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Randarkman posted:Static galaxies start with pre-defined empires at different levels of development would be a good one I think. Also static galaxy editor. C'mon. If there's anything the game needs it's that. My only worry with that idea is that by effectively having two starts (static galaxy, randomly generated galaxy) then the devs have to do a lot of work maintaining the extra start state. It's a bit like how Europa has tons of starting years, but the earliest one is by far the best. There's also the issue that the fans who like Stellaris now are going to be the ones who like it having a random start with a single planet, so you'd be ignoring them to some degree to chase potential fans like you and me. We should probably give the giant Star Trek mod a serious go, that sounds like it has what we're talking about here.
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Apr 16, 2019 13:03
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Gort posted:My only worry with that idea is that by effectively having two starts (static galaxy, randomly generated galaxy) then the devs have to do a lot of work maintaining the extra start state. It's a bit like how Europa has tons of starting years, but the earliest one is by far the best. Sure. A compromise would then be to provide tools to be able to set up a static galaxy (you can do it now, but it involves alot of fiddling around with galaxy generatin and starting systems rather than the more responsive and intuitive option a dedicated editor could provide), and look to players and mods to provide the static scenarios for those interested and have the random start remain the default assumption. Honestly if I got a scenario/bookmark editor thing for Stellaris it's very likely I'd spend more time actually setting up various scenarios than actually playing the game. e: The Star Trek mod's been updated I presume?
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Apr 16, 2019 13:06
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Randarkman posted:e: The Star Trek mod's been updated I presume? Yup. It's quite good, but also keep in mind that it offers a much different experience than vanilla Stellaris.
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Apr 16, 2019 13:10
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Another issue I have is customisable races. On the one hand it's fun to do some "character generation" at the start of the game, but on the other hand it means every race is a bit of a characterless bag of bonuses, and the selectable traits tend to be stuff like "+5% minerals". With more static races you can have stuff like, "These guys have no ships, but beam themselves from planet to planet to travel", and you come across that race in play and they have that ability, and they have graphics and chat lines that reflect it. Procedurally-generated stuff is generally inferior to specifically-designed-by-a-human stuff in videogames.
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Apr 16, 2019 13:13
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Drone posted:Yup. It's quite good, but also keep in mind that it offers a much different experience than vanilla Stellaris. Is it actually possible to get anywhere now? Because the last time I played it the game was so horrendously nerded up it was impossible to get beyond the first major event and their attitude was "lol git gud".
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Apr 16, 2019 13:17
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Communist Bear posted:Is it actually possible to get anywhere now? Because the last time I played it the game was so horrendously nerded up it was impossible to get beyond the first major event and their attitude was "lol git gud". I think it depends on the event chain. Overall, most event chains have the potential to be open-ended in how you solve an issue (like, most of the events are drawn directly from the TV series, and you don't always have to take the canon option to get a positive-ish outcome), but there are some that feel a bit more railroaded. Specifically I feel like the triggers for forming the Federation are a bit more picky, but I can't really back that up with anything other than anecdotal evidence. It also classifies the various civilizations by a "difficulty" rating, which is generally reliable. I really dig playing as the Gorn Hegemony (medium difficulty Beta quadrant race in the galactic south), but I've had good fun with both Ferengi and Cardassians too. And humans-into-Federation. The Federation mechanics take some getting used to though. When you bring in a member state, they don't just get annexed by you outright... instead you take all of their colonies except their homeworld, which becomes a special kind of vassal of yours. This makes the pretty borders faction a bit antsy.
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Apr 16, 2019 13:23
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https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com Any goons going to this? I remember hearing about some mapgoons MP contingent that went or something. Thinking about picking up tickets and might have the misfortune of going solo if I can't convince my non-mapgame-playing-husband to come with.
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Apr 17, 2019 16:54
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Drone posted:https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com Thats us https://discord.gg/cfze7zX We had like 12 people show up in Stockholm so some of us will certainly end up in Berlin. We'll have a channel discussing plans soon. Also we are doing an imperator game and I see there is no imperator thread maybe i will make one. Sign up today! https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3887386
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Apr 18, 2019 00:58
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3 of us confirmed so far, probably a bunch more closer to October. We've been talking about taking a few days non-con related and ride a fancy old train to Munich to hang out and eat good food. (We have weird train enthusiasts and they let you visit the drivers cab)
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Apr 18, 2019 01:14
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Drone posted:Gonna base my decision on whether or not I want to go next year on feedback from goons who went this year. Tickets are way expensive, on top of an already very expensive city. The takeaways I seem to be getting from comments here and on Discord are: -If you go, you should be just as interested in doing poo poo in the city with goons as actually attending the con -Maybe only go to the con one day, because any more than that is probably not worth it Anything I missed? How big is the convention anyway in terms of attendance? Still on the fence but I'll probably buy a ticket. Especially if I book early enough, a long weekend in Berlin can be quite cheap. The location is really not central at ALL though... but nonetheless I'll probably go with a hotel somewhere in Mitte because there's actual poo poo to do there and not out in the boonies where the event is.
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Apr 18, 2019 07:27
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Drone posted:The location is really not central at ALL though Half an hour away from Alexanderplatz, I think you'll be fine.
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Apr 18, 2019 10:08
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GrossMurpel posted:Half an hour away from Alexanderplatz, I think you'll be fine. Yeah it's tolerable, but I'm mostly thinking "will I want to spend a half hour in the U-Bahn while I'm piss-drunk and tired and want to sleep"
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Apr 18, 2019 10:21
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Blegh, North Germany Pass this year again
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Apr 18, 2019 12:13
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The embargo on streaming early copies of Imperator is over now, so there's about 50 people all streaming it on Twitch as I type this. Good news if you're the kind of insane person that I am that enjoys watching other people play PDX games.
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Apr 18, 2019 13:25
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trapped mouse posted:The embargo on streaming early copies of Imperator is over now, so there's about 50 people all streaming it on Twitch as I type this. Good news if you're the kind of insane person that I am that enjoys watching other people play PDX games. Any particularly good ones?
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Apr 18, 2019 18:51
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Is the game good
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Apr 18, 2019 19:09
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I'm a huge sucker for the game's time period, I look forward to enjoying this game during its bell curve, where it's had the expansions needed to make it good, but before it's succumbed to DLC bloat.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:56
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We're going to have to time it right and jump in at exactly the right moment, I'm getting stressed out already
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Apr 18, 2019 22:11
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Yeah you gotta get the best possible gameplay out of it when you're only going to play for *checks notes* 800 hours
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Apr 18, 2019 22:20
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Mock me all you want, but EU4 followed a distinct curve of bad->good->bad again, at least for my personal tastes, and I don't think I'm entirely alone in feeling that way. Honestly it wasn't that bad at release despite the incessant screeching from the community, but you get the idea. I don't have 800 hours across all my PDS games combined, let alone one.
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Apr 18, 2019 22:49
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EU4 is Feature Creep: The Game. The switch from EU3 to EU4 was great because it simplified so much of the interface, now it's like every menu has its own minigame going on.
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Apr 18, 2019 22:50
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Yeah I tried to get back into EU4 a few months ago and even without buying any of the like half dozen or so DLC I've missed out on after not playing the game for over a year or two but I just can't enjoy it. The free-patch "improvements" still end up bloating the game into a feature-creeped disaster of tacked-on interfaces and jammed-in mana types. I mostly like the paradox DLC model, but it falls apart after a couple years worth of DLC. The need to have optional paid-features and free baseline features ends up really getting in the way of long-term fully integrated meaningful change in the core game. And really that shouldn't be the mission of DLC anyways, just make a sequel once you realize your DLC roadmap will end up gutting or changing almost every core mechanic. They should have been working on Stellaris 2 by now instead of trying to cobble together a good came on top of a rotten foundation through DLC after DLC. EU4 should have been retired ages ago as well when it was at its "feature peak". Of course these are all valid business choices rather than game-quality choices. People keep buying the DLC though so the market has spoken, but we're not really getting great games out of it.
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Apr 18, 2019 23:45
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Baronjutter posted:People keep buying the DLC though so the market has spoken, but we're not really getting great games out of it.
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Apr 19, 2019 00:03
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Well as the resident EU4 fan, for my tastes it's in the best shape it's ever been and the way the systems work together to give you gameplay considerations all game long now is really great. The ages kinda condensed the game logically into 4 sections and each one offers something new and new mechanics to mess with. At the start you are exploring the world and colonizing, then comes the reformation, then you start down the absolutism path and prep for it / start using it while being able to conquer more easily, and the lategame turns into massive wars and massive territory swaps. quote:Yeah I tried to get back into EU4 a few months ago and even without buying any of the like half dozen or so DLC I've missed out on after not playing the game for over a year or two but I just can't enjoy it. The free-patch "improvements" still end up bloating the game into a feature-creeped disaster of tacked-on interfaces and jammed-in mana types. In recent patches, the monarch powers are more interesting with Military now directly related to Absolutism and no longer a dump stat, trade is much more interesting with trade companies, diplo is more valuable with the increases to production. Centers of trade are pretty cool as is upgrading them. Estates no longer demand territory. TCs also provide a huge sink for money and a way to get absurd wealth too if you go that route. Buildings seem better balanced for the flow of the game. Admin is still important but no longer the single limiting resource. Missions are better and flow more logically, like HOI4 focus trees. Was there anything in particular you tried to do a few months ago that didn't work for you?
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Apr 19, 2019 00:28
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Arumba's Imperator stream is pretty good if you want to listen to some guy spend 45 minutes going into heavy detail on many of the modifiers and explaining which ones are important and which aren't (and why) before even unpausing the game. And let's not kid ourselves, of course we do. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/412917970 (jump to the 35 minute mark for when he starts the game)
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Apr 19, 2019 00:45
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Arumba's Imperator stream is pretty good if you want to listen to some guy spend 45 minutes going into heavy detail on many of the modifiers and explaining which ones are important and which aren't (and why) before even unpausing the game. And let's not kid ourselves, of course we do. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/412917970 (jump to the 35 minute mark for when he starts the game) why would you expect arumba, the man who can't read for more than half a second before giving up, to have an understanding of what's important
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Apr 19, 2019 00:48
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Jazerus posted:why would you expect arumba, the man who can't read for more than half a second before giving up, to have an understanding of what's important Because he's still pretty good at these games, and even if he's not perfect, his attempts to understand imperator can help us understand it too, in turn?
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Apr 19, 2019 00:52
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Arumba does have this very weird rushing thing he does where he seems impatient to understand stuff and then that seems to drive interesting perceptions of what the game is / how it works. I don't think an axis of "perfect / not perfect" is a good way to capture it, he seems to have a hurried way of learning things
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Apr 19, 2019 01:01
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Jazerus posted:why would you expect arumba, the man who can't read for more than half a second before giving up, to have an understanding of what's important I decided to give the linked stream a watch and it's clear that he has done a lot of research into the game mechanics before talking about what things are important. That being said, having watched some of his stuff before, I know what you're talking about.
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Apr 19, 2019 02:58
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So, you know how the Paradox website requires you to log in to do literally anything? Including file support tickets? Turns out that doesn't work so well when the website has a problem logging you in. It appears that Paradox has literally no mechanism for requesting support with account logins. Sending an email to their support@ email address seems to create a ticket within their ticketing system, but then immediately closes it. And creating a second account in order to request help wouldn't help, because, according to their support website knowledge base, if you need help with your account, they only accept tickets from the actual account affected, to prove that you own the account. You can't even use the "send feedback" functionality on the knowledge base to point out that there's no article for what to do if you can't log in, because that functionality requires you to, you guessed it, log in first. Curiously enough, when launching Stellaris, the launcher appears to show that I'm logged in just fine there, so I don't know why websites logins (from any browser) would be broken.
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Apr 19, 2019 08:48
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I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but the fact that you can apparently spend a good chunk of time just maximising the efficiency of your economy in Imperator makes me extremely happy
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Apr 19, 2019 09:39
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Watching some of the streams, I noticed that during war some provinces get occupied without any army sieging them down first; see this on ASpec's video for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flZK2MA2hE8 (at 10m13s if the bookmarked link doesn't work), he declares war and as his armies are marching, Abellinum, Irna and Nusculum fall under his occupation. Is it the allied/owned forts area of control projecting occupation even on enemy land?
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Apr 19, 2019 12:22
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Did you guys catch what Johan said when they interviewed him at the end of Dev Clash 9? It was something to the effect of: "The game needs more... Ah... Fun." And then sort of shrugged his way out of the statement. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally looking forward to the game, but I just thought it was something weird to say.
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Apr 19, 2019 12:52
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canepazzo posted:Is it the allied/owned forts area of control projecting occupation even on enemy land? Yes! Very nice addition imo.
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Apr 19, 2019 13:21
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TorakFade posted:Yes! Very nice addition imo. Indeed! Now they need to add that + army automation to EU4 
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Apr 19, 2019 13:23
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canepazzo posted:Indeed! Now they need to add that + army automation to EU4 I'd love that but I think it's too late for it to make a difference, for me anyways. I most definitely burned out on EU4, tried to restart a couple games lately and just went "meh" after 15 minutes (I do have more than 1100 hours played... so it's probably perfectly normal) Dramicus posted:Did you guys catch what Johan said when they interviewed him at the end of Dev Clash 9? It was something to the effect of: "The game needs more... Ah... Fun." And then sort of shrugged his way out of the statement. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally looking forward to the game, but I just thought it was something weird to say. Who needs fun when you can have spreadsheets and a bazillion tiny modifiers to juggle/select?
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Apr 19, 2019 13:37
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One thing I don't understand is why we can't see what the different buildings will do in the provinces like in Eu4, hopefully this will be updated in the first fix. Otherwise the game looks great and I am very hyped!
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Apr 19, 2019 13:38
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Lol at Arumba refusing to interact with the game in any way beyond maximising research output, constantly saying that loyalty and ruler popularity are meaningless, then getting really mad when his king died and he had a civil war because "my country is really happy all the provinces have 0 revolt risk" Given how the trade system works the location of your capital is actually a pretty big deal, your capital city especially ends up producing huge amounts of surplus of whatever its particular trade good is. Which is a huge deal for example if it's something like papyrus (increases research) or gemstones (increases tax) or most of the strategic resources (increases manpower). This is a stackable, additive bonus which increases the output of every single city in your capital province and you can feasibly have gigantic amounts of slaves in your capital letting you produce 10 or 20 units of surplus! Pump it up! Do it! posted:One thing I don't understand is why we can't see what the different buildings will do in the provinces like in Eu4, hopefully this will be updated in the first fix. Otherwise the game looks great and I am very hyped! Honestly it's not that big of a deal because there's only 4 types of buildings and it's blindingly obvious which ones you want in which provinces, the game actively encourages you to specialise your provinces for particular types of output: Forts are forts from EU4. Granaries increase pop growth and slave happiness, you only build them because your pops are starving or you have lots of pissed off slaves (usually because they've been captured in a war) or you're specifically going for some kind of maximum growth strategy (which seems to be maybe not the best strategy based on the numbers currently ingame) Barracks increase manpower and so you only want them in provinces with lots of freemen. Marketplaces increase your civilisation cap, commerce and trade income and so you want them in the provinces with lots of citizens and/or slaves. Obviously it's better if you can see directly from the macro builder but the game does seem to make it quite easy to identify where the different types of pops are.
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Apr 19, 2019 14:23
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RabidWeasel posted:Forts are forts from EU4. Are they also as expensive as EU4, in that if you build one too many forts you might go into bankruptcy within a couple years? It always pissed me off that for half the game you have to be SUPER STINGY with placing forts or you'll waste tons and tons of money between building and maintaining (even a mothballed fort can be quite a drain at 0.5 ducat/month minimum)
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Apr 19, 2019 15:00
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Yeah they're just as expensive and deleting forts is still something you want to do (though there are many more chokepoints to use them with, too)
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Apr 19, 2019 15:40
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