Hot posts in thread: Games Today, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Choice is always good and I agree that Stellaris does a fine job of satisfying all camps. When I play Stellaris I just restrict everybody to warp and forget that starlanes even exist. Win, win. My only concern for PSS is that developing (and balancing) such a comprehensive system of FTL choice would take limited dev time away from far more important issues.

Indeed, MOO-Cts's truly bizarre implementation of starlanes ended up being even more claustrophobic, time consuming and restrictive than "ordinary" starlanes seen in other games. You really have to wonder what the hell they were thinking - or not thinking as the case may be.

Yes MOO 3 had starlanes. You were also theoretically able to travel "off road" but it was so slow that it was utterly useless. Like many things in MOO 3 the concept was interesting but the implementation was completely broken.

MOO-Cts didn't even bother trying to implement an off road system, broken or otherwise, probably because it would have confused their children-with-tablets casual target audience far too much. Instead they concentrated on shiny graphics and writing more cat jokes for the Mrrshan Empress to say.

 

I sure did. Dave Freer is a really good author, and it's a good book. They aren't really dogs, btw

 

I've only played MoO2 unfortunately. And MoO3 but I didn't like it so it doesn't count. There wasn't any starlanes was there? It's been such a long time.

 

Well, you guys covered most of the topic, here is my two cents. I find starlanes realizatiom (game rules, not code) clunkier then free movement. In SEV starlane/wormhole endpoints were THE places where you want to park a defense fleet. Relatively fast interplanetary movement (you could traverse whole star system in 2 turns mid-game and in 1 turn late game) only augmented the importance of that one hex. MoO:CtS suffers from opposite problem, interplanetary movement is too slow, you can only visit one "point" in the star system per turn and starlane endpoints are one of them. Each starlane on the path effectively adds 2 turns to travel time regardless of FTL speed.

Well both games suffer from how starlanes combine with interplanetary movement and for that MoO 3 starlanes are the best implementation among those 3 games (haven't played other 4Xs with starlanes). It had an annoying quirk too, you could travel "off lane" but it was never a shorter trip. Thing is starlanes multiply base speed by factor of something like 10 or 20 so it's almost always faster to make a few hops through starlanes then to travel straight. Combine that with reserve and mobilization center mechanics which practically allowed you to teleport ships anywhere in your empire and you get even less reasons for long off lane missions.

I'm personally not a fan of chokepoints, they tend to turn the game of tactics to a thug of war. Then again if MoO 3 and 4 had proper special weapons the it could have been averted. Remember Black Hole Generator from MoO 1, when an enemy attacks you with a stack of 32000 small and then you ask him where are his shields? Fun times .

 

Suspension of disbelief is good in sci fi Scifibookguy... but I just can't...Stardogs?

Seriously though you read it?

 

Hey! It's a good book!

 

That sounds awesome. I want to read it lol

 

Blast you Scifibookguy, I clicked the link.

There's 15 seconds of my life I will never get back

 

Don't forget Stardogs

 

Well that's why I like Stellaris. It offers choice with 3 different methods of travels:
- Warp. Your fleets got a range they can jump to any system in that from the border of a system. Simple.
- Hyperlane. Same as Starlanes. You go to the border of a system and you can jump to any linked system.
- Wormhole.You build stations. Massive range. Ships can travel anywhere in this range from the station. Ship must travel back to the station (warping to it) in order to travel to another system.

Moreover you can unlock new ways of travel as you play the game but they have a risk (I won't spoil).
You can also choose only one method of travel to be used by EVERYONE at the start of the game. It won't prevent them from discovering new ways of travel though.

I stand my ground: choice is the best tool you can offer your players.
Yet I know PSS is here to create a heir for MoO and as such open space warp travel is here to stay of course.

 

Well then that is fun and can be included in a game that doesn't feature starlanes as the primary mode of Travel.

In SEV by the time the enemy can research this, you will only find the enemy in the history books or one of my intergalactic zoos.

 

Until the enemy develops a wormhole generator, then the next thing you know you've got a fleet hanging over your planet

 

Well, lets say you're the game designer. As game designer you get to decide the logic of your FTL system. It can be anything, Jump drives, Warp travel, starlanes, pink unicorns.......literally anything. About all I can say is that if your FTL system results in my space game being forcibly transformed into a land-based strategy game with all the depth and complexity of RISK then I really wouldn't be very interested in playing it. At all. It's simply not what I signed up for.

I buy space strategy games to be challenged by the type of strategic thinking a space environment would logically mandate not a land environment. I have an uncountable number of wargames to scratch my ground strategy itch if that's what I want. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your preference, its just not one I share and therefore explains why I gravitate towards games like MOO 2 rather than say Endless Space.

Actually that's not 100% true, I have bought starlane-based games before but the rest of the game has to be absolutely magnificent to compensate for the massive drag-factor.

 

And your reason for disliking starlanes is exactly my reason for liking them it seems ahah.
What if however the narrative itself dictates that there must be starlanes? In a universe where FTL is only possible through the travel of gigantic gates connecting systems to one another, a remnant of an ancient spacefaring race? Surely then the immersion would not be blown away?

 

One of my most important reasons for preferring MOO 2 over say MOO 3 or 4 would definitely have to be free movement or the lack of artificially constraining starlanes. Chris outlined some very good points in support of free movement, all of which I agree with but, those are not the biggest issue I have with Starlanes.

Its true that starlanes add strategy to the game. The problem is that they add LAND-based strategy, roads, choke points, mountains (impassable areas) which force you to use the type of land-based strategic thinking you would employ in a ground combat wargame, flanking, holding choke points....etc. The problem is that I don't want to be thinking like that in a space strategy game, it blows my immersion right out of the proverbial water.

And we're not talking complex strategy here, but something about as in-depth as a game of RISK, leading to all the dumbed-down ultra-simplistic defense issues that Chris outlined so well in his post. Starlanes add land-based strategy and simultaneously subtract all the far more complex fluid defensive and offensive strategies that existed with free movement.

In short if I want to be challenged by land-based strategic thinking then I'll happily play Civ, or any one of a zillion wargames. But when I'm pretending to be a space admiral in a space empire, I want my strategic decisions to be based around the free and open environment of space, not the roads and mountains of land. Once again MOO 2 did it right.

 

It is a matter of taste and some of what you propose could sway me to reconsider.
Yes the enemy will come at my planets but which ones? Range will have to be taken into account as well as risk assessment and distribution of defensive assets etc, to me that is war not micromanagement, particularly in a well thought out game that can include these strategic considerations without increasing micro-management.

I can do a feint without starlanes but not with them, I can be surprised without starlanes but again, not with them.

While I do not disparage anyone with a different taste and understand that it is not a question of wrong and right but rather personal preference I am just as much a warrior as I am an explorer or administrator when I play 4Xs. For myself, starlanes dumb down one aspect of the game to the point where I lose interest quickly.

 

I agree that to some extent starlanes may dumb down some of the strategical aspect of the game (and I would add have also the benefit of dumbing it down enough for the sake of gameplay and less micromanagement), however let's compare it with free range of movement across the empty space:
- You also know where the enemy will come eventually: to your planets. So instead of fortifying a few wormholes the you fortify your planets. It simply add more tedious to the game.
What I hear you saying is that: if I need to micromanage more, it means the challenge is bigger and thus I'm enjoying myself best. It's fine to me but it sounds a tad masochistic ;p

I think there could be ways to make starlanes more interesting by perhaps making them fluctuate around and switch throughout the game, or adding new ones as new hyperdrive technologies are discovered, or being able to find hidden temporary starlanes by investing in some resources, etc.
But I guess in the end it's all a matter of taste

 

First, let me say that your post is very astute and I agree with it.

And now to the question you pose, "What's so wrong about starlanes?"

From a certain perspective you could say that there is nothing wrong with them, from another perspective there is a lot.

SEV is the only game I play from time to time that features them and that is because so much of the game is different from others yet the play there also suffers because of it.

The biggest issue is that by including starlanes, tactics and strategy in particular gets dumbed down to a degree which causes me to lose all interest. Find the wormholes and guard them. send scouts to connected systems.
If no one is there, find the wormholes in the newly explored system and guard those.
If the system is populated, build up a fleet, assault the system, find the wormholes and guard them.
Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

Additional effects of starlanes.

A secured system deep in your territory can be forgotten from a military standpoint, no need to garrison it or station some ships there.

Ships held in reserve lose their value, you know exactly from where the enemy will arrive, not so if there is free travel.

Starlanes tell me what to guard and where to station my assets, I don't really need to think about it, that's not why I play, I like a challenge and starlanes tend to reduce it.

I realise of course that this is my personal preference, other players may be comforted by always knowing where the front is and being able to take advantage of it, I on the other hand am bored by it.

 

What's so wrong about starlanes?

I understand that it's not "realistic" but it adds depth to strategy (as turtling can become a strategy without being THE strategy) and balances out tall vs wide empires (tall empires would probably have settled so as to entrench in hard to access areas).
Perhaps I'm biased because I love turtling and I hate having to micromanage patrol fleets to chase off raider units. It's tedious and the AI will always make a better job at it than the player. I'm actually surprised that games like Stellaris don't have a better AI when it comes to raiding and defending against raids. Oh well...


To come back to the subject at hand:
I agree with what most of you said; the greed of the industry don't care about players but only about money.
I hate the complacency of Early Access games and how some people can get away by abandoning a project midway (StarDrive anyone?).
I hate the cheap money grabs.
I hate the cheap replicas.
But there's some hope. Some people still care about the community and about gaming. Some people don't see money as the goal but simply as a mean to the end; to make a good game.
And with the technological advancements we can hope for very good games in the future indeed.

And finally, as it really changed that much? It's like music. We remember the good hits from the past, the Queen, AC/DC, Pink Floyd but we've forgotten the bad and the ugly. There were some very good games in the past too, but there were also some very bad. We simply have to be more experienced discerning the good from the bad and the ugly.

 

The question you pose has no clear answer but rather some guidelines that need to be followed.
A good game to me bay be horrible to you and vice a versa. In this case we would be both right by the way.
Look at Armada 2526 gold. it is a simplistic (to me) 4x that has all of the standard ingredients, a good interface, decent graphics etc. Yet the game is boring and no matter how many times I played I just couldn't do so for more than an hour or so. What is missing from this game to cause this?
For me, the answer is simple
I never felt threatened (no challenge)
Colonizing is too easy (no challenge)
Exploration is dumbed down to tears (no challenge)

In other words the game is poor because it is too easy, too streamlined and seems to have been designed to not be a challenge. Sorry, but if the game can not beat me I have no desire to play. By the way, the lack of ship designing and rigid tech tree did not turn me off but the overall content of the package bored me. (No depth)