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Did they ever finally make galciv3 like, fun? I remember really wanting to like it but it felt like a clunkier version of galciv2
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Feb 1, 2022 16:08
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Also did anyone magically make Space Empires V work normally on windows 10, even with all the sure type stuff disabled it still hits 10FPS on the ship builder 
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Feb 1, 2022 16:16
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OPAONI posted:What worked in SotS was a reasonable ship builder, a simplistic but not overly-so strategic layer, and decisive real time battles. I feel like Total War kind of scratches that itch, but I liked the space naval focus of SotS. the strategic layer had a lot of brilliant unique poo poo going on. The distinct travel modes for each race, for an obvious one, which made positioning and surprise huge factors. As noted well into the midgame you were dealing with the environment as much as other players, you constantly had to work around the terrain and deal with unexpected crises far from any frontline. Combined with a tactical layer that favored micro and let even a far outnumbered force wreak havoc if the player knew a couple tricks about loving up your faction's engines and the end result was a game that was almost uniquely about adapting to the moment and exploiting small opportunities, where the vast majority of 4Xes are won and lost in the extremely dry, always-the-same work of optimizing production. And then they made the sequel and it became clear that was all an accident, and they were just rolling with whatever idea started with "wouldn't it be cool if...?" with no further consideration. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 16:17
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:the strategic layer had a lot of brilliant unique poo poo going on. The distinct travel modes for each race, for an obvious one, which made positioning and surprise huge factors. As noted well into the midgame you were dealing with the environment as much as other players, you constantly had to work around the terrain and deal with unexpected crises far from any frontline. Combined with a tactical layer that favored micro and let even a far outnumbered force wreak havoc if the player knew a couple tricks about loving up your faction's engines and the end result was a game that was almost uniquely about adapting to the moment and exploiting small opportunities, where the vast majority of 4Xes are won and lost in the extremely dry, always-the-same work of optimizing production. Those are good points. Man, SotS was so good.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:26
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Has any other game done a fully 3d strategic map? I feel like that's part of the reason that the different drive types didn't work out in stellaris, there's only so much you can do in a 2d space.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:27
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That might just be a Kerberos pattern. They also came out with a pretty competent roguelike with The Pit, but since that, they made a half-arsed janky FPS version of it which no one plays, and Pit 2 early access feels like a car crash in slow motion.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:28
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Benagain posted:Has any other game done a fully 3d strategic map? I feel like that's part of the reason that the different drive types didn't work out in stellaris, there's only so much you can do in a 2d space. Ascendancy, but it's a bit dated by now.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:29
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Benagain posted:Has any other game done a fully 3d strategic map? I feel like that's part of the reason that the different drive types didn't work out in stellaris, there's only so much you can do in a 2d space. Representing 3d space in a way that's easy to do in a UI is brutally difficult and probably not worth doing.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:40
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Can’t believe I haven’t been play Distant Worlds until now. I bought the game back when the DW thread changed to reflect the Steam/Universe release, bought it, and bounced right off. Since that time I’ve gotten into Stellaris and games like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress. So coming back, this game is awesome. I love watching the private sector expand and go about its business. And being in real time, it’s like watching a galaxy sized ant colony. More people need to play this game. It’s amazing. Can’t wait for 2. Also, I’ve owned GalCiv 2 and 3 for a good number of years. I put maybe 40 hours into 2 and 20 into 3. Not enough to understand what all the hate on 3 was about. It just seemed a prettier version of 2? Granted I think I’d purchased it with expansions and such. Why was GC3 so disliked upon release?
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Feb 1, 2022 16:47
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Benagain posted:Has any other game done a fully 3d strategic map? I feel like that's part of the reason that the different drive types didn't work out in stellaris, there's only so much you can do in a 2d space. Wouldn't have helped in Stellaris, in SOTS it mattered because if even a few human ships found a way around your defensive line into unprotected systems they could absolutely destroy your poo poo but even post-patch in Stellaris once you've gotten past the good part where you play captain of the Enterprise the game's still very much about assembling the biggest murderball, and if yours is bigger you get to do whatever you want and there's nothing anyone can do to beat you. For some reason I'm remembering MOO3 having (very flat) 3D maps where stars could have a small but in the aggregate meaningful elevation over each other, which mostly served to gently caress you up when you were trying to get your fleets to arrive at the same time. Not digging out my CD to check tho A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 16:47
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So maybe this is the thread to ask: what kind of game is Sins of a Solar Empire? I've seen it advertised and talked about since the very first iteration back in like 2004, and always thought it was kind of a cheap Homeworld knock off just going by the screenshots. Is this a legit 4X game? And why would a guy like me want to play it?
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Feb 1, 2022 17:14
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chaosapiant posted:So maybe this is the thread to ask: what kind of game is Sins of a Solar Empire? I've seen it advertised and talked about since the very first iteration back in like 2004, and always thought it was kind of a cheap Homeworld knock off just going by the screenshots. Is this a legit 4X game? And why would a guy like me want to play it? SotS (1) is a 4x that actually succeeds at what games before and after have been trying to do in the genre and failing; meaningfully distinct species/nations with distinct, unique tactical and strategic play. It has a relatively simple strategic map by the standards of a lot of more modern games but that simplicity enhances one of the biggest uniquenesses in species; travel. Every species has a different kind of FTL travel and no way to move outside that. Couple that with the tactical aspect, a sort of prototype Warhammer Battlefleet Gothic RTS mode where each species ships have different quirks and play styles and you’ve got honestly one of the only 4X ever made where even once you find the glaring holes you still want to play it.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:20
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chaosapiant posted:So maybe this is the thread to ask: what kind of game is Sins of a Solar Empire? I've seen it advertised and talked about since the very first iteration back in like 2004, and always thought it was kind of a cheap Homeworld knock off just going by the screenshots. Is this a legit 4X game? And why would a guy like me want to play it? I think the above poster misread the game title you were asking about. Sins is a pretty fun RTS game with some 4x aspects. It's not really Homeworld at all - it is about managing a large faction and multiple fleets being smashed against other fleets whereas Homeworld is far more small scale and tactical. It's well worth picking up SOASE: Rebellion on sale and it has a really good modding community.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:31
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Sins of a Solar Empire is more akin to space command and conquer than a 4X but its a fun game.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:32
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Thom12255 posted:I think the above poster misread the game title you were asking about. I did! In my defense sleep is elusive and death comes swiftly.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:32
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Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? Maybe I'm the outlier but I haven't actually played a Space 4X where I didn't feel like the Ship Designer was just a pointless waste of time.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:40
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Jack Trades posted:Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? I'm fine with the Endless Space version of it.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:44
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I liked the one in SEV since there were interesting combos you could make, the mine layer that could build its own mines and constantly poo poo them everywhere was a personal favourite
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Feb 1, 2022 17:46
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Thom12255 posted:I'm fine with the Endless Space version of it. Yeah, that one was fine. Half of the modules had actual meaningful impact on what the unit did, although I would've still trimmed it down even more because I more or less just ended up pressing Auto on everything and then tweaking them a little bit.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:47
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Jack Trades posted:Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? I'm usually fine with it? The games I've played with a ship designer could also be played just fine without using it and just using the stock designs or maybe tweaking designs. So I like the idea that a game might have more depth than I'm using, should I choose to go that route, and if not I can still be competitive with my units.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:52
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I've never liked them. It just feels like it's dragging my focus away from empire management to micro managing something?
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Feb 1, 2022 18:04
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Jack Trades posted:Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? No 4X I’ve ever played has ever required more than slapping some stuff on and ticking the “auto-update” box and arguably at that point it needn’t exist in the first place so ultimately my feelings on them is “Eh.”
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Feb 1, 2022 18:11
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Jack Trades posted:Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? Absolutely yeah The games where it's a waste of time tend to be badly designed wastes of time generally, and I'm much more interested in the kinds of games where you're fiddling around with a relatively small pool of specialized units with distinct characteristics than the kind where you're spending forty hours optimizing a spreadsheet to throw a bazillion totally generic things at a bazillion other totally generic things to see who has the bigger bazillion. if a game made upgrading factories or whatever interesting it might be a different story, but that has never happened The games I've seen that tried to have any kind of real unit specialization without a designer (e.g. AI War) just end up throwing way too loving many different kinds of units at you instead, so you have to pick through a list of every possible role that anyone could ever want every single time you want a contextually useful tank instead of being able to go "this is my tank, it costs what I can afford and it's able to do the jobs I need a tank to do at the moment, I may spend ten minutes revisiting this a few hours from now" A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 18:12
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chaosapiant posted:So maybe this is the thread to ask: what kind of game is Sins of a Solar Empire? I've seen it advertised and talked about since the very first iteration back in like 2004, and always thought it was kind of a cheap Homeworld knock off just going by the screenshots. Is this a legit 4X game? And why would a guy like me want to play it? By itself, Sins is a decent little wargame in space with juuuust enough 4X elements to technically call itself one, even if it really doesn't feel like one. However, the best part of Sins is that is acts as the foundation upon which the excellent Star Trek: Armada III mod operates, bringing into existence the best fleet scale Star Trek game ever.
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Feb 1, 2022 18:19
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Jack Trades posted:Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? If we count RTW as a 4X, which technically it probably is, then yes.
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Feb 1, 2022 18:33
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I like ship builders/designers insofar as they get rid of the problem where your tech advances faster than your budget and you can't build cheap units anymore. Distant Worlds was useful (once I read a supreme grognard post about it) because you can design ultra cheap ships and stations to get started quickly and then upgrade the designs once your economy takes off. I don't particularly enjoy retrofitting my entire fleet before each war to change damage/armor types but I do like one-sided victories so...
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Feb 1, 2022 18:48
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The first Stardrive had a great ship designer which had meaningful impact on how they performed in combat. Provided for an interesting early game until you spent hours and hours to get to the end game and realize the AI cant meaningfully do anything to you
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Feb 1, 2022 18:54
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Jack Trades posted:Do majority of 4X players actually like ship/unit designer features? Star Ruler 2 (I never played the first one) has some interesting takes on how it's ship design works. Since you construct your ships on a hex grid and all weapon hits are drawn as vectors, depending on how your ships are facing in combat will dictate where the damage they are taking is coming from. So you can reinforce your armor on say the front of a ship, and have the weapons facing backwards creating a fleet that charges through the enemy fleet, then attacks them from behind. You could also decide to decentralize your shield/energy systems, but concentrate your weapons in a single place. You can scale your ships based on your industrial capacity, so if you made a ship that works well at a "medium size," you could make the same ship twice as large if you wanted. Basically the geometry of the ship matters to the combat, in addition to whether or not you have shields 5 vs lasers 1 or whatever. I found it pretty fun overall.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:13
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The first was the same, though without the hex grid (I was never totally clear on how hit detection worked) and you could scale up ships and systems to absolutely silly proportions. Like bigger than star systems.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:17
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imo more 4x games should steal SotS' grand menaces and generally just be willing to introduce big problems onto the board and force players to scramble. i know stellaris does it but i've rarely managed to care about a game of stellaris long enough for it to occur.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:25
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Relax Or DIE posted:imo more 4x games should steal SotS' grand menaces and generally just be willing to introduce big problems onto the board and force players to scramble. i know stellaris does it but i've rarely managed to care about a game of stellaris long enough for it to occur. Those are so artificial though and are honestly just lazy design that developers throw in because they realize that their game system doesn't work but they need to have some kind of end-state so they can finish their game. Just spawning a stack of doomstars each worth 10x the entire games production of combat stats or whatever next to every single occupied planet on the game map would be more satisfying because it would signal that the game is over now and you should start a new one.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:30
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ate poo poo on live tv posted:Those are so artificial though and are honestly just lazy design that developers throw in because they realize that their game system doesn't work but they need to have some kind of end-state so they can finish their game. imagine getting this mad about the bigass flying saucer that pops up whenever someone tries to start a battle shooting at everything and screaming about how you're all under arrest for doing violence, until all the belligerents work together to ambush the nerd so they can go back to genociding each other in peace 
A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 21:40
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ate poo poo on live tv posted:Those are so artificial though and are honestly just lazy design that developers throw in because they realize that their game system doesn't work but they need to have some kind of end-state so they can finish their game. If you've never played SotS you could've just said so. But seriously, the menaces in SotS were fun challenges, even the System Destroyer that literally wiped out stars and the human FTL method just cut a straight path through the galaxy and then hosed off. The only one that really stuck around as I recall were the Locusts and those you could just turtle up and let them eat the AI as you handled the ones that attacked you piecemeal. The puppetmaster was very weak by comparison and the peacekeeper would also gently caress off after a while.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:42
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Danaru posted:Did they ever finally make galciv3 like, fun? I remember really wanting to like it but it felt like a clunkier version of galciv2 I picked it up for free on the Epic Games - replaced co-op Civ for a few weeks with it. It has the illusion of being a fully functional 4X game, but then mid game it falls on it's rear end and late game starts to feel like a irl, unfun, job. There is no tactical element at all. Some ships require resources, while others don't, allowing you to largely skip the strategic resource element. And then we enter mid game where you conquer someone at which point there's no scaling so you're an unstoppable juggernaut. You even capture their citizens & 1 per civilization buildings to make it over the top. Mid-Late game you're now taking over a couple solar systems at a turn, all of your numbers are stupidly big, most of your planets are just building small amounts of money, and you're still forever away from the largest class of ships, which aren't really needed cause you already own half the galaxy by now - or have a hard enough difficulty the AI killed you before this stage. The lack of tactical elements make wars very lopsided. The AI is the worst I've ever seen in a 4x game and incapable of utilizing most features - scouting capsules, espionage, diplomacy, artifacts, commanders, commonwealths, planet boosting, mercs, planetary defense at least. The upside is the free Epic Games version had all(?) the features from the expansions except a couple of races - which you can download online & apply to the custom race creator screen, including as AI and multiplayer.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:52
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When I play a 4x game the number one thing I look for are consistent mechanics. If the universe presents itself as symmetrical starts amongst an empty universe, then that is the system I want to interact with on turn 200, just like turn 2. The numbers should be bigger, the specific game state should be different, maybe a player or two has been wiped out, some battle lines and alliances have been forged that is the stuff that is interesting. Some big bad from beyond the void doing things that the mechanics don't allow the player to do minimizes anything that happened beforehand and cheapens the whole experience. MoO2 handled the concept deftly with the Antaran's and what they did/how they attacked, using the game mechanics as a powerful faction, but one that still played by the same rules of the universe.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:54
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I never rolled the system killer somehow, but that one did sound just straight up bad. Like if there's a human player who isn't already pretty much dominating the game there's a solid chance that's just the end for them. The rest are all totally beatable by the time they show up, the point is that someone has to take care of them but diverting the forces to do so makes you vulnerable to everyone who didn't, especially if you under-commit and lose. It shakes up the status quo of the endgame so that there is a point in playing through, if you're lagging and woulda otherwise been facing getting ground into dust over the next 200 turns and a grand menace pops up you might just be able to turn things around in all the chaos and if you're really getting your rear end kicked you can always roll the dice on AI research and hope Skynet pops up on your frontline instead of your capitol.
A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 21:55
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I forget what the trick was, was it max overboosting research then sacking all your scientists or something? Doing that with the spoiler out of spite never got old, it's almost dominions level of gently caress you all if I'm going down.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:58
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:imagine getting this mad about the bigass flying saucer that pops up whenever someone tries to start a battle shooting at everything and screaming about how you're all under arrest for doing violence, until all the belligerents work together to ambush the nerd so they can go back to genociding each other in peace idgi are you the mad one here? I'm sorry my idea of fun is different then yours I guess?
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Feb 1, 2022 21:59
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just boosting the poo poo out of research yeah it kicked rear end and again, not THAT much harder than you are if someone deals with it quickly, but they better fuckin deal with it quickly and while they're doing that they're not dealing with you
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Feb 1, 2022 21:59
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Ardryn posted:If you've never played SotS you could've just said so. Also I'm pretty sure I've played SotS because I absolutely remember that one of the end-game industrial techs was AI and there was also an end-game AI Computer Tech that boosted research, and one for combat too. The bonus' provided you were HUGE, but there was a chance it would spawn a rogue AI which was basically just a pirate faction with technology parity. It could be defeated by either (re)conquering your planet's or by researching some kind of Tier-N+1 tech that would end the AI rebellion. However the "end-game" shake-up things I barely remember since ultimately they weren't really that interesting.
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Feb 1, 2022 22:14
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