User talk:Dazz

About table cells

Remember that most tables are resized automatically based on the longest cell of a column, with only the icon and description columns being sized manually. When writing an entry take care not to make it so long that it shrinks too much the other columns. Alternatively you can manually set the size of a column with the style="width:" attribute. If a table gets too crowded the flavor text description can be removed although this is done as a last resort if the table lacks enough space. Kami-sama (talk) 00:31, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Beginner's guide

You seem to have both the time and interest in making large contributions to the wiki so I have a...selfish request. Would you mind updating the beginner's guide page and rewriting it where necessary? Aside from the modding pages it's the one place that I never touched despite being one of the most important pages on the wiki. I'm not very good at creating beginner's guides. I put that expand tag there a month ago hoping someone will eventually do it. Kami-sama (talk) 00:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I would like to make contributions, but I really have no idea how to write a guide for a beginner-unfriendly game. There are three reasons why this game is so beginner-unfriendly.

1. Too many bugs, that can make the game literally unplayable, left unfixed for years.

2. Too many DLCs to be bought and more comming. The guide will be filled with introductions of DLC contents and the new players will daze.

3. Too many game designs that can only annoy the players as well as they are too frequently updated, and I will have to introduce all the stupid stuff and scare the new players away.

•  Administrative Capacity is a mechanic that actually does nothing, because all penalties can be dodged by keeping a fraction of your populations to be  Bureaucrats and in my opinion should be revoked.
•  Trade Value and  Piracy Risk is a mechanic that has more demerits than merits, because no one would be happy to be forced to put efforts to supress piracy just to ensure their  Energy income to be intact. You can teleport  Minerals from your capital to your colony to queue up 10 districts, so why can't you just teleport the Trade Values? Just make the jobs to produce  Energy and other stuffs and stop annoying me with piracy thing and the ever-complained performance-intensive trade route calculations.
• Strategic Resources is a mechanic that's super annoying but again actually does nothing. Your advanced stuff need them to build and they are manufactured from  Minerals, so why don't you just make the advanced stuff to cost more Minerals instead? How is they called Strategic Resources if they are essentially another form of Minerals? Also it takes up an entire building slot just to upkeep an Ecumenopolis district, but the buildings provide so little jobs that many Pops will be unemployed if you support it by City Districts. To avoid this you must build them on planets filled with basic resource districts. But why should I micromanage this much?
• ......

I believe that a successfully designed game introduces itself and extends multiple playstyles from a couple of simple rules. Throw the guide away and just play! I do this in almost every game I played. A must-read wordy guide doesn't mean hard core and piles of buttons, numbers and gauges don't mean game depth. If you ask me to write a beginner's guide that doesn't scare beginners away, I would like to if I can, but sorry, I can't come up with an idea, because this can't be fixed from our end.

Dazz (talk) 01:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit:

Actually I know one of the most efficient ways to play against the AI, but should I teach them to the new players? If I don't, does it still serve as a beginner's guide? If I do, does the game still serve as a game?

•  Fanatic Materialist +  Technocracy +  Mechanist is the STRONGEST start. You benefit from dual growth and loads of unity.
• Tear your first encountered empire down and annex their sole planet to double your early game production.
• Pick Discovery traditions first and take Technological Ascendancy first to ensure your technological ascendancy.
• Ignore Diplomacy traditions.
• Ignore unity production buildings because your researchers already produce loads of unity.
• Do Synthetic Evolution and ignore other ascension pathes. After Synthetic Evolution, apply your organic species template to one of your planets, so you will continue to enjoy dual growth, while the robot assembly part is greatly buffed.
• Arc Emitters is the STRONGEST weapon in late game and Battleships with just one Arc Emitters and no other components at all is the most COST EFFICIENT and STRONGEST fleet. Ignore other ships late game.

Dazz (talk) 01:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Not really. The beginner's guide should be neutral, not favoring a certain playstyle and start. It should tell players step by step what they should do to complete their first game and briefly explain each mechanic when first encountered. I agree with how beginner unfriendly the game is, but that's why the guide was so important. On an unrelated note, I wonder how long it too to write that answer XD Kami-sama (talk) 11:05, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

IRC

Hey Dazz, if you use Discord or Skype do you mind giving me your username? If you'd rather not I understand. Kami-sama (talk) 12:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I have a Discord account but I don't frequently login, since it's rarely used within my country. In addition it's walled because it's a foreign social software and can't be censored by the Government. I will send you a forum private message containing my Discord username and private e-mail address. Dazz (talk) 13:19, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

A trick to make your life easier

When you want to align every table column but one to center it's easier to align the entire table to center and rows in that column to left. On very long tables this can make your life easier :) Kami-sama (talk) 10:40, 11 June 2020 (UTC)