Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[thesheeep]

why would you even colonize a 10 slots planet?

Not at first, but at some point you are running out of larger ones (and at the same time your research is doing splendid, so not much is lost).

And the mantra is always: MORE.

 

[Average Manatee]

I never took Mastery Of Nature anyway, but this new doesn't really seem worthwhile.
+3 slots on a 10+ planet? It's not nothing, but I don't think I'd have needed that very often.

Of course, it would work wonders for that famous 1 planet strategy

MoN was OP as hell before, saving you thousands of resources per planet and letting you basically 100% ignore everything but physics research and rush for battleships/other things. Was literally the best choice in any game except stupid not-playing-the-game strats.

Getting 10-30% more production of everything per planet is huge (especially considering it's multiplicative rather than additive, compare to stuff like the +10% research perk which actually is worth more like +5% in practice). It will depend on how expensive the edict is, but for comparison a Habitat costs 5000 Minerals and 200ish influence for 12 slots (arguably a bit better slots though, so rate it at 15 or so).

why would you even colonize a 10 slots planet? i never set foot ot anything lower than 20, given how every malus is calculated on pop and number of planets. and anyway i don't play without some planet expander mod.

Only idiots care about the research malus, minerals and energy decide the game. Not colonizing everything is just stupid.

 

[Raghar]

why would you even colonize a 10 slots planet? i never set foot ot anything lower than 20

To place it under governor, or use it as a part of war negotiations?

Wait are you actually trying to be ahead of research instead of grabbing it from wreckage of enemy ships?

 

[Stavrophore]

The problem with Stellaris is when you have 100-200 planets, the micromanagement is a hellhole, because you are the ultimate commie alike central planner. There's no automation, there's no private market. In this regard Distant Worlds is better. Governors would be an answer if there was no cap on them, and they would have better AI. As it stands now its better to micromanage everything.

 

[Riso]

The individual pop/tile management on the planets was a major mistake. They should have simply abstracted it like sword of the stars or perhaps Endless Space 2.

 

[Average Manatee]

The individual pop/tile management on the planets was a major mistake. They should have simply abstracted it like sword of the stars or perhaps Endless Space 2.

Sadly instead of quickly making a Stellaris 2 they will spend 6 years churning out DLC.

It's interesting that both the Endless games and Stellaris are (at least compared to Civ) multiplayer-focused 4x games, but where Endless has a good streamlined set of Civ rules that are quick to play with, Stellaris goes the complete opposite direction and just forces you to give it all to sectors past a certain point to prevent players going insane.

 

[Riso]

That's because you have to deal with each planet individually and not just per each system.

It's a quite flawed game they will spend years trying to fix but you can't DLC your way out of bad game design.

 

[Preben]

Apparently Wiz admitted that he also considered the pop-tile system to be a mistake, so there's chance they will scrap it at some point. The example with FTL methods shos they are willing to scrap some basic concepts that turn out to be failures. There's hope.

Still, today's DD is an absolute travesty. They showed almost nothing that hasn't been done already by modders.

 

[Average Manatee]

I haven't actually played ES, only EL, so I can only talk in generalities.

But in any case Stellaris rarely gives you more than 1 planet per system anyway, so that's not the problem. The problem is that most 4x games solve the "early game has nothing to do" problem by having interesting stuff on the game map to interact with. Once the early game ends these naturally fade away as the player begins to interact with the enemy empires. Stellaris has some of this (pirates, random event chains), but mostly fills the early game with autistic tile management, which instead of naturally fading away becomes a bloated monster mess as soon as you hit the double digit number of planets.

And you can't really just remove the tiles. All of the stuff like slavery, migration, and different ethics/traits/biomodding require tiles with individual pops on them. Removing tiles means a massive overhaul or removal of half the planetary management mechanics, which is why I find it highly doubtful that such a thing will happen outside of Stellaris 2.

 

[Space Satan]

100 planets is a mai-late game. On a huge map. And by that time 80% of that planets will be nder Sector control.
I never have to manage more than 10 planets and still I find it cumbersome in regards of constant monitoring of buildings being up to date, pop allocation. Mostly I use micro to place one slave on each planet to get domestic slavery bonus for my primary pure race.Or keep slaves as livestoc on food-producing tiles. That mostly takes a bit to micromanage resettlements but them I can ignore it until late game

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i must be the only one... my larping powers make me enjoy moving people around. i have sweet thought of trains and camps.

 

[Space Satan]

Some new lists in 2.0

 

[Jimmious]

 

[Space Satan]

From devs

Purifiers play completely differently in 2.0. They fight total wars and instantly annex anything they occupy (and in return, are instantly annexed on occupation), and will pretty much always have to actually occupy everything they want to take as nobody is going to surrender to them.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

100 planets is a mai-late game. On a huge map. And by that time 80% of that planets will be nder Sector control.
I never have to manage more than 10 planets and still I find it cumbersome in regards of constant monitoring of buildings being up to date, pop allocation. Mostly I use micro to place one slave on each planet to get domestic slavery bonus for my primary pure race.Or keep slaves as livestoc on food-producing tiles. That mostly takes a bit to micromanage resettlements but them I can ignore it until late game

I really need to play a turbo-slaver campaign at some stage, having specific function slave species (most notably delicious livestock) could be quite fun (albeit probably rather exhausting due to needing to resettle slave pops all over).

 

[Hellion]

Apparently in 2.0 it is possible to bypass Hyperlanes by using Jump Drives, but this applies a penalty to the fleet.

I'm guessing this doesn't apply to Fallen Empires.

 

[Jimmious]

Last DD before 2.0 :D

Spoiler

Hello and welcome to another Stellaris development diary! Today we will take a look at some of the minor features and changes in the coming 2.0 'Cherryh' update.

Quality of Life
We have added small icons to the outliner that lets you see if planets have buildings that can be upgraded, or if there are Pops that do not have a building they are working. Similarly, you will be able to see when a starbase has an empty module or building slot.

This should make it a lot easier for you to manage your planets and starbases.

In the fleet view it is now also possible to see which designs can be upgraded.

Hallowed Planets
Spiritualist empires will be able to designate an uncolonized Gaia World within their borders as a 'Holy World'. The Holy World will increase your empire's unity production as long as it remains uncolonized and within your borders.

In addition to being able to make uncolonized Gaia Worlds useful, Hallowed Planets will also make spiritualist factions happy.

War Doctrines
In addition to other changes to traditions, finishing the Supremacy traditions now allows you to set a War Doctrine for your empire. War Doctrines give you additional customization and specialization regarding how you utilize your fleets.

There are four different war doctrines with different strengths and weaknesses:
Defense in Depth: Defensive empires will have a bonus to their ship fire rate within their own borders
Hit and Run: This doctrine will increase the likelyhood of your ships making an emergency FTL in combat, and also reduce damage caused by emergency FTL
Rapid Deployment: Empires that choose to rely on quickly being able to respond to threats may choose this doctrine which increases sublight speed and ship weapon range
No retreat: Militarists and Gestalt Consciousness empires can choose to employ a doctrine of no retreat, increasing ship fire rate but removing the ability for individual ships to emergency FTL out of combat instead of being destroyed.

Psionic Awakening (Utopia)
Should you be playing a Psionic empire, introduced with Utopia, it will now be possible to help lesser species awaken their psionic potential. This works similar to Assimilation, where you can give another species the benefits of your chosen ascension path.

That's all for this week! Next week you will be able to read the full patch notes for the 2.0 'Cherryh' update!

 

[Space Satan]

DD Full patch notes for 2.0

Spoiler

Hello everyone! 2.0 'Cherryh' and Apocalypse will be coming out in a week, so here as usual are the full patch notes in advance for your perusal. As we're still in the process of proofreading them, there might be omissions or errors, so please let us know if you spot anything that looks out of place. Thank you!

#################################################################
####################### VERSION 2.0.0 ###########################
#################################################################

#################################################################
# DESIGNERS' NOTE #
#################################################################
# #
# Stellaris has changed quite dramatically for 2.0, and in our #
# experience, for the better. Overall you can expect the game- #
# play to have been slowed down a little, and you now need to #
# make active decisions on which star systems you want to #
# expand into and control. #
# #
# You will need to build starbases to control systems and #
# defend your borders. You will need to outfit your starbases #
# with shipyards to build military ships, or turn them into #
# powerful fortresses to defend vital choke points and #
# strategically important locations. #
# #
# How you use your fleets will be different as well, as you now #
# have a limit on how many ships you can have in one fleet. #
# It will also be important to make sure that your fleets are #
# positioned correctly so that they can respond to any threat #
# to your borders - whether be it from pirates or hostile #
# space empires. #
# #
# The war system has changed as well, and you now need to make #
# claims on an enemy's territory before declaring war on them. #
# This means that it is now possible to declare war for a #
# single system without having to wage a long, drawn-out #
# war for it. #
# #
# Larger wars have changed as well, with the arrival of the #
# Colossus in the Apocalypse expansion. The Colossus is a #
# powerful super-weapon that can be equipped with various #
# armaments, one of which is capable of blowing up a planet. #
# #
# We hope you are ready for the Apocalypse. #
# #
#################################################################

###################
# Expansion Features
###################

# Colossus
* Added a new ship size called the Colossus, with graphical variations for all ship sets (including Plantoid and Humanoid if those species packs are owned). The Colossus needs an Ascension Perk and can be equipped with different planet-killer weapons capable of devastating entire planets.

# Titan
* Added a new ship size called the Titan, with graphical variations for all ship sets (including Plantoid and Humanoid if those species packs are owned). Titans are massive ships with Titanic-class weaponry that serve as the flagships of your fleet and have auras that can buff friendly ships and debuff hostiles.

# Ion Cannon
* Added a new defensive platform called the Ion Cannon. The Ion Cannon is a Titanic-class weapon meant to defend your Starbases against enemy capital ships.

# Ascension Perks
* Colossus Project, required to build the Colossus.
* Enigmatic Engineering, prevents enemies from reverse-engineering debris from your ships and extends sensor range.
* Nihilistic Acquisition, allows you to abduct Pops while bombarding enemy planets.

# Civics
* Life-Seeded, changes your homeworld into a size-25 Gaia World but also makes other planet classes uninhabitable for your species.
* Barbaric Despoilers, allows you to raid and abduct Pops while bombarding enemy planets but other empires will dislike you.
* Post-Apocalyptic, changes your homeworld into a Tomb World and allows your species to survive on other Tomb Worlds.

# Unity Ambitions
* A new set of very powerful edicts that cost Unity to enact. The cost is equal to one tradition unlock. Unity Ambitions are unlocked by the Ascension Theory technology.

# Marauders
* Added a new type of non-playable empire, from which you may hire fleets, admirals, generals or pay them to attack your rivals. A Marauder empire can "awaken" under the leadership of a Great Khan, constituting a mid-game crisis. When that happens, the Marauder empire will begin to expand and attack its neighbors.

# Music
* Added 3 new music tracks by Andreas Waldetoft

# Other
* UTOPIA: Psionic Assimilation: It is now possible for empires that have completed Psionic Ascension to give other biological species residing in their empire the Psionic trait through assimilation

###################
# Free Features
###################

# FTL Rework
* Every empire now starts with the Hyperdrive FTL.
* Wormhole Travel and Warp Travel are no longer available FTL types at the start of the game, and have been changed into additional (and very different from before) modes of travel detailed below.
* Pairs of Natural Wormholes can now be found scattered across the galaxy, connecting two star systems across vast distances. It is possible to pass through them for near-instantaneous travel, with the correct technology.
* Gateways are ancient megastructures connected in a network. Like the Wormholes, they allow instant travel across the galaxy. Gateways need to be activated before they can be used, and you are able to construct new Gateways once you have the technology to do so. Gateways do not require Utopia to restore or build.
* FTL Inhibitors prevent hostile fleets from advancing, they can only leave by the hyperlane they came from while any FTL Inhibitors in the system remain active. Starbases and planets get access to FTL Inhibitors if you have researched the associated technology.
* Jump Drives now allow fleets to make near-instantaneous point-to-point jumps that ignore hyperlanes. However, jumping has a long cooldown and significantly debuffs the fleet while the cooldown is in effect.

# Starbases
* System ownership is now determined by who controls the Starbase in it. Starbases are similar to Frontier Outposts and Spaceports combined into one, and they can be upgraded and specialized with different modules and buildings. You must now fully survey a system before constructing a Starbase in it
* Starbases can be upgraded from Outposts into Citadels (5 levels total)
* Starbases have module slots (0/2/4/6/6) that can be filled out with different Modules such as Shipyards and Trading Hubs
* Starbases have building slots (0/1/2/3/4) that can be filled out with different Buildings such as the Fleet Academy and the Nebula Refinery
* Starbases can build and maintain their own fleet of defensive platforms. The number of defensive platforms a Starbase can support depends on its size, buildings and other factors such as ascension perks

# Fleets
* Fleet Command Limit is a cap on how many ships can be in the same fleet, effectively limiting how many ships a single admiral can command and provide bonuses to.

# Ascension Perks
* Most basic ascension perks are now available in the base version of Stellaris. Megastructures and Psionic/Biological/Synthetic ascension paths still require Utopia
* Added the Eternal Vigilance ascension perk that boost your defensive capabilities, increasing starbase defensive platform cap, and effectiveness of defensive platforms and starbases
* Added the Executive Vigor ascension perk that doubles your edict duration

# Army rework
* Defensive armies are no longer built, but are rather created automatically to garrison planets from certain buildings, such as Capitals and Fortresses
* Orbital Bombardment was changed. While a fleet is bombarding a planet, it will now deal damage to both armies defending the planet, and the planet itself. Planet damage is a value that goes from 0 to 100%, and once it hits maximum, a tile on the planet will be damaged, ruining any building on it and potentially killing pops and creating blockers. More severe forms of bombardment do more damage to both armies and planets
* Planets can now construct Fortress buildings that provide additional defensive garrisons. Armies spawned by a Fortress cannot suffer any damage from orbital bombardment while the Fortress is functional
* Assault armies engaged in battle on a planet will now cause collateral damage to the planet, in the form of planetary damage similar to from bombardment. Different types of armies cause different amounts of collateral damage
* Armies at low (<50%) morale will now have their combat ability reduced, in addition to the more severe penalty that already exists for being at 0 morale
* Planets now have a combat width that determines how many units can take and deal damage at the same time during combat
* Planets no longer have a limit to how many armies can be garrisoned on them
* Armies now have a chance to disengage from battle when they take damage and their health is at <50%. Disengaged units will not deal damage or take damage as long as there are other units to fill the combat width
* Retreating from an invasion now results in each retreating unit having a chance of being overrun and destroyed. The chance increases if the unit is at low health

# Unit Experience
* Armies and Ships will now gain experience from combat and rank up. Higher rank armies/ships are more effective in battle

# Galactic Terrain
* Certain systems will now have effects on ships in them. Pulsars, Neutron Stars and Black Holes will affect ships in the same system in various ways, while Nebulas prevent all outside sensors from having a view of the system

# Fleet Manager
* We have added a new interface that lets you manage your fleets. You can manage templates, retrofit designs and reinforce all fleets.

# Technology
* Technologies have been reworked into 5 tiers, and many have had their base costs changed
* Renamed Atmospheric Restoration to Atmospheric Transformation
* Doctrine: Fleet Support no longer unlocks any spaceport modules, but instead increases naval capacity
* Interstellar Fleet Traditions tech no longer unlocks any spaceport module, but instead unlocks two starbase buildings
* Auxiliary Fire-control technology added to the game
* Modular Engineering technology has been added, which reduces starbase building and module build cost by 25%
* Each ship size has two technologies that increases hull points. For example, corvettes can increase their hull points by +100 two times
* Each ship size has a technology to increase the build speed of that ship size by 25%
* Technologies that unlock new ship sizes also increase Fleet Command Limit by +10
* Orbital Hydroponics tech removed from game
* Will to Power tech removed from game
* Wormhole Stabilization technology has been added to the game, and it is required to travel through Wormholes
* Gateway Activation technology has been added to the game, and it is required to activate Gateways and to travel through them
* Gateway Construction technology has been added to the game, and it is required to build new Gateways

# Traits
* Traditional species trait has been added, which increases unity output
* Quarrelsome species trait has been added, which reduces unity output

# Spaceports
* Spaceports as an entity no longer exist, and starbases with shipyards are required to build military ships. Every planet can build civilian ships through the spaceport tab, including Habitats
* All spaceport modules removed from the game. Some were converted into Starbase buildings

# Pirates
* Pirates can now spawn in any unowned system near your borders. Pirate spawns keep getting stronger as the game goes on. Pirates will raid systems to destroy mining and research stations
* Pirates cannot spawn during the first 10 years of the game

# Sensors & Intel
* Sensor range is now a measure of how many FTL jumps away you can see rather than euclidian distance. A sensor range of 1 gives view of only the same system, 2 of same and neighboring system, and so on
* Intel levels have changed. They are as follows: None (Unknown), Low (unsurveyed but known), Medium (surveyed, not in sensor range), High (unsurveyed, in sensor range) and Full (surveyed, in sensor range)
* You no longer need to survey systems owned by other empires you have comms with. Exception is systems owned by Fallen Empires or Marauders

# Edicts
* Edicts now all have an up-front cost and a duration, rather than being able to be toggled on and off. The only exception are one-off edicts such as Land Reclamation
* Removed a bunch of planetary edicts, and many others were turned into empire edicts. In addition, many of them have had their effects tweaked or reworked.
* Recycling Campaign empire edict added to the game, which reduces consumer goods cost
* Healthcare Campaign empire edict added to the game, which increases pop growth
* Education Campaign empire edict added to the game, which increases leader experience gain
* Fear Campaign empire edict added to the game, which increases unity output and xenophobia

# Setup
* Can now set when mid-game and end-game events will start at galaxy setup
* Can now set overall speed at which tech and traditions are unlocked at galaxy setup
* Can now set frequency of wormholes and abandoned gateways at galaxy setup

# Misc.
* Added some new events for gaining additional Precursor artifacts outside of anomalies, this should guarantee that precursor chains can always be completed
* It is now possible to start a game with no other empires in it, but this will disable conquest victory
* You now start with your home system explored, and largely fixed (slightly randomized) number of resources present
* No longer possible to trade star charts with other empires, instead you can trade for communications
* War Philosophy now controls whether or not you can freely make claims on other empires. It is always possible to claim systems of empires that you are fighting a defensive war against
* Broken planets are now their own planet class, instead of using the barren planet class
* The Scyldari are now Spiritualist rather than Materialist, as the prescripted empires were looking a bit Materialist-heavy
* Changed the Iferyx from Xenophobe to Pacifist, and gave them Corporate Dominion, to give them a different AI personality from Yondar attraction
* Added new component reactor booster with 3 levels and accompanying techs - aux slot component that gives extra power to ships, the basic version is available as a start tech
* Mineral Processing technology no longer gives +2000 Mineral storage cap, but rather unlocks Nebula Refinery
* Consolidated mineral storage modifiers from techs into just a few techs instead of spread all over
* Military Stations removed as a buildable station type. They are now Defensive Platforms for starbases.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

wow, paid content does truly suck butt.

 

[Preben]

wow, paid content does truly suck butt.

It's garbage. Everything except the doomsday weapons was already done by modders.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

thank you, captain obvious!

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Matalarata]

I'm starved for a sci-fi 4x, is this worth the purchase at the current sale price? Base game + Leviathan + Utopia is around 32 euros, 16 for just the base game...

Gib monocled opinionz bros, plz.

 

[Jimmious]

I'm starved for a sci-fi 4x, is this worth the purchase at the current sale price? Base game + Leviathan + Utopia is around 32 euros, 16 for just the base game...

Gib monocled opinionz bros, plz.

I enjoy the game even though it has its problems. I'd say go for it at this price.
The upcoming patch/expansion will change the game a lot (improve it imo)

 

[Alfgart]

I'm starved for a sci-fi 4x, is this worth the purchase at the current sale price? Base game + Leviathan + Utopia is around 32 euros, 16 for just the base game...

Gib monocled opinionz bros, plz.

Buy Distant Worlds: Universe instead