Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Telgin]

I could get behind all of that.  To be honest, I don't really understand why there's even a leader limit in the game, and the leader system is very bare bones and strange right now anyway.  It's bizarre that scientists keep getting elected or chosen to rule, for example, simply because there are more of them than anyone else under normal circumstances.

I'm not sure I want rebellions to be something that happens every other Thursday like in CKII, but I'd still like to see them happen and have some teeth when they do.

[Trekkin]

To be honest, I don't really understand why there's even a leader limit in the game, and the leader system is very bare bones and strange right now anyway.

Of what in Stellaris could you not say this, though?

[Telgin]

True enough.  I'm kind of curious how it stacks up to, say, CKII when CKII was this new, and if that's a fair way to guess how it will look a few years from now.

[Persus13]

They can't do that either - nobody can. Modern AI is just not capable of playing a complex game like stellaris on the level of even a mediocre human player. That's not to say stellaris AI is top of the line and can't be improved, because it's pretty dumb and they could make it better.

But they couldn't make it enough better to get satisfactory results from a more complex tile system.  Especially considering it has to run on consumer level hardware which is an even further limitation on an already hard problem.

I know making good AI is hard. But like you said, their AI isn't very good. It can't handle tiles, it doesn't like to declare war at all, and it needs to be improved. So the fact remains that if they are making decisions on how to play the game based on what the AI can handle, then they aren't solving the main problem, which is the AI isn't good. I suppose they next should cut out diplomacy, because "the AI can't handle it".

[Trekkin]

True enough.  I'm kind of curious how it stacks up to, say, CKII when CKII was this new, and if that's a fair way to guess how it will look a few years from now.

It's considerably less buggy than CKII was on release, but it feels more barren of features. I remember reading that people playing CKII mostly for the character interplay surprised Paradox, and they shifted development to focus on it. Maybe they were hoping something similar would happen with Stellaris, so they half-made everything as a sort of placeholder in the hopes people would see lots of potential in one aspect or another.

[ZeroGravitas]

To be honest, I don't really understand why there's even a leader limit in the game, and the leader system is very bare bones and strange right now anyway.

Of what in Stellaris could you not say this, though?

agreed... it's not just stellaris, it's a core design strategy of all recent paradox games:

1. design the basic gameplay structure (provinces, armies, etc)
2. create a bunch of arbitrary limits to constrain that gameplay (core sector limit, demesne limit, state limit, leader limit, general limit, vassal limit, force limit, fleet size, starbase limit, fort limit, like honestly i could go on forever here)
3. make a bunch of mechanics around manipulating that limit based on government type, tech, etc

it's really like Paradox games get designed in two layers: the basic layer that defines what things you are interacting with, and then the metalayer that constrains how you do that.

[Criptfeind]

Crusader Kings 2 when it first came out was a way better game then Stellaris is now. Which isn't encouraging if you try to look at it from the perspective of Paradox games having long lifespans. I say this as a dude who got Crusader Kings 2 right away, and played it a lot for about a year before putting it away and not really playing it since then, so I don't have any like, knowledge of how it is in it's current state.

Crusader Kings wasn't perfect, but it was a realized game that was fun to play in many aspects. IMO Crusader kings achieved it's vision for what it should be on initial release, and then the dlcs and updates add more or less to various aspects afaik (idk, like I said I stopped playing Crusader kings after a year of play, so I'm not super clued up on how good the updates and dlc have been since then). Stellaris failed to achieve what it could be on release, and it'd dlcs and updates have floundered without a solid core vision of what to be, they add some cool stuff sometimes, but they aren't actually fixing the core issues in the game.

[Persus13]

The interesting thing is, there are a lot of people out there who really like Stellaris and think its one of the best space strategy games there is. I've seen a number of comments on other places about how some new space game isn't good (like Endless Space 2), and they went back to Stellaris, so its clearly hitting a niche that wasn't there before and doing something right.

And I actually like Paradox's game design on limits in that almost all of those limits you mentioned aren't hard limits. There's  consequences for those limits, but if you can handle that, they'll let you cross that limit without problems. I remember people who would solve the demesne limit problem by just revoking titles from everyone in CKII, and then play without vassals. Sure some of the limits are arbitrary, but its way better then constantly hearing "You must construct additional pylons" IMHO.

[ChairmanPoo]

Stellaris feels good, I have to say that. Somehow it manages to touch a chord. Playing the vaguely-asimovian Holy Terran Empire was fun, even when I overexpanded and lost the ability to successfully defend the borders of the empire...

[Telgin]

I haven't played many other games like Stellaris (Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is the only one I can think of right off), but it's something I enjoy a lot when I play.  As I mentioned once before, I may just be easy to please since objectively I know that just taking a new system to build mining stations, building things on planets or ticking off technologies or traditions isn't objectively exciting, but it's enough to keep me engaged and wanting to play.  The hint of roleplaying made possible by the way your neighbors treat you helps too, which is very stark contrast to the Star Trek game I mentioned, wherein every other empire will eventually (usually rapidly) come to hate your guts and try to destroy you no matter what you do.

Contrast the engagement aspect to CKII where I actually feel quite bored most of the time that I play, which is when I'm playing with others since I haven't ever wanted to play it alone.  I constantly get the feeling that I'm supposed to be doing something when I'm just sitting there and waiting for money to accumulate so I can build or improve a holding or be confident I can hire enough mercenaries to win a war, but I honestly don't know what that something is.  Stellaris doesn't have that problem for me, at least through mid game when all of your potential territory has been expanded into and you've built up everything you own.

I'm sure I'm just playing CKII wrong, since I know there is a metagame where you're supposed to be vying to set up lineages to inherit titles, but it's something I can't really get into and it's getting pretty off topic anyway.

[Kanil]

I'm sure I'm just playing CKII wrong

I feel that CK2's less about winning, and more about the experience of things happening. Stellaris is a bit more... "gamey", in that nothing much really happens beyond you going out there and making it happen.

[ZeroGravitas]

we space vicky now, boys





more twitter teasers from wiz

[Telgin]

Oh, those screenshots are very exciting.  I really want to play the game with these changes.

[ZeroGravitas]

Oh, those screenshots are very exciting.  I really want to play the game with these changes.

agreed. it looks fantastic.

[Teneb]

we space vicky now, boys

Hell, it's about time.