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Zephro posted:So the game is 40% off on Steam. In theory I like strategy games, but in practise these days I've become a filthy casual with kids and a commute and I just don't have as much gaming time as I used to If you're going to get it, don't get it on steam. It's much cheaper in the Humble Monthly (12 bucks) and you get a load of mystery games on top of that.
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May 11, 2017 12:15
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Gobblecoque posted:So what's your idea of a strategy game with a lot of depth? You know I'm actually not really sure. Paradox games are deep enough to be enjoyable but the strategy involved, even when there's a lot of numbers and stuff going on, is pretty easily reducible to two or three major mechanics and the rest can be totally ignored or it isn't relevant to anything besides playstyle. But ultra grognard style games are so retarded detailed that its not enjoyable anymore. But anyway I guess I'd say that HoI4 is a lot more interesting as a strategy game because even though its fairly basic, I actually have to think about what I'm doing, unlike in CK2, EU4, and Stellaris where mostly you just maneuver a death stack (or in the first two, maybe 2-3 stacks) into the enemy stack
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May 11, 2017 12:46
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That's a bit unfair to Paradox, I'd say. With the potential exception of CK2, their games are effectively interest rate simulators - you have a limited amount of resource to spend and the task is to identify what offers the best return, be it troops, trade or technology. Accordingly, the impressive number of variables in something like EUIV makes this a quite complex optimisation problem. I would define depth as, 'Once you know the rules, how hard is it to figure out what you should be doing in any given moment?' On this score, Paradox does well.
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May 11, 2017 12:56
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genericnick posted:I do think the rewards for the Fortress were by far the most powerful rewards there were and I understand that they scaled them back. I'd still be salty if I drew the decoder or encoder though. The Fortress doesn't show up every game though and even when it does you might not be able to get to it. Good rewards for a rare event is a good thing. Otherwise they are just blocker for that system. "oh look a ____, guess I'll just go around till I have a 150-200k fleet with giga cannons, then just wipe if of the map and move on." I burned up most my fleet fighting the fortress twice the first (only) game I saw it.
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May 11, 2017 13:40
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There's are several mods to get the fortress techs back should you want them. Also changing the rates for those techs to whatever you want would be very easy, just editing the event in text file.
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May 11, 2017 14:14
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1.6.1 hotfix is up as a beta.Changelog posted:* Fixed AI never declaring war
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May 11, 2017 16:25
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Well that about covers all the weird stuff I was seeing in my new game started after 1.6 dropped. I wonder if I just switch to this now and load the game if all hell would break loose. I don't want to have to keep restarting. Love how AIs never declaring war was a bug - our Utopia galaxy was a little too Utopian.
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May 11, 2017 16:29
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Just came here to post that, was most miffed when my shiny new ringworld couldn't build and spaceports last night. We beat the Unbidden in the end though!
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May 11, 2017 16:30
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quote:* Fixed AI nonsensically replacing buildings in a wasteful way, disregarding tile resources Part of the reason my last 1.6 game went full lovey dovey was, I think, because everyone immediately rivalled the hivemind, so everyone had the "rival of rival" +mod, and thing snowballed from there.
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May 11, 2017 16:32
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Glad to see that they released a major bug fix patch and let it go live with the AI not being able to declare war. It is like we are back to the good old days of Paradox gaming!
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May 11, 2017 16:32
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i dig the new peacocks, but man oh man those are some lazy palette shifts
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May 11, 2017 16:44
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quote:* Devouring Swarms now properly get -1000 opinion penalty due to being, well, Devouring Swarms Paradox confirmed as Speciesist.
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May 11, 2017 18:47
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nessin posted:Paradox confirmed as Speciesist. Aw, I liked having my only buddies be the other Hive Mind in my galaxy. Time to restart again.
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May 11, 2017 19:35
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Korgan posted:I don't like this weighting, why can't it be a 25% for all? 16% for the two good ones, 33% for the power-hungry trash nobody bothers with. Legit. Split them 50/50 shield/module or power/module. I don't even remember what those modules even do. In normal games people are just going to savescum until they get the one they want.
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May 11, 2017 20:10
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I'm glad they got the hotfix out so fast, I'm also glad Stellaris was "literally unplayable" for the last day because it made me take the plunge to buy Endless Space 2. I'm really digging the hand-made factions that all ooze with character and unique mechanics, the art and vibe of the game is really good. Will take a while to see if it's actually a long-term fun game as I've always loved the art and general feel of endless games but the mechanics never bring me back beyond playing through a couple times to see all the lore and art.
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May 11, 2017 20:12
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PoptartsNinja posted:16% for the two good ones, 33% for the power-hungry trash nobody bothers with. Legit. Split them 50/50 shield/module or power/module. I don't even remember what those modules even do. The modules give tracking/tohit and evasion/somethingorother. They would be okayish except that they go in the same slots and use the same amount of power as shield capacitors, and in the current meta that choice is a no-brainer. What I really miss is the Enigmatic Disruption Field, but after auras were removed from all mobile ships I guess they decided it was easier to just remove it than to fix it to actually go on stations? In non-achievement games people should probably just mod that poo poo though. I recognise that getting all four techs right away (or, realistically, "both good techs") was out of balance with the rest of the leviathan rewards, but I think this change that makes it so you get one and the others go into the tech deck is Cool And Good.
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May 11, 2017 20:21
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I was really proud of myself for getting almost 40 years into a game before being wiped out by a neighbor but my survival depended entirely on bugs. Just goes to showcase how awful I am at 4X games I guess. Can't wait to load my save and die in 2 years.
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May 11, 2017 20:22
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Bloodplay it again posted:I was really proud of myself for getting almost 40 years into a game before being wiped out by a neighbor but my survival depended entirely on bugs. Just goes to showcase how awful I am at 4X games I guess. Can't wait to load my save and die in 2 years. If you're getting attacked, the solution is really to build a bigger fleet. In the early game you want to be sitting at or near your fleet cap, and you want to be upgrading spaceports to push those limits. +Naval Capacity society techs are actually pretty good early on, because even 2-3 ships makes a surprisingly huge difference in small actions. Watch your neighbours like a hawk, if any non-pacifist has a Superior fleet power, you done hosed up, because that actually means they're much, much stronger than you. I think the line is around 33% - 50%.
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May 11, 2017 20:34
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Well done game, don't place any orbital resources into my home system I like challenge runs 
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May 11, 2017 20:56
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All this enigmatic fortress talk reminds me that I've never gotten to do it. It always spawns deep in some other faraway civ's borders and after whatever amount of time it's just gone. What's weird is that AI civs seem to ignore pretty much every other leviathan thing even if they're strong enough to curbstomp it and I've never found any of its tech on any fleet debris so I guess they're either not getting stuff from it or just not using it.
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May 11, 2017 21:00
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Yeah I never seem to get lucky with where special systems and monsters spawn, they always end up somewhere out of reach. I've only seen the Enigmatic Fortress once and didn't get to finish the quest so I honestly have no idea what people are talking about... To Xarn's point this game can give you some really lovely starts though. I'm guilty as hell when it comes to rerolling in the first few minutes if I don't like hoe things are looking. Wish they'd just put a 'restart' option in the menu to save me having to go through all the steps over and over again.
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May 11, 2017 21:18
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Psychotic Weasel posted:Yeah I never seem to get lucky with where special systems and monsters spawn, they always end up somewhere out of reach. I've only seen the Enigmatic Fortress once and didn't get to finish the quest so I honestly have no idea what people are talking about... At least it saves your settings now, so it's really just new game->select race->start if you're rerolling.
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May 11, 2017 21:20
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PittTheElder posted:If you're getting attacked, the solution is really to build a bigger fleet. In the early game you want to be sitting at or near your fleet cap, and you want to be upgrading spaceports to push those limits. +Naval Capacity society techs are actually pretty good early on, because even 2-3 ships makes a surprisingly huge difference in small actions. Watch your neighbours like a hawk, if any non-pacifist has a Superior fleet power, you done hosed up, because that actually means they're much, much stronger than you. I think the line is around 33% - 50%. I usually have a tough time building up enough energy credits to maintain a sizable fleet. This is the first game I've finally had more than the first spaceport upgrade show up in the tech tree before my demise, too, so I wasn't able to build anything past a corvette with little-to-no upgrades. I lowered the game size from large to medium and dropped the number of AI by one or two to try and get a feel for tech expansion. Right now, every other species I've made contact with has an equivalent army, but I have minerals and credits hoarded for when I need to make a handful of cruisers. I've only played for ~24 hours total, but my best two games seem to have gone as well as they have mainly due to the starting scientists I got for research. Recruiting non-surveying scientists seems like a wasteful use of influence early in the game. It doesn't really seem to matter once your researching scientists hit level 3 because they research faster than level 1 specialists. Once I play a few more games I will understand what I need to focus on and more efficient ways to navigate the UI, which will help a lot too. Bloodplay it again fucked around with this message at 21:36 on May 11, 2017 |
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May 11, 2017 21:33
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Would someone please give me a quick and dirty rundown of the fleet composition meta? Should I never let the computer design my ships? I've only sort of followed developments since launch, but I seem to recall there were some major balance issues (e.g. missiles were awful, or something).
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May 11, 2017 21:38
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Nut to Butt posted:Would someone please give me a quick and dirty rundown of the fleet composition meta? Should I never let the computer design my ships? Missiles continue to be awful, as apparently there's something deeply wrong with the way they're coded. Kinetics are the best starting choice by a country mile - they're strong against shields and you don't need to research lasers to get plasma weaponry. The current meta is: - Energy torpedo corvettes; - Destroyers with a Kinetic Artillery in the large mount and a flak in the remaining medium; - Cruisers with all medium plasma plus one flak. Mix energy & armour depending on what you're fighting. Opinions are divided on whether battleships are worth it; I find giving them exclusively kinetic artillery (all large mounts) works well, but others find that they die too quickly. I go for a 1:2:4:8 ratio of ship types from battleships purely to make designing fleets require no brain power, but others find smaller numbers of destroyers equally viable, and some people think corvettes die too quickly. They do, but that's what they're for.
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May 11, 2017 21:52
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Played for about 100 years before getting bored. Highlight of the game: being stuck together with a regular hive mind between one advanced devouring hive mind, and one advanced fanatic purifiers our empire and the regular hive mind were buddies all the way, with an extreme amount of positive bonuses to relations. I guess it's kind of awkward that the hive mind loves us that much, being a single concious entity.
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May 11, 2017 21:53
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Bloodplay it again posted:I usually have a tough time building up enough energy credits to maintain a sizable fleet. This is the first game I've finally had more than the first spaceport upgrade show up in the tech tree before my demise, too, so I wasn't able to build anything past a corvette with little-to-no upgrades. I lowered the game size from large to medium and dropped the number of AI by one or two to try and get a feel for tech expansion. Right now, every other species I've made contact with has an equivalent army, but I have minerals and credits hoarded for when I need to make a handful of cruisers. Corvettes with little to no upgrades are some of the best, most efficient ships in the game. Stellaris is weird in that higher tech isn't necessarily more efficient, so just spamming a bunch of whatever you can make cheaply isn't a bad plan. As for dealing with energy crunches, remember that you can trade with almost any civ that doesn't hate you for a ton of energy, because the AI always overflows. A pittance of minerals per month for 30 years can get you hundreds or thousands of energy credits. This is so strong it feels like cheating. Also, as long as you keep your fleet orbiting a planet with a spaceport, it drastically reduces the maintenance costs. Always click the little icon that looks like a circular arrow to send your fleets home when you aren't using them. Nut to Butt posted:Would someone please give me a quick and dirty rundown of the fleet composition meta? Should I never let the computer design my ships? Plasma casters and energy torpedoes, especially on on cruisers and corvettes. Kinetic batteries are okay on destroyers and battleships; so are plain old railguns (the best starter weapon) if you don't have k bats yet. Flak is good on cruisers and destroyers, point defense is good on destroyers if you don't luck into the autocannon prereq tech early enough to get flak. Regular old railguns and autocannon are okay filler if that's what the tech deck sticks you with. Lasers are worse than those but workable. Disruptors, all missiles, all strike craft, non-energy torpedos (the ones you research with engineering instead of physics), and XL weapons are all a waste of time.
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May 11, 2017 21:55
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Nut to Butt posted:Would someone please give me a quick and dirty rundown of the fleet composition meta? Should I never let the computer design my ships? The game is supposed to give you this huge assortment of choices for ship design, but generally there's an generally optimal design and specifically optimal designs and it's not always intuitive because there's a ton of "paradox math" that goes on behind the scenes in combat that ends up making a lot of the stats a lie. I don't know what the spreadsheet nerds come up with, but cruisers with a couple flak and some railguns and plasma protecting a bunch of battleships loaded with kinetic artillery or what ever your best longest range weapon is seem to eat AI fleets. If you're up against a fallen empire or specific end game fleet there's slightly different strategies that can work out better. For instance if your enemy has a ton of armour you'll want more plasma. If your enemy is all shields you'll want more kinetics. If your enemy uses a ton of strike craft you might want to add an extra flak artillery or so on your cruisers and maybe give a couple on your battleships as well. I know some people say smaller ships are still valid, but the moment I'm able to build cruisers I only build cruisers, and the moment I can build battleships I build about 50/50 cruiser/battleship. I consistently can beat AI fleets of similar power, and can take on smaller fleets without any casualties (which is what you should be going for)
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May 11, 2017 21:55
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Aethernet posted:Missiles continue to be awful, as apparently there's something deeply wrong with the way they're coded. Well, sort of. Honestly it's really more of a fundamental design flaw. But yes, they're a bit of a dumpster fire at the moment. Missiles are one of those things I'd like to write a mod to fix, but I'm really not *too* big on doing fix mods since ideally Paradox will get around to it at some point.
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May 11, 2017 21:55
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Might be pure coincidence but I just had no trouble at all doing the Vultaum quest, things spawned regularly to investigate and I found their home system in like 2231. It spawned in my own territory too, I don't know if that's been forced or was just coincidental, but at any rate it was pretty neat. Would be interested to hear other people's experiences. If only I'd got an actual good Precursor species :p Also slight bug, Devouring Swarms can still interact like regular empires with enclaves. Which I'm not gonna bitch about because it makes my life a lot easier when I can trade for minerals and stuff. Now, speaking of that, two things to mention. First, the location of this black hole is fuckin sick-rear end:  Second, for funsies, and apropos with ship design discussion, I'm playing the Xu Hive as pure kinetics/armor. So far it's actually working pretty well, but I suspect Hive/Swarm bonuses are contributing to that a lot. Still, it is nice to be able to poo poo out pretty capable ships at low cost!
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May 11, 2017 22:04
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Bloodplay it again posted:I usually have a tough time building up enough energy credits to maintain a sizable fleet. This is the first game I've finally had more than the first spaceport upgrade show up in the tech tree before my demise, too, so I wasn't able to build anything past a corvette with little-to-no upgrades. I lowered the game size from large to medium and dropped the number of AI by one or two to try and get a feel for tech expansion. Right now, every other species I've made contact with has an equivalent army, but I have minerals and credits hoarded for when I need to make a handful of cruisers. Don't hoard minerals, what really matters is increasing mineral throughput. If you can spend minerals to do so, that's basically always worth it. Corvettes with little-to-no upgrade are actually all you want in the early game anyway, they are objectively better than even very upgraded corvettes. What you want is more of them. As for energy, that just has to come off your planets. Colonize more planets, build more power plants.
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May 11, 2017 22:07
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I'm down to 1 relic left for my precusor quest and the game keeps trying to spawn new anomalies but failing. I get the popup telling me "a precursor site has been found on in the system". It's blank, no planet or system is named.
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May 11, 2017 22:09
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Advanced AI starts - are they on top of the number AI empires, or included in them? Say I choose 15 AI empires, 5 advanced starts, do I get 20 AIs or 15 of which 5 are advanced?
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May 11, 2017 22:17
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Mister Adequate posted:Now, speaking of that, two things to mention. First, the location of this black hole is fuckin sick-rear end: 
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May 11, 2017 22:28
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Thank you for all the helpful answers!
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May 11, 2017 22:30
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Baronjutter posted:I'm down to 1 relic left for my precusor quest and the game keeps trying to spawn new anomalies but failing. I get the popup telling me "a precursor site has been found on in the system". It's blank, no planet or system is named. Using any mods? If not I'd really appreciate a save. We have some reports of this but no repro cases not caused by mods.
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May 11, 2017 22:32
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Wiz posted:Using any mods? If not I'd really appreciate a save. We have some reports of this but no repro cases not caused by mods. Just a million of those "Tiny X" interface mods and the "ship power plants" mod. So yeah, not a "clean" game, tainted by moddery but I don't know why ship power plants or the tiny interface mods would do that. I'll get on the beta hotfix patch and turn off the mods and see if it still happens(I was getting the popups fairly regularly as the game really wanted to help me finish), or is the save still useless if the save was ever mod-touched? Also is there and event I can manually trigger to get the "precursor discovery" event that tries to spawn the anomaly? \/ Sure I'll throw it on my drive or something and link you when I get home from work in about an hour. If it IS caused by a mod I'd love to know how/why and get in touch with the creator. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:42 on May 11, 2017 |
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May 11, 2017 22:37
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Baronjutter posted:Just a million of those "Tiny X" interface mods and the "ship power plants" mod. So yeah, not a "clean" game, tainted by moddery but I don't know why ship power plants or the tiny interface mods would do that. Upload it and I'll have a look.
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May 11, 2017 22:38
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While the last patch was very disappointing, thumbs up on getting the hotfix up and in beta quickly.
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May 11, 2017 22:46
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KingLemming posted:That'll actually work pretty well. The game is *super* quirky and weird about doing something like this, so essentially I've had to work around the weirdness by having it create a normal pop and then adding a +200% growth speed modifier to it. After it finishes growing, it then has a -25% Research and -50% Unity penalty for 5 years, but they'll make great slaves! in light of all this, i take it it's not possible to set which species you'd like to clone, right?
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