Beta 4 feedback
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
Just finished a 12x12 game in beta 4. In general, I thought that the changes made this a more fun game than in previous releases, especially in the early & mid game. The AI (on Smart) was a pretty challenging opponent. The stability also seems to be much improved over beta 3..
BUGS
1) Part way throught my game, I was suddenly able to purchase ships for, e.g., 175 + 5 for 0 months. This also happened in beta 3. If this is intended behavior, maybe someone could tell me what tech creates the effect.
2) I won via a research victory, but the victory happened one tech too soon. The victory screen came up after completing "Beyond Human" rather than "Final Frontier".
3) Sometimes my ships would go to the wrong location. Typically they would wind up 1 sector above or to the right of where I had assigned them.
4) The game's evaluation of my military strength was inaccurate. It kept warning me that I was rated well below the surviving opponent, but my handful of Overlords were destroying dozens upon dozens of his ships. This calculation should take into account military bonuses and ship strength in addition to the number of ships in your fleet.
5) Sometimes the "planet has defected" dialog would appear over top of the list of ships/improvements that appears at the begining of the turn. The net effect is that you can't alter settings to the defecting planet, and in a big galaxy, you usually can't find it afterwards. The list of defections should appear before or after the new turn dialog.
6) I build 9 freighters from my highest class planet, but only the first five trade routes connected to that planet. The remainder were "re-parented" to a nearby planet.
7) After I switched government to Star Federation, I never had another election during the game.
8) Only 2 UP resolutions came up for a vote during the entire 300 turn game. I don't know what the expected frequency is, but it seems like they should happen more often.
9) The start screen does not honor the music setting in preferences. In other words, it plays music even if you set music off in your preferences.
GAMEPLAY
A) Terror Stars look cool, but at 1 movement, they're pretty useless. I completed 4, but was unable to destroy a single planet. I was able to conquer the target planets via culture or invasion long before the TS arrived on the scene.
Late in the game, the micromanagement became pretty tedious. Particularly dispatching ship after ship to the front lines on the other side of the galaxy. It would be great to have an option to auto-send completed ships from a planet to a rally point.
C) In a similar vein, it was hard to figure out which planets the AI had attached, to rebuild defenses if necessary. I'd love the ability (on the Governor screen?) to specify a standard defense fleet for a planet, and have them auto-rebuilt if any ships were destroyed.
D) Cultural influence seems to be all-or-nothing. Either you can't convert a single alien planet, or you're converting 3 per turn on the other side of the galaxy. This would be a stronger feature, IMO, if it became exponentially harder to convert planets far away from your capitol or very close to the enemy captiol.
E) What do the pirate flags mean on planets? How do you get rid of them? I had a few on alien planets that I captured, but I couldn't see any info on what effect they had.
F) It's very annoying that enemy freighters remain behind after you take a planet. If the UP passed the resolution to protect freighters, you can't destroy them. There should be some way to get them out of my territory once I control a sector.
G) The AI (on Smart) probably could have beaten me if it would have put all its money into research. It had a 2 tech lead once I got to 4D space phasing, and its research rating was about double mine. Instead, it put money into military and I was able to catch up by pumping my own research and conquering some of its planets.
BUGS
1) Part way throught my game, I was suddenly able to purchase ships for, e.g., 175 + 5 for 0 months. This also happened in beta 3. If this is intended behavior, maybe someone could tell me what tech creates the effect.
2) I won via a research victory, but the victory happened one tech too soon. The victory screen came up after completing "Beyond Human" rather than "Final Frontier".
3) Sometimes my ships would go to the wrong location. Typically they would wind up 1 sector above or to the right of where I had assigned them.
4) The game's evaluation of my military strength was inaccurate. It kept warning me that I was rated well below the surviving opponent, but my handful of Overlords were destroying dozens upon dozens of his ships. This calculation should take into account military bonuses and ship strength in addition to the number of ships in your fleet.
5) Sometimes the "planet has defected" dialog would appear over top of the list of ships/improvements that appears at the begining of the turn. The net effect is that you can't alter settings to the defecting planet, and in a big galaxy, you usually can't find it afterwards. The list of defections should appear before or after the new turn dialog.
6) I build 9 freighters from my highest class planet, but only the first five trade routes connected to that planet. The remainder were "re-parented" to a nearby planet.
7) After I switched government to Star Federation, I never had another election during the game.
8) Only 2 UP resolutions came up for a vote during the entire 300 turn game. I don't know what the expected frequency is, but it seems like they should happen more often.
9) The start screen does not honor the music setting in preferences. In other words, it plays music even if you set music off in your preferences.
GAMEPLAY
A) Terror Stars look cool, but at 1 movement, they're pretty useless. I completed 4, but was unable to destroy a single planet. I was able to conquer the target planets via culture or invasion long before the TS arrived on the scene.
Late in the game, the micromanagement became pretty tedious. Particularly dispatching ship after ship to the front lines on the other side of the galaxy. It would be great to have an option to auto-send completed ships from a planet to a rally point.C) In a similar vein, it was hard to figure out which planets the AI had attached, to rebuild defenses if necessary. I'd love the ability (on the Governor screen?) to specify a standard defense fleet for a planet, and have them auto-rebuilt if any ships were destroyed.
D) Cultural influence seems to be all-or-nothing. Either you can't convert a single alien planet, or you're converting 3 per turn on the other side of the galaxy. This would be a stronger feature, IMO, if it became exponentially harder to convert planets far away from your capitol or very close to the enemy captiol.
E) What do the pirate flags mean on planets? How do you get rid of them? I had a few on alien planets that I captured, but I couldn't see any info on what effect they had.
F) It's very annoying that enemy freighters remain behind after you take a planet. If the UP passed the resolution to protect freighters, you can't destroy them. There should be some way to get them out of my territory once I control a sector.
G) The AI (on Smart) probably could have beaten me if it would have put all its money into research. It had a 2 tech lead once I got to 4D space phasing, and its research rating was about double mine. Instead, it put money into military and I was able to catch up by pumping my own research and conquering some of its planets.