Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!

Moderators: elliotg, Icemania

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Icemania
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Icemania »

The difficulty settings certainly merit discussion. Extreme difficulty with Distant Worlds Vanilla never really presented much of a challenge (my concerns on this go right back to almost my first post here). To get a good game IMO you need BOTH house rules and the AI Improvement Mod ... have you guys tried this?

The house rules I typically use are:
• No Technology Trading (or other diplomacy exploits like selling Research Stations, Sanctions/War etc)
• No Homeworld Invasions are permitted until the 30 year mark and no use of sneaky fast troop transports (otherwise too easy, although harder now that what it used to be and I've done what I can in the AI Mod)
• Intelligence Agents must remain on Counter Intelligence duties (otherwise agents can sometimes become uber powerful particularly if they have concealment, there really should be a lower cap on skills)
• Recovered ships must be retired (as they are super powerful although with the AI Mod the AI explores much better so more will be found and fight against you)
• Debris field ships may not be recovered until they are within my territorial influence (as a huge research booster which the AI is uber slow to exploit, nothing I can Mod here unfortunately)
• Exploration ships must be on Automatic, no micro (stop and move to greatly increases exploration speed and goody finding)
• Cannot attack the Eruktah Refugees until they reveal themselves as the Shakturi (pure cheese)

The storylines are important in my view, you can be ahead of all the other AI's, and still lose to the improved Shakturi in the AI Improvement Mod.

It's also worth comparing on Max difficulty with other games, Gal Civ 3 for example. Personally I don't mind % bonuses the AI gets but it reaches a point where you feel the AI is playing a totally different game and becomes immersion breaking. For example in Gal Civ 3 the AI sees the entire map with no fog of war (in comparison with Distant Worlds the AI must explore the map), gets gifts of "free" cash/tech/ideology (not in DW) and their ships get massive bonuses to mass, range, accuracy etc, etc (not in DW). I greatly prefer the approach in DW.

Gal Civ 3 Difficulty Settings

For DW2 the main issues is making sure the AI properly uses all the mechanics in the game and there is decent balance. In DW the AI doesn't use diplomacy well (e.g. tech selling), and when you combine that with the huge sums of cash available, so in DW2 the AI should play the diplomatic game like we do. Now we'll still play better than the AI but with better balance (e.g. less cash for techs, even less for techs the AI doesn't need etc) we would be less able to excessively exploit it. I also think a bunch of things done in the AI Improvement Mod should be in DW2 (e.g. the AI targeting wonders better and so on).

Ship roles fully agree and hope that is addressed in DW2.
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Icemania
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Icemania »

ORIGINAL: echo2361
I'm actually enjoying my testing time with PS quite a bit. Feels like an interesting mix of traditional 4x game elements with some DW added in given its real-time nature. Probably best to save such a discussion for a different thread/forum so as not to derail the discussions about DW2.
Great to hear that you are on the PS Beta team echo! [:)]
Cepheiden
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Cepheiden »

Of course you are right, it's too simple to just buff the AI instead of nerfing the player. It just makes it feel less punishing. I think in order for the AI to use all the mechanics properly, the mechanics need to be reworked, especially in terms of population growth, which is the determining factor for almost anything.

I have your mod installed right now and it does a great job, increasing the size, expansion, aggressiveness and variety of the AI. Thank you for that and sorry, because I didn't find the time yet to give you feedback in that thread. DWU is the first grand strategy game I ever really played and I only got to know about it 3 months ago and installed your mod about 2 months ago.

Anyway, as you wrote the game is still proving too trivial once you've figured out all the mechanics in a way the AI simply can not.
I am not a big fan of house rules since I can't get myself to stick to them, except for a few that I follow subconsciously anyway, like no sneaky troop transport. Instead I did some modding for myself, i.e. adjust growth rates for each race to be within a smaller range and in order to have them all grow as large as possible as well as a a small weapons rework since some of them are comparatively weak (for example missiles, phasers, high end rail guns).
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Icemania
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Icemania »

Modding the growth rates at this stage of development is a really good idea i.e. doesn't solve it but it's a quick workaround.

With house rules I totally agree that they aren't ideal but I've come to accept they are needed in any Space 4X that I enjoy and play a lot. The list of house rules for Gal Civ 3 is shaping up to be a lot longer.

Hopefully during DW2 Beta testing, whenever it arrives, we get the opportunity to provide the equivalent comments to help and hopefully the less house rules needed the better.
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Kayoz
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Kayoz »

ORIGINAL: Icemania
• Exploration ships must be on Automatic, no micro (stop and move to greatly increases exploration speed and goody finding)
• Cannot attack the Eruktah Refugees until they reveal themselves as the Shakturi (pure cheese)

While I agree with most of these "house rules", these ones I find difficult to play by.

Exploration ships frequently miss exploring ruins/specials. This is an old bug, and incredibly annoying. Taking manual control of exploration ships is sometimes necessary to mark debris fields or such. It is particularly annoying in pirate-controlled systems, where the explorers insist on being killed to check out an asteroid field instead of more relevant targets.

Eruktah refugees all too often attack me before they reveal themselves. I've been forced to stomp them down early on several occasions despite my reservations. Improvements to the diplomacy system in DW2 would be most appreciated.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ― Christopher Hitchens
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Icemania
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Icemania »

Yeah fair comment on the explorers and I admit I still check the more interesting specials are explored at least.

With the Eruktah refugees, needing to defend if they attack is fine. What I started to do though was prepare in advance (e.g. fleets/troops) and declare war before they became a real threat, as a result of knowing what was coming.

Strongly agree on Diplomacy in DW2.
Guardian54
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Guardian54 »

Hey guys, even aside from the obvious "We need to have more groups of refugees instead of JUST the Shakturi, all of them accuse each other of being the Shakturi, one actually is, one or two are Shakturi Separatist factions who are basically rebels against the main group's warmongering and believe it will only lead them to ruin, and the player can decide if they want to exterminate them all or get them as allies" part... there's a problem with multiplayer.

Securans would be the most sought-after allies in the game in multiplayer (Atuuk reduced construction speed means they're not as good at spreading out quickly and/or defending themselves). Quameno would also be pretty damned high on the list due to sheer research capability (and good early reactor). Add in Ackdarian for zerg rush with bigger ships and, well... The coordination need not even be obvious, they can Teamspeak in secret.

In weapons...
One guy researches fighter tree
One guy researches torpedoes (and missiles and PD enough for the fighter guy to research his stuff in time, due to tech sales)
One guy researches ground combat techs.

Epic pwnage ensues.

In energy, go with NovaCore in early-mid game with Turbothrusters, spread the other techs out among the guys. Cheese resupply ship warfare to the max as IIRC Ackdarian +20% size stretches even to that... I should check myself, I think.

Hightech is basically irrelevant as long as there is Teamspeak agreement.
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Retreat1970
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Retreat1970 »

Turn Shakturi and tech trading off. Don't assume your allies will always be allies.
Guardian54
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Guardian54 »

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

Turn Shakturi and tech trading off. Don't assume your allies will always be allies.

The Shakturi thing was completely separate from my comment on multiplayer.

Tech trading off still means money funelling should be doable. as for alliances... as long as Team Victory is a thing and people play together more than a few times they will stay allies usually.
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Retreat1970
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Retreat1970 »

That's fine as long as you want to play the easiest game possible. To me that's no fun. Plus what happens when the AI is toast? Quit or war vs allies? If you quit, might as well stick to SP. If I thought I had an advantage, I'd drop my MDP and stab an ally in the back lol. Even if I lost, how much fun would that be? a lot.
Cepheiden
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RE: Suggestions for Distant Worlds 2...

Post by Cepheiden »

How about reworking the research system into the following:

- There is only one research pool and you can assign how much is spent on what category / subcategory / project.
- Differentiate between these 3 categories

1. Invention (something completely or largely new)
2. Innovation (a combination or variation of something that already exists)
3. Research (systematic effort to gain new knowledge or improve existing knowledge)

1. Inventions
For example warp drives or shields. Of course that category would be empty rather quickly if you go straight by the definition of invention, so it should also include for example warp drive 2.0 or shield 3.0.
Inventions will be made at set intervals, depending on your research hours invested and your bonuses from race, government etc. However, the content of the Invention is out of your direct control and only influenced by where you spend your research and also again race, government, resources etc.
The actual stats on a module you get from an Invention are somewhat randomized and again depending on factors such as race, government etc. For example: One race could develop a basic shield that has 1 recharge and 100 capacity and another could develop one that has 2 recharge and 50 capacity. On that note: Shields could have extra resistence stats against certain weapons, for example lasers, but that is a whole different story that has no place here right now.

2. Innovations
For example High speed warp drives / energy efficient warp drives or high capacity shields / fast recharge shields. This category basically allows to create specializations of made Inventions.
Innovations are much more specific than Inventions, yet the actual stats of the researched module are again randomized, yet largely better than the initial Invention.

3. Research
This category allows to improve the efficiency of already existing modules (Invention or Innovation) by a certain %. Of course the amount of research time invested will increase exponentially while the efficiency gain will be linear or even degressive. For example spend 1 year to improve shields to 200% efficiency and then another 10 years to improve them to 300% efficiency.


What this does:

-You won't be stuck on some tech for 10 years without anything happening inbetween
-Constant improvement
-More choices, as to how to go about your research
-no more refitting research modules
-randomized modules will create the sense of always playing a new game
-Many more possible difference between races and playstyles
For example: Machine races are great at research, yet not very creative for Inventions, while Securans are very creative for Inventions, yet party too hard to do proper research. Insects could suck at all 3 of them, but instead get a moneyless economy and absolute control through hivemind, alleviating those drawbacks and offering a completely different playstyle that is based around literally throwing the lives of their workers at problems. Rodents could be good at making Innovations to existing tech, but suck at actually thinking of new stuff themselves and thus require to trade or steal new tech from others.



On a side note: There are many other topics that could be touched, like moneyless economies (why do they all work the same in DWU?), modules that only fit certain structures (i.e. space stations, ships, planets) or certain sizes of structures or certain types (i.e. civilian, corporate, military etc.), reworking of certain mechanics like wonders or armors and shields or even damage and ship types and many more, but that's too much for 1 post.
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