Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I think, and the Stellaris team realized this, that the way to go with planet types is not just with habitability but specialization. The Aquatic Species pack and Aquatic species make it clear they got it. I hope they go further with it.

I guess the next pack is likely going to be a story pack. I bet its going to be about Primitives, a feature they haven't touched for years. Hope we finally get a "Play as Primitives" origin.

 

[Average Manatee]

The problem is "balance". Toxoids would inevitably become unbalanced if there are more toxic worlds than habitable.

I hate balance in games. Especially in games that are mostly played singleplayer.

Not even the amount of toxic vs. nontoxic worlds. The problem is that the meta of Stellaris is fucked up and climate either quickly becomes irrelevant (getting new species through diplomacy/conquest, or unlocking habitability modification/climate modification about 1/3rd through the tech tree) or just gets ignored (you quickly colonize everything immediately and just tank penalties until you can fix it through slightly more advanced tech 1/2 way through the tech tree). So it wouldn't be a balance problem as much as it would be just doubling the amount of worlds everyone would be colonizing, which would tank performance again.

Stellaris is really unique in games of the genre in how much it just doesn't give a shit about climate, far from games like MoO 1/2 where climate is incredibly important and only truly fixed by very late game tech.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

And that's because the mechanic is governed by the extremely simple Habitability stat.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

For the record, Stellaris classifies Venus as a toxic world. I mean, it's certainly toxic, but what makes Venus distinguishable is the fact its a world with a runaway greenhouse effect which turned it into a planet-sized hell-oven, not the fact the atmosphere is no-no for us to breathe - that's like, the least scary thing about Venus.

dude, in stellaris the difference between 100% and 20% habitability is the need to wear a sweater and turn the ac up.

 

[Joggerino]

 

[Storyfag]

Bros, this latest release fucked up my slower expansion settings (which I enacted by editing the defines file found in stellaris/common/defines). The game won't load up using the modified file (the only thing I modify is expansion influence cost). Any ideas how to work around that? I really like the slower pace of the game with sluggish expansion...

 

[IDtenT]

Bros, this latest release fucked up my slower expansion settings (which I enacted by editing the defines file found in stellaris/common/defines). The game won't load up using the modified file (the only thing I modify is expansion influence cost). Any ideas how to work around that? I really like the slower pace of the game with sluggish expansion...

Take the new file and make the same edit?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Bros, this latest release fucked up my slower expansion settings (which I enacted by editing the defines file found in stellaris/common/defines). The game won't load up using the modified file (the only thing I modify is expansion influence cost).

Poland can't into space.

 

[Storyfag]

NVM, turns out as of the latest update the file cannot have ever been modified in notepad. Wordpad works fine tho.

 

[Kane]

Yesterweek this game was on sale, so I splurged on all the missing DLC. I have since put some some time into it.

Surprisingly, I found out that this is actually the best game Paradox has on offer right now, quite different from the borefest/CK2 in space it was in 2016. It still has these annoying pacebreaking popups I so absolutely detest from Paradox and on everything above small galaxy it is an absolute lagfest. But I like the general pacing of the game and its scale/ambition. Did they hire some ex-westwood? There is at least one competent person working on the game.

 

[razvedchiki]

how are the battles?

 

[Kane]

how are the battles?

Don't know what to say here.

Number trumps design, but against an equally strong opponent design does make a difference. Its also possible to win outnumbered if you optimize towards the enemies weaknesses and the enemy allows this to happen (AI). There also is room for micromanaging, mostly on the galaxy map but on the star map as well, more so in the early game than in the late game were millions of fleet power smash into each other and you manically laugh as you consign a billion lives to oblivion.

Having a technological advantage is super important, especially if you are the underdog, because more advanced offensive and defensive technology makes a noteable difference. But since any form of wealth in Stellaris springs forth from pops, forget about playing tall. More planets = more pops = more tech = more boom.

Quick detour, I think that the fact that pop growth has negligible negative consequences and is the singular most important resource is one of the remaining weaknesses of the game. There is zero reason not to maximize pop growth at all times and design your empire towards that goal. What I would like to see is the pop growth civics changed to give bonuses to maximum (possible) pop growth and that pop growth is dynamic according to how well you are able to satisfy the needs (food, consumer goods, stability, amenities, happiness) of your population. This would be more realistic, raise player skill and allow for more diverse empire configurations.

The hyperlane rework is one of the best things to happen to t2.his game, as you now have an actual map with strategic properties to paint on. I very much like how the map becomes more dynamic semi-organically over the course of the game with progressing tech. This gives the entire galaxy some sort of cohesion, like you're all sitting in the same boat, something that was obviously inspired by Victoria 2.

Of course, aggressively projecting your power in the galaxy by fleets is better than playing defensive. But it is certainly possible to play defensive, with the new additions to the game like planetary rings you can turtle up pretty good.

Overall I find the combat very satisfying, it feels like the outcome of the battlefield is the outcome of your grip on your empire, as it should be.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i had a mod which made pop reproduce exponentially with numbers, the more the faster. if you weren't paying attention, you'd be swarmed by hordes of unemployeds and criminals. it was so cool, scrambling to keep order and economy in place. ideally. because in practice, both those types of pops weren't affecting anything at all. even with mods which went heavy with unrest and assorted mali. shame.

 

[IDtenT]

The battle system has undergone a big change in the open beta, so I wouldn't worry about digging too deep in the current stable version.

 

[Kane]

The battle system has undergone a big change in the open beta, so I wouldn't worry about digging too deep in the current stable version.

It's deep but not fundamentally different. The big change in he upcoming 3.6 is the new frigate ship type, a corvette on speed, for the express purpose to tackle battleships.

What I forgot to talk about above is fleet composition. From what I have seen so far, currently in 3.5 the bigger the better. There is no reason to build the smaller ships like corvette and destroyer late in the game. Well, that's not quite true, because corvettes and destroyers can reach levels of evasion that are so high that they can trade vs. battleships such that the war becomes too costly for the battleship player over the long run. But in reality, wars don't last that long and if you're in the late game with less income than 1000 alloys/month you're doing it wrong. At that stage of the game, nobody cares about the efficiency of a battle. Plus, the battleship spammer can simply mix some cruisers into the fleet to compensate.

Also, in 3.5 combat alpha rules supreme, meaning the longer ranged weapons with the more damage you have the better, as you can explode ships before they reach yours. They want to address this in 3.6 by introducing minimum ranges for different weapon types.

I hope that with frigates we get to see more interesting fleet compositions. Frigates forcing destroyers in turn forcing cruisers. We'll see.

 

[Joggerino]

 

[Sranchammer]

It's been years and the mid game still feels boring as shit.

 

[Storyfag]

It's been years and the mid game still feels boring as shit.

I had the pulsar wraith spawn on my last playthrough. Produced very mild excitement at best. The Great Khan routinely fails to be a credible threat.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I remember the first time the Khan spawned for me he made himself a nice little empire and invaded my systems.
Afterwards he became a fucking joke and instantly gets dunked on.
Same with the crisis or Awakened Empires; for some reason the retarded AI keeps forgetting how to use armies and don't take worlds. So they'll just blow up a star base and move on without taking the system.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Just downloaded the newest version, I need to take a gander.

Yeah, the Great Khan is a running gag awhile now. Last time I faced him, he was intimidating for like five minutes. Some AI destroyed his stations and armies or something, so he was no longer able to invade planets, just bombard them in perpetuity, so he stalled forever near a planet with Fortifications. I used the situation to sneak around him and attack the weakened neighboor. Really needs a big buff to be scary again.

 

[Humanophage]

I am trying Stellaris for the first time. It seems amusing, but it is staggering how bad the interface is after all these years.
- You cannot assign the default scientist for anomaly research. Instead, it takes the scientist with the highest skill, regardless of where he is or if he is doing something else. This leads to insane unnecessary micromanagement.
- When you click center on events, it transfers you to the system screen instead of centering the location on the galaxy map. This is especially weird in a space game where every system looks the same and there's no way to tell them apart, hence impossible to tell their location.

I generally don't understand the point of the systems screen and why the game keeps zooming in on them all the time, other than that it looks fancy. Everything can be built from the outliner or from the galaxy screen. Obnoxiously, it also keeps having this slight zoom in animation instead of simply changing the screens.

 

[dreughjiggers]

How do I roll back to an earlier version? Updates broke European Phenotype and Names.

 

[Delterius]

- You cannot assign the default scientist for anomaly research. Instead, it takes the scientist with the highest skill, regardless of where he is or if he is doing something else.

you mean the pop up from discovering the anomaly? from what i remember it would just send whoever is nearby

 

[Humanophage]

- You cannot assign the default scientist for anomaly research. Instead, it takes the scientist with the highest skill, regardless of where he is or if he is doing something else.

you mean the pop up from discovering the anomaly? from what i remember it would just send whoever is nearby

I mean the log screen where you can research the anomalies you accrued.

 

[Delterius]

- You cannot assign the default scientist for anomaly research. Instead, it takes the scientist with the highest skill, regardless of where he is or if he is doing something else.

you mean the pop up from discovering the anomaly? from what i remember it would just send whoever is nearby

I mean the log screen where you can research the anomalies you accrued.

oh fuck, i'm so used to the micro i didn't even remember that one. i agree. it sure could just ask for the closest scienceman.