Stellaris: Paradoxian Space Stategy.

[Astrella]

I've heard though that it's fairly good about being able to automate stuff? And interfaces aren't a huge issue with me, is it worse than say Dwarf Fortress?

[Artanis]

Sorry, I tend to forget what community I'm working with at the moment. Grog is short for "grognard", originally slang for a long-service soldier or sailor. In the modern context, it refers to players of extremely detailed strategic and tactical historical wargames - the sort that would model the differences between diesel and gasoline for fuel supply, or have each different model of Spitfire available to choose from, etc as well as this genre of game. Hallmarks of this genre include information overload, extreme micromanagement (one of the flagship products, the War In The X series, has you running an entire theater of WWII, down to what sort of Combat Air Patrol individual fighter squadrons flies), and very deep and complex under-the-hood modeling - all thrown together with passable graphics, a barely adequate interface and presented so poorly you'll often find new, extremely useful, information screens after you've already played it a dozen times. The poor presentation

Distant Worlds is not technically a grog game as it's a sci-fi game instead of historical, but it comes from a grog company and shares a lot of the features.

Ah, many thanks

[Aeson]

And interfaces aren't a huge issue with me, is it worse than say Dwarf Fortress?

I would rate the interface of Distant Worlds as considerably better than that of Dwarf Fortress, having played both games myself.

I've heard though that it's fairly good about being able to automate stuff?

It is fairly good about allowing you to automate stuff, yes, though I personally would suggest that the first time or two you play it you try running without automation so that you can get a feel for what you do or do not want to control directly, and also to encourage you to familiarize yourself with a lot of the aspects of the game that might be hidden or obscured by heavy automation.

[Grif]

Just a heads up, Asimov (1.2) has been released. Unfortunately, some persistent bugs still linger, and new ones has been introduced. (The most amusing being that you can't get Xeno Leadership without robot pops atm.)

[factotum]

Just a heads up, Asimov (1.2) has been released. Unfortunately, some persistent bugs still linger, and new ones has been introduced. (The most amusing being that you can't get Xeno Leadership without robot pops atm.)

Since most of Paradox seem to be going on holiday around now, are those bugs going to get fixed soon, you reckon?

[Grif]

I expect a hotfix to fix the most ergegious, but I'd give it until the devs properly returns from their holidays before the bugs are fixed properly.

[GloatingSwine]

They're working on a hotfix for some of the silliness (also democracies give you presidents for life right now).

OTOH, I've decided to try the polar opposite of my last species, and am using the new wargoals to be a horrible space bully, anyone who is too ideologically different to assimilate effectively is getting regular kickings ending with being made tributary and humiliated to keep their economy broken until I have better tools to manage their integration.

Anyone within a couple of degrees of me (spiritualst, collectivist, militarist) is getting annexed for the greater good.

[factotum]

What *are* the outstanding bugs still in Asimov? Is there a list somewhere?

[GloatingSwine]

What *are* the outstanding bugs still in Asimov? Is there a list somewhere?

Democracies have presidents for life (no other candidates show up for elections)
AI is far too eager to start kickvotes for federations.

[Corvus]

Just read through the patch notes. Ouch - they just butchered my current game :(

They seemed to want to destroy any happiness based empires.

[GloatingSwine]

Just read through the patch notes. Ouch - they just butchered my current game :(

They seemed to want to destroy any happiness based empires.

Mostly they've nerfed pacifist, it was too easy to get to 90% happiness consistently and no reason to actually be pacifist because the teeny little war unhappiness penalty was overwhelmed by how easy it was to stack bonuses and be over 90% anyway.

By spreading around the happiness bonuses to not-necessarily-pacifist governments and making the pacifist governments highly attractive (more core systems), and also not letting them use the cede planet war goal they've made pacifists the captains of internal development not the raving bloodthirsty maniacs they were before.

You can still be a happiness based government, but your relative advantage is smaller (because bonuses that don't go over the magic threshold still mean something) and it's harder to get the max bonus (because the government bonus is half and you start 10% lower)

And let's be honest happiness is a bit of a god stat in Stellaris. Happy pops produce more and have less ethics divergence meaning they have more reasons to stay happy.

[Cikomyr]

Democracies have presidents for life (no other candidates show up for elections)
AI is far too eager to start kickvotes for federations.

They just did away with the pretenses ;-)

[Corvus]

Pacifist wasn't the happiness ethic - they know have a peace happiness.

What they did do was reduce base happiness (from 60% to 50%), removed it from spiritualist, removed it from moral democracy and made the void cloud bonus to happiness a temporary buff only.

[GloatingSwine]

Pacifist wasn't the happiness ethic - they know have a peace happiness.

Pacifist was absolutely the happiness ethic. Because the happiness bonus on Moral Democracy was 10%, doubling on the advanced government type and you got the Paradise Dome which was 10% happiness and 5% habitability without the insane upkeep of Hyper Entertainment Forums, meaning that you started the game at 80% happiness on your homeworld, giving you the first production bonus straight away, and could get to it with one structure on any colony (and got 90% hab faster), and you could simply overwhelm any dissenting ethics other than fantatic xenophobe (and then only sometimes if you got 2 or more aliens migrate in) with excessive happiness giving you maximum production bonus at all times in all places, no matter who you conquered.

That's also why it was the best for conquest, because that -25% recently conquered malus? Completely overwhelmed by the 50-60% bonuses you could trivially throw at a planet with empire bonus and buildings (and that's before you really stacked, with Irenic Democracy, Xeno Zoo, Hyper Entertainment Forum, Paradise Dome, Teldar Plant, a governor and the happiness edict you could get +85%. 95% if the Teldar plant was on that planet. 100% if you got the tree of life anomaly. The most irascible alien in the galaxy could be completely happy in your empire if you wanted it.

The happiness bonus from government has been halved now and moved to the Direct Democracy/Theocratic Republic government types, so it's been somewhat divorced from pacifist, and pacifists have a good reason not to take those govs (attractive options in the pacifist specific govs) leading to less trivial happiness stacking.

[Corvus]

Ah, I'd forgotten about the buildings associated with pacifist.

The problem with pacifist is that you can't really play as one properly. Given the current only way to really win the game is to go out conquering, they need some way to offset the penalty they get to being at war and some way to deal with those they conquered that isn't slavery or genocide.

[Aotrs Commander]

So, since the second patch is out, time to ave a crack.

Since, if it's anything like EUIV, some effort will have to be sepnt mucking around, the first try may be something... Less than a serious stab.

So then, as is Bleakbane tradition, dating back all the way to Civ II, we shall once again turn to the Flibbilians and their glorious leader, Mister Flibble.

So, as at the moment no idea what the optimal choises are, we'll be guided by penguin-kind.

Weak (Penguin), but resiliant nomads (because of the whole Antartic migraton thing) and charismatic, because everyone loves penguins. Apparently.

And they can shoot hex-rays out of their eyesockets, so that means lasers. And we'll have warp-drive because easy (and I'll use wormholes when I try properly...)

They shall be militaristic a little bit, collectivist (because penguin) and materialistic, because when you find out there's more to the universe than ice, you get a bit excited. And they shall be a despotic hegemony. (I was almost tempeted to make them spiritual, as the follows of the great Uncle Arnie, but decided that was almost giving them some character, so didn't...)

Spoiler

Show

(Oh, they are so going to get their arses kicked...)

We will have a small galaxy with the default AI settings (since there is no easy...)

...

...

...

Aaaand it looks like the mighty (hah!) Flibbilian Empire is going to be taking a loooong while to get anywhere. +30 mineral income, the tutorial says. Five years in and I'm lucky to be pushing +10. Especially since there was, like, +2 minerals within the starting range, so I can't even start on the (EVENTUAL) discovery of a system with +4 until I can build a frontier outpost...

[factotum]

Aaaand it looks like the mighty (hah!) Flibbilian Empire is going to be taking a loooong while to get anywhere. +30 mineral income, the tutorial says. Five years in and I'm lucky to be pushing +10. Especially since there was, like, +2 minerals within the starting range, so I can't even start on the (EVENTUAL) discovery of a system with +4 until I can build a frontier outpost...

That sounds like an unusually unlucky start. I don't think I've had a start in Stellaris where there weren't at least three or four +2 mineral sources in my starting system, which should easily push you above +10 when you add in the production of your homeworld. Mind you, you should savour this point in the game--there will come a point where you're getting hundreds of minerals per turn and have no idea what to do with it all!

[Mabn]

That sounds like an unusually unlucky start. I don't think I've had a start in Stellaris where there weren't at least three or four +2 mineral sources in my starting system, which should easily push you above +10 when you add in the production of your homeworld. Mind you, you should savour this point in the game--there will come a point where you're getting hundreds of minerals per turn and have no idea what to do with it all!

Really? A typical start I have one orbital something buildable in my starting system that may or may not be a mine.

[Aotrs Commander]

That sounds like an unusually unlucky start. I don't think I've had a start in Stellaris where there weren't at least three or four +2 mineral sources in my starting system, which should easily push you above +10 when you add in the production of your homeworld. Mind you, you should savour this point in the game--there will come a point where you're getting hundreds of minerals per turn and have no idea what to do with it all!

One of the first three systems I explored (one of the tutorial goals) was completely empty of ANY resources or habitable planets.

When I finished last night, I had about gotten my +30 minerals (after seven hours and about twenty years of game-time). (But no chance on the energy though, at least not until the colonies I've finally started ramp up a bit.)

The first thing that struck me is how incredibly restrictive frontier outposts are. I can afford merely three - and only then because the power right on my doorstop declared me as a rival because their rabid xenophobes. I am just now in the position when I have started colonising (and I was apparently lucky enough to be able to research colonies as my first choice)... But aside from a system or two I can MAYBE dismantle one of them, I am somewhat capped by the inability to colonise due to lack of planets. I was at one point, become very concerned that there were no more planets within range I could colonise to get more energy and mineral resources to be able to colonise...

[Ailurus]

Really? A typical start I have one orbital something buildable in my starting system that may or may not be a mine.

Your results sound a lot more like my starts. I usually only find 1-2 big-mineral systems total in the early game, and usually grabbing it involves border disputes with a neighboring faction.

The first thing that struck me is how incredibly restrictive frontier outposts are. I can afford merely three - and only then because the power right on my doorstop declared me as a rival because their rabid xenophobes. I am just now in the position when I have started colonising (and I was apparently lucky enough to be able to research colonies as my first choice)... But aside from a system or two I can MAYBE dismantle one of them, I am somewhat capped by the inability to colonise due to lack of planets. I was at one point, become very concerned that there were no more planets within range I could colonise to get more energy and mineral resources to be able to colonise...

First, I'm pretty sure your guaranteed to get colonization as an option right away, and I ALWAYS take it. It's just too much of a penalty in my mind to postpone settling planets for several years.

I usually only build 1, 2 tops, frontier outposts early. Claiming territory in Stellaris is a lot less important than in a lot of other games, at least for warp and especially wormhole civs (hyperdrives need to worry a bit more about getting blocked in depending on how the lanes end up). A planet will grant a lot more territory than a frontier outpost, and you can claim a planet anywhere your colony ship can reach.

The way I start out, usually (which is probably not ideal, but it works decently):
-Start researching colonization, and build 1-2 additional science ships right away.
-Send my starting fleet out to visit nearby systems (just jumping in and out) to see which systems have planets I can settle.
-Science ships run around surveying systems, starting with the ones which the fleet reports good planets are in
-Start building a colony ship as soon as the tech is done
-Once the colony ship is done, send it out to the furthest good habitable planet you think you can safely defend (to help stake out your initial borders)
-Build more colony ships as economically feasible, and once your outer borders are done then move in to claim closer habitable planets.

The only time I'll bring in a frontier outpost is if there are is a system that I really want to grab that isn't near a planet I can settle, or if I think another empire might grab it before I can settle it. Systems I'll consider for outpost claiming include:
-multiple planets, especially of the same type
-lots of orbital resources (6-8 minerals or energy, or a big research planet)
-a pre-space civiliztion I want to experiment on or uplift

But just grabbing systems for the sake of territory, or to get like +2 minerals here and +3 energy there isn't really worth it.

[Aotrs Commander]

Your results sound a lot more like my starts. I usually only find 1-2 big-mineral systems total in the early game, and usually grabbing it involves border disputes with a neighboring faction.



First, I'm pretty sure your guaranteed to get colonization as an option right away, and I ALWAYS take it. It's just too much of a penalty in my mind to postpone settling planets for several years.

I usually only build 1, 2 tops, frontier outposts early. Claiming territory in Stellaris is a lot less important than in a lot of other games, at least for warp and especially wormhole civs (hyperdrives need to worry a bit more about getting blocked in depending on how the lanes end up). A planet will grant a lot more territory than a frontier outpost, and you can claim a planet anywhere your colony ship can reach.

The way I start out, usually (which is probably not ideal, but it works decently):
-Start researching colonization, and build 1-2 additional science ships right away.
-Send my starting fleet out to visit nearby systems (just jumping in and out) to see which systems have planets I can settle.
-Science ships run around surveying systems, starting with the ones which the fleet reports good planets are in
-Start building a colony ship as soon as the tech is done
-Once the colony ship is done, send it out to the furthest good habitable planet you think you can safely defend (to help stake out your initial borders)
-Build more colony ships as economically feasible, and once your outer borders are done then move in to claim closer habitable planets.

The only time I'll bring in a frontier outpost is if there are is a system that I really want to grab that isn't near a planet I can settle, or if I think another empire might grab it before I can settle it. Systems I'll consider for outpost claiming include:
-multiple planets, especially of the same type
-lots of orbital resources (6-8 minerals or energy, or a big research planet)
-a pre-space civiliztion I want to experiment on or uplift

But just grabbing systems for the sake of territory, or to get like +2 minerals here and +3 energy there isn't really worth it.

The position I was in was that I was not even distantly close to being able to afford a colony ship at +10/month; since I had to start building starships, as never mind the enemy (who was militarily stronger than me, apparently), the pirates thgat showed up that were capable of crippling me; very few (esepcially mineral) resources in area I controlled to start with (don't think there were any colonisable worls in that first stretch) and an increasingly hostile neighbour sat on top of me and next to the only reasonable resource-systems in view, so I basically had to put down frontier outposts just to even get started. I'm starting to expand away with colony ships now, but the systems are still fairly poor in terms of resources.

[factotum]

Really? A typical start I have one orbital something buildable in my starting system that may or may not be a mine.

Maybe it's me that's been unusually lucky, in that case? I've only started about 4 games in total, of Stellaris, because they last so long.

[Artanis]

(Disclaimer due to me tending to word things badly: this post is intended to compliment Aotrs Commander, so please take the following in that context )

*Aotrs Commander's latest game screwing him*

This kinda reminds me of a discussion regarding the nature of AI that I read a looooong time ago. While the discussion was on the GalCiv 2 forums, practically all of the points applied to any 4X game in general.

The discussion was started by a forumer there b****ing about the AI doing stupid stuff. The developer came in and replied, and the discussion turned to talking about some of the problems involved with trying to make a good AI, one of which is that the player has the option to quit and try again if they don't like their starting position. Player gets a terrible starting location? He can restart. AI gets a terrible starting location? It gets nommed by the player.

But you aren't doing that. You're sticking it out. I guess I'm in a chatty mood, because I just felt compelled to say that I respect doing that, and that I wish you the best of luck

[Aotrs Commander]

(Disclaimer due to me tending to word things badly: this post is intended to compliment Aotrs Commander, so please take the following in that context )



This kinda reminds me of a discussion regarding the nature of AI that I read a looooong time ago. While the discussion was on the GalCiv 2 forums, practically all of the points applied to any 4X game in general.

The discussion was started by a forumer there b****ing about the AI doing stupid stuff. The developer came in and replied, and the discussion turned to talking about some of the problems involved with trying to make a good AI, one of which is that the player has the option to quit and try again if they don't like their starting position. Player gets a terrible starting location? He can restart. AI gets a terrible starting location? It gets nommed by the player.

But you aren't doing that. You're sticking it out. I guess I'm in a chatty mood, because I just felt compelled to say that I respect doing that, and that I wish you the best of luck

'Course, this being my first playthrough, one doesn't know how screwed one is until one talks to other folk...



Question, while I think about it... The bonus granted by various buildings and station modules like -20% upkeep or +10% army damage (etc etc): do that apply to whatever is built there or merely whatever is in system or what? If it's the latter, it seems a bit... pointless building up any crew quarters or whatnot, since unless you just park your fleet there after every battle (possible, I 'spose if you use wormholes)... I see on the wiki it says "orbit modifier" for the latter and "ship modifier" for some of the others... Would I be right then, in assuming that the former applies only to ships parked there and the latter to anything built there...?

[factotum]

Question, while I think about it... The bonus granted by various buildings and station modules like -20% upkeep or +10% army damage (etc etc): do that apply to whatever is built there or merely whatever is in system or what?

It depends what they say. Orbit means ships currently orbiting the planet; Ship means ships built at the local spaceport; Planet means the planet, and Empire means your entire empire. Crew Quarters, for example, offer an orbit modifier of -20% ship upkeep, so the ships actually have to be orbiting there for it to apply; Garanthium Forge gives a ship modifier of +10% hull points, so that applies to any ship built there.

I think any building that grants an army bonus grants that bonus to all armies recruited on the planet, regardless of where they currently go, but I'm not 100% certain on that and can't find any clarification online.

[GloatingSwine]

-Once the colony ship is done, send it out to the furthest good habitable planet you think you can safely defend (to help stake out your initial borders)

This has become much less viable in 1.2 with the influence cost to colonise scaling up dramatically the further away from your own borders you go.

It's more effective to colonise near worlds and push your borders out more gradually.

[Aotrs Commander]

This has become much less viable in 1.2 with the influence cost to colonise scaling up dramatically the further away from your own borders you go.

It's more effective to colonise near worlds and push your borders out more gradually.

I noticed that when I saw a nice Gias world... that would have cost about 700 influence to get.




I am not amused. I am immediately seeing why people have been complaining about the crappy wargoal system. Apparently, the guys that declare war get to set the only victory goals and if you engage in the war, you get absolutely nothing. Not like EUIV where you could actually negotiate your own peace terms, it won't let you do anything.

Well, not havin' that, then. Bugger my allies (especially as it appeared the first time they peaced out they closed thier borders. I'mma reload and try something else, peace out and let the frackers fight their own fragging war: I intend to just hold off, do a bnit of raiding and debris hunting instead, and then let my allies clean up the mess later...

[GloatingSwine]

I don't ally with the AI in Stellaris, or join in its wars (because the only wargoal I would get is Humiliate, wouldn't be able to steal any planets, and if I want to farm the influence from humiliating species I'll do it myself).

AIs are simply paying the influence cost to colonise planets for me, I'll be along soon enough to eat them.

(And steal their toys. My current highly militarised approach has left me wanting in tech, but quite capable of ending allegedly superior enemy fleets, even if they also claim to have higher fleet power, so I just wreck someone and then reverse engineer the bits, have gotten most of my weapons that way, and now I have particle lances)

[Ailurus]

This has become much less viable in 1.2 with the influence cost to colonise scaling up dramatically the further away from your own borders you go.

It's more effective to colonise near worlds and push your borders out more gradually.

I noticed that when I saw a nice Gias world... that would have cost about 700 influence to get.

I almost always go with wormholes, so the largest influence difference I've noticed so far is ~30 extra influence to hit the further ones I can reach first. How far away are you all looking for it to cost hundreds of influence?

[Aotrs Commander]

So apparently, my allies gave me two planets anyway when they finally went for the peace...

At 113, Mister Flibble finally passed away. Not a bad run for a Penguin.

So, at this point, advancing is slow - largely as I try to work out where to put colonies for sectors - and mostly, though while the exploration creeps on, we're stalling for research.

To my great disgust, despite now having a colony ship with natives of said enemy suitable for tropical planets... I still can't colonies with without tropical colony tech. Which has put a bit of a binder on everything. Doulbe so, since I have loads of primitive races I'd like to do something with, but also still lack the tech.

So far the only good thing I've managed is so sneak in some xenophile traits via event, and to start colonising with them, because I may as well.

Very slow progress. This game could REALLY use the proper autopause a la EUIV. Becaus it doesn't, and it doens't notify you of much, you can't juxt run it at full speed and stop for stuff happening like you can with EUIV annoyingly. Why they didn't bother to put this in I have no idea.

I almost always go with wormholes, so the largest influence difference I've noticed so far is ~30 extra influence to hit the further ones I can reach first. How far away are you all looking for it to cost hundreds of influence?

Quite far.

But then again a planet not far out of my borders was about 80-something.