Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[trais]

The addition of a multiplayer mode sort of forces it into a competitive mold, though.

Huh, weird. On my computer, the game doesn't force me to do anything.

The singleplayer button in main menu works 100% of the times I click it, therefore I can choose to ignore or mod out each and every feature they've put in for multiplayer's sake.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

that's not what he meant. i understand it's norfleet we're talking about here, but for once we can agree with him:
- wow, this feature would be cool, albeit a little unbalanced.
- scrap it, otherwise crybabies not using it will cry foul in multiplayer. we can't let any fun to be had.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's true. And its not just features that would be imbalanced that are on the chopping board. Lots of normal 4x complexity that would work well in a turnbased MP game don't work in a Real Time MP game like Stellaris because it would either drive the game to a halt as micromanagers did everything or piss them off as vital gameplay features became unusable due to the game speed. Look at Distant Worlds. It's a space 4x like Stellaris and it would be completely unmanageable in a MP setting unless you left 80% of the game mechanics to AI automation.

You can tell that they are already dealing with this by trying to cut down micromanagement of pops. The addition of the empire-level rule things for deciding who to enslave rather than manually marking pops is an absolutely essential feature. There's a certain micromanagement cap beyond which MP becomes an unfun Starcraft-like competitive RTS for Koreans and the more complexity Paradox add the more they need to adjust their systems and UIs to keep micromanagement down.

 

[rezaf]

Are you guys really arguing the game having multiplayer enforces such balancing? Aren't we talking about the same company allowing you to start a MP EU4 game with one player running France and the other player running Kleves? The same company allowing you to start a CK2 campaign with one player playing the emperor of Byzanzium and the other some backwater chief in the middle of nowhere?

And as for complexity getting chopped off, I still don't get why they didn't abstract space combat far more, like naval battles in earlier HoI games. No individual rendering of ships on the map with retarded abstractions like firing off a missile taking days or even weeks. And far better performance.

 

[Norfleet]

Of course, all gameplay features in single player must ultimately be automatable...otherwise the AI cannot use them.

Are you guys really arguing the game having multiplayer enforces such balancing? Aren't we talking about the same company allowing you to start a MP EU4 game with one player running France and the other player running Kleves? The same company allowing you to start a CK2 campaign with one player playing the emperor of Byzanzium and the other some backwater chief in the middle of nowhere?

But there's a difference: EU4 is a historical simulator, not a 4X game. If you choose a start like that, it's because you chose it.

And as for complexity getting chopped off, I still don't get why they didn't abstract space combat far more, like naval battles in earlier HoI games. No individual rendering of ships on the map with retarded abstractions like firing off a missile taking days or even weeks. And far better performance.

You mean like a "two fleets move into each other on a map and a fight space-dust cloud appears with the occasional spaceship foot or fist popping forth from it until someone dies" way?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Are you guys really arguing the game having multiplayer enforces such balancing? Aren't we talking about the same company allowing you to start a MP EU4 game with one player running France and the other player running Kleves? The same company allowing you to start a CK2 campaign with one player playing the emperor of Byzanzium and the other some backwater chief in the middle of nowhere?

you obviously never witnessed the discussions about nations' ideas balance.

 

[trais]

But there's a difference: EU4 is a historical simulator, not a 4X game. If you choose a start like that, it's because you chose it.

And I chose to mod the welfare colonies out and thus risk getting screwed at the start. I was sober, fully conscious and gave the game explicit consent to use the mod that I had made by enabling it in the game launcher. So what's is the problem exactly?

 

[Average Manatee]

Players in a 4x generally expect starts to be fairly balanced. No one picks Navarra in EU or Belgium in HoI thinking that they are balanced. Though I can certainly agree that there should be more starting options, there's an option to have civilizations randomly spread out which can lead to being boxed in easily, no reason not to have a fully random start option.

That said the "welfare colonies" are actually pretty meaningless since habitability is kind of overrated and the worst that would happen with random planet distribution is that wormhole players would need another 50 minerals to get somewhere. What's way more important is number of minerals in your starting system and within your starting borders, which can be incredibly random.

 

[rezaf]

You mean like a "two fleets move into each other on a map and a fight space-dust cloud appears with the occasional spaceship foot or fist popping forth from it until someone dies" way?

The way you put it makes it sound pretty unappealing ... but yeah, taken to the extreme, I guess that's basically it.

 

[rezaf]

Players in a 4x generally expect starts to be fairly balanced.

Balanced starts in space 4x games were always pretty ridiculous (everyone in the galaxy decides to expand to the stars in the same year? sure...). However, most 4x games lacked the systems (and ambition) to portray things that are ever-present in Paradox grand strategy games.
I fully expected Paradox to blend more of their experience in the grand strategy genre into their 4x/gs hybrid game - but, as in most other respects, the game is pretty barebones in this regard. And llike in those other aspects, I think the game has achieving this in it's grasp. Right now, we have the Fallen Empires and the accelerated starts, but there could be so much more. Stellaris could be a game that plays out like the Babylon 5 TV show, with ancient empires duking it out, sometimes ignoring newcomers to the galactic scene, sometimes using them to further their own ends, someimes crushing them beneath their boots. Whether or not the potential will ever be realized is another matter, of course.

 

[Average Manatee]

It has to be ridiculous for the game to work. On Stellaris timescale you could colonize the whole galaxy in 100 years or so if you were alone. If you wanted to be realistic then every time you started a new game there would be a 99.9% chance of a text box popping up informing you: "Another civilization developed FTL a million years ago, colonized the universe and won before your civilization developed pointy sticks. You are now a zoo exhibit". The only way to avoid this is some kind of contrived isolationist empires like Fallen Empires are. That said Distant Worlds does have options for much more advanced starts than others.

The only way I can see the game working as you describe would be if Paradox went back to the drawing board and made a Dune/Crusader Kings in Space-type game, where empires were highly decentralized and prone to breakaways.

 

[Nirvash]

Is not balance, it just require MASSIVE maps.

 

[Norfleet]

And I chose to mod the welfare colonies out and thus risk getting screwed at the start. I was sober, fully conscious and gave the game explicit consent to use the mod that I had made by enabling it in the game launcher. So what's is the problem exactly?

None. I'm just saying that put it in there for a reason that wasn't based on "welfare", but rather, multiplayer game balancing. You, obviously, are not going to play the game in multiplayer, so don't need this feature. But the truth is, Civ has such features, too, in that they cut up the map into zones for starting in, grade them, and then give you the shittiest one in single player.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

tip for keeping large galaxies manageable and with less late-game slowdown: set habitable worlds to 25% on world gen.

I did this on my most recent game. Keeps fleet sizes from ballooning out of control early on and, frankly, it makes the game more fun. I like having to actually fight to expand my empire. Worlds feel like something valuable and wars aren't bogged down as much by the warscore mechanic.

 

[Ventessel]

None. I'm just saying that put it in there for a reason that wasn't based on "welfare", but rather, multiplayer game balancing. You, obviously, are not going to play the game in multiplayer, so don't need this feature. But the truth is, Civ has such features, too, in that they cut up the map into zones for starting in, grade them, and then give you the shittiest one in single player.

Civ V maybe. Not prior to that. There were algorithms to ensure a minimum viability to start locations and add bonuses until a start location was found, and that's not a bad option to have available as a toggle.

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[Grif]

None. I'm just saying that put it in there for a reason that wasn't based on "welfare", but rather, multiplayer game balancing. You, obviously, are not going to play the game in multiplayer, so don't need this feature. But the truth is, Civ has such features, too, in that they cut up the map into zones for starting in, grade them, and then give you the shittiest one in single player.

Civ V maybe. Not prior to that. There were algorithms to ensure a minimum viability to start locations and add bonuses until a start location was found, and that's not a bad option to have available as a toggle.

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Pretty sure IV also had a 'balanced' option. Note: option. I believe it essentially guarantees a food resource in your starting spawn fat X and at least copper/iron some tiles away. Also, there's a few balanced map algorithms for MP enthusiasts. But by far and large, Civ IV didn't go out of its way to cater for the MP crowd.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

who cares for balanced starts? earth maps are the only decent way to play any civ.

 

[Ventessel]

Pretty sure IV also had a 'balanced' option. Note: option. I believe it essentially guarantees a food resource in your starting spawn fat X and at least copper/iron some tiles away. Also, there's a few balanced map algorithms for MP enthusiasts. But by far and large, Civ IV didn't go out of its way to cater for the MP crowd.

On the contrary, Civ IV was tested extensively for multi-player and included a number of features like Pitboss to really encourage multiplayer.

To this day, there are active Civ IV multiplayer communities on Civ Fanatics, Realms Beyond, and probably others. "Catering" to multiplayer doesn't mean the single player aspects of the game will be bad. In fact, if you design the game for humans to play it and then once the game is designed (or at least the main features are in) write the AI to imitate the best players you'll have a great single player experience. Soren Johnson went to great lengths to get detailed feedback from a lot of veteran Civ players during development and closed betas which I think is reflected in the relatively good balance of Civ IV.

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[Average Manatee]

Civ 4 isn't a great example of MP because its very, very easy to run away with the game by reaching certain techs ahead of other players. Pretty much all Paradox games are designed to hard limit tech runaways, which is better for MP but less fun for SP. Ironically Civ 5 sort of tried to do the same in one of their expansions (increasing tech cost with number of cities) and it really screwed things up as the best strat was to go for a max of 4-6 cities and just chew through techs like candy.

Of course, there's also SMAC on the other end of the spectrum, which is insanely imbalanced in MP but still kind of makes up for it in the roleplaying experience. CK2 is also in a similar mindset.

 

[rezaf]

It has to be ridiculous for the game to work. On Stellaris timescale you could colonize the whole galaxy in 100 years or so if you were alone. If you wanted to be realistic then every time you started a new game there would be a 99.9% chance of a text box popping up informing you: "Another civilization developed FTL a million years ago, colonized the universe and won before your civilization developed pointy sticks. You are now a zoo exhibit". The only way to avoid this is some kind of contrived isolationist empires like Fallen Empires are. That said Distant Worlds does have options for much more advanced starts than others.

The only way I can see the game working as you describe would be if Paradox went back to the drawing board and made a Dune/Crusader Kings in Space-type game, where empires were highly decentralized and prone to breakaways.

I disagree. Well, of course you're right looking at the game as-is, but I think the key would be to have civilizations to go through a lifecycle consisting of several phases. As you moved from one phase to another, things that used to be key and incredibly important would lose any significance, and thus a civ at that level would only compete with other civs at the same level.
For comparison, look at the phases we as human have gone through on earth. There were eras in which resources crucial to modern society like oil or rare earths were mostly unknown curiosities. There were eras when having a gargantuan army of millions and millions in the field was the way of the great powers. There were eras in which having colonies of oppressed people someplace in the world were considered a sign of greatness. And chances are there will be ages to come in which what our present society yearns for will seem just as petty and backwards as what the people of the stone age considered all-important looks to us today. This is what a epic space 4x should convey.

And I think Stellaris is capable of depicting something like that in principle - however Paradox has taken quite a few design decisions that are at odds with such an approach, and thus it's highly unlikely it'll ever be a thing in vanilla Stellaris. In a mod, maybe - but it'd be a herculean effort.

 

[IDtenT]

Is not balance, it just require MASSIVE maps.

And non-FTL flight (which means lots of years).

 

[rezaf]

The romans were a superpower and only had significant troop numbers across their entire (huge) realm, And for an empire that size, the few hundred thousand men isn't that big a number. Significant, yes, but ... it's the roman empire.

Also, I think the chinese hat pretty significant armies in the millions basically at all times.
My point, however, was aimed at how modern armies are far, FAR smaller. Chances are they'd prove insufficient should there ever be a real war - if we scraped together all armies from europe we'd still be hard pressed to match russia or china. Now, just how efficient those armies are is another question alltogether, but let's hope such conflict will never arise and thus we'll never find out who'd come out on top.

 

[Average Manatee]

Roman Empire population wasn't that much bigger than 18th and 19th century countries. Napoleonic France was fairly comparable in population and raised fairly comparable armies. Though certainly the Roman Army was more dispersed, since the time period was characterized by basically everyone being at war by default until one side had been subjugated and paid tribute.

And no, modern armies aren't smaller. Standing armies during peacetime are roughly comparable to armies raised during the height of many medieval and ancient wars on a per capita basis. If WW3 broke out all countries would immediately re-introduce conscription and you'd see army sizes go up by a factor of 10 or so. Keep in mind that before the industrial revolution the number of people tied up in subsistence farming was 90-95%, with 5-10% doing everything else.

I disagree. Well, of course you're right looking at the game as-is, but I think the key would be to have civilizations to go through a lifecycle consisting of several phases. As you moved from one phase to another, things that used to be key and incredibly important would lose any significance, and thus a civ at that level would only compete with other civs at the same level.
For comparison, look at the phases we as human have gone through on earth. There were eras in which resources crucial to modern society like oil or rare earths were mostly unknown curiosities. There were eras when having a gargantuan army of millions and millions in the field was the way of the great powers. There were eras in which having colonies of oppressed people someplace in the world were considered a sign of greatness. And chances are there will be ages to come in which what our present society yearns for will seem just as petty and backwards as what the people of the stone age considered all-important looks to us today. This is what a epic space 4x should convey.

And I think Stellaris is capable of depicting something like that in principle - however Paradox has taken quite a few design decisions that are at odds with such an approach, and thus it's highly unlikely it'll ever be a thing in vanilla Stellaris. In a mod, maybe - but it'd be a herculean effort.

That's nice and all, but power in Stellaris comes from land and pops. Doesn't matter if you are mining unobtainium and the primitives are mining sharp sticks, you still want to kill the primitives to mine your unobtanium. To do as you say would require entirely separate game modes for each eras, something like Spore.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Finally had an encounter with The Swarm.

Thought it was going to be a real challenge at first. They had spawned near a fallen empire, so that helped, but they were more than holding their own and had me vastly outnumbered with ships that somehow could make mincemeat out of my most powerful vessels. I thought this was going to be a long, bloody war when...

Spoiler

...I bombarded their unguarded world and somewhere around 800k+ of ships all died instantly.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

several times, every time the plague stroke.