[Stellaris] Actual Universalis

[Delthazar]

Yeah, plus terraforming will only get you so far re: new spots for spaceports, and orbital habitats can't built spaceports and don't boost the navy cap. So everyone's kinda stuck gunning for techs and traditions. Everyone playing with smaller caps probably also means fewer cruisers and battleships in the field (or nothing but, maybe, later on) or more corvettes and destroyers.

Something else I've noticed on this tiny-ass map is that with fewer overall active empires, defensive alliances feel a bit more complicated. My northwestern neighbor loves me and we have a pact, but my northeastern neighbor is hostile towards me... but they also share a pact with the NW dudes, so no war can happen there without dragging in a friend on the wrong side. We're stuck glaring at each other across our (incredibly cramped) borders. That system they took on my southwestern extremity will never be mine.

[Delthazar]

That game was starting to feel like a slog so I rerolled. Created myself a new empire of oligarchic xenophile-egalatarian-materialist space cats called the Spacecataz. They're fleeting and sedentary, because they're cats. As soon as they've napped and eaten, they might get around to imposing their will on the galaxy, or just lay around in the sunbeams on Great Sphinx projected by their home star, which they call Warmball.

I did split the starter corvette fleet into three single ships (Claw Brigades 1 through 3) to wander around exploring though. That's my usual approach to earlygame pokery since my first science ship (in this case, the good ship SCZ What Is That Thing) is always busy surveying the home system.

I bumped the galaxy size up to small from tiny (tiny is too tiny!) and I'm trying a ring-shaped galaxy for the first time.

[Delthazar]

1.6 is up and there's some free DLC for the anniversary.

[Falcon Critical]

That Peacock race look awesome.

[Delthazar]

Factions are still mostly meaningless but are now meaningless with more numbers.

Oh yeah, I was playing around with a new game last night and I saw a ton of faction events happening in other empires. At least three or four instances of foreign factions shifting their governments to different ethics. I don't think I ever saw that before 1.6

[John Layfield]

Interesting. Might jump back and try it out once I've finished Persona.

[Delthazar]

The Unbidden got nothing on the Prethoryn Scourge.

[Thor McOdin Senpai]

My last playthrough was quite possibly the most boring game yet, and I mean that endearingly. I created the US of A using modded eagles (American Space EAGLES!). I have an armada of 56K, 14 planets that are operating to capacity, 100+ energy credits a month, 200 minerals a month, and all but 2 harmonies are maxed out. Further, no nation has declared war on me, and I am comfortably situated at the bottom of the map. However, a nation that rivals the strength of a fallen empire is friendly to me (176!) and they formed a defensive pact with me. When I play, I basically just turn the game on and harvest resources.

[Delthazar]

Mm, everything is always going swimmingly right before everything suddenly goes wrong.

[Delthazar]

I rolled a few custom dudes basically just for the purpose of appearing randomly as AI empires.

Bird people. I figured they'd be a bunch of aristocratic haughty royals obsessed with their own plumage.



Shadows. The look very similar to Shadows from Babylon 5, so I figured I'd just toss 'em in proper. None of the ethics and civics feel quite right but I probably got close enough. They'd make more sense as a Fallen Empire but that's not something you can add without mods.



I wanted a Hive Mind in my games since I don't think I've ever seen one spawn naturally, and I thought of the Thorian from Mass Effect as I was thumbing through the fungal alien designs, so here it is.



This one is just an Aqua Teen joke that I used as a name for a race of space cats. They work well as a player empire as well as an AI empire; my current game is with these guys and it's going nicely. For now.



I intentionally designed this one to be as horrible and as bad at as many things as possible. Check them traits, nothing but negatives. I'm interested to see how the other AI empires handle these guys. I have a feeling they'll get dunked on pretty quickly.

[Falcon Critical]

All Hyperspace travel though? I like the idea, I really should start creating a bunch of custom races. When I finish my current run, I'll be amused to see Skwishnation show up in my subsequent games, though they're going to be arseholes.

[John Layfield]

All hyperspace definitely changes the game a bit and will usually push you towards being a little more aggressive.

[Delthazar]

Yeah, I only ever play hyperspace-only, probably because it makes the game feel more like MoO and most other 4X games, also because the first run I played with all FTL types on felt super weird and I've never tried that style again for long enough to get used to it. Border control is way easier when you know everyone has to go through the same chokepoints you do.

That said, wormhole-only could be interesting and I might try that next time.

[Delthazar]

I grabbed Leviathans and Plantoids just for the hell of it. So I'ma roll a few new contenders soon using the cute-as-fuck gecko, snail, and butterfly (?) portraits.

The thing about independent trade stations and stuff in the Leviathans blurb is what sold me. Somehow I never knew that was a thing before.

Meanwhile, in upcoming patches... Sapient combat computers (Sentient AI?) is now a dangerous tech. Can't wait to see what comes from that.

[Delthazar]

I'm giving the Star Trek New Horizons total conversion mod a shot. It's got a bit of the expected WIP mod jank in typos and placeholder models and stuff but otherwise it's really quite good.

The attention to detail is especially on-point. There's like two or three dozen playable races to choose from, organized by quadrant, a good mix of the super obvious (Feds and each individual founding member, klanks, romneys, etc.) and the super fucking obscure (...Anticans, what? You wanna be the black-white dudes from TOS, boom, they're in here too, jeez.)

I'm gonna see how hard I can mess up the timeline playing as United Earth. I'm pretty sure there are scripted quests leading to the Federation founding and other major events, but the openness of a game like Stellaris probably means it ain't gonna be hard to go wildly off-track with hilarious results.

e: lol, I think I failed an anomaly scan and now a bunch of my first science ship's crew (the USS Franklin, nice pull) are stuck in the Gamesters of Triskelion battle arena. 10/10, mod of the year.

[Thor McOdin Senpai]

I have demolished three of the fallen empires on the map all by myself. Only one remains, but it has awakened. I am the most powerful empire in the galaxy, but I'll chill out for a bit before poking that bear, mostly because the "crisis" happened and about 10 empires joined the Celestial Pact.

[Delthazar]

I never have any luck taking on Awakened Fallen Empires, but that was at least a couple point releases back so maybe they've been rebalanced to galaxy size like the crisis events. The ones I've seen always seem to be packing multiple fleets in the 75-100k range. Last time I saw one awaken alongside an Unbidden crisis I'm pretty sure they took care of the crisis themselves.

[Thor McOdin Senpai]

I bought Utopia a couple of weeks ago. I love everything about it (especially the new tracks), but I can't handle the buffed up crisis events. In my last playthrough, it felt as if the Awakened Ascendancy possessed very aggressive (and stupid) AI, meaning that it was constantly getting railed in battle. Although my empire was never touched, I knew it was only a matter of time. I decided to start a new game with a few species modifications. Let's see where this goes.

[Falcon Critical]

This Space Traders game that Austin is playing seems pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-vSNETGOok

[Delthazar]

Holy shit that looks good. It seems to be just as complex and granular as a dense-ass 4X like Stellaris, but as more of a Freelancer/Elite/Escape Velocity type. Some good writing and lore in there too.

Just about the only thing I don't like is the character art and its flash-gamey animation, when it animates, but that's no biggie.

[Falcon Critical]

Yeah it seems like a game that I could get well into. I'm glad they have story missions and quests in there because as much as I like the idea of trading good for profits, in practice I quickly get bored of that gameplay if there's not other stuff going on to distract me.

It's cool and interesting that you can choose your class of ship at the start, often games like this will restrict you to smaller ships to start with and you have to trade your way up. This seems to just have different complications for different tiers of ships.

[Thor McOdin Senpai]

Absolutely WRECKED the end game crisis. I took out four of the five Contingency hubs almost singlehandedly. However, immediately after the end game crisis, the materialist Awakened Empire to the east tried to make me their subject. I declined and they became belligerent. You ever smoke a fleet of 800K with a smaller force of 220K? I did. Without question, it was my greatest Stellaris claim to fame yet. The AE tried to white peace me three times, but I opted to humiliate them by sending armies to one of their ring worlds. Some time passed, and the AE declared war on me again with the same result. After the truce is over, I am just going to take planets from them.

[Delthazar]

You ever smoke a fleet of 800K with a smaller force of 220K? I did.

Tell me your secrets.

[Thor McOdin Senpai]

Luck, strategy, and just general ass-kickery! Here's what you will need:

* The Ascension Perks that deal significant damage to the End Game Crisis and Awakened Empires.

* A steady flow of colonies, whether planets or habitats (I was rocking about 900 pops when I declared war).

* A Dyson Sphere for energy credits.

* My battleship weapons were a T-Lance, Plasma Cannons (middle), and Kinetic Flaks (rear).

* A nice smattering of shields and armor (I had Armor V by this point, I believe).

* If an AA becomes belligerent, check to see which other empires they might be at war with. This AA declared war on a weaker federation, but I figured it was time to assert myself. It turned out to be a good strategy because I did the heavy lifting in terms of fighting, but the AA never attacked me because they were preoccupied with the other combatants.

* I split my fleet into two, each with approximately 100+K firepower. The AA had two larger fleets of about 400K each. Divide and conquer! I had to regroup once, but once I came back into their empire, I could easily land my armies.

[Delthazar]

Thankfully in 2.0 it will be somewhat easier (situationally) to fight overwhelmingly large fleets with smaller fleets, thanks to the new fleet disparity evasion bonuses. 800k vs. 200k is a good example of a typical scenario in 2.0 that will probably see the most visible benefit; obviously taking on a 800k monster fleet with a single corvette won't scale the disparity bonus to the point where the corvette is suddenly invincible.

But I'm guessing fleet composition and outfitting will still always make the biggest difference. One of my issues in that area is that I always have a hard time figuring out which composition and gear I need to counter which specific threats. That's information I wish the game surfaced a little more clearly to the player. It doesn't necessarily need to be a Fire Emblem weapon triangle thing or anything, but maybe something closer to Civilization's advisors, or an entirely new espionage mechanic.