The turn-based space 4X game Predestination achieved its funding goal at Kickstarter ($25,000) and now heads to the stretch goals phase with 18 days to go. The 30K and 40K stretch goals are already set for Hotseat multiplayer & play-by-email, and online and LAN play respectively.
So, after Daniel DiCicco’s StarDrive and IdeaLcenter’s M.O.R.E., it was now time for a group of space 4X enthusiasts from Northern Ireland to make it on Kickstarter with a space 4X project.
Predestination is a space 4X game in the traditional sense, but with a particular focus in planetary exploration where you explore the planet’s features in a more detailed way than usually found in other space 4X games.
Brendan Drain and his Team also propose 3D galaxy maps, custom races, turn-based space combat, terraforming and other usual features found in this type of games.
To know more about Predestination head to their Kickstarter page, the official website or read our kickstarter announcement article.
Here’s the video from their latest update.
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That’s great news, always glad to see the community rallies behind 4x developers to give them a shot at success.
Will be watching this closely, and the stretch goals.
Sounds like a great concept, indepth planetary exploration and developement is often neglected. Although this game looks horrible in terms of asthethics and sounds. I hope they are only some kind of placeholder.
Also the sounds of MoO2 instantly pop into my head.
Haha! I thought I was the one who noticed!
There is a good reason for that. In depth planetary exploration and development is fun when you have one or two planets, when you have 50 or so it will be micromanagement hell.
Yes, it’s a tough one I agree. Not that it can’t be done of course but to date no one really figured out how to tame micromanagement hell when you need to manage >20 management units (cities, star systems, planets).
For managing many units in detail you will surely need the help of the AI to manage parts of it for you, and this is usually the problem, they are not that good at it, or at least not as good as the Human.
That’s why I’m interested to find out what Predestination people mean with with their “optional colony blueprint system” which will supposedly solve or mitigate the micromanagement problem in these games. The idea is to design colony blueprints that the AI will then execute on other colonies without the need for your intervention.
So, they are aware of this problem, which is good. Now, let’s see how good this “blueprint” really is and plays out.
I’m not convinced that templates are the solution, for the same reason that automation hasn’t worked – they will deliver sub-optimal results to player micromanagement.
In my opinion, the solution to late game micromanagement problems has to come from changes to the game mechanics, not from providing some sub-optimal tools to assist the player.
What is needed is to keep the number of decision per turn roughly constant throughout the stages of the game. For example, making more of the improvements later in the tech tree once-per-civilisation constructions may help.
should say – “sub-optimal results compared to player micromanagement”
Yes, just look at how Sid Meier doesn’t really have this problem in his Civ games.
You rarely have more than 20 cities to manage in Civilization. And when you do, most of the development is already done in most of them and you can focus in the new ones if you want.
I agree that there’s still some unsatisfaction in late Civ games to what city micromanagement is concerned, but at least he figured out how hard it is to manage so many cities, so he makes it hard (on purpose) for the player to have many cities in the first place. He uses happiness/corruption or any other analogous restriction to accomplish that. Sid just doesn’t want you to expand too much and manage too many cities.
The end result is satisfactory. I do like to manage 10-15 cities and develop them to the maximum. Then it’s just a question to capture the rival capitals, go diplo, tech race or, if you want, steamroll everybody in late game. The trick is not to force you to manage all the cities you conquer, therefore the puppet system he (or Jon Shafer) invented in Civ5 and the Vassal system Soren Johnson devised for Civ4.
Your idea of balancing the improvements by spreading them thin in the tech tree and pushing some to later stages is also an interesting one.
Hey Neil!
Predestination’s blueprint system is designed to solve the micromanagement problem WITHOUT sacrificing any direct control. They’re not just build queue templates, they’re adaptive colony blueprints that you design yourself. You might design a perfectly balanced industrial colony and save it as a blueprint, then re-use it on a dozen more colonies. You could then later modify the blueprint and all your industrial colonies would update to implement the changes automatically.
If you use the blueprint system well, it essentially turns EVERY new building into a once-per-civilisation build. It’ll let you make changes selectively across your empire quickly and easily. Since you manually make every change yourself and choose where blueprints are used, it’ll produce the same results as micromanaging each colony individually. If you want finer-grained control, you can even leave intentionally blank spaces on the blueprint and then decide what goes there on a colony-by-colony basis.
Our goal with this is to reach exactly the situation you described, where the number of actions you have to take to tend to your civilisation stays the same as the game progresses, but you don’t lose any actual control.
Cheers :D
— Brendan Drain,
Lead Developer on Predestination
Looks pretty good. I like the hexes.
Wonder if they’ll have detailed ground combat too? The planetary model is certainly detailed enough to support it.
The in-depth colony exploration and development is what interests me most about Predestination. All too often 4X games devolve into chess with space graphics, and there is little emotional attachment to “your” planets, ships, etc. This is what keeps me cool about Endless Space: I just don’t care about my empire, and the game degenerates into a boring, repetitious slog.
If Predestination gives their planets and systems some individuality and mystery, each game will be an adventure.
I hope the developers come through on their vision.
Yes! I was never worried;) I’m glad I’m seeing ambition already;D
I really want to thank the SpaceSector community for rallying behind Predestination!
It’s been amazing to see how much support has come from the SpaceSector community, it really helped us find our feet on Kickstarter and was a big part of the reason we were able to hit our goal! Special thanks to Adam for discovering Predestination at the start of the year and to the forum for all the discussions we’ve had when the game was in early development!
Cheers :D
— Brendan Drain,
Lead Developer on Predestination