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Tyrel Lohr posted:What's worse is that MOO2 was fundamentally more of an iteration on Master of Magic. And while I loved MOM, I could never get into MOO2 and I've always considered it to be something of a disappointing game simply because it did feel like a reskinned MOM. I think you mean where is the RTW style ship designer.
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Apr 23, 2019 00:45
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Tyrel Lohr posted:What's worse is that MOO2 was fundamentally more of an iteration on Master of Magic. And while I loved MOM, I could never get into MOO2 and I've always considered it to be something of a disappointing game simply because it did feel like a reskinned MOM. Huh. I always liked MoO and loved MoO2 and MoM, but I never thought of that. Can you point out some specifics? It's been a while since I played either.
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Apr 23, 2019 00:53
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Jazerus posted:it's the sense of history. play one of those divided world scenarios for eu or ck and you'll get the same feeling I agree with you, but I still think it's more basic -- like I do play shattered world on CK2 on the reg and you can still get neat emergent narratives just from the gameplay much more frequently than with Stellaris. Obviously CK2 is a character-focused game etc but it's also partly because it just has a lot more flavour and different religions/governments feel more different to play
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Apr 23, 2019 01:04
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The lack of connection to the universe certainly isn't helped by the inherently fictional nature of the setting, tbh. I have a general idea of who/what/where France/the Aztecs/the Mongols/Tibet/whatever are, and comparing the emergent narrative of the game to real history is fun and interesting. I haven't the slightest loving idea who the Divine State of Tebbora are or where the Screeching Abyss is so it all just kinda blends together into a meaningless slurry. I mean it's obviously not THAT bad if I've put almost 1k hours into Stellaris, and probably a case of having played so much I've seen it all, but yeah.
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Apr 23, 2019 02:50
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catlord posted:Huh. I always liked MoO and loved MoO2 and MoM, but I never thought of that. Can you point out some specifics? It's been a while since I played either. The city management and leaders from MOM are the most obvious elements. The planet management from MOO2 is basically identical to that in MOM if I'm remembering correctly, with the citizen placement options being split between worker and farmer (and discontented/rebelling). MOO2 added the science slot to that mix. Then you have the building and construction setup which works the same with you constructing buildings to get bonuses, which is something that makes little sense given the scope of the game. The planet screen displaying the buildings is right out of MOM, too. With the MOO2 leaders, I remember them being fairly equivalent to the MOM version. You also had a similar limit on the number of leaders you could have, and the recruiting system where you would be approached to hire them at intervals. The combat is kind of a mix of MOO and MOM, with discrete combat units (MOM) but with firing arcs and individual weapon mounts (MOO). The larger scale of the tactical combat map also makes those battles play out more like the MOM battles compared to the almost Chess-like battle board of MOO. The MOO battle board allowed for tighter constraints on what you could or could not do, which in turn probably helped when it came to designing systems for that game because you knew what the absolute size of the "play surface" was and could design ship systems around those interactions. The custom race creation in MOO2 was also similar to the way that MOM handled it, with some of the abilities being directly ported from MOM (I think Charismatic and Warlord were two examples?). All in all, not that much DNA from the original MOO survived into MOO2. You have the factions and the setting, and some elements like Orion and the galactic senate as an end game feature that most modern 4x games seem to ignore the need for (since it allows a game to end when there is an obvious runaway winner), but the bones of the game and most of the micromanagement that you're going to be interacting with is very MOM. Considering Stellaris, while I enjoy it I think it ultimately has the same basic issues as most 4X games in that they are most interesting in the early exploration phase of the game and then start to get weighed down by micromanagement in the middle game and then lumber towards a conclusion in the end game (or the player gives up and abandons the game because it isn't fun anymore). No one really seems to know what to do to make the end game of a 4X fun, which I think has more to do with the fact that the natural ending for a 4X game is in what we consider the mid game when empires achieve their "moment of decision" -- the climax of whatever great war that decides their supremacy against their enemies, which inevitably leads into the falling action of mop up and consolidation for the remainder of the game. And it's that slice of game play which is ultimately the most difficult to make a compelling argument for. MOO1 "solved" its end game problem by introducing the galactic senate mechanic so that the game could end early without dragging things out unnecessarily -- but did so with the option to allow the player to contest the vote and enter a final war against an allied galaxy if they wanted to go that route. The end game crises in Stellaris are an interesting idea, but as with the precursor event chains they come off feeling a bit half baked. I think it would be more interesting if these two elements somehow acted as thematic bookends to the game, establishing an overarching narrative that fed into each other. If the precursor empires were more of a mystery with artifacts scattered around the galaxy to recover during the early game that could then have an actual bearing on the eventual end game crisis which would be the ending/victory condition for the game it would feel better contained and a little less sandboxy. Then when the crisis was defeated it would mark the end of the game, with scoring for victory et. al. While difficult to do well, it could also be interesting if there was some sort of Fallout-style slide show at the "end" of the campaign that dynamically generated an epilogue for your game describing what happened to each of the major empires or species after the end of the crisis. For example, after the defeat of the Contingency you would be shown a splash screen saying that the threat was defeated, and then depending on the dominant ethics or policies of the galaxy it might tell you that the survivors vowed to outlaw robotics forever or else embraced synthetics and vowed to live together in peace. You'd effectively be using the stats at game end to provide a brief coda that would give players closure to their particular story without feeling like they had to continue playing beyond that point.
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Apr 23, 2019 03:21
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Zohar posted:I agree with you, but I still think it's more basic -- like I do play shattered world on CK2 on the reg and you can still get neat emergent narratives just from the gameplay much more frequently than with Stellaris. Obviously CK2 is a character-focused game etc but it's also partly because it just has a lot more flavour and different religions/governments feel more different to play Yeah, emergent narratives are super important, in my mind. I feel like Stellaris still scratches that itch to me, but I can see how it stops at some point. Some sort of random setup that puts you square in the midgame would be pretty cool, even better if the tech tree is extended/expanded to compensate.
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Apr 23, 2019 03:27
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Crazycryodude posted:The lack of connection to the universe certainly isn't helped by the inherently fictional nature of the setting, tbh. I have a general idea of who/what/where France/the Aztecs/the Mongols/Tibet/whatever are, and comparing the emergent narrative of the game to real history is fun and interesting. I haven't the slightest loving idea who the Divine State of Tebbora are or where the Screeching Abyss is so it all just kinda blends together into a meaningless slurry. I think the procgen names and alien appearances contribute to this. An arthropod from the Tebboran Hegemony with a blue swirl logo tells me almost nothing.
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Apr 23, 2019 03:39
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The thing is even without reading the lore, the mechanical differences in Sword of the Stars make the playthroughs interesting. When you face the morrigi you have to deal with nasty lasers and drone ships and carriers and a huge economy. The hiver enemies can teleport their fleets anywhere which gives them flavor / makes fighting them distinct and memorable. Their ships are heavy bricks and that makes the combat memorable too. Tarkas with their beefy ships, Humans with their rapid expansion and missile heavy comps that have fragile ship components. That's why I feel Stellaris having such similar gameplay for the various ethos is unfortunate. You have the procgen nature of the galaxy, symmetric starts, and very little gameplay variation. The ascension perks don't differentiate things too much either and megastructures don't define runs. The only thing that feels different are the various bad guy races (determined exterminators, devouring swarms) and even then I feel they could stand to do with more differentiation. Like +25% fleet size is great and all but there could be way they would be more unique. As it is facing up against a procgen materialist race or a procgen spiritualist race or even procgen authoritarian is pretty much the same thing.
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Apr 23, 2019 03:57
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Zohar posted:I agree with you, but I still think it's more basic -- like I do play shattered world on CK2 on the reg and you can still get neat emergent narratives just from the gameplay much more frequently than with Stellaris. Obviously CK2 is a character-focused game etc but it's also partly because it just has a lot more flavour and different religions/governments feel more different to play One thing I think works really well in EU4 that Stellaris is missing is the combination of religion + culture as a factor + things like latent cores with the huge number of countries of different sizes, which gives some interesting choices as to who you ally with. The diplomatic situation is also a lot more dynamic, with alliances shifting periodically. In Stellaris you kinda form blocks based on ideology and they're very stable unless you feel like backstabbing.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:08
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Crazycryodude posted:The lack of connection to the universe certainly isn't helped by the inherently fictional nature of the setting, tbh. I have a general idea of who/what/where France/the Aztecs/the Mongols/Tibet/whatever are, and comparing the emergent narrative of the game to real history is fun and interesting. I haven't the slightest loving idea who the Divine State of Tebbora are or where the Screeching Abyss is so it all just kinda blends together into a meaningless slurry. I think they really missed an opportunity to make Stellaris a grand strategy game like all the others. Create a real fictional setting with meaningful backstories, rather than a random map full of random empires that nobody really cares about.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:42
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Yeah if the Divine State of Tebbora and the Screeching Abyss were in the same place every single game and had a real backstory I would eventually get to know who/where they are and what their deal is. I dunno if it's too late to add a fixed universe to Stellaris, hopefully not, but definitely put it on the top of the list for Stellaris 2.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:53
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Tyrel Lohr posted:MoO/MoM talk Ah, that all makes sense. It's apparently been a very long time since I last played MoO, I thought the population food/production/research aspect was in all three games. Pretty much everything you mentioned are things I like about MoM/MoO2, so I'm curious about how the first one plays now. I don't remember it being too different from the other two, but uh... now that I'm really thinking about it, my age might have been in the single digits last time I played it. It certainly gives me an excuse to finally getting around to getting it on GOG. I really do want a Paradox fantasy game, though.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:57
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Idk about anyone else but the early exploration and colonization phase of stellaris is by far the best part of the game and trying to strip that out to make eu4 in space but way shittier seems like a fools errand to me.
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Apr 23, 2019 04:59
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Yes stellaris needs a lot more work to get up to snuff but the more distinct it is from the rest of paradox's line up the better.
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Apr 23, 2019 05:02
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I remember asking in the Stellaris thread why the game featured detailed ship design because it really didn't seem to fit well. One of the actual dev's responded and said their data indicated that players expected ship design. ... and that was all he had to say. No argument about why it's good. No question why I thought it was bad. Just "data said it's expected" as if that instantly explains everything and what more could there possibly be to say. Explains Stellaris, really.
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Apr 23, 2019 05:41
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Ship design is one of the dumbest parts of most 4X IMO.
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Apr 23, 2019 05:44
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Chomp8645 posted:I remember asking in the Stellaris thread why the game featured detailed ship design because it really didn't seem to fit well. One of the actual dev's responded and said their data indicated that players expected ship design. As someone who admittedly has a soft spot for stellaris ive long thought the ship designer was pointless busywork for busyworks sake. I would rather spend that time customizing my society and not my ships. Tbh the fact that they seem to have added a ship designer to the new HoI4 expansion is a major minus for me and has kinda put me off of picking it up.
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Apr 23, 2019 05:49
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Chomp8645 posted:I remember asking in the Stellaris thread why the game featured detailed ship design because it really didn't seem to fit well. One of the actual dev's responded and said their data indicated that players expected ship design. they're not wrong i mean if it was just like eu4/vicky bote building where you press the "build big fitebote" a bunch it'd be even more lifeless just eh?
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Apr 23, 2019 05:51
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AnEdgelord posted:Tbh the fact that they seem to have added a ship designer to the new HoI4 expansion is a major minus for me and has kinda put me off of picking it up. Its not even a good ship designer. Go full grog or go home.  (preferably go home in a game like HoI4) What I'm trying to say is, if ship design is a feature, it should be a major centerpoint of the game or just an extremely basic thing or not existent, not some weird halfsies.
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Apr 23, 2019 05:55
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Chomp8645 posted:I remember asking in the Stellaris thread why the game featured detailed ship design because it really didn't seem to fit well. One of the actual dev's responded and said their data indicated that players expected ship design. if they had left out the ship designer, i guarantee we'd be seeing the exact opposite of this post from other angry players
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Apr 23, 2019 08:33
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And none of them could be able to justify the need for a ship designer, guaranteed.
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Apr 23, 2019 08:51
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The ship designer is there for the people who want it, and can be completely ignored for those who don't. Unfortunately that's not the case for HOI4, but in Stellaris it can be safely ignored if you want to. Personally I always try to manually design everything to make fleets with varying doctrines, but at some point I kinda give up on that level of micromanagement. Drone fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 09:01
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Its not even a good ship designer. Go full grog or go home. 
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Apr 23, 2019 09:36
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Yes to everything on this page. cf with Sword of the Stars: the Ship Designer is the absolute core of the game because it's all about mashing the fleets you create against the enemy. Every other element you expect from a 4x is stripped back to a MOO1 style bare minimum that directly supports ship building. Research is a massive ship module tree with some empire level techs you need to decide when to take because it'll slow down you getting better ships. Trade is a choice between building warships or building freighters now to boost your economy in 10 turns time. Colony management is 'how much do you want us building ships and how much terraforming?'. Everything is built around it.
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Apr 23, 2019 09:37
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I'm real upset Paradox did Stellaris rather than SotS 3 in house.
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Apr 23, 2019 10:44
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Drone posted:The ship designer is there for the people who want it, and can be completely ignored for those who don't. I tend to ignore it whenever I happen to play Stellaris as well but it sucks rear end to know I'm missing out on combat effectiveness. If there's a big war in the horizon I cannot not ask myself "Ok should I look up what the current ship designer meta is so that I don't lose". YF-23 fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 12:23
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Chomp8645 posted:I remember asking in the Stellaris thread why the game featured detailed ship design because it really didn't seem to fit well. One of the actual dev's responded and said their data indicated that players expected ship design. Crazycryodude posted:Developers churn out more of the same because the hogs have proven they'll buy it, taking creative risks might threaten shareholder value hth
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Apr 23, 2019 12:28
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How did I know this was going to be Aurora before I’d even opened it. Something I think gets lost in the debate over ship designers is their expressive value, the ability they give the player to define a theme and an aesthetic for their empire. A “we’re an aggressive, reckless, unsubtle species, so we’re all about short-range, high damage guns and afterburners” sort of deal. One of my big beefs with the military rework in, I think Apocalypse? Was that, by making everything vital, by making everyone want a little bit of everything all the time, they made it much less viable to go hard in on a concept, and thus dramatically reduced the ability of the ship designer to perform that function. And lol if your concept ever involved strike craft.
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Apr 23, 2019 12:49
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I had to search for this Aurora Seems like a game for real autists
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Apr 23, 2019 13:03
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Alchenar posted:Yes to everything on this page. That's true about most 4Xs, though. Sots is a lot more direct about it, but even stuff like Civilization is pretty much upgrade your income and production ability solely to build more units. There are usually other victory types then straight conquest, but. Heck, this is true about Stellaris, too, though that's moreso part of the feedback loop of there not being anything to do really but warrin'
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Apr 23, 2019 13:46
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Elias_Maluco posted:I had to search for this Aurora Calling Aurora a "game" is a stretch. It's more like an Excel mod.
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Apr 23, 2019 14:04
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Victoria 2 is 75% off on steam right now, in case anyone in this thread doesn't own it already. I actually recently started a USA run because I had never done one before, it's pretty fun. Way less annoying once the civil war is over.
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Apr 23, 2019 23:21
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trapped mouse posted:Victoria 2 is 75% off on steam right now, in case anyone in this thread doesn't own it already. I actually recently started a USA run because I had never done one before, it's pretty fun. Way less annoying once the civil war is over. Play on the last beta patch if you aren't already, it cuts down the annoying USA events by a whole lot Wickedness must be stamped out
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Apr 23, 2019 23:52
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Victoria 2 is unplayable nowadays because of both the military recruitment system and the province construction system.
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Apr 24, 2019 00:37
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Party In My Diapee posted:Victoria 2 is unplayable nowadays because of both the military recruitment system and the province construction system. My biggest pet peeve with Vicky 2 is the infamy system. I really don't like how it's up to chance how many infamy points you get for fabricating a claim. You can get away scot free or if you get caught right away, kiss the next thirty-forty years of conquering goodbye. Also the costs for states is just silly. I hate stuff like how the Spanish-American war could never actually happen in Vicky because just taking the three states in the Philippines would put the US over the infamy cap where the whole world dogpiles on you. They worked out infamy soooooo much better in EU4.
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Apr 24, 2019 02:41
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Randallteal posted:My biggest pet peeve with Vicky 2 is the infamy system. I really don't like how it's up to chance how many infamy points you get for fabricating a claim. You can get away scot free or if you get caught right away, kiss the next thirty-forty years of conquering goodbye. Also the costs for states is just silly. I hate stuff like how the Spanish-American war could never actually happen in Vicky because just taking the three states in the Philippines would put the US over the infamy cap where the whole world dogpiles on you. They worked out infamy soooooo much better in EU4. Yeah the hard cap on infamy is annoying and I get that it's intended to push you to conquor more territory in uncivilized nations because it costs less infamy to do a "place in the sun" CB than a normal conquest one, but it's still very weird to have it set up that <=24.99 infamy is totally fine, >=25 means everybody on earth declares war on you, even your allies.
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Apr 24, 2019 02:50
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VostokProgram posted:Play on the last beta patch if you aren't already, it cuts down the annoying USA events by a whole lot Ah, I wish I had known this, it was getting absurd. Randallteal posted:My biggest pet peeve with Vicky 2 is the infamy system. I pretty much agree with all of this, it's one of my biggest frustrations with the game. I (begrudgingly) understand that part of the purpose is to keep blobbing to a minimum especially in more developed countries, but Aggressive Expansion and Threat work so much better as systems than a mostly random arbitrary number assigned before the war even starts.
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Apr 24, 2019 04:54
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The randomness is definitely the worst part, I don't normally savescum but getting caught and taking a bunch of
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Apr 24, 2019 06:52
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Randallteal posted:My biggest pet peeve with Vicky 2 is the infamy system. I really don't like how it's up to chance how many infamy points you get for fabricating a claim. You can get away scot free or if you get caught right away, kiss the next thirty-forty years of conquering goodbye. Also the costs for states is just silly. I hate stuff like how the Spanish-American war could never actually happen in Vicky because just taking the three states in the Philippines would put the US over the infamy cap where the whole world dogpiles on you. They worked out infamy soooooo much better in EU4. That's actually a huge improvement over vanilla V2. Justifying wars wasn't a thing, you just paid the full infamy cost for declaring war on someone. Now you at least get a chance to reduce the amount.
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Apr 24, 2019 08:36
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Magissima posted:The randomness is definitely the worst part, I don't normally savescum but getting caught and taking a bunch of You know, except fabricating territorial claims and looking to plunge a couple of countries into a war.
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