Minigames are bad. But often optional and ignorable.
Minigames that are gates to actual content are awful.
'Warscore' is one of my (incredibly sujective) pet hates. And the reason I bounced off Stellaris (and every other paradox mapgame) hard.
If I'm playing an empire game and end up in a war, the rules are as follows:
- Take what I can
- Give nothing back
Being forced to specify what you want to take beforehand, and then give back the rest is utterly baffling to me in a game.
It's one of those fun > "realism" things.
THIS^ You keep what you kill! This, war weariness and forced peace treaties is why I just can't get into Stellaris. I came to fight space battles, blow s*** up and take over the universe! Not sit on my paws and kiss political a**
It makes sense in settings where there is an overarching legal framework within which all rulers operate; i.e. 'rules of war'.
The 'game' then becomes focused on the politics & intrigue behind acquiring the necessary claims & CBs to enact the wars you desire.
That's why ck2 is such a great game, and one of the reasons why Stellaris is such a dismal failure.
It's also why everyone will eventually outgrow Civ & Total War games.
If only Stellaris had been set in the Dune universe.....
Two points I'd like to address here. One, when did Stellaris become a dismal failure? It's still growing and thriving as far as I"m aware.
Two, you can make empires that ignore standard diplomacy and instead just go "yes I'd like to take everything you've ever owned, kthxbye". I get that it's not perfect to your vision, but I feel like it's a reasonable substitute at least.
