Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

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Sepiche
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

Dramatist wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:32 pm I am having fun just exploring the game world though. I just have no idea about start strategies.
There are lots of different approaches depending on how your empire is setup, but I tend to favor aggressive early expansion to get a stable base of power.

Using all your available influence early on to claim systems as fast as you can is a solid way to start, paying close attention to trying to taking choke points. Once you encounter some aliens, trying to cut them off from expansion paths so you can expand into them can have profound effects on the later game.

TL;DR: Claim as much territory as you can early on, then spend time building stations, colonies, etc and fill out the territory you've claimed.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

I’m really looking forward to the new expansion. Seems like they added a lot for tall empires and that is my favorite method.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

Fitzy wrote: Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:21 am I’m really looking forward to the new expansion. Seems like they added a lot for tall empires and that is my favorite method.
Yeah, all the new changes sound amazing. Really should make different types of governments much more unique, the addition of trade will have lots of repercussions to strategy, and it sounds like the late game micro will be much more manageable.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by LordMortis »

Sepiche wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:51 pm
Dramatist wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:32 pm I am having fun just exploring the game world though. I just have no idea about start strategies.
There are lots of different approaches depending on how your empire is setup, but I tend to favor aggressive early expansion to get a stable base of power.

Using all your available influence early on to claim systems as fast as you can is a solid way to start, paying close attention to trying to taking choke points. Once you encounter some aliens, trying to cut them off from expansion paths so you can expand into them can have profound effects on the later game.

TL;DR: Claim as much territory as you can early on, then spend time building stations, colonies, etc and fill out the territory you've claimed.

I used to go wide early but the game really changed with civics or whatever they're called and with influence costs. I'm a bit more picky now or was when last I played unless I go with a hive mind. A hive mind is what my youthful approach to the 4x games were in the 80s. Never stop expanding. I had a lot of fun with a hive race of swarming, all consuming butterflies.

I think the game enforces that your strategy will be built around your race, though when you get far enough you can change your race to change your strategy which is an interesting super modern version of CIV switching from monarchy to democracy sort of thing. I never put in the house to explore the idea but you could start with a total galactic domination race 4xing and then step back to a white peace for decade. During that time you can start rebuilding your civilization in the name of federated democracy and then over course of a couple of generations become a strong force in federation building.

Yet another game I just have time to love like I want.

(Also looking forward to seeing a whole planetary re-imgaining. I may turn out to hate it, but I am thoroughly impressed with how much they are committed to finding the better grand strategy space opera, which takes some of the sting out of the amount of money I supported minor IMO DLC with)
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

They just announced the new expansion is due out December 6th! :wub:
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

:wub:

Unexpected. I assumed next year. Awesome
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

tl;dr
:horse:
:dance:
:|
:o
:doh:
:violin:

Purchased
Waiting for activation
Reading early reports
AI problems.
Waiting for patch.
Oh well, this purchase was inevitable
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

No surprise to anyone that follows me here, but I'm loving the update so far. A few small desync bugs last night playing with a friend, and I'm sure some others we didn't notice, but played MP for a couple hours with very few issues.

This is far and away the largest number of fundamental changes to the game since it released.

One of the biggest things is the planet management changes. Now planets have districts that are basically raw resource collection zones (and city districts that are strictly for housing). The number of them you can build is dictated by the planet size, and the max number of a given type you can build is limited by the features on the planet. For instance, a planet with ore deposits might raise your mining district cap by two, where an open field might raise your agriculture district cap by one. The other thing about districts is they add both jobs for populations to collect that resource, and housing for those pops, so a planet with all districts wouldn't need any extra cities to house pops. There are also still tile blockers like before that reduce the number of districts you can build until you remove them.

The other thing you can build on planets now are buildings. You get a new building slot for every 5 people on the planet up to 75, and they provide a range of options that generally provide specialist jobs like researchers, police, metallurgists, artists, etc., but as I mentioned they provide no housing, so the more a given planet specializes, the more districts dedicated to cities you'll need.

The specialists also touch on another of the big changes: more resources. In addition to energy and minerals, they've now made consumer goods a full, stockpile-able resource that is used for pop upkeep, but also can be converted by specialists into various benefits. For instance, researchers now convert consumer goods into research, while entertainers can convert them to amenities that raise happiness.

The other new, main resource they added was alloys. This is a big one, as a lot of items that contribute to expansion require not minerals anymore, but alloys. Ships require alloys for construction and upkeep, system starbases require alloys, colony ships require alloys(and food & consumer goods), science and construction ships require alloys, etc. You can rarely find alloys as resources as you explore, but most of your alloys will come from smelter buildings that you can build on your planets. Those create metallurgist jobs that convert minerals to alloys. The net result of adding alloys is you go from having one "counter" used to build/upgrade almost everything to two "counters" that are related, but let you build up infrastructure, and build resource stations, while still building stations, ships, etc.

Another big change I've only got into a little bit is trade. Now the population on non-gestalt planets generate trade value, which, if sent via a trade route to your capital, or collected by your capital, will give you 1 energy for each trade value. The trade value generated by pops is higher the farther up the social ladder they are (rulers generate more trade value per capita than workers for instance), and there also buildings that create jobs that also increase trade value like the clerk. Clerk jobs generate amenities to keep people happy as well as more trade value which translates to energy. Piracy has also been reworked to involve stealing energy from your trade routes if they aren't properly protected.

The game also has a galactic market including a slave market, but I haven't gotten far enough into a game to view those mechanics yet.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Moat_Man »

Did you buy the Megacorp expansion or are you just playing the accompanying update?
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

I'm using the expansion, but I think everything I described there is part of the patch.

The expansion adds the ability to play as a mega corp, city worlds, and a few other features IIRC.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

The admin cap is hard to stay near, I’m blowing past it. The penalties appear low for now. Are tech and traditions the only way to up it?

The changes are interesting so far. So far I’m enjoying them. Especially the planet changes are a lot better than the old grid system. The balancing is much more interesting and painful to have to choose just one building every 5 pops when I need more. I like it.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

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Fitzy wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 2:46 pm The admin cap is hard to stay near, I’m blowing past it. The penalties appear low for now. Are tech and traditions the only way to up it?
Yeah, there is one tradition that will up it by 20, and some much later techs that will do it, but it's very similar to the old mechanics that set the tradition and tech cost modifiers, it's just a little more explicit about where the cutoff is and how to raise it.

I'm a few hundred years into my game as a corporation now, I'm about 200 points past my admin cap, and the penalties (even though they are higher for corps) are manageable. At this point tech and traditions are about double the cost, but I've got a dedicated tech world now that churns out research, and unity is much easier to produce than it used to be, so that's not a big issue. The other main penalty to going over the admin cap is your leaders cost more to hire and maintain, but I've got plenty of energy from my internal trade, and my subsidiaries (corporate vassals).

Still really enjoying all the changes, the texture and the details the new expansion adds are fantastic. One great change I'm just starting to appreciate and use to my advantage is that worlds you colonize will get assigned a specialization depending on the buildings you build. For instance if you build a lot of mining districts, the planet will become a mining colony and give a +5% bonus to mining output. That may not sound like much, but all you need to do it concentrate your production a bit to get those bonuses and they add up swiftly. Right now I have one agri-world that produces much of my food, a few mining worlds that get my minerals, a growing tech world that does a lot of my research, and a couple of industrial worlds that churn out consumer goods for me.

I've found it really pays to look at each planet you colonize carefully and decide if there's anything it would be particularly good at. If it has a ton of mining districts, can't hurt to make it a mining world, etc.

The galactic market also makes for a much more streamlined game in the later stages. Now instead of hitting the alarm every time one of my goods gets dropped below 0 net production, I know as long as I have an abundance of something, I can sell it on the market and then buy more of whatever I'm short on. I think there was a point in the early mid game where I was in the negative for consumer goods for a decade or more and mostly used profits from selling dark matter to keep enough goods stocked.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Freyland »

How are you guys finding the AI? The Steam forums are pretty rampant with people complaining the AI just sits around and doesn't seem to know how to manage its planets. Also, and this is hear-say, reportedly Paradox deleted a bunch of critical threads on their own forum last night related to this topic.

Really don't want to try jumping back into the "deep end" only to find I am playing against asteroids instead of Empires.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

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Freyland wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:30 pm How are you guys finding the AI? The Steam forums are pretty rampant with people complaining the AI just sits around and doesn't seem to know how to manage its planets. Also, and this is hear-say, reportedly Paradox deleted a bunch of critical threads on their own forum last night related to this topic.

Really don't want to try jumping back into the "deep end" only to find I am playing against asteroids instead of Empires.
*Seems* okay so far. It's always hard to judge the AI when you can't always see what it's doing, but it's certainly expanding, going to war, etc. just fine. Some of the AI empires that were around me were a bit weak in terms of military early on which let me collect a number of subsidiaries, but since they've been working for me they seem to be expanding and building up their fleets like I would expect.

*interlude*

After I wrote that, I looked through Paradox's forum to get a feel for the complaints. They all pretty much amount to some bugs with the AI choosing what to build, but thankfully this was in the beta patch they released yesterday and I suspect will fix a lot of the issues being reported:
###################
# AI
###################

* Improved AI planet building priorities
* Improved AI market trading
* AI no longer bounces a single scientist around multiple ships, choking their exploration and growth
That would also explain why I haven't seen a lot of the issues reported... I started my game on the initial release (which might explain why some of my neighbors were a bit weak early on), but played the vast majority of the game after patching yesterday, and they seemed functional there.

Lots of the other complaints on the Paradox forum just seemed like people hating on any change, or misunderstanding new features.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

Sepiche wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 12:25 pm Still really enjoying all the changes, the texture and the details the new expansion adds are fantastic. One great change I'm just starting to appreciate and use to my advantage is that worlds you colonize will get assigned a specialization depending on the buildings you build. For instance if you build a lot of mining districts, the planet will become a mining colony and give a +5% bonus to mining output. That may not sound like much, but all you need to do it concentrate your production a bit to get those bonuses and they add up swiftly. Right now I have one agri-world that produces much of my food, a few mining worlds that get my minerals, a growing tech world that does a lot of my research, and a couple of industrial worlds that churn out consumer goods for me.

I've found it really pays to look at each planet you colonize carefully and decide if there's anything it would be particularly good at. If it has a ton of mining districts, can't hurt to make it a mining world, etc.
I did not realize the colony types meant something. I thought they were flavor. Thanks!

I’m finding that the power and mining districts are more important than I initially thought. I had been ignoring them on my capital, which was leading to running a very fine line between having resources and not. My latest attempt I built a couple of power and mining districts early and it’s given me a large resource pile to play with.

Population growth seems slow even with a lot of modifiers. The -50% debuff to colonies is especially ouch. I suspect it’s to encourage immigration. I think I’ll need to pay more attention to robots. I’ve been skipping the tech so far, but I can see it being useful on new colonies. Maybe.

It’s like a whole new game. So much to learn so terrible documentation :D
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

It surprised me how fast it’s possible to burn through metals. I built up a big stockpile and started selling the excess to buy alloys. Sooner than I expected i was out and even stopping selling them couldn’t get me another stockpile. I like how it’s possible to run on the edge, makes the game more exciting. I suppose eventually I’ll figure it out and be drowning, but for now it’s fun.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

Started a new game with friends last night, playing as a militant, slaver race.

I really lucked out in that I found a planet of space age primitives a couple of jumps from my capital and, once I secured the system, I landed a few divisions of troops and secured the planet. Turns out those primitives had an even higher population that my homeworld, and in one go only a year or two into the game I effectively doubled my population.

Now, in theory that was all great, but the primitives on the planet weren't quite so happy with everything. The previous rulers got booted from office along with a number of specialists, and that caused them to take a few years to downgrade and the planet was pretty much in chaos for most of that time... 5% stability, massive crime. I was at least able to get the capital upgraded to get new rulers in place, and get more police precincts built which kept a lid on the worst of it, but even after I got everything there stabilized I still have an egalitarian insurgency that's causing political chaos by puffing up the egalitarian faction of my authoritarian empire.

It sure gave my bourgeoning empire a shot in the arm in terms of resources right at the start of the game though.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Lorini »

I keep hearing the AI is braindead and does very little. Are you guys finding that to be the case?
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Freyland »

Sepiche wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 4:07 pm
Freyland wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:30 pm How are you guys finding the AI? The Steam forums are pretty rampant with people complaining the AI just sits around and doesn't seem to know how to manage its planets. Also, and this is hear-say, reportedly Paradox deleted a bunch of critical threads on their own forum last night related to this topic.

Really don't want to try jumping back into the "deep end" only to find I am playing against asteroids instead of Empires.
*Seems* okay so far. It's always hard to judge the AI when you can't always see what it's doing, but it's certainly expanding, going to war, etc. just fine. Some of the AI empires that were around me were a bit weak in terms of military early on which let me collect a number of subsidiaries, but since they've been working for me they seem to be expanding and building up their fleets like I would expect.

*interlude*

After I wrote that, I looked through Paradox's forum to get a feel for the complaints. They all pretty much amount to some bugs with the AI choosing what to build, but thankfully this was in the beta patch they released yesterday and I suspect will fix a lot of the issues being reported:
###################
# AI
###################

* Improved AI planet building priorities
* Improved AI market trading
* AI no longer bounces a single scientist around multiple ships, choking their exploration and growth
That would also explain why I haven't seen a lot of the issues reported... I started my game on the initial release (which might explain why some of my neighbors were a bit weak early on), but played the vast majority of the game after patching yesterday, and they seemed functional there.

Lots of the other complaints on the Paradox forum just seemed like people hating on any change, or misunderstanding new features.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Freyland »

Actually, while we're here, what patch are you talking about?

To my knowledge, from the paradox forums, they initially released a hotfix that addressed a loading issue, and the "beta branch" only is opening up the game to crossplay between gaming platforms (Steam, GOG, etc.). I am not aware of any additions, with new stuff coming next week. What are you using and where can we find it?
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

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Lorini wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:27 am I keep hearing the AI is braindead and does very little. Are you guys finding that to be the case?
I'm starting to a little bit. I'm still learning the new systems and tend to start over a lot, but I went ~150 years last night and there had been two minor wars, neither I of which I was a part of. My fleet was OVERWHELMED to everyone else, but I was leading in tech and economy by a long ways from what I could tell. This was on Commodore level. I suspect by the time I've learned the new systems Paradox will have fixed the problem or modders will have.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

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Freyland wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:36 am Actually, while we're here, what patch are you talking about?

To my knowledge, from the paradox forums, they initially released a hotfix that addressed a loading issue, and the "beta branch" only is opening up the game to crossplay between gaming platforms (Steam, GOG, etc.). I am not aware of any additions, with new stuff coming next week. What are you using and where can we find it?
Third post down in this thread has the full test patch notes. I think the original post that just mentions only crossplay is old information from last Friday.
Spoiler:
#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.2.2 ###########################
#################################################################

######################
# 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ Free Features
######################

* Added the new "Legion" flag set, with 6 new flags

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

* Reduced effectiveness of Bio-Reactor
* Increased cost of Unity buildings
* Reduced mineral cost of roboticist and fabricator jobs
* Increased base alloy job production from 2 to 3
* Resource stockpiles have by default been increased from 10000 to 15000. Default stockpile for Energy Credits increased to 50000
* Drone Campaign and Robot Campaign effects reduced from +20% to +10%
* Synthetic Evolution ascension perk now gives +10% robot output
* The chance of criminal Branch Offices getting shut down has been reduced slightly, and the cooldown between shutdown events has been reduced to 10 years
* At least one year with little or no crime must pass for a colony's criminal Branch Office to potentially get shut down (increased from one day)
* Different kinds of Unity buildings are now more consistent in how many Jobs they create
* Betharian Power Plant building now creates Jobs in addition to its flat Energy Credits output
* Bunker Bot's scrap value increased
* Massively reduced point defense weapon damage against armour
* Democratic Crusaders now also take a dim view of corporate authority
* Caravaneer home base will only be re-established if at least one Caravaneer fleet is still alive

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

* Improved AI planet building priorities
* Improved AI market trading
* AI no longer bounces a single scientist around multiple ships, choking their exploration and growth

###################
# UI
###################

* Building and District tooltips are now more informative in regards to what resources they use and produce from their jobs
* Fixed the missing "Megacorp" ownership icon in the MP lobby
* Added a warning when you try to colonize a very low habitability planet directly with a colony ship
* Piracy is now shown for non trading nations (if within their borders)
* Fixed the UI shattering hilariously if you clicked the population tab on an uncolonized planet
* Fixed Expansion Planner wrongly revealing rare deposits on unsurveyed worlds
* Fixed tooltip for Aristocratic Elite to show the building it unlocks
* Added a popup to tell player when resettlement will cause building destruction
* Adjusted the resource deficit notification to pop once you are down to 12 months' reserves
* Small tweaks to the Planets and Sectors screen
* Fixed tooltip wrongly stating planet had no rare planetary features if they were covered by a blocker

###################
# Modding
###################

* Add num_uncleared_blockers trigger - checks the planet's total amount of uncleared blockers

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

* Number of districts required to enact Arcology Project is no longer reduced by uncleared blockers
* Fixed overlapping UI elements in Megastructure view
* Authoritarian faction is now also OK with Academic Privilege and Robotic Servitors
* Tech drones and Technician jobs now correctly look for the Ingenious trait rather than Thrifty (which was changed to trade value)
* Starting on Earth as Life-Seeded now properly gives you a 25 size planet with rare deposits
* Fixed an OOS on hotjoin due to MIA ships reappearing in different places on server and client
* Fixed status quo peace not spawning new empires in ideology and vassalization wars
* Fixed ship alloy costs being truncated in the choose design window of the fleet designer
* Fixed first wave scourge invasion fleets being led by admirals using robot portraits for some bizarre reason
* Fixed massively out of date credits in the Chinese version, because Jamor is a human that exists in the universe apparently
* Fixed out of synch event related to special projects
* Added missing effects to the description of the Trium Caravaneer's atmospheric deodorizer deal
* Gateways will no longer spawn in directly adjacent systems on galaxy creation
* Fixes the issue of people not able to hot join a multiplayer when too many players are present
* Made tweaks to Galactic Market that should prevent an infinite profits exploit from flooding the market, then rebuying, you shameless tophat-wearing capitalist exploiters, you
* Fixed a graphical display bug with shielded worlds
* Fixed an incorrect modifier being applied by the "Alien Drag Racing" anomaly
* Improved the text truncation in longer planetary Decision descriptions, should avoid spillouts
* Reduced number of calls to CalcMaxEmployed done in DailyUpdate by up to 50%. Should improve performance
* Fixed literally unplayable grammar issue in the Horizon Signal event chain
* Fixed leader portraits being slightly off-center in level up windows
* Fixed OOS due to Leaders not being reregistered when changing class (Scientist to Empire Leader, etc)
* Fixed potential CTD when loading market and certain empires no longer exist, because all those empires will be lost, in time, like tears in rain
* Empire size modifier on leader cost and upkeep is now multiplied on the total and not added to the other mult modifiers
* Fixed OOS due to Galactic Market cache
* Fixed Master's Teaching: Warring States edict not affecting army upkeep as it should
* Fixed Gospel of the Masses civic not applying trade value bonus
* Fixed event spam when gaining access to the Galactic Market
* "Free at last" modifiers are now removed from the planet after it's reconquered (or conquered by anyone else)
* Prevented abandoned terraforming project or underground civilization events on an Ecumenopolis
* Added a check so that servitude robots cannot become criminals. We'll miss you, serial killer auto assembly claw.
* Khan, "berserker" and "invader" AI personalities should no longer get stuck considering targets they cannot reach
* Fixed empire size tooltip with literally unplayable missing % signs
* Fanatic Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, and Devouring Swarms now have a tooltip properly explaining why, as generally antisocial genocidal murderers, they are not welcome in the Galactic Market
* Fixed issue where the Marauder Horde was not dealt with properly if the Khan died of old age
* Reworked refugee pop effect script to eliminate faulty event spam
* Fixed a situation with total wars. If a player takes a planet that has the same name as a planet he already owns, a new sector would be created with that name, but with no planets in it
* Effects of "Survival of the Fittest" tradition now include a "%" character where needed
* Fixed broken tooltips for Gang Wars and Mob Rule events
* Fixed a bug where presapient pops on a planet would distort the necessary number of fully sapient pops required to unlock the next building slot
* Fixed some missing resource icons in various screens and tooltips
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Freyland »

:handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

One amusing bug I've seen--that doesn't appear to be fixed, but maybe I'm missing it-- is that the new caravan fleets will hit a threat system (leviathans, crystals, drone miners...) and teleport back a system or two, then immediately go back. They get stuck in an endless loop until someone clears the enemy. A related exploit is that there is a random event where they will leave a ship behind which you can scavenge for an engineering tech. An annoying part is that sometimes they will offer their wares every minute or so real time. Ugh. But the loop amuses me.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

Test branch was updated with a bunch more fixes. One tidbit I didn't know that's mentioned in there is that ships and admirals get experience for suppressing pirates. Potentially makes that a great way to level them up a bit outside of war.
Spoiler:
#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.2.2 ###########################
#################################################################

######################
# 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ Free Features
######################

* Ether Drake Shrine/Monument has been converted to a special Planetary Deposit with the same effects as before
* Improved Nanite Transmutation description for tech/building
* Art Monument has now been revamped into a planetary Decision
* Hive minds will once again have unemployed drones rather than a Scavenger drone job
* Renamed Empire Size to Empire Sprawl, and renamed Administrative Cap to Administrative Capacity (previous wording did not make it clear enough that they are soft caps)

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

* Rescaled the Consecrated World Worship modifier: it now goes higher, with smaller value increments between each step
* Shared burden Civic and Living standard allow pops to demote in social strata much more rapidly
* Ruined arcologies take longer to clear and cost more
* Reduced Gateway cost
* Increased rate at which admirals and ships get XP from suppressing pirates
* Science nerd faction is no longer jealous of the Successor Khanate
* Ship upgrade cost reduced by increasing the refund amount from older components, and upgrade time reduced
* Mega Art Installation restoration build time increased from 3600 to 4800
* Strategic Coordination Center restoration build time increased from 3600 to 4800
*Strategic Coordination Center effect on naval cap reduced from to 50/100/150, effect on starbase cap reduced from to 2/4/6, and effect on platform capacity reduced to 4/8/12
* Science Nexus effect on research output increased from 75/150/225 to 100/200/300, and increases research speed by 5%/10%/15%
* Science Nexus build time increased from 2400 to 3600, and alloy cost increased from 12500 to 15000 for all levels
* Proles know their roles, are less likely to be researchers
* Synthetic Evolution ascension perk now also reduces modify species cost by -50%
* Administrative Efficiency (repeatable) tech effect on Admin Cap increased from 10 to 15
* Mitigated some Machine Uprising issues slightly

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

* AI now manages to correctly assess budget for building upgrades on planets
* Made sure AI is not blocked from building things that decreases budget deficits if deficit is too large, because you gotta have money to make money, champ
* Scriptable possibility to use parent economic category for AI budgeting. AI now has a single pool for energy upkeep for most things, making it much better at building up its empire
* AI is now budgeting some exotic resources to planet development, allowing them build upgrades and buildings that require them
* Made AI a bit less maniacal about stomping out every iota of crime to allow the criminal megacorp playstyle

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

* Fixed performance drop in the resettlement view
* Fixed one source of lag on daily ticks
* Reduced needless daily job related calculations

###################
# UI
###################

* Fixed overlapping GUI elements for Science Nexus Megastructure
* Updated production/upkeep GUI elements in Megastructure view
* Faction issues now display as red or green depending on if the demand is fulfilled rather than if the effect of the issue is positive, negative or neutral
* Fixed so that all decimals of amenities and trade value are shown in the UI

###################
# Modding
###################

* Renamed old "can_resettle_pop" game rule to "can_resettle_planet", Add a new "can_resettle_pop" game rule that works on Pop scope
* Added on_slave_sold_on_market on action

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

* Fixed robot pops being unable to resettle
* Fixed the Consecrated World Worship modifier disappearing when a certain combination of planets are consecrated
* Caravaneers should not join a colony before it is fully established
* Some moon-related events had their triggers improved after the startling realization that Habitats also count as moons. That's no moon...
* Fixed Aberrant and Vehement lacking starting anchor starbase rendering their portals indestructible
* Fanatic Materialist Fallen Empire is no longer wrongfully DLC-locked behind Synthetic Dawn
* Fixed broken text for Dark Matter deposits
* "Pollen Aphrodisiac" event chain is no longer available to Ecumenopolis worlds
* Fixed an event option tooltip relating to the Science Nexus reporting incorrect resource amounts
* Fixed Automated Colonization Units tradition not granting an extra pop on colonization for machine empires
* Fixed issue with the Artisan troupe dialogue windows not popping up
* Fixed crash when trying to reroute a trade route
* Totalitarian faction demands should be satisfied by either having a stratified living standard on everyone, or by purging/enslaving pops
* Fixed a crash when opening the megastructure build list with a Dyson Sphere you cannot afford at midnight on the Summer Solstice atop Barad-dûr
* Fixed text grey out function to actually grey out texticons instead of only cheekily putting "_grey" into the text
* Fixed a crash when tooltipping power in diplomacy view while not observing as a country
* Fixed duplicate Simplified Chinese ship design names
* Fixed a possible crash when showing event windows
* Fixed issue where system ownership change on actions were executed in a unsafe environment potentially causing CTDs and/or OOSs
* Fixed an OOS at game start when the client is playing in a different language than the host
* Fixed a crash related to extremely long trade routes
* Fixed CTD from trying to update invalid planets
* Fixed the Caravansary Home Station being indestructible after it is re-established, because that which has died once can die again
* Fixed a missing ship design name for the Caravansary starbase
* The Numistic pops sold by the Numistic Order will now have the same traits as their original owner but the ideal planet class of their buyer
* Fixed Vassalization Wars unhelpfully not creating Vassals
* Subsidiaries can now have branch offices and open branch offices in their overlord's territory. Commercial pact trading is also done automatically just as when in a federation when you're a subsidiary
* Merchants now properly produce Unity for empires with Merchant Guilds civic
* Fixed a number of Special Projects occasionally displaying unintended event images in the Situation Log
* Fixed some Governor traits that were wrongly empire-wide in their effect
* Hyperplanes are now correctly colored on OSX
* Drone Megastorage now correctly checks that you are a Machine empire
* No resettlement policy now actually means no resettlment
* Fixed Observation Posts producing no science
* Sector automation now includes hives and nexus
* Technologies for lvl 2 buildings no longer appear before you have the resources to build them
* Fixed the Numistic Order fleet having the wrong name
* Alleviated some issues with Caravaneer fleets getting "stuck", as their jump distance when escaping hostiles is now randomized
* Fixed an edge case where Consecrating a world would not result in a modifier, making the planet impossible to un-consecrate
* Fixed literally unplayable typo in Cyto-Revitalization Center tooltip
* Fixed Solid Liquidity faction issue stating the wrong amount of Energy Credits
* Private Prospectors civic effect description now shows the correct Administrative Cap increase
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Fitzy
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Fitzy »

Sepiche wrote: Fri Dec 14, 2018 12:06 pm Test branch was updated with a bunch more fixes. One tidbit I didn't know that's mentioned in there is that ships and admirals get experience for suppressing pirates. Potentially makes that a great way to level them up a bit outside of war.

That could be neat, depending on how fast it goes up. I didn’t even notice it before. I tend to play defensively until I’m at a large advantage, but that leaves me admirals as noobs.

One big adjustment for me has been to not queue stuff. I tended to fill every spot as soon as i had materials before, planning ahead for what I’d need, or thought I’d need. In this version since nothing runs until there is a population to fill the job but the cost appears once the building is built, it’s terrible to build ahead of population growth. Trying to stay right on the edge of full employment is harder, but necessary.

I’m a little surprised research wasn’t nerfed or that the AI hasn’t been taught to dedicate a planet to it. One planet of research labs absolutely crushes the AI research. At least so far in my experience. My latest playthrough only the F.E.s are ahead of me, the rest are pathetic in technology (Stellaris term, not mine). I’ve always enjoyed being a small empire with a huge tech advantage, so it doesn’t bother me a lot, but it is way too easy to do.
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LordMortis
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by LordMortis »

How we feeling about this a month later? I think I may make time to fire this up again and see the changes. Is the new DLC worth not waiting for a sale for? I feel I give Paradox too much for DLC already but I also have refund burning a hole in my Steam client.
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Sepiche
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

LordMortis wrote: Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:22 pm How we feeling about this a month later? I think I may make time to fire this up again and see the changes. Is the new DLC worth not waiting for a sale for? I feel I give Paradox too much for DLC already but I also have refund burning a hole in my Steam client.
I think this was probably the best expansion for it so far. The new planet mechanics really did a great job of re-balancing a number of things that needed it... tech, population growth, late gameplay. Really solid all around.

Still some bugs they are working on fixing, but they put out another patch the other day that got a lot of the bigger remaining issues.
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LordMortis
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by LordMortis »

Taking the week off to work around the house. I figured I'd break down and give the full price for MegaCorp. that's quite unlike me. I'll finally be trying the new version of the game this week. I guess with all the major overhauls it's almost like a getting a new game every time with the old game being a rental in stead of purchase.

And in the time it took to type this the DLC is downloaded. Time to take a peak before getting back to work.

Edit: I don't know if its updating my game or what but load time is pretty crazy long...
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Montag
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Montag »

A good.chunk of the changes are in the patches anyway. Not too surprising that delta size of the dlc is small.
words
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LordMortis
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by LordMortis »

So far it's a slower pace which is fine and very mircomanagey which I rather doubt I will care for as the game grows wide and there seems to be more disincentive to indiscriminate growth beyond the micromanagement. I see they've changed end game quite a bit, so that total galactic domination is no longer the game. Lots more bits and pieces. We'll see how well it plays. It has my interest but I'm not sure to what extent. I used to get very deep into games before moving to something else. This looks like it maybe a fun until you get hemmed in and then a chore after that. We'll see.

I see there is a tech speed option. Anyone know if slowing tech down weakens the criseseses. I like slow tech games but I totally don't want that to mean hit a crisis and the game is over.
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Sepiche
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

LordMortis wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:52 am So far it's a slower pace which is fine and very mircomanagey which I rather doubt I will care for as the game grows wide and there seems to be more disincentive to indiscriminate growth beyond the micromanagement. I see they've changed end game quite a bit, so that total galactic domination is no longer the game. Lots more bits and pieces. We'll see how well it plays. It has my interest but I'm not sure to what extent. I used to get very deep into games before moving to something else. This looks like it maybe a fun until you get hemmed in and then a chore after that. We'll see.

I see there is a tech speed option. Anyone know if slowing tech down weakens the criseseses. I like slow tech games but I totally don't want that to mean hit a crisis and the game is over.
Adjusting the tech speed won't automatically change the crisis, but if you want to play a slow tech game, you can change it, and push the mid game and end game crisis back by a hundred years or so to try to keep it balanced. With the default settings it can be difficult depending on how your galaxy unfolds to get strong enough to face the end game crisis as it is.
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LordMortis
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by LordMortis »

I love and hate that the computer explores and triggers events with their exploration like a human players. In the game I am in now two game features were triggered that all but eliminated the computers players that triggered them.

1) A player near me opened a world full racial purifiers, who instantly went on a tear and eliminated the openers in maybe 20 years. Now the purifiers on my border. They're about as tough as I am and now need to be accounted for.

2) My neighbor who closed me off almost instantly expanded into an asteroid field and greedily over-mined triggering a power that cut themselves off. I was wondering why they quit expanding and were beginning to lag. I am in the process of conquering them and setting myself off to resume expanding past where they cut me off and I can't get enough oomph to get past the event my neighbor triggered. Meanwhile there is territory on the other side fo the asteroid belt that will prevent me from wiping my neighbor out entirely. Bravo.

A third empire somewhere on the map went poof early as well. I can only assume they goofed.

They have done some great things with this game. I've spent over $100 on the base game and DLC over a few years, making this one of my most expensive single game spends ever and I think it's been a good journey so far.

All that said, the game will likely end up being too micro managey for me when I get deep in to it. I assume the option to automate sectors will reduce that but I don't know that I'm capable of letting the computer manage my game inefficiently. We'll see. 50 years in 20 systems in to a 1000 system game....


(Also looking forward to the other play styles. Right now I'm playing Genocidal Bugs)
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

New DLC coming down focused on xenoarchaeology:
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ChuckB
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by ChuckB »

I have a question for the regular Stellaris players here: I played Stellaris quite a bit over the years (without ever becoming really good at it or spending much time understanding all the details of the system) and actually quite enjoyed it.

I'm in the camp that really likes some of the latest major changes to the system and so I'm coming back regularly and generally like what I see - but: the one part that always felt completely lacking for me was diplomacy. My experience so far is that once I run into another empire, the initial stance I encounter (basically "hostile" or "ok") does not change much and I never found a good reason to even go back to the diplomacy menu to do anything that feels remotely like diplomacy (and I have tried). Basically, the negative relationships spiral downwards until there will be a war and the "ok" ones stay ok unless I'm getting too greedy and get to close and then it turns to (and stays) "hostile". That means that meeting any other empire is always like hitting a wall that limits by expansion (which I would be ok with) but there never seems to be any meaningful interaction of any kind and even my diplomacy options feel extremely limited. I do not get the feeling of interacting with anyone in any real way.

Am I missing something here or is diplomacy in Stellaris this ... flat and lifeless (that's how I feel about it)?

Thanks!

P.S. I own all DLCs, not sure if that makes a difference (and if so, it's hard to imagine it would make diplomacy worse ...)
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Sepiche
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

ChuckB wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 5:25 pm Am I missing something here or is diplomacy in Stellaris this ... flat and lifeless (that's how I feel about it)?

Thanks!

P.S. I own all DLCs, not sure if that makes a difference (and if so, it's hard to imagine it would make diplomacy worse ...)
It certainly doesn't have the diplomatic features of many of the other Paradox games, and they've said a large diplomacy update will be coming relatively soon, but that said there are ways you can nudge things along with the existing system.

First, some ideologies are just not going to like other ones, and there's not a lot you can do about it if you're a fanatic materialist surrounded by fanatic spiritualists, but there are a number of diplomatic modifiers you can use to help win over empires that are more borderline.

Rivaling the rivals of someone you want to suck up to will give you a good diplomatic boost, also resource donations can give you a sizable boost with an empire for a few years with alloys usually being in high demand (how much they need what you gift them effects the value). If an empire is on the edge of liking you, giving a gift enough to establish a research agreement or NAP can be useful as over time you'll get a trust relationship bonus the longer your agreements last. Also you can guarantee the independence of an empire regardless of if they want it or not, and that will give you a relationship boost and trust over time.

Overall, I'd just encourage you to check out the diplomatic screen every once in a while as you are playing and see what modifiers effect other empires and you can start seeing ways to influence things.
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LordMortis
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by LordMortis »

I found diplomacy to be frustrating a long time ago and then I started playing genocidal bugs and that solved all my diplomacy problems.

For me it wasn't so much that diplomacy is was hard. It was that I try to be on a federation building team and the computer would make it non sensically difficult and quite frankly, bland while federations were built all around me.

I'll come back to this game again and maybe when I do I'll see how well it's grown that way. I really do want to see the game become an epic story telling game of a galaxy. That was the ambitious vision that sold me when it was pre release.
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Sepiche
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

Long day at work, so I only got to play for a bit last night before I had to throw in the towel, but I managed to at least locate an archeological dig site before I stopped, and it was on an impressive find on it's own:
Image

So I found the rotting remains of an ecumenopolis, and with it a dig site in the form of the command center for the planet. Turns out because of the resources involved, you can only conduct digs in friendly territory, but lucky for me this relic world is only a couple of jumps outside my still growing empire, so I should be able to cap it and start digging soon.

On the whole, really enjoying the new update. Seems like a lot more new early exploration events, in addition to the dig sites, which are making the early game a little fresher than it was. Haven't been able to try out the sector and planet automation changes, but seems like they will be good. Basically you can select a planet build template for each planet, and the governor will automatically follow that build plan by pulling resources from a building stockpile that you can automatically feed money into.

For anyone that was getting annoyed by the AI issues after the 2.2 patch, 2.3 makes a lot of updates to that as well. Notably, Paradox enlisted the help of the Stellaris communities top AI mod developer and incorporated a lot of his changes directly into the game in addition to lots of AI related bug fixes.

Full patch notes here.

Edit: Just found this little gem thanks to Stellaris Reddit (up to date, online tech tree viewer) : https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/vanilla/
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Sepiche
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Sepiche »

Pro tip: If you find a habitable world wrapped in a shield with an advanced race on it. Think really carefully before you open it.
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Re: Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

Post by Isgrimnur »

Image
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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