Is the game fun yet?

[Harmacist]

Last played a year ago, after watching guide after guide, thinking I was doing something wrong.

Spent ages reaching a moon base, after grinding all of EU's cohesion and then Brazil + some other LATAM countries. Every game I start ends up being just grinding, seldomly changing pace if an opponent faction does something to throw a stick in my tires.

After that, it's the slow and tedious space combat.

Did this over 3 or 4 playthroughs (60h or so) thinking that I was missing a crucial element of the game that could attract me. Maybe in this year of extra baking time it would've improved, at least on the UI/UX side?

I love the concept, it's just XCOM's geoscape, with some Grand Strategy elements sprinkled over. I should love it, but I personally don't get it.

So yeah: is it fun yet?

[danhammond58]

Well it gets only worse the more you learn about the game. Example the Aliens have the overwhelming potential to wipe out humanity any time they wish. But the devs had to limit their ability to hurt you so you can grow and have a chance to win this game. So once you learn the trigger events for the alien attacks then the game is a push over. You can game the game as it is. That is the aspect of this game that just does not feel right. They can wipe you out any time some why not? And the trigger points are not realistic. They can be gamed around easy enough and then nothing feels right about the game after that. The fun is gone.
Re play value near zero. You can try to stay oblivious to the triggers but you play it a few times and you can not help but learn some of them anyway.

[dhitch89]

Originally posted by danhammond58:

They can be gamed around easy enough and then nothing feels right about the game after that. The fun is gone.
Re play value near zero.

Speak for yourself. I much prefer 'gaming around them' to having a threat of "game rolls this event, you lose period".

But as to your question OP, this game has a very specific feel and experience, perhaps even to the point of being an acquired taste. If you're into it, then great - if you're not, even if you're into similar-yet-normal games, then there's not much anyone can say to change your mind. If you play it and it's still not fun, then that's that

[corisai]

Early total war was super fun.

But now... Honestly I don't like at all direction devs picked for 0.4.x. Instead of fixing critical things (boring and tedious lategame) they're focused on making game harder in worst way (additional techs & stuff for aliens only + nerfing all best techs humans have together with slowing down research) and cinematic stuff like buffing small countries & space fighters.

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by corisai:

Early total war was super fun.

But now... Honestly I don't like at all direction devs picked for 0.4.x. Instead of fixing critical things (boring and tedious lategame) they're focused on making game harder in worst way (additional techs & stuff for aliens only + nerfing all best techs humans have together with slowing down research) and cinematic stuff like buffing small countries & space fighters.

An opinion not really shared by much anyone else. You made your thoughts clear on the discord. I didn't really see anyone else agreeing with you.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

An opinion not really shared by much anyone else. You made your thoughts clear on the discord. I didn't really see anyone else agreeing with you.

Yean, yean. So why devs going to partially revoke a nerf to mega-nations?

[jeetrix]

not sure what is to gain by reducing this game to a particular balance mechanic or space combat as such.
i think you might be missing the point here...

If played as a deep-lore scifi strategy game with realism, it has a lot to offer and every play-through is different
But its really up to the player to make the most out of that.

[danhammond58]

Originally posted by jeetrix:

not sure what is to gain by reducing this game to a particular balance mechanic or space combat as such.
i think you might be missing the point here...

If played as a deep-lore scifi strategy game with realism, it has a lot to offer and every play-through is different
But its really up to the player to make the most out of that.

Well ok fair enough. But I am comparing this game to the original xcom. The game designer worked on xcom. So I can see what he intended to do. Make the game a far more realistic version of xcom. So he did all of that with orbital mechanics and political view points on Earth and the global warming angle. So all of that is well done. But the alien invasion misses the mark by a wide angle. Early in the game you can get the tech to track all alien ships. You also find out the aliens have done this before in other systems. So for the sake of suspension of disbelief, why are they sitting out in deep space with enough ships to destroy every single off world base you and every single other AI faction can build and wipe out all satellites in Earth orbit and bomb us back into the stone age? I mean xcom did a much better job of giving a reason for your actions and the alien reactions. This game just lost it in its realism and forgot the rest of the story. The realism is the aliens have us so outclassed they have to be total idiots to allow us a micro chance to defeat them. And the back story is they have done this before in other systems so how can they be so idiotic? Especially when they have the tech to fly to our system in the first place. The story line just does not track well at all.
In my opinion the alien reactions needs to be a lot more dynamic not just fixed. Dynamic in that they respond in variable believable ways to your actions. They even have the ability to get way more involved in Earth politics. He does such a good job with the rest of the game. Just finish it as well.

Sort of like the tv show the expanse. Only this game starts like if the expanse started with the alien super gate already built and the count down timer to our suns destruction was already running in the very first episode. That is where this game starts.

[danhammond58]

Ok I have come up with an idea. This game is begging for a mod. Alien/Predator mod.
Remove the current aliens entirely. Replace with 3 Alien factions. The Aliens,Predators,Engineers. The end game will be the Engineers remaining ships headed toward Earth to release their bio weapons the aliens on Earth to wipe out Humans their experiment and start over. The Aliens accidentally got released on the Engineers home world and basically wiped out the Engineers. But a few remain. They are headed toward Earth. In the mean time you have the Predators which periodically release a Predator on Earth for the hunt. They hunt Councillors. There are two ways to approach the Predators. One you hunt them back and reverse engineer their tech to use in the final battle to beat the Engineers. Or a diplomatic response in which you form an alliance with then to beat the Engineers.

Then also the game starts with a random seeding of the system with alien life forms.
When you build off world mining sites you have a chance to encounter them.
Then they cause havoc with your off world station. If they get enough bio mass they can spawn a queen. They will also attempt to take over any ships that visit this location and use them to get to Earth and infect Earth. So the player ends up in skirmish battles fighting these ships occasionally. The aliens can also use the between off world mass flinging service to infect other off world mining stations. So they will spread. And you will be fighting them. Just a very rough first draft idea. But it would be a more interesting game than we have now I think. The queen could contain some genetic knowledge of the Engineers. Enough to build an off world station that could produce its own war ships to attempt to invade the Earth.

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by danhammond58:

Originally posted by jeetrix:

not sure what is to gain by reducing this game to a particular balance mechanic or space combat as such.
i think you might be missing the point here...

If played as a deep-lore scifi strategy game with realism, it has a lot to offer and every play-through is different
But its really up to the player to make the most out of that.

Well ok fair enough. But I am comparing this game to the original xcom. The game designer worked on xcom. So I can see what he intended to do. Make the game a far more realistic version of xcom. So he did all of that with orbital mechanics and political view points on Earth and the global warming angle. So all of that is well done. But the alien invasion misses the mark by a wide angle. Early in the game you can get the tech to track all alien ships. You also find out the aliens have done this before in other systems. So for the sake of suspension of disbelief, why are they sitting out in deep space with enough ships to destroy every single off world base you and every single other AI faction can build and wipe out all satellites in Earth orbit and bomb us back into the stone age? I mean xcom did a much better job of giving a reason for your actions and the alien reactions. This game just lost it in its realism and forgot the rest of the story. The realism is the aliens have us so outclassed they have to be total idiots to allow us a micro chance to defeat them. And the back story is they have done this before in other systems so how can they be so idiotic? Especially when they have the tech to fly to our system in the first place. The story line just does not track well at all.
In my opinion the alien reactions needs to be a lot more dynamic not just fixed. Dynamic in that they respond in variable believable ways to your actions. They even have the ability to get way more involved in Earth politics. He does such a good job with the rest of the game. Just finish it as well.

Sort of like the tv show the expanse. Only this game starts like if the expanse started with the alien super gate already built and the count down timer to our suns destruction was already running in the very first episode. That is where this game starts.

They aren't. The aliens start with exactly 6 ships - 1 surveillance ship in orbit above Earth and 5 little escorts that will crash to Earth ferrying their starting councilors in. That's it. The entire rest of their fleet and space infrastructure has to be built from scratch, just like yours. They have to build bases, mines, harvest resources, build docks, build their ships, just like you do. They research techs, just like you do - they just start with a serious advantage.

You can rush to space, get your own space economy going, get to Jupiter early, and fight off the aliens well before they have time to establish much of a space fleet or strong space economy, putting them into a "panic mode' where they will send little ships at you and never even get a major fleet going. In my last game I started total war by the late 2020s and never even saw a single assault carrier.

You fundamentally have a misunderstanding how the ayys work in the game, and based your thoughts off of that, which is why you think it makes no sense when it actually does.

[jeetrix]

Originally posted by danhammond58:

...

maybe i'm biased bcuz i have only been playing academy runs up till now, but i find the exact opposite to be true. The story presented as through a academy run perfectly aligns with the alien behavior not simply trying to eradicate us. Could they be more aggressive? Sure. But they also have their own long-term agenda, and their own particular view on humans as a species, moreover they are not meta-gaming it is not their goal to 'win the game' their view on our world is far different than which you reduce it to. Why does a tiger not simply berserk attack you on sight? Why does a bear not kill you as soon as its sees you, when not provoked? I mean, your criticism is the aliens have no wide angle, but honestly the more i read and think about how you put it and look at it in the lights of what the ingame lore has been telling me, it seems to me your take on it is very narrow instead. Its not meant as an insult, just an invitation to look at the playing field from another perspective than just blow everything to pieces.

[EQFL_Sapare]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Originally posted by danhammond58:

Well ok fair enough. But I am comparing this game to the original xcom. The game designer worked on xcom. So I can see what he intended to do. Make the game a far more realistic version of xcom. So he did all of that with orbital mechanics and political view points on Earth and the global warming angle. So all of that is well done. But the alien invasion misses the mark by a wide angle. Early in the game you can get the tech to track all alien ships. You also find out the aliens have done this before in other systems. So for the sake of suspension of disbelief, why are they sitting out in deep space with enough ships to destroy every single off world base you and every single other AI faction can build and wipe out all satellites in Earth orbit and bomb us back into the stone age? I mean xcom did a much better job of giving a reason for your actions and the alien reactions. This game just lost it in its realism and forgot the rest of the story. The realism is the aliens have us so outclassed they have to be total idiots to allow us a micro chance to defeat them. And the back story is they have done this before in other systems so how can they be so idiotic? Especially when they have the tech to fly to our system in the first place. The story line just does not track well at all.
In my opinion the alien reactions needs to be a lot more dynamic not just fixed. Dynamic in that they respond in variable believable ways to your actions. They even have the ability to get way more involved in Earth politics. He does such a good job with the rest of the game. Just finish it as well.

Sort of like the tv show the expanse. Only this game starts like if the expanse started with the alien super gate already built and the count down timer to our suns destruction was already running in the very first episode. That is where this game starts.

They aren't. The aliens start with exactly 6 ships - 1 surveillance ship in orbit above Earth and 5 little escorts that will crash to Earth ferrying their starting councilors in. That's it. The entire rest of their fleet and space infrastructure has to be built from scratch, just like yours. They have to build bases, mines, harvest resources, build docks, build their ships, just like you do. They research techs, just like you do - they just start with a serious advantage.

You can rush to space, get your own space economy going, get to Jupiter early, and fight off the aliens well before they have time to establish much of a space fleet or strong space economy, putting them into a "panic mode' where they will send little ships at you and never even get a major fleet going. In my last game I started total war by the late 2020s and never even saw a single assault carrier.

You fundamentally have a misunderstanding how the ayys work in the game, and based your thoughts off of that, which is why you think it makes no sense when it actually does.

TBF, you just advocating for a different kind of cheese, not really addressing the root issue. Your strategy is not meant that way, as shown by it causing the AI to break down and the majority of mechanics to never become relevant.
danhammond58 is not wrong in his critique of how the game is set up(though idk about the .4 version as its not the official current release), it encourages stalling more than anything. Most players will stall for 20 years and do the majority of the tech tree before engaging with fleets.

its not a good pace, the devs will have to address it, trying to humble brag isnt fixing anything.

[Ericus1]

That not "cheese", that's strategy. Designing and building early missile escorts that can overwhelm their early ships is strategy. Not letting them sit in space and run abductions unopposed for two decades is strategy. Optimizing your space economy and choosing the right tech paths is strategy. Blocking the ayys from getting the resources they need to build ships is strategy. The AI does not "break", it loses.

The game does not encourage turtling, in fact it does the exact opposite. Just because new players think the game is about turtling, that doesn't make them right. You can choose to turtle, and that's your choice. It's also bad strategy. Researching every tech in the tree and failing to recognize that part of the game is about careful decision making to research only what you absolutely need is a choice, and is bad strategy. Refusing to adapt or play better because it doesn't fit your preconceived belief about how it is meant to be played or fit your playstyle is a choice, and it is bad strategy.

For some reason you think your mistakes are actually correct, and so clearly it must be "the game that is wrong, not me". And you accuse ME of hubris. Saying "the longer I wait the harder things get for me, so clearly waiting is the right way" is a breathtaking display of cognitive dissonance.

"So for the sake of suspension of disbelief, why are they sitting out in deep space with enough ships to destroy every single off world base you and every single other AI faction can build and wipe out all satellites in Earth orbit and bomb us back into the stone age?"

He said this, and is factually wrong. They don't do this because they literally have no ships with which to do it.

"Especially when they have the tech to fly to our system in the first place. The story line just does not track well at all."

This statement alone indicates he has absolutely zero clue about the game lore, since it is so blatantly wrong and NOTHING of what the actual reality is.

He does not understand how the game works, and uses his ignorance as the basis for attacking the design and the story. That's not how it works. That's not the picture the game lore paints. That's not the ayys goals or how they plan defeat us. He has essential gotten about every part of how game actually works wrong, and uses his false assumptions as the basis for a citicism of the game.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by EQFL_Sapare:

Your strategy is not meant that way, as shown by it causing the AI to break down and the majority of mechanics to never become relevant.

The game is designed in a way that allows you to recover from your mistakes or unlucky developments and have mechanics for that so playing the game you don't have to use all of them. Waging early Total War neither really breaks down AI (it just shows better some of its deficiencies) or allows you to not use majority of mechanics - only some small number of which most are created just for recovering from mishaps.

Some players like long game so they stall for 20 years - if you don't like it and you still choose it that's your choice but I don't know why you do it when you have an alternative. This alternative still exists in 0.4 versions - it was rightly made harder because in 0.3 versions it was by far too easy even on Brutal. I would prefer it was made harder by making better AI but we can't have everything we want... at least not in a short span of time ;)

[fortydayweekend]

To answer OP's question, I've thought the game was fun at launch up unti it grinds to a halt issuing fleet/hab orders because of the UX

They've fixed a few of the problems so it goes a bit quicker but there's still work to do

I got to defending earth orbit / starting mines on Jupiter before I lost interest in my 0.4 run

The main fixes I'd like to see are setting a staging point for fleet builds / order to merge with any fleet in any orbit of same planet, a chance to set orders for each fleet/hab notification before moving to the next one, and in combat an ability to select all ships of a class and change missile settings for a group

[perl]

The game has gotten a lot better. I enjoy it now