Aurora 4x
Off Topic => Game/Book Reviews => Topic started by: boggo2300 on April 19, 2016, 02:26:04 AM
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so excited had to post damn the 9th of May, damn it with great damnation!!
woot and I'm half way to r-adm!!
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I have to admit I broke down and pre-ordered the version that comes with the sound track, the price of the version with books I'm not sure I can justify as they are e-books.
Looks to be a good year for SF 4X with this one and Endless Space II.
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Yes well, it seems likely it will be a good games but...
It's a paradox games and that could be very bad.
I have been burned by crusader kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4. They have like 15 expansions each. Try to calculate the cost of buying all that. I fear they will do the same here.....
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well most of the CK2 DLCs are $1.99 and are pretty much just character portraits, the actual expansions are pretty substantial, and you definitely don't need them, I still don't have Sunset invasion, Horse Lords or the new expansion and I still have a whale of a time, the fact that Paradox are so mod friendly is also a bonus. First versions of Paradox games are admittedly a little flaky, but since this is built on the Clausewitz engine most of the engine bugs at least should be well squelched.
@PaulM me too for pretty much the same reasons (though the Missus wants the sound track not me)
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I'm obsessing about Stellaris like I've obsessed about no game in at least a decade. I'm sure there will be issues at launch like there always are, but from the gameplay videos released so far it looks really good in a lot of ways and what drawbacks I've seen are relatively minor annoyances. It won't be the 4x for everyone(esp. since it really isn't one, evolves into a GSG in the midgame) but what I've seen so far I think is amazing.
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GSG
the Gunslinger Girl Manga?
German Border Police?
Ground-Signal-Ground radar?
sorry, never heard that applied to a game genre before
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Lol. Grand Strategy Game.
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Ahhh ok makes sense, though I'd suggest any good 4x game would eventually have to turn into a Grand strategy
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I can't shake of the bad feeling that Stellaris will be quite a let-down. It still definitely lacks in complexity for me, but it might still provide good.
It just seems too promising; something is weird. This is not even pessimism, it just feels like I haven't figured out consciously yet what casts suspicious shadows in the background here. Well, I hope I am wrong with this.
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From the Blorg stream...the one part that really seems to lack anything to it is the combat...but on the other hand so too is the case in most of the other paradox games. The combat is "abstract"...
Planetary management looks to have lots of options and POP management may also be interesting. A lot is going to come down on how the diplomacy really works. A good diplomatic model will be necessary come the mid game where you want to start building alliances and so on.
In my view none of these games are strategy games, they are one and all management games. The only question is how trivially can the game be min-maxed. Where the previous paradox games had failed for me was when the AI didn't produce a credible threat due to being too easy to spoof. HoI2 for example I recall peope conquered the world starting as "insert small country" using only calvary...this had a lot to do with the AI and ability to basically break its script. Leave an opening in your line...the AI charges in...you close the line and they are cut off and destroyed.
Basically how the combat ends up working...is there a need for multiple fleets, do you need multiple class of ships, etc will for me determine a great deal of the games replayability and enjoyability.
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I wonder is its multi-player. And purchasers of the advanced packs can play as the arachnid omnivoracy.
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They've confirmed multiplayer for up to 32(possibly more but not guaranteed).
the one part that really seems to lack anything to it is the combat...but on the other hand so too is the case in most of the other paradox games. The combat is "abstract"...
This is definitely true. It doesn't scratch the same itch that some others in the genre do(MOO for example). I think a big part of this is going to be how effective the AI is. They do have a system where some weapons are more effective against shields vs. armor. How useful that is depends on how much variety there is in AI ship designs, how good it is at defending it's territory, etc. A lot of that remains to be seen.
where the previous paradox games had failed for me was when the AI didn't produce a credible threat due to being too easy to spoof.
Some of this will be countered by the late-game crisis events that they have put in, opposing empires forming a counter-alliance/federation when you get too strong/big, etc. But I definitely agree that the competency of the AI will largely make or break the final product.
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It's a Paradox game, it's even using a version of the Clausewitz engine the same as CKII and EUIV do so combat will be abstract, it's not what they do, they do political intrigue and empire building, so as Brian said combat will be abstract, I'm currently about 50 years into a Crusader Kings game, and haven't raised levies and fought, but I've gone from being a count to declaring the Kingdom of Wallachia (though now I'm going to have to fight, because my ex Liege, the King of Bulgaria is kind of upset I just nicked a chunk of his Kingdom)
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I'll be waiting for reviews before buying it. There's a decent sci-fi mod for CKII that's reasonably fun, and I have hopes for Stellaris perhaps including the kind of unit/tech research we had in HoI 3.
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on of the things I like about Stellaris is the randomish Tech-tree that you can research, your research will be different every time you play.
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Yes well, it seems likely it will be a good games but...
It's a paradox games and that could be very bad.
I have been burned by crusader kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4. They have like 15 expansions each. Try to calculate the cost of buying all that. I fear they will do the same here.....
What was the actual issue you had with these games in their base format causing you to "been burned"?
Surely that the devs put a lot of effort to keep developing these games and are selling extra content long after release for us players that played 500+ hours and want more content can't be seen as a bad thing?
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What was the actual issue you had with these games in their base format causing you to "been burned"?
Surely that the devs put a lot of effort to keep developing these games and are selling extra content long after release for us players that played 500+ hours and want more content can't be seen as a bad thing?
Actually I'd be kinda interested to hear as well, I've never heard anyone actually having much issue with any Paradox game, especially since when the do release an expansion you get the updated version even without the expansion, you just don't get the new features (for example I never got the Aztec invasion exp for CK2 as I hate the idea, but still got the new version of the game, just with no suddenly appearing South Americans)
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The tech "deck" is a good idea. The semi random research was in sword of the stars as well. I think it is the best solution to the inevitable min-max issues that otherwise will show up. Plus it makes you play with different toys in different games. What I am not sure of is how different it will be at the end of the day. Does each game uses a different deck (so some cards may not be present) or if it is just a case of random options so that if you play long enough all the tech will be available...the wiki and development diary sorta hint that some tech you may not get another crack at.
One thing I'm unclear on is if you can have more than one class of a particular size of ship. The Twitch tv with the blorg they seem to have only one type of CT, DD, CA and BB in use. I'm unsure if that is just to simply the fleet or if that is a fact.
Your choice of FTL locamotion I suspect will also make a big difference in the game. Looks like there will be lots of viable alternatives with each play when you considere ethos, traits, tech and drive.
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"One thing I'm unclear on is if you can have more than one class of a particular size of ship. The Twitch tv with the blorg they seem to have only one type of CT, DD, CA and BB in use. I'm unsure if that is just to simply the fleet or if that is a fact. "
From what i gathered you can have different models of the same class. The devs in the blog streams just like to use one model. There was a part of the videos where they made a new design of a station. They saved it and they still had the old one in the list. He then proceeded to delete the old one and keep only the new design.
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The tech "deck" is a good idea. The semi random research was in sword of the stars as well. I think it is the best solution to the inevitable min-max issues that otherwise will show up. Plus it makes you play with different toys in different games. What I am not sure of is how different it will be at the end of the day. Does each game uses a different deck (so some cards may not be present) or if it is just a case of random options so that if you play long enough all the tech will be available...the wiki and development diary sorta hint that some tech you may not get another crack at.
My understanding is it's the same deck no matter what, however some cards do not go back into the deck if they aren't selected when they come out, though since it's a Paradox game I would expect that there will be tech deck mods around within a week or two...
I'm hoping it won't take long for there to be a graphic pack for the Star Wars empire, so I don't have to make my own for the "Monochromatic Imperium" race I'm planning on playing on Monday
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What was the actual issue you had with these games in their base format causing you to "been burned"?
Surely that the devs put a lot of effort to keep developing these games and are selling extra content long after release for us players that played 500+ hours and want more content can't be seen as a bad thing?
Sorry for the late answer, was away a couple of days.
There are two reasons for which I consider an excessive amount of DLC content a bad thing. And, between the two games, for me this is more prevalent in Crusader Kings 2 (the one I played the most).
1) The economical aspect. If you sum all the DLC expansions (I'm not talking of music and portraits, I'm talking of content Dlcs). I think it comes to ... 150 euro? Or something like that. Convert to dollars if you want. Apart from the cost, this is bad for another important reason. One might say: ok, don't buy those expansions if you don't want them. BUT, I play with mods. And almost all good and/or extensive mods require you to have all the expansions that came out up to that point. So, something that should be completely optional becomes... not so optional.
2) Of all those expansions, some are low quality. They don't have a lot of content, or they have questionable mechanics which immediately turned out to be a bad idea, or they introduced bugs which hampered the gameplay. And instead of fixing those bugs, the devs put out even more DLC to make more money. I REALLY don't like to feel like a cash cow.
So in general, to me the DLC overload of those games is bad because it really feels just like milking the cash cows as much as possible, instead of fixing bugs and broken mechanics.
And I fear that Stellaris will follow the same route....
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I agree with the previous posters regarding the DLC and being a cash cow. But my problems with Stellaris are mostly due to the fact that I don't believe that Paradox Interactive can make compelling games.
I am a game designer, and from my point of view, which is very technical, Paradox's games are bad and boring. They remind me of a rocket engine pieced together with material from the scrap-yard and duct tape. That kind of thing also explains why it has so much DLC. I guess Paradox just prays every night that the imagination of players carries them through the game's shortcomings.
I fear Stellaris will share the same design decisions that went into CK2 and EU4, and HoI and what not. The feature list of Stellaris makes me cringe, because if it's made on a modified Clausewitz engine, the list is a bunch of lies and over-exaggerations.
But I am ready to be surprised. But whatever, even if Paradox cleaned their stuff up, and made a genuinely good game, from every perspective, I still think Aurora will be superior.
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Sorry for the late answer, was away a couple of days.
There are two reasons for which I consider an excessive amount of DLC content a bad thing. And, between the two games, for me this is more prevalent in Crusader Kings 2 (the one I played the most).
1) The economical aspect. If you sum all the DLC expansions (I'm not talking of music and portraits, I'm talking of content Dlcs). I think it comes to ... 150 euro? Or something like that. Convert to dollars if you want. Apart from the cost, this is bad for another important reason. One might say: ok, don't buy those expansions if you don't want them. BUT, I play with mods. And almost all good and/or extensive mods require you to have all the expansions that came out up to that point. So, something that should be completely optional becomes... not so optional.
2) Of all those expansions, some are low quality. They don't have a lot of content, or they have questionable mechanics which immediately turned out to be a bad idea, or they introduced bugs which hampered the gameplay. And instead of fixing those bugs, the devs put out even more DLC to make more money. I REALLY don't like to feel like a cash cow.
So in general, to me the DLC overload of those games is bad because it really feels just like milking the cash cows as much as possible, instead of fixing bugs and broken mechanics.
And I fear that Stellaris will follow the same route....
Hmm, I play games both with and without mods, and I've never hit a mod that wont work because I don't have one of the DLC's. since you get the engine upgrades even without the DLC's I have actually encountered the other issue far more, a MOD that won't work with the latest engine (since I have Steam autoupdating my engine whenever theres a new DLC) and I have to fiddle with the version downgrade feature in Steam to drop my game version back to what the Mod can handle.
Now you've piqued my curiosity and I'm going to have to go hunting for a mod like you describe. incidentally what you describe is exactly the issue I've had with Civ V mod's though since theres only 2 expansions for that possibly not so bad (even if those 2 expansions actually cost more than all the CK2 dlc's added together)
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I agree with the previous posters regarding the DLC and being a cash cow. But my problems with Stellaris are mostly due to the fact that I don't believe that Paradox Interactive can make compelling games.
I am a game designer, and from my point of view, which is very technical, Paradox's games are bad and boring. They remind me of a rocket engine pieced together with material from the scrap-yard and duct tape. That kind of thing also explains why it has so much DLC. I guess Paradox just prays every night that the imagination of players carries them through the game's shortcomings.
I fear Stellaris will share the same design decisions that went into CK2 and EU4, and HoI and what not. The feature list of Stellaris makes me cringe, because if it's made on a modified Clausewitz engine, the list is a bunch of lies and over-exaggerations.
But I am ready to be surprised. But whatever, even if Paradox cleaned their stuff up, and made a genuinely good game, from every perspective, I still think Aurora will be superior.
I disagree with just about everything you've said, I don't think you can make direct comparisons between Aurora and Stellaris for a start as they are trying to accomplish completely different things.
can you give examples of what you think are lies and over-exaggerations on the Stellaris feature list?
I'm not trying to pick fights with either you or Zincat, I'm just trying to understand the gripes because neither I or any of my friends that play Paradox games have struck anything like you guys are describing.
And ok the rate of DLC releases in 2012 and 2014 was pretty quick at roughly every 2 months, there have only been 2 since then, but theres still no need to buy them that I can see unless you want to play the specific culture that's being expanded (I still don't have Sunset Empires, and pretty sure I never will because the concept seems really stupid to me)
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And ok the rate of DLC releases in 2012 and 2014 was pretty quick at roughly every 2 months, there have only been 2 since then, but theres still no need to buy them that I can see unless you want to play the specific culture that's being expanded (I still don't have Sunset Empires, and pretty sure I never will because the concept seems really stupid to me)
For me, the main point is the fact that they were releasing DLCs with borked up mechanics and without fixing bugs.
For example, there was this horrible bug with the research. I always played heavily investing in research. Building all the proper buildings, sending my spymaster to do research, always paying for the research events and such. I LOVED it, and to me it was important.And eventually, after much toiling, I was successful in reaching the top, being in the first place research-wise. In fact, I was even ahead of time in all fields!
However, there was problem in which somehow some territories would spike up because of a bug. Once, an empty territory in Russia, with 1 in all techs, rose to the penultimate tech level in one year in all fields. After investigating and asking in forums and such I discovered it was because of some mercenary bands and/or religious leaders, which became lords and were awarded (supposedly by mistake?) "tech points". I am sure you agree that seeing a primitive territory suddenly outstripping any other territory in the world in 1300 or so can only be considered a bug.
To me something like this is a deal breaker, and that game was immediately terminated. And to my knowledge, it was never fixed (I did skip the last 2 DLCs though)
Or, what to say about Way of Life? After that DLC, in vanilla games, suddenly the game was all about the Focus and my courts saw an INSANE amounts of intrigue, events and assassinations. Like, it was so frequent that everything else felt marginal because you were always dealing with THAT instead.
Or when they changed the way regents worked, meaning that basically if you got a regent you were completely immobile until your ruler came of age. I can understand being limited, but being almost unable to do anything?
Or I also read about some serious problems with alliances during wars in one of the DLCs I skipped.
Some of these problems MIGHT have been fixed after I stopped buying / playing, but honestly, these things were really bad. They were just feeding us DLC after DLC, completely ignoring the QUALITY of what they wanted us to buy.
This is why at a certain point I got fed up with the game and it's endless stream of DLCs...
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I disagree with just about everything you've said, I don't think you can make direct comparisons between Aurora and Stellaris for a start as they are trying to accomplish completely different things.
can you give examples of what you think are lies and over-exaggerations on the Stellaris feature list?
I'm not trying to pick fights with either you or Zincat, I'm just trying to understand the gripes because neither I or any of my friends that play Paradox games have struck anything like you guys are describing.
And ok the rate of DLC releases in 2012 and 2014 was pretty quick at roughly every 2 months, there have only been 2 since then, but theres still no need to buy them that I can see unless you want to play the specific culture that's being expanded (I still don't have Sunset Empires, and pretty sure I never will because the concept seems really stupid to me)
I am not trying to pick fights either. I understand my opinion is far out in the left field, and is very unpopular, so I'll try to tone it down a bit while explaining what I mean.
First of all, Aurora and Stellaris are both 4x games. Whether you call one a turn based strategy, and the other a grand strategy, does not realistically, make a difference. In both games you expand, exploit, etc etc. A thing people point out about Paradox games is diplomacy, and on the surface this is the stark contrast between Stellaris and Aurora. Paradox Games have a weird diplomacy/politics system, that limits you in every possible way. It is supposed to be modeled after a feudal society, but run a check list of the things Paradox Games let you do, without triggering an event. Aurora on the other hand just has a 'do they hate me or like me' meter, and in my book it works fairly well. If you can roleplay or imagine a grand scenario of how your Wannabe King Bob the Nobody wrested his Kingdom from his brother's incestuous hands- then you should be able to roleplay and imagine long diplomatic discussions in Aurora. If we can all agree on this, then the most stark difference between Aurora and Paradox Games does not seem that... different at all, and we don't need to go over the others.
As far as the feature list goes, I'll try to break it down for you, with how I imagine it will turn out, and why this is basically a lie/fraud/scam whatever you want to call it. But don't misunderstand me. The industry has been doing this for years.
Deep & Varied Exploration: Yeah, no. It is space in 2D, with random generation of dots on the map. Conway's Way of Life has more variation than what I expect this to be. As far as the 'Deep' part goes, it's just going to be an event, from a pool of 20 events. Just about every modern 4x game has this, and quite frankly, it is the weakest way one can implement variety.
Look towards the leaders in PCG and compare an event system to what they have. Ultima Ratio Regum procedurally generates clothes and languages. Dwarf Fortress proceduraly generates music and poetry form. It is like saying, hey, Aurora has a deep and varied race system. Every race is different, as their stats allow them to live comfortably at different temperatures and Gs.
Enormous procedural galaxies, containing thousands of planets: It would take me two minutes to code this up. Elite did this on a floppy disk. Not worth the mention. More impressive would be 'Dozens of solar system types, with handcrafted planet art' and even then I would snore. Why do they make it sound like it is 'OH MY GOSH SO AMAZING'.
Explore Anomalies with your heroic Scientist leaders: Events. Give me a text file, and so far, the feature list suggests I can code a Stellaris clone within the hour.
Infinitely varied races through customization and procedural generation: Already been there in previously mentioned features.
Advanced Diplomacy system worthy of a Grand Strategy Game: You mean this time around I can actually discuss trades and conquer or subjugate whoever I want whenever I want? Start civil wars? Give foreign aid? Send over materials for nefarious purposes in getting a proxy war started? No? Then get out.
Ship Designer based on a vast array of technologies: *yawn*. It's probably gonna be like what... 10 modules? Maybe 12? Yeah. I am so excited.
Stunning space visuals: I was wrong. Stellaris does have something over Aurora.
EDIT: I said I would tone it down, but it seems I just can't get a grip on my displeasure and it's pouring out. I won't edit what I originally wrote, but please try to understand where my opinion comes from. I grew up on games like Elite, Star Control, Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Heroes, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Warhammer 40k, D&D, all the good oldies. And in every way, compared to games of their time, these games have been superior and leaders in innovation and game design. When I see people tout CK2 and games of that nature, as a masterpiece and holy grail of gaming, it just makes me sad. The hype train of Stellaris is so long, at this point, that if you laid it out on the earth, it would wrap around the globe twice. And this is based on realistically looking, at best mediocre mechanics.
Have you ever seen or played Phoenix Command? It is a RPG system so complicated that it is unplayable. Resolving a single bullet hit takes a good hour. What I am trying to say is, being complicated is not good. And being simple does not mean bad. But Paradox games fall into neither category. I would at best call them 'Inconvenient'. Just like PC, they have good ideas, with a strong concept and vision. But the execution falls short. The game is carried by the imagination of players who do not mind the fact that research does not make sense. Who do not mind that 4000 Knights can get beat by 2000 peasants. Who do not mind that their brother who killed their mother, is not a valid 'I KEEL U' target for conquest.
Now, I will always applaud a game that can engage a player to make greater of what they are given through the interface, but if that is the requirement to enjoying the game, how can it be called good?
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Thanks to both of you for the considered responses, and while I personally don't find your arguments convincing (except about bloody regents, I hate that! Though it does strike me as both deliberate and correctly modelling what they wanted to model there) I appreciate the insights.
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Looking at the gripe list there...I'm not sure it is very valid. Based on the Twitch stream you can see that a lot of these points are covered.
1. The map may be 3D but I'm honestly not sure how much that brings to the table. Looking at a 2D representation of 3D space (which until holoprojectors or VR comes on line is standard) probably reduces the impact of real 3D. I am also not sure what you are really complaining about. Starfire has a random universe generation model...as does aurora as does Stellaris as does SEI-V at sufficient zoom it is dots on a plane. Stellars so far as I can see has stellar types, anomolies (more than 20 easily), blackholes, and other such things. Planets themselves are varied in size, value, blocker tiles, and type. You could certainly do it more detailed or less detailed but it at least from what I can see far exceeds what MoO tossed at you, and may be better than what Endless Space, SEI-V, or Sword in the Stars produced. Exactly how varied and such well that I can't say. But on the other hands to the player a system is binary...it is either worth exploiting or it is not.
2. Races seem to be quite varied. And judging by the lead AI programers comments they behave differently according to what they are....Peaceful traders are different then Xenophobic Militarists. I have no idea if the shape of the creature plays any role...do fungus being like other fungus beings more than lizard beings? No idea...
3. Diplomacy has limits but most of what you want you can do if you have sufficiently good relations with the race or if they are sufficiently motivated to accept the trade. So you can ship minerals to a race in the hope that they build more ships and start a war I'd imagine. The diplomacy seemed to be going on quite a bit in the Blorg game. There is limits...you can't drag your allies into a war unless you offer them some of the spoils...and that strikes me as sensible. The limitations seems to be more about preventing player abuses then limiting player freedom. And no previous 4X SF game had diplomacy worthy of the word.
4. Ship customization looks to be ok...not spectacular but ok. From the wiki at least 2 types of defences (armour and shields), and 20 or so different weapons in 5 groups (lasers, disruptors, mass drivers, missiles, weird and wacky). Different combat computers and drives additionally.
I have a number of PI titles, some I like some I'm not so keen on. EU4...probably have to re-install and try again. Rome..no way...a macedonian army in the middle of Gaul is not possible and indicates a totally broken game to me. Victoria...well I've played argentina to the end but the convoluted mechanics of the game I can't get behind...I managed to destroy the economy of Prussia and in the Vic2 demo destroyed the US economy...so well...hmmm. HoI 1, 2, 3 I initially liked 3 but it had too many issues for me. If they would be issues for other people is not clear...I'm pumped on HoI 4 because it seems to have fixed those things I didn't like in the previous editions. CK and CK2 I like these but haven't had much time for CK2.
Mods are not relevent to me, as I find that for every one thing a mod does I like it does another I don't...so I just play the game. I also feel on the philosophical level that a game should be playable without mods as I paid the game company for a viable product. 3rd Party fixes aren't in the deal...and should not be needed.
If I like stellaris remains to be seen but it doesn't seem (from the twitch stream) to be too bad over all.
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Enormous procedural galaxies, containing thousands of planets: It would take me two minutes to code this up. Elite did this on a floppy disk. Not worth the mention. More impressive would be 'Dozens of solar system types, with handcrafted planet art' and even then I would snore. Why do they make it sound like it is 'OH MY GOSH SO AMAZING'.
As an actual programmer, here have five minutes, give me code. And no, I don't accept just dots on a grid.
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As an actual programmer, here have five minutes, give me code. And no, I don't accept just dots on a grid.
I am an actual programmer too, you know. This isn't so hard. Instead of actual code where I tell a few pixels to light up, allow me to direct you to something spectacular.
https://github.com/Mindwerks/worldengine
Now that is impressive.
Paul: A few games actually did 3D space, and it had some interesting consequences. One of the major gripes I heard about Stellaris was, if the space is 2D, you can get locked in, IE surrounded by non-hostile non-beatable races. It is fairly simple to code up what Stellaris, SEI-V, Aurora and Starfire did. But it's not magic, and not worth the 'deep & varied' or whatever they are claiming it to be. I mean, when we get right down to it, I guess it IS varied. But really, is it really that special? Chess too has varied tiles, you know. It's like saying the user interface is a feature.
Races being varied... well, a lot of games have this. Some different text, different internal values that control behavior. Heck, Aurora has this when you select the government type.
Now, I am not saying the game will be bad. Whether I like it or not, does not mean that on a technical level the game is bad. I just dislike their feature list, and what they claim their game has.
Imagine seeing a pacman clone on steam, and it's feature list went like this:
* Deep & Varied levels with infinite procedular generation
* A new experience every time you start the game
* Multiple endings
* 48 hour long story
* Innovative "Eat or be Eaten" system
How would you feel?
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Imagine seeing a pacman clone on steam, and it's feature list went like this:
* Deep & Varied levels with infinite procedular generation
* A new experience every time you start the game
* Multiple endings
* 48 hour long story
* Innovative "Eat or be Eaten" system
How would you feel?
I'd take issue with the "innovative" part of the Eat or be Eaten system. ;)
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Now, I am not saying the game will be bad. Whether I like it or not, does not mean that on a technical level the game is bad. I just dislike their feature list, and what they claim their game has.
Imagine seeing a pacman clone on steam, and it's feature list went like this:
* Deep & Varied levels with infinite procedular generation
* A new experience every time you start the game
* Multiple endings
* 48 hour long story
* Innovative "Eat or be Eaten" system
How would you feel?
Thanks, Thanatos. That cleared up the misgivings I have been having myself. Such flashbang advertising tactics are always a bad sign, so no wonder one grows wary.
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I'd take issue with the "innovative" part of the Eat or be Eaten system. ;)
But it's true. Almost every game on steam has 'innovative' something or other. And indeed, some things that are a rehash of 3 decade old mechanics can feel innovative. Like, Bastion for example. In my opinion, the narration was innovative. I am sure it was done before, and the concept of narration is about as innovative as a hammer to the back of the head. But the moment you start the story, and you press a key, and the narrator goes 'The kid stands up' you know you are in for something special.
Well, anyway, that's it for me, and my opinion on Stellaris and the market in today's age. I am not a saint, if I made a game, I would do the same thing. Though, that may not be so true, because I am a perfectionist, and I do have a few games under my belt, but I try my damnedest to really be innovative, and deliver what I promise to deliver.
At the end of the day, for a company, their #1 priority is not to make a game that is unique and amazing, but to reach a wide audience and to make their fans happy. Simple is sometimes best, but lately, in the past decade, it just feels like devs are intentionally skipping out on things, and bloating purdy grafeeks in exchange for interesting content.
And lastly, I should have started with a disclaimer that I don't like 99% of today's games. I am like the Zero Punctuation of reviews. I never have nice things to say, and on the extremely rare occasion that I do, it is fanatic love.
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I am an actual programmer too, you know. This isn't so hard. Instead of actual code where I tell a few pixels to light up, allow me to direct you to something spectacular.
https://github.com/Mindwerks/worldengine
Now that is impressive.
Paul: A few games actually did 3D space, and it had some interesting consequences. One of the major gripes I heard about Stellaris was, if the space is 2D, you can get locked in, IE surrounded by non-hostile non-beatable races. It is fairly simple to code up what Stellaris, SEI-V, Aurora and Starfire did. But it's not magic, and not worth the 'deep & varied' or whatever they are claiming it to be. I mean, when we get right down to it, I guess it IS varied. But really, is it really that special? Chess too has varied tiles, you know. It's like saying the user interface is a feature.
Races being varied... well, a lot of games have this. Some different text, different internal values that control behavior. Heck, Aurora has this when you select the government type.
Now, I am not saying the game will be bad. Whether I like it or not, does not mean that on a technical level the game is bad. I just dislike their feature list, and what they claim their game has.
Imagine seeing a pacman clone on steam, and it's feature list went like this:
* Deep & Varied levels with infinite procedular generation
* A new experience every time you start the game
* Multiple endings
* 48 hour long story
* Innovative "Eat or be Eaten" system
How would you feel?
The galaxy in Stellaris is definitely 3d, and since at least 1 of the hyperspace drives (of the 4 systems, well ok 3 systems and sublight only) available in the game allow you to go to any system from any other system with travel time being the drawback I don't see how that complaint is valid. The Deep and varied is in relation to the makeup of the individual star systems which are way more varied from what I've seen than anything MOO or SE ever gave, it's more saying our galaxy generation isn't as lame as MOO's.
and well, that a pretty accurate feature description for Pac-Man, except the Mazes were set in Pac-Man so I'd think wow, Pac-Man with random mazes! though Multiple Endings is pushing it, Pac-Man only has one ending when you're eaten...
edit sigh typo, it definitely IS a 3d galaxy
edit 2 sigh, now I'm not so sure the Galaxy is 3d, though I can't see what difference that would make in being blocked in by another empire tbh
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*Stuff that is not code*
So you cant spend two/five minutes to prove your point and link to someone else's work? What kind of programmer are you?
I am not a saint, if I made a game, I would do the same thing.
I am a game designer...
And a very strange game designer........................
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EDIT: Nevermind. I don't really care anymore. Good job, Jem. Thanks buddy.
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Paul: A few games actually did 3D space, and it had some interesting consequences. One of the major gripes I heard about Stellaris was, if the space is 2D, you can get locked in, IE surrounded by non-hostile non-beatable races. It is fairly simple to code up what Stellaris, SEI-V, Aurora and Starfire did. But it's not magic, and not worth the 'deep & varied' or whatever they are claiming it to be. I mean, when we get right down to it, I guess it IS varied. But really, is it really that special? Chess too has varied tiles, you know. It's like saying the user interface is a feature.
Races being varied... well, a lot of games have this. Some different text, different internal values that control behavior. Heck, Aurora has this when you select the government type.
Now, I am not saying the game will be bad. Whether I like it or not, does not mean that on a technical level the game is bad. I just dislike their feature list, and what they claim their game has.
My comments are based on watching either 8 or 10 hours of gameplay on twitch, reading all 30 or so designer diaries and reading the wiki pages. Are you basing yours on advertising? Advertising is intended to sell the game nothing more and nothing less.
Compared to any other space game I've seen and I admit I've not seen them all I don't think they are unjustified in what they say in the first 3 points. If it is deep is a good question...but they have the biggest galaxy map I've ever seen, each system is detailed, there are anomalies (many based on how many they didn't explore), your science ship and its leader are key to exploiting the universe (but there are risks), there are space creatures, mysteries, quests based on anomalies. I think this part should be fun...I'll only know when I have the game though. But it certainly has the potential to be more interesting then exploration in most games...except for Fading Suns but there was a small universe of 20-30 worlds that were always the same.
Based on the Blorg diplomacy looks good...the AI created "The Just League" when the blorg gobbled up one of their neighbors as the Blorg's other neighbors got a bit worried. Then there was other diplomatic maneuvering. Getting boxed in can happen in any game, and in this one if it happens you can rival and insult them until the "non-hostile" is no longer an issue. If you mean you end up between 3 fallen empires then I'd suggest "new game." A war between the blorg and a fallen empire lasted all of 5 min real time....and most of that was the fallen empires fleets travel time.
As for races yes other games have different races but Stellaris has more than most. And there seems to be an effort to make them behave according to their ethos. I'm not sure in the least that any race in Endless Space plays the way the game text describes them. In Aurora I can't say; the NCN has encountered only the wolver infestation...if a peaceful trader in Aurora is different then the warmongering Klingons I have no idea. There doesn't seem to be a difference between having the pilgrams on your border or the Sheridan or the sowers in endless space.
I understand personal objections that others may not find objectionable. For me in Rome it was that Macedonian army in a place that at the time Macedon didn't even know existed and no army at that time could be so far in hostile territory. Or even the far more vague reasons HoI3 never "resontated" with me even though I played 1 and 2 for huge amounts of time. Or why I didn't like Starfire 4th edition or better put liked some parts of it and not at all others. Taste is personal at the end of day.
I've pre-ordered as I like what I've seen on twitch/development diaries/wiki not because of the game advertising. Based on what I have seen their advertising is at least "realistic" in that it reflects what the game should deliever. We shall all have to see...but if the game is good past a week of playing...that only time will tell.
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There are some stellaris game play videos appearing on you tube.
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My comments are based on watching either 8 or 10 hours of gameplay on twitch, reading all 30 or so designer diaries and reading the wiki pages. Are you basing yours on advertising? Advertising is intended to sell the game nothing more and nothing less.
Compared to any other space game I've seen and I admit I've not seen them all I don't think they are unjustified in what they say in the first 3 points. If it is deep is a good question...but they have the biggest galaxy map I've ever seen, each system is detailed, there are anomalies (many based on how many they didn't explore), your science ship and its leader are key to exploiting the universe (but there are risks), there are space creatures, mysteries, quests based on anomalies. I think this part should be fun...I'll only know when I have the game though. But it certainly has the potential to be more interesting then exploration in most games...except for Fading Suns but there was a small universe of 20-30 worlds that were always the same.
Based on the Blorg diplomacy looks good...the AI created "The Just League" when the blorg gobbled up one of their neighbors as the Blorg's other neighbors got a bit worried. Then there was other diplomatic maneuvering. Getting boxed in can happen in any game, and in this one if it happens you can rival and insult them until the "non-hostile" is no longer an issue. If you mean you end up between 3 fallen empires then I'd suggest "new game." A war between the blorg and a fallen empire lasted all of 5 min real time....and most of that was the fallen empires fleets travel time.
As for races yes other games have different races but Stellaris has more than most. And there seems to be an effort to make them behave according to their ethos. I'm not sure in the least that any race in Endless Space plays the way the game text describes them. In Aurora I can't say; the NCN has encountered only the wolver infestation...if a peaceful trader in Aurora is different then the warmongering Klingons I have no idea. There doesn't seem to be a difference between having the pilgrams on your border or the Sheridan or the sowers in endless space.
I understand personal objections that others may not find objectionable. For me in Rome it was that Macedonian army in a place that at the time Macedon didn't even know existed and no army at that time could be so far in hostile territory. Or even the far more vague reasons HoI3 never "resontated" with me even though I played 1 and 2 for huge amounts of time. Or why I didn't like Starfire 4th edition or better put liked some parts of it and not at all others. Taste is personal at the end of day.
I've pre-ordered as I like what I've seen on twitch/development diaries/wiki not because of the game advertising. Based on what I have seen their advertising is at least "realistic" in that it reflects what the game should deliever. We shall all have to see...but if the game is good past a week of playing...that only time will tell.
Stop saying what I'm thinking, it's getting creepy!
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Ok, downloaded yesterday, started playing a tutorial game.. 6 hours later at 2:00 am reluctantly tore myself from the PC.
Still indiscovery phase, created my first colony just before log-out. Researching colony ship was slowed down as I met so many organic riddles my social research was constantly interupted. But oh boy... ancient minder drones, ancient extragalactic railgun shots missing my ship, gas clod entities, space whales, crystal entities, precursor empires you caan reseach, space amoebas (killing them and then invstigating the wreckage gives nie new tech and research boosts).
There is so much to do.. so hard to say which decissions are positive and not...each of the events can lead to an event chain or new research etc. its just wow! WOW!
I am not sure how multiplayer will work out, as its definitely slower that say.. Endless Legend, but the game is rich.. very rich, and can keep you busier than a dog chassing his tail.
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Ok, downloaded yesterday, started playing a tutorial game.. 6 hours later at 2:00 am reluctantly tore myself from the PC.
Still indiscovery phase, created my first colony just before log-out. Researching colony ship was slowed down as I met so many organic riddles my social research was constantly interupted. But oh boy... ancient minder drones, ancient extragalactic railgun shots missing my ship, gas clod entities, space whales, crystal entities, precursor empires you caan reseach, space amoebas (killing them and then invstigating the wreckage gives nie new tech and research boosts).
There is so much to do.. so hard to say which decissions are positive and not...each of the events can lead to an event chain or new research etc. its just wow! WOW!
I am not sure how multiplayer will work out, as its definitely slower that say.. Endless Legend, but the game is rich.. very rich, and can keep you busier than a dog chassing his tail.
Research the crystal entities too. I've gotten 2 techs from space critters. And I've got 2 more that I'm collecting info on. Could research, but 2000+ months, nah. DIE space slug! Gimma techs!
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So far I've managed to destroy a Pirate fleet (and salvage the wrecks!) destroy before mentioned pirates Asteroid base (and salvage the wreckage, hmm there seems to be a pattern!) get a non-aggression pact with my nearest neighbor, Chased down prime mining spots figured out by researching ancient robotic asteroid mining drones, set up an observation station over a low tech alien homeworld, but failed to stop smugglers importing modern weapons to them, so then I dropped an army on them and conquered them, now I've packed them all off to reservations, I think my Empire (well it's actually an indirect democracy) just took a turn to the dark side.
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This game is bad. It is really, really bad. I played it for like 40 hours or something, and I literally physically cannot play it any longer, after seeing my federation member try to merge a federation fleet, with a non-federation fleet, ad infinitum. This cannot be done.
There are so many holes in this game, I am gonna start calling it 'swiss cheese' instead of Stellaris.
The diplomacy system is worse than galciv's which it ripped off.
Space battles are worse than even... I don't even know. Tetris?
No random events. Anomalies are pretty much all similar and there's like... 6 different ones.
The galaxy is ... eh, not really big, but not really small either.
Why the hell does something have to be inside my influence sphere before I can put mines and stuff on it? Didn't galciv do the same thing? That's the stupidest mechanic ever.
If you are going to make me spend influence to build specific stuff, then make me spend influence for building everything, otherwise it makes no sense. What, I have to bribe some dude to build a fleet academy? What the blyat?
You can get boxed in. I got boxed in. But the AI is too stupid to understand this, and won't attack my weakling allies.
The AI will never give you military access or research agreement.
Research is dumb. At best you can pick out of 4, and the late-game ones are so expensive it takes a billion years to complete them.
The game is horribly optimized, but at least it doesn't crash.
What is the point of the heir system, if I can't change my damn heir? Like, there's literally no point to it.
Alliances suck. They all have to like what you are doing and vote yes, but are too mentally retarded to understand the benefits of starting wars or inviting others into the alliance.
Federations are even worse. Everyone takes turns being the leader, and then horribly fail when they try to merge federation fleets with non-federation fleets.
The Warscore system. Oh god. Epic fail. Stupider than ever before. And if you hit 'suggest demands' your allies all start picking crap, that puts the Warscore above 100, which cannot be done. And even when you satisfy all your allies, so they vote yes, you end up being able to maybe get one planet. And then you have to wait 10 years before you can get another one. Really?
Thanks, Paradox. You are still as bad as ever.
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The AI will never give you military access or research agreement.
yes it will, it offered me both last night
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OK, so last night I set up another Observation station over a primitive pop, and used the "Infiltration" setting on it, which surgically alters some of your people to infiltrate and influence their society, ultimately getting themselves into positions of power and manipulating the aliens into joining your empire, it was strangely satisfying!
unfortunately a few years after that, one of my neighbors declared war on me, and now has 2 3000 strength fleets roaming my space blowing up installations (I've built my fleet up as mean and as large as I currently can and am only at 1500 strength) stupid aliens!
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It is not Aurora, but I still found it fun, to be it better then GalCiv 3 was.
But with future DLC I am sure it will get more depth we are used to seeing.
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it could not run at all and be better than GalCiv!
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My ally disbanded my 50k worth of minerals federation fleet............. LOL. And when I thought that going full retread was the final frontier, Paradox Interactive comes to expand the horizon. This game is worse than I thought it would be.
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Well, I am happy, the game is not fast-paced but I am having fun. Right now still on first game and learning, I am certain next run through I'll avoid many mistakes, like buildinga nmining station on every 1 resource rock etc.
also at least in this game habitables are scarce for me.
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Well, I am happy, the game is not fast-paced but I am having fun. Right now still on first game and learning, I am certain next run through I'll avoid many mistakes, like buildinga nmining station on every 1 resource rock etc.
also at least in this game habitables are scarce for me.
I usually build one on planets I cannot colonize. And at the beginning only planets that give a +2 or more EC. The minerals I've usually been swimming in.
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yeah I've been bouncing off the mineral stockpile cap pretty much my entire game, influence on the other hand.. too many long borders I think maybe I should start conquering my neighbors (er after I finish getting my fleet infrastructure smashed by the Herons in space suit aliens
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I have been having fun with the first game...making mistakes left and right but that is ok. So far the UEC has not managed to engage in significant combat...I have been boxed in so this may change. At least one of the races is bigger than me so I likely should take out the smaller one first. But at the moment I've been stuck with a low energy credit production due to not having power plant III (just got it) and that was interesting times. Though what was interesting is several NPCs came to my rescue with 1:1 energy for mineral trades. I had oodles of minerals just not so much energy.
My fleet is building up now I have started slowly to produce BBs. That has reduced one NPR from overwhelming to only superior. They are expensive on my energy budget though.
I've also started to terraform and have made several errors there oh well I'm learning. The other NPC has some of the terraformer stuff and so that may be the reason we are soon at war as I need more of it to terraform the desert and tundra worlds to something I can use. I've also had NPCs ask for migration treaties...so I am beginning to accumulate aliens in the UEC.
Game is a sleep pattern destroyer.
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I went ahead and installed Stellaris despite my iMac's Radeon HD 6770M graphics card only having 512MB, and it plays with only trivial issues at 1920x1080. Biggest issue is that ship-view (max zoom) drops to single digit FPS whenever the associated fleet engages in battle, but I can always fire up Gratuitous Space Battles whenever I want to watch space battle cinematics.
The game is a little slow, but that just enables you relax and savor each moment without RTS pressure. I also have to second the sleep destroying bit. Game's worse than the Civilization series in that respect.
Gamewise I just colonized my 5th planet and have a fleet that can now take out mid-tier minor spoilers for fun an profit. I'm currently only blocked in on one side by two foreign powers, and while I would love to pick a fight with one they had the nerve to form an alliance. So far I've managed to avoid hitting the mineral cap by building mining and research stations on ever rock in reach, but I haven't yet figured out what I'm supposed to be spending my energy surplus on.
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I've discovered the joys of a 4 arm spiral galaxy, hemmed in by a roughly equal but hostile (rivalled me immediately we contacted) mob Coreward of me, and a happy go-lucky, overpoweringly strong, but friendly bunch of merchant insects to Rimward. I'm up to about 20 planets, though I recently lost one when one of my Science Officers decided to play with an ancient terraformer found buried on a planet (oops) wonder how big a Pop is, 'cos there were 8 of them on that planet that recently acquired an unpleasant atmosphere!
I've kinda been unlucky with my draws from the tech deck, I'm at my fleet cap of 80 and only got 1 fleet with a strength about 5500 :( might have to scrap all the corvettes and fill the space with cruisers, need more of the raise fleet cap tech's to drop dammit! at least I've currently got Battleships researching that'll give me some more cap (though I imagine building BB's will chew that up pretty quick)
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Well your fleet cap is dependent more on the number of spacestations you have and your population then on the techs. They add a total of 30% of my 350 or so.
The UNE just had its first war.... 24 years of brutal attrition warfare. But the aliens submitted to vassalization. What is interesting is when they were winning they would not accept a white peace...but somehow got offended when I kept turning down their offers once I got the war back in my direction. They have hyperlanes which meant fast fleet movement, which caught me off guard. Then they out teched me seriously...and so it was due to the sacrifice of several science ships I got some of their tech advantage via reverse engineering. I was using serious numbers of bases....Sol and Sirus are still plastered in bases. I lost several fortresses but the minefields cut him down...and just kept using my economic advantage to hammer out fleet after fleet.
Eventually had to emergency FTL out my surviving BBs in the last battle but by now I had taken over his home world and 3 others. My fleets were rebuilding and more to the point he could not keep killing my space stations and eventually the next time I went in with a 10K fleet he surrendered just before my troops started dropping.
One defence base stood off a missile fleet for months as its fighters and point defence kept killing everything they fired at it...and its return fire slowly but surely ate through the enemy force. I managed to force engagement in my favour a few times as well. But it was just a long brutal grinding match.
The war was over getting Terraforming liquid. In the end vassalizing the race didn't get me it directly but it allowed me access into a spiral arm area where some was. So now my terraforming efforts are going full bore.
I don't want to think about the cost of that war. I had 25K in minerals at the start of it and that got used up quickly. Probably 30K in fleet strength were lost on both sides if not more.
Just so you know...Corvettes can kill BBs and heavy ships as the heavy ships usually don't mount that many weapons that can shoot back at them. You need Small weapons from what I understand. The enemy force at the end was like 1 BB, 1 DD, and 50 CTs. I killed the heavy stuff and then I lost my CT/DD screen and should have pulled out as he still had 40-ish CTs. Had to emergency FTL away but 4 BBs survived that and well that was the last major fleet engagement he had at that point 26 CTs. That and the two other ones before it had broken his back basically.
Currently my "standard fleet" is: 2 BBs, 1 BB(CV), 4 CAs, 10 DDs, and 30 CTs. Mix of weapons: missiles, torpedoes, Kinetics, lasers (Mining drone or Xray) and fighter/bombers plus point defence. I recommend not using missiles on your space stations. Point defence can blunt their firepower too easily...either lasers or projectiles I'd say.
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well I have 20 colonized planets all with Spaceports, and mining and research stations on everything I have inside my sphere, I may build a couple of Frontier stations see if they make a difference (I haven't actually built any, as I've been lucky with colonisable worlds doing my border expansion for me) It may be my Fanatic Spiritualism that's holding me back.
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Congratulations on your victory.
In my alternate universe the UNE suffered a disastrous defeat after an ill-advised attack intended to gain access to a promising bunch of primitives.
The "short victorious war" took a promising start when the destruction of our rival's frontier stations allowed for territorial expansion and while the destroyers of 2nd fleet were destroyed in close action they paved the way for 1st fleet torpedo corvets to finish the job and blockade their home world.
However in a disastorious setback the absent advance fleet of our rival managed to bypass our defensive line, and link up with their ally to jointly assault Sol from an unexpected direction via hyperdrive with no prior warning. Their combined strength decisively crushed 3rd fleet and blockaded Earth in retaliation. We attempted to rebuild a liberation fleet in the colonies, but opposing fleet caught on and switched from a static blockade to a roving band of destruction that systematically destroyed our colonial shipyards before turning to break our own blockaded.
Per the terms of our surrender the German treatment was forced upon us as we were compelled to liberate the majority of our colonies over whom was established a hippy peace-loving government. This dropped the UNE from the 2nd most powerful independent power in known space to the 3rd weakest. Figuring out how to quietly reestablish control of our former colonies is now a much much more pressing concern than how to colonize some random tundra worlds.
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I hate it when losing a war means Hippiefying worlds!
I had an interesting one where my least powerful neighbor (with 2 worlds to her name) declared war on me, lost the war due to his 2 warfleets being nothing but 5 destroyers and 20 corvettes, my terms were independence to her second world, who then asked me to vassalise them, nice, then their home world was vassalised by my other neighbor on that side, so one ill advised war ended up with them losing their empire entirely (my vassalised world is now integrated)
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Thanks! I'm still twitching from the war...two days of intense concentration...
At the worst of it the warscore was at -64% and it ended at +35% when they accepted vassalization as my troops were landing on their 6th of 10 worlds to be occupied. Last I looked they are now up to 2 "Star Flocks" of 7600 combat value. I've rebuilt as well and just got an offer to join a federation. I think I am going to accept. The alien to my other side is rated as "overwhelming" in all catagories and views me as lunch or something. I expect it is not worse only cause my diplomats are very busy at the embassy.
A few comments on base construction from my combat experience. I don't recommend that you go full strike craft....unless it is essentially a defensive base. I also recommend always having point defence. I found interceptors/scout wing very usefull as they will protect the base from missiles. So for a fortress I would do 1 hanger, 1 small, 1 medium (or a second small) and 1 large section. I found the middle sized station very useful. I would give them a mix of weapons but as far as I can see they need to kill the smaller ships as opposed to slugging it out with the bigger ones.
For the special items I equiped my fortresses with the FTL snare and a minefield. I have to admit that it worked but the fortress died because the fleet ended up on top of it. I would suggest rather the shield damper and the minefield on the fortress. The mine field on the middle sized one worked very very well. The smallest I would make two varients one with the nano repair and one with the FTL snare. Put the snare in the middle of 4 other bases so they have to leave through a minefield. Basically you have to start looking at overlaping and mutal support.
My BBs use the snare and my BB(V) use the nano-repair field. The NPRs still managed to emergency out of the snare...but it was a major morale victory for me when they started doing so.
On invasions I used 12 units half equipped with hunter-killer drones and half with "engineers" (fortification) attachments. I never lost an invasion or an invading ground combat unit. New Conventry beat back a ground invasion but I had the maximum number of defensive armies on the planet.
Intel is also crappy...formations merge and so on...so it is hard to keep track of what is going on with the enemy fleets. Here observatories and enhanced sensor tech really comes in handy.
Also that combat value is...well not quite a lie but it is at best indicator more than anything. What I wish I could find better is what each ship seems to have for weapons and defences. Being able to see the designs a bit better would help a lot...this is very well done in Endless Space and enables a bit of tailoring to match the enemy. The enemy switched over from initally using plasma weapons to autocannons and missiles....not quite sure why.
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I've noticed that if you use the "auto-design" feature, the ships are designed with the most DPS they can put out. So that is possibly why the NPC ships do the same.
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I've noticed that if you use the "auto-design" feature, the ships are designed with the most DPS they can put out. So that is possibly why the NPC ships do the same.
Yeah but I had more trouble with the disrupters and so on then I did stopping missiles as all my ships have point defence and I carry interceptors on my captial vessels. I had the issue that my missile tech was low. I think I started the war with fusion missiles on my ships but over the course of it things upgraded. My biggest advance came when I reverse-engineered zero point power plants as that boosted my ships power generation and enabled me to use better shields.
I'm also not sure how to factor in the special abilities...for example the drone mining lasers I'm using with +100% armour penetration compared to the X-ray laser with only +50% armour penetration. The DPS meter in game doesn't include these factors. I'm going a bit more role playing anyway.
One thing I didn't like was that my construction and science ships "evasion AI" was blatently idiotic...I mean the course didn't attempt to avoid the alien presence and worse undid my plotting of a path away from the aliens manually. Or when they ran for the "protection" of the space station??? Realy??? I mean give me a break...a space station has pathetic defences I had no trouble destorying them and taking no serious losses. My current spacestations I think are 450 combat value which is about 6-9 CTs. I think the game could use some re-adjustments around the defense stations and where they can be built, but the space station really needs a substantial power update.
The building part of the military stations isn't very clear as red areas show up but it seems to forget that a station was destroyed. But in those cases you can build in the red anyway.
Refits are also borked a bit as it isn't clear if you have more designes for a ship class which one they will refit too. My CTEs kept getting refit to CTGs for example. I'm not sure if my BB(V) will refit to the next BB(V) or to my standard BB design. I wish there was an interface which asked what design you want to refit it too. Right now it is a bit too "streamlined."
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My constructors and science ships always ran for another system if there were mobile hostiles in the system. Even if the hostile was combat power 100 and I had a combat power 2k fleet in system heading towards it. They would run.
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sigh, after some expansion and causing neighbors empires to collapse ( ;D ) I now find myself hemmed in by Fallen Empires, 3 of them which I believe is the maximum generated per game :(
What I find annoying about ship refitting is you have to overwrite the design to get the refit button to work, which means you lose the existing design.
Incidentally I just inherited a Space Amoeba as a warship from integrating a vassal
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No overwriting is required. I've had success with overwriting, series names (Vengance-A, Vengance-B...), and random names. I wish only overwrite upgrades worked because it is horribly annoying when you upgrade Alpha-V2 and it becomes Gama-V2 instead of Alpha-V3.
Anyway, I'll try to resurrect the UNE at a later date. I've written that game off as my newb learning experience, and I am now a collectivist hive of rapid breading bugs using the hyperdrive myself for a change. This time the middle-age primitives are within my boarder, but our ethics insist on observing the prime directive with no ground invasions or uplifting allowed. Bah. At least the xenophobes have agreed that probing in the name of science is permitted...
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Just researched a Tech 3 propulsion and got the galactic invasors - at the other end of the galaxy. Since I have no access to them I have to wait until they have overrun 2/3 of the galaxy to be able to enter their territory. Hope I will still have a chance by then... :o
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I've been fighting them for awhile, cleared out 3 remote pockets of them, then started on their main area, but since I was doing it with a single expeditionary fleet (fleet strength 21000) when they bounced me with 2 fleets of 16000 I ran home, then my stupid Federation started ANOTHER war, last time I join a Federation! once I win this war so another of my stupid federation mates can claim some systems I'll head back to kick invader butt with 3 fleets. (last Federation war was to conquer a fallen empire, kinda sucks my neighbour federation mate got the fallen empires 2 ringworld systems when I won the war!)
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Yes, Federation Mechanics will be changed, they already announced. It kinda sucks...
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so far my big take away from joining a Federation is, I now want to crush all my Federation mates!
Federation, the greatest incentive to galactic genocide!
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Yeah my UNE was the federation leader when some baddies showed up and then the neighboring local menace decided to attack one of the federation partners...but when I look at the war demands it is nearly all UNE systems they want. Just joy....I mean just joy. I did however design some impressive Federation fleet ships and was starting to build them...so we will have to see how that goes.
Wormhole stations are awesome mind you. Hyperspace lanes less so.
Have been setting up a bunch of different starts and enjoying the variety of things. Anomalies though need to be expanded. Also it isn't clear what is happening with research bonus points you get from them when at the same time you are researching say "the alpha aliens".
In one game infilitration was my get the job done thing. That works awesomely great I have to say. Enslaving stone age primatives...interesting concept...to say the least. But rebellious factions are hard to deal with when you occupy a races planets...that is right tricky. Not sure how effective bribing the leaders is...media suppression is a temporary thing...but you have at least 10 years of issues until that damned -25 happiness goes away.
The game is too addictive in the "just another turn" sense though...limiting play is necessary.
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I have been reading this thread, and want to play too, but no time. I barely managed to start one first game, where I got to cruisers over the last weeks until all around me joined into one alliance. My territory is pretty expansive even without any war though. Actually the largest in existence - why is the AI so slow at colonizing?
Well, it seems if I would start war now, I will be crushed, even though I have 11k fleet and all the members hopefully only 3-4k like I see all the time.
Also: Should have taken that xenophobic trait, because letting xenos live and be rebellious, and not my smart industrious super-species, is annoying.
Anyways, it seems there are some rather large management issues to the game, like it befalls pretty much any real time strategy, but otherwise: I anticipated to be secretly bad, but it is not.(as far as I can tell) No Aurora, and no Caveman to Cosmos in space, but fun, and lots of novel concepts.
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I'm only in early game, but I am a despotic Empire, the Hythean Empire, and I have conquered or vassalized all but 1 colony world's, I have all the slaves(being enslaved increases happiness for some reason) and by the end of the second century, I will control my entire cluster. It is my second game and I am using wormholes. My weapons are blue lasers and fusion missiles.
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We got any nice ethos/governement trait combinations yet. i'm not to sold on pacifism... not after having several colony planets in early game blocked due to stone-age primitives living on them. 8The ones you can't even uplift :( ). any advise what edict I have to issue to allow that planet to be settled? Or do I have to learbn Uplift (allthough doesn't that onyl work on non-sentients?). on the other hand, smae game I found Sol inhabited by early space age humans. :) Now have to buold an observatory and teach them how to be spacefaring allies.
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Unfortunately, stone-age natives are a little bit broken right now. They are too advanced to uplift, but not advanced enough to enlighten. The only way to do anything with them is to colonize the planet yourself, at which point you can enslave them or put them into reservations. However, with certain ethos, you can't colonize the planet either, so it becomes completely useless to you, unless they are able to advance a level on their own (which can take a very long time).
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New tiny Ironman game to claim steam achievements. I'm a militaristic collective this time. The bad news was I started in an extremely mineral poor region. The good news is that I started near a couple of primitive civilizations and that armies are much cheaper than colony ships. Mineral shortage solved. Today over half of the galaxy is either under my control or else is privileged to serve as my loyal vassals. Only one major power remains to question my supremacy, so the question is do I begin my final conquest now or after I uplift the cockroaches on Earth?
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uplift=achievement...
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I'm fairly dissatisfied with Stellaris. Nice big new 4x game, with some interesting twists and ideas BURIED under whole mountain of stupid game mechanics like sectors, "get the biggest fleet possible and right click on enemy fleet and hope for the best" battles, buying characters for influence ( hate that smeg ), typical Paradox "I hate you because you are human player" AI, strange things like lack of food shipping, magical troop transports appearing from thin air, lack of pirates, one use colony ships and maluch more.
Shame because game could be solid 8/10 with some basic thought put into the game.
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lack of pirates
say what? one of my gripes is excessive Pirates
though they do seem to be pushovers
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though they do seem to be pushovers
Unless you get them within the first 15 minutes or so, then you basically die and lose.