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[Telgin]

I'm glad someone spelled all of that out, since I was never able to make sense of the mechanics just by reading bits and pieces scattered around in discussions.  Since I've yet to be in a war, what's the difference between status quo peace and winning a war?  Is it just a matter of the aggressor getting to max war exhaustion first (status quo) or the defender (victory)?

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.

I tried playing with slow breeders recently and was surprised at how much it hurt early on.  I was expecting it to be effectively free trait points, but I seriously could not research robotic workers fast enough...

[Telgin]

Oh, war exhaustion just acts as a factor in the AI's decision to accept your demands / peace?  Seems like that would remove most incentives to ever accept defeat, since if you delayed long enough you'd almost certainly come out better in status quo... unless the alternative was the enemy destroying more of your stuff I guess.

[Telgin]

Ah, that would make sense.

Unrelated to that, but I'm a little frustrated by the limitations of portrait mods for robots.  I managed to get portraits to work fine for robotic pops on planet tiles, but they don't work for leader positions and I'm not positive why that is.  My strong suspicion is that robots probably have no gender, which means that the portrait definitions in the mod probably don't work since it assigns images by whether or not the robot is male or female.

Normally, I'd just lump them all in the same portrait group without a gender restriction, but then the names don't work out anymore.  I really don't want my synthetic admirals to have names like Fleet Array XVIII when they are clearly not a beep-boop-I-am-a-robot style robot, so I created new buildable pops that use correct name lists based on gender.  Surprisingly, that does seem to actually pick names for them, despite the names being gendered, although I don't recall if I ever saw any female names being picked...

Maybe the portrait problem is unrelated.  I also can't figure out how to get the portraits to show up properly in the species builder, even though they work when selecting a leader phenotype, and they work on pop tiles.  Very mysterious.

[Trekkin]

I finally got around to playing a game through to the end in 2.1, and I have to say, the map feels a lot less like a unified galaxy now that everyone has to go around via the hyperlane clusters. I don't know how the travel times actually compare (and I used wormholes) but I certainly don't recall waiting multiple years for a ship to go from the inner to the outer edge of a 1000-star galaxy. It's especially bad with outposts, and that's making me wonder: how hard would it be to mod space construction so you can just leave tasks for the nearest free constructor to do rather than assign them to specific ships?

[Telgin]

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.

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.

[Baffler]

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!

This doesn't seem to affect the AI as much as it does the player. I see the AI routinely spend months or years at 100% war exhaustion as the aggressor while the defender sits at around 50%-60%, then enforce their demands at the end with no obvious negative effects besides having lost all the minerals they used rebuilding their fleet for the umpteenth time.

[Teneb]

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.

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.

I am pretty sure you can't force units to move around, but I am basing this off of my knowledge of modding CK2.

At any rate, I actually appreciate the sense of scale this movement time brings.

[pisskop]

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 . . .

[umiman]

It's an extremely common fallacy for video games (and a lot of media in general actually) to not understand the value of time.

On one end of the scale you have fantasy games that go

"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".

And on the other end of the scale you have sci fi games that go

"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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

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.

[ChairmanPoo]

To be fair  tech  progression has accelerated a lot in the last century, whereas in CK2 times it was far more static.

[Telgin]

How often does ai war?  Ive seen 2100 once and no war...

Very rarely.  I haven't ever had the AI declare war on me in about 180 hours of playing the game.  The AI likes to declare war on other AI empires though, in my experience, but always on weaker empires.

The AI seems to be very conservative about its survival in a war and won't declare war unless it's reasonably sure it will win.  That seems to be the case even for genocidal empires, who will hate your guts all day but won't attack you if they think it's too dangerous.  Some AI personalities, like Honorbound Warriors, supposedly are more brave when declaring war, but I'm not sure how much weight it actually has.

So, in general, it seems that if you want to see war, you should play an aggressive empire and declare war yourself, or feign weakness by not building up your fleet until someone does declare war.  That, of course, is very risky if you can't build up your fleet in time.

I've recently tried playing with the AI set to Aggressive, but haven't noticed any change.  Turning up the difficulty would probably help too since it makes the AI economies stronger to the point that they probably compete with you.

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 . . .

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?

But, yeah, it's the kind of campy sci-fi that the game emulates, so that's what we get.

[Trekkin]

Thanks, Telgin.

At any rate, I actually appreciate the sense of scale this movement time brings.

Oh, I like it too; it's certainly different, but running a war cluster-by-cluster isn't inherently less fun than your whole empire being a few months wide. That said, it does make choosing constructor ships less trivial, since the lag is bigger, and nontrivial but mathematically obvious decisions are book-keeping rather than grand strategy.

[Karnewarrior]

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?

It was a very big shotgun.

[Egan_BW]

"Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space." remains the best line ever spoken in a videogame.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Once you reach 100% WE IIRC you get major, MAJOR maluses. No influence and enormous penalties to population happiness, I believe.

Unless things have been changed yet again while I wasn't looking, which is possible, that is no longer the case. They tried that for a bit before people started exploiting it, either by ignoring the maluses completely or letting their rivals sit at 100% forever and be crippled by them. So instead they have it that status-quo automatically kicks in after 24 months or something like that. Have to always accept status-quo? Something like that. _{It's been way, way too long since I last played Stellaris but it feels so bland to me now and I haven't found any good mods to solve that problem and yeah.}