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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Nahel

Arcane
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Messages
862
Well yes, if your goal is to play something with good space combat, then SOTS is much better. Stellaris is more focused on interplanetary politics and empire management and so on. Especially with the upcoming patch the direction is pretty clear.

The main problem is the game has neither interplanetary politics or empire management. Diplomacy is limited and empire management is simply a modifier fest. And the small improvements are far from suficient. Mods might change this one day, good luck to the modders.

they're entirely different games.
what's next, comparing stellaris with elite?

They are both strategy games based on a science fiction theme. Of course you can compare them. And both are real time actually, so the main difference is the focus. SOTS is focused on combat, Stellaris is focused on boring mechanisms.
 

Jimmious

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I think we're going in circles in this thread generally.. The game has 1021342134 problems but it somehow manages to be extremely addictive. It's this Paradoxian property that can't be easily defined
 

Hellion

Arcane
Joined
Feb 5, 2013
Messages
1,582
Today I found a 1 billion years old space turd, which I mined for minerals.


2bb0539ed0ef411c85d7434931e5c44d.png



GOTY
 

asfasdf

robot
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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Actually you need torpedo ships to stay up close. At long range chances are the target is destroyed before torpedoes impact, and there's no Dauntless Guidance to keep them useful.

Well yes, I was just arguing that more control on fleet disposition and ship positioning would add tactical depth to the thing.
 

Preben

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- Random techs is one of the most retarded concepts I have ever seen. You end up missing on relevant techs simply because they didn't show up. I fail to see the point of such crap mechanics;

I actually like it and it makes a lot of sense. It's absurd to assume that every civilization will come up with same concepts and technologies. Hell, even some cultures on this Earth had not developed technologies that seem absolutely obvious to us, best example being Aztecs and Incas failing to develop wheeled carts despite having sophisticated civilizations and broad commerce. Instead, everything was carried on the backs of humans and pack animals.

This concept was also explored in SF. I recommend a short story entitled "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove. The story starts with a cliché trope of Alien Invasion. The Aliens appear in spacecrafts capable of FTL flight and demand surrender or else. Humanity is shit scared after the display of Aliens' capabilites and agree. During the surrender ceremony however, a shoutout ensures and Aliens commence their invasion. It turns out that despite having FTL capability, the Aliens' military is otherwise on the level of Humanity during the 30 Years War. They fight with muskets and attempt to bombard Earth with barrels filled with black gunpowder. Humans make a quick work of the Aliens and examine their captured spacecrafts. They discover that FTL technology was absurdly easy and only by some stroke of bad luck humanity failed to develop it in the past. On the other hand, the Aliens have stagnated on the level equivalent to Renaissance and failed to discover scores of things that are completely obvious to today's humans.
 
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barker_s

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Agreed Preben . Besides, the system is supposedly not completely random and the technologies you get are weighted towards your nation's ideology (e.g. militarists get more weapon techs, spirituals get psionics etc.).
 

Preben

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It's indeed not completely random. They also introduced rarity levels akin to card rarity in games like Magic the Gathering. Some techs are "common" and thus very likely to appear, some are extremely rare and may never appear in a given playthrough.
 
Joined
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Messages
14,152
Techs tend to be balanced in that they are so weak that it really doesn't matter what you get. Out of all the hundreds of techs in the game, the essential ones you need to roll can be pretty much counted on your fingers (excluding the dozen or so blocker removers, which are high-frequency anyway). They also all tend to be obtained early game, with the exception of ship class upgrades. And all of the essentials have a pretty high roll chance. For the most part a race with, say, around 20 specific techs has no almost functional difference from a race with every tech minus the repeatable. Unless we're talking about some hypothetical super close competitive MP game the tech system is fine.

You'll notice that the upcoming system in Utopia seems to be focused around actual game-changers and it is entirely deterministic.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
This concept was also explored in SF. I recommend a short story entitled "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove. The story starts with a cliché trope of Alien Invasion. The Aliens appear in spacecrafts capable of FTL flight and demand surrender or else. Humanity is shit scared after the display of Aliens' capabilites and agree. During the surrender ceremony however, a shoutout ensures and Aliens commence their invasion. It turns out that despite having FTL capability, the Aliens' military is otherwise on the level of Humanity during the 30 Years War. They fight with muskets and attempt to bombard Earth with barrels filled with black gunpowder. Humans make a quick work of the Aliens and examine their captured spacecrafts. They discover that FTL technology was absurdly easy and only by some stroke of bad luck humanity failed to develop it in the past. On the other hand, the Aliens have stagnated on the level equivalent to Renaissance and failed to discover scores of things that are completely obvious to today's humans.
That's... not... how SCIENCE fiction is supposed to work, jesus christ
 

Norfleet

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12,250
I actually like it and it makes a lot of sense. It's absurd to assume that every civilization will come up with same concepts and technologies. Hell, even some cultures on this Earth had not developed technologies that seem absolutely obvious to us, best example being Aztecs and Incas failing to develop wheeled carts despite having sophisticated civilizations and broad commerce. Instead, everything was carried on the backs of humans and pack animals.
It's not that they didn't understand wheels, it's that the mountainous terrain the Incas lived in, and their lack of appropriate large draft animals, made wagons basically useless.
 

Preben

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I actually like it and it makes a lot of sense. It's absurd to assume that every civilization will come up with same concepts and technologies. Hell, even some cultures on this Earth had not developed technologies that seem absolutely obvious to us, best example being Aztecs and Incas failing to develop wheeled carts despite having sophisticated civilizations and broad commerce. Instead, everything was carried on the backs of humans and pack animals.
It's not that they didn't understand wheels, it's that the mountainous terrain the Incas lived in, and their lack of appropriate large draft animals, made wagons basically useless.


Aztecs didn't live in mountainous area. Only part of Inca civilization was covered by mountains. And somehow mountains didn't prevent people from using carts in the Old Word. Look at Persia, Caucasus, Tibet or even the Alpine region.

Pre-Columbians indeed knew wheel. This is a fact known from archaeological finds. However theyvapparently never got the idea to them to use them to move around people and goods. Since people on this very Earth failed to come up with concepts that seem absolutely obvious to us, it's ridiculous to assume that civilizations that arose on different planets would discover the very same things. Hell, I am sure that humanity also failed to discover tons of things that would seem completely obvious to Alien civilizations of roughly the same development level.
 

kris

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Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,836
Location
Lulea, Sweden
I actually like it and it makes a lot of sense. It's absurd to assume that every civilization will come up with same concepts and technologies. Hell, even some cultures on this Earth had not developed technologies that seem absolutely obvious to us, best example being Aztecs and Incas failing to develop wheeled carts despite having sophisticated civilizations and broad commerce. Instead, everything was carried on the backs of humans and pack animals.
It's not that they didn't understand wheels, it's that the mountainous terrain the Incas lived in, and their lack of appropriate large draft animals, made wagons basically useless.

Aztecs didn't live in mountainous area. Only part of Inca civilization was covered by mountains. And somehow mountains didn't prevent people from using carts in the Old Word. Look at Persia, Caucasus, Tibet or even the Alpine region.

None of those regions used wheeled vehicles to traverse mountainous terrain, they used pack animals, hell some of them still do (tibet). I got to agree with Norfleet, the reason is one of practicality.

Persia isn't as mountainous as it might look at a map, it is quite easy to traverse on wheels.
 

Arnust

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Dec 22, 2016
Messages
680
Location
Spain
Tried an Ironman hard, 150 system, 75% habitable planets, 4 player run to depart with pre-Utopia version.

Just some years in, a massive militaristic empire and his buddy consumed the other two empires, quite friendly to me. SO I was left alone against 60% the galaxy, cornered in.

Several wars to push back and break relations with them, I won their capital. BUT I was careless and they rebelled, pluys found the Dreadnought Leviathan and Cibrex Alpha. Alas, I had won the previous war, but... THEY DIDN'T HAVE OPEN BORDERS, even if I had it as a war demand. So I was stuck and surrounded (Hyperlanes), and with rebelling servants out of reach. So I declared war again, but ran out of funding and so my huge fleet got completely obliterated, planets bombed (not even invaded). Total defeat (I could try going on but meh). It really was my fault, out of that wargoal not working. Even just discovered Jump Drive to maybe be able to circumvent the border blockade.
 

Norfleet

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Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Aztecs didn't live in mountainous area. Only part of Inca civilization was covered by mountains. And somehow mountains didn't prevent people from using carts in the Old Word. Look at Persia, Caucasus, Tibet or even the Alpine region.
But they had no draft animals to use. No horses. No oxen. The largest thing the Incas had was the llama, while the Aztecs had nothing at all. Llama harnesses didn't exist and the llama does not have great pulling strength or endurance. Without an animal to pull carts with, there was simply no way to effectively use them.


Pre-Columbians indeed knew wheel. This is a fact known from archaeological finds. However theyvapparently never got the idea to them to use them to move around people and goods. Since people on this very Earth failed to come up with concepts that seem absolutely obvious to us, it's ridiculous to assume that civilizations that arose on different planets would discover the very same things. Hell, I am sure that humanity also failed to discover tons of things that would seem completely obvious to Alien civilizations of roughly the same development level.
It's obvious to US because we had horses and oxen. Things that could be effectively harnessed and used to pull heavier loads than can be loaded onto the back of the animal. The Aztecs had no draft animals. The Incas only had llamas, which, while relatively quick, are not powerful. Carting across rough mountainous terrain was just not very effective, too.
 

Preben

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Horses in their wild state were also tiny by today's standards. They were more like ponies, only much weaker and far less hardy. It took several centuries of selective breeding for modern workhorse to appear. I fail to see why lamas or any other American camelid couldn't be also used to pull carts. And yes, carts were extensively used in places like Tibet, as evidenced by archeology, artwork and even old photographs. Pic related, it's made by a member of the British expedition of 1903.

article-2383412-1B1CD678000005DC-147_634x384.jpg


And to be fair, carts can be pulled by humans also.

The fact that pre Colombian civilizations failed to use the wheel for transportation despite clearly knowing the concept cannot be dismissed by saying that they didn't need it. It's absolutely ridiculous. Even if we (wrongly) assume that carts were unusable in mountainous area, there were still lots of flatlands to move carts around. Especially since Aztecs didn't live in mountainous area at all.

It's far more likely that it simply never occurred to Incas or Aztecs that the wheel can be used for anything more than novelty toys. It's nothing wrong, cause it's most likely that in the whole Old World this concept was developed only once and then spread like wildfire.
 
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Arnust

Savant
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Dec 22, 2016
Messages
680
Location
Spain
It's like the Greek knowing how steam worked yet having done nothing but little devices and toys. I'd like to see them in tunics running trains lol
 

kris

Arcane
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Oct 27, 2004
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Lulea, Sweden
. And yes, carts were extensively used in places like Tibet, as evidenced by archeology, artwork and even old photographs. Pic related, it's made by a member of the British expedition of 1903.

Not in the mountains and passes. Lets not forget that most of Tibet is flatlands.
 

Kuattro

Augur
Joined
Jun 4, 2015
Messages
401
Location
La Font del Gat
I would say what I said seven months ago still stands:

In my opinion, it's only good if you are a compulsive restarter, because you get to do the early exploration again and again and again. You can get a good 20-30 hours out of it. If you get to the mid-game though... it's bad, and it's probably going to keep being bad for a good year or more, until (if!) they decide to give the player options for the peacetime which, looking at EUIV, might be never.

And on the other hand, if you enjoy DW:U, would you really want to play a more casual version? Because that's what Stellaris is, in the end, DW:U or SotS for those who don't have the time or the interest to play those two (nevermind Aurora).

If you haven't got any moral problems with piracy, why not "demo" it? If you see something you enjoy, you can always buy later (but, again, be not mislead by the early game, as I was, that's 30 € I'm never getting back :negative:). If you don't want to pirate, and have no problem waiting... I'd do that.

It's been almost a year since release, and the game has received a couple of shitty cosmetic DLCs, one "story pack" (fucking Paradox, I swear...), and NOW it's getting a DLC with things that should have been there from the start, like consistent internal politics, different rights for different aliens, and some other crap that I forget. But nothing game changing as far as I can tell. Nothing addressing the abysmal combat, nothing addressing the idiotic diplomacy... basically nothing addressing anything of importance, but adding new systems so that everyone can see how broken and buggy they are and Paradox can pretend to get working on bugfixes momentarily! to justify the 20€ per DLC.

It's going to be, it seems, a long, bumpy ride, full of small steps ahead (that way you can charge for each and every one of them), and with a more than uncertain destination, because looking at EUIV and CKII, Paradox never seems to know what the fuck their games are supposed to be, adding instead whatever tickles their fancy, even if it lacks any sense, and fucks the game up in every possible ways (see Rajas of India, for example, and thank god for it, since it probably dissuaded them from adding China to the mix).

Meanwhile the bloke who made DW is bunkered up somewhere in New Zealand, applying all of his autism to, presumably, build on the base of what he already has an even better thing, new engine, new systems, etc. From time to time he appears in the Matrix Games forums to say that he is working on it but he's not going to say anything else until it's something interesting, which could mean anything really, at least in regards to a release timeline. One day is going to pop up and say "here it is!", and as everything made by a couple of friends instead of a committee of Swedish squareheads, is either going to be great, or utter shit.

Which I guess is more that you can say about Stellaris, which is probably never going to be great, and is right now utter, horrible shit.

Sorry for the rant, those 30€ still sting pretty bad.
 

Andnjord

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Aug 22, 2012
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The Eye of Terror
Meh, after playing this game for a good 30 hours when it came out I decided to boot it up again as I'm mildly excited by the Banks update. Thinking to myself "Oh great, there's been 4 major patches since I played it, I'm sure this plays much better now!". My impression after 3 more hours was that of complete boredom, forever waiting for the fun to happen, forever waiting for something to do, forever getting enraged by the clunky UI. There just isn't anything mechanically fun or engaging to do, nothing complex to figure out, just an endless litany of minor modifiers and meaningless numbers bumping up or down.

I will probably leave this game on the shelf for another year or something, see if they can snatch a decent game out of the jaws of boredom.


EDIT: I should probably get Masters of Orion 2 at some point.
 
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