/civ4xg/ - Strategy/4X General

This thread is for all strategy games that do not have their own thread, focusing on 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate).
tags: /cbg/ /rtsg/

Make a new thread again edition

Last thread: >Endless Space 2
- Official Wiki wiki.endless-space.com/
- Soundtrack soundcloud.com/flybyno/sets/endless-space-2-soundtrack
- Community Hub games2gether.com/

>Stellaris
- Pastebin: pastebin.com/YHdisqem
- WIP Ship Design Guide for 1.5.1: pastebin.com/2QWUPKSh
- Another Ship Design Guide for 1.5: reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/61nolh/ship_equipment_load_out_for_141_15/
- Wiki: stellariswiki.com/Stellaris_Wiki
- The Development of Stellaris gamasutra.com/view/news/274018/Postmortem_Paradox_Development_Studios_Stellaris.php

>Endless Legend
- Manual: cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/289130/manuals/User'sManual.pdf?t=1413562467
- Wiki: endlesslegendwiki.com/Endless_Legend_Wiki

>Civilization
- Fix for Civ IV BTS XML errors: dropbox.com/sh/ljdms8ygix2btcs/AACC_IGIy7zAkomwA6S4DJp3a?dl=0
- Civilization Analyst (Civ VI, Civ V, BE): well-of-souls.com/civ/index.html
- Civ V Giant Multiplayer Robot: multiplayerrobot.com
- District Cheat Sheet: hydra-media.cursecdn.com/civ6.gamepedia.com/2/29/District_Cheat_Sheet.png?version=07510f0f43d7188e00e7046c90360dba (unembed)

>Alpha Centauri
- Essential improvements: pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri#Essential_improvements
- Official short stories: mediafire.com/folder/cn11q7nqa00te/Alpha_Centauri

Other urls found in this thread:

strawpoll.me/13009009
strawpoll.me/13009008
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

first post claimed for distant worlds

stellaris stay out

>Prethoryn Scourge event
>Tons of 90k fleets and 101k fleets flying around
>I have a 40k fleet and am Equivalent or better to everyone in the galaxy

How do I possibly deal with this?
I don't have Utopia by the way.

>distant worlds
>stellaris
nigga get with the FOTM of Endless Space 2

Xenophobe much?

...

rollback to 1.5.1

>this is what euphoria looks like

Use plasma and build an actual fleet.

...

I know that bulge

...

Why are Riftborn so much fun holy shit?

I didn't like any of the races in early access, but these timespace robots are goat

This is why the galaxy should be cleansed

>best attack small
>best attack medium
>upgrading either their small or medium support is enough to speed their fleets
>industry out the a$$
>other species are chain gang fodder
>time fuckery ranges from "good" to "awesome"

Speaking, what are the best ship upgrades for the riftborn? Neither their small or medium attack get more weapon slots, iirc.

What's the selling point of Stellaris? What makes it different from other space 4x games?

Do you get to choose what pops you chain gang?

Can't chain gang timebots, but otherwise, I assume it chooses from the top of planets.

Emphasis on role play

ES2

So I guess I learned the hard way that Large (default size?) map is the type that the game is balanced around, assuming you have no duplicate factions? Larger than that maps and all the factions have way too much room to expand without having to bother interacting with each other.

Sandbox with nice mods that isn't turn based.

You can choose both, they aren't mutually exclusive anymore.

Tell me more. I'm a sucker for Ck2.

Why is it a sandbox?

A lot of the gameplay is narrative driven, with different choices having different outcomes.

As someone coming from CK2, Stellaris felt extremely lackluster and I wouldn't recommend it. The much advertised "roleplaying" mechanics of Stellaris are way overblown and in reality there's actually so little to do in terms of roleplay tied to gameplay. Simply not enough events (there's few good notable ones though) and pretty much total lack both of internal politics AND diplomacy.

What people mostly mean by "roleplay" in Stellaris is creating faction based on certain traits and ethos, then playing every single match the same exact way due to lack of actual roleplay or even proper 4X elements. Every single game either boils down to blobbing (which is even worse than CK2, not to mention even the fucking combat is simpler) until victory OR not blobbing and staring at the screen forever and ever while waiting for numbers to go up for no reason since there is literally nothing to do in Stellaris aside from blobbing. Utopia expansion only added few "tall" options, but they still just boil down to just staring at the screen OR building tall first for Unity bonuses, then blobbing like hell.

Race customization seems nice at first, but all the other races that are not your own just turn into a grey bland mess in your head because they're just a mix of random % traits and the only thing you ever need to know about them is whether they're aggressive or not due to lack of any inter-race interaction.

Mods my man.

different user but which one?

Worth picking up on a sale with all the DLC?
I must say what I read about Fallen Empires, endgame crysis and such was rather interesting.

I'm a sucker for those things in space games and the last one that did it well was AI Wars: Fleet Command.

Buy the base game.
Pirate the DLC. Even works in multiplayer.

Winnie, you're literally eating shit! Please stop!

>synths start going out of control
>forgot to give them full rights because the button for it is in an obscure place you hardly ever go to

they really should just change it to be an individual species right already

>research synths
>all droids get upgraded automatically
>not materialistic so I cannot grant them rights
>can't use robots AT ALL anymore because AI rebellion
let me build dumb as shit machines already ffs so they won't rise up against me

Anyone played Imagine Earth? It's pretty good honestly. Not sure if it fits in this category though.

Also endless space 2 is fantastic. Only thing I dont like about it is the races. I dont care for any of them. UE and Sophons are okay I suppose.

>2306
>still no flak
>7
>7 research alternatives

I hate this shit tier system some times. I really do.

>he doesn't like Riftborn

>You will never have a qt geometric waifu

should i vassalize a guy who has -1445 relationship with me or will he rebel pretty quick

They look cool but I can't really empathize with them or get into the whole thing when they are multi dimensional beings who dont even want to stick around in our Galaxy. I would have preferred just more typical beep boops

you should "liberate" him first from his oppresive goverment

You're not her type

thats what i ended up doing, just thought there mite be a chance

>They'll cum for you
Riftborn are tsundere

>Only thing I dont like about it is the races. I dont care for any of them
this was me until they added riftborn

They are amazing holy shit

>robots
>have a legit reason to fight
>super good abilities and ship / unit design

I guess I am just boring because Sophons, UE, and lumeris have the best ship design to me.

>not Horatio ships
I don't even play Horatio and I know you're wrong

I think Cravers are really cool

my fuckin niggaz
>best music
>best lore
>best wife
>best gimmick
>best ship attack

literally the greatest faction ever conceived for a 4x

I'm still mad that the cravers didn't get these ships, instead they gave them rectangles of junk.

They look like shit Mang.

I love the United Empire infantry designs. Sort of futuristic and napoleonic mixed together.

can anyone tell me why i'm not receiving any hyperium from my home planet? riftborn start out with the tech to exploit it and yet i'm not getting anything. so confused.

What an incorrect opinion stemming from shit taste.

It's a bug with the riftborn

works for me :^)

fug that really bothers me, it's obviously there so they can add 25 production to their first colony 10 turns in so that will completely change how you open when it's fixed.

Too bad the slots on Horatio ships are weird.

Amplitude are good on criticism so I would say the likelihood of them changing it is high

from the patch notes
"fixed an issue on Riftborn home planet where the strategic luxury were spawned on all the planets of the home system or no strategic deposit were spawned instead of having them only on the home planet"

so that wasn't the bug mentioned, mine is only on my home planet but it does not actually give any hyperium income

>first time liking all the factions in any game
>like the vodyani the most even though i know they are the pleb attractor faction

Has ANYONE managed to finish Academy questline in ES2 or is it broken? There seems to be weird shit with the quest having both an achievable goal line, but a turn limit as well.

Hitting the turn limit does nothing (it just shows "0 turns remaining" forever) and there's no failure message, but you can't "turn in" the quest either even if you increase minor faction pops to the required amount.

MAIN QUEST
ONE FUCKING JOB

...

I mean the ships aren't supposed to be good, you need bad ships if some factions are supposed to have better ships

I managed to do it in one game, and then in my second I didn't reach the threshold and it didn't work. Also it looks like it only counts your pop not universal pops

>no one has made any events which are related between races

Even if every event was
>Some [event] is occurring in [empire]
>[intervene in their favor] +relations -resources
>[intervene in your favor] -relations +resources
>[ignore]

At least then something diplomatic would happen

They are a random assortment of mess. For the most aesthetic race it makes no sense.

>then playing every single match the same exact way
You have zero fucking idea what you're talking about

Fuck off you fanatic militarist/xenophobe

I think the reason diplomacy always sucks in these games is if the core mechanics don't revolve around it.
If they don't have internal politics or espionage as an important factor than the devs wait until the end to program AI behavior so that it can be tied to all the mechanics without something breaking when they add new mechanics. Since they wait until last they most likely rush it and leave out important factors to the diplomacy to go with a cookie cutter approach.
Also if they go too indepth, they once again could break something later on down the road when they inevitably add in the DLC additions.
Only thing I can think of for why these devs spend so much time on the core mechanics and fleshing things out and then drop the ball consistently between companies on diplomacy, even from companies that have done it right before. Paradox.

so the Riftborn are just the broken lords except in space? HAHAHA real fuckin' creative Amplitude. I can't frikin believe that people think this game is fun and original.

complete 4x babby here, in ES2, how do you conquer systems and not end up with rebellious shitholes that you don't even want? i think my game bugged out because even after i vacate them i still "control" them, had like 4 shithole systems and 3 near shithole systems after purging cravers from the galaxy that eventually drove my empire into anarchy

is there any way to raze an enemy's control of a system but not control the colony afterwards? or a way to cleanly just turn the system into a lifeless turd afterwards instead of having to manage a population that hates your guts

How many techs give an ascension point?

AI is hard, making AI smart enough to think critically about diplomacy is harder still

Thats why developers often avoid it all together. But I think the solution is to make it so the diplomacy is giving the player the option to intervene in other races, as well as choices in who you cuddle up to and avoid.

If we had a separate tab dedicated to events between your empire and other empires, and other empires to other empires, and players could be as interventionist or isolationist as they wanted then at least players could be making more diplomatic choices.

There is only 1 physics tech that gives a ascension point.

The other 7 points are gotten through maxing traditions.

>frikin

oh thats gay

thanks m8

You have to wait for system ownership to get to 100% before you can raze it.

The only faction that instantly razes systems are Vodyani and even then someone can retake it if they send over a colonizer ship.

That's how you tell its bait.

Playing Unfallen feels a bit like playing tyrannids, but friendly and peaceful instead of all-devouring.

strawpoll.me/13009009
strawpoll.me/13009008

its funny how "fuck this colony" has so few repercussions when so much other small things have big ones. i mean where do they all go?

Why are you posting racist /pol/ memes in this gentle general?

so just about to hit my planet cap in my first stellaris playthrough
Colonizing the 4th planet right now but none of my current planets are fully built up yet, what do?

colonize more since it's just a 10% influence and energy credit reduction per planet over the cap.

...

ah thanks for the info
I should focus on colonizing planets farther away for more planets/resourced being enveloped in my border right? Instead of the 2 shitty planets that spawned near my home planet

are sophons cyborgs or what

No.

You should prioritize planets with >16 (imo) slots and green habitability. Population growth is reduced by 1% for each 1% habitability down from 100%. So 80 hab = -20% growth, for example.

Also, try to be careful going overboard on mining stations early on. The energy of research and mineral ones adds up very quickly and not having energy generation will hamper you very hard, especially if you're shitting out colonies - that's 8ec / month per ship, then 8ec / month per colony for 24 months. Energy generation cannot be stressed enough early on. Not so much later on, especially if you go for habitats.

And yeah, you generally wanna settle out of your borders, but not too far that you can't defend it. Also, the influence cost skyrockets the further away it is, making chain colony ships harder to sustain since they'll be sitting in space draining EC while waiting for influence to regenerate. Nobody else can settle in your borders, so if you feel a planet is just 'good' and is in your borders, don't fret about not having it as early as possible. Getting up borders across a larger space means getting more mining and research stations.

Click the buttons on the top left until you see "sectors".
Then cry as you add planets to sectors because sector AI is fucking awful.

>worm doesnt convert gas giants into tomb worlds

what a shitty worm

I don't love it any more

does an FE have to awaken for it to go hunt unbidden and friends

That's kind of depressing...

>players are using selective purging to remove factions
>dev's solution is to just completely remove selective purging and kill many other gameplay options together just to fix that "unintended mechanic"

>one guy figures out how to cheese xenophobic fallen empires by giving them planets
>dev's solution is to just completely forbid you from trading planets with ANY AI empires
>It was already bad that I could never make my vassal give me some of his planets, now I can't even GIFT planets to my vassals anymore
How the fuck do they manage it
How do they actually manage to make the game WORSE by the day

>day 346272537 of war in heaven
>still going on
>league indepdendents, me and purifying xenomorphs , we all do fine on our own
>unbidden show up
>I kick their ass all by myself
>a decade or so later, the lone none awakened fe awakens to save us from the crisis (which I already dealt with)

oh well
Also, teacher, teacher, ai is cheating again. The preserve of the fanatic xenophiles has a hive mind pop that isn't dying.

It's a company based in a country whose politicians are making worse by the day.
It's a uniquely Swedish talent

F

Thanks for the write up user. My newest colony is only 15 slots but it was in a pretty good spot and all the other factions I encountered are ahead of me in colonized planets. There's a really decent 24 slot one near my home planet but the border range nabbed from it basically wouldn't get me anything and the planet's resources themselves are just mostly food/research. Probably gonna pick it up next if I don't end up going to war with my nearest neighbor

can i get rid of the omega alignment building once the event chain is over?

CK 2 has even less military depth than Stellaris, you just like it because there's a incest dating sim attached to it.

i was not prepared for the milfness of the lumeris leader

still conquered

>remove exploits
>THEY MADE IT WORSE!11!

Get. Fucking. Good. Scrub.