Stellaris

[Kushan]

If you don't like Paradox evolving their games, then you should probably go play something else. I'm ok with this. Normally I like open movement,but I've used it maybe one or twice in Stellaris. Other then that I've limited the game to hyperlanes only. I appreciate them trying to have different movement types, but I had a feeling from the start balancing them was going to be a pain in the ass for the devs.

I especially like the change to hyperlanes that forces fleets to move from entry to exit points. Now I'm really looking forward to seeing if they also can follow through with the hinted death of the doom stack.

[Sparhawk]

I'm disappointed that we will only have lanes to travel but the devs gave a reasonable explanation. I have only played Stellaris as a custom race using warp and enjoy the freedom of direction (Distant Worlds). I'm the kind of gamer who enjoys being able to get off the road, you know, like Elder Scrolls or Gothic. I've also spent hundreds of hours playing Polaris Sector with all those lanes, and Sword of the Stars as Humans with all those lanes, and others. You get the point, many games only offer lanes. Stellaris is a good game and I'm banking on it still being a good game after the changes they make. Maybe they'll even improve it.

[CJReich46]

I'm kind of on the fence about starlanes. I don't mind them. But I do like what they intend to do with Jump Drives and wormholes, not a bad idea.

I do like what they plan for stations, which is nice.  Plus if they can find a way to make the pirates part of the "ecosystem" in Stellaris instead of a passive roadblock that would be great. Make them like DW or even in Sins where you can influence them to raid your adversaries etc.

But as mentioned they plan to work on those doomstacks and I'm cautiously optimistic.

[ghostryder]

Since your likely be able to mod in the other types of travel restricting it to hyperlanes ala Space Empires it's going to be less of an issue for me---it's too early to say if the move is bad or good as we've yet seen the pudding in combat. I'm more than willing to accept the trade off-- hyper lanes equals choke points--no longer will  a player have to turn down the difficulty to avoid being steamrolled. It's a huge problem in games like Gal Civ-  it basically limits the strategy to a tech race. It should also make it easier to keep a bead on your combat front and where to park your fleets. As it is now threats pop up ala wack a mole anywhere and it's confusing and tedious.

I too would have liked something new a revolutionary but keep in mind this is Paradox. Have they ever made a game where combat is a strength? Even 4 versions of WWII HOI remain wonky and abstract. Stellaris is their only title where one even can think about combat being interesting and fun. Lore Wise it's also a strength and adds to the difficulty of taking over planets. It's one of the things I like about the game and that seperates it from the other 4x games. It ain't so easy to take planets and paint the map with your flag--

[undercovergeek]

One day I'd like a fully workable spy/saboteur system in place too - it would be great to get sneak peeks in at other races, especially the ships/weapons and shields they use, steal tech, steal ships even something as simple as the stealth tech in Polaris that allows you to pass through a system unseen

[jamus34]

Yeah I imagined making choke points in space to be hard. Probably the only realistic way to make it happen is to have warp interdictors in every system so an enemy, while still can move to any system rather than following the star lane would still need to take a systematic approach rather warping into the capital planet.

I mean how do you realistically create a true choke point in space? 

Only other option would be to make defensive structures cheaper but less capable at least at early techs and also allow overlapping coverage fields.

[ghostryder]

Depends on the Lore of the game in question but I'd Imagine if your going to jump to system to system and it's not gonna take light years the only way to do it is a system where you surpass the speed of light---ala a hyperlane......which would have an entry / exit point---thus your choke point where you'd build that Starbase. It effectively is a way of terrain common in wargame--especially when you can add in atmospheric effects that limit scanning, start up time for movement---the game does have cooldown for this-- anomily interference...etc. and a host of techs that deal with each issue--there's lots of ways to make space mirror a combat map---which if you want tactics and strategy to be possible-you really have to include them. And Paradox is well known to micro down into things like this to make them as deep as possible. All in all it could be a very good outcome.

[jamus34]

I will admit the game I played recently I managed to bait a superior force to a system I actually built a star fortress on. I might have won without it but with it I stomped em flat.

Again though if they had wormhole tech if they really wanted to they could have bypassed the system.

[Jack Brown]

As long as you can turn the bloody pirates and spies off, I'm good.

Okay, that and the mod that lets me have one sector that I can run all of still works...

[Nefaro]

^It seems to explain why so many space 4x games choose hyperlanes over other methods of travel.

A combination of AI unable to perform well when given too many options, and the designers not keeping the open FTL jump ranges synced well with map layouts, as the game progresses, in order to keep the travel options fairly limited.  ;)

[FarAway Sooner]

I mean how do you realistically create a true choke point in space? 

Only other option would be to make defensive structures cheaper but less capable at least at early techs and also allow overlapping coverage fields.

Distant Worlds: Universe managed this fairly nicely by having reasonable Fuel Ranges (and having ships burn Fuel more quickly when they did energy-intensive stuff like fighting or flying at top speed) and steeper trade-offs in ship design if you wanted more fuel.  Of course, DWU also had good (but far from great) patrol AI, so you could set up a fleet to warp to a nearby system fairly quickly if enemy or pirate ships warped into a nearby system.

I only found the AI in DWU to really struggle with tactical combat.  It was just too easy for your Flagship Battleship to single-handed chase an enemy Frigate into range of 4 Starbases protecting an enemy homeworld rather than standing off at bombardment distance.  Given how attached you got to some of your ships, that was frustrating for me.

What really made the raiding work in DWU was how effectively their commerce mechanism worked, with non-player controlled (i.e., private sector) ships and resource-specific mining platforms playing a key role in keeping your economy running.  Nothing cut off an attack faster than losing a fueling station that had been supporting an attacking navy nearby!

[Yskonyn]

Oh please DW2 give us a sign of life!

[OJsDad]

Oh please DW2 give us a sign of life!

As long as they give us a better combat model, then a huge +1

[Jack Brown]

Other then that I've limited the game to hyperlanes only.

How do you do this? I'm starting up a new game and want to limit all races to hyper lanes, but can't find a setting for that.

Thanks.

[Jack Brown]

Never mind. Found it. Hadn't gone far enough into the new game setup...