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Vichan posted:It's also on GoG. I actually checked yesterday and it doesn't show up there for me. Maybe it's region locked?
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Feb 4, 2021 11:05
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Goa Tse-tung posted:I actually checked yesterday and it doesn't show up there for me. Maybe it's region locked? Does this link work for you?
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Feb 4, 2021 11:08
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PittTheElder posted:I've tried a bunch (of mods) but none of them really do a great job of teaching the AI to terraform. I feel like the devs screwed themselves over in a number of ways related to this. The process seems to go like this: 1. Here's a feature that is super-powerful and useful, like terraforming or making a city-planet or megastructures 2. It's super-powerful and useful, so it must be expensive 3. Let's lock it behind techs/ascension perks/enormous one-shot costs 4. Oh look, the AI doesn't do it in a timely manner and falls hugely behind a human player They should fix it by removing the ascension perk cost and "all district slots must be full of city districts" requirements on ecumenopolises, and making terraforming, ecumenopolises and megastructures a per-month expense rather than a one-shot expense. I think the AI would be able to handle that a ton better than the current system.
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Feb 4, 2021 14:02
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Oh I was referring to SMAC terraforming. Which wisely avoids that trap, with terraforming units available after a starting tier tech.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:51
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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mods pls rename this thread to "Bad Strategy Games Chat (All Strategy Games Welcome)"
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Feb 4, 2021 18:15
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RabidWeasel posted:There was a great post-release interview with one of the head devs which revealed just how hosed up Stellaris' dev cycle was, IIRC they did almost a full redesign of the core gameplay loop about 6 months before the game came out. In that context it's not really surprising. I feel like the trouble with Stellaris is that it does have solid design goals, but they conflict. There is clearly a desire to have an early game progression that evokes the feeling of "space is big and terrifying", moving into a more politically driven midgame that's more like the universe of something like Star Trek, where the edges are still unexplored but the territory is mostly "settled" and the action is driven by how the aliens relate to each other, and finally moving into the endgame where all the big empires have solidified and then the crises show up and they learn they were just a big fish in a small pond. The problem is that these are all very different "era" concepts and trying to smash them all into a single set of mechanics is very difficult. Imagine if a Paradox mega-campaign that went from CK -> EU -> Vicky -> HoI was actually all one single game that somehow had to support everything you do in all four of those games despite their radically different focuses, and that's probably why the development was such hell for Stellaris.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:08
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Stellaris is trying to do The Expanse, Star Trek, Star Wars and Warhammer 40k all in the same game and it shows
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Feb 4, 2021 23:14
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The Cheshire Cat posted:I feel like the trouble with Stellaris is that it does have solid design goals, but they conflict. There is clearly a desire to have an early game progression that evokes the feeling of "space is big and terrifying", moving into a more politically driven midgame that's more like the universe of something like Star Trek, where the edges are still unexplored but the territory is mostly "settled" and the action is driven by how the aliens relate to each other, and finally moving into the endgame where all the big empires have solidified and then the crises show up and they learn they were just a big fish in a small pond. The problem is that these are all very different "era" concepts and trying to smash them all into a single set of mechanics is very difficult. Imagine if a Paradox mega-campaign that went from CK -> EU -> Vicky -> HoI was actually all one single game that somehow had to support everything you do in all four of those games despite their radically different focuses, and that's probably why the development was such hell for Stellaris. From what I remember from that interview (I haven't been able to find it anywhere which is weird) they basically just made a generic space 4x game and then added some Paradox GSG features on top of it, assuming that the two would somehow just work together. Obviously they didn't so they had to rework virtually all of the 4x side of things I'm still sad that we didn't get the "alternate" version of Stellaris which would have had a fixed map and was more about politics and strategy and less about exploring, because as you say the 4x part of Stellaris still doesn't play that well with the grand strategy part, and I'm not a big 4x fan in general anyway.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:31
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The 4X part is the part people tend to like the most though. The midgame, the part most like a standard Paradox title, has always been the most maligned aspect. I think Stellaris is quite good. Just not the amazing game everyone wanted it to be.
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Feb 5, 2021 00:05
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:The 4X part is the part people tend to like the most though. The midgame, the part most like a standard Paradox title, has always been the most maligned aspect. I think Stellaris is quite good. Just not the amazing game everyone wanted it to be.
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Feb 5, 2021 07:21
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AnEdgelord posted:Stellaris is trying to do The Expanse, Star Trek, Star Wars and Warhammer 40k all in the same game and it shows With at least a sprinkling of Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and probably a bunch of other sci fi references. I don't know about the Expanse so much though. I don't even know if they had interstellar travel in those books by the time Stellaris came out.
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Feb 5, 2021 10:31
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I'd say aesthetics of Expanse TV show are there. Or maybe they're just in the same trend. Expanse is similar to Aliens world of cyberpunk-ish low life space exploitation. It doesn't have CRT monitors but it has a lot of that no-nonsense dehumanizing functional aesthetics you can see in many of Stellaris models.
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Feb 5, 2021 11:06
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The Cheshire Cat posted:I feel like the trouble with Stellaris is that it does have solid design goals, but they conflict. There is clearly a desire to have an early game progression that evokes the feeling of "space is big and terrifying", moving into a more politically driven midgame that's more like the universe of something like Star Trek, where the edges are still unexplored but the territory is mostly "settled" and the action is driven by how the aliens relate to each other, and finally moving into the endgame where all the big empires have solidified and then the crises show up and they learn they were just a big fish in a small pond. The problem is that these are all very different "era" concepts and trying to smash them all into a single set of mechanics is very difficult. Imagine if a Paradox mega-campaign that went from CK -> EU -> Vicky -> HoI was actually all one single game that somehow had to support everything you do in all four of those games despite their radically different focuses, and that's probably why the development was such hell for Stellaris.
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Feb 5, 2021 11:48
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Splicer posted:Also strip out all the nickel and dime chargen choices and consolidate them into big decisions. What do you mean by this? I'd rather decide how my empire is established before the game starts than deal with a bunch of pop ups after you unpause the game the first time.
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Feb 5, 2021 16:54
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Grevlek posted:What do you mean by this? I'd rather decide how my empire is established before the game starts than deal with a bunch of pop ups after you unpause the game the first time. I think it means "don't give me a ton of options that do lots of small things, I just want a few meaningful choices"
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Feb 5, 2021 17:46
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RabidWeasel posted:I think it means "don't give me a ton of options that do lots of small things, I just want a few meaningful choices"
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Feb 5, 2021 17:48
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Yeah, the racial modifiers are garbage. If you want to create a species of space dwarfs who live underground and are expert miners and industrialists, you're like what? 5% better at it? 10% maybe? That's one tech difference. I don't know about you, but when I imagine the difference between space slugs living on a water world and space dwarfs on a rocky one, I don't think "one makes 5 minerals, the other makes 5.3"
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Feb 5, 2021 17:49
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:You mean you dont like choosing between +5% energy income forever or 100 energy right now? The space crystals have a structured settlement
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Feb 5, 2021 17:58
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Grevlek posted:What do you mean by this? I'd rather decide how my empire is established before the game starts than deal with a bunch of pop ups after you unpause the game the first time. RabidWeasel posted:I think it means "don't give me a ton of options that do lots of small things, I just want a few meaningful choices"
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Feb 5, 2021 18:19
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there are mods that add very meaningful traits. you can make your own mod to remove the boring ones from vanilla if you want. the great thing about stellaris is that most of the bad things about it can be scripted away. the awful thing is that you have to do that a lot
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Feb 5, 2021 18:23
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Yeah, the biggest problem with Stellaris is that it only really works one way. There are no alternative paths, just a single, optimal path and a ton of fiddly modifiers, because there’s ultimately not really much else for them to do. And it doesn’t help that even these small modifiers are terribly balanced! You pretty much always have more of a need for engineering research, so that trait is better than the other two. You always have more need for minerals than food, etc. etc. Ironically, the biggest exception to this is Lithoids and Robots, both of whom just throw food in the trash, more or less.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:29
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I'd say robots, lithoids, hive minds, the various "no diplomacy" options like devouring swarms and the origins (like the one that blows your home planet up after 30 years) are the main ways to make one playthrough different from another. Small racial bonuses like +5% minerals is weak sauce.
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Feb 5, 2021 20:20
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Would different win conditions fix this problem? I agree that most games boil down to maximize metals and alloys, and get credits and consumer goods to break even and then blob. I'm surprised with the 3 different "society direction" paths they don't open up new win cons. Psychic empires should want to ascend and shed their physical bodies, and similarly a robot society should want to plug everyone into the matrix. I guess biological path might be trying to design an immortal person or something. I agree that 5% more minerals is a terrible way of evaluating a whole society. What if america was boiled down to 50% more school shootings and that's the sum of our society in stellaris
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Feb 5, 2021 20:42
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Last time I've played Stellaris I saw a lot of flavor. Like certain government or civics changed jobs your POPs use. But it never felt important or impactful. Just like planets never fill impactful, or species. +10% to science on a planet doesn't matter when it's one of my 15 planets. I guess I'll build research there. It will have 4 labs out of 12 buildings and 20 districts I build there, not just 2 like on other planets. If I feel daring I'll send those dudes I've conquered with racial bonuses to science. I don't understand what people say about the joy of discovery. You find some huge asteroid field system that will give you 14 minerals production - great, now you're producing 284 minerals instead of 270. You read about ancient prison on a planet, the same you saw every single playthrough - wow, you'll get +3 societal research from this planet. Leviathans are fun but you'll have like 5 of them in a 500 system galaxy.
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Feb 5, 2021 21:30
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ilitarist posted:I don't understand what people say about the joy of discovery. You find some huge asteroid field system that will give you 14 minerals production - great, now you're producing 284 minerals instead of 270. You read about ancient prison on a planet, the same you saw every single playthrough - wow, you'll get +3 societal research from this planet.
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Feb 5, 2021 21:51
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No 4x will ever be as good as that one you played at bunch at 13
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Feb 5, 2021 21:56
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The Chad Jihad posted:No 4x will ever be as good as that one you played at bunch at 13 I agree. Star Wars: Rebellion is the greatest 4x ever made.
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Feb 5, 2021 21:57
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For civilization-defining traits I agree small bonuses are bland as hell, but I think you're kind of mischaracterizing it in the exploration phase, ilitarist. You're not dealing with 270 mineral production until the mid game, at which point exploration has already taken a backseat; in the early game those 14 minerals can be a huge chunk. Plus even if your total production is in the hundred+, you're often dealing with close balances between income/expenses, and in that situation a major production center can feel like a lot, like you suddenly get space for a free battleship or whatever. If you want to make every new discovery this huge cascading change then you'll end up having regular wild fluctuations in the economy which imo would just make planning often feel meaningless. Small incremental improvements otoh are mostly minor individually, but the sum of all of them can give you a sense of reward for your good planning.
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Feb 5, 2021 22:01
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Flavius Aetass posted:I agree. Star Wars: Rebellion is the greatest 4x ever made. I own this on steam for some reason and refuse to play it because there is no world in which it is as good as I remember.
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Feb 5, 2021 22:03
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The Chad Jihad posted:No 4x will ever be as good as that one you played at bunch at 13 It doesn't help that they're still remaking MOO2 every four years or so, with very little in the way of changes.
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Feb 5, 2021 22:05
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uPen posted:I own this on steam for some reason and refuse to play it because there is no world in which it is as good as I remember. Space combat rules. Land combat is the worst thing
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Feb 5, 2021 22:06
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Flavius Aetass posted:I agree. Star Wars: Rebellion is the greatest 4x ever made. this but unironically
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Feb 5, 2021 22:07
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Whole bunch of people spelling sword of the stars wrong Oh wait 13. Original settlers, but if I can have some leeway on age it's Age of Wonders Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 22:59
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I still like SMAC.
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Feb 5, 2021 23:01
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Paradox should’ve just made up a sci fi universe and had asymmetric classic paradox gameplay
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Feb 5, 2021 23:09
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Paradox should’ve just made up a sci fi universe and had asymmetric classic paradox gameplay Why would I play that instead of EU4? Id rather they do something different and miss the mark than put out a carbon copy of another one of their games. Copying poo poo from their other games is how we get stuff like launch Imperator being a worse EU4 with stripped down Ck2 character mechanics bolted on.
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Feb 5, 2021 23:13
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AnEdgelord posted:Why would I play that instead of EU4? Stellaris was super derivative of MOO instead. I don't think there's a magic bullet for making good games, though, or any high concept that's obviously better. They just never found the fun in Stellaris.
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Feb 5, 2021 23:28
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did they never find the fun and people who like it are apparently misguided in some way, or is it simply not a game for you. who can say.
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Feb 5, 2021 23:30
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Cease to Hope posted:Stellaris was super derivative of MOO instead. Well paradox had never tackled a 4x before, making a MOO clone is still significantly more ambitious than putting out "EU: Space" or something similarly derivative of their own lineup Cease to Hope posted:I don't think there's a magic bullet for making good games, though, or any high concept that's obviously better. They just never found the fun in Stellaris. This I agree with though, given that paradox has said they might want to tackle a stellaris sequel sooner than they normally do with their other games, I wonder what they would do with the franchise now if they could start from scratch with a few years of lessons learned
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Feb 5, 2021 23:36
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Having an asymmetric start doesn’t make it a carbon copy of eu4 lol. Do you think Vicky 2 and eu4 are the same game because some starts are harder than others?
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Feb 5, 2021 23:40
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