Don't you think, then, that all turn-based, space-empire 4X games remain vulnerable to your very valid « spread-sheet » criticism ?
Waiting for Sins 1.04 to be released, I'm playing some GalCiv 2 Twilight of the Arnor, and some Lost Empire Immortals ...
... and I do often feel that I'm mostly managing a spread-sheet, and that the computer players are soooo much more competent than me when doing that.
That's the feeling I always got when I tried the various GalCiv 2 versions :
That A.I. management, under the hood, was very well programmed to be very efficient & competitive ... and that I wasn't as good because I did not know what were the optimal management recipes.
GalCiv 2 is far more pretty to look at than MOO 3 ... but I get as much bored : they all feel like spread-sheets.
I don't get that spreadsheet-management feeling when I play Sins.
In what concerns, Heroes of Might & Magic 5, since I only play SP, my version 3.0 never crashes, and my videocard is powerful enough to make the game look very good on my 19-inch widescreen (@ 1440 X 900).
Like I said on another thread, I'm a « graphics whore » :
I don't mind if HM&M 5 has a mediocre A.I. -- it looks sooooo gorgeous.
No way, then, will I go back to HM&M 3's 2D ... even if the A.I. was far more competent.
I have high hopes for Sins 1.04 : tired of waiting ... but I realize that they want to release a quality update -- next week.
