, the planet is yours.
If my copy wasn't being such a dick and refusing to update, I'd consider setting up a game-on thread for this.
Coolness. I've got one empire cornered off in a small part of the galaxy. I've got a couple of fleets camping the warp points out of there, and I've been destroying his research every turn, so he's primed for a nice attack.
Research: I ussually go for a level or two of sensors first, then engines, then ship size. From there it depends how fast I run into another empire.
Soreson: there's a new 1.25 patch out that should help with downloaded version issues, if that's the problem.
What's the advantage of landing troops and taking over the planet and just attacking the planet with ships?
A) Obviously, you get to keep any swag that was on the planet at the time of its capture, saving you a good many turns of construction and resources and giving you possible reverse-engineering material.
C) Planet captures hit the other empire's morale a good bit harder than simple carpet-bombing, something like twofold.
D) Glassing a planet reduces its resource values by about 10% each time - this doesn't apply if you do something sneaky like using massed neutron bombs to vaporize the population while leaving the infrastructure intact.
E) In MP games, it's good gloating material.
Delicious, I shall commence with the landings.
If it's not the one I'm thinking of, then, uh... ninja vanish?
It is and it isn't honestly.
I agree the tech tree, along with other parts of the game, lack..."flavor."
But what I do like about the game is how you can style your empire around your playtype.
And there's a ton of mods out for it.
Well, SEV is at least the one I remember playing. Mostly, the thing that annoyed me the most was how unintuitive it was. I realized I was gonna have to sit down and play a dozen or so of these long-ass games before I'd actually "get" what I was supposed to be doing.