Yeah, then one person (i. e. you) has to loose so that the other (i. e. me, or anybody else) can win

I play with more planets because I like large scale epic 4x games which is kinda what this is suppose to be. Shrinking the galaxy size down so there are fewer planets and the games go fast pace basically turns it into a typical RTS.



I said near instant and not instant. You would still get the warning about income ships so it wouldn't be useless. I mean right now you may see the ship coming in but your fleet will still have to fly their to intercept if it's not already there. Also the real bonus of PSIDAR is being able to see 2 systems out so you'll still get warnings when enemy ships are on the move. So in the end you may get less warning time but on the same token your fleets will get their faster.

hmm, things to do to make things more interesting...

* how about a sort of king of the hill? say, spawn a new solar system in the middle for anyone to reach equally easy and say "the one who can hold this solar system/ establish a colony with x/y ... wins the game. then everybody could go there and try to get a foothold and it would be one gigantic slugfest.

at least it would end the stalemate if nothing else did.

* superweapons do lend themselves to break the late game, but personally I am not a great advocate of them.

* how about a quest to collect lets say a set number of relics/ ressources/ whatever scattered across the galaxy. this means that a) you will need to fight a good number of players to get it, but you don't need to completely defeat them, only get what you came for and get out as fast as you can. in theory you could combine this with a superweapon idea, so that these ressources enable to build it.

the big point here is that these valuable items - or rather their position - should be uncovered later, because otherwise these areas would be way too well protected to get it and it would not change the original situation.

I think what all these suggestions come down to is to change the victory conditions. the algorithm to do this has to be carefully designed though so as not to favour one faction too much, otherwise its just unfair und frustrating. I could imagine this would bring some dynamics into the late game and change the situation.

uhh, another: change of phase lanes i.e. breaking up of existing phase lanes or the establishment of new ones, randomly. maybe the devs even have a system planned for voluntary creation of new phase lanes, due to lore the vasari would lend to that (or the closure of existing ones. the end of freespace two comes to my mind here). in any case - if it is technically possible - that also has the potential to suddently change the balance. only the quesion whether they should happen equally throughout the game or rather concentated towards the end.

not exactly. in freespace only travel between solar systems, not planetary systems was restricted to jump nodes. inside a system you could jump all the way you wanted as far as I remember it.

nice thinking about the mod though. I see it right and clear: the unnkown threat that chases the vasari is: a huge fleet of shivan satanas juggernauts.

I dont know, I have personally wanted more then a conquerors victory. What if there was a culture victory, or a relic victory, or a trade victory, or maybe even diplomacy?

When you guys get around to do that ... no SOTS style please, it's highly inconvience getting your empire wiped out by random events.


As for Scheme question, at this point of the game I think the only things that will make the game interesting is to make the battle interesting, because like you said, that would be the only thing to do at this point.

As for how, I think Diplomacy play important role at this state, forming aliance pack, help attacking or defending (say like to keep balance between force or gain the upper hand), it would make the game more interesting then just a straight forward beat them scenario.

One thing I havent seen anyone mention here is missions. Civ IV, imperium galactica 2, m:tw and a few others all had missions to help spur on conflict. Its hard to keep turtling when your timed mission tells you to take your neighbors planet.

Im also a big fan of random events (again so long as they arent sots like, losing homeworld on 6th turn is just retarded) especially rebellions. I would also like to see pirates get capital ships (unique ones at that).