Comment on Possibly the most complex space strategy game yet made has just received its last major update before 1.0 release

janAkali@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• OrdinaryDemiGuy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Doesnt sound like a space game

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  • janAkali@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Fair, but: Star Fleet Battles Traveller Adventure 5: Trillion Credit Squadron

    For TCS - you have literally control of around hundred of space ships that each can hold many sub-spaceships, crew, tanks, etc. and you control each and every weapon.

    Some random blogpost about TCS:

    Sadly, Trillion Credit Squadron does nothing whatsoever to make it simpler for the math-impaired to build and battle starships. Indeed, the TCS includes among its recommended materials “calculators or adding machines” and even suggests the use of programming a home computer "to handle much of the tedium of the design process

    Programming skills was almost a requirement to play and compete in this game.

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• ChicoSuave@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Funny how you dismiss Terra Invicta out of hand without playing it or understanding the scope of what is required from the player. First you need to convince Earth that it is being invaded AND this is a bad thing while 6 other factions try to take advantage of what’s happening. The aliens are also a faction that plays a lot like right wing governments - lots of information control and emotional encouragement to accept atrocities.

  While this propaganda war plays out across Earth the aliens are building bases into the solar system like it’s WW2 and they’re island hopping towards the enemy homeland. So you need to get out into space (before the other factions get there and claims all the good rocks). And that takes in game years, which also adds to the handling time.

  While these two big things are playing out in the game you will also have technology to research and the tech tree is HUGE. The “late game” is something you get to after a couple weeks of playing.

  Tell me more about your silly adventures across half a continent. I will tell you how I conquered a solar system, went to the alien system, and made them stop fucking with Earth.

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  • janAkali@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I didn’t want to dismiss it. For what I see, it’s probably a really fun and complex strategy. It’s just that retro board games are on a whole another level of “complex” and I doubt we will ever get close to it in the future.

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    • fartsparkles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’m a huge retro board game fan (we just called them board games back in my day) but computer games have been implementing far more complex systems, and far more systems, than board games for decades.

      The Campaign for North Africa, for the board game example, isn’t exactly complicated as most of the rules are referenced as you get to the mechanic or scenario. People talk of the 200 page manual like it’s scary but D&D has more pages of rules across the PHB, DMG, and MM alone.

      The “complexity” you’re talking of is basically the admin that a computer game does for you in the blink of an eye, without you needing to think about it.

      Europa Universalis was a very complex board game that required 6 players and was turn based yet when it became a computer game, the complexity increased, it was made real-time, the number of events taking place across the map increased, and you could finally play it solo (sure, you can play the board game solo but you spend more time doing admin that playing). And the game has been built upon for years, the 5th one just came out.

      If it spun out into a board game again, mechanics would need to be paired back again as, without the computer to ease the implementation of mechanics to the player doesn’t have to do it themselves, it’d be the most baffling rule book ever.

      Again, I’m a huge fan of board games. But computer games have offered way more complexity since the 90s and Civilization.

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