Anyone here play or have any idea on what Distant Worlds is? It's a 4x real-time space strategy game and it has incredible depth...and a steep learning curve to go with it. I would say it is deeper than Star Drive (another real-time 4x) though the ship design could use some overhaul.

I've been keeping myself busy with the recent release of their 3rd expansion pack: Distant Worlds Shadows

Currently they have a sale going on for the complete pack, or, if you already own one or a few of the expansions, you'll be able to purchase the rest at a discount! Good time as any to get in on this since they hardly do sales and this is the cheapest I've seen yet at about $70 for everything:

Distant Worlds Shadows

I've been lurking on these forums for a while now although I missed out on the Kickstarter ( ). I hadn't heard of Distant Worlds before but I'm very glad that you've brought my attention to it, TanC! I've played a couple of space 4X games (Gal Civ II, Sins) but DW is miles ahead in terms of depth and complexity, and I find myself engaging with the game more than I have done with pretty much any other. I bought up to Legends but I'll be buying Shadows as well methinks - definitely worth the (discounted) price and I believe that I read about performance improvements for which my poor beleaguered laptop will thank me.

Ambiguous Puzuma wrote:I've been lurking on these forums for a while now although I missed out on the Kickstarter ( ). I hadn't heard of Distant Worlds before but I'm very glad that you've brought my attention to it, TanC! I've played a couple of space 4X games (Gal Civ II, Sins) but DW is miles ahead in terms of depth and complexity, and I find myself engaging with the game more than I have done with pretty much any other. I bought up to Legends but I'll be buying Shadows as well methinks - definitely worth the (discounted) price and I believe that I read about performance improvements for which my poor beleaguered laptop will thank me.

Welcome to the forums! Glad you've decided to switch from a lurker --> poster.

You are welcome! The performance improvement is obvious. Games now run smoothly though scrolling from system view to galactic view is still jerky for me from time to time. However, I believe they have released a performance patch for Legends as well if you want to stick with that.

I've bought Shadows, not for the ability to play as pirate but for the expanded ground attack mechanics/tech tree and the ability to start from scratch - PreWarp. I've always been a fan of starting from scratch (woohoo Limit Theory!) - then I'll appreciate what I have even more.

I bought Shadows last night and the performance is much better (think I still need to get a cooling mat for my laptop though...). I've yet to get as far as the new ground assault mechanics in my new game but they go look intriguing I've gone with Mortalen this time so I should be using them soon enough I'm still a novice but gradually getting the hang of it all. I'll try pre-warp, pirates and the Shadows specific stuff once I've actually completed a 'Classic' game!

Are any of the mods worth getting?

Mortalen? I have not explored much of the race selection window so I'm afraid I'm stuck with these races I'm familiar with: Humans, Ackdarian and Kiadian.

So far the modders are making their mods Shadows-compatible but I prefer the "easy to understand" look of Sirian's Messages mod found here:
Sirian's Messages Mod

I've also installed this Graphical Enhancement Mod v2.4 and it works with Shadows, though recent feedback from users indicate there's a few graphics missing from the mod due to the new buttons Shadows added:
GEM v2.4

I've downloaded this graphical mod too but yet to use it together with the shipsets included. Somehow I couldn't get my lasers to look as pretty (maybe it isn't Shadows-compatible?):
New Shipset + Gloom Effects

FInally I'm waiting on this EVE mod to be completed, looks amazing (even though I've never played EVE):
EVE Online Mod

I'm more of a graphical person so I tend to drift towards getting mods that improve my graphics.

Aye, I tend to stick to a certain play-style in these kinds of game so, with the different race specific victory conditions, I thought I'd play a race with objectives which I wouldn't necessarily set myself. I've played a handful so far (Mortalens, human, the other humanoid - not Kiadians - and the yellow insectoid one whatever that is called).

The graphic mods look sweet, I'll definitely check them out. Not so keen on the Eve one though as, after about 4 years of playing Eve, I've kinda got sick of that game!

Big Distant Worlds fan here (I own all three current expansions). Along with Armada 2526 and Birth of the Federation, it's my favorite space 4x title out there.

Martok wrote:Big Distant Worlds fan here (I own all three current expansions). Along with Armada 2526 and Birth of the Federation, it's my favorite space 4x title out there.

So far BOTF is the only 4x that still has my attention after all these years, it's in my "Must Install" list for new computers.

I can also say that Distant Worlds is moving closer and closer to being inducted into that list as well.

Glad to hear it, TanC! Yes, BOTF and DW are both games that are on my "must-install" list as well. (Good to see a fellow BOTF player here, btw. )

I'm glad you decided to join the forums, Martok! However, I only play BOTF offline as I've yet to crack the Impossible AI difficulty, I'm pretty sure I'll be smashed if I go online.

Oh, I *know* I'd be smashed if I were to participate in an MP match. Much as I love strategy games, I'm only a mediocre player -- even with games I've had a long time like BOTF -- and I'd be quickly obliterated by actual human players!


That being said, I did finally figure out a way to up the difficulty in BOTF, but without causing the AI to behave so completely insane it breaks immersion (which it does on Hard & Impossible): I simply select Normal difficulty, and then set the other factions to one civilization-level higher than myself. (So if I'm playing at civ level 1, the rest are on level 2.) I found this generally seems to give the AI enough of a leg-up to stay competitive with me, but without causing its behavior to be even more bizarre than normal.

Note: This is playing the game with the Balance of Power mod, so I can't guarantee it'll work as well with another mod (or in the vanilla version).

Martok wrote:Oh, I *know* I'd be smashed if I were to participate in an MP match. Much as I love strategy games, I'm only a mediocre player -- even with games I've had a long time like BOTF -- and I'd be quickly obliterated by actual human players!


That being said, I did finally figure out a way to up the difficulty in BOTF, but without causing the AI to behave so completely insane it breaks immersion (which it does on Hard & Impossible): I simply select Normal difficulty, and then set the other factions to one civilization-level higher than myself. (So if I'm playing at civ level 1, the rest are on level 2.) I found this generally seems to give the AI enough of a leg-up to stay competitive with me, but without causing its behavior to be even more bizarre than normal.

Note: This is playing the game with the Balance of Power mod, so I can't guarantee it'll work as well with another mod (or in the vanilla version).

Wow! Good tip! I should try that sometime!

I've been playing UDM3 and looking forward to Ultimate Mod. Haven't played vanilla in such a long time already. Maybe I should get back to BoP mod again.

I'm really really hoping that QuasarDonkey is going to be able to finish his clone of BOTF though; I think it's going to help the modding scene a whole bunch!

Have no idea why this is not posted here yet.
Distant worlds - one of the best 4x out on the market (for me its like Real-time MOO2) has new expansion released on 25th of May.

And its now available on steam in one package with all 4 expansions for more or less reasonable price (original price for the game + all expansions is around 100$+ )

If you like 4x its a must for you, if you can afford it.

Adam Smith writing for Rock Paper Shotgun has a "Wot I Think" up on Distant Worlds: Universe.

I found this -- his explanation of why DW:U is the "best space strategy game ever made" -- fascinating:

Because it’s a proper working simulation of space travel, economics, resource management, diplomacy, combat, research, construction, exploration, migration, tourism and just about everything else that might be relevant. The existence of the private corporations alone makes it a hundred times smarter and credible as a simulated model than any other game of this type that I can think of. It does almost everything that every other game in the genre does but rather than focusing on the strategic game, it focuses on the simulation. While that may be dissatisfying to people who want a boardgame type experience, Distant Worlds is doing something that only a computer can do.

Indeed.

I wonder what Adam Smith might make of Limit Theory's latest Development Update videos?

I've just recently found myself firing up this game on my laptop while I'm working on my main system or even firing it up in a second VM and setting it to "rule in absence" and essentially just letting it do it's thing and checking in on it from time to time to see how my little empire is fairing. It's quite intriguing to watch. The other day I did this on my laptop and left it open and the screen on and had it locked and zoomed on one humble freighter and 50 game years passed and much progress was made yet still this freighter was trucking along doing its thing. Still there... still had the same name. That made me feel somewhat happy. To see that this random freighter that had been commissioned within the first few years of my little empires existence was still there decades later having not been destroyed it was happily doing it's thing. Obviously it had been updated a few times through retrofitting but the ship still existed and still retained it's name. Something that gave the ship a little personality. Instead of just being Freighter 1183. Now this being said, not all games have had the same experience. I've done this before focused on a random private sector ship just going about it's business and found my camera adrift after checking up on it realizing the ship had been destroyed. Most likely by pirates.

That is one of those things that I really hope LT does and does well, gives a sense of personality and even permanence to ships. It's sad when a game (E.g Star Ruler) becomes so large that care isn't taken to make the ships/units feel useful or important or even... individual. Not that Star Ruler is a bad game by any stretch, it's a great game. But in DW ships feel like they matter. Each ship feels like it matters, or at least can matter. In Star Ruler once you have colonized a few dozen systems your unit shfits from individual ships to fleets and possibly even systems. Individual ships at that point can be considered nothing more than part of the "hit points" of the overall fleet. I really hope that never happens with LT. Where you can churn ships out so quickly and so easily that they are just additional fodder to your unit group/fleet and losing them is of no consequence. That is one of the things that amazes me about EVE, but EVE takes it a bit too far to the opposite extreme where unless you are playing the larger meta-game and have a fairly large and wealthy corporation behind you... every ship loss can matter and can matter quite significantly to you. // End Rant.