Distant Worlds; 4Ex Space Strategy; What do you think?
Official site:http://codeforce.co.nz/default.asp
Publisher site:http://www.matrixgames.com/products/379/details/Distant.Worlds
"Facts about Distant Worlds" forum thread:http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2379285
Publisher forum:http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=782
I promised an update. here it is:
I have played Distant Worlds / w expansion for about a week now. I had trouble, initially installing it. The maxim troubleshooting site has a link to an ms tool that 'cleans' the NET software. I ran that and Distant Worlds runs fine.
As i mentioned, i am not a RTS fan. However, DW allows the user to selectively turn on/off automation. And the AI is good!
DW is very challenging. The learning curve is very high, but with that comes the opportunity to really get your hands on designing and directing the military, political and diplomatic aspects of your species.
How things work can be vague, or not documented, at times. For example, when using your construction ship (s) to repair a derelict/abandoned ship that may have new tech - ownership of the ship, upon its repair and powering up goes to the civ that has the closest, largest, military ships to the newly repaired ship. Who actually repairs it is secondary. Who has the military crews to take the ship matters more. Its all automatic, and doesn't seem to cause any diplomatic wrinkles.
There are two storylines that unfold as you play the game. One is basic, the other is with the expansion.
DW is full of so many trade offs and interesting decisions, so full of opportunities to try different things. Its the most fun, I have had with any game. yes, learning curve is steep... And i am still learning. But its the best ride I have had in a game.
To keep my promise to compare it with GalCiv2: I've played GalCiv2 off and on for three years. Its great when the random events strike, and very predictable when they don't. If space empires's (Shrapnel games) ship and base building could be grafted into GalCiv2 - that would be an awesome game experience.
Distant worlds: if you have the chops to learn a complicated game (you're here so you probably do), and the patience to find the right balance between automation and what you control yourself - then, yes, go for it. i'm glad i did.
I'm curious, as someone who seems to be a fan of both, how would you compare Distant Worlds to Space Empires IV or V? Does it have any kind of unit/ship customization approaching the SE level? How about complexity of the tech tree? Are the maps interesting/varied/fun to explore like SE - does each game play out differently?
Looks good for a RTS. I like that you can pause. I hope you can still give orders and set up admin functions while paused then hit continue thus treating it like a turn base game. If anyone can confirm this it will help me decide to buy it or not. I am not a computer and can't do 100 things at once and really hate the old school Lame Time Strategy er Real Time Strategy of make bunch of the same thing, group, send off, make more send off til you overwhelm your opponent. No fun there. So please let me know if you can pause and give orders. If you can then I will buy it.
It's been a while since I played SE but from what I remember you select a hull and fill it with components. You need a minimum amount of certain components before it becomes valid but you do have a lot of choices. DW is very similar where instead of opening up hulls you essentially open up allowable build sizes for your ships. The basic classes (cruiser, destroyer, etc) are still all there but it is entirely up to you how you fill the beast as long as you provide the basic requirements of the ship (mainly crew and life-support).
Just a update, there are plans for 3rd Distant Worlds expansion in the 4th quarter of this year. So when 4th quarter comes yes do expect Distant Worlds sales on the games and hopefully they make a bundle pack for people still on the fence (beat the bundle idea into them. I am pretty sure they will make one before this new expansion). Can't wait! link
I have no idea what will be in the new expansion, all I know is that I'll be buying it.
As will I, unfortunately. I've become a Distant Worlds slut.
i am just now looking at this game.
so i am a big fan of galactic civilizations, Galactic Civilizations II, Master of Orion and Master of Orion II, the total war series, the civilization series and many other games of that genre. I am however not a fan of RTS games, i played them all when i was younger and some more recent additions - command and conquer, dune, total annihilation, supreme commander. They had their moments but RTS can occasionally just become too stressful lol. so in a search for a Galactic civilizations 2 replacement (great game but when will part 3 come out damit?) i came across distant worlds. I also came across Star ruler and tried the demo but it didn't strike home with me, however i will try star ruler some more later to see if I will warm up to it. So given that how does Distant worlds compare? I love the idea but the RTS aspect turns me off. Should i jump in or maybe just keep waiting for that 4x space opera to be born that we have all been waiting for? thanks.
You can pause whenever you want. Maybe not exactly the same as turn-based, but as close as a RTS is able to get.
Endoric, the post you made here and to which I already replied there was made on the wrong sub-board. Post in the general discussion area.
For what it's worth, Endoric, I'm like yourself in that I vastly prefer TBS over RTS titles. Despite that, I find the pacing in Distant Worlds truly is quite comfortable. It's much more like that of a Paradox game (Crusader Kings, Euruopa Universalis, etc.) than your typical RTS title such as Starcraft or the Command & Conquer series. While it's by no means perfect in this respect, DW really is pretty friendly to those of us who are more used to turn-based games.
Its not RTS like those games you've mentioned. You can, but dont micromanage units. You give fleets orders such as patrol this area of the map or survey this system..and they do that in real time..but thats like slow time..over like 10+ minutes.. the game isnt stressful clickfest and if too many things are happening at once you jsut pause and issue orders. Time isnt really an issue unless you accelerate it. Galciv2 is a very good comparison. It does have a HUGE learning curve though...dont get scared away by all the details.
Just FYI, Distant Worlds and its expansions are currently 33% off. If you've wanted to dive in but have been put off by the hefty price tag, it'll be a little less hefty for the next two weeks.
Distant Worlds Sale
Can some one give an in-depth review of this title with it's two expansions??? I am looking at buying it, but I am having a hard time getting past the graphics.
I actually wrote a blog post about exactly the issue of DW's graphics a while back:
Last but not least, I want to mention Distant Worlds, a game that is so massive, so complex, and so wonderfully fun that it could only work in 2D. Huh? Look at it. It's ugly. The ships are small, the space station looks horrible, and the planet is bland. The space looks empty, and everything is so dark. Distant Worlds is a classic "don't judge a book by its cover" kind of game. The screenshots look unimpressive, but the reason the game looks so flat is because it has to, because in 3D it would be nigh unplayable. Whereas with other games we've discussed here there's a kind of interplay between sacrificing graphics for gameplay, in Distant Worlds there's actually a synergy. Simply put, there's so much to do in DW that 3D graphics would only disorient the player, making an already complex game needlessly more complicated. What makes DW special? Scale. In a way, this is almost EU3 in space, only with ship design and without historical basis. DW takes place in galaxies ranging from the hundreds to the thousands of stars, each of which has planets or asteroids that - if they are not inhabitable - may have resources vital to the success of your empire. Indeed, economics drive DW, but they do so in the background. In a fantastic innovation, Codeforce - makers of the game - set up an automation system that takes care of huge swatches of your empire for you. No matter what, there is always a civilian economy that runs in the background of your military empire, collecting and exchanging resources, migrating between planets, and even visiting resort bases. But you can also let the AI take care of research and/or ship design and/or fighting wars and/or engaging in diplomacy and/or espionage and/or construction and/or colonization. The result: an incredibly complex 4X strategy game (that runs in real time, no less, though it can be paused) that is easy to learn because you can simply automate anything you don't want to worry about. And, above all, the game looks right. It's easy to tell where your ships are, which colonies are yours, what kinds of ships you're using, and even how much commerce is going on (if you choose to let the game display civilian ships; which makes the game run very slowly on large maps). Above all, though, the abstraction of playing in 2 dimensions - instead of the 3 of, for example, Sword of the Stars - prevents the player from getting disoriented, and allows for seamless zooming from one side of your empire to another to address whatever problem might arise. In short, the graphics may not look like much, but they're supremely functional, and they're supported by such in-depth gameplay that they're almost irrelevant.
It looks great, but a $60 sale price for a several year old game is pretty damn high. Comparing sale prices, I could have purchased almost every 4x game this one is competing with.
I understand not wanting to put your games on a huge discount, but there is a line where you can lower prices, and make much more money.
When I say it's ugly, I do not mean that it's ugly as a 2D game and I want 3D. I love Star Control. It's a dated game, but SC2 wasn't ugly by a long shot. They need to make it less ugly. I'm looking now at Star Drive, another 4x that is 2D in the SC2 style that isn't ugly. If I am looking at paying $60-$80 for the game with expansions, ugly isn't what I want.
I just looked at their forums and the game is still broken as hell.
The expansions added features but new bugs are added faster / as fast as they are solved and the game is a mess. Its a shame, I wanted to play it again.
Eh? That's news to me. I've been enjoying it since Legends came out last November.
So the persistent issues described here:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=792
Don't happen? even though person after person adds that this is how it happens?
Like the private sector committing suicide because its a singular centrally managed entity run by the AI rather then actual private sector? (EX: the private sector builds a ton of unprofitable mining bases, loses too much money, makes up for the loss by scrapping all the freighters... ends up in total collapse).
I can only speak to my own personal experience with the game, not that of others. For me, it's a truly remarkable game, and my favourite space 4X since MoO2. That's all the more impressive when you consider that it's made by one person. I can't say I've ever seen the issue you describe. Quite the opposite in fact - the private sector produces too much money, and resource availability is never a strategic concern because too much of everything gets produced. One of the most common requests on the boards is to tighten up that economy, making money and resources less easily obtained.
*shrug*
I agree, but that doesn't change the fact that the game is a mess.
I personally submitted several dozens crash and bug reports, including having uploaded saves and data for each. And to his credit the developer fixed most rapidly. As in, I uploaded a save showing a reproducible crash and within 24 hour he released a patch solving it. I am not exaggerating when I am saying I submitted dozens though.
The game is awesome but it seriously suffers from a lack of a proper QA team.
What is your difficulty settings. Higher difficulty means less income means its easier for the private sector AI to push itself into a corner it can't get out of.
Never realized that it was made by a single guy. Wow.
Yeah, I can't say I've played on the higher difficulty settings. Maybe that's the difference.
Some of the ship art in Legends was contributed by someone from the community I believe, but otherwise the whole game was done by one guy in New Zealand as far as I know. It's kind of like the Dominions 3 of space 4X in that sense.
It also shares the high price point of Dominions 3!
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