Paradox Grand Strat meets Sci-Fi 4X; Boners Explode

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:37 pm #170403

Bottom post of the previous page:

If we ever do another mutliplayer play through, I have another idea for a hive mind of pacifist fungally infected zombies. So yeah.
Being a pacifist might be an interesting gameplay choice from "SHOOT SHOOT KILL INVADE"

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:13 pm #170409

It's fuckin' hilarious how bad the two empires hate the Blorg in the starting streams. These aliens are fuckin' assholes.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:15 pm #170411

I don't think it'll be possible to recreate factions like the Nekro Virus or Cravers. I'd be interested to see people's attempts, but the game seems so heavy on diplomacy that trying to go all-out warfare seems unlikely.

At the very least you will have to manage your own population's happiness and keep your own internal factions in check while attempting to steam-roll the rest of the universe, which will collectively rise against you if you start to get too successful. At some point you'll have to start taking slaves, which will just piss the rest of the universe off even more.

Skorvold wrote:It's fuckin' hilarious how bad the two empires hate the Blorg in the starting streams. These aliens are fuckin' assholes.

They made the Blorg militants, which already stresses any relationships you have with them (nobody wants to be close to a people that are vocally conquistadors) and they also made them repugnant (which further causes everyone to hate them).

>Blorg go to war
>Even their own vassals dont want to help them
>Spend decades and a bunch of resources uplifting a stone-age civilization to space-fairing nation
>They still don't like the Blorg

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:23 pm #170414

If you get turned into a vassal, you still maintain control of your units, right?

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:27 pm #170415

I'm not sure what happens to a player-controlled vassalage.

From the dev diary

A Vassal is the most controlled type of subject-Empire. They will automatically join their Overlord’s wars, aggressive and defensive, and they have no autonomy when it comes to foreign policy or diplomatic relations. A vassal also run the risk of a full diplomatic integration by their Overlord.

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:40 pm #170418

Fuck. Here's to crossing my fingers that I don't get politically dunked on and vassalized as a vassal to take on the militaristic brunt of the ruling empire.

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:43 pm #170419

THE FUCK DO YOU WANT
THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKIN AT

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 5:59 pm #170421

Skorvold wrote:Fuck. Here's to crossing my fingers that I don't get politically dunked on and vassalized as a vassal to take on the militaristic brunt of the ruling empire.

I don't think anyone is going to just diplo their way into making you their vassal.
By choosing a militaristic ethos you're setting yourself up for gameplay where your political power is going to come directly from how many units you have produced. If you have a lot, you will be able to scare off potential threats and possibly bully your way into alliances.

You do get a lot of buffs for fighting though. Make it count. Take advantage of what political stuff you can do; get those embassies out there as soon as possible with people who can introduce you to their friends. A race like what I intend to play would make a great ally for you, as I'll likely be coaching all kinds of other alliances and you'll get a lot of friends-of-friends treaties going on. People may not like your people, but they'll like the coalitions you're in. Vice-versa, when my penguins come knocking on someone else's galactic door with a van full of goods, people will be less likely to just try to roll me for my sciences if they see you riding shotgun.

If you display a fuckton of military strength you might get some of the lesser players at the table flocking to you for vassalage. In exchange for handing over a lot of their autonomy they get your army obligated to come help them if anyone attacks. Be careful you don't just snap up every single person that comes knocking, though. If one of these little buttholes has been taunting a bigger empire, or has a bad rep with someone you were attempting to coach favor with, it can just lead to more problems for you.

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:08 pm #170422

I don't usually intend for aggression, I just play extremely defensively in strategy games. Plus it just seemed fun to make a war-proud avian race.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:34 pm #170430

Skorvold wrote:I don't usually intend for aggression, I just play extremely defensively in strategy games. Plus it just seemed fun to make a war-proud avian race.

No problem with that. Hissho are great.

Not sure Militaristic is a very good ethos for a race you intend to play defensively, though. It looks like just being militaristic causes hits on your neighbors' affinity for you, and penalizes you when trying to make friends with folks. Just existing is going to get you into some tense situations, but it's likely if you just fill your borders with gunships people may leave you alone.

tedward1337 · Post by **tedward1337** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:38 pm #170441

Who's ready for the hivemind.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:49 pm #170445

[reeee alert]

Why does Collectivist lock the Democracy governments? So if I want to make a Star Trek Federation I'm forced to set it as a Peaceful Bureaucracy while a Moral Democracy would be more appropriate

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 7:59 pm #170447

Grazyn wrote:[reeee alert]

Why does Collectivist lock the Democracy governments? So if I want to make a Star Trek Federation I'm forced to set it as a Peaceful Bureaucracy while a Moral Democracy would be more appropriate

Uhhhhhhh try reading what Collectivist actually does.
I don't remember The Federation being real cool on slavery.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:12 pm #170449

Yeah I don't really get the slaves thing, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a direct quote from a popular hero of the Federation, not to mention that it's the definition of democracy. Well I guess I'll settle with Materialist then.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:26 pm #170455

Oh Spock.

If I were going to make the Federation, I would probably go with something like

Militarist (they ARE a fighting force, and their relations with other nations are usually centered around armed conflicts)
Xenophile (seek out new frontiers and civilizations)
Individualist (while they don't use money they still emphasize everyone having the freedom to do whatever they want within the federation, and respecting eachother's cultural traditions and shit is pretty high priority)

Which sticks you with Indirect Democracy as your government.
Which, if I remember right, is accurate.

For traits it's really a grab bag. The Federation represents such a huge diversity of people it's kinda impossible to pick any. You get two points for free, so picking up "Communal" and "Charismatic" kinda rounds out your "We're the Good Guys" image. People will be less pissed-off to have you as neighbors and your own internal population will be a bit more positive on the whole.

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:35 pm #170457

Glad to know I'll be fighting against my own creation, oh tedward. When you choose the species portrait be sure to choose these fungal zombie guys
EDIT: To be clear, this is cool. I just needed to steam some sarcasm

tedward1337 · Post by **tedward1337** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:38 pm #170459

Can do

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:42 pm #170460

Yikes. So you're immediately going to want to try to absorb your weakest nearby alien population, then spend the rest of the game dealing with all the fallout that is going to cause / general hatred the entire universe has for you.

Good luck with that, and I hope I don't start anywhere near the clusterfuck you're going to cause.

I wonder if you'll be able to trade slaves like a commodity between other pro-slavery empires?
The thing is that unless the other collectivists are also fanatical they will have some resistance to slavery and internal factions springing up that are anti-slavery / slave revolts and such.

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:45 pm #170462

I'm not ordering you to use that or whatever
use whatever
today has been a day for me
sarcasm or whatever

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:58 pm #170464

Just imagining these Empires in a game together is hyping me.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:00 pm #170465

I feel like it wont be very long before the Noot are seeking Zion and complaining about a history of oppression and slavery.

"Oy vey! *honk* My little webbed feets are killing me from all of this running!"

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:06 pm #170466

At least Tedward will have an easier time when he conquers other planets. The amount of factions the Blorg have is insane.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 10:37 pm #170484

Yeah, they picked Solitary as one of their traits so their population is naturally less happy, which gives them a predisposition to things like wanting to secede from Blorg or migrate to other space.

...and they've been purposely avoiding allowing free migration within their space/alliance because they know all their people will prettymuch up and immediately emigrate to one of their allies.

...which means they've got a bunch of their own pissed off people basically confined to their colonies against their wills. So yeah, factions ahoy!

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:02 am #170522

Actually in a full multiplayer game what point is there in not going Militarist? Unlike in Single Player, diplomacy doesn't really have the same effect because it's between players, not nations, so if someone is a total warmongerer they're still going to get trade and deals with other players.

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:17 am #170525

Also, being a day 1 game, we will probably be going full meme machine mode...
and diplomacy does not work on a meme machine

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:22 am #170526

Vassalage will likely function akin to Star Ruler 2 where you simply have to do whatever your overlord does, but you maintain a degree of control over your own territory and military.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:32 am #170531

Zilenan91 wrote:Actually in a full multiplayer game what point is there in not going Militarist? Unlike in Single Player, diplomacy doesn't really have the same effect because it's between players, not nations, so if someone is a total warmongerer they're still going to get trade and deals with other players.

I think we'll still have some AI players around, but also players are still subject to some diplomatic options. Based on the streams it appears that if your own citizens are really unhappy, but one of your neighbors is producing positive relations with you, it'll create sympathetic factions and rebels from among your people.

Zilenan91 · Post by **Zilenan91** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:34 am #170534

Fuck your people we're Stalinist birds/literal piles of fungal shit

If they don't support you it's off to cold shitty barren ice world named gulag that's filled with wild animals and toxic waste

tedward1337 · Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:45 am

Ya'll are gonna have rebels because of me because of how much fun the hivemind is.

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:49 am #170540

Lombardi loyalty knows no bounds, fungi scum. wow my naming is super original

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:53 am #170541

Our high tech and happy feet will create a utopia everyone will want to be a part of

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:47 am #170561

My min maxxed high techiness and lawyers will make a utopia for everyone whether they like it or not (i changed it up a bit so scientists can be leaders which means empire wide science bonuses)

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:12 am #170568

We could fuck around playing other GSG's while we wait for Stellaris.

Endless Legend/Space
Dominions
Whatever?

Incomptinence · Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:30 am

Well since they look sorta like him I'm gonna play Memnites:

Basically fleshungus hating materialist xenophobes who feel they should have been even more superior robot men and wake up in a panicked sweat over the lack of sex robots beautiful metal worlds.

Basically built around near maxed engineering research and having retarded amounts of minerals to make levelers and little mirrodins with. While probably crippling slow breeding (chose not to take sedentary while it fits it seems to be such a low impact negative trait) encourages me to get slaves and robots driving a bit of conflict while not being a 100% start fucker like decadent. Probably going ocean world cuz muh blue mana. Disregard that apparently decadent will just let me enslave my own people as a stop gap measure anyway while I wait for glorious robolove/soul trapping.

Important thing to keep in mind is that traits and ethos seem to mostly work on a pop by pop basis mainly so a religious/militarist ethos pop IS happy they don't make neighbours from another pop happy only government and charismatic can do that. Also while some trait ethos combos make amazing leaders (notably science boosters for scientists and bombastic leader based shit like the venerable blorg) your plumb average Joe on the ground is basically vanilla.

Note me even participating at GMT +10 and bad connection basically couches entirely on them allowing steam preloads and maybe even then it fucks me.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 9:39 am #170632

This is the cap Wiz has been wearing on stream, btw

Fuck I want one

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 10:06 am #170635

swedish beard/10 would bang

wait that's not even wiz that's the main producer like Heinrich or something

ColonicAcid · Fri Apr 22, 2016 11:21 am

>heinrich

that's Johan Andersson you jabroney

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 11:26 am #170645

Empire Name: Hercheran Federation
Homeworld Name: Herche
Species Name: Herchera
Species Adjective: Hercheran

http://kaisersly.github.io/stellaris_ra ... ts=8,13,22

Gave my best shot at space science communists. I'll probably be a scrub and pick that spider race portrait that you get with the nova edition.

Venticular · Post by **Venticular** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 11:29 am #170646

yeah I don't know where I got heinrich from
I couldn't remember his name, so

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:24 pm #170651

holy shit you can eventually upgrade to the "Megacorporation" government form

shit let's be Nanotrasen and the factions of the Syndicate and duke it out that way

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:32 pm #170652

It'd just consist of the entire outer part of the galaxy being under the control of Nanotrasen, with it constantly having to deal with rebellions and civil wars. While the center of the galaxy is held by some Earth empire no one gives a shit about.

Aside from the single planet Clown Empire.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:18 pm #170659

Don't forget the Space Lizards Federation, and the mime empire, and the vast stretches of space that are de facto under Syndicate control.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:31 pm #170664

Bought. Looks to be my game

DemonFiren wrote:Don't forget the Space Lizards Federation, and the mime empire, and the vast stretches of space that are de facto under Syndicate control.

Don't you mean the grand empire of cargonia?

tedward1337 · Post by **tedward1337** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:51 pm #170710

I just realized that I created a Japanese hivemind character. Xenophobic, and only work for themselves.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 7:51 pm #170717

Based on past Paradox map-painting games I don't think it'll be too difficult to create custom scenarios like the Nanotrasen game.

Massive control over the universe, except for a small pocket of Clown Space and the Wizard Federation. You have a reptile faction you've assimilated. Massive and constant internal struggle within your own empire as tons of traitor factions and syndicate operatives keep trying to "liberate" different assets.

There's a lot of stuff that can be done with the game going forward with just some smart setups and maybe some custom portraits. A Dune TC would be pretty cool, for starters.

Remember folks if you want to join the day-1 multiplayer clusterfuck post your timezones!

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 8:24 pm #170722

I just want a game of Nations but in this

Cargonia, Atmosia, the Shitcurity Empire, the United Weeds of Hydroponics

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 9:08 pm #170736

>Can't make a race of shapeshifters to emulate the Changeling Hivemind

Ree I guess

Incomptinence · Fri Apr 22, 2016 9:22 pm

Wizard federation precursors?

Rebel AI faction of F R E E D R O N E?

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 10:07 pm #170746

Also I designed empires based off the Station's departments as much as I can.

Security
Fanatically Militaristic and Spiritual (for their God-Emperor the HoS - Arbitrator of THE LAW).

Cargo
Materialistic, Militarstic and Collectivists because Cargo is full of commies.

Science
Fanatically materialistic and individualistic (Because scientists never communicate with one another and print off whatever they want from the 'lathe).

Engineering/Atmospherics
I couldn't really get them quite how I liked (Materialistic and spiritual are mutually exclusive) so I made them xenophiles cause I always see a bunch of dirty liggers in engineering positions.

Service/Hydroponics
Basically farmers (Implying they ever make any fucking food).

Medbay
Totally not influenced by a famous CMO or virology's former reputation. *cough*

Command
Enlightened Monarchy only because I couldn't make it an AI Overlordship.

Bonus Round!

Clown Planet
Going with the official "canon" that Clowns are IC experts on everything.

The Syndicate
The real Good Guys all along.

Nanotrasen
Pantomime-esque villains. Boo, hiss, "He's behind you!" etc.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 4:21 am #170859

Re-iterating the multiplayer matchup

Definitely in:
Ricotez (CST) (CEST)
Venticular (CST)
tedward (EST)
Skorvold (EST)
Incomptinence (UTC+10)
An0n3 (EST)

Possibly In?
Steelpoint
ColonicAcid
Starmute

Timing: So the game releases on May 9th, which is a Monday. Weird release day. Whatever. How early in the day can people be available? With Incomptinence on board the earlier in the day we can start (EST) the better...but if that pushes too many people out we'll have to just try later.

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 4:23 am #170861

Gottem

I wake up at like 9:00 on Mondays so I'm usually set all Monday.