Similar to?

Would this game be similar to say a Travian in play?

Where are you start - you only have to manage a little bit - but near the end you may have many planets/systems to maintain (ala having a bunch of cities like in Travian).

I know it can start of light and quickly become a time sink. (not opposed to this! just want to know what I'd be getting into before I choose to do so!) :)

I am very interested in the game - spent many hours playing Travian - so something like this on iOS rather than hooked to just a webbrowser is interesting to me.

Thanks!

We've definitely spent a lot of trying to streamline the interface to keep managing a large empire from becoming tedious but yes, it does take more time to manage a large empire than a smaller one. That said not every strategy requires a large empire so depending on your strategy that can vary somewhat.

I will say that yes micromanagement for the sake of trying to be more complex is not fun, streamlining a game so much can also be a bad thing. I guess that is why series like Master of Orion, or even earlier Civilization games have cult followings. Too many times we see where a new dev takes over and you have examples of both sides going wrong.

Cases in point are Civilization 5, which in my opinion is too similar to Civilization Revolutions which is suitable for consoles or iOS, but not the pc. I really enjoyed building up a modern force in Civ 4 and stationing Carrier Fleets near strategic resources like oil, ready to cripple an oponent. Or staging cruise missile submarines for the same purpose. That is the direction CIV5 should have went.

Master of Orion 2 had a Civilization like colony management, with interesting ship design decisions, and tactical combat ( that was tedious sometimes), that combined the right amount of micro management.

From the screens I have seen of EOTE, I am guessing that is the most complex (in a good way) strategy game to be released on the iOS platform. This is definitely a first, depending on whether you guys think Ascendancy would be more complex?

Being huge strategy game players we know what you mean.. :) I'll put it like this..

A friend of mine that loves strategy games was in the beta. Early in the beta he asked: "Why can't I go down to the planet level and decide what buildings to place there?" I told him "There is no need, your populace knows how to mange themselves." He complained to me a bit about not having control. I just told him to give it a little time after he has a few more planets.

After a few weeks, and then getting in to border wars with people I asked him if he thought it was still important to manage his planets themselves. He laughed.

So what was the point of this? There was a point in the early designs where we had blueprinting ships, so you could create custom ship builds, and thought about setting down what you want on a planet, but we realized very quickly that it just becomes next to impossible to micromanage an empire when you start controlling 100's of planets. It just doesn't work. Perhaps we need to come out with a different strategy game that would be more around that type of design, but it wasn't going to work in this game. It's not for lack of being capable.

We decided there were some things that were better left to the player, after all you are a leader... So lead... There is certainly plenty to do in the later game. Keeping track of what you have, and what's important was a big part of the UI design. There are TONS of things we have planned, and designed for expansions which will give people even more choices on what they want to do and become. I really look forward to growing the game with the input from the players so we can make an experience like no other for mobile strategy games.

lordxorn: Depends.. Both games have their complexities. Ours lies in managing a large scale empire, and working with real players in place of aliens. While there are aliens (not friendly by any means - we highly suggest you stay away from the center of the galaxy.. I'm just saying.. tossing it out there... ), each player counts as an alien.. Since you need to negotiate with them you have the best AI alien in the world. We have provided you with a free thinking alien that we have absolutely no control over. We are utilizing individual processors dedicated to every alien you encounter. :) Diplomacy will be VERY interesting, and we look forward to seeing what happens.

Learning how to work with the other players and understand that sometimes just out right attacking and killing people might not be the best method to get yourself to the end game. We had some interesting out comes, since there are some limitations on empires. For instance you are only allowed 1000 objects (assuming you build space stations etc), so no every planet can not be 100% defended, so land grabs are not always the best choice. Sometimes it's better to trade with someone to help you reach your end goal. Not everyone needs to destroy home worlds... Even people destroying home worlds need to choose their allies, there will always be more that one people left at the end game, it's just up to who is the one the crosses the finish line first.

Lots of fun.. I for one am really looking forward to playing. I can't wait till we have a full server running with 1000+ people in a game. I also look forward to the player feedback to see what we can improve in the game.

Sounds good! Is there going to be any way to start close to friends on the map? If not, how hard is it to move to be near them?

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Originally Posted by Snax

Sounds good! Is there going to be any way to start close to friends on the map? If not, how hard is it to move to be near them?

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Placement is random. So things will depend on how far away you get placed. If its a full 90k sector game it'll be awhile before you get to them. Making local friends in the system you are in will be a good idea.

In the later game when you have advanced techs like jumping it will be a little easier.