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

[DemonFiren]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I'll project my ion cannon into your fleet you scaley freakazoids

Lewd rabbit is lewd.

[Ikarrus]

Damn, how did I forget to make Lizards a servile race within a Nanotrasen Megacorp?

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

Lizards are chattel

Catgirls are domestic servants.

Moths are battle thralls.

The Glorious Plasmamen are full citizens.

[Davidchan]

Lizards are more battle thralls than mothies, imo. Fly people are undesirable and AI laws (by /tg/standards) are non-exsistant.

[Kel-the-Oblivious]

Moths are superior combatants on low gravity worlds. Flying about is a greater game changer than having some claws and pointy teeth.

Planets not low gravity? Don't worry, we'll extract enough mass and send it spaceward that it will be.

[DemonFiren]

And I imagine you'll want to turn out the power on the enemy's searchlights, too.

[Lumbermancer]

I'm eyeing getting the expansions during sale, which is now. Rate all of them on the scale of 1-5, because I really have only the base game. It never really grabbed me like I thought it would, but I know Pdox games get so much better with dlcs.

[Deitus]

Just play aurora instead
It’s better and free

[Lumbermancer]

I've played superior games like Aurora and Distant Worlds to death already.

[Deitus]

Then play uhhhhhhh
CDDA

[Ikarrus]

imo

Leviathans seems to be one everyone recommends
Utopia for the perks and government options
Distant Stars for more events
The upcoming Megacorp looks amazing but we won't know for sure until we get our hands on it

the rest you can pick up whatever interests you
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Down ... Expansions

[Davidchan]

IMO, Synthetic Dawn, Utopia, Leviathans, Apocalypse, Distant stars in that order if you don't want them all or can't afford them all. Lots and lots of mods require you to have Utopia or Synthetic dawn for the real fun stuff.

Synthetic Dawn - Robots and Hive minds. And their related events. Beep boop scum.

Utopia - Megastructures, Traditions and Ascension perks. Changes the mid-late game enough in good ways to make this worth a few bucks.

Leviathans - Guardians are kind of cool, Enclaves add neutral party traders to give you minor boosts. War In Heaven is fun if you can get 2 Fallen Empires to Awaken and duke shit out.

Apocalypse - Titan class ships are fun for the end game (though I felt NSC did better with Dreadnaughts) and discount death stars are kind of cool. Marauders (Pirate Faction) are interesting but can be annoying when they keep harassing you without progressing down their event chain.

Distant Stars - Decent for the anomalies and events, though over all it's easily the weakest expansion in terms of content and bringing new stuff to the table.

I just wish Distant worlds had an active modding community like Stellaris did.

[Ikarrus]

Titans, megastructures, and colossus are way too costly and take too much time for what they give you. Such letdowns of features.

The only worthwhile use I can see for colossus is not for the ship itself, but for the Total War casus belli it grants you (Don't need to make claims, instantly seize control over any systems and planets you capture without needing a peace deal).

[SaveVatznick]

Megastructures are for building tall. You can be well into repeatable techs and have a deathball of battleships filled with Tachyon lances while all other nations are still filling out their tech tree if you rush Mega-Engineering and get your science Nexus. The Prethoryn becomes a turkey shoot. If you're going wide, it doesn't really make that much sense, since your research penalty scales with the amount of planets you own. Just keep your owned planets to like, under 5, and bang out all your researches with the Nexus, then build a huge navy and amass habitats for production in your owned systems. From there, swap to Militarism and cleanse the galaxy of other xenos.

[Ikarrus]

>Building tall

Ah right. I might actually build one when I megacorp next month

[Lumbermancer]

So I bought all the dlcs. Money ain't issue, the problem is me not finishing a single game again.
Anyway, I see that they changed how the borders are spread, and you need to build outposts now? So the mid game is not only - build mines everywhere, it's also build outposts everywhere.

[Ikarrus]

Yeah, but we should be getting a reprieve from all the cookie clicker gameplay with the economy update coming out in two weeks.

[Anonmare]

So I bought all the dlcs. Money ain't issue, the problem is me not finishing a single game again.
Anyway, I see that they changed how the borders are spread, and you need to build outposts now? So the mid game is not only - build mines everywhere, it's also build outposts everywhere.

At least you don't have to rebuild outposts if they get attacked by other empires.

Also, mines? Do you mean mining stations? Cause, you can just hold down shift and click star systems whilst you have a construction ship's build button highlighted to tell it to build mines/research outpost in all valid spots in that system

[Davidchan]

So I bought all the dlcs. Money ain't issue, the problem is me not finishing a single game again.
Anyway, I see that they changed how the borders are spread, and you need to build outposts now? So the mid game is not only - build mines everywhere, it's also build outposts everywhere.

Not entirely sure if megacorp is changing how systems work, but for a while now you've claimed a system by building an outpost in it. Spend a small chunk of influence and some resources to get em. Strongly recommend the autobuild mod if you don't already have it. Otherwise just keep remembering to send a constructor to a system that's been surveyed. Remember to put outposts in wormhole systems and L-gates since hostile fleets can jump through them, don't worry about gateways though as you can only take a gateway to a friendly system.

[Lumbermancer]

It's click on constructor, right click on system then click on build all mines or labs. But I wasn't complaining about UI design, but rather that nothing else is happening.

[Davidchan]

Manually having to tell your science and construction ships to do their job is pretty annoying, specially since they took away free floating defense platforms and such. Autobuild is just a nice alternative, once you tune the mod to your preferences and let your ships run wild. I just keep 1 constructor per science ship + 2-4 spares for specific projects like building waygates or megastructures.

[Ikarrus]

They released the patch notes for the 2.2 update. Lots of good stuff.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... s.1132161/

One more week left! (And two for the inevitable hotfix patch)

[Lumbermancer]

For some reason I thought the titular corporations would be like the civilian market in DW, and not just different government type.

[Incomptinence]

You might be confusing them with the galactic market which due to their design they will be rolling in energy most of the game to get the most use out of it.

[Farquaar]

Just played a pacifist-egalitarian-xenophile game.
Having the highly adaptive trait is fun because more climate-types in your empire means more xenos to make up for your slow breeding time
Eventually moved from pacifist to spiritualist because I joined a federation than spanned half the galaxy and most of the people in it were spiritualists. Pacifist is good for rapid growth in the early game, but the rest of the galaxy needed liberation, y'know?

Eventually the Galactic Alliance (formerly the Tumbukita Compact) came to encompass most of the galaxy before I realized I had a life to live. I'll grab a screenshot when I'm not studying.

[Farquaar]

What are everyone's thoughts on the Leguin/Megacorp update?

I'm having a blast. While I miss some of the old system, I feel like planet development has a lot more depth with a fraction the micromanaging.

[Ikarrus]

My personal policy is to never play x.0 versions since historically new updates break the game, so I’m still just waiting while playing Smash in the meantime

[Farquaar]

My personal policy is to never play x.0 versions since historically new updates break the game, so I’m still just waiting while playing Smash in the meantime

Oh yeah, the game is incredibly broken, but the new planet and sectors system is fun to experiment with. I'm really looking forward to playing an MP game with my buddies once the bugs are worked out.

[Ricotez]

I have to wait for my favourite mods to update anyway so I consider the games I play currently a lost cause to learn how the new systems work.

[Farquaar]

I have to wait for my favourite mods to update anyway so I consider the games I play currently a lost cause to learn how the new systems work.

I hope the AI mods come up to speed soon. 2.2 AI is even worse than before.
I was having a blast in an inward perfection tall empire game. The galaxy is in crisis, and I noticed that the Unbidden is rolling over the U.N.E. They've already destroyed two medium-large sized empires, and has already begun taking the outer colonies of the Earthican nation. One of their fleets is gathering outside Sol.

Surely, the most powerful nation in the galaxy is more than ready to defend itself? Surely, their starbases and fleets are at the ready after having so many years to prepare?

Oh, their fleets are all patrolling trade routes on the opposite end of the galaxy. Over 65 000 fleet power. Patrolling trade routes. When the Unbidden are about to take over their capital.
I don't know what else I should have expected.

EDIT: I should also add that the starbase in their home system is barely upgraded with no defensive platforms at 2.6k fleet power. But hey, at least they have a bunch of army transport fleets to defend it, eh?

[XSI]

They should just let you play as the crisis invaders
At least that way you can say the AI deserved it when you beat them up again and again

[Davidchan]

God damn Machine Empires got nerfed hard. They have a few strong suits but overall they did not fair well this update.

[Farquaar]

They should just let you play as the crisis invaders
At least that way you can say the AI deserved it when you beat them up again and again

Don't worry, the crisis invaders are no better
After I made this post, the Unbidden and the two recolours refused to conquer any more planets. They just sat there with dozens of 60k power fleets while I took out their systems one by one

God damn Machine Empires got nerfed hard. They have a few strong suits but overall they did not fair well this update.

Machine AI got hit hard too.
You know the event where you find a bunch of brain scans of a long dead alien race, and you can put them in robot bodies?
I did that, and sent them off to make their own empire. They never built a single construction ship because their home planet was in utter chaos. And why, you ask?
Because they were busy growing tons of food that they didn't need. Because apparently only gestalt consciousness tin cans got the new machine AI.

[Ricotez]

we'll fix it in post

[Farquaar]

we'll fix it in post

I'm certifiably miffed
A major galactic power just gene modified its own primary species into being delicious
WHY

[delaron]

we'll fix it in post

I'm certifiably miffed
A major galactic power just gene modified its own primary species into being delicious
WHY

Fixed their food shortage with SCIENCE!

[Ikarrus]

we'll fix it in post

I'm certifiably miffed
A major galactic power just gene modified its own primary species into being delicious
WHY

guro fetishists

[Davidchan]

Imperial Guard Strategy. Fallen or Wounded Guardsmen are just emergency rations.

[Qbmax32]

pirated new dlc is fun

[DemonFiren]

we'll fix it in post

I'm certifiably miffed
A major galactic power just gene modified its own primary species into being delicious
WHY

guro fetishists

you mean vore

[XSI]

Don't those usually fit together?

[Sometinyprick]

They should just let you play as the crisis invaders
At least that way you can say the AI deserved it when you beat them up again and again

I can't believe they fucked up the AI so bad, EU4/CK2 AI was atleast passable. Even on the hardest difficulty the AI just cheats till about sixty years in then becomes completely inept to the point where they are completely fucking useless by the late-game even with obvious artificial difficulty in place they are still too fucking dumb to get anything right. It's the most glaring issue with the game but they've yet to even begin to fix it.

[Farquaar]

I can't believe they fucked up the AI so bad, EU4/CK2 AI was atleast passable. Even on the hardest difficulty the AI just cheats till about sixty years in then becomes completely inept to the point where they are completely fucking useless by the late-game even with obvious artificial difficulty in place they are still too fucking dumb to get anything right. It's the most glaring issue with the game but they've yet to even begin to fix it.

The fact that individual modders are producing better AI for Paradox games than the dev team shows that a serious reconsideration of development priorities is in order.

[Davidchan]

This is Paradox people. Anyone who believes their base games are enjoyable unironically is downright retarded. Given that players have no option to prioritize job slots I can't say I'm surprised. Though I was very hopeful the pop system was going to be dropped entirely and just have leaders serve specialists positions and just give planets multipliers to resource production based on population compared to pop cap and extra bonuses for which infrastructure was developed or focused on.

[XSI]

They're trying at least
Even if we really should expect better than 'trying' from a game costing more than AAA titles

[Farquaar]

Though I was very hopeful the pop system was going to be dropped entirely and just have leaders serve specialists positions and just give planets multipliers to resource production based on population compared to pop cap and extra bonuses for which infrastructure was developed or focused on.

Pops are great. What would games like Vicky II be without pops?
Now that I think about it, would Stellaris even be a partly-grand strategy game without pops? It's only a step or two away from being pure 4X already.

[Davidchan]

HoI4 does just fine without arbitrary pops. Having actually numerical populations that work all establishrd sectors/districts of a planet at a rate equivalent to how close to the pop cap they are rather than a single planetary building like the primary media requiring more population to fully staff than multiple mining or ag districts.

That and the pop growth system is so backwards its asinine. Why does a population grow slower as it gets bigger? Has the last few hundred years not definitely proven that growth is exponential? It took thousands of years for humanity to reach a billion people, and hundred years later it was 2 billion. In stellaris it takes many times longer for a 10 pop civ to grow that 11th pop than a 4 pop civ can get that 5th.

Every aspect of the pop system is bad, the only apparent upside is its easier to resettle which wouldn't be that diggicult to just move populations around by the hundred of millions to the same effect. The fact is that the new district system would have worked flawlessly if they fully adopted the HoI4 system and not just the face of it, and would have been even better if specialized workers were leader slots which would make democracies and empires with elections even more interesting as the more you expand the more candidates you have and chances for interesting leaders.

[Incomptinence]

Apparently a significant part of the lag is star bases that recalculate and do all possible trade routes daily and upon trade going through any sort of gateway or wormhole triggering possibility gore or some shit potential routes just vomiting on either side.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 1592074962

That and the pop growth system is so backwards its asinine. Why does a population grow slower as it gets bigger? Has the last few hundred years not definitely proven that growth is exponential? It took thousands of years for humanity to reach a billion people, and hundred years later it was 2 billion. In stellaris it takes many times longer for a 10 pop civ to grow that 11th pop than a 4 pop civ can get that 5th.

You sure the pop growth isn't just being exported to your colonies? Emigration is a number that takes out of pop growth. Pops really like going to your colonies and making them somewhat functional.

[Ikarrus]

>Get immigrant species on a planet
>Native species stops growing

What did Paradox mean by this?

[XSI]

That they're not capable of coding a system where both species can grow at the same time, probably
Yet you can have pop growth at the same time as robotics being build

[Ikarrus]

They have this weird thing where species population will always grow toward an equilibrium of diversity

So if you have a planet nearly full of your native species and get one immigrant, your native species will go into decline because the game always works toward a 1:1 ratio between all species, even if the immigrant has low habitability.

I wonder if you can intentionally create a shitty species just to infect xenophile empires with.