From: Darrell Budic <budic@macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: My thought on Pax...
X-Xxdate: Mon, 28 Dec 92 15:02:29 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d11
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 22:34:24 GMT

Hurray! It shipped! Of course, it got delivered 2 hours after I left
town, but hey, thats irony (& Murphy!) for you. So I spent about 14 hours
playing yesterday, and here are some initial thoughts.

My observations:

1) Looks great, although they need to fix some small stuff, like
centering the title screen, remove the double window redraw, etc...
2)Fun to play, at least in turn mode. (more on that later)
3)GREAT potential, but needs help.

My comments on what I see are its biggest problems right now:

1) Impossible to play in real time, which is a shame. Two reasons for
this, A) its just to fast, at least on my machine. I found out why, too.
A time delta goes by whenever the computer gets done thinking about
things. What this means is that 'crawl' on a Quadra is about the same as
'Fast' on an IIsi or so. But I think I convinced Peter that this was dumb
and to switch to a time based system. 2) Computer gets more money than
you do, which is worse than you might think because you're already
getting less during a real time game. What happens is (Oh, and I have it
that this is the ONLY way the computer cheats) that the computer players
micro-manage their tax rates, so they  get100% tax with little to no
effeciency degredation. What this results in is their getting about 10x
the cash you do. After a bit of talking with Peter, I think I may have
convinced him to revamp this, too. I hope so, this is one of my biggest
problems with the game.
2)Needs a somewhat better way to handle fleet composition/viewing. It
just seems to unwieldy as it is.
3)Remove various small bugs and clean up some cosmetic/interface failings.
4)Better AI. Its coming, and they already plan on removing the last
'cheat' the machine uses.

Suggestions for you others playing it:

1) Time is machine dependant, but then, I wouldn't bother to play a
real-time game anyway. Play turn mode, things should be quite reasonable.
2) DON'T EVER declare war on a computer opponent. They immedeatly switch
from 50% of their cash in technology to (apparently) about 75% spending
on warfleets. This is bad. Just stay with neutral relations, and fight
them. As far as I can tell, the only thing you lose is moral satisfaction.
3)Remember that when you are looking at your $ advisors statistics, they
are for the
LAST time delta, which can make it seem like you've been charged twice
for things, but  this isn't really whats happening. He's just telling
your that yes, you spent the money last delta.
4)Colonies seem foolish to me. They go from something like -19k cost to
2-3 million in taxes (seems to be typical), I've been converting them as
soon as I could afford to. Of course, at 20 mil a port, maybe that's not
such a good idea if your in a war, or playing intelligent people
opponents.

Overall comments:

If your like me, and Spaceward just seems to simple or basic for you, I'd
buy this game, even with its obvious failings at this moment. Its has
both simplicity and depth. Keep in mind that this is, inspite of being a
'release' version, that is buggy yet. Save often, every tech level or so
seems like a good idea for me. I played for 14 hours yesterday, and it
only crashed twice. Play with advisors, but be sure to turn on ship
design. I haven't worried about tech yet, they seemed to do a decent job
there, and I didn't want to get that deep yet. 
If crashes bother you, I wouldn't buy it yet, but otherwise I think its
well worth the $34 that MacConnections wants.

Interesting, and related stuff:

I was just on the phone to Peter Sisipoidis, and discussed many of my
comments, related some of the stuff I'd just read on the net, and gave
him some advice and just what I thought about it in general. I suggested
that they make the updates available to the net as soon as possible, esp.
with their current reputation *chuckle* and while its his brother who
handles those things, I think its likey that tell send me a copy to post
to sumex, or maybe I'll even set up a little ftp site for the things, so
we can get them quickly. He told me they hope to have the first update
(not 1.2 w/ networking, but bugfixes and some of the other problems we're
seeing) out in about 2 weeks. Unfortunatly I'll be gone at that time, but
there seem to be good odds that we on the net can get them right quick.
They certainly are trying, so I'm going to give them some time and
support.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering what Pax is all about:

You get to be the Emperor of you very own Stellar Empire. A new, budding
stellar empire, but hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere. The game has
varying levels of involvement, but you are always incharge of building
ships, sending them around, controlling them in combat, colonizing
planets, building factories/shipyards/etc on them, and generally managing
your budget, devoting money for research, espionage, etc. Then if you
want to get more advanced, you can design ships, individual
weapons/shields/drives/sensors, even set up your race specifics, ie what
planets you like best and work most efficently on.
Multiple players are supported, currently up to 16 human or computer guys
on one machine. A network version is expected in 3-4 months, and will be
a free upgrade.
AI is medeocre at this time, but MUCH better opponents are expected with
the next major release (same as the networking release).
Much deeper than Spaceward Ho!, or even Reach for the Stars. Much nicer
looking, too. Please don't flame me for putting down SH!, just my
opinion, I really don't play it much.
However, that also means it takes more attentions and TIME than spaceward
ho, so if your looking for a 'lite' game, forget it. This is the kind of
thing you spend days on, I'd say.

Comments, suggestions, and *maybe* answers at:

Darrell
budic@macc.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games