Ugh! They really need to take away the menu option during the tutorial if it $&@?'s up your game. Or give you a warning at least. Not a great start for me cause I really don't feel like doing it again, but I have no idea what's going on.
Happens to me too, just didn't mention it because after reporting the microstuttering on the map screen and the terminal crashes (e.g. Planta) I didn't want to make a fuss over it.
No fault to the tutorial but after my first game through it I still didn't know what's going on. My only advice would be to play three normal ai until you get the hang of it. I lost several games while learning the rules. Eventually it just clicked for me what was going on and what I needed to do. It's just one of those games where going through the tutorial isnt going to make you an expert.
I had the same feeling during the tutorial so I restarted it, and found out that many of the instructions have massive amounts of detail hidden below the bottom. In other words you have to drag the text every time to see if there's more (sometimes a lot more)—there's no scroll bar or other clue that I could find. Also, the manual on the main menu has many pages (in addition to the first scrolling page)—it was a long time before I realized that.
Hi guys, Absolutely love this game. I only have one gamebreaking problem... I build capital ships and equip them with the plasma missiles...then after attacking Orion forces once, my guys suddenly disappear. As in they just die without being shot down after one turn of combat. Any ideas? Am I missing something here? This has hpened twice on seperate games, one against orion and another against the alien starbase in the middle of the board. Help? EDIT: When in doubt, READ THE DARNED MANUAL. Figured it out, none of my ships had cannons xD wish that would have been clearer in the tutorial but that's okay.
Perhaps they could offer some feedback as to what's happening, but it's essentially this: if you equip your fleet with *nothing* but plasma missiles, and you don't annihilate the entire enemy fleet in your opening volley, and they have a gun, and you have no place to retreat to (dont know if the game checks this or not), then you have lost. The reason why is that plasma missiles are one-time use weapons. You shoot them and then they're gone. After that, your ships are just unarmed husks waiting to be shot down if they have no other weapons. Even an interceptor with one ion cannon and no computer could shoot down your whole fleet. But it would be tedious to watch that happening, so the game just skips over it by just obliterating the fleet that can't continue to fight.
I'm really loving Eclipse, it's absorbing a heap of my time and being turned based, is really easy to play on the long commute to and from work. Just came out on top of a 6 player Normal game, by tieing and winning on resources. Was stupidly intense and I pretty much rocketed to the top after picking up a +3 shield tech off an ancient, turning traitor and picking fights with everyone. The AI was impressive. It was obvious at that point of the game that my fleet of cruisers were smoking everything, so everyone else opted to sidle up to me instead I'm having a little bit of a hard time understanding reputation points, particularly the ranges given to us. If, in the original board game, you know what your drawn reputation tile is (ie. how can you know whether to replace one, if you don't know what you have in your hand!), then why can't you work that out here? It seems there's a way, but I didn't immediately "get" Vegan's explanation above...I think I may be missing a menu option where I can check on diplomacy. Will have to see when I get out of work. The other aspect which I think could use some further explanation is with the reaction rounds. I had to look up the rule book to discover that a reaction only allows you 1 move, 1 build or 1 upgrade (infinite removals though). This can and should be easily explained in the in-game manual and tutorial. ...ohh also, what do the numbers *above* the technology track items mean? ie. the little ones or twos or threes. What does it mean for something to be available? Isn't it just a matter of, if you can afford it, you can buy it? My only other bit of feedback (and I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel to say this, because the game is outstanding), is that I'd love to have combat explosions with a little more "oomph". The current combat sound effects are a little flat and unconvincing. The music score is otherwise terrific The whole package is a visual spectacle and quite possibly one of the most well thought out interfaces I've ever seen. Looking forward to more of this! Did eclipse ever have expansions?
Yes, there have been expansions (one big one with several new elements, and 2 or 3 mini expansions). We should expect expansion materials as IAPs at some point. The numbers above the technology items are how many of that technology are currently available. Each round, a certain number are drawn based on the number of players, so every game will see a different assortment and quantity of available techs. In practical terms, that means that if there are 3 of a particular tech available, and it's a 3p game, you don't need to worry about being able to get that tech at a later point, and might want to grab something else, or do something else now. For reputation, take the high number of your score range and subtract the difference of every Rep tile you have that is lower than 4. If you have a range score of 22-31, and Rep tiles of 1, 3 and 4, then your score is 27 (31 minus 3 minus 1). Or, if it helps, think of it the opposite way... Take the low number of the range and add the difference of all Rep tiles higher than 1. (In the example, 22 + 2 + 3 = 27.)
Does anyone have any kind of strategy suggestions for exploring? I know the percentages change as the game goes for how likely you are to hit ancients, but I don't quite understand how. I seem to have lots of games where I explore 4-5 hexes and seem to hit ancients way more than other players. This would be a good thing but it hurts early when I can't build up any of my resources because the ancients control the hexes.
Responses: 1. I get the "Influence" thing is the most important thing, but managing it is another story. I like the game design simply forbids one to build a huge fleet to steamroll the rest of the galaxy/universe unlike other 4X games 2. Sorry, do not really have time due to time zone and life problems, would spend more time and "explore" it.
In each ring from the center, there are a certain number of hex tiles, some percent of which have ancients. As they are drawn, that's why you see the percentages change. If you draw lots of ancients, that should change your strategy a bit and consider gearing up to fight them ASAP. You may have to go into debt a bit, but behind the ancients are discoveries that should more than make up for it. Also, you don't have to place the tile you draw, and shouldn't if it's nothing but downside for you (like dropping ancients linked to neighbor Draco).
The reputation tiles are hidden in the board game which is why the digital version doesn't show you your exact score. If I wanted to know your score in a game I'd have to count your sector points, add tech points (if you researched anything that high), then see how many reutaion tiles you have and guess they at at least 1's but could be 4's. It's a daunting task to do that for every player as their score continues to increase every turn as they expand, battle, and research. So giving us ranges is a huge help, but I think giving ranges AND the actual score would confuse more players. The Diplomacy bar is the little tray at the bottom left of the screen. There it shows your drawn VP but also your diplomacy tokens (some spaces are only allowed to hold one or the other depending on race). So you can see your VP tokens at any time which makes it easy to review those hidden points and add them to your min score. Just remember that your min score assumes all those tiles were a 1 so if you have 3/1/1/4 just add them up and minus the number of tokens 4+3+1+!= 9-(4 tokens)= 5 points. Add this to your minum score and that is your actual score. If BDC adds an actual score I hope they also give an option to remove it. The reason I love this implementaion is that it gives you the player ranges that normally required serious players to be scribbling on paper but leaves out the actual score. Eclipse is all out being aware of everything going on around you and adjusting to those changes so putting your head down to write meant you could miss something and have to recalculate often. Your actual score and your perceived score are big parts of the game and although I did like Plynx's suggestion of putting the actual score on the Diplomacy track I still feels it goes against the spirit of the game. I could have sworn Reactions were in the tutorial but only mentioned in passing as "lesser versions" of the left three actions. For Tech. At the beginning of the round (Technically before you pick your races for the first round... but BDC are fixing that in an update) Tech tiles are drawn from a bag and placed on the board. Each round new tiles are drawn and added to what's already out. The small number in white is the amount of tiles available for purchase. So if there is a 2 in white it means that two players will be able to purchase that tech. There was an expansion called Rise of the Ancients. It adds a ton of content like new races, tech (Jump Drive!), new tiles, and ridiculouly tough ancient ships. The best part of the expansion was that it's modular so you could just add the parts you were interested in using. My favorite is the Space Pirate race, they do NOT get to use Dreadnaughts but their Interceptors and Cruisers are more powerful than the others... they also get to move 4 ships with a move EDIT: forgot to mention that the expansion brings along techs that will help against missles. One is a cheap Distortion Field that costs 5 or 6 and gives all missles -2 without needing to be installed on your ships. My favorite is Point Defense, it's cost is moderate and give you the ability to shoot missles down!
When waiting for your opponents' move in MP I'd like the option to inspect my own display like ships, research tree etc to plan what I will do next (hopefully this hasn't been mentioned already too often). In Samurai there was the great feature that the AI would make moves for people who drop out of MP games, I would like that instead of that player simply passing, as it is now.
BDC have posted that looking at your panel on another player's turn is a requested feature that they will be working on. A multiplayer log was also requested, but it's basically a necessity since viewing your panels blocks the screen so you can't tell what's happening in the game. If you want to see what else has been requested or what bugs have been found you can check it out here: http://www.bigdaddyscreations.com/888/eclipse-bugfixes-and-enhancements/
It happened to me once, but doesn't happen consistently at all. Now that I've said that, though, I'm sure it will happen. Constantly.
I've fixed your URL here, you may want to edit it sir. One too many HTTPs One thing that bugs me is some of the text inconsistencies. A particular achievement, the Mechanema one "Do cyborgs dream on electric sheeps?" is begging to be corrected. Please, for the great Philip K. Dick, please change it to ""Do Cyborgs Dream of Electric Sheep?" The capitalization isn't vital, but the grammatical and spelling corrections are of utmost importance
This stuff sounds like it would be a welcome addition. So far, I feel like this game should be called "Race to Plasma Missles +2" or "Plasma Missles and Monoliths". I'm always either going for them or defending against them. Good stuff though.
Downloading... I couldn't wait for a sale anymore, so I watched the Tom Vassal video on Eclipse and hope to enjoy Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy as much as I can in the next 24 hours before Frozen Synapse hits. Download size: 158MB Installed size: 168MB Space left on my iPad: only 302MB...
