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

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Tue May 10, 2016 1:09 pm #175407

Bottom post of the previous page:

K-64 wrote:Although Medbay Maintenance has broken off as their own independent nation now.

God damn greyshirts in my maintenance tunnels.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Tue May 10, 2016 1:31 pm #175408

I have no idea what the fuck I am doing but I will totally jump in the next game

THE MIGHTY GALVATRON · Tue May 10, 2016 3:16 pm

Fucking medbay took one of my planets and made another split off from me. Ffffffuuuuuuuck medbay. But yeah, great game I just wish it didn't feel so slow on normal speed.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:28 pm #175422

>start 12 hour game with friends
>within the first seconds of the game random aliums come kill all your fleets, destroy your wormhole station, and set your empire back to pre-space tech

Never forget. All ayy lmaos are kill on sight. Fucking crystal ass wind chime lookin' bitch.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:35 pm #175425

TheWiznard · Post by **TheWiznard** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:35 pm #175426

The funny federation sends their regards

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:39 pm #175428

That the Yiff Collective have become such a BBEG for their corner of space makes me laugh. 6k fleets. Behold the power of constant orgies.

Are people up to play more of that game tonight? Thinking we could start at around 4:30-ish EST again.

tedward1337 · Post by **tedward1337** » Tue May 10, 2016 4:24 pm #175440

Yeah I'm down for it tonight. I'll be on around 6:30

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Tue May 10, 2016 4:27 pm #175441

I'll probably just observe because I want to see this through till the end.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Tue May 10, 2016 4:50 pm #175450

I've gotta reunite Medbay so definitely

maybe they'll come if I distribute genetic superpowers to them

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 5:05 pm #175456

I had a rebel faction pop up. They were upset that the planet they were on was getting bombarded constantly during the war and wanted independence.

Eventually they were all wiped out by the bombardments.

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Tue May 10, 2016 5:09 pm #175457

By the way, Resilient is an OP as fuck trait. When the Yiff Collective and their alliance were bombarding my planet, they sent in 4 times the army I had set on my planet. My defending armies were able to wipe them out with next to no losses. Infact, a faction of mine even rioted during the invasion and we managed to fuck them up too.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:12 pm #175474

Yeah, after being invaded a billion times I've been eye-balling that one for future playthroughs.

It hard-counters both military ethos and strong traits for only 1 trait point. Defensive forces are super cheap to build, costing half as much as assault forces but having only 15% less HP and Damage. They also cost 33% as much to maintain. DOUBLING their HP for one trait point makes your opponent have to commit an absurd amount of resources to invade a single planet. 10 stacks of defense bro's cost only 300 minerals, but have the HP of 20 stacks. 10 stacks of assault dudes cost 600 and will lose to the defenders even with militaristic ethos and strong traits. You'll need to be pouring 1000+ minerals into your landing pops to take these planets, which the defender will meanwhile be spending on rebuilding/re-arming his fleets.

Consider that normally a 10 stack defensive garrison loses to an 8-9 stack assault force and you see why this math is wacky.

If you try to recoup that balance and even the score again you have to be fanatic militarist (+20%) and very strong (+40%) to even get close. It's just not going to happen.

There's also the timing, assault armies are slower to build, so the attacker is losing a lot of tempo as he sits there and builds up his invasion force. You can build defensive guys on planets as long as they aren't completely occupied, so even while being bombarded you can keep repelling invaders and rebuilding your garrisons cheaper and faster than they can muster up dudes to take runs at you.

K-64 · Post by **K-64** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:25 pm #175481

Although a smart person would be bombarding as many worlds as they can after removing all the fleets and starbases. Even if the defense forces are cheaper to build and maintain than assaults, they still need resources to do so. Also during my military campaigns, when the planet fortifications were down at 0, my armies were getting +100% to attack strength anyway.

That said, my species also has resilient. It probably did help during my last war since the enemy actually attacked my planets for once. Didn't do them much good though in the end

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:31 pm #175484

Even with Fort down, you can hold out forever if you've stockpiled enough resource to begin with. And seeing how if your world is being assaulted in the first place, you most likely have lost all your ships. Meaning you no longer have an upkeep cost.

Also, something very odd happened with no real explanation. Half way through the assault on my capital I gained control of these Ancient mining drones as a small military force for some reason. Also, once my planets were ceded as part of the war conditions, my pops vastly outnumbered the bulk of the smaller empire in the attacking alliance. This, for some reason, changed their main species and portrait to mine.
I'm eager to see this game end, then start a new one with the same people now that we all know what we're doing. It's pretty fucking stellar how your penguins have somehow fucking survived.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:49 pm #175488

We've been battling genocide since literally THE FIRST SECONDS of this entire game.
As soon as we loaded in I immediately had a hostile alien wander through my space and eat all of my shit.
I'm surrounded on three sides by angry militarist factions, while I'm a materialist xenophile friend-pengu.

Regardless I've somehow managed to carve out a pretty large sized chunk of my local space and have fought bitterly over every single system as the underdog in every fight. The only thing saving me is my ridiculous economy I've superpowered through techs and very happy (if a little war-weary) local pops.

Seriously its gotten to the point where like Noot has been under siege at least a fifth or greater of this entire game, and yet my pops are so used to having bombs and shit dropped on them their happiness never dips below ~75% even while completely occupied.

My dudes are so fucking grizzled I've had pops decide to migrate to my capital IN THE MIDDLE OF BOMBARDMENTS.
FUCK IT MAN I LIKE THAT SHIT
THE SOUNDS OF MY HOMEWORLD EXPLODING ARE A LULLABY
THE GENOCIDE OF MY PEOPLE? NAH MAN I CALL THAT EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES OPENING UP
THIS AINT A WAR ITS A CAREER FAIR

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:54 pm #175489

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:56 pm #175490

>Noot fleet admiral reports for duty.gif

I'm a teensy bit disappointed now that K-64 has swooped in and kicked the shit out of the alliance my enemy was a part of. I was stabilizing the war between us and gaining the momentum I needed to start pushing back. I made my first offensive on his home planet and wiped all his shit out before his main fleet rejoined with his reserves and pushed me out. I think in another 20-30 years of war I would've vassal'ed that piece of shit and made him kiss my flippers.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Tue May 10, 2016 7:01 pm #175492

It's tough being volus.

Go find a turian.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 7:08 pm #175496

Also K-64 vs Yiff Collective interstellar grudge match when?

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Tue May 10, 2016 7:12 pm #175497

there's a second part to that gif which I'll post when it becomes appropriate

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 7:22 pm #175499

Has anyone noticed sectors are...totally broken?

Their leadership AI, I mean. I set them to improve themselves as a mineral producer and they don't create any kind of construction ships to go after nearby mining resources. Not for research either. When told to fortify themselves for war they don't build any armies, any fleets, or any kind of military outposts.

They basically just exist to funnel minerals from resources I already built to my core sector. Am I not doing something right?

EDIT: According to the wiki they never raise their own fleets, its still up to the core sector to defend everyone, but they should be constructing shit on exploitables in their space which they definitely don't do, and building things like military outposts which they dont accomplish either.

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Tue May 10, 2016 7:22 pm #175500

An0n3 wrote:Also K-64 vs Yiff Collective interstellar grudge match when?

I promise you he won't win in a head to head fight. You have to use the AIs bullshit against it, which is to over fortify all your worlds with defense armies. Eventually, they will mass all of their fleets onto a single planet leaving their own planets wide open for attack. They do this every fucking time without fail on normal difficulty.

Last night the Yiff Collective was allied with The Tribunals of Eru, and the Zadryn Democracy or some shit. Yiff collective had two 2k fleets, Tribunal of Erus fleet was 1k. Zadryn Democracy never showed up. At least one of them is using warp technology, so a good defensive counter would be to build a cluster of Defense Station far off from your planet with the "Snare" ability set. As soon as they warp in they'll be drawn right to the station with the Snare and have to deal with it first, whether they want to or not.

My bad, looks like it was 2k Eru, 2k Yiff, 1k Zadryn.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 7:27 pm #175505

>Grazyns people have gone over to the furry side

Never not hilarious.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Tue May 10, 2016 8:54 pm #175531

Nooo my Erunites actually joined the yiffs... glad to see they did something anyway, I was completely boxed in yesterday so I guess the AI just had to find a way out.

I played a game in single today to try and learn something, I can confirm that if you overfortify, the AI will always ammass his fleet and never attack your planets. And if your fleet is bigger they'll never attack you directly and you can siege with impunity. Oh but you want to destroy their fleet? Well then it's whack-a-mole time unless you can bait them with transport ships or have some ftl blocking trap if there even is one.

I'm gonna try and join again, watching the eurovision now

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Tue May 10, 2016 9:04 pm #175535

Was having trouble with my anarchist objectivist humans last night. I've never been the best at grand strategy. I shouldn't have used Hyperspace because I almost immediately ran into a nasty bottleneck because of these asshat zealot xenos. Tried diplomacy because TRADE TRADE TRADE, but they didn't none of it and decided we were "rivals."

Fucks. Now I gotta use my limited resources and planets to "liberate" them, sic semper tyrannis etc. MIght start over and tweak the Terran Anarchists again.

Or make Human Space Commies. Dunno.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Tue May 10, 2016 9:08 pm #175537

ThanatosRa wrote:Was having trouble with my anarchist objectivist humans last night. I've never been the best at grand strategy. I shouldn't have used Hyperspace because I almost immediately ran into a nasty bottleneck because of these asshat zealot xenos. Tried diplomacy because TRADE TRADE TRADE, but they didn't none of it and decided we were "rivals."

Fucks. Now I gotta use my limited resources and planets to "liberate" them, sic semper tyrannis etc. MIght start over and tweak the Terran Anarchists again.

Or make Human Space Commies. Dunno.

Just make the motherfucking Imperium of Man.

Incomptinence · Tue May 10, 2016 9:36 pm

Turns out doctrine fleet support tech can potentially reduce fleet upkeep by 30% total if you mainly build ships at and orbit a starbase with those modules built. Would help a ton with the mineral crunch from having a semi decent fleet around mid game. Then there is fleet logistican generals for another 15% + skills, 20% if you get the advanced martial democracy and the flat 10% from the tech command matrix and you can basically have a fleet orbiting a starbase at -85% upkeep and general skills at 5 stars (-4% per level) mean a potential -105% bonus when orbiting a fleet support upgraded starbase. Free ship upkeep the worst kind of upkeep just fucking gone, sure it takes a while to get there but some of these discounts are there to a lesser extent early to mid game making you more likely to get there.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue May 10, 2016 9:40 pm #175541

We're starting a new game after a few hundred years of stomping around the galaxy. Enough people have complained about the galaxy being too cramped, everyone has learned so much that they want a new start.

I don't know who I would crown the victor of that game? It's between K-64 and the Yiff Collective I think. K-64 won our hearts but the Yiff Collective won our pants.

Incomptinence · Tue May 10, 2016 9:49 pm

Oh also to save minerals camp influence and minerals at the start until you can turn on infrastructure projects then build the living fuck out of your homeworld. Its a fucking 25% discount anyone can use don't que shit on planets without it!

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Tue May 10, 2016 11:47 pm #175580

DemonFiren wrote:
ThanatosRa wrote:Was having trouble with my anarchist objectivist humans last night. I've never been the best at grand strategy. I shouldn't have used Hyperspace because I almost immediately ran into a nasty bottleneck because of these asshat zealot xenos. Tried diplomacy because TRADE TRADE TRADE, but they didn't none of it and decided we were "rivals."

Fucks. Now I gotta use my limited resources and planets to "liberate" them, sic semper tyrannis etc. MIght start over and tweak the Terran Anarchists again.

Or make Human Space Commies. Dunno.
Just make the motherfucking Imperium of Man.

No.

EDIT: An additional thing though. I'm assuming mods are an issue cuz I want to use the "Playable Robot" thing for my own personal use outside of community games.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 2:19 am #175611

I've done what must need be done. I've shackled those furry fucks.

My fleet is fastly approaching 3k in terms of full power and I've got two Vassals I'm in the process of "re-educating" to be my loyal cronies.
Time to run this galaxy. This race is a beast. I'm playing as the custom guys I had seeded in the universe last game (who ended up being placed right next to my empire, but thankfully kicking ass in a different direction and leaving me alone).

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed May 11, 2016 3:16 am #175619

On my single player game I've noticed that going one planet above your control limit does not have massive ramifications. Its not something I would like to go for long term but its good to let me set up a planet before I hand it over to a sector.

Going just one planet above your limit reduces your influence and energy income by 10%. Its annoying but not critical, however I assume every additional planet you go above will further cripple you.

Incomptinence · Wed May 11, 2016 6:59 am

Well my parrots under the AI will probably piss the fallen empire off enough to lose some planets or something stupid like that.

Oh well hope they didn't somehow manage to get conquered when I was gone.

ColonicAcid · Post by **ColonicAcid** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:09 am #175651

How is THE ADJUNCT CONFEDERATE UNITED FEVERIAN SYSTEMS doing?

I hope they haven't been destroyed yet.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:14 am #175652

Where does the damn game store race files?

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 9:08 am #175660

Before I logged out I vassalized the empire right below me, wonder if they tried to break free after I logged out

(I'm the Security empire by the way)

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 10:25 am #175666

I really can't tell how anyone is doing since I'm the host. When I load the save file it plunks me right back into my empire. There's no hot join race browser thing. I can only guess how you guys get to pick which race you rejoin as. I've never seen it. How much information on each empire does it give you when you're picking?

If folks are up for it I'll host again today. Same bat time/bat channel.

I think I may have made an error making these races my vassals and not just conquering them outright. I was somewhat mistaken on how vassals worked and from now on will probably just put tons of planets in as my war goals rather than making people bend the knee.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 10:48 am #175667

I'll probably end up doing the same from now on, turn the entire galaxy into redshirts. I see black space and I want to paint it red.

Spoiler:

Laharl Monthy · Wed May 11, 2016 11:01 am

I just downloaded this game.

How the hell do I play with you guys? PM me your steam accounts, I'd like to play a game or two.

Incomptinence · Wed May 11, 2016 11:07 am

So the sedentary and slow breeder traits? Not a huge deal as long as you aggressively colonise.

I have a solo game going where I am a bunch of venerable slow breeding slow migrating slow warping tortoises and wow I got lucky and also warp let me spot and nab 4 gaia worlds the other empires hadn't noticed yet. One right on his on doorstep hue take that hyperlanes, also nabbed a desert next to a fellow desert dwelling STARTER race they then proceeded to have only their home world most of the game so far only getting a colony just now.

Laharl Monthy wrote:I just downloaded this game.

How the hell do I play with you guys? PM me your steam accounts, I'd like to play a game or two.

We aren't playing together right now but wow even for a shit internet connection like mine it runs great online once you get past the joining errors.
Anon is currently solo playing our old multiplayer save and several people got eliminated, pretty done and dusted. Maybe we can organise a smaller game soon or something? I dunno it would be fun.

Also other potentially huge mineral saving tips. Planing on war in the next 10 years? The arms race edict for fanatic militarists not only lets you build armies and ships faster it applies a 25% discount to all starbase modules including those super expensive starbase upgrades! Doesn't apply to buying the initial starbase though.

Don't build all the mining/research stations at once if you are a democracy. Most candidates with the goal to build 4 of those stations also have a trait giving you a 25% discount on that kind of station! DOING THE GOAL ALSO GIVES YOU INFLUENCE TO TURN INTO MORE MINERALS THROUGH AMAZING SAVINGS!

Also don't try to incorporate alien xenophobes they are whiney bitches. Vassalage or purge them or something.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:19 am #175675

We stopped the old map and started a new one. Everyone learned so much from the first day of playing that the majority vote was to start over again before we got any further.

I don't play on the map if at least someone else isn't online, preferably more than just two of us. I know people don't want their empires running off on dumbass AI but sometimes the AI isn't completely stupid and people have returned to some pleasant surprises.

If you want to join the game make sure you have me added on Steam and PM me for more info. We've been playing pretty regularly every day so far (well, it's only been two days tho) at 4:30pm EST.

Incomptinence · Wed May 11, 2016 11:26 am

Aw I wasn't aware the game on the new map had already started.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:38 am #175677

Yeah, there are so many people who want to play right now that I have to stop holding everything up when one person disconnects or waiting for people to join before pressing play.

The AI isn't completely retarded when it comes to keeping an empire growing and moving in a positive direction, and we play on 1x speed so small gaps of missed play don't have a huge effect.
The show must go on. There are always npc AYY LMAOS people can hot join into and take over.

I wish there was a convenient way of keeping track of who has played as what so we don't accidentally have someone join into the game and control someone else's empire.
AFAIK the game doesn't brand empire's as having been claimed or previously played by people? Some kind of player history added to the save file would be good.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:40 am #175678

An0n3 wrote:people have returned to some pleasant surprises.

it was pleasant to have conquered several more planets and suddenly own a 3K fleet, but I could've done without all the xenos (I just enslaved them) and the new species that hijacked two of my systems. And for some reason I was at war with 3 empires halfway across the map.

By the way, the game does mention something along the lines of "previously played by PLAYER NAME" if you look at an empire.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:54 am #175679

Oh seriously? That's awesome.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Wed May 11, 2016 12:55 pm #175683

KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD EMPORAH XENOS SCUM

Spoiler:

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 1:04 pm #175685

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed May 11, 2016 1:12 pm #175686

I've started to mix up my battle fleets to create a more versitile war machine.

My big problem I found early on was adapting to different empires weapons and defenses, just me stacking my main weapon type and one defense option was not good enough as oft I could run into my hard counter.

So I'm going more so with having half my fleet running my empires main weapon (missiles in my current game), with the other half running a variation of weapons, with each ship dedicated to a single weapon type. So some ships purely used Point Defense and Kinetic Weapons while others use torpedoes and the such.

I've also seen not to neglect using lower level ships in your fleets. Small ships like the Corvette and the like are special in that they are very hard to hit. Whereas larger ships like Cruisers and Battleships are all but guaranteed to get hit by a weapon.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Wed May 11, 2016 1:29 pm #175687

If anyone wants to know how to make your own snowflake here's a quick guide.

1.
Download a .dds plugin for yer photoshop here:
https://code.google.com/archive/p/gimp-dds/

2.
Make a 512x512 image and have the background transparent.

3.
When saving the image use this format:

Spoiler:

4.
Go here and place your .dds image in whatever folder, for the sake of things I placed mine in the mammalian folder

Spoiler:

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Wed May 11, 2016 2:41 pm #175703

The problem with doing something like this is that unless we all install the custom files as well, the game will not let you join our games.