Feb 03, 2007  Sit back and watch the Space Empires V Trailer courtesy of WhichGame.net. It's the post that started it all: spoilered for sheer length. Posts #2 and #3 have info that's far more relevant to the LP in progress. An LP thread? That's right. Inspired by the Something Awful LP archive, boredom, and a desire to see an LP that doesn't die at conception, yours truly has decided to introduce you to this little game called Space Empires IV.

Featured GamesThe Orion Sector On SPACE EMPIRES V By Robert Huntingdon and Wraith First ImpressionsGreat GraphicsThe graphics in SE V are much improved from earlier in the series.From the moment I first picked up Space Empires V I was rather impressed with the quality of the game. Despite a zero-day patch to fix bugs quashed between 'going gold' and the release date and quite a few lingering bugs even after that patch, the overall quality of even the raw release version was still pretty good. Although I knew a fair bit about what to expect from pre-release publicity, the demo, and past games in the series, I still was impressed. And the graphics, for a TBS at least, are outright excellent. I was highly impressed with the quality of the rendering as soon as I started up. That said, from the minute you start the game it's pretty obvious that at its core Space Empires V is essentially the same game as before, just a lot prettier and with several new features.

This should not be surprising to fans of the series, each game before was similar in many ways to its predecessors, and each was a major improvement over the previous. Such is Space Empires V: it's a good game that is a major improvement over IV, but very little is radically different from previous versions. So I quickly found that the things I liked about previous versions were still good, but the things I didn't I still disliked. Starting the GameSpace Empires V, much like itsSetup OverloadMore setup options than you could ever need.predecessors, is quite literally filled to nearly bursting with configuration options that can make for radically different games.

You can configure the size, shape, and style of the game map with several options to choose from that can make for very interesting changes to strategy. There are many options that control how both your empire and your rivals start the game, how many rivals you face, and how fast the game will start-up and progress through the tech tree. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more general options, many optional restrictions on the way the game is played, and many options for victory conditions. This means starting a new game is not a trivial task unless you wish to simply reuse the same options from a previous game, but that is made very easy by an excellent system of saving and loading game and empire configuration files. While this area was quite buggy at release it has steadily become less so, although some bugs do still remain. Empire / Planet ManagementOne area where Space Empires V provides significant improvement over its predecessors is in the amount of options it provides to controlMacromanagementYou can configure your empire summaries to provide exactly the info you want, greatly improving game speed.your empire as a whole.

Ships and planets can be placed under minister control and forgotten about (at least for awhile) as long as you select minister settings that mesh with your overall strategy. There are many things that happen automatically that can be configured to yourEmpire AutomationPlenty of auto-mangement options too, though not all are very effective.personal taste as well. For example, no longer do you have to visit a planet to resupply a ship (although a full resupply will often take either many turns or a planetary stopover or both), and the order in which ships are resupplied can be configured to your preference. Setting up all these options can take a very long time if you tweak a lot of things from the defaults, but if you save your empire after you get them set the next game you start using that saved empire will load your settings instead of the defaults.

And unfortunately AI has never been a particularly strong suit for Malfador, instead being often improved by modders. Apparently in recognition of this Malfador has included a scripted AI system that should even further enhance the modding communities' abilities to provide better AI than the native game provides, so I expect this area of the game to get much better over the next few months or so.Once you have set up whatever automation you want to use (if any) much of the game revolves around your planets and your ships. The planet management is fairly simple in the Space Empires system. Short of a completely unpopulated planet, no matter how few people you have you will always get the 'base' planetary build rate of 2000 minerals, 2000 biologics, and 2000 radioactives, and then you gain additional production as you build improvements or gain more population. The improvements you can build start out rather limited and increase as you research additional technology.

Until you research quite a long way down the technology tree to technologies that allow for atmosphere conversion, you cannot obtain more than a small fraction of use from a planet unless it also has the same atmosphere type that your race breathes. This can provide a large advantageEmpire ReviewMany screens give a succint overview of your empire for rapid review.to players willing to capture rather than exterminate alien populations. However, it simultaneously can cause a major micromanagement headache trying to cart populations around between planets.

Plus until version 1.13 you cannot move off the last 1 million of any race on the planet, so in order to get the planet 'pure' you have to 'scrap' the last 1M people, which is a very annoying (if minor) bug. On the other hand natural migration will help to some degree: once you have captured an alien planet some of them will move automatically, which reduces the micromanagement significantly unless for some reason you badly need to jumpstart the population on the alien-atmosphere world. In addition there are other variables to consider about the planet. The surface type determines whether your race can colonize it (by default, you can research technologies to colonize other surface types), and the value rating of the planet can determine what use you will put the planet to. A planet with a value rating of 10% in minerals is not somewhere you will build lots of mines. Ministers can also help out with this as well, or you can queue up orders and then let the game execute them over time as you deal with other items. ResearchThe Technology Tree in Space Empires 5 is very similar to what was found in SE IV and earlier games.

There are some differences, however, mainly in the depth of the tree. Previously the tech tree was extremely broad but not very deep, and you could (eventually)Lots to ResearchThere are plenty of technologies to research for any play style.run out of technology to research. Or at least you could run out of useful technology for your play style, there might be other stuff you could have researched that you just didn't want. As an example, if I play a warlike race that simply wants to enslave or destroy all rivals, there are a host of technologies that would be totally useless to me but which a race seeking to win on diplomacy might desperately need.

Although in older games you could run out of useful tech to research, now that is at best extremely difficult. Even if you don't really need it, you can still improve your favorite weapons a notch or two. Or you can improve your mineral mining further (or research, or space yards, etc) so you can produce a few extra ships to speed up the endgame process. There are even cultural studies that you can research which globally improve one aspect of your empire (such as war tolerance, mining, production, ship Unlike some other games in the genre, in Space Empires you pick exactly what you want to research. This means if you want better weaponsWeaponry FunLots of weapon types, some more useful than others.experience, etc). These get very expensive very quickly so they are a useful drain on excess research points in the late game.than what you have you aren't rolling the dice as to what you get (or picking a single advancement out of a few possibilities like MOO 2).

While this is nice in many ways it does also add to the already heavy micromanagement burden, albeit only slightly. On the other hand, if you don't select anything to research the game won't pester you to select a new research area the way MOO2 would, which is nice. In addition there are racial trait techs that can only be researched by races with a specific racial trait (crystalline, organic, temporal, religious, etc). Some of them can give rather interesting weapon variants as well as racial bonuses from 'super-buildings' which can be helpful and sometimes even very powerful, but none of them are so overpowering that everybody absolutely 'must' select that trait or they will always lose to somebody who does. Ships and CombatBoth ship design and combat are VASTLY improved over previous version of the game. In earlier games I always ran the strategic combat, tactical was just not worth the time. In Space Empires V, however, sometimes I'll run tactical not because I want to control the units but just because it's fun to watch.

The AI is improved significantly as well, now ships can move and fight on their own with little or no orders from you. That's not always a good thing, because if the enemy scatters your ships will follow one single ship to its destruction and then turn as a group to attack the next closest (often running out of time in the process). I really wish that when you select a target for the enemy the auto-move would immediately begin movingWipe Them Out, All of ThemSometimes an enemy planet just isn't worth capturing.your ship towards the selected targetBlow Stuff UpThe combat graphics are excellent and can be a lot of fun to just watch even if you just let the AI fight.no matter what else might be around. Perhaps that will come out in a patch or a mod someday. Even with the latest patches if you want to be sure to clean up all the enemies ships you have to micromanage four or five different ships (or groups of ships, depending on the weaponry power you need, though this is more rare since it's usually the non-combat ships that flee rather than ships that could stand and fight) spread out over fairly large distances chasing ships that are doing everything they can to evade your pursuit. It can be a micromanagement hell in many ways, although the latest improvements do ameliorate the problem somewhat, but they also make it that much harder to kill off an enemy's units. Of course you can just let those ships get away since no victory condition.requires.

you to finish off all enemy shipping. So despite the annoyance factor I have to consider this a minor problem, aside from which the combat and ship design are very well done.One especially neat feature of Space Empires 5 is the ability to place your components in specific positions.

While the effect on actual combat effectiveness seems rather minimal at this point, this does play a huge role in the order components are damaged. Thus for a ship whose primary mission is to run away, putting less critical components (like sensors and supplies) to the rear and engines to the front mayShip DesignPlacement of ship components can be fun and make at least some difference in combat.mean your ship might outlast a more powerful enemy long enough to avoid destruction. Of course, being faster than the enemy is better whenever possible, but sometimes it is not, and sometimes a few extra seconds of survival means reaching the retreat point before the enemy destroys your ship. For a more defensive-minded ship (or base) you might instead put less critical components (ordinance and supplies, perhaps) in the outer hull slots and put at least some weaponry in the interior. With a few supply and ordinance components in the interior as well this would allow such a defensive structure to keep on firing up until it's about to be totally destroyed. Such an ability could be very valuable indeed if it manages to kill the last enemy in time, thereby saving your homeworld from destruction.

You can light the torch next to the chest by having Atreus shoot a blue arrow at it. The frostrune walkthrough raven chest. Shoot the blue crystal again to trigger the marker.#4 – Nornir Chest 1/2 (Rage Upgrade) – 2:39This Nornir Upgrade chest is in the same place as the lore marker. Then pick up the 2nd crystal that’s on the floor and carry it across the bridge, all the way to the end of the area where you can put it next to a lore marker. The raven is under there.#2 – Artefact 1/6 – 1:06Same area as raven, there’s a destructible wooden wall and behind it a corpse with an artefact.#3 – Lore Marker 1/7 – 1:29Still in same area, throw your axe at the wooden barricade to reveal a blue crystal behind it. Let Atreus shoot blue arrows at it to create a “bridge of light”.

Other than that, however, the actual component placement isn't terribly critical at this time, but the ship design is still very powerful even ignoring that bit of 'fluff'. What weapons you select to carry can make a big difference in the combat endurance of your ship. A weak weapon that uses a lot of ordinance might mean your ship can only fight a battle or two before having return to home territory for reordinance. A ship with low supplies can't travel very far before needing the same. Audio and VisualGood graphics all-aroundEven the non-combat graphics are well done.Although the A/V in Space Empires 5 may not quite be up to the standards of fast-action FPS games and the like, compared to other TBS games (including its predecessors) the graphics are vastly superior to anything I've seen - and surprisingly bug-free. Modders will have to work hard to improve on the stock graphics quality, although they will likely come up with many interesting skins and similar options.

The audio, however, is not nearly as good, and surprisingly buggy by comparison, though far less so as an absolute standard. Music volume is difficult to control and varies wildly within individual tracks from excruciatingly loud to whisper-soft, making it nearly useless in my opinion. One ship passing through a warp point sounds kind of neat, 50 nearly wrecks your speakers by overdriving them. Ship destruction sound effects are spotty, sometimes they play, sometimes they don't. And the standard 'bleeps and bloops' of clicking on various buttons and controls are of rather poor quality.

Perhaps to some degree that's comparative, the graphics are SO great that the merely average sound effects seem horrible by comparison when they aren't quite so bad after all. Artificial IntelligenceAs mentioned earlier, Artificial Intelligence has never been a strong point of the stock Space Empires games. Space Empires V is better than its predecessors but it is still no genius, although it can be fairly nasty (if ploddingly simple-minded) if you give it huge advantages to work with. That said, I expect this problem to be quickly fixed by the modding community as they explore the scripted AI system added for this game. ModificationsModifications have always been popular for Space Empires games, and SE V promises to be no exception. Even before the release of the game beta testers and others who managed to get preview copies were hard at work on translating some of their favorite old mods to the new game.

Indeed one might actually say that the Space Empires games are almost a shell - well written and well designed, but still a shell - into which fans slot the data they want to drive their game. That's probably overstating it a good bit, but it's not entirely inaccurate either.Built-In Mod SupportPlay any mod with ease, even on a reloaded game.In recognition of this, Malfador has traditionally provided both lots of opportunities to mod the game and large amounts of support for modding. Previous games have even included a 'modders guide' that listed every single file that could be modified and what each file was used for in the game as well as even what each data node controlled in a file. With Space Empires 5 a very basic version of this was included in the basic manual but the node descriptions are not yet available. Perhaps that will come in time; if it's necessary that is, as it is likely many of the nodes are the same from SE IV and StarFury. One very excellent feature which I believe is new to SEV is a much better debugger for the mod text files, syntax errors and such are specifically identified by file and line, making fixing such problems extremely easy.

That won't help to fix mods that are syntactically correct but don't function the way they were intended, of course. Nevertheless this is something I wholeheartedly consider a major improvement and one I expect to be greatly appreciated by modders. Pros & ConsPros:. Large, sprawling tech tree that is also very deep. Great customization options.

Halo 3: ODST is an excellent game that offers fast-paced and action-packed gameplay to immerse himself deep into the challenging game world. The game also offers a multiplayer mode in which the player can play cooperatively with the other player can eliminate the series of enemies in order to earn score. Deadstorm pirates special edition. In this campaign mode, the player can explore the ruined city of New Mombasa to discover his mission teammates. During the gameplay, the player is able to freely move in the game world, interact with the environment, use his weapons and kill all the enemy creatures in order to progress.

Easy to mod. Greatly improved mod support. Excellent graphics. Fun and extremely flexible ship design.

Malfador has historically provided excellent customer support. Relatively inexpensiveCons:. Poor Stock AI.

Horrible Stock Sound/Music. Micromanagement heavy. Turn processing can be slowThe Bottom LineI really feel that Space Empires V is a good game, despite an incredible level of micromanagement and almost an overload of detail in some areas. The 'base' game is really well done, although the 'subgames' of diplomacy and espionage are unfortunately extremely overcomplicated to the point of uselessness (unless you're an extreme die-hard or masochist). And it does suffer from numerous bugs, especially in the unpatched release version.

This does detract a fair bit, but such is regrettably becoming extremely common in computer software. Given Malfador's traditionally excellent customer service - over the years they created more than 90 patches for Space Empires IV, though not nearly all of those were public releases - I expect the worst of the few remaining major bugs to be fixed in the near future with the minor ones following reasonably soon afterwards. Furthermore I expect the modding community to step up and provide the AI that the game lacks very quickly. Unless you absolutely hated the previous versions this one is worth a try, and odds are good you will at least like it even if you don't totally love it. About the Reviewers Robert HuntingdonI've run this site since Leiavoia stepped down a few years ago.

My taste in games is pretty specific: I've played lots of other games and types of games but my one true love is turn based strategy. Although I did play Space Empires IV some I never got into it all that much, so in many ways Space Empires V was a wonderful new toy for me. Machine Specs: Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz1024 MB DDR Ram256 MB Nvidia GeForce FX 5500Running on Windows XPWraithI have been a fan of turn-based strategy games since the first Master of Orion, and have played most of the well-known games in the genre. I'm also the person currently running the Space Empires and Galactic Civilizations sections here at the Orion Sector. Machine Specs: Pentium IV 3 Ghz w/HT1024 MB DDR Ram256 MB Nvidia GeForce FX 5600Running on Windows XPConcept art, screen shots, game graphics, information and other assets are provided courtesy of the games' respective developers.No company has reviewed or approved any content on this site except where noted.The Orion Sector is graciously hosted.

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It looked like this:As you can see, it's just a load of simple triggers for events. Break formation when the flagship is destroyed, how much of the fleet needs to be destroyed before we retreat (different for attack, defense, colony defense, warp point attack/defense), whether we should try to capture enemy ships etc.We also get to set the targeting order: should we target the largest ships first, the ships closest to death, the ships which still have functioning weapons etc.And we get to pick what range we engage different ships at.

If their fleet is composed entirely of artillery, tell your ships to close in. Those games' largest flaws were their bad AI. It is really bad, even a newbie can destroy them, trick them, exploit them with ease.

Mods can fix it, or playing with humans.Other than that, I agree. Lots of good stuff in those games. I've had loads of fun pranking friends by laying mines on their planets then declaring war, cloaked planet busters, spreading plagues around militarily superior races' planets until they're extinct, getting cheesed by ships with only space marines and that psychic control weapon which capture my fleet as soon as it comes out of the warp point.nothing I've listed is even remotely possible in Stellaris. There's a lot that can be added. That is one of the things that I was bummed about in this game.

Sins of a Solar Empire, I can totally maneuver ships around to get them into more favorable positions say around a starbase or other planetary defenses. I like the story telling, scale and non combat aspects of this game a lot more, but combat wise, Sins blows Stellaris out of the water for 4x combat. And of course Homeworld/the Homeworld sequels were the bees knees, but that's branching into another genre.

It would never really work for a game like Stellaris, but I really wish there would be another space 4X that utilized the ship design system from StarDrive.A small example of it:Each race had it's own unique ship layouts - which in itself was a big balancing issue and probably not the best thing, but still really neat - and ships had to be designed around several different setups.Using Missiles or Kinetic weapons required lower amounts of power, but needed ordinance. You either needed to stock pile ordinance on the ship or, later in the game, have a replicator that created some or you could use a ship that was just a supply ship.Energy weapons used a lot of power, but it wasn't just about the power you could produce, you also needed storage for all that power.Armor was a great defense since the components of a ship can take direct damage, but it was also bulky and would slow you down. Engines could only be placed on the back grid slots and some designs had better engine set ups than others.Shields, too, were fun. A shield placed in the middle utility slots could cover the whole ship, but weakly.

Or, shields placed in specific sections would provide a larger shield, but only for that section.You also had to consider the cockpit, crew quarters - if you want them - along with loads of other support styled modules. It could absolutely get tedious and annoying, but at the same time the level of customization made for some really fun ship designs.Overall, the scheme is a bit overly complex, not inherently user friendly, and time consuming, but I feel the payout can be really worth it when you field a fleet that you hand crafted in a way and get to watch it wreck things. That level of design is simply too much to fit into Stellaris, but it's still a nice dream. What you're describing is actually very similar to how it worked in Space Empires 5.Using Missiles or Kinetic weapons required lower amounts of power, but needed ordinance. You either needed to stock pile ordinance on the ship or, later in the game, have a replicator that created some or you could use a ship that was just a supply ship.The very same mechanic was present in Space Empires! Down to the ordinance and supply replicators.Energy weapons used a lot of power, but it wasn't just about the power you could produce, you also needed storage for all that power.A similar mechanic was in SE. But the energy weapons run off the same supply pool as the engines, so I guess in SE they just burnt fuel to power them.Armor was a great defense since the components of a ship can take direct damage, but it was also bulky and would slow you down.

Engines could only be placed on the back grid slots and some designs had better engine set ups than others.There was kind of a similar thing in SE. You could only place engines on the outer hull but beyond that engine placement didn't mean anything. This mechanic of different engine setups sounds really cool!Shields, too, were fun.

A shield placed in the middle utility slots could cover the whole ship, but weakly. Or, shields placed in specific sections would provide a larger shield, but only for that section.Again in SE you just slapped the generators on there and they'd provide shield points. This deeper mechanic seems really interesting. You could have attack ships with only forward shields and stuff like that.You also had to consider the cockpit, crew quarters - if you want them - along with loads of other support styled modules.Similarly in SE. You could put all sorts of stuff on ships: hospitals, shipyards, repair bays (to repair other ships), mine layers, mining robots, solar panels to resupply fleets just by sitting around near a star. Stellaris seems a bit lacking since you can basically only have combat ships.It could absolutely get tedious and annoying.I disagree. As long as there's an auto-update or auto-design feature (which there already is), then this feature is purely optional.

Those who find it tedious and annoying can just simply not use it. Those who want it (like me and you, I suppose) would greatly enjoy the higher level of complexity it provides.I'll have to check out StarDrive, sounds like a neat game.