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Recommendation - 8/23/2010 9:49:14 PM   
Pz Leader

 

Posts: 25
Joined: 6/26/2009
Status: offline 		I have never played a 4x space game before, and I am interested in trying the genre out. Which game should be my first one? I know I am in the DW forum, but I'm hoping I can still get objective answers. Thanks!
Post #: 1
RE: Recommendation - 8/23/2010 11:11:10 PM   
Wade1000


Posts: 771
Joined: 10/27/2009
From: California, USA
Status: offline 		Read this thread and choose.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2553496

_____________________________

Wish list:population centers beyond planetary(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture):Ships,Ring Orbitals,Sphere Orbitals,Ringworlds,Sphereworlds;ability to create & destroy planets,population centers,stars;AI competently using all advances & features.

(in reply to Pz Leader)
Post #: 2
RE: Recommendation - 8/23/2010 11:20:49 PM   
WoodMan


Posts: 1345
Joined: 6/2/2010
From: Ol' Blighty
Status: offline 		I haven't played that many 4x, but I can say that Distant Worlds is a very addictive and enjoyable game.  It's quite deep (in my opinion) and is actively supported by the developer and publisher which is a major plus.  I would recommend DW over Galactic Civilizations 2, which although old is probably its biggest competition, at least I guess anyway. 

While we are on the topic of 4x games, has anybody here played Dominions 3?  I'm seriously considering buying it, I've read a bit about it and it sounds pretty good.


_____________________________

"My body may be confined to this chair, but my mind is free to explore the universe" - Stephen Hawking

(in reply to Wade1000)
Post #: 3
RE: Recommendation - 8/23/2010 11:31:52 PM   
Pz Leader

 

Posts: 25
Joined: 6/26/2009
Status: offline 		Thanks Woodman. I also ran a search in the Matrix forums and came up with a lot of hits. I guess I'm not so much interested in which game is better vs each other, but which game is better for a noob to 4x games, but I'll read all the threads and try and form an opinion as to which game to get. Seems like this has been discussed in Armada 2526's forum too. I usually play WW2 games at squad level or platoon level. I also play simulations. I've been thinking of trying WiTP AE or perhaps BftB, but then DW and Armada caught my eye. I guess I'm just a little tired of WW2 games and would like to try something different, but I don't want to get in over my head since I have never played a 4x game before, ever.

(in reply to WoodMan)
Post #: 4
RE: Recommendation - 8/23/2010 11:55:19 PM   
lordxorn


Posts: 768
Joined: 12/6/2009
Status: offline 		PZ Leader Armdada is a great choice for beginners because in my opinion Armada is a nice updated version of the same old stuff like prior classic Moo, Space Empires, Galactic Civilizations.

Galactic Civilizations is also a good choice.

Here is a run down of the difference between the two I recommend.

Galactic Civilizations II (Complete Edition should be real cheap)
Pros
1. The AI is great
2. Game is nicely balanced
3. Graphics are great for a turn based top down
4. The ship design is unprecedented, because you can choose the standard design and mod those with different ship parts to your hearts desire. Weapons you put on it, actually take space and show on the model. Many people posted their master designs using the games in ship designer to make ships from all the famous sci-fi such as Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.
5. It is highly polished
6. Has planet management, and government options
7. Diplomacy is decent

Cons
1. The combat is basic ala Civilization style, although a little more varied because of your ship designs. The ship with the weapon that beats your design wins, there are hit points and exp.
2. The technology is so so, Laser I, II, II Mass Driver I, III, that goes against Shields I, II, Armor I, II, which translates to rock, paper, scissors type fleet battles.

Armada
Pros
1. All the good stuff from Gal Civ minus the ship design.
2. Tactical Combat

Cons
1. There are no custom ships design
2. It did nothing extra special to differentiate itself from it's predecessors.
3. The tactical combat needs more polish


1.

_____________________________

Distant Worlds Star Wars Mod

(in reply to Pz Leader)
Post #: 5
RE: Recommendation - 8/24/2010 3:56:40 AM   
Brainsucker

 

Posts: 100
Joined: 8/2/2010
Status: offline 		I hate 4x game without custom ships design.

(in reply to lordxorn)
Post #: 6
RE: Recommendation - 8/24/2010 4:14:03 AM   
lordxorn


Posts: 768
Joined: 12/6/2009
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Brainsucker

I hate 4x game without custom ships design.


Yeah that is what mostly turns me off about Armada.

(in reply to Brainsucker)
Post #: 7
RE: Recommendation - 8/24/2010 4:19:02 AM   
the1sean


Posts: 854
Joined: 5/11/2010
From: Texas, USA
Status: offline 		Pz Leader,

There are tons of good space 4x's out there. I personally would suggest Distant Worlds to a newby space 4X'er for a few of major reasons:

1. The game has the most helpful automation features I have seen in ANY strategy game. You can choose which parts of the game to automate, leaving you to watch and learn from the AI. Also, you can take the game one step at a time. Want to dive into Espionage instead of managing your fleet? Easy, just switch around automation functions. The helper AI also has the "suggest" function. It leaves you to make the final decisions, but makes helpful suggestions every so often. This allows players new and old alike to tailor the gaming experience and tasks depending on their mood.

2. Distant Worlds has all the intricacy of a turn based strategy game, with the excitement of a real time strategy game. You can speed up or slow down time, or hit the space bar and pause the action when things get hectic. I think that this type of space 4X is ideal for newer players.

3. The Distant Worlds community is very helpful and prompt, and the developer listens to and integrates player feedback quickly. This is extremely helpful when the game's manual or Galactopedia doesnt cover a subject well enough.

4. Distant Worlds is fun! It's a blast to play, and most of the game really "makes sense". It also incorporates some of the best features of classic space 4x games, and does it well. That leads to a generally optimal experience for a new player.

(in reply to Brainsucker)
Post #: 8
RE: Recommendation - 8/24/2010 5:27:25 AM   
Pz Leader

 

Posts: 25
Joined: 6/26/2009
Status: offline 		My specs on my old computer:
Dell Dimension E521 AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
Hard Drive 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Professional
Optical Drive 48X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
Sound Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Thank you for all the replies. I think I meet the minimum requirements, but not the recommended requirements. Is 1GB of memory going to be a problem running DW?

(in reply to the1sean)
Post #: 9
RE: Recommendation - 8/24/2010 8:20:24 AM   
Shark7


Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Pz Leader

My specs on my old computer:
Dell Dimension E521 AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
Hard Drive 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Professional
Optical Drive 48X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
Sound Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Thank you for all the replies. I think I meet the minimum requirements, but not the recommended requirements. Is 1GB of memory going to be a problem running DW?


Yes, 1 GB will be slow. I'd go for about 4-6 minimum if you want to play large maps with lots of empires.

I was able to run small games on an old celeron 2.0 ghz with 2 GB of ram, but that was it...small games (400-700 stars at most). More memory can never hurt.

_____________________________

Distant Worlds Fan

'When in doubt...attack!'

(in reply to Pz Leader)
Post #: 10
RE: Recommendation - 8/25/2010 4:28:50 AM   
Xkill

 

Posts: 107
Joined: 5/7/2010
From: Brazil
Status: offline 		I prefer DW even against GalCiv 2, however it is quite annoying sometimes, like when a totaly impossible error happens and crashes the game, anyways DW is more deep than other games like SE V (in my opinion) also the heavy lack of micromanagement have put the boring parts of the the game to the side, and then, focusing more on the best parts.

(in reply to Shark7)
Post #: 11
RE: Recommendation - 8/25/2010 8:44:32 PM   
JonBrave

 

Posts: 120
Joined: 8/6/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Yes, 1 GB will be slow. I'd go for about 4-6 minimum if you want to play large maps with lots of empires.


What OS are you using, please?

(in reply to Shark7)
Post #: 12
RE: Recommendation - 8/25/2010 9:34:56 PM   
Baleur


Posts: 372
Joined: 1/18/2010
Status: offline 		lol 4-6? I'm still runing vista 32bit (3gb ram) and i can run the largest galaxies no problem.

(in reply to JonBrave)
Post #: 13
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 1:28:08 AM   
Bozz

 

Posts: 17
Joined: 5/7/2010
Status: offline 		Most of time I play on my portable computer (not sure if this is the good translation in english ) which is getting very old, I have 2gb ram and most of games aren't running on it, but I tryed DW on it and its working very well, thats great because I'm barely never at home.

And I play galaxies with 1000 stars, never had any probleme since the big new patch, at the beginning I had memory issues but know its okay

(in reply to Baleur)
Post #: 14
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 3:33:32 PM   
Gertjan

 

Posts: 698
Joined: 12/9/2009
Status: offline 		I guess the word you were looking for is laptop

(in reply to Bozz)
Post #: 15
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 3:35:27 PM   
vonboy

 

Posts: 29
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		i've only seen the game eating up around a gig of ram at the most, and that is with 1400 star 20 empire late game.....games.

i'd say with xp, 2gigs is fine. with vista and 7, probably try for 3gigs (those os's eat up more ram just by themselves, so they need extra ram for everything else)

(in reply to Bozz)
Post #: 16
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 5:12:50 PM   
Shark7


Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: JonBrave


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Yes, 1 GB will be slow. I'd go for about 4-6 minimum if you want to play large maps with lots of empires.


What OS are you using, please?


Was using XP 32 bit.

Got a new comp with plenty of power and Win 7 now.

_____________________________

Distant Worlds Fan

'When in doubt...attack!'

(in reply to JonBrave)
Post #: 17
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 5:14:27 PM   
Shark7


Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Baleur

lol 4-6? I'm still runing vista 32bit (3gb ram) and i can run the largest galaxies no problem.


This was pre-patch 1.05.

Also, the biggest problem I might have had was the graphics card, my old comp had a GeForce 8600 GT, also known as a piece of garbage.

_____________________________

Distant Worlds Fan

'When in doubt...attack!'

(in reply to Baleur)
Post #: 18
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 6:37:39 PM   
Gertjan

 

Posts: 698
Joined: 12/9/2009
Status: offline 		Really is it that bad?

(in reply to Shark7)
Post #: 19
RE: Recommendation - 8/26/2010 6:40:17 PM   
Shark7


Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

Really is it that bad?


If you are referring to the GeForce 8600 GT...yes it is that bad.

_____________________________

Distant Worlds Fan

'When in doubt...attack!'

(in reply to Gertjan)
Post #: 20
RE: Recommendation - 8/27/2010 8:54:23 PM   
Gertjan

 

Posts: 698
Joined: 12/9/2009
Status: offline 		I have the 8800, how's that model compared to the 8600?

(in reply to Shark7)
Post #: 21
RE: Recommendation - 8/27/2010 9:05:46 PM   
WoodMan


Posts: 1345
Joined: 6/2/2010
From: Ol' Blighty
Status: offline 		The 8800 gtx?  I had that card for years and years, the best piece of computer I ever had!  DW will run fine on that card (I ran CoD4 in max detail on that card with no problem at all), but DW is quite intensive on CPU and RAM I think.  I'm using 4GB ram and a Quad Core Q9450 and got no problems with DW on 1400 size galaxy.  Things slow down towards end game if I zoom out to galaxy view and menus can slow up slightly, but as far as I know everyone gets those problems.

_____________________________

"My body may be confined to this chair, but my mind is free to explore the universe" - Stephen Hawking

(in reply to Gertjan)
Post #: 22
RE: Recommendation - 8/27/2010 11:50:25 PM   
profanicus

 

Posts: 60
Joined: 7/10/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: vonboy
i've only seen the game eating up around a gig of ram at the most, and that is with 1400 star 20 empire late game.....games.
i'd say with xp, 2gigs is fine. with vista and 7, probably try for 3gigs (those os's eat up more ram just by themselves, so they need extra ram for everything else)


I agree, 3gb is a good sweet spot for ram and is all you need for any modern game, on any OS.

Looking at the figures there's really not that much in it with regards to OS ram usage. Unless maybe you are unlucky enough to still be running Vista ... ;)

I believe these values were measured after fresh installs, all updates, then idled for an hour:
XP 150mb
Vista 300mb
Win 7 215mb

Given that DW doesn't use much over 1gb, 2gb should be enough on any OS.

(in reply to vonboy)
Post #: 23
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