Is Sword of the Stars playable now?

[Vesparco]

I have to throw my stone to the fact of naval stations.

The gameplay mechanics of naval stations are well defined and (despite the lack of easy access documentation) explained.

Now let's go for the logical side.

It's a heavily space platform able to manage huge fleets, with the logistical factors associated, the building/repair facilities and the intel/command of the sector sensors and defenses. This megalithic construction requires a dedicated construction fleet, tons of money and several turn for construction/upgrading and has a decent unkeep cost.

But surprisingly, from the logical side...

This key element is the size of a guard post in comparison to the ships, has the structural integrity of a paper sheet and its defense mechanisms are under the ones fitted in a supply ship (even missiles don't find place in it). Even industrial and shield technologies don't find its place in upgrading this element to sustain a litte bit more of the punishment found in battle.

NOW

I understand that design concepts are quite personal, involved in gamebalance and stuff like that, but I believe (and I'm sure most people would agree) that the station approach from SotSI was far better scoped (which was to act as a CnC unit, boost production and be at the same time a heavily armed platform).

Personally, I think that the station concept could have been different far easier by setting roles in each system (military, scientific, economic or diplomatic) and developing the infrastructure with time and/or money and limiting it by the total ammount of population inside the system (Even enabling multi-role sytems for the big ones). In addition, the behavior in SotSI was good enough without having to require weird/complex additions to the game equation.


Now, as an update to my previous post

I've been playing the enhanced edition for the last few weeks and I can't still sustain a whole game with 3 computers. Everytime I reach 15 colonies or so I get terribly tired of all the fleet micromanagement. It's a ton to make just to avoid messing the game up on the end turn. In addition, most of the "long term" developments at that point, such as colonies (I am amazed how much turn requires a colony in order to start generating a proper income) and stations can be flushed away through the toilet in less than five minutes by a system without fleet (and even with 20 defense platforms) or by magical-out-of-nowhere-totally-screwed fleet emplacement. I haven't got this feeling playing shogun total war, sins of a solar empire and several more strategy games with quite deep complexity. The game is playable but the problem is that the fun is scarce and hidden by tons of anger, frustation, desolation and mostly, indiference.

Sincerely, I feel SotsII requires a hard spin in game concept like was fallen enchantress expansion to elemental: war of magic. The core game of elemental was not bad but the total change in the expansion was worth the effort.If not the game will become a "niche" game for some people who will enjoy the actual game and a huge unhappy crowd who bought it because of the sequel expentantions of "the same with more".

 

[tyranny12]

I tend to agree with you about naval stations. There is ample logic to support the concept of upgrading stations with pd or shield modules. Unfortunately, that isn't reflected in the game - I somewhat wish it was, but it doesn't bother me overmuch.

Although I will say a high level naval or research base can take a *lot* of punishment, so they aren't really paper towels. Just as a level 3 naval base can have something like 24 heavy turrets, I think?? (Don't quote me.)

I really want to say one thing, though - as you are the second person to say something like 'magical out of nowhere totally screwed fleet emplacement.' I have not seen that happen, but I have heard of three scenarios where it can happen:
- Player doesn't know/use the battle manager to place his fleet properly.
- Player has changed his fleet composition but not replaced his fleet in the battle manager. (This means that the 'new' ships aren't with the old ships. I hope they fix this, it's a bug IMO.)
- Player is Loa. Loa are 'cubes' before the fight, so need to be placed in the battle manager once they are turned into ships, immediately before the fight. (I don't play Loa, so not sure if I am describing this right.)

I will say, I don't consider SoaSE to be that complex. I also think the game offers near endless opportunity for micro - don't succumb to it, and 15 colonies won't be unmanageable. No need to build and upgrade every station to the top, no need to place defensive fleets everywhere - just a few defensive assets per system, a few 'production worlds' to pay attention to, and a defensive fleet per province in able to respond to threats that defensive assets can't handle. Don't succumb to constant trade slider manipulating, overharvesting, building everywhere, etc. It's not needed.

 

[roman566]

For me the problem is micromanagement. In sots1 all I had to do to colonize one planet was build 50 colonizers, gate them to target and order them to create colony, BANG next turn I have colony with 100 infrastructure that will terraform planet in couple turns, exploration? team up gate and tanker dozen times and exploration is done.
SoTS2 makes simple things extremely complex, apparently our ship captains are five year old and cannot leave home without mommy... I mean admiral... supervision. Colony fleet that gates to target, drops whatever, goes back requires admiral to guide ships through gate back and forth, but it's not all, I cannot just team up 100 colony ships to insta terraform planet, no I have to build 10 fleets with 10 CnC ships and order them TEN TIMES to move to target... if that's not micromanagement then I don't know what is.
Exploration? Hey, you see that star? Fly to it and set up gate there... but don't forget to take admiral with you... such important task can't be done without proper supervision, after all we can't allow highly trained and experienced captains fly willy-nilly, they might get lost or something.
Trade is another annoying thing, in previous game it had it's own screen where it was possible to manage freighters and production sliders, now I have to jump all over the map to deal with that, usually many times as full trade means no production to rebuild freighter after pirate attacks.
In other words new game brings many pointless and annoying aspects that do not improve game play.

 

[Robotkiller]

This game is not playable for newcomers. I just got it a few days ago and I simply cannot master the mechanics of this game, like research. The lack of a tutorial is a grave error on the developers' part, especially when the game is so complex. I honestly cannot bring myself to play this game when I have no idea what I'm doing. Reading the manual and watching gameplay videos provided little help.

Don't buy this game. Go buy one of Paradox's other games instead because they are at least playable.

 

[unmerged(624846)]

This game is not playable for newcomers. I just got it a few days ago and I simply cannot master the mechanics of this game, like research. The lack of a tutorial is a grave error on the developers' part, especially when the game is so complex. I honestly cannot bring myself to play this game when I have no idea what I'm doing. Reading the manual and watching gameplay videos provided little help.

Don't buy this game. Go buy one of Paradox's other games instead because they are at least playable.

There are several tutorial videos on youtube and such that cover the majority of things in the game concerning the basics. As far as research goes, it seems there is no real set path its just all based on what you want to do. The only issue with the research tree is not being able to see what all they upgrade to along the paths prior to actually getting there. Other then that everything is pretty much self explanatory.

This is coming from someone who just bought the game earlier today, sure they don't spoon feed you with an ingame tutorial but with a little searching on google/youtube there is plenty of info out there to get you going.

 

[tyranny12]

For me the problem is micromanagement.

Leaving aside the complaints about needing fleets and admirals instead of lone ships, as we've all heard those by now, and for good or ill, that isn't changing - it's just different from the first game.

I would argue that in both your colonisation and trade examples are more micro-intensive then you need them to be at all. If you insist on building such an insane number of colonisers, it *will* take effort to manage them all. Given the colonisation system is made so that your single colonising fleet will continue to support the colony as long as you want, you really only need to order one fleet in to colonise the world. If you choose to add micro, micro will come. That was true of both games. In this case, I would argue that it is adding micro for no gain - the fleet maintenance costs and build costs of what you describe would be crippling. I usually maintain two or three coloniser fleets at most given points of the game - and while I can have them both support a colony, I rarely find the need to do so.

Trade in SotS1 was one of the most annoying things to manage. Build freighters per sector. Try to find relevant trade box on map. Upgrade with heavy freighters when available. Scrap old freighters. Track down pirate activity. Try to keep track of what you've upgraded on a large map. Etc. While I agree there needs to be a colony management screen for manipulating sliders, that has little to do with trade. For trade, I build a station, I add docks, and I allow for trade goods to be produced (via the trade screen). Early game, I build a few freighters to get it going. Mid game on, I let my civvies handle all freighter building as I don't need to pay maintenance on their freighters and I don't have to track it down. Pirates don't occur because I have them locked down, and if I lose a freighter in a system where I don't, yet, my civvies rebuild it for me. It's far simpler. As you say though, you are allowed to choose to make it micro intensive.

Even if you want to build freighters directly, I have not found the trade overlay to be a micro-nightmare - and I'm currently playing one of the largest maps. You can queue them up on the same screen. I think you can transfer them via reserve as well if you don't want to manipulate sliders?

This game does not play the same as SotS1. If you try to play it like SotS1, it will be annoying.

 

[roman566]

I play as hivers, so...
Sots 1: 50 colony ships and developed planet in 10 turns, next turn ANOTHER 50 colony ships and another planet on it's was to be productive member of empire, repeat until there are no available planets.
Sots 2: 8 colony ships and 10-20 turns until planet starts bringing profit.
Summary - in sots 1 I could have 10 developed planets in 20 turns, it's not impossible as exploration was much faster, here in 20 turns I will have two... maybe three new developed planets... I need 5-10 colony fleets to keep similar expansion rate as in sots1, how can I afford it? It's cheaper than wasting 20 turns on a single planet with high hazard rating.
As for trade I didn't see problem... skip small freighters and build large ones on trade screen, never had ANY problem with micromanagement. Pirates? Hmm.... I don't recall them being problematic.

 

[tyranny12]

Summary - in sots 1 I could have 10 developed planets in 20 turns, it's not impossible as exploration was much faster, here in 20 turns I will have two... maybe three new developed planets... I need 5-10 colony fleets to keep similar expansion rate as in sots1, how can I afford it? It's cheaper than wasting 20 turns on a single planet with high hazard rating.

Key emphasis highlighted above - it's not SotS1. The game is slower paced. Hiver's still are among the fastest expanding races, if not the fastest - at least in my play experience with them and all other races but Zuul and Loa.

For fun, and as I had excel open already since I just got off the phone from a long discussion with the tax-man, I just crunched some numbers. I used my Morrigi game to pull costs - as such my numbers will be higher than a Hiver would have to pay, but not massively - also, Hiver initial income is a bit lower from what I recall. I roughly modeled the cost of fleets and attempted to do some time to build analysis. The build time analysis is very rough. I used a hiver fleet composition - one command and 8 colonisers. Most other races would need some supply.

I looked at both 1 fleet in operation supporting a two colonies successively, and ten fleets in operation doing the same. I assumed an average starting CH penalty of 170,000 - high for early game for a single planet, which skews the model in your favour and I believe is the model you are proposing. To simulate (poorly) the immediate decrease both colony fleets would generate in the worlds they service, I have assumed a static 170k for both worlds for the entire 20 turn operating model you propose.

1 full coloniser fleet would cost 1,150,000 to create, and cost an additional 900,000 in maintenance over 20 turns. Total cost a bit over 2 million. It would in 20 turns, with the hiver's massive advantage in support missions and climate tolerance, take two planets down to levels where CH is no longer problematic. In that time, those high CH planets would cost you an additional 3,400,000.

10 full coloniser fleets would cost 11.5 million to create, and cost an additional nine million of maintenance over 20 turns. Total cost a bit over 20 million. In those 20 turns, your high CH planets would probably get reduced much quicker, let's assume a cost of 340,000 (one turn each, thank you gate network.) They wouldn't generate any noticeable cash, though, as civilian pop still grows slowly - and in this model, cash is important!

On balance, the 10 coloniser fleet model costs 18 million more to save you around 3 million.

Also of note, assuming starting system IO totals of 14,000, it takes 6 turns to build the first coloniser fleet, or 58 turns to build 10. Assuming you are doing nothing else but building - not constructing gate ships, fighting off rebellions from massive levels of debt, not building new survey ships.

So, not only is the proposed model massively expensive, it ties up your ship-building resources disproportionately to the value gained. By the time you are done building your ships, you don't need them anymore, and your empire has collapsed from debt.

This is not to say going head-on colonisers isn't a valid playstyle for spamming planets - but it is a choice that isn't necessary unless you *like* torturing yourself with micro and devoting yourself solely to that.

Pirates? Hmm.... I don't recall them being problematic.

Pirates also aren't problematic in SotS2. Some people ignore them (and the freighters get replaced by stimulus.) Some people build cutters with perhaps a level 1 naval station and they stop coming. Some people build lots of q-ships and farm them for bounty. I've had two pirate attacks in the last 70 turns of my current game - both on new colonies just starting to trade. I then built cutters and all was good.