TheGrayMouser wrote:Hello couple of questions
I like how its described but... What incentives are there to invade w ground forces vs 'glassing the planet" The problem w 4x games in the past ( including MOO) was it was easier to glass, then spend money to rebuild and , tadah, planet as good (or better) than before...
Now if a plant hit w continent busters was a total right off, and planetary invasion/ military force was very expensive, that would be good incentive, war need to pay for itself , hehe.. OR if their is a "united nations" type theme, morality checks and balances that generally deter such genocide...
Actually, there are two advantages of invading over 'glassing'.
1. If you invade quickly, you get a good fully built planet, and building it from the scratch can be a very long process, especially if this was a terran or oceanic type planet with a lot of population and highly developed research or farming. If talking about not-that-important-resorce-planet, then it is probably more efficient to glass it. So, there is a choice.
2. Also depends on how do you want you to be viewed in a galaxy. If you start bombing planets, you first can find your planets bombed as well, and often you can forget about alliances with certain races that do not like the whole idea. But if you play as 'evil' race, that makes no problem for you
So, the choice is yours. I usually bomb not important planets, when I do not expect any revenge, but make sure nobody can see this
Navies: Do space naval classes "matter" ie in the wet navies destroyers, cruisers etc had unique and distinct roles. In most 4 x games, ship classes are just bigger hull sizes crammed with more stuff. I tried to role play MOO2 back in the day and build specialty ships ie Anti-missle ships, planetary bombardment ships, but the combat system utterly discouraged that.
Yes, they do. Basically, in the beginning you do not have a big choice as you only have one medium ship hull (corvette), one small ship hull (fighter), one satellite and one freighter hull. So roles are quite obvious and the only variation is in medium ships - to make them a heavy armoured and armed strike corvette, a carrier for small ships or a support ship targeted to combat small ships.
But later on when you discover more hulls, the distinction is more clear and new roles and tactical combat doctrines appear with the development of science.
Basically, I can see these clear roles (but can be mixed):
- Capital ships (Battleship, cruiser)
a. Strike ship - the ship with the most powerful defence and attack capabilities, targeted to combat enemy strike ships and defence platforms/satellites. Slow, very expensive, usually built on "All Big Guns" principle. It's weak side is it is vulnerable to the attacks of small ships and weak but fast and very long-ranged medium ships. If you try to design a strike ship that can effectively resist these threats as well, it will lose a lot in his main role, so it will be vulnerable to enemy pure strike ships.
b. Super carrier - rarely used because very expensive, but possible to build - a weakly armed capital ship carrying something like 300 small ships.
- Medium ships (Destroyer, frigate, corvette)
a. Until Capital ships are invented, the biggest hull serves as a strike ship obviously
b. Support ship - usually a smaller hull, like Corvette or Frigate, fast and equipped mostly with anti-fighter weapon, usually cheap enough so you can afford losing them
c. Long-range ship - usually the smallest and the fastest hull, very lightly armoured for the speed, but equipped with weak but ultra-long-range weapon. Can just fly around bigger and slower enemy ships and slowly destroy them staying at the safe distance.
d. Torpedo ships - quite unique, often one-time ships, small and cheap, but heavily loaded with long-range torpedoes, to be able to destroy an unprotected Strike Capital
e. Carrier - usually biggest hull, but much cheaper than the Capital, able to carry up to 100 small ships.
f. Stealth - ships equipped with the cloaking device, used to infiltrate into the enemy territory and make destruction of the infrastructure.
- Small ships
a. Fighter - to combat other fighters
b. Anti-capital - to combat medium and capital ships
d. Allround
Also freighters of a number of different roles and platforms/satellites for defence.
hmm, how do I put this.. I like sandbox games but what I always dislike about 4x games is, why oh why do I have to start on one planet w NO real tech. I don't want to waste 100 of years developing scout , then frigate then laser cannon etc. as I expand. I'd love to see a game where multiple well established kingdoms/empires federations or whatever already exist and perhaps the expansion is in the border areas. I would love a game where a fleet of specific ships is usefull and viable for many many turns instead of becoming obsolete every few turns because a new tech is discovered.
Well, in Polaris right now you develop from one system, but a scenario with a well-developed galaxy also can be easily added.
As to science - right now while the game progresses, fleet composition changes, as from time to time you get the technology that changes the whole tactical doctrine. Like at one time carriers loaded with torpedo fighters are the most effective weapon, but then you research missile traps, phasers and ballistic computers, and torpedo effectiveness drops like in 90%, so other concepts start to rule. But I tried to make the science progress "staged", like you get a pack of new technologies approximately in on time, and then have quite a long period of time for the next doctrine-changing brake-through.
