Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Fedora Master]

It was never fun for more than 1 playthrough

 

[Space Satan]

SPIES

Spoiler

Hello everyone!

Last week we started talking about some of the changes we’re making to establishing first contact, and as promised, today we will continue talking about how you can learn more about alien empires.

All of the things we are talking about today is work in progress and may not accurately reflect the finished product. That said, we still want to hear your thoughts and read your feedback!

Background
It always felt like there was so much missing potential when it came to learning more about alien civilizations in the game. We didn’t like that you had so much information as soon as you established communication with an alien empire – all of their borders would be revealed, and the diplomatic window would reveal most of the other information. We aim to change a lot of that.

We want alien civilizations to feel more mysterious and unknown. We want the experience of learning more about alien empires to be an equally important and fun aspect of exploration.

Fog of War
As we briefly showed last week, we are making some changes to fog of war, and what type of information you will be getting about other empires.

You will no longer see all of the systems and borders occupied by the empire you have recently contacted, but it will now instead be tied to how much Intel you have. This really makes alien empires feel way more mysterious, which is something that we really like.

The information on the empire to the galactic south-east is very limited. We can see their homeworld and the borders explored by our science ship.

The galaxy as seen from the yellow empire in the top-right. There are a bunch of empires that we know very little about, and there are still more that are undiscovered.
Intel
Like mentioned above, our primary objective is to make alien empires feel more mysterious and unknown. We wanted to hide information and allow you to learn more about other empires as you gain more Intel on them. Our goal is to make the Intel game a part of the exploration aspect of Stellaris.

An alien empire recently established communications with us. Friends..?
Let’s take a look at how we have designed the Intel game to work.

First off there is Intel, which is a value between 0 and 100. You have a current Intel value, and you have a “target” Intel value, up to which it can grow. You usually have an Intel floor, which is the lowest value it can be, depending on a couple of factors such as:

• Diplomatic Pacts (Research Agreements, Commercial Pacts etc.)
• Trust
• REDACTED (doesn’t look like anything to you)

Depending on things like diplomatic pacts, trust or other things, your Intel will grow over time.
Intel Categories
Information is split between different Intel Categories, such as Government, Military, Diplomatic, Economic, Technology. Categories can have different Intel Levels as well, ranging from None to Full. The Intel categories and their levels are what determines what information you have access to. Here are some examples:

• Low Government Intel (Intel: 10) would reveal basic things like empire name, authority, ethics, capital location.
• Low Military Intel (Intel: 40) would reveal starbases and relative military power.
• Medium Government Intel (Intel: 40) would reveal civics and origin.
• Medium Diplomacy Intel (Intel: 50) would reveal the opinion breakdown and let us see which diplomatic pacts they have with other empires.

The Intel you have on another empire heavily influences the Intel Categories, but it is not the only driving factor. It is also possible to have a higher Intel level in a certain category than what you would normally get from your level of Intel. One such example is Intel Reports, and we’ll talk about some other examples in future dev diaries.

Intel Reports
Intel Reports allow you to gain more information in a certain category, on a timed basis. It would be, for example, possible to gain an Intel Report which lasts for 720 days and gives you a High level of Military Intel, whereas otherwise High Military Intel might require you to have 80 Intel on the empire.

Stale Intel
It is said that knowledge is power, and intel is a form of knowledge. Power usually fades, and so does Intel. It is possible to lose access to information that was previously accessible. In some cases, this information will now be displayed as stale.

Intel, now in the scent of working from home for months.
The last information you had about the empire was that they were far weaker than you on many accounts, but perhaps they have strengthened their fleets by now? Stale Intel can also mean that you may no longer see if the borders for an empire change or not.

-------

That's it for this week! Hopefully you've gained some Intel into how the game is changing for the upcoming expansion

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Intel is going to be quite the game changer, and it is cool to have a more nebulous and unknown galaxy.

I also hope they do some good optimization passes.

 

[Xamenos]

Sounds good. I wonder how they'll fuck it up.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

There are worse uses for Paradox's money I suppose.

 

[Space Satan]

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with another exciting dev diary to talk about a new feature in the upcoming Nemesis expansion for Stellaris.


For far too long has the galaxy remained safe from player hands. In fact, more often than not, the player has needed to be the defender of said galaxy. No more! Finally has your time come to become the crisis!
Becoming the Crisis
Your first step towards becoming the biggest threat to the continued existence of the galaxy is to pick the associated ascension perk. You need to have 2 other Ascension Perks unlocked before you can select Become the Crisis. The Ascension Perk is available to most types of empires, but xenophiles, pacifists and rogue servitors are unable to have the color purple as their favorite.

There is no limit to the number of players that can pick it, but the AI will be less likely to do so if there is another empire that already has it.

Donning the purple, the Stellaris way.
Upon picking the Ascension Perk, your path of destruction has begun. You will forfeit other opportunities to focus on your newfound goals.

Becoming more menacing
As soon as you have chosen to Become the Crisis, you get access to a new UI tab where you can see your current crisis perks, and menace objectives.

Work in progress. Names or descriptions may not be final.
As you perform certain evil deeds, you’ll be rewarded with Menace. Some of these are rewarded upon reaching an objective, while others are rewarded over time while certain conditions are met (such as having a vassal).

To reach the next Crisis Level you will need a certain amount of Menace, and you will also need to finish a special project to take you to the next level. You will need to repeat the process of gaining more Menace and finishing a special project 4 times before you can reach the final Crisis Level.

Finishing the 1st special project, which takes you to Crisis Level 2.
Crisis Perks
Each Crisis Level unlocks certain Crisis Perks, which can unlock bonuses or new types of ships. As you become more menacing, you’ll also become more powerful through these perks.

A crisis needs to keep its options open.

Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?
You can unlock the following ships:

• Menacing Corvette
• Menacing Destroyer
• Asteroid Cruiser
• Stat-Eater

The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become.

Existential Crisis
The final level for the crisis is no mere label, as you will be able to threaten the very existence of the galaxy.

As the final level is unlocked, an Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system. The frame requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and upgrading is something that you definitely want to do. Other empires may be less happy about the outcome.

Getting such a large amount of dark matter is no easy task, so a special gathering device has to be used – let us present the Star-Eater. Star-Eaters do exactly what it sounds like – they eat stars.

Behold! A large dark matter deposit.
Your new goal as a crisis is now to gather as much dark matter as you can, so that you can upgrade your Aetherophasic Engine. The stars are now your fuel towards a different future.

Should you succeed, everyone else will lose.

The galactic community will also get their own tools to try to stop you, which is something we’ll dive deeper into next week.

 

[Xamenos]

Goddamn, Paradox turned their bad AI into a feature. I admire their balls.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

and again they show the whole world how to be completely oblivious to what your fans ask for.

 

[IDtenT]

and again they show the whole world how to be completely oblivious to what your fans ask for.

A lot of the dev diaries focused on performance and mechanic tweaks. This mostly looks like a patch to me.

 

[Joggerino]

Is there any mod/settings that makes stellaris hard in late game?

 

[Delterius]

talk about out of the blue

 

[Forest Dweller]

Is there any mod/settings that makes stellaris hard in late game?

Crisis strength?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

dude, by mid game you're *already*, *by default*, the real crisis.

 

[Alfgart]

Why would anyone care about this piece of shit, now that Distant Worlds 2 is confirmed for release this year?

 

[Average Manatee]

Making the concept of a crisis into an in-universe power buff that you can just decide to take for yourself is... incredibly, stupendously dumb. What's next, a decision to Become the Mongol Horde that just anyone could take in CK3?

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Every time I get out they pull me right the fuck back in

 

[chuft]

Age of Wonders Planetfall is better if you are in the mood for a sci fi 4X.

 

[KK1001]

imagine being retarded enough to buy let alone enjoy paradox games in 2021

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

It's okay brothers, Distant Worlds 2 soon

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It's okay brothers, Distant Worlds 2 soon

And then 18 months before it's expanded and patched enough to be good.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

It's okay brothers, Distant Worlds 2 soon

And then 18 months before it's expanded and patched enough to be good.

To be fair that's better than Stellaris where they had to rebuild the game from the ground up 4 times over the course of its life cycle and it's still not very good.

 

[Norfleet]

Is there any mod/settings that makes stellaris hard in late game?

No 4X is ever hard in the late game. By the late-game, you've naturally passed all the early-game hurdles that were the hard part and are on the victory stretch. There's simply no way it can really get "harder" when all your opponents already existed from the beginning and you've already overcome or at least survived them for this long. That's why an attempt to add a challenge to the late-game generally involves some kind of off-map invader.

 

[sser]

You could hit fast forward and walk away for five minutes and then come back and see what horribly run astray nonsense you have to fix.

 

[Preben]

Is there any mod/settings that makes stellaris hard in late game?

No 4X is ever hard in the late game. By the late-game, you've naturally passed all the early-game hurdles that were the hard part and are on the victory stretch. There's simply no way it can really get "harder" when all your opponents already existed from the beginning and you've already overcome or at least survived them for this long. That's why an attempt to add a challenge to the late-game generally involves some kind of off-map invader.

CK sort of fixed this my making realms prone to collapse with each transition of power.

Surprising that Paradox hasn't copied this concept to other games.

 

[Joggerino]

Is there any mod/settings that makes stellaris hard in late game?

No 4X is ever hard in the late game. By the late-game, you've naturally passed all the early-game hurdles that were the hard part and are on the victory stretch. There's simply no way it can really get "harder" when all your opponents already existed from the beginning and you've already overcome or at least survived them for this long. That's why an attempt to add a challenge to the late-game generally involves some kind of off-map invader.

I tried another game, set the crisis strenght to 2x, high difficulty etc. Nothing happened whole game, all my neighbors were much stronger so i couldn't attack them. Then just as i was clearing out the L-gate cluster this religious fallen empire awakened and started conquering the universe. They were neutron sweeping and invading all over the place and the "galactic community" had nothing to say about it. What pisses me off is that they can use the L-gates to attack me from anywhere, for some reason the FTL inhibitor doesn't work on them. Fuck this game