Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Alienman]

Polygon. Waiting for space sexism while watching the video.

Edit: He used the word "accessible" - never good.

 

[Lone Wolf]

On the other hand, tons of things in there that promise to shake up the landscape.

AI revolts, federations, civil wars, 'snowballing crises', CYOminiA... Interesting stuff.

EDIT: Hopefully, this game sells well. EU4 has had years of support and 14-15 major patches loaded with content, plus DLCs. There is way more scope for meaningful DLC in a space-based 4X/GS.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Let's just agree they are both horrible, Interstellar and Fallout 4.

If you watched Interstellar after you pirated it along with your porn in bulk and watched it on a slimey monitor after you waxed your shaft thoroughly, then yea! ITS HORRIBLE!

Indeed. I watched in the cinema with my gf and it was really horrible too. I could only make it to the finish by joking about every hollywoodism, plot hole and blunder. The last act was particularly LMAO

 

[Space Satan]

There's a great incline :
Q: It would be cool if they built in a fairly robust and targetable genocide system, perhaps on a per-pop basis, so you could go after specific pops that were possessed of characteristic you found particularly offensive or inconvenient.

Dev A:
Only a very twisted and dark dev-team would create a system for genociding Pops!
There miiiiiight however exist a mechanic that does pretty much what you describe above, though called something else...

 

[Irenaeus II]

Diversity wins!

 

[Inf0mercial]

Hmm it talks about uplifting warrior races, cautiously optimistic but that building screen at 4:21 is ehhhh too much Galactic Civ and not enough star ruler, we will see closer to release i guess, the graphics though way too Galactic civ influence would rather a more homeworld look.

 

[MoLAoS]

On the other hand, tons of things in there that promise to shake up the landscape.

AI revolts, federations, civil wars, 'snowballing crises', CYOminiA... Interesting stuff.

EDIT: Hopefully, this game sells well. EU4 has had years of support and 14-15 major patches loaded with content, plus DLCs. There is way more scope for meaningful DLC in a space-based 4X/GS.

Its paradox though, so this will all be disappointing. I mean EU4 has AI revolts. Unless you pay 50 sword mana to break them up...

 

[Destroid]

There's a great incline :
Q: It would be cool if they built in a fairly robust and targetable genocide system, perhaps on a per-pop basis, so you could go after specific pops that were possessed of characteristic you found particularly offensive or inconvenient.

Dev A:
Only a very twisted and dark dev-team would create a system for genociding Pops!
There miiiiiight however exist a mechanic that does pretty much what you describe above, though called something else...

Annihilating subjugated populations is a staple of the genre!

Although I can't think of any that let you select a pop and destroy them at will, that would be new.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Oh wait, your plan was only to enslave us!

 

[MoLAoS]

There's a great incline :
Q: It would be cool if they built in a fairly robust and targetable genocide system, perhaps on a per-pop basis, so you could go after specific pops that were possessed of characteristic you found particularly offensive or inconvenient.

Dev A:
Only a very twisted and dark dev-team would create a system for genociding Pops!
There miiiiiight however exist a mechanic that does pretty much what you describe above, though called something else...

Annihilating subjugated populations is a staple of the genre!

Although I can't think of any that let you select a pop and destroy them at will, that would be new.

In the works. not instant total annihilation like say, the change culture button in EU4, but targeting based on any potential characteristic or even belief.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I mean EU4 has AI revolts

Very few 4Xs have any domestic mechanics, such as revolts of any sort - let alone emergent AI factions that threaten the whole playing field.

I'm quietly encouraged, but prepared for a buggy mess at 1.0.

Paradox's track record of improving on 1.0 is pretty much impeccable.

 

[Destroid]

Sword of the Stars had AI revolts.

 

[MoLAoS]

I mean EU4 has AI revolts

Very few 4Xs have any domestic mechanics, such as revolts of any sort - let alone emergent AI factions that threaten the whole playing field.

I'm quietly encouraged, but prepared for a buggy mess at 1.0.

Paradox's track record of improving on 1.0 is pretty much impeccable.

Of course, because 1.0 is always so shit.

 

[LizardWizard]

I mean EU4 has AI revolts

Very few 4Xs have any domestic mechanics, such as revolts of any sort - let alone emergent AI factions that threaten the whole playing field.

I'm quietly encouraged, but prepared for a buggy mess at 1.0.

Paradox's track record of improving on 1.0 is pretty much impeccable.

Of course, because 1.0 is always so shit.

It really comes down to the project lead and Doomdark has a much better track record than Johan. Eu4 wasn't even worth playing until Wiz came on board.

 

[Raghar]

Annihilating subjugated populations is a staple of the genre!

Although I can't think of any that let you select a pop and destroy them at will, that would be new.

MOO2 allowed to get rid of unwanted populations. (But when you bombed planet properly then colonized, why would you want to?)

 

[Lone Wolf]

Sword of the Stars had AI revolts

Yes. As I said, very few. The staples of the genre (MoO, SE, GC etc.) don't feature much in the way of late game spanners being thrown in the works. GCII/III, I suppose, with the mega-events, but those are - again - exceptions.

Stellaris looks to do a lot more on the domestic front than SotS and Co. did, with pops and political gameplay mechanisms.

Of course, because 1.0 is always so shit.

That's singing an old hymn. The Clausewitz Engine games have been solid from the get-go since 2010 (Vic 2 onwards). The problem for Paradox is that they break things with every content release (patch or DLC), because they keep iterating mechanics and introducing new ones on top of existing structures. While annoying, it extends the lifespan of those games. I've got a huge number of hours sunk into EU4, and it's almost a different game from 1.0. Hell, they even changed the map a few patches ago, adding hundreds of new provinces.

I think Stellaris will be buggy primarily because of the scope they're aiming for and the procedural generation, not simply because it's Paradox.

 

[MoLAoS]

They actually changed the map seriously at least twice.

 

[Space Satan]

Annihilating subjugated populations is a staple of the genre!

Although I can't think of any that let you select a pop and destroy them at will, that would be new.

MOO2 allowed to get rid of unwanted populations. (But when you bombed planet properly then colonized, why would you want to?)

Infrastructure and buildings. Extermination in MoO2 was not instant, it was 1 million per turn.

 

[Destroid]

By my recollection you also had to pick at the moment of conquest - there was no way to change your mind later and annihilate assimilated (or non assimilated) aliens or pops. Although I think you could trick the game by putting them on a transport to a planet with no spare capacity.

 

[Space Satan]

Well, it's liika a SS officer walking to jew barrack and proclaiming: "Hey, juden, we kinda gassed like 3 million of your kind but then changed our mind and now we think you are okay"

 

[Irenaeus II]

Although I think you could trick the game by putting them on a transport to a planet with no spare capacity.

Hahaha That's awesome

 

[Raghar]

Of course you can send few transports to a planet with theirs population, and basically return Syria refugees to Syria. (And block all population transfer.) That's not tricking the game, it works as designed.

 

[Space Satan]

Common way to control conquered population was to build androids as they filled space for living colonists. So you basically replaced people with robots. The downside is that androids are not affected by morale bonuses.

 

[Space Satan]

usual monday DD. Policies

Spoiler

Time to fire up the rockets and head into space again, for another sojourn in the world of Stellaris. This week, I thought I’d talk about Policies and Edicts; directly corresponding to Laws and Decisions in our historical games. The general idea is to give you some additional control over the rules that define your Empire, usually with some trade-offs. Your initial choice of guiding Ethics will play a huge part in which of these Policies and Edicts are available, of course.

Policies are, as I mentioned, essentially laws. They are Empire-wide and remain in effect until directly changed by the player, or as the result of a Faction demand. For example, there are Policies regulating slavery, migration, voting rights and orbital bombardment. As the bureaucratic machinery of a galactic Empire grinds ever so slowly, there is a minimum time the player has to wait before changing their stance on a Policy again. Naturally, various Pops in your Empire will like or dislike these Policies depending on their own Ethics, etc. Should a Faction manage to enforce a change in Policy, that change will stay in effect for quite a while... In all, the system is fairly straightforward.

Say that you are playing as a Xenophobic empire. This will prevent you from passively studying any pre-FTL civilizations you might find, or sharing your technology with them; you can only study them aggressively (abducting and experimenting on them) or invade them outright! In a similar vein, Pacifist empires are not allowed to orbitally bombard planets in support of their ground forces, for fear of killing civilians.

This brings us to Edicts, of which there are two kinds; Planetary or Empire-wide. Edicts usually have a cost (Energy Credits or Influence) and an instant or temporary effect that expires after a certain amount of time. For example, there are Edicts for propaganda campaigns and production targets (something akin to communist five-year plans.)

Policies and Edicts are, like many other features in the game, to a large degree dependent on the tech system, so at the start of the game you should not have to worry about a great wealth of choices; they are made available through research. As with most features in Stellaris (and, indeed, all of our games), Policies and Edicts are very mod-friendly, and we look forward to see all the interesting and innovative uses mod-creators will make of this system.

Next week’s Dev Diary will go into more detail on pre-FTL civilizations, and the various ways of interacting with them!

Take notice on the Purge option

 

[Irenaeus II]

Sounds ok and I can see mods (maybe even me) doing a great job with it.