Let's Talk About! The Consolidated Super thread

Started by Jarhead0331, January 29, 2021, 03:24:44 PM

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Sir Slash

Try as I might, I couldn't come-up with a great WWI game I loved....until. Steam & Iron. Why didn't I think of that earlier? Great WWI Naval game with the campaign add-on later that allowed me the hunt the enemy fleets, mine their ports, and kill Train Stations. Who doesn't like to kill trains? I had a lot of fun with that one.  :clap:
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Sir Slash

These were evil German or Russian trains. They had little faces on them like this.  >:(
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Jarhead0331

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

The lucky winner for the this round of Let's Talk About! is Geezer!
Congrats Geezer. Check your PM for the code.

Stay tuned for the next round!
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Jarhead0331

Round Five of Grogheads' weekly game giveaway! You know the rules - all you have to do is talk about a particular subject as it relates to our favorite games and after a few days, everyone who posts will be eligible to participate in our drawing. The randomly selected winner will receive a free copy of a game!

The subject for this week's drawing is - Sci-fi 4x!  This is a genre near and dear to my heart, and the only one that has encouraged me to start designing the space 4x game of my dreams. So, talk about your favorite games, what you like about them, what you don't like and what features you'd like to see in your ideal 4x experience. Simple!

The randomly selected winner will receive a free copy of: Endless Space 2 - Digital Deluxe Edition. That's right folks...we're not screwing around.




The lucky winner will be selected on March 4.
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Geezer

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.  George Bernard Shaw

Geezer

So many great 4X space games going all the way back to MOO that it's hard to pick a favorite.  I've always liked Distant Worlds Universe a lot.  There is currently a beta for Distant Worlds 2 but since there is an NDA I can neither confirm nor deny that I am in the beta.   :))
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.  George Bernard Shaw

Silent Disapproval Robot

#82
A buddy just picked up Stellaris and he's roped me into playing online.  I really liked Stellaris when it was first released but I was disappointed when they patched out the different FTL movement systems because the AI couldn't cope with them.  I still enjoyed playing it though.  When they released the Megacorp DLC and completely revamped the economic system, I stopped playing.  At first, I was resistant to it mainly because I'd invested time and effort into learning the old system and didn't want to have to start over.  I persevered however and learned the new system and discovered that I disliked it immensely.  It was far less intuitive than the old system, added pointless micro-management in the form of worker pops, and stripped away the ability of the player to physically map out sectors on the galaxy.



Having said all that, it's really the only sci-fi 4x game I play on the PC.   I have others like Endless Space 2, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Fleets of Sol, GalCiv III, Shallow Space, and Sword of the Stars II in my Steam library.  In the past, I've also owned the MOO games, the GalCiv games, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and Emperor of the Fading Suns.  I really enjoyed Emperor of the Fading Suns and Alpha Centauri back in the day but I find the newer games just don't click with me.  I think part of the problem is that so many are released in early access form and then get abandoned like Shallow Space.  Either that or the company strips out many of the features only to sell them to you later via DLC (see AoW: Planetfall).   

As for board games, I guess the king of the hill for 4x games is Twilight Imperium.  I've played a handful of times but never really got into it the way others have.  I personally found it a bit too gamey and too long.  Eclipse is another that was popular for a while but seems to have lost its lustre recently.  I like Eclipse better than TI but found that the way the map is set up can really kill you early on, especially if your neighbour plays cutthroat and ices you out of a path to the centre of the system.  Eclipse wins my personal award for ugliest colour palette ever chosen for a board game.  Looks like the stole the paint scheme from a low end Soviet bloc hotel in Estonia from 1974. 

Twilight Imperium



Eclipse




The two 4x board games that I really enjoy are Star Trek: Ascendancy and Stellar Horizons.  Ascendancy has a wonderful mechanic where you build the map as you play and it's not static until starlanes are locked in.  Players can move the position of planetary systems and phenomena relative to other systems as they explore the galaxy.  It's always fun to watch a panicked Federation player who invested too much into science fleets desperately try to spin systems away from the rapidly approaching Klingon horde.  The asymmetrical nature of the different races in the game also makes it a lot of fun.  I'm not the biggest Trek fan but I enjoy this game a lot.  I really like playing as the Ferengi for some reason.  The tension you feel as you know you've spread your ships out far too thinly in order to gain profit from trade can be quite stressful, but in a fun way.  Sure, the other factions benefit from having you in their systems, trading away but you know that they're going to turn on you at some point and try to annex your homeworld.  Must be how those little plover brids who pick crocodiles's teeth clean must feel as they're sitting in the jaws.



Stellar Horizons is a hard sci-fi 4x game featuring our solar system.  Each player takes control of an earth based faction's space program (N. America, Russia, the E.U, China, Japan, South American states, Pan-Asian states) and attempts to explore the solar system, set up bases, extract resources, and go to SPACE WAR with the other factions.  It's a long game but, for me at least, it goes by very quickly.  The game is not formally divided into different phases but it really does play out that way.  The early game is taken up with a mad dash to explore.  Doing so grants you tech which will allow you to explore further, go faster, and accommodate human colonization.   Once factions start acquiring tech and the chance of finding new anomalies and mineral deposits begins to dry up, it turns into a land grab with players scrambling to lay claim to different regions and set up orbital or surface bases.  Then resource extraction and exploitation kicks in and everyone tries to build up their economy enough that then can expand and fortify their claims.  Eventually, someone is going to have a resource that someone else wants and is unwilling to trade for it and that's when the shooting starts.  It's always fun to rain asteroids down on someone else's fuel refineries because they were too stingy when it came to selling the refined stuff.




EDIT:  I completely forgot to add in Sidereal Confluence.  A friend who is really into Euro-style boardgames brought this one into our FLGS 3-4 years ago.  I'd never heard of it but gave it a whirl and had a blast playing it.  I ended up ordering my own copy.  The idea is that a bunch of different species are meeting up to form a galactic federation and each player wants to be a sort of first-amongst-equals by showing off the achievements of their race.  There's no direct conflict in the game.  At it's heart, this is a game about engine building and trading.  Each race has unique abilities and starting factories that produce various resources and goods.  Players want (and need) to trade their resources and goods around with other players in order to colonize new systems, research new tech, build new factories, and improve on their old ones.  Virtually anything is tradable within the game and once a deal has been struck, there's no going back on it.  Listening and watching everyone gesticulate wildly and yell across the table in an attempt to get access to someone's rare minerals is chaotic fun. 

The only drawbacks to the game are that you need at least 4 people to play it (and it doesn't really shine unless you have 6 or more) and it eats up a tonne of table space.




Please exclude me from the draw.  I already own Endless Space 2.



Gusington

^Holy crap man...you are a gaming god among mortals.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Jarhead0331

Quote from: Gusington on February 25, 2021, 02:59:22 PM
^Holy crap man...you are a gaming god among mortals.

You mean a gaming God among nerds.
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18



Geezer

I forgot to mention that I own ES2 so you can remove me from the running.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.  George Bernard Shaw

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Sir Slash

Me too. BTW, That's an old pic of me SDR. In the most recent, I have a new shirt on. I'm not a fan of Space Games but many do look attractive. Sins of a Solar Empire caught my eye years ago when it first came-out but I passed on it.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd