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

Can you explain why they made all of the domination talents affect vassalization when you have to have them all just to vassalize?

Because Paradox is staffed by retards.

Next cosmetic DLC; more colors, more icons, and different color metals for the icons.

That'll be 4.99 plus tip, goy.

Oh, and how could I forget! The ability to individually set your ship's trim color!
Pay an extra 2.49 for the option to differentiate it's trim color and its VFX colors, too!

Which shipset has the best Citadel?

I quite like the Fungoid one.

Why do I need tradition to give me simple diplomatic options?
Why can't traditions just make things stronger?
I hate having to waste points dipping into something like that when I wan't my empire to focus on other traditions but just want to dabble a little in that.

Is there a better game out there than STELLARIS™?

I think not!

Thing's we'll never get
>an organic, non-discrete planetary economy with different sectors (resource extraction, manufacturing, farming, commerce, research, etc etc)
>non-discrete planetary terraforming and infrastructure development
>expensive, resource intensive, high maintenance imperial buildings to further specialize a particular planet, such as:
>a state-owned factory to mass produce consumer goods to reduce how much they take from the economy
>or an imperial university,
>or designating a particular planet the site of a central bank,
>or converting a frontier world into purely military owned mines, factories, and shipyards
>or anything else
>we will never get any of this
>it will always be a shitty, tile-based, micro-management intensive pseudo 4x that can't even do tile-based systems right

>Research Institute
>Galactic Stock Exchange
>Fortresses
We've gotten shit versions of these things, all they have to do really is hire one or two people who have made good mods to work on their next DLC and the game could be playable.

Know what I want? I want a game LIKE Stellaris, but with a ton more flavor. Not quite mechanic-heavy like ES2, though.

I want Empires that aren't in it to win the game. Marauders are a good step, but I want them to stay fringe and neutral. Like Venice in Civ, someone that is strong but solitary.

I feel like I'm in competition with literally everything in Stellaris rather than having an ally I know is an ally. Someone I know I can trust, or at the very least understand. Someone with singular, personal goals rather than galaxy-wide domination/ subjugation.

I want a vibrant world, and I want systems like Stellaris. The GAMEPLAY of Stellaris, at its core, could be really good I think. It feels comfortable, manageable. But it's the emptiness of it all that bothers me.

...

>The GAMEPLAY of Stellaris, at its core, could be really good
Of course it would, but it would because Paradox only listens to the feedback from its own echo chambers where anyone who doesn't agree with their changes gets downvoted to oblivion.

>but it would
but it won't*

Reposting because I want to hear if other people feel the same way
>like Victoria II
I get really irritated when people suggest that Paradox take cues from their own games to improve Stellaris. I can't put my finger on why, exactly.

Honestly, you're right. I think mods can definitely change that, and they HAVE changed that. Hell, I modded 2.0 to be a little more suitable already.

I'm sure there could be event mods out there, but most are poorly-written and overpowered for the sake of making a player feel as if they're conquering a galaxy and becoming a super-destroyer empire when all I want is to hear about how my science ship saw something amazing. It's space. It's amazing.

I got an event recently about migrating forests on a moon. Know what it gave me? 3 society research for adjacent tiles. But there were three events. My people began to LIVE in the migrating forest and study them. A fire happened and they trampled two of my buildings. We found workarounds by using insects that secreted pheremones the trees hated.

It was INTERESTING. Not gameplay-wise, but one of my planets was a moon with moving ents. I want more of that.

>It's space. It's amazing.
Most of it is pretty boring, actually.

>I want more of that.
Start writing, user. Events like that are really easy ot mod in. I'd download your event mod.

>I want more of that.
You want more pop-up windows with uninteresting flavor text?

that's problematic

Stellaris is definitely not for you m8

m8 I have 1800 hours in Stellaris

you have to form your own little narratives, like when the first empire I met made contact with my empire, first we had a non aggression pact, then we got a defensive pact, then a migration treaty, I did not allow any of them into my empire of course but my race where very very fast breeders and soon half of there empire was populated by my race, then they became a minority group, then they adopted my traditions and became part of the federation.
Now they are a vassal in all but name with barely a few billion of the original race about, there leader is my race, there generals and scientists are my race, they don't even colonize worlds that suit there race anymore.
They have become space Sweden.

That's the thing though, they're not "special"; they're just bigger versions of shit you already have to build.

Imagine it; planets will naturally develop according to their natural resources over time; barely inhabitable, mineral rich worlds will become the equivalent of mining towns; prosperous, lush worlds will be coated in farms and minor settlements as they're settled. Worlds with an interesting anomaly or natural phenomena will have research camps and such sprout up early on.
Over the course of decades, even centuries, the worlds will develop; mining worlds will grow into manufacturing worlds to make use of all those resources, agri-worlds will slowly but surely be covered in cities and high-density mega-farms, etc and so forth.
The only way you, as the empire, could manipulate this is via subsidies/edicts, as well as through constructing imperial buildings that exert a heavy influence on the planet's economy.

To go along with this, there's so many better ways to go about research; in particular, an actual separation of research of sciences and developments of technology.

Have a wide, wide variety of different scientific disciplines, somewhat similar to what we have now with scientist specializations, that are discovered and refined over time as their principles become more and more well understood.
Technologies have to be actively developed, and the cost of doing so is dependent on how well understood the foundational disciplines are.

In addition to massive private sector research and development (if there is any) which is modified by subsidies and imperial institutes for those fields, you could also have the ability to outright research and develop them via state-employed researchers and such.

Want to focus your empire's science onto particle physics and such to possibly get some juicy particle weapons, atomic forges, exotic materials and such? Spend the dosh to build a massive, high-powered particle somewhere.

I get it ain't for everyone. Just my opinion, that's all. But yeah. I want more flavor for an empire.

Sci-Fi space isn't boring. Only as boring as you make it.

I might, honestly. I'll look into modding guides and see what kind of stories I can throw down.

OH for sure, that's the only reason I have 500 hours in this game. Every game has a story, every empire has a theme. But every empire can be shaped by modifiers and stories that have tangible results or tellable tales, that's the kinda stuff I dig.

>Paradox has systems than work in their other games.
>Decide to ignore them and try to reinvent the wheel like retards.
>Make a system that is fucked.
I will assume because that.

Balance Mod where?

>Only as boring as you make it.
But this isn't 'you' making it, Paradox literally made the space you're playing in. It's not on you to make it interesting. It's their fault for choosing to design a game with an abstract narrative that can repeat endlessly with different names, but failing to provide good narrative content. Space in Stellaris is just repetitive. Nothing feels like it really matters. There's stuff out there but it boils down to +10 Physics Research or +5% Biology Research SPeed.

Victoria II's population system is the best mechanic in any strategy game. They absolutely should look back to it for inspiration because it is the direction in which grand strategy and some 4x games should be moving.

I understand. Just throwing my ideas to the wind, don't really expect people to pick it up and chant my name.

Stellaris IS pretty boring when you look at it. But that's why I want it to be better than it is. Pretty much just shitposting and echoing things other people have said, but in a nicer way, I guess. I like the game and want it to be better is all.

280x respectfully disagree

>but in a nicer way
Don't be nice, this game is a piece of shit that's only getting worse as time goes along.

more events mod isn't really overpowered, even the precursor empire that smuggled your specie in the past even gives you 1 shitty ship, thats not even worth it compared to the fleet you have to beat and how early it can come

>past even gives you 1 shitty ship
past event*
fuck

>I get really irritated when people suggest that Paradox take cues from their own games to improve Stellaris.
I would understand if he was talking about EUIV/HOI4 etc but eight years later V2 still has the best population and economic systems anybody has ever done in a strategy video game.

Is there a space version of King of Dragon Pass?

>Paradox's face when they see the ten page thread on their forums proving that the normal ai does massively cheat in regards to resources and pirates

Link?

Note also that you have to be very careful not to get war exhausted in vasselisation wars.
In normal claim wars it usually doesn't matter so much because the status quo peace is always some fraction of the war goal peace. But for a subjugation war it isn't. If you war exhaust you'll get a bunch of their territory instead of their obedience, and you don't want territory because it fucks your tech

they are already doing damage control and saying it started in this update, and some admit as much as 1.9

>maniacal scientist wins the election and stops researching

Wait a sec, isn't all gates connected?
I set the generator to 5x, and i just noticed that this

...

>drone from a swarm goes rogue
>after invading see that they were starving to death
poor space venezuela

...

>anybody has ever done in a strategy video game
Or even tried to do. The Victoria economy was kind of a mess, even after several expansion-bugfixes and half a decade of modding, but as a simple economic simulation it was still incredible and added significant gamplay. That kind of goods-based economy should have been an example for future games to build off of but instead everybody, paradox included, went right back to Civilization-style resource mana and there haven't been any meaningful divergences from those mechanics since.

It's a ten page thread on the front page of their forums user. Not difficult to find.

What's the construction ship assigned to be doing?

Link, fagboi

>all those respectfully disagree

See, all of this SOUNDS very nice.

The issue is that these are all "realistic" systems, from our human real-world perspective.

These wouldn't make sense for a hive-mind, or for somebody playing as a totalitarian police state.

Vic 2's economy was cool and simulationist, but didn't have major gameplay effects which couldn't be replicated outside of the usual manashit.

When it came down to it, there were certain factories which were profitable in certain places. The extra complexity didn't add anything significant, although it was cool.

>I want Empires that aren't in it to win the game.
Well that's EVERY empire in Paradox games. You never win in CK2, EU, or Vicky. You just do a little better each time. Stellaris is literally the only Paradox game with a win screen, and also happens to be the only one where it's practically possible to do a world conquest (galaxy conquest) without cheese memery.

The thing I like about 2.0 is that it's moving Stellaris in that direction. In 1.9 you just blobbed wherever the fuck you wanted, beat up everybody at once, ignored geography, and streamrolled to pan-galactic hegemon. Whereas in 2.0 you play a much more local game. Your sphere of influence ends at your neighbours; you CAN'T go meddling in the affairs of someone on the other side of the galaxy, any more than Hesse can get involved in a Ming-Korchin war in EUIV. Your scope is now "exert your will over every empire in your quadrant" rather than "be the only empire in the galaxy"

This is a good thing.
The BAD thing is that they've not put in any new internal empire mechanics to replace the "Be able to DoW someone at all times" thing, so now the game is even more an idle game than it was before.

how do you disagree with proof?
>here is the proof
>yeah, but I dont like it, so downvoted
the fuck

>nomads sell me 5 cruisers for 2000 yellow mana
>leave galaxy
>cruisers never arrive
fucking gypsies

It still works, as the system can be easily modified for a wide range of general empires.

Near-AnCap libertarian state? Very, very little subsidization or control over the private sector, and instead, you have to outright buy or fund imperial research and development. If you're a good customer, industry will rise to support you, or you have to do it all in house at extravagant cost.

For most normal, reasonable empires? You put out focuses and grants on scientific disciplines, award contracts for technology development, or you can have your own agencies do it.

For totalitarian states? You can outright set the ratios of what fields you want to study, for what technologies you want to develop, at the risk of inefficiency due to negating research in one field that might help research in another.

For hiveminds, just refluff the totalitarian one; decide how much of your analytical subconscious is focused on contemplating astronomy, how much is focusing on designing generation five railguns, etc etc.

Eh, when you've seen the wandering forest event 6 times it becomes uninteresting.

I don't know why you DON'T want events like that to give you big bonuses. If the migrating forests event gave you ridonkulous teck (like, +10 society on all that planet's tiles) you could be interested in it both from a flavour and a mechanical perspective - in that the +research would encourage you to actually do something: retool the planet to a pure research world and stack Assist Researchers on it.

To be honest I don't think there's a single event in vanilla that ever changes your strategic considerations. And they should really ALL change your strategic considerations, or it's (literally) non-engaging.

I agree with you but
>you CAN'T go meddling in the affairs of someone on the other side of the galaxy
space isn't a plane where you can just put walls and shit, it works like that on earth because we can't just fly trough the ground

worth getting Apocalypse dlc or wait?

i wish i could get it for free :(

I'm look at Wiz's posture and she looks like a fucking biomechanical nightmare. Lichdom aside; the level of intoeing she has means that she either has an insane amount of tibial torsion, or that she has really bad femoral anti-version.... possibly a combination of both with a bit of pelvic tilt added in from her apparent limb length discrepancy being manifested from her standing on an end of open infinity.

Also, is the level of attention required low enough, with the gameplay slow enough, to enable you to do something else, such as study, while you "play" the game?

I can't play Stellaris without a TV show in the background. In fact, Stellaris is just background noise for most of the movies and TV that I watch while I play it.

I mean, it would require a pretty massive overhaul of everything, but 2.0 did show a willingness to throw things out and start again. The game's begging for some kind of trade-based DLC anyway.

By the way, Distant Worlds Universe focuses almost completely on what you are describing, so you should go play it and I hope you have lots of fun.

>$60 for another Stellaris

how the EFF do you set rally points from shipyards?

>trade-based DLC
over wiz grave

You don't, you build fleets in the fleet manager and assign fleets to home ports.
What do they have against improving the god-awful trade and economics systems?
Also on some resolutions I can't ask other empires to give me things in return for trade, I play on my laptop and when I disconnect my second screen I basically lose the ability to trade except to offer gifts. This shouldn't happen. No other aspect of the game is fucked by being played on a different resolution. Every fucking game build has done this.

I literally don't care about "muh space is 3D borders don't count freedom of movement realism".
They did it in 1.0-1.9 and it was shit. It made diplo shit, it made warfare shit, it's shit, let it remain buried.
If you're too autistic to play a space game that doesn't let you fly everywhere at all times then may I suggest sectioning yourself.

>I mean, it would require a pretty massive overhaul of everything, but 2.0 did show a willingness to throw things out and start again.
They're going to have to; the game's foundations are fundamentally flawed for the niche it's trying to insert itself into; it's too GSG to be a 4x, and too 4x to be a GSG, and the 4x niche is already crowded.

I just hope Wiz gets his head out of his ass and actually tries for once.

>Distant Worlds
Thanks user, I'll keep that in mind! I've seen it before, but never really gave it a proper try yet.

>Also, is the level of attention required low enough, with the gameplay slow enough, to enable you to do something else, such as study, while you "play" the game?
As says, it's not so much possible as it is mandatory.
(Fortunately (?) I'm enough of an autist to write AARs for my games, and the idle-ness of Stellaris means I can write my deepest lore as I play)

>What do they have against improving the god-awful trade and economics systems?
the hell would I know, but wiz already said no to an economy focused update/dlc
but in the same post he didn't want neutral/pirate empires and look at it now

Will they stop the cheating as a result?

>Distant Worlds is as bad as Stellaris
Are you retarded user?

Too bad the guy who designed it left Paradox, or so I heard. Nobody knows how it works or how to use it in another game now.

>AI in any strategy game ever has to cheat to compete with a human brain
Oh man, what a shocking development

>Too bad the guy who designed it left Paradox
No, good for him for getting out of there. Hopefully he moved on to better things.

>Nobody knows how it works

Too bloody right mate

post tits Wiz

>"""complex""" strategy game is actually shallow enough to the point where a human can easily keep track of all relevant information and make optimal decisions
>thereby negating the benefit the AI has of being mathematically precise and perfectly attentive with its information, even if it doesn't act on that information perfectly

The AI is both bad, and the game is too simple, thus allowing the player to easily optimize far beyond what they should be capable of.

the thing is that they denied it to death and only admitted the max difficulty, but it cheats even on normal

What's the 101 on Vicky's system?

Isn't that unlocked upon adoption, not completion?

Yeah, this doesn't bother me. What does bother me are all the broken gameplay mechanics in 2.0 they didn't bother to test or fix before release.

Can't you just release the new territory as a vassal or did they remove that option?

Tell me about the changes to Corporate Dominion, /civ4xg/.

Is it a good civic to take?

>Fix the Crystal Nidus appearing on the galaxy map after you kill it, if you watch it happen, until you reload the save in one patch
>In practically the next patch the same fucking glitch happens when you blow up a planet

convoluted bullshit that was interesting to autists but ultimately did nothing to make v2 a successful game.

I'm just going to wait for a response that's actually useful rather than meme tier.
If it's bad, -why- is it bad, user?

The player is just more capable of long term planning and short term flexibility/adaptiveness. Typical human/AI relationship for strategy games.

Yeah I'm with you on that. Expansion science costs and war exhaustion are both fucky. On the whole I like the new systems but they need to ease up on the restrictiveness in their balancing.

You start with the trading hub tech and private colony ships. It's a good way to get extra energy in the early game, and a terrible way of spending it.

Also Weyland-Yutani is cool.

there are literally posts explaining this in this very thread

It wouldn't be big deal if Paradox didn't stress time and time again that their ai doesn't need to cheat in any significant way.