[AE] Is this fun?

[Wraith]

See topic, and answer.

[Illusions]

Its addicting but not fun. It appeals to my obsessive compulsive attention to detail and min/maxing, however the game is horrifically designed, as its a crucible of horror designed to favor those who have been playing the longest, those willing to spend the most money, those with the most aggressive gang mentality, and those with the most amount of time to devote to every minor minutiae. If you don't join a guild you're going to have a bad time. If you didn't start out in the first week, you're going to have a bad time. If you don't spend money, you'll likely either grow frustrated or get your ass kicked by someone who did. If you don't play aggressive, someone else who does will make you their permanent farm. This isn't a blizzard game. If someone could find the one magic cookie cutter build, they'd win 100% of the time. This cookie cutter build is simply someone figuring out the math behind the game.

As evidence of this, I provide myself. The people whom I've passed on our Guild Leaderboard aren't worse players than me, they've simply spent less time at their computer with the Astro Empires window open watching a number tick down and optimizing everything for those ticking numbers. I have no problem doing that because I've managed renders. Ohh I've got to watch a number move for 30 minutes to an hour while thinking about how to decrease the amount of time the next number takes? I can do that!

I can feel a corvette finishing its production while I type this. I'm very likely going to quit in the next week because 1) Playing this way takes up a lot of my time, and wastes productivity 2) Not playing this way is going to lead to me being someone's farm in the future 3) This is not how a good game should be.

[littlelolligagged]

I don't want to quit at this point.

I think it would have been much better if the newbie protection lasted long enough to actually build bases and progress a bit, first, though.

I'd like to crush some people.

[Illusions]

I don't want to quit at this point.

That doesn't answer if its fun. Seems more like this is the same as my answer. Its addicting. You want to crush people. I want to optimize numbers.

[RandBlade]

So far I'm finding it fun. I also find this game to be less number watching than most alternatives like Tribal Wars are, the fact that you can queue your buildings, defences and research (if not units) even when you don't have enough resources yet is quite a pleasant change . Also there seems to be enough variety in the units types and defences that it is not just a case of mini-maxing the perfect cookie cutter which makes it more interesting.

I find the interface very well designed - as it works perfectly whether on my iPhone, iPad or Laptop which means I can play it fine on any window anywhere. Seen someone else say it works well on their Android. TW did not work well on the iPhone. For a game like this its useful to be able to play it simply and easily while mobile so that's a big plus for me.

[Illusions]

So far I'm finding it fun. I also find this game to be less number watching than most alternatives like Tribal Wars are, the fact that you can queue your buildings, defences and research (if not units) even when you don't have enough resources yet is quite a pleasant change . Also there seems to be enough variety in the units types and defences that it is not just a case of mini-maxing the perfect cookie cutter which makes it more interesting.

The problem is I was doing the same thing in Planetarion over a decade ago, the main difference being that you had more versatility in the role you could play, ie. if you wanted to play a counter-intelligence operative you could, also the main resource was asteroids instead of debris and planets.

[Flixy]

It is somewhat fun, somewhat addictive. I'll probably get bored of it within a week, btu it would be nice to wipe at least someone from the planet before that happens!

[Wraith]

Honestly, I asked because I'm finding the same things as Illusions. I appear to be pretty addicted, but I can't say I'm enjoying it. I'm just stressed out. I guess the lesson I probably should have learned from TW wasn't that I can't play TW, it's that I can't play these types of games at all. It turns out, I really need to be able to turn off the game when I need to go do work or sleep. I'm also worried about the advantages that paying gives. While I still think the planet limit isn't a serious problem until late game, working without the scanner will be crippling, and not having the rest of that empire tab will make things less fun too.

[Loki]

I think the micromanagement will decrease sharply within a week once we all have as many planets as we care to develop. At that point, building one structure will take many hours, so there's no need to check as frequently as we do now. It's still fun for me, but I'll give a final verdict in a week.

[Illusions]

I think the micromanagement will decrease sharply within a week once we all have as many planets as we care to develop. At that point, building one structure will take many hours, so there's no need to check as frequently as we do now. It's still fun for me, but I'll give a final verdict in a week.

The problem will be as follows:
1) You'll still have to track ship production, attacks, farming, and defense
2) You'll only be able to queue 2 things at a time instead of 5 once the free upgrade period runs out. Lets be honest here, the free upgrade period exists so that they can establish our current interaction with the game as the baseline, so that what we'll be experiencing as the rest of the game will feel worse in comparison, in the hopes that we buy the upgrade. People obviously feel the regular game is terrible enough to warrant upgrading, otherwise they wouldn't still have the option for it, or established this method of marketing to new players. Hell, it seems like drug deeling 101 with this. Give them the product for free until they're hooked, then make them pay for it once they're addicted.

[Loki]

You could just insert "buy 1000 fighters". I think the amount of farms will also decrease as the weak players are eliminated.

Will there be any need to queue more than two things when anything takes 6 hours to make/research?

[Illusions]

You could just insert "buy 1000 fighters". I think the amount of farms will also decrease as the weak players are eliminated.

Five stacks of 200 fighters means that you'll see actionable fighters faster than one stack of 1000.

[Loki]

Five stacks of 200 fighters means that you'll see actionable fighters faster than one stack of 1000.

No one said there isn't a trade-off.

[littlelolligagged]

Can I decide if this is fun next week instead?

[Illusions]

Can I decide if this is fun next week instead?

Why ask us if you're going to do it anyway?

[littlelolligagged]

So that I can blame someone else for my decision-making process, of course.

[RandBlade]

While I still think the planet limit isn't a serious problem until late game, working without the scanner will be crippling, and not having the rest of that empire tab will make things less fun too.

I disagree. At this rate within a week or two will hit the 9 planet limit. While planets become exponentially more expensive so too does terraforming so that to me is the game-breaking limit of it being free. A player with 9 planets versus one with 30 is going to be at such a mega disadvantage.

OTOH for €19.99 for a year (or €14.99 for 6 months) it is affordable, I don't think I'd pay if others here quit but if there's a general consensus to continue then I think I might.

[Bitter Jeweler]

I thought it was fun to see how excited everybody got when this began. It's sad to see we're already talking about how long it will last.


I liked tribal wars because there was a clear path to doing things to succeed. I am not finding the path as clear here. It makes it more challenging for me.

I am enjoying it, I am eager to advance. I have no problem paying for the upgrade even if in two weeks most of you quit. Which, I will follow suit. Once you all left tribal wars, every tribe I was in after that sucked, and didn't have the commeradery we have.

You, sirs and ma'ams, are my friends.

[Loki]

I think it might be a good idea to pay for a month subscription, even if it's relatively more expensive than the yearly one. I don't think the odds of us all playing this in a year are terribly high, while there's a decent chance that half of us will be around in a month.

[Aimless]

I still think it's fun but mostly for the promise of vengeance against those who have wronged us. In general I think it's really nice to have some fairly casual game we can all play "together" so to speak. It's not Guild Wars but still

[Wraith]

If you wanted to make a TWF-based guildwars guild, you'd have my full support. I might even join up someday.

You know, this could be a path to new blood...we all got here through games anyways, so we just do guild support across a variety of games.

[RandBlade]

we all got here through games anyways

Not me. Book forum.

[Illusions]

And I came from the much maligned UT forums...

[Loki]

Did we get anyone from DBZ?

[RandBlade]

OG I thought?

[Wraith]

So my account expires today. I have no intention of paying to re-upgrade. How hated would I be if I decided to just end it all in a blaze of blood and glory?

[littlelolligagged]

I'll stand you up at the altar.

[Loki]

Sign up for a month. If you still feel that way afterward, feel free. If you don't want to keep playing though, then sure, go ahead.

[Timbuk2]

Run out of interest already.

[LittleFuzzy]

I have no intention of paying to upgrade myself. I may continue for a while on the Free, don't know yet, but this isn't enough fun to be worth both time AND money.