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[Rolan7]

Yeaaah, one of my best friends shared with me yesterday.  Not sure what to think.

Maybe it's just because I've been trying hive-minds for the first time, and would like to ever play authoritarian to the end maybe, but I kinda don't hate this?

Friend did point out that they're massively reinventing the game, at least twice.  But, still.
I LOVE the idea of "this demographic is dying off" instead of the bizarre "all pops of this type will suddenly disappear at once IN TEN YEARS.

My complaint about laptop support re: scroll is still valid, BTW, I hope they address that someday.
But it's a worthwhile game, I just picked up synthetic dawn on sale.

[Il Palazzo]

In a few years, it'll look exactly like MOO2.

edit: fucken grammer, how does it work?

[Rolan7]

And is that such a bad thing-
But no, it IS, it's supposed to be grand strategy which is evolved a stage from Civ and MoO.  MoO3.

And it is, kinda.  The sector system works very well, as far as I've seen.  It's not perfectly optimal, but it's certainly better than I was lead to expect.

Especially since they removed the influence penalties for adjusting sectors, this really is the MoO3 I wanted.  You can micro a few "core sectors", but really you're doing grand strategy with (MoStLy) efficient zoom-in when you care about specific systems.

[umiman]

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.

[BurnedToast]

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.

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.

Unfortunately, despite how shallow it is, the AI still can't even handle the current system. So making it even more complicated is problematic - unless they layer on even more cheat bonuses, the AI will just fail even harder than it does right now.

So I'm all for them changing it to something that's less busywork, and that hopefully the AI can handle better.

The one thing I do worry about is it looks like tile bonuses are somehow translated into number of production buildings you can make, i.e. no more "every tile is a mine no matter what" planets. I worry that this will make ice master race (with it's mineral and engineering bonuses) even more powerful, and wet planets (with the trash tier food bonus) even worse off. It's already too big of a power difference for something that should be cosmetic, it would be unfortunate if it got worse.

[Cruxador]

Honestly, I think this is dumb. Yes, the current system is lackluster, but throwing it out in favor of something that's lackluster but at least it has some charm to it. It should be improved, instead of just throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

[forsaken1111]

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.

[ZeroGravitas]

I worry that this will make ice master race (with it's mineral and engineering bonuses) even more powerful

Scandinavian company, is anyone surprised

but seriously, i'm guessing you'll see planet types significant changed, too.

[Telgin]

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.

Agreed completely.  I was having this very thought last night after setting up my thirtieth or so planet.  There's fairly little thought that goes into it, other than deciding if I should skip putting a farm somewhere since I have a stupidly huge amount of food income because a sector governor decided that his sector needed to produce +75 food for some reason.  I really wish there was more variety in the buildings too.  So, yeah, I like the looks of the change.

Anyway, I finally finished my first game yesterday, which was my second attempt at single player (the first was aborted fairly early on because I screwed some things up in my species mod).  It took just over 80 real life hours since I played a lot of it at normal speed and on a kind of slow computer, lasted 315 game years and had an end game crisis that lasted for 99 years by itself.

My biggest takeaway after the crisis ended was that I now understand why people say they don't go for victory in Stellaris.  As a pacifist empire, it took me forever to get 40% of the planets in the galaxy, and I literally would have been unable to if the Contingency hadn't opened up a ton of them to me to retake from other empires.  That's even including building habitats, since they increase the total number of habitable worlds in the galaxy and thus the number you have to own.  That would have made it technically possible, but at 160 influence each, it would have taken another 100 years in game.

I can understand that as pacifists you're probably supposed to join federations and get a federation victory, but what are pacifist xenophobes with inward perfection civics supposed to do?  Goad other empires into attacking them so they can take planets in defensive wars?  Can you even do that?

[IcyTea31]

Inward Perfection is great for building up unity, not for conquering the galaxy. The whole point about it is that you don't care about the world outside your own territory. Once you have all the traditions you need/want, you should switch ethos and open up your diplomacy and/or missile bays if you want to expand further.

[Egan_BW]

Those traits indicate that your people aren't the kind of people who are interested in "winning" the empire game. They are basically content with what they have and don't want to mess with the rest of the universe, so your job is to make sure that your people are as happy as possible, until such point that your idealistic worldview is interrupted by suprise tyrranids or such.
Want to take over the galaxy? Play as an empire that wants to take over the galaxy.

[Telgin]

Which makes sense, but it effectively means you can't declare any kind of victory in Stellaris.  Unless, yeah, you do pull an end game switcharoo and surprise conquer everyone.

Maybe it's not a problem that you can't declare victory in any kind of sense?  It is just a "A Winner is You!" screen anyway.  It would be nice if there was like a cultural or scientific victory condition too, of some kind.  I was always leading the galaxy in science, aside from Fallen Empires of course, and ended the game with levels 8-10 in most military repeatables.  Then again, I was somewhat surprised at the victory screen telling me that I only beat the next runner up by about 20% in total research, and that was with me dedicating almost everything I could to it.

[Radsoc]

Master of Orion (but especially the old MoO2) has some great mechanics, including victory conditions, Stellaris could learn from (but of course not perfect, and not grand strategy in the same sense). Looks like their protoype pop screen resembles the MoO style.

In Stellaris you can't be sure to win every time, but if there's one thing that the game teaches you, it's patience. You may have a nice place in perfect harmony, tropico style, then suddenly get a crisis and lose a lot of battles, get stripped down to your last few planets and get really annoyed. The trick is to not give up, to continue. Sometimes you might get vassalized, forced to pay tributes, or whatever, but in essence the game mechanics seem to promote Kulikovo/Stalingrad style moments.

[Telgin]

I will say that the end game crisis was really exciting in that respect, at least early on.  Somehow, I'd managed to avoid war entirely for over 200 years, since I only had one neighbor that didn't like me, and I was able to keep enough fleet power that I guess they didn't think they could win.

Then a sterilization hub appeared in one of my systems in 2455, and the fleet and troop transports obliterated the outpost and dropped like 20 synthetic armies on my planet and habitat.  It was actually kind of depressing watching the little army health indicators dwindle down, then see the red skull appear on all of my pops on those planets.  Guess that's what I get for modding in a cute species to play as.

First attempts to retake the system were wildly unsuccessful.  I had about 50K fleet power in total, and my four fleets were wrecked by the one autonomous cluster hanging around.  I had 50K minerals stockpiled and plenty of spaceports, so I rebuilt quickly, and with the help of my federation ally I managed to destroy the cluster and retake the system with heavy losses.  After that, I learned to use the ship designer to make ships to counter the Contingency, and had to change my entire thinking to focus on warfare instead of keeping my population happy.  I ran huge energy deficits in my core sector for that entire century, and only survived because of trade agreements and by draining other sector stockpiles periodically.  I had to use the Droning Optimizations edict for the first time to keep a positive mineral balance, and influence was even more scarce than usual, especially since I wanted to take systems that the Contingency had opened up in their wake.

I was actually concerned that I might not win at the last sterilization hub.  I guess they get a bonus rate to fleet spawns as you destroy hubs, and they were cranking out fleets fast enough that I could barely maintain a foothold nearby.  I spent several game years with four fleets parked near a wormhole so I could build up a big starport to crank out 4 battleships at a time, but sheer attrition destroyed the fleets and that starport... which I had to rebuild.  Thankfully, by that time I'd destroyed all of the wandering fleets that had built up in that quarter of the galaxy, and established a foothold that let me win.

I can imagine that the Contingency won't be as fun to play against next time, so hopefully I'll get a different crisis.  I wonder how they compare in difficulty, since from what I gather the Contingency is a bit more gimmicky in that they only use energy weapons and are a bit easier to hard counter with shields.

[umiman]

Contingency is way harder than any of the other crisises.