The next generation of space strategy games is almost upon us.

[Arcvalons]

Stellaris has become the king of this current generation, but now, Distant Worlds 2 and Galactic Civilizations 4 have been announced. Looking into relevant threads in gaming forums has made me realize that Stellaris is often mentioned, even by the developers of those games, who seem to be aware of what made Stellaris popular and appear to be taking that into consideration during development. The point being that those games might end up making Stellaris feel outdated, it is a five-year-old game now, after all. Do you think it is time to start thinking about Stellaris 2?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Terra Invicta looks good too.

 

[AKicebear]

Stellaris will probably retain the best aesthetics, but I suspect both Distant Worlds 2 and Galactic Civilizations 4 will capture a lot of my time with their mechanics. Both have a much more sustainable approach to colony management in the mid and late game.

 

[RoverStorm]

I don't think Stellaris 2 NEEDS to come out, but....

Ever since Federations I have begun to wonder if they are just throwing random new stuff at the wall and see what the community likes and what the community didn't care for, which feels a bit like what began to happen with CK2 before CK3 came out. CK2 also was out for I think 6 years before CK3 began development in private, and as you mentioned, Stellaris is 5 years old.

 

[Aza-]

Man, Stellaris gonna stay the best 4X ever

 

[johnty5]

Don’t really know a lot about Distant Worlds, but GalCiv is a very different beast to Stellaris, no?

Seems like comparing Civ to Europa Universalis. Both “historical strategy games”, but almost nothing else in common.

Unless I’ve missed a big change in the series?

 

[Cronos988]

Unless I’ve missed a big change in the series?

From what I've read, they want to massively increase the scope, which would get it closer to Stellaris. They have also explicitly mentioned a system that sounds similar to Stellaris 1.0 sectors, where you can only directly control a small number of core worlds and the AI handles the rest. Unlike in Stellaris though, there are supposed to be political mechanics around keeping these sectors loyal

 

[TrotBot]

From what I've read, they want to massively increase the scope, which would get it closer to Stellaris. They have also explicitly mentioned a system that sounds similar to Stellaris 1.0 sectors, where you can only directly control a small number of core worlds and the AI handles the rest. Unlike in Stellaris though, there are supposed to be political mechanics around keeping these sectors loyal

i think that just sounds like more of the abstract restrictions on a player that made it a worse game than Stellaris. Like good luck roleplaying utopian society in Gal Civ, it's hard coded to be mutually exclusive to "pragmatic" bonuses and had far too many negatives to retain my interest.

 

[Astax]

Hmm Gal Civ always seemed kind of wierd, and I dont really enjoy it as much as others. But Distant Worlds has been super solid! Though I don't play it as much now a days.

 

[Reman]

Base Stellaris was about as good as GalCiv 3 or Distant Worlds 1, but now Stellaris is much better then both of them due to its many expansions and mods that added tons of content. DW2 and GC4 might be good for 50-100 hours when they come out, but I wouldn't expect anything genre-changing.

 

[LiberiusX]

I loved DW:U for its economic system. That’s great for internal mechanics. However it’s diplomacy system is a hollow imitation of Clausewitz engine games.

Of the 4 Xs, extermination is what everything leads up to. Extermination is just boring without a diplomacy system that’s immersive. Clausewitz games excel at Diplomacy, and this is something all competitors have yet to overcome to shove PDS aside.

 

[Ozonosfera]

Just saw Distant Worlds 2 and the UI looks ugly to me. Hope they have great gameplay.

 

[Dusty242]

I loved DW:U for its economic system. That’s great for internal mechanics. However it’s diplomacy system is a hollow imitation of Clausewitz engine games.

Of the 4 Xs, extermination is what everything leads up to. Extermination is just boring without a diplomacy system that’s immersive. Clausewitz games excel at Diplomacy, and this is something all competitors have yet to overcome to shove PDS aside.

Wait you think diplomacy is what Paradox excels in? Because I own a few PDX games were diplomacy is either non existent (HOI4) or poorly done (Stellaris, Imperator Rome, arguably CKII) or has a barely passing grade (Crusader Kings III, EU4).

Paradox games are amazing for scale, very few Medieval games can match Crusader Kings in scale for example.

 

[Abberon]

I think GalCiv 4 is going to be a flop. I read some of the announcements and it sounds like it's going to be much the same as the 20+ year old dinosaur franchise would typically offer. I suppose we'll have to wait for a lot more info but it was a big yawn from me.

 

[AKicebear]

i think that just sounds like more of the abstract restrictions on a player that made it a worse game than Stellaris. Like good luck roleplaying utopian society in Gal Civ, it's hard coded to be mutually exclusive to "pragmatic" bonuses and had far too many negatives to retain my interest.

Galactic Civilizations aims to have most colonies being backwater with no player input - just some minor resource source. A limited number will be upgradable to "core" colonies that require player input on development. It sounds like a nice system to allow a) a massive number of colonies to satisfy that urge players have to claim territory and b) keeping management at a reasonable level.

The other feature that sounds good is that the game's developer is open about shamelessly wanting to adapt lessons learned from other games in the genre, and is a huge fan of CK3 - so likely the characters will play a huge role in the game.

 

[TrotBot]

Galactic Civilizations aims to have most colonies being backwater with no player input - just some minor resource source. A limited number will be upgradable to "core" colonies that require player input on development. It sounds like a nice system to allow a) a massive number of colonies to satisfy that urge players have to claim territory and b) keeping management at a reasonable level.

The other feature that sounds good is that the game's developer is open about shamelessly wanting to adapt lessons learned from other games in the genre, and is a huge fan of CK3 - so likely the characters will play a huge role in the game.

i play all space 4X games, so I will definitely check it out when it comes out, but like I said my main concern is "is this a fun space communism simulator?" cause stellaris doesn't really railroad me away from playing that way, whereas galactic civilizations III did, so I stopped playing it and continued coming back to stellaris over and over.

 

[LughC]

Stellaris has become the king of this current generation

since when?

It has probably the worst balance out of any of the major ones. Has great ideas and concepts but they aren't really fleshed out. And the free updates more often than not feel extremely feature incomplete without the corresponding DLC.

Most of my friends that enjoy 4x space or otherwise have either never played stellaris or only played it for a bit. Don't get me wrong I love the game and its one of my favorites but Im able to understand that there are far more popular games and more often than not for good reason. Yeah, it gets brought up a lot but mostly for its concepts and blanket ideas. Not generally its execution of them


If the do a stellaris 2 I would really hope they focused more on the flavor and RP aspects. IMHO that was what made stellaris stand out when it originally launched.

 

[Arcvalons]

since when?

It is the more popular by far:

Comparison - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

 

[TrotBot]

It is the more popular by far:

Comparison - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

never tried distant worlds, but of the other 3 only stellaris didn't prevent me from roleplaying space communism and it's way ahead of the others. coincidence? i think not!

 

[Peter34]

Stellaris has become the king of this current generation, but now, Distant Worlds 2 and Galactic Civilizations 4 have been announced. Looking into relevant threads in gaming forums has made me realize that Stellaris is often mentioned, even by the developers of those games, who seem to be aware of what made Stellaris popular and appear to be taking that into consideration during development. The point being that those games might end up making Stellaris feel outdated, it is a five-year-old game now, after all. Do you think it is time to start thinking about Stellaris 2?

The thing that Stellaris does, is it simulates change happening to your "empire", in a gradual and orderly fashion. Either change happening to your polity on the political side via replacing Civics or changing Ethos, or change to the biological composition of your empire, via immigration, emigration, or various forms of POP modification (or, if you are so inclined, genocide).

Simulated change in a gradual and orderly fashion.

I.e. the game is not just about what you do, but also very much about what you are playing as. You begin play as one thing (this thing being built out of flexible building blocks, instead of chosen from a finite list of pre-creation options like in Civ 5 and 6) but towards the end game you might be playing as something that is very different from what you started as.

Is Galactiv Civ 4 going to try to do something like that?