Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Tyrr]

I hate trailers that tell you nothing about the thing they're promoting.

 

[Average Manatee]

So what does Scaling difficulty do? Apparently it makes the AI easier?

It starts at 0% bonuses to the AI and grows linearly towards the full difficulty at whatever you set the late game date.

 

[IDtenT]

Making subjugation viable will greatly improve MP games.

 

[IDtenT]

[...] the game gets barely unplayable after like 1948.

So just like real life?

 

[Ravielsk]

Honestly, I can't say much about sprawl because I was too busy getting my shit pushed in to even get close to my sprawl limits.

That is actually the one thing this patch seems to have done right. The AI aggression is no longer that of a wet noodle and it can actually push back against the player... if you let it that is.

Because despite all the kvetching PDX does about how they overhauled diplomacy its still just a game of bribery where occasionally you can send in one your dudes instead of paying. So as long as you are not playing as some genocidal civ and occasionally bribe the AI it will completely ignore you.

 

[Norfleet]

My game went from Star Trek to The Terminator in less than ten years.

The Federation is gone, Riker's beard is everywhere!

But you know, you're describing exactly what you'd expect of the way Stellaris Galaxygen works. The first thing to understand about it is that pacifism is rare. There's a specific bias against pacifists generating because a galaxy of pacifism is deemed boring. The second is that all of your neighbors will hate you, because the game will attempt to seed the universe by balancing the ethics while working outwards. Which means it will balance the whatever you pick by immediately seeding your neighbors as the opposites. That's why you, as a Fanatic Materialist and Xenophile, find that your neighbors are xenophobic exterminators and spiritualists. And now you see, that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

 

[Delterius]

the way Stellaris generates competing empires means if you play as a megacorp then the entire galaxy (not quite but still) is megacorps who hate you

so play merchant guilds instead

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the solution is simple: create your own races and use only those. i made tens and tens of those, trying to make them as peculiar as possible (with the help of as many mods as possible). some were made to be efficient, some to be fun, some to be fodder. stellaris is larper paradise, use it as such, don't succumb to the random demon.

 

[Dyspaire]

Does anyone know if the mod Amazing Space Battles is available anywhere other than Steam? It seems to be the only source, and that's a shame.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i know why you're asking.
if it can't be found anywhere else, you might try, maybe, perhaps, a... steam workshop downloader
.io

 

[Dyspaire]

Not that I'm not familiar with the high seas, but in this case it's just because I'm an oldfag who legitimately has no interest in ever using Steam.

And that mod looks amazing. I had no idea there was such a thing as the workshop downloader. Much obliged.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

fair

in Brazil

dude, be reasonable.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Humanocogni managed to defeat the machines because they suicided on the Metalheads who had taken their former territory. It was easy to swoop in for the kill.

Too bad the Metalheads attacked after a few years and conquered the Humanocogni, even when the nearby Spiritualists were helping. Despite all the efforts, the fighting, the plan to salvage superior enemy tech and produce better vessels... it all came for naught.

I would post screens but I have no idea where Stellaris is putting my screenshots lol.

RIP Humanocogni, the Project Xenotype made them quite adorable. Fought like lions.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Rate my Humanocogni build:

Traits:
- Intelligent
- Talented
- Quick Learners
- Deviants
- Unruly

Ethics: Fanatic Materialist/Xenophile
Government: Oligarchic (for Meritocracy)
Origin: Mechanist
Civics: Technocracy/Meritocracy

It's all about Research and Leader Bonuses, which also feed back into Research.

I wonder would if I should have gone with something else in place of Mechanist like Prosperous Unification. Robots are neat to have but Materialist/Robots synergizes best with Synthetic Ascension and AFAIK Synthetic Ascension is pretty lame. I would rather get psionic because I'm stacking enough growth and leader bonuses to make them the ultimate researchers. Robots can't grow naturally and their traits aren't as cool. Too bad materialists suck at getting psionic ascension. Never did Synthetic Ascension but seems lame, would be a lot more interesting prospect if the end-game was perfect technology/biology symbiosis than "We turned ourselves into robots beep bop".

Fuck that robot shit. Plus my Xenology big-brained gals are cute.

Also Robots seem more of a go-to for xenophobes (who have a harder time getting friendly aliens to colonize planets), and my guys are xenophiles. Maybe I should opt for another origin next time.

Some notes of my new Humanocogni game:

- The new Unity framework definitively slows down exploration, because you no longer can spam Science Ships like there's no tomorrow. I would usually make some depending on my needs, and usually after getting a new tradition point. Early on, I went with 2-4 science ships, going with more later on once my Unity income jumped up.
- Autochnous Monuments matter now, they will give a nice Unity boost to a colony that has a proper capital built.
- I'm even more split on which Tradition is the best starter. It was always a contest between Discovery and Expansion. Now it seems like you want to get started on both, get the best bonuses (+1 pop on colonization and +survey) before committing to finishing one of them. Of course, depends on wherever you use garanteeded planets and how many worthy planets are around.
- I started with two Genocidals (DE and FP) on my borders, fuck my life.
- One thing I noticed is that with the new system, you end up with WAY more free energy credits early on - because they're not being used to pay leaders. In 90% of my builds I used to starve for energy credits early on, now I find myself with like +10k energy credits by 2210. Which means more for sustaining a proper fleet. Before, I only started building up my military if threatened or in the 2220s, now you NEED to build up your fleets early on in order to get more influence and get those starbases before the AI does.
- On the flip side, it also means you can't do much diplomacy-wise until you finish the Expansion Phase or you have an huge fleet.
- This also means Alloys are more important early on, because you need them to build a big ole fleet AND keep fortified starbases. My capital planet is pretty much a Industrial World with some mines.

- One thing I forgot to do until a while: Get Academic Privilege as quick as possible, its another neat research bonus. Should have done this on the first day.
- My civ is geared for research, and I'm getting pretty sweet numbers, research-wise - like 12-24 months average for a tech.
- I have a bunch of non-habitable planets near me, I think like four tomb worlds too. Want to get my friendly neighboors to start migrating to my territory so I can use their race for colonization as well (what's their favorite type of planet anyway? Must find out).
- Pretty sure I outstrip everyone else near me, tech-wise. Currently the plan is to consolide, make a new friends and then plow through the Determined Exterminators on my border - almost did when they were destroying a nearby friendly civ, but I felt like my tech just wasn't there yet - had some pretty sweet guns but no cold fusion reactors to properly outfit good ships I feel.
- The Edict Fund is definitively better than the old lame-ass "Pay Influence to get edicts"
- So far my sprawl is small, barely worth commenting on.
- I wonder if "Marketplace of Ideas" policy is now worth it with the Unity Rework? Perhaps if you're drowning in Energy Credits from trade already?

I think the Unity rework is definitively an improvement.

Btw, performance is definitively better, althrough I AM using a few performance mods. Its not there yet, but its getting better. I hope they keep doing good performance work, so this game runs decently eventually.
Custodian Initiative was the best damn idea Paradox ever had for this game. We need Custodians for HOI4 and EUIV yesterday.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Lmao, that game I was totes doing super well? Turns out I had acidentally set difficulty to CADET.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Time to begin again.

And OF COURSE, I get Fanatic Purifiers as one of my neighboors, who promptly destroy the Spiritual Pacifists near me. FFS.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

New dev diary just dropped: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...laris-dev-diary-247-new-ways-to-rule.1516799/

Stellaris Dev Diary #247 - New Ways to Rule

• Thread starterEladrin
• Start dateToday at 09:00

Hello everyone!

In the Overlord Announcement last week we mentioned that vassalization mechanics will be undergoing some significant changes in the 3.4 “Cepheus” update. (Click here to wishlist!)

Previously in Stellaris, subjugation was rarely a more compelling option than simple conquest, and being subjugated often essentially meant a permanent decline of your empire and a “Game Over” screen in your near future. Subjects did not offer sufficient benefits nor had the freedoms necessary to be enjoyable to play.

The Scion origin from Federations was somewhat of an exception with most of the restrictions on both subjects and overlord being waived for them, but we felt that while the system was good, it could be even better. It would also be nice for the Scion to work within the rules rather than being so “special-cased”.

Some people noted that as part of the unity changes in Libra, a bit more of an argument for spinning off sectors into vassals could be made, but with the current numbers it’s generally more valuable to control those systems directly.

For today’s dev diary, I’ll start by delving deeper into the new rights and responsibilities that can appear in agreements, and some ways this makes keeping subjects more valuable.

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

Negotiating Terms

Both the overlord and subject will be able to propose alterations of the exact terms of their vassalization contract if it’s a contract with another “regular empire”. The Khan, Awakened Empires, and the like do not haggle about the terms of their minions, but are much clearer about those exact terms.

Subject contracts start with a “preset”. These are the basic subjugation types that you know from before, plus a few new ones - Vassal, Subsidiary, Tributary, Protectorate, Bulwark, and so on. Presets have a list of default terms, and can have additional unique effects tied to them, like how Protectorates gain a massive bonus to research until they catch up to their overlord.

The default terms of contract presets may have changed a bit from the old system to better fit the new. We’ve done our best to ensure that anything you can do right now with your vassals remains possible. The core Negotiation system is part of the free Cepheus update, though many of the brand new terms are part of the Overlord expansion.

Negotiable terms include things such as:

• Can the subject be integrated?
  • As a major change from current gameplay, there are no vassalization contract presets that have integration enabled by default. It must be explicitly turned on in contract negotiations.
• Does the subject have independent diplomacy?
  • Subjects can be given complete diplomatic freedom, none, or they can have most freedoms except are forced to vote with their overlord in the Galactic Community or Federations.
• Can the subject expand freely?
  • Once exclusively the province of Feudal Society, now you can grant your subject the ability to freely expand. You can also bar them from expansion, or impose an Influence tithe, making them spend extra Influence (which goes to the Overlord) for the right to expand into empty systems.
  • Most presets will start with controlled expansion with the influence tithe as the default term.
• Various subsidies from the overlord or tribute from the subject.
  • These are broken into Basic, Advanced, or Strategic resource groups, and Research.
  • The values are percentages of the production of the subject - in the proposal below, our vassal is offering 15% of their basic resource production as tribute, but is receiving a research subsidy equal to 15% of the subject’s research from the overlord.
• Are the overlord and subject drawn into one another’s wars, and if so, which ones?
  • None, Offensive, Defensive, or Both can be selected in both directions.
  • Yes, this means that wars can be declared on subjects.
• Can the overlord build holdings on the subject’s worlds, and if so, how many?
  • The Vassal preset has a holding limit of 1, allowing you to use some holdings without Overlord. (Though you can lower it to 0 if you need to squeeze out an extra bit of loyalty.)
  • This value is an empire-wide limit - with a holding limit of 3, you can build 3 holdings across a particular subject’s worlds, not on each of their planets.
• Does the overlord share sensor information with their subject?

Subjugation Proposal UI
Part of the Tributary agreement UI
Eladrin · Mar 24, 2022 at 09:00

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Tributaries have many locked terms.
Others can be restricted by civics or for other reasons - for example, overlords with the Feudal Society civic cannot select the Expansion Prohibited term, must join in their subject wars to some degree, and must allow their subjects some degree of diplomatic freedom.

Different terms affect a subject’s Loyalty, and have an immediate impact as well as over time. For example, the Independent Diplomacy term grants 5 Loyalty and another +0.5 Loyalty per month. This may prove important later.

If you’re asking your subject to do something they are ideologically opposed to, those terms may cost extra loyalty, though the reverse is also true in a few cases.

The pacifists don’t like being forced into offensive wars.
Empires can propose a change in terms with a five year cooldown at a cost of some Influence. Exact costs are still being adjusted.

Proposal from our vassal

Pledge Loyalty has greater effects if the subject actually likes you for some reason.

Disloyal vassals will look for ways to be free of your tyranny, seizing the chance for rebellion should you falter.

They may also swear Secret Fealty to one of your rivals in hopes that they’ll be able to follow them in an Allegiance War.

In an Allegiance War, you seek to wrest control of the vassals that have pledged Secret Fealty to you, and they will join in on the attack on their former Overlord.

Gotta Subjugate Them All

Like herding cats, having many vassals is hard work. Constantly vying for your attention, keeping multiple subjects happy can be difficult as jealousy ruins everything. “Divided Patronage” is a modifier that reduces the loyalty of all of your vassals, and increases based on the number of vassals you have.

You can mitigate this by offering them better terms, or by taking a vassalization related civic or the Shared Destiny ascension perk.

Overlord Holdings
In Cepheus, we’re expanding the branch office system from MegaCorp to be more flexible.
The corporate tab on planets is being replaced with a more versatile “Holdings” tab. For now, we have corporate and overlord holdings available here, but we have more future plans for this screen.

Much like branch office buildings, holdings are built on another empire’s colonies and can provide benefits to both empires. Much like criminal syndicate branch office buildings, some holdings might be far more beneficial to one side than the other. Each particular holding is planet-unique,

Corporate overlords can build both holdings and branch offices on their subjects’ colonies.

Holdings (Ministry of Truth)
Eladrin · Mar 24, 2022 at 09:00

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The Ministry of Truth provides two Overlord Propagandist jobs to the planet, which turn the subject’s Unity into Influence for their overlord…

…While holdings like the Material Ministry are disliked by subjects as the overlord claims a portion of the planet’s production for themselves…

…Still others, like the Aid Agency, are welcomed on the planet.

Hive overlords can build the most universally disliked holding (tied with one other), which takes a portion of the subject’s planet and dedicates it to a spawning complex.

We’re also adding some holdings associated with civics or origins.

The Noble Chateaus of the Aristocratic Elite allow them to send troublemakers off to bother someone else’s planet instead of their own, much to the dismay of their hosts…

…Shared Burdens empires can spread their message through Communal Housing projects. How this is received depends largely on the ethics of the subject…

…And Gaia Seeders, who are gaining more terraforming flexibility in Cepheus as described in Dev Diary #243, can also beautify the worlds of their subjects. The subjects tend to like that - unless they’re Hydrocentric, of course.

Since there are over twenty different holdings, I’ll share some more in next week’s dev diary (including a machine specific one), and some more on social media as the Overlord reveals continue (though I’ll repost those in that week’s dev diaries as well).

It’s a very versatile system that we look forward to exploring more in the future.

The Future is Ours

That’s long enough for today. Next week we’ll talk about the advanced form of vassalization coming in Overlord called Specialist Empires.

Also, starting with this dev diary, we’re creating video versions on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel for those of you that prefer listening to them. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and let us know what you think!

Stellaris Overlord - Video Dev Diary - New Ways to Rule
Welcome to the first of our Video Dev Diary! This week Stephen Muray will walk us through some of the new cool vassalization mechanics, coming in Overlord. I...

pdxint.at

Click here to wishlist Overlord!

 

[Riel]

It's curious but in my last game I changed to limited wars policy precisely to not annex any more territory but it had more to do with population growth penalty than unity or administration changes, I even created a vassal in the L cluster after colonizing it so it would populate faster, of course integrating 20 o 30 years later is a possibility. Basically I think there's a point in the game were brute growth stops being worthy unless it's heavily populated to begin with, and even then... I mean you probably are already the main star power by that stage... and having to babysit more planets is tedious. I guess I could AI control sectors. but honestly any mismanagement by the AI would trickle down to my empires numbers, if it's a vassal it's not my problem and due to AI bonuses they will provide some fleets anyway a sector has the same AI and 0 bonuses.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Did you guys see the vassal contracts? I think that's one of the best take-aways coming, they're essentially allowing you to set vassal contracts like in Crusader Kings III. The CKIII Vassal Contract system FUCKS. Gimme my Crusader Kings IN SPACE!

EUIV has a lot of interesting vassal-focused features, I hope they take a lesson from some of that too.

Also I hope the holdings thing fixes the big issue of Subsidiaries being fucking useless because they're just another mega-corporation you can't build corp buildings inside.

It's curious but in my last game I changed to limited wars policy precisely to not annex any more territory but it had more to do with population growth penalty than unity or administration changes, I even created a vassal in the L cluster after colonizing it so it would populate faster, of course integrating 20 o 30 years later is a possibility. Basically I think there's a point in the game were brute growth stops being worthy unless it's heavily populated to begin with, and even then... I mean you probably are already the main star power by that stage... and having to babysit more planets is tedious. I guess I could AI control sectors. but honestly any mismanagement by the AI would trickle down to my empires numbers, if it's a vassal it's not my problem and due to AI bonuses they will provide some fleets anyway a sector has the same AI and 0 bonuses.

Ah, I guess you were avoiding conquest in order to keep your pop growth intact?
Really wish they would find a better way to revamp pop growth. To be fair to them, the Stellaris situation is kind of unprecedented in history (post-industrial space-faring species who are likely far richer than us, at least two centuries, and live longer). Its kinda hard to model that, and that's not even accounting for culture.

Worth remembering that Vassal AIs do not get difficulty bonuses, so they are gimped as hell compared to the normal AIs. I wonder if they will address that.

 

[Riel]

Worth remembering that Vassal AIs do not get difficulty bonuses, so they are gimped as hell compared to the normal AIs. I wonder if they will address that.

Really??

 

[Trithne]

Worth remembering that Vassal AIs do not get difficulty bonuses, so they are gimped as hell compared to the normal AIs. I wonder if they will address that.

Really??

They said in replies to that DD that player vassals will now get reduced bonuses instead of none at all.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Really wish they would find a better way to revamp pop growth.

i used a mod which would raise pop growth exponentially with resident population. after a while sorting overpopulation and unemployement became a pressing issue.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Really wish they would find a better way to revamp pop growth.

i used a mod which would raise pop growth exponentially with resident population. after a while sorting overpopulation and unemployement became a pressing issue.

So, the more pop you have, the more pop grows?

That sounds like incline. I've always wanted something like that, having to deal with the struggles of a rising population, ending up with WH40k-style Hive Worlds and having to sort that shit out.
Right now, more pops = more gooder. There's no reason not to increase your popullation.

Did it affect your performance?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

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.

 

[Preben]

Is the game playable yet?

 

[Average Manatee]

The most interesting, developed and fun part of the game is 100% playable. Problem is that that part of the game is empire creation.