As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
We're funding a new Acquisitions Incorporated series on Kickstarter right now! Check it out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pennyarcade/acquisitions-incorporated-the-series-2

[Stellaris] - Paradox does space strategy - Le Guin, Megacorps - DECEMBER 6th

18283858788103

Posts

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    I’m in a war now and it’s no fun and I’m not going to win

    Enc
  • GarthorGarthor Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    I’m in a war now and it’s no fun and I’m not going to win

    War Is Bad

    ElvenshaeAistanEnc
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    I’m in a war now and it’s no fun and I’m not going to win

    It's really, really easy for any particular aspect of the game to get tedious and decidedly un-fun. Late enough in the game, that's pretty much a 100% certainty, but around the time you reach that point Paradox will push through an update that will soft or hard break your save, so you have to start again anyway.

    I could see playing a game, perhaps with high resource scarcity, where you only encounter indigenous species on local worlds and there are no interstellar empires (the occasional 12K stack of mining drones or trans-dimensional monster not withstanding). Especially given how infuriating diplomacy can be. That being said, it's sort of like Transport Tycoon back in the day--I play with a monopoly because I'm used to never running into another corporation. In Stellaris, I'm used to dealing with other empires and cheating it the bullshit gets too tedious.

    Plus, with mods you can actually implement a dangerous risk of rebellions when your empire grows beyond your control.

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    I got into it through a defensive alliance and it turns out there’s therefore no way to make peace?

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    I got into it through a defensive alliance and it turns out there’s therefore no way to make peace?

    Yeah in that case you just have to fucking ride it out until the person you're in the alliance with surrenders. Diplomacy :rotate:

    usnTyq4.jpg
    Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
    SynthesisMoridin889
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Don't forget, you're not allowed to enter into any new treaties so long as you're in a war your ally started!

    Any of them.

    Diplomacy. :rotate:

    DarkPrimusMoridin889
  • FoefallerFoefaller Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    I got into it through a defensive alliance and it turns out there’s therefore no way to make peace?

    Yeah, you can't be a untrustworthy asshole and backstab your ally by not going to war when they get wardec like in EUIV, nor have a separate peace deal. It's arguably more important (at least until the next major update) than even in EUIV not to ally with someone who's more likely to get you sucked into a war than protect you from getting wardec'd yourself.

    steam_sig.png
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    I expect a lot of that will be fixed in the diplomacy update. If they do that and provide more fun ways for empires to be subordinates (vassals, tributaries, etc) while still having some autonomy, it will go a long way. Sovereign empires should always be able to break agreements and suffer the penalties, and subordinate empires should be the ones to get that helpless feeling of being drawn into war.

    What makes the other Paradox games so interesting is the political layers (counties, duchies, kingdoms, empires, etc) and how they interact with each other and with other layers, and I'd love to see more of that here with planets/sectors/vassals

    CampyGennenalyse Ruebenchrono_travellerLord_Asmodeus
  • warder808warder808 Registered User regular
    Loaded this up yesterday a little. There are mods available now. Got the bigger UI and Text mods. Game will be more enjoyable now. Just need to finish a game with a victory. Lots of mods on the Workshop page now.

    steam_sig.png
  • FoefallerFoefaller Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Lithoids & Patch is here.

    Here's the dev diary on them. Highlights include unique lithoid traits that let them shed/fart/poop rare resources, their own twist on Devouring Swarm that had them eating planets instead of pops, and an Advisor voice that will having your groaning like a tetonic shift at all the rock puns.

    Foefaller on
    steam_sig.png
    chrono_travellerElvenshaeMoridin889Donnicton
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    apparently one ofthe Origins makes your Homeworld blow up in 64 years

    DarkPrimusElvenshaeBurnagepainfulPleasanceRuldarMoridin889DonnictonEtiowsaLord_AsmodeusHonkMancingtom
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    So many glorious rock puns.

    steam_sig.png
    Elvenshaechrono_traveller
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    I’ve successfully diplomacied my way into peace in our times. All the other factions but one are insane militaristic shitbags who hate each other and hate me even more, but I’ve allied with the other non-lunatic faction. No one can take both of us on their own, and they hate each other too much to ally against us. Victory through pacifism! The Moopy Goopy Friendship Collective rules!

    DarkPrimusCaptainPeacockstopgapMoridin889DonnictonGennenalyse RuebenFiatilMonwynchrono_travellerLord_AsmodeusOrphaneRchanenRuldarMassenaEncSeal
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    The Moopy Goopy Friendship Collective is being taken over by militarists from the inside.

    Evil MultifariousPowerpuppiesBahamutZERODarkPrimusFiatilMonwynchrono_travellerElvenshaeLord_AsmodeusHonkOrphaneRchanenKetBraRuldarEncSeal
  • FrozenzenFrozenzen Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Tube wrote: »
    The Moopy Goopy Friendship Collective is being taken over by militarists from the inside.

    This is why i stopped trying to be diplomatic in stellaris. It always ended with a xenophobic or similar faction i allowed in as refugees being an incredible pain about me not being an ass.

    Frozenzen on
  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Frozenzen wrote: »
    Tube wrote: »
    The Moopy Goopy Friendship Collective is being taken over by militarists from the inside.

    This is why i stopped trying to be diplomatic in stellaris. It always ended with a xenophobic or similar faction i allowed in as refugees being an incredible pain about me not being an ass.

    When i was last playing i found i didnt have too much trouble keeping everyone content - though i tended to be running either Materialistic/xenophile, or Spiritualist/Xenophile. It went a long way

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
    Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
    Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
    Switch: 0293 6817 9891
  • NEO|PhyteNEO|Phyte They follow the stars, bound together. Strands in a braid till the end.Registered User regular
    The militant xenophobes are coming from inside the alliance!

    It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
    Warframe/Steam: NFyt
    Elvenshae
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    Brutally suppressing the militarists seems to be working slowly but surely, but it’s killed my influence gain.

  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    Brutally suppressing the militarists seems to be working slowly but surely, but it’s killed my influence gain.

    So much for the tolerant left

    Fiatilchrono_travellerTubeEtiowsaJusticeforPlutoMoridin889ElvenshaeMonwynDarkPrimusMillGennenalyse RuebenBahamutZEROLord_AsmodeusEvil MultifariousAuralynxm!ttensstopgapHonkOrphaneRchanenKetBrafinnithRuldarMancingtomEnc
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    A buncha eyeballs showed up

    Elvenshae
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    How the fuck are you supposed to win this one

    DarkPrimus
  • Lord_AsmodeusLord_Asmodeus goeticSobriquet: Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered User regular
    apparently one ofthe Origins makes your Homeworld blow up in 64 years

    I feel like this is a reference to something

    Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    How the fuck are you supposed to win this one

    Maybe if you had listened to the militarists and militarized

    DonnictonAuralynxBahamutZEROHonkElvenshaechrono_traveller
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    I militarised all to fuck, but each fleet is the size of my whole navy.

  • Last SonLast Son Registered User regular
    The scourge rely almost entirely on missiles/fighters so refit your fleet with a crap ton of armor and point defenses with anti-armor/hull weapons, properly built you can take out fleets twice your "strength". During the crisis you'll get massive bonuses to federating most other empires so you can make a massive alliance to fight them. If theres a fallen empire around they may also decide to wake up and help take out the scourge.

    You can slow down their expansion a lot by sniping their civilian ships(constructors, infestors, and transports) whenever possible so they don't get resources as fast.

    Elvenshae
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    You might also just be fucked though, a lot of stellaris games just kinda end when the endgame crisis happens.

    BahamutZERO.gif
    EtiowsaAistanMr RayLord_AsmodeusDonnictonDarkPrimusEnc
  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    edited October 2019
    The thing with any of the big overwhelming threats (the Great Khan, Awakened Empires, the end-game crisis) is that they're generally at their strongest when they first emerge; they might take over big chunks of the map but they probably don't gain much from actually doing so compared with the big fuckoff fleets they get from the start just because and their tech is static. You, on the other hand, are always getting stronger technologically and economically. You might not be able to beat the threat when it first emerges, but if you can at least get yourself some breathing room and spend a decade building up your military and gearing your whole empire towards production and warfare, you might end up in a position where you can at least start guerilla warfaring individual fleets. The strategic AI in vanilla is generally not that smart, and so long as you can muster one fleet that's stronger than theirs, you might be able to start chipping away at them.

    Unless you're right on their doorstep when they emerge, in which case disregard all of the above, you're probably fucked. :rotate:

    Mr Ray on
    Elvenshae
  • CampyCampy Registered User regular
    One game I gifted a bunch of systems between me and the SpoilerAlerts to an Awakened Empire. Worked pretty well from what I remember, managing to buffer my empire for a bit until I could tech up and retrofit my fleets.

    ElvenshaeBahamutZERO
  • OrphaneOrphane rivers of red that run to seaRegistered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    A buncha eyeballs showed up

    HAK HAK

    Diplominatorchrono_travellerRuldarDarkPrimusBasil
  • Lord_AsmodeusLord_Asmodeus goeticSobriquet: Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered User regular
    do player ai gain difficulty bonuses, like when a player is out in multiplayer or when you use the console command in SP?

    Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
  • FoefallerFoefaller Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Tube wrote: »
    I militarised all to fuck, but each fleet is the size of my whole navy.

    All the Crises that can show up at the end of the game are usually hard-countered by a specific loadout. Eyeballs for example, is almost all missiles and strike craft with no shields, so a bunch of point defense and a focus on armor and energy weapons will wreck them hard. Also, all the Endgame Crises are at their strongest at the start, with several of their fleets never being replaced once destroyed, so as long as you're smart you should be able to win via attrition. Lastly, there are two things that can occur that improves the galaxy's chances to survival; one is that Xenophile and Materialist FEs have a chance of awakening as a special Guardian of the galaxy AE that will try to form a federation to fight it, and all Crises have an event that can trigger if a certain % of the galaxy has been taken by them, which can also help (or in one not-eyeballs case, make things... complicated.)

    Foefaller on
    steam_sig.png
  • Lord_AsmodeusLord_Asmodeus goeticSobriquet: Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered User regular
    Would anyone be interested in playing an All Lithoids game at some point, for funsies?

    Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    Does anyone have any good guides on how to put together planets? I'm hemorrhaging resources and I can't figure out where or how to fix it, but I'm pretty sure bad planet builds are the issue.

  • FoefallerFoefaller Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Tube wrote: »
    Does anyone have any good guides on how to put together planets? I'm hemorrhaging resources and I can't figure out where or how to fix it, but I'm pretty sure bad planet builds are the issue.

    First, if you haven't done so, go to policies and set your trade policy to the one that turns trade value into .5 EC and .25 Consumer Goods. Most empires won't be able to get 100% of their CG via trade, but this does help keep things in the black in the long run.

    After that,

    -Always want to be "just in time" with districts and new jobs, with clerks as your buffer. That will make sure you spend as little as possible with "wasted" admin cap or pops not working important basic resource jobs.

    -Try to specialize planets and take advantage of colony designations. Planet has a lot of potential mining districts? Mining planet. Planetary feature that increase research? That's where you have the science done. Massive planet that's kinda bare in natural resources? Ecumnopolis material if you have Megacorp, but still a pretty great place to concentrate your resource refinement buildings that can usually employ a lot of pops fully upgraded.

    -That said, you don't have to leave it set in stone. In fact, you are kinda expected to eventually go back to your first planets and start urbanize them, converting resource districts that aren't the planet's forte and are being covered elsewhere into additonal city districts so you can unlock more building slots someplace developed that can use them for something like alloys or science and not be competing with one per planet unity buildings or amenities production that only benefits that planet.

    -Finally, use the market. You can set up regular orders to sell the resources you have a surplus of and buy the ones you need at a regular monthly basis that's usually less disruptive to the resource's value as single trade of hundreds or thousands would be.

    Foefaller on
    steam_sig.png
    Elvenshaefinnith
  • WotanAnubisWotanAnubis Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    Does anyone have any good guides on how to put together planets? I'm hemorrhaging resources and I can't figure out where or how to fix it, but I'm pretty sure bad planet builds are the issue.

    Do not start building/upgrading buildings the moment you are able to. Everybody will move from the basic resource-creating jobs to the higher-tier advanced jobs if they're able to. So you might end up in a situation where everybody's working in an Alloy Factory and nobody's working in the Mining Districts, so you're not actually producing the Minerals you need to run the Alloy Factory.

    Only start building buildings if people are unemployed (because all the basic jobs are filled up) or if you really need some specialised building right now for something and are willing to give up some unskilled labour for it.

    CampyElvenshaeLord_Asmodeus
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Where the game will trip up a to of new people on resource management, is that it will punish you if you have districts and buildings that don't have a populace around to work the jobs created by them. Also pops will quickly vacate low tier jobs for jobs higher up on the later and it'll take them forever to drop down a tier. So in addition to holding off on building stuff until you have the pops for it, you kind of want to make sure you have a little bit of unemployment (1-3 pops). This should ensure that when you bring up a district, building or upgrade a structure to generate more jobs. All of you miners, farmers & technicians don't decide they are tired of their blue labor jobs and go for the ruler and specialized jobs, while your empire is increasing it's base resource consumption, but also having a decrease in what was being generated.

    Actually, unemployment really isn't that big of an issue. There are a few empire types that can really take advantage of it, utopian abundance if you're egalitarian. Towards late stages of the game, you empire is going to end up with unemployed pops regardless if it isn't a gestalt. Gestalt, which are part of certain expansions, can pretty much just tell worlds to stop making pops. Some like to use those worlds to generate new pops to quickly fill out newer colonies. Anyways, unemployment in small doses isn't a bad thing.

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    Thanks for all the help! Follow up question, is it feasible to build tall somehow and focus on a small empire or will that get me fucked? I’m starting a new game and I found the sprawl of my last one a bit exhausting.

  • Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    Unless they've changed something recently, going tall is better than it was, but still not as good as going wide for the simple reason that more planets and more space will always mean more resources. What you will get however is a much faster rate of tech and unity gain, so a "tall" empire naturally benefits from being materialistic / science focussed.

    ElvenshaeAuralynxa5ehren
  • KetBraKetBra Dressed Ridiculously Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    Thanks for all the help! Follow up question, is it feasible to build tall somehow and focus on a small empire or will that get me fucked? I’m starting a new game and I found the sprawl of my last one a bit exhausting.

    Going tall is definitely very doable. There's a few ways of going about it, but taking civics like 'life-seeded' or playing as a megacorp can make it easier, but are by no means mandatory.

    Basically, focus on tech, focus on taking a few strategic systems around your capital for the establishment of citadels at chokepoints for your defences, and then pick something non-miltaryish to focus on. Unlocking ecumenopoli will also allow you to build up huge amounts of pops on one planet.

    KGMvDLc.jpg?1
    Elvenshae
  • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
    KetBra wrote: »
    Tube wrote: »
    Thanks for all the help! Follow up question, is it feasible to build tall somehow and focus on a small empire or will that get me fucked? I’m starting a new game and I found the sprawl of my last one a bit exhausting.

    Going tall is definitely very doable. There's a few ways of going about it, but taking civics like 'life-seeded' or playing as a megacorp can make it easier, but are by no means mandatory.

    Basically, focus on tech, focus on taking a few strategic systems around your capital for the establishment of citadels at chokepoints for your defences, and then pick something non-miltaryish to focus on. Unlocking ecumenopoli will also allow you to build up huge amounts of pops on one planet.

    The whole proposition gets simpler if you happen to be fortunate enough to find a Relic World nearby; the map generator plays a bit of a role.

    kshu0oba7xnr.png

Sign In or Register to comment.