Mine too, have you seen a surgeon?
That got a nice chuckle out of me. :) (+1, Like, etc)
That was excellent.
He’s a frood who knows where his towel is.
Sounds like it would address my main complaint with the game at the moment. With all his vagueness about how much would make it into one patch and how no real decisions have been made, this doesn’t feel like a patch we are going to be seeing next week.
The main thing I miss about Wiz is how much more he communicated with the community in general.
Maybe, but Wiz paused the DDs while they decided the new systems hidden from the public; much as EU4, I think it’s just the new way of gathering feedback on things they might easily miss before making permanent decisions.
Did Wiz move to Imperator: Rome?
No, a secret project.
Oh shit.
Sengoku 2!
Victoria 3 or bust! Or I’m boycotting any additional Paradox releases or something.
Wanted to respond to the random empire creation part of the game. Why should it matter if you don’t know the history or traits of them when you first meet. Think about this, 21st century Earth just discovered hyperlane travel. Do we already know the names and traits of the other races we will meet , um no we won’t. We will need to learn all about them. That is what the random empire creation is trying to create.
I think you are right that Stellaris better captures the reality of space exploration and leans into the simulation side of first contact experiences.
However, that approach sort of denies the emotional investment that players have in games with fixed races/cultures. When playing Gal Civ 2/3 and I discover the Drengin Empire or Civ and come across Genghis Khan or Gandhi I tend to have more of an emotional or invested response to those known entities. I tend to have a muted response to discovering a culture created entirely by RNG rolls and algorithms. Over time as encounters, interactions, and conflicts better define the relationship I may develop more of an emotional investment in the race/culture but initially it doesn’t have the same impact as a known culture with lore, expected behaviors, and a history in a game series.
There are pros and cons to both approaches.
Realism doesn’t necessarily result in a better game, though. Having set races in SOTS added a lot to that game because it meant facing off against a Hiver was different than a Tarka. Set factions in Alpha Centauri added a ton of flavor to the game. It’s been 20 years but I still could tell you who this guy is and recognize his quotes.
Similarly, starting next to Montezuma would make me groan in dismay in Civ4. Things like that add context and personality to the game world. I’m not as down on the randomly generated races as others, but I understand where they’re coming from.
In every previous Paradox game, they’ve been able to rely on historical context to provide the setting and set up the story. In their first attempt at a non-historical game, their choice to go with fully randomized races kind of leaves it devoid of setting. I do okay with that because I am fine creating stories for the different races in my head, but I can see where others are left a little cold.
I think what I found so bizarre is that Paradox put in a lot of effort into creating stories for anomalies. In every every other 4x game an anomaly is just a goodie hut, a reward for exploring the world quickly. In Stellaris you got these often fairly elaborate stories. Like the one where you have to evacuate the gas creatures from their planet. There were typically 2 or 3 choices and so even after a couple of dozen restarts they were still pretty fresh.
If they had put a fraction of the effort into creating interesting races. I think the game would have been much better. I think SOTS did a really excellent in making their race different, especially each race moving differently. Even Gal Civ which I consider to be a pretty generic game did a respectable job.
All of that said, if the AI is completely incompetent like Civ V and Civ VI, so the threats from AI player aren’t credible then the benefit is a lot lower.
Anyone played the console version? I’m tempted to give it a try so I can play while watching my kids… But I’m.skeptical a big, fiddly game like this can handle a controller.
From what I’ve heard the console version works pretty great, just know that they are on an entirely different version of the game with none of the major DLC available. They are past 2.0 so it is hyperlane only, but it’s pre Megacorp so they are still on the tile system as opposed to the new economic model.
Good point about AI races and other games and flavor and the lack in Stellaris. I tend to feel better about it after I have played several empires (I usually roll random ones - so they will be a varied lot) and then use them in my next games as AI.
The other issue with random and the sci-fi is you don’t get a crafted faction that is amazingly unique, so there is no wonder factor, which was often part of sci-fi. And if you do get a very unusual and ridiculous set of random features for a faction it then often ends up being more “special” than special.
Is there an easy way to do this? Save a random race for future games? I’m not aware of a mechanic in vanilla.
Yeah, I am pretty sure I have no mods. I don’t remember if saving the race, or playing it counts. If it is play, just play it briefly. You can’t save an AI’s random race, just your random ones you make. Here is the New Game set up and the button. It has three states:
Greyed Phoenix - no not use
Orange Phoenix - may be used
Orange Phoenix w/lock icon - force use
Click on it to toggle:
