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

I don't think problem of Stellaris is geography. I think it's problem is that they wanted modular system for factions but forrgot what's really important about them. You don't need major gameplay differences for factions to be unique, you need flavour. Historical games get off easy, they have loads of flavor "for free", merely at the cost of lives of all poor sods who died for the flag throughout history. With fantasy/sf games this isn't so.

Let's look at SMAC - do you folks realise that difference between two SMAC factions and two stellaris factions are more or less the same? You can easly reproduce the whole lot in stellaris engine, plus minus one or two exceptions. Yet they FELT radically different. They breathed flavour, the entire game did. Stellaris on the other hand feels like someone made TVtropes/scifi page into a cheecklist and went over it whilst slpapping graphics and mediocre gameplay on top of it.

civ6 and epic length btw

no, I checked the tech tree and then picked the technology in the same turn

Anyone have a gif of Victoria throwing her tantrum?

How come my districts sometimes have negative amounts of build progress?

Why can't Oxford Uni be built here?

You can't build shit over strategic resources

W-will you be my wife's coalminer?

Actually its not even just districts. Whats going on here?

>some things are not updated until a turn passes
yeah, that was the culprit, it's fine now.

How come the tooltip doesn't specify it needs to be built on flat land?

The problem with Stellaris isn't the factions but the ethos, they don't play differently at all, one could be a fanatical pacifist or a fanatical militarist but they will go through the same motions throughout the entire game

The events and different responses to them do help flesh out but that alone is not enough, gameplay gotta be different as well.

I saw in one of the dev diaries that they plan on revamping the ethics part of the game in the next major patch so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I'm pretty sure Oxford says that it needs to be build on flat land. I built it a few games ago and I remember reading that

Nah it just says grasslands or plains.

...

I am fond of maps

Your point is potentially correct, but I don't really know what can be done about it in Stellaris' case. You can have a thousand flavourful factions in EUIV because all the flavour's in wikipedia. And in SMAC you have 7 flavourful factions because with just 7 you can actually design them carefully. But in Stellaris? Not so much.

>Monti gives me some "we're not so different, you and I" speech, a turn later I farm a luxury resource and he's ready to denounce me.

I want to share with my friend who hasn't bought it yet.

I am fond of 2016 remasters looking worse than 4x games

Honestly thinking that Arabia is the best civ desu

>infinite faith
>infinite science
>top-tier theme

>that many ships
>that little power
wut

I only have this

>The problem with Stellaris isn't the factions but the ethos, they don't play differently at all, one could be a fanatical pacifist or a fanatical militarist but they will go through the same motions throughout the entire game
And I'm telling you you don't need gameplay difference for factions to be different. And ethos are closest thing to factions we have, outside of those mockups it comes preloaded with. I would love meaningful gameplay differences between factions/ethos but you don't NEED it.
>The events and different responses to them do help flesh out but that alone is not enough, gameplay gotta be different as well.
Again, look at civ, look at smac, look at dozens of other 4x games where it isn't. They all have their own flaws, but unique flavour, such as music, art, and writing, of the factions save them from feeling the same.
>I saw in one of the dev diaries that they plan on revamping the ethics part of the game in the next major patch so I'm cautiously optimistic.
I suspect since they seem hellbound on staying the course the only way for stellaris to become good, is about 2 years of gradual patching into something with enough gameplay elements to overlook lackluster atmosphere.

>The problem with Stellaris isn't the factions but the ethos, they don't play differently at all, one could be a fanatical pacifist or a fanatical militarist but they will go through the same motions throughout the entire game

I used to think this was the problem, but consider Civ. Do the Aztecs play in any fundamental way differently to Korea? No. All the mechanics are the same, there's some moderate bonus that one gets to war that the other gets to peace - exactly like Stellaris gives bonus peacetime happiness to pacifists and bonus wartime happiness to militarists.

So I don't think it can be as simple as that.

>enjoying hon hon garbage

Arabia is good but it cant deal with Horse fuckers.

You will note there are no battleships.
This was a game where the tech cards screwed me over and I didn't draw battleships until like 2400

>I suspect since they seem hellbound on staying the course the only way for stellaris to become good, is about 2 years of gradual patching into something with enough gameplay elements to overlook lackluster atmosphere.

Sadly, that also applies to every Paradox game, Crusader Kings 2 may be the GOAT game right now but it took years to get there.

*2450
Shit was ridiculous

Stellaris is Paradox's fastest selling game ever so I think its safe to say that they will be supporting it for years to come.

why is your galaxy center slurping the area of influence

fuck's sake when will the wiki update
is there a list of all the new strategic resources in heinlein?

I agree that CK2 is excellent, but in all honesty it got to GOAT with the Old Gods (at latest). Rajas onwards has just been irrelevant bloat that adds nothing to the core gameplay, just a bunch of "Dude Uyghurs Lmao" randoms that mostly just eat up processor time.

nah
this game is all about production, because everything takes fuck forever to build and barring great luck with resources its hard to get any reliable production

likewise, the best civs in the game are Sycthians (2 for 1 on strongest type of unit), Aztec (literal free builders that can rush districts) and Germany (Hansa is fucking insanely good)

> cleopatra porn when?

also:
> tfw build colosseum and didn't check know it needed to be close to the other cities

>cleopatra porn when?
I'm waiting for the sfm people to get on that.

Because Wiz is not a very good coder

Black Holes gotta eat too

>But in Stellaris? Not so much.
you can flavour out the ideologies with additional ethic specific techs

also you can do stuff for the three biomes i.e. wet/dry/cold

>Sadly, that also applies to every Paradox game, Crusader Kings 2 may be the GOAT game right now but it took years to get there.

I don't think I can agree with this. Not because Paradox doesn't release underkooked games, but because paradox releases prior to stellaris felt underkooked in a different way.

Take CK2 It was never lacking in atmosphere or depth really, it was lacking in polish and breadth. Like a house with a window missing, toilet malfunctioning and a garden so abandoned you need a machete to break through.

With stellaris it's different, it feels like a newly build appartment. It's clean, it's empty, it's soulless.

It's up to individuals to decide which is better.
And I really need to do some decorating in my room now that I think about it.

Good for it, I will keep calling it boring tho untill it stops being so.

>is there a list of all the new strategic resources in heinlein?
Err... yeah. Here is the list of new strategic resources in Heinlein:
>

Scaling production costs or something.

ok fine smartass
which ones are strategic vs local

rule 34 when

>try for mezari win
>drakken or wild walkers win every time
JUST

why is there SO fucking little production in this game

I literally can only make stuff for as long as I have trees to chop and once they're gone it just grinds to a fucking halt

>Gorgo shakes her Spartas at me

Does she want it, lads?

I'm sure that will crop up too, but I just want her angry animation for a reaction gif.

>what are lumbermills

Betharian and Xeno Pets local.
Everything else global, I think.

There is a reason why pmuch all grognards agree that germany is A tier and rushing apprenticeship is the way to go every game.

>what are lumbermills come far too late in the game to not chop trees instead

Literally the best girl

There's fucking NOTHING and the games been out for a week (or more?) now. I'm upset.

I am fond of milfs.

Don't you mean ?

Anyone have that image of the title "Civilization VI" that was slapped over some random anime (possible some other style) mobile/facebook game. It had a ton of civ leaders with big boobs and stuff if that helps.

Saw that Betharian and Xeno pets have moved on to be just tile resources.

That's about it really

is this penis ring

I wish she was more muscular, would've done wonders to my dick

>wanting to jump a muscular grandma

Are Harald's rolling Rs exaggerated as fuck or is it meant to sound that way?

>Forward settles ME
>Has troops in MY borders
>"Your units are too close to my borders"
ARE
YOU
SHITTING
ME

Civ has never been a popular rule34 series. It's gonna take some time.

I'm new here guys.

Isn't Stellaris a GrandStrategy? I've never played it but since it was made by the same guys that did EU4 and CK2 I had pre-supposed it was GS instead of 4X.

Why is it discussed here? And more importantly, what's this that I've seen about people saying it lacks depth? What areas of it are boring and what areas would you say are fun?

Nevermind, found it. Or at least found part of it. This was superimposed over Civ 6 gameplay screenshots.

I'm far from Scandinavia, never been there never talked to anyone from there, but from what I remember reading about old Norse, Rs are really over emphasized in the language.

In the year 1846, Egypt denounced me for breaking my promise to remove troops from her borders.

My Scout was just automated exploring through our mutually open borders...

>its a no chink leaders are women episode
youtube.com/watch?v=GM5BFgwiADY

>you can flavour out the ideologies with additional ethic specific techs

I think this would help if the techs were REALLY different. Like, changes-your-whole-playstyle-for-the-entire-game different.

So one ethos (materialist?) ends up researching The Matrix and your worlds end up carpeted in pod-farms that give you research + energy + minerals all at once. Spend all game trying to infiltrate other empires' computer networks and make their robots go Machine Consciousness by design rather than accident.

Collectivists(?) research Space Gulag and you can turn asteroids into insane production pop-holding worlds worked by slaves. Use all that production to build Socialist Utopia, and people defect to you with rebellions without you having to fire a single shot.

Spiritualists strategy revolves around, I dunno, sacrificing 10,000 psykers to the Golden Throne every day until their prayers summon those Dimensional Horrors from Leviathans that you then sic on your enemies.

Stuff like that, stuff that actually gets you to use a different "grand strategy" other than just 'I fite u 4 planet'.
Basically the player should BECOME something like the Unbidden / Scourge / Synths over the course of the game, not (just) be told that "OMG this is too weird you must kill it"

It plays more like a realtime 4x than a grand strategy game. Unlike most Paradox Interactive titles it also is playable by people without autism, hence the butthurt about it (much like CK2 before it got good or EUIV).

>I'm new here guys.
At least read THIS thread.
>Isn't Stellaris a GrandStrategy?
No
>I've never played it but since it was made by the same guys that did EU4 and CK2 I had pre-supposed it was GS instead of 4X.
It isn't
>Why is it discussed here?
Because at /gsg/ we turned autism into an art form.
>And more importantly, what's this that I've seen about people saying it lacks depth? What areas of it are boring and what areas would you say are fun?
Read this thread.

How do I buy the Aztech leader if I didn't preorder the game?

You don't. You have to wait for it to become free for everyone.

SMAC had a handful of pre-set, pre-written factions, Stellaris lets you design your own empire from scratch. SMAC is a more narrative game with a plot, Stellaris is a sandbox. You can't make Stellaris "feel" more like SMAC narratively without taking away what most people want to play it for - making the Imperium or Soviet Union in space. The only way to make Stellaris more immersive is gameplay changes.

It's kind of a GS/4X hybrid.
Which unfortunately means that it is simultaneously a shallow GS and a boring 4X.

Although the real reason it's discussed here is because it was kicked out of /gsg/ for being too popular and/or not historical enough.

Why do we tolerate Australians?

But if it is both a shallow GS and a boring 4X, why is it so popular? What is its appeal? What does it do right?

>why is it so popular?
Is it?

OP doesn't get (You)s though

People are starved for space games. It still manages to be a decent game that has been getting steadily better through patches and DLC. It also has a really slick presentation, with great soundtrack, graphics and art design.

>enough gameplay elements to overlook lackluster atmosphere.
Stellaris has more atmosphere than Endless Space.

Goddamn I wanted to like that game so hard, it has pretty much everything, but playing it felt sterile as fuck.

>But if it is both a shallow GS and a boring 4X, why is it so popular?

Well... it's not, really. It's only popular by the very low standards of a GS, and that's more because Paradox has been learning to shill better over the years than that it's any sort of good game.

Actually, I'll qualify that: Stellaris IS a good game - for like the first 20 hours when everything is new and novel. Which is all game reviewers and interested normies will ever see. To actual gs players that's an eye-blink, and after that 20 hours it's boring.

I honestly think it's not too late to introduce proper factions in stellaris. about a dozen or so should do. Use them as FE or advanced starts only. Make them really feel unique. Music, Art, hullpaint, history, the works. Do to each of them what they did to human's/sol. They even already have basis for it in the game with archeology quest chaiins. Make them always show up in this form or that. And you've already made a leap towards replayability that would otherwise require a tonn of coding which paradox repeatedly shown unwilling to do.

>SMAC had a handful of pre-set, pre-written factions, Stellaris lets you design your own empire from scratch. SMAC is a more narrative game with a plot, Stellaris is a sandbox.

Yeah, and that's shit design, no atmosphere means nothing to keep you in but your own RP and gameplay. RP against a screen requires at least 2 wifus as far as I'm concerned. And I doubt anyone is in awe of stellaris gameplay if they ever played 4x or a gsg.

>You can't make Stellaris "feel" more like SMAC narratively without taking away what most people want to play it for - making the Imperium or Soviet Union in space. The only way to make Stellaris more immersive is gameplay changes.

Of course you can, above outlines just one way to do it. Also don't use "most people" in an argument, ever.

How come with billions more TEKNOLOGY no one beat SMAC or made a 1 to 1 copy of it but removing the bad shit? Are devs retarded?

What exactly is grand strategy about Stellaris?

>Collectivists(?) research Space Gulag and you can turn asteroids into insane production pop-holding worlds worked by slaves. Use all that production to build Socialist Utopia, and people defect to you with rebellions without you having to fire a single shot.
I would love to see a combination of spiritual collectivists create a hive mind so I can finally play the zerg like they were meant to be played.

Give it massive bonus to production and aggriculture, but make assimilation process take more time.

Pops, realtime, factions, combat, demesne

>People are starved for space games.
Literally this for me, i am still waiting for the "good" one

Mostly that it's made by a grand strategy studio using an engine they used for several grand strategy games.

Many mechanics are ripped from CK2 and EU4