[Stellaris] Robo Mommy Returns to Dom Meatbags [Machine Age DLC]

Yoshisummons

Stellaris is a 4x grand strategy space game where you create your own race determining your species's traits to their form of government as you leave your home planet and exterminate, federate, conquer, engage diplomacy, genocide, and rig the space UN your way to victory.

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/stellaris/STST01G-MASTER.html

Buy it from many places such as Paradox Plaza, Steam, or https://greenmangaming.com/games/stellaris/ or other places

Some other links stolen from Pailryder:
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/
Discord: https://discord.gg/dc9CkWk


New DLC Machine Age
3 new origins
A new Endgame Crisis


Machine Age ReleaseTrailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHoimFC99-E

With the high frequency of far reaching game changes since it's original launch here are some tutorial videos on how to play the current patch spoiled for convenience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bln-A_3OMo8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIAX8LHg9yE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiVuad-SYes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEkE2pLN-jI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrCgvCB5Lko

Special wh40k sponsored video from the "If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device" people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Rfp1rzhxk

There is also a star trek themed game built with the Stellaris engine called Star Trek Infinity

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1622900/Star_Trek_Infinite/?curator_clanid=6859167

Jealous Deva

I’m looking forward to the necroids pack. I feel like its exactly the kind of offbeat weird stuff stellaris is good at.

Was playing MOO:conquer the stars recently (modded with 5x), and while its a pretty solid beer and pretzels space4x, I keep missing the raw amount of options I have in stellaris.

Henroid

I've gotta wait for an appropriate sale to get caught up on DLC, I think I'm just one behind but I hate playing the game when it's not fully up to date. I also think that, WoW aside, this is the one game I've dumped the most money into. It's money well earned on Paradox's part, to be sure.

Jealous Deva

The latest expansion is really good. Not just for the federation stuff, though that is pretty good (I can actually have warsaw pact-esque satellite federations rather than a coalition of equals which is awesome), but also because of Origins, which are really neat.

Witchsight

I snagged this for PS4 during the last sale, and it slowly went from incomprehensible to fascinating, haha.
Judging by the the trophy percentage, not many people have actually won a game on Ironman... Myself included! My first attempt I just didn’t have the endurance to carry on through the mid game, and the most recent I couldn’t overthrow my fallen empire neighbor.

Real question though! How do you home brew your Tyranids? That is to say, your voracious hive mind bio-hoard. Maybe they would be bland to play but I am intrigued by the idea.

GoodKingJayIII

One of the expansions has hive minds and one of the civics is “devouring swarm.” But I know the console version of the game is about a year or so behind the PC so I am not sure if PS4 has access to it.

Jealous Deva

It was added in Utopia, which PS4 does have. The only thing console doesn’t have right now is megacorp, lithoids, and federations it looks like.

Henroid

Devouring Swarm is one of the fun modes of play. You basically just play as the Zerg.

Jealous Deva

Utopia and synthetic dawn are probably the two expansions I really can’t imagine living without.

Driven assimilators are pretty fun. They have a solution to every problem and that solution is assimilation.

Fanatic purifiers spawn on your borders? Assimmilate them. Primitive xenophobes can’t be uplifted or easily integrated? Assimilate them. Marauder great khan spawns? Wait for them to take over some stuff, then assimilate them.

Carpy

I think I'm ready to call my first run on console a failure. Seems like alloys are the big limiting factor, got a ton of energy and minerals but only like 200 alloys with a +10 rate.

What's the deal with colonies? You have to spend your first building on either housing or some sort of job building but whatever you pick the other was tanking happiness and required a bunch of welfare investments.

archivistkitsune

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Carpy

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Fiatil

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

GoodKingJayIII

I know I was really confused with districts/buildings for a long time

Jealous Deva

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Ringo

I just got caught up on the dlc, but I haven't played in forever. I appreciate the videos in the OP!

Of course it is so very Stellaris to have 200 minutes of video on how to play

Synthesis

Maybe someone deep in the modding scene can answer this question:

There was a mod that made your first contact (with another space empire, anyway), a lot more interesting: some factor (possibly a more receptive relationship value) could trigger the other empire asking to exchange envoys and diplomats. Aside from being a chance to improve relations further (or not, if the exchanges were unproductive), it was also the possibility of something going terribly wrong like a the AI empire taking your envoys hostage and using their own envoys to detonate a thermonuclear bomb.

Really made first contact more interesting. It's just proven impossible to find the name of the mod based on "first contact" change criteria alone.

EDIT: It's Dynamic Political Events' Xenophile Discovery Mission. Great fun on either side.

Fiatil

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Whatcha mean by "pops don't actually move by themselves"? They immigrate/emigrate between planets automatically at least -- you can see that on the pop growth sliders. Are you talking about something else?

EvmaAlsar

Fiatil wrote: »

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Whatcha mean by "pops don't actually move by themselves"? They immigrate/emigrate between planets automatically at least -- you can see that on the pop growth sliders. Are you talking about something else?

Pops already on a planet do not move between planets. Overcrowding/unemployment reduces pop growth on that planet by subtracting some growth as 'emigration'. This gets added to the pop growth of planets with immigration pull or free housing/workplaces as 'immigration'.

The way I avoid unemployed pops in a large empire is by tweaking my jobs so that there is one less open job to open housing on the planet. That way, when it shows me there's an unemployed pop I can open up that last job and then enact the planetary decision that stops/slows pop growth on that planet. If you're egalitarian, the pop growth from that world gets added to other worlds.

If I'm playing authoritarian/hive mind, I just take the overflow and resettle them to developing colonies, though it can still become a bit of a slog when I've conquered half of the galaxy.

Jealous Deva

I didn’t realize you get pop growth credit on other worlds for stopping growth, I will have to be more diligent about stopping growth when playing egalitarian then.

Undead Scottsman

New dev diary about Necroid art.

https://twitter.com/StellarisGame/status/1316695582002614274

Next week is apparently their "long as a man" patch notes.

Fiatil

EvmaAlsar wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Whatcha mean by "pops don't actually move by themselves"? They immigrate/emigrate between planets automatically at least -- you can see that on the pop growth sliders. Are you talking about something else?

Pops already on a planet do not move between planets. Overcrowding/unemployment reduces pop growth on that planet by subtracting some growth as 'emigration'. This gets added to the pop growth of planets with immigration pull or free housing/workplaces as 'immigration'.

The way I avoid unemployed pops in a large empire is by tweaking my jobs so that there is one less open job to open housing on the planet. That way, when it shows me there's an unemployed pop I can open up that last job and then enact the planetary decision that stops/slows pop growth on that planet. If you're egalitarian, the pop growth from that world gets added to other worlds.

If I'm playing authoritarian/hive mind, I just take the overflow and resettle them to developing colonies, though it can still become a bit of a slog when I've conquered half of the galaxy.

I gotcha. To me that's just a matter of perspective. I don't see a significant difference between "population slowly moves to other planet over time" and "population on this planet slowly shrinks (literally called emigration) over time and has a corresponding offset in population growth (literally called immigration) on another planet over time." It's clearly what they're trying to model with their use of the terms immigration/emigration -- it's just a matter of how literally or abstractly you read the mechanics of it. You're right that it's ultimately different if you have different population types in your empire, so it's a fair distinction.

Auralynx

Fiatil wrote: »

EvmaAlsar wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Whatcha mean by "pops don't actually move by themselves"? They immigrate/emigrate between planets automatically at least -- you can see that on the pop growth sliders. Are you talking about something else?

Pops already on a planet do not move between planets. Overcrowding/unemployment reduces pop growth on that planet by subtracting some growth as 'emigration'. This gets added to the pop growth of planets with immigration pull or free housing/workplaces as 'immigration'.

The way I avoid unemployed pops in a large empire is by tweaking my jobs so that there is one less open job to open housing on the planet. That way, when it shows me there's an unemployed pop I can open up that last job and then enact the planetary decision that stops/slows pop growth on that planet. If you're egalitarian, the pop growth from that world gets added to other worlds.

If I'm playing authoritarian/hive mind, I just take the overflow and resettle them to developing colonies, though it can still become a bit of a slog when I've conquered half of the galaxy.

I gotcha. To me that's just a matter of perspective. I don't see a significant difference between "population slowly moves to other planet over time" and "population on this planet slowly shrinks (literally called emigration) over time and has a corresponding offset in population growth (literally called immigration) on another planet over time." It's clearly what they're trying to model with their use of the terms immigration/emigration -- it's just a matter of how literally or abstractly you read the mechanics of it. You're right that it's ultimately different if you have different population types in your empire, so it's a fair distinction.

It's problematic when systems or pops change hands and when you have unemployed high-stratum pops, but not fatal.

Jealous Deva

Fiatil wrote: »

EvmaAlsar wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Whatcha mean by "pops don't actually move by themselves"? They immigrate/emigrate between planets automatically at least -- you can see that on the pop growth sliders. Are you talking about something else?

Pops already on a planet do not move between planets. Overcrowding/unemployment reduces pop growth on that planet by subtracting some growth as 'emigration'. This gets added to the pop growth of planets with immigration pull or free housing/workplaces as 'immigration'.

The way I avoid unemployed pops in a large empire is by tweaking my jobs so that there is one less open job to open housing on the planet. That way, when it shows me there's an unemployed pop I can open up that last job and then enact the planetary decision that stops/slows pop growth on that planet. If you're egalitarian, the pop growth from that world gets added to other worlds.

If I'm playing authoritarian/hive mind, I just take the overflow and resettle them to developing colonies, though it can still become a bit of a slog when I've conquered half of the galaxy.

I gotcha. To me that's just a matter of perspective. I don't see a significant difference between "population slowly moves to other planet over time" and "population on this planet slowly shrinks (literally called emigration) over time and has a corresponding offset in population growth (literally called immigration) on another planet over time." It's clearly what they're trying to model with their use of the terms immigration/emigration -- it's just a matter of how literally or abstractly you read the mechanics of it. You're right that it's ultimately different if you have different population types in your empire, so it's a fair distinction.

I don’t think pops actually ever shrink though? My impression was that you can have loads of negative population growth but pops never disappear, they just don’t grow? I may be wrong though.

Fiatil

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

EvmaAlsar wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Jealous Deva wrote: »

Fiatil wrote: »

Carpy wrote: »

Mill wrote: »

With colonies, it depends on what modifiers you get.

If you have no open building slots. You usually want to go with minerals, unless you need more energy or food.
If you can build robot pops and have an open building slot, get the build that lets you make them because pops are king.
If you can build a building off the bat, but can't create robot pops. Then check your amenities. If they are solid, then whatever basic resource district you need, unless you need to boost some advance resource (alloys, consumer goods, research or admin capacity). If your colonist pops are unhappy with a lack of amenities, then build an amenities building, but avoid gene clinics because they are a waste.
If you build a robot factor and amenities are low, the next building you get whether you need to wait for more pops or not should be amenities.

An important detail to keep in mind is that if the homeless percent of population is 50% or greater, you will not grow more pops. So you'll have to weave in new house construction if you want your colony to continue to grow.

Oh hey, this made me realize that districts are different from buildings and that they provide housing AND jobs. Colonies make a helluva lot more sense now.

Edit: I was thinking I had to manage colony happiness strictly with building slots.

Yeah I think that's one of the biggest hangups people have with the "new" system. Once you realize that they're separate it's really not too bad. I still miss some of the gameplay mechanics the old tile system allowed, but I'm generally cool with the system as is now.

The only thing I get really annoyed with is that pops don’t actually move by themselves (unless you pass a galactic council resolution and even then its very limited to the point its barely noticable or relevant).

Like pops whine about losing their freedoms when I turn on resettlement but otherwise I end up with 20 unemployed pops on a full planet with 60% habitability while next door there is a 100% world with 10 unfilled job slots.

Like just move fuckers, its not that hard.


Edit: Also kind of annoying that to even get the option to have pops move autonomously you have to pass a freedom of movement galactic council resolution. Why should the Galgameks get a say in what my internal customs policy is?

Whatcha mean by "pops don't actually move by themselves"? They immigrate/emigrate between planets automatically at least -- you can see that on the pop growth sliders. Are you talking about something else?

Pops already on a planet do not move between planets. Overcrowding/unemployment reduces pop growth on that planet by subtracting some growth as 'emigration'. This gets added to the pop growth of planets with immigration pull or free housing/workplaces as 'immigration'.

The way I avoid unemployed pops in a large empire is by tweaking my jobs so that there is one less open job to open housing on the planet. That way, when it shows me there's an unemployed pop I can open up that last job and then enact the planetary decision that stops/slows pop growth on that planet. If you're egalitarian, the pop growth from that world gets added to other worlds.

If I'm playing authoritarian/hive mind, I just take the overflow and resettle them to developing colonies, though it can still become a bit of a slog when I've conquered half of the galaxy.

I gotcha. To me that's just a matter of perspective. I don't see a significant difference between "population slowly moves to other planet over time" and "population on this planet slowly shrinks (literally called emigration) over time and has a corresponding offset in population growth (literally called immigration) on another planet over time." It's clearly what they're trying to model with their use of the terms immigration/emigration -- it's just a matter of how literally or abstractly you read the mechanics of it. You're right that it's ultimately different if you have different population types in your empire, so it's a fair distinction.

I don’t think pops actually ever shrink though? My impression was that you can have loads of negative population growth but pops never disappear, they just don’t grow? I may be wrong though.

They can! I had to do a bit of digging to confirm -- pops can shrink, it just takes pretty extreme numbers for it to happen. It's rarely going to happen from just emigration (unless your base growth is super low for some reason) but if population decline outweighs population growth, the planet will actually start to lose pops. Sadly I don't have any planets with net negative growth right now to grab a screenshot, and the available screenshots don't quite show the full picture, but from the wiki:

Pop decline represents the decrease of certain species on the planet due to purging or severe overcrowding. A pop will disappear after 100 decline points have been accumulated. By default, decline rate is −5 monthly pop decline points. Overcrowded planets that have over-represented species will have those species begin to decline in numbers and be replaced by newly growing, under-represented species that have equal citizenship. By default, declining species will lose 1 pop every 20 months. Purging a particular species will cause that species to decline more rapidly depending on the purge species right.

So yeah, you're never going to get a 1:1 "pop 1 disappears on planet A and immediately reappears on planet B" because both planets have base growth rates outside of the influence immigration/emigration has on them (if they both have base growth 3 and planet A has heavy emigration, that's still only a factor of 1.5 or so in all but really extreme cases, meaning planet A grows at 1.5 and planet B at 4.5), but the game is modelling population movement, and in certain cases that can result in pops disappearing from a planet. The game is weighted towards growth though, so it's not a 0 sum deal and you'll generally see growth on all planets even with heavy emigration.

Jealous Deva

Interesting, I guess that is a pretty decent statistic way to model it then, just not as dramatic as having a hungarian pop randomly move over to new york in Victoria 2.

I still wish I could access the automatic resettlement edict without needing to go through the galactic council though.

Jealous Deva

Hmm, I feel like they may need to work on the crisises a bit, or at least the preythoran scourge that spawned in the game I just finished.

Its not particularly that they are weak, they are just slow. Like they were in the game for a good 30 years before I hit the end date, and while they managed to eat one small ai empire, that is really pretty much all they did. They seemed to just be slow to actually fortify their territory and really hesitant to move beyond what they had fortified.

It seemed like the awakened fallen empire I had and even the great khan of the marauders were a bigger actual threat unless the preythoran spawn right on top of you.

Undead Scottsman

https://twitter.com/StellarisGame/status/1319021003591307264

Necroids on the 29th

Scooter

Witchsight wrote: »

I snagged this for PS4 during the last sale, and it slowly went from incomprehensible to fascinating, haha.
Judging by the the trophy percentage, not many people have actually won a game on Ironman... Myself included! My first attempt I just didn’t have the endurance to carry on through the mid game, and the most recent I couldn’t overthrow my fallen empire neighbor.

Real question though! How do you home brew your Tyranids? That is to say, your voracious hive mind bio-hoard. Maybe they would be bland to play but I am intrigued by the idea.

Wanted to note that steam cheevos aren't really a reliable indicator in this game, since all but the most basic mods will disable them, and I can't see myself ever playing this unmodded.

I also never play ironman games in general though, because I'm far too paranoid about a corrupt save or other glitch wrecking my game. I'm a save early, save often kind of guy.

Witchsight

Scooter wrote: »

Wanted to note that steam cheevos aren't really a reliable indicator in this game, since all but the most basic mods will disable them, and I can't see myself ever playing this unmodded.

I’m on PS4, where there’s no mods other than DLC, and you must play Ironman to acquire any trophies.
I didn’t realize that during my first game, and was wondering wth you had to do to get a single trophy.
The requirement surprised me too, but I did refight about 10 years of a war multiple times to try and actually win, so maybe Ironman is a blessing.

But yeah I think the victory % of PS4 players winning a game was like 4%.

Fiatil

(quoting from the old undead thread)

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Synthesis wrote: »

Isn't this the zombie expansion?

I assumed this was the zombie expansion.

More general death and undeath. The reanimated armies could be zombies though.

This is kind of confusing, because I've seen posts by paradox-ey people that indicate Necroid aren't overtly undead, but the store page straight up says:

Necroids, an intelligent undead species that live death to the fullest, will allow players to form empires that thrive where others might perish - and perish that others might thrive!
The Necroids Species Pack features a brand new selection of portraits, civics, ship sets and other cosmetics for players who don’t fear the afterlife, and a unique Necrophage origin with new civics.

It seems to be very much the undead expansion, which I love! I definitely don't think it's "un sci fi" at all -- undead in sci fi have a pretty long and rich history now-a-days.

Henroid

So do the Necroids get to enjoy the same benefit as robots in that habitability isn't an issue?

Undead Scottsman

Henroid wrote: »

So do the Necroids get to enjoy the same benefit as robots in that habitability isn't an issue?

Necroids aren't a separate mechanical race like Lithoids or Machines. It's just a portrait pack with some civics and an origin that you can use with any non-lithoid/machine portraits.

The origin is pretty unique (you're basically Mindflayers in that you're a parasitical species that converts other species into their own.) but your still subject to normal organic habitability rules. They do live a longass time though.

Morninglord

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Henroid wrote: »

So do the Necroids get to enjoy the same benefit as robots in that habitability isn't an issue?

Necroids aren't a separate mechanical race like Lithoids or Machines. It's just a portrait pack with some civics and an origin that you can use with any non-lithoid/machine portraits.

The origin is pretty unique (you're basically Mindflayers in that you're a parasitical species that converts other species into their own.) but your still subject to normal organic habitability rules. They do live a longass time though.

They also get to make some pretty sweet puns.

Managed to swing the council so some sap empire is now contravening a resolution?

"We've got you dead to rights!"

Jealous Deva

Fiatil wrote: »

(quoting from the old undead thread)

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Synthesis wrote: »

Isn't this the zombie expansion?

I assumed this was the zombie expansion.

More general death and undeath. The reanimated armies could be zombies though.

This is kind of confusing, because I've seen posts by paradox-ey people that indicate Necroid aren't overtly undead, but the store page straight up says:

Necroids, an intelligent undead species that live death to the fullest, will allow players to form empires that thrive where others might perish - and perish that others might thrive!
The Necroids Species Pack features a brand new selection of portraits, civics, ship sets and other cosmetics for players who don’t fear the afterlife, and a unique Necrophage origin with new civics.

It seems to be very much the undead expansion, which I love! I definitely don't think it's "un sci fi" at all -- undead in sci fi have a pretty long and rich history now-a-days.

They are kind of undead looking, but don’t have any special gameplay features innately. Instead there are undead civics and an origin you can use on any species but are thematically suited for the necroid portraits.

But if you want to have a bunch of mind flayer looking democratic pacifists or a race of zombie animating death cultist peafowl that’s totally cool too.

Carpy

This game is really good, like, having problems getting to sleep at night because I'm thinking about moves and what empire to run next and.... good.

I'm coming up on 2400 solidly in first place, the only other faction even close is a fallen empire that's content to just sit there as long as there's one empty system between them and you, plus they're on the other side of the galaxy.

Honestly it's to the point where I'm considering causing trouble with a neighbor just to change it up a bit. The only thing holding me back is deciding if I want to spend my influence on that or building a bunch of cool megastructures, seems like I'm going to cap out at +6 once I finish supremacy.

I've been playing really wide, I think my admin is pert near 500, and pop management is a real chore. So much of my time spent resettling and I don't think console is getting Federations and For The Greater Good until next year so next time I'm going to have to find a playstyle that minimizes pop management.

Jealous Deva

I find doing smaller or less dense galaxies helps with the micro a lot.

WotanAnubis

I was a bit hesitant on the Necroids pack, but the previews I've seen make some of the Necroid stuff look like they'd be good fits for the Post-Apocalyptic Origin, which is one of my personal favourites.

Quid

I really love this game but god I wish automating planets and sectors actually worked.

Carpy

Jealous Deva wrote: »

I find doing smaller or less dense galaxies helps with the micro a lot.

I'll have to fiddle with the settings next time. I just turned on ironman so I could get achievements and jumped in.

EvmaAlsar

Hooooooooly crap, the game runs fast now.

Put the game on fastest at the start as is tradition, and 2 months blinked past before I realised how quickly it was ticking.

I like it.