>>2479539
No

There's 1 viable strategy which is to ignore Earth and rush space ships. Want to run a ground game and defend Earth with armies and space defenses? Sorry, that's the wrong choice. The aliens will just spam missions to respawn the alien nation every turn. The protectorate will steal a control point from you every turn for free because people are scared they can bomb you from space. Even though you have SPACE DEFENSES WHICH MAKE YOU UNBOMBABLE in every region.

Want to make super nations and improve things for humanity? Sorry, wrong choice again. You should be building only mission control and boost. Everything else is a trap because space ships are the only thing that matters. Investments into anything other than mission control and boost take too long for a return on investment too. If you haven't won by 2040 then you played wrong. The devs say that with their balance not me.

Want to make alliances with like minded factions? Sorry, wrong choice again. It's not 6 factions vs the aliens with some infighting it's 6 factions vs you. Everyone is on the same team and will focus on you because YoU'Re ToO sTrOnG. You will never be able to change their mind.

Want to experiment with different techs and weapon loadouts on those ships? Sorry, wrong choice again. The correct choice was going fusion power and missiles/torpedoes. Everything else is inferior.

Then you get to the actual fighting with those space ships and it's dogshit. Dogshit that you're going to have to do hundreds of times in a game to win even if you're min maxing.

>>2479801
I should add that if you haven't won by 2040 then you played wrong applies to the 202x campaign starts. For the 2003 start if you haven't won by 2020 you played wrong.

>>2479539
I have 80h in it and I haven't done anything remotely satisfying it.

>>2479801
>If you haven't won by 2040 then you played wrong.
I assume you are exaggeration a bit, but how true is it really? My current run is semi-ruined, but I was under the impression that if you continue struggling you'll get the W eventually. Am I wrong?

>>2479891
The game loves its death spirals and I am not exaggerating with the timelines. You can get out of death spirals but it's incredibly tedious. If you let the aliens land a single assault carrier you fucked up bad because now they can recruit aliens on earth just like everyone else. They will always have 6 guys running around you'll have to kill and the xenofauna will constantly keep resprouting.

If you let the alien nation form you fucked up bad. The hate you get from killing it is massive which means constant retaliation strikes which means constant rebuilding which is tedious. If the alien nation can form once though then that means they can respawn every turn.

If the protectorate manages to build their station you fucked up bad. They will steal your best control point every turn. They will never steal anyone elses control points. You can crackdown and purge the points they steal but eventually you'll fail one and slowly lose all your points.

Basically, if you do anything that isn't rush ships with missile spam and kill everyone else in space, including alien scanners and assault carriers, then you fucked up and will suffer the consequences. Hooded Horse HATES every other strategy. The other AIs will never, ever help you either. They'll all dogpile you because you're the player.

>>2479891
what keeps you playing? is there the shadow of a fun game in there? is the premise fun enough to keep tinkering in spite of things?

>>2479921
NTA, I'm the guy bitching with essays. The game has some super cool systems with improving nations, making super nations, building ground defense systems against nukes and bombardment, ground combat is meh but the planning and nation buildup behind it is fun. Unfortunately all of that is a trap and simply the wrong decision. The ONLY thing that matters is your space fleet and the only loadout that will work for the whole game is missile spam. It wasn't always like this.

>>2479921
>what keeps you playing?
Space empire stage. It's a lot of fun, but I'm in what the other anon called death-spiral.

>>2479907
>Hooded Horse
Pavonis. HH is the publisher.

>>2479953
You right

>>2479930
I remember the leaked alpha. It was unironically better than what launched. If only it was fucking stable..

>>2479971
Near release I had a lot of fun. I was able to play a ground game where I focused on nation building and letting the aliens land then killing them with armies. I didn't even do the capital moving exploit that let you make India own all of Earth I just made continent nations. The AI actually fought each other too.

Now all of that was nerfed. I get removing the capital moving exploit but they've been slowly nerfing the super states too. Like recently China got claims removed so now they can't own all of the Pacific from New Zealand to Kamchatka. Why? The ground game was NEVER meta but it gets nerfed over and over. The game has 1 correct path, rush space ships with missiles, and everything else the devs absolutely fucking despise. Everything else is just a trap to make you lose after 40 hours.

>>2479539
You should play valkyrie's core instead.

>>2479976
I just remember them heavily nerfing the mercury dyson sphere tactic. It just gave you a ton of mission control but ofc the no fun allowed devs had to ruin it.

>>2479988
The total conversion mod? Is it any good? Review please?

The coop mod will save it, trust the plan.

>>2479995
It focus on earth's globe instead of space.
Lot of new mechanics. Also you can read story first (it's sadly unfinished).

>>2479539
I really love it but i have a serious case of pause/unpause autism.
Its basically all the busywork on a regular STG game without the 'send marines to kill ayyys in a XCOM type of scenario' and just the research stuff and buy shit to get buff for your agents till you get to the Stellaris space battle phase.
Oh and the whole 'It doesn't respects your time' meme is 100% real and in your face with this game, it hates your time.

>>2479801
All of this is true if you're doing a brvtal speedrun.

>>2479971
Because they balanced it for the superfans that played for thousands of hours instead of making it a fun game.

>>2479539
It's not really good unless you have a particular brand of autism.
>>2479988
This is true though. Actually uses the game's systems to make a somewhat interesting and enjoyable experience.

I think the game biggest issue is that theres not a REAL ground battle concept for either wait for the ayyys or if you get defeated in spess and have to turtle up and fight them on earth until you get the opportunity again to counterstrike.
Maybe that could be implemented in a future DLC?

>>2479907
Reminds me of Civ3, where basically all AIs are against the player and diplomacy is impossible. They'll all trade techs with each other for pennies but you can't get tech from them for even the most lopsided deal. The AI will constantly threaten and go to war against the player no matter what stage of the game or their chance of winning. It's dumb and results in every game playing like a turn based wargame or a tech rush to space.

>>2480019
Focusing on Earth sounds good. They ironically made a really good Earth based grand strategy game in their Stellaris battle simulator.

>>2480124
The brutal gameplay is ironically more forgiving because it'll kill you faster forcing a restart. Normal makes you think you have a chance at winning and you do but it'll take 4 times longer than just restarting and playing correctly.

>>2480229
Yea the current ground combat system is, "If you're doing this you lost already.". There is no benefit at all to ground combat.

>>2480266
Yup. It used to be like EUIV where all AIs were selfish and trying to help themselves. Now it's like every other game where every AI is against you.