Galactic Empires (Wesnoth in Space)

[Computer_Player]

Balance notes:
a) I'm still exploring the new game (which GE kind of is) but I wonder if it might be good to have HQ's lose some of their upgrades when they change hands? That is standard in all 4X games. Civ cities lose half pop. and many buildings. Just wondering, perhaps it works best as is.

This would slow down the game more and disincentivize invasions (which we don't want since they are hard enough to make relevant).

b) Should planets have ZOC's? Seems realistic to slow a ship in the gravity field. Also it would make the cheesy tactic of using a transport ship to beam down troops up and down on various sides of an enemy planet less viable.

Similar reasoning to the above why I am against this. Although it could be a late game planet tech (no idea how to implement this without leveling up the planet though.. which would give full heal?)

I also see the transport shenanigans around the planet as a feature, giving invaders and defenders with a transport and space control around a planet an advantage in the ground fight - which makes sense as you would think those ships in the air would lend a hand on ground forces.

BTW the newsflash when you sink a hero is kewl. I guess Terran ships aren't so bad after all. And their groundpounders are pretty nifty keen. AI steelhivers too gave the AI Dwarfs a good fight so same for them. (Some fun loving artist ought to make bearded versions of the ships...)

When i caught a hero through planet destruction, there wasn't any newsflash that I saw. Incidentally, I would also like to report that when I erroneously set a game with a timer, I and my fellow player weren't able to see the timer due to the spacenoth GUI theme. Not too big an issue if its not a priority, but perhaps a note somewhere saying that timers are not visible in the default GE theme.

[Computer_Player]

Just had one of my most epic games in GE on Alpha Quadrant vs Mmmax, Vendeeni vs Terran. I put +2 VP adjustment, which we both liked as it allowed for comeback mechanics beyond the first quick engagement. Here I also noticed that upgrades can be stacked according to ship levels which is a nice way to encourage leveled recruitment.

Blockade and invasions, planet destruction, planet, HQ and ship upgrades, were used liberally here and I also noticed that new flagships also contribute to enemy VP when destroyed, which is a nice synergy.

Really liking where things are at. Perhaps my only comment is that Vendeeni Slasher seems to me to be underwhelming - perhaps this could be buffed to have +4 regen to make that +1 feeding really impactful. As it is, it is underwhelming compared to Fighter which I find to be more reliable even destroying HQs. I don't want to make it a HQ finisher that's better than the unique Vendeeni planet side unit though.

GG and thanks for the game.
Ending Spoiler:

Spoiler:

[Atreides]

Well had a cool game vs C_P last night. It was pretty even at the start but in the end I once again failed with the economy. : ) Yup, gonna have to practice that more, maybe unlearn some stuff I've been using for 3 decades in 4X games, heh.

[Computer_Player]

GG. I think you had a couple of major chances there, with the 1st being your first push.. I was really surprised when you backed off haha.

The second was that sneaky bombardier that almost destroyed one of my planets O_O Fortunately I had the eco lead to spare the resources to save the planet.

By the way, the special Steelhive HQ tech might also have been a factor- makes it so food required for new units only goes up by 1 instead of 2 per spawn. This gave me a few turns of econ with trade hub going online earlier.

[Atreides]

That tactical retreat I wasn't sure about but I thought it wouldn't do much harm to wait one turn but then those hard stinging steelhivers tore into my fleet much worse than I expected. 8- O That's another thing I need to practice: learn how each fleet differs and what their str/weak are.

Yeah I wish I had waited for a second cloaked bomber, 2 would be able to finish any planet in 2 turns max.

Hmmm Iildari special HQ tech is teleporters between planets. I didn't bother since that's probably good for defending against ground invasions only.

[Computer_Player]

Posting here an interesting replay vs Atreides on Ion Nova. Due to how the map is laid out, P1 can rush one of P2's "planets." P2 needs to send a transport to the south small planet in order to not get their artifact stolen by P1.

2p - GE Ion Nova replay 20240325-081536.gz

(78.63 KiB) Downloaded 20 times

I think Ion's default VP is ok and does not need the +2 modifier. Perhaps a +1 if you want.

Also, I ran a new player through the tutorial, and on the HQ explanation, they changed production to scientist. So when the tutorial expected a worker, there was none. I think it would be best if the tutorial gave additional worker units to mitigate this. Would also give them some more units to place in tiles with and help familiarization with their mp set.

At the end of the tutorial, I would also suggest mention of the GE AI for single player action, as well as different game modes i.e. survival, domination, elimination.

Finally, a suggestion to show blockade status on the planet side-display in the space map.

[Atreides]

Oh no, you posted that. : ) I'd like to plead that I was having an off day... squirrels in the attic, car in the shop for major repairs... you know, the usual RL stuff.

But I had fun anyways. Don't give up the ship! Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead! (And other such rot hehe)

I'm a big fan of Bob's RPGs (even if I do whine a lot about them being too hard <grins impishly at Bob>) but this GE is a masterpiece. All it needed was that special AI to allow people to train on it a bit.

P.S. Wish I was joking about the squirrels and car... : (

[Computer_Player]

Whew. Posting a couple of interesting games. And a bug report.

The first is a relatively quick one testing default 21 VP on Eta Quadrant. Conquering a big planet + 1 flagship kill is enough to win the match, which is what happened. Not too bad, but I'd prefer playing with a +1 VP target on this map. It's Iildari vs Steelhive, and the interesting thing is Steelhive went for a strat I theorized might be possible which is bumrushing with drones + leader with the aim of placing the leader beside the home planet or at the very least, gaining big advantage.

vs Iildari, a Flag Ship (FS) boosted drone does a whoping 18-2 dmg which is enough to 2 shot their fragile scout ships and even their level 1 fighter ships.

Ofcourse knowing the strat, I merely held back and calmy got lvl 1 tech fighter ships so I can shoot the drones safely from long range without retal.

I also sent a spare ship to harass on the opposite side- its a shame that the steelhive was not able to colonize that side of planets until relatively later.

It is through left side planet invasion and right side killing the FS that I was able to secure the win.

2p - GE Eta Quadrant replay 20240327-052353.gz

(67.7 KiB) Downloaded 19 times

The Second replay contains the bug report and it is another interesting game. It's a Terran Mirror on ion Nova (+2 VP). With the big planets being hard to attack core planets - I feel that the default VP is more than adequate as a Domination game. +2 VP almost made it feel like an Elimination game.

The bug report here is that killing the enemy Hero using a beam-down tactic does not register as a kill, and thus, does not change the VP point for the killer.

And yes, I was able to make use of the terran unique HQ tech .. which felt underwhelming to say the least. I needed to wait 3 turns just to give a a lvl 0 6 xp- a usable amount for an invasion to make it level up. Given the goal of encouraging ground invasion (and how strong the other unique HQ techs are) I do believe buffing this to +3 xp per turn is warranted.

Also of note is that this saw ample use of defensive planet structures AND calibration by my enemy. Quite rare. .

2p - GE Ion Nova replay 20240328-211758.gz

(76.53 KiB) Downloaded 13 times

[Atreides]

The bug report here is that killing the enemy Hero using a beam-down tactic does not register as a kill, and thus, does not change the VP point for the killer.

I posted earlier that I felt the beam kill is a cheap and cheesy trick that should be changed. In this at least the free kill isn't rewarded so I would say not a bug! : )

[Computer_Player]

It's a solution to solve planetside unit over flow, serves as a way to invade planets with blocked hexes, and gives additional direct interaction bewtween planet side and space side maps - i.e. control over the airspace around the planet gives ground combat a benefit. I vote its a feature and thus needs to interact with the newer systems correctly! Hehe

[Computer_Player]

Posting another interesting game where I put the theory of early aggression by Steelhive using massed drones to the test vs Vendeeni on Alpha Quadrant map with +2 VP. RNG didn't really go my way, but was able to nevertheless grab center space control with opponent's retreat - getting early advantage being the main objective of the strat, I consider this to be a success. This is more potent in domination with default vp as you could quickly convert early advantage into a win. I think the way to counter this is to just let the enemy in and harass the sides, threatening blockade by penetrating lvl 1s. They likely won't have an invasion force in place that early, and a blockade by the leader is not something they can maintain long term as you threaten the sides.

2p - GE Alpha Quadrant replay 20240330-211723.gz

(79.37 KiB) Downloaded 16 times

Commentary on how it unfolds:

Spoiler:

Things were in a tight rope as things begun to swing in their favor in mid-game, but I was able to get the space for a forward spacedock, foregoing tier 1 fighters or tier 3 econ, which proved instrumental in securing maintaining middle control.

Unbeknownst to me and in response, the enemy went for a trade hub strategy - perhaps judging that I will be able to blockade/invade forward planets too easily. I do believe I am still ahead econ wise in the late game.. and it was left a moot point as delaying engagement meant I was able to destroy a planet and achieve 25/25 as needed

Another game I am posting is this one earlier, a similar one with supvsetrt again on Alpha to note an observation. This time I am Iildari and they are Dwartha where I lose by miscounting the VP needed and left my planet open for invasion. I am posting this here to note a difference in how VP wins are awarded. In the above, since I won as player 1, the enemy has 1 of their turns to respond to the VP win. This is an effect of when VP wins are calculated, which is at the start of the turn - something that doesn't happen until the next player 1 turn. Here since supvsetrt was able to achieve the VP win condition on their turn as P2, on my very next turn (as P1), VP is calculated and I instantly lose (surprising me since I thought I had 1 of my turns to respond to the VP win condition achievement). I think this is not at all bad, and in effect a clever way of balancing the 1st turn advantage - I guess if I had a suggestion, that this be more explicitly spelled out somehow since it was not at all intuitive (I almost considered it a bug in that wins seemed to be awarded inconsistently.. until I thought more about it). This would also avoid instances where people think they have a chance to respond to a VP win condition achievement.. something they do as P2, but actually don't since they are playing P1 in that instance. Feels bad to lose to a surprise that should not be one (as opposed to cloak stuff), due to a misunderstanding of the mechanics.

Replay in question:

2p - GE Alpha Quadrant replay 20240330-211723.gz

(79.37 KiB) Downloaded 16 times

BTW. I was thinking about it, but what about the ability to purchase lvl 2 / lvl 3 transports? This would further help invasion attempts and indirectly buff the ship upgrade tech tree by reintroducing the ability to multi-upgrade higher level transports. Used to be we were able to stack cloak, slipstream, turbocharger, for example, for devastating invasions. I am unsure on the potential stats for them.. I would say they should not be too far off even level 1 ships in terms of HP or even attacking power (for level 3?) as you don't want to be able to mainline these as actual fighting ships.

I also think I feel I have a good grasp of how things stand now, so I will attempt to make a faction review / updated guide once again for the new GE. Not too soon though

[Computer_Player]

Sorry I hope I am not spamming this, but I think it deserves its own post.

Gruelling 26 turn domination match on Beta Quadrant. Me as Steelhive on p2. and supvsetrt on p1 as Terran. Went for the drone aggression once again and was tit for tat but was able to chase them off in the mid game, despite me losing planet side battles left and right all over the game. The interesting thing is he went for the Giant Green instead of center rock planet - forgetting the artifact in there. I'm attaching this for how.. gruelling it was. I was afraid that if it continued, we would have to fight a sort of shadow war with fully cloaked armadas fumbling at each other. Fortunately I was able to achieve a turning point, having the leeway to strike at all his economic planets either through blockade or planet attack at the last turn for the GG.

I think at some point he HAD econ advantage, but I kept killing stuff out of the gate to keep up. Part of the GG call was the frustration at having to deal with the oculus line of ships. I do believe they went about it the wrong way. you want to attack them through long range where there is no drain effect. Scout-line of ships are too fragile and attack through short range, and thus I believe is not the way to go about it.

I think both of us missed a timing window on converting an advantage into a more decisive earlier win.

Notes: Launch Pad only allows movement and not attacking which I think is good, but not spelled out in the tech. Also question, does Science Gold bypass blockade?

[Sire]

Been a while since I played Galactic Empires.

I just played two games against the AI as I tried to remember how to play. The new Heroes are an awesome addition, and the Dominion gamemode is probably best for most games (although I'll probably stick to Elimination for the longer games).

The only thing that bothered me was unit recruitment. If I start out with Primitive Tech, do I never get access to the higher-level ships? I never saw my unit recruitment list get updated despite seemingly upgrading everything.
-- Maybe it was this way before, but I last played a really long time ago and don't quite remember.

[Computer_Player]

Been a while since I played Galactic Empires.

I just played two games against the AI as I tried to remember how to play. The new Heroes are an awesome addition, and the Dominion gamemode is probably best for most games (although I'll probably stick to Elimination for the longer games).

The only thing that bothered me was unit recruitment. If I start out with Primitive Tech, do I never get access to the higher-level ships? I never saw my unit recruitment list get updated despite seemingly upgrading everything.
-- Maybe it was this way before, but I last played a really long time ago and don't quite remember.

That's definitely not supposed to happen, and is not my experience with it. D: Glad you were able to have fun regardless tho. Has the issue resolved itself since then? Tried the survival yet?

[Sire]

That's definitely not supposed to happen, and is not my experience with it. D: Glad you were able to have fun regardless tho. Has the issue resolved itself since then? Tried the survival yet?

Doesn't look like it. I'm playing on Wesnoth 1.16.2 and the mod version is Galactic Empires 5.7.0.
-- Tried a short game controlling both sides (Dwartha and Terran), and both of them don't seem to get access. I'm stuck with the basic "scout" ships and the transports, nothing higher is unlocked if playing on Primitive and one researches higher tech levels. // That said, I just briefly went in for this instead of fully testing, so maybe something happens for the Terran if I upgrade stuff.
=== To my knowledge, there's HQ Upgrade, Planet Upgrade, and Ship Upgrade (Parts).
=== I was originally playing as the Dwartha and had all three branches maxed out, but got no access to the higher level ships. Again, not sure if intentional (starting tech levels also determines recruits throughout the match), or not (raising tech level also allows for more ship types).

As for Survival, I briefly looked at it, but haven't played a proper game of it yet. I'll try that one later.