DesConnor

The worst element of sea and river travel is that the relative speed to land travel is compromised- this has always been a major flaw of the Total War series, where armies move as fast as fleets, for example. The American Civil War might be one of the few settings where navigable rivers are a gaming feature- doesn't AGEOD's version feature navigable rivers? Not strictly a 4x, but then you couldn't have one based on the Civil War anyway. You may be r

A post made by an embittered member of the so-called webel alliance, no doubt. Many have disputed the possibility of the return of an Emperor, and have been proved wrong. Viability would depend on the criteria. If you allowed the Emperor, if there was one, to have to be among the top five rated players, and also to have defeated the other four in their last rated encounter, that would be achievable, no? Much also depends on how a ladder system w

I have given this subject my usual further consideration, and taken advice on the topic. Initially those I consulted were openly scornful of the concept of 'achievements', but after discussion they claimed that there were only two possible 'achievements' of any note: Emperor: The title awarded to the best online player. There need not be an Emperor, but there can only be one if there is one. The Emperor should have crushed all po

A few more for all-human multiplayer: Skilled/No Smurfs: Get booted from a ten player game for a player with a 0-0 record. Daisy, Daisy: Participate in a ten player game that holds a minimum and non-lagging frame rate for two hours. They Shoot Horses Don't They ?: Achieve a single victory in an multiplayer FFA with more than four players (which is why we still need an artifact victory condition to get

What about the suspected issue with the destruction of ships not yielding negative/positive diplomacy points that Goa reported? Is it meant to be like that? Lack of sensitivity to combat and related actions was the main problem I had with the update, rather than the extent of the AI bonus, though the reduction might have been advisable. The AI bonus should be capped at whatever the max rate the player can get for fulfilling missions is, as that is what it is suppos

What is this -10 modifier of which you speak? I have scarcely any recent experience of the AI achieving alliance so how to break one is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Lets say the AI accepts a mission against its ally because of some vast bribe. Firstly I don't understand why such a mission would be carried out, as the diplomatic penalty for failing the mission would be far less than for breaking a treaty. So I suppose that there would have to be an imme

The FFA relations system went through a stage where the AI would all team up against the player fairly quickly, to the Diplomacy stage where they would never ally and now we have this update where to me it seems that the surviving AI will ally together after some time depending on the difficulty. This seems preferable to the first two, but it is scarcely sophisticated enough to justify an entire expansion. I doubt that the player has the ability to split the AI once allied.&nbsp

Thanks for the work on hangars and Illuminators, and the removal of the stupid TEC charity ability on envoys that always semed viciously overpowered to me. The multiplayer community will no doubt digest these alterations and the extensive pact alterations over the next few weeks. One element of the new version that has me slightly confused is if a faction is defeated, on the section of the relations screen that details the modifiers they are now described as 'HUMAN'

No beta seems a pity, we look forward to the patch though, good luck with finalising it. I appreciate that you want to focus on relations this time, but I do believe that both mines and trade deserve examination at some stage. I know that mines were a subject for discussion but nothing further seems to have emerged? The trade ship timings may have changed from the time I last looked at them? Anyway, the situation I want to avoid is where the pirates can be effec

I know that is the theory of how trade ships work- but is it really active in the game, particularly the bounties and trade income decrease? Have you tested it? If it is working then the only fix needed is another quick one, to make the rebuild time of trade ships much longer. Currently they rebuild in 2s, which is far quicker than constructors. If the rebuild time was 60s then destroying the ships might be a valid counter to trade. That could be achi

Will there be a beta release at first? The last beta seemed fairly successful, and the potential problem with the AI needing to have enough open slots to build a superweapon seems a genuine concern. I also wish that mines and trade could have been dealt with in this patch. The quick-and-dirty solution for mines seems easy enough in code terms- a more severe limit on the number of mine 'groups' and more damage from the mines- not really any code at all, just n

Nice to hear from you again Darvin. Perhaps time to boost the economy threads again with a patch incoming? Can't agree that a colony frigate nerf would boost Vasari, after the very early game Vasari are the faction that uses them the most! Yeah, having a player have to use more than one ship to colonise would be the point of the change. It's not always as straightforward as you make it out to be. And whats wrong with requiring even a little more skill

Cheaper hangars with greater AM replenishment rates is a tweak that has been needed ever since the carrier cruisers were buffed let alone the carrier capitals. Stationary structures like hangars should not cost almost as much as carrier cruisers when they have less firepower. The concerns about phasic trap seem legitimate however. The solution might be to increase the cooldown and also to limit the number of strikecraft affected, as it is the ability is superior to many ca

Well if you say that you find 4s and 5s on huge maps more fun then that is incontestable. However I would still point out that you clearly weren't enjoying the end of this game. Do randoms have to be on huge maps for the randomness experience to begin? While on some custom or set maps the best strategies might well be quickly discovered, the process of seeing the top players find those strategies in a best-of-three game would be very instructive. Also it is not b

This game was unusual for a random in that the two teams had half of the map each, which I consider to be the optimal distribution for a random. Auqia as Advent and Higgy as Advent had the inside spots for their team, with DaKnife as Advent outside Auqia and ManiacGonzo as TEC outside Higgy. KBroke as TEC and Dwish as Vasari had the inside spots for their team, with HowThe outside KBroke and StarPlayer outside Dwish. With the poorer players in the feed spots this setu

Yeah that is a good suggestion Zombies, and the Send Envoy improvement is welcome as well. While I don't disagree with the inclusion of missions, there have been many problems with the design up to this version. My basic issue with them is that the player profits from them while the AI does not. As the player, my acts in the game, my destruction of structures or ships, will often complete some AIs mission and I will get a boost not available to the AI. Also, as t

I often find that people who disagree with me are just plain wrong, unless they are like Leisure Suit Vasari and have a string of hot chicks subject to their every whim. After all, it is difficult a man with two mistresses to be wrong about anything. If you could still forge a record then the entire purpose of matchmaking would be redundant, as you say. I disagree strongly about random maps. Players should scout the opposition not the map. How it can be ratio

No, I can't agree with a 'free market.' While auto-download for 'approved' Sins maps- those submitted to this site- might be a useful feature, are there any RTS games where users can submit their own maps for 'ranked' games? The issues with a 'free market ' are too obvious. Incidentally, have we manged to submit a community pack to this site yet? Having a single map or at most three for each of the game types makes it eas

This is indeed good news. Will there be a beta phase for 1.3, because I'd be more than happy to beta the changes for you, especially as you might not have that large a beta team available? What the AI needs to do more than anything else is to be able to form a stop-the-leader alliance, which is the first concept I'd test for in the new version. It also needs some strategic sense as to what alliances are in its favour, which the proximity modifier might be

Rebellion with its new matchmaking options offers an opportunity to rationalise the Sins multiplayer map catalogue. One of the most popular online games staged an entire championship recently using only one map. There was nothing random about it either, all the neutral spawns were entirely predictable, even the respawns. The gameplay took place on the map, rather than being driven by it. By comparison, the Sins map situation is a mess. One of the issues

From what I understood the problems with the AI relations and the diplomatic victory were supposed to be addresed in a patch to be released before Rebellion. What both systems need are a few fixes and then an extensive beta test to tweak them out. I've written about the problems before and I'd be quite happy to beta the patched versions until they were done. Finally Sins seems to be moving in the right direction, with the most glaring issues getting some att

The joke is that even if we put flak on capitals, it wouldn't defend them against bombers? I would agree that flak should damage bombers more than fighters, it's what flak was for. It would seem silly to deploy mines as a defence against strikecraft. I'm sure that was the gist of it? I never seem to play well when Zombies is in the game, win or lose. Another player I encountered when he was just a new guy, on the usual 'you have this rand

Disciple Vessel Primary: Primary Weapons: Forward Heavy Pulse Laser All the Advent laser weapons are pulse. But you knew that , and your point is quite reasonable, the Advent plasma and TEC beam techs are less used. I'm not sure if a beam mine can be rationalised, as a beam is over time damage while a mine normally explodes, but I suppose you could say it was better damage focus or something.

My problem with mines is that the damage output is small and becomes relatively smaller the longer the game goes on. They aren't a deterrent to experienced players at all, as they can be 'swept' by ignoring them, as long as you don't allow your ships to bunch up. Also what often happens is that one LRF will hit a mine and is somewhat damaged, the fleet stops instantly, the minefield can be avoided and later swept. The Vasari mines are the only useful ones b

Two other minor long-standing complaints: -Has the Dunov icon been fixed yet, so that it no longer flies backwards? I had the impression that Ironclad cherish this bug and had vowed never to fix it. -To the utter disbelief of many, the flashy new box art Trinity portraits were not included in the game. Can we have them please? Also, can we unify the multiplayer lobbies and replace the useless sub-lobbies for factions with sub-lobbies for game