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doctorfrog posted:pretty telling that no one's mentioned Galactic Civilizations III Or 4 Doesn't matter, they're all the same game.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:26
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Brendan Rodgers posted:After playing Shadow Empire and Distant Worlds I can't stand most 4X any more. They make the same mistakes over and over again, and maybe it's this focus on MoO2 or Civ that causes it. What can't you stand?
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Jul 7, 2022 20:27
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Descar posted:What can't you stand? Buddy if I knew what the problem was I'd have made a new genre called 5X and made a billion dollars.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:29
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Orange Devil posted:You can add Old World to the list of Shadow Empire and Distant Worlds imo. Colonization was a great game, and I wish a more modern version that preserves the mechanics that actually makes it a great game would come out. Old World is also a great game that I am super happy exists. Soren is awesome.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:33
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RandomBlue posted:Or 4 no way I feel like the only truly new space strategy game that can be developed is by someone who has never played one. Unrelated comment and bad video game opinion: the thing I enjoyed most about my brief foray in MoO 2 is the dark and brooding interface. Going into space should feel hazy, weird, dangerous, and offputting, like Captain Blood (which yes is not a 4X). There should be a feeling of deep constraint, which is why I also liked the space lanes in MoO2. If the universe is hostile enough it might even excuse some of the bad AI. I guess I would want something more survivalist than expansionist.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:40
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MoO2 didn't have space lanes other than worm-holes. I'm also not sure I'd describe the interface as dark nor brooding.
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Jul 7, 2022 22:47
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Brendan Rodgers posted:Buddy if I knew what the problem was I'd have made a new genre called 5X and made a billion dollars. It’s probably not being an adolescent anymore
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Jul 7, 2022 22:56
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Captain Oblivious posted:It’s probably not being an adolescent anymore Games like Shadow Empire must have an anti-ageing effect.
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Jul 7, 2022 23:17
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Agean90 posted:That's pretty much exactly it. Every space 4x has to have tile based planet management and a ship designer because MoO2 did so you end up with what's basically the same game released 20 times under a different name Space 4X has a level of detail focus problem. I'm a space emperor, why am I also a governor of every planet and a spaceship engineer? I shouldn't have to deal with planets or ship designs in a space 4X IMO. I should only care what goes into and out of planets because ultimately every time I'm expected to mess with a planet's internals all I'm doing is optimizing its output in a way that could have just been a dropdown of "pop/production/science focus" or similar. Make me worry about the interaction of planets with each other and my empire at large. At most make me run my home planet and make it super interesting. Like a 4X where I play ANNO on my home planet would be kinda amazing if someone could pull it off. Plus only the first planet or first couple planets really matter and are fun to min/max. When my production and science come from one established planet and a couple colonies it matters what building I build or what tile I put a pop in, but I shouldn't care what tile some random pop works on my 15th planet and only do because if you're not optimizing the system then it's pointless, plus gamer brain.
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Jul 7, 2022 23:49
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Phigs posted:Space 4X has a level of detail focus problem. I'm a space emperor, why am I also a governor of every planet and a spaceship engineer? I shouldn't have to deal with planets or ship designs in a space 4X IMO. I should only care what goes into and out of planets because ultimately every time I'm expected to mess with a planet's internals all I'm doing is optimizing its output in a way that could have just been a dropdown of "pop/production/science focus" or similar. Make me worry about the interaction of planets with each other and my empire at large. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/empiredyn.php Skip down to "Bureaucratic Scale" and then cry when you imagine a 4x trying to capture it.
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Jul 8, 2022 00:04
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Great, now I'm mad about Sword of the Stars 2 again.
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Jul 8, 2022 00:21
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Brendan Rodgers posted:Buddy if I knew what the problem was I'd have made a new genre called 5X and made a billion dollars. The very biggest issue with traditional 4x games in single-player or co-op is that the AI is playing the same game as the human, with (approximately) the same rules. The second biggest issue is that so few people try to address issue #1 that those who do haven't figured out how to not accidentally make a puzzle game instead of a 4x. These two issues combined tend to mean that advanced 4x play becomes a game of "how to exploit stupid AI decisions because otherwise it inevitably scales faster than me" that is drastically different from the middle- and lower-skill experience of "oh hey I found some [insert opposing tribe here], let's go kill them while also building a pyramid because the AI is going to scale slower than me no matter how much I gently caress around". 4x games also run into problems where the first 50 turns of the game hardly resemble the next 200, but many game systems are better designed for those first turns because those are the ones that everyone plays... including the testers who are giving feedback during design. See: Stellaris, a game which needed two full redesigns and something like four years of continual development before they made anything fun past the early exploration phase. The concept of a unit designer is also, as a general rule, extremely ill-considered. There are maybe five games I could think of that have made an honest attempt to actually integrate the designer into their core gameplay, and of those only a couple succeeded (and -gasp- I don't include Alpha Centauri in the latter group, that designer was actually just kinda rear end even if it was a good try for the time). What the genre (especially the space side of it) needs is more designers to take inspiration from Aurora 4x, Distant Worlds, or AI War and fewer to just toss out yet another lovely MoO clone, or that learned all the wrong lessons from that game. Why has no one tried to remake Sword of the Stars, or Sins of a Solar Empire? Why did it take 30+ years before someone bothered to make a game about the early years of space exploration/exploitation in Terra Invicta? The genre is just waaay to conservative. And on second thought, I shouldn't absolve the non-space guys either because Humankind has always struck me as a massive step back for a studio that started out by making Endless Space. The Civ series peaked with Alpha Centauri, then peaked again in slightly different fashion with the Fall From Heaven mod for Civ 4; nothing's come close to those since. Just slap together some UI tweaking and texture remasters and call it good, those games are still perfectly functional without needing any "modern" graphics. There are a couple glimpses of hope though. Terra Invicta is trying some really cool ideas. Old World, despite having significant faults, is at least attempting to challenge some of the core Civ gospel. There's been a slow but steady trickle of indie games with stuff like AI War, Wizards and Warlords, Shadow Empire, Distant Worlds, and Conquest of Elysium that for all their faults are still pushing the bounds while managing to be consistently fun. It's the big boys that are failing us, devs like Amplitudes and Firaxis.
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Jul 8, 2022 00:36
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I’m kinda surprised that master of Orion and master of magic both spawned entire clone genres but until humankind and old world Civ basically went without competition even as the games seem to have gotten more questionable quality wise Apparently civ 6 never even got the dll source code released which is why all the mods are basically xml edits. I remember people complaining that V was hard to mod but then 6 seems to have taken another big step back FrancisFukyomama fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 00:58
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orangelex44 posted:The very biggest issue with traditional 4x games in single-player or co-op is that the AI is playing the same game as the human, with (approximately) the same rules. The second biggest issue is that so few people try to address issue #1 that those who do haven't figured out how to not accidentally make a puzzle game instead of a 4x. These two issues combined tend to mean that advanced 4x play becomes a game of "how to exploit stupid AI decisions because otherwise it inevitably scales faster than me" that is drastically different from the middle- and lower-skill experience of "oh hey I found some [insert opposing tribe here], let's go kill them while also building a pyramid because the AI is going to scale slower than me no matter how much I gently caress around". I suppose the good news there is that Paradox is making the bold decision to throw army micro in the trash for Victoria 3, which I'm sure will be rough at first (and has already caused much gnashing of teeth) but holds out hope for what they could do with the inevitable but likely still years off Stellaris sequel. Hopefully they will be similarly bold.
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Jul 8, 2022 01:13
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FrancisFukyomama posted:I’m kinda surprised that master of Orion and master of magic both spawned entire clone genres but until humankind and old world Civ basically went without competition even as the games seem to have gotten more questionable quality wise Well Civ never went away, so it didn't need a reboot or spiritual successor. Also this is pure speculation but I bet a lot of civ players are lifers who don't necessarily play other games or follow game news and just get new Civ games when they come out.
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Jul 8, 2022 01:15
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FrancisFukyomama posted:I’m kinda surprised that master of Orion and master of magic both spawned entire clone genres but until humankind and old world Civ basically went without competition even as the games seem to have gotten more questionable quality wise For most large studio games, modding like was possible with civ4 will never be allowed again. DLC is too valuable to allow people to do it on their own.
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Jul 8, 2022 03:18
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Sins of a Solar Empire isn't much of a 4X tbf. It's really just a space RTS, with base building replaced with colonies. Game loving owns though - and still gets updated - and I am willing to do some messed up stuff to get another one made. Halo mod for it rules too, though playing as the UNSC is a very immersive experience because it sucks and you lose all your spaceships whenever the Covenant looks at you funny.
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Jul 8, 2022 03:26
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RandomBlue posted:Great, now I'm mad about Sword of the Stars 2 again. *shakes fist* preach it!
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Jul 8, 2022 04:02
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I feel like the main factor driving the genre to be so repetitive is really that the 4x formula is pretty narrowly defined by traits that are extremely hard to make fun and balanced, so that most attempts to branch out from the few formulas proven to work either kinda don't (Star Ruler 2, Light of Altair, etc.) or end up deviating so far from the genre's conventions that they just end up getting filed as 'management sims' or something instead now. Aurora and Distant Worlds are great in the way that Dwarf Fortress is great, they're some lunatic's passion-project attempt to create a universe in a bottle, not mechanically well-designed frameworks that really bear imitiation
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Jul 8, 2022 05:13
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Might as well post here but I'm trying to get into Civ 4: Colonization again (the original Colonization is probably my top Problematic Fave Game of all time) and, well, it's killing my eyes at windowed 1440p. Does anyone know a way to make the UI readable at that resolution range without going into fullscreen mode?
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Jul 8, 2022 05:47
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realizing i like the explore expand exploit part of 4x games way more than the exterminate part rip me
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Jul 8, 2022 06:20
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toasterwarrior posted:Might as well post here but I'm trying to get into Civ 4: Colonization again (the original Colonization is probably my top Problematic Fave Game of all time) and, well, it's killing my eyes at windowed 1440p. Does anyone know a way to make the UI readable at that resolution range without going into fullscreen mode? Play the game at 1080p?
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Jul 8, 2022 06:31
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Kitfox88 posted:realizing i like the explore expand exploit part of 4x games way more than the exterminate part rip me I do think that there is a fairly sharp divide between people who wish 4xes were more like city builder games and those who wish they were more like war games and we have settled on a compromise that usually satisfies neither.
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Jul 8, 2022 06:38
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chaosapiant posted:Play the game at 1080p? I was hoping to make full use of my monitor somehow.
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Jul 8, 2022 06:50
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Kitfox88 posted:realizing i like the explore expand exploit part of 4x games way more than the exterminate part rip me agreedo just give me a thing that lets me dick around with weird maps all day
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Jul 8, 2022 06:53
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Slipways is so close to the kind of space 4X I want. Make it real time with pause like a paradox game or proper turn-based. Make it so you can redo connections. Then add battleships and soldiers as resources. Gimme some super streamlined war system where you basically just compare battleships with your opponent and then spend soldiers taking some of their planets if you win. Throw in some events and some solid diplomacy and you have yourself a game I think I'd throw way too much time into.
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Jul 8, 2022 07:26
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Phigs posted:Slipways is so close to the kind of space 4X I want. Make it real time with pause like a paradox game or proper turn-based. Make it so you can redo connections. Then add battleships and soldiers as resources. Gimme some super streamlined war system where you basically just compare battleships with your opponent and then spend soldiers taking some of their planets if you win. Throw in some events and some solid diplomacy and you have yourself a game I think I'd throw way too much time into. Wait for a Victoria 3 space mod.
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Jul 8, 2022 07:49
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orangelex44 posted:And on second thought, I shouldn't absolve the non-space guys either because Humankind has always struck me as a massive step back for a studio that started out by making Endless Space. I think it's their whole studio. I'm in the beta testing for their new turret defense-ish game, Endless Dungeon, and it is shockingly bad, worse than the 2014 predecessor Dungeon of the Endless in every single way, in a way where it should just be intuitively known to them that they were making a bad game, the first time anyone made those suggestions they should have been told to shut the gently caress up, or fired. They don't even seem to plan on testing the multiplayer before release. In a game that was originally shown as this multiplayer coop experience, and being made by the undisputed masters of loving up games with desynchronisation bugs, their staff on Discord seem genuinely baffled that we expected and wanted multiplayer before the actual release. I reckon they might not have multiplayer working at all. Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 08:47
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Phigs posted:Space 4X has a level of detail focus problem. I'm a space emperor, why am I also a governor of every planet and a spaceship engineer? I shouldn't have to deal with planets or ship designs in a space 4X IMO. I should only care what goes into and out of planets because ultimately every time I'm expected to mess with a planet's internals all I'm doing is optimizing its output in a way that could have just been a dropdown of "pop/production/science focus" or similar. Make me worry about the interaction of planets with each other and my empire at large. Stellar Monarch 2 is at least shooting for the space emperor vibe. You don't really command fleets, you just designate what planets you want taken over. Thankfully they included an "all those parasites" option this time. Planets do their own thing, generally specializing in what that type of planet is good at. Eventually customizing a ship is going to be a once per tech level thing, including weird times when two trees get a customization to compensate for levels with none. They did make a 4x where your home planet initially acts as half a city builder game. You start out probing the fog of war and slowly expanding your initial city. Future planets can just be scanned from orbit and seeded with predesigned cities. It worked well in the little racial quests/tutorials but I didn't like it for a full game. Locking most of the interesting racial techs behind much more of the tech tree, compared to the quests, didn't help. Predestination, got it in some bundle. Long abandoned. Also Star Ruler II defender here. The diplomacy system is top notch, everybody should steal that and send the goons behind the game a check. And as mentioned the resource system was basically enough to be its own game, eventually. The ship designer obviously appealed to the hard core, but I would have preferred some sort of slot based system, but without limiting engines to being in the rear etc.. Way too many hexes to paint just to get a ship that uses its engines as ablative shielding during battle. habituallyred fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 09:01
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Did Amplitude manage to fix multiplayer desync in any of their games? I loved Endless Legend but they're a bunch of clowns and I'm glad I played the Humankind beta which taught me not to buy it.
Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 09:17
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Randallteal posted:Well Civ never went away, so it didn't need a reboot or spiritual successor. Also this is pure speculation but I bet a lot of civ players are lifers who don't necessarily play other games or follow game news and just get new Civ games when they come out. This was me until civ4, every sequel from 1 was an amazing improvement. I felt that civ4 was fun to play until endgame with huge maps, and the AI could sort of keep up. But i can't stand civ5-6 , with 1upt. I even feel that my nation and maps are way smaller then in 4. I have bought both, but don't play them. Shadow Empire is that last 4X i played, with fun and engaging combat, but zero empire building which is sad.
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Jul 8, 2022 12:47
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Phigs posted:Slipways is so close to the kind of space 4X I want. Make it real time with pause like a paradox game or proper turn-based. Make it so you can redo connections. Then add battleships and soldiers as resources. Gimme some super streamlined war system where you basically just compare battleships with your opponent and then spend soldiers taking some of their planets if you win. Throw in some events and some solid diplomacy and you have yourself a game I think I'd throw way too much time into. Apologies if I'm being presumptuous, but have you played Star Ruler 2? It's not exactly what you're talking about but there's a reason it gets compared to Slipways. Descar posted:This was me until civ4, every sequel from 1 was an amazing improvement. I don't mind 1upt in theory but I do object they never got the AI to be remotely competent with it. I realize this is basically whining about the entire 4x genre but I really hate games where the AI is easy to clown on so the developers just make up for it by giving it enormous resource multipliers. Especially in a game like Civ 5-6 where the AI is particularly horrible at combat so basically the only way to win on higher difficulties is to be a warmonger. Sometimes I like to play Strategic Spreadsheet Organizer and not mess up my pretty spreadsheets by taking the AI's unoptimized stuff. Bremen fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 17:07
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I hope Victoria 3 ends up a huge success because I want them to apply a lot of the lessons from that game to a new Stellaris game. Or even better, limit the scope to just the Sol system, like an Aurora game without jump points, FTL can be the win state.
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Jul 8, 2022 17:29
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I feel like Endless Legend was best-in-class until Old World, but idk wtf is going on with Amplitude now.
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Jul 8, 2022 17:35
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Demiurge4 posted:I hope Victoria 3 ends up a huge success because I want them to apply a lot of the lessons from that game to a new Stellaris game. Or even better, limit the scope to just the Sol system, like an Aurora game without jump points, FTL can be the win state. I genuinely would probably be excited by a game where you manage a cluster of O'Neil cylinders and associated space structures like in the style of tropico or something.
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Jul 8, 2022 18:15
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Lawman 0 posted:I genuinely would probably be excited by a game where you manage a cluster of O'Neil cylinders and associated space structures like in the style of tropico or something. Startopia?
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Jul 8, 2022 18:19
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Demiurge4 posted:I hope Victoria 3 ends up a huge success because I want them to apply a lot of the lessons from that game to a new Stellaris game. Or even better, limit the scope to just the Sol system, like an Aurora game without jump points, FTL can be the win state. Good news, the scope will definitely be limited to just the Sol system. The Victoria series has never included space flight. It takes it's name from when Queen Victoria ruled and covers 1836–1936. So not even up to WW2. I hope Vicky3 is good, but after Stellaris I'm not wildly optimistic.
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Jul 8, 2022 18:34
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Jack Trades posted:Startopia? Nuh uh I want my Issac Arthur simulator so I can make extremely flower like collections of space habitats.
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Jul 8, 2022 18:36
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Lawman 0 posted:Nuh uh I want my Issac Arthur simulator so I can make extremely flower like collections of space habitats. I would love this, if a game had Isaac Arthur on their design team then planets would be almost irrelevant. It would all be about asteroids and artificial space habitats. Also it's better to have 100 space stations than 1 planet when you're dealing with relativistic kill vehicles. You could have a super deep timescale where lategame is all about surviving after all the stars are dead, huddling around black holes as a digital hive mind that is running very slow in subjective time. Sometimes a Boltzmann brain appears.
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Jul 8, 2022 18:45
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ate poo poo on live tv posted:Colonization was a great game, and I wish a more modern version that preserves the mechanics that actually makes it a great game would come out. Old World is also a great game that I am super happy exists. Soren is awesome. Yeah the remake was atrocious.
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