Topic: Lost Empire: Immortals

[KDR_11k]

I bought that game impulsively. It's a 4X, turnbased and all. I don't mind the turnbasedness though since turns are fairly short (no deciding half the game in one turn and if you waste a turn or two it's rarely a big loss) and simultaneous (not one player gets to move while the others watch their units getting raped). In larger games it can take a pretty long time (30 seconds or so) to compute a turn but the next patch will reduce that greatly (the beta patch gives me 5 second turns in a game that used to take 30+).

I don't know how it stacks up to the popular ones like GalCiv 2 but I've seen some complaints about GalCiv's combat system, sounded like LE's is more complex since it considers weapon ranges as well instead of just size and having a different defense that deflects them. Combat is simulated without user interaction though, you can tell your ships to use certain tactics and they'll execute those but that's it, you can't command them in a battle, just watch the replay to see what you did right/wrong (pretty useful though, it'd be hard to tell why some battles went the way they did just from the results screen).

Many reviews say it's very complex (and has a high mental workload) but I can't say I agree, the interface is pretty simple and few things need much micromanagement, to make a planet fulfill a certain purpose you just click one of the purpose icons (farm, mine, factory, ...) and the rest is fully automated.

BTW, I liked this review because it just fails so hard in every way imaginable.

EDIT: This one too. I love how he complains about a turn based game needing more action and how he considers the fact that it plays in space novel (hello, the entire 4X genre is in space!). As a bonus he even complains about the simplest things being too complex (hao I maek invasion? Grab troops, give invasion order, duh!).

[UltimatePartyBear]

I don't know how it stacks up to the popular ones like GalCiv 2 but I've seen some complaints about GalCiv's combat system, sounded like LE's is more complex since it considers weapon ranges as well instead of just size and having a different defense that deflects them. Combat is simulated without user interaction though, you can tell your ships to use certain tactics and they'll execute those but that's it, you can't command them in a battle, just watch the replay to see what you did right/wrong (pretty useful though, it'd be hard to tell why some battles went the way they did just from the results screen).

The only complaints I've heard about GalCiv 2's combat are that it's completely noninteractive.  I think that's intentional, since it's a game about leading an empire, not commanding armies, but I wouldn't be surprised if they add some tactical decision-making in someday.

Weapon ranges in space don't make much sense to me.  It's not like there's air resistance or gravity to deal with.  I can't fault GalCiv for leaving that out.  If there's anything that seems left out, it's the ability to miss completely.  It's like the technology for tracking targets is universal and perfect, and there are no countermeasures (not counting the missile defense techs that are specifically described that way).

hello, the entire 4X genre is in space!

Civilization isn't, and it's probably the most well known 4X series.

[KDR_11k]

I always thought the Civ genre had a different name.

Weapon ranges in space would probably be effective ranges, a cannonball won't be slowed down but making it hit the target becomes very hard after a certain distance (and real space combat distances would likely be a few thousand kilometers, if not even more, like hundreds of thousands where even lightspeed is no longer instant) and real armies have instructions not to fire when a shot is unlikely to have an effect. Other weapons like lasers lose coherence over distance to the point of not being damaging enough anymore. Either way, it's a game so limiting ranges makes sense for interesting gameplay, it's just more fun when distances mean something as opposed to just having a standoff between two forces.

The complaints I read about galciv was that you basically mount rocks, paper and scissors on your ships and then shoot at the enemy rock, paper and scissors armor, i.e. the weapons are essentially the same except you need a different defense against each (some smart guy said "but some guns take more space and deal more damage!" which just evens out to damage/size).

[UltimatePartyBear]

I don't want to completely take over this thread talking about GalCiv, but I wouldn't call it rock, paper, scissors.  I think it just kind of looks like it because there are three different types, so people misuse the RPS metaphor to describe it.  Regardless, it's at least more interesting than simple attack value versus defense value.

[KDR_11k]

The RPS talk starts when a strategy game has clear-cut counters where one unit will beat another on account of being strong against that other type instead of a tactical advantage.

[UltimatePartyBear]

But isn't that a strategic advantage?  You only have that advantage if you pay attention to what the enemy is doing and plan accordingly.

[KDR_11k]

It's something that is decided when you build your units as opposed to when the battle happens. With RPS you either have a unit/weapon or you don't and that decides victory or defeat whereas in a tactical advantage system you win if you can make the battle happen on your terms or are a better tactician than your enemy. Throughout history battles were won and lost not through having the weapon that beats the enemy army but having the tactical advantage, using chokepoints, formations, advantageous terrain and striking the enemy weak points. While on a tactical battlefield a fielded unit might not be capable of dealing with every threat (which is what other units are for) on a strategic scale you will rarely if ever see a "group" moving without equipment to deal with every threat there is. Striking parts of a group to disable a capability grants an advantage but in games it often ends up being "I made pikemen, you made cavalry, I win".

[UltimatePartyBear]

Sure, but that's a different game.  If you want tactics, play a tactics game.  I doubt you'll find many set in space, anyway, where there's no such thing as high ground or terrain or choke points.

And in GalCiv it's not quite so simple as "I have lasers, you have point defense, I win."  That point defense still counts for some defense (specifically the square root of its nominal value), the ship's hit points could still soak up enough damage to let it win the battle, the enemy could have better logistics and therefore more ships in his formation, and even if you wipe them out, they get to fire at least once, so multiple battles will wear your ships down anyway.  Your enemies will also start countering your technology, too, and you're likely to start seeing ships with two or three different kinds of weaponry and defense by midgame.  Beyond that, if you get to a point in the game at which your fleet is completely unstoppable, there's little point in continuing.  You can simply force everyone to ally with you and win the game right away.

[NWR_insanolord]

If you want tactics in a 4X go play Master of Orion 2 with Tactical Combat turned on. Fully customizable ships and battles play out tactically in a turn-based fashion. One of my all time favorites. The only problem is that with big fleets the battles last a while and there's no way to save during them.

[KDR_11k]

Bear: Still sounds pretty limited, LE has things like electronic warfare that can disable weapons, screw with accuracy, affect range, etc. You can have the best weapons in the world, a fleet with the right EW equipment won't even let you land a hit. Tactics in space may not have terrain but they do allow for things like eliminating enemy support ships, in LE you can have a few destroyers flank around the main combat zone to engage the enemy long-range support or unarmed units (e.g. troop carriers) with powerful but shorter ranged weapons, tell ships to stay back and snipe stuff, set them to EW support for your frontline or rear units, etc. It may not be the most elaborate thing but it does make battles more interesting than Final Fantasy's.

insano: I guess noone ever managed to beat MOO2. I don't think I've ever heard of any game being considered better than it (some said GalCiv 2 is but many consider MOO2's combat system a huge advantage).

[UltimatePartyBear]

Bear: Still sounds pretty limited, LE has things like electronic warfare that can disable weapons, screw with accuracy, affect range, etc. You can have the best weapons in the world, a fleet with the right EW equipment won't even let you land a hit.

How are those not simply the same basic defense modifiers couched in more technical sounding jargon?  You can call it electronic warfare, but it's still just variables in the damage equation.

For that matter, how isn't that RPS?  It's determined when you build the ship, after all.

Tactics in space may not have terrain but they do allow for things like eliminating enemy support ships, in LE you can have a few destroyers flank around the main combat zone to engage the enemy long-range support or unarmed units (e.g. troop carriers) with powerful but shorter ranged weapons, tell ships to stay back and snipe stuff, set them to EW support for your frontline or rear units, etc. It may not be the most elaborate thing but it does make battles more interesting than Final Fantasy's.

That's great.  Really.  It sounds like LE's a good game.  Does it allow much customization?

[KDR_11k]

EW does not affect the ship using it (or does it? not sure) but its allies or enemies and only a certain number of them, plus to have effective EW you need to use fregates which are obviously much smaller than the destroyers or cruisers you'd slug it out with otherwise (of course you CAN stuff the EW tech into the larger ships, fregates just can carry the most of it and get a 50% bonus on the effectivity). If the fregate gets killed your EW bonuses disappear.

Yep, you can customize a lot. A ship has a number of slots of different types that can each hold one type of equipment but as many of that as you want (e.g. a light weapons slot can take 10 lasers or 1 but not 1 laser and 1 missile). There's a total weight limit (I call it weight since it doesn't change the number of slots, just the amount of stuff you can load onto the ship in total). Fairly standard deal AFAIK. The only limits are that your ship has to have an engine and a hull, anything else is optional and if you don't have weapons on the thing you can tell it to stay away from the battle. Research is pretty freeform too, each tech has a level (0 means not usable) and you can increase that as much as you want, it just needs more and more effort per level the higher it goes. There's no tech tree though, a tech becomes available once the total level in its category is high enough and then you can level it. May be a bit limiting but on the other hand you don't get laser 1, laser 2, superlaser, etc researches, just laser so it's less fluff.

[thomasz]

We have mission or just attack the other one.

[Crimm]

We have mission or just attack the other one.

I was told we wouldn't get any new missions until we received the new systems.