Print

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

[jocan2003]

Paying em off is the best strategy.  And yea... shadow age does not amount to much, considering that all you are really doing is waiting for like 3-4 research things to get done before you are spaceworthy.  It could have been expanded a bit more.

Well it did expand the pirate side if you choose to start as pirate, maybe you missed that part. Playing as pirate is another game and strategy, i love playing as pirate now .

[jhxmt]

Yeah, I think the biggest chunk of Age of Shadows is the wholesale changes to the way pirates function, whether you're playing as them or as an empire, and then the actual making-them-playable aspect of it.  That does add quite a lot to the game.

I also tend to find that being an empire in the Age of Shadows adds a bit more challenge (for me, at least) as well, as I always tend to start running short on funds to pay protection and/or end up with a Raider type pirate near me that prefers robbing me blind to, well, extorting me blind. 

[aristabulus]

...  I'm really hoping they will release some sort of gold version with all expansions at some point too.

A quote splice from the Pandora thread with relevant info (emphasis mine):

Distant Worlds was a complex one. The system was not designed with the content and the features separately forcing players to get expansion 1 before expansion 2 and so on and only with expansion 3 do you get all the features.
...
We are also doing a combined pack for Distant Worlds which is going to be out just after Christmas.
...

[Jacob/Lee]

Bumping this, since I recently bought this game and all the expansions and I'm having lots of fun.

I started in a spiral galaxy, right on the edge before the circle of gas clouds starts. Pirates are brutal. My empire, the Sol Alignment, a feudal human empire, was kicked around by multiple pirate factions for years while I slowly researched and built up my fleet. One band, Black Minerals, was particularly skilled. A smuggling group, they frequently raided my mining stations and my new colonies, quickly hoarding wealth and minerals. They used all of this to build a large space port in place of their dinky little hideout and started mass-producing warships, continuing to raid my colonies and one of my neighbor's.

With the help of recovered abandoned capital ships, I managed to fight off these raids and buy the time needed to research drone tech and some improved weapons, building my fleet as I went. I put together a retaliation fleet of ten escorts(armed with a mix of torpedos and railguns), fifteen frigates/destroyers (railguns/maxos blasters), a few cruisers (railguns/assault pods), and three carriers (railguns/five drone bays each). Using this fleet, I warped into their hideout and turned the space port to dust. Black Minerals immediately set up a new hideout in a system I discovered instantly thanks to my advisors suggesting a mercenary strike team, which I also reduced to dust. After that, Black Minerals surrendered and what surviving equipment they had joined my empire (read: a bunch of freighters turned over to the private sector and some mining stations).

Despite this victory, I'm still in a pretty shitty situation. My empire is tiny, holding four colonized planets, and nearly every empire has better tech than I do. I place either in the middle or at the bottom of every category except strategic value, for whatever reason. I'm also nearly last place in my victory conditions progress. My fleet is 72 strong, and most of those ships are orbiting my colonies fighting off raids from the other pirate bands that keep breaking their fleets over my massively superior recovered capital ships. This game is awesome.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At least I'm rolling in dough.

[Xardalas]

Damn. I'm loving this game. Spent the last few days playing it as Pirates. rather fun though I do seem to have issues with economy occasionally. Haven't even tried the empire aspects of this yet, I just jumped straight into Pirating, since that was what had caught my attention. 

Thinking bout starting up a new game as a raider and retiring my construction ship at start and retrofitting my spaceport to completely lack any kind of construction facilities if that's possible. Kinda interested in seeing if subsisting entirely off of raiding is even possible.

[Jacob/Lee]

Pirates already can't build new construction ships unless they board them or build a hidden base + fortress on a colony they fully control. Taking off all the construction yards only prevents you from building new escorts/frigates/freighters/etc., which would make for a hell of an uphill battle. You won't even be able to repair battle damage.

Aside from that, though, it should be totally possible. You can board ships for everything you need and take over mining stations for resources. Money could be made by raiding colonies and smuggling jobs, though you would need either a lot of raids or a small active fleet to keep up with maintenance costs. Smuggling is a more stable source of income.

[Xardalas]

Yeah, I knew that about construction ships. And the uphill battle is kind of the point. I know I'll have nigh a chance in hell of winning. It's more of seeing how long I could sustain the fleet.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Thinking about getting this game for christmas, is the whole game + expansions worth the 70 odd dollars?

I certainly enjoy 4x's, I just want to know if you guys think the whole thing is worth the money!

[Zangi]

I personally think it is worth it.  Already spent many many hours on this game.  And will when I rotate back into this game in the future.

Just gotta remember, you can automate away the parts of the game you don't care about dealing with, while just focusing on what you want to do. 
Like how you can leave diplomacy totally up to the AI... and play admiral, commanding the offensive strikes and defensive interceptions in times of war.  Then feel the burn of indignation when the peacelovers decide to make peace on the precipice of your glory. 
You can still attack em regardless, but it will sully your empire's reputation and restart the war.  Plus, you can make it so that your AI is less willing to come to peace, their goal in war being subjugation or bust, to a reasonable level...

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Awesome, I think I'll be picking it up then!

[forsaken1111]

I personally think it is worth it.  Already spent many many hours on this game.  And will when I rotate back into this game in the future.

Just gotta remember, you can automate away the parts of the game you don't care about dealing with, while just focusing on what you want to do. 
Like how you can leave diplomacy totally up to the AI... and play admiral, commanding the offensive strikes and defensive interceptions in times of war.  Then feel the burn of indignation when the peacelovers decide to make peace on the precipice of your glory. 
You can still attack em regardless, but it will sully your empire's reputation and restart the war.  Plus, you can make it so that your AI is less willing to come to peace, their goal in war being subjugation or bust, to a reasonable level...

I do it the other way. I make policy decisions, choose research, and handle the diplomacy while leaving the military to do its thing. I will often rage at the incompetent commanders, or revel in their victories. The game does a decent job at making any playstyle viable. You could automate everything and just control the covert operations agents if you wanted to. Roleplay yourself as a "section 31" organization within your empire.

[TripJack]

I don't think i could ever shell out 70 bucks for a game if i didn't try it out first...

But if you are really desperate for space 4x I guess I'd say go for it. Good 4x games are few and far between, and, in spite of not being turn-based, DW is one of them.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I don't think i could ever shell out 70 bucks for a game if i didn't try it out first...

But if you are really desperate for space 4x I guess I'd say go for it. Good 4x games are few and far between, and, in spite of not being turn-based, DW is one of them.

I actually prefer realtime with pausable! And it's not like I just saw this game today or anything, i've followed it for a little while and check up on it now and then, I figured with the discount this is the only time where I could get the game at a reasonable cost (I was a console gamer for years where most games I got were 60 bucks, so 70 isn't really pushin' now-a-days, especially considering how relatively cheap most of the games I got on steam were).

[Zangi]

Yea, Distant Worlds does not go on discount very often.  It will never go to Steam level discounts.

[Astral]

I'm hoping it gets discounted at some point... I know their argument behind their current level of pricing, but think that a game that has been out 2 1/2 years should take a price dive after a while. I don't expect Steam levels of discounting, but $65 for a game + expansions is a bit high.

I do so want it, though. If they come out with that post-Christmas bundle, I'd consider it. I loved Star Ruler, and it would give me something else to tackle waiting for Star Ruler 2. Would love it even more if it was on a distribution platform such as Steam, mostly out of convenience for updates. Grand strategy games have always been an interest of mine, having dedicated a considerable amount of time growing up on Romance of the Three Kingdoms and similar games.

Considering looking for a "demo," but I'll stick to Youtube video browsing for the time being. I saw the argument against a real demo from some of the devs too, and partially conflicted on that portion (tl;dr: time spent making a demo would not increase sales enough to be worth it).