What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Gary Sax wrote: Ask questions here or in the Stellaris thread---it's a dense game but I've spent enough time with it that I can explain most of the systems, even the new ones.

I booted this up and poked around for an hour and man there's a lot huh

www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/a4b9...e_flow_of_resources/

This is going to make you laugh but I found this spreadsheet very helpful for understanding the game's economy.

Can't help with any bizarre menu/interface management, that would be my fear for the console version.

I'm going to disagree. I think Endless Legends is a game with real potential but that never meets it because it's not all polished or balanced.

The biggest issue is that you play the game against players who are incapable of understanding the game. The AI in this game is like a gigant baby. It knocks pieces over, it launches them from place to place but it has no reason why. You can move in and notice that there's nothing defending your opponent's terrain, just a hero. The computer cheats massively just for the game to be playable. I think a game is only as good as its opponents and ES's opponents are not very fun ones.

The other is that all the cool things don't matter because balance is inexistant. You can win the game every time by researching metallurgy or a tech like that (don't remember the name) because 1) It's very cheap 2) It's very strong 3) The AI is dumb and doesn't upgrade troops. Factions don't work. The gold machines are broken while the elves are boring and not very playable. The "pacifist" faction is best played in the least pacifist way possible. Science is broken in that the cost of late technologies is heavily overcosted.

The market and luxury resources are broken. You can buy those +25% science thingies that just break the game in half. In fact, the whole luxury mechanic breaks the game in half. So does the market. And buying neutral troops. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is.

Really the game could be great, but it isn't.

The biggest complaint I see against strategy games time and again is the AI. Civ VI AI is terrible, EUIV AI is terrible, Stellaris AI is terrible. So I guess my question is, what complex strategy game has good AI - especially one that doesn't cheat?

Galactic Civilizations games usually have really tough AI that doesn't cheat. Too bad I hate the fucking game and find it beyond boring and rote.

For the past twenty years, my high school buddies and I jump online and play games. EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT. I can count the number of Thursdays I've missed on my hands (and toes).

9pm EST > Midnight. We're in different parts of the country, but this works the best for us.

For the past 2 years, we've just been playing Halo Wars 2. Over and over and over again. We'll boot up Friday the 13th to take it easy. We've preordered the Division 2, and are very excited to give it a start. We played the crap out of the first Division.

RobertB wrote: I would've sworn that you could buy bag slots above and beyond the ones you level into.

You may be right. I just got back into it, after playing for a few years with loads of slots. Could be I bought them the first time round and forgot about it. As they are an account wide buy, it would seem likely.

Level 30 at the moment but I really enjoy the personal narrative this game provides.

Count Orlok wrote: The biggest complaint I see against strategy games time and again is the AI. Civ VI AI is terrible, EUIV AI is terrible, Stellaris AI is terrible. So I guess my question is, what complex strategy game has good AI - especially one that doesn't cheat?

Firstly, Stellaris AI is not at all like other 4X AI. Stellaris is an exploration game and not really 4X in the same sense that GalCiv is 4X. It's more about the experience/exploration and narrative. I always recommend Distant Worlds when people ask this question. It's not broken at all and plays really well. Steep learning curve but they are all like that.

Endless Legends is not, and never has been, about 'beating' the AI - it is about the narrative. If you're playing this looking for fast ways to beat the AI you are 100% playing it for the wrong reasons. Things like the graphics and the narrative are way, way more important for Endless Legends. I think it is probably my favourite 4X game because of the asymmetry and the continual support from the company (in terms of DLC etc). It was this that made me get Endless Space II.

Of course, for detailed AI, you need to move away from 4X games and look at Paradoxes other titles. Victoria II is particularly good at beating the crap out of you.

Count Orlok wrote: The biggest complaint I see against strategy games time and again is the AI. Civ VI AI is terrible, EUIV AI is terrible, Stellaris AI is terrible. So I guess my question is, what complex strategy game has good AI - especially one that doesn't cheat?

There are some, but they are rare. There's very little incentive to design a competent AI because most people don't care, are weak players or just like the stomp the opposition. The best example of a good AI I can think of is actually a boardgame adaptation: the PC version of 1830: Railroads and Robber Barons. It can beat competent players without cheating, though it does collude (unnecessarily, I may add) at higher levels.

Still, I think the issue is not poor AI in and on itself but that games are designed without considering whether the AI will be able to play them. Civilization V's hex grid is an example, the quest victory condition in Endless Legend is another. This is why I loved Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence: It was designed first and foremost to work as a computer game. Diplomacy is mechanized, not simulationist. The map is based on nodes.

ThirstyMan wrote: Endless Legends is not, and never has been, about 'beating' the AI - it is about the narrative. If you're playing this looking for fast ways to beat the AI you are 100% playing it for the wrong reasons. Things like the graphics and the narrative are way, way more important for Endless Legends. I think it is probably my favourite 4X game because of the asymmetry and the continual support from the company (in terms of DLC etc). It was this that made me get Endless Space II.

It's not a matter of beating the AI, the issue is that what Endless Legends does it does poorly because the AI is terrible and balance nonexistant. It's hard to enjoy the game's emerging narrative when your opponents is so dumb he never upgrades his units and leaves his capital undefended.

Erik Twice wrote:

Count Orlok wrote:

ThirstyMan wrote: Endless Legends is not, and never has been, about 'beating' the AI - it is about the narrative. If you're playing this looking for fast ways to beat the AI you are 100% playing it for the wrong reasons. Things like the graphics and the narrative are way, way more important for Endless Legends. I think it is probably my favourite 4X game because of the asymmetry and the continual support from the company (in terms of DLC etc). It was this that made me get Endless Space II.

It's not a matter of beating the AI, the issue is that what Endless Legends does it does poorly because the AI is terrible and balance nonexistant. It's hard to enjoy the game's emerging narrative when your opponents is so dumb he never upgrades his units and leaves his capital undefended.

Not my experience at all.

Games like 1830 are not at all interesting to me. There is no narrative, no sense of being there and it plays like Chess. I have the 1830 PC game. The graphics are terrible, the immersion is awful and I feel like I'm just inputting numbers into a machine. I do NOT want to feel like that when I play a computer game. The AI might be brilliant but the game has zero soul.

Orlock simply asked for a complex game with great AI, and I think the PC version of 1830 has a good one. I also think that 1830 is a great game, fun, dynamic and no short of immersion despite the PC port's shortcomings.

Yeah, if you don't like 18xx games, the PC version of 1830 probably won't change your mind. And the PC version is butt-ugly, but it's a 20-year-old game*. You're right though - it will beat you.

* I tell myself sometimes that appearance doesn't matter - that it's all about the gameplay. Then I go get something like Master of Orion from GOG or an abandonware site, and find out how badly I'm lying to myself.

Appeareance is not what makes a game but if you are looking at a turd for hours, that's going to have an impact. No matter how fun or well-made Wizardry 8 is, it looks so awful I can't imagine anyone's enjoyment not being impacted by it.

There are a few games that would become far more appealing to me if they looked better. And I don't want to buy Winsome games just to replace the game whole with handmade components.

Neither is AI.

What makes a good video game is different for different people. I don't give a fuck about 'bad' AIs, as I still gain enjoyment from other aspects of the game.

Quite clearly, sales do not follow your analysis of what makes a good game otherwise we would all be playing 1830 clones.

I don't think a good AI makes for a good game, but it's hard for a game to be good when the players you play it against don't understand it, act irationally or do not upgrade their troops. I think the poor balance and AI of Endless Legend really hurts it.

And yeah, I don't think sales are what I think is good design have much in common. But I don't think they should. To paraphrase you, if good game design followed what's popular we would all be playing Bingo and Monopoly!

Either way, that a game is good doesn't mean one has to like it. There are many good games I don't like. I don't like horror or scary games, for example.