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[Zangi]

So anyone know where you actually get the steam key?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3615511

[forsaken1111]

Thanks. So DW:U on steam won't unlock for 10 more hours but its available NOW from the matrix games site.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Alas, I would have liked to see more in depth politics in this game, it was all quite amazing, but i've never see a 4x do the inner workings of a government well. Of course people argue that by its very nature a 4x should be about war, but the enjoyment is in actually playing the game and fighting, not winning. I think at least.

[Anvilfolk]

Galactic Civilizations 2 did the not-necessarily-fighting thing quite well. You could win by culturally expanding, or playing other races against each other.

I hope this goes on massive sale at some point, though I really shouldn't get into it

[Retropunch]

Alas, I would have liked to see more in depth politics in this game, it was all quite amazing, but i've never see a 4x do the inner workings of a government well. Of course people argue that by its very nature a 4x should be about war, but the enjoyment is in actually playing the game and fighting, not winning. I think at least.

Check out Imperia here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138280.0) as that's basically doing exactly that - although it's in very, very early alpha.

GalCiv 2 did it to an extent, but I find with pretty much all 4x games they just descend into a long hard slog of either turn based battling, or very slow cultural pushing bit by bit, backed up with enough force to win. I'd prefer a 4x game where you could sort of co-exist but with enough going off that dominating everything was the only goal.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I've got my proverbially eye on imperia, and I think it's an excellent start, but i'd like to see what the combat is before i'm sold on it.

[Flare]

Their pricing is still out of this world, I see. Distant Worlds seems like a great game, but they've ensured they stay niche with that price tag. I guess I'll buy it when it is for sale for 20 bucks or something. I don't get it; is it really that hard to understand that many sales at smaller price gets you more customers than a few sales at higher price?

Low pricing is generally useful for things that people will buy in quantities greater than one, and is perishable. But for something that will last forever, and for something in which there's barely any competition around, pricing high early on to catch all the people who will pay that high price is a sound financial strategy. The important thing to keep in mind is that the price is likely not static, as they gradually lower the price, each bracket of buyers will buy in at that price. Once you get to discount levels, a far bigger sum of revenue would be generated than if they went to sale right away and sold it at discount prices.

Those people who would buy the game at 60 or 50 or 40 bucks will all buy it at under 40 or 30. Putting it on sale right away wastes the potential revenue that these people are willing to put up with.

[Astral]

The only thing I'm glad for about this release (and which made me spring for it, with the discount I had for previous sets) was the chance to simply download the game and any updates for it through Steam, rather than an archaic web form with misspellings and some grammar lackings.

[Retropunch]

Their pricing is still out of this world, I see. Distant Worlds seems like a great game, but they've ensured they stay niche with that price tag. I guess I'll buy it when it is for sale for 20 bucks or something. I don't get it; is it really that hard to understand that many sales at smaller price gets you more customers than a few sales at higher price?

Low pricing is generally useful for things that people will buy in quantities greater than one, and is perishable. But for something that will last forever, and for something in which there's barely any competition around, pricing high early on to catch all the people who will pay that high price is a sound financial strategy. The important thing to keep in mind is that the price is likely not static, as they gradually lower the price, each bracket of buyers will buy in at that price. Once you get to discount levels, a far bigger sum of revenue would be generated than if they went to sale right away and sold it at discount prices.

Those people who would buy the game at 60 or 50 or 40 bucks will all buy it at under 40 or 30. Putting it on sale right away wastes the potential revenue that these people are willing to put up with.

I think there's plenty of competition around in terms of 4x games, we've had loads recently. Admittedly, it is a little bit different, but I'd definitely say it has some competition. I think the main thing is that it just seems offensively high somehow. I know it's slightly irrational as they can charge whatever they feel it is worth, but it just seems as though they've added very little (and things that help them as much as anyone else- imagine if someone did an AMAZING star wars mod!? loads of people would buy it just for that) just so they can charge it at full price again, which seems a little bit money-grabbing.

Still, I'm excited to see what mods come out, but I doubt I'll buy this release unless the post-release additions are spectacular.

[Vendayn]

Well, now this looks epic. First 4x strategy game that looks actually epic enough for me to buy.

*looks in wallet*
*dust falls out*


*looks in steam wallet*
"52 cents!"
*tries buying game with 52 cents*
"aww not enough money "

[Fikes]

I have been hoping someone will do an up-to-date review of the game. I am lazy and don't really want to sort through all of the early posts to get a feel for what the game is like.

Is it similar to Star Drive or Sins of a Solar empire? Or is it more like EU or Crusader Kings?

[puke]

Ooh,  none of the above, really.  CK might be closest.  Id compare it most to moo / civ / space empires.

It really does have its own thing going, though.  Allows hands-off macro management like moo3 tried to do, but it works better and you can choose to micro as much as you want.

I think the interaction with the ai driven civilian economy is the most brilliant and ground breaking thing.

I hear great things about the "shadows" expansion  STL play, and playable pirate / merc factions.  This latest one should open up the toybox - multiple galaxies, mega constructions, etc.

[Deon]

I would say it's similar to Aurora with much less tediousness/without crazy complexity, yet with all cool elements in place.
Also it's somewhat close to Space Empires 5.

The AI is quite good, and as Puke said the automation is amazing, so you can manually control and tank your economy as much as you want (it's really fun in the early steps of the game), and you can automate a huge empire as well which makes playing long games actually enjoyable rather than boring.

Also I've started an interface mod: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3618050

[Flare]

I think there's plenty of competition around in terms of 4x games, we've had loads recently.

Broadly in terms of 4X yeah there is competition, but there is scant space 4X games around for the past few years. In any case, the type of 4X that this game does is notably far different than anything on the market. The private industry AI runs a lot of the empire by itself.

I think the main thing is that it just seems offensively high somehow. I know it's slightly irrational as they can charge whatever they feel it is worth, but it just seems as though they've added very little (and things that help them as much as anyone else- imagine if someone did an AMAZING star wars mod!? loads of people would buy it just for that) just so they can charge it at full price again, which seems a little bit money-grabbing.

While I recognize there is a real difference when it comes to pricing in relative to other games, what is too much for a game is largely subjective. People past the stage of being young adults often have a lot of money on their hands. But more importantly, the developer of this game has been selling this game for a long time, as much as it might seem unintuitive they might have a good reason to keep pursuing this strategy.

Relative to what they were charging on their old distributor, for all the games in this pack the cost that I calculated for the game and all of its expansions was well over a hundred dollars. THAT was obscene. For Universe I imagine it's more for people like me that really liked what they saw, but the hundred forty + dollars for a single game software was far too much.

[Deon]

(and things that help them as much as anyone else- imagine if someone did an AMAZING star wars mod!? loads of people would buy it just for that)

...

Still, I'm excited to see what mods come out, but I doubt I'll buy this release unless the post-release additions are spectacular.

I will definitely make Master of Orion mod. This game is what I wanted Master of Orion 3 to be (and got disappointed), so I will dump into it as much time as I can afford to.

There's already an amazing Mass effect mod for an earlier version, so it has to be updated sooner or later for the Universe release.