Space Empires IV - Page 2

Urban Ranger · December 10, 2000, 00:10

I am glad I have downloaded and tried the demo. I felt I was let down after reading the glowing review of SE4 in Games Domain.

Since you can have only 100 turns, you don't get to see a whole lot of features. There are things I like about this game, unfortunately it is marred by a large number of design flaws.

The first flaw that strikes me is the interface isn't very good. Better than CtP, and maybe even better than Starfleet Command, but definitely falls short of MoO 2, let alone SMAC. Imagine that, a game 10 years old has a better interface. That says something about Steve Barcia, designer of MoO 2. There are a lot of gripes that can be lodged but the biggest one is inconsistency. For example, since the windows SE4 uses mimics that of Windows itself, you would think they behave similarly. No such luck.
The main game window has a button -- which isn't available on any other window -- on the top right hand corner that you can use to minimize the window. Most windows have a "Close" button, but not all of them do. But the close button isn't where it should be, up there on the right hand corner just like Windows. But the worst part is you can't move those windows even though they overlap. If you need to access information in a window hidden, wholly or partly, you have to close the windows that are blocking the view. You can't move them, and you can't click on the window you want to bring it on top.

Another example: on some items, but not on the others, right clicking gives you information.

This sort of thing just bugs me to no end. For a game of such complexity, having the player to fight the interface is just sheer idiocy.

There are curious restrictions and omissions. You can have only a limited number of facilities on each planet. 20 on a large rock planet such as the Earth. What?! 20 buildings on Earth? These have to be mightly gigantic buildings! I am sure this is done for game balancing, but there seems to be better -- and less artificial -- ways of going about this. Another example: you need to build storage facilities for resources, but you don't need to construct freighters to ferry them. Yet another: you can build spaceships to go through warp points and you can build domes to colonize other planets, but you don't know how to build solar collectors. This is just positively strange.

I can't say I like the game enough to shell out 60 dollars for it. Your milage may vary.
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited December 09, 2000).]

Garth Vader · December 11, 2000, 12:56

I think those are pretty petty complaints. I initially found the interface fairly poor as well, but after some work I found that a lot of what I wanted to do was possible, if not immediatly obvious.

As for your building complaint, well in Moo2 why can I only build one research lab on a huge planet, huh?

What I did like which helps me overlook any small flaws is the incredible depth in customizing that is available. Both in designing your own ships and bases and in custom races. If you want you can customize the AI and who knows what else.

I am a big fan of ship design and combat and that is why I ordered the game(still hasn't come yet

), especially that you have to worry about resupply, much more realistic than the ol'Moo2 scout ship that can circumnavagate your empire without ever getting resupplied.

Jaakko · December 11, 2000, 14:29

There's an easy way to avoid losing everything when a big download is interrupted.
Go and download GetRight, an excellent download utility.
You can even **** up your Windows so bad that it won't even empty your RAM upon reset, and still the downloads can be resumed later.

Garth Vader · December 12, 2000, 01:40

Who Hoo

My copy has arrived! I had hoped to get it on friday so I would have the weekend to play but you take what you can get! Now I can't wait to get home from work, well even more than usual

Urban Ranger · December 12, 2000, 02:46

Garth,

Research Lab in MoO 2 adds +1 research point per scientist, and generates 5 on its own. You can imagine it as a bigarse lab that can house the entire population of a huge planet

No such luck with the research facilities in SE4.

As I said before, the demo only allows 100 turns, so I can only review* what I can see.

"I initially found the interface fairly poor as well, but after some work I found that a lot of what I wanted to do was possible, if not immediatly obvious."

You can say that about the interface of every game, including CtP (maybe stretching things a little here

). The entire point of having a good interface, instead of a bad one, is you can just go about doing things, instead of having to figure out how to do things first.

* That means gripe

[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited December 12, 2000).]

Garth Vader · December 12, 2000, 11:14

Ok autolab then

My point was that realism takes a backseat to play balance and play effeciency. If you wanted to play a completely realistic game of space conquest you would have to put in as much time as a real intergalatic leader, which I expect is more than a full time job

One way to get more out of the demo is to start with 10 planets. You will be able to research just about the whole demo tree with that setup. Plus conquer just about a whole medium galaxy. The competition isn't as good on that setup because everybody starts with so much, but it gives you a good feel for the techs.

You can also set the starting tech to medium or high, to see more of the tree. But yeah the 100 turn limit sucks for this kind of game.

Rex Little · December 12, 2000, 12:19

Imran called SE4 "MOO2 on steroids". Based on what I've seen so far, it reminds me more of a slimmed-down Ascendancy. I haven't played enough to judge the quality of the AI, but if it's as bad as zkribbler says, that's one more thing in common with Ascendancy.

Garth Vader · December 12, 2000, 12:45

Oh it's better than Ascendancy on almost all counts. Ascendancy had better graphics.

Urban Ranger · December 12, 2000, 22:56

Garth,

Okay, I don't know you can do that. At any rate, my point being that, after the first brush with the interface, I lost my insane urge to buy the game. Maybe if it doesn't cost me that much (US$60)...

Also, there are other ways to play balancing. Say, you can build as many research facilities as you want but you need 1M people to operate each, or something along those lines. Restricting number of buildings that can be build on a planet seems to be silly. Yeah, that includes MoO 2, but it predates SE4 by how many years?

[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited December 12, 2000).]