Bouken

I have one that I play multiplayer games like Dota and Overwatch with. Unfortunately almost none of them are into other singleplayer games so I can't talk to them about those, which sucks.

@rethla: I wouldn't wanna be neutral, if I'm threatened by another empire I'd want someone to protect me without having to have a fleet myself. Even when in peace times I'd try building alliances for trade, research and travel since that's what I'm all about. I mean the Federation in Star Trek is the classic example. They certainly don't run around taunting other races to score at home. I see the points you're making but once again the problem for me is that political influence doesn't vanish, it's not spendable because what you gain in terms of power and influence over the universe by "spending" it would theoretically give you just as much prestige or influence or whatever if everything goes right. Unlike energy and minerals of course, those get legitimately used up. I dunno, at the very least I think it's poorly chosen as a resource concept to have in such a game.

@rethla: I didn't use the word broken though, I said terrible, and I meant it both from a world-consistency as well as a gameplay standpoint.

For one thing I'm not sure I see how it makes sense to "spend" your influence on an outpost that expands your empire, as you call it, or get less influence as I called it. That's probably where we got off track in the first place because political influence isn't some material resource you gather so spending it doesn't make that much sense to me. You either have it and with it might be able to do certain things but specifically when that action in question is literally expanding your empire and thus logically increasing your overall influence over the galaxy, I don't see how it makes sense that it'd be used up by it. The political resource in general is weird. I understand why certain policies and appointing generals, governors or scientists might cost you influence because you can imagine that some people in your society will always be against it for various political reasons and you kinda have to win them over or rule against them which isn't possible when you don't have enough influence over your population overall but expanding? And especially when as far as I know you "spend" your influence on expanding regardless of what kind of society you're playing? Same with alliances. Alliances make you strong, they give you political allies you can count on and are potentially prestigious. Xenophiles should be all up in that, as should materialists.

Plus from a gameplay perspective there are too few ways to gain influence as I see it. I started my pacifist race with +3 monthly gain, didn't get the perk that gives you +1 for a few hours and then being in a single alliance already gave me -2, building a single outpost gave me another -1 so I was already stuck at +-0 with very few habitable planets around me. And yes I know rivalries and all that jazz but man I was playing fanatical pacificsts, declaring rivals wasn't an option in my headcanon.

@rethla: how is spending something monthly not the same as your monthly gain decreasing? It's functionally the exact same thing.

Like, what's even your point here?

@rethla: it literally decreases my monthly influence gain by a significant margin.

I tried playing a peaceful race and honestly the game seems to have way too few winning conditions and trade possibilities and science perks. Or hell, even things to put all your resources into other than getting even more resources or building war fleets. I dunno I'm probably going to pick up my current save again and try to find anything meaningful to do but I can't see it right now. It's like you're funneled into conflict.

Edit: Also honestly the influence mechanic is terrible. Why does making alliances and building new outposts i.e. EXPANDING my realm decrease my political influence? How would making others your rivals increase it, especially as a pacifist race? And why are there so seemingly few ways to gain it? I was lucky I got that one +1 research perk early, I can totally see the rng fucking you over if you don't.

In terms of artstyle, graphics and how well it aged visually Imma go with Zelda Wind Waker.

@bluefish: I would say "let them do something new" but why would I even expect anything but sappy military drama from that setup?

Predestination - 3/5

Cool and kinda fucked up concept as it turns out and I didn't expect to understand the plot immediately but I did, which is nice. The film suffers from some more severe problems though like a complete tonal shift for the first 45 minutes and the reason behind everything happening needing to be shown and explained much more than it is.

@rebel_scum: I think there's enough time in a day to be both outside and inside at some point.