Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Trekkin]

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. Antiprotons will have no use for another six patches, at which point they can be exchanged 1:1 for Unity, and Synthetics will get a 5% nerf to everything while Biologicals get a trait for 0.001% more antiprotons/year in a DLC.

Also we're probably ten patches out from losing hyperlanes and everyone plays tall forever.

[Karnewarrior]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Trekkin]

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.

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.

[umiman]

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.

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.

Stellaris is simply just a space 4X made by people who don't like playing space 4X.

Spoiler: me ranting again (click to show/hide)

It literally took them years before they even gave us the great honor of buying planet destroying weapons (that REALLY sucked and kinda still do). All they care about is MP balance. No trading. No espionage. Really shitty warscore system that makes absolutely no sense in this context and actually just straight up frustrates every single person who deals with it. Neutered faction system that does nothing. Magic weapons that shoot faster the more outnumbered you are. A completely nonexistent AI.

I don't even know what they're doing honestly and I seriously doubt they do too, especially considering all the backpedaling they keep doing with every decision they make. I think the only nice parts are the mods and some of the flavour text. Modders have so much passion for this project they are seriously putting the devs to shame.

How a space 4X fan designs a superweapon: "Yeah, it's a galactic superlaser that fires from a giant orbital cannon and obliterates entire solar systems. It costs like an infinite amount of resources, and 20 trillion years of research but the laser is fucking amazing. Also for the next tech after that you get a version that can be mounted on a super ultra battlecruiser of doom."

How Stellaris designs a superweapon: "Yeah, it's gonna be small and puny with no defenses whatsoever. You can only build one. It moves at a glacial pace. And the best part is it takes like... 2 in game years to fire. Then it has to recharge too for another few years."



I'm still salty about it.

Don't even get me started on megastructures. Only the Stellaris devs could make a Dyson Sphere be boring. A frigging Dyson. Sphere. More worthless than a couple of little flying platforms with some power generators on them.

On a plus note, their CEO stepped down so maybe we'll get someone who cares more about making good games rather than shitty DLC that cost too much but contain too little. Mr. "Oh, why is everyone so mad that we decided to raise prices in every country that isn't US on games that are over a decade old I really can't understand why you're angry to pay $50 for a DLC for CK2. You guys are totally overreacting guys but just because I'm so nice I'll revert the change okay! But don't worry we'll think about doing it again ".

Or most likely we'll get even more of the same.

[Trekkin]

Having played it again recently, I think they're trying to do three things at once, and they keep half-assedly shifting it toward one of the three extremes, getting negative feedback, and going the other way. To the extent that Wiz listens to feedback, it has largely been "system X is a cool idea but an incomplete implementation" with varying levels of salt, but he seems to only hear "X is terrible, try something new" and the dev cycle only permits half-assed implementation by release.

We have random events and traits and the bare bones of a classic Paradox software toy that can be played, steered, or let run to watch the little folks bounce off each other, but their impact has to be muted to conform to the needs of the 4X elements that dictated there be a complex planet system and combat engine and little enough randomness that strategy meant a great deal. However, the difference between good and bad strategy could not be so great as to make the multiplayer boring with long stretches of doomed play.

Consequently, we get half of three games, which is a game and a half on paper but never a full experience in practice.

[Radsoc]

As with all paradox games they are released in a de facto alpha state. The vanilla launch Stellaris was complete nonsense, with a non-existent mid-game. Same goes for CK2 or EU4, you basically only pay for the engine, proof of concept that barely can be called a game. Only years later you have a version that's good. Sadly you're forced to walk the DLC collection route and decide whether to wait for the next DLC before you launch a game or not. Discounts were up to 75% before, now it's 50% maximum.

I don't think a new CEO will change anything, it's a lucrative business practice, and in any business you need to maximize profits to outcompete and buy your competitors before they outcompete you.

[Cruxador]

There was literally nothing wrong with CK2 on release, aside from a relatively small array of bugs and stability issues. It built on the original game excellently, adding aesthetics and UI without sacrificing very much at all. It was a much simpler experience, but it's still a fun one, and you can still play a pretty similar game if you deactivate all the DLC and play in central Europe. The biggest difference I can think of is technology, and a lot of little differences in the calculations about your domain and vassals and AI behavior, most of which are kinda subjective as to whether they're improvements anyway.

[MorleyDev]

So my current run seems to have become "Once more the Sith will save the galaxy!". Playing as cruel evil Sith, have slaves and force vassalisation by the sword!

Wait, my neighbour is a fanatical purifier. Can't have them. Best kill them quick.

Wait, my marauder neighbour just got a Great Khan? Best act as the main border between them for most of his life, stopping them gaining many strapys before eventually becoming one just a few years before the Great Khan died.

Wait, the isolationist Fallen Empire just awake and I'm the only one that can match them in military? Best fight them and constantly fight their thralls.

Wait, the contingency just triggered? Well, the fallen empire's mask fleet power is 75k so they're not very helpful. They spawn mostly in areas with massive border gore already, and just wreck everything. The ancient caretakers goes berserk and basically locks the fallen empire away in a war.

The one that spawns in my empire is contained inside a part of the hyperlanes with one way out and a defence platform on that way which can combine with my fleet to hold it back. I eventually manage to tech up and wipe it out, and then slowly take care of the closer and easier to access ones and eventually the far away one. I use my Planet Cracker called the Death Star on each one.

Just cracked Nexus Zero-One with the Death Star.

So the Sith just saved the galaxy. With the Death Star. ...sigh. So  after all that, I reform government into an Imperium of the Sith under the immortal God-Emperor and finally get to be the evil sith and use my clone and psionic army to conquer a dramatically weakened galaxy with my 500k fleet.

First step! Crush the two awakened empires trying to subjugate the galaxy! ...wait.

[Egan_BW]

That's just what being evil in a "not killing everything" sort of way is like, when you share space with other evil things. Sometimes you have to play "savior". just think of it as propaganda to keep the vassals in check.

[Flying Dice]

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is pretty much spot on. Gal Civ is good because the higher-difficulty AI is blisteringly clever and the strategic-level game is about using your civ's advantages to stall the others from pursuing their own victory paths rather than accumulating a critical mass of numbers in a deathball. Notably, you could do without any significant fleet forces and go for a pure culture or research victory... as long as you planned it carefully and were positioned well on the map.

They keep trying to set it up to act like a reflection of contemporary terrestrial geopolitics... but even then Stellaris has fewer failed states and successful revolutions than the real world. It's shallow and tedious across the board because nothing really matters except building up a fuckoff big fleet, and the systems you use to do that are not interesting to interact with. Then they decide that deathballs are boring and do everything they can to stop them from accumulating, so it becomes even more tedious to do the one semi-fun thing in the game.

It's more or less the repeated failing of PDX: they make grand strat games that are really just wargames, then make the wargame aspect just a doomstack-pushing simulator where you spend two hours catching the enemy stack and ten sieging out all their provinces. Stellaris is even worse because it lacks the historical event chains for different countries. It's like they still haven't figured out why CKII was and is so popular.

That's kinda the sad thing, too, is that Stellaris has so many mechanics which could be really engaging if they were properly developed, but they're all mostly ignored in favor of stack smashing or specifically funneled in the direction of offering things to smash other than other stacks.

[Karnewarrior]

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.

[Flying Dice]

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.

Play on the highest 2-3 difficulty settings. GalCiv AI is genuinely that good, but they only start taking restrictions off of it above the mid-grade difficulties. I mean, good in the sense that it actually plans ahead and coordinates complex actions rather than the usual route of cheating. IIRC it's because they have a really good specialist with AI on their dev team.

[ZeroGravitas]

martin showing off some buildings on twitter

I like this approach. It means you're pointing the planet in a direction without having to revisit it constantly to ugprade or make trivial decisions like "build a new mine to accommodate the new pop on the mining tile"

additional buildings look to be increasingly expensive, so it actually matters which specific buildings you pick on each planet, as opposed to your empire just being the sum of tiles across all your planets.

[Telgin]

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.

In any case, I really like the way this is starting to look.  It sounds like a great improvement over the old system in many ways.

On the subject of snowballing and instability from a few posts back: I agree.  The anti-snowballing mechanics seem to try to ensure that smaller empires can somehow remain competitive with larger ones, which is kind of reasonable since your starting position can lock you into smaller territory, but I agree completely that making a bigger empire just harder to keep together would go a long way toward solving the issue.

[pisskop]

Order or populace control?

Traditional or Civic adherence?  If pops can no longer be individually assigned, enslaved, or monitored then a measure of how cohesive they are is useful.