I haven't, I don't have Stellaris, but to be honest I am kind of exhausted by the theme of 4x games which always boils down to "paint the map your color".... like I don't want to, I am bored with that. I want to win but the unquestioned assumptions in the foundations of 4x games is a bit too cynical for me even though I love playing war games, but then again there is a difference between two sides blasting it out in a war and an ever growing suffocating empire that consumes all under its color and banner and has no other objective than endless growth...

Almost every 4x game is concerned with consolidating power under your control, I mean yeah it is fun right! I am not trying to bash it as inherently bad but at a certain level I find it a really constricting theme after awhile even though I love playing evil villains in fantasy as the next person. I just want more from the genre in terms of evolution of game design at a foundational level not just more stuff and more dlc and more mechanics and more different kinds of space war. If the only shape of an empire game is of an oppressive unstoppable regime either succeeding or failing to rise I just think that is pretty limited in vision. Not that there isn't an amazing diversity of strategy games that don't fit the mold that I am describing, but in general I think there is truth to my point.

For a reference of what something different can look like, see modern euro game design in board gaming, in particular I think the board game Oceans creates a compelling strategy experience that while still being about winning isn't inherently about just being the most powerful creature or presence on the board at any one moment. Mutual benefits are complex and arise spontaneously because the objective isn't complete annihilation for anybody.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/232414/oceans

I guess you could argue my criticism is all a matter of perspective, any kind of winning is going to encourage more winning and snowball to some degree in a system that isn't totally random, but then again the feeling of getting near the end game of almost any 4x gets a little bit tedious for most people, not only because every single turn takes more and more admin/micromanagement of a bigger and bigger empire but also because the most common impact of winning a 4x game is that the gameboard/environment becomes more and more homogeneous and less and less dynamic the closer you get to winning. Winning should reward you with interesting choices and dynamic board states not an experience that feels like a chokehold even though winning again can always be reframed as the process of gaining a chokehold on a system.

(again, a general point, I know and love that there always exception to the rule)

Yeah and the mechanism for adjusting your phasers is in the style of "Don't Stop Talking And Nobody Explodes" co-operative minigames that border on silliness in their fiddly complexity at points as part of the fun (also a vehicle to poke fun at the goofy technobabble in Star Trek hahaha).

Harry Kim, we all want you to be promoted, but it isn't productive to be upset with other Ensigns for getting promoted more than you.

I love how upset some people get about Tilly serving on a big burly masculine warship that sometimes has the serious job of killing people.

If a crew like this didn't have people like Tilly on it, it would have fallen catastrophically apart after the 10th crisis or so.

Especially in this season it so obvious how Tilly's intelligence manifests in being able to bypass entire complexes of prejudice and social norms (perceived and unconscious, spoken and unspoken) whether they be human or alien, and get right to the point with somebody. In an organization that is constantly trying to establish trust with a variety of unknown actors, Tilly is an incredible asset.

Stay angry, fools.

edit You know what is actually hilarious, TNG failed to really use Troi's empathetic mind reading in interesting ways for most of its run, to the shows great detriment, but Tilly is basically who Troi would have been if Troi hadn't been sidelined or written to be unconfident or naive for the stupidest reasons in most episodes. Tilly regularly walks into rooms and nearly instantaneously perceives the emotional context of the people in the room (whether or not she knows them that well) and boldly addresses it head on in a way that somehow isn't overbearing, aggressive or intimidating. I don't understand how this can be understood as anything but a minor superpower.

I am loving this seasons so far, does anyone know if I watch the TNG episode that this season connects too if it will spoil anything for later seasons of TNG? I am still in like season 4 or 5 as I am going through TNG, VOY and DS9 all at the same time.

Loved the first episode, I think the way they brought Book back made sense and I think the season set up connecting to an underutilized TNG episode is absolutely awesome, I could not be more down for this kind of season of Discovery. On to the second episode!

I am really gonna miss Discovery, I am not sure Doug Jones is going to miss dressing up as Saru for every shoot though.

Still though wow he really knocks it out of the park with conveying an alien with a physicality much different than ours, he has to easily be one of the best aliens in the whole series.

I really hope this is good, I am actually really excited to see how this turns out, I don’t necessarily have high expectations but also I don’t think there is any reason it has to suck so long as Georghiu isn’t let of the moral hook for being an awful, murderous leader.

Also Michelle Yeoh is great so I am excited fuck it.

Scoot yo ass around to it then

I can't wait!

Paramount doesn’t even want to write about the Utopia anymore. All of the Picard series is about corruption, greed, power, and the Federation failing on all accounts. I hate them for it. Star Trek is supposed to be a glimpse into a hopeful future, not a reflection of our current problems but with phasers added.

I think there are many valid criticisms of new trek but I really just don't see this, old star trek had the same shit

How about the fact that cars are so complicated now that working on them yourself feels next to impossible but you also have to somehow find mechanics that you trust to fix your vehicle when you really have no objective way to know if the mechanics are just bullshitting you or are actually genuinely investigating the problem, not just tossing away what you are saying with a mental note that you are clueless. Fixing a bicycle on the other hand is almost comically simple in comparison.

Also can’t forget the thrill that it only takes a second or two of distraction at the wrong moment to kill yourself and other innocent people and irrevocably send your life down a worse path. To be clear, this experience is happening when you are tired, grumpy and stressed about getting to work or getting back from work. It’s a nice little detail that we aren’t all driving boats around or something where hitting other boats requires a bunch of really stupid choices chained together, all we have to do in a car is go slightly in the wrong direction for 3 seconds and boom just murdered somebodies kid.

What about an electric scooter? Or honestly tricycles with a big cargo spot on the back are pretty sweet so long as you have the space and aren’t going up any crazy hills (could get an electric tricycle thoo).

At the end of the day though, I love bicycles but they can’t work for everyone… which is why the hope for most American cities at least is in busses. I know everyone hates busses and they are usually considered the least cool thing ever but honestly they are the future for mass transit in the US. We ripped out all the streetcars which is heartbreaking but I think busses are the closest practical replacement.

LONG LIVE THE BUS

95% of people don’t live or go to 85% of the country? The problem of mass transit has nothing to do with people driving cars around in the middle of nowhere.

Ok I know people will say this is weird but watch through Star Trek Enterprise with Captain Archer since that was supposed to be a reboot for Star Trek that pulled in new fans. It explains the origin story of how humans got into space which I think helps a lot of newer watchers ground themselves in the universe easier. Make sure to make fun of it when it gets too absurd and always have a lighter nearby to hold up during the theme song.

Then go through TNG, Voyager and DS9 jumping between them every episode so you move through all three at the same time. I have been watching Star Trek with my gf this way and it is really fun to compare between the shows and it makes the bad episodes of any one particular series less exhausting because you get to take a break from that show.

Whenever you feel like it watch newer trek and catch up on it, I like all of it and some of it is really good.

Sprinkle in TOS episodes as you go, especially when there are direct callbacks to specific episodes (the SNW episode that echoes a TOS episode is a blast to watch right after watching the associated TOS episode they did such a good job).

It took me playing the classic masterpiece designs of board gaming like Agricola, Concordia and Dominion to make me realize how bloated most strategy video games are.

It ain’t about how complex the system is, it is about how meaningful and interesting your choices are and honestly some video games are just horrendous at making you do 1000 little tasks that don’t really matter.

I haven’t played stellaris though.

Something I find funny is that a lot of people who don’t know Star Trek that well and have only seen a couple of episodes assume Star Trek is the super optimistic view of humanity that is unrealistically positive about humanities future when if you actually look at the timeline in the 2000s and 2100s Star Trek is actually seriously apocalyptic. Humanity doesn’t turn to a good future out of some inevitable human kindness, it tries violence over and over again until some crazy guy makes a warp engine out of the rubble of destroyed civilization and the Vulcans show up.

I dunno but damn that Bell guy looks exactly like Sisko its weird

Literally one of the biggest plot lines in Discovery is struggling with a lovecraftian horror that annihilates entire planets and having the heroes save the day by sticking to a philosophy of diplomacy, logic and understanding even when most people are clamoring to just nuke the shit out of it?

Also, Picard can be silly but nowhere in its DNA does it abandon the heart of Star Trek for the pew pews? At the end of the second season the only thing that saves the day is characters coming to an understanding and trust with one another? Picard doesn’t have a big fist fight on a cliff or something. The only thing that works to resolve the conflict is establishing trust with a character who has the power to unleash a massive enemy?

…did you watch the same shows I did?

Yeah they have flaws, lots of em, but I don’t think your read on those shows is fair.

On the flip side a lot of times the only reason characters survive encounters with entities far more powerful than them is a laser like focus on understanding what an unknown entities motivations are.

I love it when a Star Trek captain phones up some evil looking spaceship that is blowing shit the fuck up and is like “what is it precisely that you want?”. The alien picking up inside the ship usually doesn’t want to talk and it takes the captain cutting through several layers of bullshit until they discover why and the why usually drastically changes the situation.

At the same time, this strategy isn’t portrayed in a naive way that encourages aliens to walk all over starfleet, when you understand the motivations of romulans you understand you better blow them the fuck up if they start testing you or they will see it culturally as a weakness and invade…

Further, there are entities that are just an order of magnitude more powerful that can’t be stopped with any degree of force like Q and the characters just have to deal with it which I like because it keeps Star Trek from becoming a power fantasy about super heroes.