[Stellaris] Actual Universalis

I'm ready go tonight. There's a party, alright. We don't need the raisin for joy, oh yeah. Tick down to midnight.
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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Wed Jun 01, 2016 2:02 pm

1.1 Clarke is up. Here's yer patch notes.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... t-21307551

Included in the update is some minor new content in the form of custom empire symbols and whatnot and, uh, space platypuses, if you want to be a space platypus. But obviously the best changes are all the UI improvements and AI tweaks for sectors and fleets and stuff. Those highlights, which I probably already posted, are here

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/in ... ch.936898/

Looks like Xenophile is better now too.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Wed Jun 01, 2016 2:18 pm

The biggest change for me has been the graphical quality toggles. It helps staves off the late-game stutters a bit.

Better internal AI is a godsend too. I basically abandoned my last game because the AI wrecked my sectors and I didn't feel like rotating systems in and out of my core just to repair the damage. Really, all the AI improvements are the major highlights for me.

I'm running a Space Lizard Rome game now and the improvements are quite noticeable.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Wed Jun 01, 2016 2:21 pm

AI empires being capable of fighting crises now instead of just rolling over and taking it on the chin should make the Unbidden advance a lot more fun to watch, too. That and trying to negotiate border access isn't necessarily an automatic -1000 any more.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Wed Jun 01, 2016 4:40 pm

Heh, a few minutes after I started playing today all of a sudden I get about two dozen CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE! notifications almost simultaneously because the sector AI is actually capable of building starbases and modules now. Good stuff.

I just finished researching Tundra Colonization, finally, which opened up about another dozen worlds already within my borders for expansion. Just need Arid and Tomb for the full set. Already the most populous civilization in the galaxy (with or without the tons of migration treaties I've signed) but that number's about to explode again.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat Jun 04, 2016 7:10 pm

Man I wish Stellaris would tell me the exact details of the trade deals that are expiring since I can never remember what they are.

Man it would be nice if the AI would offer to renegotiate or simply re-up those old deals instead of letting them time-out, Civilization style.

Man I'd be totally down for stuff like Non-Aggression Pacts not requiring mutual embassies.

Man it would be cool if Alliance/Federation presidents could negotiate trade deals on the Alliance/Federation level, even if it requires going to a vote, so stuff like those pacts could apply to all members involved.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to see a more robust trade system.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Wed Jun 08, 2016 9:55 pm

Trade might still suck but politicing is a lot meaner. I got a little pushy and belligerent in my Earth Sphere game and it ended up pushing a bunch of disparate and fair weather neighbours together to absolutely ream me for it. In 1.0, they would have absolutely allowed themselves to be picked off one by one.

In fact that play is probably a wash now, but I respect that I couldn't game it quite as easily as I used to (and still can do in Civ 5).

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:36 pm

Someone put out a Zeon mod with actually mobile suit models in it. I am pleased.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:38 pm

I'm waiting for the Star Trek Dominion War total conversion. Let me throw a wall of corvettes Mirandas at people and watch them all explode helplessly, which is the canonical result.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sun Sep 18, 2016 1:23 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REijXUSQrQc

:stare
Spoiler :
Looks like they found the Eldridge and accidentally woke up Deus.
Some features include:
In Stellaris: Leviathans, the galaxy will be filled anew with adventure and challenge as your new and naïve space-faring empire comes face-to-face and ship-to-ship with a host of dangers and rewards.

Guardians: Powerful space entities with mysterious origins and motives. Fight or investigate them to unlock technologies and gain access to great treasures.

Enclaves: Independent outposts of traders and artists who are willing to make a deal. Exchange resources, purchase information about the galaxy, or commission a great work of art for your empire.

War In Heaven: Where will your fledgling empire lie if two ancient Fallen Empires decide to renew old grievances in a War in Heaven? Will you err on the side of caution and take a side with the stronger power, or will you strike at both whilst they are occupied with their own titanic struggle?
Apparently the writer for Sunless Sea joined the Stellaris team at some point so if this is his handiwork then I'm really looking forward to it.

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Thor McOdin Senpai
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Thor McOdin Senpai » Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:59 am

Nothing a few Omnigears can't handle!

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Wed Oct 19, 2016 3:39 pm

1.3 is dropping tomorrow/later todayish. So I'll likely play that for a day before Civ VI drops.

I haven't played in a while so hopefully things are changed up enough that it feels a little more fresh.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Wed Oct 19, 2016 4:13 pm

I should really catch up on my doomed (?) empire. I wonder if the save is even still compatible, I haven't loaded it up since the first or second patch.

Bah. Too much stuff to play as it is, and a lot of it strategy stuff. Trying to juggle Stellaris/Disgaea/Halcyon 6/XCOM 2/Civ VI before the end of the year probably isn't going to work.

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Thu Oct 20, 2016 11:58 am

I feel like such a heel. I bought the Stellaris DLC and then refunded it immediately when I realised I wouldn't be playing this game by tomorrow and could just wait for a sale instead. Sorry, Paradox.

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Falcon Critical
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Thu Oct 20, 2016 5:14 pm

Scandalous!

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Thor McOdin Senpai
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Thor McOdin Senpai » Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:23 pm

I haven't had any time to play Stellaris. I'll probably jump back into it around December, though.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:18 am

Image

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat Dec 10, 2016 6:57 pm

Oh yeah, some DLC dropped recently which adds a new quest chain. I should really jump back in with a fresh save before the siren song of Overwatch seasonal events calls to me yet again.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Thu Apr 13, 2017 3:23 pm

Utopia came out but it'll be a while before I play it. Here's a stream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhInmlTUHxw

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Falcon Critical
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Thu Apr 13, 2017 6:57 pm

Stellaris is one of those games that I really should be into but haven't found time for. Watching that stream has made me thirsty for it, so I'll probably jump in at some point.

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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Tue Apr 18, 2017 5:41 pm

Aand I'm in.

First empire I tried to be a peaceful scientific human empire, taking time to pursue science and hunt anomalies. I almost immediately run into a hyper-relgious military mushroom people, who immediately close borders and declare me their rivals. Worst part is that I started near the tip of an outer arm of a spiral galaxy, and they're hemming me in with their empire. All the comparisons say we're equals so I focus on expanding away from them and come across another empire on the inner ring next to us, who is also hyper-relgious and xenophobic. I manage to throw great trade deals at them to keep them basically neutral to me, I can't reach their space anyway with my current warp drives.

A while later the sinister mushrooms (the ones that look kind of like the collector leader in ME2) declare war on me and invade my lands with an 880 stack of ships. My current fleet is about 300 total, and I can't build ships fast enough to stop them. I throw all my ships into battle and they crush me. I abandoned that game but I guess we're all serfs now to our fungi overlords.

So I started a second game as xenophobic militant lizards. We're pro-slavery and start with a lesser race already enslaved. We're not right next to anyone but already rebels are springing up and trying to challenge Boss Skwish. With a bunch of rebels to squash I'm building more ships than I was before and despite the disappointment that one of my scientists topped out at level 3 (had to put them to death and replace them), it's going a lot better. We met a Cthulu civ nearby, but since they're also military we're fast friends and they're offering research agreements unprovoked.

The only downside currently is that the leader of the rebel questline is on the outer spiral which I can't get to yet even though I can probably smash her.

This game makes me want to set up a lot of scenarios, which for me is a great sign of longevity. After being a diplomatic union first up and having a bunch of factions to please, my lizard monarchy is a lot easier to maintain internally. I want to set up a ME:Andromeda scenario - extreme science democracy in the smallest map size with two alien races and 1 precursor. Probably set a racial traits of non-adaptive and slow breeding to make it real hard to colonise a new galaxy.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Wed Apr 19, 2017 6:54 pm

I grabbed Utopia today, couldn't really resist after all the recent Waypoint coverage. I'll jump into that soon/whenever I'm done with P5, assuming I'm not immediately tempted to start over with a NG+.

Stellaris is a really great game for emergent storytelling, yeah. It's like EVE but playable!

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John Layfield
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by John Layfield » Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:04 am

Yeah, Utopia dragged me back in after a long time away. It's better than ever. One day I'll bother to learn how to build ships to counter specific threats. I'm the biggest "auto best" -> "upgrade" asshole ever. Enclaves are nifty. Awakened fallen empires are terrifying. The civics thing they've introduced is neat too.

Factions are still mostly meaningless but are now meaningless with more numbers. Apparently, the game will now throw the Unbidden at you 99% of the time now due to changes in the tech tree funneling the AI down that line. Boo. I still feel like I get too much diplomacy stuff from assholes on the other side of the galaxy and not much with my neighbours. I got 1 event in 300 years involving nearby nations and every 5 minutes someone I've never visited is alternating between opening and closing borders.

Maybe the game always did this but Iron Man now saves when you exit which is a nice touch.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:55 am

For ship design, I find myself maintaining three or four different designs in each class, each with a different weapons focus - energy, kinetic, explosive, and maybe a wildcard design with some kinda mix - and then I try to balance my fleets with some of each class. After that I just hit autocomplete to manage all the power stuff and update engines/sensors/etc. 'cause it can get time consuming otherwise. I'm still in the habit of upgrading manually after each bit of relevant research though, I never feel comfortable leaving that on auto.

As I understand it, afterburners are only useful on corvettes, but that might be old meta. So assuming I have the power I always keep those on corvettes and put shield capacitors on destroyers and up. Also, point-defense is great, so I always try to have at least one PD-centric design per class, destroyer and up. Again, that might be old meta too, since before 1.5 I'm pretty sure PD ships rendered all missiles almost totally useless. I wouldn't be shocked if that got nerfed a little.

I'm still uncertain on how useful alien-derived weapons are (energy siphons, cloud lightning, etc.) so I never usually field those on any of the larger capital ships, instead using the cheaper corvettes or destroyers as testbeds. I'm rarely in combat often enough to reach any meaningful conclusions though. I'm also fuzzy on the comparative effectiveness of different weapons systems within the same category, like lasers vs. disruptors vs. plasma, or turrets vs. autocannons.

Anyway, I'm playing in a smaller galaxy right now with only 6 or 7 other empires, and it's kinda nice compared to my previous games in big-ass galaxies with empires everywhere, never really being able to remember who anyone was. Seems like no Fallen spawned this time, but there's one large standard empire to the southwest who's bent on destroying all "xeno filth," so that's a war just waiting to happen if they can ever get through the buffer empires.

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Falcon Critical
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Falcon Critical » Sat Apr 29, 2017 12:36 am

From what I've read on reddit, afterburners are generally not worth using. I guess if there was a "melee range" strong weapon then you'd have a use for them, but the consensus appears to be that it's not worth the cost or power draw to put them on anything.

I've gone a bit crazy on ship variants once I realised how to change their configurations up. I built a destroyer variant that is pretty much just PD guns, hoping that they can protect the fleet should I come against missile happy opponents.

I've been using the energy siphons because I chose lasers as my main weapon type and it gives me a way to strip shields. Everyone on reddit swears that plasma is the best weapon, looking at it compared to lasers it cuts through armor faster than lasers but I wonder whether also the way it fires with rapid shots is superior to the constant cut of a laser.

Have you used the hangars much? I'm not sure how effective they are, but they're fun to watch.

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Delthazar
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Re: [Stellaris] Actual Universalis

Post by Delthazar » Sat Apr 29, 2017 7:21 am

I have hangars on a cruiser and a battleship design I think, mostly bombers 'cause I figure those are more useful on offense than fighters, while fighters are probably better on defense stations.

And yeah, I have no real idea about their effectiveness yet. The last engagement I was in was versus a pirate fleet (about 11k) and its stronghold (8k), which I attacked with my two main core fleets (22k and 12k) and a couple support fleets in a big pincer movement, it was over before I could really get a sense of who was doing what. I'm not always sure how to properly read the battle results window re: specific weapon effectiveness either.

Oh yeah, corvettes might have a niche as torpedo boats. Being able to lob torpedoes from 70-90 range and avoid the worst of the fracas might be the only way to keep them alive.