RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (Full Version)

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jpwrunyan -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 2:49:55 AM)

ditto on fixing the subjugation/declare war thing.

If an AI empire declares war on me, just hard-code a minimum amount of time before they will accept an offer of subjugation from me (Currently it is like less than 5 minutes on normal play speed). On the flip side, if I become a subjugated empire, there should be a minimum amount of time before I can break my subjugation by declaring war. This is not an end-all solution, but it would go a long ways toward making the diplomacy of subjugation/annihilation less stoopid.



Mad Igor -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 12:20:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
If Shadows does not, then I don't know what will!

DW2 or new expansion.



Starfry -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 12:26:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

In case you all missed it:

http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2013/05/distant-worlds-shadows-preview/


I'm interested with the "Difficulty Scales while Player nears Victory."

Does that mean the preselected difficulty scale will move up higher before you achieve a runaway victory?



Mansen -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 1:37:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Starfry


Does that mean the preselected difficulty scale will move up higher before you achieve a runaway victory?


As far as I understand it, the game will ramp up the AI's income (which is what difficult slider does) if you get ahead of the other species and is near victory (like 80% of total required)



Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 3:42:01 PM)

No, that's the old difficulty slider - the new difficulty slider is much more comprehensive and yes, that means the effective difficulty will increase as you get close to victory, giving your opponents more of a chance to prevent a runaway victory if you're doing very well.

Regards,

- Erik



Mansen -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 3:51:32 PM)

Oh the difficulty slider has more depth now? Neat :)



Bleek -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 4:18:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

No, that's the old difficulty slider - the new difficulty slider is much more comprehensive and yes, that means the effective difficulty will increase as you get close to victory, giving your opponents more of a chance to prevent a runaway victory if you're doing very well.

Regards,

- Erik



That's a unique and clever idea.

Typically in 4X if you start to dominate then it becomes a breeze, makes the end game a bit of a walk to the line - that is true of most RTS games too.

Hopefully it won't just be giving the AI artificial boosts, hopefully you guys are making them more shrewd than that for example they form alliances against you.

Big empire stomps over the galaxy, smaller factions put their pasts behind them and start to rise up united.



Fishers of Men -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 5:05:34 PM)

I believe I will like the difficulty slider in Shadows. Like a snowball rolling downhill, as an empire expands getting larger and picks up speed, which causes it to increase in size, crushing everything in it's path. There will now be some resistance to this. MoO3 had a similar feature where the dislike of the other empires increased against the dominate one. I will be interested to see how this new feature works out.



Kobracan -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 5:55:15 PM)

How does the mechanic exactly work? Is it like other empires band together (even though they may normally hate each other) to defeat you or are they just getting progressively more cheat bonuses?

I personally prefer the former.



Kayoz -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 6:07:44 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kobracan
I personally prefer the former.

To Matrix's credit, it's optional. If you prefer the old method, just un-check the box.



Mansen -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 7:23:57 PM)

I like the concept - As "Fishers" mention, 4X games tend to end up with a slow and tedious cleanup phase. This way the AI stays relevant even when you can field massive planet cleansing dreadnoughts.

Would be even more fun if the opposing empires could join up and merge into singular bigger empires - they give up automation in order to survive against this "great evil" that is a threat to them all.



Kobracan -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 7:29:17 PM)

Mine was a question about which way it will be. So do you know that it will be just progressively more cheats when that box is checked? Do you know that the game was getting progressively harder by other empires banding together before?



Kayoz -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 8:11:52 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kobracan

Mine was a question about which way it will be. So do you know that it will be just progressively more cheats when that box is checked? Do you know that the game was getting progressively harder by other empires banding together before?

I assume you mean, that if you load an old game, is there any way you can determine whether or not the box was ticked?

No idea. Hopefully Erik will address your question.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 10:00:00 PM)

A couple more quick preview shots for you all...


[image]local://upfiles/9/40960BAB11FB430CBC50D85252A6E7D6.jpg[/image]



Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 10:03:42 PM)

The new Achievements/Medals screen. We're still working on this one, along with making sure we are happy with final balance and that any potential issues in the last build or two are investigated and addressed, but overall we're wrapping things up and iterating new builds and testing to make sure we have a stable release ready build to go gold with later this week.

Anyway, the way this screen works is that you see the current game on the top two rows. You can select any of the factions to look at the achievements in detail, those that are not selected are summarized below.

The bottom two rows are your collection of all medals/achievements from all games completed to date and a ranked comparison list of your performance in previous games. For the current test build on this system I've only completed one game (as the Kiadian Federation) which you see listed below, with the current game info on top. There are a lot of possible achievements and medals, some easy to earn and some much harder.

Regards,

- Erik


[image]local://upfiles/9/C664C27E6D6E47FABD44508A1783AAAE.jpg[/image]



shunwick -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 10:23:23 PM)

Galaxy in Flames! Nice.

Best wishes,
Steve



unclean -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 11:13:08 PM)

The only other game I've played that had scaling difficulty like this is Civ 4, very cool to see something similar in Shadows. I always liked being able to effectively play at Immortal or Diety minus the brutal early rushes.

btw, has a way to filter fleet ships out of the military sidepanel been added in Shadows? It's pretty much the only thing I've been hoping for in Shadows that hasn't shown up in a screenshot so far.



Heliot -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/11/2013 11:26:14 PM)

I just played a game Legens. I was on a happy tour with two troop fleets with additional protection against any inconveniences ;D

I just decide to solidify my position with the new planets who happened to fall into my possession and the 3 of them revolted [:@]

And there where troops still on ground of my original race, I could understand if the knew troops would revolt or at least some of them but all?

Is there some sort of mechanic in shadows that gives me the possibility to garrison troops, to prevent this?



jpwrunyan -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 12:01:53 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: shunwick
Galaxy in Flames! Nice.


That is probably going to be the easiest medal to get.

So happy we are rewarded with some kind of end screen and score calculation. Will there be fanfare as well? That would be nice.*

*I can record some on kazoo for you if there's no room in your budget. I'll have to get a kazoo first.



Hawawaa -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 12:51:57 AM)

Awesome! Thanks for the updates.

Also to hold people over before Shadows EPISODE 3- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSR3BdBTAmA



Webbco -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 12:53:19 AM)

Hehe. That would be beautiful. A victory song on a kazoo may even bring a tear to my eye.



dazoline II -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 1:26:41 AM)

So a pre warp empire with no ability to get to other stars still has other stars in its sphere of influence? That seems a bit odd doesn't it?

Saw this in the 3rd preview.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 2:10:41 AM)

In the Distant Worlds: Shadows that I'm playing empires only get a sphere of influence once they discover faster than light travel. I'll take a look at the third video to see if I can see what you were asking about.

Regards,

- Erik



dazoline II -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 2:15:45 AM)

Its the Boskara Empire, where he can sell hyperdrive to them, and no observable craft with a hyperdrive installed. So I'm assuming their still pre warp and confined to their own solar system. Its about the 25 minute mark of the video.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 2:22:31 AM)

Ah, I think I understand what you saw now, still catching up on the video. Note that there's a new lower level to the tech tree now, with tech that exists before the first level of tech in Legends. So the first level of hyperspace is actually called Warp Field Precursors. That gives you the Warp Bubble Generator, the first early Hyperdrive. The second level is called Hyperdrive Technology and gives you the trusty Gerax Hyperdrive.

They probably just finished research on the Warp Bubble Generator and hadn't yet built or retrofit many hyperspace capable ships, but once they become hyperspace capable that sphere of influence would appear. I'll double-check the video to make sure that's what was in there, but that's how it works in 100% of the Shadows tests for months now.

Regards,

- Erik



Erik Rutins -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 2:37:48 AM)

Yep, just watched it and that's what it is. They've discovered the Warp Bubble Generator, but not the Gerax Hyperdrive. They only need the first basic Warp Bubble generator to travel to other systems and extend a sphere of influence. I'm guessing their hyperspace ships are either still being built or are out of the system on missions. Given that not much time has passed in the game so far, I'd lean towards they just discovered it and are about to start spreading out.

Taking their 85k in exchange for better thrusters should actually slow them down a bit as far as building those expensive first hyperspace ships, though it will make their sublight ships a bit more dangerous.

Regards,

- Erik



dazoline II -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 3:49:29 AM)

Thanks for taking the time to explain it Eric!



Tanaka -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 5:05:53 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kobracan

This is really great. The video and the screen look superb. I can't wait to play this. However, I can't help but agreeing with Ashbery76. He brought up some great points.

Especially:

* War weariness: This is low hanging fruit. The game already ticks up war weariness when in war. You just need to implement a ticking down war weariness when not in war (and teach the AI about it). As it is this is a useless mechanic as you can immediately get rid of all war weariness in an instant and re-declare war.
* Subjugation: This should also be fixed very easily. It's just a rule change.
* Reputation: To easy to game (raise by destroying pirates etc.) and not enough penalties/discouragement for bad reputation in my opinion.

I know Erik said diplomacy wasn't the focus for this expansion but we are not talking about a complete overhaul of the diplomatic system here. Just a few fixes / improvements. These are really some glaring long-standing problems that should be addressed (hopefully in a patch after the Shadows release).

That being said, Shadows looks great. Looking forward to it!


quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

quote:

achievements and awards
Sweet.

Is war wariness relevant? The old get peace and DOW exploit kills the mechanic.

Is subjugation relevant? Putting the work into destroying an empire to get this treaty only to have the other empires get it too makes it not.It should be a treaty only one race should get with subjugated empire in question.Mopping up the whole empire is the only sensible option atm.

Are alliances and bribing empires to attack relevant? Bride100,000 to get an empire to DOW and 5 mins later they are at peace again.Wut.

I cannot ask the military access or miing rights.Silly,silly,silly.

Spies and A.I.Not relevant in legends.

I hope some long term issues are fixed along with the new awesome.




Ditto. Could not agree more with this!



Cauldyth -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 5:20:09 AM)

Thanks for the weekend update, Erik.

P.S. You need to update the copyright year on the bottom of that title screen!



dazoline II -> RE: Distant Worlds: Shadows (5/12/2013 10:21:50 PM)

Episode 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gELzMJs9-Wk&list=UUHJM-Vd74Egk1xvGp4BHWBA&index=1



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