Post by JayTS on Jun 24, 2014 2:03:40 GMT -5
I played 2-3 games and I love this game for what it is but it is starting to feel very tedious at the fact that the gameplay is almost the same. You manage your empire and defend until you are ready to invade the xeno. There are no other victory path e.g. Early blitz or possibly a science victory.
Here are a few things that I find frustrating:
1. Xeno increases population by 1 every turn, it requires at least 2-3 planetary ships to take a full 20 population down slowly. If the xeno manage to capture one of your planets, it becomes significantly harder to retaliate because you have to move your troops plus their planet speed of growth.
2. It requires 20 turns for them to complete their planet while it takes 50+ turns for the player to make a decent planet. Because at the start of every planet you only start with 1 cp unless you are cadet or thallum and therefore the process is really slow.
2b. Population grows without control and it seems random.
3. Another boredom is that, once you know you can take down one xeno planet, then you can win the game because their economy starts to decrease and you also don't have to invest in more military. And from then, you just move slowly towards all their planets and they just keep on sending ships to die. This process is boring and requires a few hours; you send fleets, you attack the planet, and move onto another planet. Rinse and repeat.
So here is my suggestions:
1. Either slowdown the aliens initial population growth like, it only increases population by 1 every two turns when it is below 10 populations. Or if you have started an invasion on an xeno planet on that turn, their population cease to stop for that turn. This way the AI would have to prioritise the players invasion ships and it adds more tactics to defend your ships. Currently the AI always target the closest target and never bother defending their planet by attacking the invasion ships.
2. At the end of the game, I never bother to capture and develop those fallen alien planets because it requires too long to develop a planet from scratch with 1cp. So I propose some sort of new science to increase the initial cp from 1 to 2 on newly made planets. Or a new type of colony ships that provide a higher population or even transport population from a current planet to the new planet.
2b. sometimes I have a newly made planet with 4-5population, with only 2 habitat and 1 cp because you just don't have enough time or cp to develop your planet before your population booms out from nowhere. And you start to lose morale. It would be less frustrating if you allow yourself to allocate your own population. I mean that your total population will still grow but it allows you more flexibility so you won't suddenly have too much population on a single planet. So e.g whenever you have a population growth in one faction, you can allocate that person to any of the planets in that faction. Add some science to allow for inter faction allocation. Add some politics, then you can only send that population to another factions's planet if you are in a friendly alliance.
3. I know world killers are really frustrating and dangerous but ultimately having 1 danger ship only pulls your attention to 1 priority. Split the workload of the world destroyer into 2 or 3 ships. Eg. 1 ship can destroy population, with a small chance to destroy quality. Another ship to destroy quality with a small chance to destroy population. This way it also increases the AI, gameplay. Currently I never seen a dead planet caused by xeno because our population is too small. A third type of ship I think would add more fun which is to target facilities such as factory or spice den with a small chance on other upgrades. This sort of sabotage ships can certainly add another level of complexity instead of just mindless defending against a horde of ships that seems endless.
Hope this feedback helps and can't wait to see this game become even more colourful.
Here are a few things that I find frustrating:
1. Xeno increases population by 1 every turn, it requires at least 2-3 planetary ships to take a full 20 population down slowly. If the xeno manage to capture one of your planets, it becomes significantly harder to retaliate because you have to move your troops plus their planet speed of growth.
2. It requires 20 turns for them to complete their planet while it takes 50+ turns for the player to make a decent planet. Because at the start of every planet you only start with 1 cp unless you are cadet or thallum and therefore the process is really slow.
2b. Population grows without control and it seems random.
3. Another boredom is that, once you know you can take down one xeno planet, then you can win the game because their economy starts to decrease and you also don't have to invest in more military. And from then, you just move slowly towards all their planets and they just keep on sending ships to die. This process is boring and requires a few hours; you send fleets, you attack the planet, and move onto another planet. Rinse and repeat.
So here is my suggestions:
1. Either slowdown the aliens initial population growth like, it only increases population by 1 every two turns when it is below 10 populations. Or if you have started an invasion on an xeno planet on that turn, their population cease to stop for that turn. This way the AI would have to prioritise the players invasion ships and it adds more tactics to defend your ships. Currently the AI always target the closest target and never bother defending their planet by attacking the invasion ships.
2. At the end of the game, I never bother to capture and develop those fallen alien planets because it requires too long to develop a planet from scratch with 1cp. So I propose some sort of new science to increase the initial cp from 1 to 2 on newly made planets. Or a new type of colony ships that provide a higher population or even transport population from a current planet to the new planet.
2b. sometimes I have a newly made planet with 4-5population, with only 2 habitat and 1 cp because you just don't have enough time or cp to develop your planet before your population booms out from nowhere. And you start to lose morale. It would be less frustrating if you allow yourself to allocate your own population. I mean that your total population will still grow but it allows you more flexibility so you won't suddenly have too much population on a single planet. So e.g whenever you have a population growth in one faction, you can allocate that person to any of the planets in that faction. Add some science to allow for inter faction allocation. Add some politics, then you can only send that population to another factions's planet if you are in a friendly alliance.
3. I know world killers are really frustrating and dangerous but ultimately having 1 danger ship only pulls your attention to 1 priority. Split the workload of the world destroyer into 2 or 3 ships. Eg. 1 ship can destroy population, with a small chance to destroy quality. Another ship to destroy quality with a small chance to destroy population. This way it also increases the AI, gameplay. Currently I never seen a dead planet caused by xeno because our population is too small. A third type of ship I think would add more fun which is to target facilities such as factory or spice den with a small chance on other upgrades. This sort of sabotage ships can certainly add another level of complexity instead of just mindless defending against a horde of ships that seems endless.
Hope this feedback helps and can't wait to see this game become even more colourful.
