/4xg/ - Stellaris, Civilization, RTS and 4x General

Dammit. I love games taking place in space.

yes
im liking how they at least fleshed out the diplomacy a bit. now it even makes sense for the player to denounce others, so they dont take such a crazy warmonger penalty. also nice that early game warmonger penalties dont really matter later on.

For all the shit I gave Endless Legend, I kinda like how they handle diplomacy.
I have yet to try espionnage though.

Finally we can bring God's judgement upon the filthy heathens without being stamped as bloodthirsty warmongers.

Lich please.

How do I properly make an aggressive slaver empire in Stellaris?

Militarist Spiritualist and Collectivist. Repugnant trait w/ communal. Go despotic empire or something.

Why is Ideology so low tech cost comparably, also what do you think the quotes for these will be?

what did adam smith say?
its obviously wip, considering people were asked not to show anything off past the medieval era.

Doesn't suffrage go hand in hand with communism?

/4xg/ I need to stop playing games I've played a ton already and start playing the various 4x games I've bought and haven't touched so I come to you with a question!

Which should I play,
Dominions 4 or Distant Worlds Universe?

Holy fuck I can't wait for the Stellaris expansion.

Any news of what it is?

And When?

No.

I may be biased because I only played one but go with Distant Worlds. You can automate whatever you like and the AI is not even that terrible while you get the hang of how things work, then go full immersion. Only thing that is missing is ground combat micro but even then there's enough factors to keep it interesting.

Stellaris 1.3 neverever

So we're dead until the Civ VI release. There's literally nothing to discuss other than non-4x games and Paradox being a shit studio.

thats how its been for months

>/gsg/ers will never know the joys of both blobbing and developing beautiful island cities

If only the game was more sandboxy desu lads. I'd build towns for fucking hours on end.

I guess we gotta wait until October 21 when the game finally drops to be relevant.

#YOLO

Roll I guess

Developping cities and watching them grow is the best part of Endless Legend.

And by "best part", I mean "only good part".

>not playing the literal best 4X game out right now

meh. lack of unit variety makes it too much of a hero rpg for me to really enjoy. the city building is pretty nice, however.

It's pretty much CiV but better in all the essentials.

And if you're a challengefag you're in for a treat.

What bothers me is how specialized the factions are. For example, the basic broken lords unit (the stalwards, I thin) only get one-handed or two-handed swords. No spearmen, no archers.

So you're going to say "of course, you're supposed to assimilate neutrals to use as auxiliaries, you double hollow".
To which I say "yeah, well, your face looks wrong, you piece of shit."

>What bothers me is how specialized the factions are.
>Specialized factions aren't better than CiV's reskinned nation that gets a different ability and MAYBE a new aestethic every repackage

as points out, you need to learn to assimilate minor factions to expand the variety in your armies. There's also the matter of the Colossus things

Holy christ, how am I suppose to even find a mod in the archive, none of them are even properly named.
I just want the only white humans one they removed.

Colossus what now?

What I expected was something like Total War, where every faction has pikemen/swordsmen/archer, and only elite units are really unique.
I just have a really soft spot for lines of pikemen holding the line while archers are shooting over their heads.

Played it to death before the Forgotten pack was released, a little burned out on it.

Well, Endless Legend is supposted to be really High Fantasy ("High" as in intoxicated, not noble), especially as later on in the game everything gets really magic-punky to the point you have a medieval UN and magical fridges. There's no place in it for something as gritty as pike and shot.

the Guardians
learn what different minor factions offer and how their units work and you will have significantly more effective armies because you can actually set up what you described

Frankly, if I knew how bad the combat was and that pike and shot wasn't possible, I wouldn't have bothered getting it.
The town building system is fun, but the rest is annoying, and that problem with the AI constantly being behind me despite me having huge advantages really pisses me off.

Meh. I always go for the eyeless (the ranged healers) and the driders because Kumo.

>AI constantly being behind me

What the fuck are you doing procrastinating here instead of working on your Large Hardon Collider duties faggot

thats fucking lame, though. I love the looks of some of the factions but they only have 3-4 units and you're forced to pick up all these shitty minor faction units.
thats perfectly fine because theres a huge amount of units to choose from.

I can't help it! I'm just bad at turn based games!
I don't sense the urgency, I'm ironically low to react to events, I neglect checking my building queues while fighting...
I'm just bad at these Civ games. I always end up micromanaging my towns and forget about the rest.

has no one cracked the Stellaris: Plantoids DLC or what? i'm not buying that

Dead generals are the comfiest though so who cares.

>huge amount of units to choose from
Is it really a choice when most of them are so bad as to be unusable though?

rollan

...

you forgot traits user

It's bugged and wouldn't let me have them

They should reuse ideas from RPGs and RTS to be honest. To my knowledge, Endless Legend is the only game where you can have a paper/scissor/stone system by giving anti-infantry weapons to your units. Civ6 could benefit from having a similar system.

Hell they had something like that with SMAC. Sure most of your units ended up being glass cannons but mixed with a rock paper scissors system like you said it could work out pretty well.
>choose between type with infantry/horse
>weapons spear/bow/sword
>couple of optional slots to have unit come with certain promotions baked in at much increased production cost as well as a few unique upgrades not obtainable otherwise
Imagine being able to make spearmen with a caltrops upgrade preventing horse units from moving at full speed away from them.

Although that would probably result in an early game meta of horse archers until gunpowder just like in real life

>Imagine being able to make spearmen with a caltrops upgrade preventing horse units from moving at full speed away from them.
My hips are moving on their own.

What would be fun would be if you could have some synergies between the units.
For example (and I'm pulling that idea from Dark Souls), let's say you give torture tools to an infantry unit. Not weapons, but torture tools.
They cause less damage, but cause wounds and demoralize enemy units, who then would be more vulnerable to your fighting units.

Added bonus, you could get some super upgrades like nerve gas for huge anti infantry bonuses or salt the earth as a super pillage that completely rapes a tile into an unusable state. Except they carry huge diplomatic penalties and overuse using them at all will likely have the entire world after you.

Dunno about the salt the earth part, but I'd really like more synergy.
Especially in Civilization, since the 1 unit per tile system make placement so important, you would think units would get better bonuses if they're supported or flanked by friendlies, but no, the fight is extremely basic and relies more on the terrain.

I was just spitballing random shit. It'd certainly be nice to have options though with the more extreme ones being more polarizing with a huge benefit and equally large downside whether in production costs or diplomacy or a huge glaring weakness that can be easily exploited.

Well, Stellaris has upgrades like that. For example, you can build drones to upgrade your armies' attacks.
But they're just bonus, they don't unlock skills or anything of the sort.

Should I bother upgrading my transport ships?
How about science and construction? I don't imagine sensor range does anything for them but the auto-complete gives it to them.

What game?

I don't think Stellaris has transport ships, and Civ5 doesn't have sensors, so are you talking about Distant Worlds?

Stellaris.
The transport ships for when you embark armies.
Just like the science and construction ships they only have a fission reactor and piss poor defenses.
I was wondering if it's worth it to make them more expensive but upgrade their speed and all that.

Maybe their speed, yeah. Upgrading their defense probably isn't worth it.

Never noticed transports ships to be honest famalam.

It's worth upgrading them all. Transport shops is no contest because they cost zero: the best design in your Ship Designer spawns for free when armies lose planets. As for construction and science ships, the convenience of having them move about substantially faster (and therefore finish your mining stations / be able to get back to Assisting Research) more than makes up for the cost.

Man endless legend is fun as fuck. I wish I'd started playing it a lot earlier.

I think it's pretty good. It definitely has some room to improve though. Looking forward to Endless Space 2.

Agreed.

I just finished my Fanatic Spiritualist / Xenophobic Birds with Divine Mandate.

What should I play next?

Glad to see Endless Legend getting the attention it deserves. I've really been enjoying the expansions since I picked them up during the Steam summer sale. Most recent game I put winters on anarchic difficulty. Watching my empire barely survive while several of the AIs slowly disintegrate during the ridiculous winters is really fun.

Shit.
I've forgotten about assist research.
70 years into the game and I still have 2 science ships.
Well, one now. The other exploded.

2 is the correct number. Your leader slots are better reserved for governors than >5 scientists

try to win using not collectivist or xenophobe

As I get a bit bigger and start seeing more options for increased number of leaders I will start running around with 3 or 4 science ships since it can take a very long time to get a science ship across the empire to scan debris or survey a star system. But, that's usually not until at least 70 to 100 years in.

I've been away from my gaming computer for a month.

Has Paradox added glassing yet?

HOL' UP
YOU BE SAYIN' WE WUZ ASTRONAUTS AND KANGZ AND SHIET

lesgo

So I have been playing Civ V for 30+ hours (in anticipation for Civ VI) and I know the basic concepts, but some advanced stuff still escapes my control.
Is there a comfy video guide for concepts like great persons, faith and religion, diplomacy, trading, caravans, etc.
I watched Quill18's videos of basic stuff and I understood yhr basics, but he doesn't have more tutorials.

there's a mod called exterminatus that does

What do you mean? How things like great people and stuff work? Or how best to use them and specialists and stuff?

Things like that.
What are specialists? How are great people exactly generated? How useful are they? Should I concentrate in them?
I have this kind of questions in almost every "advanced aspect of Civ V. I know abou the Carls guide, but I'm looking for someone that shows what he explains.

If you're doing this in anticipation for ciVI then those things are changing a lot and it's not really worth it.

Personally I've learned a lot about ciV from watching streamers like BabaYetu and Filthyrobot, but they focus on multiplayer and not on how to deal with the AI. Might be better to watch someone like Marbozir.

Just watch an actual playthrough then.
Also it's usually fine to leave your cities on auto-pilot except in the beginning where you're trying to squeeze things out.
They'll focus on the great people for you.

Daily EIGHT DOLLAR PLANT PORTRAITS post

Eight. Dollar. Portraits.

>$8 is £6.11
>only £5 in britain
Based Brexit

Filthyrobot has some great guides on youtube that really helped smarten my game up. Like says he's mostly multiplayer but a lot of the concepts like why certain beliefs are good etc transfer over so they're still excellent for single player understanding.

Here's his religion video. It's long as fuck though over an hour but he covers literally every belief in the game in it with in depth reasoning on why certain ones are OP as shit and others are garbage you want to avoid with a 10ft pole. His other videos are equally long but equally in depth.
youtube.com/watch?v=R42Xtr2Vfww

One thing I don't recall hearing in his videos is how important internal trade routes are. An internal land route early on with a granary up is 6 food which is a farm on floodplains wheat out of nowhere which is pretty insane growth to give to a city. And more population=more science which is ridiculously important.

Brace you'reself.

>What are specialists?
Certain buildings like the market or workshop or university or the 3 guilds come with specialist slots. If you put a citizen in the slot instead of having them work a tile in your empire they will generate points towards your great people and earn a yield associated with the great person (scientist specialists yield science, merchant specialists yield gold). Eventually a great person will be born, what you do with that great person is up to you.
>Great Prophets
You can found a religion or enhance one, spread your religion, or create a holy site on the tile they are on. You probably want to found a religion and then enhance with your first 2. After that it's up to you. If you have full piety then I would recommend creating holy sites with your prophets, otherwise spread the religion.
>Great Scientists
You should prioritize getting these if you can. They are useful all of the time. They can either create an academy or generate science equal to the last 8 turns. In the early game you want to plant academies, after that you want to bulb them for science.
>Great Engineers
These are slightly less important that scientists, but are still important. They can either hurry production in a city, or create a manufactory. You usually want to just hurry production for a wonder, but sometimes you want to plant the manufactory. The production is based off of your city population, so a 3 pop city won't be able to one-turn a late game wonder. If you get one early then you should plant it unless you have a powerful early or midgame wonder in mind.
>Great Merchant
These generally aren't that useful. If you do get one you should probably plant the customs house, but if there's a city state that has some luxuries that you need for other city state quests or a king's day in your capital then you should do the trade mission with that city state if it will get you to ally status, or you just need short term gold.

>Great Artists
Can start a golden age or make a great work of art. Unless you want to do a culture victory then you should just do golden ages whenever possible. If you get a great artist before renaissance/industrial era try to save it until you get there since the production boost during that time when you have a ton of stuff to build is really good.
>Great Writers
Can generate culture or make a great work of writing. Again, unless you want to do a culture victory, just generate culture. The culture is equal to the last 8 turns worth of culture, so doing them on the last turn of a golden age is really good, also consider saving them until you get to ideologies so you can get the first 3 or 4 tenants.
>Great Musicians
Doodoo, avoid generating these unless you want to win a culture victory. They can only create great works of music or perform concerts in other people's territory which makes a lot of tourism for everyone.
>Great Generals and Admirals
These aren't made by specialists, they are earned through combat. They give a 15% combat bonus to units within 2 tiles of them, and generals can be planted to create a citadel which steals adjacent tiles and makes them part of your empire. Admirals can be bulbed to repair boats around it, kind of useless.

>Tips for planting great people
You should plant them on tiles that you are already working, duplicate luxuries or strategic or bonus resources. If you plant them on a strategic resource you gain that strategic resource. Avoid planting them on fresh water tiles (tiles adjacent to rivers or lakes) since you generally want to make those into farms, and if you are planting them on a quarry resource, make sure you've already built the stone works in that city if you can.
If you've made a lot of great people and are running out of tiles to plant you should prioritize grassland>plains>hills>fresh water stuff in that order.

>Religion
You generate faith to get a pantheon, then a great prophet to found a religion. After that you can either get another great prophet, or missionaries and inquisitors or faith buildings or great people depending on your policies.
You should try to build a shrine in the very early game to at least get a pantheon, even if you don't plan on getting a religion. The pantheons can be broken down into 2 groups, faith generating and non-faith generating. If you get a faith generating pantheon you are probably looking to get a religon, while the non-faith generating pantheons will give you an early game boost while being as likely to get you a religion (unless you are ethiopia or the celts or maya). If you see a really good faith generating one like desert folklore or earth mother you should take that, otherwise go for one of the other ones. The tundra pantheon is terrible, don't get it. When in doubt, take God-King.
When you get a religion you usually want to take one of the 3 gold generating founder beliefs since they are much better than the other ones. Tithe > church property > initiation rites. After that you usually want a building to spend your faith on. Pagodas are the clear best building, followed by mosques. Cathedrals are really mediocre and monasteries are terrible unless you combo it with the wine and incense pantheon and have a lot of the stuff. Other good beliefs are the religious community one, or feed the world, or any of the other happiness ones.

>Diplomacy and Trading
Just don't do it. The AI is finickity and retarded. In the early game you can usually trade one of your duplicate luxuries for one of theirs. Try and trade embassies too, and when they start harassing you for open borders just accept it since they will keep harassing you, there's no drawback since they usually don't ever come into your land and they'll stop harassing you about it. Whenever you do something that upsets them say "We're sorry this has caused a divide between us." then ignore them and keep doing whatever you were doing. Eventually you will get to a point where the overvalue their luxuries and won't trade evenly with you so just ignore them at that point. Some AIs are massive cunts. Augustus and Alexander will settle every tile on the map eventually. Askia, Attila and Shaquille O'Neal will attack you every 20 turns. Genghis Khan will conquer that city state you were allies with. Dido will make a public declaration of friendship with you, then denounce you the next turn. Just ignore them whenever possible and do your own thing.

>Caravans
Most of the time you want to just do internal trade routes. Feeding your capital or maybe some other underfed shithole corner of your empire. Try to get them as soon as possible without sabotaging your overall building goals.
You need a granary to send food trade routes and a workshop to send hammer trade routes. For the first 3/4 of the game you are sending food ones, for the last 1/4 you are sending hammer ones. If you are desperate for gold, or there is a trade route quest from a city state, you should trade with the city state once, or until your gold has stabilized. Cargo ships are better than Caravans in every way and you should build them over caravans if you can. Watch out for large patches of fog of war where barbarians could spawn and plunder your shit. It's annoying.

>General tips
Try to settle your cities on hills wherever possible, it gives one bonus hammer. Rivers are also really good. Another good thing to remember is that you can settle cities on resources, especially luxuries. The AI and the suggester thing that's in the game thinks this is a cardinal sin and will never do it, but it's often beneficial to do so, just avoid food bonus luxuries like deer or sheep or wheat if you can, since they don't contribute their yield to the city, while stone or luxuries or strategic resources do.
A general idea for settling a city is "will this city pay for itself before the game has ended?" if it will then settle it, if it won't then don't.
Get your national college as soon as you can, usually in your capital. It's really, really good. Get workshops as soon as you can, too. They are also really good. Other than that you should try to prioritise science buildings whenever you can.
More food is more citizens which is more science which is more everything.

Have fun.

Why is EL dead
What went wrong

pls get qt

ew no thanks. I'll keep playing my current game thank you very much. Ethiopia is disgusting

Apparently it is too hard for some people.

Interesting.

I'm China about to go to war with Mongolia and I just got gifted Ghengis Khan as a great person from a City-State.