Yeah, I'm hoping the whole custodian thing will let them get stuff back into a reasonable stable state. I do wish they'd revisit their development cycle because a yearly expansion release that brings in new mechanics that tend to break things badly, is really problematic. Think they'd be better served moving it out to two years and then filling in the space with a well fleshed out story pack. Would give them more time to fine tune new systems, so that they get less breakage.
Granted on the other hand, it really feels like the biggest culprit to shit break and other things being lackluster, has been the old pop system. We'll need to wait a bit longer, but now that they aren't having to take steps every patch to reign in the issues, namely hellish lag caused by all the pops, they've seem to have found more time and resources to focus on other shit that needed major attention.
-Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.
-Construction ships now have an Automated Construction mode, which will automatically build Research and Mining Stations over appropriate deposits. (It will not automatically build Observation Stations, Hyper Relays, or other constructions.)
Auto research at the beginning sounds terrible, right? That just sounds like a newbie trap. The others I can get behind. I wish that auto exploration would also just default to assist research on the planet with the highest research if there are no systems to survey.
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
Nah, it's a good way to let people show better skills to a minor extent, while also ensuring that a new player, who is likely being overwhelmed by he UI, doesn't get completely fucked because they forgot about the science ship that has been sitting in the last survey system for years.
New players and lazy players can put the science ship on survey. With luck, the devs will work on the decision making for that because it does need some work and I think it's the same one used by the AI or close to it, so it'll help the AI as well.
Better players will queue up systems to survey and then eventually queue in the auto search because you do hit a point, where it's more important to get stuff surveyed and lock down those anomalies before others do. (that said, really wish anomalies weren't handed out first come first serve. Either lower the chances that later explorers have of finding anomalies or have them work similar to the way arcology works. Person that finds the anomaly has dips until they cease to exist, then if they never research the anomaly, it defaults to the current system owner or to whoever claims it first).
As for assist research really depends. Again, new players aren't going to do that. Technically, the best play is that the 3rd or 4th science ship you get, is one that you immediately have assist with research on your home world because it's actual a sizable boost to research early on. Just not a large enough boost that it justifies putting aside early surveying.
Unless auto research is coded to pick techs that are key (like getting a bigger ship or bigger starbase), I still feel like that it'd be really bad to let early players have the AI choose which techs to research.
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
auto research is a mixed bag. If they fix things so that players are told that it's not going to be ideal, they'll keep on top of it. In solo player games, it really should never be used, since the best move is to pause the game when research finishes. Might be a bit more useful in multiplayer where you can pause the game. I mean, that's where you're probably going to get hit with shit that prevents you from staying on top of research and some of the time, it'll flip over to something that you'll want to research at that point or research later. So it means you go from complete dead time, to partial dead time.
Really, they need to do another pass on the tech trees. Engineering needs some culling. I'd say split it, but I don't think there are enough techs to make two separate trees that would seem as varied as physics and society. I'd also argue that one could argue that physics could use some culling, auto exploration going will help (auto research was tied to a tech you want anyways). Granted, both trees would seem much better if so many of the weapon techs didn't end up being crap or short lived on usefulness. Even then, they still need to do something with engineering because there are too many good techs in that tree.
auto research is a mixed bag. If they fix things so that players are told that it's not going to be ideal, they'll keep on top of it. In solo player games, it really should never be used, since the best move is to pause the game when research finishes. Might be a bit more useful in multiplayer where you can pause the game. I mean, that's where you're probably going to get hit with shit that prevents you from staying on top of research and some of the time, it'll flip over to something that you'll want to research at that point or research later. So it means you go from complete dead time, to partial dead time.
Really, they need to do another pass on the tech trees. Engineering needs some culling. I'd say split it, but I don't think there are enough techs to make two separate trees that would seem as varied as physics and society. I'd also argue that one could argue that physics could use some culling, auto exploration going will help (auto research was tied to a tech you want anyways). Granted, both trees would seem much better if so many of the weapon techs didn't end up being crap or short lived on usefulness. Even then, they still need to do something with engineering because there are too many good techs in that tree.
Yeah, especially once you get to the repeatable tech stage. Physics has 4 techs and Engineering has what, over a dozen? And I could be wrong but it really feels like the game has fewer sources of engineering research than either of the other two types.
auto research is a mixed bag. If they fix things so that players are told that it's not going to be ideal, they'll keep on top of it. In solo player games, it really should never be used, since the best move is to pause the game when research finishes. Might be a bit more useful in multiplayer where you can pause the game. I mean, that's where you're probably going to get hit with shit that prevents you from staying on top of research and some of the time, it'll flip over to something that you'll want to research at that point or research later. So it means you go from complete dead time, to partial dead time.
Really, they need to do another pass on the tech trees. Engineering needs some culling. I'd say split it, but I don't think there are enough techs to make two separate trees that would seem as varied as physics and society. I'd also argue that one could argue that physics could use some culling, auto exploration going will help (auto research was tied to a tech you want anyways). Granted, both trees would seem much better if so many of the weapon techs didn't end up being crap or short lived on usefulness. Even then, they still need to do something with engineering because there are too many good techs in that tree.
Yeah, especially once you get to the repeatable tech stage. Physics has 4 techs and Engineering has what, over a dozen? And I could be wrong but it really feels like the game has fewer sources of engineering research than either of the other two types.
Might be less of the case on that last part. I know engineering being so damn full of useful techs, could easily make it feel like you can never have enough engineering research, even when you hit repeatable techs. Just before the unity revamp, it was that any anomaly that granted a research deposit would almost always give physics, but the devs changed that so that anomalies that would spawn deposits would be more random. So you'd no longer get setups where you'd be up in your eyeballs on physics research deposits and being quite willing to sacrifice systems with physics research as the auto destination for ringworlds and Dyson spheres, assuming the system was eligible.
I keep wanting to get back into this game, but it seems like this DLC once again has a "mixed" rating on Steam and is full of bugs. Sigh. So much wasted potential here.
I keep wanting to get back into this game, but it seems like this DLC once again has a "mixed" rating on Steam and is full of bugs. Sigh. So much wasted potential here.
I'll give Paradox some credit here. Yep, it launched buggy and dumb as always.
But they released a hotfix at the end of last week that appears to have fixed all of the notable issues. Most of those reviews are now outdated, and the DLC is pretty good now!
Honestly, I'd argue most games; especially, ones where the systems on the code level have gotten complicated (note code level here, this has nothing to do with gameplay experience). Are things that you probably shouldn't be an early adopter of, if you find bugs to be really annoying. I'd say wait anywhere from a week to a month before jumping because usually all the major problems will be addressed.
The only major bug that I've seen that shouldn't have made it live was the ability of vassals to form defensive pacts that can result in an empire declaring war upon themselves. Like it's amazing that no one caught that during testing because one would think that someone would have been like "well if vassals can form separate diplomatic pacts from their overlord, we'd better make sure they can't end up also being obnoxious because of it."
All the other issues I've seen. Tend to be things where you actually have to put some thought into finding it or are a minor thing that only really works if you're trying to exploit the AI.
-AI overvaluing specialist leader traits is a good example of something that probably got missed because it's only really good in solo player games. In MP, I can see the unity hit from that doing people in a competitive environment. Early on you can' really afford to spam trade leaders and you'd have to go for subsidies, which cripple the AI overlord. So again, even if you manage to get it rolling, you're hitting yourself on traditions and crippling your overlord, possibly making both of you easy targets for someone that doesn't have to waste time trying to sucker their AI overlord; especially, when they aren't be held back by an expansion tax.
-For a more obscure one, the scholarium has an exploit that lets you get free alloys. It's obscure because you pretty much have to build the ships, which takes time and alloys. Then you have to upgrade them into a naked version because the devs botch the code, so it refunds you more alloys than it should because the gam is adding the build cost penalty to refunded alloys, in a way that gives you more alloys. Extra funny, when someone that does bother with this finds the salvagers because then they can sell nearly naked corvettes, still need the FTL drive, to them. It gets funny because any ships the salvagers buy could end up being the ship that someone else buys. Essentially, buying ships from the salvagers is like playing gacha, only someone can make it a super shitty one, by offloading a shit ton of nearly naked corvettes to them. Hell, I'm sure people building useless influence generating fleets might be doing this is the math works out to it being cheaper to do so.
I wasn't really expecting this, but my favorite feature of Overlord is probably the mercenary enclaves.
They're really useful, and pretty damn fun to build your empire around as the game has a surprising amount of support for that and synergy with previous DLC. The naval contractors civic for corporations lets you create more, and the dividends your companies pay you are pretty great. They're great for protection as well, and surpass your fleet cap by a pretty wide margin since they always hire as one very large fleet.
The best part though, is combining it with the galactic council. There are resolutions to make them stronger, and the later ones are fantastic. You can eventually make it illegal to declare war without a hired mercenary company, and then just make it illegal to not have one even in peace time.
Decided now would be a good time to actually learn this game as there is a lull in new releases, and the 17HRS I've spent futzing about as the Space Nazis and just surveying planets has always been fun. Checked out this video, and besides not knowing about 90% of what there is to actually do in this game, I wasn't aware that this was Crusader Space Kings: In Space.
. . .starting now as the United Nations and following some beginner videos and I can see why this keeps getting talked about in the same breath is the previously mentioned CK and also EU4 (the only EU I've played and - other than VICTORIA2 - the one Paradox game I've never felt like I actually knew what was going on).
Man, I know Mill has mentioned this a lot, but I really wish megastructures could be more impactful. I feel like everytime I've actually gotten a chance to build them, I've essentially already "won" the game. I tried to be a heavy engineering based civ, and focus on getting megastructures as soon as I could, but it still took me way too long, and I had already owned/vassalized like a third of the galaxy before I could finish one.
One new thing this game though was that I had the Zroni (sp?) precursors, which was new to me (not sure how long its been in the game), but I definitely like the story, and it did have a suitable impact on my game (spoilers in case any one is new/hasn't done it yet)
It definitely took me down the psychic path, that otherwise I was thinking of going robot, me being a materialist civ.
I like aspects of the psychic path (some of the interactions in the shroud with like one of your peeps becoming the chosen one is kinda neat) I just wish it wasn't just so random, and after awhile so repetitive.
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
Slow week at work so playing this off-screen, and hooboy, I really should have took the time to figure this out earlier. I don't know how, but despite there being way more going on in this game (amplified by the "pseudo-science" of the tech tree, and not knowing exactly what each thing does from a practical sense - like "fortresses" or "tax building" in other games), I am finding it to be a much easier onboarding to the games complexity than something like EU4 or CK2 were. The tutorial in this is, meh (nothing holds a candle to CK3 tutorial), but just experimenting with things (at the easiest difficulty possible) is more rewarding in learning the mechanics than other PDX games.
. . .I'm also surprised at things not playing out as I would expect them to; after playing a fair bit yesterday, I feel like my previous attempt at the game was a lot like going to a great French restaurant and ordering the burger (well done for added insult): you're probably going to get a decent burger but you're glossing over a majority of what makes the place great. I was playing as the UNE and was just focused on survey/claim/dig-for-large-planets cycle and had the default three Corvettes when a lovingly named "Occupation Floatilla" of 5K strength pinged a science ship surveying on the outskirts. I went into panic mode and started farting out a fleet and once I was at max. . .had a strength of about 600. So I figured, "Ok, forget about the side of your empire, maybe if you leave them alone they'll leave you alone." But now I had a bunch of space jockies, who needed something to do, so I sent them to the other side of the empire to take care of another floatilla that had buzzed a science ship early in the fleet buildup. Once all ships were in place, I opened fire and obliterated the space fleet. At no point I consider any other option than meeting force with force: the way I play these games, "I see 'Hostile' and I'm shooting." Which is a shame, because I accidentally realized "Hostile" doesn't mean "At War" here and I could have opened communications with these aliens or checked my situation log to see whether this wildly overpowered and sudden menace could be dealt with in a better faction.
Restarted and used the lessons of the past 50 year campaign to make "smarter" decisions. The first great decision: queueing up a shitton of districts as soon as I had the money and minerals for them because in the previous playthrough hadn't really focused on (or understood) what they were for. So, for example, on a Gaia world that spawned like right next door to my starting world, I kitted out all the districts that I could - tanking my income generation and population growth for a world that was just developing. Whoops. Now gonna start "Take 3" (this time in Ironman Mode) with just that little bit more info. . .still figuring out how to infiltrate these "Dismissive" Empires though (I'm guessing you need Espionage Technology or something like that). Which should be fine as we're going full Federation of Planets (with a shadowy Section 31 that will do what those bureaucrats at Starfleet wont).
. . .long and short. Good game. Though, it is REALLY hard to go from the CK3 style of tooltips/in-game help to what STELLARIS has (I can't even fart around in the in game web browser because I can't "accept" the cookie warning).
OK, I'm fairly sure these 'Dismissive' Empires are Fallen Empires. Don't mess with them. They will obliterate you if you piss them off. Until late in the game, obviously.
If you're familiar with Babylon 5, Fallen Empires are the Vorlon. Or the Shadows.
Oh boy I totally forgot about B5; I actually made a note to rewatch the series as I don't remember how it ended (only narrative beat I remember from the show is when the Frenchy-Napoleon'esque type aliens bombed one of their planets to get rid of the big bad they had allied with or the description of these guys as basically only functioning to "kick anthills over". . .really good lore in that show).
. . .and yeah I checked and the game says this is a "FALLEN" empire who got all uppity cause I settled this "zomgamazeballs" planet (I did notice they don't care if you just claim a system).
Also noticed on the game creation screen a "CRISIS" tab, which is a word in one of the Ascension Perks about "Become the Crisis" - so I'm guessing, in the words of Walter White, you can "become the danger."
Yeah fallen empires are end-game tech enclaves that camp out in their little sectors and mostly don't give a shit about the rest of the galaxy until certain special events happen late in the game or you provoke them. The hostile fleet you successfully attacked was possibly either a normal empire you could establish communication with if you assigned one of your envoys to first contact with them after you first run into them, or an NPC space monster type entity like rogue mining drones or a space whale. The only way to tell the difference is doing first contact protocols on them for a bit to figure out what they are.
Oh boy I totally forgot about B5; I actually made a note to rewatch the series as I don't remember how it ended (only narrative beat I remember from the show is when the Frenchy-Napoleon'esque type aliens bombed one of their planets to get rid of the big bad they had allied with or the description of these guys as basically only functioning to "kick anthills over". . .really good lore in that show).
. . .and yeah I checked and the game says this is a "FALLEN" empire who got all uppity cause I settled this "zomgamazeballs" planet (I did notice they don't care if you just claim a system).
Also noticed on the game creation screen a "CRISIS" tab, which is a word in one of the Ascension Perks about "Become the Crisis" - so I'm guessing, in the words of Walter White, you can "become the danger."
Yes, you don't want to mess with fallen empires till late game, and that each one has a specific bent. Some are lovey-dovey and just want to get to know you better, while others are like don't you dare even come close to here. Either way, do *NOT* try to mess with them until the end game.
Edit: Yup, important NOT missing there, thanks Wotan!
chrono_traveller on
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
Oh boy I totally forgot about B5; I actually made a note to rewatch the series as I don't remember how it ended (only narrative beat I remember from the show is when the Frenchy-Napoleon'esque type aliens bombed one of their planets to get rid of the big bad they had allied with or the description of these guys as basically only functioning to "kick anthills over". . .really good lore in that show).
. . .and yeah I checked and the game says this is a "FALLEN" empire who got all uppity cause I settled this "zomgamazeballs" planet (I did notice they don't care if you just claim a system).
Also noticed on the game creation screen a "CRISIS" tab, which is a word in one of the Ascension Perks about "Become the Crisis" - so I'm guessing, in the words of Walter White, you can "become the danger."
Yes, you don't want to mess with fallen empires till late game, and that each one has a specific bent. Some are lovey-dovey and just want to get to know you better, while others are like don't you dare even come close to here. Either way, do try to mess with them until the end game.
I think there's a very important 'not' missing in that last sentence there.
Oh boy I totally forgot about B5; I actually made a note to rewatch the series as I don't remember how it ended (only narrative beat I remember from the show is when the Frenchy-Napoleon'esque type aliens bombed one of their planets to get rid of the big bad they had allied with or the description of these guys as basically only functioning to "kick anthills over". . .really good lore in that show).
. . .and yeah I checked and the game says this is a "FALLEN" empire who got all uppity cause I settled this "zomgamazeballs" planet (I did notice they don't care if you just claim a system).
Also noticed on the game creation screen a "CRISIS" tab, which is a word in one of the Ascension Perks about "Become the Crisis" - so I'm guessing, in the words of Walter White, you can "become the danger."
Fallen Empires have varying motivations that are set at game start, in your case there's a Fallen Empire type that always has at least one Gaia planet spawning near their borders, which they have designated as their "Holy" world. This empire type largely doesn't care what you do as long as you don't settle on that holy world, in which case they may or may not demand you abandon the world right before they come kick your teeth in for desecrating it.
Man, I know Mill has mentioned this a lot, but I really wish megastructures could be more impactful. I feel like everytime I've actually gotten a chance to build them, I've essentially already "won" the game. I tried to be a heavy engineering based civ, and focus on getting megastructures as soon as I could, but it still took me way too long, and I had already owned/vassalized like a third of the galaxy before I could finish one.
One new thing this game though was that I had the Zroni (sp?) precursors, which was new to me (not sure how long its been in the game), but I definitely like the story, and it did have a suitable impact on my game (spoilers in case any one is new/hasn't done it yet)
It definitely took me down the psychic path, that otherwise I was thinking of going robot, me being a materialist civ.
I like aspects of the psychic path (some of the interactions in the shroud with like one of your peeps becoming the chosen one is kinda neat) I just wish it wasn't just so random, and after awhile so repetitive.
Yeah, I'm hoping they come back to megastructures at some point. It's annoying that by the time you can start building the really good ones, the game is already won. The three locked behind the galactic wonders perk being the biggest offenders. The minor megastructures are sort of hit and miss, if you get lucky with tech draws and claims, that Science Nexus you build might have been the deciding factor, sadly more often than not, it's just a win more thing. It sucks because the idea behind megastructures is cool, the execution not so much. Ruined megastructures tend to have a better impact, but even they are hit and miss because you need megaengineering and some sometimes RNG just fucks you on that regardless of how good you beeline you tech rush.
Not entirely sure what they could do with megastructures to make them more compelling. If it's not feasible to get them online earlier or with a little less hassle to make them impactful deciding the winner. At least tie some god damn events and situations to them, to make them interesting. Like I've already won the game with the dyson sphere is slotted for construction, but if it gives me some interesting narrative, it would be much more compelling as something in the game.
Granted, some of this goes back to the game only having two win conditions. Either get the biggest score or blow up the fucking galaxy, sadly the latter doesn't have much replay value for me and it sounds like it's not much different for more bloodthirsty players either.
Man, I know Mill has mentioned this a lot, but I really wish megastructures could be more impactful. I feel like everytime I've actually gotten a chance to build them, I've essentially already "won" the game. I tried to be a heavy engineering based civ, and focus on getting megastructures as soon as I could, but it still took me way too long, and I had already owned/vassalized like a third of the galaxy before I could finish one.
One new thing this game though was that I had the Zroni (sp?) precursors, which was new to me (not sure how long its been in the game), but I definitely like the story, and it did have a suitable impact on my game (spoilers in case any one is new/hasn't done it yet)
It definitely took me down the psychic path, that otherwise I was thinking of going robot, me being a materialist civ.
I like aspects of the psychic path (some of the interactions in the shroud with like one of your peeps becoming the chosen one is kinda neat) I just wish it wasn't just so random, and after awhile so repetitive.
Yeah, I'm hoping they come back to megastructures at some point. It's annoying that by the time you can start building the really good ones, the game is already won. The three locked behind the galactic wonders perk being the biggest offenders. The minor megastructures are sort of hit and miss, if you get lucky with tech draws and claims, that Science Nexus you build might have been the deciding factor, sadly more often than not, it's just a win more thing. It sucks because the idea behind megastructures is cool, the execution not so much. Ruined megastructures tend to have a better impact, but even they are hit and miss because you need megaengineering and some sometimes RNG just fucks you on that regardless of how good you beeline you tech rush.
Not entirely sure what they could do with megastructures to make them more compelling. If it's not feasible to get them online earlier or with a little less hassle to make them impactful deciding the winner. At least tie some god damn events and situations to them, to make them interesting. Like I've already won the game with the dyson sphere is slotted for construction, but if it gives me some interesting narrative, it would be much more compelling as something in the game.
Granted, some of this goes back to the game only having two win conditions. Either get the biggest score or blow up the fucking galaxy, sadly the latter doesn't have much replay value for me and it sounds like it's not much different for more bloodthirsty players either.
Orbital rings seem pretty good, as of this new patch. It's not too bad to be able to Double Station a system.
Haven't tried out the new build-a-highway ones yet.
Yeah orbital rings are pretty sweet, and that's largely because they're actually available fairly early in the game.
The megastructures stuff does seem like a silly luxury by the time they become available; the ones that aren't locked behind that are solid, but I agree with the sentiment here: by the time you get them they're not a huge factor. Science nexus is typically going up when repeatable techs have already hit. The embassy is probably the most useful one, but it depends on how politics-ey you're getting.
Yeah, as it is now, they really should split the "megastructures" into different categories (they already effectively are anyway)
kilostructures: orbital ring, hyper relay, gateway
megastructures: the different "nexus" structures (science, array, etc)
gigastructures: dyson sphere, matter decompressor, etc.
Like to make megastructures more useful/interesting, I really like the idea of making them available earlier (or at least have the stages of them available earlier, and maybe have them linked to your overall tech progress in a particular category, like after you've accumulated/spent x physics research you open the next stage of the science nexus), and events tied to them (or maybe the science nexus makes certain techs available that wouldn't be otherwise?). Just anything is better than what they're at now.
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
One problem with them is that the game doesn't really scale to the level that makes sense for structures that size. Like Dyson Sphere should be 'automatically max your energy storage every month regardless of how big it is', Ringworlds should be 'infinite districts and building space because filling one up would take a thousand times longer than any game', etc. It's like right now the game has two stages: early game scouting, normal game politics and war. For those structures you need a third stage of 'nigh godlike civilizations whose smallest fleet units consist of hundreds or thousands of ships'.
Yeah, instead of "I'm going to build a many of these as I can." a megastructure should be an empire consuming event that each empire will only have like one of. They should be gamechanging.
If you manage to successfully build a dyson sphere, your empire should essentially be set for energy for the rest of the game. A ringworld should be able to house like your entire empire's population.
But that would wreck game balance so megastructures are more like world wonders from Civ.
Well, I'm hooked. I think what I'm most liking about this game is that it's exposing what I really don't care for in, I guess, 4X-type strategy games versus so-called Grand strategy games. . .
In my current game (only year 50 but I played all day) I'm surrounded on all sides: I've got the equivalent of Braniac to the north, but mercenaries and fascist Dolphins to the south. If this were - say - CIV, I would've ground EVERYTHING in my empire to a half and thrown everything into a war effort to remove ALL threats to my diddling about with my road system. Instead, I remember that there are more complex ways of dealing with problems in this game, and so I just rented a merc group from them to clear up some hostile forces in my area and explore the systems around me. With the Dolphins I entered into an agreement with, though they snagged a system that I slept on while exploring northside.
Right now, I'm focused on keeping Braniac appeased to the north (currently not allowed to colonize for ten years, so now just aggressively expanding out to the north-east that have some choice planets) and building out my spy networks in all my known empires; I'm also trying to balance my aggressive networking with burgeoning tradition costs (this is a pretty cool mechanic - a larger population being more difficult to steer to another way of doing things) and am thinking of building a world that's just there to produce unity (in-game they'd be like a strong cultural planet that sets the trends for the rest of the Federation) because I really need help building out this sophisticated spy network across the galaxy; our planet is a Parliamentary Republic, with a liberal and welcome populace ("Our uplifted Themobolons have all the rights as their Human benefactors! The most popular entertainment act on Centaurious II, is the duo of Prytik and Als-Bert on 'Late Nights with Prytik!', available on United Nations of Earth Public Television!"), but for darn sure we're going to make sure we're at the top of the heap of bodies if shart does hit the fan.
I know in other PDX games, they like to tour "build your own story", but for reals this is the only time I've felt like I'm doing that (honestly it's probably that this game is a lot easier to understand once you get into it; one day I'll get back to EU4).
Well, I'm hooked. I think what I'm most liking about this game is that it's exposing what I really don't care for in, I guess, 4X-type strategy games versus so-called Grand strategy games. . .
In my current game (only year 50 but I played all day) I'm surrounded on all sides: I've got the equivalent of Braniac to the north, but mercenaries and fascist Dolphins to the south. If this were - say - CIV, I would've ground EVERYTHING in my empire to a half and thrown everything into a war effort to remove ALL threats to my diddling about with my road system. Instead, I remember that there are more complex ways of dealing with problems in this game, and so I just rented a merc group from them to clear up some hostile forces in my area and explore the systems around me. With the Dolphins I entered into an agreement with, though they snagged a system that I slept on while exploring northside.
Right now, I'm focused on keeping Braniac appeased to the north (currently not allowed to colonize for ten years, so now just aggressively expanding out to the north-east that have some choice planets) and building out my spy networks in all my known empires; I'm also trying to balance my aggressive networking with burgeoning tradition costs (this is a pretty cool mechanic - a larger population being more difficult to steer to another way of doing things) and am thinking of building a world that's just there to produce unity (in-game they'd be like a strong cultural planet that sets the trends for the rest of the Federation) because I really need help building out this sophisticated spy network across the galaxy; our planet is a Parliamentary Republic, with a liberal and welcome populace ("Our uplifted Themobolons have all the rights as their Human benefactors! The most popular entertainment act on Centaurious II, is the duo of Prytik and Als-Bert on 'Late Nights with Prytik!', available on United Nations of Earth Public Television!"), but for darn sure we're going to make sure we're at the top of the heap of bodies if shart does hit the fan.
I know in other PDX games, they like to tour "build your own story", but for reals this is the only time I've felt like I'm doing that (honestly it's probably that this game is a lot easier to understand once you get into it; one day I'll get back to EU4).
Yeah it's definitely the simplest of the main Paradox games to get into, in a good way. It has substantially less obtuse mechanics than the others, and at the end of the day there's less going on and it's more focused. You may have like 100+ factions doing their own thing in EU4 or CK2, and it's overwhelming to take all of that in while figuring out all of the systems going on for quite awhile.
It's the only Paradox game I can play on unmodded Ironman, because I don't feel the need to mod out one or two crazy systems they've added along the way like I do with all of their other titles.
0
Options
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited June 2022
I quite like the megastructures but I'm shit at the game and do not have a fully functioning economy by the time I get to build one. I only play on normal, and I'm no super good player. I'm always scratching for energy all the way up until the dyson sphere comes online.
I also tend to rush tech, so my dyson sphere in one game is about to come online just in time for the war in heaven which just started which is nice because I really need to be pumping out quite a lot of ships and I would like to not have to deal with those energy costs atm.
I also managed to build a megashipyard well before the war on heaven began, which is also a great comfort.
I understand it sucks for you pros who know how to 4x properly but for us regular joes they're ok.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
When is a mercenary group not a mercenary group. . .when it's a damn Khanate! What I took to be a wildly cheap defensive roadblock for enemies to the south, turned into my undoing. I let my border get weak while I developed for the inevitable confrontation with this "totally going to try and preserve me robot" nation to the north and didn't even realize that those mercs could become something else. Was on my way to becoming Galactic Custodian too. . .fuuuuuuuuuuuuudge.
Good excuse to start over with the Empire of Man as I feel like I've gotten enough of a hang on the games mechanics to start with slightly more difficult groups. Definitely won't sleep on getting more and more alien types into my empire (I spawned like seven Tomb Worlds, but ignored them because it was a nightmare for humans and the other races in my group; I didn't realize that I could choose other aliens with the colonizing ship that match - I'm assuming I got all these choices from opening up diplomatic channels with races) this time around, and have a better idea of which traditions to push for and how to do border placement/management.
. . .also didn't realize I had turned the tutorial off on my last playthrough, and it was really interesting to see how not-lost I was (though I never did figure out how to summon the galactic community against the Khanate despite being on the Council).
When is a mercenary group not a mercenary group. . .when it's a damn Khanate! What I took to be a wildly cheap defensive roadblock for enemies to the south, turned into my undoing. I let my border get weak while I developed for the inevitable confrontation with this "totally going to try and preserve me robot" nation to the north and didn't even realize that those mercs could become something else. Was on my way to becoming Galactic Custodian too. . .fuuuuuuuuuuuuudge.
Yeah, the space barbarians can kind of turn into the Space Mongol Empire. But the thing about the Space Mongols is that they're kind of like the Mongols.
Basically once the Great Khan dies - and he will die -, the Empire immediately falls apart. So if you don't have the strength to resist the Khanate, just accept becoming a satrapy for a while and wait for the Khan to die.
As far as crises go, they're pretty mild. They only injure your pride, really.
I'm not sure if this was posted back when it was released, but the Aquatics Species pack has a fantastic sea shanty trailer that is worth the $10 on its own:
The DLC itself is actually really good as well -- the traits are unique and pretty much give you an entirely different "ocean dweller" playstyle if you go all in.
I'm not sure if this was posted back when it was released, but the Aquatics Species pack has a fantastic sea shanty trailer that is worth the $10 on its own:
I notice you didn't post the extended sing-along version. So here it is.
I hit a gamebreaking bug I think. suddenly my ship upkeep jumped to 4 times it's value. Pretty sure I somehow ended up paying the entire upkeep value of my federation fleet. Even disbanding it didn't help.
I hit a gamebreaking bug I think. suddenly my ship upkeep jumped to 4 times it's value. Pretty sure I somehow ended up paying the entire upkeep value of my federation fleet. Even disbanding it didn't help.
Economy ruined game over
OK, just to make sure... you didn't send your own big fleets away from a starbase with a Crew Quarters/Crew Gestation Chambers/Service Umbilicals? Those reduce the upkeep of all fleets docked there, so when you order those fleets to leave, upkeep can suddenly get massive. Your homeworld starbase always starts with a Crew Quarters, by the way.
If that's not what happened, then I got nothing. Well, except maybe that some Reduce Upkeep trait Admiral died.
Yeah, check to see if you have one of those at your starbase that you keep idle fleets at.
On that note, I want to say the recent patch removed the whole downgrading of fleets for extra alloys. I don't think they've done anything to compensate for that. Easiest fix is to give us a special science ship that has no energy upkeep when it doesn't have a scientist. That way they could give us two science ships at the start, without having to give out two scientists to avoid the second science ship being an energy drain.
This doubles back to the crew quarters/crew gestation chambers/service umbilical starbase building. I hate that we get that as the default building because it's a net drain on energy with no good returns. I need to do the math, but I don't even think bulwarks start out with enough ships to hit the break even point. Sure it costs alloys to make, but chances are fairly solid that most people will move to a different system for ship construction, which is where idle fleets tend to hang out. So it's pretty rare to get much value out of it. I'd rather they got rid of it, even if we didn't get anything for it, just to save me a button click on dismantling the damn thing at game start.
I admit all of this would mean that 20 year zerg rush strategies would be nerfed and not compensated, but frankly they probably need to be nerfed. IMO it should be much harder than it currently is to early zerg rush neighbors and it's even more insulting how quickly those conquered capital worlds can be turned around for a quick snowball.
Just curious, but what difficulty does everyone else play on?
I watch tryhards like MontuPlays and Stefan Anton do Grand Admiral with no scaling but they also have ridiculous resources and military strength 20 years into the game.
Tried to copy a play style like theirs on GA with clone army and.. it just doesn't work out.
Posts
Granted on the other hand, it really feels like the biggest culprit to shit break and other things being lackluster, has been the old pop system. We'll need to wait a bit longer, but now that they aren't having to take steps every patch to reign in the issues, namely hellish lag caused by all the pops, they've seem to have found more time and resources to focus on other shit that needed major attention.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Sickos.jpg
New players and lazy players can put the science ship on survey. With luck, the devs will work on the decision making for that because it does need some work and I think it's the same one used by the AI or close to it, so it'll help the AI as well.
Better players will queue up systems to survey and then eventually queue in the auto search because you do hit a point, where it's more important to get stuff surveyed and lock down those anomalies before others do. (that said, really wish anomalies weren't handed out first come first serve. Either lower the chances that later explorers have of finding anomalies or have them work similar to the way arcology works. Person that finds the anomaly has dips until they cease to exist, then if they never research the anomaly, it defaults to the current system owner or to whoever claims it first).
As for assist research really depends. Again, new players aren't going to do that. Technically, the best play is that the 3rd or 4th science ship you get, is one that you immediately have assist with research on your home world because it's actual a sizable boost to research early on. Just not a large enough boost that it justifies putting aside early surveying.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Really, they need to do another pass on the tech trees. Engineering needs some culling. I'd say split it, but I don't think there are enough techs to make two separate trees that would seem as varied as physics and society. I'd also argue that one could argue that physics could use some culling, auto exploration going will help (auto research was tied to a tech you want anyways). Granted, both trees would seem much better if so many of the weapon techs didn't end up being crap or short lived on usefulness. Even then, they still need to do something with engineering because there are too many good techs in that tree.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Although quite good when you got more resources than you know what to do with of course, so that's neat.
Yeah, especially once you get to the repeatable tech stage. Physics has 4 techs and Engineering has what, over a dozen? And I could be wrong but it really feels like the game has fewer sources of engineering research than either of the other two types.
Might be less of the case on that last part. I know engineering being so damn full of useful techs, could easily make it feel like you can never have enough engineering research, even when you hit repeatable techs. Just before the unity revamp, it was that any anomaly that granted a research deposit would almost always give physics, but the devs changed that so that anomalies that would spawn deposits would be more random. So you'd no longer get setups where you'd be up in your eyeballs on physics research deposits and being quite willing to sacrifice systems with physics research as the auto destination for ringworlds and Dyson spheres, assuming the system was eligible.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I'll give Paradox some credit here. Yep, it launched buggy and dumb as always.
But they released a hotfix at the end of last week that appears to have fixed all of the notable issues. Most of those reviews are now outdated, and the DLC is pretty good now!
The only major bug that I've seen that shouldn't have made it live was the ability of vassals to form defensive pacts that can result in an empire declaring war upon themselves. Like it's amazing that no one caught that during testing because one would think that someone would have been like "well if vassals can form separate diplomatic pacts from their overlord, we'd better make sure they can't end up also being obnoxious because of it."
All the other issues I've seen. Tend to be things where you actually have to put some thought into finding it or are a minor thing that only really works if you're trying to exploit the AI.
-AI overvaluing specialist leader traits is a good example of something that probably got missed because it's only really good in solo player games. In MP, I can see the unity hit from that doing people in a competitive environment. Early on you can' really afford to spam trade leaders and you'd have to go for subsidies, which cripple the AI overlord. So again, even if you manage to get it rolling, you're hitting yourself on traditions and crippling your overlord, possibly making both of you easy targets for someone that doesn't have to waste time trying to sucker their AI overlord; especially, when they aren't be held back by an expansion tax.
-For a more obscure one, the scholarium has an exploit that lets you get free alloys. It's obscure because you pretty much have to build the ships, which takes time and alloys. Then you have to upgrade them into a naked version because the devs botch the code, so it refunds you more alloys than it should because the gam is adding the build cost penalty to refunded alloys, in a way that gives you more alloys. Extra funny, when someone that does bother with this finds the salvagers because then they can sell nearly naked corvettes, still need the FTL drive, to them. It gets funny because any ships the salvagers buy could end up being the ship that someone else buys. Essentially, buying ships from the salvagers is like playing gacha, only someone can make it a super shitty one, by offloading a shit ton of nearly naked corvettes to them. Hell, I'm sure people building useless influence generating fleets might be doing this is the math works out to it being cheaper to do so.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
They're really useful, and pretty damn fun to build your empire around as the game has a surprising amount of support for that and synergy with previous DLC. The naval contractors civic for corporations lets you create more, and the dividends your companies pay you are pretty great. They're great for protection as well, and surpass your fleet cap by a pretty wide margin since they always hire as one very large fleet.
The best part though, is combining it with the galactic council. There are resolutions to make them stronger, and the later ones are fantastic. You can eventually make it illegal to declare war without a hired mercenary company, and then just make it illegal to not have one even in peace time.
Business is booming to say the least.
. . .starting now as the United Nations and following some beginner videos and I can see why this keeps getting talked about in the same breath is the previously mentioned CK and also EU4 (the only EU I've played and - other than VICTORIA2 - the one Paradox game I've never felt like I actually knew what was going on).
One new thing this game though was that I had the Zroni (sp?) precursors, which was new to me (not sure how long its been in the game), but I definitely like the story, and it did have a suitable impact on my game (spoilers in case any one is new/hasn't done it yet)
I like aspects of the psychic path (some of the interactions in the shroud with like one of your peeps becoming the chosen one is kinda neat) I just wish it wasn't just so random, and after awhile so repetitive.
. . .I'm also surprised at things not playing out as I would expect them to; after playing a fair bit yesterday, I feel like my previous attempt at the game was a lot like going to a great French restaurant and ordering the burger (well done for added insult): you're probably going to get a decent burger but you're glossing over a majority of what makes the place great. I was playing as the UNE and was just focused on survey/claim/dig-for-large-planets cycle and had the default three Corvettes when a lovingly named "Occupation Floatilla" of 5K strength pinged a science ship surveying on the outskirts. I went into panic mode and started farting out a fleet and once I was at max. . .had a strength of about 600. So I figured, "Ok, forget about the side of your empire, maybe if you leave them alone they'll leave you alone." But now I had a bunch of space jockies, who needed something to do, so I sent them to the other side of the empire to take care of another floatilla that had buzzed a science ship early in the fleet buildup. Once all ships were in place, I opened fire and obliterated the space fleet. At no point I consider any other option than meeting force with force: the way I play these games, "I see 'Hostile' and I'm shooting." Which is a shame, because I accidentally realized "Hostile" doesn't mean "At War" here and I could have opened communications with these aliens or checked my situation log to see whether this wildly overpowered and sudden menace could be dealt with in a better faction.
Restarted and used the lessons of the past 50 year campaign to make "smarter" decisions. The first great decision: queueing up a shitton of districts as soon as I had the money and minerals for them because in the previous playthrough hadn't really focused on (or understood) what they were for. So, for example, on a Gaia world that spawned like right next door to my starting world, I kitted out all the districts that I could - tanking my income generation and population growth for a world that was just developing. Whoops. Now gonna start "Take 3" (this time in Ironman Mode) with just that little bit more info. . .still figuring out how to infiltrate these "Dismissive" Empires though (I'm guessing you need Espionage Technology or something like that). Which should be fine as we're going full Federation of Planets (with a shadowy Section 31 that will do what those bureaucrats at Starfleet wont).
. . .long and short. Good game. Though, it is REALLY hard to go from the CK3 style of tooltips/in-game help to what STELLARIS has (I can't even fart around in the in game web browser because I can't "accept" the cookie warning).
If you're familiar with Babylon 5, Fallen Empires are the Vorlon. Or the Shadows.
. . .and yeah I checked and the game says this is a "FALLEN" empire who got all uppity cause I settled this "zomgamazeballs" planet (I did notice they don't care if you just claim a system).
Also noticed on the game creation screen a "CRISIS" tab, which is a word in one of the Ascension Perks about "Become the Crisis" - so I'm guessing, in the words of Walter White, you can "become the danger."
Yes, you don't want to mess with fallen empires till late game, and that each one has a specific bent. Some are lovey-dovey and just want to get to know you better, while others are like don't you dare even come close to here. Either way, do *NOT* try to mess with them until the end game.
Edit: Yup, important NOT missing there, thanks Wotan!
I think there's a very important 'not' missing in that last sentence there.
Fallen Empires have varying motivations that are set at game start, in your case there's a Fallen Empire type that always has at least one Gaia planet spawning near their borders, which they have designated as their "Holy" world. This empire type largely doesn't care what you do as long as you don't settle on that holy world, in which case they may or may not demand you abandon the world right before they come kick your teeth in for desecrating it.
Yeah, I'm hoping they come back to megastructures at some point. It's annoying that by the time you can start building the really good ones, the game is already won. The three locked behind the galactic wonders perk being the biggest offenders. The minor megastructures are sort of hit and miss, if you get lucky with tech draws and claims, that Science Nexus you build might have been the deciding factor, sadly more often than not, it's just a win more thing. It sucks because the idea behind megastructures is cool, the execution not so much. Ruined megastructures tend to have a better impact, but even they are hit and miss because you need megaengineering and some sometimes RNG just fucks you on that regardless of how good you beeline you tech rush.
Not entirely sure what they could do with megastructures to make them more compelling. If it's not feasible to get them online earlier or with a little less hassle to make them impactful deciding the winner. At least tie some god damn events and situations to them, to make them interesting. Like I've already won the game with the dyson sphere is slotted for construction, but if it gives me some interesting narrative, it would be much more compelling as something in the game.
Granted, some of this goes back to the game only having two win conditions. Either get the biggest score or blow up the fucking galaxy, sadly the latter doesn't have much replay value for me and it sounds like it's not much different for more bloodthirsty players either.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Orbital rings seem pretty good, as of this new patch. It's not too bad to be able to Double Station a system.
Haven't tried out the new build-a-highway ones yet.
The megastructures stuff does seem like a silly luxury by the time they become available; the ones that aren't locked behind that are solid, but I agree with the sentiment here: by the time you get them they're not a huge factor. Science nexus is typically going up when repeatable techs have already hit. The embassy is probably the most useful one, but it depends on how politics-ey you're getting.
kilostructures: orbital ring, hyper relay, gateway
megastructures: the different "nexus" structures (science, array, etc)
gigastructures: dyson sphere, matter decompressor, etc.
Like to make megastructures more useful/interesting, I really like the idea of making them available earlier (or at least have the stages of them available earlier, and maybe have them linked to your overall tech progress in a particular category, like after you've accumulated/spent x physics research you open the next stage of the science nexus), and events tied to them (or maybe the science nexus makes certain techs available that wouldn't be otherwise?). Just anything is better than what they're at now.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
If you manage to successfully build a dyson sphere, your empire should essentially be set for energy for the rest of the game. A ringworld should be able to house like your entire empire's population.
But that would wreck game balance so megastructures are more like world wonders from Civ.
In my current game (only year 50 but I played all day) I'm surrounded on all sides: I've got the equivalent of Braniac to the north, but mercenaries and fascist Dolphins to the south. If this were - say - CIV, I would've ground EVERYTHING in my empire to a half and thrown everything into a war effort to remove ALL threats to my diddling about with my road system. Instead, I remember that there are more complex ways of dealing with problems in this game, and so I just rented a merc group from them to clear up some hostile forces in my area and explore the systems around me. With the Dolphins I entered into an agreement with, though they snagged a system that I slept on while exploring northside.
Right now, I'm focused on keeping Braniac appeased to the north (currently not allowed to colonize for ten years, so now just aggressively expanding out to the north-east that have some choice planets) and building out my spy networks in all my known empires; I'm also trying to balance my aggressive networking with burgeoning tradition costs (this is a pretty cool mechanic - a larger population being more difficult to steer to another way of doing things) and am thinking of building a world that's just there to produce unity (in-game they'd be like a strong cultural planet that sets the trends for the rest of the Federation) because I really need help building out this sophisticated spy network across the galaxy; our planet is a Parliamentary Republic, with a liberal and welcome populace ("Our uplifted Themobolons have all the rights as their Human benefactors! The most popular entertainment act on Centaurious II, is the duo of Prytik and Als-Bert on 'Late Nights with Prytik!', available on United Nations of Earth Public Television!"), but for darn sure we're going to make sure we're at the top of the heap of bodies if shart does hit the fan.
I know in other PDX games, they like to tour "build your own story", but for reals this is the only time I've felt like I'm doing that (honestly it's probably that this game is a lot easier to understand once you get into it; one day I'll get back to EU4).
Yeah it's definitely the simplest of the main Paradox games to get into, in a good way. It has substantially less obtuse mechanics than the others, and at the end of the day there's less going on and it's more focused. You may have like 100+ factions doing their own thing in EU4 or CK2, and it's overwhelming to take all of that in while figuring out all of the systems going on for quite awhile.
It's the only Paradox game I can play on unmodded Ironman, because I don't feel the need to mod out one or two crazy systems they've added along the way like I do with all of their other titles.
I also tend to rush tech, so my dyson sphere in one game is about to come online just in time for the war in heaven which just started which is nice because I really need to be pumping out quite a lot of ships and I would like to not have to deal with those energy costs atm.
I also managed to build a megashipyard well before the war on heaven began, which is also a great comfort.
I understand it sucks for you pros who know how to 4x properly but for us regular joes they're ok.
Good excuse to start over with the Empire of Man as I feel like I've gotten enough of a hang on the games mechanics to start with slightly more difficult groups. Definitely won't sleep on getting more and more alien types into my empire (I spawned like seven Tomb Worlds, but ignored them because it was a nightmare for humans and the other races in my group; I didn't realize that I could choose other aliens with the colonizing ship that match - I'm assuming I got all these choices from opening up diplomatic channels with races) this time around, and have a better idea of which traditions to push for and how to do border placement/management.
. . .also didn't realize I had turned the tutorial off on my last playthrough, and it was really interesting to see how not-lost I was (though I never did figure out how to summon the galactic community against the Khanate despite being on the Council).
Yeah, the space barbarians can kind of turn into the Space Mongol Empire. But the thing about the Space Mongols is that they're kind of like the Mongols.
As far as crises go, they're pretty mild. They only injure your pride, really.
The DLC itself is actually really good as well -- the traits are unique and pretty much give you an entirely different "ocean dweller" playstyle if you go all in.
I notice you didn't post the extended sing-along version. So here it is.
Economy ruined game over
OK, just to make sure... you didn't send your own big fleets away from a starbase with a Crew Quarters/Crew Gestation Chambers/Service Umbilicals? Those reduce the upkeep of all fleets docked there, so when you order those fleets to leave, upkeep can suddenly get massive. Your homeworld starbase always starts with a Crew Quarters, by the way.
If that's not what happened, then I got nothing. Well, except maybe that some Reduce Upkeep trait Admiral died.
On that note, I want to say the recent patch removed the whole downgrading of fleets for extra alloys. I don't think they've done anything to compensate for that. Easiest fix is to give us a special science ship that has no energy upkeep when it doesn't have a scientist. That way they could give us two science ships at the start, without having to give out two scientists to avoid the second science ship being an energy drain.
This doubles back to the crew quarters/crew gestation chambers/service umbilical starbase building. I hate that we get that as the default building because it's a net drain on energy with no good returns. I need to do the math, but I don't even think bulwarks start out with enough ships to hit the break even point. Sure it costs alloys to make, but chances are fairly solid that most people will move to a different system for ship construction, which is where idle fleets tend to hang out. So it's pretty rare to get much value out of it. I'd rather they got rid of it, even if we didn't get anything for it, just to save me a button click on dismantling the damn thing at game start.
I admit all of this would mean that 20 year zerg rush strategies would be nerfed and not compensated, but frankly they probably need to be nerfed. IMO it should be much harder than it currently is to early zerg rush neighbors and it's even more insulting how quickly those conquered capital worlds can be turned around for a quick snowball.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I watch tryhards like MontuPlays and Stefan Anton do Grand Admiral with no scaling but they also have ridiculous resources and military strength 20 years into the game.
Tried to copy a play style like theirs on GA with clone army and.. it just doesn't work out.
Steam profile - Twitch - YouTube
Switch: SM-6352-8553-6516