That whole class of Civ-style games is a favorite for me, but it seems like no one can figure out how to stop those playthroughs from getting unwieldy about halfway through.

I've heard good things about Stellaris, but I can't confirm. Paradox does have a great solution to stale 4x lategames: scale up all the numbers without changing the actual gameplay, and make things so random and complicated that swingy bullshit can happen at any time.

Agreed.

Endless Legend is probably the closest to preventing the phenomenon you are describing, but even it drags in the middle.

Really, when you think about it, most games suffer from this, I think that's why I liked the Max Payne games over the other Rockstar games...they are quick, concise and keep your interest throughout, at the cost of being 4 hours long...

Firaxis hasn't delivered since Civ 4.

For me, making "things so random and complicated that swingy bullshit can happen at any time" isn't a solution, and Endless Legend is a piece of fucking shit.

I don't think anyone has ever actually gotten it right.
It's like those games need to have a midpoint where everything jumps up a tier, even if it's two fairly different games on either side of the midpoint.

But good talk, guys.

I've lost faith in Firaxis over the years. In fact after I bought Civ "Beyond Earth" I've boycotted them until they come out with a new Pirates! game. The exception for me is the Xcom remake, that was pretty neat.

I'm not crazy about Stardock either, but at least I don't feel like they take great pleasure in fucking their customers up the ass in the same way that whoever owns firaxis does.

XCom2 is the best thing Firaxis has done in years, but don't touch the add-ons.

The Civ franchise that dried up, although dlcs made Civ5 enjoyable at least. Beyond Earth was inexplicably bad.

Endless Legend had a lot of fresh ideas for the genre, but was too opaque to really connect with.

Swingy bullshit is a good partial solution to keeping things fresh in the lategame, but more needs to be done.

Max Payne 3 was a boring slog after the first couple missions. Totally lost its momentum, and would have benefited from a interesting story instead of taking the easy route with a hardboiled parody. (But then it wouldn't be Max Payne, I guess.)



That is all.

Brad Wardell's name has been unfairly smeared by petty, spiteful people.

He's a huge piece of shit. Personally. His politics. Not talking about rumours or innuendo - talking about what has actually come out of his mouth and is a matter of public record. If he actually had the rights to the Star Control 2 aliens, the Druuge would be the good guys.

He's a frequent poster at QT3 and yes he is a piece of shit. He falls under that category of I 'got mine fuck everyone else' of Republicans.

Go read his blog if you really want to hate him.

Oh yeah he was in The Sarkesian Effect.