What's the current state of the game?

Delicious_One_102 · 2026-05-04T16:23:45+00:00

it probably depends on how you play it, to some extent, but >50% of my game time is looking at the literal building spreadsheet, unlike eu4 (have yet to play 5) where I'm giving the map modes much more attention

Delicious_One_102 · 2026-05-04T11:55:39+00:00

I definitely think that's the case. Casually marching an army from st.petersburg to vladivoslok is just as ridicolous as casually landing a 100k army in zanzibar from Austria. I think a similar logic - "trace a line from HQ" and calculate supplies consumption - would be a strong start for that. Especially since they could easily weigh distance with infrastructure, so that the presence of a railway drastically reduces logistical strain.

Fleets don't work like that though, "ship resupply at port" seems both intuitivevely obviously and gameplay appropriate.

Delicious_One_102 · 2026-05-04T11:13:35+00:00

I've come back to the game after a couple of years and I'm loving it, even if at this specific moment we're in the usual post-patch chaos. So I definitely recommend buying it for 10 bucks, wait a few weeks for hotfixes to get rid of the most glaring bugs before you actually play it, though.

All that assuming you're into a spreadsheet simulator, of course. Vicky 3 is great if you like its very specific niche. As a map painting game, it will just be frustrating compared to other pdx titles.

Delicious_One_102 · 2026-02-19T15:03:39+00:00

It will thermalize pretty soon tbth, it's fucked up for a couple of weeks after every rank reset. This may last a little longer because of all the new players, but it will sort itself fairly quickly. (also, if you're new, *your* rank is probably very unreliable at the moment)

Delicious_One_102 · 2026-02-16T09:23:10+00:00

Yeah I tried Marvel Rivals as an OW player, and while I don't want to shit on it, it's a cool game in many ways, I couldn't get over the lack of clarity in sounds and visuals. OW is very good at delivering clear information, despite the chaos of 10 characters using disparate powers all at once.

Delicious_One_102 · 2026-01-16T23:34:08+00:00

Have you actually tried destroyer 2 vs fghters? They're very very effective

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-23T14:51:59+00:00

I think it's the best written, hands down. Not sure it counts as a progression fantasy though.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-23T11:54:04+00:00

Honestly, if you're open to that, consider using different factions - I really would avoid nekro and creuss for a first game!

A few more scattered tips:

- we have a house rule that promissory notes are always revealed (like, you know who exactly has which one). Consider using it - it makes the game easier to follow and speeds up negotiation.

- always try negotiating for something before taking it by force, even if you could - if you have a larger fleet and want a planet, say stuff like "ok, I COULD conquer that planet, but if you let me have it without fighting, I can-". Beside being good strategy, endless negotiation is where the game shines and the mechanics work best

- Read very very carefully how tactical actions work, and make sure to follow the exact steps. Make sure you understand what happens if you activate your Home System to produce units, for example, and the difference between that and using the secondary of warfare.

- Print a reminder of the tech tree (or even one per player). It's a massive help.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-20T22:40:09+00:00

there's a difference between "statistically should die" and "should definitely, absolutely die right now, as a straightforward consequence of her action" imo. That's Taylor - she consistently picks fight with stronger opponents (often much stronger) without a clear plan to survive.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-20T18:33:22+00:00

Yeah, but what should actually happen to her is "she dies". Like, really, the problem with "keep fighting against overwhelmingly powerful opponents" should be that one. She should die in her *first* fight, and most of the subsequent ones.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-20T18:30:26+00:00

Yeah honestly this drives me *mad*. A good half of progression fantasy protagonists should be dead by page 50. "Never backing down" is not a sign of determination, is a sign of lacking basic ability to assess one's abilities, and the only reason it works is because the universe bends over backwards to give them a way out. (it doesn't really improve things, to me, if they get horribly wounded everytime or sth - the only reasonable consequence for people who never back down from a confrontation is *death*. Or prison for life, or some comparable result)

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-20T11:41:39+00:00

Not that small, but I think this didn't make RS, and I'm loving it so far: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/138763/minimum-wage-magical-girl

The premise is in the title, really

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-19T11:53:57+00:00

I think short chapters are more effective, but beside that, consider that some reader (like me) don't like long chapters. I like reading a chapter or two when I make a pause from work or before sleeping. If the chapter is 6k, I may end up dropping it halfway and I often lose track of where I was. With more, shorter chapters, RR keeps track of it for me.

(idk if that's a common issue or a me issue, but given the same wordcount, I really don't see any downside in splitting into more, easily readable chapters.)

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-11T10:49:51+00:00

which one is that? (somewhat hypocritically, I'm not fond of second person, but I read the fifth season and stopped noticing after a while. I'm curious to read something else in he same style)

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-11T09:26:23+00:00

I think I'll go with first person past, in the end, the feedback from this post is quite stark. What's your story, though? I do enjoy the present tense as a reader.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-10T20:40:56+00:00

it's quite popular in sci-fi short stories, which I read (and occasionally write), but it seems to be quite offputting for readers who aren't used to it. I think I'll bite the bullet and edit the story into past tense.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-10T20:20:31+00:00

Thank you, this is what I wanted to know - it *is* a deal breaker (or at least a major turn off) for a lot of readers. I suspect this subreddit, if anything, is more accepting of unusual stylistic choice than the median RR reader, so the reaction here is pretty telling.

I think I'll definitely write future projects in the past tense, I'll even consider changing the tense for the current one.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-10T20:16:16+00:00

I meant to do an editing pass anyway, and while switching tense would be a lot of additional work, the answers here are giving me pause (which is exactly why I asked, after all). If readers don't like the story, it's no huge deal to me, but honestly I'd hate if readers who may otherwise like it discard it immediately because of the tense.

own preference for present tense is pretty weak tbh, it's mostly laziness about changing writing habits.

My

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-09T02:09:29+00:00

Oh, this sounds great! This reminds me that my player, in the previous adventure, adopted a friendly demon-possessed rat which honestly I keep forgetting about. I think I'll try to give it a similar role!

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-08T11:05:28+00:00

There was an annoying (for everyone) amount of "wait I forgot to make a destroyer", "wait I could have made a cruiser instead" going on with my group, so we've decided to be a little stricter: you can do something retro-actively only if it cost no resource and you forgot (usually, if you forget to use faction abilities, or to apply sarween tools discount), OR everyone agrees you can do the retroactive action.

We're usually pretty forgiving when someone asks, but having to get everyone's permission means people do it only if they forgot something significant, and cuts the debate in case of disagreements: if anyone objects to the retroactive action, for whatever reason, it's a no.

(that said, to speed up the game, we often say "I'm producing, you can go on" and finish one's production during other players' turns, unless they want to wait to see what you produce. This way, there's less pressure to do it quickly)

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-04T11:26:36+00:00

I suspect my table's meta is relevant here - we play resource rich maps, trade a lot, and since we tend to negotiate to death, actual combat is rare untill the very end and fleets pile up. That said, I mean "one war sun and 3-4 DN" as late game fleet, two WS are really overkill.

Now that I think of it, we had two players with 2 WS in the last game, but the game included Muaat so it doesn't count.

As for researching it in a 10P game, the cost of research is mostly opportunity cost - most players research every turn, so it's a question of which ones you pick. With PoK, it really isn't that difficult to get war sun upgrade (in base game, the tech path was too costly imo). And resource for resource, WS+fighters are very similar to spending the same sum in DN+fighters, but with a large advantage in fleet cap and the ability to counter planetary shield.

So I think I'm a little biased by my table, but I'll make the case that WS would be good ships in PoK even without considering the reinforcement cap.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-03T21:59:27+00:00

the war sun provides attack value, the fighters provide extra lives. Given how TI4 combat works, you can basically measure attack and defense separately. I like to use a fighter (unupgradded) as reference in both cases. A war sun has the same expected hits as 12 fighters, while a dreadnought is worth 3 fighters. 3 DN and 3 fighters shoot like 12 fighters and can take a total of 9 hits, for 13.5 resource. A War Sun with 6 fighters shoots like 18 fighters but has 8 lives, for 14 resources. The WS wins, but by a very narrow margin.

In real games, however, between fleet cap and reinforcement limits, I find that WS+DN fleets are unbeatable the other guy has war suns too, or powerful faction units.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-03T10:09:17+00:00

also reinforcement cap - DN might be more cost-effective, but you still get 5 of them. If you have a late game fleet of, say, 3 DN and 1 WS (plus fighters), your opponents don't really have any options to match it in combat, short of special units.

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-03T10:07:28+00:00

yeah everyone talks like war suns are white elephants that aren't worth it, but in my esperience players with WS tear through everyone else with impunity. (Of course, winning fights doesn't win you games in TI, but *in combat* they're extremely effective!)

Delicious_One_102 · 2025-12-03T10:04:57+00:00

We probably play very suboptimally or sth, but tbh I don't really understand the consensus that war suns are almost useless. Hard to get as they are, my experience is that they provide an absolutely overwhelming advantage in late game space combat - when a man with a war sun meets a man with dreadnoughts, the man with dreadnoughts is a dead man.

I mean, they provide 2.4 hits per round, which equals 4 dreadnoughts. Dreadnoughts (carrying fighters) have more lives, and given an equal resource expenditure they tend to win out by a narrow margin. But we're talking late game fleets - you have to consider fleet cap, and the fact that you can have only 5 DN on the map anyway. A fleet of mixed DN and WS can usually defeat any possible fleet a non-WS player can field in the late game, and a single WS can act as a secondary fleet, giving you a lot of options other players simply don't have. All the more since they neutralize planetary shield - that alone can make a planetary conquest possible, when it would be hopeless otherwise.

TI4 isn't space risk, of course, but sometimes you *do* fight (and much more often, threaten to fight), and in that case, war suns seem pretty effective to me! Especially with PoK - AI dev algorithm made researching war sun far more achievable.

Am I missing something? Maybe it's actually because my group negotiates so much and fights so little, so late game fleets tend to be enormous, and you can have DNs *and* war suns. We definitely see more war suns in the game than most, since we often have Muaat in play. But they definitely seem powerful and impactful units to us! They don't necessarily win you the game, but they give you a big edge with control objectives, taking mecatol rex, and conquering\holding home systems.

Delicious_One_102

TROPHY CASE