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Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

Aethernet posted:

Obviously it doesn't. What I want from it - and what I suspect a lot of people saying replayability want from it, is something like a Dwarf Fortress-esque Space Opera Generator that lets one play God-Emperor in a vast and mysterious galaxy. This is functionally the premise of the game, which is why I keep replaying it to see if this time it's turned into the thing I want it to be - because the devs seem to want that too.

But there's all this guff that gets in the way of this vision, like troop transport stances resetting after every invasion or randomly misfiring crisis mechanics that mean it never quite gets there. So I come back, time after time, to see if this time Stellaris has really changed.

So far it hasn't, but I'm pretty sure I'll continue coming back and complaining for as long as it's in development.

I think most people want Stellaris to feel like playing Rimworld but it never gets close to giving that experience.

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bob dobbs is dead
Oct 8, 2017

I love peeps
Nap Ghost
lotsa peeps wanna be dwarf fortress but none of em do any dwarf fortress rear end poo poo

except for tynan basically lol

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

Captain Oblivious posted:

Stellaris is not a wargame.

It is a "number go up" game and different people will find their preferred way to make number go up, as it must.

I do kinda have trouble saying it's not a wargame when a player playing it as one can just conquer you if you don't play it as a wargame.

Same thing as the Civ games. You can win a peaceful science victory but only if you've got a giant military, or if the other players let you win.

feller
Jul 5, 2006


Gort posted:

I do kinda have trouble saying it's not a wargame when a player playing it as one can just conquer you if you don't play it as a wargame.

Same thing as the Civ games. You can win a peaceful science victory but only if you've got a giant military, or if the other players let you win.

The presence of a military doesn’t automatically make something a war game imho

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

yikes! posted:

The presence of a military doesn’t automatically make something a war game imho

I mean, if it's not a wargame then it's a game with a degenerate strategy - war

feller
Jul 5, 2006


Gort posted:

I mean, if it's not a wargame then it's a game with a degenerate strategy - war

TBH I think that’s pretty much a true description of the 4X genre and why I was pretty disappointed they made stellaris one

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea
how is a game where the endpoint is exterminate not a war game

I'll drop it, this is not the me thread

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

Gort posted:

I mean, if it's not a wargame then it's a game with a degenerate strategy - war

It's quite simple, imho: Can you use non-war methods to undermine and defeat an opponent? If the answer is "yes", it's not a wargame.

I just brought up the example of using diplomacy to outmaneuver and isolate an enemy in my last post. Those bastards sure can still fight wars, but the entire galaxy is arranged against them, so the only way for them to survive is to not do anything. If they actually start a war, they get destroyed.

In a real war game you can't really use non-war methods to utterly demolish an enemy before the fighting even starts, since that would defeat the entire purpose of a war game.

Arguable, it's a matter of choice. A true war game is something like BattleTech, where nothing not directly related to fighting is even possible: You never "negotiate" with your opponents, you just fight them until they are dead, then take another contract and repeat.

There's also an entire mountain of WWII-related games like this. They're their own sub-genre of strategy games and if you start just listing every game you can think off with the characteristics "is strategy" and "allows wars to happen", you end up collecting a whole bunch of games who have not a lot in common with each other. At that point, why not start calling FPS-games with war-related stories "war games", too? They have wars and you fight in them, after all!

Gato The Elder
Apr 14, 2006

Pillbug
I don’t understand the people losing their minds over this updated the new pop changes are great and the game is fun. This is easily one of their best updates and I love how there’s a real choice to make between building city districts or industrial districts (although I think they need to add some sort of additional benefit to the city-district-equivalent for ringworlds- you start with all building slots unlocked and I’ve never felt the need to build them)

Anyway. I’m playing in a friendly multiplayer game and went with ringworld (despite the habitability nerfs I actually think it’s stronger post patch ...) + barbaric despoilers (pop abduction was always good but it’s now my absolute favorite play style and I hope they never change it). I have the grunr precursor and haven’t finished excavating everything yet, but that’s basically ideal; even without it though it is fairly easy to creat a habitat system for providing all the minerals that a rug world start is lacking (gaia world terraforming might work too but I always have trouble getting the requisite tech in a timely fashion).


I’ll probably try and branch out from my rude-alien-abductor civs at some point - maybe go all in on civics that give more envoys? I haven’t tried to play as egalitarian nice aliens in a while so that might be fun 🤔. Or maybe the terravore jerks that people have been talking about?

FileNotFound
Jul 17, 2005


fashionly snort posted:

I don’t understand the people losing their minds over this updated the new pop changes are great and the game is fun.....


Anyway. I’m playing ....barbaric despoilers


:allears:

Plays the most broken build of 3.0. Is confused why everyone else is bent out of shape.

Horace Kinch
Aug 15, 2007

Anias posted:

Turn off jobs that suck entirely. This usually means clerks.

By excess I meant "all of them." :v:

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001
Damnit, L-Drakes again. Just once I'd like to get the Grey Tempest.

E: I seem to have telefragged them, or their destination system didn't exist.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Apr 22, 2021

Mr. Crow
May 22, 2008

Snap City mayor for life

FileNotFound posted:

:allears:

Plays the most broken build of 3.0. Is confused why everyone else is bent out of shape.

Keep crying about it I guess

Mr. Crow
May 22, 2008

Snap City mayor for life
My only complaint about the new patch is they still haven't expanded the tier 2/3 resource icon to just show all resources on the top bar, it's so loving annoying (and an easy fix with mods but then you have to wait for the mod to update...)

FileNotFound
Jul 17, 2005


Mr. Crow posted:

My only complaint about the new patch is they still haven't expanded the tier 2/3 resource icon to just show all resources on the top bar, it's so loving annoying (and an easy fix with mods but then you have to wait for the mod to update...)

Keep crying about it I guess

Technical Analysis
Nov 21, 2007

I got 99 problems but the British ain't one.
I've been enjoying the new changes. I'm in a void dwellers game where I've converted all my pops into robots. I was able to hold off a big unbidden fleet by the skin of my teeth, and with a little help from an awakened empire. Then the other one woke up and they let the unbidden threat grow while they had their slap fight. So I joined the league, focused everything I had on the unbidden, and once they were sorted, turned my eyes on the awakened empires which have grown to a pretty big size at this point.

I'm enjoying the new mechanics with pops, even on a large galaxy there's almost no late game slowdown. I think I'm at something like 2k pops now.

I think once the awakend fellas are sorted out I'm going to try and use diplomacy to get as many vassals/protectorate as I can and just integrate them all. Gonna wipe out all biological life with kindness.

Yami Fenrir
Jan 25, 2015

Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?

Shumagorath posted:

Damnit, L-Drakes again. Just once I'd like to get the Grey Tempest.

E: I seem to have telefragged them, or their destination system didn't exist.

Not to be that guy, but... are you using some sort of mod?

Because iirc Grey Tempest has a ridiculously high chance to be the outcome.

But then again there are some people that apparently haven't seen the Unbidden yet when I wished they'd stop showing up every game in 2.8...

Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

Yami Fenrir posted:

Not to be that guy, but... are you using some sort of mod?

Because iirc Grey Tempest has a ridiculously high chance to be the outcome.

But then again there are some people that apparently haven't seen the Unbidden yet when I wished they'd stop showing up every game in 2.8...

I haven't gotten the Unbidden in years. Like probably not since release year. I usually get Contingency.

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

Thom12255 posted:

I haven't gotten the Unbidden in years. Like probably not since release year. I usually get Contingency.

My last run before 3.0 happened was the first time in ca. 4 years that I managed to get the Unbidden to show up. I guess until my peaceful empire of space foxes got infiltrated by spiritualists everyone just loved robots too much for the Contingency to not happen!

Now in my first run after the patch, I've manually switched crisis to Prethoryn, since I've never seen those guys, ever. I'm kind of curious, so I even left them on default strength instead of depowering them like I did with the crisis pro-choosing.

Yami Fenrir
Jan 25, 2015

Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?
Did y'all just not research Jump Drives or something?

Because doing that was basically a "Lock in Unbidden as the crisis" option for me back in the day.

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

FileNotFound posted:

:allears:

Plays the most broken build of 3.0. Is confused why everyone else is bent out of shape.

I'm play normal rear end robots with like 20 worlds and some habs and yeah dude poo poo seems fine

Yami Fenrir
Jan 25, 2015

Is it I that is insane... or the rest of the world?
I'm having the time of my life not resettling poo poo or building housing or yet another alloy factory every 2 minutes no matter what I play tbh

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001

Yami Fenrir posted:

Not to be that guy, but... are you using some sort of mod?

Because iirc Grey Tempest has a ridiculously high chance to be the outcome.

But then again there are some people that apparently haven't seen the Unbidden yet when I wished they'd stop showing up every game in 2.8...
Captain difficulty, 100% vanilla, every time I open the L-Gates I get the L-Drakes. Granted it's only 3-4 games but it's 100% dragons so far (I can't remember if my original playthrough had Distant Stars).

I've also never seen the Unbidden in spite of last game going early Psi jump drive and putting off synths as long as possible. I seriously considered making them the crisis option when I was setting this game up.

Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Apr 22, 2021

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001

This species isn't in my empire or even the galaxy, but this alert has been popping up since early game when I got my first genetic mod tech. That's the robot icon...?

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

Shumagorath posted:


This species isn't in my empire or even the galaxy, but this alert has been popping up since early game when I got my first genetic mod tech. That's the robot icon...?

I remember something similar to this happening when I had primitives on one of my planets

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

fashionly snort posted:

I think they need to add some sort of additional benefit to the city-district-equivalent for ringworlds- you start with all building slots unlocked and I’ve never felt the need to build them


For my "Oops! All science" segment I think I built one housing district, for the clerks and to house all the scientists from buildings, since the research segment is 1:1. I'm guessing this would hold true for any configuration. It's basically the same as on planets, all districts provide as many houses as jobs and housing districts are for jobs from buildings, but far more noticeable on ringworlds since you have so many more jobs from districts compared to buildings?

Fuligin
Oct 27, 2010

wait what the fuck??

And Tyler Too! posted:

What I usually do is immediately set trade policy to consumer benefits and economy to militarized, send out 4 scientists to survey (sell excess food/consumer goods to get some early energy). When my first ascension tree is active I almost always pick expansion first because spending less influence to take systems and colonies starting with an extra pop makes it an insanely good choice. I'd like to adopt Discovery first and then fill out Expansion but 200 influence for Map the Stars is BULLSHIT. After that I focus on getting a good supply of minerals rolling, since those are your lifeblood early on. Always put up orbital stations as soon as possible, since it's free stuff and really begins to pay for itself with upgrades that increase mining/research station output. The upkeep becomes an afterthought very quickly. After that I focus on building up my energy/mineral income so when I start gunning for alloys+research I won't nosedive my basic resource income. Industrial districts+consumer benefits (remember to scoop up trade value with starbases) covers scientist upkeep. I keep my food income in the positive but I don't need to prioritize it, just have enough to keep the pops from starving and enough for colony ships and then add more food jobs as needed. Once I've got my first 2 colonies up the one with the most generator districts becomes a dedicated generator world, the other one becomes a forge world. After that my economy is stable enough that I can generally do whatever. I personally am very anal about staying under my sprawl cap so I'll find some lovely small planet and if the habitability is good it becomes my bureaucrat world. Once stability drops below 50 I start adding holo-theaters, gotta have amenities. If I see an excess of clerks, it's time to build a useful building/industrial district.

Good post.


Anyone have recs on giulli-tier mods?

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters

Gort posted:

how is a game where the endpoint is exterminate not a war game

I'll drop it, this is not the me thread

Because the long history of the 4X genre has shown us that a ton of people don’t do the eXterminate part much or in some cases at all.

So we are left to face reality then rather than theory. Reality is that it’s a numbers go up game and that sometimes numbers go up by way of war.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

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

Yami Fenrir posted:

I'm having the time of my life not resettling poo poo or building housing or yet another alloy factory every 2 minutes no matter what I play tbh
Yeah once it twigged that most planets should be left as rural feeder planets that spawn unemployed farmboys to move to the big city the new setup got much more fun.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Apr 22, 2021

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

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

Shumagorath posted:


This species isn't in my empire or even the galaxy, but this alert has been popping up since early game when I got my first genetic mod tech. That's the robot icon...?
Check if you have an uncolonized planet with pre-sapients on it.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

Captain Oblivious posted:

Because the long history of the 4X genre has shown us that a ton of people don’t do the eXterminate part much or in some cases at all.

So we are left to face reality then rather than theory. Reality is that it’s a numbers go up game and that sometimes numbers go up by way of war.

It also varies wildly with how you play. If your goal is to find the traits, civics and build order/strategy to reach a "Victory!"-screen as quickly as possible/with as high score as possible, your approach to the entire thing is going to be very different than if you say, start with a combination of ethics or like a personality for your empire, and then go off into space and see what happens if you let their choices play out. For war especially, in case nr 1, war is always going to be the best. Federations and friendships are fine, but a planet in the hand is worth 20 in the bush, and ruling over everything is probably both the quickest and highest scoring win. But if roleplaying a type of empire, war might be unthinkable! Or a last resort! Or fine, but only if X or Y etc.

A lot of the people disappointed with the changes seem to be the first type. And that's fine! That's a totally valid way to play and think. But then a lot of other people don't play that way, and for many of us, it's not a wargame and "some of my planets are suboptimally empty" doesn't matter, and that's also fine.

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

One thing I've noticed from running a few observer games is that the AI has a terrible time pulling a planet out of unrest unless it already has a free building slot to build holo projectors. It doesn't seem to be aware it can build a city district to create a new building slot, and it also doesn't replace buildings if that's the only way to solve the problem. I've seen this lead to horrible economic death spirals that it rarely recovers from.

Gato The Elder
Apr 14, 2006

Pillbug

Phosphine posted:

For my "Oops! All science" segment I think I built one housing district, for the clerks and to house all the scientists from buildings, since the research segment is 1:1. I'm guessing this would hold true for any configuration. It's basically the same as on planets, all districts provide as many houses as jobs and housing districts are for jobs from buildings, but far more noticeable on ringworlds since you have so many more jobs from districts compared to buildings?

yeah, that makes sense! I still think it might be a better choice to spend a building slot on housing than a district slot on housing (for ring worlds, where my district slots are more precious than my building slots). But I might be thinking about it wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aethernet
Jan 28, 2009

This is the Captain...

Our glorious political masters have, in their wisdom, decided to form an alliance with a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters right when the Federation has us at a tactical disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in the Feds firing on our vessels...

Damn you Huxley!

Grimey Drawer

Shumagorath posted:


This species isn't in my empire or even the galaxy, but this alert has been popping up since early game when I got my first genetic mod tech. That's the robot icon...?

This normally means you have presapients you can uplift. Look at your species menu, or find a planet with a negative number of jobs.

Yes, it makes no sense.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

fashionly snort posted:

yeah, that makes sense! I still think it might be a better choice to spend a building slot on housing than a district slot on housing (for ring worlds, where my district slots are more precious than my building slots). But I might be thinking about it wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I honestly didn't even consider a housing building, no idea which works out the best/most sciency. Apart from resort worlds I never build housing buildings, it just...feels inefficient somehow, with a district for it right there! Depends on how many you'd have to build, but you can burn down quite a few research labs before it's comparable to one research segment, so that's probably better actually.

Jabarto
Apr 7, 2007

I could do with your...assistance.
As someone who generally likes the update I have to admit I got little tired of people barging in and saying "I DONT GET WHAT PEOPLE ARE COMPlAINING ABOUT" after about the third or fourth time when I and several others have outlined our issues with the new system, in itemized lists, as recently as three pages ago.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011
"I don't get" can mean both "I have not heard or do not comprehend this," or alternately "I find the argument made in this unconvincing or founded on premises I think are false."

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

Cease to Hope posted:

"I don't get" can mean both "I have not heard or do not comprehend this," or alternately "I find the argument made in this unconvincing or founded on premises I think are false."

Which comes back to what Phosphine said about players with different goals

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine

fashionly snort posted:

and the game is fun

Mods, ban this sick filth.

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Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

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

Tarnop posted:

One thing I've noticed from running a few observer games is that the AI has a terrible time pulling a planet out of unrest unless it already has a free building slot to build holo projectors. It doesn't seem to be aware it can build a city district to create a new building slot, and it also doesn't replace buildings if that's the only way to solve the problem. I've seen this lead to horrible economic death spirals that it rarely recovers from.
It's a weighting system, so from my understanding it doesn't go "I'm low on amenities, better build holo theatres" so much as "time to build a thing, my low amenities has increased holo theatres weighting, I will build holo theatres" So to have low amenities trigger building a city you'd need to have a condition in cities for "if low on amenities AND out of building slots THEN increase city district weight". I'm guessing the city district weighting is just checking free housing or carrying capacity with maybe an "if low on jobs AND out of building slots THEN increase city district weight"

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