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Friday Fun Thread for June 20, 2025

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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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.

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.

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..

Nothing revolutionary at all, but it works well enough.

Tbh the combat is a fair bit deeper than in ordinary 4x games, or at least could be with some more options.