My main problem with this (and the shield change) is that the game becomes way way way way way way too slow. Yes, slow - as in, it takes too long to get anywhere.
It takes as long as it takes. I don't see this as being a major slowdown for the game, it just prevents some of the overly quick marauding that could be done before. This is not going to make it overly slow for the majority of players. Are you playing on Fast & Dangerous? The game being too slow has not been a prevalent complaint at all for the game in general.
Which you might brush away as "subjective" but the other thing is, that this makes the game even more than before (which is bad) Dependant on start-location. A good balanced game should NEVER have a no-win situation just because of start-location and AI Type.
This game is NOT balanced in terms of start positions, on purpose. If all start positions were the same, that would be pretty boring -- here again, every game starts feeling the same. Like a real military commander, you have to get in there and assess the situation. Some maps are unwinnable, I am sure, but they are in the minority. I have yet to see one that I felt like was unwinnable -- likewise, I have yet to see one that I would consider overly crazy easy, but those are out there also.
I think in this strategy nerf frency one should never forget that games are supposed to be fun. While fun is entirely subjective, at some point there will be no good effective strategies left, which makes the game even slower to play, and i claim that unless there come a lot more random elements and scripted events this means the game becomes boring, because at some point the player knows he is winning, but to get there he has to play another 5-10 hours.
So yeah, please make the game not unwinnable - Because once it is, it is also no longer fun. (rather its frustrating = Battle Toads)
(Atm it is still winnable though)
I am not trying to make the game unwinnable. Please actually read my posts before saying stuff like this. You tend to deliver ultimatums and make blanket statements that are only partly true, which I don't appreciate. Often you also have comments that are well thought out and spot on, but with some of the most recent changes I feel like you are giving your gut speculative reaction, which is not terribly useful as feedback to me.
Also, once you "know" you are winning with this game, victory is still not assured -- this is something that a lot of reviews have talked about, and other players. I agree that having five hours of assured victory is boring, but that is pretty much never the case with AI War -- the AI has a penchant for pulling off last minute coups. If anything, the current crop of changes only helps to make the players' situation less secure as it goes.
This is a game that takes 7-15 hours to play, period. A player can get by on less time if you are lucky or daring, but I am not designing the game around that. This is meant to be a long-form RTS title with interesting things going on the whole time. In general, most players seem able to take a planet around every 45 minutes or so -- that's plenty of stuff going on. The game will be slower if you try to do with fewer planets, or if you force your fleets into too-strong planets rather than hopping them or going around. If you ignore the unique strategies that this game brings to the table, then yes it takes longer.
Now, some or all of that may not apply to you, I don't know. I'm really not interested in getting into a big debate about this -- I didn't mean to write as much as I did, even -- so let me boil down my points so that they don't get lost in all the text above:
1. The game isn't any slower because of this. Maybe it prevents certain tactics that would make it faster than it was actually supposed to be, but that's not of concern to me -- those same speed-it-up tactics also make the game less interesting, because the AI is on poorer footing the whole time.
2. The game is still very much winnable. Please actually read my post for the solutions to the above, and my reasons for nerfing. I don't see a need to repeat them here in the same thread.
