|
Mister Adequate posted:StarRuler 2 deserved a vastly better reception than it got, and the diplomacy system is one that should just become the standard in 4Xs. It's as revolutionary and brilliant a concept as the ones that created the genre in the first place, in my reckoning. Sad they didn't make enough to keep the studio going.
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 04:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 07:11 |
|
|
ThisIsNoZaku posted:Sad they didn't make enough to keep the studio going. Yeah  Was really lovely watching them fight a losing battle because they made one great game (SR1) and one outright classic (SR2) and were almost completely ignored for some reason.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 04:59
|
|
|
So I'm pretty terrible, how do I increase the number of planets I can colonize without penalty? Also: is it worthwhile to do so? Colonizing planets and building spaceports seems to be the most straightforward way to improve my military; that is my motivation. I'm looking forward to the expansion. Most of the time when I buy a Paradox game there's already expansions out so this game, while still a lot of fun, feels a little spare. I only have been playing Ironman, so I actually have 25 hours in the game despite how new I might seem from the question above. I just get stoned and make a bad decision that ruins my save. This is the pattern I followed while sinking 70+ hours into EU4 and hundreds into CK2.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 06:53
|
|
|
Fergus Mac Roich posted:So I'm pretty terrible, how do I increase the number of planets I can colonize without penalty? Also: is it worthwhile to do so? Colonizing planets and building spaceports seems to be the most straightforward way to improve my military; that is my motivation. But you don't need to at all. Colonize absolutely everything that you can, and then stick extra planets into sectors. The sector AI isn't any good at managing them, but they're exactly as good as your competitors, so more planets is always better. I think F5 opens the menu to create and manage sectors.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 07:22
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
PittTheElder posted:There are repeatable techs that increase it (though you usually don't see them till the endgame if at all), and Pacifists have access to government types that do as well. Cool! Good stuff. I haven't used sectors yet and I had wondered how they could be useful if my demesne is so small. Follow-up question: How can I be effective with diplomacy when it comes to empires that are already unfriendly when I meet them? The other Paradox games I've played have provided easy answers for at least building up a basis of trust. I don't know how to do that in Stellaris. In my current game I have 4 empires at my borders who have formed strategic alliances among themselves, leaving me out in the cold. I'm playing as a randomly generated and very hate-able race and I'm concerned that I'll be crushed if I can't make an alliance with at least one empire. Military action is not an option, I wasn't able to build a powerful enough navy to take on a spaceport before they formed these alliances, and I can't take on more than one of them at once. Fergus Mac Roich fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 07:34
|
|
|
If they all hate you already due to ethics or whatever, there's very little you can do about it. Best option is to rival some people they hate. That said, I literally do not bother with diplomacy at all beyond vassalizing and making protectorates for influence. The AI doesn't expand or build fast enough to be threatening (the exception being starting next to Advanced Start Purifiers), so allies are just liabilities. I don't think I have ever formed a single alliance with an AI, ever. Federations are also comically limiting, so avoid that nonsense.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 07:46
|
|
|
Can I build multiple empire capitals by abusing the "make capital" function? And if not, will buildings that need to be on the capital stop working if their planet lose the capital status?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 08:14
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:I don't think I have ever formed a single alliance with an AI, ever. Federations are also comically limiting, so avoid that nonsense. This 300%. The furthest I ever go with any diplomatic relations with the AI are NAPs. AI empires are generally an anchor around your neck when it comes to getting anything done.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 08:15
|
|
|
Ok I can sort of see the whole 'Empires are an anchor around your neck thing' but... I'm at the point where a Fallen Empire has woken up and is eating every small empire they can reach. They got into a war with a nation I guaranteed protection to, now I am stuck in a hopeless war that isn't going anywhere. I am no match for them and my federation is not terribly useful. The idea of splitting off from them and getting my 2 Influence and 20% fleet size back is appealing but even with my fleet at it's current size (which isn't even at max of my current fleet strength) every time I take my fleet out of orbit my income drops from like +80 to -100-200/month. Most of my fleet was built from spaceports with the -5% upkeep attachment, and when I'm at peace my energy credits is routinely maxed out. All of my sectors with any kind of significant credit production are set at 75% contribution so how do I deal with that massive swing, which would only get worse if I tried to max out my non-federation fleet cap? That having been said, my federation wasn't completely useless. Before the FE awakened I was rubbing borders with a huge fanatical purifier empire and teaming up with them was a factor that allowed me to finally put them behind me in terms of fleet power and allowed me to take significant chunks out of them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 08:44
|
|
|
You should have a large enough energy reserve at +80/mo and as you stated at cap during peacetime, that it would allow you to break from your federation (achieving a ten year truce with them as well), giving you the opportunity to start scooping up all of the smaller empires around you in small yearly wars unless the awakened FE is too close for comfort, then you're likely at their mercy if your fleet can't actually fight them. Since energy has a rather low cap in comparison to minerals, you should always consider it to be an expendable surplus past an arbitrary amount for prosecuting wars to acquire more of it to maintain progressively larger fleets. Alternatively, if your federation has been useful, maybe it can fight the awakened empire, but will you be unable to prosecute a defensive war with significant numbers because of the alliance contribution?Torrannor posted:Can I build multiple empire capitals by abusing the "make capital" function? And if not, will buildings that need to be on the capital stop working if their planet lose the capital status? No, you cannot. The building is empire-wide unique. I'm not sure about the second part, but I think they'd still function.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 09:04
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:so i'm considering making a run at "suffer not the alien" and i have a couple of questions from fuckery i know happened with that stuff a while back: ugh mother gently caress modifying your own race to have a different planetary preference does indeed give them a happiness malus for alien overlords, -7% at fanatic xenophobe level i guess a monument to purity is going to be a requirement on all non-continental planets, that is loving insanely lame
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 09:31
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:ugh mother gently caress modifying your own race to have a different planetary preference does indeed give them a happiness malus for alien overlords, -7% at fanatic xenophobe level Terraform it all, make the world adapt to your needs, don't adapt to it's!
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 09:45
|
|
|
GodFish posted:Terraform it all, make the world adapt to your needs, don't adapt to it's! yeah the further i go forward the more i realize this is really the only way forward you basically have to make cross-atmospheric changes by founding a new planet and completely loving over the first colonist pop or two, turning them into an arctic preference or whatever have you. you can then force-resettle them onto an arctic planet where they will be happy, but once you have genetic tailoring unlocked there's a very high chance that they'll spontaneously handle adaptations themselves, which puts the planet in this weird state where even after you shove them off to some place that suits them, the 100% all natural founder species replacements STILL have -15% xenophobia maluses. the entire thing behaves extremely weirdly. i really wanted to avoid terraforming since it's such a bullshit feature right now. the energy credits are bad enough, but the time involved to terraform planets is just obscene. 5 years just to go between temperatures, with 10 years for ONE planet to change hydrosphere? and 20 years to move a tomb world? get the gently caress out of here, i can stomp across a quarter of the galaxy in that time. i could burn an entire xeno empire to dust and put a modified human civilization where that poo poo used to be in 10 years. it's just a matter of building colony ships from the right host planet. so yeah, this game was fun and it was great to go kick over a bunch of xeno empires and leave them as vassals and stuff but my plan here is just straight out not going to work. i'll also have to avoid synths, which is also lame because synths are cool and i was playing materialist along with xenophobe, but that's not a huge problem. droids function well enough for leading the way. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 10:26
|
|
|
Fresh from Twitter, a peek at other Tradition benefits: https://twitter.com/dmoregard/status/827449726664601600 Interesting. Kind of surprised that taking it doesn't counter the effects expansion has on Tradition costs though, since it's one of the trees that encourages a thing that will raise its own cost. Maybe that will be one of its upgrades along the way. Edit: And immediately after I post this, this happens: https://twitter.com/dmoregard/status/827450306711711748 https://twitter.com/dmoregard/status/827450860246548482 Edit again: And one more for now. Other two coming later apparently: https://twitter.com/dmoregard/status/827452843099557889 Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 10:35
|
|
|
Dark times at Paradox: https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/827465318444462080 https://twitter.com/RikardAslund/status/827473262137454594
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 12:07
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Dark times at Paradox: It was the best of times, it was the best of times.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 13:14
|
|
|
To be honest I'm disappointed that you didn't just kick him off that desk so you could store your trophies there.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 13:16
|
|
|
Wiz posted:It was the best of times, it was the best of times. Can you elaborate on function kill_all_fun() please?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 13:35
|
|
|
Lordshmee posted:Can you elaborate on function kill_all_fun() please? Looks like it's triggered whenever someone tries to define the variable "collectivist"
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 13:50
|
|
|
The free colony ship should really be one of the first expansion rewards.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 13:56
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:The free colony ship should really be one of the first expansion rewards. It is. It's the first one on the right side of the tree.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:00
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:The free colony ship should really be one of the first expansion rewards. It is. It's the first perk on the right side of the tree. You can make it your second Tradition purchase, first being unlocking Expansion in the first place. Expansion seems like something to go for early or not at all, really. So many of its benefits are tied to things you'll want to do early on. Only the capstone is particularly useful later. Courier Network in particular you want early (probably as your fourth purchase, after Expansion, Standardized Colony Ships, and Colonization Fever, in that order), since getting a discount on Traditions after buying a lot of Traditions is not that useful. The Bramble posted:Looks like it's triggered whenever someone tries to define the variable "collectivist" So it's getting patched out in 1.5?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:04
|
|
|
I went back and read the dev diaries for the unity and ascension perks and boy does all this look really cool. Utopia can't come fast enough. Can't wait to set my people on the path to becoming cybergods.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:08
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:so i'm considering making a run at "suffer not the alien" and i have a couple of questions from fuckery i know happened with that stuff a while back: Badly. You have to remove robotic pops. Coolguye posted:2) how do gene-mods of your host species interact with this? Badly. I didn't try it generally when I did my suffer run, but the horizon signal species variant had to be purged as well as the self-modifying variant. Between just the robot thing and having to invade every single primitive planet to purge the species, suffer not the alien is one of the more annoying achievements. ulmont fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:17
|
|
|
Personally, I'm still waiting for the inevitable superweapons expansion. My dream is to one day loot all of the atmosphere from a planet with a massive orbital vacuum.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:19
|
|
|
Wiz posted:People are a lot less willing to accept losing planets when they didn't have a chance to fight back. It's the same with say losing territory through espionage/sabotage, things that you can only fight back against 'indirectly' tend to be very frustrating when they have a large impact on the player's experience. If you implement a culture system without giving a powerful counterplay system aka "a way to fight back" you have only implemented half of the system so yeah duh players dont lile half finished game systems. that doesnt mean peaceful annexation is bad it just means you need to finish the feature. Blue control decks in Magic arent inherently bad but they would be if there were no way to fight back against them. Also again I am gonna point out there have been strategy games like 7k where fighting back and countering espionage is often fun in and of itself. Ironically enough cultural annexation and espionage based systems when implented together can provide strong counterplays for each other. (also, no way to fight back is actually a good way to describe the current combat system since counterplays are so limited and weak under the majority of circumstances. An espionage and culture system that let you engage on multiple battlefields could help fix that... or make it worse depending on how you implemented it of course) GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:29
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:If you implement a culture system without giving a powerful counterplay system aka "a way to fight back" you have only implemented half of the system so yeah duh players dont lile half finished game systems. When I say 'fight back' I literally mean 'fight back' as in shoot lasers at it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:40
|
|
|
Agean90 posted:iv done this enough to manipulate things slightly (i think borders will actually go farther than normal to make a continous one), but a basic "heres the radious with your tech factored in" dotted outline would be nice. I think how borders work is, when you add something that increases border size to your empire, it has some kind of stacking bonus with other things also within or close to that same border. For example, colonizing more systems that are already within your borders is going to have a small border effect even on the other side of your huge empire. Likewise, if you just plop down a frontier station in the middle of nowhere, it'll barely cover any space at all. And yes, having some kind of preview would be great. Also, personally I've always found espionage and culture victories in games a big pile of boring poo poo. Less about the mechanics and more about how as Wiz pointed out, you flip cities by building television, and espionage too often happens purely by spending cash, either on a slider or on very special units, and then rolling a dice. Working not with "culture" but with stellaris' ethos, happiness, and faction mechanics might make it cool. Also, we already have a great currency to spend on espionage, it's influence. Truga fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:46
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:ugh mother gently caress modifying your own race to have a different planetary preference does indeed give them a happiness malus for alien overlords, -7% at fanatic xenophobe level I actually kinda that modifying your species to be accustomed to another climate type has this effect for xenophobes. The problem is that terraforming tech is so dicey to get and it can't be done on already-settled worlds. Otherwise, waiting around for planets to be suitable for your master race would be a fine enough substitute for waiting around for gene tailoring retroviruses (or whatever) to give everyone blubber so they can stand the arctic chill at noon in summer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:52
|
|
|
Honestly, while any culture-annexation type system would have to play into the pop ethos system (because honestly what IS culture but an expression of popular ethoses?), it would also have to either massively break suspension of disbelief (this isn't Civ, we actually AREN'T all the same underneath) or apply on a limited basis (mostly to pops that are neutral or better on the Xenophile scale?). Game absolutely needs more diplo/espionage type options, I agree there, but let's not shove stuff from other games where it does not fit.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 14:58
|
|
|
It would be cool if you could identify dissident factions in other nations and sent them energy/minerals and spend influence to increase their power. When they break away that would increase their opinion of you and maybe flip some of their ethics to yours. Or maybe you could only support factions that shared one of your ethics. Also some kind of stealth unit that you can build on enemy planets would be cool. Recruit a turncoat or something and spend influence to have them sabotage stuff. A whole line of techs could expand your sabotage options, make your agent harder to find etc.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:00
|
|
|
Wiz posted:When I say 'fight back' I literally mean 'fight back' as in shoot lasers at it. Wait does this mean if a culture system did happen that I'd be able to shoot lasers at space  ?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:07
|
|
|
Wiz posted:When I say 'fight back' I literally mean 'fight back' as in shoot lasers at it. Then let one of the counterplays be literally shooting lasers at and violently suppressing any cultural uprising or attempted annexation? And then shooting with lasers anyone that complains about it? Maybe the pacifists would be appalled, but fellow militarists would totally understand your completely justified defensive war against those hippies. Also personally speaking I would and do usually find a war of influence and organizational priorities and planning much more enjoyable than mashing number stacks against each other. I understand that for a chunk of players the combat is important but imo its still the worst part of the game and i would really love a way to "fight back" against other empires that didnt rely completely on it. Right now we have... what? Frontier Outposts and thats it?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:19
|
|
|
Azuth0667 posted:Wait does this mean if a culture system did happen that I'd be able to shoot lasers at space  but with spaceships and lasers instead of scuds and guns.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:31
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:At 3k it barely even matters. But yeah, never use missiles. Oh cool the Stellaris thread let me catch up....wait... dammit. When it comes to ship research what are the important things to get? I always find myself wanting to focus on non ship research beyond unlocking the ships themselves. Of course when I finally do focus on them what do I unlock five tiers of....missiles. In fairness I never usually get this far in the game or research tree. It was a lot of fun though and definitely felt more fleshed out than at launch. Also the less said about resources spent on the enigmatic fortress before releasing it was a non standard event...the better.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:33
|
|
|
Serf posted:It would be cool if you could identify dissident factions in other nations and sent them energy/minerals and spend influence to increase their power. When they break away that would increase their opinion of you and maybe flip some of their ethics to yours. Or maybe you could only support factions that shared one of your ethics. Covertly supporting dissident groups that you don't actually like in your attempts to screw over your enemies, bringing them to power, and then winding up in conflict with them instead because they don't actually like you seems fine to me. Lets you be Space America. Unrelated, the final two Expansion Traditions got posted: https://twitter.com/dmoregard/status/827505140127129600 https://twitter.com/dmoregard/status/827523485832474624 Final one doesn't excite me as much as the others, but hey. You also get the extra core systems from finishing the tree when you take it, so it's still a nice investment.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:43
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:i really wanted to avoid terraforming since it's such a bullshit feature right now. the energy credits are bad enough, but the time involved to terraform planets is just obscene. Yes, terraforming really should be competitive with genemodding your species, particularly since you have to terraform every non-standard planet while you only have to genemod once per non-standard planet class. ...also, if you're doing a suffer run, I highly recommend "extremely adaptable" and the smallest galaxy you can get.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:47
|
|
|
Roland Jones posted:Covertly supporting dissident groups that you don't actually like in your attempts to screw over your enemies, bringing them to power, and then winding up in conflict with them instead because they don't actually like you seems fine to me. Lets you be Space America. Consider that the maintenance cost of a station is 1 Influence in addition to regular costs. This allows double the amount of stations. How valuable this is depends on how long it takes to get that unlock. Bloodly fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:51
|
|
|
Mister Adequate posted:Yeah wow I just noticed this post, this really blows. Bloodly posted:Consider that the maintenance cost of a station is 1 Influence in addition to regular costs. This allows double the amount of stations. Yeah, the influence cost halved is pretty huge.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 07:11 |
|
|
Bloodly posted:Consider that the maintenance cost of a station is 1 Influence in addition to regular costs. This allows double the amount of stations. Sounds perfect for a run with desert galaxy settings.
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 15:55
|
|
