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Space Skeleton
Sep 28, 2004

bitterandtwisted posted:

Goddamn my allies suck.
The galaxy is being invaded by the scourge who have 100k fleets all about. My main fleet is 40k and my allies keep setting all their fleets to follow it so we have a 200k+ combined fleet. Twice in a row I've sent my main fleet attack one of the scourge's only for all my allies to nope right out of there. :mad:

I had to abandon a 2.0 game because of that. Don't they know the fate of the galaxy is on the line? :smith:

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sudo rm -rf
Aug 2, 2011


$ mv fullcommunism.sh
/america
$ cd /america
$ ./fullcommunism.sh


man the energy thing just makes what feels like a much slower paced game than 1.9 even slower.

the opposite of what i was looking for

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea
Today I finished my first game of Stellaris. I have 114 hours played.

If anyone else - like me - bought Stellaris, played it a bunch at release, then put it aside thinking, "This is a good framework for a good space game to be built on later but it's not ready yet", then subscribe to the 2.0.2 beta and play it now. But play on a small or tiny map - it got kinda grindy towards the end.

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer

ThatBasqueGuy posted:

Or just cheat yourself a surplus to tide you over while you readjust your empire.

I always try to avoid that. Too much cheating tends to drain the fun out of the game for me. I know myself, if I do this, I'll just abandon the game later anyway and re-start.

Tomn
Aug 23, 2007

And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands
I would love it if there was a diplomatic option for allies that allows you to pay influence to just say "HEY YOU YOUR FLEETS ARE FOLLOWING MINE NOW FOR A YEAR NO gently caress YOU I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BORDERS YOU'RE COMING WITH ME." Make it something that can be accepted or rejected so you can't commit fuckery in multiplayer, but sometimes you really just want to give the AI a boot in the rear end.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

How do you get into force ideology wars? Is it only for pacifists? Seems like something that should be open to egalitarians too. Would love to see more ideology based CB's in general. Let dictatorships with caste system get upset at egalitarian rabble and force them to abandon their dangerous experiment with democracy. Let materialists forcefully teach spiritualists that they don't need holotemples to feel *euphoric*, let egalitarians fight wars to stop purges and slavery and bring the light of democracy to their neighbours.

So often I don't want to invade someone, I just want to change their ethos. Also give us a "force ethos" diplomatic option on our vassals that works a bit like the "force religion" option in EU. Ideally I'd love to play "tall" while building a big network of tributaries and vassals that I've forced to become egalitarian materialists of some sort.

Gobblecoque
Sep 6, 2011

quote:

* Enigmatic fortress now properly disables even after saving and loading the game (status was not properly saved)

I'm not sure if this particular fix requires a new game to go into effect but the Enigmatic Fortress is still busted for me so be wary about going after it.

THE BAR
Oct 20, 2011

You know what might look better on your nose?



Alright, I suppose she had to let go at some point... I'm having a helluva time not picking the Venerable trait, and later on Robust, even if I'm a spiritualist. It's just so nice not having to worry about your scientists keeling over, mostly in the early to mid game.

Magil Zeal
Nov 24, 2008

quote:

* Fixed scientists not dying when their science ship was destroyed in battle

I thought that was intentional, like they'd have a chance to escape. Now I'm sad.

sudo rm -rf posted:

man the energy thing just makes what feels like a much slower paced game than 1.9 even slower.

the opposite of what i was looking for

Yeah I don't think 2.0 is quite the slam-dunk most of the rest of the thread seems to think it is. My problem with Stellaris has always been sitting around waiting for my numbers to tick high enough to do what I want, and the updates haven't addressed that part, if anything, it's made it worse. It's not just the little things, it's the big things too.

There is some good stuff in 2.0/Apoc but there's also a lot I'm iffy on.

Magil Zeal fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Mar 1, 2018

Dongattack
Dec 20, 2006

by Cyrano4747

Crazyeyes24 posted:

Are machine leaders immortal? That seems hella good.

They can break down, but i have the perk that makes that 50% less likely which would give me like 99% uptime or something on level 10 leaders. And if one dies i can just powerlevel him fast with the experience boosting edicts.

TGLT
Aug 14, 2009

THE BAR posted:



Alright, I suppose she had to let go at some point... I'm having a helluva time not picking the Venerable trait, and later on Robust, even if I'm a spiritualist. It's just so nice not having to worry about your scientists keeling over, mostly in the early to mid game.

The best part of Venerable is getting to mock everyone else in a multiplayer game when their leaders die before your's even get a midlife crisis.

Also Transcendent Learning seems like it could be useful with a venerable species.

Eltoasto
Aug 26, 2002

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.



Any tips for this noob for playing as pacifist xenophobes? With the beta patch, I will be starting a new run.

A FESTIVE SKELETON
Oct 2, 2011

TIS THE SEASON BITCH

Dongattack posted:

They can break down, but i have the perk that makes that 50% less likely which would give me like 99% uptime or something on level 10 leaders. And if one dies i can just powerlevel him fast with the experience boosting edicts.

Yeah I’ve been taking leadership level cap stuff for my robots pretty universally because hell Yes level 10 leaders.

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters

Magil Zeal posted:

I thought that was intentional, like they'd have a chance to escape. Now I'm sad.


Yeah I don't think 2.0 is quite the slam-dunk most of the rest of the thread seems to think it is. My problem with Stellaris has always been sitting around waiting for my numbers to tick high enough to do what I want, and the updates haven't addressed that part, if anything, it's made it worse. It's not just the little things, it's the big things too.

There is some good stuff in 2.0/Apoc but there's also a lot I'm iffy on.

I think 2.0 is going to be a parting of ways for some people and Wiz knew that going in. Some things are shaky and are going to get refined, some things are not because they are a statement of purpose and direction and what kind of game Stellaris aspires to be. Much like with the fate of wormhole and warp, not everyone is gonna go home happy and that's okay even if it is unfortunate.

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE
So I keep not paying attention and then looking back and noticing that a bunch of neighboring systems have gone unclaimed and are now spawning pirates. Is this just the AI getting into wars and having its outposts shot to poo poo, or is there another reason this would happen?

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

ulmont posted:

So I keep not paying attention and then looking back and noticing that a bunch of neighboring systems have gone unclaimed and are now spawning pirates. Is this just the AI getting into wars and having its outposts shot to poo poo, or is there another reason this would happen?

Unless an empire is outright killed I can't think of a lot of reasons a system could go totally unclaimed. Maybe some monsters can truly destroy the outpost? But for 99% of things, the outpost can only change hands rather than be destroyed.

frogge
Apr 7, 2006


I found that pushing the tech/unity sliders to 25% really makes the early-to-mid game a lot less of a slog. Finally tech and unity advancements come at a reasonable pace. I never understood why it should take years for a budding interstellar empire to make slightly better farms, or marginally better weapons.

Whoever it was that recommended 75% hyperlane density earlier in the thread needs a medal. That seriously makes chokepoints easier to plan for.

I have over 200 hours in this game and I still haven't had the chance to conquer an entire galaxy or build a dyson sphere...

Libluini
May 18, 2012

I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...
Grimey Drawer
OK, I broke down and tried the patch. Sitrep: The income-hit was less then I feared, and the starbase-tradition I could immediately take with the unity-penalty reduction saved my rear end.

Still, the situation is not good: Immediately after starting, new pirates spawned. As always, they're weird: Our "corrupted units" again got rather obvious help from the standard space pirates. They now came with several cruisers, a ship class I didn't even have yet. (I have the tech, but the energy income to support building them is now gone. Welp.)

Luckily their awesome new ships didn't come with any of our technology, so I could still crush them, albeit with losses. So I guess I won't abandon this save after all, but I have to think about how to unfuck the strategic mess the new patch created. :shepface:

Magil Zeal
Nov 24, 2008

Baronjutter posted:

Unless an empire is outright killed I can't think of a lot of reasons a system could go totally unclaimed. Maybe some monsters can truly destroy the outpost? But for 99% of things, the outpost can only change hands rather than be destroyed.

The Wraiths outright destroy outposts and it's funny to see an empire get carved up by one. Probably not as funny to the one on the receiving end. Some of the raiders can also do this, I know when I decided to get rid of all the raider stations in my midgame one of them sent a retaliatory fleet at me and it destroyed every outpost it came across until I put it down.

Eiba
Jul 26, 2007


Baronjutter posted:

How do you get into force ideology wars? Is it only for pacifists? Seems like something that should be open to egalitarians too. Would love to see more ideology based CB's in general. Let dictatorships with caste system get upset at egalitarian rabble and force them to abandon their dangerous experiment with democracy. Let materialists forcefully teach spiritualists that they don't need holotemples to feel *euphoric*, let egalitarians fight wars to stop purges and slavery and bring the light of democracy to their neighbours.

So often I don't want to invade someone, I just want to change their ethos. Also give us a "force ethos" diplomatic option on our vassals that works a bit like the "force religion" option in EU. Ideally I'd love to play "tall" while building a big network of tributaries and vassals that I've forced to become egalitarian materialists of some sort.
This took me forever to figure out- you need to set your war policy down from "unrestricted wars" to "liberation wars" or whatever it's called. You can no longer make claims but you get to overthrow your rivals' governments. And only for your rivals. If for whatever reason you want to say, liberate the slaves in a tiny empire, or liberate someone who borders your federation but not you, you're out of luck!

Also note, potential federation members are really touchy about your current war policy. Including the people you liberate. So if you're not a pacifist, just an egalitarian, you'll liberate someone, they'll have unrestricted wars by default and not want to join your federation.

What I ended up doing was starting unrestricted, getting an ally who respected that as my first federation member, switched to liberation 10 years later and started messing up my rivals and installing democracy, and then blatantly cheating by tag switching to my more militant original ally and getting them to send the invitation to my federation. The more legit way would be to wait 10 years so you can freely change your war policy immediately after your liberation war, and then basically have to wait 20 years before you can liberate anyone else.

Also note that a liberation war for you is a claim war for your allies that still allow claims, so your newly liberated ally is always going to have a chunk taken out of it by any of your federation members that border it.

In short, liberation wars are messed up and half broken for non-pacifists, but it's technically doable!

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Baronjutter posted:

Unless an empire is outright killed I can't think of a lot of reasons a system could go totally unclaimed. Maybe some monsters can truly destroy the outpost? But for 99% of things, the outpost can only change hands rather than be destroyed.

Wraiths leave a trail of unclaimed systems in their wake.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Dongattack posted:

Hm, with the new ascension perk in the beta that gives 2 levels to leaders my machine leaders can reach level 10 with a government reform and some machine template fuckery. That's 10% more research, 15% more firerate and 10% more resource production across the board. I'm gonna try that, it sounds pretty powerful.
As someone who loves me some leader traits I was super happy to see this. It's a perk just for me!

Has anyone been getting your debris not spawning sometimes? It used to happen, but it seems to be happening a lot more now. I killed some amoebas for nothing :(

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Magil Zeal posted:

The Wraiths outright destroy outposts and it's funny to see an empire get carved up by one.

hobbesmaster posted:

Wraiths leave a trail of unclaimed systems in their wake.

Maybe that's it (I think the devs acknowledged this is a bug), but I haven't seen any wandering skull-ships or gotten a Wraith event notice...and even the curators don't want to talk about any Wraiths (Ether Drake, Stellarite Devourer, and Armored Dreadnought only).

Magil Zeal
Nov 24, 2008

Eiba posted:

In short, liberation wars are messed up and half broken for non-pacifists, but it's technically doable!

Frankly I think they're still broken for pacifists, all the new stuff related to rivalies and tying casus belli to them is, imo, a mess.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Uhg sounds like a bit of a mess right now. Hoping we get some balance/improvements to diplomacy in the short term and hopefully a big overhaul in the next major expansion.

It seems though in the current system that liberation wars should be an option for anyone, and targeted at anyone with a different ideology. The current rival system is not great right now either because so many features and factions trigger based on rivals, but in most games I've played I've had absolutely no possible rival options. I know they're trying to keep wars and diplomacy more "local" but they need to take into account vassals and other federation members for who is a "neighbour" and maybe toss the minimum power balance levels to become a rival.

I think there's already some little mods out there that address this, I think I'll look for some that eliminate some of the restrictions around rivals.

Eiba
Jul 26, 2007


Magil Zeal posted:

Frankly I think they're still broken for pacifists, all the new stuff related to rivalies and tying casus belli to them is, imo, a mess.
Well at least for pacifists the liberated state will actually be able to join your federation without fuckery. And maybe, in theory, will eventually rival their neighbor and declare a liberation war. I mean, if a pacifist AI would ever declare a liberation war on its own initiative.

You're still left with the issue of not being able to liberate people if you get too powerful which is absolute bullshit.

Edit:

Baronjutter posted:

The current rival system is not great right now either because so many features and factions trigger based on rivals, but in most games I've played I've had absolutely no possible rival options. I know they're trying to keep wars and diplomacy more "local" but they need to take into account vassals and other federation members for who is a "neighbour" and maybe toss the minimum power balance levels to become a rival.
If you could rival a tiny empire then you could really get a lot out of that +10% unity for each neighboring rival if you really game it.

I'm fine with the rival system itself. I just have no idea why liberation is tied to rivalry. That doesn't make any sense at all to me in any situation.

Eiba fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Mar 1, 2018

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Also liberation wars should be an option for anyone that has unrestricted wars. It's in the word, unrestricted! It's weird to force a choice between only liberation wars or only wars of conquest.

THE BAR
Oct 20, 2011

You know what might look better on your nose?

Baronjutter posted:

Uhg sounds like a bit of a mess right now. Hoping we get some balance/improvements to diplomacy in the short term and hopefully a big overhaul in the next major expansion.

It seems though in the current system that liberation wars should be an option for anyone, and targeted at anyone with a different ideology. The current rival system is not great right now either because so many features and factions trigger based on rivals, but in most games I've played I've had absolutely no possible rival options. I know they're trying to keep wars and diplomacy more "local" but they need to take into account vassals and other federation members for who is a "neighbour" and maybe toss the minimum power balance levels to become a rival.

I think there's already some little mods out there that address this, I think I'll look for some that eliminate some of the restrictions around rivals.

I've never bothered with federations involving the AI, but you can rival things next to your vassals, no problem.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

THE BAR posted:

I've never bothered with federations involving the AI, but you can rival things next to your vassals, no problem.

It must not count for tributaries then, only proper full vassals?

THE BAR
Oct 20, 2011

You know what might look better on your nose?

Baronjutter posted:

It must not count for tributaries then, only proper full vassals?

That could be it, I wouldn't know.

Bedurndurn
Dec 4, 2008

Crazyeyes24 posted:

Are machine leaders immortal? That seems hella good.

Sort of. They randomly die surprisingly often and they also like to give themselves a negative trait that gives them -10000% experience gain.

I had a string of planetary governors who would take office, hit level 2 or 3 and then decide that they weren't ever going to level up any more, so I fired them. It took 4 firings before we ended up with the governor who actually lasted the rest of the game.

Magil Zeal
Nov 24, 2008

Baronjutter posted:

It must not count for tributaries then, only proper full vassals?

There would be some logic to that, because overlords aren't obligated to protect tributaries. Though I have no idea if that's the actual mechanic.

Staltran
Jan 3, 2013

Fallen Rib
I can rival my tributaries's neighbors just fine. Are you sure they're actually neighbors?

Ham Sandwiches
Jul 7, 2000

Bedurndurn posted:

Sort of. They randomly die surprisingly often and they also like to give themselves a negative trait that gives them -10000% experience gain.

I had a string of planetary governors who would take office, hit level 2 or 3 and then decide that they weren't ever going to level up any more, so I fired them. It took 4 firings before we ended up with the governor who actually lasted the rest of the game.

There's this element of lameness to this stuff in paradox games I can never quite make my peace with. There feels like there's this resistance to letting the player 'break' any given mechanic, no matter how trivial. Standard playstyle is the usual level a leader -> have them gain xp -> have them die off. So an alternative playstyle is offered - all your leaders can be immortal! How cool!

And then the lameness part is that someone decides "Well yeah, but immortal leaders would be too good, so let's make them stop gaining xp, or just randomly die off, and then you still have immortal leaders but it's not too good"

I just don't get it, if you don't want immortal leaders don't make immortal leaders, but don't make them immortal* (but still having most of the same functional drawbacks as mortal) leaders

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Can vassals claim systems or do I need to build outposts and gift them?

THE BAR
Oct 20, 2011

You know what might look better on your nose?

hobbesmaster posted:

Can vassals claim systems or do I need to build outposts and gift them?

Only if you're using the Feudalism civic.

Staltran posted:

I can rival my tributaries's neighbors just fine. Are you sure they're actually neighbors?

Yeah, make sure they're actually touching hyperlanes. Simply having them blob up next to each other doesn't count.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

hobbesmaster posted:

Can vassals claim systems or do I need to build outposts and gift them?

Vassals absolutely claim systems but I have no idea how that ends up working in a war.

Also I think my rivalry problem is that every empire outside of the couple fallen empires averages out to pathetic or inferior. It's not my fault the universe is filled with underdeveloped nations, but I still want to force ideology on them!

THE BAR
Oct 20, 2011

You know what might look better on your nose?

Baronjutter posted:

Vassals absolutely claim systems but I have no idea how that ends up working in a war.

Also I think my rivalry problem is that every empire outside of the couple fallen empires averages out to pathetic or inferior. It's not my fault the universe is filled with underdeveloped nations, but I still want to force ideology on them!

Oh? What's the point of Feudalism, then?

Staltran
Jan 3, 2013

Fallen Rib
^e: There's a terminology mixup here. Vassals do claim their neighbors's systems, but do not build outposts in empty systems. Feudal Society lets them do the latter.
Yeah not letting you rival pathetic countries sucks with how many of the CBs are rival-only. Total war should work on any neighbor if you ask me, and you should be able to force ideology on anyone.

e: What also sucks: not being able to demand tribute when someone is in a war. I don't want to fight the AE, but the other guys are either 1-planet (so I don't want to bother), or are part of two federations that are fighting each other. Of course I've already won this game so I could just quick, but I want to see the crisis.

Staltran fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Mar 1, 2018

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hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

THE BAR posted:

Oh? What's the point of Feudalism, then?

Claiming systems is now separate from setting up colonies hence the question.

Staltran posted:

Yeah not letting you rival pathetic countries sucks with how many of the CBs are rival-only. Total war should work on any neighbor if you ask me, and you should be able to force ideology on anyone.

Probably don't want pathetic neighbors to let you get the bonuses for rivals. Perhaps a "declare annoyance" button needs to be added so you can get the CB?

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