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I see what they were going for here but I hope the graphics are going to be improved on this kind of zoomed-out map because it's unfortunately really ugly.
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Mar 14, 2016 19:05
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I want to encounter a planet that looks perfect, a little Garden of Eden, and then discover (after my poor colonists have already landed) that it's infested with some kind of weaponized species that some past war left behind and wiped out the ancient alien colonists, and are now wiping out my own colonists. And I'm faced with the choice of investing massive amounts of resources into claiming this planet, fighting off the weaponized aliens, and potentially even harvesting them for my own (dangerous and risky) use down the line, or leaving the planet alone but potentially having my rival succeed at that costly endeavour in their effort to find some way to defeat me. And then I choose option 3 and nuke the planet from orbit, destroying the menace but ruining the perfect colony 
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Mar 15, 2016 00:14
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Yeah if you made a custom empire I think it just takes the name of your current top title but you can rename it as you see fit.
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Mar 15, 2016 02:06
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Psychotic Weasel posted:I'm not an expert on Star Trek's replicators or cornucopia technology in general but I imagine there is some sort of limitation to the technology that prevents people from just replicating themselves the most valuable and sought after materials known to man, I seem to remember it needing some sort of base material to work with so it can transform the matter into something else and there being an upper limit to the complexity of the things it can replicate. It's also closely related to the technology used in Holodecks, which have been known to spontaneously kill people. AFAIK they just don't have money anymore, so there's no need for energy as a currency. And that also means there's no reason to stop people from replicating valuable and sought-after materials. That, in fact, would be a good thing since then everybody can enjoy the benefits of whatever the beneficial properties of those rare materials are. Star Trek is literally a Utopia. It's post-scarcity, post-capitalism. Nobody needs to work because at any time they can go push a button a machine and it will create whatever they want for them. So instead they sit around playing bad music and making paintings and poo poo. And philosophizing over the nature of humanity. There's no benefit to being rich and no downside to being poor because at any time you can use your limitless energy and magic energy-to-matter machines to create whatever you want from nothing.
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Mar 15, 2016 04:38
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Krill Nye posted:I haven't seen this posted here yet, a Paradox forums user did some digging in the HoI4 website source and came up with some interesting tidbits. It looks like a May 25th release and a €40/$40/£30 price point. quote:Location: Canada
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Mar 15, 2016 04:48
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They're going to announce that Stellaris is cancelled but their big news is that they've been purchased by EA and will now be working on the mobile version of the Sims. Then Johan will throw a million dollars at the crowd, scream about how rich he is now, and run offstage cackling.
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Mar 15, 2016 13:59
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If I can't play a sentient honeybee hive that flies around in giant spaceships that look like Marge Simpson's head then what's the point in even releasing the game?
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Mar 16, 2016 14:51
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Those Stellaris videos were amazing but also infuriating because I really wanted to play the game myself and they weren't as methodical as I would be playing the game for the first time (probably because they were on a strict time limit so weren't able to pause and take everything in at their own speed). A month and a half to wait isn't horrible though.
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Mar 17, 2016 03:18
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My take on the soulless nature of Stellaris factions: I think it's best to compare this to EU4 rather than other space 4Xs. There's very little that's inherently unique about any given country in EU4. The thing that makes France so obnoxious is not the fact that there's a carefully designed 3D rendering of Napoleon that yells at you in French about how he's declaring war on you because you dissed his croissants. In fact the only "unique" things about France are their unique national ideas, their unique starting position, and some unique events that turn up from time to time. That's all. Besides those things, you could swap out France with a custom nation and not notice any difference, because at its core France is just a bunch of provinces in a certain arrangement that combine with the game's AI to make them behave in a particular way. I have faith in the Paradox team that they can make the AI factions in Stellaris end up feeling as unique as EU4's France or Austria or Poland or Russia or England--i.e. not actually that unique, in that each one is just a bunch of provinces with a different colour on top--but that your interactions with them will be varied enough because of the different positions you'll end up in as the game progresses that it won't be a big deal.
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Mar 17, 2016 03:23
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Jabor posted:But going back to my post at the top of this page, a big part of what makes that feel interesting is that it's the same way every game - you always have to deal with France's big blue blob, England always gets an annoyingly good navy, and so on. If that was all randomised, and different every time, then having something be "France" or "England" or "Ulm" is meaningless randomization instead of being a coherent identity. I get the feeling, though, that a game of Stellaris will end up lasting longer than a game of EU4. So yeah, when you meet the United Planets of Ixkulub it'll be a brand new thing, but they could end up being your rival for long enough, even just in the course of one playthrough, that you think of them the same way as you would think of France in a game of EU4. I think it also helps that you can fill the galaxy with a ton of factions. So presumably while you're conquering and allying with your neighbors, across the galaxy AIs are doing the same thing and by the time you run into them the Ixkulubi could be every bit as powerful as France would be to an expanding Russia in a game of EU4. I definitely like this system better than the GalCiv model of only having ten civilizations and that's it. It makes the galaxy feel really empty and stale when it's the same empires every time, and if you dislike how the devs hand-crafted one of them, well, too bad because those are the only options.
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Mar 17, 2016 03:43
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I don't disagree with you guys at all, I think you make some very valid points. The problem is that I don't think it's possible to establish the same frame of reference in a space 4X as it is for EU4, because France and England etc. are real countries and the game is ostensibly representing a moment in real history from which you diverge, which gives you a pre-established narrative to work within. You can't have that in a space game because by its very nature a space game is speculative and none of what's happening has a pre-established narrative to fit into. We've never encountered actual aliens, so of course you can't have an alien version of France. We've never colonized another planet, so of course you can't have a pre-established start that fits into an established narrative. That means that even for hand-crafted asymmetrical scenarios and hand-crafted alien races you're still starting at a disadvantage because there is inherently no base point of reference for those the way there is for France or England. I agree totally that interacting with real world states like France and England is one of the big fun parts of EU4, and seeing how the AI diverges from actual history is tons of fun. But that's inherently impossible in a space game, no matter what that space game is. You have to approach it from a different perspective. And that different perspective means either you do hand-crafted races like Space Empires or MoO or GalCiv, or you do randomized procedurally-generated ones. In my experience, the hand-crafted ones tend to fall flat. You face the same empires game after game but because everything else about the game changes, you don't really get the same frame of reference and sense of continuity as you do in EU4. France in EU4 always has the same starting position, which means it usually follows a similar path in each game. You don't get that in a space 4X because the galaxy changes every time. Maybe one game the Drengin are put next to a bunch of weak empires and valuable planets, and they rise into a big empire that challenges you militarily. But then the next game they get shafted off into a tiny corner where they colonize a few rocks and never make it past ten colonies. Yeah, technically it's the same empire and you get some continuity there, but the inherent randomness of the space 4X model means it's lacking. And the flipside of these hand-crafted empire games is often that there's a limited number of them so the galaxy is similar every time and you typically end up with a lot of empty boring space wherever there isn't a major empire. You may get a different subset of races each time, but play the game five times and you'll see the same ten races over and over again, and typically any kind of minor faction system is like a tacked-on extra that doesn't actually model dynamic rises and falls of empires since there's a dividing line between major and minor empires that doesn't get crossed--which, again, diverges from EU4 because there, yeah, you see the same ten great powers at the start of every game, but they're interacting with dozens of smaller countries as well and from there they diverge hugely. In one game India might unify under some tiny OPM, in another China breaks up into ten smaller states, in another Russia never forms, and so on. You get variety, but that variety only happens because it exists within a system that allows for dynamism. And to achieve that kind of dynamism in a space game you need a system that can support a lot of factions large and small, and for that you need more than just a few hand-crafted races. I suppose it would be possible to have some hand-crafted ones and then fill out the galaxy with procedurally generated races, but then you run into the exact same problems as before w/r/t lack of continuity from game to game due to the inherent random galaxy factor, combined with the devs having less time to devote to making the procedurally generated galaxy work well since they also had to spend the time making and implementing the few races that get specifics to stay the same from game to game (and possibly trying to balance it so those races get some advantages, since you don't want your hand-crafted races to end up being some tiny OPM that never interacts with the player). Anyway the point I'm making is that I think both strategies can work, but I'm glad Paradox are bucking the trend because there are a lot of flaws with the standard hand-crafted approach and I think with Stellaris we'll be able to see how well the other model can work. vyelkin fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 04:18
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PleasingFungus posted:Is there any particular reason you think this? EU4 has an end date and Stellaris doesn't, plus in Stellaris you don't have the option of starting as a large power so if you want to reach any of the victory conditions it may take longer. Just a hunch, I don't have any real information to back up that thought.
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Mar 17, 2016 06:05
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I hope it's possible for fallen empires to have civil wars and things too, not just operating with an "awake/dormant" switch. So there could be a peaceful fallen empire that descends into civil war between a faction that wants to remain peaceful and stagnant and another that wants to be aggressive and active in galactic politics. And you can either watch from the outside or try and support one of the sides. If the stagnant side wins, it remains a fallen empire; if the aggressive side wins, it switches over to a proper one that behaves like the rest, with a new diplomatic personality. In fact, I wonder if it's possible for diplomatic personalities to change throughout the game, or if AI Empire X will always be Pacifist Xenophiles with no chance of their government ever changing to being run by Militarist Xenophobes instead. For that matter, do we even know if it's possible to change government types during the course of a game? Or are you forever stuck with the one you picked at the beginning?
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Mar 17, 2016 16:04
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Drone posted:Do we know what nations come with those beautiful custom leader portraits by default? I would have assumed just the big 8 (US/UK/USSR/France/Germany/Italy/Japan/China). but I remember also seeing Finnish portraits in a dev diary somewhere. Maybe Canada/Australia too? I think it's actually all of them. It would be really jarring to have those portraits for half the nations in game and then you click on Tibet and get a blank silhouette or an actual picture of the Dalai Lama.
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Mar 18, 2016 16:44
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PleasingFungus posted:IIRC they have generic portraits for many nations. This was discussed sometime last year. I would expect a lot of the generic ones are being used for government changes in minor nations. You don't really expect certain changes of government in the course of the game, so if communists take over Tibet or Ethopia they probably won't have a unique portrait, but Haile Selassie and the Dalai Lama probably will.
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Mar 18, 2016 17:57
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Tahirovic posted:Since some of you here actually have a clue about history, is Christopher Clark rated as a good author/source for history books? Looking at Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 because it seems to be one of the best rated books about Prussia. Yes, Christopher Clark is a good and well-regarded academic historian. I haven't read Iron Kingdom myself but I've heard good things.
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Apr 11, 2016 13:58
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Wiz is busy Making Space Great Again but it's okay because Stellaris comes out first so he'll have a month to fix the HOI4 AI before launch.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:22
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It also depends what parts of the game their player base thinks is lackluster at release. For example, if the game comes out and it turns out naval combat sucks, it's possible they'll make a DLC to revitalize the naval combat mechanics.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:53
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ExtraNoise posted:I was thinking I'd like to make a "modern day" mod for HoI4, spanning from 1980 to 2020. I've never played an HoI game and the more I see of HoI4, I'm thinking this is less-and-less of a possibility. What do you guys think? That depends, what are your opinions on straits?
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Apr 27, 2016 04:07
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My biggest problem with Stellaris, the thing that bored me to tears and made me stop playing, was that I got in a big war and found it was really frustrating and boring rather than challenging or fun. I had a bigger, better fleet than any of my opponents but I was limited to hyperdrive lanes and they were warp FTL, so instead of actually getting in any battles I was just chasing them around my empire the whole time. When I did manage to get into the same system as them, their FTL spooled up faster than I could cross the system to reach them and initiate combat, and any time I did manage to initiate combat they would just emergency-jump away, which eventually destroyed their fleet through emergency jump damage, but meant that I didn't get the warscore for destroying their fleet in a battle since they didn't die in the battle, they died retreating and apparently that didn't count. And by the time I finished reducing that fleet through emergency jump damage to a size that I could hunt it down with a smaller, faster fleet, they had built another one the same size as the first so I had to begin the same repetitive chase all over again. Each individual piece of what I've just described isn't necessarily game-breaking on its own. I like the idea of different FTL mechanics. I like the idea of being able to raid enemy systems and avoid bigger fleets. I like the idea of being able to emergency jump away from combat. I like the idea of the enemy replacing lost fleets. But when all combined together in something as fundamental to the game as fighting a war, these individual elements combined made it incredibly frustrating and not fun at all. Also the fact that the war happened because every empire had like -400 threat with me because I fought two wars over the course of a hundred years, the first time annexing a two-planet empire and the second time taking a couple systems from someone who had declared war on my vassal.
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Jun 5, 2016 16:26
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I want a Mansa Musa event chain where a really rich ruler can go on a pilgrimage and ruin the economies of everywhere they pass through.
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Jul 7, 2016 05:36
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Agean90 posted:I want an rpg where the story is entirely personal. Like there is no world end I mg threat or whatever, it's just your character taking care of personal poo poo. It's why I've only ever finished F:NV once, the whole dlc plot is much more interesting than 7th Hoover dam stuff Didn't Dragon Age 2 do this only it was terrible? I don't know because I didn't play it because I heard it was terrible.
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Aug 12, 2016 20:09
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Hearts of Crusader Queens Universalis: Rome
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Aug 25, 2016 23:57
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I just heard about the new CK2 expansion for the first time with Darkrenown's post and so I looked it up and... wow. No offense, but there's some real barrel scraping going on with this one. It just looks so inconsequential, you know? Like no major new features, just some occasional event stuff and that kind of thing. My court doctor cut off my face to cure me of the Black Plague and it worked. Reaper's Due owns.
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Aug 27, 2016 23:02
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The Narrator posted:And the other cultures you encounter should be procedurally generated. A Paradox postapocalyptic 4X Grand Strategy game with procedurally generated factions filling out a semi-randomly generated wasteland Earth would be insanely my poo poo. Like After the End crossed with Stellaris.
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Sep 6, 2016 01:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:How about economic and domestic ideology sliders? So you could be something like socially liberal, but then also fiscally conservative. South Park: The Stick Of Truth is already a game.
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Sep 29, 2016 03:50
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If I can't play as a Native American tribe that may someday get to trade for a piece of Roman pottery that has been steadily traded further north over several centuries from a single Roman trading vessel that got lost in the Atlantic and marooned in Brazil, then what is even the point of making a Rome game?
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Jul 27, 2018 18:21
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What if he was very mildly animated, like the head would sway slightly back and forth or his shoulders would shrug a bit or he might smile or frown slightly, but also he never ever blinked and just stared at the camera forever.
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Jul 30, 2018 14:23
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What if his body slithered back and forth like a snake and his eyes blinked sideways
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Jul 30, 2018 14:28
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:46 |
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DrSunshine posted:It's amazing and somewhat frightening how much vital IT infrastructure still runs on truly ancient technology. The frightening part is that many of the few people who still know how to run these machines are either retiring, aging, or dying. You can walk into a cushy high-paying job if you as a young person are willing to dedicate your life to learning 50-year-old programming languages and then maintaing 50-year-old computer systems.
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Aug 19, 2018 00:06
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