Do you play for the strategy or the stories?

[keylocke]

i like both stories and strategy.

stories seem more entertaining on randy permadeath mode. since the relationships between people, and their relationship to their pets seem more interesting when every mistake you make is permanent.

i also prefer non-extreme biomes coz it has more raids/visitors and i enjoy battles a lot.

anyways, the relationship between people is why i support the suggestions about having pregnanices and kids in rimworld. the tragedies and the triumphs can get overwhelming if you invest even a small amount of interest in the lives of those pawns and their connections to one another.

in my colonies, i try to collect as many relatives and lovers (both ex and current) together and watch the drama unfold.

you don't get that same level of story with just random people.

[Mkok]

I like how every colony is a near perfect communist society  Being a communist by heart myself, its just so enjoyable   


But srsly, I really like to build beautiful bases, I dont give a damn about efficiency or stuff like that  (numbers and artificial balance in games are soooo much not fun!), its all about building a beautiful place.

For example, I almost always built my favourite colonists bedrooms out of wood, with wooden floor. Sure, if I used something else, it would be cheaper, and give better beauty factor, but I think wooden rooms are just most beautiful ones.
Also I always like the idea of building a real beautiful fortress.
Like a few outposts outside the main perimeter, a main heavily fortified compound build in a mountain, and a small super heavily defended fallback fortress designed to withstand a massive continuous assalt from mechs for days, built completely from plasteel, with a crazy amount of stored food, drugs, medicine, doomsday launchers and batteries. You know, for the case everything else fails and you want to go down in style.
Unfortunately, I never really got to finishing that fortress in any of my games :-)

[JesterHell]

You never play for the stories.
You play for the strategy, and if the game is designed well, you get amazing stories.

That way the stories are 'real', and so, impactful.

Your wrong, just flat out wrong.

I play for the stories that revel themselves to me as I play, the strategy is something to distract myself while I wait for stories to happen nothing more, if Rimworlds pawns had more complex personality like dwarves from DF I'd play Rimworld almost as much as I play DF.

My favorite DF story is still the one time I caught a dwarf trying to frame (witness report) their "grudge" (enemy) for a crime that 6 other dwarves saw someone else do.


AN: the only reason I said your wrong is because you are telling other people what they play (or should play) for.

[taha]

You never play for the stories.
You play for the strategy, and if the game is designed well, you get amazing stories.

That way the stories are 'real', and so, impactful.

Actually, is how I *try to* play.
I try to make the perfect place, one that runs flawlessly without my intervention.

Problem is, more I know about the game, less eventful it becomes.

Because at some point, you are prepared for pretty much everything the rng can throw at you. (too cold? turn on heaters; too hot? turn on ac; solar flame in cold? parkas; etc.). Everything is a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Your colonists will lose their identity and becomes for you what they really are, pawns with various stats. No story behind them. Just pawns moving on chess board.

You would not cry for a pawn you sacrificed in a chess game opening in order to gain a positional advantage, right? Or imagine a story about how it fought with enemy bishop? Sounds silly, does it not? Almost as silly as making up a story about RW pawns...

[A Friend]

Are there times where things don't go flawlessly your way?

[Jaridan]

I don't know why, for me it's just a game and i can't really create stories out of it like others but it's a very nice colony simulator and a very enjoyable game.

It also gives and allows a lot of freedom on how to play and the mod community capitalizes on this hugely aswell(conversions mods like lovecraft, cult mod (upcoming), star trek etc.)

[A Friend]

I don't know why, for me it's just a game and i can't really create stories out of it like others

Pick out the most memorable thing that happened in your game and you got yourself a story. It doesn't really need to be worded like you're making some kind of novel. Even a simple "Engie fucked up our colony because her pants jammed the goddamn doorway during a manhunter event." can count.

[mumblemumble]

Certainly option 3...it does what I loved so much about xcom, mixing stratagy with impact.... sure, certain tactics are effective, but theres so much risk involved, that its often quite emotional making the decisions.

This mix of trying to make the best decision tactically, and have story unfold BECAUSE of the decisions...these are the best parts of rimworld, imo, like fighting a few mechs and having your best guy up close with a charge blaster plinking away, only to helplessly watch him get burned alive as the fight rages on.

....Or a guy going berserk, being stopped with a molotov to the face (literally) and then a month later, the guy makes a statue about hitting the guy in the face with a molotov. Was pretty funny, especially since the dude who got burned HATED the man who made the statue...surprised there wasn't a murder attempt after this was put into the dining hall.

I agree with "a friend". Even if theres no narrative, theres amazing stuff which happens. You seen the youtube "why did it have to be squirrels"? This is a good example...its narrated, but besides that, its vanilla gameplay. Everything which happened can happen in game (short of a few small artistic details) and  its not even horribly uncommon.

Best part is, that youtube video is many alphas old, before many of the newer features were in.

[taha]

Are there times where things don't go flawlessly your way?

Not in the way you might expect. Events are finite. About 15 kinds of bad events. If you are able to survive them, all the game does is to increase numbers. I had manhunter packs up to 500 wargs and raids with over 120 pirates; 75+ mechs and 30+ scyts. Fallout + nuclear winter + psy ship / poison ship + raids. At some point my computer is unable to handle the numbers, the fps drops below a decent level, and that's it... new game.  Guess that's a failure from my part => story.

Some guy, here on forums, posted a screen-shot of a legendary sarcophagus.
The "Art" was a description of a wedding between 2 colonists.
The crafter of the sarcophagus was the husband. The person inside it, was the wife.
That's a story in just one picture.


Btw. THAT signature about Randy, made me to play Randy Extreme for a very long time. Until I realized Cassandra extreme is way more unforgiving end-game. (After 10 years Randy throws ship chunks and huskies at you while Cassandra gives you triple raids.)

[Tammabanana]

I try to make the perfect place, one that runs flawlessly without my intervention.

Problem is, more I know about the game, less eventful it becomes.

Because at some point, you are prepared for pretty much everything the rng can throw at you. (too cold? turn on heaters; too hot? turn on ac; solar flame in cold? parkas; etc.). Everything is a puzzle waiting to be solved.

Your colonists will lose their identity and becomes for you what they really are, pawns with various stats. No story behind them. Just pawns moving on chess board.

You would not cry for a pawn you sacrificed in a chess game opening in order to gain a positional advantage, right? Or imagine a story about how it fought with enemy bishop? Sounds silly, does it not? Almost as silly as making up a story about RW pawns...

When I find myself in possession of a "flawless" colony where nothing interesting is happening and there's no stories going on, that's when I'm done with that colony.

I go looking for mods that add new events, new factions, new interactions between pawns, etc. These are my favorites so far:

• Romance Diversified and Rumours & Deceptions, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=27288.0 : Pawns have much more interesting interactions with this.
• CK - Animal & Plant Pack, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26265.0 : Total makeover for the tropical biome. You have to keep an eye out for how hungry the tigers are before you let your colonists out in the jungle.
• Mind Altering Device, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16743.0 : are your pawns too boring? This will fix it.
• EdB Prepare Carefully, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6261.0 : combine this with the Scenario Editor and you can create the beginnings of a story out of your colony's initial conditions. I never use EdB to prepare in a strategic sense; I use it to tweak the backstories till they're appropriate for my scenario, and memorable, and gigglesome. I tweak the passions to match the backstories, and add relationships/injuries to match the scenario and backstories. By the time you've set up your scenario and colonists, you have the opening scene of your story, and the random gameplay tells the rest.
• Call of Cthulu, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26078.0 : the Cults mod was just released, which makes the pawns do totally different stuff. Too soon to actually call it a favorite, but it's the one I'm giggling about currently.

[makkenhoff]

For me, it is the mix of survival elements with base building and resource gathering; the storytelling aspect of it is the AI's decision making in generating events that challenge what I've already built/gathered/survived. In effect, my strategy game is linked to the storyteller, and I'm just trying to keep the story going as long as possible, with no clear purpose or agenda, aside from continued survival, except the possibility of escape, and the potential future opportunities for those who do escape.

Honestly, I've made a few attempts at "roughing" it, IE: No true base building. It is pretty much a death sentence in most of the regions with true winters, campfires just don't keep the area around it warm enough it being enclosed.

[taha]

I go looking for mods that add new events, new factions, new interactions between pawns, etc. These are my favorites so far:

• Romance Diversified and Rumours & Deceptions, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=27288.0 : Pawns have much more interesting interactions with this.
• CK - Animal & Plant Pack, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26265.0 : Total makeover for the tropical biome. You have to keep an eye out for how hungry the tigers are before you let your colonists out in the jungle.
• Mind Altering Device, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16743.0 : are your pawns too boring? This will fix it.
• EdB Prepare Carefully, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=6261.0 : combine this with the Scenario Editor and you can create the beginnings of a story out of your colony's initial conditions. I never use EdB to prepare in a strategic sense; I use it to tweak the backstories till they're appropriate for my scenario, and memorable, and gigglesome. I tweak the passions to match the backstories, and add relationships/injuries to match the scenario and backstories. By the time you've set up your scenario and colonists, you have the opening scene of your story, and the random gameplay tells the rest.
• Call of Cthulu, https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26078.0 : the Cults mod was just released, which makes the pawns do totally different stuff. Too soon to actually call it a favorite, but it's the one I'm giggling about currently.

With no intention of offending mod authors - I do mod the game myself, I just don't release mods for public - I have to say that most of the mods you've listed only bring useless  / unrealistic complications in game (exception being Prepare Carefully).

There are already issues with pawns being rejected 5-6 times when courting someone, and them keep trying to hit on that person, even with relationship at 100+ (I know it's capped at 100, but beautiful + deep talk + chitchat can boost it over limit). There are marriages proposals rejected on 100 relationship. Insults out of blue. No need to bring more of that drama into the game.

Also... Randomization of traits? Thanks, but no thanks. Last thing I want is more RNG based stuff. And about Lovecraft inspired mod... I like Science-Fiction, not Fantasy things.

Thanks for posting the mods anyway.
What I use are Prepare Carefully, Embrasures, Laser Drill/Fill, Quality Builder, Mad Skills, Recycling, and of course my own mod "Real People" (makes colonists to be less pussies about killing, torturing, selling and eating people; also removes wanderers, radio SOS from hunted people, Solar Flares, Infestations, resource pods, self-taming animals, etc). Basically I try to eliminate as much RNG as possible.

[Elixiar]

I always role play. If the starting colonists are mostly of some sort of militaristic or glitterworld background I incorporate smart design into my bases (no, I do not mean kill boxes. They are the fastest way to make the game dull) or if they are medieval I tend to shift towards farming and shanty town.

I almost always build outside, and if I do build into a mountain, it's normally like a 'bunker' full of emergency supplies, weapons, shared barracks and prisoner detainment incase of a potentially devastating series of attacks.

In my opinion it's always more fun to have a colony destroyed organically by the storyteller than just starting a new game.

[Harold3456]

You never play for the stories.
You play for the strategy, and if the game is designed well, you get amazing stories.

That way the stories are 'real', and so, impactful.

VERY good point, is it too late to change my poll answer?