Settings for Shadows

[sinbuster]

Hey all,

I'm a huge fan of slow, long games so I tend to play with very expensive research - allows ship designs to not get outdated in a short time. I believe I made it ~700k in my last Legends game.

I'm thinking of raising it up to 960k (double the very expensive). Would this mess with the early game do you think?

Any thoughts on checking the difficulty scaling and pirates don't respawn boxes. I'm debating setting the difficulty to normal and scaling. As for pirates, I like the idea of destroying them permanently but I wish I could both destroy them and see them spawn if the conditions were right. The default settings were a step above normal for pirates. I might bump it to full and check the box if it doesn't screw up the game play.

Like I said, I like long games, so I prefer to make my big decisions before investing a lot of time.

Cheers

[Erik Rutins]

The early game has been balanced and tested at a variety of research settings. Overall, slower research does benefit the pirates a bit because they start with an early lead, but we also adjust their economy a bit as the research speed goes slower, so it's not overwhelming.

I'd recommend starting your first game with difficult just set to Normal (not scaling), but if you are a very experienced player allowing difficulty to increase should give you a challenging game. The Pirate setting is somewhat self-limiting in the long term as Pirates fight each other as well, but more pirates will result in a more active and challenging pre-warp game. If you allow difficulty to scale and have Pirates set to max and allow them to respawn, you are in for a heck of a ride. [;)]

Regards,

- Erik

[sinbuster]

Thanks Erik. Great game by the way. It's on par with Paradox's titles which is the highest praise I can give.

I've played three campaigns most of the way through so I've learned a lot but I'm no pro. My last game I played all the way whipping the Shakturi and satisfying my victory conditions. I'm thinking of cutting out the Shakturi storyline and destroying any planet killers I find so I can have a long game with no real time limit. I like 12-15 total empires and it's a toss up between 15x15 and 10x10. If there was a choice for two galaxies forming an elliptical that would be awesome. Just saying.

[Spacecadet]

ORIGINAL: sinbuster

Thanks Erik. Great game by the way. It's on par with Paradox's titles which is the highest praise I can give.

I've played three campaigns most of the way through so I've learned a lot but I'm no pro. My last game I played all the way whipping the Shakturi and satisfying my victory conditions. I'm thinking of cutting out the Shakturi storyline and destroying any planet killers I find so I can have a long game with no real time limit. I like 12-15 total empires and it's a toss up between 15x15 and 10x10. If there was a choice for two galaxies forming an elliptical that would be awesome. Just saying.

Wow.

I typically spend a week or two on a 15 x 15, 13 (other) Empire game.

I'm wondering how you managed to get three campaigns in already [X(]

[sinbuster]

Well, I have warp bubble tech, don't you?[:)]

And that's 3 total campaigns in all. Like my Paradox games, I'll play at the slowest settings and take a month or two to finish a game. After that I get the urge to play another game. I usually return once an expansion comes out.

[Spacecadet]

ORIGINAL: sinbuster

Well, I have warp bubble tech, don't you?[:)]

And that's 3 total campaigns in all. Like my Paradox games, I'll play at the slowest settings and take a month or two to finish a game. After that I get the urge to play another game. I usually return once an expansion comes out.

I think you need to be a Tester on the next expansion/DW2.

We have Testers running at 4x that don't get through one game in a day, let alone three [;)]

[sinbuster]

Please do. I'd love to be a part of DW2 - more in a writing capacity but I digress.

Any advice on starting settings if, hypothetically, I hadn't actually played Shadows yet, Space Cadet?

[Spacecadet]

ORIGINAL: sinbuster

Please do. I'd love to be a part of DW2 - more in a writing capacity but I digress.

Any advice on starting settings if, hypothetically, I hadn't actually played Shadows yet, Space Cadet?

Think you might want to put in word with Eric/Karlis about that come next recruiting version [:)]

As a Tester, I can confirm that some of our suggestions/requests get implemented to some degree.
We all want to make this the best game possible, so it only makes sense to add the best to the game we can.


As for game settings, I'd say the default should be fairly challenging, but with my current game I'm wondering if some things were tweaked.

During Testing, a setting of "Few" for Pirates would generate about nine Pirates on a 15 x 15 map, but I don't think I'm seeing near that in the Gold release version.

Proximity seems to have changed a bit as well (for the better in my opinion).
During testing I would say "Few" was a good mix, but now it seems "Few" might be less than I'm used to.

I'm still in the middle (early) of my Gold release game, so I've still got a lot to look at.

At this point I'm still looking for issues to fix, so I'm not sure I can give recommended settings at this point.

Just move things one "click" at a time and see how that translates into game challenge/performance.

[jackarbiter]

He's saying he's played 3 campaigns overall, earlier versions not shadows.