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1

AI War Strategy Discussion / Guard Post Defenders - When Do They Attack?

« on: August 11, 2012, 08:33:21 PM »

I was under the impression that guard post defenders didn't abandon their post to attack an invading force unless you had a certain number of ships on the planet (some overwhelming amount). If you only attack with a handful of ships, they stick around their guard post until you get somewhat close. This is the whole 'battlefield within a battlefield' thing, right?

However, this doesn't always seem to be the case. If there are ships with infinite range, it seems like even poking on a planet will result in ALL of the defenders heading toward my invasion force (including the ones without infinite/long range). I can understand the infinite range ships attacking, but everything moving out seems a bit extreme. Is this supposed to happen? Under what circumstances do the AI ships abandon their guard posts (temporarily) to attack me if I move ships on their planet?

2

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Multiplayer?

« on: January 27, 2011, 08:32:21 PM »

First of all: I read the preview of A Valley Without Wind that you wrote up, and like everyone else around here, I'm pretty excited about it. I'm sure the excitement level will only increase as you guys reveal more details!

I was a little surprised that there was no mention of multiplayer in the preview, though, especially given Arcen's track record with multiplayer in their games, so I figured I'd just come out and ask:

Is there any multiplayer planned for the A Valley Without Wind? If so, is it going to be a ground-up multiplayer design like AI War or something different? How many players are going to be able to play together?

3

Off Topic / Game Creators Should Never Read Their Forums - Blog Article

« on: January 07, 2011, 03:02:49 AM »

I ran across this interesting blog article today as I skimmed slashdot headlines, and thought I'd cross-post it here, given that it seems to advocate a philosophy totally opposite of Arcen:

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/01/three-reasons-creators-should-never.html

Jeff suggests that game developers should (more or less) never read their forums.

I'm actually rather curious as to why Arcen's forums haven't hit this sort of block yet. I mean, I read forums for a lot of other games (Starcraft 2 comes to mind, and even in his own forums sometimes), and Jeff definitely has a point. Things get pretty terrible in a lot of cases, and I'm sure things would be a lot different here if the community were like that. Around here, there really isn't a whole lot of hate or rage, which probably helps a whole lot - things really don't get all that polarized in general, and it helps that Chris and Keith aid in directing the discussion if things look like they may get ugly.

In addition, AI War has gotten a ton of user feedback, oftentimes pulled straight from the forums, and I think the game has benefited tremendously from it.

Why does everyone else think that Arcen hasn't run into this problem? Are they just too small? Is it due to the types of games they're making? The interaction between the devs and the players? Something else?