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PaperclipPerfector
1d ago
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Video game thread
I'm still playing BG3. Around 17 hours in. Progress is kinda slow, not because it's really difficult or boring but because there are so many items to inspect, notes and books to read, traps to spot and disarm, morals to ponder, battle decisions and build decisions to make. I'm enjoying it though. I killed one of the goblin leaders before heading downwards. I'm doing lots of stuff in the Underdark. Picked up a sword that can sing, and killed a bunch of minotaurs and duergar dwarves.
I'm playing Sins of a Solar Empire 2, still.
In my general opinion it is shaping up to be a masterpiece of the 4x/RTS genre.
3 different factions, each with two subfactions. Each faction has different specialties and the sub factions tend to be focused on either aggression or defensive strategy. So you have ample options for choosing your preferred playstyle for a given match.
Each Faction/Subfaction has an array of ship types and a decent selection of capital ships, and a dizzying number of techs to research to boost those ships' performance. And each faction has very different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to economy.
And the devs are set to release a new fourth faction, as well as the LONG-anticipated campaign mode, which will finally answer one of the core questions of the lore from the original game.
Finally, the true core combat mechanic being battles between "Fleets", and the fact that EVERY projectile a ship fires is actually simulated in 3D space, and some surprisingly complex damage calculation means there's some extra strategic depth in which ships you've chosen to compose your fleet(s) and which techs you've chosen to optimize their performance.
This means its not quite a "Rock-Paper-Shotgun-Laser-Nuke" situation where every attack has a direct counter and you just keep leveling your units until you win. It is possible for a giant deathball fleet to lose to a smaller force if the smaller force is optimized precisely enough to defend against the ship types its facing. And there's several mechanics to allow you to quickly augment your fleet's strength at opportune moments.
The upshot is that the outcome of battles can be relatively unpredictable, and you do NOT need a higher APM to micromanage your way to victory if you are successful at scouting out the opponent and predicting and countering their strategy. Although high APM helps. And in any situation with 3 or more players, the exact mix of factions and ships being thrown around can force a complete mid-match re-evaluation of said strategy. Finally crushing the guy who was pumping out dozens of cheap ships to harass you feels great until the third guy rolls up with a wall of heavy cruisers backed by support ships to start wrecking your infrastructure.
My one main fault with it is at present is the unwieldy and un-intuitive state of tech tree which makes it hard to learn for new players and kind of 'forces' a certain playstyle on you until you can get enough research to unlock the techs you actually want/need.
Yet the variable scale of the game means you can play a quick 30 minute-1 hour match where the later techs aren't even needed, or you can do a 6+ hour epic with hundreds of planets and multiple star systems that ends with planet-killer railguns, Hundreds of ships duking it out at once and beastly Titan warships that can delete whole fleets in short order.
Anyway, its a very fun game, and I'd host some sessions for Mottizens who would be interested. Its sadly not as popular as it truly deserves.
This has my interest. I heard about SoaSE from a friend, I saw #2 come through last year, but $50 is pretty steep for a game you say "still" about.
Playing Sins of a Solar Empire is "still," playing #2 is just regular playing a game that is 15 months old. I eat food that is past its printed date by more than 15 months. I still play FTL, and that's 13 years old.
This seems like a major flaw if I can't tell which one I'm getting into ahead of time. Although I suppose the answer is you sign up for a 6 hour epic, and sometimes it ends quick. A twelvefold difference in time is extreme.
If you do host, I'll try to play.
I mean, I played the first game in the series for over 10 years.
When I say that the Second has improved on the first in almost every conceivable way, I want to establish that it had a high bar to clear.
Generally you can tell from the game settings at the outset. The Size of the map is the primary determinant as to how quickly you'll come into contact with the opponent, and whether there's even enough resources to build an economy or if you just hop straight to fighting.
And you can set the game speed higher for ship movement, tech research, and resource accumulation to ensure things end quickly, or lower those speeds to stretch the game out and force a more strategic match.
The largest maps start to feel like playing Stellaris but with just the space battles and economics and less of the tiddly empire management.
And there is a contingent of players who seem to not really want to play competitively at all but instead just set up the largest fleet battles possible then just sit back and watch them play out.
As mentioned there's a steepish learning curve for the tech tree alone, knowing what to research and when is a critical factor and the game will NOT hold your hand to show you which path is ideal.
So it is a bit much to ask of someone who isn't familiar with it to start playing with you right off rip.
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