Distant Worlds: Shadows (Released)

[Kushan]

@Kushan, I have no idea why your freighters won't fly to the planet if its within their range?
If you mean that your ship building AI is not upgrading your freighters correctly with gear you want, you might want to check on the size of the hull. The AI cannot make designs if they would 'outsize' the hull it is using.

Normakl freighters are working fine, it was the gas mining ships that the AI didn't design with enough fuel tanks. Not going to worry about it now unless it appears in other games. Everything is working fine now that I've got hyperdrive tech now and almost finished with the 2nd level fuel tank research. Thinking back I guess I could have thrown on a few fuel tanks manually. I seem to forget you can modify private sector ships.

I have never won a game of Distant Worlds I can honestly say. Now, a disclaimer: I always manually select my opponents and I set a few of them to be one or two levels more advanced than me. After all, do we really think all civilizations are starting at the same time? Anyway , it force me to attack other races to secure resources and colonies and to forge alliances with other "special needs" races like me

I've never won a game either. Then again, I usually play in sandbox mode with victory conditions turned off.

One of the great strengths of DW is being able to set up the galaxy you want. I've done both a few barbarian at the gates game, one high tech expansive empire with a lot of "barbarian" low tech civs set to high aggression, and the reverse with a low tech expansive empire and a bunch of high tech but smaller opponents. No other 4x on the market even comes close in this respect.

[Nefaro]

^Thanks for the advice.

I'll be giving a pre-warp game a go today (if I can get my daughter off World of Warcraft!)

JD,

I suggest turning most AI control options to "AI Suggests" so they'll send you confirmation requests with details on what they wanna do.  That way, you can get a better idea of how it flows and can adjust the AI settings from there, while shooting down anything that may be working against your intended strategy.

[mikeck]

Ya know JD, my 2 cents...and others may disagree, but you may want to consider starting out with a traditional post warp game to learn. I'm actually finding the pre warp era to be more difficult. Ships running out of fuel between stars, AI designs with insufficient fuel, etc. Generally, these are not bugs, but the lack if hyperdrives require more attention to certain things.

Create a huge map with 1000 stars, pick 5 or 6 races and set all races to have your same starting tech level. You should have plenty of time to casually explore and screw around...and your pre made ships will be able to go everywhere you want them to.

[Nefaro]

I've been easing back into the game with the ~440 star galaxy and 4 or 5 other civs, in post-FTL era with fewer Pirates.    Fewer stars = faster game, I'm guessing.

[mikeck]

I like a bigger map as I have more room before I bump into neighbors. I always set monsters to "none" and pirates to "rare" and "distant" .  Makes things a but easier and I have a hard time believing there are giant space scorpions devouring ships

[Kushan]

I like a bigger map as I have more room before I bump into neighbors. I always set monsters to "none" and pirates to "rare" and "distant" .  Makes things a but easier and I have a hard time believing there are giant space scorpions devouring ships

Be aware that if you activate shadow story line events, you will still get some space monsters. You won't any wondering around like if they were turned on, but you may have some in your home system or spawned from random events. I asked over at matrix and Elliot said they may change it so when space monsters are set to none, it will apply to the shadow events as well.

[mikeck]

Yeah, I turn off all story lines

[Rayfer]

Ya know JD, my 2 cents...and others may disagree, but you may want to consider starting out with a traditional post warp game to learn. I'm actually finding the pre warp era to be more difficult. Ships running out of fuel between stars, AI designs with insufficient fuel, etc. Generally, these are not bugs, but the lack if hyperdrives require more attention to certain things.

Create a huge map with 1000 stars, pick 5 or 6 races and set all races to have your same starting tech level. You should have plenty of time to casually explore and screw around...and your pre made ships will be able to go everywhere you want them to.

mikeck.....I thought the whole idea of starting as a pre-warp civ was that you couldn't go out to the stars but had to basically stay in your starting solar system until you researched and made warp capable ships? At least that's the way I've been playing it, perhaps I'm wrong and you can go to the stars in pre-warp?

[mikeck]

Lol....no, your right. See, I just sent my exploration ship to a nearby star under normal power (I had added a bunch of fuel tanks to max size). Problem is, I didn't check the range. Next thing I know, it's returning home before it got to the star. I checked and it was low on fuel. Never made it back home. So now it's drifting.

So, you can send ships to other stars...you just can't get them back

[Martok]

Ironically, I've not played in the Shadows era yet.  Since it's been a few months since I last played DW, I've started a post-warp empire in the "classical" era to get my bearings again. 

[Staggerwing]

If I only spring for the base game and 1st expansion how much gameplay am I missing v. how much I get? I just can't bring myself to plunk down almost 70 bucks on a game I have not tried. Also, can the 'pre-warp' scenario above be accomplished with just the first two or is one of the later expansions needed?

[bbmike]

Ironically, I've not played in the Shadows era yet.

Me either. I can't wait to hear your impressions!

[Tuna]

If I only spring for the base game and 1st expansion how much gameplay am I missing v. how much I get? I just can't bring myself to plunk down almost 70 bucks on a game I have not tried. Also, can the 'pre-warp' scenario above be accomplished with just the first two or is one of the later expansions needed?

Facing he same debate with myself.. so many games out there that 'everyone loves', but then when I get them, I don't click with them.. I love the civilization series of which I hear a lot of comparisons.. Then I watch videos of the space battles, and it looks to me, don't know if you remember, those toys you had as a kid with the little oblong peanut shaped magnet (supposed to be a car or other vehicle) in the sealed box, and you moved the magnet against that back to move it around.. lol. it reminds me of that with 100's of the lil cars.. just not seeing the love. But then on the other hand with everyone raging about how good it is, I wonder what I'm missing.. I think, "Hey, go by the base game to check it out".. But then I miss out on saving ten bucks by buying the two expansions...  Decisions, decisions...

[Grim.Reaper]

If I only spring for the base game and 1st expansion how much gameplay am I missing v. how much I get? I just can't bring myself to plunk down almost 70 bucks on a game I have not tried. Also, can the 'pre-warp' scenario above be accomplished with just the first two or is one of the later expansions needed?

Facing he same debate with myself.. so many games out there that 'everyone loves', but then when I get them, I don't click with them.. I love the civilization series of which I hear a lot of comparisons.. Then I watch videos of the space battles, and it looks to me, don't know if you remember, those toys you had as a kid with the little oblong peanut shaped magnet (supposed to be a car or other vehicle) in the sealed box, and you moved the magnet against that back to move it around.. lol. it reminds me of that with 100's of the lil cars.. just not seeing the love. But then on the other hand with everyone raging about how good it is, I wonder what I'm missing.. I think, "Hey, go by the base game to check it out".. But then I miss out on saving ten bucks by buying the two expansions...  Decisions, decisions...

Its likely just me, but fired up the base game with the two original expansions yesterday to try and get into it.....just isn't clicking.  So many options that I find it overwhelming.  I am sure there is a good game in there, but just realizing it is not for me....

[Grimnirsson]

And this is exactly the reason these games need a demo...