Tag Archives: 4x

The Android Collects Random Objects (Adventure), The Android's Deranged Killing Spree (Action), The Android's Favorites, The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

Drox Operative

Hey gang, it’s been awhile hasn’t it? Very sorry about that, but with Pike and myself both writing books, her getting a new computer, and various Christmas stuff we’ve both been somewhat busy. Still, here is a post now, and it’s an important one because it’s about a damn good game!

Soldak probably isn’t the best-known name in gaming, which is a crying shame. They generally work in the ARPG field and two of their previous games – Depths of Peril and Din’s Curse – have been pretty well received by those who have played them. I do not number among those yet but I will soon because Drox Operative is pretty amazing. See, whilst Soldak’s games are very solid ARPGs in and of themselves, they’re also trying to do some new and interesting things with the genre. Let’s talk about Din’s Curse first of all.

In that game, you play a typical adventurer type off to conquer dungeons, kill bosses, and get great loot. So far so normal, but here’s the twist: The world is doing stuff while you are doing stuff. While you’re in a dungeon looking for something, the Big Bad at the bottom might open a portal to the town and kill everyone so you have to rush back to try and stop this. And you can fail, and your quest progress is for naught. Or you can partly succeed and only some people survive. Move on to another (randomly-generated) town and setting and deal.

Drox Operative is even more ambitious.

SPACE IS 4 FITE

You are an eponymous Drox Operative – a secretive and powerful mercenary agent who flies around the galaxy doing stuff. The thing is that the setting isn’t a premade one, nor is it just a regular randomly generated one. The setting is actually a 4X game which is going on all the time no matter what you’re up to, and you’re one part in that. You’re an important, sometimes pivotal part, but you’re not the only one and whilst you can certainly swing things around for a race on the back foot, you may not have the same ability if they’re on the ropes entirely. The various races – and there are an abundance – hire you to do exactly the sort of stuff that tends to not exist in a typical 4X; go clean that pirate nest out. Go deal with this one Space Asshole. Go shuttle some stuff between our worlds. That’s the “early game” stuff, where you’ll do less dangerous and difficult quests to build up relations with a race; then things will likely kick off and they’ll want your help with the big boy fights. Or you can just try to make nice with everyone, or you can go make loads of money instead if you want, as there’s more than one way to win (and lose).

If the game was just a regular randomly generated ARPG it’d be more than worth getting – it’s a damn solid game with a huge amount of things to try and a fuckton of different item types that give you a startling degree of customization options. Putting the player into a dynamic world which can be influenced and played around with and never controlled quite as completely as you’d like elevates it to downright genius territory.

It’s not a perfect game by any means. There are some interface and control issues, a few of the controls aren’t really intuitive, and the graphics, music, and sounds are serviceable rather than particularly good. None of this detracts significantly from the extraordinarily solid game at the core of this thing and if you want a good dose of ARPG after burning out on Torchlight II, this is one of the best options out there right now.

You can buy Drox Operative from the Soldak website for the absurd price of US$20. If you’re like me you’ll feel like you may have committed a crime getting it so cheap.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Favorites, The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Grand Strategy and 4X

We got a question yesterday via twitter from reader Fuggle/Math asking how we would describe the difference between 4X games and Grand Strat games. Well, the reply would take longer than 140 characters so here we are~

Now, these two genres are pretty closely linked for obvious reasons. Both tend to involve the control of countries on a quest for dominance, be it local, global, or galactic. Both tend to involve building up your infrastructure and military and pushing large groups of units around. And if you play both then it’s hardly surprising that you’d end up trying to figure out what the difference is supposed to be. But let’s dig into it a little deeper and see if we can tease some answers out.

Let’s define 4X first, for anyone not sure of what it means. It should be 4E actually, because it stands for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. But X is the coolest letter, so there we are. Anyway the idea of a 4X game is to do exactly that; to begin from a single settlement (be it a city or a planet) and first discover everything around you, then move in to occupy and make use of it, and then to annihilate everything else you meet.

So far, so strategic. How does this differ from Grand Strategy? Well, a Grand Strategy game has a couple of key differences. You still Expand and Exploit, but the Exploration and Extermination aspects tend to play second fiddle. This is not to say that they are absent or that no GS game cares for them – EU3 has a strong exploration aspect for example, whilst almost all of them involve SOME degree of Extermination. But you tend to be able to win without needing to conquer everyone. Indeed that may be perfectly possible, as in Hearts of Iron, but it may also be fairly tricky, as in Victoria 2.

And in some cases it is the categorical imperative of those workers who have already set themselves free.

Perhaps the other big difference is that 4X games are almost invariably turn-based, whilst Grand Strategy tend to be Real Time With Pause. Both encourage you to take your time and think about things, but GS still leans towards being a bit more fast-paced thanks to this. GS generally tries to implement the diplomacy side of things with more rigor and depth than 4X, as well – though the extent to which any given game succeeds in this is, of course, up for debate.

The much, much quicker way to tell is by asking “Was this game made by Paradox Interactive?” If yes, it’s a Grand Strategy. If no, it’s not. Unless it is, but who buys anything made by Matrix Games at those prices?

The Android's Bunker (Strategy)

Endless Space Redux

2 Comments

Mister Adequate has talked before about a little game called Endless Space, but we’re going to talk about it again because it’s just that good and because it was also just officially released!

Like any true 4X, Endless Space takes a little bit of time to get used to.  You’ll need to give yourself an hour or so to get used to the UI and how things work, and then you’ll probably need another several practice games after that to figure out how to not languish in last place in the score chart (hint: just focus on money, industry, and expansion.)  But if you’re willing to work at it and get past all of that, then you’ll soon find yourself faced with a very solid and polished space 4X in the vein of Master of Orion and Space Empires.  The races are wonderfully inventive, the tech tree is a delight to navigate, and on the lowest graphics settings it will run on most computers.  It’s very easy to find yourself sucked into the “One More Turn” mentality with this game, a true sign of a good turn-based strategy.

I Google Image Searched “space ponies” and found this.

Overall this is a game that is well-worth playing for a variety of people: longtime 4X fans will find themselves right at home, and people new to the genre will find this a challenging but rewarding gateway to the genre.  It may not be Master of Orion 2, but it might be the best homage to it thus far.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie)

Endless Space

4 Comments

Fillies and gentlecolts, we’ve got something we need to talk about. There’s a game on the horizon known as Endless Space, a 4X game that I had previously heard of but only kept half an eye on. Well as it turns out it was very recently put up on Steam and pre-ordering, as is becoming something of a norm for games from non-major publishers, gives you alpha access.

To bluntly not put too fine a point upon it, the alpha is as good as most gold iterations of other games. It is incredibly smooth, clean, and lovely to use. It obviously still needs work, but even as a late alpha game it seems to be entirely playable and thoroughly enjoyable so far, and I’ve been playing it for a couple of hours solidly now. As regular readers will know by now both Pike and myself are ardent fans of the 4X genre, playing stupid amounts of Civilization for example. Pike rates Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri as the single best game ever, and I rate it in my top three. And on the SMAC note, Endless Space has a very pleasing quasi-homage to SMAC in the tech tree icons.

There is ONE game Pike would consider better...

Endless Space hits the usual list of items that a 4X should, the whole 4X part of it that is, but it’s doing so in a way that is clear and making a lot of sense, providing a sense of rapid, but controllable buildup as you discover new technologies, unlock new buildings, and acquire new resources. In many ways it also takes after MoO2, for example in letting you colonize planets within a system once you’ve got one colony in it, without the need for new colony ships. Building your infrastructure is also a curious affair; you choose an area for each individual planet to focus on, like enhancing farming or being a trading hub, whilst you build your more typical improvements on a system-wide basis. It’s an interesting hybrid as a solution to the problem of the appropriate scale on which to handle this side of the 4X genre and so far I have to say it’s a fairly effective one; systems are the main basis of your empire, but your planets are still more than just completely interchangeable or indeed entirely invisible subunits; they have their own character and you can influence this.

Combat is the part of the game I’m not yet 100% sold on, though I’m not sure how much remains to be done there I hope there’s a little tweaking. It plays out as a video, rather like GalCiv 2’s combat scenes, but in ES you have the ability to choose actions for each of the three phases of combat; for example you can choose to deploy nanobots to repair your ships, to divert all spare power to weapons for a risky offensive, and the like. It’s a sound idea and could be a great halfway point between the full control of, say, Homeworld and the completely hands-off nature of GC2, but I think a few more options are needed in the early game to really ensure this works, and combat needs to be a bit more… I’m not sure exactly, visceral? It feels a bit like it lacks in impact. Still, it’s a commendable effort that is, as with everything in this game, very well presented.

Yayyy overviews of space!

There is also the standard 4X element of ship design, and this seems like a very good effort with a wide and increasing array of options as you progress through the tech trees; there’s not a huge amount to say except that there are no complaints whatsoever from me.

The thing that’s really getting me into this game, however, is the sheer level of polish that is present. As I’ve said it’s an alpha, but it acts nothing like one in most regards. Everything is fast, clean, smooth, obvious, and I actually turned the tutorial off because the screens and their tooltips provide more than enough information anyway. The music is atmospheric and suitably grand as well. Never underestimate the power of a good interface and a solid atmosphere – it’s the difference between a good game and a classic one, and it can make even a mediocre game enjoyable.

The Endless Space site!

The Android's Bunker (Strategy)

Don’t you love when a plan comes together

4 Comments

My dear co-blogger and better half Pike and myself are currently playing a game of Civilization IV. It’s a tech race game, no wars or anything, and she very definitively has the advantage, she has more cities than more, better land, more tech, and more than double my score.

Clearly I need to do something to catch up. So why – in a game with no barbarians – did I build the Great Wall, a wonder whose primary purpose is to stop barbarians getting inside your borders? The secondary purpose, of course! Espionage. See, the Great Wall is one of the few wonders in the game which contributes to the creation of Great Spies, who don’t immediately seem as useful as say a Great Scientist (Who can one-shot a tech) or a Great Engineer (Who can one-shot a wonder), but who really massively boost your espionage. And that’s my plan here. She won’t be able to keep up with my espionage income once I get a GS or two, and then I shall be able to quite merrily run around her obscenely large Russian empire causing all sorts of trouble, like sabotaging buildings, stealing tech, and poisoning her cities.

Rarity only helps put paid to that dreadful Russian fashion, of course.

It shall be glorious. I have no idea whether she remembers that the Great Wall helps with spies, but I sincerely hope not because things are going to get trolly very soon. Also as long as she doesn’t read this post before one gets born. That would be unfortunate. Hubristic, even! But a risk I shall take for our beloved readers, as I leave you with this question;

Do you have any examples of games where you’ve come up with some cunning plan? Perhaps one that does not at first glance seem at all rational? How did they work out for you?

~~

IMPORTANT EDITORS’ NOTE FROM PIKE: Although I didn’t see this post until some time later, I saw what he was up to on the espionage graph and cranked my own espionage up to 80%, effectively foiling his plan. Yeah, it was pretty great.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Is Losing Fun?

2 Comments

It’s the motto of Dwarf Fortress: Losing is Fun. And it’s one you need to take to heart with that game, because until you get the hang of it (And even after you do) you’re going to lose, a lot. But that’s not quite what I’m aiming at here. In conventional games you may often die a lot as well, but you’ll come back at the last checkpoint or save and carry on.

What I am thinking of, however, is something fairly unique to strategy gaming, which is to say, losses that don’t end the game, but rather that are just a part of the game, a thing you endure, carry on from, and ultimately recover from.

But does that happen? See, in a ‘regular’ game like, say, Halo, when you die you just come back from it. You try again. You succeed, or not, and that’s that. In a game like DF you may lose a lot of work, but in these cases the loss is indeed part of the fun. It comes about because of a silly mistake, or because of hubris, or because you just got bored and wanted to watch the world burn. But in a strategy game losses are different.

Decisions, decisions

In the real world of course no country is in permanent ascendance. Not even Rome enjoyed uninterrupted growth, and Rome eventually fell, as all powers do. So a strategy game must surely account for this as well. Yet in my experience, when you lose a city in Civilization or are forced to cede provinces in Europa Universalis III, it doesn’t feel good. It does’t feel like it’s part of the proper flow of the game. In a strategy game you do expect to be in permanent ascendance, and to not be is irritating and may well turn one off playing. I recall reading an interview with Sid Meier years ago where he said his original intention with Civ had been for your civ to go through periods of contraction and decline, but he found it was far from enjoyable to have it work like that.

Partly I think this is a case of momentum. In a strategy game, when you gain something, that something goes towards helping your empire grow. Overextension and the like are rarely simulated, and almost never simulated well, and in fact when that is attempted (As in the Magna Mundi mod for EU3) it often comes off as very arbitrary and pointlessly constricting.

How about you? Am I alone here, or do others feel the same and dislike accepting losses? Are there examples of games which do this well, and don’t make it feel arbitrary or unfair?

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Potential

5 Comments

You know, I think I’ve identified another hook that strategy games tend to have for me. It’s something I’ve noticed I feel in such games for a long time but have never really connected it in a logical sense to a reason of appeal.

That is quite simply potential. Think about when you begin a game, especially a 4X like Civilization. Think about how you see almost nothing of the world, just your immediate surroundings, unblemished by human actions, and beyond that the dark mystery of the unknown. Your first, tiny, puny settlement, protected by a handful of clubmen. You send out a scout and begin gradually cranking out buildings and units, gradually expanding.

I don't have a relevant pic, so have this cat hugging this kitten.

It’s that exact moment right at the beginning, the moment of seeing the potential but not yet being able to achieve it, that I love. Or at least is the first half of what I love. You begin planning, mentally placing future settlements, looking at how to fight a defensive war, scouting out your neighbors, all that sort of thing. The entire game is before you and it is a quantum, Schroedinger-esque value at this moment. It is not yet a game, but the potential of a game. Over at Flash of Steel, a good while ago, Troy Goodfellow wrote an excellent piece that is related to this. As he says it’s not that things are complete unscripted, in fact a lot of things are constrained by various rules and/or in-game costs, but one of the core aspects of a good strategy game is that it is fundamentally a story, or a series or collection of stories. The story of how the Iroquois conquered the world, or when the Cold War went hot, or whatever it might be.

And that pregnant moment in the first few turns of a good 4x where so, so many stories are possible, and you get to wrestle with your rivals to write one – that moment is truly delicious. Much later you will look back across a cultivated, irrigated, networked empire that has left no tile untouched in the quest for dominance and efficiency, and the story of getting from A to B is there to see. Some things will be obvious, like the masses of farms and mines. Some a little more subtle, perhaps, like how all the cities in the southern end of your Persian empire have French names. But all there to be seen and remembered. The potential has been realized, and now you have a completed game, and the memories of playing it.

A core aspect of this is the ability to affect the world itself, which may be why strategy games (and management/sim games) seem to scratch this itch most effectively for me, as opposed to the more typically narrative-led genres. It’s not just the transfer of territory, but also the utilization of that same territory once you own it. Not just the achievement of a prize, but the use of the prize. It’s an inherent strength in strategy games I feel; until you achieve your ultimate victory you’re always looking for more efficiency, how to get more gold or credits or beakers or whatever, using your past conquests to become ever-stronger.

Also, when Troy Goodfellow said “No action game has ever made me want to be a writer. Some strategy games have.”, that could have been me saying it. In fact my book, which I am currently editing, was originally intended to just be an AAR of Space Empires V, but it rapidly blossomed far beyond that.

The Android can't be arsed with a real topic (Weekend)

Alternate history is funny

2 Comments

I’ve had a tremendously poor Internet quality these last couple of weeks and it just kept getting worse – it took me several minutes to check my email for example – but fortunately it is fixed now so we can get back to our regular scheduling! Many thanks also to Rilgon for his excellent post yesterday, giving us a little look into a genre that Pike and myself don’t pay quite enough attention to (Largely because the genre will never equal what Treasure made in my eyes).

Now, on to something very important: GoG.com is selling SMAC for three US Dollars. You have no excuse.

I shall tell you about my recent escapades!

I have recently finished a World Conquest in the KR mod for Darkest Hour, playing as an enlightened, democratic Japan. That flung dozens of nukes around and killed tens if not hundreds of millions in her global conquest. Enlightened!

And now Pike and myself have settled down for a wonderful evening of Civilization IV, where we face the famous Confucian Egyptians, among others!

Tell us, dear readers, both what you will be playing this weekend and of your favorite alternate history situations in videogames, either as settings or ones you have yourself created!

The Android's Bunker (Strategy)

Playing and Role-Playing in Space Empires IV

1 Comment

I recently acquired Space Empires IV thanks to Steam’s big recent sale. My logic upon making this purchase was “Oh boy! An old 4X game that I haven’t played yet! This should be good!” As it turns out I was not disappointed; the game is relatively easy to pick up and begin playing (although in true Old Strategy Game fashion, its learning curve is steep) and it’s already got me One-More-Turning as much as Civ does.

Let me tell you what really surprised me about this game, though. What really surprised me about it is its capacity for roleplay and how much it encourages the player to do so.

First, a word on the definition of roleplay. Although its popularity in MMOs and such has largely given it the connotation of being a multiplayer activity, it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. This is how Dictionary.com defines roleplay:

roleplay
[rohl-pley]
verb (used with object)
1. to assume the attitudes, actions, and discourse of (another), especially in a make-believe situation in an effort to understand a differing point of view or social interaction.
2. to experiment with or experience (a situation or viewpoint) by playing a role: trainees role-playing management positions.

Notice that the definition doesn’t say anything about requiring other people to be involved; obviously they are, in many situations, but it’s just as valid to “assume a role” by yourself.

Rarity knows a little about roleplaying, too.

Space Empires IV wants you to do this. When you start a game, you customize a race entirely from scratch, and there are big empty text fields given to you where you can input details on your race’s history, general physical description, and attitudes. These aren’t just there “for fun”, you’re expected to fill these out because any other race you encounter will have them filled out and if you don’t, there will be big glaring empty boxes next to your own race’s description in-game, and how embarrassing would that be!

You’re encouraged to continue roleplaying in the actual game, too. Not only do you design and customize every single ship you build, but you get to name the class of ship and then name the individual ships themselves. You can also rename planets, if you so choose. Now, certainly, plenty of other strategy games allow you to rename your bases/troops/etc. But none of the others that I’ve played actively encourage you to do so the way that Space Empires IV does. The result is that you feel personally invested into your little empire in a way that you rarely do with other games. It’s one thing when a generic “Scout Rover” is killed by an enemy, but it’s another thing entirely when FSS Nemo, Ensign of Exploration Class ship of the Fenolan Alliance, is killed. It’s something I personally invested time, thought, and personality into, and as such it hurts just a little bit more when something happens to it. It’s really a brilliantly done feature of the game.

Oh, one more thing about Space Empires IV. I invented a race of master engineer T-Rexes. I think I should win some sort of award for that.

Indeed.
The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Just one more turn!

4 Comments

Here’s a thing we’ve all experience! Something that shows just how wonderful games can be, as rare with games as a real pageturner with books, and the mark of a classic. One More Turn!

A couple of nights ago my co-host Pike had gone to bed early and I found myself not yet tired enough to do the same. “I know” I thought “I shall play a little Hearts of Iron for half an hour or so.” Two and a half hours later I noticed the same, and also the sunrise, and finally crawled into bed. The thing with a lot of games which have this appeal is that they have some really tangible sense of progression. I think that’s why we generally it call “One more turn” – it came from playing Civ until the wee hours.

Twilight just can't decide. Operation Sealion, or Operation Barbarossa?

With strategy games, good ones at least, you’ve always got something really tangible dangling in front of you. You’re always about to build a wonder, or conquer a city, or research a technology, or otherwise get some sort of reward. (Incidentally I think this is the major area where Civ V falls down; you get punished for many things, compared to Civ IV’s model where at worst you’ve lost due to opportunity cost. You might build unwisely but you still get something from it.) For me on Tuesday it was the conquest of Ethiopia, then of Egypt, then I had to fight Hashemite Arabia and Persia. After that I took on the Ottomans and their allies in Libya, Armenia, and Crete. Then I was ready to grab the remains of National French Africa. Throughout this I was researching new units and building new units and factories to improve my industry. See how it always cascades and there’s always something new to look towards? It’s admittedly a real-time game, but it functions similarly enough to turn-based for this to still work.

Compare to other games with more discrete levels. You do a level, great! Maybe you got a new toy in it. But now the level is over, there’s little that keeps you immediately hooked, the game might be superb but the immediacy matters a great deal in hooking you and keeping you hooked. I was playing some Skyrim and had a great time in this little dungeon, it was fun to explore, lots of fights, all that stuff. But once it was done, it was, well, done. I still want to play Skyrim but there was nothing keeping me there right at that moment.

Which games have the strongest One More Turn effect for you guys? We all know that Pike’s answer is SMAC, but what about our dear readers?