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PaperclipPerfector
18hr ago
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Factions:
There's eight of them in the base game, some of them share a particular native type of tech (so far, three with ~8 units each) but each has different leader and faction abilities. You can in theory mix & match, but as the production facility for each unit type is unique, the gigantic opportunity cost definitely prevents mixing units of the same tier (so 2 infantry types etc, not to mention, in the crucial early game the other faction's units are an era behind) and some resources differ.
Native tech types:
Middle Americans (dudes with body armor & guns, tanks, SPAA, guided missiles, big artillery, nukes, even bigger tanks, brutal air power and of course space marines with antimatter sprinkled blades that cut anything as pinnacle of infantry). Will nuke you if given a chance. Each faction type has several 'operations', basically a sort of spell of some sort.
Silicon Valley Americans (cyborg under-armed infantry, hover-servitors with plasma guns, purely mechanical spider snipers, some time-cheating floating beam weapon using AI drone etc). Will cause a small pseudo black hole to appear over your city or army and stay being horrible for a month.
And the very definitely illegal aliens who introduced themselves by gigadeaths and now claim it was all a misunderstanding or necessary or something along those lines and the various humans who've developed an affinity for said alien's ..deity? Not at all clear what the they do, don't feel like playing them.
The 'Silicon Valley' tech tree is natively had by three factions: 'Emulated Mind'- a partly failed upload who is good at logistics and sort of good with some of the cringiest writing(survived death and cancer and won't let the apocalypse stop her), and 'heartless artificer' who is a strictly 'ends justifies the means' type of person and implausibly represented by a pretty indefinable mocha woman with a slight spanish accent.
Whereas, we know it'd be some extremely intense white or asian autist-psychopath IRL. The special traits for the two are: emulated mind can only build two cities but gets more from random facilities around the map, and the 'heartless artificer' is good at cloning and can also improve production through a 'performance review' called 'fountain of blood' where the lowest performers get the bullet to motivate the rest to work up to 34% harder.
Then there's 'Rogue Operative', undoubtedly an Asian trans cybercriminal who social engineered a little too much and ended up running the remains of a company she was attempting to steal from when the end of the world came. I say trans because it's the 22nd century so I'm assuming gender-affirming surgery has been perfected by then but affinities towards hacking have likely not changed much.
The middle American tech tree is had by three base factions: 'Fallen Soldier' -a robust looking hispanic guy who just won't die, kind of a like a WH40k perpetual. His faction's special power is just rigorously training their units and also healing charms-pieces of his flesh somehow prevent those who bear them from dying. Also somehow fix damaged hardware but I'm going to overlook that for now. Naturally, people love not dying of common wounds and diseases. He doesn't know why he rose from the dead, but if you wear a piece of his flesh as a talisman you're going to heal much faster.
Then there's 'practical romantic' (not actually romantic anymore) - the most normal human faction out there. Special power- get resources from defeated enemies, can buff morale with influence. Looks Iranian I guess.
Then there's the most seemingly implausible human faction, led by a fat German aristocrat (monocled, too) who spent a few decades in a bunker before getting out and becoming useful. A good administrator(can rush production) and diplomat/trader. German aristocracy, whatever is left of it is led by people who are almost invariably tanned jocks, and if not that, reasonably fit and very good skiers. Although, maybe in the late 21st century being a fat foodie will once more be a status mark? Perhaps it's good writing.
I'm a Fallen Soldier main. That's my guy. Fewer but better units, less micromanagement from that alone but then you also needn't have them spend as much time sitting tight to heal? Yes please. All the other factions can pack up and go home.
Overall I feel like the writing of Zephon (ignoring the race angle for now because I really don't think that's the game's chiefest problem) is just about skin-deep. Maybe evocative of the eerie eldritch sci-fi theme it tries to go for, but in the end it's just empty and highly generic gesticulation that leaves it to the player to fill in the blanks, which are most of it. It's superficial, simultaneously pretentious and not even trying all that hard, and with all that said it's still slightly above average for game writing. Yes, the bar is that low.
Gameplay-wise the game is alright. An improvement upon Gladius for sure, but how good was Gladius? Solidly OK, I'd say. Nothing revolutionary at all, but it works well enough. Zephon is that, somewhat more polished and set in a slightly less used-up setting.
I chuckled a little when I saw that guy, thinking of the Mottizen of the same name.
He's Algerian ingame, IIRC.
Yeah, skin deep writing. Pretty much. The concepts are fine, but the quests and the unit lore is just .. ugh. Just not to my taste. Almost tempted to rewrite that stuff to be less cringe. Starsector has relatively decent writing that doesn't feel insulting, but that's probably because the game devs are clearly SF readers.
Couple more annoying things: I feel like planes should have fuel / require bases like in SMACX and I just plain dislike titans. Logistically they're just kind of dumb and conceptually don't make that much sense either. And what is even the point where e.g. Praetorians kill various titans without much issue and are air-mobile?
Wonder how hard modding it is.
If roads were cheaper/could be built automatically and supplies were not automatically delivered but depended on accessibility and supply depots/convoys, the game would get a fair amount of depth.
If you could make formations out of units and move them at once, that'd be very good too.
Also, it's nice that each unit has a specific weapon because swapping out those weapons for others same way heroes swap out items would make it much more interesting. I don't get why weapon selection isn't already in the game. Endless Legend had unit builds and it added some depth to the combat..
Tbh the combat is a fair bit deeper than in ordinary 4x games, or at least could be with some more options.
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