4X Games Thread. Expand Explore Exploit Exterminate.

[Dammit Mandrake!]

It's really not possible to fix because bonuses based on how well the civ likes you along with your civ's diplomacy bonus are what's breaking it. Any civ who makes the mistake of liking you will quickly end up bankrupt.

I usually turn tech trading off because it just penalizes research-focused civs anyway. Alpha Centauri had the same problem.

The victory conditions are also wonky with what and how various scores factor in to each victory type.

Stellaris has an automatic -1,000 to any deal where the AI does not have a good supply/reserve of a resource, so you physically cannot get them to accept no matter how much they like you.

Memory editor.

Nah I'm just being a dick. But yeah, memory editor.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Been playing some Old World now that it's out on Steam. It's nice having a game that sort of looks like Civ not actually attempt to be a Civ clone.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Researched a capstone tech at the end of a tree in GalCiv IV.


Nice proof reading.

 

[Considered HARMful]

View attachment 3315980
Nice proof reading.

Oh wow, this smells of "do the needful"-tier copywriting.

Research complete! Streetshitters have evolved into spaceshitters.

 

[Spunt]

Been playing some Old World now that it's out on Steam. It's nice having a game that sort of looks like Civ not actually attempt to be a Civ clone.

Are you having issues with excessive CPU usage? My CPU has overheated to the point of bluescreening my rig twice in the first hour of play, and I hadn't even got past the tutorial.

A game that looks like Civ5 should not be melting my CPU. It looks like a really cool game but I may have to refund it and wait till I have a new rig. Seeing as that may be some way off given the insane price of hardware, I need to preserve the life of my current rig (which isn't that outdated really) so playing games that make the CPU fan sound like it's trying to launch itself into space is probably not wise. Shame, it looks like a good game.

So I've been playing GalCiv2 instead. It's a lot of fun but way too easy to snap over your knee with starbase spam and similar strategies.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Are you having issues with excessive CPU usage? My CPU has overheated to the point of bluescreening my rig twice in the first hour of play, and I hadn't even got past the tutorial.

A game that looks like Civ5 should not be melting my CPU. It looks like a really cool game but I may have to refund it and wait till I have a new rig. Seeing as that may be some way off given the insane price of hardware, I need to preserve the life of my current rig (which isn't that outdated really) so playing games that make the CPU fan sound like it's trying to launch itself into space is probably not wise. Shame, it looks like a good game.

So I've been playing GalCiv2 instead. It's a lot of fun but way too easy to snap over your knee with starbase spam and similar strategies.

Huh, haven't noticed anything odd. Then again my CPU is watercooled. Idk, next time I play I'll take a peek at what's going on behind the scenes .

 

[Spunt]

Huh, haven't noticed anything odd. Then again my CPU is watercooled. Idk, next time I play I'll take a peek at what's going on behind the scenes .

Further investigation shows it's my GPU not my CPU that's overheating - poking around this seems to be a known issue with some older Nvidia chipsets and this game. Some poor fuckers have had their cards reach 90 degrees. Altering the graphics settings doesn't change much apparently, it's more a coding issue that's been known about for at least 2 years, so if they haven't fixed it in that time they're probably not going to fix it now.

I need to upgrade my GPU anyway. Ideally I need a new rig, but I can always get a new card for this one and build a new rig around it later.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Anybody play Humankind?

I haven't, but I REALLY like the idea of cultures upgrading into other cultures. There's a problem in any game that spans a very long timespan in that you wind up with a weird mishmash of things like American hoplites fighting the Persians or Babylonians dropping nukes on the Japanese, which you wouldn't get in an RTS like Age of Empires (focused on a narrower timeframe).

The idea that you upgrade your culture into another culture makes a ton of sense, so you can play as something like the Celts and evolve into the British and then evolve into the Americans, or play Romans and evolve into Portuguese and then into Brazilians, etc.

There's a separate problem I've never really seen anybody deal with, though, where these 4X games (and 4X-RTS hybrids like Rise of Nations) want to include Native American civilizations, but they never escaped the Stone Age. So you get weirdness where you can play the Iroquois with their special buildings and units and all that, but they're still on equal footing with other powers. If I were designing a game like that (I really wish somebody would make a spiritual successor to Rise of Nations) I would have it be that the ages correspond to technological/development level for the society instead of just meaning "this is what they were at this time for Europeans."

The civilizations list also looks wonderful. Civilization games lately seem to have lots of stupid shit in them (crappy meme civs like the Cree and Australians) but Humankind has all kinds of wonderful interesting cultures that you just never see in these sort of games, like the Mississippians and the Garamantes.

 

[Urbanmech]

Anybody play Humankind?

I haven't, but I REALLY like the idea of cultures upgrading into other cultures. There's a problem in any game that spans a very long timespan in that you wind up with a weird mishmash of things like American hoplites fighting the Persians or Babylonians dropping nukes on the Japanese, which you wouldn't get in an RTS like Age of Empires (focused on a narrower timeframe).

The idea that you upgrade your culture into another culture makes a ton of sense, so you can play as something like the Celts and evolve into the British and then evolve into the Americans, or play Romans and evolve into Portuguese and then into Brazilians, etc.

There's a separate problem I've never really seen anybody deal with, though, where these 4X games (and 4X-RTS hybrids like Rise of Nations) want to include Native American civilizations, but they never escaped the Stone Age. So you get weirdness where you can play the Iroquois with their special buildings and units and all that, but they're still on equal footing with other powers. If I were designing a game like that (I really wish somebody would make a spiritual successor to Rise of Nations) I would have it be that the ages correspond to technological/development level for the society instead of just meaning "this is what they were at this time for Europeans."

The civilizations list also looks wonderful. Civilization games lately seem to have lots of stupid shit in them (crappy meme civs like the Cree and Australians) but Humankind has all kinds of wonderful interesting cultures that you just never see in these sort of games, like the Mississippians and the Garamantes.

I didn't like it but maybe go with the Steam reviews. One of my biggest issues at launch was that the civilizations were 1 pick for the game. So if you got unlucky and couldn't advance fast enough you would be left with whatever the AI didn't choose. And that happened too often just rather play the Endless series over Humankind.

 

[milk]

I didn't like it but maybe go with the Steam reviews. One of my biggest issues at launch was that the civilizations were 1 pick for the game. So if you got unlucky and couldn't advance fast enough you would be left with whatever the AI didn't choose. And that happened too often just rather play the Endless series over Humankind.

I also prefer Endless Space 2 over Humankind. It's funny considering Endless space games were the developers learning how to make games, and Humankind is supposed to be their magnum opus.

 

[Urbanmech]

I also prefer Endless Space 2 over Humankind. It's funny considering Endless space games were the developers learning how to make games, and Humankind is supposed to be their magnum opus.

Yea I like both series when I want to go a little old school go with Endless Legend, want to go Galactic Civ route fire up Endless Space 2.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Do I want Stellaris or Endless Space 2?

I played Stellaris and Endless Space 1 a long long time ago whenever they came out but do not remember much. GalCiv IV is just not very good right now.

 

[Fetish Roulette]

Do I want Stellaris or Endless Space 2?

I played Stellaris and Endless Space 1 a long long time ago whenever they came out but do not remember much. GalCiv IV is just not very good right now.

Endless Space 2 is one of my favorite 4x games of all time, I can't recommend it highly enough. I've never gotten into Stellaris because it's so CPU frying and expensive, but I got ES2 and all of its DLC content for $29.99 during a sale and it's lasted me hundreds of hours.

 

[Armadillo]

Do I want Stellaris or Endless Space 2?

I played Stellaris and Endless Space 1 a long long time ago whenever they came out but do not remember much. GalCiv IV is just not very good right now.

Stellaris is more of a sandbox while ES2 is a more streamlined 4X game. I like playing Stellaris with lots of flavor mods, but in the end it's more of a glorified stim tool and feels pretty pointless after a certain point. Doesn't really compare to any of the games it's trying to imitate after you go beyond the pretty graphics and the nice soundtrack. Mechanically it's an absolute mess under the hood and while I haven't played in some time I'd bet that the AI is still fundamentally broken (there was a point when the AI literally stopped playing halfway through the game and most people didn't notice because the game is that obtuse and unengaging).

 

[Poop A Loop]

How's the AI in ES2 nowadays? It was more shit than normal for a 4x for a while compared to just using a Stellaris AI mod so I gave up on it since the ES2 devs never really showed any interest in making it better or putting that feedback into account for later titles like Humankind.

 

[Fetish Roulette]

How's the AI in ES2 nowadays? It was more shit than normal for a 4x for a while compared to just using a Stellaris AI mod so I gave up on it since the ES2 devs never really showed any interest in making it better or putting that feedback into account for later titles like Humankind.

The AI's still kind of meh, but play on a high enough difficulty with some mods and it doesn't wind up mattering all that much.

 

[Fwiffo]

Ok a few games near and dear to my heart:

1) Sins of a Solar Empire. I had no idea when I first bought this how much I would enjoy it. The scale is fantastic and well-managed in game. Sure there is a lingering scent of not-made-by-a-AAA-studio but I really bought into the character of the factions and atmosphere of the game. Also flying a kilometres-long flying gun that obliterates entire fleets with the press of a button as weird Russian space-traders never gets old.

2) Rise of Nations. I spent hours on this one. Kinda like a real-time version of Civ with some Age of Empires thrown in there. The idea of fluid “battle lines” and how they impact warfare makes combat less of a Zerg rush and more of an ever-fluctuation zone of combat, like real warfare. Also stealth bombers are OP

3) Supreme Commander. Ok this is more an RTS, the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation. But the sheer scope and breadth of skirmish games in SC makes me lump this in with 4X games. Also, who DOESN’T want to march an army of hundred-foot-tall spider bots with giant supervillain microwave lasers on their backs across the ocean floor to emerge on the beachhead of the enemy, torching everything in their way? Oh and controlling literally the huge saucer motherships from Independence Day, complete with scary central-mounted death beams who, when shot down, obliterate anything under them as they come crashing down to earth.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Ok a few games near and dear to my heart:

1) Sins of a Solar Empire. I had no idea when I first bought this how much I would enjoy it. The scale is fantastic and well-managed in game. Sure there is a lingering scent of not-made-by-a-AAA-studio but I really bought into the character of the factions and atmosphere of the game. Also flying a kilometres-long flying gun that obliterates entire fleets with the press of a button as weird Russian space-traders never gets old.

2) Rise of Nations. I spent hours on this one. Kinda like a real-time version of Civ with some Age of Empires thrown in there. The idea of fluid “battle lines” and how they impact warfare makes combat less of a Zerg rush and more of an ever-fluctuation zone of combat, like real warfare. Also stealth bombers are OP

3) Supreme Commander. Ok this is more an RTS, the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation. But the sheer scope and breadth of skirmish games in SC makes me lump this in with 4X games. Also, who DOESN’T want to march an army of hundred-foot-tall spider bots with giant supervillain microwave lasers on their backs across the ocean floor to emerge on the beachhead of the enemy, torching everything in their way? Oh and controlling literally the huge saucer motherships from Independence Day, complete with scary central-mounted death beams who, when shot down, obliterate anything under them as they come crashing down to earth.

Those are all great games. I really liked Rise of Nations. That was a well-made game.

Supreme Commander was the first and only time I ever used a second monitor. Dual CRT master race.

 

[Caesare]

Also there's no way a game where you can buy slaves and conquer natives is being released in current year (the original Colonization came out in 1994, the Civ4 based version in 200.

I read an article with some homo crying about Colonization when the Civ4 based version came out. It was as pitiful and pathetic as you'd imagine. Games where you murder 10000 people are fine, but heaven forbid someone who likes historical shit likes to play a game based on historical things.

 

[Fwiffo]

Those are all great games. I really liked Rise of Nations. That was a well-made game.

Supreme Commander was the first and only time I ever used a second monitor. Dual CRT master race.

And that makes perfect sense. Even at a higher resolution like 1080p it’s hard to make effective use of the minimap and the main display on a single monitor (yes I still play it to this day).

SupCom didn’t have the personality of Blizzard RTSs at the time, and it ran like a total pig on all but the beefiest systems, but holy god was it fun. I still love making a gigantic naval flotilla to patrol my starting island and then, once I have enough battleships, set sail for the enemy and batter them down with long range artillery in a way that they can’t even retaliate against.

Also when the UEF commander gets access to those tiny tactical nuclear missiles in its backpack and it can just sit underwater and fuck your shit up.