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Civ4: beat up two empires, clearly in the lead in EVERYTHING thanks to low difficulty, and.... the only way to win the game is to wait out like 200 turns. Civ. Civ c'mon. There's like nothing to do and little to no automation. Civ. Even SMAX lets you automate everything. (There are more empires but they're over the sea and I find naval mechanics to be extremely tedious.) I'm told (by my fiance) this is the time to start a new game, especially since Civ4 doesn't have achievements or anything, and I think he's right. / I have successfully modded MOO2 so the psilons aren't broken, and I'm diving into a full game! And having fun! Even though one empire already told me to give them terraforming OR ELSE and well, now we're at war. e: ah poo poo, I hired this leader for their bonuses but now I have their creepy face staring at me every time I open my home system  
StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 03:25
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i would recommend not playing on the default continents map for civ 4. as you've found out, that particular configuration always produces an endgame slog involving naval invasions. actually, to be honest, i've never found an ideal map generation preset for civ 4 - anyone have any favorites?
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Feb 23, 2023 03:37
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Also to Strix, there will be better leaders than Ailis, just keep slots open.victrix posted:asymmetric design answers that, by having the AI play a different game than the player - with the intent not being to play the same snowball 4x ICS as the player, but instead to present an interesting and enjoyable challenge (cf. AI War) I don't disagree with this in principle, but if the AIs are playing a different game than I am, what are we all doing? My earlier post criticizing the faults of 4X game design and all, but if we are not all playing for galaxy domination, why are we there? And is it still a 4X game if the other players don't try to be head Psilon? I suppose this qualifies as "screeching" 
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Feb 23, 2023 03:40
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StrixNebulosa posted:Also - I'm playing MOO2 also thanks to my fiancee, and this game really lives or dies based on its combat! The 4X stuff is strictly OK, but mashing ships into each other is really neat. It's like a turn based Starsector. I doubt I'll ever love MOO2 like he does, but I'm having a good time. Loved doing all kinds of wacky builds with the ships like making your fleet big drop ships with tractor beams that bum rush the enemy to board their best ships and wreck the remainder with them
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Feb 23, 2023 04:18
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Hey now, Sword of the Stars went on to do perfectly beautiful things with its ship designer. But I will say that, yes, many other games put in a unit designer for no good reason and their main contribution was busywork, same as planets in 4X asking Megatyrant Tigal-Phalazar the Fourth to sign off on the daycare for the fifth hab station around gssv-3349 C VII-4, it's just a staple of the genre, like cycling through all your units in an RTS and hammering the shortcuts for the abilities "breathe", "reload" and "fire". Cynically I could say it exists to task saturate the player over those long long winter nights, keeping them busy enough so they don't drop the game.
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Feb 23, 2023 04:40
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Jazerus posted:i would recommend not playing on the default continents map for civ 4. as you've found out, that particular configuration always produces an endgame slog involving naval invasions. actually, to be honest, i've never found an ideal map generation preset for civ 4 - anyone have any favorites? I usually used Perfect World's inland sea preset.
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Feb 23, 2023 04:57
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Jazerus posted:i would recommend not playing on the default continents map for civ 4. as you've found out, that particular configuration always produces an endgame slog involving naval invasions. actually, to be honest, i've never found an ideal map generation preset for civ 4 - anyone have any favorites? I actually enjoy that late game modern era expeditionary warfare thing, but if you hate that then Pangaea is the obvious choice. One of my summer breaks I spent a few weeks playing a huge Pangaea map on marathon speed
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Feb 23, 2023 06:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:I want to try Eador but I think I'll watch the videos first - I'm midway through my Civ4 game and having a good time. I've also started the tutorial campaign of Age of Wonders 3, too, and this is neat! I don't know if I'm ready to commit to a full game of this - learning the 4X gameplay AND the tactical gameplay is going to be a lot of mental investment - but I know I want to eventually. Its been long enough people won't have the answer on the tip of their tongue. I've reinstalled Sorcerer Kings to try and rekindle those memories, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I don't remember it being a trash fire, there were interesting and even good ideas. But not more than a campaigns worth as I recall. Everybody has different things they want out of a 4x, especially one focused on combat. So I'll post a bit about what I look for. 1.Minimal or at least controllable RNG. 50% miss chances can bite me. There are genres and games that they are appropriate for. But these aren't it. I might settle for ever other attack missing. Even a bag with 6 stones labeled 1-6 and you miss if you draw below a 4 might be interesting. But going an entire turn where nothing happens is bad. 2. Meaningful promotions and decisions in general. Some level ups might not be interesting. But every 5 or 10 there had better be something dramatic. This is even more important for any characters designated as a hero. 3. Eyeballable numbers. There is a lot of value in being able to do the combat math in your head. A good preview function can help substitute for this later in the game. This also includes being able to look at an enemy unit and know basically what you are facing quickly. How does Eador do on these? 1. Combat attacks rarely vary by much more than one or two points. Stamina, Morale, and health levels have a much greater influence in combat. 2. Any given level might not be exciting. Choosing between one morale and one health isn't great. But when your peasant starts with zip armor and gets the chance for one more it isn't bad. And most units get something dramatic as they level up, even if for peasants that means a promotion into a slightly less bad unit. There are hero skills that are duds, but it is tough to get stuck with taking them. The level 10 opportunity to double down or dual class your hero is a dramatic event, even if there are some obvious losers in the selection. On the meaningful decision front you are limited to making one of most strategic decisions a turn. Hiring guards to defend your province: 1/turn. Building buildings inside your city: 1/turn. Building or upgrading one of the three possible buildings in any given province: 1/turn. 3. There are a distinctly limited number of units in any version of Eador. And you can recognize all of them on sight. If you play long enough you can also get a feel for when they get their dramatic upgrades, but this point is always in conflict with 2. Higher level units strain this, but are usually found alone or in limited numbers. Meaning that you don't have to check too many unit pages.
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Feb 23, 2023 08:28
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Jossar posted:So as someone who liked the idea of Eador: Genesis, but found it got really plodding, really quickly, does New Horizons solve that on the lower difficulties (obviously we've been talking about how that is... not the case for the higher ones)? Or if I found Genesis plodding is it never really going to click? Since New Horizons is free, the easiest way to find out is to check it out. New Horizons fixes some of the issues of the vanilla game, and gives you more cool stuff to look forward to, and better tools to deal with certain enemies, but whether that's enough is something you'd have to decide for yourself.
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Feb 23, 2023 13:07
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my dad posted:Since New Horizons is free, the easiest way to find out is to check it out. New Horizons fixes some of the issues of the vanilla game, and gives you more cool stuff to look forward to, and better tools to deal with certain enemies, but whether that's enough is something you'd have to decide for yourself. Kind of the answer I was afraid of, but thanks for being honest. Will try out and see if I get bored or hooked.
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Feb 23, 2023 14:08
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I thought Fallen Enchantress was pretty great but I only ever played it with the Legacy of Magic mod (I think it was this one, anyway) which turned it into the closest thing to a modern Master of Magic. But the last time I played it was six years ago so I can't remember how much of the ~80 hours of it I played were primarily because it had no competition at the time, or whether it was actually good with the mod. But I remember other favorable opinions about the mod on these forums. It has/had a very dedicated modding scene that put out a lot of cool stuff
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Feb 23, 2023 14:58
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victrix posted:asymmetric design answers that, by having the AI play a different game than the player - with the intent not being to play the same snowball 4x ICS as the player, but instead to present an interesting and enjoyable challenge (cf. AI War) Yeah this is objectively better design imo.
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Feb 23, 2023 15:19
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Orange Devil posted:The problem isn't AI. The problem is much more fundamental: virtually all the gameplay loops in 4Xs are self-reinforcing, aka snowballing. This means that whoever gets an advantage, barring making mistakes, is only going to continue to get even further ahead. Combine that with these games not really offering much of a way to quickly try to sabotage an opponent (it can take many turns to even get to an opponent, for instance) and the victor is often decided very early on. i think i posted this before but civ1 and to some extent civ2 have AIs where you'll have a peer competitor more often than not even if you play into late game. not because the AI is better, but because civ1/2 are such rudimentary games (by today's standard) that the AI can avoid making so many mistakes they get completely left behind, especially on higher difficulties where it gets many bonuses and you don't meanwhile, even something as old as civ4 has a poo poo ton of interconnected mechanics, and utterly failing at even one of them sets you behind in research and/or production, which are the only two things that ultimately matter. and later games just keep layering extra mechanics as the AI keeps lagging further behind
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Feb 23, 2023 15:30
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i think truly asymmetric AI opponents without any symmetric AI opponents is another genre entirely. probably a better genre than 4X, but i'm not sure it would scratch the same itch
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Feb 23, 2023 15:59
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I generally see it as the PVP vs PVE divide. Do you want the game more heavily tilted towards fighting mind worms / barbarians / the invader guys from MOO2, or towards fighting other players/AI? I suspect I could turn off enemy wizards in Warlock 2 entirely and still have a good time exploring and beating up monster lairs, but if I turned off the other dudes in SMAX, fighting mind worms wouldn't be enough.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:11
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I think there's a misunderstanding going on here. I think the idea is that an AI opponent would outwardly look as if it is the same kind of actor as the player, but internally they would follow completely different rules, with an AI written to be a good opponent rather than simulating a player playing by the same rules.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:11
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Sid Meier's Colonization, but just the native tribes and the King (and maybe reskinned wholesale to fantasy to avoid the problematic elements) would still be a 4X game, IMO.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:12
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The next step for 4x, achievable only by the juggernauts like Civ, would be AI based on previous playthroughs. They'd need to phone every game home, and probably need a cloud infrastructure to support it, but if Civ VI would have been gathering this data for the past decade, it would be more than capable to be a challenging opponent, regardless of complicated game mechanics.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:34
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What really bugs me in a game is when the secret AI cheating invalidates tools and strategies that the game has already told you should work. Like if the AI gets to just ignore morale, but the game still lets you run spy missions to tank happiness for no effect.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:50
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Jack Trades posted:I think there's a misunderstanding going on here. This really is the way to do it. From a player's perspective, what actually matters to us is that the same (or similar) number of units and buildings come out as if another human were playing. Don't make an AI to figure that out for you if it's easier to spawn them on a schedule.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:55
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Jazerus posted:i think truly asymmetric AI opponents without any symmetric AI opponents is another genre entirely. probably a better genre than 4X, but i'm not sure it would scratch the same itch To me it’s already asymmetric with all the absurd cheaty bonuses the AI needs to present even my mediocre skill a challenge in most 4X. So might as well do a better asymmetric system, rather than trying to pretend this a match of equals while secretly shoving horseshoes in the AI’s boxing gloves. The bulge they make is pretty obvious!
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Feb 23, 2023 17:01
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The solution to AI irritations is always AI Wars 2, but I know it's not for everyone. I really enjoy it as it presents challenging situations without me feeling like I'm playing against a cheater.
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Feb 23, 2023 17:44
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StrixNebulosa posted:I generally see it as the PVP vs PVE divide. Do you want the game more heavily tilted towards fighting mind worms / barbarians / the invader guys from MOO2, or towards fighting other players/AI? I suspect I could turn off enemy wizards in Warlock 2 entirely and still have a good time exploring and beating up monster lairs, but if I turned off the other dudes in SMAX, fighting mind worms wouldn't be enough. SMAX is a slightly weird case in that the game narrative very much tells you bit by bit that you are fighting Planet itself, and some of the victory conditions tie into this. But you still have to fight Miriam at some point. The Antarans in Master of Orion are a pest, but they don't come out all that often, and they usually hit the god damned Sakkra or whoever is leading the score at that particular moment. Master of Orion is way more about fighting the other races than the Antarans. I don't think it's particularly bad that a 4X is about fighting the other factions, but the game-play then has to revolve around that in order to make it satisfying. SMAX makes it very personal because the way the game presents it to you, you are literally trying to murder Yang or whomever. Master of Orion had very distinct alien races, even if some of them are of the "what if this animal but turned into a person" variety, but you still get a sense of accomplishment when invading a huge Klackon world. Rappaport fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Feb 23, 2023 |
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Feb 23, 2023 18:22
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Mayveena posted:The solution to AI irritations is always AI Wars 2, but I know it's not for everyone. I really enjoy it as it presents challenging situations without me feeling like I'm playing against a cheater. Coincidentally, it uses asymmetry and makes it a real strength. 
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Feb 23, 2023 18:24
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Mayveena posted:The solution to AI irritations is always AI Wars 2, but I know it's not for everyone. I really enjoy it as it presents challenging situations without me feeling like I'm playing against a cheater. AI Wars 2 made me feel like I was playing against someone who was constantly holding back, and would only actually play the drat game if I tipped my hand too early, squashing me. You win the game by avoiding the mechanics for as long as possible, and I know what they were going for, but that nagging feeling kept me from enjoying it as much as I should have.
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Feb 23, 2023 18:45
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THE BAR posted:AI Wars 2 made me feel like I was playing against someone who was constantly holding back, and would only actually play the drat game if I tipped my hand too early, squashing me. You can play at the highest difficulty level and then it'll be fine? It would squish me like a bug but you wouldn't have that feeling anymore 
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Feb 23, 2023 18:58
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Mayveena posted:You can play at the highest difficulty level and then it'll be fine? It would squish me like a bug but you wouldn't have that feeling anymore I haven't tried the highest, but sure, that'll fix it right up
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Feb 23, 2023 18:59
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AI Wars 2 is really loving cool and I gladly bought all of the DLC to support such a unique game, but I really wish it had a campaign. Not even a campaign, I'd be happy with just a curated list of missions with progressively more difficult settings. It gives you SO many options that it just ends up feeling just a sandbox for dicking around and it's very difficult to find appropriate setting to give yourself a reasonable challenge. Especially after I went to their Discord to ask about one of the options that I was confused about and got told by the developers that it's apparently just a cheat that isn't labeled as such.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:04
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THE BAR posted:I haven't tried the highest, but sure, that'll fix it right up It's the only 4X I still play fairly regularly. All the issues you folks bring up in this thread bugged me as well, to the point where I moved on to Management games where the AI doesn't matter . But with AI Wars 2, while really it's more of a puzzle than a game maybe, I still enjoy the building and the combat. You get to position your units, you can try to sneak around, and there's nearly always something going on. I do recommend it if you are tired of the bog standard 4x's we seem to be getting lately.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:06
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Also, speaking of Alpha Centauri. I wish there were more 4X games with a strong mid-match narrative element. I really enjoyed the Endless Series primarily for that reason as well but I can't name any other 4X games like that.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:07
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Jack Trades posted:AI Wars 2 is really loving cool and I gladly bought all of the DLC to support such a unique game, but I really wish it had a campaign. Check out "Quick Start".
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Feb 23, 2023 19:10
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orangelex44 posted:Check out "Quick Start". That list was made when the game launched and hasn't been updated since, afaik. All of the difficulty modes have have been changed so much since then that the list they're proving doesn't really do the job that it's supposed to, unfortunately.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:13
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Jack Trades posted:Also, speaking of Alpha Centauri. SMAC/X is the gold standard for storytelling in a strategy game, nothing else comes close.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:14
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wiegieman posted:SMAC/X is the gold standard for storytelling in a strategy game, nothing else comes close. I just wish it had interface usable by a modern human being. There doesn't have to have been any modding progress on that front maybe?
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Feb 23, 2023 19:17
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wiegieman posted:SMAC/X is the gold standard for storytelling in a strategy game, nothing else comes close. I love how the graph of faction power over time is exponential, eventually approaching infinity and you reach the point where you can just crush every single faction simultaneously in a single turn if you wanted. It actually felt like you hit the singularity in that game.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:18
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Jack Trades posted:I just wish it had interface usable by a modern human being. Huh? I think the SMAX interface is quite good, especially since you can right-click on anything and get a menu of things to do. Numpad to move units, cities are easy to scroll through, unit designer is solid, I have no complaints with it. It's easy to understand what it's telling you, too!
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Feb 23, 2023 19:18
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THE BAR posted:AI Wars 2 made me feel like I was playing against someone who was constantly holding back, and would only actually play the drat game if I tipped my hand too early, squashing me. I haven't gotten a chance to try it yet, only just got back into the game this week after putting it down way back in early access, but this sounds like exactly the issue the Fallen Spire campaign type is meant to address by making a stand-up fight against the fully awake and pissed off AI actually viable.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:28
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I began to install Fall from Heaven 2 only to realize that I haven't played Civ4: Beyond the Sword yet, whoops. Vanilla was neat, but I need to try the final expansion and see the complete game! Trying a start as the Zulu in the Earth2 map with a rocky climate and low oceans, and on the next difficulty up. Wish me luck!
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Feb 23, 2023 19:38
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Tendales posted:What really bugs me in a game is when the secret AI cheating invalidates tools and strategies that the game has already told you should work. Like if the AI gets to just ignore morale, but the game still lets you run spy missions to tank happiness for no effect. I think that's the key point. You don't have to go as far as AI War, just make a game where the AI doesn't ignore half the mechanics in a way that undercuts the game experience. You shouldn't advertise a robust research mini game with a tech victory and then say "oh the AI gets all your techs for free to keep things competitive" or brag about how you can attack supply lines and then give the AI free supply.
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Feb 23, 2023 20:01
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Mayveena posted:It's the only 4X I still play fairly regularly. All the issues you folks bring up in this thread bugged me as well, to the point where I moved on to Management games where the AI doesn't matter Management games are just solo 4x games anyway.
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Feb 23, 2023 20:02
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