Two Hollywood Phonies (@autumn)

affine @mold@yourwalls.today

1y

oh noooo what a terrible misunderstanding, what do you mean they'll think of me less for all of the time they still have their capital?!

(also I suck at this game; not only did I not get out of that energy shortage, but also somehow managed to run out of minerals soon after, despite playing subterrean terravores and eating three planets at once

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affine @mold@yourwalls.today

1y

... ah ok, it looks like I had several food districts and buildings left on the conquered planets that I don't need as a lithoid species, which I didn't notice as I had a lot of food production from the purged pops and apparently Stellaris treats being murdered as a "job" and that's how all of the food income showed up. This fucking game I swear.

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Agha of the House of Felicity @anna@popbob.wtf

1y

@mold hey affine i was just thinking i havent seen you around lately

i played a bit of stellaris its quite a fun game. one thing re: energy shortage though: managing production bugged me a lot too. the system didnt feel responsive at all, & it was difficult to know how to get out of debt or get production values to change... & the new income would take a sec to ramp up... it really felt difficult to wrangle a large empire.
& i guess i just didnt understand the system the game was teaching me, & that part of any strategy game is just learning the economy management? because people obviously can learn the game & get really good at it. but lately ive been playing sid meier's civ4 & the economy is like SO intuitive. & its a simpler system, but its really just a much more responsive game. so maybe this is just a paradox thing idk

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Agha of the House of Felicity @anna@popbob.wtf

1y

@mold anyway i sympathize & couldnt get far either
i ended up having a few stupid strategies like identifying the few planets that were draining the most credits, releasing them into a vassel state with maximum level taxes, & reintegrating them later once they developed enough

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affine @mold@yourwalls.today

1y

@anna hi!

bugged me a lot too. the system didnt feel responsive at all, & it was difficult to know how to get out of debt or get production values to change… & the new income would take a sec to ramp up… it really felt difficult to wrangle a large empire.

I think it's mostly because you first have to build things and then wait for the citizens to actually take the jobs and start producing stuff, otherwise the buildings just stand there and consume the basic upkeep (they can be disabled temporarily, though)

i ended up having a few stupid strategies like identifying the few planets that were draining the most credits, releasing them into a vassel state with maximum level taxes, & reintegrating them later once they developed enough

Can't do that in the current game as a devouring swarm

I'm doing mostly ok managing a normal empire if nobody attacks me for a while, but here rushing to conquer two neighbors as fast as possible and not even being able to use their pops for anything is not ideal.

Though TBH I prefer not reintegrating the vassals, as it's always less micromanagement that way, and I think they still get the economy bonuses that all AI empires get on higher difficulties, and that can be taxed (admittedly this sort of defeats the point of playing on a higher difficulty, but whatever)

but its really just a much more responsive game. so maybe this is just a paradox thing idk

Might be that modern Stellaris just tries to be everything at once (spreadsheet emulator economy like in Victoria, named leaders that can sometimes have heirs like in Crusader Kings, etc) and doesn't do a very good job at any of that, when it used to be a more classic 4X in the 1.0 days.

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Agha of the House of Felicity @anna@popbob.wtf

1y

@mold really good point that stellaris is just so bloated ... esp w all the mods & stuff they keep adding... a space empire is just such a huge scope for a game too

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Two Hollywood Phonies @autumn@cafe.autumn.town

1y

@anna @mold i feel like stellaris is so much nicer for me to play compared to something like aoe because in aoe3/4 (even aom which im better at) it feels like 5there are so many things that you need to pick up or that players just begin to know, like playing aoe with my brothers just sucks because they automatically know "okay these troops are good against these" and i'm just some guy whos still tryna get to imperial age 😭

stellaris is bloated but after understanding all the systems (which takes like a good few games of fucking up to do) is so nice because everythings just so... Literal. They tell you outright everything.

i think if you play stellaris with a friend then you can pick up on so much more as they explain the game to you when you have a problem compared to aoe where there's such a rush to get everything done that you just fall behind so much (or maybe ive only played aoe with people who are like that lmao)

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Agha of the House of Felicity @anna@popbob.wtf

1y

@autumn @mold aoe is just so optimized, like for example there is a correct villager distribution for dark ages. i totally agree w u, but also aoe is just so much faster to play.... stellaris multiplayer is a slog....

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Two Hollywood Phonies @autumn@cafe.autumn.town

1y

@anna @mold oh yeah 100% they're just different types of games lol, stellaris is a grand strategy where you just gotta do it over a few playthroughs and aoe is usually a quick and dirty hour max ordeal

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