Paradox Grand Strat meets Sci-Fi 4X; Boners Explode

ColonicAcid · Mon May 23, 2016 10:03 pm

Bottom post of the previous page:

people who use wormholes also drive whilst under the influence and have sex with close relations

go green go warp drive

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Mon May 23, 2016 10:07 pm #179259

no go away slow ass pigfucker

ColonicAcid · Mon May 23, 2016 10:23 pm

slow and steady wins the race

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Mon May 23, 2016 10:37 pm #179276

Aliannera wrote:
Spoiler:
This fucking game sometimes man.

serves you right for using that empire name

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Mon May 23, 2016 11:57 pm #179329

Ikarrus wrote:-snip-

Those empire names holy shit

>Emirates of Hacan
>Barony of Letnev

Mmmmm yes more Twilight Imperium please

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue May 24, 2016 2:58 am #179405

An0n3 wrote:
Ikarrus wrote:-snip-
Those empire names holy shit

>Emirates of Hacan
>Barony of Letnev

Mmmmm yes more Twilight Imperium please

Here's the whole map

Federation of Sol, Arborec, Yssaril Tribes and the Naalu Collective were wiped out early game by the Universities of Jol-Nar, Winnu, Clan of Saar and myself, repectively. I've yet to see the L1Z1X Mindnet anywhere. They're probably in one of the small pockets I haven't explored yet.

I also can't believe the Sardakk were allowed to grow that big relatively... but I suppose it fits their personality. It's a good thing we're buddies.

Lazax would have been great as a fallen empire, but I created them before I learned about them. Maybe next time.

Also the war's been a lot harder. The Barony is a lot smarter than the nerds to attacked me before, and it's more or less a stalemate (Because the fucking war economy bonus bugged out and didn't trigger). If I can't make any more headway I might call a truce so I can rally my allies to the north. I love how one of my species got elected as President for their republic.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 24, 2016 5:17 am #179447

Did you make them all as custom races?

I thought that the devs had snuck all those in there.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:03 am #179535

Yeah. If you want to try them out here's how they're stored in my Documents folder. Going to play a smaller game with Aplha Centauri factions next.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/831 ... esigns.txt

I didn't bother to go too in depth with them and mostly used the in-game race creator.

Also finally got the whole map revealed. The three empty pockets are all fallen empires. Thankfully nowhere near me. L1Z1X is now a Winnu world. Those Winnu are sure good at suppressing the Purgers.

The war with Letnev is over (Stalemate), I've joined the Galactic Concord Federation to the north and I'm just focusing on developing my own lands now, shitting out so many colony pods and ballooning my Naval Capacity to 700+. Being militant-spiritualist is awesome, since I never really have to worry about happiness, or factionalism, and I don't have to take the diplomacy hit that slavery gives you.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:31 am #179554

An0n3 wrote:
Ikarrus wrote:-snip-
Those empire names holy shit

>Emirates of Hacan
>Barony of Letnev

Mmmmm yes more Twilight Imperium please

We still need to set up a time to get people to play that.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:40 am #179556

I tried playing Alpha Centauri earlier today for the first time after hearing everyone rave about it for years.

Fucking hated it. The UI and the way you control units is so bad it made me stop and stare at the screen. I have to give my units orders, and then watch as they step-by-step resolve those orders in a sequence of their own choosing. Eg. I tell a scout to go move over a hill. He stands there not moving, despite having moves left. I tell a jeep to go fight a random alium I found then suddenly my scout moves a little bit after the jeep is done shooting. A truck finishes being built from my base and travels a bit across the map. The scout moves a little more, decides he's had enough, and then is done. I say fuck this and try to end my turn. The game says some of my units are still moving and I shouldn't end my turn yet. I have no idea how to encourage them to finish doing what they are doing. Fuck this strange hell.

It also looks like re-fried ass. I'm usually pretty generous when it comes to old games, I grew up playing this shit, but aside from the character portraits everything looks terrible.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:48 am #179557

Something must be wrong with your game or your settings because Alpha Centauri shouldn't play that much differently than, say, Civ 4 and earlier.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:59 am #179561

I'll give it another chance but after sitting through the tutorials for everything like a good boy I couldn't figure out why the fuck things were moving this way.

I could pick a unit and then use the arrow keys to move them, which worked out pretty horribly since the game uses diagonal squares for its layout but the movement is orthogonal. Why.jpeg On my second turn of the game I had two other factions approach me and start negotiating for all kinds of shit, so either the game map is the size of a postage stamp or I just had a really weird fucking spawn.

Comrade Leo · Tue May 24, 2016 11:34 am

An0n3 wrote:I tried playing Alpha Centauri earlier today for the first time after hearing everyone rave about it for years.

Fucking hated it. The UI and the way you control units is so bad it made me stop and stare at the screen. I have to give my units orders, and then watch as they step-by-step resolve those orders in a sequence of their own choosing. Eg. I tell a scout to go move over a hill. He stands there not moving, despite having moves left. I tell a jeep to go fight a random alium I found then suddenly my scout moves a little bit after the jeep is done shooting. A truck finishes being built from my base and travels a bit across the map. The scout moves a little more, decides he's had enough, and then is done. I say fuck this and try to end my turn. The game says some of my units are still moving and I shouldn't end my turn yet. I have no idea how to encourage them to finish doing what they are doing. Fuck this strange hell.

It also looks like re-fried ass. I'm usually pretty generous when it comes to old games, I grew up playing this shit, but aside from the character portraits everything looks terrible.

You probably had to negotiate fungus on the terrain, which early game severely limits movement of most units. You're better off just moving units with the arrow keys individually, or using space bar to get them to skip their movement turn till next turn. AC worked on a updated Civ 2 engine, not 3 or 4 and their are major differences.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Tue May 24, 2016 11:42 am #179587

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... ch.936898/
major patch coming, among the other things:

In multiplayer, empires that are player-controlled will have a 'limited' AI for a period of 10 years if the player drops. The limited AI will not make any drastic changes to the empire, such as changing sectors, disbanding ships, declaring wars, etc, allowing a player to rejoin their empire pretty much as they left it.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue May 24, 2016 2:13 pm #179605

An0n3 wrote:I'll give it another chance but after sitting through the tutorials for everything like a good boy I couldn't figure out why the fuck things were moving this way.

I could pick a unit and then use the arrow keys to move them, which worked out pretty horribly since the game uses diagonal squares for its layout but the movement is orthogonal. Why.jpeg On my second turn of the game I had two other factions approach me and start negotiating for all kinds of shit, so either the game map is the size of a postage stamp or I just had a really weird fucking spawn.

I use the numpad

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue May 24, 2016 2:15 pm #179607

Grazyn wrote:https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... ch.936898/
major patch coming, among the other things:
In multiplayer, empires that are player-controlled will have a 'limited' AI for a period of 10 years if the player drops. The limited AI will not make any drastic changes to the empire, such as changing sectors, disbanding ships, declaring wars, etc, allowing a player to rejoin their empire pretty much as they left it.

Actually reading through this now, if's a solid patch. Probably going to fuck up my current game with those corvette and maintenance changes, though.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue May 24, 2016 7:57 pm #179723

Alpha Centauri was a breakthrough for introducing heavy story elements into the x4 genre, with each faction having major development as the game progresses through technology and wonder unlocks. The ability to terraform was also really unique as it allowed you to both do things like salvage a poor start, and to offensively terraform to do things like deny your enemies water with mountain ranges. The sheer control you would eventually have over the land was intense. The fungus aspect was also amazing, early on everyone finds the fungus infuriating, but depending on what you research it ends up either beneficial, or easy to remove, depending on how you research, in a way more significant manner than how xenophile and xenophobia impact your play by changing how you feel about aliens. Your entire view of how the world is and works changes based on if you decide to embrace highly efficient earth style terrain management or go with xeno-style management which eventually snowballs to insane levels without you even having to work the land as the land works itself for you.

As a game itself it is more important as a piece of history and many aspects of it were never really matched. Its UI and poor late game definitely hold it back though compared to modern x4s. Just because it was ground breaking once doesn't mean it will always be fun to play, but at the same time it does highlight how no modern X4 really even tries to tell a story anymore, and how a lot of them are kinda oversimplified garbage that don't try to do anything interesting. There really is no excuse for there not being a modernized SMAC, instead we got Beyond Earth which was pure trash and removed pretty much everything interesting and innovative about SMAC.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 24, 2016 8:40 pm #179745

Main reason I started playing Alpha Centauri was because I saw this on the store and realized it was reminding me of a game I've never played.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/354480

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 25, 2016 1:14 am #179898

This game is absolutely stellar in singleplayer. I don't understand the multiplayer appeal myself though, you don't have time to actually parse or react to events and it really just devolves into people balling up all their shit and throwing it at other people and hoping they win which just isn't fun to me.

I've also tried out a lot of mods for this and they're cool, but the game hasn't been out long enough for many of them to be developed. Some of them GREATLY increase my enjoyment of it like removing frontier outpost influence maintenance which means you can grab land but all your land grabbing pisses people off and the AI also grabs land like you do too.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Wed May 25, 2016 4:54 am #179956

>AI Rebellion erupts in Embers of Muaat
>Game starts lagging so badly I can't even play

Wow, so meta

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 25, 2016 4:58 am #179960

Oh also fun fact the AI cheats like shit. I tested this by giving myself all techs and building for a while and 10 years into the game the AI had fleets equivalent to mine and an AI rebellion started in one of their systems that they never fought great game Paradox.

Incomptinence · Wed May 25, 2016 6:20 am

I dunno I think maybe the all techs cheat affects all players.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 25, 2016 10:24 am #180012

AIs responding poorly to end-game threats is something they're fixing in 1.1

what I don't understand is why it wasn't fixed in 1.0, seems like the kind of AI bug you notice if you playtest the game

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Wed May 25, 2016 2:58 pm #180068

Clarke should be out later this week, yes?

In my game, all the empires on my side of the galaxy resisted all AI insurrections. While the other half now looks like swiss cheese. And they're still declaring wars on each other like nothing happened. I was worried I'd have to conquer the galaxy in order to save it.

it was actually kind of nice because the AI rebelles in key systems in my biggest rival's empire, allowing me to take those planets quickly without needing a lengthly war.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 25, 2016 3:05 pm #180070

conquering the galaxy to save it is actually not that far-fetched of a plot device, even the Star Wars Extended Universe used it

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Wed May 25, 2016 3:20 pm #180071

Reminder that Palpatine did nothing wrong and the rebellion got a fuckton of people killed by preventing his preparations for the Vong invasion/destroying the empire

ColonicAcid · Post by **ColonicAcid** » Wed May 25, 2016 4:06 pm #180078

>Expanded universe

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 25, 2016 5:09 pm #180086

I didn't say it was a good plot device

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Wed May 25, 2016 5:33 pm #180090

It wasn't even just Palpatine, KOTOR did it too

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 25, 2016 7:56 pm #180135

>conquering something to save it

I think that's why most people become admins

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Wed May 25, 2016 10:30 pm #180187

KOTOR I or II didn't do it, but the MMO was trying to shove that in there.

THE MIGHTY GALVATRON · Wed May 25, 2016 10:35 pm

Zilenan91 wrote:KOTOR I or II didn't do it, but the MMO was trying to shove that in there.

Pretty sure KOTOR II mentions it. I remember GO-TO talking about Revan's strategies looked like he was preparing the Republic against some greater threat.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Thu May 26, 2016 1:14 am #180254

KOTOR II talks about Revan leaving the galaxy on his own personal journey and doesn't allude to anything farther than that. The only character who says anything like him "preparing" for something is Kreia and she's not really a 100% reliable source.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Thu May 26, 2016 1:38 am #180260

An0n3 wrote:>conquering something to save it

I think that's why most people become admins

HAHAHA

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 6:00 am #180328

What happens when you leave a federation during a war someone else started?

Federations saved my butt more than a few times now but I'm starting to get tired of constantly getting pulled into other people's wars. They're totally using me as a really big stick seeing how my fleets comprises 75% of the federation navy now. They make the most retarded demands to liberate random planets near us, creating swarms of these 3-planet governments that all hate us, preventing military access through their starlanes. I very much prefer defensive alliances.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu May 26, 2016 6:07 am #180330

Federations are a giant trap right now, the only advantage is you don't pay influence to maintain the alliance.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 6:10 am #180333

Which is hardly an advantage late-game as you'd likely be swimming in influence. I keep hitting my cap of 1000.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu May 26, 2016 6:28 am #180336

Then I'll list the disadvantages.

Absolutely no control over foreign affairs for a minimum of thirty years a time, more depending on the number of members.
AI gives you nothing when it does decide to go to war, everything goes to the Federation President.
AI will oft declare war in situation where its unviable, such as declaring war on a Fallen Empire (which only you border) or a war when few of the Federation members can get their fleets to actually fight in the war.
Enemy AI seems to usually want your worlds whenever the Federation goes to war.
AI Federation President's usually disband the Federation fleet.
The Federation Fleet is a clusterfuck, lord help you if you get a fleet using a drive system that your empire dose not use. Spend ten years upgrading your Federation fleet only for you to now have to take over the fleet and pay upkeep afterwards.

There's little reason to upgrade to a Federation outside of you being massively undergunned, a alliance is far better as you get a actual voice in a alliance, nothing is unilateral and you and the AI have to offer something up to go to war.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Thu May 26, 2016 7:05 am #180341

Damn fun as an MP mechanic though.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu May 26, 2016 7:12 am #180345

dezzmont wrote:Damn fun as an MP mechanic though.

Definitely, if the Federation is made out of real players it seems like a great mechanic, its just that the AI is not up to the task.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 7:17 am #180347

Well, I read they're adding a lot more political intrigue to federations in their Heinlein update-- the third patch in line to be released. Probably won't be for another two months, though.

Also AI insurrection is such a bizarre crisis. They take over all these planets but they don't do anything with them. They somehow keep migrating from other empires to my planets (When AI is outlawed in my lands) and then start killing people. You can't disassemble them without the full Purge policy (they don't count as Xenos), which makes everyone mad.

It's almost as if the other empires are trying to sabotage my populations by smuggling in illegal robots. I need to make sure there's a standing army in every one of my planets now just in case one decides to migrate there.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu May 26, 2016 7:20 am #180349

Ikarrus wrote:Well, I read they're adding a lot more political intrigue to federations in their Heinlein update-- the third patch in line to be released. Probably won't be for another two months, though.

Also AI insurrection is such a bizarre crisis. They take over all these planets but they don't do anything with them. They somehow keep migrating from other empires to my planets (When AI is outlawed) and then start killing people. You can't disassemble them without the full Purge policy (they don't count as Xenos), which makes everyone mad.

The end game crisis's are broken right now.

I read in a thread that the Scourge invasion (Mugani Hak guys) is meant to have a lot more to it. For example a new neutral empire is meant to form before their invasion that consists of the few survivors of the last galaxy conquered by the scourge.

Another being that if a Unbidden invasion lasts long enough that a second Unbidden portal opens spawning a new Unibdden faction that is fighting the original faction and supports the player, and if that lasts long enough a THIRD portal open with a third faction that hates everyone and fights everyone.

But the triggers are all borked. The Unibdden event is (allegedly) meant to occur when 20% of the galaxy is under their control, but instead a fucked value means they have to control 2000% of the galaxy for it to occur.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 7:26 am #180354

I love this game to hell, and I already have over 90 hours in just a couple of weeks, but goddamn is it unfinished. The first patch just can't come fast enough.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Thu May 26, 2016 9:35 am #180388

I really really really think they should've released it under Early Access. I mean, it's Paradox Interactive, we're used to it, and we know from past experience that they will fix everything eventually and it'll become a truly great game, but they could at least admit that the first month of the game is essentially a large scale bug test.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Thu May 26, 2016 1:13 pm #180439

Clarke beta out

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... ts.937741/

Fistofbrick · Post by **Fistofbrick** » Thu May 26, 2016 2:12 pm #180457

So the AI Uprising is fairly underwhelming.

>Rebellion happens
>Get told I'm next in line for death
>2k fleet and 7k fleet appear at one of my edge colonies that's still being set up
>Nuke it off the map, my assault fleet finally finishes upgrading and goes to slap their shit
>No new attacks for a while
>My robot pops uprise
>"OH SHI- Wait what"
>Grand total of 3 pops rise up, immediately get their shit slapped by my organics because Resilient
>This happens

Spoiler:

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu May 26, 2016 2:25 pm #180459

Fanatic Xenophobe
* Rivalries now provide 50% more Influence

Xenophobe
* Rivalries now provide 25% more Influence

That's a nice buff

Fanatic Individualist
* Pops are now more unhappy in collectivist empires
* No longer have increased ethics divergence

Individualist
* Pops are now more unhappy in collectivist empires
* No longer have increased ethics divergence

That's a nice buff

Fanatic Pacifist
* Pops are now more unhappy in militarist empires
* No longer increases Food output, but rather reduces growth needed for a new Pop by 30%

Pacifist
* Pops are now more unhappy in militarist empires
* No longer increases Food output, but rather reduces growth needed for a new Pop by 15%

: 1463951985171.jpg (38.64 KiB) Viewed 16000 times

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 2:27 pm #180460

That's a big patch.

Every one of the balance changes sound good to me, especially the changes to ethos. There's an actual reason to take Xenophobe now. Not sure if it's enough.

>Military maintenance cost was supposed to be -25% discount instead of +75% extra.

Well that explains why each of my stations cost me 20 energy per month.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Thu May 26, 2016 4:36 pm #180481

An0n3 wrote:
Fanatic Pacifist
* Pops are now more unhappy in militarist empires
* No longer increases Food output, but rather reduces growth needed for a new Pop by 30%

Pacifist
* Pops are now more unhappy in militarist empires
* No longer increases Food output, but rather reduces growth needed for a new Pop by 15%

the yiff collective spreads even faster now?

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 7:43 pm #180538

>Uplift a pre-sentient mammalian race of hairy primates
>They become humans

Neat

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu May 26, 2016 9:03 pm #180562

Ricotez wrote:the yiff collective spreads even faster now?

...and gets more embassies
...and cheaper alliances

They just got handed more of the things they leverage to win games. It's like P-dox wants to take the knot.