Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (Full Version)

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Erik Rutins -> Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 8:55:28 PM)

Online now at The Wargamer, enjoy!

http://www.wargamer.com/article/3119/developer-feature-distant-worlds-legends-developer-notes

Regards,

- Erik



Bingeling -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 9:10:06 PM)

A nice read, really looking forward to testing this thing [&o]

I particularly liked the for me new details about the AI changes to diplomacy, war preparation and fleet usage. And also that they now value ending their wars...



Gelatinous Cube -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 9:10:33 PM)

Holy crap.



DasTactic -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 9:28:45 PM)

I'm so glad the fuel aspect hasn't been nerfed. When I saw it in the article it had me worried.

Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to playing this game. [:D]



WoodMan -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 9:42:26 PM)

You now have to give refueling rights to other Empires or their military ships can not refuel in your systems, and vice versa, same exists with mining rights too.  Luckily Explorers seem exempt (at least I think anyway) [:)]

The AI is much better now, at least it feels a lot less "computer like" anyways.  The days of the insects all getting terrible reputations and the whole galaxy teaming up against them are gone, prepare for "respectable" and "Admired" Boskara and Sluken Empires, who still like to go on a rampage without destroying their reputations and turning everyone against them.  In my last game the Sluken, Boskara and Gizurean all had MDP with each other and they were all pickng on one enemy Empire at the same time (the poor Teekans [:D]).  Oh and no more insects commiting suicide against the Guardians either.  Good job on the AI [:)]



Kruos -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:03:15 PM)

Hello

quote:

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

You now have to give refueling rights to other Empires or their military ships can not refuel in your systems, and vice versa, same exists with mining rights too.  Luckily Explorers seem exempt (at least I think anyway) [:)]

The AI is much better now, at least it feels a lot less "computer like" anyways.  The days of the insects all getting terrible reputations and the whole galaxy teaming up against them are gone, prepare for "respectable" and "Admired" Boskara and Sluken Empires, who still like to go on a rampage without destroying their reputations and turning everyone against them.  In my last game the Sluken, Boskara and Gizurean all had MDP with each other and they were all pickng on one enemy Empire at the same time (the poor Teekans [:D]).  Oh and no more insects commiting suicide against the Guardians either.  Good job on the AI [:)]



And what about the problem of AI fleet firepower? In ROTS, it was common and easy to beat AI on this thing, even when playing peacefully. I remember of a small mod which improved the firepower of the AI fleets/ship design (to improve challenge and AI competitivness), has it been integrated, or has this problem been adressed in Legends?

By the way, congratulation for your graphical contribution WoodMan! Very very nice design. ;-)

Cant wait for tomorrow!






ASHBERY76 -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:08:07 PM)

Nice pitch.Good to see lots of A.I work has been done.The big thing for me is the immersion elements like character,policys and racial victorys.

I would have liked to see Elliots future plans for the series,expansions,sequels,ect.



J HG T -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:09:34 PM)

Good to hear that AI has gotten some more common sense. Alliance of intergalactic insects sounds terrifying... in a good way! Waging war against respectable Boskarans or Slukens is gonna be interesting.





cookie monster -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:13:55 PM)

Nice article.



WoodMan -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:36:14 PM)

quote:

And what about the problem of AI fleet firepower? In ROTS, it was common and easy to beat AI on this thing, even when playing peacefully. I remember of a small mod which improved the firepower of the AI fleets/ship design (to improve challenge and AI competitivness), has it been integrated, or has this problem been adressed in Legends?

By the way, congratulation for your graphical contribution WoodMan! Very very nice design. ;-)

Cant wait for tomorrow!


Playing on Normal difficulty, 20 years into the game I was the 4th highest military power in the galaxy (with 19 AI Empires + Guardians).  Guardians, Quameno and Boskara all had higher than me, I had 9000+, Boskara had 12000+ everyone else had around 6000-8000 apart from the Dhayut who had 30 after being crushed by the Quameno [:D]

This is not a particularly big improvement, in RotS they usually had around 8000 at this time of the game, not to mention I had 2 million spare credits I could spend on boosting my military which would take it to the top easily.  However...  I notice the Sluken, my main rivals had waaaaaay more Troops than I did, having stacks so large I can't count them on all the planets they had just taken along my borders from the Teekans, on the other hand I had about 30 troops across my entire Empire.  So, if I invested as much in troops as they did I'd probably still only have enough money to afford the fleet I already had.  Basically they had about 20 planets and from what I could tell troop numbers to match my entire Empire on every single planet [:D]

Edit: I should probably point out I had research set to the lowest the slider allows and I base the Empires starting tech on the intelligence of the Empire. I started with tech level 2 being Humans and still don't have access to Carriers, Cruisers or Capitals. So the Boskara had lower tech than me and a fleet made entirely of escorts, destroyers and frigates, so 12000 under those conditions is probably not bad, no high tech weapons and no large ships to boost the number.



ASHBERY76 -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:53:21 PM)

The policy for the AI empires ship building can now be modded, so in theory every race could have larger fleets if you tweak it.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 10:58:54 PM)

It's worth noting that the AI is also smarter now about building up a larger fleet if it is at war. It will try to give you a real challenge. For experienced players, you should still play on Hard difficulty at least and probably give the AI a "young" rather than "starting" empire for the best results, but in general it's a very major AI upgrade over Distant Worlds and Return of the Shakturi.

Regards,

- Erik



Kruos -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 11:03:26 PM)

Very very promising! :)



Gelatinous Cube -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 11:07:18 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

It's worth noting that the AI is also smarter now about building up a larger fleet if it is at war. It will try to give you a real challenge. For experienced players, you should still play on Hard difficulty at least and probably give the AI a "young" rather than "starting" empire for the best results, but in general it's a very major AI upgrade over Distant Worlds and Return of the Shakturi.

Regards,

- Erik


So I guess the real question is.. what time tomorrow?



WoodMan -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 11:15:46 PM)

quote:

By the way, congratulation for your graphical contribution WoodMan! Very very nice design. ;-)

Cant wait for tomorrow!


Oh and thanks for this, very kind words [:)]

Just wait until you see Eliotts new ship rendering system, the game now looks fantastic.  I've yet to see any blurry ships at all like we had in RotS, on top of this, the ships render better now even than the non-blurry ones in RotS, there was a huge difference between what the ships looked like in photoshop and what they looked like in RotS.  Now the ships are much better rendered [&o]



Simulation01 -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/22/2011 11:41:18 PM)

awwwww...  I want my empire destroyed by intelligent man eating bugs tonight.... [:(]



Deomrve -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 12:25:10 AM)

The expansion seems nice, but I'm concerned with the victory conditions mentioned in the race differences. I do not like artificial victory conditions such as I have the happiest citizens and after 20 years I win. What if I only own one system, lost every war and barely hanging on and all of a sudden I win because my people are having the big "O". This is the one thing I disliked about Armada 2526 and I think if the victory conditions in Armada 2526 are implemented into Distant Worlds it will ruin the game.

With that being said there does appear to be a lot to like with the expansion and I will most likely buy it. I just hope the victory conditions mentioned are really goals instead of ways to win the game or at least have the ability to turn those type of conditions off.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 12:36:47 AM)

Hi Deomvre,

You can absolutely turn them off and you can also weight how much they affect the overall victory level.

Regards,

- Erik



Deomrve -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 12:40:58 AM)

Will the computer AI still use them for planning purposes?



Erik Rutins -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 12:48:07 AM)

If you turn them off, they're not part of the game. Just like if you turn off territory or economy victory conditions, or the story lines.

Regards,

- Erik



Deomrve -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 12:50:34 AM)

Ok, thanks for the information.



tjhkkr -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 1:40:58 AM)

This is way cool; at least I know have something to read for a few minutes on Thanksgiving. [:)][;)][8D]



khelvan -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 1:41:35 AM)

Can anyone tell me if, after purchasing Legends, I would be able to play the Shadows storyline with all of the game improvements found in the Legends expansion?



Erik Rutins -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 1:45:24 AM)

Meaning the Shakturi? Yes, you can turn the original and the Return of the Shakturi storylines on together with everything else. However, there are some aspects of the Shakturi storyline that override the normal victory conditions, but you can also keep playing after those are resolved. [8D]

Regards,

- Erik



khelvan -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 2:11:10 AM)

Shakturi, sorry, yes! (I'm new)



unclean -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 5:27:47 AM)

Nice article, really looking forward to playing!



danith222 -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 6:00:51 AM)

Very nice article and well deserved I might add.



the1sean -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/23/2011 9:51:53 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Deomrve

The expansion seems nice, but I'm concerned with the victory conditions mentioned in the race differences. I do not like artificial victory conditions such as I have the happiest citizens and after 20 years I win. What if I only own one system, lost every war and barely hanging on and all of a sudden I win because my people are having the big "O". This is the one thing I disliked about Armada 2526 and I think if the victory conditions in Armada 2526 are implemented into Distant Worlds it will ruin the game.

With that being said there does appear to be a lot to like with the expansion and I will most likely buy it. I just hope the victory conditions mentioned are really goals instead of ways to win the game or at least have the ability to turn those type of conditions off.


I am an Armada player (at least until I discovered Distant Worlds). As I was beta testing Legends there were a couple of things that I noticed that I really like about the implementation of the racial victory conditions:

1. You can toggle them on and off, just like you can toggle the standard victory conditions on and off.

2. The racial victory conditions are varied, and consist of four or five conditions, unlike the ones in Armada that felt like they had a very narrow scope. Also many races have unique victory condition types.

3. You can stack the racial victory conditions on top of the normal ones, so that ALL races have to deal with both types, pretty cool option in my book. (as you can see in the screenshot, racial VP shares an equal share with the other activated VP types)

4. The Victory Condition display is super detailed and breaks things down cleanly and efficiently, and has expanded info that will popup when you hover over a race's score. This makes it very easy to keep track of the victory progress for all empires at a glance, or easily analyze the details. (which you will probably need for the new AI, I lost my first game in a long time a couple of weeks ago).

[image]local://upfiles/35048/C196BF0BAB9141F78B9574EDB49AEEDB.jpg[/image]



Gelatinous Cube -> RE: Developer's Notes for Distant Worlds: Legends (11/24/2011 12:03:10 AM)

The AI definately is smarter now. I started up a crowded game next to some Boskarans on Hard (because I figured Normal would be too easy... right?) and before I knew it they had a good 1300 Firepower fleet headed for my homeworld! I hadn't even begun seriously building up my military. Fortunately they didn't have enough troops, but they retreated out of the system and beat up all my mining operations, effectively ending my chances at victory. I'm sure I won't get caught like that twice, but it was very cool to see the AI blitzkrieg me when I wasn't expecting it.



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