Crazy Politics

[tenbsmith]

This is the thread for telling your tales of crazy political situations in ST4X.

AE 7.15 with two Trade Routes in place. A Trade Summit was in the works to negotiate another Trade Route. (We'd had several Trade Summits, but they kept extending existing Trade Routes instead opening the third one.) Boom, A Solar War breaks out in the third politics slot. The next turn income dives from $1.8k to $170. But the next turn the Solar War spontaneously changes into a Trade Alliance.

[anrdaemon]

T'was no solar war. T'was a pub brawl!

[Cory Trese]

Star Trading Captains hired to destroy supply ships as part of the Solar War realized it just wasn't profitable with all those Xeno pods floating around and went back to trading Spice. Everyone on the homeworld had a bit and decided, in a moment of lucidity, that war is hell.

[tenbsmith]

Thanks for the lore-based explanation Cory.

To be clear, I like the Crazy Politics of ST4X. It keeps you on your toes.

[En1gma]

Playing Cadar, Thulun, Rychart, trying to use Rychart and Thulun to drive Research through the roof, only I forgot how many EP Rychart gets. In two years time, I have had 4-5 Spy Battles, 3 Total Wars, 3 Trade Wars, 4 Trade Embargoes, often having one pop up as soon as the treaty goes into effect. I'm scraping the game because my economy refuses to level out and make me some money.

I forgot to mention that all this is happening on NORMAL! I shudder to think how miserably this game would fail on higher difficulties...

[Cory Trese]

Very hard to reconcile that post with the metrics we are collecting. Maybe there is something triggering outlier behavior.

If you send a saved game to me, I can run analysis on the history table and put it through the simulator's policheck.

[En1gma]

I'm not rooted (to send the data), and those numbers are to the best of my recollection... I might be able to post screenshots of the faction screens, if that would help.

I have only achieved three positive political things once or twice, but they're only up for 12 cycles or so before being replaced with a negative event.

I'll play the game, and jot down what events trigger and when... Might take me a few days though

[contributor]

I just finished one of my first games on crazy. The politics were killer. They were bad up to the year 4-something but then I got stuck with 2 Spy Wars and a Trade War that lasted until near the end of the 6th year. I had 7 colonies and barely managed to just keep building habs and spice dens for them. In the end, I sold off my entire fleet because the xeno weren't attacking. I had cut off their only corridor of expansion and there was lots of space between us, so they just left me alone. I was ready to welcome them though, please come eat all these stubborn in-fighting SOBs so I can end this game and start over. I actually almost quit the game, but stuck it out until the tide turned and I was able to restart my building and economy.

[Cory Trese]

That's a bummer contributor, sorry you are not enjoying the game. We're definitely getting a lot of feedback and data points about the political system in 4X right now.

Feedback always appreciated. I was trying to spot your game in the metrics, since it sounds like you're in the 0.001 outlier area but I couldn't find it. Were you on Mac OS X?

[contributor]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to gripe. I wouldn't say I didn't totally enjoy it. There were moments when I cursed the TBs and their sadism, but actually being able to turn it around was somewhat satisfying. It was sort of a catch 22. The fact that the xenos completely left me alone was somewhat anti-climactic, but if they would have attacked me at all, it would have totally crushed me. Interesting dynamics to say the least.

I was on Android (4.2.2 I believe)

[Cory Trese]

Ah, I was filtering for desktop metrics. That explains why I didn't find any games like that.

Just looking at the last 250,000 turns played on Android, politics seems to be performing to spec, with the expected rare outliers and anomalies based on player action and/or lack of action but nothing stands out as malfunctioning.

We endlessly work to collect data, refine systems and balance the game to make it more and more fun. Thanks for the feedback.

[Cory Trese]

LOL, lessons learned. Our next 4X game will be better, promises

[tenbsmith]

Hmmm... I have to disagree with Cory Trese 's last comment. I think ST4X is really good, the best 4X I've played on Android. Now that I understand how to deal with politics and unexpected population growth, these elements add an interesting challenge to the game.

On to the reason I came to this thread, my most recent crazy politics experience.

In order to prevent the Zenga from using a nearby Red Dwarf as a launching point for invasion, I had Thulun settle the system. Thulun's third system, when the other factions had only 2. The red dwarf was only four tiles from two Zenga systems, which led to a constant stream of Zenga warships. The Krang were also sending a steady stream of warships. We squeezed the Empire's tight economy and built new Chaff Fighters, but this led to an imbalance in faction ships. We were not surprised when a Solar War broke out between Rychart and Cadar.

The Empire's income went negative. A dozen weeks later, our treasury went negative. We initiated a Dual of Assassins, at no cost due to our negative treasury, but it would it would take a long time come to fruition. In the mean time, the Trade Route between Thulun and Cadar ended, leaving them with no agreement. The economy tanked and our debt accelerated. The Zenga and Krang continued their attacks. Things looked bleak.

Then, after a thorough thrashing, the Krang withdrew. We demolished two ships, balancing the faction count and making the Empire's income less negative. But, the Solar War continued and the Dual of Assassins was far from complete. We were unable to initiate negotiations to replace the lost Trade Route because of our negative treasury.

Unexpectedly, without help from me, Thulun and Cadar initiated a Trade Alliance. The Empire's income turned slightly positive. Twenty or more turns later, the Treasury moved out of deficit. We had competing demands on the Empire's limited income, but we made it a priority created two new Colony Ships and even out the number of systems per faction. The Dual of Assassins was nearing completion.

Then, on one turn, the Solar War ended due to 'faction concerns about the Xeno' and the Dual of Assassins ended, successfully ending the Solar War. That's crazy, that both events would happen on the same turn.

I must admit, I almost quit the game when the Treasury went highly negative. But, it was very gratifying to turn it around.

[Cory Trese]

It is an acquired taste, I think. Don't get me wrong, I really like ST 4X but it has a lot of problems that prevent it from being popular.

Being unique and different can be good, but it can also work against a title's commercial success.

[ntsheep]

While it's important to pay attention to reviews both good and bad, too many people are to quick to judge these days and blame others for their mistakes. I've said it many times, the biggest downside to the internet is that it empowers too many assholes that are just out to cause trouble. ST 4X is a great game in my opinion. It takes an understanding of the game type to enjoy it. If someone has never played a 4X or RTS before, their in for a whole lot of learning the hard way. Games like this take patience. It's not a jump in and start whomping the butt off your enemies game that so many people seem to enjoy and make up the majority of the so called Free To Play games. In a lot of ways I wish the systems of Like\Dislike buttons and leaving reviews weren't part of the net. It would take a lot of stress off of goods people like the TB's and we wouldn't have to deal with so many trolls.