Stellaris: a second Astral Planes has hit the game

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Stellaris: a second Astral Planes has hit the game

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

I always fight the Khan if he's near me, I can't even comprehend wanting to skip that. It's more fun (and profitable!) than a normal war.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 20:58

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 17:28

NatasDog: Feb 9, 2009

ganglysumbia posted:

Are Stellaris MP games at all competitive? Seems a bit gamey instantly surrendering to the Khan in such scenarios.

In the ones we play it's semi-coop until the available territory's been eaten up, and then we start angling to stab each other in the back. A lot of times we're dealing with something approaching galactic war before the endgame crisis pops, at which point we either set our differences aside or hope the crisis thins out the herd in our favor. There's usually 4 of us and we play on a medium galaxy with varying game settings, but we've moved back to CK2 for a while until the Federation DLC drops.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 20:59

Yami Fenrir: Jan 25, 2015; Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?

NatasDog posted:

I get all that, but it's not exactly the worst option to go after him. On harder difficulties it most definitely makes sense to just peace out with him if he spawns early and/or you're right next door to him with no one to back you up, but I've yet to have to do that. Granted, I play with a few friends and that's usually our cue to band our fleets together and smash into the Khan until he's dead, retreating and regrouping as we go. I don't usually mess around with the extra event fleets since taking the Khan himself down is what ends the event.

Like I said, play the game however you want, but I don't really mind the Khan as is. Calling fighting back against a midgame crisis in a game about galactic conquest the 'worst thing you can do' is what I took exception with. To me it's the most fun thing to do. It's pretty satisfying when you finally grind him down to the point that he's weak enough to kill.

I guess it was worded pretty awkwardly.

My point was that militarily, the Khan is either going to overwhelm you with sheer numbers (continuingly throwing 16k+ freespawn fleets your way like, one at a time over and over can be hard to deal with if you're not prepared for it) or he's going to be laughable as he suicides into your death fleet of 60k+ fleet plus 31k citadel because they does not take any sort of danger into account whatsoever.

Despite the game claiming the Khan is a military genius, you know.

# ? Jan 8, 2020 21:22

THE FUCKING MOON: Jan 19, 2008

NatasDog posted:

I get all that, but it's not exactly the worst option to go after him. On harder difficulties it most definitely makes sense to just peace out with him if he spawns early and/or you're right next door to him with no one to back you up, but I've yet to have to do that. Granted, I play with a few friends and that's usually our cue to band our fleets together and smash into the Khan until he's dead, retreating and regrouping as we go. I don't usually mess around with the extra event fleets since taking the Khan himself down is what ends the event.

Like I said, play the game however you want, but I don't really mind the Khan as is. Calling fighting back against a midgame crisis in a game about galactic conquest the 'worst thing you can do' is what I took exception with. To me it's the most fun thing to do. It's pretty satisfying when you finally grind him down to the point that he's weak enough to kill.

I've only every bothered fighting the Khan off once, and that time it was because I was stronger than usual by the time he started doing stuff and I was well positioned to get the achievement for killing him. Usually though, I just imagine my leader signing the Khan's treaty and making a big show of how embarrassed and ashamed he is and how great the Khan is, all the while laughing to his aides about how cheaply they're buying a decade or two of peace

# ? Jan 8, 2020 21:52

DJ Dizzy: Feb 11, 2009; Real men don't use bolters.

Speaking of the Khan and Hordes. Apparently one of the successor states doesn't have any planets, which means I can't make claims for some reason. Any way to fix this?

# ? Jan 9, 2020 00:12

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Yami Fenrir posted:

I guess it was worded pretty awkwardly.

My point was that militarily, the Khan is either going to overwhelm you with sheer numbers (continuingly throwing 16k+ freespawn fleets your way like, one at a time over and over can be hard to deal with if you're not prepared for it) or he's going to be laughable as he suicides into your death fleet of 60k+ fleet plus 31k citadel because they does not take any sort of danger into account whatsoever.

Despite the game claiming the Khan is a military genius, you know.

I've had plenty of games that weren't at either of those extremes. They tend to expand in all directions, so their Doom fleets are less of an issue unless you're literally the only target. Those fleets also don't spawn very frequently, it's about as long as it would take a normal empire to build those ships they just don't have to spend resources (e.g. It's basically the marauder raiding mechanism, the fleet just goes directly to the Khan instead of becoming bribable)

And the thing about the Khan is that he's Khan because he's a tactical genius, representing as a rank 10 admiral that also boosts basically every fleet stat. But he's also leading a warrior race, so he's still going to lead his people into glorious battle even if the odds of victory seem insurmountable. This is a classic scifi trope

# ? Jan 9, 2020 00:49

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

DJ Dizzy posted:

Speaking of the Khan and Hordes. Apparently one of the successor states doesn't have any planets, which means I can't make claims for some reason. Any way to fix this?

You can contact them through the Contacts menu, and then make claims that way

# ? Jan 9, 2020 00:50

DJ Dizzy: Feb 11, 2009; Real men don't use bolters.

Nope!

# ? Jan 9, 2020 01:12

Horsebanger: Jun 25, 2009; Steering wheel! Hey! Steering wheel! Someone tell him to give it to me!

Get a colossus and get the total war CB.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 01:21

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

DJ Dizzy posted:

Nope!

Then there's probably some other reason that you can't make claims on them but it's very likely not because they have no planets, as that's a pretty common outcome for the Khan successor states.

What’s your war philosophy? And are you in a federation?

# ? Jan 9, 2020 02:29

DJ Dizzy: Feb 11, 2009; Real men don't use bolters.

Unrestricted and nope. It doesn't even give me the humiliate option in the declare war screen, they're all greyed out.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 02:47

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

iirc the last time I had something like that happen where a khan successor had no planets, the instant someone modified their border in any way, I believe it was a determined exterminator, the entire khan successor poofed out of existence, finally recognizing it had no actual homeworld

# ? Jan 9, 2020 03:08

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Captain Invictus posted:

iirc the last time I had something like that happen where a khan successor had no planets, the instant someone modified their border in any way, I believe it was a determined exterminator, the entire khan successor poofed out of existence, finally recognizing it had no actual homeworld

Yeah them poofing out of existence is what I'd expect, that's what usually happens when somebody has no planets.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 03:18

ShadowHawk: Jun 25, 2000; CERTIFIED PRE OWNED TESLA OWNER

Captain Invictus posted:

iirc the last time I had something like that happen where a khan successor had no planets, the instant someone modified their border in any way, I believe it was a determined exterminator, the entire khan successor poofed out of existence, finally recognizing it had no actual homeworld

Try gifting them a system without a planet

# ? Jan 9, 2020 04:30

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Are they in an alliance or federation or vassal state etc with anyone else? My next thought was "go after their allies/spacedad"

# ? Jan 9, 2020 05:58

Yami Fenrir: Jan 25, 2015; Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?

QuarkJets posted:

I've had plenty of games that weren't at either of those extremes. They tend to expand in all directions, so their Doom fleets are less of an issue unless you're literally the only target. Those fleets also don't spawn very frequently, it's about as long as it would take a normal empire to build those ships they just don't have to spend resources (e.g. It's basically the marauder raiding mechanism, the fleet just goes directly to the Khan instead of becoming bribable)

And the thing about the Khan is that he's Khan because he's a tactical genius, representing as a rank 10 admiral that also boosts basically every fleet stat. But he's also leading a warrior race, so he's still going to lead his people into glorious battle even if the odds of victory seem insurmountable. This is a classic scifi trope

I guess. The game has a tendency to somehow always end up with at least one marauder empire close to my borders, and somehow it's almost always the closest marauder that goes Khan on me.

Also suiciding into a fortress doesn't seem all that glorious to me but what do I know. :shrug:

# ? Jan 9, 2020 06:38

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

There used to be a great improved dwarven portraits mod on the workshop; where the hell did it go?

# ? Jan 9, 2020 06:43

Ham Sandwiches: Jul 7, 2000

Yami Fenrir posted:

I guess. The game has a tendency to somehow always end up with at least one marauder empire close to my borders, and somehow it's almost always the closest marauder that goes Khan on me.

Also suiciding into a fortress doesn't seem all that glorious to me but what do I know.

This has been my experience as well. I think I've played like 3 campaigns since the great khan content was added and in every case there was a marauder empire pretty much right next to me and my AI neighbors spend the game commissioning them to bring me treats.

The khan iteself always seems to go goofy for me though, I think one campaign they died mysteriously out of nowhere, one campaign they declared their candidacy, asked me if I wanted to pay tribute, then they promptly got wrecked by whoever they attacked and one campaign it never seemed to fire.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 06:46

Yami Fenrir: Jan 25, 2015; Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?

Ham Sandwiches posted:

This has been my experience as well. I think I've played like 3 campaigns since the great khan content was added and in every case there was a marauder empire pretty much right next to me and my AI neighbors spend the game commissioning them to bring me treats.

The khan iteself always seems to go goofy for me though, I think one campaign they died mysteriously out of nowhere, one campaign they declared their candidacy, asked me if I wanted to pay tribute, then they promptly got wrecked by whoever they attacked and one campaign it never seemed to fire.

I've only had it not fire only once. I thought it was a thing that just always happens, like the crisis.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 06:47

Ham Sandwiches: Jul 7, 2000

Yami Fenrir posted:

I've only had it not fire only once. I thought it was a thing that just always happens, like the crisis.

Yeah the one that broke was on my first campaign after the patch , I wanted to see how it would work :smith:

The next two were the underwhelming ones

# ? Jan 9, 2020 06:50

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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QuarkJets posted:

And the thing about the Khan is that he's Khan because he's a tactical genius, representing as a rank 10 admiral that also boosts basically every fleet stat. But he's also leading a warrior race, so he's still going to lead his people into glorious battle even if the odds of victory seem insurmountable. This is a classic scifi trope

Does anyone know if pre-Khan marauders preferentially target stronger empires? And if there's any kind of per-target cooldown on raids or bribes raids?

# ? Jan 9, 2020 08:47

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

In multiplayer games Marauders seem to threaten a nearby player at random (but who knows, maybe there's some other check), and then if that player pays the bribe they make the same threat to the next person and so on. So I suspect that the AI receives Marauder threats too but always just pays them off

I don't think there's a per-Empire cooldown for raids, but the time between raids depends on how much damage is dealt to their fleet + how far away their target is. Marauders will build up a raiding fleet, and once at max strength they have a ticking % chance to start threatening other empires. If someone hires them to go raiding, or if someone fails to pay the no-raiding fee once the threat check triggers, then the fleet departs on the raid and they won't threaten anyone and can't be hired again until their raiding fleet returns and builds up to full strength.

So you can avoid having to pay tribute altogether by just preemptively paying them to go raid your enemies.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 09:20

Yami Fenrir: Jan 25, 2015; Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?

QuarkJets posted:

In multiplayer games Marauders seem to threaten a nearby player at random (but who knows, maybe there's some other check), and then if that player pays the bribe they make the same threat to the next person and so on. So I suspect that the AI receives Marauder threats too but always just pays them off

I don't think there's a per-Empire cooldown for raids, but the time between raids depends on how much damage is dealt to their fleet + how far away their target is. Marauders will build up a raiding fleet, and once at max strength they have a ticking % chance to start threatening other empires. If someone hires them to go raiding, or if someone fails to pay the no-raiding fee once the threat check triggers, then the fleet departs on the raid and they won't threaten anyone and can't be hired again until their raiding fleet returns and builds up to full strength.

So you can avoid having to pay tribute altogether by just preemptively paying them to go raid your enemies.

I've seen AI get raided quite often. I don't know if they just lacked resources or whatever, tho.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 12:28

Black Pants: Jan 16, 2008; Such comfortable, magical pants!; Lipstick Apathy

I like directly bordering a marauder, you get some fun bonuses.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 14:52

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Marauders are great neighbors - you pay them off and they block enemy empires from expanding into you.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 19:34

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Yami Fenrir posted:

I've seen AI get raided quite often. I don't know if they just lacked resources or whatever, tho.

I've seen them get raided, too. But there's no way to differentiate between the AI getting threatened and then raided for not paying the fee versus getting raided because another AI, or the player, paid for it, so it's unclear how willing the AI is to pay them off (I think that they're very willing to just eat the resource cost because that's usually what makes sense for the player, too)

Black Pants posted:

I like directly bordering a marauder, you get some fun bonuses.

Same, there's actually no downside if you're willing to direct them. I guess they block your expansion somewhat but they block other empires too, so it's a wash

# ? Jan 9, 2020 21:32

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

Kaal posted:

Marauders are great neighbors - you pay them off and they block enemy empires from expanding into you.

Yep, it's a secure border you can ignore until the mid game. And you periodically get resources/leaders from them.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 22:34

Ham Sandwiches: Jul 7, 2000

When I did my campaigns the AI would buy out the marauders the tick they came off cooldown so I couldn't hire them against anyone and they were generally sent to raid my poo poo. :thanks:

I think they fixed that in a patch which is cool that you can actually use them.

# ? Jan 9, 2020 22:38

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Ham Sandwiches posted:

When I did my campaigns the AI would buy out the marauders the tick they came off cooldown so I couldn't hire them against anyone and they were generally sent to raid my poo poo.

I think they fixed that in a patch which is cool that you can actually use them.

That's why I was wondering if there was some kind of "Nah we know we can beat them, send us somewhere else" deal if you kept sending then advert the same guys.

# ? Jan 10, 2020 13:09

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

What sort of mods (or incompatibilities) would make you start off with one pop instead of 24?

# ? Jan 11, 2020 01:43

Guigui: Jan 19, 2010; Winner of January '10 Lux Aeterna "Best 2010 Poster" Award

I think Guilli's planet modifiers also comes with some unique starting civics (Such as play as an ancient awakened precursor, but only start with 1 pop, but with 1 ancient precursor building).

# ? Jan 11, 2020 03:48

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

Guigui posted:

I think Guilli's planet modifiers also comes with some unique starting civics (Such as play as an ancient awakened precursor, but only start with 1 pop, but with 1 ancient precursor building).

Figured it out. It was an ancient civics mod from 2017 that was messing poo poo up.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 04:23

Grandpa Palpatine: Dec 13, 2019; by vyelkin

Any idea when this next update is coming out? I can't find anything from the dev diaries.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 04:25

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Grandpa Palpatine posted:

Any idea when this next update is coming out? I can't find anything from the dev diaries.

No date yet, I believe.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 05:59

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

If they bungle the next update and/or don't fix their lovely launcher, I hope the devs socks stay forever wet.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 07:37

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

May they dodge an upturned plug only to heavy step on a Lego

# ? Jan 11, 2020 08:54

GunnerJ: Aug 1, 2005; Do you think this is funny?

Grouchio posted:

Figured it out. It was an ancient civics mod from 2017 that was messing poo poo up.

Which one?

# ? Jan 11, 2020 13:32

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Grouchio posted:

If they bungle the next update and/or don't fix their lovely launcher, I hope the devs socks stay forever wet.

A fate worse than death, especially in Sweden.

Also, I agree with you.

# ? Jan 11, 2020 14:24

Duodecimal: Dec 28, 2012; Still stupid

GunnerJ posted:

Which one?

If you're trying to decide which mod might be causing you problems and you have more than one that hasn't been updated since 2017...

# ? Jan 11, 2020 16:33

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 17:28

GunnerJ: Aug 1, 2005; Do you think this is funny?

That's not what I'm trying to do, I'm just curious which mod it was!

# ? Jan 11, 2020 16:44

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