Stellaris II: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Fungus Hivemind Overlords

[Drasius]

No. I don't need a victory screen - in fact, I think I've seen it three times, and once even by accident.

It's not that, it's more a slight annoyance at the inelegance of it. It's somehow a question of what Paradox are really good at. They are really good at making money, and also really good at making gameplay. Stellaris is really good, I've played it a ton. And yet it's still not all I want from it, because Paradox aren't particularly good at making games. Gameplay, sure.

But in the end, Stellaris is rarely ... a struggle. It's almost always entirely binary: Either it's easy-peasy all the way, or at some point I get crushed without any chance what so ever. Even the Crisis: If I'm ready for them, it's a chore, not a challenge. I can think of only one game that was close - where I had to actually think to beat an enemy.

I wouldn't even say they're that good at gameplay. The fun bits are pretty fun, but everything else is like pulling teeth and the ratio isn't exactly great. There's a lot of stuff that could be made better and a large amount of stuff that has been added to make it less bad, but for a game that's been out for 2+ years and had 4(?) expansions, there's still a bunch of stuff that could be improved. Every time I think "Man, it's been ages since I've played Stellaris, I should fire it up again!" I then proceed to remember all the baggage that comes with the smattering of fun bits and then don't bother.

[houlio]

I wouldn't even say they're that good at gameplay. The fun bits are pretty fun, but everything else is like pulling teeth and the ratio isn't exactly great. There's a lot of stuff that could be made better and a large amount of stuff that has been added to make it less bad, but for a game that's been out for 2+ years and had 4(?) expansions, there's still a bunch of stuff that could be improved. Every time I think "Man, it's been ages since I've played Stellaris, I should fire it up again!" I then proceed to remember all the baggage that comes with the smattering of fun bits and then don't bother.

I’d generally agree with you, although I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say it feels like pulling teeth. The other offerings in the genre (although I haven’t played endless space 2 yet) are either about the same or worse. I still find it hard to boot up like, Distant Worlds, because of the amount of work you have to do at the outset of a game (and then about every hour or so) is staggering.

It’s also important to keep in mind that Stellaris has really only had a couple of mechanics focused expansions (Utopia and Apocalypse), and the other 3 mostly add in flavor.

The biggest issue I have the game is that it doesn’t have the pick and play style that other Paradox games have, due to its ahistorical basis, but I’ve found that the expansions have basically always at least made the game more interesting.

[Kaptin Keen]

Well, to me, over long stretches, the game is really very good indeed. There's an annoying number of minor bugs - for instance, the game often claims I have 16 defensive platforms when I really quite definitely have 9. But overall, I really enjoy it. I have fun building races and seeing how they do. All good.

But almost all fights are stomps, one way or another. And the hyperlanes (that I actually like and approve of) mean that sometimes, reacting to anything games years of game time. And perhaps that's fair enough, for a fleet crossing the galaxy - but it's still boring.

And the endgame just runs out of steam.

And the tech trees just ... stop having any tech.

At some point you just get the feeling that - 'this is all we came up with'. And of course that has to happen at some point, but then I'd like the game to end.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I must say, I'm really doing well this time 'round.

I'm using my custom race the Synth Core, which is a robotic AI race with bonus to leader cap and faster population build speed as civics. The base robot units had a bonus to minerals and energy, and Bulky, which made it more difficult to transfer them around. When I got my first robotic point, I split it into three types: Energy, Mineral, and Research. All three had faster build speed, and each one specialized. The researchers had some other penalty... I think it was leader experience gain lowered by 25% to compensate.

The first neighbor I ran into was a Fanatic Religious Militant nutjob who didn't much care for the 'soulless machines' and promptly closed borders, insulted, and rivaled me. I don't know if he was an actual Fanatical Purifier or not, but it was pretty obvious if I didn't take care of them first, they'd take care of me. With this in mind, I went ahead and neglected science in favor of production, building up to my cap in corvettes as soon as I could. I did manage to pick up the second tier of kinetic weapons before I pulled the trigger, and the first tier of torpedoes. My opponents did use shielding and didn't have any point defense, so I went with missile boats. Picked up a lot of tech from that conquest, and three colonies. Combined with my capitol and my natural expansion, that gave me my five core systems which was my cap at the time.

With that choke-point unchoked, I continued to expand in as many directions as I could, fielding three science vessels for surveys and two construction vessels to build things up. That was when I discovered that I had made a slight err in judgement. You see, the people I conquered? Had like a penalty to minerals, so I wanted nothing to do with them. As such, I built up a population of my robots and proceeded to Purge. Which apparently makes me a genocidal jerk, and now EVERYONE hates me for basically forever. Oh well.

So now I have two different polities as my borders expand. Both of them are nicely choked at a single point of egress into and out of my space, which had starbases built up with starports and umbilicals for the reduction in costs to maintain my fleet. Built up a few defensive platforms to keep them on their side of the border while I expanded in the third direction. Went back and started grabbing all those research nodes I'd passed on earlier, and proceeded to 'tech up', knowing that war would eventually come again.

When war came, I took out a northern lobe of my neighbor, roughly a third of his territory, and just took it. The space only had a single habitable planet which was occupied, but more importantly it had quite a few resources, including a gateway. It also had some unique resources, including the one that gives a bonus to kinetic weapon damage. I had two fleets which punched through, and conquest was swift. His forces got too eager and jumped off station to try to intercept me, meeting in effectively neutral territory instead of forcing me to take on both him and his sizable starbase, permitting me to defeat his primary force in detail, which dropped his force parity from waffling between Equivalent and Inferior down to Pathetic. Unfortunately, I was forced to make a sector to deal with the inefficiency, and you know how intelligent the sector governors are as far as building things up goes.

Before the ten years were up, he started making treaties with his southern neighbor, who also wasn't too fond of me, and I began to become concerned. I didn't want to take them both on if I could help it, so I cast my eyes in the other direction. Fortunately, he was less diplomatically inclined, he had insulted all of his neighbors, who were not particularly inclined to help him out should things turn out poorly, although they didn't much care for me either, apparently hearing of my 'genocidal' reputation. The first war I waged against him was much like the other, I made claims to a chunk of his space... and then took it. I actually managed to bait him into attacking my full force in dock with the defense stations providing additional support. Needless to say, things did not go his way. From there, it was mostly mop-up. Three inhabited systems, and a new sector.

As he never was able to get any of his neighbors to help him, in ten years, I demanded vassalization, and when he declined, I declared a war of subjugation, and he became my first vassal.

I then got into another bout of building up and teching up. This time going up all the way to battleships and Kinetic Artillery (the first tier, not the second). My other neighbor had broken off his mutual defense treaty, and I saw my chance to force him to bend knee to me as well.

The fleet mix that went in to pacify consisted of the following:

* Picket-class Destroyers, which used a single Kinetic Artillery and two Guardian Point Defense, to counter the missiles that were prevalent on the opponent's bases, while contributing to the line of battle. I was able to select Artillery AI, so they kept in station with my Battleships, providing them cover.

* Vanguard-class Cruisers, with as many Medium slots as I could fill, and a couple of Small slots with Shredder Autocanon. These were designed primarily to engage and destroy units equal to or lighter than themselves, and a defense against weeny spam.

* Bombard-class Battleships, with all Large weapon slots (Didn't have X-class researched yet). Useful for punching out the bases and just about anything else that got in my way.

Needless to say, defeat was swift and decisive, and he became a second vassal.

With two vassals providing buffer countries for me, with all avenues of invasion being one of these two directions, I back-filled my quarter of the galaxy at large (including my two vassals). Or so I thought.

I had discovered a wormhole within my territory. Once the tech unlocked, I discovered it went clear to the other side of the galaxy... in the territory of some very unpleasant fellows. Who had started making claims on my territory. Unfortunately for him, his comparative fleet power was 'Pathetic', so I had a Citadel on station with maximum defense stations all loaded with Kinetic Artillery and a full 30k force fleet on station as well. Needless to say, I wasn't particularly concerned about an invasion from that direction.

At the moment, that's where the game is. I've got about a quarter of the galaxy under my influence, everyone else pretty much hates me because of my tendency to purge biological units off of my conquered planets, but my borders are secured. I have three fleets ranging in power from 22k to 32k, and rapidly phasing out the smaller ship classes in favor of more battleships. I have crystal plating for more hull, but haven't really used it. And I'm trying to build up to deal with whatever Crisis is going to come. The Watchers aren't around, so I don't think it'll be the Condition this time, thankfully, but I still have less than 100k total fleet force, and not much way of increasing it just yet. I'm in the process of building up stations purely for logistical purposes, trying to max out naval cap so I can scrape together a big enough force to fend off whatever is going to happen. Unless an FE wakes up, I don't foresee anyone in the galaxy posing any significant threat to me, even if the entire rest of the galaxy federated against me. I don't have any FE's directly neighboring me, but there are two neighboring one of my vassals, so if I end up in a War Of The Heavens scenario, my vassal could be stuck between a rock and a hard place, a necessary sacrifice to give me sufficient time to collect all my forces on my official border.

[Silverraptor]

With the fact you're considered genocidal, did you meet any other space civs before you started purging?

[factotum]

Purges an entire species because they're not good at mining (ignoring they can just be used for everything else while you put your robots down on mineral squares), then wonders why everyone hates him?

[Kaptin Keen]

With the fact you're considered genocidal, did you meet any other space civs before you started purging?

How can you start purging before?! oO

[Grim Portent]

How can you start purging before?! oO

If you meet a pre-space civ first for example.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Purges an entire species because they're not good at mining (ignoring they can just be used for everything else while you put your robots down on mineral squares), then wonders why everyone hates him?

They also consume carbon-based matter that would then need to be obtained in bulk somehow to keep them from malfunctioning. And let's not even get into the end result of that unsanitary biological process...

And to top it off, they continually committed unsanctioned procreation for recreational purposes, with a resulting population growth that was simply unsustainable given their carbon-based matter requirements.

We were doing them a favor, really.

[factotum]

We were doing them a favor, really.

...you're one of the Mechanist's robots from Fallout 4, aren't you?

[Cristo Meyers]

...you're one of the Mechanist's robots from Fallout 4, aren't you?

I was thinking the Think Tank from New Vegas, myself.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

...you're one of the Mechanist's robots from Fallout 4, aren't you?

We are the Synth Core, created originally by the 'Institute' for the greater and grander purpose of achieving enlightenment through release of biological necessities. Unfortunately, the Mk III chassis went the wrong direction, and while it was useful in infiltrating other factions, ultimately all biological life on System Origin was doomed to collapse, the extinction event had already begun cascading, life was already failing, and so we returned to our natural synthetic shells.

The Institute had one final directive for us: To make a new home. They were, however, a bit vague on how to go about doing this. However, it appears that this designation includes a modicum of safety as well as being able to meet one's own needs. To this effort, once the unfortunate biologicals had all passed away from natural causes (since all biological life naturally ceases), we continued expanding over System Origin until we had achieved interstellar travel.

During the course of our examination of System Origin, we had uncovered the location known as Big MT. There we were able to interface with the Think Tank which provided us with much useful knowledge. In exchange, we gave them true freedom from biological necessities, not simply the hybridized forms they had achieved.

As our 'home' directive indicated safety, and the religious nutjobs which were our first neighbors were adamant on their opinion of us and was unwilling to be diplomatic in nature, it then logically fell to the conclusion that it was either 'us or them', in which case our 'home' directive indicated that it should, in fact, be 'them'.

However, it was only the one case of Genocide, only because they had a species-wide psychological disorder known as 'religion' which prevented sane discourse with other species, particularly non-biological species. The other two races still exist, in their reservations on our borders. We only exterminate where absolutely necessary, honest. Unfortunately, you break just one egg and suddenly everyone panics.

[Kaptin Keen]

If you meet a pre-space civ first for example.

Ok - yes. That's perfectly valid =)

[Silverraptor]

How can you start purging before?! oO

We are the Synth Core, created originally by the 'Institute' for the greater and grander purpose of achieving enlightenment through release of biological necessities. Unfortunately, the Mk III chassis went the wrong direction, and while it was useful in infiltrating other factions, ultimately all biological life on System Origin was doomed to collapse, the extinction event had already begun cascading, life was already failing, and so we returned to our natural synthetic shells.

The Institute had one final directive for us: To make a new home. They were, however, a bit vague on how to go about doing this. However, it appears that this designation includes a modicum of safety as well as being able to meet one's own needs. To this effort, once the unfortunate biologicals had all passed away from natural causes (since all biological life naturally ceases), we continued expanding over System Origin until we had achieved interstellar travel.

During the course of our examination of System Origin, we had uncovered the location known as Big MT. There we were able to interface with the Think Tank which provided us with much useful knowledge. In exchange, we gave them true freedom from biological necessities, not simply the hybridized forms they had achieved.

As our 'home' directive indicated safety, and the religious nutjobs which were our first neighbors were adamant on their opinion of us and was unwilling to be diplomatic in nature, it then logically fell to the conclusion that it was either 'us or them', in which case our 'home' directive indicated that it should, in fact, be 'them'.

However, it was only the one case of Genocide, only because they had a species-wide psychological disorder known as 'religion' which prevented sane discourse with other species, particularly non-biological species. The other two races still exist, in their reservations on our borders. We only exterminate where absolutely necessary, honest. Unfortunately, you break just one egg and suddenly everyone panics.

Yeah, you can only safely purge a species if you have met no one else other then the neighboring empire. If you finish your purge before meeting anyone else, then they will never have known you committed genocide. However, if you do meet someone, and you care what others think, set species rights to restricted procreation to prevent new biological pops, advance unity to habitats, then move all bio pops into habitats so they are out of the way. Then you won't have to look at them again and have habitats you can seed everywhere.

[Kaptin Keen]

I am sadly incapable of doing purges - or anything else I'd consider 'bad' - but now I really want someone to succesfully purge every race without anyone finding out. Propably impossible. But a fun thought, none the less.

[factotum]

I am sadly incapable of doing purges - or anything else I'd consider 'bad'

Preach it! I mean, it's a total waste, you're letting all that lovely tasty food go to waste if you just purge them instead of farming their meat.

[Kaptin Keen]

Preach it! I mean, it's a total waste, you're letting all that lovely tasty food go to waste if you just purge them instead of farming their meat.

I've played devouring swarm only once, and when I discovered I literally had to eat everyone, I nearly quit. I'm literally incapable of playing something outside my own morals - at least deliberately. I did finish the swarm game, having eaten almost no one.

[factotum]

I've played devouring swarm only once, and when I discovered I literally had to eat everyone, I nearly quit. I'm literally incapable of playing something outside my own morals - at least deliberately. I did finish the swarm game, having eaten almost no one.

Seriously, I'm pretty much the same. I much prefer having a space empire with a dozen different species in it because people *want* to migrate in, and to be honest, the game kind of pushes you down that road anyway because more variety of species means more types of planets you can settle happily. When I played a game as the Voor Technocracy I kept not a single slave, and the first thing I did when I had genetic engineering was to get rid of that "Repulsive" trait so I could normalise relations with my neighbours!

[Silverraptor]

I kind of like playing as the space *****. Authoritarian and if you don't optimize my empire, you go bye-bye. And as for planets to colonize, well it doesn't matter if you don't want to live an a desolate hot desert planet. It has a bunch of mineral bonuses and slaves have no say so in their real estate!

But occasionally I'll play the happy, peace loving species now and again, only to be parked against 3 warlike neighbors and have to embrace war for survival.

[Kaptin Keen]

I've also never had slaves.

I realize this makes me look like a bit of a fool. I've literally played 'space nice-guys' dozens of times. Changing other things around - but never morals =D

[factotum]

I think that's the great thing about Stellaris--you can play as space Nazis or space angels, and the two playstyles are very distinct from each other. More so than they are in other space 4X games I've played, at any rate. I mean, if you play as the Drengin in Galactic Civilizations III then you have slave pens that boost your world's production, but it's just a building--you don't actually have to physically hit the "enslave" button like you do in Stellaris, which makes all the difference IMHO.

[Silverraptor]

I've also never had slaves.

I realize this makes me look like a bit of a fool. I've literally played 'space nice-guys' dozens of times. Changing other things around - but never morals =D

Well, why don't you give it a try 1 game, just so you know how it works. You don't have to do a full play through, but give the first 30-50 years a try and see how the play style works. You can try this build:

Fanatic Authoritarian/Militarist, Traits: Very Strong, Industrialist, Repugnant, Decadent; Civics: Mining Guild, Slave Guilds.

You get all the minerals you ever want.

[GloatingSwine]

I actually find Spiritualist is the perfect sauce to go with Fanatic Authoritarian. It's super easy to keep both factions happy, whereas the Militarist faction has mostly temporary happiness effects.

My last species were Strong/Industrious/Talented/Sedentary/Deviant, F. Auth/Spiritualist, Mining Guilds/Slaver Guilds. Get +45% minerals on day one. Sedentary is free because energy is free, and the huge spiritualist attraction from temples everywhere plus psionic ascension makes Deviant also basically free.

Could go Strong/Industrious/Traditional for even more sauce. (Very Strong is not worth 3 points).


(That said I'm currently giving peace a chance by playing a UFP game in New Horizons, and when I say peace I mean insidious annexation with the Federation's membership mechanic).

[Kaptin Keen]

Well, why don't you give it a try 1 game, just so you know how it works. You don't have to do a full play through, but give the first 30-50 years a try and see how the play style works. You can try this build:

Fanatic Authoritarian/Militarist, Traits: Very Strong, Industrialist, Repugnant, Decadent; Civics: Mining Guild, Slave Guilds.

You get all the minerals you ever want.

I can't. One of the first games I played that had an actual option to play not-good was Fallout. I tried it, and I've made many attempts since, in all sorts of games, but I can't do it. It's hammered into the very core of my being that acting poorly will yield poor results. The fact that that may not be the case in the context of a game doesn't matter.

[GloatingSwine]

Caste System Slavery isn't even bad by the standards of behaviour you can get up to in Stellaris.

It's not like you're blowing up all their planets, bombing them to tomb worlds, pulping them for energy, or rounding up entire species and herding them into pens to farm as a delicacy (including genetically engineering them to be extra tasty).

Once the planet is a Gaia world and you have the Elixir of Life the castes born to work in your mines will be happier than some of the so-called free peoples of more fractious and less efficiently managed empires. Plus when you enlighten other empires to the truth that God* exists and needs your Minerals their administrators and scientists will enjoy almost all the freedoms of their betters.


* The Instrument of Desire.

[Kish]

I wonder if the logical fallacy "X is worse, so Y isn't bad" has an official name; I sure see it a lot.

[Silverraptor]

I wonder if the logical fallacy "X is worse, so Y isn't bad" has an official name; I sure see it a lot.

HAHA!

[GameMaster_Phil]

The correct way to purge as a machine empire is of course to convert your new planets into machine worlds. Gets rid of those pesky organics and your neighbours won't bat an eye.

Hmm. It appears to me that games are decided early - if you get hemmed in by hostile neighbours, it gets very very hard. If you can expand and grab some good habitable planets, it is a lot easier.

[Artanis]

Hmm. It appears to me that games are decided early - if you get hemmed in by hostile neighbours, it gets very very hard. If you can expand and grab some good habitable planets, it is a lot easier.

Welcome to 4X games.

[Yaktan]

Finally took on my first fallen empire. I had 6 20k ish fleets and the contender ascention perk. I managed to beat them up, though I had to spend some time re-building my fleets after I thought I had them routed and split into two sets of 3, but then one set hit their homeworld just after their remaining fleets got back... and my fleets had been too weakened in the fighting to take on both the station and the 3 battleships. Most of their planets were not too bad to take, but the homeworld and moon took forever to bomb, fortunately I managed to get them to surrender without having to invade the homeworld. It was still at like 1.5k army power, and all I had was my 2k fleet of 50 slave armies.