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Foo Diddley posted:Wanna get sadder? Years ago, I remember the developer saying that he was willing to do one last patch to do just this*, but Strategy First wouldn't let him Even that would have been wonderful  gently caress Strategy First
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Oct 30, 2020 22:55
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Steelion posted:Anyone remember Stars! (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!) Or is that game just from my childhood. It's me, I'm the guy who remembers Stars! It owned, best excel spreadsheet I ever played. That talk about a Dune-like Stellaris made me wish for a modern remake of Emperor of the Fading Suns. That game had some fun ideas, it pretty much was a proto-ck2-in-space
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Oct 30, 2020 23:03
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grate deceiver posted:It's me, I'm the guy who remembers Stars! It owned, best excel spreadsheet I ever played. There was one called Fading Suns: Noble Armada, but it got stuck in development hell some two decades ago and ended up buggy as heck and never released anything beyond a demo. I hear that it is *still* in development today: https://www.facebook.com/NobleArmada/ Entorwellian fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 30, 2020 23:59
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grate deceiver posted:It's me, I'm the guy who remembers Stars! It owned, best excel spreadsheet I ever played. I loved Emperor of the Fading Suns as a kid. I still remember the intro video, two decades later. "...even the stars are dying."
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Oct 31, 2020 00:33
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dead gay comedy forums posted:this represents very well the problem of design in 4x's this is why distant worlds is good if weird as poo poo, because you can automate away all the fiddly stuff
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Oct 31, 2020 00:42
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grate deceiver posted:It's me, I'm the guy who remembers Stars! It owned, best excel spreadsheet I ever played. I loved Stars! and even hosted some games with players off the Usenet group back before Stars! Autohost was a thing. The game had a whole host of game balance problems, but it was extremely fun multiplayer. It's one game I really wish someone would decide to try recreating for play on modern systems.
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Oct 31, 2020 01:52
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Isn't freestars! A thing?
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Oct 31, 2020 02:32
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RBA Starblade posted:Yeah, like I had an alternate universe portal on a planet that seemed like it'd be really cool (especially for my galaxy brain single mind race) except all it did was increase trade a bit. Have me get invaded by things from that portal or something! Let me pull my alternate universe guy through and have two weird planets or something! I made that event, and I like to think it's at least a bit cool. There's a little RNG war going on in the alt dimension and you'll get more or less trade depending on how your alt self is faring. Eventually they might even get wiped out by the Warp beasts which will give you a sad death message and some refugees. I did want to have the Warp beasts invade through the portal after that happened, but I ended up quitting Paradox instead because they are awful and kept doing increasingly lovely things.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:48
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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.
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Oct 31, 2020 08:23
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Darkrenown posted:I made that event, and I like to think it's at least a bit cool. There's a little RNG war going on in the alt dimension and you'll get more or less trade depending on how your alt self is faring. Eventually they might even get wiped out by the Warp beasts which will give you a sad death message and some refugees. I did want to have the Warp beasts invade through the portal after that happened, but I ended up quitting Paradox instead because they are awful and kept doing increasingly lovely things. Hugs and love, DR. I hope you landed somewhere better.
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Oct 31, 2020 11:37
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Hugs and love, DR. I hope you landed somewhere better. Thanks! I am currently self-employed and working with some nice people on another game 
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Oct 31, 2020 13:29
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Always happy when it turns out something I enjoyed was goon-made, love hearing how those guys are getting on
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Oct 31, 2020 13:44
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Are there any recent 4Xs that let you really gently caress around with the map itself, like terraforming in SMAC or being able to open/close warp points and blow up planets for the delicious asteroids in SEV? I'm so thirsty for 4X that I wound up giving Beyond Earth another shot. It's just so brutally mediocre and full of missed potential
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Oct 31, 2020 14:41
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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. I'm looking longingly at Victoria 2 while reading this post.
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Oct 31, 2020 17:12
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Darkrenown posted:Thanks! I am currently self-employed and working with some nice people on another game Glad to hear, let us know when awesome stuff pop out  bit sad that Paradox seems to be going downhill thoughLawman 0 posted:I'm looking longingly at Victoria 2 while reading this post. Vicky2 honestly looks like an interesting conceptual transition point that was not followed along and that sucks
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Oct 31, 2020 17:57
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dead gay comedy forums posted:Glad to hear, let us know when awesome stuff pop out 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.
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Oct 31, 2020 18:12
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Danaru posted:Are there any recent 4Xs that let you really gently caress around with the map itself, like terraforming in SMAC or being able to open/close warp points and blow up planets for the delicious asteroids in SEV? Nope!
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Oct 31, 2020 18:20
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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.
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Oct 31, 2020 19:10
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luxury handset posted:this is why distant worlds is good if weird as poo poo, because you can automate away all the fiddly stuff You can indeed fully automate or as just the ones you don't want to fiddle with. Sadly it's single core only, they're working on DW2 The ai wasn't great, but you could do some neat things, zerg rush empty troop transports as chaff to take a planet by ground, build a cheap satelite and put a trading center on it for a cheap before starport economy boost. Just build anywhere if you wanted to. Some of the stuff wasn't maybe intended behavior even, but it gave it some charm. Diplomacy/espionage sucked like all of them, but I liked bribing my enemies into friends with worthless surplus. Finding or capturing higher tech ships and scrapping them. It checked a lot of boxes and was my first 4x, I didn't know those things were fun until distant worlds.
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Oct 31, 2020 22:33
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:Sadly it's single core only, they're working on DW2 Wow, not only is that project still alive (as of X-Mas 2019), there's even a 2020 Release announced. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4737033 This isn't meant as sarcasm. I've played DW 1 and looked for a DW 2 in 2016, and back then it gave off a smell of "not really likely to happen". A serious post in 2019 is a good thing. Wipfmetz fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Nov 2, 2020 |
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Nov 2, 2020 10:00
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Wipfmetz posted:Wow, not only is that project still alive (as of X-Mas 2019), there's even a 2020 Release announced. Best of luck to them, but from the posts it looks like they've decided to make it more complicated without any consideration of whether or not those extra complications let you make meaning choices. Like, the fully modelled 3d ship designer is neat, but unless I can do something meaningful all you've done is double or triple the time it takes to design a ship. Edit: in all fairness, I think I've misread the post on first pass. These changes are mostly cosmetic and cause neat model changes. Which you'll probably be too far zoomed out to notice... Bug Squash fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Nov 2, 2020 |
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Nov 2, 2020 11:49
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It's taken me a dozen restarts but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of GalCiv 3's colony management. From what I've studied, it looks like the optimal path is to land a colony ship, then just absolutely gently caress that colony up with supply ships. Also I need to actually pay attention to the tech tree until i unlock labs, since my usual research priority is going "hey that looks neat  " after skimming the list each time.Every game I wound up 16/16 for production and influence, but 4/16 in military because gently caress pirates. This time will be different
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Nov 8, 2020 14:44
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Bug Squash posted:Best of luck to them, but from the posts it looks like they've decided to make it more complicated without any consideration of whether or not those extra complications let you make meaning choices. It likely means you will be able to download ship packages on a workshop so that you can get star trek ships, firefly ships, wing commander ships, etc. It's kind of a neat feature to be able to do stuff like that, and while I personally don't spend time with the cosmetic doodads, I do enjoy playing with the cosmetic packages that other people put together.
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Nov 8, 2020 23:17
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relying on workshop mod communities to make games good is wearing thin
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Nov 11, 2020 14:52
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To anyone who's interested, Age of Wonders Planetfall just released it's final DLC along with a big patch with a new free game mode. The game is 66% off on Steam until Friday.
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Nov 11, 2020 15:25
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orangelex44 posted:To anyone who's interested, Age of Wonders Planetfall just released it's final DLC along with a big patch with a new free game mode. The game is 66% off on Steam until Friday. I was considering just that. What are overall opinions on the game?
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Nov 11, 2020 17:35
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Bremen posted:I was considering just that. What are overall opinions on the game? I like it a lot! It's definitely more focused on the Xterminate portion of the 4X games, but the Xterminate portion of it is really good!
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Nov 11, 2020 17:45
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I picked it up the other day and I've been enjoying it. The unit mod system is cool, as is the operations menu (functioning like spells in other AoW games). There's definitely an emphasis on the tactical combat, but there's enough going on with the tactical combat that it ends up being good.
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Nov 14, 2020 02:25
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Bremen posted:I was considering just that. What are overall opinions on the game? I think it's amazing but I am admittedly biased. The best comparison is probably Total War, but with turn-based tactical fights - the strategy layer is intentionally not as well developed. The tactical fights are awesome though, easily XCOM level if not better. There's a thread for the game with a discord link in the OP here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3857341&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
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Nov 14, 2020 02:40
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Bremen posted:I was considering just that. What are overall opinions on the game? I really like it, though it has a very clear focus, and that focus is interesting fights. To be fair it has really good fights, they happen on a tactical layer and work similarly to HOMM. The tactical layer is really crunchy, and unit customization is done really well - you have fixed unit types that you can hang mods onto to give them distinct and varied abilities and bonuses. The strategic layer is reasonably simple and doesn't overload you with micromanagement. The tactical AI is surprisingly sharp at punishing mistakes, and the strategic AI in the early game is actually pretty decent, too! Unfortunately the strategic AI rapidly drops off as the game goes on, as is tradition in these types of games. Similarly it also suffers from the end turn mashing after you've reached the breakaway point. The strategic layer, while not anemic, is clearly not where the focus is so if you're wanting to tweak your road positioning and set your taxes you aren't gonna get that level of granularity. I'd give it a very strong recommend if you like tactical combat and just a general recommend if you're okay with it, but if you're looking for an empire builder that isn't really what it's trying to do.
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Nov 14, 2020 22:40
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I failed to see the unit progress in Planetfall. Every new unit read like a sidegrade or a very distinct specific use case. Sometimes just want to research "better shooting mans (shoots better)". 
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Nov 15, 2020 10:51
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Wipfmetz posted:I failed to see the unit progress in Planetfall. Every new unit read like a sidegrade or a very distinct specific use case. Sometimes just want to research "better shooting mans (shoots better)". I think a lot of this is intended, because a lot of complaints of AoW3 were that early-tier units sort of fell off in value when later units were available. So I believe the intended design is that late-game units have some versatility in what they do, while better shoot mans is equipping mods on your current shoot mans.
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Nov 15, 2020 11:03
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I've not played planetfall but I kinda like that sort of unit progression. My favourite promotions for units in Civ are the ones that give special abilities, or bonuses in certain circumstances. It gets you thinking more about positioning in a battle. Sadly the "shoots better in all situations" promotion is the one you pick every time because it's just projects way more force. The balancing of promotions, in Civ5 at least, is pretty terrible.
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Nov 15, 2020 11:50
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Arrrthritis posted:I think a lot of this is intended, because a lot of complaints of AoW3 were that early-tier units sort of fell off in value when later units were available. So I believe the intended design is that late-game units have some versatility in what they do, while better shoot mans is equipping mods on your current shoot mans.
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Nov 15, 2020 12:12
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Wipfmetz posted:I failed to see the unit progress in Planetfall. Every new unit read like a sidegrade or a very distinct specific use case. Sometimes just want to research "better shooting mans (shoots better)". A lot of this depends on your race and/or secret tech. Units are arranged by tiers, where T1 units have significantly lower stats across the board than T2 and so on up to T4. In exchange, the higher tiers cost more. It's balanced such that the most cost-effective play is to stay at lower tiers, but because battles are limited by the number of units you can bring eventually you really need to move upwards to increase your per-stack power. On top of that, there aren't many situations where a unit "upgrades" what a lower tier one did directly. Often, the higher tier unit can fill in for the lower tier but adds in some other utility on top of that. Just in general, a massive focus of the game is that no unit does exactly what another one can. There are some pretty well-defined archetypes, of course, but literally every unit has at least one small thing that is unique (and some of them don't even have an archetype at all). All that being said, the "unit progress" does exist if you're willing to pay for it. Taking, for example, a T1 Trooper versus a T3 Laser Tank, the tank will beat the snot out of a trooper every time. The tank just has way better damage output and defense stats. However, it might not always look that way because the tank also adds in these weird utility options (smoke screen? a defense-ignoring attack?) that can distract people from realizing that the numbers did, indeed, also get a lot bigger. It's just that Planetfall has also tried to accommodate people who'd like to keep the Troopers around without them feeling useless, so they retain a unique battlefield role and can be modded up to be competitive in the later game. Basically, think of mods as an alternate "unit progress" except that you don't have to actually change your units, you can just get the "progress". Wipfmetz posted:Yeah, it obviously is intended. And it works. It just means that I have to think, and I suck at such thinking. Yep. Thinking is hard.
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Nov 15, 2020 17:50
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Steelion posted:Anyone remember Stars! (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!) Or is that game just from my childhood. All I can remember from Stars! is that I liked the fuel system, I think? I wonder what I missed with that one, I was too invested in MOO at the time.
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Dec 8, 2020 03:19
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PerniciousKnid posted:All I can remember from Stars! is that I liked the fuel system, I think? I wonder what I missed with that one, I was too invested in MOO at the time. I remember it having a heavy emphasis on logistics, and a big part of the game was getting minerals and fuel to where it needed to be. You could eventually research mass drivers that let you fling packets of stuff at warp speed, with disastrous results if the planet on the receiving end didn't have its own mass driver to safely catch it. Planets had a limited amount of resources, so setting up a robust mining and transport network was crucial. I don't remember the other aspects of the game, such as combat and diplomacy being very fleshed out. There was a ship designer of course, but the tactical battles seemed a little.. dull? Certainly not as fun as MOO2 or even Space Empires. Kibbles n Shits fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Dec 8, 2020 |
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Dec 8, 2020 04:44
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Shadow Empire is out of steam and on sale. It's also really good if you enjoy a more war focused 4X.
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Dec 8, 2020 12:03
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Can't say I wasn't tempted but it looks a little too deep for me (so many numbers) and the dated graphics kinda put me off even more. Would be keen to hear more about how it plays though from goons who've got it.
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Dec 8, 2020 12:11
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:Can't say I wasn't tempted but it looks a little too deep for me (so many numbers) and the dated graphics kinda put me off even more. Would be keen to hear more about how it plays though from goons who've got it. There's a thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3922608
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Dec 8, 2020 14:23
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