I've spent a fair bit of time with Federations by now and have grown quite fond of the origins. The one I've played the most is Void Dwellers, because I've always been fascinated by habitats, and it delivers on the promise of significantly changing how you build your empire. This last game I decided to follow the biological ascension path, since I figured that adapting my void-born space elves to live on planets would be a thematic win. It took more than a century for my scientists to confirm that, regrettably, this was simply impossible. Our centuries of exposure to the radiation of black space had clearly damaged our genomes beyond repair, but there was an alternative. We opened a migration pact with our closest neighbor, only long enough for a single colony ship to be built, and the moment it made planetfall our bioshapers began their work. We reshaped them, body and mind, to be perfect replicas of the original Zelvan. These Zelvanin soon spread from planet to planet, each carefully crafted into a perfect utopia, growing the might and influence of the Zelvan Coalition as never before.
RP aside, I'm quite lukewarm to the expansion as a whole. I still have little idea why I should care about what happens in the galactic community, it seems to mostly be about slowly shifting the balance of diplomatic influence, but without a clear endgame where that influence can be turned into a clear advantage in the game as a whole.
More problematically, the sector automation is as abysmal as it has ever been. It has performed so badly this last game that I'm almost convinced it's building stuff completely at random. At one point I had a surplus of 600 consumer goods per month while my energy and mineral economy was completely crashing. A decade later I had +90 income in motes while deep in the negative of crystals and gas. I'd almost rather they remove the mechanic altogether since they're clearly incapable of getting it to work properly. Maybe something like the ability to set up construction queues, letting me plan out planet profiles that would automatically be completed as slots became available?
I got War in the Heavens as my end-game crisis, which has basically killed my desire to keep playing. The awakened empire that's fighting me is refusing to split up its 1 million power doom-fleet, ensuring it can't be challenged but also slowing their invasion to an agonizing crawl. I could probably wear it down by throwing my measly 300k fleet at it enough times, but considering I couldn't even see their power go down the first time I tried (despite having the Galactic Contender ascension perk and unity firepower buff) I don't think I have the patience to try.
I miiiiight be wrong, but I think I read that the sector AI isn't using the newly written empire AI. So unfortunately there isn't any checking between planets as to what to queue up next. As such if the AI spots a large surplus/deficit in a resource and you happen to get a bunch of building spaces in that sector all at once, then you can be damn sure it's building as many of a single building all at once.
Hopefully they'll be able to roll the Empire AI into the Sector one soon and then it'll be rainbows, bunnies and automated xenopurging for everyone!
So with the federations- you can mess with them a little by improving relations with one member and fucking with the others. They will eventually start voting against Federation stuff, which causes a penalty to fed unity.
Interesting. Would force that "allied with rival" malus in there, but do we know if the AI will call Fed votes it knows it will lose?
Is strike craft a thing now? I've always avoided it like the plague.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
Same question re missiles. Seems like the AI uses a lot of point defense, I remember missiles used to be garbage. Which sucks because I like my Battlestar Galactica roleplay.
I've been using swarms of missile corvettes, and they've been really effective (though I'm on Normal)
I also use disruptor corvettes, though, so I should check my battle reports to see what's actually doing damage
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
That's another question. So is corvette swarm just totally optimal? I want to be using gigantic ships with spinal lasers and nukes and the whole shebang. Obviously you need escorts, can't have an entire fleet of cruisers and battleships, but that's just my space naval fantasy.
That's another question. So is corvette swarm just totally optimal? I want to be using gigantic ships with spinal lasers and nukes and the whole shebang. Obviously you need escorts, can't have an entire fleet of cruisers and battleships, but that's just my space naval fantasy.
I think it's the opposite — big ships are where it's at, right now. But I don't know the current meta, especially with a big expansion and update.
Is strike craft a thing now? I've always avoided it like the plague.
They are meta now for fleets. I hope you weren't avoid those for starbases though because even before this patch, when they were still garbage, they were great for trade protection and because they had a higher flee strength power, even if that was an illusion, they were quite useful on border starbases to create a bluff to discourage AI from attacking in early game.
Same question re missiles. Seems like the AI uses a lot of point defense, I remember missiles used to be garbage. Which sucks because I like my Battlestar Galactica roleplay.
I remember when Stellaris first released and taking missile weapons was a guaranteed early war win.
Is strike craft a thing now? I've always avoided it like the plague.
I've been using them in my current game and their alpha is pretty nuts when you have a few battleships' worth. Fighter wings take awhile between strikes but they hit like a train now.
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YoshisummonsYou have to let the dead vote, otherwise you'd just kill people you disagree with!Registered Userregular
Now we're talking about versus grand admiral ai or talking about versus 5x crisis efficacy? Because I only heard they fixed a bug recently with bonuses not working for strike craft.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
Same question re missiles. Seems like the AI uses a lot of point defense, I remember missiles used to be garbage. Which sucks because I like my Battlestar Galactica roleplay.
I remember when Stellaris first released and taking missile weapons was a guaranteed early war win.
Interesting. At whatever point I was playing my understanding was that missiles were the worst choice.
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
Well I completely f'd my campaign by underestimating my nearest neighbor and made a land grab I never should have made. They came in and grabbed a bunch of territory and nearly smashed my fleets with their own double deathballs of 30K+ power. By the time I surrender my territoriy was completely fucked and my resources took such a hit that recovery would have been a monumental task. I was doing so well too, I had teched up to Titans and had a solid base of territory.
With being trapped in the house, I was considering trying to do a youtube run of a campaign, but my channel is stagnant so any interest would be drummed up from here and maybe friends. Kind of a "Noob plays" sort of thing. Even though I probably can't call myself a noob there are just so many systems in 4x games that I might as well be, so it could be kinda fun if people are up for watching an old guy struggle.
Same question re missiles. Seems like the AI uses a lot of point defense, I remember missiles used to be garbage. Which sucks because I like my Battlestar Galactica roleplay.
I remember when Stellaris first released and taking missile weapons was a guaranteed early war win.
Interesting. At whatever point I was playing my understanding was that missiles were the worst choice.
They overcompensated hard and made the AI looooooove point defense. Meaning anything but missiles was better since the AI always wasted a ton of ship weapon spots on PD regardless of what they faced.
All right I know I’m a noob who’s going to say obvious noob things but:
I was really struggling with a bunch resources suddenly dropping into the negatives. It was stressing me out and I thought about giving up and starting over again.
But! Instead I used the energy and mineral edicts to get my base resources going, paused the game after a few months to let some of that course correction hit the economy, and then started playing pop shuffle across my seven planets to maximize resource value, (e.g., making sure all 25 farming jobs were full on my agri-world, etc.). This has had the added benefit of getting my capital planet out of a severe housing and unemployment crisis as I’ve migrated a lot of pops to different locations and bulldozed a bunch of old districts that were just eating up resources and offering no benefit.
It was like... the most administrative thing I’ve ever done in a video game and yet seeing all those numbers go back to black was sooo satisfying.
Now I can get back to building a massive fleet to smash my neighbor in about 10 years.
Let me tell you about a little thing I like to call Victoria II
I have complained about this game a lot, but damn I'm having a lot of fun playing an aggressive, expansionist empire
I've wiped a genocidal machine empire off the map and grabbed territory from nearby corporations and democracies. Wars have been fun, navigating alliances and defense pacts to e.g. attack weaker empires while their powerful allies are too busy or distant to come to their aid, then using those planets to smash the ally later.
My theocratic oligarchy breached the Shroud juuust as the Great Khan united the tribes on the other side of the galaxy. I pushed the unite vs Khan bill through the galactic community, but not before I let the Khan eat up some of a council rival's territory and smash the fleets of the other. I'm now the strongest council member, safely on the other side of the galaxy, and with all these open borders and alliances, suddenly a hegemony federation asked me to join, immediately making me hegemon. Good that they know their place; very validating.
And now I'm sending my vast fleets to fight the Khan's forces, having just unlocked gateways. Hopefully he won't interrupt my important psychic discovery work. I also have a Shroud avatar, which is very novel; I've never done a psionic empire before.
The galaxy is dynamic enough that empires are getting their economy and military broken by war, leading to many secessions and rebellions dotting the star map since they can't hold on to their planets. Really fun, and a lot less static than previous games of Stellaris I've played.
Loaded Stellaris up after about two years away last night. I have no idea what in the hell anything is now. There's new resources I've never seen, planet management is totally different, and everything in the UI is so small and cramped I don't know what I'm looking at.
Any good guides to get me back up to speed? I have all the DLCs except for the Lithoids, and I might even grab them if they're recommended enough.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
There were some tutorial LPs on Youtube around 2.4, IIRC. That should get you close enough to the current systems.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I think Ringworld origin must be OP. First game in two or more years and I am essentially double everyone's score in everything playing on normal difficulty.
I'm fairly sure if everyone ganged up on me now I could just take them albeit slowly. I'm constantly getting capped on all resources. All of the senate resolutions benefit me since I am leading in all metrics, they keep increasing my diplomatic weight no matter what they vote for. This is just past 100 years into the game.
PSN: Honkalot
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The only military threat is the marauder squirrels I found that have like 50k fleet strength lying around.
Luckily they leave me alone for *gasp* 500 minerals every fifth year.
I forgot what I set the mid-game and end-game crises years and as a result I've got little to do now. About half my galaxy is in my federation and the rest are too far away to beat up.
Does beating up on an unawakened FE awaken the rest? One has already awakened and I want some more Fleet Power for the War in Heaven. I'm far beyond anyone else in the galaxy but still about half the one spiritualist awakened FE. I'm deep in the repeatable tech and they're still way ahead of me in tech power.
e: also i need a smaller outliner. I've got a bunch of planets, stations and fleet now and it's way too annoying to scroll thorough.
I forgot what I set the mid-game and end-game crises years and as a result I've got little to do now. About half my galaxy is in my federation and the rest are too far away to beat up.
Does beating up on an unawakened FE awaken the rest? One has already awakened and I want some more Fleet Power for the War in Heaven. I'm far beyond anyone else in the galaxy but still about half the one spiritualist awakened FE. I'm deep in the repeatable tech and they're still way ahead of me in tech power.
e: also i need a smaller outliner. I've got a bunch of planets, stations and fleet now and it's way too annoying to scroll thorough.
Just click on the outliner headings for the sections you don't want to collapse them.
+1
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
War exhaustion doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I ran roughshod over one of my neighbors, destroyed at least 15 sectors, occupied three planets and our exhaustion levels are basically neck and neck. I destroy one of their fleets and they shoot ahead by 10-15 points. Then I never see them again, because that was their only fleet. But my exhaustion rate is continuing to climb. When they hit 100%, I still can't "achieve war goals." And then I hit 100% and they can force me to concede after so many days.
It is probably the mechanic that gives me the most frustration because everything is so simulational and this is just... not. If I am depriving the enemy of territory and resources, and destroy their only meager fleet, that should be the end of it.
Maybe I am doing something wrong? It wouldn't be the first time.
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The marauder squirrels united under a khan, which was bad for me being their neighbor. Their fleet was absolutely bonkers but I managed to juke them back and forth and didn’t really lose too much. The maddening thing was I could propose to unite against the khan, but the senate was voting on a resolution and had to finish doing that for several years. Then recess, then vote for THE URGENT MATTER OF THE KHAN for five years despite 95% majority. Enraging when you are the neighbor being eaten up.
The khan died before any other empire could rally, at that point I could just beat their fleet outright. And I gobbled up another neighbor while I was at it.
A new exciting issue is that while the khan was a threat and everybody was friendly there was a federation formed and they have been accepting half the galaxy as members. So the pretty obvious fight coming is my hegemony vs “The Cosmic Entente”.
Given the size of Khanate fleets I'd probably just submit if I was bordering right on them and not suuuuper prepared up front.
In my last game the Khanate started right next to the isolationist FE. The khan's reign was ... brief.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
In my last game it would have been impossible to fight the marauders so I ceded a bunch of my territory. My two 30k fleets were worth way more than any territory they would (and did) take. And those fleets weren’t even 1/3 their fleet power.
It was the right call because they started going after others after taking some of my systems and eventually they backed off because their khan died.
On war exhaustion, an empire can hold out for only two year after hitting it. So if you force an enemy empire to 100% exhaustion before you hit it, I think you can force most war goals on them. It's a system that is bad need of tweaking.
On war exhaustion, an empire can hold out for only two year after hitting it. So if you force an enemy empire to 100% exhaustion before you hit it, I think you can force most war goals on them. It's a system that is bad need of tweaking.
Well here's where that doesn't make sense. Fighting the same faction, the prior war we both kind of limped to the finish line. This time I smashed them up to 100% exhaustion when I was only at 30. After making a few more claims, I went to sue for peace. I should get whatever the hell I want, right? Nope, only status quo, total war goals are -239.
Most Paradox games are going to have lots of situations where the total war goal is -umpty zillion. Some stuff just isn't going to happen in one war, and there's some stuff the AI's hardcoded never to accept.
That said, doesn't 100% war exhaustion let you force a white peace automatically, not a wargoal peace? My understanding was that was the point where you had the ability to redraw the borders where they sat even if you hadn't achieved your goals (e.g., if you claimed four systems but were only occupying three of them by that point).
WE from ship losses is pretty broken by design still, I think. I think the idea was to keep two roughly equivalent empires close to the same exhaustion level unless something really went wrong for one of them.
Yeah, IIRC there are some goals where you need to do other things to force them to accept the terms after they hit war exhaustion. There are also a few where they'll never agree to hit it, you pretty much see this is total war scenarios and it at least there it make sense; especially, when it's a d-bag civic where their whole war goal is to wipe out your species. Problem is how they did the math really doesn't work, if they have fuck all in the way of a fleet and army, there just might not be enough to drive up the score so they agree to the terms you want.
Honestly, if they do rework it, I hope they also rework other aspects of war. One aspect that really bugs me and it would require changing multiple things. Is that if you invade someone, you pretty much get access to just about everything they had. Didn't bother to invest in megastructure research, no worries when you take the fully functional dyson sphere your neighbor made from scratch, spending tons of alloys, influence, research and an ascension perk on, you get full efficiency from it despite having done fuck all to figure out how those things work. That dudes ecumenopolis, that he either spend a perk, minerals, housing, influence and time or sacrificed a relic world (god why?) with a ton of influence, minerals and time alongside it, yeah, you get that shit fully functional if you just knick it from him. Honestly, voidborne and mastery of nature are probably the worst here, spend an ascension point and the one thing that is exclusive for each, doesn't fucking matter, but if someone jacks your shit they get those districts for free, with mastery of nature hurting even more because that shit costs influence as well. Would love to see the setup where, yeah, you still get some benefit for taking some of this shit, but if you want peak performance, well you're going to have to properly invest in it instead of being the looting marauder that just takes shit and probably didn't train anyone well enough to figure out how to best use all the shit you steal. It would probably go a long way to making conquest far more interesting; especially, if that came alongside a setup that forces you to actually manage new conquests for a bit before waltzing into the next conquest.
I too hit up against some war shenanigans, though these are probably more to do with my memory than anything else.
I thought that if you fought a war over claims and successfully attacked those systems that you'd be able to end the war. Thus you'd be able to have these little border skirmishes that would be over quicker than an empire could react.
Am I just having a brain fart, or did they change something?
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It’s annoying that my indoctrination of medieval people towards spirituality triggers the same pop up and pauses every three minutes - but someone in my hegemony proposing a war doesn’t pause. If you’re playing the speed above normal you basically don’t have time to pause and vote before it’s too late.
PSN: Honkalot
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
So are we picking up our MP game from last weekend later today?
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
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
My race of space mantis shrimp is slowly gobbling up the territory of its southern neighbors. Hilariously I have far more slave pops than my own, which seems like a recipe for disaster but I seem to be balancing the knife edge all right. The problem is I can't really conquer territory as quickly as I'd like. I'm not a fanatic purifier and if I go for my northern neighbors I run the risk of a two-front war and bumping into the sleeping empire.
It's year 2430ish so I expect the endgame stuff will kick in soon, at which point we'll see how things shake out. This was kind of a weird game, considering I bought Federations and then created a completely isolationist dictatorship with no interest in galactic commonwealth. (I did try some of the Fed stuff in previous games but like many things in the game it was prtty baffling on my first go).
I too hit up against some war shenanigans, though these are probably more to do with my memory than anything else.
I thought that if you fought a war over claims and successfully attacked those systems that you'd be able to end the war. Thus you'd be able to have these little border skirmishes that would be over quicker than an empire could react.
Am I just having a brain fart, or did they change something?
I don't think just nabbing your claims has ever been enough to win a war.
Claimed systems and planets that you haven't conquered are a huge penalty to their willingness to surrender. So fulfilling all your claims is important, and it's unlikely you'll get a surrender or early status quo without doing so.
But no, it doesn't end the war. War exhaustion and attrition are also important because they represent the morale of the empires at war. If you grab a few systems lightning fast with just minor skirmishes, why would the enemy empire give up? They've got fleets, they've got fresh soldiers, and they're mad at you.
You have to hold on to those systems long enough to convince them that they've lost. You have to MAKE them give up. That means smashing their fleets and holding occupations.
Conversely, if you get them to 100% war exhaustion, but you haven't fulfilled your claims, you can't demand a surrender — they're tired of war, and want to quit, but they're still winning because they have the prizes you've claimed. They're expecting you to be the one who gives up, since you've botched your war effort.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I've finally reached the point where I can feel empire sprawl dragging me down. 700/350 is really slowing down my research.
I think I need to watch someone to understand proper mid and late-game expansion. Post-war can be pretty lucrative-I'm earning about 5000 minerals/month from all the territory grabs, a bunch of slave worlds generating basic resources, but unity and research have taken a huge hit and now I'm way behind on tech compared to several other empires. For instance, in my last game I had titans a good 25 years before now, and in 2440-something I haven't even seen the tech yet. Unity has also slowed down a bunch.
Posts
I miiiiight be wrong, but I think I read that the sector AI isn't using the newly written empire AI. So unfortunately there isn't any checking between planets as to what to queue up next. As such if the AI spots a large surplus/deficit in a resource and you happen to get a bunch of building spaces in that sector all at once, then you can be damn sure it's building as many of a single building all at once.
Hopefully they'll be able to roll the Empire AI into the Sector one soon and then it'll be rainbows, bunnies and automated xenopurging for everyone!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
https://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791439224844/announcements/detail/1795187684705160538
Interesting. Would force that "allied with rival" malus in there, but do we know if the AI will call Fed votes it knows it will lose?
I also use disruptor corvettes, though, so I should check my battle reports to see what's actually doing damage
I think it's the opposite — big ships are where it's at, right now. But I don't know the current meta, especially with a big expansion and update.
They are meta now for fleets. I hope you weren't avoid those for starbases though because even before this patch, when they were still garbage, they were great for trade protection and because they had a higher flee strength power, even if that was an illusion, they were quite useful on border starbases to create a bluff to discourage AI from attacking in early game.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I remember when Stellaris first released and taking missile weapons was a guaranteed early war win.
I've been using them in my current game and their alpha is pretty nuts when you have a few battleships' worth. Fighter wings take awhile between strikes but they hit like a train now.
Interesting. At whatever point I was playing my understanding was that missiles were the worst choice.
With being trapped in the house, I was considering trying to do a youtube run of a campaign, but my channel is stagnant so any interest would be drummed up from here and maybe friends. Kind of a "Noob plays" sort of thing. Even though I probably can't call myself a noob there are just so many systems in 4x games that I might as well be, so it could be kinda fun if people are up for watching an old guy struggle.
They overcompensated hard and made the AI looooooove point defense. Meaning anything but missiles was better since the AI always wasted a ton of ship weapon spots on PD regardless of what they faced.
Let me tell you about a little thing I like to call Victoria II
I've wiped a genocidal machine empire off the map and grabbed territory from nearby corporations and democracies. Wars have been fun, navigating alliances and defense pacts to e.g. attack weaker empires while their powerful allies are too busy or distant to come to their aid, then using those planets to smash the ally later.
My theocratic oligarchy breached the Shroud juuust as the Great Khan united the tribes on the other side of the galaxy. I pushed the unite vs Khan bill through the galactic community, but not before I let the Khan eat up some of a council rival's territory and smash the fleets of the other. I'm now the strongest council member, safely on the other side of the galaxy, and with all these open borders and alliances, suddenly a hegemony federation asked me to join, immediately making me hegemon. Good that they know their place; very validating.
And now I'm sending my vast fleets to fight the Khan's forces, having just unlocked gateways. Hopefully he won't interrupt my important psychic discovery work. I also have a Shroud avatar, which is very novel; I've never done a psionic empire before.
The galaxy is dynamic enough that empires are getting their economy and military broken by war, leading to many secessions and rebellions dotting the star map since they can't hold on to their planets. Really fun, and a lot less static than previous games of Stellaris I've played.
Having fun to though.
I have created the dodo exarchy, they are of course tomb world survivors.
Any good guides to get me back up to speed? I have all the DLCs except for the Lithoids, and I might even grab them if they're recommended enough.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I'm fairly sure if everyone ganged up on me now I could just take them albeit slowly. I'm constantly getting capped on all resources. All of the senate resolutions benefit me since I am leading in all metrics, they keep increasing my diplomatic weight no matter what they vote for. This is just past 100 years into the game.
Luckily they leave me alone for *gasp* 500 minerals every fifth year.
Does beating up on an unawakened FE awaken the rest? One has already awakened and I want some more Fleet Power for the War in Heaven. I'm far beyond anyone else in the galaxy but still about half the one spiritualist awakened FE. I'm deep in the repeatable tech and they're still way ahead of me in tech power.
e: also i need a smaller outliner. I've got a bunch of planets, stations and fleet now and it's way too annoying to scroll thorough.
Steam: CavilatRest
Just click on the outliner headings for the sections you don't want to collapse them.
It is probably the mechanic that gives me the most frustration because everything is so simulational and this is just... not. If I am depriving the enemy of territory and resources, and destroy their only meager fleet, that should be the end of it.
Maybe I am doing something wrong? It wouldn't be the first time.
The khan died before any other empire could rally, at that point I could just beat their fleet outright. And I gobbled up another neighbor while I was at it.
A new exciting issue is that while the khan was a threat and everybody was friendly there was a federation formed and they have been accepting half the galaxy as members. So the pretty obvious fight coming is my hegemony vs “The Cosmic Entente”.
In my last game the Khanate started right next to the isolationist FE. The khan's reign was ... brief.
It was the right call because they started going after others after taking some of my systems and eventually they backed off because their khan died.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Well here's where that doesn't make sense. Fighting the same faction, the prior war we both kind of limped to the finish line. This time I smashed them up to 100% exhaustion when I was only at 30. After making a few more claims, I went to sue for peace. I should get whatever the hell I want, right? Nope, only status quo, total war goals are -239.
Wuh...?
That said, doesn't 100% war exhaustion let you force a white peace automatically, not a wargoal peace? My understanding was that was the point where you had the ability to redraw the borders where they sat even if you hadn't achieved your goals (e.g., if you claimed four systems but were only occupying three of them by that point).
WE from ship losses is pretty broken by design still, I think. I think the idea was to keep two roughly equivalent empires close to the same exhaustion level unless something really went wrong for one of them.
Honestly, if they do rework it, I hope they also rework other aspects of war. One aspect that really bugs me and it would require changing multiple things. Is that if you invade someone, you pretty much get access to just about everything they had. Didn't bother to invest in megastructure research, no worries when you take the fully functional dyson sphere your neighbor made from scratch, spending tons of alloys, influence, research and an ascension perk on, you get full efficiency from it despite having done fuck all to figure out how those things work. That dudes ecumenopolis, that he either spend a perk, minerals, housing, influence and time or sacrificed a relic world (god why?) with a ton of influence, minerals and time alongside it, yeah, you get that shit fully functional if you just knick it from him. Honestly, voidborne and mastery of nature are probably the worst here, spend an ascension point and the one thing that is exclusive for each, doesn't fucking matter, but if someone jacks your shit they get those districts for free, with mastery of nature hurting even more because that shit costs influence as well. Would love to see the setup where, yeah, you still get some benefit for taking some of this shit, but if you want peak performance, well you're going to have to properly invest in it instead of being the looting marauder that just takes shit and probably didn't train anyone well enough to figure out how to best use all the shit you steal. It would probably go a long way to making conquest far more interesting; especially, if that came alongside a setup that forces you to actually manage new conquests for a bit before waltzing into the next conquest.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I thought that if you fought a war over claims and successfully attacked those systems that you'd be able to end the war. Thus you'd be able to have these little border skirmishes that would be over quicker than an empire could react.
Am I just having a brain fart, or did they change something?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
It's year 2430ish so I expect the endgame stuff will kick in soon, at which point we'll see how things shake out. This was kind of a weird game, considering I bought Federations and then created a completely isolationist dictatorship with no interest in galactic commonwealth. (I did try some of the Fed stuff in previous games but like many things in the game it was prtty baffling on my first go).
Next game will be much more focused on diplomacy.
And promptly ended up playing until long past my bed time.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I don't think just nabbing your claims has ever been enough to win a war.
Claimed systems and planets that you haven't conquered are a huge penalty to their willingness to surrender. So fulfilling all your claims is important, and it's unlikely you'll get a surrender or early status quo without doing so.
But no, it doesn't end the war. War exhaustion and attrition are also important because they represent the morale of the empires at war. If you grab a few systems lightning fast with just minor skirmishes, why would the enemy empire give up? They've got fleets, they've got fresh soldiers, and they're mad at you.
You have to hold on to those systems long enough to convince them that they've lost. You have to MAKE them give up. That means smashing their fleets and holding occupations.
Conversely, if you get them to 100% war exhaustion, but you haven't fulfilled your claims, you can't demand a surrender — they're tired of war, and want to quit, but they're still winning because they have the prizes you've claimed. They're expecting you to be the one who gives up, since you've botched your war effort.
I think I need to watch someone to understand proper mid and late-game expansion. Post-war can be pretty lucrative-I'm earning about 5000 minerals/month from all the territory grabs, a bunch of slave worlds generating basic resources, but unity and research have taken a huge hit and now I'm way behind on tech compared to several other empires. For instance, in my last game I had titans a good 25 years before now, and in 2440-something I haven't even seen the tech yet. Unity has also slowed down a bunch.