Stellaris: Paradoxian Space Stategy.

[Trixie]

So, how is this game? Typical Paradox "wait for six patches" level?

Venus is covered in sulfuric acid clouds and it rains metal. Pretty sure it meets the qualifications for a toxic world.

Actually Venus is the only known planet other than Earth in the whole Universe we can colonize today with current technology.

[Silfir]

So, how is this game? Typical Paradox "wait for six patches" level?

Well, I for one found Crusader Kings II enormous fun, highly polished and completely playable on release. But I had played Crusader Kings the First before, so...

As far as I've heard (I keep restarting before I get there) sectors don't really work properly and are on the agenda for the first patches. If they can figure out all the weak parts of the game as it stands, it'll be the best 4x I've played since the first SotS.

But yeah, maybe not six, but a couple of patches would not be a bad idea.

[AgentPaper]

Actually Venus is the only known planet other than Earth in the whole Universe we can colonize today with current technology.

Er, what? How is it more colonizable than Mars? Mars we could give an atmosphere using current technology and not actually a lot of effort considering the scale of the thing (basically, we just have to do the same thing we're doing to our own atmosphere). And that's basically all the terraforming you would actually need to make the place habitable, though it still might not exactly be a nice place to live.

[Razade]

So, how is this game? Typical Paradox "wait for six patches" level?

Playable out of the box but late game is boring or so I hear since I haven't personally reached it.

Actually Venus is the only known planet other than Earth in the whole Universe we can colonize today with current technology.

Yeah...ok....how do you figure? We build giant floating cities because we can....just do that easily here on Earth or something? Only the upper atmosphere is even close to habitable for us humans on Venus.

[druid91]

Er, what? How is it more colonizable than Mars? Mars we could give an atmosphere using current technology and not actually a lot of effort considering the scale of the thing (basically, we just have to do the same thing we're doing to our own atmosphere). And that's basically all the terraforming you would actually need to make the place habitable, though it still might not exactly be a nice place to live.

Mars would be an AWESOME place to live. no bugs. No trees. no grass. No pollen.

[Guancyto]

Steam tells me I have put 57 hours into the game already so you can guess I'm quite a fan. BUT, there are a lot of the usual growing pains of buying on Day 1. To be super honest about it, "wait for six patches and an xpac or two" is a perfectly reasonable route to go.

Midgame (once you're done with exploring and colonizing) drags a bit, devs have mentioned that there were a bunch of midgame-centric events that got cut for time that will be implemented soon.

Slavery (and the options that enable it, collectivist ethics/divine mandate government) is currently way too powerful because slave revolts were temporarily cut for release (they were apparently broken before; given the choice between making slavery too easy or insanely frustrating, the team opted for the former until they can fix it).

Diplomacy is sort of shallow; that's another thing that is going to get attention. Temporary alliances (i.e. "let's you and me team up to beat up that guy, but not be friends afterward") are already in the works, as are internal politics in Alliances/Federations.

One of the lategame Crisis events (the extragalactic invasion) is bugged currently; there's a mod that fixes it so it's not going to stay that way for long.

Honestly not even six patches, even in a month or two the game will have improved by leaps and bounds.

[Grif]

Steam tells me I have put 57 hours into the game already so you can guess I'm quite a fan. BUT, there are a lot of the usual growing pains of buying on Day 1. To be super honest about it, "wait for six patches and an xpac or two" is a perfectly reasonable route to go.

Midgame (once you're done with exploring and colonizing) drags a bit, devs have mentioned that there were a bunch of midgame-centric events that got cut for time that will be implemented soon.

Slavery (and the options that enable it, collectivist ethics/divine mandate government) is currently way too powerful because slave revolts were temporarily cut for release (they were apparently broken before; given the choice between making slavery too easy or insanely frustrating, the team opted for the former until they can fix it).

Diplomacy is sort of shallow; that's another thing that is going to get attention. Temporary alliances (i.e. "let's you and me team up to beat up that guy, but not be friends afterward") are already in the works, as are internal politics in Alliances/Federations.

One of the lategame Crisis events (the extragalactic invasion) is bugged currently; there's a mod that fixes it so it's not going to stay that way for long.

Honestly not even six patches, even in a month or two the game will have improved by leaps and bounds.

Slavery however has a caveat. The AI does not understand it. Therefore anything slave-related you give to sectors is bound to be messed up. It is powerful in the hands of the player atm, especially at the crucial early game when minerals and food are king, but they taper off as you start handing them over to sectors. (Not that it matters anyway, since you can live with inefficiency by then.)

[Guancyto]

Hah, you think the sector AI is dumb when it comes to slaves?

Stellaris Sector AI presents: Robots On a Tomb World

Spoiler

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Also doubles as one of the saddest images. The robots have arrived first on the radioactive wasteland and carefully built shelters for a viable food source, and a clinic to take in sick organics. Now they just have to wait for the people to arrive!

Any day now. Aaaaany day now.

Anyway the biggest advantage of slaves is that they'll currently never revolt, and that they will only belong to the Slaves faction. If you see a separatism revolt brewing or the terrorists are blowing up your mines, SHACKLES FOR EVERYONE!

[Trekkin]

Yeah...ok....how do you figure? We build giant floating cities because we can....just do that easily here on Earth or something? Only the upper atmosphere is even close to habitable for us humans on Venus.

The Venusian atmosphere is also denser than ours, which makes floating cities somewhat smaller and more manageable.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind aerostats, or arcologies, or just some way to more heavily develop planets. Given how few worlds an empire can contain (and the headaches of sectors) the existing limits on planetary development feel kind of low.

Oh, and waiting for more patches is a good idea. There are still buggy event chains all over, for one thing.

[DigoDragon]

So, how is this game? Typical Paradox "wait for six patches" level?

Isn't that the industry standard these days?

Actually Venus is the only known planet other than Earth in the whole Universe we can colonize today with current technology.

Mars as well. We have the tech now to build underground settlements there.

Hah, you think the sector AI is dumb when it comes to slaves?

Stellaris Sector AI presents: Robots On a Tomb World

Spoiler

Show

Also doubles as one of the saddest images. The robots have arrived first on the radioactive wasteland and carefully built shelters for a viable food source, and a clinic to take in sick organics. Now they just have to wait for the people to arrive!

Any day now. Aaaaany day now

Hope those robots have hardened circuitry. :3

[Cikomyr]

So. Anyone here have managed to outright conquer a Fallen Empire yet?

I suppose if you make it.your full priority,.it must be achievable...

[Grif]

So. Anyone here have managed to outright conquer a Fallen Empire yet?

I suppose if you make it.your full priority,.it must be achievable...

I conquered a smallish FE in the 2400s. It turned out to be easy. I guess having fleets of 40k makes things easy.

[Cikomyr]

I conquered a smallish FE in the 2400s. It turned out to be easy. I guess having fleets of 40k makes things easy.

Its most probably a case of "the more you go at it, the easier it gets". Since they cant rebuild lost ships, and they are tech-capped. You just need to find a few of their super tech and then you simply wittle them down

[Trixie]

Well, I for one found Crusader Kings II enormous fun, highly polished and completely playable on release. But I had played Crusader Kings the First before, so...

Correct me if I am wrong, as my memory is kind of hazy, but I seem to recall CK II at star had tiny fraction of CK I options. Hell, even today, after 95374054 DLC for CK II there are things still missing.

Er, what? How is it more colonizable than Mars? Mars we could give an atmosphere using current technology and not actually a lot of effort considering the scale of the thing (basically, we just have to do the same thing we're doing to our own atmosphere). And that's basically all the terraforming you would actually need to make the place habitable, though it still might not exactly be a nice place to live.

I was not aware shipping 5×10¹⁵ tons of gas to Mars is possible using current technology

Anyway, even if you manage to do it, you'd still need to surround the whole planet with giant plastic shell or forcefield to stop it from being uninhabitable again in short order. Not a big effort?

Yeah...ok....how do you figure? We build giant floating cities because we can....just do that easily here on Earth or something? Only the upper atmosphere is even close to habitable for us humans on Venus.

Let's compare Venus to Mars, shall we? If you want to colonize something, there are three factors you can't 'cheat':

A) Distance. Venus is actually much closer to us than Mars. 1:0 to Venus.

B) Gravity. We know humans have a lot of issues functioning in low gravity for longer periods, and will continue to do so until we develop very advanced genetic manipulation. Venus has Earth-like 0.9 g, compared to paltry 0.375 g on Mars. 2:0.

C) Atmosphere. It's not important just for functioning of our bodies (though it obviously is), but also to shield us from radiation. 40 km above Venusian ground, atmosphere actually is just right and you can easily function with just goggles, oxygen supply, and some specialized clothes on your back. Venus has lots of oxygen in the atmosphere, on Mars you have tiny quantities frozen underground, which you need to carefully dig out, heat, filter, process and trap to not lose it, and the only way you go outside is in full space suit. 3:0.

Then there is food. Venus has a lot of CO₂ you can feed to plants, and even much maligned clouds of sulfuric acid in deeper and warmer layers are an advantage, not a threat. Sulfuric acid is very important substance in chemical industry your new colony can easily gather and use. Three of kind of important uses? Plant fertilizer, fungicide agent (which is important as space ships and habitats tend to develop fungal infections that destroyed quite a few of them, in fact largest space station ever built was scrapped due to that), and human essential food supplement.

Yes, at first colonists would need to use this:

Spoiler

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But we know how to build balloons and zeppelins for hundreds of years now and we need literally nothing we don't already know to build one. Hell, it could be inflatable base, something like TransHab, small, easy to ship, which as a bonus would have none of the problems tied to functioning in space.

And besides, Bespin was one of the coolest locations in SW, who would want to live on barren rock instead?

[hamishspence]

Sulfuric acid is very important substance in chemical industry your new colony can easily gather and use. Three of kind of important uses? Plant fertilizer, fungicide agent (which is important as space ships and habitats tend to develop fungal infections that destroyed quite a few of them, in fact largest space station ever built was scrapped due to that),

"Lack of funding" not molds alone, was the cause. And the ISS is now considerably bigger than Mir as far as I can tell.

What other spaceships were "destroyed due to fungal infections" to qualify for that "quite a few of them" reference?

[DigoDragon]

Gravity of Mars is becoming less of an issue. I recently saw NASA showcase this exercise machine that rotates to give you the 1g work out you need to keep bones healthy. Looks like fun if you're into spinning around a bit. :3

One thing in Mars favor is that there is frozen water at the caps.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

What's missing from CK2 that they had in CK1? They had the province sliders but those were a right pain, I'm glad those are gone. That's the only thing I can think of. They said in CK2 that the only reason Orthodox Nations were playable on release was that they were in CK1, because they didn't really fit the western feudal model.

[Silfir]

Correct me if I am wrong, as my memory is kind of hazy, but I seem to recall CK II at star had tiny fraction of CK I options. Hell, even today, after 95374054 DLC for CK II there are things still missing.

The only thing I felt was missing from CK II that the final version of CK I - Deus Vult had were crash to desktop bugs. That was on release. I have no idea what you're talking about.

[factotum]

Anyway, even if you manage to do it, you'd still need to surround the whole planet with giant plastic shell or forcefield to stop it from being uninhabitable again in short order. Not a big effort?

"Short order" in this case probably equates to "a few hundred million years", which I think is a reasonable amount of time to ask to keep a planet habitable. There is definitely evidence that water flowed on Mars a few billion years ago, for instance, and that couldn't have happened unless it had a thick enough atmosphere to hold the stuff in liquid form.

[Leecros]

I'm not as familiar with CKI as i am with EUIII, but I do know that EUIV was pretty much a direct port of EUIII...Just into the updated engine with the updated mechanics like trade, the removal of sliders, and a large variety of other things. However, they didn't remove anything. Just added and improved mechanics. Consider Crusader Kings II was the first game with Paradox's current business model. I would expect that it operated much in the same way.



As for the Venus discussion. Trixie is right, we could colonize Venus with our current technology. The question is why would we? There's not really much to be gained on it. It's not like we could go down and mine for resources like we could on Mars or even the moon.

About the only thing we could use it for is bragging rights and food and you couldn't even really ship that food back before that kind of transit is currently prohibitively expensive and research purposes. You couldn't even use it as a launchpad for future missions like you could a base on the moon, because about the only planet it would make it easier to get to would be Mercury.

[Siosilvar]

A) Distance. Venus is actually much closer to us than Mars. 1:0 to Venus.

Distance doesn't matter that much in space, delta-V (aka "how much fuel do we need") does. And if I'm not mistaken, it's cheaper to land on Mars than it would be to reach the Venusian atmosphere. The trip is longer and launch window doesn't come around as often, but you can pack more stuff proportionately to the rest of the rocket.

Venus isn't implausible, but Mars is definitely getting more attention. Whether that's because it's actually easier or just more sensational I couldn't say, but it's obviously not as slanted in Venus's favor as you claim. Romance can only make up for so many practical concerns.

[Artanis]

*Venus vs. Mars discussion*

One problem I'm seeing is the definition of "easier".

Is Venus easier? In some ways, sure. It's close enough to 1g for gravity to be a MUCH smaller concern, if it's even a concern at all. Mars would take a lot more effort to make an atmosphere that's useful for things like blocking radiation and not needing pressurized suits and whatnot.

Is Mars easier? In some ways, sure. Its smaller gravity makes it a HELL of a lot easier to land and take back off. Plus, a hole in the ground with an airlock or two bolted on is much easier to create, maintain, and expand than trying to do so with a balloon-base floating around a place known for having clouds of sulfuric acid. There's also the fact that we know a lot more about Mars than we do about Venus.


tl;dr: Mars is easier in practical terms, Venus is easier in theoretical potential.

[Knaight]

Is Venus easier? In some ways, sure. It's close enough to 1g for gravity to be a MUCH smaller concern, if it's even a concern at all. Mars would take a lot more effort to make an atmosphere that's useful for things like blocking radiation and not needing pressurized suits and whatnot.

Is Mars easier? In some ways, sure. Its smaller gravity makes it a HELL of a lot easier to land and take back off. Plus, a hole in the ground with an airlock or two bolted on is much easier to create, maintain, and expand than trying to do so with a balloon-base floating around a place known for having clouds of sulfuric acid. There's also the fact that we know a lot more about Mars than we do about Venus.

The upper atmosphere in Venus is pretty similar to the lower atmosphere in Earth, and that's the area that could be realistically settled with modern technology (given a dramatically different economy which prioritizes it pretty high). We don't have what it takes to deal with the clouds of sulfuric acid, particularly because the Venus lower atmosphere isn't even a proper gas - it's a supercritical fluid full of nasty stuff.

[Artanis]

The upper atmosphere in Venus is pretty similar to the lower atmosphere in Earth, and that's the area that could be realistically settled with modern technology (given a dramatically different economy which prioritizes it pretty high). We don't have what it takes to deal with the clouds of sulfuric acid, particularly because the Venus lower atmosphere isn't even a proper gas - it's a supercritical fluid full of nasty stuff.

I was referring to the clouds of sulfuric acid that blanket the top of the planet. They're what make it impossible to use visible light to see the surface from space.

The areas of the atmosphere that are "pretty similar to Earth" still have high winds, near-zero oxygen, and a non-trivial amount of acid floating around.

[Cikomyr]

So, how about this game Stellaris, eh?

My friend had an event where his scientist had a drunken incident and impersonated a God on a primitive planet and got them to build Pyramids

[Driderman]

Maybe it's just that I'm a bit of a Paradox fanboy but I can't help but see some of the launch day quirks of the game as entertaining but temporary features that only the early buyers of the game get to experience. It's kinda like pre-order DLC I guess

That being said, sectors especially really need some work done. As an example from my current game, I removed a planet from a sector because I had to resettle a arctic-dwelling fungus-person to one of my directly controlled planets so I could build a colony ship of that race. Because see, you can build a colony ship on a sector planet yes, but it won't appear in the outliner. You can still select it directly though and order it to move as well, but you can't make it colonize a planet, because as the game puts it "you do not control this vessel". It also seems like the fungus-persons response to being resettled to a habitat it hated was to start a liberation movement of one on that plant, instead of just moving back home.

[AgentPaper]

Maybe it's just that I'm a bit of a Paradox fanboy but I can't help but see some of the launch day quirks of the game as entertaining but temporary features that only the early buyers of the game get to experience. It's kinda like pre-order DLC I guess

That being said, sectors especially really need some work done. As an example from my current game, I removed a planet from a sector because I had to resettle a arctic-dwelling fungus-person to one of my directly controlled planets so I could build a colony ship of that race. Because see, you can build a colony ship on a sector planet yes, but it won't appear in the outliner. You can still select it directly though and order it to move as well, but you can't make it colonize a planet, because as the game puts it "you do not control this vessel". It also seems like the fungus-persons response to being resettled to a habitat it hated was to start a liberation movement of one on that plant, instead of just moving back home.

You can colonize with it, actually, by going to the planet that you want to colonize, hitting the "colonize" button, and then selecting the colony ship you want from the list that pops up.

[Driderman]

You can colonize with it, actually, by going to the planet that you want to colonize, hitting the "colonize" button, and then selecting the colony ship you want from the list that pops up.

Yes I just realized that part of the problem was that although the fungus-person was native to arctic climates, I had in fact not yet researched how to settle them

In other news, Raldirm den Polosch (the one-man liberation movement) has decided to migrate back to the Fungus-person empire where his parents(?) were born(?), after I negotiated a new migration treaty between our empires. Taking our clashing world-views with him. I hope he spreads some ethical divergence :)

[Guancyto]

So, how about this game Stellaris, eh?

My friend had an event where his scientist had a drunken incident and impersonated a God on a primitive planet and got them to build Pyramids

It gets better, you can eventually get a special project where you land a commando team to abduct him, regrettably the commandos have to shoot a lot of the natives because they keep making suicide charges to try and defend their deity.

That's as far as I've gotten in the chain; I assume it continues in some fashion though, because that event ended with "they still have some of our technology and they've just witnessed men from the stars come down and kidnap their god, but surely that won't cause any trouble later."

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Ah, I had the cult fail to start up in any big way, leaving the Pyramids as a slight oddity with a small cult. But they're in the Renaissance so I think powerful God kings are going out of style.