/4xg/ - Stellaris, Civilization & 4X Strategy General

Plummeting Playerbase Edition

>Stellaris OP:
pastebin.com/qsTFCyvh

>Stellaris Mod Archive
mega.nz/#F!hpBCSbCC!vZNs1Qhip_UJQPSSdoZjUg

>What is stellaris?
A 4x game developed by paradox development studios.

>Stellaris Steam Group
steamcommunity.com/groups/vgstellaris

>Where is the white only mods/patch
Ask in the thread.

>/civ4xg/ OP:
pastebin.com/P5XCTQx9

>Civilization VI trailer with release date:
[YouTube] Civilization 6 - Official Announcement Trailer

>More info on Civ VI:
pcgamer.com/civilization-6-everything-you-need-to-know/
ign.com/articles/2016/05/11/three-ways-sid-meiers-civilization-6-radically-reinvents-itself-city-building-science-and-diplomacy
gamespot.com/articles/civilization-6-revealed-brings-major-changes/1100-6439691/

Nuked by Gandhi:

you mean like an applied/basic research split with randomness thrown in?

A-ayy. See

...

Is this the community balance patch
I need to get around to trying it

To elaborate, take the Laser research line. Red Lasers and Blue Lasers shouldn't even be separate techs: the difference between red and blue is laughably small compared to the difference between UV and XRay and XRay to Gamma (especially since Gamma can go to essentially infinite energy/photon), but that aside the principle behind all five are exactly the same - there's no functional difference to the physics used to create that shit.
What would be nice is a separate Theoretical and Engineering tree for each type - Theoreticals unlock a shitton of Inventions that cover broad areas (to use a contemporary example, Radio Signalling (Theory) would of course lead to Radio as an invention which gives passive buffs and stuff, and unlocks a few Engineering techs that can be researched to get things you have to manually build but often provide very few bonuses on their own (RADAR stations really don't harness anything spectacular so it's a rather useless breakthrough until you build RADAR stations).
Then there's the segred techs that pop up randomly (changing based on how good you are at tech and how skilled your lead scientists are) and stay available as soon as they pop up. Stuff like Sentient AI, P=NP, Grand Unified Theory, Mind Mapping, etc. might be things you get. Most of them will be Theoretical, a few might be Engineering (Tachyon Lances for example, since from a physics point of view they're fucking absurd and shouldn't even be controllable since you'd have to change the effect to retcon the cause in the future). These may be gamebreakingly strong but they might not even appear in the 150 years you play, because they represent true breakthroughs, and there's the big RNG Paradox might've wanted to go for - some empires will prosper just because they discovered this one thing that gives them an almighty edge, while others will fall because they didn't.

We actually made it to post limit last thread. That's encouraging.
Don't leave me /4xg/, losing the Starsector general hurt too much. I can't lose another decent general.

How would you guys do a fun, interesting, and deep research system?

>private and public research institutes
>institutes are abstract conceptions, and each researches exactly one project
>projects come in three flavors; technologies, fields, and frontiers.
>all technologies are repeatable, with each tech having several different repeatable fields such as "miniaturization", "efficiency", etc
>all technologies belong in a field, some in multiple fields, and researching field repeatable improves all technologies within that field
>fields can be sub-fields of other fields; for example, quantum physics is a sub-field of physics in general
>frontiers are the initial investment of research required to open up their respective field
>there is no tech web or tech tree; rather, techs are opened for investment based on their distance to other, researched techs, with more heavily researched techs providing more weight
>it is not necessary to have researched a field's frontier to access a tech within it, but the probability of it being open for research is heavily penalized for every field its in that you haven't opened up
>research on fields, or on frontiers for fields you haven't discovered, is given a bonus for techs you have researched in that field and how heavily they have been researched
>if a project hasn't been opened to research yet, its probability is re-evaluated every year.
>all possible techs, fields, and frontiers are listed in the research screen, and you can set either their discrete funding or their funding percentages.
>public research institutes you can tell directly what to research, but they receive maluses for underfunding
>private research institutes will tend to research whatever has the most funding
>there's always a chance that some unaffiliated institute will make a breakthrough discovery for anything, possibly even stuff you didn't know was possible yet

Merge this with , adding an Engineering and Theoretical branch to all bottom-level fields and get the random techs
Also make it so different governments might have different functions - a democracy might have a much higher chance of getting unaffiliated stuff but something like Theocratic might get a boost to whatever they're focusing on, although unaffiliated are unlikely to do much

>miniaturization
>efficiency
Eh
I don't know about that being an institute thing, it makes more sense as a Vicky 2 Invention system where it just repeats up to a certain point (there's a hard physical limit on what you can achieve with a certain level of technology)

That's sorta what I was going for with technologies, but it can be resolved with sub-fields.
For example, laser weapons aren't a technology, but rather, they're a field called "lasers", the technology within that field would be the various laser weapons.

Remember, an institute isn't just a university or a think-tank, they're also engineering labs and so forth; if it makes it better, imagine fields being only studied by proper universities, while technologies are developed by engineering firms and graduate students looking for a doctoral project.

So I'm the guy who had his first fleet disappear for 8 years before realizing it was bugged

I attempted a fix for it based on a YouTube video and it fixed it but it went missing again and I got mad and decided it was ducked and deleted it entirely I'll just start over

Eh but I don't think fields should be a repeatable thing - the technologies inside that field already cover advancement in that field. The Frontier is basically Theoretical ain't it? I mean it doesn't make much sense that researching electromagnetism makes railguns stronger for some reason, like no the concept behind railguns has essentially reached maturity.

Yeah but I don't think it should be something explicitly researched but something that generally happens over time, at least for certain technologies with civilian applications
You don't need the US gov to fund Intel to make their chips more efficient or you didn't back when AMD actually provided meaningful competition get your shit together chinks for example, because they have an incentive to do so. Similarly I doubt miniature capacitors acting as AA batteries that can power apartment blocks will need government funding - there's incentive from the civilian population who are itching to buy it to play on their Sony Playstation Invictus XXXVI

Eve online usually has two separate types of weapons in a given weapon type

It uses pulse lasers for short range and beams for long range. They do different damage but each has a trade off. Pulses work great at short range but are garbage at long. Beams are great at long but shit at short

Other weapons include automatons for short range higher damage and artillery for long range less damags

Missiles work on the same principle. Torpedoes are short and cruise missiles are long

Actually, on second thought, that makes a lot more sense. Separate institutes into institutes and labs/workshops/firms; institutes are focused more on fields, but also enjoy a bonus to prototyping new technologies.
labs/workshops/firms are incredibly good at improving existing technologies, or making small leaps, but are almost incapable of improving on fields or exploring frontiers, except for that rare engineer struck with a bolt of inspiration.

for private firms, also simulate a market of how potentially profitable technologies and developments in fields will be; you're not required to give funding to private sources, and in that case they'll just follow the market (which probably means just getting really good at existing stuff).
If you want private firms to focus on unknown technologies, or to break a frontier, you'd have to subsidize them far more. Public firms aren't so expensive, and they focus on whatever you want them to (and thus have no qualm pursuing "moonshots"), but may suffer from some inefficiency.

In the game distant world's or distant universes I can't remember the games name but it had multiple types aswell

Missiles were generally long rnage but each type of missile did a different thing and it had amazing diversity

Eve Online had a lot of issues but it's a testament to its ambition that for good or bad nobody has even tried to emulate it.

>I mean it doesn't make much sense that researching electromagnetism makes railguns stronger for some reason, like no the concept behind railguns has essentially reached maturity.
Fair point; when I thought of that, I was thinking in terms of fields like "materials", and it might not work for all fields.

That all sounds pretty neat.
For me though, a lot of 4x research systems are all based around researching techs from a pool that's more or less shared by all empires.
I'd create a system where the research is found similar to the way resources are. The player would find tech locations that give access to research, representing that this particular location had an anomaly worth studying. Developing tech locations would open up options in further advancements or the location's field.
Now, there'd still have to be access to basic researches such as colonization and such. Though, having colonization research tied to whatever the first life supporting planet discovered is could be interesting.
The idea I have behind this system though is to try and tied research to location. Allow for more unique empires. One particular race has techs that give them predominantly ballistics, while another uses lasers. Advanced tech locations along their borders would be valuable assets.
Another bit I was thinking would be to add a sort of epoch system, where as older tech sites exhaust their research, new sites are mapped out as potential new sites. This could lead to quickly securing new sites by force or through research agreements, where you could cooperate with different empires to gain access to tech locations that your scientists specialize in.

I'm trying to draw comparisons based on the games I've played and how they did balance

I like this
Paradox get to work, you need to implement mod hooks that will make this possible ;_________________;

Fair enough I was just praising Eve for overflowing ambition, something very few games seem to have nowadays.
CaoCao.png

I can see some of that working, esp. say advanced Wormhole / Warp engines popping up in empires who are right next to a BH system or a binary pulsar system or something, but for others it doesn't make sense - electromagnetism works the same way everywhere, unless that specific species simply never used electricity.

Is there a mod that closes borders again after 1.2?

>Never used electricity
Even then they'd have to figure out a thing to get to spaceflight. I just don't see fledgling stellar empire powered by non-electricity. Clockwork/diesel/steampunk is all fine for fantasyish stuff, but it's just not that great and they're bound to get a grip on it through studying lightning storms, heck, static electricity even. Or native animals that use it (electric eels on earth), or even biological electricty. But this is kind of getting off topic from me.

Well that depends, if they're near some Rigel-tier star and survive in extremely hot temperatures, there's no reason why just solar and the heat energy can't be used to do work of some sort.

So, who are the waifus in Civ VI?

None they all look like utter shit

>it's the "chase the multiple ~1K strength fleets as they worm through hyperspace" episode again

Does the fucking AI get speed bonus for interstellar travel or something? I'm on the same hyperspace engine tier on my ships and they literally can't jump fast enough to catch these niglets.

I just need one more fleet victory to seal this fucking stupid war holy shit I'm so mad right now.

Hello guys, I was giving exams so I stayed out of touch with the new developments
Since I am a Pirate what is the current patch?
Any good mods?

>colonization costs influence now
how much? All these arbitrary and unintuitive game mechanics in an attempt to force players to play tall is getting kinda ridiculous.

>forces you to play tall
>can only win game by blobbing
BRAVO PARAFAGS

30 for inside borders/just on the borders, then scales (not sure if linearly or exponentially or whatever) with distance

On Stellaris, sorry

1.2
yes

It scales sensibly, like all things paradox.

Basically, you either bite the bullet and hope you get:
>non-shit leader traits (inb4 slaver again)
>non-shit systems (ONE PHYSICS RESOURCE ASTEROIDS WEW)
>neighbors that won't wall you off with their special snowflake influence-free settlers

where the fuck am i supposed to install the new patch
I get error everytime

Oh, that's probably the new denuvo DRM paradox got with 1.2

>sensibly
Kek
>special snowflake
No user
YOU are the special, crippled, snowflake here.

uh your /stellaris install directory

>he thinks paying one whole non-fractional unit of influence per "distance" is acceptable
One "distance" is fucking tiny, family.

>reading comprehension
I was laughing at calling it 'sensibly'.

Would getting the Lower Warscore mod be considered cheating with the insanely high values required after 1.1?

Who cares it's singleplayer

I just don't want my victories to be cheap but not being able to vassalise empires that by no means are capable of fighting back properly is just silly

That's why I was saying there would still be a common pool of techs shared by all empires. All the game changing stuff, like new methods of FTL, would be tech locations.

no, it wouldn't make the game easier, all it would do is save time

>uplift a species
>forgot they're repugnant
What do I do?

Gene mode them to not be repugnant. Or did you already use all points? Otherwise, just keep them stuck to their own planet(s).

I glossed over the traits and now they're everywhere shitting up the resource output.

Colonizing a planet on the other side of a foreign empire WOULD require tons of influence.
Pic is basically building a new Gibraltar

>sending a spess ship over requires tons on influence when it takes all of a month to get there
What is the logic behind your post

The porblem is that you have to settle far in early game to make the most use out of the 5 cap. In-border planets are usually tiny garbage and I usually end up spending ~80 for non-retarded choices outside the borders. it's a shitty mechanic.

Imagine if the US just up and built a city just north of Canada and then called it their territory.
Obviously it would take an influential state to do so

Except influence isn't actually influence. It's like political clout or some shit.

The Soft cap isnt affected by planets within already claimed systems anymore though, since Asimov

you know what to do

Finding multiple habitable planets in a system (let alone worth colonizing and taking the research hit) is a very very unrealistic expectation.

Precisely.
Im guessing the game is calculating distance AROUND the foreign territory as if it was closed borders, rather then through it

Tru nuff, but rampant forward-settling needs a curb somehow, although maybe some mechanic other then influence would be better

>faction A needs 80% support in parliament and the ear of the King to found a new settlement under royal charter that they'd have no control over
>this, instead of political influence over neighboring countries and diplomats to sooth tensions
Cool stuff.

Shitty/incompatible cracked update
Got another one
Oh how I missed yoouuuu

>colonies distant from capital have ethnic divergence malus
>huge research penalty
>cost significant amount of influence
>you can colonize only 5 systems at the same time
do Paradox know that one of four X means eXpand?

It's marketed as Grand Strategy.

I'm more bummed but terraforming. I could live with 10 years if you could go from any type to any type, even if "multiple jumps" would cost more, but having to take several times ten years is just annoying. (Even if terraforming isn't a "decade or so" progress). I mean, they've already shown they're perfectly willing to make breaks from reality with the tech tree

>Civ V is more popular than Stellaris and HoI IV combined
Glad to see the jews are finally being exposed

I'd still be playing ciV if I hadn't played it to death already.

My comp is full of anime.

Paradox games can't compete with Civ series

B-but imagine all those people who bought it from the paracux store and thus have the game without having it registered on Steam!

Civ V is a more accessible game, loved even by relative normies.

Aurora has the best approach to this. First you research theoretical inventions - wavelength, focal size, recharge rate etc. Then you design your own laser weapon based on your theoretical inventions and few other variables like size or mount and research it once again.

Terraforming is horribly broken. Why would I spend time and resources if I can just gene mod pops which cost only few hundred of research points and takes only few months.

Yeah but the autism

How come Stellaris is not in the archive, like how they do it in /gsg/?

Is there a mod that lets you pull up a menu that allows you to make a fleet build order that splits it between all your stations instead of micromanaging each one?

Friendly reminder that
>The +1 Production to unemployed citizens from Statue of Liberty is unimplemented
It might say +1 production, so Unemployed gives +2, but if you look at the calculated yields it is completely unchanged.

LIBERTY FAGS BTFO'D

>unemployed citizens

Ugh. How can a game full of so many neat little ideas and concepts and filled with so much charm have such a cumbersome, ugly and just terribly designed UI and so much tedious micromanagement?

Fuck that, seriously. So much potential...

It is because of people preaching the Korea+SoL+Sec+Civil Combo.

Unemployed would then provide:
>1 Food
>2 Production
>4 Science

But If they can't even implement it properly, then it is worthless.

I thought that was a known thing

pic related, the village management and crafting 'user interface'

Fuck is this game, looks interesting
Is it torrentable, like to try it first

>only do light bombing with one corvette to secure planets while the rest of fleet overruns remaining systems
>muh terror bombing

is there a way for me to kill native tribal pops once I've already made a colony in stellaris?

it was pretty cool, lots of interesting things and little stories but got old fucking quick

thea the awakening, yes its torrentable

Thanks lad
already in my cart, will buy if I enjoy

You get the modifier everytime a pop/building is destroyed by bombing

Thought I was done with this game but actually having fun with Asimov;; something must be wrong with me

dope patch, cheers wiz

>cheers wiz
t. wiz

Just park corvette near, without bombing so they can't build starport.

Wiz is based

>Be Honor Bound Warriors (Fanatic Militarist, Spiritualist)
>The biggest Military Superpower in the Southern Galactic hemisphere, my only real rival is all the way in the north, unreachable
>all my neighbors either fear me, or constantly kiss my ass
>Spend my time policing and and defending smaller nations from assholes, and bullying said assholes
>Pitiful weaklings always bothering me to fight they're battles for them
>Nobody goes to war without my consent
>Nobody does anything without my consent

is this what it feels like to be the USA?

Is Distant Worlds better game then Stellaris? Yes. Why? Let me tell you:

nip nong ching chong bong bing ling

I have registered stellaris but for some reason I cant access the user mods section in the forum anymore?

>race specific victory condition
- they provide more diverse gameplay
- green skinned babes need to have happy population, arachnids need to conquer and enslave
- shared victory condition doesn't include only conquest and domination

In my opinion, the Asimov patch is a good step in the right direction.
The reason the active players are greatly reduced is because they are releasing these updates gradually, while people who buy a product usually expect good shit (and with good reason) at purchase.

For example, the diplomacy now is actually important and feels decent enough, both for trade (trade increases reputation now) and federation votes.

>easy colonization
- possible colonies (and colonization ships) are clearly presented
- can be sorted by distance, quality, resources etc.

>easy diplomacy
- in one window you can see relations between xeno empires, why they (don't) like you, their military and economical power and minimap with their territory

>trade
- you can trade with technologies, disputed bases, offer to join their wars, threaten with sanction or war

I don't even think you can destroy buildings or pops with Bombing liteā„¢