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

>Is Stellaris worth $70
To most of us, no. To Paradrones and poor ignorant window shoppers, yes.
>If not then why would Paradox charge so much for their product?
Because there is a subset of people that will buy anything and everything Paradox releases so it's a guaranteed sale. They could probably sell the game to these people at double the price, but keeping pricing even remotely competitive to other game releases allows them to rope in unsuspecting customers who see some aspects of the game and find them attractive or interesting.

Some people might legitimately find the game to be good and worth $70 but that's irrelevant to Paradox's reasoning which counts on luring in the unaware and retaining the fanatically devoted, much like Blizzard.

What if Stellaris had ES2 graphics and art design?

if you are a major SF weeb you might like it, the detail on everything is absolutely gorgeous and it blew me away at first

too bad literal Tyranids, Skynet, and the Federation all play the exact same, same weapons, same everything, there's very little gameplay distinction
lategame is a massive slog because of how fucking slow the game moves, imagine a Civ V game on maximum number of AI players and Giant world but even slower because it's in realtime
surviving requires pre-knowledge about how to build ships or being extremely lucky because the AI cheats viciously even on the lowest settings and will pull impossibly expensive fleets out of their ass
this culminates in the endgame crisis events where a gigantic deathball of pure cheat pops out of nowhere and you have to kill it or supposedly everyone dies but the AI is so retarded they'll declare war on you while it happens
there is no semblance of balance, you will use the same cookie cutter ship builds every game or you will lose

then it would no longer have any redeeming qualities at all, the aesthetics are the only high point

Why you gotta be such a warmonger but also have such good senatorial skills, man?

>the aesthetics are the only high point
Stellaris looks like something out of the mid 2000's to me.

Personally I found it pretty fun, played I think 2 "full" rounds and several shorter experimental plays, never actually finished because at least back then the fucking win condition was so ridiculous that might as well not.
Thinking of giving it another round soon tho with all the new patches.

Pirated tho and don't think it would have been the money to actually purchase.
If I had to qualify it based on a standard AA title enjoyment (something like 60h) I don't think it's worth price
If I had to qualify it based on much higher total playtime category it simply doesn't match up to some of the other giants like Civ or even ton of free to play titles like League or Dota or even stuff like Starcraft. For those games I have spent less and gained much much more (10-100x playtimes easily on some of them)

For me it falls to the awkward spot where I kinda can see lot of replay value and infinite entertainment on paper but it just doesn't realize for me in the actual play hours. Maybe in a sale it might be worth the price.

Art direction and narrative execution are literally the worst things about Stellaris.

It's actually playable with mods, New Horizons is literally the best Star Trek game.

Only in regards to the ships. Space is so pretty.

The fact that we can argue about this proves you're wrong, because nobody here would dare to argue that the combat isn't god awful.

>Space is so pretty
There literally aren't binary or trinary star systems unless you mod the game. The way space looks is unrealistic and dull.
Combat is terrible but you must not know that some stars orbit other stars to think that that's the worst thing about the game.

Who said anything about realism? The combat is unrealistic as fuck and Star Wars-tier stupid, so if that's your angle then you are yet again wrong.

What's the new weapon meta? Should I still start with kinetics, or has the nerf made lasers better?

Is Consecrated Worlds worth taking? How about Mastery of Nature?

I feel that Mastery of Nature, even though it's been nerfed, is still worth it for allowing rapid expansion, but I'm eager to hear your opinions.

I never said anything about realism. If you'd played a decent galaxy mod you would have realized that the game looks much better and is much more interesting with multi-star solar systems, just like it's more interesting without FTL.

I like starting off with the Unity-booster because I love my Ascension bonuses.

Alright, what's your point?
>could be prettier with mods
Doesn't mean what's already there isn't pretty. Meanwhile there's absolutely no redeeming factors in the combat, nor really in the Diplomacy.

How would it be more interesting to see every empire to stay in their home system?

But it ISN'T pretty. Scale is way off, planets don't change position relative to their stars or each other, it basically meets the minimal standards necessary to look decent. Sins of a Solar Empire is much more visually impressive and that game is 10 years old.

A game of Stellaris should take thousands of years, not just 200. The things that happen don't make sense on the timescale of an enjoyable playthrough. The game is fundamentally flawed because of the way it treats the size of objects and the distances between them.
It's hardly even science fiction.

And my point is that everything about Stellaris sucks and I don't know why I have 2300 hours played.

No one would get anywhere in thousands of years and nothing would make sense.
You can't have any meaningful tech progress when your planet jumps from fission to some bogus ultra-universe energy before first colony ship reaches nearest star

>He hasn't read anything by Alastair Reynolds or Larry Niven
LOL

Ye because experiences of a single human in Larry Niven universe means anything to a video game.

If there was no FTL what would happen is that you micromanage for few years and then fast forward for thousands of years of game time to move your ships.
In a turn based game this would mean that 1 or 2 turns after a planet has been settled it's fully developed super world shitting out hundred super capitals every turn while traveling between 2 stars would take hundred turns.

In Stellaris you would have to intensly micro for few years and then your planet is fully developed, then you just afk while the game fast forwards 100 years till a ship moves an inch.
Without FTL every empire would have all their planets fully developed, all techs researched and fully pimped out fleets centuries before they can actually reach each other, any combat is pointless because by the time your fleet reaches the enemy it's obsolete by thousand years and outnumbered 1000:1

You have a very limited mind. That's probably why you think Stellaris looks good.

>hurr you're dumb
I'm not that guy, I'm and you are making a massive retard of yourself.

???

I'm not that guy, but if you actually can't even follow some conversation that kinda explains why you would think game without FTL is good.
And yes I did forget to point out that Known Space has FTL which is the entire basis of basically everything that happens.

Is it really worth it?

By the way, Larry Niven actually is significant in this case, since he wrote the book that Paradox lifted Ringworlds out of.
hurr you're dumb, I really don't care who you are. Stellaris sucks and there are a million ways to improve it that people other than the developers have done. The game looks sub par even if it has a decent UI. No way around it.
>Known Space has FTL
Not initially, queer.

No, but neither is the game.

i wish this game would fuck off trying to get me to buy its jump drive
i'm perfectly fine with my perfect wormhole network

mihil

You could probably mod it into the game my man, just cut ship speed by factor of hundred and don't use wormholes or jumps

It would be a horrible snoozefest obviously

jump drives are OP you stupid nigger. Keep your backwater tech dumb hillbilly faggot

>that kinda explains why you would think game without FTL is good
Not him, but I play a lot of Cossacks 3, and even without FTL, I can beat the AI just fine.

I fear the day some crazy motherfucker will make a crossover between Cossacks 3, Supreme Commander, and Starcraft.

So is it just me, or did the AI get massively buffed in Stellaris? Before, I could do basically anything and always come out on top, but now they seem to always be a near match or even surpass you in research or military power.

Also, Destroyers are fucking dumb as shit early game and are probably the new meta.

What the hell are you talking about?

>The game is a remake of the 2001 classic and is once again set in 17th and 18th century Europe

ai have reduced fleet maintenance and dont get debuffs from bankrupting their economy

That's a joke, you damn bloke.

Don't tell me you wouldn't want to see how the Cybrans would fare against the Terrans, backed by Poland.

i fucking hate this game

is how they can always out produce you and always have a bigger fleet

>hey shall we teach the AI to respect tile resources and actually suffer consequences for building like fucking retards
>nah lets just let them ignore mechanics and get shitloads of free stuff

Fucking hell.

Give me one reason to not reinstall Battle for Middle Earth 2 and its expansion.

Give me one reason to install Battle for Middle Earth 2 and its expansion.

>nearly out of slots for Ascension Perks because of how much fucking Unity Servitors generate

[Respectfully disagree x 1]

Gobbos dying in packs, screams, dwarves wrecking shits, arrows everywhere, catapults, and orcs getting murdered.
And probably the most satisfying fortifications I ever saw in a game.

its shit
you're bored

Jesus why is CiVI so bad? I just cannot get immersed at all. I hate the maps it generates. I hate its stupid tech tree. I hate its bumbling AI. Its frustrating.

i'm so excited /lolg/

>/lolg/
Wrong general, friendo. The autistic general is elsewhere.

It's just really bullshit that a three planet Fanatic Purifier faction can field nearly as many fleets as me, when I have six planets.

It's working as intended. Of course, when we made a challenging AI, we expected complains and whining.

what happens if you have an AI uprising in a cyborb empriereerere

Knock off the misoginy. This is your first and last warning.

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>have to choose between Dyson Sphere, which is cooler, and Science Nexus, which is more practical
FUCK

In ES2, if a node falls within the borders of more than one system, do both systems gain its effects or just the system that got it first?

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>Stellaris
>autocannons are good

What is this sorcery?

are they? better than the other kinetic weapons you get that I forgot the name of atm?

>dyson sphere
>110k minerals for 250 energy income
I'd rather make a 100 battleships and make everyone a tributary.

Only one system, and probably the one with the most influence will push the other back and get it

Are fleet of battleships the new meta?

Dyson Sphere is 1k energy.

Alright, thanks.

Early to mid, Destroyer Autocannons will absolutely shit on on Corvettes and other Destroyers.

Until battleships become common, all battles devolves into those mad tangles of short-ranged violence and autocannons are the king of that.

Don't mind my multidimensional posting just keeping the thread alive when its near death

>near death
ayylmao
this isn't even the slowest thread i'm posting in right now

neat, I love my kinetics

So, how's this for a start?

That's a ruined Dyson Sphere.

Thish patch really fucked with balance, to the point that no-one is sure what's good or not.

General opinion is that Missiles got a huge buff (can retarget and generally tougher), lasers got a slight buff and kinetic weapons got a slight nerf overall.

The technology to repair megastructures comes way too late

It's 1k energy now but it's still not enough to really justify one. I typically already have >3k mineral and energy incomes by the time I can start a dyson sphere, let alone finish one. I simply don't see a situation where it would be better to build one than use the resources elsewhere, if you're bottled into a tiny area those resources are going to be really hard to get and far more useful in the form of battleships to expand. I still built one in both of my games this patch anyway because I like them but they're not practical.

So for Lumeris, is a Diplomatic Demand just a way to force the AI to declare war on you so you don't have to spend Influence points or look like a bad guy to the other AI players or do they actually acquiesce under certain conditions?

Energy is very different from minerals though, in that it's primary use is to maintain as opposed to build. So that 1K energy might let you ignore your fleet cap enough to build a big enough force to fuck over the AE or Crisis.

Nah, alpha strike and range are always king, since you want to snowball, and that means winning with minimal possible casualties.

P.S. Missiles rip apart corvettes and destroyers now and are the best at early game due to 1) Range and alpha and 2) They negate evasion

Destroyers are also retarded now in midgame due to the fact that they've been gifted with a deathwish AI that makes them charge blindly into enemy fire

That's why I said early to mid. Until 2300 or so, you're not going to be able to field fleets that can significantly outrange the enemy without relying on missiles, which have inherent problems.

Start with missiles and tech up to level 2 or 3 missiles then pull a tech switch off the first chump who leaves you with level 2 or 3 kinetics, that way you don't have to worry about being countered by PD. But in the first 50 years or so you shouldn't see any major PD on the field and in the next 50 years you can just cruiser spam, which will wreck destroyer fleets.

Or you can go die-hard missile fan and get swarmers then energy torpedos for the midgame.

late but well.

FEs have at least 3 times the fleet power, I'm a robbut hivemind.

Is that bad?

if i have full lategame techs what is the most powerful fleet? i'm sick of trying to be Mr. Nice Cyborg and I'm gonna make these fleshies submit.

I almost never use it but its the same for everyone
They would probably accept if you are significantly stronger than them I guess

I see screenshots here of people with 6 or so planets having 400+ Fleet strength. How is that possible?

Pretty much this.
The AI tends to have a bloated estimation of their fleet strength compared to yours. I've had enemies refuse to truce me because they're "Stronger than you" even though I've conquered all of their systems but one.

Galactic Force Projection.

Man, I'm having too much fun with the Lumeris RP.

VR Amateurs man

Complete dyson sphere costs 260k minerals and takes 55 years to build. Assuming you have no build speed bonuses for megastructures and that you will build it without any interruptions, it would take 61 years from the moment you start building it for your mineral investment to pay itself back. This is assuming a magical 1:1 conversion ratio of energy to minerals. Regular 1:2 conversion would take 86 years to pay itself back from the moment construction begins.

This means that you will be spending 424 minerals per month for 55 years straight, only to see any profit 6 years later with 1:1 ratio, or 31 years later with 1:2 ratio.

yeah but you have a dyson sphere