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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The Chad Jihad: Feb 24, 2007

The causus belli stuff was pretty cool in planetfall. Being able to trade "I know I ticked you off" points for poo poo actually felt more natural than a less gamified system would

# ? Apr 6, 2023 03:45

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# ? May 29, 2024 09:34

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

Dallan Invictus posted:

I know Beyond Earth was explicitly not intended to be this, but I'm convinced that everyone wanting this is a large part of why it bombed so massively.

it was really obviously intended to be this though, it's full of attempts to ape smac features. "beyond earth is it's own thing, how dare you compare it to smac" became a thing because the game sucked and so all those comparisons were unfavourable

imo smac doesn't hold up that well now but at the time it was clearly the best civ game yet, despite having some new bad ideas (the unit designer, not getting to choose techs, crawlers)

# ? Apr 6, 2023 03:46

Quaint Quail Quilt: Jun 19, 2006; Ask me about that time I told people mixing bleach and vinegar is okay

Weird question, but was it smac or some other game from that era that had a brothel building?

I was watching my dad's friend play and that's how I learned what that word meant.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 11:28

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

The first time I saw the word brothel I think it was Medieval Total War 1

# ? Apr 6, 2023 11:49

Jarvisi: Apr 17, 2001; Green is still best.

Well, this thread got me to reinstall ffh2 after I realized it would run in my lovely work laptop

Overall very bad decision on my part.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 11:57

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

I'll point out that if you poke around in SMAC's scripting you'll find out that there is a whole rock paper scissors armour Vs weapons system they had but then they ripped out.

The conclusion this points me to is that it's kinda nonsense to talk about complexity in terms of "more complex is better". The designers of SMAC clearly considered a more complicated combat system, but decided it didn't fit their design. Readability is more important, as is the idea that tech times industrial capacity should equal victory. I look at the units in Planetfall and have basically no idea what is a "strong" army or not. Maybe that is desirable in the sort of game Planetfall is, but it certainly isn't for SMAC.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 13:06

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

Fangz posted:

I'll point out that if you poke around in SMAC's scripting you'll find out that there is a whole rock paper scissors armour Vs weapons system they had but then they ripped out.

The conclusion this points me to is that it's kinda nonsense to talk about complexity in terms of "more complex is better". The designers of SMAC clearly considered a more complicated combat system, but decided it didn't fit their design. Readability is more important, as is the idea that tech times industrial capacity should equal victory. I look at the units in Planetfall and have basically no idea what is a "strong" army or not. Maybe that is desirable in the sort of game Planetfall is, but it certainly isn't for SMAC.

Honestly, a lot of this kinda leads me to wanting more abstraction of military elements in 4x games trying to be that, but distinct units like "axeman" or "tank" are just considered part of the tradition now. I don't mind games being tactical to be tactical, but in a game where production is in 'hammers', a specific unit like 'keshik' feels way out of place.

Anyway, Through the Ages is the best 4x game.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 13:21

The Chad Jihad: Feb 24, 2007

Its pretty easy to tell a strong army in planetfall, they have big nasty looking units and you can also click them to see the tier if you're not sure

# ? Apr 6, 2023 13:29

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

Veryslightlymad posted:

Tl;dr:
Thinking about horses made me think that agriculture and technology in 4x games makes no goddamn sense and needs to be much more abstract and fluid.

I enjoyed this post a lot.

I have idly thought, a long time ago, about some mechanic that involves 'prospecting' for oil etc, though I haven't put any detailed thought into a wider surveying mechanic like you have. But I like it.

I've been thinking about resources recently too. I dunno why, but every time i go on vacation, I end up thinking about Civilization and redesigning some mechanic or another in my head. Lately it's been resources (and trade but I'm not going to do a braindump on that because I've gone a bit overboard with it).

Here's what I, a crazy person, would do:

There wouldn't be a distinction between yields and resources any more. Everything is just "resources". Food and gold are resources just the same as copper and ivory. It would treated like the same kind of object in the game.
For one thing this means there wouldn't be gold as well as Gold. Instead, a Gold mine produces gold instead of Gold. _{_Gold.}
To extract a resource you assign one (or more) citizens to it. The more people you assign, the more of the resource you extract (insert here my long rambling thoughts about how you would have thousands or millions of citizens in your cities, not about a dozen)
Technologies and resources would have a multiplier effect on resource extraction. If you have iron working, then a single citizen extracts more stone from the quarry than a citizen without iron working. When you get Industrialisation, resource extract is dialled up to 11
But a resource could be depleted. A coal deposit has a finite amount of coal and will eventually get exhausted
Including renewable resources like forest (wood would also be a resource). Forests would have a repletion rate (boosted by adjacent forest tiles) and if you extract faster than that, it'll either get completely denuded or you'll have to stop or slow down to allow it to regenerate. Fish tiles and many other resources work exactly the same way (fish, crab, cows etc just translate directly into the aggregate 'food' resource)
Some resources spread across the map. Fish spread to adjacent water tiles, forest spreads to adjacent fertile tiles. Similarly, cows, horses, crabs, whales, wine etc, all spread across the map according to the terrain and climate. Once domesticated, you can spread them yourself. The UI could get a bit maddening with all these resources overlapping one another so there'd have to be some clever overlays or something.

I like to think that this would help to model some fun historical things:

In a competitive game like civ, this means striking a delicate balance between early progress and long term sustainability. You might want to let the forests and seas stay healthy but your neighbour is chopping down all his forests and fishing all his seas, and now he has more boats than you and those boats are full of men
You could trade food between civilisations. Your Egypt might become the breadbasket of someone else's Rome
Brazil has all the rubber and is selling it at extortionate prices. So you steal the rubber trees and find a suitable climate to plant it in and undercut them
After industrialisation kicks in, every resource in the world starts coming under extreme stress. I have an unyielding desire to model biosphere collapse into Civ

LordSloth posted:

Edit or [Cell]ivization
https://s0lly.itch.io/cellivization

hahahaha this is incredible. I've actually been thinking about using excel (the only thing I know how to program) to model some of my ideas and see if they would work. But I've never seen anything like this

Veryslightlymad posted:

Oh, don't get me started on the problems I have with hard borders everyone agrees to, or the lack of intricacy in diplomatic agreements.

oh man, don't get me started. Disputed territory is another thing i've dwelled on a lot

# ? Apr 6, 2023 13:30

OPAONI: Jul 23, 2021

Are there any good 4x that deal with logistics? I've been thinking about my dream game and I think a 4x that is about space or sea naval logistics (building bases for refuel and resupply, docks for repair, shipyards for new ships) with a realtime tactical battle system like Sword of the Stars would scratch a lot of itches.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 15:20

Jack Trades: Nov 30, 2010

OPAONI posted:

Are there any good 4x that deal with logistics? I've been thinking about my dream game and I think a 4x that is about space or sea naval logistics (building bases for refuel and resupply, docks for repair, shipyards for new ships) with a realtime tactical battle system like Sword of the Stars would scratch a lot of itches.

Shadow Empire?
I haven't played it but apparently it has the most logistics out of all 4X games.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 15:27

Infidelicious: Apr 9, 2013

Aurora if you hate both graphics and yourself.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 15:38

Jack Trades: Nov 30, 2010

Infidelicious posted:

Aurora if you hate both graphics and yourself.

Alternatively if you want to play a game at work without anyone being able to tell the difference.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 15:39

Zurai: Feb 13, 2012; Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

Yeah, both Shadow Empires and Aurora 4X have logistics built in. SE is much more explicit about it, but supplies, fuel, and ammo are all important in Aurora and you'll probably find yourself designing oilers, ammunition ships, and so on for long-range expeditions.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 15:44

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

OPAONI posted:

Are there any good 4x that deal with logistics? I've been thinking about my dream game and I think a 4x that is about space or sea naval logistics (building bases for refuel and resupply, docks for repair, shipyards for new ships) with a realtime tactical battle system like Sword of the Stars would scratch a lot of itches.

Stellar Crusade had some massive logistics tail you had to deal with for your campaigns. You can easily play it on an emulator nowadays. (I don't think GOG has it, as it's am old Atari ST 4x. I'm just a weirdo who has both an Atari ST and the original game. Though I too play the game on an emulator, I'm not that masochistic.)

# ? Apr 6, 2023 16:42

RandomBlue: Dec 30, 2012; hay guys!; Biscuit Hider

bunch of smac talk going on in here

# ? Apr 6, 2023 18:45

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

There's a Battlestar Galactica game I never heard of that's described as an XCom style 4x in the BSG universe that's free on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/544610/Battlestar_Galactica_Deadlock/ Is this the right thread for that or is there a better one for tactical combat/research/resource management?

# ? Apr 6, 2023 19:53

Infidelicious: Apr 9, 2013

Hughlander posted:

There's a Battlestar Galactica game I never heard of that's described as an XCom style 4x in the BSG universe that's free on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/544610/Battlestar_Galactica_Deadlock/ Is this the right thread for that or is there a better one for tactical combat/research/resource management?

The grognard thread is talking about it right now.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 19:57

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

Hughlander posted:

There's a Battlestar Galactica game I never heard of that's described as an XCom style 4x in the BSG universe that's free on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/544610/Battlestar_Galactica_Deadlock/ Is this the right thread for that or is there a better one for tactical combat/research/resource management?

Not an XCOM, it's a broadside battleship tactics game with a strategic layer.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 20:19

chaosapiant: Oct 10, 2012; White Line Fever

Doesn�t Distant Worlds 1/2 have what would be considered logistics? Or am I misunderstanding?

# ? Apr 6, 2023 21:18

TheDeadlyShoe: Feb 14, 2014

Kinda. Distant Worlds has logistics in the sense that distance matters and fuel matters in ways they don't really in most games, so strategic planning, positioning, and fuel depots are important. Combat does consume fuel but it rarely is a big deal.

# ? Apr 6, 2023 21:30

Beefeater1980: Sep 12, 2008; My God, it's full of Horatios!

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

Kinda. Distant Worlds has logistics in the sense that distance matters and fuel matters in ways they don't really in most games, so strategic planning, positioning, and fuel depots are important. Combat does consume fuel but it rarely is a big deal.

Also the AI will occasionally go nuts and build all your freaking civilian ships in one small planet in the backwaters of your empire, creating a 2hour long queue and starving everywhere else of resources as your shipyards lie idle.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 03:41

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

# ? Apr 7, 2023 15:21

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

RandomBlue posted:

bunch of smac talk going on in here

I am into maxing out them hammers in, so The Hive is actually my favorite faction.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:22

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

Has anyone tried explaining their turn by turn situation in Civ 5 or 6 to chatgpt and having it suggest a future strategy in terms of build and research order? You'd have to pick Civ to give it a chance since it would have most the training data. I know it isn't thinking or understanding, but within its limitations, it might not be far off surpassing the actual Civ AI, considering it could "learn" build and research strategy from all the human posts. Obviously that ignores everything else that goes into Civ.

Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Apr 7, 2023

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:23

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

It's a language model, nothing more. You might get lucky with useful tidbits for your own play if it trawls through someone's guide online, but it can't analyze things in the way you want it to here.

It's really drat useful for quickly finding something in a large pile of online data, like a super search engine of sorts, or if you want to quickly get a starting point for writing on a topic you understand well (and can quickly discard any bullshit the AI writes up, because you recognized it as bullshit), it helps skip the agony of the blank paper. After all, reading and thinking is much faster than thinking and writing.

It's not a magical problem solving box, though.

my dad fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Apr 7, 2023

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:31

Jack Trades: Nov 30, 2010

There's no AI there. ChatGPT is just a stochastic parrot.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:35

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

I know all that, it's "AI" and nowhere close to a true AGI. But I bet it could accidentally make better decisions than a 4X AI if you gave it the right prompt in a very limited and probably useless situation. :goofy:

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:37

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

Brendan Rodgers posted:

I know all that, it's "AI" and nowhere close to a true AGI. But I bet it could accidentally make better decisions than a 4X AI if you gave it the right prompt in a very limited and probably useless situation.

It could only repeat text descriptions of decisions that human beings had already posted to the internet.

GPT is a complex Markov chain, that's all.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:39

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

You could set up some extremely specific "If A then B", and then later say A and receive the reply B, but that's just... an echo. It does not have the capacity to understand either A or B. It would basically be a chattier notebook that can reference itself.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:40

Corbeau: Sep 13, 2010; Jack of All Trades

Brendan Rodgers posted:

I know all that, it's "AI" and nowhere close to a true AGI. But I bet it could accidentally make better decisions than a 4X AI if you gave it the right prompt in a very limited and probably useless situation.

You'd need a way to translate text to game actions, in which case you could just feed it a strategy guide directly anyway.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:40

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

wiegieman posted:

It could only repeat text descriptions of decisions that human beings had already posted to the internet.

GPT is a complex Markov chain, that's all.

4X AI is so bad that these Markov chains don't have a high bar to clear at all.

Corbeau posted:

You'd need a way to translate text to game actions, in which case you could just feed it a strategy guide directly anyway.

Yeah it'd need to be integrated into the game especially to do tactical stuff.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:41

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

idk dude why don't you try it

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:42

Brendan Rodgers: Jun 11, 2014

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

idk dude why don't you try it

I don't know how to do it.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:46

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Neither does ChatGPT

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:48

Mayveena: Dec 27, 2006; People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

Brendan Rodgers posted:

I don't know how to do it.

google chatgpt. Type something. I use it to avoid all the crap in wikis.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:54

Jack Trades: Nov 30, 2010

Mayveena posted:

google chatgpt. Type something. I use it to avoid all the crap in wikis.

Just hope that it doesn't lie to you.

# ? Apr 7, 2023 16:59

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

Jack Trades posted:

Just hope that it doesn't lie to you.

uh oh

# ? Apr 7, 2023 17:46

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

Speaking of game AI, has anyone played with the CICERO Diplomacy AI?

It's surprisingly adept, considering it's a game completely about strategizing with other players in natural language.

If you want a complex strategy game AI with a natural language model layered on top to talk about the game with (something that would be useful for a 4x that would allow for blowing past the current examples in terms of diplomacy) a Meta-style AI like that seems like the best way to do it right now.

GPT doesn't really have any way to hook into the 'real world', it's all about coming up with reasonable text responses, but CICERO's got a two layered model with an actual fact-based decision making model underlying the natural language processing model.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Apr 7, 2023

# ? Apr 7, 2023 17:57

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# ? May 29, 2024 09:34

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

wiegieman posted:

It could only repeat text descriptions of decisions that human beings had already posted to the internet.

GPT is a complex Markov chain, that's all.

this is either meaninglessly true or clearly false, depending how you define the state space of the supposed "markov chain"

# ? Apr 7, 2023 18:53

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