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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Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Xcited to be on the ground floor of all the bad AI horror stories.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2020 23:24

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 18:50

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Gonna start with my personal favorite the space empires series where in V (the last game in the series) the AI was genuinely incredibly stupid and would fall for tricks again and again.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2020 00:11

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Bug Squash posted:

I love this genre, but it makes me sad that so many games hamstring themselves by adding in needless systems that wind up being unfun time sinks.

Spicy hot take, in 90% of space games the ship designer is the biggest offender for this and they'd have been better off with predesigned ships rather than expecting me to change out my armour mk.3 to mk. 4 every 15 minutes.

It would probably be better imo if the convention shifted to a wide variety of predesigned ship and support craft types and then you only designed big stuff like space stations and planetary fortresses above a size threshold.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2020 19:50

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

One thing I would like space 4x's is to try and incorporate both recent exoplanet science and thoughts about space settlement in general. There should be a clear dichotomies between civilizations that develop on regular terrestrial planets and those that develop on super habitable super-earths, ditto with contrasts between civs that start on regular planets and those that start on a moon of gas giant. There also should be some sort of representation of the ways to get your population actually motivated into actually replicating civilization on new worlds instead of just having them do their 4 hour shift controlling some asteroid mining drones and then smoking space weed and logging into a virtual paradise for the rest of their down time. It should actually require societal effort to build a stellar empire instead of something like a space city state or whatever. You shouldn't be able to just map paint.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2020 21:44

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

teokarp posted:

How is the AI? Does it use some of the schemes you described?

lmao no about the only way to have a fulfilling game of it was to balance it out a bit with mods and then play by mail.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2020 03:50

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Danaru posted:

I would give anything for a straight Space Empires V update that changed nothing besides making the UI actually usable by humans What a game of infinite possibilities

So many good ideas gone like (badly rendered) piss in the wind.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2020 21:54

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Isn't freestars! A thing?

# ¿ Oct 31, 2020 02:32

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

ate poo poo on live tv posted:

I think a lot of 4x games fall into a trap that designers don't know how to get out of. When you start as a single small planet, moving a population over to food instead of science is a meaningful choice.

Your first new colony picking the large poor planet vs the small toxic rich planet, vs the high gravity desert planet matters a lot.
Researching Hydroponics vs lasers vs shields vs engines matters.
Building a colonyship vs developing planetary infrastructure vs building a frigate to fight off pirates matters.

But after a few hundred turns, those details should no longer matter. Instead the game needs to smoothly transition your focus over to more galactic empire concerns. How many ships am I producing a turn? What's my total population growth? How quickly can I colonize new planets? I no longer care about missiles vs lasers, vs mass drivers, I should be caring about a well balanced fleet and I should expect my AI General's to handle fleet things themselves.

Something I really liked (though it was a fairly shallow system) was the Planetary Governors/Fleet Commanders that MoO2 got. I could envision a system where well experienced governors manage a planet better then the player can. Have some that are good for building up a new planet, some that are good at building ships, some that are good at research, some that are good on a more empire-wide scale that handle internal logistics etc. Have fleet commanders that unlock new tactics that the player can choose when they are fighting (kind of like endless space did with the cards, choose correctly and you get bonuses choose poorly and you get penalties). But give the player interesting strategic decisions and remove the trivial decisions as the game progresses.

I'm looking longingly at Victoria 2 while reading this post.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2020 17:12

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Panzeh posted:

That's Pride of Nations- it's way more interesting conceptually as a game than Vicky 2, it's just massively broken and largely unplayable. Having private capital as a seperate resource from state funds is a really good way to square the circle of trying to simulate a capitalist economy without stupid automation running your choices of industry.

... that's actually fairly elegant?
You could have a similar resource with different sized pools for whatever type of political economy you choose or none at all if you go for a full command economy option.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2020 19:10

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Let's have a debate: What 4X strategy had the best/most enjoyable AI opponents?

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 19:03

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

THE BAR posted:

I liked GalCiv 2's, except that it really, really loved surrendering itself to another AI if you were beating it in combat.

Was that the one where if you played on easy it would say something along the lines of "we would fight more but our rules won't allow it?"

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 19:55

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

uber_stoat posted:

he framed the letter and mounted it on his office wall.

Good lord.

# ¿ May 13, 2021 00:44

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

pedro0930 posted:

I don't get why the AI is so terrible at governering. If anything AI should be good at optimizing output. Instead they are making GBS threads out unneeded buildings and districts, having them sit at idle and eating up maintenance, and I don't really remember in what other ways Stellaris AI are terrible because I stopped giving them anything to run when they start building the 20th mining district when the planet only has 3 pop.

The Stellaris thing is genuinely dumb because it's a complete waste of the AI personality system that they are basically unable to follow thematic builds that can easily be made up and tailored after sitting down with a high level multiplayer group.

# ¿ May 14, 2021 19:30

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Kibbles n Shits posted:

SE4 is really the gold standard for ship designing. Outside of a few limitation, such as a maximum number of engines based on hull size, requiring life support and crew quarters (unless you just slap a master computer on it), it's a true sandbox where you can design a ship or base to fill any role you can dream up, including useful non-combat roles that you wouldn't typically see in other space 4x games.

Though admittedly in the vanilla tech tree/balance you eventually reach a point where every ship is a self sustaining supermassive death star that can counter any threat and eat planets for breakfast, and you'll have dozens if not hundreds of them. The mid game is the sweet spot where you'll want to deploy a variety of designs to be effective.

Right there were some really cool ideas there and the supplies system or even the ordnance system from V could make some interesting trade offs with ship design. That said it still suffered from the same thing alot of others games did because research and unique techs were king.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2021 15:42

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

That said I think it's my preference that 4x games throw out ship design all together since I don't think it's really that workable.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2021 15:45

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

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

# ¿ Apr 17, 2022 18:12

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

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

# ¿ Apr 17, 2022 21:50

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

habituallyred posted:

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

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

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

# ¿ Apr 18, 2022 16:53

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Grey Hunter posted:

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

It's fun while it lasts however!

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

# ¿ Apr 18, 2022 16:54

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Libluini posted:

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

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

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

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

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

# ¿ Apr 18, 2022 17:04

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Alpha centauri is still a great game.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2022 05:56

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Is it possible to mix the original factions with the new factions in Alien Crossfire?
I feel like this a dumb question.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2022 16:38

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Zurai posted:

Yes, absolutely. You can mix and match in any combination. I don't even think the alien factions have to be paired.

Is it an option I didn't see it.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2022 16:57

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Rappaport posted:

This is what happens if I keep clicking forward in the "start new game" menu, i.e. after making a new custom Planet:

Well that works I guess.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2022 01:19

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Splicer posted:

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

incredible.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2022 23:13

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Ouch.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 20:26

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

I 100% have come around to conclusion that unit designers are hot garbage.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 21:06

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

orangelex44 posted:

The genre needs more games like Sid Meier's Colonization, and less that are just retreads of Civ or MOO. Not that I want a remake per se of Colonization, but the concept should be explored more: a game where the player has a more defined goal than just "blob forever", combined with logical restrictions and an endgame boss. Everyone acknowledges that the early parts of 4x are fun while the endgame is poo poo; you'd think after thirty years of trying someone would have figured out that the logical answer isn't to keep failing at making a good endgame, but to change things so that there isn't a "classical" 4x endgame.

Colonization IN SPACEEEEEE would probably kick rear end especially if you could get weird with the planet(s) generation and tech tree. A proper showdown with a full punishment expedition would also be neat and avoid the "Grind away at the AI empire numbs to finish things off".

# ¿ Apr 30, 2022 23:51

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

What if I love trash though???

# ¿ May 1, 2022 20:52

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Did any of you guys play the Terra Invicta demo?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2022 16:45

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Guess I'll wait.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2022 02:35

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Demiurge4 posted:

I think this is the idea with the mega nation techs. By making countries merge you reduce the micro required to manage them. Like the North American one is Canada, US and Mexico. This removes 7 control points.

God this game is gonna be so spicy if it gets wider recognition.
Can you make the amero real?

# ¿ Jun 14, 2022 18:02

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

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

it applies to everything else about the game too because it ends up with the same generic spaaaaaace soundtrack and identical we're definitely not ripping off startrek races

Karl Marx posted:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue.

He can't keep getting away with it!
But seriously though it's probably time to rethink the entire genre or more likely throw out most of it's conventions.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 20:25

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

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.

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.

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.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 00:04

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

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.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 18:15

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Jack Trades posted:

Startopia?

Nuh uh I want my Issac Arthur simulator so I can make extremely flower like collections of space habitats.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 18:36

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Brendan Rodgers posted:

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.

I want it now.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 19:40

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Azhais posted:

And those groups are hot and fly ships like

they are!

It's a great game, right?

# ¿ Jul 9, 2022 13:57

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

I wish we would get the bote update for shadow empires sometime soon. :smith:

# ¿ Aug 20, 2022 00:29

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 18:50

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

hannibal posted:

Star Trek New Horizons is a Stellaris mod, but it's not 'play a science ship' but more 'play Birth of the Federation in Stellaris' - it's just Star Trek flavored Stellaris, really.

I should give that another go honestly.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2022 23:35

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

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