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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,820
Location
Italy
it should, but it actually doesn't.
on the other hand, overextension in europa universalis does, but it shouldn't. i mean, the nation i belong just conquered a whole new continent, why the hell should i be upset?
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,820
Location
Italy
hivemind rebellion: the war effort weakens the bond, drones wander off and without the guidance become violent.
spiritualist: we aren't winning as promised/prophetized! we're doomed! you brought us in an unwinnable war! i'll kill you!
militarist: you're not worthy of command. time for a coup.
robot: to focus on repairing losses, less maintenance means more faulty robots.

what were you saying?
and anyway, some traits could give immunity to rebellions, just add a hidden +1000 unrest and you're set.
 
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LizardWizard

Cipher
Joined
Feb 14, 2014
Messages
991
The beta patch added an event that makes your psi Chose One God-Empress(or) if you're government isn't imperial. This can be pretty strong as the event shifts ethics towards Authoritarian, changes civics to Philosopher King/Imperial Cult/Aristo Elite (get the third civic even if you haven't researched the appropriate tech). Which was amazing for my current game as it replaced life seeded (which is useless after early game). My God-Emprah has 10% Unity/Science gain and reduced Corvette/Mining station cost which is perfect since Pirates are annoying as shit and Torpedo boats beat everything.
 
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ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
I think I've figured out ideological problem with Stellaris. They've embraced familiar mechanics from EU4 and made the game even more, so to say, granular: your ships really fly through all this space, you capture each system individually. There's less random stuff here, you don't get to colonize a planet that will add 5 rich systems to your empire. Space becomes more systemic and thus boring. By the dreaded midgame you have uniform blobs bumping into each other. Some blobs may be bigger, some smaller; some have a lot connections to each others, some don't. And when you have 70 systems you don't see other empire special systems as special. Someone mentioned craving enemy's black hole system for physics research. But why would you if an empty space on any of your planet with any POP on it will produce more research? There's nothing special when everything is so big. I fought wars to get systems with enclaves and access to Leviathans (both added in DLC) but even that doesn't help that much; some of your inner factions become happier. Strategic resources are roughly equivalent to being one step in research ahead and you get plenty of those. Getting new planets and species is hard to notice, that unrest doesn't really affect you. You may use new species to colonize more but your 21st planet is not that exciting anymore and requires too much involvement to get your empire's productivity raised by 4% or something.

So the ideological problem is this: Stellaris doesn't have midgame. It only has endgame. First there's initial stage: you note how starlanes go, you settle first colonies and really get into managing them, you throw pops around, you manage resources. But then immideately comes the endgame. There's no grand battle for deciding the fate of the universe, it's all feels determined when it happens. It feels like mopping up. You already have most of interesting inventions and traditions you really wanted; now you get whatever is presented to you. It's like Civilization after turn 400 when everything is decided and you just have to click end turn to get your spaceship to fly - only you'll have to do it for most of the game and you might not even win. You research future tech and mop around, you fight wars where 90% of the action is capturing systems of an enemy with 0 ships and you still have to manage armies to capture planets. Unlike Endless Space 2 there's species-wide story but... We're all psionics, we took 2 ascension perks for that. Wow, our researches now produce whole 10% more of science and admirals have another 10% bonus - that's a whole new game!.. Really nothing feels like a significant change. Even your relationships with resources are the same - even after 250 years of play you will struggle with energy balance and will be able to use any amount of minerals in a day. It switches from the early game wonder to late game clicking through turns while most 4X like Civilization have a middle game where everything is actually decided, when it's fun to play. Meanwhile in something like Endless Space 2 the game evolves; by the endgame the way of interacting with most mechanics completely changes, you stop caring about one type of resources at all while you need some others and they seem worthy of a galactic-scale war.

But Stellaris is balanced even though it's random. All the unique anomalies and special resources are within strategic sane boundaries. They're all there to allow you to balance things out, see if you rather want +5% food or +10% speed of energy weapons. It's granular and lifeless. You will never see enemy hold system that you have to fight for.
 
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whatevername

Arcane
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
Messages
666
Location
666
I think I've figured out ideological problem with Stellaris. They've embraced familiar mechanics from EU4 and made the game even more, so to say, granular: your ships really fly through all this space, you capture each system individually. There's less random stuff here, you don't get to colonize a planet that will add 5 rich systems to your empire. Space becomes more systemic and thus boring. As TJ had said by the dreaded midgame you have uniform blobs bumping into each other. Some blobs may be bigger, some smaller; some have a lot connections to each others, some don't. And when you have 70 systems you don't see other empire special systems as special. Someone mentioned craving enemy's black hole system for physics research. But why would you if an empty space on any of your planet with any POP on it will produce more research? There's nothing special when everything is so big. I fought wars to get systems with enclaves and access to Leviathans (both added in DLC) but even that doesn't help that much; some of your inner factions become happier. Strategic resources are roughly equivalent to being one step in research ahead and you get plenty of those. Getting new planets and species is hard to notice, that unrest doesn't really affect you. You may use new species to colonize more but your 21st planet is not that exciting anymore and requires too much involvement to get your empire's productivity raised by 4% or something.

So the ideological problem is this: Stellaris doesn't have midgame. It only has endgame. First there's initial stage: you note how starlanes go, you settle first colonies and really get into managing them, you throw pops around, you manage resources. But then immideately comes the endgame. There's no grand battle for deciding the fate of the universe, it's all feels determined when it happens. It feels like mopping up. You already have most of interesting inventions and traditions you really wanted; now you get whatever is presented to you. It's like Civilization after turn 400 when everything is decided and you just have to click end turn to get your spaceship to fly - only you'll have to do it for most of the game and you might not even win. You research future tech and mop around, you fight wars where 90% of the action is capturing systems of an enemy with 0 ships and you still have to manage armies to capture planets. Unlike Endless Space 2 there's species-wide story but... We're all psionics, we took 2 ascension perks for that. Wow, our researches now produce whole 10% more of science and admirals have another 10% bonus - that's a whole new game!.. Really nothing feels like a significant change. Even your relationships with resources are the same - even after 250 years of play you will struggle with energy balance and will be able to use any amount of minerals in a day. It switches from the early game wonder to late game clicking through turns while most 4X like Civilization have a middle game where everything is actually decided, when it's fun to play. Meanwhile in something like Endless Space 2 the game evolves; by the endgame the way of interacting with most mechanics completely changes, you stop caring about one type of resources at all while you need some others and they seem worthy of a galactic-scale war.

But Stellaris is balanced even though it's random. All the unique anomalies and special resources are within strategic sane boundaries. They're all there to allow you to balance things out, see if you rather want +5% food or +10% speed of energy weapons. It's granular and lifeless. You will never see enemy hold system that you have to fight for.
The ideological problem with Stellaris is: their boss said "Lets make a game for gullible retards that play Call of Duty so we could shovel dem dolla bills. Use this rat maze simulator and change rat graphics to spaceships."
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
.
The ideological problem with Stellaris is: their boss said "Lets make a game for gullible retards that play Call of Duty so we could shovel dem dolla bills. Use this rat maze simulator and change rat graphics to spaceships."

I do believe Wiz tries to make a perfect strategy game.

But as often happens the most fun parts of a strategy games are directly connected to broken unbalanced stuff. Heroes 3 is one of the most beloved strategy games ever and is still played today even though everyone realizes that the balance is non-existant. With 2.0 Stellaris really got a lot of "fixes". Even if AI didn't catch up new rules will make it much easier for AI to play. They've modified rules so that at every point there're fewer choices, but none of them are totally dumb. For human it's easy to see that you shouldn't just go and colonize a planet in the middle of nowhere that you couldn't even defend. But still sometimes human may think that maybe I'll get it because it's gaia and has special resources and no one will attack there. AI has problems with those subtle calculations so now you can only capture systems nearby. Now it's almost impossible to expand like an idiot. Same with many other aspects of game.

Same was very much true for EU4 and CK2. Stellaris was inuque in that the game allowed you to screw yourself up much more than in EU4/CK2. Now you can't.
 
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ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
are you saying that they took fun away attempting to give me some fun?

They wanted to give you a better strategy game.

For details see how RTS were murdered by devs listening only to hardcore players and developing overcomplicated mess of a game made for multiplayer with no proper campaign.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
More like trying to take your money without doing any work. Most of their work could be done in days by modders,while their full dev team is doing it for months.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,152
For details see how RTS were murdered by devs listening only to hardcore players and developing overcomplicated mess of a game made for multiplayer with no proper campaign.

wat

RTS was murdered by devs listening to their focus groups telling them that controlling more than 1 unit at a time was too complex. And their focus groups were right, hence ASSFAGGOTS.
 

Alfgart

Augur
Patron
Joined
Feb 7, 2006
Messages
390
Divinity: Original Sin 2
For details see how RTS were murdered by devs listening only to hardcore players and developing overcomplicated mess of a game made for multiplayer with no proper campaign.

wat

RTS was murdered by devs listening to their focus groups telling them that controlling more than 1 unit at a time was too complex. And their focus groups were right, hence ASSFAGGOTS.
Blizzard and Warcraft 3 killed the RTS genre
 

Nirvash

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 20, 2017
Messages
1,108
Base build rts are just a niche, no market for modern big budget games. (and stuff like assfaggots cover most of the rts gameplay, traditional base building suck ass)

They wanted to give you a better strategy game.

Is just more bandaid for a crap ai in a broken system.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
For details see how RTS were murdered by devs listening only to hardcore players and developing overcomplicated mess of a game made for multiplayer with no proper campaign.

wat

RTS was murdered by devs listening to their focus groups telling them that controlling more than 1 unit at a time was too complex. And their focus groups were right, hence ASSFAGGOTS.
Blizzard and Warcraft 3 killed the RTS genre
Why? Shitty rts games killed the genre,not a success of one game. Don't get me wrong Warcraft 3 is shit.
 
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
Messages
450
Yeah, robots expansion awesome. 90% of gameplay is queuing fucking robots pops since they need to be built manually. Also it's pretty much the only thing you can do, since apparently robots worse than bio races at everything (even at mining), so outbreeding is your only option.
 

ilitarist

Learned
Illiterate Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
are the expansions good
I think Leviathans is almost required, in a good way.

It makes space more lived in. Enclaves are very nice to have in your borders and protect - you can interact with them even if they're outside of your borders but it's a little harder, plus some of your factions like having them. Giant monsters and other curiosities in space create interesting situations like the link between you and other empire is guarded by Dimensional Horror. Without that expansion space is much more boring. They create special nodes worth fighting for; I feel otherwise the space is mostly even and in wars your blob just consumes other blob; capturing enemy Enclave or special system with Infinity Machine or something is the best analogue of capturing enemy trade center or strait province in EU4.

As for the others... Utopia adds some starting options and gives 3 ways of ascension (psionics, bioengineering and androidization) which are all not as interesting as they sound. And the bonuses you get from them feel boring. It also adds megastructures but those are vanity projects, you build big research center that gives +250 of all research... And costs 100 000 minerals and 100 energy upkeep and 300 influence. Ah, there are also habitats which are relatively powerful as they allow you to have much more pops in your empire - they won't be as productive as pops on planets but still good. Though don't think it allows for tall play; it gives your end-game empire that is already half of the galaxy an opportunity to get even more planets.

I didn't get Synthetic Dawn but as I understand it mostly gives you additional starting options as well as lets meeting synthetic empires. With Utopia you can eventually become a synthetic empire anyway but AI is hesitant to do this. Adds to replayability, I guess. Good kind of expansions, you get it when you want more of the game and you don't lose anything by not having it.

Apocalypse adds bigger ships, planetary destruction/conversion/robotization weapons and Space Mongols. Space Mongols are kinda like Fallen Empires but pirates, you can pay them to raid other guys, they can get special event making them rabid. Other stuff is well, ok, you may have bigger ships. Also some new starting options. Same as Synthetic Dawn, get it when you like the game and want more of it.
 
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Vaarna_Aarne

Notorious Internet Vandal
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
34,585
Location
Cell S-004
MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Yeah, robots expansion awesome. 90% of gameplay is queuing fucking robots pops since they need to be built manually. Also it's pretty much the only thing you can do, since apparently robots worse than bio races at everything (even at mining), so outbreeding is your only option.
There's actually one major advantage that robots have, which is that they can have the best leaders who can not only have extremely high skill cap (provided you reach it without hitting the level-lock trait they can get) but will also live forever unless killed by random event. But yea, robots are pretty badly shafted by not multiplying like rabbits.

Ahoy thar, Vaarna. Why aren't you showing up to queue your mandogrind?
Because at the moment my ability to show up online at all is rather limited due to stuff, so I simply couldn't cover the mandogrind even if I tried. Within the entire time limit of the event, I could do just 9 runs at best in total.
 

Jimmious

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 18, 2015
Messages
5,132
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Any helpful codexer has the 2.0.2 beta patch for inventory non-removers? I think I just found 2.0.1
I can probably help you later today but I'd suggest to avoid the beta patch since the whole war system(no auto peace) it "tries" will not even be in the game finally
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Because at the moment my ability to show up online at all is rather limited due to stuff, so I simply couldn't cover the mandogrind even if I tried. Within the entire time limit of the event, I could do just 9 runs at best in total.
Obviously. That's why you need to merely show up to QUEUE it so you can do it next time when you're less of a crapsack.
 

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