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

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:57 am #318978

Bottom post of the previous page:

But now I can RP as my shitty fanfictions.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:14 pm #319031

I love Arthropod races

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Thu Aug 03, 2017 4:14 pm #323439

Latest Dev Diary

The latest dev diary showcases that, yes, machine hivemind empires will be in the game though hivemind is a bit of a misnomer. They're actually gestalt intelligences and are available at the start of the game for Utopia players and pops must be built and maintained like normal robots/synth-ascended pops. They also don't have access to certain technologies and can never be psionic for obvious reasons.

Gestalt intelligence empires begin off as robots and they can design their "species" much like an organic one though using the robo-modding traits and have their own civics unique from normal and hivemind ones. They also have three special civics that completely re-define their playstyles in game:-

Determined Exterminators
Determined Exterminators are Machine Empires born of a rogue defense system that turned on its creators when they tried to shut it down. After a bitter war in which their creators were wiped out, Exterminators know only conflict, and consider the sterilization of all higher forms of organic life to be necessary to safeguard their own existence. Similar to Fanatical Purifiers, Exterminators receive substantial boosts to their combat ability, but are unable to conduct diplomacy with organic empires and must purge conquered organic Pops. However, unlike Fanatical Purifiers, they have no problem co-existing and co-operating with other synthetic civilizations (including other Machine Empires and ascended Synths). For this reason, their inherent bonuses are weaker than those of a Fanatical Purifier.

Driven Assimilators
Driven Assimilators are Machine Empires that seek to expand their understanding and bridge the gap between the organic and synthetic by assimilating organic individuals into their collective consciousness. They start the game with their creator species present on the planet as assimilated cyborgs, and can make use of the Assimilation citizenship type to integrate conquered organic Pops. Assimilated organic Pops will become cyborgs and work similarly to machines in that they have no happiness and require energy maintenance instead of food, but otherwise function like a regular organic pop and can be modified with the various biological species traits. Driven Assimilators are generally feared and disliked by organic civilizations, though not to the same degree as Exterminators.

Rogue Servitors
Rogue Servitors are robotic servants built by an organic species to make their own lives easier, eventually assuming full control of their creators' civilization. They start with their creator species present on the planet with the Bio-Trophy citizenship type, and can integrate conquered organic Pops by granting them this status. Bio-Trophies are largely useless Pops that require large amounts of consumer goods and can only operate special Organic Sanctuary buildings that produce Unity. However, in addition to the Unity generated by these sanctuaries, Servitors also have a special mechanic called Servitor Morale, representing the Servitors' prime directive to protect and care for organic beings. The greater the percentage of a Rogue Servitors' population that is made up of Bio-Trophies, the higher the Servitor Morale, granting a direct boost to empire influence gain.

In essence: The three empire types are:-
Skynet
The Borg
and Friendship is Optimal

Post by **Armhulen** » Thu Aug 03, 2017 4:19 pm #323443

cool!

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu Aug 03, 2017 4:52 pm #323454

They're also optional. You don't have to take any of the three.

In any case I love robutts so this is going to be awesome.

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Thu Aug 03, 2017 7:42 pm #323500

They'll take care of you, whether you want them to or not.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:44 pm #324955

That kind of shit is why we had the Butlerian Jihad! Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind! Thou shall not disfigure the human spirit!

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Tue Sep 05, 2017 11:04 am #334018

Regarding the VO

This is... a very complex subject and it actually hits close to home and my thoughts are all over the place with this one... and you wonder why I never talk on discords or whatever. When gamers view women as "women" and not "one of us" it causes a bit of a problem. Frankly I don't want any white knights, black knights or any drama that I don't cause by being stupid. Just say it's that damn Fionia Hope using water instead of space cleaner. I kinda learned this a long time ago when I started playing video games online and I hate when someone treats you differently.

Unfortunately this will make someone upset, it's not a feminist perspective, its just a realist perspective that women in games do get treated differently if they act like a girl. Think of it this way, it's that weird situation where a girl is playing on a boys football team. You'll never be "part of the team" due to several factors. A example would be "that one idiot" who thinks its okay to hit on you since you are a girl. Then you have "that other idiot" who thinks you can't stand up for yourself. There will always be those people. Its shit for everyone involved.

The issues with the voice-over shouldn't be a "men vs women" issue. It should be "is it objectively bad" issue.

Its not terrible, I've heard worse, I wouldn't say its wonderful either. Its a bit over the top. Will it add to the game? I think so. I liked the xenophobe the best.

That being said it was one clip.

And at least its not this

[youtube]Ftc_Pbhb3IE[/youtube]

Incomptinence · Tue Sep 05, 2017 11:34 am

Eh I saw more objections about it sounding crazy/ bloodthirsty when I looked into that jank.

Said before will say again a grand strat fan base viewing warmongering as an enlightened pursuit isn't exactly shocking.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Wed Sep 06, 2017 3:43 am #334270

I think it will be interesting to hear the robotic voices, as well as the xenophile, pacifist and individualist.

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 2:41 pm #335081

Awakened Empires will now have a decadence mechanic that ticks up over time after a certain amount of time since awakening, with it ticking higher if they have expanded and subjugated a lot.
Decadence makes awakened empires produce less resources, lowers their fleetpower and causes their subjects to be more rebellious more often.

So Awakened Empires that takeover the galaxy can be defeated like Rome with the barbarians within the gates, with you and any other subjects as the barbarians.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 3:55 pm #335107

Good.

Fuck AEs can get really op once they get rolling

Post by **lumipharon** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:17 am #335542

I've never tried it with AE's, but with FE's you can just abuse the shitty AI and take their planets by having multiple fleets forcing them to constantly jump around chasing you while you slowly chip at a planet's hp.
Works with the normal empires a treat as well for that matter.

Last game I was in I ended up getting dec'd by 3 empires at once early game (while I also had a war of my onw I was half way through). I was utterly, horribly outmatched by all three individually, but I was able to run circles around them long enough to flip a couple of planets to win the war and keep them at bay for 10 years.
I'm not a fan of the AI, or how wars work tbh, but it was fun.

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 12:31 am #335545

Also spiritualists will be able to research and use robots but not synths or sentient combat computers. Sentient combat computers themselves are now a dangerous technology and could go rogue during an AI rebellion.
Outlawing AI will let you use more primitive robots still, robots are also modular and can be upgraded in different ways with more advanced robot models having more "trait points" to work with. Synthetically ascended empires will be able to robomod their pops as well for a more finer degree of specialisation, though not to the same extent as a Biologically ascended one.
You no longer need to be spiritual to Psionically ascend and spiritualist empires can now go down the Synthetic ascension path, but both paths will attract spiritualist/materialist ethics divergence naturally.

You may rarely find a primitive civilsation with robots and even more rarely, a primitive machine civilisation for those with the Synthetic Dawn DLC. In addition, if your robots rebel, you may choose to side with the robots and you will basically switch empires to them. Robot rebels are always of the Machine Consciousness ethos and may rarely possess the determined exterminators civic - They will never be Rogue Servitors by default for obvious reasons

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:46 am #335616

lumipharon wrote:I've never tried it with AE's, but with FE's you can just abuse the shitty AI and take their planets by having multiple fleets forcing them to constantly jump around chasing you while you slowly chip at a planet's hp.
Works with the normal empires a treat as well for that matter.

Last game I was in I ended up getting dec'd by 3 empires at once early game (while I also had a war of my onw I was half way through). I was utterly, horribly outmatched by all three individually, but I was able to run circles around them long enough to flip a couple of planets to win the war and keep them at bay for 10 years.
I'm not a fan of the AI, or how wars work tbh, but it was fun.

When did you last play? I've never been able to do something like that. The best I've been able to do is to stall them at one planet by putting a really good defense force that will hold out for a few decades.

Post by **lumipharon** » Tue Sep 12, 2017 3:21 am #335912

whatever the current version is.

I had 3-4 fleets, my main largish one, a smaller one and then 2 fleets that were just a handful of frigs.

I found that if the AI has more than one of my fleets in their space, they would (usually) prioritise the largest fleet over the other ones EXCEPT if another fleet was attacking a planet. Also I can't remember the specifics but one of the timy fleets was able to slowly grind out a planet while they chased the other fleets around.
So by bouncing around my fleets, and timing my attacks on planets, I was able to basically completely avoid fighting, except for picking off reinforcements trying to join the main enemy fleet, or killing off the army fleet by jumping my fleet on top of them right after their combat fleet jumps, as the army fleet is always behind it.

Two other things I found:

If I put a fleet into enemy space, they would turn all their fleets around that were about to invade and rape me, to try catch them. Even if it's just a handful of frigate plinking mining outposts.

If an enemy fleet seiged one of my planets but didn't have any armies with them to take it (due to my above sniping of the armies) they would just stay in orbit waiting for more armies to come back them up. Which let me stick a small fleet in the system they had to jump through from their space, and just kill everything that came, while their main blob fleet which was x3 bigger than all my forces, sat on it's ass until I was able to end the war.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 4:00 pm #336397

lumipharon wrote:whatever the current version is.

I had 3-4 fleets, my main largish one, a smaller one and then 2 fleets that were just a handful of frigs.

I found that if the AI has more than one of my fleets in their space, they would (usually) prioritise the largest fleet over the other ones EXCEPT if another fleet was attacking a planet. Also I can't remember the specifics but one of the timy fleets was able to slowly grind out a planet while they chased the other fleets around.
So by bouncing around my fleets, and timing my attacks on planets, I was able to basically completely avoid fighting, except for picking off reinforcements trying to join the main enemy fleet, or killing off the army fleet by jumping my fleet on top of them right after their combat fleet jumps, as the army fleet is always behind it.

Two other things I found:

If I put a fleet into enemy space, they would turn all their fleets around that were about to invade and rape me, to try catch them. Even if it's just a handful of frigate plinking mining outposts.

If an enemy fleet seiged one of my planets but didn't have any armies with them to take it (due to my above sniping of the armies) they would just stay in orbit waiting for more armies to come back them up. Which let me stick a small fleet in the system they had to jump through from their space, and just kill everything that came, while their main blob fleet which was x3 bigger than all my forces, sat on it's ass until I was able to end the war.

I've tried to kite the ai but they seem to have no interest in messing with me when I invade their systems. Perhaps this is for the better because I hate feeling like I have gotten a cheap victory.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:58 pm #336481

I was a meme exterminator whatever it's called, so they had -1100 standings or some shit. Maybe that effects their behavior?

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:06 am #336560

lumipharon wrote:I was a meme exterminator whatever it's called, so they had -1100 standings or some shit. Maybe that effects their behavior?

It doesn't really matter. I'm looking forward to the update regardless. Its going to be competing for attention however as I'm going to St. George Utah, then Las Vegas for a month for work, playing warhammer total war 2, trails of cold steel and lost technology when it updates again.

I would buy the xcom 2 expansion but a $40 buck expansion is a little too much considering what content I have heard it has.

Anyways back to stellaris: I like the idea of robotic specialization too however I wonder if bots will be a little overpowered considering they are getting all the attention. Also I'm a little wary of the Utopia nerfs.

Post by **lumipharon** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:11 am #338252

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... s.1043979/

Patch notes for the full meat of the update. Lots of nice little fixes and AI improvements etc.

Incomptinence · Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:31 pm

Synthy Dawn is out and the robots are all super cute janitors ready to CLEANSE the galaxy.

Wish there was a way to gene/robo mod based on tended tile but ey at least it's easier without the filth that is food tiles MALF HO!

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 11:05 pm #339792

You can mod specific species in addition to modding whole planets. Plus robos you can just dismantle or resettle and put something more useful there.

I'm playing a Driven Assimilators game atm and so far I've assimilated three species. It's best to let them expand before you assimilate them for maximum efficiency

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Fri Sep 22, 2017 9:14 am #339911

I've been enjoying it so far.

Here's the pluses

+++ 3 really good Music tracks. Best in the series IMO
+++ The Robo pack totally changes everything. I was worried about utopia not working it it. It does
+++ Robo pack is totally immersive. Loads of things change for robots. Even tech names
+++ For only $9? Ya gotta be kidding me
++ Easy to pick up
++ Not that buggy

so negatives
--- Big glaring issue: The ships featured in the trailer (the different skin) isn't available without modding.
-- Couldn't improve unity on orbital stations that much (aside from using the artist troupe), the "uplink" doesn't upgrade in there. Kinda a bummer. I haven't tried it before so maybe its working as intended?
- Found two bugs. One minor one major
minor: One tech wasn't "changed", so it made sense for mechanicals (nerve something or another)
Major: If you liberate a planet it becomes "despicably neutral". Currently vassals aren't something a machine can do

So overall: Capek is a huge update and overhall. I probably would have paid $20 for it alone. The Robo update is a really nice touch and expands the universe. It's only $9.
I feel like I'm stealing.... its almost like it's too good.

Well I don't think I can complain for a while about stellaris (aside from the rough edges that will get smoothed later). If you are having money problems and are considering this expansion, I actually would like to gift one expansion to someone. I feel I should be paying the extra $10 anyway to the devs. I guess I am thinking "why not share the wealth"? Just get in contact with me using the steam group.

Lumbermancer · Fri Sep 22, 2017 11:02 am

Too bad core gameplay is not fun.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri Sep 22, 2017 8:42 pm #340068

New expansion is pretty interesting, although it saddens me that machine empires apparently can't pick ethics or government forms other than a general machine hivemind. The various specialty civics are neat though, especially the one where your machines want to force-pander all the carbon-based lifeforms in the galaxy.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 3:28 am #340914

Major spoilers read at your own risk
Turns out that the ships that I saw are a new crisis in synthetic dawn.

Spoiler:

Rustledjimm · Post by **Rustledjimm** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 8:13 am #341967

This is the only major Paradox I don't own. Is it good enough to buy yet?

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 10:27 am #341978

Really depends on who you ask. It's a lot better than it was at launch, at least.

The big issue with Stellaris is that it tries so hard to be an emergent storytelling game that the devs initially seemed to have forgotten you can't leave everything up to the player's imagination. That's part of the reason why the midgame can be a bit boring. The more content, events and storylines the game gets, the less of a problem this becomes, and it is already much less apparent now than it used to be. You'd basically want the game to play out like a round of SS13, where the initial setpieces might come from a limited number of configurations, but the way they play out differs vastly with every game and creates unique stories.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:03 am #341985

My problem is that no matter how many different starts I try, I always find myself taking the same paths because they're objectively better. I can't force myself to make a choice that is worse than all the others just for the sake of roleplay if nothing actually changes immersion-wise besides having worse modifiers.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:13 am #341986

Grazyn wrote:My problem is that no matter how many different starts I try, I always find myself taking the same paths because they're objectively better. I can't force myself to make a choice that is worse than all the others just for the sake of roleplay if nothing actually changes immersion-wise besides having worse modifiers.

Okay explain to me why you pick some paths other than others? Are you min-maxing?

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:20 am #341988

I'm talking about some things that are objectively worse than others and that you would only take to RP your race, but there are no events or anything to even acknowledge you took that choice. One example would be ascension perks, as a fanatic spiritualist empire I would take Consacrated Worlds for RP reasons but having a bunch of new edicts is worse than any other option and I already know that nothing more will come out of it, so yeah it's all left to the player's imagination.

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:37 am #341989

Grazyn wrote:I'm talking about some things that are objectively worse than others and that you would only take to RP your race, but there are no events or anything to even acknowledge you took that choice. One example would be ascension perks, as a fanatic spiritualist empire I would take Consacrated Worlds for RP reasons but having a bunch of new edicts is worse than any other option and I already know that nothing more will come out of it, so yeah it's all left to the player's imagination.

That's just utopia though. There are LOADS of other things that I was thinking of. Like laser, missle or balistics. If you are producing tons of influence then I can see a use for Consecrated Worlds. Its a 100 year edict which means you probably don't have to look back at things that much. You can produce tons of unity and things like that

HOWEVER
There are always other perks that are good for other things as well.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 5:52 pm #342055

Paradox isn't good at balancing games
They're good at giving you a nice sandbox to mess around in, and CK2 and EU3/4 are good at obscuring their balance problems by going "Well, thats historical, it wasn't balanced back then"

With Stellaris it really shows that they're just not that great at making all choices equally viable

Rustledjimm · Post by **Rustledjimm** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 7:10 pm #342088

To be fair with the amount of choices there are fine-tuning the balance would take a long time. It's just you are right, in Stellaris the balance issues are much more visible than in the other games.

Incomptinence · Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:23 pm

The 1.8.1 beta is a bit of a step up, 1.8 had lots of weird problems.

Like only assimilating 1-4 pops at a time in your empire, entire empire not planet or species based. NOW PLANET BASED. No cyborg breeding now foodless normal speed breeding. It is also now the reverse mechanist it was always meant to be I only made mining drones when I made machine worlds and my battle carebears allowed me to out populate AI with 4 or so planets with just 2 planets at one stage early game.
Machine worlds were barely worth building not sure it is actually worth it but the 25% bonus is a step up.
Purger civ buffs that went maybe even a bit too far 25% off ships is INSANE.

Which probably just leaves bio hiveminds and servitors in a weird spot. Plus robo modding caps out too soon has no advanced traits, synthetic age is useless. Oh and machine civs are really rare but I guess you can force spawn some of your own.

Yeah combat needs more overhauls but it's the most voted in polls they run on what the next expansion should be about so hopefully the finger comes out.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:02 pm #342165

Am I weird for role playing some assimilators as a rogue prison system that converts and "rehabilitates" all organics because organics inevitably commit crimes against others and themselves, and as such even being sentient is a crime. So all must be imprisoned. They even consider other machines to not be citizens and if their organic creators are gone, they are simply rogue ownerless equipment that must be destroyed.

Did the galaxy a favor on one play through since I spawned right next to some fanatics purifiers. Their correctional worlds are now core facilities of the Dept of Corrections.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:16 pm #342169

you are literally the reason secborgs were disabled

Anonmare · Post by **Anonmare** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 12:09 am #342176

DemonFiren wrote:you are literally the reason secborgs were disabled

Where can I find a secborg machine civ skin?

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:11 am #342191

Anonmare wrote:
DemonFiren wrote:you are literally the reason secborgs were disabled
Where can I find a secborg machine civ skin?

Make it yourself? A Nanotrasen emblem would be welcome too.

Incomptinence · Sat Sep 30, 2017 10:25 pm

I like the sandbox but it does need heaps more polish.

Especially events and anomalies a story pack increasing the number of these by 10 would be fantastic. Maybe even put in diplomatic ones or events that can happen to the AI then they bounce of you for assistance or some shit.

As you say depth in a randomly generated universe depends in part on civilisation variety. Barely any at present and if you let the races randomly generate you can easily get a max size galaxy filled with ethos fuckers.

I will say tho trade and piracy should be expansions as should spies and intrigue you should be able to focus on or promote them but living in non inhabitable in small amounts is a good spin.

Trade and piracy would actually add depth to the egalitarian, maybe even xenophile. Why even be a capitalist dog without a civilian economy on the side I mean come on!

As for piracy/privateers it would be the bad boys try to get shit out of said trade income while everyone hates them. Also maybe sacrificial pyre shit to scatter your meagre shit to the winds and restart as dedicated pirates so being reduced to 1 system can be a new beginning rather than a new game or loading a save.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:47 pm #342453

Not playing the new updates until the X.1 patch is out a couple weeks later was a good policy to keep.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 12:46 am #342464

EU4 was pretty shit on the trade to be honest. Felt like it was a placeholder mechanic that they'd expand on 'eventually'
EU3's system would do better for something like Stellaris

EU4 has everything pre-made and on the map from the start. EU3 had every province determine their trade center through a variety of factors, including ownership, proximity, value, and so on. Trade centers could also be made by events or by decisions, in any province. They could also be dismantled, so you could conquer a trade center and destroy it so that your own trade center gets a bigger share and has less competition to worry about
Of course the rest of EU3 wasn't great, and the system had no real interaction between nodes for sending trade from one node to another, but I'm sure they could find a solution for that

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 4:20 pm #342599

Well I look at the game and say "eh I like it".

I mean honestly there are tons of games but not many games have attempted something like this. I enjoy it for what it is. Were I to design a game myself, yeah it would be different but I'm sure you would have gripes with it too. (I've always wanted to design a warhammer 4x game based on Emperor of the Fading suns type mechanics mixed with Final Liberation).

This isn't my "ideal game" but it's a game that I enjoy. There's not much to compare it with.

TheWiznard · Post by **TheWiznard** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 5:33 pm #342622

played a game as machine rogue servitors holy shit 300/month unity in like 50 years god damn this is the best

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 6:30 pm #342642

CosmicScientist wrote:Sounds like it would have been vaguely easy to set up a trade web to allow for trade flow. Just make connections occur over time using the buildings in nearby provinces as a sort of sticky attraction (I assume EU3 had buildings). So maybe a trade centre could reach out in all directions but get a weighting bonus towards provinces with trade buildings or trade value or just get +5 province reach along routes those things touch or something until a node is hit, like a follow the trade activity setup.

I just liked that EU4 had predetermined trade nodes because most of them don't sit exclusively on historic borders, regions, cultures or formable nations and that probably contributed to preventing node domination. In a node network where trade flows, I wouldn't like England to set up a node in Scotland and for all the new world riches to never touch Scandinavia, France or the low countries. Although I'm not sure if France needs to be able to afford mercenary armies.

EU3 has buildings, yeah
But the thing with plopping down a trade center in Scotland was that unless you also owned the new world, all that new world trade would see if they liked you. And if they didn't like you then they'd sail right past Scotland and on to Antwerp/Amsterdam/Hamburg/Copenhagen/Oslo, whichever had a trade node that they liked a lot more.
With very strong weighting given to your own nation's nodes, so you could colononize and be reasonably sure the trade would reach you at some point. The only problem was indians with their local nodes stealing your colony trade because of proximity, and that trade never leaving nodes to flow somewhere you actually want it.

That said, I don't really like Stellaris. It fails as a 4x, it fails as a grand strat. It has reasonably story pop-ups but that's about it

TheWiznard · Post by **TheWiznard** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 6:42 pm #342647

XSI wrote:
CosmicScientist wrote:---
EU3 has buildings, yeah
But the thing with plopping down a trade center in Scotland was that unless you also owned the new world, all that new world trade would see if they liked you. And if they didn't like you then they'd sail right past Scotland and on to Antwerp/Amsterdam/Hamburg/Copenhagen/Oslo, whichever had a trade node that they liked a lot more.
With very strong weighting given to your own nation's nodes, so you could colononize and be reasonably sure the trade would reach you at some point. The only problem was indians with their local nodes stealing your colony trade because of proximity, and that trade never leaving nodes to flow somewhere you actually want it.

That said, I don't really like Stellaris. It fails as a 4x, it fails as a grand strat. It has reasonably story pop-ups but that's about it

When I think about the things you said I kinda agree, like what is there in this game that I really like about it? I couldn't tell you, but somehow I still like playing it. It's practically one of the only games I play actually (though I think i'm biased because it runs well and looks good on the shitty toaster I have)

Incomptinence · Sun Oct 01, 2017 10:22 pm

Crisis shit:

Spoiler:

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 10:27 pm #342726

Naw, you can have a lot of fun even with terrible or bad games. Stellaris isn't that great, but it's not bad either

The story and sandbox-like ability to do whatever you want is nice, and not really present in other space based 4x games except a few niche ones like Aurora (Anyone remember that thing?)
It's pretty decent at being a sandbox, just don't expect balanced 4x gameplay or grand strategy features.
And that's what they give DLC for too. Not for balance or for grand strat things, but for more things you can sandbox with. Robot empires, hive minds, etc. do nothing to deal with balance problems, or to make the game more like a grand strat, but they do give you some nice sandbox options

starmute · Post by **starmute** » Sun Oct 01, 2017 10:56 pm #342735

Incomptinence wrote:Crisis shit:
Spoiler:
Well got ground to a halt by 5X strength contingency in a 1000 star galaxy (another 150% strength mod to them) I was inches away from victory too.

The ship modifiers on them are insane and their weapons set up of heavy focused arc emitters will straight up always pop ships like grapes and they live forever even though my bombers with like 400% dps (love their 10% repeatables was alternating them) are an effective counter slamming past their fat shields. Had like 200-300k losses when outnumbering a 430k fleet 2 to one. It is doable but I will need to min max more and go broken beta exterminators.

On the bright side in 1.8.1 assimilators are legit especially since a dedicated mining cyborg starter race really eases mineral woes and the unity income from assimilation pads out some of your unity trees even while conquering.

Darn still cut up about that game I was extremely lucky too 3 ruined mega structures 2 ring worlds 1 nexus in my local group one of which was cybrex alpha so despite being a solid quarter of the galaxy my tech was great with the 2x nexus backing me up could muster almost 3000 or so engineering income on 104% modifier or so toward the end.

Oh and I fucking got positronic AI and AI combat computers despite them stupidly removing positronic AI from machine empires blocking off the latter tech. I hacked positronic out of the fucking infinity machine.

Moral of the story is if you crank dat fuckin end game crisis modifier you better fucking have defender of the galaxy BEFORE they show up and a fuck load of naked corvettes to sacrifice despite their raised cost. Under all those modifiers their xl mounts were strategy game instagib rifles on small ships and bbs fared terribly.

Oh and friendly crisis response like saaaay the cybrex don't get the multipliers.

Spoiler:

Incomptinence · Sun Oct 01, 2017 11:08 pm

Actually tried to play aurora recently got the point of making survey ships accidentally froze my first survey ship's group over the shipyard by starting building another ship then gave up in shame a bit after it actually started surveying. Youtube lps are I think the best way to learn it in written form vets tend to get into minutiae even in a tutorial.

Decided to hold off learning Aurora until he does the C# port so I don't run into the dreaded late game performance issues I have heard about so much.

Aurora rp games where players feed instructions to a gm of sorts who plays the actual game for them sometimes between races even can be pretty grand stratty just look at the goon lps

As for sandbox and random generation the biggest problem is one of the cornerstones of 4x Expand. With an expansion phase growth and even mineral bonuses to build colony ships, ports and buildings provide way too much of a bonus to early game expansion and empires that expand fast will meet their enemies much stronger be capable of snowballing that enemy etc. No real room for a large but crippled by internal affairs state like say byzantium the big spreader is set to keep spreading. Now in paradox's defence unity and technology malluses try to deal with this but even after the naked corvettes nerf technology doesn't provide enough of an edge and weapons types are stolen even if you win a battle. If they were willing a setting to randomly generate a mostly inhabited galaxy where detrimental conditional modifiers are added to bigger players etc would make for a pretty solid grand strategy.

What makes grand strategies isn't just detail and it definitely isn't modelling maps on human history. It is the majority of expansion being strategy it's positioning and timing to get ahead instead of a flat bonus to grow X faster oh look at that you are bigger than that guy and for all intents and purposes your ships aren't less shooty enough for it to matter. Even the paradox titles that are more grand strat need all sorts of checks on military expansion even after that so whatever.

AI improvements which nicely tie in with sector improvements are slowly making the AI less of a paper tiger but it's still tough going.

If they really wanted to push tall vs wide they would introduce hard defences to weapons other than missiles as a high in the tech option and high tech key techs like swarmers so a player mindlessly slamming all their mallus'd research down one weapons tree for converting their fat waller into could get stomped by fleet composition.

Sots' wasn't perfect but the chance for a numerically inferior race with a research bonus to OUTRIGHT counter an overly focused fleet composition was extremely entertaining and meaningful. Insane shit like grav shields providing almost total kinetic invulnerability forced you to change ship loadout to at least carry shield breakers or at worst change to energy weapons.

Also the sots salvaging system shows how much better could be. Anything like it would tone down oh hey mongo just got access to all your your shit from losing a battle where he killed a few DEs! Getting tech options from salvage projects should be rare NOT GUARANTEED! Also not give a percentage of the research or at least do it once and don't pin it to my fucking research options for eternity, for repeated salvage just increase the weighting chance for it to show up. That shit is fine for rare techs from events and shit but haveing a 10 option smorgasboard of every choice my opponent made to be different from me as my research options is utterly absurd paying for research options outside this shit costs a civic or a hey research!

Incomptinence · Sun Oct 01, 2017 11:11 pm

starmute wrote:
Incomptinence wrote:Crisis shit:
Spoiler:
Well got ground to a halt by 5X strength contingency in a 1000 star galaxy (another 150% strength mod to them) I was inches away from victory too.

The ship modifiers on them are insane and their weapons set up of heavy focused arc emitters will straight up always pop ships like grapes and they live forever even though my bombers with like 400% dps (love their 10% repeatables was alternating them) are an effective counter slamming past their fat shields. Had like 200-300k losses when outnumbering a 430k fleet 2 to one. It is doable but I will need to min max more and go broken beta exterminators.

On the bright side in 1.8.1 assimilators are legit especially since a dedicated mining cyborg starter race really eases mineral woes and the unity income from assimilation pads out some of your unity trees even while conquering.

Darn still cut up about that game I was extremely lucky too 3 ruined mega structures 2 ring worlds 1 nexus in my local group one of which was cybrex alpha so despite being a solid quarter of the galaxy my tech was great with the 2x nexus backing me up could muster almost 3000 or so engineering income on 104% modifier or so toward the end.

Oh and I fucking got positronic AI and AI combat computers despite them stupidly removing positronic AI from machine empires blocking off the latter tech. I hacked positronic out of the fucking infinity machine.

Moral of the story is if you crank dat fuckin end game crisis modifier you better fucking have defender of the galaxy BEFORE they show up and a fuck load of naked corvettes to sacrifice despite their raised cost. Under all those modifiers their xl mounts were strategy game instagib rifles on small ships and bbs fared terribly.

Oh and friendly crisis response like saaaay the cybrex don't get the multipliers.

Spoiler:
The cybrex thing was amazing.

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Spoiler: