4X Do you love/hate micromanagement in 4X?

[Norfleet]

You can micro every bit out of a blood economy in Dominions4, with patrols, collecting slaves, leaving slaves, adding up totals needed, calculating unrest, etc. but you don't have to get everything right to get most things right.

I dunno about that, if it's anything like the Dominions I remember (2), tireless devotion to micromanagement is what makes the difference between life or death. It's always that one little thing that gets you, and if you're not there, constantly double and triple-checking every last detail, you'll eventually get fucked by them.

 

[adddeed]

Make good AI for 4x micromanagement and it'd be a good backdrop for a sandboxxy RPG. Take a revamped MOO2 and have several AI's battling for Orion in the background, while yourself, a struggling privateer, explores the galactic neighborhood and does quests. The "simulation" running in the background would allow for dynamic wars and events to spice up the universe. The quests and character stats would help to balance the randomness of what hapens in the univers.

Why do I bring this up? Because adventure/rpg space games always seem to be static in nature. The wars, if there're any, are scripted or preplanned somehow. Nothing much happens which surprises you, at least, once the plot is done. It's not that interesting things can't emerge from AI's or non-scripted processes, but that game creators don't usually allow it or pursue it.
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This was already done, Space Rangers 2. One of my fav games.

 

[KoolNoodles]

You can micro every bit out of a blood economy in Dominions4, with patrols, collecting slaves, leaving slaves, adding up totals needed, calculating unrest, etc. but you don't have to get everything right to get most things right.

I dunno about that, if it's anything like the Dominions I remember (2), tireless devotion to micromanagement is what makes the difference between life or death. It's always that one little thing that gets you, and if you're not there, constantly double and triple-checking every last detail, you'll eventually get fucked by them.

Sure, it CAN be the difference between a slight advantage or disadvantage, but that depends on your own situation, opponent(s), troops composition etc. My point was more that you don't have to micro every single thing, as long as you get the important stuff checked off. If a little inefficiency loses you the game, you were probably doing something else wrong.

That said, Dominions is very micro-intensive so I grade it a little differently how much micro is needed to actually play the game well, as opposed to some other strategy games that do indeed have a lot of micro but not nearly as much as Dominions.

 

[Norfleet]

Nah, it's more than just a "slight" advantage or a disadvantage. It's a slight advantage...that compounds exponentially over the course of the game. I've seen this firsthand in players I specifically trained to play exactly like me. They're playing using the exact same strategy, but...they're just not QUITE as meticulous as I am, and so they lose a battle here and there that they should have won (or not fought at all), while I don't, and these little failures of micromanagement snowball until by the time the Final Showdown begins, I have a sizeable and overwhelming lead. Consider that every time that little bit of inefficiency, that minor oversight, loses you a battle in Dominions, it's a double-whammy, because you lose, while your opponent gains. You might not notice it if your opponent is equally sloppy and thus makes as many mistakes as you, but if you're fighting against someone just as good in concept, but an anal-retentive stickler for the details...well, it adds up, often rather quickly. Dominions is very, very unforgiving of these things.

 

[Destroid]

The amount of micro was what put me off playing much more Dominions 4. Even on the smallest maps there was an insane amount of micro, I can't imagine the horror of playing on a large map of 100 or more provinces.

 

[Stargazer_]

I love to micro on most games except the star craft series, I mainly don't like micro in that game because its made in such a way that perfect micro overshadows perfect macro in high level play. IMHO macro is important to in strategy games, you can't have micro overshadow in a competitive strategy game or else you might as well being play a twitch action game. High level competitive star craft crosses those boundaries.Dominions on the other hand just my type of game since your not competing against other players and although its heavy on the micro, the a.i is somewhat lenient on mistakes compared to a 20 year old korean.

 

[Norfleet]

Am I the only one who goes total micro on my SMAC terraforming, in order to get maximum nutrients, energy and minerals?
Let's face it: A properly terraformed empire looks cool. Even one of the slobbish forest everywhere factions look cool, in a way.

No, I do it also, because otherwise the AI won't. YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS.

The amount of micro was what put me off playing much more Dominions 4. Even on the smallest maps there was an insane amount of micro, I can't imagine the horror of playing on a large map of 100 or more provinces.

I can. I've done this before back in 2, it happens when you're heading for the final showdown on what was once a full house of the largest map in the game. This was pretty much the scenario I was best at because, well, most people of generation ADHD lack the focus for it.

 

[whatevername]

I like battles in AOW:SM that involve ~50 units.
Hate all the micro in Stars! I tried to play as hyper expansion once and quit once I colonized 30 planets.
Hate to launch missiles and kite with a bunch of destroyers in MOO2.

 

[Dim]

hate; either its completely pointlessly stupid or at least trying to replay the slower grander parts becomes too painful cause micro parts redone to death.
http://www.listal.com/list/grind-micro-tedium-interface

 

[you know what time it is]

Loved it in Distant Worlds. When you get your empire going after starting at pre-warp age, shit gets real really fast. Sizing up neighbors, organizing defensive and offensive fleets, retrofitting old ships and designing new ones, controlling your explorers manually because otherwise they tend to facetank aggressive fleets and space monsters, spotting and tracking pirate movements, looking for promising planets for future colonies etc. It's RTwP but lately i'v been playing without pausing, and it's awesome.

 

[JarlFrank]

It really depends on the size of a game, playing civ with 10 cities is great, playing civ with 100 cities and having to choose 20 buildings every turn gets tedious as fuck.