Sots 2 never worked, it’s still unplayable , Stellaris works, and delivers a solid experience, I like its rts pace and it’s very strong early and mid game. Compared to endless space 2, I want to like it, but it’s dense and could have been more fun.
SOTS2 was straight-up unfinished when it shipped. Most game companies wouldn’t even call what they shipped an alpha.
And even though it sort of works today, it’s a bad game. A lot of interesting ideas that simply were not executed properly. All they did was make it so it doesn’t crash willy-nilly on you anymore.
Yeah, SOTS - a game made in 2006 - is still an infinitely superior game to its sequel. They captured lightning in a bottle, and just weren’t able to do it again. I’ve been hopeful for Stellaris to become the semi-sequel I actually wanted, and it looks like it’s getting closer.
I find it functional as a grand strategy game despite the boring endgame. Why is it that you think it is not “functional”? And how do you define “functional”?
You keep saying that without substantiating your claim. You said earlier that “most people” thought it was terrible. Yet reviews, both professionally and on Steam, suggest otherwise. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that your opinion is anything but a minority one and thus your assertion is incorrect. Any point or opinion that you make is lost when you try to make up facts to substantiate a point.
That that they are improving it does not mean that it was not playable or enjoyable on release. Otherwise, the same could be said about any patch or release.
That one person mellowed on Stellaris does not prove your point. That is a false authority claim which is a logical fallacy.
I did not like SOTS 1. Why would I purchase SOTS 2? However, I do remember the debacle that was the SOTS 2 launch and that is yet another logical fallacy you are making - false equivalence. Both professional and use reviews bear that out. Would you like to compare Stellaris to Extreme Paintbrawl next?
Your rhetoric suggests an attempt to over-dramatize the release and condition of Stellaris. I am unsure why you feel the need to do so but it does not help prove your points. You do not seem to like it. You have that right. Most people did and that, by all available evidence, is a fact. Some of us continue to enjoy it and are excited about these changes as they should add yet another layer of strategy and extend the life of the game.
I think that EU4, CK2, and HoI4, at release, were fantastic games that had some bits needing revision or expansion (e.g. colonization for EU4 which was addressed in the DLC expansion and the air war in HoI 4) but otherwise served as great bases of core game design for future gameplay additions.
Stellaris, on the other hand, not only needed bits revised like diplomacy, sectors , etc. but also had questionable design decisions like the FTL, the way ship combat and planetary invasion felt, and both the mid and late game being light on content. As was noted above this is likely due to a lack of experience in sci-fi 4x games. The game still gave me 50 hours of good fun, which is good value gaming wise, but not the hundreds of hours of their other titles. I like that the dev team are not only trying to add to the game but also fix some of the fundamental flaws of the original design.
HoI4 was a more complete core game than Stellaris at release. However, I don’t know if I would call it a fantastic game at release. The AI was a huge problem and though things are much better, it’s still the game’s major drawback.
Definitely agree that the Stellaris team is trying to fix the flaws of the original design. HoI4 had a big delay to retool core gameplay components and I think it helped the game a lot. Stellaris released on time, but it would have been better if they had taken more time to iterate on the game pre-release. On the other hand, Stellaris is new and HoI4 devs have the experiences of three previous games to guide them.
Hoi 4 is a genius of game design, it’s awesome and if you got friends to replace the stupid AI you’re in for a treat , each game develops always in new and interesting ways. I wish they had a 4x with the hoi 4 systems, too many 4x games awe honestly just simple. Heck civ 6 just now introduces mechanics that make you use your noodle, at least a little.
Stellaris works, it’s a simpler game, that they understood needed more mechanics to keep the player busy, hoi4 had no such shortcomings
Is there any ETA on this update or is this just something they are thinking about which may not materialize for many months?
This is what they are planning, but they are vague on timescales at the moment. From previous experience we are talking months before this will be available.
They have videos of internal builds showing off these things, so they are doing more than thinking about it. However, the “not materialize for many months” is probably correct.
I think this is an excellent point. Same goes for comparisons between Stellaris and EU4.
It has a lot of genius elements, for sure. I haven’t played multiplayer, as the timing is tricky for me, but at launch the poor pathing and battleplan AI can have an effect even on the human player’s forces. Anyway, we actually do have a thread for that game, and even some new DD’s to talk about.
Well, on the scale of 4x games now, I rate it so
1 ) Stellaris
2) Distant Worlds
3) Endless Space 2
I found Stars in the Shadow so simplistic that it really doesn’t work well for me, I want more complex stuff…given, Endless Space 2 is the most complex of the 3, but Distant Worlds is better because of ambition, and Stellaris cause its just works.
Another screen of a war in progress:
The ability to settle for the status quo, notable NOT the status quo ante bellum, is pretty new for a Paradox game I think.
Also, Martin has said that the new system doesn’t have a war score. So a pretty big shakeup there.
No warscore? That is a big shakeup. That’s one of those constants across their games. I’m intrigued!
Yeah, I guess the idea is that you keep building war exhaustion until one side concedes?
If that is true I think it could be a great idea for this particular game. Instead of having to invade planets to get warscore you can simply bomb them to increase their war exhaustion and they agree to capitulate. It will also be a nice buff to things that slow war exhaustion.
There is no ‘grand strategy’ because there is no meaningful strategy in how wars are conducted, or how diplomacy is pursued. You can’t have a functional grand strategy game where extrapolated warfare comes down to one number for each empire, and this number is compared against the other and the smaller then loses the entire game. Which is how doomstacks currently work in Stellaris.
Ignoring when the AI has a brainfart, losing a war generally means losing the entire game since rebuilding an entire fleet is nearly ruinous to any empire and certainly takes far longer than the mandatory ceasefire.
You keep saying that without substantiating your claim.
It would help if you had bothered to read my post before replying to it, which you clearly didn’t.
. You said earlier that “most people” thought it was terrible. Yet reviews, both professionally and on Steam, suggest otherwise. There is nothing anywhere to suggest that your opinion is anything but a minority one and thus your assertion is incorrect. Any point or opinion that you make is lost when you try to make up facts to substantiate a point.
‘Most people eventually agreed that it was pretty terrible upon release’. Being an arsehole and writing a polemic on how one opinion stated needs substantiation or an entire series of posts is discredited is one thing, but being an arsehole and not even reading the posts you’re replying to is another.
I clearly cannot survey most people, therefore I am extrapolating my experience outward. Which is exactly what you’re doing when referring to metacritic and steam reviews on a larger scale as representing a majority.
I’ll ignore that none of the glowing Stellaris reviews that I read at launch mentioned any of the clear and later acknowledged near-gamebreaking flaws at release, suggesting that the reviewers did not play the game for significant amounts of time, and I’ll ignore the huge outcry TomChick caused when he gave Stellaris one of only a handful of negative reviews suggesting an overinvested core community.
That that they are improving it does not mean that it was not playable or enjoyable on release. Otherwise, the same could be said about any patch or release.
They have substantially changed almost every feature that the game came with, including massive changes to several core mechanics. That does not suggest a good game at launch, nor a coherent game. Quite the opposite, though obviously it’s impossible to ‘substantiate’ that. You’re also conflating something being terrible with something being unenjoyable c.f. The Big Bang Theory.
That is a false authority claim which is a logical fallacy.
Now you just sound petulant. Stating that I’m using an example is not a false authority claim, unless you’re trying really hard to fit what I said to list of fallacies you had loaded on wikipedia at the time. You’ve demonstrated that you can’t manage to actually read an entire post, don’t understand what an example is, don’t understand the difference between a comparison and false equivalence, nor do you understand that fact ↔ opinion lies on a continuum.
It’s particularly amusing that the two posts that followed yours were talking about Stellaris being functionally lacking at release.
Not that I want to get into the middle of a flame war, as much as the weather’s getting cold, but it’s one thing to not be amazing and another to be bad. Yes, it was overrated on release, but it wasn’t a bad game. It dared to do something completely different except fom DW, and it’s even very different from it
Like many such attempts, it failed on many levels, but it never stopped having a lot of plays, videos, new mods and well regarded updates. I’m sorry it’s not in many ways what you wanted, I’m sorry it’s not that close to what I wanted, but you’re completely wrong in saying it’s a terrible game, it’s just not for you as is. And, honestly, it feels like what you want would never be possible in the first iteration of the game, least of all at release. There was, and is, barely any frame of reference for what it should be, and developing and testing many variations without contact with the audience would never get it done.