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To fiddle a bit with the new pop growth options, I fell to temptation and launched a new game. And oh wonder, what did happen? Well, everything worked fine until the "very good" outcome of the brain parasite broke the diplomacy-system a bit (the "best" outcome gives you contact to a random undiscovered neighbor, which results mostly in two minor things going wrong: if this happens really early your first contact messages get confused and the "we met intelligent space farers" one won't fire and you don't get any influence since you skipped the new first contact mini-game). After that, everything went smoothly for a while -after meeting our resident FE, the game even unfucked from its earlier confusion and fired another first contact event (the one you get if your first alien civ encounter is a FE). Then however, that weird event chain about gods fired and of course put two of them into the FE. Where they're now unreachable, since the FE has the borders closed. And my Necrophages aren't spiritualists and those weirdos will now keep their borders closed and the event chain unsolvable until end game. Welp, I can't even call this a bug, it's just a very weird edge case! I guess I'm lucky the FE isn't totally hostile, I may get those missing events researched eventually!  Apart from that gripe, me moving the sliders around already makes for a more fun game: Apparently the settings were set to max pop suppression before they added the sliders, since I only moved the cap for pop growth a bit higher and reduced the factor for pop growth costs by a lot. If this turns out like I expect, I should be able to fill my core worlds pretty drat fast, and my empire will only really run into the new cap after I get a solid core of something around 12-15 planets. Edit: I'd like someone to take another look at the brain parasite event, since thanks to the new first contact system, getting contact by skipping the mini-game actively hurts you now, even though I think it's supposed to be the best outcome. (The neutral one being "your scientist survives" and the bad one "everyone dies, ship explodes" respectively)
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May 13, 2021 17:23
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I don't even bother with that event anymore. Thread derail in 3...2...
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May 13, 2021 17:36
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 These dickheads JUST finished lambasting me for becoming robots, and now they're all like "you found some dead guy's head take our holy world and some pops."
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May 13, 2021 17:56
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SirTagz posted:But.. the cost just goes up so fast as you pick more distant planets to branch to. What kind of numbers are you expecting when deciding on branching or not? I generally start by putting branches on as many friendly capitals as I can, and then spread out from there as I can afford the influence.
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May 13, 2021 18:05
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Warmachine posted:
It'd be fun if this support of a synth empire by a fallen spiritualist empire started a schism event chain where two halves of the empire start a civil war, awaken, and start a war in heaven that drags in the rest of the galaxy as they try to convert everyone to their way of thinking.
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May 13, 2021 18:16
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SirTagz posted:I am doing my first Megacorp run and I am finding the cost of the branch offices quite steep to be honest. Costs 1600 and gives you 3 nrg? Meh. Except for the commerce forum I just see the buildings as a nice bonus, the main investment is the energy income and that is based on the trade value of the colony. Sure far away worlds are expensive, but you can lower it a bit through the Universal Transactions Ascension Perk, and honestly between colonizing a few probably meh systems and getting anything between 60-100+ energy instantly is an easy choice. Here is a screen of my currenty branch offices:  The fact that they are vulnerable to assorted non-standard empire invasions I like, it makes you want to protect your investments through helping other empires, murdering hive minds/machines, dumpster the Khan asap etc 
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May 13, 2021 18:34
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SirTagz posted:But.. the cost just goes up so fast as you pick more distant planets to branch to. What kind of numbers are you expecting when deciding on branching or not? in the early game branch offices are mostly going to be long-term investments. you should grab any capital you can afford, keep an eye on primitive worlds so you can jump in with an office once they're enlightened or invaded, that sort of thing. once pop numbers start to rise around the galaxy you'll be rolling in energy and can start to afford to plop down branch offices on colonies instead of homeworlds.
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May 13, 2021 18:40
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Libluini posted:Then however, that weird event chain about gods fired and of course put two of them into the [spiritualist] FE.
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May 13, 2021 18:58
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Dirk the Average posted:It'd be fun if this support of a synth empire by a fallen spiritualist empire started a schism event chain where two halves of the empire start a civil war, awaken, and start a war in heaven that drags in the rest of the galaxy as they try to convert everyone to their way of thinking. On a similar note I wish Synth Ascended empires had access to the nanobot diffuser instead of Driven Assimilators keeping it to themselves.
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May 13, 2021 19:07
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I wish I could demand access through another empire. Oh you closed your borders, pathetic-level neighbour? The thing is, you see, I want to kill that Enigmatic fortress on the other side of you, I already moved my fleet over here, and if I have to declare war to get through then I might as well pick up a few planets on the way.
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May 13, 2021 19:54
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Darkrenown posted:I wish I could demand access through another empire. Oh you closed your borders, pathetic-level neighbour? The thing is, you see, I want to kill that Enigmatic fortress on the other side of you, I already moved my fleet over here, and if I have to declare war to get through then I might as well pick up a few planets on the way. I would really like to be able to Threaten War for both access and for picking up stray systems that make the map look untidy.
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May 13, 2021 20:03
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I think you can get favours via espionage and trade for open borders (?) Haven't tried since I'm doing a determined exterminator so I can't trade or do diplomacy
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May 13, 2021 20:13
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Splicer posted:I mean... I'm imagining those alien's faces when they realize they had it in their extremities the entire time to turn my materialist vampires into true believers, but because they kept their borders closed, this can never happen and I'm grinning like an idiot because it's so dumb and funny 
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May 13, 2021 20:20
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Aethernet posted:I would really like to be able to Threaten War for both access and for picking up stray systems that make the map look untidy. Oh my god yes. It bothers me so much when I miss a single system somewhere behind my chokepoint and end up having to declare a full on war to get it nice and tidy. Honestly, Stellaris could probably use a lot of the EU4 diplo options like that.
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May 13, 2021 20:24
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Oh yeah, the whole desired provinces (systems) thing would be great too, there never seemed to be much interest in that kind of cross-pollination though.
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May 13, 2021 20:28
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Darkrenown posted:Oh yeah, the whole desired provinces (systems) thing would be great too, there never seemed to be much interest in that kind of cross-pollination though. Except for the time where they "got inspired" by CK3's crown law options for Federations? Jokes aside, "borrowing" those systems would do no harm and do a lot of good, imo.
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May 13, 2021 20:30
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Libluini posted:I'm imagining those alien's faces when they realize they had it in their extremities the entire time to turn my materialist vampires into true believers, but because they kept their borders closed, this can never happen
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May 13, 2021 20:51
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Yami Fenrir posted:Except for the time where they "got inspired" by CK3's crown law options for Federations? I guess EUIV did steal the cool prosperity system I made for Reaper's due, too!
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May 13, 2021 20:55
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Darkrenown posted:I guess EUIV did steal the cool prosperity system I made for Reaper's due, too!
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May 13, 2021 21:14
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Yami Fenrir posted:It bothers me so much when I miss a single system somewhere behind my chokepoint and end up having to declare a full on war to get it nice and tidy. I've solved this specific problem by setting my borders to closed by default. Still, I could definitely use the option when some prick neighbor gets to the choke point before me.
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May 13, 2021 21:23
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I'm sad that the AI will never, ever, trade systems. That would solve it in the nice way. Maybe add a "Threaten" to the trade window that applies a negative opinion after the fact but up to +100 trade influence depending on space magic.
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May 13, 2021 22:29
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HelloSailorSign posted:I'm sad that the AI will never, ever, trade systems. That would solve it in the nice way. Maybe add a "Threaten" to the trade window that applies a negative opinion after the fact but up to +100 trade influence depending on space magic. Rare materials work better. Sooner or later you're swimming in them and the AI really loves them. You can easily get several hundred trade influence that way. The only drawback is that sometimes, the AI does not have what you want. Or has an attitude problem. Oh, and also the AI is coded to never trade systems, and always reacts with a -1000 "Does Not Want" modifier to any requests, so an additional "threaten"-function would not work, anyway. (The devs really do not want the player to abuse the trade system to steal all the AI's systems.)
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May 13, 2021 23:12
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Libluini posted:(The devs really do not want the player to abuse the trade system to steal all the AI's systems.) The devs remember trading provinces with the AI in Victoria.
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May 13, 2021 23:14
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i noticed i've never, ever, EVER seen the contingency/AI uprising midgame event. maybe this is a benefit of egalitarian democratic empires. you ignore this entirely and you get a poo poo ton of synthetic refugee pops and maybe now that i've posted about it, i'll see it in the next 0-10yrs
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May 13, 2021 23:46
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Fur20 posted:i noticed i've never, ever, EVER seen the contingency/AI uprising midgame event. maybe this is a benefit of egalitarian democratic empires. you ignore this entirely and you get a poo poo ton of synthetic refugee pops If you treat synths well, they don't uprise against you. You gotta be synthist. Libluini posted:Rare materials work better. Sooner or later you're swimming in them and the AI really loves them. You can easily get several hundred trade influence that way. The only drawback is that sometimes, the AI does not have what you want. Or has an attitude problem. I definitely throw basic resources around when I want something done, I eventually will shower allies with resources to get favors in case I need them. If I vassalize a Megacorp, I'll occasionally throw energy credits and minerals at them until the income from them putting branches on all my planets puts them into a productive state, and then they actually start making fleets and doing poo poo.
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May 13, 2021 23:53
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ulmont posted:The devs remember trading provinces with the AI in Victoria. My go-to example for a bad trading system is still Space Empires V: You could simply trade everything in that game: Planets, stations, ships, techs, resources, everything And especially tech trading was full of loopholes for a savvy player to exploit. As a rule of thumb, it was suggested to not take "neutrals" (tiny, STL-civilizations bound to their home system) into your game, as everyone tended to end up friendly to them, as they were totally, hopelessly weak when compared to a mighty FTL-civilization. But this also meant the AI would gladly trade techs with them, and the player then could in turn hover up the entire galaxy's worth of techs by doing the same thing. Not only that, but if you didn't actively switched off that option, an AI could just surrender all their planets to you. Or to another AI. Every SEV-games could end up incredibly swingy, with either the AI or the player essentially trading themselves to victory. Imagine Stellaris, but as soon as a nation drops to "Pathetic", they'll contact you and just gift you everything and bow out. And then this brings you over the threshold for another AI, who also surrenders to you. Rinse, repeat. Shortly after, you have 100% of the galaxy under control, without ever doing more than a bit of trading and colonising
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May 14, 2021 00:56
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The AI never uses the trade system except to tribute resources when it wants favor, right? It's all just player-initiated?
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May 14, 2021 01:00
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Cease to Hope posted:It's frustrating how little ethics matter to your playstyle, though. I've only found Pacifist or Fanatic Phobe to be particularly restrictive, and few civics affect my decision-making significantly except the extreme anti-social ones. (Gestalts feel a bit different due to their differing economy, but it's also a much simpler economy.) Weren't you posting in this thread last week complaining about how your influence income is always all jacked up? Or was that Real Meunster? I prefer ethics choices being only a very rough guideline to how you want to play, which I think the game mostly accomplishes. I usually don't feel bound by my ethics choices, but I do use them to influence my decision-making. That's the mark of a good system: influencing my playstyle without seriously limiting it. Pacifist is maybe the worst ethic for this reason, since it makes a large amount of the game (war) more difficult to engage with, and I can understand why that's a difficult ethic to balance around. Likewise most civics aren't restrictive, they just alter your gameplay a bit. There are some extremely cool civics, and some pretty bland ones that provide a pretty straightforward bonus with a flavorful description attached. For the most part, that's a good system; they could for instance impose a requirement on Agrarian Idyll that forces you to maintain 50% of your districts as farms, but that'd be kind of pointless and redundant with what the civic already does (incentivizing farming districts by making them better than usual). This is actually why I'm not much of a fan of Inward Perfection, but I think it's fine to have that kind of civic in the game for people who might want to use it
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May 14, 2021 01:33
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Pacfist is the best because war is bad.
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May 14, 2021 02:22
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War is okay but world-cracking is great
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May 14, 2021 02:37
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QuarkJets posted:War is okay but world-cracking is great My favourite thing to do as a pacifist is to provoke Falken Empires into declaring on me and then bubble all of their planets
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May 14, 2021 02:41
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QuarkJets posted:Weren't you posting in this thread last week complaining about how your influence income is always all jacked up? Or was that Real Meunster?
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May 14, 2021 02:47
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Wish being in a pulsar would give my star base only laser weapons. But no, so many guns
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May 14, 2021 05:08
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:That was not me! Wasn't me either. I have criticisms of how nonsensical Influence is but I get what role it serves pretty clearly.
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May 14, 2021 05:59
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QuarkJets posted:Weren't you posting in this thread last week complaining about how your influence income is always all jacked up? Or was that Real Meunster? Muenster was frustrated with faction formation / happiness / ethics attraction, are you thinking of that?
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May 14, 2021 06:08
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Noir89 posted:Except for the commerce forum I just see the buildings as a nice bonus, the main investment is the energy income and that is based on the trade value of the colony. Sure far away worlds are expensive, but you can lower it a bit through the Universal Transactions Ascension Perk, and honestly between colonizing a few probably meh systems and getting anything between 60-100+ energy instantly is an easy choice. Here is a screen of my currenty branch offices: Jazerus posted:in the early game branch offices are mostly going to be long-term investments. you should grab any capital you can afford, keep an eye on primitive worlds so you can jump in with an office once they're enlightened or invaded, that sort of thing. once pop numbers start to rise around the galaxy you'll be rolling in energy and can start to afford to plop down branch offices on colonies instead of homeworlds. Yeah, thanks.. I guess that was my problem - expecting to be worthwhile too early in the game.. That screenshot was 100 later than my current game so fortunately I have that to look forward to SirTagz fucked around with this message at 08:15 on May 14, 2021 |
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May 14, 2021 08:12
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FWIW from my experience the energy cost becomes a non-issue real quick. Even just building a Commercial forum gives you 10+ extra energy income because it forces a Merchant job onto the planet. That is a LOT of energy early on. where every worker counts. It's the influence that's the problem when trying to make it your earlygame energy income. Yami Fenrir fucked around with this message at 08:43 on May 14, 2021 |
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May 14, 2021 08:35
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Yeah, early game it's not as much of course but focusing on homeworlds makes a decent bit. The influence is the restrictive part but I just focused on making sure I had some planets in my territory to develop in the future and then cutting a chunk while leaving most of it unclaimed(Medium size ring galaxy with 0.75 lanes). Then it is basically "Do I rather get 1-3 systems with X resources or do I setup this branch office?" I should say that I lucked out a bit this playthrough, only one other megacorp and they only have a single commercial pact with another empire, and one hive mind(That I plan to murder and then gift others the space so future customers can move in. Gotta expand those markets! )Side note, If I where to create a vassal from that space, would it be a megacorp as well? If not I might do that instead and just release the vassals later.
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May 14, 2021 10:12
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Noir89 posted:Yeah, early game it's not as much of course but focusing on homeworlds makes a decent bit. The influence is the restrictive part but I just focused on making sure I had some planets in my territory to develop in the future and then cutting a chunk while leaving most of it unclaimed(Medium size ring galaxy with 0.75 lanes). Then it is basically "Do I rather get 1-3 systems with X resources or do I setup this branch office?" Afaik yes. And more annoyingly, the Liberation wargoal does the same. I really wish that one wasn't the case.
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May 14, 2021 10:14
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HelloSailorSign posted:If you treat synths well, they don't uprise against you. When you have no soulless machines in your divine empire, they can't uprise against you, either!
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May 14, 2021 10:25
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