Apologies, but I gotta get this off my chest. It's been festering in my mind for far too long. To get straight to the point (and as the thread title indicates), ISG moves *way* too slowly in the early game. Barring uncommonly good luck, I spend most games doing almost nothing other than sitting around hitting the turn button. Whenever a new patch becomes available (such as now -- I'm testing out the 1.2 update in the beta branch), I'll excitedly fire up the game again...only to end up quitting out of boredom & frustration over 90% of the time. It generally takes forever to construct anything (even on your homeworld), and ship range is extremely limited so that -- more often than not -- your two starting frigates end up just sitting around with their figurative thumbs up their butts, unable to explore anything for (oftentimes) dozens of turns. The latter especially hurts, since most of us know that the early part of any decent 4x is all about exploration...yet in ISG, exploration is one of the things that's very difficult to do early on. I've noticed I'm hardly alone in feeling this way, either. In various different places online -- Explorminate, reddit, the game's own forums on Steam, and elsewhere -- it seems like one of the most common critiques of ISG is that there isn't much to do in the early game. That it's, well, boring. Granted, not *every* campaign in ISG ends up this way. And for (the majority of) those campaigns that do, Adam & Keith have consistently been helpful with tips, advice, workarounds, etc. on how to help speed things along. I give them a lot of credit for that. But the thing is...none of those tips, tricks, and workarounds should really be necessary in the first place. If ISG's pacing was properly balanced, then there would already be enough to do to keep a player occupied in the early game, rather trying to use every trick we can think of to speed things along to get to the "good stuff". The fact that all this remains a recurring complaint since ISG was still in beta over a year ago, yet still hasn't been addressed, admittedly bothers me a little -- especially in contrast to how wonderfully responsive the devs have otherwise been to player concerns & criticisms. Perhaps it's an issue that doesn't get mentioned quite often to really show up on their radar? I honestly don't know. And just to be clear, please understand I'm saying all this not out of anger, but of frustration born of...devotion, I guess? I badly want ISG to succeed. You guys had a vision, and have brought it far closer to reality than (I admit) I ever would've thought possible. You've done almost everything right, the result of which is that ISG is so damn close to truly being one of the all-time classics of the genre. Consequently, I hate the thought of it being held back or enjoying less success than it ought to, simply because of something like folks struggling to get past the early game (which is where most 4x titles are the most enjoyable). That's where I'm coming from, for whatever it's worth. Anyway, rant over. Take it with as many grains of salt as you're comfortable with. I'm just another guy with an opinion, after all.
Hi Martok, thanks for your feedback. I appreciate having your opinion on the game's pacing, especially on the early game, which is the focus of your, let's say, complaints I'd also like to say I know where you're coming from, as I tend to share the same liking in games as you, or at least that's my perception. I too loved Star Trek: Birth of the Federation (which you're also very fond of, if I'm not mistaken), and more recently Distant Worlds. Without going into much detail already, may I ask a few questions about how you tend to play your ISG games? First of all, can you guarantee that you've been playing with at least 100% production set for your empire in the production slider beneath the race portrait? And at least 100% research as well. Sorry to ask, but I've seen a similar report by another player who said things were way too slow and we then discovered the player's production was set to 50% at game set up. Not saying it's the case here, but I wanted to get that checked first. Another key aspect is how do you tend to set your production taxes? The taxes on the top left corner. Sorry to ask again, but I suspect some players tend to go with high taxes for a good portion of the time they play, which of course cripples production output, especially noticeable in the early game. With those two questions out of the way, what sort of game settings do you usually like to go with? Map size, number of players, star system distance (very important as more distance increases the time until finding other empires), map star spread (varied, even), resources amount, number of planets, events frequency, etc. Do you tend to go with default settings or do you customize heavily? The same question if you go with the predefined races or do you customize? And if so, which races do you usually play with more? Let me know, as it's important to know if you're playing a more default experience or a very customized one. After we clear that up, we could then enter into more details to see what may be causing the experience to be too slow for you.
It's great to have your feedback, Martok. You didn't have to take the time to post it, but we certainly appreciate that you did. As you pointed out, we take the criticisms of all our fans under consideration. You may be "just another guy with an opinion", as you point out , but we still value it. We want to continue to improve the experience for everyone as best we can. There is no denying that there are some people who do feel the game is too slow. There are others who feel it is too fast and prefer to play at 50% production speed for themselves and want a very long and epic experience (which inherently will create some "dead" turns early on especially). In general, we have a lot of different types of players who prefer a lot of different types of setups, game lengths, speeds, etc. In some ways the customization level we provide create a tightrope for us to walk on when making changes that impact everyone. All that aside, make no mistake, we know there is always room for improvement and it's something we will continue to push for. There are in some cases issues, like Adam mentions above, of game settings that can and do impact the games pacing. In other cases, we will continue to try to find ways to improve the game pacing in ways that will not have ripple effects throughout or hinder the game experience for others. We've made a lot of those changes since launch. Some changes so far include: Free ships coming with technologies that didn't before Reducing costs of colony and outpost ships with certain culture picks Adding in pop migration mechanics and colony bases Adding monster offspring to create some extra challenges early on. Etc. Expansion 1 is coming up soon, and if all goes well, we hope to have future expansions expand the ISG experience even further beyond that. We will continue to improve the base game as well, and in the long run, hopefully create an experience that every 4X player can enjoy. Thanks again for your feedback and we do hope you keep checking in with us.
I can feel for the OP, as that was my feedback when I first started playing the game. I no longer feel that way, as there is a style you can play to speed the game up dramatically. However, it does "force" certain playstyles. 1) The 2 free outpost culture policy is a mandatory pick early in the game. It has a tremendous impact on how fast you can expand borders and secure asteroid belts. (I mentioned this in my culture policy feedback many months ago...the outpost policy is too strong and the early game too reliant on it) Asteroids are the secret to a decent production rate early in the game. If you secure a few of things and use the production version of it to send to your capital. This will give your capital a decent production rate to get the party started. 2) Robotic Factory is the first tech and first building. This building is critical to give every planet a solid production base to work. This is the first thing I get in every game. If the devs want to speed up the early game just a little bit, you could give this as a free tech.... because I will always need it. 3) The Offworld Support tech is a big early game boost. It gives you a free supply ship, putting that in your capital again gives you another shot in the arm to get your production in good working order. 4) You need to min-max your sliders. Maximize your infrastructure until you get another level, then max to eco until you gain a pop, rinse and repeat. Its generally best to bounce back and forth, you get more production when you have a bit of both then if you maximize one over the other. With these gameplay strategies my production is normally good in most games, and I don't feel the early game is too slow. But the OP is right, that until players learn and maximize these tricks the early game can feel very slow.
Building a robot factory and space elevator solves this issue.Maybe homeworlds should start with them as they should be developed at the start.Maybe just a big capital buff is needed. The start is slow on normal and new players who dont know the tricks or fiddling with start up sliders will find it boring.
Dealing with this is not as straightforward it may appear at first glance. An advanced start (similar to (MoO2) that sees the player begin with additional structures is probably the simplest solution, but you can’t just have the player begin with a robo-miner and/or space elevator on the HW without addressing the maintenance cost of those buildings. Granted you could throw in an econ cap, or greater base credit generation and it should work without disrupting the mid/late game, but great care must be taken to minimize the snowball effect. A player could also increase their production sliders at the start menu, but that has the effect of impacting and diminishing the difficulty on harder levels. As difficulty is tied to the AI factions getting production and research boosts, there is no way around this. ISG being a TBS game similar to MoO2 and not to 2056, a player cannot expect to be pumping out colony sips in a couple of turns in the early part of the game, but that doesn’t mean he/she needs to wait around for a hundred turns either. Base production must be ramped up quickly, and there are multiple ways to do it. If you have asteroid belts nearby, you grab the free outpost ships, if you don’t, consider over-mining. You could throw all your production towards infrastructure development or population growth and then shift as needed. And of course, assigning a colony leader on the HW as quickly as possible is a must. I know it may sound strange to some, but I play the game at reduced production levels as it is way too easy for me o steamroll the opposition otherwise, keeping myself busy in the early game, doesn’t take much of an effort either as there is a lot to do here. Of course, I never even think about starting production of a colony ship until after I’ve explored everything in my immediate vicinity. I tend to start out with either an outpost ship or a warship as my build on turn one, purposely delaying planetary buildings so I can build an economic cushion. It’s a nuanced game and every player has different tastes and expectations, but there really is a way to satisfy most of them. That said, for the kind of player that sees the start as being slow, the reduction of production time from 70 turns to 60 turns (on a colony ship for example), isn’t going to satisfy, the early game will still feel very, very slow. In the end, I guess the best avenue would be to explore the advice @Ashbery76 gave, and see if it is possible to include a more advanced start for the player that won't impact the difficulty settings or cause the player to snowball quickly.
@Martok, everyone in the discussion, I think you'll be interested in reading what went in today in the 1.2 unstable 2 build
Very excited for the hurrying cost reductions, I completely agree I never float a lot of money because its never worth hurrying anything, so now I'll give it a go!
Holy crap. Don't take this the wrong way, but if I were gay or female, I would totally ask you to marry me. Right now. That's an amazing list of changes! Just spent about an hour playing, and my gods what a difference. The +30 production bonus for your homeworld, the improved logistics ranges, combined with the (more civics-oriented) 1st-tier technologies now being cheaper makes for such a dramatic improvement, that I'm honestly kind of at a loss for words to adequately describe it. Suffice it to say, though, that at it's now much, much better. I'm actually enjoying the early game now, in a way that I don't think I ever really had previously. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much!
This is the dream type of feedback one designer hopes to hear after hearing player's feedback after making important changes, and your own inputs were probably the last drop to finally put things in motion. As for the non-official and figurative marry proposal, I'm flattered but I'll have to decline, although platonic dating is not out of the question. However, if we were to marry in some alternative reality with other rules, I hope the honeymoon phase would last for a long time and finally mature in a definite and healthy relationship after what seems to have been a rough start when we were "dating", to what playing the game is concerned of course Thanks a lot Martok. I'm really happy to hear you had a better time with the game after these changes. Let's hope the changes hold up. I'm positive they will and I do believe this was for the best for the game and for the large majority if not for all players.
Cheers, Adam! You're certainly welcome, but IMO it's honestly nothing less than what you deserve. I can't throw more money at you guys until the expansion is out, so the least I can do in the meantime is offer my effusive praise. And now, back to the game! Whoot!
There are Civs for rushing, and there are Civs for booming. The Draguul are great for rushing: build a barracks, 2 assault ships, a nuclear frigate and take the first colony your neighbor builds. The Sulak seem well-suited to early combat as well.
