I just have to say, it's great there's a 42 pages Vitriol Thread for all the vitriol. It would be tiresome to find the kind of posts in this thread everywhere else. Good job people, keep it organized.
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Stellaris feels like a game made by EA.
- Thread starter Ennoia
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Nations:
Not even here is there more variety in Stellaris. No matter what you pick you start off the exact same way. The ethics, traits and goverment forms hardly creates more variety than the national ideas, idea groups, tech groups and goverment forms in EU4. Add to that that you start completely diffrently with every nation and you have far more variety in EU4.
If you play a trading or colonizing nation your game can be completely different from a game as say Ulm or Austria.
Warfare:
Wargoals are very basic and for every game you will do exactly the same thing, vassalise or conquer your neighbors using essentially the same method. There is very little variety in warfare.
In EU4 you can fight large scale land wars or smaller scale wars on the other side of the game world (that you benfit greatly from). The assymetry creates variety.
Economy:
In stellaris the only variety in the economy is basically whether or not you should enslave pops on mines and food, which you always should if have 100% reduction. So the economy is basically the same in every game: No variety.
In EU4 you atleast have trading, and can play very differently if you want to base your economy on trade instead of taxes.
Diplomacy:
Stellaris diplomacy is really limited, buggy or not EU had far more to offer.
Exploration:
How is exploration varied at all? Send ship to system. Exactly the same no matter what you are playing. It does not add variety at all. It's a compulsory feature.
In EU4 exploration adds variety because you don't have to do it. If you play one game as an explorer and one game without it you have variety.
Expansion:
Conquer or colonize the surrounding region. The only variety it offers is that you may choose to play peacefully. But if you do you have essentially nothing to do in game but to see numbers grow. So there is very little actual variation, it will be the same.
In EU 4 you can expand locally or expand overseas via colonization or conquest. All three of those are varied and the game will be different depending on what you focus on.
Research:
Stellaris wins here.
Interface:
Has nothing to do with gameplay variety, but ok. Stellaris interface is bad compared to the EU4 interface. The interface of EU4 was one of it's strong points.
Start of game:
You always do the exact same procedure in Stellaris. No variety at all no matter what race you are.
In EU4 you have lots of options. Do you attack a weak neighbor? Do you get powerful allies and strike above your weightclass? Do you remain peaceful and build up internally? Do you take a valuable province that is far away?
So all in all, after 1-2 games of Stellaris there is very little that you have not seen or done. Further games will be itterations of the previous ones.
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That public companies are somehow corrupt because they must act in the best interest of their shareholders is a very ridiculous notion that no one who is critical or sceptical of paradox or stellaris actually believe. Just saying.
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If Paradox is trying to be EA then they're doing the worst possible job.
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You have discovered 1.0 PDS games.
EU4 1.0:
If OPM: unite the provinces of your culture
If/when culture united: unite the provinces of your culture group.
If/when culture group united: beat your neighbors, become top dog.
If/when neighbors beaten: beat France and/or the Ottomans, whatever's more appropriate.
Congratulations, you have finished the game. Wait for the end date or start again.
CK2:
If no king: be king.
If no HRE emperor: be HRE emperor.
If no ERE emperor: be ERE emperor.
Paint the rest of the map.
In both cases it doesn't matter if you start in Scandinavia, Spain, the HRE, Russia, India (in EU4)... It's the same game every time and you're doing the same things, for the same results, every time. Beat your first rival, snowball, beat the big rival, snowball harder... The difference is that the province next to you maybe has the text "Delhi" on it, instead of having the text "Paris" on it.
You show an astonishing capacity to go from the specific to the abstract in Stellaris, concluding that, ultimately, every game is the same (we're talking, after all, about playing the same game over and over). At the same time, you show a mistifying inability to go from the specific to the abstract in the cases of EU4 and CK2, which work identically in all respects. For some reason, being a theological bird in a corner of the galaxy is perceived to be exactly the same as being a democratic fungus in the other corner of the galaxy, but being a Christian king in a place named England in CK2 is perceived to be a completely different experience than being a Christian king in a place called France. Even though you literally couldn't find a single difference between those two experiences, other than the provinces having different names.
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If you read the rest of the post you can see that there are actually quite a few things that makes the gameplay varied. Your descriptions are ridiculously reductive to the point where they are useless.
Was there something in my list that you disagree with? Can you maybe explain how Stellaris creates varied gameplay? How is the gameplay for the bird and the fungus actually different?
For your CK 2 example, the difference between beign a count in england and an emperor in france is pretty big, for example.
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Cyan is talking about king and king, not count and emperor. And indeed, what is the difference between playing a Catholic King in England and a Catholic King in France?
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You realise you're attacking an argument I never made ? I mean feel free to point out where I suggested developers should be working for free .
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The traits and government form make about as much difference in Stellaris as in EU4, and in Stellaris you can actually choose which ones you would like, whereas in EU4 1.0 you were stuck with whatever nations were already in the game (and there were a lot less than there are now).
How is that unique to EU4? You can fight wars of any scale in Stellaris as well.
Except it isn't. For example, in my current game there isn't a star system within 5 jumps of my homeworld that has more than 2 Energy Credits, and so I've had to focus much more on colonising planets and using buildings.
{quote]Diplomacy:
Stellaris diplomacy is really limited, buggy or not EU had far more to offer.
Exploration:
How is exploration varied at all? Send ship to system. Exactly the same no matter what you are playing. It does not add variety at all. It's a compulsory feature.
In EU4 exploration adds variety because you don't have to do it. If you play one game as an explorer and one game without it you have variety.[/quote]
I agree on diplomacy.
For exploration, are you really going to argue that 'You can choose not to' is meaningful variety?
And of course the exploration involves sending a ship to a system, it's a fracking space game. The variety is what you can find in those systems and how those discoveries change the way you play. There's nothing like this in EU4, unless you're going to claim that the 'randomly discover your colony is producing wheat after it's half-finished' matches unlocking quest lines and discovering medieval civilisations that you can interact with.
In Stellaris you can expand locally or far away too through colonisation or conquest too, the only real difference is that said colonisation is more in depth than colonisation in EU4, and said conquest is also more fleshed out than in EU4.
It is once you understand it, for any beginners it's a complete cluster-muck.
Oh please. All of those options you have in EU4 you also have in Stellaris.
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Oh boy, this thread is still going. Hasn't everything been said that could possibly be said already? The only thing left is that people can agree to disagree and move on. The last 5-6 pages were just a reiteration of the 5-6 pages before them, and it seems like this comes down to oppinion vs oppinion (we all know how well this goes.) because pretty much every factual argument has already been proposed.
This topic will only derail at its current pace.
This topic will only derail at its current pace.
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I know what Stellaris needs: OCEANS.
Want to wage warfare halfway across the known world - you need oceans.
Want to enhance your main warfare, like naval warfare - you need oceans.
Landlocked by powerful rivals on all sides bar one? Good that you can core across seas.
Thing native/ South American gameplay is full? Can't use oceans.
If you want variety you need the oceans that open up 90% of the known world...
Want to wage warfare halfway across the known world - you need oceans.
Want to enhance your main warfare, like naval warfare - you need oceans.
Landlocked by powerful rivals on all sides bar one? Good that you can core across seas.
Thing native/ South American gameplay is full? Can't use oceans.
If you want variety you need the oceans that open up 90% of the known world...
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Start as a count in England (which is the same as being a count anywhere else), and in 50 years (and that's generous) you're king of England, which is the same as being the king of any other place, gives you the same power level that you would have had anywhere else, and presents to you the same problems and dynamics that you would have had anywhere else. In fact, wherever you are, whoever you are, the game plays exactly the same from start to finish. You only have to choose at which stage of the game do you want to start: you can choose if you want to start at the first step (count) or the last step (in which case you won't have much to do, because you have skipped most of the game by already being an emperor instead of working hard for it), but it's the exact same game. Unless you're doing it wrong on purpose. You can also do it wrong on purpose in Stellaris if you want: don't expand and try to survive.
You are seeing something magical that gives great replayability in the other PDS games, that simply isn't there at all, while judging Stellaris in the most negative light possible. Either you didn't understand PDS games before this, and now with the release of Stellaris you have finally seen through the smoke and mirrors for the first time and you have realized that it's basically the same game every time (until expansions come eventually and give it a little variety), or something about EU4 and CK2 subjectively attracts you, for no reasonable way whatsoever (attractions are like that; I liked 1.0 CK2 much more than EU4 1.0, why?, well, just because I did), and you're trying to rationalize it as being an objective flaw of the game.
I'm not debating you on how "the exploration in EU4 is better because you can do it or not do it, while in Stellaris, it's much worse because you have to do it" and all the other facepalm-worthy items on that list because it's literally not worth my time. That you make a horrendously bad point, or list of points, doesn't force anyone else to engage with that point. There's nothing to discuss about putting your bias on a list like they were objective facts.
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If you're as reductive as Sickness is being about Stellaris then every PC game is nothing more than clicking on things and typing.
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Aren't all human experiences just basically being located in a place while breathing? Whether you're fighting in a war or watching TV, you're just standing on a specific point of the planet's surface and practicing the act of breathing. It's all basically the same.
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In either game that adds very little gameplay variety.
You conveniently forgot to addres the asymmetrical starts and the ability to focus on widely different things. You know, the things that actually add lots of gameplay variety.
Sure, it depends on the neighbor you are attacking. The wars will still be the same though.
Conquering goa as venice is not the same as conquering burgundy as france.
So you did what? Colonized planets and used buildings insetad of colonizing platens and using buildings? You are describing the standard gameplay as an exception, how clearer can it get that there is very little variety in how the game plays put.
Yes, how is it not? Having a range of features that not all are mandatory for each game is variety.
What you find in the systems have very little effect on how you play. Colonizing in system X1 instead of system X0 is not variety, they are exactly the same from a gameplay perspective.
It's technically possible but it's a bad idea with no real benefits. The only variety is that you can choose to be peaceful and watch numbers grow instead of playing. Great.
The EU4 interface was praised for opening up the game for new players, so I don't know what you are on about.
Also, I would must rather have an interface that is cluster-muck for beginners than one that is a hassle-clickfest for experienced players.
Factually incorrect. At the start of the game you do not have those options.
What exactly in Stellaris would offer as different experiences and gameplay as Imperial Austria and trade Oman? No one is able to answer this question.
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Please show me exactly where I'm being reductive. Quote me, don't paraphrase me.
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Being a Xenophile empire that collects pops from around the galaxy to colonize all kinds of planets, versus being a militaristic zealous that declares war on everyone they see to subjugate them. Just off the top of my head.
Also: Austria eventually has control of a node and engages in heavy trade, like Oman, a big navy (it's next to the coast), like Oman, and fights the Ottomans. Oman eventually has a big empire, like Austria (Arabian culture group provinces around you), a big army, like Austria (why wouldn't they?), and fights the Ottomans. After 100 years, you're basically in the same situation with both, just on opposing sides of the Ottomans.
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I would love to hear the difference because I don't see any, except that you may have to use ships to transfer troops as Venice... Otherwise, where is the difference? You are making it sound like wars in EU IV are so different than in Stellaris while in reality, they are just the same.
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The facepalm worthiness here is that you think that the list is about features that are better in EU4. I have not said or implied anything of the sort. It's simply a list of areas of the game where people have claimed that the gameplay variety is greater in Stellaris.
My issue with stellaris is not that those areas does not create variety, it's that there is nothing else to make up for it.
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