Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Muty]

Stellaris Codex multiplayer mayhem when? 24-25th of February? whatevername can join and try his almighty one planet extravaganza

count me in. make a thread in codex playground if you are serious. I don't have time to organise a game but I will def join one for the lulz

 

[Lone Wolf]

Hordes in EU4 radically alter the way the primary game resource (mana) is generated. No starting option does that in Stellaris. There's no equivalent of a "raiding" race or a race that exists solely on plunder. I was kind of hoping the marauder empires were human-playable for this reason, but that would take effort from Paradox.

Hold on, 'radically'? They get some monarch points from razing, yes? Like, a month's worth, per point of development. Which also destroys said development. Otherwise, they still get monarch points from their monarchs.

How is that a more varied gameplay experience than, say, playing as a Fanatic Purifier? Or Driven Assimilator? In the first instance, you don't get to engage in any diplomacy whatsoever and get 'mana' (unity) for destroying enemy ships/conquering planets. In the second, you're trying to assimilate the whole galaxy and get 'mana' (unity) for doing so.

They don't seem to be in any meaningful way.

... Okay.

What kind of response is that? "Generally accepted good and fun feature in previous 4x grand strategy games can't be added to grand strategy games in $CURRENT_YEAR"? I can see calling ship-level experience superfluous but the rest?

The point was that the game is based on Paradox's definition of 'grand strategy', which doesn't involve tactical combat. And if tactical combat isn't involved (which it isn't), what's the purpose of ship capture, for example?

I don't consider +10% to bullshit meaningful in any fashion. That's the "we want to pretend you have options but in reality everything plays the same because we couldn't be bothered to balance giving players choice" route. In MoO when you create a race you choose between -50%, +50% and +100% as a general rule. You have traits like Subterranean/Aquatic which increases planet sizes (Stellaris climate is virtually meaningless), Tolerant to ignore pollution (no equivalent of Stellaris), stuff like Omniscient or Telepathic or Stealthy which just throw a massive curveball at the whole thing, separated combat bonuses between attack and defense (which encouraged different strategies), and so on. There's exactly zero MoO races that can be recreated in Stellaris unless you think a massively rich race overflowing with cash, able to rush-buy buildings and ships on the spot and bribe civilizations to do what they please is somehow equivalent to a Stellaris race with +15% energy output who builds 15% less energy buildings and 15% more mineral buildings, leading to no effective gameplay change.

Why even mention ignoring pollution, when Stellaris doesn't have pollution to ignore? As for the rest, in Stellaris the bonuses aren't all in the traits selection screen. There are government, civic, tradition, ascension, gene modding/robo-modding bonuses on top of that. If you want to build an obscenely Energy or Mineral rich race, you can. It doesn't necessarily happen at the game setup screen. If you're really aching for this sort of customisation upfront, though, try the Unified Traits and Xenology mods. As well as the Cultural Overhaul. You can build basically anything you want. And yes, there are +50% bonuses (with drawbacks), as well as interesting curveballs, as you say.

Stellaris ships have jump limitations, not range limitations.

Sort of? Wormholes have range limitations.

Play a good game like MoO, it's not vague.

I have. It was good. Stellaris is good, too. More than one thing can be good.

I'm well aware they are in the works. It's the next $20 DLC. Everything is in the works!

So don't buy it. I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Jimmious]

Stellaris Codex multiplayer mayhem when? 24-25th of February? whatevername can join and try his almighty one planet extravaganza

count me in. make a thread in codex playground if you are serious. I don't have time to organise a game but I will def join one for the lulz

I am serious and might make a thread.... If I see more interest here. We tried once with Ulminati ( ) like a year ago but interest faded away and it never happened. Maybe 2.0 will create the spark?

 

[Muty]

I ran a few eu4 games some years ago here and it was insane. I think that we can get enough people onboard for the expansion.

P.S. I haven't played a paradox game for more than 5 minutes for the last 1.5 years but I still buy every dlc for eu4 and ck2 when it comes out

 

[Grif]

I ran a few eu4 games some years ago here and it was insane. I think that we can get enough people onboard for the expansion.

P.S. I haven't played a paradox game for more than 5 minutes for the last 1.5 years but I still buy every dlc for eu4 and ck2 when it comes out

Seek help, man.

 

[Stavrophore]

P.S. I haven't played a paradox game for more than 5 minutes for the last 1.5 years but I still buy every dlc for eu4 and ck2 when it comes out

But why? Are you shitting money? You could always donate to poor polish fag like me

 

[Average Manatee]

Hordes in EU4 radically alter the way the primary game resource (mana) is generated. No starting option does that in Stellaris. There's no equivalent of a "raiding" race or a race that exists solely on plunder. I was kind of hoping the marauder empires were human-playable for this reason, but that would take effort from Paradox.

Hold on, 'radically'? They get some monarch points from razing, yes? Like, a month's worth, per point of development. Which also destroys said development. Otherwise, they still get monarch points from their monarchs.

Hordes in EU4 have almost no income (50% minimal autonomy floor almost everywhere on top of needing to field more expensive cavalry) and virtually no mana surplus (yes they get regular mana but they are horribly penalized in tech unless they are able to conquer higher-tech neighbors). They also have the constantly ticking down horde unity that is only refilled through plunder. A consistent conquering of new territories and razing to keep up with tech is essentially the only way to not fall behind and be crushed by both outside forces and internal revolts and weakness.

How is that a more varied gameplay experience than, say, playing as a Fanatic Purifier? Or Driven Assimilator? In the first instance, you don't get to engage in any diplomacy whatsoever and get 'mana' (unity) for destroying enemy ships/conquering planets. In the second, you're trying to assimilate the whole galaxy and get 'mana' (unity) for doing so..

FPs and FPs mk2: Electric boogaloo are indeed nice additions. Basically the same as repulsive from MoO2, which is why I didn't list repulsive as a major race customization option that Stellaris lacks. However they have little to do with changing the internal economics the way Hordes do in EU4, they are merely a diplomatic block. The unity bonuses for assimilation/purification are dreadfully small to the point of being meaningless.

They don't seem to be in any meaningful way.

... Okay.

What kind of response is that? "Generally accepted good and fun feature in previous 4x grand strategy games can't be added to grand strategy games in $CURRENT_YEAR"? I can see calling ship-level experience superfluous but the rest?

The point was that the game is based on Paradox's definition of 'grand strategy', which doesn't involve tactical combat. And if tactical combat isn't involved (which it isn't), what's the purpose of ship capture, for example?

Why even mention ignoring pollution, when Stellaris doesn't have pollution to ignore?

Because Stellaris needs more interesting mechanics like that? MoO2 had a much more interesting economic system due to pollution and finding different strategies to deal with it were important. The Stellaris equivalent seems to be consumer goods but consumer goods are implemented in a painfully weak non-nonsensical attempt to curb big empires so that crappy players have an easier game.

As for the rest, in Stellaris the bonuses aren't all in the traits selection screen. There are government, civic, tradition, ascension, gene modding/robo-modding bonuses on top of that. If you want to build an obscenely Energy or Mineral rich race, you can. It doesn't necessarily happen at the game setup screen. If you're really aching for this sort of customisation upfront, though, try the Unified Traits and Xenology mods. As well as the Cultural Overhaul. You can build basically anything you want. And yes, there are +50% bonuses (with drawbacks), as well as interesting curveballs, as you say.

I'm going by starting options, if we're including in-game bonuses then MoO has even more things that put Stellaris to shame.

I'm well aware they are in the works. It's the next $20 DLC. Everything is in the works!

So don't buy it. I don't know what to tell you.

Tell Paradox to make finished full-featured games on release for $60 rather than 4 years after release for $160?

 

[Muty]

But why? Are you shitting money? You could always donate to poor polish fag like me

Not really, but a paradox "expansion" costs me more or less what I pay for lunch every day and I do it because I am/was big paradox fanboy and a strategy game fan in general so I prefer to support companies that still actually make strategy games at all. So this plus delusions that I will have time soon to sit and play ck2 or eu4 in the near future.

 

[Muty]

I would like to join in multy too, but I am a corsair of the high seas.



Man that's some expensive lunch there

Welcome to Western Cuckrope

 

[Jimmious]

I would like to join in multy too, but I am a corsair of the high seas.



Man that's some expensive lunch there

Welcome to Western Cuckrope

Dude where do you eat lunch for 20 euros? Maybe you need to lower your standards :p

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Dafuq, I can get a all you can eat buffet for the average Paradox DLC.

 

[Muty]

I would like to join in multy too, but I am a corsair of the high seas.



Man that's some expensive lunch there

Welcome to Western Cuckrope

Dude where do you eat lunch for 20 euros? Maybe you need to lower your standards :p

The center of one of the most expensive cities in Germany

Yeah 20 euro is a bit much, but for example I paid 19 today for lunch. That doesn't happen every day tho, usually what I pay is between 10-15 euro. For comparison a doner kebap from the turks is 5 euro and a double whooper menu in burger king is 8 something I think. So if you want to eat a proper meal for lunch its not really possible to go under 10 except if your company has a canteen where the meals are subsidized and go for around 5 euro.

Anyway not to derail the thread too much, I just wanted to point out that richness is relative. Last time I was in Zurich a fucking doner costed 12 euro...

 

[Muty]

Wtf why racist, I actually like eating doner. its just that I would rather not do it for lunch.

 

[Jimmious]

I'm also in Germany but more than 10 euros for lunch means you eat something reaaally fancy

 

[Stavrophore]

Germoneys and their first world problems

 

[razvedchiki]

how big should be the galaxy to avoid the lategame slowdown?600-800 stars?
also what settings for challenging gameplay?

 

[Delterius]

POP system is the most retarded feature of Stellaris. You wind up spending 80% of your time switching from planet to planet and upgrading buildings. But hey, at least we have something to do when the game slows down to a crawl even on high-end rigs due to bad UI implementation.

use the auto build mod for the love of god

 

[Preben]

POP system is the most retarded feature of Stellaris. You wind up spending 80% of your time switching from planet to planet and upgrading buildings. But hey, at least we have something to do when the game slows down to a crawl even on high-end rigs due to bad UI implementation.

use the auto build mod for the love of god

I actually do. But that's game's core concept for goodness sake.

 

[Preben]

Last time I was in Zurich a fucking doner costed 12 euro...

Who would have known? In Switzerland even the Turks are greedy. The Swiss assimilated them pretty fast.

 

[Space Satan]

Devs:

War will not be the primary focus post Cherryh. Diplomacy, espionage and the economy will be our new long-term focuses. That’s not to say those are the *only* things we’ll be doing, of course...

 

[kris]

Last time I was in Zurich a fucking doner costed 12 euro...

Who would have known? In Switzerland even the Turks are greedy. The Swiss assimilated them pretty fast.

Everything is expensive in Swiss land. When I hiked over from France I was surprised how big the difference was just after passing the border.

 

[Preben]

But seriously, that "Apocalypse" dlc sounds horribly underwhelming. For 20€ all we get is titan ships, doomsday weaponry, marauders and Khans (essentially a hybrid of enclave and Fallen Empire) and a few new ascension perks.

Those damn Swedes never excelled in the price-content ratio, but this is crazy. Especially since much of this stuff is available for free via mods. There's, for example, an excellent mercenary enclave mod which, with three exception of Khan, doubles everything the Marauders are doing and adds much more.

 

[Space Satan]

DD

Spoiler

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we continue talking about the Apocalypse expansion and 2.0 'Cherryh' update, on the topic of Ascension Perks and Civics. Please note that placeholder art is present for civic icons, and that is not how they will look on release.

Changed Ascension Perks (Cherryh Feature)
There will be a number of changes to existing Ascension Perks in the Cherryh update. As mentioned in Dev diary #94, all Utopia ascension perks except for the Ascension Paths, Habitats and Megastructures have been rolled into the base game, so with the exception of the changes to the Biological Ascension Path, these changes will affect everyone.

Interstellar Dominion: As of the result of a number of mechanics changes in Cherryh, including the removal of 'pushing borders' and the Border Range modifier, forcing us to replace this modifier with other effects. Rather than always replace it with the same modifier in each place, we made a number of different changes as we thought suited both the place the modifier was, and the overall balance of the game. Interstellar Dominion remains an ascension perk focused on expansion, giving -20% reduction on the Influence cost of both new Starbases and Claims.
Mastery of Nature: Mastery of Nature ended up being a bit of a weird perk. Originally, it was designed as only removing clear blocker cost, but this was obviously too weak, and so we buffed it by adding the automatic unlock of all blocker techs. This, in turn ended up being too strong, and so we tweaked it again by only having it remove half the clear blocker cost. What we ended up with was a very strong perk... but only if picked immediately as your first choice. In the end, we decided to go back to the drawing board and remake it into something that would be useful at any stage of the game and give an additional use for influence for empires not bent on expansion. The new Mastery of Nature, instead of giving blocker techs, instead unlocks a planetary edict that allows you to permanently increase the size of a planet. The Planet will have its number of tiles increased by 1-3, with the amount set based on the size of the planet, so a size 10 planet will always become a size 13 planet and so on. These new tiles will have randomly generated deposits.
World Shaper: World Shaper was another ascension perk with very situational uses. Instead of having it simply be a buff to terraforming, we've changed it to be a requirement to terraform Gaia worlds, and given Gaia worlds a bonus to overall resource production (though a lower one than Machine Worlds) instead of the happiness bonus it used to have. The idea behind this is both to make focusing on terraforming more of a distinct playstyle, and make Gaia worlds even more special.

Additionally, we also went back and further buffed the biological ascension path by making its special traits stronger, and in some cases, cheaper. We also plan to add more traits in general and give Robomodding another look-over, but this ended up being something we did not have time for in Cherryh.

New Ascension Perks (Cherryh and Apocalypse Feature)
We've also added several new ascension perks in both Cherryh and Apocalypse. They are as follows:

Eternal Vigilance: (Cherryh) Suited for the defensive player, Eternal Vigilance increases Starbase and Defense Platform Hull Points, and the Defense Platform Capacity of your Starbases, allowing for more potent static defenses.
Executive Vigor: (Cherryh) Executive Vigor gives +100% edict duration, allowing a player to keep more Edicts running at the same time without burning through all their influence. This also works on the new Unity Ambition edicts added in Apocalypse.
Nihilistic Acquisition: (Apocalypse) Nihilistic Acquisition is available to Gestalt Consciousnesses, Authoritarians and Xenophobes, and allows the use of the Raiding orbital bombardment stance, which will attempt to abduct pops to available tiles on your own planets instead of killing them, allowing you to steal the population of other empires to use as a labor force... or livestock/batteries, in the case of a Hive Mind or Machine Empire.
Enigmatic Engineering: (Apocalypse) For the secretive, tech-heavy player, Enigmatic Engineering makes reverse-engineering of your tech impossible, as your ships will no longer spawn any debris from battle. You also get a bonus to sensor range to represent your empire's obsession with knowledge.

As mentioned in Dev Diary #100, there is also a new Colossus Project ascension perk in Apocalypse that is required to design and build Colossi.

New Civics (Apocalypse Feature)
Finally, there's a few new civics in the Apocalypse expansion. They are as follows:

Post-Apocalyptic: Your empire was born in the aftermath of a nuclear war that devastated your homeworld. You start on a Tomb World with sparse resources, but your species has the Survivor trait, granting +10 leader lifespan and +70% tomb world habitability.
Life-Seeded: Your species evolved in a lush paradise possibly designed just for them. You start on a size 25 Gaia World, but with the Gaia World Preference trait that has 0% habitability on all non-'perfect' environments (Gaia Worlds, Habitats, Ringworlds).
Barbaric Despoilers: This civic unlocks immediate use of the raiding stance and a special Despoilation casus belli that allows you to declare war on any neighbor to seize their pops and resources. It requires a combination of Militarist and either Xenophobe or Authoritarian, and is not available to Xenophiles. Empires with this civic cannot take the Nihilistic Acquisition perk (as it would do nothing for them) and also cannot form Defensive Pacts or join Federations. Similar to Inwards Perfection and Purifiers, they get the Adaptability tradition tree instead of Diplomacy. They also get mild to moderate opinion penalties with certain ethics, such as Pacifists.

That's all for today! Next week we'll wrap up our Cherryh/Apocalypse dev diaries with a roundup of some minor features and QoL improvements coming in the Cherryh update. The week after that, full patch notes will be posted, and the week after that... is release day. See you soon!

 

[thesheeep]

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

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

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.