Recently got Guild-2 Renaissance and playing.
My first impressions are good. Lots of improvements i am already enjoying. The world is more living an life like with this release. But I hope I wont get bored to death as the game progresses, as it did with the previous releases.
Lets see.
..will be an excellent paragon of its genre and would blend the best features of games such as:
Technology tree and research system from: Moo2
Ground Battles from: Moo2
Leaders & NPC's from: Moo2
Story & Space Monsters: Moo2
Trade & Freight system: Moo2
Races & Starting traits/customization: Moo2
Boarding & Capturing Ships: Moo2
Resources & Production: GalCiv2
Events & Disasters: GalCiv2
Interface & Colors: GalCiv2
Animatics / Cinematics: GalCiv2
Government & Elections: GalCiv2
Alignment System: GalCiv2
Tax & (sub)Allocating funds: GalCiv2
Galaxy Council: GalCiv2
Diplomacy: SE5
Ship & Unit Design: SE5
Supplies & Ordnance System: SE5
Fleet Management: SE5
Modability: SE5
Space Battles: SOASE / Starwars EAW.
Do you think of anything better than that?
*Moo2 = Master of Orion2 - Battle at Antares
*SE5 = Space Empires V
*SOASE = Sins of a Solar Empire
*GalCiv2 = Galactic Civilizations 2.
PTO2 improvements study;
Mentat 2007
* Graphic improvements:
-Overall graphics must be improved, work should be started on releasing 256 bit color limit and 640x480 resolution.
-Ship icons, Aircraft illustrations, Battle screen animations, are the first in line for improvements.
-By the resolution limit lifted, 3x3 grids could be increased up to 5x5
-Battles are not necessarily to be modeled realistically but they must offer more eye candy.
-Animations for the newly invented technologies should be displayed before monthly conferences.
* Interface improvements:
-"Menu opens another menu" system should be purged. more comfortable icon interface should be implemented.
-Ships that are damaged in game should be shown with red in info screen.
-After battle report should always be shown (at least there should be an option for it) by means of losses and damages.
-Battle screen should be kept for its simplicity but should be improved by means of providing more information for the player.
-In Organizing aircraft screen, aircraft experience points should also be shown.
-"Materials" consept should be renamed by "Supplies".
-Info screen for Ships and aircraft should contain "Equipments" that are applied such as radar, rockets etc.
-Mouse wheel should be usable in game, for zoom in & out, and panning abilities.
-Patrol efficiency and range for the bases should be displayed on map.
-Base geographical difficulty (rough terrain etc) should be displayed on map.
-Marines attack & defence efficiencies for the current technology and geography should be displayed on the map.
-Aircraft attack & defence efficiency for the current technology and weather conditions, should be displayed before commencing/during an attack.
-Days to repair/build for a base structure (docks, airfileds) should be displayed (as a countdown)in map.
* Gameplay improvements:
-AI should be improved. It should have given the ability to perform well planned attacks.
-the game must be either real time or Mobility points should be overhauled. It can bear a blend of both actually. (Realtime but Turns counting.)
-Mobility points for Formation should be set to 1pts.
-"Debark" command for marines from a fleet should be set to 1 pts.
-Aircraft assignments from bases to carriers should be allowed due the range of aircraft to be assigned.
-"Drill" should be renamed into "train" and there should be an "auto-train" feature that will relieve the player to hit drill numerous times each turn.
-There must be an "auto-assign" function for the regiments that are damaged to be reinforceed automatically every turn.
-Marines ordered to move to a location must be shown of their routes on map and they should turn red if their move is interrupted.
-Materials transfered from "Base Ops" screen should not send the materials instantly. Shipment times should be considered now.
-Besides Naval & Aerial Abilities for generals, "Combat" ability for ground fights should be added.
-Total Sunk ships and downed aircraft should be displayed on a statistical chart along with the submarine efficiency (Transports sunk)
* Structure:
-A new tech tree must be prepared with extended options and players can see which investment will bring what.
-More information must be presented by the new techs. what they do, what they improve.
-Material (or supplies) should be spent more for game balance. Ships, bases should request more of materials.
-Overpowered submarines should be down-powered. And their transport hunting should be up-powered.
-Ship design should be overhauled, interface should contain "Production time", "Cost" as well. And features must be balanced like 2 units of armor should not be equal to 2 units of materials space.
-Aircraft and transports should take time to be produced, they are available instantly now despite the game says 7 days of production?
-The routes of Fleets and submarines should be shown on map, by a faint blue? line. it is often hard to spot which one is going where.
-Game advances too slow by the structure it is now, for it will still be turn based game, at least "Move phase" and "Act phase" should be merged for a faser game. (60 turns for a month will be 30 turns for a month)
-Bases should have basic AA protection even if there are no troops present in the area.
-Foreign relations should play more role in game.
:roll:
Why not developers just try to be inspired from great masterpieces? why not they try to gather all the best parts of different games together?
Imperialism for instance; A Great masterpiece considered by the majority of the gaming market, is unfortunatly obselete today. Now, the weak part of it is the graphics (was quite good then) and combat system. The structure is near perfect so keep it clean, just improve the graphics, implement a new combat system (and they can surely be inspired from Rome:Total war engine) and thats it! The city management and economics system of Rome:TW is relatively weak over imperialism so by gathering the strong parts of both games You've got a superb game!! you'll most likely to attract both Total war and imperialism lovers and kill 2 birds with a single stone!
PTO2 for instance. Another great yet remain an obsolete game. I wonder who remembers the title. There are lots to improve and same thing for imperialism goes for it also. Excellent structure, interface and depth in details. Poor in graphics and combat system. Surely AI needs to be improved but any little touch will be fine since Lots have improved by means of AI tech from its time. Can you imagine the details and versatility of PTO with Battlestations: Midway? would have been great! Here goes another one. Take Lords of the realm-2 and blend it with the relatively better combat engine of Stronghold! Stronghold is weak on the big picture & politics and LOTR2 is weak on combat and custom castle building. When united they will surely rock.
I always wondered why in earth, strategy game makers are not inspired by the way Master of Orion 2 handles the tech tree and the battles; MOO2 did have a great land battle screen, oh god i loved that little troops running on each other under massive fire. So simple yet so effective! They did that on 2000 why not they can now?
Another one, this one is for simulation. Remember Great Naval Battles? Lots of people played them for days and weeks at the time. The depth of detail was very nice. And Silent Hunter 3 has an excellent sim-engine yet a low resource demanding game (compared to similar games). I always liked the surface combat of SH3 as well as submerged torpedo attacks. The same game engine can be well suited to surface/Naval combats. You can simulate even air strikes with its engine on a more user friendly tactical map (Battlestations:Midway is a good example for that - but the dynamic sim-engine is a crap-sorry). Combine such great games for good, and create a nominee for a masterpiece.
So these games are known to be masterpieces and have lots of fans all over the world. If they cant create better then them, why dont they just be inspired of them and go for a certain winner?
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