I have civ games that I started years ago that are still incomplete. I regularly dump about 40 hours into a single civ game because I like the marathon pacing

Factorio isn't far off an RTS by mid game.

I just tried the demo for Dust Front earlier today, and that was basically me. I didn't take the time to actually build up any forces or bases so it was basically ten minutes of me running around the map before being overwhelmed by enemy forces.

Edit: also unfortunately I found out about the Dust Front dev's pro-Russia anti-LGBT stance. This is a link to a reddit thread about the dev, but it has screenshots of the dev's discord as evidence.

This is what I liked about Korean StarCraft 2. Hyper aggressive. Always rushing the opponent. One way or another, the game would end relatively quickly when I used a Korean build/strategy.

last hour spent hiding your last surviving villagers behind trees

mid game

So about 50ish hours in.

"Heehee I lost my main base but maybe these last two villagers can rebuild a settlement elsewhere and mount an effective resistance!"

Said ten year old me. Lol

Nope. Never worked 😂

If you are speed running yeah

This is what mindustry is. You either insta-rush, or you build so much op def, that the game basicaly ends up in stalemate.

This is what I loved about Empire Earth.

You'd start as Cavemen and need to build up your economy before transitions to the next age. You might be able to get lucky rushing with some Cave-Soldiers but if you were too slow your rock-throwing would get rolled by arrows.

So then the game turned from a military race to an expansion and economy race to move to the best age as quickly as possible. The maps were soooo big, but borders would be defined in early ages, so eventually you'd bump with your neighbor.

Then the negotiating starts. Alliances and resource trades - could be broken at any time but 2 Bronze Age better than 1.

I miss slowburn RTS. I hate the big person on small map look of Age of Empires. I wish Manor Lords woulda been dev'd harder into a solid RTS game, now that's a big map.

It helped some of my laid back lan parties back then tho. This strategy aged fast, but for a couple of times it could make it.

I'm with you on marathon pacing. It makes the combat more interesting because units are relevant longer. Plus it makes your science choices a much bigger deal

I miss the days when I didn't know anything about the politics of the people making things. Now it's like there's a never ending shit list you have to keep up with and add to. But then again is it just ignorance being bliss?

6 racks, refinery, depot, marine, reactor, 2x marine while getting bay, and then assault

I lost a whole lot, though. Terrible reaction time and I freeze when panicked

Fucking zerg rush strat. ...

With a bunch of players I could see it working!

I'd try to do a StarCraft comp stomp with my wife but we always ended up huddling together on one part of the map right from the start, to avoid the 1 CPU opponent's obviously-cheating horde of like 30 hydralisks 4 minutes into the game. 😂

To add: I just remembered, a lovely RTS called Metal Fatigue was an AWESOME game, but it was so bad about this! Your giant stompy mechs couldn't go underground, and the pathfinding was terrible down there, so standard match end-game was usually about sending swarms of tanks through tight tunnels looking for the enemy's like, one builder unit, before the game was considered won. 😂

Any grand strategy game: start as a small nation. You either get crushed in 10m or play the whole 20 hour campaign.

Cheese was the most fun. Rush lair and turn the first scouting overlord into a drop overlord. Then elevator 8 zerglings up the cliff at the back of the Terran main. Usually GG right there.

Thanks for the recommendation! I haven't tried Sins yet but I have tried Solaris and wasn't a super fan of it; there's a lot going on and a lot of reading -> I assumed it was very similar.

For me personally, I think the sweetspot is Medieval and physics-based. Like, in Starcraft the micro is subtle, but still mostly insta-hit; probably easier to program. In Empire Earth, you could micro the hell out of longbows and Trebuchets because they would shoot to a specific location that you could move away from. As the ages progress though, the guns then lasers are all just insta-hit and that takes away the army micromanagement for me. I'm not a super fan of just build X to kill Y and just throw the armies at each other.

I really will have to give Sins of a Solar Empire a try; it's not the first time it's been recommended to me and it has piqued my interested in the past.

I spent all night on a civ game once..

I just build a hidden reserve base. It works better than relying on villagers to build up new base on your own

And you’ll be done soon? In a month or two?

I agree. If the dev either just had a normal discord server about the game and left his own politics out of it, or better yet didn't have a discord at all, you and I could just enjoy this game none the wiser.

But he didn't. He made it very public, and I am grateful for the people who are talking about it.

That's me with mindustry right now. I'm at the part where levels in the official campaigns are getting hard and lengthy enough that I downloaded a modded campaign... only for the maybe 4th level to be harder than anything I have ever faced despite the other levels being really easy!

You're the 2nd person to mention this game, and I haven't heard of it. Time to look it up.

7 roach rush

Its a good way to scratch the factorio itch on your phone.

Fun fact: many of the logistics things like bridge converter or junctions have the same speed as titanium conveyers. So you can usually just use junctions fpr long distances and only use titanium at corner. Or use a router at corner but i like to see how much is passing through

That's a cowards rush, the real rush is a drone rush

Wait you finished?

Probably gave up when I started getting nuked and climate change caused the water to rise

Good to know. Guess I never thought to read the speed thing about bridge converters and junctions. If I get back to either of the main campaigns any time soon, I'll try to keep this in mind. I also like seeing how much is passing through, mostly because I will change a conveyor layout and end up having resources go places they ain't supposed to because of nearby routers or bridge ends, so seeing what's what is my only hope.

Why not Manor Lords? That one is pretty slow too.

I did this with me and a buddy vs six AIs. I went in for a hit against one, and two other armies showed up and wrecked my army and then all three went and hit my base. So being Terran, I managed to save my Command Center and a few other buildings and fles into my buddy's base, then we built up and wiped the AIs. Not quite the lone ranger SCV rebuild from scratch, but fun anyway.

"proto rush" lol

The only way this really works is by making your opponents just give up from boredom. I'm not sure anyone wins in that case.

I got civ vi recently. Within two weeks somehow I got 80 hours of gameplay. Pretty chill strategy game that let's me get shit done while playing

New to civ vi(which I assume is what you're playing?)

Got any useful stats or advice? Barbarians really tweak my nipples some games and I always find myself feeling behind.

Also how the hell do I get cities to produce faster?

Yes, civ VI is my game! I focus on producing troops at the early game. I produce a second melee, and then queue a builder before queueing a city center and another melee. Use the melee to scout nearby and then when you have a builder, focus on immediate production to get started quickly, such as clearing woods. For more production, make it a priority to become suzerain of production city-states.

I also recommend getting religion asap in early game, and focus on gold income, such as income per worshipper or per city. This injects a huge amount of money in the late game. Branching into amenities or housing isn't a bad idea either if those things are sparse.

Even if you don't want to get a domination victory, I recommend conquering your continent, or at least to easily defensible chokepoints.

Had to uninstall a few years ago. It made my tendonitis way worse.

I've had incredible comebacks doing this.