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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  Gaming  |  Topic: Stellaris - Paradox goes to space 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Stellaris - Paradox goes to space  (Read 149055 times)
Soln
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the opportunity for evil is just delicious


Reply #315 on: May 15, 2020, 11:14:55 PM

I often play a pacifist expansionist race where.... not much happens. Is it normal for the game with archeology etc. to only happen much later in game?
Phildo
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Posts: 5872


Reply #316 on: May 16, 2020, 04:45:23 PM

I play tall and tend to tech rush with 3-5 planets, though I'll grab as much space as possible to try and find the rare strategic resources and an L gate.  All the excitement is in the expansion phase, usually, and it's probably super boring but I find it really relaxing as well.  Most of the action happens in the expansion phase, and then things settle in once borders are defined.
Speedy Cerviche
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Reply #317 on: May 16, 2020, 08:58:57 PM

I often play a pacifist expansionist race where.... not much happens. Is it normal for the game with archeology etc. to only happen much later in game?

select cluster empire starts in the game setup and you will get more early action. If it's random it's very possible to have nobody else near you so not much going on for a while.
Khaldun
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Reply #318 on: October 25, 2020, 03:34:22 PM

Started another game just because I didn't feel like starting other games. I feel like this game is in such a good groove now as a 4x. About the only thing I want to have is a bit more of the CK2/CK3 flavor--some weirder shit from particular rulers and civilizations that creates memorable narrative hooks I haven't seen before.
lamaros
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Reply #319 on: November 01, 2020, 06:13:24 PM

I realised the xbox game pass edition didn't have much in the way of DLC, so I bought this on steam...

Trying to work out how to destroy an awakened empire is my challenge now. I'm not sure It's a solvable problem though. And I don't think I'm going to get any other end game events? So restart with the DLC time...

Khaldun
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Reply #320 on: November 02, 2020, 05:51:39 AM

Well, if you don't survive the awakened empire, yeah, you won't get to the end game crisis. But actually if you can hold the awakened empire off, the awakened empire will usually turn its attention to the endgame crisis and may even be a useful shield against it/ally.
Phildo
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Reply #321 on: November 02, 2020, 06:51:08 AM

If you're having a real hard time, there's an ascension perk that increases the damage you do to fallen/awakened empires and another for the endgame.  Probably not optimal, but can save your ass in a pinch.
Soln
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the opportunity for evil is just delicious


Reply #322 on: November 02, 2020, 10:16:35 AM

How are you guys playing? Aggressive, turtle, coop federation? All my games seem to be the same with the same drip of content. Still very slow for me and I'm not sure how to make it fun.
Khaldun
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Reply #323 on: November 02, 2020, 04:40:14 PM

I play coop federation most of the time, occasionally the psycho machine or flesh empires because that's fun too.
Phildo
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Reply #324 on: November 02, 2020, 08:40:03 PM

I like to turtle and play tall on low difficulty, I tend to enjoy teching up and dominating in the endgame.  Mix up ascension paths each playthrough.  I don't tend to like aggressive playstyles, but driven assimilators and devouring swarms do seem interesting.
lamaros
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Reply #325 on: November 02, 2020, 09:28:36 PM

Well, if you don't survive the awakened empire, yeah, you won't get to the end game crisis. But actually if you can hold the awakened empire off, the awakened empire will usually turn its attention to the endgame crisis and may even be a useful shield against it/ally.


Turns out everything just happened super late. I cleared out the awakened empire and then destroyed the crisis in about five seconds. So, pretty anti-climactic. I realised all I needed to do was take the upkeep hit and build way over the fleet limit.

There is too much micro management in the ship building and planet management for me, especially late game. But as long as I kept growing I hit the storage limit on all resources.
Mandella
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Reply #326 on: November 03, 2020, 11:17:13 AM

Paradox definitely did not solve one of the most age old problems of empire building explore and conquer games with Stellaris. In the end, you almost always just curb-stomp the end game content or the end game content curb-stomps you. There is little in between, and once you learn the game systems you are never going to be the one getting stomped.

That said, the beginning and middle game is interesting enough to bring me back every once in a while to try another faction.

The fact that I often get space merchants before I have a first contact is still irritating though.
Trippy
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Posts: 23612


Reply #327 on: November 03, 2020, 11:41:55 AM

How are you guys playing? Aggressive, turtle, coop federation? All my games seem to be the same with the same drip of content. Still very slow for me and I'm not sure how to make it fun.
I like to play *extremely* wide, with cheats on why so serious?
Khaldun
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Reply #328 on: November 03, 2020, 05:09:07 PM

Is there any 4X game that has actually solved the endgame problem?

If you have a victory condition that says "your victory is inevitable" too early, players feel cheated. If you have an endgame problem that is radically unscaled to your climbing of the 4X pyramid, you feel cheated and annoyed--especially if it says "everything you have done until now doesn't matter, now the gameplay is completely different and you're back to being a novice/starter". There's probably a version of that which we'd all feel worked--drifting over into a new Zone in the Vernor Vinge sense, or working the Zone boundaries, etc. But Stellaris doesn't really have that--the Fallen/Awakened Empires and the Endgame factions are just supersized versions of what has gone before. But that's what all 4xs do, that I can remember. Maybe Fall From Heaven for Civ IV and maybe Alpha Centauri are the only 4X games I can think of that thought about the endgame in a way that wasn't just "more of the same only with more more more units".
lamaros
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Reply #329 on: November 03, 2020, 05:58:35 PM

I find the planet management and ship design stuff not great early game too.

And the micro late game is mostly because of bloat in techs and buildings. Scale exacerbates it but isn't the main issue for me.

I don't think these games have to be like a funnel necessarily. You can choose points to obselete stuff and scale the decisions space back to meaningful things, if you want. They just rarely do.
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #330 on: November 04, 2020, 06:20:04 AM

Maybe Fall From Heaven for Civ IV and maybe Alpha Centauri are the only 4X games I can think of that thought about the endgame in a way that wasn't just "more of the same only with more more more units".

Love Letters

AC is actually the tbs I've played the most this year. I do need to set up FFH2 again. I know it's kind of a running joke at this point, but there's a reason for it. It was a phenomenal experience, one of the very few times where the genre felt transcended and made vanilla civ just painfully vanilla.

edit - and now I realize that modmod dev has continued and is still active on Ashes of Erebus... :D
« Last Edit: November 04, 2020, 08:21:54 AM by Sky »
Khaldun
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Reply #331 on: November 04, 2020, 09:23:56 AM

I think the thing for AC that was so right about the endgame is that they recognized that there was a sort of "phase change" needed where the nature of the gameplay and the goals shifted as you got into it so that you were not interminably stuck in the last X of 4X. Stellaris should actually embrace something similar--the endgame crisis should be something really different than "wow look at all those fucking ships ok I need to grind them down" etc.--they should almost consider a different map or interface for the endgame crisis where it is is sum-totalling your outputs without you having to micromanage fleets and planets (e.g., it takes a snapshot of where you're at in the endgame and uses that to generate a simpler endgame map of some kind). I dunno. It would be a nice challenge for them to fiddle with in a future expansion.
Hoax
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l33t kiddie


Reply #332 on: May 12, 2022, 05:04:23 PM

New xpack and game is on Steam for $8 if you have friends who don't have it or w/e.

The game only requires host in MP to have dlc so even tho its Paradox and their infinity dlc model its not too too bad. Highly recommend as the best MP 4X or 4X adjacent game I've ever tried and also these days one of the only RTS that I've enjoyed in ages since that last DoW was so panned I never even installed it.

A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation.
-William Gibson
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