Certainly, different strokes for different folks.

I would like to say that both games promised two things:

1. That it could play itself.

2. That you could play it yourself with automation off and that doing so would be fun.

MOO3 failed on both of these, it couldn't play itself, and you couldn't take over because the game was far too complex and tedious.

Distant worlds delivers on both, but mostly on #2 and less on #1. It can play itself, but it does so poorly (still better than MOO3)... automation can definitely be improved.

But #2 is where it shines, you can play it yourself with automation off with no problem. It is entirely doable and not overly tedious to manage things yourself, a lot is abstracted and kept simple for you and the actual mechanics are not very spreadsheet like.

There are certainly improvements to be made to either aspects, but codeforce is actually working on the game, and is very responsive and very active on their forums. two of their chief programmers are there all the time. I know them by name, I have submitted suggestions / bug reports with saves and they say "thank you, I was able to track it down thank to you and fix it" or "fair point, we will add this feature the next patch (and they did)", note: they don't do every suggestion of course. somethings they disagree with.

Now, I am saying that the automation is entirely optional and the game is both playable AND fun with the automation off. The only thing you don't control is the so called "private sector"... but if you look into it, the private sector is:

1. Freighter ships (of various sizes), build automatically.

2. Passenger ships (freighter ships for people, immigration)

3. Mining bases (you actually build those, private sector "owns" them... doesn't matter, they can't go anywhere and just mine... you just don't have to pay their upkeep, and you can't manually scrap or upgrade them, they do that automatically)

The thing is... in every game those are usually abstracted, you don't actually manage a fleet of 6000 freighters (real amount in my last game) to move resources between planets. it is just assumed that you do and unless a planet is blockaded, all resources are communal. Not so in this game where resources are actually transported...

it makes the galaxy seem very alive, it makes it possible to run blockades, lose resources to pirates, etc... but the most important bit is that its decoration that makes the galaxy come alive. It makes it feel "full"... you might have only 1 capital ship per 10 planets... but there are lots of computer controlled freighters, some escorts, etc... and you can actually hunt down and kill the AI's freighters, mines, etc.

You don't actually "lose out" compared to other 4X games, it is not less playable as a result. The only thing you don't control is the "living decoration" which doesn't even EXIST in any other 4X game.

Another place where it APPEARS (on first look) to be less playable is research, where research occurs automatically in all fields without your direct control... except, you can pay money to "crash" research, which involves directing all your research output to finding one technology. If you use that, then it is exactly like every other game where you chose one tech to research... the only difference is that if you chose NOT to do that then there will be random research happening all over the place (via private sector).

Well different strokes for different folks.  MoO3 is to me still one of the better space 4x (after the necessary user mods/patches, out of the box it was indeed crap).  There is indeed ample opportunity for you to manage your empire as you see fit.

DW just doesn't hook me in.  The races are completely uninteresting to me, the 'tactical' combat is nonexistent, and the techtree is boring while the research system is 100% annoying, as well as rendered pointless if you have a couple research boosting anomalies close by.

At least as of 1.3, or whatever the last patch I bothered with was.

So...the game's been out for a few months now.  Has anybody reached a definitive conclusion?  I have been on the fence with this game since its release...and still am (I really wish there was a demo.  It is soooo important with a 4X sci-fi game).  Has the game improved since the first few patches?  Would people still recommend it?  Or was it just a flash in the pan?

The reason I ask is because I've been playing a lot of AI War and I am really enjoying it.  However, that game is so combat focused that I find myself missing all the non-combat stuff that would certainly be going on behind the scenes with a space empire, particularly commerce and colonization.  I've read people saying that DW feels like EvE Online or X3, and that really makes me interested because that is the type of economic chrome I think a lot of sci-fi 4X games miss.

So, again, is DW worth the investment?

Wow, I missed this months ago, sorry.

If you're still curious...

Redesign still happens, but only when you research a new system worth redesigning for.

Early game this is nominally only when I get a new hull size, mid-late game only when I get something I really want to use.  So it's not every turn, it's not even every 10 turns.  Also there is a way (through a defines file) to set exactly how you want the AI to auto design your ships (and it's ships for that matter), also to autoname them if you don't want to call them 'Raptors' and 'Sting Rays' or whatever.  Some tweaking may be desired, but it gives you the basic layout of weapons/shields/specials such that all you need to do is shift around the numbers of things.  Or you just load the old design, rip out a couple things and slap in a couple new ones.  Doesn't really take that much time, and the autobuild settings work pretty well if you make a couple hard locks at your pure production planets to get out certain types of ships.  Though I find the autobuild will make waaaaay more recon ships than I need (though you need some to fill out your armadas, but only about 10% of your total fleets needs to be recon), so I will usually redesign the recon class, let it fill up a few build queues (not locked ones), then obsolete it so that once those ships are built the queues will have to chose other designs.

As to the mod I use... well I don't remember off the top of my head, I think it's Apricot, might be Boysenberry.  Anyway, (though I've not been there in a while) the forums at ATARI had the details on the different mods (there are two main ones still going) as well as the thread for running Bhurics patcher (which the mods may actually include anyway, I forget).

Depending on what one prefers.  For me, it is better than GalCivII.

Dom3 is 95% a MP game though, you can play it SP, you can even enjoy it SP (well some people can), but it is intended for MP, and is more entertaining MP (with the usual caveats about winding up with a bad group of people playing in the game with you, fortunately the Dom3 community is fairly light on that type of person).

the last patch was 1.6 on 29 JUL. While they fixed a lot (the game shipped in a real bad state), there is still a lot more to fix. So the game is still rather buggy and it looks like it will never get properly polished.

I highly recommend you:

1. Turn off space monsters

2. Turn off space pirates

3. Set corruption to minimum. (it really needs an off toggle, worse "improvement" to the game, ugh, added via patch 1.4 i think... makes it "more fair" for smaller empires by punishing larger ones with an arbitrary corruption penalty to their income, a MASSIVE one)

4. Read up on the economy and how to work it (in the forums)

Anyways, I had fun with that game, really wish they finished polishing it up properly.

I always play with them on minimum.

eh......what....?

That's like 30% of the game, using them to find stuff and adding a challenge to get your empire off the ground.  Why turn them off?  They are manageable and finally getting your revenge on their base is satisfying!

Never had a problem, as long as I'm not just planet grabbing everything like a hoover then I'm always earning more than smaller empires already anyway.  Planets take a long time to get returns but if you can get a good Luxury goods per planet ratio then no problem.

Always have corruption on default.

Pirates and Space Monsters are a hindrance to all empires, sometimes you can't deal with them early but it's part of the challenge.  I know some people still turn off pirates in Sins though so it's just different tastes.

If you can bear Real-Time part - yes.

I LOVE some game concepts there, but I'm too used to my slow TBSes, and whole RT thing annoys me too much. There are pause and ability to slow it down, but I still feel overwhelmed by amount of events and stuff I need to do.

Automation is not so bad in exploration, trading and mining parts, but as for wars, diplomacy and expansion, you better do it manually. ESPECIALLY wars, I've got cases when my planets were conquered by enemy just because AI didn't feel like defending them (and I had 3-5 times advantage over attacker).

Other thing is that game UI is slow on my core quad PC, because of some horrible .NET stuff it uses.

I was looking for something while EWOM gets sorted out ... Space 4x RTS is my fav genre and I've played them all including Beta on recently Star Rulers.  I agree that DW is a fantastic game.  It's currently sucking up my primary gaming time and will continue to do for some time methinks.  You really can't compare it to combat focused games like SOTS or AI Wars, both awsome games in their niche.  DW is more about building a viable empire that feels real and alive.  Here it does a better a job than anything I've played in the genre.  Here are my thoughts after a couple weeks in game ....

Overview - Your Empire has 2 entities.  The State which you control and the Private Sector which is AI controlled.  Your job as the 'State' is to explore and expand by discovering desirable planets, moons, gas fields, asteroids, etc...With that in mind you build mining outposts, colonies, and starports/bases.  You can automate any aspect of this, do it yourself, and have advisors suggest what you should be doing.  Your expansion and building program allows the 'Private Sector' to start working and making money. The Private Sector is fully automated.  They buy a variety of ship types from your starports to haul freight and trade goods, ferry passengers and tourists, and also to do some of their own mining at places you may not have provided a mining outpost.  It really feels alive!  Your spaceports build the ships the Private Sector orders and soon you have all kinds of vessels moving about plying the trade lanes.  As the State, you build the space navy that will ensure the Private Sector can operate smoothly and efficiently by dealing with pirates, space creatures, and of course other empire that will try and disrupt things.  The automation capability is some of the best.  You could run fully automated and watch, or you can automate various things at a macro level like Colony Taxes, Troop Building, Ship Design, Agent Recruitment, Colinization, Ship Building, etc.. or you can automate at a micro level, letting the AI control some State ships, but not others.  You can have a map with up to 1400 systems and hundreds and hundreds of ships, however, though the game is hugely detailed, its not a click fest.  The automation coupled with the option to slow things down to a crawl or pause while you reveiw and order

Economy - Awsome!  There are something like 20 Strategic goods you need to build, maintain, and fuel ships, bases, etc...  Then there are 20 Luxury Goods which the Private Sector wants to stay happy and to use as trade goods.  Some are rare, and some not so rare.  The idea is to have access to as many of these goods as you can ... though your empire will trade from them (not as efficient) if you don't have enough supply to meet the demand.  As you expand, you want to build mining bases or colonize worlds that provide the goods that are in highest demands...once you find those locations.  There is an expansion planner tool that shows you all the info you need.... what goods are current priorities for your empire, what worlds are potentials for colonization, and what the galaxy demands for goods are.  You can assess the priority of the locations and simply click to send an available Constructor Ship or Cololnizer there, or if you don't have one, the AI will build one and send that ship there.  I really like the concept of the mining outposts as opposed to the typical colony spamming everywhere.

Tech - Tech is somewhat simplified.  There are 4 Tech areas.  Research points are provided by bases that have research facilaties.  The amount of research points you can actually use is capped by current population.  Though the AI spends points in every area, you can 'push' and area by building more of that type of research facility than the other types.  There are about 25 different component type and each research area relates to a handful of the types.  You can run a crash program on one component type if you spend some money.  As you gain enough research points in a given component type, you get access to the next level of that component to use in your ship designs.  You can also gain access to specific component techs by 'finding it'....maybe a long lost alien ship you stumble across.  The system has a couple holes, but it works pretty well.  It takes a lot of time to get that next component which makes it feel real and seem worthwhile.  Further, your ship designs stay current for quite some time so you are not constantly upgrading.

Ship Design - Nicely done.  You can create your own designs using about 25 different base design types.  The size of the design is limited by your current tech.  So you put together designs using the 25 different component types...weapons, cargo, reactors, engines, etc.... By doing your own designs, you are able to optimize and also control what designs are available for the AI Controlled Private Sector to buy.  Or, like everything else in this game, you can have the AI automatically take care of creating new designs as new components become available.  Be warned, there is not a lot of detail info on creating efficient designs and the details on how each component really effects the ships energy and fuel budget leaves something to be desired.  But there was plenty of help in the Matrix forums.  Retrofitting your ships requires them to be retrofitted at an available space dock...a base or a contructor.  If you want to the retrofit a ship you can just click retrofit and the design you want to retrofit it to and the ship automatically will set off to the nearest dock to be upgraded.  I really liked this....so much more believable and realistic than 'poof' you spent the money and though you are lightyears from anywhere you are now upgraded.

Diplomacy - Also nicely done.  Yes it could perhaps be a bit deeper, but it seems to get the job done.  One of things that some folks have reported that they don't like is that protracted WAR really takes a toll on your colonies happiness and efficiency.  You end up having to lower taxes which of course means less income.  So you really need to plan your wars well.  You do not want to be at war with a number of empires at once for a long period of time.  Also, if you plan to be the galaxy dictator and be at war all the time, you better select a race that has a war weariness bonus.  Anyway, I found it all to be pretty believable.  If you want to take an empire out, you need to setup to take them out quick or force them to sue for peace by going after their key homeworlds all at once.  You also want to do things like maybe build a mining base in their territory so you can give it up as an inducement for peace if things are not going your way.  Basically you want to setup to keep your wars localized on an enemy empire at a time and take them out fast whilst maintaining relations with everyone else is what I get from it.  Again, it seems realistic.  If you are at war with everyone in the galaxy at the same time, you people are not necessarily going to be thrilled.  They just want to live their lives and make alot of money.  Though I have admitedly not played enough end game to understand all the ramifications. 

Combat - Combat is more like SOTS as opposed to Gal CiV.....though not as detailed as SOTS by any stretch.  The action is real time and you do have control of ship movement if you want to micro.  Else, they will fight it out as best they can using their design and the tactics you can set for their design.  Once shields are down, the ships will start taking component damage....mitigated by the how much armor the design has.  If you have the tech, you might have a on an on board repair component.  Or, you can manually send in a constructor to repair a ship that can't limp home to a starport for repair.  Or, if you have a couple contructors set to automated, they will eventually show up to repair the ship.  It's good, but again, the game is not as combat focused as SOTS or AI.  As such, I tend to just make sure I have good designs and group ships into fleets that I know will get the job done and just send them to where they should be sent.  You can also set any ship to AI Control and if you have Fleet Automation turned on, the AI will form automated ships into fleets.  Or if you don't have Fleet Auto on, automated individual combat ships will take up patrol duties or escort duties wherever they feel its needed.

Agents - There is a whole agent and spying subsystem....but I have not had the time to really mess with it... So much other stuff to do.

I agree with the poster that suggested you don't let AI manage WARS.  In terms of control I manage my STATE ship building, my main military fleets (though I do have some AI escorts and frigates running around), my ship design, and the vast majority of my constuctors.  Sometimes I will jump in an take control of an exploration ship if i want something specific explored.  I automate troop building, and taxes, and have everything else set to suggest.  Again, the capability to pause and go back to review messages and give orders is awsome.  I don't see how this is different than turn based and definetly works for me.

Anyway, I could write a lot more but I need to get back to work .  All you really need to know is that if you like Space RTS Strategy games with a focus on Empire building, you will like this game.  It's been getting pretty solid 80% reviews from the media as well.

I finally jumped into this game last week and am greatly enjoying it!  Thanks for all the feedback!  DW definitely has the potential to be the go-to game for sci-fi fanatics.  I can't wait to see what's in the expansion pack!

Looks like the new expansion is out for this game and I'm very interested in it.  Anyone get it yet?

Also, is this only available direct from the developer?  Sure wish it was on Impulse.

Yes DW is fun! Loving the expansion. Heck yes new weapon systems, carriers, and tech trees!

Dude right now you can get the expansion for like 19$. It will be on sale for another week and a half. Grab it!