I am just playing a campaign, all long a peaceful AI (As in not bent on destroying all organics) that was next to me has been the leading horse all campaign long, and I actually strived to keep good relations with it since in order to keep up the economic race I had to neglect fleet strength, which I could do since I spawned very isolated, no civ closer than 10 jumps on start and lots of room to bag and claim. Anyway, for most the game the AI had overwhelming fleet power and I could just barely keep up with its tech and economy. And then things got worse when the AI managed to first vassalize and then integrate a couple of organic empires, suddenly the Dekron Awareness spawned a quarter of the galaxy and was way ahead of me to the point it started to look hopeless but I kept playing.
And then suddenly many years later after the integration of those two organic empires I noticed there was a mono system empire spawning within the Dekron Awareness, at first I didn't pay much attention to it, but more and more kept popping, at one point even the original capital of the Dekkron became an independent organic led micro empire. That one was close so I decided to vassalize it with my new psi jump engines (previously they were inaccessible because of closed borders) and when I got there I discovered why there had been a rebellion....
Apparently the Dekron had been integrating into the powergrid all organics it had assimilated into the empire, it's a feature I didn't know about because I don't play AI empires and from what I read it's basically like in the Matrix films: using organics as power sources (it apparently generates huge amount of power but also quite a lot of unhappiness -> instability). Since the AI empire had assimilated TWO organic empires it had huge amounts of organic pops into the grid.... I don't know the actual number of instability I only know what I found when I got there: 900+ successful rebel armies in orbit rolf. Luckily most had been forced into orbit due to planet capacity and I could deal with them with my fleet because otherwise assaulting planet with 900 troops on it would have been impossible, as it is my 30K fleet spent like a month just to decimate the troop transports in orbit, lol.
You have to give Paradox a big kudos on how many Scify themes they have managed to cramp into Stellaris, but the implications for the game's AI are clear. Stellaris as a strategy game is a failure, AI can't cope with so many features and always manages to screw itself into defeat regardless of circumstances, you just need to survive long enough to give it time. But as a larp a galactic empire game just for fun it is a great game.
TLDR: Stellaris is not an strategy game it is a SIM game.
And then suddenly many years later after the integration of those two organic empires I noticed there was a mono system empire spawning within the Dekron Awareness, at first I didn't pay much attention to it, but more and more kept popping, at one point even the original capital of the Dekkron became an independent organic led micro empire. That one was close so I decided to vassalize it with my new psi jump engines (previously they were inaccessible because of closed borders) and when I got there I discovered why there had been a rebellion....
Apparently the Dekron had been integrating into the powergrid all organics it had assimilated into the empire, it's a feature I didn't know about because I don't play AI empires and from what I read it's basically like in the Matrix films: using organics as power sources (it apparently generates huge amount of power but also quite a lot of unhappiness -> instability). Since the AI empire had assimilated TWO organic empires it had huge amounts of organic pops into the grid.... I don't know the actual number of instability I only know what I found when I got there: 900+ successful rebel armies in orbit rolf. Luckily most had been forced into orbit due to planet capacity and I could deal with them with my fleet because otherwise assaulting planet with 900 troops on it would have been impossible, as it is my 30K fleet spent like a month just to decimate the troop transports in orbit, lol.
You have to give Paradox a big kudos on how many Scify themes they have managed to cramp into Stellaris, but the implications for the game's AI are clear. Stellaris as a strategy game is a failure, AI can't cope with so many features and always manages to screw itself into defeat regardless of circumstances, you just need to survive long enough to give it time. But as a larp a galactic empire game just for fun it is a great game.
TLDR: Stellaris is not an strategy game it is a SIM game.
