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[Stellaris] Utopia and the new social order of my fanatical purifiers!
You have no diplomatic options other than to declare war on your overlord.
Which is something they really need to work on,I think.
It's the very definition of a vassal. You get to keep your lands but are completely subservient to your overlord on every other matter.
It's just that in CKII you could end up controlling the whole empire yourself if you know what you are doing. I'm guess people were kinda hoping you could do something similar (or at least have a non-violent way of severing ties with your overlord)
Or, at least, more ways of interacting with your overlord and other vassals.
Like, intra-imperial wars, where you're fighting another vassal for control of shared territory, could be a thing. Or where you're allowed to declare your own wars on outside targets with a separate peace timer.
Unless your overlord takes specific policy decisions to make that impossible, which should have the effect that it's slightly easier to get independence factions going between you and other vassals.
As it is, being vassalized (to a non-FE, anyway) is kind of a slow game over in many cases, instead of being just a different kind of game.
I also just learned you can not terraform an already colonized world... time to research more stuff I guess.
On that note... Fuck the sector AI, who went ahead and sent a colony ship to a planet I had already been terraforming for 9000 of the 10000 days required. Not even disabling the "colonize" flag let me take control of that ship and divert it. It was like a Greek tragedy: I could see the impending catastrophe but was powerless to stop it.
That's terrible. Although it occurs to me that I would never experience this since I generally only allow colonies to be established by homeworld citizens. Same for my ground armies. Gotta make sure that every colony and army is loyal to the homeworld above all other concerns.
I also just learned you can not terraform an already colonized world... time to research more stuff I guess.
On that note... Fuck the sector AI, who went ahead and sent a colony ship to a planet I had already been terraforming for 9000 of the 10000 days required. Not even disabling the "colonize" flag let me take control of that ship and divert it. It was like a Greek tragedy: I could see the impending catastrophe but was powerless to stop it.
I just turn off colonize and redevelopment on the sector settings. It could've been worse, they could've settled a pop with some horrible ethics/traits.
I also just learned you can not terraform an already colonized world... time to research more stuff I guess.
On that note... Fuck the sector AI, who went ahead and sent a colony ship to a planet I had already been terraforming for 9000 of the 10000 days required. Not even disabling the "colonize" flag let me take control of that ship and divert it. It was like a Greek tragedy: I could see the impending catastrophe but was powerless to stop it.
I just turn off colonize and redevelopment on the sector settings. It could've been worse, they could've settled a pop with some horrible ethics/traits.
Eh, my empire is pretty pluralist, we take in and care of all sorts. That sweet Gaia terraform though *wistful sigh*
I also just learned you can not terraform an already colonized world... time to research more stuff I guess.
On that note... Fuck the sector AI, who went ahead and sent a colony ship to a planet I had already been terraforming for 9000 of the 10000 days required. Not even disabling the "colonize" flag let me take control of that ship and divert it. It was like a Greek tragedy: I could see the impending catastrophe but was powerless to stop it.
disband the ship?
+2
SolyspPreviously Kane Red RobeRegistered Userregular
edited November 2016
I think the game starts have some sort of sick humor programmed in. I start a game with my militarist/spiritualist crusader race and my neighbors are all spiritualist xenophiles. Okay fine, I'll start a game with my pacifist Federation builders; everyone nearby hates you and wants you to die.
I think the game starts have some sort of sick humor programmed in. I start a game with my militarist/spiritualist crusader race and my neighbors are all spiritualist xenophiles. Okay fine, I'll start a game with my pacifist Federation builders; everyone nearby hates you and wants you to die.
Actually, it does; advance start empires have a higher-than-average chance of spawning as an aggressive type. Mostly likely outcome? Fanatical Purifier.
I think the game starts have some sort of sick humor programmed in. I start a game with my militarist/spiritualist crusader race and my neighbors are all spiritualist xenophiles. Okay fine, I'll start a game with my pacifist Federation builders; everyone nearby hates you and wants you to die.
Actually, it does; advance start empires have a higher-than-average chance of spawning as an aggressive type. Mostly likely outcome? Fanatical Purifier.
It's just like playing multiplayer! Everyone knows every other human player is secretly a Fanatical Purifier regardless of the ethos they picked.
I started again on Hard with habitable planets at 50% (up from 25%) and played it out to the late-game. Everybody went with psionics this game, so the Unbidden showed up. This was the first time I've seen a crisis play out in a sensible way--everybody more or less stopped their petty bickering and built fleets. Shortly before the Unbidden rolled in, a fallen empire on the other side of the galaxy had awakened--I figured (incorrectly) that they were the lesser threat and kept building to combat the Unbidden.
After a few failed engagements, I gave up on station flowers and just built a big pile of long-range battleships, then turned on the "take point" fleet option and let the rest of the galaxy group up on my fleet. We pushed in and sealed the portal. Meanwhile, the now-awakened empire has been declaring war on me and my allies, but doing nothing. I rolled in with everything for one big push, only to have the battle end halfway through when the AI declares a white peace with the awakened empire (probably to my advantage, since I was losing). I spent the next ten years building up to (and then over) my fleet limit on battleships, then declared an offensive war which I won in a single engagement.
So, the crisis played out well, and I might've lost if not for having a strong diplomatic position to begin with (and building a fleet designed specifically to fight the Unbidden). I think that's probably the closest I've seen to the type of end-game crisis the designers intended. The awakened empire, though, behaved strangely--I had positive relations with them the entire time (despite their being fanatic materialists and my having full AI citizenship and lots of synths), and they kept declaring war on my allies while--as far as I can tell--not actually attempting to prosecute the war in a useful way. I ended up winning thanks to a warlike (-15% ship cost), battleship-focused (-20%battleship cost) president that allowed me to simply bury them in ships.
Actually, the Unbidden can show up without anyone getting Jump Drives, and is more likely to show up in a large, crowded galaxy.
This is because the trigger that starts the game to check if the Unbidden shows up is actually T3 FTL, and while the median time with just that is 2000 years, if you have 10 or 20 different empires that have reached T3 that it's checking on...
The more I play the more convinced I am that the sector system is backwards.
You're incentivized to keep your best planets, but that often results in weird-shaped sectors contorting to contain every system AROUND a good system, but not the good system itself, and creates weird situations where you want to sector a new planet until it grows to be better than one of your current core planets and then un-sector it and sector off the old core system instead.
And combined with the subpar sector AI incentivizing players to keep planets under their control until they've built out some/all of the infrastructure and then sectoring off the completed planet, or the fact that the extra ethics divergence from being in a sector makes you want to keep recently-conquered planets in your core until they've converted to your ethics, you often end up with situations where most of an empires 'core' planets are actually half-developed frontier planets and borderline-rebellious conquered worlds, while the peaceful fully-developed planets that are producing the bulk of your research, etc, are sectored off.
The whole system seems like it'd be a lot cleaner and more intuitive if the sector/core division was set up so that each sector had a regional capital system you controlled directly, with the rest of its planets acting like sectored planets currently do and the directly-controlled capital systems replacing the current allotment of core systems and the number of sectors limited the same way core systems are currently.
That way you end up with clear well-organized regions where your core systems stay pretty stable over time and represent your best, most productive, most civilized planets, instead of the rats nests of meandering sectored systems and constantly rotating hodgepodge core systems you currently end up with most of the time.
Sectors is probably the most contested feature in the game. Paradox has said that the AI is never intended to fully replace a thinking player, but there really needs to be ways for the player to interject themselves and overide the AI on some decisions in sectors, even if it has to cost influence or some other penalty.
Also, I really think there needs to be some unique benefit to sectors, rather than just a penalty in energy credits and influence when you're over the cap. Some of the things Wiz has shown off on his twitter feed about how factions will work in Banks makes me hope that sectors will have factions you can interact with for some bonus like extra influence.
The more I play the more convinced I am that the sector system is backwards.
You're incentivized to keep your best planets, but that often results in weird-shaped sectors contorting to contain every system AROUND a good system, but not the good system itself, and creates weird situations where you want to sector a new planet until it grows to be better than one of your current core planets and then un-sector it and sector off the old core system instead.
And combined with the subpar sector AI incentivizing players to keep planets under their control until they've built out some/all of the infrastructure and then sectoring off the completed planet, or the fact that the extra ethics divergence from being in a sector makes you want to keep recently-conquered planets in your core until they've converted to your ethics, you often end up with situations where most of an empires 'core' planets are actually half-developed frontier planets and borderline-rebellious conquered worlds, while the peaceful fully-developed planets that are producing the bulk of your research, etc, are sectored off.
The whole system seems like it'd be a lot cleaner and more intuitive if the sector/core division was set up so that each sector had a regional capital system you controlled directly, with the rest of its planets acting like sectored planets currently do and the directly-controlled capital systems replacing the current allotment of core systems and the number of sectors limited the same way core systems are currently.
That way you end up with clear well-organized regions where your core systems stay pretty stable over time and represent your best, most productive, most civilized planets, instead of the rats nests of meandering sectored systems and constantly rotating hodgepodge core systems you currently end up with most of the time.
Being able to remove wormhole stations inside of sectors would also be GREAT because you know, I build a big network when the technology was still young and now that I don't need half of those stations, I kinda want to get like 40 energy/month back.
1. How do I get a multi-ethnic empire? Specifically, I'd like to take pre-FTL species and just bring them right into the fold.
2. Why is my fleet strength so low? I'm on par with everyone I know tech-wise, and I've built up to my force-limit with ships that have the latest components, but I'm still outclassed by my neighbors, let alone the pirates that spawned on my southern border.
1. How do I get a multi-ethnic empire? Specifically, I'd like to take pre-FTL species and just bring them right into the fold.
2. Why is my fleet strength so low? I'm on par with everyone I know tech-wise, and I've built up to my force-limit with ships that have the latest components, but I'm still outclassed by my neighbors, let alone the pirates that spawned on my southern border.
1. Either migration treaties with existing species, or by integrating vassals in their entirety. For a pre-FTL species you'll have to uplift them into a protectorate, and then wait for them to grow into a fully-fledged vassal before you can integrate
2. Are you upgrading all of your spaceports? Fleet capacity is limited by number of spaceports, and how upgraded they are. Generally speaking, tech is far less of a factor in fleet strength than sheer numbers.
Protectorates btw are an amazing gravy train of influence and you should seek them out wherever you can.
Also, Stone Age Primitives, if herded into reservations, will almost guaranteed emerge asking for citizenship, which you can accept for no penalty and get a new pop type.
1. How do I get a multi-ethnic empire? Specifically, I'd like to take pre-FTL species and just bring them right into the fold.
2. Why is my fleet strength so low? I'm on par with everyone I know tech-wise, and I've built up to my force-limit with ships that have the latest components, but I'm still outclassed by my neighbors, let alone the pirates that spawned on my southern border.
1. I assume you mean multi-species. Pre-FTL races can be brought into the fold by invasion (quickest way, though they have reduced output of a time and severity depending on their tech level, plus they and most other empires will hate you for it) Infiltration (has them come right into the fold, but they have to be at least Machine Age to attempt) or Enlightenment (Can be done at any tech level and no negative consequences, but they start as a protectorate you have to wait 10 years or after they've advanced enough to become a vassal to integrate, whichever comes last) Which ones you can do are based on your polcies, and all of them can possibly be blocked out depending on your empire's ethos (for example, xenophobes can't enlighten, and xenophiles won't do infiltration or invasion)
2. Do you match them in planets? Fleet capacity is based mainly on the number of pops in your empire + the number and level of your planetary stations, and both other those are effectively capped by how many planets you own. It's also worth noting that another empire might be "equivalent" in tech, but because of how their deck of cards played out, might have more military techs (particularly fleet capacity techs) than you do, letting them field a larger and more powerful fleet. Also, "equivalent" in my experience is a much broader term than you would expect, and the actual difference between you and your neighbors might be large enough to translate into a sizable military advantage.
As for the pirates, are we talking about the ones that almost always spawn after your first colony? those should be beatable with a 5 ship fleet with nothing but starting tech, if it's something bigger, it's probably one of the pirate "space alien" fleets that are now part of galaxy generation.
you get a multicultural empire by invading pre space age civs
I did this is my last game, I don't think I built a colony ship till about 100 years into the game and still ended up the biggest empire in the galaxy by a wide margin.
Its a great way to gain new colonies as you only have to pay a one-time small amount of minerals for some troops, instead of 350 minerals + influence per colony ship.
You also get to ignore what type of planet it is, because its native citizens will be the ones populating it, while also expanding the range of planets you can colonise.
Being able to cancel trade agreements would be pretty silly, since you could pretty easily just trade a bunch of energy per turn for lump sums of minerals etc up-front, then cancel the deal after you get paid.
If you're not on ironman, you can roll back to a previous save - the game autosaves extremely often and you can probably grab a save from immediately before the deal.
Alternately the penalties only apply while the deal is ongoing - if it wasn't for an incredibly long time you can probably soak the mineral/influence loss until the deal expires as long as you're not at war (since a deficit also makes all your ships terrible until resolved)
Integrating uplifting vassals seemed like a great idea, but I kept putting it off. Then a forgotten empire woke up, the tech guys, and as the most advanced civilization I was first on the chopping block. My best fleet was like 21k and my federation allies were pathetic losers, so I had no choice but to agree to become their vassals, losing all my vassals in the process.
The lesson is, integrate early, integrate often.
Well on the bright side one of the species that migrated into my civilization somehow has 40% habitability on tomb worlds so I guess I can just colonize unwanted planets for a bit.
The big advantage of a multi species empire is that you can directly colonize almost every world type.
So the paradise gardens are pretty nice, but the symbol of unity is awesome. With information quarantine, spiritual and the symbol my planets can get a total of -30% base ethics divergence.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
And to go along with the 1.4 patch release announcement, are the patch notes:
##############################################################
####################### VERSION 1.4.0 ########################
##############################################################
###################
# Leviathans Story Pack
###################
* Added new introduction event for the Artisan Troupe
* Added encounter event for the Enigmatic Fortress
###################
# Features
###################
* Added 33 new achievements
* No longer possible to build robots on planets belonging to sectors
* Added victory event after defeating the Prethoryn Scourge
* Added new events for discovering additional Precursor anomalies, so that the quest chains can always be completed
* Changed the way the Extradimensionals work: Instead of spawning reinforcements as soon as a fleet is lost, the Extradimensional portal will create new fleets at a fixed rate depending on the number of dimensional anchors the Extradimensionals have placed in the galaxy. Dimensional anchors are a type of station that the Extradimensionals construct, and their main portal is invincible while any dimensional anchors exist in the galaxy. This should make the war against the Extradimensionals more of a long-term fight and less of a surgical strike against the portal.
###################
# Balance
###################
#General
* Evasion is now capped at 90%
* Ship mineral maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% of ship cost
* Ship energy maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% of ship cost
* Afterburners now use the auxiliary slot
* Regular empires now start with 8 pops
* Primitive farms and factories can now be upgraded directly to hydroponics farms/mining networks
* Pirate ships have been reworked slightly and buffed in most cases
* Primitives are now consistent in how many pops, farms and factories they get on each age of development, and get new pops, armies and buildings when advancing through the ages
* Stone age primitives now generate fewer tile blockers
* Space Torpedoes technology now requires Fusion Missiles instead of Nuclear Missiles
* Venerable trait cost reduced from 5 to 4
* Mineral Silos are now restricted to 1 per planet
* Increased max minerals from Mineral Silos from +1000/+1500/+2000 to +2000/+3000/+4000
* Level 3 mineral silo now only provides +1 mineral per adjacent tile
* Increased protectorate tech discount to 95%
* Protectorates can no longer conduct independent diplomacy
* Repeatable technologies have their base cost increased from 1500 to 3000 and their increasing cost increased from 480 to 1000
* Slave Processing Plant now gives +10% slave food/mineral production instead of +5%
* Reduced spawn odds of tomb worlds
* Increased frequency of alien pet deposits
* Reduced warscore costs for planetary and vassalisation wargoals
* Doubled Pre-Sentient Anomaly spawn chances
* Fixed CTD when generating a certain tooltip while the player has no planets
* Pops are no longer upset if an occupier purges Pops on one of your planets
# Components
* Space Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 20 to 10
* Space Torpedo power usage reduced from 20 to 10
* Space Torpedo maximum damage reduced from 260 to 215
* Space Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
* Armored Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 40 to 15
* Armored Torpedo power usage reduced from 40 to 15
* Armored Torpedo damage reduced from 150-300 to 140-280
* Armored Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
* Devastator Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 60 to 20
* Devastator Torpedo power usage reduced from 60 to 20
* Devastator Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
* Devastator Torpedo missile HP reduced from 8 to 6
###################
# AI
###################
#War
* Federation AI is now better at picking wargoals for non-conqueror federations, will focus on retaking planets and liberating larger countries
#Sector
* Major work done to sector AI to make it better at budgeting and utilizing resources
#Diplomacy
* AI will now sometimes gift countries that are at war with their rivals and threats
* AI will no longer ask you to become their vassal multiple times in a row
* AI is now less keen to accept a lot of defensive pacts
* Slowed down AI requests for federation membership/association status to prevent message spam
#Misc
* Fixed a bug where AI would send fleets to deal with pirates, only to retreat due to pirates being stronger
* Fixed a bug where AI was trying to build buildings on tiles that had presentients on them
###################
# User Interface
###################
* Added a setting to disable all auto-unpausing from popups
* Clicking on some resource icons in top bar no longer opens tabs due to being inconsistent
* Construction Ship now sends notification 'fleet order finished' only when the last construction in the queue is finished
* Planet view colonize button opens same surface view window as when planet is clicked from expansion planner
* 'Closed Borders' and 'Truce' are shown as diplomatic statuses
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Garrisons are now properly shown and spawned on occupied worlds.
* Fleets will now prioritize spaceports and military stations over other stations (such as mining stations) in combat.
* Close borders wargoal now forces borders open for the duration of the truce regardless of rivalry status, etc.
* Garrisons are now properly shown and spawned on occupied worlds.
* Fleets will now prioritize spaceports and military stations over other stations (such as mining stations) in combat.
* Ships and weapon components targeting logic now correctly accounts for evasion, so large weapons are much less likely to target corvettes etc
* Fixed armor absorbing too much damage if the ship also had shields left
* Fixed very high armor values negating the effects of armor penetration
* Fixed auto generated ship designs getting wrong combat computers
* Swarm units have had their sound volume adjusted
* Spaceport no longer provide Naval Capacity while under construction
* Fleet view shows current fleet activity instead of order description
* Vassals and overlords no longer gives sensor to each other while at war
* Sector AI will spend own resources instead of players resources when upgrading spaceports
* Uplift species button is locked if no species can be found on any owned planet
* Fixed a bug where some leaders could live forever
* Planets with Stone Age Primitives will no longer generate Anomalies
* Tzynn Empire now starts with the proper number of trait points
* Fixed Nomads getting wrong opinion modifier and habitability trait when allowed to settle on a planet
* Launcher MOD tab scrollbar appears with correct position and size when content overflows container
* Fixed a rare case of portrait duplication caused by prescripted species templates
* Fixed so that NPC ship designs now correctly have PD slots for their PD weapons
* Situation Log entry list of counters grows up instead of down
* Savannah and Alpine worlds now have proper localization in the start screen
* Fixed typo in Frontier Hospital technology description
* Fixed a bug where upgrade fleet progress could display numbers above 100%
* Fixed some outdated hotkey references in tutorial texts
* Fixed frantic twitching animation in diplomacy window for main species
* Fixed reversed fanatic/militarist bonus to rivalry influence
* Fixed some potential event spam when running on high speeds during War in Heaven
* Planet edict modifiers are applied to pops again. Use planet modifier categories when applying planet edict modifiers
* Fixed Continental, Savanna and Alpine worlds not being used for primitive civs
* Enclave governments now get a new ruler when the first one dies
* Primitives that nuke themselves will no longer leave pops on a tomb world where they have no habitability
* Fixed some ships getting stuck in a looping death animation
* Fixed CTD when looking at a ship that fired a shot during the same frame as it died
* Fixed CTD that could happen if ground combat was started on a planet without owner
* Garrison from Pops will no longer spawn on planets that have already been occupied
* Fixed CTD that could happen when assigning a new mission to an observation station
* Fixed various issues with Swarm behaviour
###################
# Graphics
###################
* Tweaked humanoid 02 and 05 portraits
* Added updated clothes textures
* Added fixed clothes for humanoid 05
* Arthropoid battleships sections now all line up
* Galaxy view textures have been updated.
* Extradimensionals' death effects have been updated.
###################
# Modding
###################
* Event chain counter max = -1 means max is ignored. Default value is -1
* Added count_countries trigger
* Script trigger pop_percentage = { percentage > 0.1 limit = { is_robot_pop = yes } }
* new trigger won_with_condition = domination_victory
* Added trigger num_strategic_resources
Overall, the patch is for bug fixes and stuff... very little in the way of balance adjustments. Though there are some...
Ship maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% energy/minerals so a 20% reduction in maintenance.
Evasion is capped at 90% chance
Afterburners are now an Auxiliary slot, which makes them infinitely more useful especially on smaller ships
Torpedoes have been bumped up to Fusion missile pre-req instead of being available effectively right out of the gate in the missile line
Torpedoes have had their damage reduced a bit, but gained 50% armour pen
Stone Age primitives generate less tile blockers (still no word on exterminating them)
Sector AI has been tweaked. Again. Let's hope they're more useful this time
I bought this game last week and have been playing the hell out of it. I essentially made the Vulcans. My fleet size is smaller than a lot of my neighbors but it looks like my technology level and fleet power is easily superior.
So, some things not exactly mentioned in the patch notes:
-Capital World now start with three power plants (two adjacent to capital building) two farms (one adjacent) and two mines (one adjacent) all manned. the 1 power tile that's always covered by a tile blocker is now a 1 mineral tile. No need to spend any resources developing your homeworld until a new pop is fully grown.
-Ethics divergence based on distance from capital appears to be gone (at least, if it still exists, there is a minimum distance before it takes effect). No longer need to go Fanatic Spiritualist/Collectivist to maintain a massive galaxy-wide empire that isn't trying to constantly rebel.
-First step of Precursor chain (i.e. the "You have found the evidence of an ancient race named X") is now auto-completed, no anomaly anymore (though the other pieces that you find on your own still have anomalies).
Posts
Or, at least, more ways of interacting with your overlord and other vassals.
Like, intra-imperial wars, where you're fighting another vassal for control of shared territory, could be a thing. Or where you're allowed to declare your own wars on outside targets with a separate peace timer.
Unless your overlord takes specific policy decisions to make that impossible, which should have the effect that it's slightly easier to get independence factions going between you and other vassals.
As it is, being vassalized (to a non-FE, anyway) is kind of a slow game over in many cases, instead of being just a different kind of game.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
On that note... Fuck the sector AI, who went ahead and sent a colony ship to a planet I had already been terraforming for 9000 of the 10000 days required. Not even disabling the "colonize" flag let me take control of that ship and divert it. It was like a Greek tragedy: I could see the impending catastrophe but was powerless to stop it.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
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I just turn off colonize and redevelopment on the sector settings. It could've been worse, they could've settled a pop with some horrible ethics/traits.
Steam: CavilatRest
Eh, my empire is pretty pluralist, we take in and care of all sorts. That sweet Gaia terraform though *wistful sigh*
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
disband the ship?
Actually, it does; advance start empires have a higher-than-average chance of spawning as an aggressive type. Mostly likely outcome? Fanatical Purifier.
It's just like playing multiplayer! Everyone knows every other human player is secretly a Fanatical Purifier regardless of the ethos they picked.
After a few failed engagements, I gave up on station flowers and just built a big pile of long-range battleships, then turned on the "take point" fleet option and let the rest of the galaxy group up on my fleet. We pushed in and sealed the portal. Meanwhile, the now-awakened empire has been declaring war on me and my allies, but doing nothing. I rolled in with everything for one big push, only to have the battle end halfway through when the AI declares a white peace with the awakened empire (probably to my advantage, since I was losing). I spent the next ten years building up to (and then over) my fleet limit on battleships, then declared an offensive war which I won in a single engagement.
So, the crisis played out well, and I might've lost if not for having a strong diplomatic position to begin with (and building a fleet designed specifically to fight the Unbidden). I think that's probably the closest I've seen to the type of end-game crisis the designers intended. The awakened empire, though, behaved strangely--I had positive relations with them the entire time (despite their being fanatic materialists and my having full AI citizenship and lots of synths), and they kept declaring war on my allies while--as far as I can tell--not actually attempting to prosecute the war in a useful way. I ended up winning thanks to a warlike (-15% ship cost), battleship-focused (-20%battleship cost) president that allowed me to simply bury them in ships.
This is because the trigger that starts the game to check if the Unbidden shows up is actually T3 FTL, and while the median time with just that is 2000 years, if you have 10 or 20 different empires that have reached T3 that it's checking on...
You're incentivized to keep your best planets, but that often results in weird-shaped sectors contorting to contain every system AROUND a good system, but not the good system itself, and creates weird situations where you want to sector a new planet until it grows to be better than one of your current core planets and then un-sector it and sector off the old core system instead.
And combined with the subpar sector AI incentivizing players to keep planets under their control until they've built out some/all of the infrastructure and then sectoring off the completed planet, or the fact that the extra ethics divergence from being in a sector makes you want to keep recently-conquered planets in your core until they've converted to your ethics, you often end up with situations where most of an empires 'core' planets are actually half-developed frontier planets and borderline-rebellious conquered worlds, while the peaceful fully-developed planets that are producing the bulk of your research, etc, are sectored off.
The whole system seems like it'd be a lot cleaner and more intuitive if the sector/core division was set up so that each sector had a regional capital system you controlled directly, with the rest of its planets acting like sectored planets currently do and the directly-controlled capital systems replacing the current allotment of core systems and the number of sectors limited the same way core systems are currently.
That way you end up with clear well-organized regions where your core systems stay pretty stable over time and represent your best, most productive, most civilized planets, instead of the rats nests of meandering sectored systems and constantly rotating hodgepodge core systems you currently end up with most of the time.
Also, I really think there needs to be some unique benefit to sectors, rather than just a penalty in energy credits and influence when you're over the cap. Some of the things Wiz has shown off on his twitter feed about how factions will work in Banks makes me hope that sectors will have factions you can interact with for some bonus like extra influence.
Being able to remove wormhole stations inside of sectors would also be GREAT because you know, I build a big network when the technology was still young and now that I don't need half of those stations, I kinda want to get like 40 energy/month back.
It's off-putting that I spend a lot of time, attention, and in-game resources on mitigating the awful sector AI
While they're far, faaaaar from perfect they do end up giving me net positives to all incomes, especially the one that they specialise in.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
2. Why is my fleet strength so low? I'm on par with everyone I know tech-wise, and I've built up to my force-limit with ships that have the latest components, but I'm still outclassed by my neighbors, let alone the pirates that spawned on my southern border.
1. Either migration treaties with existing species, or by integrating vassals in their entirety. For a pre-FTL species you'll have to uplift them into a protectorate, and then wait for them to grow into a fully-fledged vassal before you can integrate
2. Are you upgrading all of your spaceports? Fleet capacity is limited by number of spaceports, and how upgraded they are. Generally speaking, tech is far less of a factor in fleet strength than sheer numbers.
Also, Stone Age Primitives, if herded into reservations, will almost guaranteed emerge asking for citizenship, which you can accept for no penalty and get a new pop type.
1. I assume you mean multi-species. Pre-FTL races can be brought into the fold by invasion (quickest way, though they have reduced output of a time and severity depending on their tech level, plus they and most other empires will hate you for it) Infiltration (has them come right into the fold, but they have to be at least Machine Age to attempt) or Enlightenment (Can be done at any tech level and no negative consequences, but they start as a protectorate you have to wait 10 years or after they've advanced enough to become a vassal to integrate, whichever comes last) Which ones you can do are based on your polcies, and all of them can possibly be blocked out depending on your empire's ethos (for example, xenophobes can't enlighten, and xenophiles won't do infiltration or invasion)
2. Do you match them in planets? Fleet capacity is based mainly on the number of pops in your empire + the number and level of your planetary stations, and both other those are effectively capped by how many planets you own. It's also worth noting that another empire might be "equivalent" in tech, but because of how their deck of cards played out, might have more military techs (particularly fleet capacity techs) than you do, letting them field a larger and more powerful fleet. Also, "equivalent" in my experience is a much broader term than you would expect, and the actual difference between you and your neighbors might be large enough to translate into a sizable military advantage.
As for the pirates, are we talking about the ones that almost always spawn after your first colony? those should be beatable with a 5 ship fleet with nothing but starting tech, if it's something bigger, it's probably one of the pirate "space alien" fleets that are now part of galaxy generation.
Declare War?
I did this is my last game, I don't think I built a colony ship till about 100 years into the game and still ended up the biggest empire in the galaxy by a wide margin.
Its a great way to gain new colonies as you only have to pay a one-time small amount of minerals for some troops, instead of 350 minerals + influence per colony ship.
You also get to ignore what type of planet it is, because its native citizens will be the ones populating it, while also expanding the range of planets you can colonise.
If you're not on ironman, you can roll back to a previous save - the game autosaves extremely often and you can probably grab a save from immediately before the deal.
Alternately the penalties only apply while the deal is ongoing - if it wasn't for an incredibly long time you can probably soak the mineral/influence loss until the deal expires as long as you're not at war (since a deficit also makes all your ships terrible until resolved)
The lesson is, integrate early, integrate often.
Well on the bright side one of the species that migrated into my civilization somehow has 40% habitability on tomb worlds so I guess I can just colonize unwanted planets for a bit.
The big advantage of a multi species empire is that you can directly colonize almost every world type.
So the paradise gardens are pretty nice, but the symbol of unity is awesome. With information quarantine, spiritual and the symbol my planets can get a total of -30% base ethics divergence.
####################### VERSION 1.4.0 ########################
##############################################################
###################
# Leviathans Story Pack
###################
* Added new introduction event for the Artisan Troupe
* Added encounter event for the Enigmatic Fortress
###################
# Features
###################
* Added 33 new achievements
* No longer possible to build robots on planets belonging to sectors
* Added victory event after defeating the Prethoryn Scourge
* Added new events for discovering additional Precursor anomalies, so that the quest chains can always be completed
* Changed the way the Extradimensionals work: Instead of spawning reinforcements as soon as a fleet is lost, the Extradimensional portal will create new fleets at a fixed rate depending on the number of dimensional anchors the Extradimensionals have placed in the galaxy. Dimensional anchors are a type of station that the Extradimensionals construct, and their main portal is invincible while any dimensional anchors exist in the galaxy. This should make the war against the Extradimensionals more of a long-term fight and less of a surgical strike against the portal.
###################
# Balance
###################
#General
* Evasion is now capped at 90%
* Ship mineral maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% of ship cost
* Ship energy maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% of ship cost
* Afterburners now use the auxiliary slot
* Regular empires now start with 8 pops
* Primitive farms and factories can now be upgraded directly to hydroponics farms/mining networks
* Pirate ships have been reworked slightly and buffed in most cases
* Primitives are now consistent in how many pops, farms and factories they get on each age of development, and get new pops, armies and buildings when advancing through the ages
* Stone age primitives now generate fewer tile blockers
* Space Torpedoes technology now requires Fusion Missiles instead of Nuclear Missiles
* Venerable trait cost reduced from 5 to 4
* Mineral Silos are now restricted to 1 per planet
* Increased max minerals from Mineral Silos from +1000/+1500/+2000 to +2000/+3000/+4000
* Level 3 mineral silo now only provides +1 mineral per adjacent tile
* Increased protectorate tech discount to 95%
* Protectorates can no longer conduct independent diplomacy
* Repeatable technologies have their base cost increased from 1500 to 3000 and their increasing cost increased from 480 to 1000
* Slave Processing Plant now gives +10% slave food/mineral production instead of +5%
* Reduced spawn odds of tomb worlds
* Increased frequency of alien pet deposits
* Reduced warscore costs for planetary and vassalisation wargoals
* Doubled Pre-Sentient Anomaly spawn chances
* Fixed CTD when generating a certain tooltip while the player has no planets
* Pops are no longer upset if an occupier purges Pops on one of your planets
# Components
* Space Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 20 to 10
* Space Torpedo power usage reduced from 20 to 10
* Space Torpedo maximum damage reduced from 260 to 215
* Space Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
* Armored Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 40 to 15
* Armored Torpedo power usage reduced from 40 to 15
* Armored Torpedo damage reduced from 150-300 to 140-280
* Armored Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
* Devastator Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 60 to 20
* Devastator Torpedo power usage reduced from 60 to 20
* Devastator Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
* Devastator Torpedo missile HP reduced from 8 to 6
###################
# AI
###################
#War
* Federation AI is now better at picking wargoals for non-conqueror federations, will focus on retaking planets and liberating larger countries
#Sector
* Major work done to sector AI to make it better at budgeting and utilizing resources
#Diplomacy
* AI will now sometimes gift countries that are at war with their rivals and threats
* AI will no longer ask you to become their vassal multiple times in a row
* AI is now less keen to accept a lot of defensive pacts
* Slowed down AI requests for federation membership/association status to prevent message spam
#Misc
* Fixed a bug where AI would send fleets to deal with pirates, only to retreat due to pirates being stronger
* Fixed a bug where AI was trying to build buildings on tiles that had presentients on them
###################
# User Interface
###################
* Added a setting to disable all auto-unpausing from popups
* Clicking on some resource icons in top bar no longer opens tabs due to being inconsistent
* Construction Ship now sends notification 'fleet order finished' only when the last construction in the queue is finished
* Planet view colonize button opens same surface view window as when planet is clicked from expansion planner
* 'Closed Borders' and 'Truce' are shown as diplomatic statuses
###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Garrisons are now properly shown and spawned on occupied worlds.
* Fleets will now prioritize spaceports and military stations over other stations (such as mining stations) in combat.
* Close borders wargoal now forces borders open for the duration of the truce regardless of rivalry status, etc.
* Garrisons are now properly shown and spawned on occupied worlds.
* Fleets will now prioritize spaceports and military stations over other stations (such as mining stations) in combat.
* Ships and weapon components targeting logic now correctly accounts for evasion, so large weapons are much less likely to target corvettes etc
* Fixed armor absorbing too much damage if the ship also had shields left
* Fixed very high armor values negating the effects of armor penetration
* Fixed auto generated ship designs getting wrong combat computers
* Swarm units have had their sound volume adjusted
* Spaceport no longer provide Naval Capacity while under construction
* Fleet view shows current fleet activity instead of order description
* Vassals and overlords no longer gives sensor to each other while at war
* Sector AI will spend own resources instead of players resources when upgrading spaceports
* Uplift species button is locked if no species can be found on any owned planet
* Fixed a bug where some leaders could live forever
* Planets with Stone Age Primitives will no longer generate Anomalies
* Tzynn Empire now starts with the proper number of trait points
* Fixed Nomads getting wrong opinion modifier and habitability trait when allowed to settle on a planet
* Launcher MOD tab scrollbar appears with correct position and size when content overflows container
* Fixed a rare case of portrait duplication caused by prescripted species templates
* Fixed so that NPC ship designs now correctly have PD slots for their PD weapons
* Situation Log entry list of counters grows up instead of down
* Savannah and Alpine worlds now have proper localization in the start screen
* Fixed typo in Frontier Hospital technology description
* Fixed a bug where upgrade fleet progress could display numbers above 100%
* Fixed some outdated hotkey references in tutorial texts
* Fixed frantic twitching animation in diplomacy window for main species
* Fixed reversed fanatic/militarist bonus to rivalry influence
* Fixed some potential event spam when running on high speeds during War in Heaven
* Planet edict modifiers are applied to pops again. Use planet modifier categories when applying planet edict modifiers
* Fixed Continental, Savanna and Alpine worlds not being used for primitive civs
* Enclave governments now get a new ruler when the first one dies
* Primitives that nuke themselves will no longer leave pops on a tomb world where they have no habitability
* Fixed some ships getting stuck in a looping death animation
* Fixed CTD when looking at a ship that fired a shot during the same frame as it died
* Fixed CTD that could happen if ground combat was started on a planet without owner
* Garrison from Pops will no longer spawn on planets that have already been occupied
* Fixed CTD that could happen when assigning a new mission to an observation station
* Fixed various issues with Swarm behaviour
###################
# Graphics
###################
* Tweaked humanoid 02 and 05 portraits
* Added updated clothes textures
* Added fixed clothes for humanoid 05
* Arthropoid battleships sections now all line up
* Galaxy view textures have been updated.
* Extradimensionals' death effects have been updated.
###################
# Modding
###################
* Event chain counter max = -1 means max is ignored. Default value is -1
* Added count_countries trigger
* Script trigger pop_percentage = { percentage > 0.1 limit = { is_robot_pop = yes } }
* new trigger won_with_condition = domination_victory
* Added trigger num_strategic_resources
###################
# Performance
###################
* Misc performance improvements
Ship maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% energy/minerals so a 20% reduction in maintenance.
Evasion is capped at 90% chance
Afterburners are now an Auxiliary slot, which makes them infinitely more useful especially on smaller ships
Torpedoes have been bumped up to Fusion missile pre-req instead of being available effectively right out of the gate in the missile line
Torpedoes have had their damage reduced a bit, but gained 50% armour pen
Stone Age primitives generate less tile blockers (still no word on exterminating them)
Sector AI has been tweaked. Again. Let's hope they're more useful this time
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
But all the OG achievements I had actually earned are listed as locked.
Whoever was adding the new achievements messed up on writing the code.
I mean... re-earning the ones I had shouldn't be too difficult...
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
-Capital World now start with three power plants (two adjacent to capital building) two farms (one adjacent) and two mines (one adjacent) all manned. the 1 power tile that's always covered by a tile blocker is now a 1 mineral tile. No need to spend any resources developing your homeworld until a new pop is fully grown.
-Ethics divergence based on distance from capital appears to be gone (at least, if it still exists, there is a minimum distance before it takes effect). No longer need to go Fanatic Spiritualist/Collectivist to maintain a massive galaxy-wide empire that isn't trying to constantly rebel.
-First step of Precursor chain (i.e. the "You have found the evidence of an ancient race named X") is now auto-completed, no anomaly anymore (though the other pieces that you find on your own still have anomalies).