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What size map have you tried. There are alot of mods in the first that expand the research that help my gamestyle.
There are aspects (diplomacy for example) that arent quite here yet. So when you say its too slow then too fast what exactly are those points? Im not trying to change your mind or anything im just trying to see what you feel is missing.
5 player map. Though I never care enough to go for longer than like 15-20 minutes as that's when I feel the nonsense starts happening.
Things going too slow:
Moving your armies around;
Destroying those grey ships;
Grabbing the goodies;
Research in the late game;
Things that go too fast:
Research in the early game;
Expansion in the early game;
AI growth in the early game;
Resource accumulation and spending it properly (Too many plates to spin at once).
It just feels bad to play. I want to respond to attacks like I can in Starcraft. Though there doesn't feel like there's a meaningful counter to particular units. It feels like a supply vs supply situation most of the time. And if I get attacked on two fronts, its not like I can look at who is attacking with what, then spit my forces up accordingly and deal with with them by countering enemies.
Nah I need to first destroy one army and sacrifice one gravity well before switching around. It's just not very fun to deal with.
On the front of countering enemies... I don't feel like there's any counter. Because I don't see ships suddenly die fast just because I have the right composition in my fleet. Everything dies as slow as tar. Even when I focus my entire fleet on one frigate, it just takes ages for it die. Very sorry but if you send a hundred missiles and autocannons and lasers to one small ship. It should vaporize...
That's it really. I'm just not the target audience for this game.
Every fight is watching icons move around. I understand that if I zoom in a lot, I can watch the space battle take place with actual ships. But who does that while they're not recording anything for a youtube video or their stream?
From how I played the game. It's very limited in interactivity.
I was coming into it fresh out of Brood War, and only got it because it had been packaged as a 3-for-1 deal with Galactic Civilisations II (which is what I actually wanted and was more expensive on its own at that particular moment in time). It just didn't click for me at first.
But every so often I'd look at it again, wondering just what I'd missed that so many other people apparently found great. And I kept finding something else to appreciate - and then challenge myself with "I want to see if I can manage do" or even simple curiosity "oh I wonder if this is an option."
I think your feeling is valid if you are used to other RTS such as C&C or Starcraft etc. This game's combat feels much more slower pacing, so you cannot just drag the ships can make them moving to other place quickly for responding.
For tactic part, normally, I feel it is more about detection and planning for next move. For example, if I know enemy will more likely to attack two fronts, if my fleet is large enough and can deal with one of the front but cannot split or move to other place because of distant, I will be more active to push one of the front to enemy planet to make sure this current front can stay further secure. This will buy me more time before they decide to jump to my other planet and throw a question to enemy: do they attack or retreat to defence. I think it is more about playing the map instead to rely on the mobility of ship. However, I want to point out that, it is annoying to move around larger map for TEC and Advent...since they cannot build phase gate.
Furthermore, the map decision is more important. Some key position planet can give more benefit to the routes and travelling distance. This is one of the more important part of strategy overall.
For the combat part is also more like planning for me. You decide your ship composition and make the fleet functional together to keep them alive and effective. This game does have some counter system but they are not hard counter, so in the end, to composition ican be more important. With good build, the fleet can effectively deal with most of situation + the economy will keep the supply and reinforce the fleet.
However, for the unit counter, in early game is kinda important on higher difficulty. For example, enemy can spam small missile ship as a group that is hard to deal if you only have normal capital + frigates. I played advent more, so normally, I would rush to the tier 2 to get carrier cruiser to spam out strike craft to have a longer range advantage over missile ships. But early carrier can be more fragile to be attacked by something that is more tanky and hard to kill with smaller group of strike craft.
Overall, I am not saying your feeling is invalid, but this is how I enjoy the game. Hope this can give you some ideas for your enjoyment. But if not that's ok.
On paper it has all the things, but in practice...well it may be my own fault because efficiency wiring...but i tend to skip 90% of the mechanics and its all simplified to pump units, deny resources, bum rush with zerg.
Tech serves mostly to increase supply limit, unlock a unit
Diplomacy, influence, culture, 90% of tech, planet building, unit / planet /star base items pretty much all get skipped because its been more efficient to just use the resources for zerg building and the limited eco required to support it.
The maps really *need* the planet orbit function to disguise the limited strategy the maps really offer, so im happy that function is there.
ive been playing random factions since the beginning and im cant say that i really read or cared for the techs besides the one or two key techs to support efficiency.
But i can enjoy watching battles in cinematic mode, i can enjoy land grabbing, etc but in trhe end, every game its the same routine and that makes the magic wither, but again, its for a great deal my own doing, i could roll play more i guess.
im not done with the game and im not bashing it, but my experience after the first magic has been a bit lacking in variety, depth, layers of strategy etc.
It goes great with morning coffee and chill
Yeah I think you're completely right about the map being the main character of this game. Where you need to play to the map's constant evolving state and react accordingly. It's a vastly different beast from any other RTS game you see out there. Your approach about playing the map and how you deal with your fleet might be the right one.
I don't agree about the composition part... Maybe because I just haven't experienced it or I don't 'get it'. When I see many missile ships or carriers I bring flak ships. That's the idea at least. But more often than not, I fall back to like... 20 of these, 15 of those, 15 of those, uhh lets add another 20 of these, oh and 5 of those... And then just smash 'em into the enemy fleet.
As I said before, I don't experience the greatness of ship counters. Everything takes too long to die to really feel like I have an impact with my ship choices.
If you take Starcraft 2 for example (I know... Vastly different game, but bear with me.) If you put the Immortals from Protoss against the Roaches from the Zerg. You know you've done the right thing because the roaches just pop like pimples. Or bringing banelings to marines. Or vikings to collosi.
Those fights had a lot of control group managing and targeting the right enemy with your right units and if you executed it well. Things just popped out of existence. Which I feel felt very rewarding. (Or devastating if you were on the losing side of that haha)
Solid post. I'm very glad to see I'm not the only one who experiences the things you've mentioned.
Seems you found a way to enjoy it though! That's great.
For my experience, the one thing I like about the game for this part for example: I recent mostly played as Advent, both Reborth or Wrath. I will take Reborth as example, their speciality is reviving cruisers or frigates. So the fleet I build is for max the efficient of this. I normally build capital ship around the ability of "mind control" and this make the fleet expend automatically during the combat. And the super weapon can be used to revive the enemy ships and the Titan can used them for consumption and damage boost and again the consumed ships can be revived. Furthermore, if I capture ships I can also manually destroy them for free resources to gain more supply. I would like to enjoy these unique mechanic and build my fleet around them to see how they works out during the combat. So by saying composition, I am more talking about these mechanic for fleet damage and sustain. (more like an RPG game character build instead of unit counters. Combine skills and abilities to make a fleet works together to multiply damage output. defence and efficiency)
However, for ship counter (unit counter), I would say sometime I will do targeting myself to focus down specific unit quickly using specific unit groups. For example, I often manually command bomber on some high value but low level capital ships or build up a group of long range ships as a main DPS for large ships or targeting enemy healing fleet hide behind. I feel the diversity also rely on the ship ability, for example, different Titan can have very different focus, normally when I play as Advent Reborn I will use the Titan to target small ship groups but when I play Wrath I will target capital ship instead. These also some importance to ship positions, the Wrath titan I often will make it in front to capitalize on the ranged debuff for damage reduction to enemy fleet etc. I am using Titan as an example but this can apply to other ship, this just easier for me to explain by experience. And by doing this I can feel that some target will go down way faster then let themselves plays out. But the combat is much slower pacing, so even the unit is die faster it does not die that fast as in other RTS, it is more like an advantage for a large battle or conflict instead of instant winning onsight. I feel this is also play a role in fleet composition that for example, if one strong unit has some strength, such as if titan has a strong ability to target single capital unit, then in fleet we need to consider to deal with AOE targets to mitigate the disadvantage, because the fleet might be vulnerable against capital ship killer cruiser or frigate spam.
Futhermore, I think the counter also involving when play against different faction. For example, when I use Advent to play against TEC, my fleet will focus on shielding and direct short range combat and capture. However, Vasari can mostly ignore the shields, so my fleet will include more carriers. And when against Advent Wrath, I know they can capture my small ships, so instead, I will go with more capital ship with mind control to gain cruiser and other ship in this way.
I do think the game is not too much focus on operation of individual unit most of the time, and even if in need of operating unit, the fleet interface often enough to make group of ship to target another specific group during combat, there is no too much of a difficulty. But the things I enjoy is this speciality of these mechanic that I can use to design my fleet to gain specific strength against certain situation. It is more like combine of RTS and a RPG game for my feeling, which more focus on overall design of the fleet instead of specific combo execution.
However, However, most of time, if the situation is not intense, and if the economy is build up, all these things can be done passively and just make the fleet fly on their own...
I do feel the AI and balance need some adjustments, sometime I feel that I did not need to capitalize on these mechanic that much, but that is another issue.