Hot posts in thread: Things I'd like to see in ISG (sooner than later!)

Well, I finally put down the Wiki long enough to play again, and my pacifistic strategy may have finally failed me. In 20 sectors I found only one medium terran planet with eco 0 to settle, then I met the Kaek and thought "Oh, good, in a few turns I'll have a trade treaty." They promptly declared war and the 1 frigate I've seen definitely outclasses my 2 starting ones. Though I haven't seen them again in 20 turns or so, I've had time to quickly research nuclear missiles and class 1 shields and pump out 3 frigates, which they were nice enough to let me do--they were 1 sector from my homeworld defended only by 1 starting frigate but were kind enough not to overrun me.

I'm about to see low tech early game warfare--they are stuck in a corner behind me, I don't think I can talk my way out of this war.

 

I like the loyality -o-meter on the leaders character sheet. So you always know what the opinion of the npc towards you is. You can improve/worsen the scala per fullfilling quest etc. I suggest introducing the same or similar system for diplomatic relations so you have the friendship the alien empire has for you expressed by an explicite number, improveable/worsening by quests, treaties, relations to their enemies etc. Important is that you know what number will be added/subtracted due to your actions. Of course there could also be events which modify the numbers of the aliens where you dont have influence on it. (eg. xenophobic factions which arise to power, diplomatic failures, erratic behaviour etc.)

 

Ideally that strategy should get you slaughtered on the harder levels, you would have been a prime target in MoO2

 

Actually closed borders would hurt me, because my goal is also to control every source of strategic resources (well, except for all the gas giants) in the game to get absurdly high bonuses. Since I completely neglect my military--I build an extra starting level frigate just when I need a place to put a ship leader--I rely on rapid exploration to establish outposts before the AI's borders cover them, establishing colonies along the way (even if they're on less than ideal planets) just to expand the reach of remote scanning. Without declaring war, this means travelling through their empires to stick a colony on the other side.

For some reason the AI has never declared war on me--they even leave my outposts standing once their borders encompass them--even though through the midgame I have nothing but a handful of frigates with starting lasers. I don't know if they're afraid of my non-military techs or just consider my military too pathetic to bother with.

By the time I declare war I've really already won the game (actually having to vote against myself at the Galactic Councils), but need to get rid of their outposts on the last hidden systems--I rush the military trees and have absurd amounts of production, so I quickly raise a force that far outclasses them, and my battle stations are enough to defend my planets.

As the AI improves I expect that strategic won't keep working--if it declared war at any point I would have been a very easy target.

 

Yes, I see. I'm a minimalist, and I enjoy the low tech early game. (Only once did I actually fill all six ship infrastructure levels and that was for testing purposes). By the time I could fully max out all infra levels on a large world, the game would be over. But judging from your response, I could see closing borders as actually benefiting a player with your style in some cases, it could allow you to focus on fully exploiting a more compact, but taller Empire.

 

I never have enough building slots on a large world, even with the +3 from infrastructure specialization. But we probably mean different things by "enough"--you probably mean enough for all buildings that are really useful. I want to build *everything* there, dammit! I want my homeworld to be the perfect Eternal City for all time. It can't be that if it isn't Huge.

Understand, I'm not making a pragmatic argument.

I'll admit I'm not the typical target audience, but I've been playing 4x's since Civ 1 came out. It is very rare I play one to a victory screen--I have my own goals I set for myself, like completing the tech tree before turn X, and building every unique building in the world in my capital. There are 6 wonders and 6 empire buildings--medium + 3 spec = 10, 2 short. Large + 3 spec = 12, just enough, but have to destroy even the orbital station. Huge + 3 = 14, which still only leaves 2, not enough, I can at least keep the orbital station.... What respectable colony isn't going to have an orbital station?

 

The fallacy of that argument is that subterranean also affects the HW, along with every single colony you will ever create, and increased building slots are fairly easy to come by through other means. The cost is not in line with the benefit, or with other picks. It is also not in line with a small HW netting -2 picks.

Yes, all true, however I would love to see it as a diplomatic choice, it is too realistic to leave out. Making it an option only affects the AI as a player could choose to exercise this or not. Speaking of the AI, I've played ISG enough to know that it could actually be beneficial as right now it tends to expand in a manner that can makes defending itself difficult. As far as being boxed in, it is almost impossible for this to happen early on as the "zone of control" (or if you prefer color coded territory), is rather small in the early game. War would be one way to deal with it if it happens, good diplomatic relations would be another.

 

There is a good reason for increasing the size of the homeworld to cost a high number of picks--it has a head start on all other colonies, so is the natural place you'd want to build empire buildings that take up building slots and benefit from increased population.

I regularly take the pick for that reason, but I'd gladly spend even more points for a huge home world--I'd take huge home world over subterranean any day just to know I can build my capital buildings early and get the most of that them.

I'm not saying that's necessarily a rational thing for a min-maxer to do, but if large was 3 and huge was 6, I'd take huge. Maybe even if huge was 8. I just like my capital to be--well, my capital.

@Ashbery76, what size map are you playing on, and what difficult? The algorithm has a lot to deal with because it's trying to insure starting conditions match difficulty levels, etc., and the medium sized galaxy really isn't *that* large. The closet I've started to anyone was 3 sectors if you count diagonally, usually 5+.

The only thing I hated about no closed borders in other games was the AI putting a settlement right next to my city. The zones of control prevent that. I was a little disturbed seeing AI fleets using me as a highway my first game, but now I kind of like it.

And remember closed borders work both ways--you could end up completely blocked in and unable to explore with an unlucky start. Though I suppose that would give more of a reason to declare war.

Maybe as an option down the line--but that will also take a lot of work on the AI to handle it and the hemming in tactics that come with it.

 

That's disturbing to hear, I must have had a string of uneven starts as it seems more often than not, the opposite is happening. If the game is already set up that way, perhaps my own experiences will even out over the course of time. I do understand the appeal of randomness, but at the stage of proficiency I have reached with the game, it is too tempting to not quickly conquer an AI when it is near. The consequences of doing so tend to make things easier. No matter then, I'll observe this more when 1.05 releases and see what I find out.

 

Well, as long as we are making wishes, I may as well add three of my own. (for now)

I would like an option that gives the ability to set equal starting distance for the factions in a new game. Currently this is random, and more often than not, the races start clustered together in one area of the map. The drawback with this is multi-fold. For a new player, it can be challenging to survive in such an environment. For the seasoned veteran, it is too easy to rush a nearby neighbor and gain an early insurmountable advantage. Lastly, early contact tends to make the game map “feel” smaller than it is. In my opinion an option that allows the player to put maximum distance between factions at the start, would be most beneficial.

I would love the ability to close borders, it would be a great addition to diplomacy and introduce a new aspect to the existing game. Right now both the player and AI are free to not only transverse through someone else’s territory, but actually explore the systems within. Closing borders would mean that neither of these cases would be possible as they would be considered a hostile act. Ideally it would be best if violating borders did not trigger war instantly, (like an attack does), but rather triggered the option of how to respond (do nothing and the borders become open again, or declare war)

Another area I would like addressed is the cost of picks when creating a race. For example, a small HW = -2 picks, a large HW = 4 picks and subterranean =6. Think about this for a moment, in the first two cases you either lose or gain 4 maximum population capacity on the HW, yet the costs are not balanced. In the last case, you gain extra population capacity in every single world you colonize, including the HW. Perhaps it’s just me but it seems a bit off. There are other instances as well where the cost doesn’t seem to justify the benefit, but I understand this is a tricky thing, many of the current races would be affected by adjustments made here.

 

Population Migration should copy what stelllaris did with race policies so have choose a race to be slave,free and it will have a bonus,etc but will automove to other planets.Manual movements of pops is a micro nightmare I don't want to see.

 

I'm not sure I understand, Davor. You know you can just hit the <ENTER> key to end the turn, right? I don't find that cumbersome. If it just passed turns automatically until something was built, you'd miss the opportunity to respond to the appearance of enemy fleets, etc.

 

Do I need it? No it's not a game breaker but would make the game better. Maybe it's my play style. One game I clicked like 10 or so turns for something to happen. The beginning of the game was so slow. Now that I found out I can put a setting for myself as Magistrate. I think that is what is called, the "easiest" setting game goes faster but there is still 5-10 turns of just hitting end turn.

I have no idea how easy it is to implement. I don't know how much it would cost and be worth to do it and if it would be worth time and money to do so. I don't know, maybe it's a physiological thing. It's we hit "end turn" and then when there is something to do, the game stops. This way it feels like we are only hitting end turn once, and not 5 or 10 times or more, if that makes sense.

 

Thanks will try it, my drive is a SDD.

 

Thanks Adam - glad to hear that my suggestions are all inline with your future thoughts as well. Can't wait to see how these things shake out in th the months (hopefully years?) ahead. I've been recommending this game to quite a few people as well.

 

I'm also not seeing many dead turns during a game. Even early on it's pretty tight. And I almost always have stuff to check each turn even if there isn't a lot going on as there's usually some news on the right side.

I wonder if some people just haven't seen all the things you can do yet.

I am getting a little bit of slowdown on Huge at turn 350 but that's probably just my lack of memory.