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[Urist McScoopbeard]

Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.

Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club

I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.

Not to instigate a debate in the Stellaris thread, but i'd like to point out that the English won their famous battles during the hundred years war mostly because the french were fucking terrible in their grasp of tactics. Mostly, their hubris blinded them to the possibility that a strong defensive position could take away the advantage provided by heavy cavalry.

I'd also like to relate this back to the current discussion about being able to design your own ships and say that nothing is better when it all comes together and through struggle your well-equipped, masterfully designed, small, elite force defeats a cartoonishly evil armada of darkness and all the while knowing it was all the strategic decisions that gave you the chance to win an awe-inspiring tactical victory.

[Shadowlord]

Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.

Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club

I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.

Hey, that was more utter incompetence against bows. I think clubs or even rocks would have been enough.

Also, the thing about unit design, is that it's just another mechanic for min maxing.
Either it doesn't matter, and in this case, why add it ?
Either it is important, and force you to min-max to get good units (or good counters, but that's often rock-paper-scissor style).
Imo, it just doesn't add anything to a grand strategy game. Most 4x games would be better without it.

Reading through the wikipedia article on Agincourt again to refresh my memory, it sounds like just utter incompetence in general for the French at Agincourt.

I think it's possible to make unit design that doesn't have to be just min-maxing, as long as it'll interact with your opponents' designs. Most games seem to reduce this to rock-paper-scissors, though.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I think it's possible to make unit design that doesn't have to be just min-maxing, as long as it'll interact with your opponents' designs. Most games seem to reduce this to rock-paper-scissors, though.

Personally, I've always found that the game that did it best was the original Star Ruler. There was such a sense of scope and wild possibilities that you could viably build a slew of wildly different ships, and if they weren't up to snuff you built new ones. The best part was that even obsolete ships could hold off newer ones for a time while you built a new fleet, so you'd have these massive fleets engaging in pitched combat while you desperately pumped out newer ships to avoid annihilation. It reminded me of Halo and Foundation.

 

[Mephansteras]

Its also like games designing your characters looks. Why bother doing that in a singleplayer RPG? Why do so many games waste effort on letting someone design their character?

In an MMO maybe yeah.

But like Skyrim? Does changing my height make me stronger/faster/slower or anything? Nope. Its just to waste time and create an illusion of difference.

More RPGs would do far better like in Witcher 3, a pre-made character with more of a focus on leveling/skilling and doing quests and killing monsters. Cause why the heck does it matter how my character looks in a singleplayer game? It doesn't change the game at all.

Its exactly like designing space ships in 4x games, but even more waste of a time because making a character skinny, taller or whatever doesn't even change the game at all lol.

Quite simply because there is demand for it. A lot of players like that customization and I know several people who will pass on games that don't have it. It may not add anything to you, but it adds stuff to other people.

In many ways it is much like customizing how soldiers look in X-COM. It may not change anything at a tactical level, but it helps people connect with the game better.

[scriver]

Its also like games designing your characters looks. Why bother doing that in a singleplayer RPG? Why do so many games waste effort on letting someone design their character?

In an MMO maybe yeah.

But like Skyrim? Does changing my height make me stronger/faster/slower or anything? Nope. Its just to waste time and create an illusion of difference.

More RPGs would do far better like in Witcher 3, a pre-made character with more of a focus on leveling/skilling and doing quests and killing monsters. Cause why the heck does it matter how my character looks in a singleplayer game? It doesn't change the game at all.

Its exactly like designing space ships in 4x games, but even more waste of a time because making a character skinny, taller or whatever doesn't even change the game at all lol.

Quite simply because there is demand for it. A lot of players like that customization and I know several people who will pass on games that don't have it. It may not add anything to you, but it adds stuff to other people.

In many ways it is much like customizing how soldiers look in X-COM. It may not change anything at a tactical level, but it helps people connect with the game better.

This. So much. That it even needs to be explained is sad.

[PanH]

The issue I have is that most of the time, it actually changes something at the tactical level. In a strategy game. It is akin to choosing equipment for XCOM soldiers but not for 6 o 12 soldiers, but for a fleet. When you can have hundreds of ships, it's nonsensical. Adding more micromanagement in a game is not always good, when it can be simplified by fleet design or science research (and not unit design).

[Zangi]

Thats why

The issue I have is that most of the time, it actually changes something at the tactical level. In a strategy game. It is akin to choosing equipment for XCOM soldiers but not for 6 o 12 soldiers, but for a fleet. When you can have hundreds of ships, it's nonsensical. Adding more micromanagement in a game is not always good, when it can be simplified by fleet design or science research (and not unit design).

You probably mean 100s different of ship designs.

As long as default designs and the meta associated with ship parts are not horribly imbalanced to begin with?  But that might be too much to ask for...

[Sergarr]

As long as default designs and the meta associated with ship parts are not horribly imbalanced to begin with?  But that might be too much to ask for...

The default designs will always be complete trash in comparison with properly min-maxed builds, duh. It's how it was in every single game with unit builder so far, and I don't see why it would change now.

[Mephansteras]

Well, it depends on how it is done. I liked the MOO2 style. You'd upgrade a few different templates and build new ships off of those. Older ships could be easily refitted to fit the latest template, but if you WANTED to you could build very specific ships for individual purposes. It was a pretty good mix of design micromanagement and ease of play. Not that it couldn't have been better, but I never found it as tedious as it could be in some other games.

[Shadowlord]

Yeah, that part of it worked pretty well. The moo2 designs were mostly optimization / min-maxing, though, aside from special designs (e.g. Boarding or endgame time hijinks, etc) you could make, and yet the AI did not understand how to design ships at all.

[a1s]

Yeah, that part of it worked pretty well. The moo2 designs were mostly optimization / min-maxing, though, aside from special designs (e.g. Boarding or endgame time hijinks, etc) you could make, and yet the AI did not understand how to design ships at all.

Honestly, the AI doesn't need to design ships, just have a few min-maxed designs (based on which tech you have bnonuses for/are ahead in) on file and have the races build those. Simples.
(a more exciting (from a geek point of view), but less practical (from a normal person POV) way to do this is generate ship designs by genetic algorithm with semi-randomized bonuses. This allows you to have dozens and hundreds of highly optimized designs for little extra cost. And quickly regenerate the data-set after a new patch comes out and "ruins the game." [this is Paradox we're talking about] )

[Shadowlord]

The problem then is when you come up with a design that doesn't look optimal, but handily defeats ships which are simply optimized for combat. (E.g. In Moo2, specialized boarding ships with troop pods and tractor beams or transporters, especially if you've taken a ground combat boost in race creation, and/or researched ground combat boosting techs)

[Wiles]

There's an interesting article about Stellaris over at PCGamer.

There's not a lot of new info, but it goes more in depth about some features we've already heard about. The character system sounds like it could be pretty interesting.

[mainiac]

Not to instigate a debate in the Stellaris thread, but i'd like to point out that the English won their famous battles during the hundred years war mostly because the french were fucking terrible in their grasp of tactics.

There's also the thing where French defeats were surprising and thus talked about and remembered whereas there aren't even wikipedia articles for the steady stream of French victories in Aquitaine which systematically wore down the English with boring but effective sieges.

[umiman]

The one thing I really like about French history is how their borders look almost identical today to what it was in 1000AD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxDyJ_6N-6A

Impressive considering their neighbours throughout the ages.