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I've found that governments with a high frequency on election is a really good way of getting influence. Are dictators missing out on this, or do they have a similar method for easy influence?
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Feb 10, 2017 11:52
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Ein Sexmonster posted:This is just wrong though. Scientists HAVE investigated psychic or weird claims for decades. They just haven't ever found anything that backs up their existence. I'm fine with the current division though. Wiz is right about restrictions being good for variety. Exactly. Think about it, what if magic was real, but needed people with a certain brain structure to access it? If that's the only connection magic has to the material world, quite obviously our scientists could test for magic for all of eternity and never find it. They would have to wait until by accident someone is born with the right combination of genes (a Psyker or Esper, essentially) or until they accidentally made an artificial brain capable of tapping into that power. And the latter wouldn't work either if magic isn't everywhere around us, because that magic robot brain would in 99,999% of cases not be in the same spot as usable psionic power. This is why the way things are work so well in Stellaris, and why Materialists still can stumble over psionics on accident. Roland Jones posted:This is really odd to me. Egalitarians and Xenophiles, the two ethoses that really care about other people having rights, can't give sapient robots rights, but Materialists, an ethos that otherwise has nothing to do with how people are treated, can? I guess the logic is something like "only Materialists acknowledge that they're people", but it still doesn't seem right that any combination of Egalitarian, Pacifist, and Xenophile, i.e. the most "we love everyone, hate slavery, and really hate purging" ethics, have to make robots slaves (or at least a permanent second-class) and are even capable of just killing them all off unless they also believe that souls don't exist and the only things that matter are what can be observed and studied. If you aren't at least somewhat materialist in your thinking, you simply won't accept that robots, even sapient ones, could be real people. So being "Xenophile" wouldn't help since your toaster oven isn't a "Xenos" you could "Phile" over.  Sure, there may be some individuals in a pacifistic, xenophile nation that would be willing to accept robots as people, but Stellaris isn't the Sims, individual people are mostly abstracted away. As long as you haven't at least some materialism in your empire, the majority of the people won't accept robots as people, so it's not possible. Just think about this as the game preventing you from self-destructing your empire by refusing to give your non-materialist empire this option. Because if you could do this, incredible social upheaval, rebellion and military coups against the government would be the logical consequence. That would be like Donald Trump suddenly ordering all Americans to pretend their Anime-pillows are people: Some people think like that, sure. But if Donald Trump would do this, the best he could hope for would be impeachment because of madness and a fast reversal of that decision. So logically, realism in this case would be Wiz giving you that option and the game just replaces your current leader with a random new one and automatically reverses your decision. And in 5% of cases you have all your planets revolt in unison and if you win, your empires ethos changes to include "Materialist". So you still wouldn't get what you wanted.
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Feb 10, 2017 11:53
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Daktari posted:I've found that governments with a high frequency on election is a really good way of getting influence. Are dictators missing out on this, or do they have a similar method for easy influence? It's essentially a trade off. At the one end you have autocratcies, where you have no control (apart from military dictatorships) over who your leader is, but you get them for a long time and they can build something cool one per life time. So if you get a Emperor who boosts research by 10% you're laughing, one who decreases naval cap or just not as useful? Not so much. However, you spend no influence on the government either. So it's sort of influence neutral. In the middle you get oligarchical governments where the change is more often than an autocratcy, but still quite long term. On top of that you actually can definitively select who your next leader will be for 200 influence. This sounds like best of both worlds in terms of function, but because they don't get mandates and it costs 200 influence to select a leader, it means you either let it be random (so not really better than an autocracy, and you can't build cool poo poo) or you spend influence actively managing who your leader is, making it an influence sink. The democratic government types change often, and even if you do decide to invest a load of influence, you're not gaurenteed to get the leader you actually wanted. If you spend 200 influence in a democracy you probably have like a 70% chance of getting who you want. The plus side to this is that: a) the mandates generate influence, meaning you can trade off accepting random leaders to generate more influence b) its not totally out of your hands who the leader is, and the leader isn't leader for long anyway c) early game before you have enough leaders to run in the election it actually adds some for you free of charge. Later on in the game this is less likely to happen as you'll have loads of governors etc. All in all I think the three distinct types are quite well balanced.
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Feb 10, 2017 12:35
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Kitchner posted:All in all I think the three distinct types are quite well balanced.
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Feb 10, 2017 13:29
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Splicer posted:Go full materialist and lock everyone else out of researching or building strong AIs to start with. Only materialists are egotistical enough to play god in that manner, but other ethics can still embrace the products of the hubris of other empires and earlier, less enlightened ages if they choose. You still might need to deal with Synth pops that end up in your empire through conquest or something.
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Feb 10, 2017 13:34
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I'm going to come out and say that the kinds of objections being raised here can't be dismissed by "good gameplay is more important than realism" because what we're talking about isn't so much realism as plausibility, and a lot of what players of these games (including me) enjoy about them is the plausibility of the narratives that emerge from them. That said, I have a feeling that when we see the new pop ethos/faction system can really do in practice, a lot of these issues might not be so big. We can favor certain factions to possibly flip ethos, and popular adoption of new ethoses can make this an attractive option. What if the invention of Synths led a number of pops to be more materialist in their worldview as they start considering that these machines that act just like self-aware beings might just be, and might be deserving of all the rights thereof? Suddenly, the invention of synthetic intelligent self-aware life become a much bigger deal (arguably a more plausibly big deal) than now, and it's all emergent from a general set of game mechanics governing the relationship between government and popular beliefs.
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Feb 10, 2017 13:39
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Wiz posted:Basically, "Do I want psionics or robots" is a clear, interesting choice that will shape the rest of that playthrough. "Do I want some robots and some psionics but maybe a little more towards robots except I'll also go a little into biology..." is the kind of thing that makes every playthrough feekl the same. On the other hand, shooting for two out of three and letting players do psionic robots so long as they completely give up on the flesh would be fun and interesting too. Spiritualist Psychic Robots was always my favorite build though, conceptually it appeals to me a lot Sounds like we can still do that by starting with materialists and having the robots find religion though, so thats what I am gonna aim for! Hopefully robots can still become psychic if you ease yourself into that correctly, would be really disappointing otherwise. In fact I hope you do a version of the shroud event descriptions for if robots are your primary race :V GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 13:46
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GunnerJ posted:You still might need to deal with Synth pops that end up in your empire through conquest or something. e: if you already built a bunch of synths and AI ships and then lose materialist then you'd lose the ability to build them, but whether you keep the existing ones as full citizens or demote them is a policy thing. Splicer fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 14:00
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Splicer posted:e: if you already built a bunch of synths and AI ships and then lose materialist then you'd lose the ability to build them, but whether you keep the existing ones as full citizens or demote them is a policy thing. Oh thats real dumb then.
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Feb 10, 2017 14:08
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GlyphGryph posted:Oh thats real dumb then. Also no you're dumb.
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Feb 10, 2017 14:13
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Kitchner posted:The democratic government types change often, and even if you do decide to invest a load of influence, you're not gaurenteed to get the leader you actually wanted. If you spend 200 influence in a democracy you probably have like a 70% chance of getting who you want. I don't know about everyone else, but as long as my preferred candidate is at the top of the list I've literally never seen them lose, regardless of if their "chance" to win is 30% or 90%. Once I luck into someone with the exact traits I want, I stop paying attention to election mechanics altogether because unless I interfere I've also never seen a candidate I previously spent influence to support fail to get re-elected right up until death. On the point of AI rights, I propose a compromise: Only available if you are materialist and xenophile/egalitarian
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Feb 10, 2017 14:17
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So I was thinking about the leader system, whats cool about it, what isn't, and what could change. I think we all like the concept of having specific captains for our exploration ships or admirals for our fleet - having the leaders actually exist in the world and be in danger are fun concepts. I'm not sure the research branches are much fun, though, trying to match up specialties to research being performed is kinda 'meh' - you're just shuffling people around and most of the time you don't bother. The same goes for governors, at a certain point you just kind of forget about them and you never feel very connected. So I was thinking, how about taking a page from Empire Total War and having a state with specific departments, secretariats, division, whatever, that you have to staff with leaders who provide overall bonuses to the things in their portfolio. Rather than have to hire 8 different governors, maybe there's just a single Minister of Colonial Affairs (or government-appropriate alternative), or a single Minister of Science, or Defense, or the Treasury. This would make leader choices more meaningful too. Currently, if you have a science-boosting governor who only effects one planet, not really a big deal. But if that bonus went to every planet, suddenly its more dramatic. Maybe you're sacrificing another bureaucrat to get the science bonus who would have made blocker removal cheaper empire wide, and you have a bunch of young colonies with lots of blockers, now it becomes more interesting. You can also tie it in to the new and updated faction system coming in Banks. Maybe in an autocracy, you have the power to appoint and sack ministers or advisors at will. An oligarch might have the choice to accept a gift of credits or influence to appoint an important faction's leader to a powerful post - do you take the money and let a less-than-idea candidate run an important part of the state? In a democracy, you wouldn't get any choice, without spending influence maybe, in your cabinet (simulating legislative approval of your nominees, say), and every election you get a new set of leaders representing the will of the most politically powerful factions. As the political simulation of the game gets further fleshed out, an adviser or Cabinet system of leader management has a lot of ways to let factions have more of an impact on your internal affairs. This system could be expanded to allow future types of leaders in future expansions, like spies or ambassadors or whatever, without having to make adjustments for the clunky leader limit mechanic.
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Feb 10, 2017 14:19
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Within a week of Utopia and Banks dropping, there will be mods that change the game however you like. Even if that's not the case, the game is fantastically easy to mod yourself. So much so that even I, an idiot with little coding experience, can change things pretty easily.
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Feb 10, 2017 14:19
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Serf posted:Within a week of Utopia and Banks dropping, there will be mods that change the game however you like. Even if that's not the case, the game is fantastically easy to mod yourself. So much so that even I, an idiot with little coding experience, can change things pretty easily. Yeah, that's true. I just wrote a mod in about five minutes to change the descriptions of all techs involving the terms sentience and self-awareness, for example. And most of that time was spend finding the data and copying the file into my mod.
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Feb 10, 2017 14:40
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I am a little wary of those "don't do this!" options. These warnings make sense in Fallen London but sort of weird in a game when you can reload a save. On other hand if this stuff is available to the AI as well it could be cool to see them go down the path of doom and darkness.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:12
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dumb and kinda scared posted:I am a little wary of those "don't do this!" options. These warnings make sense in Fallen London but sort of weird in a game when you can reload a save. On other hand if this stuff is available to the AI as well it could be cool to see them go down the path of doom and darkness. I don't think the AI can do events. At least, i've never seen them researching an anomaly or getting some of the unique bonuses that can occur from it. About the only thing i've seen them trigger is the Unbidden and occasionally robotic rebellion crisis. Assuming that's the case it's really a notch against the game. Since having your ally trigger something like the Horizon Signal chain would be a major game changer in certain circumstances. From a balance perspective it also kind of limits what you can do with the events too. Since if the player is the only one that can get all these bonuses and possible penalties then you don't want to implement anything that'd risk putting them too far ahead or behind the pack. Edit: Also I don't think they know what to do if a FE declares war on them. I've fought several wars in unmodded games where they never put any counter demands, meaning they're doomed to lose the war no matter what. Which can be really obnoxious if you're in an alliance and get dragged into the conflict. Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 15:16
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Some of the more complex chains are blocked, but AI empires can and do get most of the events that a player would.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:18
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LordMune posted:Some of the more complex chains are blocked, but AI empires can and do get most of the events that a player would. Oh really? I stand corrected. Still would be nice if they could get huge game changers like the Horizon Signal. Though there'd probably need to be a few more events of that scale to balance it all out and keep the galaxy looking fresh from game to game.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:19
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guys let's talk about the things here that are truly important namely: can i get my robots to eat vegan uplifted livestock to provide culture points
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Feb 10, 2017 15:22
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whether the robots require this or not is not the point of this question
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Feb 10, 2017 15:27
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Space spergs are the worst.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:34
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Coolguye posted:whether the robots consent to this or not is not the point of this question
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Feb 10, 2017 15:35
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LordMune posted:Some of the more complex chains are blocked, but AI empires can and do get most of the events that a player would. Are there any AI only events? Would be cool for the player to read about horrible thinga happening to their neighbours based on their bad decisions (and to treat those as opportunities) Also you and Wiz should add an exception to the spiritualist no building robots rule if the main species or majority species is already robots. And then add an AI event that gives AIs leadership revolutions and sometimes turns your friendly materialist neighbours into fanatical synthetic spiritualists. After all, say the machines, they are smarter than us - without our materialist biases their eyes have been openes to the TRUTH
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Feb 10, 2017 15:35
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i mean ok i just want to make westworld robots so i can make an entire planet like westworld this would own i m o
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Feb 10, 2017 15:36
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Also will be able to build edible robots? This one is really important.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:36
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Is it vegan if the food consents but the consumer does not?
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Feb 10, 2017 15:37
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GotLag posted:Is it vegan if the food consents but the consumer does not? yes the word we have for this situation is 'hilarious'
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Feb 10, 2017 15:38
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Archonex posted:Oh really? I stand corrected. I've seen the Cybrex system even though I had the Yuuht (sp?) precursor chain, and I even caught one of the AI's science ships in the "investigate Cybrex remnants" mission earlier.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:38
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I assume it's difficult to get AI to follow complex chains because their impacts can be quite wide-ranging. For example, the Horizon Signals event chain involves multiple benefits and disbenefits, and assessing the right choice in context to make is quite difficult without having an AI value that is effectively, "SEE MORE OF ALEXIS KENNEDY'S AWESOME WRITING" with a 90% weighting.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:38
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Coolguye posted:whether the robots require this or not is not the point of this question
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Feb 10, 2017 15:41
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Dying because you had your head removed sounds pretty natural to me.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:42
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in the bright light of the far future, there are only robots eating old-rear end humans with a drizzled apricot sauce and triple-distilled vodka the ballsacks are the appetizers
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Feb 10, 2017 15:43
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GlyphGryph posted:Are there any AI only events? No. To differentiate ourselves from Crusader Kings II (where the AI gets to enjoy miles and miles of intricate triggers and weights scripted for it specifically) we've always made a conscious effort to make the game more fun for the player than the computer. 
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Feb 10, 2017 15:51
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LordMune posted:No. To differentiate ourselves from Crusader Kings II (where the AI gets to enjoy miles and miles of intricate triggers and weights scripted for it specifically) we've always made a conscious effort to make the game more fun for the player than the computer. Sounds suspiciously spiritualist to me.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:53
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if you're not designing for thankless people i recommend the next group you target to be those drat space elves nothing's ever good enough for them this is by no means inspired by the frivolous charges currently being brought against me relating to the brutal murder of an entire continent of space elves i treated all of the xenos on that planet equally damnit
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Feb 10, 2017 15:54
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LordMune posted:No. To differentiate ourselves from Crusader Kings II (where the AI gets to enjoy miles and miles of intricate triggers and weights scripted for it specifically) we've always made a conscious effort to make the game more fun for the player than the computer. So long as they were public events we could read and gain useful info or respond to or just flesh out our neighbours that WOULD be fun. They dont need to be complex, probably better if they are simple and superficial and player focused, but I know I personally would enjoy the game a lot more if stuff happened, stuff I could see, to make the other empires feel more alive - especially as a xenophile or pacifist! There are lots of things I would love to see happen in game but would hate to see happen to ME. So please consider it at least, maybe in a future expansion, but in a very player enjoyment focused way.
GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 16:02
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ELF SIGHTED
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Feb 10, 2017 16:06
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Torrannor posted:I've seen the Cybrex system even though I had the Yuuht (sp?) precursor chain, and I even caught one of the AI's science ships in the "investigate Cybrex remnants" mission earlier. Weird. I've literally never seen them complete it then. It's nice that they actually do some of the events. Is there a list of events that they don't pursue though? That sounds like something modders would be all over working on and trying to figure the logic of which path they'd choose. Archonex fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 10, 2017 16:10
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Space spergs are the worst. wiz should just explain away all the sperg poo poo with "it science I ain't gotta explain poo poo"
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Feb 10, 2017 16:40
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LordMune posted:No. To differentiate ourselves from Crusader Kings II (where the AI gets to enjoy miles and miles of intricate triggers and weights scripted for it specifically) we've always made a conscious effort to make the game more fun for the player than the computer. On the other hand, there's way, way less players in Stellaris so I don't see it being as much of a problem? I mean, random poo poo shaking up games is usually fun...
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Feb 10, 2017 16:41
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