cookie monster
Posts: 1693
Joined: 5/22/2005 From: Birmingham,England Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Apheirox While there are things like the AI sometimes leaving much to be desired (something the developers are clearly aware of and are working to improve, it seems) there is one issue that trumphs them all: The victory conditions. The problem is that ultimately, regardless of whether you are a Boskaran military dictatorship or a supposedly peaceful Teekan democracy, there is ONLY one way to win: War. Because every victory condition revolves around controlling a certain portion of the map (population, colonies and GDP do ALL translate into pure map control - there is no difference whatsoever), the sole way to win is to conquer territory. Ultimately, there is no option for a peaceful victory. This is where DW is ultimately lacking compared to games like Civilization (diplomatic, cultural and scientific victory conditions) and, as an even better example, Armada 2526's wide variety of victory condtions. Granted, with the RotS expansion, a new 'victory condition' was introduced: Defeat the Shakturi. However, IMHO the Shakturi are badly implemented and the expansion is as such unfortunately a failure in this regard (albeit it introduces a host of very welcome features, like the new GUI and the research tree). The reason I say so is the fact that the Shakturi are ridiculously powerful compared to anyone else. What was clearly meant to happen, then, is for the whole galaxy to gang up on them to stand a chance, but because the AI doesn't 'understand' this the Shakturi slowly but surely burn down each and every AI empire - only the human-controlled one can provide any sort of serious resistance. In other words, the Shakturi 'victory condition' is, well, bugged. What DW really needs is an expansion pack that seriously steals the great ideas from Armada 2526 and introduces unique victory conditions for each race. The Teekans, for example, score 'victory points' by having a strong economy (but none of this '% of galaxy nonsense'). The Wekkarus can win by mining resources. Zenox score by researching technology. Boskara score both through military conquest AND genocidal bombardments of alien populations. Gizureans are geared towards controlling many colonies. etc etc etc - I think you get it. Unless such changes are made, DW is, regardless of how refined and complex it is in many areas, nothing more than one big deathmatch blob. Republic or despotism - it doesn't really matter, the objective is always to win wars. Please Armadadize the game! A refresher of the initial post. Only options are to wishlist what you want and have Igard include something like ''More Victory Conditions'' in a poll. But it aint gonna change till the next expansion or DW2. Also the Shakturi in my game were very weak, I coulda dropped 600 Elite Clone troopers on them if I chose to. There implementation (appearance) could be patched so that they come in all guns blazing with over 300 troops and 1500 size cloaked capital ships. Anyone reached the victory screen yet? It could do with some love!
|