/civ4xg/ - Strategy/4X General

>xenophobes have a problem with genetic engineering but no problem with being turned into a robot

What should Somehow I'M The Bad Guy?'s theme for when he scores a goal, lads?

red alert hell march

Cringe.

Spiders are okay. They keep nuisibles insects at bay and keep us safe. Without them, we would be invaded by cockroaches and mosquitoes.

I want to make the perfect 4x game. What mechanics should I put in to make sure it's as good as it can be?

What's your favorite 4x gimmick, mechanic, faction types, etc?

>a spider wearing half a doll as a hat

I love how Distant Worlds emulate a complete civilian economy. It makes the galaxy feel alive, instead of it being just a playground for various fleet.
I wish it went deeper, with city-states like in Civilizations, space gypsies that sell you stuff or just buy/sell ressources to your planet, without you butting in.

Lmao I just gassed the spider in the corner of my room with my can of Mortein™

More autism is good. 4x as a genre exists solely to tickle the autism bone.

t. white cuck

I like the vastly different factions from endless games. Helps make separate playthroughs feel different.

All it does is slow the down the game in mid and end game.
But i suppose if you like looking at little freighters do their thing for a few mins

Ironically, that's a part I really loved in Startopia.
You have all these ayys in your space station, and they all work for you, but at the same time, they have their own goals, that may be detrimental to you.

>for a few mins
I have 23 hours in Distant Worlds : Universe, and 80% of it is "looking at little freighters do their thing".

I can't help it, I just like it. It makes the world feel alive when you have traffic like that.

Ride of the Valkyries

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I kind of don't like it.

It's better then in Civ 5 where everyone feels *mostly* the same, but with one really weird outlier (Venice) that's just too weird for the feel of the game. But Endless Legend feels really hard for me to get into at all by just how weird all the factions are.

Hell, the most normal factions in that game are basically the elves and vaulters, then instantly after them in normality you have the people who can move cities and the bugs who can't stop fighting everyone. It's kind of hard to get into or have diplomacy.

I actually have a really similar fear for Endless Space 2, especially because both the Vodyani and Cravers seem like they're always going to be fighting people and can't really play any other playstyle. That's my main issue with Endless Legend and Space 2; it seems like all the factions are a bit too shoehorned into their victory conditions and roles.

Endless Space 1 felt a lot better in that respect that most factions could do most things, they just did it in unique ways. The cravers and harmony felt like interesting weird factions that got to fit in because they were uncommon, not that every single faction had to have some genre-defying gimmick.

I have already though this through.
>no hyperlanes OR different drives for each race ala sots
>2d map or planar 3d ala stellaris
>each star system is its own province and abstracted trade routes ala total war
>star system is the basic unit of the empire ala endless space
>realistic economy and planet environment system with 2-3 tiers of resources ala moo3/es
>strong customisation of ship segments ala sots2
>ships all the way from cutter to death star ala moo3

Playing Colonization makes me really mad.
Not because of the game. It has a really simple yet intuitive resource and supply chain model that makes trading feel natural and yet no one's picked up on it even though THE FUCKING THING IS 25 YEARS OLD

The only proper way to design a civ game is to make EVERY single faction overpowered, imbalanced, and in sore need of nerfs. No exceptions.

That game is ugly af. I don't know what it is but I don't want to play it, ever.

...

Ok guys, the Fart Aliens are now communist, the "Union" in my name looks bad now.

why didn't civ 5 ever get something on FFH level of mods

Theres a civ 3 mod for it

What the hell.

>he fell for the hyperlane meme

Yea well youll get over it

What benefit do they even have? No wind down between jumps?

Is ship design in Stellaris unfixable in its current form?

I can't see an update happening where there isn't always an objectively best ship to spam, or an objectively best weapon type.
>Torpvettes
>Tachyon Lance spam
>Kinetic Arty spam
>6m Plasma Cruiser spam

All any of their "fixes" do is annoint a new weapon/ship class combination as the one to rule them all. There seems to be an underlying problem with their entire approach, but I'm not sure how to fix it.

>What benefit do they even have?
None, which is why you will be force to use them next patch.

So what's the best Tradition progression early game if you're going wide? Prosperity and Discovery openers are both so damn good whereas Expansion also helps get colonies on their feet while also decreasing Unity costs from rapid expansion.

I'm wondering about at least grabbing Prosperity opener and then filling Expansion tree.

>next patch

I don't know why you seem to think a QoL patch is going to change the fundamentals of the game. Changing engine types is something they will save for a large patch alongside a DLC release.

>tachyon lance spam
Is this actually meta?
1. They can buff shields and have excess power give bonuses to shielding
2. Bring back multiple computer types for the ship classes
3. Add hard shields aux component so shields can have a reduction component like armour (but less)
4. Nerf m plasma a bit

I always start off with expansion and the group of 3 on the left of that tradition. Getting pop growth early is a huge part of snowballing, and you need that -33% to extra planet influence cost as a wide player because otherwise the planet penalty becomes prohibitive.

The first supremacy tech which gives you border push is good though, worth a shout as one of the first you take even if you don't finish the tree.

link to NA map you're using?

All of his points were what used to be meta and got nerfed. Tachyons used to be L slots so every ship had them, then they changed it to an X slot.

because workship support is a meme that stifles creativity, and hardcodes most of the game

...

Its pretty simple
Supremacy opener for borders
Prosperity and discovery openers for cheap stations
Expansion and supremacy is pretty good generally for wide

I was talking about the best ship by era. Initially it was all torpedo corvette fleets, but for a while after that TL battleships were king. Which is why they introduced spinal mounts and made TL completely worthless.

Even with all those changes, isn't there always going to be one weapon type which is better than the rest, and no mechanical reason to pick another?

Torpvettes, kinetic arty and
6m plasma cruisers are all pretty good right now though.
Only battleships suck in the current meta becuase they cant hit shit

>isn't there always going to be one weapon type which is better than the rest
Yes, this is unavoidable.
>and no mechanical reason to pick another?
Maybe if most weapons didn't have advantages over armor/shields you could have specialized ones.

>Torpvettes, kinetic arty and 6m plasma cruisers are all pretty good right now though

The first two are workable but when push comes to shove 6MPCs are just the better pick, in meta terms there's no reason to go for anything else.

>Keepers of Knowledge have 1 planet and 20 pops
>get all pissy at me because i build robots and keep researching AI
>conquer them in one swift move thanks to my Armageddon class SuperDreadnoughts
>i have their planet now
>which puts me in the direct vicinity of 9 planet/109 pop Xenophobic isolationist FE that is already -240 opinion and angry at me

Fuck me sideways..

>Maybe if most weapons didn't have advantages over armor/shields you could have specialized ones.
Yes

Also it might be good if there were mutually exclusive specialised event chains or something which gave you buffs to certain weapon classes. It would at least give you a reason to vary it a bit.

Well of you want most bang for fleet cap, maybe. But battles are almost never equal anyway so like i said all 3 will work okay

>10 eyes
>2 mouths
>10 appendages
Stupid.

There are two (viable) defense types: Shields and armor.
The best weapon types are going to be whatever counters- you guessed it- shields and armor.

Choosing NOT to counter the defense types isn't an option either. If you can't overwhelm shield regen, you die. If you don't cut down on the 1000% health increase of max armor, you die. Countering shields is important and countering armor is MANDATORY.

Since there are only two things to counter you only need two types of weapons. Kinetics is a great all arounder that wipes out shields and plasma ignores armor.

The female half on top is a lure

So they need to add "a" slot loadouts to bring variety

Needs more hell terrain.

Any realiable way to deal with advanced AI starts on hard or do people generally just dont use them/dont try to spawn near them?

Had a thing going with another faction where we defens pacted but the advanced AI fag still steamrolled my face and the one I have defense pact with is literally just sitting there and doing nothing.

What do, friends?

They "need" to unnerf evasion so there are 3 defense types to contend with. It's easy to choose 2 all rounder weapons. It is much more punishing to divide your weapons 3 ways.

Speaking of which

strawpoll.com/47c67g3

Here is the strawpoll for our team just in case anyone has missed it.

Got quite a lot of responses so it probably doesn't need to be open for much longer but I said it would be open until the end of the weekend.

Speak of the devil..

Fuck you, you managed to bully me once - no more fagotron.

How many are going to get picked?

>unnerf evasion
Well tracking is a mechanic all on its own that has nothing to do with weapon types only size and computers

>Go down the synthetic evolution path as a technology focused materialist empire.
>Churching out minerals and research extremely fast.
>Spiritualist fallen empire gets pissed I out implants in my pops
>Eventually complete the bath and get that sweet +20% resource modifier with the -25% consumer goods cost.
>Happy nation with 100% happiness replicants.
>And then the spiritualist fallen empire declares war and destroys all my space station's and most of my fleet while 5 other empires also declare war
>lose instantly

The biological and psionic Ascension shitters don't have to put up with this

Yea just rng them or put settings so you dont spawn near them

>build science MEGA structure
>gives me +9 more to each science than a habitat does
>costs 1000x as much and takes 1000x as long to build
really
made
me
think

23.
The first four will be the medal players which have boosted stats.

I guess Somehow I'M the bad guy should have his own goalhorn since he is the main man.

> tracking has nothing to do with weapon types
> Missiles have superb tracking at all levels
Fixing missiles would help too since they counter evasion.

Holy Guardians awakened as defenders of the galaxy to deal with the AI menace.

Is this thing still bugged so you can't get the cheevo?
It's the first time I've triggered it at all

a habitat will add +130% to your research times tho

>ISS

...

the 40+ research you get in each section makes up for it.

Which planet should I colonize and what should I focus on? I want to make sure my research doesn't want to slow down but another research planet seems to be a waste

right, all minerals, maybe a farm or two if you need it

If only it had more than a society bonus, thanks lad.

to

agreed tho this, fair points.
However you can always create custom factions (or you will be able to one ES2 launches) to make them a bit 'normal' though.

m Plasma Cruiser
how is that superior to 2L2M plasma cruiser

yes, but the nexus doesn't increase research times so it's a lot bigger than +9

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

all L has going for it is range, really

2Ms outpower a single L

I don't know why she has grassland patches, as she was follows Ashen Veil since forever. I guess having Illians as a neighbour really fucks the hell terrain up.

Range is pretty important since it means a bonus attack round.

Yeah, there's no hell-tundra or hell-ice terrain in the base mod, so if the Illians turn a tile to ice and then it thaws it might take a while for it to turn Hellish again. Illians have a terrain advantage over the Ashen Veil because they can go from Hell -> Ice in one step, while it takes two or three to get to Hell. Ice -> Tundra -> Plains -> Hell, or sometimes just Ice -> Grasslands -> Hell.

Basically what I'm saying is Mulcarn is our greatest hope and did nothing wrong.

L also can't hit small ships I think, M hits a lot better unless I'm mistaken?

Sploosh down your ship here.

The tile south of it is better

He's gonna wind up moving it to the center eventually anyway so who gives a shit

Energy tile to the south would be better, putting colony ship on a food/mineral tile is a waste since colony ship/capitals only produce energy and unity now.

>first playthrough
>do the progenitor quest chain
>their home system is in the middle of a closed border Fallen Empire
>finally get there through various means
>presumably game shat itself and there's nothing in the system

>second playthrough
>do the progenitor quest chain
>home system in closed border FE again
>Unbidden spawn right next to it

What's the reward for those quests anyway?

>a fully dedicated ringworld can produce over 1k minerals a month
>energy cost offset by ~2 habitats
Have I ascended?

>Devs thinking about making the game hyperlanes only

What even IS a hyperlane? Like, in fluff terms? They just seem so horribly... videogamey.

> Pirate
Hey for those of us who have a LEGIT game the correct place to drop colonies is on energy tiles (but not around research tiles and NEVER at the edge)