Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Malakal]

Or based on, you know, fucking FEDERATION from Star Trek. Which is a federation.

 

[Space Satan]

Star Trek Fed is a benevolent shit, Stellaris federations is more like a bunch of backward, primitive but numerous african tribes banding together to beat the White Devils' settlement.

 

[CptMace]

they can base their ideas on pong if it makes the game good, for all i care.

Amen.

 

[coldcrow]

And again human imagination of interstellar reality. If a civilization masters interstellar travel, there is no way our feudal understanding of society will be the only interpretation. What about giving the player choices like nanotech collective, god-king technocracy, spiritual isolationists + the accompanying game mechanics as in: nanotech infiltration + domination, cloning drug-reliant citizens, symbiotic relationship with other civs, etc.
I hope some deviant ideas of sci-fi will make it in.

 

[Lone Wolf]

They've been pretty clear that this is a Trek-inspired space opera. None of which screams 'deviant ideas of sci fi'.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

please take into account this game is sort of a gamble, there's never been anything like this. it would be pointless to work on quantity if the base itself is not going to sell. knowing paradox, if the game will sell they're going to add any and every kind of shit: look how crusader kings 2 turned, during the years, from a feudal simulator into a feudal ganbgang.

 

[Lone Wolf]

In some ways, this is much less a gamble than CK/CK2.

It's in an established genre (4X space strategy), which CK's dynasty simulator did not have as a marketing advantage. It uses a proven, highly iterated engine. Genre conventions will make it feel familiar and 'safe', despite Paradox's quirky peculiarities. Paradox is also now in a much better financial situation, and would delay a product launch until it was ready (see f.e. HoI4), rather than take a reputation hit - pretty much the opposite of their situation before Magicka/CK2. In truth, Stellaris was made precisely because they can afford for it to fail.

All that said, I agree with you that they'll take a wait-and-see approach about expanding on it. I think it's a passion project for the team lead, so I remain hopeful it will be a new lease on life for a genre overflowing with shitty, generic MOO2 rip-offs.

Stars in Shadow
Lords of Rigel
MORE
Dawn of Andromeda
NuMOO
Polaris Sector
Predestination
JavaMOO
Pocket Space Empire
Dominus Galaxia
Imperia
Endless Space 2

... tons of upcoming attempts to catch lightning in a bottle again. Of the above, only Polaris Sector, Endless Space 2 and Stars in Shadow look vaguely interesting, at this point. It's been a long time since the last quality space 4X release.

 

[Lone Wolf]

It's definitely a huge modding opportunity.

And knowing Paradox, it will be heavily modifiable.

 

[Grotesque]

 

[Sranchammer]

UK English sounds so unintelligent.

 

[Grotesque]

is there spying in the game? and ground combat/planet invasions?

Stellaris Development Diary #23 - Multiplayer
29 FEBRUARY - BJORNB

Good news everyone!

Today’s Dev Diary will be about Multiplayer and what makes it so great in Stellaris.

Let's start with the basics. Players are able to host games with 32 player designed empires and optionally, several extra randomized AI empires. If you have a new person who would like to join an ongoing campaign they can hotjoin into an already existing empire. This also allows the players to leave or take a break from the ongoing multiplayer campaign and leave their empire in the capable hands of the AI. The host may also choose to host a multiplayer game from a save game allowing players to play grand campaigns lasting several weeks.

One of our longstanding issues with multiplayer is that clients desynchronize, which is usually solved by having the host rehost the game, but this can be quite a menace when playing multiplayer with 20+ people, so we’ve decided that this is an issue we should prioritize higher in Stellaris. Thanks to persistent testing and fixing of out-of-syncs as soon as they happen, we’ve managed to make Stellaris our most stable multiplayer experience yet, allowing us to run stable multiplayer with up to and probably more than 32 players. We test our multiplayer stability weekly by playing multiplayer with our betas and the developers on the project, and it’s loads of fun.

We’ve designed Stellaris with a couple of things which affects the multiplayer experience which you might want to know.

One of them is that empires have a relationship value of other empires, but the value doesn’t decide the options a player can take against another empire but decides the responses AI controlled countries gives to your requests, demands and offers.

Another thing which Stellaris has that our other grand strategy games don’t is a symmetrical and randomized start, this means that in a multiplayer game everyone starts on more or less equal terms. This makes the game, in our experience, more competitive and a lot of fun. Will you be able to claim ownership of that specifically resource rich system before your neighbor? Or should you enter an alliance to stop a specific neighbor from expanding in your direction?

One more thing which affects the multiplayer experience on an early stage is that players are anonymous until you have established communications with their empires, making you unable to know whether the first aliens you meet will be your greatest allies or your worst enemies.

Next week is all about the AI.

 

[Inf0mercial]

I know it sounds really optimistic but "One of them is that empires have a relationship value of other empires, but the value doesn’t decide the options a player can take against another empire but decides the responses AI controlled countries gives to your requests, demands and offers."

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

Hopefully the AI update actually fleshes out if they have governors and how likely the AI is to blob up into federations.

 

[kris]

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

Sounds like an opportune moment to attack. Almost the same like attacking France (EU) while they are low or manpower or just lost their entire standing army. You have no fleet and are maxing economy?

That brings me to another thing. How long will it take to build starships? Personally I hope and prefer if it is more in the timescale as in HOI, so capital ship building is a strategic decision and losing them are a serious blow to your short term plans.

 

[CptMace]

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

That'd be a most important aspect of the AI indeed. Now the cool thing is, they have another team working on HOI4 who's perfectly aware of that kind of AI programming, they should give them some good advices on that aspect, since, you know, industrial capacity is one of the most important aspect of the HOI series.

Sounds like an opportune moment to attack. Almost the same like attacking France (EU) while they are low or manpower or just lost their entire standing army. You have no fleet and are maxing economy?

I'm pretty sure he specifically refers to these "seems to be a good idea to attack" when it's clearly not. In that I mean, even if he lowered his military budget for a while, his capacity is such that he would steamroll the AI even if this AI sneak-attacked his empire => effective suicide.
Imagine France in EU4 attacked by The Netherlands alone because they lowered their military budget for a while. That's the situation we're talking about.

 

[Inf0mercial]

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

Sounds like an opportune moment to attack. Almost the same like attacking France (EU) while they are low or manpower or just lost their entire standing army. You have no fleet and are maxing economy?

That brings me to another thing. How long will it take to build starships? Personally I hope and prefer if it is more in the timescale as in HOI, so capital ship building is a strategic decision and losing them are a serious blow to your short term plans.

If building a capital ship takes a significant amount of time it will be fine but games like galactic civ or endless space had the issue that you could restart mass producing several cruisers a turn with moderate industry and it is turn by turn so gamewise it was pretty much instant, shit think about Star drive or Star Ruler, if you have less ships the ai rushes you and the way those work is that your home main industrial heart of the empire is protected pretty well so you spend 3-5 turns or 5 mins mass building then flow out and crush the enemy.

There is also the issue that if it takes me 10 turns to build a big fleet yet all the AI has managed in that time to do pick some peripheral systems from me i could not give less of a fuck, if you don't attack the core territories it doesn't matter, "whats that minister the enemy has killed 2 billion civilians and is proceeding to rape their corpses? Hmm did we lose any money from the economy or have any heavy industry placed there? Basically nothing? Meh continue the build up"

Real world examples do not translate well to games where population growth is measured in minutes so all losses can be ignored if you have not built industry there or invested lots of money into buildings.

 

[kris]

I kind of missed the part were you said "fleet on par". I get your point, really, but this will depend a bit on how the game is.

anyway, in EU4 the AI is pretty good in deciding when to attack. It do it in moments of strength or in players moment on weakness.

 

[Grotesque]

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

That didn't stop Japan to declare war on U.S.A in WWII!
We better have a talk with those who coded their AI...

 

[Sranchammer]

That didn't stop Japan to declare war on U.S.A in WWII!
We better have a talk with those who coded their AI...

I will not sideline the main topic but Japan's decision was the best course of action at the time.

 

[CptMace]

Well it had the merit to make the USA finally do something.
Home of the brave

 

[ArchAngel]

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

Sounds like an opportune moment to attack. Almost the same like attacking France (EU) while they are low or manpower or just lost their entire standing army. You have no fleet and are maxing economy?

That brings me to another thing. How long will it take to build starships? Personally I hope and prefer if it is more in the timescale as in HOI, so capital ship building is a strategic decision and losing them are a serious blow to your short term plans.

I am sure Japanese though the same in WWII :D
Then got steamrolled by superior industry. And finished off by superior science.

 

[Riel]

I hope they code some kind of industry check for the AI so it doesn't decide to declare on me when i am 4 times its size in ship building capacity but because i am maxing my econ for the moment and did not want to deal with upkeep my fleet is a bit smaller or has parity with theirs.

Sounds like an opportune moment to attack. Almost the same like attacking France (EU) while they are low or manpower or just lost their entire standing army. You have no fleet and are maxing economy?

That brings me to another thing. How long will it take to build starships? Personally I hope and prefer if it is more in the timescale as in HOI, so capital ship building is a strategic decision and losing them are a serious blow to your short term plans.

I am sure Japanese though the same in WWII :D
Then got steamrolled by superior industry. And finished off by superior science.

You forgot that while between Pearl Harbor and Japan's defeat, you know when the Japanese spread across the pacific practically unopposed threatening India with invasion? Losing all those battleships crushed for years the USA's pacific fleet and putted them in the defensive, I'd say that validates kris' point.

 

[ArchAngel]

Since they lost within lousy 5 years it does not validate anything

 

[Riel]

Since they lost within lousy 5 years it does not validate anything

Japan lost the war because they couldn't press the advantage with an invasion of USA proper due to distance and the Japanese army being bogged down on China, this gave USA the chance to rebuild its fleet better and biggest than ever, but if USA had been closer to Japan and it hadn't gone to war with China I am pretty sure the USA would have been in a hell of a war on its very own homeland, the Japanese army and fleet was pretty good at the beginning of WW2 while the USA's army had to be built from scratch since it had nothing worth the name before the war, in 1941 it was already taking shape but it wasn't until 1942-43 that they really had a good army.

Anyway, this isn't about real world history but about a PC game in which I have some hopes since nowadays PARADOX strategy games are about the only games that really get me interested. Haven't been following it though, is it any good? How does it compare to CKII, EUIII and the sort?

 

[CptMace]

This kind of histo-fiction never ends. If America was closer to Japan, they would have prepared to war way way earlier. And so on and so on.

 

[ArchAngel]

Since they lost within lousy 5 years it does not validate anything

Japan lost the war because they couldn't press the advantage with an invasion of USA proper due to distance and the Japanese army being bogged down on China, this gave USA the chance to rebuild its fleet better and biggest than ever, but if USA had been closer to Japan and it hadn't gone to war with China I am pretty sure the USA would have been in a hell of a war on its very own homeland, the Japanese army and fleet was pretty good at the beginning of WW2 while the USA's army had to be built from scratch since it had nothing worth the name before the war, in 1941 it was already taking shape but it wasn't until 1942-43 that they really had a good army.

Anyway, this isn't about real world history but about a PC game in which I have some hopes since nowadays PARADOX strategy games are about the only games that really get me interested. Haven't been following it though, is it any good? How does it compare to CKII, EUIII and the sort?

All excuses are irrevelant, only what actually happened. And what happened is that Japan got steamrolled by superior USA industry, later science and now you added their superior position as well. Tnx for confirming what I said.

And it still proves that in Stelaris AI needs to understand that current army numbers don't decide wars, they can only decide single battles. As Pearl Harbour didn't bring about victory of Japan neither should good AI start wars all the time because it can win first battle. That could be kept as personality of certain factions to go into wars even if they are not sure to win.