/civ4xg/ - Civilization, Stellaris, Endless Legend and 4X Games General

...

>be chilling out in my empire researching and shit
>suddenly fanatical purifiers declare war on me
>defend myself and my galaxy by wiping them out
>somehow I'M the bad guy

A premise I guess?

What is the HPM of Stellaris?

Is /4x/ and /gsg/ retarded or something? Why do you assume that genocide is justified in self defense? It isn't.

When you are attacked you respond with overwhelming force to eliminate the force. However you DO NOT wipe out the entire culture and large civilian population of your enemy from the face of the galaxy forever. It is a psychotic and violent action to do this; removing the government in power and forcing them to disarm or putting them into a state of permanent peace (ie; RL Japan) is an appropriate response, not genocide.

Your empire is not filled with automatons, and neither is the enemy's. They are filled with people who get very concerned when somebody gets stung by a bee and their response is to exterminate every last bee on the face of the Earth.

>tfw stellaris doesn't have liquor

>removing the government in power and forcing them to disarm or putting them into a state of permanent peace (ie; RL Japan)

That sounds like a fate worse than genocide desu

Good ol pen and paper.
Flesh that shit out, set an end goal for the final product and then make stepping stone goals to achieve it.
Start with what you want it to be, then work backwards on "what don't I have yet? What do I need to get here"

>Decide to play Stellaris for the first time
>Make an extremely xenophobic and militaristic race to purge the galaxy because edgy
>Meet first ayyliens
>Fallen Empire
>They hate my guts
>"O-okay, i guess that's because they are Fallen and xenophobic like myself"
>Meet normal empires
>They also hate me
>Meet 2 more aliens
>Hate my shit and make a non-agression pact
>Suddenly everyone rivals me
>Suddenly everyone has a superior fleet to me
>Suddenly I'm fucked

Jesus Christ my sides, why did I make so many terrible choices. Any recommendation for when I start an actual game instead of something doomed to failure?

You didn't make any terrible choices
that's how the AI always is

So I'm doomed to being hated by everyone and always having an inferior fleet no matter what? Because the other empires seem to always build shit faster and myself.

Typical 4x game play. They can't make functional AI so they just give them unfair bonuses and make them illogically hate you to make it "difficult"

You always spawn next to empire that are hostile to you.
That's Paradox's idea of a challenging game : make the AI always hostile to you so that spying and diplomacy are useless, and give them advantages so that you're always outclassed in science and military stuff.

I'm assuming outcheating the AI is acceptable while I'm a newfag and learning the ropes, then?

AI war make this into a positive desu. The AI is always capable of destroying you in an instant and the game turns into one of managing 'threat' and carrying out small precise strikes. Its the only work around for AI always being inferior to Human players ive seen

I guess, but you'll get used to cheating.

I never finished a single AI War game, but it's still one of my favorite strategy games because it doesn't pretend to be balanced.

>Figure Civ6 is close enough to start looking into to get hype
>All these people crying about unstacked cities
>'Waaaah! It will be harder to defend cities like that!'

GOOD! Just piling everything into a single tile is retarded anyway.

>I never finished a single AI War game
This is me. It looks so cool and I like the idea the game presents but I just can't get through much of a game. Its too stressful

who is even saying shit like that? is it reddit?

And there's always that one moment where you're stuck because there's a fortress protected by a shield and all your bombers are murdered before they can get near.
But yeah, unbalanced games like that are the best, because you know the AI doesn't play by your rules, so you can afford to play differently.

You know what else is fun? Get Unreal Tournament 2004, install the Ballistic mod (adds MANY weapons), and get in Invasion mode.
There are few things as fun as splattering a skaarj with an artillery cannon or setting up a gatling gun and shooting fireflies down the sky.
Unbalanced gameplay like that is really fun.

Not an argument.

>being a faggot
Genocide doesn't need to be justified.

>leave enemy alive to harass you at a later date
Or
>eliminate the threat entirely

>being literally a sociopath

>'Waaaah! It will be harder to defend cities like that!'

Anyone who complains about that just needs to git gud.

complains like that, I mean.

How much micromanagement is too much? How big of a scale is too big? Thoughts on "alternate dimensions" like in Warlock?

Has anyone resolved this challenge before?
This is the third time I've gotten it and I've forgotten what the first two choices I made were

In real human situations I agree. However you do need to realize that a lot of video game universes, especially sci-fi 4x games, contain species that will literally always be threats to you no matter what government they have. Shit like Necrophages, Cravers, and some of the random Stellaris races are always going to come around and try to eat humans sooner or later no matter who's in charge. The only way to protect yourself from something fundamentally opposed to your existence is to destroy it first and forever. Many of these enemies have entire cultures and individuals and so on but they're inevitably going to try to eat you again as long as they live, so you better buckle up and wipe them out.

so lads

where can i "acquire" stellaris' OST?

>buying a civ game on launch after civ 5 and beyond shit

>buying

unless the game has a proper vassal system there's not much reason to do that, like in civ 5 if some asshole declares war on you your options are to take some of his cities in which case he is your bitter enemy for the rest of the game and will keep warring you until he takes them back, take his capital in which case the threat is neutralized but he will still be your bitter enemy for the rest of the game and will constantly denounce denounce denounce without actually doing anything (sort of like the palestinians now that I think about it) or you can just conquer him outright at which point the whole world will denounce you and will chime in every fucking turn to ask for 3 resources for 2 gold.

piracy is morally unjustifiable, if you don't want the game don't buy it but to acquire it for free is wrong

intellectual property has value

Good thing I don't care.

"Who gives a shit"

So you acknowledge that your actions are morally unjustifiable and hurt others yet you still do them?

>morally unjustifiable
To who? Morality isn't absolute.
>hurt others
Like all humans, I don't care because the 'others' I'm hurting has no connection to me.

Youtube

whatever floats you boat man

Am I supposed to care about "hurting" others? How exactly does it hurt them anyway? Am I taking their money from them? Taking property from them (hint - a copy of the game leaves the original behind)?
Just buy it if you care so much. I know I will unless launch reviews are just that fucking bad.

>morality isn't absolute
alright then, explain to me how piracy is morally justifiable

What is "morality"? What does "wrong" mean?

>explain to me how piracy is morally justifiable
Well to explain that we have to agree on what the criteria for making something morally unjustifiable means.
Then we have to figure out why the fuck morality should even be a strong factor.

What does "justifiable" mean?

I was never a customer. I'll pick up CIV VI two years from now when it's on sale for 75% off.

Define your terms first you dumb face poopynose

>morally justifiable
Literally pic related

>inb4 absolutely furious wall of text

>Am I supposed to care about "hurting" others?
as a moral person yes, yes you are

>how exactly does it hurt them anyway
loss of revenue takes money right out of their pocket.

that's for you to decide, but as far as I'm concerned there's no way to justify illicitly acquiring for free content someone made as their livelihood. Can you justify it?

because without morality there cannot be a just society, which as humans should be a guiding principle

question still stands

which terms, you want me to define morality?

>as a moral person yes, yes you are
I'm not a moral person.

>loss of revenue takes money right out of their pocket.
No it doesn't. Attend the first class of Econ 101. It takes money they could have earned away from them, it doesn't take money from them.

>because without morality there cannot be a just society, which as humans should be a guiding principle
Top fucking kek. I disagree with your notion of morality. There we go.

>which terms, you want me to define morality?
We want you to define what is meant by 'morally justifiable', i.e. state your moral values that not every human shares and no human is obligated to share.

What is the point of this post? Are you implying there's something wrong with having a discussion?

>which terms, you want me to define morality?
Yes. Define what you consider "morality."

I triple dog dare you.

>which terms, you want me to define morality?
Do it faggot, people have been trying and failing to set an agreeable standard for morality and trying to figure out where it comes from and all that for millennia

>absolutely livid

Pirating the game until I buy it on a Steam sale doesn't matter. Until that point I don't exist because I am not a customer willing to pay full price.

>loss of revenue takes money right out of their pocket.
It actually fucking doesn't. If I'm pirating the game that means that for whatever reason I'm not currently willing to pay the list price for the game. I'm merely a potential customer at that point but my judgement of what the game is worth is less than the list price.
If I pirate it, they get 0% of the list price from me.
If I don't pirate it I'm not buying it, so they get 0% of the list prince from me.

Lets keep that definition focused on the dicsussion at hand for now, I consider it very important to pay for intellectual property you consume instead of acquiring it for free by illicit means, to me that's freeloading simply because you can. If I like something I'll contribute to it so more of that kind of content is created, if I don't like something I'll stop supporting it.

Perhaps my views on this are a bit more hard edged than most because I worked in the video game industry and saw the unbelievable man hours and level of dedication present in making even some shitty shovelware.

I just don't understand how someone can look at what it takes to make these games and say there's nothing wrong with getting it for free. Doubly so if they enjoy these games and want more of them, how will that be possible without financial support?

Now this is an interesting one to me, would you still have been so unwilling to pay full price if you couldn't acquire it by other means?

That's what I find so curious about Denuvo, publishers get it not because they think it's pirate proof but because they know it will take weeks or months to crack and many people with a mentality similar to yours cave and buy it.

>if I don't like something I'll stop supporting it

This is the important bit. Pirating is still supporting it, and you should never support garbage. Not with your money, and certainly not with your time.

>saw the unbelievable man hours and level of dedication present in making even some shitty shovelware.
Why should anyone give a fuck? You understand how economics works right? You understand it's not based off pity or hard work but off the value of the product as we see it right?

>I just don't understand how someone can look at what it takes to make these games and say there's nothing wrong with getting it for free.
Nobody fucking looks at what it takes to make these games. Nobody SHOULD look at what it takes to make these games. Go back to Econ 101 or fuck listen to the Civ IV quote. Everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it. What matters is the product, I don't care if you literally lost your entire family while working on it or if a thousand people worked 80 hour weeks for three years. If the product isn't worth it then I won't be buying it, but that doesn't mean I won't pirate it if it's marginally interesting to me.

>Doubly so if they enjoy these games and want more of them, how will that be possible without financial support?
People who 'enjoy' the games and want to 'support' the company can nonetheless pirate shit to buy at a later date whether because they think the game is too expensive or because they want a demo.
There's also cases like /gs/ games, where we wish Paradox would die in a fire.

For many people yes, they are actually unwilling.

That's not for you to decide. Some people think it is worth their time but not worth their money, or because they have nothing else to spend their time on, or whatever.

I always wait for steam sales.

So.

How about that Civilization, huh?

>the moral police have arrived
Please fuck off forever just buy the games or pirate the games if you care so much you're not going to convince anyone on fucking Veeky Forums do really think either of you're saying anything new that the other guy hasn't already thought of

no one is stopping you from discussing them

take your own advice faggot

>get told to take your morality vs. piracy bullshit elsewhere because it's off topic
>no u
So which one are you

>You understand how economics works right? You understand it's not based off pity or hard work but off the value of the product as we see it right?
What are you saying here, are you saying you pirate because you feel intellectual property has no intrinsic value?

You say that games are only worth as much as people will pay for them, and if you were talking about waiting for steam sales I'd agree with you that it's the consumer's prerogative to wait until they find the price more to their liking, but what we're talking about it piracy, illicitly acquiring content for free that was intended for sale. When you do that you are no longer a customer, you're a thief.

You there! Join me. Together we can rule the worldz.

>get told to fuck off and die
>doesn't fuck off and die

Theodora is such a slut.

Nothing has "intrinsic value", that's kind of the fucking point of free market economics.

>You say that games are only worth as much as people will pay for them, and if you were talking about waiting for steam sales I'd agree with you that it's the consumer's prerogative to wait until they find the price more to their liking
Which many pirates including me literally do, and I'm not even inclined to pirate Civilization VI unless there's some major fucking issues with launch.

>illicitly acquiring content for free that was intended for sale.
This isn't relevant.

>When you do that you are no longer a customer, you're a thief.
You remain a potential customer.
>thief
So...what did I steal from them? Next you'll tell me painting a copy of the Mona Lisa is somehow stealing it.

Rude.

does saying how dare you actually change anything?

get this alt-right propaganda out of here goyim

I think it makes her not ask again and a bit angery

How the fuck did anyone fall for that shit

I'm surprised it happened to Pepe since he was spread over Tumblr, Reddit and Veeky Forums like a dirty whore. Was he not familiar enough?

That's my point.

you don't need to physically steal something to be a thief, I've always hated how rigidly pirates cling to those semantics while at the same time saying they don't care about morality or societal norms like the value of intellectual property, man hours, or basic economic conventions like paying for things that people put up for sale

if you don't care then why are you so adamant about not being called a thief?

why did this election have to become such a fucking joke?

Because thief is a loaded word that implies things that are not inline with reality. If you want to call pirates "immoral" or "scumbags" or "freeloaders", whatever, but thief is just factually inaccurate.

We've come full circle. Normies will abandon it. This is Veeky Forums getting it back, where it rightfully belongs.

I'm not adamant about not being called a thief, I'm simply correcting you. Thieves directly harm others in exchange for gain. Pirates deny benefits to others in exchange for gain. Big difference. I don't care if you call pirates assholes or freeloaders but thief is actually just clean out wrong.

>value of intellectual property
Which is nil according to free market theory and basic common sense. I should be sued for making a Warhammer game because I didn't ask GW for their permission? Why the fuck do I need their permission?

>man hours
Not relevant.

>basic economic conventions
The funny thing about this basic economic convention is that it actually doesn't include not taking "copies" of the original for free, and that the only time these copies are a problem is when they're passed for government items like currency. A fake Picasso isn't morally wrong, because everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it and marketing is part of the way we try to boost the value of our items.

and why is that?

blame /pol/ and reddit.

Literally who cares, only fags give a shit about "keeping memes"

Because it was a joke from the beginning, all three candidates were living memes

Thieves steal. Pirates copy.
One of them steals the Mona Lisa. The other gets someone to draw copies of the mona lisa and takes these freely distributed copies.

I can see what you're getting at, but if you argue that intellectual property should have no value and be completely free to everyone because it's not a physical commodity then what possible incentive is there to create? Sure you'll have hobbyists, but I want more than what people can make in their spare time.

And I suppose this comes full circle back to my original point about piracy being morally reprehensible. You're right (if you were the one saying so) that moral absolutes are silly, and perhaps I was a bit too much on a high horse, but it is frustrating to me as someone who strongly believes in using my wallet to support the things I like so that more of it will be created in the future, that others take such a radically different view simply because they can.

And conversely I intend to hold off on buying civ 6 until its got some expansions and shit because of my experience with civ5 and BE, but if others like you just pirate in the meantime it worries me that fireaxis will see that and say oh its just entitled greedy poorfags who were never going to buy our game anyway, obviously there's nothing wrong with our policy of releasing broken games. That's my perspective anyway.

Well there we go I met someone half way in an internet argument, it put my body in physical pain to do so.

>what incentive is there to create?
Welcome to the original reason copyrights and patents became a thing.

>it is frustrating to me as someone who strongly believes in using my wallet to support the things I like so that more of it will be created in the future, that others take such a radically different view simply because they can.
The world has many different views, and I'll let you in on a little secret - the only two reasons anyone does anything, ever, is because they both can and want to ("want to" here including the concept of what is and isn't possible in the situation). "Supporting with your wallet" is something many pirates actually believe in too, that's why they don't buy the games because they think the company making them isn't deserving, or sometimes they buy the base game but play on a pirated version because DLC practices or whatever (hello Koei and fuck you with your 200 dollarydoo cosmetic DLC).

>Fireaxis will see that and say oh its just entitled greedy poorfags who were never going to buy our game anyway, obviously there's nothing wrong with our policy of releasing broken games.
They won't see that, mainly because mixed into the 'entitled poorfags' will be people who actually have legit complaints and they will make these complaints heard. Even if you were to buy the games or just boycott them Firaxis doesn't care, what matters is the bottom line which doesn't actually vary between pirates and people who don't buy (pirates might actually make it higher since they sometimes decide to relent).

>And conversely I intend to hold off on buying civ 6 until its got some expansions and shit because of my experience with civ5 and BE, but if others like you just pirate in the meantime it worries me that fireaxis will see that and say oh its just entitled greedy poorfags who were never going to buy our game anyway, obviously there's nothing wrong with our policy of releasing broken games. That's my perspective anyway.
Not the guy you were arguing with, but I'd like to attack this one point. I think you have a poor understanding of how games are funded. If Civ6 comes out and no one buys, the company will just assume that no one wants Civ games anymore or that they don't want the particular experience they were trying to market.

I think you're putting too much meaning into your money. A company can't tell just from your decision not to buy something why you chose not to buy it. All they know is that they either did or did not make money, the intent of the sale is completely unknowable.

>what matters is the bottom line which doesn't actually vary between pirates and people who don't buy
you think so?

I'm just always reminded of what happened with Gears of War on PC. If you recall that game was a pretty massive flop and was at the time the most pirated game in PC history (a title later taken by Spore) this did not go unnoticed by Epic who swore never to develop for PC ever again despite originally being a PC exclusive studio back in the day. There was an interview with Cliffy B where he went even further insulting PC gamers directly calling them entitled and a lost cause, among other things.

Lost in all this was the question of why it became the most pirated game of all time. GoW was a third person shooter, which right off the bat are not particularly popular on PC, it was released on GFWL back when that had a monthly subscription, it was not released on steam, and worst of all rumors had spread that it was a poorly optimized port but there was no demo or benchmarking tool to disprove this.

Are Firaxis as dumb as Epic? I'd like to think not, but as I said Epic had been PC exclusive devs themselves initially, Jill of the Jungle was fantastic.

I don't want more devs scared away from developing on PC simply because they took piracy way too personally.

>I don't want more devs scared away from developing on PC simply because they took piracy way too personally.
You're never going to stop that. The fact of the matter is that piracy is an easy scapegoat for devs or producers who don't want to blame themselves for why their product isn't meeting expectations.

You gave an excellent example of this with GoW. Epic provided a shitty service with their game, and people went around. So Epic and Cliffy B throw a bitchfit, blame their customers for their own shortcomings, and then take their ball and go home, instead doing what any smart company would do and figuring out why people were pirating their games and taking steps to fix that.

Steam is a good example of how effective that is. They found that the overwhelming majority of people who pirate their games were people in shit-tier countries where they didn't have good infrastructure. So what does Valve do? They improve their infrastructure and support in those countries and piracy drops like a stone.

The truth is that there will always be pirates, people pirate for many reasons, from being poor, to being entitled, to just not being properly catered to as customers. A savvy business owner will recognize this and make corrections to tap into this consumer base. The businesses that get scared of piracy are just try use it as a cop out and your really shouldn't support their behavior.

>"Portugal has lost its Capital" announcment appears
>But they're not at war with anybody
>Scroll over to find Sydney now in charge
Go, Aussies, go

>this thread

Reminds me of an achievement I saw on the list about getting your city captured by barbarians and ransomed back to you. Has it ever actually happened to anybody?