- Joined
- Jan 28, 2018
I like the idea of Stellaris if that makes sense, with the pop system and politics a bit inspired by Victoria and such. When I first played Victoria 1 (man, that's a long time ago isn't it) my mind was blown by the immersion of actually running a country with pops that have opinions on matters and aren't just mindless drones realizing whatever you think up. That was very new at the time in that particular strategy sector. Of course looking back it wasn't all that intricate and it had a bunch of bugs but well, it was cool and new. Same with CK.
With a few mods Stellaris is also a lot of fun in regards to thinking up and making a race, for me at least. (I can see that's not for everyone) Sadly as soon as you start the game it's just the same old all over again, DLC or not, very same-ish. All the traits and traditions etc. are just veneer and subtract points somewhere and put them somewhere else. They made a piss-poor job at making you feel it.
I think one of the big problems that sets Stellaris apart and doesn't make it play nicely like CK2 or EU or Victoria is that that everyone more or less starts at zero, Civilization-like. This makes the game actually not more open, but with the systems in place very predictable. (Especially when you consider the intrinsic limits of AI) Also AI traditionally doesn't cope well with too few abstractions and too many options and they can't work their randomizer in like in CK to tilt an already preexisting network of Characters and Countries in interesting directions with nearly limitless permutations. The AI in CK wasn't smart at all (especially the war AI was retarded, even considering the rather simplistic war system) but all the events and the character traits that rulers had that tipped the RNG in favor of specific actions make it all look real lifelike. It often is like these are people that actually have agendas and personalities, even though they're just a set of traits the computer throws dice against.
If they'd pre-craft a hand-tailored universe where everything is sorta established and would also arrange their event system around that and fleshed out the role of characters, it would be a much more interesting game, a lot more in line with their other offerings. Of course it might lose the regular space 4x crowd completely and also would be a risk to undertake, which nobody in the game industry likes.
If you finish that thought you kinda notice that the paradox strategy games (the good ones) were always more about immersion, dreaming up situations and sort of roleplaying even, not about autistically min-maxing the perfect attack stack. I think they should target that more in their design, because it worked very well for their other titles. Instead with all the permanent retrofitting of the systems it seems like they try to please the roleplayers and the twitchy hardcore strategy autists alike (who are more "hardcore" than hardcore, because the AI in these games always has a weak point they end up exploiting) and end up losing both. These games were never really about being a grand strategist to begin with. In many titles with some countries you'd always win, with some you'd always lose. (if you didn't go to autistic length of micromanaging things) CK1/2 are even more or less just gambling with the RNG. You can only do your best and might end up with a game over screen 5 years later or Emperor of Germany - it's still entertaining either way though. I have trouble putting it in words but they should do more of that fuzzy logic CK stuff in their games. It's very unique.
With a few mods Stellaris is also a lot of fun in regards to thinking up and making a race, for me at least. (I can see that's not for everyone) Sadly as soon as you start the game it's just the same old all over again, DLC or not, very same-ish. All the traits and traditions etc. are just veneer and subtract points somewhere and put them somewhere else. They made a piss-poor job at making you feel it.
I think one of the big problems that sets Stellaris apart and doesn't make it play nicely like CK2 or EU or Victoria is that that everyone more or less starts at zero, Civilization-like. This makes the game actually not more open, but with the systems in place very predictable. (Especially when you consider the intrinsic limits of AI) Also AI traditionally doesn't cope well with too few abstractions and too many options and they can't work their randomizer in like in CK to tilt an already preexisting network of Characters and Countries in interesting directions with nearly limitless permutations. The AI in CK wasn't smart at all (especially the war AI was retarded, even considering the rather simplistic war system) but all the events and the character traits that rulers had that tipped the RNG in favor of specific actions make it all look real lifelike. It often is like these are people that actually have agendas and personalities, even though they're just a set of traits the computer throws dice against.
If they'd pre-craft a hand-tailored universe where everything is sorta established and would also arrange their event system around that and fleshed out the role of characters, it would be a much more interesting game, a lot more in line with their other offerings. Of course it might lose the regular space 4x crowd completely and also would be a risk to undertake, which nobody in the game industry likes.
If you finish that thought you kinda notice that the paradox strategy games (the good ones) were always more about immersion, dreaming up situations and sort of roleplaying even, not about autistically min-maxing the perfect attack stack. I think they should target that more in their design, because it worked very well for their other titles. Instead with all the permanent retrofitting of the systems it seems like they try to please the roleplayers and the twitchy hardcore strategy autists alike (who are more "hardcore" than hardcore, because the AI in these games always has a weak point they end up exploiting) and end up losing both. These games were never really about being a grand strategist to begin with. In many titles with some countries you'd always win, with some you'd always lose. (if you didn't go to autistic length of micromanaging things) CK1/2 are even more or less just gambling with the RNG. You can only do your best and might end up with a game over screen 5 years later or Emperor of Germany - it's still entertaining either way though. I have trouble putting it in words but they should do more of that fuzzy logic CK stuff in their games. It's very unique.
