Defending against rogue : not seen one in 200+ turn games at normal difficulty. I think that's wrong.
Defending against saucers : the current system features a huge bonus to the defender as it takes too many turns for the attacker to really spawn. With spare money, I can just NOT bother to build anything ever, wait for them to spawn, and build my defenses as an exact counter to what is spawning.
Attacking rogues : Errrr.
Attacking other "towns" :
Ok, the current best strategies are
- "building in the middle of the enemy camp" or "by placing your "turrets" in range of enemy buildings. The enemy doesn't take offense, then you declare war, destroy all of their military at turn one of the war with no retribution whatsoever. However, if that part is resolved, there is going to be a problem with that part :
- "building missiles". If the enemy is already hostile, you can easily outrange 80% of it's defenses with it, if it has only "lesser range" buildings you'll save money by using helipads. You actually know of all of their defense beforehand, so it's trivial to build an assault base which will destroy them in a few turns. I haven't yet been "jumped at" by saucers when assaulting someone, but given the current spawn time I'll go into my "too easy to defend" case above
There has been a decision made not to bother with units. I will try to respect that.
Basically my problems with this combat system is that it's very static.
I think the issue with rogues can be discussed and solved there:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,17709.0.htmlIssues with defending against saucers is that basically you've got the complete initiative over your opponents But, if you didn't, and they appeared out of nowhere and destroyed stuff as soon as they appeared, you'd be dead in a matter of turns (IE if they all target your energy, you're dead as it's impossible to retaliate).
Issues with attacking is that I get no feel of advancing ever. I'm intentionally forgetting the part where the enemy is not hostile, because there it's rather trivial to set-up military buildings which will crush the opponent in a single turn. However, with the current "fixed" attack buildings, I will run into the issue of never being able to attack unless I largely outbuild my opponent / outrange. If my enemy has a range 12 building, and I don't, that means I must place enough buildings in the 12 range (or closer) in order to be able to shoot at it. I find that mechanic VERY boring. If my enemy has a "maximum" of range 8 building, a range 9+ on my side will destroy him. Oh, he could have counters to that building put in place, but that would just mean I have to build enough to prevent him from closing in.
I "could" imagine finding fun by slowly advancing while trying to advance, preventing the enemy's fire by building counter-measures, and matching attack / defense but I don't really think possible that the AI could be matching players. Also, the "turn based" nature of combat gives WAY too much importance to the first hitter, and you can actually choose, as an attacked, what's going to be countered in the case of "guard" posts and similar buildings.
Basically, I'm having the issues that units in a 4X game are here to prevent: turtling is going to be very powerful in a turn based game with no units. And with no units, the game feels static.
When I read the description of the game, I thought you've have a few turrets to defend yourself, and that you'd build barracks, helipads, missiles and so on - they would make your "standing" armies. You'd play your "city-building" turn, then, on "end-turn" it would be "warphase", simultaneous attacks from both sides, marines / robots / planes rushing to defend your place and kll stuff, killing armies or destroying the closest buildings, then coming back home. You would "decide" where they would attack, then intercept / be intercepted depending on their orders. Of course, "no limitations of range" by turrets in that mode - you can attack stuff next to your territory with whatever you want. I know it sounds like a series of guerrilla attacks, and I think that seems to fit the videos well from what I've seen.