Stellaris: Paradoxian Space Stategy.

[Grif]

Okay. So the Fallen Empire literraly fly circles around my fleet. my 24K fleet was defeated by a mere 16K because I could not even close the distance.


Change of plan: from Autocannons to 100% Large Torpedoes, and better impulse engines. This might do the trick... I hope.

That, or perhaps space stations that slow them down.. ... that might work too.

FTL inhibitors. They teleport any hostile fleet onto themselves easily, so you can just pop a trap and station your fleet right next to one, allowing you to close the distance easily.

[Cikomyr]

They'll have point defence.


Kinetic Artillery or Tachyon Lances. Preferably Tachyon Lances.

But.. I want to destroy Fallen Empire's ship to get early access to these fancy high techs.

aren't Tachyon Lances one of their tech?

[GloatingSwine]

But.. I want to destroy Fallen Empire's ship to get early access to these fancy high techs.

aren't Tachyon Lances one of their tech?

They use Tachyon Lances, but they aren't unique to them. Matter Disintegrators are the special weapon they use (Unbidden use them as well).

Tachyon Lances are just the large slot only energy weapon, like Kinetic Artillery is for kinetic weapons. (it's better to focus on one weapon tech, really. And it's better for that weapon tech to be Energy Weapons right now because Kinetics don't have enough extra damage to make up for the lower accuracy and lack of armour penetration, and missiles are hard countered by pd)

Oh, and watch out for the next patch, cheeky wars aren't going to go so well because the AI will not accept a white peace if it has positive warscore.

[Cikomyr]

They use Tachyon Lances, but they aren't unique to them. Matter Disintegrators are the special weapon they use (Unbidden use them as well).

Tachyon Lances are just the large slot only energy weapon, like Kinetic Artillery is for kinetic weapons. (it's better to focus on one weapon tech, really. And it's better for that weapon tech to be Energy Weapons right now because Kinetics don't have enough extra damage to make up for the lower accuracy and lack of armour penetration, and missiles are hard countered by pd)

Oh, and watch out for the next patch, cheeky wars aren't going to go so well because the AI will not accept a white peace if it has positive warscore.

Oh, I was 100% ready to accept all of their demands as soon as i got wreckages to study. Its just an excuse to get high tech fast

[Grif]

Been fooling around with the beta patch. The QoL improvements are readily apparent and welcome. But haven't got the time to check out how sector AI has been improved.

[factotum]

Been fooling around with the beta patch. The QoL improvements are readily apparent and welcome. But haven't got the time to check out how sector AI has been improved.

Apparently there's one bug that has definitely been fixed there--sectors in the released game will always build engineering research labs when they build a lab at all. They're *supposed* to try and balance your science output, but for some reason they don't "see" your correct science output--so they think you're already balanced and just pick engineering because it's first in the list.

[Cikomyr]

This suddenly explaind why i have 360 engineering and 280 of everything else

[GloatingSwine]

Y'know, mine never did that.

They mostly built physics labs, mind, but they didn't just do engineering forever.

[Grif]

As an addendum, ethics divergence is even more broken on the current beta 1.1 patch. I guess this weekend will have to be Stellaris free.

[Cikomyr]

I will never touch a Beta patch ;)

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, there's a reason I stayed off the beta patch.

I'm waiting for the new patch to start my next game, where I'm going to bioengineer various space beetles for different tasks.

[GungHo]

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

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.

[Grif]

Clarke is officially out of beta. Sadly, with no further hotfixes.

Spoiler: Patchnotes

Show

################################################## ############
######################## VERSION 1.1.0 #######################
################################################## ############

###################
# Features
###################

* Strike Craft attack behavior was changed
* It is no longer necessary to control planets to demand them in war, but controlling planets that are set as wargoals now generates more warscore
* It is now possible to set a custom ruler/heir title for your custom empires
* It is now possible to write a biography for your custom empire
* Added an Influence reward for establishing communications, or conversely being contacted
* Collection of strategic resources on planet tiles is no longer suppressed by buildings
* Added settings for AI aggressiveness in the galaxy setup screen
* "Shipwright" mandate for democractic empires has been reworked
* Added resource reward to Raid on Smugglers event
* Individualist empires will no longer generate election candidates with slaver mandates, and Individualist Pops are less likely to vote for candidates with slaver mandates
* Slaver mandate no longer possible if slavery is outlawed
* It is now possible to set difficulty in multiplayer
* Symbols of Domination is now available for everyone
* Platypus species portrait and Paradox empire flag is now available for everyone

###################
# Balance
###################

# Technology
* Technology costs now increase by +10% per owned planet (up from +0%) and by +1% per Pop (down from +2%)
* Unlocking Spaceport technologies now makes you more likely to get research options for new reactor techs
* Spiritualists and Materialists now get tech progress towards Frequency Tuning for researching Space Whales

# Ethics
Fanatic Individualist
* Pops are now more unhappy in collectivist empires
* No longer have increased ethics divergence

Individualist
* Pops are now more unhappy in collectivist empires
* No longer have increased ethics divergence

Fanatic Xenophobe
* Rivalries now provide 50% more Influence

Xenophobe
* Rivalries now provide 25% more Influence

Fanatic Xenophile
* Alliance Influence cost reduced by 100%
* Maximum number of embassies increased by 2

Xenophile
* Alliance Influence cost reduced by 50%
* Maximum number of embassies increased by 1

Fanatic Militarist
* No longer gains additional Influence from rivalries
* No longer have an increased Influence cost for being in an Alliance

Militarist
* No longer gains additional Influence from rivalries
* No longer have an increased Influence cost for being in an Alliance

Fanatic Pacifist
* Pops are now more unhappy in militarist empires
* No longer increases Food output, but rather reduces growth needed for a new Pop by 30%

Pacifist
* Pops are now more unhappy in militarist empires
* No longer increases Food output, but rather reduces growth needed for a new Pop by 15%

# Components
* Strike Craft engagement range was significantly increased
* Strike Craft launch time reduced from 5 to 3 days
* Fighter movement speed increased from ~2 to 3.5
* Bomber movement speed increased from 1.5 to 3
* Chemical Thrusters Chance to Evade reduced from +10 to +5
* Ion Thrusters Chance to Evade reduced from +20 to +10
* Plasma Thrusters Chance to Evade reduced from +30 to +15
* Impulse Thrusters Chance to Evade reduced from +40 to +20

# Buildings
* Research Institute modifier to research speed reduced from +10% to +5%
* Colony Shelter modifier to ethics divergence reduced from +20% to +10%
* Empire Capital-Complex can now only be built on a capital world

# Government forms
Theocratic Republic
* Additional Core Planets reduced from +2 to +1

Transcendent Republic
* Additional Core Planets reduced from +4 to +2

# Traits
* Aggressive - fire rate bonus reduced from +20% to +10%
* Butcher - army damage bonus reduced from +20% to +10%
* Glory Seeker - army morale damage bonus reduced from +10% to +5%

# Modifiers
* Youthful Elite modifier effect on leader lifespan reduced from +50 to +25 years

###################
# AI
###################

# Misc.
* Computer-controlled Empires will start outlawing AI over time during a certain Crisis
* Increased negative opinion scaling for relative power of subjects
* AI will now colonize far away systems if COLONIZE_NON_ADJACENT define is enabled
* Fixed a bug where the AI would not use planetary edicts due to too small stockpile cap
* Empires that were previously controlled by a player (for example if said player drops in multiplayer) will now refrain from making any major changes to the country for a period of 10 years
* Fixed a bug where AI was modifying their species with bad traits, effectively giving them lots of traits
* Fixed a bug where military focused sectors would not build military stations
* Fixed an issue where the AI would not enslave any Pops

# Diplomacy
* AI will no longer accept a white peace when they are winning in warscore
* AI is now more open to trading access, migration rights and (for some personalities) research treaties
* Fixed a bug where AI would offer peace deals that gave allies' war goals to the player
* Fixed AI spamming the player with military access offers
* AI is now more aggressive against easily defeated targets

# Economy
* Fixed an issue where the AI would not disband ships even when running a heavy energy credit deficit

# Sector
* Respect Tile Resources setting will now prevent sector from building the wrong type of building for a tile regardless of special circumstances
* Improved the way sectors determine which resources the country needs when constructing buildings
* Fixed a bug where sector AI would move Pops back and forth
* Fixed budget issues that were preventing sectors from properly managing spaceports and construction ships

# Warfare
* Improved military tactics and handling of units
* Improved handling of military fleets vs. transport fleets
* AI now fights Crises
* Fixed issues where military fleets would not move
* AI should be better at trying to regain control of occupied planets
* AI should be better at trying to invade planets taken by ""AI uprisings"

###################
# User Interface
###################

* Diplomatic notifications and pop-ups have been improved
* End of combat UI has been improved
* Colony Ships now show which Pop it is carrying
* Localization of armor/shield penetration updated
* If a weapon has both shield penetration and a corresponding reduced damage to shields the two effects are replaced by a single line: "Ignores X% Shields"
* Habitability icons in galaxy map and systems view have been improved
* (BETA) Added a new experimental option for GUI-scaling in the options menu


###################
# User modding
###################

* Ported system for weights/triggers on songs from HoI4/EU4
* Fixed so that effect set_name can use localization system
* Moved Domination victory condition into defines
* Added NOR operator
* Species Appearance screen is now moddable
* Species City Appearance screen is now moddable
* Ship Appearance screen is now moddable
* Added num_energy trigger
* Reading a single on_action entry from multiple files will now append the events to the list entry rather than overwriting it. This should allow more mods to be compatible
* Prescripted countries can now set the attribute "disallow_editing = yes" to disable the edit button in the Empire selection view before game start
* Added an alert to tell the player that a research field is missing a Scientist

###################
# Performance
###################

* Optimized daily AI calculations
* Fixed frame rate drop when having one or more fleets selected

###################
# Graphics
###################
* Lighting for ship preview images has been improved
* 8 new event images added to the game
* Textures for Massive Reptilians have been improved
* Improved textures for space event assets
* Optimized textures for event assets
* Increased texture resolution for ancient drone station
* Optimized textures for pirate ships
* Updated textures for generic station
* Increased texture resolution for AI Core
* Optimized textures for AI ships
* Improved texture for Arthropoid colony ship
* Added cover art for Digital OST

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Military Station maintenance is now correctly discounted by 25% instead of increased by 75%
* Fixed negative opinion modifiers being applied to owners of planets that the Prethoryn Scourge is purging
* Extradimensional Invaders should no longer spawn inside Fallen Empire borders
* Reduced chance of generating the Improbable Orbit anomaly
* Fixed the Master's Teachings edicts "Philosophical Mindset" and "Warring States" not being applied after event project finished
* Fixed "Colonial Failure" anomaly event handing out a Colonization tech you already had
* Fixed an issue with the VO not triggering for the mining station tutorial mission
* Researched robot Pops are now always listed, but are not buildable if AI policy is set to Outlawed
* Injured Queen project is now properly cancelled and visual asset removed when another Empire researches it first
* Species Procurement event chain descriptions now correctly refer to planet names
* Various localization bugs have been fixed
* Fixed outdated Avian name list titles in Brazilian Portuguese, French, Polish and Spanish
* Fixed some faction events not printing planet names properly
* Loyalist-affiliated candidates now display proper faction names in Election view
* Fixed observation post events sometimes not printing planet name correctly
* Changed the way native reservations are placed for colony event related to colonizing planets that have primitive natives
* Fixed a bug where missiles could appear on the galaxy map
* Ring World habitability-trait now has proper localization
* Fixed a bug where Destroyer Assembly Yard didn't require the correct Spaceport level to build
* Fixed an issue where trait randomization didn't respect opposing traits
* Fallen Empires are now able to build armies
* Fixed an exploit where you could reduce the cost of resettlement by moving pops around on the same planet
* Newly enlightened countries should no longer be despicable neutrals
* Fixed right click not working to give additional orders while in FTL transit
* Fixed an issue where embassies and rivalries could remain after an empire was annexed
* Fixed an issue where you could always enable edicts
* Fixed Swarm Infestors and Constructors sometimes not reinforcing properly
* Robot Pops should no longer get shuffled ethics from divergence
* Heirs now keep the dynasty name of the ruler in monarchies
* Added missing localization strings for leaders who gained the arrested development trait
* Fixed Power Overwhelming achievement
* Fixed Domo Arigato achievement
* Fixed Elixir of Life anomaly potentially spawning multiple times if not researched
* Fixed Living Metal deposits not being minable
* Fixed Sublight Probe event chain sometimes breaking after combat with the Salvage Skippers
* Fixed being unable to change speed with (-) and (+) on American keyboard
* Fixed bugs related to Ethics Divergence. Pops should no longer drift to "neutral" ethics. Drift towards empire ethics is slower than drifting away from
* Fixed a bug where Frontier Outposts in sectors would cost no influence maintenance
* Fixed a bug where ship_accuracy_add was not being calculated correctly
* Fixed a bug where assigning ethics to newly generated pops would cause incorrect ethics divergence.
* Custom ruler and heir titles will now be properly saved and loaded.
* Fixed armies being stuck on planets
* Planets recaptured from the AI empire will no longer randomly become Tundra worlds
* Fixed the AI empire having highly self-destructive ideas about AI legality

[Trekkin]

Clarke is officially out of beta. Sadly, with no further hotfixes.

So now colonizing planets, and especially small planets, is even more burdensome. They really want to encourage going tall, no?

[Grif]

So now colonizing planets, and especially small planets, is even more burdensome. They really want to encourage going tall, no?

Not really. Wide is still the best way to go, and large planets are now especially valuable because they will now give more bang for your POP. It just forces you to be a little more cautious in the initial colonizing phase because taking that 10% hit for marginal planets is rough.

[Silfir]

Since 1916, the population of the human race increased by the factor 3.5 or so. Naturally, this meant scientific progress slowed to a crawl - which is why I'm currently putting my pen to the paper so I can take it to the local telegraphist so you can read these words. We just ended up with so many additional brilliant scientists being born that they all found each other and formed massive DnD groups instead of working on splitting the atom and other such sciency things. Curses!

It's a good thing we never even considered something as ludicrous as leaving behind the shackles of earth's gravity in order to land and walk on another celestial body, let alone colonize one. Crossing frontiers and establishing listening posts for the wide, vast unknown is just going to distract us from true scientific progress, which as we all know is conducted in city blocks full of laboratories and engineering facilities. The only way it can be worthwhile to expand to a new area of space, light years away from the cradle in which our race was born, is if there is enough real estate there to build even more city blocks full of laboratories for our sciency guys to study the murky depths of their belly buttons in.



Real talk - I think "going tall" should simply *not be a thing* in 4X games. Not that expansion should be painless, or unrestricted - but the restrictions ought to make sense thematically somehow. Large empires becoming harder to manage is to be expected. Larger populations spread among a large number of planets being, by themselves, collectively dumber than a tiny population that never bothered to peek past its stratosphere is nonsensical.

[houlio]

Real talk - I think "going tall" should simply *not be a thing* in 4X games. Not that expansion should be painless, or unrestricted - but the restrictions ought to make sense thematically somehow. Large empires becoming harder to manage is to be expected. Larger populations spread among a large number of planets being, by themselves, collectively dumber than a tiny population that never bothered to peek past its stratosphere is nonsensical.

This isn't just a 4x game though. Stellaris, as far as I can tell, has been designed as a hybrid between 4x and the more traditional-for-Paradox grand strategy game. The point of being tall is that you're easier to manage, so to represent that via the game, they make it so you need less sectors, leaders to manage said sectors, less upkeep costs, and better research. You could say the same things if you look at other Paradox games (I think EU3 used almost the same thing for research effectively, and Vic2's literacy rates falls into this as well for the most part).

[AgentPaper]

I think the size tech penalty is more like, the larger you are, and therefore the bigger navy you have, the harder it is to implement new methodology and techology across your empire/your empires fleets. More akin to how it was much harder for Russia to modernize it's army and bureaucracy compared to, say, Prussia.

But yeah, it's mostly a gameplay thing to try and give the little guy a fighting chance. Being bigger is still always better, regardless, as tech doesn't make a huge difference unless the gap in technology is equally huge.

[Guancyto]

Larger populations spread among a large number of planets being, by themselves, collectively dumber than a tiny population that never bothered to peek past its stratosphere is nonsensical.

That explains why, thanks to their enormous population, China was able to colonize Alpha Centauri in 1918. Later on they had to compete with India's interstellar empire (also thanks to their huge population). Certainly neither of them were outteched by a tiny island with an enormous concentration of expertise and education such as, say, Taiwan, or Great Britain, or Japan.

[tonberrian]

Now with the changes to empire complexes, i find that i really want to have a way to increase the class of a planet. It's not that far-fetched, and i think it would be nice to be able to scale up a capital to 25.

[Narkis]

Now with the changes to empire complexes, i find that i really want to have a way to increase the class of a planet. It's not that far-fetched, and i think it would be nice to be able to scale up a capital to 25.

Yeah, it's kinda annoying when my capital is the worst of my core worlds. But I'd be content with just being able to relocate the capital.

I'm greatly enjoying 1.1 so far. Most bugs have been fixed, and sectors actually work now. My biggest annoyance with the game is apparently a design decision though: I cannot understand why we're forbidden from building stuff on sector planets. In crusader kings 2 there's no such limitation, and it'd make much more sense in medieval times rather than the future..

[Grif]

Yeah, it's kinda annoying when my capital is the worst of my core worlds. But I'd be content with just being able to relocate the capital.

I'm greatly enjoying 1.1 so far. Most bugs have been fixed, and sectors actually work now. My biggest annoyance with the game is apparently a design decision though: I cannot understand why we're forbidden from building stuff on sector planets. In crusader kings 2 there's no such limitation, and it'd make much more sense in medieval times rather than the future..

I'd be happy with the option to build stuff at an influence cost. That would make much more sense. Same with the option to forbid certain tiles from being redeveloped/developed. (If for whatever reason you don't want stuff to be built there. Maybe say a tile blocker which gives boni.)

[factotum]

Since 1916, the population of the human race increased by the factor 3.5 or so. Naturally, this meant scientific progress slowed to a crawl - which is why I'm currently putting my pen to the paper so I can take it to the local telegraphist so you can read these words.

Surely you should be all for the change in this patch, then, which reduces the tech disadvantage from multiple pops and instead moves it to having multiple planets? Oh, and I could point out that if the game was realistic we'd have to sit waiting for years for ships to travel between star systems...

[Silfir]

Surely you should be all for the change in this patch, then, which reduces the tech disadvantage from multiple pops and instead moves it to having multiple planets? Oh, and I could point out that if the game was realistic we'd have to sit waiting for years for ships to travel between star systems...

I guess if people get bored of my posts after one paragraph that says more about me than anything else...

[Aotrs Commander]

Since 1916, the population of the human race increased by the factor 3.5 or so. Naturally, this meant scientific progress slowed to a crawl - which is why I'm currently putting my pen to the paper so I can take it to the local telegraphist so you can read these words. We just ended up with so many additional brilliant scientists being born that they all found each other and formed massive DnD groups instead of working on splitting the atom and other such sciency things. Curses!

It's a good thing we never even considered something as ludicrous as leaving behind the shackles of earth's gravity in order to land and walk on another celestial body, let alone colonize one. Crossing frontiers and establishing listening posts for the wide, vast unknown is just going to distract us from true scientific progress, which as we all know is conducted in city blocks full of laboratories and engineering facilities. The only way it can be worthwhile to expand to a new area of space, light years away from the cradle in which our race was born, is if there is enough real estate there to build even more city blocks full of laboratories for our sciency guys to study the murky depths of their belly buttons in.



Real talk - I think "going tall" should simply *not be a thing* in 4X games. Not that expansion should be painless, or unrestricted - but the restrictions ought to make sense thematically somehow. Large empires becoming harder to manage is to be expected. Larger populations spread among a large number of planets being, by themselves, collectively dumber than a tiny population that never bothered to peek past its stratosphere is nonsensical.

I'm inclined to agree. I'm not even sure it makes much sense in the context of history in EUIV, to be honest. The small nations that made big impact had a lot of other factors at work involved in their success; them being smaller was not especially one of them (heck, you might argue BEING AN ISLAND was more of one, c.f England and Japan). Modelling THAT is significantly harder, especially because you basically can't DO it without stacking the deck one way or another for those nations. (Heck, you might even argue that playing on a lower difficultly level is probably not that far away from a reasonable approximation.)

Doubly so in and actual 4X to which "tall" is explicitly contrary to 3/4 of the Xs.



And this is why I'm not touching Stellaris until at LEAST the next patch. My recent exposure to Paradox suggests giving them plenty of tme to get their stuff together before I worry abour starting.

Though I AM almost tempted now to try a "tall" Xenophoibc race of nutters and, rather than paint the map, attempt to eradicate all other races so that my few worlds are the only ones not left bombed into lifeless ruins and see how that goes...

[Narkis]

I'd be happy with the option to build stuff at an influence cost. That would make much more sense. Same with the option to forbid certain tiles from being redeveloped/developed. (If for whatever reason you don't want stuff to be built there. Maybe say a tile blocker which gives boni.)

With 25 influence, we can take a planet out of a sector, queue everything and put it back. Not sure there's a price point where it'd be fair for just one building. But I'd accept it if this were streamlined so that you can pay a set cost of 25 influence and just build whatever until you close the planet screen.

[factotum]

I was just thinking about the 1.1 tech penalty change this morning, and it occurs to me that it doesn't really make much difference if your planets have full pop--in fact, as soon as you have 10 or more pops on a planet, the new system is actually better than the old one? For example, a full size 25 world would have been +50% tech penalty in the old version, and +35% in the new. The main hurt comes when you're growing your planets and they therefore aren't on full pop, but even then the difference isn't massive--I started a new game in 1.1 and have 4 colonies and 25 pops now, which is +65% tech penalty compared to +50% in the old version.

[Silfir]

Yeah, all things considered science isn't any more screwy than it was before. (I reloaded my old save and found science was actually going faster now, since while I had lots of planets, they were also well populated. Unfortunately, I was also in the Theocratic Democracy line. Good bye, tenth and eleventh core sector planet. Guess I'll be going atheist in my next start.) Even the <10 pop planets will still be worth having if the territory has plenty of resources. It's not like it makes the game unplayable, or expansion any less the optimal strategy. It just doesn't make any sense.

[NichG]

I'm generally in favor of discouraging 'wide' - the dominance of scale means that the game tends to be effectively over and done long before you've actually gone and cleaned up/grabbed everything needed to 'officially' win. Part of the reason is that a size advantage just grants so much on all fronts, so if you manage to get 20-30% bigger than everyone else you can usually stop everyone else from growing all that much.

However, I do think some numerical balance tweaks generally aren't enough to do it, and things like 'your empire is always in constant rebellion' get tedious. One way to logically support 'tall' would be to have populations be aware of social inequity - if they're on planets that are less developed than the most developed planets in your empire, they get jealous and unhappy, but its going to be another one of these 'that just means you have to figure out the recipe to manage it' things rather than positively encouraging players to try being 'tall'.

If 'tall' is going to be a valid strategy, there needs to be a direction you can proactively grow in that is orthogonal to territory, but requires the same kind of focusing of your resources to make progress there as you have to do in order to progress in colonization or conquest. Research doesn't really do this. In principle this could be networks of treaties and alliances, but it'd be nice to find new alternatives that change the old formula since I think we've got plenty of games like that already. Somehow it has to have the structure of 'I could colonize this new planet, or I could do ... with that time/resource, but not both'

[factotum]

4X games have had things to discourage "wide" for a long time, with various degrees of success. Civ 5 does it in a very similar way to Stellaris, by having a research penalty that applies the more cities you have--it's not quite as harsh as the Stellaris one (it's something like 5% per city), but since research is overall more important in a Civ game than Stellaris, it balances out. Endless Space, on the other hand, had an expansion disapproval mechanic that made the population less happy the larger the empire got. That actually might work better in Stellaris, because unhappy pops mean factions, so your penalty for going wide is the risk of your empire breaking up--which seems rather more realistic than the straight tech penalty they went with.