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 BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

GamingHyena posted:

Unfortunately, what Stellaris does NOT do is have a solution to the micromanagement hell most 4x space games find themselves in. Managing one planet is fun but managing 100 planets is a chore. MOO2's solution was to just have fewer planets which worked for the time. Stellaris lets you put planets in sectors but the crap AI means they'll never run as efficiently as they would if you ran them yourself. Is there a 4x that ever managed to square that circle?

Sword of the Stars had a very sensible management system, where everything was managed by a simple MONEY -> RESEARCH slider. The more money you used on research, the less you had to buy stuff. And planets simply grew by themselves, no buildings required. You later get costumizable space stations and the whole freighter system to tango with, but the game's management side is incredibly intuitive, letting you focus on its fantastic travel and combat mechanics.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2020 08:14

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 04:23

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Lawman 0 posted:

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.

My favourite stupid AI moment was the computer happily buying your highly specialised ships in GalCiv2, then you crush them with new ships built specifically to counter the ones you sold them. :capitalism:

# ¿ Aug 19, 2020 08:23

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Imagine that, governments taxing big corporations. :techno:

# ¿ Aug 23, 2020 11:36

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Most things would benefit from HoI4's frontline system.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2020 15:36

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Lawman 0 posted:

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

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

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 19:05

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

LLJKSiLk posted:

Did GalCiv 3 ever reach a point where it overtook 2? The second game was excellent.

I've only tried 3 briefly, but it felt exactly like 2 but with Civ 5's culture mechanic thrown on top of it.

Lawman 0 posted:

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?"

Dunno! Never played on Easy. :c00lbutt:

Bug Squash posted:

GalCiv2 devs always talked up it's ai, but to be honest I don't think I ever saw it do anything all that clever, or heard anything particularly clever from other people. There's probably an impressive engine behind the scenes, but as for actually being a competent ai I suspect it might be mostly marketing.

I think the most wow-y thing was that it would react to you moving your fleet in a menacing manner. It was a long time ago.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 20:25

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

JeremoudCorbynejad posted:

I don't actually have that much experience with many 4Xs (something I'm trying to correct!) but I am familiar with the AI in the Civ series and I'll say this much: the most fun I've had with the AI is in Civ 5, specifically with the Vox Populi mod.

The AI was known to be somewhat psychotic in Civ 5, especially the base game (it improved with both expansions), and even worse in Civ 6. And it's difficult to enjoy an AI that just goes balls-to-the-wall insane on you. But with the VP mod, I find the AI to be actually enjoyable to engage with. It won't do psychotic things like backstabbing you for literally no reason, or going to war when it has no chance of victory, things like that. It generally behaves in its own interest. And the modders added tonnes more flavour text / dialog too, which helps buy into their decisions.

I'm actually playing a game right now where even in the classical era, the various civs I've encountered are taking up sides based on what they think of my warmongering. Actually it's kinda funny - they were all friendly with each other but then I started a war with someone, and they all have opinions on it, and their differences of opinion is splitting them up. My war might actually cause another war over there, on the other side of the continent. A few of them are already on edge due to territorial disputes, this might just tip them over

I've never heard of this mod, but it sounds neat. Really wish something similar would be done in Civ6, cause man, that game feels like playing against a raffle tumbler, except all of the numbers end in the AI denouncing you.

I especially love the boat guy getting angry at you for not having enough boats, when his entire deal is invading people with his boats.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2021 19:50

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Murgos posted:

Well, it does look like they are addressing shuffling pops around to where the jobs are so that will help a lot.

It's my biggest beef with the end game right now. I have a huge number of planets and most of them are full and I spend a huge amount of time every few years moving pops from the full planets to the planets that need pops and it makes the game slow to a crawl.

I always play with 0.5x habitable planets to help with this, at least for a little while.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 16:48

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Happy Hedonist posted:

Those look really neat. I�m gonna play the first one.

The first game had the mumble duels, so that's the correct choice.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2021 08:53

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

quote:

The more colonies a governor has, the more powerful that governor becomes, which can affect their relationship with the player until they decide they don�t really need them anymore and try to break off and form their own civilization.

That's literally the thing I thought Stellaris wanted to do, but never did.

# ¿ May 11, 2021 14:03

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

uber_stoat posted:

well not officially, he sued the woman who accused him and forced her to write him an apology letter as part of the settlement.

Wasn't he the bee guy?

# ¿ May 11, 2021 20:09

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

As others have said, I'm glad that GalCiv3 was a bust so I don't feel inclined to get this.

# ¿ May 11, 2021 20:12

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Neophyte posted:

Master of Magic is getting a remake from Slitherine and Muha Games for sometime in 2022.

While muha is slang for poop in Danish, this could still be interesting.

# ¿ May 12, 2021 11:41

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

the problem is AI governors always suck tremendous rear end and build queues can only slightly alleviate the tedium of micromanaging 400 mostly lovely production centers

Sword of the Stars nailed it perfectly I think, with local production being entirely abstracted and only a few of your planets actually being worthwhile production centers at a time, while the rest default to just contributing money

Also that money = research, and can be swapped from 100% to 0% with a single slider.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2021 13:30

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Mayveena posted:

Any disagreements here? https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-strategy-games/

I'm phone posting, otherwise I'd list them as well.

They thought the linear encounters added in the XCOM2 expansion was a good thing, making the entire list faulty.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2021 19:30

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Starlanes mean geography and, more importantly, choke points. If everything is in the same stew, it gets boring to me.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 18:59

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

ate poo poo on live tv posted:

The lack of geography is a key feature of a space 4x imo. If I can't create my fleet of universe conquering ships at the end of the game and send them to every enemy star system in one turn for the crushing victory, then the end just becomes a pointless slog.

Chokepoints suck.

That's only a problem if the game demands you take away every single thing from your enemies, before it counts as a win.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 19:46

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

You can adjust the end date to your liking, so cut off however much you normally spend twiddling your thumbs.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2021 09:25

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Entorwellian posted:

Things need to be documented way better though. I have no idea what the unit's statistics are in relation to the game mechanic in question. Is a melee rating of "6" good? No clue!

At least the guy seems to be really active on the Steam forum, so you could always ask there.

About everything.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2021 10:48

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Thom12255 posted:

From what I've read it doesn't seem that different from Gal Civ 3 with the expansions, maybe it will be interesting enough to pick up on a sale one day.

Which looked basically the same as GalCiv2. Who do they think they are? Illwinter?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2021 20:20

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

orangelex44 posted:

Looking the same doesn't necessarily mean it's the same game really (although perhaps that's your point in the first place). The Dominions series has very much revamped itself under the hood while seeming to be the same at a casual glance.

Yeah, it was the visual aspect. GalCiv3 added a bunch of mechanics and things to stick on your ships, and the Dominions series only get better.

Still looking the exact same way for a decade.

Jack Trades posted:

That brings up an interesting topic.

Which are the least deadest 4Xes?

Stellaris is pretty alive for the first quarter of any playthrough. :v:

# ¿ Dec 5, 2021 21:58

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

It seems to me, that since the game has some excellent explorative events and story chains, maybe you shouldn't be completely blocked off from those the second the map painter part of the game kicks in.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2021 22:40

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/889080/Deity_Empires/

Has anyone here tried this? Looks like a cheapo Dominions, and therefore sorta interesting.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2021 09:12

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Northgard is really cool, but it has some infuriating AI cheats at higher difficulties.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2021 20:02

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Jack Trades posted:

It works very well. The whole game is designed to be a strategy sandbox of sorts so you can basically set up any kind of scenario you want, and the DLCs add a bunch of extra options like having one player play a Necromancer or have support of a super fleet.

Just uh...look through the game tutorial or pay attention to the Tips menu during the match because the format of the game is very unique and thus can be fairly confusing for first-timers.
The whole game is basically about guerilla warfare and trying to fight the AI toe-to-toe will get you destroyed real quick-like (unless you have the DLC and focus on some of the specific strategies that encourage all out war).

EDIT: To not scare away any potential casual players, the game has incredibly wide range of difficulty modes, so if you just wanna build space fleets and not care about anything else, the option is there.

I still can't get that to work for online coop. As host or client, everything rubber bands around as the game tries to catch up with what's happening. Makes it very hard to react, or even discern, what's going on. I've never seen anything like it.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 22:43

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

LLSix posted:

A Dune game should be something like Crusader Kings. A bunch of feuding nobles stabbing each other in the back while the Empire crumbles and some incompetent snot-nosed brat inherits control of the one world with 10 time the wealth generation of the next closest would be incredibly on point.

It would also be interesting with a 4X, where armies are incredibly rare and puts the Emperor's attention on you.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 11:10

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Ghislaine of YOSPOS posted:

I just want Dino park tycoon from the old computer lab but impressive to me as 30 year old rather than 7

This, but without the super expensive funkosaurus or whatever being a tease you can't actually buy. :mad:

# ¿ Apr 29, 2022 09:31

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Squiggle posted:

The GalCiv2 AI was outstanding, but it's been 16 years so I really don't know if it would STILL be good today or if that was just the standards of the time.

I could never get it to agree on anything trade-wise, and even though it would recognise you mobilising on its border, it didn't really seem to respond to it mechanically... yet it's still one of the better 4X AIs out there, maybe even the best.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2022 18:41

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Impermanent posted:

that's a good idea in abstract but it ignores that a lot of 4x's are theoretically also designed for multiplayer, and have tools and abiltiies designed at sabotaging player facing elements like research and production. If you can't use those in singleplayer against AIs then for a lot of players they may as well not exist. Maybe that's more of an issue of 'why are all of these games designed for multiplayer if that is so rare" though

They are, but then we have Civ5-6 that are such chores to get running in multiplayer, without having to reload every single turn from crashes.

Even singleplayer Civ6 crashes every odd turn now, for me. Something about the new launcher making a mess of things, supposedly? The game isn't good enough for me to really troubleshoot it, but it's a shame they can't figure out their AAA game's basic stability.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2022 10:55

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

My issue with most PvP in games, is that it tends to make everything a rush-fest. Gotta clamp down on that win as soon as possible, it's not about having fun anymore - now it's a ~~sport~~ competition.

Lots of genres work fine for this, but something like a 4X? Eeeh.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2022 15:12

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Splicer posted:

I think what a lot of people, myself included, want out of 4Xs are actually Management games with faux-human opponents to shoot at.

Yeah, that. Management, with the risk of outside powers so it's not entirely about making numbers go up.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2022 15:46

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

It's also made by the Long War people, so they certainly like to drag.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2022 09:17

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

I just don't get why you would join the two surrender factions. I got a feeling that the aliens, in a twist at the end, are the good guys and the game'll wag its finger at you for picking one of the alien murder factions.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2022 19:37

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Splicer posted:

Challenge mode/be the bad guys?

Be the bad guys through surrender, I like it.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2022 19:51

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

How multiplayer friendly is Civ4? I've managed to play all of them but 1 and 4, and 5-6 really.. doesn't work for multiplayer.

Which is a shame, because that would relieve you of playing against the AI. And I'm using "AI" extremely generous here.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2022 07:10

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Thanks for the tips. It amazes me that every Civ iteration has had trouble with desyncs. You'd think they'd learn..!

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 19:39

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Zurai posted:

Networking code is genuinely hard, especially with a million moving parts.

Then they should probably just drop it, instead of disappointing people for decades.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 22:33

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

FishMcCool posted:

I'm confused. Is this the Star Citizen thread?

Either that, or I forgot to turn my monitor on again.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2022 00:01

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

my dad posted:

I found Endless Legend to be an incredibly ugly game in a weird way. The design is kind of overwhelming on the eyes, and feels like it lacked direction and went for saturation instead.

The models always look like they're trying to load in, but never do.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 18:57

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 04:23

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

uber_stoat posted:

there's a Master of Magic remake coming out in the not too distant future.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/

I know it'd probably be too unwieldy for it, but I'd like to see an attempt at MoM multiplayer.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2022 15:58

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

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