Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

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jacozilla
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:21 am

Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by jacozilla »

Short and sweet without the gory details, i have tried combos of the settings for 'prompt for retrofit' checkbox in policy, suggest ships/bases or manual settings in policy to enable or disable advisor prompt, and using the per design automatic/manual flag settings for retrofit.

Prompt for retrofit checkbox seems bugged / meaningless - if enabled but construction section dropdown for suggest ships/bases is not enabled, then advisor prompt never comes up and state ships never retrofit, even with all designs set to automatic retrofit flag. With both selected, advisor prompt comes up but if say yes, then all ships retrofit in mass wave.

Bottom line is only two results i can thus far get is:
A. Advisor prompt on - all ships of all classes, in fleet and out of fleet - go to retrofit in one huge mass wave. With highest end quad core and SLI currently available, this breaks the game eventually towards late game on large maps in two ways:

Performance wise with 3k+ private ships plus 600+ state ships all retrofit at once, game comes to a microstutter halt. Not sure why as penty of threads, core processing, and memory available. But essentially game stutters to a step by step halt.

Strategic balance - long before the above, mass retrofit hurts vs pirates and empire attacking. By mid game, any interest in keeping mass retrofit on is nil and either quit/restart new game or switch to full manual

B. With advisor prompt off, and only way to do that is disable suggest ships/bases with that set to manual - can get 100% manual control of retrofits. Great. For awhile at least.

After awhile, 100% control pf retrofits just does not scale. It is time consuming, an ergonomic clickfest stress, and bugged (construction ships notably resist manual retrofit orders - shift clicking all on ships screen list, then click retrofit with design picked in dropdown results in zero retrofit - 100% reproducible bug for me). Only way to retrofit construction ships sometimes / lot of times is to click them one by one ad nauseum and use the retrofit button in lwoer left ship picture screen.

Aside from the construction ship resistance, in general having to do 100% manual retrofits of all ships, all classes, all fleets (with no ability to multiselect fleets in fleets screen), means that the gameplay scales far in excess of my level of stamina to keep doing full manual refits, (e.g. Game play i terest is still there, there are still AI empires and pirates left to conquer, but my empire gas gotten big enough that by mid game, full manual retrofit = end of game due to retrofit micromanagement hell)

I have been experimenting with trying to somehow achieve a hybrid system of auto and manual retrofits - ideally all non-fleet ships of certain classes auto retrofit, some non-fleet ships of certain classes manual retrofit, and all fleet ships retrofit manually (and by way of how i make fleets, only higher class designs are in fleets - cruisers and above only - but even with those designs set to manual, all fleets go retrofit if advisor prompt on)

Has anyone gotten a hybrid retrofit of part auto, part manual to work? And if so, how? (What specific combo of settings and design flags)

Thus far what i consider an A+++ game is turning into a D- ergonomic nightmare by mid game plus as the only two options i can seem to achieve is full auto mass retrofits or full manual clickfest hell. No in betweens.

Edit - the one quasi hybrid i have been able to achieve but do not consider relevant as state ships is what i am most interested in, is if i disable advisor and thus have 100% manual control of retrofits, private sector ships and mining stations will auto retrofit in intelligent fashion as long as the per design private sector designs are flagged to automatic using the design screen flags.

Intelligent fashion = when cash available, when current mission over, so no mass wave

I do not know why private sector ships/stations obey the per design flag settings with advisor prompt off but state ships do not. That is the core of the problem / bug / poorly labeled or explained settings.
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by Bingeling »

Admittedly, I have not played for quite some time, and you seem to have played more games in the last few weeks than I have since the vanilla version...

So no guarantee this works, but I would expect that it does.

The only good thing about the retrofit suggestion is that it can be a reminder to retrofit. Pressing it is unleashing evil things. I have never heard of anything but you thinking there is (or should be) anything like a hybrid manual/automatic retrofit system.

Why pick a design when you want to retrofit construction ships? Just click the retrofit button with no design selected. They retrofit to the latest design. If you run multiple designs of the same class it is self inflicted pain. Usually I want them to build stuff anyways, I rarely retrofit them after they get hyperdrive. Exploration ships? Either they are far away doing useful stuff and should not head home for retrofit, or they are not doing anything of use and should be retired.

Retrofit by the shift clicking you seem to use. Abuse the various sorting options to not necessarily do everything at once. Pick different names for your fleets, starting with something meaningful. I have "battle", "crusher", "raider", "invasion", "defense". Sort them by fleet name, retrofit half at a time or something. So "half the defense fleets (approximately top half, last one was "defense sol"". Next time the defense fleets starting below "defense sol" and the rest of the list.

Lots of free reigning frigates and don't want to send them all in at once? Make notes of changes to firepower or maintenance, sort your ships by the value to be able to select those that are not yet upgraded. Or make note of the name of the last one sent to retrofit. It would then be a good idea to use numbers for versions, and if you change the "class" of frigate have the new class be last in the alphabet. Then you know that any new ship is always at the bottom of the sorted list by name.

Private ships and mining bases are civilian stuff. You don't need to worry about those. They will retrofit sooner or later when the civilians figure it is time.

I forget to retrofit stuff, it is not that important. Then i remember retrofit and send all my defense fleets at once (it is quiet times, after all). Or I sort by maintenance and notice that not all my cruisers have the same maintenance cost, some battle fleets have not been retrofitted.

And usually, does it matter? When doing the "huge upgrades" that gives lots of firepower, I do of course remember the retrofit. For the not so important stuff, it does not matter if they have to wait 30 years or if they end the game with maxos blasters.
jacozilla
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:21 am

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by jacozilla »

-editing the novel to lead with the punch line - it is not just me thinking there is or should be a hybrid auto/manual retrofit - the game itself shows me this working perfectly fine in one area, but then does the opposite in another. So if it is my assumption, is is based on seeing actual game mechanic of how Automatic setting for Retrofit is applied in one area, but not in another.
Details and reasons below but that is the punchline to my novel length reply - this is bad game design, bad coding to support intended design that is not working as intended, or just bad labels because the flag settings for Automatic and Manual are used in various places with consistency in some areas but inconsistency in others.


That's kinda my point - some of what you've suggested here, which seem imminently reasonable - just doesn't work in practice with current game meta - OR as I freely admit perhaps some setting i am not doing right.

1. I agree the retrofit reminder is good, and I certainly don't WANT to press it to do a mass refit all at once. My point though is i can't get game to retrofit some, it's either all auto mass retrofit, or all manual (which gets tedious and just does not scale as empire grows

2. Construction ships - Whether I pick a design or just use the default mechanic of 'if all same class of objects picked and refit button clicked, then latest design of that class used without having to pick from design dropdown' , construction ships notoriously (in my games) do not obey any multi-select or even single ship selected retrofit order given from the easier to use ships list screen.

If I pick 5 construction ships by ctrl or shift clicking on their names in ships list, then click retrofit - the retrofit selected items popup window comes up as expected - now in that window as you said, I can just click on the single retrofit select items to new design button. For all other classes of ships, they obey this command. Without picking a design in the dropdown list, all selected objects/ships will retrofit to whatever is the latest design available.

But for construction ships, it does nada. Just sits there, and on list screen, the status of mission does not change to retrofit, nor does it queue up a retrofit mission after any mission they may be on.

The bug / issue / UI hell is that each construction ship must be manually clicked on, each picture window of the construction ship then clicked on the retrofit button there.
I have tested over and over, and
a) size has nothing to do with it. I have deliberately tried just using AI designed ships that are far under the max base size limit
b) have tried out of paranoia using custom designs that are smaller than even max ship size limit

For some odd reason, I would say 10% of the time or less, every now and then, when I multi or single select construction ships via the ship list screen, one or more will actually obey and I see the mission change to refit. All other times, just ignores.

All other classes of ships, I can do as you say - just select a bunch, then click refit, which opens the refit popup window, then click refit button again with no design select and voila, all upgraded to whatever is latest.

3. Having said the above though, even though all non-constructor ships obey my manual retrofit commands, the point is also that I still need to select a number of times because obviously I don't want to shift select the whole list. So I go by logical retrofit decisions. Some classes at a time, some non-fleet ship types at a time, then some fleets in rear areas, etc.

Once you start scaling to 300+ ships military, this gets to be a non-scalable issue - it can be done, but it is ergonomic hell. If you count the number of clicks and keystrokes to initiate a general chain of retrofit for 300+ ships, much less the 600+ you get at really large empire size, via whatever logical retrofit progression a player wants to follow so that a mass retrofit all at once is not done, it gets to be progressively harder issue is all I'm saying.

4. Last - yes it is an assumption of mine a hybrid system should work. But that was also my point about calling it very poorly labelled and non-intuitive. Step back a moment from your veteran experience and look at it as a new player, like me.

A) I see a big flag that suggests automatic vs manual next to each design name for upgrade and retrofit.
My single biggest supporting point here is THIS - new players learn by being shown an example of game mechanics. If a game uses the EXACT same mechanic in one way over here, but then completely does not support it or do it in another way somewhere else, then this is imo very confusing, poor game design, and just a bad thing in general.

So here is my object lesson of what I ASSUMED, and yes it was an assumption but hey, I just went with with that game showed me -
SHIP DESIGN flag setting - AUTOMATIC or MANUAL
**IF i set this flag to Automatic, then the AI will redesign as it pleases that class of design. Ok great, I've now learned and the game tells me the mechanic of this FLAG setting is Automatic = AI controls it

**IF I set this flat to Manual, then the AI will leave it alone, never design a new version of that design/class, and I can happily tweak it manually to my content. So ok great, I've learned and the game tells me that the mechanic of this FLAG in Manual code is consistent with what I've been shown is the counter-mechanic for Automatic mode. If I set it to Manual for the design flag next to each design type I want, then I get to control when it is redesigned.

SO FAR SO GOOD - but here's the TWIST

**If I set the Retrofit flag next to a design to Automatic - AND - if advisor prompts for retrofits are enabled (but lets leave this aside for the moment) - THEN what I am shown, what I am taught, is that the game mechanic here is also consistent with what I've been shown and taught this FLAG setting of automatic v manual means. So in short, the FLAG setting of Automatic and Manual should always work the SAME wherever it is applied. Do you not agree? Otherwise that is confusing labels and game mechanics if the FLAGs named Automatic and Manual do not work the same when applied as flags to various conditions.

So when I set or keep the Retrofit FLAG to Automatic, then as long as AI control is enabled via advisor prompts, then this design with Automatic flag will be upgraded as long as cash/resources allow. So far so good.

**IF I set Retrofit flag next to a design to Manual - then all game logic, learning, and being shown how this FLAG setting of Manual works breaks down. How does it break down?

a) first, a small issue but lets start here - elsewhere where flag setting of Manual is used, that setting sticks to that design. In the case of retrofit, it does not. So a contradiction already. Flag setting Manual = A over there, Flag setting manual = B game mechanic over here.

If a design upgrade flag is set to Manual, as previously noted, the game leaves it alone from then on. You can upgrade the design, you can rename the design, but it must have some object UID or design numeric to keep track of that design 'template' because regardless of what I name it or rename it, the game knows I have classified that 'class' of design as Manual, do not touch it or redesign - hands off, the player wants to control it. e.g. my cruiser named Apples Mk1 is set to automatic, the computer cheerful redesigns on next generation and replaces my design with Oranges 2 - this is expect. I then set Oranges 2 to Manual, rename it to Apples Mk 2, and from hence forth the computer obeys and never, ever redesigns that class NOR changes my Manual setting back to Automatic

BUT - for Retrofit, this is not so. The computer WILL change my Manual flag setting for that design, back to Automatic, as long Upgrade is still set to Automatic.
e.g. I let the computer design my cruisers for example, so I keep the upgrade flag to Automatic, but I set the Retrofit to Manual. Soon as the computer redesigns a new design, it resets my flag for that class back to Automatic.

This is bad game design. If you teach a player that setting flag of Manual makes it stick over here, but then absolutely do the reverse over here - that is just bad design. If anyone wants to defend why it is not, it will be quite interesting to hear why you think that. Bad design can be very up to interpretation, but in a simple case like here where the exact same game label, the same game setting is used 180 degrees opposite in two situations, is pretty hard to say is interpretation for whether it is bad design or not.

b) the core issue - aside from above, the FLAG settings of Automatic and Manual when used on the upgrade column have taught the player that Automatic = computer control, and Manual = player control. Period. No deviation or room for other interpretation.

So it is confusing, and again bad game design or coding if not intended design, to have that exact same FLAG label name - Automatic and Manual - right next to the column in which the mechanics work one way, to be done in another way in the column right next to it.

If Retrofit column next to a design is set to Automatic - why would a player not expect given what they have been shown and learned is the 'Automatic' flag game mechanic thus far, to not expect that ship designs set to retrofit column flag Automatic would not do so?

You say this is my assumption - and yes it is - but I defend it by saying the game itself tells me that is how the Automatic flag setting is applied elsewhere - so why should it not work the same for Retrofit?

3. Th player is then shown where that SAME flag label name DOES work as assumed by the game mechanic shown for that same label on upgrades. On the private sector side, if you leave the Retrofit column to retrofit on Automatic instead of Manual, then it WILL obey that setting.

Whether advisor prompts are enabled or NOT, as long as this flag setting is set to Automatic, then the private sector will retrofit all ships/stations on a cash/resources available basis to whatever new design the AI or YOU designed.

So I can manually design a mining station, set the upgrade to Manual so the AI never redesigns until I want to make a new design, but keep Retrofit column on Automatic and it will take care of retrofitting all my hordes of stations itself.

This is not only reasonable - which is just an opinion - but also logical which is based on how the game mechanics have been shown to work elsewhere. But for state ship/bases retrofit, that exact same column label of Retrofit Automatic does NOT work as how that asme label for design Upgrade flag Automatic NOR private sector ships/bases retrofit flag Automatic.

In conclusion, we have this flag named Automatic and Manual - the labels are named the same, and they are used in same fashion to indicate a flag setting the player can switch from one mode to the other. But they clearly do not function in consistent fashion. So either the labels are wrong in some areas, the function that is supposed to happen not designed right, or the coding that is supposed to implement the intended design not working correctly.

If you disagree with this - the shortest way to rebut would be to explain why you believe the same flag label name in two different columns, should work with game mechanic A over in one column, but game mechanic B in the other column in some cases (state sector column retrofit), but obeys the same game mechanic A in other cases (private sector column retrofit)?
Serenitis
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:16 pm

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by Serenitis »

It is kind of goofy behaviour to be honest, but I prefer to do everything manually and only refit ships when I have more than 2 or 3 components to change or more space to fill so its not something I run into that much.

What I do run into though is another odd behaviour which I just can't figure out.
If I open the ship list, select a group of ships and tell them to refit they all stop what they're doing (good) and make a beeline for the empire capital regardless of any closer ports (not so good).
This results in the capital port getting swamped while dozens of others sit empty, and scores of ships limping accross the galaxy as they run out of fuel trying to fly beyond thier range past ports they could easily reach.
Even ships which are patrolling a system with a port leave said system to head for the capital.
It is very silly.
jacozilla
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:21 am

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by jacozilla »

ORIGINAL: Serenitis

It is kind of goofy behaviour to be honest, but I prefer to do everything manually and only refit ships when I have more than 2 or 3 components to change or more space to fill so its not something I run into that much.

What I do run into though is another odd behaviour which I just can't figure out.
If I open the ship list, select a group of ships and tell them to refit they all stop what they're doing (good) and make a beeline for the empire capital regardless of any closer ports (not so good).
This results in the capital port getting swamped while dozens of others sit empty, and scores of ships limping accross the galaxy as they run out of fuel trying to fly beyond thier range past ports they could easily reach.
Even ships which are patrolling a system with a port leave said system to head for the capital.
It is very silly.

Prefer manual control as well, but what i prefer and what the eventual vast scale of my usual large map, large empire demands are two different things.

Re: your observation, i've seen that too but think incan quasi explain it. Afaik, wpthe logic for where your ships should head to for retrofit is closest port with adequate resources to perform the refit.

In earlier stages of empire or if my economy isnt doing well and private sector cant order as many freighters as it wants, stockpiles wont be built enough at non capital ports.

Also in my observation is that the coding for resoirce demand is at the unit group level - so a lone ship will look for nearest oort that has resources for its one retrofit order. But a fleet will ignore any port that has only part stock for part of the fleet and will look for a port that has the e tire fleet retrofit amount on hand.

So i've definitely seen what you've noted - but i've also seen it working generally as expected. What i cant say is whether at all times a ship heads for the capital that a closer non-capital port could have done the job as well.

In general, omce i get past early empire stage and worlds being low pop, imusually see my retrofits happen at most my spaceports.
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by Bingeling »

ORIGINAL: Serenitis

It is kind of goofy behaviour to be honest, but I prefer to do everything manually and only refit ships when I have more than 2 or 3 components to change or more space to fill so its not something I run into that much.

What I do run into though is another odd behaviour which I just can't figure out.
If I open the ship list, select a group of ships and tell them to refit they all stop what they're doing (good) and make a beeline for the empire capital regardless of any closer ports (not so good).
This results in the capital port getting swamped while dozens of others sit empty, and scores of ships limping accross the galaxy as they run out of fuel trying to fly beyond thier range past ports they could easily reach.
Even ships which are patrolling a system with a port leave said system to head for the capital.
It is very silly.
Hazy memories say that there has been a change in the past where the AI got better at avoiding shortages. So that ships are built at spaceport with resources.

This behavior makes it seem like this is true for retrofits as well.

In the next game, try to have only a few, large spaceports. That way the spaceport "on the far right" have a better chance of having resources, and be used for retrofit by the ships in that area.

As you see this behavior check the storage of the local spaceport. What are the levels of unreserved steel, gold and other key construction materials. If in doubt of what they are, check the new components in the design screen, you should find a link to resources needed.
Twigster
Posts: 1024
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 1:35 am

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by Twigster »

Hey Jacozilla,

IMO all this can be handled by optimizing your Settings and adjusting your in-game organization. My current game is a 1000-star map, 10 sectors across, Ring galaxy. PLENTY of AI (Late start, no Pirates). Tech is already maxed out SO my design refitting is limited to when I want to change ship designs to better suit a given situation. Typically I will (all manually) update designs, then retrofit by Fleets. With 100 colonies in 78 systems, 7 LSP and 18 SSP, ~ 55 Mining stations and ~ 75 Gas Mining stations, my mass ship retrofitting goes surprisingly well for my scale of play.

I have made what I think was a mistake though! Because of long experience of mass ship retrofits going so smoothly, I adjusted my mining and gas mining station designs, doubling their size in prep for what is going to be a HELL of a war, selected ALL mining stations and clicked retro for the classes and... 17 years later just over half of them are retrofitted and I have been deluged with the dreaded "construction stalled due to..." pop-ups. :( But, I did that to myself, lesson learned. Personally, I have noticed no bugs as you have indicated. Then again, I DO play full manual.
Blueinstinct
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:54 pm

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by Blueinstinct »

hey, i ran into the construction ship not obeying retrofit orders 'bug'aswell, super annoying.

For my manualy controlled designs i do the following:
I retrofit whole fleets 1 by 1 by selecting them, and control+rightclick on the spaceport of my desire and select retrofit ( i think it is like that but maybe it is the retrofit at closest spaceport command)
every ship int he fleet will than retrofit to latest design of its class

Either way i try to make sure that the selected spaceport has alot of docking bays and construction yards (at leas 20 each) so the refitting works pretty fast. That way my fleet refitting is pretty painless at least till midgame
jacozilla
Posts: 122
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 1:21 am

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by jacozilla »

As update and quasi workaround to core game issue of not really supporting manual vs auto retrofit tagged ships, classes, and/or fleets -e.g. Hybrid auto + manual retrofit system working smoothly and well - the only way i have been able to semi-achieve a rough hybrid system is:

1. Set all settings so advisor prompts for retrofit on - design template setting manual or auto irrelevant since that is one of core issues/bugs, with advisor prompt on, design flag for manual or auto is meaningless. Whenever advisor prompt comes up, say yes.

2. Decide which classes of ships you want retrofitted automatically, and which manually. For those desired auto retrofit, never ever put into fleets (1 auto retrofit ship will cause entire fleet to move off position) - just leave solo (e.g, usually escorts, frigates, and DD). Design setting is optional for either auto design or manual design. If on auto design, all ships in this category will retrofit the moment you say yes to advisor prompt (not preferred mass wave). If on manual design, then whenever you update design and next time advisor prompt comes up (preferred method)

For those desired manual classes to retrofit, which are usually your fleet or troop ships (because you want troop ships out of fleet on auto going around loading up on troops, and troop ships in fleet to stay put until you tell them to go invade something, and any class in fleet to stay put as fleet doing whatever fleet posture you set - a single ship in fleet that auto retrofits will order the entire fleet off posture / defend duty and move to retrofit system) - leave design on manual only, and never ever update the design until you are read to retrofit

3. For each class of ship you want to manually control retrofit, update the design only when you want retrofit to happen. After design updated, can either manually issue each ship/class/fleet retrofit order (not my desired play style), or say yes to next advisor prompt to have auto retrofitted your manual decided class.

To avoid mass wave or fleets moving off you dont want - only update 1 or few class designs at a time, AND very important dont mix class designs you dont want retrofitted at same time in fleets (e.g, if you update class design A, but have classes A and B in fleet, then whole fleet will move when A is ordered for retrofit. So if mixed classes in fleets, will just have to bundle design update and retrofit for entire fleet at same time

4. I call this less than desired and quasi hybrid because the glaring omissions are that a) you cant truly control at a ship or class level any combo of design update and retrofit update, and b) some awkward limits and juggling of what ship classes you put into fleets in order to ensure fleets stay put until refit is desired.

In essence, I'm still of the opinion that the flags named Automatic and Manual should be fixed, either in this game or DW2, to be both consistent in mechanic where ever those flags are applied, and actually mean what common sense says those label names mean.
Cruis.In
Posts: 202
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:31 pm

RE: Retrofit hell = end game = less DW interest

Post by Cruis.In »

As far as I know, the limitations you are running into are because of XNA. XNA is old. I would gladly pay codeforce to develop dw 2.0 on a modern engine or version of XNA. XNA isn't for 64 bit and can only use up to 2 gig ram. On a large map, I can definitely see the issue. It was also an issue in the game Stardrive.

Read here:

Problems with XNA

Alright, so everyone knows XNA was abandoned by Microsoft and it’s no longer supported. Clearly you can’t even make a decent game with it anymore right? Well actually, what Microsoft made was a pretty damn good managed framework for DX on windows. It used some old tech like an old shader model etc, but overall it still does what you want a framework to do: handle the graphics hardware while you write game logic, and it does a pretty good job of it.

Of course, this section is titled “Problems…” so obviously I’m not here to make an XNA sales pitch, the truth is we maxed out XNA’s potential and needed to grow out of it to continue future development. XNA was built to run on the original XBox, and it imposes the following limitations:

Thou shalt not compile to any version of .NET greater than 4.0 – which means the large object heap performance sucks.
Thou shalt not compile for 64 bit – which means you get about 2 gigs of ram. I say “about” because we are seeing OOM exceptions before hitting the 2GB image size.
Thou shalt be restricted to shader model 3.0 or earlier – simple rules here, if the XBox can’t draw it, nobody can. If you think the game looks good right now, take a moment to consider that it’s written on 12 year old technology.
Thou shalt not modify your visual studio project to try and get around these restrictions – seriously…XNA is a VS extension. It doesn’t just restrict options, it removes them, and when you disable the extension your project no longer loads.

Enter Monogame

So the solution is Monogame maybe?

Anyway...I'd pay real dollars to DW done in a modern 3d engine, but still top down. Where zooming in/out is smooth like Stardrive, where the menu system/U isn't like windows 3.1 and where the memory limitations etc are gone and the game can take full advantage of the latest gfx/cpu hardware.
In fact I am certain that I'd get addicted all over again and there'd be no end because the end only came for me with the above mentioned things being frustrating, I hated how slow the menus opened up and all the stutter.

XNA was the obvious choice for them when they started, so can't fault them for it.

One of the great things about DW is the AI, as much as we like to knock it, for the game to have any challenge, the AI has to be spot on, and boy has it got difficult. I used to complain that it was easy. I can't beat it on extreme difficulty any longer with AI set to chaos :)

Don't want to try either because above said problems. Codeforce should do a KS for DW 2....bring its aging self up to date. Would probably be a monumental task to port over all that AI code though :)
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