Strategic Uncertainty - Keeping Strategy Games Fresh - Extra Credits

Too many strategy games are over hours before you actually win the game. Once you build up enough of a lead, you have the resources you need to respond to all the game's minor challenges. The key to fixing this problem is uncertainty: hidden information or unexpected events that make you change your plans and keep the game dynamic.
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♪ Outro Music: “Wisdom (Zelda's Lullaby Link to the Future)”
by Will & Tim
• Wisdom (Zelda's Lullab...

[@connorc1635]

"Sir they are attacking with fishing boats!" "weird, let me take a look" *sees admiral Yi* "RUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNN!!"

[@TheCheck999]

+

[@masonsilvers6789]

Connor C lol I agree

[@babunking7401]

Iösee that you watch Extra History :)

[@Geshiko-GuP]

long live united korea lol love yi

[@animarthur5297]

Never mess with yi sun shin.

[@louisweisberg6283]

Paradox interact players where you at

[@lu_emery]

I got my thrifty ambitious king in charge now. Ha! You shall perish before my economic... cancer? At least I got his brother to be quite a good general, now my thousands of soldiers will... great pox Guess i'm staying with the one-handed babbling buffoon then... ok

[@stavenid]

I do think that both in ck2, and in eu4 you always past a point around 200 years after start where u have snowballed so far nothing can stop you, defensive pacts did solve some of that in ck2, after the rework, and coaliton can still be a problem in eu4, specially in europe late game. On the other hand you can work around that pretty easily. The best thing they have done for this is in stellaris, where the late game crisis events can be a real problem if you have not prepared

[@BrazilianAnarchy]

Not a very good one at the two games I play (EU4 and Stellaris) but here!

[@RathaShadar]

I am also here, winning half the galaxy, only to suddenly find myself fighting (hordes of intergalactic locusts/invaders from another dimension/the robot uprising). The late game crisis of stellaris sidestep unpredictability by always happening at SOME point in late game, but maintain uncertainty by not letting you know exactly when they'll happen.

[@Katzura]

Paradox employee here, does that count?

[@InfiniteLegoWorks]

"Sir, enemy forces advancing on the coast!" "Composition?" "About 300 Fishing boats sir!" "....." "Send in, like, 1 frigate or something. I am pretty sure that is just cannon fodder scouting..."

[@Bamboo_bazooka]

i mean you don't know what they mean by fishing boat it could be regular fishing boat or they could be hunting whales with massive harpoon cannons

[@InfiniteLegoWorks]

True. True. That's why we're sending out the frigate, as opposed to a Galleon.

[@robisnowtired]

Sir! The frigate is lost! There were marines on the fishing boats!

[@BlackINKim]

-"We've been had! Those are not fisher of fish, sir! They're fisher of men!" -"What do you mean?" -"They're sending us Christs! Three hundred boats, each with their own Jesus Christ aboard!" -"You don't mean..." -"They're aiming for the Religious Victory condition!!!" -"RUN! We're no match for such a fleet!"

[@InfiniteLegoWorks]

"We have but one choice left sergeant... Bring the Ghandi."

[@shawnmattox9156]

I was playing Crusader Kings II as a Germanic Pagan in Britain. I formed the British Empire, reformed the Germanic religion and held land from Iceland to Moscow. I thought I had it all when I got an event. The Pope has called a Crusade for France. The remaining Christian nations threw all they had at me, and I barely scraped a victory together. My empire took years to recover. This is that uncertainty that more strategy games need, an unexpected kick to rethink your strategies.

[@detachsoup6061]

Shawn Mattox but you did win, didnt you? And thats the problem, you never lose at those moments! A lot of grand strategy games will mever let you lose, since theyre afraid you will never play again....

[@dynamicworlds1]

@@detachsoup6061 A-The avoidance to have players loose everything has more to do with the length of the game play than anything else (apply the design idea to a game who's playtime isn't measured in days and the design considerations change) B-You can "loose" crusader kings and other grand strategy games C-Those games are often more about a sliding scale of success than a win/loose binary. D-Taking lessons from those fuzzy victory states to apply to AI (having them band together to stop runnaway victories and weigh when to stop from chasing the top win spot to switch to goals that could be achieved) could help heighten the intensity, push back the point when you know you've won, and then shorten the winding down period after the game has reached its climax. E-In general, having the gameplay become increasingly asymmetric as one player pulls ahead is a great way to keep things interesting longer as the strategizing for all players is constantly changing based on how well they are relatively doing. Get an increasingly large empire? Deal with more internal strife. Get increasingly ahead technologically? Increase the research rates of all civilizations that have contact with you and increase how much they have to gain by going after you. Etc etc.

[@Livestreamlurker]

@@detachsoup6061 You must have never played a Paradox grand strategy if you think they won't let you lose.

[@ItachiUchiha-bt8yp]

@@detachsoup6061 You clearly haven't played crusader kings 2 then. That game is fucking brutal.

[@carteradams43]

@@detachsoup6061 well, despite using all my gold and prestige buying mercenaries and troops, and even using cheats to get money for extra mercenaries, I still got absolutely crushed by the Mongol Empire.

[@deldarel]

5:10 so that's why people love Nuclear Ghandi so much?

[@bobbyferg9173]

It sends fear into any Civilization player's heart when you see the words "Gandhi has reached the Atomic era"

[@norrinradd6746]

Gandhi's actually pretty easy to suppress just because you know exactly what he's going to do. If you see Gandhi, you go to war with him early and either take him out or do so much damage to his economy that he can't recover. In the most recent incarnation of the game, I have found Gilgamesh to be much more unpredictable than Gandhi. He pretty much always either goes for science or domination but you never know which one he's going to pick and the period where he has the greatest military advantage is early game, requiring you to devote resources preparing for a military attack that may or may not happen during the point in the game where you are the weakest. I don't think this really comes out until you play on higher difficulties but, due to the way Civ balanced difficulty (By giving the AI huge bonuses in the early game on the highest settings), I think early game threats like Gilgamesh tend to be way more nerve wracking than late game threats like Gandhi.

[@vighneshsivakumar3418]

Honestly, yeah, I think that's why that little mistake worked so well. It's a late game shift that affects everyone, even the most overpowered player, if they aren't on Ghandi's good side.

[@AbenZin1]

Is that... Cutts the Butcher? Also, I've only just got the joke in his name...

[@deldarel]

Aben Zin, yup, most people think it's nestor. You're actually the first to get it right first time.

[@NerdSyncProductions]

But plumbuses ARE pivotal!

[@MrWayne-gk3bi]

NerdSync Q

[@megaagentj2248]

Lel

[@Demonskunk]

OK but if the game ended immediately once victory was assured, you'd skip the all important 'crushing your enemy and hearing the lamentations of their women' part of the game. Also you could get cocky and make a mistake that loses you the win.

[@GlowingOrangeOoze]

They never said the game should end immediately once victory was assured, they said that part of the experience could be made more interesting.

[@sleep3417]

So... Build your army. Once it's built, you win! Defense from your opponent? Nah...

[@DeusExCeteri]

The thing Starcraft 2 does is the enemy AI puts forward a plea for surrender, which the player can either accept or, y'know, ignore as they playfully slaughter the remaining enemy forces. Always nice to have the choice.

[@GlowingOrangeOoze]

+Malcom Chase mm yeah I was thinking about it from a purely systems-focused point of view because I've never played Civ myself. Personally, I don't really think I'd be into that "crushing the weak" sort of experience and it didn't really even occur to me that some might want to design for it tbh. Maybe the EC crew is just in the same boat there.

[@Obsi399]

Min Lungelow I've done that in hearth stone. I had so many minions on the feild and my health high while they had 3 so I put all my cards out of the feild just for fun and screwed around basically, suddenly, jaraxxus comes and a few turns later I'm dead. don't get cocky kids

[@papafrancesco2937]

This is why i love Pardox games, It's filled with uncertainty. From the beginning to the end game there's always a chance for you to fail or succeed at the most unexpected times. "comet sighted" "swords mightier than the pen" "nobles are worried" "France declares war".

[@henrikagestedt7835]

The economy, fools!

[@rileybanks1191]

Stellaris mid-game?

[@SergioLongoni]

Paradox is great but I think that the only game with real mechanical uncertainty is CK2. In every other Pdx game you may become a great empire, but only in CK2 your empire could crumble with an unlucky ruler. For example: as Byzantium I managed to restore the Roman empire, conquering almost all the map, but at a certain point my ruler was an Empress and she died of childbirth leaving two twin sisters: during the long regency his sister declared independence splitting the empire in two, then the two twin sisters started to fight for power. By contrast Stellaris endgame is just a sequence of war where you are absolutely overpowered

[@felixleidinger1670]

I wish I lived in more enlightened times...

[@papafrancesco2937]

Sergio Longoni But that's the point of the game right? Building a dynasty with capable rulers that lasts throughout the ages. It's never meant to be a world conquest simulator, It's a "who can build the strongest dynasty" simulator. That's how kingdoms worked under feudalism.

[@TheBopRock]

This is why EU4 gets referred to as a map painting simulator by experienced players

[@dontpostcringe5824]

Yeah, the best part is durring 1550-1700 You have really big armies and you can have some challenging battles against the majors, but after that it gets borring. EU4 in single player is only worth it, if you are hunting those achievments.

[@benismann]

nah

[@thisnameanothername2156]

and by the new players quote "how am im at war with the whole world"

[@rimreld]

7 years later this still holds up

[@lforlight]

Why... is there a plumbus there?

[@guinsoosrageblade3038]

because plumbus are awesome

[@qwerty11111122]

But everyone needs a plumbus!

[@cracky3931]

Hey ive seen you in door monstars comment sections.

[@TTHStuff]

Why not? They're commonly used items.

[@benjaminbahr3495]

More importantly, why is the demand for it not higher? I mean, every household has a plumbus!

[@firebrain2991]

In Civ, they should add Guerrilla and Counter guerrilla abilities by adding a "supply train," forcing a player to recreate the Vietnam war sometimes.

[@extrahistory]

Too many strategy games are over hours before you actually win the game. How do we fix that? PLUS! Vote for Extra Credits in the Shorty Awards: shortyawards.com/category/9th/gaming

[@petragal377]

hey

[@mostermaaaaan]

welcome back i for am extrmely happy you're back :D

[@ped_araujo]

Time to switch to hard mode?

[@friendcomputer5276]

Or switch to a Paradox GSG.

[@Will-sl9ix]

Make the game more dynamic, improve ai, and add endgame threats, like the unbidden or ai rebellion in stellaris.

[@SpaceKingofSpace]

Stellaris's endgame events are precisely to eliminate that "I've already won" feeling. They're the strategy equivalent of a Boss Battle - a final test using everything you've accrued. That might be why strategy devolves into puzzles; there's no final test or challenge at the end because everything is just incremental victories that landslide.

[@davidschaftenaar6530]

Actually, I used to *love* this stage of the game in singleplayer: The battlefield turns into a sandbox and you can experiment with the units. Warcraft 3 and Red Alert 2 _really_ rewarded this, with Red Alert 2 actually allowing you to create entirely unique units sometimes.

[@Ryu_D]

Here's an idea. What if each civilization has a desperation ability that kicks in whenever an opponent gets too far ahead of them in any particular score (military, science, etc.)? This would give those falling behind a way to potentially catch up, and force the players who are winning to plan around the fact that their opponents will eventually get a boost that could make them a greater threat at some point? The desperation ability would stop working after some time (not sure how long), and it would have a penalty attached once it wears off, because they aren't getting this bonus for nothing, they're essentially scrambling to catch up, working themselves harder, using whatever they have on hand, or making rash decisions to catch up as fast as possible. I think this would make for some interesting end game situations for the player to work around, and possibly an unpredictable one, but at the same time, if the player keeps track of their opponent's desperation abilities, they'll be able to plan around them, and deal with them strategically. I don't know if this would really work, or what it would take to implement such a system, but I'd really like to hear any ideas people have on this subject. Hopefully this will at least get some ideas going that could help deal with the predictable end game problem.

[@sloppyjoe566]

They kinda have that now with dark ages in rise and fall but it's somewhat abusable

[@historymarshal2704]

That could work really well with WWII strategy games. For example, if your playing as Japan, when the Allies start closing in the nose of steel around your neck, you could get access to Kamikaze weapons and civilian militias armed with whatever they can find.

[@ionlymadethistoleavecoment1723]

"Attack them with the fishing boats" I laughed so hard.

[@firewars7636]

Ionlymadethistoleavecoments The fishing boats of war

[@awesomefuzz4008]

*what*

[@Heroesflorian]

actually, this kind of happened in real history, and was successful - see extra history series about Admiral Yi^^

[@quantumplatinum3029]

This what EU4 does.

[@traceswann7054]

Quantumplatinum you never know what France is gonna do

[@henrikagestedt7835]

Comet sighted.

[@Dramon8888]

I wish I lived in more enlightened times...

[@MrTokesu]

Quantumplatinum Ottomans can always recover.... I HAVE EXPERIENCE!!!

[@BrazilianAnarchy]

The blue terror strikes again

[@dernwine]

"We've won, we know we've won, it's just going to take 4 hours of slogging before the PC realises we've won." Perfect description of World War 2 after 1942. Also a perfect description of World War 1 after August 1918.

[@marcosbarrionuevo7792]

dernwine Sir, you have made my day.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Sometimes, you need to break from reality for the sake of an enjoyable game.

[@miniwizard]

One difficulty for the 'going through the motions' stage - once you've become strong enough to win, is that there is a great amount of satisfaction to be had reveling in that moment. The moment you aspired for. You want to see your forces, your city, your base, whatever it may be, repel any attack withstand the possible uncertainties and prove that you were successful in all your preparations. You want to see your upgraded units succeed in their assault with minimal casualties. The problem however comes in determining how much time the player needs at this to be satisfied and not become bored with their current 'godliness'. Sure, some players thrive on fierce competition and level playing fields, the risk of everything going wrong with the slightest lapse of concentration. Other players like to wait for obvious superiority before engaging in conflict, so it's a very hard line to draw in determining that 'winning-line'. I am reminded of times in the past (for instance Age of Kings) when enemy opponents have simply resigned before I've even managed to unleash the army I've been building to assault them. After all the preparations are made, and ready to unravel, the AI just decided to anticlimactically resign. Yet on the other hand, games where you must scour the map looking for the one lost or hidden remaining unit or building to destroy become highly tedious and more like a frustrating puzzle in a point and click adventure game.

[@unvergebeneid]

What? My whole reason for playing Civilization is to dominate the world, perform speak-to-the-hand diplomacy and let my tanks roll over other peoples' phalanxes.

[@GUST_87]

"Who's ready to talk game design?" YEEE

[@A9YearsOldNOTYouTuber]

Not me.

[@Lady_in_Yearning]

Part of the reason I love Stellaris so much: You are the most powerful expanding civilization in the known galaxy/a founding member of the biggest federation of various intelligent species. NOTHING can stop you now! - Uhm... my emperor? We're getting some strange messages from that xenophobic fallen empire... - It's okay, fallen empires don't expand and we've almost gathered enough forces to conquer even their enormous fleet. Soon, their ring-worlds will be ours! - That's the thing my lord... They woke up. And yeeeah, their fleet is now kinda sorta twice as strong now. And growing. And then you're frantically scrambling your allies and existing ships to either fight an enemy thousands of years more ancient and advanced than you... or be utterly defeated and forced to become their thrall. Not a perfect way to solve late-game tedium sure, but certainly one of the best and most fun I've seen. Emergent story ftw.

[@alexbaker1569]

Yeah I agree but I lots of my games do still devolve into me just working my way through the tech tree as a wait for the end game crysis i do play tall lots so that might affect stuff

[@MrTokesu]

Finally I can stop bingeing on old episodes!!!! Woooohooo!!!!

[@kevinoneal9779]

When autocorrect changes "bingeing" to "binding".

[@MrTokesu]

Kevin O'Neal oh shit tru (Fixed)

[@AschKris]

I was thinking the same lol

[@LordEpos]

For those looking for the perfect profile picture: 2:25

[@PhyreI3ird]

Arlo Mates Lol! I thought you meant 2:24 at first

[@jimmykeffer7401]

5:28 Catan anyone?

[@PowerHaters]

The world is dying! Player 1: I will try to make less waste and exhaust Player 2: MORE COAL FACTORIES AND START COLONIZING OTHER PLANETS. Don't be a player 2

[@zyibesixdouze4863]

If you have space travel why the fuck would you use coal

[@masonsilvers6789]

Ya just GO TO MARS!

[@Zek3nator]

Colonize other planets then return return with resources to save the planet. Don't be a player one.

[@zyibesixdouze4863]

@YertleTheMFnTurtle I get that, but by then wouldn't you have more potent methods of ecological destruction?

[@MrDingez]

I never got the colonize Mars strategy. I mean, if we can't even manage the climate with a few degrees on earth how the hell are we supposed to make a huge climate change happen on another planet?

[@juliahenriques210]

Paradox seems to have mastered this balance to a higher level than that of most studios. You should do a case by case analysis of their designs' evolution someday. It would be a pretty popular series, of that you can be sure.

[@JustAnotherZoomer]

Its clear they didnt F

[@kevinoneal9779]

Welcome back. I missed this. As a simple solution, the aforementioned games could include more fully fleshed rebel factions that will always seek to hinder you.

[@PhyreI3ird]

Kevin O'Neal Dude I was thinking this! Of course I am someone who hasn't played a fourX game so I have no clue how well it could _really_ translate to the game, but yea, having those really pesky-ass subversive enemies would potentially add a whole other phase to the game before your total domination. It only really makes sense as a natural evolution of your pesky rivals once they all see how thoroughly overwhelming and overpowered you are

[@Superfiercelink]

Kevin O'Neal Sounds like your vassals in Crusader Kings II

[@sabbathjackal]

Kevin O'Neal i was thinking a trade mechanic with treacherous allies. Like your neighbor will turn on you if they advance faster than you or if you trade with the wrong faction. Then have certain groups in control of certain resources with opposing factions in control of complimentary supplies

[@seanordonez9208]

thats like rebel activity in rise of nations

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

I think sudden and lethal uncertainty is why people like Dwarf Fortress. It's a game that's essentially impossible to win, because so much of what kills you off is unpredictable and impossible to adapt to, and all you can do is try to keep your fortress going as long as possible. But it's still fun to try to survive as long as possible, because the longer you survive, the better the legacy you leave on the world. And the better your legacy, the better you can make your next fortress, in the exact same world, right where your old one died off.

[@Erika-gn1tv]

There's also the fact that the longer you play, the more likley it is that your fortress falls apart from within.

[@PsychorGames]

I'm subscribed to you.

[@StrategyJoe]

Every time I played DF I ended up building concentration camps for the unsubmissive dwarfs which made the fortress more and more profitable which increased drastically the amount of dwarf rushing to immigrate in my fort. This forces me to establish a compulsory internment for all Dwarfs as I could barely keep up with them anymore. I used them to quickly dig massive areas underground to use as provisional detainment center. I picked off each dwarfs and sent them in two separated rooms. One room allowed them to join the main fortress and become a productive dwarf but the other room had a much darker use. When ever dwarfs got piled up in it I would lock the door behind them and open up some flood gates spilling massive amount of lava in the room burning them clean. The lava trickled down to inferior levels due to strategically places grates on the floor and the room was ready for another set of prisoners. Eventually one of them survived. A young child named Urist McBerg. He was barely a few seasons old but was struck in grieve and pain as the rest of his family had been vaporized in my contraption build solely for this purpose of purging the dwarfs. I felt a this point an insufferable feeling striking me deep inside. I realized the monster I had become and could barely walk for days on end. Never before had I realized that I was crushing small families seeking better lives in my fort but their poor skills and uselessness to me made me commit the worst atrocities. After using the poor Urist McBerg corpse to craft a soap bar I have never played DF again.

[@ilikeceral3]

I'm Very Angry It's Not Butter dwarf fortress is great-I wanna see it completed someday.

[@gabriel300010]

StrategyJoe Oh god why am I laughing so hard

[@CommissarMitch]

"One-off events are bad" Somehow I feel like Paradox never got that Memo.

[@justkev6277]

Maybe because no one ever sent that memo. Re-watch the video they never say they are bad, just dangerous , since done wrong they can really ruin the play experience.

[@CommissarMitch]

Yeah my headphones is a bit meh nowadays. Thank you for the correction. Still, Paradox.

[@justkev6277]

Yea, Paradox. Paradox "Hey you know that great heir you got?" Me "Yea" Paradox "Hes dead" Me"..."

[@henrikagestedt7835]

Comet Sighted!

[@CommissarMitch]

Paradox: "Oh, and your new heir is a 0/1/0 that will live forever! Have fun!"

[@jackhoward705]

my favourite genre on extra credits again? YEAH!

[@gigglysamentz2021]

End game in strategy games, there can be fun for the winning player in the feeling of power. And there can be fun for the losing player in doing anything that's possible to still force the other to react.

[@JenoPaciano]

There's another way around this, one the games Bravely Default and Bravely Second found: automation. In those games, you can turn on autobattle. This lets you speed up the action up to 4x and repeat the same action as you did last round. That enables players to grind rapidly, or get straight to the end of any battle they've already clearly won. It's honestly just as big of an innovation as the brave / default system. If the results of a battle are obvious, give the player a button to continue / repeat their current action while fast-forwarding through the game. You'll avoid wasting the player's time, enable more efficient grinding for JRPGs, enable players to skip the boring end parts of strategy games, and in general allow your players to play your game more than they otherwise could.

[@lolabradford2247]

Dan's sarcastic "oh no I will have to give up 2 food" voice was priceless!

[@CommissarWallace]

Unfortunately, too many devs fall back on random and frustrating plate-balancing mechanics in order to force artificial difficulty on the player who is doing well. Total War for instance, has recently loved shoehorning pointless squalor and corruption mechanics, as well as random events, into the game in order to prevent large empires from getting 'too' powerful or secure. What I'm basically saying is that devs need to stop making strategic uncertainties feel like punishment for playing the game well, which a lot of their efforts feel like. Good strategy game players will have that 50 food you mentioned to make sure that a -2 penalty doesn't screw them over, and arbitrarily hitting them with penalties in order to prevent their snowballing, while it might prevent the game becoming dull, instead just annoys the player, because instead of it being that they end up stalled because their strategy is faulty, it's because you've just chucked a spanner into the works of the well-oiled machine they've just built, with no real reasoning beyond 'well you were getting too powerful'. Invariably this is a difficult balancing act, but game devs really need to think about it, because 'artificial difficulty' and unavoidable penalties are the quickest way to make players bored, not letting them snowball.

[@GideonGleeful95]

I think it can maybe work in a fair manner in which there are consequences within your empire for the actions to do. For instance, the more industrialised you become, the more you harm the environment. Having internal threats steadily become a larger and larger problem with more serious consequences as the game progresses would give a different dynamic to the end game that came about organically, but still meant the end game was a challenge. I think if it's clear from the beginning that there are consequences to all your decisions that become more severe as the game goes on it can work.

[@varana]

I think the difference is whether these penalties are unavoidable, or not. If your objective is to conquer the map, the game shouldn't penalise you for having a large empire - that's the whole point. If having a large empire is a decision you make but not the only way to win (Civ goes in that direction somewhat, with its non-domination victory conditions, while the Total War series has only the choice between large empire and even larger empire for victory), having slowly accumulating negative effects attached to a large empire is more feasible.

[@GideonGleeful95]

Hmm. True. In unavoidable games like Total War, the threat has to be external really, whether that be ai that gang up (like realm divide in Shogun 2) on you or some sort of invasion (like the Timurids in Med 2). Even then, though, you have to be careful because if balanced too softly it wont make much difference (the Timurids were more of an annoyance, especially if you start further west (or knew they were coming and reinforced the east) and realm divide was more of a mid-game challenge) but too hard and it will become rage-quit type moment.

[@Zedddddddd-p2z]

These words... they explain why i never finish my games in Civ 6... Thanks :D

[@DemidTishin]

Another way to keep player engaged is to have independent winning conditions that leverage different kinds of resources. E.g. in the classic Master of Orion you can win by conquering all other players OR by winning the galactic elections. And if you play aggressively, normally, other leaders will not vote for you or even would unite against you. So a diplomatic player could unexpectedly win even in the late game.

[@daracaex]

I think this might be why Ghandi is so great in Civilization. You've got this opponent clearly working toward a diplomatic/"world peace" victory, then BAM! Nukes in your face! How's your strategy looking now that your cities are being destroyed by an opponent who didn't even have a meaningful military last time you checked?

[@TheMedicatedArtist]

6:03 A WILD PLUMBUS APPEARED!!!

[@josiah6969]

6:04 Slick Rick and Morty reference.

[@EuroNewsOppositionexit00]

I love startegy games. I love strategy. Actually I would love to do it as my job.

[@lichofthewilds4384]

If we are talking about uncertainty in strategy games, I think stelaris is getting close. The crisis events and awakening ancient empires gives more challenges and uncertainties to the late and mid game where most strategy games start to fail. Stelaris even has quite a few of those complex random events that can turn good or bad, ex the underground society chain or the hallucinogenic flower event. Though I think stelaris still suffers from a boring early-mid to mid game and a lack of a way to handle ethics divergence and non agreeable pops peacefully. Though I think the game is getting there with the support the devs are giving it.

[@ocadioan]

Long-term uncertainty. Like Muscovy and Ottomans suddenly becoming best of friends allies. Damn thing halted my eastwards expansion for a good while until I was able to finally find a way to go to war with one wihtout involving the other and then forcebreaking their alliance.

[@kappaross6124]

That "attack them... with the fishing boats!" moment was perfect. Can somebody make that a shirt? Or a poster? Or a screensaver? Or anything really?

[@Generiname]

The Paradox grand strategy games run into this a lot, and are a pretty good case study for the use of randomized events to change play. EU4 has an interesting way of giving the player agency in this uncertainty: over the course of the game, you "opt in" to different pools of random events, and many of the events will only trigger under certain circumstances

[@cpasr8065]

1:53 I don't know why but watching the player react in disbelief at a fishing boats act made me laugh like there was no tomorrow.

[@fabiocosta961]

I have a question for you. What do you think are the options and downsides of the possible enemy encounter mechanics in RPGs you can think of? I'm developing an RPG and I'm estimating how encounters should work better. It could be a Chrono Trigger style, with enemies already on screen and by so already scripted and decided for every room, so I know exactly what every player will encounter in every game room. Or it could be classic Final Fantasy/Pokèmon style, with screen transition in battle after a certain random number of steps made... and in that case, how can I tell if encounters are not enough or made too often so the player could be annoyed? etc. There are many choices to make when thinking of random encounters but I'm not sure of what should be better or at least what are the good and the bad sides of every encounter mechanic I can think of. What do you think? Mmmmh... I'm not sure if I've explained myself correctly. I'll make some examples: In a (usually turn based) RPGs, a designer wants every player to make more or less a certain number of encounters in a certain area so the player can meet every kind of enemy, or gain a certain amount of exp/gold, etc. In chrono trigger, this is simply done by literally placing X enemies in every room (more or less avoidable) so the designer knows that at the end of that area the player should be at a certain level (grinding not considered) and has met every kind of enemy needed. In Cthullhu saves the world there are dungeons that the player needs to complete in order to progress through the story. In every dungeon the encounter rate is very, VERY high. Frustrating I should say; BUT after a certain fixed amount of encounters, you can turn the encounter rate to zero in that dungeon, so it's made sure that the player has made at least that fixed amount of encounters at that point of the game. What method applies better basing on a circumstances? Why should I choose a method or another? Also: how can I tell more or less if there are too many encounters? Of course testing is the main solution, but I'm afraid that testing my own game could lead to a wrong judgement, and make some testers play could still be not enough. What do you think?

[@criminalbunny4344]

Fabio Costa I like the idea of having the enemies visible on the map, makes you rethink and strategize a bit before the encounter (if you want to fight or have no way around it)

[@AGrumpyPanda]

Pulling from tabletop RPGs, a mix of planned and "wandering monster" encounters works pretty well with a bit of flexibility built into the system. Let's say you've planned for the player to need X amount of experience from the level they're on in order to reliably defeat the next boss (ignoring for the moment the possibility of clever strategy reducing this amount). Put in about enough planned and obvious encounters to give the player the XP they need, but have these encounters be a bit stronger and more resource consuming (including health damage, mana costs for spells, consumable items, e.t.c.), while including the possibility of running into random encounters. These encounters are relatively weak and might chip off some HP or eat up a mana potion's worth of magic, but their primary goal is to fill in some of the challenge and lost XP that a player would miss out on if they avoid the obvious encounters. Every time they go into a battle, the chance of random encounters decreases, so that if a player is regularly hitting every "major" battle, they'll experience very few "minor" battles, but if they're mostly dodging the harder battles, they'll slowly get chipped down by a large number of "minor" battles as they go. This is of course based on D&D logic, which works slightly differently as a video game doesn't have as reliable a way of judging the player's status as a living game master does, but AI directors in games like Left For Dead make a reasonable approximation possible.

[@AegixDrakan]

As someone who makes RPGmaker games as a hobby, I prefer the "on-map-encounter" style. It makes a little game out of evading the enemies, while also allowing players to avoid or engage at their discretion. I also throw in little reasons to fight them too, though (equipment drops, etc) so players have a reason to get into fights aside from just EXP. It tends to work most of the time.

[@fabiocosta961]

In this game, battles should be the main reason to play. The battle system wants to be what makes this game stands out, but that doesn't mean the players will go and search for encounters just because the battle system is (or at least should be) fun, so I need to be sure that every player finds at least some battles. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: in the game there's no exp but there are other things to gain in battles. Anyway, the AGrumpyPanda answer was probably what I was searching for. Thank all of you for your kind suggestions.

[@satannstuff]

You could go for the system that the RPG Maker game "The Way" had, where you've got enemy silhouettes moving around the screen and if you run into one you have to fight the specific group of enemies associated with it. It lets you have something similar to random encounters without taking away control from the player completely, so they can try to avoid or instead seek out battles. It also means you get to fine tune respawns in such a way that the player knows what to expect.

[@xBulbaneerx]

I think this topic here is explains why in the Total War series i like playing Medieval 2 way more than Rome 2 Rome 2 basicly gives you an uningaging playrole military-wise. Rome Itself basicly has only one tactic, which is overwhelm the enemy with quaility infantry and once you ve reached the best standard unit you can just inconsequently push them out, full army of max quality unit, even though it doesnt even reflect how roman military worked historicly. Medieval 2 on the other hand (even if old) balanced the late game challanges way better imo. You can build a giant army of quality units, yes, but since the game has adjusted recruitment and upkeep cost for cavalry and heavy feudal units, it is nearly impossible to maintain a strong moralized effective army. As you stretch over the borders of your Realm fast, you will have to make do what you can get your hands on compositionwise. Also, the invasions in form of Crusades and Djihads make it way harder to just steamroll the whole map, or just continuesly wage on war without angering other major players in the game, and an excommunication can actualy screw you over when trying to hold a big barely staning empire together. That's just my opinion though. Everyone make his own

[@pandariuskairos3841]

Most of my RTS experience is Warcraft/Starcraft (WC3 and SC2 primarily). The issue I have with the majority of modern RTS games is the "start from nothing, build a massive army" style of gameplay. There should be a word to describe this, but I can't think of it. The antithesis to that style of gameplay is the "attrition" style - start with your full army (or nearly so, there's room for reinforcements) and win by eliminating your opponents forces. For whatever reason (risk aversion), the industry continues to stick (mostly) with the "build up" model. Let's consider one of the greatest strategy games of all times: chess. Chess is an attrition game (with a minor 'reinforcement' method in the form of promoting pawns). Both players begin the game on equal footing (arguments about whether white or black is better notwithstanding), and so victory is determined entirely by the skill of the player in moving the pieces (not acquiring them). Chess never gets old, never gets boring, never gets stale. In the future (and I hope that someone starts making a VR based RTS soon), I'd like to see more chess-like RTS games. I'm not a huge fan of turn-based strategy when it comes to video games (although there are a couple that are noteworthy), but I believe that you can have an attrition style, chess-like RTS. The two games I know of that at least approach this style are Dawn of War and Total War: Warhammer (not familiar with any of the other Total War games). And even DoW has some resource acquisition, but it's not as important. Giving people armies (and some minor reinforcement mechanic) forces the readjustment of tactics and strategy due to the fact that you can't (easily) replace lost units. You have to change your strategy each time you lose a unit you didn't expect to lose or your opponent loses a unit. The possible "moves" changes each time a unit dies. In an acquisition based RTS, you simply replace lost units and continue on with the strategy, making it feel like a "push" the entire time, rather than a dance. If you lose 20 Marines, just build 20 more. But what if you started with 20 Marines, and weren't going to get anymore for the rest of the game? That would make you think about protecting them, and it would make you think about your next move if you lost some of them, rather than just pressing the "build more" button. I pretty much dislike acquisition based RTS - I think acquisition is more suited to slower, turn based strategy games, but would prefer a fixed, finite army in an RTS. I'm sure there's a lot more that could be done to make RTS more interesting, which will probably come along with better technology - better environmental effects, better base building, etc. But I think the issues I outlined above is the most important. Also, on a side note, it's possible Star Citizen may be an interesting space combat RTS, as there have been hints of a "command and control" module that can be added to larger ships that will essentially give the player a holographic interface and fleet communication tools that will allow them to command an entire fleet of ships from their command vessel, turning this space sim (at least for those that possess a command module and the desire to do this) into an RTS at times.

[@claytongrange2137]

Oh!.... I thought you were going to say single-player strategy games should have a mercy rule to let you win when you have so much of an advantage, lol.

[@madmaster0015]

There's not many players that would give their enemy the satisfaction of victory. If they could, they would end it in a draw by immediately sacrificing themselves in an all-out attack or drag the battle much longer than it should be. Basically a "If I'm going down, you're going down with me" kind of thing.

[@Dliciousization]

StarCraft basically already has this option, but it also proves that it isn't necessarily the answer to the question since you will always have those Terran fucks that fly their buildings all across the map forcing you to upgrade to flying to finish them off.

[@pedroscoponi4905]

"Now, who is ready to talk game design?" I literally, literally, jumped up in my chair. I need my fix of extra credits!

[@lemoniscate]

A good way to give players major surprises while also not having them feel the frustration of redoing a whole plan is to give them flexibility, allowing them to have thing like easy material/progress conversion so they can quickly shift into another plan

[@aerotype]

“Let’s say the ‘earth is dying’ event occurs” lmao the earth IS dying 🌍🌎🌏

[@Rakned]

wait WHAAAAAAT Game Desgin is *HARD*??? like wtf

[@asdfgh6210]

i dont quite get what you're trying to say

[@rashkavar]

I have to admit for me, the endgame of strategy games often does the power fantasy fulfilment thing (but then, maybe I'm weird, because I don't like the power fantasy side of shooters - I prefer the "I'm being hunted by everything" feeling of Halflife 1 over the "I am a god among men" feeling of Halflife 2). Directing your all-powerful forces to destroy the enemy, gobble up vast tracts of land, etc just feels awesome to me. One event that I wish Civ did a little better is natural disasters. Consider, for example, an earthquake/tsunami. First consider the Boxing Day quake in the Indian Ocean - most of the people hit by that were in fairly poor, relatively low tech fishing villages. Not to belittle the shit they went through, but the reconstruction process involved rebuilding their relatively low cost housing out of largely local materials, mourning their dead, and getting back to normal life. Constrast that with the quake in Japan and its tsunami, which flattened several essentially modern cities and nearly made a nuclear power plant go into a meltdown. The amount of resources Japan is throwing into the recovery process there is VASTLY greater than what was necessary in the Boxing Day quake. Rebuilding an entire city is mind bogglingly expensive, and they've got several to rebuild. And that's without the immediate blind panic phase where they brought Fukushima back from the brink. (I'm not trying to belittle the suffering the victims of either of these quakes have experienced, and my suggestion that the Boxing Day quake is largely recovered from is based solely on the fact that it's been 12 years and that surely things have started to settle down an eighth of a century later. A earthquake of that kind of power is a shitty experience for everyone.) In game mechanics, it'd be pretty easy for the game to determine how developed a given city is and thus how vulnerable it should be to earthquakes. Certain buildings should have particular sensitivities to certain event types - city walls crack from earthquakes, for instance, or nuclear power plants being exposed to tsunamis (Future infrastructure planners: please DON'T build nuclear power facilities or anything similarly volatile on the coast of an earthquake zone. It's a REALLY bad idea.). General productivity, trade, food and population would be good indicators of general development level. Perhaps a more developed society should have the option to take an empire-wide debuff on food in order to supply the city effected, or a special build project in all cities that speeds up recovery in the other city (All of your construction workers and such going over to help in the emergency). If I can take it this far, the Civ team could make a game mechanic of it. Their design team is miles ahead of me.

[@retu3510]

This was a really good episode. The thing I enjoyed most was, that strategy game are puzzle games with uncertainty. This is not a perfect analogy, but it allows me to make a valueable connection in my understanding of games. Thanks.

[@porter5224]

Welcome back! Ok, enough small talk. give us extra history.

[@PhyreI3ird]

Porter Rodney Even as a fond lover of history I must say I prefer regular Extra credits, and I'm super happy to have it back ^_^

[@porter5224]

I know, I was just joking.

[@jetcraneboyd4278]

WHERES MY NEW EXTRA HISTORY?!?!?!?!?!? WHY WONT YOU EDUCATE ME?!?!??!?!?!!? DID I DO SOMETHING TO YOU?!?!?!?!!? WHY WHY?!?!?!?!!!?!?

[@setseraioshade107]

I love that Catan reference! You guys are amazing, thank you for continuing on making these videos!

[@acerba]

I have a counter strategy for dealing with a volcano: raid the refugee relief shipments for resources to finance the Iron Buddha war machine while increasing the strain on other players >:)

[@AbbeyAdriaan]

Love the episode! From the experience I got from making strategy games, I both agree and disagree. I think the most thriving force behind strategic fun is the actual snowballing itself. The machine in full power. It's more about adapting your strategy to snowball harder than it's about adapt or lose. The cumulative nature of the game is central. That's why everyone quits after losing 1 city. So you're forced to do a few things to throw this off when the game has reached a stable point. You could provide uncertain elements, like hidden information, a random event etc. They're fun the first few times and can shake things up. The downsides is that they're harder to design around, possibly content heavy and expensive, but worst of all, can feel quite unfair. Especially if you've spend hours snowballing. I myself think the most annoying part of strategy game "clean sweeping" is specifically certainty of outcome. In pvp situations this is mostly canceled by having a worthy opponent. What's really annoying is not that you don't have to adopt (you often have to, like in civ) but that it's trivial to outcome. A good player will be well prepared to whatever you throw it anyway. If it's pivotal to outcome, it can feel way too unfair. But I think there is a way too avoid this. EU does it. EU has undetermined outcomes for their game. Technically there is a first place, but the fun in the game is more about seeing how good your snowball is: exactly what you want from a strategy game! Can you conquer whole Europe? What about Europe and Russia? Now add Colonizing the whole Western Hemisphere! etc. Then you can pick a weaker nation to see how far you get with that. It also makes you to take risks to "win harder". I've yet to see a player who thought: "Well, I'm comfortably first, I'm not going to annex my neighbor anymore." That highscore way of looking at strategy games is really fun to me. Always try to have the biggest snowball possible. Always try to win harder.

[@soulstealer5625]

Well xcom 2 can accomplish this as well with dark events, especially the additional dark events mods. These can make even the late game challenging and does serve as random events.

[@commandantkrieg3467]

And this is why I love the gameplay of 40k. Never know when it’s going to change on you and need to mold your strategy turn by turn to beat the enemy player.

[@EGRJ]

I did the fishing boat thing in Age of Empires 2. I realized I could spam them out faster than the AI could produce their fancier, more powerful boats.

[@MasterPyron]

*what is our strategy, leader? -FISH THEIR SOULS WITH THE FISHERMEN! *...sure.

[@ekimmak]

5:50 Such as Age of Wonders III's "half casting points per turn for 20 turns" objective. When I have half my cities protected by summoned creatures, then just lose half of my mana income completely, causing all those cities to become undefended targets for evil empires to immediately take over and migrate... that stings.

[@nucleargandhi2709]

Solid Catan reference.

[@rmefantasygames]

art nailing it on this episode! had a few good laughs :) thanks for your work

[@jacobm8242]

FTL works well, as you can always lose

[@MrTrollaid]

Yeah but FTL makes the base assumption that you WILL lose and you have to get lucky to win, while a strategy game makes the assumption that as long as you know how to use its systems and are able to effectively predict and counter your opponents,you will win, no matter your luck (even though being lucky can obviously make it easier). I'm not saying that FTL is bad because of that, but it's not the same genre.

[@leXie1337_chan]

I always feel like FTL relies too heavily on random events. If you can't find certain weapons, you're boned during the boss fight.

[@satannstuff]

FTL is more a roguelike than a strategy game. You're not pacing against an AI that you can beat into the dirt and then ignore, you're trying to outpace an environment that *will* get more dangerous the further you get.

[@StompinPaul]

This episode brought two things to my mind. First was AI War, the only strategy game I can remember that's designed around coop. Because you're always fighting a computer instead of humans, and because the game sets up a guerrilla-style asymmetric war rather than a more equal civ vs civ or army vs army, challenge can ramp up more naturally. There are ways to affect it, but approximately the better you are doing, the more the enemy will pay attention to you, and the more of their (sometimes, at first implied) forces they will bring to bear. This issue I find actually both worse and harder to work around in more exacting multiplayer games. I never play strategy games PvP, and I only play MOBAs for limited stretches at a time because the exact issue you mentioned: the game is by all accounts over, and I have lost, yet I have to keep playing or suffer some sort of leaving-early penalty. And yet that has to be left in with a lot of cases, because a better team than mine would either know how to turn the situation around, or have positioned themselves imperceptibly differently such that they can turn it around. Thus, ending the game where it should for me, would be unfairly denying others the chance to turn things around.

[@neonlemurs4865]

Inflation is a good idea.

[@Francois424]

I've played many GREAT strategy games, where you get the ultimate gear, or level, or (space)ship, only for the game to pull any of the following : - You facewalk everyone in the game, meeting no challenge, making it feel like you did not need the final stuff afterall - The game mirrors your new powers by introducing as difficult foes. So getting the final stuff is not helpful, and may even be detrimental once you use it. Many, many games fall into the above trappings. In a strictly mechanical way of thinking, the games should just keep dishing the same challenges but maybe starve the player of some ressources. In a space game, the new rnd-game sectors you explore would have less "starbases" making each one precious, but having the end-game ship would make winning possible thru endurance and good defensive planning around your starbase. You didn't really win even tho there's less than 10 hours (out of 70) less of exploring/fighting... a bad strategy and your starbase gets destroyed forcing you to retreat away from the enemy's worlds and retry, or try to run the gauntlet hoping you have enough supplies/crew to be able to destroy the enemy's homeworld. That end-game "Battleship", well you'll get to use it, to know it, to cherish it and not just facewalk scouts and destroyers. Oh you'll do so, but every now and then you meet a battlecruiser or a romulan-like cruiser that catches you off guard by decloaking with weapons hot. Not enough games like the above these days, be them MMOs, FPS, or strategy(even rarer). A modern version of "Starfleet: The War Begins" with the improvements above would prove to be extremely interesting... and bonus points if you played that game back then. That said, Hearths of Iron 4 by Paradox can provide quite a lot of unexpected turn arounds, sometime even game-halting ones. These days, that's the one I enjoy the most.

[@DreDBanGeR]

may want to take a look at how paradox does it in thei grand strategy games, crusader kings / Europa universalis / victoria 2 ( we dont speak about hoi4 )

[@TheShadowOfNidhoeggr]

Probably too complex for them to make a video about :(

[@sendathien2908]

Hey there! You are doing a great job in analyzing different stuff. I'm really appreciating your work! Have you thought of doing a comparison between Dota2 and League of Legends? We maybe want to know why League of Legends has attracted far more gamers than Dota2 (No offense to all Dota2 players, it's just a fact in statistics). We will be really happy if you can do such analysis :) Keep it up!

[@nathanbrown8680]

I've long thought that what 4x games need are the replacement of eliminated civs, unavoidable tech spread, and a bonus for new civs to help them overthrow old empires (because a direct decline and decadence mechanic wouldn't be fun). The Goths should be able to start late, rapidly reach and exceed military tech parity, and conquer half of the much older Roman Empire. Playing Rome and having conquered everyone civilized up to Persia shouldn't protect you from having to worry that a new nation will pop out of some unexplored region and be a serious military threat. Playing France and having a handle on the balance of power in Europe should not guarantee that the Germanies aren't suddenly going to unify and cap Paris just for the sake of having humiliated a shared enemy in order to build national solidarity. And having a lock on a cultural victory as America shouldn't guarantee that some culture resistant &%$* barbarians called ISIS won't $&^% all over everything. Okay, that last is more of a "you lose" random event for someone pursuing a cultural victory, but I've always felt those were stupid and false anyways. Real nations never stop facing threats and they aren't escalating horrible random events, they're usually new nations forming like Germany or successful barbarians turning into civilizations and snowballing through an underdefended rear like the Goths.

[@michaelkazmierczak2973]

Use the Paradox Strategy. Screw the player, make the AI cheat, and finally say "fuck the fans lets just release dlcs instead of good updates and then never lower our main game price even if its years old"

[@Superfiercelink]

Michael Kazmierczak But when they go on sale, they are dirt cheap

[@wikingerik]

I like how u think the ai cheats as fck in paradox games....:D

[@krieginphernjacobson]

Mufi IKR, paradox games are basically the only ones with ai good enough that they have to get cheats... excepting HOI4 of course.

[@sosig6445]

Mufi In harder settings the ai cheats! On normal it has no advantages nut kinda not challenging enough

[@igorthelight]

0:42 - It's all good and all... but I have more interesting question. Is she pregnant? ))) Uncertainties... I have a quote about it - "Do I detect uncertainty in your purpose?". Before googling it, try to remember by yourself. )))

[@firetarrasque4667]

My friend built a map in Age of Empires 2 that was an invulnerable citadel against a couple of undeveloped armies. The thing had armies of units, triple fortified walls with bombard towers every two spaces, massive camps for villager slaves, a *murder pit*, it was absurd.He then fought this citadel being controlled by an A.I.The A.I deleted the defenses because they got in the way.This is what uncertainty is.

[@AppleBiscuits]

I'm all for keeping games fresh, but if that involves throwing 12 fucking snakes at my XCOM soldiers I'm just going to go play Enemy Within.

[@pfeilspitze]

This is one thing I find Chris Taylor's RTSs do well. Since you just need to kill the "King", once you have a sufficient advantage, the win is quick. But someone arguably behind in the game can still do something sneaky to kill an insufficiently-protected King. And wreckage means that someone who seems to be leading but whose attack is stopped contributes resources to the defender who can use them to catch up or surpass their opponent.

[@franzluggin398]

AI War Fleet Command: This never happens since it is an asymmetric game. The AI could crush you easily, if not for the fact that it has better things to do with its massive fleets elsewhere. Or so it thinks. If at any point you start being too cocky, the AI will retaliate en masse. Of course there are situations where you say: From this position, victory is very much within my grasp. But there is no "from here on, victory MUST be mine, every strategy will result in me winning".

[@Epicshadow123456789]

The game I think of that does this the worst is Rome Total War 2- it's over hours, slow, boring, then... For no reason, the country splits into random tiles of civil war, with you getting the short end of the stick, and any remaining factions attack you, and... The game essentially just says, "you lose, for beating our game too easily!" I tried going back to the game, but realized just how terrible the feature still was and left again after 2 turns.

[@neganick]

"Oops. You lose. Too bad." The rally cry of FTL!

[@pittlebelge]

To tackle the problem of late game boredom, I have seen other mechanics that were somehow effective. In Stainless Steel, a mod for Medieval Total War 2, large empire had stability issues. For example, one of their manifestation was that only the king and the heir could lead armies without the risk of rebellion forcing the player in making interesting diplomatic and strategic decisions. Mainly, one could not attack on all front as it normally be the case. That qualifies more as a choke on success but it was thematic. Though, to be fair, it still didn't completely eliminate the problem of late game boredom. Another example, from a RTS this time: Supreme Commander and its expansion Forged Alliance. Well, first the intel in these game was a complex mechanics on its own with radar, sonar, stealth and so-on allowing for strategy based on blinding your opponent. But there was an economic trick that was interesting: dead units leave wrecks and these wrecks can be reclaimed to fuel your economy. That means that an attack on the enemy base that only dealt light to medium damage could actually lead to an advantage to the defender. Come to think of it, it may qualify as uncertainty... But still, games where a player could have snowballed were left undecided because of the redemption provided by the reclaim. So one can imagine, in civ for example, that killing an enemy unit with higher tech gives you a boost to that tech as a catch-up mechanic. Or to go back to the first example, as your empire grow, you have to maintain its stability in an engaging way. But that implies having a complete set of cool political mechanics and making sure that the transition form an external struggle set of game mechanics to an internal struggle one is smooth and interesting

[@mccloaker]

Wow, you guys are geniuses! I've been TRYING to think of a way to innovate in strategy, and you've iven some good tips. I'm jealous. But hey, no one can think of everything.

[@Camroncooper]

A game that adds lots of uncertainty, but is still a great strategy is the mod Fall From Heaven 2 for Civ IV. It's a fantasy mod that adds an apocalypse counter, that fucks everything over when enough evil things are done, and the counter gets to high, but if you do good things, you can counter act it. Or the exact opposite of that.

[@curethedarkness]

A note to be made in regards to Medieval Total war 1 and 2. I think they dealt quite well with that with the introduction of the Mongolians and later the Timurids to the stage. If you're playing in Western Europe its unlikely that the Mongolians will cause you trouble until you need to get that all important Holy Land objective, but by the time the Timurids arrive you're likely to be vying for the same territory and they're an utter nightmare to face. And if you're playing in Eastern Europe, Africa or anywhere else, the Mongols and Timurids both become a devastating terror that you have to direct all resources into facing that allows the other nations to get ahead of you as you try to defend against their onslaught.

[@normanofthetempest7347]

My solution has always been to just restart. I love early game exploration and that desperate struggle. I usually stop playing around mid-game. I would love to one day play a game that engaged me all the way to the end. But I figured this was a hard thing to do. I cant stop myself from metagaming sometimes. I wish I could just take the inefficient path or self-handicap. So I just restart new games a lot. Going versus humans is too stressful for me in strat games. I live for that early game struggle, love it.

[@drkrackkasethe1st157]

You spawn in the desert,the ai knows this so they send all of their 10000 man strong army equipped with strawls to drink all of the water in the desert,now you must use all that water you've stockpiled for you giant world domination campaign.it`s genius.

[@ragingdonut4301]

I like the Unbidden in Stellaris in a designer sense. Basically what it is, is extradimensional invaders come to murder everyone, and the whole galaxy must cooperate to defeat them. A major hurdle in your slow progress to domination. Only issue is the AI doesn't really care that it exists, and ignores it.

[@andrasfogarasi5014]

The CK2 version: When you own five kingdoms and no empire. Then everyone joing the "gavelkind for REALM_NAME" faction. You get an ultimatum.

[@nerdlingeeksly5192]

I say the solution to this problem is throwing something at the player that they can't anticipate or can but can do little about, something that doesn't necessarily need strategizing but to just adapt and out live; throw them a curve ball problem that will delay them so that the other powers of the world in Civilization per se have time to catch up and thus they become a prominent problem again and strategy becomes essential again. Bringing that flintlock rifle Division versus laser tank situation up again, now the laser tanks have to deal with say an alien abductions that take some units or population from cities, or an earthquake that wrecks their cities so some or many city works or districts need repared, or a plague that ravages their cities and or armies rendering their units doing half damage at half health and their cities at half production or you can put different levels of severity on the disease with varying levels of severity in regards to Effectiveness with their troops and cities; even a meteorite that wipes one of their cities off the board would be good. And I think the new DLC might a dress this problem with the environmental disasters we saw, or I could be wrong.

[@alexanderrodriguezygibson7418]

Loyalty is the fix that civilization used in the rise and fall expansion. It makes you lose cities depending on at least 6 separate factors that you have to balance, including in a rough sense, how many cities you have, meaning that if you are doing better, you are more likely to have cities desert you.

[@PixlPlayer]

My favorite part is when I can't possibly lose because that's when I get to toy with the ai. (One time I surrounded Denmark by land and sea and then watched them die)

[@windflier2169]

“AI doing unexpected thing” -Gandhi has a Nuke.

[@dieterbohm9700]

That may be unexpected if you are new to the game, but if you play a lot then you are goint to expect that xD

[@jimmykeffer7401]

I know people who enjoy the last few hours, and feel a kind of power trip from knowing they can't possibly lose. My little brother loves these moments even more than the uncertainty.

[@TheChickenSnyper]

I'm reminded of Sword of the Stars 1, where a Grand Menace would show up on turn 100. Some of these had interesting gamplay implications, like the Peacekeeper who would attack any fleet over a size threshold and defend whoever is under attack for 20 turns. Because the Peacekeeper is somewhat predictable, he can be played around almost like a new AI player. On the other hand, there's the Planet Buster, a projectile fired from some doomsday weapon in the neighboring galaxy that by chance or intent will pass through our galaxy. If you have enough planets to eat the loss, the most effective thing to do is get out of its way. If you don't, you either need to have the right combination of technologies to build ships that can kill it, or you set your AI replacement to maximum belligerence and quit the game. There's also AI rebellions. AI technologies are amazingly powerful, resulting in 50% increases in income, industrial output, research, and even accuracy. However, there's some chance that the AI will decide its better off without people and take between a quarter and half of your planets to run its own empire. Which is hostile to the remaining planets and has effectively an endless budget.

[@Poctyk]

TheChickenSnyper yes! I did it. I finally found someone who mentioned SoTS in this comment section

[@DarkPrject]

Every time I play a strategy game I want to focus on research and then get crushed because I didn't put the resources I used to make my soldiers stronger into making more of them. Always makes me wonder why those power ups are there to be researched in the first place.

[@megaagentj2248]

I have an idea.. For the volcano,within 3 turns both ways it will random do a small bubbling lava animation that good players can spot and change to prepare

[@JosephJoboLicayan]

This is clearly shouting STELLARIS STELLARIS STELLARIS all over