Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Blaine]

What is sure, though, is that people being of any belief or opinion about a topic does not mean shit about their capability to deliver a good game.

While true in theory, in practice SJWs have proven time and again to be notable exceptions—and that's setting aside the fact that they feel obligated to shoehorn their political rhetoric and personal opinions into every aspect of the projects they touch. For them, politics are essentially their religion, and therefore they must be inserted into everything. This alone can ruin a game for normal, unindoctrinated players, but they also tend to be terrible at writing in a general sense, and rarely manage to deliver solid game mechanics.

Just look at the numbers. SR4 and 5 define Shadowrun.
Good luck trying to find anyone who still plays the old stuff...
The older versions have become what an old fart like yourself becomes - irrelevant. Merely good enough to poke fun at.

I feel as though you think you've scored a victory here, but are you aware of the Internet forum on which you're currently posting? You've been registered since 2007, yet you don't seem to know where you are. Are you an ambassador from RPG Watch, perhaps?

I'm fully aware of the numbers. The numbers also say that Fallout 3 and 4 are superior to Fallout and Fallout 2, that Civ5 and 6 are superior to SMAC and Civ3, that EA BioWare are better RPG developers than Black Isle Studios, and that consoles are better gaming machines than PCs. This is known as the "decline," a phenomenon caused by large numbers of mouthbreathers who play dumbed-down shovelware because they're too stupid and their attention spans are too short to enjoy or appreciate the involved and challenging computer games of yesteryear. Publishers and developers chose the path of decline because more people = more cash money.

You can be forgiven for not realizing what the Codex is all about, though, because the decline is right here at the Codex, too. Hell, it's on staff in some cases.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i can see a truly awesome game here, in an expansion or two.

 

[Blaine]

I only see this instant classic when I look at this thread:

 

[Fedora Master]

i can see a truly awesome game here, in an expansion or two.

Meanwhile people are still waiting on EUIV to finally get good. Somehow it's just not happening.

 

[Jason Liang]

EU IV ruined EU III for me. I can't play EU IV since it's retarded, and I can no longer play EU III since EU III trade and colonization is retarded.

 

[Blaine]

EU IV ruined EU III for me. I can't play EU IV since it's retarded, and I can no longer play EU III since EU III trade and colonization is retarded.

I'm in the same boat with the Total War series. I love the tactical battles, positioning, flanking, use of cavalry and armor, hammer-and-anvil, and all that jazz, but the strategic game is just a braindead piece of shit with the AI cheating so egregiously and in so many ways that there's no point in playing it. Oh, you can WIN with no problem, but I can also win a game whose only gameplay element is to press a button for victory. There's just no point. The AI can ring up God Almighty at any time to award itself free armies and doomstacks, so there's virtually no way to anticipate them, gauge their forces properly, etc. I'm aware that it's possible to just play the battles, but somehow the strategic campaigns being hacked-together trash ruins it for me.

This is another reason why Distant Worlds is so great: The AI doesn't cheat at all unless you crank up the difficulty, and then only in resource bonuses proportional to the resources it actually controls. Yeah, you heard me right, it doesn't cheat at all. Not only that, but the AI handles the diplomacy aspects of the game extremely convincingly, seeming to properly take into account its faction traits, others' faction traits (like conflicting governance types, racial similarities, and racial trustworthiness ratings), its current situation, its allies and enemies, your allies and enemies, and everyone's relative power in the galaxy. Not only that, but it manages to be pretty challenging for a strategy game AI without even cheating! Holy fuck, it's a miracle! Any 4X veteran is still going to win, but it puts up a good fight.

I've never seen that shit before in my whole life in a 4X, except for perhaps the untouchable lord of 4X, SMAC. MoO was sublime but its AI wasn't that good.

I know for an absolute fact from reading the Stellaris Steam forums that the AI in this game is completely trash, utter gibberish. I could link to dozens of threads full of criticisms of the AI that even the developers acknowledge as legitimate, and this is some pretty retarded shit we're talking about here.

 

[uaciaut]

EU IV ruined EU III for me. I can't play EU IV since it's retarded, and I can no longer play EU III since EU III trade and colonization is retarded.

Holy fuck, it's a miracle! Any 4X veteran is still going to win, but it puts up a good fight.

It's not like they can't put up a good fight, it's just somewhat easy to get ahead because you know what to do research/ship-design-wise and you start pulling ahead pretty early.

Pirates are a huge pain in the ass to deal with late-game though.

 

[Beastro]

I'm aware that it's possible to just play the battles, but somehow the strategic campaigns being hacked-together trash ruins it for me.

Because the "historical" context of a campaign adds a sense of verisimilitude to battles. You aren't simply fighting a battle, you're fighting for something in a war that will have repercussions far down the line. Battles themselves and painting the map are not something I find enjoyable in Grand Strategy and the reason why I slowly worked out of 4x games, I want to create a course of history as I play a campaign. Not so much keeping things realistic, but keep a certain direction the world is going in that has me often wind up meddling with the console in Paradox games to end wars or start them between the AI because it would make for a more interesting game even if I am cheating to do so.

Something like that I how in Vic2 with the mod I use I often prevent Germany from uniting but make it form into the Northern and Southern Confederations both to prevent Germany's dominance in the game but also keep up the nuances of conflict that would arise between two rival German states both powerful enough to be Great Powers in their own right.

Ive been playing a game of Vic2 on and off all year as Texas where I've overrun Central America, helped the CSA in the Civil War and helped cripple the US so that the Midwest and Canada broke from them. In my last session I turn on the CSA finally overrunning their Midwest and interior states leaving most of the Southern 13 colonies remaining that are now defenseless in the face of a slowly rebuilding Eastern Seaboard US that has no decided to take them over.

Total War games have that in places, they just need more of it so that when you run into battles you know this is a pivotal moment in history where a faction will be made or broken that you can do in a simple one off skirmish battle.

For me the problem with Distant Worlds is I can't tolerate playing on anything but large maps and by the time the game starts kicking into gear after the initial expansion my bloody heads too overloaded with shit to do that I eventually stop a campaign.

I really wish I could handle the load more, but with the neck and jaw problems I have it's simply too much to handle even in small doses, but I would love a "historical" version of Distant Worlds set on earth like most Paradox games are where the scope is more focused.

 

[Blaine]

It's all right to just quit playing a campaign halfway through and try something new next time. Whichever civ happens to be ahead at the time becomes the winner by default. If you insist on large maps and no-automation full control, but don't love Korean-tier micromanagement and also insist on finishing each campaign to the end, well... that's just a recipe for suffering. I can see why you started to avoid the genre.

If one can tolerate the micro, Distant Worlds gives you more freedom, a more living world, and a more genuine challenge than any remotely modern 4X out there.

Can't believe there are retards comparing Stale-aris with MoO2. It's almost beyond belief how in denial some people are. It's on a par with favorably comparing Fallout 4 to Fallout.

 

[Beastro]

but don't love Korean-tier micromanagement and also insist on finishing each campaign to the end, well... that's just a recipe for suffering. I can see why you started to avoid the genre.

It's not of choice, it's the result of the condition I'm dealing with due to my neck and jaw that has made it increasingly difficult to focus on things that were simple even a couple years ago.

An example of that is two boxing in Everquest, something I was able to manage without any issues a year ago that I had to give up because I couldn't handle the mental load any more. If you ever read a post of mine that had a garmbled bit of nonesense somehwree in it and not just simply typos, it's that. It's why I use the edit button so much here, even days later when I reread a post and wonder wtf I was even trying to say at times.

Looking back on it, my trouble with DW was an early sign of it back in 2015 when it finally came on sale and I could buy it for a decent price.

 

[Average Manatee]

More genuine challenge than any remotely modern 4X out there.

>pick race with best growth since only growth matters
>set taxes to zero to grow, then max them for way more money than should be possible.
>Use money to rush obviously better techs that give empire-wide bonuses rather than retarded shit like slightly more space efficiency on crew quarters
>have massively better ships
>drop a hundred million troops on AI homeworld to win.

Challenge you say?

I admire Distant Worlds for trying to simulate a 4x universe at that level of detail, but the mechanics absolutely don't come together even remotely well.

 

[Blaine]

Yeah, they closed the 0% tax loophole and altered growth rates in Distant Worlds years ago, precisely because of fucktards who think that if min-maxing as much as humanly possible after you know all of the game's idiosyncrasies can break the game, then that means the game is bad.

Some people also love to force unnecessary upgrades onto the private sector to farm more money, too (and possibly bankrupt the private sector; then they go bitch about it on the official forums, etc.). No self-restraint whatsoever—unless the game physically prevents you from doing something ridiculous, it must be a valid strategy.

This is the sort of thing that enables Sawyerist design philosophies. Oh, I can rest and recover HP every turn in this cRPG? The game doesn't stop me? Better rest after literally every single battle. Oh shit, this game's too easy, what the fuck! What a piece of shit!

Really, I could say something just like this:

More genuine challenge than any remotely modern 4X out there.

>pick race with best growth since only growth matters
>set taxes to zero to grow, then max them for way more money than should be possible.
>Use money to rush obviously better techs that give empire-wide bonuses rather than retarded shit like slightly more space efficiency on crew quarters
>have massively better ships
>drop a hundred million troops on AI homeworld to win.

...about any 4X game, and it would be absolutely true—truer, even, since you're exaggerating nearly every point for the benefit of fellow retards who aren't familiar with the game.

Match the right race to the right government type, choose the ideal map settings and victory conditions for yourself, employ all the absurd metagame strategies you can find, and bam, you've won. Good job.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

chili my man, it's just a game.

 

[Stavrophore]

Any ETA on the patch?

 

[uaciaut]

unless the game physically prevents you from doing something ridiculous, it must be a valid strategy.

Which is why when devs do come up with ingenious solution for people abusing gameplay mechanics they deserve genuine praise. I'm not one for Sawyer's school of balance though, but i absolutely loved that you couldn't fuck yourself out of an ending in New Vegas even though you could kill Caesar, House and shit on NCR, even if you killed Yes Man he'd transfer personality, making him technically unkilable but giving the player an explanation for it.

Anyway for the low-tax thing - that's how shit works irl too, you develop an area by having lower taxes when it becomes too crowded you start milking more since you sort of need it for maintenance too. Doubt you can afford to abuse it much on small map as well, since you're effectively trading short-term development for long-term.

 

[Space Satan]

Upcming army changes tease

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

collateral damage? nice.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the only thing i ask from any ground battles change is a viable ground defense strategy. bomb away all you want, but if you can't take land you're going to lose.
science fiction is full of succesful terrible spacefarers but invincible soldiers.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The general thing is that it's not WORTH the effort to try setting up a ground defense in these type of games compared to having just a mobile stack retake every planet you may lose.

Even with collateral damage it will probably remain the same, albeit now you want low collateral damage (assuming it's buildings, not pops) for Fallen Empire worlds so you don't break their mega-factories.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the only thing i ask from any ground battles change is a viable ground defense strategy. bomb away all you want, but if you can't take land you're going to lose.
science fiction is full of succesful terrible spacefarers but invincible soldiers.

Or the reverse.

Sorta like how Star Wars Empire would do pretty well in space against the Imperium, but on land even the Imperial Guard would own their asses?
Or how the Goa'uld had their super-powerful Ha'taks that could resist supernukes, but their ground forces were a bunch of angry fanatical Jaffa cannonfodder shooting innacurate staff weapons, and could probably be rekt by any post-napolleonic land army, because the Goa'ul could't simply give a shit to making a proper land army

the game (well, almost any game) is already like that. i want to be able to try the "no spaceships, only defense bases and invincible/endless troops" approach. if stellaris is truly the most sandboxy 4x, it must let me do so.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

the only thing i ask from any ground battles change is a viable ground defense strategy. bomb away all you want, but if you can't take land you're going to lose.
science fiction is full of succesful terrible spacefarers but invincible soldiers.

So long as there is the option to glass the planet, your invincible soldiers can always be exterminated.

the game (well, almost any game) is already like that. i want to be able to try the "no spaceships, only defense bases and invincible/endless troops" approach. if stellaris is truly the most sandboxy 4x, it must let me do so.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you'll win doing so, and invincible or endless troops is just asking for a broken game, so I'm going to assume that's hyperbole.

 

[dag0net]

Don't see why endless troops would be hyperbole, reason and a methodical approach could equip an invading force with tens of millions of designs for components with which to build automata from dependent on what resources were at hand. land a factory ship on a planetoid. Hell, in the real world you could probably compute all the variables with a 386 over the course of the transit.

The current occupants

If the path to 'global' domination is the primary consideration in a 4x at the expense of general gameplay. Well, it's probably a shit game.
There are any number of indicators that show us that the reasons that people play games is rarely, if ever, to complete them or win the 'final battle.'

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Don't see why endless troops would be hyperbole

because resources are always finite. A limit may be high, but endless is either an exaggeration or stupid. Just like invincible is an exaggeration or stupid.

 

[Monocause]

I'm thinking that rather than introducing force disparity the way they propose, they should introduce logistical challenges that would make efficiently maintaining large fleets (ie doomstacks), both in battle and out of them, more of a strain on resources and requiring adequate infrastructure. This could be explained by the fact that even for a space empire it would likely be increasingly difficult to maintain quality should they produce a massive warfleet.

As an example: it's easy to fit a few battleships with top of the line crew, competent commanders. Each of them benefits from extra care and improvements stemming from the fact that they are unique and are treated as such. However, the more the empire gears towards mass producing such ships, the less attention to detail and quality is there. Fully automated production processes lack the finesse, fine tuning and small incremental improvements expert engineers and scientists used to give. Small flaws start making their way into the ships, with no one vigilant enough to spot them among the hundreds churned out. The creme de la creme of crew and commanders is already used up, and mediocrity is allowed on the ships. Morale suffers as ships are increasingly viewed and treated as expendable across the decision-making board and what constitutes 'acceptable losses' keeps on expanding.

Multiple aspects of this diminished quality factor could be mitigated by research in the fields of AI, production and others. This could make the decision whether to build massive fleets or not more interesting up until lategame, where doomstacks are probably preferable as you should be gunning to crush your opponents ASAP and winning the game.

Re: giving reason to maintain couple smaller squadrons rather than a single doomstack and give more reason to engage in smaller commitments rather than making an all-in preferable unless forced otherwise by maintaining multiple fronts - this could be solved by introducing more ship and weapon types, and more system defenses which would be inefficient in small scale engagements but would particularly excel when facing huge fleets. Maybe some kind of EMP bomb weaponry, or hacker ships that would somehow logically gain in strength the bigger the opposing force is, capable of generating a chain reaction stronger with each link. The threat of such defenses would make you think twice about engaging your doomstacks - you'd still be able to do that, but you'd have to think strategically to ensure safety both during and after the engagement first.

Another option would be to introduce an espionage system with sabotage options, and potency of potential sabotage to your fleet increases the longer you keep huge masses of ships together. The bigger your fleet, the more resources you'd have to devote to counterintelligence to keep it safe - resources which you could have used to afford several more smaller fleets, operating elsewhere in safety.

Still, will like to give this a try when the patch is out.

 

[dag0net]

that's funny. do you know how much the earth's mass has decreased during the last few thousand years of human industry?
how would you rather i tackled this?

if force A destroys 1.5 of B's troops per day then "endless troops" is the ability to deploy 1.51 troops per day until the point at which calculations stop.
It requires no exaggeration or stupidity, merely an acknowledgement that beyond a certain point projections are rather pointless.

If B can produce more troops on-location than

B can deploy over time to mission completion/game end
A can incapacitate over time to mission completion/game end

Then troops are endless relative to campaign requirements.

Do you have to withdraw your ships/troops when they run out of munitions or keep them resupplied? No, such things aren't calculated. They are infinite, endless. It isn't a matter of exaggeration or stupidity, unless design choices are considered stupid.

What's stupid or exaggerated is to expect a game to calculate things outside it's scope.