|
Eimi posted:It's at least aware of ideology including the ideology implicit in the 4x genre, so much better than Civ or Endless Space or what have you. Europa Universalis is aware of the 4X genre's underlying ideology of ravenous, violent conquest and zero-sum geopolitics, it's why it has Europe in the name 
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 19:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 22:09 |
|
|
Elias_Maluco posted:I dont care about balance that much, I only play SP. Balance makes SP better since new players and the AI don't fall in the traps as much. Like 80% of being good at Civ 5 is knowing what things are poo poo and should be avoided.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 19:10
|
|
|
Eimi posted:It's better writing than any 4x game after it. It might have a good writing but even if the writing is done by Shakespear reborn it's not enough to make it a good game. Just like every new game from Rockstar or Bethesda is a technical marvel and features great voice acting talents yet you probably don't consider them masterpieces. And yes, balance in 4X game (just like in most other singleplayer games) means that you don't discover a single best reliable way to win a game and actually have some choices. Most seemingly imbalanced games like Heroes III compensate it by making the best choices not reliably available or requiring a longer and thus more dangerous plan. Or in case of Europa Universalis and other Paradox games where sides are imbalanced by design, it means that various approaches to problems are more or less balanced and are all useable often enough. Except for Naval idea group, of course.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 20:27
|
|
|
Bear in mind that SMAC's writing was following this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlTIk80uBPg e: I genuinely like how all the advisers change throughout the ages, except for culture, who is always just Elvis Alchenar fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 20:33
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:Bear in mind that SMAC's writing was following this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlTIk80uBPg the council owned
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 20:36
|
|
|
Honestly I don't think I've ever played a big strategy game where the economic side of things has been very interesting (despite having played and enjoyed a number of mostly-economic board games). I think it's something about the UI and presentation of things that leaves it all seeming too abstract with too many variables unrepresented by tangible things in-game that you have to juggle in your head and guess at whether you're doing well, as opposed to the extremely tangible nature of moving armies around and pushing borders. It's like how I'll waste a day playing Tropico but in CK2 I can barely be bothered to care about building. In CK2 it's just dumping a bunch of money on random buildings, and maybe if you're doing it right you'll have bigger levies coming out in a couple hours, but for Tropico it's the whole game and you'll get active feedback on things.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 20:49
|
|
|
Caring about economy is one of the things people like about the Victoria series!
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 20:53
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:I really miss SMAC terraforming. Starving put an enemy because you built a mountain range between your borders, causing your side to capture all the moisture was some big brain plays. Yeah the terrain and terraforming system was absolutely amazing. It wouldn't fit well into too many other settings of course due to technology concerns, but it's pretty sad BE didn't even try. It was always hilarious playing as the Pirates and trying to global warming Planet so hard that it turned into Waterworld and drowned everyone else.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 21:31
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
SMAC was pretty huge for me, a 12 or 13 year old kid at the time, encountering  PHILOSOPHICAL BIG IDEAS  for the first time ever. It got me into reading books about philosophy and politics at a way earlier age! I didn't think too deeply about the strategy because 4x games were new to me, and I was a literal child at the time, but as an adult revisiting it, it's laughably easy. Still, it made a deep impression because of what it was at the time, to who I was at the time.
DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Oct 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 22:34
|
|
|
Yeah SMAC against the AI is kinda laughable because they don't know how to Pop Boom, and Pop Booming is just overwhelmingly powerful. Mods have managed to teach them how to supply crawler semi-respectably, but not booming as far as I know. The more confusing part is that the AI is also not particularly good at Terraforming, which is more of a Civ 5 grade gently caress up.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 23:00
|
|
|
They were pretty good with planet busters I'll give them that. I'll never forget when as a young lad I invaded the christians with some kind of orbital drop army, took one of their better cities, regrouped my army in it and then bam! She nearly overwhelmed me after that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2019 23:03
|
|
|
No conversation about SMAC is complete without linking to Paean to SMAC and causing at least one person to disappear down its rabbit hole explaining why SMAC is the best. And yeah there may be a lot making it not exactly great gameplay-wise 20 years after release but it’s still atmospheric and engaging as hell which makes it the best.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 01:16
|
|
|
Mister Olympus posted:this is some pretty intense grog and while 5 did have a lot of problems that fundamentally came from 1UPT, all the other problems this person either incorrectly diagnoses, misses at all, or were addressed in later versions of the game. Also he is critiquing the game mechanics at a high level, not complaining about minutiae, so dismissing his entire writeup as "grog" is pretty loving dumb!
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 01:45
|
|
|
I dunno, I always liked V better than IV. IV was too complicated. Civ is a beer and pretzels game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 02:49
|
|
|
Minenfeld! posted:I dunno, I always liked V better than IV. IV was too complicated. Civ is a beer and pretzels game. Yeah I can see how that can be appealing. Me though, as much as I played IV, I pretty much only play the different Paradox grand strategy games anymore when I feel the need to scratch that itch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 02:57
|
|
|
I poured over a thousand hours into Civ IV and then did the same with Civ V. I always found doom stacks incredibly tedious, myself, and even with all its many problems I liked Civ V’s battle system better. Civ IV is probably better overall, but V was new and different and still lots of fun. I haven’t even gotten VI yet though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 04:06
|
|
|
zhuge liang posted:I only started playing Civ5 once the final patch and all DLC/expansions were out and every single thing he identifies as a problem was still in the game. Can't be a high level because the optimal strat is tradition and 4 cities forever he's fundamentally right about how the very basics of civ5 are completely incompatible with the capabilities of the AI it's just super groggy in tone. You can't dismiss all console gaming past the PS1 and not be a grog
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 04:09
|
|
|
Ultimately I rather have a more simple game with doomstacks that the AI can play than something like Civ 5 or 6 or Stellaris where the AI can't even put of a facade of functioning and being able to manage the game's basic mechanics.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 04:52
|
|
|
I seriously can't understand how people can say that doom stacks are tedious, but doom carpets aren't.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 05:17
|
|
|
One actually provides a real visual and the pretense of tactics while the other is just a weird lump that you mouseover.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 07:00
|
|
|
For me the big stacks always felt annoying because of the rock/paper/scissors effect composition had. I don't have as much experience with Civ4 but in Endless Space there's the composition of what your actual ships are and then their armament and defense and it ends up being loving annoying because the ai will always outproduce counters to your build to the point now where I just loving loathe ship designers.  The one unit per tile at least adds some tactile feel to each unit. You want melee to be linebackers, your ranged do the heavy lifting, cavalry exploit flanks. Easy to get instead of balancing %s.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 08:15
|
|
|
Giggle Goose posted:Yeah I can see how that can be appealing. Me though, as much as I played IV, I pretty much only play the different Paradox grand strategy games anymore when I feel the need to scratch that itch. That's a very good point. Civ4 had more mechanics "under the hood" and random events. Civ5/6 had dropped most of it, now the only thing that is not directly controlled by the player is probably religion spread (and it's still not that complicated), world congress votes and disasters, and you have ways to mitigate disasters. Civ4 had invisible culture wars, complex espionage, random events and even quests - but it could never go full Europa Universalis so those who wanted a more simulationist approach went to play Paradox games, Civ5-6 has the right idea to be a more mechanics-driven competitive game. I too like doomstacks. It's about balance of player attention. War is important part of civilization, but not important enough for me to manage a carpet of doom, give out individual orders to a dozen units, tell them to plunder or defend or levelup or upgrade. A hundred clicks for army maneuvers would end up less important than a couple of clicks choosing a next wonder or technology that would completely change the whole eceonomy. Civ4 already had a rather complex warfare: you could counter enemy stack by bringing more rocks when you knew he focuses on scissors, you could just wreck his economy by plundering without actually fighting, you had to commit to a siege making your position vulnerable, you had elite units that you don't want to lose. You had a lot of interesting decisions and AI could get bonuses to emulate a competent opponent. Civ6 military AI isn't that bad, I think, but it still has to devolve to "my swordsman beats exactly the same swordsman of yours" bonuses. And yes, in many cases Civ5-6 model has the advantage of being much more obvious why you win or lose. Civ4 model requires a lot of practics for you to learn the difference between bad decision and unlucky dice roll.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 10:02
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:One actually provides a real visual and the pretense of tactics while the other is just a weird lump that you mouseover. This is a pretty good point, actually. I remember playing a game of, I think, CiV NiGHTS, which has a significantly more capable and aggressive AI than vanilla, getting war dec’d and watching as this enormous loving wall of flesh suddenly emerged from the FoW. I think I may have whimpered. The stacks could never really produce that same “oh that is a LOT of dudes” feeling. It’s also infinitely more satisfying to cut a swathe through a horde in that mode. Now if only it wasn’t such a chore to manoeuvre the blasted things...
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 10:31
|
|
|
I'm not the biggest fan of Civ 5 but if nothing else it was spot on in presentation. I think 6 plays a bit better but man those dumb travel blog quotes about there not being wifi at Machu Picchu and poo poo got old fast.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 10:38
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Ultimately I rather have a more simple game with doomstacks that the AI can play than something like Civ 5 or 6 or Stellaris where the AI can't even put of a facade of functioning and being able to manage the game's basic mechanics. Stellaris has way better AI than Civ 5 and 6. In Civ 6 the AI has a great deal of trouble conquering a single-city empire with no military, on the highest difficulty with every AI bonus that exists.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 14:08
|
|
|
ilitarist posted:Maybe you'll like this guy analysis more https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts/404789
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 18:44
|
|
|
AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Wait wait wait, hold on a minute - At The Gates was released? And is on patch 1.2? It didn't have a very successful launch. One of the big negatives was AI and an almost complete lack thereof, but most game systems were lacking too. That I haven't really heard anything about it since indicates to me that not much has changed. From what I remember, most of the AI work was slated for 1.3, so that's when I plan on trying it again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 18:50
|
|
|
Cynic Jester posted:It didn't have a very successful launch. One of the big negatives was AI and an almost complete lack thereof, but most game systems were lacking too. That I haven't really heard anything about it since indicates to me that not much has changed. From what I remember, most of the AI work was slated for 1.3, so that's when I plan on trying it again. Has anyone called March of the Eagles II as the unknown Paradox announcement coming up at PDXCon?
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 19:01
|
|
|
March of The Eagles II: now featuring a world map, an extended timeline, a more robust political system, pops, industrialization and colonialization.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 19:06
|
|
|
Lance of Llanwyln posted:I poured over a thousand hours into Civ IV and then did the same with Civ V. I always found doom stacks incredibly tedious, myself, and even with all its many problems I liked Civ V’s battle system better. Civ IV is probably better overall, but V was new and different and still lots of fun. The issue with Civ V's model is basically just that the AI doesn't understand it at all. I agree that it's way more tactically interesting than just rolling doomstacks around, but the thing is that I'm not even very good at Civ and a typical conflict for me can involve annihilating the entire enemy army without even losing a single unit myself. Doomstacks are boring, but the AI at least understands them well enough that I can't just roll over them with an army a fraction of the size. I don't even really want an AI that's going to be "good" in a game - like a lot of people complain about HoI4's AI but honestly I think it's good enough for what I want out of it. In Civ V though it's like, the AI is so bad that there's a whole set of diplomatic interactions that are just useless like alliances because I will literally never need the help, or even need to worry about securing a border with friendly relations because gently caress it if they declare on me I can hold off their entire force with a single ranged unit parked in a city for ages.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2019 23:37
|
|
|
The fact that cities in Civ5 had a powerful ranged attack, thus preventing sieges from literally ever happening, still boggles my mind. Also the fact that the combat was annihilation combat (a unit that ran out of health dies forever) when they could have easily had damaged units retreat is also inexcusable, especially when they bothered to have so many cool unit skill buffs that they could earn over time. Anyone you fight, even the AI, can focus down your best unit in a single turn without it ever getting to react is just so ridiculously stupid when the game makes these units march across continents over a dozen turns just to get to the front, only to go *pop* when they get too close to a city with a ranged unit is just amazingly stupid.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 04:03
|
|
|
Pretty sure that every Civ game including SMAC has been annihilation combat. Even in Civ iv the retreat function was only calvary and highly experienced units.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 12:49
|
|
|
I think the combat in Civ 5/6 is actually pretty solid and fun, despite its problems. I hated 1UPT when I first played, but it grew on me over the years, its really a lot more fun an interesting than doom stacks It could be improved a lot with some minor things. Like transport units, land & naval, would help a lot in making moving large quantities of units across the map less tedious. Warhammer 40K Gladius does that and it works pretty well The big problem in both games is that the AI just cant handle it, but is not a bad system per se. City ranged attack is not a bad idea either, cities have to be hard to conquer. Here again the problem is that it became way too hard for the AI
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 13:01
|
|
|
Overall I prefer the carpet over the stack. Yes moving a lot of units any distance is a total pain and the AI f(l)ails around uselessly (except with loving cavalry they use as cruise missiles out of the fog constantly argh!) and literarily carpets with it which sucks but the doomstacks mostly just, to bad me, seemed to be: 1. find enemy doomstack 2. slam your doomstack into enemy doomstack because the first person who does that wins 3. mop up
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 13:15
|
|
|
Zikan posted:Pretty sure that every Civ game including SMAC has been annihilation combat. Even in Civ iv the retreat function was only calvary and highly experienced units. Elias_Maluco posted:City ranged attack is not a bad idea either, cities have to be hard to conquer. Here again the problem is that it became way too hard for the AI
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 13:56
|
|
|
I’d call the civ series history inspired or history aware over history based tbh
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 14:18
|
|
|
Yeah, your archers tak hundreds of years to walk to a nearby city, same time is needed to build a monument or a market. Stacks are not nearly as absurd as direct tactical command over wars that span millennia.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 14:29
|
|
|
Senior Dog posted:I’d call the civ series history inspired or history aware over history based tbh
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 14:32
|
|
|
1UPT makes you care too much about your units and so you care about them too much - towns may feel almost interchangeable but some leveled up guy may get a special name and perks making him feel important to you. And in reality some forgettable town is much more important for your game. That's one of the problems with the war in Civ. If anything, Civ4 was already overcomplicated in that regard giving perks to the troops.
ilitarist fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Oct 4, 2019 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 14:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 22:09 |
|
|
AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:I strongly disagree about the city ranged attack. It makes it literally impossible to siege a city. You have to run up and assault it as fast as possible and for a game that is history based that is so loving ahistorical it drives me nuts. On top of that, its terrible annoying tedious gameplay. I do agree that cities should be hard to conquer, but give them a strong defense in the city tile itself rather than letting it nuke units like its an artillery piece. remove city ranged attack if the city is surrounded, problem solved
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2019 16:07
|
|
