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Space Empires IV
by James SterrettInterface & Gameplay
The interface takes a bit of getting used to, but runs well most of the time thereafter. (It is not polished, but it is functional and usually easy to use.)
There are some quirks in the gameplay: the AI never takes over planets, preferring to blast them into glass; and there are some balance issues being batted about on the discussion boards. The patch has dealt with a variety of small problems and tweaks. There are other things I would like to see, though. For example, the screen that lets you sort through the available planets won't sort by the types of colony ships you have available. Also, I'd like to be able to look over a graphical representation of the geographic course of the game when it's all over. Watching empires ebb and flow is always fun in the aftermath of a 4X game. As it is, you get a "you win" or "you lose" screen, and then are asked if you wish to keep playing.
Cloak and Dagger Time!
So far, so good? If you liked the Master of Orion or Stars series, or their less-famed compatriots, you're probably feeling happy. You ought to be; if you like 4X space games, SEIV will tickle you in all the right places in all the right ways. It's got options galore, and comes covered in generous helpings of thick chocolatey gameplay goodness.
Not a good spot for engine damage
However, we do have to erect a Big Yellow Warning Sign (you can also imagine the flashing lights and klaxons here), on which is written:
Terrible Manual!
Documentation
There's a pathetic excuse for a printed manual, a solid section of which is taken up with the FAQ that appeared in the demo (why do I need to be told what I'm not getting in the demo that's present in the full game? I have the full game...!) That FAQ is pages 23-31. From pages 32 to 45 the manual outlines the basics of how to customize your own race graphics files. Pages 2 - 13 contain some relatively vague introductions to the systems in the game, and pages 12 - 22, the best part of this lame duck, has answers to "how do I?" and "How come it?" questions. This section is a really good idea, but it is let down by the execution: most of the answers read "See [section] of the CD Manual". Turning to the CD Manual (which is actually installed on your hard drive, and cannot be accessed from your CD), you find that it's a large HTML document, much of which is far less helpful that it ought to be. Far too many of the explanations are restatements of the obvious without actually providing the player with the important details necessary to understand the function in question, and most manage to leave you wanting more information.
Shrapnel's Tim Brooks has explained, on the Shrapnel forums (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/Forum23/HTML/000179.html), that a proper manual would have cost too much to print (at 350 pages) and that a downloadable PDF manual would encourage piracy and raise shipping costs. While I'm sympathetic to the desire to avoid piracy of their product, and also to the desire to avoid raising the price through a huge paper manual to print and ship, putting a PDF on the CD does seem like a good compromise - and one that's been good enough for a number of other small game publishing efforts.
However, I don't think the primary fault lies with Shrapnel. I have the impression that the HMTL manual is pretty much the manual that would have been printed - and it isn't up to snuff. Malfador Machinations is basically Aaron Hall's show, and his effort didn't go into the manual. Mostly, this is a good thing, because the gameplay is what counts in the end, and the gameplay is excellent. However, despite a tutorial scenario that gets you though the simplest of the basics of the game, this is in no way a game that is friendly to a casual or first-time user. My first thought, on starting a new game after the tutorial, was, "Uh... What do I do now?"
Economics 101
Conclusions
Be prepared to spend some time figuring out how everything works. I strongly suggest you peruse the webboards at Shrapnel for lots of tips from beta testers on how the systems in the game actually work. For example, I was plagued by riots in captured colonies, and kept dumping more troops onto the planets to try to quell them - after all, I'd gotten periodic messages telling me that some populations were happier because of my military presence in their system. Recently, a tester explained that the presence of your troops outrages that captured population - so all my efforts to quell the populations with troops were, in fact, utterly counterproductive. However, the presence of large numbers of ships in the system, and especially over the planet, calms the rioters down. (The documentation will tell you that the presence of enemy troops enrages a population, while friendly ships calm them down. Once I own a planet, why are my ships friendly yet my troops are the enemy? Does the Navy spend more money on shore leave?)[Revision Dec. 20th: The "troops enrage population" turns out to have been a bug, which was fixed on the v 1.19 patch released on December 19, 2000.]
If you have any liking for 4X games at all, you owe it to yourself to try the downloadable demo (which lets you play 100 turns with a limited tech tree). For all its warts, Space Empires IV is a heck of a lot of fun. Malfador apparently has a good history of getting the bugs solved and troubles tweaked in previous incarnations of the game, and the reputation is well warranted if the recently released patch is any guide. While the lack of documentation presents a barrier to entry, once you get past it, the experience is pretty darn addictive.
One Ringworld to Rule Them All....
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