cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
Finally "finished" a game I was very happy with.
I played xenophobe pacifists and abused the early traditions to expand like crazy. By the time I dropped pacificist to embrace militarist, I controlled a third of the galaxy. Then I dominated the rest. Fun stuff.
Incidentally I also finished a game. My first actually finished game.
My Fanatic Xenophile/Spiritualist frogs conquered the universe (including an Awakened Archivist). Why? Because we love everyone else so much and want them to be a part of our own glorious geneticly enhanced Empire. A federation just isn't close enough for us.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It wasn't my initial goal to actually play to victory, I was just going for the 1000 Minerals a Month achievement, but I ended up sticking with it because I was pretty close.
It was me and another empire that was the same color as me in a federation, and then there were two other big empires that were allied but not federated... until the bigger one decided to break its treaties with the other and attack it... which then meant that one gave up on rivaling us and joined our federation... after that it was a simple matter of colonizing some planets already within my borders to get the requisite number of planets.
So, in my most recent game, I got infiltrated and conquered by the most unlikely of sources. The Curators.
I was running a Democratic civilization with Pacifist/Egalitarian. I didn't go nuts with expansion, so I was rich pretty early. Quickly maxxed out energy credits and minerals, so I was dumping off credits to the Curators whenever I got full. So, like you would expect, I eventually hired one of their scientists. This was the start of my downfall.
One or two elections later, this scientist appears on the roster. Seeing as he is my best science person, I immediately support a candidate that opposes him. Suspiciously, the Curator Scientist wins the election. I should have known something was wrong. My glorious race of pacifist turtles ruled by an alien science man. He is not even from around here!
Things got weird when the next election rolls around. Suddenly, the list of candidates is just one. Dr. Curator Man. No one can run in opposition to him. The next election, same thing. And the one after that. And the one after that. Basically just endless loops of the Curator electing himself my leader and I cannot do anything about it.
So, I guess I am just a puppet state of the secret Curator regime. Let me be warning to everyone out there. They cannot be trusted.
So, in my most recent game, I got infiltrated and conquered by the most unlikely of sources. The Curators.
I was running a Democratic civilization with Pacifist/Egalitarian. I didn't go nuts with expansion, so I was rich pretty early. Quickly maxxed out energy credits and minerals, so I was dumping off credits to the Curators whenever I got full. So, like you would expect, I eventually hired one of their scientists. This was the start of my downfall.
One or two elections later, this scientist appears on the roster. Seeing as he is my best science person, I immediately support a candidate that opposes him. Suspiciously, the Curator Scientist wins the election. I should have known something was wrong. My glorious race of pacifist turtles ruled by an alien science man. He is not even from around here!
Things got weird when the next election rolls around. Suddenly, the list of candidates is just one. Dr. Curator Man. No one can run in opposition to him. The next election, same thing. And the one after that. And the one after that. Basically just endless loops of the Curator electing himself my leader and I cannot do anything about it.
So, I guess I am just a puppet state of the secret Curator regime. Let me be warning to everyone out there. They cannot be trusted.
Check your Policy/Edicts page and prohibit non-member species from being able to hold office.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we'll be talking about some changes to ship balance, components and behaviour coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update. All changes mentioned here are part of the free update.
Dressing the Corvettes
As anyone who follows the regular discussions in the Stellaris community would have a hard time not knowing, the hot balance topic of the last month or two has been 'naked corvettes'. The term naked corvette refers to using a basic corvette hull fitted with only basic, starting weaponry, eschewing shields, armor and more advanced technology. The reason this is considered such a powerful strategy is because these corvettes are extremely cost-efficient: While a fully fitted out corvette with all the best technologies might be two to three times more effective, it also costs up to ten times as much due to the fact that component mineral cost scales far more than their actual effectiveness, particularly for weapons.
In order to address this, we've gone over the cost of essentially every component and ship hull in the game. The base cost of the corvette hull was raised (a starting corvette now costs 100 instead of ~60), component costs were reduced, and the way component cost increases with technology was majorly cut down: Where a small blue laser would previously cost twice as much as a small red laser, it now only costs 3.5 minerals to the red lasers' 3.0, an increase of only ~16% instead of 100%. Similar changes were done to utility and required components, and many components had their base cost majorly slashed, so that it should now always be worthwhile to use those hard-earned technologies to upgrade your ships.
While we were changing the ship component costs, we also decided to make some more general balance changes. Many weapons and utilities had their values tuned to be more balanced, here are some of the highlights:
* Flak is now a Point-Defense slot weapon with a high power cost. It has a faster firing rate and better tracking than regular PD, making it ideal to defend against highly evasive missiles and strike craft.
* Strike craft had their evasion buffed, making them harder to bring down quickly without massed PD.
* Missiles and strike craft had their speed majorly increased, so they will no longer take so long to reach the enemy once the fireworks start.
* Tier 1 weapons were rebalanced to make mass drivers no longer the best choice in every situation at the start of the game.
Additionally, we've also made some changes to the targeting algorithm to make it less 'optimal'. Ships will now have a tendency to continue firing on whatever ship they were firing on, so long as that ship is a relatively sensible target for them. In other words, a large weapon will switch from targeting corvettes to targeting battleships the moment it can do so, but a ship armed with disruptors will not automatically switch targets the second the target ship's shields go down, as this targeting hyperefficiency resulted in specialized weapons being far, far better in combat than their stats would indicate. This does not mean they will *always* keep firing at the same ship, as there is randomness involved, just that they're more likely to.
Missile Retargeting
A frequent complaint about missiles is that their effectiveness is greatly reduced by 'overkill'. What this means is that a number of ships will fire missiles at a single ship, and once say, half of those missiles hit, the ship dies and the other half self-destruct. This results in a lot of wasted shots, particularly when fighting corvettes that can't take a whole lot of hits to begin with. In 1.8, we've added the ability for missiles to retarget. What this means is that each missile has a 'retargeting range', and if their original target dies, they will seek out another target within that retargeting range. Missiles will always retarget at least once, and can potentially retarget multiple times, though each time after the first is less likely. This should address the issue of overkill without having packs of missiles roaming wildly between 20 different targets in lopsided battles.
Destroyer Combat Behaviour
Finally, we've also taken the time to address a common complaint about destroyers. Destroyers are meant to be picket ships that can be fitted with a lot of PD, but their cautious combat behaviour means that the cruisers and corvettes will charge ahead of them, straight into enemy missiles and strike craft, resulting in their PD being of little use. To fix this, the destroyer combat computers have been changed to use a new behaviour, called 'Picket behaviour'. Picket behaviour means that the ship will advance ahead and attempt to intercept enemy missile boats and strike craft, putting their PD cannons to proper use on the frontline.
That's all for today! Next week we'll... well... you'll just have to wait a week to see what next week's dev diary is all about. It's gonna be a big one, though.
I had a really good game going, but I think a new patch came out so I probably can't play it any more. I had 4 of the top 6 powers in my federation, there was no stopping us. Unfortunately we stood for nothing except preservation. It would be cool to see Federations have "ideals" of their own, and maybe even allow overlapping? Like you could have the current federations, which are basically defense pacts that can declare war. But you could have democratic crusaders feds, peacekeeper feds, expansionist feds. Maybe even things like Economic unions and research unions?
So, for my new game I'm thinking Orions Arm inspired. Large as possible with as few as possible civs. Might be interesting.
The federation ideals idea is great and someone should send it to Paradox! It might even work well as a late game influence currency burner; set an ideal you want in your fed, set a conviction level (influence/month) and let the game calculate and possibly slowly shift ideals over time.
I had a really good game going, but I think a new patch came out so I probably can't play it any more. I had 4 of the top 6 powers in my federation, there was no stopping us. Unfortunately we stood for nothing except preservation.. [snip]
If you want to pick that game back up again, you can roll back the update - under the betas tab you can pick from to the latest hotfix of each major patch. (Right-click the title in Steam, [Properties], [Betas]) Leave the password field blank.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we'll be talking about some changes to ship balance, components and behaviour coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update. All changes mentioned here are part of the free update.
Dressing the Corvettes
As anyone who follows the regular discussions in the Stellaris community would have a hard time not knowing, the hot balance topic of the last month or two has been 'naked corvettes'. The term naked corvette refers to using a basic corvette hull fitted with only basic, starting weaponry, eschewing shields, armor and more advanced technology. The reason this is considered such a powerful strategy is because these corvettes are extremely cost-efficient: While a fully fitted out corvette with all the best technologies might be two to three times more effective, it also costs up to ten times as much due to the fact that component mineral cost scales far more than their actual effectiveness, particularly for weapons.
In order to address this, we've gone over the cost of essentially every component and ship hull in the game. The base cost of the corvette hull was raised (a starting corvette now costs 100 instead of ~60), component costs were reduced, and the way component cost increases with technology was majorly cut down: Where a small blue laser would previously cost twice as much as a small red laser, it now only costs 3.5 minerals to the red lasers' 3.0, an increase of only ~16% instead of 100%. Similar changes were done to utility and required components, and many components had their base cost majorly slashed, so that it should now always be worthwhile to use those hard-earned technologies to upgrade your ships.
While we were changing the ship component costs, we also decided to make some more general balance changes. Many weapons and utilities had their values tuned to be more balanced, here are some of the highlights:
* Flak is now a Point-Defense slot weapon with a high power cost. It has a faster firing rate and better tracking than regular PD, making it ideal to defend against highly evasive missiles and strike craft.
* Strike craft had their evasion buffed, making them harder to bring down quickly without massed PD.
* Missiles and strike craft had their speed majorly increased, so they will no longer take so long to reach the enemy once the fireworks start.
* Tier 1 weapons were rebalanced to make mass drivers no longer the best choice in every situation at the start of the game.
Additionally, we've also made some changes to the targeting algorithm to make it less 'optimal'. Ships will now have a tendency to continue firing on whatever ship they were firing on, so long as that ship is a relatively sensible target for them. In other words, a large weapon will switch from targeting corvettes to targeting battleships the moment it can do so, but a ship armed with disruptors will not automatically switch targets the second the target ship's shields go down, as this targeting hyperefficiency resulted in specialized weapons being far, far better in combat than their stats would indicate. This does not mean they will *always* keep firing at the same ship, as there is randomness involved, just that they're more likely to.
Missile Retargeting
A frequent complaint about missiles is that their effectiveness is greatly reduced by 'overkill'. What this means is that a number of ships will fire missiles at a single ship, and once say, half of those missiles hit, the ship dies and the other half self-destruct. This results in a lot of wasted shots, particularly when fighting corvettes that can't take a whole lot of hits to begin with. In 1.8, we've added the ability for missiles to retarget. What this means is that each missile has a 'retargeting range', and if their original target dies, they will seek out another target within that retargeting range. Missiles will always retarget at least once, and can potentially retarget multiple times, though each time after the first is less likely. This should address the issue of overkill without having packs of missiles roaming wildly between 20 different targets in lopsided battles.
Destroyer Combat Behaviour
Finally, we've also taken the time to address a common complaint about destroyers. Destroyers are meant to be picket ships that can be fitted with a lot of PD, but their cautious combat behaviour means that the cruisers and corvettes will charge ahead of them, straight into enemy missiles and strike craft, resulting in their PD being of little use. To fix this, the destroyer combat computers have been changed to use a new behaviour, called 'Picket behaviour'. Picket behaviour means that the ship will advance ahead and attempt to intercept enemy missile boats and strike craft, putting their PD cannons to proper use on the frontline.
That's all for today! Next week we'll... well... you'll just have to wait a week to see what next week's dev diary is all about. It's gonna be a big one, though.
Since my 1.8 playthrough will be a devouring swarm, I'm hoping this means the balance pendulum will have swung towards missiles and strikecraft being OP.
Naked corvettes being a "strong strategy" cracked me up.
Hilarious game breaking oversight that lasted for over a year would be closer to the truth.
Yeah, the big deal was the fact that component upgrades cost far more than they gave in power increases. It's good to see that it's being addressed though I'm still somewhat puzzled on the decision to have mass drivers have both a bonus to shield damage and armor penetration. It takes until mid-high end cruisers and battleships with good (tier 4+) armours to make dedicated anti-armour weapons necessary.
Flak being moved to the PD slot is going to make me a bit sad since destroyers and cruisers with artillery batteries/flak were such awesome powerhouses
That said and all, I for one will welcome the age of missiles + fighter swarm. No space fleet battle should be without a cloud of fighters, missiles and glowy beams of death lancing between opposing fleets.
I was playing my society research-heavy hive mind (because I was trying to bee-line to genetic mastery so I can make everyone else part of my hive mind too) but the downside is they kind of lag behind with physics and engineering technologies.
This led to me being outgunned by neighbouring rivals (because I'm bad at getting gud with hugefuck fleets unless I have a LOT of time) and I thought I'd look up some Stellaris videos, and first discovered this naked corvette deal.
400 cheap and cheerful corvettes added to my fleet later and I bitch-slapped a war on 3 fronts into submission and started my way to making the whole galaxy my vassal.
Well. Now I'll have to redesign my big-gun sniper-destroyers.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
0
Options
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
On Twitter, Martin has retweeted a request to add Space Unicorns and said that if it the original tweet gets 500 retweets he will make sure they are added to the game.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Well. Now I'll have to redesign my big-gun sniper-destroyers.
Should still be able to pack 1-2 PDs on the arty/flak destroyers on the rear module. The problem then though would be power allocation, which will reduce shield capacity and as destroyers are going to be first in to get shot at... hmmm...
STOCKHOLM — Aug. 3, 2017 — Paradox Interactive, a publisher and developer of digital entertainment for organic minds, today announced a new Story Pack for Stellaris, the sci-fi grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studio. The new content, titled “Synthetic Dawn,” will add new ways for players to experience Stellaris, focused primarily on synthetic life forms. Robot workers and citizens can now form entirely mechanical societies at the start of the game and seek greatness among the stars – including the ability to rise up and conquer those squishy organics. Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn will be released for Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs later this year.
Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn provides an all-new way for players to establish their empire across the stars, starting the game as a Machine Empire -- a society made up entirely of robots. Unique game features and event chains will allow the machines to expand as a robotic consciousness, and create an AI-led network that grows to galactic dominance.
Features:
You, Robot: Play Stellaris as a customized robotic civilization, complete with a series of robotic portraits for science robots, worker robots, and more
AI, eh? Aye!: Follow new event chains and story features to lead your robot race to greatness as an intergalactic AI empire; pursue mechanical perfection in the stars
Rise of the Machines: Oppressed synths may rebel against their masters and form new empires -- or you may even discover a fallen synthetic civilization deep in space
Digital Enhancements: New synthetic race portraits, and expanded voice packs for VIR
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about the headline feature of the just-announced Synthetic Dawn Story Pack: Machine Empires. All content covered in this dev diary is part of the story pack, not the free update. Please note that we still do not have an ETA on either the 1.8 update or the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack at this time.
Machine Empires
As the name implies, the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack will allow you to start the game as a civilization that has already cast off the shackles of biology. Machine Empires are essentially robotic hiveminds that have risen up against its creators and supplanted their civilization. Unlike Synthetically Ascended empires, they are not compromised of individuals that have simply been uploaded into robotic bodies, but a single networked intelligence. Machine Empires use the Gestalt Consciousness ethic that is also used by Hive Minds, and have their own Machine Intelligence authority. They share some features with Hive Minds, such as not having to deal with factions and happiness, but differ in a number of key ways.
Machine Empires use the new 'Machine' species class with its own portrait set. All in all, ~12 new machine portraits are planned, including one themed on each existing species class (Fungoid bots, Avian bots, etc) as well as some portraits that are themed around specific roles, such as worker bots or combat bots. Those with the story pack Machine Empires also have their own set of traits (some of which are shared with robots) and civic, including three special civics that have significant effects on gameplay (read below for more information).
A regular Machine Empire is made up entirely of networked drones (exceptions are covered by the special civics below). These drones have to be built using resources (in the same way as robot pops) and different models can be created and built once the Machine Templates technology is researched. They do not require food, instead using energy for maintenance. Organic pops can not be integrated into a machine empire, and must be displaced or purged. A special form of purging called 'Grid Amalgamation' is available to Machine Empires: This form of purging kills pops at a moderate speed, but the pops produce a large amount of energy while being purged (similar to processing for organic empires). Due to their robotic nature, leaders in Machine Empires do not die from old age, but can suffer potentially lethal accidents and malfunctions, though this is fairly rare. Similarly, Machine pops cannot function outside of a Machine Empire, and will break down and be destroyed over time.
As a result of their differing play-style and requirements, Machine Empires have a number of new technologies and buildings available only to them, and are locked out of certain technologies and buildings accessible to organic empires, such as farms and farm upgrades. They also have their own sets of tradition swaps, similar to Hive Minds, including a new 'Versatility' tree that replaces the Diplomacy tree. A number of events have also been tweaked and changed to fit Machine Empires, and they have their own unique personalities, dialogue and interaction with entities such as the Contingency and Fallen Machine Empires.
As mentioned, Machine Empires have access to three special civics that have a major impact on gameplay. These civics are mutually exclusive, and are as follows:
Determined Exterminators
Determined Exterminators are Machine Empires born of a rogue defense system that turned on its creators when they tried to shut it down. After a bitter war in which their creators were wiped out, Exterminators know only conflict, and consider the sterilization of all higher forms of organic life to be necessary to safeguard their own existence. Similar to Fanatical Purifiers, Exterminators receive substantial boosts to their combat ability, but are unable to conduct diplomacy with organic empires and must purge conquered organic Pops. However, unlike Fanatical Purifiers, they have no problem co-existing and co-operating with other synthetic civilizations (including other Machine Empires and ascended Synths). For this reason, their inherent bonuses are weaker than those of a Fanatical Purifier.
Driven Assimilators
Driven Assimilators are Machine Empires that seek to expand their understanding and bridge the gap between the organic and synthetic by assimilating organic individuals into their collective consciousness. They start the game with their creator species present on the planet as assimilated cyborgs, and can make use of the Assimilation citizenship type to integrate conquered organic Pops. Assimilated organic Pops will become cyborgs and work similarly to machines in that they have no happiness and require energy maintenance instead of food, but otherwise function like a regular organic pop and can be modified with the various biological species traits. Driven Assimilators are generally feared and disliked by organic civilizations, though not to the same degree as Exterminators.
Rogue Servitors
Rogue Servitors are robotic servants built by an organic species to make their own lives easier, eventually assuming full control of their creators' civilization. They start with their creator species present on the planet with the Bio-Trophy citizenship type, and can integrate conquered organic Pops by granting them this status. Bio-Trophies are largely useless Pops that require large amounts of consumer goods and can only operate special Organic Sanctuary buildings that produce Unity. However, in addition to the Unity generated by these sanctuaries, Servitors also have a special mechanic called Servitor Morale, representing the Servitors' prime directive to protect and care for organic beings. The greater the percentage of a Rogue Servitors' population that is made up of Bio-Trophies, the higher the Servitor Morale, granting a direct boost to empire influence gain.
That should give you the general overview on Machine Empires, though there is a lot of little details and changes that we cannot cover in a single dev diary. If you want to see a Machine Empire in action, the Extraterrestial Thursday stream starting around the same time that this dev diary is going live will feature a new play-through as a Rogue Servitor empire. Also, next week we continue talking about robots - specifically, mid-game Machine Uprisings.
How quickly do you all expand? It always feels like a mad dash in my games to grab far off worlds. I end end very large but weak in the mid game until I can consolidate my empire.
I usually have one (maybe two) colonies building at a time. Is that to much? Should I take a break between colonies? Should I develop the world myself before handing it over to the AI?
0
Options
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
How many you get early is nearly not as important as where they are. Go a little farther out if you can, so that your territory is larger. Once you have secured as large a border as you can, then build within it. If you spread out slowly and just take nearby stuff, you'll get boxed in.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Aye, my strategy for expansion is to secure as much territory as I can as early as I can, while not overextending myself. That means a high priority is put on building up existing worlds to highest possible economic output, so that taking new planets becomes affordable. That also prepares me with a good economic base for when I run eventually into enemy borders.
So yeah, build up planetary and orbital economies first, in order to expand.
How many you get early is nearly not as important as where they are. Go a little farther out if you can, so that your territory is larger. Once you have secured as large a border as you can, then build within it. If you spread out slowly and just take nearby stuff, you'll get boxed in.
That's what I do, and I also pay attention to what planets my neighbors will want and see if I can cut them off. Normally I won't touch a planet with in my own borders unless its really good or all exterior expansion has been cut off.
But, I can't help but feel I end up with to many underdeveloped planets.
I expand for quality. I want 20+ tiles at a minimum, and place a high priority on systems with more than one habitable planet (even if you need to wait for terraforming) because then you get 2 worlds for the price of 1 core slot.
Also I just specialise planets, I assume most people do? First two are all mineral and all power, then all food and all science. Then pretty much just repeat that. It helps if early on you can find a planet with +20% mineral/energy etc.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
This is all why I love investing in "highly adaptive. " for my species. It lets me pick and choose high value worlds that are also in advantageous locations for expanding my territory. No disappointment at seeing the otherwise perfect world that is flawed only by its climate.
3DS Friend Code:
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
+1
Options
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
The important question though is can my Rogue Servitors... service, other alien species?
If you know what I meaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan
My mental picture definitely involves space restaurants, robot butlers, and just a wide variety of kill-them-with-kindness approaches, but the direction you're going here probably works too.
0
Options
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
I specialize, but based on what inherent bonuses the planet has. I pay attention to the majority tile bonuses and thr planet modifiers.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
I like my planets to be mostly self sufficient in food so that blockades and occupied worlds can't trigger empire wide starvation, but since I normally play as a mechanist that means that just a paradise dome will feed half of the planet's living population.
That said and all, I for one will welcome the age of missiles + fighter swarm. No space fleet battle should be without a cloud of fighters, missiles and glowy beams of death lancing between opposing fleets.
I want both paradigms to be viable. I want huge carrier battles where no ship bothers carry so much as a turret because it would get in the way of hanger space to be viable, I want massive dreadnought battles with nary a fighter in sight because any canon or torpedo tube smaller than a railway tunnel might as well be fighting with sharp sticks to be viable too.
But that's mostly because I really want Stellaris's combat aspects to be more alien than they are. I'm annoyed that every species ends up at very similar tactical apexes eventually, the same way every species has two sexes.
Gameplay wise, I can see what the issues might be.
I expand for quality. I want 20+ tiles at a minimum, and place a high priority on systems with more than one habitable planet (even if you need to wait for terraforming) because then you get 2 worlds for the price of 1 core slot.
Also I just specialise planets, I assume most people do? First two are all mineral and all power, then all food and all science. Then pretty much just repeat that. It helps if early on you can find a planet with +20% mineral/energy etc.
I never specialize planets, I optimize the shit out of them re: tile resources. Leads to a good, balanced economy without "linch pin" worlds whose loss would put me in a bad spot. But I always specialize habitats! They're usually all energy or all research.
I expand for quality. I want 20+ tiles at a minimum, and place a high priority on systems with more than one habitable planet (even if you need to wait for terraforming) because then you get 2 worlds for the price of 1 core slot.
Also I just specialise planets, I assume most people do? First two are all mineral and all power, then all food and all science. Then pretty much just repeat that. It helps if early on you can find a planet with +20% mineral/energy etc.
I never specialize planets, I optimize the shit out of them re: tile resources. Leads to a good, balanced economy without "linch pin" worlds whose loss would put me in a bad spot. But I always specialize habitats! They're usually all energy or all research.
I get a balanced start, but once I can genemod on a whim, I'm just leaving resources on the table if my super strong, industrious drones are out there trying to trade energy credits on the side.
I generally only pay attention to tile resources if the bonus is 2 or greater. I also only really specialize worlds if they have a pretty significant bonus to one resource or another. Gives me the freedom to build what I need when I need it.
This sounds pretty great, hive minds never really appealed to me, but machine empires really do despite being basically the same thing but with robots.
How many you get early is nearly not as important as where they are. Go a little farther out if you can, so that your territory is larger. Once you have secured as large a border as you can, then build within it. If you spread out slowly and just take nearby stuff, you'll get boxed in.
That's what I do, and I also pay attention to what planets my neighbors will want and see if I can cut them off. Normally I won't touch a planet with in my own borders unless its really good or all exterior expansion has been cut off.
But, I can't help but feel I end up with to many underdeveloped planets.
My expansion is usually dictated by where I need to go to stop neighbors from encroaching on me.
How many you get early is nearly not as important as where they are. Go a little farther out if you can, so that your territory is larger. Once you have secured as large a border as you can, then build within it. If you spread out slowly and just take nearby stuff, you'll get boxed in.
That's what I do, and I also pay attention to what planets my neighbors will want and see if I can cut them off. Normally I won't touch a planet with in my own borders unless its really good or all exterior expansion has been cut off.
But, I can't help but feel I end up with to many underdeveloped planets.
My expansion is usually dictated by where I need to go to stop neighbors from encroaching on me.
I expand in a manner that prevents others from expanding.
How many you get early is nearly not as important as where they are. Go a little farther out if you can, so that your territory is larger. Once you have secured as large a border as you can, then build within it. If you spread out slowly and just take nearby stuff, you'll get boxed in.
That's what I do, and I also pay attention to what planets my neighbors will want and see if I can cut them off. Normally I won't touch a planet with in my own borders unless its really good or all exterior expansion has been cut off.
But, I can't help but feel I end up with to many underdeveloped planets.
My expansion is usually dictated by where I need to go to stop neighbors from encroaching on me.
I expand in a manner that prevents others from expanding.
Galactic asshole represent!
I like to play hyperspace-only games, so this is a legitimate tactic.
Posts
I played xenophobe pacifists and abused the early traditions to expand like crazy. By the time I dropped pacificist to embrace militarist, I controlled a third of the galaxy. Then I dominated the rest. Fun stuff.
My Fanatic Xenophile/Spiritualist frogs conquered the universe (including an Awakened Archivist). Why? Because we love everyone else so much and want them to be a part of our own glorious geneticly enhanced Empire. A federation just isn't close enough for us.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It wasn't my initial goal to actually play to victory, I was just going for the 1000 Minerals a Month achievement, but I ended up sticking with it because I was pretty close.
It was me and another empire that was the same color as me in a federation, and then there were two other big empires that were allied but not federated... until the bigger one decided to break its treaties with the other and attack it... which then meant that one gave up on rivaling us and joined our federation... after that it was a simple matter of colonizing some planets already within my borders to get the requisite number of planets.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I was running a Democratic civilization with Pacifist/Egalitarian. I didn't go nuts with expansion, so I was rich pretty early. Quickly maxxed out energy credits and minerals, so I was dumping off credits to the Curators whenever I got full. So, like you would expect, I eventually hired one of their scientists. This was the start of my downfall.
One or two elections later, this scientist appears on the roster. Seeing as he is my best science person, I immediately support a candidate that opposes him. Suspiciously, the Curator Scientist wins the election. I should have known something was wrong. My glorious race of pacifist turtles ruled by an alien science man. He is not even from around here!
Things got weird when the next election rolls around. Suddenly, the list of candidates is just one. Dr. Curator Man. No one can run in opposition to him. The next election, same thing. And the one after that. And the one after that. Basically just endless loops of the Curator electing himself my leader and I cannot do anything about it.
So, I guess I am just a puppet state of the secret Curator regime. Let me be warning to everyone out there. They cannot be trusted.
Check your Policy/Edicts page and prohibit non-member species from being able to hold office.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Hilarious game breaking oversight that lasted for over a year would be closer to the truth.
I had a really good game going, but I think a new patch came out so I probably can't play it any more. I had 4 of the top 6 powers in my federation, there was no stopping us. Unfortunately we stood for nothing except preservation. It would be cool to see Federations have "ideals" of their own, and maybe even allow overlapping? Like you could have the current federations, which are basically defense pacts that can declare war. But you could have democratic crusaders feds, peacekeeper feds, expansionist feds. Maybe even things like Economic unions and research unions?
So, for my new game I'm thinking Orions Arm inspired. Large as possible with as few as possible civs. Might be interesting.
If you want to pick that game back up again, you can roll back the update - under the betas tab you can pick from to the latest hotfix of each major patch. (Right-click the title in Steam, [Properties], [Betas]) Leave the password field blank.
Since my 1.8 playthrough will be a devouring swarm, I'm hoping this means the balance pendulum will have swung towards missiles and strikecraft being OP.
Yeah, the big deal was the fact that component upgrades cost far more than they gave in power increases. It's good to see that it's being addressed though I'm still somewhat puzzled on the decision to have mass drivers have both a bonus to shield damage and armor penetration. It takes until mid-high end cruisers and battleships with good (tier 4+) armours to make dedicated anti-armour weapons necessary.
Flak being moved to the PD slot is going to make me a bit sad since destroyers and cruisers with artillery batteries/flak were such awesome powerhouses
That said and all, I for one will welcome the age of missiles + fighter swarm. No space fleet battle should be without a cloud of fighters, missiles and glowy beams of death lancing between opposing fleets.
This led to me being outgunned by neighbouring rivals (because I'm bad at getting gud with hugefuck fleets unless I have a LOT of time) and I thought I'd look up some Stellaris videos, and first discovered this naked corvette deal.
400 cheap and cheerful corvettes added to my fleet later and I bitch-slapped a war on 3 fronts into submission and started my way to making the whole galaxy my vassal.
Steam profile - Twitch - YouTube
Switch: SM-6352-8553-6516
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Should still be able to pack 1-2 PDs on the arty/flak destroyers on the rear module. The problem then though would be power allocation, which will reduce shield capacity and as destroyers are going to be first in to get shot at... hmmm...
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
And with it, the new Dev Diary
If you know what I meaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan
Well apparently! If you conquer them with "kindness"!
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
I usually have one (maybe two) colonies building at a time. Is that to much? Should I take a break between colonies? Should I develop the world myself before handing it over to the AI?
So yeah, build up planetary and orbital economies first, in order to expand.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
That's what I do, and I also pay attention to what planets my neighbors will want and see if I can cut them off. Normally I won't touch a planet with in my own borders unless its really good or all exterior expansion has been cut off.
But, I can't help but feel I end up with to many underdeveloped planets.
Also I just specialise planets, I assume most people do? First two are all mineral and all power, then all food and all science. Then pretty much just repeat that. It helps if early on you can find a planet with +20% mineral/energy etc.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
My mental picture definitely involves space restaurants, robot butlers, and just a wide variety of kill-them-with-kindness approaches, but the direction you're going here probably works too.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I want both paradigms to be viable. I want huge carrier battles where no ship bothers carry so much as a turret because it would get in the way of hanger space to be viable, I want massive dreadnought battles with nary a fighter in sight because any canon or torpedo tube smaller than a railway tunnel might as well be fighting with sharp sticks to be viable too.
But that's mostly because I really want Stellaris's combat aspects to be more alien than they are. I'm annoyed that every species ends up at very similar tactical apexes eventually, the same way every species has two sexes.
Gameplay wise, I can see what the issues might be.
I never specialize planets, I optimize the shit out of them re: tile resources. Leads to a good, balanced economy without "linch pin" worlds whose loss would put me in a bad spot. But I always specialize habitats! They're usually all energy or all research.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
I get a balanced start, but once I can genemod on a whim, I'm just leaving resources on the table if my super strong, industrious drones are out there trying to trade energy credits on the side.
My expansion is usually dictated by where I need to go to stop neighbors from encroaching on me.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I expand in a manner that prevents others from expanding.
Galactic asshole represent!
I like to play hyperspace-only games, so this is a legitimate tactic.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar