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[Glloyd]

Blindsight is fucking weird, if it's the book I'm thinking of. I think that kind of sci fi stuff is bit too out there for Paradox to go into, but who knows. I think with their emphasis on an even playing field at the start, we're going to see a lot less crazy stuff or odd little factions that just serve to add depth, like the stuff from Vicky 2 you mentioned. That's something that worries me, in that it might get stale after a few playthroughs, but the game's not out yet so there's no point in making assumptions like that at this stage.

[RadtheCad]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blindsight's the one with the telematter and the vampires, and the ending where it turns out that [redacted]

Yeah, I agree we should hold out on judgement till it's out... still, can't say I'm optimistic after what devblogs I've read.  What with the 'everyone has to be on an even playing field!', 'We're going to abstract planetary populations to vague, counter-like units' and maybe even (this I'm not sure about, hope I'm wrong) 'resources you mine get teleported into the galactic treasury!' it seems like they just want to make a casual, utterly 'game-y' board game that trades depth for 'accessibility'.  Guess it's time to wait till it's out and hope I'm wrong.

A case study in why hype and pre-ordering are bad, in my opinion.

[Shadowlord]

Abstracting populations to counter-like units makes it easier to grasp and work with. See for example Master of Orion II. Of course, it also showed you the true population IIRC, but you could only move the the individual people counters, not arbitrary amounts of people. You never had to type how many people you wanted to move, or use a slider. You just clicked once to pick up however many pop counters you wanted to move.

Did they explain how resources are transported yet?

[RadtheCad]

My problem isn't with not tracking individual movement down to the last person, that would be ludicrpus;  it's with just how big these markers seem to be.  Indications seem to be that the max pop for a planet would be 50 markers...  which means planets are just like cities from civ V in that respect.

In Vic 2, they simulated down to the 5-man group level.  I'm not saying to do that here, the scale is different- but a minimum 'resolution' of 10,000 people sounds perfectly doable.  That's 100 'markers' for a million people, 1,000,000 for a great big honking planet of 10 billion people.

Of course, this would rely on the industry assignment systems/etc not being based on civ V-esque token shuffling...

I don't think they've outright stated how they'll work yet.

[sambojin]

I tend to think that resources will be shuffled around by space magic. Or freighters. The words are essentially synonymous in space 4X games.

It's an elegant system that's been working well since even before MoO2. Because the last thing grand strategy needs is more micro-management.

As an counter-example, take Stars! Population was divided up into 100 person blocks, with 1.5 million being a large overpopulated world, and individual pop and resource movements could be made. Freighters could be designed, even to be counter designed against light interceptors/mine fields in some cases. It sort of did add another strategic layer to the game. But by god was it fiddly. And min/max'y. Especially later in the game, when the game could become a MM nightmare even without worrying about pop/mineral movements.

I'll give you that this had a lot to do with the interface and implementation. But this was also in a strictly turn-based game, not a tick-based/rt-pausey game that I believe Stellaris is. Sometimes simpler is better in that scenario.

Then again, sometimes Paradox releases DLC for things that we're not really sure we wanted or needed. Maybe this'll be that.

[RadtheCad]

I guess it just seems weird to me to have individual ships for exploration while something as important as that is just handwaved away.  I mean, distant worlds had a pretty good solution where AI corps would do the whole shuttling of materials around for you based on supply and demand;  all you had to do was give orders to build stuff and construct, say, asteroid mines.  But even then, you still had some measure of control.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.

[sambojin]

Well, freighter fleets could be engaged and stopped from reaching their destinations in MoO2. They did exist in the game world. They were just handled simply and in a pool-of-resources kind of way, rather than being specifically at a location at all times.

They were specifically located once being used however (for pop movements). Food movements were non-existantial, unless that particular planet was under siege (in which case they didn't get the food, but some of your freighter fleet was freed up). I'm pretty sure food freighters could never be engaged. But yeah, space magic. They kind of *poofed* into existence wherever they were needed.

I could be wrong about food freighters though. They may have sprung into existence from the pool at the planet they were delivering food to. And were thus able to be engaged in combat.

Freighters were one of the best done parts of MoO2 imo. Simple, but useful. Sort of an empire-wide resource representing transport capability, rather than a specific list of ships.

Although admittedly, you never went commerce raiding on purpose. They just kind of got blown up along the way to you doing actual things. In Stars!, destroying freighters was definitely a thing. There's advantages and disadvantages in both ways of doing it.

^fake edit: Urist. Play Stars! In multiplayer. It is fucking brutal. But awesome as well.

[Rolan7]

@Urist
Interesting perspective!  I'd rather have important decisions be filtered up through a hierarchy of leaders, leaving the emperor to focus on the big picture.  Sorta like CK2 simulates, to the extent it can.

[Shadowlord]

Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.

A. Delegation: You could have people for that.
B. Corporations: Transport companies could exist, for example.

Sambojin, your first recollection about the food freighters is correct: although you could blockade systems in MoO 2, you couldn't directly attack/raid freighters - they only existed on the map when transporting population.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

^fake edit: Urist. Play Stars! In multiplayer. It is fucking brutal. But awesome as well.

will do.

@Urist
Interesting perspective!  I'd rather have important decisions be filtered up through a hierarchy of leaders, leaving the emperor to focus on the big picture.  Sorta like CK2 simulates, to the extent it can.

Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.

A. Delegation: You could have people for that.
B. Corporations: Transport companies could exist, for example.

It's not that I'm obsessed with micromanagement. In fact, I think I would prefer if all of the above were part of the 4X experience. It's the fact that you don't even have the option to go deeper. I mean on such a massive scale the true battle would be to set up a proper government, only once you kind-of achieve that (considering that government is never perfect) can you set up ways to delegate responsibilities and powers. Also, imagine how fun it would be to cripple a delicately formed government, or to siphon power off from the inside as a lower ranking official/ruler.

[Shadowlord]

Since this is Paradox, maybe they will be a thing, if they can think of fun stuff for players to do as lower ranking officials.

[sambojin]

Urist. I probably should mention that a multiplayer game of Stars! can take days in hot-seat, or quite a few months in a 1-turn-per-day scenario. Think of HoMM pacing as an example.

But if you can even beat the game vs 7 random expert AI players, you're probably right about MM. There's not enough of it for you.

Get it here:
http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Downloads

Get a serial number here:
http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Where_to_buy
or here:
http://www.starsfaq.com/download.htm

Here's how to play (there's a little bit of reading involved):
http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Article_Library

It's an old, essentially abandoned game, so don't feel too bad about "testing" it out with a free serial number. Or a $2 donation. It probably is worth it, even vs the AI (which actually doesn't cheat other than info sharing between them). All the fun techs come after tech 10 anyway.

Now, back OT. Stars! is the perfect example of so many things right and wrong about the 4X/GS genre. So good, but so horribly clunky at the same time. You want min/max and MM? Stars! provides. You want race design and grand strategies based off it? Yep, it has that too. Is diplomacy your forte in MP, with real treaties enacted through messaging, not a simple bolted on system? It's the only way of doing it in Stars!, and it works beautifully within the system, with real division of the use of areas available (including stargates, minefields and intersettling). Do you like doing maths on the fly, with no handy tooltip information available to you and using plenty of 3rd party calculators? Stars! likes you doing that too. Do you feel like your eyes don't bleed enough these days? Stars! has you covered!

ps. While Claim Adjuster looks like the most powerful race, and it is economically, it pales in comparison to a well played Space Demolition race. All the economy in the galaxy won't save you from completely unfair combat advantages (super-anti-chaff/fuel/heal and being able turn missile/beam battles on/off at will is a horrible thing to face. Split fleet? Who cares. A very good percentage aren't coming to this battle. They are the most horribly aggressive and defensive race in the game, even with a 100 minefield cap. I love them).

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I'll take a look! thx

[Nick K]

Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.

You might want to check out Distant Worlds.