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Stellaris

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18 Mar 2018 00:07 - 18 Mar 2018 00:12 #265920 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
My space birds got the "mind over matter" and then the ascension perk... so now all my birds are psychic which give them this huge number of *awesome* bonuses. I love it, it's a super rewarding end state for this particular path (which requires a big investment in terms of perks).

Now I'm visiting some sort of trippy psychic realm and trawling for bonuses. Again, a fun little continuing endgame for going the psychic direction.

Also, it's nice in this game where something works exactly like you think it should. I have this close federation partner with relatively likeminded traits, but his people have desert preference (mine are alpine, so almost opposite preference). For about 40 years I haven't gotten a single migrant, even though we've had a migration pact. I have a bunch of arid/desert words in my territory so it'd be really useful to get some of his race POPs into my territory and settle them.

So I speculatively settle on a *terrible* for my birds arid planet near their border... nothing after a few years. Then I put down the tourism building which pulls 50% more aliens to the planet and... voila, two POPs arrive in about a year or two. Now I have their species POPs in my borders and I can settle a whole bunch of planets I couldn't before! It's so nice the plan came together.
Last edit: 18 Mar 2018 00:12 by Gary Sax.

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18 Mar 2018 02:26 #265923 by repoman
Replied by repoman on topic Stellaris
Good Guy humans crushed their rivals to the Galactic North and gobbles up their now available planets. I joined the federation started by my neighbors to the Galactic East. There followed a long age of peace where I was either too advanced technologically or to far away for any ne'er do wells to try and attack me. The Ancient Old Ones to the Galactic West awoke and began building fleets with the intention of bringing peace to the galaxy by force. I built a line of Star Citadels along the border so as to encourage them to head in a different direction. Despite these tensions, peace remained for many years.

Then the Interstellar Scourge showed up. A race of ravenous hive mind "beholders". Incapable of diplomacy or listening to reason. They entered the galaxy far to the north. The empire initially hit was no match for them and collapsed. Still those races nearest the scourge did nothing. Bickering and warring amongst themselves while the true peril remained unchecked.

We humans wisely saw the real threat and began sending our fleets north to combat the Scourge but it was a long haul to get across the galaxy and while our ships were powerful, the size of the fleets were small. However, our scientists came through in the nick of time by unlocking the mystery of the stellar gates and thus providing our empire the means of near instantaneous travel over mind boggling distance.

We sent our strongest fleet to punch a hole in the Scourge border and then make a dash for a backwater system where they could have the time needed to construct the gate. This was done and we could now send fleets forth to combat the Scourge. The ensuing war took ages to finish. The Scourge multiply at an alarming rate and our so called allies were weak willed at best.

In a grueling back and forth slug fest, the humans were able to get the upper hand and eventually and at long last destroy the remnants of that savage race. In doing so we brought the federation to victory by controlling enough habitable worlds.

I don't know if it counts as a clear cut victory for me as I did not start the federation. However, I controlled about 4 times the number of planets as any other member and I certainly did more than the rest of the universe combined to destroy the scourge.


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19 Mar 2018 16:13 #265986 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
That sounds like a victory to me!!!

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10 Apr 2018 00:41 - 10 Apr 2018 00:43 #267200 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
Got into a huge war with a neighboring hive mind who we'd gone to war with 5 times or so and humiliated over and over. I decided I was done and DOWed them after they refused vassalization. I was not going to take no for an answer.

What followed was a horrifying 10 year genocidal war. The genocide wasn't intentional but apparently hive mind population cannot live in other empires, so when you take over a planet every population member gets starved to death and dies over the course of 2 years or so. No need to roll out my death star.

The reason I'm popping into the thread is to say that Stellaris does have a problem---it's that you really need to understand the war goals system or you'll get in howlingly annoying situations. In this case, you need to conquer every enemy planet to vassalize. I didn't realize that and, unfortunately, my opponent hive mind had a 2 planets enclave on the other side of another neutral empire. By the time I had exterminated my enemy, I had grown so large that neighboring empires saw me as a huge threat and closed borders. That means there would be no vassalization and my only other option was "status quo" which would leave everything exactly as it was before, no border changes. Of course, their population was reduced to about 3% of what it once was, but.... So as a warning, you need to fully understand war goals at the outset when you go to war other you'll just spend endless resources for nothing but a white peace. I get why they do it this way, so a single war loss doesn't end an empire, but it's frustrating.
Last edit: 10 Apr 2018 00:43 by Gary Sax.

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10 Apr 2018 05:20 #267203 by repoman
Replied by repoman on topic Stellaris
A status quo victory will allow you to keep any systems you occupy that you have made a claim to.

So if you've got the influence and the ability to make claims you can chip away at their empire.

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10 Apr 2018 11:36 #267209 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
No ability to make claims with my war settings, unfortunately!!!

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10 Apr 2018 17:51 #267241 by repoman
Replied by repoman on topic Stellaris
Change those settings, foo!

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10 Apr 2018 18:02 #267243 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
Well now they tell me.

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11 Apr 2018 10:21 - 11 Apr 2018 10:33 #267264 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris

repoman wrote: A status quo victory will allow you to keep any systems you occupy that you have made a claim to.

So if you've got the influence and the ability to make claims you can chip away at their empire.


You were sort of right but I don't know why? The "status quo" bar said I would keep anything that I had claims on. Then I hit status quo and I kept *everything* I had taken over, leaving my opponent with like 8 star systems. I didn't have any claims. I did have a subjugate casus belli, I should read up on that.

edit: I did read up on it and it's still weird. I should have only kept the claims but I actually kept the systems as I took them. Must have been a bug.
Last edit: 11 Apr 2018 10:33 by Gary Sax.

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11 Apr 2018 18:51 #267315 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
Our spiritual federation just went a little Donald Rumsfeld/George W and regime changed a neighbor (not my idea). Now going to bring them into our federation since they share our ideology now.

Late game Stellaris is war. It's needs more goals IMHO.

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29 May 2018 02:41 - 29 May 2018 02:44 #274204 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
Obsessively playing a Stellaris game with the new DLC and patch. Main addition of patch was to make the map generate really differently, creating lots of choke points and important sectors and the elimination of anomaly failures---the only thing that changes is how long the anomaly will take to research. Thumbs up. DLC not necessary at all, it's fun for variety as it adds a whole bunch more anomaly event chains to the game to make the early game a little less tired. The real value is in the free patch but, again, I don't mind supporting the game given how much I play it.

My egalitarian militarists dismantled their Hive Mind neighbors quickly in a brutal series of wars. I've never just wrestled anohter empire down in a series of wars, very satisfying. It's some grim ass shit when you take a Hive Mind's planet, their entire population dies of starvation (simulating them being cut off from the Hive Mind) while you just sit there with your armies and navy and watch it happen.

Got the Great Khan event, which I think is reasonably fun but can be quite frustrating. After about 10 epic battles in a heavily fortified sector I submitted to the Khan and was vassalized... which ended when he died from assassination. The problem was that his successor kept the khanate together and it remains almost comically overpowered, though I broke my vassalization with a successful war in the aftermath of the Great Khan. I keep fighting the successor and scratching out white peace at best. Shit, the stagnant ascendancy (hyper powerful "old one" empires that generally sit silently) has gotten into two wars with the khanate but since they're far enough away from each other they usually settle before the fire really starts. Ideally, I could piggyback on the stagnant ascendancy declaring war on the khanate successor and fuck him up really bad while the ascendancy threatens.

I'm biding my time until I can build a titan or doomsday device and end these motherfuckers. It is completely personal now, I'm not even playing to win.
Last edit: 29 May 2018 02:44 by Gary Sax.

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14 Jun 2018 00:38 - 14 Jun 2018 00:49 #275349 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
My abusive relationship with Stellaris continues. I finally satiated my cultist simulator habit and now I'm back.

Having a great game, I've played well, finally beat the khan and took all his planets... vassalized some neighbors like any good democrat. Then The Contingency endgame event happens and it is just monstrously difficult. Just endless 90+ k stacks thrown at you. It is extremely annoying and frustrating (but still sort of fun when I looked back...?) Anyway, had a cool interaction because my precursor race research was on the cybrex. So I liquidated 2 AI hives somehow, triumphantly, but the galaxy was on the ropes. Other races getting destroyed. And then a cool event pops up where the Cybrex emerge (same picture as the contingency but with a cool friendly blue backdrop, ha). Turns out they decided killing organics was wrong and they went into hiding after destroying their brothers, the Contigency. So they toss a couple 90+K stacks and kill their own hive.

So down the last sterilization hub (Contigency base) but it is just impossible. Spitting out fleets over and over. Tempted to quit but I think I'm going to go on, might enter the ship designer which I otherwise *never* use. Contingency fleets are enormous with heavy shields, I'm wondering if corvettes could help...
Last edit: 14 Jun 2018 00:49 by Gary Sax.

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02 Aug 2018 16:02 - 02 Aug 2018 16:03 #279052 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
I have to say that Stellaris is in its most playable form ever right now in its current patches, I can recommend it without reservation. I'm back at it. I finished my first game of Stellaris... ever I think. Domination victory, 40% of the galaxy. It was touch and go but I fucked up the last of the Contingency (same game as above) pretty bad with the help of the Cybrex remnant---they'll gift you fleets, which I did not know.

That said, looking at the twitter account of the person who is the main mechanics designer on the game, things are about to go completely batshit. They're putting in a detailed economy into the game:

twitter.com/Martin_Anward

I'm not sure this is a good idea. In fact, I think it's a bad idea? I'm not sure Stellaris is begging for a detailed population simulator wrt class, etc. We'll see. It'll certainly break the game for the next year after it gets introduced while they fine tune the game.
Last edit: 02 Aug 2018 16:03 by Gary Sax.

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19 Nov 2018 23:09 #286512 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Stellaris
This economy update looks like the biggest change they've ever made to this game. Definitely check out the last 5-10 dev diaries about it. I'm pretty pumped to see how it works, it'll probably be kind of broken at first but it feels like a fundamentally better way to approach planet management.

Also, fuck, this game can be grim:
forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?t...et-and-more.1128640/

I will say that stuff like this creates great galactic villians when I play as a non-fucked up race, even if I never engage the mechanics much myself. Adding the genocidal purifiers civ type did this too. You spawn with one or two in the universe and there is absolutely a clear opponent for you and any non-insane races nearby.

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20 Nov 2018 12:51 #286557 by SaMoKo
Replied by SaMoKo on topic Stellaris
I may try this again, haven’t played since near release. Playing as a genetic purifier race sounds fun :)

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