A little additional info: my testing shows that the effects of the "initial balance of power" are very pronounced for at least the first 19 hours of gameplay, and Ketraar's testing shows that the effects are no longer pronounced beyond 150 hours. So, over time, the effects of the "initial balance of power" blend with the effects of all the other RNG that happens constantly throughout the game, to the point where they become nearly indistinguishable from one another sometime between 19 and 150 hours.
Not sure what you mean by "indistinguishable" and English only being my 3rd language I'm not sure I can agree. The outcomes can be vastly different, but their patterns look similar if that make sense.
@@Ketraar Simply put, I mean that there's a point at which universe generation RNG begins to be outweighed by other RNG for the purpose of determining emergent events. If I interpreted our last conversation correctly, you've found that to be the case in your tests of 150+ hours. Is that accurate? I don't want to misquote you.
@@CptSnuggles07 I see yes, I'd agree with that. The more time passes them more dominos can fall for sure, but I'd say that depending on which ones "fall" first tends to impact later outcomes more then other. An example would be the Terran Intervention Corps, they go out and seek to destroy some Xenon, which ones they target will have a big influence, since they are a powerful force. Its not just that what they kill but also where, killing Xenon in one place of the map may trigger Xenon being built elsewhere, which then becomes a problem for a different faction (this is why ZYA struggles so much, as they are at the cross roads of 4 Xenon shipbuilding sectors). So long story short, starting conditions can have an impact, but as mentioned, even in exact same conditions the outcome can be different, as you say when the other RNG influences the games progress, with players potentially also having massive impact as well.
@@CptSnuggles07 in my games I've played in any start where the PHQ is in heretics so essentially not SEG or TER if I use every cheap trick available for rep gain and massive money so adv sat trading and manually doing one item trades and bum rush what is usually a bad idea of a mega factory early using the PHQ with shipbuilding capabilities and make friends with zyarth they will acquire ships from you to defend own territory rather effectively which I guess you could say is the player forcing a domino to fall can have a rather large effect on the game if done quickly enough
Even after propping them up and filling their wharfs and shipyards with resources, the patriarchy refuses to build military ships. I've only seen a few rattlesnakes in the current run, and most of those were from the fallen families.
I have a few major gripes with how this system works: I really wish certain stations had a properly fixed location, sometimes defense stations are 10-20km behind the gate and do literally nothing so xenon fly through for basically free. The other main issue with Xenon, and ZYA, is that both factions CONSTANTLY suicide their economy ships, SE's try to fly and connect to other xenon sectors while ZYA traders constantly suicide through tharkas trying to dock at the HAT trading station. I think these are gross oversights in the vanilla game that should be fixed and would actually allow these factions to keep their economy going in a way that makes sense, not just a LITERAL leming train.
I'm on my first playthrough of the game, started a few weeks ago. Still learning the basics and realizing how not very far I am in the game despite well over 100 hours on the save. I like the idea that you have no control over how the universe forms and that any outcome is possible. Very early on in my playthrough Xenon began hammering Hatkivah's Choice that were only stopped by the Terran intervention fleets. Later on after I started trying to map the universe with scouts, within a matter of hours of me scouting ZYN space, Xenon had taken every Zyn system aside from Wretched Skies V Phi and Zaryth Dom IV. They were stopped by TEL in open market, and my first gate fleet was created just to hold them back in Wretched before they could push into my main holdings in Heretic. 90% of my time since has been spent trying to push them back and give ZYN some breathing room to grow back so I don't miss out on their blueprints
I consider "Xenon Aggression" or "Initial Balance of Power" an emergent property that was never really planned on, merely a result of having so many randomized factors in universe generation. So essentially the reason why we can't set Xenon Aggression is because that value just doesn't exist, it's an aggregate of hundreds of small nudges on the economic, tactical, and strategic level on both the Xenon and the non-Xenon side. As for play testing, X4 is surprisingly similar to Stellaris in that regard: you absolutely cannot make a test universe without either involving lots of work that you will have to do again with every major content patch or limiting the scope of that universe so hard that the only problems you're solving are the problems introduced by having to limit the universe in the first place. I do wish the universe generation was tighter and slightly less random, give us the option to adjust the frequency of mining ships or defense strains, make the initial placement of defense stations actually in strategic locations like right in front of Xenon Gates, but i don't think there will ever be a unified Xenon Aggression value unless they actually just give us the option to modify the initial placement and amount of ONLY Xenon starting ships and stations.
I can understand the random seed choice the developers went with, but it would be really cool if they cherry picked a few of them. You could dip your toe into the game with the very easy "Xenon are already indefinitely contained" seed. Conversely, after 1000 hours of play, you could come back and play the savior of the galaxy in "the Xenon genocide the entire Commonwealth in 48 hours with no player intervention" seed.
Its funny cause this has always been one of my favourite design choices, it makes the univeser feel so much more real because you never have full control over it
I'm glad Egosoft didn't include a Xenon aggression setting. Generally, I'm an arbitrage style merchant, so if I had my way, Xenon aggression would be set to low or none. But, now, 500+ hours into my playthrough, I'm having to assemble a massive fleet to save the Zyarth so I can continue to do business with them. It forces me to engage with a different style of gameplay that I would've never gotten if I could immediately nerf the Xenon. (I have a pretty Teladi mindset for a Terran.)
I actually really like how the sandbox works in this game. All that really needs to be added are tech trees so that each empire doesn't have the same weakness all game long. And maybe an increase in ships and stations after a few hours to represent the demands and benefits of newly conquered territory.
I had a similar experience, Argon had a factory close to the xenon gate at Haktvika Choice, they had so many turrets and fighter patrols around it, so it destroyed every Xenon fleet that came through the gate
This is interesting. I've been playing X4 for over 3 yrs now but I never tried a custom (modified) game until recently. The reason I'm doing it now is due to the Timelines DLC, where I got through most of it, and did pretty well, until the 6th section. One day I spent over 4hrs on that 6th part of Timelines and could not finish the first scenario with one star. I wanted to see those new ships, so I went with the custom game option. My first custom game was very weird, hardly any refineries for early game mining, which made the game hard, but then about 40 hrs in I realized that the Xenon where practically extinct. I saw no point in continuing that game so I started another. The second custom game was much better, but still very odd. I actually had a "I" and a "K" enter Heretic together quite early on. This was a problem, in a good way, but I did not have any destroyer except for the free Oddy and the "H". The two Xenon ships stuck together, giving each other cover. I eventually was able to take them out, after I purchased some heavy fighters to distract them a little while I went after them with the destroyer. The free Oddy was weird also because it had the main batteries intact. This was fun, but the game is still a oddity compared to every game I've ever played since I started playing X4. I did not go crazy with my custom games either, I wanted a young gun type of game, so I only awarded myself a Takoba to start with, nothing else, and with the Timelines ships unlocked. The second custom game also had very few refineries, and the ones that did exist where not buying anything, even after 40 hrs. My play style is based heavily on early mining so I had to think outside of the box, that's fine, quite fun actually. The Xenon are not extinct in the second custom game, but they are not as strong as usual, and there are many more Pirate bases than I've ever seen. In both custom games the Xenon did not penetrate Hat's choice hardly at all, they did not build any stations there. In my past non custom games they tried that a lot, like 20 times sometimes. For me a good game of X4 means strong Xenon and enough opportunities for early mining to get the ball rolling and start building my stations, of which I build many. I'm trying to figure out if the custom games are worth messing with, it seems like they are using a old algorithm from 3 years ago, when I first started playing X4. I much prefer X4 the way it's been recently. I guess I will have to finish Timelines fair and square eventually, so I can play a regular Young Gun game from scratch.
the current save i have, Hatikvah's choice doesn't have any defence station by the Xenon gate. the save i had before: one was there. so, randomly allocating how many stations, which type of stations, and where they're located, really do explain the rumors. Because of that single defence station being in a different spot, im fully expecting hatikvah to fall pretty fast. unless they decide to build one by themselves, or i intervene, either by building one myself, parking a fleet there, or accepting a build mission for them for a defence station at that location.
Great info, thanks! So effectively, you can "adjust" your difficulty, by taking the station repair, shields, and turrets offline just as Xenon attack it. That would allow the to take down even a heavily fortified defense station. Love it, definitely see how you can affect your difficulty this way. Thanks for sharing.
That is indeed a valid strategy, but even less aggressive influences can have an impact, like hording key wares needed for ship and station production, can create shortages for the factions, which gets them into trouble. This varies per faction, as often they have allies to resort to, but I have seen saves from player where they helped the Xenon "pain the map red".
i was a little hesitant to watch this video, since don't want to know too much about how the x4 universe is built and functions...I want a game that evolves for me to discover. especially: i was glad to hear that there were NOT "infusions of of free fleets at ". and the X4 devs popping in to comment and discuss is huge
Interesting. When I started a new playthrough after a major update I assumed they changed something to make Xenon more aggressive, but I guess it was just the seed. Not only the Split, but the Argon were entirely wiped out. The Terrans and Teladi were holding steady, but the Xenon were beginning to take over Paranid space as well when my shipyards finally came online. I had really fun, massive fleet battles retaking the core sectors in that campaign. It would be nice if we could actually tweak Xenon starting strength or aggression, but presumably there're mods.
hmm, I could say that the creators of the game created chaos and based on it they try to tame it a little so that it can be played well, which makes me think something very interesting that such chaos is unpredictable and shows that each new start of the game will be different, but old also give us some defensive measures so that it doesn't go to one goal, and xenon did not sweep half of the universe in 20 hours, but it was still a problem to solve and also gives us the opportunity to take a break from them for a while, and the wars of other factions among themselves are also something interesting, where we, the players, have to find our way and either ignore everyone or start influencing them. the universe somehow, so what's cool about it is this Chaos of creation within relatively known frameworks but unknown numbers, because RNG and what we draw will allow the game to play itself, and we have to find our way, that's why balancing is difficult, and a lot of data is needed, because each created world is a challenge maybe not for us, but for some faction, or maybe it will be our lottery that we will have a problem, so I think the idea is cool because no game puts you into the game before you set the difficulty level, and don't worry, what will be will be :D
It's easy to underestimate the complexity of the system they've made here. Each faction has an economy with very little in the way of handwaving. And a /lot/ is determined by precisely what gets spawned where, and in what state. A surprisingly small difference in the start can, if nothing happens to change it, have long-term consequences. It's a chaos system - there's so many factors that influence each other in the game state that surprisingly small changes can have big consequences. Like, there's a very solid defence platform in hatikvah in my current run that's blocking almost all attempts by the xenon to access the northern highway. If it was slightly to one side, the bottleneck would be pretty much perfect, slightly to the other side, and nearly everything could slip through to the highway for raiding. It can produce some busted starts... like my first X4 run as a terran cadet, where a xenon I and K showed up to wipe the getsu fune base in the first hours of the game, in the middle of the bloody starter quest. But most of the time it just provides reasonable variation in terms of who's in a better or worse position, and which spots in particular have weaknesses to exploit or strengths to leverage. Though if there was one thing I wish they'd fix, it's the AI occasionally deciding to randomly build stations /stupidly/ outside the core of a given system. I've got one system with three random factories that are just way the hell past the normal hex boundary. There's inefficient and there's actively stupid. But also... egosoft has twenty someodd employees, last I checked. It's actually a tiny studio making this huge thing. That gets 'em a fair bit of slack from me.
X4 is a beautiful set of systems; not a thing that's easily 'balanced' because these system adjustments will have compounding effects to other systems, similar to a real life ecosystem. I think adjusting initial generation might be possible but would require (perhaps extensive) code changes to how the universe is generated at the start; the rest of the changes towards balance would be adjustments to the way AI makes strategical choices, like where to put stations etc.
Honestly, that's how I always thought it works and the "Xenon Agression" was just how many ships they can make and how quickly they can break through certain chokepoints. I fully agree with your opinion. I really wish we could control even just some aspects of the universe creation, maybe then someone could even figure out how to make a generally consistent difficulty setting? But maybe it's just too difficult to predict anything so Egosoft doesn't want to risk it? I don't know. I sure wish there was a list of options to customize your experience. I heard how ZYA dies every time super quickly so decided to challenge myself and start a Split run there. Everything was fine. I took my time, eventually built a defense station and that was it. I'm not even sure if the station was necessary. I also wish faction wars were more interesting. To me it seems like once they have a fight or two they mellow out a lot and it gets boring. But I have no way of knowing if that's just my luck with the Almighty Seed.
Hmm, seems that having a setting where defense stations in flashpoint sectors being static/constant in a position Vs randomised would allow to control it if you want and keep it as is if you don't.
So they basically throw you into a randomly created universe and let you deal with the given capacities and incapacities of the factions within... Talk about a hard core approach XD But knowing this IS highly valuable, now i know why there are constantly invasions coming from certain directions yet not from others depending on game start. And i do not mean which of the options, but even within the same type.
I saw that design decision as a way to make a universe where the RPG sandbox would be engaging and challenging, rather than it being fully customisable. Personally i don't mind when the universe is somewhat random and some factions become heroes in one seed, and underdogs in another
It's safe to say that a standalone sandbox title with recycled X4 assets but dynamic relations and a procedural map generator would be wildly more successful than Timelines. Egosoft already experimented with a very curated story back in Rebirth. With all the competing plot outcomes in X4 they have written their lore into a corner. Just for once they should ditch the story completely and "allow stuff to collapse". Pour all your heart, sweat and tears into the simulation mechanics. That's the identity of your game. The story was always B-movie at best.
Plus, they can always choose a canonical ending to each of their games for the starting state of the next game. They could also make the next game so far into the future that the ending of any previous game could be ignored, replaced by myths and legends. Plus, there are enough unconnected star systems that any defeated major faction could realistically make a return thanks to a reconnected gate. This way, we could forcibly reunite the Argon with Earth under the enlightened rule of the Protectorate, or otherwise allow the Argon to liberate their fellow Humans suffocating under the weight of an autocratic regime. As for minor factions, they could simply have disappeared in-between games, freeing us to wipe out the Vigor Syndicate without their constant attempts at rebuilding their stations even after they are gone.
It's kinda funny that you say the Zya are weak when in my 3 runs, they are always holding strong against the Xenon, meanwhile, Hatikvah's Choice keeps falling, at least partially, sometimes in less than 10 hours. Which is a real problem for me as I start in near the Boron and HC is my gateway to the universe and I need my traders to get through there. Certainly made the run more stressful than it needs to be and I would prefer this to be a little less RNG. Doesnt feel great having to either restart or not trade for reasons outside of my control.
I usually just put defence platforms on all 13 xenon exits and have a looter there grabbing stuff. My current playthrough I found 2 dead I and some 4-5 dead k on fires of defeat, sad I missed the fight but a 9 disc defence platform makes short work of any aggression
I feel the best comparison would be with Terraria and how close did the evil biome spawn next to the junglr and if there are any gian trees between them. On some games it’s a breeze where the evil biome is faw away from the jungle and you can take your sweet time And on others the jungle is already infested and you need to rush it so you don’t become locked out of hearts, ore and planterra
I don't know if it's necessarily difficulty or not. Certain factions might do better or worse, but it's probably highly unlikely that every faction will suffer catastrophic failures. It's not really a "difficulty" as if the situation gets bad in a particular part of the galaxy, the player can just leave if they find it too hot. There will almost certainly be other areas that are perpetually peaceful they could migrate to if necessary. I get the idea behind the total randomness it makes new starts more interesting than they otherwise would be. Sometimes the Teladi are economic powerhouses and prop up the rest of the galaxy through their trade, other times they don't do as hot and it impacts the economic situation elsewhere, etc. It's not necessarily harder or easier, you can always move to Terran space or another part of the map if you really have to.
It's absolutely a major component of difficulty for new players. One of the most common Reddit posts is "help, these robot guys conquered this Hatikvah sector and now I can't buy anything, what do I do?" It's also important for veteran players who are doing specialized runs, like single-faction campaigns, that limit their flexibility. But yes, for veteran players doing "generic" runs with no focus on a specific region or type of content, universe generation RNG is much less impactful on the overall difficulty of the campaign.
@@CptSnuggles07 Fair enough, and having more customization options is always better. I agree that there should at least be an option to raise or lower Xenon threat if one chooses.
Thanks for this video. I suppose there could be a way to get the Start you want. It would mean the community makes a save at the start of the new run and they share the save with everyone with comments like split falling soon. Or xenon's killed off after a few hours
All I know is that xenon completely destroyed Argon and hatikvah and only paranid have been able to hold them back but they have conquered argon prime after I kicked out xenon and set up home in hatikvah 1. I wonder if I will ever see argon ships again.
I recently started a new run. Currently have a couple million in net worth and am halfway through building my first station. Haven't really done more than just claiming the initial freebies (including a borderline suicide mission to get my hands on the Sapporo without destroying the hive next to it first), so it's probably safe to say I'm still in the early game. And yet, Tharka's Cascade XV has already fallen and turned from red to white. Looks like the ZYA were tired of the Xenon's shit and decided to immediately go for the jugular this time around lol. Now I'm really curious to see what will happen next. That system is right between Split, Argon, and Xenon space, so I expect this to turn into one hell of a free for all. Maybe I should set up a scrapyard nearby. Sure is interesting how differently the map can develop in this game despite the lack of a gate randomizer option.
Yes the ZYA crossroads is always fun, but note that Xenon are resilient Machines, they might get a setback but their simple economy may allow them to rebuild forces faster the ZY which is why even in the "best runs" they do end up losing something, very rarely saw a case where they kept all their space. ZYA struggling is part of their nature though so that is fine.
Hey snuggles, I think I have something for you. I might know where the idea of a xenon agression setting came from. There is a mod that I use to help the xonon when they need it. In the posts section of the mod is a comment that seems to indicate that there is both an agression and averice setting in save files that can be copied from another faction and added to the xenon. It also indicates that that resultes in more aggresive xenon. I figured this information might be something you would be interested in. At the very least it might provide a way for players to increase the agression of the xenon in their game. If you are interested you can find the mod by searching the nexus for the mod called "Xenon Repair". The posts section of that mod is rather short and twards the top is a comment detailing this. I would include a link, but I already made this comment once and I think adding a link prevented the comment from posting. Anyways, keep up the great work.
Personally i would much prefer more settings. Considering how much time one has to spend to really experience a playthrough it is such a waste to find a stale universe. Also for the love of the gaming gods hire a UI/UX expert. What there is now such trash sitting on top of gem of a game. Its the bridge between all of the hard work by the developers and the players. Do not dumb the game down, just streamline and accessibility. Just one of a thousand examples, why can we not see alerts while in "map" mode. So much time is spent there. And why can't we still see the ship/property info while in first person mode. Why is it 500 (feels like) clicks to access ship behavior, a very common action. And once i select direct steering do not ever ever ever ever un-select it for me. I could go for hours.
I still believe there should be a difficulty slider that would amend the number of "jobs" for Xenon or possibly other factions, so they could field bigger fleets or make it more often. In all of my playthroughs at some point in time I always had to cripple other factions to save Xenon from extinction or becoming irrelevant nuisance at best. This is boring.
I don't think you consider the basics and their implications here. To say it short: A random and dynamic universe in which constant fighting occurs is by its nature not a stable system*. This is why one has inevitably some iterations in which xenon are stronger and some in which they are weaker. So your wishes around difficulty settings stands in direct opposition to the idea of a dynamic and random universe *the is one exception here: If the offenses are so weak, that they don't really have an impact. but that would be boring, right?
You can have large, dynamic game universes with complex simulation and high levels of RNG and still have difficulty settings. 4X strategy games have been doing it for decades. X4's simulation is very detailed, but otherwise it functions similarly to its industry peers, from a gameplay perspective. Don't get me wrong, I respect Egosoft's deep commitment to RNG, but I really do think they've made that commitment for artistic reasons rather than practical ones.
@@CptSnuggles07 there are considerable difference: Based on your video, your understanding of difficulty would be something along the lines of: a) "easy": Xenon gets pushed back b) "moderate": Stalemate between xenon and factions c) "difficult": Xenon pushes forward However, those dificulties are the outcomes of the dynamic simulation. Meaning: One needs to tamper with the simulation in order to achieve this result (e.g. tell the Xenon to stop attacking, if they did too much damage). Regarding a) and c): Sure, one could argue, that different starting positions and different max amount of ships could lean the game more into a) or c) and this might be true, but the outcome would still not be guranteed. Regarding b): This would require a perfect balance of attack/taking damage/recovery. It is next to impossible to achieve this within a the setting of X4 (except if offenses are meaningless; or if one tampers with the AI, etc.) In other X4-games (e.g. stellaris) the situation is fundamentally different: The player has his own empire with options to defend itself / in x4 the player (especially new players) is just a drop in the ocean with almost no impact There is no constant state of war -> the difficulty can be adjusted by tuning down AI aggressiveness, etc. Don't get me wrong, you can still request to have some sort of difficulty settings, however, I think, that considering those basics problems would be essential within that topic
@@Namenlos555 You're reading too much into my words here. This video is strictly about the "initial balance of power", a specific set of parameters at a single point in time, not an overarching adaptive difficulty system like what you're describing. For a more holistic discussion of game difficulty, check out my "Balance and Difficulty" video.
F all that. More xenon! More khaak! More chaos! Games are 2 daggon peaceful. I would like xenon to gain access to more ship cap per system they own. For khaak they get stronger per colony. Pirates based off of something.
The whole game at least 50% issues. I'm on my first playthrough and Xenon were more of an annoyance than a threat and now when I'm making Asgards... So I was surprised to read that some players really struggle with them. I could be cool to play a scenario when Xenon are really threatening but in the current state of a game the "Factorio" part of a game kinda sucks.
The big issue is the asgard is like the only battleship in vanilla and has the long range big damage fuck you death laser so you mod it + shields and your immortal and can 1shot everything n destroyers don't shoot their main guns to threaten you really
I had the exact opposite experience. In maybe 10 hours of gameplay, the Xenon had consolidated about a third of the galaxy and split it in two. By about twenty hours they held half the galaxy and had taken over the entire bottom right half of the map and I was playing fireman, desperately trying to counter them along half a dozen contact points as Terran fleets were whittled down by wave after wave. I think the tide is turning, because I started scaling my stations faster than the Xenon were weakening the other factions, but had I not been there, the Xenon would have probably stomped the network inside of 30 hours. Honestly, from what I'm reading, it seems like the Xenon's danger comes down almost entirely to RNGesus and whether they get a good spawn.
18 hours of gameplay. Playing first time with Young Gun. I did the Boron missions first because I thought it was the main mission with how it appeared next to the HQ in Heretic’s End. Got the ship they give you for free and from then on Kha’ak ans Xenon are just target practice. Of course, I haven’t encountered any of their XL or bigger ships yet, but as for now everything seems manageable and Xenon only seem to bother the Terrans and Argons. Everywhere else is just chill.
@@AlvorReal I wish I had such a seed where something like that happens. All my games default to a very similar scenario after 60-80h, where ANT/ARG push through Frontier Edge, Xenon in Emperor's pride are annihilated by combined PAR/TER forces with a help from Boron, supplying the Wretched Skies Wharf. HOP is pushing into Faulty Logic and Teladi annihilating Matrix 451. Add the Terran intervention fleets on top, roaming around and stomping Savage Spur II and Tharka's.
This sounds like the initial placement of factories and defence stations (as directed by the AI) is heavily influenced by the game's seed at the start. I'd assume that over their tests the state of the universe should converge after a long enough time, assuming no player intervention. A weakened universe where one side becomes too powerful is likely a divergent outcome that was tested out, limiting the range of variance in the starting seed, again with that assumption of no player intervention. They would also have balanced the number of jobs and the ship limits for each faction in step with these initializing factors for that very reason, so that a faction that over extends would have difficulty holding onto it's large swaths of territory with their limited ship cap. Basically allowing factions strength to oscillate over the course of an infinite game, such that the player could take advantage of the rubber banding.
This is largely correct, though some stations, such as Defence Stations, Wharves, Shipyards, Equipment Docks, and similarly key stations have a much more limited randomisation. They might have a defined Sector, or zone even for more detailed Placement, but their position can vary within that limitation. Production stations on the other had are much more randomised, they have other "limitations" such as faction territory or distance to a specific resource region and things like this, which can lead to much more varied placement albeit the total amount is likely the same.
![X4 Oversimplified: Minor Guide to the Major Factions [New & Improved!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0RlN855SxeM/mqdefault.jpg)
![X4 Oversimplified: Minor Guide to the Major Factions [New & Improved!]](/img/tr.png)
A little additional info: my testing shows that the effects of the "initial balance of power" are very pronounced for at least the first 19 hours of gameplay, and Ketraar's testing shows that the effects are no longer pronounced beyond 150 hours. So, over time, the effects of the "initial balance of power" blend with the effects of all the other RNG that happens constantly throughout the game, to the point where they become nearly indistinguishable from one another sometime between 19 and 150 hours.
Not sure what you mean by "indistinguishable" and English only being my 3rd language I'm not sure I can agree. The outcomes can be vastly different, but their patterns look similar if that make sense.
@@Ketraar Simply put, I mean that there's a point at which universe generation RNG begins to be outweighed by other RNG for the purpose of determining emergent events. If I interpreted our last conversation correctly, you've found that to be the case in your tests of 150+ hours. Is that accurate? I don't want to misquote you.
@@CptSnuggles07 I see yes, I'd agree with that. The more time passes them more dominos can fall for sure, but I'd say that depending on which ones "fall" first tends to impact later outcomes more then other. An example would be the Terran Intervention Corps, they go out and seek to destroy some Xenon, which ones they target will have a big influence, since they are a powerful force. Its not just that what they kill but also where, killing Xenon in one place of the map may trigger Xenon being built elsewhere, which then becomes a problem for a different faction (this is why ZYA struggles so much, as they are at the cross roads of 4 Xenon shipbuilding sectors). So long story short, starting conditions can have an impact, but as mentioned, even in exact same conditions the outcome can be different, as you say when the other RNG influences the games progress, with players potentially also having massive impact as well.
@@CptSnuggles07 in my games I've played in any start where the PHQ is in heretics so essentially not SEG or TER if I use every cheap trick available for rep gain and massive money so adv sat trading and manually doing one item trades and bum rush what is usually a bad idea of a mega factory early using the PHQ with shipbuilding capabilities and make friends with zyarth they will acquire ships from you to defend own territory rather effectively which I guess you could say is the player forcing a domino to fall can have a rather large effect on the game if done quickly enough
Xenon aggression, AKA: "how quickly does the patriarchy die?"
Even after propping them up and filling their wharfs and shipyards with resources, the patriarchy refuses to build military ships. I've only seen a few rattlesnakes in the current run, and most of those were from the fallen families.
I have a few major gripes with how this system works: I really wish certain stations had a properly fixed location, sometimes defense stations are 10-20km behind the gate and do literally nothing so xenon fly through for basically free.
The other main issue with Xenon, and ZYA, is that both factions CONSTANTLY suicide their economy ships, SE's try to fly and connect to other xenon sectors while ZYA traders constantly suicide through tharkas trying to dock at the HAT trading station. I think these are gross oversights in the vanilla game that should be fixed and would actually allow these factions to keep their economy going in a way that makes sense, not just a LITERAL leming train.
Props to them for getting in touch!
I'm on my first playthrough of the game, started a few weeks ago. Still learning the basics and realizing how not very far I am in the game despite well over 100 hours on the save. I like the idea that you have no control over how the universe forms and that any outcome is possible. Very early on in my playthrough Xenon began hammering Hatkivah's Choice that were only stopped by the Terran intervention fleets. Later on after I started trying to map the universe with scouts, within a matter of hours of me scouting ZYN space, Xenon had taken every Zyn system aside from Wretched Skies V Phi and Zaryth Dom IV. They were stopped by TEL in open market, and my first gate fleet was created just to hold them back in Wretched before they could push into my main holdings in Heretic. 90% of my time since has been spent trying to push them back and give ZYN some breathing room to grow back so I don't miss out on their blueprints
I consider "Xenon Aggression" or "Initial Balance of Power" an emergent property that was never really planned on, merely a result of having so many randomized factors in universe generation. So essentially the reason why we can't set Xenon Aggression is because that value just doesn't exist, it's an aggregate of hundreds of small nudges on the economic, tactical, and strategic level on both the Xenon and the non-Xenon side.
As for play testing, X4 is surprisingly similar to Stellaris in that regard: you absolutely cannot make a test universe without either involving lots of work that you will have to do again with every major content patch or limiting the scope of that universe so hard that the only problems you're solving are the problems introduced by having to limit the universe in the first place.
I do wish the universe generation was tighter and slightly less random, give us the option to adjust the frequency of mining ships or defense strains, make the initial placement of defense stations actually in strategic locations like right in front of Xenon Gates, but i don't think there will ever be a unified Xenon Aggression value unless they actually just give us the option to modify the initial placement and amount of ONLY Xenon starting ships and stations.
I can understand the random seed choice the developers went with, but it would be really cool if they cherry picked a few of them. You could dip your toe into the game with the very easy "Xenon are already indefinitely contained" seed. Conversely, after 1000 hours of play, you could come back and play the savior of the galaxy in "the Xenon genocide the entire Commonwealth in 48 hours with no player intervention" seed.
Thanks for the insights and kudos to Egosoft to talk to you as a creator, its rare that studios do this.
Its funny cause this has always been one of my favourite design choices, it makes the univeser feel so much more real because you never have full control over it
I'm glad Egosoft didn't include a Xenon aggression setting. Generally, I'm an arbitrage style merchant, so if I had my way, Xenon aggression would be set to low or none. But, now, 500+ hours into my playthrough, I'm having to assemble a massive fleet to save the Zyarth so I can continue to do business with them. It forces me to engage with a different style of gameplay that I would've never gotten if I could immediately nerf the Xenon.
(I have a pretty Teladi mindset for a Terran.)
I actually really like how the sandbox works in this game. All that really needs to be added are tech trees so that each empire doesn't have the same weakness all game long. And maybe an increase in ships and stations after a few hours to represent the demands and benefits of newly conquered territory.
I had a similar experience, Argon had a factory close to the xenon gate at Haktvika Choice, they had so many turrets and fighter patrols around it, so it destroyed every Xenon fleet that came through the gate
This is interesting. I've been playing X4 for over 3 yrs now but I never tried a custom (modified) game until recently. The reason I'm doing it now is due to the Timelines DLC, where I got through most of it, and did pretty well, until the 6th section. One day I spent over 4hrs on that 6th part of Timelines and could not finish the first scenario with one star. I wanted to see those new ships, so I went with the custom game option. My first custom game was very weird, hardly any refineries for early game mining, which made the game hard, but then about 40 hrs in I realized that the Xenon where practically extinct. I saw no point in continuing that game so I started another. The second custom game was much better, but still very odd. I actually had a "I" and a "K" enter Heretic together quite early on. This was a problem, in a good way, but I did not have any destroyer except for the free Oddy and the "H". The two Xenon ships stuck together, giving each other cover. I eventually was able to take them out, after I purchased some heavy fighters to distract them a little while I went after them with the destroyer. The free Oddy was weird also because it had the main batteries intact. This was fun, but the game is still a oddity compared to every game I've ever played since I started playing X4. I did not go crazy with my custom games either, I wanted a young gun type of game, so I only awarded myself a Takoba to start with, nothing else, and with the Timelines ships unlocked. The second custom game also had very few refineries, and the ones that did exist where not buying anything, even after 40 hrs. My play style is based heavily on early mining so I had to think outside of the box, that's fine, quite fun actually. The Xenon are not extinct in the second custom game, but they are not as strong as usual, and there are many more Pirate bases than I've ever seen. In both custom games the Xenon did not penetrate Hat's choice hardly at all, they did not build any stations there. In my past non custom games they tried that a lot, like 20 times sometimes. For me a good game of X4 means strong Xenon and enough opportunities for early mining to get the ball rolling and start building my stations, of which I build many. I'm trying to figure out if the custom games are worth messing with, it seems like they are using a old algorithm from 3 years ago, when I first started playing X4. I much prefer X4 the way it's been recently. I guess I will have to finish Timelines fair and square eventually, so I can play a regular Young Gun game from scratch.
Makes sense I've had games where HOP is almost psychotically suicidal against ARG
the current save i have, Hatikvah's choice doesn't have any defence station by the Xenon gate. the save i had before: one was there.
so, randomly allocating how many stations, which type of stations, and where they're located, really do explain the rumors. Because of that single defence station being in a different spot, im fully expecting hatikvah to fall pretty fast. unless they decide to build one by themselves, or i intervene, either by building one myself, parking a fleet there, or accepting a build mission for them for a defence station at that location.
Great info, thanks! So effectively, you can "adjust" your difficulty, by taking the station repair, shields, and turrets offline just as Xenon attack it. That would allow the to take down even a heavily fortified defense station.
Love it, definitely see how you can affect your difficulty this way.
Thanks for sharing.
That is indeed a valid strategy, but even less aggressive influences can have an impact, like hording key wares needed for ship and station production, can create shortages for the factions, which gets them into trouble. This varies per faction, as often they have allies to resort to, but I have seen saves from player where they helped the Xenon "pain the map red".
i was a little hesitant to watch this video, since don't want to know too much about how the x4 universe is built and functions...I want a game that evolves for me to discover. especially: i was glad to hear that there were NOT "infusions of of free fleets at ". and the X4 devs popping in to comment and discuss is huge
Interesting. When I started a new playthrough after a major update I assumed they changed something to make Xenon more aggressive, but I guess it was just the seed. Not only the Split, but the Argon were entirely wiped out. The Terrans and Teladi were holding steady, but the Xenon were beginning to take over Paranid space as well when my shipyards finally came online. I had really fun, massive fleet battles retaking the core sectors in that campaign. It would be nice if we could actually tweak Xenon starting strength or aggression, but presumably there're mods.
hmm, I could say that the creators of the game created chaos and based on it they try to tame it a little so that it can be played well, which makes me think something very interesting that such chaos is unpredictable and shows that each new start of the game will be different, but old also give us some defensive measures so that it doesn't go to one goal,
and xenon did not sweep half of the universe in 20 hours, but it was still a problem to solve and also gives us the opportunity to take a break from them for a while, and the wars of other factions among themselves are also something interesting, where we, the players, have to find our way and either ignore everyone or start influencing them. the universe somehow,
so what's cool about it is this Chaos of creation within relatively known frameworks but unknown numbers, because RNG and what we draw will allow the game to play itself, and we have to find our way, that's why balancing is difficult, and a lot of data is needed, because each created world is a challenge maybe not for us, but for some faction,
or maybe it will be our lottery that we will have a problem, so I think the idea is cool because no game puts you into the game before you set the difficulty level, and don't worry, what will be will be :D
The Xenon were terrifying until i realized that their weapons were just shotguns and I have rifles.
It's easy to underestimate the complexity of the system they've made here. Each faction has an economy with very little in the way of handwaving. And a /lot/ is determined by precisely what gets spawned where, and in what state. A surprisingly small difference in the start can, if nothing happens to change it, have long-term consequences. It's a chaos system - there's so many factors that influence each other in the game state that surprisingly small changes can have big consequences.
Like, there's a very solid defence platform in hatikvah in my current run that's blocking almost all attempts by the xenon to access the northern highway. If it was slightly to one side, the bottleneck would be pretty much perfect, slightly to the other side, and nearly everything could slip through to the highway for raiding.
It can produce some busted starts... like my first X4 run as a terran cadet, where a xenon I and K showed up to wipe the getsu fune base in the first hours of the game, in the middle of the bloody starter quest. But most of the time it just provides reasonable variation in terms of who's in a better or worse position, and which spots in particular have weaknesses to exploit or strengths to leverage.
Though if there was one thing I wish they'd fix, it's the AI occasionally deciding to randomly build stations /stupidly/ outside the core of a given system. I've got one system with three random factories that are just way the hell past the normal hex boundary. There's inefficient and there's actively stupid.
But also... egosoft has twenty someodd employees, last I checked. It's actually a tiny studio making this huge thing. That gets 'em a fair bit of slack from me.
X4 is a beautiful set of systems; not a thing that's easily 'balanced' because these system adjustments will have compounding effects to other systems, similar to a real life ecosystem. I think adjusting initial generation might be possible but would require (perhaps extensive) code changes to how the universe is generated at the start; the rest of the changes towards balance would be adjustments to the way AI makes strategical choices, like where to put stations etc.
Honestly, that's how I always thought it works and the "Xenon Agression" was just how many ships they can make and how quickly they can break through certain chokepoints.
I fully agree with your opinion. I really wish we could control even just some aspects of the universe creation, maybe then someone could even figure out how to make a generally consistent difficulty setting? But maybe it's just too difficult to predict anything so Egosoft doesn't want to risk it? I don't know. I sure wish there was a list of options to customize your experience.
I heard how ZYA dies every time super quickly so decided to challenge myself and start a Split run there. Everything was fine. I took my time, eventually built a defense station and that was it. I'm not even sure if the station was necessary.
I also wish faction wars were more interesting. To me it seems like once they have a fight or two they mellow out a lot and it gets boring. But I have no way of knowing if that's just my luck with the Almighty Seed.
I love these videos!
Nice video!
Hmm, seems that having a setting where defense stations in flashpoint sectors being static/constant in a position Vs randomised would allow to control it if you want and keep it as is if you don't.
Timely, I was just thinking about this stuff.
So they basically throw you into a randomly created universe and let you deal with the given capacities and incapacities of the factions within...
Talk about a hard core approach XD
But knowing this IS highly valuable, now i know why there are constantly invasions coming from certain directions yet not from others depending on game start. And i do not mean which of the options, but even within the same type.
I saw that design decision as a way to make a universe where the RPG sandbox would be engaging and challenging, rather than it being fully customisable. Personally i don't mind when the universe is somewhat random and some factions become heroes in one seed, and underdogs in another
Thanks cap'n!
It's safe to say that a standalone sandbox title with recycled X4 assets but dynamic relations and a procedural map generator would be wildly more successful than Timelines. Egosoft already experimented with a very curated story back in Rebirth. With all the competing plot outcomes in X4 they have written their lore into a corner. Just for once they should ditch the story completely and "allow stuff to collapse". Pour all your heart, sweat and tears into the simulation mechanics. That's the identity of your game. The story was always B-movie at best.
Plus, they can always choose a canonical ending to each of their games for the starting state of the next game. They could also make the next game so far into the future that the ending of any previous game could be ignored, replaced by myths and legends. Plus, there are enough unconnected star systems that any defeated major faction could realistically make a return thanks to a reconnected gate. This way, we could forcibly reunite the Argon with Earth under the enlightened rule of the Protectorate, or otherwise allow the Argon to liberate their fellow Humans suffocating under the weight of an autocratic regime.
As for minor factions, they could simply have disappeared in-between games, freeing us to wipe out the Vigor Syndicate without their constant attempts at rebuilding their stations even after they are gone.
It's kinda funny that you say the Zya are weak when in my 3 runs, they are always holding strong against the Xenon, meanwhile, Hatikvah's Choice keeps falling, at least partially, sometimes in less than 10 hours. Which is a real problem for me as I start in near the Boron and HC is my gateway to the universe and I need my traders to get through there. Certainly made the run more stressful than it needs to be and I would prefer this to be a little less RNG. Doesnt feel great having to either restart or not trade for reasons outside of my control.
I like it!!!!
I usually just put defence platforms on all 13 xenon exits and have a looter there grabbing stuff. My current playthrough I found 2 dead I and some 4-5 dead k on fires of defeat, sad I missed the fight but a 9 disc defence platform makes short work of any aggression
I feel the best comparison would be with Terraria and how close did the evil biome spawn next to the junglr and if there are any gian trees between them.
On some games it’s a breeze where the evil biome is faw away from the jungle and you can take your sweet time
And on others the jungle is already infested and you need to rush it so you don’t become locked out of hearts, ore and planterra
Is this in the old X games too??? Might explain a lot.
I don't know if it's necessarily difficulty or not. Certain factions might do better or worse, but it's probably highly unlikely that every faction will suffer catastrophic failures. It's not really a "difficulty" as if the situation gets bad in a particular part of the galaxy, the player can just leave if they find it too hot. There will almost certainly be other areas that are perpetually peaceful they could migrate to if necessary. I get the idea behind the total randomness it makes new starts more interesting than they otherwise would be. Sometimes the Teladi are economic powerhouses and prop up the rest of the galaxy through their trade, other times they don't do as hot and it impacts the economic situation elsewhere, etc. It's not necessarily harder or easier, you can always move to Terran space or another part of the map if you really have to.
It's absolutely a major component of difficulty for new players. One of the most common Reddit posts is "help, these robot guys conquered this Hatikvah sector and now I can't buy anything, what do I do?" It's also important for veteran players who are doing specialized runs, like single-faction campaigns, that limit their flexibility. But yes, for veteran players doing "generic" runs with no focus on a specific region or type of content, universe generation RNG is much less impactful on the overall difficulty of the campaign.
@@CptSnuggles07 Fair enough, and having more customization options is always better. I agree that there should at least be an option to raise or lower Xenon threat if one chooses.
Thanks for this video. I suppose there could be a way to get the Start you want. It would mean the community makes a save at the start of the new run and they share the save with everyone with comments like split falling soon. Or xenon's killed off after a few hours
All I know is that xenon completely destroyed Argon and hatikvah and only paranid have been able to hold them back but they have conquered argon prime after I kicked out xenon and set up home in hatikvah 1. I wonder if I will ever see argon ships again.
I recently started a new run. Currently have a couple million in net worth and am halfway through building my first station. Haven't really done more than just claiming the initial freebies (including a borderline suicide mission to get my hands on the Sapporo without destroying the hive next to it first), so it's probably safe to say I'm still in the early game.
And yet, Tharka's Cascade XV has already fallen and turned from red to white. Looks like the ZYA were tired of the Xenon's shit and decided to immediately go for the jugular this time around lol. Now I'm really curious to see what will happen next. That system is right between Split, Argon, and Xenon space, so I expect this to turn into one hell of a free for all. Maybe I should set up a scrapyard nearby. Sure is interesting how differently the map can develop in this game despite the lack of a gate randomizer option.
Yes the ZYA crossroads is always fun, but note that Xenon are resilient Machines, they might get a setback but their simple economy may allow them to rebuild forces faster the ZY which is why even in the "best runs" they do end up losing something, very rarely saw a case where they kept all their space. ZYA struggling is part of their nature though so that is fine.
Hey snuggles, I think I have something for you. I might know where the idea of a xenon agression setting came from. There is a mod that I use to help the xonon when they need it. In the posts section of the mod is a comment that seems to indicate that there is both an agression and averice setting in save files that can be copied from another faction and added to the xenon. It also indicates that that resultes in more aggresive xenon.
I figured this information might be something you would be interested in. At the very least it might provide a way for players to increase the agression of the xenon in their game. If you are interested you can find the mod by searching the nexus for the mod called "Xenon Repair". The posts section of that mod is rather short and twards the top is a comment detailing this. I would include a link, but I already made this comment once and I think adding a link prevented the comment from posting. Anyways, keep up the great work.
What annoys me the most tbh is the fact that fighting xenon is so unrewarding.......
What on earth did they not implement a simple game difficulty option like all other games that ever existed?
Personally i would much prefer more settings. Considering how much time one has to spend to really experience a playthrough it is such a waste to find a stale universe.
Also for the love of the gaming gods hire a UI/UX expert. What there is now such trash sitting on top of gem of a game. Its the bridge between all of the hard work by the developers and the players. Do not dumb the game down, just streamline and accessibility. Just one of a thousand examples, why can we not see alerts while in "map" mode. So much time is spent there. And why can't we still see the ship/property info while in first person mode. Why is it 500 (feels like) clicks to access ship behavior, a very common action. And once i select direct steering do not ever ever ever ever un-select it for me. I could go for hours.
yo how tod o yu set up your fleets ia m strugling with that atm
Fleet setup is my next guide, actually! Coming out sometime in the next week.
I still believe there should be a difficulty slider that would amend the number of "jobs" for Xenon or possibly other factions, so they could field bigger fleets or make it more often. In all of my playthroughs at some point in time I always had to cripple other factions to save Xenon from extinction or becoming irrelevant nuisance at best. This is boring.
I don't think you consider the basics and their implications here.
To say it short:
A random and dynamic universe in which constant fighting occurs is by its nature not a stable system*. This is why one has inevitably some iterations in which xenon are stronger and some in which they are weaker. So your wishes around difficulty settings stands in direct opposition to the idea of a dynamic and random universe
*the is one exception here: If the offenses are so weak, that they don't really have an impact. but that would be boring, right?
You can have large, dynamic game universes with complex simulation and high levels of RNG and still have difficulty settings. 4X strategy games have been doing it for decades. X4's simulation is very detailed, but otherwise it functions similarly to its industry peers, from a gameplay perspective. Don't get me wrong, I respect Egosoft's deep commitment to RNG, but I really do think they've made that commitment for artistic reasons rather than practical ones.
@@CptSnuggles07 there are considerable difference: Based on your video, your understanding of difficulty would be something along the lines of:
a) "easy": Xenon gets pushed back
b) "moderate": Stalemate between xenon and factions
c) "difficult": Xenon pushes forward
However, those dificulties are the outcomes of the dynamic simulation. Meaning: One needs to tamper with the simulation in order to achieve this result (e.g. tell the Xenon to stop attacking, if they did too much damage).
Regarding a) and c):
Sure, one could argue, that different starting positions and different max amount of ships could lean the game more into a) or c) and this might be true, but the outcome would still not be guranteed.
Regarding b):
This would require a perfect balance of attack/taking damage/recovery. It is next to impossible to achieve this within a the setting of X4 (except if offenses are meaningless; or if one tampers with the AI, etc.)
In other X4-games (e.g. stellaris) the situation is fundamentally different:
The player has his own empire with options to defend itself / in x4 the player (especially new players) is just a drop in the ocean with almost no impact
There is no constant state of war -> the difficulty can be adjusted by tuning down AI aggressiveness, etc.
Don't get me wrong, you can still request to have some sort of difficulty settings, however, I think, that considering those basics problems would be essential within that topic
@@Namenlos555 You're reading too much into my words here. This video is strictly about the "initial balance of power", a specific set of parameters at a single point in time, not an overarching adaptive difficulty system like what you're describing. For a more holistic discussion of game difficulty, check out my "Balance and Difficulty" video.
Agression= wait we get support from a little smuck?
Little smuck with 100 L class war ships.
F all that. More xenon! More khaak! More chaos! Games are 2 daggon peaceful. I would like xenon to gain access to more ship cap per system they own. For khaak they get stronger per colony. Pirates based off of something.
The whole game at least 50% issues. I'm on my first playthrough and Xenon were more of an annoyance than a threat and now when I'm making Asgards... So I was surprised to read that some players really struggle with them. I could be cool to play a scenario when Xenon are really threatening but in the current state of a game the "Factorio" part of a game kinda sucks.
The big issue is the asgard is like the only battleship in vanilla and has the long range big damage fuck you death laser so you mod it + shields and your immortal and can 1shot everything n destroyers don't shoot their main guns to threaten you really
I had the exact opposite experience. In maybe 10 hours of gameplay, the Xenon had consolidated about a third of the galaxy and split it in two. By about twenty hours they held half the galaxy and had taken over the entire bottom right half of the map and I was playing fireman, desperately trying to counter them along half a dozen contact points as Terran fleets were whittled down by wave after wave.
I think the tide is turning, because I started scaling my stations faster than the Xenon were weakening the other factions, but had I not been there, the Xenon would have probably stomped the network inside of 30 hours.
Honestly, from what I'm reading, it seems like the Xenon's danger comes down almost entirely to RNGesus and whether they get a good spawn.
18 hours of gameplay. Playing first time with Young Gun.
I did the Boron missions first because I thought it was the main mission with how it appeared next to the HQ in Heretic’s End.
Got the ship they give you for free and from then on Kha’ak ans Xenon are just target practice.
Of course, I haven’t encountered any of their XL or bigger ships yet, but as for now everything seems manageable and Xenon only seem to bother the Terrans and Argons.
Everywhere else is just chill.
@@AlvorReal I wish I had such a seed where something like that happens. All my games default to a very similar scenario after 60-80h, where ANT/ARG push through Frontier Edge, Xenon in Emperor's pride are annihilated by combined PAR/TER forces with a help from Boron, supplying the Wretched Skies Wharf. HOP is pushing into Faulty Logic and Teladi annihilating Matrix 451. Add the Terran intervention fleets on top, roaming around and stomping Savage Spur II and Tharka's.
This sounds like the initial placement of factories and defence stations (as directed by the AI) is heavily influenced by the game's seed at the start. I'd assume that over their tests the state of the universe should converge after a long enough time, assuming no player intervention. A weakened universe where one side becomes too powerful is likely a divergent outcome that was tested out, limiting the range of variance in the starting seed, again with that assumption of no player intervention.
They would also have balanced the number of jobs and the ship limits for each faction in step with these initializing factors for that very reason, so that a faction that over extends would have difficulty holding onto it's large swaths of territory with their limited ship cap. Basically allowing factions strength to oscillate over the course of an infinite game, such that the player could take advantage of the rubber banding.
This is largely correct, though some stations, such as Defence Stations, Wharves, Shipyards, Equipment Docks, and similarly key stations have a much more limited randomisation. They might have a defined Sector, or zone even for more detailed Placement, but their position can vary within that limitation. Production stations on the other had are much more randomised, they have other "limitations" such as faction territory or distance to a specific resource region and things like this, which can lead to much more varied placement albeit the total amount is likely the same.