Stellaris (Crusader Kings in Space)

Zillah wrote: »

No I'm playing as the UN. I had two frontier outposts, -2 for the alliance, that was most of it. I then managed to get two or three technologies almost back to back that gave +1 each so I'm fine again.

It's not a question of getting my head around it, though, it's just a bad mechanic linking such unrelated things. They ruined the diplomacy by forcing me to end alliances so I could have an abstract resource so I could hire scientists.

I actually really like this system and I am completely fine with it being abstract as political power is really abstract in effect. You cannot do everything you want politically so you really have to pick what few things you want to push through and what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve.

To me it feels the same as piety in CK2 which was just as abstract. You build a few churches so you earn some extra piety points so your people will put up with you banging the maid to have a few spare heirs.

Maguined wrote: »

I actually really like this system and I am completely fine with it being abstract as political power is really abstract in effect. You cannot do everything you want politically so you really have to pick what few things you want to push through and what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve.

To me it feels the same as piety in CK2 which was just as abstract. You build a few churches so you earn some extra piety points so your people will put up with you banging the maid to have a few spare heirs.

I'm perfectly happy with having a pool to represent your political resources, and spending it on alliances, frontier outposts, and swinging elections is perfectly fine. Hiring a scientist to run a lab shouldn't draw from that pool.

My only problem is that it forces me to behave irrationally. Ending a military alliance because I can't afford a new scientist is ridiculous.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Advice. If you come across a drone homeworld, nuke it. I left them alive, came back to the system a while later and they had expanded to a few world's with massive drone swarm fleets

Hmm might have gotten one of them.

Ive got a system with what look like drones but they are listed as an unidentified empire and I cant attack them, also when I go to try research them to open communication theres nothing available to do.

Not sure if its a bug or intended

The_Valeyard wrote: »

If drones.....be wary. Huge fleets crippled my outer systems before I could respond.

You check the situation log for the communication quest?

Yeah its not there at all,I do remember starting and then immediately canceling one so im kinda worried ive bugged that project completely cus im playing on ironman so can't even use console to try fix it

VinLieger wrote: »

Paradox QA are all over bugs atm which is awesome to see, the reddit thread about ai not attacking the unbidden has QA ppl asking for save files so their ai guys can investigate.

I love paradox

I have been trying to avoid preordering games because of all the shenanigans in the industry these days but I felt completely safe preodering this from Paradox as the work they put into CK2 has me completely confident this game will be laboured over for years by them to get it as close to perfection as they can.

Is it just me or are a lot of the special research weapon techs terrible? Like, drone mining lasers and the cloud lightning attack - going by the numbers they're just much worse compared to the stock weapons. Are there hidden features that I am missing?

It seems stupid to do this whole interesting back-engineering research chain of events only to get crappy inferior weapons you should never use.

The_Valeyard wrote: »

They need to redo this tech tree 'random card deck'

I like the concept it just needs to be tweaked. The problem with traditional tech trees is that there is normally an objectively superior path or strategy to take so with replays it becomes predicitive. I like this approach as Each new playthrough will give you more variance that could change the direction your empire develops at least in the short term. I also prefer that the diplomacy aspect of trading tech only gives you a bonus into the other empires tech instead of outright trading of techs.

The problem as pointed out is that some of these special choices just seem to worse than the regular choices.

Had my first go at war last night, works pretty much the same as CK2 with war scroe etc, main difference is you have to pick your war goals at the start and each one is worth a certain amount with max being 100(i think), so planet a is worth 30, planet b worth 25 and planet c worth 25 which adds up to 80, so you can then find another optional goal thats worth 20 to hit 100 or just stick at those goals, theres also liberate goals which are cheaper and vassilise goals which are the most expensive. Then you build the warscore % by destroying their navies and occupying their planets until you hit the required war score for them to submit to some or all of the goals.

Anyway onto the war, my militaristic neighbors just got beaten bad in a war with my other pacifist neighbor, gotta love that irony, and ended up losing one planet to a liberation creating a new empire of that species. They had superior tech but now their navy was in a shambles so I decided to pounce and grab 3 of their worlds while they couldnt fight back. It was kinda of embarrassing how easy it was their biggest fleet was like 500 while i was using a fleet of corvettes and destroyers at 3k.

Once liberated I realised I might have an issue cus they make up a sizeable population of my empire now as the planets were all quite large and have full pop. So i dumped them into a sector where they were outnumbered by my race and instituted migration policies that only allow it for the primary race so they can't grow. Ive begun an integration policy for them too but no idea how that works yet.

Yeah they were both the equal major powers in the region so it came to a head and eventually i think they pissed people off that an allaince was formed against them of 2-3 small empires plus the large neighbour. They kept begging me to ally with them but i refused until my non aggression pact lapsed and moved in.

Im a bit worried ill be next target of the pacifists and their friends as they havent asked me to join whats become a federation now and im the largest empire in that hemisphere of the galaxy but my tech is still behind theirs, i seem to be keeping them on side with some good trade deals so fingers crossed.

Zillah wrote: »

This game needs a manual.

LOL ive done a lot of watching streams and also played a ton of CK2 so know that rival factions within your empire need to be either appeased or completely taken out, ive gone for both options to see which works best

Zillah wrote: »

I mean mostly even to find where the hell these options are and what they do or why you'd do them. Like, AI ask me for reciprocal migration access sometimes. I have no idea what that would achieve or why I would agree or decline. There are literally 50 different examples of things like this where I just have no idea what different things will achieve. Sector mechanics are still a bit of a mystery.

CK2 was far less opaque than this game.

EDIT: Case in point: I want my high-relations neighbour to let my science ship do a project in their space. I get -1000 to this proposal, and it says they won't allow it due to their "Harmonious Collective" personality. What does this mean, how do I convince them, how should I proceed? Only Paradox knows, because there's no manual and the tooltips are completely unhelpful.

So reciprocal migration is a tricky one, im not sure I even understand all the consequnces yet but the main one might be you then once they migrate to one of your planets you then have access to a different species that can colonise a different kind of planet, however you also run the risk of them becoming the primary species in your empire and completely changing your empires ethics with theirs and one of them becoming your next leader depending on your succession laws.

Regarding harmonious collective im not sure as I havent run into it yet but you should mouse over the tool tips of their ethics and traits in the diplomatic window and it might give a bit more insight into how it affects their diplomacy decisions

Researched some advanced government stuff and have now evolved into a mega corporation government structure, growing my fleet steadily in preparation for next war too for a vassalisation of the same empire I took stuff off last time. Once they are my vassal I'll anex them and fold them into the empire.

Also btw my influence income has skyrocketed I'm on 7-8 a month meow meaning in swimming in it most of the time, that's the reason I'm going to try vassal use instead of all out take over as it's quicker and annexing a vassal consumes influence which I need to start spending.

Gradually wrapping my head around the ship builder as well, trying to come up with 2-3 designs per ship class to ensure a balance, it's fun but also tricky

I'm loving it but yeah. I actually broke out pen and paper for the first time since my effort to play Dwarf fortress. Mostly as my civ are now so well off that I'm colonising 3/4 planets at a time and I need to remember which ship is going where (have a dozen or so species in my empire) when it gets built.

A couple of little buggy things that are annoying though and break the immersion and its usually poor AI. Like that my allies wont go to war without getting such a planet but then I can land on the ones I want, get the war score up enough and negotiate peace leaving out my allies gains. That and trying to improve relations so you offer migration access or border access which the AI scores a zero so you throw in a handful of minerals to get them to take it and all of sudden they like you more for something they didn't care about and only agreed to take for the minerals.

Yet its nearly 5am. And Im still up so you know...