So I traded star maps with someone who had investigated a ring world. Does this now prevent me from surveying these ring worlds myself and gaining the living metal research they give?
I don't know that they changed this in a recent patch, but when I last played it was typically not a good idea to trade star maps as you could no longer survey those stars and thus could not get survey events from them.
Actually, from what I understand, anomalies can only show the first time any empire scans the planet in question, Human or AI. Even if you don't trade in star charts you can never get an anomaly from a world that has been scanned by another empire. It's why you pretty much never find anomalies in other empire's borders, unless it was a world that had space monsters until you cleared them out.
Now, I don't know about things like Living Metal (Though I do believe that sharing star charts won't tell you if there is any enclaves in that system, which is a fucking pain) but the normal anomalies -including precursor chains- always dry up by the midgame due to everything being scanned, barring some bit of spiral that starter FTLs couldn't reach because of a fallen empire or somesuch.
My federation doesn't like the idea of my taking over planets of a nearby system. They are totally ok when I propose for another war for one of them to gain systems. Considering I'm more powerful than both combined and won 2 wars for them, I am wondering why I bother with these folks to begin with.
Just be aware if you do decide to leave the federation your former allies might not take too kindly to your new found independence. In the case of one of my former games in the form of an attempted invasion.
My federation doesn't like the idea of my taking over planets of a nearby system. They are totally ok when I propose for another war for one of them to gain systems. Considering I'm more powerful than both combined and won 2 wars for them, I am wondering why I bother with these folks to begin with.
Federations are for the good of everyone involved. Gotta throw them some bones too. Get stronger together.
My federation doesn't like the idea of my taking over planets of a nearby system. They are totally ok when I propose for another war for one of them to gain systems. Considering I'm more powerful than both combined and won 2 wars for them, I am wondering why I bother with these folks to begin with.
Federations are for the good of everyone involved. Gotta throw them some bones too. Get stronger together.
And be sure to encourage emigration! Come your inevitable betrayal you'll be well placed to detonate tailored virus bombs to rid the galaxy of the filthy xenos and your legions of terror will find local populations of actual people to subjugate.
I've heard Collectivist/Individualist might be on the way out, replaced with something like Elitist/Egalitarian instead. Apparently the current split is not only messy, but really hard to write special events for for since there's some inherent contradictions in how they're currently presented.
I'm looking forward to that! The collectivist/individualist split has always been a bit weird.
I still want the ability to just click on a planet -> colonize -> and have a list of all my Pops -> click on the one I want and have the damn colony ship build.
Isn't this literally how it works now if you click colonize on a planet? Select the pop you want and where you want them to drop, and it autobuilds the colony ship, auto-sends them to the planet, and auto-builds the colony.
I've heard Collectivist/Individualist might be on the way out, replaced with something like Elitist/Egalitarian instead. Apparently the current split is not only messy, but really hard to write special events for for since there's some inherent contradictions in how they're currently presented.
I'm looking forward to that! The collectivist/individualist split has always been a bit weird.
I still want the ability to just click on a planet -> colonize -> and have a list of all my Pops -> click on the one I want and have the damn colony ship build.
Isn't this literally how it works now if you click colonize on a planet? Select the pop you want and where you want them to drop, and it autobuilds the colony ship, auto-sends them to the planet, and auto-builds the colony.
quote trees yay!
Yes, if you use the Colonization Planner, you find a planet, click colonize then select from ALL available populations (even if they can't colonize).
I think i'm done iwth this game until there's more patches, or the modders get to work. The whole Awoken FE mechanic is just.. I have to assume it's designed with multiplayer in mind. Because in single player it's a clock of get fucked. (In this case, the AE put together a 300k fleet while my economy went into free fall using an 80k fleet. And mid battle were able to split said 300k doom stack into multiple smaller stacks, and then admiral then up as well.)
I mean, i can see some kinda sorta possibilities to beat them - but those are game as fuck, and involve either: abusing the warscore system (and frankly, that's going to involve tedious amounts of micro to get the timing perfect), or the invincible corvette bug (Via stacking evasion modifiers, you can get corvettes with 101% evasion. This promptly breaks things, as far as i can tell).
It's hugely frustrating, because i love the aesthetic and idea of FE's waking up and getting pissy with everyone, but the implementation is just drowning you under a severe case of My Numbers are Bigger Than Yours - and in single player, there's no reliable way to be able to fight them head on, as your erstwhile allies are going to be dumb as a sack of bricks. (Heck, the AE's dumb as a sack of bricks too. It's just that it's very hard to outwit a Greater Angry Space Brick)
So I didn't mention in my previous post about my awakened FE, but my game decided to crash half way through their declaring war on me and for some reason no autosaves made it through. Maybe the year just hadn't quite finished for my annual save or something. Regardless I had to start pre-awakening and for whatever reason they haven't woken, I guess it must be at least somewhat random in that case.
Rambling aside I did notice that one of the options was to somehow declare yourself to the FE, it seemed a different option from vassalisation whatever that's worth. So I wonder if there isn't some gameplay locked behind this? As has been discussed elsewhere in the thread, Paradox games are designed so you don't have to be top dog to get good gameplay out of them. Less so so far in Stellaris' case, but it'll certainly be there.
Also are there any other FEs in your galaxy? There's a decent chance that another one will wake up and you'll be able to play them off against each other. Subjugate yourself to one of them and plot your revenge!
Rambling aside I did notice that one of the options was to somehow declare yourself to the FE, it seemed a different option from vassalisation whatever that's worth. So I wonder if there isn't some gameplay locked behind this? As has been discussed elsewhere in the thread, Paradox games are designed so you don't have to be top dog to get good gameplay out of them. Less so so far in Stellaris' case, but it'll certainly be there.
Also are there any other FEs in your galaxy? There's a decent chance that another one will wake up and you'll be able to play them off against each other. Subjugate yourself to one of them and plot your revenge!
All the various ways of vassalizing yourself to a FE cripple you in some fashion (the current FE is a materialist, so i'd loose 25% of my research. Which, given i desperately need repeatable techs to catch up with them...) - and to get out, you then have to declare war on them ANYWAY. So there's really not much point. As to other FEs - There's been other fes in all the games iv'e hit the FE wakes up and goes on a rampage. None of them have ever done crap about it.
Believe me, this is not a first time it's happened, arrgh thing - I've played a ton of games since the patch trying to problem-solve this. The only solutions i'm seeing are either incredibly artificial, gamey-ones, or having a truly extraordinary run of luck.
There probably is a solution! I hope. But it's no longer actually fun to play the game to find it, if that makes sense?
The gamey as fuck way I beat the AE in my game was simply: let it declare war on someone else, split its fleet, and blow up the smaller fleet. Seize one planet. Declare victory, get the planet as soon as their fleet came my way. Repeat until their doomfleet was roughly equal to mine and then blow it up. Then just beat their ass for the next 200 years to steal all their planets.
But yes, this is super gamey and I wasn't really happy that it was the only real way to fight with them.
EDIT: what's really frustrating is that there's no legitimate way to have a 600k fleet without owning the entire galaxy.
Are you able to attack other Empires while a subject of the materialist FE? I know with mine they were the xenophile type and when I hovered over the subjugation button it said something about disallowing me from invading other empires.
If you are then it seems like a good opportunity to put some serious hurt on other empires without fear of reprisal.
Are you able to attack other Empires while a subject of the materialist FE? I know with mine they were the xenophile type and when I hovered over the subjugation button it said something about disallowing me from invading other empires.
If you are then it seems like a good opportunity to put some serious hurt on other empires without fear of reprisal.
IIRC you can, but satellites (the materialist AE vassal) lose a big chunk of their research, so it slows down you getting the tech you need to stand a decent chance against the AE.
It seems to me like AE's are absolutely not suppose to be something you take on alone, problem is it seems to be rather arbitrary as to whether or not you can get anyone else to join together to fight as one, rather than go nameless henchmen on an action movie hero and attack and fail one at a time.
It seems to me like AE's are absolutely not suppose to be something you take on alone, problem is it seems to be rather arbitrary as to whether or not you can get anyone else to join together to fight as one, rather than go nameless henchmen on an action movie hero and attack and fail one at a time.
When an FE awakens, you get a significant relationship boost with pretty much everyone else in the galaxy due to their being terrified of the FE.
The intent is either to side with the FE, build a Federation to oppose them, or (if you're the fanatical purifier type) have built up a massive enough industrial base to wear them down and take them out, which is actually very, very possible. Killing their fleet in one go? Maybe not. But lure them into Death Blossom traps and a decent sized fleet built specifically to counter them, and you're gonna do a shit-ton of damage. If you're playing a conquerer, you should be able to handle losing 2 or 3 wars before it starts having a serious impact on your empire, and that's plenty of opportunity to wear them down through attrition. If you're playing a Purifier/Aggressive conquerer and can't take out an FE by the time they awaken and fight you, you've done screwed up at some point, since you should be able to have like 4 or 5 battleships being churned out at a time constantly with a whole bunch of corvs being produced as an ablative shield, even in a small galaxy.
But for everyone else, yeah, it is very much intended that you form a federation at that point to oppose them, which really shouldn't be that difficult. You might have to tweak your policies a bit, give out a few research agreements and stuff, but definitely doable.
You'll still want to make heavy use of station traps though, since those modules are a big advantage (-15% enemy firepower, -25% enemy shield, constant health and massive shield regen to your own dudes) and the stations don't add to your fleet cap.
And if you're not able to do that, yeah, the point is to sign on with the FE or go down fighting them. Working with them can actually be enjoyable, it's not really a bad thing! Even if you get a 25% research malus or whatever, you also get as much time as you need to make up for it, because it's not like the FE fleets are getting any more advanced.
Edit:
Which isn't to say that the current way it's done overall is particularly good, a lot of the current war system as a whole is implemented super poorly, some of the FE stuff seems weird and bad or super annoying, a lot of Federation stuff just plain seems to not work, but I find people tend to overstate the difficulty of a lot of stuff in this game, and most of what they complain about is because there's stuff they haven't looked at or bothered figuring out that they're doing wrong or they have some specific way they want to play and refuse to adapt to circumstances. And frankly there's some of that where it's kind of the games fault (actually figuring out what the enemy is fielding so you can adjust your fleet composition, actually figuring out how different compositions compare, some really stupid stuff with diplomacy that is rather gamey to work around) but a bunch that isn't (people complaining about losing science ships to wildlife in the early game because they refuse to scout with their corvettes first is one of the most common complaints I see, even though the game gives you corvettes to start with for that exact reason and you have literally nothing else to do with them at that point in the game)
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Well as someone whose empire has been a satalite of a awoken empire I can say it hasn't been too shabby. It is not the same as being a vassal or a protectorate. Like I am still fairly autonomous. I can wage war on my own and I am not dragged in to my awoken empire's wars either.
Each type of FE has a different set of requirements they ask of you. Not sure what they all are. Mine just wanted me to ban AI, which sure why not.
The big bonus to me so far is that my awoken empire isn't interested in taking worlds for themselves, so every war they win they just give the conquered worlds to me.
I'm still not clear on what exactly they are waging their wars for. None of the empires they defeated have been made to become satalites or vassals or anything. I assume they're just making empires ban AI.
I do know that another of the awoken empires in my game required their members to switch to Divine Mandate.
The third awoken empire in my game is basically Space 'Merica. Freedom, justice, and a unified front against the galactic threat.
The forth is still a fallen empire and hasn't awoke yet. However it is a militaristic one so its probably going to be bad time when they do finally wake.
That all said, yeah I think the AE mechanic needs tweaking. Once they awake literally all pre-existing federations and such instantly disintegrate and I think that is bullshit.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
the xenophobes are all about expansion, and require you to become a Thrall, which is like a Vassal
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
In my current (and first game in a long while) I bumped into an Enigmatic Observer FE who's tucked away in the corner closest to me. They're really been treating my empire as some sort of pet. Awww how cute, you guys may end up extinct soon so let us take some of your people so you don't go totally extinct. A little while later, "Here take this gift of 3000 energy and 5000 minerals", which happened just as I was undergoing a major budget crunch so that windfall went a very very long way to beefing up my infrastructure.
And the most recent event? "Oh hai thar, we have this surplus old battlecruiser we'll like you to have because the galaxy is a dangerous place y'know and we don't want you do die out lolololol. Oh, we've also replaced all the super advanced tech and replaced it with stuff you have some chance of recognising. Have fun!"
I initially thought that I'd get a Battleship class vessel with components maybe 1 tier higher than my current and I dunno what they were thinking when my empire was the biggest kid in the block aside from the FE itself. Nope. The thing is a FE Battlecruiser, not a battleship. It has 2 Particle Lances, 2 T5 Lasers, 4 T5 Mass Drivers, 1 Fighter + Bomber wings, T4 shields, T5 armour and 2x shield capacitors. This is when I'm puttering around with Destroyers, T2 shields/armour and barely getting Autocannons. That single ship had a combat strength of ~1100 when my entire fleet was around 2200.
Of course, that was a little while back and my fleet has grown since then. However, I spotted a Pirate fleet running around in the backyard of some other poor smuck. You want to know what really made me shudder? A singular ship with 40,000 hull and a combat strength of 9.3k, most of which I suspect is just from that hull value.
Was that one of those pirate, uh, dreadnoughts? Not sure what they're classified as so I'll go with dreadnought.
That thing was crazy and I want one. Even with a 50k fleet that thing took a long time to kill. Well, a long time for a single ship I suppose. I only lost a few destroyers in the process.
On a different note, is there a way to mass disband wormhole stations?
I was running in to an annoying situation were I'd integrate a vassal who used wormholes and suddenly my energy economy tanks because I just became the proud owner of, like, a million wormhole stations.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Started a new game with the Star Wars A Galaxy Divided mod.
Its set at basically the beginning of the SW universe (I.e. before the Republic was founded, although the races that founded it start off pretty much next to each other and allied to each other)
Naturally I chose the Sith Empire who start in the far corner of the galaxy away from everyone else with 2 planets. Already i've conquered 4 planets before i even met another empire. (the Mon Calamari.)
I plan on making no friends and going to war with everyone almost as soon as I meet them. Whats the worst that could happen
So fuck allies. Lost my homeworld in what should have been a manageable war, but my enemies allies captured every planet of both my federation members, pushing the warscore so against me that I couldn't make headway quick enough. I never saw my ally's 5k fleet, but judging by how often I was fighting 8k of each of my opponents, they should have been able to take their planets back. Never once tried.
My first Heinlein game is going pretty well. Spiritualist/militarist/xenophobic; I've been cleansing border worlds and occasionally purging aliens who I have to take into my empire when I conquer capital worlds.
I own ~1/4th of the galaxy and I've terraformed the biggest planets into industrial powerhouses. The Unbidden appeared in the middle of my empire, but I was eventually able to close the portal and wear down their fleets.
The two awakened FEs are on the far side of the galaxy, and at this point they are each only superior to me in fleet strength. Unfortunately, they formed an anti-crisis federation with each other, and now they're sticking together even though the Unbidden are gone. I am uncertain what to do about it.
Maybe, hopefully, the Swarm will give them some trouble; I think I saw the first event in that chain fire a few years ago.
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Well, my game is hitting an interesting mid-game situation.
To my West, there's an Enimatic Observer FE who's content with petting my empire on the head and giving it treats every here and there. Nothing of interest over there but I don't want to put border friction on them.
So my south west are two huge in area empires. However as a Wormhole race, I haven't been able to probe past them very well because one of them closed their borders and I can't be bothered building wormhole stations to skip around them.
To my East is a blob of empires which are stringing up into a fairly large federation, with one member being significantly larger than the others, having two protectorates and one vassal which is in the process of being integrated. That fledgling federation I've marked as being a danger sign because soon they're going to hit rapid expansion. Fortunately there's a few huge pirate fleets running around in there including that 9k super-ship I mentioned earlier
I'm estimating that no other empire aside from the FEs can match mine in terms of fleet power. I have 14k fleet strength which I could probably split three ways and still demolish anything anyone else can throw at me with minimal losses and certainly none of the cruisers would be taken down with 55-65% armour and double shield capacitors to provide ablative HP. Battleship tech is being researched and I expect each of those battleships to be unstoppable. However, that alliance/federation is getting rather big and blobby and I do not want to cede too much territory as I'm about to expand big time towards the core and could probably partition off nearly a quarter of the galaxy as mine.
Although I do have a massive amount of fleet power, I can't afford to keep them operational for long and I have no idea where the big homeworlds are to force an early end to wars. I think my priority is to get some additional tech and terraform some of the 24-25 size planets I have earmarked to turn them into energy worlds so I can afford to keep the grand fleet running. If I can do that, then I'll win any war that gets thrown at me. So, Cold War it is. There's going to be lots of border friction and nasty words but even in a Federation I don't think that lot will want to ignite it into a hot war because I'll just stall and destroy all their fleets and infrastructure.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I got a message about strange signals on the edge of galactic space, or something like that, and our response was something like: We'll just have to see what comes of this
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
Mine are rich but are not spending anything on their undeveloped land
You have to turn off both space construction and military station construction. Else it seems the ai goes "Crap, what if i need to make stations THIS MOMENT" and reserves a bunch of minerals. Or something.
My first Heinlein game is going pretty well. Spiritualist/militarist/xenophobic; I've been cleansing border worlds and occasionally purging aliens who I have to take into my empire when I conquer capital worlds.
Same here. I feel militaristic empires really get the short end of the stick with how wargoals work. Only getting one or two systems per war makes expansion a chore. All my neighbors are in a federation together, so I can't even alternate my wars between them. Being a ~ -2000 opinion with most empires thanks to the frequent puring isn't that fun either.
I do love that Paradox has zero doubts about what you want to play when you take that ethics combination. My Imperium of Man is slowly conquering the galaxy from the dirty xeno heretics for the glory of the Emperor.
I am not really sure why the artificial war limit exists when there is already a clear risk of rioting and rebelling factions becoming a huge problem if you expand too fast since you'll quickly run out of enough influence to deal with multiple large unhappy factions.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Go for vassilization. Much easier to expand your empire that way.
Taking one or two planets at a time is really more for less expansionistic empires who have more legitimate war goals. Pops on the planet, secure specific resources, or for future strategic reasons (i.e. securing a path to other empires).
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I can see why it's annoying when you're trying to conquer folks none stop. I think in no small part to the shitty army gameplay you have to go through. Wiz (game lead) has said he hates that aspect of warfare, so I'm positive it'll be gone in some future update.
It's much less annoying when the Fallen Empire wakes up real grumpy next door to you and decides that they're done with your ant-like bullshit.
I am not really sure why the artificial war limit exists
Because it forces the game to be different from Civ, etc., where war is always absolute.
It's one of the things that I really, really like about Paradox strategy games.
Thing is if you're playing a heavily militaristic conquistador species, you typically don't give a shit about silly little things like "rules of engagement" or "sentient rights". Why would you care about "war goals"? Oh boo hoo, not respecting them would make you look bad in the eyes of aliens that you are going to kill anyway, so sad.
short summary: Unbidden are getting rejiggered so it's not all about taking out their portal before they overwhelm you. Now they build Anchor stations that spread their borders, reduce the time it take for their fleets to spawn, and makes the portal invulnerable until they're all gone.
Also, there will be a chance for random events that spawn precursor anomalies inside your borders so you can still finish them after everyone has explored the who galaxy.
Full text:
Hi and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we’re going to talk about some of the things we’re adding in the upcoming Kennedy update.
The Extradimensionals didn't work quite as we had imagined them. Players were more or less forced to throw everything they had at their dimensional portal, but there was no way to slowly push them back. The mechanics through which they received reinforcements also felt a bit too arbitrary, so we decided to shake things up a bit.
As before, the Unbidden care little for planets (aside from harvesting their populations). They are an entirely space-based civilization, but now they will also build a new class of station: Dimensional Anchors. These Anchors increase the ability of the Unbidden to bring in reinforcements from their portal. The more Anchors they have constructed, the shorter the time between their reinforcement waves. In addition to that, they will also bring in a new fleet from their portal every time an Anchor finishes construction.
As long as an Anchor is active, the Dimensional Portal will be indestructible.
Anchors are very large stations, and they take a long time for the Unbidden to build. They also function as Frontier Outposts, in that they generate borders. If you see one under construction, you may want to consider a preemptive strike before it comes online…
Overall these changes mean that the Extradimensionals can no longer simply be defeated with a single surgical strike once they have had time to establish themselves in the galaxy, but also that they don’t get unlimited and instant reinforcements, so you can wear them down in a war of attrition.
Our illustrious Art Department has not been idle while we worked on these changes. They have added new death animations for all Extradimensional ships and stations:
Extradimensional Constructors have also been given a new effect when they are building stations:
We have also revisited the Precursor anomalies. It was much too difficult (sometimes impossible) to collect all six artifacts needed to finish their chains. As you approach the mid-game now, there is a chance that you will get a new event that spawns an additional anomaly somewhere inside your space.
That’s all for today! Next week we’ll be talking about new Achievements coming in the Kennedy update.
I am not really sure why the artificial war limit exists
Because it forces the game to be different from Civ, etc., where war is always absolute.
It's one of the things that I really, really like about Paradox strategy games.
Thing is if you're playing a heavily militaristic conquistador species, you typically don't give a shit about silly little things like "rules of engagement" or "sentient rights". Why would you care about "war goals"? Oh boo hoo, not respecting them would make you look bad in the eyes of aliens that you are going to kill anyway, so sad.
Yeah, but that goes for all of their other games, too, and I still prefer it to the Civ-alternative.
It's gamey, yeah, but I think it makes for a better game when you can reasonably expect to survive a war and for your opponent to survive if you win.
There are times in EU4 or Stellaris where the right answer is: become a vassal and marshal your power until you're strong enough to break free, or stifled internal dissent, or whatever.
I like this, this is a good decision to put into their games.
There are times in EU4 or Stellaris where the right answer is: become a vassal and marshal your power until you're strong enough to break free, or stifled internal dissent, or whatever.
I like this, this is a good decision to put into their games.
Starting off as a vassal and working your way up is basically standard gameplay in Crusader Kings. Though the diplomatic options open to you are considerably wider there. I'm hoping that this hinted cultural update will help out Stellaris on that front.
There are times in EU4 or Stellaris where the right answer is: become a vassal and marshal your power until you're strong enough to break free, or stifled internal dissent, or whatever.
I like this, this is a good decision to put into their games.
Starting off as a vassal and working your way up is basically standard gameplay in Crusader Kings. Though the diplomatic options open to you are considerably wider there. I'm hoping that this hinted cultural update will help out Stellaris on that front.
They did mention last dev diary that making it so federations could eventually unify into a single state is in the "to do" list.
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Actually, from what I understand, anomalies can only show the first time any empire scans the planet in question, Human or AI. Even if you don't trade in star charts you can never get an anomaly from a world that has been scanned by another empire. It's why you pretty much never find anomalies in other empire's borders, unless it was a world that had space monsters until you cleared them out.
Now, I don't know about things like Living Metal (Though I do believe that sharing star charts won't tell you if there is any enclaves in that system, which is a fucking pain) but the normal anomalies -including precursor chains- always dry up by the midgame due to everything being scanned, barring some bit of spiral that starter FTLs couldn't reach because of a fallen empire or somesuch.
Just be aware if you do decide to leave the federation your former allies might not take too kindly to your new found independence. In the case of one of my former games in the form of an attempted invasion.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Federations are for the good of everyone involved. Gotta throw them some bones too. Get stronger together.
And be sure to encourage emigration! Come your inevitable betrayal you'll be well placed to detonate tailored virus bombs to rid the galaxy of the filthy xenos and your legions of terror will find local populations of actual people to subjugate.
I'm looking forward to that! The collectivist/individualist split has always been a bit weird.
Isn't this literally how it works now if you click colonize on a planet? Select the pop you want and where you want them to drop, and it autobuilds the colony ship, auto-sends them to the planet, and auto-builds the colony.
quote trees yay!
Yes, if you use the Colonization Planner, you find a planet, click colonize then select from ALL available populations (even if they can't colonize).
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
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I mean, i can see some kinda sorta possibilities to beat them - but those are game as fuck, and involve either: abusing the warscore system (and frankly, that's going to involve tedious amounts of micro to get the timing perfect), or the invincible corvette bug (Via stacking evasion modifiers, you can get corvettes with 101% evasion. This promptly breaks things, as far as i can tell).
It's hugely frustrating, because i love the aesthetic and idea of FE's waking up and getting pissy with everyone, but the implementation is just drowning you under a severe case of My Numbers are Bigger Than Yours - and in single player, there's no reliable way to be able to fight them head on, as your erstwhile allies are going to be dumb as a sack of bricks. (Heck, the AE's dumb as a sack of bricks too. It's just that it's very hard to outwit a Greater Angry Space Brick)
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
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Rambling aside I did notice that one of the options was to somehow declare yourself to the FE, it seemed a different option from vassalisation whatever that's worth. So I wonder if there isn't some gameplay locked behind this? As has been discussed elsewhere in the thread, Paradox games are designed so you don't have to be top dog to get good gameplay out of them. Less so so far in Stellaris' case, but it'll certainly be there.
Also are there any other FEs in your galaxy? There's a decent chance that another one will wake up and you'll be able to play them off against each other. Subjugate yourself to one of them and plot your revenge!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
All the various ways of vassalizing yourself to a FE cripple you in some fashion (the current FE is a materialist, so i'd loose 25% of my research. Which, given i desperately need repeatable techs to catch up with them...) - and to get out, you then have to declare war on them ANYWAY. So there's really not much point. As to other FEs - There's been other fes in all the games iv'e hit the FE wakes up and goes on a rampage. None of them have ever done crap about it.
Believe me, this is not a first time it's happened, arrgh thing - I've played a ton of games since the patch trying to problem-solve this. The only solutions i'm seeing are either incredibly artificial, gamey-ones, or having a truly extraordinary run of luck.
There probably is a solution! I hope. But it's no longer actually fun to play the game to find it, if that makes sense?
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But yes, this is super gamey and I wasn't really happy that it was the only real way to fight with them.
EDIT: what's really frustrating is that there's no legitimate way to have a 600k fleet without owning the entire galaxy.
If you are then it seems like a good opportunity to put some serious hurt on other empires without fear of reprisal.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
IIRC you can, but satellites (the materialist AE vassal) lose a big chunk of their research, so it slows down you getting the tech you need to stand a decent chance against the AE.
It seems to me like AE's are absolutely not suppose to be something you take on alone, problem is it seems to be rather arbitrary as to whether or not you can get anyone else to join together to fight as one, rather than go nameless henchmen on an action movie hero and attack and fail one at a time.
When an FE awakens, you get a significant relationship boost with pretty much everyone else in the galaxy due to their being terrified of the FE.
The intent is either to side with the FE, build a Federation to oppose them, or (if you're the fanatical purifier type) have built up a massive enough industrial base to wear them down and take them out, which is actually very, very possible. Killing their fleet in one go? Maybe not. But lure them into Death Blossom traps and a decent sized fleet built specifically to counter them, and you're gonna do a shit-ton of damage. If you're playing a conquerer, you should be able to handle losing 2 or 3 wars before it starts having a serious impact on your empire, and that's plenty of opportunity to wear them down through attrition. If you're playing a Purifier/Aggressive conquerer and can't take out an FE by the time they awaken and fight you, you've done screwed up at some point, since you should be able to have like 4 or 5 battleships being churned out at a time constantly with a whole bunch of corvs being produced as an ablative shield, even in a small galaxy.
But for everyone else, yeah, it is very much intended that you form a federation at that point to oppose them, which really shouldn't be that difficult. You might have to tweak your policies a bit, give out a few research agreements and stuff, but definitely doable.
You'll still want to make heavy use of station traps though, since those modules are a big advantage (-15% enemy firepower, -25% enemy shield, constant health and massive shield regen to your own dudes) and the stations don't add to your fleet cap.
And if you're not able to do that, yeah, the point is to sign on with the FE or go down fighting them. Working with them can actually be enjoyable, it's not really a bad thing! Even if you get a 25% research malus or whatever, you also get as much time as you need to make up for it, because it's not like the FE fleets are getting any more advanced.
Edit:
Which isn't to say that the current way it's done overall is particularly good, a lot of the current war system as a whole is implemented super poorly, some of the FE stuff seems weird and bad or super annoying, a lot of Federation stuff just plain seems to not work, but I find people tend to overstate the difficulty of a lot of stuff in this game, and most of what they complain about is because there's stuff they haven't looked at or bothered figuring out that they're doing wrong or they have some specific way they want to play and refuse to adapt to circumstances. And frankly there's some of that where it's kind of the games fault (actually figuring out what the enemy is fielding so you can adjust your fleet composition, actually figuring out how different compositions compare, some really stupid stuff with diplomacy that is rather gamey to work around) but a bunch that isn't (people complaining about losing science ships to wildlife in the early game because they refuse to scout with their corvettes first is one of the most common complaints I see, even though the game gives you corvettes to start with for that exact reason and you have literally nothing else to do with them at that point in the game)
Each type of FE has a different set of requirements they ask of you. Not sure what they all are. Mine just wanted me to ban AI, which sure why not.
The big bonus to me so far is that my awoken empire isn't interested in taking worlds for themselves, so every war they win they just give the conquered worlds to me.
I'm still not clear on what exactly they are waging their wars for. None of the empires they defeated have been made to become satalites or vassals or anything. I assume they're just making empires ban AI.
I do know that another of the awoken empires in my game required their members to switch to Divine Mandate.
The third awoken empire in my game is basically Space 'Merica. Freedom, justice, and a unified front against the galactic threat.
The forth is still a fallen empire and hasn't awoke yet. However it is a militaristic one so its probably going to be bad time when they do finally wake.
That all said, yeah I think the AE mechanic needs tweaking. Once they awake literally all pre-existing federations and such instantly disintegrate and I think that is bullshit.
And the most recent event? "Oh hai thar, we have this surplus old battlecruiser we'll like you to have because the galaxy is a dangerous place y'know and we don't want you do die out lolololol. Oh, we've also replaced all the super advanced tech and replaced it with stuff you have some chance of recognising. Have fun!"
I initially thought that I'd get a Battleship class vessel with components maybe 1 tier higher than my current and I dunno what they were thinking when my empire was the biggest kid in the block aside from the FE itself. Nope. The thing is a FE Battlecruiser, not a battleship. It has 2 Particle Lances, 2 T5 Lasers, 4 T5 Mass Drivers, 1 Fighter + Bomber wings, T4 shields, T5 armour and 2x shield capacitors. This is when I'm puttering around with Destroyers, T2 shields/armour and barely getting Autocannons. That single ship had a combat strength of ~1100 when my entire fleet was around 2200.
Of course, that was a little while back and my fleet has grown since then. However, I spotted a Pirate fleet running around in the backyard of some other poor smuck. You want to know what really made me shudder? A singular ship with 40,000 hull and a combat strength of 9.3k, most of which I suspect is just from that hull value.
Was that one of those pirate, uh, dreadnoughts? Not sure what they're classified as so I'll go with dreadnought.
That thing was crazy and I want one. Even with a 50k fleet that thing took a long time to kill. Well, a long time for a single ship I suppose. I only lost a few destroyers in the process.
On a different note, is there a way to mass disband wormhole stations?
I was running in to an annoying situation were I'd integrate a vassal who used wormholes and suddenly my energy economy tanks because I just became the proud owner of, like, a million wormhole stations.
Its set at basically the beginning of the SW universe (I.e. before the Republic was founded, although the races that founded it start off pretty much next to each other and allied to each other)
Naturally I chose the Sith Empire who start in the far corner of the galaxy away from everyone else with 2 planets. Already i've conquered 4 planets before i even met another empire. (the Mon Calamari.)
I plan on making no friends and going to war with everyone almost as soon as I meet them. Whats the worst that could happen
I own ~1/4th of the galaxy and I've terraformed the biggest planets into industrial powerhouses. The Unbidden appeared in the middle of my empire, but I was eventually able to close the portal and wear down their fleets.
The two awakened FEs are on the far side of the galaxy, and at this point they are each only superior to me in fleet strength. Unfortunately, they formed an anti-crisis federation with each other, and now they're sticking together even though the Unbidden are gone. I am uncertain what to do about it.
Maybe, hopefully, the Swarm will give them some trouble; I think I saw the first event in that chain fire a few years ago.
To my West, there's an Enimatic Observer FE who's content with petting my empire on the head and giving it treats every here and there. Nothing of interest over there but I don't want to put border friction on them.
So my south west are two huge in area empires. However as a Wormhole race, I haven't been able to probe past them very well because one of them closed their borders and I can't be bothered building wormhole stations to skip around them.
To my East is a blob of empires which are stringing up into a fairly large federation, with one member being significantly larger than the others, having two protectorates and one vassal which is in the process of being integrated. That fledgling federation I've marked as being a danger sign because soon they're going to hit rapid expansion. Fortunately there's a few huge pirate fleets running around in there including that 9k super-ship I mentioned earlier
I'm estimating that no other empire aside from the FEs can match mine in terms of fleet power. I have 14k fleet strength which I could probably split three ways and still demolish anything anyone else can throw at me with minimal losses and certainly none of the cruisers would be taken down with 55-65% armour and double shield capacitors to provide ablative HP. Battleship tech is being researched and I expect each of those battleships to be unstoppable. However, that alliance/federation is getting rather big and blobby and I do not want to cede too much territory as I'm about to expand big time towards the core and could probably partition off nearly a quarter of the galaxy as mine.
Although I do have a massive amount of fleet power, I can't afford to keep them operational for long and I have no idea where the big homeworlds are to force an early end to wars. I think my priority is to get some additional tech and terraform some of the 24-25 size planets I have earmarked to turn them into energy worlds so I can afford to keep the grand fleet running. If I can do that, then I'll win any war that gets thrown at me. So, Cold War it is. There's going to be lots of border friction and nasty words but even in a Federation I don't think that lot will want to ignite it into a hot war because I'll just stall and destroy all their fleets and infrastructure.
Regular dumb or like, Stein supporter dumb?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
They still seem extremely dumb
Mine are rich but are not spending anything on their undeveloped land
I guess not?
I don't know
I got a message about strange signals on the edge of galactic space, or something like that, and our response was something like: We'll just have to see what comes of this
You have to turn off both space construction and military station construction. Else it seems the ai goes "Crap, what if i need to make stations THIS MOMENT" and reserves a bunch of minerals. Or something.
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http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
it didn't stop them from being a dick, but they did open their borders so I could corvette the portal to death.
I do love that Paradox has zero doubts about what you want to play when you take that ethics combination. My Imperium of Man is slowly conquering the galaxy from the dirty xeno heretics for the glory of the Emperor.
Taking one or two planets at a time is really more for less expansionistic empires who have more legitimate war goals. Pops on the planet, secure specific resources, or for future strategic reasons (i.e. securing a path to other empires).
Because it forces the game to be different from Civ, etc., where war is always absolute.
It's one of the things that I really, really like about Paradox strategy games.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
It's much less annoying when the Fallen Empire wakes up real grumpy next door to you and decides that they're done with your ant-like bullshit.
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Thing is if you're playing a heavily militaristic conquistador species, you typically don't give a shit about silly little things like "rules of engagement" or "sentient rights". Why would you care about "war goals"? Oh boo hoo, not respecting them would make you look bad in the eyes of aliens that you are going to kill anyway, so sad.
short summary: Unbidden are getting rejiggered so it's not all about taking out their portal before they overwhelm you. Now they build Anchor stations that spread their borders, reduce the time it take for their fleets to spawn, and makes the portal invulnerable until they're all gone.
Also, there will be a chance for random events that spawn precursor anomalies inside your borders so you can still finish them after everyone has explored the who galaxy.
Full text:
Yeah, but that goes for all of their other games, too, and I still prefer it to the Civ-alternative.
It's gamey, yeah, but I think it makes for a better game when you can reasonably expect to survive a war and for your opponent to survive if you win.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I like this, this is a good decision to put into their games.
Starting off as a vassal and working your way up is basically standard gameplay in Crusader Kings. Though the diplomatic options open to you are considerably wider there. I'm hoping that this hinted cultural update will help out Stellaris on that front.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
They did mention last dev diary that making it so federations could eventually unify into a single state is in the "to do" list.