The Endgame - Boring?

This is probably not the kind of suggestion you're looking for, but a quick fix would be some kind of AI rule that makes computer players surrender when they're quite obviously doomed (i.e. decimated fleet, no resources, down to a handful of underdeveloped planets, and your massive fleet jumping from system to system annhiliating scout ships and constructors).  I've not played multiplayer extensively, but I would think most human players would surrener at this point.  I certainly would.

Another, slightly more complex fix would be to institute some kind of capital planet rule for victory conditions, though with the ability to move one's capital that could get a touch hokey.  I'm not even positive on what happens if a capital is destroyed... is it automatically relocated or is the player capital-less until they choose a planet and spend the neccesary resources?  The trouble with the "key world" is that it can be located anywhere in your empire... and if a rim-world capital falls, it's still compeltely feasible to have a burgeoning empire intact behind it.  Hence, I suppose, the strategic relocation of one's capital.  I'm clearly undecided on this.

It seems to me there was a game... maybe one of the Civs or even Alpha Centauri... in which a mostly-defeated opponent could be diplomatically persuaded to become a "vassal-state" of the conquering player.  I don't recall exactly how this worked but I believe heavy resource "taxes" were involved, as well as the expected protectorship of the conquering nation.  Now that I'm talking about it, I believe it's actually Civ IV that has this feature, though I dont' think I ever got it to work properly.  Some allusions have been made that diplomatic options are to be elaborated upon in at least one of the upcoming micro-expansions... perhaps we can hope for something of this nature?  I for one enjoy the concept of having Vasari slaves to mine my metal and crystal =P

they had that AI surrender in one of the patches i remember. idk which one but it was my favorite new feature....it seemed to be forgotten which sucks...i hate cleaning up...games as far back as AOE II have auto-surrender...grrr

Having different victory conditions could help this too. (ie. 75% of all occupiable gravity wells, wonder victories, timer victory, research victory, as mentioned capital victory).

Bah. Well the thing is I've gotten a 4850 so I decided to throw Black and White 2 at it since its been my first GPU upgrade in *years* so I had something that could run the game properly and I was having all this fun just tinkering around with my own shit instead of attacking the enemy it was just getting me to thinking what could you add to Sins to at the very least keep the player entertained while his fleet is off on Autopilot?

I mean its pretty simple to slap buildings and upgrades down, do all the research, etc. And by the endgame you have it down to a method where it almost feels like a chore, just building the same shit over and over again as you expand out and take over more and more gravity wells. The games enjoyment value Plateus before you acheive victory, basically. So its either a matter of identifying the point when the match becomes stale and adding new victory conditions when the game reaches that point, ot adding additional content to the game to make that section of the game more interesting. For instance, giving the player more to interact with outside of combat.

Yeah, I'll agree that the pleasure of the game tends to level off in the very late stages. You have complete ownership of two of the three star systems, and three quarters of third, and you 1500 point fleet is two hops away from the last planet.. but they insist on sending a level 1 capship with 7 frigates out to attack you.

I kind of feel it's like my fleet commanders have set little speeches for the newly conquered " Um, yeah, so welcome to the empire and all that, we'll be building a few things in orbit, and doing a few upgrades to the infrastructure... it's all in this little pamphlet "

I agree with what you're saying about the end game.  Adding endgame techs could help, but only up to a point.  I love the idea of different win conditions.  The trick to making that fun will be to come up with things that fit the setting, and that are original.  What if there were a few "special" artifacts that let you win if you control all of them.  That would give you an incentive to target specific worlds and keep you from having to "mop up" if you don't want to.  Of course, diplomatic victory could be an option...   What else sounds fun? 

Let's be honest. When you eventually break through the last really challenging encounter, there is nothing more to focus on. Should there be? Not really. After all, this game is about defeating the enemy, NOT building a fancy lookin' orbital sim(n) city.

I think tweaking the AI behavior in face of defeat could help. Make the AIs auto-surrender when you really are nowhere near defeatable anymore.

Maybe some sort of minigame at the end where you get to fly a fighter in first person.

Sins isn't the first game to suffer from this type of problem.  Perhaps they should include some sort of an option to have the computer compare the size of your fleet and economy to the other races' and then declare victory once the game has been clearly decided.

Note that if you're interested in playing more interesting games, I highly recommend that you consider playing the game in online multiplayer against real human opponents.  Not only will you be able to chat with teammates and the other players (and to try to coordinate teamwork), but ou'll find that it's more challenging and that the prospect of actually losing makes the games much more intense and satisfying.  Also, people tend to quit or surrender once the outcome of a game has been decided.

Yes the mop up phase is a huge bummer.....

The good thing about multiplayer is that a lot of people are good enough to concede when they are obviously beaten so that everyone can move on to play a new game.  The bad thing about multiplayer is a few people do everything in their power to draw the game out as long as possible when they have no hope of winning.  It can take a while to kill someone when they hole up in their homeworld with their entire fleet and make tons of repair bays and defenses.  You pretty much have to sit their for a while and mass up a bigger fleet ... or maybe Novalith them.  

My friend... Now you know my addiction.  Why bother sending fleets from world to world, when you can just send an army of scouts to find the enemy worlds and mass novalith them?  (IMPORTANT NOTICE: Novaliths are restricted to planet nuking planets in the same solar system) I am considering mass novalithing (Fun term) on one of my saves. 

With novaliths your fleets can guard the chokepoints, and the novaliths can do the planet nuking.

You can fire at other star systems....it just takes about 20-30 minutes to cross the void....on a small star map.  It might take hours on a large one.

Yes, the game definitely begins to drag in the endgame after you've slapped down the opposing fleet. But I find the problem is that most times, you don't even really get to slap it down, since the AI will retreat their fleet when it looks like they're losing the tide of battle. This might be realistic, but it's also frustrating as you watch the enemy slip away to subspace when you really want to pound them down. Perhaps an expansion could introduce a cruiser that mounts a small phase jump inhibitor? It seems like a no brainer to me.

I also wish there was some sort of victory condition that lets you win the game if the original enemy capital planet is captured. This would greatly cut down on the mop up stage, as you wouldn't have to chase down the enemy as it repositions its home after every defeat. Having to slowly grind down the enemy and capture every single planet along the way is what really drags down the endgame and makes it tedious.

It does get repetative

Maybe there could be something along the lines of what End War has where the losing side has a 'last ditch' tactic they could use once to try and turn the tide or at least become a threat once more? What exactly though I don't know. For now I just quit the game when the enemy has nothing left to threaten me.

Regarding the fleets retreating constantly, I do find that annoying at times too but it is also something human players would do. I think it would be better if it varied though. There should be fleet admirals that would risk a battle and not retreat at the first sign of a slightly larger fleet arriving.

When the endgame gets boring I just quit and start a new game.

yeah I find that annoying to, not so bad on the mdeium maps but but on the large and hue mmaps its a right cow even throwing your entire fleet into cleaning takes a while

why on earth the surrender feature doesnt work muc i dont know ,,, ive only seen it used twice by the ai, its too damned stubborn