Player actions need more noticable effect overall

[lifehole]

It's funny because on the AI war arcengames page is says this: "Because you love RTS games or 4X games, but you hate it when they're click-fests, involve a lot of sitting around and waiting, or just require you to memorize a bunch of spreadsheets to win."

And the second "sitting around and waiting" is exactly this game now.

(I'm not a player of AI war, though I am looking to get into it, hence why I was even there. I bought it with a humble bundle a while back.)

[topper]

It's funny because on the AI war arcengames page is says this: "Because you love RTS games or 4X games, but you hate it when they're click-fests, involve a lot of sitting around and waiting, or just require you to memorize a bunch of spreadsheets to win."

And the second "sitting around and waiting" is exactly this game now.

I think "sim" style games have more sitting and waiting by definition compared to most other game styles. 

[I-KP]

It's a wish I hope to see fufilled by this game, but I don't know if this game will ever reach that point if arcen keeps up the rate of game releases it has now.

The concept behind TLF is most definitely worth more than the fairly short-lived, volcanic affair that the game’s mechanics currently afford it.  (AI War has oddles of replayability so Arcen certainly aren’t strangers to what works.)  It just needs to settle down a bit^Hlot, be (far) less capricious, and give the players a window into the intricate mechanics that drive the events that we see on-screen.  So yes, perhaps take a leaf or four hundred out of the Paradox book of how to make a grand strategy game.  (Let’s not forget that early Paradox grand strat games were rough too – Europa Universalis was bloody awful until a few major patch cycles down the line.  EU4 has been their smoothest “v1” launch yet but that’s only come off the back of many years of experience in the genre.)

[Mick]

I don't have an issue with "sitting and waiting" (that really means more or less accelerating time forward). I don't mind slow paced strategy games where I have to comb through and plan out my next move. I spend a lot of time in CK2 either paused, or 5x-ing the game forward to some other "decision point". When I'm in the pause/plan mode, I just want to be able to make informed decisions, not just look at screens of meaningless numbers. A lot of the events and techs and actions all filter down into adjustments of RCI, but I have no idea what the RCI numbers mean - that's the problem.

[I-KP]

... If instead of a race declaring war on a neutral race and wiping them out in a solar month or two...

I had a game last night where everyone was neutral and everyone (bar one) was at war.     Could I find out why any of them were at war?  Nope.  You should be able to ask them, “why are you at war with such-and-such?”, and they should be able to give you an answer.

[lifehole]

I don't have an issue with "sitting and waiting" (that really means more or less accelerating time forward). I don't mind slow paced strategy games where I have to comb through and plan out my next move. I spend a lot of time in CK2 either paused, or 5x-ing the game forward to some other "decision point". When I'm in the pause/plan mode, I just want to be able to make informed decisions, not just look at screens of meaningless numbers. A lot of the events and techs and actions all filter down into adjustments of RCI, but I have no idea what the RCI numbers mean - that's the problem.

I play crusader kings in the same exact way, and I agree with you. What I meant by that was that this game kinda just has you sit back without any actual effect (or without knowing the actual effect; basically what I'm saying is: dispatch missions.) but I guess that's not what the quote meant. My bad.

[Draco18s]

I don't have an issue with "sitting and waiting" (that really means more or less accelerating time forward). I don't mind slow paced strategy games where I have to comb through and plan out my next move. I spend a lot of time in CK2 either paused, or 5x-ing the game forward to some other "decision point". When I'm in the pause/plan mode, I just want to be able to make informed decisions, not just look at screens of meaningless numbers. A lot of the events and techs and actions all filter down into adjustments of RCI, but I have no idea what the RCI numbers mean - that's the problem.

That's how I would play CK2 if I understood how to play CK2, because I literally have no idea what the goal is, much less what actions are available to me and how those actions relate to my goal...

It's like playing a game in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, with a Dealer who won't tell me the rules, and the other players keeps giggling.

[ptarth]

CK2 doesn't really have a goal besides.... not lose. Generally people set their own goals, initially being things like: don't get killed before the end of the game or take over Spain, but as you gain proficiency they expand to things like, put members of my family into all other countries leadership positions.

[Draco18s]

CK2 doesn't really have a goal besides.... not lose.

And what's losing?

[lifehole]

CK2 doesn't really have a goal besides.... not lose. Generally people set their own goals, initially being things like: don't get killed before the end of the game or take over Spain, but as you gain proficiency they expand to things like, put members of my family into all other countries leadership positions.

Usually it has built in mini-goals besides "conquer the world" like forming an empire, kingdom, etc. I got fed up with the stupid magic stacks that were added a while back so I stopped playing.

Anyways enough offtopic about ck2. I think this thread is kindof concluded to be honest, there's not much more to say besides just reposting the same complaints. I just wish the devs would acknowledge our concerns about this but I doubt they have the time to read through all of that. It's mantis'd, though. Right now I think they are focusing on what they can do in the short term, which is what you do on a daily update schedule. But eventually they'll address these concerns, hopefully.

CK2 doesn't really have a goal besides.... not lose.

And what's losing?

Having your entire dynasty die out. You could just be a count and continue playing. Ofcourse you can also switch to a completely different in-game character/country at any time, whenever you load a save you can choose. Same applies with any other paradox game.

[waylon531]

Reading the patch notes for the upcoming version, I discovered that the environmental RCI value affects planetary compatibility.

• Previously, for every 1 Environmental RCI above 50 that a race had, they would gain 0.1 compatibility with their planet.
• Now that has been dropped to 0.02, since the RCI values vary upwards so much higher nowadays.
  
• Previously, if a planet's Environmental RCI was below 0, then it would lose planetary compatibility VERY fast until it hit 0.1 total compatibility, or -100 RCI, whichever came first. Then it would actually go bonkers and possibly increase; the math was still assuming that -100 was the lowest RCI could go, which hasn't been true for a long while now.
• Now it works more like the positive environmental RCI does. For every Environmental RCI below 0, it loses 0.02 compatibility, until it hits 0.1 total compatibility, below which it will not go.

[Draco18s]

I'd like to point out that "raping the planet for resources" should be a viable option.  But here all it does is f*ck the race over, turning everyone into hippie elves (that is: compatibility boosts everything, ergo compatibility is good, ergo high environmental is good, ergo in order to have a good economy you need to not exploit natural resources for economic gain, wait what?).

[GC13]

Reading the patch notes for the upcoming version, I discovered that the environmental RCI value affects planetary compatibility.

And I'd just like to note that such crucial mechanics should not be buried dark in the code, left for us to identify the same way we find black holes: by observing their results on other objects.

Tooltip everything, and break out calculations so we can see what's happening. It has to happen, or it's less a game of strategy and more a game of guessing the mechanics.

[lifehole]

Reading the patch notes for the upcoming version, I discovered that the environmental RCI value affects planetary compatibility.

And I'd just like to note that such crucial mechanics should not be buried dark in the code, left for us to identify the same way we find black holes: by observing their results on other objects.

Tooltip everything, and break out calculations so we can see what's happening. It has to happen, or it's less a game of strategy and more a game of guessing the mechanics.

Exactly. I've been trying AI war recently, and while I don't particularly like it (just preference I guess, I don't like RTS games, but I love grand strategy, and TBS 4x games. AI war feels too much like an rts.) it has amazing amounts of detail in its stat interactions, and gives all this to the player. While maybe they didn't show this because they thought it would overwhelm new players; what I'm typically seeing in the community hubs and the forums now is that the players don't know what to do because they don't know how anything works!

[Conductorbosh]

I agree with much of what's being said here. What's the point of making the game length go from 20 years to 50 years, if 30 out of those 50 years are spent waiting/doing nothing and slowly grinding credit? Too much filler between the actually fun stuff at the moment, though I am enjoying the game. Looking forward to see how it progresses.

On another note, the devs have definitely seen this thread; they're frequently on the forums and it's easily the biggest/hottest suggestion thread happening at the moment. I wish we could get some sort of response from them on this stuff. So many good suggestions here.