4X strategy games: i have no complaints but the genocide is too complicated

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > 4X strategy games: i have no complaints but the genocide is too complicated

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Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Haha

Well, my new game's been stable so far. Quick interface question though: under the Resources tab, is it possible to see what the 'known locations' actually are for a particular resource? For example, it's saying I'm exploiting 0 out of 1 known Nekros Stone sources, but I have no idea where that source actually is. So far I've only explored my home planet and the surrounding asteroid belt, and I don't remember seeing any Nekros Stone there.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 13:34

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 02:48

pedro0930: Oct 15, 2012

Not under resource tab, but there is a map overlay option that can show where various type of resource is coming and going.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 13:38

Darkrenown: Jul 18, 2012; please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

You can also look at the new mining locations tab, clicking the listing will take you to them.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 15:40

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

I never did figure out where that initial Nekros Stone was, but I guess it doesn't matter much in the end.

Pro tip for other DW2 noobs: don't spam mining stations everywhere, despite what the game tells you. Your private sector will end up running out of money. In retrospect, it does make sense that you don't actually need 200 different mining stations all gathering Steel and Mebnar, a lot of them right next to each other. I scuttled a bunch of them and managed to fix the problem.

Unfortunately, now it's my state sector that is firmly in the red. Any advice on turning that around? The obvious answer is to get rid of some ships, but I'm really struggling with the military interface. As far as I can tell, it's impossible to retire multiple ships at once? On a side note, I also can't figure out how to change a fleet's home base.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 20:54

Moonshine Rhyme: Mar 26, 2010; Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate

Turn off automated troops/garrison and automated fleet construction and upgrades. Be selective about initial colonies, preferably independent colonies with high suitability for your race/theirs.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:22

MrTargetPractice: Mar 17, 2004

From what I've seen from browsing around randomly the most common reason people have a bad state economy is too many new colonies. Even on the perfect world colonies will be unprofitable for the first couple of years. Staying away from anything below 20 suitability is also a good plan unless there is some strategic reason you want the territory around it.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:15

Caconym: Feb 12, 2013

MrTargetPractice posted:

From what I've seen from browsing around randomly the most common reason people have a bad state economy is too many new colonies. Even on the perfect world colonies will be unprofitable for the first couple of years. Staying away from anything below 20 suitability is also a good plan unless there is some strategic reason you want the territory around it.

Also the pop mechanics really needs an overhaul. Your nice +30 human colony will still be a money drain when 500M Zenox with -6 suitability inexplicably migrate there and take it over, and they're hard to (ethically) get rid of when they manage a 5% pop growth for some reason on what is for them a hellworld. :argh:

Microing population policy on every single colony is getting old, especially when newly discovered species automatically gets allowed migration to every existing colony.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 23:35

Half-wit: Aug 31, 2005; Half a wit more than baby Asahel, or half a wit less? You decide.

Phlegmish posted:

On a side note, I also can't figure out how to change a fleet's home base.

Select fleet, find planet that you want to change home base to, right click and hold on planet, use dropdown to set home base.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 07:25

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Thanks. So I should only colonize when the planet has 20+ suitability, and troops and fleets should not be automated. I'm going to start a test game to put this into practice, see how it goes.

Half-wit posted:

Select fleet, find planet that you want to change home base to, right click and hold on planet, use dropdown to set home base.

Alright! Hopefully I can get rid of pirates this way.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 12:32

Jel Shaker: Apr 19, 2003

i�m only managing to colonize independent races right now, since a virgin colony doesn�t seem to have any way to build up a star port and it just languishes there for decades

usually just needs the first diplo tech and a cycle of gift/trade treaty/gift util 100% then you drop a colony ship with peeps down straight away which has been sitting in the system waiting

# ? Apr 11, 2022 15:05

Bloodly: Nov 3, 2008; Not as strong as you'd expect.

Freighters will eventually deliver stuff to the colony to let it build a starport. Just takes time.

It's dangerous in terms of upkeep to pre-build a colony ship. They're loving expensive, both in upkeep and initial cost.

# ? Apr 13, 2022 15:38

LLSix: Jan 20, 2010; The real power behind countless overlords

I've got a weird maybe bug in Distant Worlds 2.
I just built a new colony ship and it decided to try to pick up colonists from my homeworld, instead of the world I built it one like I want it to. When I hold right click on the world I built it on, there's no option to load colonists, just move to and stop. The world has ~100m Naxxilians who like the planet and ~100 million Ackdarians who hate it there despite having moved themselves there somehow. Any ideas on what I should try changing to get the game to let me rescue the dumb idiot otters who decided to live on an ice ball instead of one of my several ocean worlds?

# ? Apr 14, 2022 03:02

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

LLSix posted:

I've got a weird maybe bug in Distant Worlds 2.
I just built a new colony ship and it decided to try to pick up colonists from my homeworld, instead of the world I built it one like I want it to. When I hold right click on the world I built it on, there's no option to load colonists, just move to and stop. The world has ~100m Naxxilians who like the planet and ~100 million Ackdarians who hate it there despite having moved themselves there somehow. Any ideas on what I should try changing to get the game to let me rescue the dumb idiot otters who decided to live on an ice ball instead of one of my several ocean worlds?

So I think the way colony ships work, you can't actually load colonists until you have some minimum pop threshold.

As far as moving pops, if you click around on the information panel in the lower left (I think there's an icon of 3 people?), you can open up a population management screen. From there you can tell the colony what species to allow or disallow by species. Your passenger ships will automatically move population around and resettle from planets where pops are not allowed to planets where pops are allowed.

Yes, it's very silly. Yes, it needs an overhaul or to be automatic because holy poo poo are the penalties extreme. But that's currently how it works.

# ? Apr 14, 2022 04:40

Moonshine Rhyme: Mar 26, 2010; Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate

I feel like it would be a pretty easy fix too, they already have a slider for which level of suitability is required when looking at planets, just add a box that does the same thing for immigration policy universally. IE, 20 suitability or greater for immigration

# ? Apr 14, 2022 05:37

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

Is DW2 made by a libertarian? You can have two planets, one of them a complete utopian megalopolis and the other an undeveloped shithole, but if the shithole has 0% taxes people there will be absolutely ecstatic, eating bark and leaves while smugly chuckling at the losers who are paying 20% taxes on the other planet which has every luxury in the galaxy and a public holodeck/VR system.

# ? Apr 16, 2022 09:09

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Brendan Rodgers posted:

Is DW2 made by a libertarian? You can have two planets, one of them a complete utopian megalopolis and the other an undeveloped shithole, but if the shithole has 0% taxes people there will be absolutely ecstatic, eating bark and leaves while smugly chuckling at the losers who are paying 20% taxes on the other planet which has every luxury in the galaxy and a public holodeck/VR system.

Yeah the "Taxes are too drat high" and the "Hooray for infrastructure!" happiness meters are a little oddly tuned.

Incidentally I came back to the game after a hiatus of being busy and remember this:

Darkrenown posted:

I also really wish Techs had a little text explaining what they do rather than expecting me to know precisely what the mass of modifiers on the unlocked components do and how they compare to the previous levels.

Splicer posted:

One of my biggest gripes, even just a little flavour explaining what this is good for etc

Well each weapon, building, item etc has exactly this in the galactopedia, making its absence in the tech screen even more baffling.

# ? Apr 16, 2022 13:51

Fhqwhgads: Jul 18, 2003; I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THIS GAME WHO GETS LAID

What's burning me out on DW2 right now is the colonization system. I like that I can just one click colonize a system but it never seems to do what it says it will. +40 Ackdaran, +30 Human planet? Sure I'll mash that "Colonize planet (with Ackdarans)" button! Wait, why is the ship flying halfway across my empire to load up Teekans?

There are like 20 planets I'd love to colonize right now but I can't be arsed to babysit all the ships and that's when I just log off...

# ? Apr 16, 2022 14:37

LLSix: Jan 20, 2010; The real power behind countless overlords

Does stacking mining modules on mining stations help? e.g. If I add 4 small mining station modules to my mining station design, can I double the mining rate?

Shortly after becoming a multi-system nation, I start running into serious fuel problems despite building mining stations on every caslon spot I find. I'm already running the fuel-efficient hyperdrives, power-plants, and engines, so I'm looking for new ways to improve my fuel situation.

As far as I can tell, adding mining modules to research stations and starports doesn't do anything.

Dirk the Average posted:

So I think the way colony ships work, you can't actually load colonists until you have some minimum pop threshold.

As far as moving pops, if you click around on the information panel in the lower left (I think there's an icon of 3 people?), you can open up a population management screen. From there you can tell the colony what species to allow or disallow by species. Your passenger ships will automatically move population around and resettle from planets where pops are not allowed to planets where pops are allowed.

Yes, it's very silly. Yes, it needs an overhaul or to be automatic because holy poo poo are the penalties extreme. But that's currently how it works.

Thanks, I guess I'll just wait for the pop on that planet to go up enough to let me "rescue" the unhappy pops.

# ? Apr 17, 2022 13:17

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

What's the best 4x for PBEM games these days?
I was thinking of running a variety of games but I would like some suggestions.

# ? Apr 17, 2022 18:12

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Lawman 0 posted:

What's the best 4x for PBEM games these days?
I was thinking of running a variety of games but I would like some suggestions.

AoW: Planetfall is a real good game that has PBEM but I haven't actually played the PBEM.

# ? Apr 17, 2022 18:26

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

I'd be keen on a goony PBEM of something.

I'd love to do a PBEM civ 5 Vox Populi but I gather it's not terribly popular on this forum

# ? Apr 17, 2022 18:29

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Can you play Solium Infernum over email? I've heard great things.

# ? Apr 17, 2022 18:37

avoraciopoctules: Oct 22, 2012; What is this kid's DEAL?!

The only play by email strategy games I have tried were various iterations of Dominions, but I have heard pretty good things about Age of Wonders 3 and AoW: Planetfall. I like combat to move fast, so I usually auto-resolve everything when that's an option. They are pretty combat focused, but there's still a fun game there if you sideline the tactical layer and focus on strategic/economic stuff.

# ? Apr 17, 2022 21:31

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

http://www.playmailer.net/
Has anyone used this program before is it legit?

# ? Apr 17, 2022 21:50

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

LLSix posted:

Thanks, I guess I'll just wait for the pop on that planet to go up enough to let me "rescue" the unhappy pops.

You can't evacuate pops with a colony ship, but if you set the population controls the way I mentioned, then your empire's passenger ships will do it for you. Eventually. It can take a long time, especially since the pops on the planet will be growing, but they do eventually equalize out.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 01:23

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

HopperUK posted:

Can you play Solium Infernum over email? I've heard great things.

My understanding was that pbem was the primary use case.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 01:43

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

PerniciousKnid posted:

My understanding was that pbem was the primary use case.

Apparently Armageddon Empires will come to Steam at some point, but files for Solium Infernum are written in such an archaic program that it will be stuck in its current state forever.
(insert joke on purgatory here)

# ? Apr 18, 2022 09:00

habituallyred: Feb 6, 2015

OperaMouse posted:

Apparently Armageddon Empires will come to Steam at some point, but files for Solium Infernum are written in such an archaic program that it will be stuck in its current state forever.
(insert joke on purgatory here)

Armageddon Empires is on there right now for :10bux:

But it is tragically singleplayer only. The game is still tagged single player. And there aren't enough people wining about Xenos being OP to make me think there have been any unannounced changes.

Could you narrow down what you want to see in a 4x play by multiplayer game? Otherwise I'll just assume you want Shadow Empires, which basically only has military victories.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 09:28

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Space Empires V had a PBEM-function, I think. And it's on GOG currently.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 10:07

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Does SE PBEM not take like real life decades to finish

# ? Apr 18, 2022 11:03

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

KOGAHAZAN!! posted:

Does SE PBEM not take like real life decades to finish

e: nvm I thought you meant Shadow Empire.

Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Apr 18, 2022

# ? Apr 18, 2022 11:06

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Diplomacy

# ? Apr 18, 2022 11:41

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

https://webdiplomacy.net/ is actually really really good

# ? Apr 18, 2022 12:11

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

KOGAHAZAN!! posted:

Does SE PBEM not take like real life decades to finish

In SEV, every game takes real life decades to finish, so every player should be well accustomed to this.

Seriously, there's something wrong with how SEV was programmed, having 100+ ships and bases should not mean that you can go and make tea in the time it takes the fleet window to open.

There must be a lot of players who mistakenly believe SEV keeps crashing* because of how excruciatingly long some windows take to open in longer, bigger games. But no, SEV does not freeze, it just really takes entire minutes to process your input somehow.

*Crashes still happen of course, just not more or less than in any other space 4x

# ? Apr 18, 2022 12:29

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Libluini posted:

In SEV, every game takes real life decades to finish, so every player should be well accustomed to this.

Seriously, there's something wrong with how SEV was programmed, having 100+ ships and bases should not mean that you can go and make tea in the time it takes the fleet window to open.

There must be a lot of players who mistakenly believe SEV keeps crashing* because of how excruciatingly long some windows take to open in longer, bigger games. But no, SEV does not freeze, it just really takes entire minutes to process your input somehow.

*Crashes still happen of course, just not more or less than in any other space 4x

SotS1 has a weird bug where pre-loading fights is somehow bottlenecked by your fps of the loading screen spinning planet graphic. It can take 10-15 minutes to load a late-game fight but tabbing out makes them load instantly.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 13:12

Grey Hunter: Oct 17, 2007; Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets

KOGAHAZAN!! posted:

Does SE PBEM not take like real life decades to finish

I've tried to do a SE LP a couple of times, but you need people to commit.
Both times one player dropping out kills the game.

It's fun while it lasts however!

# ? Apr 18, 2022 13:25

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

habituallyred posted:

Armageddon Empires is on there right now for But it is tragically singleplayer only. The game is still tagged single player. And there aren't enough people wining about Xenos being OP to make me think there have been any unannounced changes.

Could you narrow down what you want to see in a 4x play by multiplayer game? Otherwise I'll just assume you want Shadow Empires, which basically only has military victories.

Yeah I'm also running a game (maybe 2???) of shadow empires but I was looking for something spicy to run on the side.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 16:53

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Grey Hunter posted:

I've tried to do a SE LP a couple of times, but you need people to commit.
Both times one player dropping out kills the game.

It's fun while it lasts however!

I think I have my SE V disk somewhere so if we could find a working mirror for the devnull mod I would consider playing that.
Time for a little internet archeology.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 16:54

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

Lawman 0 posted:

I think I have my SE V disk somewhere so if we could find a working mirror for the devnull mod I would consider playing that.
Time for a little internet archeology.

I got tired of regularly re-installing SEV and trying to find my manual with the key printed on it, so I just bought it for like 2 bucks on Steam. (Later I bought the entire loving series on GOG again, this time for 5 bucks.)

Now I have to never deal with this copy protection poo poo again!

Also, if you can't find your disc anymore, paying a couple bucks to GOG or Steam probably saves you a lot of future headaches.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 16:58

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 02:48

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Libluini posted:

In SEV, every game takes real life decades to finish, so every player should be well accustomed to this.

Seriously, there's something wrong with how SEV was programmed, having 100+ ships and bases should not mean that you can go and make tea in the time it takes the fleet window to open.

There must be a lot of players who mistakenly believe SEV keeps crashing* because of how excruciatingly long some windows take to open in longer, bigger games. But no, SEV does not freeze, it just really takes entire minutes to process your input somehow.

*Crashes still happen of course, just not more or less than in any other space 4x

Space Empires V is objectively an extremely bad game that's only sorts redeemed by the mods and PBEM functionality.
There is a reason it's a dead series.

# ? Apr 18, 2022 17:04

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