What's wrong with 4X - an interesting podcast I found

[EntropyAvatar]

It's interesting to me that this podcast was recorded the same month* that work began in Stellaris, and in so many ways, the design of Stellaris seems like an attempt to answer their criticisms.

*(Actually I don't remember if they said May or March 2013...)

 

[Oscot]

So I listened to it. The point that I agreed with the most was the geography stuff. It's a big part of what makes Civ engaging. The variety is endlessly fun to explore, fertile regions give you self-emergent mini-missions to colonise, border expansions (and lately trolling people with Great Generals) give you more mini-missions to claim valuable resources, and you end up with a distinctive little patch of features and terrain that forms your home and becomes familiar and you defend with all the possessive maternalism of a mother bear RUSSIA. Contrast to space games, where you're kinda put in a Catch-22 situation in that there REALLY IS no terrain, but it's one of the things you do really need in order to stop interstellar expansion becoming as droll and robotic as 01_SYSTEM_CLAIM.

Alas, when the podcast nudged me to start thinking in this manner it also induced me to worry that Stellaris doesn't seem to have anything in it that addresses this problem. At all.

I mean, I know it's technically got terrain; nebulae, whatever 'badlands' are, spiral arm gaps- but it really doesn't seem of the same class as 'river + flood plains with mountain range to the north, good hill terrain to the west for hammers & defense, 3x Salt and 2x Cows within radius' sort of terrain thinking that makes your cities memorable in Civ. Hell, I still remember a game I played 6 years ago where my best city was on a two-tile island and sustained one of the largest populations in the world by virtue of its 8 ocean food resources. But can I remember a single one of my solar system developments in any space civ game ever? No. No I can't.

 

[Alexander Seil]

Most space 4X games, however, feature exceedingly little system variation, the systems themselves often lack a compelling graphical representation, and, on top of that, you basically colonize everything in sight and build everything everywhere, robbing habitable planets of rarity and colonies themselves of any character.

I certainly can recall the layout of the Blorg space (and the galaxy at large) easily, and I'm not even the one playing, which says something about how memorable it is. I'm not fond of their LARPing, so I'm pretty sure it's not because I'm attached to the "story," I just find the layout (particularly the peculiar gaps between clusters, the empty western fringe, that migratory flock of space cows) to be interesting. Compared to SMAC's "here's a slightly less tilted plain in the same exact garish placenta pink color," it's quite a step forward. The Civ/BE maps are also mostly just an incoherent mess of features, it's not like they have an actual Dwarf Fortress style geological feature generation type thing going.

EDIT: I think Stellaris also manages a bit of trickery by representing systems as big maps that things can move and fight on, which makes it feel much bigger than it otherwise would feel, even if it makes almost no real impact on gameplay. MoO2 and its derivatives feel very claustrophobic to me.

 

[theoverlysensitivegamer]

The thing that annoys / worries me is that a substantial number of commentators these days seem to take the position that SMAC wasn't really that good and its fervent support comes from achieving a critical mass of nostalgia goggles + bandwaggoning, which leads to a positive feedback loop of rabid fanboyism.
I mean, on the surface that seems to me patently absurd, but then again that's exactly what I would say if I were indeed brain-infected with a critical mass of nostalgia goggles + bandwaggoning. :/

I'm confused, you mean people like to take the position that it IS good? Unless people have nostalgia for something being bad.

 

[Oscot]

I'm confused, you mean people like to take the position that it IS good? Unless people have nostalgia for something being bad.

I was meaning that people who think SMAC wasn't good say that the only reason other people think it was good is because those other people are suffering from, for want of a better term, "retrospective hype".

Most space 4X games, however, feature exceedingly little system variation, the systems themselves often lack a compelling graphical representation, and, on top of that, you basically colonize everything in sight and build everything everywhere, robbing habitable planets of rarity and colonies themselves of any character.

Fair point. Genuine planetary scarcity might serve to make those you do settle feel less like 04_NODE, although I am unsure if this will actually play out in practice. I can see it being exactly as boring as 04_NODE but with the added frustration that you always feel small and puny.

I certainly can recall the layout of the Blorg space (and the galaxy at large) easily, and I'm not even the one playing, which says something about how memorable it is. I'm not fond of their LARPing, so I'm pretty sure it's not because I'm attached to the "story," I just find the layout (particularly the peculiar gaps between clusters, the empty western fringe, that migratory flock of space cows) to be interesting. Compared to SMAC's "here's a slightly less tilted plain in the same exact garish placenta pink color," it's quite a step forward. The Civ/BE maps are also mostly just an incoherent mess of features, it's not like they have an actual Dwarf Fortress style geological feature generation type thing going.

I can't claim that SMAC's uniform pink terrain did anything for me either, although they jazzed it up a bit with all those planetary features. Whoever got Monsoon Jungle tended to dominate the midgame, iirc.
I really like Civ's messy, schizophrenic terrain actually. Maybe I just have a short attention span. Looking at uniform pink or endless vacuum black just doesn't do it for me like a riot of yellows and greens and whites. And that's before you play as the Dutch and become LGBT-flag Polderman.

 

[James_K]

The worst thing that ever happened to 4X was Master of Orion.

It was a fun game, but soooooooo many games following it tried to copy it instead of innovating and making something new. It was the same situation that we faced with World War 2 games in the early 2000's and later with Call of Duty modern day military shooters; a single series or idea being copied and fleshed out indefinitely until the next paradigm followed.

Ultimately what the genre needed(needs) was to get out of the shadow of MoO and Civilization.

I ran across a video a few years back that made a similar argument with WoW and MMOs. It seems sometimes that a genre can be a victim of its own success.

 

[Timelordwho]

From a purely mechanical basis, SMAC isn't a standout. I mean, it's 4X mechanics with some elaboration on 'barbarians' and 'workers.' The unit customization was interesting but not required and often unwieldy, and crawlers were outright broken.

However, as an experience, it is amazing and always will be.

I think on of AC's strengths was the different ideology/values that drove factions to be more "different" than same-y. Diversity of play styles instead of regression to the mean is, i think, what makes an empire simulator stand out.

 

[Umega]

It was a fun game, but soooooooo many games following it tried to copy it instead of innovating and making something new. It was the same situation that we faced with World War 2 games in the early 2000's and later with Call of Duty modern day military shooters; a single series or idea being copied and fleshed out indefinitely until the next paradigm followed.

Same thing happened with World of Warcraft, it became a victim of it's own success. A popular game comes out and others try to make cheaper copies with little innovation. Then the whole genre becomes stale.

 

[Smertnik]

I mean, I know it's technically got terrain; nebulae, whatever 'badlands' are, spiral arm gaps- but it really doesn't seem of the same class as 'river + flood plains with mountain range to the north, good hill terrain to the west for hammers & defense, 3x Salt and 2x Cows within radius' sort of terrain thinking that makes your cities memorable in Civ. Hell, I still remember a game I played 6 years ago where my best city was on a two-tile island and sustained one of the largest populations in the world by virtue of its 8 ocean food resources. But can I remember a single one of my solar system developments in any space civ game ever? No. No I can't.

Stellaris works with "terrain" on three levels- system connections, system interior, and individual planets.
What is key here is the story behind those, emerging history, and choices the game presents (directly and indirectly).

One might argue that what you remember isnt terrain in civ, but the story that came out of it- cows, salt, ocean- transformed into the creation of your cities.
I have the same good memories on founding cities by volcanoes in 'Caveman to Cosmonaut', just because volcano cities are awesome!

Stellaris presents choices on all three levels- how far you expand, do you rush for that barely habitable world, do you invest into mining stations or push the border with outposts, do you survey systems or make your science ships assist research, etc-etc.
And on the level of an individual planet it shines with those small interconnected colonial events- and your choice in them.
I still dream of those walking forests, and Blorgs trying to befriend them.

 

[beckermt]

So I listened to it. The point that I agreed with the most was the geography stuff. It's a big part of what makes Civ engaging. The variety is endlessly fun to explore, fertile regions give you self-emergent mini-missions to colonise, border expansions (and lately trolling people with Great Generals) give you more mini-missions to claim valuable resources, and you end up with a distinctive little patch of features and terrain that forms your home and becomes familiar and you defend with all the possessive maternalism of a mother bear RUSSIA. Contrast to space games, where you're kinda put in a Catch-22 situation in that there REALLY IS no terrain, but it's one of the things you do really need in order to stop interstellar expansion becoming as droll and robotic as 01_SYSTEM_CLAIM.

Alas, when the podcast nudged me to start thinking in this manner it also induced me to worry that Stellaris doesn't seem to have anything in it that addresses this problem. At all.

I mean, I know it's technically got terrain; nebulae, whatever 'badlands' are, spiral arm gaps- but it really doesn't seem of the same class as 'river + flood plains with mountain range to the north, good hill terrain to the west for hammers & defense, 3x Salt and 2x Cows within radius' sort of terrain thinking that makes your cities memorable in Civ. Hell, I still remember a game I played 6 years ago where my best city was on a two-tile island and sustained one of the largest populations in the world by virtue of its 8 ocean food resources. But can I remember a single one of my solar system developments in any space civ game ever? No. No I can't.

I think that to an extent the terrain you're looking for is actually the system's resources that can be mined from space, as well as the existing tile production on the colonizable planets. It's not quite as immediately apparent as Civ's terrain, but there may be a planet with an excessive amount of food production and that affects if you want to settle it or not and provides a bit of a story.

Additionally, there are the anomalies, which should add some character. e.g. that planet with the moving trees the Blorg had, with +5 social research adjacency bonuses (*drool* so much BONUS possible!).

Lastly, I think that Stellaris will be significantly more internally-focused than Civ is. In Civ, rebels were a feature of 1 game of 10, if you REALLY screwed it up and even then they didn't DO anything. The factions and ethos distribution will provide character for different areas of space, even if it's not terrain. e.g. the Hate Owl Sector!

 

[klingonadmiral]

Same thing happened with World of Warcraft, it became a victim of it's own success.

And MOBAs are the next on the list. Probably followed by card games, and then class/hero-based multiplayer shooters.

I mean, the only reason why GSGs don't run into this problem is that one the one hand there is the TW-style which is absolutely dominated by TW, and the Paradox-style which is absolutely dominated by Paradox. The genre is too niche and the brands too entrenched for other developers to start trying to get a piece of the cake.

 

[Oscot]

One might argue that what you remember isnt terrain in civ, but the story that came out of it- cows, salt, ocean- transformed into the creation of your cities.

If this were true, you would think I would have fond memories of all the emergent narratives that came out of founding a colony planet next to two antimatter resources in Gal Civ III.
Sadly, this is not the case.

I think that to an extent the terrain you're looking for is actually the system's resources that can be mined from space, as well as the existing tile production on the colonizable planets. It's not quite as immediately apparent as Civ's terrain, but there may be a planet with an excessive amount of food production and that affects if you want to settle it or not and provides a bit of a story.

Frankly mining seems to be the single least appealing aspect of Stellaris, if the streams are anything to go by. Oooo, you get one tile's worth of resources from a planet? I'm sceptical that mining stations are even worth building at all.

 

[Smertnik]

If this were true, you would think I would have fond memories of all the emergent narratives that came out of founding a colony planet next to two antimatter resources in Gal Civ III.
Sadly, this is not the case.

Were there emerging narratives in Gal Civ that got to you?

 

[Oscot]

Were there emerging narratives in Gal Civ that got to you?

My lingering memory of Gal Civ III is that I would queue my worlds up building warships, waypoint them to the front to cut down on micro, but the 20 turns later when they actually ARRIVED at the front, the front had moved numerous times and they were in the wrong place, so I had to redirect them. Again. And again. And again.

Gal Civ III would more accurately have been titled Zeno's Paradox: The Game.

 

[TheLand]

Interesting thread, thank you all - I shall go and listen to the podcast sometime

Particularly interested by the views on "experience" and "mechanics". I quite agree Alpha Centauri is a game that has a really interesting narrative even though its mechanics are basically those of Civ2. To give some even more extreme examples, Spore and Black & White are both games that people were rapturous about on release but had little replay value. They both had great, new experiences and emerging narratives, but there wasn't enough mechanical interest to sustain peoples' interest after the first play-through.

Designing a game experience that knocks peoples' socks off and then keeps people coming back is the real game designer's challenge...

 

[beckermt]

Oooo, you get one tile's worth of resources from a planet? I'm sceptical that mining stations are even worth building at all.

One-time of 50 Minerals for at least +1 Mineral per month is totally worth it.
Assuming you're not starving for Energy, at least. But there are energy mining stations too.

Gal Civ III would more accurately have been titled Zeno's Paradox: The Game.

Hehe

 

[Safehold]

The worst thing that ever happened to 4X was Master of Orion.

It was a fun game, but soooooooo many games following it tried to copy it instead of innovating and making something new. It was the same situation that we faced with World War 2 games in the early 2000's and later with Call of Duty modern day military shooters; a single series or idea being copied and fleshed out indefinitely until the next paradigm followed.

Ultimately what the genre needed(needs) was to get out of the shadow of MoO and Civilization.

If the podcast doesn't mention this I'll be mad.

EDIT: Welp it did. Glad.

It's sort of like if action rpgs never had Mass Effect or Witcher as a guide, just Diablo clones. There's only so much Torchwood and Titan games that the market can sustain. Back in the day, there were a lot of such clones out, even with the same looking engine graphics. Although the asian martial arts Diablo one had the best combo kills.

Replaying Master of Magic definitely contrasted the nostalgia with what I really liked, which was the strategic spells, tactical turn based combat, and not the strategic turn based game. There's also Alien Legacy, which felt much better on a replay than Moo or Mom.

 

[Buladelu]

I mean, I know it's technically got terrain; nebulae, whatever 'badlands' are, spiral arm gaps- but it really doesn't seem of the same class as 'river + flood plains with mountain range to the north, good hill terrain to the west for hammers & defense, 3x Salt and 2x Cows within radius' sort of terrain thinking that makes your cities memorable in Civ. Hell, I still remember a game I played 6 years ago where my best city was on a two-tile island and sustained one of the largest populations in the world by virtue of its 8 ocean food resources. But can I remember a single one of my solar system developments in any space civ game ever? No. No I can't.

Starlanes is the answer. Wiz mentioned his favorite set up is to force everyone to use starlanes and you can easily do it when you start the game.

 

[Stadhouder]

An interesting stream. It does explain the problem I had with 4x, I like strategy, I like space, but still these games haven't been able to hold my interest over the last couple of years. This is also why I'm hyped for Stellaris, it has very much the 4x them I like, but it seems to offer a lot more potential for unique experiences due to a certain unpredictability in what kind of technologies I can research, which anomalies I'll discover and what kind of opponents I will have.

I think Henrik had the same idea as these guys regarding the state of the 4x genre, seeing the design decisions mad ein this game and the vision he as stated.

 

[sesn]

I like how they praise EUIV for it s peace time mechanics.