Sooo... following my last two games, started with :
- darkspire 4, train 4 with both AI, golem hard 4, and champion.
- darkspire 4, train 4 with a single AI, golem hard 4, dyson 4, and champion.
The point was to test the new changes, also with the champion, and the new trains. I always liked the idea of trains, and getting them to be more influent on the game could overall only be a good idea.
The first game went something like this : I went on my business as usual, getting larger and expanding a bit, until the first "big surprise" construction project from the AI came to visit. Of the Armored variety, and for some reasons I had no bombers when it came. Promptly reloaded and build bombers... tried to go a bit further.
That when I met the widow train and his friend... the raid engine. Much ouch ensued, until I found out what actually happened. Over 5-6K treat is kind of over my head in the 4 first hours of a game, when combined with 2 more constructions projects and some wave on top of it, and no golem on my side.
My second game went a lot better, as I purposely left a train station in my territory, went for an artillery golem (basically the only thing that can kill trains), and finally got a few golems and stuff to counter incoming waves and the like. I actually stopped because, even if the AI was nowhere near getting past my defences, there was just no way I could attack it since every minute or so, spawned a 200+ carrier of level 5 units to defend the already 1800+ level 5 units at coreworld, not mentionning the carriers totalling 1500 level 5 units coming as "70% reinforcement from AI 1".
Another part of the reason why I could not attack also is that I had "zenith" low-cap units as 3 of my bonus ships, while the AI had maws.
Overall, games were fun, even if I considered them lost.
I have several points about trains I want to put forward following those games.
- the construction project takes AGES to reach the player worlds. It follows treat "rules", but still... It's so slow that in my second game it actually never reached my planets.
- trains are a pain, that's done... but come on. A sensible way to kill them with your units it needed. 400 M is way to high when they travel by pack of 4. Basically, when PARKED at a train station an artillery golem can take 2 of them. What's especially annying is that none of your units actually fire on the thing that just highjacked 100 of your them to send them to create treat on next planet, forcing you to manually check every planet and every turret to fire at the damn things over and over again... Is there a way to toggle "KILL TRAINS" ? While this was not really a problem before since they basically did little, now that they have a real impact on the game...
- Also, as a bonus, the train pain removes your scouts quite nicely.
As far as reinforcement go, are numbers supposed to be that high ? I personnaly either do not use the right strategy to counter them or something, but while waves are a laugh to counter, reinforcements at the same difficulty level are a major pain now. Is that like, intended or something ? Shouldn't both be somewhat as annoying as each other ?
Dark spire on the other side, left me dubious. While it's fun to send loads of weak units at an AI planet and watch the darks and AI fight each other, the micro-management necessary to hold these planets when spikes of dark spire spawn makes them boring at best : they are not a big treat, but need constant supervision anyway. In my second game I choose to put in dyson to neuter them (and it worked nicely). Basically it's fun in about a few games (to get the achievement), then I'm going to just ignore them. Could you change the mechanics so you get something out of conquering their planets ? Basically it's just a weak hostile dyson now.
I'd propose to be able to neuter (with a special building or something) darkspire vengeance generator, which would in turn boost the other darkspire. IE : if you control 3 planets out of 6 with the darkspire, the uncontrolled get 3 times as much units, the controlled leave you in peace, something like that, to give the faction a unique feel.
