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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

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performance is always shit, it's hard to discern if the games go to shit because of this or that, they will. sooner or later. usually very, very soon.
yes, the more you had the more they fucked. problem is: the engine can spawn only 1 pop per month, so soon you'd go check and see you had a 100000000000% reproduction rate which would only slightly drop month after month if you started chopping heads. no idea if this has been changed, i played stellaris last a couple years ago.
but it was fun, in its micromanaging way, because after a while you started colonizing only in the attempt of having somewhere to move people away, to lower unemployement, to curb crime rates. i tried to have dens of scum and villainy, loaded the game with mods to make crime matter more and revolts as dangerous as possible. and saw pretty much nothing. some limited malus here and there, while the game would have used at least eu4 level revolts, with rebels spawning military units. nope. nothing.
 

Riel

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Itaca
For me the best part of Stellaris is up to mid game. Sometimes the Khan is very interesting. I once had no option but to accept vassalization, spent like 40 or 50 years to become free again. it was a fun game because unlike regular vassalization the khan won't integrate you, so I oculd actually play it. So the new DLC about vassals can be quite an improvement for Stellaris by expanding this concept
 

Storyfag

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For example, a species could have:

Thought: How it thinks, how its brain works
Locomotion: How does it move (like, through feet, tentacles, slithering, flagella, swimming fins, you get the idea)
Senses: (Sight? Hearing? That kind of thing)
Feeding: (Omnivore? Carnivore? Herbivore? Lithoid? Radiotrophic? Photosynthetic? More than one of those?)

So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

But what would the gameplay effects of that be?
 

mondblut

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Ingrija
Thought: How it thinks, how its brain works
Locomotion: How does it move (like, through feet, tentacles, slithering, flagella, swimming fins, you get the idea)
Senses: (Sight? Hearing? That kind of thing)
Feeding: (Omnivore? Carnivore? Herbivore? Lithoid? Radiotrophic? Photosynthetic? More than one of those?)

So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

How the fuck do their slithering and hearing matter in SPAAAAACE? Their brain works by processing sensory input and making conclusions. They move on spaceships. They sense with radars.

Feeding is the only thing that makes a difference, and that's been around since Master of Orion. Stellaris already has species that use all kinds of resources for food, including other species, no?
 

Storyfag

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For example, a species could have:

Thought: How it thinks, how its brain works
Locomotion: How does it move (like, through feet, tentacles, slithering, flagella, swimming fins, you get the idea)
Senses: (Sight? Hearing? That kind of thing)
Feeding: (Omnivore? Carnivore? Herbivore? Lithoid? Radiotrophic? Photosynthetic? More than one of those?)

So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

But what would the gameplay effects of that be?

Making every race interesting and unique?

How. Will. They. Be. Unique. In. Gameplay. Terms?

You know, gameplay. The thing where your pops take jobs and produce resources that you can use to hire scientists and explore star systems, to claim said systems, and to produce a space navy to keep them. How does being a flagellating radiotrophe of extremely acute hearing affect that?
 

Space Satan

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Stellaris Dev Diary #248 - Special Prospects
Hello again!

In last week’s dev diary, we discussed the basics of negotiating subjugation contracts and showed you some holdings. This week we’ll present Specialist Vassals and do a deep dive into the Prospectorium, reveal more holdings, and share the names of the five Origins that are coming in Overlord.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.

Keeping Track of Your Agreements

We felt that it would be useful to have a centralized screen for keeping track of all of your subjects, and added a summary screen tab next off the Contacts panel.

The Agreements tab shows all of your vassals (or all of your overlord’s vassals if you’re a subject) and lets you examine the terms of the agreements. It also lets you know whether or not you’re taking full advantage of the number of holdings you could have, and lets you get more details on subsidies or tithes through tooltips of those terms.

It also provides you with a convenient way to go to the negotiations screen we showed you last week.

Agreements Summary Screen
specialists.png


Specialist Empires are an advanced form of subject contract that excel at certain tasks but are deficient in others.

We are introducing three Specialist Empire types in Overlord.
  • The Bulwark: A bastion of defense that leaves basic resource acquisition to others.
  • The Prospectorium: Excels at resource acquisition but has weaker research.
  • The Scholarium: Specializes in research but relies on their allies for military support.
Similar to how Federations advance or degrade based on Cohesion, Specialist Empires improve based on loyalty, gaining additional perks and strengthening their bonuses and penalties as they level up through three tiers.

After negotiating a specialist agreement, it takes some time for the subject to convert into tier 1 of their specialty. This is based on their ethical compatibility with the specialist type and the empire size of the subject.

Several agreement terms are locked or have minimum values - a Bulwark contract, for example, must include basic resource subsidies from their overlord and a defensive pact from the subject, and the Prospectorium must provide a resource tithe to the overlord in exchange for research subsidies. These minimum terms ensure that at least some of their deficiencies are covered so they can thrive and fulfill their intended obligations to their overlord.

The Prospectorium

Let’s take a deeper look at the Norillga Citizen Compact. Our snailian friends are a tier 3 Prospectorium.

1648546254787.png


Prospectoria are all about resource acquisition, and this is reflected in their abilities and perks.

1648546268018.png


1648546275315.png


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Even when they were just beginning, they had a large penalty to scientific research and a handful of production based bonuses. As they became more specialized, the magnitude of each increased.

1648546303018.png


1648546309052.png


1648546315155.png


Prospectoria have a chance of discovering caches of resources or even new deposits each year, and the variety of things they can discover increases as they tier up. These discoveries produce a special project that must be exploited by a Construction Ship.

As might be expected, over time it’s helpful for them to have control of a reasonable area of space if you want them to keep finding things.

1648546342423.png


The overlord also gains a bonus for having at least one “advisor” of each specialist type. Having a dozen Prospectoria will not increase the Prospectorium Advisory benefit.

The third tier 1 perk, Prospectorium Supply, is tied to the Hyper Relay Network, so we’ll get back to that one in a future dev diary when we talk about that.

1648546351782.png


1648546359504.png


At tiers 2 and 3, Prospectoria gain several permanent research options that are of potential interest to them.

1648546375209.png


Their leaders, including those already employed by them, also gain some additional special traits. These are in addition to any other traits they may have…

1648546389318.png


…and they can trade them to their overlord through diplomatic trade deals. Higher skill leaders are, of course, worth considerably more than new ones that just came out of the leader pool.

1648546410677.png


Their last Tier 3 perk lets them replace agricultural features with more mining districts, helping them feed the forges as they become industrial powerhouses.

Internally, we’ve found that Specialist Empires provide an interesting cooperative playstyle where multiple empires can work together to cover for each other's deficiencies.

Holdings, Part Two

A question that came up many times last week related to deprioritizing Overlord jobs from holdings. Any of these that provide benefits for the overlord behave like Criminal jobs and cannot be deprioritized. Specific numbers on them are also still subject to balancing and change.

This week we’ll start with a mostly beneficial holding.

1648546421171.png


With the Overlord Garrison, you can help your subjects if they’re having problems with crime. Having a strong military presence on your worlds forces loyalty, but the populace of the planet might not be quite as happy about the occupying presence.

1648546430076.png


The Satellite Campus holding produces research for both overlord and subject, paid for by the subject. If the planet owner is gestalt, these will consume energy or minerals as appropriate rather than consumer goods.

This week’s civic and origin based holding previews are all about spreading the defining traits of your civilization to your subjects.

1648546438191.png


Overlords with the Citizen Service civic can build Recruitment Offices to spread their message of patriotic service to their subjects.

1648546447741.png


Zero cost, zero upkeep, free science! No real downside!
The Experimental Crater is unlocked by the Calamitous Birth origin, and allows the lithoid overlord to “test” asteroid colony ship designs by hurling them at a convenient space on their subject’s planet. They usually don’t miss the test site.

1648546461690.png


Except for when they do.

1648546469604.png


And just as the lithoids can spread their love of explosions to their subjects, the subjects of Death Cults can enjoy the same right to become Mortal Initiates that their own citizens can. As is right, they get to partake in some of the benefits of the sacrifice.

Last week I promised one machine holding, but I’ll share two instead.

1648546478228.png


The first is a bit of a mean one, with four jobs that produce research for the overlord. Organic brains aren’t very efficient or orderly though, to be honest.

1648546487373.png


“Mind Thralls” sounds like a great job, right?

1648546495561.png


More benevolent machines (specifically Rogue Servitors) can instead give their subjects a taste of what awaits them should they allow full integration. Hive-minded pops don’t quite understand what’s going on, but find the experience quite novel.


New Beginnings

We revealed the icons for the Origins in the Overlord Announcement diary, but now it’s time to attach names to them.

hre.png

Imperial Fiefdom

1648546528138.png


shroud.png

Teachers of the Shroud

1648546707438.png


sling.png

Slingshot to the Stars

1648546714154.png


subt.png

Subterranean

1648546720229.png


prog.png

Progenitor Hive

1648546725686.png


Each week one of these will be previewed in detail by one of our friends in the community, with summarized details included in that week’s dev diaries.

Next Week

Next week we’ll be visiting the new Enclaves in Overlord, looking at the Bulwark, revealing even more holdings, and maybe even an Ascension Perk.

Don’t forget that we have video versions of these dev diaries on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
Sure they wont make money fixing, vassalization in stellaris is the worse idea you can have, you better annex everything as your vassals wont do anything in war and can barely manage their economy . Make base features useless to sell an overpiced dlc, shady business as usual.
 
Last edited:
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Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,152
Vassals are useless in Stellaris and this will change none of that, barring exploits. At best you could have them handle your energy/minerals/food needs and minorly decrease your tech costs that way. But the way research and alloys work any of those that your vassal takes away from you is a net loss because the vassal can't do shit effectively with them.

I'm sure there will be some meme origin start like how Hegemony works where you start with 2 vassals that is overpowered and cheesable to the max.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
Vassals are useless in Stellaris and this will change none of that, barring exploits. At best you could have them handle your energy/minerals/food needs and minorly decrease your tech costs that way. But the way research and alloys work any of those that your vassal takes away from you is a net loss because the vassal can't do shit effectively with them.

I'm sure there will be some meme origin start like how Hegemony works where you start with 2 vassals that is overpowered and cheesable to the max.
Of course the new feature will be overpowered they always do that.
 

Riel

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2012
Messages
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Itaca
Anyone think Progenitor Hive is kinda lame? Biggest take-away I got from it is being able to create vassals, something other gestalts can't.

I think the bonuses are pretty good, level 10 leaders are meaningful and the other bonuses are good too. That said I too find the origin underwhelming just as I find Prosperous Unification pathetic, I like Origins that change the way the game plays and certainly this is one of those origins I will stay away from.

My favourite origins are: Necrophages and Void Dwellers. And then the rest of origins that change significantly the home planet: ring, gaia, post apocalyptic...

The problem with Void Dwellers is that micro management spirals out of control by mid game and playing it becomes a chore. Let's hope the changes in automation are good (here's to wishful thinking ....)
 

baturinsky

Arcane
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Apr 21, 2013
Messages
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Location
Russia
So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

If those details has some gameplay effect they can be implemented as traits.
If they have no gameplay effect, it can be just flavor text and sprite.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,152
Anyone think Progenitor Hive is kinda lame? Biggest take-away I got from it is being able to create vassals, something other gestalts can't.

Vassals are useless in Stellaris and this will change none of that, barring exploits. At best you could have them handle your energy/minerals/food needs and minorly decrease your tech costs that way. But the way research and alloys work any of those that your vassal takes away from you is a net loss because the vassal can't do shit effectively with them.

I'm sure there will be some meme origin start like how Hegemony works where you start with 2 vassals that is overpowered and cheesable to the max.

Have you seen the newer diaries?

I don't think so, the new features for vassals are VERY interesting. Prospectorum seems to be the best so far, but the research one is cool too. Bulwarks seem kinda lame to me, they're essentially a vassal made to be devoted to starbase defenses and such. I can see the appeal but kinda lame to me. And the possibility of getting things like buffed leaders and such are pretty good

Vassals are also far more useful now because the difficulty level bonuses will actually affect them now.

There's also the cool possibility of using habitats to turn otherwise useless empty sectors into something actually worth something. Say, a Prospectorum - which is interesting because it can get you new resources.

Fixing vassals would require fixing AI which is impossible for Paradox.

Everything else isn't fixing vassals, it's just bribing players to use them with artificial bonuses.
 

Ravielsk

Magister
Joined
Feb 20, 2021
Messages
1,514
Fixing vassals would require fixing AI which is impossible for Paradox.
Fixing the AI is only the second step. The first would be to fix the time scale the game operates on. The core reason why the AI sucks is because the game is built around very very long term thinking where colonizing a planet is a investment that only pays off after 5 or so hours(unless you are exploiting the hell out of migration and growth curve on a dozen other planets) and even then only if its for a specific purpose like mining, farming, alloys etc. With megastructures it gets even worse because simply due to the sheer amount of time they take to make you start building them 10-20 hours before they are actually needed.
The AI simply cannot operate on such a time scale and so the only thing it can do is randomly based on weight values perform actions that only mimic doing something. The game would first have to speed up by a factor of 10x for the AI to even have a chance of being good but for some reason PDX and its cucks insist that the game being selectively slow as hell is some deeply baked in feature without which it cannot exist.
 

Riel

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Fixing vassals would require fixing AI which is impossible for Paradox.
Fixing the AI is only the second step. The first would be to fix the time scale the game operates on. The core reason why the AI sucks is because the game is built around very very long term thinking where colonizing a planet is a investment that only pays off after 5 or so hours(unless you are exploiting the hell out of migration and growth curve on a dozen other planets) and even then only if its for a specific purpose like mining, farming, alloys etc. With megastructures it gets even worse because simply due to the sheer amount of time they take to make you start building them 10-20 hours before they are actually needed.
The AI simply cannot operate on such a time scale and so the only thing it can do is randomly based on weight values perform actions that only mimic doing something. The game would first have to speed up by a factor of 10x for the AI to even have a chance of being good but for some reason PDX and its cucks insist that the game being selectively slow as hell is some deeply baked in feature without which it cannot exist.

I disagree AI is not trying to win or to have fun, it's just following a set of rules, if that set tells it to build 734 ring worlds it will attempt to do so. I do agree more with what I understand is your implicit message here, stellaris is misleadingly complex, writing a set of rules for the AI to follow that adapts to all races, technologies and tactical situation to provide a challenging gaming experience to the player (because AI is there for that no to play best) is very complex. What is very difficult to forgive Paradox for is that their AI is unable to run a basic economy without collapsing due to lack of basic resources.

*Note that there were improvements in 3.3 in this regard.
 

Ravielsk

Magister
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Messages
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Fixing vassals would require fixing AI which is impossible for Paradox.
Fixing the AI is only the second step. The first would be to fix the time scale the game operates on. The core reason why the AI sucks is because the game is built around very very long term thinking where colonizing a planet is a investment that only pays off after 5 or so hours(unless you are exploiting the hell out of migration and growth curve on a dozen other planets) and even then only if its for a specific purpose like mining, farming, alloys etc. With megastructures it gets even worse because simply due to the sheer amount of time they take to make you start building them 10-20 hours before they are actually needed.
The AI simply cannot operate on such a time scale and so the only thing it can do is randomly based on weight values perform actions that only mimic doing something. The game would first have to speed up by a factor of 10x for the AI to even have a chance of being good but for some reason PDX and its cucks insist that the game being selectively slow as hell is some deeply baked in feature without which it cannot exist.

I disagree AI is not trying to win or to have fun, it's just following a set of rules, if that set tells it to build 734 ring worlds it will attempt to do so. I do agree more with what I understand is your implicit message here, stellaris is misleadingly complex, writing a set of rules for the AI to follow that adapts to all races, technologies and tactical situation to provide a challenging gaming experience to the player (because AI is there for that no to play best) is very complex. What is very difficult to forgive Paradox for is that their AI is unable to run a basic economy without collapsing due to lack of basic resources.

*Note that there were improvements in 3.3 in this regard.
You can disagree but you are simply wrong. You cannot write "rules" for every race and tech combination for the AI to follow(especially because half of empire growth is straight up RNG) when the action the AI is supposed to respond is a 2-20 hour long process that may or may not finish then the response will be equally as lackluster and sluggish. You straight up cannot program a "if...then...else" statement in Stellaris that would work with any level of consistency simply because of the time it takes for the "if" to even emerge and the "then" to happen.

This is why the AI past 1.9 is and always will be broken because most operations within the game have been stretched out beyond reason but the AI remained the same with PDX only adjusting weight values(a.k.a probability) without any real adjustments to its logic or process. Simply because that is the only thing they can do within the slow framework of the current game. It would be like coding a video editing software that tries to predict where you will cut your video on the timeline two hours later based on the changes you made to the first 2 minutes of the timeline. Its simply not going to work no matter what.
 
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I like Origins that change the way the game plays and certainly this is one of those origins I will stay away from.

Same.


So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

If those details has some gameplay effect they can be implemented as traits.
If they have no gameplay effect, it can be just flavor text and sprite.

The problem is that the traits system is too limited. Its why Civics were split into Civics and Origins, Civics was just not doing it anymore, too broad.

My idea was more of a "Full Species Customization".

The thing is that aparently minor characteristics can end up being very important if handled right.
Its funny, humans in sci-fi tend to be portrayed as the Mario or puny Earthlings. The one exception is often HFY fiction where humans are often portrayed as some badass species for some reason.

For example, did you know humans are a pursuit predator? If there are stats we have bonuses in, it would be Endurance and Intelligence. We're like, the Terminators of the Natural Kingdom. We can literally out-tire most species in a pursuit, they can out-run us but we can out-tire them. This is also significant because Pursuit Predation seems to lead to being a Social Species, and I guess you can see where I'm going with this.

In simple terms, rather than having a small set of general traits, you would have multiple sets of traits for certain broad characteristics. For example, is your species oviparous (lays eggs) or viviparous (infants grown within mother)? Does it breathe oxygen or something else? Things like that.

This would be more of a Stellaris 2 thing tbh. I suspect that Stellaris 2 would use CKIII's fancy 3D character system for species, but adapted for space aliens. Essentially, go Full Spore on customization.
 

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,486
I like Origins that change the way the game plays and certainly this is one of those origins I will stay away from.

Same.


So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

If those details has some gameplay effect they can be implemented as traits.
If they have no gameplay effect, it can be just flavor text and sprite.

The problem is that the traits system is too limited. Its why Civics were split into Civics and Origins, Civics was just not doing it anymore, too broad.

My idea was more of a "Full Species Customization".

The thing is that aparently minor characteristics can end up being very important if handled right.
Its funny, humans in sci-fi tend to be portrayed as the Mario or puny Earthlings. The one exception is often HFY fiction where humans are often portrayed as some badass species for some reason.

For example, did you know humans are a pursuit predator? If there are stats we have bonuses in, it would be Endurance and Intelligence. We're like, the Terminators of the Natural Kingdom. We can literally out-tire most species in a pursuit, they can out-run us but we can out-tire them. This is also significant because Pursuit Predation seems to lead to being a Social Species, and I guess you can see where I'm going with this.

In simple terms, rather than having a small set of general traits, you would have multiple sets of traits for certain broad characteristics. For example, is your species oviparous (lays eggs) or viviparous (infants grown within mother)? Does it breathe oxygen or something else? Things like that.

This would be more of a Stellaris 2 thing tbh. I suspect that Stellaris 2 would use CKIII's fancy 3D character system for species, but adapted for space aliens. Essentially, go Full Spore on customization.

They can't shove CK3 characters into Stellaris until they make them actually interesting in CK3 first.
 

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