So out of curiosity, what do you think about my criticisms of the Endless games (elsewhere in this thread)? When I play I can't help but feel that I'm doing something wrong or missing some...
So out of curiosity, what do you think about my criticisms of the Endless games (elsewhere in this thread)? When I play I can't help but feel that I'm doing something wrong or missing some critical element that would unlock the fun.
I was kind of the same with Crusader Kings 2. I just couldn't get it for a long time until I was told to treat it more like an emergent story/RPG than a strategy game and it suddenly clicked for me. Is there a mindset thing I need to do to grok the Endless games?
(Not keen on Polygon's headline, which I feel editorializes too much, but keeping it for the sake of not layering more editorializing on top of their editorializing.) I'm a bit divided on this....
(Not keen on Polygon's headline, which I feel editorializes too much, but keeping it for the sake of not layering more editorializing on top of their editorializing.)
I'm a bit divided on this. Conceptually it seems to address my big gripe with the narrative around the Civ games, which is their bias towards thinking cultures go all through history as fixed, monolithic, and unchanging things. For me, that always kind of killed the engagement and verisimillitude of the game. As a general pessimist who thinks the format of modern civilization in the 21st century has been built mostly by mistakes with a handful of them miraculously resulting in positive developments in spite of efforts to the contrary, one of the big appeals of alternate history is that we can make entirely different sorts of mistakes and speculate about what sort of fun that would be.
This seems to somewhat, tentatively be grasping at that. It's a pretty tall order though, so I'd be curious to see how it goes. I've played Endless Space and Endless Legend but couldn't really get into either very much and regret spending money on them. The games look gorgeous and I love the overarching concepts behind them, but the moment to moment gameplay has always just felt boring to me. Your actions have only subtle effects that you don't really see materially reflected in anything for many many turns, which keeps you from feeling like you're doing anything it seems to take forever for anything to actually happen.
Just a little tip that I have used on many such occasions: If the article headline sucks but you're uncomfortable with "fixing" it, consider just using the subheading instead as they are often way...
Just a little tip that I have used on many such occasions: If the article headline sucks but you're uncomfortable with "fixing" it, consider just using the subheading instead as they are often way more objective/informative and less clickbaity. And in this case that would be:
Amplitude Studios’ historical 4X epic allows players to mix and merge cultures
Which would have worked just fine on its own as the headline IMO... but you could also have added "Sega's" to the start of it and included the game name somewhere in it as well, in order to keep all the necessary context from the original headline.
This looks interesting. Admittedly some of the appeal of Civilization is in the whiggishness - it keeps things simple while adding a bit of flavor. IMO it manages to be inoffensive whilst giving...
This looks interesting. Admittedly some of the appeal of Civilization is in the whiggishness - it keeps things simple while adding a bit of flavor. IMO it manages to be inoffensive whilst giving each nation a bit of variety. Stellaris attempts to subvert that with an a la carte collections of "things" to duct tape to your otherwise blank slate, but that has its own issues. Ultimately without getting extremely complex, it's hard to have a game accurately explore world cultures.
The one big question I have is will Humankind have a good end game? That sinks the civ series for me.
The Endless games before don't really have much of an endgame and you're more specifically striving for some sort of metaphysical ascension sort of thing so it's mostly a non-issue. On the other...
The one big question I have is will Humankind have a good end game? That sinks the civ series for me.
The Endless games before don't really have much of an endgame and you're more specifically striving for some sort of metaphysical ascension sort of thing so it's mostly a non-issue.
On the other hand, the entirety of Endless Space and Legend had the slow pacing and lack of meaningful decisions you get in the Civ endgame.
The last time I went into end game in a multiplayer Civ 5 game, it went well. Paratroopers, helicopters and missiles made it go by pretty quickly and it still felt like a race to get more tech and...
The one big question I have is will Humankind have a good end game? That sinks the civ series for me.
The last time I went into end game in a multiplayer Civ 5 game, it went well. Paratroopers, helicopters and missiles made it go by pretty quickly and it still felt like a race to get more tech and build more troops and it felt way more intense. But that was multiplayer on a smaller map. Larger maps always have a tedious end game....Civ 4 end game was meh and tedious.
It'd be cool to see itch.io Civ-style game or some mobile-game that's turn-based that's like Civ. DomiNations is kinda like that but not quite, feels closer to Empire Earth. Humankind looks neat...
It'd be cool to see itch.io Civ-style game or some mobile-game that's turn-based that's like Civ. DomiNations is kinda like that but not quite, feels closer to Empire Earth.
So out of curiosity, what do you think about my criticisms of the Endless games (elsewhere in this thread)? When I play I can't help but feel that I'm doing something wrong or missing some critical element that would unlock the fun.
I was kind of the same with Crusader Kings 2. I just couldn't get it for a long time until I was told to treat it more like an emergent story/RPG than a strategy game and it suddenly clicked for me. Is there a mindset thing I need to do to grok the Endless games?
(Not keen on Polygon's headline, which I feel editorializes too much, but keeping it for the sake of not layering more editorializing on top of their editorializing.)
I'm a bit divided on this. Conceptually it seems to address my big gripe with the narrative around the Civ games, which is their bias towards thinking cultures go all through history as fixed, monolithic, and unchanging things. For me, that always kind of killed the engagement and verisimillitude of the game. As a general pessimist who thinks the format of modern civilization in the 21st century has been built mostly by mistakes with a handful of them miraculously resulting in positive developments in spite of efforts to the contrary, one of the big appeals of alternate history is that we can make entirely different sorts of mistakes and speculate about what sort of fun that would be.
This seems to somewhat, tentatively be grasping at that. It's a pretty tall order though, so I'd be curious to see how it goes. I've played Endless Space and Endless Legend but couldn't really get into either very much and regret spending money on them. The games look gorgeous and I love the overarching concepts behind them, but the moment to moment gameplay has always just felt boring to me. Your actions have only subtle effects that you don't really see materially reflected in anything for many many turns, which keeps you from feeling like you're doing anything it seems to take forever for anything to actually happen.
Just a little tip that I have used on many such occasions: If the article headline sucks but you're uncomfortable with "fixing" it, consider just using the subheading instead as they are often way more objective/informative and less clickbaity. And in this case that would be:
Which would have worked just fine on its own as the headline IMO... but you could also have added "Sega's" to the start of it and included the game name somewhere in it as well, in order to keep all the necessary context from the original headline.
That's good advice! I'll keep that in mind for next time.
This looks interesting. Admittedly some of the appeal of Civilization is in the whiggishness - it keeps things simple while adding a bit of flavor. IMO it manages to be inoffensive whilst giving each nation a bit of variety. Stellaris attempts to subvert that with an a la carte collections of "things" to duct tape to your otherwise blank slate, but that has its own issues. Ultimately without getting extremely complex, it's hard to have a game accurately explore world cultures.
The one big question I have is will Humankind have a good end game? That sinks the civ series for me.
The Endless games before don't really have much of an endgame and you're more specifically striving for some sort of metaphysical ascension sort of thing so it's mostly a non-issue.
On the other hand, the entirety of Endless Space and Legend had the slow pacing and lack of meaningful decisions you get in the Civ endgame.
The last time I went into end game in a multiplayer Civ 5 game, it went well. Paratroopers, helicopters and missiles made it go by pretty quickly and it still felt like a race to get more tech and build more troops and it felt way more intense. But that was multiplayer on a smaller map. Larger maps always have a tedious end game....Civ 4 end game was meh and tedious.
It'd be cool to see itch.io Civ-style game or some mobile-game that's turn-based that's like Civ. DomiNations is kinda like that but not quite, feels closer to Empire Earth.
Humankind looks neat though.