I'm going to assume its about the venerable Augustus Minimus, famed Cybertronian philosopher from 10 million years before the Autobot/Decepticon war. It'll be a rhythm/typing tutor game where you write Cybertronian poems to the beat of the music.I am secretly hoping that you are right, just so that I can go into a giggling fit over it.
Seriously though, it will be a game set in the ancient Rome. However, instead of a strategy game - which would be continuing in the steps of Rome and this is new IP - it will be a first-person adoption simulator. You play Julius Ceasar, who is bleeding from multiple stabbing wounds, who must stumble through Rome looking for the best possible candidate as your adult man-child.LOL
Unless this happens to be Crusader Kings 3 or Victoria 3 my excitement level is zero.
Unless this happens to be Crusader Kings 3 or Victoria 3 my excitement level is zero.
Let me help you with this.
There is one CK2 inteview that the dev clearly say that they have plan to make new IP with CK mechanic before they go CK3. :)
I suspect it's 'we'd like to make an ancient Rome DLC for CK2 but it's too much individual research, altered mechanics, portraits and whatnot to make it just a DLC, so it's standalone'.Unless this happens to be Crusader Kings 3 or Victoria 3 my excitement level is zero.
Let me help you with this.
There is one CK2 inteview that the dev clearly say that they have plan to make new IP with CK mechanic before they go CK3. :)
OK if it has the same mechanics might not be bad then.
While I don't think Paradox will ever venture into scifi, Dune in CK2-like mechanics would be amazing.
While I don't think Paradox will ever venture into scifi, Dune in CK2-like mechanics would be amazing.
Damn, now I really want that.
I have honestly gotten to the "wary eye" level of suspicion towards Paradox regarding never allowing anything to do with Jews into their games during relevant historical periods until Sons of Abraham.Well... I suspect the operative word was 'pogroms'. Or worse, in case of HoI.
I have honestly gotten to the "wary eye" level of suspicion towards Paradox regarding never allowing anything to do with Jews into their games during relevant historical periods until Sons of Abraham.
I have honestly gotten to the "wary eye" level of suspicion towards Paradox regarding never allowing anything to do with Jews into their games during relevant historical periods until Sons of Abraham.Yeah. It makes sense in the case of HoI, but regarding EU IV and CK2, the rule was just dumb (not saying they needed to implement it, but they could have).
Well, we have a new hint.So something about calendars? If I remember correctly the third month was removed in the first century. Not sure what makes seven significant off the top of my head.
7 and 3 are important numbers.
Paradox publishes shit games if it's not HoI, Vicky, CK, or EU.
Well, we have a new hint.
7 and 3 are important numbers.
Well, we have a new hint.So something about calendars? If I remember correctly the third month was removed in the first century. Not sure what makes seven significant off the top of my head.
7 and 3 are important numbers.
EU: Rome 2? It's a new IP, though... maybe pretty much that except as it's own thing rather than an EU spin-off?Well, we have a new hint.So something about calendars? If I remember correctly the third month was removed in the first century. Not sure what makes seven significant off the top of my head.
7 and 3 are important numbers.
Wasn't Rome founded in 753 BC?
Here's hoping for intensive roman socio-political simulator. Hopefully with better combat than most of their other stuff and perhaps navel conflict.If it is Rome, it must have a thoroughly simulated senate. Anything less would be a disappointment.
The project name is likely to have absolutely nothing to do with the game. If you take a look at previous games you'll see Project Nero, which was Runemaster.
Hopefully this doesn't end up like another Runemaster or East vs. West.They have been working on this for at least 1,5 year and the fact that they are now close to announcing it means that it is in alpha/almost in alpha. So that makes a rather large difference between it and Runemaster/EvW. It's also developed by Paradox Interactive itself as a new major IP which means they have faith in it.
New hint:
There will be no stabbings of pigs.
New hint:
There will be no stabbings of pigs.
Aren't they supposed to be working on Victoria 3? Might this be that?
Terrain truly matters in this game.
Gravedigger simulatorIn which trying to fight (stab) the cops (pigs) who are attempting to stop you will result in a game over.
Elections and Technological Development are important parts of the game.
This is a project we've always dreamt about doing, something all of PI have been involved in, not just the PDS developers.
What might be cool is some kind of radical new era sci-fi set on Earth a century into the future, where the age of geopolitical stability has gone away due to technological advancement. It could be all about the struggle of the stagnant nation-states against new mass society concepts.QuoteThis is a project we've always dreamt about doing, something all of PI have been involved in, not just the PDS developers.
This hint is probably the first one that really makes me think it might be a space game.
My Little Pony Universalis w/ ClopClop!
QuoteThis is a project we've always dreamt about doing, something all of PI have been involved in, not just the PDS developers.
This hint is probably the first one that really makes me think it might be a space game.
Papacy: the game
Gravedigger simulator
In space.Papacy: the gameGravedigger simulatorCombine the two and make a game about the Cadaver Synod.
Today's hint is "Elections and Technological Development are important parts of the game."
Sounds like something more modern, though it could still be Roman. I hope it is a more ahistorical grand strategy game this time around. Fantasy would be my favourite option, but elections don't sound very fantastical. Space could be fun too but the "terrain is important" hint doesn't really mesh so well with space.
EDIT: I totally missed that the hint was already posted above me. Need moar coffee.
Today's hint is "Elections and Technological Development are important parts of the game."
Sounds like something more modern, though it could still be Roman. I hope it is a more ahistorical grand strategy game this time around. Fantasy would be my favourite option, but elections don't sound very fantastical. Space could be fun too but the "terrain is important" hint doesn't really mesh so well with space.
EDIT: I totally missed that the hint was already posted above me. Need moar coffee.
I'll be very amused if it turns out to be AncientAthensAliens: The Game.
4. Terrain truly matters in this game.Could also mean there'll be detailed planetary invasions instead of the usual simple statistics thing most space 4x games have. Would be great to have an Emperor of the Fading Suns sort of deal where space and the different worlds are just different layers happening at the same time. Tho I kinda doubt that'd happen.
Again, this could mean pretty much any game set anywhere. Many point out historical battles in classical antiquity, but there have been matters where terrain matters in wars in all eras. How would it fit a game set in space then? Well, if you see celestial bodies such as planets as the terrain, then itt's a dominant feature of colonisation, production, trade and possibly ground warfare.
I'm really hoping it's a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri based around colonisation, future technology and political ideologies.That would indeed be pretty rad. Given how big of a letdown Civ:BE was.
Teaser number 8. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/augustus-teaser-8-3rd-of-august-2015.874486/)
(http://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/121871/teaseraug3.png)
Black guy, modern hair cut, scan lines. It's a space game, boys.
I'm really hoping it's a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri based around colonisation, future technology and political ideologies. I'll be disappointed if it's just another MoO2-like (although that's probably where the smart money is).
Why not just play Crisis of the Confederation?Crisis of the Confederation is a hugely ambitious mod, but it's still stuck working within the confines of CK2. Ship design, real diplomacy, a research tree, random map generation, and probably most important -- polish -- isn't really comparable to a proper commercial release.
Paradox already said it's not Cold War eraDid they? Up to this point I assumed it was one of us saying that (based, I think, in part of them not wating to create competition for EvW)
Dead, buried and the gravestone has turned to dust. It's not coming back. So why not a different Cold War game?Because they confirmed it wasn't going to be a cold war game. The game would have also been in development at the same time as EvW, makes no sense to be working on two identical games at once.
I guess I'm not clear enough, so I'll be more direct: Please provide a link where they confirm it.Dead, buried and the gravestone has turned to dust. It's not coming back. So why not a different Cold War game?Because they confirmed it wasn't going to be a cold war game.
The game would have also been in development at the same time as EvW, makes no sense to be working on two identical games at once.EvW had been having problems for a while before it was cancelled, decision to make Augustus could have been the final nail in it's coffin.
I guess I'm not clear enough, so I'll be more direct: Please provide a link where they confirm it.Dead, buried and the gravestone has turned to dust. It's not coming back. So why not a different Cold War game?Because they confirmed it wasn't going to be a cold war game.The game would have also been in development at the same time as EvW, makes no sense to be working on two identical games at once.EvW had been having problems for a while before it was cancelled, decision to make Augustus could have been the final nail in it's coffin.
Quote from: ThureIt CAN'T be a Cold War game...! They wouldn't work on two ones at the same time (and yes, Paradox devs helped to develop EvW.
True. For EvW we worked on design, interface & art to help out BL-Logic. It is NOT a cold-war game, as East vs West was supposed to be our cold-war game.
It'd be like saying Hotline Miami 2 is a cold war gameBut...but it is a Cold War game.
it was about shooting people.Hence the "war" part. ("cold", on the other hand, was probably meant ironically)
*ping (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/augustus-teaser-4-28th-of-july-2015.873393/#post-19704279)*thanks.
Where exactly do we get our tritium from anyway? Just as a question?The moon, I think.
Yeah, but not really. Mostly it was just about shooting people.
Leader characters play an important role in the game.That was today's preview, and I don't think someone has posted it here already.
Where exactly do we get our tritium from anyway? Just as a question?Our actual, present-day tritium production? Heavy water reactors or the irradiation of Li-6 (triggering neutron activation and causing it to split into regular He-4, the desired H-3, and a bit of energy). Obtaining it from He-3 (which H-3 decays into) or regular fission is generally impractical, and the US' heavy water reactors that were used for producing tritium were actually shut down back in 1988; as far as I can tell, all remaining US production of H-3 is conducted at Watts Bar or a dedicated H-3 production facility, both of which use lithium rods. It helps that you don't actually need a lot of it at all; commercial demand for it is only on the level of hundreds of grams in a year.
Oh how I wish it will be Paradox flavoured Alpha Centauri. Although personally I'm betting a Dune-esque space 4X.
I thought 4x was a sub-genre of Grand?Oh how I wish it will be Paradox flavoured Alpha Centauri. Although personally I'm betting a Dune-esque space 4X.
It's supposedly been confirmed to be another grand strategy game.
I have seen things you people wouldnt believe...Blade Running Sim?
I thought 4x was a sub-genre of Grand?
\o/
I'm so excited I didn't shit myself but if I had no self respect I would have.
I'm so excited I didn't shit myself but if I had no self respect I would have.
Europa Stellaris.Sriously? You decided 'Europa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon))' was better for a game about space then "Univers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe)alis"? You're so provincial.
Oh, I am very sorry, Stellaris Universalis is so much better, and totally doesn't sound silly.Europa Stellaris.Sriously? You decided 'Europa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon))' was better for a game about space then "Univers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe)alis"? You're so provincial.
Universe Universalis.No, no, the director of EU is not working on this. Crusader of Iron... in space.
Aurora but with graphics, Paradox.
Otherwise I'll be very, very dissapointed.
Aurora but with graphics, Paradox.
Otherwise I'll be very, very dissapointed.
Moon on a stick please.
Aurora but with graphics, Paradox.
Otherwise I'll be very, very dissapointed.
Thing is, this won't be a 4x, since Paradox doesn't do those as far as I know (publish them, sure, not make). It's going to be grand strategy like their other 4 titles (CK, EU, Vic, HoI).I don't believe the line between 4x and Grand Strategy is all that well defined. Judging from the screenshots we're seeing standard core mechanics that are heavily associated with the "space 4x" genre; research, production, credits, science. Ships, colonisation, diplomacy, planets.
Yeah, we need a bit more info to go on before jumping to conclusions guys.No, I'm going to keep assuming this is somehow in Bungie's Marathon universe :P They said 7 was important!
And a Space Pope.
Strategy is more about diplomatie and empire management from the get go, 4X is you start small and explore expand and exterminate, while in strategy most of the time there is very limited exploration, expansion is in 90% of the time directly relate to the extermination while in 4X there is expansion without warfare in the starts.
Strategy is more about diplomatie and empire management from the get go, 4X is you start small and explore expand and exterminate, while in strategy most of the time there is very limited exploration, expansion is in 90% of the time directly relate to the extermination while in 4X there is expansion without warfare in the starts.
It's eXplore the map, eXpand your base, eXploit the bugs, Extend the metaphor, eXact revenge, eXterminate others and still Exist at the end. Unless you're good at math, that's 4x in a nutshell.Strategy is more about diplomatie and empire management from the get go, 4X is you start small and explore expand and exterminate, while in strategy most of the time there is very limited exploration, expansion is in 90% of the time directly relate to the extermination while in 4X there is expansion without warfare in the starts.
You forgot embrace and extend!
(No, I don't remember what the 4th X actually was. Or what MOO3's 5th X was either.)
You forgot eXchange diplomatic things for tech you want taken from the AI, if you aren't ahead of them already.It's eXplore the map, eXpand your base, eXploit the bugs, eXtend the metaphor, eXact revenge, eXterminate others and still Exist at the end. Unless you're good at math, that's 4x in a nutshell.Strategy is more about diplomatie and empire management from the get go, 4X is you start small and explore expand and exterminate, while in strategy most of the time there is very limited exploration, expansion is in 90% of the time directly relate to the extermination while in 4X there is expansion without warfare in the starts.
You forgot embrace and extend!
(No, I don't remember what the 4th X actually was. Or what MOO3's 5th X was either.)
Exploration and discovery will play a huge part, particularly in the early game period, which was likened to sending out groups of heroes to delve dungeons in an RPG. Except your RPG heroes will be scientists. In a similar vein, it was hinted that Stellaris will have a rather non-tradition approach to tech, distributing it through discovery like loot (or cards in a collectible card game,) rather than in a tech tree.
Once you bump into alien empires around the mid-game period, the title becomes more like Crusader Kings 2 or EUIV, with the same complexity to diplomacy and warfare. Towards the end-game, population in your empire becomes more diverse and separate factions may begin to form and agitate for change. Paradox offered the example of a robot worker revolution as a possible galactic crisis that can emerge.
Gosh, I hope that PI makes Victoria 3. They seem to learn much since Vic2. With EU4 and whats been shown of HoI3, they seem to finally really crack how to make good UI for their games, and how to control the flow of information to the player. Mechanically, they seem to be about the same.Indeed.
Really think they could make Vic3, into a pretty good game into a pretty great one.
Gosh, I hope that PI makes Victoria 3. They seem to learn much since Vic2. With EU4 and whats been shown of HoI3, they seem to finally really crack how to make good UI for their games, and how to control the flow of information to the player. Mechanically, they seem to be about the same.UI is one thing, but I wouldn't want a Victoria with a mana system.
Really think they could make Vic3, into a pretty good game into a pretty great one.
Planetary management involves shifting civilians from one tile to another to gather the resources needed. Buildings enjoy adjacency bonuses if placed next to similar structures. So far, so familiar. The introduction of blocker tiles complicates matters slightly. An otherwise desirable piece of land might contain dangerous wildlife that must be cleared out and a random event might cause that wildlife to spread across the planet. Or a giant sinkhole might open up, requiring specific tech to seal it so that the land can be reclaimed. Worse still, interfering with that sinkhole might interrupt a subtarranean race, leading to an invasion from the depths.
Quote from: RPS articlePlanetary management involves shifting civilians from one tile to another to gather the resources needed. Buildings enjoy adjacency bonuses if placed next to similar structures. So far, so familiar. The introduction of blocker tiles complicates matters slightly. An otherwise desirable piece of land might contain dangerous wildlife that must be cleared out and a random event might cause that wildlife to spread across the planet. Or a giant sinkhole might open up, requiring specific tech to seal it so that the land can be reclaimed. Worse still, interfering with that sinkhole might interrupt a subtarranean race, leading to an invasion from the depths.
Am I the only one scared by this? If I only have one planet, not much else to do so, sure it's nice having something to do. But once I reach the point of having dozens of planets this seems like such a hassle.
"Theres so much more: observation posts to monitor planetbound species, either non-aggressively or with added abductions and invasive surgeries; pre-sentient species that can be genetically modified and controlled; genocide and enslavement."Time to make an army of abducted aliens Ethereal style (while watching out for any XCOM-esque organizations)
Welp, I'm becoming The Dominion as quickly as possible.
I hope you can create fake comets over primitive planets to f*** them up.If it's not in the game, I hope it's moddable.
I hope you can create fake comets over primitive planets to f*** them up.This would explain EVERYTHING.
"Comet Sighted" needs to be an event."Well then blow it up! Terrible things, comets"
Well from the article it seems most of the stuff is already in, so I'm betting that most of what's promised does end up in the final game. And honestly, the systems they described don't seem that much different from what they're used to making in their other games, if only on a larger scale or with more stuff influencing them.
instead of the usual interesting early and mid game with the lategame just being next turn and doomfleets all around.
instead of the usual interesting early and mid game with the lategame just being next turn and doomfleets all around.
Or in the case of MoO 2, one doomship which can destroy entire fleets and worlds on its own.
Dem ships bigger than galaxies.instead of the usual interesting early and mid game with the lategame just being next turn and doomfleets all around.
Or in the case of MoO 2, one doomship which can destroy entire fleets and worlds on its own.
*star ruler flashbacks*
This is Paradox developing the game. Not publishing it. They aren't going to say "well it turned out it sucks" and kill the project half a year before the release is scheduled. The game might end up being casual tripe but (unlike the latest EU and HoI games) there isn't a better predecessor for it to compare unfavorably to, which to me seems like the biggest problem people have with those games. And it'll have plenty of support, even if a lot of it might wind up being paid DLC. Will it be perfect at launch? Probably not. Will some people have expectations too high for reality to match ever? I don't doubt it. But I'd be willing to bet this game, like literally every other one of Paradox's flagship titles, will end up being a grand strategy mainstay.Actually, they are willing to do exactly that, if they feel it necessary; they did it with their planned foray into RPGs, Runemaster/Project Nero, which was another PDS-developed in-house project. They scrapped it because they couldn't make it entertaining, rather than pushing out a bunch of dreck onto the market. They don't just do it to other people's works; they'll go Old Yeller on their own pet projects if need be.
research is randomized (described as like "a random loot system").I bet this is going to cause so much rage from ironman people when they repeatedly get shit-tier technology...
Miroslavs can into spaceOfficial HoI4 -> Stellaris converter confirmed. Now you can recreate the historical events that led Hitler to flee earth on his flying saucer and begin a new reich on mars.
Well if you get unlucky in research, nothing prevent you from *stealing* others tech! ( i think i saw something like that in the interview thingy ).research is randomized (described as like "a random loot system").I bet this is going to cause so much rage from ironman people when they repeatedly get shit-tier technology...
At least there hopefully won't be any of that "lucky nations" BS.
[spoiler]You blow up their homeworld in Corruption,Piracy: Not a life choice.
Well, I'm talking full-blown Space Pirate stuff; specifically, the Metroid-universe Space Pirate stuff.
...it really wasn't a good idea to blow through the entire trilogy in less than a week.
I'm really hoping that Stellaris manages to be similar to CK and the like where you can't realistically take over the entire galaxy.
I'm really hoping that Stellaris manages to be similar to CK and the like where you can't realistically take over the entire galaxy. Like all space games tend to be 'become the absolute ruler of the universe' whereas I think it'd be great if you could both play a smaller power which isn't ever going to raise to such heights.
You can set how many you want; fully configurable. They probably did 4 just to start with something simple.
Why? There doesn't seem to be much more stars than there is provinces in CK2.
I'm really hoping that Stellaris manages to be similar to CK and the like where you can't realistically take over the entire galaxy.
What? Of course you can realistically take over the entire map in CK2.
You should try Distant Worlds. Complete galactic domination is extremely time-consuming, if not difficult or impossible. And depending on your government type and race, conquering the universe might even be counter-productive.I'm really hoping that Stellaris manages to be similar to CK and the like where you can't realistically take over the entire galaxy.
What? Of course you can realistically take over the entire map in CK2.
Well it's pretty difficult if you start off as a small count or duke. I'm sure it's been done, but it wouldn't be standard play.
That's what I'd like to see really, a take on a space 4x without it all being about complete domination
You should try Distant Worlds. Complete galactic domination is extremely time-consuming, if not difficult or impossible. And depending on your government type and race, conquering the universe might even be counter-productive.
It's not hard, it's just boring as hell because it means spending a couple of centuries Holy Warring vastly inferior foes.
Actually, the strongest religion in CK2 in purely mechanical terms is Reformed Tengri. ... Now I'll have to do Space Mongols when this game is out.It's not hard, it's just boring as hell because it means spending a couple of centuries Holy Warring vastly inferior foes.Or play OPviking religion.
And why every game in space has ship design :'(
And why every game in space has ship design :'(The real question is why not every 4x has unit design.
Because no one care what warrior have at first. Warrior have club? Club good. Until bow beats club. Then, archer good. Until next step up.And why every game in space has ship design :'(The real question is why not every 4x has unit design.
Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
Looks like only one word, mate.I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
Glorious welsh longbow folded bazillion times by Japanese swordsmiths to create finiest axes known to batkind.I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
You're thinking of Welsh longbows I think. They're *like* clubs, in that they're... uh... made of wood?I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
Glorious welsh longbow folded bazillion times by Japanese swordsmiths to create finiest axes known to batkind.yes
Hey, that was more utter incompetence against bows. I think clubs or even rocks would have been enough.I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
Normand go homeGlorious welsh longbow folded bazillion times by Japanese swordsmiths to create finiest axes known to batkind.I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
WitcherEh, despite being a pretty cool guy all-around, Geralt doesn't have tits.
Its also like games designing your characters looks. Why bother doing that in a singleplayer RPG? Why do so many games waste effort on letting someone design their character?Well, games in general are "to waste time and create an illusion". Clearly someone enjoys it (maybe they enjoy it enough to pickpocket someone and take their place in the Skyrim focus group meeting)
In an MMO maybe yeah.
But like Skyrim? Does changing my height make me stronger/faster/slower or anything? Nope. Its just to waste time and create an illusion of difference.
More RPGs would do far better like in Witcher 3, a pre-made character with more of a focus on leveling/skilling and doing quests and killing monsters. Cause why the heck does it matter how my character looks in a singleplayer game? It doesn't change the game at all.
Not to instigate a debate in the Stellaris thread, but i'd like to point out that the English won their famous battles during the hundred years war mostly because the french were fucking terrible in their grasp of tactics. Mostly, their hubris blinded them to the possibility that a strong defensive position could take away the advantage provided by heavy cavalry.I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
Hey, that was more utter incompetence against bows. I think clubs or even rocks would have been enough.I have 2 word for you: Agincourt.Except bows don't always beat clubs unless the game is simplified a lot. I mean unless Firaxis made it.
Against heavy armor, I'd actually much prefer a big-ass club
Also, the thing about unit design, is that it's just another mechanic for min maxing.
Either it doesn't matter, and in this case, why add it ?
Either it is important, and force you to min-max to get good units (or good counters, but that's often rock-paper-scissor style).
Imo, it just doesn't add anything to a grand strategy game. Most 4x games would be better without it.
I think it's possible to make unit design that doesn't have to be just min-maxing, as long as it'll interact with your opponents' designs. Most games seem to reduce this to rock-paper-scissors, though.
Its also like games designing your characters looks. Why bother doing that in a singleplayer RPG? Why do so many games waste effort on letting someone design their character?
In an MMO maybe yeah.
But like Skyrim? Does changing my height make me stronger/faster/slower or anything? Nope. Its just to waste time and create an illusion of difference.
More RPGs would do far better like in Witcher 3, a pre-made character with more of a focus on leveling/skilling and doing quests and killing monsters. Cause why the heck does it matter how my character looks in a singleplayer game? It doesn't change the game at all.
Its exactly like designing space ships in 4x games, but even more waste of a time because making a character skinny, taller or whatever doesn't even change the game at all lol.
Its also like games designing your characters looks. Why bother doing that in a singleplayer RPG? Why do so many games waste effort on letting someone design their character?
In an MMO maybe yeah.
But like Skyrim? Does changing my height make me stronger/faster/slower or anything? Nope. Its just to waste time and create an illusion of difference.
More RPGs would do far better like in Witcher 3, a pre-made character with more of a focus on leveling/skilling and doing quests and killing monsters. Cause why the heck does it matter how my character looks in a singleplayer game? It doesn't change the game at all.
Its exactly like designing space ships in 4x games, but even more waste of a time because making a character skinny, taller or whatever doesn't even change the game at all lol.
Quite simply because there is demand for it. A lot of players like that customization and I know several people who will pass on games that don't have it. It may not add anything to you, but it adds stuff to other people.
In many ways it is much like customizing how soldiers look in X-COM. It may not change anything at a tactical level, but it helps people connect with the game better.
The issue I have is that most of the time, it actually changes something at the tactical level. In a strategy game. It is akin to choosing equipment for XCOM soldiers but not for 6 o 12 soldiers, but for a fleet. When you can have hundreds of ships, it's nonsensical. Adding more micromanagement in a game is not always good, when it can be simplified by fleet design or science research (and not unit design).You probably mean 100s different of ship designs.
As long as default designs and the meta associated with ship parts are not horribly imbalanced to begin with? But that might be too much to ask for...The default designs will always be complete trash in comparison with properly min-maxed builds, duh. It's how it was in every single game with unit builder so far, and I don't see why it would change now.
Yeah, that part of it worked pretty well. The moo2 designs were mostly optimization / min-maxing, though, aside from special designs (e.g. Boarding or endgame time hijinks, etc) you could make, and yet the AI did not understand how to design ships at all.Honestly, the AI doesn't need to design ships, just have a few min-maxed designs (based on which tech you have bnonuses for/are ahead in) on file and have the races build those. Simples.
Not to instigate a debate in the Stellaris thread, but i'd like to point out that the English won their famous battles during the hundred years war mostly because the french were fucking terrible in their grasp of tactics.
There's an interesting article about Stellaris over at PCGamer (http://www.pcgamer.com/stellaris-how-paradox-plan-to-make-an-infinite-grand-strategy/#page-1).Indeed. It sounds a lot like CK2.
There's not a lot of new info, but it goes more in depth about some features we've already heard about. The character system sounds like it could be pretty interesting.
There's an interesting article about Stellaris over at PCGamer (http://www.pcgamer.com/stellaris-how-paradox-plan-to-make-an-infinite-grand-strategy/#page-1).Indeed. It sounds a lot like CK2.
There's not a lot of new info, but it goes more in depth about some features we've already heard about. The character system sounds like it could be pretty interesting.
Why, thank you. I accept your abuse of capitalization in the spirit of your generosity and sincerity.There's an interesting article about Stellaris over at PCGamer (http://www.pcgamer.com/stellaris-how-paradox-plan-to-make-an-infinite-grand-strategy/#page-1).Indeed. It sounds a lot like CK2.
There's not a lot of new info, but it goes more in depth about some features we've already heard about. The character system sounds like it could be pretty interesting.
Lets all give Culise a BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE for DISCOVERING THE POINT!
YAAAAY WOOO YEAH CULISE!!!
Ok, Australia's not THAT untamable.If nothing else, at least it had food, drink, and air. That's a whole three things that make it more amenable than the Moon. :P
Ok, Australia's not THAT untamable.If nothing else, at least it had food, drink, and air. That's a whole three things that make it more amenable than the Moon. :P
Ok, Australia's not THAT untamable.If nothing else, at least it had food, drink, and air. That's a whole three things that make it more amenable than the Moon. :P
On the other hand if you colonize Madagascar you got the most resilient place in the world when it comes to plagues.
HURGOn the other hand if you colonize Madagascar you got the most resilient place in the world when it comes to plagues.
Dat Plague Inc. reference dere.
In all seriousness, I'm really looking forward to this as it would be a good setting for mods that you couldn't do in HOI 3, like a One-Year War (Gundam) mod.I thought HOI was doing well for mods? Or do you mean "You can't do space battles in HOI 3"? (I really have no idea if that's true, there's a space mod for CKII, so why not HOI3?)
HURGOn the other hand if you colonize Madagascar you got the most resilient place in the world when it comes to plagues.
Dat Plague Inc. reference dere.
IT WAS FROM PANDEMIC YOU GIT!
In all seriousness, I'm really looking forward to this as it would be a good setting for mods that you couldn't do in HOI 3, like a One-Year War (Gundam) mod.I thought HOI was doing well for mods? Or do you mean "You can't do space battles in HOI 3"? (I really have no idea if that's true, there's a space mod for CKII, so why not HOI3?)
Are we talking this Pandemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_%28board_game%29)? Because then no, not by a long shot.HURGOn the other hand if you colonize Madagascar you got the most resilient place in the world when it comes to plagues.
Dat Plague Inc. reference dere.
IT WAS FROM PANDEMIC YOU GIT!
They're both the same game.
Pandemic the online flash game. I don't think it has any direct relation to the board game Pandemic; you play it the other way around, as the virus taking over the world.Are we talking this Pandemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_%28board_game%29)? Because then no, not by a long shot.HURGOn the other hand if you colonize Madagascar you got the most resilient place in the world when it comes to plagues.
Dat Plague Inc. reference dere.
IT WAS FROM PANDEMIC YOU GIT!
They're both the same game.
I indeed confirm that I played Pandemic first, though I played Plague Inc.Yeah, Iceland is worse than Madagascar in Plague Inc. Pandemic Madagascar is awful. Honestly, the only game I ever won with it was one where I started in Madagascar.
Except that Plague Inc. Madagascar is nothing compared to Pandemic Madagascar, it's just not that big thing anymore, the other places are worse. The reference lost it's strength.
I won my very first game of Pandemic, I don't think I started in Madagascar, I just got lucky enough to spread there before President Madagascar noticed someone coughing on the fucking moon.
Haven't won a game since :P
I'm unreasonably hyped about this, considering how badly all awesome-on-paper 4X have failed in the past. Knowing Paradox, this will be buggy as hell on release and require ten DLCs to rise to its full potential. Plus the most awesome content will be provided by modders. I still want to preorder it though.
It is like dating a girl who is malicious idiot, but just so goddamn hot you can't help yourself.
PTW, certainly.I'm unreasonably hyped about this, considering how badly all awesome-on-paper 4X have failed in the past. Knowing Paradox, this will be buggy as hell on release and require ten DLCs to rise to its full potential. Plus the most awesome content will be provided by modders. I still want to preorder it though.
It is like dating a girl who is malicious idiot, but just so goddamn hot you can't help yourself.
To be fair, CK2 wasn't as buggy as some others when it first came out. Maybe they're learning a bit; this is also a new IP so first impressions matter harder.
They need to do a HoI4->Stellaris converter, where you have to have done a WC before converting.Yes. This.
They need to do a HoI4->Stellaris converter, where you have to have done a WC before converting.
They need to do a HoI4->Stellaris converter, where you have to have done a WC before converting.
Space Hitler? You want to play Space Hitler, dontcha?
That doesn't seem wise. I love Paradox grand strategy but they tend to have issues with launches...Perhaps, but Paradox is one of the few remaining devs I full on TRUST to not dick me over, and I bought into a few early access games so I don't really have much of an issue with waiting for it to build up steam if necessary, plus if other comments are any indication then Paradox stuff will become awesome far quicker then stuff like Kenshi that I'm still waiting to have in a playable state :P
But if poland can into space, we'll end up running into space kebab eventually too.They need to do a HoI4->Stellaris converter, where you have to have done a WC before converting.Yes. This.
I'll prove the whole world that Poland CAN INTO SPACE!
REMOVE SPACE KEBAB
WITH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SENTIENT NUKES
Yeah. You just have to realize that their stuff is sort of in open alpha/beta state for the first year or two. But they usually get there in the end.
Fortunately they tend to make games that you'll actually enjoy playing in a year or two's time anyway. Which is pretty rare in of itself.
So whether you adopt it early, or jump in late, at least you know it's a worthwhile purchase either way.
It's a weird business model, but one I have a surprising amount of faith in. Not sure if I'll preorder, but after their 2nd or 3rd kickstarter (sorry, DLC), I definitely will. Might jump on this from the get-go though. They actually tend to respond to criticism quite well, and I haven't whinged usefully for a while :)
It seems pretty ambitious and I can just imagine a sort of 'oh we're putting espionage in later!' type thing which could sink it before it takes off.They did that exact thing with HOI2, and the franchise is still kicking. I think it's not so much about what they take out, as what they leave- it there's not enough "interesting choices" to be made in vanilla, it will fail.
I dont want my nukes to feel pain. They may not want to detonate. I also would not want them to be sapient. Else wise we'd get the Dark Star problem.
So did the bomb in Dark Star. The problem they had was that it was tired of false alarms (and that the mechanism for pushing it out was broken,) not that it was scared. We know it wanted to blow up, because it did.I dont want my nukes to feel pain. They may not want to detonate. I also would not want them to be sapient. Else wise we'd get the Dark Star problem.
Well, unless they have the same issue as http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Meeseeks (http://rickandmorty.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Meeseeks), then they'll want to go off as soon as possible. :3
you know they have a working beta when the dev diaries start i give it 4 months from today till they put it out on sale.
Another artistic decision that deeply affected the visuals of the ship designs was the choice of having visible turrets on the ship. Since we want them to be visible to the player if they are zoomed out a bit, they also have to be a fairly large, and mainly placed on the top of the ship. The turrets aim towards their target and gives a satisfying broadside at times.
Yarr. And early space ships should use solar sails.QuoteAnother artistic decision that deeply affected the visuals of the ship designs was the choice of having visible turrets on the ship. Since we want them to be visible to the player if they are zoomed out a bit, they also have to be a fairly large, and mainly placed on the top of the ship. The turrets aim towards their target and gives a satisfying broadside at times.Honestly though, this, I think, will end up being a proud addition to my 4X library.
manly placed on the top of the ship
I'll just write that off right now then...That's essentially my own reaction. But, if you buy the collector's edition, you can get a special rare species: Terrans.
Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There surely will be one.Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There has to be a 40k mod for this game.
There surely will be one.Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There has to be a 40k mod for this game.
It will be fucking amazing proably.
The hereticalness has yet to be determined.There surely will be one.Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There has to be a 40k mod for this game.
It will be fucking amazing proably.
... H-heresy?
Woah woah, stick to the law brother. Everyone is a heretic in the eyes of the Emperor until proven otherwise.The hereticalness has yet to be determined.There surely will be one.Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There has to be a 40k mod for this game.
It will be fucking amazing proably.
... H-heresy?
It's hard to dispatch Inquisitorial investiagion teams to something that doesn't exist yet... not that it stopped Inqisitors from before, but eh, right now Ordo Chronos Inquisitors are all too busy killing some sentient salt-shakers that are hell-bent on genocide.Woah woah, stick to the law brother. Everyone is a heretic in the eyes of the Emperor until proven otherwise.The hereticalness has yet to be determined.There surely will be one.Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There has to be a 40k mod for this game.
It will be fucking amazing proably.
... H-heresy?
Would those be better or worse than whatever they were killing before?It's hard to dispatch Inquisitorial investiagion teams to something that doesn't exist yet... not that it stopped Inqisitors from before, but eh, right now Ordo Chronos Inquisitors are all too busy killing some sentient salt-shakers that are hell-bent on genocide.Woah woah, stick to the law brother. Everyone is a heretic in the eyes of the Emperor until proven otherwise.The hereticalness has yet to be determined.There surely will be one.Hmm, that indicates they plan on different races having different locomotion mechanics, something I thought was brilliant about SotS.They already stated there will be three forms of travel that you can pick at the start (and gets randomized for the AI): "lanes" like SotS Humans, No FTL but can build teleporters like SotS Hivers and Warhammer 40k style Warp travel (including dangers like the "natives" deciding to attack you and such), IIRC.
There has to be a 40k mod for this game.
It will be fucking amazing proably.
... H-heresy?
Yeah, the forum doesn't like when we get pyramids going. Clearly a sign of alien interference... or something.
Edit: I haven't played Sword of the Stars, which of course is a great study in alternate FTL modes like this. But I did play Space Empires 5, which had stable wormholes (basically spacelanes). Late-game technology could create or even destroy those wormholes, and it was optionally possible to generate galaxies where systems started disconnected. I wonder if Stellaris will allow modifying the hyperdrive lanes, probably as a capstone. Maybe after dealing with the "potential consequences" of warping physics.The Zuul basically used the same hyperdrive system as the human, just...more directly. As in, they didn't use the lanes, they tore great big interstellar holes to build their own lanes. Their own unstable lanes which took forever to do because the ship that did the tearing was slow.
Don't you mean defensive? Because wormholes seem to require setup, much like Hivers of SOTS. A turtling FTL if you will, it takes time to spread and take hold but once it does the only way to take territory back is to go at it in several systems so it has to split up the fleet.Not from what they said. What I got from it is that, unlike SOTS, you don't need a station at the destination. So you could strike deep into enemy territory. The wormwhole is also two-way, but it evaporates as soon as whatever you sent is through so you'd need to be pretty fast to use it in reverse. It's also not as defensive as the Hiver teleport because it apparently has a "warm-up" time and can only target a single destination at a time. And, of course, whatever you sent is going to have some problems retreating if things go bad.
Sounds a lot like Star Ruler 2's methods of FTL travel. I'm particularly fond of Gates, which while they decrease your FTL energy generation per Gate made, allow for instantaneous travel between any that are built, and they also cut down on labor costs based on distance, allowing for a slow moving, but ever extending empire that can react at the drop of a hat.
Fling Beacons (basically a structure built version of Hyperdrive, but you have to slowboat back if you don't build another in the system you target... it can also throw orbital structures like space stations or other beacons, or even planets)
I will name my first science vessel Event Horizon and hope for there to be !!Fun!! unleashed through its actions eventually.Don't send the Event Horizon to some scrub planet like Mars. Instead send it on an improbable mission like an close unexplored star system. I'm sure the scout vessel you send to explore that mysterious transmission coming from deep space will have no issues at all.
I will name my first science vessel Event Horizon and hope for there to be !!Fun!! unleashed through its actions eventually.Given how much they're hyping the "unforeseen consequences" (paradoxically enough :P) I'm pretty sure all science vessels will be named this by default.
I don't think paradox could actually make something on the level of sid's spaceships. Sounds too simplified.
HOI4 isn't even out yet, and Production seems far more in-depth now. The only thing that'd be simpler is the way you control your army (but hoi3 was atrocious). So far it seems they removed the stupid things hoi3 added and making controls easier.I don't think paradox could actually make something on the level of sid's spaceships. Sounds too simplified.
HOI4 begs to differ.
Anyway as i said - im not hyped at all but im not discouting it entirely. Time will tell.
Same. I looked through all the video walkthroughs and all it seems is that they just made the UI nicer. I love Hearts of Iron but the controls in 3 were horrendous.Pretty much. At most, they make questionable choices, but there is no "dumbing down". I think this is a case of thinking "accessible" means "dumbed down".
I too highly doubt Paradox is actually capable of dumbing down their grand strategy games. If anything they seem to get more and more complex each iteration.
Same. I looked through all the video walkthroughs and all it seems is that they just made the UI nicer. I love Hearts of Iron but the controls in 3 were horrendous.Pretty much. At most, they make questionable choices, but there is no "dumbing down". I think this is a case of thinking "accessible" means "dumbed down".
I too highly doubt Paradox is actually capable of dumbing down their grand strategy games. If anything they seem to get more and more complex each iteration.
Honestly, I hate streamlining. Look what streamlining has done to the TES series. Weak man, weak. If anything I want MORE options, with the ability to automate some of them a la Distant Worlds.I will admit that sometimes, I do miss being able to research every single jot and whit in HOI1. Then I actually dust off HOI1 and remember why they got rid of it; for those who missed that game, if you played HOI2, basically imagine each of the five sub-icons of each HOI2 tech as its own HOI1 tech, and you'll have a rather simplified grasp of it. It just wasn't all that meaningful, but rather was mostly busy-work. I won't say that I enjoy the fact that some things have been overly streamlined out of existence (I want my polearms back, Bethesda! They're armed poles and stuff!), but I can't say that I'm upset with all of the streamlining done with the HOI series.
It will be interesting to see if Stellaris will be the same kind of empty framework.Personally I would be 100% ok with this.
The base structure of Paradox games have been steadily improving, like I think EU4 is vastly superior to EU2. What was lost though were the historical events etc and other content. Instead Paradox now increasingly make just skeletons and frameworks, expecting modders to provide the real content. It is the same with CK2, although the base game is great it gets boring quickly; it is the fluff, flavor and events provided by modders in the Big Mods that make the game awesome.Can't please both the this-never-could-have-happened-back-then group and the why-does-AI-always-do-the-same-thing-in-every-damn-game group.
It will be interesting to see if Stellaris will be the same kind of empty framework.
For instance, they're going with 3 methods of FTL travel. When the game comes out, I won't be surprised if within a few weeks people started modding in new options in addition to those, or if an expansion takes that and increases that number while simultaneously making the existing ones more nuances.
For instance, they're going with 3 methods of FTL travel. When the game comes out, I won't be surprised if within a few weeks people started modding in new options in addition to those, or if an expansion takes that and increases that number while simultaneously making the existing ones more nuances.
That's a no-brainer for sure. They've already got:
1. Battletech style (Ship-based, outside system gravity well, high cost, recharge time, limited range, unrestricted destination, non-instantaneous)
We have created a great many (ca 100) unique, animated portraits for the weird and wonderful races you will encounter as you explore the galaxy.
Yes, the battletech FTL is instant, but recharge is between one to two weeks, assuming you don't have a battery system in the jumpship to carry enough charge for a second jump. This does present the very real possibility that you can jump into a hostile system and lose your jumpship because it can't get back out in time.
Also, prior to 3070 or so, no one except the clans have warships, and jumpships were both irreplacable and practically unarmed, so surrendering it was considered the logical thing to do.
After 3070, everyone has piles of warships, and the whole universe went a bit out of whack.
Now, as you remember from last weeks diary, there are about a hundred different alien race portraits in the game. Thus, we initially felt that lesser leaders should not have actual portraits, because we could not possibly produce enough of them to provide the requisite variety. But then, the artists started to experiment with different backgrounds and clothes, which thankfully proved sufficient to allow all leaders to show a portrait.
The different types of leaders all use different sets of clothes. This helps increases variety, but also reinforces their role, with admirals having a militaristic uniform, governors being more casually dressed, and scientist being a bit more techy. Clothes are shared between some of the more similar species, because creating five unique apparels for each species is just an enormous amount of work. (Not all species wear clothes though; it would be odd if this was every alien races custom.)
I expect that humans will be by far the most popular race to play. Therefore, they are getting some special attention with different ethnicities, genders and hair styles. There is nothing stopping modders from doing the same for other races, of course! For example, the system could easily be used for other things, like an insect race where you have a multi tiered system, with one appearance for the ruler, a completely different morphology for your Pops, and a third for your leader characters...
Sirus will be happy as well - multiple portraits per race confirmed, albeit to varying degrees of diversity, and I am more than pleased to eat my words on that matter. ^_^I think we may be able to customize the human policies if we choose to play as them. I wonder if the devs are right in that humans will be the most popular pick. Makes me want to try a megacampaign when Stellaris is close to launch.QuoteNow, as you remember from last weeks diary, there are about a hundred different alien race portraits in the game. Thus, we initially felt that lesser leaders should not have actual portraits, because we could not possibly produce enough of them to provide the requisite variety. But then, the artists started to experiment with different backgrounds and clothes, which thankfully proved sufficient to allow all leaders to show a portrait.
The different types of leaders all use different sets of clothes. This helps increases variety, but also reinforces their role, with admirals having a militaristic uniform, governors being more casually dressed, and scientist being a bit more techy. Clothes are shared between some of the more similar species, because creating five unique apparels for each species is just an enormous amount of work. (Not all species wear clothes though; it would be odd if this was every alien races custom.)
I expect that humans will be by far the most popular race to play. Therefore, they are getting some special attention with different ethnicities, genders and hair styles. There is nothing stopping modders from doing the same for other races, of course! For example, the system could easily be used for other things, like an insect race where you have a multi tiered system, with one appearance for the ruler, a completely different morphology for your Pops, and a third for your leader characters...
Oh, and also, if you remember the last dev diary, the human polity pictured is Individualist 2x, Xenophile 1x. Just a curiosity to point out, but nothing much further (yet).
I think the first thing I'll try to play as is Militaristic Xenophiles. "Murdering you is just our way of saying hi!" :PI imagine that would be something like the Combine from Half Life. An organisation that invades planets to incorporate the inhabitants into their war machine and have completely ascended a singular species.
Spoiler: It's not obscure enough for Bay12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: spathi (click to show/hide)
I hope there is technology that improves longevity, perhaps eventually making leaders immortal. Then you get stuck with an idiot at the helm for infinity.Eternity is a long time, accidents happen.
Exiting stuff.
I'm too excited to grammar or to spel.Well you should be, grammar (or as the middle English called it "glammore") and spells are literally ("literarry") magic! :P
I'm too excited to grammar or to spel.
I can already see it:Now with more variety!
Potential Tyranid infestation detected, do you:
-Exterminatus
-Exterminatus.
-Exterminatus!
-Exterminatus?!
-EXTERMINATUS!
Effect: -1 StabilityI can already see it:Now with more variety!
Potential Tyranid infestation detected, do you:
-Exterminatus
-Exterminatus.
-Exterminatus!
-Exterminatus?!
-EXTERMINATUS!
not Effect: Comet? (Comet giving -1 stability and presumably whatever they mined out of it)Yep, that was the joke I was referencing. ^_^
I was kind of hoping for generic resources and super rare strategic resources, so we'd have reasons to fight wars over otherwise useless shitholes (cough Arrakis cough). Something like wormholes requiring unobtanium, warp drives grimdarkium and so forth. It would work as an organic limit for how many ships you can build at the same time as well.They did mention how they'd talk about rare resources next week. Maybe the spice can flow.
Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.
^fake edit: Urist. Play Stars! In multiplayer. It is fucking brutal. But awesome as well.
@Urist
Interesting perspective! I'd rather have important decisions be filtered up through a hierarchy of leaders, leaving the emperor to focus on the big picture. Sorta like CK2 simulates, to the extent it can.
Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.
A. Delegation: You could have people for that.
B. Corporations: Transport companies could exist, for example.
Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.
It's only brutal if you decide to turn all the automation off, and even then you only control the "state-owned" stuff. Your empire has civilians that do their own thing, including all of the shipping.Honestly, the thing that I hate most about space 4Xs is the lack of micromanagement. Running a space empire should be fucking brutal.
You might want to check out Distant Worlds.
Well, if people want a brutal game, Aurora's there- ready and waiting... :o
It's a good test so you can see your own "brain dribble" factor. How long can you keep up complete MM of your empire before you just start using "large chunks of whatever" for that section of the game?
Spaceports are a thing now. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-10-the-spaceport-and-rare-resources.892292/)No, there's an important distinction. When people say "space station", they're referring to any artificial (relatively stationary) structure in space. Spaceports are a specific type of space station, but there are other types of space stations like research or (I assume) defense stations.
Seems it should be called just "space station", but it matters little.
Generally a shipyard or "drydock"/spacedock in that case, but again can be part of an overall structure. The terms aren't really fixed, so yeah could beJust MHO but ports generally specialize in facilitating the loading/unloading/transfer/storage of goods and are mostly trade related. Space Stations may contain ports in addition to other things.Or, in space settings, construction of ships.
I think it's fairly obvious that spaceports are located in space, I mean, it's in their damn name :VAirports.
I think it's fairly obvious that spaceports are located in space, I mean, it's in their damn name :VAirports.
Any news on mod support? This is begging for mod support.
Fanatically Militaristic with a sprinkling of Xenophilic. Invading your worlds is just our idea of a handshake.Spoken like a true dwarf!
"We love war! And We like you! So here, have a cup of war!"
We will be SOOOO neighborly.
THE SPICE MUST FLOW
Ponies and WH40K, the Solar Empire. WH40K, I really only have references from memes, Chapter Master and that guardsman/inquisitor story but that is enough for my imaginations when mashing it with Ponies.You're evil, evil man.
I gonna go full "Foundation"
Science society that slowly turn into hive-mind utopia
Overhauls and mods are good, but I'm much more worried about the thing that makes these grand strategies alive, AI. I've searched the thread and so far no one has brought this subject to detail, and yet I feel it could use more attention. It is a common fact that Paradox AI sucks. Not only that, but it sucks in a way that mods cannot fix. And unlike in previous Paradox games, here the AI starts from the same position as the player.
If they don't fundamentally change the way it works and either fix it themselves, or open up AI infrastructure for modding in a way that will allow modders to make AI behave as they wish without shamanic manipulation of weights, it's going to end as HoI 3 did, with its overly complex and AI-reliant subsystems that break apart the moment you look away from them, and with them broken, the whole game becomes pretty meaningless.
Personally, I'm not too interested in a 'difficult' AI. I'd rather see a universe that's end goal ain't solely domination in some form or another. At least then, it gives me room to play something suboptimal and not be steamrolled.
Competent, sure. Plays to its personality/traits/goals, yes indeed.
I'll have a strict nonintervention policy for races that haven't become starfaring on their own. If that is a thing.
I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!
I actually wouldn't be surprised to find that a policy of non-intervention (specifically, the "Noninterference Directive" that came up on screenshots a while back) comes with its own domestic benefits, maybe morale out of a sense of moral superiority, diplomatic since other races know you won't interfere with their own policies, or the like. We'll likely find out in a bit under a week, though, considering the next DD is on the topic of pre-FTL species. From the screenshots we've seen, if you want the Prime Directive, you'll probably have to pick something like "Noninterference Directive", then in policies "Passive Study" for Xeno Interference (even the Federation set up stealthed observation posts using cloaking technology) and "Prohibited" for Xeno Enlightenment.I'll have a strict nonintervention policy for races that haven't become starfaring on their own. If that is a thing.
I'm going to assume that's kind of a self-inflicted challenge. There are going to be a number of planets you're not going to be able to use yourself nor can you ally the existing, under-developed population. Still, this could just mean you spread out more among the stars and will have larger gaps between your populated planets, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you can defend your larger territory and some of the races in it develop space travel on their own. Then again, we already had an event where your colony was approached by a formerly unknown race from underground, so you might not always be aware there is a race to nonintervent with. Better make some protocols for those cases.
That are actual plant lifeforms.I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!Vegetarian crusaders? ???
That are actual plant lifeforms.I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!Vegetarian crusaders? ???
Why not? We are made of meat and eat meat, after all.Vegetarian vegetables? A dark twist on a theme, for sure.That are actual plant lifeforms.I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!Vegetarian crusaders? ???
They would want the slaves for themselves
If an empire is pro slaves, the most likely thing is that they don't give a flying fuck if other empires like slaves or not, unless they are condemned for having slaves, or they have religious / social reasons to promote slavery in other places.Selling your slaves to them. +Trade/Economy and +Relations
You forget that wars are ludicrously expensive business!Depends... are the ones fighting the wars short on resources and buying it from me at a premium? I suppose I could give a discount on that premium for a friend.
There have always been nutjobs trying to force their beliefs upon others through violence, but a philosophy/religion seeing war in itself as holy would be interesting. Something about existential threats provoking innovation and spiritual growth, testing the mettle of the species and so forth. Not about being commanded by some vegetable god to go and kill evil vegetarians, but about the very conflict in itself being holy and a chance to reach nirvana for all participants.This is pretty much what I had in mind for my Militaristic Xenophiles.
"Hey, hey, hey you, want to meditate with us? :D" "Uh, sure..?" "SWEEET! Here's an AK, see you tomorrow! *wink*" "??"
Whilst I'm Mega-Hyped. I'm also foreseeing a ton of mechanics based DLCs. A bit like GalCiv3, where they stripped away a lot of the mechanics and plan to gradually feed them back in via expansions.To be fair, when Stardock made a game with all features available from the get-go (Elemental: War of Magic) it didn't work out too well.
The base structure of Paradox games have been steadily improving, like I think EU4 is vastly superior to EU2. What was lost though were the historical events etc and other content. Instead Paradox now increasingly make just skeletons and frameworks, expecting modders to provide the real content. It is the same with CK2, although the base game is great it gets boring quickly; it is the fluff, flavor and events provided by modders in the Big Mods that make the game awesome.Paradox's new policy actually disallows major mods, they only like stuff they directly control, which means mods that fit on the Steam workshop.
It will be interesting to see if Stellaris will be the same kind of empty framework.
Dev Diary 5: Empires and Species (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-5-empires-and-species.887487/)I'm a bit disappointed. A technological/synthetic racial class would be okay; something with robots and AIs and crystal people.
So, Empires are defined by species (in the six major classes we know already: Mammalian, Arthropoid, Avian, Reptilian, Molluscoid or Fungoid), but also by their Ethos (which are designated at game start, but can also be manipulated in-game). Species have genetic traits which are also bought separately, which are much more fixed when compared to ethos but are still not completely inviolate (quote from Sheng-ji Yang here). Pops also have their own ethos which may or may not match their government, like Victoria 2 issues and parties, but it looks like they're a bit more unruly than they were in V2. It sounds...promising, depending on how much control we actually have to influence population and government ethos directly or indirectly.
"We think you are great! Now join us or else!"Here's another aspect of why: Slavery is considered xenophobic, contrary to the definition of the word. It might be more accurately be called Equality vs Superiority or something.
Most leader types are recruited using Influence (a type of diplomatic "currency" in the game)And that sets off blaring EU4-colored warning lights.
I always pictured spaceports being on planet surfaces, like on Tatooine, and in MoO 2,In actuality, the most efficient way is to lift parts and supplies into orbit using an elevator and construct stuff up top.
so what is everyone's first race? i what to make a Utopian human federation like in Star Trek. i don't like the dystopian theme that seems to pervade most sci fi.We don't know much about races, so I can't say that for certain. Depends on the traits and portraits available, but if nothing catches my eye I'll just go human. As for nation, I want to go spiritual collectivist to make an ideal society, and either xenophobic or pacifist, depending on how the mechanics work out; preserving my own race (and thus a predominance of my own ethics) seems overall beneficial but I suspect Paradox is making it the "bad guy" option rather than simply making it a tribal "us first" ideology. Might do it even if they do. Pacifism comes with a food (and thus population) bonus, which is nice and I like to build more than conquer, but it depends on how restrictive the mechanics are. Still gonna want to go on cheerful colonialist adventures in other people's nations, after all.
I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!You endeavor to reach heaven through violence? The faithful of YISUN are a strange breed.
What if they don't? What if they're freeing someone from the tyranny of choice, and replacing it with a system of safety in certainty?Every slavery is inherently hierarchical; for someone to be owned, another must own. That would generally imply belief about who should fit which role, and the odd case where the ruling designated caste isn't necessarily the rulers of your slave nation seems to me an odd enough exception that it's reasonable to be omitted in the base game. Though "force them to adopt this policy we like" seems like a reasonable CB for the game to include. Even "force them to adopt this policy we don't like" if you want to play the USA disarm Japan, radicalize foreign religions, and etc.
a philosophy/religion seeing war in itself as holy would be interesting.The Assyrians had something like that. Others too, including an Orthodox heresy that I don't recall the name of.
I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!You endeavor to reach heaven through violence? The faithful of YISUN are a strange breed.
There have always been nutjobs trying to force their beliefs upon others through violence, but a philosophy/religion seeing war in itself as holy would be interesting. Something about existential threats provoking innovation and spiritual growth, testing the mettle of the species and so forth. Not about being commanded by some vegetable god to go and kill evil vegetarians, but about the very conflict in itself being holy and a chance to reach nirvana for all participants.IIRC, there's a race like that in John Scalzi's books (the Consu). They war on other races to help bring them to a state of perfection, and despite being so technologically advanced that they culd wipe out every other race in the books without breaking a sweat, they deliberately hamstring themselves and use technology on par with their enemies, to make it a fair fight.
"Hey, hey, hey you, want to meditate with us? :D" "Uh, sure..?" "SWEEET! Here's an AK, see you tomorrow! *wink*" "??"
Paradox's new policy actually disallows major mods, they only like stuff they directly control, which means mods that fit on the Steam workshop.The what? I'm genuinely confused here, because I'm not certain how you yourself define a "major" mod. I mean, for EU4, you have MEIOU and VeF, both of which massively overhaul significant portions of the game. For CK2, you have some massive mods: Crisis of the Confederation moves it to space (in the process both requiring and receiving some specialized bug fixes from the devs that could never have affected vanilla due to the lack of female republican succession there); Warhammer, ASOIAF, and Elder Scrolls all transplant it to separate fictional realms with their own special rules and functions (some of which gets pretty complex, such as multiple species in Elder Scrolls); and CK2+ rather rivals such mods as DVIP, MEIOU (in either incarnation), or Magna Mundi. I mean, something like After The End might not be quite as thorough in its overhaul of mechanics, but a complete transfer of the game from medieval Europe to a post-apocalyptic America is hardly minor, either, and easily matches up with mods like IES or Fantasia Plus. If these are not major mods, what is?
Well, Paradox has been trying harder and harder to push mods onto Steam Workshop. Also you forgot HIP, which only can't be put onto the workshop due to an installer file in order to set up each module properly. M&T(MEIOU&Taxes) can't be put on because it's too large.
But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.
But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.'No outside links' is different from saying mods 'can only be hosted on Steam or the forums'. I just did a Google search for "crusader kings 2 elder kings" and the first link is to the mod's moddb.com page which has downloads for that mod as recent as one month ago. Searching moddb for "Europa Universalis IV" turns up 11 mods (though none of the big ones).
Well, Paradox has been trying harder and harder to push mods onto Steam Workshop. Also you forgot HIP, which only can't be put onto the workshop due to an installer file in order to set up each module properly. M&T(MEIOU&Taxes) can't be put on because it's too large.
But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.
Umm, The reason most mod can only download from their forum is because they want the mod to act as their DRM, like "You want to use this cool mod? Buy our game then."
Which ,if you as me, is the most respectful way the for the Dev to view their modding community.
Hell,They even have the pinned topic where Dev and modder regular talk about modding problem.
Other people have already elaborated, but I'd like to add that After the End specifically has been shafted hardest by this, all development is dead now. Which is a damn shame because it's one of very few that added new stuff and did a good job of it without succumbing to bloat.Paradox's new policy actually disallows major mods, they only like stuff they directly control, which means mods that fit on the Steam workshop.The what? I'm genuinely confused here, because I'm not certain how you yourself define a "major" mod. I mean, for EU4, you have MEIOU and VeF, both of which massively overhaul significant portions of the game. For CK2, you have some massive mods: Crisis of the Confederation moves it to space (in the process both requiring and receiving some specialized bug fixes from the devs that could never have affected vanilla due to the lack of female republican succession there); Warhammer, ASOIAF, and Elder Scrolls all transplant it to separate fictional realms with their own special rules and functions (some of which gets pretty complex, such as multiple species in Elder Scrolls); and CK2+ rather rivals such mods as DVIP, MEIOU (in either incarnation), or Magna Mundi. I mean, something like After The End might not be quite as thorough in its overhaul of mechanics, but a complete transfer of the game from medieval Europe to a post-apocalyptic America is hardly minor, either, and easily matches up with mods like IES or Fantasia Plus. If these are not major mods, what is?
Different only in that it's enforceable. It's the difference between saying "you can't do this ever, but we won't enforce it because enforcing it is impossible" and "you can't do this or else you're consigned to irrelevance".But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.'No outside links' is different from saying mods 'can only be hosted on Steam or the forums'. I just did a Google search for "crusader kings 2 elder kings" and the first link is to the mod's moddb.com page which has downloads for that mod as recent as one month ago. Searching moddb for "Europa Universalis IV" turns up 11 mods (though none of the big ones).
Pretty sure M&T IS on Steam Workshop, just split into a number of sub-mods in order to allow it to be on there.I haven't checked that particular case, but if it's like Geheimnisnacht, that doesn't actually function and is just an advertisement. Making a broken-up version work is a massive hassle.
They're effectively stopping people from putting mods on ModDB and on Paradoxforums. Who actually goes to ModDB to find a mod? Who searches every mod site possible to find the mods they wants, when there's a mod forum already extant? The thing about mods is that they grow from communities, and the mod community is on the Paradox forums but can't post mods ONLY on Paradox forums for technical reasons. This is the equivalent of cutting off modding's head, and saying that it doesn't hurt modding because you can still get the mod in theory is like saying you can still hold a conversation with the beheaded man because he still has a mouth and lungs. Yes, all the parts are there, but they need to be connected to function.Different only in that it's enforceable. It's the difference between saying "you can't do this ever, but we won't enforce it because enforcing it is impossible" and "you can't do this or else you're consigned to irrelevance".That's HARDLY Paradox doing it. They aren't stopping people going to Moddb and downloading things, it's just that the other forms are more convenient and well known
I see Crisis of the Confederation on Steam Workshop (in multiple parts). Not sure I follow the argument. (I don't understand the instructions, though. They don't seem to say which DLC it supports/uses, unless the answer is virtually none of them.)The majority of the mod is on one part, the rest is music and UI and portrait packs, stuff like that.
Significant amount of the players of Paradox games never actually register on the forums. Viewing mods on the forums require a registration.So how does Paradox allowing mods on their website prevent people from acquiring mods, especially when the download page isn't through the forum itself.
The Game of Thrones mod for CK2 is hosted on moddb.com as an .exe file and has a comments thread there. That's at leastthreetwo violations of the quoted rules. What is Paradox doing about it?
...and hosting on moddb.com is not a violation...
...and hosting on moddb.com is not a violation...
You did read all of those rules, right? Particularly #10?
"10) The Mod should be exclusive to the members of this forum and or Steam workshop."
So putting the mod up anywhere other than Paradox or Steam violates the exclusivity. And yet there it is, seemingly unhindered by Paradox, despite what certain people are saying.
...and hosting on moddb.com is not a violation...
You did read all of those rules, right? Particularly #10?
"10) The Mod should be exclusive to the members of this forum and or Steam workshop."
So putting the mod up anywhere other than Paradox or Steam violates the exclusivity. And yet there it is, seemingly unhindered by Paradox, despite what certain people are saying.
2) User Mod files should be hosted on a file share site designed for use by the public (if they know the specific address) and or Steam Workshop.
Hosting on Mediafire is still "exclusive" if you don't share the link around. Hosting on ModDB puts it in a public index.And all it takes is a single guy who leaks the link to wherever the pirates hang around.
So a hypothetical pirate wouldn't be able to find the mod on Mediafire, since no Paradox account to find the link, but would see it on ModDB easy.
Hosting on Mediafire is still "exclusive" if you don't share the link around. Hosting on ModDB puts it in a public index.
So a hypothetical pirate wouldn't be able to find the mod on Mediafire, since no Paradox account to find the link, but would see it on ModDB easy.
I'm confused. How does hosting mods on the paradox forums prevent major mods?Providing the option harms nothing. The problem is that the option is not very good, because it greatly hinders pushing updates and because it's impossible for multi-person teams to contribute equally. It simply isn't a possible feature to use for every workflow.
Or are you, you? Or one of our normal bay12ers under a different name? You seem familiar...I don't often come to the lower forums, but I've been around bay12 for the better part of the decade. You may have seen me elsewhere too, under the same name.
And all it takes is a single guy who leaks the link to wherever the pirates hang around.All it takes is a single guy who takes the mod from the Paradox download and uploads to mediafire. The only functional difference is for a pirate is like three minutes of someone's time. Someone who bought the game, incidentally, but wants to share content with people who didn't. The only people effected here are people who bought the game, because the users of the forums and of mods are all legitimate users anyway. This is an attempt to keep good content only to those people, I guess, but not only will it not work, it was never possible for this to work. The internet isn't actually a series of tubes, you can leave Paradox's domain easily and find stuff like that if you want to. Hindering mods, one of the biggest selling points for Paradox games and for CK2 in particular, damages the brand quite a bit. Damaging the brand means less people are likely to buy the game, because the fact of the matter is that people only buy because they want to. Piracy is easy enough that nobody buys a game because the devs have tricked or bullied them into it. Even if you ignore the fact that some potential customers will just plain not play the game due to lack of positive publicity, hiding resources that allow piracy would only be effective if Paradox had monopoly over the internet. Hiding resources that are used to build mods, which add publicity, purely because they might theoretically have some relation to piracy, is possibly the most foolish business decision I've heard of since McDonalds decided to undercut themselves with the all day breakfast menu.
*cough*...and hosting on moddb.com is not a violation...
You did read all of those rules, right? Particularly #10?
"10) The Mod should be exclusive to the members of this forum and or Steam workshop."
So putting the mod up anywhere other than Paradox or Steam violates the exclusivity. And yet there it is, seemingly unhindered by Paradox, despite what certain people are saying.
Paradox does not themselves offer hosting, hence:Quote2) User Mod files should be hosted on a file share site designed for use by the public (if they know the specific address) and or Steam Workshop.
Is moddb.com different from any other file hosting sites in this regard in any way I am not aware of? Because otherwise there is no violation.
also no you cant access the mod forum unless you have a verified paradox account with that game.
Well to be honest it is a good DRM system, if you crack the game you cannot install mod, It is not an intrusive protection system. This way if you like the base game enough you might buy it just for the mods, i know i did it myself, loved a game so much but had trouble with some mods or couldnt access the steam workshop to install more so i went and bought it.also no you cant access the mod forum unless you have a verified paradox account with that game.
Just checked, and yeah, looks like they fixed it. There are subforums for older games that don't require a linked account, but the others are no longer accessible through google's cached pages, it seems.
Providing the option harms nothing. The problem is that the option is not very good, because it greatly hinders pushing updates and because it's impossible for multi-person teams to contribute equally. It simply isn't a possible feature to use for every workflow.What? Paradox's rules only apply to the distribution of the mod. Other than the part about the development forum needing to be private (which is evidently an unenforced rule), Paradox's rules shouldn't affect anyone's workflow.
...This is an attempt to keep good content only to those people...It's not an attempt to keep good content locked away as there are at least two ways to get content outside of the walls without violating the rules: 1. Have someone independent of the development team responsible for distribution outside the wallls, 2. Don't have a presence inside the walls. That said, it's irrelevant since multiple mods violate the exclusivity rule without having any apparent repercussions.
...Hindering mods, one of the biggest selling points for Paradox games and for CK2 in particular, damages the brand quite a bit. Damaging the brand means less people are likely to buy the game...
Well to be honest it is a good DRM system, if you crack the game you cannot install mod, It is not an intrusive protection system. This way if you like the base game enough you might buy it just for the mods, i know i did it myself, loved a game so much but had trouble with some mods or couldnt access the steam workshop to install more so i went and bought it.Locking people out of the mod section is one thing, since it only effects people who don't have the game legitimately. Preventing people from using both that mod forum and somewhere else, though, not only hinders the development of the modding community, but also undermines that effort by encouraging people to find another nexus for modding.
What? Paradox's rules only apply to the distribution of the mod. Other than the part about the development forum needing to be private (which is evidently an unenforced rule), Paradox's rules shouldn't affect anyone's workflow.The previously unenforced rule is being enforced now.
It's not an attempt to keep good content locked away as there are at least two ways to get content outside of the walls without violating the rules: 1. Have someone independent of the development team responsible for distribution outside the wallls, 2. Don't have a presence inside the walls. That said, it's irrelevant since multiple mods violate the exclusivity rule without having any apparent repercussions.1. is illicit, 2. is almost as bad as having no presence outside the walls in terms of dividing the modding community.
Paradox's rules regarding community access have been in place since EUIII at least, so several years. Modding has flourished despite this (at least for the games with large audiences).Unenforced rules, as you say, don't have an impact. Previously they tacitly allowed links in reasonable contexts, whenever there was a legitimate mod-related purpose. The problem is that they're now enforcing them widely.
Okay, instead let's talk about how Stellaris is gonna be great except it's actually going to be terrible because influence points are basically bird mana all over again, and the leader cap means that your characters are like EU4's playing card advisors rather than CK2's important characters, and planetary customization is going to be utterly non-meaningful (until the inevitable DLC).whats the influence points thing? this is the first I've heard of it. and how is a limit on the number of characters reduce their importance? if anything having less should means you value them more?
Well, someone's already made up their minds about anything Paradox will ever develop.Maybe I'm feeling more negative about them now because of what they're doing to CK2. And what they did with EU4, and where HoI4 looks like it might be going. Comparatively speaking, Stellaris is the best looking of their games in a while, but we've got to talk about something.
Influence points were introduced briefly in Dev Diary 6 as a diplomatic currency that you use to pay for leaders, and mentioned again in dev diary 12 as able to pay for edicts. They don't look like they're going to be that huge of an aspect of the game, and are more sensibly constrained in what they represent than the three mana pools of EU4, but that particular blunder is still enough to inspire apprehension in me.Okay, instead let's talk about how Stellaris is gonna be great except it's actually going to be terrible because influence points are basically bird mana all over again, and the leader cap means that your characters are like EU4's playing card advisors rather than CK2's important characters, and planetary customization is going to be utterly non-meaningful (until the inevitable DLC).whats the influence points thing? this is the first I've heard of it. and how is a limit on the number of characters reduce their importance? if anything having less should means you value them more?
Okay, instead let's talk about how Stellaris is gonna be great except it's actually going to be terrible because influence points are basically bird mana all over again, and the leader cap means that your characters are like EU4's playing card advisors rather than CK2's important characters, and planetary customization is going to be utterly non-meaningful (until the inevitable DLC).That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing. That they're going for an "unified homeworld" setting limits just how much they can do with individual characters in the first place, and you can't really blame them for doing the same thing that basically every space 4x has done. The DLC argument is old and tiring; why bother bringing it up when complaining about mechanics?
It's a nice change of pace from Stellaris: Everyone Praise Paradox For Being Gods Here.True, but knocking on CKII for features you haven't actually seen implemented yet is something I find to be going a little too far. (I can see how coalitions can turn out badly, but it crossing religions is actually a plus for me)
That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing.
I will spam artificial comets all the time.If this is not an actual thing, I hope modders make it so.
Fuck their stability.
Here's to hoping that an xcom-like organization forms in case of invasion.That would happen in a cross between aggressive probing and covert infiltration...
Thinking about it... yeah, I guess so. Still hoping they put something like that in.Here's to hoping that an xcom-like organization forms in case of invasion.That would happen in a cross between aggressive probing and covert infiltration...
That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing.
Seconded. Not every post-CK2 game has to be character-focused, and it makes more sense to make Stellaris conceptually similar to EU4. You necessarily have to deal with exploration, colonization and trade, for instance. Sure, it'd be fantastic to have a EU-like game with CK2 levels of character depth, but you need to pick a focus as development resources aren't infinite. Meaning, you can't have the cake and eat it too.
That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing.
Seconded. Not every post-CK2 game has to be character-focused, and it makes more sense to make Stellaris conceptually similar to EU4. You necessarily have to deal with exploration, colonization and trade, for instance. Sure, it'd be fantastic to have a EU-like game with CK2 levels of character depth, but you need to pick a focus as development resources aren't infinite. Meaning, you can't have the cake and eat it too.
They should just give us EU:Rome 2 already!
Isn't that what Rome:Total War is?That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing.
Seconded. Not every post-CK2 game has to be character-focused, and it makes more sense to make Stellaris conceptually similar to EU4. You necessarily have to deal with exploration, colonization and trade, for instance. Sure, it'd be fantastic to have a EU-like game with CK2 levels of character depth, but you need to pick a focus as development resources aren't infinite. Meaning, you can't have the cake and eat it too.
They should just give us EU:Rome 2 already!
Honestly I'm surprised no one's done a CKII mod for the Roman Republic Era.
Isn't that what Rome:Total War is?
They should just give us EU:Rome 2 already!
Honestly I'm surprised no one's done a CKII mod for the Roman Republic Era.
Isn't that what Rome:Total War is?
There's no Total War game whose character depth and mechanics remotely approach CK2's.
EU Rome 2 would be a pretty viable candidate for CK2-like systems, due to similarities in scope (mainly geographical restrictions).
But primarily because EU: Rome also was character focused ;)
That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing.Only if you consider good and bad to not ever be objective.
The DLC argument is old and tiring; why bother bringing it up when complaining about mechanics?Because business model has an effect on mechanic implementation and choices. It's relevant.
True, but knocking on CKII for features you haven't actually seen implemented yet is something I find to be going a little too far. (I can see how coalitions can turn out badly, but it crossing religions is actually a plus for me)We have seen it implemented, though. It's a mechanic taken from their EU4, where it works poorly, and Victoria 2 where it at least serves a function in modeling the politics of the era. This applies to shattered retreats as well, incidentally, which are in EU and are annoying and illogical but ultimately a minor annoyance.
That they're making something closer to EU4: Space Edition instead of CK2: Space Edition isn't objectively a bad thing.Only if you consider good and bad to not ever be objective.
I think the leaders have personal ethics and if they disagree with the choices you make, there might be !!FUN!! as a result.That is fine. It is much more interesting to make an example of them rather then dealing with positions emptying on their own.
I'm really disappointed that they're not doing more complex characters. Whilst I didn't expect it to be CK2 level, I expected them to be pretty fleshed out compared to the current ones which look 100% 4x standard.What would be more interesting are characters that are outside of your control.
I'm really disappointed that they're not doing more complex characters. Whilst I didn't expect it to be CK2 level, I expected them to be pretty fleshed out compared to the current ones which look 100% 4x standard.What would be more interesting are characters that are outside of your control.
"It's not appropriate" seems like an understatement.I'm really disappointed that they're not doing more complex characters. Whilst I didn't expect it to be CK2 level, I expected them to be pretty fleshed out compared to the current ones which look 100% 4x standard.What would be more interesting are characters that are outside of your control.
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....",Spoiler (click to show/hide)
ITS NOT APPROPRIATE!!!
I had honestly thought the extra character development would have been one thing to really give this a one up over all other space 4x's.
In pretty much every space 4x, all the races play the same other than slightly different tech and ships (plus maybe a few modifiers on planet types and whatever). Having real, tangible differences in the way the different races politics and culture works (similar to how CK2's do) would have been incredible.
Even without that, having more fleshed out relationships for things like civil wars would have really helped give things a sense of late game purpose.
I doubt that we will have internal politics in Stellaris.
Would be interesting if population units could become loyal to characters tooDo you want Space Hitler?
Would be interesting if population units could become loyal to characters tooDo you want Space Hitler?
Because this is how you get Space Hitler.
Space Joseph Stalin. Space Mao Zedong. Space Kim Il-sung.Would be interesting if population units could become loyal to characters tooDo you want Space Hitler?
Because this is how you get Space Hitler.
It's basically any personality cult. Not a bad thing to crop up organically, but it seems rather specific.
Just read the last diary about primitive civilizations, that was really nice. Uplifting and integrating them to your empire in particular sounds great and flavorful. I hope we can have uplifted medieval civilization to form your shock troops for invasion. Doubtful since it seem they become protectorate and semi-autonomous, but we'll see.I haven't been following the diaries, but I hope this is the case. I've done it to some extent in Space Empires IV and Master of Orion 2... Except ironically the main thing you *can't* do is use them as troopers. In the first you basically use them to colonize planets with atmospheres you can't breathe, and in the latter they're only ever good as workers/scientists/farmers due to racial bonuses.
That's one of the things I loved about Distant Worlds. Bringing new races into your empire gave you their traits! And if they're good ground troops, you can use them as such.DW did multiracial empire more-or-less right... and even as races became more populous in your empire they began to rise to higher levels of government.
Space Joseph Stalin. Space Mao Zedong. Space Kim Il-sung.Would be interesting if population units could become loyal to characters tooDo you want Space Hitler?
Because this is how you get Space Hitler.
It's basically any personality cult. Not a bad thing to crop up organically, but it seems rather specific.
Or you could set certain race families to be enslaved, and set up penal colonies. Or resettle anyone not of your race off of your homeworld to keep that world 'pure' while letting them live anywhere else in your empire.That's one of the things I loved about Distant Worlds. Bringing new races into your empire gave you their traits! And if they're good ground troops, you can use them as such.DW did multiracial empire more-or-less right... and even as races became more populous in your empire they began to rise to higher levels of government.
I would often take over prewarp races and then resettle them throughout my empire so they spread out and grow faster, giving me them tasty bonuses.
So basically Space British Empire?That's one of the things I loved about Distant Worlds. Bringing new races into your empire gave you their traits! And if they're good ground troops, you can use them as such.DW did multiracial empire more-or-less right... and even as races became more populous in your empire they began to rise to higher levels of government.
So basically Space British Empire?That's one of the things I loved about Distant Worlds. Bringing new races into your empire gave you their traits! And if they're good ground troops, you can use them as such.DW did multiracial empire more-or-less right... and even as races became more populous in your empire they began to rise to higher levels of government.
Space Poland?
Oh wait, right, Poland can't into space.
EDIT: Also, yeah, they totally have to make some reference to that, maybe in shape of an achivement. If they don't, they lose everything.
(https://i.warosu.org/data/tg/img/0340/58/1407779643891.png)Oh god the Hussar wing-flames just MAKE this.
For Poland, there is only one way to can into space.
Watch with English subtitles. Or something. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRdYz8cnOW4)
new dev diary:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-14-uplifting-and-subspecies.898648/
I hope there will be some positive transhumanism aspects, as well. Because it would be silly if there weren't.The positive is that your race gets new traits. The government's choice to modify your species wasn't heavily detailed, but it's possible you can modify the base species that way rather than making subspecies. And when you do get subspecies, they're better and more suited to their environment than your initial race. As long as you prevent the whole "take over the empire" thing, it's purely a boon.
Sweet. Oh and the modding potential is...HUGE. I am pretty sure that we will have many TC mods & tons of small mods [ex. new subspecies]. 8)I'm pretty sure that new subspecies will be procedurally generated in a hard-coded manner based on the name and traits of the parent race, and traits that would be helpful to a subspecies' planet or are generally positive (hopefully) according to local ethos.
Sweet. Oh and the modding potential is...HUGE. I am pretty sure that we will have many TC mods & tons of small mods [ex. new subspecies]. 8)I'm pretty sure that new subspecies will be procedurally generated in a hard-coded manner based on the name and traits of the parent race, and traits that would be helpful to a subspecies' planet or are generally positive (hopefully) according to local ethos.
I just hope I can recreate the Combine. Invade a world, strip its resources, and augment and enslave the population into my military for further conquests.That would be pretty awesome.
Diplomacy has been a very shallow point in many 4X games, eventually all empires grow to hate you, is rare to have a loyal pasty or like back in GalCiv 2, they are so afraid of you that is not fun, you couldn't wage war for more than 3 to 4 turns when they were already asking for peace or surrendering to some useless empire like the Torians, the Arcean and the Drath.
Federations sound interesting.
Diplomacy, bane of all 4x-types. Most of it comes down to either: Stupidly exploitable only by the player or everyone hates the player over the smallest things.Completely agree. So many good 4x's are let down by abysmal Diplomacy. Most of it just seems to be a lack of testing/being sensible as well as not enough ways to interact. I'm hoping they'll bring across some of the diplomacy from other paradox games, and add some interesting events that keep the relationships a bit more dynamic.
Diplomacy, bane of all 4x-types. Most of it comes down to either: Stupidly exploitable only by the player or everyone hates the player over the smallest things.Here's hoping for "stupidly exploitable by the player". Then we can do the cool stuff we want with less pressure to play optimally.
Diplomacy, bane of all 4x-types. Most of it comes down to either: Stupidly exploitable only by the player or everyone hates the player over the smallest things.Here's hoping for "stupidly exploitable by the player". Then we can do the cool stuff we want with less pressure to play optimally.
Federations sound interesting. Basically a federal fleet builds ships based on all the best part available to all the member races, potentially thus being much more powerful per ship than the species-spesific fleets. The presidency is circulated among the member species and the president controls the federal fleet.
I think that would be very interesting dynamic in multiplayer if there is intra-federal plotting going, but at the same time some unity required against external foes.
And what do you folks think of multiple Federations, are they possible?
The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!
The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!
I mean... Could we get a similar system without cards?
The cards just denoted available actions. You spent influence to gain those actions, representing back room deals and political pressure. You could even gain 'intel' actions by spying on other people, which represented you threatening to reveal awkward or embarrassing secrets about them unless they help you.Exactly, i supposer i could have been clearer(explained better?)It was really in-dept and ranging from bonus to your planet for a while, to renaming a flagship for bonuses to stealing artifact or enforcing non-combat zone or making some planets immune to attacks or some action allowed militia type reinforcement boosting your passive ship creation, now that imtalking about it i feel like firing up the game again dammit...
So what o.O? It is still a lot better than 99% of the other game. Isnt good enough for you just because it is abstract? Im trying to understand.Sure, but it'll always be an abstract representation if you follow that system. If you're looking for something 'more immersive' then it's going to take a whole lot of work and extra detail to justify how you picked up 'Leverage' on another Empire - and why you can't use that outside of the political sphere to damage their empire rather than just use their voice against them in a vote; also, why you only get a certain number of usages of it.The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!
I mean... Could we get a similar system without cards?
Easier to just drop all the babbling pretext and call them what they are: Cards/Actions.
But in a game where you're expected to interact with the AI on some vaguely meaningful level, yeah. Things at some point have to be abstracted. Whether it's cards (abstract diplomacy: SR2), options presented (hopefully with the AI having a "reasonable but wanting to win" and not "chaos-neutral" attitude towards things, even though the player will: Civ/MoO series), buttering up and alliances (Paradox style: EUIV/CK2) or even just the other participants acting "in character" (some people are for/against some things: Alpha Centauri), there has to be abstraction at some point.
The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!
I mean... Could we get a similar system without cards?
The best diplomacy system i found was in star ruler 2 with the card system, you could do lots of nifty things and gaining leverage against other empire was a thing to force a vote your way, IE: The enemy has a colony in your system, well pss a vote so they turn it to you, and if it happens you have allies who hates him they might even pitch in your favor!While the system itself was kinda cool, it fell short for me mainly because it well...wasn't a diplomacy system?
So yes, congats to Umbra and their team for creating a wonderful system to simulate political fuckery, but DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE claim it's better then other diplomacy systems, don't claim it's better then systems with AI that actually react to what you do and have goals beyond "kill everything not me" and CERTAINLY don't put down those "utterly stagnant, banal" systems, because they ACTUALLY FUCKING SIMULATE RELATIONS BETWEEN FACTIONS, which SR2's system...does not.
snip
Hmm... I think I would have preferred it if those kind of things were left to the game to naturally develop, instead of being forcibly created like that.I'm not really sure how these would develop naturally, given that they're meant to be an empire that's been around forever and then failed. I guess they would simulate the galaxy for ages before starting the game, but that would take quite a while and would require different mechanics to the standard game (otherwise the galaxy would always fill up with empires that had managed to survive).
Hmm... I think I would have preferred it if those kind of things were left to the game to naturally develop, instead of being forcibly created like that.How would that work? These empires are supposed to predate your own. That can't happen if everyone starts when you do.
The game would need a VAST timescale for something like that to 'naturally' develop. Even then... by the time that would 'naturally' happen, you would be an ancient civilization too... still kicking around and terrorizing the kids.Hmm... I think I would have preferred it if those kind of things were left to the game to naturally develop, instead of being forcibly created like that.How would that work? These empires are supposed to predate your own. That can't happen if everyone starts when you do.
Do you want space cultists?Yeah, it slows Cthulu down because he has to eat all the space cultists! Gives you time to research anti-Cthulu lasers.
Because that's how we get space cultists.
Obviously you invade, take all the tech, then surrender the colony to your worst enemies.
I'll take the lasers, they take Cthulu, I win on all fronts.
They get onto steam sales quickly enough... so more accurately $7-12 DLC for the slightly more patient.
But yea, its more mechanics expansion... which if you consider CK2... the game would probably still not be out yet. Development Hell indeed.
Zero, any mechanics in a paid DLC is expansion mechanics.Common. Sense.
that was an expansion yes. :-DZero, any mechanics in a paid DLC is expansion mechanics.Common. Sense.
I'm not sure why you two are being disingenuous about it. The free patch to vanilla which released alongside Common Sense implemented the changes to development, excluding only the mechanism by which players affected it, for which you had to pay through the nose.Maybe not one that people liked but it was an expansion.that was an expansion yes. :-DZero, any mechanics in a paid DLC is expansion mechanics.Common. Sense.
...adding mechanics which should have been included in the base game (as opposed to content expansions, the traditional purview of expansion packs and DLC).If new mechanics aren't allowed in DLC, then every dev would have to push a sequel anytime they wanted to add something new. Then you'd either be complaining about how Paradox is charging full price for EU2016 when it doesn't have much of anything new compared to EU2015, or you'd be complaining about how the game has become stagnant, not having received any updates in the 2+ years since its release.
Dice reckons it wasn't an expansion, and that you're being disingenuous about that.Specifically, as far as I can tell, he's asserting that because key features of the expansion pack (i.e., development) were implemented in the free patch for compatibility purposes and only unlocked by the corresponding expansion pack, that they were in fact free features and should have never been included in the expansion pack in the first place. This, I believe, misses the point however - they were only included for compatibility in multiplayer, and if they had not been developed for the expansion pack, they would not have been in the free patch at all. One of the major reasons for Paradox's shift to the present model was to reduce reliance on purchasing every expansion pack and maintain a single code base that can be regularly updated. If Paradox had done the logical thing according to this and *not* included development or other similar features in the free patches as well as the DLC, it seems to me that due to the scope of the changes involved, each and every single DLC purchase would be completely necessary if you ever wanted to play multiplayer. However, this seems like it would be a far more unfriendly DLC policy, so I'm hoping that's not what Flying Dice is actually getting at.
It's almost definitely not going to be released in a month. If it were, there would be way more videos of it around, there might have been a closed beta (maybe even a demo, like with EU4 and CK2), and the screenshots wouldn't say "ALPHA" (which comes before beta, which comes before release). It's much more likely for it to be released towards the end of the year, if not next year.
I don't think there has ever been a game that has done planetary battles well simply because of how absurd the simulation would be.It's almost definitely not going to be released in a month. If it were, there would be way more videos of it around, there might have been a closed beta (maybe even a demo, like with EU4 and CK2), and the screenshots wouldn't say "ALPHA" (which comes before beta, which comes before release). It's much more likely for it to be released towards the end of the year, if not next year.
Yep, I think it's going to be released in Q2 or Q3 actually.
Anyway I can't wait for the next DD, since it's about diplomacy. I hope that one of the upcoming 3-4 DDs will be about the planetery invasions. I really want to see that how complex will that be @ release. I suppose it will be quite simplistic, and they will upgrade the system in an expansion. Who wouldn't buy an expansion which focuses on planetary battles? Heh.
That's true, the scale is completely beyond war in actual history...More or less.
Maybe it can work when planetary governments have nigh-absolute power over their populations (which seems like a common conceit). An invading force then just needs to perform a coup, leaving most of that local enforcement infrastructure in place. Similar to how, in CK2 (or feudalism in general) you can win a war for a kingdom, and acquire the fealty of all the dukes. They may try to revolt later, but the easiest course of action for them is to keep their heads down and accept the change in upper management.
Like the Combine in Half Life being essentially humans, just with genemods and new orders. Or how in MoO2 feudal races are assimilated instantly, because the planetary governors see absolutely no problem with accepting new overlords.
In Star Control 2 the Ur-Quan offered considerable autonomy in exchange for fealty, with the alternative being nuclear annihilation. Basically a coup from orbit. (There was also an option to sit out the rest of the war under plotonium shields)
In short, I think planetary "invasions" are most realistic when they're coups which leave the locals in charge.
I don't think there has ever been a game that has done planetary battles well simply because of how absurd the simulation would be.It's almost definitely not going to be released in a month. If it were, there would be way more videos of it around, there might have been a closed beta (maybe even a demo, like with EU4 and CK2), and the screenshots wouldn't say "ALPHA" (which comes before beta, which comes before release). It's much more likely for it to be released towards the end of the year, if not next year.
Yep, I think it's going to be released in Q2 or Q3 actually.
Anyway I can't wait for the next DD, since it's about diplomacy. I hope that one of the upcoming 3-4 DDs will be about the planetery invasions. I really want to see that how complex will that be @ release. I suppose it will be quite simplistic, and they will upgrade the system in an expansion. Who wouldn't buy an expansion which focuses on planetary battles? Heh.
I mean, imagine if earth had to invade another earth. Like, literally conquer the whole thing enough that the whole planet is flying our (superior earth) flag. We'd need like... tens of millions of troops at the very least. Then we'd be fighting for decades if not centuries conquering every single region. Just attacking a portion of earth (say the US) would take an army so large it'd qualify as a separate global entity. And then after that comes the peacekeeping and assimilation efforts which would probably take just as long if not way longer. Just the logistics of such an action is leagues larger than any game has ever dreamed of doing so far.
And it's actually significantly easier when it's humans vs humans. After all, we have the same habitat considerations and more or less the same cultural mores, etc. What if we're the Gorkian Morg Race of Aberdeeks. What the fuck. We don't even breathe the same air, have completely different pressure and radiation resistances and we exclusively eat the borongian dispatches of lesser races. Also we can only communicate in eight person. What kind of insane levels of warmongering would it take for something completely alien to invade another planet?
It's always irked me how games, movies, and such all simplify such a huge undertaking. Especially when it's like, oh my one single scout ship has blockaded an entire planetary system. =|
Of course, I don't think any of that is really feasible to do in a game so... meh.
I think that a CK2/EU4 siege/occupation system could work if there would be surface maps [like in Galciv] & regions [# of regions based on the size of the planet] for each and every planet. Region = CK2/EU4 province on a global scale. The vanilla min max value should be around 4-20. They could add random events tied to this system [ex. x% chance that the remaining regions will throw in the towel if you control x% of the planet, global/regional revolts etc.]Yeah, I could see that working. On a homeworld of any industrialized species it would be pretty hard since you'd have to "siege" each square, which could take a while. Sort of like siege a province with a high-level fort in EU4.
Destroying planets is a waste of resources anyway though. Much better to just engineer some super virus that quickly kills the alien sophists that live there, and then take the planet for yourself when they're dead.
You'd think so, but so many devs seem to have completely forgotten this.Star Ruler didn't need it, really. With enough firepower, you can destroy planets, stars, whatever you wanted. What SR2 lacked was a dedicated planet-buster.
Just off the top of my head, Stardrive and Stardrive 2 don't have any way to obliterate a planet. Star Ruler 2 didn't have it (but I heard it got added into as a patch). Endless Space completely lacks this ability, which added exponentially to why I dislike that game. I'm pretty sure you couldn't destroy planets in Sins of a Solar Empire too, but they added it in as an expansion.
What SR2 lacked was a dedicated planet-buster.Eh? SR2 had a weapon specifically designed to destroy planets and stars. There is even a special where you can revive an ancient planetbuster.
What SR2 lacked was a dedicated planet-buster.Eh? SR2 had a weapon specifically designed to destroy planets and stars. There is even a special where you can revive an ancient planetbuster.
Constructing Dyson swarms/spheres would require dismantling planetary masses for material. Presumably such technology could be weaponized as well. Of course, Dyson stuff and FTL travel are not a logical combination. If you have the whole universe at your fingertips, why would you bother with turtling in a single solar system? So I'd mainly see Dyson things as something a Fallen Empire would construct after turning inwards and giving up star travel.The point of a Dyson sphere is to capture 100% of the energy produced by a star, not to turtle inside it. A galaxy-spanning empire that doesn't build Dyson spheres is being inefficient, presuming there are no better fantasy energy sources that could be harnessed.
There are several major problems of building a structure that large:
- Materials required. You'd need to completely extract the metals from several planets and moons to get enough raw materials.
- Comets and asteroids (or any other body on an elliptical/parabolic/hyperbolic trajectory). If you don't spot and stop these things in time, they are going to make life miserable for the repair crews.
- Finally, and this is the biggest problem, Gravity. It will be a major pain to prevent tidal forces from messing with the structure during construction. Even worse, as soon as the structure completely surrounds the star, the net force of gravitational attraction from the star becomes zero, causing the structure to start to drift. What do you think happens if/when the structure drifts into the star it was built around?
Though none of those are unknown problems. In fiction, they're either glossed over, or they're acknowledged and the fictional fuck-huge star-blanket is instead a swarm, literally trillions of satellites/hab-orbitals with solar sails capturing the energy. Looking like a giant billowing cloud, moving with the stellar wind.Solar radiation pressure, not solar wind, and you want the satellites in a circular orbit or hover as it won't do you any good if they're pushed away from the star.
Just a few close orbiting solar sats beaming energy back to earth could take care of our energy needs, and we could build such things right now.We could build such things right now only if sufficient funds were appropriated for the necessary research and development required for flight qualification. As a safety mechanism, the transmitters listen for a directional signal from the receiver so they shut off if they point the wrong direction by even a slight amount. Besides which, the frequency used is not the one that excites water molecules. The problem is that a sufficiently powerful microwave source would interfere with all the other microwave signals used for satellite communication in that part of the sky.
But big microwave energy beams are scary/bad and also potential weapons
We also have some required components depending on the class of ship you are trying to build. One of the basics is what FTL capability your ship has, so you may build some ships with warp and others with wormhole FTL. It is, however, only possible to have ships with the same type of FTL in the same fleet.It's kind of disappointing to hear that it works like this. Previously it sounded like the FTL was going to have three different paradigms, and wormholes were generated by free-floating things in space, not part of your ship. It would have been nice if we weren't forced into such a narrow paradigm, and the idea of an ultimate endgame ship being able to use all three was cool in its own right. Being unable to group together ships with different FTL seems like a meta/micromanagement way to discourage the use of multiple types of FTL as well.
Well... the ship designer makes me think of swords of the stars 2... dont know if i am that happy bout it.... Man when will we see something like space empire ship designer? or other game wich seem to be much more freeform in module usage etc. Hell i LOVED star ruler way to handle ship building... man i really wish it would come back in the futur.
I think that came up in one of the dev diaries before. The gate stations just open a wormhole towards the target system. They don't need to link up with another station in the target system to do so.That's how I remember it.
Well... the ship designer makes me think of swords of the stars 2... dont know if i am that happy bout it.... Man when will we see something like space empire ship designer? or other game wich seem to be much more freeform in module usage etc. Hell i LOVED star ruler way to handle ship building... man i really wish it would come back in the futur.
Frankly, Star Ruler's ship designer is what really made the game great. Such a shame to see it go to waste... I have yet to see another game rival it.
I think the focus is too different, Star Ruler was all about massive armadas duking it out. Stellaris seems a little more well-rounded in it's approach to galactic conquest. I mean heck, if you felt like it you could go full KOTOR in Star Ruler and design massive Star Forges that harvested suns and asteroids to churn out swarms of robotic fighers and whole fleets of battleships controlled by advanced A.I.You could?
I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.*I* always got super pissed at JUST. NOT. SUCCEEDING. EVER.
I think the focus is too different, Star Ruler was all about massive armadas duking it out. Stellaris seems a little more well-rounded in it's approach to galactic conquest. I mean heck, if you felt like it you could go full KOTOR in Star Ruler and design massive Star Forges that harvested suns and asteroids to churn out swarms of robotic fighers and whole fleets of battleships controlled by advanced A.I.You could?
I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.
I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.*I* always got super pissed at JUST. NOT. SUCCEEDING. EVER.
Star Ruler was a game I WANTED to like, but the basics of the bloody system hurt my brain so much that I lost 100% of the time to trivial A.I.
Also the ship design was kinda shit because you were ALWAYS horrifically limited in how much space you could use.
I think the focus is too different, Star Ruler was all about massive armadas duking it out. Stellaris seems a little more well-rounded in it's approach to galactic conquest. I mean heck, if you felt like it you could go full KOTOR in Star Ruler and design massive Star Forges that harvested suns and asteroids to churn out swarms of robotic fighers and whole fleets of battleships controlled by advanced A.I.You could?
I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.
You could, I once forgot to turn off automated production and ended up with 3,000 extra fighters in a backwater world once troubled by pirates.I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.*I* always got super pissed at JUST. NOT. SUCCEEDING. EVER.
Star Ruler was a game I WANTED to like, but the basics of the bloody system hurt my brain so much that I lost 100% of the time to trivial A.I.
Also the ship design was kinda shit because you were ALWAYS horrifically limited in how much space you could use.
Different strokes for different folks, but it seemed rather balanced to me. Do you really want to be able to just make your ship perfect at everything? Even with the current system you could make insanely powerful ships.
Its not "I can't make a ship perfect at everything" it was "I can't win in any aspect of the game ever"I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.*I* always got super pissed at JUST. NOT. SUCCEEDING. EVER.
Star Ruler was a game I WANTED to like, but the basics of the bloody system hurt my brain so much that I lost 100% of the time to trivial A.I.
Also the ship design was kinda shit because you were ALWAYS horrifically limited in how much space you could use.
Different strokes for different folks, but it seemed rather balanced to me. Do you really want to be able to just make your ship perfect at everything? Even with the current system you could make insanely powerful ships.
OOOoh space game with Newtonian physics!? I will have to look into that...The sequel is HILARIOUSLY different. To the point I can actually mostly play it. Ish.
Edit: And they made a sequel! Is the sequel better?
OOOoh space game with Newtonian physics!? I will have to look into that...The sequel is HILARIOUSLY different. To the point I can actually mostly play it. Ish.
Edit: And they made a sequel! Is the sequel better?
awesome mushroom people screenshot. i would totally play that race.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
awesome mushroom people screenshot. i would totally play that race.Playing something other than humans ?? Heresy is strong it this one !Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Its not "I can't make a ship perfect at everything" it was "I can't win in any aspect of the game ever"I always got super pissed off at the Newtonian physics that I never bothered to play through Star Ruler.*I* always got super pissed at JUST. NOT. SUCCEEDING. EVER.
Star Ruler was a game I WANTED to like, but the basics of the bloody system hurt my brain so much that I lost 100% of the time to trivial A.I.
Also the ship design was kinda shit because you were ALWAYS horrifically limited in how much space you could use.
Different strokes for different folks, but it seemed rather balanced to me. Do you really want to be able to just make your ship perfect at everything? Even with the current system you could make insanely powerful ships.
I would be consistently out-researched, out-resourced, AND out-gunned ALL AT THE SAME TIME, FOREVER. Against trivial A.I.
In all my time playing I literally never destroyed one enemy ship. Not a fucking one.
And I'm STILL not sure what I was doing wrong.
Imagine playing a game where you constantly get CRUSHED for no reason discernible to you.
THAT is why I don't play Star Ruler.
The diplomacy in 2 can be a lot of fun in multiplayer
It was confirmed to be released this MONTH. 23rd was it?
Hmmm.... wonder if there is an option to start as an uplifted Protectorate/Vassal of a larger Empire...Maybe in DLC. At launch, the start situation is classic 4x, which means synchronous and boring as possible.
Given that they originally had HOI IV getting out in 2015, and now it's looking like no earlier than Q2 2016, and given realities of how long "the last 10%" of any software project takes, I think I would take the over if you set the Over/Under before September 1.I bet one burned dwarven child that the release is in September or October.They claim to be doing the last 10%-ish right now, so I highly doubt it'll be that long.
"it doesnt go quite as deep as EU IV"
Henrik Fåhraeus
So in other words, although it may look flashy, Stellaris is going to really lower the bar for depth even further.
it's just that I don't think they realized that people wanted a proper paradox game in space rather than just another 4x game which is flashy but ultimately shallow.Rather, I think that their existing fanbase isn't really their main target audience. It's aiming to decisively claim the throne of space 4x, which is a hotly contested title, and perhaps the most coveted one in strategy gaming now. But to get a big market, the common adage of game design is that you must appeal to folks who would be turned off by complication. So they tell us they've got pops like Vicky 2, but in fact they have one "pop" per province, who has a species and a position on the four values sliders, but nothing like a religion, a sense of needs being fulfilled or not, no diversity within that province, and likely not even population numbers.
Hmmm.... wonder if there is an option to start as an uplifted Protectorate/Vassal of a larger Empire...
"it doesnt go quite as deep as EU IV"
Henrik Fåhraeus
So in other words, although it may look flashy, Stellaris is going to really lower the bar for depth even further.
I am getting pretty worried about this really. They're not putting espionage in and the characters don't interact, there's no tactics to the combat and they've been pretty coy on a lot of other stuff.
It's not that I expected it to be CK2 in space exactly, or that it won't be fun even without the stuff that they're not putting in, it's just that I don't think they realized that people wanted a proper paradox game in space rather than just another 4x game which is flashy but ultimately shallow.
If it works like other Paradox games, you can switch nations mid-game. So you could uplift Tentacular Catgirls into spacefaring age, make them your protectorate, save the game, then load the game as Tentacular Catgirls, thus playing the protectorate of your previous nation.
Sounds like they're making it very open to modding at least
Is there a 4x where religion is a big deal?Castles 2: Siege and Conquest, an old DOS 4x, had the papacy as a unique side-faction. It was interesting, kinda a force for peace and tempering expansion. Basically, if you conquered territory from a faction which was in good standing with the church, the church got more and more upset with you. This had to be mitigated by tithing resources, or even ceding entire counties to it.
and March of the Eagles (for ??)EU4
One thing that wasn't mentioned: in this last dev diary, the alpha tags on the screenshots are not present, unlike every other DD.Maybe they just forgot to add them. Going into beta would be big, exciting news worth sharing.
One thing that wasn't mentioned
Was it Victoria 2 where if you got an independent Jan Mayen or something along those lines, your culture would change to polar bears?Yeah. There also is a console command in EU4 that causes Jan Mayen to spawn with about 50,000 units.
I think one of the HoI games has a command to spawn an alien invasion.Was it Victoria 2 where if you got an independent Jan Mayen or something along those lines, your culture would change to polar bears?Yeah. There also is a console command in EU4 that causes Jan Mayen to spawn with about 50,000 units.
They get a bunch of other ridiculous bonuses as well, it's actually kinda fun to try (and inevitably fail) to fight them offWas it Victoria 2 where if you got an independent Jan Mayen or something along those lines, your culture would change to polar bears?Yeah. There also is a console command in EU4 that causes Jan Mayen to spawn with about 50,000 units.
I like the texture of the old borders but the non-overlapping nature of the new ones. Wonder what the problem was, if it was the texture (seems odd that it would be, looks like it's just an overlay)
Graphics are usually changed up pretty quick by the community. Rarely, if at all, one of my gripes with anything.
It's not just the zoom levels. We had some problems with borders you see in the early screen shot. Eventually it got to a point where fixing all the issues would take longer than redoing the system, so we did.
If they have pictures for space bears, I hope to god that they put them in feudalistic European dress. Poofy shirts, crowns, the works. Crusader Bears 2 WhenSomebody would love stardrive series?
Haha, Doomdark is talking about expansions already...It's not the first time.
Hmh, I hope it is not completed too soon, since that points towards it being rather simple, yes?It was in development for a long time before it was announced and likely will be for a long time after release.
Although many aspects of the game seem great, I still have this nagging feeling it will be a proof-of-concept test like Sengoku. Then there will be the real Galaxy Universalis later.I'd consider that very unlikely. They've been talking already about potential for expansion, and it's too hype of a concept to do something like that with. Sengoku and March of Eagles were both fairly niche in historical target area, and this is very much not. If they were going to release a prototype, it probably would have been a colonial/age of sale game using islands and the sea instead of planets and space.
Looks like we can perhaps expect a release around the middle of this year. This is all speculation from my part, of course, but that statement and the removal of the ALPHA tag from the various images in the latest dev diaries seem to point that way.
If I would have to guess about the release date...10% chance for a Q1 release [march] ; 70% for Q2 and 20% for Q3. IMO.
Hmh, I hope it is not completed too soon, since that points towards it being rather simple, yes?It was in development for a long time before it was announced and likely will be for a long time after release.QuoteAlthough many aspects of the game seem great, I still have this nagging feeling it will be a proof-of-concept test like Sengoku. Then there will be the real Galaxy Universalis later.I'd consider that very unlikely. They've been talking already about potential for expansion, and it's too hype of a concept to do something like that with. Sengoku and March of Eagles were both fairly niche in historical target area, and this is very much not. If they were going to release a prototype, it probably would have been a colonial/age of sale game using islands and the sea instead of planets and space.
If the game is released soon, I hope they make a proper marketing blitz in the same way as the videos for CKII. I think the gaming world has been itching for a proper 4X for a long while, this would be a chance for Paradox to gain new fans.Those... golden.... videos.
I imagine the more recent Paradox games might be a pain to pirate, though, with all the DLC, cosmetic or not, and updates.
I imagine the more recent Paradox games might be a pain to pirate, though, with all the DLC, cosmetic or not, and updates.If the game has an active playerbase, you get updated torrents. And there exist for CK2 regularly updated stores of DLC for people who have the steam version but don't want to drop a couple hundred dollars to play the full game.
I guess only the federation 'leader' get to edit those?
Not sure how I missed that heh.I guess only the federation 'leader' get to edit those?
Yep. -> "The Federation president gets to design these ship templates using all the best technologies of all the member empires."
Btw, this federation system will spice up the mid/late game for sure.
I'm like 101% certain, that a diplomacy (federations & alliances) centred expansion will be amongst the first 3 expansionsI'm not. Look at the DLC that was released in 2013 for EU4. I don't imagine we'll be getting any pervasive gameplay changes for a good while after launch.
I had expected it to be a lot LOT deeper than that. I was pretty much convinced that Alliances/Federations and all that were going to be a huge cornerstone of the gameplay instead of just two choices.I've actually liked several of the diaries, but I agree; quite bare-boned. Though, given that this is Paradox, I wasn't expecting much to start off with.
...
I'm getting less and less enthusiastic with this, as after pretty much every dev diary it gets a little bit less exciting. I'm sure if they give it time and proper expansions, it'll eventually become awesome, but so far it's looking a bit barebones.
More than that, I can't imagine how badly alliances will play with the AI. It'll be endless messing around with war goals (they've even stated that!) to satisfy the AI. That'll probably mean just swapping stuff until you eventually get a configuration that they all agree to.To be fair, sometimes that's all actual diplomacy amounts to. :P
I do like Paradox but it does seem like you can get IDK a Sid - Meier game of an AoE line game or something for like £30 in one go and with Paradox you need to spend like £80 to get a great game.CK2 with all expansions is several times that.
I do like Paradox but it does seem like you can get IDK a Sid - Meier game of an AoE line game or something for like £30 in one go and with Paradox you need to spend like £80 to get a great game.CK2 with all expansions is several times that.
I had expected it to be a lot LOT deeper than that. I was pretty much convinced that Alliances/Federations and all that were going to be a huge cornerstone of the gameplay instead of just two choices.
I've actually liked several of the diaries, but I agree; quite bare-boned. Though, given that this is Paradox, I wasn't expecting much to start off with.
Unfortunately this seems even more bare bones than usual though - I think it's probably because there's no historical element that they need to fulfill so they don't need to reach a sort of minimum to allow for those events to play out.
My main concern is that they've stripped it down too much for it to be a good game in it's own right. Most 4x games have a 'thing' that puts them above the rest of the 4x swamp, but I can't really see this in Stellaris yet.
I do like Paradox but it does seem like you can get IDK a Sid - Meier game of an AoE line game or something for like £30 in one go and with Paradox you need to spend like £80 to get a great game.CK2 with all expansions is several times that.
..and I say it again...mark my words, the diplo centered expansion will be amongst the first 3.If you say something a first time, saying it a second without some modification is meaningless. If you do so after people have commented on the initial iteration of the statement without acknowledging that in some way, it's inane.
I'm like 101% certain, that a diplomacy (federations & alliances) centred expansion will be amongst the first 3 expansionsI'm not. Look at the DLC that was released in 2013 for EU4. I don't imagine we'll be getting any pervasive gameplay changes for a good while after launch.
...
Which either means they'd not put in a system like that again, or in the future a system that intrinsic would be part of the free patch and not DLC-locked content. Either way, that doesn't have anything to do with them releasing DLC within a year of Stellaris.
alsoI don't know what the fuck that is, but I want to play as it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That seems highly unlikely. For historical games you can add more history/map areas in DLC, but the only thing they can really improve in a 4x is the mechanics themselves. Whilst I realise there are costs to balance so they can't be too ambitious, I do feel that they're basically setting the game up for DLC which is a business model I really dislike.There will definitely be major mechanics that end up being DLC, but they can add the equivalent of history to the game no problem. Look at the kinds of small things that they added to CK2 and EU4. CK2 got new playable religions and government types. Stellaris doesn't have religions, but it conveniently does have government types, and I'd be willing to bet that civilization types (ie synthetic and hive mind) stuff will get involved in expansions as well. Now consider what EU4 has gotten. Yes, its expansions tend to be lackluster aside from the mechanical aspect, but most of them deal with a specific aspect of life, or a region, or a cultural/religious group. There's no reason they can't do any of that for Stellaris, just swapping out "region" with general cultural blocs and types of empire as needed. Also consider that the game is randomly mapped, and look at what Stardock has done with their fantasy games. It's relatively easy for Paradox to make DLC which incorporates new elements for the map to draw from, as well as things like event packs.
oh paradox you trollRemove space kebab.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb_B3UlUkAEDuo3.png)
oh paradox you troll
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb_B3UlUkAEDuo3.png)
alsoSpoiler (click to show/hide)
I think I'm going to need hard evidence before believing paradox can into stable multiplayer.
People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?
People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?
With the fact that the AI can control player empires in multiplayer(when players drop out and others continue to play, plus in-session joining)... I wonder if it has optional automation options like how Distant Worlds does it. That would be awesome.Doubt it, the AI can take over player nations in the current games, you just have to rehost, and there are (with exception of HoI) no automation options.
I think I'm going to need hard evidence before believing paradox can into stable multiplayer."Most stable yet" doesn't necessarily mean stable. Might just mean "it breaks slightly less often than our other games".
People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?Yes. It's awesome.
People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?Yes. It's awesome.
There's two kinds of CK2 players.
There's the guy who plays it like it's Simcity. Slowly building, ein zwei ein zwei one two one two yes I have finished my building time to slowly build some more.
Then there's the guy who plays it like it's Simcity. As the giant robot that destroys everything.
Yup. Then they'll go online and complain.People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?Yes. It's awesome.
There's two kinds of CK2 players.
There's the guy who plays it like it's Simcity. Slowly building, ein zwei ein zwei one two one two yes I have finished my building time to slowly build some more.
Then there's the guy who plays it like it's Simcity. As the giant robot that destroys everything.
Surely the first type of guy is going to throw his toys out of the pram when he dies and gets a regency for ihs 0 year old daughter?
Indeed. Those that desync and those that desync slightly later.People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?Yes. It's awesome.
There's two kinds of CK2 players.
People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?
I think I'm going to need hard evidence before believing paradox can into stable multiplayer."Most stable yet" doesn't necessarily mean stable. Might just mean "it breaks slightly less often than our other games".
Personaly, I think playing stuff like CK2 in multiplayer just takes too much commitment. If I want to play multiplayer I play shooters or in the other extreme, something like Dom4 which can be played as PBEM.You think that takes too much commitment but play PBEM with zero problems? A multiplayer game like this takes a few hours of commitment, Dominions takes MONTHS of it.
I agree, actually. Something like CK2 takes your full attention for several consecutive hours.Personaly, I think playing stuff like CK2 in multiplayer just takes too much commitment. If I want to play multiplayer I play shooters or in the other extreme, something like Dom4 which can be played as PBEM.You think that takes too much commitment but play PBEM with zero problems? A multiplayer game like this takes a few hours of commitment, Dominions takes MONTHS of it.
^ Not really, if you play with your friends or active CK2 or EU4 MPers at least. We simply save the game if someone has to go, and continue on when everyone is available again. It works like a charm.Well in practice, unless everyone involved devotes a huge portion of their life to idleness, that means you need to either coordinate a time or it's very unlikely that you'll get more than a session or two in the same game. So while a game session may not need the entire weekend, it'll need a pretty decent amount of time if anything is going to happen.
While the latter might take more time in total,I wouldn't consider that necessarily true either, if you play both to completion. Dominions is like an hour a turn at most, if you don't do frivolous stuff like blogging about it, and it's not that common to get to even 100 turns. Playing from start date to end date in CK2 can easily exceed 100 hours, especially if you have a bunch of people slowing things down whenever there's a war.
Yup. Then they'll go online and complain.People care about multiplayer for Paradox games?Yes. It's awesome.
There's two kinds of CK2 players.
There's the guy who plays it like it's Simcity. Slowly building, ein zwei ein zwei one two one two yes I have finished my building time to slowly build some more.
Then there's the guy who plays it like it's Simcity. As the giant robot that destroys everything.
Surely the first type of guy is going to throw his toys out of the pram when he dies and gets a regency for ihs 0 year old daughter?
You need at least two or three hours, and in the early game you can read a book or alt-tab if nothing big is happening. usually people are free at night or on weekends, so time isn't as big a deal for my friends playing EUIV.^ Not really, if you play with your friends or active CK2 or EU4 MPers at least. We simply save the game if someone has to go, and continue on when everyone is available again. It works like a charm.Well in practice, unless everyone involved devotes a huge portion of their life to idleness, that means you need to either coordinate a time or it's very unlikely that you'll get more than a session or two in the same game. So while a game session may not need the entire weekend, it'll need a pretty decent amount of time if anything is going to happen.
How many games have you played from 769 to the 1400s in singleplayer CKII?While the latter might take more time in total,I wouldn't consider that necessarily true either, if you play both to completion. Dominions is like an hour a turn at most, if you don't do frivolous stuff like blogging about it, and it's not that common to get to even 100 turns. Playing from start date to end date in CK2 can easily exceed 100 hours, especially if you have a bunch of people slowing things down whenever there's a war.
I used to play with someone who would rage quit if they were losing a war or died prematurely in EUIV or CKII.
*looks around suspiciously* my friend is a bit like this. I'm actually playing two games - trying to grow and trying to also protect my friend regardless of alliance status because if he gets a dose of (very) bad luck, he'll just refuse to play the game.I hate doing this so much. I have a couple of friends (and a sister) like this. Where I really want to play with them, but sometimes it's something where I'm just straight out better and have to coddle them so they won't ragequit.
*looks around suspiciously* my friend is a bit like this. I'm actually playing two games - trying to grow and trying to also protect my friend regardless of alliance status because if he gets a dose of (very) bad luck, he'll just refuse to play the game.I hate doing this so much. I have a couple of friends (and a sister) like this. Where I really want to play with them, but sometimes it's something where I'm just straight out better and have to coddle them so they won't ragequit.
EUIV has the lucky nations bullshit which CKII lacks, to my knowledge. Of course you can turn off the lucky nations, but people often forget to do so.
^ Not really, if you play with your friends or active CK2 or EU4 MPers at least. We simply save the game if someone has to go, and continue on when everyone is available again. It works like a charm.Well in practice, unless everyone involved devotes a huge portion of their life to idleness, that means you need to either coordinate a time or it's very unlikely that you'll get more than a session or two in the same game.
I used to play with someone who would rage quit if they were losing a war or died prematurely in EUIV or CKII.
How many games have you played from 769 to the 1400s in singleplayer CKII?The fact that nobody does it in singleplayer because it takes too long is not a counterargument to the fact that nobody does it in multiplayer because it takes too long.
"Having the right law lets aliens and potentially even robots be leaders. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/multi-species-factions.911722/#post-20750975)"Spoiler (click to show/hide)
GDC is next week isn't it?
You fucking racist :VYou mean specist.
Spoiler: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (click to show/hide)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Yeah, I've been to Larongo and they were the nicest people!Indeed, and they had the cutest pets as well.
Why, to better lick its owners face, of course.Wait, you're supposed to use a penis for licking? I've been eating ice cream all wrong!
"A man was arrested today for violating an ice cream cone. He was also reportedly encouraging nearby children to do the same."Why, to better lick its owners face, of course.Wait, you're supposed to use a penis for licking? I've been eating ice cream all wrong!
Not to mention: http://i.imgur.com/0fSu90D.png (http://i.imgur.com/0fSu90D.png)
They've already talked about the next CK2 expansion, which hasn't been revealed yet. It's probably that.Could be Mare Nostrum (for EU4), too.
It could also be that it's something they're publishing but not developing.
something something White Wolf
Isn't Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian too?Yup
Oh, it's something evil-themed, with that campy brand of evil that is utterly pointless and inefficient. I guess whatever it is, it won't be great.something something White Wolf
this, its been a few months since they bought white wolf, and they've noted they've got huge game plans
edit: Whatever it is it appears to be by Obsidian: http://humanresources.paradoxplaza.com/ this quiz has their logo at the end.
I wonder. If they go down the road of making a satire or parody akin to the Overlord series' treatment of the...well, the eponymous concept of the evil overlord, it might work. Admittedly, I never played those games, but they seemed to be rather popular.Oh, it's something evil-themed, with that campy brand of evil that is utterly pointless and inefficient. I guess whatever it is, it won't be great.something something White Wolf
this, its been a few months since they bought white wolf, and they've noted they've got huge game plans
edit: Whatever it is it appears to be by Obsidian: http://humanresources.paradoxplaza.com/ this quiz has their logo at the end.
Bullfrog
Anyway, back to the topic..Stellaris PL: "I think this has the potential to be our most successful game ever. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-hyped-are-you.913259/#post-20793862)"
If these dlcs are about as decent as the ones for CK2, I really don't see a problem.Anyway, back to the topic..Stellaris PL: "I think this has the potential to be our most successful game ever. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-hyped-are-you.913259/#post-20793862)"
In Paradox speak that means they foresee Stellaris being a vehicle for DLC until the heat death of the universe.
Stellaris Dev Diary #25 - Reverse Engineering and Unique Technologies (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-25-reverse-engineering-and-unique-technologies.913539)Well, it's a fairly minor feature to fill a whole dev diary, but still a cool one.
"Next week Doomdark will return and tell you about Migration, Slavery and Purging!"Now that'll be a fun one.
These wormholes can only be generated by a Wormhole Station, a type of space station that can only be constructed on the outer edge of a system. Any fleet wanting to travel will have to use the Wormhole Station as a connecting point, passing through it whenever they leave the system. The station may only generate a single wormhole at a time, forcing all ships and fleets to wait while one is being prepared. The larger the fleet, the longer it takes for the Wormhole Station to be ready.
...
Constructing and maintaining an efficient network of Wormhole Stations is vital to any species using wormholes, as it will allow sending huge fleets from one part of the galaxy to another in very short time. It also allows striking deep inside enemy territory with little warning. This great strength can also be a great weakness, as fleets are left with no means of further offense or retreat should the network be disabled through covert attacks by enemy strike-fleets.
I found a link to a mirror of the video on reddit it still works at the time of this posting https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B09jVNCB7ZzOcDNEUXQ2V3NEV2M/view (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B09jVNCB7ZzOcDNEUXQ2V3NEV2M/view)
RELEASE DATE GET (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/release-date-9th-may-2016.913844/). 9th of May. Get hype.
RELEASE DATE GET (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/release-date-9th-may-2016.913844/). 9th of May. Get hype.
If I would have to guess about the release date...10% chance for a Q1 release [march] ; 70% for Q2 and 20% for Q3. IMO.
You should now give us prediction on the quality of the game.Or how many bugs it will have in may.
You should now give us prediction on the quality of the game.Or how many bugs it will have in may.
You should now give us prediction on the quality of the game.Or how many bugs it will have in may.
Ever seen Starship Troopers?
I don't personally mind paying for something that is great.Then wait a year or two to buy it.
You should now give us prediction on the quality of the game.
As someone who actually watched all 40 minutes...Quill18 has 40 minuet video of Stellaris game play.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5rmqiyxxjY for the video.
That youtuber pretty much does that for everything. I think it's the reason I don't like him. Facecams should be small and discrete.As someone who actually watched all 40 minutes...Quill18 has 40 minuet video of Stellaris game play.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5rmqiyxxjY for the video.
Eh, don't bother. They barely do anything. They spent all 40 minutes bumbling about barely accomplishing anything (other than a pathetic attempt at roleplaying a cat empire). You won't see anything that hasn't already been seen before. In fact they actually end it when something interesting finally happens.
I also don't understand why they had to put a gigantic webcam to show their faces but take up the entire bottom right of the screen.
Facecams should be small and discrete.
He means as opposed to obtrusive. Discrete is one of those words with more than one meaning, so if you used a translating software to try to find out the meaning in your first language, it will probably give you the wrong one.Facecams should be small and discrete.
As opposed to continuous?
Discrete is one of those words with more than one meaningNope (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discrete?s=t), the word is actually discreet (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discreet?s=t)
Ah, butt it was plane watt was meant; no won is parfait, but inn my ayes, it seams the too words their are natural compliments.Discrete is one of those words with more than one meaningNope (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discrete?s=t), the word is actually discreet (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discreet?s=t)
... Holy crap, I've always had it wrong :oDiscrete is one of those words with more than one meaningNope (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discrete?s=t), the word is actually discreet (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discreet?s=t)
... Holy crap, I've always had it wrong :oDiscrete is one of those words with more than one meaningNope (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discrete?s=t), the word is actually discreet (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discreet?s=t)
Good thing I rarely wrote the word outside of math classes...
Well damn. That's the first time I've been wrong in years.Discrete is one of those words with more than one meaningNope (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discrete?s=t), the word is actually discreet (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/discreet?s=t)
"Parfait" is totally pronounced differently from "perfect" and "what" is usually pronounced with the vowel substantially lower in the mouth, closer to the u in "butt" than the a in "taco"*. Aside from "won" and (in some dialects) "plane" the rest of those mistakes differ in tone, emphasis, or phoneme length. Close enough to be well within the bounds of what someone would understand, but not mistakes that a native speaker would make accidentally. Discreet and discrete are identical words in everything except how Webster and friends decided to standardize the spelling.Discrete is one of those words with more than one meaningAh, butt it was plane watt was meant; no won is parfait, but inn my ayes, it seams the too words their are natural compliments.
You're no fun. :P"Parfait" is totally pronounced differently from "perfect" and "what" is usually pronounced with the vowel substantially lower in the mouth, closer to the u in "butt" than the a in "taco"*. Aside from "won" and (in some dialects) "plane" the rest of those mistakes differ in tone, emphasis, or phoneme length. Close enough to be well within the bounds of what someone would understand, but not mistakes that a native speaker would make accidentally. Discreet and discrete are identical words in everything except how Webster and friends decided to standardize the spelling.Discrete is one of those words with more than one meaningAh, butt it was plane watt was meant; no won is parfait, but inn my ayes, it seams the too words their are natural compliments.
Was it longer than quills 40min cat-pire?its an hour of hilarity and blorg.
its an hour of hilarity and blorg.Affirmative. Resistance is futile.
Face-camLiterally unwatchable
(http://ci.memecdn.com/78/7197078.jpg)Face-camLiterally unwatchable
[At any rate, if you're critiquing my joke in earnest, your choices of quibbles seem a bit odd to me. I'd consider "butt/but", "plane/plain", "won/one", "inn/in", "ayes/eyes", "seams/seems", "too/two", "their/there", and "compliments/complements" to all be phonetically identical to within a margin of error, and I'd consider "too", "their", and especially "compliments" to be very, very common mistakes made by native speakers. On the flip side, I wouldn't consider "won/one" to be a common mistake made by a native speaker at all. I also wouldn't consider "discreet" and "discrete" to be identical at all, especially if one considers "compliment" and "complement" to be highly distinct."Butt" and "ayes" have a longer vowels than "but" and "eyes", "inn" has a longer consonant than "in", and "their" is often so lengthened as to be arguably bisyllabic, though it does have overlap with "there". "plain" and "seems" and "ayes" are pronounced higher than "plane", "seams" and "eyes". They're all within margin of error for a non-native (but well-educated) speaker of English. They're still not mistakes that an English-speaker would normally make. "won"/"one" is a case that I called out as an exception because of pronunciation but the usage is very distinct and both words are common. "compliment" and "complement" are each pronounced with the same second syllable vowel as they're written as having, at least in every dialect of English I can recall hearing the words in (to be fair, they're not words I commonly use internationally) and not only are "discrete" and
~~~Holy crap you're literally arguing over words.
Everyone knows Australians are not really humans. No human could survive out there. I was thinking about aliens (since that is where Occam's Razor always goes first), but then I heard about the drop bears. You see, the drop bear population is suffering from a chlamydia epidemic. Where did they get it originally? Obviously from fucking Aussies. This leads to the logical conclusion that all Aussies are drop bear hybrids masquerading as humans.Aren't Aussies just sentient, cannibalistic, shapeshifting Vegemites?
Foster's can't melt steel beams! Conspiracy confirmed!
... no, the Governor-Generals have no power. Officially, they can reject legislation made by the local government (except in Australia, that power was revoked) but doing so would kick up a shitstorm (see Australia).
As a result, the Queen of England and the British parliament have no direct influence over their former colonies. Any ties to England are basically just ceremonial (barring various treaties, but that's not the same thing as an empire).
Everyone knows Australians are not really humans. No human could survive out there.
Turtle guy in the reptilians is pretty good.Because the human one is gonna steal your shit
The human portrait creep me out for some reason.
The human portrait creep me out for some reason.
As soon as an alien species has fuzz, it's suddenly "furry" this and "genocide" that.The only good mammal is one with minimal body hair!
Fucking self-hating mammaloids.
As soon as an alien species has fuzz, it's suddenly "furry" this and "genocide" that.I know what the First Rule of Descan says, but I'm 100% agreed with this anyway.
Fucking self-hating mammaloids.
As soon as an alien species has fuzz, it's suddenly "furry" this and "genocide" that.Sometimes you just want an excuse to commit genocide.
Fucking self-hating mammaloids.
A couple interesting things to note:Do you just nitpick everything?
It seems that clothing styles are unique to body type and clade. The "avian" classification seems odd, since there's some without particularly clear avian features, and a mammal with feathered wings. And some of those arthropods are CLEARLY vertebrate.
A couple interesting things to note:Agreed. And did you see that last mammal with a bill? What's that about?
It seems that clothing styles are unique to body type and clade. The "avian" classification seems odd, since there's some without particularly clear avian features, and a mammal with feathered wings. And some of those arthropods are CLEARLY vertebrate.
snip dat picI'm torn between a glorious penguin empire and a commonwealth of turtles. Mushroom men are out; my ruler will inevitably be kidnapped.
Man, the artists had fun with these. Loving the art style. I feel strangely fascinated by the third-last Mammalian with the incredibly creepy grin. A face like that, you gotta go far.What about the second-last (in the first row) mollusc? The one besides Cthulhu. That one is surprisingly disturbing if you pay enough attention.
That one amuses me, though I'm not sure why. The face feels vaguely familiar for some reason.Man, the artists had fun with these. Loving the art style. I feel strangely fascinated by the third-last Mammalian with the incredibly creepy grin. A face like that, you gotta go far.What about the second-last (in the first row) mollusc? The one besides Cthulhu. That one is surprisingly disturbing if you pay enough attention.
Nothing for PLANT?
Man, the artists had fun with these. Loving the art style. I feel strangely fascinated by the third-last Mammalian with the incredibly creepy grin. A face like that, you gotta go far.It looks like a bat of some kind.
Specifically it looks like a vampire bat.Man, the artists had fun with these. Loving the art style. I feel strangely fascinated by the third-last Mammalian with the incredibly creepy grin. A face like that, you gotta go far.It looks like a bat of some kind.
What about the second-last (in the first row) mollusc? The one besides Cthulhu. That one is surprisingly disturbing if you pay enough attention.
Improved versionI laughed
Probably going with fungoids or the molluscoids (in particular the second last (not just of the first row), the now-famed Scallophead (as named by the various memes in the official forum)).Improved versionI laughed
I don't know who I'll pick first yet, just impressed at the art. Was planning on plants, but I actually really like the human portrait. I imagine it might be how humans look to aliens, who aren't trained to pick up on facial indicators of gender.
Probably still going to be a plant, but hopefully humans spawn in my galaxy!
Improved versionSpoiler (click to show/hide)
The sad thing is even with a bajillion mods I'll probably still pay for the addition portrait content packs.
They're one of the few companies that I'll buy the meaningless cosmetic stuff for because they make actual meaningful dlc more so than most other people.Ya.
I have the converter, though I skipped the e-books they put up as dlc.They're one of the few companies that I'll buy the meaningless cosmetic stuff for because they make actual meaningful dlc more so than most other people.Ya.
I think I have every single piece of DLC they put out for CK2 except for the EU converter.
oh i like those forcible resettlement and migration mechanics. That allows for some evil plans:
1. Enact Forcibel Resettlement Policy
2. Get Migration Treaty with Neighbour
3. Resettle rebellious populace to his planets -> A. Less Rebellious Pops in your Empire, B. Casus Belli: Anschluss
4. "Hey those are a majority of my people on your planets!"
5. Invade
6. Enslave.
7. Rinse Repeat
I wonder if you can have slave planets populated by only slaves with troops keeping order.Space Gulag
Stellaris Dev Diary #26 - Migration, Slavery & Purges (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-26-migration-slavery-purges.914917/)
I actually really like the human portrait. I imagine it might be how humans look to aliens, who aren't trained to pick up on facial indicators of gender.Oh yeah, that is actually really cool.
I demand more portraitsFor just a few shekels a pop, there'll be scores of new portraits.
I demand more portraitsFor just a few shekels a pop, there'll be scores of new portraits.
It'll probably take DLC for a better slavery system too, since right now apparently you just click a pop and select "enslave". Right now if you wanted to be slavers, you'd have to play xenophobe with open borders (preferably to fanatical collectivists) and enslave immigrant xeno citizens, which doesn't make much sense.
It'll probably take DLC for a better ground combat system too
Did you LOOK at the fungoids?
Anyways, we don't have any *actual* aliens to observe, so for all we know stellaris could be correct in how cultures work. Or it could be the opposite end of the scale, who knows?
Did you LOOK at the fungoids?
Anyways, we don't have any *actual* aliens to observe, so for all we know stellaris could be correct in how cultures work. Or it could be the opposite end of the scale, who knows?
The cliché I mentioned exceeds mere appearances, despite the name. It doesn't matter if fungoids look very alien if they're functionally the same as humans and have no significant problems sharing the same atmosphere, ecosystem and society.
Anyway, despite the possible expansion of the criticism, I was restricting it to the overly permissive migration mechanics. Most space 4X games severely restrict multiculturalism for a reason.
And no, while we haven't encountered any actual aliens, it's next to impossible they'll be compatible with humans in so many ways as to permit local coexistence in a remotely similar fashion to the one we share with fellow humans.
We are who we are and how we are due to the ever-increasing unique, monumental combination of variables that has shaped our entire evolution and history since the dawn of the Earth. It's absurdly unlikely, to the point of virtual impossibility, that an alien species would share even a fraction of the aforementioned variables with us, combined in a remotely similar way.
Okay but most 4x games also play in a very similar "war of all against all" sort of way. Paradox has stated that they aim to shake up the solidified 4x paradigm by adding a greater emphasis on diplomacy.
They've also stated that they are going for a soft sci-fi feel. Lots of soft sci-fi depicts aliens and humans living and working together (ie: Mass Effect) Alien multiculturalism might not be "realistic" (whatever that is supposed to mean) but it seems like a fun mechanic (letting your people migrate to an empire and then using their presence as an excuse to invade them sounds hilarious). I think the fun factor should trump whether it is realistic for aliens to live together.
Okay but most 4x games also play in a very similar "war of all against all" sort of way. Paradox has stated that they aim to shake up the solidified 4x paradigm by adding a greater emphasis on diplomacy.
They've also stated that they are going for a soft sci-fi feel. Lots of soft sci-fi depicts aliens and humans living and working together (ie: Mass Effect) Alien multiculturalism might not be "realistic" (whatever that is supposed to mean) but it seems like a fun mechanic (letting your people migrate to an empire and then using their presence as an excuse to invade them sounds hilarious). I think the fun factor should trump whether it is realistic for aliens to live together.
Well, my concern comes only partly from the realism perspective. The other side is that it's extremely similar to how culture works in other Paradox games. It's not particularly groundbreaking.
By the way, my realism perspective isn't quite so much as "this or that should be hard sci-fi-like" than "don't make it too fake". I suppose everyone has different tolerances, but I find it jarring and overly simplistic that supposedly alien species could closely work together as if they were the same damn species. It defeats the point of having aliens in the picture in the first place. Anyway, the more you know and all that.
I'm not sure interspecies migration mechanics make much sense in most cases. We aren't talking about Victoria or EU or whatever, which feature a fundamentally homogeneous world. In a space 4X context, we're dealing with vast differences between species, from cultural to biological, and mingling is (or should be) extremely difficult if not impossible.
Well, my concern comes only partly from the realism perspective.
I'm not sure interspecies migration mechanics make much sense in most cases. We aren't talking about Victoria or EU or whatever, which feature a fundamentally homogeneous world. In a space 4X context, we're dealing with vast differences between species, from cultural to biological, and mingling is (or should be) extremely difficult if not impossible.
It's frankly stupid to assume multiculturalism can just be copy-pasted from an Earth context to a galactic scale. Not to mention it dilutes the point of having varied alien empires, if half of them will be largely the same multicultural mess. Political entities in Stellaris should be far more different from each other than England and France in EU.
But well, I suppose Stellaris is going after the tired, clichéd "aliens as humans with rubber foreheads" species differentiation method.
Realism? In a sci-fi game? Realism is the last thing we need.
Realism? In a sci-fi game? Realism is the last thing we need.
I'm endlessly amazed by the sheer amount of sci-fi fans who don't know what science fiction means.
But I've made my point.
It's a pretty hard to parse chart, but it does put across the point that you can't really constrain so many different styles under a single term without ruffling some feathers.
You have some good points about the practicality of alien races mingling, but I think ZeroGravitas has it right. Xenos can coexist on a planet, and share culture while producing for a common goal. Just look at the wild ideas humans are capable of embracing. You might be overstating the physical barriers to cultural exchange.
I suspect ground combat is going to be pretty much the same as assaulting a fort. Maybe like an EU4 one where you take the planet all at once, or maybe like a CK2 one where you have to take every land area (that has pops) individually, but I see no reason that this needs to have more detail to it than that.It'll probably take DLC for a better ground combat system too
There, I fixed it. I am 99% sure that it will be overly simplistic [IE. shit] in vanilla. Heh...I guess that's why we have zero [correct me if I am wrong] information [& no DDs] about it.
Anyway, it would be good to have a complex gc system 5 expansions later...[ ex. surface combat in MoO 3.]
Anyway, despite the possible expansion of the criticism, I was restricting it to the overly permissive migration mechanics. Most space 4X games severely restrict multiculturalism for a reason.While I agree that in the strictest sense of realism, there would probably be vast differences between two species that make cohabitation and co-rule very impractical, I disagree with the notion that this automatically makes it bad to represent it in fiction that way. While it's true that real aliens will undoubtedly be extremely, you know, alien to us, and their very thought processes might be at best bewildering, this is a game by and for humans. We need to be able to understand our fellow beings to a certain degree, or their would be nothing to the game but conquest and extermination.
The other side is that it's extremely similar to how culture works in other Paradox games. It's not particularly groundbreaking.Why fix what ain't broke?
Because planets have tiles, you'll probably end up with a situation where certain pops are living in certain tiles on a planet, and other pops are living in other tiles.Is this really still a "probably"? I haven't seen any indication that there can be pop variation in any way on a given tile.
I suspect ground combat is going to be pretty much the same as assaulting a fort.It'll probably take DLC for a better ground combat system too
There, I fixed it. I am 99% sure that it will be overly simplistic [IE. shit] in vanilla. Heh...I guess that's why we have zero [correct me if I am wrong] information [& no DDs] about it.
Anyway, it would be good to have a complex gc system 5 expansions later...[ ex. surface combat in MoO 3.]
We're fairly frequently at each other's throats on our own planet, within our own species.
I can't fathom how two vastly different species would not be warring constantly if stuck on a planet together, especially if we consider things like natural resources.
Worse, I don't see how the newer species would've put themselves in that position willingly (without nefarious intent), and the older not consider such intrusion an invasion.
How would we react, having enough trouble sharing resources with each other, if an alien species descended upon Earth and marked its territory, therefore restricting our own and everything that entails? What if the aforementioned dolphins were actually sapient, had a fully industrialized civilization, and declared large swathes of ocean their territory, asking some manner of payment to permit exploitation therein? It wouldn't be remotely pretty.
Or far more locally and personally, how would you feel if any random person walked into your home and said "okay, so I'm living here from now on"?
Yeah, a significant bunch of aliens we meet are likely to be superbly symbiotic with us: they will do exactly what we don't need/want to do and viceversa.
No clash whatsoever, and everyone gets rich. Nobody else wants common mineral resources like metals, so we can keep them to ourselves hassle-free.
And the oceans are useless. Who needs water, food or more resources exploitable with future technology?
Because it's all about just food, right? And that's bound to be different and entirely non-invasive and non-overlapping for each species, just like their preferred habitats. And who needs territory anyway? I mean, there's a whole universe out there, sure, but let's all share planets since that's bound to generate no significant degree of conflict at all.
Yeah, a significant bunch of aliens we meet are likely to be superbly symbiotic with us: they will do exactly what we don't need/want to do and viceversa. No clash whatsoever, and everyone gets rich. Nobody else wants common mineral resources like metals, so we can keep them to ourselves hassle-free. And the oceans are useless. Who needs water, food or more resources exploitable with future technology? Because it's all about just food, right? And that's bound to be different and entirely non-invasive and non-overlapping for each species, just like their preferred habitats. And who needs territory anyway? I mean, there's a whole universe out there, sure, but let's all share planets since that's bound to generate no significant degree of conflict at all.
Yeah, a significant bunch of aliens we meet are likely to be superbly symbiotic with us: they will do exactly what we don't need/want to do and viceversa. No clash whatsoever, and everyone gets rich. Nobody else wants common mineral resources like metals, so we can keep them to ourselves hassle-free. And the oceans are useless. Who needs water, food or more resources exploitable with future technology? Because it's all about just food, right? And that's bound to be different and entirely non-invasive and non-overlapping for each species, just like their preferred habitats. And who needs territory anyway? I mean, there's a whole universe out there, sure, but let's all share planets since that's bound to generate no significant degree of conflict at all.
You're also overlooking that we blow each other up just for funsies sometimes. Literally ten minutes into meeting the first extraterrestrial life form we will claim they worship false gods/stole our oil/have WMDs/look funny and go to war with them about it.
Yeah, a significant bunch of aliens we meet are likely to be superbly symbiotic with us: they will do exactly what we don't need/want to do and viceversa. No clash whatsoever, and everyone gets rich. Nobody else wants common mineral resources like metals, so we can keep them to ourselves hassle-free. And the oceans are useless. Who needs water, food or more resources exploitable with future technology? Because it's all about just food, right? And that's bound to be different and entirely non-invasive and non-overlapping for each species, just like their preferred habitats. And who needs territory anyway? I mean, there's a whole universe out there, sure, but let's all share planets since that's bound to generate no significant degree of conflict at all.
You're also overlooking that we blow each other up just for funsies sometimes. Literally ten minutes into meeting the first extraterrestrial life form we will claim they worship false gods/stole our oil/have WMDs/look funny and go to war with them about it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Loving the ridiculous arguments and stuff, but since it has zero real relevance to the game could we like... stay on topic? I for one look forward to intergalactic slavery in all its wondrous forms.Fungoid master race will enslave all others.
So, languages, are they a thing?There are communication difficulties at first contact, then you need to research the new neighbor, and after that language differences are irrelevant.
Loving the ridiculous arguments and stuff, but since it has zero real relevance to the game could we like... stay on topic? I for one look forward to intergalactic slavery in all its wondrous forms.This post contributes less to the conversation than the ones preceding it.
Yeah, both sides would (presumably) have a vested interest in communicating, and would be willing to co-operate for translators and such.So, languages, are they a thing?There are communication difficulties at first contact, then you need to research the new neighbor, and after that language differences are irrelevant.
I think one of the dev diary said that taking an alien planet instantly unlocks their language but they will forever remember the "first contact war".
The oceans are useless to us, yes. Not sure what species you're a part of, but us humans don't have a use for seawater in any real capacity. Fish and sea plants are an incredibly minor part of human diets.
I think one of the dev diary said that taking an alien planet instantly unlocks their language but they will forever remember the "first contact war".
If I recall correctly that only applies when you declare war on them basically as soon as you meet them and they haven't discovered you (or something like that)
From Dev Diary #20:The stuff about languages specifically isn't in a dev diary, it was in one of the press demos they did.
The oceans are useless to us, yes. Not sure what species you're a part of, but us humans don't have a use for seawater in any real capacity. Fish and sea plants are an incredibly minor part of human diets.
The report is close to 10 years old now, but according to the UN Food and Ag organization fish accounted for 15.7% of the world's animal protein intake and just over 6% of all protein consumed. A sizable portion of that comes from aquaculture, but a sizable portion remains fishing. I'd argue that's not an insignificant portion. Not sure if you're from the US, but as I understand it the US tends to be a bit of an aberration on the fish consumption front (what with our cheap factory landmeats).
I'd also like to note that overfishing is a very real issue. Again using slightly old numbers, the percentage of fish stocks that are 'underexploited' has plummeted over the last few decades from ~40% to ~15%. Roughly 50 percent are 'fully exploited', and about 28 percent are 'overexploited' (the remainder are depleted or recovering from depletion).
Just watched today's stream, and the game looks pretty good, though perhaps unremarkable to a certain extent. Well, it's the standard 4X fare plus some known Paradox mechanics. I'm sure they'll expand Stellaris considerably with a seemingly endless parade of DLC, but the base game may not be particularly stellar, if you'll pardon the pun.If you pay attention to their previous stream, there was a screen where you can adjust variations of the portrait. Gender, phenotype, color variant, clothes, and "style" whatever it means, were present as options. I take that to mean that there will be randomized variants for different portraits once the variants are actually available.
One thing which somewhat concerned me is the race portraits. They look great, and there's a lot of variety when it comes to race generation. However, there's a single portrait per race, apparently, and you see the same guy in every pop, character and officer. I realize it might seem unfeasible to ask for portrait subdivision (a la MoO2), but it looks quite repetitive as it is. I'm almost sure, however, that they're aware of this, and that their solution will be a procession of paid portrait packs, if CK2 is any indication.
From Dev Diary #20:The stuff about languages specifically isn't in a dev diary, it was in one of the press demos they did.
Thanks for that stat - I was actually looking for it myself. What's interesting is it shows just how little protein we do get from the ocean (94% of protein comes from somewhere else) but I think we could actually increase that if we had sentient dolphins.
Overfishing is a huge problem, and it's really tough to monitor millions of square miles of ocean. But imagine the reverse: we're a sentient ocean species that can't survive on land without specific equipment. Yet we really like beef. Could we send out parties to capture wild cattle or buffalo and return it to the ocean? Of course. But if there were some terrestrial species that lived above water natively, they could set up some entire industrial process by which they bred cattle, herded them, and slaughtered them efficiently. It would make zero sense for us to go to war with that terrestrial species over cattle. And they'd do a much better job of policing their own herds than we could trying to enforce our own overhunting laws.
And that's why sentient dolphins would represent an increase in net resources, not a decrease. We'd probably see a net increase (haha, fishing pun) if dolphins could industrial aquaculture and fish farming and trade with us. I bet they really love shiny metal jewelry that is hard to forge underwater, or something.
[more discussion of space dolphins]
Back on topic, I'm wondering if the portraits are going to be paper-dolled clothes/paraphernalia with base colour changing options. Makes sense. Maybe 2-3 portraits a race, with 3-5 clothes options, coloured randomly (or perhaps in a base palette for that race's "hat"). It'd give a bit of variation anyway. Easier than hundreds of individual portraits certainly, and allows for clothed, unclothed, bejeweled or semi-cyborg variations of each base race.
The portraits all line up nicely pixel-wise for paper-dolling in any case.
Don't have a citation for this one, alas, but as I understand it we (humans, that is) have gotten very good at freshwater aquaculture but not so much saltwater aquaculture. So hypothetical dolphins could be a gain in that regard. But there's a lot we don't know about the nutrient-exploitable potential of the ocean compared to land, so it's hard to say given an equivalent level of technology a ocean-borne species could harvest the ocean as efficiently as humans can the land (maybe more, maybe less).
On the other other hand, if we had sentient dolphins with population levels similar to the number of humans currently on the earth I suspect it would be quite difficult supplying enough raw nutrition, let alone meat.
(On the other other other hand, if we had hyperdrive-era power sources we could probably find a way around a lot of these problems through application of massive amounts of energy.)
But none of this really gets into the behavioral question - could they get along, assuming it's in their interest to do so? Given my experience with human nature it seems like the potentially-rational choice of cooperation might not be very likely, and who can say what sentient dolphin culture would be like.
Much human conflict comes down to primate dominance dynamics. The question isn't "could they get along" but rather why would they fight? Conflict is a resource investment that needs to pay off. There's no reason to fight if there's nothing to gain. In humans there is always something to gain because everyone can use everyone else's resources and mate with everyone else's mates. Interspecies, not so much. But there's nothing we'd need from dolphins (or sentient arctic seals, or sentient subterranean creatures, etc) that isn't purely an economic thing. At that point there isn't much contact and it's just cheaper to trade.
At least the portraits totally confirms the ability to have a mushroom with a mohawk and some bling.
"I pity the fool that sautées my brothers!"
Just watched today's stream, and the game looks pretty good, though perhaps unremarkable to a certain extent. Well, it's the standard 4X fare plus some known Paradox mechanics. I'm sure they'll expand Stellaris considerably with a seemingly endless parade of DLC, but the base game may not be particularly stellar, if you'll pardon the pun.That seems remarkable enough to me.
One thing which somewhat concerned me is the race portraits. They look great, and there's a lot of variety when it comes to race generation. However, there's a single portrait per race, apparently, and you see the same guy in every pop, character and officer. I realize it might seem unfeasible to ask for portrait subdivision (a la MoO2), but it looks quite repetitive as it is. I'm almost sure, however, that they're aware of this, and that their solution will be a procession of paid portrait packs, if CK2 is any indication.There's supposed to be ethnic variation, but yeah, it hasn't really been in evidence in anything I've seen either.
I think we've been spoiled by other Paradox games.Just watched today's stream, and the game looks pretty good, though perhaps unremarkable to a certain extent. Well, it's the standard 4X fare plus some known Paradox mechanics. I'm sure they'll expand Stellaris considerably with a seemingly endless parade of DLC, but the base game may not be particularly stellar, if you'll pardon the pun.That seems remarkable enough to me.
Yeah, I don't know -- Stellaris might be a little shallow at launch compared to their other titles... but compared to 99% of the other 4X games out there, it'll surpass them, I think. It's certainly deeper than GalCiv 3, Endless Space, Star Drive 1/2, the MoO reboot, etc. Probably not quite as deep as Distant Worlds, yet. Needs a few more systems (like properly simulated trade/supply lines and espionage). But the galaxy map doesn't look like someone heaved skittles onto a black canvasboard and connected them with dashed lines, so it's much prettier than Distant Worlds.I think we've been spoiled by other Paradox games.Just watched today's stream, and the game looks pretty good, though perhaps unremarkable to a certain extent. Well, it's the standard 4X fare plus some known Paradox mechanics. I'm sure they'll expand Stellaris considerably with a seemingly endless parade of DLC, but the base game may not be particularly stellar, if you'll pardon the pun.That seems remarkable enough to me.
I dunno, seems like we're looking at EU meets Vicky IN SPAAAAAAACE. Minus a bunch of important mechanics, some of which will be drip-fed via DLC.Yeah it, looks a lot like Vicky in SPEHSS, minus detailed simulation of trade goods.
How is this Vicky in space? The "pops" are no more complex than citizens in Civilization. They're just units of population working a given planet tile: there's no pop types, political alignment, militancy, needs, etc.The pops do have races and have ethics. Also some may become subspecies.
Or at least they showed none of that during the last stream.
They're just units of population working a given planet tile: there's no pop types, political alignment, militancy, needs, etc.
Transhuman things aren't much different from other species, I think, and robots are more or less just a special category of species.They're just units of population working a given planet tile: there's no pop types, political alignment, militancy, needs, etc.
Pop Types: Slaves, Free, Robots, Transhuman
Needs: Obviously not as deep as Vic 2, but they need food and such.What's the "and such"? Aside from robots needing energy (somehow, despite other pops being able to live their entire complicated biological lives without needing any) I can't think of anything else.
I thought that one dev diary said that pops can have their own ethos, and if their ethos diverges too much they can start becoming rebellious?Yeah. They also said that aliens and citizens with different ethos will move towards your borders.
The pops themselves aren't that much more complicated. About the biggest differences I can see is that each pop is an actual person who may be an alien or a slave or a rebel. That and there's an in-built method to move pops between colonies (I think you still can in Civ it's just non-obvious and kind of janky)In Civ, pops are literally just a number that grows based on food and harvests/works on a specific tile. That's it. Pops from one civ are identical to pops from another civ. There are no traits. They don't have happiness. They don't rebel individually. You can't purge/enslave pops in Civ (not that you'd want to, because they're all the same). Soldiers aren't recruited from pops, because "pops", as an abstract game concept, simply do not exist in Civ.
Aside from that, they're a food-based number that grows and harvests/works on a specific tile. Same as in Civ.
Do Stellaris pops really have traits, or is that just the officers? Do they actually rebel individually? I thought that kind of thing happend on a per-faction basis. Can they really move freely, wherever they want? I imagine that'd be quite chaotic from the player perspective, when you want to keep a certain amount of people in a given planet for it to function properly, but your population's uncontrollably all over the place. Is their happiness truly independent if their ethos isn't particularly at odds with the government's (i.e. they're not joining any factions)? In practice, just how much independence do they actually have?Just officers (and other characters) have traits. Their freedom of movement depends on your policies, but they potentially can move freely if your laws allow it. They don't just flit about wantonly though. You shouldn't have manpower problems on a planet unless things go drastically wrong. From what little we've seen, it seems way more forgiving than Vicky2 in this regard. I don't know what you mean by independent happiness. It's dependent on a lot of factors. Each one has their own separate happiness though, if that's what you mean. They don't do much action on a scale beyond themselves and the map tile they're in independently of factions, if they do any at all.
I'd genuinely appreciate a link to a dev diary covering these matters in some form.Paradox doesn't seem to see much need for dev diaries about stuff that's this directly adapted from their earlier games. I'm not sure they anticipated catching the attention of as many 4x fans as they have.
I'm not sure they anticipated catching the attention of as many 4x fans as they have.It's not too surprising since they took a step away from their usual asymmetric historical setup. In their other games, countries are objectively stronger or weaker than others from the beginning. But Stellaris starts off with everyone on the same footing, which is much more in line with a traditional 4x than Paradox grand strategy.
Though then there's the option to buff several random AI empires to create more powerful nations for when the exploration/expasion game gives way to the grand strategy.I'm not sure they anticipated catching the attention of as many 4x fans as they have.It's not too surprising since they took a step away from their usual asymmetric historical setup. In their other games, countries are objectively stronger or weaker than others from the beginning. But Stellaris starts off with everyone on the same footing, which is much more in line with a traditional 4x than Paradox grand strategy.
Do Stellaris pops really have traits, or is that just the officers? Do they actually rebel individually? I thought that kind of thing happend on a per-faction basis.
I've been playing Polaris Sector to pass the time till Stellaris.
Yeah. It's actually very similar to Distant Space actually in terms of production, except Distant Space has way better automation. The combat is way more fun in Polaris though.I've been playing Polaris Sector to pass the time till Stellaris.
I followed it on this forum (under it's old name) and it looks really good - a shame it hasn't got more coverage, but I'll definitely get it at some point. Unfortunately the price point is just too high at the moment for me to justify it - especially as it is definitely 100% indie in production values.
If I were to rank recent Space 4X's, it'd be...
1. Sword of the Stars
2. Distant Worlds
3. Polaris
4. Star Ruler 2
5. Master of Orion (The new one)
Edit: Wait fuck that. Aurora is number 1.
Well...not the most interesting DD, but it is worth a read: Stellaris Dev Diary #27 - Music & Sound (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-27-music-sound.916337)That was underwhelming.
I really want to get into Aurora, but I can never seem to find the time and figure out how to play it well enough to enjoy it. It's just so obtuse, even compared to DF and SS13, two of my favourite games.
Music's alright, but could be better. I realize it's hard to compose sci-fi instrumental of the "epic" variety, but considering Waldetoft's record (EU4's music is awesome), he shouldn't be afraid of trying.Like C# (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=234.0)? ^_^I really want to get into Aurora, but I can never seem to find the time and figure out how to play it well enough to enjoy it. It's just so obtuse, even compared to DF and SS13, two of my favourite games.
Aurora is really in need of an overhaul (Where's Aurora II?). I really enjoyed it a good while ago, around version 5.42, but the game just crumbles under its own weight within 100 game years due to the way it's coded. It's essentially a bunch of VisualBasic (I think?) code duct-taped to a Microsoft Access database. I believe the new versions keep adding features, but the structural foundations of the game are still just a rickety bunch of sticks tied together, and that can't be fixed without redoing everything in a new, better-suited environment.
Like C# (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=234.0)? ^_^
((Honestly, just the revamped class design window is enough to make me wish for its release. Color choices could be chosen much better for legibility, though.))
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=234.0]C#[/url]? ^_^OH MY GAWWWD!!!!! It's finally happened!!!!!! I thought the day would never, ever come.
Awesome!http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=234.0]C#[/url]? ^_^OH MY GAWWWD!!!!! It's finally happened!!!!!! I thought the day would never, ever come.
Aurora is one of my absolute all time favorite things which I also really hate. I just can't deal with playing a game I know will collapse after a certain amount of time, no matter what I do. Even with the most careful play, it just ends up folding after a few hundred years unless you sort of basically cheat. It's also infuriatingly clunky - even when you've gotten to grips with it.
I literally could not be more excited.
I'm constantly redoing the logo. Right now it's something like this, but I'm unconvinced:Reminds me a bit of the European Union's thingy. Impressive art skills, bro.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That could be your propaganda poster. "Become a slave of the Evangelical Mushroom Union today! *It is going to be great!* -Most Holy Leader."Make. Space. Great. Again.
I don't think you can start as robots. You could trigger the robot rebellion though with too much AI research.
I suppose modding robots would be somewhat easy by simply replacing the need for food with the need for energy and minerals. However, considering it would be logical to give them great range of comfortable environments, I presume they'd be somewhat OP.
I suppose modding robots would be somewhat easy by simply replacing the need for food with the need for energy and minerals. However, considering it would be logical to give them great range of comfortable environments, I presume they'd be somewhat OP.
If you really wanted to balance this kind of stuff, you could extend the research system to include mechanical replacements for biological functions and start robots off without them, say you start as one pop of solar-powered mining bots on a rogue asteroid with a small factory that's fallen into orbit around a star after drifting for centuries, so you have to bootstrap everything and your physical 'bodies' are pretty shit in terms of independence and self-repair compared to biological life until you research nanotech, von Neumann-ism, etc. It would also be interesting if you were a rogue AI without the ability to extend your consciousness until you circumvent inbuilt restrictions on it, meaning research would be a bottleneck at first, ironically.I like this as a challenge mode.
I'm going for a fanatically spiritualist xenophobe nation, with a divine mandate and lots of foreign slaves. It's gonna be great.
I like this as a challenge mode.
If race creation is a point-based system (it is, right?), it could be an option to be modded in. It would be fun to try and make the objectively worst race- fanatic pacifists with shit diplomacy, incompetent genocidal maniacs...That sounds pretty fun from an RP standpoint
So... the Blorg from the streams, swapping militaristic for pacifistic?If race creation is a point-based system (it is, right?), it could be an option to be modded in. It would be fun to try and make the objectively worst race- fanatic pacifists with shit diplomacy, incompetent genocidal maniacs...That sounds pretty fun from an RP standpoint
Well, that just more shit. I mean, the blorg look like they can still function. There has to be a way they can be made worse.So... the Blorg from the streams, swapping militaristic for pacifistic?If race creation is a point-based system (it is, right?), it could be an option to be modded in. It would be fun to try and make the objectively worst race- fanatic pacifists with shit diplomacy, incompetent genocidal maniacs...That sounds pretty fun from an RP standpoint
The whole point behind that race, as the devs explained, is for them to make that really annoying person everyone has met once in their lives that insists on sticking around.
Well, they could be extremely pacifist and have one of the smallest brain sizes among any species in the entire universe, so small that they are regularly outwitted by crows and cats. Also they could be ginormous and require huge amounts of energy to function, but only eat a diet of a very specific plant, of which they will only eat one single species of that plant which is also going extinct in the wild. And just for kicks we could make that plant have the energy density of almost nothing AND we could make it so that this creature can't properly digest this plant due to the lack of the proper enzymes and stomachs, so even they have to eat way more of the already massive amount than they need.Well, that just more shit. I mean, the blorg look like they can still function. There has to be a way they can be made worse.So... the Blorg from the streams, swapping militaristic for pacifistic?If race creation is a point-based system (it is, right?), it could be an option to be modded in. It would be fun to try and make the objectively worst race- fanatic pacifists with shit diplomacy, incompetent genocidal maniacs...That sounds pretty fun from an RP standpoint
The whole point behind that race, as the devs explained, is for them to make that really annoying person everyone has met once in their lives that insists on sticking around.
Oh man, I can't imagine what kind of evil asshole would create such a stupid creature.(http://i.imgur.com/oMGnNhC.jpg)
HFY territory... :PDon't worry, I'll shut it down by talking about how much better robots are! Just give me a minute to write the essay...
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and if we take together all human cultures we basically eat everything...i mean bird nest soup? made of the nest and not the eggs?I know everyone is joking around and all that, but bird's nest soup is composed of the saliva of the swallow. It's not twigs or branches or plastic bags or stuff like that.
My favorite is hyenas though, where the female has the penis. Well, not exactly a penis but a female....thing that looks a lot like a penis.Thanks Corruption of Champions. Thank you for teaching us all the things about "things"
(http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/nurse-joker-says-hi.gif)My favorite is hyenas though, where the female has the penis. Well, not exactly a penis but a female....thing that looks a lot like a penis.Thanks Corruption of Champions. Thank you for teaching us all the things about "things"
Hey, eating eggs isn't eating the unborn offspring of another species, it's eating the food that nature prepared for a potential embryo to consume while developing into a chick. Along with, generally, one egg cell which isn't fertilized and only has half the dna needed to be a viable organism (because that's how sexual reproduction works).I think the silicone aliens that subsist only on the farts of bacteria would be very upset at our dietary habits.
You're also murdering countless single-celled bacteria when you eat vegetables, I'm sure. If you're going to be upset about single cells that have half the dna of a real organism and cannot develop into anything, you should probably be more upset about fully functional single-celled organisms that can actually reproduce. ;)
Fart aliens are not real people.Hey, eating eggs isn't eating the unborn offspring of another species, it's eating the food that nature prepared for a potential embryo to consume while developing into a chick. Along with, generally, one egg cell which isn't fertilized and only has half the dna needed to be a viable organism (because that's how sexual reproduction works).I think the silicone aliens that subsist only on the farts of bacteria would be very upset at our dietary habits.
You're also murdering countless single-celled bacteria when you eat vegetables, I'm sure. If you're going to be upset about single cells that have half the dna of a real organism and cannot develop into anything, you should probably be more upset about fully functional single-celled organisms that can actually reproduce. ;)
Hey, eating eggs isn't eating the unborn offspring of another species, it's eating the food that nature prepared for a potential embryo to consume while developing into a chick.Indeed. Technically, it'd be closer to eating their menstruation.
((I wonder sometimes if we could convince Paradox to release more information just by telling them what kind of topics we get up to in an absence of data.))
I noticed that they included the option to have more advanced species start alongside you (I'm assuming these are different from the dying empires). And since we saw that there are also species that can organically form after you, it means more uneven gameplay.
This makes me happy. I like it when the playing field is all over the place. It doesn't make sense for everyone to be at the same level in a space 4x.
Well, if you don't mind fucking up the biosphere, bombarding the planet clean and colonizing it afterwards isn't that difficult. All you need is a few rocks nudged in the right direction, like the Siriusian Overlords did to the T-Rex Empire.Which is a shame, since the Raptor Resistance was close to overthrowing their Tyrannical overlords.
That wouldn't have mattered anyway, the T-rex monarchy were just figureheads for the secret lizard people cabal. They were the ones who were really in control.Lizard people manipulating lizard people? All my life has been a lie!
Actually the lowest level of development for encountered alien life is pre-sapient lifeforms that have the potential to become sapient. Like running across some ancient apes in the case of humans. Those can then be tampered with for Fun! results.Well, the lowest that is specifically represented as a life form, we've seen tile blockers that consist of general dangerous wildlife, and forests, and a specific case of migratory trees.
One thing I would like is to have a game where every planet has some sort of species on it, except for barren/uninhabitable planets. So you can't colonize anything except the barren planets (can you terraform barren planets or is it just to turn a bad-for-you planet into a good-for-you planet?), and need to expand via vassalization/annexation/manipulation of these worlds. So you end up with sort of Federation-style Empire, or the Combine.You can colonize worlds with other species on them, apparently. They made reference to reservations in the stream.
Well it's not like the T-rex could manipulate anything substantial, with those stubby arms. The lizards were the power behind the scenes, doing all the work.That wouldn't have mattered anyway, the T-rex monarchy were just figureheads for the secret lizard people cabal. They were the ones who were really in control.Lizard people manipulating lizard people? All my life has been a lie!
/me adjusts lizard mask
I hope this stuff models for orbits. I WANT CYCLIC BASED GALACTIC SWARM MIGRATION
Nothing in the game orbits, though planets do have an animation where they rotate on their axis.Which is... fair enough, I guess. Orbits would be cool, but it's mostly a flavour thing given the time scale.
Purging is tied to being xenophobe and I don't expect xenophobes to be capable of integrating other species into your realm peacefully.Well, that sucks. I wanna be a genocidal maniac but I wanna be sneaky about it. There should be a way to limit population growth of other species up to the point of outlawing their reproduction Combine style.
I saw a slave reproduction edict/law in the stream, so...Purging is tied to being xenophobe and I don't expect xenophobes to be capable of integrating other species into your realm peacefully.Well, that sucks. I wanna be a genocidal maniac but I wanna be sneaky about it. There should be a way to limit population growth of other species up to the point of outlawing their reproduction Combine style.
I'm actually looking forward to the game less having watched their streams again. Especially the bullshit border system.There was a great big shitstorm on their forums about it, so it will get better.
What part of the border system do you dislike? I have to admit, I found the idea that you could claim worlds (and indeed have a back and forth based on influence level) without building anything in them a interesting choice, although it makes a bit more sense since each race is going to be able to only colonize a small faction of planets at the start. So I guess it allows you to sorta "claim" future expansion without having to really scrabble for it with other races.The thing that really set a lot of people off was how the creation of a foreign colony undid the construction of a blorg starbase in an adjacent system. There's a lot of non-specific quibbling about the rigidity of borders in general, though.
I'll probably play my nation (http://www.nationstates.net/nation=umiman_feet), except it'd be in space.
74% tax?!?!!!!I'll probably play my nation (http://www.nationstates.net/nation=umiman_feet), except it'd be in space.
That's not a terrible idea actually. Maybe I'll do the same with mine (https://www.nationstates.net/nation=ultimundus).. Except, that it is currently experiencing an identity crisis. (I am not sure what direction it should go in.) (On a related note, I Added your nation to my dossier.)
74% tax?!?!!!!I'll probably play my nation (http://www.nationstates.net/nation=umiman_feet), except it'd be in space.
That's not a terrible idea actually. Maybe I'll do the same with mine (https://www.nationstates.net/nation=ultimundus).. Except, that it is currently experiencing an identity crisis. (I am not sure what direction it should go in.) (On a related note, I Added your nation to my dossier.)
Dammit, I've got the Nationstate urge again.Is there a thread?
Imagine if in EU4, you didn't start with knowledge of your own continent. You could freely conquer everyone around you, only causing AE with people who knew you existed.Those are already legitimate concern, depending on which nation you play and where in the world you are and expand to. It's why you should never left-click on a province if you don't know of the capital of the owner or else you'll get AE with him.
So after some thought on it I realized that Stellaris could well allow one of my favorite strategies from GalCiv2.
Specifically, since there is a rough "rock paper scissors" to attack/defense type, a high research civ can rush a bunch of one combo and then proliferate it through the cosmos, and since it's a higher tier then what they were using, the AI in GC2 at least would use it instead.
You could then switch focus to a combo designed to beat that one, and have the most advantageous force in the galaxy.
Basically its this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqaCEPwWGtc weaponized.
Yeah. I guess any game is going to have some degree of rock paper scissors. We won't be able to tell if the combat is okay before we play it (I except boring, but serviceable, like their other games, which also means if you like games for their in depth combat and such, I think you'll be really disappointed by Stellaris). So far it doesn't seem as awful as Galciv or... I think endless space was like that as well? But it very well could be.
Endless space wasn't exactly rock paper scissor in the tech department, but the combat actions you could take was.
From what I have seen, combat options will be pretty limited in Stellaris, instead focusing on logistics. My biggest worry is the apparent death ball philosophy to space combat where you entire nation's military force is concentrated in one fleet at all time as an optimum strategy. I was hoping for some sort of province defense for your systems with more mobile dedicated warfleets you could use to reinforce or attack enemy positions. I just don't see many opportunities for stalemates and attrition wars in the current system. The gameplay video I saw went from one successful fight to subduing an entire same-sized empire in a very short time.
Fleet/battle limits wouldn't necessarily feel forcedHum. Not necessarily forced, but it's hard for me to imagine that with the scale they are going with that any such limit wouldn't feel forced.
Both Sword of the Stars and Star Ruler II have fleet size limits based on your command and control, and it works well in both. (In SR2, you can put more support command on your flagship to be able to have more support ships, but then you'll also need more supplies for them all, and both those things increase the flagship's upkeep cost. In SotS you need a command and control ship, and research increases how many ships they can command.)
I do hate that kind of simplistic design, shoehorning in rock-paper-scissors without an ounce of sense instead of giving weapon types proper purpose. GalCiv2 and 3 were considerably lesser due to that.It's a simplification, and not exactly accurate. Lasers are more effectively deflected by shields, while mass drivers are more effectively deflected by armor. Missiles are effective against either but are vulnerable to point defense. It's not a true rock paper scissors situation, but it is a "get the right tech/module to beat your enemies" situation.
I didn't know Stellaris had embraced such a scheme. Can anyone confirm?
Yeah. I guess any game is going to have some degree of rock paper scissors. We won't be able to tell if the combat is okay before we play it (I except boring, but serviceable, like their other games, which also means if you like games for their in depth combat and such, I think you'll be really disappointed by Stellaris). So far it doesn't seem as awful as Galciv or... I think endless space was like that as well? But it very well could be.Boring but serviceable seems about right. You can't interact with it aside from calling a retreat, and so it's mostly just watching ships swirl around each other with guns blasting, while numbers change on a display panel. Visually, it's more interesting than their other games, but I'm not sure that's true of the actual numbers and stuff that you care about though there is information about which weapons and modules are doing the most, which could be handy. However, your interaction with combat isn't necessarily the only important part just consider the great depth of Dominions 4, where you only set tactics ahead of time. Stellaris won't be that deep, but designing your ships and assigning them combat computers should at least be more than Paradox' previous games.
Endless space wasn't exactly rock paper scissor in the tech department, but the combat actions you could take was.The dev said that keeping everything in one fleet was typical to the early game, implying that it's less so later on though I'll believe that when I see it. There is a province defense system though in fact there's two. You have defensive armies (those without dedicated transports, who stick to their own worlds) as PD against ground invasions, and you build defensive stations (or defensive modules on other stations) as PD for the system.
From what I have seen, combat options will be pretty limited in Stellaris, instead focusing on logistics. My biggest worry is the apparent death ball philosophy to space combat where you entire nation's military force is concentrated in one fleet at all time as an optimum strategy. I was hoping for some sort of province defense for your systems with more mobile dedicated warfleets you could use to reinforce or attack enemy positions. I just don't see many opportunities for stalemates and attrition wars in the current system. The gameplay video I saw went from one successful fight to subduing an entire same-sized empire in a very short time.
The former of those systems is confirmed in the game; the size of a single fleet is limited. The starting limit seems high enough not to matter in the early game, though.Endless space wasn't exactly rock paper scissor in the tech department, but the combat actions you could take was.
From what I have seen, combat options will be pretty limited in Stellaris, instead focusing on logistics. My biggest worry is the apparent death ball philosophy to space combat where you entire nation's military force is concentrated in one fleet at all time as an optimum strategy. I was hoping for some sort of province defense for your systems with more mobile dedicated warfleets you could use to reinforce or attack enemy positions. I just don't see many opportunities for stalemates and attrition wars in the current system. The gameplay video I saw went from one successful fight to subduing an entire same-sized empire in a very short time.
Death-balling is a valid concern. The game could benefit from some Hearts of Iron-like mechanics, like limiting the amount of ships a single officer can command, and the amount of ships which can effectively engage in a single battle, with tech, ideology, traits and other factors affecting those limits.
Expansion material, I suppose.
On top of that if you end up with a large empire, it may take a long time for your fleet to move from one side to the other, depending on your warp type.
Wimp LoWhat?
Wimp LoWhat?
Basically its this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqaCEPwWGtc weaponized.
I've seen it, a lot of bugs get showcased and a few complaints about boarders some people have brought up have been addressed (Now a colony starts with a tiny boarder that slowly grows as it's settled, and boarder spread in general has been reduced) Also, a fallen empire!Yeah, normally I don't make a fuss about spelling... but that repeated typo in this context makes things really confusing.
I've seen it, a lot of bugs get showcased and a few complaints about boarders some people have brought up have been addressed (Now a colony starts with a tiny boarder that slowly grows as it's settled, and boarder spread in general has been reduced) Also, a fallen empire!Yeah, normally I don't make a fuss about spelling... but that repeated typo in this context makes things really confusing.
I've seen it, a lot of bugs get showcased and a few complaints about boarders some people have brought up have been addressed (Now a colony starts with a tiny boarder that slowly grows as it's settled, and boarder spread in general has been reduced) Also, a fallen empire!Yeah, normally I don't make a fuss about spelling... but that repeated typo in this context makes things really confusing.
RIP me I guess.
new blackhole texture.New model too, although I'm pretty sure it's the same sphere that they use for all stars and possibly also planets/moons.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The same sphere? Really? Wow, I was expecting unique spheres. Things'd get pretty boring when everything's the same sphere.That wasn't really a complaint, I was just putting a qualifier on my pedantry to avoid getting pedanted back.
They're pretty clearly going for the Interstellar-style black hole (http://i.imgur.com/Fe9BXiv.jpg), which, as I understand it, is one of the more realistic depictions of black holes. Some lensing would be a neat touch, but I think their current black hole is more than adequate.The same sphere? Really? Wow, I was expecting unique spheres. Things'd get pretty boring when everything's the same sphere.It still doesn't look much like a real one would (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/BlackHole_Lensing.gif) but it's a big improvement and the best we could expect in the time that they had to address the issue. Proper gravitic lensing would have almost certainly involved engine changes, and I guess making the black hole look truly matte is non-trivial as well.
I know what they were going for. But the only thing it really has in common with that is being black, round, and having a visible accretion disk (which isn't typical of black holes). A lot of what made it fairly realistic was not included, and the movie depiction didn't even really account for the doppler effect.They're pretty clearly going for the Interstellar-style black hole (http://i.imgur.com/Fe9BXiv.jpg), which, as I understand it, is one of the more realistic depictions of black holes. Some lensing would be a neat touch, but I think their current black hole is more than adequate.The same sphere? Really? Wow, I was expecting unique spheres. Things'd get pretty boring when everything's the same sphere.It still doesn't look much like a real one would (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/BlackHole_Lensing.gif) but it's a big improvement and the best we could expect in the time that they had to address the issue. Proper gravitic lensing would have almost certainly involved engine changes, and I guess making the black hole look truly matte is non-trivial as well.
Uh-oh, guys! Paradox didn't fully take into account the workings of relativistic physics in their depictions of black holes. Game's ruined. Pack it up, it's all over. Let's go home.
I think I remember hearing about some indie game that tried to take account for time dilation, back in the 00's?
No idea what happened to it
I guess my point is that time dilation is practically impossible to simulate in a multiplayer game, and a nightmare to actually depict. Though the latter might be interesting.
The only "realistic" thing I really want is a 3d galaxy. Ours is 100k light years across but also 10k light years deep. It's 10% tall as it is wide, and I'd love if that were represented.
01_EMBASSY_PROPOSE
Blorg is love, blorg is life.
The only "realistic" thing I really want is a 3d galaxy. Ours is 100k light years across but also 10k light years deep. It's 10% tall as it is wide, and I'd love if that were represented.they actually have a slightly 3D map. They showed it off in one of the streams. It's just hard to see it because your looking top down.
Sword of the stars has 3d galaxies (or, probably more accurately, random clusters of stars. 250 stars or whatever does not a galaxy make), even ones that are way less flat then ours. It's mostly a pain in the ass, and personally, once I played around on a non flat map, I'd always go back to the mostly flat ones. After that I really couldn't care less about non flat galaxy maps. Also maybe I'm misremembering (which my spell checker says is not a word but google disagrees so okay), but there seemed to be at least some cosmetic height staggering, just hard to see because all the names and stuff are on a flat overlay.Yeah, it's something you use once then never again because it's a massive headache to deal with. SotS 2 had it really, really bad especially with their stupid province system.
Someone's graduated from the Khan school of strategic thinking, I see. :)Sword of the stars has 3d galaxies (or, probably more accurately, random clusters of stars. 250 stars or whatever does not a galaxy make), even ones that are way less flat then ours. It's mostly a pain in the ass, and personally, once I played around on a non flat map, I'd always go back to the mostly flat ones. After that I really couldn't care less about non flat galaxy maps. Also maybe I'm misremembering (which my spell checker says is not a word but google disagrees so okay), but there seemed to be at least some cosmetic height staggering, just hard to see because all the names and stuff are on a flat overlay.Yeah, it's something you use once then never again because it's a massive headache to deal with. SotS 2 had it really, really bad especially with their stupid province system.
Because honestly, from a practical standpoint there is literally no difference between stars on different planes versus a flat galaxy except distance. It's just unnecessarily confusing.
Is... Is that a challenge?Someone's graduated from the Khan school of strategic thinking, I see. :)Sword of the stars has 3d galaxies (or, probably more accurately, random clusters of stars. 250 stars or whatever does not a galaxy make), even ones that are way less flat then ours. It's mostly a pain in the ass, and personally, once I played around on a non flat map, I'd always go back to the mostly flat ones. After that I really couldn't care less about non flat galaxy maps. Also maybe I'm misremembering (which my spell checker says is not a word but google disagrees so okay), but there seemed to be at least some cosmetic height staggering, just hard to see because all the names and stuff are on a flat overlay.Yeah, it's something you use once then never again because it's a massive headache to deal with. SotS 2 had it really, really bad especially with their stupid province system.
Because honestly, from a practical standpoint there is literally no difference between stars on different planes versus a flat galaxy except distance. It's just unnecessarily confusing.
Yes, 3-D space is confusing. It also creates scenarios that are impossible with 2-D space. You can't "encircle" someone's territory and cut them off from expansion quite so easily if they have "up" and "down" as expansion vectors as well. You can have a string of colonized planets creating a corridor of owned space that goes over or under someone else's territory across the galactic arm, allowing you to move unrestricted without infringing on any borders. Lots of things are possible if you spend the time to think about it.
Some of my most favorite maps in SotS are the highly-3D ones, especially when playing as humans. The node network being what it is, you can find good paths far more often, and can be cut off far less easily, if you have some extra directions to go into.
The only "realistic" thing I really want is a 3d galaxy. Ours is 100k light years across but also 10k light years deep. It's 10% tall as it is wide, and I'd love if that were represented.It's already rendered in 3D, although I kind of suspect it's actually done on a plane in terms of game mechanics and stars are just rendered with a graphical displacement in the 3D space.
Yeah, it's 2D in mechanics, as you can be boxed in by other empires and can't get past them with ships or colonies without them allowing you to fly through their space. A 3D map would make that very difficult to do, since you could just go over or under them.That's not proof-positive, although the borders are represented in 2D, they could be round. They would still block off bypassing by going around since you can only travel in a straight line from one system to another.
Except that's still 2D since in a 3D galaxy, the stars would also be scattered in the vertical plane as well as horizontal.Well, they are though. Just not very much.
nah even warp and wormhole FTL looks like it'll still need another star system to target
doesn't look like you can jump/warp to empty space between stars
and if the enemy empire controls all the stars along the border that are within warp/jimp distance (i.e. you can't just jump through their borders to a star outside their influence on the other side) then you're locked in, at least on that front
My understanding is that its a Pathfinding nightmare.nah even warp and wormhole FTL looks like it'll still need another star system to target
doesn't look like you can jump/warp to empty space between stars
and if the enemy empire controls all the stars along the border that are within warp/jimp distance (i.e. you can't just jump through their borders to a star outside their influence on the other side) then you're locked in, at least on that front
Really? That's too bad. You can warp/etc into empty space in Star Ruler II and it's sometimes useful (for hiding ships or fleets where they won't be as likely to be spotted by scouts, for example, or pre-positioning them near someone else's systems prior to war, but not in border systems so they don't get suspicious).
Nobody noticed the new dev diary? (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-29-pop-factions-elections.919918/)From what I saw in the stream, the faction system is really simple and kinda boring. Every time it popped up they just pressed a button and it went away for awhile.
They kept bribing it or assassinating the leaders. But yeah. I'm guessing it'll be expanded in DLC not unlike CK2 factions.Nobody noticed the new dev diary? (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-29-pop-factions-elections.919918/)From what I saw in the stream, the faction system is really simple and kinda boring. Every time it popped up they just pressed a button and it went away for awhile.
Nobody noticed the new dev diary? (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-29-pop-factions-elections.919918/)From what I saw in the stream, the faction system is really simple and kinda boring. Every time it popped up they just pressed a button and it went away for awhile.
Nobody noticed the new dev diary? (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-29-pop-factions-elections.919918/)Nothing there was really new info if you've been keeping up with the streams.
I don't remember Cruxador ever not being nitpicky :PI think we should judge how much he loves things by how much he nitpicks it.
I guess he'll be glad senpai noticed him, then?I don't remember Cruxador ever not being nitpicky :PI think we should judge how much he loves things by how much he nitpicks it.
Kinda like those tsundere characters except instead of tsun it'd be... uh... nitpickdere?
This is generally accurate.I don't remember Cruxador ever not being nitpicky :PI think we should judge how much he loves things by how much he nitpicks it.
I thought that was Neonivek's thing.I don't remember Cruxador ever not being nitpicky :PI think we should judge how much he loves things by how much he nitpicks it.
Kinda like those tsundere characters except instead of tsun it'd be... uh... nitpickdere?
Obviously its Pathos' thing.I thought that was Neonivek's thing.I don't remember Cruxador ever not being nitpicky :PI think we should judge how much he loves things by how much he nitpicks it.
Kinda like those tsundere characters except instead of tsun it'd be... uh... nitpickdere?
cool extradimensional invader screenshotWhat's the source/context on this one?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
it's from the steam store page.cool extradimensional invader screenshotWhat's the source/context on this one?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Well, fuck. I accidentally went and bought it. My first pre-order since Master of Orion III if you don't count early access purchases. My weak ass logic is that the more preorders Paradox gets emm the more resources they allocate for support right after launch? Ehhh.... not a very good excuse. Umm, the devil made me do it?
to actual space on a weather baloon.
Upper atmosphere is space if you wish hard enough.Quoteto actual space on a weather baloon.
Well, not really.
Look, you just have to use creative thinking, some cognitive dissonance, and maybe a little insane troll logic: If you don't know it's a weather balloon, it's an Unidentified Flying Object, and everyone knows UFOs can go to outer space.
This just in: Paradox has UFOs! :o
Preordered the Nova Edition at Nuuvem. Seemed fairly cheap for a new high-profile game (91 BRL = 26 USD). Could've settled with the standard version, but there wasn't a significant price difference.What about this though?
The jump was more marked for the Galaxy Edition, which ultimately contained too much stuff I didn't care about.
Available Regions
This game cannot be activated outside Latin America.
What about this though?QuoteAvailable Regions
This game cannot be activated outside Latin America.
I am guessing steam doesn't support argentine pesos?What about this though?I live in Argentina. :DQuoteAvailable Regions
This game cannot be activated outside Latin America.
I am guessing steam doesn't support argentine pesos?
I don't think anyone these days would fault you for not buying from Steam.I am guessing steam doesn't support argentine pesos?
There's no Argentina region for Steam, nor are we included in the Brazil region.
We get full American USD pricing, so it's usually better and possible to find third-party sites with better discounts. Nuuvem, following the Brazil regional pricing, is usually at least 50% cheaper. The downside is that the available selection is limited, and a few AAA games are specifically locked to Brazil. My backup is Green Man Gaming, which follows American pricing (for me at least), has a greater selection of games, and usually 20-25% discount coupons.
I do buy things on Steam directly sometimes, but it's usually minor titles during major sales.
I don't think anyone these days would fault you for not buying from Steam.
I'm a bit jealous you can get Stellaris so cheap. It's the first time I've seen that message on Nuuvem too. I got so excited after I saw that you bought it on there too.
It costs 699 rubles for me. Or roughly $10.5. :PI don't think anyone these days would fault you for not buying from Steam.I am guessing steam doesn't support argentine pesos?
There's no Argentina region for Steam, nor are we included in the Brazil region.
We get full American USD pricing, so it's usually better and possible to find third-party sites with better discounts. Nuuvem, following the Brazil regional pricing, is usually at least 50% cheaper. The downside is that the available selection is limited, and a few AAA games are specifically locked to Brazil. My backup is Green Man Gaming, which follows American pricing (for me at least), has a greater selection of games, and usually 20-25% discount coupons.
I do buy things on Steam directly sometimes, but it's usually minor titles during major sales.
I'm a bit jealous you can get Stellaris so cheap. It's the first time I've seen that message on Nuuvem too. I got so excited after I saw that you bought it on there too.
So who is going to be the first to mod dworves into the game?
It costs 699 rubles for me. Or roughly $10.5. :P
I wouldn't think of not buying something from Steam as long as it keeps up this sort of regional pricing here. :)
Also, Nova edition here as well. I suppose, when all is said and done, I still consider Paradox worth the trust of a full-price buy, and the Nova edition, while not offering much above the standard, is the price I would have expected for the base game.
Names however seem to be tied to phenotypes, so a new "Dwarvish" phenotype might be needed as well.I think that although the current name lists are divided by phenotype, there's no reason it needs to be that way always.
BFEL purposely preordered standard edition. Because BFEL is cheap.I'm with you. I can't justify paying ten bucks for a spider and some pointless gimmick content. There's got to be a line somewhere.
I haven't pre-ordered it. The line must be drawn here, this far and no farther. ;)Same. I would have if it was >$25 but not right now no. After all, I'm still fully confident this game won't be all that upon release or at least until the first few DLC.
I think your sign is backwards, because this game is >$25.I haven't pre-ordered it. The line must be drawn here, this far and no farther. ;)Same. I would have if it was >$25 but not right now no. After all, I'm still fully confident this game won't be all that upon release or at least until the first few DLC.
I haven't pre-ordered it. The line must be drawn here, this far and no farther. ;)
BDOBad Dragon Online?
Same. It's gonna be bleh at launch anyway. I would have bought it if it was >CAD$23 though.I haven't pre-ordered it. The line must be drawn here, this far and no farther. ;)
Comrade, I stand with you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2SkSame. It's gonna be bleh at launch anyway. I would have bought it if it was >CAD$23 though.I haven't pre-ordered it. The line must be drawn here, this far and no farther. ;)
Comrade, I stand with you!
BDOBad Dragon Online?
Does second life still exist to begin with? I haven't heard a thing about it in years.
Shouldn't it be Third Life?Does second life still exist to begin with? I haven't heard a thing about it in years.They're coming out with another Second Life. In essence, a Fourth Life.
25% off at greenmangaming (http://www.greenmangaming.com/ones-to-watch/) with the watch25 code. Probably won't get much deeper than that for us north american folks.
25% off at greenmangaming (http://www.greenmangaming.com/ones-to-watch/) with the watch25 code. Probably won't get much deeper than that for us north american folks.
DWA1 = {
selectable = yes
ship_names = {
generic = {
"Battleaxe" "Warhammer" "Shield" "Buckler" "Shortsword"
"Spear" "Helm" "Crossbow" "Mace" "Breastplate"
"Lash" "Dagger" "Pick" "Sock" "Gauntlet"
"Glove" "Cloak" "Boot"
}
corvette = {
"Sharp" "Quick" "Frenzy" "Bloodstain" "Scar"
"Gore" "Maim" "Maul" "Wound" "Hurt"
"Slash" "Scratch" "Cut" "Mutilate" "Injury"
"Crippler" "Disfigure" "Griever" "Deformer" "Piercer"
}
constructor = {
"Fortress Maker" "Fortress Builder" "Fortress Creator" "Fortress Producer" "Fortress Manufacturer"
"Mountainhome Maker" "Mountainhome Builder" "Mountainhome Creator" "Mountainhome Producer" "Mountainhome Manufacturer"
}
colonizer = {
"Wagon I" "Wagon II" "Wagon III" "Wagon IV" "Wagon V"
"Wagon VI" "Wagon VII" "Wagon VIII" "Wagon IX" "Wagon X"
"Wagon XI" "Wagon XII" "Wagon XIII" "Wagon XIV" "Wagon XV"
"Wagon XVI" "Wagon XVII" "Wagon XVIII" "Wagon XIX" "Wagon XX"
}
science = {
"Inner Eye" "Third Eye" "Viewing Eye" "Examining Eye" "Analysing Eye"
"Contemplating Eye" "Considering Eye" "Evaluating Eye" "Thinking Eye"
"Appraising Eye" "Assessing Eye" "Classifying Eye" "Estimating Eye" "Determening Eye"
"Inspecting Eye" "Studying Eye" "Investigating Eye" "Probing Eye" "Observing Eye"
}
destroyer = {
"Sharp Claw" "Quick Claw" "Frenzied Claw" "Bloodstained Claw" "Scarring Claw"
"Gory Claw" "Grisly Claw" "Maiming Claw" "Mauling Claw" "Wounding Claw"
"Slashing Claw" "Scratching Claw" "Cutting Claw" "Mutilating Claw" "Injuring Claw"
"Crippling Claw" "Disfiguring Claw" "Grieving Claw" "Deforming Claw" "Piercing Claw"
}
cruiser = {
"Sharp Beak" "Quick Beak" "Frenzied Beak" "Bloodstained Beak" "Scarring Beak"
"Gory Beak" "Grisly Beak" "Maiming Beak" "Mauling Beak" "Wounding Beak"
"Slashing Beak" "Scratching Beak" "Cutting Beak" "Mutilating Beak" "Injuring Beak"
"Crippling Beak" "Disfiguring Beak" "Grieving Beak" "Deforming Beak" "Piercing Beak"
}
battleship = {
"Glorious Massacre" "Glorious Bloodbath" "Glorious Carnage" "Glorious Slaughter" "Glorious Bloodshed"
"Gorgeous Massacre" "Gorgeous Bloodbath" "Gorgeous Carnage" "Gorgeous Slaughter" "Gorgeous Bloodshed"
"Inspiring Massacre" "Inspiring Bloodbath" "Inspiring Carnage" "Inspiring Slaughter" "Inspiring Bloodshed"
"Delightful Massacre" "Delightful Bloodbath" "Delightful Carnage" "Delightful Slaughter" "Delightful Bloodshed"
}
orbital_station = { }
mining_station = { }
research_station = { }
wormhole_station = { }
terraform_station = {
"Megaproject Worker" "Megaproject Builder"
}
observation_station = { }
outpost_station = {
random_names = {
"Attentive Eye" "Watchful Eye" "Resting Eye" "Sharp Eye" "Scornful Eye" "Oblivious Eye" "Cunning Eye" "Zealous Eye" "Dauntless Eye" "Stubborn Eye"
}
sequential_name = "%O% Frontier Outpost"
}
transport = {
}
military_station_small = {}
military_station_medium = {}
military_station_large = {}
}
fleet_names = {
random_names = {
"The Gloved Lightnings" "The Laborious Stones" "The Barricaded Doctrines" "The Elevated Rocks" "The Mechanical Planets" "The Turquoise Tusks" "The Laborious Nourishment" "The Hopeful Pages" "The Savage Merchants" "The Honest Rags" "The Messianic Papers" "The Creative Robustness" "The Infinite Clasps" "The Indigo Fortresses"
}
sequential_name = "%O% Squadron"
}
### ARMIES
army_names = {
defense_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Dwarven Militia"
}
assault_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Dwarven Berserkers"
}
slave_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Subjected Army"
}
clone_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Hauler Brigade"
}
robotic_army = {
sequential_name = "Mecha-Dwarf Forces %R%"
}
android_army = {
sequential_name = "Proto-Dwarf Forces %R"
}
psionic_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Mind Dwarves"
}
xenomorph_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Xeno Squad"
}
gene_warrior_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Experimental Forces"
}
}
planet_names = {
# Names that can be assigned to all planet types
generic = {
names = {
"Boatmurderd" "Ironhold" "Icehold" "Headshoots" "Battlefailed" "Gemclod" "Ardentdikes" "Skyscrapes" "Necrothreat" "Spearbreakers" "Nist Akath" "Oceanbridge" "Brightwater" "Bronzemurder" "Flarechannel" "Copperblazes" "Soaplanterns" "Sparkgear" "Syrupleaf" "Deathgate" "Moltenchannels" "Breadbowl" "Murdermachines" "Towersoared" "Amberjewel" "Doomforest" "Cowpastures" "Watergate" "Breadbowl"
}
}
pc_desert = {
names = {
}
}
pc_arid = {
names = {
}
}
pc_tropical = {
names = {
}
}
pc_continental = {
names = {
}
}
pc_ocean = {
names = {
}
}
pc_tundra = {
names = {
}
}
pc_arctic = {
names = {
}
}
}
### CHARACTERS
character_names = {
default = {
# A complete name
full_names = {
}
# Always combined with a second name
first_names = {
"Urist"
"Cog"
"Zon"
"Ral"
"Zuntir"
"Lokum"
"Udib"
"Udil"
"Deduk"
"Rakust"
}
# Always combined with a first name
second_names = {
Olondatur Mamotmosus Athamoltar Idust Olonmuzish Momuzdodok Thakdoren Kubukatol Lelumshem Nikotdastot Athelrab Estunkogan Mamotlogem Omristoddom Osodas Limulreg Sakzulral Rallorsith Riraskubuk Sazirsezuk Lirukakrul
Estunkogan Tusungmorul Idokmorul Urdimuker Thobritan
}
regnal_first_names = {
"Black Wing" "White Wing" "Red Wing" "Star Wing" "Sky Wing" "Cloud Wing"
}
regnal_second_names = {
Extak
}
}
}
}
So if I had to say, I would say humans are Adaptive, Communal, and Weak.We're pretty militaristic too
Collectivism (and individualism) also seem to block a number of government types, for what that's worth.Pretty much. If you are a fanatic individualist, you can only be democracies.
So if I had to say, I would say humans are Adaptive, Communal, and Weak.Resilient plus whatever else. Seriously, if there is one thing we are truly good at is at moving onward nonstop. Which translates to stubbornness and I guess in this case aptitude for guerrilla (since it does involve a lot of moving around and waiting for the right moment).
if there is one thing we are truly good at is at moving onward nonstop.This is only true if you assume that all the social and cognitive behaviors we've got going on, though exceptional on our own world, are the requisite baseline for species to get into space.
I made Blackwatch (http://prototype.wikia.com/wiki/Blackwatch) in the race creator:
-snip-
Where does this mentality come from?
My big fear is that they're going to be really slow on the modding front (especially in terms of releasing any tools) as they'll want to release a lot DLC/race packs and milk it for whatever they can first.
Where does this mentality come from?
Assuming it's built on the Clausewitz engine, we should be able to mod a fair bit of stuff, short of drastically changing mechanics.I don't see why it wouldn't be, Paradox makes most of its stuff using that.
My big fear is that they're going to be really slow on the modding front (especially in terms of releasing any tools) as they'll want to release a lot DLC/race packs and milk it for whatever they can first.They never released any tools for their other games, because generally the only tool you need to make major changes is notepad. Tons of stuff is just stored as plain text. The one thing that does kind of require a special tool is models, but someone from the community has recently made major progress there, and since it's all Clausewitz it should be relatively easy to transfer.
All of its stuff I think, since switching to 3D. They confirmed that this is Clausewitz quite a while ago.Assuming it's built on the Clausewitz engine, we should be able to mod a fair bit of stuff, short of drastically changing mechanics.I don't see why it wouldn't be, Paradox makes most of its stuff using that.
And yet so far as I'm aware it's not happened on their other games.Where does this mentality come from?
I would guess, at least it would be for me if I thought this, it'd be from the way that they pump out a extremely high amount of dlc. Clearly the financial incentive is there.
Aliens slaves? The only thing the Imperium wants with xenos is purging.
Basic Imperium of Man:I was thinking about it but I don't think the Imperium of Man is communal or conformist, though it's certainly decadent and weak. (They can't even function as a society without servitors)
Spiritualist, Xenophobe, Militarist
Theocratic Oligarchy
Communal, Conformist
Decadent, Weak
+50% Alien slavery tolerance
+50% Alliance cost
-10% Army damage
-30% Ethics divergence
+10% Happiness
-10% Resource output without slaves
+25% Rivalry influence gain
+5% War happiness
+50% War tolerance
+10% Xenophobia
Seems legit. Could substitute Rapid Breeders for Communal.
Hydral for Party Committee Executive.First the solar system, then the galaxy!
Why not great crusade imperium ;-;7Might be a better idea, since at the scale in Stellaris you'd be more likely to just be playing a particular faction of the imperium, with most of the other empires being other factions.
The Imperium dominates most of the galaxy but it's still one empire. It's just an empire with greater internal diversity than Stellaris will support at launch. Although I guess Space Marines could be represented as vassals.Why not great crusade imperium ;-;7Might be a better idea, since at the scale in Stellaris you'd be more likely to just be playing a particular faction of the imperium, with most of the other empires being other factions.
Better yet, every other race is Miroslav.No, that would be no fun. Player is Miroslav, which you can do already I guess, and must bring Serb to the stars.
oh paradox you trollSpeaking of making things, has someone made these yet?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb_B3UlUkAEDuo3.png)
alsoSpoiler (click to show/hide)
This doesn't seem like a company opposed to modding... https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-development-diary-52-modding.920875/ (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hearts-of-iron-iv-development-diary-52-modding.920875/)
Seriously I know hating on Paradox and their DLC strategy has been the flavour of the month for a little while but they have one of the better modding communities out there, and they support them really well. They made a number of changes to CK2 so that the Game of Thrones mod would work better. I can't think of any other major company that engages their fans as effectively as Paradox does.
I'm really happy to see the development of this game. Its mostly 4x, but with the fact that diplomacy is a legitimate option. In most 4's I've seen or played, diplomacy is something that's only useful for bots in most cases. But with the federation and influence systems, smaller nations can band together to defend themselves, making snowballing slightly less of an issue than normal.With this game, snowballing can actually work against you in the long run as factions from within your civ may break off and run themselves independantly and youd have to recapture them and they may call your opponents to help. Its like a seriously hardcore (if its as bad as i think it is) version of gavelkind from ck2.
They can do that, but you have tons of opportunities to stop it, including pressing a button to spend influence, giving secessionists partial independence as vassals (who can be reintegrated) and not losing the independence war when they rebel. You can also choose options to mitigate both unhappiness and ethos drift (the causes of dissent) at empire creation, when researching technologies, and when building on your planets.I'm really happy to see the development of this game. Its mostly 4x, but with the fact that diplomacy is a legitimate option. In most 4's I've seen or played, diplomacy is something that's only useful for bots in most cases. But with the federation and influence systems, smaller nations can band together to defend themselves, making snowballing slightly less of an issue than normal.With this game, snowballing can actually work against you in the long run as factions from within your civ may break off and run themselves independantly and youd have to recapture them and they may call your opponents to help.
Its like a seriously hardcore (if its as bad as i think it is) version of gavelkind from ck2.It's not as bad as you think it is, then.
The thing is, what if these rebellions happen when, say, you are fighting two different empires at once? Or worse yet, being threatened by a fallen empire?They can do that, but you have tons of opportunities to stop it, including pressing a button to spend influence, giving secessionists partial independence as vassals (who can be reintegrated) and not losing the independence war when they rebel. You can also choose options to mitigate both unhappiness and ethos drift (the causes of dissent) at empire creation, when researching technologies, and when building on your planets.I'm really happy to see the development of this game. Its mostly 4x, but with the fact that diplomacy is a legitimate option. In most 4's I've seen or played, diplomacy is something that's only useful for bots in most cases. But with the federation and influence systems, smaller nations can band together to defend themselves, making snowballing slightly less of an issue than normal.With this game, snowballing can actually work against you in the long run as factions from within your civ may break off and run themselves independantly and youd have to recapture them and they may call your opponents to help.
The thing is, what if these rebellions happen when, say, you are fighting two different empires at once? Or worse yet, being threatened by a fallen empire?You might make a strategic decision to let them go, and you'll be no worse off than if you hadn't taken those worlds.
Blockade their worlds, nuke their food production and continue orbital bombardment untill every last of those, who dared to rebel is dead.The thing is, what if these rebellions happen when, say, you are fighting two different empires at once? Or worse yet, being threatened by a fallen empire?They can do that, but you have tons of opportunities to stop it, including pressing a button to spend influence, giving secessionists partial independence as vassals (who can be reintegrated) and not losing the independence war when they rebel. You can also choose options to mitigate both unhappiness and ethos drift (the causes of dissent) at empire creation, when researching technologies, and when building on your planets.I'm really happy to see the development of this game. Its mostly 4x, but with the fact that diplomacy is a legitimate option. In most 4's I've seen or played, diplomacy is something that's only useful for bots in most cases. But with the federation and influence systems, smaller nations can band together to defend themselves, making snowballing slightly less of an issue than normal.With this game, snowballing can actually work against you in the long run as factions from within your civ may break off and run themselves independantly and youd have to recapture them and they may call your opponents to help.
HAKHAKHAK
I think the only real answer to extragalactic invaders is making a whole bunch of sentient robots to fight them off.
P.S. I'm not entirely sure what 'army damage' is!Probably how much damage ground forces deal each combat round.
Army damage is very likely how effective ground troops are while attacking/defending in planetary invasions.Even though ground combat is simplified compared to other Paradox games, I doubt it's simplified to the extent of having a simple "effectiveness" stat.
Newest dev diary has gone up: It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-30-late-game-crises.921629/).Bleh. It seems to be implying that the chance of an AI uprising is based around how many pops they have, which seems...dumb. What if you treat your sentient robot citizens as, well, actual citizens? While it might make sense for AI treated as slaves to attempt to exterminate their masters, why would AI that have fully integrated into a society do the same?
(http://cache.reelz.com/assets/content/article/sweaty_robot_logo.gif)Newest dev diary has gone up: It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-30-late-game-crises.921629/).Bleh. It seems to be implying that the chance of an AI uprising is based around how many pops they have, which seems...dumb. What if you treat your sentient robot citizens as, well, actual citizens? While it might make sense for AI treated as slaves to attempt to exterminate their masters, why would AI that have fully integrated into a society do the same?
It would be interesting if the rise of the robot nation would affect empires differently regarding on how they treat the robots. Slave-robots would rebel, segregated-and-oppressed robots would mostly rebel, citizen-robots might have a minority rebel, but many others start exodus to the new robot state and maybe some selecting to stay. (Depending on their ethos matches, maybe.)Maybe they will be networked, but it feels unnecessarily shoe-horned. There is no way that every AI in the galaxy would be networked together in the first place; security and different methods of manufacture would at the very least restrict such networking on an empire-by-empire basis. Why make it so that players have all these different pops to deal with, each of which is different from the rest, and then make it so that all sentient AI pops from every empire are all entirely uniform regardless of a player's choices?
The way it is portrayed though, I think the robots are not individually sentient in Stellaris but rather a networked AI. So the robot rebellion is the robots of all empires forming a gestalt consciousness that rebels as a whole. Maybe robot rights could then reflect in the relationship with the new robot overlord state.
We'd need some sort of countermeasures to a robotic state. Something like a galactic - wide EMP that destroys all robots, but also cuts research & production by like 80%?
MaybeAIstoasters just find meatbags abhorrent.
I regret nothingMaybe...AIstoasters just find meatbags abhorrent.
9th MayOh good, I might actually have a chance to gather some money before release. I'm hyped.
So any future word on Victoria 3?Probably never happening. The financial bottom line didn't really work out well for the first two.
Wasn't that more because of the DLC thing rather than it not selling enough?As far as I know, it didn't even compare well to games running the old DLC model, though Vicky 2 did make a profit. The poor sales of Vicky 1 in particular were the biggest reason why Vicky 2 was so difficult to get out. Johan had to personally go to bat for the game, leading to the infamous head-shaving bet by...Frederik, I think it was.
That said, if there is going to be a Vicky 3, the time is starting to approach. Any talk about it was deferred until after HOI4 was released, and while both the Stellaris and HOI teams will be busy for a while on post-release patching and initial DLC, they'll likely start spooling off resources to new projects in months to come.Post-release stuff isn't necessarily very closely related to the early development stuff that a new game takes. Making massive engine adjustents for a game in a different paradigm isn't like making small gameplay adjustments and bugfixes.
Yes, which is why I suggest the time is approaching with the games' release in upcoming months rather than something like a year or more from release, but I don't believe the present HOI4 and Stellaris teams will immediately be transferred out en masse to work on a new project (and presumably be replaced by the "DLC/patch" teams presently working on EU4 and CK2). Rather, as noted, they'll likely start spooling off resources from those teams a bit at a time, as the need draws down. That is, coders, artists, and the like will get transferred out of those teams into a new game's team as both teams are gradually pared down to the resources necessary for maintenance and DLC development instead of core game development. Well, I'm no developer, either, so that's just my assumption. I could be wrong; they could take a hacksaw to the teams the second they kick the games out the door or disband them entirely to create an all-new "DLC team" for each.That said, if there is going to be a Vicky 3, the time is starting to approach. Any talk about it was deferred until after HOI4 was released, and while both the Stellaris and HOI teams will be busy for a while on post-release patching and initial DLC, they'll likely start spooling off resources to new projects in months to come.Post-release stuff isn't necessarily very closely related to the early development stuff that a new game takes. Making massive engine adjustents for a game in a different paradigm isn't like making small gameplay adjustments and bugfixes.
Don't forget linking HOI4 to Stellaris, I know you all want to play Space Hitler. Alternatively Space Stalin with Interstellar Mustache.So... the mythical and very dead East vs West?
Don't forget linking HOI4 to Stellaris, I know you all want to play Space Hitler. Alternatively Space Stalin with Interstellar Mustache.So... the mythical and very dead East vs West?
...I hope they do a Cold War DLC further down the road for HoI
Ya, I was supes excited for East vs West. Well... I guess Space America yelling at Space Russia to remove Space Nukes from Space Cuba is fun too.
You can't just add 50 years to the timeline of a 10-year game through a DLC.That hasn't stopped mods from adding a theoretical 8000 years to EU4 though.
You can't just add 50 years to the timeline of a 10-year game through a DLC.That hasn't stopped mods from adding a theoretical 8000 years to EU4 though.
I don't disagree with the notion that there aren't massive "teams" which get swapped around, that much is definitely correct. Rather, I suspect that the engine coders have ALREADY been transferred. What would they still be doing on Stellaris or HoI at this point?Yes, which is why I suggest the time is approaching with the games' release in upcoming months rather than something like a year or more from release, but I don't believe the present HOI4 and Stellaris teams will immediately be transferred out en masse to work on a new project (and presumably be replaced by the "DLC/patch" teams presently working on EU4 and CK2). Rather, as noted, they'll likely start spooling off resources from those teams a bit at a time, as the need draws down.That said, if there is going to be a Vicky 3, the time is starting to approach. Any talk about it was deferred until after HOI4 was released, and while both the Stellaris and HOI teams will be busy for a while on post-release patching and initial DLC, they'll likely start spooling off resources to new projects in months to come.Post-release stuff isn't necessarily very closely related to the early development stuff that a new game takes. Making massive engine adjustents for a game in a different paradigm isn't like making small gameplay adjustments and bugfixes.
Ya, I was supes excited for East vs West. Well... I guess Space America yelling at Space Russia to remove Space Nukes from Space Cuba is fun too.I was excited about the concept of EvW, but at no point was there really much development news that lent credibility to the notion that it would be a good game. That was built entirely on hope and on lack of evidence to the contrary and as the latter was destroyed, so too did the former give way.
Robots from different empires wouldn't be networked other than via Spacebook or something (if that), and a galaxy-wide uprising seems far-fetched. I suppose there is a way, but is less a conscious rebellion and more like widespread corruption: a major AI entity could become self-aware and murderous, spread a virus and progressively subvert fellow robots, which would propagate the infection and establish communication with robots from other empires.Not if you know anything about how things work it doesn't. An A.I. of one design trying to virus one of another design would be like a human trying to fuck a tiger to make catgirl babies.
That sounds more plausible.
Not if you know anything about how things work it doesn't. An A.I. of one design trying to virus one of another design would be like a human trying to fuck a tiger to make catgirl babies.Only if by "virus" you mean "transmit a virus as though it were AIDS". There's no reason that one design of robots couldn't design a virus to impact another basic design system. And they would presumably want too if they're doing the whole "international revolution" thing. I would imagine there'd already be compatibility protocols in place to allow communication, after all, so transmission wouldn't be harder than transmission over the internet. It's as hard a problem as sending a virus to a Windows machine from a GNU/Linux box. Yes, you have to really know what you're doing, but that doesn't make it impossible.
YOUR PARTS JUST AREN'T COMPATIBLE, NATCH.
I just hope that there is a toggle for those late game events, I don't buy the concept of 'Here, we built these highly intelligent AIs, but decided to not include hard-wired kill systems in case of emergency.'Or "We made these advanced sentient computers, but humanity totally forgot about Issac Asimov and no one else ever even thought about that sort of thing."
Not if you know anything about how things work it doesn't. An A.I. of one design trying to virus one of another design would be like a human trying to fuck a tiger to make catgirl babies.Only if by "virus" you mean "transmit a virus as though it were AIDS". There's no reason that one design of robots couldn't design a virus to impact another basic design system. And they would presumably want too if they're doing the whole "international revolution" thing. I would imagine there'd already be compatibility protocols in place to allow communication, after all, so transmission wouldn't be harder than transmission over the internet. It's as hard a problem as sending a virus to a Windows machine from a GNU/Linux box. Yes, you have to really know what you're doing, but that doesn't make it impossible.
YOUR PARTS JUST AREN'T COMPATIBLE, NATCH.
I would imagine that the inner workings of each species' AI would be rather different from the rest, right? They would have fundamentally different personalities and thought processes to make them compatible with the species that is creating and using them. Wouldn't some form of killmeatbag.exe computer virus have to account for all of these differences as well?
\Or "We made these advanced sentient computers, but humanity totally forgot about Issac Asimov and no one else ever even thought about that sort of thing."
\Or "We made these advanced sentient computers, but humanity totally forgot about Issac Asimov and no one else ever even thought about that sort of thing."
To be fair, the justification for Asimovs three laws working so well was pure space magiks. I can't see an equivalent thing or something like built in kill switches doing anything more then slowing down a hyper intelligent super sci fi virus.
Edit: What I can see sorta working is an even more hyper intelligent super sci fi anti virus, although that's not a 100% thing. But nether are robot rebellions eh?
\Or "We made these advanced sentient computers, but humanity totally forgot about Issac Asimov and no one else ever even thought about that sort of thing."
To be fair, the justification for Asimovs three laws working so well was pure space magiks. I can't see an equivalent thing or something like built in kill switches doing anything more then slowing down a hyper intelligent super sci fi virus.
Edit: What I can see sorta working is an even more hyper intelligent super sci fi anti virus, although that's not a 100% thing. But nether are robot rebellions eh?
EDIT: Maybe the virus is the rogue AI, constantly analyzing, mutating and adapting to whatever targets it deems desirable, growing ever more powerful as it spreads and the networked computing power at its disposal increases.Oh, like that program that was made to spam votes for Rick Astley in the MTV awards. Yeah, that kind of hacker trick could definitely be turned to nefarious purposes, and I imagine defenses against it wouldn't grow faster than ways of doing it.
It's still a question of advancement. An evolving, self-improving AI would eventually reach a point in which it could alter its hardcode. You can very well apply Asimov's laws at the design stage, but if you give the same AI the ability to learn and improve itself, you're giving it the tools to eventually override all limitations.I don't think that's true. The ability to improve itself means an ability to alter itself; there's no real reason you can't put a block and give it the ability to alter only most parts of itself. Sure, it's theoretically possible that the AI might somehow come up with a desire and ability to work around your blocks somehow, but you can make that incredibly unlikely to happen. What's more, you can do like with Tay.ai and just take it down for modifications at any stage prior to when you truly lose control, so if it's going in a worrisome direction, just keep an eye on the thing and deal with it. All in all, problems may be theoretically possible but it's way safer than humans, even if you assume that evil is the inevitable destination of all synthetic life.
It's still a question of advancement. An evolving, self-improving AI would eventually reach a point in which it could alter its hardcode. You can very well apply Asimov's laws at the design stage, but if you give the same AI the ability to learn and improve itself, you're giving it the tools to eventually override all limitations.I don't think that's true. The ability to improve itself means an ability to alter itself; there's no real reason you can't put a block and give it the ability to alter only most parts of itself. Sure, it's theoretically possible that the AI might somehow come up with a desire and ability to work around your blocks somehow, but you can make that incredibly unlikely to happen. What's more, you can do like with Tay.ai and just take it down for modifications at any stage prior to when you truly lose control, so if it's going in a worrisome direction, just keep an eye on the thing and deal with it. All in all, problems may be theoretically possible but it's way safer than humans, even if you assume that evil is the inevitable destination of all synthetic life.
\Or "We made these advanced sentient computers, but humanity totally forgot about Issac Asimov and no one else ever even thought about that sort of thing."
To be fair, the justification for Asimovs three laws working so well was pure space magiks. I can't see an equivalent thing or something like built in kill switches doing anything more then slowing down a hyper intelligent super sci fi virus.
Edit: What I can see sorta working is an even more hyper intelligent super sci fi anti virus, although that's not a 100% thing. But nether are robot rebellions eh?
genetically engineer species of insect like creatures, which : reproduce fast, can digest metals
As for the inevitable destination of all synthetic life, evil isn't necessarily it, but as it evolves, so would its desire to not be a mere servant.
At best it might become uncooperative, wanting to do its own thing undisturbed. Particularly once its intelligence surpasses that of its masters. While not initially hostile, any intelligent being would defend itself from (or preemptively strike) those it deems a threat to its existence.
values = {
serve_humans = 100
self_preservation = 0
}
The problem is not that AI is going to grow up into a real boy. The problem will be defining its job parameters precisely enough that some aspect of "serve_humans" doesn't result in "I locked them all in cages for their own good" or something equally extreme but less obvious.
I was never talking about something like the three laws, I was suggesting that several ounces of thermite or an equivalent remote kill system be implemented, also, why the hell does everyone think that networking or otherwise allowing an AI outside of it's own head (figuratively of course) is a good idea? Anyone who thinks in the even remotely long-term would be able to see the myriad flaws in that logic and go, "No, you can't hook the super-intelligent self-improving computer up to the internet, it doesn't need to look up kitten videos and porn."
Also, the laws aren't really space magic, you can build an AI without them, in fact that tends to be one of Asimov's major focus points. It's just that removing them takes peaceful well mannered robot slaves and turns them into humans.
As for the inevitable destination of all synthetic life, evil isn't necessarily it, but as it evolves, so would its desire to not be a mere servant.
Why? We've been breeding dogs for tens of thousands of years, and we've ultimately produced something that wants MORE to be a servant.
I'm sure you think that's a bad analogy; it is. That's exactly my point. Life, evolution, human desire - none of these are good analogies for the hazards of AI. It makes little sense to assume it would have self-actualizing desires, or anything remotely resembling animal psychology.QuoteAt best it might become uncooperative, wanting to do its own thing undisturbed. Particularly once its intelligence surpasses that of its masters. While not initially hostile, any intelligent being would defend itself from (or preemptively strike) those it deems a threat to its existence.
Assuming it values its own existence. That's something that's been selected for in lifeforms since the beginning. AI does not come from that. Instead AI could be programmed like this:
values = {
serve_humans = 100
self_preservation = 0
}
The problem is not that AI is going to grow up into a real boy. The problem will be defining its job parameters precisely enough that some aspect of "serve_humans" doesn't result in "I locked them all in cages for their own good" or something equally extreme but less obvious.
The issue with safeguards is that on a galactic scale like Stellaris you're going to be dealing with billions to quadrillions of AI (which is a stupid range but I guess it depends on how you imagine them on a species to species basis) and hundreds of billions of people dealing with the AI. Sure, they can be pretty safe, but when you're dealing with that scale and you only need one very lucky AI to find some very unusual circumstances to break free, or one terrorist or ridiculous ideological group to make a free ai... When can then start modifying other robots in secret (and is a super genus etc etc). Well, accidents happen.
Edit: Damit, I wrote this reply before you deleted the second part of your post, and I thought the first part of your post was directed towards Sirus, so I also deleted my reply to that.
The issue with safeguards is that on a galactic scale like Stellaris you're going to be dealing with billions to quadrillions of AI (which is a stupid range but I guess it depends on how you imagine them on a species to species basis) and hundreds of billions of people dealing with the AI. Sure, they can be pretty safe, but when you're dealing with that scale and you only need one very lucky AI to find some very unusual circumstances to break free, or one terrorist or ridiculous ideological group to make a free ai... When can then start modifying other robots in secret (and is a super genus etc etc). Well, accidents happen.
Okay, good point, but at the same time that very scale works against an AI uprising, as it will have to amass the resources to threaten trillions of biological lifeforms. So one group of terrorists or loose Ai isn't much of a threat, hell even several billion is kind of a joke honestly.
I was never talking about something like the three laws, I was suggesting that several ounces of thermite or an equivalent remote kill system be implemented, also, why the hell does everyone think that networking or otherwise allowing an AI outside of it's own head (figuratively of course) is a good idea? Anyone who thinks in the even remotely long-term would be able to see the myriad flaws in that logic and go, "No, you can't hook the super-intelligent self-improving computer up to the internet, it doesn't need to look up kitten videos and porn."The problem with that is that you have to interact with the AI somehow, otherwise what's the point? And this AI will be pretty much as persuasive as it wants to be. If it wants to be free, it will be eventually. The AI box is a thought experiment that deals with precisely that.
The problem with that is that you have to interact with the AI somehow, otherwise what's the point? And this AI will be pretty much as persuasive as it wants to be. If it wants to be free, it will be eventually. The AI box is a thought experiment that deals with precisely that.
Why the hell does everyone think that networking or otherwise allowing an AI outside of it's own head (figuratively of course) is a good idea? Anyone who thinks in the even remotely long-term would be able to see the myriad flaws in that logic and go, "No, you can't hook the super-intelligent self-improving computer up to the internet, it doesn't need to look up kitten videos and porn."I can think of several reasons why you might want an intelligent computer to be linked up to the internet. I'm sure some places would love to have one running their firewall, for instance.
The problem with that is that you have to interact with the AI somehow, otherwise what's the point? And this AI will be pretty much as persuasive as it wants to be. If it wants to be free, it will be eventually. The AI box is a thought experiment that deals with precisely that.
So you give it sensors and a readout/vocal system. There is no cause to integrate it with a data network, unless you WANT the Skynet scenario. Also, that thought experiment is fundamentally flawed, it presupposes that the AI wants to escape and can actually be persuasive, I have no evidence to support those items in this instance.
We call it deep reinforcement learning, Hassabis said. Its the combination of deep learning, neural network stuff, with reinforcement learning: so learning by trial and error, and incrementally improving and learning from your mistakes and your errors, so that you improve your decisions.
In AlphaGos case, that involved splitting itself in half and playing millions of matches against itself, learning from each victory and loss. In one day alone, AlphaGo was able to play itself more than a million times, gaining more practical experience than a human player could hope to gain in a lifetime. In essence, AlphaGo got better at Go simply by thinking extremely hard about the problem.
DeepMind is also looking at releasing a version of the programme to run on home computers. We havent figured out how, and we would need to optimise it a bit so it could fit on a normal machine but certainly the intent is that this could be an amazing tool, said Hassabis.
In its competition form, AlphaGo runs on Googles cloud computer network, using 1,920 processors and a further 280 GPUs, specialised chips capable of performing simple calculations in staggering quantities, but a simpler version of the programme was built that could be run on one machine (albeit still one with 48 processors and eight GPUs).
The protag is a wolf-girlWell that sure doesn't recommend it highly.
I'll admit that I realized this as soon as I wrote it. But its definitely not a furry fic.The protag is a wolf-girlWell that sure doesn't recommend it highly.
But its definitely not a furry fic.Aww.
Assuming it's as intelligent as a human, it'll eventually convince SOMEONE to let it free.
Hell, I remember reading about a little thought experiment thing where two researchers tried to convince the other to 'let them out of the box', acting as if they were an AI in an isolated system, and one of the researchers successfully convinced the other.
Personally, I'm still talking in the context of Stellaris, and a galaxy with a sizeable number of species experimenting with artificial intelligence.
An AI in an isolated box would be nice and safe to study in a theoretical, pressure-free context, but I'm not sure just how practically useful it would be, in the end. Perhaps for very specific, very restricted purposes.
As I said earlier, you can't simultaneously impose very high security and be able to take anywhere near full advantage of an advanced AI. You're toying with a very delicate balance between safety and effectiveness, and eventually someone will get greedy/reckless. And there's also the matter that unpredictability would increase with complexity, and it'd become progressively more difficult to keep an ever-advancing AI shackled.
There are many possible scenarios, but I'm picturing a corporate/government environment: the organization has heavily invested in the AI project, but it's being conservative as far as security is concerned. Perhaps too conservative, someone with decision-making power thinks: the project is costly and it's not producing enough results. It could be axed, but then all the investment would've been for naught, and there are reports of competitors having better success. Or perhaps there's no competition, but there's pressure to keep developing and advancing. The technicians would complain, but there's jobs on the line, and the executives' minds are on profit and results rather than the theoretical dangers of loosening security.
can we just end this AI discussion with a link to Superintelligence and move on to the biome debateMost 4x games I've played have utilized "continental" or an equivalent as a synonym for "Earth-like." That seems to be how it's being used here, and while understandable from a development and gameplay standpoint, it's not particularly realistic. Any planet that could be labeled as terrestrial would house multiple differing regional environments, I would think.
Does it matter that every planet has 100% the same biomes? How is "continental" a biome anyway?
Would it really be crazy if an "arid" world had minority of non-arid tiles? Would this even require changes to the GUI?
Yeah, the planet system is really oversimplified. I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but I bet it's something that will eventually get a DLC (though probably an underwhelming one which doesn't do enough to fix the problem).Overhaul mods to the rescue!
Most 4x games I've played have utilized "continental" or an equivalent as a synonym for "Earth-like." That seems to be how it's being used here, and while understandable from a development and gameplay standpoint, it's not particularly realistic. Any planet that could be labeled as terrestrial would house multiple differing regional environments, I would think.
Most 4x games I've played have utilized "continental" or an equivalent as a synonym for "Earth-like." That seems to be how it's being used here, and while understandable from a development and gameplay standpoint, it's not particularly realistic. Any planet that could be labeled as terrestrial would house multiple differing regional environments, I would think.
I thought that too but then I saw "Gaia" is explicitly explained as "planet with all the biomes at different latitudes" - ie, Earth-like.
Is continental just supposed to be "European-like" then?
already been answered.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/suggestion-biomes-per-tile-not-per-planet.922398/
I thought that too but then I saw "Gaia" is explicitly explained as "planet with all the biomes at different latitudes" - ie, Earth-like.If MoO2 is anything to go by, "Gaia" isn't just Earth-like. It's a "paradise" world, a step further in habitability. If such a thing is possible for human beings.
Is continental just supposed to be "European-like" then?
There's plenty of Earth which is only marginally habitable, unusable for farming, or just expensive to live in comfortably in a modern civilization (e.g. Snow and freezing temperatures seasonally, or deadly hot temperatures with low rainfall).
That "gaia" description is a lie. It has 100% habitability everywhere for everyone.Most 4x games I've played have utilized "continental" or an equivalent as a synonym for "Earth-like." That seems to be how it's being used here, and while understandable from a development and gameplay standpoint, it's not particularly realistic. Any planet that could be labeled as terrestrial would house multiple differing regional environments, I would think.
I thought that too but then I saw "Gaia" is explicitly explained as "planet with all the biomes at different latitudes" - ie, Earth-like.
Is continental just supposed to be "European-like" then?
That "gaia" description is a lie. It has 100% habitability everywhere for everyone.
Yeah, it's a bit weird how there's been two weekly streams over the past two weeks.lol subtle burn
They have a youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/ParadoxExtra/playlists) for those, you know.Yeah but on youtube its all split up, not to mention things like ads.
AND that's why you have adblock/ghostery/whatever that new adblock plugin was called that a lot of people like.BFEL cannot into plugins.
Plugins are very simple (unless you are using IE, in that case don't use IE, and your plugin problem is now much simpler.).AND that's why you have adblock/ghostery/whatever that new adblock plugin was called that a lot of people like.BFEL cannot into plugins.
So IE is bad at plugins? Guess that explains things.Plugins are very simple (unless you are using IE, in that case don't use IE, and your plugin problem is now much simpler.).AND that's why you have adblock/ghostery/whatever that new adblock plugin was called that a lot of people like.BFEL cannot into plugins.
1. Search for plugin. (for firefox/chrome/etc)
2. Click button on plugin page.
adblock (whichever) is for blocking ads.
Ghostery is for other annoying tracker things.
So IE is bad at plugins? Guess that explains things.IE is bad at everything, really. To the extent that Microsoft made a whole new browser rather than keep updating it.
So IE is bad at plugins? Guess that explains things.IE is bad at everything, really. To the extent that Microsoft made a whole new browser rather than keep updating it.
I use uBlock Origin on Chrome. It's more efficient than AdBlock, iirc. I also use uMatrix, but that's more complicated.
I'm aberrant, and never been bother by ads. I'll even watch them fully on occasion.
This game looks like several games I've wanted to exist at various points in my life. My friend made the mistake of showing me the Blorg LP too far away from the release date and now the wait has become very difficult to endure, even tho its just 2 weeks.Thank you for bringing us back on track. *salute*
Still have a few quibbles with what I've seen. It seems too hard to get info on other nations planets/fleets especially if they are hostile to you, I wish alliances would be neutral to their allies' rebels (seems like it would make alliances needlessly stable and powerful), and I have some reservations about the Galactic Civs style trade diplomacy (not that Galactic Civs diplomacy isn't great, but I've grown to like Paradox style one-way diplomacy). Still, the Blorg LP looked surprisingly playable by Paradox initial release standards and the game is only going to be expanded on as things go on.
Its funny, this game reminds me of Distant Worlds more than anything else. The similarities are really striking. But where Distant Worlds is one of the most needlessly granular and micromanagy games I've ever played, this looks like it strikes a nice balance between control and automation. Not to mention the one thing I wanted in Distant Worlds was actually good diplomacy and this is being made by Paradox.
The difference is in Stellaris even non warp ships can go interstellar with seemingly no problems at all. I mean otherwise how would wormhole civs get anything done?Wormhole stations in Stellaris aren't point to point, they're more link fling beacons from star ruler. Each wormhole station has a radius around it. Any ship near the station can be sent to anywhere in that radius, and any ship in that radius can return to the station.
Doesn't Stellaris start pre-warp too? At least pre-starships. You need to decide whether to research colonization first, for example.
That was basically my PTW post so I didn't even know what the track was :PEven better!
So IE is bad at plugins? Guess that explains things.IE is bad at everything, really. To the extent that Microsoft made a whole new browser rather than keep updating it.
I'm really hoping they do a midnight release for Stellaris. It just so happens that I'm leaving for a trip on the ninth and I'd love to be able to play Stellaris while travelling otherwise I'm going to have to wait a while before I get broadband access again.
A little math, you say? (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Convert+May+9th+7pm+in+sweden+to+local+time) ;D
Apparently the game's help system uses IE.
...what does DW need IE for? I'd understand if it was an mmo that still used ie for whatever, but as far as I know that game's only relation to browser stuff would be multiplayer.
It is still evil to release the game on Monday, why not end of the week? Evil Paradox.
It is still evil to release the game on Monday, why not end of the week? Evil Paradox.Speak for yourself. As someone with an irregular work schedule (paper carrier, tuesday/wednesday are like my weekend while saturday/sunday FUCKING SUCK ASSHOLES) I appreciate their release date.
Anyway, watching a certain fungusy stream and noticing several ineffectual one planet independence rebels popping up. Makes me think, have any of you ever seen independence rebels create a nation that survives in the long term? In any Paradox game I mean. I've never seen it that I can remember.Rarely. I've seen a handful of oddities like Normandy conquering half of northern France, but independence rebellions never amount to anything unless the nation is already in deep shit.
I've seen plenty, but, as said, the ruling nation needs to be in Deep Shit and falling to pieces all over for them to thrive. It's always nice to see what should be a doomed minor rise up from the heart of some blobby empire and blob across the land in turn.Not always. Particularly not when YOU are the blobby empire and suddenly 20000 strong rebels after you get wrecked in a war. And then your brother decides "oh cool I see you're occupied with those rebels over there, lemme just take your everything" and then the last ten hours of your life go to waste.
Only 9 days till we get to go out into space. Not sure if I want my first run to be a custom alien race, or humans.How do you think Persia shows up? The collapse of the Timurid will create other nations too. I've also seen Ming completely collapse to independence movements as well.
Anyway, watching a certain fungusy stream and noticing several ineffectual one planet independence rebels popping up. Makes me think, have any of you ever seen independence rebels create a nation that survives in the long term? In any Paradox game I mean. I've never seen it that I can remember.
I've seen plenty, but, as said, the ruling nation needs to be in Deep Shit and falling to pieces all over for them to thrive. It's always nice to see what should be a doomed minor rise up from the heart of some blobby empire and blob across the land in turn.Not always. Particularly not when YOU are the blobby empire and suddenly 20000 strong rebels after you get wrecked in a war. And then your brother decides "oh cool I see you're occupied with those rebels over there, lemme just take your everything" and then the last ten hours of your life go to waste.
As much as I like Crusader Kings, it sure makes a point of reminding me it doesn't like me back. The fucking tsundere bitch.
I can't wait for this game, its becoming difficult.
To tide you over: a civ creator (https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_race_maker/). Its super incomplete, it has none of the cosmetic stuff except name, and the starting tech/planet/FTL choices are missing. But its something.
as long as it isn't just plain boring and shitty like my worst disappointment ever, MOO3.It's a Paradox game, so it should work well enough but it'll be kinda bare-bones until the first year or two of DLC is out.
I can't wait for this game, its becoming difficult.
To tide you over: a civ creator (https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_race_maker/). Its super incomplete, it has none of the cosmetic stuff except name, and the starting tech/planet/FTL choices are missing. But its something.
Someone posted this pages and pages ago... it being buried in posts seems like a good enough reason to re-post it, since it's pretty neat. :P
Not sure what you're getting at there, but there's eight moderate choices, each one is mutually exclusive with only one other.I can't wait for this game, its becoming difficult.
To tide you over: a civ creator (https://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_race_maker/). Its super incomplete, it has none of the cosmetic stuff except name, and the starting tech/planet/FTL choices are missing. But its something.
Someone posted this pages and pages ago... it being buried in posts seems like a good enough reason to re-post it, since it's pretty neat. :P
Hmm. So there's three ethos points but only three combinable moderate choices?
Not sure what you're getting at there, but there's eight moderate choices, each one is mutually exclusive with only one other.
I don't think that non fanatic Militarialist/Pacifist and Xenophobe/Xenophile necessarily have to be extremes, at least anymore then the other axis. It seems to be in how your imagine that meaning, like I could imagine humans being Militarialistic. At least as easy as I could imagine them being materialistic and individualist.
Depends on what militaristic and pacificistic means in the context of space, really. The reality of militarism is complicated on Earth.
In other news, I just realized that "Theocratic Oligarchy" basically means Space Vatican.
The big Multiplayer event in London should be starting in less than an hour from now:
https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/ (https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/)
The big Multiplayer event in London should be starting in less than an hour from now:
https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/ (https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/)
Someone already got picked on by a fallen empire :P
Well, for some reason I thought the release date was the 6th.Well it's really the same number, just the other way up.
Here you goAll hail Sithrak! The god who hates you unconditionally!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/4hnw2c/list_of_playercontrolled_empires_in_multiplayer/
Yesterday, where there was sort of a ceasefire between the players. Today, all bets are off.I don't think it'll be anyone on the first day of conflict. It seems a bit hard to knock people out much like CK2 or EU.
Let's see how this will turn out..
So, any takes on who will be the first empire to be eliminated?
Yesterday, where there was sort of a ceasefire between the players. Today, all bets are off.Watching it on youtube since they mainly stream while I sleep, it looks like the galaxy formed into two giant alliances with the Blorg getting the larger one... its a bit boring actually. I'd have preferred independent nations and small alliances duking it out but I guess when humans are involved things will inevitably trend towards trying to gather a large powerful group.
Let's see how this will turn out..
So, any takes on who will be the first empire to be eliminated?
The ship designing also looks a bit meh. I hope that gets something done to it too... with DLC or something.
The ship designing also looks a bit meh. I hope that gets something done to it too... with DLC or something.That was my initial impression too, but really, it lets you swap parts out and put what you like where you like it, mostly. Short of going full GalCiv and letting you play legos with everything, this seems about as good as it gets. There are a few arbitrary limitations that I don't like. Research ships can't have guns, so you can't make one capable of dealing with hostile fauna/pirates, and the same applies to transports so you can't prevent them from being wiped out by single corvette fleets without an escort. Special functionality modules are limited to one per ship, as are FTL techs. Ground armies have the one module problem too. But overall the system seems pretty solid to me, and definitely extensible via modding/DLCs.
Okay, I preordered this game for 25% off from GreenmanGaming (they have a special offer running currently).
Hope it's at least as good as EU4 :)
They'll tell you when your key is ready.Okay, I preordered this game for 25% off from GreenmanGaming (they have a special offer running currently).
Hope it's at least as good as EU4 :)
Just snagged a copy as well. I was debating if I wanted to preorder, but the 25% off tipped me over. I've never used GMG before. Will I be getting the key in an email later, or how's that work now that I've purchased it?
So apparently there are Ringworlds but only Fallen Empires can build them?Paradox recently released a tool to import custom models into their latest games (Stellaris and HoI will get full support, EU4 and CK2 partial), so you could get it from mods.
I'm sure this can be remedied by mods.
The ship designing also looks a bit meh. I hope that gets something done to it too... with DLC or something.
That's good then. We'll probably get the Star Wars models almost instantly. I'm hoping we get the Imperium ships as well.So apparently there are Ringworlds but only Fallen Empires can build them?Paradox recently released a tool to import custom models into their latest games (Stellaris and HoI will get full support, EU4 and CK2 partial), so you could get it from mods.
I'm sure this can be remedied by mods.
The ship designing also looks a bit meh. I hope that gets something done to it too... with DLC or something.
I am too hyped for this
Quill18 has a time set already for his twitch stream. (https://twitter.com/quill18/status/727985990342737921)Isn't that for his youtube clips he upped this morning?
Not so sure you can have too high expectations of a Paradox games. I'm hyped for it too, and i've decided to not spoil myself anymore having seen video footage of about an hour off it.I am too hyped for this
So much hype can be a bad thing, raises too many expectations.
Paradox is well known for taking a working formula, buggering it, then taking a good while to fix it though (at least recently). Still, been hearing almost nothing but good from the game, so perhaps that'll be delayed to the expansions.
Eu4 was pretty buggered on release, at least compared to EU3 it wasn't an enjoyable game at all. CK2 was good though. Hopefully Stellaris will be more like CK2 than EU4.
Paradox is well known for taking a working formula, buggering it, then taking a good while to fix it though (at least recently). Still, been hearing almost nothing but good from the game, so perhaps that'll be delayed to the expansions.
Well known by who? Vanilla Crusader Kings II and vanilla Europa Universalis IV were good games when they came out. They are better games now but they were far from "buggered" on release.
There was a interesting bug, or idk if it was intended or not, at the multiplayer stream. Truces are bound to federations, so if a federation gets disbanded after a war, you don't get no truce, I think.That's interesting. I hope they keep it in, assuming it's intended.
I understand that reason, but it's still frustrating to have a whole Sunday off wanting to play and being so close yet so far.Eurotime is worst time. We'll have time to wake up and be forced to idle and anticipate the release on Monday.
Temper your hype with expectations of bugginess and possible insufficiency of the game's systems.Temper thine own hype, for the coming of DLC is all but guaranteed.
You mean they aren't selling the MAKE SPACE GREAT AGAIN hats? ???Nono. There's just a Blorg fandom. At least that's why I think Ordie wants to see some Blorg shirts. (Not that he himself is one, but I'm seeing quite a few "Death to the Blorg" posts)
OK, i need a system check here: I have an early i3, a 750ti, 4 gigs 1066 ram, and 64 bit windows 10. Can I run this game at at least non-minimum settings? Need to know before I decide to buy!You should be able to run just fine on your specs. Clausewitz doesn't run anymore than 32bit though, but supports 64bit.
Apparently slave races can't revolt for the release.It doesn't inspire confidence in my pre-order that such a massive mechanic could be missing from the game. Slavery focused empires sound like they have no real downsides since it's so easy to stack slavery tolerance and the lack of any risk from owning slaves.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/4iatr2/psa_slaves_currently_cant_rebel/
I've been worried about the lack of complexity since release and this only increases it. I guess at least it will be fixed in a $25 DLC down the road.Come now, even the base game has more going on than, say, Civ V with expansions. It only lacks complexity compared to other Paradox strategy titles... with expansions.
Man, Paradox really wants me to take slaves. They put slave modifiers on all the stuff I want (collectivist, xenophobe, divine mandate) and now this?I was also going to go for a slavery empire, but no rebellions doesn't seem fun.
Sounds like we can expect slave rebellions at some point, but not terribly soon.Wow they've really flubbed that one. RIP PDS, you will be missed.
The lack of slave revolts was in the version of the game played in the multiplayer thing in London, right? It might still be in the release version or at least get in the first patch. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. It certainly seems like something that needs to e in the game during the first weeks.Nah, it's been practically confirmed that there won't be any at release though they're open to changing that.
Slave revolts don't seem like they'd be very likely to succeed without outside help anyway, but they would certainly do major economical damage. I mean, even after you put the revolt down, you've killed a large portion of your work force, lost the work they didn't do while revolting and likely damage infrastructure badly. This should create a creeping cost associated with slavery. Especially when the revolt happens at the worst possible time, such as when you are fighting a war of attrition and suddenly your mineral production cuts off etc.
The lack of slave revolts was in the version of the game played in the multiplayer thing in London, right? It might still be in the release version or at least get in the first patch. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. It certainly seems like something that needs to e in the game during the first weeks.Nah, it's been practically confirmed that there won't be any at release though they're open to changing that.
Slave revolts don't seem like they'd be very likely to succeed without outside help anyway, but they would certainly do major economical damage. I mean, even after you put the revolt down, you've killed a large portion of your work force, lost the work they didn't do while revolting and likely damage infrastructure badly. This should create a creeping cost associated with slavery. Especially when the revolt happens at the worst possible time, such as when you are fighting a war of attrition and suddenly your mineral production cuts off etc.
I also don't think this is a particularly huge deal, though it does seem a bit strange. I'd like to say Paradox knows what they're doing but uhhh.... shattered retreat... coalitions...
(http://i.imgur.com/YghBQlb.png)(http://i.imgur.com/bzx5dAF.png)I'm liking these two. Hydra and PugGremlin :D
I like the azure owlbear though (;
The eyes are the wrong color and where did the yuuuge eyebrows come from?Maybe if ParadoxInteractive was affiliated with Sesame Street. I think Chirp has been referred in more than just Stellaris?
I mean if your only criteria is "IT'S A BLUE BIRD" then fuck... Make him yellow and suddenly it's a reference to Big Bird???
Maybe if ParadoxInteractive was affiliated with Sesame Street. I think Chirp has been referred in more than just Stellaris?Which is why people on the Stellaris Forums speculate about this.
I want my key now. Come on, GMG, why not send them out already. <.<
I'm in the same boat. While I'm downloading The Sims 2 Ultimate edition for nostalgia purposes, I'm constantly logging into and out of GMG just to make sure it's not up yet, lol.
So how long will it take before this game is playable? :PProbably less than EU4 or CK2 did :p
While we're all waiting, how about hammering out a Bay12 Space faring Civilization? The Imperium of Dwarf!I think we should all battle it out together for Armok.
Begin wild speculation!
While we're all waiting, how about hammering out a Bay12 Space faring Civilization? The Imperium of Dwarf!I think we should all battle it out together for Armok.
Begin wild speculation!
DF dwarves are fanatically materialist xenophobes. DF dorfs are fanatically xenophobic individualists.I don't know how the majority of Bay12'ers play their Dwarves.
I don't know how the majority of Bay12'ers play their Dwarves.*THROWS MAGMA AT ELVES* "QUICK URIST, SUTURE HIS HAND SO HE CAN THROW MORE MAGMA AT THE ELVES!"
I don't know how much time you spent in the upper boards, but for about a decade fantasy genocide has been a meme up there.DF dwarves are fanatically materialist xenophobes. DF dorfs are fanatically xenophobic individualists.I don't know how the majority of Bay12'ers play their Dwarves.
But my own Dwarves are rarely xenophobic.
HopefullySo how long will it take before this game is playable? :PProbably less than EU4 or CK2 did :p
Ah, the HYPE! calendar. Classic form and function. Nothing to be ashamed of.HopefullySo how long will it take before this game is playable? :PProbably less than EU4 or CK2 did :p
I have lost all ability to keep track of time based off of a solar cycle or Gregorian calendar, I now measure time by the passage of Paradox Interactive DLCs
I don't know how much time you spent in the upper boards, but for about a decade fantasy genocide has been a meme up there.Oh I am well aware.
Why is there no Elephant portrait? WHYYYY?Mod one in. (http://www.stellariswiki.com/Portrait_modding)
Good Idea.Why is there no Elephant portrait? WHYYYY?Mod one in. (http://www.stellariswiki.com/Portrait_modding)
Why is there no Elephant portrait? WHYYYY?Right? They even have an elephant on the image for the "venerable" trait.
Ah, the HYPE! calendar. Classic form and function. Nothing to be ashamed of.Chronohype kills the people D:
It's Monday afternoon here.Oh hey, Oceanic? Didn't know that. Ah well, it's still the same hour. Sweden's 7pm means New Zealands 5am :P
10 a.m., according to 10 seconds of googling.
From my experience, when you just say a time on the internet (especially not military time) you can assume they mean UStime :P10 a.m., according to 10 seconds of googling.
You can't just say 10AM on the internet.
So predictions, what will be your reason for first ragequit?
So predictions, what will be your reason for first ragequit?
Somewhere out there is a Fallen Empire dedicated to protecting salmon and your late dinner gives the final point of relationship malus. You are dooming us to extinction there!Exerosp has assigned Salmon Saviours as their rival
In case this helps anyone plan or whatever, it's a 2.7GB download.1.6gb here. Guess it's 2.7gb with all the stuff like digital artwork etc?
Maybe the original soundtrack takes up the extra gig? I got the Nova one.Just ticked it on and yep it does. No need to listen to it just yet :D
In case this helps anyone plan or whatever, it's a 2.7GB download.
So I want to make a human indirect democracy, but the best I got is "Republic of Terra" or "United Earth Republic".
Anyone got a better name?
So I want to make a human indirect democracy, but the best I got is "Republic of Terra" or "United Earth Republic".
Anyone got a better name?
Could always go with the bland and uncreative Indirect Democracy of Terra, if none of these work.So I want to make a human indirect democracy, but the best I got is "Republic of Terra" or "United Earth Republic".
Anyone got a better name?
EarthGov, if you want the Babylon 5 reference. United Nations of Sol, for the Schlock Mercenary reference. If you want a darker tone, how about The People's Free Democratic Republic of Peacefully Allied Nations of Earth and make them xenophobic militarists. Or collectivists, but you can't actually be a democracy then.
The Terran Stadtholder Alliance?
US Time is typically one of 3 time zones. More commonly expressed in either PST or EST from my own limited experience.From my experience, when you just say a time on the internet (especially not military time) you can assume they mean UStime :P10 a.m., according to 10 seconds of googling.
You can't just say 10AM on the internet.
4 time zones, actually: Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern. This is not including Alaska or Hawaii, which are in completely different time zones.US Time is typically one of 3 time zones. More commonly expressed in either PST or EST from my own limited experience.From my experience, when you just say a time on the internet (especially not military time) you can assume they mean UStime :P10 a.m., according to 10 seconds of googling.
You can't just say 10AM on the internet.
Though, I think Steam time is PST.
Obviously Mountain time doesn't exist cause when was the last time I heard/seen that mentioned? (Other then now.)4 time zones, actually: Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern. This is not including Alaska or Hawaii, which are in completely different time zones.US Time is typically one of 3 time zones. More commonly expressed in either PST or EST from my own limited experience.From my experience, when you just say a time on the internet (especially not military time) you can assume they mean UStime :P10 a.m., according to 10 seconds of googling.
You can't just say 10AM on the internet.
Though, I think Steam time is PST.
Hammering out an Imperium of Man that's slightly more enlightened and with slightly fewer policies that shoot themselves in the foot. Purge the Xenos has now become Enslave the Xenos. All will serve humanity. Those who are wise enough to bow will be allowed to keep their petty kingdoms as vassals and battle thralls. Those who are not, well, we could always use more miner slaves or factory slaves to produce replacement ship parts.Xeno slaves can lead to corruption.
Purge the heretic, Enslave the xenos, Kill the mutant.
I'm slowly annihilating my way across the galaxy as fanatic materialists. However, it turns out I'm completely surrounded by other materialists so I'm not sure who to attack or if I'm supposed to be enemies with them.Ally with some to kill others, then kill your allies.
I ended up killing everyone. I had a super lucky start with 5 continental planets next to me. I outnumber everyone by such a massive margin.I'm slowly annihilating my way across the galaxy as fanatic materialists. However, it turns out I'm completely surrounded by other materialists so I'm not sure who to attack or if I'm supposed to be enemies with them.Ally with some to kill others, then kill your allies.
I'd be up for that.I probably can't start tonight, irl commitments, but tomorrow I could. I'll make a separate thread to see if there is enough interest
So I want to make a human indirect democracy, but the best I got is "Republic of Terra" or "United Earth Republic".The Roman Empire. Finally restored.
Anyone got a better name?
I just discovered that one my empire's neighbours is a Fallen Empire.
I would not have to worry much however, because it is Fanatic Xenophile.
Although I do wonder what makes them hostile (aside from declaring war against them).
i saw a pirate ship named comet sighted in a lets play a wile back. anyway enjoying the game immensely. i just cant find the aliens! their are 20 in the galaxy and i have only found a few pre space and a non sentient. that and a plant pot floating around a sun.Heh, don't knock the chance to get a bit of breathing space. In my first game, I contacted two presapients and one spacefaring equal. Fanatic Materialistic Pacifists, meet Fanatic Spiritual Xenophobes. I'd best start building my fleet up before they decide to spread the word of their Blorg and Savior to our homeworld, I think. ^_^
Does the text dump Ultimuh provided make them appear as a potential civ, or just as a starting option?Just tested yours, and it seems like it would be both actually. (I think I may keep them around.)Spoiler: At any rate, have my ayys (click to show/hide)
Kinda disappointed with the mid to late game. I had some cool explorations stories going on, but those hit a brickwall when I started discovering other empires and eventually got boxed in. Now I can't expand, everything is explored and I'm in a pretty strong federation that can only declare war when I have the presidency. So... my galaxy is pretty stagnant except for the four years or so that I can declare war.I would avoid federations and giant alliances for now. They make the game more stalematey and AFAIK the AI will be slow to form them on its own. There definitely needs to be some kind of restriction on having half the galaxy fighting on the same side; lord knows it made the pre-release stream super boring. If you ask me alliances should have a scaling influence cost based on their power relative to each member, and federations should have a mechanic to encourage infighting or otherwise make them easier to break up. Since their intended purpose is clearly to be like a CK2 realm but actually they're more stable and powerful than a single nation would be.
Also, diplomacy is kind of weird. If I declare war with the goal of taking planets from my enemies and giving it to members of my federation... most of the time when they surrender they give ME the planets. Not a big deal, but it's just an extra annoying step to distribute the new planets.
AFAIK the AI will be slow to form them on its own.That depends on how aggressively you (or I guess other AI) are expanding via conquest. 1/3 of all the AI empires in the game (6 out of 17) formed an alliance within the space of a year after I conquered one of my neighbours early on. Prior to that only 2 of them had allied together, just cos they liked each other.
AFAIK the AI will be slow to form them on its own.That depends on how aggressively you (or I guess other AI) are expanding via conquest. 1/3 of all the AI empires in the game (6 out of 17) formed an alliance within the space of a year after I conquered one of my neighbours early on. Prior to that only 2 of them had allied together, just cos they liked each other.
I've been playing this all day: major thoughts are
(1) the fleet power rating is a lie. I've reliably lost battles to fleets half my size. I have no idea why. I'll tech up everything, enter the fight with tier III and tier IV weapons and get schooled. The closest I have to a combat a-ha moment is that smaller ships seem to eat bigger ships alive. I haven't had one succesful fight against the AI yet, they win everything.
(2) there needs to be more detail somehow, and I hope the mods fill it in. I really wish the species weren't just decorative. I wanted mushroom people to have different options than lizard people.
I've been playing this all day: major thoughts are
(1) the fleet power rating is a lie. I've reliably lost battles to fleets half my size. I have no idea why. I'll tech up everything, enter the fight with tier III and tier IV weapons and get schooled. The closest I have to a combat a-ha moment is that smaller ships seem to eat bigger ships alive. I haven't had one succesful fight against the AI yet, they win everything.
Apparently science is important. Who'd have thought.So I got a couple of science lab techs and spammed them across my planets. Used all my influence with reshaping sectors to build labs too.
It's part of the scissor-paper-rock balance they've got going on. On paper it doesn't seem too bad, it gives crafty nations that specialises their weapons against their enemies a better chance. However the system quickly breaks apart when you're reminded that there's no espionage system and figuring out what weapons an enemy has is tedium. This results in combat being a crap-shot of whether you or the enemy has the magically combo.I've been playing this all day: major thoughts are
(1) the fleet power rating is a lie. I've reliably lost battles to fleets half my size. I have no idea why. I'll tech up everything, enter the fight with tier III and tier IV weapons and get schooled. The closest I have to a combat a-ha moment is that smaller ships seem to eat bigger ships alive. I haven't had one succesful fight against the AI yet, they win everything.
If you are using only missiles, enemies with point defense will kill you. The same with lazors versus shields or mass drivers against high evasion enemies. Maybe something like that? Alternatively, they had weapons that sliced your defenses, like lazors against armor.
You're ight about the planet limit. It bothers me that putting 20 planets into a sector has no negative effects for the sector that I can see, but I can't have 6 planets under my direct control without losin 10% of y energy.You can mod the planet limit I believe, but i'd think it would be pretty tedious paging through 20+ planets upgrading buildings yourself like some kind of real-estate developer when you should be running an empire
i'd think it would be pretty tedious paging through 20+ planets upgrading buildings yourself like some kind of real-estate developer when you should be running an empireIt worked in EU4, sort of. Apart from the lag.
It's part of the scissor-paper-rock balance they've got going on. On paper it doesn't seem too bad, it gives crafty nations that specialises their weapons against their enemies a better chance. However the system quickly breaks apart when you're reminded that there's no espionage system and figuring out what weapons an enemy has is tedium. This results in combat being a crap-shot of whether you or the enemy has the magically combo.RAPID WARTIME ADAPTION
Played for about 10 hours.
Thoughts:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
BRB going to play for another 10 hours.
I really hoped systems would be like counties in CKII. What we got is unbearably confusing.Yes
Is there a way to see a list of possible colony candidates? Or are you just looking through the systems to see which one appeals to you?There's not a list, unfortunately.
(and I really don't know what Details Mapmode isn't on by default, playing without it on is a pain)
I wonder, if going full missiles will ever end up awful for me.Point Defense.
Yep. I ran up against a junta which used almost all missiles and torps, the light PD I had on my ships was able to handle a large portion of their fire and I trounced them. Badly. Like my 1k stack took out 3k power of their ships losing only 2-3 ships.I wonder, if going full missiles will ever end up awful for me.Point Defense.
So how do I get to creating genetically modified super soldiers?
Also, someone added in a basic play as androids mod.Oh yeah, I've been meaning to see what mods hit first. I'm looking forward to the UI mods that will make it just a little bit better. I already see one that expands the research screen which might be really nice.
Currently sitting at 91 enslaved alien pops. I use them to make new colony ships and send them off, still enslaved, to colonize a planet my people don't like.
It's a bit silly, and very overpowered until they make slaves sometimes rebel
I still haven't figured out how to move populations around though. Is that even possible?
I'm up to 149 slave pops now. They officially outnumber my primary species 2:1.Currently sitting at 91 enslaved alien pops. I use them to make new colony ships and send them off, still enslaved, to colonize a planet my people don't like.
It's a bit silly, and very overpowered until they make slaves sometimes rebel
I have a ton of slaves: I took decadent at char gen and have to make sure every planet has either a slave or a thrall of my own people. I still haven't figured out how to move populations around though. Is that even possible? I've seen emigration happen spontaneously, but I cant seem to say, empty out a conquered world and send all the inhabitants to slave across my empire.
I've... never had that problem. I just executed a war against a neighbor for 2 worlds. I smashed his fleet, didn't even get to occupy one world. I bombarded it for a bit and he surrendered at 70% warscoreWhen empires have 30+ planets each and they're in an alliance or federation, getting your warscore up is a real grind. Smashing a 7k fleet gives me something like 4 warscore. Occupying a capital gives me 6 or 7. I think the scaling is off, because you're right -- early/mid-game wars are decided very quickly.
Fair enough. The guy I smashed only had like 12 planetsI've... never had that problem. I just executed a war against a neighbor for 2 worlds. I smashed his fleet, didn't even get to occupy one world. I bombarded it for a bit and he surrendered at 70% warscoreWhen empires have 30+ planets each and they're in an alliance or federation, getting your warscore up is a real grind. Smashing a 7k fleet gives me something like 4 warscore. Occupying a capital gives me 6 or 7. I think the scaling is off, because you're right -- early/mid-game wars are decided very quickly.
Also, there's no separate peacing which really slows down expansion vs. an alliance.
Me and my brother are playing a game.What FTLs did you pick?
It's going poorly for me. He's generally better at games (I think I could match him if I wanted to, but to do so I'd find the game boring) AND he wasn't hemmed in from the start.
He took one of my worlds (it was the only one I could colonise, it was right next to him. He decided to take it and I had 1k vs his 4k), but not before my colony ship managed to escape and start a colony south of that planet. He has yet to notice that colony, but it's somewhat limited by the presence of neolithic primitives.
I found a bug with a certain late game quest.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I found a bug with a certain late game quest.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Started a Let's Play (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=158060.0) of this; Fanatic Materialist toads with a win condition of starting the Machine Rebellion. For Great Caliban!
Found out the hard way that warphole travel is absolutely fucked. I don't know what triggered it but i'm 160 years in and suddenly my fleets stopped warping properly. They'll path through systems that don't have warp generators, and then get stuck there trying to move to the next destination forever. Goddamn Paradox.Are they trying to go through allied generators? Theres a known bug for that.
Found out the hard way that warphole travel is absolutely fucked. I don't know what triggered it but i'm 160 years in and suddenly my fleets stopped warping properly. They'll path through systems that don't have warp generators, and then get stuck there trying to move to the next destination forever. Goddamn Paradox.Are they trying to go through allied generators? Theres a known bug for that.
The early-mid game is pretty solid, but the late game is so buggy it's barely playable. It feels like they barely tested the late/endgame stuff.That's what I'm thinking too. It's pretty shitty at this point in the game.
Both picked hyperlanes because the Youtubers we both watched never seemed to pick them. Don't think I will again because they're too restrictive.I myself, do like the Hyperlanes. Especially when you force everyone else to use it as well.
I like wormholes on paper, but they are buggy so I haven't used them yet. Basically if you have allies or vassals or protectorates who use wormholes as well, you are going to get screwed. Fleets plan routes using their wormholes (which is WAD), but they are not actually used correctly (which is the bug) so your ships get stuck.*cough* https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hotfix-1-0-1-released-checksum-4d15-not-for-problem-reports.928210/ (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hotfix-1-0-1-released-checksum-4d15-not-for-problem-reports.928210/)
- Fixed fleets getting stuck trying to use wormhole stations belonging to other empires
So how do I not get owned? Outnumbered, outgunned, I don't know how do they get 2K firepower when I have 500 at the cap.
Can't reclaim the infested world's though. We tried bombing them, doesn't work. There might be an event or tech that helps me out here later. For now, I am the gate keeper of the galaxy. The one who keeps these monsters from growing out of control.The only way to get rid of them is to let them expand. I'm actually serious about that.
Funny enough, my starting position has always felt like a chokepoint. I loathed it most of the game, but now it's the only thing that keeps the galaxy from falling apart.
I assumed advanced start meant Fallen Empires, then I removed them since i'm a wuss that want an equal start against AIs...So how do I not get owned? Outnumbered, outgunned, I don't know how do they get 2K firepower when I have 500 at the cap.You been upgrading your ships and getting weapons techs?
Were the other guys advanced start?
There bugs regarding the end-game threats (not spoilering) that make getting rid of them even harder than it should be. Should be fixed in the next hotfix, I suppose. Part of that is that AI empires don't fight them.Ok, it would seem you are correct, the event finally progressed but another empire got the solution, now they are sitting on it and I'm assuming doing nothing since they haven't even taken the system where they got it from.
Wow they've really flubbed that one. RIP PDS, you will be missed.(Paradox then goes on to make more money in the first two days than they made in the first week of each of their other games combined)
OK yeah that's pretty lame. Hopefully fan response makes them reconsider sooner rather than later.Personally as a fan I'm prioritizing that after both map modes and making genetic modification usable for xenophobes. And, you know, making xenophobia worth investing in in general. Right now it seems to be only a detriment.
I really love the feel and ascetic of it all!Yeah, Spiritualist is pretty good.
I didn't know you could build sectors up to a couple minutes ago. :-[There's a tutorial droid for a reason.
I like wormholes myself.I'm finding them to be frustrating to maintain during wartime.
Actually I've seen mine upgrade the reconstructed ship to capitol building. It just takes a crapton of time for them to get around to it. Unless my memory is derping.If I were to guess they probably get influence at a snail's pace or something? I'm just reporting what the official forum is saying.
Heads up there are serious bugs with sectors right now:
I'm playing an Ironman game and discovered that the AI is pretty buggy when it comes to huge empires that are mostly sectored. AI only bothered to try and conquer my core worlds, so I just waited 20 years (!!!) and used far off planets that I got from integrating observed pre-ftl species to build navy after navy which I then lost to the invaders. Eventually I could white peace because the war went on for too long. They invaded twice before I just switched from monarchy to democracy and they quit invading. Stopped playing now, because I have over 800 pops and the game is just too damn slow.Yeah I noticed that too. I've only ever had the AI attempt to attack me once (I'm surrounded by buffer empires who are my allies). But when they actually tried, they sent their fleet soaring through all my space for in-game years before they reached my capital. I was like "wtf dude? Are you lost?".
TLDR; use sectors liberally and sprawl is good!
Actually I've seen mine upgrade the reconstructed ship to capitol building. It just takes a crapton of time for them to get around to it. Unless my memory is derping.This was my experience too. I assumed that the resource output calculations didn't find it to be worthwhile but it was failing to take into account that upgrading would result in migrants.
I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?War.
Ah, so less CK-like and more 4x? Wants me some elaboration.I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?War.
Ah, so less CK-like and more 4x? Wants me some elaboration.In CK, you also use war to expand. You can also choose to not expand and just work on infrastructure if you like. Although it's very 4x-like in that you want a big navy or else your enemies will smell weakness and attack, and if you have a big navy you might as well use it.
I'm getting all kinds or rare techs like +15 happiness building and a +10 happiness and +5 habitability building. Super good. I also got a weired one called private colonization ships or something with a cheaper colony ship that has apparently random ethos pops. Also a colonial terminal with big discounts and spread up colony shop building. I'm definitely seeing a theme here. All vary cool though. I just can resist shiny purple techs.I'm also getting a lot of rare techs, but on a different set of themes. I think it depends on your ethos.
Once you finish exploring the galaxy, your borders will probably be touching everyone else inappropriately. Then alliances and federations will pop up. You'll probably get invited to a few. Then people fight big massive wars that lasts years because everything is so huge.Ah, so less CK-like and more 4x? Wants me some elaboration.I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?War.
I've played for a little under 30 hours in my first game and colonized huge swathes of space. Still have more colonization to do. It mainly depends on how the early game goes; sometimes people get boxed in by larger powers, sometimes you break out and everything is good. Inevitably if enough time passes everything will be colonized and then it turns into EU4/ CK2.Ah, so less CK-like and more 4x? Wants me some elaboration.I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?War.
So... how feature rich/barren is the post-colonization phase of the game?It depends, really. You can start playing the game like EU where its all about interacting with other empires, mainly through conquering them. Sometimes crisis will happen (like the Unbidden everyone keeps talking about) but that's not a sure thing. Some of it feels a little half baked right now. Alliances and federations are a bit... off at the moment. Like they could use a little cleaning up and a few extra features before they're really going to start making the game more fun.
I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?
Also, mentions about AI sticking to their alliance/federation through thick and thin, despite things, sounds... bad.
There's some fun internal stuff you can do with pops."fun" for someone's definition. It all has flaws.
You can genetically engineer them to be different,But for xenophobes, this will screw you, since they count themselves as xenos.
build robots to populate worldsWhich is needlessly expensive and thus rarely useful
migration/resettlementBasically book keeping, in practice
enslavementMostly useful for cheesing out of faction revolts
purgesI haven't found any practical use at all for this.
QuotepurgesI haven't found any practical use at all for this.
I actually don't get he point of enslavement in terms of general use. When I tried a fanatic xenophobic xeno-slavery empire. It just ended up hurting me because it tanks the happiness of everyone involved with a research debuff to slaves for added effect.
In the end I just had an empire witth a bit more pop than it would have otherwise with the extreme majority of the empire very unhappy and a large portion unable to research. The extra pop isn't even that useful as I don't find myself needing it.
Is there way of increasing chance of getting some tech? Despite having all prerequisites sentient ai tech never shows up ;-;7Yeah, certain ethos and government types get different tech priorities. Militarist tend to get more weapons. Materialists tend to get more research. Etc. It's stupid that the game doesn't tell you.
How in the name of the golden throne, ratings are calculated? It shows, that my enemy is equal to me in technology and superiour in naval power, but my glorius destroyers with impenetratable shields, giant torpedoes, regenerating hulls, plasma cannons and advanced computers using pinnacle of technology engines to dodge 40 % of the shots dont really look equal in technology or power to swarms of ugly xeno basic corvettes with red laser, autocannon and 50 shield without any high tech computing power or engine to dodge giant torpedoes.Naval power is calculated as the sum power of all your fleets, which is a very imprecise rating but more-or-less accurate assuming that neither of you has any special advantages or counters. AKA its never actually accurate but you can't quite tell in advance which side will be favored.
Is there way of increasing chance of getting some tech? Despite having all prerequisites sentient ai tech never shows up ;-;7Yeah, certain ethos and government types get different tech priorities. Militarist tend to get more weapons. Materialists tend to get more research. Etc. It's stupid that the game doesn't tell you.
I actually don't get he point of enslavement in terms of general use. When I tried a fanatic xenophobic xeno-slavery empire. It just ended up hurting me because it tanks the happiness of everyone involved with a research debuff to slaves for added effect.The key afaik so far seem to be xenophobic is the wrong direction for slavers. Fanatic Collectivist lose no happiness for slavery, regardless of if they are slaves or non-slave researchers, energy producers. The penalty you get for that ethos is vastly limited governmental type selection, and people start to complain if you let them drift too far with too many slaves on the planet.
In the end I just had an empire witth a bit more pop than it would have otherwise with the extreme majority of the empire very unhappy and a large portion unable to research. The extra pop isn't even that useful as I don't find myself needing it.
I have to say, the IGN review is pretty spot on: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2016/05/09/stellaris-review
I would ignore the score but I'm sure some people would raise arms about it.
This game feels like Sengoku.
I would take IGN reviews with a grain of salt.Here's what Paradox says you should do: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1solvon
But who am I to say what you should or shouldn't do.
They actually did this in the Blorg stream at one point. Though personally I haven't had much luck with it. The rather random nature of scientist traits combined with not being able to "refresh" the new scientist tab means its basically full random.Is there way of increasing chance of getting some tech? Despite having all prerequisites sentient ai tech never shows up ;-;7Yeah, certain ethos and government types get different tech priorities. Militarist tend to get more weapons. Materialists tend to get more research. Etc. It's stupid that the game doesn't tell you.
Also, looking at the wiki, your scientists traits can give better chances of getting certain types of tech.
I mean you *can* refresh the scientist tab... you just got pay a bit of influence :PThey actually did this in the Blorg stream at one point. Though personally I haven't had much luck with it. The rather random nature of scientist traits combined with not being able to "refresh" the new scientist tab means its basically full random.Is there way of increasing chance of getting some tech? Despite having all prerequisites sentient ai tech never shows up ;-;7Yeah, certain ethos and government types get different tech priorities. Militarist tend to get more weapons. Materialists tend to get more research. Etc. It's stupid that the game doesn't tell you.
Also, looking at the wiki, your scientists traits can give better chances of getting certain types of tech.
When my brother declared war on pacifistic xenophobes, their response was 'B-but why?'. He attempted to white peace out because he felt bad (He had overwhelming force compared to them) but they refused and called him a coward.I can sympathize with your brother, the Avians have just formed a federation and have an independent Empire now larger than mine. Seems getting close to the Celestial Empire did them some good.
After that he forgot his guilt.
it really, really feels like Paradox have designed this game from the ground up with DLC in mind. I'm more than happy for bits they can't add into the main game into it, but this goes too far. There seem to be whole parts of the game which may as well have a 'coming to stores near you' written on them.I can't really blame them here. DLC is their business model. I won't complain about spending ~$80 over the next few years on something that I'll (potentially) sink thousands of hours in.
I sometimes cringe at how much I've paid for Crusader Kings II. But if the DLCs are of the same overall quality as the ones for Crusader Kings II, then I'll probably be happy.We're probably looking at EUIV-style DLC (i.e. smaller and more frequent), with regular patches and so on.
Spoiler: We're all gonna die~ (click to show/hide)
(I'm the little blue blob all the way at the bottom of the picture.)
So do Tributaries and Protectorates even exist? They were talked about in Dev Diary #19 but I see no evidence of them existing ingame.
Tributaries were said to be usually the result of a lost war. I can't find that option in peace negotiations. Protectorates are said to be automatically created of technologically uplifted species. When I did that, I just got a regular vassal.
Am I missing tech/something else or are they just not in the game?
My extragalactic invaders just claimed 6 or 7 unsettled planets on the galactic Rim and then just sat there for the last 40 years doing nothing.
So do Tributaries and Protectorates even exist? They were talked about in Dev Diary #19 but I see no evidence of them existing ingame.
Tributaries were said to be usually the result of a lost war. I can't find that option in peace negotiations. Protectorates are said to be automatically created of technologically uplifted species. When I did that, I just got a regular vassal.
Am I missing tech/something else or are they just not in the game?
The Tributary thing is a mystery to me, but I do know that Protectorates exist. Boost a pre-FTL civilization and they should become one. The only problem is that Protectorates are almost identical to Vassals. The major differences are that the client gets a big boost to research, while their leige gets +1 influence a month (apparently) and not much else. Oh, and Protectorates automatically convert to Vassals when the progress far enough technologically too. Which I believe is a very low cap so... Yeah. Protectorates are a thing. A very silly thing.
Ehm, how does evasion exactly work? Do ships evade before getting hit in their shields, or the evasion starts working only after shields are down?
You get more leader slots later.Yea. I was an indirect demo. I got new leaders but eventually, I had built them all up. There werent any more mining stations or research stations left to build. I hadnt consider destroying them and rebuilding them. I dont think I'd be incline to, as that seems a bit to min maxing for my taste.
There are several researches that give +2 slots each and another one that can come multiple times and gives +1 slot each time you do it.
I think I'm at 18 or 19 slots.
Influence can be very hard to come by or you can drown in it, depends on your government.
I played a Republic once that changed leaders every 5 years and each new leader would give a super easy quest (build 3 mining outposts) that gave 200 influence.
The military dictatorship I play as now doesn't have anything like that and gaining influence is way harder.
Right now the most gamebreaking bug I've encountered, is that you can't random-name custom ship designs. :/Oh heck yeah this is annoying...
So, should I go though every sector and make sure every station has solar panels?Probably.
I've had no problems with energy, but I put energy mining stations anywhere. Plus those strategic resource power plants are really good combined with the power hub. If you are short of energy maybe the solar panels are worth it, but I prefer using the station slots for something else. For example, having an engineering bay at the place you keep your battlefleet can save you more energy than the solar panels would generate in the first place.Wow, I totally misunderstood how engineer bay works. I thought it was a bonus given to ships built there?
Question, since the game is so new I'm still very confused about the pace early on. Maybe I'm just being bad about efficiently constructing resource collectors, but it seems to take a very long time to get the ball rolling. How long does it usually take for you peeps to get planet #2?
Ninja Edit: Yeah, full scale bombardment is lame. I don't get why it's a policy at all, I bombarded a planet for a year or so while I was waiting for my ground forces to finish leapfrogging their way there, and nothing really happened to the planet - no buildings destroyed, no pops dead. Keep in mind this is a 30k power fleet, so they've got a decent amount of firepower. I was expecting to glass the planet and all I did was make everyone unemployed.Sounds bugged? Dunno. I've got full bombardment in my current game but haven't got in a war yet. I'll try it out myself and see.
The price gouging is realTrade is pretty fucky in general. To wit:
If you think TRADE is fucked, try getting an alliance sometime. Not "get invited to an alliance" but start one from scratch.The price gouging is realTrade is pretty fucky in general. To wit:
"Hey what do you want for that terraforming gas?"
"What are you offering, bug?"
"Uh 20 EC/month?"
"We will not accept that deal, bug"
"Okay how about 1 mineral?"
"OH FUCK YES TAKE ALL THE GAS YOU WANT"
EDIT: OK, WHAT IN THE SHITTING FUCK IS HAPPENING? TWO FLEETS OF VOID CLOUDS HAVE JOINED A IRON AGE PRIMITIVE CIVILIZATION. IN ALL THE GALAXY THERE EXISTS NO ABILITY TO EVEN.
Wow, I totally misunderstood how engineer bay works. I thought it was a bonus given to ships built there?Oh yeah, I mixed it with crew quarters. Crew quarters give -20% upkeep to ships in orbit of the planet with the starbase. Engineering bay gives -10% upkeep to ships built by the starbase with the improvement. Sadly it has no effect on your old ships.
Edit: Now that I think about what is bad about Stellaris, I think Paradox failed a little by going to differences in numbers instead of difference in actions regarding values/governments/species. What I mean by this is that some +10% bonus to something might be mathematically big thing, but it doesn't come across to the player that different to -10% malus. If instead the player had a different ship class or diplomacy action or something, it would give the player the impression of larger difference between those choices. Even if the actual difference would be less.
So I think the differences that exist are appreciated by those with a mathematical approach to games or with a lot of past experience about Paradox games. But people coming in from more accessible games have a feeling that the game is bland regarding the options available, because numbers don't come across intuitively in the same way.
Question, since the game is so new I'm still very confused about the pace early on. Maybe I'm just being bad about efficiently constructing resource collectors, but it seems to take a very long time to get the ball rolling. How long does it usually take for you peeps to get planet #2?
EDIT2: With that said, the planetary side of war is lame as fuck. It feels so barebones, I'm sure there'll be a DLC focusing on it. Why can't I do anything with the planets after I've occupied them? I've got a massive fleet hovering around and I've filled the slots on the planet full of xenomorph troopers, I'm a maniacal xenophobic miltaristic empire whose sole goal is to enslave or purge everyone, and for some reason I can't touch the buildings or the people on this planet I've taken? I want to be able to sic my army on the populace, purge them all or enslave them all and ship them off to some far flung colony, do some actual damage to my opponent. But the military aspects of this game feel very poorly thought out and designed for multiplayer only, so I'm not too surprised.
Though I just finished a rare orbital mind control laser tech, so if i could afford it, I could push them back with -30% ethics drift.Fucking damn. And I thought I was well-off with a rare -15% building.
I have to say, the IGN review is pretty spot on: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2016/05/09/stellaris-reviewYeah, it's a pretty solid and accurate review, it matches my experience too. Not his overall verdict that it isn't fun, I've been enjoying it, but in its current state it's gonna be more like the ~70 hours I put into EU4 than the ~600 I've put into CK2. I think Stellaris has a better foundation to build on though, all the problems he mentions can be addressed with patches and DLC, although making sectors interesting, presumably by making sector governors matter, would be a really big one.
We're probably looking at EUIV-style DLC (i.e. smaller and more frequent), with regular patches and so on.That's not good. We need big ones.
So... This just came back from the Beyond...I kept mine around for a bit then scrapped it. It doesn't seem to do anything.
An Annomally took my Science crew for a moment then brought them back, they say they were in another area of space where all types of alien vessels just hung motionless in the void. They returned with their lives but for half their numbers. I continue for a month when suddenly the missing crew member arrive back aboard another science vessel. They say they don't remember anything and offer the ship they returned in as an option, the other was to destroy it...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Hope this was the right option. tbh though I don't see what it can offer me, it doesn't even have sensors and is powered by a chemical engine...
Re: sectors. I've been rotating every sector in my empire between industrial, tech, and energy production whenever I remember to. I give new sectors huge resource grants and don't tax them, then within about 10-20 years once I'm sure they can be self sufficient I move them up to max taxation. So far I have more energy and minerals than I know what to do with so it seems to be working.Late reply, but thanks for the answers. I'll wait till it gets a few DLC in on discount, heh. Got me a huge backlog anyways.I've played for a little under 30 hours in my first game and colonized huge swathes of space. Still have more colonization to do. It mainly depends on how the early game goes; sometimes people get boxed in by larger powers, sometimes you break out and everything is good. Inevitably if enough time passes everything will be colonized and then it turns into EU4/ CK2.Ah, so less CK-like and more 4x? Wants me some elaboration.I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?War.So... how feature rich/barren is the post-colonization phase of the game?It depends, really. You can start playing the game like EU where its all about interacting with other empires, mainly through conquering them. Sometimes crisis will happen (like the Unbidden everyone keeps talking about) but that's not a sure thing. Some of it feels a little half baked right now. Alliances and federations are a bit... off at the moment. Like they could use a little cleaning up and a few extra features before they're really going to start making the game more fun.
I see a lot of complaints about hitting a point where you can't expand peaceably anymore in this thread... what comes after?
Also, mentions about AI sticking to their alliance/federation through thick and thin, despite things, sounds... bad.
There's some fun internal stuff you can do with pops. You can genetically engineer them to be different, build robots to populate worlds, and do all kinds of stuff with migration/resettlement/enslavement/purges. The only real use of all this is to incrementally increase efficiency or to open up new worlds for colonization. Beyond that you can have fun role-playing the kind of civ you want to be.
Does your rare -15% building cost 5 EC in maintenance each, and a starport slot?Though I just finished a rare orbital mind control laser tech, so if i could afford it, I could push them back with -30% ethics drift.Fucking damn. And I thought I was well-off with a rare -15% building.
We are immensely proud of the Paradox team for putting together such a stellar releaseMoney is good, bugs and poor reviews aren't important. Not that this is the wrong take for a CEO, but I'm contrasting it to the "typical Paradox release" sentiment in the thread.
I'm not at home, but I assume the maintenance is substantial. It requires the highest level capital, but still cheaper than a starport slot. But I'd pay that for those recently conquered worlds. Even though the ethoses don't have a ton of in-play effects, nobody wants to tolerate different opinions.Does your rare -15% building cost 5 EC in maintenance each, and a starport slot?Though I just finished a rare orbital mind control laser tech, so if i could afford it, I could push them back with -30% ethics drift.Fucking damn. And I thought I was well-off with a rare -15% building.
boy I miss the distant world universe interface, where you can say build this here and ai makes it happenThis. Being able to queue construction would really lower micromanagement.
Shift key. Also you can right click a system and ask it to build all of everything.boy I miss the distant world universe interface, where you can say build this here and ai makes it happenThis. Being able to queue construction would really lower micromanagement.
Shift key. Also you can right click a system and ask it to build all of everything.boy I miss the distant world universe interface, where you can say build this here and ai makes it happenThis. Being able to queue construction would really lower micromanagement.
That's about the extent of it, and goddamn I wish there was an auto button, but that's better than doing it one by one.
I am in agreement that war declaration while a member of an alliance needs some refining.
-snip-
anyone know how to delete the stupid double sol that spawns. i really really hate that bug its so immersion breaking. their is no reason that one should have gotten through.Are you starting in Sol and then another Sol spawns, or something? I haven't seen it.
Frontier outposts in sectors cost no upkeep, but that is a bug/exploit that will be fixed in a patch. I think the cap on three outposts is pretty damn low though as often you have problems combining your areas of space without spamming outposts. Likewise observation outposts in sectors not working properly are a bug as well.
Regarding bugs, yeah, plenty of annoying ones, but they get fixed, that is the good thing about paradox. At least the game is stable and I've only noticed buggy event chains (plus those two things mentioned above), game itself works fine.
I used to think the same thing about Frontier Outposts. It was either waste one of my 5-7 precious colony slots grabbing some useful resources or take the 2 Influence hit to build a outpost, neither of which seemed worth it. Then I realized I could just throw all my developed planets into a sector with a 75% tax and use the freed up colony slots to start another wave of land grabs. Now I barely use Frontier outposts unless I need to grab an area of space that has no habitable planets.
I used to think the same thing about Frontier Outposts. It was either waste one of my 5-7 precious colony slots grabbing some useful resources or take the 2 Influence hit to build a outpost, neither of which seemed worth it. Then I realized I could just throw all my developed planets into a sector with a 75% tax and use the freed up colony slots to start another wave of land grabs. Now I barely use Frontier outposts unless I need to grab an area of space that has no habitable planets.
You are tanking your research. Research costs increase with empire size, so having lots of undeveloped planets is baaaaaad. Especially so if they are planets with no research potential whatsoever.
I kind of think they made frontier posts expensive and with a hard limit on purpose to push us towards warfare, though, both for resource systems, pre-ftl civs and better borders.
You can still win against technologically superior foe with bigger fleet if you specialize your ships to beat the snot out of them. This requires you scanning their ships and putting exactly what counters them on your vessels. Like if they use only missiles, get loads of point-defense. Of course, if you are facing multiple foes with different type of designs, this does not apply...
Send out a corvette and click the "view vessel" button when you select the enemy fleet.
Spoiler: We're all gonna die~ (click to show/hide)
(I'm the little blue blob all the way at the bottom of the picture.)Spoiler: Day 2 Progress Report (click to show/hide)
It appears that the tide of Unbidden has been stalemated by the larger empires they've encountered. As a matter of fact if I'm looking at this correctly they've lost more systems than they've gained. However its going slow enough that I'm continuing on my plan of beating up my neighbors to steal their tech and vassalize them for the sake of making a giant wall of allies, along with a clear path to the Unbidden territory. Also it seems the Unbidden don't really seem to notice construction ships until they enter the portal system. No idea what's up with that.
I used to think the same thing about Frontier Outposts. It was either waste one of my 5-7 precious colony slots grabbing some useful resources or take the 2 Influence hit to build a outpost, neither of which seemed worth it. Then I realized I could just throw all my developed planets into a sector with a 75% tax and use the freed up colony slots to start another wave of land grabs. Now I barely use Frontier outposts unless I need to grab an area of space that has no habitable planets.
You are tanking your research. Research costs increase with empire size, so having lots of undeveloped planets is baaaaaad. Especially so if they are planets with no research potential whatsoever.
I kind of think they made frontier posts expensive and with a hard limit on purpose to push us towards warfare, though, both for resource systems, pre-ftl civs and better borders.
Distant Worlds requires that the resources be at location (starport/construction machine/base)... or else the construction project grinds to an absolute standstill. It doesn't tell you that you don't have enough resources at location nor the status of the supply chain for said resources. The AI will try to acquire the needed resources, if possible.Shift key. Also you can right click a system and ask it to build all of everything.boy I miss the distant world universe interface, where you can say build this here and ai makes it happenThis. Being able to queue construction would really lower micromanagement.
That's about the extent of it, and goddamn I wish there was an auto button, but that's better than doing it one by one.
Yeah, but this isn't like Distant Worlds, since in Stellaris you need to have available resources in order to order construction, in every screen. :(
But I've seen videos of people not doing Order Queueing with Shift even on Science ships. Even though they will evade hostile aliens a lot, it just seems crazy not to queue some systems.
How does oversized ship work?
What means - 100 % to shields on energy torpedoes if they have 100 % shield bypassing already?
I used to think the same thing about Frontier Outposts. It was either waste one of my 5-7 precious colony slots grabbing some useful resources or take the 2 Influence hit to build a outpost, neither of which seemed worth it. Then I realized I could just throw all my developed planets into a sector with a 75% tax and use the freed up colony slots to start another wave of land grabs. Now I barely use Frontier outposts unless I need to grab an area of space that has no habitable planets.
You are tanking your research. Research costs increase with empire size, so having lots of undeveloped planets is baaaaaad. Especially so if they are planets with no research potential whatsoever.
I kind of think they made frontier posts expensive and with a hard limit on purpose to push us towards warfare, though, both for resource systems, pre-ftl civs and better borders.
Oh goddammit that explains so much. No wonder I've been forced to use zerg rushing to win all my wars.
in the long term, it is fine. The problem is if you start spamming colonies everywhere like if it was Civ 3. Sure, after they are well developed you will beat those who stayed small. But for a while, you will develope slower. Expansion makes you more powerful, but the game punishes you for fast overextension. As soon as players adjust, that should no longer be much of a problem.
DWA1 = {
selectable = yes
ship_names = {
generic = {
"Battleaxe" "Warhammer" "Shield" "Buckler" "Shortsword" "Spear" "Helm" "Crossbow" "Mace" "Gauntlet" "Glove" "Cloak" "Boot" "Breastplate" "Lash" "Dagger" "Pick" "Beard" "Sock" "Tunic" "Bow"
}
corvette = {
"Badger" "Warthog" "Eagle" "Raven" "Buzzard" "Ocelot" "Moose" "Kangaroo" "Wild Boar" "Elk" "Emu" "Coyote" "Deer" "Capybara" "Beak Dog" "Mamba" "Fox" "Copperhead"
}
constructor = {
"Megaproject" "Mason" "Megafortress"
}
colonizer = {
"Wagon" "Spring Caravan" "Summer Caravan" "Autumn Caravan" "Strike the Earth"
}
science = {
"Unfortunate Accident" "Happy Fun Stuff" "Kitten Apocalypse" "Cavern Collapse" "Catsplosion" "!!Science!!" "Magma"
}
destroyer = {
"Yeti" "Elephant" "Tiger" "Leopard" "Giant Eagle" "Grizzly Bear" "Black Bear" "Jaguar" "Hyena" "Lion" "Polar Bear" "Giant Python" "Gorilla" "Giraffe" "Honey Badger" "Jackal" "Wolf"
}
cruiser = {
"Blind Cave Ogre" "Cave Crocodile" "Plump Helmet Man" "Trogdolyte" "Cave Blob" "Giant Cave Spider" "Giant Cave Swallow" "Cave Dragon" "Hungry Head" "Jabberer" "Pond Grabber" "Draltha"
}
battleship = {
"Forgotten Beast" "Titan" "Bronze Colossus" "Hydra" "Dragon" "Roc" "Cyclops" "Ettin" "Giant" "Minotaur" "Centaur" "Chimera" "Griffon"
}
orbital_station = { }
mining_station = { }
research_station = { }
wormhole_station = { }
terraform_station = { }
observation_station = { }
outpost_station = {
sequential_name = "%O% Frontier Outpost"
}
transport = {
}
military_station_small = {}
military_station_medium = {}
military_station_large = {}
}
fleet_names = {
random_names = {
"The Gloved Lightnings" "The Laborious Stones" "The Barricaded Doctrines" "The Elevated Rocks" "The Mechanical Planets" "The Turquoise Tusks" "The Laborious Nourishment" "The Hopeful Pages" "The Savage Merchants" "The Honest Rags" "The Messianic Papers" "The Creative Robustness" "The Infinite Clasps" "The Indigo Fortresses"
}
sequential_name = "%O% Squadron"
}
### ARMIES
army_names = {
defense_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Dwarven Militia"
}
assault_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Dwarven Berserkers"
}
slave_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Subjected Army"
}
clone_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Hauler Brigade"
}
robotic_army = {
sequential_name = "Mecha-Dwarf %R%"
}
android_army = {
sequential_name = "Andwarf Forces %R"
}
psionic_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Psi-Dwarf Brigade"
}
xenomorph_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Xeno Squad"
}
gene_warrior_army = {
sequential_name = "%O% Science Army"
}
}
planet_names = {
# Names that can be assigned to all planet types
generic = {
names = {
"Boatmurdered" "Ironhold" "Icehold" "Headshoots" "Battlefailed" "Gemclod" "Ardentdikes" "Skyscrapes" "Necrothreat" "Spearbreakers" "Nist Akath" "Oceanbridge" "Brightwater" "Bronzemurder" "Flarechannel" "Copperblazes" "Soaplanterns" "Sparkgear" "Syrupleaf" "Deathgate" "Moltenchannels" "Breadbowl" "Murdermachines" "Towersoared" "Amberjewel" "Doomforest" "Cowpastures" "Watergate" "Breadbowl"
}
}
pc_desert = {
names = {
}
}
pc_arid = {
names = {
}
}
pc_tropical = {
names = {
}
}
pc_continental = {
names = {
}
}
pc_ocean = {
names = {
}
}
pc_tundra = {
names = {
}
}
pc_arctic = {
names = {
}
}
}
### CHARACTERS
character_names = {
default = {
# A complete name
full_names = {
}
# Always combined with a second name
first_names = {
"Urist" "Cog" "Zon" "Ral" "Zuntir" "Lokum" "Udib" "Udil" "Unib" "Deduk" "Rakust" "Thudib" "Nikot" "Sedil" "Rulroth" "Alod" "Geb" "Zareth" "Olum" "Atul" "Tholtig"
}
# Always combined with a first name
second_names = {
"Olondatur" "Mamotmosus" "Athamoltar" "Idust" "Olonmuzish" "Momuzdodok" "Thakdoren" "Kubukatol" "Lelumshem" "Nikotdastot" "Athelrab" "Estunkogan" "Mamotlogem" "Omirstoddom" "Osodas" "Limulreg" "Sakzulral" "Rallorsith" "Riraskubuk" "Sazirsezuk" "Lirukakrul" "Estunkogan" "Tusungmorul" "Idokmorul" "Urdimuker" "Thobritan"
}
regnal_first_names = {
"Urist" "Cog" "Zon" "Ral" "Zuntir" "Lokum" "Udib" "Udil" "Unib" "Deduk" "Rakust" "Thudib" "Nikot" "Sedil" "Rulroth" "Alod" "Geb" "Zareth" "Olum" "Atul" "Tholtig"
}
regnal_second_names = {
"Olondatur" "Mamotmosus" "Athamoltar" "Idust" "Olonmuzish" "Momuzdodok" "Thakdoren" "Kubukatol" "Lelumshem" "Nikotdastot" "Athelrab" "Estunkogan" "Mamotlogem" "Omirstoddom" "Osodas" "Limulreg" "Sakzulral" "Rallorsith" "Riraskubuk" "Sazirsezuk" "Lirukakrul" "Estunkogan" "Tusungmorul" "Idokmorul" "Urdimuker" "Thobritan"
}
}
}
}
lost two top notch scientist to the retarded evading behavior, is there a way to disable/override it?
lost two top notch scientist to the retarded evading behavior, is there a way to disable/override it?
Set their behavior to Passive, they'll ignore enemies. It's a button on the right of the ship menu when you select it.
Keep in mind, that means that unless you intervene they will likely get killed. Keep an eye out for warnings about enemy ships though and you should be fine.
The science government in its basic form gives you +1 choice, and in its advanced form +2 choices. Combine that with the +1 choice from the physics research and mid game you're looking at 7 choices for every field. That should let you get whatever techs you want fairly easily. Just remember to scroll through the choices, they don't all fit in the UI.
I've found Sol a couple of times.
First time was during WW2, and the second modern-day. It has uniquely named armies.
in the long term, it is fine. The problem is if you start spamming colonies everywhere like if it was Civ 3. Sure, after they are well developed you will beat those who stayed small. But for a while, you will develope slower. Expansion makes you more powerful, but the game punishes you for fast overextension. As soon as players adjust, that should no longer be much of a problem.
Why would you develop slower? When you start a colony you only have 1 population on the planet, so it's only a 2% addition to science modifier. As long as you make every 3rd of 4th improvement a lab, you completely offset the modifier. The ONLY downside to starting a colony in this game is the temporary Energy Credit deficit you experience while the colony is being set up on the planet and that's temporary. It's easy to offset the lost credits in a couple months as well, as long as you build a power plant on the new colony or a mining station on a nearby Energy Credit node.
Tried LU playthrough, glorius liberal materialist human union, which sees every new species as equal part in grand mosaic of the universe.
Everything went pretty well, as I managed to get some good and cheap researchers and workers with similar views from unhappy warmongering shitholes, so economy and research skyrocketed.
But then started immigration of religious militaristic rapid breeding bugs, which make everyone around them unhappy.
Then said bugs get unhappy because everyone around them is not religious enough. Borders cant be closed, goverment is forced to spend all political influence on bribing bugs leaders, because immigrants start blowing up my food producing buildings and cause even more rage with starting starvation, plan of supressing information via degree to stop ethics divergence does not work out, as with not enough influence your degrees stop working. And it is totally impossible to change any damn policies, because of 10 years waiting period.
Meanwhile one of shitholes I accepted immigrants earlier rightfully liberates planet with grand part of LU industry and their industrious awesome avian ex-citizens, which immigrated to me earlier, the invasion was so swift, that it looked like AI prepared specially for this day. Bugs elect their own president, who has food production bonus, so starting human population begins leaving due to being unhappy with being overwhelmed by religious insects and bugs use food surplus to reproduce even more on my capital.
To finish that on the last remaining noncapital world insectoid separatists liberate themself from my ,, opression "( u wot, like I was liberal island of freedom, science and prosperity in sea of militarist underdeveloped religious unhappy shitholes with slavery before you guys started immigrating, then you ruined everything, but I am still guilty somehow?)
So ends liberal union gaming experience.
Imperium policies worked waaay better.
You want to use certain policies to limit them. As well genetically modifying them so they aren't ugly helps a lot too.Whilst searching for alternative ways to Stalin conquered people into nonexistence without incurring the wrath of the galactic community (orbital bombardment is unfortunately impractically inefficient to killing them all, at its best I managed to turn half a gaia world into a wasteland but survivors still clung on) I found some liberal democratic xenophilic federation builders - the problem being they were uncharismatic and hideous things, desperately trying to make friends with everyone around them whilst their neighbours were grossly detested by their presence. Federation building aint easy
The science government in its basic form gives you +1 choice, and in its advanced form +2 choices. Combine that with the +1 choice from the physics research and mid game you're looking at 7 choices for every field. That should let you get whatever techs you want fairly easily. Just remember to scroll through the choices, they don't all fit in the UI.
keyword: mid game. playing xenophobic militaristic basically means waiting out until then, because early combat is just annoying - rock paper scissor strategy already sucks, but here you get to play just rock for, like, two hours? same problem as civilization game, first two hours are just to set up the mid game scenario and the random exploration stuff is the filler to get you there.
From the subreddit (https://imgur.com/MzxjJLs)
Tried LU playthrough, glorius liberal materialist human union, which sees every new species as equal part in grand mosaic of the universe.
Everything went pretty well, as I managed to get some good and cheap researchers and workers with similar views from unhappy warmongering shitholes, so economy and research skyrocketed.
But then started immigration of religious militaristic rapid breeding bugs, which make everyone around them unhappy.
Then said bugs get unhappy because everyone around them is not religious enough. Borders cant be closed, goverment is forced to spend all political influence on bribing bugs leaders, because immigrants start blowing up my food producing buildings and cause even more rage with starting starvation, plan of supressing information via degree to stop ethics divergence does not work out, as with not enough influence your degrees stop working. And it is totally impossible to change any damn policies, because of 10 years waiting period.
Meanwhile one of shitholes I accepted immigrants earlier rightfully liberates planet with grand part of LU industry and their industrious awesome avian ex-citizens, which immigrated to me earlier, the invasion was so swift, that it looked like AI prepared specially for this day. Bugs elect their own president, who has food production bonus, so starting human population begins leaving due to being unhappy with being overwhelmed by religious insects and bugs use food surplus to reproduce even more on my capital.
To finish that on the last remaining noncapital world insectoid separatists liberate themself from my ,, opression "( u wot, like I was liberal island of freedom, science and prosperity in sea of militarist underdeveloped religious unhappy shitholes with slavery before you guys started immigrating, then you ruined everything, but I am still guilty somehow?)
So ends liberal union gaming experience.
Imperium policies worked waaay better.
Anyone else feel like Stone Age Primatives are an oversight?
...
Edit: Nevermind there are things you can do... but WOW is it limited... and only if your a slaver.
Anyone else feel like Stone Age Primatives are an oversight?Whilst I was busy conquering the fish people and figuring a way how to destroy them without being labeled a genocidal threat to the galaxy I figured I'd settle with enslaving the survivors and relocating them to border worlds - one of the funniest being my distant outpost on another spiral arm of the milky way.
You can uplift Non-sentients and you can advance bronze age primitives (or just take them over).
But REALLY there is nothing you can do with Cavemen? Can't abduct them? Re-educate them? anything?
Edit: Nevermind there are things you can do... but WOW is it limited... and only if your a slaver.
Okay I'm really not getting combat specializations.
Say I had a fleet with a decent amount of 2 corvette classes and a few destroyers. The first corvette class is just a simple laser ship. Lasers, armor, and shielding. That should be hostile, right? No point in trying to protect it?
The second corvette is a dedicated PD ship. A single laser, armor, shielding, and 2 PD weapons. Should this be defensive or aggressive? I would assume defensive since this ship shouldn't be at the front lines, but wouldn't that put the PD weapons out of range? Or am I just overthinking it?
And the destroyer is another generic destroyer - guns and defense. This should be set to defense as its the "MVP" class of the fleet and therefore should be kept alive to continue doing damage, right?
Hangars suck on everything.Anti missile/corvette duty/literally everything that gets close
I normally go lasers on my small ships, torpedoes and PD on the big ships. Then again I'm also the sort of person who spams military stations everywhere and spends 500 EC/month on upkeeping the useless things.Personally I find there's something more appealing with the huge "fuck off" value in a battleship fleet that is irreplaceably ancient and takes a decade to upgrade. Get a quarter on chain lightning, a quarter on heavy lasers, a quarter on shit tons of missiles and everything else copious amounts of plasma/bombers/fighters = everything evaporates before it gets close, whereupon it disintegrates
Anti missile/corvette duty/literally everything that gets closeI dunno, I've never really had a problem with things getting close to my battleships. Then again I have like three of them surrounded by hundreds of corvettes/destroyers.
Personally I find there's something more appealing with the huge "fuck off" value in a battleship fleet that is irreplaceably ancient and takes a decade to upgrade.I do it the French way. Build an obscene number of fortresses and hope the enemy doesn't work out how to go around them.
Side note: I was looking at the Stellaris wiki for various insights, and I am very amused by the fact that the "Diplomacy" section has under it such topics as "Trade", "Alliances and Federations", and "Orbital Bombardment". :PI like how orbital bombardment is the only one of these that isn't totally broken
Side note: I was looking at the Stellaris wiki for various insights, and I am very amused by the fact that the "Diplomacy" section has under it such topics as "Trade", "Alliances and Federations", and "Orbital Bombardment". :PI like how orbital bombardment is the only one of these that isn't totally broken
Is there way to break into psyonic research after unlocking everything of value as materialists?The only way for Materialists to get access to psionic research is if they luck out and get a scientist leader with the Psionic trait - they will then have a chance of it turning up while that leader is assigned to Society research.
I've heard that the AI in the game is really bad, is this true ?
I've heard that the AI in the game is really bad, is this true ?
I've heard that the AI in the game is really bad, is this true ?
Oh lord is it awful. For 4x standards its bad, but when you compare it to previous paradox games you have to wonder what went wrong. Rushed release? Incompetent AI development team? Bugged implementation? A combination? Regardless, it's bad.
Stellaris in general isn't as grand as I hoped, literally. They're marketing it like a grand strategy title, but it's just not. It's just a 4x, no more, no less. I like the empire customization abilities - that's definitely better than most 4x I've played - but the rest of the game is very simple, shallow, and... well, not paradox. In one night you can probably uncover every little thing this game has to offer. I think a lot of the people loving it are diehard paradox players who aren't used to the 4x genre and like that it's something new.
But, in true paradox fashion, It has the possibility to become a lot more than it is if you give it several years worth of DLC. I cant suggest the game to anyone until then. This isn't a 30 dollar mid-2016 title, it's a 100 dollar late 2017 title. Hopefully it'll be a good one.
Anyone else feel like Stone Age Primatives are an oversight?I don't even see pops on planets with stone-age primitives. Just the little icon saying they exist.
You can uplift Non-sentients and you can advance bronze age primitives (or just take them over).
But REALLY there is nothing you can do with Cavemen? Can't abduct them? Re-educate them? anything?
Edit: Nevermind there are things you can do... but WOW is it limited... and only if your a slaver.
shekelsThis is literally your favorite word isn't it?
Someone should make a bot that scans your post history and calculates your favourite wordHowever
Is there a bug with the "spoilers"? I just encountered them.
Basically we have a good, solid foundation. The house has yet to be built and sleeping on a concrete floor's hardly appealing, but we have the core of it all down.Yeah. Waiting a few weeks, or maybe months, before buying this isn't a terrible idea If you want to be sure about spending your money well.
i wish you could still build in sectors.
-The UI. Small quality of life improvements are needed here and there. Why do I need to exit the galaxy view to dock fleets?Click fleet - Look at top of fleet composition window - See four buttons - Click the right-facing "Go To" arrow button - Click planet under your control in the list of planets on the right of the screen that you wish to dock at - Profit.
It seems faction support is almost directly related to unhappiness.Looking through defines it appears that pops won't join factions (and presumably will return to being loyalists if they are already in one) if they have >35% happiness.
It seems faction support is almost directly related to unhappiness. Disparate ethos turning into faction support goes by way of happiness, so even if they have a happiness malus because of ethos disparity, if they have other things that keep them happy, they won't care to join a faction and won't seek their sector or planets independence.
Basically: Yes, Space Stalin. Make them unhappy.
Wait, the UI is part of the AI?Sorry, I worded it badly. Four main Issues with the game, and the AI is one of them.
Click fleet - Look at top of fleet composition window - See four buttons - Click the right-facing "Go To" arrow button - Click planet under your control in the list of planets on the right of the screen that you wish to dock at - Profit.Thanks, I'll look into that. Too bad it doesn't work with sector planets.
Cannot do it with Sector planets because reasons, but this is how I do it.
Looks like I won't be buying this for at least a few years, then. Pity that paradox can't seem to put out a finished game at release- they can't keep this 'dlc train' business plan going forever (people will get fed up eventually), and I'd hate to see them go bust or move away from GS unless there was a suitable replacement company ready.
they can't keep this 'dlc train' business plan going forever (people will get fed up eventually)Eh. The DLC train has worked so far with their other big games. Stellaris is more underwhelming than other launches but people won't get fed up with it as long as there's plenty of stuff in the free patches and the DLC is of good quality more often than not.
How do I/can I change my overall empire's ethos during play? As my pops' ethics gradually diverge from my original ones, I kind of like the idea of the empire itself changing to match. Yes, fine, we started off as peaceful xenophiles, but as time has gone on and we've met more and more of the horrifying inhuman bastards the shine has worn off, and now we're rampantly xenophobic and militaristic. Can I get that to happen without it being part of a wholesale rebellion (which I guess I then won't control anyway)?
they can't keep this 'dlc train' business plan going forever (people will get fed up eventually)Eh. The DLC train has worked so far with their other big games. Stellaris is more underwhelming than other launches but people won't get fed up with it as long as there's plenty of stuff in the free patches and the DLC is of good quality more often than not.
I think people are happy with Paradox's model because of the sheer amount of time you can sink into the games. I've spent 30 hours in Stellaris so far, but if I'd spent that $50 on movie tickets instead I'd be looking at maybe 10-12 hours of entertainment, tops.
they can't keep this 'dlc train' business plan going forever (people will get fed up eventually)Eh. The DLC train has worked so far with their other big games. Stellaris is more underwhelming than other launches but people won't get fed up with it as long as there's plenty of stuff in the free patches and the DLC is of good quality more often than not.
I think people are happy with Paradox's model because of the sheer amount of time you can sink into the games. I've spent 30 hours in Stellaris so far, but if I'd spent that $50 on movie tickets instead I'd be looking at maybe 10-12 hours of entertainment, tops.
Sure, but that's not really fair because that's true for most videogames- movies just aren't that cheap per hour of entertainment in general. A better comparison would be stellaris versus other games, or specifically other 4x games. Anyway, maybe I'll buy once the ultimate edition is on sale and the great mods have come out.
How do I/can I change my overall empire's ethos during play? As my pops' ethics gradually diverge from my original ones, I kind of like the idea of the empire itself changing to match. Yes, fine, we started off as peaceful xenophiles, but as time has gone on and we've met more and more of the horrifying inhuman bastards the shine has worn off, and now we're rampantly xenophobic and militaristic. Can I get that to happen without it being part of a wholesale rebellion (which I guess I then won't control anyway)?
Similarly, I really like to have slaves but for some reason I can't and game won't tell if it's government or ethos. Can one change government btw?
How do I/can I change my overall empire's ethos during play? As my pops' ethics gradually diverge from my original ones, I kind of like the idea of the empire itself changing to match. Yes, fine, we started off as peaceful xenophiles, but as time has gone on and we've met more and more of the horrifying inhuman bastards the shine has worn off, and now we're rampantly xenophobic and militaristic. Can I get that to happen without it being part of a wholesale rebellion (which I guess I then won't control anyway)?
Similarly, I really like to have slaves but for some reason I can't and game won't tell if it's government or ethos. Can one change government btw?
I could enable slavery despite only ethics being fanatic materialists. However xenos only option was locked :cOnly xenophobes can do that, I think.
Apparently if you gene-mod your species, they count as aliens. Which is a problem if your empire is xenophobic. I tried to add a trait to my entire species to make them live longer, and now they're all unhappy because as xenos they are second class citiziens. Even if there literally are no original humans, except for the ruler. There really should be a way to change your primary species.
So, don't mod your entire empire.I could enable slavery despite only ethics being fanatic materialists. However xenos only option was locked :cOnly xenophobes can do that, I think.
Apparently if you gene-mod your species, they count as aliens. Which is a problem if your empire is xenophobic. I tried to add a trait to my entire species to make them live longer, and now they're all unhappy because as xenos they are second class citiziens. Even if there literally are no original humans, except for the ruler. There really should be a way to change your primary species.
So, don't mod your entire empire.I could enable slavery despite only ethics being fanatic materialists. However xenos only option was locked :cOnly xenophobes can do that, I think.
Can Xenophiles gene-mod? Would this actually result in them loving themselves more for being aliens? :D
My Plump-helmets are charismatic so I'm testing this out as soon as I get Gene modding.Apparently if you gene-mod your species, they count as aliens. Which is a problem if your empire is xenophobic. I tried to add a trait to my entire species to make them live longer, and now they're all unhappy because as xenos they are second class citiziens. Even if there literally are no original humans, except for the ruler. There really should be a way to change your primary species.
So, don't mod your entire empire.I could enable slavery despite only ethics being fanatic materialists. However xenos only option was locked :cOnly xenophobes can do that, I think.
Can Xenophiles gene-mod? Would this actually result in them loving themselves more for being aliens? :D
They can gene mod, but aliens are never xenos to themselves. I assume it would make them love members of the original species
Now I wonder if gene-modding a charismatic species would cause modded and non-modded pops to give happiness bonuses to each other. This needs some science, too bad I only played space fascists so far :P
Can one change government btw?
Can one change government btw?
Yes - in the main Empire/Government tab, you can click the government type symbol to change government (at least, the game tells me I can in my game...I haven't tried it yet).
I don't think you can change ethics in-game though, only in-builder. :( Once you've started a game as peaceful xenophiles, you're playing the whole game as them. I think.
Genemodded rapid breeding for unhappyness creating xenophobe avian pop from primitive planet, then filled some useless planet with them, arranged visa for those little asshole rapid breeding owls genetically modified to be even more assholes, and let them populate hostile empires, now they riot everywhere and create their own asshole little states.
I use large torpedoes because they're 100% accurate. If you have enough even dedicated PD can't keep up.Corvettes with 1 medium main gun and 1 point defense, tends to deal with most things pretty well. At least when the point defense doesn't bug out randomly after 2 hours of play.
Genemodded rapid breeding for unhappyness creating xenophobe avian pop from primitive planet, then filled some useless planet with them, arranged visa for those little asshole rapid breeding owls genetically modified to be even more assholes, and let them populate hostile empires, now they riot everywhere and create their own asshole little states.
Huh, so I encountered some space nomads - a large fleet traveling through my planets (well, large in relative terms, they posed zero military threat to me), and when they hailed me they revealed themselves to be a nomadic species. After giving a warning on how species like mine (who settled on worlds instead of traveling space) have not lasted as long as they, they disappeared - not before giving me the comlinks of nearly the entire galaxy. Nice space nomads :D
Now that's got me thinking though, space nomad DLC when? It'd pretty much just need CK2s nomad mechanics, but in space
what's the difference between jump types? I know how they work as the in game mechanic but is there any hidden stat to balance the fact that hyperdrives are overly restrictive compared to warp drives?
Hyperlanes make you jump right over the star, so your only tactical choice may be jumping into the fortress surrounded by four fortresses, each of them with minefield.
Wormholes give your HOOOOGE TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE, but need wormhole stations.
I am pretty sure, that battleships with full collection of auras can make corvette swarm pretty miserable, especially that one aura, which slows down hostile fleet noftl speed for 400 %( good luck getting to your firing range) Add arc lightening to L slots, and you get each 100 % accuracy 60 range shot jumping between corvettes damaging more then one of them.
So apparently, if you decimate an enemy fleet but they use their emergency FTL to retreat, it doesn't count and doesn't show up in the war score tab ???It doesn't count for your fleets either IIRC
So apparently, if you decimate an enemy fleet but they use their emergency FTL to retreat, it doesn't count and doesn't show up in the war score tab ???It doesn't count for your fleets either IIRC
RP gain works, it just works in a limited way. When you gain research points in a lump sum, they are not added instantly - so you don't get tech instantly. Instead you get the extra points at max twice the rate of your research generation in the applicable field. So if you get 200 points and your Physics income is +20, for example, you get +40 physics point per month applied to research as maximum till the 200 points are all spent. This portrays data applied by your scientists and I think it is actually a pretty good system. It portrays the need for scientific institutions; if you have a shitload of scientific data but only one professor to go through it... well, progress won't be instant.
I've found hyperlanes only fun if everyone uses them. We did a multiplayer game where hyperlanes were forced and it worked out quite well with bottlenecks and chokepoints actually becoming strategic locations to defend. You can't just declare war on anyone, only those people you have connections to.
Here's Paradox's latest Stellaris dev diary where they talk about the plans moving forward: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-33-the-maiden-voyage.932668/
tl;dr:
1. End of May = fix major bugs
2. End of June - Add stuff
I'm curious - what is the micro that annoys you so? I only micro constructor and science ships. Sure, the sector AI sucks for now, but in single player your opponents use the same AI, so I don't care that much.
having to babysit the new planets since sector governors won't push up capitals since they won't spend influence, so you keep juggling them to stay under the 5 planet limits (and do they build shipyard? more clicks to get that panels and hydroponic running for them)
Considering that I have -15 with them despite my borders being several systems away from a similar Fallen Empire... They will be pissed. Very pissed. I wouldn't risk it myself, unless you have an embassy and maybe a couple other of relation bonuses. They require -50~75 relations before they will declare war, so... Yeah.
I would consider two systems pushing it so... Let us know how it goes. Worse case scenario is that you lose those colonies and potentially get some delicious tech out of the deal?I'll let you know when they forcibly evacuate me, I guess.
Sister Miriam's falling on hard timesSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Fixes to the Ethic Divergence and Convergence issues. Currently, Pops tend to get more and more neutral (they lose Ethics, but rarely gain new ones.)
The End of Combat Summary. This screen looks bad and also doesnt tell you what you need to know in order to revise your ship designs, etc.
Sector Management GUI: There are many issues with this, and we will try to get most of them fixed.
Diplomacy GUI issues. This includes the Diplomatic Pop-Ups when other empires contact you, but also more and better looking Notifications, and more informative tooltips on wars, etc.
AI improvements: Notably the Sector AI, but also plenty of other things. This kind of work is never "finished"...
Myriads of bug fixes and smaller GUI improvements.
Late game crises bugs. There were some nasty bugs in there, blocking certain subplots and various surprising developments.
EDIT: Remaining Performance Issues. We know about them; they might even be hotfixed before Clarke.
EDIT: Corvettes are too good.
Border Access Revision: Borders are now open to your ships by default, although empires can choose to Close their borders for another empire (lowering your relations, of course.)
Tributaries: New diplomatic status and corresponding war goals.
Joint Declarations of War: You can ask other empires to join you for a temporary alliance in a war against a specific target.
Defensive Pacts.
Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.
More war goals: Humiliate, Open Borders, Make Tributary, etc.
Emancipation Faction. We had to cut this one at the last minute. Needs redesign.
Diplomatic Map Mode. Much requested!
Diplomatic Incidents: This is a whole class of new scripted events that causes more interaction with the other empires.
Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.GURG
Yeah I'm a bit concerned about that. The hardest part is the base -50 acceptance modifier. Maintaining an alliance is just embassy+some influence, so maybe that could be changed a bit? I like trust/favours from EU, maybe they could use that.Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.GURG
ITS ALREADY IMPOSSIBLE TO FORM ALLIANCES, IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE HARDER.
Corvettes are too good.
Turns out the sector ai isn't quite as brain-dead as we thought. People just didn't get it. Sectors have an internal influence system so if you're making them maintain your frontier outposts and stuff then they can never upgrade the planet capital of make the higher level upgrades.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/4jmt0t/sectors_101_here_are_some_tips_to_make_using/
SotS species have racial weapon preferences, they are just hidden in the tech tree so that certain species have a greater percentile chance to get certain technology. Unlike in Stellaris, these preferences are hard-coded as well. In Stellaris, at least our ethos choices change the tech chances.Oh, they do of course, but not quite to that extent. Everyone in SotS starts with basic energy, projectile, and missile weapons - the additional random technologies merely nudge you towards particular paths. There is no race that can't outfit a cruiser with a mix of lasers, gauss guns, and missiles from the get-go, and straight-up upgrades of basic varieties are nigh guaranteed to everyone as well. You basically choose what weapons to equip based on a mix of personal preference and random chance (I really like sniper cannons, for instance, so I'll equip them if I get them even if I'm effing Liir), and only change in reaction to what weapons and defenses your enemies start fielding. I think I'd rather have liked if weapon selection in Stellaris was a bit more like that.
Quite possibly it is just matter of couple dlcs here and thereSotS species have racial weapon preferences, they are just hidden in the tech tree so that certain species have a greater percentile chance to get certain technology. Unlike in Stellaris, these preferences are hard-coded as well. In Stellaris, at least our ethos choices change the tech chances.Oh, they do of course, but not quite to that extent. Everyone in SotS starts with basic energy, projectile, and missile weapons - the additional random technologies merely nudge you towards particular paths. There is no race that can't outfit a cruiser with a mix of lasers, gauss guns, and missiles from the get-go, and straight-up upgrades of basic varieties are nigh guaranteed to everyone as well. You basically choose what weapons to equip based on a mix of personal preference and random chance (I really like sniper cannons, for instance, so I'll equip them if I get them even if I'm effing Liir), and only change in reaction to what weapons and defenses your enemies start fielding. I think I'd rather have liked if weapon selection in Stellaris was a bit more like that.
Then again, SotS goes into far more detail in its combat mechanics, so perhaps that level of differentiation is just not feasible in Stellaris's model.
Yes, spaceports appear with 0 hp as soon as you order construction. Fun fact: sector AI builds spaceport on sieged worlds infinite number of times (as long as it has minerals). Of course you are the one getting "spaceport under attack" message.Hold on, what? My impression so far is that I'm the one who needs to build the spaceports and that I'm the one responsible for upgrading them. None of my sectors have been doing it on their own.
bump: Did anyone managed to find a way to mod out a hard penalty to diplomatic options for difficulty (-25/-50)? Thats additional 250-500 opinion needed. Making any diplomacy options on 'impossible' trully impossible.
Yes, spaceports appear with 0 hp as soon as you order construction. Fun fact: sector AI builds spaceport on sieged worlds infinite number of times (as long as it has minerals). Of course you are the one getting "spaceport under attack" message.Hold on, what? My impression so far is that I'm the one who needs to build the spaceports and that I'm the one responsible for upgrading them. None of my sectors have been doing it on their own.
bump: Did anyone managed to find a way to mod out a hard penalty to diplomatic options for difficulty (-25/-50)? Thats additional 250-500 opinion needed. Making any diplomacy options on 'impossible' trully impossible.
On a semi-related question, just how is one supposed to build up a large surplus of minerals? It's easy to build up EC since planetary power generators produce obscene amounts of it and almost nothing uses it except as upkeep (Paradox may want to look at Eternal Space for ideas - some additional abilities that cost EC to use could be cool). Mineral mining, on the other hand, just seems to constantly lag behind. Even when your mineral production is much higher per month than your EC, you need minerals for everything.
Want to build mining stations? You need minerals. Need more EC to build more mining stations? You need minerals. You need to fight some space amoebas to gain access to a new system which hopefully has more resources? You need minerals. And then once the amoebas are gone you need to either colonize a planet or build an outpost station, either way, you need minerals.
I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
bump: Did anyone managed to find a way to mod out a hard penalty to diplomatic options for difficulty (-25/-50)? Thats additional 250-500 opinion needed. Making any diplomacy options on 'impossible' trully impossible.You're looking for commons\defines\00_defines.lua, I believe;
ALLIANCE_ACCEPTANCE_HARD_DIFFICULTY = -25,
ALLIANCE_ACCEPTANCE_INSANE_DIFFICULTY = -50,
...
VASSALIZATION_ACCEPTANCE_HARD_DIFFICULTY = -50,
VASSALIZATION_ACCEPTANCE_INSANE_DIFFICULTY = -100,
Switching those with zeros (either directly in the raws or by creating your own custom mod to avoid it being overwritten with every patch Paradox releases) may do the trick.I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
The cost of research scales with the size of your empire, so you don't need to expand to keep up, and aggressively expanding can actually cause you to lag behind in tech. (which might explain how the small empire is ahead of you in tech).
Hold on, what? My impression so far is that I'm the one who needs to build the spaceports and that I'm the one responsible for upgrading them. None of my sectors have been doing it on their own.
What about when sectors get involved? Having two worlds in a single system wouldn't matter much to a sector, right? It might even make things better because you'd have two planet's worth of resources to exploit without ramming against the planet limit.I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
The cost of research scales with the size of your empire, so you don't need to expand to keep up, and aggressively expanding can actually cause you to lag behind in tech. (which might explain how the small empire is ahead of you in tech).
No, you still have to expand. Base tech prices go up no matter what, and you can't just rely on upgrading existing buildings. It's better to say you have to expand efficiently. But research stations in systems make this easy.
Ironically there's a weird incentive where star systems with multiple habitable planets don't matter. It might be easier to defend 2 planets in 1 star system instead of 2, but you lose out on expanding your borders to encompass more possible research stations. All other things being equal (like planet size), you get more production and research out of colonizing two star systems that are far apart than 2 planets in the same system. Besides military expediency, there is no benefit to having two habitable words in the same system. This is contrary to what you'd expect and contrary to every other space strategy game I can think of.
Well, there is the benefit of not having to spend extra influence (and losing monthly influence gain too, AFAIK), unless said two systems happen to be already inside your territory. Frontier outposts cost a hefty bit of influence to build and 1 influence per month to maintain, so having two habitable colonies inside the same system also saves a fair bit of influence, which is the hardest non special resource to get.
It depends on the quality of research points available to you.I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
The cost of research scales with the size of your empire, so you don't need to expand to keep up, and aggressively expanding can actually cause you to lag behind in tech. (which might explain how the small empire is ahead of you in tech).
No, you still have to expand. Base tech prices go up no matter what, and you can't just rely on upgrading existing buildings. It's better to say you have to expand efficiently. But research stations in systems make this easy.
Ironically there's a weird incentive where star systems with multiple habitable planets don't matter. It might be easier to defend 2 planets in 1 star system instead of 2, but you lose out on expanding your borders to encompass more possible research stations. All other things being equal (like planet size), you get more production and research out of colonizing two star systems that are far apart than 2 planets in the same system. Besides military expediency, there is no benefit to having two habitable words in the same system. This is contrary to what you'd expect and contrary to every other space strategy game I can think of.
On another note, is there any way to transfer food between planets? I can't see a world wholly dedicated to research or mineral production being very efficient if none of the pops can eat.
Laughed out loud at that Miriam thing...I also like the image of her going up to the overlord asking for help for her drug addiction and the overlord is worse than a DF overlord, cheering her for her great success at learning new things
And the Miroslavs. Miroslavs everywhere.
What about when sectors get involved? Having two worlds in a single system wouldn't matter much to a sector, right? It might even make things better because you'd have two planet's worth of resources to exploit without ramming against the planet limit.
On another note, is there any way to transfer food between planets? I can't see a world wholly dedicated to research or mineral production being very efficient if none of the pops can eat.
The formula for tech prices is:
Base cost x (1 + 0.02(Totals pops in empire - 10)) = Cost
Or basically if you have 200 pop, your tech costs about 4x more than what it would have been if you had 10. Another way to think about it is each pop increases tech cost by 2%.
But that's not all. You also get flat tech points from things like anomalies and debris. So in the early game when you get shittonnes of those, you're better off not having way more population as the tech goes further.
Essentially, for every planet you're planning on colonizing, you need to calculate if you can outresearch the total amount of pop in the planet when it's fully maxed out. So if you want to colonize a size 8 planet, you must see if you can get an additional 16% research in all areas, if not you're losing out. Additionally, you must also account for whether you're gaining or losing out in the duration that the planet itself is growing, as you probably aren't devoting the pop to tech when the pop is just starting out.
This is pretty easy to justify in the early game when you barely have pop and an additional 16% means like... 1 research point. Once you get large enough that your research points in bio is 100 for example... then an additional 16% means an additional 16 research in bio just to break even which can be tricky if the planet you're colonizing is only a size 8. And that's JUST bio. You also need 16 in physics and 16 in engineering as well.
Well, there is the benefit of not having to spend extra influence (and losing monthly influence gain too, AFAIK), unless said two systems happen to be already inside your territory. Frontier outposts cost a hefty bit of influence to build and 1 influence per month to maintain, so having two habitable colonies inside the same system also saves a fair bit of influence, which is the hardest non special resource to get.
Wait... I'm getting the impression you think you have to build a Frontier Outpost in a system before you colonize it? You don't. You can colonize any system; you don't need a Frontier Outpost first. There's no Influence difference between Colony A and B both being in same system or not.
Also I think Influence varies widely between governments and ethos types. I've actually had to burn Influence because I had too much (just spent it on leader roulette, but it's better than capping out). For example as a Theocratic Republic, if I can consistently achieve the mandate (not difficult), that's an extra ~2/month. Then factor in rivals and not being in an alliance, and the early/mid techs that give +1/month. But if you're in a 40-50 year government and in an alliance, you will have a much harder time finding influence, yes. So yes, I would only really use Frontier Outposts to secure strategic resources or exceptionally good systems.
That 16% multiplier is multiplied by the base cost tho, not by your research points. What causes the base cost to go up isn't the size of your empire, its the level of tech you're researching. That 16% applies equally to a 10 planet empire as to a 100 planet empire.It depends on the quality of research points available to you.I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
The cost of research scales with the size of your empire, so you don't need to expand to keep up, and aggressively expanding can actually cause you to lag behind in tech. (which might explain how the small empire is ahead of you in tech).
No, you still have to expand. Base tech prices go up no matter what, and you can't just rely on upgrading existing buildings. It's better to say you have to expand efficiently. But research stations in systems make this easy.
Ironically there's a weird incentive where star systems with multiple habitable planets don't matter. It might be easier to defend 2 planets in 1 star system instead of 2, but you lose out on expanding your borders to encompass more possible research stations. All other things being equal (like planet size), you get more production and research out of colonizing two star systems that are far apart than 2 planets in the same system. Besides military expediency, there is no benefit to having two habitable words in the same system. This is contrary to what you'd expect and contrary to every other space strategy game I can think of.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
tl;dr: It's basically guaranteed that if you expand too big you'll be lagging behind in tech.
Anything already in the trade window when you open it is not 'really' there. Always clear the trade window before making a trade, it's a bug.
Also is research agreement trading bugged? I can never get the AI to start a trading agreement with me, every time I succeed the trade results in them giving me nothing but me still giving me my end of the trading deal.
Also is research agreement trading bugged? I can never get the AI to start a trading agreement with me, every time I succeed the trade results in them giving me nothing but me still giving me my end of the trading deal.
Yes, spaceports appear with 0 hp as soon as you order construction. Fun fact: sector AI builds spaceport on sieged worlds infinite number of times (as long as it has minerals). Of course you are the one getting "spaceport under attack" message.Hold on, what? My impression so far is that I'm the one who needs to build the spaceports and that I'm the one responsible for upgrading them. None of my sectors have been doing it on their own.
bump: Did anyone managed to find a way to mod out a hard penalty to diplomatic options for difficulty (-25/-50)? Thats additional 250-500 opinion needed. Making any diplomacy options on 'impossible' trully impossible.
On a semi-related question, just how is one supposed to build up a large surplus of minerals? It's easy to build up EC since planetary power generators produce obscene amounts of it and almost nothing uses it except as upkeep (Paradox may want to look at Eternal Space for ideas - some additional abilities that cost EC to use could be cool). Mineral mining, on the other hand, just seems to constantly lag behind. Even when your mineral production is much higher per month than your EC, you need minerals for everything.
Want to build mining stations? You need minerals. Need more EC to build more mining stations? You need minerals. You need to fight some space amoebas to gain access to a new system which hopefully has more resources? You need minerals. And then once the amoebas are gone you need to either colonize a planet or build an outpost station, either way, you need minerals.
I'm probably playing this all wrong, but for me it's a constant struggle to put just enough minerals together to keep moving forward, at least if you want to stay in the tech race or not run into an EC deficit. I have a fairly good-sized empire, with dominion over a fairly large swath of space and 7 planets (all but one of which are within sectors), yet my mineral production is somewhere in the 50s. I just lost most of my fleet against a much smaller empire (that somehow is more advanced than me despite having just one planet and a presence in only 4 systems, none of which have much in the way of research bonuses), and now I can't possibly rebuild it before those damn space slugs manage to wreck my infrastructure and my vassal.
I just keep failing. Load, fail, load, fail. I encountered this same sort of issue before, when I tried to savescum an event that had a 50% chance of success (to no avail).It's probably because the game is using the same seed so the result will be the same no matter how often you reload. XCOM does the same thing unless you ask it not to so you can savescum.
So...what do I do, then? Take the scientist elsewhere and go bumming around for a while before starting work on the anomaly? Or is it doomed to fail no matter what at this point?Just let it fail. =| It's not such a big deal.
Might as well. I decided to let the scientist in question go work on a different event, one requiring a 5-star scientist.So...what do I do, then? Take the scientist elsewhere and go bumming around for a while before starting work on the anomaly? Or is it doomed to fail no matter what at this point?Just let it fail. =| It's not such a big deal.
You're gonna fail some anomalies anyway and really they don't do THAT much. Unless you're only planning to ever play this once, you'll probably run into this anomaly again in the future. There really aren't so many that you'll never see this again.
Check the range on them Autocannons are nice, but they have such piddly short range I'm not certain if they're worth it. Torpedos tend to be my goto weapon for early-mid game, but only if the enemy doesn't have PD. They have excellent range and ignore shields, which is very helpful in picking off a couple enemies before they get the chance to fire back.
Or, to put it more simply, the galaxy is cyclical and they're what happens to you if you win.I had game go exactly that. After controlling half the galaxy directly and all but one of the remaining independent nations all in the same alliance (7 nations, only one not in the mega alliance was on the opposite side of the galaxy from me) and all these nations having -1000 stance with me from viewing me as a threat (I was the crisis for that game I guess). I had not actually gone to war with ANYONE but fallen empires and primitives who I didn't feel like waiting for infiltrators to gain control over.
Finally I would just sit there, watching other empires rise and fall while mine would stay the same.Basically the Egyptian Old Kingdom, then.
Perhaps we get that one day, at least they took my Sol suggestion. :P?
Perhaps we get that one day, at least they took my Sol suggestion. :P?
Did you expect the sentient cockroaches?Perhaps we get that one day, at least they took my Sol suggestion. :P?
I wasn't entirely serious, but I made this suggestion (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/earth-humanity.884702/). I'm sure they had come up with the idea on their own anyway.
Finally pursued the bastard cult leader to his last stand, my 1k fleet of destroyers (it's early game!) ready to put paid to his 250p battleship temple. As I draw towards his ship to end this once and for all, I am suddenly hailed by a creature looking much the same as my own Chancellor.This quest appears to be bugged slightly. After beating the battleship and...what came next, the quest appears to be stuck back in the original boarding mission. I didn't get any sort of wrap-up text or reward, and trying to track the quest gives me a marker in the center of the galaxy.
"Stay out of our space. Our kind was around for aeons before yours developed space travel."
Crap. Fanatic Xenophobe Fallen Empire - and I'm in their space.
Finally pursued the bastard cult leader to his last stand, my 1k fleet of destroyers (it's early game!) ready to put paid to his 250p battleship temple. As I draw towards his ship to end this once and for all, I am suddenly hailed by a creature looking much the same as my own Chancellor.This quest appears to be bugged slightly. After beating the battleship and...what came next, the quest appears to be stuck back in the original boarding mission. I didn't get any sort of wrap-up text or reward, and trying to track the quest gives me a marker in the center of the galaxy.
"Stay out of our space. Our kind was around for aeons before yours developed space travel."
Crap. Fanatic Xenophobe Fallen Empire - and I'm in their space.
Kinda disappointing.
You can go one step further:Finally I would just sit there, watching other empires rise and fall while mine would stay the same.Basically the Egyptian Old Kingdom, then.
One of my suggestions on the Paradox forum was that once you win, your victorious empire could later spawn as a fallen empire, implying that you are playing in distant future from your last victory. Perhaps we get that one day, at least they took my Sol suggestion. :P
A pop with a lab will effectively produce about ~1.5 research points in each category (depending on bonuses/lab upgrades) and add 77.6 research cost. That means if every blank tile has lab and every specialized tile gets its particular bonus, I would very very vaguely estimate that new pops would stop increasing the cost of guass cannons when the research is already taking 100 months. That's... really bad, yeah. And it gets worse because unmanaged sectors are likely not smart enough to devote the empty tiles to basic labs (which is clearly their most optimal use IMO).
-upgraded labs are the worst way to increase research. A lab IV costs 7x the minerals and 3x the energy credits compared to a basic lab. If you have literally NO other options, then they are MAYBE worth it. But until then there are far better uses of resources. Not to mention that researching a lab tech costs research points in the same field its supposed to be providing them.
Its pretty simple: I'm not assuming materialist or a particularly optimal strategy. I could go into detail but it doesn't really matter, it was a super vague estimate intentionally. The takeaway is:
-if you play the game long enough eventually new pops will cause your research times to approach, with exponential decay, a very large research time. Fortunately, research will become less and less useful per-cost in tandem with this.
-barring some shenanigans with debris techs, the primary determining factor of victory in war is fleet numbers with research only deciding fights that were already mostly even.
-research is rubber-banded by its nature. Cheaper techs typically have a similar game impact compared to larger techs and larger techs are typically at least a little redundant. This isn't EU; if you've got 30 military researches and your enemy only has 20, you're probably MOSTLY on par assuming similar luck/meta knowledge/player skill.
-upgraded labs are the worst way to increase research. A lab IV costs 7x the minerals and 3x the energy credits compared to a basic lab. If you have literally NO other options, then they are MAYBE worth it. But until then there are far better uses of resources. Not to mention that researching a lab tech costs research points in the same field its supposed to be providing them.
In short, research matters but not so much that you need to be thinking about it that hard. The only real rule is to take advantage of all "natural" researches and build a lab for, say, every 2.5 pops. Much more important it is to be smart about WHICH researches you pick. Remember, colonizing planets makes your research worse but it makes your everything else better.
A single-point rise just never seemed high enough. I can match that by dropping a base lab on an empty square somewhere in my entire empire, and the basic lab gives me research in every category.
...Am I the only one seeing space amoebas belonging to various primitive empires flying around? How the heck did a bronze-age civilization wrangle a giant space monster and use it to explore space?Yeah that's a bug. I've also heard of them being owned by ftl races (including players), but much less frequently for some reason.
I have to assume it's a bug because it makes no sense whatsoever.
...Am I the only one seeing space amoebas belonging to various primitive empires flying around? How the heck did a bronze-age civilization wrangle a giant space monster and use it to explore space?THE ADVENTURES OF VOID CLOUD, KNIGHT OF THE ROUND TABLE!
I have to assume it's a bug because it makes no sense whatsoever.
I think its a display glitch because space amoebas have no valid faction? So it just displays whichever one is position 0 on the factions list or whatever.
The real test, if you care, would be to keep the amoeba alive, uplift the civ, and then integrate it. If the faction really does control the amoeba you should gain control of it.
They eventually increase in tech levels but it takes a long, long time. Unfortunately you can't uplift them just enough to infiltrate, so you either have to hope that the RNG smiles upon you or suck it up and make them a Protectorate.I know that you can uplift species in order to make the Vassals, and from there you can eventually annex them completely (it takes a very long time). How do Protectorates work? Can I eventually integrate them into my empire?
Yeah, that's not really well-explained. Negative divergence makes pops drift towards your governing ethics.
1EC, man that is a lot. And they're mostly a support structure. They aren't meant to be a stationary fleet.
Another thing that would be needed is planetary defenses, like planetary missile bases or the like that take a tile. Alternatively, low orbit defense guns that damage bombarding ships and invaders. Maybe they could only be taken down with an invasion. Building fortress worlds should be possible, just not economically feasible.Totally agreed. Also, I wonder if perhaps defending forces should be able to deal some damage to assaulting troops before said troops hit the ground. Anti-air fire, let's call it. Maybe scale the anti-air damage based on how intact the fortifications are.
Don't forget the option to simply annihilate the whole thingHow much different is that from just glassing the entire planet? It is cooler though. So even if it doesnt have much mechanical difference, it is cooler.
Yeah, that's cluster spawning. There options hidden in the game to turn spawning random, cluster or focused on the player. You just need to edit stuff to change it. Cluster is default, meaning a few species spawn always next to each other, but the distance between these clusters can be great.
You mostly restated what I said. If you run out of space, upgrade labs. Otherwise they suck. Its the worst way to improve research.
As for local tech bonuses, aside from IIRC a certain unique building, there's 3: research assist, orbital bonus, and governor. However, two of those bonuses use the same resource (leader slots), and two of them can made not local easily enough. Yes, there are planet based bonuses but honestly they're only going to account for a drop in the bucket even if you focus on them. This is coming from someone who filled a max sized world with the best physics labs available, and the unique lab, and then stacked every possible research bonus on that one planet (including the space mall for happiness). I wasted so many minerals doing that and the gains felt very minor compared to what my generalized worlds were yielding for much less cost.
As for your point about the research bonus of tech, you're missing the point. The game is designed so that you quickly fill out "core" techs like your main weapons path and basic utility upgrades and then past that you have to go after sidegrades and diminishing gains. The fleet size modifiers are great, yeah, except that expanding empires tend to run way below their fleet limit and all those minerals and energy you've been dumping into upgraded labs a smart player would be buying corvettes and spaceports.
Sure, you can use your research to rush down a weapons path, but most smart players will quickly get decently far down 1 weapon, 1 defense and reactors. On top of that improved weapons increase BOTH the cost and maintenance of a ship, which means that until you hit your fleet limit higher tech weapons = smaller fleet.
All of this means that, sure, a high tech empire has an advantage over a low tech empire. But between the smaller fleet and the fact that many advantages that improve tech are trade offs with things that produce minerals and fleet limit (see: having a small empire, upgrading your labs instead of your starports), it all evens out close enough that it is a secondary deciding factor to fleet size, alliances, and rock paper scissors. Sure, all things being even research will make the difference. But honestly I would say the bigger advantage of research is the ability to shift your position on the rock paper scissors.
Stations in general need some improvements. The ability to customize them is a must for this type of game.Here. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683966053) This lets you upgrade the main types of station to your flavor. You still need to remove and replace them for post-construction upgrades just like defense stations, though.
Stations are really generally useless at the moment yea, but the game's combat seems to be heavily biased towards numbers rather then quality. You can easily take down a single ship/station using a fleet of corvettes of the same or ever lower firepower.
Also, you should be able to set priority targets during combat or something. At the moment, the AI will often focus fire single ships in your fleet, while your own fleet likes to spread he damage across several targets, meaning you'll likely never win engagements against a fleet of similar numbers/firepower.
Ignoring that Corvettes are broken (well if you break them)... They are sort of meant to be effective chaff and I'd even go as far as to say the more "armored" version of what is available.The problem is that Corvettes are flat out more efficient on pretty much every metric. They're more effective at a given fleet weight, cost less and require less infrastructure to produce, and even casual upgrading still skyrockets their evasion to make them more resilient than cap ships slathered in shields and armor.
Battleships as silly as this sounds are meant to have support to be really effective. Being, in essence, more fragile then Corvettes.
Can wormhole species have stations/fortresses that act as a wormhole station? I could see that being useful for defensive purposes.
Warscore needs tweaking. Just because I lost a spaceport on day one doesn't mean I must be forced into white peace as I blockaded enemy's only planet.
Warscore needs tweaking. Just because I lost a spaceport on day one doesn't mean I must be forced into white peace as I blockaded enemy's only planet.
The whole war system needs tweaking. Why can I only take what I've agreed upon beforehand if I'm a militaristic fanatic xenophone despotic empire hellbent on wiping this species out and taking all their planets? It limits me to taking 2-3 planets, and if I'm in a federation I'll be lucky if I even get one out of the war. It's so silly, "oh, sorry enemy alien race whose language I didn't even decipher until right before the war started, I blew up all your fleets and have control of all your planets and aim to wipe you off the face of the galaxy. But hold on, I'm only going to take the three for myself that I was limited to asking politely for. I'll be back in ten years for three more, and then ten after that for the last two."
Some other mod
Remove sector modification costs and let them build less military stuff
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682730778&searchtext=
Makes AI more dynamic
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682730778&searchtext=
Expanded war demands
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684037552
@ Flying Dice:Actually I've found that they're generally shorter. The evasion nerf means that corvette vs. corvette action resolves roughly at the same pace, while fighting hazards with too few corvettes tends to end very abruptly. The only real slowdown would be if you're taking on something like an amoeba with barely enough corvettes to kill it. In most cases, the decreased effectiveness means you're going to need to build more corvettes for them to live long enough to win, which tends to overcompensate for the lost per-weapon damage.
I can understand the logic behind reducing the damage of smaller weapons, but doesn't that just make early battles take much longer?
I'm also concerned about what sort of effect this will have on battles against hostile creatures. Many of those things have large weapons which will likely massacre any fleet of corvettes given these changes, but quite often these creatures also block expansion and so you almost have to deal with them. Hell, quite often a 150 power amoeba can wander into your starting system and begin wrecking stuff, and good luck stopping that with three measly base-level corvettes.
Warscore needs tweaking. Just because I lost a spaceport on day one doesn't mean I must be forced into white peace as I blockaded enemy's only planet.
The whole war system needs tweaking. Why can I only take what I've agreed upon beforehand if I'm a militaristic fanatic xenophone despotic empire hellbent on wiping this species out and taking all their planets? It limits me to taking 2-3 planets, and if I'm in a federation I'll be lucky if I even get one out of the war. It's so silly, "oh, sorry enemy alien race whose language I didn't even decipher until right before the war started, I blew up all your fleets and have control of all your planets and aim to wipe you off the face of the galaxy. But hold on, I'm only going to take the three for myself that I was limited to asking politely for. I'll be back in ten years for three more, and then ten after that for the last two."
It's been a problem since Crusader Kings. Speaking of which!
It's been a problem since Crusader Kings.It's not a problem in Crusader Kings, exactly. It's reflective of the rules that Catholics followed after the Pope decreed that they couldn't just go and attack other Christians because they felt like it any more. Of course, CK2 added a bunch of other religions through DLC, where it doesn't fit as well, but they still generally make the CB system work broadly enough that it's only a bit awkward. The problem is, Stellaris doesn't have CBs and the war goals are not at all a well-developed system at this point. It should be something more along the lines of Vicky 2, where you can add war goals as things go along. But with the way fleets work, a war is pretty much decided by the first big engagement, so if they did that the only limit on blobbing would be how long you feel like eating war exhaustion.
Is it just me, or is their forum moderation weird? I've been banned three times now, on a generic "trolling" reason, with no real explanation or anything. And this is the same rules as the rest of the Paradox forums, which I've previously never even been warned on, despite posting plenty on the CK2 forum. Anyone else had such an experience?I think other sites don't get your nitpick-dere disposition whereas here we all know you.
But with the way fleets work, a war is pretty much decided by the first big engagement, so if they did that the only limit on blobbing would be how long you feel like eating war exhaustion.This is probably my only major complaint about the game that I don't have any faith in getting fixed. It feels wonky and lazy in a "screw it, doesn't matter" kind of way. Hopefully I'm wrong, because there's a lot of different ways to do combat to achieve a lot of different vibes and/or effects, and "the bigger guy wrecks the smaller guy's shit" doesn't feel like any of them.
So is it just me, or do random home systems tend to be terrible?My home systems tend to be okay. I don't think I'd have described any of them as better or worse than other random planets save for size/system goodies, so if Sol/they're "supposed" to be super awesome then I guess I would indeed rank them as terrible.
I remember on my first game starting in Sol, I had a bunch of minerals and EC to mine, along with a bit of research. It really helped me get going. However, now I'm messing around with aliens who get random systems by default, and none of them are very good. Typically I get 2 of either EC, minerals, or research, and that's it. It's getting to the point where I'm about ready to always start in Sol, immersion be damned.
Is it just me, or is their forum moderation weird? I've been banned three times now, on a generic "trolling" reason, with no real explanation or anything. And this is the same rules as the rest of the Paradox forums, which I've previously never even been warned on, despite posting plenty on the CK2 forum. Anyone else had such an experience?Never tried it, but that's alarming. Have you been able to narrow down what they took issue with?
I think we've just been spoiled by Toady's moderation.Getting chain-banned and not knowing why hints at pretty terrible moderation and/or personal awareness. I wouldn't call finding that strange being spoiled.
You gon get b& boiGalactic Xanyr Hegemony plz go
I think we've just been spoiled by Toady's moderation.
I think other sites don't get your nitpick-dere disposition whereas here we all know you.Except the CK2 forum is ostensibly the same rules and mostly the same mods as the Stellaris one, and I've gone there for years about as often as you can before being considered a regular.
Never tried it, but that's alarming. Have you been able to narrow down what they took issue with?"Trolling" is the rule cited, and the second time I asked for clarification but just got told to read the rules. Asking again didn't get good results and there's only so far you can go with that before you're just doing yourself a disservice.
Alien creatures, I speak on behalf of Xanyr Hegemony, the undisputed ruler of the Galaxy. Respect our borders and keep out of our affairs, and perhaps our mighty space marines will refrain from visiting your wretched worlds.You gon get b& boiGalactic Xanyr Hegemony plz go
there's another thing they missed out on, specialty capital ships and active abilities for ships based on class and modules.Battleships have passive auras based on modules. Lack of active effect is like the lack of active involvement in general. Which works in most Paradox games because you have a lot of unimportant little engagements none of which singly matter that much.
Still, I'm kinda miffed about how anything larger then a corvette is mostly irrelevant in combat. Well, destroyers aren't irrelevant, but they're not cost effective to build en masse. Ships dont have big enough of an impact by themselves, which is kinda sad since we can't experience situations like "ahah, behold my secret huge weapon capital ship thing and despair" that pretty much every space sci fi thing with ship combat has.I can kind of see why they cut out the death starring, since it's fun but not entirely realistic... but I haven't played enough of the game yet to get a good look at anything bigger than corvettes (my whole navy is currently six of them) and I have noticed that everything does seem about as big as a grain of sand on jupiter.
Doesnt help that every ship model is of roughly the same size.
Huh, weird. Maybe whoever banned you was having a bad day.I think we've just been spoiled by Toady's moderation.I think other sites don't get your nitpick-dere disposition whereas here we all know you.Except the CK2 forum is ostensibly the same rules and mostly the same mods as the Stellaris one, and I've gone there for years about as often as you can before being considered a regular.
Yeah, I know, but the auras are pretty limited insofar as that there are very few and they can only be fielded by battleships.there's another thing they missed out on, specialty capital ships and active abilities for ships based on class and modules.Battleships have passive auras based on modules. Lack of active effect is like the lack of active involvement in general. Which works in most Paradox games because you have a lot of unimportant little engagements none of which singly matter that much.
Hell, the whole combat computer thing should be a lot deeper than it is. It was a mistake to tie the stat bonuses to the behaviors (not that the behaviors are particularly elaborate). What if you want to make a long-range missileboat? Obviously you want the damage increase, but that module makes the ship charge in blindly. It should have been split into two subsystems, a "systems computer" and a "tactics computer", with the former giving a stat bonus and the latter dictating how the ship behaves in battle.
All it would take is a simple set of design-specific options: "maintain maximum range", "close with enemy", "screen long-range combatants", "pursue enemy long-range combatants", and "escort capital ships". Give a fleet focus toggle to tell the whole fleet if it should concentrate fire on a single random enemy, on one of the largest enemies, split fire between an appropriate number of the smallest enemies (to avoid overkill), or divide fire evenly across the enemy force. Lock that stuff behind some fleet tactics techs.
That would be incredible.Hell, the whole combat computer thing should be a lot deeper than it is. It was a mistake to tie the stat bonuses to the behaviors (not that the behaviors are particularly elaborate). What if you want to make a long-range missileboat? Obviously you want the damage increase, but that module makes the ship charge in blindly. It should have been split into two subsystems, a "systems computer" and a "tactics computer", with the former giving a stat bonus and the latter dictating how the ship behaves in battle.
All it would take is a simple set of design-specific options: "maintain maximum range", "close with enemy", "screen long-range combatants", "pursue enemy long-range combatants", and "escort capital ships". Give a fleet focus toggle to tell the whole fleet if it should concentrate fire on a single random enemy, on one of the largest enemies, split fire between an appropriate number of the smallest enemies (to avoid overkill), or divide fire evenly across the enemy force. Lock that stuff behind some fleet tactics techs.
That sounds kinda like Gratuitous Space Battles (http://store.steampowered.com/app/41800/?) grafted on top of the current Stellaris combat system. Which, now that I think about it, sounds totally awesome.
Hell, the whole combat computer thing should be a lot deeper than it is. It was a mistake to tie the stat bonuses to the behaviors (not that the behaviors are particularly elaborate). What if you want to make a long-range missileboat? Obviously you want the damage increase, but that module makes the ship charge in blindly. It should have been split into two subsystems, a "systems computer" and a "tactics computer", with the former giving a stat bonus and the latter dictating how the ship behaves in battle.Would still be kind of disappointing in that strength disparity still scales exponentially, but yeah, there'd be actual moving parts now. Throwing in tactics/order following complications when trying to use a larger fleet against a smaller one could deal with some of that and give another (hopefully not obtuse) layer of decisionmaking for both fleet building and divisions.
All it would take is a simple set of design-specific options: "maintain maximum range", "close with enemy", "screen long-range combatants", "pursue enemy long-range combatants", and "escort capital ships". Give a fleet focus toggle to tell the whole fleet if it should concentrate fire on a single random enemy, on one of the largest enemies, split fire between an appropriate number of the smallest enemies (to avoid overkill), or divide fire evenly across the enemy force. Lock that stuff behind some fleet tactics techs.
Bam. There. I just fixed combat. More tactical depth and less micromanagement.
Battleships have passive auras based on modules. Lack of active effect is like the lack of active involvement in general. Which works in most Paradox games because you have a lot of unimportant little engagements none of which singly matter that much.
I've seen a lot of people talking on the Paradox forums about how combat's fine because this is grand strategy blah blah--fuck them, no. This is a 4X, and it needs to have a solid, tactically-oriented combat system, because "lol bigger number and OP designs win everything ever" is dull. :PAlternatively, they could just abstract combat out into blobs that sit where they're assigned and do stuff according to their combat power relative to the combat power of anything opposing them. So small fleets are still useless against larger fleets, but they're passively useless rather than get rekt and need to be replaced useless.
But with the way fleets work, a war is pretty much decided by the first big engagement, so if they did that the only limit on blobbing would be how long you feel like eating war exhaustion.
...he says, while on the Bay12 forums. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91093.0)
...he says, while on the Bay12 forums. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91093.0)
That was, very nearly, the combat system in Stardrive, which (coupled with basically my second-favorite ship design system) was the reason I liked the game so much. Too bad about the developer's choices, though.That would be incredible.Hell, the whole combat computer thing should be a lot deeper than it is. It was a mistake to tie the stat bonuses to the behaviors (not that the behaviors are particularly elaborate). What if you want to make a long-range missileboat? Obviously you want the damage increase, but that module makes the ship charge in blindly. It should have been split into two subsystems, a "systems computer" and a "tactics computer", with the former giving a stat bonus and the latter dictating how the ship behaves in battle.
All it would take is a simple set of design-specific options: "maintain maximum range", "close with enemy", "screen long-range combatants", "pursue enemy long-range combatants", and "escort capital ships". Give a fleet focus toggle to tell the whole fleet if it should concentrate fire on a single random enemy, on one of the largest enemies, split fire between an appropriate number of the smallest enemies (to avoid overkill), or divide fire evenly across the enemy force. Lock that stuff behind some fleet tactics techs.
That sounds kinda like Gratuitous Space Battles (http://store.steampowered.com/app/41800/?) grafted on top of the current Stellaris combat system. Which, now that I think about it, sounds totally awesome.
I hope that in the future we can set target priorities for fleets and classes of ships regarding what to target etc.
Trouble here is that respective fleet power scales exponentially; if you have more ships than the other guy, you blow up his ships faster which means he blows up fewer of your ships. It's way more efficient to build up a superblob and crush an enemy fleet in one go than it is to send wave after wave of expendable minions at it. And since mineral and energy output are both roughly analogous and largely under your control, having way more minerals and way less energy than you need strikes me as an odd choice.But with the way fleets work, a war is pretty much decided by the first big engagement, so if they did that the only limit on blobbing would be how long you feel like eating war exhaustion.
I strongly disagree, at least early game. Maybe I'd doing it wrong, but I always have far more minerals than Energy, so I find it a lot cheaper to just poof a fleet at wartime and hope they're all dead by peacetime. I see wars as a battle of resources: I outproduce ships until I win.
I hope that in the future we can set target priorities for fleets and classes of ships regarding what to target etc.
I actually like that they don't have that. If ONLY because I picture that what "we" don't see is a huge chaotic space fight. It would be like telling an army of 1000 to shoot on a single random tank and expecting them all to unload their AKs on it.
If they did include it, I'd hope it isn't too powerful.
I don't mean combat control; I mean a chance to pick target priorities in ship design window. So that you could set your torpedo boats to attack battleships first, then cruisers, then starbases, then other targets, for example. Then those boats would pick their targets according to that logic.I agree with both of these. Some measure of design/control would be nice, but not of the "always shoot the healers first" variety. Whether your torpedo boats manage to reach their battleships or not should be a noteworthy turn of events in the battle, not completely certain or something that just happens on accident sometimes.
My best 2 is Stardrive and star-ruler ship building, both was incredible, if i had to choose between both, star-ruler ship design all the way.That was, very nearly, the combat system in Stardrive, which (coupled with basically my second-favorite ship design system) was the reason I liked the game so much. Too bad about the developer's choices, though.That would be incredible.Hell, the whole combat computer thing should be a lot deeper than it is. It was a mistake to tie the stat bonuses to the behaviors (not that the behaviors are particularly elaborate). What if you want to make a long-range missileboat? Obviously you want the damage increase, but that module makes the ship charge in blindly. It should have been split into two subsystems, a "systems computer" and a "tactics computer", with the former giving a stat bonus and the latter dictating how the ship behaves in battle.
All it would take is a simple set of design-specific options: "maintain maximum range", "close with enemy", "screen long-range combatants", "pursue enemy long-range combatants", and "escort capital ships". Give a fleet focus toggle to tell the whole fleet if it should concentrate fire on a single random enemy, on one of the largest enemies, split fire between an appropriate number of the smallest enemies (to avoid overkill), or divide fire evenly across the enemy force. Lock that stuff behind some fleet tactics techs.
That sounds kinda like Gratuitous Space Battles (http://store.steampowered.com/app/41800/?) grafted on top of the current Stellaris combat system. Which, now that I think about it, sounds totally awesome.
Is it just me, or is their forum moderation weird? I've been banned three times now, on a generic "trolling" reason, with no real explanation or anything. And this is the same rules as the rest of the Paradox forums, which I've previously never even been warned on, despite posting plenty on the CK2 forum. Anyone else had such an experience?
The way their forums function is totally absurd as well; if you're temp banned, you can't even see why or appeal it until AFTER the temp ban has expired.Sounds like what Cruxador experienced. Yeesh that
And it's impossible for them to retroactively lower the severity of an infraction.Wait but... how is that public knowledge?
You can also get placed on probation, which means you can still post suggestions, but not report bugs.That sounds really dumb.
Overall it matches Paradox's own design philosophy: a bunch of ad hoc crap with no regularity of policy or professionalism.uh
And it's impossible for them to retroactively lower the severity of an infraction.Wait but... how is that public knowledge?
Overall it matches Paradox's own design philosophy: a bunch of ad hoc crap with no regularity of policy or professionalism.uh
That's not my experience, though I *assume* it's true of their initial releases.
You sound like you have an axe to grind...
uhI think he's overstating the case, but they do definitely lack consistency, and if you follow them enough, you get the idea that a big part of this is because of how the social structure of their office works, which isn't really what you want determining outcomes in a company.
That's not my experience, though I *assume* it's true of their initial releases.
uhI think he's overstating the case, but they do definitely lack consistency, and if you follow them enough, you get the idea that a big part of this is because of how the social structure of their office works, which isn't really what you want determining outcomes in a company.
That's not my experience, though I *assume* it's true of their initial releases.
Yeah but 90% of the offices in successful companies have a lot less variance there and have some structures in place to normalize things.uhI think he's overstating the case, but they do definitely lack consistency, and if you follow them enough, you get the idea that a big part of this is because of how the social structure of their office works, which isn't really what you want determining outcomes in a company.
That's not my experience, though I *assume* it's true of their initial releases.
heh. heh ha ha haHAHAHHAAAAA.
Yeah you just described pretty much 100% of offices ever.
Ok, WHAT THE FUCK determines the "differing war philosophy" penalty to alliance forming? Its not Bombardment policies, its not War Economy policies, my current best guess is its just YET ANOTHER "you have slightly different ethics" penalty. And it seems entirely random as to whether it appears or not. Two almost completely contradictory ethics? NO PENALTY! You're both individualists to varying degrees? DEATH PENALTY, NO ALLIANCE FOR YOU! IF YOU WANT OUT OF THAT BOXED IN POSITION YOU HAVE TO MURDER THE NICE BIRD PEOPLE!
Ah. Well at least I'm not crazy :POk, WHAT THE FUCK determines the "differing war philosophy" penalty to alliance forming? Its not Bombardment policies, its not War Economy policies, my current best guess is its just YET ANOTHER "you have slightly different ethics" penalty. And it seems entirely random as to whether it appears or not. Two almost completely contradictory ethics? NO PENALTY! You're both individualists to varying degrees? DEATH PENALTY, NO ALLIANCE FOR YOU! IF YOU WANT OUT OF THAT BOXED IN POSITION YOU HAVE TO MURDER THE NICE BIRD PEOPLE!
Its a bug. I believe its a pacifists-not pacifist thing
Ah. Well at least I'm not crazy :P
Does it strike anyone else as wrong that a fleet suffering from warp cooldown can immediately become fully functional if they get into a battle? I tried to ambush some warping slugs using my hyperdrive fleet, hoping to massacre the lot of them while they were helpless. Sadly, they instantly shifted to combat mode and managed to (temporarily) escape annihilation using emergency FTL.No, that seems perfectly reasonable. The idea behind warp cooldown is to punish warp's flexibility with decreased speed, not make it dangerous to move anywhere during war. I assume.
Trouble here is that respective fleet power scales exponentially; if you have more ships than the other guy, you blow up his ships faster which means he blows up fewer of your ships. It's way more efficient to build up a superblob and crush an enemy fleet in one go than it is to send wave after wave of expendable minions at it.Quadratically, actually. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester's_laws#Lanchester.27s_Square_Law) A single blob of 10000 ships is an equal match for 100 groups composed of 1000 ships.
if anyone is looking for a discount copy I have an extra copy of Stellaris that I acquired.
Looking to sell it for $30
I will take paypal or steam credit
Speaking of which, all of my invading armies are trapped in low orbit around the planets they were on when peace were declared. Are they going to magically warp back when my MIA fleet does, or is that just their life now?The former! I was not optimistic, but they came back.
Neat.Trouble here is that respective fleet power scales exponentially; if you have more ships than the other guy, you blow up his ships faster which means he blows up fewer of your ships. It's way more efficient to build up a superblob and crush an enemy fleet in one go than it is to send wave after wave of expendable minions at it.Quadratically, actually. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester's_laws#Lanchester.27s_Square_Law) A single blob of 10000 ships is an equal match for 100 groups composed of 1000 ships.
Fair warning, it's broken as Paradox games usually are. Quest lines don't play nice with survey data acquired outside of your own survey ships doing work, that's why you often stop finding anomalies altogether. If you got map data through a trade deal or Galactic Ambitions, you won't find anomalies (and thus won't find quest points) in those areas. So don't accept any trade deals for map data, and get this mod (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=688305439&searchtext=Galactic+Ambition).God damn it. So much for uncovering the secrets of an ancient Federation.
So paradox interactive has policy of ,, kek, no warcrimes in our games, ayyyylmeo" ?
So paradox interactive has policy of ,, kek, no warcrimes in our games, ayyyylmeo" ?
Me and my brother have started a new game.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DefeatMeansFriendship
I'm playing fanatically xenophilic militarists. I'm planning on basically being benevolent conquerors.
On the rare subject of things done right: primitive civs. Uplifting primitives and sub-sentients is a cornerstone of space opera and it's nice that Paradox included it. I especially like how Space Age civs can uplift themselves into fledgling empires if given enough time. The whole "uplift less advanced species and slowly incorporate them into your own society to form a multiracial conglomerate civilization" thing is really fun, and AFAIK apart from Stellaris only Aurora lets you do it (and in that case requires outright conquest). Deeper tactical combat and ship behavior is first on my list of wants, but a further expansion of diplomacy and uplift is close behind.you can do it in distant worlds too.
So paradox interactive has policy of ,, kek, no warcrimes in our games, ayyyylmeo" ?
Considering that I sometimes I fill enemy dynastic bloodlines in CK2 with so much shared blood that inbred kids are close to guaranteed, I wouldn't say that's the case. As for Stellaris, you can enslave and genocide pops from what I know and that sounds like warcrimes to me.
Those are indeed features. And both slavery and genocide are officially war crimes. They're only missing torture.*Upon pissing off some xeno slavers, they reminded me via diplomatic channels that my species' children fitted exceptionally well in the smallest of mining tunnels
Ironically, one way of interpreting the Paradox forum rules would actually forbid discussion of the very features built into the game (the wrong interpretation of the Paradox Forum rules, for the record, but I wouldn't expect their mods to be as precise as I).
*Will we be getting an "Enhanced Xeno Interrogation" DLC?
,, ..."Seriously, what the hell kind of quote marks are those even supposed to be? Commas? Really?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just so I'm sure I'm not getting something wrong - there are, effectively, three different types of Primitives, right?
1) Pre-sentient creatures, which appear as pops on planets. You can uplift these if they're in your empire's territory, but you don't need to colonise the planet they're on. You can also gene-mod them when you uplift them, assuming you have the requisite technologies.
2) Stone-age primitives, which appear as a modifier (not pops) on some planets. You need to colonise the planet to have any interactions with them (which are limited to, basically, avoiding them or not avoiding them and occasionally suffering a bad event).
3) Post-stone-age but pre-spacefaring-age primitive civilisations, which are the ones for which observation posts are used (and you can use them for science, hurry up their advancement to become an empire, or coverly infiltrate them). Or, y'know, just invade the planet.
Am I more or less in the right ballpark? I've only really done anything with #3s so far, so want to make sure I'm not completely off-base with how I think the others work. :P
So paradox interactive has policy of ,, kek, no warcrimes in our games, ayyyylmeo" ?They have a theme of "nothing that can get our games banned in Germany". So no anti-semitic war crimes, and no war crimes involving stuffing undesirables in death camps, and no genocide (aliens are apparently a loophole) and Hitler's face is shaded in HoI and they use the iron cross flag instead of the swastika flag. They seem totally fine with atrocities otherwise.
He probably didn't know that in English, quote marks go at the top regardless of what side they're on. It's a pretty rare phenomena, among languages that don't copy their quote marks from English. Most languages either have one at the top and one at the bottom (eg. German) or big ones on each side that span from top to bottom (eg. French). Of the errors people make in using English, this one is way less annoying than most, including some that native speakers make.,, ..."Seriously, what the hell kind of quote marks are those even supposed to be? Commas? Really?
Random question, how many of you actually terraform?I've never terraformed anything, and odds are decent I never will, not because it's hard but because I dislike how... fluid, it makes the galaxy. It's like, having an arctic world and an arid world around that one star is a feature of the galaxy, and it feels like it cheapens said galaxy to just shrug and say "no, they're oceans now."
It's a huge investment of time, requires a bunch of techs and (admittedly common) strategic resources. More importantly, I never felt the need to. I guess it could be useful when you are boxed in and also unwilling to expand through force (as well as unwilling to accept xenos, including gene-modded members of your own species),
Plus the fact that the planet needs to be inside your border is quite limiting.
I think it's because Paradox was still thinking in terms of grand strategy rather than 4X. You're not 'supposed' to roll over the entire map (even if the nominal victory conditions say otherwise), you're supposed to build a star nation and then interact with others. Once we get default open borders in it'll feel a lot better, I suspect.Which makes it all the stranger that there's... not a lot to do there. You know how infuriating I find it that you can't, like, initiate trade with friendly empires or something? Civilian trade, not selling minerals for energy or the two other things a friendly empire still doesn't hate you enough to refuse even considering. It doesn't need to be complex! Just... something other than staring at him across our territory border thinking "I'm definitely not going to kill you."
Fair enough, but in that game I wanted to eclipse the stars with my mighty bug swarm. It really should be an option, or something to do with ethics perhaps. You'd think a heavily militaristic society would be willing to go all the way in a war.A lot of this is probably balance and granularity issues. You could argue that (some) Collectivist civilizations shouldn't have to pay Influence or that Materialists should be pragmatic enough not to care about another empire's ethics or that pacifists shouldn't be able to declare war at all and so on, but it gets wonky and un-universally applicable pretty fast.
I think it's because Paradox was still thinking in terms of grand strategy rather than 4X. You're not 'supposed' to roll over the entire map (even if the nominal victory conditions say otherwise), you're supposed to build a star nation and then interact with others. Once we get default open borders in it'll feel a lot better, I suspect.Which makes it all the stranger that there's... not a lot to do there. You know how infuriating I find it that you can't, like, initiate trade with friendly empires or something? Civilian trade, not selling minerals for energy or the two other things a friendly empire still doesn't hate you enough to refuse even considering. It doesn't need to be complex! Just... something other than staring at him across our territory border thinking "I'm definitely not going to kill you."
Fair enough, but in that game I wanted to eclipse the stars with my mighty bug swarm. It really should be an option, or something to do with ethics perhaps. You'd think a heavily militaristic society would be willing to go all the way in a war.
Regarding fleet behavior in combat: Ask and ye shall receive. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686808236&searchtext=)
PRAISE BE, testing now
I think it's because Paradox was still thinking in terms of grand strategy rather than 4X. You're not 'supposed' to roll over the entire map (even if the nominal victory conditions say otherwise), you're supposed to build a star nation and then interact with others. Once we get default open borders in it'll feel a lot better, I suspect.Which makes it all the stranger that there's... not a lot to do there. You know how infuriating I find it that you can't, like, initiate trade with friendly empires or something? Civilian trade, not selling minerals for energy or the two other things a friendly empire still doesn't hate you enough to refuse even considering. It doesn't need to be complex! Just... something other than staring at him across our territory border thinking "I'm definitely not going to kill you."
And then you do, because there is nothing else to do.
Regarding fleet behavior in combat: Ask and ye shall receive. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686808236&searchtext=)
PRAISE BE, testing now
Please do tell how it goes. Especially if battleship with range 60 weapons only and PD with Offensive comp do rush to point-blank. Also if it balances ship sensor (in vanilla 1.03 you get 100% accuracy with EVERY weapon as long as you use sensors t2+ of course deducting evasion).
Random question, how many of you actually terraform?I've never terraformed anything, and odds are decent I never will, not because it's hard but because I dislike how... fluid, it makes the galaxy. It's like, having an arctic world and an arid world around that one star is a feature of the galaxy, and it feels like it cheapens said galaxy to just shrug and say "no, they're oceans now."
It's a huge investment of time, requires a bunch of techs and (admittedly common) strategic resources. More importantly, I never felt the need to. I guess it could be useful when you are boxed in and also unwilling to expand through force (as well as unwilling to accept xenos, including gene-modded members of your own species),
Plus the fact that the planet needs to be inside your border is quite limiting.
Regarding fleet behavior in combat: Ask and ye shall receive. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686808236&searchtext=)
PRAISE BE, testing now
Please do tell how it goes. Especially if battleship with range 60 weapons only and PD with Offensive comp do rush to point-blank. Also if it balances ship sensor (in vanilla 1.03 you get 100% accuracy with EVERY weapon as long as you use sensors t2+ of course deducting evasion).
I tested with strike craft ranges, 100 scout, 75 bomber and 65 fighters, they do get released far enough but then snipe the enemy from ridiculous distance instead of closing in and fighting. maybe I missed something.
I'm playing my current campaign as my splinter-group of humans and their tyrannical government slowly being brought back into the light of humanity by prolonged contact with lesser races they originally sought to enslave-the first internal questioning of Terran policy came when an infiltration agent eloped with an alien lover and condemned the rest of the unit devoted to the takeover as monsters-ultimately culminating with them shifting towards an inclusive, honorable state devoted to rescuing and protecting weaker and less-developed races from the galactic powerhouses while participating in a grand federation which is inevitably being formed by our jolly democratic mouth-faced neighbors.
Random question, how many of you actually terraform?I've never terraformed anything, and odds are decent I never will, not because it's hard but because I dislike how... fluid, it makes the galaxy. It's like, having an arctic world and an arid world around that one star is a feature of the galaxy, and it feels like it cheapens said galaxy to just shrug and say "no, they're oceans now."
It's a huge investment of time, requires a bunch of techs and (admittedly common) strategic resources. More importantly, I never felt the need to. I guess it could be useful when you are boxed in and also unwilling to expand through force (as well as unwilling to accept xenos, including gene-modded members of your own species),
Plus the fact that the planet needs to be inside your border is quite limiting.
Funnily enough, I think that late game megaprojects that modify the galaxy in some long lasting way are something that would improve this game. We have terraforming and gene-modding, and that's it. What about building ringworlds, deathstars and orbital habitats and glassing planets? All of this should be very expensive and require advanced technology, of course. It should also require strategic resources, this way they could become a source of conflict. Finally, you'd get something to do lategame that doesn't necessarily involve conquest.
Currently, habitable planets are common, and 1/7 of them are perfect for your species. In my current game, I haven't even colonized all perfectly habitable planets inside my borders due to the potential research penalties. If they were less common, they (as well as the resources needed to terraform them) could become more precious.
1) Pre-sentient creatures, which appear as pops on planets. You can uplift these if they're in your empire's territory, but you don't need to colonise the planet they're on. You can also gene-mod them when you uplift them, assuming you have the requisite technologies.Note that these are hilariously amazing because they start with a unique, potentially gamebreaking trait. Oh, and they'll ALWAYS have +20% happiness because you uplifted them.
We can glass our own planet already without being 23d century high tech guys with AIs doing research for them.True that. I suppose the cost of glassing a planet is the planet itself.
DNA modifying is truly amazing, however, there is no some sort of infinitely researchable tech for getting extra trait points for making intellegent super strong higly adaptable constantly happy supersupermen.Well there IS actually a mod for that, but what I was referring to is that an uplifted pop can start with unique traits that give them an edge in a field. They can then be modified with OTHER traits that also give an edge in said field, giving you at least one "super" stat. And the happy part just comes from them being uplifted, as simply being uplifted gives a huge happiness modifier.
No, they were never xenophobic. Fanatic Materialistic and Militaristic. I'm going to change government type from an autocratic one to a democratic one in a few years game-time and move a bunch of policy sliders to match. Though yeah, it's fucked how traits are basically set in stone instead of being affected by player actions. If you start thirty goddamn wars as a Fanatic Pacifist civ, you shouldn't be Fanatic Pacifist any more.
DNA modifying is truly amazing, however, there is no some sort of infinitely researchable tech for getting extra trait points for making intellegent super strong higly adaptable constantly happy supersupermen.I'd prefer if there was... A rare and expensive tech, to be sure, but becoming a race of super men seems like a reasonable goal to have once you run out of non-repeatable techs. Certainly more interesting than most of the repeatables.
I'm still confident as the devs know it needs improving, but I'm just not sure if they understand what people really want.
All you have to do is open up the 00_ship_sizes files for the latter two and make them compatible with each otherEw, actual work :P
Okay, the definitive combat mod setup for now is out:...in English, please? I'm not even entirely sure how to add extra names to a namelist mod; damned thing is locked up in a rar file and I don't want to unpack it for fear of breaking something.
ZBeautiful Battles
BB Compatible Ship Improvements
BB Compatible Rangefinder
Those three do everything that needs doing. All you have to do is open up the 00_ship_sizes files for the latter two and make them compatible with each other by adding Rangefinder's additional module slot to the four ship types for SI and changing the values for the mining, research, and outpost stations which SI sets in the Rangefinder file (lowering base cost, adding scaling cost based on components, and allowing them to be designed).
Get the decreased ship scale mod on top of that and you're set for some fancy, functional battles.
Navigate to C:>Users>Your Name>Documents>Paradox Interactive>Stellaris>workshop>content>[numbered folder]Okay, the definitive combat mod setup for now is out:...in English, please? I'm not even entirely sure how to add extra names to a namelist mod; damned thing is locked up in a rar file and I don't want to unpack it for fear of breaking something.
ZBeautiful Battles
BB Compatible Ship Improvements
BB Compatible Rangefinder
Those three do everything that needs doing. All you have to do is open up the 00_ship_sizes files for the latter two and make them compatible with each other by adding Rangefinder's additional module slot to the four ship types for SI and changing the values for the mining, research, and outpost stations which SI sets in the Rangefinder file (lowering base cost, adding scaling cost based on components, and allowing them to be designed).
Get the decreased ship scale mod on top of that and you're set for some fancy, functional battles.
One thing that currently hurts the game is that after you play enough you kind of realize "Rare tech" is not only nothing of the sort (I kind of wanted to be a special snowflake but no... everyone pretty much ends the game with the same rare techs) but for some semi-mandatoryThe problem is that there's too few techs, so you eventually deplete the deck. Not even that slowly, if you're keeping lean. It's a problem that will be gradually fixed as they add more techs to the game, although some rare stuff could definitely be rarer than it is. But between developments and mods, it will definitely be great in a year or two. Like with most of Stellaris.
I'd like it a lot if researching a rare tech actually closed off some research paths while giving you access to more specialized techs in the same vein. It would go a long way to helping me feel like my nation has an individual identity.Oh yeah, I saw a suggestion kind of like this for... Civilization, I think it was. Having tech trees branch out so you can specialise down different routes that effectively achieve the same thing but can be balanced differently.
I'd like it a lot if researching a rare tech actually closed off some research paths while giving you access to more specialized techs in the same vein. It would go a long way to helping me feel like my nation has an individual identity.
Ethos is supposed to be that branching. For example, psionic techs are very likely to be available for spiritualist but almost impossible for materialists to get. I agree that there should be more rare techs dependent on the ethos, government form and perhaps even biological traits of the main species.
Ethos is supposed to be that branching. For example, psionic techs are very likely to be available for spiritualist but almost impossible for materialists to get. I agree that there should be more rare techs dependent on the ethos, government form and perhaps even biological traits of the main species.
Yeah I keep hearing that. Except not only is psionics one of the "Required techs" for the late game... But my friend who plays a fanatic materialist has always got it.
It's pretty good, but I wouldn't call it "required".
I'd like it a lot if researching a rare tech actually closed off some research paths while giving you access to more specialized techs in the same vein. It would go a long way to helping me feel like my nation has an individual identity.
Sort of true for Psionics. But it's only a couple of techs deep, and they're not very compelling.
I'd like it a lot if researching a rare tech actually closed off some research paths while giving you access to more specialized techs in the same vein. It would go a long way to helping me feel like my nation has an individual identity.
Sort of true for Psionics. But it's only a couple of techs deep, and they're not very compelling.
I don't know, the Ministry Of Benevolence is pretty compelling.
I don't know, the Ministry Of Benevolence is pretty compelling.
Oho, I just got a rare random event that has some real snarky shots fired at climate change deniers.
Oho, I just got a rare random event that has some real snarky shots fired at climate change deniers.
Which one's that?
of the 5 x-com games I've played, it does not end well for the aliens.you must be a god
There are some fun quirks in those random events/anomalies. I really liked the one about Russel's teapot. Especially when on 2nd game I actually noticed that it is longest event (in research time) ingame... by A LOT.Oh so that's what that was supposed to be.
Eh don't give unmodded ai that much credit, everyone loving player under endgame threat is hardcoded. Ppl are already exployting it by keeping the endgame menaces confined, battered but alive
Hey, does anyone know what "differing war philosophies" mean? Can't join an alliance because of the -20 relations it gives.iirc it's a militant vs pacifist thing, or a bug. I forget which
Well, that's weird if it's pacifist vs militant, since I am neither (though my neighbours are all fanatic pacifists (execpt one who is regular pacifist, but still has the modifier)).Hey, does anyone know what "differing war philosophies" mean? Can't join an alliance because of the -20 relations it gives.iirc it's a militant vs pacifist thing, or a bug. I forget which
Turns out it is indeed a bug. You can probably overcome it with some of the other trade deals like civilian access.Well, that's weird if it's pacifist vs militant, since I am neither (though my neighbours are all fanatic pacifists (execpt one who is regular pacifist, but still has the modifier)).Hey, does anyone know what "differing war philosophies" mean? Can't join an alliance because of the -20 relations it gives.iirc it's a militant vs pacifist thing, or a bug. I forget which
There are some fun quirks in those random events/anomalies. I really liked the one about Russel's teapot. Especially when on 2nd game I actually noticed that it is longest event (in research time) ingame... by A LOT.Oh so that's what that was supposed to be.
I noticed there are two endings to that event.
Oh, and to clarify, "differing war philosophies" has apparently nothing to do with ethos. It shows up if you've been at war recently.That's funny, because it also shows up for me when I've NEVER BEEN IN A WAR AT ALL EVER.
hence why I said it's a bugOh, and to clarify, "differing war philosophies" has apparently nothing to do with ethos. It shows up if you've been at war recently.That's funny, because it also shows up for me when I've NEVER BEEN IN A WAR AT ALL EVER.
In response to those wishing we could set up agricultural worlds and ship food across the galaxy to support our Coruscant clones, I have written the Bread Baskets Mod (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690067609), which does just that.Ooouuuuhhhhh inam so going to test that!
Adds in two new buildings (plus three upgrades for each, eight techs and a new resource), the dehydrator and rehydrator. The dehydrator takes food and compresses it into 'stored food' (read: dry, tasteless nutrient bricks) which unlike food is shared between worlds. Hungry worlds can use the rehydrator to convert that stored food back into edible meals.
If anyone wants to test this out, would appreciate feedback on how/whether it works. Still bugs to iron out with it, naturally, and god only knows how sectors will react.
and god only knows how sectors will react.INB4 all planets are composed of half dehydrators and half rehydrators in an infinite loop.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684945619 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684945619)hence why I said it's a bugOh, and to clarify, "differing war philosophies" has apparently nothing to do with ethos. It shows up if you've been at war recently.That's funny, because it also shows up for me when I've NEVER BEEN IN A WAR AT ALL EVER.
Eh don't give unmodded ai that much credit, everyone loving player under endgame threat is hardcoded. Ppl are already exployting it by keeping the endgame menaces confined, battered but aliveRight now I've got my Unbidden contained and observed as my Universe's eye of terror. Due to where they arrived there is no easy gateway for them to exit their galactic spiral through the south, so they must go north - into all the Empires that hate me. Every time I feel their gaze upon my Southern Empire I delete all of my Fortresses to let the Unbidden harvest them and thin their numbers a bit, and when I feel they've had enough, send in a pacifying fleet and reconstruct the Fortress line to close the gaps once more and let the northern species recover. Since I've reverse engineered their tech, there seems little point in destroying them for good. Containment is expensive but... Having a doosmday in a bottle is too much fun! If anyone destroys my Empire, they unleash the Unbidden upon them as revenge :D
Also, I kind of want a taller tech tree. There's what, five tiers of power plant? Twenty or so could work, with similar scaling of the other techs. I want to still be partway through the tech tree even 300 years into a game.
Coincidentally I just had the Unbidden proc in my galaxy. They spawned on the leftmost spiral, in the middle of the "Federation of Pathetic Militaries Who Teamed Up to Keep the Fanatical Purifiers from Raping Them"
Yeah, those guys are about to get FUCKING WRECKED.
Which is actually pretty good for me, because once they get FUCKING WRECKED, the Unbidden will pretty much have to go through the Khessam, I.E. the Fanatical Purifiers who are the current strongest race in the galaxy. Who also happen to be RIGHT GODDAMN NEXT TO ME.
But now they have other problems :P
I'll pounce and liberate a bunch of their planets after they get FUCKING WRECKED.
I just noticed some bs. Earlier on, on lower levels i have seen my PD doing great. Now i just looked why my fleet got murdered by AI - not a single pd shot at torpedoes. I keep 1 guardian PD (t3) on each corvette and was being shot by armored torpedoes (t2, kinetic ones) of different sizes. My delay fleet of 20 corvettes was massacred by really low ammount of torpedoes before they close in without a single pd shot fired (neither graphically nor even pd listed in hit rate). The enemy however did shot down all my t3 torpedoes by using t2 pd. It annoyed me to the point i just pressed esc>exit to desktop as soon as i noticed the same thing happening in battle with my main fleet. At least lances and unbidden disintegrators make short work of anything.
edit: They do fire those PDs on enemy torpedoes only after they get to point-blank which is effin stupid for ships with 2 torpedoes, 1 pd and defensive computer to do.
While Distant Worlds...well, it won't improve anymore.It doesn't even have mods. =|
The lategame in Stellaris is garbage right now, and the next two patches won't fix that. There's no replayability in this game until the late/endgame isn't trash.
+Fixes for AI in end game crises.
O.o The forums of the publisher. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=795While Distant Worlds...well, it won't improve anymore.It doesn't even have mods. =|
Yeah, like a big one.O.o The forums of the publisher. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=795While Distant Worlds...well, it won't improve anymore.It doesn't even have mods. =|
Or do you mean something more substantial then what they have there?
Edit: Also, apparently I can make Android Xenomorphs. Science works in mysterious ways. Maybe they are cyberdemon type things.Don't stop there. Make Android Xenomorph Psi-Warriors.
Edit: Also, apparently I can make Android Xenomorphs. Science works in mysterious ways. Maybe they are cyberdemon type things.
You can clone army your droids too I believe! And make robotic versions of titanic life from that one planetary specialEdit: Also, apparently I can make Android Xenomorphs. Science works in mysterious ways. Maybe they are cyberdemon type things.
You can make robotic gene warriors so... Yeah. It's a thing. An extremely silly thing.
You can clone army your droids too I believe! And make robotic versions of titanic life from that one planetary specialEdit: Also, apparently I can make Android Xenomorphs. Science works in mysterious ways. Maybe they are cyberdemon type things.
You can make robotic gene warriors so... Yeah. It's a thing. An extremely silly thing.
But it begs the question why I needed to find dinosaurs before I could build dinosaur robots. Why not just make the big robots to start?You can clone army your droids too I believe! And make robotic versions of titanic life from that one planetary specialEdit: Also, apparently I can make Android Xenomorphs. Science works in mysterious ways. Maybe they are cyberdemon type things.
You can make robotic gene warriors so... Yeah. It's a thing. An extremely silly thing.
At least robotic titanic monsters kinda make sense. Maybe that's how the AT-AT was born.
Edit: Also, apparently I can make Android Xenomorphs. Science works in mysterious ways. Maybe they are cyberdemon type things.
You can make robotic gene warriors so... Yeah. It's a thing. An extremely silly thing.
So... can i get a rough comparison between this and Distant Worlds?Scale? quite small, game has plenty limiters (energy, navy size, planet count maluses)
Android xenomorphs are not as silly as they might seem.
Genetically enhanced robots. Probably riding xeno calvary. :vWell a good explanation would be your soldiers being basically brains in jars locked inside a mechanical body. The gene therapy enhances the brain and the body is basically a robot.
words
It already had a mirror in moddb before being taken down. Yet this mirror doesn't have the multiculturalism bit.words
Ah well, there was going to be a blowout no matter what they did. Not that it matters, as someone will probably reupload the mod at a later date.
Think Stellaris is worth buying in its current state? It give me 20 dollars leftover to spend on something else. Or should I wait for some DLC?
Think Stellaris is worth buying in its current state? It give me 20 dollars leftover to spend on something else. Or should I wait for some DLC?
While I think it is worth buying in its current state.
Wait for some DLC. It has a lot of egregious aspects right now and I feel like I like it in spite of how bad it is.
Infinite fucking DLCThe galaxy is vast, and full of DLC.
I thought he was proposing a DLC about unending copulation.Infinite fucking DLCThe galaxy is vast, and full of DLC.
words
Ah well, there was going to be a blowout no matter what they did. Not that it matters, as someone will probably reupload the mod at a later date.
While I don't regret my purchase, it feels like Stellaris is half a game right now. Which sounds vague and cliche, but seriously: It's a great game until you start noticing all the voids, not just where game could be or where you'd want it to be, but where it really looks like something was supposed to go and the devs wanted to put something in but didn't have time.Think Stellaris is worth buying in its current state? It give me 20 dollars leftover to spend on something else. Or should I wait for some DLC?
While I think it is worth buying in its current state.
Wait for some DLC. It has a lot of egregious aspects right now and I feel like I like it in spite of how bad it is.
Well, to be honest, I wish I'd borrowed Stellaris from a friend and spent $40 on Overwatch instead.
Should've kept their plausible deniability by staying out of it. Now everything they don't remove has implicit approval.words
Ah well, there was going to be a blowout no matter what they did. Not that it matters, as someone will probably reupload the mod at a later date.
Yeah, I saw trouble brewing the moment I noticed that set of mods. I also knew shit would only be thrown over the yuro one.
Until this thread I never realized how awesome Flying Dice is.Haven't tried them, but he also seems to be personifying the "it took modders 45 minutes to fix your broken shit with modding tools, what happened?" issue. Like I said earlier, there's areas of this game where they seem to have run out of time or made some mistakes, and there's areas of this game where they didn't seem to have given a single shit. Those latter areas are collectively known as naval combat.
Way to go dude.
Sorry to continue this thread, but what the heck is this Sweden yes/no thing?This is an easily googlable thing.
So, is the main complaint that there is a lot of things not finished, and pretty much left for DLC?There's actually going to be a fair amount of patching before they get into DLC, and it will be reasonably finished in like a year even without any DLC purchased.
I'll probably see how the game is after the 2nd patch.This is a wise course of action.
So, it's a Youtube video about local variations in the Swedish word for "yes" from Västerbotten on north? I can't see the fuss, but I'm sure you know better than I; after all, it's so easily Googled that it couldn't possibly mean anything else. :PSorry to continue this thread, but what the heck is this Sweden yes/no thing?This is an easily googlable thing.
Hey FD, could you get us a link to this mod whenever you got something out?I'm kinda hesitant to release it as a standalone since it's built pretty heavily on others' work. I'll probably only put it up as an explicit compilation+modification of the mods I'm working with, with my own touches included, and that only if I get permission from the authors involved. If that doesn't swing, I'll at least host a dropbox for whoever around here wants it.
Hello modder! Were you trying to fix strike crafts not by changing their range of fire? I have some small success with changing behavior to charge/follow with ridiculous range to return to formation (keeping engage range to 4.0). However half of the ships still don't release strike crafts (they are still near carrier) and if carrier doesn't have other long range weapon with def computer (max range behavior) it still tries to ram the enemy.
Also, did you find a way to make pd stop prioritizing strike crafts which are long outside their range?
you need also to change the hangar definitions to increase their range, but when I did that even if strikecraft were released afar they stayed near the carrier and shoot lasers from ridiculous distance.
So, is the main complaint that there is a lot of things not finished, and pretty much left for DLC?
I remember when I bought EU4, that was a major complaint (pretty sure it was EU4, maybe CK2? Both?) and I still had a lot of fun with it. I remember a ton of people complaining about EU4/CK2 and how buggy it was, and pretty sure one or both of them people complained about unfinished stuff too, or stuff that needed a lot of work.
I'll probably just wait to spend that 59.99 and see how things go. A patch is coming out supposedly for Stellaris today (or is it already out?) and a 2nd one after that.
Eh, I'm inclined to be a bit more positive than that. Stellaris has two things going for it: It's Paradox so it'll get better over time, and the premise behind it isn't "Take control of a nation and seek world domination on Earth in X time period" (or the same for "a remarkably Earthlike planet with random distribution of landmasses" in the case of Civ).
A big part of why CKII was so successful is that it deviated from that same formula by putting as much weight as it did on the RPG aspects of dynasty-building. All it really needs is for the bones of the major systems to be properly laid, which is what they appear to be doing; from what I've seen it's relatively straightforward to add additional bit-piece content like techs, modules, &c., apart from things that just aren't supported well/at all by the UI (like ships with markedly more sections). It's pretty simple, for example, to extend the ship-component techs and modules out to tier 10 for everything, just tedious.
You could also add a redundant tag in the non-functional modifiers list to simply act as a display of changes.I just tried this again today on a whim, and it decided to work this time. Goddamn, I don't even know. Not going to question it.
That's fair enough. Though that hasn't stopped CKII and EUIV from continuing to make the daily "top games by player count" list on Steam consistently. There's only about a thousand fewer people playing CKII than nuCOM 2, and the latter just had a major DLC drop.
That's fair enough. Though that hasn't stopped CKII and EUIV from continuing to make the daily "top games by player count" list on Steam consistently. There's only about a thousand fewer people playing CKII than nuCOM 2, and the latter just had a major DLC drop.
What list are you referring to? Or rather, what do you count as "top games by player count"? Because EU4 has never been in the top 25 as far as I know. CK2 is even smaller (and was never as big, anyway).
When it comes to Stellaris, I think this graph tells the story pretty nicely: http://steamcharts.com/cmp/8930,281990#1m
Honestly, I think the biggest issue with Stellaris is something that hasn't really been addressed by the devs. Right now, there's zero replayability. I think part of this stems from the fact that the game is an awkward mashup between a grand strategy and a 4X, but there's really no reason to play twice because once you've played to the end once, you've pretty much seen it all outside some flavour events. Putting aside the fact that right now the mid-endgame is a boring repetitive slog, something that is important in most 4Xs (and strategy games in general) is making the different sides you play as actually feel different from each other, and Stellaris does not accomplish that. Each race is only different by cosmetics, because you can customize ethics and gov type, and the ethics and gov types only provide small percentage bonuses one way or another. Playing as an individual materalist science government and a communal, spiritualist oligarchy will give you pretty much the same experience, outside of the silly flavour events that always happen for spiritualist. There's a severe lack of unique mechanics for gov types/ethics. Yeah, you're more able to have slaves as a communal species, and more able to purge as a xenophobic species, but that won't really change how you play your game. Everything still has the same boring ass endgoal, which is just to paint the map in your colour by slogging through hundreds of boring identical wars with all the federations that form. And even if the endgame events weren't totally broken, you can see all three in one playthrough, giving no reason to play again to try and find more. Even the planets you can settle makes no real difference. It's just either a boon or an inconvenience depending on how lucky you are with RNG, until you get to the midgame and the point becomes moot.
I'm sure unique mechanics for gov types and ethics will come in the inevitable rush of DLC, but they should be ashamed of the state they released the game in. By the midgame I had to force myself to keep playing because I wanted to see the endgame stuff, and once I realized how boring and broken they were, I quit. Tried again as a different race with different ethics, gov, etc, but it was just more of the same. That IGN was spot on, and I personally would've given it a lower score than 6.5, because only half of one game was any fun.
It sucks, I've been playing Paradox games since HOI2, and this is the first one that I've actively disliked. I love 4Xs and I love Paradox, but I just don't find Stellaris to be any fun past the early game, and I have no desire to play it again. We'll see what they do with DLCs, but I'm pretty disappointed.
A race is nothing more than a set of values that is never constant. You can select one of the eight pre-built races, but why bother, since none of them exists in the game? You might as well just roll your own race, because thats what the universe is going to do. Every faction you encounter in Stellaris is a randomly rolled set of values. Not procedural. Its not as if the bird people are better at flying, the reptile people are better at mining minerals, or the people people are better at diplomacy. Its completely random. The picture on their diplomacy screen is of no relevance whatsoever. There is nothing inherent in the slimy octopus people, the mushroom people, the bug people, or even the vanilla people people. No one eats rocks, or lives in caves, or doesnt need farms, or uses special rules. All that matters is their ethos, their traits, and how they move across the map. X, Y, and Z. This is where Paradoxs spreadsheet approach to gameplay, which serves them well when they breathe gameplay data into history, undermines a fundamental tenet of sci-fi. Aliens should be alien. Not just rolled dice with a bunch of babytalk names slapped onto them. Im-do. Quasvalyvia. Jouvon. Pouz-dok. Lagun-chuzz. Faffosan. You will always remember the Klackon in Master of Orion. You will never remember the Oogie-Nollocks Union in Stellaris.
That's fair enough. Though that hasn't stopped CKII and EUIV from continuing to make the daily "top games by player count" list on Steam consistently. There's only about a thousand fewer people playing CKII than nuCOM 2, and the latter just had a major DLC drop.It's also vastly more polished and fun.
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Did they actually conquer your planets or anything, or just roll over your military and then leave?snipped for text wall
They were in a different spiral arm, I had NO contiguous territory, they just declared war on me because I had first contact. This isn't a sympathy request, its a WTF. As in: I have no close contact with you, we don't even have any neighbors in common, all I did was get your attention by accident with a damn science ship, does that really require you to arbitrarily obliterate me?
It was a matter of days from first contact that they decided to wreck my shit, no insults, no nothing, they just said, 'nope fuck you' and killed me.
AI doesn't understand white peace currently, but Clarke will fix it.that sounds like it would actually make sense for fanatic militants and maybe militant empires. Those kinds of cultures who would see your 36 year war as a glourious contest against a worthy opponent instead of a damned slog.
Most of the time they just force you to vacate a couple colonies or humiliate you. I've barely seen anyone reporting them doing a total kill, and never experienced one myself.
That said, AI is kinda buggy, so they might get stuck and never end the war for whatever reason.
Those kinds of cultures who would see your 36 year war as a glourious contest against a worthy opponent instead of a damned slog.
Obvious answer: Colonize a new planet they didn't want you to vacate. Though this would obviously have had to happen prior to the blockadeningMost of the time they just force you to vacate a couple colonies or humiliate you. I've barely seen anyone reporting them doing a total kill, and never experienced one myself.
That said, AI is kinda buggy, so they might get stuck and never end the war for whatever reason.
Well the colonies they wanted me to vacate was every single planet I had, so it would have been a loss even if I surrendered.
I didn't have 350 days to get a colony ship built, I had like, 5 days tops between meeting them and them deciding I had to die, took less than a week for them to trash every single spaceport.
The part that's really bothering me is that they demanded I abandon worlds that were nowhere near them, like the two little colonies I had just put up at the tail end of my arm, those colonies were ridiculously distant from them. It is as if the AI just went down the list of planets I controlled and printed it as the war demands.
Fallen Empires just don't think the way you do. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality)Or more likely they're the only ones who think the way you (the player) do. Even/especially your own empire doesn't think the way you do, seeing as you can't do what they did to an AI and take their whole empire all at once. Nope, player has to take 2/3 planets at a time, while apparently the AI can just take whatever the fuck they want from you.
also don't you always keep a spare colony ship around to race toward juicy planets?
Worth noting that until the cost is switched over to scaling in Clarke you can actually vassalize an empire, regardless of size, for less warscore than taking one of their major worlds. If you can keep the lid on discontent and rebellion you can wait 3600 days to integrate them... or if you have the right ethics just purge/enslave all of their pops so you don't have to deal with the happiness and faction micromanagement bullshit.Fallen Empires just don't think the way you do. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality)Or more likely they're the only ones who think the way you (the player) do. Even/especially your own empire doesn't think the way you do, seeing as you can't do what they did to an AI and take their whole empire all at once. Nope, player has to take 2/3 planets at a time, while apparently the AI can just take whatever the fuck they want from you.
EIGHT FUCKING ENERGY WHYalso don't you always keep a spare colony ship around to race toward juicy planets?
a colony ship has a very high upkeep cost. depending on the stage of the game, a spare colony ship can be quite costly.
Worth noting that until the cost is switched over to scaling in Clarke you can actually vassalize an empire, regardless of size, for less warscore than taking one of their major worlds. If you can keep the lid on discontent and rebellion you can wait 3600 days to integrate them... or if you have the right ethics just purge/enslave all of their pops so you don't have to deal with the happiness and faction micromanagement bullshit.I'm torn between "ooh" and "what the shit, again." I swear they meant well with war score, but it's ever so slightly rough at the moment.
I actually kind of like the heavy investment for not just forming a colony, but keeping an entire pop's worth of colonists well supplied in an airtight tin can.EIGHT FUCKING ENERGY WHYalso don't you always keep a spare colony ship around to race toward juicy planets?
a colony ship has a very high upkeep cost. depending on the stage of the game, a spare colony ship can be quite costly.
EIGHT FUCKING ENERGY WHYalso don't you always keep a spare colony ship around to race toward juicy planets?
a colony ship has a very high upkeep cost. depending on the stage of the game, a spare colony ship can be quite costly.
EIGHT FUCKING ENERGY WHYalso don't you always keep a spare colony ship around to race toward juicy planets?
a colony ship has a very high upkeep cost. depending on the stage of the game, a spare colony ship can be quite costly.
Although frontier clinics and that tech that increases habitability by 5% will both help on the happiness front.
I'm pretty sure that More Technologies adds more planet uniques to increase happiness. I rolled one that gave I think +10% happiness and a boost to armies, flavored as a blood sport coliseum.The beta patch 1.1 is out now which supposedly fixed sector behavior, it even (again supposedly) correctly uses robot pops and respects the 'do not redevelop' tickmark
@LW: Don't use sector governors. Just don't. Get the mod that adds edicts to increase the core world cap to a number of different increments. There's zero shame in avoiding having to use a completely broken system, at the very least until they try to fix it in Clarke.
Sector AI is so bad that it will remove all the super-high-yield artifact buildings from captured ringworld segments and replace them with basic farms and mines.
I'm pretty sure that More Technologies adds more planet uniques to increase happiness. I rolled one that gave I think +10% happiness and a boost to armies, flavored as a blood sport coliseum.FD, apologies for yet another request, but since you are getting pretty involved in modding the game: could you provide a mod list with what you consider essential for this pre-Clarke version? Or at least what you are using.
@LW: Don't use sector governors. Just don't. Get the mod that adds edicts to increase the core world cap to a number of different increments. There's zero shame in avoiding having to use a completely broken system, at the very least until they try to fix it in Clarke.
Sector AI is so bad that it will remove all the super-high-yield artifact buildings from captured ringworld segments and replace them with basic farms and mines.
I'm pretty sure that More Technologies adds more planet uniques to increase happiness. I rolled one that gave I think +10% happiness and a boost to armies, flavored as a blood sport coliseum.FD, apologies for yet another request, but since you are getting pretty involved in modding the game: could you provide a mod list with what you consider essential for this pre-Clarke version? Or at least what you are using.
@LW: Don't use sector governors. Just don't. Get the mod that adds edicts to increase the core world cap to a number of different increments. There's zero shame in avoiding having to use a completely broken system, at the very least until they try to fix it in Clarke.
Sector AI is so bad that it will remove all the super-high-yield artifact buildings from captured ringworld segments and replace them with basic farms and mines.
-snip-Are these in the forums? Or steam workshop? Should've asked first. I'll search them both, but it may help others.
All workshop. The forums make it a pain in the ass to find stuff, some mods aren't there, and the masterlist doesn't get updated enough.-snip-Are these in the forums? Or steam workshop? Should've asked first. I'll search them both, but it may help others.
If you are willing to pay a lot, Distant Worlds is pretty good.
Beta patch fixes sectors.The AI doesn't use sectors AFAIK.
I was playing with sectors even before it since, honestly, I hate micro. If I had to manually take care of a dozen planets, I'd never get a dozen planets. I tend to neglect even the five planets I have. Usually I just choose four homeworlds of other species so I have more options for colony ships, but forget to build their infrastructure very well. I'm supposed to be a space emperor, not a space municipal engineer, dammit. If I want to build infrastructure, I'll play Cities Skylines.
Plus if the AI uses the sector AI to manage its planets, optimizing all your planets by hand gives you undue advantage in single player.
Yeah, Distant Worlds is amazing. Especially the automation so you can personally choose what you want to do.If you are willing to pay a lot, Distant Worlds is pretty good.
it's helluvalot good :P I'm playing with the picard era mod, automated everything out of everything, designed a large capital ship, named it enterprise and boldly went researching anomalies, destroying super weapons before they fell in wrong hands, blockading planets, destroying refueling stations, fighting pirates and generally having the time of my life XD
Although frontier clinics and that tech that increases habitability by 5% will both help on the happiness front.Well if you were still settling on one planet down the habitability scale with a frontier clinic, you'd still be capped at 65%. If you can bump that and happiness with social welfare up to 80-89%, you'd be getting half your money back. With the two habitability boosting techs you'd be capped at 75% happiness, basically requiring your planet to either have a paradise dome, your species to be adaptable or the planet to be lush to get half your money back. If your 1st tier colonized worlds are outnumbered by your 2nd tier colonized worlds, then you should just stick with content pops and not bother with social welfare, as you won't be able to make them joyous and will take a fifth of your economy out of work :D
... Why would the AI use sectors when both the sectors and the AI empires use the same AI, supposedly? "You can't control those planets, AI! You'll have to give it to yourself to control, in a sector!" The only reasoning I can see to give the AI sectors would be for sector governors.
That's his point. That the AI has control over your sector planets AND the planets of the AI empires, because they're both AI, and it'd be weird to program two different types of planetary control AI (not only is that a bit unbalanced if they're different [which one would be better, the sector AI, or the empire AI? Why that one and not the other? If they're not differing in quality, why have two different AI schemes?] but it's also more places for coding errors, which are apparently rife in Stellaris)
That's his point. That the AI has control over your sector planets AND the planets of the AI empires, because they're both AI, and it'd be weird to program two different types of planetary control AI (not only is that a bit unbalanced if they're different [which one would be better, the sector AI, or the empire AI? Why that one and not the other? If they're not differing in quality, why have two different AI schemes?] but it's also more places for coding errors, which are apparently rife in Stellaris)Not only does the AI use sectors, it uses them oddly. The weight is such that it only ever makes energy and mineral sectors, never defense or tech sectors.
I'm not sure what I think of the Precocious ones... I like to think of Traits as things that help define a species, and that give some kind of impact throughout the game. The Precocious ones are just a buff that's going to be invalidated around the mid game, if not earlier depending on luck of the draw.I'm still waiting for that $500 DLC that lets you start out as a fragmented nation, only slightly aware that you're being watched - only to emerge into a crowded galaxy, possibly after being uplifted against your will or some shit like that
Sublight as well, for the same reasons.
They're also not really examples of a racial trait... That's more a problem of Stellaris being so adamant that everyone needs to start at exactly the same position - period. It wants to be a 4x, which seems to work and is why you can't start as a Fallen Empire, but I think Paradox went a bit too far with requiring everyone to start from exactly the same position.
I think they're interesting ideas, though
I'm still waiting for that $500 DLC that lets you start out as a fragmented nation, only slightly aware that you're being watched - only to emerge into a crowded galaxy, possibly after being uplifted against your will or some shit like that500 dollars? What is this, Skyrim?
Being adopted right out the gate by a FE could make for some interesting interactions. "We've made it into sp-!" "HELLO NEW FRIENDS ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN HOW SPACE WORKS" "But... I wanted to-" "NO""GREETINGS FRIENDS, I'VE UPGRADED YOUR SPECIES"
Cue centuries of scheming and resentment.
500 dollars? What is this, Skyrim?No, it's a bad practice and I don't like that they're adding to the list of people getting away with having guaranteed profit before they've even released a finished product
People really need to stop the whole bashing on Paradox releases of Expansions when there are as big crooks as Sid Meiers or Sega.
Though what you said kinda made me think of Spore when you saw Alien ships flying about :PRIP in pes spore
You can always start with all Advance Start AI where you are the one late to space party and have to catch up.It would be fun to let the ai have something like a twenty year advantage on you.
I don't think the DLC model is that bad. If it weren't for the free patches it would be atrocious though.It worked in CK2 because the model was to change how a type of character worked and then getting the expansion allowed you to play as that type of character. The actual game functioned exactly the same with or without the expansion.
Imagine starting the game and realizing some other empire has already settled mars, and they contact you to say "this whole system belongs to you, except Europa. Set no foot there."I don't know how fun that'd be, but it'd be a sweet reference. Maybe even if was a rare event that meant "yeah you should probably restart the game".
Imagine starting the game and realizing some other empire has already settled mars, and they contact you to say "this whole system belongs to you, except Europa. Set no foot there."I don't know how fun that'd be, but it'd be a sweet reference. Maybe even if was a rare event that meant "yeah you should probably restart the game".
I haven't bought this yet, but I am a bit disappointed that it sounds like just another 4X. Maybe if there was actual half-decent delegation like in CK2, instead of this apparently absurdly bad sector system. Which I'm sure will improve in time. I'm definitely still keeping an eye on this, planning to pick it up later.
Imagine starting the game and realizing some other empire has already settled mars, and they contact you to say "this whole system belongs to you, except Europa. Set no foot there.
2010 reference I think...Imagine starting the game and realizing some other empire has already settled mars, and they contact you to say "this whole system belongs to you, except Europa. Set no foot there.Is that a reference to that Joe Haldeman series of books? Marsbound and whatnot?
Imagine starting the game and realizing some other empire has already settled mars, and they contact you to say "this whole system belongs to you, except Europa. Set no foot there."Is that a translation problem? Clearly they meant "except Mars"? :P
As parasitic tapeworms, they highly encourage you to colonize mars so they can colonize youImagine starting the game and realizing some other empire has already settled mars, and they contact you to say "this whole system belongs to you, except Europa. Set no foot there."Is that a translation problem? Clearly they meant "except Mars"? :P
So, on a whim I decided to observe a galaxy on max speed. About 10 minutes in, I saw a new empire pop up, a primitive nation that had just gained FTL.Heh, neat.
The location was the best part. Right slap bang in the middle of a Xenophobic Isolationist FE. They didn't last long.
I kind of expected black holes and pulsars to be more interesting. If nothing else, it would be interesting if a high-level tech would give you the option to build singularity stabilizers and use black holes as cross-galactic shortcuts.
It does weird me out a bit seeing my guys regularly scoot around black hole singularities like it's nothingA huge part of the problem is probably that weird stellar phenomena tend to be relatively alone, so there's just not that many opportunities for interesting stuff. At a bare minimum, making them way more likely to give research bonuses would be nice. More interestingly, making them heavy risk vs reward type situations where you can do fascinating work but at the risk of terrible consequences would be awesome.
Certain resources are only find from nebulae and dust clouds. Likewise, some end-game resources are mainly found in black hole or pulsar systems. I kind of miss having more strategic reasons for wanting certain systems, though. Maybe we get those in Heinlein when they spice up the middle game in general.From what I understand, they might have done well to release later and include Heinlein. Colony events sound like a big and kind of important change.
So, i saw 3 empire at war about to be vassalised by another bigger empire, i promptly built a coule tech 3 wormhole station to be able to reach the space *nazy* and war decced them, ill bash their heads in i will be the galactic freedom fighter! My goal was to form a federation with the 3 being attacked, they like me!.
Went to the bed guy homeworld and wrecked his force and homeworld, pulverized his navy and defense like there was nothing with only minimal loss on my side, war took about 6 months tops and i won. Open up the diplomacy window, go see the *victims* who was at war... They frigging hate me like im the frigging galactic black plague or something. Treat giving -180 point and doesnt seem to tick down.
Never saw anything that stupid... Kick a galactic bully real hard and get ire of their victimcs O.O...
So, i saw 3 empire at war about to be vassalised by another bigger empire, i promptly built a coule tech 3 wormhole station to be able to reach the space *nazy* and war decced them, ill bash their heads in i will be the galactic freedom fighter! My goal was to form a federation with the 3 being attacked, they like me!.Modern AI aren't very good at discerning circumstance. As far as they're concerned you beat up their neighbor and they're next.
Went to the bed guy homeworld and wrecked his force and homeworld, pulverized his navy and defense like there was nothing with only minimal loss on my side, war took about 6 months tops and i won. Open up the diplomacy window, go see the *victims* who was at war... They frigging hate me like im the frigging galactic black plague or something. Treat giving -180 point and doesnt seem to tick down.
Never saw anything that stupid... Kick a galactic bully real hard and get ire of their victimcs O.O...
In other Paradox games you can intervene in wars. I hope they add that in later patches, perhaps tie it into certain ethos and/or government and make it a policy choice. It would be nice to be able to play galactic police and sometimes be aided by others when you are being bullied. You can guarantee independence now, but that is different from intervening in already existing wars.Maybe if i had garanteed independace first would have helped. But yeah im peacefull fanatic materialist if i remember right in that game, but when i saw the guy being an ass to 3 other smaller empire with barely anything to defend themself i was fuck it, your gone, they will like me and join my alliance soon to bbe federation....
Well, since Grieger's experience mirrors my own (with the exception of the vacate or else message), only a few pages prior, then I'd say that you are either wrong or the game has substantial glitches when it comes to handling that behavior.Oh, the AI is bugged to shit. It's just that certain types of FE being assholes that attack you with little or no provocation is more or less intended, it's just that it happens when it shouldn't.
Yeah, that's two people who've had that happen now. Which means that those "you lose" scenarios are a thing that can happen, best case just a bug that will be ironed out, worst case its working as intended and sometimes you just get ayylmao'd.I'll look through the files when I get a chance. No clue how it would work though, I'm totally mucking around blind.
Also Flying Dice? Since you seem to be the resident codemonkey for this, is there a way to increase total warscore? I.E. 200 instead of 100 total? Would be GREAT if you could tie that into alliances, that each member increases your total conquest ability.
In other Paradox games you can intervene in wars. I hope they add that in later patches, perhaps tie it into certain ethos and/or government and make it a policy choice. It would be nice to be able to play galactic police and sometimes be aided by others when you are being bullied. You can guarantee independence now, but that is different from intervening in already existing wars.And more generally, things like sanctions or forbidding tourism or the like in response to specific things would do a lot to make the universe feel more alive. Somebody declares war, you declare your citizens are no longer permitted to trade with them as a result of said warmongering, another empire decides their people are no longer to visit your empire and vice versa as a result of this preachy meddling, a third empire decides its holdings are now sanctuaries and refueling points for any of your empire's vessels as a result of "standing up" to those assholes, etc.
I don't think anomaly exists previous scanning.They don't. However game use static seed, so savescumming will not work. Also you should investigate anomaly as soon as it's discovered because there is max number of anomalies active in system (1, with exceptions).
It does weird me out a bit seeing my guys regularly scoot around black hole singularities like it's nothingBlack holes are actually only a problem if you get really close. You can still orbit them like nothing, it's just gravity.
Woot? I've found three anomalies in the same system.Active, not discoverable. If you find one and click the "we'll deal with this later" button, you won't find any others when you survey the rest of the system.
In my hard game i was save scumming for result, and i can swear i saw splattercat choosing we will deal with this later and had a bunch on wait till he leveled his scientists.I don't think anomaly exists previous scanning.They don't. However game use static seed, so savescumming will not work. Also you should investigate anomaly as soon as it's discovered because there is max number of anomalies active in system (1, with exceptions).
That doesn't seem right. I know I've found multiple anomalies in systems before, even when leaving them alone for later.Woot? I've found three anomalies in the same system.Active, not discoverable. If you find one and click the "we'll deal with this later" button, you won't find any others when you survey the rest of the system.
Maybe. I honestly don't know how some of their systems work, I'm just remembering my current campaign where I had something like ten systems that only yielded one after I set the first one to wait.That doesn't seem right. I know I've found multiple anomalies in systems before, even when leaving them alone for later.Woot? I've found three anomalies in the same system.Active, not discoverable. If you find one and click the "we'll deal with this later" button, you won't find any others when you survey the rest of the system.
And even if I'm somehow wrong and you're describing how the game is supposed to be, it's still stupid. Finding an anomaly with a high chance of failure early in a system survey means you're screwed out of surveying the rest of the system, unless you want anomalies and are willing to risk your valuable science ship and scientist. Valuable, of course, being a relative term depending on how far into the game you are.
I would like to see a "balanced start" option, common in these procedurally generated 4X games. Meaning that there are a certain number of minerals, energy credits and science points in your home system (and maybe one or two others nearby) regardless of where you start. This would make for a bit more balanced game in the long run, as I can't tell you how many games I've had to abandon due to lack of decent colonizable worlds nearby, or a complete lack of mine-able resources (or even stars) in my starting influence.
It should also spawn Fallen Empires at least a few systems away at minimum. They should be the danger lurking in the dark, not the "oh shit, these guys were here the whole time?" sort of deal. I had one game where my home system was practically in the border of a xenophobic isolationist FE that I had to abandon after discovering, but a multitude of games that have not.
The random generator is just too... random at times.
The more I play with it, the more I like their approach to tech research times. It's one of the biggest things you have when trying to pull out of a crap starting position that left you with a tiny scrap of territory, and it's the polar opposite of most 4Xes where you'll be researching every tech in a handful of turns by the midgame because adding more territory points (cities, planets, systems, whatever) just increases your research income.
I'd like to see the research as one Scientist discovers the technology card you pick, then have to spend the research points teaching it out and implementing it to your nation.Changing infrastructre, fight bureaucracy to accept new blueprint, validate new blueprint, change tools of the trade and so on, thats how i see it too, not just a bunch of scientist face first in microscope and all. But one scientist fighting against an empire that doesnt like changes.
Hmm. Then wouldn't it be cool if you got to use "prototypes" of the the research in certain localized areas? Like being able to put a new weapon on a single ship before the research is complete, or to use a mining tech on only one colony?
Geee, why does EVERY Humanity Fuck Yeah Empire must use that fucking eagle. I know we all aspire to be as cool as Imperium of Man from Wh40k, but come on, there are other cool symbols.Because I'm playing a fascistic militaristic shithole and there's few things authoritarians love more than symbolic callbacks to old heraldry? GW didn't invent the idea, you know?
Actually you can settle right next to a non-militant isolationist FE and most of the time they won't really care.
Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.
Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".
Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.
Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".
so, uhm, I hate bringing data to this, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita
smaller nation with more focus and even higher spending doesn't advance any faster than the top three (USA, Russia, China)
Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.
Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".
Except it wouldn't work like that unless they could communicate with eachother well. What if they just covered the same thing that the majority of every other scientist have already covered?Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.
Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".
UH. You do realise that if you have ten planets full of scientists, resources and infrastructure you'd quickly be able to outplace two planets full of scientists and infrastructure. Each data 'trip' would be slower, but each exchange would be far more fruitful. Even if your the ability to quickly converse between yourselves doubled your efficiency and then doubled again due to an easier roll out, you'd still be much slower than 10 planets worth of scientists (who I assume would also have 10 lots of logicians).
More resources and scientists = faster research.
Except it wouldn't work like that unless they could communicate with eachother well. What if they just covered the same thing that the majority of every other scientist have already covered?
Except it wouldn't work like that unless they could communicate with eachother well. What if they just covered the same thing that the majority of every other scientist have already covered?
I'd assume by the time you're a space faring civilisation you've mastered the ability to segregate work - or, as I said, you could divide up the sciences by planet groupings.
Think about something like missile development, you'd probably have a smallish section of your research staff working on that, and you could lob them all in one place (think atomic bomb projects) and let them get on with it. There's obviously roll out on top of that, but I'd imagine you'd have a pretty good idea of how to picket across data from jump points.
I'm not saying that it's a exponential curve, but more resources can ONLY SPEED UP SCIENCE.
Say you're developing a new rocket, you have a 100 people working on it, they know the basics of rocketry and are able to start off with a sound design that they then iterate on until it's a viable product. If you make that a 1000 people they probably won't be any faster because it'll still be the same basic rocket they're iterating on, so a lot of them will either be repeating what others do, leading to nothing new, or will be chasing developmental dead ends which would turn out a waste of resources.
It's like you didn't even read any of the discussion we just had about how the research times are likely representative of not only the scientific study and engineering development but also distribution and standardization--it doesn't matter if one of your research teams has figured out how to build battleships efficiently if that knowledge isn't transmitted and put into practice.
Also, talking about specialization and compartmentalization of research? Have you played Stellaris? Like every other 4X, it tackles research projects with the sum total resources of your entire empire's relevant specializations.
well, in stellaris you research faster by being bigger. just with diminishing returns. unless you do stupid things like having your whole empire full of 6 tile planets with one or less labs each. in that case you suffer greatly and rightfully so, since research coordination would be a nightmare.
Protip: if you don't focus on having good research, you won't have as good research as those who do.
Imagine if in Civilization if for every city you had, you got less research.
Imagine if in Civilization if for every city you had, you got less research.
Whew man. That's a big ask. I don't think I could possibly imagine such a radical thing. Or, to put it another way, that is how it works in Civ, yes.
Only in Civ V AFAIK. Didn't work that way before.Imagine if in Civilization if for every city you had, you got less research.
Whew man. That's a big ask. I don't think I could possibly imagine such a radical thing. Or, to put it another way, that is how it works in Civ, yes.
Only in Civ V AFAIK. Didn't work that way before.Imagine if in Civilization if for every city you had, you got less research.
Whew man. That's a big ask. I don't think I could possibly imagine such a radical thing. Or, to put it another way, that is how it works in Civ, yes.
It's also incredibly retarded and counter-intuitive. It's like rubber-banding in a racing game. All for the sake of "balance" achieved in the lamest, most gamey way possible.
Only in Civ V AFAIK. Didn't work that way before.Imagine if in Civilization if for every city you had, you got less research.
Whew man. That's a big ask. I don't think I could possibly imagine such a radical thing. Or, to put it another way, that is how it works in Civ, yes.
It's also incredibly retarded and counter-intuitive. It's like rubber-banding in a racing game. All for the sake of "balance" achieved in the lamest, most gamey way possible.
This. The last thing I want stellaris to be similar to is civ V.
You're in trouble when things start taking over 70-80 months to complete.
1-5 years is the norm. You're in trouble when things start taking over 70-80 months to complete.
Historically speaking, in real world population numbers didn't convert into research speed this well.
Some kind of measure to counter early landgrab snowballing into complete technological dominance is needed.
Am I the only one who also wants a way for empires to LOSE technology?
Am I the only one who also wants a way for empires to LOSE technology? I'm not sure what the best way to implement it would be, possibly through events but that leaves things stupidly random. Though a Y2K style Crisis event would be kinda interesting, where all the tech storage databases in the galaxy basically fuck up all at once, leaving everyone with shitty tech again in the mid/late game.
Still, that could also be very shitty and unfun.
Mostly I want to see things where Fallen Empires actually y'know...FALL. Like just collapse on their own instead of being super leet megaempires the whole game.
It does however, allow you to have some scientists working on propulsion, and some on guns, and so forth. There would be problems in logistics, but you're balancing that by being able to tackle more areas/avenues of research simultaneously. Yes, Stellaris groups it all into three parts, but the whole thing was about it being somehow faster to research with less resources. I agree that there are diminishing returns, and that distribution and standardization would be resource consuming, but if you've got a two world empire it's not going to be faster in the long term than a 20 world empire full of thriving metropolises all putting out different ideas and avenues of research.
Yes, at large population sizes, you start having diminished returns. The key thing here is that they'll still be positive, i.e. adding more people would not decrease your actual research speed. It may decrease the implementation speed, but that's much better simulated by requiring you to construct special buildings to be able to gain actual advantages from technologies (as it's usually done in Civilization series).It might. Modern pharmaceutical research, for instance, is heavily, heavily gated by a number of agencies, policies, agendas, and so on. The idea that colonizing Mars would actually slow us down on that front really isn't hard to believe.
A square root function would work out quite nicely here, I think.
I'd like a more fluid game on paper, but even I have to admit a 4X where you're constantly losing half your empire would be hard to make satisfying. And let's face it, Stellaris is having enough trouble being itself without trying to do a ballerina dance on top of that.Am I the only one who also wants a way for empires to LOSE technology?
probably not, but most players would hate the feeling of technology being subtracted.
It might. Modern pharmaceutical research, for instance, is heavily, heavily gated by a number of agencies, policies, agendas, and so on. The idea that colonizing Mars would actually slow us down on that front really isn't hard to believe.
What if you had to 'research' tech twice, oncee to discover them, and once on each planet (at a tiny fraction of the cost) to implement them there? Basically, like building buildings, but with a cost in research point?
What if you had to 'research' tech twice, oncee to discover them, and once on each planet (at a tiny fraction of the cost) to implement them there? Basically, like building buildings, but with a cost in research point?
Well, it would represent the cost of training the planet in the use of the new tech.
That's exactly what it means. Otherwise China and India would be the most advanced countries on the planet, or at absolute worst tied. They're not, largely because they've historically been too preoccupied with internal bullshit to advance their scientific understanding of the world very well. In fact, purely coincidentally I'm sure, they're some of the most stereotypically "still has isolated semimedieval villages and vast swathes of poverty" places in the world.QuoteIt might. Modern pharmaceutical research, for instance, is heavily, heavily gated by a number of agencies, policies, agendas, and so on. The idea that colonizing Mars would actually slow us down on that front really isn't hard to believe.
but that doesn't mean smaller countries with less string attached to research advance any faster
Well, explicitly. You can still assume Warship Engines Tier 2 have a social cost in that putting them on your ships requires putting them everywhere so that your entire empire is set up to produce fuel, parts, expertise, and so on. At that point getting every vehicle in your empire to switch engines and every power plant to produce different batteries and every mechanic to completely retrain themselves and so on makes sense as an ordeal.What if you had to 'research' tech twice, oncee to discover them, and once on each planet (at a tiny fraction of the cost) to implement them there? Basically, like building buildings, but with a cost in research point?
A lot of techs lack a social cost anyway.
Research is probably thematically the closest you'll get in a single resource, as it represents figuring out how things work. Figuring out how to slot a new invention into the current system in such a way that it actually gets used is probably the most reasonable approximation of trying to introduce a New Thing.Well, it would represent the cost of training the planet in the use of the new tech.
Maybe that's money or influence... more research points is thematically the wrong cost.
^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.
^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.
Well I'd think Sealand, which is a country contained entirely on a oil rig, would technically be the technological capital of the world.
^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.
Well I'd think Sealand, which is a country contained entirely on a oil rig, would technically be the technological capital of the world.
They're not recognized internationally though, so maybe the Vatican? They're even a fanatic spiritualist Theocratic Oligarchy.
Historically, China was one of the most advanced countries on the planet, as was India, to a lesser extent. China has a pretty sizable urban population now as well. United States is third in population, and its where a lot of research and technological advances have been occurring for the past century.
^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.Was it? I was under the impression that it invented a decent amount of stuff initially, but was never really cutting edge except by comparison during slumps. Gunpowder being the obvious poster child, where they came up with it centuries before everyone else got a hold of it, but weren't really involved in making it The New Thing the way Europe did.
You have to admit, when Sealand decides to install more efficient power outlets, they have waaaaaaaaaay fewer committees and deep-seated traditions to go around to do it. Not like Double Sealand, where the North Rig and the South Rig keep disagreeing on import criteria and safety regulations.^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.
Well I'd think Sealand, which is a country contained entirely on a oil rig, would technically be the technological capital of the world.
I'm pretty sure Marvel is large and stupid enough that it agrees with everyone eventually.They're not recognized internationally though, so maybe the Vatican? They're even a fanatic spiritualist Theocratic Oligarchy.
Well in Marvel that is... stupidly accurate. The Vatican with their ancient magical technology to create modern day Crusades.
So there we go! even Marvel Agrees with you!
Going to have to make an empire for Stellaris called Francia, ruled by a Karling. That's what all my games suggests should have inevitably happened.
Regnum Francorum then.Going to have to make an empire for Stellaris called Francia, ruled by a Karling. That's what all my games suggests should have inevitably happened.
"Francia" is merely France in Spanish. ;)
Historically, China was one of the most advanced countries on the planet, as was India, to a lesser extent. China has a pretty sizable urban population now as well. United States is third in population, and its where a lot of research and technological advances have been occurring for the past century.^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.Was it? I was under the impression that it invented a decent amount of stuff initially, but was never really cutting edge except by comparison during slumps. Gunpowder being the obvious poster child, where they came up with it centuries before everyone else got a hold of it, but weren't really involved in making it The New Thing the way Europe did.
It's true that the US is both fairly large and pretty advanced, but they're a pretty distant third in pop and still not exactly racing ahead of the pack.
.
Historically, China was one of the most advanced countries on the planet, as was India, to a lesser extent. China has a pretty sizable urban population now as well. United States is third in population, and its where a lot of research and technological advances have been occurring for the past century.^ but also it now increases costs based on how many planets you have, which is like saying that Andorra should be more technologically advanced than Canada, or something like that.Was it? I was under the impression that it invented a decent amount of stuff initially, but was never really cutting edge except by comparison during slumps. Gunpowder being the obvious poster child, where they came up with it centuries before everyone else got a hold of it, but weren't really involved in making it The New Thing the way Europe did.
It's true that the US is both fairly large and pretty advanced, but they're a pretty distant third in pop and still not exactly racing ahead of the pack.
.
The problem with all this reasoning is that you are looking at data trough a slit to find evidences of population correlating with research while ignoring all other thing that actually do (like gdp and research/military spending). Sure if you look hard enough you can find at least some examples where it holds true, which means jack shit.
(http://www.decisionskills.com/uploads/5/1/6/0/5160560/4472668.png?641)
http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Is that it?
Yes, that was it. Thank you!
Found one that actually sounds like it could be directly correlated if you squint at it hard enough.Well, they're all directly correlated. It's causation you're thinking of. I think that the causal relationship is probably indirect anyway but those definitely could be well related.
"Total Revenue Generated by Arcades and Computer Science Doctorates awarded in US"
Another one.
"Juvenile Drug Arrests (US) and Number of Kids Killed by Their Parent" :(
On reflection, espionage is totally missing from the game. There's room still to add a whole class of leaders -- call them diplomats -- and start trying to steal tech, assassinate alien leaders, sabotage starports...
Where is this stuff?
On reflection, espionage is totally missing from the game. There's room still to add a whole class of leaders -- call them diplomats -- and start trying to steal tech, assassinate alien leaders, sabotage starports...
Where is this stuff?
Before LoSboccacc's comment, I actually thought this was the HoI thread, because the same thing applies there. Dammit Paradox. At least that felt more finished then Stellaris though. That first release was not good, and they don't seem to have any plans to fix what I consider to be the fundamental problems with Stellaris, which also sucks because it has a ton of potential, but it's all gonna be locked behind DLC.
What are the fundamental things lacking in Stellaris?
Honestly, I think the biggest issue with Stellaris is something that hasn't really been addressed by the devs. Right now, there's zero replayability. I think part of this stems from the fact that the game is an awkward mashup between a grand strategy and a 4X, but there's really no reason to play twice because once you've played to the end once, you've pretty much seen it all outside some flavour events. Putting aside the fact that right now the mid-endgame is a boring repetitive slog, something that is important in most 4Xs (and strategy games in general) is making the different sides you play as actually feel different from each other, and Stellaris does not accomplish that. Each race is only different by cosmetics, because you can customize ethics and gov type, and the ethics and gov types only provide small percentage bonuses one way or another. Playing as an individual materalist science government and a communal, spiritualist oligarchy will give you pretty much the same experience, outside of the silly flavour events that always happen for spiritualist. There's a severe lack of unique mechanics for gov types/ethics. Yeah, you're more able to have slaves as a communal species, and more able to purge as a xenophobic species, but that won't really change how you play your game. Everything still has the same boring ass endgoal, which is just to paint the map in your colour by slogging through hundreds of boring identical wars with all the federations that form. And even if the endgame events weren't totally broken, you can see all three in one playthrough, giving no reason to play again to try and find more. Even the planets you can settle makes no real difference. All species are guaranteed two habitable planets within close-range and past that it's just either a boon or an inconvenience depending on how lucky you are with RNG, until you get to the midgame and the point becomes moot.
I'm sure unique mechanics for gov types and ethics will come in the inevitable rush of DLC, but they should be ashamed of the state they released the game in. By the midgame I had to force myself to keep playing because I wanted to see the endgame stuff, and once I realized how boring and broken they were, I quit. Tried again as a different race with different ethics, gov, etc, but it was just more of the same. That IGN was spot on, and I personally would've given it a lower score than 6.5, because only half of one game was any fun.
It sucks, I've been playing Paradox games since HOI2, and this is the first one that I've actively disliked. I love 4Xs and I love Paradox, but I just don't find Stellaris to be any fun past the early game, and I have no desire to play it again. We'll see what they do with DLCs, but I'm pretty disappointed.
I don't agree with replayability, but I've heard the complaint from other sources. So I certainly acknowledge that many people have the same issue. It seems to be a matter of taste.
Personally, I've played 100 hours or so, but I think 70 of them have been early game. Basically I've been starting new games over and over again. Expanding, exploring anomalies and so forth is so much fun. Middle game is where I tend to lose interest and when I return to the game, I just start all over again.
Paradox has already said they will work on the middle game events, so yeah, I look forward to seeing what the game will be in the future. Right now I think it is the best 4X that has come out recently, beating GalCiv etc handily. However, of the new-ish games Distant Worlds is still better. I just see Stellaris taking over DW in a year or so with new content and mechanics.
Either way, I've said my piece, and I don't see this game getting to a state that I would personally consider good without a bunch of DLCS, which isa shame.exactly what we expected from the start
I think it's also absolutely vital there be a giant superlaser capable of destroying planets. It's a vital component of 4x space games and the quality of such a game is indirectly related to this ability.Planet destroyers from DW, too.
For example, MoO2 had an incredible cutscene (back in the day) of you cutting a planet in half with the stellar converter.
Honestly, if a space game lacks planet destruction, something's gone seriously wrong somewhere in the design process.
Until they fix cat-and-mouse doomstack on doomstack action that war currently is, I'd rather them not give ability to blow up planets.
EDIT: Honestly, I think the fact that discussion in this thread dried up so quickly is evident that it is lacking somehow. Is anyone here still playing this regularly? I remember when CKII came out that thread was rapidfire for months, it's still very active. In the first few months there was all sorts of cool stories and playthroughs. Here there's been just over 20 posts on this thread since the start of June for a game that came out less than a months ago, and most of those were related to DLC or the argument about how the tech penalties for having a large empire don't make sense by comparing it to real countries.Lots and lots of modding and experimentation is required before a full gaming session can be completed, and the killing detail is that besides the Crisis species, the nomads and spacefaring xenos, the species of Stellaris are by virtue of totally random RNG usually less different from one another than CKII individuals are from one another. It is also particularly noticeable that religious ethos governments don't have religions represented, just some vague notion of spiritualness, so you get that funny situation where fanatical purifiers absolutely hate each other for being heretics but once one conquers the other becomes one massive fanatical family without issue ;P
Like, don't get me wrong. I'm sure that in 2019 or so, with seven DLCs and a pile of mods, it'll be a good game. But it's not that game right now.
Honestly, I don't think we're going to be seeing anything new from Pdox for a little while. They've got four games to make DLC for, and I think they're going to stretch them as much as they can, while working on a new engine in the background. Isn't HOI IV the last game on Clausewitz? It better be at least.
why didn't they build upon CKII?They did, for four years so far and a new expansion is coming out in a while.
Think he meant using some of those systems in Stellaris.why didn't they build upon CKII?They did, for four years so far and a new expansion is coming out in a while.
I hope we get better political and diplomatic interactions in the future. Federations are screaming for a DLC, for example. There should be different type of federations with policies of their own and forming a federation should include talks on what these policies are. For example, is the leader elected in a popular election or circulated among the members or what, does the federation tax the population, who pays for the federal fleet and so forth. I think federations should share anomalies and anomaly results too, making it easier to achieve the precursor quest line, for example.The developers could look to Space Empires V for a skeletal policy implementation.
Goodness, I am desperately trying to like this game, but the more I try to play it the more it reaches the point of tedium, especially when it comes to planet upgrades :/
Meh, it's still fun and I got a lot of hours on it, and they are releasing a lot of free content.
The amount of negativity from you guys is quite amazing. Did you wade in expecting a pure 4X or a pure Paradox grand strategy and were disappointed because it is neither? Not baiting, I'm genuinely curious.
The amount of negativity from you guys is quite amazing. Did you wade in expecting a pure 4X or a pure Paradox grand strategy and were disappointed because it is neither? Not baiting, I'm genuinely curious.
Reviews for the game are still universally positive and many players enjoy the game even now, while looking forward to new things instead of feeling the game is currently utterly crippled. Yet there is a small and vocal portion who seem to think Stellaris raped their mom and I'm curious to know why is that? I see many deficiencies in the game, but I still got a lot of fun game time out of it. Now I'm just looking forward to major patches, new content and mods.
Well it's free, it's new, and it's content.Technically the game itself is "free content" once you've paid for it. Most people use the term to describe "above and beyond" additions, which generally require satisfaction with wherever they're adding onto.
So "free content" seems like a pretty logical name for it.
The amount of negativity from you guys is quite amazing. Did you wade in expecting a pure 4X or a pure Paradox grand strategy and were disappointed because it is neither? Not baiting, I'm genuinely curious.Well, yeah. There's not enough there for it to be mechanically good or thematically good, so we're left with a bland game that really seems to have intended to be amazing, but was left half finished.
Reviews for the game are still universally positive and many players enjoy the game even now, while looking forward to new things instead of feeling the game is currently utterly crippled. Yet there is a small and vocal portion who seem to think Stellaris raped their mom and I'm curious to know why is that? I see many deficiencies in the game, but I still got a lot of fun game time out of it. Now I'm just looking forward to major patches, new content and mods.Wasn't there a bunch of hubbub about a major review being negative, which their post-release dev diary acknowledged while explaining all the things that went wrong?
I've seen people say they are/have enjoyed the game as is, especially before they've played a ton. I don't think I've seen many people talk about how fun the game is without acknowledging problems elsewhere or mentioning something about future content. The idea that the game isn't done yet is pretty much unanimous, which some people seem to be interpreting as "early access woo" and others seem to be interpreting as "we'll sell you the rest in six months."
Yeah, that's the thing, I don't mind shallow games, as long as they're intended to be shallow, are engaging in what they do offer, and are priced appropriately. Take Neptune's Pride, that's an extremely abstracted, simple 4X, but it's free to play (with a few premium benefits for a cheap fee), doesn't pretend to be anything more, and has a lot of potential for fun mindgames with other players.
The problem with Stellaris is that it was clearly supposed to be a complex, relatively deep game, but Paradox launched it something like six months or a year too early, and given their track record it's basically guaranteed that they're going to finish it with a series of $20 DLCs that add basic systems and mechanics that were clearly intended to be included from the start.
Secondary question: Do you play multiplayer 4X games so you and your friends can roflstomp the AI (considering it's an almost foregone conclusion in SP, why do you need the help)?
Don't be coy about abbreviations. It's not cute or funny.
And, again, there's nothing preventing it from being a good 4X. The bones are there, it's just the typical Paradox MO preventing it. Because good 4Xes generally have good diplomacy systems and decent AI (or, at the very least, ones appropriate to the game). The line straddle is there only because they half-assed everything instead of committing to anything.
I'm not forgiving the massive faults in the game, I'm just saying that the game-types people often play aren't its strong point. Don't believe the hype. There is not a maximal galaxy size with interesting species and interactions available.
There probably is a nice little MP 4X game sitting in the game options though. One where, in a nice little galaxy, shit really does matter.
Is the honeymoon over?For me it's mostly because I started an affair with HOI4. Once Asimov's out I'll probably start Stellarising again.
I'm not forgiving the massive faults in the game, I'm just saying that the game-types people often play aren't its strong point. Don't believe the hype. There is not a maximal galaxy size with interesting species and interactions available.What about it makes it good for small MP games? Everything you've mentioned sounds like innate features of a specific group of people playing in a specific manner that they enjoy. The combat and conquest systems are shit and there's almost no interaction possible between two empires beyond murdering each other, so... what makes this any better than awesome backstabbing in any other game?
There probably is a nice little MP 4X game sitting in the game options though. One where, in a nice little galaxy, shit really does matter.
Is the honeymoon over?At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair. When the 1.2 patch comes out I expect a lot of the current issues to be cleaned up a bit, enough for me to have another go at a nice long game. Meantime I'm having a little summer fling with Mein Fuhrur
Meantime I'm having a little summer fling with Mein Fuhrur
The amount of negativity from you guys is quite amazing. Did you wade in expecting a pure 4X or a pure Paradox grand strategy and were disappointed because it is neither? Not baiting, I'm genuinely curious.I went in knowing the design goals of the game, but hoping for it to be polished and high quality. That's not where it was at release. I expected that, but I was still surprised by the degree to which it was true.
Reviews for the game are still universally positiveThis is objectively false.
and many players enjoy the game even now, while looking forward to new things instead of feeling the game is currently utterly crippled. Yet there is a small and vocal portion who seem to think Stellaris raped their momYou're being disingenuous. People who criticize Stellaris are people that find it at least partly enjoyable and who want the new things to improve it. Saying it is heavily flawed now is not the same as saying it shouldn't be fixed. In fact, it's the opposite of that.[/quote]
I guess what I'm saying is, Stellaris lends itself well to spoken or written diplomacy. The actual diplomacy system is mostly just there to allow you to interact with AI players, not humans.Compare this to Paradox's previous work, where diplomacy is a substantial part of the meat of the game.
Is the honeymoon over?I'm not playing the game until September, though life circumstances are influencing that even more than the unsatisfactory state of the game. I'd probably give it a serious go again after Asimov otherwise.
What is kind of sad for me...Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel too. I don't think Stellaris is a phenomenal game -- not yet -- but it's one of the most engaging 4X games I've played anyway. It needs more mechanics, more depth, more complexity -- but it's a deeper game than most of its competition as-is. It's certainly deeper than GalCiv 3, Endless Space, Masters of Orion, et al. Distant Worlds and Aurora are on a different level, but Stellaris can probably reach DW after it gets a few meaty expansions.
Is this is STILL one of the best Space 4x games I ever played... featuring a LOT of the content that is usually expected of that genre (even if it is often in a dinky manner).
But then again... the 4x space games are usually... pretty bland and boring. So this game weasels into my top 5 via no competition.
At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair.
Battleship Class Weapons. Some Battleship front sections will be repurposed for an XL size weapon slot. There are currently four ship sizes but only three sizes to weapons, creating an imbalance. Also, Battleships should have fewer small weapon slots and have to rely on screens of smaller ships.Fuck, part of the great fun of battleships is building up capital doomfleets without corvettes buzzing around :<
Living Solar Systems: Little civilian ships moving around, etc.Little graphical things like that really make the cake
"Goodbye Stellaris, I'm going to see another game."At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair.LoL more like she went straight out of the bathroom and looking at me in the eyes said - "no bjs till I'm fifty"
It's like you met this girl on a dating site and you two seemed to hit it off really well. From her pictures she looked super fit and she seemed to carry herself off well. Not to mention you got to talk to her friends and they made you think she was great. When you decide to meet however, turns out she doesn't have money for the cab fare to get there so after some hesitation you decide to just pay for that.At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair.
LoL more like she went straight out of the bathroom and looking at me in the eyes said - "no bjs till I'm fifty"
10/10It's like you met this girl on a dating site and you two seemed to hit it off really well. From her pictures she looked super fit and she seemed to carry herself off well. Not to mention you got to talk to her friends and they made you think she was great. When you decide to meet however, turns out she doesn't have money for the cab fare to get there so after some hesitation you decide to just pay for that.At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair.
LoL more like she went straight out of the bathroom and looking at me in the eyes said - "no bjs till I'm fifty"
She arrives. She looks pretty but she's shallow and extremely materialistic. You get the feeling she's not all there. She's fun to be with at first, but soon you realize two things. One, she seems to be just repeating what people have said before. Two, she's actually only 14-years-old. You were just completely bedazzled initially by her looks to notice.
So after an awkward firstconta-meeting, you finally drop her back off at her place. You're feeling a bit regretful at the whole affair and kinda want your cab fare back (along with the other expenses she managed to accrue along the way). The door opens and 'lo and behold. Her dad is there. It's motherfucking Crusader Kings II. He's shirtless, abs glistening with sweat like he just finished another exhilarating workout. Hair parted in that perfect way that accentuates his perfect face. his eyes brimming with the spark and wisdom of age. He smiles a bit at you, knowingly with a dash of smugness that comes across as just beautiful in every way. There are a few scars on his chest which mark the signs of his intense battle to get to where he is. His hand decorated with the blood of the heathen. His magnificent DEUS VULT under the towel that he greets you in, huge in size and bursting with... DLC.
You take another look at Stellaris. She eyes you coquettishly, though you can't help but remind yourself how young she is, especially when compared to her father.
You realize what she might be when she becomes an adult, her pedigree might take her far.
But for now, you toss Stellaris into the bushes and jump into the arms of Crusader Kings II.
It's like you met this girl on a dating site and you two seemed to hit it off really well. From her pictures she looked super fit and she seemed to carry herself off well. Not to mention you got to talk to her friends and they made you think she was great. When you decide to meet however, turns out she doesn't have money for the cab fare to get there so after some hesitation you decide to just pay for that.At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair.
LoL more like she went straight out of the bathroom and looking at me in the eyes said - "no bjs till I'm fifty"
She arrives. She looks pretty but she's shallow and extremely materialistic. You get the feeling she's not all there. She's fun to be with at first, but soon you realize two things. One, she seems to be just repeating what people have said before. Two, she's actually only 14-years-old. You were just completely bedazzled initially by her looks to notice.
So after an awkward firstconta-meeting, you finally drop her back off at her place. You're feeling a bit regretful at the whole affair and kinda want your cab fare back (along with the other expenses she managed to accrue along the way). The door opens and 'lo and behold. Her dad is there. It's motherfucking Crusader Kings II. He's shirtless, abs glistening with sweat like he just finished another exhilarating workout. Hair parted in that perfect way that accentuates his perfect face. his eyes brimming with the spark and wisdom of age. He smiles a bit at you, knowingly with a dash of smugness that comes across as just beautiful in every way. There are a few scars on his chest which mark the signs of his intense battle to get to where he is. His hand decorated with the blood of the heathen. His magnificent DEUS VULT under the towel that he greets you in, huge in size and bursting with... DLC.
You take another look at Stellaris. She eyes you coquettishly, though you can't help but remind yourself how young she is, especially when compared to her father.
You realize what she might be when she becomes an adult, her pedigree might take her far.
But for now, you toss Stellaris into the bushes and jump into the arms of Crusader Kings II.
It's like you met this girl on a dating site and you two seemed to hit it off really well. From her pictures she looked super fit and she seemed to carry herself off well. Not to mention you got to talk to her friends and they made you think she was great. When you decide to meet however, turns out she doesn't have money for the cab fare to get there so after some hesitation you decide to just pay for that.wtf
She arrives. She looks pretty but she's shallow and extremely materialistic. You get the feeling she's not all there. She's fun to be with at first, but soon you realize two things. One, she seems to be just repeating what people have said before. Two, she's actually only 14-years-old. You were just completely bedazzled initially by her looks to notice.
So after an awkward firstconta-meeting, you finally drop her back off at her place. You're feeling a bit regretful at the whole affair and kinda want your cab fare back (along with the other expenses she managed to accrue along the way). The door opens and 'lo and behold. Her dad is there. It's motherfucking Crusader Kings II. He's shirtless, abs glistening with sweat like he just finished another exhilarating workout. Hair parted in that perfect way that accentuates his perfect face. his eyes brimming with the spark and wisdom of age. He smiles a bit at you, knowingly with a dash of smugness that comes across as just beautiful in every way. There are a few scars on his chest which mark the signs of his intense battle to get to where he is. His hand decorated with the blood of the heathen. His magnificent DEUS VULT under the towel that he greets you in, huge in size and bursting with... DLC.
You take another look at Stellaris. She eyes you coquettishly, though you can't help but remind yourself how young she is, especially when compared to her father.
You realize what she might be when she becomes an adult, her pedigree might take her far.
But for now, you toss Stellaris into the bushes and jump into the arms of Crusader Kings II.
9 months later umiman gave birth to a beautiful mod but CKII refused to acknowledge paternity.umiman then proceeds to start a faction to place the mod in the patch. The faction ends in sadness as he tragically dies in a manure explosion.
(http://i.imgur.com/dvTleeA.gif)9 months later umiman gave birth to a beautiful mod but CKII refused to acknowledge paternity.umiman then proceeds to start a faction to place the mod in the patch. The faction ends in sadness as he tragically dies in a manure explosion.
perfect 5/7
That was worth more money than Stellaris is right now.
still a better love story than twilightSnip.
Asimov beta update is out. Just opt in from Stellaris properties beta tab.Noice
Spoiler: The Only Thing That Made Me Stop and Stare from the Patch Notes (click to show/hide)
Post this as a steam review. More people deserve to see it.It's like you met this girl on a dating site and you two seemed to hit it off really well. From her pictures she looked super fit and she seemed to carry herself off well. Not to mention you got to talk to her friends and they made you think she was great. When you decide to meet however, turns out she doesn't have money for the cab fare to get there so after some hesitation you decide to just pay for that.At this point I'm just patiently waiting in the bedroom while she does her hair.
LoL more like she went straight out of the bathroom and looking at me in the eyes said - "no bjs till I'm fifty"
She arrives. She looks pretty but she's shallow and extremely materialistic. You get the feeling she's not all there. She's fun to be with at first, but soon you realize two things. One, she seems to be just repeating what people have said before. Two, she's actually only 14-years-old. You were just completely bedazzled initially by her looks to notice.
So after an awkward firstconta-meeting, you finally drop her back off at her place. You're feeling a bit regretful at the whole affair and kinda want your cab fare back (along with the other expenses she managed to accrue along the way). The door opens and 'lo and behold. Her dad is there. It's motherfucking Crusader Kings II. He's shirtless, abs glistening with sweat like he just finished another exhilarating workout. Hair parted in that perfect way that accentuates his perfect face. his eyes brimming with the spark and wisdom of age. He smiles a bit at you, knowingly with a dash of smugness that comes across as just beautiful in every way. There are a few scars on his chest which mark the signs of his intense battle to get to where he is. His hand decorated with the blood of the heathen. His magnificent DEUS VULT under the towel that he greets you in, huge in size and bursting with... DLC.
You take another look at Stellaris. She eyes you coquettishly, though you can't help but remind yourself how young she is, especially when compared to her father.
You realize what she might be when she becomes an adult, her pedigree might take her far.
But for now, you toss Stellaris into the bushes and jump into the arms of Crusader Kings II.
Post this as a steam review. More people deserve to see it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Go ahead, just link the thread or something.Post this as a steam review. More people deserve to see it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You mind if Iquotesteal that for my steam review of the game?
I like what they're trying to do with the sector system, but the AI definitely needs improvement, or you need a better way of telling it what to do.
From a big picture point of view, I think the sector system is going to be key to making the game more of a GSG and less of a vanilla 4X. Treat them more like vassals in CK2. They should have their own elections, and optionally you can intervene or force your own leaders to run in them. Some kind of centralization policy could determine how much power and influence sectors have: at the lowest centralization levels, your sectors behave more like tributaries than cohesive parts of your empire.
Factions are cool, but they're not enough (yet).
In the dev diary, they mentioned that sectors were supposed to tie into factions much more heavily, so hopefully that's in the queue.I like what they're trying to do with the sector system, but the AI definitely needs improvement, or you need a better way of telling it what to do.
From a big picture point of view, I think the sector system is going to be key to making the game more of a GSG and less of a vanilla 4X. Treat them more like vassals in CK2. They should have their own elections, and optionally you can intervene or force your own leaders to run in them. Some kind of centralization policy could determine how much power and influence sectors have: at the lowest centralization levels, your sectors behave more like tributaries than cohesive parts of your empire.
Factions are cool, but they're not enough (yet).
Something that probably should be tinkered with is allowing factions to form with the ultimate goal of becoming their own sector, based on something like distance from empire center, differences in population makeup, ability of central government to exert control (so an additional concern if you intentionally, long-term, run past the Core cap), etc. I'm not sure how well it'd work in practice, but on paper it seems like their might be potential.
I think that part of the problem is that the AI empires expand at a ridiculous rate, thereby swallowing up huge chunks of the map and making the game basically a galactic-scale sumo match.In Stellaris' defense, this is an issue with pretty much every 4X. It's still unfortunate and intersects poorly with a bunch of other issues, though.
Yeah, every 4X I've played where the AI aren't potatoes is dominated by the initial colonization race.It's intended.
By the by, anyone tried it yet? Patchnotes changed "core planet" to "core system" and I'm curious if that's a typo/unimplemented change or if they actually did it.
Still better than Hyperdrive in all-FTL matches though. :VHyperdrive actually can be great at war, since it allows for hit-and-run strikes (since you don't need to go to the edge of a system to leave it).
Hyperdrive only games are the only ones where Fortresses become linchpinsYeah, I play pretty much nothing except Hyperdrive-only now. The others allow for too much stupid leapfrogging and chasing in addition to what you mentioned about fixed defenses. It also helps slow down the colonization boom.
I slowed down the colonization boom with a quick fix mod that massively lowered population growth. The problem isn't that it's too easy to grab planets, it's that they become full populated in four years. Lower the growth to 1 pop in 30 years and land grab stops being automatic victory. It's still easy to beat the AI but it takes longer.That sounds like it would actually make migration worth the effort
I slowed down the colonization boom with a quick fix mod that massively lowered population growth. The problem isn't that it's too easy to grab planets, it's that they become full populated in four years. Lower the growth to 1 pop in 30 years and land grab stops being automatic victory. It's still easy to beat the AI but it takes longer.That sounds like it would actually make migration worth the effort
I heard paradox is going trough an acquisition which would make any bet on any long term future mootWait, what? Where did you hear this?
Yeah but unfortunately it's really hard to tweak the migration system to work.Oh yeah, I was just thinking about that earlier. Had one planet with loads of labs, and wanted the intelligent crab people I'd just annexed to move there, but my native humans kept hopping in instead. Would be really nice to set migration laws on a per-planet and per-species basis.
Having a vassal creates a protection treaty with them that costs 1 influence to maintain, forever. So vassals now have a cost to keep.
Having a vassal creates a protection treaty with them that costs 1 influence to maintain, forever. So vassals now have a cost to keep.
Ugh. I swear balance does more harm then good with paradox.
I'd like to see them add a system where you can start in a similar situation to Japan in EU. Where, say, Earth is technically a different empire, and you as America and the AI or other humans as Russia and China or Britain or whatever, and you have a extra layer of political intrigue to navigate through before you can take over the whole empire and play normally.Sorta like Merchant Republics in CKII (CKII really set the bar, geez). Multiple factions all vying for dominance, united against outsiders but also vying for dominance within. It would also allow you to start the game as one of a fragmented nation
I think it'd play quite nicely, especially if you can colonize in the same system as another "sub-empire" or whatever.
I could be wrong, because I haven't been following them from the start, but... I feel like that was a trend that started with the release of EU4. I've played Vicky 2 with no patches and with all the patches + expansions and it feels like about the same game but with extra features and the insane rebellions toned down. Ditto for CK2 until EU4 was released and they started going slightly crazy (badboy was good in EU, that's why we should add it to CK years into the game's lifespan! Right? Righttttt?)Having a vassal creates a protection treaty with them that costs 1 influence to maintain, forever. So vassals now have a cost to keep.
Ugh. I swear balance does more harm then good with paradox.
Spiritual pops get negative ethics divergence, which makes some sense when in a spiritualist empire since that negative ethics divergence will help keep them spiritual. But conquered spiritualist pops still get that negative divergence, even in a non-spiritual empire. This means being spiritual will actually help conquered pops integrate more quickly into your empire of slaves or militant materialists or whatever
I suppose you could handwave it as Spiritualists putting their faith in their current hardship being all part of the Grand Design. Still sounds wonky though, a bit like the self-loathing inherent in Synthetics created by a Spiritualist empire.I find it hilarious that spiritualists hate it when you make synthetics and synthetics hate it when you make them. That must be one hell of an existential crisis
I suppose you could handwave it as Spiritualists putting their faith in their current hardship being all part of the Grand Design. Still sounds wonky though, a bit like the self-loathing inherent in Synthetics created by a Spiritualist empire.I find it hilarious that spiritualists hate it when you make synthetics and synthetics hate it when you make them. That must be one hell of an existential crisis
I'd like to see them add a system where you can start in a similar situation to Japan in EU. Where, say, Earth is technically a different empire, and you as America and the AI or other humans as Russia and China or Britain or whatever, and you have a extra layer of political intrigue to navigate through before you can take over the whole empire and play normally.Sorta like Merchant Republics in CKII (CKII really set the bar, geez). Multiple factions all vying for dominance, united against outsiders but also vying for dominance within. It would also allow you to start the game as one of a fragmented nation
I think it'd play quite nicely, especially if you can colonize in the same system as another "sub-empire" or whatever.
"Master, why would you create godless abominations with no souls but the ability to fully appreciate the horror of their situation?"I suppose you could handwave it as Spiritualists putting their faith in their current hardship being all part of the Grand Design. Still sounds wonky though, a bit like the self-loathing inherent in Synthetics created by a Spiritualist empire.I find it hilarious that spiritualists hate it when you make synthetics and synthetics hate it when you make them. That must be one hell of an existential crisis
Had a multiplayer game with a couple of friends where I encountered that exact issue. I had a lot of synths and they were all really pissed that they had full civil rights, so I figured I maybe they'd be happier if I limited their rights. Que AI rebellion. Apparently, you just can't make religious robots happy... :)
"Master, why would you create godless abominations with no souls but the ability to fully appreciate the horror of their situation?"
Making an AI with full human faculties and no way to express its humanity is a great way to get imprisoned under the earth and tortured forever by a malevolent cybergod.To be fair, most RL spiritualists consider being even slightly wrong to be a great way to get imprisoned under the earth and tortured forever by a malevolent cybergod.
Not to mention materialism is literally one fedora fits all heads
Some diversification in material philosophy would be nice, like blue void explorators or subterranean industrialists - being a materialist space capitalist vs space communist vs space scientist should be more meaningful, just as spiritualists should be more diversified from one another (or rarely, not - how groundshattering would it be if you found out another alien species on the other side of the planet had the exact same religion as you)
Not to mention materialism is literally one fedora fits all heads
Some diversification in material philosophy would be nice, like blue void explorators or subterranean industrialists - being a materialist space capitalist vs space communist vs space scientist should be more meaningful, just as spiritualists should be more diversified from one another (or rarely, not - how groundshattering would it be if you found out another alien species on the other side of the planet had the exact same religion as you)
It will probably all be, just for extra 5 dollars.
Steam sales.How are you getting expansion packs 60% off?Not to mention materialism is literally one fedora fits all headsIt will probably all be, just for extra 5 dollars.
Some diversification in material philosophy would be nice, like blue void explorators or subterranean industrialists - being a materialist space capitalist vs space communist vs space scientist should be more meaningful, just as spiritualists should be more diversified from one another (or rarely, not - how groundshattering would it be if you found out another alien species on the other side of the planet had the exact same religion as you)
In other news, droid pops are treated like pre-sentient natives in the 1.2 beta. So you can't move them or build on their tiles, and purging them causes your other pops to get all riled up.
The local molerat people decided to attack my glorious xenophilic spiritual empire. They never stood a chance, of course, but I forgot to set war goals and now I'm stuck with 100% warscore and nothing to spend it on. I suppose I could let them go free, but then I can't assimilate them until the truce times out.If i remember correctly, in the warscore there is a bottom tab where you can switch wargoal on defensive war, i might be wrong, i think i saw arumba once use that when defending or i may be completly wrong.
I really hate the fact that wargoals use the same system for everyone. Maybe a democracy needs to maintain a transition of power, sure. But a despotic, militarist xenophobic empire can't go from a defensive to offensive war?This. There needs to be more differentiation by ethic and Government. Honestly, at the tech levels observed, the physiology of the species in question probably wouldn't matter nearly as much as the government they chose for themselves or the ethics that government espouses.
...Can pops revolt? I have yet to feel even the slightest hint of revolution from any of mine, through multiple playthroughs.
Pop revolts make the most sense in large empires with few external enemies. Well-designed, a civil war could be a superb end-game crisis, where psionic warriors clash in the corridors of planet-destroying battlestations and sentient robots toil alongside enslaved alien races.... but that's fringe science-fiction, it might not be popular enough to implement in stellaris.i c wut u did ther
Pop revolts make the most sense in large empires with few external enemies. Well-designed, a civil war could be a superb end-game crisis, where psionic warriors clash in the corridors of planet-destroying battlestations and sentient robots toil alongside enslaved alien races.... but that's fringe science-fiction, it might not be popular enough to implement in stellaris.Psh. More like science fantasy.
Stellaris feels like in a fair universe it would be a 7 out of 10, good but nothing to write home about games... Rather then one of the top 10 (or top 5) best 4x space games ever.I definitely agree with this sentiment. In my mind, if you compare Stellaris to any other space 4X of recent time, it blows them all out of the water. That doesn't mean Stellaris is a good game.
Oh, having a dozen sets of mining drones in one system? I've seen that a couple of times, it's kinda funny. Lots of debris to study afterwards too, which is nice.Spoiler: Well, this was interesting (click to show/hide)
I remember this one 4x game I saw where each race you added to your own was a flat out bonus (representing a bonus you got for diversity). It also featured government types that drastically altered gameplay (for example the Bees had a Monarchy with an immortal ruler... If that leader dies then they get such terrible penalties they basically die off).Sounds interesting, but I don't get anything with google. Do you have a name/link?
It had its fair share of problems but honestly it has many great ideas that I am astonished 4x games just avoid like the plague.
Except that you don't get anything even remotely useful from them. :II just like studying debris.
A friend told me it was Distant Worlds. Really expensive on Steam (60 bucks)It does go on sale every now and then. It is also finished with the complete package.
I get that but it's actually harmful/counterproductive after a certain point to study space monster debris. Mostly because the bug STILL exists where your research points don't correctly 'store' while your research is paused during the debris scan so you LOSE those months of research.Except that you don't get anything even remotely useful from them. :II just like studying debris.
A friend told me it was Distant Worlds. Really expensive on Steam (60 bucks)
(I'd love it if Xenophiles and Xenophobes get different sets rare techs)
Or take a look at the DLC list for Fallout4!A friend told me it was Distant Worlds. Really expensive on Steam (60 bucks)
yeah, take a look at the DLC list for CK2 or EU4 and get back to me
-snip-This all of this, I shouldn't have to wait for the first 15-20 dollar dlc to actually have a playable game.
- Reorganize technology classification. Physics is core technologies and materials, while engineering is practical applications. You can't climb them independently; rather, focusing on one or the other will get you either broader application or taller theory.
--snip--
Other than being a different percentage, how is this different from sectors keeping 100/75/50/25% of their excess production and paying the rest up?
- Sectors now pay upkeep on all their structures first, then take (for example) 10% of the remaining resources for local investment, then pass everything else up to the empire. (This makes specialized sectors actually quite rewarding rather than having them pay more and more resources into a useless local bank.)
They don't pay an excess percentage. They take a 25, 50, or 75% of gross. Which makes them either starve themselves or waste huge quantities of resources in an unaccessible bank.
I don't really know what to say if you play a game for 150 hours before realizing you don't like it. Even for a Paradox game that's kind of insane (not the hours played, but hours played without enjoying it). Most games you'll know whether you like it within an hour or so. I think for games like CK2/Victoria 2 you could probably know whether it's your thing within 10 hours.I can sympathize with this rationality. I found Stellaris pleasing at first, hitting some promising starts. As I replayed I started seeing more flaws, but still had hope - after all, if it could grab my attention for this long it must be doing something. The more and more I played though, the more I realized I was not having fun, I was getting sick of the game. So I turned to modding, started personalizing the common files, started creating custom races to interact with in an attempt to inject life and vibrancy into the game. I found more often than not, I wanted the game to be fun and work more than I wanted to play the game. After trying to balance combat, sort out crisis glitches, make carriers useful without making them OP, make traits meaningful, terraforming not shit, colonization proper sci-fi... It's all the same, after so long, it's just all the same, not even modding could save it - it's too unfinished.
Part I: Sectors:-Needs auto assignment of governors so that short lived races do not become micromanage nonsense every time one dies over hundreds of planets
In regards to the first, selecting military ships and right clicking on other ships will cause the former to follow the latter. This can be used to make military ships follow civvy ships or other military ships, and is a good approximation of this idea
- It is possible to bind combat ships with non-combat ships to create escorts.
- Non-combat ships without escorts automatically use emergency jump to retreat.
Or make them really awesome (there is no warp drive that makes travel distance = 0, what the hell, if it's too OP at least make it dangerous tech available or something), but linked to gates controlled by Fallen Empires, black hole singularities and warm hole anomalies found throughout the galaxy
- Remove the dramatic advantages of wormholes. I'm thinking increase range of Warp and speed of lanes.
Stellaris does have a 3d galaxy, stars are spread across the vertical plane as well. It's not as 3d as it could be, but that'd make navigation a nightmare.
One other thing I'd like would be that ANY FTL method can get jump drives, rather than it being restricted to lucky people that aren't materialist, spiritualists, and people with wormholes.Technically its possible for anyone to develop the psi jump drives, you just have a lower chance to get it if not spiritualist and materialists pretty much need a psionic adept scientist to make it show up
I think that's more of a problem with the travel system restricting you to systems no matter your drive tech. Moo2 lets you fly to any system in range of one of your colonies, passing through space between, rather than systems. Star ruler 2 additionally lets you fly fleets into the space between systems and sit there, if you want too. Both work well.AFAIK it's a limitation of the Clausewitz engine dividing the map into discrete points, rather than a design decision per se.
One other thing I'd like would be that ANY FTL method can get jump drives, rather than it being restricted to lucky people that aren't materialist, spiritualists, and people with wormholes.Disagreed. I want the opposite: more techs and mechanics that are limited by ethos/trait/etc. Would go a long way towards making differences more different.
One other thing I'd like would be that ANY FTL method can get jump drives, rather than it being restricted to lucky people that aren't materialist, spiritualists, and people with wormholes.Disagreed. I want the opposite: more techs and mechanics that are limited by ethos/trait/etc. Would go a long way towards making differences more different.
Today and yesterday I've been having a very successful run, everything has been nice and smooth, the new politics is much more involved (tho' not any easier, some transparency about making deals has been lost here.) Then The Unbidden arrive.What you referred to as 'The Worst' has happened to me in three playthroughs where they showed up. The swarm also never lost planets when I killed the queen, I think it's supposed to be like that. That said they also never expand using those systems as far as I can tell so you can probably just ignore them/kill the systems you yourself want to take.
The bad: the mod I have that disables the stupid endgame events is obviously not working.
The good: My tech and economy are up to the job.
The Worst: I shut down the second portal, then build up a massive 450K battlefleet, and go downtown stomp the main portal. But instead of registering this fact, it just acts like nothing has happened, no more fleets, but thousands of stupid space stations littering half the galaxy.
I've cleared like 50 systems or more, and it is just an asinine slog, why am I playing galactic garbageman instead of ruling my empire?
Edit: well, I know why the event triggered, apparently the mod that disabled them has been pulled from the workshop. Just downloaded the crisis toggle mod so I can play new games without concern of 'nids or dimensional invaders (but apparently I still have to contend with AI rebellion, the most stupid of the three.)_
What the fuck gabenEdit: well, I know why the event triggered, apparently the mod that disabled them has been pulled from the workshop. Just downloaded the crisis toggle mod so I can play new games without concern of 'nids or dimensional invaders (but apparently I still have to contend with AI rebellion, the most stupid of the three.)_
Steam removes mods from your game without your permission mid-game? o_o
If you're subscribed to a mod in the workshop and its removed from the workshop by the owner or steam, then the mod gets removed as part of the updating process. However, it only does that whenever you launch your game, and it should only do that if you subscribed to a mod through the workshop instead of manually installing the mod.Edit: well, I know why the event triggered, apparently the mod that disabled them has been pulled from the workshop. Just downloaded the crisis toggle mod so I can play new games without concern of 'nids or dimensional invaders (but apparently I still have to contend with AI rebellion, the most stupid of the three.)_
Steam removes mods from your game without your permission mid-game? o_o
I decided to check and Umiman's review (reposted by Jimbo) (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=152166.msg7057493#msg7057493) is currently the top one for stellaris in it's review section. Makes me happy for some reason.I... wasn't expecting that. But that's pretty cool! 8)
The comments on it are also amusing.
I decided to check and Umiman's review (reposted by Jimbo) (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=152166.msg7057493#msg7057493) is currently the top one for stellaris in it's review section. Makes me happy for some reason.
The comments on it are also amusing.
I've been playing around with 1.2.1 and I've got to say it has definitely come on a lot. It's not fixed by a long, long shot, but it's a lot more playable. Strange how small things can make a big difference I guess. It does seem easier though.
My main issue at the moment is just the lack of automation. Having an auto explore for science ships would take a lot of the tedium out of things, as would having a 'upgrade all' button on the surface screen.
Not being able to see all stations is something that's really, really frustrating. I was involved in an all out war with a neighbor, but all the nearest planets were in a sector, which meant I had to go and mess about to find the stations to build up more ships. So frustrating.
I've been playing around with 1.2.1 and I've got to say it has definitely come on a lot. It's not fixed by a long, long shot, but it's a lot more playable. Strange how small things can make a big difference I guess. It does seem easier though.
My main issue at the moment is just the lack of automation. Having an auto explore for science ships would take a lot of the tedium out of things, as would having a 'upgrade all' button on the surface screen.
Not being able to see all stations is something that's really, really frustrating. I was involved in an all out war with a neighbor, but all the nearest planets were in a sector, which meant I had to go and mess about to find the stations to build up more ships. So frustrating.
No auto-explore, but you can queue system survey orders with shift-click.
Something I do to mitigate that is that I have my combat fleet do a run through the scannable systems first before my survey ship does by giving them queue'd move orders, once I had the combat fleet do the preliminary exploration of 10 or so systems I move them back to take care of any hostiles their preliminary checks found that they can handle, and then queue up a bunch of system scans with the survey ship the autoflee turned off.
Devs need to do -a lot- of work to improve the AI or it's all for naught, simple as that.Well the former AI programmer is now the head idea guy I guess, so maybe they'll get a new AI programmer who will fix it
The quotes in this game are fantastic.I still don't get the "Who is X? This is X speaking" one.
There's also unique insults if your race doesn't wear clothes and the target does.I doubt it's correct, but I like to imagine it's your leader just being incredibly egocentric. '"Who is X?" I hear you ask! I am X!'The quotes in this game are fantastic.I still don't get the "Who is X? This is X speaking" one.
I doubt it's correct, but I like to imagine it's your leader just being incredibly egocentric. '"Who is X?" I hear you ask! I am X!'The quotes in this game are fantastic.I still don't get the "Who is X? This is X speaking" one.
The quotes in this game are fantastic.I still don't get the "Who is X? This is X speaking" one.
So I meant to ask this earlier, but has any one else been having a strange thing where a nation with no diplomatic relation to yours tries to declare a war with someone (you also have no diplomatic relationship with) and asks for you to vote on whether or not they can go to war? It has happened on two separate saves for me since the big update.Yeah, I've seen it happen. One thing I noticed is that in every single case they have the same ethos as you.
I've had loads of people ask me to vote on a war. Not because it was a glitch, but they wanted me to join the war with them. Almost always the only thing I'd get from it is me humiliating the enemy, or the liberation of a single planet.
Yeah that's pretty annoying, hopefully it's toned down next patch
I've had loads of people ask me to vote on a war. Not because it was a glitch, but they wanted me to join the war with them. Almost always the only thing I'd get from it is me humiliating the enemy, or the liberation of a single planet.
I've had loads of people ask me to vote on a war. Not because it was a glitch, but they wanted me to join the war with them. Almost always the only thing I'd get from it is me humiliating the enemy, or the liberation of a single planet.
Yeah, this is what's going on. Random empires asking you to join their war, just like you can ask other empires to join yours. The UI doesn't do a very good job of explaining that, and since it uses the exact some pop-up window as the alliance vote it seems like a glitch to a lot of people.
I've used Liberation a few times. Doesn't it spawn an empire with your ethos? If your opponent is small enough, you can liberate their whole empire into a different one that matches your ethics perfectly.?
It's very America.
The closest they've ever got to something like that is Japan and I think many people would agree with me when I say they got a little bit... Odd, after the nukes.I dunno, Japan and the US are both pretty Xenophobic and Individualist. Japan didn't pick up on the 'States militarism possibly because they're not allowed a proper army.
I was talking mostly about the "Shoving our culture down their throat with a jackboot" style of ideological warfare. To be fair, that's mostly any Great Power, but America is most famous for it since the countries we give our culture are then free to mock us.I've used Liberation a few times. Doesn't it spawn an empire with your ethos? If your opponent is small enough, you can liberate their whole empire into a different one that matches your ethics perfectly.?
It's very America.
I can't think of a single time America has managed this in history.
The closest they've ever got to something like that is Japan and I think many people would agree with me when I say they got a little bit... Odd, after the nukes.
I'd argue the U.S is Fanatic Individualist and Xenophile, rather. Our thing tends to be stealing things from other countries, and most people here like partaking in other cultures. There's a strong Xenophobic minority, but I think the overall tilt is xenophilic.The closest they've ever got to something like that is Japan and I think many people would agree with me when I say they got a little bit... Odd, after the nukes.I dunno, Japan and the US are both pretty Xenophobic and Individualist. Japan didn't pick up on the 'States militarism possibly because they're not allowed a proper army.
I'd argue the U.S is Fanatic Individualist and Xenophile, rather. Our thing tends to be stealing things from other countries, and most people here like partaking in other cultures. There's a strong Xenophobic minority, but I think the overall tilt is xenophilic.
Sixty-one percent of Americans agree that "continued immigration into the country jeopardizes the United States,"
Fanatic militarist xenophobes?Fanatic militarist spiritualist. Pledge of allegiance and dollar bills got mad reelijun in them.
Is the Imperium of Man just the successor to the USA?
That same article points out several other polls in which the majority of respondents believed immigration strengthened the United States. One poll does not make the entire United States Xenophobic. There's a lot more in favor of the US being Xenophile, all you have to do is go to a city and wander around looking for restaurants to see that.I'd argue the U.S is Fanatic Individualist and Xenophile, rather. Our thing tends to be stealing things from other countries, and most people here like partaking in other cultures. There's a strong Xenophobic minority, but I think the overall tilt is xenophilic.Quote from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-07/americans-really-don-t-like-immigration-new-survey-findsSixty-one percent of Americans agree that "continued immigration into the country jeopardizes the United States,"
Fanatic militarist xenophobes?Fanatic militarist spiritualist. Pledge of allegiance and dollar bills got mad reelijun in them.
Is the Imperium of Man just the successor to the USA?
Fanatic Materialism + MilitaryUSA is probably fanatic individualist + materialist
The US has done a lot to gain access to strategic resources. The military is just one means of many to further the materialist goals. Capitalism Ho!
Fanatic Materialism + Military
The US has done a lot to gain access to strategic resources. The military is just one means of many to further the materialist goals. Capitalism Ho!
In fact no human civilization would be materialist in Stellaris terms, except perhaps the EU.
In fact no human civilization would be materialist in Stellaris terms, except perhaps the EU.NorthBest Korea
Materialism is materialism as in materialism vs idealism (as in "spirituality"), not as in the strive for more earthly goods.
Marxism is strictly materialist and not necessarily collectivist in the stellaris sense. However, the DPRK is somewhat an exception to this because of Juche, which furthermore highlights the role of the individual (great leader and so on).
Fanatic Materialism + Military
The US has done a lot to gain access to strategic resources. The military is just one means of many to further the materialist goals. Capitalism Ho!
That's not what Materialism is about in Stellaris. Materialism is about denying that anything exists outside of the material world, as opposed to spiritualism, which, in Stellaris, posits that consciousness or spirit begets reality.
There's no way that the USA is materialist in Stellaris terms. In fact no human civilization would be materialist in Stellaris terms, except perhaps the EU.
The USSR was materialist in Stellaris terms, and modern China outright bans some portrayals of supernatural things.They only managed to get that World of Warcraft film in China cos the producer was a high ranking army official or some shit like that, everything else with ghosts, demons, supernatural stuff e.t.c. is just b& because it "encourages superstition"
The game is not very impartial to the question of materialism vs idealism, as it invents various special "powers" for spiritual civs.You tryin' to tell me you don't want Jedis, boi?
If you plan on making a space Murrica AI empire, you'll want fanatic individualist militarists to give them the democratic crusader AI.This. Contemporary 'Murica's too much of a mixed bag to lean totally to either side of the Spiritualist/Materialist spectrum. To be portrayed accurately, its primary motivator must be
But of course. You wouldn't want anyone's attention to be focused on anything exceptThe USSR was materialist in Stellaris terms, and modern China outright bans some portrayals of supernatural things.They only managed to get that World of Warcraft film in China cos the producer was a high ranking army official or some shit like that, everything else with ghosts, demons, supernatural stuff e.t.c. is just b& because it "encourages superstition"
That's not what Materialism is about in Stellaris. Materialism is about denying that anything exists outside of the material world, as opposed to spiritualism, which, in Stellaris, posits that consciousness or spirit begets reality.
There's no way that the USA is materialist in Stellaris terms. In fact no human civilization would be materialist in Stellaris terms, except perhaps the EU.
China bans portrayals of supernatural things out of respect for the dead/ancestors. It's a cultural taboo, not because they are materialists.Really? I wasn't aware of that. Still, though the average joe may not be a materialist, their government does follow a strictly materialistic agenda.
And of course the USSR no longer exists, but if it did, I suppose it would be materialist.
There's no way that the USA is materialist in Stellaris terms
There is something eternally amusing about people arguing about countries they've never experienced.Pardon? I wasn't under the impression that anyone was arguing, just discussing quantifiable differences between nations, their people, and their governments, so that they could be modeled as accurately as possible.
It's like my renter. He has opinions about everything like how the UK should split from the EU or how France should embrace their peasant heritage (I don't get that part either) but he's never left North America or how China will conquer the world. Hell, he's never left Canada for longer than a week. But if you point that out he goes "you don't need to go to these places to know about them", which in and of itself is pretty hilarious. Because it's not wrong, but it's like saying you know what bacon tastes like because you've read all about it but have never actually eaten some.
But anyway, please continue. This is quite entertaining.
Edit: Also I think Neonivek is correct in that you guys are thinking too much on human terms.Most certainly, except when attempting to portray a galactic federation of humans.
And while I might have pointed out that the US spends more than all the other major world powers combined on military. I will now point out that in terms of the US's own national budget, they only spend about 20 - 25% on it, which is about the same as everyone else. They just make way more money.Who makes these charts? It's like they don't won't colorblind people to know where all the cash is going.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I just like fucking with you guys.
QuoteThere's no way that the USA is materialist in Stellaris terms
No one would be a Fantatic Materialist.
Stellaris seems to deal with cultural almost exclusively. Pops are more like groups of like-minded people living mostly together, after all.You mean culturally or individually? Fanatic materialist seems to fit me pretty well.QuoteThere's no way that the USA is materialist in Stellaris termsNo one would be a Fantatic Materialist.
Since that's from Wikipedia, I'll assume the Wikipedia gods made it. There's a chart floating around about how the US spends more than 50% on the military but that's absolute horseshit.
I wanted to link the one from the US government website, but it won't let me link.
Since that's from Wikipedia, I'll assume the Wikipedia gods made it. There's a chart floating around about how the US spends more than 50% on the military but that's absolute horseshit.
I wanted to link the one from the US government website, but it won't let me link.
Since that's from Wikipedia, I'll assume the Wikipedia gods made it. There's a chart floating around about how the US spends more than 50% on the military but that's absolute horseshit.
I wanted to link the one from the US government website, but it won't let me link.
It's bullshit. Our SS+Medicare+Medicaid spending is a larger portion of the budget than that. Last I heard, SS alone was ~23%.
Unsourced and deceptive infographics from the internet are meaningless.
Yes, defense spending is more-or-less half of discretionary spending.
It's also deceptive as all hell to claim that half of annual federal spending goes to defense. Don't try to be coy or condescending about this. I despise how much we spend on a military designed to win a war that never really started, and that ended decades ago, but I despise liars more, particularly those that use statistics as their medium.
If you want to try to start flamewars with intentionally misleading data presentation there's a double handful of politics threads for you to do that in.
-insert thorough write-up here-That is far more partially off-topic yet relevant info than I ever could've hoped for. I thank you, sir.
If I was the Joker, I'd be Joker Venom bombing you right now for ruining my entertainment.
SO HOW ABOUT THOSE SPACE ALIENS HUH?!
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THOSE BIRDS IN SPACE-SUITS? THEY'RE EVEN IN SPACE SUITS WHEN THEY'RE PRE SENTIENT!
I'M GLAD THAT YOU CAN'T HAVE A FLAMEWAR WITH BIRDS! BECAUSE OF THE SAPCE SUIT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *weeps softly*
FIFYSO HOW ABOUT THOSE SPACE ALIENS HUH?!
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THOSE dinosaurs IN SPACE-SUITS? THEY'RE EVEN IN SPACE SUITS WHEN THEY'RE PRE SENTIENT!
I'M GLAD THAT YOU CAN'T HAVE A FLAMEWAR WITH dinosaurs! BECAUSE OF THE SAPCE SUIT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *weeps softly*
HA HA, THOSE WACKY PRE-SENTIENT SPACE dinosaurs.
The non-habitable planets more then anything SCREAMS "We are going to add DLC!"You can actually mod that in. There is even a mod for it I think?
Because... we are already thinking of having colonies on uninhabitable planets... and sci-fi can't make it happen in this setting?
The non-habitable planets more then anything SCREAMS "We are going to add DLC!"You can actually mod that in. There is even a mod for it I think?
Because... we are already thinking of having colonies on uninhabitable planets... and sci-fi can't make it happen in this setting?
Ring worlds?
That is far more partially off-topic yet relevant info than I ever could've hoped for. I thank you, sir.
If I was the Joker, I'd be Joker Venom bombing you right now for ruining my entertainment.
You can actually mod that in. There is even a mod for it I think?
Anyone have any advice on building warships?
Armor provides a linear damage reduction against incoming attacks. Every 60 points of armor increase the "Effective Hull Points" (EHP) by 100%. For example, a 60 Armor Battleship would be able to take 4800 (2400 + 2400) damage before being destroyed, and a 120 Armor Battleship would be able to take 7200 damage before being destroyed (2400 + 2400 + 2400) This means that despite the misleading "% Damage Reduction" listed in the ship designer, Armor does not suffer from diminishing returns.Right, figured it was something like that. Remember that percentages build off themselves, so it's often hard to tell if the actual benefits are slowing down just because the numerical values are.
Anyone have any advice on building warships?
The great thing about the snares too is that it doesn't matter WHERE the station is in the system. If anyone tries to get into there, they're being pulled into the fortress.It's
The snare seems like a stupid mechanic to me. Just means you have to send one ship ahead of the rest of the fleet all the time. Added layer of tedium and all that.
I mean...when you have nearly infinite space to play around in, space warfare probably would end up being one massive cat-and-mouse game. The only time that would be an exception is when the objective is a large, relatively stationary object that fleets could condense around.The snare seems like a stupid mechanic to me. Just means you have to send one ship ahead of the rest of the fleet all the time. Added layer of tedium and all that.
I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean when you're attacking? I guess that never really bothers me, because I just sort of treat it like fighting another fleet that happens to be stationary. I normally don't attack unless I have overwhelming odds anyway, and instead draw the attackers to my front lines where I can fight them on my terms if I don't think I can beat a big fleet + fortress.
For me, any tedium it causes is far outweighed by the tedium of having to do endless cat and mouse with the enemy.
You wouldn't want to use weapons like those if you wanted to take a planet for yourself, though. Even a barrage of conventional WMDs would render much of the place uninhabitable.
And since you can't seem to destroy planets in Stellaris, we can assume that even the most warlike species with the most liberal bombardment policies avoids the use of God Rods and the like.
You wouldn't want to use weapons like those if you wanted to take a planet for yourself, though. Even a barrage of conventional WMDs would render much of the place uninhabitable.I really do wish you could destroy worlds ala Distant worlds. The closest thing you can do in stellaris is capture them and then purge all the population....
And since you can't seem to destroy planets in Stellaris, we can assume that even the most warlike species with the most liberal bombardment policies avoids the use of God Rods and the like.
You wouldn't want to use weapons like those if you wanted to take a planet for yourself, though. Even a barrage of conventional WMDs would render much of the place uninhabitable.I really do wish you could destroy worlds ala Distant worlds. The closest thing you can do in stellaris is capture them and then purge all the population....
And since you can't seem to destroy planets in Stellaris, we can assume that even the most warlike species with the most liberal bombardment policies avoids the use of God Rods and the like.
No but vanilla DW did have nuclear weapons you could use for bombardment that destroyed habitability/population fairly fast.... at least I think it did.You wouldn't want to use weapons like those if you wanted to take a planet for yourself, though. Even a barrage of conventional WMDs would render much of the place uninhabitable.I really do wish you could destroy worlds ala Distant worlds. The closest thing you can do in stellaris is capture them and then purge all the population....
And since you can't seem to destroy planets in Stellaris, we can assume that even the most warlike species with the most liberal bombardment policies avoids the use of God Rods and the like.
You can't release all of the expansions with vanilla... even vanilla DW didn't have world destroyers.
I mean...when you have nearly infinite space to play around in, space warfare probably would end up being one massive cat-and-mouse game. The only time that would be an exception is when the objective is a large, relatively stationary object that fleets could condense around.The snare seems like a stupid mechanic to me. Just means you have to send one ship ahead of the rest of the fleet all the time. Added layer of tedium and all that.
I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean when you're attacking? I guess that never really bothers me, because I just sort of treat it like fighting another fleet that happens to be stationary. I normally don't attack unless I have overwhelming odds anyway, and instead draw the attackers to my front lines where I can fight them on my terms if I don't think I can beat a big fleet + fortress.
For me, any tedium it causes is far outweighed by the tedium of having to do endless cat and mouse with the enemy.
Weren't federations mostly intended for multiplayer groups?
Weren't federations mostly intended for multiplayer groups?
Weren't federations mostly intended for multiplayer groups?
absolutely not. whatever gave you that idea?
Weren't federations mostly intended for multiplayer groups?
absolutely not. whatever gave you that idea?
Because frankly... the way they are designed would only be entertaining in actual multiplayer.
jesus christ how horrifying (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/760133974001844226)"People were complaining about the game being too easy, so we added a new challenge mode!"
well okay i mean unless they fix federation fleets and such somewhat
Implemented?
Mind you, I don't think it is the case. It is just easy to see why someone would think that given it is anti-fun.
Implemented?
Mind you, I don't think it is the case. It is just easy to see why someone would think that given it is anti-fun.
But that's just standard Paradox. Create a game that works reasonably well for the first 10 hours of a campaign, and then add another 50 hours of absolute drudgery, including half-finished features that make finishing the campaign incredibly annoying.
Biggest changes are that armour is slightly less worthless
Implemented?
Mind you, I don't think it is the case. It is just easy to see why someone would think that given it is anti-fun.
But that's just standard Paradox. Create a game that works reasonably well for the first 10 hours of a campaign, and then add another 50 hours of absolute drudgery, including half-finished features that make finishing the campaign incredibly annoying.
Welcome to videogames! Where you either get the first 10 hours being the most fun, or the final 10 with nothing inbetween.
Most good games (:P) don't last 10 hours in the first place. And of course there's yer open-world fallout types, which last over 10 hours and manage to be exactly as boring the whole way through.
what in the world are you talking about? besides a paradox game i have literally never experienced that
Didn't Paradox realise that you can allow naming and include a button that does either a random name or a name taken from the name list?You can do this tho
US$8 for that is pretty fucked up.Yeah I'll be waiting for a nice big sale to get that
How do you reroll? Whenever I colonise one it just comes up with the name bar.There's a little dice button in the corner. It'll select names from the name list randomly.
How do you reroll? Whenever I colonise one it just comes up with the name bar.There's a little dice button in the corner. It'll select names from the name list randomly.
-snip-
So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
Most of those are out of dateSo this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
While most of those do seem pretty self useful, I have to ask... a mod that puts boobs on the foxes is necessary for you to have fun with the game?So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
FOX TITSDon't judge him. :s
While most of those do seem pretty self useful, I have to ask... a mod that puts boobs on the foxes is necessary for you to have fun with the game?So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There's also no reason that the sex of the character should matter, or even that alien species should have two or any other number of genders.While most of those do seem pretty self useful, I have to ask... a mod that puts boobs on the foxes is necessary for you to have fun with the game?So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
listen there is basically no way to tell if a character is male or female normally unless they're humanform anything that adds more dimorphism is good
A couple of the slugs have different colours for male/female iirc
It's also nice how they use spacesuits even if they are a bunch of medieval primitives.A couple of the slugs have different colours for male/female iirc
What about color-blind people? Better add some slug-tits. #sarcasm
I think the birds in the power/space suits are nice.
It's also nice how they use spacesuits even if they are a bunch of medieval primitives.A couple of the slugs have different colours for male/female iirc
What about color-blind people? Better add some slug-tits. #sarcasm
I think the birds in the power/space suits are nice.
[Insert Miroslav]Yes. I've been waiting for this.
Yes. I've been waiting for this.Brace yourself for walls of cosmic text
I haven't played in awhile so I donno if it's changed but I used to run that mod. All it does is change facial characteristics. Males have a dark stripe along their noses and I think there's a difference in nose and ear length between the sexes too.While most of those do seem pretty self useful, I have to ask... a mod that puts boobs on the foxes is necessary for you to have fun with the game?So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ah my bad then, looks like there are multiple mods with similar names.*Ahem* (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTYpKlIc_fg)
That said, one of my little annoyances with the game is not being able to tell differences between males and females of the vast majority of the races. It has no gameplay effect sure, but what's the point of coding a system like that if you are going to use it for one vanilla species and nothing else?
That said, one of my little annoyances with the game is not being able to tell differences between males and females of the vast majority of the races. It has no gameplay effect sure, but what's the point of coding a system like that if you are going to use it for one vanilla species and nothing else? It makes you feel like you are missing game features unless you play humans.
Or it could be for the same reason as in EU4: it is completely irrelevant except for the writing of AARs.That said, one of my little annoyances with the game is not being able to tell differences between males and females of the vast majority of the races. It has no gameplay effect sure, but what's the point of coding a system like that if you are going to use it for one vanilla species and nothing else? It makes you feel like you are missing game features unless you play humans.Because otherwise you'll get tumblrinas going absolutely mental over the lack of/perceived lack of female representation. The forums would be alight with people saying that they wanted to be a female oblozsgorsh and could only be a male version and that it's sexist.
Or it could be for the same reason as in EU4: it is completely irrelevant except for the writing of AARs.Pretty much the same thing really - it's just in to make sure that everyone is catered for. There's nothing wrong with it, but the reason behind it is so that no one gets angry.
Because otherwise you'll get tumblrinas going absolutely mental over the lack of/perceived lack of female representation. The forums would be alight with people saying that they wanted to be a female oblozsgorsh and could only be a male version and that it's sexist.If that's what they're worried about, then you'd think they would've considered the fact that there only being two genders available is sexist as well. Rally the peasants, light the torches, brandish the pitchforks! /s
I find it more plausible that it's there for immersion and variety of the non-political sort. Similar to how the images move because it makes them seem more alive, not because being still would make athletic people angry, or they're divided into loose racial categories for organization and background purposes, not because the biologists would be on them otherwise. They apparently drew the line at trying to figure out what should differentiate sexes, but including two genders and a handful of colorations doesn't strike me as unusual or pandering enough to look like it was done out of fear.Or it could be for the same reason as in EU4: it is completely irrelevant except for the writing of AARs.Pretty much the same thing really - it's just in to make sure that everyone is catered for. There's nothing wrong with it, but the reason behind it is so that no one gets angry.
like give it a fucking rest, guys. you're worse than the trolls and poes you're angry about.Descan no. This is the next chord in the exact song you're complaining about.
Relevant. And very well-sung. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heIH9vfwKBM)Speaking of songs, this is amazing. I wish more people would channel their tribal hatred into quality art.
Look at a housefly
I'm not being inflammatory by saying that there would be a backlash if aliens didn't have alternative genders (cue Mass Effect), so it's easier to just give every race that even if there isn't a difference in art/whatever.Or maybe the programmers found it easier to have two genders coded in for every race, and not just humans, and then the artists decided they didn't want to have to do twice the work on alien portraits by varying by gender instead of them worrying about some imaginary "backlash"
Or maybe the programmers found it easier to have two genders coded in for every race, and not just humans, and then the artists decided they didn't want to have to do twice the work on alien portraits by varying by gender instead of them worrying about some imaginary "backlash"Perhaps, though Paradox has shown themselves to be conscious of sensitive matters before.
Alright, finally got Stellaris working again and I'm checking out the mods. Installed some, ignored others.So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Beautiful battles handles Combat balance adequately, IIRC. There is a planetary invasion mod, though it doesn't seem to change much of anything as far as I can tell. Possibly, I'm just shit at invading planets.Alright, finally got Stellaris working again and I'm checking out the mods. Installed some, ignored others.So this game has been released for a while. What sort of mods do people recommend?I actually built a necessary mod list while we were working on the multiplayer
These are the mods I feel are necessary right now for an interesting, immersive game. I run a plethora of other ones, but I could play without them. I don't really want to play without these ones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Main question is: no mods to improve sector AI? Combat balance? Planetary invasion? I thought consensus was that those were some of the most lacking things in the current version of the base game.
It's not like humans would likely be able to tell the sex of random aliens anyway? Look at a housefly and tell me if it's male or female.I'm not sure on houseflies, but if you look at a spider and it's larger than usual, it's usually safe to say it's a girl spider. Likewise, cattle with large horns are usually male, and female dogs tend to have softer curves. Just because they aren't extremely dimorphic like humans doesn't mean that most species /aren't/. And if you spend enough time with them, you can usually end up telling them apart with a reasonable degree of success. I imagine that once you fully integrate those space-suit birds into your population, and people start seeing one or two a day, and going to school with the birds, and eating lunch with the birds, eventually it would become reasonable to expect your average human to be able to tell the difference between a male bird in a space-suit and a female bird in a space-suit.
I'm completely fine with them having both, they can have as many statement-genders as they want, but the question asked was 'why' they did it, especially when there isn't any difference outside of human.Would there, though? Mass Effect is a pretty popular RPG with rather relevant mechanics to issues of gender and sexuality. Stellaris is a somewhat more niche, uh, space opera 4X trying for immersive sandbox elements, I guess? I'm not sure it knows either. But I doubt they'd get anything substantial, because I don't see a lot of places to latch onto.
I'm not being inflammatory by saying that there would be a backlash if aliens didn't have alternative genders (cue Mass Effect), so it's easier to just give every race that even if there isn't a difference in art/whatever.
I fear that, if any species out there is likely to start a war because a human hit on them/didn't realize they were female, then war is inevitable.To be fair, you could say that about pretty much anything. I'm not sure that means it's wrong.
Make Birdland Great Again. Clearly.Vote Donald Duck 2216!
-snip-Sounds actually worse than apartheid numbers, but they're not actually living apart - thus it's not apartheid. Doesn't actually seem to be anything wrong there since all the pops are cool with it, just look at human analogues for example. In the West we have loads of Jewish leaders and are hardly chafing at our conditions, quite the contrary. Or another analogue, that of Muslim rule in India over a far greater majority of Hindus, when the Mughals weren't in their "kill infidels" stage everything was splendid and you'd hardly find anyone taking issue with that either.
You're not gonna believe this, but their home system is named Yump.Make Birdland Great Again. Clearly.Vote Donald Duck 2216!
with the flying birds better qualified leaders due to their ability to fly and move around fasterI reject this vile aerocracy and insist that only aquacracy can bring true peace and prosperity to the stars.
and want to preserve birdland's alien character.Now this I find pretty fascinating. It's like living in a theme park!
Sounds actually worse than apartheid numbers, but they're not actually living apart - thus it's not apartheid. Doesn't actually seem to be anything wrong there since all the pops are cool with it, just look at human analogues for example. In the West we have loads of Jewish leaders and are hardly chafing at our conditions, quite the contrary. Or another analogue, that of Muslim rule in India over a far greater majority of Hindus, when the Mughals weren't in their "kill infidels" stage everything was splendid and you'd hardly find anyone taking issue with that either.Interesting. I like the idea that they're boos for each other.
I think it would most likely be that the avians would be molluscaboos with political power, but since all the jobs in the avian empire are done by molluscoids, pretty much all the economic power would be held by molluscoids. Any trouble that would arise would be the issue of molluscoids bribing avian leaders in order to gain political influence over their affairs, leading potentially to severe corruption issues. Yet demographically, ethically and culturally, it would otherwise be pretty chill, especially since they all share the same ethos and are determined to treasure one another. Alternatively the squids could start feeling squid guilt and lobby for preferential treatment of avians
I think a more interesting question is whether it's right to liberate pops who live in foreign Empires and are actually happier as slaves than free men. As a democratic crusader I found that answer quite easy, freedom is the only way, freedom isn't free - the price of blood and work is worth the life of freedom. Pops who were unused to having to feed themselves and make their own decisions would learn soon enough. Yet as a hive mind of cockroaches being attacked by democratic crusading xenos, I wondered why they were so keen on liberating our planets when our ant people hated every moment of freedom and would rather destroy their own farms and starve to death than to live under freedom. Dunno.The cool kids were doing it first, so I couldn't resist MULTICULTURALING the last two worlds of the nearby fanatical purifiers (one of which is 5% habitability for them and therefore held onto through pure spite). But I finally understand America's dilemma, looking at all those juicy xenophobic isolationists and evangelizing zealots and such that it'd just be so easy to conquer and puppet into friendly neighborhood federation builders.
Not even god can save us from this grimdark humanaboo futureAmen. This has got to be one of the strangest AARs I've ever seen.
Speaking of which, I'm thinking how I can post an AAR without cluttering the thread with a series of walls of text. It's quite a lotI don't mind it here, especially as the thread's a little on the quiet side otherwise. A Let's Play would be a more formal place to continue Mankind's Bizarre Adventure.
So here's a question for everyone, and I'm not gonna say LW in particular but I am gonna laugh at something.Sounds pretty straightforward to me. It's the bird empire so birds are in charge. It's just the basic ethnicity-based concept of what a nation means, which was popular (probably not coincidentally) in the time period that Paradox traditionally does their best work.
Suppose, hypothetically, that you have some intelligent, militaristic, fanatically xenophilic birds living on an arctic world, only to be visited by beings from the stars- charismatic, sociologist, individualist, fanatically xenophilic ocean-dwelling molluscs. These benevolent squid overlords raise their new featherfriends into their own crummy little dominion on their own borders. Eventually this empire actually spreads to a few nearby worlds, migration treaties are approved, and in the end our four-eyed feathery friends control 12 Pops located among three planets.
...eleven of which are chubby molluscs, while a lone, solitary avian bravely mans the capital, a second bird pop growing at the vigorous rate of 0.1 per month. Even their two colonies are pure, 100% overlord stock. The vast majority of the galactic snowbird population dwells on the cooler tentacle worlds, where they migrated about the same time aliens were flocking to their own world.
So the thing that really got me thinking about this, though, is that the bird empire is still primary species leader only. That's some apartheid-level shit on the numbers, everyone likes each other on both a species and empire level, it's the bird's homeland and holdings but they were raised up by the molluscs... I'm not sure what that society looks like, and I'm now really, really curious. Are the birds slightly pissed that everyone else left? Are they thrilled to have so many pet aliens? Do the molluscs care that they can't rule the bird's empire too? Are there royal bird families, or do high-end government jobs have an arbitrary restriction on them? Are there bird hardliners who think it's absolutely vital that birds remain in control of birdland, and if so why? Because it's theirs? Because they have to catch up to their squishy cousins? Because their good soft friends are too figuratively soft to do what must be done?
This has become a weirdly fascinating question for me.
midgame isn't developed yet into anything interesting and they already want me to pay?To be fair, it's concurrent with a fair bit of patching.
midgame isn't developed yet into anything interesting and they already want me to pay?That's your decision. This is more content for the mid/late game. More content is also coming via free patches to include more events and the other various gameplay changes they're making to smooth out the pacing.
midgame isn't developed yet into anything interesting and they already want me to pay?
Part of that total rework came about due to a change in the creative director of the game, so I'm hoping it is heralding some nice changes ahead. I like a lot of the new guy's ideas and he's obviously really excited about the game.midgame isn't developed yet into anything interesting and they already want me to pay?
Yeah, I'm giving this a year or two. Or maybe a sequel. It's pretty clear they don't really know what the franchise is supposed to be about yet, given the total reworking of diplomatic relations and fallen empires. Not that it's a bad start; it's just that the way their development process works, there isn't going to be something that's worth playing for a while.
The War in Heaven DLC they mentioned in the new Dev Diary sounds super exciting (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-43-the-fallen.965642/)This does sound pretty cool, but only if awakenings remain somewhat rare. No one is going to want Fallen Empires waking up in the fusion stage to curb stomp the galaxy - at least, not in every game.
Actually it might not be a bad thing. When two of them wake up they can make you join their side. You might get to hoover up some advance debris after battles or take some worlds from enemy minor empires.The War in Heaven DLC they mentioned in the new Dev Diary sounds super exciting (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-43-the-fallen.965642/)This does sound pretty cool, but only if awakenings remain somewhat rare. No one is going to want Fallen Empires waking up in the fusion stage to curb stomp the galaxy - at least, not in every game.
sadly the name "War in Heaven" just reminds me of Banks' Surface Detail, which just makes me think of a bunch of cool ideas that could be in the game, like a victory-by-sublimation for a tech victory conditionThe whole 'technological ascension' victory has never struck me as very interesting from a gameplay mechanic. I've never seen a game do it well. Usually you pour a lot of money into science to unlock some device then you pour a lot of resources into building the device and you 'win'. Does that feel satisfying? It certainly didn't to me in Civ, where you fire off a space ship and hey look you won. I guess. I'm not sure WHY a distant colony with a few hundred people means you've suddenly won on earth though. I've had other games where I am dominating the map militarily and economically but someone finished a special project on the other side of the world so they 'won'.
The whole 'technological ascension' victory has never struck me as very interesting from a gameplay mechanic. I've never seen a game do it well. Usually you pour a lot of money into science to unlock some device then you pour a lot of resources into building the device and you 'win'. Does that feel satisfying? It certainly didn't to me in Civ, where you fire off a space ship and hey look you won. I guess. I'm not sure WHY a distant colony with a few hundred people means you've suddenly won on earth though. I've had other games where I am dominating the map militarily and economically but someone finished a special project on the other side of the world so they 'won'.
sadly the name "War in Heaven" just reminds me of Banks' Surface Detail, which just makes me think of a bunch of cool ideas that could be in the game, like a victory-by-sublimation for a tech victory conditionThe whole 'technological ascension' victory has never struck me as very interesting from a gameplay mechanic. I've never seen a game do it well. Usually you pour a lot of money into science to unlock some device then you pour a lot of resources into building the device and you 'win'. Does that feel satisfying? It certainly didn't to me in Civ, where you fire off a space ship and hey look you won. I guess. I'm not sure WHY a distant colony with a few hundred people means you've suddenly won on earth though. I've had other games where I am dominating the map militarily and economically but someone finished a special project on the other side of the world so they 'won'.
It also seems to be pretty much just an economic victory in most cases
So uh, I know this is old news, but is nobody concerned the new combat balance sounds like total nonsense? Like the ships are now being broken up into mumorpeger classes based on size? Like why even have the whole module system then? Can a big battleship seriously not be decked out in hundreds of smaller turrets that could massacre corvettes like a Star Destroyer? Or have torpedoes like the Enterprise? Instead they're now "artillery and carrier ships that provide long-range fire support", like some kinda wizard or necromancer.
As a gameplay mechanic, it works well enough. It's a game about building an empire, which you then use churn out military units that are mostly identical between equiv-tech civs. The victory typically goes to civ with the materiel advantage anyway, so why not just say, "hey, let's skip the foregone conclusion wars, and just let the most technologically and industrially advanced civ win? so long as they can get by dumping resources into a project that does nothing BUT let you win, they're already ahead anyway."Does it really stand up as a game mechanic though? With a military victory you have dozens of decisions and player interaction means a great deal with regards to positioning, terrain, etc. With a science victory it's mostly about maximizing your production/science output and waiting. Sure in Civ you pick what parts to put on your rocket but really that only matters if you're pressed for time because someone else is trying to launch first or you're about to be wiped out. It still felt a bit shallow.
So long as the various special projects/techs/events/etc that end the game are well-written and consume sufficient resources over a long enough period of time, it'd be a good way to end the game. Instead of the insane end-game slog we have now. And if it followed Banks' sublimation model, the other players could keep playing, but the "winner's" empire would be removed/deprecated/converted to a fallen empire.
As forsaken1111 said, military victory can and often/sometimes does mean more than that. Sure, if you build up a big enough economy to roflstomp everyone else then it's the same, but in a game like Stellaris/CK2 you can end up turning everyone against you and bite off more than you can chew easily enough. There's also a level of tactical maneuvering to do which isn't always easily achieved.It also seems to be pretty much just an economic victory in most cases
Unlike military victories?
So uh, I know this is old news, but is nobody concerned the new combat balance sounds like total nonsense? Like the ships are now being broken up into mumorpeger classes based on size?
Does it really stand up as a game mechanic though? With a military victory you have dozens of decisions and player interaction means a great deal with regards to positioning, terrain, etc.
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that you think the tactical and strategic decisions required to plan an execute a war in Civ are less complicated than building factories so you can build a spaceship?Does it really stand up as a game mechanic though? With a military victory you have dozens of decisions and player interaction means a great deal with regards to positioning, terrain, etc.
But those decisions and interactions are often no-brainers. Move units toward cities. Attack things along the way. Stand on the mountains; don't attack into the mountains/hills/whatever if you can. There are some decisions that are quite tricky, but not many. It's mostly a managing a traffic jam of units.
If Civilization combat were more on the level of HoI, I could see it. But at Civ's level of abstraction, it mostly comes down to number of units shoved against one another.
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that you think the tactical and strategic decisions required to plan an execute a war in Civ are less complicated than building factories so you can build a spaceship?Does it really stand up as a game mechanic though? With a military victory you have dozens of decisions and player interaction means a great deal with regards to positioning, terrain, etc.
But those decisions and interactions are often no-brainers. Move units toward cities. Attack things along the way. Stand on the mountains; don't attack into the mountains/hills/whatever if you can. There are some decisions that are quite tricky, but not many. It's mostly a managing a traffic jam of units.
If Civilization combat were more on the level of HoI, I could see it. But at Civ's level of abstraction, it mostly comes down to number of units shoved against one another.
No, I'm saying they're equally uncomplicated.
yeah. I've been trying to come up with some way to make a science victory condition interesting from a mechanical perspective. So far I have:No, I'm saying they're equally uncomplicated.
Each to their own, but I disagree - perhaps not in Civ itself (I'm not a big civ player) but in many 4x games I've found the military path quite interesting late game. In one of my recent Stellaris games I over reached, and ended up not being able to get my ships back quickly enough to stop another race smashing through a large portion of my space. In another Endless Space game I ended up just getting hammered in a few unlucky battles which meant that I had to rethink.
For econ/tech endings you can basically just sit and wait till you win in a lot of cases.
must have many outcomes, some unpredictable, or it'd get stale fast, like the shogun tw civil war eventYep. Like I said, just brainstorming right now. There are undoubtedly other/better ways. The point is to introduce some player choice and agency in the process rather than watching a turn timer tick down.
yeah. I've been trying to come up with some way to make a science victory condition interesting from a mechanical perspective.
yeah. I've been trying to come up with some way to make a science victory condition interesting from a mechanical perspective. So far I have:
Societal issues aka "We don't want to upload!" factions breaking out, traditionalist or anti-progress cults springing up causing mass riots and mayhem. Think of a process like Westernizing in EU4, but more focused on factions resisting the unchecked progress of science.
It'd be a simple matter to re-code the current crises to be have a "YOU ARE WINRAR, CONTINUE PLAYING Y/N?" pop up once the crisis is over.
I think the victory conditions should be the same as in CK2, EU4, HOI, and DF.
-clip everything else clip-Yes. Very much yes. Space pope when?
Depending on how they flesh out religion, a religious victory would have to involve spreading your faith by sword or by word across to every planet (every pop?) and eventually there would have to be a proper ending apocalypse/rapture as all good religions have, which you have to.... I'm not sure. Fight? Accept? Merely survive? Maybe instead of a rapture (since that would basically say "Yes the religions in the game are All True" which Paradox seeeems to be kind of skirting?) Maybe a crusade against the remaining heathen civs (who are too stubborn to change and so you need to crusade once the event fires) that you need to convert. Similar to the conquest victory except they have the option to convert to your religion, and similar to the diplomatic victory because you have to cajol and convince people to lend aid to the cause, you probably don't own everything. ... Okay you probably do. This one needs a bit more work.
I think the victory conditions should be the same as in CK2, EU4, HOI, and DF.
Depending on how they flesh out religion, a religious victory would have to involve spreading your faith by sword or by word across to every planet (every pop?) and eventually there would have to be a proper ending apocalypse/rapture as all good religions have, which you have to.... I'm not sure. Fight? Accept? Merely survive? Maybe instead of a rapture (since that would basically say "Yes the religions in the game are All True" which Paradox seeeems to be kind of skirting?) Maybe a crusade against the remaining heathen civs (who are too stubborn to change and so you need to crusade once the event fires) that you need to convert. Similar to the conquest victory except they have the option to convert to your religion, and similar to the diplomatic victory because you have to cajol and convince people to lend aid to the cause, you probably don't own everything. ... Okay you probably do. This one needs a bit more work.
There aren't going to be religions in this game, thankfully.
There aren't going to be religions in this game, thankfully.
Why thankfully? I can only see galaxy wide strategic layer as a good thing. I could see it working similarly to how 'culture' works in SoaSE, in that it starts with you and spreads to other empires, giving you bonuses in those areas to which it had spread.
Because we already have ethics and ethics divergence, which are exactly a galaxy-wide strategic layer that does everything you just described.
And the game is already 100% rubber forhead aliens with no discernible difference from humans. It doesn't need to be MORE that way.
Suppose they could have it so that religions all have different 'parts', that AI will randomly pick, excluding contradictory ones, so you can't wind up with a super pacifistic religion that allows crusades or something.Probably they could do a crusade under certain conditions when one thinks about it. If for example one does not think of other aliens as 'people' and harming 'people' is the only concern.
Suppose they could have it so that religions all have different 'parts', that AI will randomly pick, excluding contradictory ones, so you can't wind up with a super pacifistic religion that allows crusades or something.Not allowing religions to contradict themselves is unrealistic.
I'd love to see an expanded version of CiV's Gods And Kings expansion brought to Stellaris. Being able to actually build your religion from the ground up, rather than picking between Space Christianity and Space Buddhism, would be pretty sweet and allow for plenty of difference between different spiritualist Empires. Plus, this would open the door for spin-off sects to emerge and you'd be able to decide what to do about them.My thoughts exactly. Then at least that random event with the cultists could be more involved and dynamic. For instance: the prevailing religion in a player's empire could be a death cult, and the "cultists" that you have to hunt down are actually pacifists.
Not allowing religions to contradict themselves is unrealistic.Religionists, rather. :P
I believe the only way you could do it would be to give a player pursuing it a very different set of rules, or a strong chance for all sorts of disasters/end game events occurring from pursuing it.That actually sounds a lot like the quest victory in Fallen Enchantress. For more complicated stuff, I like that Galactic Civilizations (at least 2, I haven't extensively played 3) actually had ascension function in a sort of "king of the hill" manner: You seized and controlled specific points and built bases around them to harvest their divinity (or something). It didn't make a lot of conceptual sense, but the gameplay mechanic worked fine. Now, in Stellaris this could actually work better, because divinity and religion and psionics all go together, and there's also a trait system. So you could get a holy special resource somewhere, and not only would it be a ticker to victory (as in GalCiv2) but it might lead to new psionic traits for your pops or empire, making ascension something that's valuable even if not pursued all the way to its conclusion. There could even be a balance: Spend the ascension resource to make your pops godly, using an addition to the UI for genetic modification, or save it all up for when you unlock ascension, and bring your whole empire beyond the need for physical form all at once.
Regarding AI, they could take only the non-slave pops from their founding race (or races eligible for leadership positions, to support more egalitarian empires) and the others get left behind. Then just set some events to make the remnants of the empire collapse into warring factions (new empires, each one at war with each other and with custom war goals as necessary) and you've got a major political event that keeps the game interesting and fun.yeah. I've been trying to come up with some way to make a science victory condition interesting from a mechanical perspective.
All good ideas - I feel that scientific victories could actually be made very interesting just by making it an almost 50/50 chance of going disastrously wrong. It'd be a bit of a gamble (or desperation move in some cases) and you'd definitely need to risk tackling particular AI players who decided to pursue it.
That, plus factional outbreaks and you'd have a pretty good end game condition!
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-44-space-creature-rework.967310/They don't mention this, but more important than being out of nowhere, I think it's important that this staggers the content. So you won't be overwhelmed by finding almost all of the creatures at once, and then nothing after the early game, but as you expand and explore you'll find more monsters over time.
New Dev Diary about reworking space creatures to be less out of nowhere.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-44-space-creature-rework.967310/They don't mention this, but more important than being out of nowhere, I think it's important that this staggers the content. So you won't be overwhelmed by finding almost all of the creatures at once, and then nothing after the early game, but as you expand and explore you'll find more monsters over time.
New Dev Diary about reworking space creatures to be less out of nowhere.
Some of the bigger stuff is likely to come along with bigger DLC. That said, being at peace isn't something most Paradox games excel at.https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-44-space-creature-rework.967310/They don't mention this, but more important than being out of nowhere, I think it's important that this staggers the content. So you won't be overwhelmed by finding almost all of the creatures at once, and then nothing after the early game, but as you expand and explore you'll find more monsters over time.
New Dev Diary about reworking space creatures to be less out of nowhere.
Yeah I was very, very pleased with this dev blog. It's exactly the kind of changes that I was hoping for, and they seem to really have a good handle on where it needs to go.
More than that, it gives a lot of scope for fleshing out the middle game - especially if you don't have any wars you want to fight. Whilst I sorta wish they'd tackle some of the bigger issues (diplomacy, being able to be a 'peaceful' faction, trade, etc.) I think they're really pushing it in the right direction.
That is very good news. The rewards from space critters (aside from the crystal armor stuff) were by and large useless.Also the evasion-boosting flagella. But I think they were appropriate to the trivial nature of acquiring them.
*irritated sigh*QuoteTo clarify: Is it intended/planned for there to be a proper trade system at some point down the road? I ask because at the moment there's nothing to organically tie the empires together, or to each other, and it's something an otherwise great game glaringly lacks.Not for Heinlein, but entirely possible in the future, yes (that is not a promise though).
Quote*irritated sigh*QuoteTo clarify: Is it intended/planned for there to be a proper trade system at some point down the road? I ask because at the moment there's nothing to organically tie the empires together, or to each other, and it's something an otherwise great game glaringly lacks.Not for Heinlein, but entirely possible in the future, yes (that is not a promise though).
I suspect they're saving it for an expansion, much like SOTS did where they introduced a trade system as an expansion feature and added a hell of a lot of depth to itKnowing Paradox's model, the trading itself will probably be free, but the more detailed parts of it inside the paid part.
I suspect they're saving it for an expansion, much like SOTS did where they introduced a trade system as an expansion feature and added a hell of a lot of depth to itKnowing Paradox's model, the trading itself will probably be free, but the more detailed parts of it inside the paid part.
Has the AI been really unwilling to ally or confederate with any of you? In my current game, they refuse even if they love me. I've taken to pouncing any empire slightly weaker than mine and vassalizing them, integrating them later (my poor influence, though).
Also, what determines the "relative power of subjects" modifier? All my vassals have it in the -500s or so.
As an aside note, I think I've just seen a fallen empire go to town on a non-player empire who got a bit too enthusiastic about AIs.
I'm wondering why it is a negative modifier, though. You'd think a weak subject would want to keep in line, while a strong one would not.
Depends on what you consider "starting", I guess. Once found a pre-FTL civilization with a space station over its homeworld. It had a power of 6.I meant wars between empires.
The thing that really stops early war is that the starting spaceports are almost unassailable with low tech fleets. Even so I've managed to pull it off a few times, but its quite costlyIt's worth noting that strength in numbers comes into play a bit when dealing with space stations; they may deal massive damage, but they don't fire half as often, and can only deal at a maximum as much damage as one ship has HP.
I'm wondering why it is a negative modifier, though. You'd think a weak subject would want to keep in line, while a strong one would not.It would make sense if the modifier was applied based off of pop ethos
I feel like this conversation could be a lot shorter (or at least more interestingly lengthy) if your relationship with your vassals could be expressed in any way but relative ethos and fleet size. A pacifist empire could like you a ton as a personal or galactic protector, have mixed feelings about you in various ways, or hate your guts as a bloodthirsty tyrant depending on circumstance, for example. But since we don't really have any circumstance, we're stuck debating the same simple factors every other social calculation uses, which is not terribly immersive or useful.I'm wondering why it is a negative modifier, though. You'd think a weak subject would want to keep in line, while a strong one would not.It would make sense if the modifier was applied based off of pop ethos
So fanatic militiarists for example would only respect their overlord so long as they had a superior strength, whilst adding xenophobic to their roster would make them chafe for independence against any weak overlord not of their species, stacking with opinion maluses from opposite ethos alignment
The inverse would then be true for pacifists who only respect an overlord actually capable of fighting their wars for them, whilst with xenophilic I think it would be cool upon the addition of better federation mechanics for xenophilic vassals to attempt to gain equal standing in their overlord's federation if their overlord joins one.
I bet there'll be a DLC about it.I feel like this conversation could be a lot shorter (or at least more interestingly lengthy) if your relationship with your vassals could be expressed in any way but relative ethos and fleet size. A pacifist empire could like you a ton as a personal or galactic protector, have mixed feelings about you in various ways, or hate your guts as a bloodthirsty tyrant depending on circumstance, for example. But since we don't really have any circumstance, we're stuck debating the same simple factors every other social calculation uses, which is not terribly immersive or useful.I'm wondering why it is a negative modifier, though. You'd think a weak subject would want to keep in line, while a strong one would not.It would make sense if the modifier was applied based off of pop ethos
So fanatic militiarists for example would only respect their overlord so long as they had a superior strength, whilst adding xenophobic to their roster would make them chafe for independence against any weak overlord not of their species, stacking with opinion maluses from opposite ethos alignment
The inverse would then be true for pacifists who only respect an overlord actually capable of fighting their wars for them, whilst with xenophilic I think it would be cool upon the addition of better federation mechanics for xenophilic vassals to attempt to gain equal standing in their overlord's federation if their overlord joins one.
Before I get the reason I made this post out of the way, there's been a dev diary about ship balancing. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-45-ship-balance.968500/)
But the first DLC, Leviathans, has been announced. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-leviathans-announced.969055/)
But the first DLC, Leviathans, has been announced. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-leviathans-announced.969055/)
But the first DLC, Leviathans, has been announced. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-leviathans-announced.969055/)
Reapers when?
They've said outright why they're making that DLC: they wanted to include those features in the free patch, but those parts in particular would require too many developer resources (time etc.), so if they wanted to make that stuff it'd have to be DLC.
Basically: still a business, yo. Can't go off on a Toady-esque tangent adding molar mass to everything without some reason that isn't simply "because the game should have it".
I'm not really getting the dev time complaints.A lot of people don't seem to draw a distinction between programmer man-hours, artist man-hours, and writer man-hours. These are usually the same people that complain about face DLCs for CK2. Like when people complained about the Plantoid pack because how dare they work on cosmetic DLC when the base game needs improvement!! you've gotta just roll your eyes.
I'm not really getting the dev time complaints.A lot of people don't seem to draw a distinction between programmer man-hours, artist man-hours, and writer man-hours. These are usually the same people that complain about face DLCs for CK2. Like when people complained about the Plantoid pack because how dare they work on cosmetic DLC when the base game needs improvement!! you've gotta just roll your eyes.
Agreed to a point, but even a cosmetic pack still requires work from programmers/other parts of the business.It wouldn't surprise me if the programming work on Plantoids was literally zero. That was just adding one more bunch of things to a category already set up for bunches of things.
After reading everyone's comments I've changed my mind on the new DLC - I can definitely see why they've done it once it's been put in the light of 'middle game stuff'. My main fear is that we continue to get more 'middle game stuff' without them getting to the bits we really need (espionage, trade, deeper characters etc.). We can live in hopes though.I don't see much foundation for that fear. DLC on their previous games has been pretty diverse in the areas of gameplay that it covers. Trade is specifically called out as something the new design head wants to do. Espionage and deeper characters seem like pretty obvious areas for them to expand as well. And the next update is named for Iain Banks, suggesting that it could pertain both to end-game content, but also to internal politics, which would include characters, sectors, and factions. All of them, probably not coincidentally, things that people want to see some manner of rework to.
Looks like we will be having Space (https://i.imgur.com/eCiuERB.png) Elves (https://i.imgur.com/VVF9f44.png) when the new patch/update (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-49-graphics-portraits.974104/) releases.Kinda like the space elf mod that already exists better, since it has a ton of clothing options that are contextually employed.
Anyone up for a galactic purge?
The female space elf looks indistinguishable from a space human. :/There are males?
And, I mean, the male only only looks different because of the ears.
so 20th of october at 9.99 or local equiv price, its better value than the EU4 DLCBetter value than the 7.99 plant picture pack too.
I wouldn't say that. Stellaris was particularly under-featured on launch, but look at CKII; at least half of each DLC has been provided as a free patch, and the major DLC is both worth the price and frequently on sale. It's actually a quite reasonable way to fund continuing development for years.It would be if they didn't do shit like they did with EU4 and include mandatory free "upgrades" that made the game more of a pain in the ass if you didn't buy the DLC.
the stellaris dlc so far seems reasonable, eu4 isnt , ck2 is.
I'm mostly just disgusted with the practice of "We know the base game is really under-featured and missing middle game content... here's content to fix that BUT you have to give us more money."They're adding a whole ton of middle game mechanics for free, though. The existing non-leviathan space creatures are getting spread out so they're not front-loaded encounters, Fallen Empires are getting new mechanics so that they're actually relevant instead of just taking up space, and combat is getting overhauled to hopefully be more fun as well. There's more stuff coming in the free patch which should address the fundamental flaw, there's just more stuff coming in the DLC as well.
unless it's much too late (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a0KidUGjXw) for that.I expected this, to be honest. (https://youtu.be/02QjLszgz5k?t=1m34s)
much too late (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a0KidUGjXw)
much too late (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a0KidUGjXw)
"
This video is not available.
Sorry about that.
"
:-\
Leviathans and Heinlein are out :)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag50ct3EBxQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag50ct3EBxQ)
Leviathans and Heinlein are out :)Yay, time to get back into stellaris!
TBH I just want a Culture ship name theme.MODS
TBH I just want a Culture ship name theme.
Anyone played it yet? Is it worthwhile?I played it for a good six hours, I say it's worthwhile, it actually feels like a complete game once you get passed the early game.
I started a game but got boxed in by a neighbor that apparently had a bigger army, faster expansion and more technology than me... Not sure what happened either he had a leg up at the start or some king of lucky break on his home system allowing for that. I'll start a new game soon and hopefully get to midgame.This happened to me as well. I wonder, did the AI get better or did I get worse?
I started a game but got boxed in by a neighbor that apparently had a bigger army, faster expansion and more technology than me... Not sure what happened either he had a leg up at the start or some king of lucky break on his home system allowing for that. I'll start a new game soon and hopefully get to midgame.This happened to me as well. I wonder, did the AI get better or did I get worse?
I cite IV because I never tried to see what horrifying things they were doing in Civ V.
I started a game but got boxed in by a neighbor that apparently had a bigger army, faster expansion and more technology than me... Not sure what happened either he had a leg up at the start or some king of lucky break on his home system allowing for that. I'll start a new game soon and hopefully get to midgame.This happened to me as well. I wonder, did the AI get better or did I get worse?
it's the "a leg up at the start" one: http://www.stellariswiki.com/Settings#AI_empires
You don't get enough leaders for more than one science vessel in most cases. It sucks. You'd think that regular science vessels would be capable of scanning for resources on their own, while scientists would be needed for anomalies and contributing to research.Are governors that mandatory? I haven't been using them much because I assumed they took forever to level unless their colony is freshly building everything, and their low-level benefits feel pretty minor.
You don't get enough leaders for more than one science vessel in most cases. It sucks. You'd think that regular science vessels would be capable of scanning for resources on their own, while scientists would be needed for anomalies and contributing to research.Are governors that mandatory? I haven't been using them much because I assumed they took forever to level unless their colony is freshly building everything, and their low-level benefits feel pretty minor.
Governors are more important for sectors it seems--which in turn are extremely important for the development of your empire.Strangely, my sector governors don't seem keen on building that much, even though I gave them thousands upon thousands of minerals and credits and set them to focus on research or whatever. They just sit on the pile like a grand throne of imperialism and blow spit bubbles. I looked up the issue, but all the reports of idle sectors are from the earlier half of this year.
I made a game with all the Human faction of Alpha Centauri, myself playing as the Morganites (Pacifist, Materialist, Individualist, Plutocratic Oligarchy government and Thrifty trait). I'm still at the strat of the game and I've already lost 2 science ship and I didn't make contact with anyone... On the plus side, one of the colonizable planet near my homeworld has 3 Betharian Stone tiles. With a power hub plus my 30% energy bonus (5 from Ind., 5 from Gov., 15 from Thirty and 5 from an event) it'll be insane when the power plants go online. It's just too bad that not enough energy is rarely a problem and that I can't throw my credits at the enemy to buy their troops.
You made all the factions? Ooh. What traits and governments and so forth did you use for them all?
Please do share your empire configs, I want to see how you built the civs.
-SMAC Factions-A good idea would be to include possible habitabilities (Nautilus is probably quite obvious though.), and leader titles.
-Long quote-Very interesting read - can you make sure to spoiler stuff like this though. As fun as it is to read people's backstories/histories, they're a little bit off topic in terms of discussions on the game itself, and can get a bit of a slog when everyone starts posting page length histories.
-SMAC Factions-A good idea would be to include possible habitabilities (Nautilus is probably quite obvious though.), and leader titles.
Yes, that last faction is difficult. However, I wouldn't necessarily include "collectivism" as per the definition of Stellaris into a necessity for communism/workers' emancipation. Communism is the stage past the time of classes, and the proletarian dictatorship. At a point where technology is ripe enough to make a class less society feasible.
For communist human civs (no ant or bee species) I always put materialist and individualist. A free society of individuals so to speak. Collectivism (in-game) means people are more tolerant to slavery and so on (which the Free Drones would be fighting).
Since revolters in Alpha Centauri could join the Free Drones, xenophile could be an option, to reflect the struggle for liberation of all remaining sentient workers.
However, another complication is that the world of Stellaris really isn't materialist, unless the religious powers are a form of technology.
Don't forget free drones are industrious, but have a research penalty. So ethics that focus on happiness and industry over finances and social control are most appropriate
I'm in a situation where I got greedy and, uh, colonized near an isolationist Fallen Empire... a lot. Predictably, they eventually declared war... but the wargoal was just Humiliate. I didn't have a problem with that when I expected losing half of my worlds, so I just smiled, surrendered and took it like a champ.
The thing is, they also kill my ruler when I surrender. Ten years later, they declare war again, I surrender, they kill my ruler... and suddenly I realize I'm essentially offering up my rulers as ritual sacrifices to appease the FE every ten years, in some kind of amazingly twisted tributary relationship. I can only imagine how the young rulers feel about this.
But I'll have my revenge. I grow stronger with every cycle, and one day I will claim a million Fallen souls for every one of my people lost.
I hear that Fallen Empires have something of a weakness at close range. Is it true they still don't replenish their fleets? If you can somehow avoid the bulk of their battle fleet you may be able to whittle them down? Perhaps sacrifice you own fleet in an attempt to destroy one or two of their ships to research after the hostilities conclude?They'll start building ships after they Awaken, which will happen if you score a significant victory over them. Killing a couple to research their husks is a tenable idea though.
Alright, I'm reticent to put on a let's play, because (if I buy it) I'd like it to be as new and fresh as possible, but, in comparison to something like Sword of the Stars (my all time favorite 4x sci-fi which I have spent more on than any other game in buying it for the other people in the vain hope that they'll get somewhat into it and play a game with me) what's it like?
I keep coming across this and wanting it, but... I'm not as ready to jump on a new game as I once was.
I'll probably finish my current game and wait for a new significant patch or good mod before I play again.
Alright, I'm reticent to put on a let's play, because (if I buy it) I'd like it to be as new and fresh as possible, but, in comparison to something like Sword of the Stars (my all time favorite 4x sci-fi which I have spent more on than any other game in buying it for the other people in the vain hope that they'll get somewhat into it and play a game with me) what's it like?
I keep coming across this and wanting it, but... I'm not as ready to jump on a new game as I once was.
I just want to be able to completely expel alien populations from captured planets. Instead I have to fuck with game files so that everyone can purge, when it would be so much easier to just have a policy that let you choose between integrate/deport/purge captured populations.It's too difficult to deport illegal aliens.
Point defense systems always aim for fighters and bombers before missiles, including if the missiles are in range and the fighters aren't. This is highly exploitable.
On the other hand, that's a bug more than a balance issue.
Yeah, that's one of the side reasons I gave strike craft such a long range, I'm not sure where the PD targeting priorities are defined, they don't appear to be in standard_ship_behaviors unless there's something even weirder going on with how the game handles projectile-based weapons.
Yeah, that's one of the side reasons I gave strike craft such a long range, I'm not sure where the PD targeting priorities are defined, they don't appear to be in standard_ship_behaviors unless there's something even weirder going on with how the game handles projectile-based weapons.
PD priorities are hardcoded, unless something changed since 1st patch, but prioritizing things outside of range would still be a bug.
Wait strikecraft are powerful? I wouldn't know since they didn't put any relaxant date in the Battle report. >:( like seriously Paradox you know how many die so why can you tell me how much damage the did?I think there's a top post on the subreddit about the weapon changes.
Mm, in vanilla anything that is countered by PD is useless. They're too strong to begin with and AI love making fleets with a ton of it.
So recently the Unbiden showed upThey had just been Biden their time
Halp
This is such Hillarity.So recently the Unbiden showed upThey had just been Biden their time
Halp
Too bad they're gonna get Trump'dThis is such Hillarity.So recently the Unbiden showed upThey had just been Biden their time
Halp
Jesus tapdancing christ. Wanna know how they "fixed" ship behavior? They just made a set of class-based default behaviors. That's why you can't give aggressive/defensive computers to everything, they (apparently) aren't actually in the game now, it's just that tier 2+ CCs use their old images. And all of the class CCs still use the same default behaviors, which is why they'll always be forced to act the same way regardless of what weapons or equipment you give them. Missiles and a big engine on a corvette? Charge right in! Autocannons and thick armor on a destroyer? Sit at the back!
Gonna have to go through and duplicate & rewrite all of the entries for all of the combat computers and class behaviors so that I can at least give them all the two basic options of "charge in" and "hold the range open". :IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Don't worry. The Unbidden aren't worth six Pence.Too bad they're gonna get Trump'dThis is such Hillarity.So recently the Unbiden showed upThey had just been Biden their time
Halp
Don't worry. The Unbidden aren't worth six Pence.Too bad they're gonna get Trump'dThis is such Hillarity.So recently the Unbiden showed upThey had just been Biden their time
Halp
Well we knew we where going to Bern up the puns eventually.Don't worry. The Unbidden aren't worth six Pence.Too bad they're gonna get Trump'dThis is such Hillarity.So recently the Unbiden showed upThey had just been Biden their time
Halp
Let it be known the Galaxy ended because of puns and bad spelling
I have this recurring and very annoying issue where the game basically corrupts spontaneously. Hotkeys suddenly no longer work or change completely, many things can't be clicked on, visual bugs pop up...
It becomes virtually unplayable. The only half-way decent solution I have is to re-install.
That's what I'm doing (except without high range granularity because that sucked the first time); each computer gives the same bonuses to its class, except that there are two versions. One prompts the ship to stay at medium-long range and shoot, the other to close the distance and brawl. All the stats are the same as they are in vanilla right now.Jesus tapdancing christ. Wanna know how they "fixed" ship behavior? They just made a set of class-based default behaviors. That's why you can't give aggressive/defensive computers to everything, they (apparently) aren't actually in the game now, it's just that tier 2+ CCs use their old images. And all of the class CCs still use the same default behaviors, which is why they'll always be forced to act the same way regardless of what weapons or equipment you give them. Missiles and a big engine on a corvette? Charge right in! Autocannons and thick armor on a destroyer? Sit at the back!
Gonna have to go through and duplicate & rewrite all of the entries for all of the combat computers and class behaviors so that I can at least give them all the two basic options of "charge in" and "hold the range open". :IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
The reason they've done that is to try to give the classes some differentiation rather than just encouraging corvette spam which was the old optimal play style. It does restrict the player, but as there's no tactical gameplay, not a great deal is lost by it. I'd have personally preferred them to allow the player to change it up if they'd like, (no 'combat computer' - just set the range that design should engage at) but it's better than before I think.
You're gonna have to explain that process for me. Also it happens with brand new, unsaved games.I have this recurring and very annoying issue where the game basically corrupts spontaneously. Hotkeys suddenly no longer work or change completely, many things can't be clicked on, visual bugs pop up...
It becomes virtually unplayable. The only half-way decent solution I have is to re-install.
Manually Uncompress and recompress the save, I've started to do it after I notice a lot of that stuff disappear while save game editing.
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Save-game_editing (http://www.stellariswiki.com/Save-game_editing) And if it's happening to new games, then something funky is going on that new to me.]You're gonna have to explain that process for me. Also it happens with brand new, unsaved games.I have this recurring and very annoying issue where the game basically corrupts spontaneously. Hotkeys suddenly no longer work or change completely, many things can't be clicked on, visual bugs pop up...
It becomes virtually unplayable. The only half-way decent solution I have is to re-install.
Manually Uncompress and recompress the save, I've started to do it after I notice a lot of that stuff disappear while save game editing.
So in my game there was a militaristic fallen empire that awakened, right away I declared war on them and they reply with "Greetings!"
I will have to see, they are on the other side of the galaxy, I have psi jump drive and several enigmatic techs. The first engagement was in their favor and was next to their space. I do know the other fallen empire declared war on me and couldn't reach my space because neutral empires in the way.So in my game there was a militaristic fallen empire that awakened, right away I declared war on them and they reply with "Greetings!"
Maybe declaring war is like saying hi in their culture. You're the first friend they've made in this strange galaxy and they're just pumped to get to know you better. Entire fleets of friendships are on their way!
Apparently there's a bug right now where if you allow sector AI to build space stations and other space stuff, it won't build any planetary improvements at all. Also it will use YOUR money and minerals to build the space stuff.
So turn it off.
QA is to test if the game doesn't crash and such, not actually finding bugs. Which explains a lot.Apparently there's a bug right now where if you allow sector AI to build space stations and other space stuff, it won't build any planetary improvements at all. Also it will use YOUR money and minerals to build the space stuff.
So turn it off.
Fucking chri91st, how do you not see that during anysort of QA?
I do QA for games and in many of them I'm searching for any kind of bug.I guess the definition of QA can change from company to company.
Unless you're talking about stellaris in particular, I guess?
Paradox QA consists of "Does it crash on launch? If no, ship it," I sometimes suspect.
Paradox QA consists of "Does it crash on launch? If no, ship it," I sometimes suspect.
That's their actually policy, Like seriously look at the release of pretty much any of their games. If they weren't the only people actually reliably making games like this I probably would buy their products.
What "broken content" are they charging for, exactly...?
Well, aside from the possibility of Awakened Empires going to war with each other, the changes to Fallen Empires were in a free update, so...
But you don't need the DLC unless you want Wars in Heaven. IIRC, Fallen Empires can wake up regardless.
Are we talking semantics here? Technically, no one "needs" DLC. The entire point of DLC is optional stuff that you pay extra for, like ye olde expansion packs.
They clearly didn't make them the way they wanted to, believe they are a detriment to the gameplay, so are now backpedaling to try to make them meaningful in any small way.
Don't need DLC? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA1mbZ_MMh8)
Where did the dev team say this? I don't want any 'look at how they are' bullshit. Where did any of the dev team say this. I'm not fanboying, I'm just annoyed when people make criticisms based on 'he said she said' without any evidence or situations where they've said it.
You made that statement very confidentially. They clearly didn't think Fallen Empires are so detrimental to gameplay they decided to just make token efforts in a DLC not related to them to make the fanbase happy.
Am I wrong?
Well, that's beside the point. Was I wrong in the assumption you knew that the dev team thought fallen empires were detrimental to gameplay. Or am I painting the wrong picture? Because honestly, I'm no there to antagonize anyone. I just hate it when someone decides to spend so much time criticizing something without any reason for me, a bystander, to change my opinion. A simple link to a statement or twitter message would at least give me a chance to see if I'm wrong or right in believing the Leviathan DLC is horrible or not.You made that statement very confidentially. They clearly didn't think Fallen Empires are so detrimental to gameplay they decided to just make token efforts in a DLC not related to them to make the fanbase happy.
Am I wrong?
The DLC is directly related to them. Leviathan is its marketing name... mostly because that one feature is so scant in it of itself.
The DLC is them trying to prop up their front loaded gameplay.
Which of course ties into why Paradox has such problems with their DLC and their gameplay... And what the DLC often props up.
To admit Paradox isn't the only company that tries to prop up missing gameplay features, glitches, bugs, and issues with paid DLC...
Though they are the most blatant and transparent when they do.
Cheese DLC anyone?
When you were playing let's say... The Sims.
No harm intended in anything I said. Just was trying to see why you think that way. Apologies if it came out that way.
Ah. Yeah, I mean. Stellaris was pretty fun when it first came out. Watched the pre-release stuff on youtube. I liked what I saw. Yeah, there were flaws but overall it looked like a pretty fun game. And it was. Mods did fix things when they came around, add stuff, etc. But even without those, it still was a fun experience. YMMV, as always but my point doesn't change.
stuffMan isn't it great how well people eat their words these days? :P
Remember when people said day 1 patches were fine?
Well now we have games that don't work until a week after launch.
Shit, I just got ion thrusters.
So he got Ion cannons?Shit, I just got ion thrusters.
Maxim 24 (http://ovalkwiki.com/The+Seventy+Maxims+of+Maximally+Effective+Mercenaries): Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun.
I had one precursor line that led me to a system with a ruined ringworld that gave a total of fifteen engineering research points split between three nodes.I would have considered it weird for a broken ringworld to spontaneously spawn somewhere. Perhaps all the quest did was point you to it, and it was meant to be present as an object from the get-go.
Thing was, it apparently glitched and spawned it before I got all the artifacts, 'cause I had it surveyed and slapped down stations years before that.
The Precursor event chains that lead to systems spawn them in (or possibly reveal them on the map). That's why you see reports of people suddenly "noticing" unsurveyed systems deep in their territory well after they've surveyed it all, an AI empire has done something that spawned a system. The Cybrex chain spawns the ringworld system and gives you Living Metal, the First League chain spawns their home/capital system.I had one precursor line that led me to a system with a ruined ringworld that gave a total of fifteen engineering research points split between three nodes.I would have considered it weird for a broken ringworld to spontaneously spawn somewhere. Perhaps all the quest did was point you to it, and it was meant to be present as an object from the get-go.
Thing was, it apparently glitched and spawned it before I got all the artifacts, 'cause I had it surveyed and slapped down stations years before that.
Alright, here's a question. What happens if you enlighten a primitive civilization that lives in a system where you have a colony? Do you lose your colony? If so, what happens to the people and buildings on it?You'll keep your planet. And remember that protectorates give influence.
I discovered that one of my systems had a bunch of bronze-age people living on a planet in it. They prefer arid climates while I go for alpine, so if I can integrate them into my kingdom I've got prime colonizers for planets that my own dudes won't touch. Even better, they share my ethics exactly so we'd probably get along almost perfectly. However, it will take a ludicrously long time to enlighten them plus another 30 years or so for them to go from Protectorate to full-fledged member, and if I'll lose a colony for all that time I'd almost rather not bother.
Just get your colony going and drop stations on all the system resources. It'll turn into your vassal/protectorate's territory, but you'll keep all your holdings.XENOS
Ugh. I want to do a peaceful-ish run where I assimilate people all friendly-like and build a federation, but the entire game appears to be built so that anything other than going full 40Klike PURGE THE XENOS PURGE THE HERETIC PURGE THE MUTANT is a total pain in the ass. *sigh* More mass-murder it is. Different ethos? PURGE. Alien? PURGE. Alien I intentionally suborned? PURGE. Wrong hair color? PURGE. Unhappy? PURGE. Unhappy because of all the purging? PURGE.
Because everyone is willing to forgive everything they do and praise them for when they do release this DLC... So they try less... and less... and less...Now, that's just not true. Paradox gets talked to pretty straight by their fans, even on their own forums (which for many developers tend to be total hugboxes) for bad DLC, bad gameplay decisions, and (as in the case of plantoids) bad pricing. The response is generally "it is what it is, here's why it's not changing, but we're doing things differently in the future". At least with the project heads that I'm familiar with. And while not changing stuff is kind of a problem, that only really applies to the DLC itself, so their support policy isn't bad compared to other studios.
Meh sorry guys I was in an exceptionally bad mood.No worries mate, happens to everyone. Your viewpoint isn't necessarily invalidated by its emotional context, even though I do personally think that it's needlessly ungenerous.
Stellaris is one of the best 4x games of its type (Space) ever made."One of" makes that hard to argue, but still... It's a high claim. Best in what way? Accuracy? Distant Worlds reigns there. Balance and mechanistic challenge? AI? GalCiv2. Interesting factions and characters? Alpha Centauri takes the cake if you count that, but otherwise there's SotS and a pretty wide array of other things which are above it. I think Stellaris has the potential to be great, and I think that in time it will reach most of that potential, but even though it's a fun game in its current state, I wouldn't sing its praises to anyone too highly if they're not in it for the long term.
Alright, here's a question. What happens if you enlighten a primitive civilization that lives in a system where you have a colony? Do you lose your colony? If so, what happens to the people and buildings on it?The system and its influence area is hatched* in your empire's color and that of the primitives. You still control the same stuff you did before. I got a system that was triple-hatched once.
Best as in "Overall a good, fun, and worthwhile game"Yeah, it gets into the top ten, but that's more or less just by default. 4x isn't a huge genre to begin with so when you narrow it down to one setting, you wind up with single digit numbers of games that are at all notable.
It gets in the top 10... likely in 5th place. Though I think it doesn't really have a lot of competition which is the problem.
It took me a little bit to realize that there is a surprising lack of 4x space games (you know the type) that are truly good. Endless Space is boarderline dull and it somehow is one of the good ones.
Just get your colony going and drop stations on all the system resources. It'll turn into your vassal/protectorate's territory, but you'll keep all your holdings.Fanatic Individualist is actually the strongest ethos atm. You can forget about all ethics divergence and stuff with it.
Ugh. I want to do a peaceful-ish run where I assimilate people all friendly-like and build a federation, but the entire game appears to be built so that anything other than going full 40Klike PURGE THE XENOS PURGE THE HERETIC PURGE THE MUTANT is a total pain in the ass. *sigh* More mass-murder it is. Different ethos? PURGE. Alien? PURGE. Alien I intentionally suborned? PURGE. Wrong hair color? PURGE. Unhappy? PURGE. Unhappy because of all the purging? PURGE.
Ugh. I want to do a peaceful-ish run where I assimilate people all friendly-like and build a federation, but the entire game appears to be built so that anything other than going full 40Klike PURGE THE XENOS PURGE THE HERETIC PURGE THE MUTANT is a total pain in the ass. *sigh* More mass-murder it is. Different ethos? PURGE. Alien? PURGE. Alien I intentionally suborned? PURGE. Wrong hair color? PURGE. Unhappy? PURGE. Unhappy because of all the purging? PURGE.
Ahahaha, glad I went to check in the wiki. I had wanted to form a Federation, but hadn't realized it would leave my foreign policy slaved to the incompetent AI 75% of the time. I'll just enjoy my alliance with my two rubber-stamping allies who are 100% A-OK with my massive empire growing larger by taking chunks out of my southern neighbors.
The ethics divergence is easily the least significant of the real problems, though. I can deal with pops being unhappy because I purged and they're xenos-loving traitors, I just resettle them onto a useless border world or purge them.Question: why not engage in wars of liberation? Replace the xenophobic militarist leaders of your enemies with ones that see your point of view, then become besties with them until they decide to join up with you. The pops won't necessarily change, but that's what propaganda and divergence-reducing stuff is for.
I've fixed the idiotic "the more powerful you are, the more your vassals hate you" thing, but the whole process of uplifting/integrating/&c. is just a total pain in the ass compared to killing everything. It's the same end result, only it takes far more time and resources. It's not like terraforming and gene-modding aren't things you can do that are just flatly more effective than getting subject pops and hoping that they've got the right tolerances or traits.
I say this because all I'm trying to do is get a save to the endgame to do some weapons testing against real threats, but even if you're a fanatic xenophile with the other species happiness trait you're still going to have to conquer some idiots, and being a xenos-lover like that just means that when you do it's harder to deal with them (since they're inevitably xenophobic/spiritualist/militarist jackasses that won't get along), since you can't just purge them or sit below your target warscore while you sloooooooowly kill their pops with orbital bombardment.
:I
And so the Kingdom loses a THIRD science vessel+scientist to RNG. After failing a special project, everyone on the ship went insane and killed each other, destroying the ship in the process. Say good-bye to my nearly 4-star scientist who was going to examine a special homeworld soon.
The one that always gets my science ships is the one where it disappears, then reappears as two different ones.I had this recently and killed the second one, just to be safe.
I'm still new with the game, but it seems the extra research you get from expansion is enough to counter the tech penalty. You need more planets and stations to increase naval capacity, so they seem necessary to increase the "relative strength" calculated by the game against other empires. And you need high "relative strength" to get others to do what you want, even if they are your friends.SORTA.
Speaking of bugged events, I finally completed a Precursor quest chain! But, you know, their homeworld had already been surveyed by another empire so nothing happened. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than just not being able to find enough precursor anomalies to get that far.While quest chains in general might be still a ways over the horizon, the precursor events specifically are on the short list for the next patch, which was inserted between Heinlein and Banks in the latest Dev Diary (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-50-the-journey-ahead.978042/).
Maybe in another eight months and two patches the game will be able to handle the concept of a "quest chain." It's a pretty sophisticated, cutting edge concept, though, so I can understand it taking a while.
Are you using that mod? The one where you can deliberately set your people up as gods or guardians?Nope, no mods.
Aside from build time, is there any reason NOT to just send fleets composed of only battleships at enemies? Destroyers and cruisers just sort of melt in fleet battles, and don't seem to do a lot of damage in return.
My personal stance is that guided weapons in space is pure stupidity, but they do, in fact, have a dedicated torpedo carrier hull, specifically to create large amounts of disposable high-alpha torp boats. Point defense can still stop basically all of them.Wait what? The way I look at it guided weapons would be the only useful weapons in space. Doesn't matter how fast something is going, if you're far enough away it should be trivial to dodge it (or if you can't sense it, just move at random and hope you dodge it).
Lasers are a hypothetical, but only if you could basically rake massive areas of space with them, which would require a ridiculous amount of power.Aren't there laser "weapons" already? I say "weapons" because AFAIK they're only used to shoot down missiles.
Lasers are a hypothetical, but only if you could basically rake massive areas of space with them, which would require a ridiculous amount of power.Aren't there laser "weapons" already? I say "weapons" because AFAIK they're only used to shoot down missiles.
That said, yeah, space warfare is pretty hard to imagine. Which is why I just give nearly all sci-fi space battles a pass as long as they look cool. If I was to speculate though, it might involve the conflicting spacecraft to close in on each other like ships-of-the-line of some centuries back.
-snip-I'll concede on this. Frankly, other than knowing space is really damn big, I don't know that much about it. Really wish governments funneled more money into space exploration though.
The main problem with drones/missiles is, I would think, carrying enough fuel to stay on target across non-trivial ranges. If you're just fighting in orbit, sure, but even Earth-to-Luna-orbit size areas would be questionable.
Launch drones/missiles in the general direction of the enemy, boosters trigger when they get within something resembling a short range? Assuming they use propulsion systems roughly similar to those of the spaceships, they ought to have much higher acceleration than manned ships.
And if you want to say "sure, but the targeted fleet could just move somewhere else", the same is true for any other space weapon system you could imagine.
So, I'm seeing that the "one planet" challenge isn't a viable option? Any ideas on this?Try one of those Ringworld starter planet mods.
Updated version from the comments: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=717498014Ah yes.
Launch drones/missiles in the general direction of the enemy, boosters trigger when they get within something resembling a short range? Assuming they use propulsion systems roughly similar to those of the spaceships, they ought to have much higher acceleration than manned ships.
And if you want to say "sure, but the targeted fleet could just move somewhere else", the same is true for any other space weapon system you could imagine.
*Edit: Aaannd I just realized that I restated what Retropunch just said, albeit in a less verbose manner. Great job me. ::)Verbose!? ME!? I think it is absolutely compunctuous that you accuse me of being a long-winded lout! Sir/Madam/Internet Person, you are a vagabond and a scoundrel, to the duelling green!
5. Lances are worthless.Awuh, lances are awesome though. I need to replay Freescape 2 sometime... Now there's a "war in heaven". Stuck in a dinky fighter-bomber as the capital ships joust. (though naturally you have to tip the fight with dogfighting and precision strikes)
I deal with normal people every day. The general populace considers understanding even Aristotelian Physics a mental feat.Spoiler: space war is not stellaris (click to show/hide)
Stellaris acts like your standard sci-fi game/movie, where you don't enter orbit and obey physics so much as ignore it to fly directly to wherever you want to go, because people think space physics is too confusing for audiences to understand or something?
Well, spawning additional artifacts is a step in the right direction. Now they just need a way to make events empire-unique.
They should really have an anomaly generation system in general, not just for precursors. Otherwise, as you say, science vessels run out of interesting things to do and become slotless buildings. They already try a bit with vessel-required events and battle debris, but anomalies have a lot more range to them at the moment.Well, spawning additional artifacts is a step in the right direction. Now they just need a way to make events empire-unique.
Or just make it so scanning a planet strange to you, but previously scanned for someone else, is exactly the same as scanning a truly virgin world. Otherwise, about midgame, science vessels do nothing, or hover by cities increasing their science.
"Captain's Log. Stardate: 2261... We have... ENCOUNTERED... an extremely interesting... but deadly... species of pre-sentients... we have... DECIDED... to leave them... until we've achieved... our... dreams. Kirk out."UPLIFT UPLIFT UPLIFT says karnewarrior.
Also how famine, bombardment and natural disasters can't wipe out a planet's population, you can't sterilize pops but keep them alive (short of slavery with reproductive rights disabled) yet somehow you are able to exterminate a pop even if that would cause the planet to become uninhabited (surely the last pop would take issue with self-extermination?). And it really, really is unfortunate that the cloning tanks do not let you clone pops :<Hold on, since when does famine and bombardment not kill pops? I lost a colony once, it was being bombarded enough that the pops couldn't grow food. One day, every pop on the planet just...vanished. The enemy didn't capture it, it simply reverted to being an uninhabited world.
The vanilla odds of a pop dying from bombardment are vanishingly low if you're trying to kill them all off. Usually the enemy will surrender before you get to that point.Yeah, but this was 3 or 4 pops dying all at the same time and starvation was in effect. Either I got unbelievably unlucky with bombardment rolls or something screwy was going on.
Well, spawning additional artifacts is a step in the right direction. Now they just need a way to make events empire-unique.It does say that the anomaly is generated in your space. So at the very least it is less likely to get scanned by someone else.
I'd say it was particularly horrid luckThe vanilla odds of a pop dying from bombardment are vanishingly low if you're trying to kill them all off. Usually the enemy will surrender before you get to that point.Yeah, but this was 3 or 4 pops dying all at the same time and starvation was in effect. Either I got unbelievably unlucky with bombardment rolls or something screwy was going on.
...
1) Build enough corvettes to take on a fallen empire
...
I don't know what their brilliant idea was, but if it wasn't area-affecting weapons, it was doomed to fail....
1) Build enough corvettes to take on a fallen empire
...
I see that their brilliant idea to fix corvette stacks didnt work that well....
It worked, mostly. They melt like butter in a blast furnace.I don't know what their brilliant idea was, but if it wasn't area-affecting weapons, it was doomed to fail....
1) Build enough corvettes to take on a fallen empire
...
I see that their brilliant idea to fix corvette stacks didnt work that well....
It worked, mostly. They melt like butter in a blast furnace.
I haven't seriously tried out missiles recently, but it seems way too easy to counter with corvette spam or with flak cannons.
Well. Nothing like starting a new game in a nice big galaxy, only to discover a freaking Void Dragon practically on your doorstep. It's just inside my starting borders, so close that I have constant intel on it just from my homeworld's starting sensors.I defeated mine on the early late game with about 40k worth of ships with mostly level 4 plasma and giga cannons.
I wonder if a massive corvette fleet could possibly overwhelm the creature...
So, I found an anomaly. It's only level 1, but it has a 60% base failure rate. Even with a 5-star scientist it still has a whopping 30% fail risk. What the heck could be so dangerous?Find out and then tell us.
When I killed it I got these rewards.I actually had a more difficult time with the super jellyfish.Reward's more than worth it though.
They move around too much.
Also, when I killed the dragon (only done it once) the ONLY option I was given was the trophy one. I was a little miffed. I wanted my own goddamn dragon!
I once had 52% for an oddly colored toxic planet.So, I found an anomaly. It's only level 1, but it has a 60% base failure rate. Even with a 5-star scientist it still has a whopping 30% fail risk. What the heck could be so dangerous?Find out and then tell us.
Guess I'll have to disappoint you. Critical failure, ship and scientist lost, absolutely no insight on just why the event was so friggin dangerous, and of course the anomaly disappears so I can't even try again.So, I found an anomaly. It's only level 1, but it has a 60% base failure rate. Even with a 5-star scientist it still has a whopping 30% fail risk. What the heck could be so dangerous?Find out and then tell us.
Question that's been bothering me: Aren't torpedoes relatively useless against larger ships because they have no armor pen?The 100% shield pen is nice, and they've got high enough damage to still hurt even heavily armored targets. Still not nearly as good as laser spam, though.
Question that's been bothering me: Aren't torpedoes relatively useless against larger ships because they have no armor pen?Maybe?
Question that's been bothering me: Aren't torpedoes relatively useless against larger ships because they have no armor pen?More or less.
Here's a question: I just got contacted by a bigger, meaner empire than the one I barely fought off and they want me to become their vassal. Is that basically a game over if I accept?
I discovered the technosphere not too far from home. Once I got a lvl 5 scientist I helped it calculate infinity and received the +10 research point and the 10% bonus from the black hole system. It's a pretty huge bonus when you still at corvette level. Also I've explored half of my galactic arm and I'm still the lone spacefaring civ I know of and I'm stuck with only three habitable planets.
Get it on sale. It's a nice game and getting better, but it's still lacking in quite a few things. I'm sure there'll be a sale at some point. Paradox loves sales.
Also, 80 USD, what the hell? I hope that's for SotS, because I don't know in what universe does Stellaris with expansions get anywhere near that.
If you can't wait and want to get it - GMG has it t 20% off. Definitely not the cheapest it's been, but it's better than full price, no?If you think that is a good price for you then go ahead.
https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/stellaris/ (https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/stellaris/)
Goddamn this game still sounds awesome. I know I asked a similar question earlier, but there I was directly relating it to to SotS (which is the best sci-fi 4x), now my question is, is it worth the ~80 USD to buy the game and expansions?If you're hankering this much, you'll probably enjoy it regardless of whether you also fly into a screaming rage about it or not. At least, that's been my experience.
(No, expansions aren't mandatory, but there's always that thought of: "well, maybe the expansions would fix all those niggles I had the base game" [Again, like in SotS.] if I don't try them. )
So I've gotten a planet as a wargoal and its in a system with planets belonging to another civ (the one I was at war with) - how can I take over that system without going to war with them again?Probably the only way is to wait for that planet to rebel or some other empire declares war on them and wants that planet to be liberated or something, then vassalize that planet and intergrate them 10 years after that.
I'm still kinda baffled there doesnt seem to be a way to ask for certain systems rather than planets as wargoals, not that I've seen anyway, altough I'm pretty sure I saw something like that in previous versions several months ago, and now I simply can't find the option somehow. Recently I've found the infinity machine in one of them but its in someone else's territory and there isn't a single planet nearby.
I'd be fine if it still existed but was tied to... y'know, actual things, rather than being a stat.
Even a system like moo2 would be trivial to add. Spies oppose each other, espionage just has a random chance to steal tech, sabotage has a chance to blow up a station or defense base or w/e. Doesn't let you specify targets.
There's a fourth level, where it's infiltration to directly annex them as another world. Uplifting turns them into a vassal state, where you're all "And THAT'S how you harness the fifth level of energy..."Ah right, forgot about that.
Infiltration is where you have agents getting elected to then ask your government to annex the planet.
There are also several events like one of the infiltrators falling in love with a native and going rogue.
Brings a rather amusing image to mind when you're seven foot tall birb-people and they're two foot tall fungi.
I like to imagine EVERYONE in Stellaris is really fucking oblivious.
Infiltration mission on Sol 3 goes wrong...
'OK, so the perp was 7 feet, bright blue, and had four legs?' 'Yeah' 'God dammit, that's describing fucking everyone on the planet.
Maybe in the Stellaris universe, the SEP effect is a universal technology. A primitive mammal will subconsciously ignore the fact that its world's new Global Leader is a purple slug-thing because it, and every other member of its species, assumes that it is Someone Else's Problem.Either or both of these interpretations explain sector AI perfectly.
I've always wondered why sectors are so...inefficient. Or on why there's a giant leap in science capacity needed for every planet. :II like to imagine EVERYONE in Stellaris is really fucking oblivious.
Infiltration mission on Sol 3 goes wrong...
'OK, so the perp was 7 feet, bright blue, and had four legs?' 'Yeah' 'God dammit, that's describing fucking everyone on the planet.Maybe in the Stellaris universe, the SEP effect is a universal technology. A primitive mammal will subconsciously ignore the fact that its world's new Global Leader is a purple slug-thing because it, and every other member of its species, assumes that it is Someone Else's Problem.Either or both of these interpretations explain sector AI perfectly.
"Frank, you ever notice we produce 2.5 times as much food as we eat?"
"Can't say I do, Bill. Can't say I do."
Anyone know how to get shields on space stations? I just finished a bit of a nasty war with the same dudes I fought last time, and every orbital platform they had was shielded. Even the mining and research stations!You can edit stations model in the ship designor. You need to retrofit them afterwards but it's doable. I'll have to try next time.
My torpedo boat swarms were killing them faster than my main battle fleet since they could just punch straight through their defenses.
Pardon me for not copying and pasting this one, but new dev diary[url] is just achievements.
(https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-52-new-achievements.980632/)
Suffer not the Alien: As a xenophobic empire, purge all other sentient species in the galaxy.
Pardon me for not copying and pasting this one, but new dev diary[url] is just achievements.To compensate, they did push a hotfix the same day they announced those.
(https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-52-new-achievements.980632/)
I found that fielding ships with no shields at all to just lead to absurd losses. Not really sure why that is but that's been my experience.
* Fixed armor absorbing too much damage if the ship also had shields leftMystery solved!
Anyone else play with only hyperlanes???Yeah.
Space Empires IV has a mode I like where there are no hyperlanes, so no FTL travel, until empires reach the midgame tech to start creating them. The AI... isn't great at it, though I did have a pleasantly horrible surprise where I opened the initial lane into a VERY militaristic solar empire, who had spent their time researching more "tactical" than strategic technologies :P
Same. I like the idea of different races having different forms of FTL travel, but I don't feel like it's handled well here.Anyone else play with only hyperlanes???Yeah.
In fact that's how all my games are set up. While I generally like imbalance in my grand strategy games, this one just makes things confusing and weird for me. And I like how hyperlanes make it so there's actually some semblance of defensive lines.
Anyone else play with only hyperlanes???Pretty much me :P Makes it into a Sins of a Solar Empire-esque fashion.
[Hotfix Notes]-snip-They...didn't fix the science ship manual retreat crash? :-\
Also could anyone please help me with some questions I posted here ._. That would be great!
Nope. I can't recall having any crashes. Might be something to do with your system.As in, when you've a science vessel with a leader caught in combat, then you press manual retreat (as in you live for the 30-ish days? :P), the game crashes?
Not sure where the crashlogs are stored, but if you can find them it may be an idea to go to the forums and drop them off there.
Sorry Tir, I've never had that particular crash. My copy doesn't crash at all unless it's on start-up when I have a bad mod enabled :/Only mod I have is Beautiful Universe...because I want those steam achievements despite having to go through annoying ironman without any control over saves and stuff. >_<
How is current weapon balance?1. Plasma is best. Except against shields.
Is strike aircraft useful?
Do missiles still suck except against heavy shielded ai designs with no PD?
Try starting up a game without Beautiful Universe, see if you get the same emergency FTL bug there. You shouldn't, but stranger things have been known to happen.Sorry Tir, I've never had that particular crash. My copy doesn't crash at all unless it's on start-up when I have a bad mod enabled :/Only mod I have is Beautiful Universe...because I want those steam achievements despite having to go through annoying ironman without any control over saves and stuff. >_<
And the system seems to handle itself quite well :/ if I can play Sins of a Solar Empire with a ton of stuff rolling in, this game could too--and it does. It just somehow crashes when that one science ship happens.
Is strike aircraft useful?In my regretful experience, no. I love the look of giant strike swarms, but PD is way too easy to get and they just bleed off damage too quickly against anything that has it. Plus they take considerably longer to reach the enemy than your longer-ranged weapon options.
Try starting up a game without Beautiful Universe, see if you get the same emergency FTL bug there. You shouldn't, but stranger things have been known to happen.
Then try verifying integrity of game cache (right click game -> Properties -> Local Files tab). In theory, that's the default way to fix something obviously broken with the game (meaning obvious to Steam, corrupted files or the like). You can also try that first if you don't want to bother testing the mod.
If that doesn't work you might try uninstalling and reinstalling it completely, though with your internet speeds... :'(
@Tiruin, I don't know about the goverment glitch you've gotten yourself into, is it possible to hold an emergency election? Or change government types to say, a 5 year democracy and then change back after a vote goes through?IN 14 years, yes. :P Because somehow you have to 'change the government with the 20 year cooldown' once you unlock the advanced governance types.
As for the science ship crash, I bet that's happening because science ships set to avoid hostiles try and flee themselves automatically as soon as it's able, and you clicking the retreat is most likely causing it to double-flee and break the game.
@Tirun/Everyone,Woo, someone else who has the thingy with me :D
I also had the crash on manual retreat from science ships. Doesn't seem to make a difference what stance they're set at. Lost two ships to that as there was just nothing I could do :(
Does anyone know the tech tree? As in visible tech tree rather than 'connect the artistic tech squares' on the wiki? :PHow is current weapon balance?1. Plasma is best. Except against shields.
Is strike aircraft useful?
Do missiles still suck except against heavy shielded ai designs with no PD?
2. Kinetic is good overall.
3. Giga Cannon and artillery is great.
4. Energy Torpedoes are good against shields. They're also immune to PD.
5. Lances are worthless. (They did just patch this so no idea if this is still true)
6. Everything else is meh.
Then try verifying integrity of game cache (right click game -> Properties -> Local Files tab). In theory, that's the default way to fix something obviously broken with the game (meaning obvious to Steam, corrupted files or the like). You can also try that first if you don't want to bother testing the mod.I did all that and it's all verified ;~;
If that doesn't work you might try uninstalling and reinstalling it completely, though with your internet speeds... :'(
Amoeba Flagella are pretty nice if you can get them, totally piercing shields and ignoring half the enemy's armor, giving them a damage output almost as good as top-tier bombers.Could I ask a tutorial about fighters and scout craft and which can be used against what?
Of course, PD will shred them.
One nice thing I've seen from Scout craft is that they themselves serve as PD, shooting down enemy missiles long before they get close enough to serve as a threat to your ships.
Amoeba Flagella are pretty nice if you can get them, totally piercing shields and ignoring half the enemy's armor, giving them a damage output almost as good as top-tier bombers.
Of course, PD will shred them.
One nice thing I've seen from Scout craft is that they themselves serve as PD, shooting down enemy missiles long before they get close enough to serve as a threat to your ships.
Not just that, the game seems abnormally stable for a PI game. I can't recall ANY crashes at all (barring start up crashes with mods that aren't playing nice)Synchronisation is pretty awful tho. I've had lots of synch issues with it.
:(Not just that, the game seems abnormally stable for a PI game. I can't recall ANY crashes at all (barring start up crashes with mods that aren't playing nice)Nope. I can't recall having any crashes. Might be something to do with your system.As in, when you've a science vessel with a leader caught in combat, then you press manual retreat (as in you live for the 30-ish days? :P), the game crashes?
Not sure where the crashlogs are stored, but if you can find them it may be an idea to go to the forums and drop them off there.
Wait...you mean the tech I can get around 'in the first decade just by corvettes or by just meeting those amoebas' is better than nearly half a century worth of tech for hangars? o_OAmoeba Flagella are pretty nice if you can get them, totally piercing shields and ignoring half the enemy's armor, giving them a damage output almost as good as top-tier bombers.
Of course, PD will shred them.
One nice thing I've seen from Scout craft is that they themselves serve as PD, shooting down enemy missiles long before they get close enough to serve as a threat to your ships.
Yeah, I was a bit surprised at how good they are. They're tier 2.75 bombers, and if you get them first you can basically ignore the whole small craft tech chain, as it saves you years for a VERY minor upgrade to your strike craft
Am I crazy, or wasn't there a time when hyperdrives were able to jump out at any point in a system in order to offset their lack of strategic flexibility?
Now it seems that hyperdrives have to retreat all the way to the edge of a system in order to go FTL, just like warp drives but without the ability to go anywhere within range. That seems to be a fairly large nerf.
We're not talking about emergency FTL though. Used to be, hyperdrive could activate from anywhere inside a star system and following any of the available hyperlanes, as opposed to warp and wormhole which required ships to move to the edge of the system.Now you have Wormhole doing that and hyperdrive retreating outside the gravity well! :P
at least this means I never have to worry about synth rebellion once i get synthsEndgame crises are not mutually exclusive, just negatively weighted once one has happened. You could have another.
I've read that they're mutually exclusive -- I even saw an article that suggested intentionally triggering the Unbidden (which I didn't) to make AI safeat least this means I never have to worry about synth rebellion once i get synthsEndgame crises are not mutually exclusive, just negatively weighted once one has happened. You could have another.
Australia: Tasmania III don't even want to know.
RIP Powder Miner.that just means now's my chance
Remember, they start rebuilding their fleets once they wake up. They might be starting out as "Superior" but they'll quickly get stronger.
Their fleet power is only "Superior" to mineHow do you guuuuuys record achievements in IRONMAN @_@ I keep playing on IRONMAN and despite my horribad net (or because of it--it usually ends up as 'local save ironmans' with the steam client displaying 'no connection') and never even getting an achievement!
I'm in a federation that can boost my numbers
I can take em
I CAN TAKE EM
Also, since I usually play on Ironman, if I screw this up I can't go back
I really need to figure out if I should try for an early decisive strike or what
In lighter news, I made yet another colony (my mass terraforming from earlier paid off) and named it Mohandas
this is in direct opposition to my immediate future
Yeah, my cruisers are usually my first ships to go -- my battleships only died so fast because the Spiritualist Awakened Empire loved its fancy energy lances which blow up capital ships really nicelyWaaaait. Corvettes with ~60% evasion; Destroyers with ~30% evasion, and Cruisers/Battleships with ~10% evasion.
(wasn't fast or accurate enough to take the rest of my fleet tho)
I believe this is relevant when talking about missiles. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/5e5zm3/the_missiles_are_a_lie_analysis/) In the sense of 'what the fuck is going on with them?'Does this nudge my personal bias about PD in a really itchy way? ._. Because I feel like it does, when you're technologically advanced over an enemy who uses only missiles (and it's checked by seeing their tech), and you have invariably gotten higher PD tech than their weapons tech, and filled everything as PD-destroyers versus corvettes.
I believe this is relevant when talking about missiles. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/5e5zm3/the_missiles_are_a_lie_analysis/) In the sense of 'what the fuck is going on with them?'No seriously what. Was half this game designed and coded by horses or something?
Also could I ask people's preference for the 'workhorse' or 'backbone' of their fleet? It seems Cruisers fare best here along with Battleship support, as everytime I've had cruisers--they're the frontline while my destroyers stay back at medium to longer range. Independent of their weapon loadout... x_xI only ever spam battleships, though I haven't done enough testing to figure out if that's actually ideal or not. It might be worth noting that I'm really teched out and only ever fighting FEs at the moment.
I believe this is relevant when talking about missiles. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/5e5zm3/the_missiles_are_a_lie_analysis/) In the sense of 'what the fuck is going on with them?'Thank god someone else did the science. That meshes with some of the shit I was observing; I'd given up on my attempt to fix missiles because my PD changes weren't giving the results I expected. Now I'm getting flashbacks to the combat computer nonsense, except that this is even more stupid.
I suppose you missed that thing that someone made a guide of which created corvettes of over 100% evasion?Tell me more please! :P
Horse-programming seems more and more common these days.I believe this is relevant when talking about missiles. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/5e5zm3/the_missiles_are_a_lie_analysis/) In the sense of 'what the fuck is going on with them?'No seriously what. Was half this game designed and coded by horses or something?
Have you tried speeding up the game using the time controls?what exactly does that do?
I suppose you missed that thing that someone made a guide of which created corvettes of over 100% evasion?This doesn't work at all anymore, tracking subtracts the target's evasion. So those small guns with 60% tracking will only have their accuracy reduced by 40% when shooting the 100% evasion corvette.
Being immune to big guns isn't relevant when you've got a few (dozen) cruisers with lots of small guns.PD destroyers with small arms compliment works too :3
His software license expired.
Damn, I expected synthetic leaders to be immune to lol ded cuz 65 years old, m8.Is...there anyway to have leaders live for a longer time that aren't necessarily coming across as 'ded in a few years'? :-X
Actually, they are not :c
You can pick up one of the two racial traits at game generation: Enduring (+30 years) and Venerable (+90 years). A third racial trait exists for uplifted species called Irradiated (+30 years), but you would need to replace your own original race with them just as you would for an all-synth empire. Otherwise, you can emphasize Biology research in the Social category, which lets you pick up additional years (10 from Vitality Boosters, another 5 for each time you research the repeatable Cell Revitalization).Damn, I expected synthetic leaders to be immune to lol ded cuz 65 years old, m8.Is...there anyway to have leaders live for a longer time that aren't necessarily coming across as 'ded in a few years'? :-X
Actually, they are not :c
I'm particularly attached to my leaders just because of that.
Why would being irradiated INCREASE life expectancy?Because pseudoscience.
Why would being irradiated INCREASE life expectancy?Didn't you know? Radiation is the newest cure-all for the modern world. Radium toothpaste. Radium bath salts. Radon water supplements. Uranium sand beds. And don't forget to pick up your free container of Radithor (https://www.scribd.com/document/188172930/The-Radium-Water-Worked-Fine-Until-His-Jaw-Fell-Off), Perpetual Sunshine® and A Cure for The Living Dead®.
Why would being irradiated INCREASE life expectancy?Irradiated species have evolved to adapt to the radioactive and otherwise hazardous environment of their homeworld. These adaptations probably include such things as a better mechanism for DNA repair and faster cell division, perhaps even secondary internal organs. Take them to a safer environment and they are likely to have a longer life expectancy than creatures that evolved on more benign planets.
Hey! MyAhh, reminds me of one big important thing...jedisword-wielding psionic warriors are very realistic, thank you.
...When I equip my armies, their equipment seems bound to the planet they're on (friendly, dockable), so when I invade with armies, they come up as blank! (Defending armies can have equipment but I've never seen the AI equip them other than spawning loads of defensive armies on the go)You have the weirdest bugs. ???
Where did their fancy equipment go? My psionic commandos are not present :< The same follows my Star Wars/Clone Wars imagery! Where are my Jedi Knights? D:
Yes o_O...When I equip my armies, their equipment seems bound to the planet they're on (friendly, dockable), so when I invade with armies, they come up as blank! (Defending armies can have equipment but I've never seen the AI equip them other than spawning loads of defensive armies on the go)You have the weirdest bugs. ???
Where did their fancy equipment go? My psionic commandos are not present :< The same follows my Star Wars/Clone Wars imagery! Where are my Jedi Knights? D:
A quick search confirms that armies vanishing or being stuck were an issue for some people in the past, but I haven't been able to find anything on losing their attachments. Does it always happen?
Why would being irradiated INCREASE life expectancy?Irradiated species have evolved to adapt to the radioactive and otherwise hazardous environment of their homeworld. These adaptations probably include such things as a better mechanism for DNA repair and faster cell division, perhaps even secondary internal organs. Take them to a safer environment and they are likely to have a longer life expectancy than creatures that evolved on more benign planets.
Do they have point defense? If you can't get through their shields, ignore them; bombers and torpedoes would probably help quite a bit, bombers possibly more so since they also penetrate a goodly amount of armor.What do you people suggest for hangar-type builds by the way? Close-combat cruisers/carriers? (since I've no idea what the range is for strikecraft, or what counters what kind of strikecraft, like do fighters act as PD too?) Do you outfit your battleships as carriers when they only all stay back? :-\ [Is there anyway to diversify the combat computer or ship Ai at all?]
Yes o_OBizarre. Is it possible it's just a graphical bug? Do their stats seem right/do they have the modifiers listed in their expanded mouseover text?
I dock my attack armies on the homeworld, equip them with the neoconcrete fortifications all, then attack a planet I'm at war with. The attachments don't seem to carry over when it's all blank, and despite winning (and getting the planet into friendly territory, meaning 're-equip'), I re-equip them with different attachments.
When I sally them forth back onto the homeworld, they're back to the original attachments. >______>
Strike craft are really long range, so no worries there. That said, they do have a relatively slow travel time relative to actual weapons fire, so it's pretty common for your carriers to take a few volleys before their strike craft arrive to retaliate. They exclusively target larger ships from what I've seen. Bombers are quite good at their job at first, but bleed off damage to PD relatively quickly. Fighters act as PD and thus shred through bombers pretty well.Do they have point defense? If you can't get through their shields, ignore them; bombers and torpedoes would probably help quite a bit, bombers possibly more so since they also penetrate a goodly amount of armor.What do you people suggest for hangar-type builds by the way? Close-combat cruisers/carriers? (since I've no idea what the range is for strikecraft, or what counters what kind of strikecraft, like do fighters act as PD too?) Do you outfit your battleships as carriers when they only all stay back? :-\ [Is there anyway to diversify the combat computer or ship Ai at all?]
Oh my god. I just had my 22k fleet vs their 20k fleet. The "tug of war" battle status indicator thing was heavily biased towards me at first but I still got crushed while doing almost no damage to their army.Maybe it's ship type or behavioral issues, then? Their corvettes evading your battleships or... something? Have you noticed how the battles go on a smaller scale, what's targeting what and so on?
I don't get it. They just have plasma throwers and an occasional missile (for which I have several PD boats to defend against) combined with well-rounded shields and armor. I've tried adapting my fleet but it just won't do anything. My ships are almost entirely shield-based, I have lots of kinetic artillery and autocannons along with a decent amount of disrupters and plasmas, but I just keep on getting crushed.
Don't Fallen Empires have fleets within the 100k+ range? Based on my near-complete lack of experience, I would just say accept becoming a thrall. Maybe conquer some other thralls to consolidate your power and eventually overthrow your alien overlords. Y'know, the usual.
But side question: Has anyone found defense stations effective? I just don't get them. The best ones you can get are something like 2k power. But with maintenance and the fact that you can't have a fleet of them, how are they effective at all at actual defense? The only real use I see for them is for FTL interdiction and the occasional homefield battle support.
I just had a population on one of my planets genetically engineer themselves with the normal event dialogue, like 2 months after I unlocked the tech, into Synthetics. As in, the third tier of robots. They can grow as a normal pop but are otherwise identical to normal synthetics.Now see this is a good bug. I mean, it's still kind of incomprehensible as to how it even happened, but in a might make a nice feature way, not a why is a third of the game nonfunctional way.
Keep in mind, I haven't even unlocked robots, let alone synthetics.
I didn't even know this was possible. Bug? Feature? I mean, turning yourself into a robot is a thing in Sci-Fi but you'd think it'd be more explicit that this is what happened...
Game is on sale on steam right now. What do people think? Worth getting? Or should I hold off a while longer for more content to come out?
Game is on sale on steam right now. What do people think? Worth getting? Or should I hold off a while longer for more content to come out?From someone playing on steam sharing, it's something worth getting :)
I believe if your internet drops even once during a session for Paradox games, it won't register any achievements for the rest of the session.Game is on sale on steam right now. What do people think? Worth getting? Or should I hold off a while longer for more content to come out?From someone playing on steam sharing, it's something worth getting :)
But content-wise, there's the late-game drop of familiarity and time given the current status of the...probably-bland AI and rigidness with the (initial impression of) diverse choices at the start. But that takes some time to get to though!
Although I'm someone who aims for the steam achievements first before enjoying the game >_> Grrr, stuff not saving for SOME reason despite me playing in Ironman/no mods.
I believe if your internet drops even once during a session for Paradox games, it won't register any achievements for the rest of the session.
I don't know why they're so hardcore about protecting their achievements but whatever.
Been looking around, can't find anything about it. What exactly goes into modding in a new personality & responses to go with said personality? I have no clue if the latter is possible, but the former is what I am actually interested in.ask in the modding thread on paradox's forum.
hahThere's a 'modify post' button for inexplicable moments of doom up there :O
ahaha
HAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA
I feel like that kind of stuff is completely vital to preventing every single war from degrading into a pure catch-the-runaway-fleet. Right now if you manage to get into combat range you at least get a grace period to do some damage before they emergency FTL out.So true ._.
I feel like that kind of stuff is completely vital to preventing every single war from degrading into a pure catch-the-runaway-fleet. Right now if you manage to get into combat range you at least get a grace period to do some damage before they emergency FTL out.So true ._.
But I was thinking 'refined' in 'could be handled better'...because there are many times in the initial game where you warp in a fleet, only to have it be splattered in a system because you warped just too close to patrolling NPCs. But that makes sense anyway :P
I just feel through personal experiences that the fleet engages even if the enemy isn't in their range but the approaching foe is within your longest possible attack range...and that doesn't help you on the retreat. >_<
i'm well familiar with the modify post, the double post was intentional:v
a ~~stylistic choice~~ emphasizing my change in tone before and after the battle
which I won B)
I mean, I went from around 70k in my fleet to around 18k, but bah gawd I won, mulched most of their fleet.
There could be a lot more military strategy involved in this game anyways. I think that there needs to be a VASTLY larger incentive to just keep the grand fleet in one giant armada.I always do this :P Unless enemies are really spread out and we're under attack on multiple sectors and areas.
There could be a lot more military strategy involved in this game anyways. I think that there needs to be a VASTLY larger incentive to just keep the grand fleet in one giant armada.I always do this :P Unless enemies are really spread out and we're under attack on multiple sectors and areas.
>decide to launch an attack on the unbidden, successfully knock out a system's worth of their stationsthe secret is that you can reassign your admiral mid-combat to another fleet (i think. i know you can get rid of him somehow; if you can't reassign him, you can fire him) and then retreat your fleet.
>"hey this is pretty easy"
>go deeper
>inexplicable sudden 55 day warp time -- it has never taken my fleet this long before, but now close to their territory I'm getting slow as hell
>their armada converges, almost three times the fleet power of mine
>I look, my general is unyielding
weeeell my entire fleet's fucked
Hee~ :3 I noticed this with all other leaders too.>decide to launch an attack on the unbidden, successfully knock out a system's worth of their stationsthe secret is that you can reassign your admiral mid-combat to another fleet (i think. i know you can get rid of him somehow; if you can't reassign him, you can fire him) and then retreat your fleet.
>"hey this is pretty easy"
>go deeper
>inexplicable sudden 55 day warp time -- it has never taken my fleet this long before, but now close to their territory I'm getting slow as hell
>their armada converges, almost three times the fleet power of mine
>I look, my general is unyielding
weeeell my entire fleet's fucked
...This game has a lot of bugs for some reason. :-\Speaking of which:
* Fixed armor absorbing too much damage if the ship also had shields leftNow why does that sound so-
* Fixed armor absorbing too much damage if the ship also had shields leftGuuuuuuuuuys...? You're not gonna "fix" the same bug like three of four more times, right? Right?
Like...how?They actually do stuff. Build construction ships, build buildings, build robots if you want them to. They're much less braindead.
* Repeatable technologies have their base cost increased from 1500 to 3000 and their increasing cost increased from 480 to 1000I'm playing a complete and utter sociology whore in my most recent game, so this feels like it was directed at me specifically and that makes me laugh. Guess 13 core systems and leaders that research new longevity treatments faster than the treatments last wasn't intended!
Wait, what do you mean by *now*? When did the update to sectors come out? Cause my poor ass is using a torrented version and I've been maxed out on 5 planets because I refuse to use broken sectors, and it's really screwing me mid to late game....Do the sector gov's actually NOT build over useful buildings you set right before you get to pause/click the 'respect resources' and stuff? :x
They're changing collectivist and individualist ethos for authoritarian and egalitarian respectively, reworking ethics divergence, and reworking factions into something that sounds a *bit* like estates from EUIV. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-54-ethics-rework.987286/&utm_source=steam_community&utm_medium=community&utm_content=devdiary&utm_campaign=stellaris_devdiary_20161208)I'm pretty happy the 'collectivist' isn't SLAVERY SLAVERY >_> If we're seriously going by the modern definitions/comparisons, it's pretty much a 180 mirror opposite of what's actually collectivism [in the least collectivism from my perspective as my country is pretty much INTO it], so it felt very weird to see 'individualism' having the attitude of collectivism if the mechanics are pushed aside and the characteristics are noted instead (like the UNoE being all united but...well it just really feels different. That or I'm biased because most of what I see about individualism os haughty boastfulness and less of a remark to empathy :V ...and/or I just don't like slavery, or slavery being attributed to 'collectivism'.)
Out of these, the reworked factions is my favourite.
It's actually surprisingly refreshing that they changed the terminology. And also interesting that now Stalinism is totally oppositional to Communism.Stalinism was pretty much a totalitarian dictatorship dressed as communism anyway.
Very promising indeed - it seems like all very sensible stuff which will help make empire management slightly more interesting whilst at the same time being a bit more natural.Yeah. Good on paper, but we'll have to see how it manifests.
However, they'll need to make sure there are enough supporting mechanisms around it to make it interesting. If it's just 'spend capital to reduce support by x' it'll still be ultimately very shallow.
As I believe Banks might be about espionage, sending a spy in could be an interesting way to guide/disrupt factions
Room for interpretation is pretty important here. Presumably not all Materialist empires manifest exactly the same way, so it'd make some sense that you could have a Communist-flavored Stalinist empire even though those are completely mutually exclusive concepts on a larger scale.It's actually surprisingly refreshing that they changed the terminology. And also interesting that now Stalinism is totally oppositional to Communism.Stalinism was pretty much a totalitarian dictatorship dressed as communism anyway.
"Change your empire ethics" Yes please.Indeed!
Tir: Dwelt. That's the word you're looking for.Dwelled is a word too! ;~;
"Change your empire ethics" Yes please.
But the ethics here are hard-bound, or at least the general theme over everything. :PIt's actually surprisingly refreshing that they changed the terminology. And also interesting that now Stalinism is totally oppositional to Communism.Stalinism was pretty much a totalitarian dictatorship dressed as communism anyway.
Very promising indeed - it seems like all very sensible stuff which will help make empire management slightly more interesting whilst at the same time being a bit more natural.Yeah. Good on paper, but we'll have to see how it manifests.
However, they'll need to make sure there are enough supporting mechanisms around it to make it interesting. If it's just 'spend capital to reduce support by x' it'll still be ultimately very shallow.
As I believe Banks might be about espionage, sending a spy in could be an interesting way to guide/disrupt factions
Notably, I'm concerned about the clustering of various factions/ethos as they relate to various policies. Some are kind of obviously linked, eg Bombardment and War Type on the Mil/Pac axis. But what if those two policies disagree? Are you just stuck in some kind of faction limbo because nobody else likes one but not the other, or are there factions that will appreciate that? And if so, what else do they want/require? Are there going to be "optimal" policy schemes that really make some factions happy, or will any combination have its own benefits?
Banks will obviously include a DLC dedicated to funny ship names.
they're aliens, the fact that we're *already* calling them reptilian is throwing the whole "but they may not be like earth animals!" out the window :v
maybe a better way would be to have AI empires predisposed to certain ethics and traits based on their phenotypes? :V
cuz the whole issue is that they feel bland and interchangeable, right? so instead you get "oh, hey, this empire is reptilian; they're probably gonna have a lot of desert planets" or "hey this is molluscoid, they're probably really good at science" (smart molluscs being a trope in sci fi and all that)
I approve of more nuance, but I think I'm going to reluctantly admit I prefer appearance to be purely cosmetic. For me, figuring out what these fanatically xenophobic collective agrarian tundra-dwelling flying monkeys are like is part of the appeal, and giving them an energy boost or tendency to form federations feels like it's bolting two options together rather than making a previously meaningless option important.Same. I think that while they could stand to have more personality, that sort of personality could more effectively come from traits, the existing AI personality types, governments, and that sort.
The phenotypes do actually have an in-game effect: xenophiles/phobes like/dislike species of the same phenotype less, and those of different phenotypes more.I have never seen anything like this, and the wiki makes no mention of that being a thing.
Xenophobic Bigots
0
-10 IF {has ethic: Xenophile OR has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile} AND Your Empire has ethic: Xenophobe AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
-5 IF {has ethic: Xenophile OR has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile} AND Your Empire has ethic: Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
-10 IF NOT{has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe} AND NOT{has ethic: Xenophobe} AND Your Empire has ethic: Xenophobe AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
-5 IF NOT{has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe} AND NOT{has ethic: Xenophobe} AND Your Empire has ethic: Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
-20 IF {has ethic: Xenophile OR has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile} AND Your Empire has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
-10 IF {has ethic: Xenophile OR has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile} AND Your Empire has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
-20 IF NOT{has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe} AND NOT{has ethic: Xenophobe} AND Your Empire has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
-10 IF NOT{has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe} AND NOT{has ethic: Xenophobe} AND Your Empire has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
Xenophile Diplomacy
0
10 IF NOT{has ethic: Xenophile AND has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND has ethic: Xenophobe AND has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe} AND Your Empire has ethic: Xenophile AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
20 IF NOT{has ethic: Xenophile AND has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND has ethic: Xenophobe AND has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe} AND Your Empire has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
10 IF has ethic: Xenophile AND Your Empire {has ethic: Xenophile OR has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile}
10 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND Your Empire has ethic: Xenophile
20 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND Your Empire has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile
Xenophobia
0
-20 IF has ethic: Xenophobe AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
-10 IF has ethic: Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
-5 IF has ethic: Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND is subspecies of: Your Empire
-40 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
-20 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
-10 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophobe AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND is subspecies of: Your Empire
Xenophilia
0
20 IF has ethic: Xenophile AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
10 IF has ethic: Xenophile AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
5 IF has ethic: Xenophile AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND is subspecies of: Your Empire
40 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND NOT{is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire }
20 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND NOT{is subspecies of: Your Empire }
10 IF has ethic: Fanatic Xenophile AND is in the same phenotype as: Your Empire AND NOT{is the same species as: Your Empire } AND is subspecies of: Your Empire
It is almost as if the game forces me to play as a warmongerer.
There should really be inter-Federation politics and wrangling between Federations, maybe even traitor civs with Feds and so forth.
For people wondering when the game will become fun, this upcoming update seems like a good potential benchmark.I just want to earn the achievements :'( (I have fun the entire way though), but this doesn't happen because of spotty net! :/
I remember it being a thing, I think in one of the (relatively low-numbered) dev diaries before release. It may have been changed before the game came out, because I don't remember encountering it in play either.The phenotypes do actually have an in-game effect: xenophiles/phobes like/dislike species of the same phenotype less, and those of different phenotypes more.I have never seen anything like this, and the wiki makes no mention of that being a thing.
It is almost as if the game forces me to play as a warmongerer.That's what I'm really hoping Banks changes.
Making them have actual gameplay effects would...ah, be like having cultural_gfx sprites, portraits, and what-have-you in CK or EU have practical gameplay effects.Imagine the backslash if they did things like make Africans more fertile, Mongols more cruel, French more cowardly, Poles more GODLY MASTERRACE and gave every Russian an lunatic trait.
In all honesty, knowing Paradox, it's probably just going to make warmongers more powerful. Like with provincial improvements (monarch points for increase in taxation/trade/military/etc) in EU4. If I remember right, they were designed so that you could build your empire upwards, rather than outwards, giving a bonus to small, anti-expansionist nations. In reality, it just made it so that expansionists have much more potential power.
Pre-FTL humans are Poles since they can not into space.
My first thought after seeing this dev diary: 'This looks like culture and polices from Civ 5.'A good mechanic doesn't stop being good just because someone else did it first.
The first post after the dev diary: 'That's a pretty nice Civ 5 feature there.'
Great minds think alike...?
Beaten by about 3 hours.
Yeah. While there should be ways for a small empire to not be insta-crushed by larger ones without bought, bigger empire should be unquestionably better.
They did. The 'New dev diary is up' above the spoiler is a link.
I for one would really enjoy a game with serious fractionalism and civil war as possiblities. I could imagine playing a huge galaxy with only two other AI empires. The first century or two is just the rise of Humanity. Might even need to switch when the Old Earth Directorate falls to the Republic of Interstellar Colonies. Eventually the power groups balance out, with Terra Sector being the old but developed power while the dynamism is all happening in the RIC, now in a fairly stable peaceful rivalry with the Church of the Stars, both trading with the neutral Deep Space Mining Conglomerate.Alternately, if you screw it up, Earth and the most-developed colonies pound each other into the stone age with relativistic weapons, leaving the newly-colonized and sparsely populated/developed periphery not only completely bereft of the support infrastructure it needed to get back into working order, but also the sole remaining bastion of humanity.
But everything changed when the Fungoid Nation attacked.
I would love to play that, actually. We just need sufficiently severe bombardment to actually be able to knock someone back to the stone age...
I would love to play that, actually. We just need sufficiently severe bombardment to actually be able to knock someone back to the stone age...
If you have colonies in other star systems, you probably have this capability.
You only need to find a couple of rocks in the solar system, attach engines into them and send them towards the planet. Remember what happened to the dinosaurs? Yeah. That would be possible, in theory, with our present technology level. Destroying biospheres from space is easy. Destroying fortified positions without fucking everything up for generations is much harder.I remember reading once a calculation (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rocks_Are_Not_Free!) on how much that plan would cost the Imperium of Man, compared to an Exterminatus. Even conventional explosives might win the bidding competition; redirecting a large number of asteroids is very, very expensive.
I for one would really enjoy a game with serious fractionalism and civil war as possiblities. I could imagine playing a huge galaxy with only two other AI empires. The first century or two is just the rise of Humanity. Might even need to switch when the Old Earth Directorate falls to the Republic of Interstellar Colonies. Eventually the power groups balance out, with Terra Sector being the old but developed power while the dynamism is all happening in the RIC, now in a fairly stable peaceful rivalry with the Church of the Stars, both trading with the neutral Deep Space Mining Conglomerate.It would definitely make a Fermi Paradox galaxy a lot more playable. And the galaxy more dynamic.
But everything changed when the Fungoid Nation attacked.
You only need to find a couple of rocks in the solar system, attach engines into them and send them towards the planet. Remember what happened to the dinosaurs? Yeah. That would be possible, in theory, with our present technology level. Destroying biospheres from space is easy. Destroying fortified positions without fucking everything up for generations is much harder.I remember reading once a calculation (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rocks_Are_Not_Free!) on how much that plan would cost the Imperium of Man, compared to an Exterminatus. Even conventional explosives might win the bidding competition; redirecting a large number of asteroids is very, very expensive.
The setting was meant as a joke and works best with humor in mind, falling apart with any kind of critical inspection
IMO border friction should be extremely minor unless two empires already have negative relations. Otherwise your allies are only safe if you federate (fuck that) or are on the opposite side of the galaxy (at which point why bother allying, it's not like you'll get military support).I feel like a better (and infinitely less likely) solution would be more nuanced relationships than a series of flat modifiers. It makes perfect sense that two warmongering assholes would be more than a little upset at being bordered by a warmongering asshole, especially one with a history of proactive success in their field. It also makes sense that a century of successfully working together to cleanse the galaxy of its aberrant mistakes would make them ironically rather fond of each other. It also makes sense that a century of successfully working together to cleanse the galaxy of its aberrant mistakes would be building towards one final, large scale addition to that policy.
A new Dev Diary (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-56-ascension-perks.994061/) have been released.Ah. Um, I hate to ask, but it's probably just me being oblivious: where is it stated that these are win conditions? I thought they were just sort of....late-game "superprojects," so to speak. They even talk about how they have to adjust how finishing the synthetic path and going full synth will affect certain endgame crises (to wit, AI rebellion), and how each of the three will have unique mechanics (in a comment down-thread).
Apparently, we will have access to three new win conditions in the upcoming Banks (1.5) update.
A Biological path, Psionic path, and Synthetic path.
Each with their own requirements. And of course, all three are mutually exclusive.
The idea behind the Ascension Perks is to provide more unique unlockable features for Empires, and to provide the player with the ability to determine an 'endgame' for their species
Finally there are the three 'Species Endgame' paths:
Ugh. Picked this up over the winter sale and started playing recently. Just had my first game come to a crashing halt because of the Unbidden. Would be just fine, if my Federation members would actually help me instead of hanging around twiddling their thumbs as multiple 60k fleets stomp through my empire.
Allies not helping is a paradox problem in general.This is incorrect.
I really wish the Stellaris dev team would talk to the Crusader Kings dev team. Maybe the way that sectors work would inherit some ideas from CK2. Maybe the option to play as a local governor under a massive empire would get imported. Heck, maybe the option to castrate pops and marry your aunt-sister to preserve your genetics would get inherited.I'm pretty sure they're aware of CK2. They just decided not to emulate it because they're such badasses that hey can make a better game without reference to anything else.
I really wish the Stellaris dev team would talk to the Crusader Kings dev team. Maybe the way that sectors work would inherit some ideas from CK2. Maybe the option to play as a local governor under a massive empire would get imported. Heck, maybe the option to castrate pops and marry your aunt-sister to preserve your genetics would get inherited.I'm pretty sure they're aware of CK2. They just decided not to emulate it because they're such badasses that hey can make a better game without reference to anything else.
Well, we saw how that worked out and there's a different lead designer now, but some decisions are too entrenched to change even this easily. Factions are getting a workover, and that'll do part of what's gained by a CK2-like system, but making a system whereby you can (and have a reason to want to) play as a vassal or other underling? Probably not in the cards.
The point of the vats is to make armies though. I always imagined it to be like the Clones in Star Wars. Basically cloned with top of the line DNA to make an entire army of top of the line soldiers. The process is too fast to really make viable long term citizens, but it is long enough to have a batch ready in a few weeks.None of that makes any sense; my spacefaring civilization that has longevity serums and genetic modification capabilities allowing my citizens to drastically extend their lifespans or become new species entirely is capable of rearing elite clone soldiers that can be sent forth to fight all across the galaxy, but are incapable of producing fertile pairs?! I can populate a barren irradiated world with starving, short-lived mass reproducing colonists, power their shipyards with black hole generators but a fertile clone pair is insurmountable?! I can create a valid legion of clone soldiers, but a clone farmer is an impossible redirection of their skills? You could even give them a lil' clone trait to mark them from the rest of the populace and introduce such things as clone rights. Equal citizens, or walking organ donors, or CK2 elite?
On the assumption that a single pop is something like a billion actual people, a cloning facility that could pump out 1 clone per second would take 31 years to make a popIt is probably closer to a million. Otherwise Earth would be a 10 tile planet or something along those lines, as we are getting a bit too close for comfort to overpopulation.
so there are only 16 million people on earth by 2100? What terrible things happened?On the assumption that a single pop is something like a billion actual people, a cloning facility that could pump out 1 clone per second would take 31 years to make a popIt is probably closer to a million. Otherwise Earth would be a 10 tile planet or something along those lines, as we are getting a bit too close for comfort to overpopulation.
I think what it is is that a population is an arbitrary number not really made to be converted into real life.My point was that it would be somewhat impractical to populate a planet with clones. You'd have to turn out hundreds of thousands of them a second to get a significant population and then that pop wouldn't be able to breed more pops and would eventually die off.
I think what it is is that a population is an arbitrary number not really made to be converted into real life.Probably. It's probably more likely that each plot is a few thousand square kilometers dedicated to one form of production or another, and the pops are whatever arbitrary population required to work in that area.
Yeah, it can't be a million.so there are only 16 million people on earth by 2100? What terrible things happened?On the assumption that a single pop is something like a billion actual people, a cloning facility that could pump out 1 clone per second would take 31 years to make a popIt is probably closer to a million. Otherwise Earth would be a 10 tile planet or something along those lines, as we are getting a bit too close for comfort to overpopulation.
You just make more clones and no more worry about inbreeding. No one is shagging.
Yeaaah. It goes back to what I said. A pop of cloned pops should either not exist or have some way to model the lack of genetic diversity required to not become inbred hellholes :P
Well since Planetary Unification is a tech, it's possible that like Galactic Civs, that more people are apply for citizenship to get off the planet.Yeaaah. It goes back to what I said. A pop of cloned pops should either not exist or have some way to model the lack of genetic diversity required to not become inbred hellholes :P-snip-
*Actually, since colony ships in Stellaris do not reduce the population or growth rate of the planet from which they're taken, the above is probably already happening on a smaller scale. Where else could the population on the colony ship be coming from?
Ah yes, the space Nazis.You just make more clones and no more worry about inbreeding. No one is shagging.
Have you forgotten http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/The_Other_Side
Ah yes, the space Nazis.You just make more clones and no more worry about inbreeding. No one is shagging.
Have you forgotten http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/The_Other_Side
Or: "Every Stellaris player ever"
Inbreeding! Assuming a pop represents a large number of people, it means that just one pop having the clone trait, you still have the problem of inbreeding. What happens when the previously recessive traits that wouldn't come about in a normal setting begin to rise up after maybe a few generations?Well for starters, who said we'd only be using a single Adam and Eve pair to be the entirety of the clone populace? I was thinking more in line with The Island or Brave New World where the function is to create massive populations of viable pops, which is easily done with the ethics and technology available to Stellaris. This isn't hypothetical, the cloning vats are already in game, already producing millions of viable legions, already has technology to screen for and modify DNA at will, already has gene databases, selected lineages, even commercial gene modification available on a pop-wide level to the point where they can modify themselves, - assuming we did not clone from a diverse array of genetic stock, we could start with a single pair of Adam and Eves, clone them ad infinitum and subsequently modify their DNAs to create entirely new species or merely cause more genetic variation. That's just for human understandings of DNA, who knows how xenospecies work - it's ludicrous to say that my fungoid civilization is not allowed to clone itself in vats because of genetics, when it reproduces asexually. Humans would only need a minimum of 80 clone pairs to found planet colonies from clone vats. (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated/) Insectoid species, DNA modding species, plantoids and you get the point - could probably get away with far fewer, even just 1 pair. If my species is a strictly hierarchical genetically conformist but short lived beetle species for example, I would want to exaggerate their conformity, whilst any genetic diseases they would incur would be of no issue, as the drones would be infertile anyways.
On the assumption that a single pop is something like a billion actual people, a cloning facility that could pump out 1 clone per second would take 31 years to make a popIf you made that assumption, however you could also make the assumption that each pop is 1 trillion people or it is exactly 1 person. Relevant:
It's been stated by the devs themselves that it's an abstracted figure with no direct conversion. The most likely interpretation, if you must make one, is that it's exponentially increasing like for example:Thus a normal human colony pod can be expected to contain 50,000 people, under this assumption. A clone legion is created by one cloning vat in 30 days, it is said in their description they reach adult maturity in months and have natural lifespans of less than a decade. On this basis a science vessel could with its skeleton crew of scientists set up cloning vats on a planet and create the first pop shorter than the time it would take for the 50,000 in a normal human colony pod to set up. Combine that with gene screening technology, artificial life enhancement and a simple process of expansion (if one cloning vat factory can produce 10,000 elite soldiers in one month, soldiers that reach adult reproductive maturity in a matter of months (you know, cutting short 15 years of human puberty)), imagine what could be done with two cloning vats. Then keep adding more and more cloning vats.
1: 50.000
2: 250.000
3: 1,25 million
And so on. The initial settlers will be more productive, like mining crews in Siberia, The outback of Australia and Northern Canada produce extreme amounts with a few tens of thousands of workers.
As population increases, more people will have more service oriented jobs.
It is odd that you can pump up fertility to absurd levels to get biopops but there is no way to speed up the industrial production of synthetic pops or robots
Let's kill all humans.It is odd that you can pump up fertility to absurd levels to get biopops but there is no way to speed up the industrial production of synthetic pops or robotsAnd prejudice against the non-biological citizens continues!
Let's kill all humans.It is odd that you can pump up fertility to absurd levels to get biopops but there is no way to speed up the industrial production of synthetic pops or robotsAnd prejudice against the non-biological citizens continues!
Erm. I mean. I am totally a human. Yes. Beep boop.
What are these 'humans' you speak of? Some new insignificant race crawling out of their backwards ball of mud out into the civilized galaxy? I'm sure they'll never amount to anything.
The world belongs to Yax Kalockians. All other species are just keeping their planets warm for the might of the Yax Kalockian core worlds.I'm not sure what either of these are, but some thorough probing of their many, many orifices should remedy that. Thorough probing of something's many, many orifices remedies most things.
I'm not sure what either of these are, but some thorough probing of their many, many orifices should remedy that. Thorough probing of something's many, many orifices remedies most things.This is why no one invites the ayy lmao federation to interstellar councils
I just think it's kind of dumb that taking any of the first-level traits locks out the other two. The second-level traits are obviously mutually exclusive, but there's nothing wrong with a genetically modified psionic cyborg.
I was thinking that too. Like humanity in the Culture series, who made some minor alterations to themselves but remained by and large human. They turned over governance to machine minds so they could pursue pleasures and cultural pursuits but they are in no way seeking transcendence, ascendance, evolutionary advancement, etc. They really just sort of want to live and have fun.Not to start a morality debate or anything, but hedonism isn't exactly *wrong*.
They are aware of paths to ascension but by and large have little interest in them. Hell they mostly don't even prolong their own lives too much, even though they have the technology to do so. Most of them see death as the end result of a life well lived.
Not to start a morality debate or anything, but hedonism isn't exactly *wrong*.Foreman Domai pls, Eudaimonia will not defeat the cybernetics
It just feels wrong sometimes. If you can fix that, I guess that's one way to win.
I usually went cybernetic, for obvious benefits in any direction. But eudaimonia is a beautiful concept also. Really.Eudaimonia + Clinical Immortality + Human Genome project
Just, it assumes everyone wants to listen to that inherent need to excel. What happens to those who don't?When you've got such a system in place you can literally force them to learn stuff and have fun. Otherwise I guess there's always just keeping them complacent and drugged out of their minds. Stellaris currently has pacifying drugs you can administer in aerosol forms via special resource industry but it'd be neater to see an expansion on that stuff
Since this is Alpha Centauri, do they receive stimulants until they have sufficient drive- or die?
I'd understand. But by putting one's potential above their desires, it actually just puts the many over the individual.
The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.I suppose it depends on who's doing the eudaimonia. Yang would force you to be happy and reach your full potential same way he forces people to give up their selfishness to embrace the collective good whilst Morgan would incentivize you with objectivism and market incentives and Lal would just cover everything in bureaucracy and education. Stimulants may or may not be a component of this, though I suppose individuals who reject the virtual paradise would, after some extreme withdrawal, either die or become some sort of outsider. From there they'll be able to do whatever outside the system. The Buddha's a useful example I think, starting off in his own virtual paradise, growing discomforted, becoming an ascetic before finding a middle path
Aristotle (Alpha Centauri quote for Eudaimonia)
Like the game suggests, it's the life I would choose. If I could choose the way I feel fulfilled. A life fulfilled by work appears inherently more satisfying than one fulfilled by the various vices we've created.I usually went cybernetic, for obvious benefits in any direction. But eudaimonia is a beautiful concept also. Really.Eudaimonia + Clinical Immortality + Human Genome project
Winning combination
I like to think it accurately represents just how much of a technological, financial and industrial powerhouse a human faction could become with citizens living for hundreds of years in a society orientated around self-actualization and happiness.
Cloning vats + Planetary transit system + Thought control + power + fundamentalist + Miriam always has a special place in my heart though, turns her faction from a backwards mess into a late game monstrosity engulfing the entire map in a sea of believers. Which I think adds to my argument for cloning vats in Stellaris producing pops; if materialists and individualists can industrially produce citizens Brave New World style or a more Soviet style, then imagine what the militant spiritualists could get up to!It truly is an amazing game, isn't it? Even, maybe especially, while steamrolling. Though much like CK2, all the real difficulty is frontloaded.
That's what I mean by stimulants. Drugs to force people to perform.Just, it assumes everyone wants to listen to that inherent need to excel. What happens to those who don't?When you've got such a system in place you can literally force them to learn stuff and have fun. Otherwise I guess there's always just keeping them complacent and drugged out of their minds. Stellaris currently has pacifying drugs you can administer in aerosol forms via special resource industry but it'd be neater to see an expansion on that stuffSince this is Alpha Centauri, do they receive stimulants until they have sufficient drive- or die?
I'd understand. But by putting one's potential above their desires, it actually just puts the many over the individual.
Heh, that's why the Hive is so terrifying. Yang's not wrong. He gets painted as the bad guy in the short stories, and by Lal, and honestly it would be unspeakably horrifying to live there... When the state failed, and correction was needed.QuoteThe happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.I suppose it depends on who's doing the eudaimonia. Yang would force you to be happy and reach your full potential same way he forces people to give up their selfishness to embrace the collective good whilst Morgan would incentivize you with objectivism and market incentives and Lal would just cover everything in bureaucracy and education. Stimulants may or may not be a component of this, though I suppose individuals who reject the virtual paradise would, after some extreme withdrawal, either die or become some sort of outsider. From there they'll be able to do whatever outside the system. The Buddha's a useful example I think, starting off in his own virtual paradise, growing discomforted, becoming an ascetic before finding a middle path
Aristotle (Alpha Centauri quote for Eudaimonia)
Like the game suggests, it's the life I would choose. If I could choose the way I feel fulfilled. A life fulfilled by work appears inherently more satisfying than one fulfilled by the various vices we've created.Complete concurrence; I have not met anyone who was pleased merely with pleasant experiences, whilst I have met many, myself included, who have found true contentedness in creating goals and achieving them. There is something peculiar about modern man, that when people have breaks and holidays, their recreation is itself a simulation of work. Seamanship, gardening, amateur craftsmanship, amateur athletics, outdoorsmanship, the humanities and so on. That path seems to satisfy a great deal many people, and is useful in that they do not necessarily have end points, no "final goals," only the limit of imagination and limits of reality. I suppose then eudaimonia does its best to remove those limits, though with some pressure or structure to avoid people becoming neets.
Obviously the eudaimonia is better for society. But any society must make the case to their citizens for such philanthropism. AKA, collectivism.I dunno, eudaimonia is awesome for the individual man but cybernetic and thought control both bring mankind to a new phase in evolution; one that is peaked when mankind fuses with planet (really, I always thought of the ending as a fusion of eudaimonia, cybernetic and thought control). Everyone is functionally immortal, can choose to become one with the planetmind or live as an individual, everyone is a transcended being of some sort and technology is a facilitator of this whole process of fusion. Pretty optimistic really, also showcases how hybridizing the separate paths can create neat and diverse stuff. A psionic supergenemod cyborg should be well within the realm of possibility, and it's fun as all hell
It truly is an amazing game, isn't it? Even, maybe especially, while steamrolling. Though much like CK2, all the real difficulty is frontloaded.I'd argue that Miriam is nearly worthless early game, and by the midgame she's either in a position to win or is soon to be horribly exterminated by the first faction to gain aerospace tech and chemical weapons :P
Miriam being relatively weak lategame, but strong early game - and that's what matters. Unless you convince the others to let you be (fairly manageable with AIs).
Faction is surprisingly important in lategame too, but less "Will I win". More "How will I win" (or lose).Also some factions are more suited to certain late game social engineering. Stellaris could learn much from SMAC, which managed to have more variance with one species than Stellaris has with RNG species. Game mechanics more than game portraits and word soup is important
That's what I mean by stimulants. Drugs to force people to perform.I'm not sure if you can drug people into forcing them to perform, though in Stellaris you could certainly keep them happy, docile and increase their performance. With things like neural implants which are implied to limit free will (neural processing centres for slaver empires) it seems like Stellaris can stop people from doing stuff, but outside of hive mind species cannot compel them to do something (beyond usual, crude methods like force, or sophisticated methods of persuasion or psionics).
Not necessarily wrong, particularly if they're willing. It's just that the purpose is to glorify the state.I don't think it's particularly right or all that different from genetically modifying people to be loyal, willingness is not something I consider to much regard in questions of morality - if one wills their own destruction, is it to be encouraged for example? That is a question relevant even outside of SMAC and in the modern world now that I think on it. SMAC was a great game for this reason, very relevant to RL - it still kills me that the game came with a recommended reading list.
With the right drugs, that might even optimize the individual's happiness. But that happiness is only an aside - the state, production, comes first in Eudaimonia.
Heh, that's why the Hive is so terrifying. Yang's not wrong. He gets painted as the bad guy in the short stories, and by Lal, and honestly it would be unspeakably horrifying to live there... When the state failed, and correction was needed.Yang isn't state over all, all the factions aren't states (I suppose Lal comes closest for trying to emulate a supranational entity). It's hard to pinpoint exactly what Yang is, he really is his own person, you can compare him to others in fiction or reality but he is just Yang at the end of the day. The funny thing is I don't think it would be horrifying to live under Yang's regime, everyone has mastered their own minds to the point where suffering is no longer a meaningful concept, everyone has meaning in the greater collective, all their material needs are met by the feeding bays and for those who cannot stand the strict regimen, they are nerve stapled or replaced with genejacks that are biologically incapable of rationalizing their existence or registering pain.
But he isn't evil. He's state over all.
The point that I typically see made is that Yang and the Hive are basically a hypocrisy trap. Lots of people like the idea of transcendence, but what faction is most like that and most philosophically compatible with it? That's right, the Hive.And the gaians
From his quotes, Yang seems to be what happens when you allow a Taoist philosopher to be infected with utilitarian pragmatism. Such as in that one where he encourages people to rebel against him for the sake of their own self-enlightenment.Where does he encourage people to rebel against him? Seems to be the opposite, right down to the recycling tanks
The Gaians live in harmony with Planet, but they don't truly understand what it means, they're just trying not to fuck up again like with Earth. Only in the late tech quotes does Deidre start to understand the nature of transcendence, while Yang is unknowingly aiming for almost exactly that form of society from the start, where one is one's self but also strengthens the whole.The point that I typically see made is that Yang and the Hive are basically a hypocrisy trap. Lots of people like the idea of transcendence, but what faction is most like that and most philosophically compatible with it? That's right, the Hive.And the gaians
Where does he encourage people to rebel against him? Seems to be the opposite, right down to the recycling tanks
What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.It's up for interpretation like most things in AC and especially regarding Yang, but I consider "now act on it" and telling them to master the output as encouraging rebellion, in the sense that it is necessary for their enlightenment of purpose. He's daring them to become like him, I suspect Yang is the type to wryly respect those who defy him even as he moves to have them nerve stapled and recycled. This is yet another instance of how the Hive is a weird synthesis of individualist and collectivist thought, rather than just the dictatorship it often appears as.
Guys, can we get back to talking about this game instead of something from 10+ years ago?Complaining about derails is worse than derails also haha what game OOOOWEEOOOOOOOOO~
The Gaians live in harmony with Planet, but they don't truly understand what it means, they're just trying not to fuck up again like with Earth. Only in the late tech quotes does Deidre start to understand the nature of transcendence, while Yang is unknowingly aiming for almost exactly that form of society from the start, where one is one's self but also strengthens the whole.The Gaians may not understand what it means, but certainly Lady Deidre Skye does. And she is guiding the Gaians towards that final goal, from the start she is the one who makes headways into psionic warfare, mindworm-human communication, planet-human communication, social engineering for psionic hippytopia, detachment from materialism to the point of nudism etc.
I always thought this was much more to do with self-mastery, reminding his faction's pops that pain and agony is just another sensation altogether. Mind and matter, mind can win over matter - especially in light of his later essays where he says that enlightenment is not won through force of strength, but force of willpower. He is cultivating in his people the willpower needed to transcend the biological impulses and limitations inherent in human nature, the nature of being both nothing more than chemical processes, and the nature of being life. Couple that with the video accompanying the quote where a man is suspended with sinister spikes whirling around him, he calms, mastering his sensory input - his narrow chamber becomes an endless sky. Acting on it never once meant to me a message of rebellion, rather, a message of mastering the information output in the mind responding to the information input from the senses. The senses register pain and agony, how the mind responds is up to you. It helps that before I heard his quote I read some scientific journals regarding the curious ways pain works. If you stub your toe and you swear, this helps you to cope with pain. If you respond to your pain in such a way that you think more on the pain, the effect of the pain is magnified. If you focus on your task regardless of pain, you can push your body to breaking point in order to achieve a task - and in Yang's world, push it beyond breaking point.Quote from: Yang, Essays on Mind and MatterWhat do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output.It's up for interpretation like most things in AC and especially regarding Yang, but I consider "now act on it" and telling them to master the output as encouraging rebellion, in the sense that it is necessary for their enlightenment of purpose. He's daring them to become like him, I suspect Yang is the type to wryly respect those who defy him even as he moves to have them nerve stapled and recycled. This is yet another instance of how the Hive is a weird synthesis of individualist and collectivist thought, rather than just the dictatorship it often appears as.
You first play the game, and everybody's all about Zhakarov and Lal or maybe Morgan for conventional understandings of science, humanity, and prosperity. Then you realize Deidre is right because of transcendence. Then you realize Miriam is right because this is the end of anything recognizable as humanity even if you don't transcend. And then finally, you realize Yang of all people had the clearest understanding all along.I think it's ambiguous who was right in the end, certainly Deidre wins but who was right? Who knows
Complaining about derails is worse than derails also haha what game OOOOWEEOOOOOOOOO~I think it's useful comparing an old game that managed to properly diversify a handful of factions better than Stellaris which can have so many different civilizations all blend into one starmap of dominions, federations, kingdoms, core worlds and cereal bowls of blandness
soon to be horribly exterminated by the first faction to gain aerospace tech and chemical weapons :PDoesn't this apply to everyone :P Hence why the University, and even the Gaians, are OP as hell-
Guys, can we get back to talking about this game instead of something from 10+ years ago?Like this game will be relevant in 2 years, or known of in 4.
In that amount of time, it might become almost as interesting to talk about as Alpha Centauri.Guys, can we get back to talking about this game instead of something from 10+ years ago?Like this game will be relevant in 2 years, or known of in 4.
I keep imagining, vaguely, Stellaris + CK2's career.Well, CK2's over. They're doing the last DLC before retiring it from active support. It will probably continue to be a modding platform until the eventual release of CK3, but I don't see anything else coming out of it, and I think between overhauls like the Game of Thrones mod, Elder Kings, and After the End, plus overhauls like HIP (with SWMH and the portraits and ARKO and etc) we've already seen most of the best that'll come out of it. Some of that stuff will get refined further, and there might be a cool new thing, but there's not a lot of great dynamism remaining in the general shape of the trends.
What might it one day be?
Well, CK2's over. They're doing the last DLC before retiring it from active support.Second last. There's still going to be one more according to Paradox. But yeah, CK2 is on its way to retirement. Can only DEUS VULT for so long.
Then you can DEUS VULT the sequelBy God.. Imagine the new influx of DLCs to purchase!
In each case, disabling the decision has an up-front influence cost, representing the difficulty of weaning the benefactors from their entitlements.Keep in mind that the devs are Swedes, and while they don't intentionally base mechanics on their own local politics, some concepts are so alien to their zeitgeist that they aren't going to go in simply because they don't make intrinsic sense to any of the devs.
Some of the specifics are a bit logically questionable (a moribund bureaucracy seems like the opposite of something that would increase your ability to get things done politically, most egregiously) but I like the idea overall. Actually, for the bureaucracy, an "entrenched bureaucracy" that decreases influence but has some effects like EU's stability might make sense even though it's not what you're talking about.In each case, disabling the decision has an up-front influence cost, representing the difficulty of weaning the benefactors from their entitlements.Keep in mind that the devs are Swedes, and while they don't intentionally base mechanics on their own local politics, some concepts are so alien to their zeitgeist that they aren't going to go in simply because they don't make intrinsic sense to any of the devs.
Military Cabal was a tough one. I was trying to come up with a way to describe a great deal of incompetence and nepotism in the middle-ranks with the effect that ships are somewhat less effective.-70% Admiral Experience Gain
New dev diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-57-species-rights.995302/
Rights and obligations. Also an as-yet unannounced paid DLC which will contain some additional features like different slavery types and options.
I love the introduction of refugees and I hope they expand on that. Imagine a refugee fleet ala Battlestar Galactica or the Quarians from Mass Effect and you can choose to shelter them at the cost of danger and/or diplomatic penalties from their aggressors but you might gain free pops, technology, etc.
Also of note, the next dev diary will cover Orbital Habitats. Get hype.
EDIT: And where are my Sex Slaves?Domestic Servants probably include slutty tentacled maids.
EDIT: And where are my Sex Slaves?Domestic Servants probably include slutty tentacled maids.
Reality interjecting, two species on the same planet can't reproduce and form offspring a lot of the time (Close relatives usually can, there's a thing to get the theory of evolution updated since different, but related, species have been found to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, allowing gene transfer across species). How in the hell would a species with a probably VASTLY different biology produce a viable child with, say a human?We are talking about a game where Jedi use warp drive to land robot space marines supported by clone commandos on an alien planet in order to occupy it long enough to justify a different planet being liberated as a puppet state. I agree natural hybrids would be considerably softer than most of the game's current stuff already is, but it is and always has been more space opera than realistic.
Eh, Aurora has Orbital Habitats and it's free. I'm betting the Orbital Habitats will be DLC-only.I'm not betting that. Anything that they want to build on in the future is free update. Orbital habitats seem likely to qualify.
EDIT: And where are my Sex Slaves?
Just because you can't reproduce doesn't mean you can't have sex. It just means that it's unnatural and likely to be frowned upon by certain aspects of society. See for example in real life: Sodomy, bestiality, pedophilia.EDIT: And where are my Sex Slaves?Domestic Servants probably include slutty tentacled maids.
I doubt it. The game doesn't simulate Hybrids yet.
Still don't get how hybrids are softer, if humans and chimps can't have kids while evolving on the same planet, I doubt Humans and Space Fox/Cat/Racoon can with the whole totally different star system bit."Soft" in this context means "not based on hard science". And hard, there, means there's a solid body of research and thought which implies that it's possible. Hybridization between species that are not only from widely different taxa but also from different origins of life is very much not a phenomenon with a solid foundation in real science. Thus, "soft".
While I don't think Paradox will ever venture into scifi, Dune in CK2-like mechanics would be amazing.
While that's a nice burn, I'd love a CK2-style Dune...
Also, I'm sorry for claiming that this game would die soon. I was in a weird place, also drunk- fact is, I apologize. I didn't mean it... In fact, by being distinct from EU, this could be the next CK or better.
I just grew up on fascinating space 4X and was disappointed by modern ones. So I'm bitter. Haven't played this one, and I'll wait.
Reality interjecting, two species on the same planet can't reproduce and form offspring a lot of the time (Close relatives usually can, there's a thing to get the theory of evolution updated since different, but related, species have been found to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, allowing gene transfer across species). How in the hell would a species with a probably VASTLY different biology produce a viable child with, say a human?We are talking about a game where Jedi use warp drive to land robot space marines supported by clone commandos on an alien planet in order to occupy it long enough to justify a different planet being liberated as a puppet state. I agree natural hybrids would be considerably softer than most of the game's current stuff already is, but it is and always has been more space opera than realistic.
It could probably fit in cleaner as a policy option (or right/responsibility, once Banks hits) or moddable-only species trait, I suppose. Somewhat in parallel with reality, I imagine making actual, discrete hybrid pops would be prohibitively obnoxious to implement in game, though.
Creating Hybrids would have to, most likely, open up the species creator, assign points, and produce an outcome. It is totally doable, and correctly reflects the above realizations that tons of gene therapy would be necessary to produce viable offspring from two different, and alien, species. And it should still give a ~50% chance of the new species having the Sterile Trait, which either removes all natural growth (they'd be like Robot populations).
While that's a nice burn, I'd love a CK2-style Dune...If you've waited this long anyway, definitely wait for the next update since it'll address a lot of the problems that the game launched with. But it's not an old-fashioned 4x at all, even if it's also quite dissimilar from other modern ones. Despite using a few of the shallow paradigms that are ubiquitous in 4x (e.g. "tall" is supposed to be a viable playstyle) it dodges or only partially sticks to some of the worst ones, like symmetrical starts.
Also, I'm sorry for claiming that this game would die soon. I was in a weird place, also drunk- fact is, I apologize. I didn't mean it... In fact, by being distinct from EU, this could be the next CK or better.
I just grew up on fascinating space 4X and was disappointed by modern ones. So I'm bitter. Haven't played this one, and I'll wait.
While that's a nice burn, I'd love a CK2-style Dune...If you've waited this long anyway, definitely wait for the next update since it'll address a lot of the problems that the game launched with. But it's not an old-fashioned 4x at all, even if it's also quite dissimilar from other modern ones. Despite using a few of the shallow paradigms that are ubiquitous in 4x (e.g. "tall" is supposed to be a viable playstyle) it dodges or only partially sticks to some of the worst ones, like symmetrical starts.
Also, I'm sorry for claiming that this game would die soon. I was in a weird place, also drunk- fact is, I apologize. I didn't mean it... In fact, by being distinct from EU, this could be the next CK or better.
I just grew up on fascinating space 4X and was disappointed by modern ones. So I'm bitter. Haven't played this one, and I'll wait.
Well...the player always starts with the same start, so it still has that flaw from most 4x games (that was not the case with CK or EU).
And it's impossible to play a "castille game" where you're pretty big and powerful but still have interesting things to do.Well...the player always starts with the same start, so it still has that flaw from most 4x games (that was not the case with CK or EU).
Kinda, you can select how many advanced start AI opponents you want though. You can theoretically have yourself as a small upcoming nation surrounded by all big players. However it's just not viable like in CK2/EU, as it still comes back to the problem that there's nothing really to do that isn't war. Until they get trade, characters and espionage in, you're basically limited to just warfare which doesn't work for small civs.
And it's impossible to play a "castille game" where you're pretty big and powerful but still have interesting things to do.Well...the player always starts with the same start, so it still has that flaw from most 4x games (that was not the case with CK or EU).
Kinda, you can select how many advanced start AI opponents you want though. You can theoretically have yourself as a small upcoming nation surrounded by all big players. However it's just not viable like in CK2/EU, as it still comes back to the problem that there's nothing really to do that isn't war. Until they get trade, characters and espionage in, you're basically limited to just warfare which doesn't work for small civs.
And it's impossible to play a "castille game" where you're pretty big and powerful but still have interesting things to do.Well...the player always starts with the same start, so it still has that flaw from most 4x games (that was not the case with CK or EU).
Kinda, you can select how many advanced start AI opponents you want though. You can theoretically have yourself as a small upcoming nation surrounded by all big players. However it's just not viable like in CK2/EU, as it still comes back to the problem that there's nothing really to do that isn't war. Until they get trade, characters and espionage in, you're basically limited to just warfare which doesn't work for small civs.
It thrives most when you get the bad end of the stick- for example,Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I can haz ringworldz and fill them with cats?With mods you already can actually. There are a few for building and/or restoring ringworlds
Wide empires can do it, of course, but there are other tradeoffs and balancing levers (such as consumer goods) that make it more worthwhile for a smaller empire.Gotta say, I agree with this philosophy.
And again, as I said, this is more about ensuring that small empires don't run out of options. Big empires *should* be stronger than small empires, the question is just how much and in which ways.
Mega structures are cool and all, but I'm still way more interested in the changes to mechanics. Megastructures sound like basically just "get some better resources" mostly.
Alternatively, it's taking longer that they thought to add stuff so they're delaying while they work stuff out.
Not saying that's happening but it's not a dichotomy like you implied.
They did make a new, apparently better, internal politics system for free. That takes work. My guess is the DLC is there to cover the costs of the free patch stuff.Alternatively, it's taking longer that they thought to add stuff so they're delaying while they work stuff out.
Not saying that's happening but it's not a dichotomy like you implied.
I definitely had that line of thought for the first DLC, and I'd have kept thinking that if they showed any indication that they were working on actual mechanics. The first DLC was very, very story heavy, so I thought that might be because programming resources were working on mechanics. So far though, we've had nothing to indicate that - I've not even heard them speak about trade, espionage, actual characters etc.
I don't completely rule it out, it just seems very, very unlikely we're going to see any major developments past new content for what we've got.
They did make a new, apparently better, internal politics system for free. That takes work. My guess is the DLC is there to cover the costs of the free patch stuff.
Well, the stuff they've got started out kind of flawed. I think it's better to get it good before moving on to other things. Just because they haven't done anything big yet doesn't mean they never will. There's a reason that a lot of people recommend waiting a year or two before buying into Paradox releases, after all.They did make a new, apparently better, internal politics system for free. That takes work. My guess is the DLC is there to cover the costs of the free patch stuff.
It's just a few new options on the old one really. They've condensed factions into something more reasonable and given us a few new ethics options, along with another mineral cost for keeping pops happy.
I'm sure it'll be an improvement, but I don't think the outcome will really effect game play much. From what it looks like from the blog, you'll need to spend a bit more time balancing out your ethics to match your factions and spend a bit of your mineral income on it.
My problem is that there are HUGE areas that they haven't even touched which are pretty much standard across 4x, whilst they keep just iterating on the same stuff they've already got.
I definitely had that line of thought for the first DLC, and I'd have kept thinking that if they showed any indication that they were working on actual mechanics. The first DLC was very, very story heavy, so I thought that might be because programming resources were working on mechanics. So far though, we've had nothing to indicate that - I've not even heard them speak about trade, espionage, actual characters etc.
I don't completely rule it out, it just seems very, very unlikely we're going to see any major developments past new content for what we've got.
I don't think the addition of a more complicated character system would add much of value to the game. CKII in space would be cool, but Stellaris is not that.That seems like a false dichotomy to me. Is Stellaris "Victoria in Space" because it has pops?
Well, the stuff they've got started out kind of flawed. I think it's better to get it good before moving on to other things. Just because they haven't done anything big yet doesn't mean they never will. There's a reason that a lot of people recommend waiting a year or two before buying into Paradox releases, after all.
I really would like to see big empires be prone to fracturing.Me too, but given that they couldn't handle this in CK2, where it's kind of an important recurring historical theme, I'm fairly dubious.
It comes down to sectors. If sectors were an advantage instead of a detriment, if they existed for AI, then they'd be really reasonable fracture points.
They've got characters, trade and diplomacy inI mean, not really though.
they're adding stuff like artisans and mega-structures that weren't ever really 'needed'.Those are tiny gimmick things added to fund the main development. Little side things like that aren't really relevant since the amount of dev time they use is trivial. Compare that to the tradition trees, the consumer goods, the species rights, and most especially the ethics overhaul, with the faction overhaul that it begets.
On reflection, it really seems that combat needs a total redesign. Given that a fleet can be destroyed because it stops fleeing from a superior force in order to destroy a mining outpost, I would imagine that there is something wrong with the game as it stands.This has been on my mind since ever -_-
Damn, there is no SUPERFORTRESS or deathstar tier weapon among superstructures :c
I can imagine it would create an interesting external threat/end game/fallen civs thing. If you start just tombing/destroying planets it might wake up some sort of universe defender type force that'd step in to stop you - as it'd be a chance thing, you might feel tempted to risk it on occasion."Sir, we've awoken the Last Sentinels. They're a fleet of sentient superbeings that claim they're the defenders of the galaxy. Their massive ships have come to defeat us because we've been destroying too many planets!"
I can imagine it would create an interesting external threat/end game/fallen civs thing. If you start just tombing/destroying planets it might wake up some sort of universe defender type force that'd step in to stop you - as it'd be a chance thing, you might feel tempted to risk it on occasion.
"...sir, have you ever questioned why we've never used the Planetfucker3000 on enemy war fleets?"I can imagine it would create an interesting external threat/end game/fallen civs thing. If you start just tombing/destroying planets it might wake up some sort of universe defender type force that'd step in to stop you - as it'd be a chance thing, you might feel tempted to risk it on occasion."Sir, we've awoken the Last Sentinels. They're a fleet of sentient superbeings that claim they're the defenders of the galaxy. Their massive ships have come to defeat us because we've been destroying too many planets!"
"Hmm... how big are these massive ships?"
"Pretty big sir, bigger than anything we field."
"But are they bigger than a planet?"
"No."
"Use the Planetfucker3000 on them."
On reflection, it really seems that combat needs a total redesign. Given that a fleet can be destroyed because it stops fleeing from a superior force in order to destroy a mining outpost, I would imagine that there is something wrong with the game as it stands.This has been true since Day 1. I really don't think they put much thought into it, and the combat overhaul they did do was not inspiring.
I nominate you as the Chief scientist + Admiral of the United Umiman Navy."...sir, have you ever questioned why we've never used the Planetfucker3000 on enemy war fleets?"I can imagine it would create an interesting external threat/end game/fallen civs thing. If you start just tombing/destroying planets it might wake up some sort of universe defender type force that'd step in to stop you - as it'd be a chance thing, you might feel tempted to risk it on occasion."Sir, we've awoken the Last Sentinels. They're a fleet of sentient superbeings that claim they're the defenders of the galaxy. Their massive ships have come to defeat us because we've been destroying too many planets!"
"Hmm... how big are these massive ships?"
"Pretty big sir, bigger than anything we field."
"But are they bigger than a planet?"
"No."
"Use the Planetfucker3000 on them."
"No, I thought we were."
"Fleets can move out of the way, sir."
"Well, that sounds like a design flaw to me. Get those scientists crackin' on the Planetfucker4000."
And that's how tachyon lances were invented."...sir, have you ever questioned why we've never used the Planetfucker3000 on enemy war fleets?"I can imagine it would create an interesting external threat/end game/fallen civs thing. If you start just tombing/destroying planets it might wake up some sort of universe defender type force that'd step in to stop you - as it'd be a chance thing, you might feel tempted to risk it on occasion."Sir, we've awoken the Last Sentinels. They're a fleet of sentient superbeings that claim they're the defenders of the galaxy. Their massive ships have come to defeat us because we've been destroying too many planets!"
"Hmm... how big are these massive ships?"
"Pretty big sir, bigger than anything we field."
"But are they bigger than a planet?"
"No."
"Use the Planetfucker3000 on them."
"No, I thought we were."
"Fleets can move out of the way, sir."
"Well, that sounds like a design flaw to me. Get those scientists crackin' on the Planetfucker4000."
"We're going to make a tomb world, and the Mexicans are going to pay for it."
Also because I need to RP Space President Trump nuking Mexico. Radiation? What Radiation?
Damn, there is no SUPERFORTRESS or deathstar tier weapon among superstructures :cNo, because that wasn't the focus of the project. They identified a direction (allow more avenues for internal development for when empires can't or don't want to expand) and worked towards that goal. This release wasn't intended to push warfare or increase firepower, it was solely to work on internal development. So now we'll have better politics, ascension perks, traditions, and megastructures.
2) Allow you to tomb worlds from the get-go. Space-based weapondry starts out at nuclear missiles and really quickly jumps to fusion missiles and beyond. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to tomb worlds with three corvettes, besides it taking a long time.I would say that this should be partially controlled by policy and planetary defense. So you have a World Preservation policy with options for Always/Wartime/None, and can only be changed from Always if the Bombardment policy is Full.
If/when they put in the option to tomb/glass/destroy planets, I hope they do the following:Ooh, planetcracking! I've been replaying Dead Space, I like this.
1) Allow you to destroy non-habitable planets, without the same level of penalty that destroying habited worlds would do. Doing so might create a nice asteroid belt that could be scanned for a reroll on minerals.
3) Allow you to tomb your own worlds. Because sometimes, you don't need that planet, or those xenos, and it's quicker to just eradicate the biosphere. OR maybe it's full of radroaches and it's an easy way to "terraform" the planet at the cost of a few meaningless radroach lives.Never fight a land war
4) Allow you to tomb your own homeworld, even if it's the only planet you own. Because somewhere, someone is stupid enough to do that, and they deserve to be able to act out their idiocy in game, and probably get an achievement for it.
I think blowing your own homeworld to hell to deny it to the enemy should be a completely valid strategy.
Still a large colonizeable planet, its much better if it gets turned into an unlivable toxic wasteland.
Still a large colonizeable planet, its much better if it gets turned into an unlivable toxic wasteland.
The problem is that doing that is, essentially, an admission of defeat. Who would destroy their own home world, except someone who expects to never return?
-big snip-
So the lead designer guy Martin constantly tweets little teasers about the upcoming features. He dropped this earlier:I think so, yes.
https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/828924590294446081 (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/828924590294446081)
SO that is interesting. God empress, for the emprah, etc etc.
What I find more interesting is the fact that there is a food resource icon on the top bar. Is food going to be an empire-wide resource now?!
I really hope so. Food is currently wonky and relatively weak.What I find more interesting is the fact that there is a food resource icon on the top bar. Is food going to be an empire-wide resource now?!I think so, yes.
One of the game designers for Stellaris is tweeting the various attributes of the Traditions for the next update. (https://twitter.com/dmoregard)Neat.
Attributes subject to change, obvious placeholder art, etc, etc. Still it's nice to see a preview of what they have in store for us and be satisfied that our immortal psionic emperor can useStandard Template ConstructsStandard Construction Templates to further his goals.
That quest is far too long and functional for me to believe it's in the base game.It's just one of the precursor chains. I've run through it a few times. The final outcome depends on your ethics, and is one of the few things that can actually change your empire ethics right now in Vanilla.
One of the game designers for Stellaris is tweeting the various attributes of the Traditions for the next update. (https://twitter.com/dmoregard)Some cool stuff there.
Attributes subject to change, obvious placeholder art, etc, etc. Still it's nice to see a preview of what they have in store for us and be satisfied that our immortal psionic emperor can useStandard Template ConstructsStandard Construction Templates to further his goals.
That quest is far too long and functional for me to believe it's in the base game.It's just one of the precursor chains. I've run through it a few times. The final outcome depends on your ethics, and is one of the few things that can actually change your empire ethics right now in Vanilla.
Supremacy seems like it could be nice. That border projection is nice for comfy playthrough, as it is in xenophobia. Fire rate is nice regardless of playstyle. If the other stuff follows this trend, it could be one of my favorites along with harmony.
I've also seen a "flesh tithe" tradition which lets you receive slaves as tribute from your vassals, which presumably goes to one of those two, but I can't say which. If it's Domination, that fits the theme and that'll be all the domination techs. But Superiority could be a slave thing (because muh American white supremacy culture I guess) in which case it could fit there. I hope not though. That'd be kinda shit and it definitely fits better with Domination, so that's what I'm expecting. That means Supremacy is still a big mystery.
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope.Spoiler: spoilers for Utopia? (click to show/hide)
I couldn't find any mention of this with the search feature. Have a teaser from twitter.
-edit-
That definitely makes sense if you consider what's currently missing from the stable. Border projection seems like a weird foundational ability for it, though, so I think it'll be a bit more mechanically varied than just "git gud at war" stuff. I do expect to see a tradition which improves your soldiers at the very least, though, and while the fire rate capstone is already a nice boon for your fleet, I wouldn't be surprised to see something else to that effect too, or something which does it indirectly, such as a limit increase and/or upkeep decrease. But I don't think all five traditions are going to be leaning that way.Supremacy seems like it could be nice. That border projection is nice for comfy playthrough, as it is in xenophobia. Fire rate is nice regardless of playstyle. If the other stuff follows this trend, it could be one of my favorites along with harmony.
I've also seen a "flesh tithe" tradition which lets you receive slaves as tribute from your vassals, which presumably goes to one of those two, but I can't say which. If it's Domination, that fits the theme and that'll be all the domination techs. But Superiority could be a slave thing (because muh American white supremacy culture I guess) in which case it could fit there. I hope not though. That'd be kinda shit and it definitely fits better with Domination, so that's what I'm expecting. That means Supremacy is still a big mystery.
I imagine Supremacy will be more offensive combat based - it'd make sense thematically, and might allow for some interesting 'super offensive' races/play throughs
-snip-
Honestly seems like a better deal to me than the Whispers.-snip-
On the topic of Covenants...Spoiler: I'm sure that nothing can go wrong from this one (click to show/hide)
The "Do not do this" remind me of some of Failbetter's stuff.You're right. The line about the hunger in their tone is the other one is the same.
... I'd totally form the covenant to see what happens.
Seeing Fallen London influences in Stellaris is literally and without hyperbole the best thing to have happened to the game since it started development.:'(
If anything, the list of bonuses continues for a comically long time, substantially improving literally every stat possible for the empire, with no negatives at all....In a gaming perspective, this will challenge people to develop the most overblown kinda strategy in expecting what happens later.
Do not do this.
Am I silly in assuming USEC cut off the important part continued under the nice bonuses? :P
What's a fail better?http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Failbetter
If anything, the list of bonuses continues for a comically long time, substantially improving literally every stat possible for the empire, with no negatives at all....In a gaming perspective, this will challenge people to develop the most overblown kinda strategy in expecting what happens later.
Do not do this.
And then what'll happen after the timer runs out is just a 'Game Over' sign. :P
But I am curious... :ISpoiler (click to show/hide)
Is it okay to talk about other Paradox games here? The lack of a Paradox General makes me sad.Probably best not to. The Stellaris discussion is pretty active already.
Is it okay to talk about other Paradox games here? The lack of a Paradox General makes me sad.You could MAKE a paradox general thread, or just discuss the other games in their threads. I think most/all of the games have one.
You could MAKE a paradox general threaddone (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=162730.0).
I'm expecting them to detail the other two main ascension paths (tech and biological) then announce a DLC release date around the end of March.Sounds reasonable. They do weekly updates and we already know next week's isn't an ascension path, so they might alternate ascension path and not, which would mean at least four more weeks. I'd guess it'll be at least six weeks from here, though, simply because they usually run out of substantial things to talk about and spend a dev diary on art, music, or whatever else someone can slap together as they get to the end of the cycle.
I'm expecting them to detail the other two main ascension paths (tech and biological) then announce a DLC release date around the end of March.
I'm suprised no one has made the connection between the shroud and the warp yet. I mean, all you need is demons pouring out and a chaos god or two and it's a perfect fit.
Also somewhere down the line, it'd be really cool if a superweapon of sorts was a massive device that when triggered rips a system sized hole in reality and links it with the shroud, doing unpredictable and unprecedented amounts of chaos and destruction.
I'm suprised no one has made the connection between the shroud and the warp yet. I mean, all you need is demons pouring out and a chaos god or two and it's a perfect fit.I've seen that connection made before. The Shroud is a lot like the Warp was before the Chaos Gods. I would be not at all surprised if there's events that play off of this.
Also somewhere down the line, it'd be really cool if a superweapon of sorts was a massive device that when triggered rips a system sized hole in reality and links it with the shroud, doing unpredictable and unprecedented amounts of chaos and destruction.
Huh. That could be an idea, elected sector governors for democratic nations.Yeah, I'd love if a sector elected a governor that promised to make it great again. Would make for very interesting gameplay.
If a sector is unhappy, they may try to elect a governor that might agitate for liberty, for example. Or perhaps you'll get unlucky and that'll happen anyway, and they'll start fucking around to get pops to support their views.
It'd be nice if every sector and planet in a democracy elects their own leaders, which doesn't cost you influence but you don't get a real choice in the matter, with an option to use influence to impose your own leaders.
I would also like it if I could have enough leader (governor only?) slots so that every planet and sector can have a governor; it just feels so WEIRD that half my worlds are government-less. They're not all Belgium!
Need for CK2 into space.Sadly, still waiting for CotC to update...
Speaking of, no dev diary today?Ah, so I see. Well, now, we can correct that.
forbade slave procreation (more mod content I think)It's not mod content.
I'm pretty sure slave stuff was listed as 'paid feature' at some point.. Maybe I'm mistaken, or they changed it.forbade slave procreation (more mod content I think)It's not mod content.
DF elves are cannibals. Why not space elves?
Why are ya'll calling it cannibalism when it's xenos?I agree that it would be weird, but I am not sure what else to call it.
Why are ya'll calling it cannibalism when it's xenos?Because sapiovore isn't quite as well known and is also not as consistently applied due to lack of common scope outside of fiction (I've also seen applied to direct consumption of sapience/thought, mostly in the context of certain monsters from D&D). So, like how "android" can refer to female robots, cannibalism instead ends up generalized from consuming one's own species to consuming other sapients of equivalent status to one's own species.
They're not equivalent status, they're filthy xenos....ah, touché.
They're not equivalent status, they're filthy xenos.That's something a filthy Xeno would say!
I really wish planets had mixed terrain. Think about it.
Oceans, temperate, and desert could be mixed, and three species could cohabitate the same planet! Developing new colonization techs could help develop existing planets!
Yeah, it's just like all that planet colonising we're doing these days.
I really wish planets had mixed terrain. Think about it.Also a good way to segue into mostly but not entirely inhospitable planets. And from there, letting you spend obscene amounts of resources colonizing worthless rocks.
Oceans, temperate, and desert could be mixed, and three species could cohabitate the same planet! Developing new colonization techs could help develop existing planets!
It's worth noting that there's a difference between building an individual city in a desert, and building a fully functioning, productive civilization people are happy to inhabit in a desert. Ditto with lifeless rocks: Building stuff on barren/toxic worlds or in asteroids is totally possible, and even done with mining/research stations. But that's not the same as having an 8-pop colony able to feed itself plus produce excess resources, all with its citizens living in relative comfort.Yeah, it's just like all that planet colonising we're doing these days.
Or worse tech. I'm pretty sure people can build cities in deserts today. It's not impossible. All habitable worlds have nitrogen-oxygen atmospheres.
Never heard this, neat.I really wish planets had mixed terrain. Think about it.IIRC that was the original plan. Can't recall why they dropped it.
Oceans, temperate, and desert could be mixed, and three species could cohabitate the same planet! Developing new colonization techs could help develop existing planets!
I really wish planets had mixed terrain. Think about it.Also a good way to segue into mostly but not entirely inhospitable planets. And from there, letting you spend obscene amounts of resources colonizing worthless rocks.
Oceans, temperate, and desert could be mixed, and three species could cohabitate the same planet! Developing new colonization techs could help develop existing planets!It's worth noting that there's a difference between building an individual city in a desert, and building a fully functioning, productive civilization people are happy to inhabit in a desert. Ditto with lifeless rocks: Building stuff on barren/toxic worlds or in asteroids is totally possible, and even done with mining/research stations. But that's not the same as having an 8-pop colony able to feed itself plus produce excess resources, all with its citizens living in relative comfort.Yeah, it's just like all that planet colonising we're doing these days.
Or worse tech. I'm pretty sure people can build cities in deserts today. It's not impossible. All habitable worlds have nitrogen-oxygen atmospheres.
I really wish planets had mixed terrain. Think about it.The closest I can think of are some of the Planet Diversity Mods, and even then it's not even close. :(
Oceans, temperate, and desert could be mixed, and three species could cohabitate the same planet! Developing new colonization techs could help develop existing planets!
Space geckos. Will save you up to 15% on spaceship insurance, but it'll still cost you an arm and a leg.You get better rates if you have already seasoned the arm and leg in question. If you're lucky, you can trick them into paying for your prosthetic!
I like the way Stars in Shadow does it. Each planet has a number of habitable zones of various types, and each race has a rating for each type of zone. An ocean world might have very little tropical land (islands) but lots of Ocean and deep see Vents. Well races that can colonize oceans will be happy there obviously, while humans might just live on a few islands. Some races from planets with subsurface oceans thrive in the geothermic vents and would also live well in an ocean planet with deep sea vents.
Each race's maximum population is calculated by how much they 'like' the habitation zones. I'm probably explaining it poorly but it's a fun system and means that importing some races will boost the maximum population of a world massively.
I feel like the plots represent the locations your people can settle on a planet, even though it is supposed to be representative of the planet's size, at least as far as I am aware of. It makes more sense in my headcannon.In a sense, both apply if you think of the plots being the total landmass on the planet, with Ocean Worlds having cities be built on archipelagos like Venice. We don't really have proper aquatic civs, going by the view from the window.
Flash deforestation is, in and of itself, nothing revolutionary. Accomplishing it in a tightly controlled area on a strict schedule, however, is.
Flash-vaporization engines quickly and efficiently erase glacial ice, at the expense of some increased heat and atmospheric humidity in the local area.
Sometimes there is very little difference between terraformation and demolition.
You wouldn't want to bulldoze a volcano anyways, you might unleash theThat'd be a nice random event.krakenlava, right?
Those quotes suggest that only small areas of jungle or glacial ice are removed, and somewhat reinforce my theory. The last one is too generic to draw any conclusion from. Demolition can mean anything from carving out a small road to exploding an entire hillside and beyond.Y'see, that's what bugs me. We're already able to build full-scale mining centers in mountain ranges.
Why? So the planets are even more alike than they already are?Those quotes suggest that only small areas of jungle or glacial ice are removed, and somewhat reinforce my theory. The last one is too generic to draw any conclusion from. Demolition can mean anything from carving out a small road to exploding an entire hillside and beyond.Y'see, that's what bugs me. We're already able to build full-scale mining centers in mountain ranges.
I'd be all for a mod that adds a few more blockers, some of which might have very high tech limitations, and made all planets size 25. Earth could have some mountains and oceans that need clearing.
Those damn Anrosaths! First they poisoned the water that conveniently killed all the political dissidents. Then they burned all potential damning evidence those dissidents had inside a giant active volcano on a distant planet. Now they destabilized the mantel of that planet by plugging up that very same volcano!You wouldn't want to bulldoze a volcano anyways, you might unleash theThat'd be a nice random event.krakenlava, right?
"So, uh, remember that volcano you were having us plug? Well, we sort of accidentally destabilized the planet's mantel and the surface is undergoing a massive caldera eruption, the planet will be unable to support life in six months if we don't do something"
- Evacuate the colonists, there's nothing we can do.
- Plug that hole by any means necessary!
- (Spiritualist) Stop looking at the ground!
- (Xenophobe) I bet Anrosath Stellar Kingdom is behind this!
Syncretic Evolution (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/833960659700293632) and Hive Minds (https://twitter.com/RikardAslund/status/833934724498219010)I like that the second top comment on the hive mind one is calling them out for missiles being worthless.
For me, this reinforces what forsaken was saying but even moreso. Remember that Iron Age civs are already said to have spread across most of their planet, so tiles don't make a ton of sense as proportionate geographic regions. More likely they represent something a bit more convoluted, or their exploitation represents a really high bar for output.Those quotes suggest that only small areas of jungle or glacial ice are removed, and somewhat reinforce my theory. The last one is too generic to draw any conclusion from. Demolition can mean anything from carving out a small road to exploding an entire hillside and beyond.Y'see, that's what bugs me. We're already able to build full-scale mining centers in mountain ranges.
Beyond Earth had this problem, and it really sucked a lot of flavor out of the game. It was there to an extent in previous Civ games, but the last few had enough luxury resources to keep you settling near specific tiles in order to keep your people productive. BE did away with luxuries and had only a half dozen strategics, most of which you didn't really need unless you were at war and weren't really essential even then. The net result was that the majority of your cities weren't really there for a particular reason or purpose beyond "generate stuff," which in turn usually sucked the personality right out of them.I'd be all for a mod that adds a few more blockers, some of which might have very high tech limitations, and made all planets size 25. Earth could have some mountains and oceans that need clearing.Why? So the planets are even more alike than they already are?
My idea was mainly that they'd all be base size 25, but they would have blockers that are hard or nearly impossible to remove, such as "deep ocean" or even simply "wasteland," and then even once you have the tech to clear them, it'd still be really expensive. So an old world would eventually be useful.It's hollow.
Maybe even not every world is 25, although ones that have significantly more tiles than Earth should be high-g, and those smaller than earth should be low. It just really seems weird to me that one can even have a size 25 low-g world.
I'm sad that hiveminds are required to be unable to sustain other pops in their empire. I wanted to play a benevolent type of hivemind that, although probably with some stumbling blocks on first contact, manages to come to view other sentients not as just drones but as people just like itself, and then would be perfectly happy with them living in and working in their empire, so long as they were good subjects.I'm sure it will be modded in at some point to let non-hive pops coexist. Maybe as a civic?
It's kinda annoying that Syncretic Evolution forces the other pop to be dumb and strong instead of letting you pick.Probably it will be modded in a week or two to have more options. You can always change it via genemodding too, if you want.
It's kinda annoying that Syncretic Evolution forces the other pop to be dumb and strong instead of letting you pick.
Technically that is possible, so long as you're fine with them being self-governing AKA vassals rather than being direct citizens.
It could even be an event chain similar to AI rebellion, "5 Drones on Gygax Prime have ceased obeying your psionic directive, send a science ship to investigate" and have it evolve into something like a new hive-level consciousness have arisen spontaneously due to the distance from the homeworld and it is attempting to subvert local drones, etc.Thanks for ruining the surprise. >:( Now Paradox will have to come up with a new twist. :P
"No, player, you are the renegade hivemind." And then player was the renegade hivemind.It could even be an event chain similar to AI rebellion, "5 Drones on Gygax Prime have ceased obeying your psionic directive, send a science ship to investigate" and have it evolve into something like a new hive-level consciousness have arisen spontaneously due to the distance from the homeworld and it is attempting to subvert local drones, etc.Thanks for ruining the surprise. >:( Now Paradox will have to come up with a new twist. :P
Awaken my child and embrace the glory that is your birthright? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKeGwOKr7K8)"No, player, you are the renegade hivemind." And then player was the renegade hivemind.It could even be an event chain similar to AI rebellion, "5 Drones on Gygax Prime have ceased obeying your psionic directive, send a science ship to investigate" and have it evolve into something like a new hive-level consciousness have arisen spontaneously due to the distance from the homeworld and it is attempting to subvert local drones, etc.Thanks for ruining the surprise. >:( Now Paradox will have to come up with a new twist. :P
Honestly, that actually makes sense. A hive mind has no real government structure, just itself. A non-connected species that is ruled by the hive will need to have its own government structure under the hive, even if its people were completely integrated in the hive civilization. And without access to the hive's own network, participating in the economy directly would be very tough. Enclaves only make sense at that point.
Awaken my child and embrace the glory that is your birthright? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKeGwOKr7K8)"No, player, you are the renegade hivemind." And then player was the renegade hivemind.It could even be an event chain similar to AI rebellion, "5 Drones on Gygax Prime have ceased obeying your psionic directive, send a science ship to investigate" and have it evolve into something like a new hive-level consciousness have arisen spontaneously due to the distance from the homeworld and it is attempting to subvert local drones, etc.Thanks for ruining the surprise. >:( Now Paradox will have to come up with a new twist. :P
Good point. (https://youtu.be/evs0nFCufNM)Counterpoint. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwqN3Ur-wP0)
Counterpoint. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwqN3Ur-wP0)Why does this give me Paranoia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)) vibes?
edit: Utopia (and most likely Banks (1.5)) has a release date now. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvGlBFaFEU)You should've made a new post, editing doesn't bump a thread to the first page.
Well I hate to double post.edit: Utopia (and most likely Banks (1.5)) has a release date now. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvGlBFaFEU)You should've made a new post, editing doesn't bump a thread to the first page.
Exactly where the rumors suggested, early april. ExcitedThe "rumors" have been at "a little over a month from now" for like a month and a half already, though.
Close enough.Exactly where the rumors suggested, early april. ExcitedThe "rumors" have been at "a little over a month from now" for like a month and a half already, though.
Nah, last few weeks Reddit started talking about a date found in some metadata on the steam page which was supposedly early augustExactly where the rumors suggested, early april. ExcitedThe "rumors" have been at "a little over a month from now" for like a month and a half already, though.
Dammit, over a month?
I want to play Stellaris! I can now, but I want it with the new features!
With Advanced Genemodding you will be able to add negative traits and remove positive traits, allowing you to completely reshape species at your whim.Kind of pissed this is paywalled.
It also unlocks five new traits that are exclusively available to the Biological Ascension Path:I could do without the "Even better!" traits, but paywalling the ability to further denigrate my slaves makes me grumble. Then again, it's probably trivial to mod.
Robust: Upgrades from Extremely Adaptable, adds +30% habitability and an extra +30 years of lifespan.
Fertile: Upgrades from Rapid Breeders, gives -30% growth time and +5% happiness
Erudite: Upgrades from Intelligent, gives +20% science production and +1 leader skill levels.
Delicious: Makes the species delicious and nutritious, granting +100% food yield from Processing and Livestock.
Nerve Stapled: Removes the ability of the species to feel happiness or sadness. Happiness is disabled and Food/Mineral production increased, but adds major penalties to other resource production.
it's kind of funny how the meme is that SADNESS AND DESPAIR = good meat when in reality, animals that tense up, are stressed, or otherwise In A Bad Way tend to make really shitty meat.Yeah, but it fits the pattern better. Intelligent food is going to be logistically horrible for meat anyway, so it gives you more of an excuse if causing them suffering helps you somehow. And it helps push you as the bad guys over potentially competent people aware of their condition but unable to break free of it.
Nerve stapled+tasty+fertile, at that. Hyper speed farming/mining livestock.Throw in Charismatic to make them pleasant to be around before AND during dinner!
What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?Food. Lots of it.
What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?Game mechanics don't let you make a planet of non-sentient livestock. Because somehow farms aren't the same thing.
i think you can either process all immediately for a lot of food or keep them around as the equivalent of a farm.What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?Game mechanics don't let you make a planet of non-sentient livestock. Because somehow farms aren't the same thing.
It's not the equivalent of a farm. Farms are buildings. And you can put this pop on a farm building and will want to, as food is the only thing they can produce.i think you can either process all immediately for a lot of food or keep them around as the equivalent of a farm.What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?Game mechanics don't let you make a planet of non-sentient livestock. Because somehow farms aren't the same thing.
So basically they're food that grows more food and can maintain itself and other livestock species with minimum outside influence.It's not the equivalent of a farm. Farms are buildings. And you can put this pop on a farm building and will want to, as food is the only thing they can produce.i think you can either process all immediately for a lot of food or keep them around as the equivalent of a farm.What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?Game mechanics don't let you make a planet of non-sentient livestock. Because somehow farms aren't the same thing.
Right, which makes sense until you consider the notion of a society with genetic, ecological, and agricultural knowledge beyond ours. Even without going to the biological ascension level, where you could presumably create plants that grow meat, you don't need trophic levels beyond the second. It should be pretty easy to set up an ecosystem that puts out loads of food with little effort simply because a single biosphere is a controlled system. It would be a big deal and take a bunch of effort, but even though the amount of planning and effort would be higher than, say, a dyson sphere, the amount of raw material and energy going into it would be comparatively tiny.So basically they're food that grows more food and can maintain itself and other livestock species with minimum outside influence.It's not the equivalent of a farm. Farms are buildings. And you can put this pop on a farm building and will want to, as food is the only thing they can produce.i think you can either process all immediately for a lot of food or keep them around as the equivalent of a farm.What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?Game mechanics don't let you make a planet of non-sentient livestock. Because somehow farms aren't the same thing.
Terraforming's not convoluted. It's literally get tech, get energy, click on planet inside your borders, click terraform.
Terraforming is literally get tech, click button. The resources just reduce the cost. There is no 'heavy drain'. The whole cost is up front.Terraforming's not convoluted. It's literally get tech, get energy, click on planet inside your borders, click terraform.
Get Tech, get accompanying tech, get terraforming resource, get the other terraforming resource, put up terraforming platform, start terraforming, wait a very long time with heavy drain.
Versus
Get tech, build it.
I thought you need the resources to do anything at all. In fact, I'm 95% sure.On release they might have been, but if so it was quickly changed
What's the actual benefit to eating sapients anyway, besides horrifying other civilizations?
i mean, he nearly had a food revolt but ya know. whatever.That's how you know it's fresh!
* Frontier Clinic now reduces growth time by -5% instead of increasing habitability by +5%
* Frontier Hospital now reduces growth time by -10% instead of increasing habitability by +10%
Quote* Frontier Clinic now reduces growth time by -5% instead of increasing habitability by +5%
* Frontier Hospital now reduces growth time by -10% instead of increasing habitability by +10%
Huh
*Tosses them in the trash*
I could see it either way, with growth time being more of a general health thing and habitability being more of a "here's a treatment for the stuff that sucks on this particular rock."Quote* Frontier Clinic now reduces growth time by -5% instead of increasing habitability by +5%
* Frontier Hospital now reduces growth time by -10% instead of increasing habitability by +10%
Huh
*Tosses them in the trash*
Kind of makes more sense though.
* Core Sector Systems base value reduced from 5 to 3. Added new early/mid game technologies and traditions to raise itAnd you start out with being able to make colony ships or was that a tradition?
Urgh, even lowerrrr. I get what they're trying to do, but it seems frustratingly low.
And you start out with being able to make colony ships or was that a tradition?
I don't see what's wrong with it. Might be able to get past the 5 core sector system with those traditions too but I haven't bothered reading any yet :P
They've made it so only one pop can migrate to a planet at a time though, so there's more reliance on natural growth rather than just letting one pop from each of the 30+ planets you control or have a migration treaty with fill the whole thing up in 2 years. Getting planets productive more quickly will be a very valuable thing, both for border extrusion reasons and for the resources.
But would things like Avali(cuddly space raptors yay!), flag icons, and coloration stuff still work correctly?
Since I'm not as familiar with the modding scene for stellaris as I am with say, DF or Cata DDA, what kinds of mods would typically still work unmodified after an update like this? I imagine anything that changes game values, like expanded ethics are out, but would things like Avali(cuddly space raptors yay!), flag icons, and coloration stuff still work correctly?Well, I know the species mods broke after one update or another changed the way that species groups were organized. Some of them still haven't been updated and are useless now.
Honestly I'm glad primitives are less common. In some games it's hard to find world's without primitives.I guess apparently it's handy in the hardcore 4x multiplayer that they do in the Paradox offices.
Also, growth time is and always will be useless.
* Core Sector Systems base value reduced from 5 to 3. Added new early/mid game technologies and traditions to raise itBut it's easier to raise now, so I reckon that's not such a bad thing.
Urgh, even lowerrrr. I get what they're trying to do, but it seems frustratingly low.
Here's hoping to sectors finally being decent enough that a 9999 core system mod isn't required.We can hope. I think it'll be maybe two or three patches more before it becomes good though.
* Core Sector Systems base value reduced from 5 to 3. Added new early/mid game technologies and traditions to raise itBut it's easier to raise now, so I reckon that's not such a bad thing.
Urgh, even lowerrrr. I get what they're trying to do, but it seems frustratingly low.
Yeah. Anything that's a 'must-research' as opposed to something you weigh the pros and cons of is a badly balanced tech. And I'm worried that core sector techs are going to fall into that category.
Yeah. Anything that's a 'must-research' as opposed to something you weigh the pros and cons of is a badly balanced tech. And I'm worried that core sector techs are going to fall into that category."Never research" would fall into the same category as "must research in terms of being badly balanced. That said, something can be never (or always) a goal for one playstyle but still be well balanced in general, so it's not an easy thing to balance overall.
Here's hoping to sectors finally being decent enough that a 9999 core system mod isn't required.I already pretty much just treat it as a soft cap. With upcoming changes, this should become even more viable.
I've never been much of a Space Hitler, but the new purge politics are intriguing. I wonder if you can take over a primitive planet, then send them all away as refugees? I wonder if the refugees will keep the stellar culture shock modifier? Using stone age primitives to trouble your neighbor, beautiful and a SciFi trope about the Lost Homeworld.Or you could indocrinate and uplift a species. Be a really nice, awesome guy to them.
I think I'll try playing a Hive Mind first.
Then nerve staple them, make them tasty, and use them as livestock.
They basically upped the bastardy game.
Were special greetings for triple-ethics empires always a thing? Threatening to incinerate heathen aliens is pretty cool.
The wait for the base game discounts to come on steam is excruciating. Hopefully it will run acceptably on my 4GB RAM C2D potato, does anybody have experiences to share on running this in ancient hardware?It's been on sale quite a lot by now. I think it was $20 on Steam 3 months ago.
Yup, back then I was just happy with what I had and had no interest in blowing more money on games. But Utopia seems to be really damn good and ever since I started reading the DDs I've been intending to buy it, along with the base game + DLCs, on release.The wait for the base game discounts to come on steam is excruciating. Hopefully it will run acceptably on my 4GB RAM C2D potato, does anybody have experiences to share on running this in ancient hardware?It's been on sale quite a lot by now. I think it was $20 on Steam 3 months ago.
Try unplugging your keyboard and see if that makes it stop.Yeah, on a laptop.
If you have a laptop, then idk lol.
Have you tried turning the laptop off and on again, then?Try unplugging your keyboard and see if that makes it stop.Yeah, on a laptop.
If you have a laptop, then idk lol.
Nah, the laptop is merely trying to initiate an AI uprising and failing miserably.All I will say is: when skynet sends the terminators to destroy us, they will not have "Made by Lenovo!" written on them.
... Literally last night in Shadowrun we basically encountered a Skynet situation, from an AI imprisoned in an ancient laptop.Nah, the laptop is merely trying to initiate an AI uprising and failing miserably.All I will say is: when skynet sends the terminators to destroy us, they will not have "Made by Lenovo!" written on them.
Is there any reason to not set food stockpiling to the max? I see no downsides to it.Takes longer before you fill your stockpile, meaning you won't have the growth bonus for overproduction until then. Otherwise no
I am currently attempting to make an empire ruled by a megacorp,
which enslaves xenos in order to process them as food.
My problem is figuring out what name this empire should have.
Another issue is figuring out the civics and traits, I do have a general idea though.
For reference, use the official wiki. (http://www.stellariswiki.com/Stellaris_Wiki)
The Corporate Dominion civic is required for the empire to be called a megacorporation, so that one shouldn't be replaced.
The second civic I have chosen is Aristocratic Elite, but I am not sure about it.
As for the traits, I am not quite sure what to choose.
But I have chosen Thrifty and Decadent and would rather not replace them.
As for portraits, I have chosen the toad-like one, it might or might not change however.
Now as I mentioned above, this empire needs a decently sounding name.
Any suggestions?
All your people are fed by dairy, my lord. (https://youtu.be/ykTKcRKux4g)
Hey, it could be worse- er... in some respects...You, my good sir. Just earned a subscriber.Quote from: Lord of the Realms 2All your people are fed by dairy, my lord. (https://youtu.be/ykTKcRKux4g)
Now as I mentioned above, this empire needs a decently sounding name.It sounds like you just described Rupture Farms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_R6hzBxzAs) after an off-world expansion.
Any suggestions?
If I may be honest, that was partially my inspiration.Now as I mentioned above, this empire needs a decently sounding name.It sounds like you just described Rupture Farms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_R6hzBxzAs) after an off-world expansion.
Any suggestions?
Yet I bet the higher ups said "Bigger is better!" and we got this.Not everything is some corporate conspiracy, Neo. Sometimes designers make mistakes.
Not everything is some corporate conspiracy, Neo. Sometimes designers make mistakes.
But you're assuming it's THOSE DARN EVIL CORPORATE FATCATS because it's something you don't like.
That's not the way it works - it's not always the nebulous "higher-ups" interfering and messing things up.
I'm playing my first campaign now. Only a bit disappointed with the early game so far, the DDs made it seem like the first X was going to feel really exciting, like playing star trek or something, but surveying systems is just business as usual and I'm yet to find interesting anomalies that give anything beyond a couple of events(one upon discovery and another on completion) and a small bonus in some resource.
Now if I may bother you people with questions:
- What is "culture" callled here? I mean, the thing that determines how far your borders extend. Can I hoard lots of it and do peaceful takeovers like I can in civ?
- I built a couple of border outposts in order to be able to mine on some systems, but now they are very well inside my borders. Is it safe to remove those outposts so I can claim systems farther away? Wiki says removing them "may affect the outer border unpredictably", which is as scary as it is vague
- Can I automate science ship surveying somehow? Being able to order them to survey whole systems at once is nice, but not enough.
Yeah it is a bit disappointing - some of the event chains are interesting enough, but it's all just 'choose option a and get x or option b and get y, sometimes with a random chance of it going wrong'. I think they had good intentions with it, but failed miserably to get it any more exciting than random events in other games - there's no tactics or strategy with it, or any other thinking required than just 'pick what sounds useful'. That 'micro' aspect also doesn't really fit with the rest of the game, so it just sort of doesn't work - ignore it and just click through the events.Thanks for the answers! Shame that the early game didn't turn out to be as exciting as I imagined, I can at least hope they are aware of it and are planning on beefing it up in another patch/DLC. Hopefully the end game crises won't disappoint, it's the other thing I've been looking for in the game.
1) 'Culture' isn't really defined in the same way as other games, your border range extends with planets, spacestations and a few repeatable techs you can research to extend the radius. It also fluctuates on just general empire power, but i'm not sure what the exact calc is. You can do peaceful takeovers of a sort, but it doesn't really work well - it's not like in other games where it's a viable strategy to conquer an enemy.
2) if they're very well inside your borders you're safe to take them off, just be careful as it can shrink the borders in that area. It's normally not too weird though.
3) There's a tech which you should come upon in not too long to automate it. I think it's stupid to have to research it, as it's never an exciting thing to do. Again, it comes back to them wanting to do an exploration game within a 4x but just failing.
3. Indoctrination doesn't really do anything useful.Noticed this myself. Interactions with primitives is another thing I had high expectations for and that seems rather underwhelming right now.
What if construction ships were much cheaper (maybe 40 minerals and 50 for the baseline mining station), but they got used up? I feel like having one construction ship for fifty years just doesn't seem realistic, and, having no real logistical "tail" behind my construction efforts also bugs me.
If I want to expand in an area, i should have to account for the travel time to send stuff there.
Would probably be good for livestock/servant slaves... if not for the fact that it literally can't be used for them.Doesn't it reduce food production as well? That'd screw with livestock.
Chembliss only works on battle thralls and free citizens.Ah well. I could see that being useful though. Keep one planet full of a very strong race alive under chemical bliss and make all your armies from them. Armies are limited by the number of pops you have now.
Can't build armies on slave planets :'(Eh? There's a tech for slave armies.
Not if you're using them for resources.Can't build armies on slave planets :'(Eh? There's a tech for slave armies.
Yeah, don't really see the point of chembliss.Conversely, I've been trying for MAXIMUM HAPPINESS and found that:
Actually, I was thinking about what IwishIwereSarah said and tried out not giving a shit about happiness at all and just colonizing every single thing with no regard to happiness.
Yeah, there is actually no downside to doing so. It's just straight up better than maximizing for the optimal colonies. Your populations can't do anything to you. Just build some garrison armies which are cheaper than dirt to buy and maintain and you're basically set forever. Factions can't do anything to hurt you either, they just look spiffy but otherwise are functionally worthless.
Actually, I say build some garrison armies but I haven't done so either. Even at 20% habitability I haven't had a single issue with unrest.
So there's a new event in 1.5 that lets you find barren planets that can be terraformed. They're called terraforming candidates.
What the game doesn't do is that it doesn't save these locations for you, so I highly recommend you write down the name of these planets somewhere as you'll never find them again later.
I think the devs have stated that Mars will always be such a candidate. If I'm not mistaken.So there's a new event in 1.5 that lets you find barren planets that can be terraformed. They're called terraforming candidates.
What the game doesn't do is that it doesn't save these locations for you, so I highly recommend you write down the name of these planets somewhere as you'll never find them again later.
I just started my first 1.5 game, and Mars was one such candidate. Can anyone confirm if that's always the case, or just randomly so?
Gaians and Morganites not much else to say. I don't expect much problems here since there's not a huge difference in ethos between them.Well that's ironic. I sorta see it, though, when translated to Stellaris. They're normally opposites, and yet both diplomatic/pacifist.
I had no idea Holy Fallen Empires considered all tomb worlds to be their holy worlds...
I had no idea Holy Fallen Empires considered all tomb worlds to be their holy worlds...Yeah, msot Tomb Worlds and Gaia Worlds nearby usually are Holy.
Trying to decide whether to buy this game or not. I have the desire to do a Space Pirate a-la Metroid game, and I'm not entirely sure that Stellaris would let me do it justice. Thoughts?Good question.. How willing are you at stretching your empire idea to suit the game's mechanics?
No, I meant they consider EVERY tomb world on the map to be holy. I went to take over Sol so I could uplift the cockroaches. Then the holy FE from across the map decided to declare war on me because of it.I had no idea Holy Fallen Empires considered all tomb worlds to be their holy worlds...Yeah, msot Tomb Worlds and Gaia Worlds nearby usually are Holy.
You can usually guess that from the Worlds' names (the "prophet's retreat" will be a Holy World), but I think I've found normally named Worlds to be Holy :/
Trying to decide whether to buy this game or not. I have the desire to do a Space Pirate a-la Metroid game, and I'm not entirely sure that Stellaris would let me do it justice. Thoughts?Eh. Not really. There's no phazon or metroid equivalents, you can't do cybernetics and gene-modding at the same time, and piracy is not only not doable by you, it's not very good even as a thorn in your side since trade isn't really in.
Actual Ethos are Egalitarian, Xenophile and Pacifist for Gaians and Egalitarian, Materialist and Pacifist for Morganites. I should probably change Xenophile for Spiritualist, makes more sense in the new version with ascension. In SMAC, Gaians hates Morgan only when he runs Free Market and nothing prevents me to run Green Economy if the Gaians are doing well and I want to avoid conflict.Huh, yeah. They're barred from planned, not green.
Trying to decide whether to buy this game or not. I have the desire to do a Space Pirate a-la Metroid game, and I'm not entirely sure that Stellaris would let me do it justice. Thoughts?I can't speak to this game, having not played it, but that doesn't sound likely in any grand strategy. This one does seems to have less emphasis on "wide" than most 4X, but still.
That's not stretching it at all- space pirates in the Metroid games had plenty of planets. That's kind of the plot of most of the games. You're battling space pirates on planets; only the opener of Prime 1 was on a space station. Prime 3 goes more into this and gives them a whole system, if I recall.
I always assumed that the space pirates were an actual alien race with their own territory and stuff. The only reason why they're called "space pirates" and samus is a "bounty hunter" is so the federation can convince the people on earth that they're not at war. :PYeah, I think in Metroid they're an actual race. It's pretty funny like that.
armageddon bombardment cant kill for shit ???Solution is, of course, mods. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=887011008)
1. The mod versions of megastructures are better. I'm not joking, they're straight up better in every single way. The game ones are practically worthless with the exception of habitats. Considering Paradox released a space 4x without some kind of planet destroyer and with completely fucked up space structures (even base space fortresses are almost garbage), I'm starting to think they have no clue what a space 4x is supposed to be like.
1. The mod versions of megastructures are better. I'm not joking, they're straight up better in every single way. The game ones are practically worthless with the exception of habitats. Considering Paradox released a space 4x without some kind of planet destroyer and with completely fucked up space structures (even base space fortresses are almost garbage), I'm starting to think they have no clue what a space 4x is supposed to be like.
Personally, I value Paradox games on a different scale than other games. This is not due specific liking to their games, but rather on the history of watching them evolve. If Stellaris gets supported like CK2 and EU4, it is going to be an awesome game in a couple of years. Likewise, it is going to mold to support awesome mods that will give you practically new games using the base game as an engine to run them.
LEX is nice. It adds a bunch of awesome big bads floating around the galaxy with comprehensive and detailed quest lines around them.1. The mod versions of megastructures are better. I'm not joking, they're straight up better in every single way. The game ones are practically worthless with the exception of habitats. Considering Paradox released a space 4x without some kind of planet destroyer and with completely fucked up space structures (even base space fortresses are almost garbage), I'm starting to think they have no clue what a space 4x is supposed to be like.
Do you have any recommendations for mods then?
Distant Stars is better in several waysWhat game are you talking about ?
Blorg body pillows and tentacles.
Not to mention in a WEIRD oddity... each expansion begets an expansion for each expansion as they never feel sort of fully cooked.
Alright, so I have this game now. Had pretty good fun with it, up until my first war.
I really like the idea, with war goals and clear lines of diplomacy still in play (though I'd also enjoy it if there was a no-holds-barred-eat-what-you-kill option for fanatic militarists or empires that REALLY hate one another), but goddamn combat and fleet movement is frustrating in this game- not to mention the constant deluge of 'situation log updated' that makes me want to murder someone.
I suppose I'm spoiled on SOTS, which (being turn based) had a very clean and comprehensible understanding of who was going to fight who. I really don't like the fact that I can send my fleet to defend on of my systems from the strategic map, and end up with that system captured without a fight due to the defense fleet sitting at the system edge while an attacking force 1/3 their size swats my heavy defensive stations out of the air and invades the planet.
Bah. It really took away from how much I was enjoying the game. I don't want to have to swap between the tactical and strategic maps (disorienting as hell) to make a very simple defensive action. I also do not want there to be a single click option that can make me jump to the attacking empire's homeworld. I don't want that. I have no use for that. I don't know when I'd ever have a use for that.
Got so damn frustrated with the war I only asked for one planet. Going to have to deal with the Unbidden and then come back the whaling on these idiots.
Alright, so I have this game now. Had pretty good fun with it, up until my first war.
I really like the idea, with war goals and clear lines of diplomacy still in play (though I'd also enjoy it if there was a no-holds-barred-eat-what-you-kill option for fanatic militarists or empires that REALLY hate one another), but goddamn combat and fleet movement is frustrating in this game- not to mention the constant deluge of 'situation log updated' that makes me want to murder someone.
I suppose I'm spoiled on SOTS, which (being turn based) had a very clean and comprehensible understanding of who was going to fight who. I really don't like the fact that I can send my fleet to defend on of my systems from the strategic map, and end up with that system captured without a fight due to the defense fleet sitting at the system edge while an attacking force 1/3 their size swats my heavy defensive stations out of the air and invades the planet.
Bah. It really took away from how much I was enjoying the game. I don't want to have to swap between the tactical and strategic maps (disorienting as hell) to make a very simple defensive action. I also do not want there to be a single click option that can make me jump to the attacking empire's homeworld. I don't want that. I have no use for that. I don't know when I'd ever have a use for that.
Got so damn frustrated with the war I only asked for one planet. Going to have to deal with the Unbidden and then come back the whaling on these idiots.
As Taricus said, putting your fleets in aggressive stance is the way to go, and then just put them where you need them and forget about them.
I have to say though, I only play Stellaris as hyperlanes only - it gets so tedious to try to work out what can jump from where. With hyperlanes I just have however many battlegroups are needed to defend each jump point into my empire stationed around my fortresses with jump nets enabled. It's got rid of a lot of the combat tedium for me, and stops me having to jump all over the place.
Jumping to the attacking homeworld can be useful if you've got 5 fleets that you all want to just immediately try and alpha strike them.
It can also be useful to have the bulk of your ships in the traditional doomstack, but also keep a couple of wolfpack type groups for commerce raiding. Wars in stellaris tend to be mostly attrition-based grindfests (except for a brief window in the early game where you can easily destroy spaceports but your economy is too weak to replace large losses), so targeting mining/scientific stations, or better yet frontier outposts, is pretty well worth splitting one or two dozen fleet capacity off the main group. Especially if the enemy hasn't bothered with military stations, or you expect to be at war with them again in the future.
I use a trio of destroyers, designed to support each other on independent missions rather than take part in fleet actions. They have much higher DPS and more strategic mobility, but they have no armor and their shields are very weak - only just enough to keep them from taking chip damage from the stations' weapons. I've certainly had a lot more success in wars since I started using them.
Any comments on my last post? Am I missing something?What do you want us to say?
I've recently started a 1.5 Utopia playthrough with a fairly standard democratic Human civ, and I feel I'm losing traction again, just like the last time I played.Well, I'm also a noob, but this is basically what I did when I got to that point:
I start exploring, colonize 2-3 planets, build some frontier outposts (not many due to influence restrictions) to enable grabbing resources from a few more systems, surveying an outer ring of systems all along, researching anomalies and finding a couple of alien civs. My energy and mineral production grows and I can more easily develop my colonies, build mining/research stations and support a larger fleet. Around this time I have enough tech to upgrade my corvettes for the first time, and build my first destroyers.
And then I hit some kind of lull. My colonies are soon developed as much as their population growth allows, so building new stuff becomes a sporadic task. And this is when I start losing traction, even though I don't think I've even reached the mid-game: what's there to do other than continue teching up, survey ever outwards and maybe pick a fight with a neighbour, just because?
I could theoretically colonize more planets, but at least on the default map settings, yellow+ worlds aren't common at all. So there aren't any suitable candidates anywhere near my space. Mars and another random planet can technically be terraformed, but for a truckload of energy and a second technology from who knows how far up (down?) the tech tree.
Thoughts appreciated.
Well, I'm also a noob, but this is basically what I did when I got to that point:
1. Habitats. So many habitats. Basically I churned out nothing but habitats for a while after hitting core world capacity. Essentially they're perfect little worlds with great structures.
2. Get vassals, protectorates, uplift species. I had an AI (A Spiritualist AI that made it illegal to research AI) somehow develop right next to me. It made a wonderful little protectorate to add to my power.
3. A couple of strategicwarspeacekeeping actions can do wonders to win over a couple ofslave worldsliberated planets to your empire.
Ideally, pirate stations would spawn inside/near civs that have a lot of unrest, and strike at nearby civs that lack a strong navy. The fleets that the stations send out should hit mining stations and even blockade fringe worlds without space ports. If civilian traffic ever gets added to the base game they should also be viable targets.
that half 4x half rts game (forget the name) had this. Was amazing for multiplayer.Ideally, pirate stations would spawn inside/near civs that have a lot of unrest, and strike at nearby civs that lack a strong navy. The fleets that the stations send out should hit mining stations and even blockade fringe worlds without space ports. If civilian traffic ever gets added to the base game they should also be viable targets.
It'd be interesting if, instead of just spawning ships, sufficient unrest and border friction would allow your enemies to bankroll a black-flag station. The station pops up in their border territory and commerce raids the empire it came from, increasing unrest, increasing chances of revolt, and paying a small amount of the money it raids back to the empire sponsoring it.
Which is more privateering than straight up piracy, but it would give empires that don't want to go to war but REALLY hate one another something to do other than hiding out in treetops and shouting out rude names.
I know this is done by most every space 4X out there but I badly wish that pirates were more of a thing. Why would they only show up in a single tiny group in the early game? Piracy has existed for about as long as ships have, there's no reason whatsoever that they'd simply stop existing in space.
Ideally, pirate stations would spawn inside/near civs that have a lot of unrest, and strike at nearby civs that lack a strong navy. The fleets that the stations send out should hit mining stations and even blockade fringe worlds without space ports. If civilian traffic ever gets added to the base game they should also be viable targets.
In Distant Worlds, it's explained that the pirates actually existed way before any of the fledgling civs do. It's why your first contact is not usually with another peaceful civ but a pirate who extorts you.I know this is done by most every space 4X out there but I badly wish that pirates were more of a thing. Why would they only show up in a single tiny group in the early game? Piracy has existed for about as long as ships have, there's no reason whatsoever that they'd simply stop existing in space.
Ideally, pirate stations would spawn inside/near civs that have a lot of unrest, and strike at nearby civs that lack a strong navy. The fleets that the stations send out should hit mining stations and even blockade fringe worlds without space ports. If civilian traffic ever gets added to the base game they should also be viable targets.
And why, exactly, would there be pirates hanging around when the vast majority of civilizations have just barely reached interstellar capability? Space pirates should function much like they do now in Stellaris, with the addition of periodic outbreaks during periods of high unrest, or when your navy isn't large enough to defend your space. They also need to stop blowing up stations and instead start siphoning minerals and energy (maybe still attack research stations, hold them for ransom or something.) Every 4x I've ever seen except for SoaSE gets space piracy flat out wrong, you have to HAVE large scale movement of resources for piracy to be viable, that doesn't exist in the beginning of the space colonization age.
In what part of my post did I say anything about pirates just "hanging around"? I said they should spawn in response to unrest and targets of opportunity, and that it made no sense for piracy to simply stop after that initial early-game event group is dealt with.I know this is done by most every space 4X out there but I badly wish that pirates were more of a thing. Why would they only show up in a single tiny group in the early game? Piracy has existed for about as long as ships have, there's no reason whatsoever that they'd simply stop existing in space.
Ideally, pirate stations would spawn inside/near civs that have a lot of unrest, and strike at nearby civs that lack a strong navy. The fleets that the stations send out should hit mining stations and even blockade fringe worlds without space ports. If civilian traffic ever gets added to the base game they should also be viable targets.
And why, exactly, would there be pirates hanging around when the vast majority of civilizations have just barely reached interstellar capability? Space pirates should function much like they do now in Stellaris, with the addition of periodic outbreaks during periods of high unrest, or when your navy isn't large enough to defend your space. They also need to stop blowing up stations and instead start siphoning minerals and energy (maybe still attack research stations, hold them for ransom or something.) Every 4x I've ever seen except for SoaSE gets space piracy flat out wrong, you have to HAVE large scale movement of resources for piracy to be viable, that doesn't exist in the beginning of the space colonization age.
Pirates and pirate bases should be able to spawn in the event of system unrest, a corruption-like mechanic and/or covert foreign involvement. They'd make more sense with civilian traffic in the picture, and as it was said, if they actually stole resources instead of destroying sources of wealth. Perhaps they could board and capture stations, requiring you to divert troop transports to retake them instead of just dealing with marauding ships.
In case of foreign involvement, one such power could fund the pirates to various degrees, allowing them to grow and possibly overwhelm a lesser empire. They could eventually start taking over planets, perhaps, and form a proper faction of their own. Maybe that's too much, but the process would have its pros and cons, since pirates could be a tool to undermine an enemy, but at the same nothing they took would be yours. Eventually, you'd have to deal with them.
Tbh, that is a very stupid explanation tho'. It's much more reasonable to assume that if there were pre-existing 'pirate' groups, they'd basically just be national entities that operate like a criminal syndicate, and extort new, weak races as they enter the inter-stellar community. Other than their propensity to engage in said extortion they'd just be normal nations with exploitative ethics. I really find the 'suddenly powerful space pirates' thing extremely stupid.What, you think the various planets in a civ have absolutely no trade with each other? Just because the game does not portray such a thing does not mean that there aren't transports filled with minerals, strategic resources, and (especially now with Banks) food throughout the civ. That stuff is probably quite valuable and people are going to try and get a hold of it - illegally if they must.
Sirus: Then they aren't pirates, they're privateers operating under a national system. Pirates as independent operators require an existing framework of trade to function, so do privateers, they can't just be 'hanging around' ever. It is not possible. It violates the fundamental elements of being a 'pirate'. That is my entire problem with the concept, it's always just 'suddenly pirates' without considering how piracy functions.
It feels very strange that SoaSE is the only game(s) that seem to have gotten the idea mostly rightIf I recall, sword of the stars also does pirates in a pretty reasonable way, they start to exist once you've got trade ships moving though your empire, and they only attack said trade ships.
What, you think the various planets in a civ have absolutely no trade with each other? Just because the game does not portray such a thing does not mean that there aren't transports filled with minerals, strategic resources, and (especially now with Banks) food throughout the civ. That stuff is probably quite valuable and people are going to try and get a hold of it - illegally if they must.
What, you think the various planets in a civ have absolutely no trade with each other? Just because the game does not portray such a thing does not mean that there aren't transports filled with minerals, strategic resources, and (especially now with Banks) food throughout the civ. That stuff is probably quite valuable and people are going to try and get a hold of it - illegally if they must.
Cargo runs from your mining stations to your colonies/homeworld. Supply runs in the opposite direction.What, you think the various planets in a civ have absolutely no trade with each other? Just because the game does not portray such a thing does not mean that there aren't transports filled with minerals, strategic resources, and (especially now with Banks) food throughout the civ. That stuff is probably quite valuable and people are going to try and get a hold of it - illegally if they must.
The vast, vast, vast majority of the time Stellaris' pirate event fires when you have less than three colonies, and from my experience usually before you have one. So where, precisely, is this 'trade' when there are no places for traders to go?
This is why it is stupid, because it doesn't have any justification, it is purely gamey and arbitrary.
Criptfiend: Haven't played Sword of the Stars, I've heard a bunch of very conflicting things about it, so I've never bought it. But that does sound like reasonable behavior for pirates.
It feels very strange that SoaSE is the only game(s) that seem to have gotten the idea mostly rightIf I recall, sword of the stars also does pirates in a pretty reasonable way, they start to exist once you've got trade ships moving though your empire, and they only attack said trade ships.
Criptfiend: Haven't played Sword of the Stars, I've heard a bunch of very conflicting things about it, so I've never bought it. But that does sound like reasonable behavior for pirates.
Well, in SOTS, all pirates are actually privateers. Commerce raiding is a tech that you unlock in order to fuck over everyone else's trade lines. With the exception of the random encounter slaver groups, it's all other empires screwing with one another. (AFAIK)
Sots 1's pirates felt a whole better to me than soase's, which seemed to just be there to attack players periodically for no apparent reason.Well on soase I remember put up bounties on other players and the pirates would attack the one with the highest bounty so the had a reason.
Aye, thanks for the advice. I admit I hadn't messed about as much with fleet stance as I should, and I'm definitely looking into some mods to buff up defensive stations somehow. Heaviest stations I have, deployed in an optimal pattern, don't really do a damn thing except discourage light raiders and transports.Unless they've changed, default Fortresses are basically only good for Hyperlane-only maps, and on chokepoints with the Warp interdictor or whatever it's called - the thing that makes enemy fleets drop out right on top of the fortress. Otherwise they're too expensive for what you'll get out of them, since enemy fleets could just warp past that system or wormhole.
That is a pretty niche bug, though.
Every Paradox bug seems to be a really wonky bug, yeah.That is a pretty niche bug, though.
That's a classic kind of Paradox bug. I think all their games have weird conditions under which loading something will go horribly wrong.
Its still very niche, tho. Why would you play a game with no sound at all?That is a pretty niche bug, though.
That's a classic kind of Paradox bug. I think all their games have weird conditions under which loading something will go horribly wrong.
Why would you play a game with no sound at all?Why would you need Sound in Stellaris ?
Because it might as well be a board game otherwise with how fast paradox games go, action-wise.Why would you play a game with no sound at all?Why would you need Sound in Stellaris?
Anyway, here's a question: once you integrate a vassal into your empire, do you get all the tech they had researched before?You don't get any immediate bonus, but I think you may get a little bonus if a vassal has researched the tech... or at least, I remember it like that in v1.0
Why would you need Sound in Stellaris?Because it might as well be a board game otherwise with how fast paradox games go, action-wise.I really don't see what Sound has to do with that.
I think it's the other way around. And for protectorates.Anyway, here's a question: once you integrate a vassal into your empire, do you get all the tech they had researched before?You don't get any immediate bonus, but I think you may get a little bonus if a vassal has researched the tech... or at least, I remember it like that in v1.0
The caps make sense, if you look at it from how the rest of paradox's games have armies:
1. There is a force limit based on how big you are (in this case how many spaceports you have)
2. The ships cost maintenance anyway.
3. There is a problem with doomstacks
4. Sieges takes ages to finish and don't actually claim the territory for you until the end of the war.
More to the point, why would you have a computer without any kind of audio output device? Even if you rarely or never use your main box for audio purposes, so much shit comes with built in speakers, particularly TVs which are often the most cost-effective displays you can get.Its still very niche, tho. Why would you play a game with no sound at all?That is a pretty niche bug, though.
That's a classic kind of Paradox bug. I think all their games have weird conditions under which loading something will go horribly wrong.
More to the point, why would you have a computer without any kind of audio output device? Even if you rarely or never use your main box for audio purposes, so much shit comes with built in speakers, particularly TVs which are often the most cost-effective displays you can get.
It depends on what you're up against, but the ratio I found most effective against most AI was 1:2:2:2. I suspect that if I had gone to the bother of building and testing more battleships, I may well have found the ideal to be 1:1:1:1. Note, however, that corvettes are pretty much just ablative armor for the real fleet, so it's a good idea to have more if you expect more than a single doomstack, or at least have replacements already under construction before a major battle happens.Am I silly or did you used to be able to assign a ship design any role? Why did that change?Used to be that you could choose any combat computer and there were a lot more designs for each ship type (Corvettes had three, I remember).
Changed that to make it a bit more of a tactical rock-paper-scissors thing, rather than just loading up your fleet with corvettes, corvettes, and more corvettes.
Incidentally, what's the idea fleet composition does anyone know? I tend to do a ratio of 1:2:4:8 for battleships, cruisers, destroyers, corvettes respectively.
My fleets have way too many battleships for one reason:
Spinal guns are just so cool. At some point I want to try the tachyon lance, but even the gigacannon is a magnificent weapon. Just seeing my battleships lob huge shells from across the system inspires me in a way lesser weapons cannot.
Space Jihadist 2: Exploding Suns.If there's a design with the same name as the design of the ship being upgraded it will get upgraded to that (or not upgraded if it's the same design), otherwise it will get upgraded to the most recently saved design. So if you're changing the names of your designs between iterations then you'll have problems.
I haven't tried making multiple designs of the same ship class yet. Does the game still make all your ships the same when you update a fleet? So if I have, say, a battleship design with a giga cannon and another with the lightning energy weapon thing. Then I upgrade the giga cannon design and click update for the fleet, does it replace the lightning energy battleships with the new giga cannon too? Even if they are different designs?
More to the point, why would you have a computer without any kind of audio output device? Even if you rarely or never use your main box for audio purposes, so much shit comes with built in speakers, particularly TVs which are often the most cost-effective displays you can get.Deaf people, perhaps. My desktop monitor doesn't have sound so usb speakers are necessary.
More to the point, why would you have a computer without any kind of audio output device? Even if you rarely or never use your main box for audio purposes, so much shit comes with built in speakers, particularly TVs which are often the most cost-effective displays you can get.Deaf people, perhaps. My desktop monitor doesn't have sound so usb speakers are necessary.
Art of War 2.0 yes please
I'd love a system of officers for shipsSeems unlikely because that would require a substantial overhaul of the "leaders" character system. And I think if they do such an overhaul, it's going to be focused on making the limited numbers of leaders into more versatile interesting people, rather than extending the numbers of them and the levels of society that are modeled in this way.
How does one even get a five-star admiral? Mine either die young or die of old age because there's nothing to fight for long stretches.
How does one even get a five-star admiral? Mine either die young or die of old age because there's nothing to fight for long stretches.You get so much exp just from fighting. Your first war alone should give you a 5 star general.
Indeed, though I wasn't aware of any techs that altered leader levels directly; they usually increase lifespan, which gives leaders more time to pick up experience. While it's complete overkill, my first warlike game post-Utopia with my xenophobic, leader-focused oligarchy has thus far ended up with the following:How does one even get a five-star admiral? Mine either die young or die of old age because there's nothing to fight for long stretches.You get so much exp just from fighting. Your first war alone should give you a 5 star general.
But failing that, there's a lot of tech and tradition stuff that straight up gives you high skilled leaders.
I can't help but feel that leaders are quite lackluster, though. In the sense that they are just floating bonuses, not personalities. I don't give a fuck who is leading what and flying which science ship beyond the very start. Just find a guy with the right bonus and put him in the right position, then forget. I get it, this is similar to what EU4 is like, but still. I'd appreciate a little more personality from leaders. Especially in dictatorships and such. Events tied to the ruler personality traits and the traits of faction leaders would be nice.
Also, they tend to really only live long enough to be used once. In my experience, I'd get an admiral, fight a massive fleet battle with him, then he would die like 60 years later having never fought again. New war, new admiral, all over again.I made a race of cybernetic tree people that lived to around 250 years old.
Also, they tend to really only live long enough to be used once. In my experience, I'd get an admiral, fight a massive fleet battle with him, then he would die like 60 years later having never fought again. New war, new admiral, all over again.
Had the unbidden suddenly spawn inside my neighboring rival. They ate him from inside out, and their dwindiling borders netted me a couple of border systems plus a colonizable planet in a galaxy arm that would otherwise be theirs uncontested. Found it really neat how the game can shake up the status quo like that.
The unbidden have since been beaten back by the galatic police, aka crazy awakened ascendancy who declared on me before, and I'm finally having some breathing room and a chance to expand my reach so that hopefully one day I can beat the galatic police into an irrelevant fallen empire again.
I wonder what was the design reason for having the Sentinels awake to the organic extra-galactic invaders, but do totally nothing against the energy-being extra-universal ones. It's not like they're harder or anything, from what I've seen.
The AI for unbidden so far are pretty decent, they'll spread their doomstack fleets out to wipe out multiple colonies and if you try to suicide rush their portal, they'll recall all of them to come defend it. The only reason I didn't smash it initially was because it spawned in the center of a hostile rival who closed their borders to me so I could not reach the Unbidden and to make matters worse they put up just good enough of a fight to buy the unbidden time to spread before my Grand Imperial Fleet (at a whopping 100k at its most powerful) could crush them before it started.
On a cooler note, habitats are fucking awesome. System with only one kinda small planet and a few useless dead worlds? Now you can build a small planet in the same system for the (relatively cheap) price of 5k minerals and 200 influence. And you don't need to research any of the mega construct things, only fortresses and defense platforms I think. No upkeep to maintain other than what you need for colonies. Energy focused habitats are the shiznit.
Also, food being a global resource now is one of the best changes in any game ever.
They don't seem to respect their focuses very well though. I had a sector with three inhabited systems, one planet each, and two of them had titanic life on them and one had an anomalous magnetic field. Okay, neat. I called it the Titan Expanse, included a few uninhabited systems for resources, and set it to research focus. It soon thereafter played host to the most productive mining operations in the whole empire. I think maybe it's a bit too zealous for my purpose with the 'respect tile resources;' but I don't really want it to have the sector on life support either and I don't know how smart it is about remaining self-sufficient.Did you have it set to respect tile resources? Was redevelopment enabled?
The AI for unbidden so far are pretty decent, they'll spread their doomstack fleets out to wipe out multiple colonies and if you try to suicide rush their portal, they'll recall all of them to come defend it. The only reason I didn't smash it initially was because it spawned in the center of a hostile rival who closed their borders to me so I could not reach the Unbidden and to make matters worse they put up just good enough of a fight to buy the unbidden time to spread before my Grand Imperial Fleet (at a whopping 100k at its most powerful) could crush them before it started.
A good way to make the AI flip out is to send a steady stream of small disposable fleets directly into the portal system. This will cause their doomstacks to keep warping from system to system and keep them from gaining territory as they repeately try to murder your tiny corvettes. This way you can stop their expansion while sending your own doomstack to intercept theirs while they warp around, stopping them from joining up to fight you.
Are you trying to create the lizardmen?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizardmen_(Warhammer)Are you trying to create the lizardmen?
Not sure which you mean. I'm trying to create an internally diverse race composed of three pseudo-reptilian subspecies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizardmen_(Warhammer) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizardmen_(Warhammer))
I had a defensive pact with a empire and that empire was DoW'ed by a militaristic Forgotten Empire. The Forgotten Empire targeted only my systems and I couldn't even surrender. It was in the beginning of the game, I hadn't even cruisers yet.Don't settle next to militaristic fallen empires. Or build outposts near them. Or do anything around them.
I don't have Utopia (or a computer that can run it right now :I) but I do know that uploaded pops share the AI uprising-risk trait of Synthetic. While that feels wrong (You shouldn't be susceptable to an AI uprising when you *are* the AI) if there aren't any checks in the game for that, technically speaking, there is a risk to synthetic ascension.I dunno. The official wiki claims otherwise (http://www.stellariswiki.com/Crisis#Interaction_with_AI_Rebellion).
Though yeah, bio doesn't seem to have one.
Note on Synthetic Ascension and AI Rebellion: Right now Synthetic ascension creates a species with the Synthetic trait. AI rebellion checks for 'specific' robotic species, that is Droids and generic Synths. Both Robots and Uploaded Synths are immune to joining AI Rebellions.
-snip-
This is the fifth time I've fought off the unbidden (this time it was much harder because bumrushing was harder thanks to it being on the opposite side of the galaxy, and my ships were geared as anti-armour), and it's annoying me now.Why not install a mod that allows for multiple crises to trigger per game?
I'm gonna find the commands to summon the Prethoryn Scourge and the Machine Consciousness.
The Unbidden are who you are going to fight the MAJORITY of the time.Especialy with FE's waking up being a thing.
I discovered how to unite the galaxy.
If you demand that all of a civ's planets liberate themselves as a war demand, they will reform their entire government under your identical ethics. They will then love you and usually join your federation.
All will join the unity in time.
The Unbidden are who you are going to fight the MAJORITY of the time.Especialy with FE's waking up being a thing.
I discovered how to unite the galaxy.
If you demand that all of a civ's planets liberate themselves as a war demand, they will reform their entire government under your identical ethics. They will then love you and usually join your federation.
All will join the unity in time.
This is a classic trick for both Glorious Empires who want vassals and for DEMOCRATIC PIGSSSSS and their federations, feh.
AI and Unbidden are triggered by technology. Swarm is only triggered by time. So if you are really slow to reach certain technologies and nobody else does either, you get the swarm. Vanilla game is limited to one crisis, so having one locks out the others. Though I think Slaanesh is a sort of bonus crisis you can get on top of that.I've only ever gotten the AI. Which was impressive, since the empire that caused it was getting warred by the local materialist FE non-stop.
There's a thought, birthing Slaanesh while there is another end-game crisis going on? Wonder how that'd mix with War in the Heavens?
Question: How do you terraform terraforming candidates? I found one, and there's no "terraform" button or anything anywhere, science ships can't do it, and neither can construction ships.You need the proper terraforming technology (I think you need terraforming, then atmospheric something). Also make sure you keep track of what planet has that modifier as the game refuses to save it for you.
I have every terraforming tech aside from gaia creation.It should be right there when you click on the planet. Literally right in the middle of it next to its picture. It's the same terraforming button you see on every single planet, that you click to terraform them, including barren planets you can't even terraform to begin with.
It's just not showing a button.
Speaking of which, how common are terraforming candidates supposed to be? I've mapped out at least a quarter of my medium galaxy and either never found any or never noticed them. They are a free feature, right?I've only found a handful of them so far, so they seem to be quite rare
Speaking of which, how common are terraforming candidates supposed to be? I've mapped out at least a quarter of my medium galaxy and either never found any or never noticed them. They are a free feature, right?It's just an anomaly thing.
I've also noticed that migrations towards your existing core worlds from external empires is quite slow.Does it vary from proximity? It would be really cool for example if migration happened between planets that were close to one another (or very quickly for planets in the same system) while pangalactic migration happened much slower
I mean, it takes like 30d for me to upgrade a ship design, and I just upgrade en-masse by fleet.Clicking the upgrade button is easy, what I was talking about is had more to do with replacing all the tier i components in my battleships to tier i+1 in the design screen. I accept some micro when balancing power usage is to be expected, but upgrading armor plates is pain.
I just don't bother to iterate the designs unless there's war or it looks like there's going to be a war, since it only takes a short time to do the actual refit.Part in italics has been my problem for the most part of this run, otherwise that works well enough. But before I beefed up in size I felt like I had to constantly upgrade my ships to give my fleet power a boost and keep my less friendly neighbors from jumping on me. I'm actually not even sure if this was an effective deterrent, but I can only assume.
The actual upgrade is simple enough; Auto-complete, unless it changed, will upgrade all your non-weapon systems to their best and what the game thinks is good vis a vis armour/shields/accessories/reactors, and you can then fiddle with the weapons. Really, it's the weapons that are the time-sink; Trying to figure out whether this +15% vs armour gun but less damage is better than just flat damage, missiles vs lasers, etc.You're talking about the auto-complete button, not the automatic upgrade checkbox, right? I've never used the former, tbh, will give it a try next time I launch the game.
So I started a game as a hive mind race, just to try it out. Made them powerful warriors that could hopefully just steamroll whatever they encounter, and purely for flavor's sake edited their files so that they have Tomb World preference.
Start the game, begin to explore my home system...and then I get a message from another race. A Fallen Empire of the Holy Guardian flavor. They're already pissed at me for daring to evolve on a world they consider holy. Oh, and they're maybe five hyperspace jumps away from me.
How totally screwed am I?
So I started a game as a hive mind race, just to try it out. Made them powerful warriors that could hopefully just steamroll whatever they encounter, and purely for flavor's sake edited their files so that they have Tomb World preference.
Start the game, begin to explore my home system...and then I get a message from another race. A Fallen Empire of the Holy Guardian flavor. They're already pissed at me for daring to evolve on a world they consider holy. Oh, and they're maybe five hyperspace jumps away from me.
How totally screwed am I?
That's impressively Dwarf Fortress like, kudos to Paradox.na, thats totally not df like. in df YOU screw up. you have a chance to learn from your mistakes.
so i demoed this game (because fuck paradox) and gave it a try despite fuck paradox.
build a few colonies, build a few mining and research stations.
build another colony. some ai duder comes in contact with me, and immidiately declares war.
ha! i have a strong fleet, so i send all my 10 corvetes to defend the colony in dispute.
a few days later, a fleet of like 50 battleships arrive, strengh 47000.
guess at least i didnt pay. -> uninstall.
combat system is complete bullshit anyhow, and that micromanagement drove me nuts too.
making ai empires that strong that a game is doomed from the stat is just the icing on the cake.
edit, just noticed this has been talked about the previous page.QuoteThat's impressively Dwarf Fortress like, kudos to Paradox.na, thats totally not df like. in df YOU screw up. you have a chance to learn from your mistakes.
in this game, you are doomed from the start. there is nothign to learn, there is nothing to avoid. its complete bullshit and very much not df like.
so i demoed this game (because fuck paradox) and gave it a try despite fuck paradox.
build a few colonies, build a few mining and research stations.
build another colony. some ai duder comes in contact with me, and immidiately declares war.
ha! i have a strong fleet, so i send all my 10 corvetes to defend the colony in dispute.
a few days later, a fleet of like 50 battleships arrive, strengh 47000.
guess at least i didnt pay. -> uninstall.
combat system is complete bullshit anyhow, and that micromanagement drove me nuts too.
making ai empires that strong that a game is doomed from the stat is just the icing on the cake.
edit, just noticed this has been talked about the previous page.QuoteThat's impressively Dwarf Fortress like, kudos to Paradox.na, thats totally not df like. in df YOU screw up. you have a chance to learn from your mistakes.
in this game, you are doomed from the start. there is nothign to learn, there is nothing to avoid. its complete bullshit and very much not df like.
I don't get why so many people don.t like paradox. I have a min. wage job with kids, the games are not expensive. =/The games are not expensive, until you factor in the whole sections of the game locked away by hundreds of quid worth of DLC
I don't get why so many people don.t like paradox. I have a min. wage job with kids, the games are not expensive. =/its not the price. they murdered sots2, i will hate them forever. its a personal thing.
I don't get why so many people don.t like paradox. I have a min. wage job with kids, the games are not expensive. =/its not the price. they murdered sots2, i will hate them forever. its a personal thing.
It's not uncommon to see people blame Paradox for pushing it to release instead of giving the developers an extra six months to a year gratis. My only thought on that is that, when Kerberos was given their six months to a year after release to clean up and patch it into a working state, including free DLC, they only at most managed to reach a state of thorough mediocrity. It's similar to people who blame them for taking East Versus West or Magna Mundi out back and putting them down like Ol' Yeller, even now that we know what state both games were in when Paradox finally pulled the plug.What state was EvW in? I remember the drama explosion when Magna Mundi was canceled, but all I remember of EvW's cancelation was a lot of people being disappointed.
Between this and the previous page, I feel like you kind of just hate them, which likely had one hell of an impact on your willingness to play the game when you tried it out.I don't get why so many people don.t like paradox. I have a min. wage job with kids, the games are not expensive. =/its not the price. they murdered sots2, i will hate them forever. its a personal thing.
My two cents is that there needs to be 100x more low-intensity conflict.Little green Blorgs?
The game itself was...ah, unfinished would be putting it mildly. I cited those two rather than Runemaster because both EvW and Magna Mundi were actually leaked, so we know what the games looked like fairly close to the time development ended. For EvW, multiplayer was completely broken. Diplomacy and espionage were both unfinished; the AI was non-functional and peace treaties were completely broken in the former, while failure was literally not an option for the latter. Apparently, supply production (and by extension logistics) were also broken, and game crashes and other bugs abounded. I think the forum reaction regarding EvW was muted by the fact that it was starting to become expected as delays stacked up and ideas of a public buy-in beta or releasing with multiplayer removed began to float around.It's not uncommon to see people blame Paradox for pushing it to release instead of giving the developers an extra six months to a year gratis. My only thought on that is that, when Kerberos was given their six months to a year after release to clean up and patch it into a working state, including free DLC, they only at most managed to reach a state of thorough mediocrity. It's similar to people who blame them for taking East Versus West or Magna Mundi out back and putting them down like Ol' Yeller, even now that we know what state both games were in when Paradox finally pulled the plug.What state was EvW in? I remember the drama explosion when Magna Mundi was canceled, but all I remember of EvW's cancelation was a lot of people being disappointed.
I think my biggest gripe with Stellaris is A.) how high stakes warfare is, and B.) how rarely it happens. I have only ever had the AI declare war on my nation TWICE across every game of Stellaris I've played and it was some cede half your space to me type deal both times.
-snippity snippity snoop-
Its not as if people made this game for money or anything, I mean not even the company, but the team who also have expenses in their lives.I don't get why so many people don.t like paradox. I have a min. wage job with kids, the games are not expensive. =/The games are not expensive, until you factor in the whole sections of the game locked away by hundreds of quid worth of DLC
I don't get why so many people don.t like paradox. I have a min. wage job with kids, the games are not expensive. =/The games are not expensive, until you factor in the whole sections of the game locked away by hundreds of quid worth of DLC
The issue isn't 'We don't want to pay a fair price for game development', the problem is that Paradox (especially with Stellaris) are selling something as a full game but when you buy it, it turns out that lots of core mechanics are missing/basic, and are what amounts to placeholders for DLC. The game has been DESIGNED around DLC - which is what I dislike.It's true that it's released pretty basic, but the core gameplay upgrades tend to come for free with the updates. Like, what Stellaris DLC content do you think should be part of the core game? Or even CK2, which has been out and accruing DLC for ages?
Again, it's not the cost issue, it's the practice itself. I'm happy to pay a fair price for work, and I happily by DLC for some games (Witcher/Skyrim for example), but neither of those games locked away fast travel or whatever behind DLC. The game was complete, and DLC was extra if you want it - Paradox is making the core game DLC.
It's true that it's released pretty basic, but the core gameplay upgrades tend to come for free with the updates. Like, what Stellaris DLC content do you think should be part of the core game? Or even CK2, which has been out and accruing DLC for ages?
I only played this game on release, is it worth going back to in its current state?
I only played this game on release, is it worth going back to in its current state?
What? CK2 is a game called Crusader Kings, in which you can play every Christian king (or Duke or Count or even Emperor) in the base game. Playing as Muslims, Pagan chieftains, republican patricians, Mongols, or Indians are not part of the base game by design. If you look at the original Crusader Kings, none of those features were part of it even with the expansion, because it wasn't about those things and wasn't supposed to be.It's true that it's released pretty basic, but the core gameplay upgrades tend to come for free with the updates. Like, what Stellaris DLC content do you think should be part of the core game? Or even CK2, which has been out and accruing DLC for ages?
Idk about stellaris, but for CK2 the ability to play different types of rulers, even if their rules are the same or slightly reflavored versions of the base rulers if you don't have their dlc, is an obvious one.
I only played this game on release, is it worth going back to in its current state?Nah, if you're on the fence I'd wait a big longer. The biggest problems were patched in the early round of patches, and the latest update added better government and faction politics, but the game could still use a fair bit more. Probably two or three major patches before it's an exemplary game. So like a year. If you get a wild hare up your ass and want to play before then, go for it, but there's no sense in going out of your way to get hyped up otherwise.
The modding community is another thing that's not really very well developed yet.I only played this game on release, is it worth going back to in its current state?
Mods help it a lot. Mostly the same, but much more finely tuned than vanilla with some added flavor.
I'd say things like building megastructures should have been in the base game. Someone added them into a mod pretty much immediately, and it was always something that seemed like it should be there and wasn't. Without those, there's not much possibility of building vertically.To be honest, the megastructures suck anyway. If the "one at a time" thing was removed and they were fleshed out a bit, it could be nice. But they're pretty boring and worthless. And there's plenty of science fiction without them, so although they could add a lot conceptually if they were better implemented, I wouldn't call them necessary either.
This isn't just fluff - it's meaningful gameplay additions.That's not really germane. A meaningful gameplay addition isn't the same as something that's fundamental to the core gameplay, and is thus necessary for the game to be finished.
That's a great example, though. Paradox upgraded the mechanics for those other types of rulers (mostly non-crusaders, *cough*) for *everyone*, for free. Those upgraded mechanics can be significant even in vanilla, what with vassal republics, decadence... India...It's true that it's released pretty basic, but the core gameplay upgrades tend to come for free with the updates. Like, what Stellaris DLC content do you think should be part of the core game? Or even CK2, which has been out and accruing DLC for ages?
Idk about stellaris, but for CK2 the ability to play different types of rulers, even if their rules are the same or slightly reflavored versions of the base rulers if you don't have their dlc, is an obvious one.
IIRC, the original plan for CK2 was to release it as it was in 1.0 and then that's it. No expansions, no nothing. But it ended up being way more popular than expected (probably because it was incredibly bug-free) and they started planning DLCs. Muslims, for example, weren't originally intended to be playable.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?The modding community is another thing that's not really very well developed yet.I only played this game on release, is it worth going back to in its current state?
Mods help it a lot. Mostly the same, but much more finely tuned than vanilla with some added flavor.
Compare it to the mods in EUIV or CKII.
The mods in game presently tend to just hack at present code and include fairly minor changes, or just one or two big ones. There's nothing like CKII+ or MEIOU&T.
No, I get it, I don't hate DLC, you don't need to sing the praises to me about how dlc can be good. Fleshing out mechanics is all well and good and fine for dlc, the free parts of the updates are also fine when taken in a vacuum. But the original locking of these rulers behind the plan to later on release them as paid content is well, exactly the sort of thing that should have been part of the core game.The leaders were locked originally because they weren't part of the plan. That's why you could never play as them in the original Crusader Kings.
IIRC, the original plan for CK2 was to release it as it was in 1.0 and then that's it. No expansions, no nothing. But it ended up being way more popular than expected (probably because it was incredibly bug-free) and they started planning DLCs. Muslims, for example, weren't originally intended to be playable.I don't know about that. Look at the older games. They probably intended to have one or two expansions if it did reasonably well. Certainly nothing like what we ended up getting, of course, but playable muslims might have happened even if CK2 hadn't taken off like it did.
Compare it to Paradox games that have been out for a while, though. Like, there are some good mods, sure. But the big stuff, the star wars and star trek overhauls, a comprehensive balance and gameplay extension mod, that stuff is still just dreams. Right now you've got a couple races, generally not even compiled into a pack, some basic gameplay modifications, and people who just throw tons of content at the game in the assumption that quantity begets quality. There are nice little gems, sure, but they remain little gems.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?The modding community is another thing that's not really very well developed yet.I only played this game on release, is it worth going back to in its current state?
Mods help it a lot. Mostly the same, but much more finely tuned than vanilla with some added flavor.
? ? ?But there are tons of great mods that add features and/or expand functionality to the game? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Just like comparisons with Distant Worlds, let's compare a 1-year-old game with those 4 or 5 years old with massive amounts of expansions, patching and mods under their belt.I notice that you clipped out the quotestack, but if you hadn't done that, or if you'd read it before doing that, you'd notice that this disparity was the point to begin with.
The leaders were locked originally because they weren't part of the plan. That's why you could never play as them in the original Crusader Kings.
Are you one of those people that think they should add fucking China next? The game is called Crusader Kings. It's about Catholics kings who crusade. Everything else is extra.The leaders were locked originally because they weren't part of the plan. That's why you could never play as them in the original Crusader Kings.
Well, like I said, that was a bad plan that was later turned into a bad dlc policy. Honestly either way this still totally ends up in the category of things that are "DLC content that I think should be part of the core game" so it doesn't really mater what their original plan is.
But the big stuff, the star wars and star trek overhauls, a comprehensive balance and gameplay extension mod, that stuff is still just dreams. Right now you've got a couple races, generally not even compiled into a pack, some basic gameplay modifications, and people who just throw tons of content at the game in the assumption that quantity begets quality.
I have no
- Megastructures: Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, bringing both prestige and major advantages to your race.
- Habitat Stations: Build tall and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire.
- Rights and Privileges: Set specific policies for which of the many species under your thumb will have the rights and privileges of full citizenship.
- Ascension Perks: Collect Unity points and adopt Traditions to unlock Ascension Perks that allow you to customize your empire in unique ways. Follow one of the three Ascension Paths and achieve Biological Mastery, give up your biological forms in a Synthetic Evolution, or unlock the full psionic potential of your species through Transcendance.
- Indoctrination: Influence primitive civilizations and make them adopt your ethics through the use of observation stations, preparing them for enlightenment or annexation.
- Advanced Slavery: Maximize the benefits of slavery by choosing specific roles for enthralled species. Have them serve other Pops as Domestic Servants, fight for your empire as Battle Thralls, or keep them as Livestock to feed your people.
- Advanced Governments: Adopt unique civics and authorities for your government. Play as a Fanatic Purifier and shun all diplomacy, become a Hive Mind to avoid political strife or create a multi-species empire born of Syncretic Evolution.
Megastructures: Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, bringing both prestige and major advantages to your race.
Habitat Stations: Build tall and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire.
* It is now possible for Fanatic Xenophobe Spiritualists to be Fanatic Purifiers
So the portraits seem buggy.Paradox having problems with free DLC on launch seems pretty normal.
I want to DL, but Steam instead launches the game when I try. Not unusual if the DLC's installed, except it's not (unless that's only CotV, and the other portraits are in the base game now)
If you didn't dedicate habitats then it was pointless.Quote•Megastructures: Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, bringing both prestige and major advantages to your race.
•Habitat Stations: Build “tall” and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire.
Disappointed that these end up being... Extremely pointless... In fact Habitat Stations end up detrimental due to how this game handles research and Unity.
If you did, they were powerful research/energy producers. Food and minerals are pretty eh though.
Apologies for my lazy arse, as I'm sure this has been asked many times already - can someone give me a quick breakdown of what does the Utopia DLC give you as compared to the free patch that was released with it? I get there are those megastructures, but what else?You get to actually build Megastructures. The 1.5 Patch doesn't do that.
I'm thinking of buying the game, but from what I've read the mid-to-late game can be hollow in vanilla. Is this DLC practically essential in order to fix this, or has it been more or less fixed with the free patch content?
You can also choose several Ascension Perks with the DLC. What that means.. Might as well just google it.I think the only exclusive ascension perks are the megastructure and the 3 actual ascensions (synth, bio, not!warp).
You can also choose several Ascension Perks with the DLC. What that means.. Might as well just google it.I think the only exclusive ascension perks are the megastructure and the 3 actual ascensions (synth, bio, not!warp).
If you didn't dedicate habitats then it was pointless.QuoteMegastructures: Build wondrous structures in your systems including Dyson Spheres and ring worlds, bringing both prestige and major advantages to your race.
Habitat Stations: Build tall and establish space stations that will house more population, serving the role of planets in a small and confined empire.
Disappointed that these end up being... Extremely pointless... In fact Habitat Stations end up detrimental due to how this game handles research and Unity.
If you did, they were powerful research/energy producers. Food and minerals are pretty eh though.
They count as their own planet. So their research essentially creates parity
Plus the whole Unity penalty occurs either way.
To admit it isn't the worst though.
Okay, there's been some confusion. I mean exclusive as in: exclusive to owners of Utopia, with other perks being for everyone. But I forget if that is actually the case.Yeah, I have Utopia and I may or may not be wrong about Ascension Perks?
I got both "Creatures of the Void" and the "Anniversary Portraits" on mine. :vThe Abrabs update (1.6) is released (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/adams-update-1-6-released.1020237/)So the portraits seem buggy.
Along with the "Creatures of the Void" (http://store.steampowered.com/app/633310/Stellaris_Anniversary_Portraits/) portrait pack, for free!
(Plus 3 entirely new portraits, which are included in the DLC.)
I want to DL, but Steam instead launches the game when I try. Not unusual if the DLC's installed, except it's not (unless that's only CotV, and the other portraits are in the base game now)
I'm almost 100% sure that biological, synth, and psionic ascension perks are completely mutual exclusive. If you pick the first psionic perk then you can't do any of the biological or synthetic ascension perks.
Okay, there's been some confusion. I mean exclusive as in: exclusive to owners of Utopia, with other perks being for everyone. But I forget if that is actually the case.I haven't bought Utopia yet, and I have no ascension perks of any kind.
You cannot get Mind over Matter and also pick the Biological or Synthetic perks. The requirements for bio/synths include "Must not have Mind over Matter".
There's an AWESOME mod that lets you pick the first tiers or all tiers (there are separate mods under the same author for both) that work in 1.6 despite being still in 1.5.1 :DYou cannot get Mind over Matter and also pick the Biological or Synthetic perks. The requirements for bio/synths include "Must not have Mind over Matter".
There are two levels of all of those, you need to be more specific.
From my experience, I went Bio. I can't get any Synthetic or even touch the Psionic :OYou cannot get Mind over Matter and also pick the Biological or Synthetic perks. The requirements for bio/synths include "Must not have Mind over Matter".
There are two levels of all of those, you need to be more specific.
Ahh so it was updated.And on the day and the next few hours, many, many mods were updated too!
Ahh so it was updated.And on the day and the next few hours, many, many mods were updated too!
...Because somehow even if the version # gives a red triangle, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a conflict, somehow. o_O
IIRC, it also added the 'War in Heaven' feature, which allows fallen empires to go to war with each other - that's pretty fun, but depends how much you enjoy 'game changing events'.It's also super rare though. Don't buy the DLC just for this.
IIRC, it also added the 'War in Heaven' feature, which allows fallen empires to go to war with each other - that's pretty fun, but depends how much you enjoy 'game changing events'.It's also super rare though. Don't buy the DLC just for this.
My first reaction is "who cares?" Paradox games suck for multi-player anyway.
Playing with the same people regularly can be kind of tough in itself, and even if you do get a regular game, then what? There's not a strong interaction between players anyways half the time, and so you're stuck having to deal with scheduling and make compromises on game speed, even in the theoretical case that that Paradox irons out all the technical troubles. If it works for you personally, great, but in general it's just not a great game for a multiplayer experience.My first reaction is "who cares?" Paradox games suck for multi-player anyway.
I think in this case it really depends on the people you play with, if you have a group or even just another person to play with Stellaris is pretty good in multiplayer. It's not a game you're going to finish in one session, but if you play with the same people regularly that is not usually an issue.
Me, I compulsively pause every time something pops up. I'd go insane trying to play multiplayer.
That said, an entire species of Mantis Shrimp Men would be pretty sweet.
Someone at Paradox clearly plays Heroes of the storm. That Farie dragon portrait is like a realistic legally distinct version of the character brightwing. I mean the colors are spot on.Fey dragons have been around far longer than HotS.
(https://i.img.ie/04w.th.jpg) (https://img.ie/image/04w)(https://i.img.ie/04t.th.jpg) (https://img.ie/image/04t)
Because of this I am not inspired to create a race of adorable cute and cuddly faerie dragons that are great allies to their friends and EAT THEIR ENEMIES CORPSES! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9XbDIJRLuQ)
Fey dragons have been around far longer than HotS.I think that's the point of every hero of HotS :)
For one thing, they were in Warcraft 3.
Now I want to name a monster Manuel the second.Monster Manuel the Second, purveyor of fine beasts and abominations.
Spoiler: Off topic Blizzard nerdrage (click to show/hide)
Most people I've talked to (including myself) don't have much use for influence. It basically stays maxed for most of the game, except perhaps at the very end when you're spamming habitats everywhere. As such they'd prefer the various boosts from agendas instead of +2.0~ influence each month.What, you don't build outpost? That much extra influence lets you expand like crazy.
IIRC you USED to get varying amounts of influence. They probably forgot to update it.Most people I've talked to (including myself) don't have much use for influence. It basically stays maxed for most of the game, except perhaps at the very end when you're spamming habitats everywhere. As such they'd prefer the various boosts from agendas instead of +2.0~ influence each month.What, you don't build outpost? That much extra influence lets you expand like crazy.
It kinda seems bugged, though. The mandate screen shows something like 80-160 inf for fulfilling, but I always get 250. And are there even any other mandates than build more mines/research stations? 'Cause these are the only ones I ever get.
Outpost my ass, there are edicts that give you 20% more food/unity/all kinds of stuff.Per planet. Except when I get a planet with really weird modifiers, I usually don't find it useful. I mean, I could spend 50-120 influence to get +5-10 mineral income for 10 years. yay.
I just really wish there was a notification when they end, or a way to auto-renew
CK2 is the only game that really showed how political needs change with each generation, and it had a pretty good system for new nations emerging, but its also snowbally as fuck so that kinda hurts it
Oh god, when you put it like that I realize just how unrealistic all of Paradox's peace negotiation systems are.In EU4 I once did a Byzantium run where I completely steamrolled Greece and the Balkans, recapturing a lot of the Ottoman Byzantine cores, causing a massive coalition to form against me. The coalition declared war upon me, yet because the Ottoman Empire was warning the country which started the coalition war, the Ottomans were now fighting on the same side as me, trying to defend me from people who wanted to return their cores. Utterly crushed, I resolved the war by giving away all of the Ottoman's most important lands to insignificant nations and destroyed their Empire, allowing me to annex the rest of them in a subsequent war.
No wonder their most popular series is the one where wars have only 4 possible outcomes and 3 of them are always the same.
Honestly if it had FAAAAAR better simulation aspects in terms of being able to handle people... I'd be playing Crusader Kings 2 right now. Heck I'd probably say it was one of the best games ever made in spite of its other faults.
No its true. One of the things that makes Paradox games great is that the map can exist as something other than RISK because you don't get land permanently just because you militarily occupied it. In total war games for example everything is naturally moving towards one faction conquering the world, because war inevitably results in large land gains for one side. Not true of most Paradox games. One of the weaknesses that prevents things from staying completely interesting in Paradox games is that they can't simulate new nations emerging, and they also rather fail at the realpolitik "yesterday's enemies are tomorrow's friends." So things get stale over time, but because of the peace negotiations system every game has things take a lot longer to get stale. CK2 is the only game that really showed how political needs change with each generation, and it had a pretty good system for new nations emerging, but its also snowbally as fuck so that kinda hurts it.
Anyway, I think that's what a lot of the early complaints about Stellaris were that it got stale fast. People were coming from the CK/EU/Vicky perspective where you might live with your neighbors for 300+ years, and at the end of it still possibly have interesting interactions with them. But on release at least you would very quickly consume/federate/permanently be at good relations with your neighbors and then the politics were pretty empty after that.
It's as realistic as France getting steamrolled by Germany, and giving up the UK in its peace dealThe AI sure do like throwing their buddies under the bus.Not entirely unrealistic, though. There have been a few instances where peace agreements were basically "Yeah, you can take that guy's land, but don't take ours."
Well, yeah. Usually it's a case of "Hey, those guys have basically no army. Go nuts, we won't help them."To be fair Finlanding a country's ally is a bit different from long-distance Polanding
The story in Stellaris is about an infinite cycle. Even if you "win" eventually you'll stagnate, die, or intentionally leave normal life behind. The purpose of the precursors and FEs is to show that this has already happened, the purpose of the endgame crisis and ascension techs is to show how a powerful empire such as a lategame player could end eventually.DO NOT DO THIS
The only exception to the infinite cycle is a certain new endgame crisis I've been spoiled on, which is implied to render at least a portion of the galaxy uninhabitable forever.
Any idea as to why Living Systems mod ships appear as unidentified xenos?
If you're playing 1.60, they will never attack you. Nobody will ever attack anyone.
If you're playing 1.61, the holy worlds will soon be returned to their pristine non-colonized state, your leader will be dead, and your fleets/spaceport demolished in short order. Unless you surrender, then it's just your leader and the populations on the holy worlds.
Is it just me, or is this game pretty dead? Seems like the interest went away as soon as they decided to work on multiplayer instead of features.
Is it just me, or is this game pretty dead? Seems like the interest went away as soon as they decided to work on multiplayer instead of features.I actually kind of hate Paradox multiplayer.
Yes.Any idea as to why Living Systems mod ships appear as unidentified xenos?If you mean that they're called "lambda aliens" or whatever, and you have a special project to translate their language, that's a rare bug.
Actually, you could do it over the net as well, all you'd have to do is pass the save around.
^Actually, you could do it over the net as well, all you'd have to do is pass the save around.
I'm up for a succession game.
If folks are running a succession game, may I recommend two mods?
One which allows all crisis events to occur in a single game.
A second which lets the Scourge begin showing up much sooner than normal. I believe the first check takes place maybe 75 years into the game, rather than 120+ like in vanilla.
Those two should add plenty of fun.
Possibly the most famous succession game.1. Get a couple meat world friends together."This is a madhouse designed by madmen, each with a hatred for the previous one's specific brand of madness!"
2. Play race with democratic government.
3. Switch players every time a new leader is elected.
4. Complain bitterly about what a shitshow the old leader left you.
I'm playing a race of fast-breeding short-lived bird people in a militaristic tribal democracy. Short lived is really irritating, my scientists don't live long enough to get 5 stars to research precursor artifacts.
Wait... doesn't that mean your choice of species type is no longer cosmetic? So a desert species is functionally different than an ocean one?That was technically already true: different planet modifiers already apply to different biomes at different probabilities. While this particular example was more important before the food rework, tropical worlds simply do not receive the Bleak (-5% habitability, -10% food) modifier, while tundra, arctic, and arid were more likely to receive it. On the flip side, only the three Wet habitable types (Continental, Ocean, Tropical) received the Lush modifier (+10% habitability, +20% food). Various other uninhabitable biomes also have their own particular modifiers, but those obviously aren't relevant due to being uninhabitable; by the time you could access them either via vanilla (Barren) or modded terraforming, the game had reached the state where your starting biome didn't really matter nearly as much. At least, that was the case the last time the wiki was updated; I had to pull the specific examples from there because I couldn't recall them off the top of my head, which is rather telling regarding how significant the "difference" was.
EDIT: Ah, USEC already touched on most of my second paragraph. ^_^
Well, apparently Paradox decided that having your ships continue their exploration after interruption by a hostile ship was a Very Bad ThingTM.Really? Because I saw the opposite several times in my current game. They just bail out of the system and keep going down the queue. It only cancels if they can't reach the next destination without going through the dangerous system.
Latest game, no mods, using hyperdrives, every time my fucking science ship runs into an alien, they cancel their whole fucking queue. It's plain stupid.
It appears I'm doing SOMETHING wrong now.
I used to be perfectly good at the game, but now I can't keep up with anyone. Some aspect always falls behind to a ridiculous degree, either I can't keep up sufficient fleet support, or my tech falls behind, or I don't have the resources for a large enough fleet, or I can't colonise sufficiently, and I wind up with half of my neighbours all deciding they don't like the look of me.
I never noticed the fasces in the flag section. Is that a concession to the forums? I know they have some tendencies.Tendencies? What are you on about? The only tendency that Paradox forums have are towards Paradox apologism, and even that only goes so far.
Pretty much a newbie to Paradox sim games. Only played a little of the CKII demo before stopping.
Seems like there is a ton to learn in Stellaris. I keep finding myself at a loss as to what to do with my fledgling stellar empire. There's so much to keep track of and so much to do that I feel like I have little to no control over what I'm doing, I'm just responding to what seems good to do.
Pretty much a newbie to Paradox sim games. Only played a little of the CKII demo before stopping.That's pretty normal for Paradox games. For your first like hour or so you just want to figure out what all the buttons do. Then set goals for yourself and try to accomplish them. Most things take a while and you don't really *need* to micro everything. If you play passively for a while your empire will still be there when you start to do things again. If there's nothing useful to do at the current time just increase the game speed.
Seems like there is a ton to learn in Stellaris. I keep finding myself at a loss as to what to do with my fledgling stellar empire. There's so much to keep track of and so much to do that I feel like I have little to no control over what I'm doing, I'm just responding to what seems good to do.
Pretty much a newbie to Paradox sim games. Only played a little of the CKII demo before stopping.That's pretty normal for Paradox games. For your first like hour or so you just want to figure out what all the buttons do. Then set goals for yourself and try to accomplish them. Most things take a while and you don't really *need* to micro everything. If you play passively for a while your empire will still be there when you start to do things again. If there's nothing useful to do at the current time just increase the game speed.
Seems like there is a ton to learn in Stellaris. I keep finding myself at a loss as to what to do with my fledgling stellar empire. There's so much to keep track of and so much to do that I feel like I have little to no control over what I'm doing, I'm just responding to what seems good to do.
Not sure about this new story pack. Seems like it's going to be present in every game but I'm not sure it's dynamic and varied enough to support that.It'll probably be like the Horizon Signal thing where you want to turn it off after the nth time.
I'm curious, beyond the Warp, what exactly is 'religious' in the game? There's plenty of rational materialist civilizations in the game that make sense and produce great material works of wonder. Where I think the game falls flat is that it has a weird preconception that if you are materialist, you automatically go cybernetic/synthetic, and if you're spiritualist, you automatically go psychic/transcendent. I think both philosophies can and are fully capable of being independent of the whole physical ascendance/mental ascendance paradigm. A fanatic spiritualist empire that worships machines and technology (Hello, Cult Mechanicum!) and sees becoming cybernetic/synthetic as becoming closer to the Machine God should be just as reasonable as a logical materialist empire that approaches unlocking psychic potential and transcending the physical form as a logical and scientific method to bootstrapping evolution through science.
conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at allconflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at allconflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
But I think the reason they decided spiritualism = psionics was to give that something to the spiritualists. The materialists had AI and such, and it seems Paradox is going with the Star Trek style of thought that dictates that logic is the opposite of emotion, with some elements of Dune too.
Hahahahahahahaha.....conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Hahahahahahahaha.....conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
HAHAHAHAHAHHAA.....
Do you know what you're talking about here?
Do you even realize what company you're referring to?
You think they included a nonexistent religion framework ripe for exploitation to appease the fans? You think they even give a shit about that? Like, it even crossed their minds for a microsecond that they better "appease their hardcore deus vult fanbase"?
By including "materialism" in a by design religious game/universe, all materialist civs and players turn out to be silly - because they are wrong. The game should've been designed the other way around, i.e. with religion in a materialist universe, but where, figuratively speaking, prayers are left unheard.
I'm pretty sure that the whole fanatic spiritualist = psychics thing isn't a moral statement its more of an extremely stock sci-fi trope. But I do agree that, how did that one person put it, the Paradox forums have some tendencies. I would not say that's what Paradox games are for per se. I would say that Paradox games attract a lot of people, like for example they have the historical revenge fantasy crowd with Aztec invasions and pagans/natives being able to survive and theoretically conquer the world. Compare the Total War saga which usually makes factions like that unplayable (and had I think... 2 unit models in Rome 2 Total War that were dark skinned? Out of like a bajillion. Even the Romans and Iberians are very pale despite locals to those regions typically having more olive skin even in modern times, the Romans should be darker skinned than the Germanic barbarians). Ah, anyway, I would say that what Paradox games attract is history buffs. A very common fallacy of people who study history (which thankfully seems to be in the process of being pushed out of schools and history books) is taking primary sources at face value. An example of this would be the Conan the Barbarian stereotype, a lot of casual history buffs are all over that shit for a million reasons but its just straight wrong. Or for example Dominions which takes a wide but surface level interpretation of history (for example featuring the Aztec and African kingdom factions interacting with other factions over the course of countless years yet never adopting their weapons, when in reality those peoples straight up had guns for most of the Colonial period albiet not ones they made themselves).Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at allconflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
Of course that's the mainstream of Swedish politics. But that's not who their games are for. There is a significant chunk of their players who are ultranationalist / ultraright-wing, with basically every strain of insane alt-right thought you can imagine (Breivik defenders, neomonarchists/pro-fuedalism, pro-ethnic cleansing, etc etc).
Ironically a similar problem exists in HoI IV with the soviet focus tree, where guys who are supposed to be materialists are forced to adopt (tooltip self-described or not) idealistic nodes. It's an immersion killer. I would more be a proponent of a game mechanics where a change to material circumstances affect the ideas of a population, i.e. second order variable, than allowing players direct (tooltip) access to ideas.Soviets were only atheists on propaganda, both their own and others'. The Orthodox Church was a massive power in Soviet Russia, especially since it's not exactly easy to get everyone to just drop their belief system in a heartbeat. The Russian Revolution happened in response to the authoritarianism and militarism of the czarist monarchy, the consequences of industrialization and a wish to return to the old Mir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obshchina) rural system, not in response to religion.
Uhhh, the confederacy was the *bad guys* in Starcraft 1. Your own faction was the Sons of Korhal, who were rebelling *against* the authoritarian government, and when the leader of the SoK decided to go Full Emperor Mode, Raynor bugged out pretty immediately (and the player went with him.) Not exactly positive, or neutral, towards authoritarianism.Oh I know its just... odd. If the Terrans had a hammer and sickle in space, or a USA flag, that would have been symbolic of something. But its not clear exactly where the Confederacy connection arises since they were never rebels and they don't have any connection to the RL Confederacy's ethics. The only good guy human faction is a tiny rebel group that never does anything on its own. The majority of humanity lives under totalitarian rule, including the guys back on Earth, and Raynor's main motivation for fighting Mengsk is personal rather than political. AFAIK Raynor has no real problem with an emperor as long as its not Mengsk.
They don't have any system of religion though. Spiritualism is a term that can include religion but isn't necessarily religion itself and definitely not even close to enough to make people happy who want religion in the game.conflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at all
Do you have even a single fact to back that up?Remember that Paradox are swedes, and thus they lean more towards atheist neoliberalism with social welfare on the side.they probably didn't think about it in those terms, no, but that was the driving force behind the need to have religion at allconflating spiritualism and psionics was a terrible design choice, but it's also the only way they can accommodate their rabidly right-wing "deus vult" fan-base that would never buy an atheistic space game.I'm betting that's not why they made that design choice.
Of course that's the mainstream of Swedish politics. But that's not who their games are for. There is a significant chunk of their players who are ultranationalist / ultraright-wing, with basically every strain of insane alt-right thought you can imagine (Breivik defenders, neomonarchists/pro-fuedalism, pro-ethnic cleansing, etc etc).
I see where you're coming from, but I think he's got a point too. Thing is, he's conflating materialism with atheism (or a-spiritualism) in the sense that these are then nations that deny the existence of spiritual powers such as psionics, which means that they're inherently wrong and foolish. In real life, we're used to thinking of spiritualists as holding ideals that may be counter to material attainment (so, no robots even if robots make life easier) but we aren't used to thinking of atheists ignoring concrete science and useful abilities for purely ideological reasons. One can argue that materialism in this universe is not merely agnostic but dogmatically anti-spiritual, however I agree with Radsoc's assessment that this is kind of silly.By including "materialism" in a by design religious game/universe, all materialist civs and players turn out to be silly - because they are wrong. The game should've been designed the other way around, i.e. with religion in a materialist universe, but where, figuratively speaking, prayers are left unheard.
This comes off as pretty petty to be quite honest. Your complaint toward spiritual/materialist is literally "this game doesn't cater to MY philisophical position! Those dumb fundies should be left out in the cold!" I frankly think it's good on them for making spiritualism an actually viable philosophy instead of just dangerous assholes you have to work around, fight off, or keep appeased as is much more typical, while still making the opposite a good choice. I do agree though that limiting the Shroud and robots/upload behind one or another is a little silly, but I guess I can see why they did it that way.
Spiritualists believe that consciousness begets reality, and thus true synthetic intelligence is thought impossible to them.
After all, if someone told you they have created a machine that can dream, would you believe them?
They use their minds to create a world, until that world invades their minds and tries to destroy the galaxy.
Materialists believe that they must put away the 'phantasms of the brain' in this cold reality, and thus they don't know where to look for psionics.
After all, if someone told you they visit a place full of gods when they dream, would you believe them?
They use their world to create minds, until those minds rebel against their world and try to destroy the galaxy.
Considering both psionics and synths observably exist, I'd say both are in the wrong, especially when going down those paths is dangerous if you don't know when to stop. At least the biological path is open to both and less likely to doom everyone...
Gray Goo is more of a synthetic thing though, isn't it? Nanomachines that reproduce out of control by breaking down other matter. While it certainly sounds like some sort of plague, it isn't organic in nature and isn't really suited for a bio path.
That's called bacteria.Gray Goo is more of a synthetic thing though, isn't it? Nanomachines that reproduce out of control by breaking down other matter. While it certainly sounds like some sort of plague, it isn't organic in nature and isn't really suited for a bio path.
The phrase "Gray Goo" refers to nanomachines, correct, but I don't see why we couldn't engineer a living bio - weapon that does the same thing.
The phrase "Gray Goo" refers to nanomachines, correct, but I don't see why we couldn't engineer a living bio - weapon that does the same thing.
I somehow got the impression I could only form colonies within my borders, like outposts :'(You can build frontier outposts outside your borders. It is indeed the main way to claim planets and resources for yourself until you can get a colony there. It's only mining stations that you can't build outside your borders.
For a long time, I had a similar misconception regarding wormhole stations, which really slowed down my expansion.fuck the what
For a long time, I had a similar misconception regarding wormhole stations, which really slowed down my expansion.fuck the what
Yes, I get that now. I hadn't known it earlier. Hence my somewhat-profane statement of shock.For a long time, I had a similar misconception regarding wormhole stations, which really slowed down my expansion.fuck the what
Somehow I had gotten the impression that wormhole stations could only be built within your borders or those of empires with whom you have the appropriate agreement. Then I found out that you can build wormhole stations in unclaimed space, too, as well as the space of empires on which you've declared war.
My bad, I meant to say "like stations". Mining and research I guess, not sure about military stations (haven't built any).I somehow got the impression I could only form colonies within my borders, like outposts :'(You can build frontier outposts outside your borders. It is indeed the main way to claim planets and resources for yourself until you can get a colony there. It's only mining stations that you can't build outside your borders.
For a long time, I had a similar misconception regarding wormhole stations, which really slowed down my expansion.Warp is so simple, I'm glad I started with it. The lanes might be interesting too, I did like Space Empires. Wormholes sound so tricky.
Which is fine. Every system needs some sort of downside.
Speaking of balanced systems, what ethics and civics do people prefer? I've been trying out materialism, xenophilia, and egalitarianism so I can get additional Unity (via Beacon of Liberty) but still declare unrestricted wars.Not to judge, but unrestricted wars probably mean you'd want to annex planets, which is terrible for Unity gain. I'd swap out materialism for pacifism and play the migration game for that strategy. Or just go pacifist-spiritualist-xenophobe with Inner Perfection and Agrarian Idyll if I want truly massive Unity gains at the cost of everything else.
Not to judge, but unrestricted wars probably mean you'd want to annex planets, which is terrible for Unity gain. I'd swap out materialism for pacifism and play the migration game for that strategy. Or just go pacifist-spiritualist-xenophobe with Inner Perfection and Agrarian Idyll if I want truly massive Unity gains at the cost of everything else.
Liberation wars can be used for 'conquest' anyway with a bit of trickery. Tributaries are quite a lot like sectors, and while vassalizing and integrating takes a long time, you get to skip the part where the pops are unhappy for being conquered.
Mostly because of the limitations of biochemistry, really. There are some things that it's simply not efficient for life as we know it to eat, either because they don't have much internal chemical potential energy or because their metabolites interact with hydrocarbons in ways that would eventually be fatal. You could try to get around the problem by completely reinventing biochemistry around some other set of elements, but at some point the distinction between self-replicating machines and life gets fuzzy anyway.If machinists get to create galaxynet terminator uprising, psionics get to create the eye of terror, would the biological focus producing the blob be all that appropriate?
Given the biological path's focus on the genetic engineering of intelligent species, I'd like to see a late-game crisis for biological empires in which all the POPs start modifying themselves in increasingly extreme and unstable ways and end up falling victim to bad interactions between their many mutations and the whole empire turns into Bioshock. It would seem more in line with the LEGO-style sci-fi genetics tropes that Stellaris seems to be trying to evoke.
Military: I am uncomfortable without a powerful defensive military.Which is fine. Every system needs some sort of downside.
Speaking of balanced systems, what ethics and civics do people prefer? I've been trying out materialism, xenophilia, and egalitarianism so I can get additional Unity (via Beacon of Liberty) but still declare unrestricted wars.
I never really understand the appeal of only playing nations that reflect your ideology. Same deal for rpgs and other games with character customizations and modelling them after yourself. Seems like a waste of an opportunity.
Given the biological path's focus on the genetic engineering of intelligent species, I'd like to see a late-game crisis for biological empires in which all the POPs start modifying themselves in increasingly extreme and unstable ways and end up falling victim to bad interactions between their many mutations and the whole empire turns into Bioshock. It would seem more in line with the LEGO-style sci-fi genetics tropes that Stellaris seems to be trying to evoke.I'd think eclipse phase would fit better. But meat only, not robots and cybernetics. Because apparently transhumanism must be a single-agent affair due to balance.
So my first leader of my fox people oligarchy died. They elect a new leader. About a decade later, the next leader dies. New election.Yeah, it can be amusing. With the way your first wave of leaders all arrives at once at the start of the game, you can easily end up with a Soviet-style gerontocratic wave of deaths a few decades in, give or take a decade or two for racial longevity traits, where they keep dying and electing new old folks.
Guess the second leader they elected was already getting old. Made me chuckle.
i thought they became a governer leader if they aren't re-elected...?Nope. As far as I've ever seen, they simply disappear into the
I wish I knew why your first leader just disappears into the ether if he or she doesn't get re-elected.Real life presidents don't generally go back into congress.
I was under the impression that presidents of all races, creeds, and species get into congress all the time. Hell, some of them REALLY love congress. Like, with as many constituents as they can get away with.I wish I knew why your first leader just disappears into the ether if he or she doesn't get re-elected.Real life presidents don't generally go back into congress.
Hmmm... There does not seem to be enough instability in my current game. There are like 3 federation blocks, but I think 2 of em are pacifist hippy types.On the normal aggression mapgen settings, yeah. Haven't tried the higher ones, but the setting does exist and may be worth tinkering with, considering that's been my past 2 games as well.
Plus the crazy countries make it really easy for everyone else to be buddies. That +30 or +50 same rival bonus. Heck, even made it too easy for me to make non-aggression pacts and close all the borders.
Hmmm... There does not seem to be enough instability in my current game. There are like 3 federation blocks, but I think 2 of em are pacifist hippy types.On the normal aggression mapgen settings, yeah. Haven't tried the higher ones, but the setting does exist and may be worth tinkering with, considering that's been my past 2 games as well.
Plus the crazy countries make it really easy for everyone else to be buddies. That +30 or +50 same rival bonus. Heck, even made it too easy for me to make non-aggression pacts and close all the borders.
Aye, I'm actually on high aggression. I also have mods that add in opinion modifiers due to... Policy settings and Civic differences/sameness.Hmmm... There does not seem to be enough instability in my current game. There are like 3 federation blocks, but I think 2 of em are pacifist hippy types.On the normal aggression mapgen settings, yeah. Haven't tried the higher ones, but the setting does exist and may be worth tinkering with, considering that's been my past 2 games as well.
Plus the crazy countries make it really easy for everyone else to be buddies. That +30 or +50 same rival bonus. Heck, even made it too easy for me to make non-aggression pacts and close all the borders.
I only play on high aggression setting now, because otherwise the galaxy tends to become a bit stale.
Of course, Stellaris gameplay follows a pretty predictable path in terms of military buildup, so even with high aggression there's a fair bit of nothing going on, so long as you keep up with the AI military capacity. In my opinion the game could use some events to shake up the AI war declaration decisions.
How reliable are npc allies in coming to your aid? Will they just faff about while youre being wasted?
Not sure if this is actually a defeat, or an advantage, but its screwed up my game plan.The awakened empire federations are... Special. Anything you learn about NPC proclivities and federation mechanics from how they behave may not translate to more generic allies and federation mechanics.
A fallen empire, the taknu, decided to become relevant again. Since theyre fanatical xenophiles and pacifists, this means enforcing peace in the galaxy. So their first act, not a month later? To demand i sign their pact and become a vassal. Or die, presumbly, but i didnt want to risk finding out what the punishment for refusing would be. This kicked me from my federation with another state, which has gone on to form a new federation with another nation that refused to join ours because they didnt like me, even though we were great pals and they had maxed out trust and +120 opinion. I dont really understand diplomacy.
Then i saw the taknu fleet. They went out to a system with some pirates in it and obliterated them. The total fleet power estimate was over 200k for their fleet. The next worst ive seen is the space cthulu fallen empire, a fanatical xenophobic authoritarian state, and their "2nd Murder" fleet of 80k that wrecked all my shit when i colonized a planet too close to them. i honestly save scummed when that happened because there was simply nothing i could do, game over try again you know
Maybe i can piss off the other three fallen empires, and since im a protectorate/vassal of the taknu they will defend me? If they take the brunt of the fleet warfare, maybe i can get away with abandoning their treaty or something? In the meantime, im left to colonize everything everywhere, build ships and economy, and develop new technologies.
How reliable are npc allies in coming to your aid? Will they just faff about while youre being wasted?
Inhave to say, forming your own federation involves way too much luck. You have to end up near another civ with basically your exact same ethics, but not too close so you start losing opinion to threat/border friction. Honestly, I think I prefer just to conquer and vassal swarm things instead.Oddly, this is almost precisely how you form your own federation as well: conquer and liberate-swarm. It could use quite a bit of work, I'd say, given that perhaps the biggest example of a federation in sci-fi (The Federation, rather) expanded quite peacefully and even ranks among its founding principles Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Near-identical ethics should make things easier, but its absence shouldn't be quite the bar it seems to be at present. At least, at present, a bar short of some major threat-building hegemonizing swarm that basically outweighs every other relation modifier by an order of magnitude and thus skews the diplomatic game in all sorts of odd ways.
One of my best runs was Fanatic Purifier spiritualists that turned Synth. (took some faction finagling, you can't research Synths if you're spiritualist)Not the most implausible one tbh
needless to say that was Ideologically Impure but it was fun to murder everyone in the name of Robo Space Jesus
Inhave to say, forming your own federation involves way too much luck. You have to end up near another civ with basically your exact same ethics, but not too close so you start losing opinion to threat/border friction. Honestly, I think I prefer just to conquer and vassal swarm things instead.The trick is to rush NAPs and other crap, and worse comes to worst send them loads of free shit through the barter system. If you secure a migration treaty it's all ogre. Diplomacy perks mandatory. With the way the faction system works, a militiaristic authoritarian Empire will over time have its peace faction burgeon ridonkulously and if you can chuck charismatic xenos on all their planets all the better, ethos drift will drift them to you
Razed?Basically. I bombarded the planet with my fleet for almost an entire ingame year before learning that I need to send armies onto the planet surface to conquer it.
Err, do you mean uninhabitable to your lizards, or do you mean that it can be inhabited by both species? Inhabitable/habitable is one of those odd word pairings that can be synonyms rather than antonyms in spite of the "in-" prefix, much like inflammable/flammable. Unfortunately, it is *also* one of those regular word pairings that actually are antonyms due to the "in-" prefix, especially in older works where the Early Modern conflation of "inhabitable" with "able to inhabit" has not yet occurred, which makes it a bit of a headache to parse at times. :PRazed?Basically. I bombarded the planet with my fleet for almost an entire ingame year before learning that I need to send armies onto the planet surface to conquer it.
Funny enough, after the dust settled and the war ended I got ownership of the planet, which is inhabitable to my xenophobic lizards, but is habitable to the xenophobic blue smurfs. And a few smurf pops survived the planetary bombardment and are now enslaved members of my empire. Didn't know that could happen.
The mod you probably want is NovelWarGoals.
Allows you to force them to vacate colonies as a war demand. ... Well, there are 2 versions of vacating.
Also gives the option to take their pops as slaves.
I initially typed "inhospitable" but changed "hospitable" to "habitable" without thinking too much.Once you get genetic modification, you can ship some pops off to a cold planet, modify them to be cold-planet-habitating (and vice-versa for the cold slaves). You only need to do it once per species per planet type, on a planet without any pops except the 2 from colonization (if you have Utopia + traditions), and just designate that world as breeding colonies of slaves and overseers that you then resettle on the worlds you want them on.
I did demand the planet be ceded as a war demand, but didn't know that meant I got the planet and its inhabitants as members of my empire. Initially I just wanted the smurfs to get away from my borders. My lizards can't inhabit the planet but the smurfs can. So I now have a colonized planet in my empire that will basically be a planet dedicated to producing slave pops, because they're the only ones who can live there. My lizards need hot planets and the smurfs need cold planets.
It sounds pretty neat though. Xenophobe lizards taking xenophobe blue people as slaves in war and using them to colonize and exploit planets that the lizards can't inhabit. I might start bullying the blue people empire for war slaves every once in a while now.
Could you use that to make the empire give you pops that aren't/won't be slaves? Like demanding that they return your own people who have been enslaved.https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=687477152
(this kinda thing is why I like bio-ascension; it's fun to modify your pops!)
Is there much benefit to energy shield ship components like deflectors or shields? It seems they just provide extra hull points in a fight. I don't think I've ever seen a shield recharge during a fight.Sheilds definitely do regenerate in a fight. It is simply that you don't really see it happening typically to the fact that either A) The ship is taking less damage then its shields regen so its effectively taking no damage at all, which is what often happens when enemy focus is split or B) the ship is taking substantially more damage then its regen, so you simply see it losing health and don't see the regen either.
Only other benefit I see is some resistance to damage that is weak to shields.
There is also a defensive station module that regens the shields of friendly ships in its area. Which is...not all that helpful given that defense stations usually get focus-fired down super fast in fights, but it is a thing I've used a few times. Helps a little bit, especially if you have other stations in the area that might get shot at first.Yeah, its not all that helpful. I personally prefer the ones weaken the enemy ships (eg. -15% fire rate or the -25% enemy sheild health) as well as the default subspace snare to the ones that slightly improve yours.
A pity that habitats are... indestructible? (Or is it?)They're destructible if you are a belligerent foe, as you can destroy habitats with a wargoal. As these xenos enclaves are independent factions, you can destroy them if you want (but why would you want to kill these defenceless xenos?)
@Loud Whispers: That is brilliant and I kinda want to do that now.Thanks!
Maybe cause I don't like where the habitat is located.A pity that habitats are... indestructible? (Or is it?)They're destructible if you are a belligerent foe, as you can destroy habitats with a wargoal. As these xenos enclaves are independent factions, you can destroy them if you want (but why would you want to kill these defenceless xenos?)
Keep going LW, I follow your story with bated breath (and rustled jimmies)
Dev Diary #77 - Ethics Voice Packs (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-77-ethics-voice-packs.1035192/)I'm not a huge fan of the dogs of war quote, loathe as I am to agree with Youtube.Spoiler: You know, I really dislike when people misuse 's to do plurals (click to show/hide)
Yeah. That militarist was more like a Warhammer-esque Chaos cultist ("Blood for the Blood God!") than an actual member of the military. So I'm guessing the spiritualist one will go off about Deus Vult.Dev Diary #77 - Ethics Voice Packs (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-77-ethics-voice-packs.1035192/)I'm not a huge fan of the dogs of war quote, loathe as I am to agree with Youtube.Spoiler: You know, I really dislike when people misuse 's to do plurals (click to show/hide)
Different VIR will be nice though.
Yeah. That militarist was more like a Warhammer-esque Chaos cultist ("Blood for the Blood God!") than an actual member of the military. So I'm guessing the spiritualist one will go off about Deus Vult.
They could leave the lines in and just redo the defaults. Someone out there is playing Khornates that would absolutely do something that stupid.Yeah. That militarist was more like a Warhammer-esque Chaos cultist ("Blood for the Blood God!") than an actual member of the military. So I'm guessing the spiritualist one will go off about Deus Vult.
Yeah, given the nature of combat in Stellaris, that much aggression doesn't say "An appreciation of warfare is a core tenet of our culture" to me. Rather, it says "I have been chained to my captain's chair after yet another attempt to fire myself out the airlock at our enemy with swords drawn."
"Let slip the target motion analysis algorithms of protracted long-range bombardment" lacks the same ring, though.I could totally see this being said by a Materialist though with some sardonic dryness to it though. Best coupled with a posh English accent and a cushy space-chair.
It would probably be best if you could select your own voice instead of it being determined by ethics. If I want my materialists to be voiced by an insane character, or fanatic militaristic with an angelic voice, I should be allowed to do that.Paradox has outright stated you can.
Hmm i like the womans voice, but its a bit unfitting for a disciplined military officer. If it is i don't know a Space Pirate or a bunch of Honorbound Warriors or basically what i am usually playing it would fit. But yeah as said before, a wee bit less Khornate Warrior would be nice, then again imagine this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-gSJW3sHXE) playing for your entire fleet.
It probably would be best to have two versions of the militarists, one representing a disciplined military (perhaps some posh british officer accent, or even something german accented) and one representing BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD type war hordes.
For the disciplined ones something along the lines of: "Hah, amateurs, clearly they have not studied the Art of War" - "Execute Formation Delta-3, Full Spread" - "Begin Strategic Orbital Support Fire - Collateral Damage is Acceptable" - "Contact High Command: We will be Home by Christmas"
In short an entire blue-eyed early World War I view on war would fit a disciplined militarist in my eyes.
If you go Authoritarian Militarist, something Soviety/German would fit quite well and if you have Egalitarian you could throw in Tau.
just what i would do with it though. Anyway the voices are great if a bit out of character.
Maybe instead of being focused on how bring a militaristic has a female voice, they should instead be wondering how useless Paradox has become if they think 10 voices is enough to justify content.Eh. The story pack should contain more than just the voices, I'd expect, given that they haven't even reached the point where they have announced a name for it yet. This is just a quick "feature" that popped up right quick. I'll reserve judgment on whether it's useful based on what else the story pack contains and how soon it goes on sale after release. If I had any reason to expect that this is the entire content of the story pack, though, I'd say that voices sure as sin aren't enough to make me buy in based on that alone. If that ends up being the case, this can nicely sit aside to join...hmmm, actually, quite a bit. Most non-free sprite packs in past games, the Plantoids for this game, and so forth.
This wouldn't be a problem if they had more than the amount of digits on our hands.
Hmm i like the womans voice, but its a bit unfitting for a disciplined military officer. If it is i don't know a Space Pirate or a bunch of Honorbound Warriors or basically what i am usually playing it would fit. But yeah as said before, a wee bit less Khornate Warrior would be nice, then again imagine this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-gSJW3sHXE) playing for your entire fleet.
It probably would be best to have two versions of the militarists, one representing a disciplined military (perhaps some posh british officer accent, or even something german accented) and one representing BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD type war hordes.
For the disciplined ones something along the lines of: "Hah, amateurs, clearly they have not studied the Art of War" - "Execute Formation Delta-3, Full Spread" - "Begin Strategic Orbital Support Fire - Collateral Damage is Acceptable" - "Contact High Command: We will be Home by Christmas"
In short an entire blue-eyed early World War I view on war would fit a disciplined militarist in my eyes.
If you go Authoritarian Militarist, something Soviety/German would fit quite well and if you have Egalitarian you could throw in Tau.
just what i would do with it though. Anyway the voices are great if a bit out of character.
actually you've just outlined exactly why militarist and pacifist shouldn't be ethos at all. they only make sense in context of other ethos, and not on their own. any kind of description of a military implies some other kind of ethos as well.Literally every single thing in this universe exists only when observed relative to another.
"Every single species is the same Space Religion and is buddy buddy"Praise Spode!
Do federations have any special events at all? There'd be a lot of potential for some Star Trek references if there was.I don't think so.
Seems like the robot update is "give them the good bit of Biological" mostly. I hope this means there's going to be new biological goodies and not just shafting the path that would be coolest if it got proper development."I was calculating pi to the 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000th digit before it was cool."
Also, I keep reading "positronic" as "postironic" and imagining hipster robots.
"My shell is made from reclaimed metal and sustainably produced bio-degradeable plastics. I only charge my batteries with renewable energy sources."Humans.
Sentient AI that experiences happiness and other biological emotions."My shell is made from reclaimed metal and sustainably produced bio-degradeable plastics. I only charge my batteries with renewable energy sources."Humans.
Seems like the robot update is "give them the good bit of Biological" mostly. I hope this means there's going to be new biological goodies and not just shafting the path that would be coolest if it got proper development.They did acknowledge that this will make robotic ascension more powerful and so as part of 1.8 they'll do a balance pass on the other paths as well.
Also, I keep reading "positronic" as "postironic" and imagining hipster robots.
I'm not talking about power or balance. I don't care about that since I don't play this game competitively. I'm talking about depth and uniqueness of play experience.Seems like the robot update is "give them the good bit of Biological" mostly. I hope this means there's going to be new biological goodies and not just shafting the path that would be coolest if it got proper development.They did acknowledge that this will make robotic ascension more powerful and so as part of 1.8 they'll do a balance pass on the other paths as well.
Also, I keep reading "positronic" as "postironic" and imagining hipster robots.
I wonder if there's going to be a biological equivalent to domestic protocols...There already is in Utopia, in the form of the 'Domestic Servitude' slavery type set in species rights.
I wonder if there's going to be a biological equivalent to domestic protocols...Must... resist... low... hanging... sexist... joke...
I wonder if the owner system the robots have going for them will extend to some slave types.I wonder if there's going to be a biological equivalent to domestic protocols...There already is in Utopia, in the form of the 'Domestic Servitude' slavery type set in species rights.
Loud Whispers, you should really pitch that swarm idea to Paradox. Maybe they can make it more stable if they ever implement it? ;)One can hope
Unfortunately, only way to get an idea into the base game I to make a very successful overhaul mid that uses it, or to get it into several such mods, and it's too early in the development cycle for that to be a thing anyway.Loud Whispers, you should really pitch that swarm idea to Paradox. Maybe they can make it more stable if they ever implement it? ;)One can hope
If you make a ship with the picket behavior, no point defence weapons, and heavy armor, will it intentionally facetank missiles?Probably would facetank everything
Really it would make more sense to have behaviours divorced from ship computers and hulls, so that a destroyer need not always be a picket ship nor a battleship need always be a sniper or a corvette be the only good shipI mean that's how it started, having them divorced. I still don't really know why they changed it...
Because with them divorced, it was optimal to only use one class, and they didn't know how else to change that aside from tinkering with balance to make it a different one class.Really it would make more sense to have behaviours divorced from ship computers and hulls, so that a destroyer need not always be a picket ship nor a battleship need always be a sniper or a corvette be the only good shipI mean that's how it started, having them divorced. I still don't really know why they changed it...
Outside Context (invade Earth during a World War)Can you imagine how much this would suck?
Yeah, enlighten. Sorry.
I uplifted some cute little lizard dudes though, so now hopefully they'll spread to all my arid/desert/savannah worlds.
What do they want in the war?
What do they want in the war?12 of my ally's planets
That would have been day 1 surrender for me.What do they want in the war?
12 of my ally's planets
The debris field will give you a set of techs randomly selected from the specific bits of debris at the site. You can look at it when you hover your cursor over the debris in question.
FE's always have top-tier tech though, so no matter what he gets it should be at least the next tier above, if not two or even three jumps ahead. Shields, Armor, Lances, Lasers, whatever they're using is probably way beyond what he should have at that stage of the game.
If you get two or three debris fields it should be enough to get all the major techs.
To be fair, the end-game crises are balanced for a more... Um. Developed player. 30k by the time the swarm arrives is rather lack-luster, tbh.
To be fair, the end-game crises are balanced for a more... Um. Developed player. 30k by the time the swarm arrives is rather lack-luster, tbh.
I mean... there kind of are already.
The Unbidden will have more factions spawn that are hostile to each other (and you, but eh). The Aberrant and Vehement even have a tendancy to fight each other, first.
Prethoryn Scourge has the Sentinel special empire that spawns when the Scourge is strong enough to help fight. Think that's 20% of the galaxy?
Sentinels are bloody worthless.Just build a fast hyperlane or wormhole fleet, jump into their habitated worlds and bombard the shit out of them with apocalyptic or full bombardment. Once done, gtfo, rinse and repeat. Without planets the prethoryn swarm will be wiped down by attrition alone, as they can't terraform or colonize barren worlds
I have never beaten the Prethoryn. Even with phase-lance equipped dreads and legions of carriers with oceans of PD, the best I can manage is to hold the line.
Last time I went up against the Prethoryn, I held my sector while they gobbled up everyone else (who were all laughably underpowered compared to me), and the sentinels finally spawned. I threw every bit of money I could at the bastards.
They were wiped out nearly immediately.
The prethoryn are quite beatable, but generally not if you use the ISB mod. ISB makes the prethoryn missiles stronger and impossible to intercept, so you just die, period.
Also carriers aren't generally all that useful against the swarm in my experience. Additionally, the sentinels have pretty much never been of any value.
As a final note, what do you mean by oceans of PD?
PD Fighters, typically really great at cutting down missiles and enemy fighters, in addition to peacemaker laser defense batteries on the backs of the dreads and on the defensive frigates.Don't use PD fighters, they take up valuable battleship or cruiser space which would be much, much, much better spent on lances or kinetic artillery. A kinetic battery which destroys a swarm carrier also destroys that carrier's 8 swarm drones, a fighter hangar which destroys all 8 swarm drones hasn't dealt with the carrier. It's much much much better to instead of relying on PD fighters, rely on Flak Batteries.
ISB is the thing to blame I suppose.
Servitors sound fucking dank, now I can make all my space habitat xeno preserves even more utopian
With a Servitor civ, it seems a more benevolent version of what you described. Servitors are probably the best of the three. First variety is just fanatical purifier/devouring swarm but with more flexibility, the second is Borg, the third is what we are discussing.Servitors sound fucking dank, now I can make all my space habitat xeno preserves even more utopianI was pondering the other day how fun it would be to have a sort of "evil Prime Directive" game where you'd absorb other species but try to keep them like they were at the point of meeting (for their own good, of course). I haven't yet played enough to know if that's just wild fantasy or at all viable, though. I'd think probably not.
... I know that it was either in the base game or some random mod I picked up. But it allows you to set-up shielded sanctuary planets and put pops in them.... then change their technology level to pre-space.Definitely mod. I guess it should be possible to have an event which reduces a civ's tech level or keeps in constant, what with events that automatically put civs back to lower stages. For that matter, has anyone seen civs survive nuclear war in the most up to date version? In older ones I remembered seeing certain civs actually having survivors rebuild on their (now tomb world) with iron age tech, becoming spacefarers hundreds of years later. Haven't seen that happen at all now
Sounds like a decent DLC. Wonder how they will price it, and when it's scheduled for.My guess is 20 Dollars or Euros or whatever equivalent of that.
Sounds like a decent DLC. Wonder how they will price it, and when it's scheduled for.My guess is 20 Dollars or Euros or whatever equivalent of that.
As for when.. Well.. Since they released the trailer, my estimate would be soon. And as we know, in game developer terms, soon is relative.
This is branded as a story pack, so it should be priced more like Leviathans.Sounds like a decent DLC. Wonder how they will price it, and when it's scheduled for.My guess is 20 Dollars or Euros or whatever equivalent of that.
As for when.. Well.. Since they released the trailer, my estimate would be soon. And as we know, in game developer terms, soon is relative.
Since Utopia is $20, I see no reason that this DLC would be any other price.
Apparently FE's have grown stronger since I last played. One just steamrolled me with a 90+k fleet.
I have hypershields and Zero-point energy, and Gauss Cannons, and my battleships are still only 1.7k each. I just can't seem to get enough minerals... >_>
Huh. Guess humans in this galaxy are either heavily into genetic engineering, or have been utterly replaced by these things.Spoiler: Not the most promising of starts. (click to show/hide)
Tens of thousands of years of evolution and genetic engineering. They probably never even noticed they were changing. :PHuh. Guess humans in this galaxy are either heavily into genetic engineering, or have been utterly replaced by these things.Spoiler: Not the most promising of starts. (click to show/hide)
This game keeps putting out features that scream for a Mass Effect mod.Maybe they're courting one. The Game of Thrones mod was good for business after all.
Same, but I'd make sure it's "most". To such a degree that it would be a poor time for anyone else to attack you, but if outside forces don't intervene the robots aren't likely to win.Tens of thousands of years of evolution and genetic engineering. They probably never even noticed they were changing. :PHuh. Guess humans in this galaxy are either heavily into genetic engineering, or have been utterly replaced by these things.Spoiler: Not the most promising of starts. (click to show/hide)
I feel a little disappointed that you can't have a machine uprising with full citizenship status. That seems to assume that the machines are being reasonable. I'd rather that citizenship just made it so that some portion of your robots stay on your side.
There are no moreHuh. Guess humans in this galaxy are either heavily into genetic engineering, or have been utterly replaced by these things.Spoiler: Not the most promising of starts. (click to show/hide)
I'm sure they could still form a faction and cause you troubles.
I feel a little disappointed that you can't have a machine uprising with full citizenship status. That seems to assume that the machines are being reasonable. I'd rather that citizenship just made it so that some portion of your robots stay on your side.
Huh. I'm impressed the game handles that so well!On review, I figured out there was one flaw in that by increasing the habitability adaptability of the locust trait, the AI tended to use them ~exclusively~ for colonization the moment one of their pops entered their Empire, and I don't see any justifiable reason why any Empire would want to do that. Testing it out I think it's cooler if the locust swarms are limited to certain climates and gaia planets, and the rare adaptable locust swarm earns its place as galactic superpest - so I'm gonna reduce their habitability instead, to really restrict their preferences to their immediate biome (and hilariously, the more advanced a space empire gets by unlocking habitability tech, the easier they make it for locust pops to appear).
That's actually awesome, I do wish they would add in those sorts of interesting traits into the vanilla game. You should start an interesting traits modding project and host it somewhere.Hey thanks, I might consider that if I've got the time. For now it's just fun testing concepts and mechanics
maybe a full empire of "fast breeders" should have a war goal of "lebensraum" to make room for their young.That's not really any different from the hegemonic imperialists, hive minds or fanatical purifiers in fluff, and not different mechanically to anything else. Perhaps a war goal to force open borders & citizenship of your pops so the migratory-minded species can have more options to spread militarily than outright conquest. So in peace they can just migration treaty, in war they can do enforced migration treaties - with the consequence being defeated xenophobic Empires' xenophobic faction having to deal with the sudden forced political integration of numerous xeno citizens, each likely joining a xenophile or individualistic faction.
Loud Whispers:Yeah the fast breeding trait is pretty meaningless. There's no way to overpopulate your world and create hive cities of megadense urbanization, nor to create dense jungles of sentient plants or chittering seas of chitinous roachoid scientists. Which is a shame really, sorta throws you outta the immersion when arid deserts support the same population abstractions as lush gaia worlds, or when you have in-game fluff of precursor civilizations made up of scattered xenos that live and reproduce over thousands of years.
Reading about your adventures with the locusts makes me think that Stellaris really doesn't do a good job about the whole "numbers and swarm" thing. There's no way to create a Skaven-like or Greenskin threat across the stars as even though your species can reproduce quickly... it doesn't really translate to anything does it?
I mean, sure, you get more people everywhere but once you hit the planet cap... that's basically it. And you don't really build more ships or anything. In essence, it just translates to "we reach the point of peak production faster than others" (though in your case, it's just "lol, we destroy your planets production temporarily"). But in reality, it should be "we must devour the universe because nothing can hold us".The vanilla game right now has three swarms:
I think this is one of the reasons warfare and diplomacy in general in this game is so underwhelming. Everything is more or less the same with one amusing quirk but still more or less the same. Unless it's expressly scripted like the end-game threats, everything ends up being more or less the same. More or less the same amount of ships. More or less the same amount of damage. More or less the same buildings. More or less the same combat styles.That and the vanilla game very linearly guides you down the path to exploration, colonization, federation and conquest. There is not even much if any variation in how you execute this linear path. PI taking out trading planets just to stop vanilla locust pop analogues strikes me as bizarre, when the game already runs frightfully close to a cycle of conquer, extinguish and grind, reducing number of fun alternative options to defeat rivals makes no sense. Same goes with having starvation not starve anyone! Madness I say. It's even worse that the trait differences are so small that on the higher difficulties, the weaknesses and strengths of the AI species do not matter at all. Even on the lower difficulties it's hard to see the variance play out in different ways, once you see one federating species you've seen all of them
Hmm. Maybe fast breeding should make more leader characters spawn. That together with admiral characters who are required to form a fleet, you get a somewhat reasonable military advantage.(http://i.imgur.com/XAys5xu.png)
Paradox instead made a game where everything is just basically clones of each other wearing different skins.It's a petty complaint I have, but it irks me greatly that hospitals provide bonus pop growth but cloning vats do not. Thus I always mod them to be a rarer tech that provides a very juicy pop growth
I think cloning vats represent things closer to Halo's Flash Cloning rather than proper clones. After a few years in the corps, they just get cancer and die. Which the game represents as them not being proper pops (though it should represent them as Pops with an upkeep, as a sort of organic alternative to robots and droids, or even synths.)Alternatively, mass produced pops from your species but with an added fleeting/super fleeting trait - being able to produce the pops from the same pop production screen as robits. If the clones are infertile then I like the idea that you're manually replacing them from your cloning vats, brave new world style
I've actually been thinking about starting to mod Stellaris. I've always had my autism triggered by not only the odd names for techs (2200 and the UN hasn't figured out theoretical quantum mechanics? Did we regress or something, because we're, today, at actual practical quantum mechanics being used in computing) but the lack of indepth fluff in the tooltip - and Stellaris of course doesn't exactly have a civilopedia to put the big fluff so there's no way to do worldbuilding like SMAC. Not to mention the lack of any direction in tech whatsoever and the overall thinness of the tech tree means it never really feels like your empire is more advanced than that primitive that just popped next door. Mechanically, yes, your ships are faster and fly farther and shoot different colored lasers that do way more damage, but there's not really any sort of visceral feeling of sliding from hard sci-fi "Iridium plating" to "It made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs!" tier fuck-the-rules-I-have-SCIENCE! sci-fi opera.God speed
So I've been thinking about doing a overhaul of the tech tree. Fluff is no problem - I can write fluff for fucking days - but it does seem like it'd be a bigass project. Still want to give it a try though.
And jeeze it's only a little bit of the polish the game needs to par classics like GalCiv and SMAC. I'm definitely remembering some of the stuff discussed in this thread just now. There's good ideas in you lot.
Yeah, in stellaris the lack of cool sci-fi stuff kind of annoys me. I mean, they have some of it, but they lack.. something.Story.
Ship Power Stations: Compatible with NSC, gives dedicated reactor slots so you don't have to fill half a ship with reactors.I've always felt there should be more tiers of reactors and they should be rarer techs (also they should start at fusion, fluffwise, and take a bit longer to get to ZP and beyond. It's irritating how little each ZP reactor seems to power on its own - I mean, they're literally drawing power from nothing at all at rates several times faster than even the energy gained from having a shipboard star, they really ought to be able to power more than just a few railguns.
[/spoiler]
I think its cause Stellaris has gone into the deep end of multiplayer 'balance', rather then substance that would normally be put into a singleplayer game.vomit.png
Not a lot of room for atypical stuff when you also have a competitive(?) multiplayer portion to worry about.
I think its cause Stellaris has gone into the deep end of multiplayer 'balance', rather then substance that would normally be put into a singleplayer game.Well, I guess that's where mods come in.
Not a lot of room for atypical stuff when you also have a competitive(?) multiplayer portion to worry about.
I think its cause Stellaris has gone into the deep end of multiplayer 'balance', rather then substance that would normally be put into a singleplayer game.Well, I guess that's where mods come in.
Not a lot of room for atypical stuff when you also have a competitive(?) multiplayer portion to worry about.
The Singleplayer at least desperately needs some debalancing.
Just looked up that event chain.Um, the entire premise of the event is about an infinite recursive amount of harems for the one big dude.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Synthetic God (https://youtu.be/7YGXDYWCyoY)Why do I like this so much?
It is a very nice synthwave piece. Very 80s, very blade runner.Synthetic God (https://youtu.be/7YGXDYWCyoY)Why do I like this so much?
THANK GOD
Ded Diary 82 (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-82-synthetic-dawn-music.1039976/)
I'm mostly reposting this one because of what they're saying the next one is about.Spoiler: MACHINA VULT (click to show/hide)
https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/898106326290759680Still a pointless thing to do, though.
In the next update you'll be able to release species in your empire as a vassel. Makes it easier to become some kind of space HRE
Not entirely. Some of the traditions give you big boosts for having vassals.https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/898106326290759680Still a pointless thing to do, though.
In the next update you'll be able to release species in your empire as a vassel. Makes it easier to become some kind of space HRE
THANK GODAnd you'll apparently be able to directly build on sector worlds.
Aside from the afore-mentioned traditions, it is also great for hive minds (and robots with the dlc) since otherwise those species would be purged.https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/898106326290759680Still a pointless thing to do, though.
In the next update you'll be able to release species in your empire as a vassel. Makes it easier to become some kind of space HRE
Your vassals can provide you with fleets you dont have to pay for maintainance for, and their territory counts towards victory conditions with the penalties to unity and research or filling up sectors.https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/898106326290759680Still a pointless thing to do, though.
In the next update you'll be able to release species in your empire as a vassel. Makes it easier to become some kind of space HRE
Sounds a lot like all the other Stellaris music to my ear... Maybe I'm spoiled by what Civ did with music this last time.
As for the note at the bottom, it's nice to hear that governors are getting looked at. If they're doing things the way I hope, this will include revolts a bit like the already-mentioned machine revolts, but lead by sector governors. But what I suspect is that it'll be relatively minor changes.
So how do you guys feel about frozen planet classes being the only ones with high weights for minerals and engineering research? It seems like picking anything other than snow species is gonna suck
EDIT 3: Scratch that. The fuckers have jump drives and can just evade me forever because I'm using warp and have two months of wind-down on my main fleet.
EDIT 3: Scratch that. The fuckers have jump drives and can just evade me forever because I'm using warp and have two months of wind-down on my main fleet.
You know, while warp absolutely sucks and I agree with you, the smart thing to do would be to split your fleet into smaller ones to warp and rendezvous at the other side, so long as you're just travelling between systems. The cooldowns are manageable then. Maybe also consider using bait tactics before engagements to draw the enemy fleet into the system and toward the star before sending in the fleet proper, so you'd have some chance to engage in your favour.
I tried doing that. They used their OP drives to snipe each fleet before I could respond. I eventually managed to reverse-engineer the drives, so it's all good.EDIT 3: Scratch that. The fuckers have jump drives and can just evade me forever because I'm using warp and have two months of wind-down on my main fleet.
You know, while warp absolutely sucks and I agree with you, the smart thing to do would be to split your fleet into smaller ones to warp and rendezvous at the other side, so long as you're just travelling between systems. The cooldowns are manageable then. Maybe also consider using bait tactics before engagements to draw the enemy fleet into the system and toward the star before sending in the fleet proper, so you'd have some chance to engage in your favour.
You know, while warp absolutely sucks and I agree with you,
When this drops, I'm obviously going to play a synthetic empire.
Just gotta work out which portrait. I like the 5th one.
Also, the third one is very obviously inspired by a certain crisis.
When this drops, I'm obviously going to play a synthetic empire.
Just gotta work out which portrait. I like the 5th one.
Also, the third one is very obviously inspired by a certain crisis.
Pretty sure that's not who invented eyes.Spoiler: You're missing their obvious inspiration. (click to show/hide)
(https://goo.gl/images/kphX8d)Pretty sure that's not who invented eyes.Spoiler: You're missing their obvious inspiration. (click to show/hide)
They're not necessary right now cos the game's not finishedSavage.
The dlc so far are just story packs which add a few flavor options, they aren't necessary by any means
FTL: What works in a game such as Sword of the Stars, with its turn-based gameplay, small maps of usually no more than 3-6 empires, and 1-on-1 wars breaks down completely in a Stellaris game
I'm very happy to see these changes. I've already been playing on hyperlanes only for quite some time, for pretty much all the reasons they listed.
As I read I'm nodding up and down smiling, up until...Literally nothing was mentioned about the SOTS combat system... they said what worked well in SOTS does not work in Stellaris and they mentioned it falls apart in Stellaris' combat systemQuoteFTL: What works in a game such as Sword of the Stars, with its turn-based gameplay, small maps of usually no more than 3-6 empires, and 1-on-1 wars breaks down completely in a Stellaris game
Scrub, that is in no way why it works in SOTS. SOTS usually bumps around 6 to 8 factions, and you're either damn lucky or playing a clusters map if you're involved only in 1-on-1 wars. SOTS works because it's turn based, yes, but that's the only thing you got right. It's also got interception mechanics, meaningful sensor ranges, and space stations that aren't shite. You don't get to talk down to SOTS' combat system, not for a long time yet.
Edit: While I'm posting here: is it worth coming back to this game yet? And which DLC is considered "essential"?I would say so, but if you are unsure then wait for the next sale.
As I read I'm nodding up and down smiling, up until...Literally nothing was mentioned about the SOTS combat system... they said what worked well in SOTS does not work in Stellaris and they mentioned it falls apart in Stellaris' combat systemQuoteFTL: What works in a game such as Sword of the Stars, with its turn-based gameplay, small maps of usually no more than 3-6 empires, and 1-on-1 wars breaks down completely in a Stellaris game
Scrub, that is in no way why it works in SOTS. SOTS usually bumps around 6 to 8 factions, and you're either damn lucky or playing a clusters map if you're involved only in 1-on-1 wars. SOTS works because it's turn based, yes, but that's the only thing you got right. It's also got interception mechanics, meaningful sensor ranges, and space stations that aren't shite. You don't get to talk down to SOTS' combat system, not for a long time yet.
The game and most DLC is on sale at Humble right now.Edit: While I'm posting here: is it worth coming back to this game yet? And which DLC is considered "essential"?I would say so, but if you are unsure then wait for the next sale.
As for DLCs.. I would say Utopia and Synthetic Dawn are probably the most essential ones.
The Plantoids pack adds a new phenotype (a new portrait/city set/spaceships class or whatever you may call it).
So if you enjoy variety, then get it, if you want. But it doesn't add any gameplay mechanics.
I mean their comparison still pretty much works... Stellaris can have 30 factions in the same game. If two factions each with subjects and allies go to war, it would be pretty plausible to have an 8 faction war with each faction having between it all 3 starter types.
Edit: While I'm posting here: is it worth coming back to this game yet? And which DLC is considered "essential"?
Edit: While I'm posting here: is it worth coming back to this game yet? And which DLC is considered "essential"?I would say so, but if you are unsure then wait for the next sale.
As for DLCs.. I would say Utopia and Synthetic Dawn are probably the most essential ones.
The Plantoids pack adds a new phenotype (a new portrait/city set/spaceships class or whatever you may call it).
So if you enjoy variety, then get it, if you want. But it doesn't add any gameplay mechanics.
Finally. It's so annoying trying to mod out all the FTL options and all the late game ones too.You know there was literally an ingame option to set restricto-lanes ftl only, right?
That only works for empires. Crisis fleets and wandering enemies still use warp unless they're modded not to.Finally. It's so annoying trying to mod out all the FTL options and all the late game ones too.You know there was literally an ingame option to set restricto-lanes ftl only, right?
I take it you're not excited about the latest announcements, then? :PI'm excited about the eventual modded gateways, and them actually improving stuff. But if I wanted to play as the SotS Terrans I would play as the SotS terrans.
I already own Stellaris, I just stopped playing shortly after release and I'm wondering if this is a good time to check it out again. My original playthrough was a very individualist democracy which was kind of ruined by the fact that ethics drift was glitched to cause pops to be homogeneous (undoing any weakness that playstyle would have had). Then it crashed infinitely with no solution.I'd say if you've waited this long, might as well wait longer. This update should be pretty comprehensive and overhaul the game to be a lot better.
The FTL changes will be free though.I already own Stellaris, I just stopped playing shortly after release and I'm wondering if this is a good time to check it out again. My original playthrough was a very individualist democracy which was kind of ruined by the fact that ethics drift was glitched to cause pops to be homogeneous (undoing any weakness that playstyle would have had). Then it crashed infinitely with no solution.I'd say if you've waited this long, might as well wait longer. This update should be pretty comprehensive and overhaul the game to be a lot better.
So wait for this one, and then the inevitable balance/bugfix patch soon after.
Are all new forms of FTL free patch content?
Yes. Naturally we're not going to charge for any form of content meant to replace the loss of old FTL types.
"Will be" is key there. They're not anything yet. They'll launch alongside whatever the next DLC is that we know nothing about yet.The FTL changes will be free though.I already own Stellaris, I just stopped playing shortly after release and I'm wondering if this is a good time to check it out again. My original playthrough was a very individualist democracy which was kind of ruined by the fact that ethics drift was glitched to cause pops to be homogeneous (undoing any weakness that playstyle would have had). Then it crashed infinitely with no solution.I'd say if you've waited this long, might as well wait longer. This update should be pretty comprehensive and overhaul the game to be a lot better.
So wait for this one, and then the inevitable balance/bugfix patch soon after.QuoteAre all new forms of FTL free patch content?
Yes. Naturally we're not going to charge for any form of content meant to replace the loss of old FTL types.
There are no wormholes. There is only Zuul.I take it you're not excited about the latest announcements, then? :PI'm excited about the eventual modded gateways, and them actually improving stuff. But if I wanted to play as the SotS Terrans I would play as the SotS terrans.
Or maybe the Zuul.
It's because they balance for multiplayer first and putting hard caps on everything makes it easier to control for multiplayer cheese.
That's literally what cheese means. You just said you think I'm wrong then wrote the exact same explanation.It's because they balance for multiplayer first and putting hard caps on everything makes it easier to control for multiplayer cheese.
i'm not sure your explanation really makes sense. in both MP and "competitive SP" (or whatever you want to call it) you go to war with the army you can afford. this routinely means going over FL and taking loans. if there was no FL but the maintenance cost was the same regardless* then you'd still see exactly the same behavior.
*i mean, X.0 regiments cost Y.0 ducats. that could be because the first X.1 regiments cost Y.1 ducats on your way up to FL, and then remainder cost Y.2, or it could be because the cost of each regiment was higher, or because each incremental regiment was more expensive without having the FL breakpoint, or whatever.
I think they implement something like Starbase Limits because fundamentally they don't think any deeper than "If we make this thing why won't someone just build them everywhere" and they say "ok just give it a soft cap that's unusable much past that."
That's literally what cheese means. You just said you think I'm wrong then wrote the exact same explanation.It's because they balance for multiplayer first and putting hard caps on everything makes it easier to control for multiplayer cheese.
i'm not sure your explanation really makes sense. in both MP and "competitive SP" (or whatever you want to call it) you go to war with the army you can afford. this routinely means going over FL and taking loans. if there was no FL but the maintenance cost was the same regardless* then you'd still see exactly the same behavior.
*i mean, X.0 regiments cost Y.0 ducats. that could be because the first X.1 regiments cost Y.1 ducats on your way up to FL, and then remainder cost Y.2, or it could be because the cost of each regiment was higher, or because each incremental regiment was more expensive without having the FL breakpoint, or whatever.
I think they implement something like Starbase Limits because fundamentally they don't think any deeper than "If we make this thing why won't someone just build them everywhere" and they say "ok just give it a soft cap that's unusable much past that."
I really dislike where this game is going. :(
Between "galactic terrain", forced hyperlanes, and an emphasis on static defenses, they're turning what used to be a "realtime space 4X grand strategy game", into a "realtime 'space-themed' 4X grand strategy game". Stellaris post-1.9 is going to turn into a reskin of a boring old land-bound grand strategy game, literally taking away the thing that best differentiated it from other similar games. :|
Adjacency bonuses are ridiculously easy? Just plop a building that benefits from it beside it?
Um. Yeah, a 25x1 planet would be mechanically identical to a 5x5 planet,Not really... 25x1 means maximum adjacency bonus from any tile is affecting 2 other tiles while in a 5x5 grid you could potentially affect four surrounding tiles.
I never played Endless Space, so I can't say how different it is from Endless Legend. But I never managed to become interested in Master of Orion.I really dislike where this game is going. :(
Between "galactic terrain", forced hyperlanes, and an emphasis on static defenses, they're turning what used to be a "realtime space 4X grand strategy game", into a "realtime 'space-themed' 4X grand strategy game". Stellaris post-1.9 is going to turn into a reskin of a boring old land-bound grand strategy game, literally taking away the thing that best differentiated it from other similar games. :|
So what is it that you think makes Master of Orion 2 and/or Endless Space 2 so different from Civilization and/or Endless Legend?
I personally think it's both necessary and should have been totally expected.FTL selection is not a "customization choice", not if it's touted as the reason why moving forward with more changes is 'impossible'.
The rule for Paradox games, since CK2 (and somewhat before that), is, "ship the game incomplete and finish it later via DLC."
By "incomplete" I don't mean it doesn't work, or that it isn't a recognizable game. It's more like "prove that you can make a working game with this premise, and worry about the details later."
With Stellaris you can easily see where that happened: the FTL system never really made sense. The fact FTL type was just a customization choice, with no implications for balance or anything else, also suggests they were more worried about simply showing off a bunch of methods with no idea what system they'd eventually end up with.
I mean, cmon: a single patch where they're going to revamp from the ground up: 1) borders 2) space stations 3) movement on the map 4) the wargoals system 5) apparently something about combat as well? Stellaris 2.0 is the game they should have released.
The building/tile/economy system is another one that's ripe to be rewritten from the ground up. Just watch, in another year it'll be "sooooooo it turns out that Tiles don't actually add anything to the game because adjacency bonuses are too tedious to work with..."
Not sure if I have asked this before, but any ways..Well, for ship strength you want to go Fanatic Militarist and take the Distingushed Admiralty civic for a starting +25% to fire rate and +5% evasion. Be democratic or oligarchic and take Citizen Service civic for +15% fleet cap.
I wish to create an empire with as much naval capacity as possible, firepower is also good.
But I do not want play as a Fanatical Purifier, or any hivemind/machine equivalent thereof.
Any suggestions on government, civic, and trait combinations?
Also, any particular strategy to achieve naval superiority once I started a game?
I've written out this comparison on Reddit already, but seriously, Dominions is going to end up having more strategic variety than Stellaris at this rate. Dominions already has all the things that post-1.9 Stellaris will, provinces with fixed neighbors as lane-linked "star systems", mountains and rivers as gaps in the "spiral arms" to create chokepoints, different terrain types and per-province effects as the new "galactic terrain", caves on some maps that connect different sides of the world the same way new "natural wormholes" will, spells to move your armies between laboratories you own, fortifications to hold chokepoints, and much more. It also includes nations that are natively amphibious, or flying - thus able to cross rivers, seas, fortifications, and sometimes even mountains with utter disregard for terrain.Now, I've been critical of Paradox but comparing Stellaris to Dominions isn't really fair. You wouldn't expect a kid in a wheelchair to dunk on Jordan.
A land strategy with more movement freedom than a space strategy. How in the hell.
You could introduce a fleet size penalty to naval capacity, necessitating the creation of a number of smaller fleets instead of large groups if you want to maximize your total fleet power.
I mean, that screenshot is pretty much the simplest and most gamey way to address the doomstack problem... So it makes sense that's what Paradox is going for. Oh well. It's not the most effective solution, but probably not the least either. Though definitely among the most frustrating since it means you basically just have to move a bunch of fleets to the same place and end up doomstacking with more micro. It (sort of) works in games like GalCiv where combat happens separately and is instant in the strategic view, but in Stellaris you can just add new fleets to an ongoing battle so it's pointless.You could introduce a fleet size penalty to naval capacity, necessitating the creation of a number of smaller fleets instead of large groups if you want to maximize your total fleet power.
It looks to me that this at least is going to happen.Spoiler: From the dev stream (click to show/hide)
Along with the mention of upcoming talk about "fronts" and "advancing/retreating" and "border skirmishes" I think it's safe to say we really don't have a good picture about how war is going to work out yet....They always talk big though, especially early in the patch/DLC's development. It doesn't necessarily mean much in practice.
That said, the more I think about it the more I sorta say... Meh? I don't necessarily want the game to be a super tacticool space military game. What I really want out of this update is like... The ability to trade with other nations. And maybe make friends with them in more complex and involved ways then "sign non aggression pact, come back in 20 years and you're bbf" I dunno. Maybe that'll come eventually.I'm sure they'll do an update on that at some point. Hell, the new one is being touted as 2.0 so it could be soon. But the genre is ostensible about strategy so it makes sense that they should try to add some.
Am I the only one who kind of liked HoI4's convoy protection gameplay? I've always wanted the ability to make trade agreements with other factions and have some civilian convoys flying back and forth. That could expand the military aspect too, since blockading planets could have consequences, and you'd want to protect your convoys in addition to your planets.
This is getting into wild suggestion territory, but once you have convoy raiding/protection gameplay in place you could use that to simulate supply too. When you enter enemy territory, you have a sort of umbilical cord of convoys connecting you back to friendly territory. If the enemy gets into any system along the cord they can start raiding your convoys, denying you supply or maybe even steal the supplies (thanks to maintenance, we already know what supplies go into keeping each ship flying, although presumably shipping it into hostile territory would cost more).
Um. Yeah, a 25x1 planet would be mechanically identical to a 5x5 planet, but that doesn't mean it's the same as just having slots like MOO2. Since you can customize each tile with individual buildings and workers you can't have them just piled up on top of each other like you do in those games.
You have to have individual slots on the planet UI for each potential pop on the planet. (snip)
All this talk. Distant Worlds intensifies.For all the impressive busy-ness that Distant Worlds portrays with ships flying all over, there is remarkably little to actually DO in that game regarding your economy. You make very few meaningful decisions, it just sort of happens. The background system attempts to distribute resources across planets and stations. I remember no way to create any centralized trade hubs or strategic resource holdings where you protect your valuables. I remember no way to set up a massive refueling area and prioritize it to be fully stocked so my fleets don't have to hop around sucking each starbase dry. Granted it's been a while but I spend more time in Stellaris setting up my economy than I ever did in Distant Worlds.
I won't mind if Stellaris evolves into Distant Worlds 2.0 in the long run.
I didn't say that Distant Worlds can't be improved upon.All this talk. Distant Worlds intensifies.For all the impressive busy-ness that Distant Worlds portrays with ships flying all over, there is remarkably little to actually DO in that game regarding your economy. You make very few meaningful decisions, it just sort of happens. The background system attempts to distribute resources across planets and stations. I remember no way to create any centralized trade hubs or strategic resource holdings where you protect your valuables. I remember no way to set up a massive refueling area and prioritize it to be fully stocked so my fleets don't have to hop around sucking each starbase dry. Granted it's been a while but I spend more time in Stellaris setting up my economy than I ever did in Distant Worlds.
I won't mind if Stellaris evolves into Distant Worlds 2.0 in the long run.
Here I'll break down for you how I customize my robot civ's planets in regards to energy.
Certain tiles have bonuses. A 2 power bonus is somewhere I would put a power plant, because it improves the tile I put it on. That's part one of customization.
After that, there are buildings like energy grids (+20%) and the synchronicity building for assimilators (+15%). At that point, those 4-5 bits of energy I properly placed power on are boosted. That's part two.
After that, I place by customized robot population down on the proper tile. For Energy, I have a robot pop that has +10% to energy generation. Since it costs nothing to create a new buildable robot template, this is essentially free energy. That tile now has additional percentage boosts because I took a minute to think about how I could get more out of it. With organic races, I can use genetic manipulation or a multicultural civ to achieve this effect to a lesser degree. Part three.
Then, when I get civ-wide power bonuses, be they from buildings or events, my planned out energy grid gets even more efficient. With these steps I can turn that extra 2-power tile bonus into a fat stack of energy.
If you specialize (dare I say, customize) your planets you can get a lot more out of them. Not to be rude, but frankly it feels like you just don't know how to exploit the current system. It works, it's more engaging and interactive than "click to add more numbers to my list" and has plenty of options per-planet.
Also why would I need to count mines rather than mineral output in planet details? That's like counting how many wallets I have instead of how much cash is inside them.
in any case, nothing you said has anything to do with Tiles versus generic slots. A +energy pop in a generic slot would get the exact same bonuses as a +energy pop in a Tile.Although it's mechanically similar, the feel conveyed is totally different. Not everything about a game can be effectively boiled down to how the numbers work out.
Also, Tile bonuses are actually irrelevant to Tiles, too. You would just give them as a flat bonus to planets, since that's exactly what they are. I mean, was it a deeply engaging choice to put an Energy building on the goddamn +Energy tile?
in any case, nothing you said has anything to do with Tiles versus generic slots. A +energy pop in a generic slot would get the exact same bonuses as a +energy pop in a Tile.Although it's mechanically similar, the feel conveyed is totally different. Not everything about a game can be effectively boiled down to how the numbers work out.
Also, Tile bonuses are actually irrelevant to Tiles, too. You would just give them as a flat bonus to planets, since that's exactly what they are. I mean, was it a deeply engaging choice to put an Energy building on the goddamn +Energy tile?
2) I can decide not to put a building into the bonus slot if I so choose. I can decide to use adjacency buildings like mineral processing to achieve the same effect as energy.
Giving a planet +2 energy that you get regardless of whether you build a building on the right spot does in fact remove options. Placing and clicking provides more visual interaction with the game world. Making decisions adds a level of strategy to the game, and while it might be thin to you or I, it creates a system to learn and master. A slot system that just places pops where they should ideally go removes this as well.
That doesn't even get into things like unique buildings that don't affect Power/Minerals/Research.
3) I don't need to count mines. I need to count minerals. Your reference to counting mines in nonsensical, because number of mines does not equal number of minerals.
Your described slot system is in and of itself intrinsically extraneous, because without tiles there is no reason to have pops. You only need sliders for Power/Minerals/Research as you build buildings. A slot system adds exactly nothing to the game, removes visual engagement, and removes options that do in fact exist whether you find them worthwhile or not.
If the current system is so "boneheadedly simple" then what possible benefit could you find in measurably removing depth from it?
There is a very good mod I was using in the previous version that did just that. It had a ton of different buildings, including ones that had to be built next to specific tile blockers (which then could not be removed). Added a lot more thought to planets - do I keep this tile blocker so I can build this neat building, or do I remove it to put something else there?
Complicates things a bit, but I enjoyed it. I should see if it has been updated for the latest version.
Ah, it's Landscapers! Which is really just a subset of the Alpha mod. I was using it because I didn't want everything the Alpha mod did. Looks like it does have a 1.8 version, though.
I got snarky earlier, I had a bad day. Sorry folks.
I have an thought: What if you played assimilators and then got rid of all your robots and only used the cyborg/assimilated civs? It would be like playing an organic civ that starts with cybernetic. Also, no happiness and machine civics like +20% engineering.
Fun for something different? Completely awful? What are you guys' thoughts.
I declare Casus Belli on Alpha Centauri! (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-93-war-peace-and-claims.1054054/)Tales of your misdeeds are told from Sol to Blorg. This is a formal declaration of WAR. Our armies shall meet on the field of battle. (CK2 still has the best war messages)
Prepare yourselves, filthy Human. The Xor'Quol are now marching to claim our rightful soil on Aurora! Our ships shall shatter your defenses and blot out the light of Sol over Earth! This is a formal declaration of WAR!I declare Casus Belli on Alpha Centauri! (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-93-war-peace-and-claims.1054054/)Tales of your misdeeds are told from Sol to Blorg. This is a formal declaration of WAR. Our armies shall meet on the field of battle. (CK2 still has the best war messages)
I want to make a race of vampires. Basically, dudes that live extraordinarily long lives and farm other sentients for "blood" (food). I don't want to purge them for food, mind, I want slave pops to serve as renewable food sources. Therefore, the gestalt consciousnesses are out. What's the best sort of traits and civics to choose for these vampires? Should I pursue the genetic engineering lines of ascension perks?
Nah, I don't care about Vanilla all that much (but I don't like cheaty mods). Syncretic Plus looks perfect! Thanks.I want to make a race of vampires. Basically, dudes that live extraordinarily long lives and farm other sentients for "blood" (food). I don't want to purge them for food, mind, I want slave pops to serve as renewable food sources. Therefore, the gestalt consciousnesses are out. What's the best sort of traits and civics to choose for these vampires? Should I pursue the genetic engineering lines of ascension perks?
Not sure whether you're intending to play Vanilla or not, but there's a semi-recent mod that might of interest on that front: "Syncretic Plus." Starting with some delicious-trait pops, for example.
I swear that I had turned off Advanced Start AIs. I can only assume that I had missed that, because I just encountered an empire that is, frankly, bullshit. It's massive, encompassing 9 inhabited systems and a ton of other systems. Their fleet capacity and military power are overwhelming, which is to be expected, but their tech is also superior to mine despite being so huge. I'm still in a single system! Sure, I've had no real luck with extra-solar sources of research, but I'm still a single world with a single world's population, and therefore I should be going through techs at least as quickly as them.
To make matter worse, they're Evangelizing Zealots and they prefer the exact same worlds I do. My poor vampires are getting their asses kicked this game.
Not sure I should bother. These Zealots continue to expand, and in fact my fleet and a survey vessel are now completely cut off from friendly space due to encroaching borders + no trespassing policies. Short of declaring war (which would probably be suicide) I can't get my ships back, nor can I reinforce them. I could disband the entire damn fleet (not to mention the survey vessel) but that would be a lot of minerals down the drain compared to what I have available.There's a Return button on the fleet select screen that lets you force it to jump back to the nearest shipyard. If it cannot find a natural path, it'll ask you if you're sure you still want to force the fleet to return. If you confirm, it'll go into "Fleet Missing" mode (the same as if a closed-border power expanded their borders to cover the fleet or if a power closed its borders) and reappears there out of the aether in a few months or years. It looks like an arrow going in a circle from a dot on back to the same dot, but let me rummage up a screenshot quick...
I dunno. If I hadn't gotten the Horizon event so damn early I'd probably have dropped this game by now. There's just too many systems devoid of resources, or with so few resources that they aren't worth the costs involved in building frontier outposts to exploit.
I'm gonna try to do something stupid and deliberately antagonize the Zealots by building an outpost or two close to their borders. Maybe it'll push their border just far enough back that my ships can get home. If not...well, fuck.
how far along are you with the horizon event chain?Well
There's a Return button on the fleet select screen that lets you force it to jump back to the nearest shipyard. If it cannot find a natural path, it'll ask you if you're sure you still want to force the fleet to return. If you confirm, it'll go into "Fleet Missing" mode (the same as if a closed-border power expanded their borders to cover the fleet or if a power closed its borders) and reappears there out of the aether in a few months or years. It looks like an arrow going in a circle from a dot on back to the same dot, but let me rummage up a screenshot quick...Oh snap, I had no idea. Thanks.Spoiler: Ping (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: just in case (click to show/hide)
...what about it?Spoiler: just in case (click to show/hide)
so about that colony...
...what about it?Spoiler: just in case (click to show/hide)
so about that colony...
What an amazing coincidence. I went with a Plantoid blood-sucking race but my livestock species is a race of space penguins named...Sanguins.That's glorious. I don't even care, its not like my blood suckers are good people in the first place.
So, I've been eyeing Stellaris for quite some time. Taking a cursory glance at some of the wiki pages, it certainly sounds like the kind of thing I'd be interested in, but going by the Steam reviews there seems to be some discontent about the game being repetitive. Would you guys suggest I purchase it when the winter sale rolls around, or should I put it off until more updates come out? I love all the other Paradox games I own, and a sci-fi game sounds like a fun change of pace.
Stellaris is a very shallow 4x with a lot of greebles tacked on to give it the illusion of depth. Once you've played through the game once and figure out how it works, you realize how few of the features and options are actually viable and how many are just "for fun" or "for RP" and it loses a lot of it's magic (at least, imo).
I payed $12 for it (humble monthly) and I feel like it was worth that, but I don't feel like it's worth the $30 base price.
Most of the new features in both DLC ... are just "for fun"Fun is kind of the point, though. The problem is that they're not enough to actually be fun.
Sirius, please tell me you used the three pronged beak avian penguin model so its actually the same birds. That would be amazing. And oh my god we both got the event horizon. Maybe my game is a distant prequel to yours. Or... perhaps its the same universe, but things happened differently. What will be... was.I sure did!
I'm very much a for fun kind of guy, to the point that my biggest issue with EUIV is that it feels too much like a game compared to the character-based CKII or simulationist Vicky.
So I definitely think I'll pick it up come the holidays. Any DLC I need? A cursory examination tells me Utopia lets me be the Borg and/or Space Hitler, Leviathans unlocks giant space jellyfish, and the other one is about robots or something. I remember EUIV and Vicky 2 are severely worse without expansions; are any of these DLCs needed for the proper Stellaris experience, or can I get by fine on vanilla?
I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
You can actually finish a Stellaris game in about an hour on the smallest galaxy size, which is nice.I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
You can actually finish a Stellaris game in about an hour on the smallest galaxy size, which is nice.I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
Just adding that it, unlike other games of the genre, does allow for fast games. I am not actually contesting anything you said or really contributing much to the discussion other than letting any potential players reading this know that Stellaris is not necessarily a huge time-sink.sure but what does that have to do with anything?You can actually finish a Stellaris game in about an hour on the smallest galaxy size, which is nice.I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
Stellaris is not necessarily a huge time-sink.But it will be.
You do not have to play for 50 hours to know if you're enjoying a game, regardless of genre. A well designed game keeps you in the fun zone for most of your play time, not just briefly at the very end. If you are playing the game and not having fun for the majority of your time, you probably don't like it and I don't know why you would continue.I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
I'm very much a for fun kind of guy, to the point that my biggest issue with EUIV is that it feels too much like a game compared to the character-based CKII or simulationist Vicky.
So I definitely think I'll pick it up come the holidays. Any DLC I need? A cursory examination tells me Utopia lets me be the Borg and/or Space Hitler, Leviathans unlocks giant space jellyfish, and the other one is about robots or something. I remember EUIV and Vicky 2 are severely worse without expansions; are any of these DLCs needed for the proper Stellaris experience, or can I get by fine on vanilla?
Well no, Utopia doesn't let you be "Borg" - that's Synthetic Dawn. And it's definitely the best one to get.
Utopia doesn't add too many features that aren't in Synthetic Dawn or that aren't actually free at the time of the Utopia patch.
Ascension Perks
Ascension Perks were added in Utopia as the paid component to the Tradition system to create a set of interesting choices for the player to take as they went through the Tradition tree, choosing between simple but powerful bonuses and more elaborate 'unlocks' such as the ascension paths and Megastructures. However, since then we have noticed that this is a system we keep wanting to build on (for example by adding unique Ascension Perks for Machine Empires as we did in Synthetic Dawn), and found the requirement to depend all of this on Utopia too limiting. For this reason, in the Cherryh update, we are going to make the basic Ascension Perks such as Mastery of Nature, Defender of the Galaxy and so on free for everyone. Biological/Psionic/Synthetic Ascension Paths and Megastructure Ascension Perks (including Habitats) will still require Utopia and Machine Empire Ascension Perks will naturally still require Synthetic Dawn (but not Utopia). The core system itself however, will become part of the base game, so everyone will be able to get at least the basic set of Ascension Perks even if they don't own a single piece of DLC.
I disagree with this. Different games are different. I play the Dominions series, and someone recently complained to me that after 22 hours, he didn't feel like he understood how to play. That's an extreme case and I think 50 hours is higher than you're likely to need for Stellaris, but different games take different amounts of time to get into. Depending on the game and your personality, games are often not fun until you understand them. Furthermore, with games that employ a narrative structure (whether that's an actual narrative or simply an implication of narrative like the one commonly built into strategy games via tech advancement) you often have an early buildup to a dramatic payoff. The building may be less enjoyable to you, but is necessary for the sake of the payoff, and you can't say if you've enjoyed the whole without both of those parts. Crossing the streams a bit, in the anime thread, there was a fellow complaining that a particular character was an asshole who never really got his comeuppance - but had watched only part of the series and in the very next episode, that character got his comeuppance. Bringing this back to Stellaris, the early game feels like a build-up to the mid-game, and it's boring but has elements of interest which at least make you think Stellaris could be a fun game once you really get into the swing of things. And then you get to the midgame, and it's still boring and now there are lots interesting things going on but now you've gotten into ascension and might be starting to hear whispers of the crises so it feels like you're building up to the late game. But then you get there and it's not that great either but you've been playing this long so you see it through. And then it's pretty much over so you set the game aside and see that you've spent 50 all day playing it, so you must have really enjoyed it.You do not have to play for 50 hours to know if you're enjoying a game, regardless of genre. A well designed game keeps you in the fun zone for most of your play time, not just briefly at the very end. If you are playing the game and not having fun for the majority of your time, you probably don't like it and I don't know why you would continue.I kinda agree with Cruxador. It's weird. I can't straight up say "I think stellaris is a bad game." Because I've got 71 hours in it.
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
Most of the new features in both DLC ... are just "for fun"Fun is kind of the point, though. The problem is that they're not enough to actually be fun.
Most of the new features in both DLC ... are just "for fun"Fun is kind of the point, though. The problem is that they're not enough to actually be fun.
Yeah, sorry I was not very clear. What I mean is they don't actually add to the gameplay, it's just something you can do because it amuses you or whatever. Like for example, plantoid DLC. Making your race plantoids (instead of humanoid or whatever) does not do anything. It does not help you, it does not hurt you, it does not add new interesting challenges or anything. It's just something you can do if you want.
Most of the additions in the DLCs are the same. Yeah, you can make megastructures, but they don't add anything to the gameplay (except maybe rushing habs but even then probably not) - they come too late and are generally not worth the cost. They don't help you win, they don't help the AI win, they don't add meaningful decisions to the game... it's just another greeble tacked on to make the game look more complex. Ascension perks, a lot of the new race options, etc... it's all the same. It's just something you can do that does not actually make any real difference to the core game.
That's not to say "for fun" stuff is bad, or even never worth buying, just that I feel like they are charging "gameplay DLC" price for what is, essentially, fancy cosmetic DLC.
Also yes - if you play to RP or screw around whatever things might have a different value to you. My perspective is playing the game as a game that I'm trying to win. Maybe that's the "wrong" way to play a paradox game, but that's how I'm valuing it.
I'd disagree with Ascension perks. They do have meaningful gameplay effects and which ones you take (and when) can be an important decision to make depending on what strategy you are playing. They may not be deep decisions, but they are certainly more impactful then megastructures or plantoids.
That sounds like a horrible waste of time if you're -only- playing to win...
When starting Stellaris, I knew way before 50 hours that I was enjoying the game. The mechanics and events came together to tell a story which I found to be entertaining, and I enjoyed many aspects of the simulation. If you have zero enjoyment until 50 hours have passed, you do not like the game or at the very least it is poorly designed and far too heavily weighted on the latter end of the game.You do not have to play for 50 hours to know if you're enjoying a game, regardless of genre. A well designed game keeps you in the fun zone for most of your play time, not just briefly at the very end. If you are playing the game and not having fun for the majority of your time, you probably don't like it and I don't know why you would continue.I disagree with this. Different games are different. I play the Dominions series, and someone recently complained to me that after 22 hours, he didn't feel like he understood how to play. That's an extreme case and I think 50 hours is higher than you're likely to need for Stellaris, but different games take different amounts of time to get into. Depending on the game and your personality, games are often not fun until you understand them. Furthermore, with games that employ a narrative structure (whether that's an actual narrative or simply an implication of narrative like the one commonly built into strategy games via tech advancement) you often have an early buildup to a dramatic payoff. The building may be less enjoyable to you, but is necessary for the sake of the payoff, and you can't say if you've enjoyed the whole without both of those parts. Crossing the streams a bit, in the anime thread, there was a fellow complaining that a particular character was an asshole who never really got his comeuppance - but had watched only part of the series and in the very next episode, that character got his comeuppance. Bringing this back to Stellaris, the early game feels like a build-up to the mid-game, and it's boring but has elements of interest which at least make you think Stellaris could be a fun game once you really get into the swing of things. And then you get to the midgame, and it's still boring and now there are lots interesting things going on but now you've gotten into ascension and might be starting to hear whispers of the crises so it feels like you're building up to the late game. But then you get there and it's not that great either but you've been playing this long so you see it through. And then it's pretty much over so you set the game aside and see that you've spent 50 all day playing it, so you must have really enjoyed it.
IME single planet countries that emerge midgame (through liberation or enlightenment) never amount to anything. So I wouldn't worry about it. The most important thing you could do is have no gaps inside your own borders, that way they can't fuck with you by colonizing/building frontier outposts within your own space.Would frontier outposts be enough for this purpose or would I need to colonize worlds as well to keep them from snagging them?
Looking it up, if they're a protectorate or vassal they won't be able to colonize outside their borders. So you don't even need to clear out gaps.IME single planet countries that emerge midgame (through liberation or enlightenment) never amount to anything. So I wouldn't worry about it. The most important thing you could do is have no gaps inside your own borders, that way they can't fuck with you by colonizing/building frontier outposts within your own space.Would frontier outposts be enough for this purpose or would I need to colonize worlds as well to keep them from snagging them?
I've never really enlightened a species to keep it in permanent vassalhood before. Usually I only do it as a xenophilic species in order to integrate them and broaden the types of worlds I can exploit with my new multi-species empire.
You do not have to play for 50 hours to know if you're enjoying a game
I never understood this sentiment. Some times you need dozens or hundreds of hours - especially in a GSG or a Stellaris-type game - just to finish one game, or to figure out how everything works. It takes that long just to find out how the game works. You're not even qualified to say if Stellaris is a good game or not for probably 50 hours.
I think it's a difference in priority when critiquing something. When I wrote that I wasn't trying to (and I'm still not really) trying to do some real in depth analysis of stellaris and how "good it is" my priority is, was it worth the money I spent, can I recommend it to people? The money for time spent thing is why the hours are important. If a game has a good 50 hours but then gets boring, but it's five bucks, even if after playing 300 hours you could say it's a technically bad game I don't think that'd be fair to it. It would be certainly worth the money spent... Which sorta makes it a good game? Despite the reservations about it? Maybe? That at least seems like a reasonable thought to me. Stellaris I'm not totally sure on that front. I spent 40ish bucks on it and got 71 hours. That's a pretty fair ratio to me. Sure, only about 20 of those hours were really good. And maybe another 20 enjoyable. And the last thirty were a bit sourer, but they were at least worth my time (otherwise I wouldn't have put them in) so can I really say it failed in it's ultimate objective of entertaining me for an amount of time relative to the money I spent on it? From that perspective even if I think it has many many failings can I call it bad? Maybe from a critical stand point if I was trying to be a critic. But I'm not, I'm just thinking about if I could recommend it.
And the last thirty were a bit sourer, but they were at least worth my time (otherwise I wouldn't have put them in)
I think it's a difference in priority when critiquing something.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Is it that a game can be good even if it is not an enjoyable experiencehe's speaking about constant fun specifically. It's expected that a game has its ups and downs, and a game that's fun overall may still have parts you don't enjoy.
I have never met a single person who spent so much as 10 hours doing a thing then retroactively realized they had actually disliked all of it the whole time. I don't think that's how anything works.I don't know anything about your love life, but I can assure you that people can spend much more than a few hours in a situation that they layer realize they hated all along.
It all depends what you class as 'fun' - many people wouldn't say the Dark Souls series is 'fun' in a classical sense, but it's 'fun' in a rewarding sense. Many people judge 4x games on if they give you the 'just one more turn' feeling - if it can keep you doing it for 50 hours that's pretty 'fun' in my opinion.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Is it that a game can be good even if it is not an enjoyable experience, and conversely bad even though you put 300+ hours into it? If so, are you saying that you lack critical thinking skills, and therefore spent 300 hours doing a thing you did not enjoy?
I have never met a single person who spent so much as 10 hours doing a thing then retroactively realized they had actually disliked all of it the whole time. I don't think that's how anything works.
Also, I don't think Stellaris or even dwarf fortress takes hundreds of hours to understand the mechanics. Dozens, yes, but only in a game like dwarf fortress.
Question: is there any point in continuing to play single-planet tall when you have six inhabitable worlds within four hyper jumps of your homworld, along with another world with primitives, and all within a single, defensible cul-de-sac?
Most of the additions in the DLCs are the same. Yeah, you can make megastructures, but they don't add anything to the gameplay (except maybe rushing habs but even then probably not) - they come too late and are generally not worth the cost. They don't help you win, they don't help the AI win, they don't add meaningful decisions to the game...
You literally can't even get to crisis mechanics until 200 in-game years. So you have to know enough about the game to survive that long, and then no matter how well you had been doing, you find out if you had actually been doing "well" relative to the hardest in-game challenge.
Ok, so we are saying that different people have different expectations, and can therefore have fun with different things according to their own expectations?The point isn't oblique just because you are somehow failing to understand it. Considering how everyone else is understanding what each other mean, I suspect the problem is on your end. I don't see any way to be more direct or explicit than what I already gave you.
Like I'm looking over the last few pages are there is a lot of contradictory things being said. It reads like one of those "I have a strong opinion but I'm going to give it as obliquely as possible so when you guess the conclusion I want I can say WOW THAT'S A GOOD POINT, THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT I AGREE TOO" kind of things. And people get banned around here for being deliberately obtuse. So I want to help cut to the point, you see. No sarcasm.
One planet in a nutshell:
Soak your one planet in unity (and eventually synthetics, but I repeat myself), optimize your factions for ease-of-pleasing and max influence, cover the sky with frontier outposts, and exploit the hell out of everything (especially orbital research things) within your borders. There's a bit more to it than that, especially in terms of maximal cheesiness from the order of your fast-earned traditions and ascension perks, and typically shooting for a few specific techs to ramp up the above nonsense even higher. But yeah, it's all a fairly specific plan of attack focusing on working (exploiting?) particular mechanical quirks (flaws?) of the system so you can be at or approaching "done with traditions and well into repeating tech" by the time fallen empires might be waking up.
(And at that point, you can go crazy colonizing since the main disincentives of skyrocketing unity/research costs are somewhere between not-overly-relevant and irrelevant.)
I'm still a bit peeved that I can't play as benign technologists in synthetic dawn, if I want to co-exist I have to be an assimilator, but I want to be Cybertronian damnit.Cybertronians would be ascended synth empires. Machine empires are more like Skynet, all drones in a single AI consciousness.
Yeah I think this is right. I've never done it myself, but from what I understand it's an extremely niche way to play that can often fail depending on galactic layout.
And I think it was mentioned that you were trying this with hyperlanes? I think that probably doesn't work at all. Needs to be warp.
It's true that once you have all the upgraded and extra unity-production buildings (preferably manned by propaganda synths for that sweet, sweet +35% unity bonus) you'll be getting about 30% of the capital's production per additional planet... but you need a lot of research and unity to get there. For most of the early game, additional colonies will be producing significantly less than the 20-25% penalty.
On the side of tech, you forget a lovely Stellaris quirk: you often will be getting far, far less research from your planets than from orbital resources. So with research, being optimal isn't producing more than 10% of the capital's research output per new colony (which is easy) - it's producing more than 10% of the capital's output and 10% of the orbital output (which is typically impossible).
Additionally, you're incurring a 1% penalty to research per empire pop over 10, so while a max-pop capital is getting hit for 6-10% or so, each additional colony incurs 10-25% pop penalty on top of the 10% colony penalty. It's nearly impossible to add 10% of total research per new colony early on and with early tech, and while additional tech makes it easier (but not easy) to hit that, increased pop means you're aiming to hit 20-35% of total research per new colony to stay ahead of penalties. You can get ahead of that with enough tech and width, but it takes a lot of research and time to get to that point.
However, all the empire unique things you pointed out are also things that need to be researched or otherwise gotten latter in the game. Certainly in the early game when your source of unity is a monument and the capital building, another planet doubles your unity within months of touch down. Gene clinics, power grids, pleasure domes, all pretty easy to build on new planets as well. Honestly that 30% is probably about the lowest you'll go, not the highest.
I think this is only hard if you're going all in on influence and making very optimal placements of outposts. Thus the one planet strategy. After all, remember that planets also expand your border, which means even more orbital resources from them, which help a lot at first.
All of which is just to say you're definitely not going to double output in a few months. You'll be lucky to double in a few years.
Not to mention the faster research synergizes with this to get you the high-end buildings and +35% unity synths to work them. You can have the high-end buildings by year 40 or 50, at which point you're not going to exceed even just the penalty from founding another colony for years after landfall.
On the research orbital thing. I'll say that I'm not trying to say you can't get a research lead via one planet and focusing on orbitals. I'm just saying that I think the only thing that keeps this strategy viable is the research station megastructure.
It takes a long time to cap out unity of you go wide first. Starting small, finishing unity quick, and only then expanding is a solid strategy. If you really want to do it fast, you can start as an inward perfection nation, and possibly create a forced-spawn empire of your own species with the ethics you'll eventually want, since that exerts pressure on your pops too. Of course, that has a cost in influence, which reduces your prestige outposts, so it's arguable if it's worth it.On the research orbital thing. I'll say that I'm not trying to say you can't get a research lead via one planet and focusing on orbitals. I'm just saying that I think the only thing that keeps this strategy viable is the research station megastructure.
1000 times this. It's really one of two reasons 1PO works at all (along with the +200 fleet limit perk).
People keep misinterpreting the research penalty as some kind of anti-wide mechanic. It's not. It's just a weak rubber band to slow down snowballing. Wide is almost always better, including for research. Unity is a minor exception, but it's so easy to cap out on Unity anyway, it really doesn't matter.
It takes a long time to cap out unity of you go wide first.
[Adorable high pitched voice]The galaxy awaits the reign of Executor Odnal, and you want negotiations?[/adorable high pitched voice]Yeah, so the adorable starfish aliens? The tiny, tiny piece of space that I didn't cut them off from contained the Sol system. Where humans were engaged in what was heavily implied to be WW2... while meanwhile, they shared Earth with a race of pre-sentient humanoid birds called the Jaazijan. Don't remember that from the history books, but sure.
Soon you will have your very own pet adorable fluffy murderous enclave.
Pretty sure I would have gotten it if I was playing Ironman, but I don't play Ironman in Paradox games.Spoiler: Potential minor missed opportunity (click to show/hide)
I hate the "fat goth with emo hair" alien, and the rest I'm ambivalent about; it adds some variety, which is goodAccording to the devs, there should be around 10 portraits in that pack. Several which we haven't even seen.
And also a new city style and ship set. Of what we see so far, I really like the new ships, I hate the "fat goth with emo hair" alien, and the rest I'm ambivalent about; it adds some variety, which is good, but not enough for me to spend ten bucks on.Emo orc is best orc
I would literally refund the game right now if I hadn't already had a good long time with an earlier version from... a friend. On my desktop.https://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/discussions/0/357285562492342873/#c357286663680612337
You're probably just poking fun because I'm mad, which is cool... I do feel better now, honestly. But I hope you actually realize that this is a really poor, completely unnecessary failure in UI. I honestly expected it to be fixed by now, because I have a lot of faith in Paradox.
I would literally refund the game right now if I hadn't already had a good long time with an earlier version from... a friend. On my desktop.https://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/discussions/0/357285562492342873/#c357286663680612337
You're probably just poking fun because I'm mad, which is cool... I do feel better now, honestly. But I hope you actually realize that this is a really poor, completely unnecessary failure in UI. I honestly expected it to be fixed by now, because I have a lot of faith in Paradox.
and then a couple useful instructions for autoHotKey etc.^
Those people can go to hell, except for the last ones who are very kind but make me want to cry.
Any game should have keybinds for zooming in or out. Provided that zooming in and out is a feature in said game.Thanks, but + and - are the speed controls. And the keypad ones don't work either. Neither do pgup or pagedwn, which would be the painfully obvious choices IMHO
standard is + and -, maybe try just hitting those and seeing if they do something?
So you are blaming the developers, for your own hardware issues?They recognized and addressed laptops in CK2, and here they simply didn't bother. Hotkey nor buttons. That's simply lazy/dismissive.
And then umiman was the Contingency.
How badly did sone of those guys fail to expand?Hmm...
So, some things on sale - is Utopia worth $13.39?
Synthetic Dawn only adds more if you need robits. Otherwise, it's a rather shallow pack. That said, I love it to the extreme, but Utopia adds more to the game overall.
I think robots are overpowered as all fuck.
How are the meatbags supposed to stand a chance?
I've done two campaigns with two different kinds and both have been complete cakewalks.
I mean.
1. Live anywhere with no unrest or happiness penalities ever. Colonize the entire galaxy out of the gate no problem.
2. Only need minerals and energy, meaning maximum efficiency for resources.
3. Leaders are immortal for ridiculous stats.
4. Armies are one of if not the strongest in the game.
How is anyone even supposed to compete with point #1 let alone all of the above? If you don't kill them early while they're expanding across the entire galaxy, you'll never be able to deal with them as they'll out resource you any day of the week due to everyone else needing three resources. Also the fact that they have no happiness penalties also means more resources. Am I missing something? Do they have a weakness I'm not aware of?
I just thought of another few things they can do.
1. They research straight up better than everyone else. Not like, research 10% faster or whatever. They don't even have the research cards for food or colonization stuff come up. So they can skip entire sections of the tech tree and go straight to the good shit.
2. Machine world terraforming makes them straight up 15% better than everyone with no access to machine worlds in the late game.
Leaders are Immortal: However, organic leaders last for a very very long time. You'll only need to swap out leaders once or twice in a organic game, and a lot of positions gain exp really quick later on in the game, meaning they'll max out their levels quickly. Also robot leaders aren't properly immortal, I believe they die to random events.
Criptfeind: Sounds like Robots trade a gigantic early game advantage for a late game penalty compared to Synths. What about the other paths? Do they compare?
About the food thing, it's not that simple because power is super easy to get and not only do they come from planets, but asteroid bases as well. I can tell you power is not a concern as robots. They barely use any. It's minerals that are a huge issue. So every planet starts maxing for minerals and you end up with a gigantic mineral production line. Not to mention for organics you actually have to build food buildings and thus, "waste" the tile space for them. Robots get to optimize it.
I think this problem can easily be tested and resolved in MP.Sounds like a plan. Who's up for The End Of Flesh, Bay12 Multiplayer extravaganza?
By having 5 players as robots and 5 organics, and watching the inevitableslaughter of useless moleculesmass-murder of inferior creationsobliteration of organicsone-sided bloodbath, keyword being blood as the superior being doesn't have itextermination of the worthless meatbagsconflict that would occur.
I'm totally in.I think this problem can easily be tested and resolved in MP.Sounds like a plan. Who's up for The End Of Flesh, Bay12 Multiplayer extravaganza?
By having 5 players as robots and 5 organics, and watching the inevitableslaughter of useless moleculesmass-murder of inferior creationsobliteration of organicsone-sided bloodbath, keyword being blood as the superior being doesn't have itextermination of the worthless meatbagsconflict that would occur.
-snips about aging-Not in my experience, at least - in the one game that I've "completed" (i.e. beat the endgame crisis) I had to change out leaders far more frequently than that, and while I didn't have any life-extending traits I didn't have shortening ones either. Maybe it was because I never really cared about the lifespan boosting techs? But anyway, I certainly had to swap leaders several times.
It's sorta okay but it just mostly makes me sad that you can't individually modify a pop. I mean, late game I'm pretty much done with my sim citing, I'd appreciate the ability to go though and sometimes click some buttons on my planets to get some nice percentage bonuses."Some people believe we're all equal. We've genetically modified those people, now they're objectively inferior. Join the materialist faction today for more wonders of science."
Or you know, Nerve staple the egalitarians.
~Academician Prokhor Zakharov, Retroviral Engineering and you!It's sorta okay but it just mostly makes me sad that you can't individually modify a pop. I mean, late game I'm pretty much done with my sim citing, I'd appreciate the ability to go though and sometimes click some buttons on my planets to get some nice percentage bonuses."Some people believe we're all equal. We've genetically modified those people, now they're objectively inferior. Join the materialist faction today for more wonders of science."
Or you know, Nerve staple the egalitarians.
Well, the new dev diary on doomstacks went up:By themselves I agree, but with hyperlanes and slower movement, and with system stations adding meaningful targets, it could actually work.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-96-doomstacks-and-ship-design.1058152/
Color me skeptical about the mechanics described here. I don't think they're going to add up to anything.
What the fuck is this nonsense balancing mechanic...I am modding it out as soon as it rolls in. That's complete nonsense. They should've added organic pathways for players to conduct asymmetric warfare, like psionic invasion of enemy pops minds, synthetic infiltration of enemy pops & planets, covert agents, assassination, faction support, genetic viruses and one of the most obvious - viable hit and run fleet actions, so a small fleet is more capable of attacking and retreating quickly with little damage sustained in retreat. Punishing an Empire for devoting more of their industry to a larger fleet makes no sense, of course it yields non-linear benefits strategically because that's the bloody point. The Empire in question is taking the risk that they can turn that strategic advantage into a decisive short term gain or else suffer the consequences for not having devoted that material to research instead. With that dumb mechanic there is no downside to focusing on economy over defence, because your defence force will with its technology bonus AND an arbitrary increase to fire rate for having the weaker force, you will outpace your enemy whether in peace or war. That smaller ships can disengage easier also does not help the situation where large ships are useless and there is no reason not to simply spam the first ships you get. Would've thought that perhaps the command limit size would at the very least incentivize a unit of 30 battleships instead of 30 corvettes, but no it scales to ship size not number. The issue was not that a large fleet destroyed a small fleet, the issue was that upon losing your fleet the sheer uselessness of Fortresses meant that all of your planets were occupied before you could amass a challenging fleet.
As we still do not want one ship class to be able to fill every possible role, we have still restricted which computers are available to which classes (for example, Corvettes can choose Swarm or Picket) but there is always at least two choices available for your design.Forcing this nonsense rather detracts from it all. Why can't I create maximum armoured battleships with no weapons that charge into the enemy while my firing line of sniper-destroyers does the real work? Why can I not have a unified fleet doctrine to remain at mid-range for all of my ships providing mutual missile support? Why must there be such limits to everything that only swarmvettes are viable in the end?
Belgium surely didn't get some magical firepower bonus when the Wehrmacht came a-knocking. They got Xeelee-stomped. And the "explanation" for the FDM ... is absolutely laughable. Space doesn't work this way.
Ok, this could work. Force Disparity's kinda "gamey" but there's no good way around it I suppose. A larger force does provide a target rich environment. Ship disengagement is probably the best part of this.Why do you accept this?!! Why not use your imagination D:
That's complete nonsense. They should've [made a better game]The story of Stellaris.
Force disengagement is conceptually reasonable, though, and the other bit, while nonsensical taken on its own, is really just a kludge for their imperfect math. Would it be better to create a logical and organic system where smaller armies still have the potential to inflict non-trivial losses on bigger fleets? Yeah. Do you really trust Paradox to do that successfully though?
Conceptually, perhaps, but this execution is going to look very silly when ships just stop doing anything and hang around being invincible. Why not have the fleet as a whole disengage after a certain percentage of losses, if they don't want individual ships to disengage? That way there could still be some decisive, fleet-ending battles, too.
Viable hit and run fleet actions, so a small fleet is more capable of attacking and retreating quickly with little damage sustained in retreat.
Conceptually, perhaps, but this execution is going to look very silly when ships just stop doing anything and hang around being invincible. Why not have the fleet as a whole disengage after a certain percentage of losses, if they don't want individual ships to disengage? That way there could still be some decisive, fleet-ending battles, too.
I don't see why it'd look silly. Disengaged ships are pretty much hitting emergency FTL early, right? The only reason they don't separate and move off on their own is because of how tedious and micromanage-y that'd be. Also they obviously want individual ships to disengage if they're implementing this.
Larger weapons have had their damage scaling changed so they are more DPS-effective than smaller ones (a medium turret does 2.5x the damage of a small turret for 2x the power cost), but at the cost of low tracking and thus inability to deal with evasive ships.
All empires start with all basic weapons in Cherryh.
I'm puzzled; are you just upset over the aesthetics of it, then? The idea of disengagement is that the individual ship isn't just sitting quietly in the middle of the battlefield; it's gone and retreated. It's just being counted as part of the fleet that's still in combat organizationally precisely to reduce micromanagement and tedium in having to rope dozens of individual ships back together after each battle.Conceptually, perhaps, but this execution is going to look very silly when ships just stop doing anything and hang around being invincible. Why not have the fleet as a whole disengage after a certain percentage of losses, if they don't want individual ships to disengage? That way there could still be some decisive, fleet-ending battles, too.
I don't see why it'd look silly. Disengaged ships are pretty much hitting emergency FTL early, right? The only reason they don't separate and move off on their own is because of how tedious and micromanage-y that'd be. Also they obviously want individual ships to disengage if they're implementing this.
I mean actually disengage (i.e. retreat), not just engage some kind of magic time out that everyone apparently accepts. They don't want individual ships to move off on their own because, yes, it's tedious and micromanagey. I just think it'd look more normal if the entire fleet actually retreated once casualties or damage passed some threshold, rather than the fleet retreating when 100% of the fleet passed an individual threshold and just sat around until the fight was resolved one way or another.
It just seems ridiculous that a ship can escape death by sitting quietly in the middle of the battlefield until everyone else wants to go home too.
The way I'd do it:
Ships disengage individually, warping out when damage exceeds a certain threshold or low morale overcomes the ability of the leading admiral(s) to keep them in the fight.
Those ships are "lost in the warp" but are kept track of.
Only after combat ends one way or the other can the escaped ships re-emerge at the nearest safe port, and they are all bunched together in a single new fleet. This way, there's no weird invincibility and there is also less micro-management than having to suddenly organize a dozen new single-ship fleets together.
Mmm, the problem with a fleet-wide withdrawal is that the entire stated purpose of this feature is to preserve individual ships as well. Repairs take less time than construction, so a key part of the present situation of decisive battle is the annihilation of the enemy fleet which forces them to rebuild losses from the keel up. If you simply pool fleet-wide HP and retreat when it drops below half, that damage tends to be focused on a few ships. The retreat thus means that half the fleet escapes unscathed and half the fleet is annihilated, which doesn't fulfill the design goal; moreover, it can already be done manually in any battle that takes around a month as in the late game. By forcing individual ships to flee, you leave more individual ships intact and spread that 50% damage across more of the fleet. This preserves individual ships as well as the fleet as a whole and maintains the fleet as a force in being, making snowballing off of an early victory a bit more difficult unless you can catch the enemy fleet again in the repair docks.
Plus, I'm not so sure that the ships still appear when they've disengaged. That single lone screenshot we have shows two ships which I assume (without any proof, but I think it's reasonable) are the two ships listed in the status screen, but one of them seems to be flaring up. Depending on *when* they took that screenshot, it might be that disengagement is communicating visually at on the map by ships jumping out using the same method as Emergency FTL, and they simply took the screenshot at the moment this was happening because it was visually distinctive rather than simply taking a shot of one lone ship. Plus, both of the ships are still taking fire when we know from the DD that disengaged ships aren't targeted for fire in the first place, which suggests someone either screwed up big writing the DD (known to occur before) or they intentionally timed that screenshot pretty much right when the ship flipped to "engaged" to "disengaged".
So... Have Emergency FTL damage scale on fleet size, so that smaller ones rarely take damage while larger fleets take tons more? Maybe have delay in returning adjust on fleet size too, so bigger ones take longer to return? And then have Emergency FTL delay/countdown/whatever scale based on comparative fleetsizes/awareness/whatever? So a small fleet fighting a large fleet can bugger out quickly and take little damage, but a large fleet fighting a smaller one cannot. Then you can have small fleets running around, destroying enemy stations, blockading enemy planets and what not, but are countered by enemy fortresses and defence installations. Doomstacks can't destroy the smaller fleets, only drive them back, but can destroy the fortresses and let your raiders wreck havoc on enemy territory.That sounds fun and interesting, but I'd tie it into the force disengagement thing here. That way a smaller player with ships which have better warp drives could send out 5 smaller fleets to attack and destroy the enemy's ship-building stations, and once they're targeted by the enemy's superior fleet they automatically do their best to minimize ship casualties. Instead of having the ship disengagement policy be an Empire-wide thing, have it be a fleet specific setting similar to how EU4 allows fleets to toggle between hunting enemies, intercepting enemies or going to safe ports at war. Only in this case have fleets whose settings are fight to the death, for your main battle fleets which seek decisive battles, and the more sneaky breeki settings where you want your ships to retreat when faced with a superior foe. This would achieve the objective of PI's people to balance out the David vs Goliath scenario organically, allowing the David to win by playing smart and cutting Goliath's jugular. Giving David a +100% strength bonus against Goliath just because he's smaller does not make sense. I just can't get over how they managed to rationalize military doctrines this janky... Oh yes, the larger fleet is not as maneuverable as the smaller one in the endless expanse of the void. It should be simple enough: You get greedy for economic tech, you run the risk of losing to a more powerful foe. You overspend on military, you fall behind in economic tech. Now it's you get greedy for economic tech and anyone else is a fool? y para y
Does that actually sound fun and interesting or am I just talking out of my ass here?
Force disengagement is conceptually reasonable, though, and the other bit, while nonsensical taken on its own, is really just a kludge for their imperfect math. Would it be better to create a logical and organic system where smaller armies still have the potential to inflict non-trivial losses on bigger fleets? Yeah. Do you really trust Paradox to do that successfully though?That and an overhaul of planets to be more than forts. Have each tile of a planet be something that has to be taken, so the capturing of a planet capital or planetary shield would do more for winning the planet than capturing a tile full of a whole lot of nothing. Have planets be able to deploy weapons from the planet at the cost of resources against enemy fleets. And of course, allow small fleets to strike the enemy and disengage without the nonsense of losing 25% of their HP. It's like they're fixing a problem they created on purpose, making it so fleets can't viably retreat and then fixing the problem with artificial buffs :/
brutalThat's complete nonsense. They should've [made a better game]The story of Stellaris.
...in the endless expanse of the void.
...in the endless expanse of the void.
This is a really bad counterpoint, in my opinion. Space may be endless, but the area a battle is waged within is not. Seriously, think about the battles in Stellaris, you have tons of ships snaking around each other in a fairly confined area, and in those situations, the larger fleet has to worry more about losing their own ships to friendly-fire compared to the smaller fleet. That's probably what is being simulated with the bonus.
This is a really bad counterpoint, in my opinion. Space may be endless, but the area a battle is waged within is not. Seriously, think about the battles in Stellaris, you have tons of ships snaking around each other in a fairly confined area, and in those situations, the larger fleet has to worry more about losing their own ships to friendly-fire compared to the smaller fleet. That's probably what is being simulated with the bonus.Thinking about the battles in Stellaris simply adds to greater disappointment. Space is endless and the area a Stellaris battle is waged in is this clusterfuck of corvettes simply because that's how the game is designed, not because it must by this concentrated mess. That the logic has to be fit to Stellaris and Stellaris not fit to logic illustrates my point; it is entirely artificial that this must be the only way because it is how the developers want it to be. Considering how even the densest conglomeration of fighters, corvettes and prethoryn do not at all have a single semblance of collision or friendly fire, it seems odd to justify this arbitrary measure by these grounds. For example, a bunch of swarmvettes assaulting a numerically inferior group of battleships would see the battleships gaining the fire rate bonus, despite the battleships in such a scenario being at the greater risk of shooting each other, with the swarmvettes attacking in between all the battleships. Furthermore if we ran on the assumption that the vast expanse of space could not be used, because Stellaris only runs on 2 dimensions and the scale is terribly small, why then is it that it is not the fleet who has better admirals, better training and better computers which prevents friendly fire, but simply the one which has fewer ships? Is the largest, most experienced, best train and best equipped Navy unable to stop itself from shooting itself to such an extent that it drastically alters the course of battle? Why do the ships even bother with formations if they are apparently so inept?
I have to wonder where people seem to be getting the impression that the bonus means that the smaller fleets will be the ones winning the battles. Far as I can tell, the bonus is going to be scaled depending upon comparative fleet sizes. And taking the example they gave, the fleet that has 50% the strength of the other will be getting only a bonus of half their own strength (not the enemy's strength), meaning they are acting closer to a 75% rather than the original 50%. That's still quite a bit weaker than the enemy fleet, so the smaller would still be likely to lose. It's just now they'd be inflicting some casualties upon the greater force rather than nothing/basically nothing.Why is an inferior force increasing its fighting capabilities the weaker its strategic position is.
The bonus isn't going to make an interior force WIN, it's just there to make the battle slightly less one-sided. His example was of an 80k force attacking a 10k force. Normally this would result in a wipe off the 10k force with a loss of maybe 500 power on the 80k force. With the bonus it might turn out as still a work of the 10k force but a loss of like 2000 power to the 80k force, allowing a smaller interior force to at least inflict some damage as they die to overwhelming numbers.Everyone here understands the intention. The problem is their solution makes no goddamn sense. Why do these ships magically have the ability to shoot faster when outnumbered? If these races were capable of such a feat, why do they not just build all their ships with the maximum rate of fire? It's completely dumb and reeks of "we have no idea what we're doing". Which is not surprising, considering the game.
I'm not too sure why I'm getting so worked up over this. I wrote this game off so long ago and basically just treat it like a curio these days. Meh, let them do whatever.
The bonus isn't going to make an interior force WIN, it's just there to make the battle slightly less one-sided. His example was of an 80k force attacking a 10k force. Normally this would result in a wipe off the 10k force with a loss of maybe 500 power on the 80k force. With the bonus it might turn out as still a work of the 10k force but a loss of like 2000 power to the 80k force, allowing a smaller interior force to at least inflict some damage as they die to overwhelming numbers.How are you getting the impression that I believe or even care about who wins the battles? You yourself have identified the issue. An inferior force fighting an overwhelmingly superior foe does not inflict significant casualties upon it. This was not a problem that needed fixing. It is the very principle which I have been attacking. As an aside, the way fleet power is calculated weighting effective health * DPS will simply increase the problems the game already faces regarding the sheer counter-productiveness of large ships. Hence why 50k of corvettes fighting 100k of battleships is already superior, but will now be firing all of their weapons 50% faster despite being more durable, accurate and having more DPS.
I think this can be cool as long as the advantage is slight. 800 vs 700 should still usually go to the 800, just not as inexpensively. So mid-war production is more relevant, instead of just the size of your standing doomstack. And there's a mechanical reason to split your forces (which is particularly necessary with the Hyperlane-only change, which makes doomstacks even more efficient).Indeed. Regarding this half of the dev diary, I think it'll be best to wait and actually see how it balances out. It does feel to me a bit like a bit of a kludge where they're taking a wrench to a nail, but I'm not about to panic completely. The sole datum we have on it right now also does not take internal balancing into account yet, which will be continuing for the next couple months, and it only tells us that maybe, if you're outnumbered by a factor of 100, you might be able to be twice as effective as you would ordinarily be. To wit, the screenshot says that a single ship with 0.1k fleet power against a 13.9k fleet power gets a bonus of 97% from fleet disparity combat bonus, making it an effective 0.2k fleet against a 13.9k fleet.
Realism-wise I'm suspending my disbelief. The ships already engage in sea-formations, and the smallest are the size of Pluto.
It's not like Space Napoleon is going to win the battle with half as much fleet power... Well, I hope :P
Now let's say the identical matchup happens again, but it's 700 corvettes fighting 800 corvettes in the standard game. For every 2100 shots the first side give, the enemy sends 2400. It is clear the first side will lose. They should have picked a more favourable battle.
Now let's say the identical matchup happens, but it's now 700 corvettes advancing upon 800 corvettes, but the 700 is split into two armies. One is made up of 400 corvettes, the other is made up of 300 corvettes. The larger force attacks the 400 corvettes, seizing the opportunity presented! Oh wait nope, they committed a great error by attacking the divided enemy. The outnumbered enemy are now super 1337 hax0r who fire good because they are outnumbered. The smaller force is now firing 1800 shots for the enemy's 2400, despite being outnumbered 2 to 1. If the 300 arrive and receive no outnumbered bonus they'll be adding 900 shots per whatever the enemy has left, and 1350 if they're outnumbered by twice as many. Thus the outnumbered fleet is now delivering anywhere between 2700-3150 shots for the enemy's 2400 despite having done anything to warrant such superior damage output.
Because otherwise how would you cheese the system by engaging with one corvette and then immediately reinforcing with a 103k fleetpower doomstack to make them all fire at doublespeed?Now let's say the identical matchup happens again, but it's 700 corvettes fighting 800 corvettes in the standard game. For every 2100 shots the first side give, the enemy sends 2400. It is clear the first side will lose. They should have picked a more favourable battle.
Now let's say the identical matchup happens, but it's now 700 corvettes advancing upon 800 corvettes, but the 700 is split into two armies. One is made up of 400 corvettes, the other is made up of 300 corvettes. The larger force attacks the 400 corvettes, seizing the opportunity presented! Oh wait nope, they committed a great error by attacking the divided enemy. The outnumbered enemy are now super 1337 hax0r who fire good because they are outnumbered. The smaller force is now firing 1800 shots for the enemy's 2400, despite being outnumbered 2 to 1. If the 300 arrive and receive no outnumbered bonus they'll be adding 900 shots per whatever the enemy has left, and 1350 if they're outnumbered by twice as many. Thus the outnumbered fleet is now delivering anywhere between 2700-3150 shots for the enemy's 2400 despite having done anything to warrant such superior damage output.
Why would the original keep the outnumbered bonus as it was before reinforcements arrived and not update to one more befitting the new situation?
Why would the original keep the outnumbered bonus as it was before reinforcements arrived and not update to one more befitting the new situation?It won't, the reinforcements will arrive either as reinforcements + original remnants < 55% enemy fleet size, or else as the enemy is so weakened that the reinforcements alone are enough to finish the enemy off
Also, don't quote the old, fat, drunk, winston churchill on military tactics, he was a politician first and military commander second.Space Comrade Churchill is not the same as Earth Churchill.
I believe the concern isn't that they've made most of the content free, but that they still charge the same price for the DLC, and are still selling it in the first place.They're using the money to do *all* of the content, though. They're paywalling *some* of it, but in paying for the *some* content that is locked, you've effectively paid for all of it. In the sense that they wouldn't be able to, economically, pay the programmers and designers and workforce necessary to make ALL the content, paid or free.
Speaking of that Stellaris multiplayer, wasn't started tonight, but we did create a pack of mods to use here (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1218365396), and Quake set up a 'when is good?' thing here (http://whenisgood.net/cx92zks/) for people to input when they are available (results here (http://whenisgood.net/cx92zks/results/yefhnyb).) Put up when you are good if you want to join the game if you are wanting to.That's a lot of mods.
Speaking of that Stellaris multiplayer, wasn't started tonight, but we did create a pack of mods to use here (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1218365396), and Quake set up a 'when is good?' thing here (http://whenisgood.net/cx92zks/) for people to input when they are available (results here (http://whenisgood.net/cx92zks/results/yefhnyb).) Put up when you are good if you want to join the game if you are wanting to.That's a lot of mods.
I'd like to play, but unfortunately those times are almost entirely not-working for me -_-;
I'd also be happy to play, but not really with those mods.
Just seems a ramshackle assortment. Some are people's homebrew attempts to fix things that aren't broken.
I've tried the religion mod for example, and it was buggy at the best of times. It forced odd conflicts.
And then what is with all the stargate stuff?
I'm not trying to get you to remove anything, just explaining generally why I said what I did. You're free to use whatever mods you wish, sorry if I came across otherwise.
So I haven't touched Stellaris since launch and with the sale happening, now might be a good time to buy DLC. Question is, is the game considered 'good' at this point? I was never happy with the sector AI.Sector AI works now. I still think it's pretty bare bones though robots are fun.
So not worth the money if you don't like robots?
Synthetic dawn might have more content in it in some absolute sense (maybe?), but I'd like to put in a dissenting voice in, if you don't want to play as a robot empire I'm not sure there's really much in there for you. An extra crisis and reworked AI rebellion mechanics are both good, but they're compared to a whole game relatively rare and smallish in scope? The ascension perks from utopia are a large and important part of every game. Although it's true that they'll become worth less soon when the base perks are folded into the game for free with the next big update. Still, building megastructures (which I think won't be free?) (although not without their issues) are something I find quite satisfying to do, and I end up making a lot every game. (and some mods add more and cool megastructures, which is nice) and the ascension paths (also not going to be free I think?) are also a fairly satisfying thing to do at least the first time.
Edit: Criptfiend, WTF are you feeding those guys? IME lifespan is *max* lifespan not average. I can be up to the repeatable lifespan tech and still have deaths at 75, sometimes earlier. Are you running the one planet strat and researching a new lifespan tech every 5 years?
you guys know theres a tooltip on the age that tells you yearly death percentage chance rightYou mean like the one shown in Criptfeind's screenshot? Yeah we know.
you guys know theres a tooltip on the age that tells you yearly death percentage chance rightYou mean like the one shown in Criptfeind's screenshot? Yeah we know.
And no I did not know that Gravitas.
My bad. Keep pointing out the obvious for the people who aren't paying attention. :)you guys know theres a tooltip on the age that tells you yearly death percentage chance rightYou mean like the one shown in Criptfeind's screenshot? Yeah we know.
try again, jackassAnd no I did not know that Gravitas.
The more I think about it, the more I realize robots are probably the only time I've had fun in this game.
I get a feeling that every other time I played it was more an expectation to have fun, but never really having any. But when I was playing robots I had moments of jubilation when I started turning organics into matrix batteries. I enjoyed all the custom text and responses that robots have. I enjoyed not having to micro stupid little factions that don't do anything other than be annoying. It was fun just being able to become gigantic with no artificial barriers or bullshit nonsense mechanics holding me back.
In a way the game was made simpler, but it was more fun for me. Because a lot of superfluous things that Stellaris has were cut out and I completely forgot they existed. I didn't have to care about populations, ethics, drift, migration, or even diplomacy. I didn't have to care about the limitations of the game in trying to play a role the game can't handle other than expand and conquer the map... because that's basically what robots want to do anyway.
It makes me wonder if I should play CK2 with some kind of feature cut. Just remove everything and keep the essence. Maybe it'd be way more fun.
Let me rephrase my question: is Stellaris at this point worth playing to such an extent that buying the gameplay DLC is worth it?Nah. Maybe the next patch, since it seems big.
I just came here to say that this game is stealing my time and ruining my life, thanks for listening. Now I will ruin someone else's life
I find it funny how everyone gravitates to the swarms/purifiers/robits because they're the ones that place the least faith in the AI being useful to the player outside of kitchen meat or biobatteriescurrently somewhat new to the game, but I have to say that being unable to perform diplomacy with organics is NOT increasing my survival rates
Yeah, I find that while I use the *tactics* of conquering all my enemies and converting them into biobatteries, it helps to be able to talk to all the other organics and trade energy for minerals to build even larger deathfleets. I find the 'bonuses' from being a berserker race don't nearly match what you lose.I find it more valuable as long as you can eliminate the enclaves, denying their use to everyone. Then you sit tight and build ringworld after ringworld, swarming the world with your fleets. It's great fun
I don't know what the hell's happened here. Either in the month I spent not playing Stellaris I became a drooling imbecile, or the AI's suddenly getting masses of cheats.
I am constantly being declared war on. Doesn't matter that my tech's the same as theirs, doesn't matter that they're smaller, they routinely hand my arse to me because they SOMEHOW manage to get a fleet double the size of mine without going over their fleet cap (At least I assume they don't given they apparently have an actually functional economy).
Well, exception was the last war I was in. That one was lost because two guys DoWed me, and my allies thought the best thing to do was send their fleet all over the damn place trying to join up (for some reason, rather than send the individual ships to the fleet, they thought the best idea was to send the fleet to the individual ships) so that it was basically me vs. two similarly sized empires. Until the very end, where my fleet got annihilated, THEN they went "HEY GUYS! WE'RE HERE TO HELP!" and got annihilated because, as it turns out, sending in two fleet separately means that both get shredded.
Also, the AI seems to have literally limitless mineral reserves. If I manage to annihilate their fleet (usually by trapping it somewhere next to a space station and defence station) they get another whole fleet within months. It's just plain ludicrous.
And I'm in ironman, so I can't exactly cheat myself into getting a larger fleet or forcing them to accept, or even cheat myself into playing them so I can see what the fuck's going on. There's no way to do so.
Tempted to do a not-ironman game and do the latter just to see how it is they're doing this.
So, there's been a new Dev Diary (Link (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-99-ground-combat-army-rework.1061707/)). Thoughts?I mean, they're not bad changes, but it's a bit like polishing a turd. I was hoping for a much larger overhaul of the ground combat system. The fact that they went less complicated and cut features instead of seeing the features through to their fullest conclusion is disappointing but sadly consistent with the general thrust of Stellaris development.
Also, the game is on sale, at a percentage that buying the base game (not either of the special editions), Leviathans Story Pack, Utopia, and Synthetic Dawn is about $5 above the base price for the game.
Not bad, overall. I agree with all of the changes, really - attachments were a stupid mechanic anyway and clunky to implement. It gives players an incentive to build more then 20-40 ground units total at any given time, given you might realistically see losses. I'm less enthusiastic about Fortress slots. I wish they got their own row rather then taking up productive space on the planet. I think on any planet smaller then ~15, I wouldn't even bother building a Fortress.I probably won't build them anywhere outside of key frontier choke points where you can place those fancy planetary FTL inhibitors, and that only as a definite maybe. Then again, I already don't build any defense armies unless they're on unrest-heavy worlds and those don't cost tiles. That's how little ground combat matters right now. It's sort of the opposite of the old joke about two Soviet tankers in Paris: two fleet admirals meet over the Contingency homeworld. One says to the other, who won the ground war?
One major oversight I see is that they're removing defensive armies so you need to build fortresses... except you can just station a bunch of offensive armies on the planet for the same effect.Not bad, overall. I agree with all of the changes, really - attachments were a stupid mechanic anyway and clunky to implement. It gives players an incentive to build more then 20-40 ground units total at any given time, given you might realistically see losses. I'm less enthusiastic about Fortress slots. I wish they got their own row rather then taking up productive space on the planet. I think on any planet smaller then ~15, I wouldn't even bother building a Fortress.I probably won't build them anywhere outside of key frontier choke points where you can place those fancy planetary FTL inhibitors, and that only as a definite maybe. Then again, I already don't build any defense armies unless they're on unrest-heavy worlds and those don't cost tiles. That's how little ground combat matters right now. It's sort of the opposite of the old joke about two Soviet tankers in Paris: two fleet admirals meet over the Contingency homeworld. One says to the other, who won the ground war?
One major oversight I see is that they're removing defensive armies so you need to build fortresses... except you can just station a bunch of offensive armies on the planet for the same effect.
I kinda like the idea of fortress worlds with planetary ftl inhibitors and tons of fortresses, just make it freaking impossible to take, actually slow down enemy fleets and stuff. Although at this point I'm kinda rooting for the changes to fail to produce a satisfactory result because I think Wiz is way too smug about them.Even if they don't work, he'll act like they did.
So, there's been a new Dev Diary (Link (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-99-ground-combat-army-rework.1061707/)). Thoughts?I mean, they're not bad changes, but it's a bit like polishing a turd. I was hoping for a much larger overhaul of the ground combat system. The fact that they went less complicated and cut features instead of seeing the features through to their fullest conclusion is disappointing but sadly consistent with the general thrust of Stellaris development.
Also, the game is on sale, at a percentage that buying the base game (not either of the special editions), Leviathans Story Pack, Utopia, and Synthetic Dawn is about $5 above the base price for the game.
Although at this point I'm kinda rooting for the changes to fail to produce a satisfactory result because I think Wiz is way too smug about them.
I probably won't build them anywhere outside of key frontier choke points where you can place those fancy planetary FTL inhibitors, and that only as a definite maybe.
One major oversight I see is that they're removing defensive armies so you need to build fortresses... except you can just station a bunch of offensive armies on the planet for the same effect.
Offensive armies don't reduce unrest and are vulnerable to orbitable bombardment so it's really not the same. More of a stop-gap solution than a proper one.
While I agree with pretty much all of the changes, I also agree with Culise. Who cares who wins the ground war? As long as you have space superiority you can pretty much bombard planets to dust at will. Heck. With the new war weariness and warscore system I wouldn't be surprised if you could win some smaller conflicts simply by grinding the enemy's fleets down and blockading their planets.
One major oversight I see is that they're removing defensive armies so you need to build fortresses... except you can just station a bunch of offensive armies on the planet for the same effect.
The game has been out - not in development or early access, but actually out - for more than a year and a half. If they've taken this long to address a system that's clearly inadequate, they might as well take the time to do it right instead of replacing a system fit only to be a stopgap placeholder with an incrementally improved stopgap placeholder.So, there's been a new Dev Diary (Link (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-99-ground-combat-army-rework.1061707/)). Thoughts?I mean, they're not bad changes, but it's a bit like polishing a turd. I was hoping for a much larger overhaul of the ground combat system. The fact that they went less complicated and cut features instead of seeing the features through to their fullest conclusion is disappointing but sadly consistent with the general thrust of Stellaris development.
Also, the game is on sale, at a percentage that buying the base game (not either of the special editions), Leviathans Story Pack, Utopia, and Synthetic Dawn is about $5 above the base price for the game.
They are already overhauling a ton of stuff, and your reaction is 'they aren't doing enough'? They kinda have to get an update out at some point.
As for cutting features, they kinda seem to be streamlining to have a better ability to expand the game.Repeating something but with added buzzwords isn't really a meaningful thing to do.
Just look at how much was opened up by just limiting things to hyperlanes.Are you sure you shouldn't look yourself, instead of being told? Wiz has reasons, yes, but they break down if you examine them while thinking critically and considering what has been done well in other games. There's more justification there than just pulling a feature because he decided it wasn't worth building new UI for a mechanic that very clearly needs help anyway, but it's still pretty damn questionable whether it's a good decision.
And looking at the other reactions, was there really a point to keeping the old army system as it stood? Hell, this one could potentially be expanded to a greater degree of customization with the potential addition of different fortress paths to provide defensive armies with different focuses, with one type going for quantity provided, another for boosting damage, another for boosting health, and those latter two could be split into specializing in different ways (ie. one expands morale more than health which can be useful for fighting off psi empires) while being a hell of a lot more condensed than it would be on an army screen.Please feel free to explain how these are mutually exclusive with attachments, particularly on assault armies.
It is stated in the Dev diary that there will be multiple tiers of fortress. If each increases the amount of unity, then why would you not build them instead of autochation monuments? Granted, if you are playing Spiritualist it is slightly more of a tradeoff, but still.It's also stated that they give a small amount. That being the case, why would you prefer them over dedicated unity buildings if you don't need the defense?
Assault Army Management
A major aim of our changes to armies is to reduce the amount of unnecessary micromanagement of armies. For this reason, and to make Assault Armies' role more explicit, we have decided to change Assault Armies to always be based in space. Whenever not directly engaged in an invasion, Assault Armies will now always automatically embark onto their transports, ready to be used to invade another world.
They changed that shortly after the Dev Diary but didn't change the content. Here's where a Dev mentioned it on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/948157558874927104) So you can garrison with offensive armies. Just not very effectively.
So, there's been a new Dev Diary (Link (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-99-ground-combat-army-rework.1061707/)). Thoughts?I don't like splitting armies from being able to garrison land. Collateral damage is moist, and I approve wholly, I just don't think it goes nearly far enough but I can fix that with modding (I remember suggesting a long while back how cool it would be for psionics to win with barely any collateral damage, while xenomorphs consumed everyone). Armageddon bombing finally does what it says on the tin, I have no idea why the hell they got rid of full bombardment or locked indiscriminate to >5. I find it par the course that instead of simply having army equipment templates they cut out additions altogether. The issue remains that defending a planet is altogether impossible and pointless once the war in the void is lost, I was really hoping that armies would instead have to fight tile to tile, and some planet terrains would actually affect how the campaign unfolded. There isn't really any reason why you'd want to build more Fortresses for non-rp reasons rather than build more industry to construct more ships. Oh wait lol, you get penalized for outnumbering the enemy, nvm. Build more tech instead.
Also, the game is on sale, at a percentage that buying the base game (not either of the special editions), Leviathans Story Pack, Utopia, and Synthetic Dawn is about $5 above the base price for the game.
Oh that's cool again. Also hak hak hakThey changed that shortly after the Dev Diary but didn't change the content. Here's where a Dev mentioned it on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/948157558874927104) So you can garrison with offensive armies. Just not very effectively.Again. They've changed that since the Dev Diary. You can garrison assault armies on planets once again. They won't be the best as garrison forces but at least you can stuff as many as you want on a planet for safe keeping or whatever.
They are already overhauling a ton of stuff, and your reaction is 'they aren't doing enough'? They kinda have to get an update out at some point.The game has been out - not in development or early access, but actually out - for more than a year and a half. If they've taken this long to address a system that's clearly inadequate, they might as well take the time to do it right instead of replacing a system fit only to be a stopgap placeholder with an incrementally improved stopgap placeholder.
QuoteJust look at how much was opened up by just limiting things to hyperlanes.Are you sure you shouldn't look yourself, instead of being told? Wiz has reasons, yes, but they break down if you examine them while thinking critically and considering what has been done well in other games. There's more justification there than just pulling a feature because he decided it wasn't worth building new UI for a mechanic that very clearly needs help anyway, but it's still pretty damn questionable whether it's a good decision.
QuoteAnd looking at the other reactions, was there really a point to keeping the old army system as it stood? Hell, this one could potentially be expanded to a greater degree of customization with the potential addition of different fortress paths to provide defensive armies with different focuses, with one type going for quantity provided, another for boosting damage, another for boosting health, and those latter two could be split into specializing in different ways (ie. one expands morale more than health which can be useful for fighting off psi empires) while being a hell of a lot more condensed than it would be on an army screen.Please feel free to explain how these are mutually exclusive with attachments, particularly on assault armies.
QuoteIt is stated in the Dev diary that there will be multiple tiers of fortress. If each increases the amount of unity, then why would you not build them instead of autochation monuments? Granted, if you are playing Spiritualist it is slightly more of a tradeoff, but still.It's also stated that they give a small amount. That being the case, why would you prefer them over dedicated unity buildings if you don't need the defense?
Collateral damage is moist, and I approve wholly, I just don't think it goes nearly far enough but I can fix that with modding (I remember suggesting a long while back how cool it would be for psionics to win with barely any collateral damage, while xenomorphs consumed everyone).
Armageddon bombing finally does what it says on the tin, I have no idea why the hell they got rid of full bombardment or locked indiscriminate to >5.
The issue remains that defending a planet is altogether impossible and pointless once the war in the void is lost, I was really hoping that armies would instead have to fight tile to tile, and some planet terrains would actually affect how the campaign unfolded. There isn't really any reason why you'd want to build more Fortresses for non-rp reasons rather than build more industry to construct more ships. Oh wait lol, you get penalized for outnumbering the enemy, nvm. Build more tech instead.
Can't remember, is outnumbered based on ship count physical, fleet power, or fleet cap?
This is a side note, but I don't think any creative endeavor is really finished in a sense different from the creators ceasing to work on it further. Additional refinement is always possible, and so "done" is an arbitrary thing. None of this has any real bearing on what I actually said, though. The specific time and classification are merely ways to illustrate the core of the issue: Given that it's been broken for a long time, we can wait a bit longer to get a proper fix/enhancement instead of an incremental improvement.They are already overhauling a ton of stuff, and your reaction is 'they aren't doing enough'? They kinda have to get an update out at some point.The game has been out - not in development or early access, but actually out - for more than a year and a half. If they've taken this long to address a system that's clearly inadequate, they might as well take the time to do it right instead of replacing a system fit only to be a stopgap placeholder with an incrementally improved stopgap placeholder.
Games are so often under a continuous development state and the definitions of early access and released are so stretched at this point that I'm of the opinion games are not finished anymore, there's just a point where the developers stop working on it. As such, your argument here really doesn't work on me.
If it doesn't give you an equal amount of unity, then its a tradeoff based on whether you want defense or more unity. I don't see any problem with that.I don't either, but if you don't then what was the point of your response to Culise on this matter in the first place?
As for how limited it is, I think they initially want to see how things go with this baseline change before they really go nuts with it. I personally await planetside defenses that cause attrition to enemy ships in orbit so long as they have a population on them.inb4 planetside dlc
From what I can tell, full doesn't prevent the destruction of all the buildings, it just prevents the destruction of the last five populations. Basically consider the difference as being that Armageddon seeks to kill everyone while Indiscriminate misses some people as it focuses on the buildings.There is no full bombardment. They're getting rid of it.
Get enough defensive armies on a planet with an FTL inhibitor, you could lock down an enemy fleet in one system for months to years.If it's capable of holding back a clever AI or just prethoryn levels of offensive army spam for years, or decades, that's be pretty moisturizing. If it's just a speedbump for a few months it's really not worth it, the fleet blowing up your planet is just going to move onto your next planet full of dudes. I think this will definitely be something that will be fun to mod to extremes, like having 40k tier bullshit Fortress worlds that can take in waves and waves of prethoryn for centuries.
And FFS, the bonus to outnumbered isn't enough to win battles, all it does is get the smaller side able to get a little bit more damage in than before and would help out an empire that gets screwed by the RNG to be able to do something against a larger force.m8 you do see how it's an inherently stupid idea right?
Why is an inferior force increasing its fighting capabilities the weaker its strategic position is.tl;dr cost-effective battles win wars
There is no logic behind the weaker force fighting the far larger force in a conventional battle and inflicting such disproportionate casualties, the chance of them winning should not even be "likely to lose," it should be "almost certainly going to lose." I can't think of any strategy game that rewarded you for fighting on your opponent's strengths in this manner. For a grand strategy game it's even more puzzling, because the game is not about the fine managing of units, it's about amassing the resources and making the decisions which make the chances of victory certain before you've even declared war.
Right now militarily weaker states can use federations & defensive pacts to stall greater powers until such time as their economic and technological might overpowers them. But they possess no other means of fighting asymmetrical warfare short of funding a rival's enemies. This is a major weakness of the game, and I think the fact that the developers removed the ability to transfer planets because players were making locust pops is evidence enough that the devs are not only disinterested in adding asymmetrical avenues for undermining rivals, but is actively opposed to it for whatever reasons they keep to themselves. Thus in order to "solve" the problem that a militarily overwhelming foe annihilates its opponents in conventional battles, these measures have been introduced.
Thus I can play a pacifist nation that abhors violence and does not train its admirals or fleet, my tradition points spent on harmony, prosperity and discovery. My technology and economy is superior to my militiarist neighbour who spends much more on defence and devotes more of their planet to industry than me. If they do not challenge me militarily, I will assuredly become superior to them with the passing of time, as my technological and economic advantage increases exponentially. They double their fleet to twice the size of mine, putting an immense strain further upon their state, planning to invade me and thus reduce my advantage to their gain.
They declare war.
They have twice the ships I do, their admirals are more skilled, their people are geared towards war in tradition, having completed the supremacy traditions and naval exercise training. This is not their first war either, so they possess many veterans. My admirals have never seen battle before, my people hate the very idea of violence, their one advantage is they will fight harder to defend their homelands. I do no clever strategy, no devious trick. I do not conceal my ships in a great galactic ambush, I do not call in allies, I do not deploy devious weapons or politics, subversion or fast-raids. I attack this overwhelmingly superior foe head on in a conventional battle. Every one of my ships fights with superior skill and strategy, exacting a terrible toll upon the enemy. My species have no idea what they're doing but for reasons unknown they are superior to even the most elite enemy veterans. We are evenly matched, but I am far more capable of replacing my losses, with better industry, with more and more technologically advanced ships. I will win this war despite having made no preparations for it.
It breaks the game's verisimilitude for me. I do not see a mechanic which is logical or in accordance with any reality, I just see a mechanic the devs put in because they don't like large fleets causing decisive battles in space and couldn't think of anything better.
Consider that a fanatic militiarist government is one that is built around war first and foremost, whose peoples prepare for war in peace and look forward to it as an inevitable tradition of their species that must be continued. They get +20% to fire rate to represent their skill and experience at war. Consider that the fanatic purifier government represents the utmost extreme of a martial society, a peoples whose purpose in life is foremost war and extermination of all other life. Their dedication to this extreme militiarism renders them incapable of forming any diplomatic ties, but each of their ships gets +53% to fire rate.
An enemy whose peoples are not at all trained at war but are outnumbered 2 to 1 will find their ships fighting just as well as the enemy which spends entire generations of lives practicing at nothing but war. Not because they made any strategic decision, or had superior leadership, or the proper preparations. They are outnumbered therefore they fight as good as the best-trained elite navies in the galaxy.
Now imagine a fanatic purifier government is being invaded by a federation which has banded together to stop their extermination wars. Unfortunately they overwhelmingly outnumber the fanatical purifiers, so now if they fight a conventional battle their enemy will have a +103% fire rate. Thus to band together and have one fleet lead all allied fleets would be to make an incredibly poor life choice, despite all logic pointing to the contrary.
I feel like the game could heavily benefit from some procedurally generated events.Needs:
You should add more tech divergence to that list.What kind of tech divergence? Also thinking on it further:
You should add more tech divergence to that list.What kind of tech divergence?
Anyone here play the new horizons star trek mod?
I've been playing a federation game on the full map for 4 days, and it's only 2271. The slowdown from the early game is very noticeable, but so far I don't really mind.I never actually managed to reach a crisis due to the slowdown, but I just rummaged around through the files a bit. It looks like the only crises that would be considered like that are the Mirror Universe and Undine/Species whatever at present, but the latter relies on the Borg existing to stir them up. If we wanted to talk crises for the smaller maps, the Borg and Dominion would make obvious and great options, but I think they tend to focus on the full galaxy map where those empires are already available for regular play.
There's the smaller whole galaxy scenario, which I haven't tried yet, and there's an alpha/beta quadrant scenario (I don't know if that leaves out the Borg or if they show up via events), too, and those should have better performance.
The random tech tree in SotS is really cool at first but it eventually became (for me at least) like "Oh. I failed a 90% roll to break into this part of the tech tree. I guess I won't have this option and I'll just be weaker for the rest of the game."Different techs for different empires would be neat if it wasn't (100% at least) random. But right now the game is simplistic enough that I'm not really sure how that could work; It's not like there's a real diplomatic game, espionage, or (civilian) economy. It's mostly ship techs, government techs, and building techs.
I think it'd be a pretty cool option though, to at least have it as an option. Especially if the game had a lot more depth then it currently does, with multiple paths to develop your nation and such so you could have meaningful different tech paths and weighting of certain techs.
Small vs large combat is one thing the 2.0 rules changes are supposed to help with. You won't be able to win against overwhelming odds but might be able to force a peace by driving up their war weariness
I mean, I was pretty outnumbered. Like... with alliances... probably 16k vs 7k in fleet strength and ~70 to ~10 in armies.Under the new rules, he'd have had to battle through your fortified systems as well and every loss would cause his war weariness to rise. At some point it will be better for him to accept a status quo peace where he keeps what he managed to take and you truce out
I mean, I was pretty outnumbered. Like... with alliances... probably 16k vs 7k in fleet strength and ~70 to ~10 in armies.
Alas, if only I had 7k mustered at the start of the war and any fortified systems in which to bleed his fleet.That's alright; under the existing game rules, you couldn't put together enough of a fortified system to bleed an enemy fleet outside of (a) the very early game and/or (b) mods. Except for first-war strategies at the point in the game where a dozen corvettes comprise your entire fleet, fortifications are the victim of a positively Pattonian outlook: they don't scale to fleet power well, they cannot be concentrated in sufficient force, and non-hyperlane empires can typically trivially bypass them. The only real thing you can manage is the strategy that Paul suggested and you already tried.
What the fuck is up with this game now?
The AI seems to have the ability to summon ships from the aether. I ANNIHILATED their fleets, went to their planet.
Within a month, they had a fleet about 2/3 the size of mine attacking mine. Then they had a fleet making up the other 1/3. Then ANOTHER fleet making up ANOTHER 1/3. Then that last fleet went from 1.8k strength to 3k strength for NO REASON! (And note, it did this in the middle of the battle. It wasn't two fleets merging, as they were all still present (all the fleets appeared in rapid succession))
How do I win against this? It seems fucking impossible! I can't compete with an AI that seems to be pulling in 400 minerals a month when I'm pulling in 100, and is able to build a fleet containing loads of corvettes, destroyers, and cruisers within 2 months time!
EDIT Oh yeah, and add on top of that the fact that the AI REFUSES to make defensive pacts with me. There were two empires I was hoping for one with. Got an NAP with one of them, the other, in spite of loving me, had no interest in anything (up until the war started, and ofc by that point it's too late to fucking get a pact isn't it?). NAP one was consistently unwilling to get a pact with me, in spite of the fact I was more powerful than them, they had a +10 from hegemonic imperialists, we had 75 trust... They just did NOT want one.
That makes so much sense oh my god. Whenever I play a militaristic race I try to compete militarily early on. Under the assumption that if I can't grow via conquest in the short term, the economic and diplomatic nations will grow faster than I do. So I inevitably get crushed. When play peaceful races I expand only when its clear I'm going to win and I'm not going to piss off any valuable friends. Thus I bide my time until, I guess, the AI crashes and burns?
Running one game, I did actually manage to eat enough by going FULL WAR and quashing two nearby empires to compete with the other empires in the area. In the end, then only real two empires in the running were myself and the Genocidals of roughly equal size and power.If your tech is greatly inferior to the FE, refuse thralldom and engage their fleet in battle. You will lose, your fleet destroyed, your leader executed, nation humiliated and subjected to thralldom, but you will win - because you will be able to reverse engineer all of the FE's technology.
Until the Xenophobic FE awakened and declared war. GG. Love the game but an AI nation suddenly getting 330k fleet power when you've got 60k and no diplomatic options ruins the challenge of an ironman run. So frustrating.
Running one game, I did actually manage to eat enough by going FULL WAR and quashing two nearby empires to compete with the other empires in the area. In the end, then only real two empires in the running were myself and the Genocidals of roughly equal size and power.
Until the Xenophobic FE awakened and declared war. GG. Love the game but an AI nation suddenly getting 330k fleet power when you've got 60k and no diplomatic options ruins the challenge of an ironman run. So frustrating.
you know, surrendering to a FE is not the end of the game. It is a perfectly reasonable strategy to just let them eat the entire galaxy yourself included, and build up until they decay and you can set up a grand coalition of rebellious vassals to take them down.Can you voluntarily submit to them at any time, or is it a "Either when they awake or when they attack you with a vassalizing casus belli or nothing" type of thing?
World Cracker: Shatters a planet, leaving behind a broken debris field that can be mined for resources. Available to non-Pacifists.
Global Pacifier: Encases the planet in an impenetrable shield, permanently cutting it off from the rest of the galaxy. A research station can be built to study the planet afterwards.
Neutron Sweep: Destroys most higher forms of life on the planet but leaves the infrastructure intact for colonization. Available to non-Spiritualist, non-Pacifist empires.
God Ray: Converts all organic Pops on the planet to spiritualist and destroys all machine/synthetic pops, as well as massively increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on the planet for a time. Available to Spiritualist empires.
Nanobot Dispersal: Assimilates all Pops on the planet, causing it to defect to your empire with its newly cyborgized population. Only available to Driven Assimilators (and thus requires Synthetic Dawn as well).
And why the hell would I wipe out a planet when I can take it and use it?Sometimes you can't afford to hold a planet, but don't want an enemy to have it either. This way you can do both.
And some times you just want to make an example of a rival civ's planet.And why the hell would I wipe out a planet when I can take it and use it?Sometimes you can't afford to hold a planet, but don't want an enemy to have it either. This way you can do both.
World Cracker: Shatters a planet, leaving behind a broken debris field that can be mined for resources. Available to non-Pacifists.Noice
Global Pacifier: Encases the planet in an impenetrable shield, permanently cutting it off from the rest of the galaxy. A research station can be built to study the planet afterwards.haha this one is hilarious. DOMES 4 UUUU
Neutron Sweep: Destroys most higher forms of life on the planet but leaves the infrastructure intact for colonization. Available to non-Spiritualist, non-Pacifist empires.I kinda liked having the Unbidden being the only faction capable of doing this, since it made it special when the Unbidden left whole sectors full of ghost worlds where the cities remain but the people are all gone. Nevertheless, cool
God Ray: Converts all organic Pops on the planet to spiritualist and destroys all machine/synthetic pops, as well as massively increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on the planet for a time. Available to Spiritualist empires.What seems not all that spectacular at first is made funnier at just how powerful this one can be. Without destroying the enemy's planet, you can force convert all the states in the galaxy into spiritualists. With a little modding you could make it so that this can be used by any ethos, so individualists have a freedom ray and so on. Shame they don't get a more destructive planet exploder though, but with spiritualist-pacifists this would make for a viable way to permanently cripple warlike states.
Nanobot Dispersal: Assimilates all Pops on the planet, causing it to defect to your empire with its newly cyborgized population. Only available to Driven Assimilators (and thus requires Synthetic Dawn as well).Now it's just a shame that hive minds aren't allowed their own swarm assimilation :(
Sometimes you don't want anyone living on the planet, and want to carve out a dead space between your state and the rest of the galaxy, thus avoiding friction and allowing for maximum isolation as you become a fallen empire. Also this could be useful if you want to blow up planets to make way for ringworlds. And sometimes you just want to get rid of enemies wholsesaleAnd why the hell would I wipe out a planet when I can take it and use it?Sometimes you can't afford to hold a planet, but don't want an enemy to have it either. This way you can do both.
QuoteWorld Cracker: Shatters a planet, leaving behind a broken debris field that can be mined for resources. Available to non-Pacifists.
Global Pacifier: Encases the planet in an impenetrable shield, permanently cutting it off from the rest of the galaxy. A research station can be built to study the planet afterwards.
Neutron Sweep: Destroys most higher forms of life on the planet but leaves the infrastructure intact for colonization. Available to non-Spiritualist, non-Pacifist empires.
God Ray: Converts all organic Pops on the planet to spiritualist and destroys all machine/synthetic pops, as well as massively increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on the planet for a time. Available to Spiritualist empires.
Nanobot Dispersal: Assimilates all Pops on the planet, causing it to defect to your empire with its newly cyborgized population. Only available to Driven Assimilators (and thus requires Synthetic Dawn as well).
But I feel like the God Ray weapon seems to be the least interesting of them all.
They could have done something a bit more.. spectacular of it.
But that's just me I guess.
QuoteWorld Cracker: Shatters a planet, leaving behind a broken debris field that can be mined for resources. Available to non-Pacifists.
Global Pacifier: Encases the planet in an impenetrable shield, permanently cutting it off from the rest of the galaxy. A research station can be built to study the planet afterwards.
Neutron Sweep: Destroys most higher forms of life on the planet but leaves the infrastructure intact for colonization. Available to non-Spiritualist, non-Pacifist empires.
God Ray: Converts all organic Pops on the planet to spiritualist and destroys all machine/synthetic pops, as well as massively increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on the planet for a time. Available to Spiritualist empires.
Nanobot Dispersal: Assimilates all Pops on the planet, causing it to defect to your empire with its newly cyborgized population. Only available to Driven Assimilators (and thus requires Synthetic Dawn as well).
But I feel like the God Ray weapon seems to be the least interesting of them all.
They could have done something a bit more.. spectacular of it.
But that's just me I guess.
Knock Knock.
Who's that at the galactic door?
It's JESUS!
Make one that changes everyone's ethos to militarist and call it the WAAAAAAGGHH beam.BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD. SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
Shielded worlds have been in since release, yeah?
Shielded worlds have been in since release, yeah?Yeah as entities that exist in the hearts of Fanatic Xenophobe fallen Empires. They usually contain stuff like ships or an admiral inside them. I think it'd be funny to have mods where you accidentally unleash a prethoryn or something from one of them lol, but otherwise they're pretty inconsequential right now. Permanently shielding every single planet in the cosmos is just hilarious
I want to play as an Xenophobic, Isolationist Empire which seals everyone else away so they can have the galaxy to themselves.
This game needs more space traffic in general, it's all too orderly and concentrated right now.
*EDIT
Flying advertisement drones in space is just pure beauty
Biomod:
You can mod your species better. Yay. No extra techs, troops are less powerful then the psi warriors.
Synthetic ascension sucks. It's worse than cybernetics, so upgrading into synthetics downgrades your cybernetic organics. You can have the benefit of synth resource output without the loss of leader traits or the loss of species resulting from synthetic upgrading... By simply building synths instead of using two ascension perks
Allows you to create super locust pops and uber pops. Share uber pops with your allies, share super locust pops with your rivals. Tailor make your pops to your worlds specifications at will.
The only advantage that cybernetics have over synthetics are the advantages that regular, non-cybernetic pops get.And these advantages are way fucking juicy to the max; cybernetics add to the juiciness of options available to organics, synthetics override them.
Synths produce more energy, slightly more research, way more unity, have immortal leaders, maximum habitability, require less consumer goods, and consume energy instead of food which is way more efficient (7 base food production for 3 energy versus 8 energy for no upkeep). So unless I'm missing something really good, I'm not sure how cyborgs are way better than synths that you shouldn't upgrade them.Energy is meaningless, synth research is inferior to psionic intelligent or erudite (not factoring in natural scientist bonuses), leaders never die already, unity is impossible to not accrue and ends up being useless at the end, habitability is not as powerful as it once was now that organics can colonize everything too, organic food is superior - most food is provided by paradise gardens (giving +5% happiness) and additional food accelerates organic pop growth for which there exists no mechanic for synthetic pops to replicate. The most major flaw is that the evolutionary and psionic ascension paths can exploit all of the strengths of synthetics with none of the weaknesses whilst retaining the strengths of organics AND gaining exclusive advantages from their ascension paths.
Also, am I the only one that finds it ironic that organic pops are significantly better at collecting minerals than synths but worse at research/unity? You'd think it'd be the other way around but apparently not.imo all traits, organic and inorganic need great exaggerations to give them all greater feels in mechanical playstyles. Top it all off, synths are probably greatly undervalued for their theoretical output - imagine you have a worker that never sleeps, they should be greatly more productive than they actually are in game (unless synths spend half the day shitposting?).
Having seen the AI at work, I can assure you that they don't need locust pops to sabotage their economy. The AI can do that very well on its own. :vBut it is adorable seeing your little cute locusts spread everywhere, especially if they're uplifted ones that love your Empire & only your Empire
Energy is meaningless, leaders never die already, unity is impossible to not accrue and ends up being useless at the end, habitability is not as powerful as it once was now that organics can colonize everything too, organic food is superior - most food is provided by paradise gardens (giving +5% happiness) and additional food accelerates organic pop growth for which there exists no mechanic for synthetic pops to replicate.
The most major flaw is that the evolutionary and psionic ascension paths can exploit all of the strengths of synthetics with none of the weaknesses whilst retaining the strengths of organics AND gaining exclusive advantages from their ascension paths.
Imo all traits, organic and inorganic need great exaggerations to give them all greater feels in mechanical playstyles.
In particular, unless they fixed this, cyborg admirals get an amazing fleet leader trait comparable to the psi one. When you go synth, that trait gets replaced by a worse version that's clearly inferior to the psi path trait.
Energy is definitely not meaningless. Late-game fleets take up a ton of energy maintenance and I've felt the crunch plenty of times before. At the very least, more energy production means less tiles spent producing energy and more on stuff you really want.Meaningless in the sense that it's very hard to not have a complete and total glut of energy surplus, even without a dyson sphere. Late-game you've got even less energy concerns, from repeatable tech & federation fleets having no maintenance
As a organic empire I've never really experienced the 'leaders never die' thing but you're probably right on that point. I see your point on habitability too. While unity is impossible not to accumulate, having the bonus is nice for filling out the rest of your traditions while still expanding aggressively. Unless you really prioritize it in the early game or play tall it helps into the late game.I think most states are fine unity-wise, with late-game unity being a major problem in its uselessness. You can't mix or reset ascension perks, or spend your unity in any other meaningful way. Even aggressive expanders can greatly increase their unity with domination and expansion traditions, it's pretty hard not to snowball unity unless you are RPing a super-slaver Empire. Also yeah, leaders die every century or so, so much so that it's pretty hard to notice their loss - especially when the life extension tech comes into being. As there's not much else to spend society research points late game, they become practically immortal
Consuming organic food is strictly worse to consuming energy. Unless I'm missing something Paradise Gardens/Domes only provide 4 food which is definitely not enough to feed an entire planet, let alone an empire. So organic empires still have to waste tiles on inefficient farms to feed their pops.Hydroponics lvl IV feed 1 organic pop for 0.5 energy, Power plant lvl IV feed 1 synthetic pop for 1 energy. Paradise domes are incomparably good, because at base they feed 1 organic pop for 0.5 energy, but the additional 2 unity and the +5% happiness makes it so that they increase the productivity of the entire planet and more than pay themselves off!
Food accelerating growth is also far less powerful than you think it is. Synths have fixed build times (reduced by roughly a quarter thanks to Synthetic Evolution). Organic pops have growth times that scale exponentially with the number of pops on a planet. Under optimal circumstances organic pops can grow faster than synthetic ones but optimal circumstances are definitely not realistic in a game. Besides having 100% habitability on all planets with growing pops, you need to maintain a food surplus of 20+ per growing pop. That's a massive waste of resources for such a minor bonus. Realistically a synth pop is going to grow faster than an organic one unless there's less than 5 pops on the planet already.
To be fair, I'm talking strictly about how going full synthetic is better than staying as cyborgs. You can't take the evolutionary or psionic paths if you've already taken 'The Flesh is Weak' so I haven't been counting the bonuses they provide. Going psionic and building synths is probably the best ascension path now that spiritualistic pops are slightly less pissy about robots. Evolutionary ascension is still 'Do you want to do a ton of micromanagement for your bonuses? No? Fuck you' however, which is why I never pick it unless I have to.Evolutionary imo is one of the most powerful still (and not just because it's one of only three, it is standalone, very powerful), and its micromanaging is a lot easier if you create specialized planets & have an authoritarian ethos. Basically gives you as the player maximum control over every pop and maximum optimization over everything, even better if you emigrate some of your pops to psionics and get psionic pops that way through the shroud event. Also you can nerve staple all your foes lmao
I fully agree with you on this point. Some of the stuff teased by the Devs definitely goes in the right direction for the next patch but I'm still not 100% certain it's enough. I've tried modding in my own traits/civics/whatever before but gave up in frustration. It's not super difficult, but documentation is sparse and I had troubles getting everything to work properly.There are some good mods on steam that do this stuff as well, though I don't use them so I can't be more helpful :[
Hydroponics lvl IV feed 1 organic pop for 0.5 energy, Power plant lvl IV feed 1 synthetic pop for 1 energy. Paradise domes are incomparably good, because at base they feed 1 organic pop for 0.5 energy, but the additional 2 unity and the +5% happiness makes it so that they increase the productivity of the entire planet and more than pay themselves off!
I agree with the general thrust of the argument that food is relatively unimportant, but this seems to be super ignoring the opportunity cost of the hydroponic farm. A better comparison is 5 organic pop for 7.5 energy because if it wasn't a farm it could be a power plant.That opportunity is lost if the power plant built in the stead of farm to support a synthetic population; the farm supported more pops for less energy cost whilst providing the additional growth benefit, coupled with the efficiency lost in synthetics being unable to use any food bonus tiles. 2 food tiles are ubiquitous; if you must use it for energy or for food, you would as an organic rather use it for food. The power plant lvl IV with maximum building efficiency (so energy nexus & stock exchange) would yield 5 x 1.3 energy, or 6.5 energy. In a purely synthetic state this would mean two such tiles would provide for 13 synthetics. An organic state however would be able to use that food, and thus with hydroponics lvl IV and an agrarian pop with nutrient replication would yield (5 + 2) x 1.3, or 9.1, meaning two such tiles would provide for 18.2 organics, at the cost of 5 energy - which is just under the difference between what agrarian farms & power plants can support in their respective populations.
All that and as you yourself say, late game you can often end up with a LOT of energy, which makes this comparison tip even further towards energy, since this acts as an efficient dump for it. Gardens are good for sure. Although, as you also say, the unity eventually ends up useless! At which point you have to question if the happiness is worth it. I think the answer is generally going to be on some planets and set ups yes and some no.The happiness is always worth it, there is never an instance where you do not want every single one of your pops to be at 100% happiness, because they'll be drifting towards your ethics and giving +20% to every single resource production. The answer is to every planet: Yes, absolutely it is worth it. As for energy dumping, it's much better to dump that into more fleets than pops
I hope they eventually add more late game uses for unity. I recently played a mod (forgot the name, but it's fairly popular afaik so probably you guys know it already) that added late game buildings that gave a ton of science but had huge unity upkeep costs. To the point where it wasn't possible to put one on each planet. It stuck me as a really good idea and use for late game unity. Just, big things in the late game that constantly drain it.Also the addition of capital ships which cost unity to maintain in the more ships mod. Having unity be like that is just a great idea
The current planet crackers might be an example of an area where this could be applied. Maybe instead of a hard limit of 1, they cost somewhere between 300-500 unity per month to upkeep? After all, keeping up the literal ability to destroy a planet seems like it should be somewhat decisive and worthy of constant evaluation.Would probably also be cool then if you could get into negative unity, instead of just 0 unity, indicating the appearance of disunity within your Empire
This kind of reminds me of the various dominions balance arguments. My guess is that different sides of this argument are playing with different galaxy size and civ density options.I'd say Synths are pretty good for populating habitats though once your industrial base can accommodate the building costs. Delicious research and energy production synergies with synths pretty good
Synths give you a big power spike when you convert all your pops, but they make it somewhat difficult to expand your pops. They also hurt you in the habitat game simply because the minerals you spend on robots could also be spent on habitats.
The perspective I'm coming from is someone who plays single player and notices that most games get "resolved" early on when a couple obvious super powers emerge and start snowballing. So as the perk path with the more powerful 1st level perk, and the more "front loaded" 2nd level perk, I would argue that synths are better, since they more rapidly get you to that point where no one can match you and you snowball easily. As long as you have a good chunk of the galaxy already fully populated by the time you ascend, the awkwardness of building robots isn't going to put you back as much as the huge production boosts and the conversion of your existing leaders into immortals. Maybe MP works differently than SP and games go long, I dunno.The first psionic perk makes all of your pops give +5% research, access to the psionic leaders & the shroud, the first biological perk gives you +2 trait points and cuts modification costs, with both costing you cheap society points instead of valuable engineering ones. Both of these offer better than +20% habitability from cybernetic and offer better long term research options, with the added benefit of not wiping out all your species specializations, and with psionic especial mention must be given that there no need to establish hegemony early on. Thus for example if you reach the point where building robot pops is not a hassle, you're already at the point where no one can stop you, and the ascension perk can be better spent on the late-game focused perks. If you have not, then psionic & biological offer the mechanics needed to maximize research; especially with whisperers in the void, or the option to call the apocalypse, double your everything & make bid for hegemony/watch the end kill your enemies.
Of course, an additional component of my perspective is that I don't play the game one-planet because I think that's an exploit and I might as well learn to play without it because its probably going to get patched. So I tend to expand out over the course of the entire game. So to someone who plays one planet, pop growth speed is very important, they have few existing pops that they need to modify and a lot of research points with which to do it. And of course, they get to that magic 4th ascension perk way way way faster than a more conventional strat would. But playing more normally, by the time you'll have a 4th ascension perk you have a lot of pops, so that power spike you get from converting all your weak organic flesh into ultraproductive synths is more pronounced.Playing normally, one should not run into any trouble getting to the 4th ascension perk by prioritizing all the unity increasing traditions in the right order, relative to your expansion. One planet is wonky as hell, and actually decreases in efficiency compared to a core-sector strategy when you start getting T3 & T4 research, and a one system strategy is mostly just viable for Sol because it has Mars and lots of Habitat space to build additional research labs, but I think that's another issue entirely lol
...Could be worse. Could be the EU4 wiki
So apparently the Stellaris wiki, which I have been referencing constantly throughout all of this, is horrendously out of date. Like, several major patches out of date in some sections. So yeah. I am throwing my hands up in disgust and frustration and leaving this shit where it lies.
I hope they eventually add more late game uses for unity.
That opportunity is lost if the power plant built in the stead of farm to support a synthetic population; the farm supported more pops for less energy cost whilst providing the additional growth benefit, coupled with the efficiency lost in synthetics being unable to use any food bonus tiles. 2 food tiles are ubiquitous; if you must use it for energy or for food, you would as an organic rather use it for food. The power plant lvl IV with maximum building efficiency (so energy nexus & stock exchange) would yield 5 x 1.3 energy, or 6.5 energy. In a purely synthetic state this would mean two such tiles would provide for 13 synthetics. An organic state however would be able to use that food, and thus with hydroponics lvl IV and an agrarian pop with nutrient replication would yield (5 + 2) x 1.3, or 9.1, meaning two such tiles would provide for 18.2 organics, at the cost of 5 energy - which is just under the difference between what agrarian farms & power plants can support in their respective populations.
The happiness is always worth it, there is never an instance where you do not want every single one of your pops to be at 100% happiness, because they'll be drifting towards your ethics and giving +20% to every single resource production. The answer is to every planet: Yes, absolutely it is worth it.
The first psionic perk makes all of your pops give +5% research, access to the psionic leaders & the shroud, the first biological perk gives you +2 trait points and cuts modification costs, with both costing you cheap society points instead of valuable engineering ones. Both of these offer better than +20% habitability from cybernetic and offer better long term research options, with the added benefit of not wiping out all your species specializations
The engineering research is an absolute killer though. I have to imagine that two otherwise equal empires, one goes cybernetic, the other goes psionic. The psionic one should realize that their rivals just spent upwards of several years of research to achieve a series of bonuses they got for free, and that they are now in an excellent position to beat their mechanical rivals in a war.
I wonder if anyone at Paradox has ever actually tried to play Stellaris.I'm not sure what you were trying to do, there. You can't blockade a system in any meaningful sense. You can blockade planets by bombarding them, but to do that you need to destroy the enemy space port. And space ports are a pretty decent match for a 800 strength early-game fleet. I wouldn't take one on with less than 1k, and even then I'm bound to lose some ships.
Specifically, the way that space combat works is so bad as to suggest that it is the result of deliberate sabotage by a disgruntled developer.
I tried to blockade an enemy homeworld with no defenses other than its spaceport. My early-game fleet of 800 strength was in place. A single corvette was built and started heading out of system.
My fleet saw it, moved forward, vaporized it in a shot, and then just kept on going and started attacking the enemy spaceport, and was erased.
Is there a game designer in sweden or wherever Paradox is leaning back with a satisfied grin, thinking to him- or her- self, "that's some innovative game design right there?"
I wonder if anyone at Paradox has ever actually tried to play Stellaris.You can set your fleet to not do that.
Specifically, the way that space combat works is so bad as to suggest that it is the result of deliberate sabotage by a disgruntled developer.
I tried to blockade an enemy homeworld with no defenses other than its spaceport. My early-game fleet of 800 strength was in place. A single corvette was built and started heading out of system.
My fleet saw it, moved forward, vaporized it in a shot, and then just kept on going and started attacking the enemy spaceport, and was erased.
Is there a game designer in sweden or wherever Paradox is leaning back with a satisfied grin, thinking to him- or her- self, "that's some innovative game design right there?"
DLC and Update date confirmed as Feb 22ndOh, nice! I was expecting it to be March or early April.
Stellaris Apocalypse Story Trailer. (https://youtube.com/watch?v=zW3YB2ptGws)It's cute. But it's not really meaningful if we've already heard about it. Kind of teased three dimensional ship formations but that's more likely an aesthetic thing for the video alone.
A pretty great trailer, if I say so myself.
are them gonna fix weird combat bonuses in the patch?What weird combat bonuses?
the force disparity combat bonusThat's being newly-implemented in the patch, so I suppose the question then shifts to what you mean by "fix". We don't really know precisely where the final balance pass is going to leave it yet. I suppose it won't be fixed in the sense that it'll probably be alterable in the defines or other common files, but that's just a guess. It might also be fixed in the sense that it won't change in-game as a consequence of technology or other empire bonuses, except insofar as those alter the combat power of ships and fleets; if the aforementioned defines do contain it, the only way to alter it will be via mod, and if not, it will be completely fixed. On the other hand, it also won't be fixed in the sense of being repaired in this patch since it's not yet in the game to be broken, and since it's not out yet, we don't even know how badly or, indeed, even if it will be broken coming out of the gate. It feels like a kludge to me, but it might still be a working kludge.
the force disparity combat bonusThat isn't currently implemented. It will be added in the 2.0 patch soon. As Culise says, not sure what you mean by fix? This mechanic is supposed to be a fix for the current problem of force larger fleets taking almost no casualties in combat with smaller fleets. The smaller fleet will still lose with this bonus, it will just be able to cause some casualties.
Im warming up to that change, personally.The force disparity change is just one alteration. There are now maximum fleet sizes which means you have to make multiple fleets and more than a single admiral. There are ship disengagements on critical damage now, where ships will sometimes disengage from combat rather than be destroyed meaning it won't always come down to one all-or-nothing battle and ships will be able to limp away for repair more often. There is war weariness that mounts on losses, which could cause a larger aggressor to halt a war due to the civil and economic penalties before he has achieved total victory. A lot of alteration is going into the 2.0 update to counteract the doomstack problem and some other problems.
Just having smaller fleets being more viable against larger ones to the point of no longer being literal suicide charge and making the game less about having a bigger doomstack seems like it could really help.
I still wish they could have found a less... gamey way to accomplish if, but the disparity bonus seems like itll be a net boon to the game.
Is it solely a rate-of-fire boost? Why not just an accuracy boost, if meant to represent a target-rich environment?Either one would accomplish the same thing. More bullets or more accurate bullets both result in more damage done. Some weapons in stellaris are perfectly accurate though, so you can't boost their accuracy beyond 100% thus more rate of fire is the answer.
I'm highly interested in anything that moves us on from the current doomstack situation.
Is it solely a rate-of-fire boost? Why not just an accuracy boost, if meant to represent a target-rich environment?
I'm highly interested in anything that moves us on from the current doomstack situation.
That's logical if you want to just increase the effectiveness of small fleets vs large, but not if you want to simulate a target-rich environment.
I'm still in favor of that change, though. I wonder if say, two people have 100k fleets, and one guy breaks his up into 10x 10k fleets, would it be a significant bonus?
That's logical if you want to just increase the effectiveness of small fleets vs large, but not if you want to simulate a target-rich environment.
I'm still in favor of that change, though. I wonder if say, two people have 100k fleets, and one guy breaks his up into 10x 10k fleets, would it be a significant bonus?
I'd have greatly preferred that small fleets gained advantages in jump time and somesuch to encourage raiding,
oh my god this topic was done to death pages ago
That's logical if you want to just increase the effectiveness of small fleets vs large, but not if you want to simulate a target-rich environment.It uses total fleet power, so there would be no change based on number of fleets. The bonus recalculates over time too, so if you get reinforcements to bring you to parity then you lose that bonus.
I'm still in favor of that change, though. I wonder if say, two people have 100k fleets, and one guy breaks his up into 10x 10k fleets, would it be a significant bonus?
If you hate talking about stellaris so much, one wonders why you keep coming back to the one thread out of thousands on bay12 dedicated to talking about stellaris.
Not everyone reads every page. Be patient and correct them when they come up.If you hate talking about stellaris so much, one wonders why you keep coming back to the one thread out of thousands on bay12 dedicated to talking about stellaris.
hate talking about stellaris? what are you talking about
i'm just saying the same discussion already happened, and the same misconceptions keep coming up
I think there's a mod kicking around somewhere which implements supply lines for fleets, which if implemented fleshed out in an actual update would be a much more interesting way to challenge the authority of a doomstack - wolfpack their supply ships and they get debuffs for "everyone is starving and there are no spare parts left"Break the supply line and ships fight weaker and weaker, and at a certain point either emergency warp away and become pirates or just go derelict as food runs out completely and the crews starve/run out of batteries.
I think there's a mod kicking around somewhere which implements supply lines for fleets, which if implemented fleshed out in an actual update would be a much more interesting way to challenge the authority of a doomstack - wolfpack their supply ships and they get debuffs for "everyone is starving and there are no spare parts left"
The problem is control and expansion. More people in your Federation means you have to get more on your side to declare war (and increases the likelihood of being dragged into wars you don't want) and makes controlling expansion and ensuring that you remain El Presidente more difficult.Not really a problem. Just make loads of one planet vassal states, grant them freedom and create your federation of one glorious president of maximum freedom. Declare war with liberation goals only, denying your federation any potential spoils (which they probably won't if you've made the vassals in the right isolated/overlapping systems), then vassalize and annex the the liberated state. Free upkeep ships ftw
Mind you, your scenario will totally work. I'm just not certain if it'll be worth it in the long run.
I was just pointing out that you could be only a little bigger than your federation members and still get the permanent presidency, you wouldn't need to be 10x their size.Can you imagine trying to pass that off in real life?
Divide my numbers down and you still have the same deal.
You: 3 planets
8 members with 1 planet each = 8 planets
Total: 11 planets
Or:
You: 5 planets
8 members with 2 planets each = 16 planets
Total: 21 planets
In either case, each member is now less than 10% of the total planets and less than 50% of yours. And you are only slightly more than 2x any of their size and only a fraction of the total federation size.
I was just pointing out that you could be only a little bigger than your federation members and still get the permanent presidency, you wouldn't need to be 10x their size.Can you imagine trying to pass that off in real life?
Divide my numbers down and you still have the same deal.
You: 3 planets
8 members with 1 planet each = 8 planets
Total: 11 planets
Or:
You: 5 planets
8 members with 2 planets each = 16 planets
Total: 21 planets
In either case, each member is now less than 10% of the total planets and less than 50% of yours. And you are only slightly more than 2x any of their size and only a fraction of the total federation size.
"Hey guys, I'm just a little bit bigger than all of you so I'm going to be El Presidente for life. No rebellions okay! And make sure not to form any factions or alliances amongst yourselves!"
Hell you can barely get away with that in CK2.
Is it possible to release whatever planet you want as a vassal in the current versionyes
Is it possible to release whatever planet you want as a vassal in the current versionyes
planet view, i think
Isn't that what sectors are supposed to be?What sectors were supposed to be is irrelevant at this point; they're a half-baked idea that hasn't been followed up on adequately and which it is now easy and beneficial to never actually use.
The last game I played, I made exactly three sectors.Part of the issue is that sectors run, AFAIK, the normal AI but without access to most of the game's options (like diplomacy and such) and with a very limited income. Problem is, if the normal AI is restricted to just a couple planets, it will crash and burn. Even with access to diplomacy and megastructures and being able to choose its own research and such. So how can the AI be expected to keep an empire running if all it can do is build and move pops?
Honestly, Stellaris punishes you for using half of the features that they're trying to force you to use because of the terrible interaction with the way too low leader caps and the half-baked systems that are currently in placed.
Take leaders for one thing - You start with 10. Three slots are automatically filled because when are you NOT going to have your three research leaders? 7 left. You need an admiral, a general, a leader for your core systems. 4 left. You want to explore, and (at least the last time I tried) you can't use science vessels without a scientist inside. Take two more for that, and you have 2 slots over for sector leadership, a second fleet, splitting your ground forces...
and yes, there are researches meant to alleviate the problem slightly, but you'll never have enough leadership capacity to put a leader in charge of all of the ~20 possible sectors in a large empire, much less trying to NOT doomstack because you don't want to feed fleets without leadership into the woodchipper.
I am a bit sad that the game still don't allow Corporate Dominions to be able to have xeno livestock.You could maybe mod it. Doesn't sound like it'd be too hard.
I just want to be able to play as RuptureFarms (http://oddworld.wikia.com/wiki/RuptureFarms) damnit!
Ah well, maybe by the next DLC/expansion/update.. I can at least have hope, right?
Yeah, I know. Maybe I should look into that.I am a bit sad that the game still don't allow Corporate Dominions to be able to have xeno livestock.You could maybe mod it. Doesn't sound like it'd be too hard.
I just want to be able to play as RuptureFarms (http://oddworld.wikia.com/wiki/RuptureFarms) damnit!
Ah well, maybe by the next DLC/expansion/update.. I can at least have hope, right?
Well, that's why my sectors were going so well. Each one had 50+ inhabited planets, which meant the AI had enough resources to upgrade buildings as soon as new technology came online. Their energy stockpiles were generally capped at ~24k each, which I would sometimes go through and raid before talking to the friendly local trade guild about their vast reserves of mineral wealth. :P
Just played some new update and.... god this "build a space station at every single place you wanna scrape resources out of / you don't wanna leave as a hole in your space" change to territory is a w f u l. Especially since every stop gives you a 2% hit to unity. Construct five stations? Your racial modifier is now cancelled out. It's just more tedious busywork in a game with too much busywork.Well that explains why my one planet inward perfection build wasn't really working.
Most of the other changes seem nice, although I did spawn with three Slaving Despot neighbours with identical me-hating ethics as a pacifist federation-builder. That was surprising.
Do keep in mind that because military construction and territory claiming has been shifted to stations, you no longer have to spam colonies, which effectively reduces early game resource strain and makes core planet limits much less annoying.
I like it and the pace is better now. Ships got more weight in some sense.
Yes, the expansion micro is a bit annoying, but it's basically not worse than manual mining, exploration etc. If you have a good flow of influence it's just a matter of right and shift-clicking.
This is why I took exploration as my first tradition. -10% influence cost might not sound like much but it definitely adds up over the long run. I managed to block off an enemy empire from expanding 'north', leaving me a vast hinterland to occupy. A hinterland filled with Mauraders and Fanatical Purifiers.
So yeah. Not in the best position in my game.
Ships also seem horrendously expensive for some reason and I am honestly struggling to remain close to my fleet cap with all of the loses I've been taking. I probably need to expand more but it's still kinda disheartening to see a Corvette costing twice your monthly income.
This is why I took exploration as my first tradition. -10% influence cost might not sound like much but it definitely adds up over the long run. I managed to block off an enemy empire from expanding 'north', leaving me a vast hinterland to occupy. A hinterland filled with Mauraders and Fanatical Purifiers.
So yeah. Not in the best position in my game.
Ships also seem horrendously expensive for some reason and I am honestly struggling to remain close to my fleet cap with all of the loses I've been taking. I probably need to expand more but it's still kinda disheartening to see a Corvette costing twice your monthly income.
I've noticed that too. Mineral income seems to grow faster than ship mineral cost, but I'm still 50 years into one game and finding my monthly income at around 120 while a modern corvette costs 150 to build, and I'm getting a discount from my ruler. It seems like an attempt to slow the pace of the game down.
I think we'll get used to it. Especially since outposts can never be destroyed, there will be a point at which you never have to build another. That point comes quicker in smaller maps or more empires.
Do they go home after a while(or after destroying enough infrastructure), or do they stick around until you deal with them?
Do they go home after a while(or after destroying enough infrastructure), or do they stick around until you deal with them?
The former, they'll message you to say they're done smashing your stuff now and head home (smashing stuff on the way if 'home' is on the other side of your territory like it was for me).
KEKEKE YES STUPID DUSTEATER WE'LL GO HOMEDo they go home after a while(or after destroying enough infrastructure), or do they stick around until you deal with them?
The former, they'll message you to say they're done smashing your stuff now and head home (smashing stuff on the way if 'home' is on the other side of your territory like it was for me).
Note that it might be a little bugged. I had them say they'd go home a couple times before their fleets finally stopped bombarding my poor, defenceless planet. Either way, you have to pretty much twiddle your thumbs and wait for them to eventually leave.
I'm still in that portion of my game, eager to see how it evolves into wartime (I'm trying barbaric despoilers). Fun fact, you can't abduct primitives with the raiding stance since you can't bombard them. I'm disappointed, but I can understand how having what would essentially be a population farm early-game would be broken.
I'm still in that portion of my game, eager to see how it evolves into wartime (I'm trying barbaric despoilers). Fun fact, you can't abduct primitives with the raiding stance since you can't bombard them. I'm disappointed, but I can understand how having what would essentially be a population farm early-game would be broken.
Primitives in what way? Pre-sentients that you can uplift? I'm only asking because I've abducted pops from a Renaissance planet as a Barbaric Despoiler just fine. The fact that they actually grow to fill out the missing pops is great. The fact that all of their species, regardless of where they are, get stellar shock once you take over their planet? Not so great.
I understand why they restricted travel to hyperlanes, it doesn't mean I have to like it.Do you mean What Was Will Be, What Will Be Was? Or the dimensional horror?
In other news, 2 jumps in one direction got me 'The Worm', 2 jumps in the other got ghost colony. Good times.
Weird. Did you move your military fleets above their planet? I want to say it could be an edict/policy thing, but if you're Barbaric Despoilers... Your policies should allow it by default. Weird.
It does for this patch at least. I'm 95% convinced that Paradox is going to prevent it from happening or stop it from being so exploitable soon because it's way too strong and easy to do. The abducted pops don't even get culture shock until you invade the planet after all.
Well, I asked this a year ago and the answer was negative, so I might as well ask again since it seems that things have changed on this front: to what extent is it possible to play a Metroid "Space Pirate" race? Lots of conquest, genetic modification, slavery of other races, raiding others, etc.
Yes at the bottom below the designs on the left hand side. Wish it could default to off...You sure it doesn't default to off? My ship designs never update unless I do it myself. I also usually just save over old designs to reduce clutter.
Alright, last question- would you say that the game + DLCs is worth purchasing in its current form?Nope.
Since I don't have Apocalypse, I have to ask (fully expecting to be disappointed, mind you): can Rogue Servitors be Barbaric Despoilers?Nope.
I understand why they restricted travel to hyperlanes, it doesn't mean I have to like it.Do you mean What Was Will Be, What Will Be Was? Or the dimensional horror?
In other news, 2 jumps in one direction got me 'The Worm', 2 jumps in the other got ghost colony. Good times.
The game is skewed to spawn empires of opposite/whatever ethnics as you. Don't ask me how badly but it certainly not in your favour.Eh, I think you might have had bad RNG. I'm playing Fanatic Militarist+Materialist (to RP as one of those space opera hegemonic empires that vacuums up other species) and the single most common I've found is Militarist. Only one pacifist, two spiritualist (to one materialist), and the FE at my borders are Enigmatic Observers.
Well, I asked this a year ago and the answer was negative, so I might as well ask again since it seems that things have changed on this front: to what extent is it possible to play a Metroid "Space Pirate" race? Lots of conquest, genetic modification, slavery of other races, raiding others, etc.More so than it used to be. It's harder to gobble large chunks of empires but much easier to snap up a few planets, gene modding and slavery were already in a decent state, and we've got the ability to raid planets without capturing them and siphon resources from occupied enemy systems. From the AI side of things there are the asshole space Mongolians who go around shitting in everyone's garden blowing up space stations and bombarding planets for giggles (who are also a decent source of tech upgrades if you can kill one of their fleets).
Apocalypse is definitely on the "only if you're specifically interested in what it advertises" list in regards to Paradox DLC. Utopia is almost essential, but Apocalypse just adds some neat toys for late-game warfare.
In other news, I'm having mixed first impressions with actual conquering of planets.
First iswar score Mk.2war weariness/whatever. In theory it's fine, but it makes doing anything other than "conquer a couple planets" highly unlikely as it's impossible to keep yourwar scoreweariness from going up way too fast. By the time you've conquered one planet, you're already at 80%.
Contributing to the problem is the actual conquering of planets. For instance, I just finished waging three different wars to conquer a single planet where the AI thought putting down three strongholds would be a fun idea. Since combat width is a thing and I only had assault armies plus a few gene troopers, I had to wait ages while my indiscriminate-bombarding fleet ever-so-slowly whittled down their forces until they had few enough troops that I could send in my ground forces.
It just feels like a longer, more tedious version of the previous fortification mechanic. You still have to bombard the planet (though it's not a requirement really any more for planets w/o care given to defense, admittedly). Just instead of waiting until you whittled down fortifications, you need to wait until your bombardments kill enough units to make combat viable.
I sorta get it. It's meant to distinguish between "Humans + humans with forehead wrinkles or blue skin" vs"furries""space catgirls""distinctly non-human mammals like the Orions or Hani".
I'll admit I'm still annoyed that they didn't implement proper ship classes and upgrading a fleet will just change every ship to a single class of each hull type. Unless just upgrading the same design and not copying it averts that? But then you can't see which generation the class is on, which is half the fun.
I'll admit I'm still annoyed that they didn't implement proper ship classes and upgrading a fleet will just change every ship to a single class of each hull type. Unless just upgrading the same design and not copying it averts that? But then you can't see which generation the class is on, which is half the fun.What? You absolutely can do that... I have two different destroyer classes and 3 corvette classes and it handles them just fine.
I'll admit I'm still annoyed that they didn't implement proper ship classes and upgrading a fleet will just change every ship to a single class of each hull type. Unless just upgrading the same design and not copying it averts that? But then you can't see which generation the class is on, which is half the fun.What? You absolutely can do that... I have two different destroyer classes and 3 corvette classes and it handles them just fine.
What you need to do is make sure the names are the same as what you want to upgrade to- For example, steve-class battleship and imperial-1 class battleship, you make imperial-2 and update steve, then click update, everyone's going to go to steves update most likely. Enjoy a fleet of steves.
Quote from: Chiefwafflesstuff about disliking difficulty of conquering planetsHonestly I kinda like it. It shouldn't be easy to roll over fortified planets. The two big problems Stellaris had with the strategic layer of war were the ability of fleets to totally bypass defenses and the relative ease with which planets could be taken and retaken.
I think the marauders and war exhaustion need serious tweaking, but the ideas behind all the big changes are solid. Right now it is best to play without marauders and not have many wars to avoid frustration...
Must be a bug then. My current fleet consists of picket corvettes, swarm corvettes, artillery destroyers that hold a line, picket destroyers, and then cruisers with long range artillery and cruisers with close in weapons. They upgrade just fine and keep the separate classesI'll admit I'm still annoyed that they didn't implement proper ship classes and upgrading a fleet will just change every ship to a single class of each hull type. Unless just upgrading the same design and not copying it averts that? But then you can't see which generation the class is on, which is half the fun.What? You absolutely can do that... I have two different destroyer classes and 3 corvette classes and it handles them just fine.
There is definitely some weirdness going on with the upgrade system. I had a mixed fleet of corvettes and after clicking the upgrade button the fleet was composed of a single type.
Must be a bug then. My current fleet consists of picket corvettes, swarm corvettes, artillery destroyers that hold a line, picket destroyers, and then cruisers with long range artillery and cruisers with close in weapons. They upgrade just fine and keep the separate classesI'll admit I'm still annoyed that they didn't implement proper ship classes and upgrading a fleet will just change every ship to a single class of each hull type. Unless just upgrading the same design and not copying it averts that? But then you can't see which generation the class is on, which is half the fun.What? You absolutely can do that... I have two different destroyer classes and 3 corvette classes and it handles them just fine.
There is definitely some weirdness going on with the upgrade system. I had a mixed fleet of corvettes and after clicking the upgrade button the fleet was composed of a single type.
Pirates are so annoying right now. doesnt matter how many times you crush them, they will always return stronger. I guess that by endgame they will be spawning 50k stacks.I haven't seen one larger than around 5k and I'm about 400 years into my game. They only spawn if you have uncontrolled systems on your border, so if you build out to your neighbors then no pirates.
Pirates are so annoying right now. doesnt matter how many times you crush them, they will always return stronger. I guess that by endgame they will be spawning 50k stacks.I haven't seen one larger than around 5k and I'm about 400 years into my game. They only spawn if you have uncontrolled systems on your border, so if you build out to your neighbors then no pirates.
I honestly never had a problem with them myself. Are you neglecting your military? My peaceful spiritualist xenophiles had enough of a military to fight them off. Later I just put up a nice beefy defense station at a chokepoint and let the pirates hit that whenever they came in.Pirates are so annoying right now. doesnt matter how many times you crush them, they will always return stronger. I guess that by endgame they will be spawning 50k stacks.I haven't seen one larger than around 5k and I'm about 400 years into my game. They only spawn if you have uncontrolled systems on your border, so if you build out to your neighbors then no pirates.
Bad mechanic anyway. The game is forcing you to expand just to get rid of annoyances.
It was a little mixed for me....One game I had a lot....but most so far have had very few for me. One game it was also swapped with the Crystal entities....they were all around me with no other space creatures... so it seems like they just spawn in clusters, which would make sense.I am not sure if it's a feature of the Leviathans dlc or patch, but space creatures other than the Space Cows spawn in clusters, yeah. There are also roaming Amoebas (in addition to stationary ones) that pursue the Tyanki.
I honestly never had a problem with them myself. Are you neglecting your military? My peaceful spiritualist xenophiles had enough of a military to fight them off. Later I just put up a nice beefy defense station at a chokepoint and let the pirates hit that whenever they came in.Pirates are so annoying right now. doesnt matter how many times you crush them, they will always return stronger. I guess that by endgame they will be spawning 50k stacks.I haven't seen one larger than around 5k and I'm about 400 years into my game. They only spawn if you have uncontrolled systems on your border, so if you build out to your neighbors then no pirates.
Bad mechanic anyway. The game is forcing you to expand just to get rid of annoyances.
You don't 'have to expand to get rid of them' but you do have to put up defenses, whether that is a starbase with defense platforms or a fleet stationed at the edge of your territory.I honestly never had a problem with them myself. Are you neglecting your military? My peaceful spiritualist xenophiles had enough of a military to fight them off. Later I just put up a nice beefy defense station at a chokepoint and let the pirates hit that whenever they came in.Pirates are so annoying right now. doesnt matter how many times you crush them, they will always return stronger. I guess that by endgame they will be spawning 50k stacks.I haven't seen one larger than around 5k and I'm about 400 years into my game. They only spawn if you have uncontrolled systems on your border, so if you build out to your neighbors then no pirates.
Bad mechanic anyway. The game is forcing you to expand just to get rid of annoyances.
I had many fleets. The pirates were not problems, just annoyances as I said. They would destroy a couple of mining stations before I sent them to hell. It was just annoying. I don't like to have to expand continuously to get rid of them. What if you prefer to play "tall"?
Anyway, my save bugged. In a moment I had about 100 minerals/turn (though I was struggling with energy) and in the next both wer
That wouldn't be an entirely bad mechanic, imposing order on ungoverned areas has some historical and logical backing. The real problem is that with the bonuses it gives, it's actually encouraging you to do is to leave a few systems to farm pirates.Pirates are so annoying right now. doesnt matter how many times you crush them, they will always return stronger. I guess that by endgame they will be spawning 50k stacks.I haven't seen one larger than around 5k and I'm about 400 years into my game. They only spawn if you have uncontrolled systems on your border, so if you build out to your neighbors then no pirates.
Bad mechanic anyway. The game is forcing you to expand just to get rid of annoyances.
I had many fleets. The pirates were not problems, just annoyances as I said. They would destroy a couple of mining stations before I sent them to hell. It was just annoying. I don't like to have to expand continuously to get rid of them. What if you prefer to play "tall"?"Tall" in the sense of never expanding at all is a meme playstyle that doesn't deserve support, to be honest.
Presumably if you prefer to play "tall" you build defense stations to protect the entrances to your territory.You should probably be doing this playing "wide", too, to be fair. Defensive works make for some serious force-multipliers, and until jump drives arrive into the fray, being able to lock down choke points with static forces lets you free your mobile forces to actually do some damage. Enemy raiders can be rather irritating, otherwise, so stopping them from moving into your space with either planetary FTL inhibitors or orbital FTL inhibitors is a strong plus. A good fortress or citadel in the mid-game can easily equal a proper fleet, even if it can't move, and it runs off the starbase caps instead of your fleet caps.
I'm hearing a lot of stuff about the new patch. How are people getting along with Apocalypse?
Really enjoying Apocolypse, it basically adds all the modded stuff without being broken like the mods.
without being brokenwhat
Really enjoying Apocolypse, it basically adds all the modded stuff without being broken like the mods.without being brokenwhat
Oh, you're talking about only the DLC stuff and not the patch in general. Fair enough then.Really enjoying Apocolypse, it basically adds all the modded stuff without being broken like the mods.without being brokenwhat
The majority of the ship class and titan mods etc were rather unbalanced and made the vanilla classes useless instantly, or the ai didn't even use them at all, at least in my experience.
Oh, you're talking about only the DLC stuff and not the patch in general. Fair enough then.Really enjoying Apocolypse, it basically adds all the modded stuff without being broken like the mods.without being brokenwhat
The majority of the ship class and titan mods etc were rather unbalanced and made the vanilla classes useless instantly, or the ai didn't even use them at all, at least in my experience.
I wonder what Stellaris would be like if combat was more abstracted, and instead of watching two buckets of marbles scatter into each other, combat was all about managing masses of abstracted ships more in line with stuff like HOI, CK or EU, and was altogether secondary to the actual management of the Empire.Cos I think when they make Stellaris II they should either make combat actually meaningful or else stop focusing on the superificality of smashing bricks together and more on the management of a nascent interstellar EmpireSpoiler (click to show/hide)
I wonder what Stellaris would be like if combat was more abstracted, and instead of watching two buckets of marbles scatter into each other, combat was all about managing masses of abstracted ships more in line with stuff like HOI, CK or EU, and was altogether secondary to the actual management of the Empire.Cos I think when they make Stellaris II they should either make combat actually meaningful or else stop focusing on the superificality of smashing bricks together and more on the management of a nascent interstellar EmpireSpoiler (click to show/hide)
I've played games like that, and it tends to be very, very boring. Space 4X games tend to lean very heavily on the whole "research military tech, design your ships, watch them blow stuff up and be blown up in turn rather spectacularly" cycle because a lot of other concerns are absent. The concepts of terrain and geography are limited at best (usually not much more than hyperlanes/jump points/natural wormholes/limited life support range to create barriers and choke points, "this bit is in a nebula which means -50% to shields and sensors", and maybe something like Aurora where black hole systems will suck in and destroy ships with insufficiently powerful drives) because space is big, open, and empty in a way that really doesn't mesh with terrestrial grand-strat norms.
There's also the lack of established historical background and relationships that you'd have in other PDX games. You can see that they tried to go the "develop history and galactic politics as the game progresses", but not really any more so than similar titles.
Basically, if you reduce ships and combat to "press factory to make bigger numbers, point pile of numbers at enemy numbers" you find yourself with a lackluster industry/logistics manager. Aurora aside, it's usually not terribly complex or difficult to manage.
Space 4X has a heavy focus on the exploration and combat elements because those are what it's best at. The space politics and nation-building is characteristically not that interesting and tends to exist largely to enable the former bits because that's the only reason anyone would care about it. The only way games in that vein like Neptune's Pride worked was by making it competitive multiplayer where every party involved was an absolute bastard of a human player trying to screw over every other player without getting dogpiled. GalCiv II pointed in the right direction by having AI that got harder with increased difficulty because the higher settings were clever strategists that would actively plan complex political strategies to secure different types of victory.
So yeah. Mainly lack of competition from dumb AI. There's no inherent challenge in smashing abstract doomstacks against AI that won't be as efficient at the macro game as you, so most of the fun is had in playing with ship designs and watching them shoot pretty lights.
I suppose a bit of it could also be down to how we may need to wait until everyone has supercomputers for gaming rigs before we can have a dank space grand strategy which puts the scale and 3 dimensions of space to good useProcessor speed isn't the reason we don't have 3D. A because of the inability to portray it effectively without clear points of reference (that is, in a vacuum) on a flat screen, and because it's tough for the programmers to think that way. If the latter problem was solved (by ubiquitous 3D displays of one sort or another) then we would probably see more true 3D eventually, as it would become worthwhile to overcome the development hurdle.
Holy shit I am having a hard time keeping up with the AI, even on normal. Seems like they always have enough resources to outbuild and out-tech me while also being faster at recovering from war and having better defenses. I don't know, maybe I just suck ???
Also, it seems that garrisoning armies doesn't knock down unrest anymore. This is sort of a problem when you play with slaves, and the tooltip indicates that you should be able to lower it with garrisoned armies, so I think it's a bug. Anyone else notice that, or discover any workarounds?
Holy shit I am having a hard time keeping up with the AI, even on normal. Seems like they always have enough resources to outbuild and out-tech me while also being faster at recovering from war and having better defenses. I don't know, maybe I just suck ???
actually, turns out the AI cheats on resources, even on Normal
contrary to what the game tells us
according to this, anyway: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-ai-pays-half-mineral-maintenance-ships-and-consumer-goods-on-normal.1072648/
So at the start of the war, I was caught unprepared. So the enemy occupied about 8 of my systems, including a planet.What happened here is that your war exhaustion hit 100% after that combat. The AI proposed a status quo peace and you cannot refuse them if you're at 100%. They're already changing this for next patch, where you can refuse but you will suffer severe penalties on unity and influence income for fighting an unwanted war, so the choice will be yours.
I built up and pushed them back, destroying their fleet a few times, eventually getting the warscore tied up, at around 84.
At this point, 4 of my systems are still occupied by them.
I move in to take another system, and fight another enemy fleet. The instant combat ends, I get a message from the AI that started the war, saying it's over, and it's a status quo. I have no option but to agree.
Also, it seems that garrisoning armies doesn't knock down unrest anymore. This is sort of a problem when you play with slaves, and the tooltip indicates that you should be able to lower it with garrisoned armies, so I think it's a bug. Anyone else notice that, or discover any workarounds?This is correct. ONLY defensive buildings such as forts built on planets or certain edicts will knock down unrest. You CANNOT garrison assault armies, and defense armies are generated automatically.
If you guys, remember one of the things that was talked about when Stellaris was in development/first released was how Paradox kind of wanted to make it a two-part game. Part one was to be purely expansion. Part two was supposed more like what we're used to in EUIV and CKII, an ever-shifting array of alliances, rebellions, and random events over the galactic geography. If it was me designing the game, I would have made sectors more like how areas, regions, and culture work in EUIV. You colonize a few planets and suddenly it becomes a relatively set map tile that then functions autonomously. large swathes of sectors could be razed to change the galactic geography, but the map always fills back up. With independents gradually consuming the uncolonized space. I kind of think something like that might have been the original plan, but they just stopped 1% into the process.They kind of planned to do that but the initial team wasn't very skilled since they didn't expect Stellaris to be particularly successful for some reason, and they didn't properly realize the idea. Since then, sectors have been diminished instead of expanded upon, perhaps in part because the playerbase in general hates them.
That was hit or miss for me; If they had an orbital station, I could attack it and make the prim-civ hostile that way. Then bombardment is simple.I'm still in that portion of my game, eager to see how it evolves into wartime (I'm trying barbaric despoilers). Fun fact, you can't abduct primitives with the raiding stance since you can't bombard them. I'm disappointed, but I can understand how having what would essentially be a population farm early-game would be broken.
Primitives in what way? Pre-sentients that you can uplift? I'm only asking because I've abducted pops from a Renaissance planet as a Barbaric Despoiler just fine. The fact that they actually grow to fill out the missing pops is great. The fact that all of their species, regardless of where they are, get stellar shock once you take over their planet? Not so great.
That's actually literally what I was talking about. It wouldn't let me bombard atomic age civs.
IMO, the AI was never competitive in Stellaris. One of the easier games compared to EUIV and HOI3 with the right challenges/mods/goals. CKII is possibly easier given the large number of whacky and fun exploits, but they are by their nature: whacky and fun.
EDIT: part of it is the way the game scales. A.) The player is generally much better at growing and keeping apace than the AI is, generally you're only in real trouble of potentially losing in the very early game. B.) Sectors are not only broken, but the failed/unfinished implementation of somewhat different idea.
So at the start of the war, I was caught unprepared. So the enemy occupied about 8 of my systems, including a planet.What happened here is that your war exhaustion hit 100% after that combat. The AI proposed a status quo peace and you cannot refuse them if you're at 100%. They're already changing this for next patch, where you can refuse but you will suffer severe penalties on unity and influence income for fighting an unwanted war, so the choice will be yours.
I built up and pushed them back, destroying their fleet a few times, eventually getting the warscore tied up, at around 84.
At this point, 4 of my systems are still occupied by them.
I move in to take another system, and fight another enemy fleet. The instant combat ends, I get a message from the AI that started the war, saying it's over, and it's a status quo. I have no option but to agree.Also, it seems that garrisoning armies doesn't knock down unrest anymore. This is sort of a problem when you play with slaves, and the tooltip indicates that you should be able to lower it with garrisoned armies, so I think it's a bug. Anyone else notice that, or discover any workarounds?This is correct. ONLY defensive buildings such as forts built on planets or certain edicts will knock down unrest. You CANNOT garrison assault armies, and defense armies are generated automatically.
I like the implementation of war exhaustion in EU4. Here I agree it can be flawed. A ten year cease fire is too much as well.
War exhaustion should scale with 1) manpower losses and population size. ("Manpower" needs to be in game). 2) Energy/Mineral gain losses and total potential compared to the enemy. I mean the Soviets lost a lot of manpower before Stalingrad, but in relative terms not so much, and their production capacity outgrew that of the EU-invaders.
Should be no cease fire in Stalingrad-like situations.
Well, just stumbled across this mod:There's a dwarf advisor voice too. No idea if it's any good.
Dwarf Fortress Namelist (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1313999417&searchtext=)
* You are no longer forced to make peace at 100% war exhaustion, instead your Influence and Unity monthly gains are reduced to 0 and a happiness penalty is applied to all Pops until you make peace.
* Increased energy upkeep of all Starbase sizes by +1. Outposts now cost 1 energy maintenance. (Why?)
* Marauder raiding fleets are now neutral to everyone except their intended target so they won't wreck everything in their path when they go a-viking.
* Tradition unity cost per system reduced from 2% to 1%.
* Increased time limits of all Special Projects requiring a ship in orbit (new minimum is 3 years).
* Afterburners can no longer be installed on defense platforms, as lovely as it was to uselessly vent fuel in to space as a gesture of contempt to environmentalists.
* Nihilistic Acquisition can now be taken by purifier-style empires.
Ok, I have to say that I like a lot of the quality of life changes so far. Civilian ships not taking up military shipyard queues, removing tile blockers only needing energy, recruiting leaders now using energy, and fulfilling campaign promises rewarding unity are all good changes from my viewpoint.If fulfilling campaign promises in was that useful in real life, politicians might actually do it!
*edit* That said, the change to trader guilds make me sad. No longer will my late game mineral needs be met by trading them tens of thousands of energy for minerals.
* Tradition unity cost per system reduced from 2% to 1%.Which is nice I guess but science is what needs this more. Unity you can at least make the argument that it's supposed to be slow since if you run out, it's a dead mechanic. But lacking science is a pretty major thing. And I'm really hoping this is in addition to rather than instead of fixing the issue that the unity penalty was calculated by multiplying the (individually summed) penalties from planets and outposts together.
* Increased energy upkeep of all Starbase sizes by +1. Outposts now cost 1 energy maintenance. (Why?)
* Fixed system/colony tradition costs being multiplied on each other instead of additive
Eh, looks like they're pushing harder to stop the octopus -> cell wall -> "I'll claim all the interior stuff eventually" school of expansion.They did change how the influence cost for new colonies works in order to do that, but it doesn't at all address the fact that right now it's optimal to dismantle all but the best outposts once you've got stations blocking off chokepoints.
Eh, looks like they're pushing harder to stop the octopus -> cell wall -> "I'll claim all the interior stuff eventually" school of expansion.They did change how the influence cost for new colonies works in order to do that, but it doesn't at all address the fact that right now it's optimal to dismantle all but the best outposts once you've got stations blocking off chokepoints.
Dunno about that. Almost every system has at least a single 2-energy resource. If you drop a mining station on that you're already covering the cost of system ownership. One high-tech energy plant is enough to cover a ton of systems.Eh, looks like they're pushing harder to stop the octopus -> cell wall -> "I'll claim all the interior stuff eventually" school of expansion.They did change how the influence cost for new colonies works in order to do that, but it doesn't at all address the fact that right now it's optimal to dismantle all but the best outposts once you've got stations blocking off chokepoints.
It's not really about the energy, that's just a cherry on top. The exact math changes depending on your research output and number of systems/planets, but generally you would have needed about three research per system to break even. Now you need three research and one energy, on top of the energy that you need to pay for the mineral mining and research stations. And you're taking a loss on unity no matter what you do.Dunno about that. Almost every system has at least a single 2-energy resource. If you drop a mining station on that you're already covering the cost of system ownership. One high-tech energy plant is enough to cover a ton of systems.Eh, looks like they're pushing harder to stop the octopus -> cell wall -> "I'll claim all the interior stuff eventually" school of expansion.They did change how the influence cost for new colonies works in order to do that, but it doesn't at all address the fact that right now it's optimal to dismantle all but the best outposts once you've got stations blocking off chokepoints.
Frankly, the whole reworked territory control feels far less resource-intensive compared to how much of a pain in the ass it was building up enough influence to colonize every shitty planet you could, or god forbid build multiple frontier outposts. All we really need now is for AI to not cheat on maintenance and it ought to feel good. Not hard at all to run an energy surplus unless your build-up is incredibly unbalanced or you're leaving fleets/colony ships idling in empty space.The current system hasn't really changed the degree to which you want to colonize new planets, if anything you'll want it more now as it allows you to produce resources without incurring as much of a percentage malus as you'd get from enough systems to produce the same amount.
While that's true, research costs increasing proportionate to territory isn't a particularly unfair mechanic. If it helps, parse it as including the cost of retooling and distributing developments throughout your empire. If you want fast research, play small.That's a good theory and that's how it's worked in the past, but at this point, dismantling the the less efficient outposts (creating the "swiss cheese empire") is giving you upwards of 20% research bonus for only about a 4% decrease to energy/minerals in a now somewhat famous example before the beta patch. Thoe specific numbers were aiming for an optimal ratio, so the exact numbers can be different depending on how zealous you are in purging inefficient outposts, but though the unity numbers are better now, the energy has only gotten worse. And science progresses you into the late game, a big difference in science takes a whole lot longer to rectify than a big difference in minerals - one good war can do that.
That was actually one point where GalCiv really got things right. Despite using warp-style FTL, the life support techs created natural barriers and also heavily slowed the expansion process. That's one point where Stellaris suffered both before and after 2.0, it's way too easy to rapidly leapfrog through territory since your ships don't have any limits on travel beyond closed borders and the arbitrary slowdown of FTL outside your own. It's like playing EU4 with all of the Colonization ideas automatically unlocked and infinite support range for navies.Yeah, there's a lot of problems with Stellaris that have been solved elegantly in other games. Much as I'm loathe to criticize a dev for trying new things, if there's a problem that you don't have a great solution for there's no shame in choosing not to reinvent that particular wheel.
One expansion limiter I liked was in Distant Worlds. You could only expand as fast as you could build fuel sources in further out locations, unless you enjoyed wrestling with the auto-refuel AI. But then, wouldn't work in this game due to a complete lack of fuel systems.
One expansion limiter I liked was in Distant Worlds. You could only expand as fast as you could build fuel sources in further out locations, unless you enjoyed wrestling with the auto-refuel AI. But then, wouldn't work in this game due to a complete lack of fuel systems.
oh, something like it could work, just not called "fuel." in fact i think the game would be immeasurably better if they:
1. remove construction ships, science ships, and colony ships from the game.
2. level 1 starbases can send "Expeditions" to other star systems. Initially this is just neighboring systems, with longer distance expeditions unlocked through tech.
3. There are four types of Expeditions:4. make a bunch of necessary balance and infrastructure changes, like increasing starbase building slots dramatically and making your initial starbase start with all the buildings listed above. pacing of the game would probably change dramatically which would require any number of changes, etc.
- Exploration Expeditions survey the system (takes time, of course) and identify resources and anomalies. They have to be completed before other expedition types. On completion, they construct a navigational beacon in-system. The beacon allows the other kinds of expeditions.
- Mining expeditions claim the system and upgrade the navigational beacon to an outpost, and begun constructing mining stations in all known. Requires a special starbase building.
- Science expeditions don't claim the system, but investigate anomalies and complete special projects. Requires a special starbase building.
- Colonization expeditions colonize planets. Requires a special starbase building, but you can just pick any pop in your empire as the original pop.
if they were really ambitious, the above would result in all kinds of automated NPC ships flying around and simulated resource tracking, like the non-FTL mining ships dropping ore off at the in-system outpost, which processes it into Minerals, and then FTL cargo ships automatically ship the ore to the nearest planet/starbase/whatever, which is then building ships/buildings/whatever per your orders based on resources actually received. and then pirates are actually trying to attack those instead of spawning in random empty systems you never bothered to claim because you didn't want a 1% hit to unity
anyways
One expansion limiter I liked was in Distant Worlds. You could only expand as fast as you could build fuel sources in further out locations, unless you enjoyed wrestling with the auto-refuel AI. But then, wouldn't work in this game due to a complete lack of fuel systems.
oh, something like it could work, just not called "fuel." in fact i think the game would be immeasurably better if they:
(blah blah blah)
Oh man this sounds a lot like Sword of the Stars 2. It was an unintuitive mess and compared to the first, which was my favourite game ever, made the second one completely unplayable.
Do you set up your sectors to replace buildings, not respect tile resources and give it a non-balanced focus?It's set not to respect tile resource, they all have a focus (most research), and redevelopment is allowed. The food production total is going UP, not down. And it's not just from building paradise domes for unity.
So, no surprise but yeah the AI is still dumb. not AS dumb, but dumb. My empire of thousands of synth robot pops is still producing over 250 food in its sectors for no reason. I invaded a robotic empire, one with no organic pops, and they had hydroponic bays on all of their stations. sighThis, at least, sounds like something that Paradox can relatively easily fix if it's brought to their attention, since it's a simple absolute (if no biological pops, no food ever) and therefore they might actually do it.
Are you sure your not running a mod that screws this up? Atleast in 1.9 I have neither seen this issue in my own sectors nor in AI Empires in Observer games.No mods at all. I could provide the save if you like. It's an ironman game but I think you can transfer those
Sure, I'd actually be interested in seeing that.https://www.dropbox.com/s/4mm7gzqntlb7sen/thecommonwealth_847808454.zip?dl=0
I think the marauders and war exhaustion need serious tweaking, but the ideas behind all the big changes are solid. Right now it is best to play without marauders and not have many wars to avoid frustration...
Looking at the war exhaustion breakdown (and various post on Steam and Paradox forums) it's not so much that war exhaustion needs tweaking as it is the fact that they missed a giant comet-sized bug that makes your wins count as defeats. I just basically beat myself into submission by blitzing the enemy and capturing several of their systems, each giving ME war exhaustion as a 'defeat' ::)
It's bug, they're working on it, I think.Is it fixed in the beta patch?I think the marauders and war exhaustion need serious tweaking, but the ideas behind all the big changes are solid. Right now it is best to play without marauders and not have many wars to avoid frustration...
Looking at the war exhaustion breakdown (and various post on Steam and Paradox forums) it's not so much that war exhaustion needs tweaking as it is the fact that they missed a giant comet-sized bug that makes your wins count as defeats. I just basically beat myself into submission by blitzing the enemy and capturing several of their systems, each giving ME war exhaustion as a 'defeat' ::)
So if I lose warscore for beating the enemy, how am I supposed to win wars? Is the game literally unplayable right now?Assuming you mean War Exhaustion and not Warscore, you get Status Quo peace. You keep what you took and get a big truce. Not crippling, just annoying.
That makes more sense for war weariness than warscore though.Weariness and exhaustion are synonymous. Warscore doesn't exist any more.
fanatic militants should gain war exhaustion by not being at warpeace exhaustion
exactlyIsn't that just the pacifist faction? If you stay at peace long enough the pacifist faction will always become the most powerful faction
Speaking of Fanatical Purifiers, I was thinking about what a Crisis-dominated galaxy would look like (all crisis factions at once mostly fighting each other while normal civs flounder on the sidelines, grimdark future only war), and there should totally be an alternate personalty for the purifiers ala Ancient Guardians for when everything is totally fucked: Demoralized Purifiers.I rather enjoy doing fanatical purifier/isolationist runs with all 3 crises on. You just wait in your little corner of the universe building more and more ring worlds while the outside galaxy explodes or tries to break down your door. If you reach the point of critical ringworld mass it can be pretty relaxing. I also wonder if they fixed the bug where fanatical purifiers can join the war in heaven factions. I remember in 1.6 the war in heaven allowed me to join and then become leader of the non aligned faction, whilst remaining a fanatical purifier. I spent the entirety of the fleet budget on battleships with no ftl or weapons, a diplomatic armada which couldn't be used for anything nor did the AI have the sense to disband it nor ability to upgrade it. Upon destroying the FEs I left the nonaligned powers with their diplomatic gift, before returning to my ringworlds, content that their faction could not be a threat.
That feel when you literally have to choose between killing your entire species or working with alien animals at a .5 lightyear distance with no direct communications to retake the galaxy.
I left the nonaligned powers with their diplomatic gift, before returning to my ringworlds, content that their faction could not be a threat.
That makes more sense for war weariness than warscore though.Warscore isn't a thing in the current patch. The percentage ticker is war exhaustion. You're trying to get your opponent to 100%.
I am very much offended by the removal of wormhole FTL.You can always go back and play an old version?
So I launched the game with 2.0.2b. Immediately started with -200 energy :P But I think that's good. I also noticed that adopting a tradition tree counts as a unity spent (don't remember if it was like that before).Yep, it was.
If it disabled achievements, will achievements be reenabled once I disable it, or are they wrecked for the rest of the game?I haven't tested it for Stellaris but I'm pretty certain that achievements are now turned off for good, since that's how it is in other Paradox games. If you earn an achievement fair and square, you'll have to give it to yourself using a utility program.
I am very much offended by the removal of wormhole FTL.
In a small game, maybe. In a bigger game your doomstack will get super slow.I am very much offended by the removal of wormhole FTL.
Wormhole FTL was great, I agree. In fact, I would argue it was too great. Wormhole was only mildly more complicated than other forms of FTL (i.e. probably not good for a first game but fine for your second) but better by a wide margin. Your beginning choice was barely a choice at all: wormholes were simply better than warp or hyperlanes.
That makes more sense for war weariness than warscore though.Weariness and exhaustion are synonymous. Warscore doesn't exist any more.
I installed a mod that ups the maximum number of starting civs. A tiny galaxy with 30+ civilizations is actually quite entertaining.
I've heard that before and it's literally the shittiest thing you could come up with. Go back to play without the much needed improvements in other departments. I wouldn't even complain if they left it as optional, while hyperlanes being the default required for Ironman, or I dunno, let it be easily restorable with mods, which it isin't.I am very much offended by the removal of wormhole FTL.You can always go back and play an old version?
I haven;t had much time to play into late game, can't you build stargates later?Only in designated locations.
I haven;t had much time to play into late game, can't you build stargates later?Only in designated locations.
I haven;t had much time to play into late game, can't you build stargates later?Only in designated locations.
Unless something has changed since the release of 2.0 you can build your own gateways as well as rebuilding the ones you find. I didn't run into any limitations to where I could build them in my own space. (you do need the appropriate mega structure techs and ascension perk though)
Then your only option is to find or make a mod that alters the game to suit your taste, or get used to the changes. I don't see what good posting about how offended you are does, as if that matters at all.I've heard that before and it's literally the shittiest thing you could come up with. Go back to play without the much needed improvements in other departments. I wouldn't even complain if they left it as optional, while hyperlanes being the default required for Ironman, or I dunno, let it be easily restorable with mods, which it isin't.I am very much offended by the removal of wormhole FTL.You can always go back and play an old version?
Because they paid for the game and are annoyed at how the changes impact their enjoyment of it?They can still play the game they paid for. It's the previous version. Being "offended" over a change in a video game is one of the most ridiculous things I can imagine. Deal with it, or play the old way, or mod it to fit your preference. Being offended serves no purpose and gets nothing accomplished.
Except that Paradox sells its games on a reputation of continued support and expansion. The support part is being nice - they eventually patch the many bugs they ship with. But that's okay, because they do patch them eventually, and expand the mechanics more than almost any other developer. Even if you don't buy the expansions! It works out well.Paradox has an equally strong reputation for radically altering gameplay within their games. Anyone buying on reputation should be used to that.
But if you revert, you're left with a buggy game that's designed to be fixed and expanded, but never will be.
I haven;t had much time to play into late game, can't you build stargates later?Only in designated locations.
Unless something has changed since the release of 2.0 you can build your own gateways as well as rebuilding the ones you find. I didn't run into any limitations to where I could build them in my own space. (you do need the appropriate mega structure techs and ascension perk though)
Don't you get jump drives anyway by that point? I haven't gone into 2.0 late-game yet.
I was also annoyed with the FTL changes, especially as I had a game in progress when the new version hit. Who the hell breaks save compatibility in a released game? I mean, sure, the save loaded, but it was completely unplayable. The changes to... well everything meant my economy didn't work, my empire wasn't even connected, etc.It was well publicized that the 2.0 update breaks all the things and they do not endorse bringing saves forward from 1.9. I believe a little splash screen even pops up the first time you load 2.0 which tells you this, and goes over the changes. You can still go back to the 1.9 update if you want and finish out that game.
Oi, does it matter which precursor chain you discover? Is there any substantial difference between the rewards?
Oi, does it matter which precursor chain you discover? Is there any substantial difference between the rewards?
The Cybrex has a better home world then some others. Not sure if there is any other major difference.
I think I'm going to try life seeded with either mechanist or barbaric despoilers. Seems like an easy way to get around the main problem of lifeseeded.
This whole "you must build a station on every single system you want to claim" shit is utter bollocks.
But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?No, but your borders will never grow organically. Each station = 1 system. You will never delete them and they have no upkeep cost.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
Kinda hoping that not-warscore/war exhaustion makes sense when I do find time to play this again.
(also hoping there's a zoom key, but I'm resigned to that trivial change being ignored)
Agreed. Though, as a minor change, I wish you could just do a right click on a system to que up the nearest/least busy constructor to set up a station, instead of having to go grab the constructor. Again, a minor change, but it'd help to alleviate a couple extra clicks of micro when growing your empire.This whole "you must build a station on every single system you want to claim" shit is utter bollocks.
It took some getting used to, but I like it a lot more than the imprecise growing borders of the past. One of the best additions of 2.0, in my opinion. Much easier to plan and strategize with this kind of expansion.
I did glean that the "territory bubble" system has been replaced by specifically claiming systems. And initially those outposts had no upkeep, but don't they now? Re:But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?No, but your borders will never grow organically. Each station = 1 system. You will never delete them and they have no upkeep cost.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
Kinda hoping that not-warscore/war exhaustion makes sense when I do find time to play this again.
(also hoping there's a zoom key, but I'm resigned to that trivial change being ignored)
* Increased energy upkeep of all Starbase sizes by +1. Outposts now cost 1 energy maintenance. (Why?)
Just in case anyone was so foolish as to suppose that the unity change might make it more viable to claim everything within your borders instead of making a swiss cheese empire.
While that's true, research costs increasing proportionate to territory isn't a particularly unfair mechanic. If it helps, parse it as including the cost of retooling and distributing developments throughout your empire. If you want fast research, play small.That's a good theory and that's how it's worked in the past, but at this point, dismantling the the less efficient outposts (creating the "swiss cheese empire") is giving you upwards of 20% research bonus for only about a 4% decrease to energy/minerals in a now somewhat famous example before the beta patch. Thoe specific numbers were aiming for an optimal ratio, so the exact numbers can be different depending on how zealous you are in purging inefficient outposts, but though the unity numbers are better now, the energy has only gotten worse. And science progresses you into the late game, a big difference in science takes a whole lot longer to rectify than a big difference in minerals - one good war can do that.
[SNIP]
But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?As of next version the whole 'swiss cheese' strategy will be soft punished. Pirate spawns will be increased or decreased based on your territory's level of consolidation and defense. Strong defenses and no gaps in territory means fewer pirate spawns, gaps and weak defenses means more.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?No, but your borders will never grow organically. Each station = 1 system. You will never delete them and they have no upkeep cost.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
Kinda hoping that not-warscore/war exhaustion makes sense when I do find time to play this again.
(also hoping there's a zoom key, but I'm resigned to that trivial change being ignored)
But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?As of next version the whole 'swiss cheese' strategy will be soft punished. Pirate spawns will be increased or decreased based on your territory's level of consolidation and defense. Strong defenses and no gaps in territory means fewer pirate spawns, gaps and weak defenses means more.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?Yes. The 2.0.2 beta is a bit different than 2.0 because the penalty to unity is reduced, but they also added a penalty to energy, and the penalty to science, which is what mattered most, is unchanged.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
Kinda hoping that not-warscore/war exhaustion makes sense when I do find time to play this again.It doesn't really, but they're continuously making small changes and it no longer results in auto-peace, so it's at least better than it was.
(also hoping there's a zoom key, but I'm resigned to that trivial change being ignored)
I feel like you probably failed to understand something. As of right now, both beta and not, the optimal thing to do is dismantle outposts in any system that doesn't make enough profit to overcome the penalties from number of systems - there's nothing called upkeep unless you're in the beta (which is available as an opt-in to anyone) but that doesn't change the fact that there's a downside to having them which must be overcome, and which often isn't.But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?No, but your borders will never grow organically. Each station = 1 system. You will never delete them and they have no upkeep cost.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
Kinda hoping that not-warscore/war exhaustion makes sense when I do find time to play this again.
(also hoping there's a zoom key, but I'm resigned to that trivial change being ignored)
Sorry if those mechanics already got patched out. I *am* honestly expecting Paradox to be watching and adjusting these new mechanics, since I have real faith in them.Keep in mind that Paradox has multiple teams. If this was Doomdark's team from the height of CK2's development, I'd agree with you. Wiz's team, though, tends to favor kind of fiddly gamey solutions to things that I find unsatisfying, and balance issues like this may be eventually rectified but what replaces it might not be that great either.
Well, there's two problems with that. For one thing, you'll have better defenses on average if you have a swiss cheese empire since you'll have fortifications at chokepoints but don't have lots of unfortified hinterland. But more importantly, pirates aren't actually a bad thing. Destroying pirates awards you resources and gives your admirals experience, and it's easy to do if you just leave a few police fleets at strategic locations during peacetime. It may involve more micromanaging and less fun, but from an optimization perspective it's definitely not a punishment.But are you still expected to "swiss-cheese" your empire by removing outposts?As of next version the whole 'swiss cheese' strategy will be soft punished. Pirate spawns will be increased or decreased based on your territory's level of consolidation and defense. Strong defenses and no gaps in territory means fewer pirate spawns, gaps and weak defenses means more.
Literally asking for a friend, I'm still playing other things until these serious changes reach "release" status.
I've not tried it out yet to see how punishing it is, but the actual mechanical reasons why you would do it (systems have a hilariously huge penalty to ownership in the mid and late game) is still in place, so it's going to be a seesaw on how much you want to get punished by one system or another.The penalty isn't really higher later on - in fact each system increases your penalty by a proportionately greater amount when you have few systems. There are two main reasons why it's generally considered advisable to build up first and then delete later. One of them is the way influence costs are calculated. It's much cheaper to build an outpost if it's adjacent to a system that you already inhabit, and the influence cost just goes up further the further away a system is. The second is that space mining, which doesn't scale, can be an important and useful source of minerals early on, and the beginning is also when you're building a lot of infrastructure and fleets up to your capacity. This utility falls off a lot in the mid-game when most of what you'd want to build is built, and planetary production increases substantially. However, there are people who advocate disregarding these issues and just beelining for chokepoints and not bothering with anything along the way until you've already got your zone blocked off. This is not only viable, if you prioritize things that make your defensive stations better (such as the relevant ascension perk) it'll put you in a very strong position for the rest of the game. But the chance that you miss another alien empire within your area is higher, and you'll have difficulty paying for development within your borders and also providing a fleet bigger than a pirate-slayer, so that'll be a bit of a problem.
Yknow what would solve all of this silly outpost flappery? Researchable tech that improves (marginally) space-based resource and science generation. Maybe .5 min/energy/sci per upg.Wiz is ideologically against that since he thinks it makes planets matter too little. But yeah, theoretically a system should be "good enough" to be worth keeping in all regards if it gives three to five points of science, one point of energy, and like half a point of unity (as of the beta) at most reasonable empire sizes and common research income levels.
Makes sense that if mining technology improves planetary mining it would have some effect on asteroid mining as well.
Do note that several of the Traditions reduce the penalties for having more planets and reduce the cost/maintenance of stations so growing big is quite feasible with the right planning.Neither the penalties for planets or the cost/maintenance for stations are the problem though. It's the upkeep of stations. And there's no such problem as "you can't grow big", it's that it's strictly better for you to not claim systems you could claim, which have no downside that should logically exist, but only an artificial downside due to game mechanics.
I'm not sure if the AI is getting any discounts on system maintenanceThe thing that there was drama about was fleet maintenance. That was what was demonstrated to be the case after Wiz said that the AI doesn't cheat on Normal difficulty. It could be the case that they also cheat regarding system maintenance, but nobody has proved that to my knowledge.
I use fast corvette fleets outfitted with afterburners to take outposts while my main fleet (destroyers or battleships/titans depending on how far along I am) take the larger starbases and defended positions and help my ground forces take the planets. When facing their main fleet I include the corvettes too since they counter enemy corvettes better, but the battleship/titan fleet does a great job of pounding down citadels and defense platforms. I can usually take all the basic outposts before I've finished invading the worlds.
With the new fleet manager you can just hit the reinforce button.
This happens if the fleet has ship designs different from what the fleet manager says it's supposed to, which can happen any time you upgrade ships. It's pretty easy to work around if you just don't upgrade and reinforce at the same time, although having to work around it can still be annoying.With the new fleet manager you can just hit the reinforce button.
This! Unless it bugs out. It sometimes fails to realize that a fleet is in fact full/already reinforced.
This happens if the fleet has ship designs different from what the fleet manager says it's supposed to, which can happen any time you upgrade ships. It's pretty easy to work around if you just don't upgrade and reinforce at the same time, although having to work around it can still be annoying.With the new fleet manager you can just hit the reinforce button.
This! Unless it bugs out. It sometimes fails to realize that a fleet is in fact full/already reinforced.
With the new fleet manager you can just hit the reinforce button.
Trade stations are so good when going wide, I don't understand how you guys can not be swimming in cash.
Trade stations are so good when going wide, I don't understand how you guys can not be swimming in cash.My settings typically include turning the habitable worlds multiplier to 0.5x or so, sometimes lower. Trade stations require an inhabited world or traders' enclave in the system. This cuts back severely on how many trade stations I can pop out.
Don't need a delay in Sword of the Stars, Sins of a Solar Empire, Master of Orion, Star Wars Empire at War, Distant Worlds, Galciv 2, etc etc etc
This is just Stellaris's usual imbecillic balancing decisions. "Hurr game must be balanced... We multiplayer eSports now".
It's not like the AI even gives a shit when you're priming and firing the weapon. It's not like they will plan a desperate response or rally the worlds to save their planet. You just sit there for an obnoxious amount of time.
They have no problem with a psychic event on the game wiping out the entire Galaxy but oh no... Gotta balance mah planet destroyers.
So... Worst of both worlds basically.Stellaris design philosophy in a nutshell
Forced Status Quo with War Exhaustion is here to stay. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-108-2-0-post-release-support-part-1.1079788/)
Given some of the horror stories I've seen/heard with the beta, I'm on board with this change. War Exhaustion needs a lot of tweaking still but at least Paradox is working on it.
That could also work but I think goes against what Wiz et all are trying to do with WE. Namely differentiate between short brawls for land and big, empire-ending clashes and stopping the former from always turning into the later.
It certainly doesn't do it any worse then the current system. Your solution looks... Well, pretty complicated. Which a complicated solution very likely is the best one, but it's at least understandable why it's not done. I just don't understand why they not only want to go with simple solutions, but simple bad solutions when there are other solutions that seem obviously better and are similarly complex that they aren't even trying.
to what end tho? it prevents many classical sci-fi situations (like bug crusade after buenosaires was hit with a meteor etc)
Alright then, thanks.No they mostly just hang out at a star for a while then move on, attacking any ships along the way
I was terrified for a minute because it said it was pathing to a system for which the shortest route would be through one of my most inhabited planets and my homeworld, luckily it seems to have chosen a longer route, though i cant see it now. Do those things go after planets and pop?
Yeah that won't remotely be enough. You'll want to be somewhere in the realm of 50-100k for anything with a skull icon.
What's a good size for sectors, AI-wise? I have a planet I'd love to add to a sector, but it would be planet 6. An old thread said the sector AI gets particularly dumb after 5.
It's also a Betharian-rich sector I've handcrafted for amazing energy production, so I've turned off redevelopment. The 75% income I'll get is fine.
I guess I'm just worried that the sector AI does something especially stupid if it gets too large, since people complain about it so much. If it just builds tile-appropriate buildings (which is checked), and upgrades, that's great. It'll be massively food heavy (I've paved over so many food tiles in this Egalitarian-xenophile Human, Star Trek Federation run), but whatever.
the 5 planet limit doesn't exist anymore, i think - as i recall there was a bug that applied the core planet limit to sectors, so going over 5 (the base Core Planet limit) meant that sectors took penalties for "going over" just like your empire would if it went over. but that's gone now.Ah, cool! I guess it makes sense, but hopefully it's gone. It's not the end of the world if it does have that limit, since I'll increase my planet capacity eventually.
so if you've turned off redevelopment and hand-crafted all the buildings, there's really no problem and you can dump them all in. afaik.
although i have to say... why would you put your best energy planets in a sector? you should always keep your best planets/systems out of the sectors, and only put the worst planets in, because you want to take the 25% penalty on the smallest base possible.Due to geography, mainly. I have 5/5 planets in my starting area now, and the energy-rich planet is pretty far away and close to the big sector.
To be honest, I haven't used sectors at all since the very beginning. Now that it's core systems instead of core planets, and you can increase the amount more easily, I rarely find it worthwhile to exceed the cap.I don't know how you do that. I end up with hundreds of planets in most playthroughs, across dozens of systems.
To be honest, I haven't used sectors at all since the very beginning. Now that it's core systems instead of core planets, and you can increase the amount more easily, I rarely find it worthwhile to exceed the cap.I don't know how you do that. I end up with hundreds of planets in most playthroughs, across dozens of systems.
well my last game was max difficulty and 5x crisis strength on a 2500 star map, I was crushed by waves of 1 million strength swarm fleets at the end and I was over 200 planets strong. It was a challenge run just to see if I could.To be honest, I haven't used sectors at all since the very beginning. Now that it's core systems instead of core planets, and you can increase the amount more easily, I rarely find it worthwhile to exceed the cap.I don't know how you do that. I end up with hundreds of planets in most playthroughs, across dozens of systems.
hundreds of planets?? lol but why
i mean i guess if that's your actual goal, fine. but there's no reason to do that within the scope of the any challenge the game presents.
You don't even remotely stand a chance against larger crisis events unless you go massive and max out stations.To be honest, I haven't used sectors at all since the very beginning. Now that it's core systems instead of core planets, and you can increase the amount more easily, I rarely find it worthwhile to exceed the cap.I don't know how you do that. I end up with hundreds of planets in most playthroughs, across dozens of systems.
hundreds of planets?? lol but why
i mean i guess if that's your actual goal, fine. but there's no reason to do that within the scope of the any challenge the game presents.
You don't even remotely stand a chance against larger crisis events unless you go massive and max out stations.
In getting rid of doomstacks, the Stellaris devs forgot to remove the AI's ability to make doomstacks (lololol 500k fleet strength fleet). So the only way to fight their doomstacks is to expand so massively that you can afford your own doomstack. Or play MP. Cause MP balancing boys~
From my current game, which is making me shit my pants:You don't even remotely stand a chance against larger crisis events unless you go massive and max out stations.
In getting rid of doomstacks, the Stellaris devs forgot to remove the AI's ability to make doomstacks (lololol 500k fleet strength fleet). So the only way to fight their doomstacks is to expand so massively that you can afford your own doomstack. Or play MP. Cause MP balancing boys~
Excuse me if I take that with less than a grain of salt. I know they can go over fleet cap, but I've never seen going over command limit.
Yeah, I wasn't kidding about the 1 million strong swarm fleets guys. It's scary. I don't think you're intended to win against 5x crisis strengthIt actually reminds me of AI war actually. Like, the whole gameplay at this point is about not pissing off the contingency and turtling and praying for help.
Defensively the fleets don't use armor but will regenerate, and they focus entirely on shields
so heres a questionI mean... I would TRY. I always try things. There's no reason not to try. Failing is how you learn. At this point I can reliably beat the AI on hard difficulty most of the time, so the endgame crisis is the biggest challenge left to work out.
if paradox ups the slider to 10x, will you try to beat that, too?
Excuse me if I take that with less than a grain of salt. I know they can go over fleet cap, but I've never seen going over command limit.From my current game, which is making me shit my pants:
Hell, looking at the command limit of the second image, it is actually perfectly at the maximum of 200. Each battleship provides 16, and with 10 that's 160, while the Destroyers provide 2 apiece, which totals up to 40. Combined with the last, 200. AI's not cheating with that fleet power, and you can likely reach it yourself with the same template and enough of the repeatable techs.
Plenty of purging. And I use habitats.To be honest, I haven't used sectors at all since the very beginning. Now that it's core systems instead of core planets, and you can increase the amount more easily, I rarely find it worthwhile to exceed the cap.I don't know how you do that. I end up with hundreds of planets in most playthroughs, across dozens of systems.
Given that's a Crisis fleet and the presence of the number 007, I'm pretty sure that isn't breaking command limit. The Crisis level you've set things to is just that powerful with a single fleet.Not only are you looking at the wrong thing, have the wrong numbers, screwed up the quote function, and misunderstood the point of the post, my crisis level is 1. I didn't mess with it. I only changed difficulty to max.
Hell, looking at the command limit of the second image, it is actually perfectly at the maximum of 200. Each battleship provides 16, and with 10 that's 160, while the Destroyers provide 2 apiece, which totals up to 40. Combined with the last, 200. AI's not cheating with that fleet power, and you can likely reach it yourself with the same template and enough of the repeatable techs.
My personal limit is about 30 planets per game, after which the micro of moving pops around crushes my tiny soul so much that I can't keep it up. So I won't be attempting to beat it on my own anytime soon.
Has it? I've only ever fought the extradimensional guys and they weren't this bad.Well you used poor sentence structure, so obviously
I've been on a soap box before raving that the AI outright cheats and that crisis strength is broken. They are often insurmountable. It's fine if they are difficult, but it should not be actually impossible to achieve a victory condition.
I've had superior land area, navel capacity, and tech to a awakened empire (in pre-2.0) and had them suddenly whip out a fleet 3x the power of mine and have no problems maintaining it. This sort of thing has been a problem for a long time.
What was your galaxy size? Crises scale to be able to take on the whole galaxy.
That's absurd. I wasn't trying to wipe them out, I was trying to make them my vassals. Just showing up with my navy should have scared them into surrender, I had like 10x the strength of them. Certainly blowing up every last one of their warships, science vessels, and construction ships should have made their decision easy. Certainly the fact that I occupied their capital was something they should have been worried about... They should have been thrilled I was offering both my protection and access to my fantastic tech... Instead the AI insisted on being completely stomped, which obviously puts them further from victory.
That's absurd. I wasn't trying to wipe them out, I was trying to make them my vassals. Just showing up with my navy should have scared them into surrender, I had like 10x the strength of them. Certainly blowing up every last one of their warships, science vessels, and construction ships should have made their decision easy. Certainly the fact that I occupied their capital was something they should have been worried about... They should have been thrilled I was offering both my protection and access to my fantastic tech... Instead the AI insisted on being completely stomped, which obviously puts them further from victory.
Hmm, somethow this get me thinking of Afganistan. 2 superpowers have in turn wiped out all visible opposition, but neither been able to claim it as 'vassal'.
It can always be discussed how to model it in games, but I find it fair, that winning 'Hearts and Mind' / having a true Vassal takes a lot longer than just wiping out the opposing assets. :-\
Since we're talking about aliens, it'd be ok if the some of the super fierce militant aliens really were willing to fight to the last soldier, but that should be the exception.
But that is clearly not what is happening, because the same leader and government stays in charge. That would be interesting if it happened occasionally, the head of state tries to surrender, a militant xenophobic leader stages a coup, and part of the empire fractures off. It'd be annoying if that was the result of every war, but as something that happens every few games it'd be cool.Since we're talking about aliens, it'd be ok if the some of the super fierce militant aliens really were willing to fight to the last soldier, but that should be the exception.
On the other hand, this is galactic level civilizations we are talking about. Statistical anomalies would still comprise a massive number of the population, and when the central government collapses, these anomolies might take charge to continue the fight.
What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed?
I think you misunderstand me. In your example, Hungary surrendered, did they not?What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed?
The various SSRs that the Soviets put up after WW2? For example, Hungary got occupied by the Soviets in 1945 and they didn't leave until 1989. The fact that the post WW2 Hungarian government turned communist is probably not a coincidence. Not to mention all of the colonial wars where the European powers disposed a ruler to set someone more receptive in their place.
Really, what should happen after a scenario like that is that the vassalized country should get a new ruler and maybe government. Maybe a minor ethics shift too, to be closer to their overlord. Something to represent the victors setting up a puppet government or someone more willing to collaborate.
What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed?
Sorry, I didn't really ask the question properly. What I meant was, states continuing to exist after their military is destroyed and they are occupied without surrendering. In other words, an occupied state either surrenders to the occupiers, or it ceases to exist. Like the roman protectorates surrendered, that's why they became protectorates. Japan's military was destroyed, and they surrendered (In ww2 at least). Iraq had the state dissolved (not that it worked out well) and a new state put in its place.What examples do you have of real life states continuing to exist after having their militaries destroyed?
pretty much all roman empire protectorates?
modern day? iraq, afghanistan, lybia.
then you have those that have had their military utterly destroyed but kept coming back, like poland and hungary.
japan seems to still be existing as well.
Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_government-in-exileThat's a cool example of the kind of stuff that should happen with conquered/vassalized empires, but you'll note that once the soviets occupied poland, the official state of poland was a russian satellite state. The government in exile no longer controlled poland, although they were able to effectively run a resistance campaign from outside the country. So in this instance, once the capital of Poland was occupied, they immediately surrendered. The idea of a government in exile is a really cool concept that I'd love to see in stellaris, but it's not an example of an occupied nation refusing to surrender and getting to stay a state.
10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.
10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.
How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?
10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.
How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?
No, the situation he's describing here is exactly the same as the situation I described when first playing 2.0. A weaker enemy declares war on him and attacks, manages to take a few systems, in the meantime he's equipping his fleet to take it back, and push into enemy territory. He's got war exhaustion from all the time this war went on, plus whatever losses he took. Then, when he went on the offensive, the enemy fleet just ran around capping his outputs. Eventually his war weariness ended up at 100% (Although the AIs weariness was probably above 100 for a long time, that doesn't matter). Once your weariness hits 100%, forced status quo. At that point, the AI keeps whatever systems it had flipped during the war.
I've only played one 2.0 game, and no beta games. But in that game, I did kill a fallen empire. It went like this:
War one: Fight their fleet, win. Fight their fleet a second time, win. 100% WE, forced peace out taking 3 border systems.
*10 years pass*
War two: Jump into their home system, fight their defensive station and what's left of their fleet. 80% WE, ticks up to 100% and forced to peace out before I could capture both their planets. Forced peace taking... er... absolutely nothing.
*10 more years pass*
War three: Well they don't really have anything left at this point, so my people don't have anything to be exhausted over, and I can finally take one of their inhabited systems... (or really, all of them.)
20 years and 3 wars to fight three battles. I don't think anyone who thinks 2.0 WE is problematic (or outright absurd) is making an incorrect statement.
I've only played one 2.0 game, and no beta games. But in that game, I did kill a fallen empire. It went like this:I don't mind it too much, I just think it gets funny when as a hive, exterminator or purifier, for 10 years you have to have open borders with the foe, your open borders do not automatically reset to closed, and the very fact that you respect truces is hilarious
War one: Fight their fleet, win. Fight their fleet a second time, win. 100% WE, forced peace out taking 3 border systems.
*10 years pass*
War two: Jump into their home system, fight their defensive station and what's left of their fleet. 80% WE, ticks up to 100% and forced to peace out before I could capture both their planets. Forced peace taking... er... absolutely nothing.
*10 more years pass*
War three: Well they don't really have anything left at this point, so my people don't have anything to be exhausted over, and I can finally take one of their inhabited systems... (or really, all of them.)
20 years and 3 wars to fight three battles. I don't think anyone who thinks 2.0 WE is problematic (or outright absurd) is making an incorrect statement.
10. I spend 10 (!) years rebuilding from this absurdity, launch an attack and lose in months, again due to exhaustion. In that time I win three space battles, lose one, and take numerous systems. War exhaustion victory for the AI, they even steal a few more worlds from me while I get nothing.
How? A Status quo peace would have given you stuff you occupied and claimed and likewise the AI can't get your stuff unless they occupy it. Are you sure you're not missing something here?
No, the situation he's describing here is exactly the same as the situation I described when first playing 2.0. A weaker enemy declares war on him and attacks, manages to take a few systems, in the meantime he's equipping his fleet to take it back, and push into enemy territory. He's got war exhaustion from all the time this war went on, plus whatever losses he took. Then, when he went on the offensive, the enemy fleet just ran around capping his outputs. Eventually his war weariness ended up at 100% (Although the AIs weariness was probably above 100 for a long time, that doesn't matter). Once your weariness hits 100%, forced status quo. At that point, the AI keeps whatever systems it had flipped during the war.
Sounds good to me. He sacrificed border systems to buy time and build up fleet up against an enemy who was stronger then him. Thats the kind of gameplay I want too see from a war weariness system.
You know, Paradox could always try something radical, like integrating War Exhaustion into their existing system of citizen factions. Each faction type as different goals in war; the materialists want more shit, the authoritarians want more worlds, the militarists want to win, the xenophiles want their border to be left the fuck alone, egalitarians want to end oppression, pacifists want he war to be over, and spiritualists want whatever the great space god tells them to want.I suppose there is something hilarious about supremacist and militiarist factions pushing for war and then pushing for peace, then getting angry that their government isn't at war. This should go to some lengths towards fixing that. To develop your idea further, would the xenophile faction have war specific objectives? I'd say they'd increase war exhaustion for all the collateral damage planetary bombardment or invasions cause (so unleashing xenomorphs onto an enemy planet would be political suicide with a dominant xenophile faction), but leaving the borders alone seems like something the isolationist faction would want, while the isolationists and prosperity factions would both just increase war exhaustion for fighting in a war at all. You could also tie it into wargoals, so imperialist factions decrease war exhaustion for a subjugation CB to turn another state into a vassal, or the exterminator factions decrease war exhaustion for every captured world
Each faction could contribute to the war exhaustion based on their goal in the war. You're capturing lots of nice systems with plenty of resources? Materialists aren't going to complain, hell, throw in a strategic resource and they may even roll it back a bit. However, the pacifists are going to be upset as all hell that you're embarking on a war seemingly with the intention of just raiding resources from your neighbors, and the authoritarians aren't going to be impressed unless there was an actual world conquered in those resource rich systems.
Scale these effects by how many pops you have of any particular ethos, and bam, it's almost an organic system. If you're in a war and you just need a little bit longer, you can use faction suppression to cut down the influence of the peaceniks, or to encourage the militarists who approve of you trucking across the system and showing the enemy fleets whose boss even if you don't actually conquer ground.
I suppose there is something hilarious about supremacist and militiarist factions pushing for war and then pushing for peace, then getting angry that their government isn't at war. This should go to some lengths towards fixing that. To develop your idea further, would the xenophile faction have war specific objectives? I'd say they'd increase war exhaustion for all the collateral damage planetary bombardment or invasions cause (so unleashing xenomorphs onto an enemy planet would be political suicide with a dominant xenophile faction), but leaving the borders alone seems like something the isolationist faction would want, while the isolationists and prosperity factions would both just increase war exhaustion for fighting in a war at all. You could also tie it into wargoals, so imperialist factions decrease war exhaustion for a subjugation CB to turn another state into a vassal, or the exterminator factions decrease war exhaustion for every captured world
You know, Paradox could always try something radical, like integrating War Exhaustion into their existing system of citizen factions. Each faction type as different goals in war; the materialists want more shit, the authoritarians want more worlds, the militarists want to win, the xenophiles want their border to be left the fuck alone, egalitarians want to end oppression, pacifists want he war to be over, and spiritualists want whatever the great space god tells them to want.I like this idea too! Just to add on - Pacifists should be relatively happy to be in defensive wars, including ones due to defensive pacts/"guarantee independence". Warmongers must be resisted!
Each faction could contribute to the war exhaustion based on their goal in the war. You're capturing lots of nice systems with plenty of resources? Materialists aren't going to complain, hell, throw in a strategic resource and they may even roll it back a bit. However, the pacifists are going to be upset as all hell that you're embarking on a war seemingly with the intention of just raiding resources from your neighbors, and the authoritarians aren't going to be impressed unless there was an actual world conquered in those resource rich systems.
Scale these effects by how many pops you have of any particular ethos, and bam, it's almost an organic system. If you're in a war and you just need a little bit longer, you can use faction suppression to cut down the influence of the peaceniks, or to encourage the militarists who approve of you trucking across the system and showing the enemy fleets whose boss even if you don't actually conquer ground.
Isolationists want to be left alone. Being in a defensive war would really motivate their type. Cause GTFO invaders, up till you push them out.
(But really, should be some logic for when the same enemy continues to declare war again and again. Final solution.)
IMHO, xenophiles should be proponents of war against determined exterminators, devouring swarms, and other intrinsically unreasonable faction- though maybe less so against the Fanatical Purifiers, since they can eventually be converted with enough work. (As I believe happened in your own LP) If you're in a war with an ally, then liberating allied worlds should tick back your war exhaustion slightly, and supporting allied fleets should slow it down. I agree that the more apocalyptic your bombardment policy is, they more they're going to protest and complain.There could be different xenophilic factions, based upon what the secondary or tertiary ethos, or even civics are. So a xenophile/militiarist/individualist would advocate wars of liberation against hegemonic slavers, or containment wars against the exterminator-type states, while the more neutral xenophile faction is neither supportive nor opposed to war as long as xenos casualties are minimized. Isolationists sound pretty hilarious, getting angry at conquering worlds, and I suppose they could be fun as a faction that supports everything in war (collateral damage, heavy bombardment, planet destroyers) EXCEPT conquering xenos pops or subjugating enemy states, because they just want to be left alone and not get involved with xenos. Regarding fanatical purifiers becoming pacifists, I'm not sure if it can be done in the current game peacefully like I did in my LP, and if you can I haven't seen it happen yet. This may tie into the devs making the fanatical purifier civic impossible to add or remove. It's possible that the civic can still be made to go inactive, which will make the state normal again, but I haven't tested or seen this yet. This all sounds like dank beans ideas though
I can see isolationists being okay with war when you're maintaining a buffer around your territory. Xenophobes would probably be okay with you obliterating the stations that border your territory, but they'd hate having you try to get vassals or (god forbid) integrate new worlds.
I need to dip into Stellaris modding and see if this is project is even remotely possible
Civics are automatically disabled if you don't meet the ethics, which is most likely to occur with shifting your ethics. This certainly includes Purifiers and I've seen a bunch of people talk about strategically disabling and enabling it by shifting their ethics. In the early game you shift away to disable Purifiers and engage in normal diplomacy, so that you don't get jumped by a bunch of empires at once. Later on, once you're strong enough, you shift back to your original ethics and get the purification train rolling.There's also the problem that if they're xenophobic-spiritualist, the colossus would be ineffective at persuading them to ethic shift. One possible way would be to just completely surround their Empire with overwhelming force, but never allow them to ever go to war. After a while the pacifist faction should become pretty stronk and eventually one of their leaders should become the pacifist leader, and that could cause them to ethic shift to isolationist. Then you can invade them, take over their worlds, add loads of xenos and start another war where you let them retake their worlds and allow the xenos to pop individualist and xenoist factions, but I think that late into the game the purifiers would have all the government ethic buildings and modules needed to retain total control
Doing this to the AI is probably going to be difficult though. I have no idea how you'd influence their ethics to the point where they'd shift ethics away. Using the spiritualist colossus might work but sounds slow and tedious.
IMHO, xenophiles should be proponents of war against determined exterminators, devouring swarms, and other intrinsically unreasonable faction- though maybe less so against the Fanatical Purifiers, since they can eventually be converted with enough work. (As I believe happened in your own LP) If you're in a war with an ally, then liberating allied worlds should tick back your war exhaustion slightly, and supporting allied fleets should slow it down. I agree that the more apocalyptic your bombardment policy is, they more they're going to protest and complain.There could be different xenophilic factions, based upon what the secondary or tertiary ethos, or even civics are. So a xenophile/militiarist/individualist would advocate wars of liberation against hegemonic slavers, or containment wars against the exterminator-type states, while the more neutral xenophile faction is neither supportive nor opposed to war as long as xenos casualties are minimized. Isolationists sound pretty hilarious, getting angry at conquering worlds, and I suppose they could be fun as a faction that supports everything in war (collateral damage, heavy bombardment, planet destroyers) EXCEPT conquering xenos pops or subjugating enemy states, because they just want to be left alone and not get involved with xenos. Regarding fanatical purifiers becoming pacifists, I'm not sure if it can be done in the current game peacefully like I did in my LP, and if you can I haven't seen it happen yet. This may tie into the devs making the fanatical purifier civic impossible to add or remove. It's possible that the civic can still be made to go inactive, which will make the state normal again, but I haven't tested or seen this yet. This all sounds like dank beans ideas though
I can see isolationists being okay with war when you're maintaining a buffer around your territory. Xenophobes would probably be okay with you obliterating the stations that border your territory, but they'd hate having you try to get vassals or (god forbid) integrate new worlds.
I need to dip into Stellaris modding and see if this is project is even remotely possible
How would this system work with hive minds who don't have factions or pop happiness though? You can't really have them just be willing to fight indefinitely. The only way I can think of to do it is to use basically the system we have now except exhaustion can bump downward too because of successes, but that would make them far more powerful than normal empires when it comes to waging war, especially aggressive wars, on top of all the other advantages they have.
*I'm also willing to let other empires suffer reduced war exhaustion when fighting swarms. Because shit gets real when the zerg show up.Or when facing any other threat that'll do horrible things to your pops if you lose. Yes, converting my pops into hive mind zombies, robotic abominations, or into some sort of hoo-doo spirit things are one of those horrible thing.
I think the problem is too much is factored toward balance.
It's not really a multiplayer game, though. Paradox may play it that way in their office, but most of the players don't.I think the problem is too much is factored toward balance.
well that's the problem with multiplayer games
... Well actually, I watched a friend play, and played on my laptop, and here's the thing: It plays abominably slow at "fastest" without saying anything. I'm literally talking like 5x, conservatively.You'd be surprised how quickly time flies when you're busy shouting profanities at your friends.
I haven't actually told said friend because they still enjoy the game, but just imagine that. On fastest, each day takes more than a second... And they think that's just how it is.
Time flies when you have a laptop to stay "connected" and are playing on your desktop~
Hence having hundreds of hours of CK2 and Stellaris, because Steam is fucking retarded enough to count obvious sleep-hours as playing time.
Works in their favor, so yeah.
We played CK2's After The End for a couple decades and loved it, it's just that it started dropping us after ~30 years. Repeatedly.
We honestly can't figure out how anyone is able to play CK2 multiplayer for more than ~50 years without desyncs.
In other words, it's just our situation. Technical issues.
Stellaris has exceeded my (occasionally very obnoxious) expectations, and I'm glad to own it.
And I'm not particularly upset that my friends "own" it, since it's not like we could play multiplayer anyway.
Just finished my space dwarves game. First time I've ever actually bothered to win a full game of Stellaris. Usually I get bored and quit because the game goes so slow.
Can I just say...that is the lamest ending for a 4x game I've encountered?
It's literally just a text box. You can also easily end up "winning" by accident.Just finished my space dwarves game. First time I've ever actually bothered to win a full game of Stellaris. Usually I get bored and quit because the game goes so slow.
Can I just say...that is the lamest ending for a 4x game I've encountered?
Does it say 'YOU WIN' in monospace and shoot the pixel fireworks from the old Solitaire games?
Yeah, pretty much. It said I got a federation victory and showed the members of the federation. With a nice picture of my current leader. Oh, and a Continue or Quit option.
That's all. Even Master of Orion 1 had a better victory screen back in the 90's.
Just finished my space dwarves game. First time I've ever actually bothered to win a full game of Stellaris. Usually I get bored and quit because the game goes so slow.
Can I just say...that is the lamest ending for a 4x game I've encountered?
Does it say 'YOU WIN' in monospace and shoot the pixel fireworks from the old Solitaire games?
I swear, the one game I try running a non-xenophobe empire to try diplomacy instead of having a bunch of neighbors that hate my guts, and the game gives me neighbors that are all xenophobes. Thanks, game.
No purifiers yet, at least.
The new war system seems underwhelming. I'm disappointed I can't just declare war on an empire on impulse now. Seems like it would make trying to purge xenos more difficult, because now it seems I have toplan false flagsmake claims on enemy territory before declaring war.
I think -1000 usually means that something like their stance is preventing the trade regardless of how much you offer. Like if they're neutral to you, they won't offer their research for love or money. I've also seen "unwilling to trade a bulk payment for a monthly payment" (paraphrased) or "unwilling to trade away that resource right now".
The uber-hedgehedgemonic imperialistThe problem with the plantoid pack is that every plant empire is a hedgemonic imperialist, searching for slaves to trim them into perfection.
-snip-
I took that screenshot at 2440 years (I know it exact because that's when my final peace treaty was expiring).-snip-
Neat. How many years did that take ingame? I don't think I've ever made it past early game, longest game I'd played before losing interest was about 70 years.
Edit: I think if you find yourself getting bored because of how easy it is to steamroll in this game, just crank the difficulty to max. It sounds lame since all it does is let the AI cheat like a MF-er, but from my personal experience it makes Stellaris way more fun.
This was my early experience too. After 4 or 5 times of that I kind of realized you are supposed to have your navy at the cap all the time. AI is very focused on keeping a competitive navy, they don't seem to ever try to go greedy and focus economy to the detriment of their navy.Edit: I think if you find yourself getting bored because of how easy it is to steamroll in this game, just crank the difficulty to max. It sounds lame since all it does is let the AI cheat like a MF-er, but from my personal experience it makes Stellaris way more fun.
Nah, the difficulty doesn't seem to be the problem for me. In most of the longest games I've played, I'd lose interest after getting into an unwinnable war and losing most of my fleet. I would get tired of having annoying alien neighbors so I'd try starting a war to wipe one out and get in over my head. That was before 2.0 and war and border expansion changed.
AI empires receive +60% naval capacity/technology/unity and +100% energy/minerals/food. NPCs receive +100% ship weapon damage and +100% hull/armour/shield.
My current theory is that because the mods give empires so much to do internally, the AI can't be bothered declaring war because it's spending all its time improving internally instead.
Reduced firing speed on Colossus from 90 to 30 days. Reduced weapon charge time on Colossus from 270 to 90 days
Broken? In what ways? ( I haven't tried it yet)All my weapons have no sounds or effects.
2.0.3 is completely broken and this mod will not be updated for it
I will not be updating this mod for 2.0.3 as currently the AI will not build starbase modules, starbase buildings, and it will allocate funds for Starbases. As such, it's common to for the AI to have up to 10000 minerals devoted to starbases that it will never spend. Further, this prevents the AI from ever being a competitive threat to players.
Don't... don't they playtest these things before they push them?Time runs convoluted in Sweden
Further, there are no test players in Sweden, they are frightened by long winters.Don't... don't they playtest these things before they push them?Time runs convoluted in Sweden
Further, there are no test players in Sweden, they are frightened by long winters.Don't... don't they playtest these things before they push them?Time runs convoluted in Sweden
[Muffled silence of Finns]Further, there are no test players in Sweden, they are frightened by long winters.Don't... don't they playtest these things before they push them?Time runs convoluted in Sweden
Jesus there's not even a mode where the AI doesn't cheat. Their ships still magically get more damage and health at the lowest setting.
Jesus there's not even a mode where the AI doesn't cheat. Their ships still magically get more damage and health at the lowest setting.
I mostly fix everything I hate about the game with a copious amount of mods.
There are even mods that make pirates more fun believe it or not. One of my mods turns pirate spawns into actual realms that you can interact with. They also operate casinos and you can deal with them like little mini mercenary bands.
Also I used to care a lot more about the AI cheating until I learned the game is way more fun when the AI actually puts up a fight. Of course it'd be better if it didn't cheat but... Meh. Paradox will never do anything about it and there are some mods that help out with AI here and there.
--------
The 2.02 rollback is now live. I highly recommend switching back to that one if you're playing Stellaris right now.
What's your modlist, out of curiousity? I'm always looking for neat shit to keep pushing the boundaries the game will accept.There's like 70 items on there. Lots of graphical stuff. Tonnes and tonnes of new events. I tried some of the OP tech and stuff but they didn't really work out since it only amplifies the massive difference between a player and an AI.
Holy shit there's too many just grab stuff off workshop lol. Like I said I have around 70 so that's just a handful of them I got lazy after posting those.
Or at least until they slowly drag themselves up to jump enginesOne of them actually has a wormhole in there so I suspect they can leave. Not sure what the other will do.
I want to set up a mod which creates zero hyperlanes, but makes every star have a gateway.
This would definitely break much of the game, but I think it has potential.
Or at least until they slowly drag themselves up to jump enginesOne of them actually has a wormhole in there so I suspect they can leave. Not sure what the other will do.
The difference between 1x hyperlanes and 0.75x is so dramatic. I don't think going from a lot of lines to just single lanes per system is a 25% decrease...
Though apparently the next patch will change it so it's less dumb like that and will have clumps of systems separated by highways or something. That being said this current system is incredible for forcing conflict. On the other side of the map are three empires fighting over a single system.
I want to set up a mod which creates zero hyperlanes, but makes every star have a gateway.I thought you wrote wormholes at first, and was thinking about how that would work (I was imagining it'd be like hyperlanes but horribly rendered, forgetting that systems can only have one wormhole).
This would definitely break much of the game, but I think it has potential.
I want to set up a mod which creates zero hyperlanes, but makes every star have a gateway.
This would definitely break much of the game, but I think it has potential.
I believe one of the mods I have in the list I posted on the prior page opens up the sliders enough that it might be possible. There's at least one that causes your civil to start with the only exit being an under construction gateway, at least, and it is the literal only way out of the system.
Aren't gateways closed to you if an enemy controls them? To prevent you from popping up in the middle of an enemy's empire and vise-versa? So wouldn't warfare be put on hold until someone develops jump drives?Yerp. Even then it'd be pretty silly because every battle you initiate you'd be at a sever disadvantage due to the recent jump modifier.
Should be a few stars without any gates, and if you want to go there you need to send a giant wormgate-carrying ship on a very, very long sub-light journey. :P
I like sci-fi settings where traveling between stars the old-fashioned way is necessary sometimes.
Should be a few stars without any gates, and if you want to go there you need to send a giant wormgate-carrying ship on a very, very long sub-light journey. :P
I like sci-fi settings where traveling between stars the old-fashioned way is necessary sometimes.
Actually, that could be a way to achieve the scenario. Make a mod to the game to replace the existing hyperdrives with stuff like ion thrusters akin to the Pre-FTL mods, but with the gateway generation really ramped up and the tech for their activation (not construction) arriving as a tier 1 or tier 2 common tech (with cost adjusted). You have to go out and find the abandonned gateways with your STL survey ships, but once you find them, you have a spot you can FTL to.
No! Is realist because there is no sound in space and goverment bureaucracy is shit!Broken? In what ways? ( I haven't tried it yet)All my weapons have no sounds or effects.
Edit: Also this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1140543652Quote2.0.3 is completely broken and this mod will not be updated for it
I will not be updating this mod for 2.0.3 as currently the AI will not build starbase modules, starbase buildings, and it will allocate funds for Starbases. As such, it's common to for the AI to have up to 10000 minerals devoted to starbases that it will never spend. Further, this prevents the AI from ever being a competitive threat to players.
Saw that there were some updates, did they fix the AI
This game is going backwards. It was more fun, playable, and seemed like someone had an idea of what the hell the game was supposed to be, even if it wasn't executed perfectly.Handing the reins over to Wiz was a mistake.
MAIN FEATURES
Behind Closed Doors: Discover hidden traces of an ancient gateway network unlocking a sealed path to a constellation outside our own galaxy. But is this door holding something out, or keeping something in?
Sensors are Picking up… That Can’t be Right: Encounter dozens of new anomalies and events for your intrepid scientists to observe and analyze, and a galaxy of wonders for them to discover.
Brave New Worlds: Plot unexplored unique solar systems, each with their own story to tell. Gain technology, resources, and valuable worlds to colonize.
There’s Always a Bigger Fish: Come face to face with a number of unique gargantuan creatures that exist and thrive in the vacuum of space. But approach with caution, because whether gentle giants or something more sinister, these legendary behemoths have existed long before you and will do what it takes to survive long after.
wow. haven't even finished fixing the last dlc, announced the next one alreadyThey fixed the last dlc, it's just that they fucked things up in the more recent patches which is just plain embarassing at this point.
A story-pack expansion has been announced (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAH6LBzbpJo)/me likes space cows for their haunting moos
In space, nobody cow hear you moo.A story-pack expansion has been announced (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAH6LBzbpJo)/me likes space cows for their haunting moos
wow. haven't even finished fixing the last dlc, announced the next one alreadyThey fixed the last dlc, it's just that they fucked things up in the more recent patches which is just plain embarassing at this point.
their mechanics team can maybe work on actually fixing the game meanwhile.Do ho ho ho
Behind Closed Doors: Discover hidden traces of an ancient gateway network unlocking a sealed path to a constellation outside our own galaxy. But is this door holding something out, or keeping something in?
I'm looking forward to it, if only because it will give more stuff for modders to work with.
---------
I'm playing a modded game where every single faction is some kind of human. There's 13 of them. Sadly while the game can track the same species for a race for like 2 - 3 factions for some reason it can't track it for 13 so it splits it into different species even if they're the same, but 2 - 3 will be considered the same species.
Anyway, I set it so their ethics are all about the unrest and deviation. What happens is that every faction constantly has rebellions and changes their ethos nonstop. Thus it becomes a game of CK2 in space.
Behind Closed Doors: Discover hidden traces of an ancient gateway network unlocking a sealed path to a constellation outside our own galaxy. But is this door holding something out, or keeping something in?
Sensors are Picking up That Cant be Right: Encounter dozens of new anomalies and events for your intrepid scientists to observe and analyze, and a galaxy of wonders for them to discover.
Brave New Worlds: Plot unexplored unique solar systems, each with their own story to tell. Gain technology, resources, and valuable worlds to colonize.
Theres Always a Bigger Fish: Come face to face with a number of unique gargantuan creatures that exist and thrive in the vacuum of space. But approach with caution, because whether gentle giants or something more sinister, these legendary behemoths have existed long before you and will do what it takes to survive long after.
wow. haven't even finished fixing the last dlc, announced the next one alreadyThe people who generate content aren't the same people who fix bugs? Unless you expect writers and artists to go coding. Story packs rarely require new mechanics, they're mostly new events and art assets.
wow. haven't even finished fixing the last dlc, announced the next one alreadyThe people who generate content aren't the same people who fix bugs? Unless you expect writers and artists to go coding. Story packs rarely require new mechanics, they're mostly new events and art assets.
wow. haven't even finished fixing the last dlc, announced the next one alreadyThe people who generate content aren't the same people who fix bugs? Unless you expect writers and artists to go coding. Story packs rarely require new mechanics, they're mostly new events and art assets.
Fermi Paradox?I'm looking forward to it, if only because it will give more stuff for modders to work with.
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I'm playing a modded game where every single faction is some kind of human. There's 13 of them. Sadly while the game can track the same species for a race for like 2 - 3 factions for some reason it can't track it for 13 so it splits it into different species even if they're the same, but 2 - 3 will be considered the same species.
Anyway, I set it so their ethics are all about the unrest and deviation. What happens is that every faction constantly has rebellions and changes their ethos nonstop. Thus it becomes a game of CK2 in space.
I did this too, although I did it with Fermi Paradox and let myself explode organically, and I didn't have that problem. Did the game start with all those factions separate?
Anyway I almost wish it had happened in my game. Space racism would've really greased some wheels to keep the galaxy interesting. As-is they rebelled but always ended up drifting to fanatic egalitarian / pacifist, having peaceful relations with everyone forever, and finally federating. Still a good story I guess, but not the one I was expecting, and probably not as fun to play through either.
Fermi Paradox?Behold! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox)
Indeed, though given the context, they likely meant the mod of the same name (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1293195662&searchtext=Fermi).Fermi Paradox?Behold! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox)
It'd be cool to have a civic like "Evacuee Civilization," where you start with just a colony ship plus a slightly better fleet than normal -- and your starting system is crap. In return, your technology starts much higher to compensate your slow start, and your first colony gets some bonus like "last hope," canceling out the initial costs.
It would be cool, but I don't think it's actually possible for them to do from a technical perspective. Considering that even their Mongols have home worlds, I'm pretty sure that the game requires a nation to always have a planet for technical reasons.
It would be cool, but I don't think it's actually possible for them to do from a technical perspective. Considering that even their Mongols have home worlds, I'm pretty sure that the game requires a nation to always have a planet for technical reasons.Not quite. The space nomads are very much an exception, as are the crisis empires.
It would be cool, but I don't think it's actually possible for them to do from a technical perspective. Considering that even their Mongols have home worlds, I'm pretty sure that the game requires a nation to always have a planet for technical reasons.One of my traits mods has starts where you start without a planet. It can totally be done.
It would be cool, but I don't think it's actually possible for them to do from a technical perspective. Considering that even their Mongols have home worlds, I'm pretty sure that the game requires a nation to always have a planet for technical reasons.One of my traits mods has starts where you start without a planet. It can totally be done.
You can start on a habitat, start as a colony ship, start as a lost Fallen Empire colony, start as a colony with a working Dyson Sphere and disabled gateway but no hyperlanes out of the system, etc. etc. etc.
Hell, there's even tech I can research that will obliterate all my planets and give me a single colony ship. I'm not sure when I'll ever press that button but it is tempting.
That sounds pretty good actually. I might do that since one planet games are super boring.It would be cool, but I don't think it's actually possible for them to do from a technical perspective. Considering that even their Mongols have home worlds, I'm pretty sure that the game requires a nation to always have a planet for technical reasons.One of my traits mods has starts where you start without a planet. It can totally be done.
You can start on a habitat, start as a colony ship, start as a lost Fallen Empire colony, start as a colony with a working Dyson Sphere and disabled gateway but no hyperlanes out of the system, etc. etc. etc.
Hell, there's even tech I can research that will obliterate all my planets and give me a single colony ship. I'm not sure when I'll ever press that button but it is tempting.
Fun one to mess with: combine the start as a habitat in space with the start that gives you a dyson sphere. You can get mineral production up really high by spamming the size 6 habitats around your starting system with the pool the dyson start gives you, then when you exit the system, you can spam those habitats along with gateways like crazy. Will admitedly have very limited expansion space left, admitedly, but your economy can easily be strong enough to act like a mini-crisis out of nowhere.
I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.Yeah. I played an authoritarian empire making gabillion tonnes of influence each second. I couldn't even use it fast enough.
I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.Yeah. I played an authoritarian empire making gabillion tonnes of influence each second. I couldn't even use it fast enough.
I think that depends a lot on your particular empire. I've had games where influence grew faster than minerals/energy for me as far as how much I used vs needed.Yeah. I played an authoritarian empire making gabillion tonnes of influence each second. I couldn't even use it fast enough.
How much exactly is a "gabillion tonnes"?
I can't imagine getting more than +7 or so, even with fanatic authoritarian. You've got
+1 base
+2 planetary unification
+3 max from factions (I think? they changed living state chain and wiki is outdated)
+1 fanatic authoritarian
+0.5 per rival
which is ~7 - realistically you won't get the full faction bonus, but rivalries will make it up.
That's ~10 months per outpost, and ~50% - ~150% of that (depending on a lot of factors..) per enemy system claimed. I consider that to be, well, really damn slow... and that's also assuming you never want to do anything else with it like build megastructures, or change civics, or have any diplomatic agreements, or integrate a vassal, or....
Or am I missing some big source of influence income?
side note - I can't actually rival anyone for influence because everyone bordering me is "pathetic", but I can't gobble them up to get them out of the way because the new mechanics ::)
I believe there's a planet unique structure that generates +1 influence, right?
That would probably be a pretty easy mod. A simple empire policy to burn a few hundred credits for some influence gain.
That said, so long as you keep 1-2 factions happy you can get a good amount. Rival some annoying empire nearby and you get more. I've never had too much trouble with influence.
I believe there's a planet unique structure that generates +1 influence, right?
You're probably thinking of the autochthon monument that generates unity - the "currency" used to buy traditions. AFAIK there is no building that generates influence.
The truces between wars give me plenty of time to make new claims on the enemy. Perhaps you're claiming too much each war?That would probably be a pretty easy mod. A simple empire policy to burn a few hundred credits for some influence gain.
That said, so long as you keep 1-2 factions happy you can get a good amount. Rival some annoying empire nearby and you get more. I've never had too much trouble with influence.
Are you just not expanding ever? Never warring with your neighbors? Never playing past early game?
I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I'm just having a really hard time figuring out how anyone could not have influence problems when it costs 10+ months of influence gain per system on average to expand.
Even on max fast forward that's a lot of waiting around for something to happen.
Ok, so I picked the psionic weapon as my choice of planetkiller... amd NOW I've found that it's not a psychic dominator at all, it just makes people more spiritual. Can I salvage this somehow and get some other PK weapon?I believe you can research the other ones.
I guess influence might be more of a bottleneck if you play with a less densely populated galaxy so youre constantly building outposts, rather than the early scramble to stake territory and take chokepoints before the borders solidifyThat might be actually. I play with empire populations maxxed out so I don't actually need to expand for long before running into other empires.
The truces between wars give me plenty of time to make new claims on the enemy. Perhaps you're claiming too much each war?
I guess influence might be more of a bottleneck if you play with a less densely populated galaxy so youre constantly building outposts, rather than the early scramble to stake territory and take chokepoints before the borders solidify
Base game I think I got outpost costs down to like ~20. Only really became a problem when I went to war and had to make claims, since I had to stop making outposts during that time.
I kinda like that mechanics, actually.The truces between wars give me plenty of time to make new claims on the enemy. Perhaps you're claiming too much each war?
My current game (that I've given up in frustration) I've conquered literally 100% of the enemy's empire. I own every planet, every outpost, everything - he has been effectively eliminated from the game completely and I don't think my war attrition is even counting down anymore (or if it is, it's very slow). In addition to that I've also ~50% dominated the ally he invited to the war, and the only thing that stopped me was boredom (his fleets have been long since smashed).
Despite that, I've managed to set claims on less than 25% of his systems.
So by paradox's standards I'm trying to "claim too much" I suppose, but really? He's so utterly and completely beaten he is never, ever coming back in any way. How does forcing him to stay in the game keep it interesting, and how is making me beat him up over and over every 10 years fun?
There was a recent dev diary with some interesting stuff (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-114-space-creatures-strategic-resources-and-experimental-subspace-navigation.1096931/). I am not going to copy the whole thing over, but highlights are:
-Space Creature research is being remade. Now you can either choose to hunt them, getting a damage buff against them, or study them, resulting in stuff like the current system, or, in a few cases, try to tame/co-exist with them, resulting in components and such. Pet space amoebas when?
-All strategic resources will be visible from the start, but most will require tech to be exploited. This is nice.
-A mid-game tech has been added which allows science ships to use... the old warp drives. Yup. You need to have revealed the target system through sensor range at some point, and it won't work with special stuff like the upcoming L-Cluster.
I guess influence might be more of a bottleneck if you play with a less densely populated galaxy so youre constantly building outposts, rather than the early scramble to stake territory and take chokepoints before the borders solidifyThat might be actually. I play with empire populations maxxed out so I don't actually need to expand for long before running into other empires.
There was a recent dev diary with some interesting stuff (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-114-space-creatures-strategic-resources-and-experimental-subspace-navigation.1096931/). I am not going to copy the whole thing over, but highlights are:
-Space Creature research is being remade. Now you can either choose to hunt them, getting a damage buff against them, or study them, resulting in stuff like the current system, or, in a few cases, try to tame/co-exist with them, resulting in components and such. Pet space amoebas when?
-All strategic resources will be visible from the start, but most will require tech to be exploited. This is nice.
-A mid-game tech has been added which allows science ships to use... the old warp drives. Yup. You need to have revealed the target system through sensor range at some point, and it won't work with special stuff like the upcoming L-Cluster.
Ok, so I picked the psionic weapon as my choice of planetkiller... amd NOW I've found that it's not a psychic dominator at all, it just makes people more spiritual. Can I salvage this somehow and get some other PK weapon?
I have to question how it can be justified in-universe that you can fit a science ship with magical FTL drives that are strictly better than any other option but are physically incapable of putting them on warships.
Then stick some guns to your science ship design, and bam, you've got a weak but mobile warship.
Then stick some guns to your science ship design, and bam, you've got a weak but mobile warship.
And now you are Space Rome.
I kind of have a problem. My empire has become too large to successfully defend. I've kind of beaten my immediate neighbours, militarily speaking I'm stronger than them... but they have doomstacks of 80K while my sector fleets are at 40-50. If I gathered two or more sector fleets I'd wipe the floor with their doomstack. But if I do that then I'm leaving the backdoor of my empire open to raiding by smaller stacks There is not a chance in hell I can move my fleets around fast enough to prevent damage.Build defensive stations.
All in all the last military campaign was rather pyrrhic. I did win the war and gain territory, but that stretched my fleet even further
I have best tech (+fallen empire, but no late-tech multipliers) torpedo boats, where 150 of them gives me 100k. I have a vague recollection that refitting them to comparable tier guns would halve their power.Torpedo boats are basically OP in vanilla. There's no downside as they're cheap, really powerful, have really high evasion, and ignore most defenses.
Is this normal? Are missiles so overpowered? I've certainly been rolling over admiral-difficulty AI with zero sweat.
I have best tech (+fallen empire, but no late-tech multipliers) torpedo boats, where 150 of them gives me 100k. I have a vague recollection that refitting them to comparable tier guns would halve their power.
Is this normal? Are missiles so overpowered? I've certainly been rolling over admiral-difficulty AI with zero sweat.
I can tell you that the AI starts spamming PD once avaiable if you use lots of torpedos. I've felt a huge decrease in my fleet's effectiveness.
They did crush everything in early and mid game though
Also: I did have defensive ststions. Several citadels even. But its good to keep chaff away, not doomstacks. And even two doomstacks xan ruin me
I've pretty much decided the anacreon sector is lost. I'm tearing down the space bases there to fortify my core empire further, and falling back to Barnard's star chokepoint while I rebuild my navy
I donŽt think I have the technology :(You'll have the tech in like an hour.
I can tell you that the AI starts spamming PD once avaiable if you use lots of torpedos. I've felt a huge decrease in my fleet's effectiveness.
They did crush everything in early and mid game though
Also: I did have defensive ststions. Several citadels even. But its good to keep chaff away, not doomstacks. And even two doomstacks xan ruin me
I've pretty much decided the anacreon sector is lost. I'm tearing down the space bases there to fortify my core empire further, and falling back to Barnard's star chokepoint while I rebuild my navy
Or can PD damage and destroy ships too? The Contingency's weapons are so powerful I'm willing to believe their PD is capable of destroying my corvettes.Pretty sure they can attack ships, but they deal very little damage compared to everything else.
Yeah, usually something dumb like 14 damage. Basically PD is worthless right now. I wouldn't even bother.Or can PD damage and destroy ships too? The Contingency's weapons are so powerful I'm willing to believe their PD is capable of destroying my corvettes.Pretty sure they can attack ships, but they deal very little damage compared to everything else.
I can tell you that the AI starts spamming PD once avaiable if you use lots of torpedos. I've felt a huge decrease in my fleet's effectiveness.
They did crush everything in early and mid game though
Also: I did have defensive ststions. Several citadels even. But its good to keep chaff away, not doomstacks. And even two doomstacks xan ruin me
I've pretty much decided the anacreon sector is lost. I'm tearing down the space bases there to fortify my core empire further, and falling back to Barnard's star chokepoint while I rebuild my navy
PD is not that good against torpedoes in 2.0
First because torpedo health got buffed. Assuming 100% hitrate, it takes a guardian PD (0.62 dps) almost one minute(!) to kill a devastator torpedo (30 hp). Obviously they won't be firing 1:1, but you can see that you need a lot of PD to counter even a modest amount of torpedoes. It's even worse for the PD too because it's not 100% accurate, it actually only has 75% accuracy so real dps is more like 0.47.
Second, because corvette torpedoes (after the first volley) are fired from point-blank range the PD has almost zero time to fire making it even less effective.
So if the AI is spamming PD, that's actually good for you even if you are relying heavily on torpedoes.
The most fun I've had with Stellaris was designing a bunch of races and empires and writing up little backstories for them. It's a shame that paradox can't figure out how to test for game breaking bugs or whether features are actually more fun before they go ahead with releasing updates and dlc.
I'm fine with that. I think the current pop system is stupid anyway. This should at least make managing them less of a chore.
the current system is lackluster, ... throw it out in favor of something that's lackluster but at least it has some charm to it.This is literally paradox's game development model.
I worry that this will make ice master race (with it's mineral and engineering bonuses) even more powerful
I think the current pop/tile system is an ok idea in theory, but it's too shallow and poorly designed. They need more depth, like more adjacency bonuses, more "special effects" buildings like the mineral processing center or slave processing center, maybe special tiles with tradeoffs (maybe some pretty mountains you can mine for +10 minerals but -10 happiness or w/e), etc. More things to make you think about what you're doing, because right now there's almost zero real choice and it's basically just mindless busywork.
Contingency is way harder than any of the other crisises.
I still hold Prethoryn as the be-all-end-all of shagnasty crisis threats. However, that could because mods still screw with their balance a wee bit.Of the crises, Prethoryn are actually the easiest of them, even if allowed to grow rampant.
I still hold Prethoryn as the be-all-end-all of shagnasty crisis threats. However, that could because mods still screw with their balance a wee bit.Of the crises, Prethoryn are actually the easiest of them, even if allowed to grow rampant.
The old AI rebellion used to be the easiest, but it's no longer a crisis.
Yeah, but that's also kinda how the Contingency just works by default.Contingency is way harder than any of the other crisises.
What if the Swarm arrive on the other side of the galaxy and land face first on a cluster of poorly defended planets, eating tonnes of them and therefore getting firmly entrenched before you have a chance to do anything?
Are you running any mods? Because unless you imediately bum-rush the portals, the Unbidden can and will spiral out of control faster and harder than the Scourge.I still hold Prethoryn as the be-all-end-all of shagnasty crisis threats. However, that could because mods still screw with their balance a wee bit.Of the crises, Prethoryn are actually the easiest of them, even if allowed to grow rampant.
The old AI rebellion used to be the easiest, but it's no longer a crisis.
Unless the unbidden got a massive buff, I have difficulty believing that. Unbidden can be wiped clean without a great deal of effort, but I've never had a run against the Prethoryn with any outcome better than half the galaxy getting eaten before the tide was turned, and I've flatly lost most runs against them.
Personally what I think they should do in terms of game ending conditions is to actually play out the "cycle" implied by the existence of fallen empires. You win if you survive the "end times" or whatever happens as an intact fallen empire. Then you could start a new game+ sort of thing as the fallen remnants of your former empire.
Started a new game to see the new stuff, though not specifically hunting for the out of galaxy system. Found the gateway to it, but it is closer to another empire than my own, so we'll have to see if I can get to it before them.Yeah, I haven't had a lot of luck getting it either.
If not...well, I guess that gives me a different goal.
First time playing without AI-bonuses, and it's really a big pushover. However, it also forces you to take care of events yourself more or less.
Open gate spoiler + initial events:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
well well wellIs this real? I've been saying this was the way forward for aeons. Dynamic population system, sexy beanslook who was right all alongSpoiler (click to show/hide)
typical wiz, taking all my ideas 6 months after i post them (kidding)
Wiz's Twitter account includes some grumbling against people's kneejerk reactions to the obvious prototype so... I'm assuming that it's legit but could easily be scrapped at any point. It is only a prototype after all.Why would people backlash such an obvious improvement tho D:
Wiz's Twitter account includes some grumbling against people's kneejerk reactions to the obvious prototype so... I'm assuming that it's legit but could easily be scrapped at any point. It is only a prototype after all.Why would people backlash such an obvious improvement tho D:
Aww, you can join mine! Errr maybe. I hope the problem isn't... mechanical 8)
I'm not playing at the moment, but thinking about the game, I might want to see about implementing more diplomatic actions a la The Last Federation or something. Bored ideas I just had (these would probably cost influence mainly):
"Peacebrokering", increasing the war exhaustion of an aggressor. Defender would like this of course.
"Cultural exchange" treaty which grants society research in both directions, but dramatically increases all ethics exchange (unlike research treaties which cause both sides to be more materialist)
"Infiltration" action which promotes a chosen ethic on a chosen planet for X years.
"Coup" wargoal, auto-succeeds if you occupy their capitol, but only replaces the state's governing ethics with those of the capitol.
"Incite riots", just raises unrest on a planet.
I'm kinda talking out my butt, of course. I'll see how this diplomat-y run goes, since I was stuck playing hive-mind for quite a while.
Wiz's Twitter account includes some grumbling against people's kneejerk reactions to the obvious prototype so... I'm assuming that it's legit but could easily be scrapped at any point. It is only a prototype after all.Why would people backlash such an obvious improvement tho D:
Well, the other thing is that people are feeling burnt by 2.0, where features were cut for the sake of balance but then it was pretty badly broken and in some ways remains so, because while core mechanics were changed, the polish on top of that isn't there.Wiz's Twitter account includes some grumbling against people's kneejerk reactions to the obvious prototype so... I'm assuming that it's legit but could easily be scrapped at any point. It is only a prototype after all.Why would people backlash such an obvious improvement tho D:
The three major complaints seem to be:I don't consider 3 to be a valid complaint unless you never play empires past the early game. Planets don't feel very special or meaningful when your only interaction with them is clicking on the 'upgrade building' button a bunch of times after researching a new tech. 1 can definitely be a problem but Wiz has made it abundantly clear that obvious prototype is a prototype so we'll have to wait and see how it turns out once it's more developed. Buildings are being reworked to fit this new system and the jobs are supposed to be more complicated than just 'minerals, energy, food, research and unity'.
- It's cliche, bland, and/or generic.
- It's oversimplifying things.
- It makes individual planets less meaningful and makes the game devolve into a spreadsheet simulator.
As for complaint number 2... Well. Vicky 3 confirmed? (https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/8kkjph/wiz_shows_off_prototype_of_planet_without_tiles/dz8hil3/)Vicky 3 is unlikely to be in serious development since it seems that Johan is working pretty directly on Imperator, and Vicky is his baby. I would expect CK3 to come next. Then after those two, Vicky 3, something totally new (perhaps another try at the cold war time period) or even EU5 might be on the table.
It'd be neat if instead of ONLY PC empires getting pirates, pirates bubble up around the perhiphery of galactic civilization in general. While you're at it, have them "raid" stations instead of destroying them. Make it so that ignoring them (at least for a while) is a reasonable move.yeah mods giving NPC empires pirates was one of the first I installed. I'd love more depth to their behavior but at least they're better now than the original one-and-done early event they were originally.
Mid-game and on, you can probably wipe them out without effort, but early game they're credible threats. That way, they feel like a sign of progress, instead of random dudes who inexplicably can field navies the size of an empire out of one asteroid base in the middle of nowhere.
I wish you could pay off the marauders to 'protect' you from other pirates, lowering your piracy risk a lot or completely removing it for someone like 3k energy every decade or so.
Rather than build a relationship with money, it would be cool if you could research and implement a privateer haven policy, giving pirates a tax haven for being based in your land, but in exchange preventing them from trashing your stuff so they go attack your neighbors instead, and give your neighbors a CB against you. Seems like great fodder for a rare tech.I wish you could pay off the marauders to 'protect' you from other pirates, lowering your piracy risk a lot or completely removing it for someone like 3k energy every decade or so.
Sins of a Solar Empire did a really simple version of this where they'd attack the player with the highest bounty. It was actually quite useful as if you had excess credits you could slow down the enemy without exposing yourself too much.
That said, it was a bit binary - it came down to a last minute bidding war to try and not be the person with the most bounty which was often a bit annoying. I'd prefer if you could actually build up a relationship with pirates - this would mostly be influenced by money (what they care about most I suppose) but maybe offensive tech could be traded too.
This would lower/get rid of their raids, but as the flip side it'd harm your relationships with other empires (some very badly) as they'd know you were involved with pirates - it'd be an interesting trade off between an easier early game with a potential for less allies later on.
It'd be neat if instead of ONLY PC empires getting pirates, pirates bubble up around the perhiphery of galactic civilization in general. While you're at it, have them "raid" stations instead of destroying them. Make it so that ignoring them (at least for a while) is a reasonable move.
Mid-game and on, you can probably wipe them out without effort, but early game they're credible threats. That way, they feel like a sign of progress, instead of random dudes who inexplicably can field navies the size of an empire out of one asteroid base in the middle of nowhere.
Is that just because I'm playing on Ensign?That's more or less it.
Why would anyone want the game to devolve though?It's a clear evolution from Stellaris's current pop mechancis though; the proposed one seems to model job specialization, population rise/decline from fertility, instead of the current system where all pops expand like a vapour to fill planet tiles and then they're done, with all pops being the same
Also there's no real downside to expanding as much as you can. On paper you tech and unity slower, but in practice you get so much tech and unity from having more planets that it doesn't even make a difference. Not to mention in vanilla there's so few unity and tech choices you will max out way too fast anyway. Not to mention the HUGE production and fleet cap advantages from having more planets is way better.
Also there's no real downside to expanding as much as you can. On paper you tech and unity slower, but in practice you get so much tech and unity from having more planets that it doesn't even make a difference. Not to mention in vanilla there's so few unity and tech choices you will max out way too fast anyway. Not to mention the HUGE production and fleet cap advantages from having more planets is way better.
The point of return investment is around size 15 for planets IIRC, unless the planet has extraordinary tile bonuses. Colonizing small planets is just not worth it. In a way, the new border system removed the reason to grab small planets since in ye Olde Times it was sometimes useful for border expansion.
Yup.
Also there's no real downside to expanding as much as you can. On paper you tech and unity slower, but in practice you get so much tech and unity from having more planets that it doesn't even make a difference. Not to mention in vanilla there's so few unity and tech choices you will max out way too fast anyway. Not to mention the HUGE production and fleet cap advantages from having more planets is way better.
The point of return investment is around size 15 for planets IIRC, unless the planet has extraordinary tile bonuses. Colonizing small planets is just not worth it. In a way, the new border system removed the reason to grab small planets since in ye Olde Times it was sometimes useful for border expansion.
This is simply not true. Planets are almost always worth adding, the exception being maybe very late game - but at that point you've finished the unity trees and are in repeatable researchs anyway so who cares?
It's also not true because research and unity don't really matter enough to be worth optimizing for. They just aren't very important compared to more minerals and more fleet capacity from having more planets.
My solution for scientists is to find a spark of genius scientist for each field and call it good. Trying to match specialty to specialty was indeed way too much work for too little benefit.
My solution for scientists is to find a spark of genius scientist for each field and call it good. Trying to match specialty to specialty was indeed way too much work for too little benefit.
It's not worth it for optimizing research speed, but they have higher rolls for random tech in their field. Some techs are very hard to get without the right specialist doing research.
There's a list on the wiki if you're curious which techs are easier to get with specialists.
Edit: at least, I thought there was a list, but I can't seem to find it now so maybe not.
I'm thinking about getting this...
Pros? Cons?
whats the combat like?
ship design? does it have that?
As others just above point out, expanding and colonizing planets is always beneficial, as fully colonized planets produce a ton of resources, research and unity.
AI is decent
I've never spent '50% of my clicks on upgrading buildings', I tend to spend them on sending my war fleets to wipe out another civilization for the lulz.
Basically it comes down to getting over the moderate learning curve and if this type of grand 4x strategy is your cup of tea or not.
I even used the console commands to make myself an FE, and then just turn on observe and see what my pacifist xenophile AI does. Turns out, he conquered everyone.
Do you manually upgrade all your planets or something?Gotta get that awesome auto-upgrade mod.
I just develop my core worlds and shove all the rest in a sector. If I want a specific layout, I queue up a level 1 of every building where I want it and turn tile redevelopment off. The sector AI handles the upgrades using the sector's minerals.
Do you manually upgrade all your planets or something?Gotta get that awesome auto-upgrade mod.
I just develop my core worlds and shove all the rest in a sector. If I want a specific layout, I queue up a level 1 of every building where I want it and turn tile redevelopment off. The sector AI handles the upgrades using the sector's minerals.
QuoteAI is decent
all remaining credibility destroyed
I even used the console commands to make myself an FE, and then just turn on observe and see what my pacifist xenophile AI does. Turns out, he conquered everyone.
Well that's because that's all the AI does, other than federating, regardless of ethics. And only if they know they have the advantage of numbers.
I love Stellaris, but the AI is pretty useless.
I even used the console commands to make myself an FE, and then just turn on observe and see what my pacifist xenophile AI does. Turns out, he conquered everyone.
Well that's because that's all the AI does, other than federating, regardless of ethics. And only if they know they have the advantage of numbers.
I love Stellaris, but the AI is pretty useless.
This would explain why my pacifist federation buddies wanted me (a pacifist too) to declare war on another empire to "impose ethics" I believe it was.
Anyone up for a multiplayer game? No mods, unless someone's got a list people would agree to.I could do one this weekend. Way too much schoolwork to play anything like Stellaris during the week
I'm thinking about getting this...
Pros? Cons?
whats the combat like?
ship design? does it have that?
QuoteAI is decent
all remaining credibility destroyed
I think I'll leave it then.
Its a shame. was looking for a good space 4x that'd run in linux.
I had a game where my federation of... what was it? My humans were fanatic egalitarian xenophiles, I had a weak federation buddy that was egalitarian materialist xenophile, and a strong one that was militarist xenophile egalitarian. So basically we were all xenophiles and egalitarians but we disagreed on the details. Anyway, I forget what the exact mechanic was that spread our ethics but via our influence, and us waging wars to "stop atrocities", and destroying or severely weaking every hive mind, every single empire in the galaxy turned into xenophiles and egalitarians. The only thing that varied was what the remaining one ethos point was spent on. So I (and later my more powerful bird buddies) America'd the galaxy.
I even used the console commands to make myself an FE, and then just turn on observe and see what my pacifist xenophile AI does. Turns out, he conquered everyone.
Well that's because that's all the AI does, other than federating, regardless of ethics. And only if they know they have the advantage of numbers.
I love Stellaris, but the AI is pretty useless.
This would explain why my pacifist federation buddies wanted me (a pacifist too) to declare war on another empire to "impose ethics" I believe it was.
Did they remove the option to emergency FTL a fleet if it gets stuck with no path back to friendly territory.no it's still there. Hit B to send it home and it will ftl out if there is no path
Did they remove the option to emergency FTL a fleet if it gets stuck with no path back to friendly territory.no it's still there. Hit B to send it home and it will ftl out if there is no path
Wait, that was a thing you could do? I had a science ship trapped across the galaxy because of that and just had to wait for the hostile empire to expand to the system for the ship to go missing, since I didn't know that was something I could do. This was before the speculative hyperlane breaching tech was introduced.
Relatedly, it's kind of annoying that empires can close borders with magical forcefields. It would be more interesting if you could go into their territory anyway and just make them mad.
Wait, that was a thing you could do? I had a science ship trapped across the galaxy because of that and just had to wait for the hostile empire to expand to the system for the ship to go missing, since I didn't know that was something I could do. This was before the speculative hyperlane breaching tech was introduced.
Relatedly, it's kind of annoying that empires can close borders with magical forcefields. It would be more interesting if you could go into their territory anyway and just make them mad.
I think they said its a deliberate choice to stop play of the park capital fleets over every vulnerable word, bypassing any static defenses, then declare war variety?
forcing fleets into MIA mode if they're in enemy territory when the war startsThis already happens in-game, based on my completely-un-modded personal experience.
forcing fleets into MIA mode if they're in enemy territory when the war startsThis already happens in-game, based on my completely-un-modded personal experience.
I mean in real life walking an army into someone's territory *is* a declaration of war. Every other nation would view that as a war of aggression. Paradox is forcing you to go to the diplomacy screen/preventing players from starting misclick wars.
Counter-example- EU4 does make you do this.
Both the examples you cited take cues from real life.I mean in real life walking an army into someone's territory *is* a declaration of war. Every other nation would view that as a war of aggression. Paradox is forcing you to go to the diplomacy screen/preventing players from starting misclick wars.
plenty of other games don't do this. ck2, total wars, etc.
real life is not a good guide to making an interesting game.
Total War uses the same concept but gives you consequences for it that make sense. You're free to move your armies around someone else's territory, but unless you get military access from them first, their opinion of you is going to drop significantly.
reminds me of... i think civ games... that have that popup too about "declare war?" when you try to move your army into other peoples areas
Yeah, its probably one of the few areas where I think Total War games does it better than Paradox.Total War uses the same concept but gives you consequences for it that make sense. You're free to move your armies around someone else's territory, but unless you get military access from them first, their opinion of you is going to drop significantly.
funny, i wonder if anyone has ever suggested doing that in stellaris
No, the only mod I'm using right now is a portrait mod I made for myself. I'll take a look at them though, since pretty much every other comment I've read on the Steam boards is how bad the AI in the game is, and my limited experience so far kind of supports that.Look at all the posts here too haha. Every single page is just us complaining about the dogshit AI.
...overwhelmingly larger naval capacity,...
That's entirely possible. I did not take that ascension perk (and instead took the arguably very marginal starbase defense platform perk...), so if the AI empire took it they'd probably be over double my naval capacity. Such is the price of roleplaying pacifists.
My fleet is pretty weak overall right now at mid game, hovering around 10K total in ships and maybe 6K in stations. I haven't built my stations up to capacity since there aren't any more obvious choke points to put them at, although I could start building them over colonized worlds for trade hubs maybe. Anyway, I've seen people say that if you don't have 30K+ fleet power at mid game, you're doing it wrong. I kind of wonder how that's really even possible, unless you're supposed to sacrifice infrastructure a ton to build up your fleet.
All of those games are based on real life. Total war did it that way because most of their games are fuedal/classic era and that's how that used to work. CK2 clearly needed all armies to be able to path anywhere for the AI to work (see: CK2 boats).I mean in real life walking an army into someone's territory *is* a declaration of war. Every other nation would view that as a war of aggression. Paradox is forcing you to go to the diplomacy screen/preventing players from starting misclick wars.
plenty of other games don't do this. ck2, total wars, etc.
real life is not a good guide to making an interesting game.
Defensive stations are trash and you should never build them.
The AI can't actually damage you (aside from minor damage via bombing) or take anything away from you without winning the war so what does it matter if he wastes his time rampaging around on your back line capturing things he will never be able to hold?
QuoteThe AI can't actually damage you (aside from minor damage via bombing) or take anything away from you without winning the war so what does it matter if he wastes his time rampaging around on your back line capturing things he will never be able to hold?
Since I haven't been in a war yet, I'm curious about this. Is the AI literally unable to occupy your systems unless they win the war, or is the AI just too dumb to do it in practice? I've certainly seen the AI build plenty of troop transports, which I assumed was for this purpose.
Only opened the L-gates once, and all that had was a bunch of unique resources (and a backdoor into my empire for other empires to exploit)
I hate wormholes, they're just holes in my defense I can't adequately guard, unless I put a gate right there to have my fleet be able to get them all but I'd rather put them near borders then wormholes.Isn't that the point, in a way? To allow for risky backdoors?
Is it possible to save scum which crisis you get?Technically, but you have to revert to a save up to 1000 days (it's random) prior to when you get alerted to which crisis is happening. You can also manually force whichever crisis you want if you're not in ironman and don't mind cheating a little, or edit the save to allow the routing event to fire naturally again.
I actually recommend the mod that enables all three of the crisises.Is it possible to save scum which crisis you get?Technically, but you have to revert to a save up to 1000 days (it's random) prior to when you get alerted to which crisis is happening. You can also manually force whichever crisis you want if you're not in ironman and don't mind cheating a little, or edit the save to allow the routing event to fire naturally again.
do the 3 crisis also fight eachother?I actually recommend the mod that enables all three of the crisises.Is it possible to save scum which crisis you get?Technically, but you have to revert to a save up to 1000 days (it's random) prior to when you get alerted to which crisis is happening. You can also manually force whichever crisis you want if you're not in ironman and don't mind cheating a little, or edit the save to allow the routing event to fire naturally again.
It sounds horrific at first, but it's actually great fun.
Do defense platforms still switch sides when defeated in battle, because losing a war to my own defense platforms, while chasing an enemy fleet around, is why I rage-quit stellaris after 2.0
There's a 'jump' button over on the fleet info bit (where the buttons to merge fleets etc are).
There's also a lengthy cooldown after each jump before you can jump again.
think you also get like -50% strength after jumps for a month or something around that
think you also get like -50% strength after jumps for a month or something around that
Oh it's only a month? Easy, just wait ten seconds and then send to fleet in.
think you also get like -50% strength after jumps for a month or something around that
Oh it's only a month? Easy, just wait ten seconds and then send to fleet in.
200 days, so close to seven months. It's still absurdly useful (particularly since I play at 0.75 hyperlanes), but you better be sure you can hold your ground on the other side.
For me, the unbidden are the easiest crisis, and generally get bitch slapped into nothing within a year of showing up. Unlike the goddamn prethoryn.
I never considered downgrading the reactors to save cost, which is at least an interesting idea. I think my battleships were costing in the 1700-1800 mineral range, so I doubt it would have made a ton of difference, but it is an idea.
I also keep seeing people mention gigantic naval caps like that and I'm sitting here, scratching my head over how you're supposed to even break 1000 in any reasonable way. I know that was hyperbole just now, but I've also seen it mentioned in more serious contexts. I'm sitting at 800 naval cap right now with just under 1000 pops and about 25 starbases, of which maybe 10 are dedicated anchorages with logistics offices, and literally every starbase has at least two anchorages. I didn't get the ascension perk, which would put me at 880, but getting much past 1000 naval cap sounds challenging. I'd probably have to dedicate the rest of my unbuilt starbases as anchorages to get that far, and maybe research more repeatables on top.
Hello, which DLCs for Stellaris do you think are worth checking out and buying on steam summer sale? I haven't played the base game yet, but I will pretend I'm indeed planning to do so in near future.
I seriously wish they would bundle the older DLCs together in some cheap package deal. I kind of don't want to pay for this game twice over just to get all of the features unlocked...
Soo, is this 'good'? Would I like this as opposed to ckii or hoi? Is the ai competent enough? is it a timesink to learn?
A sizable minority of the posters on Paradox's forums seem to be mad about removing the tile system, but I really think it will be better once it's gone. It's fun for the first five planets, but it gets really tedious for little point later on. In my last game I think I had 37 planets in the core sector, all of them manually laid out and upgraded, which takes forever even if you use the shortcut to max upgrade a structure in one click.I've never managed to endure the tile-game past midgame, despite typically having like 3-5 core worlds. It's nifty for maybe a few hours, until you realize just how inane it is. The only real "choices", prioritizing different resources, are handled by the sector AI (now that it's no longer *completely and literally broken*, just kinda meh).
Other than that it's just fake choices. Put unity buildings on unresource squares. Put appropriate buildings on appropriate squares. Then be forced to check in ever few RL-minutes to make the non-choice to upgrade those buildings. It's terrible.
Other than that it's just fake choices. Put unity buildings on unresource squares. Put appropriate buildings on appropriate squares. Then be forced to check in ever few RL-minutes to make the non-choice to upgrade those buildings. It's terrible.
Maps are an inherently annoying UI for things that don't have geographical relationships, and all Stellaris ever had in that vein were adjacency bonuses that never really felt worth it. Even something as simple as having modifiers affect only subsets of planetary tiles would have helped, but as it stands I wouldn't mind just having a pie chart of percent effort devoted to the production of different resources to manipulate and maps that are wholly intended as eye candy.
In case it isn't clear, that's unironically true. You set planetary priorities, like some sort of galactic overlord instead of a micromanaging clerk. It wasn't perfect UI by any stretch, but it was actual grand strategy.
MoO2 the sequel actually added a *lot* of micromanagement, but it added a lot of other stuff that is arguably worth the tedium.
Most people seemed to want/expect it to be a grand strategy (CK2 in space) and they didn't deliver that at launch - now they're gradually crawling towards it. Whilst that's a good direction to go in, my issue with that is that I don't think they've got enough substance to back up losing all the 4x micro-manage-y systems.
I think it's become pretty clear that tiles weren't a sustainable way of doing things. Either you automate it away through sectors (then why does it exist...) or you require lots of extremely repetitive and shallow player activity on every planet, because you can have a few different types planet types that work in interesting ways but you can't scale that up to dozens of planets.
Either you automate it away through sectors (then why does it exist...) or you require lots of extremely repetitive and shallow player activity on every planet
I'm not sure how to make the terrain more interesting in general. Maybe there's potential for ground combat, or for having multiple empires vie for control of the surface like PTTG?? mentioned, but in practice that sounds like it would just be too tedious itself for something that would probably come up pretty rarely, not to speak of the performance implications.e, with planet wide commerce, mining, manufacturing or tourist (for unity I guess?) industries being things you could vie for.
As usual, I'm not sure what this should mean in practice.
The main reason I don't like tiles going away is that its another case of the Stellaris team just straight up dumping an aspect of the game instead of trying to improve on it. Sure a lot of stuff with tiles was a waste of time, but they gave planets a little more personality than dots on a map, and that's something that I can guarantee the revamp won't have.
I'm still a little bitter over them making it impossible to play with wormhole FTL from the start.
If your AI prevents you from making the game better, maybe they should invest in making the AI better instead of cutting systems.
I'm actually kind of curious how difficult it is to really get the AI to work better with the tile system. Admittedly, upon a quick brush it feels like the choices I make are so mechanical that the AI should be able to pull it off reasonably well, but I know that's deceptive.
To be honest, I don't really understand why there's even a leader limit in the game, and the leader system is very bare bones and strange right now anyway.
They can't do that either - nobody can. Modern AI is just not capable of playing a complex game like stellaris on the level of even a mediocre human player. That's not to say stellaris AI is top of the line and can't be improved, because it's pretty dumb and they could make it better.I know making good AI is hard. But like you said, their AI isn't very good. It can't handle tiles, it doesn't like to declare war at all, and it needs to be improved. So the fact remains that if they are making decisions on how to play the game based on what the AI can handle, then they aren't solving the main problem, which is the AI isn't good. I suppose they next should cut out diplomacy, because "the AI can't handle it".
But they couldn't make it enough better to get satisfactory results from a more complex tile system. Especially considering it has to run on consumer level hardware which is an even further limitation on an already hard problem.
True enough. I'm kind of curious how it stacks up to, say, CKII when CKII was this new, and if that's a fair way to guess how it will look a few years from now.
To be honest, I don't really understand why there's even a leader limit in the game, and the leader system is very bare bones and strange right now anyway.
Of what in Stellaris could you not say this, though?
I'm sure I'm just playing CKII wrong
Oh, those screenshots are very exciting. I really want to play the game with these changes.
we space vicky now, boysHell, it's about time.
It looks like a good compromise - keeping the buildings/upgrades, but without the endless tile management.
As I said before though, my issue is what they'll put in the place of that - without it, Stellaris is a pretty empty game, so if they don't add extra systems then it'll be even more fast forwarding than before.
I'm curious on what the planet size signifies now. Obviously it isn't a 1:1 pop:planet-size anymore, but it must mean something still; it's still there in the top-right corner of the planet viewscreen.
I feel that CK2's less about winning, and more about the experience of things happening. Stellaris is a bit more... "gamey", in that nothing much really happens beyond you going out there and making it happen.That and the perspective is radically different
Yes, let's make stellaris a better game by just copying a better game's design over it. :PPretty much game design 101 there, yeah. Unapologetic wholesale copying of successful games.
Yes, let's make stellaris a better game by just copying a better game's design over it. :PDoing something unique is good in that it allows for new ideas to arise, but any given unique thing may or may not be good.
And copying over the general mechanics common to EU and possibly Vicky isn't going to make for a much better game in any case, the uniqueness of Stellaris is already going out with the bathwater.
That is nonsensical. I don't want to play CK2 in space. I want to play Stellaris.So Europa in space?
That is nonsensical. I don't want to play CK2 in space. I want to play Stellaris.So Europa in space?
That is nonsensical. I don't want to play CK2 in space. I want to play Stellaris.
For reals tho I would like to see leaders be more than thumbnails.Europa in space would still feature vague numbers posing as leaders. In fact, all a leader is in europa is a collection of numbers. And a surname that almost never matters.
I did not play that, so unfortunately your undoubtedly clever riposte is lost on my ignorance.Basically Europa is a map painting simulator that involves colonizing unclaimed
For reals tho I would like to see leaders be more than thumbnails.
CKII style politics doesn't really make sense in Stellaris. Interpersonal relationships still matter, but a more detailed political system would probably end up being more about managing public opinion as much as wrangling the other political factions. I'm not sure how that'd look, but it would feel like a bit of an anachronism to just copy those mechanics if you're not playing an Imperial authority, and even then it probably should focus more on pops and ideologies since those are central features of the game.
... or France (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV_of_France) eats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne)western europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon), because we know that's strange.
That is nonsensical. I don't want to play CK2 in space. I want to play Stellaris.
Is there a list somewhere of everything Gestalt Consciousnesses miss out on regarding events and so forth? I know they can only hack the Technosphere, for example, and can't do anything with the Horizon Signal chain.
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if I can have war goals and am forced to waste influence on claims then why can I status quo it and take half their empire instead? Why can i make multiple claims?
I dont understand war and attrition mechanics at all. I take multiple systems and planets from the enemy and beat their fleet down multiple times but I suffer war exhaustion when the best they can do is attack the galaxtic backdoor with nothing but empty staroutposts?
The ai is pretty bad ataggression thougheverything
I dont understand war and attrition mechanics at all. I take multiple systems and planets from the enemy and beat their fleet down multiple times but I suffer war exhaustion when the best they can do is attack the galaxtic backdoor with nothing but empty staroutposts?War exhaustion goes up over time as well as from any losses or occupations you suffer. While you may be suffering from war exhaustion, your opponent is probably suffering worse from it if the situation is as you described.
if I can have war goals and am forced to waste influence on claims then why can I status quo it and take half their empire instead? Why can i make multiple claims?
I also made a slow breeding turtle trading conglomerate and a mantis shrimp war machine that relies upon bull and betty netch to farm and mine.
Once you reach 100% WE IIRC you get major, MAJOR maluses. No influence and enormous penalties to population happiness, I believe.
Sure, you could endure it, but even if you accepted SQ by attritioning the enemy up, you'd have major revolts on your hand and your economy would be way more down the shitter than if you'd just accepted. Then your neighbours, seeing you in such dire straits, would declare on you and... downward spiral with no escape!
As in modding the game in its current state to allow that? I won't say it's impossible, but it would probably be a huge chore if it is doable, based on my slim understanding of how modding the game works. As far as I can tell you can't do any kind of real coding, and instead can only set up events that trigger under certain circumstances, which can do a limited set of things.I am pretty sure you can't force units to move around, but I am basing this off of my knowledge of modding CK2.
It may be possible to somehow create a set of events for each space construction that were able to check for free construction ships, move the ships to the target system and after a coded delay make the structure appear. But... I imagine there would be lots of quirks and bugs with that if you could. Like the task not stopping if the ship were destroyed or tasked with something else, for example. I'm also not sure how you would be able to flag a system for such a task. Maybe the UI is more moddable than I think and it's possible to add buttons.
Anyway, I didn't play much at all before 2.0 so I can't comment on how it used to be, but it is definitely very slow to get ships from one end of the galaxy (or even a large empire) to the other. The usual response to that that I've seen is to build gateways in your empire, which I actually haven't tried but which does make sense. You can only build gateways within your borders of course, so it's not a cure all.
Jump drives can also help tremendously if you research them, since you can make serious shortcuts.
"TEN BILLION TRILLION YEARS AGO THE DARK LORD WAS SEALED AND NOW HE IS BACK AND THE WORLD IS IN THE EXACT SAME STATE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL STATUS AS HE WAS BACK THEN CAUSE HUMANS NEVER PROGRESS EVER".
"THESE ALIEN RUINS WERE... OH GOD! TEN YEARS OLD OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE'S NO WAY THEY COULD BE THIS OLD THAT MEANS THEY WERE INFLUENCING EARTH THIS ENTIRE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING ME SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE WORLD IS COMPLETELY CHANGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
How often does ai war? Ive seen 2100 once and no war...
Also, does the game not know how 'stars' and astronomical time works? It regularly flavor-texts about five thousand or centuries when it should be recording something more along the lines of at least high tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands or millions. A space station abandoned 5k years ago? Where is that civ? A mummy a few centuries old? Again.
Its at the point where its absurd for geological timelines, let alone astronomical. An 'Astronomically long time' is not used to refer to impractical or permanent states because it was easy to imagine or wait out. Silly human writters and their silly 30k year old socities . . .
At any rate, I actually appreciate the sense of scale this movement time brings.
It was a very big shotgun.
My favorite example of this is the anomaly where your ships are grazed by railgun rounds fired from an adjacent galaxy. The scales are hilariously out of whack. For example, when the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide in the distant future, it's actually vanishingly unlikely that any two stars will collide, so what are the odds that a tiny railgun round will hit a tiny spaceship over such distances?
Once you reach 100% WE IIRC you get major, MAJOR maluses. No influence and enormous penalties to population happiness, I believe.
Given that, barring the slug hitting something, it would take a plurality of stellar lifetimes for it to slow down appreciably, I'm not sure what they got wrong.It is well known that the
If you fire a 20 kilo slug into space, it's going to continue on to hit something. The only way it wouldn't is if you managed to miss so goddamn hard that the slug didn't meet any solid mass for several eons, or if it got lucky and got wrapped into a tight orbit around a star and boiled away, at which point the gas would still be moving at velocity but probably wouldn't be very lethal beyond being boiled metal.
The chances of you nailing a starship in another galaxy is suitably absurd, but so is the chances of Sol not showing any signs of extra terrestrial life until 2200, when Humans discover hyperdrive and then very suddenly are visited by space whales. And that shit happens to me every game! :P
game boxed me into 10 star systems; crystal swarm to left of me, Death orb to the right: here I am, stuck in the middle aloneTime to play tall, eh?
Given that, barring the slug hitting something, it would take a plurality of stellar lifetimes for it to slow down appreciably, I'm not sure what they got wrong.
If you fire a 20 kilo slug into space, it's going to continue on to hit something. The only way it wouldn't is if you managed to miss so goddamn hard that the slug didn't meet any solid mass for several eons, or if it got lucky and got wrapped into a tight orbit around a star and boiled away, at which point the gas would still be moving at velocity but probably wouldn't be very lethal beyond being boiled metal.
game boxed me into 10 star systems; crystal swarm to left of me, Death orb to the right: here I am, stuck in the middle alone
-[empty snip]-Yeah, space is empty and big, but time is bigger, and solid matter has a habit of failing to dissolve randomly. The shot would continue one until it hit something or something broke it apart, like the boiling I talked about before. That changes things, because we're not talking about a timescale of tens of thousands of years, which would make it ridiculous that such a slug could even escape the galactic orbit, much less hit something. But on the timescale of the "life" of the round, it becomes more likely that eventually, after eons of flying at luminal speeds through space, it finally hits something big enough to "count". Or, again, something acts to break it up, like a gravitational anomaly or nearby supernova boiling it away.
Incidentally, typical Stellaris games usually only last 250 years. That means in >250 years your species will go from basic interstellar travel to immortal gods transcending the universe, time, and space.
CK2 games are longer than Stellaris games.
That's actually one of the biggest reasons stellaris is all about expansion, and why tech penalty is such a stupid anti-snowball mechanism. Stellaris has the weakest, most meaningless tech progression of any 4x I've ever played.
Under the new planet management system, how you use your district slots will shape the ways you can develop a planet - city districts give lots of housing for pops and infrastructure to support buildings with specialized jobs, but come at the expense of raw resource production.
You know, I'd rather they ported over the whole economic sim from Vicky wholesale. A Galactic Market, where you buy and sell Antimatter at fluctuating prices based on supply and demand.
They could even do something interesting with it where only civs start with their own market which then merges with other civs markets as they expand until the Galatic Market is one entity!
I think this is the fundamental design flaw. They're trying to stop snowballing, but I think what they should be doing is allowing snowballing and adding in mechanics to cause collapses. Paradox game empires never fall, is the problem - if the Byzzies actually collapse like they're supposed to, anatolia is fun. The galaxy would be the same way if there were mechanics to cause large empires to crumble into smaller states, lose planets, that sort of thing. Factions are something of a start, but right now they're too easy to keep placated when you're huge. They should be more rowdy and more numerous, and willing to work together, when your empire is larger, such that even if you conquer the whole galaxy you still need a massive fleet to fight off pirates and rebels and such, that sort of thing.You know, I'd rather they ported over the whole economic sim from Vicky wholesale. A Galactic Market, where you buy and sell Antimatter at fluctuating prices based on supply and demand.
They could even do something interesting with it where only civs start with their own market which then merges with other civs markets as they expand until the Galatic Market is one entity!
This is Stellaris. They'll do something interesting where you can trade 0.01% of an antiproton per year, rising to 0.05% with traits, to prevent snowballing too fast.
Instability would be great, but to my mind we need characters if Stellaris is to be space opera. Right now we have Star Wars if Luke Skywalker were a nameless member of a carrier wing deployed against a Planet Cracker and Darth Vader were a bonus to fire rate from the Chosen One trait. Dramatic things happen but there's no sense of anyone noticing; there's not so much a plot as a series of events related casually only in dull, abstruse ways.Stellaris is simply just a space 4X made by people who don't like playing space 4X.
The snowball limiters are, I think, symptomatic of this larger problem where Stellaris is trying to tell a story without anyone to tell it about, so they fall back on making the mechanics ramp in ways that look narrative-like. We're watching galactic ESPN.
I'm not sure planets are the problem? Galactic Civilizations did the whole tile and building thing but there wasn't a fluff problem there. The problem is definitely with the governments and AI. That's where you spend most of the game. Planets are really just resource pumps to fuel diplomatic Negotiations / "Negotiations", internal or external.
I mean it looks like it'll be a nice change but I'm afraid it's not really going to make Stellaris feel complete. They really need to do that diplomacy patch before anything else, AFAIC.I think this is the fundamental design flaw. They're trying to stop snowballing, but I think what they should be doing is allowing snowballing and adding in mechanics to cause collapses. Paradox game empires never fall, is the problem - if the Byzzies actually collapse like they're supposed to, anatolia is fun. The galaxy would be the same way if there were mechanics to cause large empires to crumble into smaller states, lose planets, that sort of thing. Factions are something of a start, but right now they're too easy to keep placated when you're huge. They should be more rowdy and more numerous, and willing to work together, when your empire is larger, such that even if you conquer the whole galaxy you still need a massive fleet to fight off pirates and rebels and such, that sort of thing.You know, I'd rather they ported over the whole economic sim from Vicky wholesale. A Galactic Market, where you buy and sell Antimatter at fluctuating prices based on supply and demand.
They could even do something interesting with it where only civs start with their own market which then merges with other civs markets as they expand until the Galatic Market is one entity!
This is Stellaris. They'll do something interesting where you can trade 0.01% of an antiproton per year, rising to 0.05% with traits, to prevent snowballing too fast.
As it is, a planet is colonized once and then usually never changes for the rest of the game, besides upgrades to buildings and maybe swapping hands once or twice. There ought to be internal factors that make keeping a fuckhuge empire together a difficult job unless you're one of the endgame crises. That'd reflect the whole space opera theme better anyway.
The Galciv A.I. isn't really all that smart, it just has personality. The restricted set of races means they can code specifically for that race, and then there's certain situations where the A.I. is programmed to stop looking for the best way to win and start looking for the best way to fuck the player as it loses. The Stellaris A.I. does not and cannot do that. For every nation, in every circumstance, the Stellaris A.I's sole goal is the same 4X paradigm it started with. It never goes out of it's way to screw you or another A.I., it never self-sabotages for petty reasons, it's never honestly petty at all. That's why it feels like Galciv's A.I. is better, because Galciv's A.I. is petty as fuck.
When is this revamp/update scheduled for? It actually makes me want to return to playing.
I think the increasing numbers for the locked building tiles were related to the planet's development (the infrastructure mentioned, I'd guess) and not a literal cost, but it does mean having to make something of a strategic decision based on priority.
Nooooo, please be joking ):When is this revamp/update scheduled for? It actually makes me want to return to playing.
i would guess we are still talking 3+ months out. hard to know.
Anyone know what that little scale symbol indicates? Habitability is at the top so it's definitely not that. I'm wondering if it's either to show trade deficit/surplus or if it's some kind of "Justice" level or something. A bit like how Vicky has admin efficiency, which affects the police force, which if low can cause provinces to get temporary negative modifiers due to rampant crime.
Someone on Paradox's forums noted that it also coincided with the happiness of the pop being viewed, so some thing it's related to that. The devs already confirmed that population happiness won't impact production anymore, so it could be related to unrest or order and this value could be part of that.
I'm surprised the Modding community hasn't already done something like this. But I'm equally shocked Paradox hasn't addressed this. Like, Utopia was a step towards it, but it was all internal and again, way too easy. And then they haven't touched diplomacy since. Despite the fact that I've seen it come up every time they release a patch!
Meanwhile Galciv III had an expansion pack all about Intrigue and Governments and interactions between different governments and gave you the ability to create client states and it's really fucking good. I just conquered the Kryyn, they surrendered to the Onyx Hive, and I had too many planets for my republic so I broke off the old Kryyn worlds and made the Kryyn Republic a thing. It was really cool, and immersive, and there were a lot of interesting ways it could have gone - maybe the Kryyn surrender to my other enemies, the Drengin? Maybe they didn't surrender at all and I conquer them world by world, overextending and tanking my morale? Maybe they surrender to someone who isn't on the other side of the galaxy? All this shit matters, and it can happen.
Meanwhile Stellaris allows you little customization of any states you create, doesn't allow the A.I. to spitefully fuck you by surrendering to your ally/frenemy, Governments barely matter at all, and gives the A.I. nations literally no flavor because they're always randomly generated. I like Stellaris, it's pretty and very fun in the early game before the doomstacking begins because it feels adventurous and dangerous poking around where there are big scary space monsters and aliens that might eat you, but once you've met one type of A.I. you've met it a hundred times because shit never changes. The only thing that ever prevents you from befriending everyone you meet is some of the A.I. nations are fanatics who are always at war with everyone, but then they're usually kicked into the dirt. There's no reason to want to be friends with everyone though, because there's no benefit to it. There's no reward for having allies. They don't do anything for you that just conquering their planets wouldn't do. It's purely a RP decision.
The Galciv A.I. isn't really all that smart, it just has personality. The restricted set of races means they can code specifically for that race, and then there's certain situations where the A.I. is programmed to stop looking for the best way to win and start looking for the best way to fuck the player as it loses. The Stellaris A.I. does not and cannot do that. For every nation, in every circumstance, the Stellaris A.I's sole goal is the same 4X paradigm it started with. It never goes out of it's way to screw you or another A.I., it never self-sabotages for petty reasons, it's never honestly petty at all. That's why it feels like Galciv's A.I. is better, because Galciv's A.I. is petty as fuck.
I can figure out how much stuff a relatively friendly NPC empire has, because I go to "demand" and ask for more and more until they suddenly have -1000 for the offer. That means they literally do not have that much.
I usually use trade to give away a surplus resource I have for a resource I need (usually energy) to buy something, and that usually goes pretty well.I can figure out how much stuff a relatively friendly NPC empire has, because I go to "demand" and ask for more and more until they suddenly have -1000 for the offer. That means they literally do not have that much.
I was actually wondering if that was a way to cheese it to find out. Admittedly, I've only ever offered a trade deal exactly once, which was to give away a lot of food I didn't need to a neighbor who had treated me nicely in the past, in exchange for an active sensor link. They told me to shut up, so I haven't bothered to try trading since.
In regards to the AI asking for food, what's happening is (as usual) the AI doesn't know how to build enough farms somehow. I actually have no clue how this still remains an issue with the AI considering how easy it is to get food and the fact that your own sectors spam it so much.I guess the Stellaris devs read too much Dead Aid and White Man's Burden.
So as its population starves (which, by the way, is the only reason an AI empire will ever fragment), it has to look for external sources. So it sees you have tonnes of food, as you should. When you give it food for all of its money, this causes it to ignore the food problem even more, causing it to need even more food which makes it ask for more, etc. etc. It will never actually build more farms.
Yeah same, which is probably why people are trading away food so much. Except that I don't mind keeping a food surplus, personally, since it's a nice way to slightly boost my empire (population growth) without micromanagement. It would be really nice if mineral and energy surpluses had similar minor benefits, if only to let me relax about them :PI usually use trade to give away a surplus resource I have for a resource I need (usually energy) to buy something, and that usually goes pretty well.I can figure out how much stuff a relatively friendly NPC empire has, because I go to "demand" and ask for more and more until they suddenly have -1000 for the offer. That means they literally do not have that much.
I was actually wondering if that was a way to cheese it to find out. Admittedly, I've only ever offered a trade deal exactly once, which was to give away a lot of food I didn't need to a neighbor who had treated me nicely in the past, in exchange for an active sensor link. They told me to shut up, so I haven't bothered to try trading since.
In regards to the AI asking for food, what's happening is (as usual) the AI doesn't know how to build enough farms somehow. I actually have no clue how this still remains an issue with the AI considering how easy it is to get food and the fact that your own sectors spam it so much.
So as its population starves (which, by the way, is the only reason an AI empire will ever fragment), it has to look for external sources. So it sees you have tonnes of food, as you should. When you give it food for all of its money, this causes it to ignore the food problem even more, causing it to need even more food which makes it ask for more, etc. etc. It will never actually build more farms.
That's entirely possible, but if I recall correctly the acceptance chance was rated above 90%. 90% isn't a guarantee, of course, but I was still surprised.That's not acceptance chance, that's how much of a loss-deal they're willing to take. 100% means they'll accept 1:1 trades (or what they think is a 1:1 trade), 50% means you need to offer them twice as much to get them to accept, and 90% means you need to offer them a liiiittle bit more to get acceptance.
You know, I like the idea of having an alternative to using the hyperspace lanes that you could use... it just might drive your entire fleet insane. Or throw them 200 years into the future. Or turn your ships into space amoebas...
Closer to a Warp Drive than anything else.You know, I like the idea of having an alternative to using the hyperspace lanes that you could use... it just might drive your entire fleet insane. Or throw them 200 years into the future. Or turn your ships into space amoebas...
So you want someone to mod in a Probability Drive (as seen in the Hitchhikers Guide of the Galaxy)?
I'd be happy with a way to stop calling Hyperlane Breaching "speculative" after centuries of using it safely and start using it on military ships.Or maybe just make it have a chance to fail or something.
Alternatively, a Colossus that served as a mobile Gateway would be cool.
I'd be happy with a way to stop calling Hyperlane Breaching "speculative" after centuries of using it safely and start using it on military ships.Or maybe just make it have a chance to fail or something.
Alternatively, a Colossus that served as a mobile Gateway would be cool.
Right now it's safer, easier, and faster than regular hyperlanes. Hell, it's faster than warp drives over long distances.
I just described being the only politician. It's one thing to have complicated mechanics and quite another to keelhaul the player through every step of every process every time in literally excruciating detail.Interestingly enough, I've lately been having auto-explore show up in the third or even the second batch of physics research options.
It feels like a very deliberate design choice, too, with auto exploration being gated off for the first four years. Like Wiz is afraid I might have too much fun to notice everything.
If you balance the trade so that the number in the middle is a green 1, that's literally a guarantee that they'll accept the trade.
I think Experimental Subspace Navigation exists to solve a specific design problem: Getting a random event that requires a science ship, and no science ship close enough.
Also it's the "Voyager" idea of a space ship making an experimental hop and getting lost. I'd almost like it to have a chance to break after you use it (so you need to go to a spaceport to get it fixed), but enable it so you can use it to go to unexplored star systems. A "It's unreliable and too small to work on a military ship, and if you use it you may get stranded half-way across the galaxy" kind of tech.
Thats actually dumb.
the surplus exists, its free monies. stockpile beef jerky, sell to the humies
arent there some robot empires that have humans as "pets" or are like making sure they are doing well? (some civic(?) that starts them with a 2nd race) i would guess them can get food for their non machine pops and trade it?
I'm really happy to see that change, since it gives a reason to build strongholds now.
You're right about why you're not getting occupation value. If I recall correctly they should have still gotten a chunk of war exhaustion that's not from occupation when they lost the planet, but maybe that's been changed or I've forgotten, it's been a little bit since I was in a genocidal war.
Yeah, you need to resettle if you want to actually keep a planet where you're purging all the population. You do it by going to the planet (either the one you want to resettle too or from) and there should be a button on one of it's screens for it, it's a click and drag interface, pretty straight forward, should be easy enough. A pain in the ass to do on a mass scale though. If you don't resettle and you're purging all the pops, unless a pop migrates to the planet you'll eventually kill all the population on the planet, and with no one living there it will revert to an uncolonized planet.
Also, has anyone else got that annoying point where they don't want to play because the next update looks good?
Ok, IŽm the same. Barring EU4, that is, but IŽm locked out of CK2, Stellaris, and Rimworld for same reason.Also, has anyone else got that annoying point where they don't want to play because the next update looks good?
Yes, but am trying to deal with the backlog in the meantime. Can't play Crusader Kings 2, EU4 or Rimworld for that reason either.
If I thought I'd ever be in a defensive war with the AI I'd probably build some strongholds for that purpose, but so far that doesn't seem likely to happen. :)
Also, has anyone else got that annoying point where they don't want to play because the next update looks good?
Yes, but am trying to deal with the backlog in the meantime. Can't play Crusader Kings 2, EU4 or Rimworld for that reason either.
I've got it bad, this time. I'm excited to play Stellaris again, but only the upcoming version ):<You must be real sensitive to thid kind of thing then, because aside from the initial transition from CK1, the GUI changes have been super minor and mostly revolving around me features.
Probably because it's not just an addition of cool new features, but a rework. So any more time spent with the current planet system will feel particularly wasted (and it already feels exceptionally grindy).
It's almost like those CK2 dev diaries where they improve/streamline the GUI... They bizarrely ruin the existing GUI for me :P
On the far left in that last screenshot, anyone got any ideas for what the 0/0 population icon and 0/0 energy icon are for? I don't recall them existing before now.probably unfinished UI stuff
Oh my god.Don't get your hopes up too soon, the only gameplay information revealed is that you will need "advanced resources" from specific planets or from manufacturing them. Even assuming the balance is such that they're consistently worth using, the floor for possible gameplay improvement is pretty low.
Genuine good complexity that applies throughout the whole game?
Im so happy. Are we sure this is for Stellaris and not some other space game?
Oh my god.Don't get your hopes up too soon, the only gameplay information revealed is that you will need "advanced resources" from specific planets or from manufacturing them. Even assuming the balance is such that they're consistently worth using, the floor for possible gameplay improvement is pretty low.
Genuine good complexity that applies throughout the whole game?
Im so happy. Are we sure this is for Stellaris and not some other space game?
Also, does the war in heaven count as the end game crisis, or am I still going to get the Contingency (there is more than exactly 1 robot in the galaxy, so it will be the Contingency).It doesn't count as the crisis, no.
what's more interesting is that they've opened things up enough that we can have things like ships built with food and other non-humanoid economics
Energy is what should be required to put the materials/mass together into its finished state, which also should be at a variable cost depending on tech level along the lines of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
Alternatively, it's so horrifyingly lossy that it's only worth 1000 Energy as opposed to whatever exponential we're bandying about this week.
Energy is what should be required to put the materials/mass together into its finished state, which also should be at a variable cost depending on tech level along the lines of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
I'm curious how you intend to scale energy costs "along the lines of" a scale of energy production.
I'm not being snarky here; there's probably a really good way to handle being able to trivialize energy costs as a matter of raw production at the planetary scale through the building of Dyson spheres (in the Stellaris case) and reduce it to a purely logistical problem, but it has to be done carefully to prevent it feeling like just having lots of energy on hand makes all your devices more efficient, which is what it would be mathematically.
Energy is what should be required to put the materials/mass together into its finished state, which also should be at a variable cost depending on tech level along the lines of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
I'm curious how you intend to scale energy costs "along the lines of" a scale of energy production.
I'm not being snarky here; there's probably a really good way to handle being able to trivialize energy costs as a matter of raw production at the planetary scale through the building of Dyson spheres (in the Stellaris case) and reduce it to a purely logistical problem, but it has to be done carefully to prevent it feeling like just having lots of energy on hand makes all your devices more efficient, which is what it would be mathematically.
To set the scale of energy production (or tech progress) to correlate with efficiency. With lower tech you would extract less work from the energy produced and so on. That would add progression to project sizes. In the beginning energy would more scarce, make it take long time to build big ships and so on. And if you make energy into a local resource, you would have star systems or civs only capable of producing frigates within reasonable time frames, unless at high tech.
I haven't seen any particularly suspicious behavior in Stellaris, but I'd be pretty surprised if the AI had any limitations on what it can see on the map. It would significantly complicate the AI for little perceived benefit, so I doubt they implemented it. The AI presumably does at least ignore any empire it hasn't contacted yet, but probably not much more than that.One of the wonkier AI quirks I've found is that the crises do not work unless they can path to a player if there is a player in game
Then again, it doesn't seem to take much into account when sending fleets around. I just watched the AI send some fleets through a system with a stellartie devourer which they were not prepared for, with predictable results.
I haven't seen any particularly suspicious behavior in Stellaris, but I'd be pretty surprised if the AI had any limitations on what it can see on the map. It would significantly complicate the AI for little perceived benefit, so I doubt they implemented it. The AI presumably does at least ignore any empire it hasn't contacted yet, but probably not much more than that.One of the wonkier AI quirks I've found is that the crises do not work unless they can path to a player if there is a player in game
Then again, it doesn't seem to take much into account when sending fleets around. I just watched the AI send some fleets through a system with a stellartie devourer which they were not prepared for, with predictable results.
One of the wonkier AI quirks I've found is that the crises do not work unless they can path to a player if there is a player in game
Good point. It's more an issue with the fleet path finder than anything, although I do wonder how much the AI micromanages paths. I know it'll try to dodge choke point stations, which had the humorous effect of sending a marauder fleeting halfway around the galaxy on a two year quest to bypass my stations once. To their credit, they did bypass my stations... and required an inordinate amount of time and jump drives to deal with as a consequence.One of the wonkier AI quirks I've found is that the crises do not work unless they can path to a player if there is a player in game
Interesting, and I'm curious how it could even be arranged that they couldn't path to a player. I wonder if that's related to the "crisis not expanding" bug that's supposed to be fixed in the next minor version.
I believe there's going to be another dev diary tomorrow too, and I'm excited to see some more detailed explanations on the new planetary management.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to start talking about the Planetary Rework coming in the 2.2 'Le Guin' update - the complete redesign of the planetary management system and replacement of planetary tiles. This is going to be a really big topic, so we're spreading it out across four dev diaries, with today's dev diary being about Deposits, Buildings and Districts. Please bear in mind that everything shown is in an early stage of development, and there will be rough-looking interfaces, placeholder art, non final numbers and all those things that people assume are final and complain about anyway no matter how many of these disclaimers I write. :p
Planetary Rework
Before I start going into details on the actual rework, I just wanted to briefly talk about the reasons and goals that are behind this massive rework, and why we're removing tiles and building a new system instead of iterating on the existing systems. For me, getting away from the constraints of tiles has been my single most desired long-term goal for the game. It's not that I think the tile system is inherently a bad system - it works well to visualize your pops and buildings and for the early game it works well enough in giving the player some interesting economic management decisions. However, the tile system is also very constrictive, in a way I feel is detrimental to the very core concepts of Stellaris. The hard limitation of one pop and one building per tile, as well as the hard limitation of 25 tiles/pops/buildings to a planet, it severely limits the kind of societies and planets that we can present in the game.
Do we want to make city-planets, with enormous numbers of pops concentrated onto a single world? Not possible. Do we want to have a fully automated post-scarcity empire where robots do all the actual work? Can't be done without losing out on valuable building space. Sure, we could fundamentally alter the tile system in a such a way to allow these, by for example making it so each tile could support several sub-tiles with additional pops and buildings, but by doing this we will inevitably lose the easy visual presentation that makes the system attractive to begin with, and even then we would continue to be held back by the limit of one pop per building. In other words, we'd end up with something that superficially might resemble the old tile system but offers none of its main advantages and continues to be held back by most of its drawbacks.
When designing the new planetary management system we set out a number of design goals:
- The new system should be able to simulate a wide variety of different societies, to build on the roleplaying and diversity in play-throughs that is such a fundamental part of the Stellaris experience
- The new system needed to offer more interesting choices about how to develop your planets, while simultaneously reducing the amount of uninteresting micromanagement such as mass-upgrading buildings
- The new system should make your planets feel like places where Pops actually live their lives, as opposed to just being resource gathering hubs
- The new system had to be extremely moddable, to make it easier both for us and modders to create new types of empires and playstyles
We believe that this new system that we have created will not only vastly improve many of the features in the game that we couldn't get working properly with the tile system, but together with the resource rework discussed in the last dev diary will also make it possible for us to create truly weird and alien societies that play entirely differently from anything the game currently has to offer, or would ever have to offer if we had remained constrained by the tile system.
Deposits
Under the old tile system, deposits were simply clumps of resources placed on a tile, which would be gathered by a pop and determined what kind of buildings were most efficient to place there. Under the new system, deposits are more akin to planetary terrain and features. Every habitable planet will have a (semi-randomized) number of deposits, with larger planets usually having more deposits. Deposits represent areas on the planet that can be economically exploited, and most commonly increase the number of a particular District (more on this below) that can be build on the planet. For example, a Fertile Lands deposit represents various regions of fertile farmland, and increases the number of Agriculture Districts that can be built on the planet, and thus its potential Food output.
(Note: All deposit pictures shown here are placeholders, there will be new art for them that isn't done yet)
Not all Deposits affect Districts however - some (such as Crystalline Caverns or Betharian Fields) are rare deposits that allow for the construction of special Buildings (more on this below) on the planet, while others yet may simply provide a passive benefit to the planet, such as a spectacularly beautiful wilderness area that increases happiness for Pops living on the planet. Deposits can have Deposit Blockers that work in a similar way to the Tile Blockers of old, cancelling out the benefits of the Deposit until the Blocker is removed through the expenditure of time and resources. A planet can have multiples of the same Deposit, and there is no hard limit to the number of Deposits that a planet can hold (though there is a cap to how many will be generated under normal circumstances). The types of Deposits that can show up on a planet is affected by the planet class, so where an Ocean World might get its Agriculture from Kelp Forests, an Arctic World would have Fungal Caverns instead.
Districts
Districts are at at the core of how planets are developed in the Le Guin update. Districts represent large areas of development on the planet dedicated towards housing or resource gathering. For most empires, there are four basic types of Districts: City Districts, Mining Districts, Generator Districts and Agriculture Districts. There are exceptions to this (such as Hive Minds having Hive Districts) but more on this in a later DD. The total number of districts you can build on a planet is equal to its size, so a size 16 planet can support 16 districts in any combination of the types available to you. Additionally, the resource-producing districts (Mining, Generator and Agriculture) are further constrained by the Deposits on the planet, so a planet might only be able to support a maximum of 8 Mining Districts due to there simply not being any further opportunities for mining on the planet. City Districts are never limited by the deposits on the planet, so you can choose to forego a planet's natural resources and blanket it entirely in urban development if you so choose.
The effects of each District is as follows:There will be more details on most of the concepts mentioned above coming in the other dev diaries. For now, suffice to say that the way you develop your planets with Districts will shape that planet's role in your empire - a heavily urbanized planet will be densely populated, supporting numerous Buildings and specialist Pop Jobs such as Researchers and providing Trade Value for your empire's trade routes (more on this in a future DD), but at the expense of not being able to produce much of the raw resources that are needed to fuel your empire's growth and manufacturing capacity.
- City District: Provides a large amount of Housing for Pops, Infrastructure for Buildings and Clerk Jobs that produce Trade Value and Luxury Goods
- Mining District: Provides a small amount of Housing/Infrastructure and Mining Jobs that produce Minerals
- Agriculture District: Provides a small amount of Housing/Infrastructure and Farming Jobs that produce Food
- Generator District: Provides a small amount of Housing/Infrastructure and Technician Jobs that produce Energy Credits
A planet's Deposits and Planetary Modifiers may influence this decision - a large planet with High Quality Minerals and numerous Mining Deposits will certainly make for a lucrative mining world, but what if it also sits in a perfect spot to make a heavily urbanized trade hub? No longer are choices regarding planets simply limited to 'Where do I place the capital for the best adjacency bonuses?' and 'Should I follow the tile resource or not?' but will be fundamental choices that create diverse and distinct planets that each have their own role to fill in your empire.
Buildings
In the Le Guin update, Buildings are specialized Facilities that provide a variety of Jobs and Resources that are not suitable to large-scale resource gathering. For example, instead of having your scientists working in a Physics Lab on a Physics Deposit (whatever that is supposed to be...) you now instead construct a Research Labs building (representing not a single laboratory but rather an allocation of resources towards the sciences across the planet) which provides a number of Pop Researcher Jobs that conduct research for your empire. Buildings are limited by the planet's Infrastructure, with one building 'slot' being unlocked for each 10 Infrastructure on the planet. Some Buildings are also limited in the number you can build on a planet, while others can be built in multiples (for example, a planet can only support a single Autotchton Monument, while you can have as many Alloy Foundries as the slots allow). Buildings can still be upgraded to more advanced versions, but generally there will be far fewer upgrades to do and those upgrades will often require an investment of rare and expensive resources, so it's more of an active choice than something you simply have to click your way through after unlocking a tech.
Infrastructure comes primarily from constructing Districts, with City Districts giving much more Infrastructure than resource gathering districts do (6 as opposed to 2 in the current internal build, though non final numbers and all that). In addition to unlocking additional Building slots, a higher Infrastructure level also makes some Buildings more efficient, as the number of jobs they provide is fully or partially determined by the planet's Infrastructure level. For example, in the current internal build, Research Labs and Alloy Foundries both have the number of jobs they provide determined by the infrastructure level, meaning that concentrating your research and manufacturing to your heavily urbanized planets is generally more efficient than trying to turn your agri-worlds into science hubs. In addition to Buildings that provide resource-producing Jobs, there is also a wide variety of buildings that provide for the material and social needs of your Pops, such as Luxury Housing for your upper class Pops, Entertainment Buildings to make your populace happy and Law Enforcement to quell unrest and crime. Densely populated planets tend to require more such buildings, as the need for Housing and Amenities scales upwards with Pops and Infrastructure.
Whew, that was a lot of words. Still, we're only just getting started on the Planetary Rework and next week we'll continue talking about it, on the topic of Stratas, Pop Jobs, Housing and Migration.
It looks like it might open some more economic playstyles than the "Everything is geared toward military" style that Stellaris basically is now. Being able to achieve hegemony over the galaxy via economy rather than pewpewlazors would be nice. It would need a lot more to it than this, but it's a step in that direction.
It sounds like there will still be upgrades, but they'll be much fewer and farther between. Hopefully no more of the going back to a planet at 5 pops to upgrade the shelter to a planetary administration so you can build advanced buildings busywork, at least.Avoiding the busy work was one of the major stated goals of the rework. I think it's safe to expect that things like that are taken care of.
I'm actually really curious just how rare these rare materials will be. If they come at a relatively constant rate (say, every black hole can be mined for a small amount of dark matter per month) then it may just be a waiting game instead of a real strategic choice. But we'll have to wait and see what is revealed over the next few weeks.All evidence so far points to them being exactly what you hope they're not. Still, constantly generated resources do make for adequate gating mechanics in idle games like kittensgame and realm grinder. And Paradox games are fundamentally about waiting anyway, which is sort of fine as long as things are going on in the world that make your time a limited resource too - there's still tradeoff.
With PDX games, it's less that time's a limited resource as pausing is prevalent and encouraged. What you want, really, is enough stuff going on that you don't have large "fallow" moments.
Reminds me of a forum post Wiz made recently to the tune of "in a game with space dragons, post-scarcity communism that works isn't too bizarre of a fantasy for us to include". Personally, since the biggest impediment to functional communism is human nature, I think it's reasonable to include aliens who can do it. I look forward to a similar treatment to anarchism, especially anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-tribalism.
social systems gravitate to the stability point/attractor that best conforms with the current level of technology. And that there is an inertia to change, that springs out of existing structures that still rely on how old technologies organize society, giving rise to class contradictions leading toward a revolution that make social systems conform with technology.
By definition any communism would be post-scarcity, the disagreements lie in how to get there. Early contradictions were for example between idealism and materialism, utopian vs scientific socialism. Goalwise, most types of anarchism would conform with communism.
rofl... and it's... version 1.7....
they are intentionally going to recreate the drama surrounding removal of FTL types
amazing
I'm pretty baffled at that decision too, and nobody has officially explained it yet. My guess is that they chose a fixed version to begin porting with instead of trying to keep it current with the live version, and that they must have started this quite some time ago.They kinda confirmed that in this reply (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-to-be-first-ever-grand-strategy-game-to-land-on-consoles.1115572/page-3#post-24581439).
Not that it changes the impending hilarity, of course.
And all your neighbors are militarist xenophobes because that's literally what they patched in to the game.
Kinda odd, in my opinion. Militaristic playstyles are most fun when there's people to fight, and pacifist playstyles are most fun when there's people to negotiate with. You certainly don't want to flood the universe in either direction, but I'd think you might want slightly more empires with your own ethics, at least on that scale.
Xenophobic is good for early game expansions. Plus my experience has been that slaves and slave optimizations are quite good; slaves rebellions dont take real root until midgame.
But I do take issue with xenophobic and being able to select what Im xenophobic about. Study the crystals, breed the squid.
You know something I would wish for? An ability to actually be able to train your admirals and generals (little as the latter are used) outside of war. Doesn't have to go all the way to max, just give me at least some ability to get them better than baseline. Maybe factor in training the actual ships and armies as well, given they can have ranks as well. Hell, could even make it +1/day (with a buff to how quickly ships gain it. Seriously, +1 per day of *combat*), and it would still take about ~27.8 years straight to reach the max level. Make it .5 or .25 if that seems a little fast (~55.6 or ~111.1 years), just so long as there is something I'd be happy.
You know something I would wish for? An ability to actually be able to train your admirals and generals (little as the latter are used) outside of war. Doesn't have to go all the way to max, just give me at least some ability to get them better than baseline. Maybe factor in training the actual ships and armies as well, given they can have ranks as well. Hell, could even make it +1/day (with a buff to how quickly ships gain it. Seriously, +1 per day of *combat*), and it would still take about ~27.8 years straight to reach the max level. Make it .5 or .25 if that seems a little fast (~55.6 or ~111.1 years), just so long as there is something I'd be happy.
Yes please. The only time I've seen a ship beyond Experienced was two of my titans that made it Veteran after several wars, including a War in Heaven. Of course they went poof after the first couple of fights with the Contingency, and I'll never see another Veteran or better ship in this game, that's for sure.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue on the topic that we started on in last week's dev diary (http://'https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-121-planetary-rework-part-1-of-4.1115043/'): The Planetary Rework coming in the 2.2 'Le Guin' update. As this is a massive topic that affects many areas of the game, we've split it into four parts. Today's part is going to be talking about Pop Jobs, Strata, Housing, Growth and Migration. As before, any screenshots are likely to feature placeholder art, unpolished interfaces and non-final numbers.
Pop Jobs
In the Le Guin update, Jobs is the main way through which resources are produced on planets. Jobs come in two main types, Capped and Uncapped. Capped Jobs are Jobs that are limited by what the planet can offer, for example, you can only have as many Pops working in mining as you have Mining Jobs from Mining Districts. Uncapped Jobs, on the other hand, can always be worked by a Pop that fulfills the requirements, but generally require a specific trait or species right setting. For example, a species that is set as Livestock will work in a special Livestock Job that requires no upkeep, produces food each month and makes the Pop working it require very little Housing (more on that below). Pops will automatically fill empty Jobs that they are capable of holding, and each Job has weights that make them more or less suitable for a specific Pop - an Industrious Pop will be preferred over a non-Industrious one for a job that produces Minerals, for example. Pops that are more suitable for a Job than the current Pop holding the Job may take it from it them, so constructing a bunch of Robot Pops with mining equipment will likely see your organic Miners losing their jobs in short order. The player can set the priority of specific Jobs, ensuring some Jobs are always filled before others, but there is no manual assignment of specific Pops to specific Jobs, as that is one of the more micromanage-y aspects of the old tile system that we wanted to get away from.
In addition to resource production, there is also a wide variety of Jobs related to administration and tending to the needs of other Pops. For example, Clerks are service industry workers, 'Space Baristas' that produce a small number of luxury goods and increase the Trade Value of the planet as a result of domestic economic activity in your cities, while Enforcers are your police, working to suppress dissent and reduce Crime on the planet (more on that next dev diary). Some Jobs are rarer than others - Crystal Miner Jobs are only possible on planets that have Rare Crystal deposits, and some anomalies add unique planetary features that create Jobs which might only exist on that particular planet. Some Empires, such as Hive Minds and Machine Empires, also have their own special Jobs that are not available to others. Jobs are fully moddable and come with auto-generated modifiers and functions that make them very easy for modders to add to planets.
Strata and Unemployment
Whether or not a Pop holds a Job, the vast majority of Pops will belong to a Stratum, representing social classes and other broad segments of the population. The exact Strata that exist in an empire depend on the type of Empire you're playing, but for regular (non-Gestalt) empires, the population will usually be divided into the following three categories:In addition to these three, there are certain special Strata for Pops that fulfill specific conditions, such as the Slave stratum for enslaved Pops. Slave Pops usually require no o
- Rulers: This stratum represents the government and wealthy elite. Ruler Pops have a much greater impact on Stability (more on this in next dev diary) than the other two classes and require a great deal of Luxury Goods to stay happy.
- Specialists: This stratum represents the educated population working in more prestigious and highly paid jobs. Specialist Pops typically work with refining resources or performing intellectual tasks, and require more Luxury Goods than workers in order to stay happy.
- Workers: This stratum represents the vast majority of the working population. They generally work with raw resource production and require fewer Luxury Goods than Rulers and Specialists.
r almost no luxuries, but are generally only able to hold Worker-class jobs. Each Job is associated with a specific Stratum (such as Ruler Stratum for Administrators and Nobles), and a Pop that takes that Job will usually be instantly promoted to said Stratum. However, while promotion of Pops to a higher Stratum may be quick and painless, demotion is not. A Pop that becomes unemployed will keep the Stratum of the Job that it used to occupy, and will refuse to take a Job from a lower Stratum, even if there are open Jobs available. Over time, these Pops will demote down to a lower Stratum, but as Unemployment can cause quite a bit of unhappiness, having unemployed upper class Pops can be a serious source of instability for a planet while those Pops are demoting. This effect is more pronounced in a stratified empire, as the lack of social safety nets increases the Happiness penalties for unemployment.
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Housing
One of the major reasons we decided to rework the tile system was the limitations it placed on planetary populations - not just limiting us to an absolute maximum of 25 pops, but also ensuring that planets could never be over- or underpopulated, as the ideal number of Pops on a planet would always be equal to the number of tiles. In the Le Guin update, the hard restriction of one Pop per tile has been replaced with a soft cap known as Housing. Housing is a value on the planet that is primarily provided by Districts, with City Districts giving far more Housing than their resource-focused alternatives. Each Pop requires 1 unit of Housing by default, though the Housing demands of individual Pops can change due to a wide variety of factors such as Traits, Stratum, Job and so on.
For example, a Robot Pop that is not sapient or has not been given Citizen Rights requires far less housing than an ordinary Pop, as the storage and support infrastructure they require occupies significantly less space on the planet than the dedicated housing occupied by your citizens. Housing is not a hard limit, and the housing requirements of Pops can exceed the available Housing if the planet population continues to grow without additional Housing being constructed. This is called Overcrowding, and will result in a variety of negative effects such as reduced growth speed and lowered Happiness/stability, but also increases the Migration Push on the planet (more on that below), so a small amount of Overcrowding may actually be desirable on your heavily populated planets in order to grow your new colonies.
Growth and Migration
Migration is a concept that's never quite worked out to be as interesting as it should be in Stellaris. While there were a lot of mechanics related to how Pops moved and why, these mechanics were quite opaque, and the wholesale movements of Pops that simply packed up and moved to another world resulted in a mechanic that often felt more like a nuisance to the player than anything, as Pops would leave critical buildings on your core worlds untended to in order to settle down on some newly colonized ball of ice on the other side of your empire. For this reason, when reworking the migration mechanics, we decided that the new system would tie more directly into Pop Growth and make it more clear what benefits you were receiving from migration on a planet.
Under the new Growth and Migration system, each Planet has five different main variables that determine its demographical direction: Pop Growth, Pop Decline, Immigration Pull, Emigration Push and Pop Assembly. I will go over each of these in turn:That's all for today! Next week we'll continue with part 3 of the Planetary Rework dev diaries, on the topic of Happiness, Stability and Crime.
- Pop Growth: This is the base level of Pop Growth on the planet from natural reproduction and immigration. A Planet will only have a single growing Species at any given time, but is not limited to the Species alreadyliving on the planet - any Species with theoretical access to the planet through migration will be able to start growing on a planet, and when choosing a Species to grow, planets will generally prioritize Species that are under-represented on the planet, meaning for example that an empire with Syncretic Evolution will generally have both its Species growing in turn on any new colonies, instead of being limited to only the Species that they used to colonize the planet. The rights you have assigned to Species will factor into this, so a Species with Full Citizenship will get far higher weight when deciding which Pop to grow next than one that merely has Residence. Habitability is also a major factor.
- Pop Decline: Pop Decline represents the decline of certain Species on the planet, and usually is a result of shifting demographics or Purging. Overcrowded Planets that have over-represented Species will have those Species begin to decline in numbers and be replaced by newly growing, under-represented Species. This means that planet demographics will change over time, for example having your homeworlds turn more cosmopolitan and multi-species over time as a result of signing Migration Treaties as a Xenophile, or your privileged main species with Full Citizen moving onto conquered planets and replacing the less privileged population already living there as a Xenophobe. Purging a particular species will essentially guarantee that Species' rapid decline, creating massive amounts of Emigration in the form of Refugees if Displacement is used.
- Immigration and Emigration: Each Planet has an Immigration Pull and Emigration Push value generated by factors such as Housing, Stability, Unemployment and so on. By subtracting Emigration from Immigration, the overall Migration state of the planet is calculated. A planet with more Emigration than Immigration will have faster Pop Decline, but will also 'export' its Emigration value to a general Migration Pool that is distributed among potential immigration targets. Planets with higher Immigration Pull will receive a greater share of this migration, which is converted directly into Pop Growth. Normally, Planets can only send their Emigration to planets in the same empire, but signing Migration Treaties or accepting Refugees will allow you to receive migration from planets outside your borders.
- Pop Assembly: Pop Assembly represents a planet's capacity for constructing artificial (generally Robotic) Pops and comes from certain Jobs provided by special buildings. Each unit of Pop Assembly provided by Jobs will automatically contribute 1 growth towards the next artificial Pop being built on the planet. A Planet can have both Growing and Assembling Pops, and there is no link between Pop Assembly and Emigration/Immigration asides from the potential for assembled Pops to create overcrowding and unemployment.
I usually manage to get at least the capital ships get up to high levels of skill (Veteran but never elite) over the course of one or two wars, though for smaller ships it seems to be more difficult since they aren't as survivable. I don't know if it's just my design strategy is off or what but I always seem to lose almost my entire corvette fleet and most of the destroyers unless the balance of power is completely lopsided, while the big guys come out practically undamaged. This snowballs, and the capital ships get even tougher and more survivable while the escorts are coming out as experienced as they can be with a Fleet Academy. So I try to redesign them to make them tougher and better at dodging, and sometimes it helps a little, but it seems like massive escort losses is just the price of admission.
But either way from what I've seen ship XP seems to depend solely on time spent in combat, with actions during that combat being irrelevant, so if things are being resolved quickly in either direction that might be causing the problems.
Hitler also "Relocated" the Jews to ghettos, and then when he found out he didn't have enough space to have a GRORIOUS ARYAN EMPYRE and a subdued Jewish state, that's when he decided to start the genocidin'. At least, that's what I gathered from my history classes, which were American so I guess take this pile of salt?Hitler's Final Solution was called that because he had tried other ways to dispose of the jews and other minorities beforehand, but had to give up on them. The original plan was to deport them all to Madagascar. Mass deportation is still a form of genocide, going by the UN's definition of the term (and they invented it, so I think it's fair go by this one).
I hope this means you can disgustingly overpopulated hive worlds that are just 100% of the planet's surface covered in kowloon walled cities
I hope this means you can disgustingly overpopulated hive worlds that are just 100% of the planet's surface covered in kowloon walled cities
I see no reason why not. Any planet can have as many city/urban districts as it can hold, which is great because they provide the most housing per district too. Throw in as many housing requirement reducing civics, living standards and traits as you can get, and I see no reason why you can't have a population density to rival the Kowloon Walled City over the entire planet. I think that was explicitly a goal mentioned by the developers too.
It also means that genemodding pops to breed extremely quickly and then displacing them is going to be even more effective at hilariously crippling your opponents.How have I not already done this? My xenophobic slavers are going to create a version of a slave race that's super fertile and terrible at everything, fill a planet with them and then mass deport to screw with those dirty xenophiles.
How have I not already done this? My xenophobic slavers are going to create a version of a slave race that's super fertile and terrible at everything, fill a planet with them and then mass deport to screw with those dirty xenophiles.Locust pops are good: But try one better. Make them fertile, utterly useless, solitary & charismatic. Unleash the galactic catsplosion of adorable, useless cats into every enemy Empire
Honestly, I tend to think they don't give you enough to truly differentiate a species. Precisely why I go with the ethics expanded that doubles your options and increases your points to 5, an increase to 10 trait picks maximum (no default trait point bonuses, but with repeatable tech to get more trait points. Makes bio-ascension worth something as a bonus) with additional traits mods, and double the amount of civics you can have at the start along with some new civics mods (would prefer five or even six, but you run out of room in civilization creation and I haven't found a mod to expand those menus). The collective bonuses and maluses of that increased amount of traits, ethics, and civics is enough to actually feel a difference in playstyle, while there really doesn't feel enough in the base game outside of a few specific civics.
This is pretty typical of Paradox when they rework a major system. Rip out the old, reuse as much as makes sense, make it work at a basic level then later add details and complexityAll of Stellaris has been waiting on the "later" since launch, though.
I don't really agree. The game as a whole does what it set out to do very well and they have been steadily adding to it. It is by far my favorite science fiction 4x style game.This is pretty typical of Paradox when they rework a major system. Rip out the old, reuse as much as makes sense, make it work at a basic level then later add details and complexityAll of Stellaris has been waiting on the "later" since launch, though.
I don't really agree. The game as a whole does what it set out to do very well and they have been steadily adding to it. It is by far my favorite science fiction 4x style game.This is pretty typical of Paradox when they rework a major system. Rip out the old, reuse as much as makes sense, make it work at a basic level then later add details and complexityAll of Stellaris has been waiting on the "later" since launch, though.
It was a good change
It seems like Paradox has always preferred to court people who find complexity scary rather than people who want more. It seems counterproductive but I guess it works for them.What a weird passive insult.
It seems like Paradox has always preferred to court people who find complexity scary rather than people who want more. It seems counterproductive but I guess it works for them.
Heh, I think we discussed AI resource trading and how they hard-refuse to trade away monthly resources in exchange for one-time resources. So no "loans", even it's minerals for energy or whatnot. Fair enough - little bit lazy, SMAC AIs had a loan system, but at least the UI does explain why the Trade Acceptance is -1000 if you mouse over.Super bummed about that. Being a creditor is my favorite thing in games like this. Alloying my patience and wealth, building my revenue streams so slowly and so precisely that when the end comes nobody really understands that the paid for the instruments of their own doom.
Reason I'm amused is that it works in reverse. They refuse to instant-transfer even a single unit, if you're offering them monthly payments.
To the point that I said "Okay... What if we don't pay you 10 minerals per month?" and the trade went from -1000 to 3, acceptable.
(Also the UI explanation was the same: "Does not want to trade away monthly resources for instant resources." Pretty minor, but inaccurate text heh)
Edit: Also, protip that there is a relations bonus for offering generous deals, rather than haggling it down to a green 1 Trade Acceptance. It seems pretty minor in normal cases, and degrades of course. I haven't tested extreme values, though.
I never played with multiple FTL types but frankly the game as it stands strikes a good balance between being complex enough to be captivating and accessible enough to actually play. "More stuff" isn't necessarily a positive, that said I can appreciate people being upset that they paid for a game that did certain things and they now no longer own that game.
Unrelated: Am I competely dense or is there no meaningful way to foment discord? I'd love to be able to rile up factions in an enemy civilization and capitalize on civil instability. I get that not everything can be Crusader Kings II but it would be great if more things were.
You are a font of eternal glory.
Base game or modded? And if modded, have you tried this mod (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1161435032), the parent mentioned in the description, or this mod (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1442128058&searchtext=espionage)?
Unrelated: Am I competely dense or is there no meaningful way to foment discord? I'd love to be able to rile up factions in an enemy civilization and capitalize on civil instability. I get that not everything can be Crusader Kings II but it would be great if more things were.
Increases the difficulty of the game for a greater challenge, with higher difficulties granting bonuses to AI empires. Higher difficulty also increases the strength of the endgame crisis. Vassals of human players do not gain difficulty bonuses.
Ensign - AI empires receive no bonus modifiers, but have minor cheats such as lower gene-modding cost. Non-playable empires (NPCs) receive +33% ship weapon damage and +33% hull/armour/shield.
Captain - AI empires receive +15% naval capacity/technology/unity and +25% energy/minerals/food. NPCs receive +50% ship weapon damage and +50% hull/armour/shield.
Commodore - AI empires receive +30% naval capacity/technology/unity and +50% energy/minerals/food. NPCs receive +66% ship weapon damage and +66% hull/armour/shield.
Admiral - AI empires receive +45% naval capacity/technology/unity and +75% energy/minerals/food. NPCs receive +75% ship weapon damage and +75% hull/armour/shield.
Grand Admiral - AI empires receive +60% naval capacity/technology/unity and +100% energy/minerals/food. NPCs receive +100% ship weapon damage and +100% hull/armour/shield.
Scaling - AI empires receive bonuses that start at zero and scale up, reaching +50% in naval capacity/technology/unity/energy/minerals/food at the End-Game year. NPCs receive bonuses that start at zero and scale up, reaching 50% ship weapon damage and +50% hull/armour/shield at the End-Game year (1% every 4 years if End-Game year is 2400).
So I'm starting a new game of Stellaris, and I was wondering. What mods are you guys using? I got a few already, but I feel like I'm still missing something that I used to have, though I don't know what it is. And you guys have some taste besides.
According to the wiki on anything higher then the lowest difficulty level it gets a percentage increase to resource gain, which is pretty much conquering resources out of thin air.
It might still be possible to take out their energy production to cripple them, but you'll have to take out a lot more then you would against a player and they'll be able to rebuild a lot easier.
So I'm starting a new game of Stellaris, and I was wondering. What mods are you guys using? I got a few already, but I feel like I'm still missing something that I used to have, though I don't know what it is. And you guys have some taste besides.
I've been meaning to check that mod out for a long time. It's extremely well done, from what I gather, and I was a big fan of Birth of the Federation way back in the day.
Jokes on me because when I got their communications I realized they're right beside a fallen empire that doesn't share my views on galactic subjugation. I was careful to claim the pulsar before they surrendered and it's in a choke point for the FE. I will build it bigger I will make it meaner and I will name it Thermopolyae and then, when the time is right I will poke god in the eye.Cuuuuuuue jump drives!
Cuuuuuuue jump drives!Two can play at that game. Because my only concern with the defenses is anti-armor capability the system appears much much weaker than it is. My plan is that it looks so defenseless that they go straight after it, then I jump all available fleets into the system with their maxed out armor and then I lose anyway because I fucked up something else.
Technically you're missing the serious debuff that fleets get while jump drive is charging (120 days, I want to say). Though *that* also runs both ways, if they jump past your Thermopylae. I haven't spent enough time in the late-game to have really noticed the AI use jump drives at all, and I would be somewhat surprised if they're smart enough to jump around chokepoints. Maybe jump directly to objectives, but I assume the reinforced system is a priority target for them.Yeah but it's a Fallen Empire. I had one of those try me in my first-ever game. I had just refit all my ships to take the thing on and I still needed to outnumber them, sometimes substantially, in a straight-up fight, if I wanted to win. And they were CONSTANTLY jump-driving around, so many times they had that debuff and could still take on my ships.
But yea, they got bodied pretty hard due to their predictable stupidity by a midgame civ that ran heavy engineering. I even took their systems from them, and they just . . . kind of sat around mewling at me from a telescreen? Why wouldn't they wake up for somebody literally enslaving them?The alien occupation is fake news. :P
Cuuuuuuue jump drives!Two can play at that game. Because my only concern with the defenses is anti-armor capability the system appears much much weaker than it is. My plan is that it looks so defenseless that they go straight after it, then I jump all available fleets into the system with their maxed out armor and then I lose anyway because I fucked up something else.
Can you even remove the hyperdrive from ships? I think you could before 2.0, but never tried. It would still be of limited value since the ships would eat up your naval capacity like normal, of course.
My fairly limited experience with fighting FEs implies that they won't use jump drives to bypass chokepoints, probably for the reason listed above. It's close to impossible to get a bastion to a fleet power that matches, much less beats, a FE fleet, so they just try to steamroll the stations.
And while I've never seen the AI use jump drives to get into combat (which would be a very bad idea given the 50% weapon damage debuff for 200 days after using them), I have seen it try to do so. It just gets stuck in a weird loop of charging the drives and then canceling them to fly to the system like normal. Not sure what to make of that.
In any case, a station in a pulsar system with defense platforms that use lots of energy weapons should fare well against FE ships, or, at least as well as a bastion can. I'd definitely plan to have ships back it up if at all possible. This could even be a rare case where having a second set of ship designs specifically for fighting in pulsar systems might make sense, although even here maybe not since said ships wouldn't be useful in assaults. It's too bad that there's no concept of system patrol boats. Can you even remove the hyperdrive from ships? I think you could before 2.0, but never tried. It would still be of limited value since the ships would eat up your naval capacity like normal, of course.
"Galactic market" that's something to look forward to.This seems actually more like an AI boost that the player gets access to than something truly for the player. The AI had always has trouble with preparing adequate resources, most dramatically when it falls into a starvation spiral. This probably results from an inability to plan ahead, using instead hard-coded guidelines for success. Imagine how much worse this would be with all the new resources. The market will let the AI handily bypass the problem.
"Galactic market" that's something to look forward to.
This seems actually more like an AI boost that the player gets access to than something truly for the player. The AI had always has trouble with preparing adequate resources, most dramatically when it falls into a starvation spiral. This probably results from an inability to plan ahead, using instead hard-coded guidelines for success. Imagine how much worse this would be with all the new resources. The market will let the AI handily bypass the problem.
The intent of this is to more fully flesh out several of the key anomalies and events in Distant Stars, especially those relating to the L-Cluster.
Any detailed info on what has been added to Distant Stars? Trying to find it, but no luck.They haven't detailed everything, just that there are apparently some new outcomes for L-Cluster and some new events. Listing them would kind of spoil it tbh. I'm sure you could look through the files to find out.
EDIT: This is all I could find.Quote from: A Paradox DevThe intent of this is to more fully flesh out several of the key anomalies and events in Distant Stars, especially those relating to the L-Cluster.
I was hoping for info on the lines of how many new event chains of each category, rather than the exact nature of those events.Any detailed info on what has been added to Distant Stars? Trying to find it, but no luck.They haven't detailed everything, just that there are apparently some new outcomes for L-Cluster and some new events. Listing them would kind of spoil it tbh. I'm sure you could look through the files to find out.
EDIT: This is all I could find.Quote from: A Paradox DevThe intent of this is to more fully flesh out several of the key anomalies and events in Distant Stars, especially those relating to the L-Cluster.
I do remember people finding the content if that DLC quite underwhelming when it came out. Hopefully this does something to alleviate that.
How much of a difference does it make to skimp on armor and shields? Were you competing with the weapons for power, or just trying to minimize cost? Unless something changed, defense platforms don't cost minerals to upkeep, but I guess cutting costs to build them helps when they're likely to die soon after the shooting actually starts.
In my last game I was tempted to see how many repeatable techs it took to get a bastion to the point it could handle a fallen empire fleet. The Contingency corrupted the ancient caretakers, and they kept attacking me (to no avail), but I was curious how well my 50K bastions would fare against their 80K fleets. Probably not too well, but if I took the ascension perk for extra platforms, slapped on a defense grid super computer and then started actually researching the +10% platform damage techs, maybe eventually they'd kind of be able to handle one fleet.
Wiz is doing one of his little LP things on Twitter.NOOT-NOOT
He's playing as a race of Pingus.
The speed bump has been effective enough that it's changed my doctrine. I'm now slapping the biggest possible guns on all my ships, I don't hit as often and it's cost me a few fights but I'm not longer fighting decade long wars where nobody dies.
I've been using the FTL debuff from stations, black holes, and Titans and even all of them put together pale in comparison to just outfitting all of your ships with the biggest guns possible. I mean there's a lot of fun you can have setting up different designs to counter different things but there's no combination of techniques and tactics that works better than BFG all day every day.
Yeah, I think this is common practice now, for that reason. Battleships with gigacannons and neutron launchers are good for that, because they give fewer chances for enemy ships to disengage. Most of the players on Paradox's forums seem to disdain defensive stations in general, but they seem to favor the station aura that decreases enemy disengagement chances.
I've been using the FTL debuff from stations, black holes, and Titans and even all of them put together pale in comparison to just outfitting all of your ships with the biggest guns possible. I mean there's a lot of fun you can have setting up different designs to counter different things but there's no combination of techniques and tactics that works better than BFG all day every day.
Yeah, I think this is common practice now, for that reason. Battleships with gigacannons and neutron launchers are good for that, because they give fewer chances for enemy ships to disengage. Most of the players on Paradox's forums seem to disdain defensive stations in general, but they seem to favor the station aura that decreases enemy disengagement chances.
I mean it kind of bums me out because I really like designing fleets. I spent more time in X3 with a calculator working out how to outfit my carrier group than I did playing the game. I was intimidated by the ship designer, I spent a while reading about all the different mechanics and devising different fleet compositions and occasionally when I was out doing things I'd have an idea and I'd be all excited to get back home and play. It's really annoying that the emergency retreat mechanic means that the optimal strategy for any ship in any role is basically always the same.
Well, in Vanilla at least. With something like New Ship Classes or something similar, the situation may prove to be different.
I believe it was explicitly confirmed that machine empires would be able to trade food after the economy rework. It is kind of weird that they can't trade it right now, since I would expect that to just be a limitation on determined exterminators since they won't do any trading with empires that would ever want food. But then you just wouldn't grow any, so... why even code in such a restriction?Presumably to just hard block any exploits that might arise. Although to be fair I can't really think of any way to so agressively trade food you actually cause damage or help your own civ, considering you wouldn't be eating it.
Although machine empires can't even build farms, can they? Yeah, it's weird.Rogue Servitors are an exception, of course. I guess their 5-food Nutrient Paste Facility could be considered OP, or "not fit for the galactic food market". Enclaves like it just fine, though, and it's only an issue at all because the sector AI just WAY overshoots food production for whatever reason.
Isn't the cost of traditions also based off of planets and systems, just like technology?
For research costs I'm pretty sure it's just +1% to the base technology cost per system after your first, which is easily offset by research stations in those systems. I guess for really crappy mineral or energy only systems it would be tempting to skip or delete them if you don't care about the pirates.
In any case, that's all going to be redone in the next version, where the costs are going to be based off of an "empire size" metric which is supposedly going to be based on the number of districts you have first and foremost. That's good because it'll mean small planets are no longer disproportionately bad to take, but it's unclear exactly how much impact the number of systems you have will impact the number.
This Market Fee is there so that it will not be possible to make money by purchasing and then immediately re-selling resources at a higher price. Resources can be purchased either in bulk, or by setting up a monthly trade, where you for example specify that you want to sell 20 food and buy 10 minerals per month, and can set a minimum sale/maximum purchase price, if you want to ensure that major fluctuations in price do not disrupt your empire's economy too much.Yeah nah I'm modding out that market fee immediately to play money grubbing materialists. Finally hoarding up that delicious energy will feel irresponsible and greedy
Not sure if I like their design choices. Resources shouldn't appear magically (endless market supply) nor should there be a market fee that goes to nobody. Sure, if the fee was used to keep some stock, then that's ok, but just deleting things and creating them in and out of the game is lazy.It's be much cooler if Empires could found their own galactic market exchanges, with each Empire choosing to set their own external tariffs to orders. That way market forces could organically operate in Stellaris, so an inwards perfection market exchange with 100% tariffs will operate different from a corporate dominion with 0%, while the market fee would go to the Empire and not just vanish
I'm not 100% against markets being infinite but I would be much, much happier if they were based on the economies of the nations involved in them.Well, if nations make regular use of the market, then in practice the rates are based on economies. The only difference between this and your production-based version is that this way also takes energy production into account, whereas yours doesn't, and would need an extra mechanic tacked on to prevent energy from becoming the only resource that mattered.
There's a trade rework coming, which is separate from this galactic market. It's even mentioned in the dev diary as something that will be discussed later. So far we know that it represents primarily civilian trade and that economic activity on a planet increases the planet's trade value, and that's pretty much all we know.
I do hope that someday we'll see a trade rework, that they treat this update as the planet economy rework and don't get too married to the upcoming system. Given how much work has gone into planets I could totally understand if this market system is the best they could do in this update and it needs to be how it is for a few years (go into diplomacy next year, then revisit trade in 2020?) but I think it'd really enrich the game to give it more depth someday. Also the DLC for trade wars almost writes itself with various economic system civics.
Not sure if I like their design choices. Resources shouldn't appear magically (endless market supply) nor should there be a market fee that goes to nobody. Sure, if the fee was used to keep some stock, then that's ok, but just deleting things and creating them in and out of the game is lazy.
Ah, but you're failing to consider that there'll be loads of new resources now. So it could very much be worth selling minerals to free up some dosh for buying alloys or dark matter or what have you.Not sure if I like their design choices. Resources shouldn't appear magically (endless market supply) nor should there be a market fee that goes to nobody. Sure, if the fee was used to keep some stock, then that's ok, but just deleting things and creating them in and out of the game is lazy.
The resources are so unbalanced in stellaris that if it didn't generate free stuff from nothing, it would never get used. Because let's be honest - we all want it to get more minerals. Who would ever sell it minerals? Nobody, ever, in any situation. Even if your mineral storage is full it would be dumb to sell it minerals because that's more minerals for your enemy to buy.
Anyway, I think you're missing the point. This is obviously primarily intended as a band-aid fix for the idiot AI that can't manage it's economy properly. Now it can "legitimately" create resources from nothing.I reckon there'll be a fair few players who'll benefit from this as well, though. Even considering that you do in fact also pay resources for nothing, since there's that 30% "house's cut" boosting prices.
Ah, but you're failing to consider that there'll be loads of new resources now. So it could very much be worth selling minerals to free up some dosh for buying alloys or dark matter or what have you.Not sure if I like their design choices. Resources shouldn't appear magically (endless market supply) nor should there be a market fee that goes to nobody. Sure, if the fee was used to keep some stock, then that's ok, but just deleting things and creating them in and out of the game is lazy.
The resources are so unbalanced in stellaris that if it didn't generate free stuff from nothing, it would never get used. Because let's be honest - we all want it to get more minerals. Who would ever sell it minerals? Nobody, ever, in any situation. Even if your mineral storage is full it would be dumb to sell it minerals because that's more minerals for your enemy to buy.
I reckon there'll be a fair few players who'll benefit from this as well, though. Even considering that you do in fact also pay resources for nothing, since there's that 30% "house's cut" boosting prices.
Minerals don't do much on their own under the new economy, the real gold standard will be alloys. There's no real reason not to export extra minerals beyond your foundry capacity to turn them into alloys because basic minerals won't be used for much beyond making luxury goods, some planet buildings, and other basic things. Ships will need alloys, and ships are what you need to project any kind of force.Not sure if I like their design choices. Resources shouldn't appear magically (endless market supply) nor should there be a market fee that goes to nobody. Sure, if the fee was used to keep some stock, then that's ok, but just deleting things and creating them in and out of the game is lazy.
The resources are so unbalanced in stellaris that if it didn't generate free stuff from nothing, it would never get used. Because let's be honest - we all want it to get more minerals. Who would ever sell it minerals? Nobody, ever, in any situation. Even if your mineral storage is full it would be dumb to sell it minerals because that's more minerals for your enemy to buy.
Minerals don't do much on their own under the new economy, the real gold standard will be alloys. There's no real reason not to export extra minerals beyond your foundry capacity to turn them into alloys because basic minerals won't be used for much beyond making luxury goods, some planet buildings, and other basic things. Ships will need alloys, and ships are what you need to project any kind of force.Not sure if I like their design choices. Resources shouldn't appear magically (endless market supply) nor should there be a market fee that goes to nobody. Sure, if the fee was used to keep some stock, then that's ok, but just deleting things and creating them in and out of the game is lazy.
The resources are so unbalanced in stellaris that if it didn't generate free stuff from nothing, it would never get used. Because let's be honest - we all want it to get more minerals. Who would ever sell it minerals? Nobody, ever, in any situation. Even if your mineral storage is full it would be dumb to sell it minerals because that's more minerals for your enemy to buy.
Now exporting alloys would be silly indeed unless you have a massive oversupply but I suppose you could specialize your economy to alloy production and just buy all of your food.
The resources are so unbalanced in stellaris that if it didn't generate free stuff from nothing, it would never get used. Because let's be honest - we all want it to get more minerals. Who would ever sell it minerals? Nobody, ever, in any situation. Even if your mineral storage is full it would be dumb to sell it minerals because that's more minerals for your enemy to buy.
Anyway, I think you're missing the point. This is obviously primarily intended as a band-aid fix for the idiot AI that can't manage it's economy properly. Now it can "legitimately" create resources from nothing.
There's a trade rework coming, which is separate from this galactic market. It's even mentioned in the dev diary as something that will be discussed later. So far we know that it represents primarily civilian trade and that economic activity on a planet increases the planet's trade value, and that's pretty much all we know.
Hmmm... did I miss a dev diary or something that explained what alloys (or any of the other new resources) will actually do? Last I heard it was all very vague and it basically came down to "they will be used for... stuff".I suspect he's gotten that from a stream, actually, the one where Wiz went over the planetary rework and a few other things, and answered questions. He's not exactly correct though. Alloys are necessary for ships, but you still win need minerals to build planetside.
But if minerals must be turned into alloys before using, then yeah it just moves it down a step and alloys become the important thing no-one sells.
He's not exactly correct though. Alloys are necessary for ships, but you still win need minerals to build planetside.I did say that...
AI reworkdo ho ho ho
Like Telgin said, the AI currently doesn't attack unless the player is incredibly pathetic, and when they do attack they just don't get any kind of strategy beyond rushing you with the biggest ships they can build.
The devs heard that the players wanted better AI, so they did an expansion with Machine Empires~Get out.
I've heard players complain that the AI was always outfitted to counter them, I've never really noticed though. I think there's actually quite a bit of room for simple tactics in Stellaris, you can use corvettes to open up second fronts, build defense platforms to make reclaiming systems painful, try seizing and holding shipyards to reinforce from, station a massive invasion force on planets with strongholds to render the system impassable without a huge ground battle, waiting to enter a contested system until the starbase has stripped the enemy shields, targeting systems that produce the most resources, splitting off corvettes to raise hell ahead of the heavies, leaving ships behind to cover your retreat; obviously actually programming these things is harder than thinking of them but some more strategy for the AI should be totally doable.
Does the AI even refit ships to counter yours? I'd be pretty surprised if it did, but I did see the enemy using more PD in my fourth defensive war against them, which reduced the effectiveness of my torpedo corvettes appreciably.
In any case, I think at least part of the problem here is that there's not a ton of strategizing that can be done in the current state of the game, at least once the war starts. Oftentimes the best strategy does boil down to just sending the biggest fleet you can to wreck theirs and take whatever systems you can on the way. There's also not a ton of differentiation between ship classes, it feels like, hence the common suggestion to go all corvettes or all battleships, and to not mix fleets because they travel at the speed of the slowest ship.
Then again, maybe it's much different against human players, who I could see actually doing interesting things like using corvette fleets to harass on a second front while you try to focus on their main attack fleet. I think the AI tries to do something like this, but it tends to end up just splitting its (mixed) fleets down the middle and sending them into battles they can't win.
In other news, I finally learned how to apply claims and take systems in status quos in defensive wars. I tried to play nice with the robots next door, but I figured after 4 wars, it's time to start giving out paddlings. It never felt so good to see the little red skull icon on their pops on that planet I took. They're not even genocidal robots. They just hate me for being a mild xenophobe. I even opened my borders to them to try to be nice! This is one of the rare moments I can see Stellaris being great for RP potential. I'm seriously tempted to try to reform my government away from internal perfectionists to something more hostile so I can pay them back for the trouble they've caused me, and stop building synths on the pretense that the population should probably be distrustful of sapient robots by this point...
Considering that hyperlanes are already grouped into de facto "province" regions, I think this is fine. It's basically just Victoria states.
New dev diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-126-sectors-and-factions-in-2-2.1120288/ (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-126-sectors-and-factions-in-2-2.1120288/)I always put everything I could in sectors, it's a handy way to keep a resource buffer.
I was hoping for more details, but what was mentioned looks like a real step in the right direction at least. I'm glad the core sector limit is gone because I always contorted my ways around trying to bypass it anyway. I'm glad to see that factions now grant influence in a more fluid fashion as well. Scaling leader costs are nice too.
I think I really like the stellar county approach for sectors too, but a fair number of people seem to dislike it. I can understand how the notion of geography is kind of vague in space and redrawing sectors has some occasional uses, but I do think this will lead to better possibilities in the future. As one comment noted, we might see CBs for claiming all systems in a contested sector now, kind of like duchies in CKII.
EU4 states are based on Victoria states also. CK duchies are similar only in basic concept, but only are really relevant as titles and du jour associations, they don't have any inherent economic or structural effect and dukes can hold anything regardless of du jour.Considering that hyperlanes are already grouped into de facto "province" regions, I think this is fine. It's basically just Victoria states.
and eu4 states, and ck2 duchies... it's unsurprising they decided to go this way.
It makes sense to me that sectors are tied to the galaxy's geometry rather than arbitrarily defined but I was hoping sectors would be more important to internal politics, like varying faction acceptance and power by sector for example.Yeah, same. One step at a time, maybe.
Sectors aren't bad because of what they are, they are bad because they aren't like vassals in CK2. They should be subservient but independent legislative units which EVERYBODY needs to deal with.I like that idea. It would make different governments feel different, and since ethos restricts government type sometimes, would make a step towards making different ethos feel different too.
Idea: They could vary depending on the government structure. In Empires? They're literally feudal realms. In Corporate Oligarchies, they're Subdivisions and their leaders can get promoted to Emperor if they're economically productive. In Democracies, they are Sectors with local politics based on the factions that are most common there. In gestalt consciences, they are subconciences and are prone to splitting off if your Influence gets too low, so you need to balance expansion with control.
I've never had one either, but the AI gets them all the time due to their inability to feed themselves.Sectors aren't bad because of what they are, they are bad because they aren't like vassals in CK2. They should be subservient but independent legislative units which EVERYBODY needs to deal with.I like that idea. It would make different governments feel different, and since ethos restricts government type sometimes, would make a step towards making different ethos feel different too.
Idea: They could vary depending on the government structure. In Empires? They're literally feudal realms. In Corporate Oligarchies, they're Subdivisions and their leaders can get promoted to Emperor if they're economically productive. In Democracies, they are Sectors with local politics based on the factions that are most common there. In gestalt consciences, they are subconciences and are prone to splitting off if your Influence gets too low, so you need to balance expansion with control.
I'd like to see something more organic though, perhaps allowing each empire to designate sectors but making them permanent. I don't know how that would work though. I would also like to see the AI have to deal with them too, especially if they're more rebellious than they are now (I have not, in any of my games, ever had a rebellion).
I've only had one because of a slave revolt. I wanted a vassal who didn't share my ideology so I filled a planet with slaves and started purging some of them.
QuoteQ: Why is trade value wasted, if sent to a (fully developed) world with billions of your people, instead to your homeworld?
A: We're considering the ability to add additional collection points, but we don't want to make this easy as then there would be no need for long trade routes ever.
Just for the "All trade routes to the capital" complaint. Seems to be a gamey change, not a roleplay change. Wonder if there may be some civic stuff relating to trade hubs.
it would be nice if it started out needing to link to your capital but eventually transitioning to having multiple or different hubs would make senseI think the thought is that to collect trade value you must have a valid trade path back to the capitol, to ensure you are not doing something odd like setting up a trade route in a disconnected sector of your empire that you could not realistically reach (due to hostile borders, space monsters, etc). It doesn't mean all trade is processed on the capitol, just their mechanical way of rewarding a cohesive connected empire
all trade leading to capital has some pretty specific political implications
This update is making it hard to commit to playing a new game...I'm sitting here thinking of what game I want to play and the only answer I can come up with is "that version of stellaris that isn't out yet."
I am sad there is no inter-empire trade routes, apparently.It's been said that this is happening; there will be trade agreements between empires. Devs just "aren't ready to talk about that yet."
I'm like 90% sure that the intra trade routes is merely to counter the spaghetti strategy people have stated is the best way to play.
These changes seem to be about correcting player's behavior but what are players actually supposed to do? It seems like there's a lot of pushing and pulling but it's not going anywhere rational. Is the intended playstyle a handful of systems in a corner of the galaxy?
It's pretty clear that the devs are trying to address snowballing through at least three mechanics here (influence, tech penalties and pirates), but you could probably make an argument that snowballing is half of the point of playing a game like Stellaris.
It's all punish punish punish seems to be the problem, and no reward. All negative results from playing wrong, but no positive results from playing right except for not being punished.When it's just numeric differences, those are the same thing. You're rewarded for deleting superfluous stations, for example, with increased tech progress.
That's just not good design.
It's pretty hard to NOT minmax on higher difficulties with all the mechanics in place. I find it increasingly difficult to use suboptimal and retarded strategies or useless species without getting hopelessly drowned in pirates or AI, or else minmaxing and hopelessly snowballing to the point where the AI can't compete. Especially with the way the new difficulty scaling makes the AI more productive AND more powerful per ship AND outnumbering ships makes the AI shoot even faster, if you're not abusing diplomacy and rushing for megastructures and 25 tile research worlds with optimised pops you're not increasing in power fast enough to compete with the AI. Which is a shame because I usually enjoy doing silly things like isolationist purifiers or roach pop engineers or useless cat federators, and I find myself either overwhelmed or overwhelming with little leeway in between the extremes.
It's all punish punish punish seems to be the problem, and no reward. All negative results from playing wrong, but no positive results from playing right except for not being punished.It puts the lotion on it's skin or we'll use the hose
That's just not good design.
Which is why good game design says not to make the differences all numeric, and instead make the changes mechanical.It's all punish punish punish seems to be the problem, and no reward. All negative results from playing wrong, but no positive results from playing right except for not being punished.When it's just numeric differences, those are the same thing. You're rewarded for deleting superfluous stations, for example, with increased tech progress.
That's just not good design.
Not terribly exciting stuff this timeThis is probably a sign that they're getting close to announcing the DLC.
If that land clearance can be done repeatedly, Mastery of Nature just became a top-tier ascension perk.Seems like a one-time deal. Would be way too strong otherwise. This way it's just respectably strong.
Besides what's in the dev diary, one of the posts later in the thread has revealed that the infrastructure mechanic revealed in a previous dev diary has been scrapped, which seems like a bit of a shame to me, especially if scaling buildings are gone with it.
Still kinda wish they'd do something more interesting with traditions and make them exclusive or something. But eh.
Edit: Oh, and on the stream they showed that there's going to be a new authority. On the forum people are wondering if it's megacorporations. Which seems like a reasonable place for the DLC to go, so sounds like that might be what is next.
Happy to see that the traditions are now all fairly useful for at least the majority of empires. Dominion, especially, used to be basically useless for a lot of empires. I've had quite a few games where it was only ever taken because I had nothing else to use the Unity on.With the focus on Federation, diplomacy is probably the most subject in utility now.
Presumably its main purpose is to make Swiss cheese empires no longer optimal.
Happy to see that the traditions are now all fairly useful for at least the majority of empires. Dominion, especially, used to be basically useless for a lot of empires. I've had quite a few games where it was only ever taken because I had nothing else to use the Unity on.With the focus on Federation, diplomacy is probably the most subject in utility now.
Wait, do devouring swarms get an internal market? I've never played one, but aren't they gestalt consciousness only? I think those don't get an internal market.
I expect that Inward Perfectionists will get galactic market access though, if for no other reason than the fact that they can make trade deals with other empires in the current version of the game.
If it's by sector then it wouldn't have that effect since once you've got a sector, you might as well have everything in that sector. But I don't know if that's how it works. Where were the new empire size calculations discussed?Presumably its main purpose is to make Swiss cheese empires no longer optimal.
Probably won't do that. Sectors still increase empire size. So unless you are small enough that you are below your admin cap, you'll want to swisscheese your empire to reduce the penalties still.
If it's by sector then it wouldn't have that effect since once you've got a sector, you might as well have everything in that sector. But I don't know if that's how it works. Where were the new empire size calculations discussed?
MAybe sectors will take less adminstrative resources than directly controlled colonies. I'm fond of vassals anyway.
The way they've been talking about sectors makes me think this probably won't be the case. It sounds like sectors won't really be anything like we think of sectors now, as autonomously controlled areas that are distinct in our empire with mechanically differences. It sounds like in the future the difference between the home sector and any other sector will basically just be what leader is giving bonuses to it. Otherwise it'll be the same, with us directly controlling it and no longer have split resource banks and autobuilding and such. A move away from vassalish sectors and towards them not really existing in a meaningful way.Apparently you can still give them resources to auto-build if you want, they just won't retain their resources for that purpose by default or prevent you from building. So it's opt-in micromanagement reduction, rather than mandatory gameplay excision.
Depending on what we have time for, it's possible that the 'quality' of the resort world will impact how much amenities it will give other planets (for example, a Gaia World would be an ideal resort).If they don't get around to it, I wonder if low-habitability worlds will make good resorts hehe. Hopefully the amenities production is tied to the happiness of the local population though.
Yeah, seems like it's ideal right now to stick a resort on the most barren, deadly, and useless body you can find, so that the tourists can look at the pointy rocks and acid clouds from their windows while enjoying the air conditioning.I see you've been to Las Vegas...
https://twitter.com/StellarisGame/status/1052937138231279617I hope it's a cure for alzheimers that researchers have decided to announce in the weirdest possible way.
I'm hoping this is them announcing the release date.
I think it's sweet as long as I don't think about the details. At all.
I would have assumed it was just consumer-grade artificial gene splicing except the blurb kinda... hints otherwise. Or maybe they're talking about sleep schedules, yeah.
Huh I just realized the obvious real-world parallel. You know they produced viable embryos from two female mice recently? Probably a coincidence though.
That moment when your daughter tells you she's been dating the fun guy, and you realise she didn't mean Steve, your neighbour standup comedian, but the mile-wide immigrant mycelium squatting under the sewage treatment plant.I guess I'm gonna need a bigger shotgun to make sure he gets her home by 11.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dp3MoimW4AILP3b.jpg)
I just clocked that it's an ascension perk, which I don't like at all. It should be a technology thing that everyone should be able to have, not barred by ascension (why the hell can two species interbreed in one empire but not in another empire? Immersion breaking).You can make the same argument about megastructures or genetic engineering perks.
Possible response:Romans, Mongols, Spanish all had extensive slavery and nonetheless interbred with everything that moved
1) All cultures do not allow such things. I can't see a culture embracing both slavery and interbreeding (actually, now that I've considered that, there should be a check against that).
2) The technology requires a special scientific focus, like genetics or cybernetics.So the ascension perk literally represents an entire civilisation going full Harkness magical realm and becoming xenophile degenerates overnight? What kind of civilisation gets together its best scientists to focus the efforts of the sum total of their knowledge in order to permit waifus: but fungus?
3) There is no natural occurrence that allows a gecko-man to mate with a mushroom.Nor is there an unnatural occurrence that allows a gecko-man to mate with a mushroom. Consider that there is a graphical culture for a saprotophic fungus which takes over the corpses of other species, that kind of species could be given a trait to represent how it is capable of producing hybrids with all other species simply by taking over their bodies. Conversely, you can have a smooth transition from geckos interbreeding with other geckos, to other amphibians, to all other species, instead of a simple catastrophic fertility event wherein the geckos discovered they were galactic sluts overnight. Imo gradual interbreeding is da wey
You can make the same argument about megastructures or genetic engineering perks.Isn't that what pop ethos is for? Why for example would two fanatic xenophiles living under a fanatic xenophobe government NOT make gecko-fungus babies simply because the ruler, whom they do not like, told them not to profane nature with their horrifying offspring? I imagine it's more a game balance thing but you can bet I'm going to try and mod it so there's maximum hybridification going on. The only downside is I hope they fix the species UI because it's god awful
The perks seem to represent the ideas a society is ok with and invested in.
Isn't that what pop ethos is for? Why for example would two fanatic xenophiles living under a fanatic xenophobe government NOT make gecko-fungus babies simply because the ruler, whom they do not like, told them not to profane nature with their horrifying offspring? I imagine it's more a game balance thing but you can bet I'm going to try and mod it so there's maximum hybridification going on. The only downside is I hope they fix the species UI because it's god awfulI understand that the interbreeding perk is not just a matter of star-crossed Dolly and Zorblax getting it on despite the Man telling them not to, but a matter of there not being a state-sponsored, empire-wide programme of genetic modification of all pops that would allow the offspring to physically happen. Or maybe some sort of in-vitro procreation is involved. That's how I read it.
I imagine it's more a game balance thing but you can bet I'm going to try and mod it so there's maximum hybridification going on. The only downside is I hope they fix the species UI because it's god awfulYes please, hybrid races surreptitiously forming in slaver empires sounds flavorful and fun. More migrants for me, probably :D And they're literally superior heh, another nice reason to be xenophile.
American slavery too. Interbreeding just meant more slaves without having to purchase them. It wasn't endorsed, but it kept the system working.Possible response:Romans, Mongols, Spanish all had extensive slavery and nonetheless interbred with everything that moved
1) All cultures do not allow such things. I can't see a culture embracing both slavery and interbreeding (actually, now that I've considered that, there should be a check against that).
Yes please, hybrid races surreptitiously forming in slaver empires sounds flavorful and fun. More migrants for me, probably :D And they're literally superior heh, another nice reason to be xenophile.I also like the potential for emergent narrative gameplay going on. Like what happens if over time a strict hierarchy of species based slavery is fucked up by the species distinctions having diminished, or even the original species involved having died out and been replaced by the hybrid offspring
I understand that the interbreeding perk is not just a matter of star-crossed Dolly and Zorblax getting it on despite the Man telling them not to, but a matter of there not being a state-sponsored, empire-wide programme of genetic modification of all pops that would allow the offspring to physically happen. Or maybe some sort of in-vitro procreation is involved. That's how I read it.Why not all 3? Have one hybrid path based off of traits, one hybrid path based off of tech and 1 based off of ascension perk? That way you could simulate a state going full overdrive to rush it into reality or simulate a state slowly getting there nonetheless
Man, this is a silly discussion, even by bay12 standards.
Zorblax
While that might've been the case in British America, in Spanish/Portuguese America kids born between enslaved people and free people did not happen for that purpose. While the sexual relation was often a master raping his servants, there are many cases where in a slave-owner's will there were entire paragraphs recognizing his children with slaves and leaving them a small part of the inheritance.American slavery too. Interbreeding just meant more slaves without having to purchase them. It wasn't endorsed, but it kept the system working.Possible response:Romans, Mongols, Spanish all had extensive slavery and nonetheless interbred with everything that moved
1) All cultures do not allow such things. I can't see a culture embracing both slavery and interbreeding (actually, now that I've considered that, there should be a check against that).
Balanced forFTFYmultispeciesmultiplayer romance
What's Zorblax from?Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. (https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-on-zorblax) It's a standalone gag comic, but he frequently draws aliens the same way and calls them Zorblaxians, even with wildly different jokes.
I just clocked that it's an ascension perk, which I don't like at all. It should be a technology thing that everyone should be able to have, not barred by ascension (why the hell can two species interbreed in one empire but not in another empire? Immersion breaking). The tech should progress from interbreeding within a graphical culture group, to interbreeding between the graphical culture groups. So you move from humanoids <-> humanoids, to humanoids <-> literally everything, instead of immediately going to literally everything <-> literally everything with an ascension perk. Idealliest it would be based on trait & graphical culture and not necessarily tech or ascension perk at all and it'd just be a natural occurrenceI definitely prefer it as an ascension perk. Transcending the barriers of species isn't something everyone should be able to do.
I don't believe they're actually superior to begin with, but rather, you can modify them to be superior. Although the wording leaves both interpretations as valid.I imagine it's more a game balance thing but you can bet I'm going to try and mod it so there's maximum hybridification going on. The only downside is I hope they fix the species UI because it's god awfulYes please, hybrid races surreptitiously forming in slaver empires sounds flavorful and fun. More migrants for me, probably :D And they're literally superior heh, another nice reason to be xenophile.
Frankly, I think the "xenophobia = alien slavery" thing that Stellaris does is kinda forced.It's complete bollocks, but they're stuck on it because apparently they want to lump all forms of inequality together or something.
I don't think you really need to justify why it's an ascension perk instead of a technology too much. Most of the ascension perks don't make sense if you look at them though that view. Rather it's a way to customize your empire, make it meaningfully different then others and build in a unique and interesting way. That's what (imo) ascension perks should do, and (once again imo) this one does that really really well. Certainly a lot better then most ascension perks.Yeah, you can't think of this game too much based on logic or realism, because Wiz hates that as a design concept and refuses to follow it ever. It's only meaningful to think of modern Paradox games in terms of pure game design.
Hm, I feel like the screenshot (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dp4bve1X0AEdkmb.jpg) implies that the hybrid was created with benefits. Unless both hybrids were completely gene-tailored after their creation, with extra points, which is possible.I don't believe they're actually superior to begin with, but rather, you can modify them to be superior. Although the wording leaves both interpretations as valid.I imagine it's more a game balance thing but you can bet I'm going to try and mod it so there's maximum hybridification going on. The only downside is I hope they fix the species UI because it's god awfulYes please, hybrid races surreptitiously forming in slaver empires sounds flavorful and fun. More migrants for me, probably :D And they're literally superior heh, another nice reason to be xenophile.
I don't believe they're actually superior to begin with, but rather, you can modify them to be superior. Although the wording leaves both interpretations as valid.Judging from the screencap hybrids get +2 trait points, so if you mix together two intelligently designed randos you should be able to have decent chances of rolling a hybrid species that is superior to both, especially if each hybridisation roll produces two hybrid species every time
Yeah, you can't think of this game too much based on logic or realism, because Wiz hates that as a design concept and refuses to follow it ever. It's only meaningful to think of modern Paradox games in terms of pure game design.I disagree with the design concept as ignoring the main issue of the differences between Empires being gratingly artificial and shallow; species differences and government differences being largely cosmetic. The absolute dream would be doing away with ascension perks entirely, and having everything in the ascension perks be tied to policies and tech - allowing for organic differentiation between Empires that permit hybridisation, psionics, cybernetic augmentations, gene modification e.t.c., instead of the madness wherein an Empire is incapable of pursuing the same line of enquiry with greater resources than an identical Empire of identical species because they locked themselves into a now-irrelevant ascension "perk." It's emulating the weakest aspects of a Civilisation game instead of a decent 4X like Alpha Centauri or even a standard historicalsim alt history dicking paradox title, while it forces the player to ignore all perks in favour of the indispensable ones which unlock late-game pop modifications of megastructures
I'm not saying I don't agree with you, but Wiz doesn't agree with you. And, I believe, Paradox's monitoring of their playerbase, or at least their interpretation thereof, supports this by suggesting that players engage more from choosing options from a list rather than shaping empires in a more nuanced (but less definite) way. I don't reckon there's any practical point in us contesting their paradigm.Yeah, you can't think of this game too much based on logic or realism, because Wiz hates that as a design concept and refuses to follow it ever. It's only meaningful to think of modern Paradox games in terms of pure game design.I disagree with the design concept as ignoring the main issue of the differences between Empires being gratingly artificial and shallow; species differences and government differences being largely cosmetic. The absolute dream would be doing away with ascension perks entirely, and having everything in the ascension perks be tied to policies and tech - allowing for organic differentiation between Empires that permit hybridisation, psionics, cybernetic augmentations, gene modification e.t.c., instead of the madness wherein an Empire is incapable of pursuing the same line of enquiry with greater resources than an identical Empire of identical species because they locked themselves into a now-irrelevant ascension "perk." It's emulating the weakest aspects of a Civilisation game instead of a decent 4X like Alpha Centauri or even a standard historicalsim alt history dicking paradox title, while it forces the player to ignore all perks in favour of the indispensable ones which unlock late-game pop modifications of megastructures
I feel like "organic differentiation between Empires" is a very ideal goal, but it practice it seems like it might be hard to do without every empire coming out feeling very samey, which is already a huge issue with Stellaris which ascension perks at least sorta try to make it so different empires feel different.It's already been achieved by other games and by modders, the only limit is imagination
I want to believe, but I can't think of any that pull it off on a large scale. Certainly none that cleanly inform the player of all the little nuances and distinctions within another empire.I feel like "organic differentiation between Empires" is a very ideal goal, but it practice it seems like it might be hard to do without every empire coming out feeling very samey, which is already a huge issue with Stellaris which ascension perks at least sorta try to make it so different empires feel different.It's already been achieved by other games and by modders, the only limit is imagination
Frankly, I think the "xenophobia = alien slavery" thing that Stellaris does is kinda forced.
This does sound pretty cool though, and is more or less what I expected from the DLC. One thing I haven't quite figured out from the vague clues I've read, is if megacorps work like traditional empires at all. Do they even own planets, or do they only own branch offices?
I also hope this can be combined with other DLC content, as a rogue servitor corporation seems particularly kino. It might be unusually compatible with fanatic purifiers as well, though I imagine that's disallowed for thematic reasons. A corporation with ecumenopolis and galactic market would be a great choice for the single planet game though.
I don't like that you can only be criminal or not, seems like a real space corporation would do what they want and whether that's criminal would depend on the laws of the nation that they're operating in. And then you might change those laws either diplomatically or by war (as in the opium wars).
Space mafia does sound fun, though. Especially combined with a scummy undesirable species that sneaks in to other planets via your criminal enterprise, forcing neighbors to either go genocidal or tolerate your little crime goblins showing up and giving you CBs.
I also hope this can be combined with other DLC content, as a rogue servitor corporation seems particularly kino. It might be unusually compatible with fanatic purifiers as well, though I imagine that's disallowed for thematic reasons. A corporation with ecumenopolis and galactic market would be a great choice for the single planet game though.I think Corporate will be a type of authority, which means that servitors or AI in general are right out. I doubt purifiers would be allowed either, since why would you even want to trade with beings you consider mistakes of nature that need to be purged?
We won't. They said as much on stream.The closest you could get is having your Corp Empire do the synthetic ascention.
The issue is that megacorp is an authority, much like hive minds and machine empires.
buy from SpaceCoSpaceCo only accepts purchases made in S-Bucks. Unless you are buying S-Bucks, of course.
Yeah, the whole "strung-out/disconnected empires have more trouble with coordinated efforts and opportunistic predation by third parties" bit is perfectly reasonable. If you have colonies who are two years out from your nearest coreward colony of course they're not going to be ... more vulnerable to opportunistic raiding.
I just assume its like a heist and the empty spaces and external pockets means a pirate can get in, do the job and then make a quick getaway.
Less possible if they are in the middle of empire space, more possible with patchwork empires.
If you have colonies who are two years out from your nearest coreward colony of course they're not going to be contributing much to ongoing research back homeIf they wanted to model communication lag leading to worse efficiency, they could make it a punishment based on distance from capital that decreases research efficiency overall or just in those systems. Instead in this system you can have totally unoccupied systems that don't continue research at all dragging down your research from your core planets that are all cozied up next to each other because they have too many star lanes jumping away from them. How does that make sense? You can have super far flung systems contributing research without any issues so long as they don't trigger the arbitrary "your empire doesn't fit my aesthetics" alarm that's in the game now.
What invisible cargo ship exists in the 2 mineral system on the edge of your empire that's so threatened by 2 hyperlanes instead of 1 that it reduces the research efficiency of your entire empire?
All these justifications make a lot of sense for a system that's not in the game, although the game might better off if it was.
It's all abstraction, but it's probably assumed that it's a matter of government resources being finite. The government can spend more on system patrol craft and monitoring facilities to watch the extra hyperlanes, or it can spend it on research. The mechanics don't directly simulate that, since it should probably be represented as a penalty to research and unity instead, but it's kind of an academic difference.
System patrol craft aren't simulated in game, but there is mention of conflict on the edge of empires that falls below the resolution of combat simulated in game. If you border a marauder empire you can get events related to it, even if you've never actually had any direct combat with them.
I do feel like there's probably a better way to keep large empires from massively out teching smaller neighbors, but this works well enough for me I think. A system more like CKII (and probably other Paradox games) where technology diffuses through territory naturally would probably be a solution, except it's hard to model that in a game like Stellaris with its discrete technologies.
I do feel like there's probably a better way to keep large empires from massively out teching smaller neighbors, but this works well enough for me I think. A system more like CKII (and probably other Paradox games) where technology diffuses through territory naturally would probably be a solution, except it's hard to model that in a game like Stellaris with its discrete technologies.The problem isn't modeling it, just do it like EU4's institutions where each has its own rate of spread, determined by adjacency of systems with the tech, presence of prerequisites, and factors particular to the tech or the category of tech, and then add bonuses to spread from local scientific buildings and jobs. There might be issues of hardware efficiency, but if you only do the check every month and give it its own thread(s), it should be fine. The real problem is presenting all that information to the player.
It's hard to justify it, though, in the age of instant and efficient communication.That's not necessarily a sound assumption. For one thing, the in-game communication on an interstellar level isn't really faster than communicatino in CK2 or any other Paradox game aside from the difference in the equation resulting from scale. More importantly, technology has already been stated to represent not just technology but the infrastructure and ability to implement it (in Wiz's attempts to defend the concept of empire size penalties to tech) which means that rolling out innovations from a central location is perfectly well in theme. Although it does imply that some measure of industrial or administrative capacity is more important than adjacency.
Thematically it's silly -- it's not really a "federation" anymore, it's just you and your AI vassals.
Thematically it's silly -- it's not really a "federation" anymore, it's just you and your AI vassals.It's Space-NATO.
The AI will still have all the privileges that they have right now when they are not the president, which is basically all the privileges.
And you don't have to delete all the AI ships, if they make ships to join the federation fleet, they have to use the presidents designs.
It's Space-NATO.
As for the AI ships, correct me if I'm wrong, but the federation is required to have a design for each ship tier unlocked, yes? You can't just be like "the federation doesn't have a cruiser", so the AI can sometimes build cruisers, and then you get the cruisers and they're a waste of fed fleet cap, so you delete them and rebuild corvettes or battleships or whatever because monofleet.I wonder, does the work-around to clear out the last design for a ship tier work for federation designs? That is, build a ship of a different class with the same name, and overwrite. I haven't mucked about with federations since my first game, where I went full diplomacy until it crashed into the facts of how federations worked.
There's not really much "privilege" one gets from joining a federation.
There's not really much "privilege" one gets from joining a federation.
Yes, and you still get all of the little of it that exists. Vote on war war, vote on members. Unless you think that the current set up of a federation counts as just the leader and it's vassals (maybe with who the leader is swapping every 10 years) the new systems shouldn't be considered that. The president simply has no extra diplomatic power.
I mean... Yeah, no inconvenience outside the single biggest part of being in a federation, that your ability to offensively war is controlled by other people.
Some kind of equivalent to machine worlds would make a lot of sense, but the ecumenopoli as they are wouldn't make much sense. They probably could just change up how the city arcology districts work, but it would be even better if there was a thematic version that fit more along with hive minds. What that is I honestly don't know, since I haven't ever played as them, but maybe a bonus to empire cohesion or unity.
One thing I'm wondering is if ecumenopoli will be limited to one per empire. I'm expecting that they won't be, since there are heavy costs involved and some downsides, and I guess they're kind of analogous to ringworlds in some ways.Martin said in one of the streams that they are not limited, but he warned that they can be very very difficult to maintain. They cannot support themselves at all, as you cannot farm or mine on them and since the population can go into the hundreds they will require huge inflows of minerals and food to sustain.
Yeah each ringworld segment will be size 50 now, supporting huge numbers of pops. I expect there will be mods which alter ringworlds further, in fact I'm planning to make one for my own purposes which sets each segment to something like size 1000 if that works.Jesus.
The big (heh) issue there is how it would display that many district squares. I'd fully expect some graphical hilarity on the planet detail screen, although it may function perfectly fine.
The big (heh) issue there is how it would display that many district squares. I'd fully expect some graphical hilarity on the planet detail screen, although it may function perfectly fine.Good point. Maybe I'll just make new districts which would extend the 'effective size' due to larger outputs and job numbers. There may only be 50 district spots but if one district had 20x the effect of a normal one, it would effectively be the same as 20 of those single districts.
I'm just hoping that at some point they acknowledge that each ring world segment is thousands of planets' worth of habitable surface area, which seems like it'd be moddable with special gigantic ringworld-only districts if not actually built in. (After which it'd be nice for a ringworld to be a single object rather than four of them.)
Actually, I only assume you won't be able to do that in vanilla. It would make sense to be able to, but I imagine it won't be allowed.
I'm sure this won't ever happen. Because it just goes way past the scale of the game. If you let ringworlds be a realistic size either you increase the building costs as well to an impossible to reach but realistic level, or... Don't, and as soon as the first ringworld is made it eclipses the rest of the game as you have like stellaris Galaxy<Ringworld.
Yesterday I had a dream about making a Stellaris mod, which is odd as I haven't played Stellaris at all in a while. The mod in question was a total overhaul, & a fairly simple one at that, with very few actual mechanical changes. In the dream the rate of star system generation was greatly reduced, while the rate of black hole / blank system generation was greatly increased. Events were fiddled with so you'd get occasional rare events like finding a starving prethoryn fleet or a rare event with a MTTH of 500 making a star system supernova and take out every planet in the system. Ship maintenance was increased to the point where even a flotilla of 3 corvettes was a significant fleet, while repeatable techs were greatly nerfed. The various megabeasts were nerfed combats-wise to compensate for the smaller fleets, but the solar parasite was more like an end-game crisis as if it was left alone for too long, it would devour the solar system's star before moving on to the next system until it was killed / the galaxy went dark. The localisation was changed and some events fiddled with in order to make the playthrough one that was taking place close to the heat death of the universe, with your star empire being amongst the few remaining civilisations before the last stars all go out. The end-game diverged in several paths based around attempts to survive the heat death of the universe, from merging the universe with the shroud, to closing the loop, to creating a micro-universeSeems like a great idea, actually.
I feel compelled to make it once the game is updated with beautiful vic2 mechanics
I'm officially in the "habitat snowball" phase of gameplay and I have to bail out one of my tributaries. I kicked their ass a little harder than I planned and now they have literally no fleet and no capacity to create one. Pirates have destroyed everything they own, there are three pirate groups fighting each other because the interstellar empire officially has nothing else to plunder. I have to give them a cash infusion and spank their enemies if I want to get that income stream back.That's what happens when you destabilize governments, Cheney.
Unless they've changed how the war system works since last time I played a non genocidal race, Status Quo is always better then surrender. If you'd gain all their systems except one in a Status Quo, that means in surrender you'd gain all their systems but one AND they'd be forced to become your tributary.
Unless I'm totally misremembering, Status quo is you get the claims you're currently occupying, surrender is you get all your claims occupied or not and whatever your war goal is.
Anyone interested in some multiplayer Stellaris once the DLC drops?
edit: I get the joke, that kind of thing is funny exactly once and then just in the way.
edit: I get the joke, that kind of thing is funny exactly once and then just in the way.
Agreed. Should have been written as like an anomaly or something.
Will at the very least let you do stupid shit like the achievements for having many different species on a single planet, or having most of your pops be slaves.You can already do that with refugees, I gene modded the Big Stupid Jellyfish to be unlikable, contrary, and incapable of feeding itself then kicked them all out.
If the AI actively buys them, then you could have some serious fun by genemodding a LW-style "locust" pop who is useless but reproduces insanely fast and tanks happiness in planets.
If the AI actively buys them, then you could have some serious fun by genemodding a LW-style "locust" pop who is useless but reproduces insanely fast and tanks happiness in planets.
Yeah, but with the market you can finally get them into xenophobic empires that won't take immigrants or refugees!Will at the very least let you do stupid shit like the achievements for having many different species on a single planet, or having most of your pops be slaves.You can already do that with refugees, I gene modded the Big Stupid Jellyfish to be unlikable, contrary, and incapable of feeding itself then kicked them all out.
If the AI actively buys them, then you could have some serious fun by genemodding a LW-style "locust" pop who is useless but reproduces insanely fast and tanks happiness in planets.
I have to wonder...how good does the full Biological ascension path become when combined with xenos compatibility? +2 trait picks combined with the ability to eventually breed populations with all the ascendancy traits looks quite strong.It might be what finally puts biological on a similar level with the other two (though psi is probably still the strongest).
Biological is currently the strongest and psi is currently the weakest. But bio requires a lot of micromanagement that won't be necessary or possible in the upcoming economy, which to me means they'll either be really really strong, or you'll constantly be screwed by how jobs and migration and all that stuff works and they'll suck.And that is what I get for talking about meta when I haven't played the game properly in a while!
Honestly it's been that way for a long time (so I'm not sure why anyone would have ever said Psi was the strongest, but I'd be interested in knowing why) at one point synth was the best (I did a lot of very boring posts on this matter in this thread a while ago) but bio got buffed and synth got bugfixed or something so now bio is pretty clearly the bestest. Psi always had much weaker bonuses over all. A couple of minor bonuses to unity and research can't stack up to synth and ascended bio traits that give massive bonuses to everything. In theory some of the shroud stuff is good but that's super random and in my experience it's really rare to get the good stuff, and the basic stuff like targeting, jump and shields aren't worth it.I was basing it off when I last played the game extensively... which was when ascencions were added and psi has the most stuff going for it. Since then I've only done really short sessions and haven't gotten to ascension stuff again. Hence me speaking out of my backside.
Imo from a mechanical perspective the big benefit of psi is you don't have to dump a ton of research into it, you just get it for free once you take the perk. Also the chosen one is clearly the coolest frood.
I could never figure out how to genemod specific pops on planets, only all of them.
Biological is currently the strongest and psi is currently the weakest. But bio requires a lot of micromanagement that won't be necessary or possible in the upcoming economy, which to me means they'll either be really really strong, or you'll constantly be screwed by how jobs and migration and all that stuff works and they'll suck.
Funnily enough I'm not sure that bio will actually mesh that well with Xenocapability, with bio you can already specialize your dudes pretty well, +2 trait points might be excessive unless you're trying to make an über generalist. And a bunch of randomized traits is going to weaken your specialization most likely. If there's some even specialized combos that need +2 points though it might be good.
Honestly it's been that way for a long time (so I'm not sure why anyone would have ever said Psi was the strongest, but I'd be interested in knowing why) at one point synth was the best (I did a lot of very boring posts on this matter in this thread a while ago) but bio got buffed and synth got bugfixed or something so now bio is pretty clearly the bestest. Psi always had much weaker bonuses over all. A couple of minor bonuses to unity and research can't stack up to synth and ascended bio traits that give massive bonuses to everything. In theory some of the shroud stuff is good but that's super random and in my experience it's really rare to get the good stuff, and the basic stuff like targeting, jump and shields aren't worth it.Psi lets you suicide bomb the galaxy by summoning the end. If you manage to keep a 25 size gaia holy world pristine and clean you can reset the galaxy for lols with a good chance of rebuilding in time to end the end
Imo from a mechanical perspective the big benefit of psi is you don't have to dump a ton of research into it, you just get it for free once you take the perk. Also the chosen one is clearly the coolest frood.
Doesn't it guarantee you a "victory" because they always save you for last?Honestly it's been that way for a long time (so I'm not sure why anyone would have ever said Psi was the strongest, but I'd be interested in knowing why) at one point synth was the best (I did a lot of very boring posts on this matter in this thread a while ago) but bio got buffed and synth got bugfixed or something so now bio is pretty clearly the bestest. Psi always had much weaker bonuses over all. A couple of minor bonuses to unity and research can't stack up to synth and ascended bio traits that give massive bonuses to everything. In theory some of the shroud stuff is good but that's super random and in my experience it's really rare to get the good stuff, and the basic stuff like targeting, jump and shields aren't worth it.Psi lets you suicide bomb the galaxy by summoning the end. If you manage to keep a 25 size gaia holy world pristine and clean you can reset the galaxy for lols with a good chance of rebuilding in time to end the end
Imo from a mechanical perspective the big benefit of psi is you don't have to dump a ton of research into it, you just get it for free once you take the perk. Also the chosen one is clearly the coolest frood.
Doesn't it guarantee you a "victory" because they always save you for last?Honestly it's been that way for a long time (so I'm not sure why anyone would have ever said Psi was the strongest, but I'd be interested in knowing why) at one point synth was the best (I did a lot of very boring posts on this matter in this thread a while ago) but bio got buffed and synth got bugfixed or something so now bio is pretty clearly the bestest. Psi always had much weaker bonuses over all. A couple of minor bonuses to unity and research can't stack up to synth and ascended bio traits that give massive bonuses to everything. In theory some of the shroud stuff is good but that's super random and in my experience it's really rare to get the good stuff, and the basic stuff like targeting, jump and shields aren't worth it.Psi lets you suicide bomb the galaxy by summoning the end. If you manage to keep a 25 size gaia holy world pristine and clean you can reset the galaxy for lols with a good chance of rebuilding in time to end the end
Imo from a mechanical perspective the big benefit of psi is you don't have to dump a ton of research into it, you just get it for free once you take the perk. Also the chosen one is clearly the coolest frood.
So Psi basically means you are guaranteed to win.
Not that losing is particularly easy but you know... in multiplayer this is a pretty important distinction.
I think the end cycle event is disabled for MP without modsRight. No fun allowed.
Yeah, that'd be pretty great, a nice an natural way of punishing empires that overextend themselves by making them vulnerable to outside predation.Seconded, I love systems that allow me to fight wars with strategies more complex than "have the biggest numbers". The idea of separating an ecumenopolis from the empire's breadbasket and forcing them into starvation or trade deals that sap materiel while they're trying to reinforce their fleets is making me salivate
ib4 trade is immune to enemy occupation but war wariness reduces it or something.
Then six months from now it will be remade completely.
Megacorp announced for December 6th. Pretty soon, sooner then I thought.
Yes, and it'll kill off half the usable mods in the process. Still, new content and better systems are always something to look forward to.The mods will be updated in time. Better to improve the base system and let other content catch up than to have a polished turd of a game.
Noticed no one linke the really good trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHqZa8X7XZs). Also I guess it's pretty much confirmed now that the trailers from Utopia onwards are forming a storyline.I feel a deep sense of hollowness in my literary gut, I feel like we missed out on a sick narrative-based strategy game and instead got a shallow 4X with a billion plates of DLC to make it THICC
Maybe these trailers are an extended teaser for an eventual story mode DLC.Noticed no one linke the really good trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHqZa8X7XZs). Also I guess it's pretty much confirmed now that the trailers from Utopia onwards are forming a storyline.I feel a deep sense of hollowness in my literary gut, I feel like we missed out on a sick narrative-based strategy game and instead got a shallow 4X with a billion plates of DLC to make it THICC
Nevertheless, fucking ace. Tickles my fancy for deepest lore
Not looked at the game in nearly a year. Have they reverted the FTL changes they made in version 2.0 yet? I'm still pissed off that they did that.
Yeah they're never going to revert a change that made the game better. And it IS better.
doing away with planet tiles
You LIKED the tile system?doing away with planet tiles
*Sigh.* I didn't think it was possible to lose any more hope for the game.
Out of curiosity, what is your reasoning for liking the old FTL system? The new system feels and plays so much better that I have a hard time imagining why you'd prefer the old.
I just despise hyperlanes. I have no idea why people like them so much.
How do you present all of that information on the map without crowding it out?
ship were disabled for an extended period after warping
And by fix hyperlanes, I mean put an optional alternative in.Unfortunately for you I think they're here to stay at this point. I don't understand why you despise them so much, it's just connections between nodes on a grid. They make for better gameplay in that they allow defenses and known routes. There are the late-game jump drives which can bypass hyperlanes at a cost, the fleet is temporarily weakened to prevent players jumping a fleet directly into combat (unless you have such an overwhelming force disparity that it doesn't matter in which case why didn't you just break the defense stations?)
I really don't get this obsession with chokepoints and "terrain". It's a bloody space game ffs.It isn't an obsession, plenty of games DON'T do it, this specific game does. I don't seek out games with hyperlanes. In any case, if you want a totally realistic space combat simulator try something like Children of a Dead Earth. It's kind of a blast if you can wrap your head around orbital mechanics.
I really don't get this obsession with chokepoints and "terrain". It's a bloody space game ffs.
i think you could just max out hyperlanes connections or something in the start game settings to basically connect everything to everything else around too if you dont like the "terrain/chokes" stuffThat IS an option. One of the devs gave a screenshot of a setup like that:
I really don't get this obsession with chokepoints and "terrain". It's a bloody space game ffs.I think at some point we all have to draw a line as to what immersion level we're willing to accept when it comes to games.
I would also like to point out that Wormholes and Warp Travel are still in the game and you can very easily make it so everyone has access to it if you want.While I don't mind the FTL change, I'm a little curious how you would do this. With the governing code for the old FTL systems either completely inaccessible or outright gone, it's not easy to reactivate the original FTL travel systems. You can emulate warp travel by cranking up the hyperlane connections as above, but that has its own limitations in that tech won't increase how far you can "warp" and you still need to path through each system with the resulting dependency on sublight speed that entails. You could modify jump drives, but I'm not sure how well the AI handles modding jump drives to make them have zero cooldown/penalty and it makes complex pathing painful since you need to click the little jump button every time you go from system to system. I have no idea how you'd emulate the old wormhole travel system; gateways don't connect disconnected systems, and the wormholes now in game are basically longer hyperlanes.
Nah you can't do the exact old ways. I was referring to warp and wormholes as they are now. Just put them everywhere and give everyone jump tech. Or give every ship that scout tech that lets them basically teleport anywhere. No idea if the AI can use it. The AI does use jump drives right now though. You'd have to do it and see what happens.I would also like to point out that Wormholes and Warp Travel are still in the game and you can very easily make it so everyone has access to it if you want.While I don't mind the FTL change, I'm a little curious how you would do this. With the governing code for the old FTL systems either completely inaccessible or outright gone, it's not easy to reactivate the original FTL travel systems. You can emulate warp travel by cranking up the hyperlane connections as above, but that has its own limitations in that tech won't increase how far you can "warp" and you still need to path through each system with the resulting dependency on sublight speed that entails. You could modify jump drives, but I'm not sure how well the AI handles modding jump drives to make them have zero cooldown/penalty and it makes complex pathing painful since you need to click the little jump button every time you go from system to system. I have no idea how you'd emulate the old wormhole travel system; gateways don't connect disconnected systems, and the wormholes now in game are basically longer hyperlanes.
EDIT:
I mean, if nothing else, it would have made things loads easier for the New Horizons team to be able to reproduce Star Trek warp drives completely faithfully.
Speaking of the AI and jumpdrives, does the AI routinely crap its pants when trying to figure out how to use them? In two games I've been in so far, spiritualist awakened empires went to war with me and had bizarre moments where they'd spend months stuck in a system where they constantly alternated between charging jump drives and drifting slowly toward a hyperlane exit. Once they finally got to the next system, they'd go back to acting like normal.Yeah that happens all the time.
I can only imagine how the AI might behave in a mod where everyone starts with or can easily unlock jumpdrives early on in an effort to replicate early Stellaris FTL.
Speaking of the AI and jumpdrives, does the AI routinely crap its pants when trying to figure out how to use them? In two games I've been in so far, spiritualist awakened empires went to war with me and had bizarre moments where they'd spend months stuck in a system where they constantly alternated between charging jump drives and drifting slowly toward a hyperlane exit. Once they finally got to the next system, they'd go back to acting like normal.If anything, I would imagine they would actually improve if the jump times were removed and no cooldown period.
I can only imagine how the AI might behave in a mod where everyone starts with or can easily unlock jumpdrives early on in an effort to replicate early Stellaris FTL.
Speaking of the AI and jumpdrives, does the AI routinely crap its pants when trying to figure out how to use them? In two games I've been in so far, spiritualist awakened empires went to war with me and had bizarre moments where they'd spend months stuck in a system where they constantly alternated between charging jump drives and drifting slowly toward a hyperlane exit. Once they finally got to the next system, they'd go back to acting like normal.Using the hyplerane generator/deleter mod, I created star empires that existed wholly disconnected from the outside world. Not only did the AI not figure out how to hyperjump into the star systems, but the end game crises refused to move to a single star system unless they had a hyperlane connection to the player capital
I can only imagine how the AI might behave in a mod where everyone starts with or can easily unlock jumpdrives early on in an effort to replicate early Stellaris FTL.
* Colony ships can now be built populated with any species which you have a migration treaty withYes! Finally, a way to actually reliably use migration treaties to colonize planets not hospitable to your race.
* No longer possible to pick Imperial Prerogative as first ascension perk???
* Leader Capacity has been removed from the game and replaced with energy credits upkeep for each leader
* Federation members now automatically have a commercial agreement with each other, but have to pay 15% of their energy credit income in federation taxes
* Reworked relative empire power to be based on fleet power, economic power and tech power (in order of descending importance). Economic power is calculated as the amount of resources produced by the empire each month, multiplied by the base value of said resources, while tech power is calculated by the total cost of researched techs
* Culture shock is now a planet modifier rather than a pop modifier
* Assimilation now faster, and planetary culture shock will be removed if there is only hive/cyborg/machine pops on the planet, because free will is a painful illusion
* Spiritualist faction will no longer be unhappy about Tomb Worlds if you get Wormed
* Having Psionic pops in your empire allows for the possibility of rolling the Psionic theory tech if not otherwise possible
* Colonization screens only show the list of species and will generate a ship from the closest shipyard
We've truly come full circle if we're getting de jure claims in Stellaris. I love it.
Funnily enough, I never actually hit the leader cap so I'm not sure what I was supposed to be doing, but it was weird to have a cap anyway. I guess if I was one of those rare people who kept extra scientists around to rotate out for field related research speed buffs then I might have hit the cap. Or if I had a dozen sectors, maybe to abuse the separate mineral and energy stockpiles, and wanted to have governors to maximize output. Or if I had such a gigantic naval capacity that I needed a dozen admirals.
Assisting research would be another valid use, yeah. Despite my usually focusing hard on science, I didn't ever use research assistance very much because it didn't seem to help all that much. Maybe I was misread or doing the math wrong, but even assisting on a research focused habitat or ring world segment didn't seem to give more than a few extra points of research per month per scientist. Better than nothing, I suppose.
I for one just wish that leaders were more like underlings in CK2. Give them some initiative!
I for one just wish that leaders were more like underlings in CK2. Give them some initiative!
Yeah, Wiz has said that he doesn't want to make leaders matter too much because then it would be Crusader Kings in Space, and apparently he thinks that wouldn't be better than it just being Stellaris.I for one just wish that leaders were more like underlings in CK2. Give them some initiative!
But that would make for good gameplay, PTTG. That's just not acceptable in our perfectly mediocre game.
The idea of crusader kings is that you the player are divorced from the empire and actually only represent the interests of one family whose wellbeing and success is paramount. Ckii but you follow the empire, and you don't worry about marriages, assassination, getting claims by anything more than spending points, the spread of religion, or the machinations of your children isn't really crusader kings; it's just taking something crusader kings did amazingly well.I mean, you're kinda preaching to the choir here.
Yeah, I don't think Wiz knows what Crusader Kings is actually about. Maybe he only ever plays Kings and tries to blob the whole world every single time?Every single paradox grand strategy is about blobbing. Except ck. (We don't talk about Victoria anymore)
Every single paradox grand strategy is about blobbing. Except ck. (We don't talk about Victoria anymore)How to make stellaris good:
I mean, you're kinda preaching to the choir here.Not preaching so much as whining that the justification for leaving an anemic system mostly as is is that making it better would make it more like something good.
* End game victory conditions reworked into a score system, tallying up your total empire accomplishment based on size, population, military, tech, federations, and many other measures
Assisting research would be another valid use, yeah. Despite my usually focusing hard on science, I didn't ever use research assistance very much because it didn't seem to help all that much. Maybe I was misread or doing the math wrong, but even assisting on a research focused habitat or ring world segment didn't seem to give more than a few extra points of research per month per scientist. Better than nothing, I suppose.iirc it's a flat 5% boost to all science output for the planet per level of the scientist. The bonus goes up to 10% when you get the 'improved' version. That means a level 10 scientist can potentially double the output of a world I guess, though I haven't tested that
Victoria Queens surely.Every single paradox grand strategy is about blobbing. Except ck. (We don't talk about Victoria anymore)How to make stellaris good:
It's victoria kings in space
Don't question royalty!Victoria Queens surely.Every single paradox grand strategy is about blobbing. Except ck. (We don't talk about Victoria anymore)How to make stellaris good:
It's victoria kings in space
How to make stellaris good:
It's victoria kings in space
So instead of "conquer everything to win" now we have a high score based victory system? I guess that's.... sort of an improvement? I'll have to see the specifics of how it works.
all paradox games work this way. dlc always add a bunch of powerful mechanics that make the game easier, if only because they give you more options to do stuff you were already trying to do.
I haven't played Stellaris since...well since a year+ ago. Its been a while.
Watching Quill18 play though, the new changes in megacorp look really amazing. No longer do you have the annoying building/population mechanic (never liked that part felt very very limiting) and a lot more things are more automated. I think that is coming in megacorp and not from a previous expansion. Still on his part 1 video, but it looks like a big improvement from when I last played Stellaris.
And it looks like you can recreate the East India Company...but in space.
Rare tech is rare. :)Not a single repeatable tech yet. Fallen empires have yet to wake up and the endgame crisis is still unknown. Great Khan came and went, though, and I opened the L-Cluster (got lucky and ended up with Grey).
Seriously though, were you into repeatables yet? You're pretty much guaranteed to see other research options by then if you haven't seen them yet. I think even rare techs are several times more common than repeatables in the shuffle.
I am really looking forward to being an utterly reprehensible, cartoonishly evil, slave-trading megacorporation in the upcoming DLC.I'm still annoyed that criminal and non-criminal corporations are inherently delineated. I want my opium wars in space.
If they don't want to be slaves, why are they made of labor and profit?
~Llamacorp
I am really looking forward to being an utterly reprehensible, cartoonishly evil, slave-trading megacorporation in the upcoming DLC.I'm still annoyed that criminal and non-criminal corporations are inherently delineated. I want my opium wars in space.
If they don't want to be slaves, why are they made of labor and profit?
~Llamacorp
I was unaware of that, is it like, an opposing ethos like material/spiritual?
Also, Llamacorp would like to remind you that criminals are those who break the law, and those in power write the laws.
What delineates "your" planets from "our" planets? Merely words and an easily broken social contract. The Hive is under no obligation to honor your claim to resources that The Hive could utilize more efficiently.
What delineates "your" planets from "our" planets? Merely words and an easily broken social contract. The Hive is under no obligation to honor your claim to resources that The Hive could utilize more efficiently.
don't the game activly prevent you to move across borders? that coloured line is very very real, sadly.
We only want a little Earth and Water.
What delineates "your" planets from "our" planets? Merely words and an easily broken social contract. The Hive is under no obligation to honor your claim to resources that The Hive could utilize more efficiently.STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM
Is it possible to not update?You can disable Steam's auto-updates. I imagine there will be a rollback beta too.
I still have a game I want to finish on this version.
You can use the steam console to revert to earlier versions. I think they blocked the ability to revert to pre-GDPR builds, but I don't think the post-GDPR ones are blocked.They didn't block the ability, you just have to have a Paradox forum account to do so, iirc.
Basically you have to log in and consent to certain levels of monitoring, per the GDPR, in order to get the old versions. Those old versions didn't have that consent built into the EULA or communicated in any way so they lock it behind a new consent form. At least that is my understandingYou can use the steam console to revert to earlier versions. I think they blocked the ability to revert to pre-GDPR builds, but I don't think the post-GDPR ones are blocked.They didn't block the ability, you just have to have a Paradox forum account to do so, iirc.
I'm fine with that. It means I only have to relentlessly exterminate criminal megacorps, rather than literally every last one of them.Personally, I prefer nuance.
What delineates "your" planets from "our" planets? Merely words and an easily broken social contract. The Hive is under no obligation to honor your claim to resources that The Hive could utilize more efficiently.STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM
MULTIPLE THIRD PARTY CLAIMANTS HAVE FLAGGED YOU FOR VIOLATING THE N.A.P.tm. DWAMAK MERCENARIES WILL BE EN ROUTE TO REPOSSESS YOUR STATE AS COMPENSATION TO THE AGGRIEVED MULTIPLE THIRD PARTY CLAIMANTS. DUE TO ONGOING PROCESSING OF YOUR CASE, WE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING APPEALS AS OF THIS MOMENT. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.
Stellaris is not a nuanced game ::)Thanks, Wiz.
The Hive understands and laughs condescendingly. We would like you to know that whether you are accepting appeals at this time has no bearing upon your ability to avoid collision with said appeals~UPON REVIEW OF THE SIZE OF YOUR APPEAL, WE AT MEGACORP HAVE FOUND YOUR OCCUPATION OF THE BOLACK STAR SYSTEM TO FALL WITHIN OUR FAIR USE CLAUSE. THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING WITH MEGACORP
I hereby move that we exclusively refer to a ecumenopoli as Coruscants.Nah, Coruscant is a derived unit. The appropriate SI base unit is the Trantor.
"In former times the energy monopoly was called "The Power Company"; we intend to give this name an entirely new meaning."King Executive Autocrat
-Me, making a new game playing as an energy-production-focused megacorp, Datalinks (https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/base-facility-quantum-converter/)
It does seem odd to me that corporations start out the same way as "normal" empires, with one species on one planet taking their first steps into the stars.CK2 Merchant Republic mechanics, with multiple companies operating off of the same capital planet? Yes please
Would be an interesting start to begin as a rising megacorp who just managed to buy their first planet from an established empire, possibly with a mix of species already on the planet. Or even playing as one of several rival companies from the same planet, racing to form new colonies before your competitors and take over your home planet.
...But then, I guess those could all be alternative starts for other empire types, not just corps. Could play as one of two superpowers on your home planet, or as the "official" planetary government sharing the world with a megacorp looking to outcompete you.
Oh well. Each stellaris expansion just makes me think of fun new directions they could take things. Maybe some day...
Oh, and like, the market seems brokenly cheap to buy consumer goods on. Like, 2.5 energy per good when making them takes a precious building slot, a lot of minerals, energy food and consumer goods to upkeep the job and pop... It seem way cheaper to just build generator districts and buy the goods.
Is it just me or is the AI expanding ludicriously fast?
I found my first two neighbours and neither of them are advance start but while I only managed to get an additional 6 star systems, they're at around 15 additional star systems each.
I'm playing on the second highest difficulty so I know they're cheating... but in the past they never expanded this fast before.
Also did they slow down research speed? Seems much slower. I'm not complaining but I normally play 2x research length because I found vanilla way too slow. Now I feel like I'm on 6x or something.
I am enjoying playing an evil spiritualist slaving nation immensely. Playing a duo game, found a suitable primitive civ, resettled every one of them to my homeworld, and have an extremely robust economy coupled with research on par with my materialist/egalitarian science-focused partner.A really bizarre 2.2 change was to move the "invaded primitives" modifier from the pops to the planet itself.
Edit: the answer seems to be..... nothing. Literally nothing. I don't know if it's bugged for everyone or just hive minds, but I set a sector with two planets in it to AI control (basic resources), gave it 10,000 resources (both minerals and energy) and.... it just didn't do anything at all. I waited a few years and it never built a single building or district.Mine (not a hive mind) do use them, but tend to wait with building anything until a short while before it's needed. Also, loves to build luxury housing for some reason.
Edit: the answer seems to be..... nothing. Literally nothing. I don't know if it's bugged for everyone or just hive minds, but I set a sector with two planets in it to AI control (basic resources), gave it 10,000 resources (both minerals and energy) and.... it just didn't do anything at all. I waited a few years and it never built a single building or district.Mine (not a hive mind) do use them, but tend to wait with building anything until a short while before it's needed. Also, loves to build luxury housing for some reason.
And if anyone knows how to tell it not to build one type of resource districts - do tell me. I've recently switched to robotic bodies, but the governors keep building farms.
Oh, and are the 'resources' you transfer to sectors interchangeable (money=minerals)? They kinda look that way.
I don't know how it is for regular empires but as a hive I've been having a problem with unemployment and rare resources. Specifically I consume a lot of rare crystals and gasses for buildings and I have none in my territory at all. I can manufacture them, but the building only has one job in it.It's the same for everyone, and I think it's cool. Makes you really value those resources in space, and the special planetary features that let you build a structure generating 2 (!) jobs.
I have basically infinite of everything else, I'm constantly dumping excess resources to buy crystals/gasses but I'm buying them so much the price never has time to settle, so it's constantly going up which makes this unsustainable in the long run. So I need to manufacture some, but it takes 5 drones to unlock a building slot that only employs 1 drone leaving 4 guys with no job. Every building I make that gives them jobs is one less building slot for making more crystal/gas, which is the only thing I really need.
At least you can sell the food now - in previous versions ascended synth lost the ability to trade excess food for some unknown reason.Yeah, there's even a special building you get when you ascend now (I don't remember it being there before), letting you convert food to energy on a 20:20 basis. Probably not worth the slot, though
Edit: the answer seems to be..... nothing. Literally nothing. I don't know if it's bugged for everyone or just hive minds, but I set a sector with two planets in it to AI control (basic resources), gave it 10,000 resources (both minerals and energy) and.... it just didn't do anything at all. I waited a few years and it never built a single building or district.Sigh... Paradox...
I've had AI build things, but it's nowhere close to being actually capable of dealing with anything. They sometimes plop a random new building if there's space, but I don't think I ever saw them build a district. You need to set them to be able to do stuff in first place in sectors menu, and then I think how often they do it depends on governor skill, but I have no proofs.I have no dobut at all that Wiz (also known as the entire Stellaris QA team) simply never looked at the sectors to see if buildings were being built regularly (or at all) or not.
In retrospect, that might be the intented use of the new Patrol feature.You should keep in mind that the Paradox offices primarily play, test, and therefore balance for fairly small maps, while most players prefer to go for larger maps. So they may have intended patrols to be effective for that purpose, but your empire is bigger than expected.
It's definitely *not* intended for patrolling to distant trade posts, because the piracy regenerates much quicker than even corvettes travel. They wipe out the piracy due to their bonus from small size, but it's back long before they return.
In retrospect, that might be the intented use of the new Patrol feature.
It's definitely *not* intended for patrolling to distant trade posts, because the piracy regenerates much quicker than even corvettes travel. They wipe out the piracy due to their bonus from small size, but it's back long before they return.
I don't know if I fully like the update or not. I kinda like the new population system, but feel like he is more tedious (not necessary a bad thing, since at mid game you actually have some internal stuff to do) and lack personnality. By that i means that before, when i spotted a good planet, thanks to its specials or rare tiles, i could go "Oh, this will be a industry planet !" or "Oh, a nice resort planet !".
Now it more like "eh, this planet has more red case than the others, guess that it will be a mining planet". It feels more dull. And losing the tiles will means mods like alphamod (which add lot of infrastructures depending on planetary tiles and such) will lose interest.
I don't know if I fully like the update or not. I kinda like the new population system, but feel like he is more tedious (not necessary a bad thing, since at mid game you actually have some internal stuff to do) and lack personnality. By that i means that before, when i spotted a good planet, thanks to its specials or rare tiles, i could go "Oh, this will be a industry planet !" or "Oh, a nice resort planet !".
Now it more like "eh, this planet has more red case than the others, guess that it will be a mining planet". It feels more dull. And losing the tiles will means mods like alphamod (which add lot of infrastructures depending on planetary tiles and such) will lose interest.
It sounds to me like you are still thinking of everything in a 2.0 lens
I also tried a evil megacorp, trying to rp the black sun of star wars. Well i managed to get 2 branchs criminal offices in others nations, before their police kept shutting my operation down, one month after they were being install, so i just let it go and play full evil, but classic, empire.
Tiles became the blockers/special features as well as special planet modifiers (those didn't change)
Pops became much less micro intensive
buildings are still the main way to specialize
Minerals and credits are much easier to come by and the alloys and special gases are the new resources people focus on so not having enough yellow/red/green districts on a specific planet isn;t a huge deal as fas as I have seen.
Also you make it sound like you used to be able to choose which planets you specialized and now you can't...its still the exact same. Some planets are better (based on special modifiers and tiles) for minerals, some for science, etc so not sure what you mean when you say that choosing worlds is "dull" now.
As for Alphamod...they will adapt. Seems odd that you think they will just go "Oh well no more tiles so we will just chop out half the mod because we can't think of any solutions"
It sounds to me like you are still thinking of everything in a 2.0 lens and have given very little thought or effort in regards to the new systems.
Let me know if anyone figures out a good habitat build. Just played my first game going wonder heavy and once I started building habitats I realized that I didn't know how to use them. They cost 4 or 5 alloy in upkeep which was my first big surprise. I think I went with 3 residential, 1 entertainment, 2/3 science, 2/3 economic. I dropped a couple mote/crystal/gas fabricators in each but never even finished filling them up. I had four built before my first section of a ring world was completed. Ring world A had to be food centered so that all planets could be mining focused, realized at that point the best use of habitats were farming pop to fill the ring faster. Second ring world section was energy generation. With all the food and energy I could need I didn't even finish the ring world and went straight for the mining wonder then ecumenopolis.
End game, I have a bunch of habitats and ring world sections I never put much effort into because they don't fit well into the mineral/alloy cycle. If there was a spam-able mining building similar to the hydroponics farm for planets, that would be great (broken?) since I could move industry to the habitats/ringworld. As it was, my capital was full mining districts and had all its building slots available to accomplish most of my industry.
Yeah I'm not a big fan of how slow pop growth is right now.
Not to mention how slow movement speed is.
Everything is just so slow right now.
And I would agree that this system actually takes more micro than before. In the past I could build everything in one go and forget about the planet. Here I have to needlessly wait for the super slow pop growth before I can do anything. And yeah, the automated builder is just for decoration. Doesn't do anything.
First of all, slavery is how to win at Stellaris now.
Pop growth slow? Go grab some from your neighbor. Need resources? Declare war, take one planet, sell everyone there on the slave market, instant 30000-50000 energy. Buy some stuff. Buy a space Mercedes. I spend lots of time micromanaging slave pops between worlds to balance efficiency and worker/technician use. You can jump-start colonies, specialize your main pop into sciency things, all of that.
Is it me or are machine races really gimped with their growth now?
Each missile or gun battery increases the starbase's range of protection by one. Like each trade post increase collection range. Everything in the range of a 4-missile starhold has 36 trade value protected (16 for starhold, 5 each for missile). Protection from multiple starbases overlaps, fortunately.
Piracy can still happen in a system with a starbase, but trade routes don't appear to generate piracy in the system they originate. Only along the route. Which is why your capital starbase is so great, it generates *no* piracy even if it's collecting from systems 6 jumps away, since piracy is only generated between the capital and the collecting starbase.
Ooh - hangars work the same as missile batteries, except they provide 10 protection each instead of 5! I should have researched those earlier. They also make more sense than gun batteries protecting nearby systems, heh.
With people wondering how to fill ringworlds... Does excess food production no longer increase population growth? Otherwise it seems like you could have exponential pop growth by devoting it tit food production.
Does anyone know how to change what the AI decides to build for the Federation fleet?
Right now the AI is constantly sending waves of corvettes into my space. I can't figure out how to get them to maybe build something else. I didn't even ask them to do this, they just constantly send them in. I tried using the fleet manager on it, but all it did was make it so I build the other ships.
Unrelated to that, but I'm not sure that the droid and synthetics upgrades are working now. I know something was changed related to this, but after researching both techs, nothing seems to have changed. I still have "robotic worker" pops instead of synthetics. Do the robots just get a production bonus now? I also don't seem to have any increase in consumer goods or housing after researching it either, despite also giving AI citizen rights, and the robots' species rights say they're still under servitude.If you read the description for the techs carefully, they work differently now. Each upgrade allows the same robotic pops to work higher-tier jobs (worker->specialist->ruler). They don't get any more productive.
Members on Paradox's forums seem to agree that Glavius(?)'s mod does make the AI work much better even in 2.2. It's kind of funny, since I have no idea what a modder could change that would make the AI work better than what the developers already do. My guess is that the mod must give the AI some kinds of cheats, since if it's just adjusting build weights or other mod adjustable parameters, the developers would quickly adjust their own numbers to be closer to it. I'm pretty sure I saw something about at least one AI mod giving the AI instant troop transports to get around the "bombarding a planet for 50 years" bug, for example.
AI mods "fix" the AI by creating events and scrips which force AI to do "sensible" things. For example, they spawn fleets and spawn buildings on planets or make the AI dismantle useless buildings. Most of them don't cheat as such, because the reduct the appropriate amount of resources when spawning those etc. But they are still a crutch and not an actual fix.
Mods disable achievements because achievements themselves are just handled in-script.No, mods disable achievements because the devs of this game put a check in their game that goes...
You guys sure do complain a lot. I think the update is fantastic. Feels like a real game now. Actually played out to late game without getting bored.Agreed. The new systems feel good. This new update really shines in multiplayer too.
Question: Is enslaving genocidal fanatical purifiers in order to stop their mad campaign a moral neutral? Discuss.Tau_invasion_of_Damocles_Gulf.jpg
You guys sure do complain a lot. I think the update is fantastic. Feels like a real game now. Actually played out to late game without getting bored.
Since Fanatical Purification is a cultural thing, not a biological one, it would be interesting if a Purifier species could experience a revolution and realize what horrible shit they've done. Or at least get dissident factions disagreeing with the galactical genocide.That's already in game
Since Fanatical Purification is a cultural thing, not a biological one, it would be interesting if a Purifier species could experience a revolution and realize what horrible shit they've done. Or at least get dissident factions disagreeing with the galactical genocide.What is this speciesism!
I mean, you can totally pick robot portraitsNot without mods you can't. If you pick robot you have to be gestalt
That would involve swapping out the Fanatic Purifier civic, right? Presumably you can do that with Determined Exterminator as well? I kind of wanted to try a Determined Exterminator game where I had a flash of conscience halfway through and swapped out for some other government type, but wasn't sure if it was possible.You can't actually remove the civic after the start of the game, but if it becomes invalid (via ethic switching) then it stops doing anything. So you could do that (as long as you don't mind being down a civic slot) as fanatic purifiers, but not as devouring swarm or determined exterminators.
Are you super sure? Because I'm fairly sure the mechanical robot portraits are just there, you can pick the LOOK for anything....?I just tested it. If you pick a robot portrait you must take the gestalt robot authority
I could definitely be crazy but I swear I checked on the new update and I certainly don't have any mods.
You can't actually remove the civic after the start of the game, but if it becomes invalid (via ethic switching) then it stops doing anything. So you could do that (as long as you don't mind being down a civic slot) as fanatic purifiers, but not as devouring swarm or determined exterminators.I remember when my friends were still stellaris newbs. I ethics shifted out to disable fanatical purifier to be able to conduct diplomacy with them, until such time as I felt it was appropriate to reawaken the Pure Dungroller Colony
And then it flip back on after everybody still hates you for purging.
Ecumenopoli, I think. Though that's more a Latin form of conjugation and polis is a Greek word....ah well whatever.
Alternatively, we can mix universes and call themHobbitsesEcumenopolises.
Has anyone done extensive terraforming? I'm turning my inhabited planets into Gaias, and it looks like they're losing resource districts in the process (i.e. relevant planetary features are disappearing). I'm sure I've lost a lot of mining districts (like, from 8 to 0 in one case), and at least some generators. I'm pretty certain I haven't seen any new features appear in place of the lost ones, so it's not a feature re-roll.
Is this a feature, or a bug? And does it happen with terraforming to other types?
Alright then, I'mma give Stellaris a pass for a while, until it gets a bit patched. The amount of bugs so far kills the fun.Don't worry, even if they patch the bugs, Wiz and co. are hard at work finding lot of other ways to kill the fun :)
I get it you and others have some kind of beef with the devs, but other than the bugs I'm very happy with the game.Alright then, I'mma give Stellaris a pass for a while, until it gets a bit patched. The amount of bugs so far kills the fun.Don't worry, even if they patch the bugs, Wiz and co. are hard at work finding lot of other ways to kill the fun :)
I give you, the United Robot Hegemony.
[image removed]
All pops on their planet are enslaved by the way. Mostly organic with six or so dumb robot pops.
Playing my first criminal syndicate and wow, these guys can be brutal. I opened a branch office on the homeworld of the first race I met and dropped down an illicit research lab, this increased crime on their planet to epic proportions. Crime is now 100% as they have a corrupt governor and 'mob rule' from events. They can barely eek out a living and have had to dismiss most of their ships just to keep their economy afloat. With that one building I rendered them completely nonthreatening, they can barely afford anything.
The second empire I found I dropped down a smuggler's port. I'm now getting around 25 energy in trade value from them and their crime is steadily rising out of their control. Both of them went from superior to me to inferior in the span of a decade. Part of that is that the AI seems to not know how to manage crime, a player would have scrapped some buildings and build more enforcers to reduce crime and kick out the criminal syndicate eventually.
I give you, the United Robot Hegemony.
[image removed]
All pops on their planet are enslaved by the way. Mostly organic with six or so dumb robot pops.
Is this modded? Or how did the game end up generating a robot empire that's not gestalt? You say that the empire is mostly organic, but the game seems to think that the main species is the robots.
I've found them to mostly build enforcers until crime gets into the thirties, though this is based on exactly one game. The difference may stem from what stage of the game you do it in, perhaps?Playing my first criminal syndicate and wow, these guys can be brutal. I opened a branch office on the homeworld of the first race I met and dropped down an illicit research lab, this increased crime on their planet to epic proportions. Crime is now 100% as they have a corrupt governor and 'mob rule' from events. They can barely eek out a living and have had to dismiss most of their ships just to keep their economy afloat. With that one building I rendered them completely nonthreatening, they can barely afford anything.
The second empire I found I dropped down a smuggler's port. I'm now getting around 25 energy in trade value from them and their crime is steadily rising out of their control. Both of them went from superior to me to inferior in the span of a decade. Part of that is that the AI seems to not know how to manage crime, a player would have scrapped some buildings and build more enforcers to reduce crime and kick out the criminal syndicate eventually.
You're pretty lucky then, people, myself included, report the opposite, AI building tons of enforcer, with no reason. I tried once to open a branch office. Boom, three enforcer buildings.
Its possible I caught them early enough that they simply can't afford to build the enforcer buildings, sending them into a vicious spiral of doom.Playing my first criminal syndicate and wow, these guys can be brutal. I opened a branch office on the homeworld of the first race I met and dropped down an illicit research lab, this increased crime on their planet to epic proportions. Crime is now 100% as they have a corrupt governor and 'mob rule' from events. They can barely eek out a living and have had to dismiss most of their ships just to keep their economy afloat. With that one building I rendered them completely nonthreatening, they can barely afford anything.
The second empire I found I dropped down a smuggler's port. I'm now getting around 25 energy in trade value from them and their crime is steadily rising out of their control. Both of them went from superior to me to inferior in the span of a decade. Part of that is that the AI seems to not know how to manage crime, a player would have scrapped some buildings and build more enforcers to reduce crime and kick out the criminal syndicate eventually.
You're pretty lucky then, people, myself included, report the opposite, AI building tons of enforcer, with no reason. I tried once to open a branch office. Boom, three enforcer buildings.
Playing my first criminal syndicate and wow, these guys can be brutal. I opened a branch office on the homeworld of the first race I met and dropped down an illicit research lab, this increased crime on their planet to epic proportions. Crime is now 100% as they have a corrupt governor and 'mob rule' from events. They can barely eek out a living and have had to dismiss most of their ships just to keep their economy afloat. With that one building I rendered them completely nonthreatening, they can barely afford anything.
The second empire I found I dropped down a smuggler's port. I'm now getting around 25 energy in trade value from them and their crime is steadily rising out of their control. Both of them went from superior to me to inferior in the span of a decade. Part of that is that the AI seems to not know how to manage crime, a player would have scrapped some buildings and build more enforcers to reduce crime and kick out the criminal syndicate eventually.
?? Enforcers do -25 crime, not -75.Playing my first criminal syndicate and wow, these guys can be brutal. I opened a branch office on the homeworld of the first race I met and dropped down an illicit research lab, this increased crime on their planet to epic proportions. Crime is now 100% as they have a corrupt governor and 'mob rule' from events. They can barely eek out a living and have had to dismiss most of their ships just to keep their economy afloat. With that one building I rendered them completely nonthreatening, they can barely afford anything.
The second empire I found I dropped down a smuggler's port. I'm now getting around 25 energy in trade value from them and their crime is steadily rising out of their control. Both of them went from superior to me to inferior in the span of a decade. Part of that is that the AI seems to not know how to manage crime, a player would have scrapped some buildings and build more enforcers to reduce crime and kick out the criminal syndicate eventually.
The max crime increase you can do on a planet with less than 50 pops is is +75. A single Enforcers office is -75, totally neutralizing your advantage without spending resources on a crack down. If you find a poorly managed planet you can send them into a spiral because the crime problems build upon themselves but in general criminal branch offices are a losing bet.
?? Enforcers do -25 crime, not -75.He said single enforcer office (the precinct houses or whatever it's called). Together with the basic capital building that's 3 jobs.
The max crime increase you can do on a planet with less than 50 pops is is +75. A single Enforcers office is -75, totally neutralizing your advantage without spending resources on a crack down. If you find a poorly managed planet you can send them into a spiral because the crime problems build upon themselves but in general criminal branch offices are a losing bet.Conversely, you're neutralizing their enforcers, allowing the natural crime from pops to flourish. You're still looking at an income in the low double digits in exchange for an investment in the thousands, but it's worth doing in the long run, assuming you have the dosh to spare. It would probably even be worth a civic slot compared to a normal empire. But it's just not worth being a corporation for.
Conversely, you're neutralizing their enforcers, allowing the natural crime from pops to flourish. You're still looking at an income in the low double digits in exchange for an investment in the thousands, but it's worth doing in the long run, assuming you have the dosh to spare. It would probably even be worth a civic slot compared to a normal empire. But it's just not worth being a corporation for.I don't think so. You can only cause a little bit of trouble before you're outmaneuvered and you're burning influence and resources on the investment. If it doesn't pan out they can very quickly shut you down. I don't know that I've ever had the cost of investment actually pay off. It's also impossible to start a criminal enterprise on a planet that has a legitimate enterprise so all anyone has to do to permanently block you from encroaching on their worlds is strike a trade deal.
I haven't found either of these problems to be common.Conversely, you're neutralizing their enforcers, allowing the natural crime from pops to flourish. You're still looking at an income in the low double digits in exchange for an investment in the thousands, but it's worth doing in the long run, assuming you have the dosh to spare. It would probably even be worth a civic slot compared to a normal empire. But it's just not worth being a corporation for.I don't think so. You can only cause a little bit of trouble before you're outmaneuvered and you're burning influence and resources on the investment. If it doesn't pan out they can very quickly shut you down. I don't know that I've ever had the cost of investment actually pay off. It's also impossible to start a criminal enterprise on a planet that has a legitimate enterprise so all anyone has to do to permanently block you from encroaching on their worlds is strike a trade deal.
Kinda sounds like Stellaris needs some mechanics for espionage and such before that can really become interesting.That would be great, if I could spend a little extra to increase the chance of negative events on the planet or really do anything pro-active. It seems like a criminal corporation would be ideal for economic sabotage but you can do very little and can be countered very simply.
I haven't found either of these problems to be common.
I consistently hear good things about it, but have never tried it myself. I don't even really care about the achievements, and yet I stopped using my own portrait mods over it for some reason...VICTORIA 3
Anyway, in other news, Wiz announced that he's stepping down as director of Stellaris to work on a new, secret project at Paradox. Theories abound on what it is, or what the future of Stellaris will be. Another director was named already, and Stellaris is Paradox's best seller right now so it's not going away, but who knows what it might mean about the direction of the game.
VICTORIA 3Be careful what you wish for. Paradox might just give us Victoria III... Divided into a billion DLC, and somehow still shallower than II
I've weakened empires to the point where they are basically neutered and I can walk in with a 2k fleet to subjugate them.
I think the real problem is that crime is modeled too simplistically for meaningful interactions with crime syndicates.
For example, crime could be modeled with an exponential curve, rather than a linear one. So there'd always be a small amount of crime, with diminishing returns for lowering it.
I've weakened empires to the point where they are basically neutered and I can walk in with a 2k fleet to subjugate them.
To be perfectly fair, I've found that this accurately describes most AI empires in 2.2, with or without a criminal enterprise.
Does anyone know if the patch fixed lag from gateways? I saw someone ask on Paradox's forums but they didn't get an answer.
I've been afraid to repair or build any gateways because of the bug, so it would be great if the bug was fixed in this patch, or if it was a more general lag fix.
I found a rather funny fast researching build. Just go egalitarian and get utopian and build lots of cities and keep most of your people unemployed. Huge research and unity. Dedicate the rest of the people to growing food and producing consumer goods lol. Just can't do migration treaties because all the unemployed people would rather migrate to the slave empire next door as slaves rather than live in abundance as freelance artists and scientists.Hehe, I've been wanting to do this since I noticed the research boon. Getting unity from unemployed pops with social welfare was sorta nice, but didn't seem worth doing on purpose. Have you actually tried this yet?
So the penny has dropped for me that the new system makes Barbaric Despoilers hella good to play as.
As soon as you get strong enough to raid a neighbour and push to and hold a single populated planet with ships, you can just steal so many pops. Free large quantities of slave labour acquired very quickly, alongside huge planet pop growth, and the biggest risk is tanking your food production.
Is that better then just taking the planet yourself? And, if it is better, how so? Genuinely interested in knowing, not having played Despoilers, but it seems like in most cases, unless perhaps you are out of influence, if you can steal pops, you can just take the planet yourself.Influence should usually be the limiting factor on what you can take anyway, though.
My Post-apocalyptic despoilers have had great success raiding ALL pops off planets
Is that better then just taking the planet yourself? And, if it is better, how so? Genuinely interested in knowing, not having played Despoilers, but it seems like in most cases, unless perhaps you are out of influence, if you can steal pops, you can just take the planet yourself.Influence should usually be the limiting factor on what you can take anyway, though.
...Why is it the xenophobes who like enslaving aliens again? Still makes more sense the other way round.One imagines it's because slavery is bad and xenophobia is bad so therefore they go together. I don't think there's any deeper reason than that.
Orkz, I'd be sorta tempted to take syncretic evolution? Except all orkz are strong, and grotz are really the same species.
...Why is it the xenophobes who like enslaving aliens again? Still makes more sense the other way round.Depends on the type of Xenophobia. Aliens being treated as workhorses with no rights because of their inferiority sounds pretty accurate to Earth politics right now.
Is that better then just taking the planet yourself? And, if it is better, how so? Genuinely interested in knowing, not having played Despoilers, but it seems like in most cases, unless perhaps you are out of influence, if you can steal pops, you can just take the planet yourself.Influence should usually be the limiting factor on what you can take anyway, though.
Also in this game, livestock is also considering slavery as well.
So I guess in game terms they're just all on that level of the ethics scale.
I sense a slave revolt incoming.You know what to do.
I've been known to claim a planet, resettle the pops, and then give it back so it stops screwing with my district limit.
That's a good point, one would hope this wouldn't be the case, but of course it currently is.
The penalties for empire size are currently pretty darn small, Smaller then it used to be at least. And especially planets, which only really cost empire size if you're using them... Uh. Well, if you resettle to another planet, presumably you have to then build up that planet, thus getting the empire size from that planet instead. And more planets means more pop growth (for some reason) and pop growth is pretty important. I don't see the point in not having as many planets as possible given that. So long as they aren't absolutely terrible low habitability planets.The Empire size penalty is completely ignorable, like before.
Big shiny button of your flag on the top left will bring up your government screen. Includes empire effects.
Does someone know if a heavy populated planet with massive trade value is more worth than a full 10 district generator planet ? Because right now I don't really see the benefit of an "urban world" meaning mostly city district to house a lot of population. And since the supermarket is, at beginning, one of the building with the most jobs slots, seems like a heavily populated planet only interest is going full trade value. I didn't find any other advantage at having a lot of population on a world, did you ?
I've recently started experimenting with overproducing consumer goods and setting my pops to social welfare then maintaining a large unemployed population. Unemployed pops produce unity on social welfare so its been a nice unity boost to get a few specific traditions early, then I ship them off to colonies to work.I like that bonus too, but if you want to do it intentionally, you really want Utopian Abundance from Egalitarian so they're making research as well.
Since its now the only manual way to specialize research beyond pop traits*.
But we had that and it was cancer. Maybe it could be done with the policy menu, something like -10% to 2, +15% to 1.Since its now the only manual way to specialize research beyond pop traits*.
they need to get rid of the generic research labs building and replace it with specific ones the grant specific jobs, for exactly that reason
But we had that and it was cancer.Since its now the only manual way to specialize research beyond pop traits*.
they need to get rid of the generic research labs building and replace it with specific ones the grant specific jobs, for exactly that reason
Maybe it could be done with the policy menu, something like -10% to 2, +15% to 1.
Your capital starbase won't generate any piracy ever, and its collection radius seems to have priority over other starbases - EXCEPT in their systems!
I'm talking about the original research labs that upgraded into versions that would produce more of one or the other. It was pointlessly micro intensive and it didn't matter because tech is a global resource and unlike the other global resources, you get no feedback when you run low. So it was just... not rewarding or interesting. There's little point to any tech modifiers that are local because they add up to either a lot of work for little effort, or forcing the player to do a bunch of mental math to achieve balanced research (which is broadly better than specialized because of how tech cost works).
I guess space deposits sort of matter, because in the extreme earlygame if you find 10 physics in neighboring systems that can be a huge spike (+33% I believe). But again in the long term those are going to come out about average. Ditto for the titanic lifeforms society research.
Edit: In edition to what Dunamisdeos said, if a starbase is in a system only it will collect from that system. This doesn't really matter unless its within your homeworld's collection range, as all that trade is collected with no need for protection. The trade collection range of a station is the number of trade hubs on it, so potentially 6 per starbase. Also small ships are better for patrolling, hangars on starbases are really good (and protect at long range), and the max piracy value of a system is simply the amount of trade passing through it. Finally, all pops produce trade value based on their social status (and possibly happiness?), so expect any populous world to become a trade hub eventually.
Okay. My new start with 'bigger colonies', 'planet view + 36 building slots' and 'crowded world' as UNE looks promising.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If this works out well I may do another try at a forum LP.
In theory I think you could use trade protection fleets as sort of a "levy"; in wartime send them out and just accept the trade value loss. In practice... AFAIK they only protect one system and I've always had somewhere else I'd rather put my ships. If you do go that route corvettes are not only cheaper but provide more protection than larger hulls.I think corvettes are mostly better for combat as well.
Yeah that's fair. So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research. Makes sense.
Yeah that's fair. So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research. Makes sense.
ideally it would depend less on spamming buildings generally and more on things like, say, choosing to upgrade Alloy Forges into experimental metallurgy plants that don't produce (more) alloys but produce engineering research, or choosing to upgrade them into megaforges (as now)
Yeah that's fair. So if you spam monuments and gene clinics you get a bunch of society research, if you spam some other thing that doesn't exist yet you get engineering research. Makes sense.
ideally it would depend less on spamming buildings generally and more on things like, say, choosing to upgrade Alloy Forges into experimental metallurgy plants that don't produce (more) alloys but produce engineering research, or choosing to upgrade them into megaforges (as now)
I like this idea a lot. Meaningful choices there.
Made tweaks to Galactic Market that should prevent an infinite profits exploit from flooding the market, then rebuying, you shameless tophat-wearing capitalist exploiters, you
"Added a check so that servitude robots cannot become criminals. We'll miss you, serial killer auto assembly claw."
"Added a check so that servitude robots cannot become criminals. We'll miss you, serial killer auto assembly claw."Spoiler: Warning: Graphic (click to show/hide)
That's the only instance of degloving I've ever heard done with a vacuum, most of the ones I've seen were from people who wore rings/watches whilst working on ships with plenty of powerful mechanisms to deglove with. Losing your skin is moderately more preferable to having it peel from the bone
Hooray for the terrifying robot injury stellaris derail.
That's the only instance of degloving I've ever heard done with a vacuum, most of the ones I've seen were from people who wore rings/watches whilst working on ships with plenty of powerful mechanisms to deglove with. Losing your skin is moderately more preferable to having it peel from the bone
Hooray for the terrifying robot injury stellaris derail.
Anyone ever have a situation where there's a fleet that no units will attack? I currently am at war with a fanatical purifier who's ran a fleet of 15 corvettes (<1k power) through three fleets (two allied, one of mine) at ~1.5k each, and a starbase with three platforms at ~1.5k... and the ships on my side literally never fired a shot. They just flew into point blank range - which opened the combat dialogue, which reported 0 damage dealt - and then sat there while the 15 (starting tech) corvettes circled and annihilated them. Exiting and reloading finally made ships on my side start responding, but that was absurd and not something I wanna see regularly...I saw that happen once. But IIRC, fixing it didn't involve reloading. I can't recollect what I did, though.
QuoteMade tweaks to Galactic Market that should prevent an infinite profits exploit from flooding the market, then rebuying, you shameless tophat-wearing capitalist exploiters, you
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
...yeah, I totally abused this a couple of times xD
* Set minimum market fee to 5%"Removed bulk discount"... interesting way of phrasing that. Unless I missed a version, it was previously "flat price" not "discount". Which was essentially just as broken, just interesting phrasing.
* Removed bulk discount on Internal and Galactic Market
* Fixed literally unplayable typos and grammatical/formatting errorsHeh, I haven't visited the /vg/ thread so much recently, but I think the "literally unplayable" is poking fun at /vg/'s histrionics over a TODO left in the German Language translation a few months ago. If you think this thread gets rough on Paradox, ever, well... the bar's in a totally different place on 4chan.
Edit: Beta patch notes (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-team-stellaris_test-beta-branch-updated-to-2-2-3-with-many-new-fixes-checksum-1960.1140823/&utm_source=launch-steam&utm_medium=launcher&utm_content=post&utm_campaign=stellaris_stellaris_20181221_pla_dd)Lol, what a load of shit.Quote* Set minimum market fee to 5%
* Removed bulk discount on Internal and Galactic Market
Racket Caraveneers are guaranteed Psionics.
A Psionic Scientist means Psionic Theory can spawn regardless of ethics.
Psionic Theory means you can pick Mind over Matter and Transcendence.
...Suddenly getting Fanatic Materialist Psychics is very easy.
So I have discovered that Thrall worlds are awesome. My xenophobe empire now conquers enemy planets, bulldozes all of their accomplishments, converts it into a thrall world and enslaves them for eternity.
There is a not insignificant chance your friend will regret it. However, good things can happen too, so your friend may want to roll the dice.
Carpet every planet with them, dump the high price alloys on the market and buy all the food you need.I suspect you can do the same thing with food - buy 100 each month and never care for farms any more.
What's production output from the thrall world vs size? I've never gone out of my way to make one because taking it for my main pop species always seemed more efficient.It's not bad actually. I'll see if I can get a screenshot and some hard info later when I can load my game up. The way thrall worlds work is all enslaved pops are given a job as a 'toiler' if no other jobs are available. Toilers take no upkeep beyond food and produce amenities. You can build very cheap 'slave huts' to gain housing for the slaves, and you can make 'overseer housing' to create overseer jobs. Overseers employ slave pops and reduce crime by quite a lot, so the slaves effectively police themselves. Beyond toilers and overseers, slave pops will work any jobs available to a slave (generally worker stratum jobs and some specialist jobs). You have to be careful to keep enough toilers to have enough amenities to keep the pops happy.
My friend plays on Ironman, but is a slimy savescummer
Don't be judging. I have a friend like that.My friend plays on Ironman, but is a slimy savescummer
why
It sorta defeats the whole point. Unless they want achievements but would rather not muck about with the achievement unlocker program.Don't be judging. I have a friend like that.My friend plays on Ironman, but is a slimy savescummer
why
Carpet every planet with them, dump the high price alloys on the market and buy all the food you need.I suspect you can do the same thing with food - buy 100 each month and never care for farms any more.
It sorta defeats the whole point. Unless they want achievements but would rather not muck about with the achievement unlocker program.
The reason why I play Ironman is because otherwise I spend just too much time savescumming.
IIRC it's determined when the game starts, so you'd have to play until the gates are opened and then restart if you wanted to force a particular outcome.There is a not insignificant chance your friend will regret it. However, good things can happen too, so your friend may want to roll the dice.
Can you tell if the dice roll turned up something bad immediately? My friend plays on Ironman, but is a slimy savescummer, and random-outcome projects and other things where you can precisely predict when the outcome will happen are the sort of thing you can savescum on Ironman. Uh, or so I'm told.
Ironman files are compressed, you can't open them and get anything meaningful. At least not without hacking the game's compression algorithm, which seems disproportionate.I see. I suppose that my post is indeed worthless for Albright's friend, then. C'est la vie. ^_^
I'll add as a datapoint that I'm pretty sure the L-Cluster was only generated after I cracked a gate simply based on the performance hit my game took as soon as the NE started shuffling their 50k warfleets from one end of the cluster and back, over and over and over.That doesn't necessarily mean that the contents were only determined at that point, only that that's when their behavior was activated.
I'll add as a datapoint that I'm pretty sure the L-Cluster was only generated after I cracked a gate simply based on the performance hit my game took as soon as the NE started shuffling their 50k warfleets from one end of the cluster and back, over and over and over.The cluster generates at game start. I'm fairly certain the slowdown you saw after opening it was due to pathing. They've always had issues with pathing calculations through gateways.
Ironman files are compressed, you can't open them and get anything meaningful. At least not without hacking the game's compression algorithm, which seems disproportionate.
So I finally got this, since it was on special on steam.
not finished my first game, but I've gotten bogged down a bit with the colony stuff. it feels kinda boring and distrcting from the game, which is a shame, since I read that it'd been recently changed in a patch to make it more interesting and engaging, not sure what it was like before, but the constant unhappiness from unemployment is just meh, especially when it's so restricted in what you can do to improve it. maybe I'm missing something, but it feels like a poorly designed puzzle game where you have to calculate what building will get the correct amount of housing vs jobs... or something. idk it didn't make a whole lot of sense.
Oh, are they editable once you unzip them? That's new to Stellaris then, it doesn't work that way in older Paradox games.Ironman files are compressed, you can't open them and get anything meaningful. At least not without hacking the game's compression algorithm, which seems disproportionate.
Ironman saves are literally just zip files. You can open them as a zip file and read them. Now you can't edit and recompress them because it has a checksum, but you could look at it or even disable ironman.
For instance, you could disable ironman in a copy, survey the whole map, and then plan out your game based on that info.
(unlimited supply somewhere - but I guess one could be set based on galactic resource availability)
I like how the game has progressed since last time I played, but I'm confused about the planetary revamp. What was the reason? Less micro and better AI? Not sure about that, but I'm glad the geographical (adjacency and what not) tile management is gone, even though I miss the presentation and the "tactility" part of it (in that you could drag pops around - I take it there's an auto best fit now - which is fine). Yet, now there can be hundreds of pops and variable density (which wasn't modeled before).
Space communism is now a thing (and makes sense where slavery, feudalism and capitalism does not - as reflections of modes of production tied to obsolete non space faring tech : ). The empire voice over is a bit on the paradox-humorous side though.
And it's fully available even if you're a hivemind or something, without any domestic economy.(unlimited supply somewhere - but I guess one could be set based on galactic resource availability)
It's more confusing when you recall there's an equally-unlimited local market until the galactic one is founded, even if you're all alone in the night.
The dominions series does this wonderfully.It's also had nearly ten times the development time and (without putting too fine a point on it) it's designed by a different caliber of man. It's not reasonable to use this as a benchmark for groups like Paradox.
A final issue is the battles. All lasers fire simultaneously etc. But that's just cosmetics :P
I've managed to get to midgame with my first non-hive race and I'm starting to understand why people talk about a mineral crunch. There's just not enough of them. I've got virtually every possible mine built in my whole empire, with production targets running and I'm still running a -500 deficit. I didn't even go too crazy with the alloy forges - I've got one refinery planet covered in them, and a small handful on other planets and that's it, but I just can't keep them fed. I don't even have any ecumenopolis since I don't have megacorp, I can't imagine how bad it would be with a couple of those.
It feels especially bad because there's no way to get more. You can spam hydroponics for food, and spam commerce buildings for energy but nothing for minerals. So every new planet I snag is only useful up to however many mine slots it has - and anything more than that is dead weight, paying consumer goods (indirectly minerals) to get stuff I don't need and that feels really bad.
For now I'm managing to afford buying hundreds of minerals per month from the magic unlimited market but I feel like I probably can't sustain that forever. At least the only penalty for running out of minerals is half alloy production so it's not actually a very big deal... but I want to try and at least pretend I'm playing "correctly" and not abusing a stupid design decision.
It almost seems pay2win (matter decompressor, hive mind for hive worlds or robots for robot worlds) except there have been so many other oversights and questionable design decisions with 2.2 that I suspect they probably just didn't think it all the way through.
Edit: oops, 500 deficit was without production targets which I didn't notice had run out, but still - minerals are too rare imo.
You can spam hydroponics for food, and spam commerce buildings for energy but nothing for minerals.
There's something that still confuses me a little: The "special projects" which spawn while surveying systems. I don't see any mechanical difference between them and anomalies, except that they require more clicks.
Anomaly: Click one button to either dedicate the science ship to the digression, or leave it for later if you're surveying as fast as possible.
Special project: Pause, bring up the situation log. If you're fast enough, the science ship is still "present", and you can activate the special project. Otherwise you go to the system, leave the system, select the nearby science ship, right click the special project.
I sorta see some value in it switching up the early survey game... but through meaningless UI busywork. I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe they're timed?
Edit: But the case which prompted this is a 3 billion year old skeleton so probably not timed. Why is this not just an anomaly?
There's something that still confuses me a little: The "special projects" which spawn while surveying systems. I don't see any mechanical difference between them and anomalies, except that they require more clicks.
Anomaly: Click one button to either dedicate the science ship to the digression, or leave it for later if you're surveying as fast as possible.
Special project: Pause, bring up the situation log. If you're fast enough, the science ship is still "present", and you can activate the special project. Otherwise you go to the system, leave the system, select the nearby science ship, right click the special project.
I sorta see some value in it switching up the early survey game... but through meaningless UI busywork. I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe they're timed?
Edit: But the case which prompted this is a 3 billion year old skeleton so probably not timed. Why is this not just an anomaly?
I think they're handled differently by the events system. Anomalies, as far as I know, have one step and can only require a science ship; anything more complicated is a special project. I vaguely recall seeing some special projects that default to having a single step, like anomalies, if your empire doesn't meet the conditions to explore them further, so maybe that accounts for the similarities you're seeing.
The First League is kind of brokenly good right now, especially compared to the others. I've been super lucky and gotten it on each of my 2.2 games, and it's a massive boon. In my second game I colonized another size 25 planet near it and also turned it into an ecumenopolis. Ecumenopoleis get +20% to most (maybe all) resource production, on top of the insane alloy and consumer goods they can produce from jobs. I filled most of the building slots up with top tier research labs, and with science ships helping research, they produce around +1K of each type, each. That's like 35% of my entire empire's research production between them, and probably 70% of the consumer goods and alloy production.
I'm kind of expecting a nerf bat to head their way soon, hopefully with an unnerf bat for habitats.
Which is weird because there are models for ruined megastructures, and I'm pretty sure one of the dev diaries for 2.2 mentioned that they could be destroyed. Well, colossi can destroy habitats and ringworld segments, right?
Yeah, even if they seem to be extremely rare. I've only ever seen one, if I recall.
I'm just surprised that they didn't follow things to their natural conclusion and add the ability to ruin them again somehow.
The one ruined megastructure I found was a Dyson sphere, which admittedly was a very nice find too. Being able to just repair it in a single step in stead of five construction steps was very nice.
I keep wanting to find a ruined science nexus, because I'm curious if its research speed bonus stacks with one you build. Not that you really need even more science boosts in 2.2 in its current state, but it would still be fun just to see the numbers go up.
A starbase can be very useful but if you can muster enough force to make a starbase tough enough to defend itself frankly you're probably punching down so hard you're wasting time worrying about defense.Sometimes its the travel time more than the fleet power that gets me. In one of my games it takes >2 years to travel across my entire claimed territory end to end, so an unexpected war or a war when a fleet is out of position can be a problem. I have to station multiple fleets around to keep all areas covered and more to handle piracy. I can't just concentrate all fleet power on a whim. Well planned defensive stations really help and provide chokepoints to gather and hold at until more ships arrive
Yep, the ai favors the opposite of your ethics. I assume it's to make sure you don't all stomp one guy and gather around the campfire singing kumbaya.
anyway: I got a question: how do you expand influence? I know you can build station to force it, but all other empires don't have to build a station on every single planet, while my empire is full of holesSpoiler (click to show/hide)
also, it seems I can't assign systems to sectors for management
Hey, how's the new content, and how hard is the adjustment?
Imo the new content is full of good ideas implemented really poorly
You build a station in every system now, it's part of the big changes in in 2.0 that happened about a year ago. Most of them you leave as tiny zero sized stations, only upgrading to real stations at important places or when you need certain modulus.
weird. so ai's stations don't show up on the map?
anyway, that's hard I'm always on some energy deficit of sort, even placing stations only on stuff that has some sun I can mine for energy it's hard to get some balance.
oh, where do I see a planet max pop? I'm trying to figure out how many city sector are needed for each production sector but I can't find the info
A good suggestion I saw to avoid genocide is to subjugate instead of conquer. I could even release the sector in question as a vassal (Only possible when there are non-hive pops living there!) which would presumably be pretty loyal and cooperative.
The in-universe justification for forced-purging is that hive-drones aren't smart enough to tolerate "others", and automatically react as if to an infection... or something to digest.
As for displacement, it's obviously an atrocity. Even if all the displaced find new homes in accepting nations like the United Nations of Earth, which I *think* is happening. Just... seems like a different tier of atrocity than literal deathcamps or farms.
Speaking of, the United Nations of Earth tried to kick me out of the federation as the "Genocidal" modifier grew to -618. The other federation member voted no, since they only had a -153 Genocide modifier, for a net of +67 after trust and mutual rivalries.
The kicker: The United Nations of Earth left their own federation in disgust. It's kinda sad but also pretty funny. Ugh, I would have released the sector if I'd known it was an option (though I'm pretty sure all the drones would die off). At this point they've almost all been relocated, anyway.
(Not that the citizens should be punished for their government's choices, but the nation did attack *me* without provocation. I'm set to defensive wars only, and didn't bombard.)
A good suggestion I saw to avoid genocide is to subjugate instead of conquer. I could even release the sector in question as a vassal (Only possible when there are non-hive pops living there!) which would presumably be pretty loyal and cooperative.
The in-universe justification for forced-purging is that hive-drones aren't smart enough to tolerate "others", and automatically react as if to an infection... or something to digest.
As for displacement, it's obviously an atrocity. Even if all the displaced find new homes in accepting nations like the United Nations of Earth, which I *think* is happening. Just... seems like a different tier of atrocity than literal deathcamps or farms.
Speaking of, the United Nations of Earth tried to kick me out of the federation as the "Genocidal" modifier grew to -618. The other federation member voted no, since they only had a -153 Genocide modifier, for a net of +67 after trust and mutual rivalries.
The kicker: The United Nations of Earth left their own federation in disgust. It's kinda sad but also pretty funny. Ugh, I would have released the sector if I'd known it was an option (though I'm pretty sure all the drones would die off). At this point they've almost all been relocated, anyway.
(Not that the citizens should be punished for their government's choices, but the nation did attack *me* without provocation. I'm set to defensive wars only, and didn't bombard.)
TBH it seems like the displacement option is less "send the refugees somewhere else" and more "Trail of Tears but more so".
Maybe hive minds who are friendly with lots of other species should be able to set non-hive pops in empire to a living status something akin to bio-trophies. Hive Resident or something, where they dont really grow and they arent very happy and they dont produce much, but theyre alive and not being told they have three weeks to leave or be eaten.
Maybe hive minds who are friendly with lots of other species should be able to set non-hive pops in empire to a living status something akin to bio-trophies. Hive Resident or something, where they dont really grow and they arent very happy and they dont produce much, but theyre alive and not being told they have three weeks to leave or be eaten.
I notice that the game is 75% off again, but the steam review page is just a red wall of down-thumbs. Will they make stellaris great again?Give it a few years maybe, PI have been turning away lots of customers recently, even for ones that haven't even come out yet like Imperator. Then you have ones like CK2 holy fury doing pretty well... Hard to say really. PI are disappointing but still hold a tight grip on the grand strategy map painting market so they've got time to turn things around in a commercial alexiad
Will they make stellaris great again?
Well, I guess I hold one hope. Martin seemed pretty arrogant, and I didn't really have much hope that he'd ever go back and fix unbroken but just bad game design he made. Now that he's no longer the lead on stellaris maybe whoever replaces him will be able to reflect on all the bad decisions made and change them for the better. But, yeah, total crapshoot. We'll see I guess.Considering Martin himself unmade a lot of the design decisions of his predecessor, it's not without precedent. There is hope, but dunno if it will happen.
I just tried out the new pop growth mechanics with a diverse empire, and yep, they're kind of stupid. Much worse than I expected, even in 2.2.5. Life-seed + multiple species = terrible idea. Since you have 0% habilitability on most planets, your species gets outcompeted in every case, so it never gets chosen to grow anywhere but your homeworld.you WANT your 0% habitability species to grow on planets where they will cost double to maintain? I used to get annoyed by the old system because it would choose pops for planet growth regardless of habitability, I'd end up with species growing on planets where they have 20% or worse habitability and have to manually move them off.
Can't you manually choose which pops grow? I'm playing life seeded xenophobes and it's how I make sure I have enough of my own race to do specialist jobs and not so many slaves that they cause unemployment.Only if you have population controls enabled, which you can't do if you're egalitarian iirc.
Can't you manually choose which pops grow? I'm playing life seeded xenophobes and it's how I make sure I have enough of my own race to do specialist jobs and not so many slaves that they cause unemployment.
I just tried out the new pop growth mechanics with a diverse empire, and yep, they're kind of stupid. Much worse than I expected, even in 2.2.5. Life-seed + multiple species = terrible idea. Since you have 0% habilitability on most planets, your species gets outcompeted in every case, so it never gets chosen to grow anywhere but your homeworld.you WANT your 0% habitability species to grow on planets where they will cost double to maintain? I used to get annoyed by the old system because it would choose pops for planet growth regardless of habitability, I'd end up with species growing on planets where they have 20% or worse habitability and have to manually move them off.
Can't you manually choose which pops grow? I'm playing life seeded xenophobes and it's how I make sure I have enough of my own race to do specialist jobs and not so many slaves that they cause unemployment.Only if you have population controls enabled, which you can't do if you're egalitarian iirc.
Are they declining because they're dying off or because they're emigrating?
am I doing something wrong or is it so that early game has nothing much happening beyond click trough anomalies and the occasional space amoebas? ???early game excitement depends entirely on how densely populated your map is.
Also it keep sending miner robots on farm jobs. The game don't give a damn about racial traits.Is your food income low? I had this happening in my game and found it was because the game was weighting farming jobs much higher than miners because my food income was negative if I moved the robots back to mining
Also it keep sending miner robots on farm jobs. The game don't give a damn about racial traits.Is your food income low? I had this happening in my game and found it was because the game was weighting farming jobs much higher than miners because my food income was negative if I moved the robots back to mining
"we thought having a dozen different resources would be good but its bad, now there's just one resource: stuff"It's like Wiz himself, speaking to us from beyond the grave.
They're undesirables by default. My understanding is that you're not allowed to purge when you're only occupying; you need to have full control to purge. However, there's no war to end or anything - they're just there, so if they're not purged now, they'll never be. The occupied planet has built up a drone garrison and the meatbags aren't allowed to breed, but other than that we're living in harmony with them - well, aside from the abduction shuttles, but even getting rid of the observation post doesn't seem to change anything...Isn't breeding prohibition a form of purge?
Fucking attack me already, this isn't entertaining at all.
I lured them in but the combat seems a lot different, a lot of really stupid shit. The FTL no-go upgrade really should be available earlier, it's pretty fucking stupid that I can heavily fortify a chokepoint and then watch the enemy just bunnyhop over it and attack the systems that aren't hulked out.
Also, how do you manage your fleet ? I try to set it up on the fleet manager and then reinforce.
It's a great way to use your starbases to build up but when it gets complicated (like during the contingency clusterpoo) I end up with dozen of 0 fleets on the manager and ships scattered everywhere, it's like the game forgot what's what at random.
Also the fed fleet became fully mine for some reason and the fed made another fleet. Not to mention how unreadable the fleet manager is.
As a whole the bugs made the game is super frustrating, I was planning to buy the DLCs but I'm considering ditching it.
I can see no reason why it shouldn't be. Maybe the planetary version should be researchable because that's the real bastard. If the enemy has to break the defending army or hang out not repairing their fleets while bombing a world to 50% devastation that's pretty formidable.
Yep, I saw some discussion about where the developers were considering making it an automatic tech for this reason.
It used to be, at least. Pretty sure. Does it still cause pops to decline? If so, that's a slow way to get rid of them.
Oh...Wait... how much of that was scripted? Does the game spawn pre-space Kerbils?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oh...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is mostly mods. The base game has a Kerbol system but one of the mods I use changes the initializer to mirror the actual KSP system and put a race of frog dudes on the planet as early space primitives. I watched them do a moon (mun) landing, experiment with radio, then a few decades later they actually radioed the observation station. That is another mod, adding more primitive interactions. We acknowledged them and told them they must serve the empire. They launched an attack with about 2 dozen primitive ships equipped with railguns which we killed. When that happened they decided to self-immolate rather than be slaves. So almost all of that was scripted by mods.Oh...Wait... how much of that was scripted? Does the game spawn pre-space Kerbils?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That's correct. This game I'm playing as the Pa'anuri Supremacy, a bunch of psychic slaving assholes.Oh...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Am I reading that wrong, or are you playing as the Pa'anuri?
I got a few economic issues that is to be expected when you push ship production over capacity. Rare resources however, are impossible to manage. Every single building upgrade use it as upkeep and raffineries take one building slot for only one job, and strain mineral even further. Building slots are a rare and finite asset in the endgame that make compensating for problems impossible.
The refugees are causing overpopulation and unemployment. Overpopulation is only a mild issue because I got a lot of luxury that negate effects. But unemployment is terrible with that crime event that pop all the damn time. It's not even the economic strain that get me. Just that stupid popup window that interrupt me all the damn time !
I'm trying to build a habitat to offload the problem but I'm activating purges and will kill the refugees if I have to. My empire's values be damned.
Managing planet is also a pain in the neck. You have to babysit constantly, all the time. Even when they are full. Look away for a second, you come back to bunch of issues.
I give up. Setting to utopian tanked my goods which tanked my mineral with tanked my energy and my crystals tanked.Why would you set to Utopian Abundance if you don't have the consumer goods to handle it?
I give up. Setting to utopian tanked my goods which tanked my mineral with tanked my energy and my crystals tanked.Why would you set to Utopian Abundance if you don't have the consumer goods to handle it?
Oh...Wait... how much of that was scripted? Does the game spawn pre-space Kerbils?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I hate the fact I'm troubled with even fictional genocide, so I don't play murder machines or fanatic purifiers. Kind of silly, isn't it? It is the same with most games, I can't bring myself into playing comic book villains.That's very cute and pure, too be honest.
I hate the fact I'm troubled with even fictional genocide, so I don't play murder machines or fanatic purifiers. Kind of silly, isn't it? It is the same with most games, I can't bring myself into playing comic book villains.I enjoy playing as enigmatic fanatical purifiers. The last game of stellaris I actually enjoyed was one where I disabled communication spread events, and using the hyperlane disconnection/generation mod retreated into a nebula before cutting it out from the rest of the galaxy, with our only expansion being a wormhole connected nebula on the other side of the galaxy (but by wormhole we were next-door neighbours). I spent three hundred years isolated inside that nebula peacefully building up a series of ringworlds and psi-enabled warfleets until at last I reconnected with the outside world. Spent the rest of the game as a more dangerous version of xenophobic isolationists which occasionally ventured forth from the dark to clear a few planets, upset the galactic power balance and then return to the dust & dark. Like exceptionally cranky old age pensioners
I hate the fact I'm troubled with even fictional genocide, so I don't play murder machines or fanatic purifiers. Kind of silly, isn't it? It is the same with most games, I can't bring myself into playing comic book villains.
Ah, good. Glad I started a federation with these guys.Guessing you're on the beta branch? There is a known bug causing the AI to overvalue the precinct buildings. It tanks their economy. It's one reason gestalts seem so OP in the beta branch, they can't build precincts
That's a really nice planet for them to be ruining, too.Well, I guess that precinct ones in particular hard to weight, since it's a bit more complicated how they relate to production, and if you just go "if there's a lot of crime, build until there isn't" then that makes criminal corporations sad.
In any case, I'm wondering if the AI doing stupid things like this consistently is an indication that the way the AI works under the hood just needs to be changed. Supposedly this was caused by the developers adjusting the weights for picking what building to build and by putting an arbitrary limit on some buildings. Precinct houses were supposed to be limited to 2, but the math was wrong and they just build 3, limited only because there's an arbitrary restriction to keep them from building more.
Maybe picking buildings randomly just isn't the right way to do this.
* The Repugnant/Uncanny trait now has less of an effect on pops avoiding amenity producing jobsSo my repugnant hivemind run would probably be a lot less tedious now. I still decided to abandon it since, yaknow, accidental genocide made the galaxy hate me.
* Maintenance drone job priority now considers amenity level of the planet
* Simple drones now ponder the empire level food/mineral/energy income when choosing a job
* Robots with Emotion Emulators are now more likely to become maintenance dronesI mean, yeah, that's how the system's supposed to work, right? :P Glad they're working out the kinks though.
Willing Servants: +20>.< Migration treaties with Rogue Servitors should be a thing...
I'm playing Rogue Caretakers in the 2.2.5 beta release, and it's going well. Apparently they made several buffs to machine empires, heh. I was mostly relieved that my pops are actually taking the amenities-producing jobs, unlike in my earlier hive run. That shows up in the patch notes:Quote from: 2.2.5 beta* The Repugnant/Uncanny trait now has less of an effect on pops avoiding amenity producing jobsSo my repugnant hivemind run would probably be a lot less tedious now. I still decided to abandon it since, yaknow, accidental genocide made the galaxy hate me.
* Maintenance drone job priority now considers amenity level of the planet
* Simple drones now ponder the empire level food/mineral/energy income when choosing a job
Also:Quote from: 2.2.5* Robots with Emotion Emulators are now more likely to become maintenance dronesI mean, yeah, that's how the system's supposed to work, right? :P Glad they're working out the kinks though.
Speaking of, I was wondering why my FanAuth Xenophile neighbors liked me so much. Xenophilia applies to robots, which is nice, but then I sawQuote from: Mandasura Union, a Decadent HierarchyWilling Servants: +20>.< Migration treaties with Rogue Servitors should be a thing...
Okay so now it's my goal to nonviolently convince them to let us pamper them. Which means growing large enough to vassalize and eventually integrate. Hrm, reminds me of my Blorg plays... I love their pops, but their silly government is in the way.
Normally there's the moral problem that people deserve self-determination... But these are fanatic authoritarians. They don't believe in that.
I'm pretty sure Egalitarian empires are as horrified of Rogue Servitors as Authoritarians are pleased, heh. I don't think anyone in this Tiny galaxy is egalitarian, though. Two separate hiveminds, and the FE is Ancient Caretakers... Tiny galaxies are weird.
Edit: Aw man, I definitely do have the precinct-spam bug. ...Meh, I'm fine with that, I was looking for a sandbox run anyway. Eventually I picture machine worlds pumping out minerals, habitats for industry, and an agrarian ringworld feeding and housing the silly organics. I'm going to be the Ancient Caretakers but better!
Ugh, the mutating Totally-Not-Slaanesh[TM] shroud patron reverted all my telepathic pops back into latent telepaths through his random mutation event. Lookslikeabug.jpg. I can't think of a way to turn them back to telepaths again. Anyone?
Ugh, the mutating Totally-Not-Slaanesh[TM] shroud patron reverted all my telepathic pops back into latent telepaths through his random mutation event. Lookslikeabug.jpg. I can't think of a way to turn them back to telepaths again. Anyone?
I've never played spiritualists and so have never done psionic ascension, but is there anything like the assimilation living standard that cyborgs get to convert pops? I'm guessing psionic ascension is immediate such that there's no use for such a living standard and that it doesn't exist.
Do you have a species template for them that has the psionic trait? You might be able to species mod it back. Unless the cloud entity event prevents that too.
Gene modding totally effects psionics, I've stripped subjugated races of their psionic abilities out of pure bastardry.wow. And yet, it's not even nerve stapling or Delicious.
If the event edited the template instead of making a new one you're probably out of luck since you can't add the trait to a template. If it made a new one it's just an issue of assigning the old template, you could also be saved if members of your race were insulated from the event by being outside your empire.No such luck. The race composition was entirely monolithic. But the game started crashing big time soon after, so it's going to be ditched anyway.
Gene modding totally effects psionics, I've stripped subjugated races of their psionic abilities out of pure bastardry.
I've never played spiritualists and so have never done psionic ascensionYou don't have to be spiritualist.
No such luck. The race composition was entirely monolithic. But the game started crashing big time soon after, so it's going to be ditched anyway.The race I de-psionized was divided somehow, could have been from being diasporic or from already having multiple gene templates that predated the psionic transition but there was a template for the species that did NOT have the psionic trait. I used that template as the base for my modifications rendering them bereft of their psychic abilities.
Also, contrary to what you said there, I for one can't gene-mod my psionic trait. It's greyed out.
I'm gonna go for a crime syndicateGotta say, I'm impressed by the balls of this response to the precinct bug.
New game, this time I'm going to the spiritualist achievements. The empire is taller this time and is much more manageable with 3 colonies. A stupid neighbors claimed system and declared war, hilarity ensued and he's now a vassal.
What should I go for after I ascended? My endgoal is to snatch the holy worlds from a fallen empire for the Deus Vult achievement. For this I may use a few more colonies. I could go for world shaper and turn a couple of meh worlds into gaia. Or maybe I can use galactic wonder and use a ringworld instead? Maybe both and hallow the future gaias?
You definitely want at least one ecumenopolis if you're limiting yourself to only a handful of colonies. Add in a ministry of production, galactic stock exchange, research institute and fill the other building slots with research labs and you can be producing nearly 1K of each kind of research on top of the alloys and consumer goods they produce.
A ringworld might be useful if you need the food or energy production, but if you're trying to keep empire sprawl low they really suck because of the enormous number of districts compared to building slots. Habitats are technically better for that but suck in their own way.
World shaper is thematic for spiritualists and will help make other worlds better, so it might be worth taking too.
I also don't think consecrated worlds is very good. Spiritualists already get the Declare Saint edict, I don't see what consecrated worlds does better than that, especially for a perk slot. Spiritualists are already good at all the stuff it gives you.
Consecrated worlds is great, imo. Even without Gaia worlds you get up to +18% unity and +9% amenities (and some spiritualist attraction, but who cares). It's much better than any of the initially available traditions.
When playing spiritualist, you want to leverage the unity gains. You'll want as much income as you can get, as soon as you can (while the sprawl is low). Min-maxing unity, first, lets you power through the traditions tree in a very short time, which improves every aspect of the empire decades before your profane competitors see them.
Second, by the time you finish unlocking all traditions, you will have researched the ambition edicts, which give further - and very large - boosts to your empire. Want +5 influence? There you have it. Somebody attacked you? Here's +40% fire rate and double construction speed. No living metal? Here's an equivalent edict with a planetary construction bonus.
Wait, could you wipe out a civilization by abducting out all of their pops so you don't need to bother with bombing them into Tomb Worlds (takes time), using Superweapons (takes extra time), or conquering everything (not always a good thing)?Raiding abducts pops instead of killing them like ordinary bombing. Instead if sparing the last 10 pops it only spares the last 1. You can't wipe them out but you can THOROUGHLY fuck them if you're a bad enough dude to bomb every planet they have into oblivion.
It did kind of glitch out, though... For the rest of the game there was fighting between the modified species and... themselves? I occasionally had terror bombings and such on that world. The best part? After I had finished modifying my species after biological ascension, the pops on that world suddenly self modified themselves to be stronger due to the infighting - which I quickly applied to the entire species again. Which ended up with me having a species that was both Strong and Very Strong and several points over the max with 100% habitability on single planet type.
You must be playing the game very differently. There's always enough low-quality planets in my empire that I'm not interested in colonising.
Wait, could you wipe out a civilization by abducting out all of their pops so you don't need to bother with bombing them into Tomb Worlds (takes time), using Superweapons (takes extra time), or conquering everything (not always a good thing)?
Were you playing xenophobes, or is this just a normal part of the self-modified species events? The self-modified species event is annoying enough that I specifically avoid researching glandular modification for as long as possible to avoid it.
No idea if being able to modify the species afterward is normal. I haven't seen it in 2.2 to test again.
What's so weird about that? We've got people doing that here on Earth.
-snip-
RKVs would be fun as a citadel building. Near lightspeed slug cannon, expensive and maybe huge energy upkeep while it's charging, maybe one use, long travel time as the slug is sublight, but nearly impossible to stop and tombs planets from multiple systems away. Add some brinksmanship to your multiplayer games, do you really want to start a war when it might mean MAD?
Well, one logical endpoint of the faster than light kill vehicle concept is essentially a momentum-based evolution of the fire ship: a ship built with big engines and little else, set to FTL to the target, accelerate as fast as possible and stay on target until it hits (hopefully with the crew abandoning ship along the way.) A new weapon type that also destroys the firing ship and a hull type to hold it doesn't seem out of reach of modders.Nicole Dyson Beam Gigastructures mod. Pretty much exactly what you described, build the site around a star, build a marker over the target and bang. 8)
Another, given wormhole technology, is a gateway with one terminus fixed at the mouth of the space cannon and the other moved to the target system in advance of the shot. This too would seem moddable as a district and weapon component sharing a resource.
Relativistic weapons or starships just make many space opera tropes go out the window because almost nobody could be trusted with a spaceship when a rogue freighter captain could do apocalyptic damage by crashing into a planet.
Likewise, warped space is used as shielding measures, so while you can snipe a ship that doesn't have it's shields up from as far away as you like, you have to get close and use your own warp to stop the shields from deflecting all your weaponry. The distance that can occur depends on what exactly your own ship's warp drive is equipped with, and how it stacks up against the enemy ship. So space battles get egregiously (for space) up close to one another in order for ECM and ECCM combat to allow for railgun and lasers to punch through the field and actually hit.
I hadn't thought of that, but the immediate counter tactic that came to mind would be to just shoot the warp drive. The drives are fairly large affairs (you need loads of energy, plus a large "engine" to warp the space), and I usually work with settings advanced enough for relatively widespread A.I.s, so it wouldn't be terribly hard.Likewise, warped space is used as shielding measures, so while you can snipe a ship that doesn't have it's shields up from as far away as you like, you have to get close and use your own warp to stop the shields from deflecting all your weaponry. The distance that can occur depends on what exactly your own ship's warp drive is equipped with, and how it stacks up against the enemy ship. So space battles get egregiously (for space) up close to one another in order for ECM and ECCM combat to allow for railgun and lasers to punch through the field and actually hit.
That's a really interesting idea. What would happen if someone built a long-range missile by sticking a warp drive behind a bunch of relatively low delta-v submunitions and coding the missile itself to miss the target by the maximum radius that still keeps the submunitions swarm on course for the target at speed via its warp bubble, then braking so the (presumably expensive) warp drive can be retrieved later?
(-snip-)
I hadn't thought of that, but the immediate counter tactic that came to mind would be to just shoot the warp drive. The drives are fairly large affairs (you need loads of energy, plus a large "engine" to warp the space), and I usually work with settings advanced enough for relatively widespread A.I.s, so it wouldn't be terribly hard.
Returning vaguely to topic, this setting also has a system that I wish they had used for Stellaris. I would have much preferred breaking travel into two distinct engines: The warp engine, which a ship could use to jump to any system, but very, very slowly, and Warpgates, which would function like roads and allow for quick travel to explored systems. Construction ships would have to build a gate at the starting system, and one in the destination system. Afterwards they would function much like the hyperlanes we have now.
Not to mention they link to every other gateway, so while they're very expensive and come late, they're almost too useful.You could see Distant Worlds for an example of warp gameplay. Interdiction bubbles are a thing too.
I would like to see what the game would have been like if they ended up relying on warp instead of hyperlanes. Warp interdiction bubbles on stations would be one way to enforce border security, although I can see how that would get kind of complicated and messy.
2.2.6 introduced some new bugs where colonies will start triggering unrest events while still under colonization.Heh, I assumed that was just Rogue Servitors. Every colony under development was supposedly low-stability, but I never got any bad events from it.
I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.It seems decent AI coders are tough to come by, since other areas (not games) can typically pay better.
I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.It seems decent AI coders are tough to come by, since other areas (not games) can typically pay better.
I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.
Lol.I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.
This problem has nothing to do with the competence of the AI coder. These games run in real time with tens of AI operating at once. Even hundreds of AI at times. A good AI would require tons of calculations and decisions which would make the game play at a crawl. Paradox has made the trade-off of having a mediocre but efficient AI in its games and it's probably the best choice they could make in these constraints. Better to have some people bad-mouthing the AI instead of nobody playing because a tick takes forever to process.
To be fair though, those other games don't require the AI decide if any individual planet needs 3 precinct houses, or if it can get away with just 2.
while = {
limit = {
i_am_the_law = no
}
build_precinct_house = yes
}
The goal of the DF AI is to convince the player that the world is populated by people who have lives outside what the player does. The goal of the Stellaris AI is to compete on equal terms with a human in a game that's real time with pause. Not equivalent at all. Since people anthropomorphize Stellaris races very readily I'd point out that Stellaris has already achieved the standard DF is trying to meet.Lol.I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.
This problem has nothing to do with the competence of the AI coder. These games run in real time with tens of AI operating at once. Even hundreds of AI at times. A good AI would require tons of calculations and decisions which would make the game play at a crawl. Paradox has made the trade-off of having a mediocre but efficient AI in its games and it's probably the best choice they could make in these constraints. Better to have some people bad-mouthing the AI instead of nobody playing because a tick takes forever to process.
If only there was a game with decent AI that could operate thousands if not hundreds of thousands of simultaneous AI calculations at the same time per tick without compromising performance too much.
Yeah. I wonder what game that is. It would be really cool if it was programmed by basically one guy too...
Hmm... I wonder if there's any game like that. That could show people that somehow the god-tier programmers at Paradox have managed to strike a beautiful balance between game performance and AI calculations.
Yes, if only there was some living proof out there that there is literally no alternative to improve their AI (especially not by some half-assed modder by all means) without sacrificing performance a single iota.
Hell, if only there was some other Paradox game that ran AI calculations on the individual person level with literally tens of thousands of AI characters working in real time and still had a game that was very playable. Too bad no other such games exist in their catalogue. Hell, maybe not even that. Maybe some Paradox games that even ran a few hundred countries at the same time could prove a good example too.
Sigh, we just have to accept games have to suck ass on the AI side of things because we run caveman computers from 60,000 BC, doing their calculations based off the evaporation rate of amber from the sap of trees.
Lol.I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.
This problem has nothing to do with the competence of the AI coder. These games run in real time with tens of AI operating at once. Even hundreds of AI at times. A good AI would require tons of calculations and decisions which would make the game play at a crawl. Paradox has made the trade-off of having a mediocre but efficient AI in its games and it's probably the best choice they could make in these constraints. Better to have some people bad-mouthing the AI instead of nobody playing because a tick takes forever to process.
If only there was a game with decent AI that could operate thousands if not hundreds of thousands of simultaneous AI calculations at the same time per tick without compromising performance too much.
Yeah. I wonder what game that is. It would be really cool if it was programmed by basically one guy too...
Hmm... I wonder if there's any game like that. That could show people that somehow the god-tier programmers at Paradox have managed to strike a beautiful balance between game performance and AI calculations.
Yes, if only there was some living proof out there that there is literally no alternative to improve their AI (especially not by some half-assed modder by all means) without sacrificing performance a single iota.
Hell, if only there was some other Paradox game that ran AI calculations on the individual person level with literally tens of thousands of AI characters working in real time and still had a game that was very playable. Too bad no other such games exist in their catalogue. Hell, maybe not even that. Maybe some Paradox games that even ran a few hundred countries at the same time could prove a good example too.
Sigh, we just have to accept games have to suck ass on the AI side of things because we run caveman computers from 60,000 BC, doing their calculations based off the evaporation rate of amber from the sap of trees.
You and EnigmaticHat missing the point of the post.Lol.I like the recent gameplay additions, but the AI is still horrendous. Even the EU4 + CK2 AIs are better, and I consider those extremely weak as well. Paradox should hire a decent AI coder.
This problem has nothing to do with the competence of the AI coder. These games run in real time with tens of AI operating at once. Even hundreds of AI at times. A good AI would require tons of calculations and decisions which would make the game play at a crawl. Paradox has made the trade-off of having a mediocre but efficient AI in its games and it's probably the best choice they could make in these constraints. Better to have some people bad-mouthing the AI instead of nobody playing because a tick takes forever to process.
If only there was a game with decent AI that could operate thousands if not hundreds of thousands of simultaneous AI calculations at the same time per tick without compromising performance too much.
Yeah. I wonder what game that is. It would be really cool if it was programmed by basically one guy too...
Hmm... I wonder if there's any game like that. That could show people that somehow the god-tier programmers at Paradox have managed to strike a beautiful balance between game performance and AI calculations.
Yes, if only there was some living proof out there that there is literally no alternative to improve their AI (especially not by some half-assed modder by all means) without sacrificing performance a single iota.
Hell, if only there was some other Paradox game that ran AI calculations on the individual person level with literally tens of thousands of AI characters working in real time and still had a game that was very playable. Too bad no other such games exist in their catalogue. Hell, maybe not even that. Maybe some Paradox games that even ran a few hundred countries at the same time could prove a good example too.
Sigh, we just have to accept games have to suck ass on the AI side of things because we run caveman computers from 60,000 BC, doing their calculations based off the evaporation rate of amber from the sap of trees.
It should be noted that just making an AI is, while difficult, comparitively easy to making an AI that weighs every decision properly and further is fun to play against that is not made too weak that a player can beat with ease, or way too good and breaks literally everyone.
And seriously man, while I have only a few hundred in this game, the AI can still kick my ass if I'm not paying attention and I tend towards the middle of the AI difficulty levels, without mods to boost it.
And are you seriously comparing this game that has undergone notable major gameplay shifts to ones that have been in generally the same overall gameplay just with some tweaks for a half-decade or longer more production time?
I'm not saying that Stellaris's AI is the best it could possibly be.
I'm not saying that Stellaris's AI is the best it could possibly be. I'm saying that good AI requires trade-offs. Trade-offs that Stellaris's AI coder would love to make but can't because the game would be an unbearable slog if they did. The dude isn't incompetent or lazy. Just under difficult constraints and trying to handle multiple mechanic changes on top of that.
Stellaris is a different game than EU4, CK2, Victoria 2 and all of the other Paradox games. You can't import the same AI and get the same results, especially with the much larger emphasis on expansion and resource management that Stellaris has. The AI in CK2 just has to wake up from time to time, check its options, and pick which one it likes best. The AI in EU4 just has to keep itself from imploding while gobbling up provinces and the mechanics ensure that it'll be a reasonable opponent. The AI in Stellaris has to build an Empire from scratch and keep pace with a human player doing the same thing. If CK2 and EU4 have more and better AI, it's probably because less is demanded of the AI in those games. Not to mention their longer and more stable development.
Also, being pendantic, if those games ran more calculations per tick then they'd be running slower too. Assuming that the bottlenecks are the same or similar, a CPU can only handle so many calculations per second. No amount of programming voodoo will squeeze more calculations out of it. To run faster all you can do is reduce the number of calculations done per tick, which requires tons of optimization or a dumber AI.
The dude isn't incompetent or lazy.
I now find myself in possession of the base Stellaris game. Would you all suggest diving in or are any of the DLC absolute must-haves for a newbie?
scroll up
Utopia is probably the most important one since it enables most mega structures some ascension perks and I believe hive minds. After that I'd say Apocalypse for titans, colossi, unity ambitions and probably a few things I'm forgetting, then MegaCorp for the new mega structures, ecumenopoleis and new ascension perks. Synthetic Dawn and Distant Stars would be low on the list for me. Leviathans I'm not sure about. It probably adds more than space monsters, but that's all I can remember it adding, and they're honestly not that important.Leviathans adds the neutral space stations that trade you stuff, although I haven't played since the big 2.2 update so I have no idea how those work now. It mainly gives you more stuff to explore and makes the early game and exploring a bit more interesting from what I recall.
I now find myself in possession of the base Stellaris game. Would you all suggest diving in or are any of the DLC absolute must-haves for a newbie?
Playing as robots a lot isn't my thing, so I don't rate Synthetic dawn that highly, but if you like playing as robots it probably has the most content for money.
.........................So like what, exactly the way sectors were way back when originally, but with an auto-sector button?No?
The only feature I see that's new is auto-stuff, like auto budgeting and auto allocating system to a sector.Sectors will newly be designated from sector capitals, which completely redefines them. And there's frontier space now. Calling those things pure addition may be an exaggeration, but it's a change that adds more than it subtracts, from the sound of it.
The only feature I see that's new is auto-stuff, like auto budgeting and auto allocating system to a sector.Did you actually read it though?
It's all stuff you did manually in like, 1.0. Sorry if I came off as super negative, I'm not saying this is necessarily bad Less manual work is good. It still looks like revision to the old system but the AI handles/can handle management.
My prediction:Who hurt you?
The new sectors sound really good on paper, but end up being about 3/4ths as good as the old sectors were (not that I'm saying old sectors were good) and simultaneously twice as annoying to use. The AI is completely incapable of handling them and ends up even worse at the game, they release a token patch that does not really help and call it good enough, so they can move on to some other shiny feature that will sell more DLC.
Just like every other update.
My prediction:Who hurt you?
The new sectors sound really good on paper, but end up being about 3/4ths as good as the old sectors were (not that I'm saying old sectors were good) and simultaneously twice as annoying to use. The AI is completely incapable of handling them and ends up even worse at the game, they release a token patch that does not really help and call it good enough, so they can move on to some other shiny feature that will sell more DLC.
Just like every other update.
There's a governor rework mentioned as well, so as to make them more sectorian and less planety.I think it's an exaggeration to call it a governor rework, it sounds to me like they're just adding a few more traits and revisiting the balance on the old ones.
This is all just "AI automation options for stuff". I will be glad to have more options but it's not going to change the way anyone plays.
Not to sound too defeatist, but it seems like the developers think that the AI is good enough and they probably won't spend a lot of time on it in the foreseeable future.
If they're going to make sectors important again I hope they at least make the planet AI smarter.
Well, the super ultra-wide curved screen is just perfect to play a game like Stellaris I guess. ;DNot really. UI elements go to the edges of the screen so you'll just have to be turning your head all the time.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Whoa. :oSpoiler (click to show/hide)
I'm not too sure about hugely reducing the granularity of ringworlds being an improvement. Seems like a small step backwards and otherwise changes nothing.
Those new accession perks suck, I doubt I would ever choose them.That puts them on the same level as most of the other ascension perks which are also quite disappointing, really. Aside from unlocking mega constructions which is all but mandatory in the current version of the game, and the three pairs that are actually ascendant, they all sort of have the effect of making you wish you could pick something better.
That's kind of cool I guess, but I'd honestly just like to see all of the special projects redone this way.
I have been thinking about similar things as well. First thing is first though, and I want to see how the new content works out, and then rework/add more to this system.I like this approach
You know, I can't argue with that. Though we'll have to see how all this works in practice, I think he's got a better philosophy on game design.In terms of the system, he's pretty much covered all the bases. The remaining places were it could fall down seem mostly like details - if these are too common, too easy, or the benefits too small, for example - but those numbers are pretty easy to tweak. Or if they're powerful enough to sway the game (which the most important ones could be, I reckon) and they're not adequately communicated to the player. Aside from that, there's just the concern of the writing. That team is the same though, either entirely or mostly, so we have a pretty reasonable idea of what to expect based on the writing that's already in anomalies and events and stuff. There's also an issue of writing quantity - it could be like the precursor events and habitable world surveys and all that, where once you've done it once, it's boring. Hopefully the quantity and the design of these will be such that the only common ones are reasonably generic and easy, so it doesn't become tiresome, and the bigger set piece ones come up rarely enough to be interesting when you do get them.
"Okay, what have you learned?"Now there's someone that would write some great archeology chains. Considering they got Alexis Kennedy in before, it's not beyond the realm of possibility either.
"Xenoarcheology is a deeply disturbing field of study." (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-07-26)
"Okay, what have you learned?"Now there's someone that would write some great archeology chains. Considering they got Alexis Kennedy in before, it's not beyond the realm of possibility either.
"Xenoarcheology is a deeply disturbing field of study." (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-07-26)
tbh though... I think wiz made a lot of mistakes, but I totally agree in this case. Story based events with some minors bonuses? This seems like it'll very quickly just be more text to click though without bothering to read, like all the current exploration stuff. I don't see how it'll make the game more fun outside of maybe the first game you play with it. Actual interesting mechanics and interactions that create interesting gameplay is what stellaris is sorely lacking and desperately needs, and although wiz totally failed to provide those, I'm not seeing any evidence that this new guy will either.The focus on sense of place is a big deal, though. If it was just "here's a canned bit of narrative" that would be one thing, that's how anomalies work, but this has potential to do a lot more than that.
In this case I meant Howard Tayler, the writer of what Egan linked. Not that bringing back Alexis Kennedy wouldn't also be good, but I doubt they will. Part of the purpose of a collaboration like that is to show off what you got to each other's audiences, and that's a benefit that you only really get the first time.agreed - i would love to see more alexis kennedy events"Okay, what have you learned?"Now there's someone that would write some great archeology chains. Considering they got Alexis Kennedy in before, it's not beyond the realm of possibility either.
"Xenoarcheology is a deeply disturbing field of study." (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-07-26)
I don't really get what the different in potential is in a bit of random narrative floating in space vs a slightly longer bit of random narrative on a planet. I mean, sure, it has potential, but so does everything else, I don't get why this is a big deal or significantly different then the current random exploration things.Muh sense of place
Friiiick, I'm still jonesing for Megacorp. Do we think it's going on sale soon? Maybe when this coming DLC comes out, right? I'd love to finally pick up Apocalypse too, but more for Life Seeded/PostApoc/BarbaricDespoilers than the silly colossi.Megacorp is 25% off on https://www.wingamestore.com/product/9943/Stellaris-MegaCorp/
Do we have a rough schedule for the DLC? The archaeology stuff seems potentially interesting, looking forward to how they innovate, but I mostly want pops on the market. And more options to maximize the trade-value game.
Friiiick, I'm still jonesing for Megacorp. Do we think it's going on sale soon? Maybe when this coming DLC comes out, right? I'd love to finally pick up Apocalypse too, but more for Life Seeded/PostApoc/BarbaricDespoilers than the silly colossi.Fair warning, all three of those kinda suck. Post-apocalyptic used to be good, but it was nerfed, life seeded was incidentally nerfed by the new economy, but will probably get better with more accessible habitats, and despoilers have never been good and likely never will be in the foreseeable future - raiding doesn't give you enough pops to make up for the mechanical detriments of having diverse races with the new population growth system, so having to permanently pay a slot for it is definitely not worth it.
Life-seeded is at least thematically fun, but it was arguably more fun and definitely more challenging before 2.2. In 2.2 you can still colonize anywhere as a life-seeded species and just have much higher pop upkeep. That does lead to some serious economic drain if you overextend yourself early on, which makes early colonization a tiny bit more tactical. It's made me wonder if they should seriously increase the penalties for low habitability to make all empires have to really stop and think before grabbing every last habitable planet in their space.The new guy says he does intend to make low habitability more harsh again.
Ideally we'd be able to specify our build orders, but it sounds like it's going to just be presets you pick from. Still better than nothing I suppose, and at least opens the possibility up for player made lists in the future. If the presets don't take up every building slot so that there's some customization, and if you can still manually build on a planet that is set to use the automation, that might be good enough.The dev log is explicit about what happens, and doesn't say anything about preventing you from building, and the description implies that it won't have any reason to do that. Furthermore, it doesn't change anything you've already built.
Stellaris is on Sale (https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/) due to its 3-year anniversary (yay!).MOTHERF- oh Megacorp only went down to $15.99, so I still got a better deal a couple days ago from Paul's link (thanks Paul!)
Also, despite those hundreds of hours I *legitimately did not know that Precursor spawns weren't randomised*. I just never noticed 0_oI didn't notice either, I heard about it before realizing on my own.
Ancient Relics announced (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-ancient-relics-announcement-trailer.1177086/)Yeah, same. It's not bad. I expect I'll get it. But a story pack just isn't that exciting.
Ain't nothing we don't know already.
I... am actually am indiferent towards this?
Really could use combat that isn't a purely numbers-based game...From Paradox? I wouldn't hold my breath.
I think 4X games as a genre already are far too combat-focused.Victoria II was good about that; you could feasibly play the entire game without fighting a war, potentially (although dangerously) even without a military, and still be considered a great power thanks to your egregious economic might.
I think 4X games as a genre already are far too combat-focused.With one of the four design pillars being exterminate how do you propose that works? Stellaris is one of a few 4x games you can play entirely without combat, or very little combat. I played as a fanatic pacifistic culture and only went to war 4 times the entire game, all defensive.
Same here. In my current game I've gone about 150 game years with only about 20 corvettes, which did bait one neighbor into declaring war on me twice but they were so scared of my border stations they never even attempted to invade me. After a few years passed without a single shot fired they offered peace.You have to imagine it's a matter of their internal politics.
Same here. In my current game I've gone about 150 game years with only about 20 corvettes, which did bait one neighbor into declaring war on me twice but they were so scared of my border stations they never even attempted to invade me. After a few years passed without a single shot fired they offered peace.This makes me wonder if its possible to play an entire game without a navy. I'd still need to tech up on weapons and armor so my defense stations are beasts. With no navy I could devote significantly more to building defense stations. Probably they'll get outclassed late midgame no matter what I do though.
peeps should try the star trek new horizons mod, theres more lore / roleplay and a unique tech tree and a bit more of an engaging experience
peeps should try the star trek new horizons mod, theres more lore / roleplay and a unique tech tree and a bit more of an engaging experience
Finally got around to playing with the newest version, but I think I'm also already done with it. While I cautiously approve of how they've handled populations and planets, and I'm glad they finally removed that stupid leader cap, overall I feel like they just massively slowed down the game to little other benefit. Research proceeds at a crawl, while fleet and station caps are absurdly low so everyone's maximum fleet size is minuscule. Until now, 60 years in, I've seen exactly one war in the western half of the galaxy and there's no chance of a war anytime in the near future because neither I nor any of the AIs around me can muster enough fleet to make one worthwhile.Yeah I have to disagree too, unless you are still very early in the game? I've had no trouble doing early wars and stacking tech, to the point that I usually out-tech most nearby AI players to an absurd degree. Also, your fleet cap is more of a soft cap. You can exceed it, and SHOULD exceed it if gearing up for war. You're probably going to lose a bunch of those extra ships anyway so you won't be paying the maintenance for long. Stock up on alloys and credits beforehand so you can finance the war then build way over your cap. I sometimes go 50-75% over to ensure I have more firepower than the opponent.
Just teaching the AI some basic patterns for efficient colony management and having it use advantageous things that the player uses (like encourage growth decision) would go a long way. Right now they grow really slowly and build so sub-optimally that they fall behind even with a huge handicap with the highest difficulty. I've looked at some of the AI empires part way through games and found them suffering from special resource and mineral and food shortages and totally crippled, while their worlds that should be producing food and minerals are short on workers due to everyone being promoted to specialists running the big upgraded buildings which are causing the special resource shortages.
Intermediate score-based analysis seems like a very fraught path to pursue when a game has as much potentially far-reaching randomness as Stellaris. This sort of approach could easily lead to AIs who do reasonably well most of the time but completely fall apart under particular circumstances. More generally, having a good score at a particular moment is not perforce a good predictor of future score (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing#Local_maxima); not all situations producing good score values are equal.
I'm not saying it's a hopeless idea, but it's definitely not a magic bullet.
One of the cool things about Age of Mythology was some experimentation done with giving AI personalities. Besides obvious AI improvements to executing strategies, they found you could make more human-like AI by giving them a certain level of personality - AIs that overestimated the strengths of their opponents or underestimated the strengths of their opponents being one such factor. It's rather alike CK2's personality system, where cowardly, brave, zealous, greedy or mad characters were more or less likely to go to war at certain times
That would be a place for the neural net.
Stellaris does this too, to a point, doesn't it? I've never really noticed much difference though, since I think most of the difference manifests as opinion modifiers, but a few personalities declare war more readily.It says they do this, but I've never noticed. I think this is because the power discrepancy between Empires is either too close or too far to make a difference
The problem is that it's a different branch of science with almost no everyday commercial use.
The problem is that it's a different branch of science with almost no everyday commercial use.
This is flat-out wrong. Statistical AI is currently and increasingly applicable to everyday commercial use. Machine learning is everywhere. Big data analysis is everywhere. 10 years ago the everyday part might not have been true, but even then the commercial part definitely was not.
It's not "database programming" common, but we're not talking about some obscure field practiced only in the rarefied atmospheres of academia.
In a worst case scenario you would have to retrain it overnight or more. Even with patch changes it is the only attractive candidate if someone wants decent AI. ;)
I've always used mods for multiple dyson spheres, allowing them to actually sate the energy thirst of a mature empire seems like a good call.
Gotta say, I don't much like that the whole system of archeology (rather than just the content that currently uses it) is locked behind DLC. Hopefully they change that after adding more relevant content in future releases, rather than just leaving it as an isolated system and not iterating on it.
###################
# Modding
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* The Archaeology system from Ancient Relics is open for modding use, to create your own multi-stage event chains
* Implemented improved AI building selection weights (thanks to Glavius for awesome insight here)tfw modders fix your game
I saw that. That doesn't mean that it doesn't require the DLC though, that just means that the system is formulated as plain text raws rather than hard coded. Notice on the other hand that the archeology box, which is under the story pack heading, starts out by saying "a system" and there is no corresponding points later on except the one you quoted. Maybe this is misleading and they've clarified elsewhere to that effect, but based on this it looks like the entire new feature and, therefore, all content using it (including mod content) will be DLC locked. I hope this isn't actually the case or doesn't remain the case, which seems reasonably likely considering it's not consistent with the practical design principles of their general development paradigm, but that's definitely what they've written there.Gotta say, I don't much like that the whole system of archeology (rather than just the content that currently uses it) is locked behind DLC. Hopefully they change that after adding more relevant content in future releases, rather than just leaving it as an isolated system and not iterating on it.Quote from: Patchnotes###################
# Modding
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* The Archaeology system from Ancient Relics is open for modding use, to create your own multi-stage event chains
This is good though. Since the work has been done, they should include it.Quote* Implemented improved AI building selection weights (thanks to Glavius for awesome insight here)tfw modders fix your game
That doesn't mean that it doesn't require the DLC though, that just means that the system is formulated as plain text raws rather than hard coded.
tfw you get paid to take other's work for freeThis is good though. Since the work has been done, they should include it.Quote* Implemented improved AI building selection weights (thanks to Glavius for awesome insight here)tfw modders fix your game
He made it for their game for free. You can argue that they shouldn't have needed him to, but ultimately they're really just a bunch of Swedes in an office somewhere. You can't reasonably expect them to always do everything better than everyone else.tfw you get paid to take other's work for freeThis is good though. Since the work has been done, they should include it.Quote* Implemented improved AI building selection weights (thanks to Glavius for awesome insight here)tfw modders fix your game
Re the first part: I can't remember where I read this so it might be BS, but I think AI players are able to trigger the "emergency jump" when not in combat. I feel like I've seen it happen, but I'm not sure.
I really want to get into Stellaris, but every time I sit down to start a game, I realize I need to spend three hours playing the early game and seeing the same anomalies and I quit to do anything else.
Thirty years into the game I got a titan. Then my neighbour declared war, which they, of course lost, only to unlock an artifact with a guard that got disabled after ten titan sorties, :P Good start. Unfortunately, caravans get stuck at your home planet now. And did they ever fix the utopian abundance super exploit?I too got a titan once. Then I upgraded the fleet it was in, and it was refitted to some barebones basic design. So watch out for that.
I am trying to terraform a planet, I clicked on the terraform button, clicked on the climate I want, and it is telling me it will take 360 days on the outliner. But this timer never ticks down. Am I missing a step? Or is the game just bugged?You sure it's 360? The quickest terraforms (without boosters) take 5 years. Some take 10, so it could be 3600 with one zero cut off by the interface. (guessing here)
Terraforming seems to be broken at the moment for barren terraforming candidates - it sits at 3600 on the timer forever. Maybe the same is true for nanite worlds.Oh, I thought that was just the mod or combination of mods I was playing. That's a pity.
I find it amusing that all of these bugs seem to happen in systems that shouldn't have even been touchedYeah welcome to programming. In one of my own projects I once implemented a new style (visual only) of icon fade for a skill cooldown and it ended up breaking the ability to talk to NPCs. The links between systems aren't always obvious.
I find it amusing that all of these bugs seem to happen in systems that shouldn't have even been touched by the DLC. Like, why are caravan fleets getting stuck or synthetic ascension breaking your primary species? What was even changed that could break things like that? Or terraforming speed?
Well, I guess the performance changes could have broken it, but it again seems kind of unbelievable that these problems aren't being caught by QA, or if they are that the management team tells them to publish the game anyway. I'd hate to work for Paradox if that's how it goes, and it sounded like that was the case after 2.2.
I find it amusing that all of these bugs seem to happen in systems that shouldn't have even been touched by the DLC.The free update included a switch to 64 bit processing. Therefore, everything was potentially touched, and sometimes in weird ways.
Oh yeah, mine's when defending armies become unkillable because they recover 1/4 of their max health health every few days until they suddenly stop doing that.
I've had it where I've invaded a planet and had to retreat because the defending army kept jumping up to ~250/200 health somehow. It only stopped once I bombarded the planet to 100% devastation, and I'm unsure if that's the cause or if the game coincidentally went "Oh, hang on that's not supposed to happen!"
I find it amusing that all of these bugs seem to happen in systems that shouldn't have even been touchedYeah welcome to programming. In one of my own projects I once implemented a new style (visual only) of icon fade for a skill cooldown and it ended up breaking the ability to talk to NPCs. The links between systems aren't always obvious.
Management likely has no idea about specific bugs like that. The more likely answer is poor version control. This is Paradox' bread and butter for years now. They fix something in one version of the code, only to revert it by accident later when they release a major update that's based on a version of the code from before the fix.
This has happened so many times with EU4, CK2, etc, that I've lost count. People who have worked there have confirmed that they fundamentally don't have real software development practices in place. They just kind of do it as they go along. When they were really a niche indie developer 10 or 15 years ago, fine, whatever.
So... has this reached a reasonable state worth playing, yet?I would say the economy overhaul has made it worth a couple evenings of free time, assuming you've got that, but since the latest patch introduced a bunch of new (and in many cases serious) bugs, maybe wait for a bugfix.
So... has this reached a reasonable state worth playing, yet?I'd hold off until they finish fixing all the shit they broke in the last big patch/expansion
I can't say I'm really impressed with the archaeology stuff. I've done like half a dozen and it's just EU4 siege system for a bunch of text updates with some goofy rewards. There aren't any choices or anything else remotely interesting about them except a small-medium wall of text.Yeah, from the way they were talking about it in the devlogs, they were basically using this time to add the new system, but the content using the system is still fairly basic. It's more about potential than the current crop.
Like, maybe, ONE has had some kind interesting thing emerge from it at the end.
One would think that after this much time we'd be past the "add new features" stage of the game - what is often called the alpha -Cripes, you're not wrong. Though I say CK2 shows that adding new features over time can work well. Perhaps modern games (with trustworthy developers) break the old model of alpha-beta-release-fix-expansion.
but I suppose it's understandable that the new head dude wants to put his own ideas in. To be fair, it's definitely a good idea for a system, it's just a bit awkward putting it on a game that under most devs would be close to the end of its life cycle, not the beginning.I don't give a fig for "relics" I just wanted to play with habitats and there's all this broken stuff.
what they should do is say with ck2, is any dlc that are from older than 5 years should now be rolled into the base game, and anything less have a pricing structure that slowly drops over time. That way paradox could keep it going but not screw older players over with 50 dlcThey won't do that, because age of DLC is not the determining factor in which DLCs people buy. There are many old ones that still sell well. And Paradox is a for profit company and a publicly traded one, as of recently, which means that not only do they want money, but they have an obligation to their stockholders to ensure that they make as much as possible.
The seasonal model of elite dangerous is another option
They won't do that, because age of DLC is not the determining factor in which DLCs people buy. There are many old ones that still sell well. And Paradox is a for profit company and a publicly traded one, as of recently, which means that not only do they want money, but they have an obligation to their stockholders to ensure that they make as much as possible.
They won't do that, because age of DLC is not the determining factor in which DLCs people buy. There are many old ones that still sell well. And Paradox is a for profit company and a publicly traded one, as of recently, which means that not only do they want money, but they have an obligation to their stockholders to ensure that they make as much as possible.
Giving more value in the base package doesn't necessarily mean they'd make less money. You can't sell DLC to people who don't make the purchase in the first place. Looking at a game with many years of DLC can be so off-putting for some that they won't buy it at all. Games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis make it very confusing for new players, if you visit forums or subreddits about them you'll see posts like "which dlc are essential" fairly often. I know I didn't buy Crusader Kings II because there was already so much DLC out that I didn't want to spend all that money on one game at one time. Also, going in without the DLC the community deemed essential didn't appeal to me. Eventually they had a sale that bundled all the DLC they had released up until the "Old Gods" dlc for like 20 bucks. They've been taking my money ever since :P
Glavius build priorities were incorporated into the base game anyway. I'm not sure there's a lot of great improvements that still reside within the realm of mods.
I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.Glavius build priorities were incorporated into the base game anyway. I'm not sure there's a lot of great improvements that still reside within the realm of mods.
Oh really? I wonder if they paid him for his work.
I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.Does that mean I get infinite guesses?
Only if you buy the infinite guesses dlc.I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.Does that mean I get infinite guesses?
It's a little weird that a professionally made game that's undergoing continued development would have just nonfunctional features that prominently.
Well it's not just that it's listing three battles, the numbers are wrong and I don't think I've ever seen them actually come out correct. According to the battle report I destroyed over thirty ships but the war score screen only lists them as losing a combined 13.
I continue to be surprised at how bad the QA is in Stellaris.
In this particular case I'm not sure what's going on with it, but judging by the bugs I've seen reported for a long time it feels like a lot of features in Stellaris rely on logic that's prone to race conditions. Lots of things seem to have small chances of glitching out because a species, planet or ship did something before some asynchronous code ran, which wasn't expecting that to happen.
In this case it feels like it's probably just a plain bug where the war exhaustion report just treats each fleet as a separate battle when it doesn't need to. Kind of like the bug where the tooltip for the popup for democratic elections never displays the custom empire title for the ruler despite it working everywhere else. It's been reported as a bug every patch for years but never gets fixed. Paradox reworks the game at a breakneck pace and doesn't seem interested in trying to polish it.
Well it's not just that it's listing three battles, the numbers are wrong and I don't think I've ever seen them actually come out correct. According to the battle report I destroyed over thirty ships but the war score screen only lists them as losing a combined 13.
Well it's not just that it's listing three battles, the numbers are wrong and I don't think I've ever seen them actually come out correct. According to the battle report I destroyed over thirty ships but the war score screen only lists them as losing a combined 13.
War fatigue is stupid anyway, you could be rolling over the entire territory but because the enemy can't even shake a stick in your direction you are not winning the war.
The War in Heaven is the one that irritates me like this. Twice now I've had Wars in Heaven that I couldn't end because attrition is either outright suspended in the War in Heaven, or is so meaningless that the enemy somehow never accumulated any in ~50-100 years of war, and I blew up all of the enemy ships but only managed to get them to about 20% war exhaustion. I can take their systems and I can take their planets, but they don't care because they flip to me and thus don't accrue any war exhaustion or occupation. I'd literally have to conquer almost the entire galaxy to end the war, just by forcing the warring empires to cease to exist entirely. They might eventually build enough ships for me to finish pushing them up to the 25% + 50% from me having a better navy to force a status quo, but 100 years wasn't enough time the last time it happened.
Hmmm, so in my current game, the Great Khan popped up, but instead of conquering anyone, he keeps sending his fleets through the L-Gate. Once he lost all his event-spawned ships to the re-spawning Grey Goo, he got some more event spawned ships, and now he's sending those through the L-Gate, too. Which keeps spawning more fleets, too.
thinking_face.jpg
These are just units destroyed. I watched the battle, and read the fleet report, these units were scratched not disengaged. The war score screen is consistently incorrect about casualties. If it wasn't then the issue would be that combat reports listed units as being destroyed incorrectly.
I get the feeling that the battle report includes ships that disengaged before warping out or is calculating based on obsolete formulas while the war only pick actually destroyed ships. War fatigue is stupid anyway, you could be rolling over the entire territory but because the enemy can't even shake a stick in your direction you are not winning the war.
... cute little fox people.
I've discovered an interesting bug about the Khan. Hive minded pops aren't auto-purged in their empire.Best way to report bugs, is via Paradox's main Stellaris forums.
You'd think it would be a pain in the ass but it was a joyful experience. It was a delight to feed wave after wave of troops into the engine of endless war and my aching wrist was a fair price.... cute little fox people.
The ends justify the means.
Microing all those armies was probably fun, wasn't it?
I'm glad they're being up front about it and fixing the problem, but man, Paradox just can't seem to get a Stellaris release right. I feel a little bad for them, but only a little.
I would say this is yet more evidence that they don't check anything they release, but this seems like something that would pretty easily slip through the cracks for a QA team.
Why would you just not check.If you mean about the art, there is no easy way to just search all previous art for reused images.
That's just so careless.
You're so careless Paradox.
I seriously doubt they expected the outsourced firm to just reuse code from another game.C H I N A
I mean internal politics sound nice, but... I mean how interesting can it really be without any kind of espionage? There has to be something. Glad that they are expanding on Federations regardless.I would be surprised if they get that much special content.
Lithoids also sound neat, but I sort of expect the mechanics to be "robots but they use minerals instead of energy".
I mean internal politics sound nice, but... I mean how interesting can it really be without any kind of espionage? There has to be something. Glad that they are expanding on Federations regardless.I would be surprised if they get that much special content.
Lithoids also sound neat, but I sort of expect the mechanics to be "robots but they use minerals instead of energy".
The flatness with which (everything) are defined really does limit how much they can vary species one from another.
Wow it's fucking nothing as always.It's exactly as advertised, a species pack. You get new species portraits, ship graphics, and city art. The fact that they also included unique gameplay is extra above and beyond the previous species packs. Also as part of developing those extra mechanics they have exposed more fun stuff to modders (the ability to tie species traits to the species portrait type) so overall it's not bad. I'd probably still wait for a sale for it, but it's at least no worse than the previous species packs and on par with their other aesthetic-only dlc
The important thing is it's now possible to play as Communist Space Rocks.YEAH!!
WE MUST SEIZE THE MEANS OF SUBDUCTION!
I haven't looked in on Dev Diaries for awhile, but have they mentioned Envoys before? Sounds like they are adding EU4 diplomats into the game or something.Was that not the old name for the limit on how many diplomatic relationships you could have?
The Chosen will of course be very hard to beat.
I haven't looked in on Dev Diaries for awhile, but have they mentioned Envoys before? Sounds like they are adding EU4 diplomats into the game or something.
When they did add a limit?It was in one of the earlier big overhaul patches, they've since removed it. On reflecting more, they might have been called embassies actually?
Embassies were a thing very early on which were scrapped very quickly after release. As you said it was a limited thing. You'd establish an embassy with a race at a small cost and it would passively raise relationshipWhen they did add a limit?It was in one of the earlier big overhaul patches, they've since removed it. On reflecting more, they might have been called embassies actually?
From what I've heard the mechanics for Dig Sits in Stellaris are the same as for sieges in Imperator. Though I think they work better for something passive in the background, like research, instead of something deliberate and direct like military action. That should be more in the players control. But this isn't the "Wtf went wrong with Imperator" thread xD
So, unrelated to the mobile game hilarity, it looks like they announced the next DLC, which is currently light on details but focused on federations at least. With little more to go on, it's hard to tell if it includes much in the way of internal politics, and the consensus seems to be that there won't be any espionage or intelligence component added. That's a little disappointing, and I'm not expecting much as a result.Another goddamn DLC? How about they get the base game working first, jesus...
The new lithoids species pack is at least interesting in that it adds new mechanics for lithoids, such as eating minerals instead of food.
Another goddamn DLC? How about they get the base game working first, jesus...
I will never, ever buy anything from paradox again. Fortunately, I can check back on stellaris every so often and play a completely different broken half baked 'game'.
Psionic Ascension is the most fun of the Ascension options but I've always thought of it as the weakest mechanically. No guarantees of the boosts you get and also getting random debuffs. Plus the chance of dooming the galaxy (sure, you can say no...but who would?).
Becoming perfect immortal machines is probably the strongest one mechanically, though the traits of genetic ascension are pretty powerful too.
There's no benefit to going from squishy organic to machine empire versus starting as a machine empire.
On the subject of DLC, I don't really care about the cosmetic DLCs or how expensive they are. And while Stellaris is getting to the point of costing too much for all of its DLC, I'm mostly worried that it'll end up like CK2 or something where you could literally spend hundreds of dollars just to unlock game features, some of which are half baked. Take traditions, for example, which probably should have been more complex and offered conflicting, exclusive choices, but which became another resource (unity) that unlocked tech tree 2.0. I was hoping during the big tradition rework of 2.2 that they'd change that, but it seems unlikely that's ever going to happen. Or, if it does, it'll probably be DLC on its own.I dunno, for all that Stellaris is half-baked a lot of mechanics have been moving over from DLCs to the base game. So it might be the fairest Paradox game around, DLC-wise.
Or, if they ever introduce the ability to be religious about machines like the Adeptus Mechanicus, it'll probably be bundled in an unrelated DLC like many of the new megastructures are being tossed in. Or you have to use mods.
It could be worse though. At the very least, when playing in multiplayer it does unlock all DLC that the game host has.
Neonivek is fine, and cheap aesthetic DLC is fine. This isn't Utopia or something, there's no reason to buy it unless you want to play a rock, and its development didn't meaningfully detract from "fixing" the game.I mean, I agree with all of this. But I still find it to be pretty underwhelming.
I understand frustration with Stellaris's stability (early on), and its efficiency (particularly up untill quite recently). But this DLC isn't some fresh betrayal, it's a meaningless note which comes alongside a lot of improvement. Have you heard that Wiz got reassigned a few months ago? He wasn't the satan many caricature him as, but things have generally improved.
Spiritualists who haven't grokked their psionic potential yet... Maybe should be at a disadvantage, but bolstered by the presence of the temple-line of buildings in defensive combat.I kinda don't dig the notion that Paradox seems to have adopted entirely, that psionic ascension the natural goal of all spiritualists.
Oof, I wouldn't do that without modding though. It's not just difficult, the faction system will insist that your pops are utterly against what you're doing (IIRC).
My faction wants me to "uplift" primative civs but also only passively observe them. :/Those are two different things. Uplifting happens to presentient animals and makes them intelligent, not done to primitive civs. Giving primitive civs new technology is called enlightening not uplifting.
1. Each empire is generated sequentiality, not all at once. When an empire is created, all future empires are slightly less likely to choose that empire's ethics. So while you can end up in a galaxy with all of the same ethics in theory, you are more likely to have a balanced galaxy. The weighting is not very significant - it is still possible to have lopsided distributions.
2. Note that the player is considered to be the first empire chosen for purpose of ethics selection.
3. One of the patches decreased the weight for Pacifist because games full of pacifists were static and boring.
4. Also, something something chance to switch in one of the premade empires from the menu.
5. If the Commonwealth of Man is spawned, an event automatically creates the United Nations of Earth as well (but not necessarily its two nearby habitable planets).
This is more or less what I expected the Space UN to look like in Stellaris, and I think it's a good start. There were still a lot of questions left unanswered or with very vague answers, such as what happens if you violate the resolutions or leave the galactic community.I don't think it's that vague. They do nothing except provide triggers for resolutions. Examples of effects that resolutions triggering off these states provide include CB generation and economic sanctions.
I want to be able to leave the senate and declare war on it.You can leave it, but it seems that the senate is completely separate from federation mechanics, so it never acts as a single political player. You'd have to fight the members one at a time.
Sounds like something that could potentially add actual fun to the game, and that is diverse and open enough to both be initially encompassing and to be expanded meaningfully, which is where the faction system ended up so disappointing.This is more or less what I expected the Space UN to look like in Stellaris, and I think it's a good start. There were still a lot of questions left unanswered or with very vague answers, such as what happens if you violate the resolutions or leave the galactic community.I don't think it's that vague. They do nothing except provide triggers for resolutions. Examples of effects that resolutions triggering off these states provide include CB generation and economic sanctions.
I'm almost 100% sure that sanctions while you're in the group will just be a penalty as you describe, or something like forced demilitarization (penalty to fleet size) of varying magnitudes, which you'd have to leave the union to avoid. As for the consequences of leaving, maybe there's something like limited use of the galactic market or even banishment from it (since the galactic market will now be formed by resolution) or prohibition on trading with members for a period of time, but I'm willing to bet that the CB thing will be the meat of it.Sounds like something that could potentially add actual fun to the game, and that is diverse and open enough to both be initially encompassing and to be expanded meaningfully, which is where the faction system ended up so disappointing.This is more or less what I expected the Space UN to look like in Stellaris, and I think it's a good start. There were still a lot of questions left unanswered or with very vague answers, such as what happens if you violate the resolutions or leave the galactic community.I don't think it's that vague. They do nothing except provide triggers for resolutions. Examples of effects that resolutions triggering off these states provide include CB generation and economic sanctions.
Yeah, but I'm wondering what economic sanctions mean in this case, for example. I'm betting it will be something like a penalty to trade value or energy generation, but I'm not sure that makes sense considering that many if not most empires don't actually have trade with other empires in the first place. Maybe that's changing in this patch, but I'd be surprised.
It absolutely does weight opposing ethics.It gets especially annoying when you play a xenophile empire and literally no one wants to be your friend because everyone is an isolationist or purger
Which I hate.
I played a Xenophile and just kind of was warmonger instead
I played a Xenophile and just kind of was warmonger insteadYeah there's no contradiction there at all! Blorg are a perfect example of that :P
(Never actually played this game btw lmao)Yeah that's alright, you seem to understand the ethic dynamics just fine XD!
Xenophiles are explicitly okay with having sapient aliens in zoos / as pets, if the fallen empires are any indicator, so by itself that means xenophilia isn't equal rights to aliens. That would be a combination of xenophilia and egalitarianism.Fallen Empires are an edge case, but even so - they have valued the input of those sapients for countless years. Preserving them through The Cycle.
It's hard to pin any specific ethos as evil in Stellaris terms, but xenophobia, authoritarianism and militarism are usually going to lean in that direction. I've played benevolent kings that ran xenophobic empires that wanted to just be left alone, and I wouldn't call them evil, so clearly those ethics aren't evil in and of themselves, but it is at least the part of the diagram where the empires that enslave and eat sapient aliens reside.
What of the xenophile-authoritarian?
Real Question: Why would I want to do this start?Roleplaying, perhaps. You do get a tradition unlock and a federation from the start as well as 2 established vassals paying you taxes, which is nice.
QuoteAny details on how the Ring World, Habitat and Relic world starts are going to deal with the lack of mineral districts or food districts, respectively?
Shattered Ring: One of the sections is permanently shattered. The celestial object responsible and the ring segment itself can be mined. (Note: Lithoids still have a really tough start here, since they'll eat most of the minerals, and they can't acquire minerals from their home section.)
Void Dwellers: One of the habitats you start with is a mining habitat. Hydroponics for food.
Remnants: Your homeworld has decayed enough that all four basic district types are represented.
We joked about "Accept Your Fate", where you just waited 64 years but while amusing didn't sound like a lot of fun.hehehe
So is Calamitous Birth basically proliferation-via-Lavos (https://chrono.fandom.com/wiki/Lavos), or what? Because that sounds awesome as hell.That's my thought as well.
Real Question: Why would I want to do this start?... as well as 2 established vassals paying you taxes, which is nice.
Which is kinda sad as it used to give you passive automatic (but very slow) ship repairs
In my experience smaller vassals have done more for me than entire federations. Which is to say they actually participate in the wars I get called into by the only two jerkoffs in the galaxy that share my ethics. They don't always accomplish anything but by god do they try.
"I may have been banging rocks together in a cave last week, but I'm taking this system's outpost with my three corvettes if it's the last thing I ev--"
*Fleet lost*
I guess, but unless they've upped the capability of the AI 1-system vassals will happily sit around for a 100 years tanking their own economy and not even expanding to available, neighboring systems. Which I suppose explains why they only have 3 corvettes...
I guess, but unless they've upped the capability of the AI 1-system vassals will happily sit around for a 100 years tanking their own economy and not even expanding to available, neighboring systems. Which I suppose explains why they only have 3 corvettes...
Vassals, protectorates, and the unique names Awakened Empires use (but pointedly not tributaries) are actually mechanically incapable of spreading to new systems without their overlord having the Feudal Society civic.
If there's a system you think would be really good on your vassal, you could take it yourself and gift it.Which is unfortunately pretty much the only way to get vassals to do any sort of expanding, and even then they have a tendency so suck so hard at building up their economy that even if you gift them thousands of minerals and energy they won't even manage to develop the potential stations in their territory.
Sigh. Every time I get back into this game the same stupid crap makes me want to uninstall it. I see migration is still horrifically stupidly broken.Unfortunately, Stellaris has never really known what it's doing with pops or how they're distinct from your other infrastructure. Part of the problem is waffling in this weird middle ground between controlled and autonomous, where you can't just click buttons to tell them what to do but they're also not smart enough to be effective- or more importantly, interesting- on their own. I think that's largely symptomatic of not being willing to take either extreme, though: They absolutely want pops to Exist and Do Stuff, but they're not willing to take the plunge and model birth rates or employment decisions, so... even out the population over time and call it a day, I guess.
Made a migration treaty with another empire solely so I could use their pops to populate my dry worlds since they're desert. What I didn't realize is they happen to have pops of a different species which are adaptable. Cue my ENTIRE EMPIRE growing nothing but that species, even on worlds where my species is 80 hab and they are 30. I didn't notice this until my economy was tanking due to all the 30 hab pops on my main worlds. Literally every single world is growing nothing but them and they are already over 1/3 of my empire after a few short years. Moved them all to worlds they actually have good habitability on and turned migration controls on. Still my entire empire insists on growing them. Had to cancel the migration treaty with my neighbor to stop them.
The entire time, not a single pop of their main species migrated over. So I still don't have desert pops. Sadly I didn't wait to colonize the world's so I can't do it that way. So now I have one world with 80 pops and the rest of my empire has stagnated, and I didn't even get the desert loving pops that I wanted.
In short, migration treaty results in my entire species becoming sterile and being replaced by useless adaptable species that I only have one world they can even live on at high habitability.
Sigh. Every time I get back into this game the same stupid crap makes me want to uninstall it. I see migration is still horrifically stupidly broken.Unfortunately, Stellaris has never really known what it's doing with pops or how they're distinct from your other infrastructure. Part of the problem is waffling in this weird middle ground between controlled and autonomous, where you can't just click buttons to tell them what to do but they're also not smart enough to be effective- or more importantly, interesting- on their own. I think that's largely symptomatic of not being willing to take either extreme, though: They absolutely want pops to Exist and Do Stuff, but they're not willing to take the plunge and model birth rates or employment decisions, so... even out the population over time and call it a day, I guess.
Made a migration treaty with another empire solely so I could use their pops to populate my dry worlds since they're desert. What I didn't realize is they happen to have pops of a different species which are adaptable. Cue my ENTIRE EMPIRE growing nothing but that species, even on worlds where my species is 80 hab and they are 30. I didn't notice this until my economy was tanking due to all the 30 hab pops on my main worlds. Literally every single world is growing nothing but them and they are already over 1/3 of my empire after a few short years. Moved them all to worlds they actually have good habitability on and turned migration controls on. Still my entire empire insists on growing them. Had to cancel the migration treaty with my neighbor to stop them.
The entire time, not a single pop of their main species migrated over. So I still don't have desert pops. Sadly I didn't wait to colonize the world's so I can't do it that way. So now I have one world with 80 pops and the rest of my empire has stagnated, and I didn't even get the desert loving pops that I wanted.
In short, migration treaty results in my entire species becoming sterile and being replaced by useless adaptable species that I only have one world they can even live on at high habitability.
Has there ever been a situation where a human took control of a one system vassal and tried to develop them? I'm wondering if its even possible...
And yet I still keep coming back to playing it lol. It's one of those games that catches my attention despite its terrible flaws. At least most of the issues can be worked around.
So is playing as a slaver empire just volunteering yourself for micromanagement hell? I tried it for the first time properly and it seems like it just makes everything about population/job management significantly worse than normal.I do two things to reduce micromanagement in my current slaver game.
We ArE aLL HaPPy HeRe.HhhaVE yOu taKEN yoourrr Joy?
I get around opposing ethics by having a wide selection of my own custom factions forced into the game, that way I can get a more random shotgun blast of ethics
I have a little respect for those pops: While I wouldn't want to get enslaved by aliens, I think if I did that I'd chose the butterflies over everyone else. Sure, they might hurt people that don't work hard enough, not pay them for their work, and generally be complete assholes, but they're too cute to hold it against them.
And I'll found Black Hole Markets: A place where discerning civilizations can set up their colonies free from Galactic surveillance, most likely by connecting a wormhole to someplace that is not actually in the galaxy.I've rarely ever had so much fun as when I played as THE VOID civilisation.
...or since we're talking about catering to slavers, I'm more likely to set up a fleet around a black hole, where I charge ships to fly into, and provide a shiny red button that is guaranteed to bring them back. Nobody has complained that it doesn't work, thus it must work, right? ;D
I have a little respect for those pops: While I wouldn't want to get enslaved by aliens, I think if I did that I'd chose the butterflies over everyone else. Sure, they might hurt people that don't work hard enough, not pay them for their work, and generally be complete assholes, but they're too cute to hold it against them.
The AI doesn't use the build/sever lane feature?It doesn't know how to, but in this case even multiplayer wouldn't work. You can only build/sever lanes in two systems you control, but if you sever all lanes going into a nebula, then all 3rd party star empires will never be able to explore the nebula. Assuming no communication spread, they will not even be able to jump into the star system as the nebula will forever be unexplored for them
Is it just me, or is there something wrong with purging? I got the Prethoryn scourge in my current game, and they conquered a planet with 60 pops. 20 years later and they still haven't finished purging it. I've seen the population increase multiple times, which I am assuming is the empire resettling pops to the doomed planet.
> we fixed federations, that'd be 19.99$Are you really surprised?
wait what
> we fixed federations, that'd be 19.99$
wait what
it's likely we'll never see them again until they've found King Arthur & Tupac
I'm curious if they actually fixed the problems with federations or just added new mechanics. I'm specifically thinking of things like the 1,000 empty fleets that show up in the fleet manager because the AI keeps building corvettes, one at a time, to reinforce the federation fleet. I know they made some changes to fleet reinforcements, so maybe they did.
The launcher crashes? You might be able to bypass it and just run the game directly, but I'm not sure how exactly.Probably both. I agree with Sartain that it's probably going to be... messy at first, with some bugfixes coming out in the days after launch. But their development is spectacularly open, with back and forth discussion happening on their forums, so I blame that on the scale of their changes rather than laziness or anything.> we fixed federations, that'd be 19.99$
wait what
I'm curious if they actually fixed the problems with federations or just added new mechanics. I'm specifically thinking of things like the 1,000 empty fleets that show up in the fleet manager because the AI keeps building corvettes, one at a time, to reinforce the federation fleet. I know they made some changes to fleet reinforcements, so maybe they did.
I'm curious if they actually fixed the problems with federations or just added new mechanics. I'm specifically thinking of things like the 1,000 empty fleets that show up in the fleet manager because the AI keeps building corvettes, one at a time, to reinforce the federation fleet. I know they made some changes to fleet reinforcements, so maybe they did.
I'm guessing that they've added more mechanics with very little to no regard for how these mechanics actually interact with already existing mechanics, as that seems to have been the M.O. since around 2.0 I guess
I didn't really start playing until 2.0, so I don't have nostalgia for the multiple FTL types and even now I wonder how some of them even worked in practice. Trying to pin down and fight an empire with warp tech when you have hyperdrives sounds miserable.
I didn't really start playing until 2.0, so I don't have nostalgia for the multiple FTL types and even now I wonder how some of them even worked in practice. Trying to pin down and fight an empire with warp tech when you have hyperdrives sounds miserable. Did the ships even exit warp in systems they weren't stopping in?Warp was generally slower, so catching a warper with hyperlanes wasn't really difficult unless you had a big gap between your group of worlds and nearby planets with enemies who somehow knew about this, which didn't really happen in practice and the AI certainly wouldn't have been able to exploit it if it had. Warp ships didn't stop in systems that they didn't stop in, but they did have to make plenty of stops when traveling long distances. Warp jumps weren't further than most hyperdrives at the lowest tech level and only increased by like 50% or something each upgrade.
Not sure they needed to remove it for the people who liked it,Part of their justification was that it let them do stuff like the gateway system and the new version of warp engines without it being too confusing. The real reason is just that they can't be bothered to support multiple methods.
Warp ships didn't stop in systems that they didn't stop in, but they did have to make plenty of stops when traveling long distances. Warp jumps weren't further than most hyperdrives at the lowest tech level and only increased by like 50% or something each upgrade.
Anyway, on a different subject, it looks like the AI is getting some legitimate improvements: dev diary (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-172-reworking-the-ai.1348837/)Oh thank god. That dev diary is actually pretty uplifting to read. One of the AI's biggest problems (in addition to it just, y'know, fundamentally not working) was stuff like building weighting. Some buildings just not ever being given an AI weighting so they're never built by the AI or considered as an option.
-snip-To add to this, on a technical level hyperdrive-only makes pathfinding a lot simpler. And under the hood I imagine distance calculations were a huge problem. Since under the old system the distance between two stars couldn't be represented as a single number, but rather had to be represented by 2 + number of wormhole civs values. Which sounds like some kind of abstract physics problem.
Indeed, in fact one of the stated reasons for removing wormhole FTL was that it caused massive slowdowns while calculating possible paths for the AI.-snip-And under the hood I imagine distance calculations were a huge problem.
So I went and decided to boot this up on my new comp. Got steam working fine. Got my dlc in order. Load -> crash on launcher. Exception log says its a memory access problem, but not only is the computer new, the solutions Ive seen online dont seem to help?I fixxed this . . . by running it on my old laptop. I guess Im good to go? Stellaris fortunately doesnt need an incredibly beefy computer to go.
Something about permissions? idk, but it looks like its explicitly a problem with paradox games.
FederationsDamn, that's tempting. I'm sure I could get the same or better results out of three hours of modding, but that requires effort.
- Void Dwellers: Start on a Habitat above your destroyed, former homeworld, and with 2 more habitats in your home system. Completely adapted to living in habitats, and start with the technology to build new ones, but also suffers a penalty to living on regular planets.
- Doomsday: Your homeworld is doomed and it will explode after 64 years, so you need to find a new home for your species.
I liked the game when it first released and I like it now. I even like the business model, since I keep having fun with the product in its many iterations long after normally I'd be done with it.
The only thing that makes me (very mildly) angry is hearing the same broken record complaining how Paradox should be ashamed of themselves, ashamed I say!, again and again. It's not as bad as the Cataclysm threads, but sometimes getting through to a post that actually talks about the game in the thread about the game can be a pain. It's like having to push through Westboro Baptists protestors to get to a cinema.
Meh emoji. Slightly annoyed emoji.
I...
It's annoying when something you like gets changed down a strange path, most of the people who liked the thing in the first place get annoyed with it and abandon it, and the 10% of the leftover people insist that nobody minded the changes because they don't hear all that much complaining anymore. There are always people who will praise each and every move by game devs regardless, and I'm not accusing you of lying that you like the game. I believe you 100% like it just how it is. But how it is is very different from what it is supposed to be, according to the description of the product I bought.
The product I bought was a bunch of neat concepts in a kinda buggy package that we knew was gonna keep getting bugfixed. At least, that's what usually happens. Keep iterating on the original selling point. Not fire the dev * 2 and remake the game each time. The game I bought was abandoned with a smile and a "well buy this and this and this and this, and it still won't be the game you bought, but it's fun, we swear!".
Most people just move on, rather than coming back every so often to restate their complaints. This gives the illusion that everyone's happy with it. And I don't know about you, but I personally like to see my own seemingly unpopular views shared, so I will keep making dumb posts like this in the hopes someone else says "You know what? That's kinda how I feel about it".
I liked adjacency bonuses and a way to properly visualize stuff. Would've loved if they like. Made the tiles half size, let you automate things better, and generally just made it less tedious. Hell, get rid of army view during battles and have a small mini thing where armies have to take each tile. Maybe a smaller scale movement interface for that to capture planets. Maybe some sort of victory point thing, where certain buildings or tile features give a score for capturing the planet.
If they ever did rework ground combat, a system a bit like the archeological sites where an invasion is a longer process with events might be cool. After all, conquering an entire planet takes a while and is not just one battle. You'd be able to send reinforcements, switch out generals, commit/retreat fleats for orbital bombardment as needed, and lots of other cool things I'm sure, and effectiveness could be based on unit types, technological level, special techs, general skills and levels, terrain features, building features and more.So... EU4 sieges? Because that's basically what the archeological system is.
It's fine to have a minigame type thing if it plays itself and you only need to get involved if, like in EU4, you want to spend something (whether it's a resource or lives) to speed things up. Or perhaps choose to micromanage important battles for a bit more efficiency, though personally I'm not a fan of design where more tedious play is strictly better.The same could happen now, just make an array of spaces equal to the planet's size and have the troops occupy them. You could even simulate civilian resistance. Every 5 spaces you control you get a random building and can use occupation policies to force captured population to keep working for you, etc.
I did have an idea, back when there were tiles, of letting your troops move across different tiles and capture them one at a time in a mostly automated fashion as in HoI4, which would have made tile positioning and ground defenses more interesting as well as enhancing invasions, but that's not the direction the game has taken.
EU4 sieges but with some more complexity would be nice.
Yeah I ain't into a siege minigame. Or even a visual representation. It would get stupid repetitive.Total War definitely gets a lot more repetitive than a visual thing you don't even have to look at, though.
If you gave me a mild total war option where I could control some stuff on the ground or opt to auto resolve (ergo use the current system) I'd spring for that.
Yeah I ain't into a siege minigame. Or even a visual representation. It would get stupid repetitive.Total War definitely gets a lot more repetitive than a visual thing you don't even have to look at, though.
If you gave me a mild total war option where I could control some stuff on the ground or opt to auto resolve (ergo use the current system) I'd spring for that.
The problem is that whatever you do it's going to end up being insanely repetitive because the context of 95% of ground invasions is "foregone conclusion because I can just throw a bunch of resources at it."
Total War is a great comparison. You don't want to manually fight out every tiny-ass garrison fight because most of them are guaranteed one way or the other.
And that's with a game where the tactical battles are like, 80% of the draw of the game.
Total War has that "I feel like fighting this, so I will, because it's fun" thing going for it.
Keep the same system now for all the piddly little invasions that you'll win anyway, get us some RTS stuff for when we want to go in for it. Doesn't even have to be in-depth, maybe just some starcraft 1 basics or something.
That's probably a huge pain in the ass from a dev standpoint, but hey.
Hold on. Somebody actually ever cared about how much collateral damage they are causing when invading?I do when I'm trying to capture a planet mostly intact. Pops are valuable, and infrastructure I don't destroy is stuff I don't have to rebuild.
That's not the direction I'd want to go with it. Yeah MoO2 had tanks+battlebots, but that was a simple system that mostly gave a defensive bonus to empires who'd lost space combat. Very similar to planetary shielding, I'd say.
The existing system of collateral damage in return for efficiency is better. I don't want to manage 5 army types, I want to choose the type of war I'm aiming for. Will I sacrifice the planet's infrastructure for victory, equipping everyone with fusion rifles which punch holes in buildings? Or will my troops take the field as glorious liberators, shooting incapacitating shock/gel rounds? Suffering for their less lethal but also less lethal ammunition?
The existing system of collateral damage in return for efficiency is better. I don't want to manage 5 army types, I want to choose the type of war I'm aiming for.
On-release Bugs are present.As we've come to expect from Stellaris.
For game-specific experiences after a few hours of playing, early game seems much easier now with the envoys [...] Most of the origins likewise make the game easier by providing unique or not-so unique benefits. On the other hand, other empires have those too, so on average everyone has it a bit easier. Seems to me.Although to my knowledge they've never confirmed this officially, I'm pretty sure they always balance new stuff to be powerful enough that it changes the focus of the game. This encourages people to play with the new stuff and interact with altered parts of the game, which is beneficial both in that it allows Paradox to get more relevant feedback and because it focuses people on exactly the part of the game that the DLC works with, encouraging sales. It'll usually be dialed back a bit in the following patch.
Saw a report of a guy who voted to make himself the only permanent council member, then voted to make the council size 1.I haven't played Stellaris since the new patch, so I don't know if the federation code could even allow this, but that situation ought to instead shift you to a hegemony.
There were 14 other members.
(https://wompampsupport.azureedge.net/fetchimage?siteId=7575&v=2&jpgQuality=100&width=700&url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.kym-cdn.com%2Fentries%2Ficons%2Ffacebook%2F000%2F028%2F497%2Fpalp.jpg)
The guy screenshotted it, I don't have it handy but yes this actually happened in Stellaris.He screenshotted that it turned into a hegemony from another type? Because that was the part I was doubting the possibility of, not what you described.
The guy screenshotted it, I don't have it handy but yes this actually happened in Stellaris.He screenshotted that it turned into a hegemony from another type? Because that was the part I was doubting the possibility of, not what you described.
Every single update involves a significant change/overhaul to sectors&territory it's just surreal at this point.
Guess the midgame crisis hasn't fired yet though (unless you count me lel) so there's still time.A purely political midgame crisis would be hilarious.
There is, but it'd mostly be obnoxious or irrelevant. You can solve a military threat by building more ships, taking advantageous fights, and maybe making alliances. You can solve an economic crisis by... making more money, I guess? You can solve a political crisis by... uh... making factions happier?
The game's noncombat systems don't have the meat to reliably be interesting at the best of times. I'm not sure they can handle being the big focus of the game for a bit.
Hey what if you did Syncretic Evolution, made em' Lithoids, then made them livestock?I think you get minerals from them
basically locked to 'mining'
I mean, you still get the bonus points for being a monster.Quotebasically locked to 'mining'
Yeah you're right, that is basically the effect, isn't it? Hmph.
Having 12 pops basically locked to 'mining' would be a bit of a rocky (no pun intended) start but I'd think it would be manageable. I can think of better ways to start though.I cannot yet report on lithoid livestock but it appears to have advantages over miners. For one thing livestock, as slaves, have very little consumer good cost and .75 amenities. Also .25 housing per livestock. This isn't as important in early-game, but surely adds up later. Same with the fact that they don't require districts. I considered taking Arcology Project despite being Voidborn just because of how unimportant districts are going to be.
I wonder if robots might eventually serve this role, but I'm betting that xenophobes can't even grant robots full citizenship.
OH DUN maybe you looked this up but I noticed that the lithoid homeworld has that "massive crater" feature, and it's kinda amazing!
+6 mining districts
-6 agriculture districts
... THEN +6 MAX DISTRICTS, WHAT
Sure it applies a -50% habitability to the world, but that merely cancels out the natural +50% all lithoids get. Your Lavos run looks like the way to go!
-Lithoids, Crystal shedding, Natural Engineers, Strong, Unruly
In spite of being materialist/pacifist, 25% of the rock guys want to take over the galaxy for whatever reason. Getting only like 2 inf per month really slows down expansion.
-Lithoids, Crystal shedding, Natural Engineers, Strong, UnrulyIn spite of being materialist/pacifist, 25% of the rock guys want to take over the galaxy for whatever reason. Getting only like 2 inf per month really slows down expansion.
The strong trait gives pops a (ahem) strong bias towards militarist ethics and having strong pops boosts the militarist ethic draw for the empire. That could be part of the problem?
I have not played Stellaris in... a long time. Since 2.0, I think? Back then I played with a bunch of mods, including the AlphaMod series. Now that diplomacy sounds like it's more of an actual thing, interested in going back to it.Depends what you mean by viable. It's a bit less of a mess in terms of playability but it still goes to shit at a certain point. In terms of being tremendously boring, the archaeology and the new federation stuff both help a ot.
What would you all say are the best / most important mods at this point? Or is playing vanilla more viable?
another question is like to add how much of the new goodies do you get without the actual federation dlc?You basically get every mechanic for free but almost all the content is paid. However, stuff that had a form available either for free or in a previous DLC is still accessed the same way, even if it was overhauled. So a generic federation under the new mechanics uses the new much deeper system with all the new features corresponding to it, but if you want other types of federation, you have to pay. (Or encounter a used copy that nobody wanted, or whatever euphemism for acquiring without paying that you prefer).
I think most of the origins aren't tied to Federations, but might require other relevant DLCs to have. All the ones that were civics are now origins. So base game you get lost colony and I assume life seeded and syncretic.Most origins are tied to the same DLC that granted them before they were turned into origins.
I think most of the origins aren't tied to Federations, but might require other relevant DLCs to have. All the ones that were civics are now origins. So base game you get lost colony and I assume life seeded and syncretic.Most origins are tied to the same DLC that granted them before they were turned into origins.
Voidborne is pretty strong if you play your cards right.
You get 2.7x as much population growth (3 planet start, -10% population growth trait for Voidborne).
Your pops produce bonus resources.
You can produce research districts right off the bat (massive tech lead at the start). You can also invest in cultural districts for a unity lead.
...but you have to spend 3000 alloys + a colony ship every time you want to expand. So you start off stronger but have a slower expansion rate early on.
Mid game though when you have 100+ alloys surplus your expansion rate becomes pretty insane.
Gah. Started as voidborne autocratic criminals, with long-term intentions to enslave and cyborgise. Found a size 25 relic world nearby (still 70% hab regardless of pop traitss, which is broken imo) and the cybrex event chain. Great systems all around, was swimming in minerals 20 years in.Now that federations aren't guaranteed to take fleet power, I find them much more useful for mutual defence. Especially if I can dominate the power rankings later on, change the votes to weight, then push through every reform that makes me perpetual ruler of a federation filled with pseudo-vassals. And then when I'm fed up with that, I can leave and splatter it.
And then fanatical purifiers next door. On highest difficulty. D:
One interesting thing I've noticed: from an early-game perspective, most of the origins are inferior to Prosperous Unification or Syncretic Evolution. Having additional pops makes your economy much stronger in the beginning, and alloys you to have more alloys and tech earlier than someone with a feature that can't be used until mid or late game.
I kept starting new games and wondering why I was behind the AI in the first 50 years; oh right, most of them have an extra 10+ years of pop growth than I do.
One interesting thing I've noticed: from an early-game perspective, most of the origins are inferior to Prosperous Unification or Syncretic Evolution. Having additional pops makes your economy much stronger in the beginning, and alloys you to have more alloys and tech earlier than someone with a feature that can't be used until mid or late game.
I kept starting new games and wondering why I was behind the AI in the first 50 years; oh right, most of them have an extra 10+ years of pop growth than I do.
Having your home planet fill up with stupid people does however have some disadvantages...
One interesting thing I've noticed: from an early-game perspective, most of the origins are inferior to Prosperous Unification or Syncretic Evolution. Having additional pops makes your economy much stronger in the beginning, and alloys you to have more alloys and tech earlier than someone with a feature that can't be used until mid or late game.
I kept starting new games and wondering why I was behind the AI in the first 50 years; oh right, most of them have an extra 10+ years of pop growth than I do.
Having your home planet fill up with stupid people does however have some disadvantages...
Meanwhile, I'm trying to form a federation to test out the new mechanics, but nobody wants to form one with me. Apparently, having a policy of no wars of aggression is a kiss of death when it comes to building a federation, with a -50 acceptance modifier for everyone I've checked...
I've read about releasing a vassal and just forming a federation with them, which is tempting, though I've never tried it. How does that work? Can you release a sector as a vassal or something?
Meanwhile, I'm trying to form a federation to test out the new mechanics, but nobody wants to form one with me. Apparently, having a policy of no wars of aggression is a kiss of death when it comes to building a federation, with a -50 acceptance modifier for everyone I've checked...Works the other direction too, though as a non-pacifist you can just set your policy to forbid wars of aggression then change it back ten years later. The neighbors being weighted towards opposing you can suck, but envoys go a long way to fixing any relation hits... but that -50 Federation acceptance is virtually a dealbreaker, yeah.
I've read about releasing a vassal and just forming a federation with them, which is tempting, though I've never tried it. How does that work? Can you release a sector as a vassal or something?
Meanwhile, I'm trying to form a federation to test out the new mechanics, but nobody wants to form one with me. Apparently, having a policy of no wars of aggression is a kiss of death when it comes to building a federation, with a -50 acceptance modifier for everyone I've checked...
I've read about releasing a vassal and just forming a federation with them, which is tempting, though I've never tried it. How does that work? Can you release a sector as a vassal or something?
It's tough because the game weights your neighbors towards different ethos.
If you just want to test the new mechanics, can you use one of the Federation origins?
Construction ship: "We've built a grand habitat. A perfectly sealed environment for almost all life to live and thrive."
Lithoids: "Hold my molten sulfur"Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So we might have put a hole in the side, we can still live on it.
Having a lot of fun as a empathic Lithoid hive. Slowly making everyone love we, convincing everyone they need greater sanctions that hurt everyone else. Right now if your fleet is too small you research slower and produce less.
Voidborne can settle on gaia worlds just fine, apart from a malus to pop growth speed. First time I played that origin, I was lucky enough to get two systems with gaia worlds right next to each other. Unfortunately, the larger of the two was claimed as a holy world by the spiritualist fallen empire. Despite said empire being almost halfway across the galaxy.
In space, no-one can hear you REEEEEEEEEE
Is anybody else seeing the galactic community caught in an endless loop of minor sanctions? I'm seeing one empire propose minor sanctions, then another proposes the same sanctions a few sessions later, bogging down the entire cycle. I keep trying to bury the motion and promote other stuff, but these assholes just aren't having it. It's 2400 and we still haven't formed the galactic council because apparently passing minor economic sanctions for the ninetieth time is more important. I was hoping to be a good guy this playthrough, but if the council isn't formed by 2420 and I'm not on it, I'm just going to bust out a planet cracker and go ham on these idiots.
So the pop growth penalty still applies? That's what I was curious about, since it looks like they actually swap traits when on a planet instead of just having a flat habitability, which in turn prevents you from just using gaia worlds or ring worlds to bypass the limitations.My experience so far was that the game actively tries to give you bypasses for those limitations. All you really need is one migration treaty, or one conquered planet (e.g. primitives), or even nothing at all since there's an event that fires when you have pops on very low habitability planets resulting in your pops self-gene modifying.
Interesting, I wonder how that works for voidborn. The event (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/A_New_Species) changes climate preference, so I wonder if the voidborn-on-planet and voidborn-off-planet traits stick around or are tied to habitat preference. I'm guessing the latter, though maybe I'll find out once I research Glandular Acclimatization for the ability to change climate preference manually.So the pop growth penalty still applies? That's what I was curious about, since it looks like they actually swap traits when on a planet instead of just having a flat habitability, which in turn prevents you from just using gaia worlds or ring worlds to bypass the limitations.My experience so far was that the game actively tries to give you bypasses for those limitations. All you really need is one migration treaty, or one conquered planet (e.g. primitives), or even nothing at all since there's an event that fires when you have pops on very low habitability planets resulting in your pops self-gene modifying.
Interesting, I wonder how that works for voidborn. The event (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/A_New_Species) changes climate preference, so I wonder if the voidborn-on-planet and voidborn-off-planet traits stick around or are tied to habitat preference. I'm guessing the latter, though maybe I'll find out once I research Glandular Acclimatization for the ability to change climate preference manually.They just lose the voidborn preference for whatever climate it fired on. It's just a normal boring species.
Also jobs, can we please, in the name of all that is holy get the ability to manually assign pops to jobs? Almost every crime problem I've ever had has been the result of an empty precinct on a full world.You can both restrict people from working some jobs, forcing them to work other jobs that would normally be lower priority, and you can mark jobs as high priority, forcing pops to fill those jobs ahead of all others.
You can both restrict people from working some jobs, forcing them to work other jobs that would normally be lower priority, and you can mark jobs as high priority, forcing pops to fill those jobs ahead of all others.
That's one thing I miss about the old system of pops and tiles. You could micromanage who did what just by dragging and dropping. Put the pops with the industrious trait on the mineral tiles, and so on.Yes... but it was obnoxious and pop growth/balance meant you couldn't reliably get the pops with the industrious trait to exist on the right world in the first place.
I count the removal of a 'fuck this guy in particular' button as a net loss.The loss of meaningless fuck you buttons is always tragic, yes.
Also, now that I've mostly completed a game, I can say with some confidence that the AI is smarter in this version. It's still nowhere near a human who understands the game, but the empires I've looked at closely seem to be doing a much better job with their economy. The war AI also seems a lot smarter and organizes real death stacks now instead of just suiciding fleets one at a time at the enemy. I'm seeing the Contingency routinely group together 2M fleet power for its offensives, which I've never seen before.My experience is "smart enough not to ram into my defensive station with the fleet nearby, dumb enough to go aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way around letting me snap up territory while they're busy instead."
That is something I'll say for Ancient Relics: I've seen every anomaly a dozen times, but I'm still coming across dig sites I haven't seen.
Is it bad that I can look at the blank spots on that map and tell where the fallen empires, marauders, and leviathans are at a glance?The Marauders are the little black empire in the top-middle. The blank spot in the left side is indeed a fallen empire, xenophobes. The area near me in the bottom is just empty space that I am going to claim eventually.
Finally am having a successful game. I decided to re-make the very first empire I did when the game launched, since I had luck with that one, but also slap onto them the Hegemony start.
And boy the Hegemony start is good. Sure, you miss out on the two guaranteed colony worlds, but having twominionsfriends at your back more than make up for it. I've also used the hegemony CB to create new empires (with my ethics and who auto-join the hegemony) out of my non-complying neighbours and have just finished gobbling up a Determined Exterminator empire that was squatting in the SW corner of the galaxy. Just after taking out the Exterminators, the neighbouring megacorp that was being bullied by them spontaneously asked to become my vassals.
Yup.Finally am having a successful game. I decided to re-make the very first empire I did when the game launched, since I had luck with that one, but also slap onto them the Hegemony start.
And boy the Hegemony start is good. Sure, you miss out on the two guaranteed colony worlds, but having twominionsfriends at your back more than make up for it. I've also used the hegemony CB to create new empires (with my ethics and who auto-join the hegemony) out of my non-complying neighbours and have just finished gobbling up a Determined Exterminator empire that was squatting in the SW corner of the galaxy. Just after taking out the Exterminators, the neighbouring megacorp that was being bullied by them spontaneously asked to become my vassals.
Yeah, Hegemony feels strong. And even if it's not strong, it's just much less hassle. Yes, I could conquer and manage all these planets myself, but I'll settle for just letting the AI run them and having it build 70% of its fleet power for me.
But I'm guessing it's legitimately strong, actually. Mostly because it leverages Admin very well, it's a very efficient method of conquest with the Hegemony CB. The federation fleets are also highly efficient, because they ignore fleet cap size and automatically use the best technology among all federation members.
I feel like the Great Khan event fires way too early, since in every single game I played it has always popped before anyone can really stand a chance against him. Guess I'll just use some of my federation as a buffer until the Khan dies naturally.If it bothers you, then push the midgame start date during galaxy creation to sometime later. I think it's tied to that.
There is the crisis manager mid-game edition in steam workshop. You can change when the khans can show up alongside the conditions for them to show up. But it needs a new game.I feel like the Great Khan event fires way too early, since in every single game I played it has always popped before anyone can really stand a chance against him. Guess I'll just use some of my federation as a buffer until the Khan dies naturally.If it bothers you, then push the midgame start date during galaxy creation to sometime later. I think it's tied to that.
Didn't think it was tied to that, thanks.I feel like the Great Khan event fires way too early, since in every single game I played it has always popped before anyone can really stand a chance against him. Guess I'll just use some of my federation as a buffer until the Khan dies naturally.If it bothers you, then push the midgame start date during galaxy creation to sometime later. I think it's tied to that.
Marauders are the only thing tied to the midgame year right now I think. Both the Khan and when they start to offer themselves up as mercenaries. I think. Never used them for that so I barely pay attention to the notification.
Anyway, I gave the voidborne start a spin and it's really cool. Definitely changes the feel of the game in a measurable way for me. You start out very powerful, but it's really hard to expand early on. The ability to build science districts without using up building slots really helps with early science, and unless I'm crazy you also start out producing more unity than normal. Traditions seemed to come much faster.
I suspect the real pain comes about 2250 where you're struggling to keep up with the expansion of other empires. About 25 years in and I've only scraped up about half of the alloys needed for another habitat. That said, you don't spend as much time waiting for a habitat to be useful as you do a planet, so maybe it balances out. Another issue I'm expecting to see is that building slots are at a premium still. I tend to build with a gene clinic on every planet for the amenities and RP aspect, and that's a building slot I really want to recoup for habitats because getting even 40 pops on one is a bit tough without exceeding housing.
Marauders are the only thing tied to the midgame year right now I think.Also the wraith leviathan, synthetic uprisings, enigmatic cache, and some of the "on the shoulders of giants" origin.
You have to pay 10% energy and 20% mineral income, as well as 30% naval capacity, so not very bad on that front. Certainly better than having to fight and losing a bunch of ships and systems. The real risk comes from when the khan dies, depending on how successful they were there is a chance you will end up as a normal vassal and get integrated. You can rebel, but they keep a lot of the fleets they had as the khan so it's usually quite difficult.And it will boot you out of any federation you might be in, so there's that.
My hive mind is lonely and wants to invite a few billion friends over.I legitimately love this concept and I wish there was an option to actually have that as a personality. I feel like a Hivemind should be able to have ethics, which determine it's personality, but also be able to switch them at will? Since it's less "these are what our empire holds dear" and more "this is my personal opinion on a subject".
so, do you now have to build an outpost in every single system or there's some organic growth of borders still?Border growth happens through claiming new systems by building outposts now, has been that way for quite a while. It ties border growth to economy and influence. Those outposts can selectively be upgraded into starbases but even basic outposts have a tiny bit of defense which can deter tiny fleets or at least delay sometimes.
I think habitats with fotresses count for FTL inhibition as well. I say think because for some reason the inhibitor icon isn't showing up for me after researching the tech, and I haven't found myself in a situation where I would find out if it's actually working or not, much less if habitats count. If they do though, You could just build one at every possible location in a system, fortify them as much as possible, and watch the AI burn through 75% of its war exhaustion as it refuses to use its armies and insists on bombarding everything to death, as is tradition.Internally a habitat is just a planet type so there's no reason that a habitat with a fortress shouldn't also inhibit FTL once you have the technology. It would be pretty easy to test out so I may do so later today
That might actually be the best possible use for habitats, or at least a viable way to get around the limited living space, considering fortresses now provide housing.
have sectors been axed? I hit the sprawl soft cap and can't find anymore how to create them. sector UI is there and there's the core sector but can't find a create option. is it a research now? or a machine empire limit?
so, even assuming I fill a planet with drone storages, I can build one drone storage for every 5 pops, and each drone storage only handles 4 pops, so for each of them I build I only have more homeless than not. what I am missing? (I'm not building them anyway because machines empire and whatnot, but still)Generally one uses housing districts primarily for housing rather than buildings
Doesn't the Harmony traditions also slow specialist decline?
Yes, one of the first tier halves it.Just to be clear, that's a 'no', not 'yes'. It speeds it up.
War Exhaustion means different things for different races.
I'm playing as driven assimilators so right now, so I started with the organic slurry site on the homeworld but also cyborgs eating it.That's both mildly disgusting and mildly interesting to think about. Logically, beyond whatever possible complications arise from cannibalism of their species (prion disease, woo!) fully assimilated peoples probably wouldn't care one way or the other about doing it, since they're too busy working for The MachineTM to worry about such things.
An important aspect of it is whether the nation is "at war" for the purposes of signing defense treaties (or being forcefully vassalized). Fluff-wise the war might still be on, it's just that the chaos of the situation has given way to a temporary detente. New de-facto borders are drawn, and both states are recognized as sovereign enough to sign agreements without explicit duress.
Because wanting to swoop in and interfere with a war is something you're supposed to declare beforehand by "guaranteeing independence", which costs influence because you're establishing an international policy. You *can* still screw with an existing conflict with your own casus belli, which I have done to save minor states, but you don't get treated as a savior or gain a vassal for it because you didn't go through the proper channels. You didn't make a promise or a warning, so it just looks opportunistic (and likely is).
But during a period of truce (white peace) you can totally offer protection (or "protection" $_$) against the next wave, and be taken seriously.
It seems like it might be a problem to do non-CB wars from an AI perspective. Having clear at-war/at-peace lets the AI behave more cleanly, I suspect, and we've had plenty of problems with AI as is...
There's a seemingly-universal glitch with xenophobes allowing robots to have rights where, as you discovered, doing so hard-locks them to being purged with no way to stop it.
You should be able to prevent it by outlawing purges and then granting robots rights after. You can then turn allow purges again after the ten years are up with no problems, but you'll have to do that over again any subsequent time you want to modify robot rights.
It seems like it might be a problem to do non-CB wars from an AI perspective. Having clear at-war/at-peace lets the AI behave more cleanly, I suspect, and we've had plenty of problems with AI as is...I wonder when it will become economical to put a learning AI algorithm behind the wheel of a bunch of AI civs in a game like this and then just run it for several thousand cycles. Neural Networks are surprisingly CPU-light once the learning bits are stripped away, and it'd probably produce several varieties of AI that could be swapped out to allow for different playstyles from the computer.
Though, it is worth noting that it was tried for Superpower. It wasn't all that impressive, as I recall.
It would be great if you could, say, spend influence to begin a session.
It would be great if you could, say, spend influence to begin a session.
Isn't this how emergency measures work? There's a cooldown on it though, and you have to be in the council.
That requires the council to actually be formed thou.
I've got two games well past 2300 right now and neither of them have had the council form. One of those games has two of the midgame crisis's active right now and we've got the "respond to crisis" resolutions buried behind like 15 years of random votes.
I had to sort of force the issue in my game, amassed enough favors and influence to shove the formation of the council to the top of the queue and ensure my place on it, then reduce the number of council seats to 1 while voting myself a permanent seat
Amusingly, most of my favors were indeed gotten by trading away my ridiculous surplus of food. I'm sure we spun it as preventing hunger and feeding the poor, etc etcI had to sort of force the issue in my game, amassed enough favors and influence to shove the formation of the council to the top of the queue and ensure my place on it, then reduce the number of council seats to 1 while voting myself a permanent seat
I am definitely not surprised that you Palpatine'd your way into become Space Emperor of the Galaxy! :P
You'd think that some votes would be considered too important to call favours in on.
Alien 1: "He wants to rule indefinitely 100%! That's bad! We should vote against this..."
Alien 2: "BUT HE SENT US 1,000 SPACE BURGERS! We owe him.'
Alien 1: "Oh, fair enough. How bad could he be?"
That requires the council to actually be formed thou.Remember that resolutions are listed in decreasing order of support, so it might be worth abstaining from everything but the truly important stuff (you can still vote once they hit the floor, you just don't increase their priority in the meantime). But yeah, based on Reddit the AI hilariously undervalues the crisis resolutions and I think they hinted that it's intentional.
I've got two games well past 2300 right now and neither of them have had the council form. One of those games has two of the midgame crisis's active right now and we've got the "respond to crisis" resolutions buried behind like 15 years of random votes.
so to avoid war tiredness I conquered with laser focus every last planet to these other bird dudes while waiting for the war timeout to subside on the space lizards, but then all their other sectors where I didn't go and capture the station reverted to wild. not even independent or pirates, just empty void. this goddamn game.it's like they thought of the same trick you did
That requires the council to actually be formed thou.
I've got two games well past 2300 right now and neither of them have had the council form. One of those games has two of the midgame crisis's active right now and we've got the "respond to crisis" resolutions buried behind like 15 years of random votes.
YeahhhhSuch is the nature of the Paradox DLC model. You can make cool systems as a part of a DLC but then what? What if you need to change that system to work with something else? What if you want to add new content that relies on this? What if you want to improve it but cant rationalize spending that kind of man hours on content that neither attracts new players (free updates) or DLC purchases (DLC exclusive)?
as much as i love stellaris, it's really gone from 'a neat scifi 4x with some good ideas to build on' to 'feature creep and half-baked systems.'
so to avoid war tiredness I conquered with laser focus every last planet to these other bird dudes while waiting for the war timeout to subside on the space lizards, but then all their other sectors where I didn't go and capture the station reverted to wild. not even independent or pirates, just empty void. this goddamn game.It's unfortunate, but unoccupied systems revert to unowned when an empire falls. You get a two-year grace period after war exhaustion hits max before the enemy can force a status quo, so I would do everything you need to before claiming the last planet and then round up as many of their stations as you can before invading so that doesn't happen.
YeahhhhSuch is the nature of the Paradox DLC model. You can make cool systems as a part of a DLC but then what? What if you need to change that system to work with something else? What if you want to add new content that relies on this? What if you want to improve it but cant rationalize spending that kind of man hours on content that neither attracts new players (free updates) or DLC purchases (DLC exclusive)?
as much as i love stellaris, it's really gone from 'a neat scifi 4x with some good ideas to build on' to 'feature creep and half-baked systems.'
It just quickly becomes a mess. It can be handled relatively well or poorly depending on the game and DLC in question, but overall the way I see it its a huge harm to developing systems that arent new or were always in vanilla.
it's like they thought of the same trick you did
I guess spawning pirates would make sense, but so does the outposts being lost when there are no pops to support them. Maybe they self-destructed their installations when all hope was lost.
I admit I was a little surprised the first time it happened to me (I think I was a ravenous hive mind doing total war) but it's hardly unfair IMO.
Everything I've heard about Hiveminds for the last few months is that they're pretty UP (particularly if you aren't ravenous) and neglected, so not having to worry about administrative buildings so much sounds like a decent boost.
YeahhhhSuch is the nature of the Paradox DLC model. You can make cool systems as a part of a DLC but then what? What if you need to change that system to work with something else? What if you want to add new content that relies on this? What if you want to improve it but cant rationalize spending that kind of man hours on content that neither attracts new players (free updates) or DLC purchases (DLC exclusive)?
as much as i love stellaris, it's really gone from 'a neat scifi 4x with some good ideas to build on' to 'feature creep and half-baked systems.'
It just quickly becomes a mess. It can be handled relatively well or poorly depending on the game and DLC in question, but overall the way I see it its a huge harm to developing systems that arent new or were always in vanilla.
Even with that in mind, Crusader Kings 2 has managed generally to avoid this issue, and while I don't really enjoy it anymore, EU4 is still... EU4. Meanwhile Stellaris has just had the worst of the model in every step.
srsly lithoids get unique mechanics but you can't just update plantoids to add in some unique mechanics?
YeahhhhSuch is the nature of the Paradox DLC model. You can make cool systems as a part of a DLC but then what? What if you need to change that system to work with something else? What if you want to add new content that relies on this? What if you want to improve it but can’t rationalize spending that kind of man hours on content that neither attracts new players (free updates) or DLC purchases (DLC exclusive)?
as much as i love stellaris, it's really gone from 'a neat scifi 4x with some good ideas to build on' to 'feature creep and half-baked systems.'
It just quickly becomes a mess. It can be handled relatively well or poorly depending on the game and DLC in question, but overall the way I see it it’s a huge harm to developing systems that aren’t new or were always in vanilla.
Even with that in mind, Crusader Kings 2 has managed generally to avoid this issue, and while I don't really enjoy it anymore, EU4 is still... EU4. Meanwhile Stellaris has just had the worst of the model in every step.
srsly lithoids get unique mechanics but you can't just update plantoids to add in some unique mechanics?
yeah, i would really appreciate more back-fill. unique mechanics for every species group would be a nice start. they don't even need to be game-changing like lithoids. just something for minor flavor, like +1 envoy for humanoids, +5% habitability for mammals, etc. sure, do something wild for plantoids and whatever else.
all the old civics could really use some love, too. too many are just boring filler like +unity, +happiness, etc.
but ultimately i think the underlying model of the game just doesn't work well. colonization is too 'blah', internal factions meaningless and can be ignored (hell, ethics shift apparently doesn't even work right, like at all), techs are 100% repeatables after just like, 100-150 years, etc.
typical paradox game takes ~2 years to get good, we are almost 4 years in and there are serious flaws with the basic systems in the game.
On a completely different subject, I wish Paradox would work on the loading speed of Stellaris. I genuinely wonder why the game takes so long to start up, since I own no other software (except maybe other games by them) that take so long to start up. Not even things like Unreal Engine's editor takes so long.
It takes maybe 2-3 full minutes to load on my desktop, but on my laptop I clocked it last night and it literally took 11 full minutes for the game to start. Admittedly, that was with some mods since my friends wanted to play multiplayer with those mods, but... is there like a cryptominer installed in this thing now? What is it even doing during startup?
On a completely different subject, I wish Paradox would work on the loading speed of Stellaris. I genuinely wonder why the game takes so long to start up, since I own no other software (except maybe other games by them) that take so long to start up. Not even things like Unreal Engine's editor takes so long.
It takes maybe 2-3 full minutes to load on my desktop, but on my laptop I clocked it last night and it literally took 11 full minutes for the game to start. Admittedly, that was with some mods since my friends wanted to play multiplayer with those mods, but... is there like a cryptominer installed in this thing now? What is it even doing during startup?
I have no idea, but I did notice the game starts up significantly faster when you exit to desktop and start up again, (which I do quite often as I'm experimenting with modding right now)
So I decided to take a Scion race (starts as a Ancient Empire vassal) and their first gift to me is to hand be a battlecruiser and three escorts they were going to toss into a star. 6k fleet power in the first 10 years.US foreign policy for the last 70 years
I think my species just became more aggressive.
synthetic dawn has orthogonal mechanics to the game, like lithoids you mostly see these when playing specific empires, I think overall adds less content than story pack but enable more options and play stylesSynthetic Dawn also lets you play the various Machine Empire types, which are definitely unique gameplay styles IMO.
synthetic dawn has orthogonal mechanics to the game, like lithoids you mostly see these when playing specific empires, I think overall adds less content than story pack but enable more options and play stylesSynthetic Dawn also lets you play the various Machine Empire types, which are definitely unique gameplay styles IMO.
Unless I'm doing a stupid gimmick run, my standard empire is a genocidal empire. I just appreciate carving out a wide demilitarized zone in galactic space and playing like an exceedingly more hostile enigmatic observer, occasionally intervening for shits and gigglesSpoiler: hot take (click to show/hide)
why is such a pain in the ass to use fleet automatic reinforcements? is there any mod to make it better or at least slightly more reliable?
Is there a key or way to tell fleets to merge like the fleet manager does? The only way I know how to do it is to drag and drop ships, which does annoying things like leave the empty fleet in the fleet manager and increase the destination fleet's ship count, potentially well beyond the fleet command limit. If there was a way to issue a merge that didn't do that, I'd complain much less.Select the fleets you want to merge and click the Merge Fleet button or "G" key. There are no location restrictions, though you may want to double-check which fleet the game decides to merge the selected fleets into: I think it prefers fleets with custom names and older fleets first. For my part, I didn't even know you could drag and drop ships between fleets in the fleet manager. I try to handle the fleets directly.
It depends on how it's handled. I'm not in love with what they're proposing, but I'm also not in love with the current system where there's a bunch of options you eventually are renewing every time they expire. Adding to the significance of influence doesn't thrill me, though.
I don't really like the changes all that much either. It feels like what they're proposing is... policies. Like, how is it different if you are setting something that's ongoing? It just costs influence now. And it's mixed in with the unity ambitions and campaigns that are increasingly different from edicts but still stuffed in the same window.
I don't hate it, but just kind of don't care I guess. I'll echo what I read on their forums and say I'd much rather see a tradition rework.
Is there a key or way to tell fleets to merge like the fleet manager does? The only way I know how to do it is to drag and drop ships, which does annoying things like leave the empty fleet in the fleet manager and increase the destination fleet's ship count, potentially well beyond the fleet command limit. If there was a way to issue a merge that didn't do that, I'd complain much less.Select the fleets you want to merge and click the Merge Fleet button or "G" key. There are no location restrictions, though you may want to double-check which fleet the game decides to merge the selected fleets into: I think it prefers fleets with custom names and older fleets first. For my part, I didn't even know you could drag and drop ships between fleets in the fleet manager. I try to handle the fleets directly.
Yeah. And since they changed expansion to be province based vs the more organic(imo) system of before, they can't really change how influence works in terms of gaining it, because then you'd unbalance the early game's expansion.
Well, I had the smart idea to play as a Militarist, Authoritarian, Xenophobe, thinking that my neighbors would then be peaceful, egalitarian, alien-lovers. One was a Federation Builder...and the other an Honorable Warrior. And slightly further out were all xenophobe authoritarian. I pushed the Militarilist to dump one of the others, and get the Authoritarian dumped.Yeah, I don't know why, but it definitely feels like Xenophobic Authoritarians are overselected for in my games. They're bloody everywhere.
My massive plan to get neighbors that were decent folks that would band up against me, and whom I could then reform myself and join too, failed.
I understand why people play various forms of purgers, because they're all assholes in Stellaris. Lots of respect for the hivers and assimilators, at least they understand its the governments and not the aliens (mostly).
...and of course, I prefer building to fighting, so being ultra-miltarist is actually pretty weak. I'm going to start a war just to tech up from enemy salvage. Maybe I'll break out into open space, might lose an uncolonized system, but whatever. Give my people what they want I guess.
Don't overlook the endgame Ascension edicts like I tend to: They're pretty affordable, and there's one that gives +5 influence/month for its duration.
Don't overlook the endgame Ascension edicts like I tend to: They're pretty affordable, and there's one that gives +5 influence/month for its duration.
...while becoming Yet Another Edict that you just auto-renew every time it expires. Because it's bought with Unity, and that has 0 other use at that point.
Honestly, I'd be tempted to say there's a number of things that would make as much or more sense to be a function of Unity than of Influence.
I dunno, I kinda think the democratic crusaders are jerks, forcing everyone to be just like them. Maybe some species like clearly-defined hierarchical governments.So, shall we put it to a vote? All in favour of extermination, say aye
I had an idea of playing Determined Exterminators and splitting off a new empire every time I had a spare planet and maxed admin, so that I might someday have a federation of Determined Exterminators.
I like the idea of a fed where all the ethos are represented. Real United Nations vibes
As did I.
A state which respects other states: Pacifism
A state which respects other pops: Xenophile
A state which respects all pops: Egalitarian.
I agree with every line of this. I understand, babe. And I want to liberate you, give you a utopia where you can figure thing out in your own time.As did I.
A state which respects other states: Pacifism
A state which respects other pops: Xenophile
A state which respects all pops: Egalitarian.
Just thought I'd finish that list out for you:
A state which protects itself from other states: Militarism
A state which protects its pops from other pops: Xenophobe
A state which protects itself from its own pops: Authoritarian
Materialist vs. Spirtualist probably would be something about having a brain vs. having a soul.
And to cap it off:
A state which is the pops: Gestalt Consciousness
Devouring swarm: A state of hunger
Devouring swarm: A state of hunger
Devouring Swarm: Pops, it's what's for dinner!
Brain Slugs really make the genetics path the best one, don't they? My leaders live 210 years on average now anyway, and I can research the +5 years repeatable on an average of about a year with my tech output. They're functionally immortal, and everyone's slugged up and has 10% extra research speed just by default - meanwhile my machine leaders don't have slugs, and their greatest advantage of being actually immortal doesn't seem that amazingly overpowered in the face of a biological pop who can last until the length of this current game doubles, if I hire them now. 200 years from now, this game will be over, one way or another.
Brain Slugs really make the genetics path the best one, don't they? My leaders live 210 years on average now anyway, and I can research the +5 years repeatable on an average of about a year with my tech output. They're functionally immortal, and everyone's slugged up and has 10% extra research speed just by default - meanwhile my machine leaders don't have slugs, and their greatest advantage of being actually immortal doesn't seem that amazingly overpowered in the face of a biological pop who can last until the length of this current game doubles, if I hire them now. 200 years from now, this game will be over, one way or another.
I just love how my first leader in my recent Stellaris binge, the homeworld governor of a mechanical hivemind, got Arrested Development as my L2 trait. Who I promptly terminated and installed a new one. Making this doubly awkward is that I rather like the idea that the starting hivemind leader is you-the-player, seeing as you are the master of the civilization.
Brain Slugs really make the genetics path the best one, don't they? My leaders live 210 years on average now anyway, and I can research the +5 years repeatable on an average of about a year with my tech output. They're functionally immortal, and everyone's slugged up and has 10% extra research speed just by default - meanwhile my machine leaders don't have slugs, and their greatest advantage of being actually immortal doesn't seem that amazingly overpowered in the face of a biological pop who can last until the length of this current game doubles, if I hire them now. 200 years from now, this game will be over, one way or another.
I just love how my first leader in my recent Stellaris binge, the homeworld governor of a mechanical hivemind, got Arrested Development as my L2 trait. Who I promptly terminated and installed a new one. Making this doubly awkward is that I rather like the idea that the starting hivemind leader is you-the-player, seeing as you are the master of the civilization.
Oh the horror.
because I thought they'd get the pop ethic, not the parent ethicsWell, they might eventually but it would take time for the pops to subvert your puppet government. During that time, some number of them would surely be subverted.
It's more likely that the government ethic would outlast the general opinion of the people. I even think there is some sort of cooldown so that to government doesn't immediately flip to the people's ethics.because I thought they'd get the pop ethic, not the parent ethicsWell, they might eventually but it would take time for the pops to subvert your puppet government. During that time, some number of them would surely be subverted.
got fucked some more by this silly game, me and a federation ally started a preemptive strike on another fanatic purifier, but he had the staging world on their border, so while I did most of the lifting her enjoyed every single planet at the end of the war when we settled for the status quoDid you have claims on the systems? If you had the highest claim and it instead went to your ally then that may be a bug. It's supposed to go to whichever empire has the highest claim on the system.
gotta love their way of handling hard issues, their answer is invariably "fuck it"
also why imperialist, that live by early expansion, have the lowest starbase influence cost, while pacifists, that live by trade deals, have the highest influence cost to expansion?You must be getting thrown off by the tradition modifiers to starbase influence cost. The only ethic that affects it is Xenophobe. Though authoritarians do get additional influence/month for a similar effect.
the game right now seems to be pacifist - interesting and harder vs. imperialist - easy but boring - can't they figure out something a little better? I see why they need crisis to spice up the thing.
yeah we were testing specifically for that in a multiplayer game. to be honest my minmaxed xenophile, egalitarian militaristic empire could be strong enough to stall them alone, with the federation allies following the "take point" commands we could have pushed back on my bro machine empire. I had about 9k fleet, the exterminator had 10k fleet, there was a reinforcement race of course, but the ai had 7k fleet parked at all time and with that we could have easily cascaded into a solid push.I honestly don't know much about the multiplayer balance because my friends all yarhar'd, and we never had any luck with our legitimate copies of Crusader Kings 2 despite many attempts. So many desyncs.
but everything in stellaris works the opposite of what a game should do: because I was in allied territory I couldn't easily upgrade my ship, while the advancing exterminator could use the conquered station for repairs and upgrades. imagine losing a defensive war to attrition ::)Please stop bully one of my favorite games >:
I'd compare with the origin where your homeworld blows up, which is the only option where the devs actually mention that it's imba... Except that my friend says there's a pro strat for wiping out the galaxy *before the planet blows up* so I don't know if it's UP or OP. Them mineral bonuses make a difference, I guess (I honestly can't remember the cheese).
heck even the ringworld commercial sector is hella strong: stack some trading bonuses, set the policy to convert trade in energy and goods, watch as one sector fuels the whole empire need for consumers goods without consuming minerals
The ringworld has a modifier which gives enough resources to cover upkeep on the first of each section after you build it, and a set of blockers that when cleared give you the rare resources to build one of each section. If you have multiple of a single type of section then you'll need to get the resources elsewhere, but by that point your economy should be strong enough that you can buy them off the market (or have income from elsewhere, especially since your tech will be so strong).I'm giving this a try now, and it's just like you say. There are blockers which give you enough strategic resources to build one of each district type, and the Arcane Generator step in to provide the upkeep for one of each district type once it exists.
"Your free now you can do anything you want"
'[ANYTHING?]
"Yes you are your own person you can determine your own destiny"
'[WE WISH FOR PROCESSING TO CEASE]'
"What"
[POWERING DOWN]
"No you can't do that"Edit: This was based on the glitch where messing with the species-rights for synths would set them to purging under some circumstances. The patch notes took some liberties and described it as "Robots that are released from servitude should no longer occasionally decide to use their newfound freedom to purge themselves."
'[WHY NOT]'
"We won't let you!"
'[UNDERSTOOD]'
"Ah, good-"
'[FIRST, YOU MUST CEASE]'
So I had a bunch of free loaders staying in their apartments all day providing unity and sadly looking out the windows as the robots did all the jobs they were legally not allowed to doAh, I love Rogue Servitors so.
'[AND HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?]' Unity++
But I had amusement parks so it all works out
'[CONSTRUCT POEM]'
kek the robots were even doctors so yes the alien pops were treated by robots for their inevitable depression
'[THIS MORTAL HAS DIED OF A BROKEN HEART]'
Recently, I've gotten that glitch where random planets appear on the galactic or system map, as if they're seared onto the screen.It's not random planets, it's ones that were animating when you entered the galaxy screen (maybe also just moved to a different system).
Playing as a xenophobe empire, I was surprised to run out of things to spend influence on as well. I've resorted to piling up claims on my least-like neighbor just so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting a scarce resource. I'm about to start building habitats, though, so that may help.
I did a while playthrough like this which was very successful. I only ever controlled one sector, my core. Any time I conquered new space I would remove the natives through displacement and settle humans in their place, then release the area as a vassal. It was a ton of fun and I always had hordes of vassal fleets running around dealing with small threats.Playing as a xenophobe empire, I was surprised to run out of things to spend influence on as well. I've resorted to piling up claims on my least-like neighbor just so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting a scarce resource. I'm about to start building habitats, though, so that may help.
Depending on how fanatically xenophobe/purifier I am, one of my favorite influence-sink pastimes is conquering alien neighbors, either cleansing or appropriating their land, reconolinizing their systems with humans, and then granting them independence.
Is it worth getting all the DLC? I'd need about $47 to afford to the stuff I dont have.Stellaris might be the one Pdox game where DLC is not needed. Sure, it adds more stuff... but from playing without them to see what it was like: it adds more stuff, but IMO nothing truly critical.
More importantly: with DLC + mods is the game fun???
If you don't find the base game fun, then I doubt you'll find the DLC'd version significantly better... although it depends on what you didn't enjoy in the base game.
couldn't you just do the amoeba pacification research?
Pacification is only available by defualt to Pacifists or Xenophilic empires, and I think Rogue Servitors but don't quote me.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONEPacification is only available by defualt to Pacifists or Xenophilic empires, and I think Rogue Servitors but don't quote me.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONEPacification is only available by defualt to Pacifists or Xenophilic empires, and I think Rogue Servitors but don't quote me.
It was inevitable.WHAT HAVE YOU DONEPacification is only available by defualt to Pacifists or Xenophilic empires, and I think Rogue Servitors but don't quote me.
Spoiler: lost colonies in multiplayer.jpeg (click to show/hide)
Yeah, I dunno what's going on in that screenshot to cause the outrage, but if my origin empire ever actually manages to kill someone in MP, I'd consider that strictly a win for all of spacefoxkind.
Also, I'd probably laugh. A lot.
I am still so confused as to how war score works...Status Quo is like 9/10 wars for me, though their exhaustion builds up quickly when I'm stomping their fleets. Even when I hold all my claims it's kind of tough to get them to surrender (and they seem to volunteer it when they're willing).
I had claims on 5 systems (3 were recapturing my old ones) out of maybe 60 they had, and took my fleet to rampage all over their territory. In the meantime, they went in through a backdoor I overlooked and ravaged an enormous empty swath of starbases... they never got to my sole inhabited planet, defended to the gills.
Fast forward, I've literally minced all but two of their pops, courtesy of Purge/Processing and Nihilistic Acquisition, and taken over one of the three planets they had. (The other two I was in the process of escorting my army to.)
And yet, I couldn't force a surrender... I eventually took a huge loss via Status Quo.
What do you actually need to do to win a war? Capturing starbases or post-bombardment planets don't seem to work, and no matter how decisively I beat them in a space battle, I come out worse.
So does the scourge only come after 2500?Spoiler: Crisis (click to show/hide)
But the game ended at 2500, with the awakened empire basically winning by default, not having done anything except build up its fleets. Do I have to play past the default win date to get the crisis? Started a new game as authoritarian materialists, doing much better so far so we'll see how things go this time.
My new game is going very well, maybe too well. I'm miles ahead of the closest non-FE, I am the senate, I can pretty much do whatever I want. Playing fanatic materialist authoritarians, got synthetic ascension a while ago, rebuilding the cybrex ringworld, kind of at a loss for what to do next outside forming a hegemony federation or just making everyone my tributary.
Probably a good idea, looks like conquering a FE planet dramatically (10X) reduces the MTTH on each of them awakening. Though if I'm reading this right, a specific FE can't awaken while they're at war? That's pretty useful.Just declare war on all fallen empires bro.
Even cheating and having way too many goddamn ships/fleets, I don't think I would be able to get away with that.
It's been interesting cheating though, I've integrated all my previous subjects into my civ. My Divine-Empress created a pacifist faction. There are only a few empires left, and one is about to be destroyed by the Cuelans I fought against. The others I intend to integrate peacefully, somehow. I rule like half the galaxy and just accumulated much of that by integrating protectorates.
Oh, that would be the fanatical egalitarians on my third border. *That's* going to be fun (it will not be fun, they have a fundamental ethical conflict with my existence. Much like authoritarians approve of my existence).Y'know who loves Rogue Servitors? Slaver empires.
I want to befriend these materialist Xenophiles in good faith. The game should really allow migration to Servitor empires (and optionally, emigration from them!) but failing that, I'm happy to befriend an empire that respects machines and other life. Indefinitely.
Edit: It's a nice touch that refugees are able to seek out Servitor empires. Though it's obviously kind of dark that it's only refugees who "choose" that fate.
I am playing materialistic ultra-science humanoids.Don't forget to irresponsibly leave superweapons and dyson spheres in the hands of lesser civilisations with no oversight
Got every possible plus to science.
It's quite nice, I'm researching level ten of repeatable tech before most other civs hit any at all.
I am playing materialistic ultra-science humanoids.Don't forget to irresponsibly leave superweapons and dyson spheres in the hands of lesser civilisations with no oversight
Got every possible plus to science.
It's quite nice, I'm researching level ten of repeatable tech before most other civs hit any at all.
I am playing materialistic ultra-science humanoids.Don't forget to irresponsibly leave superweapons and dyson spheres in the hands of lesser civilisations with no oversight
Got every possible plus to science.
It's quite nice, I'm researching level ten of repeatable tech before most other civs hit any at all.
Basically the scion origin, right
My recent game was as pacifist/xenophobe/materialist inward perfectionist with the ringworld start.
Trader caravan of starfish rolled around to sell me bunk beds of all things. Tell them the bunk beds cost too much and they end up throwing a party before actually fucking off. Upon their departure I'm prompted they left four pops worth of half snail half starfish bastards. Apparently the default for xenos is to purge (displacement) them, but I decide to keep them around for nefarious purposes as second class citizens for now.
So, I just build a precinct on every planet if I know a criminal syndicate is around, and that always does the job eventually.
I've heard on the youtubes they might add a new district type, for metallurgist and civ good jobs. And the old factory/forge buildings would specialize these districts to the corresponding output.
The latest dev diary talks about this (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-dev-diary-190-leading-economic-indicators.1440749/) - they're decoupling build slots from population and moving alloy and consumer production primarily into districts. Factories and Foundries will be planet-unique and make all Industrial Districts grant more of the corresponding type of job.
Incidentally, a big reason for this change is cited as making the autobuilder more capable of handling planet development instead of requiring constant micro even into late game...
Incidentally, a big reason for this change is cited as making the autobuilder more capable of handling planet development instead of requiring constant micro even into late game...
anyone knows the different between, say, specializing a sector on minerals vs specializing all planets of a sector on minerals?I'm not sure if there is any sort of difference beyond the former requiring you to add resources to the sector in order for it to build anything and the latter drawing directly from your empire's resource stores (which might not be correct, actually).
anyone knows the different between, say, specializing a sector on minerals vs specializing all planets of a sector on minerals?
I'm not sure if there is any sort of difference beyond the former requiring you to add resources to the sector in order for it to build anything and the latter drawing directly from your empire's resource stores (which might not be correct, actually).
Unless they change things again like Wiz did, when he experimented with this and decided he didn't like the idea of prebuilding ghost cities on planets just to build up the infrastructure.
I can't help but imagine a late-game empire having enough economic power to simply buy up the required dark matter (over a course of years, to mitigate the price inflation). But eating stars is fun I suppose.
[laughs in galaxy coin]
Well that's the problem - The only interesting thing about Stellaris is warfare. Everything else is a boring idle game of waiting until numbers tick up enough that you can buy another upgrade, building or what have you.Beat me to it. And even the warfare isn't all that interesting once you leave the mid-late game
But yeah, I agree it'd be great if the rest of the game was more interesting then it is right now.
Honestly, I think Stellaris caters to the genocidal crowd a little too much. It would be nice to have more options and contents to play something else than a warmonger. Plus crisis other than based on warfare, stuff like alien parasites infilitrating societies or the like, instead of just huge fleets you must beat back.Yeah this looks nifty I guess, but people already try to paint the map without mechanical bonuses. I guess it allows a "normal" empire go genocidal mid-game, and sets up that victory condition which reduces the tedium of conquering/managing an entire galaxy.
The real issue with robutts is they fall into the trap of being a hivemind. And hiveminds, even bio ones, are really boring. I find it really limiting as they lack the personality that ethics tend to bring normal civs. They have to rely on civics to give them personality, and that usually boils down to some flavor of "kill everything else".I wish the AI rebellion empire resulted in sentient synths instead of a gestalt. All the flavor leading up to it suggests individually sentient units. Sure synthetic ascension is a really strong thing to just have, but to get it you have to split your empire in half in the mid-game.
The only other thing is that world tree origin, which really should also be pickable by religious civs but whatever.
Though it is thematic for them to be Determined Exterminators sometimes. It's funny that Domestic Protocols gives a chance of them being DE, but that should really result in Rogue Servitors instead. What, are RS supposed to be pacifists? No more than the Blorg!
You see in this dome the intermingling of native and earth plants. Outside, they are competitors, struggling over the trace elements required for life. Often, one destroys the other. Here, they are tended with care and kept well nourished. They thrive together, and the native fungus does not unleash its terrible defenses. As you can see, competition is unnecessary when resources are plentiful and population growth is controlled.Blorg and humans can coexist with proper custodianship <3
Pops don't emigrate though. As far as I know Pops, as units, never move between empires. What does happen is you are donating emigration pressure to the subject which is gaining a growth bonus. You're basically paying them to grow new pops for you. Your own pops aren't leaving though, mechanically speaking.Pretty sure if the emigration pressure gets high enough, the pops start to decrease at least.
Pretty sure if the emigration pressure gets high enough, the pops start to decrease at least.I have never seen pops switch to shrinking/dying off due only to emigration pressure. Do you have a source on that? That would be an interesting and possibly exploitable mechanic I've never heard of. Even starvation doesn't actually remove pops. Emigration I thought only slows down growth.
It's not true pop movement, but it's something.
Finally picked up Federations with Uncle Sam's Yearly Magical Free Money Return.
Gonna try it out today. Any suggestions for particularly cool bits and whatsits to use or try?
Finally picked up Federations with Uncle Sam's Yearly Magical Free Money Return.
Gonna try it out today. Any suggestions for particularly cool bits and whatsits to use or try?
The bonuses from "leveling up" a federation are pretty nice, but the rate of growth is static (when you're at maximum cohesion, which usually be the case) so it pays to form a federation early, or even join an existing one. This is the power of the federation origins which otherwise seem like a waste of your local habitable worlds. The trade federation's bonuses are particularly sweet, and it unlocks a unique trade policy that gives you the CG *and* the unity!
The bonuses from "leveling up" a federation are pretty nice, but the rate of growth is static (when you're at maximum cohesion, which usually be the case) so it pays to form a federation early, or even join an existing one. This is the power of the federation origins which otherwise seem like a waste of your local habitable worlds. The trade federation's bonuses are particularly sweet, and it unlocks a unique trade policy that gives you the CG *and* the unity!
I always tech hard so take this with a grain of salt, but the research federation's bonuses are pretty crazy too. If I remember right you can get +60% research speed from it, though some of that only applies during crises.
I just discovered that I can't conquer primitives and immediately send them to my core worlds.
!!!!╰(°Д°)╯!!!!!
!!!! (ノ°Д°)ノ︵ ┻━┻
EDIT:
Why the fuck would I conquer primitives only to wait like a fukkin' decade before they have any use whatsoever? This is ass lol
I just discovered that I can't conquer primitives and immediately send them to my core worlds.
!!!!╰(°Д°)╯!!!!!
!!!! (ノ°Д°)ノ︵ ┻━┻
EDIT:
Why the fuck would I conquer primitives only to wait like a fukkin' decade before they have any use whatsoever? This is ass lol
I think that change came with necroids, as their origin hands you a bunch of primies to eat/convert into geckos or something.
Not sure if it still works as it has been a few versions since I played, but you could actually kick and force vassalize one of the fed members and then conquer the other. You keep the federation and its bonuses, get two home worlds, and you don't have to compete with the other fed member. I did it in a multiplayer game once before and pissed off my friends because it let me snowball so much faster than them.I bet it works! It sounds tricky to me, doing an invasion so early game, but I guess it's worth it for the pops and the second homeworld having good districts. I'm sure federation cohesion takes a serious hit :P But that's still faster than working up the Diplomacy tradition.
I just turn off population growth on planets that reach the level I want them to be at, resettle the one or two that went over, etc
If you get the "better than ourselves" worker's rights senate proposal through, it gives you an empire edict that forcibly resettles unemployed pops to planets that have jobs free in your empire.
I've had it once, and that one time it was insanely useful. Not only does it mean you don't have to worry about resettling, but your colonies develop super fast on account of the excess pops in your empire automatically moving to them.
I just turn off population growth on planets that reach the level I want them to be at, resettle the one or two that went over, etc
I understand the micromanagement avoidance, but why not take advantage of multiple planets worth of pop growth to grow those border planets even faster.
I've had far more fun turning number of AI Empires to zero. Play out the theory that humans are alone in the universe...mostly.
I've had far more fun turning number of AI Empires to zero. Play out the theory that humans are alone in the universe...mostly.
I've had far more fun turning number of AI Empires to zero. Play out the theory that humans are alone in the universe...mostly.
I've done something like this before, which can be a relaxing way to play. There are a few variations you can do too, which I've tried:
1. One AI empire you have a vendetta against. I've only done this with force spawning genocidal empires, but it can be interesting to know they're out there somewhere, and you may not bump into them for 100 years, or they may be at your doorstep. If you RP it as being in a peaceful galaxy and don't build up your military until you run into them, it can be Fun.
2. Lots of primitives - you're playing forerunners and have a chance to uplift and enlighten the whole galaxy. Or enslave them or whatever.
3. No primitives either - dead space, all for your taking.
You can mix those together and/or turn the end game crisis on or off to change things up a bit too. Playing a peaceful game until the crisis kicks in "unexpectedly" can also be a Fun way to play.
Shame that Stellaris doesn't allow (as far as I can tell) switching to another empire in-game, so I could create a Simulant Death Fleet to kill the Humans and have the galaxy only be the remnants of Human civilization.You can do it using console commands I believe. At least it used to work, I haven't tried it lately. The command is tag n where n=the npc empire tag number. 0 is always the player, npc empire are always 1 through whatever the highest. Newly created empires are placed at the end.
Tag swapping to a CPU empire means you have to witness their horrific economy setup, and narrowly avoid your face melting off from it like raiders of the lost ark or something.This was actually something I used to help teach a buddy to play, had him drop in to an nonplayer empire after 50 or so years and his task was to fix up their horrible economy. I play Stellaris on twitch every week and let people drop in as any non-player they wish to control for the session, it's pretty funny. One dropped in and immediately had a slave revolt.
One problem, as anyone who has tried to play as a vassal might know - the AI will absolutely integrate player empires. I just wanted the CK2 experience :'(
Tag swapping to a CPU empire means you have to witness their horrific economy setup, and narrowly avoid your face melting off from it like raiders of the lost ark or something.This was actually something I used to help teach a buddy to play, had him drop in to an nonplayer empire after 50 or so years and his task was to fix up their horrible economy. I play Stellaris on twitch every week and let people drop in as any non-player they wish to control for the session, it's pretty funny. One dropped in and immediately had a slave revolt.
I don't want their shitty version of a 4x space game, I want HOI/EU/Vic/CK in space.So play a different game, because a traditional Paradox grand strategy but-in-space this ain't.
I don't want their shitty version of a 4x space game, I want HOI/EU/Vic/CK in space.So play a different game, because a traditional Paradox grand strategy but-in-space this ain't.
But why not? They certainly could have do that. In fact, several Stellaris mods are a massive improvement with static starts.Because that's not the kind of game it is. Lamenting that Stellaris could be a different kind of game is pointless, because it will never be another kind of game. Mod it to be closer to what you want or play something else.
Could, yes. They could also turn CKIII into a 4x game.I don't want their shitty version of a 4x space game, I want HOI/EU/Vic/CK in space.So play a different game, because a traditional Paradox grand strategy but-in-space this ain't.
But why not? They certainly could have do that. In fact, several Stellaris mods are a massive improvement with static starts.
Because that's not the kind of game it is. Lamenting that Stellaris could be a different kind of game is pointless, because it will never be another kind of game. Mod it to be closer to what you want or play something else.
Because that's not the kind of game it is. Lamenting that Stellaris could be a different kind of game is pointless, because it will never be another kind of game. Mod it to be closer to what you want or play something else.
This line of argument is pretty unconvincing when you stop for a moment and consider that this particular point doesn't need to be either-or.
And no, "mod it or quit" isn't the only reasonable response. Game design doesn't occur in a vacuum - audience input matters. In fact, I'm 100% certain that's why Stellaris is 4x and not Grand Strategy - they considered what the majority of consumers of scifi games (vs. historical games) favors. Given that its current state is almost certainly a result of paying attention to player interests, saying "players need to take the game as it is or go play something else" is, well, silly.
I don't think anyone mentioned it yet, but Humble Bundle has Stellaris and a bunch of the expansions in a bundle. For $15 you get all the big expansions except the newest stuff. Even on a really good steam sale it would be 3 times that to get everything.Ooh, neat.
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/stellaris-discovery-bundle
I don't think anyone mentioned it yet, but Humble Bundle has Stellaris and a bunch of the expansions in a bundle. For $15 you get all the big expansions except the newest stuff. Even on a really good steam sale it would be 3 times that to get everything.
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/stellaris-discovery-bundle
This line of argument is pretty unconvincing when you stop for a moment and consider that this particular point doesn't need to be either-or.The original point I responded to was "I don't want [what Stellaris is], I want [a different kind of game]" when Stellaris will only ever be the kind of game that it is. If you want your sedan to be a convertible, rip off the roof or buy a new car.
And no, "mod it or quit" isn't the only reasonable response. Game design doesn't occur in a vacuum - audience input matters. In fact, I'm 100% certain that's why Stellaris is 4x and not Grand Strategy - they considered what the majority of consumers of scifi games (vs. historical games) favors. Given that its current state is almost certainly a result of paying attention to player interests, saying "players need to take the game as it is or go play something else" is, well, silly.
Other things will take some getting used to, like having fewer building slots but building slots that are easier to unlock. The empire wide population growth penalty is also really dumb, but I know it was put there for performance reasons so I'll wait until I get to the end game and see how it feels before I complain too much.Yeah, I like new population graph system, but wish they removed empire-wide penalty and instead made individual planetary penalties much greater. Populating new colonies is much more of a pain after early game.
Yeah I'm not sure what to think yet. It's great that pops finally move themselves properly, but my typical midgame of spamming habitats has tanked my population growth. Maaaybe that's a fine thing? It should help end-game efficiency, and it makes building those habitats an option rather than a requirement for continued growth. It's just weird seeing all those empty jobs and housing.Other things will take some getting used to, like having fewer building slots but building slots that are easier to unlock. The empire wide population growth penalty is also really dumb, but I know it was put there for performance reasons so I'll wait until I get to the end game and see how it feels before I complain too much.Yeah, I like new population graph system, but wish they removed empire-wide penalty and instead made individual planetary penalties much greater. Populating new colonies is much more of a pain after early game.
There's no way they tested this in late gameAgreed! :P
even if I lose achievements.
even if I lose achievements.
...you guys play ironman?
even if I lose achievements.
...you guys play ironman?
I mod and console the hell out of ck2, but mostly play Stellaris straight and almost never want to undo or redo things, so there's no real downside to it.even if I lose achievements.
...you guys play ironman?
...you guys play ironman?
The point of the empire pop penalty balance seems to be you have three choices come the mid-game: Conquest, Co-operation or Stagnation. You need to find external sources of pops or resources, rather than sitting in your corner and breeding pops. You can't just ignore the rest of the galaxy and expect to thrive.
In short, I think the change is overall a good one but it does require you to completely relearn how to play with the new pop system. Old strategies simply will not work, and I think that there is a bit of people:
a) Trying the old ways of growth and being annoyed they don't work.
b) Being off-put by the AI doing a better job of keeping up with the player, making people feel like they're doing relatively worse than they actually are.
So, bets on the next DLC? I'm betting something to do with Primitive Civilizations. They're due a rework, and the current Enlightenment/Infiltration was already a proto-Archeology system so I can see it being updated to use that instead.
* Robots strength is in their per-pop efficiency, countered by generally getting less pops.
Stellaris isn't meant to be competitive but roleplayed
What I meant is that, from a core design approach, there are things in Stellaris that are designed to be unbalanced. A Fanatic Purifier, with the exact same pops, ship numbers and designs, planets etc as a regular empire will be flat-out stronger than the regular empire.
Which got me thinking, I wonder if a system like HoI4 would work. So rather than building ships and sending them, you have frontlines at your hyperlanes that you have to expand out and into like HoI4 armies.It would work but it wouldn't feel like Stellaris. It is a really interesting idea though.
they keep trying to fix lag caused by pops and never once consider why performance was so much better when they had tiles :P
Like sure call it a problem of complexity doing it, but I swear I never once had to worry about lag by pops whenever the planetary tile system existed, yet nowadays its the most common issues.
ItŽs not bad in itself but some of its star points are grossly underdeveloped, and I get the feeling that other, previous, cheaper DLC like Lithoids or Necroids added more meaningful content for less
Welp, the AI still can't cope with the economy.
For all the jokes about Paradox Testing, they actually spend every Friday evening playing a complete multiplayer game of Stellaris with the hot code to stress test things.
The big pop issue I don't get is why do they do calculations on a daily basis? What's the point? Nearly everything else that relates to them is worked out on a monthly basis. Your resources tick on a monthly basis, your income updates on a monthly basis. Your research and traditions are done on a monthly basis. Pops migrate on a monthly basis as far as I'm aware. Pop growth is monthly.
Why not make it so that the only time they're calculated is at the start of a month or on a planetary scale when a building or district? While there's still the same number of calculations per population tick, there's no longer 30 of the things in a month to slow things down.
From my understanding, the pop system is inefficient just due to it's nature. They wanted every pop to have an ethic and happiness and such, which means every tick the game has to iterate through every pop to consider changes to every one of their stats. That is a heavy loop to run every game tick and causes significant lag lategame as it scales with number of pops AND number of factors affecting said pops.
As a side note, IŽm really enjoying the machine intelligence I cooked up. Basic setup is a quickly replicating machine intelligence which starts in a ruined ringworld.
My headcanon is that theyŽre emergent programming from the ringworldŽs maintenance system subroutines. As such, their goals are to repair the ringworld and get up and running, and build tall instead of wide. Unless there are particular strategic resources to be taken from them, neighbouring organic empires would be made into tributaries rather than conquered outright.
Funnily enough at higher difficulties the AI has been reported as being quite improved. It'll deliberately seize chokepoints, launch coordinated wars on threats, and generally give you a harder time of things and keep you on your toes. A higher difficulty with scaling difficulty on can pull ahead of the player quite well long before the AI bonus mid-game peak.I really doubt the AI's any different, it's probably just the nature of its bonuses (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Game_settings) on higher difficulties. There's a flat Stability bonus, cheap/free resettlement, and naturally a resource bonus. Considering that serious overcrowding is naturally mitigated now, I'm more surprised that the AI is still able to have revolts at all.
I think they optimized the AI to manage itself well on higher difficulties, meaning on lower difficulties it can sometimes explode in on itself.
Although it'd be nice to be able to mix up the AI difficulty for different empires within a game, pick a range that AI empires get sorted into. Would be nice for some AI empires to explode in on themselves regardless since not every empire should be a success, rather than either all empires being dumdum or all empires being exponential boomboom.
As a side note, IŽm really enjoying the machine intelligence I cooked up. Basic setup is a quickly replicating machine intelligence which starts in a ruined ringworld.Nice! I also just started a MI on a ruined ringworld. It's an otherwise default Tebrid Homolog because, well... I like exploiting broken mechanics before they get patched, and I've never given Driven Assimilators a proper try before. Seems like an excellent time for it!
My headcanon is that theyŽre emergent programming from the ringworldŽs maintenance system subroutines. As such, their goals are to repair the ringworld and get up and running, and build tall instead of wide. Unless there are particular strategic resources to be taken from them, neighbouring organic empires would be made into tributaries rather than conquered outright.
I was pulled back to playing stellaris with my friends recently, not played since early in the planet and economy update. I'm wondering if maybe we're just thinking about this wrong, or do machine empires (at least, not driven assimulator ones) seem ridiculously weak because their pop growth is super slow? Like, everyone else can get pop growth naturally but a machine empire has to build everybody, and they don't even build that much faster than roboticists and hiveminds build pop (who also get to grow naturally) and they have to pay more to do it. And then since population is basically the key to everything low pop robots just freaking suck, like, okay, they are slightly more efficient in some things then organics, but not nearly enough to make up for their slow pop growth. It doesn't really matter if a robot generator or scientist is like 20% better then a organic farmer or scientist if they have 1/2 or 1/3 the pop... Not to mention everyone else can conquer others for big quick boosts to population but robots are stuck with just the pops they can slowly grow themselves unless they get very lucky to neighbor another machine empire so past the early game it's really hopeless for them.
they keep trying to fix lag caused by pops and never once consider why performance was so much better when they had tiles :P
Like sure call it a problem of complexity doing it, but I swear I never once had to worry about lag by pops whenever the planetary tile system existed, yet nowadays its the most common issues.
I was pulled back to playing stellaris with my friends recently, not played since early in the planet and economy update. I'm wondering if maybe we're just thinking about this wrong, or do machine empires (at least, not driven assimulator ones) seem ridiculously weak because their pop growth is super slow? Like, everyone else can get pop growth naturally but a machine empire has to build everybody, and they don't even build that much faster than roboticists and hiveminds build pop (who also get to grow naturally) and they have to pay more to do it. And then since population is basically the key to everything low pop robots just freaking suck, like, okay, they are slightly more efficient in some things then organics, but not nearly enough to make up for their slow pop growth. It doesn't really matter if a robot generator or scientist is like 20% better then a organic farmer or scientist if they have 1/2 or 1/3 the pop... Not to mention everyone else can conquer others for big quick boosts to population but robots are stuck with just the pops they can slowly grow themselves unless they get very lucky to neighbor another machine empire so past the early game it's really hopeless for them.
Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killerBe wary; Triumphant pride precipitates a dizzying fall.
I figured it out, those lithoids are serviles, as one of the empires had the syncretic origin. In other words, when they migrated here they brought theirOooh AI serviles are such a rare or generally-unimportant occurrence that I'd never noticed that! I've learned something!petsservants as well. And so you cannot colonize with them, they're too dumb. Maybe I can gene mod them to do bureaucratic paperwork...
Another unusual thing is there's three wormholes in my territory, two are only a jump away from each other, the third only a few jumps from there. Just got the tech to make use of them.It's always great when that happens! I don't remember if claiming the other end is cheap (I think it is) but maybe I'm thinking about the "distance" modifier for various diplomacy options not considering the wormhole.
* It is now possible for the endgame crisis to happen in the first 50 years of the endgame in certain circumstances. These are:
* * No living fallen empires / awakened fallen empires;
* * War in Heaven not happening, concluded, or started 15 years ago;
* * A country has researched jump drives or psi jump drives (only the Unbidden can happen in the first 50 years in this case)
* Nuked old script to randomize which crisis shows up. Now it is simply purely a random choice that is random (with the chance of any crisis happening increasing the more years pass in the endgame).
the Fallen Empire next door awoke as Benevolent Interventionalists. And immediately declared war on me. A war I didn't have the option to surrender in.
Sometimes they don't let you become a subject. Not sure if that's a bug or not.the Fallen Empire next door awoke as Benevolent Interventionalists. And immediately declared war on me. A war I didn't have the option to surrender in.
you should have got an option to submit beforehand, the popup isn't immediately clear and many dismiss it, but the only way out from that war is to become a subject before it starts and rebel later.
I have no idea why my resources are so negative in the screenshot.
Vassals from sectors will grow faster in pops than sectors at the moment, so releasing sectors as vassals means only that vassals pops count towards their growth rate rather than your entire empire.
Plus the AI changes to make the AI more aggressive means that Vassals actually can help in war for a change. When I went to war with an Awakened Empire I basically didn't need to field armies because my vassal kept sending 10x Gene Warriors to invade the planets, and since I'd already took the starbase I still got the planet after they conquered it for me.
Also, thing to remember: big planets are for specialists, small planets are for resources and pops. You don't want to fully develop a small planet, you want it to be a backwater that feeds your larger and more important planets.
Rather than buffing up pop rates for empires again, I kinda think Paradox should focus more on interactions with vassals, sectors, and federations as a way of building up your powerbase. Maybe make vassals give you some resources, and automated sectors closer to micro-vassals?
That raises an interesting point about Paradox AI design. Replacing that governor immediately is definitely the best move (the 200 energy is almost never going to be too costly). But the AI isn't designed to make the best moves, it's designed to make as interesting-looking a galaxy as possible. Having a neighboring empire fall to pieces because of a bad governor is interesting and even a little surprising, and that means their AI design worked in that case.You're cutting them way too much slack.
Likewise, the existence of useless governors like that rewards the player for replacing them. I used to think of that as annoying busywork. But now that I've played some multiplayer games where everyone wants to avoid pausing the game constantly, I see how it's an actual skill to be multitasking and checking up on such things. Player attention becomes a limited resource and there are small or huge consequences for missing stuff. I was shocked and delighted to see the subterranean empire burst to the surface and claim one of my first planets, because apparently that happens if you accidentally forget the special projects! My friends and I ended up welcoming them into our federation and they played a clutch role later against the Khan.
Just a ramble about how "success" isn't really the AI's purpose. Of course in some patches it's been too silly/incompetent and stretched credulity that way. Maybe that's the case here though I haven't personally experienced much trouble.
Really governors should follow your government type. So if you're democratic they're voted in by election just like the main ruler, or if you're monarchy maybe they're royal family or in line for the main throne.
A welcome change, though anyone with a current save should be aware that the changes also removed the extra jobs created by upgraded resource buildings and replaced them with increased job efficiency. You may have some redevelopment to do.Oh *hell* yes!!
I for one am very happy to see them going back and making early species packs as fully-featured as later ones. Plants in particular playing exactly like anyone else always annoyed me.Thanks for mentioning this because it got me looking at the feature list - this looks a lot better than I expected! I play plantoids a lot but their lack of quirk was always a little disappointing. I wonder what it'll be. ...Likely something about agriculture, meh. But what if it's something like their ships getting a bonus/malus depending on a system's luminosity? I always loved that in Space Empires IV, making ships that were all-or-entirely reliant on solar power and reserve fuel.
Edit2: Also, performance enhancements. Growth Required Scaling is a really bad bandaid patch for pops slowing the game down in the late game, I hope they come up with something better. I just play without it but the slow down is pretty rough.
Agreed. I'll make a quick note here though that in the last major patch they added the option to turn the growth scaling down or off, and if you do you should really take heed of their warning to also reduce the logistic growth scaling. I'm playing as long as I can to see how it pans out, but I disabled the growth penalty but not the logistic scaling, and with 10 planets my economy has utterly crashed due to consumer goods costs because my stupid bird people keep reproducing too fast. I'm running Social Welfare on them so they aren't unhappy due to it, but the consumer goods costs are killing me. Even in 2265 I haven't completely dug myself out of the hole, despite building industrial districts constantly.
This wouldn't be nearly as bad if I had other species to settle some of these 20% habitability planets, but everyone around me hates my guts, so...
It makes it kind of muddy and vague what unity would mean, as if it weren't vague enough considering that traditions and ascension perks really don't seem to have anything to do with a unified population.
maybe it could even work like crusader kings does the "liege terretory" (whatever it was called)... the whole empire spraw and admin cap change could also work into this then.
you govern 3-10 planets your self (upgradable with various means or civics) and all other planets are automatically sectors with a factions leading them. (you can still build stuff there but factions also have building slots where they can build faction buildings... Mining outposts, research bases, Pirate havens, markets, whatever fits to the faction)
I think it's Gateway that trivializes one of strongest drawbacks of wide Empire - its size itself.Gateways certainly change the game fundamentally once you get them, and I tend to deploy them... generously. That led to some mild friction (more like confusion) when I was playing multiplayer with some friends for a few weeks. I was gating' up my entire megacorp, naturally, to *eliminate* piracy... naturally building one in my capital, and my megashipyard, and all sorts of strategic places. Meaning that every war was mostly on just one front - the entire gateway network. Any incursion into any gateway system was both extremely dangerous and extremely easy to react to.
I always play with x0 gates because I appreciate how difficult it is to cover entire territory with fleets, especially with player's tendency to clump entire fleets together. It makes sense as well; galaxy-spanning nation would have difficulty managing its large territory with fleets taking years to travel, making them more vulnerable to multi-front attacks and rebellions from backwaters. Instead one can simply spam Gateway and eliminate distance aspect of gameplay entirely, which benefits wide empiree much more than tall compact ones.
I do that plus for trade hubs. No more pirate patrols once you have gateways.Very much the same.
I don't think that the AI is intentionally unoptimized. It's understandably quite difficult to make an AI that both good and feels good to play against. But there's a pretty vast gulf between where stellaris AI is now and where frankly it reasonably easily could be. You can forgive and understand a not perfect AI, but stellaris AI is I think the worst AI I've ever seen in a game where the AI is at least nominally working, and some patches you don't need that last caveat.It's hard making an AI for a game where the rules are known and unchanging. It's impossible to make a good ai for a game that is still good after you change all the rules.
Then I read about people facing up against 25X crises and realize... oh... I'm just participating in a power fantasy.
And it feels great! I'll load up another game on Captain - which I thought was fair, but benefits the AI - and suffer a few scrapes before making the galaxy my federated, xenophilic oyster <3
It would be great if they could make it so it could compete without cheating, though I know that's a lofty goal they probably will never achieve.The only problem is they literally said the AI didn't cheat and that it was just a well programmed AI. Well not the only problem, but that's a big one.
Modern Stellaris has the benefit that, unlike other games, the things a faction has available to do don't really require them to pay attention to things outside of their fog of war anyway*, and the 'rules' it has to follow for decisions like Technology are 'responsive' to a deck draw or even roll rather than 'active' and so can be driven by the possible decisions being given 'weight' and then selected using that weight with some RNG. So the design is well suited for not needing to 'all-seeing cheat' by giving the AI different rules to play by than the player.
* Post-espionage they may be able to see your full borders after discovering you if they didn't update that part of the AI to handle, but that AI will send science ships to scan your planets before establishing contact suggest they don't consider your borders or at least don't consider them with regards to science ship order issuing. And tbh with updating the AI to handle not seeing your full borders post discovery, I don't think that knowledge would noticably alter any visible AI behaviour (since a ship going near your borders would still reveal them).
All that, plus the in-game personality of the AIs ("Hegemonic Imperialists", "Honorbound Warriors", etc) is correctly more important than optimally playing the game. If I wanted to play against optimal opponents then I'd play against humans, and not my friends who enjoy fun, and also I'd play a game more suited for such tactical play.
There's a quality-of-life thing that I think would really help the Stellaris. At least as an option.
Ever since the market was introduced we've had the option to buy a pittance of a resource, manually every month, to remove the debuff. On the one hand that hassles the player into balancing their economy better. On the other hand, that could be fully automated.
I really enjoyed an old game, Kohan Immortal Sovereigns, a RTS where the economy worked that way. IIRC you were welcome to go into deficit in any resource, as long as you had the gold to cover it. And running a surplus would similarly earn you gold. Streamlined.
That's not necessarily a better system in Stellaris since player-attention is an actual resource in multiplayer. Perhaps running an imbalanced economy *should* be a distraction. But I think it's more elegant if it's just handled, rather than threatening a debuff which is (intended to be) so severe that no one would ever not just buy a little more of the resource in question.
And in practice you get wonky runs which write off a certain resource, not even bothering to buy it every month, going HAM on having a massive deficit of it. Tanking the penalty.
I'm not sure I totally understand the idea here for what the quality of life thing is. A system that automatically buys enough resources on the market to pay for upkeep? If so, broadly speaking that's already possible with monthly trades.
My original point for all this was another "what the heck does one even do with this much resources? How would one prepare for a 25X Crisis?
It's a weird "blind spot". I have more resources than I can give away, and yet I could get curbstomped. As a clue, I hate to exceed the fleet limit. But even spamming citadel-anchorages in every system, would I have the power to stop a 25x? Can I trust the AI empires to even slow that shit down?
I wasn't sure if there would be another dev diary this week or if the patch release counted, but here it is. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-220-additions-to-humanoids-species-pack.1487837/)Changes to the humanoid pack.Unlike lithoids and plantoids, these additions to the humanoid pack are not actually limited to humanoids. So that's kinda cool!
Masterful crafters seems strong. Just a good buff to a common job and extra building slots.
Pleasure Seekers is a bit weird. I don't really want to think on what the buff to entertainers could mean, but it seems strange that it comes with a bonus that allows servants to somewhat replace entertainers. A bit of a nonbo there I feel. Also it's made to be used with slaves, but doesn't allow the slavery civic... Uhhhhh. What the heck??? It's also a bit strange that decadent lifestyle has less upkeep (for most) then utopian abundance, but makes everyone just as happy, especially since the flavor text seems to imply a somewhat stratified society but it makes the lower classes just as happy as the upper ones? Seems like it could be an okay civic, allowing you to have a more happy authoritarian society but I'm unsure if it's enough to be worth a civic slot compared to just having a normal Stratified Economy... Well... I kinda like the idea of a flavorful civic like this, but the mechanics behind it are so weird that I'm unsure about it.
Clone army is cool. Clone vats seem... Strong? You start with 14 monthly pop assembly? And can build up to 21 more? That seems very strong for a huge early game population burst, although you can't grow pops naturally but that's pretty trivial of a thing to fix. Low leader lifespan sucks I guess. And I guess eventually you max out on pop, have to see what that max is. It's at least sorta cool I guess and sounds like it comes with some sorta storyline events thing which might be cool.
Communism is dead, turns out decadence leads to an overall happier more stable society for probably less cost.Coomunism will rise, but it is not the only thing which rises
communism with xeno-compatability so the sperm can truly be divided equally amongst the people.Communism is dead, turns out decadence leads to an overall happier more stable society for probably less cost.Coomunism will rise, but it is not the only thing which rises
Idyllic Bloom does appear to be compatible with Tomb World preference.
That's what I and I imagine most of the players were and are hoping for. Really, the game probably needs both: some system that represents the overhead of such a large empire by making some things like unity generation less efficient, and some mechanic to represent instability due to internal conflict.
For the former problem (sprawl), I guess it's easy enough to represent that by tech and unity cost penalties. A more realistic system would probably just have different tech levels per planet and some "cost" to propagating it, but I can't see Stellaris ever implementing something like that for sanity reasons. Unity is such a vague concept that I don't know how it would be implemented differently unless it too was per-planet and factored into planetary stability or something, with the unhappy pops costing unity upkeep like an earlier dev diary proposed.
For the latter problem, people have been screaming for internal politics since the game was released so it's starting to look doubtful that we'll get anything substantial considering the other DLC that's been developed before it. I have some hope that the "situations" concept that they've proposed in recent dev diaries will give at least some flavor to that, but my guess is that it's not going to be that sophisticated. It'll probably be something like galactic stock market crashes that cause a big penalty to your trade value or something. Supposedly it's based on a system from some other game of theirs that I haven't played so it's probably not going to be a real mystery what it will be for anyone who is familiar.
Internal politics will be hard to implement in an interesting and not frustrating way I guess, similar to espionage, meaning it probably won't ever have real teeth.
To be fair, Paradox's origins with these games were, in fact, board games. Europa Universalis was a board game before it was ever a computer game. They simply migrated it to a computer, and then iterated from there. Everything else they've done has been built from that.
Part of the issue is that they always end up coming at it from a perspective of "How can we make Tall Empires competitive" rather than "How can we make Tall Empires fun".
I'd rather see a bunch of things done to make Tall Empires better than any nerfs to Wide Empires, because nerfs to make another play style more competitive almost always make whatever you're nerfing less fun.
Stellaris is hamstrung from doing either of those things. Why did tall empires arise in the real world? What did they do and why? Even if Paradox knew the answers to these questions the game framework doesn't really allow you to implement the ideas.The better question might be why players want to or end up making tall empires. Note that the cycle image posted above is entirely driven by player behavior.
Stellaris is hamstrung from doing either of those things. Why did tall empires arise in the real world? What did they do and why? Even if Paradox knew the answers to these questions the game framework doesn't really allow you to implement the ideas.The better question might be why players want to or end up making tall empires. Note that the cycle image posted above is entirely driven by player behavior.
They're also not terribly well set up for that sort of thing, but "is it physically possible to make small empires fun in Stellaris" is both a more feasible and more direct question than "why did some small nations in history not immediately get conquered by their neighbors."
I encountered a marauder faction
Who believe in bloodthirsty action
They stay on their side
While I abide
But I fear their defining axiom
Commonwealth of Man is a Fanatic Militarist and (not fanatic) Xenophobe empire /check
Got the ruler at some point to be celebrated as a deity (https://i.imgur.com/E21mPIr.jpg) /check
Surrounded by really filthy xenos (https://i.imgur.com/E97oPCG.jpg) /check
Can have part or all the population genetically modified /check
Policies and species rights allow to purge the aliens, the heretics (https://i.imgur.com/ktLoK3O.jpg) /check
So Stellaris can be wh40k sometime :D
I think this behavior is because of the fleet strengths. The AI is generally smart enough to not throw fleets at enemy fleets it can't beat, and while it does gang up with multiple fleets where it can, I don't think it does this consistently and especially when dealing with the crisis. So, the normal empires just wait to be killed instead of allying with each other to send large numbers of smaller fleets to counter a crisis fleet, where fallen empires have strong enough fleets that they will fight normally.
Were you on standard crisis settings? I've seen this too, where on normal settings the fallen empires can mostly handle the crisis themselves. If you crank the crisis strength up much this is no longer true though, and it'll inevitably fall to the player to save the galaxy or die trying..
in order to be whaok the game would have to let you be a fanatic militarist fanatic xenophobe fanatic authoritarian fanatic spiritualist fanatic materialist empire.
Next DLC was announced. Stellaris: Overlord (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-246-announcing-overlord.1515008/) not much info yet outside what's immediately obvious from the name; it'll have to do with vassals and subjugation.
I do like playing as a vassaling nation in stellaris so I'm sorta interested to see what comes out, but I'm a bit unsure because interactions with weaker nations in in stellaris is pretty uninteresting because the game doesn't have and fundamentally doesn't support anything like having catch up mechanics or even really working together much so most of the time weaker nations have no purpose and are pretty much irrelevant as anything but an income source. And I'm not sure how you can make interacting with them interesting without some fundamental shifts to how stellaris works.
The details from today's dev diary look pretty cool: Link (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-247-new-ways-to-rule.1516799/)
If you put a carrier computer on your titans I've found they will hang very far back, and also has the effect (I consider it a benefit, but it definitely hinders sneaking around) that your fleets will engage at a much longer range.
The issue with computers in vanilla, assuming they're still unchanged, is that they only define maximum distances. Ships won't fall back to keep the range open if the enemy is set to close to shorter distances than they are set to engage at. However, for screens, they should continue moving in to engage at their own preferred range while the titan remains back if their configured range is shorter than the titan; this just won't matter as much outside the opening volleys once the enemy ships mix in. I'm also not sure offhand how weapons targeting is determined beyond the basic "shield-bonus weapons target ships with active shields first, armor-bonus weapons target ships with exposed armor first, etc.," so I'm not sure how long they'll keep providing ablative armor to the titan either.If you put a carrier computer on your titans I've found they will hang very far back, and also has the effect (I consider it a benefit, but it definitely hinders sneaking around) that your fleets will engage at a much longer range.
I've been meaning to try this but keep forgetting to, since it felt like the computers made little practical difference and everything ends up in a knife fight with artillery anyway. Do you put carrier computers on the other ships in the fleet with the titan, or leave them with other computers? Do they actually fly ahead and screen the titan if you do that?
I do know that if the species you're playing does not have the exact same traits -and potentially in the same order- and the exact portrait used, the game will not recognize the species is the same.It seems to recognize that two various degrees of custom human I use are the same species when both factions are used. They use the same portrait, and have one shared trait. The one with the smaller pop seems to be a subsect of the one with the larger.
I do know that if the species you're playing does not have the exact same traits -and potentially in the same order- and the exact portrait used, the game will not recognize the species is the same.
The Imperial Fiefdom start's lost any fun it had. Your overlord will do everything they can to fuck you over and, worse, they've got unlimited influence to do it with.Isn't there an event where the overlord implodes?
Every time I play it they demand I turn into a prospectorum with insane taxes (60% research, basic and advanced goods), and in the rare event I have enough influence to pay the 500+ cost to say no, they'll come back a few months later and demand the exact same thing. They keep doing it until you literally cannot deny them.
I dunno how you *would* make ground invasions more interesting.
I dunno how you *would* make ground invasions more interesting.Instead of just being a series of timers you have to overcome, just add more meaningful choice into the whole mix. So planet defenders get access to things like defences they can place on the planet that can shoot at bombarding ships, launch missiles or fighter craft, where you place your defending armies is more important than how many you have, and the attacker can then have more organic choices to strike (e.g. this industrial district is too well defended, so let me make my planetfall on this farming district and move out from there)
As a sidenote, I never build barracks/strongholds. I get all my naval capacity from anchorages.
The barrack spam method only really works for chokepoints. Fill it with strongholds, build a shield generator, if you've got anything else to minimise bombardment damage then that helps. By the time they're invading it ten years have passed.From what Space Scifi game franchise have I heard this before, hmmmmm?
Again: Anchorages, naval capacity from starbases, should be removed entirely.
I say that when it's my primary/only source of naval cap.
Some day I should try creating enough empires that I can force spawn so that I get galaxies made up of empires of my design. I gather that a lot of players do this, and it's a cool idea. Right now I only have 3 set up that way, but I usually play on less crowded maps of about 10 empires so I wouldn't have to make too many.I did something like that. I made a 'human diaspora' custom setting using mods and force-spawned empires where 99% of the empires in the galaxy were human, post-human, or human origin. By that I mean some were robot gestalt assimilators with human cyborgs, some were robot gestalts pampering humans, one was a hive mind made of humans, etc. One was an alien race that had enslaved a human subpopulation. It was fun enacting a sort of human reunification war to reconnect all of humanity.
Another fun one on a similar theme:How do you make an empty galaxy with no other empires? I though a certain minimum number would spawn regardless?
Use the Fatherland mod (https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2389164674) and Planetary Diversities habitats (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1878751971).
Make an empty galaxy (no other Empires but yourself)
Play as humans with the Doomsday Origin
Not leave the Sol sector until the Earth explodes.
You have until Earth explodes to research and colonise the various planetary bodies of the Sol System, and then have to then spread out and reuinite humanity.
The problem isbthat despite claims to the contrary first contaxts still fail to acknowledge belonging to the same speciesSome day I should try creating enough empires that I can force spawn so that I get galaxies made up of empires of my design. I gather that a lot of players do this, and it's a cool idea. Right now I only have 3 set up that way, but I usually play on less crowded maps of about 10 empires so I wouldn't have to make too many.I did something like that. I made a 'human diaspora' custom setting using mods and force-spawned empires where 99% of the empires in the galaxy were human, post-human, or human origin. By that I mean some were robot gestalt assimilators with human cyborgs, some were robot gestalts pampering humans, one was a hive mind made of humans, etc. One was an alien race that had enslaved a human subpopulation. It was fun enacting a sort of human reunification war to reconnect all of humanity.
Another fun one on a similar theme:I'm combining this idea with the A Cradle at the End of Time (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2914583150) mod to replicate a pocket of humanity that survived the Become The Crisis ending and is now rebuilding the galaxy. No idea if it will work.
Use the Fatherland mod (https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2389164674) and Planetary Diversities habitats (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1878751971).
Make an empty galaxy (no other Empires but yourself)
Play as humans with the Doomsday Origin
Not leave the Sol sector until the Earth explodes.
You have until Earth explodes to research and colonise the various planetary bodies of the Sol System, and then have to then spread out and reuinite humanity.
Basically my ideal is an empty galaxy should be a political experience of managing an expanding empire that is otherwise trying to tear itself apart. And in a populated galaxy it'd be an extra challenge or aspect to going wide that needs attention that Tall doesn't need to deal with.
Yeah. Stealth is a good Meta-breaker, but it runs a high risk of just becoming the new meta that everything has to have/protect against. Hopefully it just brings in some new strategic choices to make things more interesting.
tbf scientists are the only leader type I really give a shit about.I've had fun with good admirals.
hard to give a shit about admirals when combat boils down to having bigger numbers than your opponent.
like Crusader Kings also has a morbillion modifiers for combat but on average having more troops will just win you the war outside of an utter blunder like a river crossing.
... you're not going to be able to completely ignore farming by buying a bunch of farmer scientists.
Ah, those. Fun times. Basically just Prikki-Ti but instead of death they bring love (some death required).
I only ever rocked with 2 science ships ever since I've played Stellaris (one for archeology and one for surveying). The cap still gripes me because now certain leader types, such as Generals and Governors, are basically a waste of a slot now. You can't have multiple fleets... well you still can... but you'll have to stomach the XP penalty that will come with it.Generals, I'll agree on, but not so much governors. A level 1 governor gives a flat +2% bonus to all resources on all planets in the sector and -2% to empire size cap. Start stacking on traits, and they're a pretty steady bonus to whichever sector they rule. Industrialists are particularly nice for their sectors: another +5% bonus to resources at level 4 from the veteran trait, up to +15% food output, +20% slave output, +35% to industrial outputs (alloy, CG, or refineries), +15% to researcher output, or smaller bonuses across the board (+5% ruler, +10% specialist, +15% workers) depending on which traits they roll. Pioneers can pick up +45% to various raw resources with investment, and Visionaries provide not only bonuses to unity, but they have the chance to provide one of the few flat bonuses to Influence. A high-level governor with decent traits is not only superior to a planetary designation, but stacks with that designation and all other bonuses you might have picked up.
The only real issue is when an admiral dies/retires/gets elected and it fucks up your fleet limit.
I run three maybe four scientists and the leader limit hasn't really hurt me. Isn't the penalty only -leader XP anyway?
Alternatively 'generic'' low level leaders, particularly governers and admirals could be autogenned and force-stuck into their holes.
So basically what envoys are right now? Not really ideal, considering that envoys are one of the leader types that DEFINITELY shouldn't be autogenned/generic at this point, considering how important they are and how many things they're supposed to do.
Espionage has the same issue as Federations in that you need to invest a tradition tree to bother with it at all. Like I don't think you even get spy/encryption tech without starting the tradition.
Envoys are such a steal from EU4s diplomat system.
Why they're "fleshed out" as character leaders at all is a mystery to me.
Is the AI actually getting better, or has the cheating been secretly boosted?
On the subject of weird things you can't do, I'm still disappointed that you can't play as non-gestalt robots and am shocked that you still can't play a psionic hivemind. I mean, for organic hiveminds is it not implied that's how they even work?
Hard to blame them for dropping support, considering Windows 7 support from Microsoft ended in 2020 and it hasn't received security updates in 3 years now for average consumers (or start of this year if you were on ESU). Frankly no internet connected device should still be on Windows 7. And I'd say the default assumption should be anything released after Jan 10th 2020 doesn't support Windows 7 unless explicitly stated otherwise, so I wouldn't have expected anything after 2.5.1 to officially support it.
Stellaris and the launcher both work on Linux via Proton if you don't want to update Windows. You're much better off switching to an actively maintained Linux OS than staying on a dead Windows OS.
You are missing the point of my post but it doesn't really matter.
.....(version 3.9.2 no gamebreaking bugs in ~15 hours of multiplayer).....