Stellaris: Paradoxian Space Stategy.

[Siosilvar]

Alliances work really oddly, I've found. I'm in an alliance with an AI, and twice now he's asked me to declare war on another AI to liberate some of their worlds. No idea why the AI wants to do that, but c'est la vie. Both times I voted yes to the proposal, at which point the AI set their fleets to follow my strongest fleet rather than, I dunno, actually trying to attack themselves? Didn't really understand that. Then, I decided to declare war on a race who's been my rival since pretty much the beginning of the game, and my ally voted no on the proposal? So, let me get this straight, Republic of Zramas: if you declare war on someone you expect me to to do all the legwork for you, and if *I* declare war on someone, you're going to come over all pacifist all of a sudden? You really start to wonder exactly what advantage you're getting from being in this alliance in the first place!

Particularly annoying for wormhole empires. My allies spend a whole lot of time running in circles trying to follow me to the next system over when they could easily have handled the war that they started themselves. Like, sure, my fleet was better than the entire enemy alliance put together, but I was half the fleet strength of my alliance so they had it under control too.

Though I've noticed at least once that I as war leader got all of the war goals when the enemy surrenders, even though I promised some to my allies. So you can just promise things to your allies and take them for yourself anyway by reaching 100% warscore without negotiating a peace.

[GloatingSwine]

AIs are selfish gits in alliances, they'll propose war goals that give you nothing and give you -20 approval if you say no, and then refuse your war goals unless you give them a fair share.

Best to blob up and remain independent.


(New Happy Space Penguin game is going strangely. 3 habitable planets in 2 systems right on top of me, then every other local system has some kind of irritating wildlife in and there were no other good planets for ages.

Fortunately I'm using wormholes and so I've crossed into two other spiral arms really fast and found a couple of likely prospects (and some fanatical purifiers, oh well), leapfrogged my neighbours (who are peaceful types) and stolen a 22 size Gaia world from right on their far border (and the system has a 21 size arctic as well, so that's staying a core system forever then...)

Just need to fill in some of the middle space and actually build some damn warships to clear out all the wildlife so I can blob up properly. (May need to drop some stations to contain the peaceniks next door)

[Grif]

You probably won't find a tomb world habitable race.

You may be able to make one by finding some pre-sentients on a tomb world and uplifting them via genetic fiddling though.

Yeah. Tomb world traits are extremely rare in general.

Which is why this gem was invaluable...

Spoiler

Show

[Leecros]

one thing that I've become increasingly annoyed with is the fact that it seems as if it doesn't matter how large the battle is, it's still worth a minimum of 1 warscore.

I got into a war with a large federation while my fleets were being upgraded(they attacked me) and without occupying a single planet; they managed to rack up 30-40 warscore just destroying mining facilities, starbases, and research stations...Which of course the sector kept rebuilding.

Of course, once my fleets were finished being upgraded i rolled through them, but the problem still bothered me.


On the bright side, It would appear as if the opinion malus for Genocide caps out at -100.

There's a great quote to take out of context...

[Sharoth]

How do you uplift a species? I can't figure it out and it is bugging me.

[factotum]

How do you uplift a species? I can't figure it out and it is bugging me.

You need to have researched the appropriate technology first. If you have it, then the uplift option becomes available on any observation station you have watching a primitive species. The only slightly annoying thing is that I don't think it's possible to tell what type of government the species will get when they reach space, so you might end up with a hegemonistic imperialist vassal state who really aren't happy to be taking instructions from their big neighbour!

[Guancyto]

Uplift requires the specific technology, and requires you to have colonized a world where there's a pre-sentient species with actual populations. You go into the Contacts (F2) screen -> the Species tab, and select them. There should be a button on the left that says "Uplift," hit it and you can choose what traits you want to add (important: you can change their Preferred Environment for free). This will trigger a Special Project; finish that and you'll uplift your new species to sentience!

After a little while you'll start getting events to help them choose their Ethics as they'll be quite impressionable as the new sentients on the block. Uplifted species are really great because not only can you tailor them to your empire's needs, but they get +20% happiness just for living on one of your planets.

There's also Enlighten Natives, which requires a sentient but pre-space-age species and an observation post, doesn't require technology but does require Native Enlightenment to be enabled in the Policies tab of the Government screen (click your coat of arms at the top left corner of the screen). It takes an ongoing cost in Energy Credits and Society Research and some time, and at the end of it the new civilization will become a new empire that's either your vassal or your protectorate.

[factotum]

Ah, I was confusing uplift with regular raising a bronze age civ to space race, wasn't I?

[Driderman]

So, I've been coming up with a few suggestions on the Paradox forums and I have one that I figured some of you guys might want to input on, regarding ways to change Empire ethics ingame.

Here it is: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-ethos.932634/

[Guancyto]

Can't see it? Link gives me an error.

Ah, I was confusing uplift with regular raising a bronze age civ to space race, wasn't I?

Yup! In fairness, "uplift" and "enlighten" are more or less synonyms in any other context, and Enlightening is the one that's way more likely to actually happen in a game.

[Driderman]

Weird, the link works just fine for me.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

You have to have an account with your Stellaris code activated to see threads on the subforums.

[Aotrs Commander]

Also, they're doing some technical changes to the forums, which menas that even if your account is synched up, it may not be registering with the boards.

I couldn't get on to the EUIV bug reports forumss yesterday, for instance.

[DigoDragon]

one thing that I've become increasingly annoyed with is the fact that it seems as if it doesn't matter how large the battle is, it's still worth a minimum of 1 warscore.

I got into a war with a large federation while my fleets were being upgraded(they attacked me) and without occupying a single planet; they managed to rack up 30-40 warscore just destroying mining facilities, starbases, and research stations...Which of course the sector kept rebuilding.

So, you could rack up a warscore just by taking shots at weak little targets and still come out ahead?

AIs are selfish gits in alliances, they'll propose war goals that give you nothing and give you -20 approval if you say no, and then refuse your war goals unless you give them a fair share.

Best to blob up and remain independent.

I think the only game where I entertained the idea of alliances was GalCiv2 (the AI is... usually smart enough to not pick fights with way superior enemies). I otherwise avoid getting that friendly with neighbors because they'll love to drag me into wars I don't care about.

[Driderman]

So, you could rack up a warscore just by taking shots at weak little targets and still come out ahead?

I've managed to win most of my wars by taking one planet, mostly the capital, and then grinding up the warscore by having my superior fleet stationed in the system on aggressive. If you're feel superior enough you can hands-off war, as the AI will keep sending newly built fleets of 1 or 2 ships to kill you, and it'll keep giving you warscore. Not the finest AI programming logic I've ever encountered :)

[Grif]

In case you guys missed it, here comes a dev statement about their near-future plans.

Hopefully, they fix the most glaring problems: namely, sector AI, broken combat balance and questionable AI behaviour in general. That alone would probably rouse me enough to play a few more empires I had made but reluctant to thrust into the very much flawed game atm.

[Driderman]

There's a lot of good stuff in that dev diary.

In other news, with the amount of things I'm thinking about adding to Stellaris maybe I should just get into modding

[factotum]

I otherwise avoid getting that friendly with neighbors because they'll love to drag me into wars I don't care about.

And with the AI as it currently is in Stellaris they'll force you to fight the war you don't care about, too!

I think the main problem with the game as it stands is that it gets less interesting the further you get into it. I'm coming up for the 200 year mark on my game, there's no surveyable planets anywhere near me, diplomatic options are limited, and it seems all I'm doing is colonising the planets left inside my borders that I couldn't get to earlier. I'm really uncertain whether to start a new game or to put the game aside until it's had a bit of polish applied to it...

[Driderman]

And with the AI as it currently is in Stellaris they'll force you to fight the war you don't care about, too!

I think the main problem with the game as it stands is that it gets less interesting the further you get into it. I'm coming up for the 200 year mark on my game, there's no surveyable planets anywhere near me, diplomatic options are limited, and it seems all I'm doing is colonising the planets left inside my borders that I couldn't get to earlier. I'm really uncertain whether to start a new game or to put the game aside until it's had a bit of polish applied to it...

Well it looks like there's going to be a lot more mid-game content during the next couple of months: Colony events and stuff that happens to an empire that's already settled into its borders. Not sure whether that's an argument for "keep playing" or "wait for it" though

On a random sidenote, I like how the AI pays me for the privilege of having their citizens migrate to my planets and get assimilated into my Theocratic melting-pot empire

[Leecros]

That is something that i've noticed.

There's a distinct lack of random events to break the monotony. I've easily gone 10+ years without anything happening. Especially when compared to EUIV or CKII.

with that said, EUIV has had four iterations to pull events from and CKII is far more character/event driven than the other games.

Even things like space piracy is kind of silly. You get an event in every game that's all "Space piracy is born!"

and then you destroy the pirates and their station and space piracy dies.

[DigoDragon]

In case you guys missed it, here comes a dev statement about their near-future plans.

Nice. Certainly increases my desire to get this game.

And with the AI as it currently is in Stellaris they'll force you to fight the war you don't care about, too!

I think the main problem with the game as it stands is that it gets less interesting the further you get into it. I'm coming up for the 200 year mark on my game, there's no surveyable planets anywhere near me, diplomatic options are limited, and it seems all I'm doing is colonising the planets left inside my borders that I couldn't get to earlier

I can understand that. Any strat game like this needs a strong AI for the mid-game diplomacy. When there isn't much left to colonize, the game should then be about political wheeling and dealing; trading systems, forming trade routes, conning each other to fight wars for you...

[Artanis]

I think the only game where I entertained the idea of alliances was GalCiv2 (the AI is... usually smart enough to not pick fights with way superior enemies). I otherwise avoid getting that friendly with neighbors because they'll love to drag me into wars I don't care about.

Welcome to playing Paradox games!

[Trekkin]

I finally got Synthetics after fifty-odd years of frantic research, and they're...surprising.

For one thing, Synthetics that upgrade from Droids have no ethics. They also interact non-intuitively with policies. For example, the happiness penalty for AI Servitude does not take Collectivism into account, as one might think it would -- and AI Citizen Rights disables disassembly and enslavement of robots wholesale, even if the empire as a whole allows the purging and enslavement of organics.

Also, they can die of old age...and cannot be genetically engineered, so Enduring/Venerable organics can outlive them. I have no idea how or why.

I had planned on purging all organics and just going ahead as Synthetics, but now I'm not so sure.

So how do you all use Synthetics?

[Driderman]

I finally got Synthetics after fifty-odd years of frantic research, and they're...surprising.

For one thing, Synthetics that upgrade from Droids have no ethics. They also interact non-intuitively with policies. For example, the happiness penalty for AI Servitude does not take Collectivism into account, as one might think it would -- and AI Citizen Rights disables disassembly and enslavement of robots wholesale, even if the empire as a whole allows the purging and enslavement of organics.

Also, they can die of old age...and cannot be genetically engineered, so Enduring/Venerable organics can outlive them. I have no idea how or why.

I had planned on purging all organics and just going ahead as Synthetics, but now I'm not so sure.

So how do you all use Synthetics?

I've never actually managed to get Synthetics, though not for lack of trying.

Question: Exactly how pissed off will a Fallen Empire get if I violate their particular issue? I found some militant isolationists, and I was thinking to colonize a system right next to them, but I'd rather not if it means they'll decide to wreck my empire completely.

[factotum]

Question: Exactly how pissed off will a Fallen Empire get if I violate their particular issue? I found some militant isolationists, and I was thinking to colonize a system right next to them, but I'd rather not if it means they'll decide to wreck my empire completely.

Border friction doesn't seem to be a thing with fallen empires, or at least, it isn't with the AI-hating one I had in my 200-year game--I had pretty much surrounded their space entirely and had gained several systems on the edges of it as my influence grew, but they cared not about that. Research an AI-related tech, immediate -20 rep. No idea how low your rep with them has to go before they'll attack you, though, and I believe it's always possible to surrender to them if you don't want them to smash your stuff up--you'll lose some influence for doing that, but I don't think it's a crippling loss.

[Driderman]

Border friction doesn't seem to be a thing with fallen empires, or at least, it isn't with the AI-hating one I had in my 200-year game--I had pretty much surrounded their space entirely and had gained several systems on the edges of it as my influence grew, but they cared not about that. Research an AI-related tech, immediate -20 rep. No idea how low your rep with them has to go before they'll attack you, though, and I believe it's always possible to surrender to them if you don't want them to smash your stuff up--you'll lose some influence for doing that, but I don't think it's a crippling loss.

Well they're specifically the type that doesn't want you to settle near them so I imagine they might take offense at me doing exactly that. Twice, even. There's two primitive races there that I just have to include in the Promethean Covenant, that's our whole thing.
My current game in fact has not one but two militant isolationists. I'm at the top of an elliptical galaxy and I was wondering why it seemed like my neighbours weren't expanding much. Turns out that while I am busy blocking the top of the galaxy there is also Fallen Empires at both the left and right side of the galaxy. There's a lot of empires with nowhere to go but down

[Leecros]

so I read somewhere that Fallen Empires will only declare war if their opinion gets to -75, if you send an embassy and improve their relations up by 100 with it, you should be able to get away with minimal violation.

I have yet to test this though.

[Driderman]

Violated they shall be, then. Tomorrow. Time to get back to get back to real life, for the time being.

[Madcrafter]

Question: Exactly how pissed off will a Fallen Empire get if I violate their particular issue? I found some militant isolationists, and I was thinking to colonize a system right next to them, but I'd rather not if it means they'll decide to wreck my empire completely.

The FE in my game was militant isolationist. As soon as I found them by accidentally sending my science ship into one of their home systems, the gave me an ultimatum to abandon about half my colonies (all those within maybe a 50% of their border distance outside their border). I refused, they immediately declared war and wrecked me as expected, forced me to give up all the planets anyways. But I did get their tech thanks to one engagement, so that was nice.

Ended up resettling a fair amount of it now that I've got an embassy up with them, but I'm just on the edge at -60-something so I don't want to push any further. I can get you a screenshot maybe. One world next door probably will be ok. (Also fun to note, they are the only group in the game who likes me for "Genocide". But its basically impossible to please them with it; the same level that keeps me at -100 with everyone only gives an on and off +2 with them)

[Guancyto]

Question: Exactly how pissed off will a Fallen Empire get if I violate their particular issue? I found some militant isolationists, and I was thinking to colonize a system right next to them, but I'd rather not if it means they'll decide to wreck my empire completely.

As far as I can tell it depends on their opinion of you. Isolationist fallen empire rack up Border Conflict penalties to opinion pretty quickly, also you start with a pretty hefty minus because they're usually xenophobic.

However, I was able to colonize every planet next to an isolationist fallen empire without incident by keeping an Embassy on them.