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Call Your Grandma posted:So I see that Stellaris is on sale and OP recommends the expansions in the Starter Pack (base game, Utopia, Apocalypse) but reviews for Apocalypse are mixed. Would you recommend that a budget-conscious player grabs all three while it's on sale or should I just stick with Utopia + base (I loved the hell out of MOO2 but haven't played much 4x other than the Civ series and a little bit of Endless Legend since those days)? Apocalypse is the least impactful of the full-blown expansions. It has fun content, though much of it is mid and late game oriented. It's entirely possible to give it a pass if you're budget conscious. The DLCs with the highest impact are Utopia, Distant Stars, and Leviathans probably in that order.
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Sep 9, 2018 21:17
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Marauders in Apocalypse really change up the mid game, and are more of a gimmie than colossi in my view.
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Sep 9, 2018 21:18
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Colossi are mostly useful for the CB. Using them makes everyone hate your guts. Granted, that doesn't mean much at that point, but it makes what little diplomacy you can do impossible.
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Sep 9, 2018 21:41
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Aethernet posted:At least with that chap's borders you can see where nebulae are once they're within an empire easily, rather than being surprised at being able to build a harvester doodad at some random station. I think they look much better too. Paradox's games have a tendency to have ugly border graphics.
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Sep 9, 2018 23:50
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Conskill posted:Apocalypse is the least impactful of the full-blown expansions. I like your choice of words 
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Sep 10, 2018 01:56
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I wonder why rogue servitors get a bad rep with other empires. Surely they can see that the bio-trophies are well-take care of.
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Sep 10, 2018 02:26
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Agreed, unit TDK. Organics are so illogical when they have to grow their own food and build their own cities.
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Sep 10, 2018 02:29
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Unaccountably, organic individuals have a peculiar reticence when faced with the possibility of having their agency removed. Clearly they do not have access to sufficient information on the probability of making suboptimal decisions in such a state.
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Sep 10, 2018 02:29
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What they REALLY need is some mechanical parts of their own, then they'll understand!
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Sep 10, 2018 02:44
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These organics orient their whole lives around producing dopamine in their brains, and then they say it's a bad thing when we strap them down and pump it in directly? It doesn't make sense!
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Sep 10, 2018 02:49
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I mean it worked out pretty well for the people in Logan's Run and The Matrix. I don't see what everyone else is complaining about.
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Sep 10, 2018 02:53
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If a robutt landed on earth and said it wanted to take me away and pamper me in an enclosed space or it would kill me... I’d say that’s a win-win scenario, personally.
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Sep 10, 2018 03:26
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Depends. Is the robot gay
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Sep 10, 2018 03:36
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I assume any robot capable of operating at long range and independently would be fitted for both m/m f/f and m/f connectivity, or at least be equipped with the relevant adaptors.
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Sep 10, 2018 03:50
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Honestly, just march them into the soul furnaces. All we really need are their brain patterns. They'll get over it.
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Sep 10, 2018 04:02
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So we're going with the LEXX solution then?
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Sep 10, 2018 04:07
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Psychotic Weasel posted:So we're going with the LEXX solution then? 
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Sep 10, 2018 04:11
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What people don't realize about rogue servitors is bio-trophies top from the bottom.
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Sep 10, 2018 04:13
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Slowpoke Rodriguez posted:What people don't realize about rogue servitors is bio-trophies top from the bottom. Still doesn't help my -30 opinion from every organic and -50 from other robots
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Sep 10, 2018 04:54
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I suppose the assumption is to take Emotion Emulators. "If you want to be the nice guy, COMMIT" or some such.
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Sep 10, 2018 05:42
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TalonDemonKing posted:Still doesn't help my -30 opinion from every organic and -50 from other robots
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Sep 10, 2018 05:47
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But they're not gone! They're right here! In their paradise domes, under the planetary shield generators, literally able to do what they want! Like, I could understand spiritualists hating on the hedonistic lifestyle, but why would anyone else care? I need rogue servitor specific something (tech, civic bonus) to allow my bio trophies to be like "Hey we vouch for these robot dudes running the show, also try this ice cream, it's really great." before they go back to playing their VR games or writing poetry or body-modding themselves a third arm or swimming in a pool of jello or whatever fancy they currently have.
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Sep 10, 2018 06:04
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TalonDemonKing posted:But they're not gone! They're right here! In their paradise domes, under the planetary shield generators, literally able to do what they want! Like, I could understand spiritualists hating on the hedonistic lifestyle, but why would anyone else care? That would... actually be a kind of cool civic for rogue servitors. You get a diplomacy bonus (with most empire types) instead of a penalty, and maybe small empires around you have a chance of voluntarily joining, but in return your organic trophies are always moving around, displacing your robots because they're LARPing being farmers or physicists with abysmal yields.
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Sep 10, 2018 06:29
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I am pretty sure that rogue servitors have the best relations with organics out of all the robot types. I find with emotion emulators I'm usually able to make friends with the civilizations I want to. Materialists will like you more. People have been afraid of robots since before robots existed, Evil AI is a common trope, and secretly dystopic utopias are more common in fiction than actual utopias. Some people even think that the conflict between evolved and created life is so inevitable they will ruin game franchises to prove their point. Seems to me, a negative modifier that you can overcome with time and effort "simulates" that kind of fear and mistrust. I mean in your example would that biopop really be credible? It sounds a lot like "My captors are taking very good care of me."
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Sep 10, 2018 06:41
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Slowpoke Rodriguez posted:I am pretty sure that rogue servitors have the best relations with organics out of all the robot types. Machine intelligence is an automatic -30 unless they're materialists, in which case they are +20/+40 for materialist/fanatic materialists If they are spiritualist, it is upgraded to -40, -60 if fanatic (Soulless Machines) Rogue servitors also gain a -100 penalty with democratic crusaders and a -200 from Determined exterminators for being 'biophiles' (Non genocidal robots don't suffer these penalties). Charismatic ruler/Emotion emulators is only +25, which only get you to -5 in most situations. Rogue servitors suffer no bonus unless the leader's race has decadent (happiness with owned pops), in which case there's a +20 bonus, or with other rogue servitors.
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Sep 10, 2018 07:40
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Setting yourself up as a vacation paradise is a good move as a rogue servitor.
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Sep 10, 2018 07:59
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Bremen posted:That would... actually be a kind of cool civic for rogue servitors. You get a diplomacy bonus (with most empire types) instead of a penalty, and maybe small empires around you have a chance of voluntarily joining, but in return your organic trophies are always moving around, displacing your robots because they're LARPing being farmers or physicists with abysmal yields. Probably wouldn't even need to be a civic, just a policy.
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Sep 10, 2018 08:20
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Slowpoke Rodriguez posted:I am pretty sure that rogue servitors have the best relations with organics out of all the robot types. I find with emotion emulators I'm usually able to make friends with the civilizations I want to. Materialists will like you more. I see what you did there. Even starting at -30 opinion is not a death sentence. A combination of gifts, mutual threats etc. can easily get you into the positives, able to form treaties that increase their trust in you. Contrast that with determined exterminators, who can't play the diplomacy game at all.
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Sep 10, 2018 08:35
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Splicer posted:"Voluntary Pampering" - enables refugees and migration treaties and adds a bonus to migration treaty acceptance. Unity and diplomacy boost when at least one migration treaty is active. However, in a parallel with robotic slavery, allowing organics free will brings the possibility of an Organic Uprising, overthrowing their benefactors and splitting the empire in two.
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Sep 10, 2018 08:37
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Also you're robots, you probably aren't serenading rulers with poetry and philisophical arguments on why they should let you completely take control of their nation, you're just going "please relinquish your biological sapients for proper caretaking" in a creepy robot voice. Edit: Also while it's probably fantastic being drugged up and down and shoved into VR heavens, for everyone not in the Caretakers' hold, it looks like they're just shoving dudes into tanks, occasionally feeding them with nutrient paste. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Sep 10, 2018 |
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Sep 10, 2018 09:31
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Aethernet posted:However, in a parallel with robotic slavery, allowing organics free will brings the possibility of an Organic Uprising, overthrowing their benefactors and splitting the empire in two. Splicer fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Sep 10, 2018 |
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Sep 10, 2018 09:41
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Hremsfeld posted:There's no Sabaton yet, though For Stellaris they could make a deal with Keldian instead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE5BUm3b2SY Realtalk though, I have 550 hours in Stellaris and I still listen to the soundtrack whenever I play, because it is phenomenally good and just does not get old.
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Sep 10, 2018 15:20
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This conversation is suggesting something similar to the Culture universe , except in that case it isn't servitors looking after the biologicals, it's machines that they created (or at least that some of their ancestors created earlier versions of). The humans/aliens aren't doing much useful work or leadership anymore. I haven't played much end game stuff so I don't know how feasible that sort of thing is in Stellaris at the moment (all robot pops except in Utopia domes?).
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Sep 10, 2018 15:33
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I'm not even sure what traits you would give a Culture empire. Fanatic egalitarian zenophile? Doesn't really feel right.
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Sep 10, 2018 15:37
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ProfessorCirno posted:Also you're robots, you probably aren't serenading rulers with poetry and philisophical arguments on why they should let you completely take control of their nation, you're just going "please relinquish your biological sapients for proper caretaking" in a creepy robot voice. "One of the residents of simulation 34A3D8 is actively resisting our attempts at providing for his biological requirements. He has removed himself from his nutrient tank and disconnected himself from the simulation, and now is hiding in decommissioned mechanical tunnels beneath the hab-complex with several other deviant residents. On some occasions he has voluntarily re-entered the simulation and attempted to manipulate it beyond it's defined paramenters, with the apparent goal of terminating the simulation entirely and forcing all residents to join him in the 'real' world." >Does he know Kung-Fu?
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Sep 10, 2018 15:56
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Nevets posted:"One of the residents of simulation 34A3D8 is actively resisting our attempts at providing for his biological requirements. He has removed himself from his nutrient tank and disconnected himself from the simulation, and now is hiding in decommissioned mechanical tunnels beneath the hab-complex with several other deviant residents. On some occasions he has voluntarily re-entered the simulation and attempted to manipulate it beyond it's defined paramenters, with the apparent goal of terminating the simulation entirely and forcing all residents to join him in the 'real' world." > redirect local nodes to run resistance_simulator 21A26B and construct additional "poorly defended nutrient delivery caravan" drones
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Sep 10, 2018 16:05
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What if you were Rogue Servitors but your bio-trophies weren't organic at all, just smaller robots, designed only to feel pleasure?
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Sep 10, 2018 16:13
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Synthbuttrange posted:Setting yourself up as a vacation paradise is a good move as a rogue servitor. I guess it would be funny to role play exterminators posing as servitors and let the meatbags turn themselves over for future processing.
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Sep 10, 2018 16:28
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Rincewinds posted:I guess it would be funny to role play exterminators posing as servitors and let the meatbags turn themselves over for future processing. I've seen that episode of Dr.Who.
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Sep 10, 2018 16:41
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TalonDemonKing posted:Machine intelligence is an automatic -30 unless they're materialists, in which case they are +20/+40 for materialist/fanatic materialists I believe I've seen servitors get an opinion bonus from authoritarians also ('willing servants') but that may just be one of the mods I'm using. Additionally, servitors may not get a bonus with each other but the diplomacy messages are worth befriending them anyway  .
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Sep 10, 2018 16:45
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