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While there is a decent amount of overlap between stellaris and eu4 players, it occurred to me that there are plenty who don't know how espionage stuff works there. I'm not saying this is how stellaris will implement it, but I think considering that diplomacy in 4x games tends to be dogshit they're more likely to draw inspiration from their other titles. So you have a number of diplomats you can send to do stuff. One of the things they can do is construct a spy network. Every month the size of your network increases, with modifiers like if you're rivals or if they're far away, or idea/nation/advisor bonuses. The maximum size the network can grow to is 100. Each month there is a chance for the defending nation to discover your spy, which prevents him from working on the network for a year and reducing the size of the network to 25/50/75 (take the current value and drop it to the next value). You can set a diplomat to counter-espionage against a target nation, which increases your chance of detecting their spys and slows the rate they build network. Having a network gives a siege bonus up to +20% (scaled based on size of network from 0-100), and once you have the right tech you get a discount of up to 30% on techs they have that you lack (based on size of network and how far ahead they are on tech). Then you can spend your spy network for various actions, most of which are locked behind various tech gates. Most things last 5 years, though claims last longer and maps are permanent. Fabricate claims (stellaris instead lets you just spend influence to directly claim systems, but this could change in a big diplo update) Justify trade conflict (makes a restricted CB, can't take land but lets you get money or trade power stuff) Support rebels (costs money based on size+type of rebels you support, each month there is a chance the size will increase by 10%, at 100% a revolt happens) Steal maps Slander merchant (reduces their global trade power) Sabotage recruitment (reduces their manpower/sailor recovery rate) Sow discontent (causes unrest and stuff) Sabotage reputation (gives diplomatic malus to them doing stuff) Corrupt officials (gives them +.1 yearly corruption) Agitate for liberty (gives subject +25% liberty desire) Infiltrate administration (lifts fog of war from target nation) So you can do stuff that gives you CB, stuff that raises their administrative costs (corruption, unrest), stuff that reduces their trade income, and info things. Most actions take over 50 spy network to activate, which takes a while to build and require you not to be caught (so if you're running counter-espionage it is pretty hard for them to do the bigger things). Note that there isn't a "blow up ship" or "destroy army" or "take money" or "take monarch point (sort of a combo of unity+research+influence)".
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Feb 28, 2019 21:13
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With the current system espionage should increase the influence cost of your enemy's diplomacy or internal actions.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:28
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I just don't think I've ever played a 4x where spies were anything other than an irritation that I do my best to ignore.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:37
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Aethernet posted:LordMune, is it true? Are you abandoning us to work on not-Vicky-3? It happened pretty fast, but it is indeed true. Now Darkrenown is the sole remaining channel by which goons may reach the dark heart of Stellaris development (he's been doing an excellent job of keeping some of y'all's (less stupid) ideas represented for a while now). I don't want to leave Stellaris, it's very much my baby, but I also want to make sure this unannounced game can realize its full potential. It's going to be big, keep your eyes peeled.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:38
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 Good luck with the next project
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Feb 28, 2019 21:40
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Benagain posted:With the current system espionage should increase the influence cost of your enemy's diplomacy or internal actions. Any espionage system will sort of require updating some systems. I could see actions impacting empire sprawl, admin cap, or empire cohesion in addition to stuff like generating crime or impacting stability/happiness. I wouldn't exactly expect directly increasing influence costs, instead I'd expect to see something like reduced edict duration or something similar. LordMune posted:It happened pretty fast, but it is indeed true. We're still going to expect you to fix stellaris and have an inside line on their plans. Also what is your AV? Because my head can only see some sort of elephant and I know that has to be wrong.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:41
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LordMune posted:I don't want to leave Stellaris, it's very much my baby, but I also want to make sure Victoria 3 can realize its full potential. It's going to be big, keep your eyes peeled.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:43
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ZypherIM posted:We're still going to expect you to fix stellaris and have an inside line on their plans. Also what is your AV? Because my head can only see some sort of elephant and I know that has to be wrong. My avatar has obviously got a beak. It's Helim!
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Feb 28, 2019 21:52
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I'm glad LordMune is working on Victoria 3, this is now canon. In my heart of hearts I'd love Paradox to be making a fantasy game a bit like Stellaris. Or even a fantasy game a bit like EU4 with a full on world that's already there for us to 4x in.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:57
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ZypherIM posted:Slander merchant (reduces their global trade power) All of these are annoying as gently caress though, and it's routine to just have multiple AIs waiting to spam these at you on the countdown and there's effectively nothing you can do about it. These are good examples of what I think Stellaris should avoid.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:03
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:All of these are annoying as gently caress though, and it's routine to just have multiple AIs waiting to spam these at you on the countdown and there's effectively nothing you can do about it. These are good examples of what I think Stellaris should avoid. Remember that there are a *lot* less empires in stellaris than in a game of eu4. This alone means that the number of people potentially targeting you is going to be pretty low (assuming you aren't playing space assholes) and if there is a similar counter-espionage type thing you could neutralize your main rivals. The base time to build 70 network (the average cost for most of those) is 46 months, so they can't exactly spam all of them at you constantly anyways.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:26
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LordMune posted:Now Darkrenown is the sole remaining channel by which goons may reach the dark heart of Stellaris development (he's been doing an excellent job of keeping some of y'all's (less stupid) ideas represented for a while now). LordMune posted:(less stupid)
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Feb 28, 2019 22:32
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ZypherIM posted:Remember that there are a *lot* less empires in stellaris than in a game of eu4. This alone means that the number of people potentially targeting you is going to be pretty low (assuming you aren't playing space assholes) and if there is a similar counter-espionage type thing you could neutralize your main rivals.  Mallus-based espionage tends to be either meaningless in isolation, in which case there's not a lot you can do with it as a player, or crippling in aggregate, in which case all the AI will gang up on and proud nail you into the floor with it, or, most commonly, both, so there's no real point to you using it on your enemies and they're constantly using it on you. Then there's prevention; If there's no way for you to stop being espionaged then it's lovely and frustrating. If there are ways for you to prevent espionage then it becomes a check box tax to prevent interesting things from happening. All put together this is what gives espionage in games a deservedly lovely reputation. The fairly simple sidestep for all these issues, "Don't have mallii* in your espionage system", seems to make people's brains shut down in a crash of  ERROR FILE NOT FOUND*I did this on purpose to hurt people e: Oh hey it's the jackpot page
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Feb 28, 2019 22:46
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I'd like to see an espionage option that could give a CB to the target country on a third party. Basically assassinate a leader and pin it on someone else to try and trigger a war. Obviously has a chance of triggering a war with you. They wouldn't have to use the CB if it would be a really stupid war and maybe increase the chance of discovering the truth the higher the relationship between the two targets? Also a couple new colossus weapons: Genetic override - Kills all robots, converts population to your main species. Available to xenophobes. Pacifist Ray - Converts pop to extreme pacifists and ramps up the targets war exhaustion equivalent to whatever that percentage was of their total population. For pacifists or egalitarians. T-Virus - Planet immediately rebels. Pops become hive-mind devouring swarm.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:52
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To be fair, most of what espionage does boils down to hurting the one on the receiving end. Stealing techs, sure, OK, technically that causes no harm to the one being stolen from. Making the target's factions more or less popular? Nope, that amounts to a direct penalty to happiness and thus production. Hurting relations between allies? Nope, right there in the name. Making resources appear out of thin air? That isn't espionage, that's magic.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:55
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Splicer posted:They look annoying as gently caress to me and I've never even played the game Or you could cap the malus, or only allow a single instance of it. Also are you guys really playing games where everyone else in the galaxy hates you? I mean sure if you're playing a genocidal empire I can see that, but otherwise you should have at least some friends (or people who don't care about you) or go ideaology war people into being friends. I'm not saying it is perfect, but having no way to impact an enemy when you have an espionage system runs counter to the idea of an espionage system. If the espionage system is "do espionage to get some small bonuses while not actually impacting the enemy at all" why have it at all instead of making some sort of interesting system instead? Honestly, it sounds like you just don't want an espionage system and you want something else. Also you avoid counter-espionage being a check box tax by making it an opportunity cost. In eu4 you have a limited number of diplomats, and you'll often want them doing other things, so devoting 1 to counter-espionage is fairly significant most of the time. This turns it into a strategic decision instead. edit: Just want to say, not wanting an espionage system isn't a bad thing. There are valid reasons why it can be annoying and frustrating or unfulfilling. For example, I'd much prefer to have some system to improve space before getting espionage. Or a refinement of diplomatic agreements (more complicated than "blanket defensive pact", see pre-WW1 alliance system poo poo) along with easier to manage claim/cb systems. ZypherIM fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Feb 28, 2019 |
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Feb 28, 2019 23:04
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ZypherIM posted:Or you could cap the malus, or only allow a single instance of it. Making yourself stronger or the enemy weaker has the same relative effect when comparing your two empires. Making yourself strong has the benefit of improving your strength relative to everyone else, while making the enemy weaker reduces their strength relative to everyone else. Being hit by a spy action that makes one of your enemies harder to fight is annoying, being hit by a spy action that makes all your enemies harder to fight is potentially backbreaking. That the vast majority of Spy systems have incredibly lovely options for counterplay(because why interact with it if it is easy to counter) just makes it worse. I'm sure there's some strategy game out there with a fun and engaging espionage system that isn't the primary system in the game, but I've never found one.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:19
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I'm using the word mallus to describe negative modifiers to your empire (or positive modifiers to negative things, like crime), not the entire concept of things you might not like happen to you.Zurai posted:Making resources appear out of thin air? That isn't espionage, that's magic. Zurai posted:Making the target's factions more or less popular? Nope, that amounts to a direct penalty to happiness and thus production. Hurting relations between allies? Nope, right there in the name. These are all tasks with a specific goal designed to change the face of the game; to break up an alliance (or push someone towards you by creating a common enemy), to turn a population more toward your preferred ethics (or away from an ally's), etc. They're agents of change rather than agents of gently caress you. An espionage of reduce your happiness or global diplomacy gain by 5% would be just a mallus, and stupid.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:27
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Cynic Jester posted:Making yourself stronger or the enemy weaker has the same relative effect when comparing your two empires. Making yourself strong has the benefit of improving your strength relative to everyone else, while making the enemy weaker reduces their strength relative to everyone else. Being hit by a spy action that makes one of your enemies harder to fight is annoying, being hit by a spy action that makes all your enemies harder to fight is potentially backbreaking. That the vast majority of Spy systems have incredibly lovely options for counterplay(because why interact with it if it is easy to counter) just makes it worse. When all the other systems in the game that aren't war are already about making yourself stronger, why have the one that interacts with one other empire also be about making yourself stronger? Instead of making yet another anemic and boring espionage system why not be pressing for some other game system? e: Splicer posted:"You just lost a bunch of energy because spies lol" does not lead to interesting decisions or activities. It leads to less decisions and activities because now you're down a bunch of energy. If you see someone dicking with your ally such that they don't like you any more, that gives you options. You can dump some choice trade agreements on them to keep them sweet, or you can go to war with the state actor in question, or you can say gently caress it, I never liked those guys anyway, war it is. If you see someone dicking around with your factions you're again given options. You can use one of the many ethics attraction increasers, or you can murder the instigators, or again you can say gently caress it and embrace the faction. Hey, impacting factions is a malus. And more harmful than all your other examples, because influence is the most restricted resource in the game. ZypherIM fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Feb 28, 2019 |
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Feb 28, 2019 23:27
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Much like the people that advocate a tall playstyle, the fact that there's this cadre of Pro Spying Advocates that won't be deterred no matter how many games it fucks up is pretty amazing to me. What happened decades ago that motivated these folks to eternally search for the one chosen 4x game that can do it... give them the spying stuff that they so love like as soon as you get into the backstabbing and alliances and player diplomacy phase and 200 stack armies squaring off across the globe part of eu4 multi is right where I stop caring about the game. It turns into a giant game of Diplomacy, the board game, and I say that as a very unfortunate thing. From the scaling perspective this stuff doesn't work either. Even in stellaris there's 20-30 AI tags and 1 player tag if espionage affects empires equally then the player will get hosed by espionage actions 30x as often as they get to do them to others, which is lol right out of the gate
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Feb 28, 2019 23:31
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Very good dev diary. Pretty much covers every thought and problem I have with the games current state and gives me optimism. Really just the slowdowns, sectors, and pop control stuff we’re my biggest peeves. Glad to hear about changes to the a.i. And a cleaned up ui. And yes a galactic council/espionage. sounds spiffy for the future. More social opportunities between aliens and factions would be nice. Maybe a few changes to Democracies with their elected mandates and manually juggling around leaders every 10 years
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Feb 28, 2019 23:40
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I'd be happy with an espionage system that gave me visibility of an opponent's space, their ship designs, current fleet destinations and what they are researching. You know, actual intelligence stuff. I also want to jump on the anti-malus bandwagon: late game EUIV is just one slandering after another.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:05
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ZypherIM posted:Also are you guys really playing games where everyone else in the galaxy hates you? I mean sure if you're playing a genocidal empire I can see that, but otherwise you should have at least some friends (or people who don't care about you) or go ideaology war people into being friends. Very routinely. I almost always play with some sort of genocide happening because I find it aesthetically pleasing, and I hate the idea of worrying if my pops are sensibly assigned to jobs, or if a planet has the right ratio of organics to robots, etc. It's very suboptimal playing single species, but whatever. I'd use displacement and just force those pops elsewhere, but it takes too long and everyone hates you for that anyway now I think.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:05
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Splicer posted:The key to a good game system is that it causes you to choose between interesting decisions and responses. "You just lost a bunch of energy because spies lol" does not lead to interesting decisions or activities. It leads to less decisions and activities because now you're down a bunch of energy. If you see someone dicking with your ally such that they don't like you any more, that gives you options. You can dump some choice trade agreements on them to keep them sweet, or you can go to war with the state actor in question, or you can say gently caress it, I never liked those guys anyway, war it is. No, sorry, those are not interesting. The first is a tax, the second doesn't work in any game I can think of, and the third isn't really a decision. quote:If you see someone dicking around with your factions you're again given options. You can use one of the many ethics attraction increasers, or you can murder the instigators, or again you can say gently caress it and embrace the faction. Again, not interesting. The first is a tax, the second again doesn't work, and the third is an even worse tax. quote:These are all tasks with a specific goal designed to change the face of the game; to break up an alliance (or push someone towards you by creating a common enemy), to turn a population more toward your preferred ethics (or away from an ally's), etc. They're agents of change rather than agents of gently caress you. An espionage of reduce your happiness or global diplomacy gain by 5% would be just a mallus, and stupid. Having played with them in EU4, they're not fun or interesting. When the AIs cause a diplomatic rift between you and your ally, that isn't fun. It doesn't create interesting gameplay, it just means you don't have an ally any more. Being hosed over by AIs promoting the poo poo out of your Xenophobe faction in a Xenophile empire wouldn't be fun or lead to interesting decisions, it would just cause your economy to crash or force you to abandon tons of time and work and completely redesign your empire by abandoning/changing your ethoses. That's worse than interesting because it takes the empire you designed and chose and makes you choose between it being ruined or it being ruined.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:24
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Aethernet posted:I'd be happy with an espionage system that gave me visibility of an opponent's space, their ship designs, current fleet destinations and what they are researching. You know, actual intelligence stuff. This sounds reasonable.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:31
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LordMune posted:It happened pretty fast, but it is indeed true. Hope the new project is going to be fun for you to work on! I'm sure it's going to have some cool events. Also agree on spy poo poo, it's never fun when it's "A unknown spy has destroyed your starbase on Zylon III!". Just make it like intel in HOI2 where it's like your intel vs their encryption giving you varying levels of intel like what techs they have, ship designs, planet screens, ship position and so on. Active sabotage cooould be ok if it was fairly passive, but when the effects require the player to re-build a factory or re-build a starbase that really sucks just from a management perspective. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 00:33
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Splicer posted:The fairly simple sidestep for all these issues, "Don't have mallii* in your espionage system", seems to make people's brains shut down in a crash of The declension of malus goes: code:
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Mar 1, 2019 01:08
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Zurai posted:Making resources appear out of thin air? That isn't espionage, that's magic. Call it Illegal Prospecting. There are shitloads of events that create new resources out of nowhere, because you don't actually have complete knowledge of all of the available resources in the territory you control. If your espionage is detected then the victim ends your benefits and gets a resource bonus if it's just income, then it's a 1-way commercial pact that has Smuggling in the name QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 04:26
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Taear posted:I'm glad LordMune is working on Victoria 3, this is now canon. So I'm just saying... CK2 has a fair amount of petty-level power struggles and politics and court-management Paradox owns all of White Wolf's World of Darkness stuff. Vampire the Masquerade is, at a reductive level, petty-level power struggles, poltics, and court management... with vampires. In modern or other times. I want to believe.
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Mar 1, 2019 05:51
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There's an entire Warhammer Fantasy mod for CKII where you can conquer humanity and become Vampire Emperor or whatever.
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Mar 1, 2019 06:06
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What is the strategic difference between a missiles military and a strike craft military?
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Mar 1, 2019 06:55
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Archenteron posted:So I'm just saying...  As someone who came to Paradox with Cities: Skylines and Stellaris, I don't have any real attachment to Vicky 3 other than "It's a joke game that isn't happening, I guess?" But I've spent a lot of time with Bloodlines and an embarrassing amount of time with VtM proper. fake edit: Looking at the same-icon, I wonder. Is there a shark portrait in Stellaris? We don't even have a set of Fish portraits, do we?
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Mar 1, 2019 08:44
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We also need a friendly but hungry hungry looking Hippo portrait.
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Mar 1, 2019 08:58
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Vavrek posted:
I too have never played Vicky 2. But I have come to believe over these many years that on the release of V3 a great quiet will come over the cosmos, all wrongs will be righted and all suffering will cease. Except for a tiny voice at the back of creation calling out, "BRITAIN IS OVERPOWERED."
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Mar 1, 2019 09:00
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Vavrek posted:The declension of malus goes: If he's using the English word malus, he's also (purposefully) pluralizing it wrong (the correct plural is maluses). If he's using the Latin malus for some reason, he's using an adjective as a noun.
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Mar 1, 2019 09:03
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Zurai posted:the second doesn't work in any game I can think of Zurai posted:Having played with them in EU4, they're not fun or interesting. When the AIs cause a diplomatic rift between you and your ally, that isn't fun. It doesn't create interesting gameplay, it just means you don't have an ally any more. Being hosed over by AIs promoting the poo poo out of your Xenophobe faction in a Xenophile empire wouldn't be fun or lead to interesting decisions, it would just cause your economy to crash or force you to abandon tons of time and work and completely redesign your empire by abandoning/changing your ethoses. That's worse than interesting because it takes the empire you designed and chose and makes you choose between it being ruined or it being ruined. e: I keep trying to rephrase that last line so I don't sound like I'm pulling a reasonable Hitler on you. I do think that external and internal politics being something you can solve is a valid thing to want, and ethics manipulation being equivalent to a happiness penalty is not objectively incorrect. I feel differently though. We agree that "Target player loses X resource" type espionage is bullshit, we're just arguing over where the line is drawn. We're also arguing over how much "friendly" espionage is available. Splicer fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 09:45
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Speaking of diplomacy overhauls, has anyone tried this mod? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1663599714
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Mar 1, 2019 09:47
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Staltran posted:If he's using the English word malus, he's also (purposefully) pluralizing it wrong (the correct plural is maluses). If he's using the Latin malus for some reason, he's using an adjective as a noun.
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Mar 1, 2019 09:59
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I finally got into this (bought it near launch but my old rig stuttered a bit too much to really stick with it) and drat, kind of loving it. Just made a federation, uplfited a species, made friends with mole men, found the first league capital next to sirius and now I'm anxiously waiting to get the gate tech working so I can start colonising the far side of the galaxy. Is there anything I can do to beeline fixing gates?
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Mar 1, 2019 12:41
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https://turanar.github.io/stellaris-tech-tree/beta-2.2.3/index.html Take a poke at this tech tree it tells you the weighting, pre-requisites for techs and what you can do to boost chances of them turning up.  Short version - get a particles physics researcher and put him on it and try own a gateway system. Then after T3 Hyperdrives it should show up eventually.
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Mar 1, 2019 12:48
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