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I think 4x games are trapped by their traditional design. They are deeply disrespectful of player time.
Most of these games involve like, one or two significant decisions every half hour? Every hour? It's horrible tedium for most of it. And I like this genre! But they haven't figured out how to make these games actually enjoyable and engaging for most of the time you're playing them.
yeah. I feel like Stellaris kind of gets it, in some ways. As your empire gets bigger, you should be able to abstract the building blocks into bigger groups. Instead of individual ships, you manage fleets. Instead of individual planets, you manage sectors. These are pretty good ideas.
But I'm not sure those two techniques do enough to solve the problem.
way back in the day, in Master of Orion 2, one feature I really wanted was a reusable "recipe" for new colonies. Every new colony got the same complement of basic buildings, so why not just start building them by default?
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I think 4x games are trapped by their traditional design. They are deeply disrespectful of player time.
Most of these games involve like, one or two significant decisions every half hour? Every hour? It's horrible tedium for most of it. And I like this genre! But they haven't figured out how to make these games actually enjoyable and engaging for most of the time you're playing them.
yeah. I feel like Stellaris kind of gets it, in some ways. As your empire gets bigger, you should be able to abstract the building blocks into bigger groups. Instead of individual ships, you manage fleets. Instead of individual planets, you manage sectors. These are pretty good ideas.
But I'm not sure those two techniques do enough to solve the problem.
way back in the day, in Master of Orion 2, one feature I really wanted was a reusable "recipe" for new colonies. Every new colony got the same complement of basic buildings, so why not just start building them by default?
Yeah, I thought Stellaris had a great idea--if you just keep zooming the camera out, you can play the opening game over and over (and it is the best part!!)
But I hated the execution -.-
But I also played vanilla at launch, which, in paradox tradition, was extremely bad, so
This space reserved for awesome fucking pictures of my blunderbuss kit when it arrives today.
POST YOUR OWN BLUNDERBUSS PICS!
feeling cute might delete later
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I think 4x games are trapped by their traditional design. They are deeply disrespectful of player time.
Most of these games involve like, one or two significant decisions every half hour? Every hour? It's horrible tedium for most of it. And I like this genre! But they haven't figured out how to make these games actually enjoyable and engaging for most of the time you're playing them.
yeah. I feel like Stellaris kind of gets it, in some ways. As your empire gets bigger, you should be able to abstract the building blocks into bigger groups. Instead of individual ships, you manage fleets. Instead of individual planets, you manage sectors. These are pretty good ideas.
But I'm not sure those two techniques do enough to solve the problem.
way back in the day, in Master of Orion 2, one feature I really wanted was a reusable "recipe" for new colonies. Every new colony got the same complement of basic buildings, so why not just start building them by default?
Yeah, I thought Stellaris had a great idea--if you just keep zooming the camera out, you can play the opening game over and over (and it is the best part!!)
But I hated the execution -.-
But I also played vanilla at launch, which, in paradox tradition, was extremely bad, so
It's had a few complete overhauls since then
+4
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
I think 4x games are trapped by their traditional design. They are deeply disrespectful of player time.
Most of these games involve like, one or two significant decisions every half hour? Every hour? It's horrible tedium for most of it. And I like this genre! But they haven't figured out how to make these games actually enjoyable and engaging for most of the time you're playing them.
yeah. I feel like Stellaris kind of gets it, in some ways. As your empire gets bigger, you should be able to abstract the building blocks into bigger groups. Instead of individual ships, you manage fleets. Instead of individual planets, you manage sectors. These are pretty good ideas.
But I'm not sure those two techniques do enough to solve the problem.
way back in the day, in Master of Orion 2, one feature I really wanted was a reusable "recipe" for new colonies. Every new colony got the same complement of basic buildings, so why not just start building them by default?
Yeah, I thought Stellaris had a great idea--if you just keep zooming the camera out, you can play the opening game over and over (and it is the best part!!)
But I hated the execution -.-
But I also played vanilla at launch, which, in paradox tradition, was extremely bad, so
It's had a few complete overhauls since then
It's better, but it still gets tiresome a lot, especially in the late game. I have never officially won a game of Stellaris. I get to a point where either it's clear I'm going to win, clear I'm going to lose, or I'm stalemated against another empire, and I just quit.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
+3
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited March 2021
I was a fan of Civ 5's decision to enable narrow, tall play; stopping at a few cities was a completely viable strategy. Even though it wasn't optimal, you could even do one city strats. If you hate microing huge empires... !
I was a fan of Civ 5's decision to enable narrow, tall play; stopping at a few cities was a completely viable strategy. Even though it wasn't optimal, you could even do one city strats. If you hate microing huge empires... !
Pacifist strategies were also completely viable
civ-5-chan...
Pro: cities span multiple tiles, so big cities actually feel big
Con: no unit stacking makes Civ feel even more micromanagey to me, it has exactly the opposite effect as intended, and I generally despise it
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
+2
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
the 4x genre is mostly bad because of the long lag time between "i will win this game" and "i've won this game"
i have lots and lots of civ 4 games that i play the start of and then abandon like 100-150 turns in because i've done all the interesting stuff and now its just tedious management to close out the win
I always felt the hardest way to win for me was domination. Not because of the traditional 'difficulty' of it, but because conquering the other civs to where it counted as a win was a tedious process that took dozens of turns after it was clear you were going to be victorious.
The biggest nail biter for me ever was a science victory race in which the AI and I were messing with each other's space facilities with spies and it was down to the wire who was going to be first.
the 4x genre is mostly bad because of the long lag time between "i will win this game" and "i've won this game"
i have lots and lots of civ 4 games that i play the start of and then abandon like 100-150 turns in because i've done all the interesting stuff and now its just tedious management to close out the win
I always felt the hardest way to win for me was domination. Not because of the traditional 'difficulty' of it, but because conquering the other civs to where it counted as a win was a tedious process that took dozens of turns after it was clear you were going to be victorious.
The biggest nail biter for me ever was a science victory race in which the AI and I were messing with each other's space facilities with spies and it was down to the wire who was going to be first.
4x games often have a lot of areas that are tiny Alsace-Lorraines or Kashmirs, where a city/colony/planet switches hands multiple times. when you've conquered the same planet the third time, and when there are 8 other planets that have each gone back and forth 3 times, it definitely gives a sisyphean pushing a rock up a hill feeling
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
+1
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I was a fan of Civ 5's decision to enable narrow, tall play; stopping at a few cities was a completely viable strategy. Even though it wasn't optimal, you could even do one city strats. If you hate microing huge empires... !
Pacifist strategies were also completely viable
civ-5-chan...
Pro: cities span multiple tiles, so big cities actually feel big
Con: no unit stacking makes Civ feel even more micromanagey to me, it has exactly the opposite effect as intended, and I generally despise it
I loved no unit stacking! It felt like it made the terrain actually matter in a cool way--there were meaningful chokes, flanks, etc.
It did make combat micromanage-y, but I felt like the micro was actually meaningful. But then again, I was always playing small, tall empires and microing a few defensive units in good terrain against a horde--so, small numbers of high impact decisions. I could see how it would be very annoying if you played more sprawling and warlike games. Watching streamers move 30 tanks across the map is boring af.
+4
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
I was a fan of Civ 5's decision to enable narrow, tall play; stopping at a few cities was a completely viable strategy. Even though it wasn't optimal, you could even do one city strats. If you hate microing huge empires... !
Pacifist strategies were also completely viable
civ-5-chan...
Pro: cities span multiple tiles, so big cities actually feel big
Con: no unit stacking makes Civ feel even more micromanagey to me, it has exactly the opposite effect as intended, and I generally despise it
Honestly, I think hexes / tiles are a problem for the city-development end in games that have them. It always ends up feeling like a constraint instead of an opportunity.
Civ 6's districts really highlight the issue, for good and for ill.
I sneakily won a religious victory in a game against my friend. He did not check the amount of cities I had converted until too late since he never goes religion and I had converted him way early.
0
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Something I was noticing the other day.
In old movies from the 50s and even movies set in the 50s, because all of the cars had these big metal bumpers, no one cared when they had fender benders. Like constantly in movies people are bumping into each other and then just going about their business.
Did that specifically change when more cars went to plastic or did something else set that off?
I was a fan of Civ 5's decision to enable narrow, tall play; stopping at a few cities was a completely viable strategy. Even though it wasn't optimal, you could even do one city strats. If you hate microing huge empires... !
Pacifist strategies were also completely viable
civ-5-chan...
Pro: cities span multiple tiles, so big cities actually feel big
Con: no unit stacking makes Civ feel even more micromanagey to me, it has exactly the opposite effect as intended, and I generally despise it
I loved no unit stacking! It felt like it made the terrain actually matter in a cool way--there were meaningful chokes, flanks, etc.
It did make combat micromanage-y, but I felt like the micro was actually meaningful. But then again, I was always playing small, tall empires and microing a few defensive units in good terrain against a horde--so, small numbers of high impact decisions. I could see how it would be very annoying if you played more sprawling and warlike games. Watching streamers move 30 tanks across the map is boring af.
Yes, I felt Civ was vastly better with no unit stacking because unit positioning actually mattered.
I played a Stellaris domination run where my robot economy half accidently wound up relying on chemically processing conquered species to sustain itself and I collapsed with like 80% of the galaxy under control when rate of incoming disgusting biologicals ceased to keep pace with growing expenditures.
+3
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
I played a Stellaris domination run where my robot economy half accidently wound up relying on chemically processing conquered species to sustain itself and I collapsed with like 80% of the galaxy under control when rate of incoming disgusting biologicals ceased to keep pace with growing expenditures.
the problem with robot space socialism is you eventually run out of other people's bodies
Allegedly a voice of reason.
+8
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Like it wouldn't surprise me if tomorrow morning the front page of the post was "GET ME PICTURES OF SPIDER MAN!" That would seem normal.
are YOU on the beer list?
+3
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think 4x games are trapped by their traditional design. They are deeply disrespectful of player time.
Most of these games involve like, one or two significant decisions every half hour? Every hour? It's horrible tedium for most of it. And I like this genre! But they haven't figured out how to make these games actually enjoyable and engaging for most of the time you're playing them.
I half agree. Usually 4x games involve a good ratio of decision-to-time in the early game. However, they very often transition into tedious, brainless micro in the mid- and end-game. This is why the early game is fun and the late game is not. Some games try to solve this with governors and similar mechanics to automate away the sprawl, but these are uniformly bad in practice.
If I’m not doing all of the brainless micro then why did I claim kingdom to begin with?
In old movies from the 50s and even movies set in the 50s, because all of the cars had these big metal bumpers, no one cared when they had fender benders. Like constantly in movies people are bumping into each other and then just going about their business.
Did that specifically change when more cars went to plastic or did something else set that off?
I would guess it was when cars stopped having bumpers (fenders) that you could just beat back into shape
Plus, no impact absorption structures means that there likely wouldn't be any body damage underneath in the way that you'd get with a modern car, where the structure is largely sacrificial by design
Corvette spam was so wildly better than any larger ship class.
I remember discovering an exploit in Master of Orion where I could just shit out a gargantuan swarm of the cheapest possible fighters, and due to sheer numbers they'd take out even the biggest, strongest ships in one or two turns. It was by far the most optimal way to build your fleet. I think it was something with damage numbers never being able to go below 1, and with a big enough pile...
Sure, I'd lose 800 fighters per hit the swarm took, but who cares?
I loved designing ships in Stellaris but it was then always so hard to figure out if my designs were actually helping or not. Specialization always ended up way more risky than just being boring generalists that use the auto-designed ships. And it's not like you can afford to just re-design your whole fleet willy nilly.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
+2
Donkey KongPutting Nintendo out of business with AI nipsRegistered Userregular
Valheim has made me an expert beekeeper. Bees can only be happy or sleeping or needs space. So easy!
Colony collapse disorder? Just move the hive away from walls so they can be happy and sleeping.
I assume these mechanics are perfectly accurate and will be starting my own apiary based on in-game experience alone.
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
+10
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Man I'm watching That Thing You Do! and it's so well written.
Posts
yeah. I feel like Stellaris kind of gets it, in some ways. As your empire gets bigger, you should be able to abstract the building blocks into bigger groups. Instead of individual ships, you manage fleets. Instead of individual planets, you manage sectors. These are pretty good ideas.
But I'm not sure those two techniques do enough to solve the problem.
way back in the day, in Master of Orion 2, one feature I really wanted was a reusable "recipe" for new colonies. Every new colony got the same complement of basic buildings, so why not just start building them by default?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
now all those senior citizens aren't going to get to a casino!
Yeah, I thought Stellaris had a great idea--if you just keep zooming the camera out, you can play the opening game over and over (and it is the best part!!)
But I hated the execution -.-
But I also played vanilla at launch, which, in paradox tradition, was extremely bad, so
feeling cute might delete later
It's had a few complete overhauls since then
If the world goes Mad Max that is EXACTLY what I will look like
It's better, but it still gets tiresome a lot, especially in the late game. I have never officially won a game of Stellaris. I get to a point where either it's clear I'm going to win, clear I'm going to lose, or I'm stalemated against another empire, and I just quit.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Pacifist strategies were also completely viable
civ-5-chan...
I BRING YOU DEVASTATION
Pro: cities span multiple tiles, so big cities actually feel big
Con: no unit stacking makes Civ feel even more micromanagey to me, it has exactly the opposite effect as intended, and I generally despise it
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I always felt the hardest way to win for me was domination. Not because of the traditional 'difficulty' of it, but because conquering the other civs to where it counted as a win was a tedious process that took dozens of turns after it was clear you were going to be victorious.
The biggest nail biter for me ever was a science victory race in which the AI and I were messing with each other's space facilities with spies and it was down to the wire who was going to be first.
I'm torn between disdain at them running an article about twitter drama, and appreciation for the convenience of stating that upfront
4x games often have a lot of areas that are tiny Alsace-Lorraines or Kashmirs, where a city/colony/planet switches hands multiple times. when you've conquered the same planet the third time, and when there are 8 other planets that have each gone back and forth 3 times, it definitely gives a sisyphean pushing a rock up a hill feeling
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I loved no unit stacking! It felt like it made the terrain actually matter in a cool way--there were meaningful chokes, flanks, etc.
It did make combat micromanage-y, but I felt like the micro was actually meaningful. But then again, I was always playing small, tall empires and microing a few defensive units in good terrain against a horde--so, small numbers of high impact decisions. I could see how it would be very annoying if you played more sprawling and warlike games. Watching streamers move 30 tanks across the map is boring af.
Honestly, I think hexes / tiles are a problem for the city-development end in games that have them. It always ends up feeling like a constraint instead of an opportunity.
Civ 6's districts really highlight the issue, for good and for ill.
In old movies from the 50s and even movies set in the 50s, because all of the cars had these big metal bumpers, no one cared when they had fender benders. Like constantly in movies people are bumping into each other and then just going about their business.
Did that specifically change when more cars went to plastic or did something else set that off?
if it helps, NY Post is about as respected a news outlet as The Sun
Yes, I felt Civ was vastly better with no unit stacking because unit positioning actually mattered.
The Post is the news equivalent of your aunt that knows all the gossip.
I fucking love it
the problem with robot space socialism is you eventually run out of other people's bodies
If I’m not doing all of the brainless micro then why did I claim kingdom to begin with?
I would guess it was when cars stopped having bumpers (fenders) that you could just beat back into shape
Plus, no impact absorption structures means that there likely wouldn't be any body damage underneath in the way that you'd get with a modern car, where the structure is largely sacrificial by design
I remember discovering an exploit in Master of Orion where I could just shit out a gargantuan swarm of the cheapest possible fighters, and due to sheer numbers they'd take out even the biggest, strongest ships in one or two turns. It was by far the most optimal way to build your fleet. I think it was something with damage numbers never being able to go below 1, and with a big enough pile...
Sure, I'd lose 800 fighters per hit the swarm took, but who cares?
Colony collapse disorder? Just move the hive away from walls so they can be happy and sleeping.
I assume these mechanics are perfectly accurate and will be starting my own apiary based on in-game experience alone.