Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Retropunch]

So...
I've just started playing what is probably the most mammoth 4x game ever created. It makes a marathon Civilization game look like some sort of shortened version of frogger.
Please send help.

Seriously though, it's...astonishing. If you've not heard about it (as I hadn't really), it's basically like a galactic game of Civilization (so dozens of civilization games going on simultaneously), with space travel, hundreds of units and techs to research, diplomacy and intergalactic trade and player hyperventilation. It's basically a game version of Dune. I can't really explain it well enough, so here's a video that explains it better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzPWFZw7Yec

So, does anyone play it? Can anyone help me make sense of it?

[E. Albright]

You need to say whether you're playing with any mods, for starters, and to make sure you've got the last version, as it was buggy and never really completed. Which is truly tragic, as it's one of my all-time favs, but still.

[Retropunch]

You need to say whether you're playing with any mods, for starters, and to make sure you've got the last version, as it was buggy and never really completed. Which is truly tragic, as it's one of my all-time favs, but still.

I've got the realism/Emperor Wars mod which seems to be the most regularly updated/most worked on one. I've read that it starts you a bit further forward (more units) so perhaps that's why it feels especially overwhelming?

I'm enjoying it, I just have no idea what's going on.

[mainiac]

Strategically it's actually pretty straight forward in singleplayer.  Get more settlements to get yourself more income.  Conquering works but you can just spam engineers which have a very high return on investment.  Spam military units with your money and build a bunch of laboratories.  If your military score is higher then another house they will fear you and wont try to extort you.  The AI isn't proactive at all so just build a high tech army and invade their homeworlds to steal their scepters and you've as good as won.

Against players it's a whole different ballgame.

[Majestic7]

Emperor of the Fading Suns is pretty amazing, the guys went and made a RPG based on the fluff later. Unfortunately it suffers from a certain influx of micromanagement I found tedious. Basically, managing multiple planets at the same time is a pain. This is double true when you have rebellions cropping up and so forth.

I haven't played it in a while, but in ye olde times I constructed an army and cleared out the initial planet while building infrastructure. Then I invaded and took over a neighbouring planet for various resources they are bound to have. Having a bunch of assault landers for quickly moving troops was always a wise investment, even when still limited to a single planet.

Any specific stuff you want to ask about?

[a1s]

make sure you've got the last version, as it was buggy and never really completed. Which is truly tragic, as it's one of my all-time favs, but still.

Has anything been done about that? The game had a whole lot of potential but it was broken (or perhaps "dummied out") entirely apart from the occasional bug. I really hope we'll see a decent remake one day.

[mainiac]

I really hope we'll see a decent remake one day.

Well yell at some sap until he gets off his lazy butt and makes one.

[Retropunch]

make sure you've got the last version, as it was buggy and never really completed. Which is truly tragic, as it's one of my all-time favs, but still.

Has anything been done about that? The game had a whole lot of potential but it was broken (or perhaps "dummied out") entirely apart from the occasional bug. I really hope we'll see a decent remake one day.

There's a lot of patches out (Nova/Hyperion and Emperor Wars(the only one I've played)) and they've apparently improved it a lot.

I think the problem is that at the beginning there's just WAY too much to do. I mean in the first turn I've probably got over a hundred units to move, and I just can't see myself ever coping with all that, especially if it grows.

Do any of the other fixes/original game get it down to an earlier start? If I only had units on one planet and then moved on from there I think I could actually handle it, but at the moment it just seems like there's just wayyyy too much to do.

[Boksi]

make sure you've got the last version, as it was buggy and never really completed. Which is truly tragic, as it's one of my all-time favs, but still.

Has anything been done about that? The game had a whole lot of potential but it was broken (or perhaps "dummied out") entirely apart from the occasional bug. I really hope we'll see a decent remake one day.

There's a lot of patches out (Nova/Hyperion and Emperor Wars(the only one I've played)) and they've apparently improved it a lot.

I think the problem is that at the beginning there's just WAY too much to do. I mean in the first turn I've probably got over a hundred units to move, and I just can't see myself ever coping with all that, especially if it grows.

Do any of the other fixes/original game get it down to an earlier start? If I only had units on one planet and then moved on from there I think I could actually handle it, but at the moment it just seems like there's just wayyyy too much to do.

Pretty sure both the original and most patches start you off with one planet and a presence on Byzantium II. The Emperor Wars mod is the only one that starts you out with a much bigger demesne.

[Ghazkull]

The Emperor Wars mod is the most complex and adds new mechanics and units and techs in their hundreds. Start with the vanilla game and play that first. It has an easier(read less complex) start and is generally easier to start.

[Robsoie]

So i've got that EotFS core (patched 1.4) and from there i have the choice of :
- play that (apparently very buggy from what i read)
or
- install the Nova patch/mod
http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/nova/home.htm
or
- install the Hyperion patch/mod
http://hyperion.twarriors.com/hyperion.html
or
- install gravity+emperor wars mod
https://sites.google.com/site/emperorwarsfadingsuns/

From what i gather in this thread the gravity+emperor wars makes it more complex and so is not recommended for beginning and learning the ropes.

So i'm left with vanilla, nova or hyperion.
i guess vanilla is out of question as from what i read it's buggy and buggy and AI does nothing, not exactly what i'm willing to play with.

Then, what's the most recommended to benefit from bugfixes + AI improvement without transforming the game into something else too complex to start with ? Nova or Hyperion ?

[Boksi]

IIRC, Hyperion is more complex than Nova.

[Robsoie]

Thank you, i'll give a try with Nova then.

by the way, there are 2 files to put in your EotFS directory to benefit from windowed mode without your desktop going with 256 colors :
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/emperorfadingsuns/discussions/0/882959527753969880/

[a1s]

- install gravity+emperor wars mod
https://sites.google.com/site/emperorwarsfadingsuns/

I heard (this is 100% hearsay and rumor-mongering) that 'wars fixes a lot of the AI passivity that plagued the old game (it still plagued Nova back when I checked it out 2-3 years ago) and (or I guess including?) slightly improves diplomacy.

[Robsoie]

Well, let's say that my first contact with Nova was a bit overwhelming, but mostly because the interface to manage all that stuff isn't really well done, sometime i clicked to move a group and it resulted as if i had clicked to "next troop" , doing nothing else, sometime i moved the troops as wanted, and funnily sometime the troops refused to move again after that.

Annoying too when you want to bombard and select your space fleet, you have to separate manually the bombard-able ships from the rest because the game isn't smart enough to allow the bombard to happen if other ships can't do that.
Many little annoyances like that pilling up with each other.

And i told my nobles to be more cautious when having sex with random women

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But they never listen.

The AI was indeed badly impressing me by its high passivity, i attacked without any provocation a few things (you can't do any war on Byzanthium apparently) on some planet and after lots of turns, no retaliation
For fun i decided to max the taxes and the "other thing i have not yet looking deeply into" while increasing my troop pay to max, just to see how rebellions would do.

Rebellion of course happened immediately, then i waited on purpose and no rebel ever attacked my loyal silly high paid troopers.
And no other house ever try to benefit from my power crumbling by launching any invasion.

I'll give a look to that emperor stuff to see if at least the AI is more believably reactive but looking at the shortcoming of the interface regarding the complexity of the units in Nova, i'm not sure i'll have much more fun.