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Someone needs to create a mod that gives endless "+1 core planet" techs, it is a repeatable research already so just stick it there (like those that stay even when you research something else) and let people +1 without cost.

It can be done, imo.

 

[Ucchedavāda]

Was peaking around a bit in the files, and found this in the personalities file:

#TODO AFTER RELEASE:
# Peacekeeping Interventionists
# Alluring Diplomats
# Stupid Sexy Xenophobes

I look forward to seeing how those turn out.

(The '#' signifies a comment / note written by the developer.)

 

[Shifty Capone1]

What do you mean worth playing still? Paradox is still developing new content for the game and according to their own words just this week isn't planning on stopping anytime soon. Kinda sounds like you are confusing EU4 with EU3, because as far as I know there isn't a complete edition of EU4 available. Anyway if you were talking about EU3 the complete edition is totally worth it, but it only contains the first two expansions if I recall correctly. EU3 collection has everything.

What I meant was I can buy a Key for Europa Universalis IV Collection for $23. Having played a lot of hours of CK2 and already 40+ of Stellaris, would that be a good investment?

 

[hobblygobbly]

What I meant was I can buy a Key for Europa Universalis IV Collection for $23. Having played a lot of hours of CK2 and already 40+ of Stellaris, would that be a good investment?

The collection on Steam is outdated (only seems to have 2 expansions? the rest is cosmetic stuff), it's best to go buy EU:IV and then go get all the expansion DLCs.

Here's a list of expansion DLCs:

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Downloadable_content#Expansions

Also you may want the flavour packs (if you have an interest in Byzantium, USA or Muislim nations events/event chains): http://www.eu4wiki.com/Downloadable_content#Flavor_packs

Was peaking around a bit in the files, and found this in the personalities file:


I look forward to seeing how those turn out.

(The '#' signifies a comment / note written by the developer.)

That's really cool. Nice find!

 

[cyress8]

Ok, sectors are a little too useful. Restarted a fresh game since I feel like a pro now and I'm capped on all my resources. Constantly I'm even forced to give my resources to my allies just so I do not feel like I'm wasting it.

Sectors might need to be tweaked on how many planets they can hold. I have a crap ton of planets and since I allow other aliens to live on my planets that can live on other types of planets. I can colonize all planets at 90%. They seem to fill up quickly also.

 

[Shifty Capone1]

Ok, sectors are a little too useful. Restarted a fresh game since I feel like a pro now and I'm capped on all my resources. Constantly I'm even forced to give my resources to my allies just so I do not feel like I'm wasting it.

Sectors might need to be tweaked on how many planets they can hold. I have a crap ton of planets and since I allow other aliens to live on my planets that can live on other types of planets. I can colonize all planets at 90%. They seem to fill up quickly also.

This is exactly what happened to me. Somehow got a crazy start. Have one sector with 55 planets and another with 30. Fully capped resources and massive fleets. I could probably sweep through the galaxy right now if I wanted. My tech is so far advanced due to setting them on research for awhile too. Can't complain though!

 

[EzekelRAGE]

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/games

Paradox has a sale goin on with CK2/EU4 fro $10. Also discounts of like 66% for all their DLC/Expansions except for the most recent ones for CK2 (only 25% off) and the recent expansion/dlc Marestrom for EU4 with no discount

I bought all the expansions for CK2 except for the most recent since it had mixed/neg reviews.

 

[Jimrpg]

The collection on Steam is outdated (only seems to have 2 expansions? the rest is cosmetic stuff), it's best to go buy EU:IV and then go get all the expansion DLCs.

Here's a list of expansion DLCs:

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Downloadable_content#Expansions

Also you may want the flavour packs (if you have an interest in Byzantium, USA or Muislim nations events/event chains): http://www.eu4wiki.com/Downloadable_content#Flavor_packs



That's really cool. Nice find!

Yeah that's really annoying. Looks like they want you to buy the DLC seperately rather than a bundle that is actually cheaper.

I'm about 6 hours in and I'm liking Stellaris a lot, but I feel it was a little too ambitious, or that there's some design flaws. Right now the game play loop for me is to build stuff as fast as I can, increase production, increase pop, increase minerals and energy and I'm literally just watching the galaxy map and construction bars. There hasn't been any strategy yet. It's still fun like I'm maxing out my character in Diablo, but this initial stage isn't very compelling, hoping there's a lot more interaction later. Another thing that doesn't really work for me is the absence of a tech tree because right now I'm just guessing what to build. It feels very board game like, when you draw cards and pick a tech. I think a Civ tech tree works better even if it reduces replayability. Overall I think this game works better as a RPG, where it's not so much about the strategy but the story of the empire. The time flew by when I played which is always a good sign.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

I'm bracing myself for the inevitable 20+ cosmetic DLCs. The one thing I dislike most about Paradox is how they split everything up into tiny mini payments instead of including it all in one expansion. Paradox is no CDProjekt for sure. Liking the game though, just invaded a Bronze Age planet that somehow had space crystal guardians defending them.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

Tried signing in to my Paradox account again and still can't. Are the auth servers still on fire (seems unlikely) or something up with my account?

e: Been waiting for a password reset email for nearly an hour. Nothing in spam folder. Hm, maybe it is still on fire.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Yeah that's really annoying. Looks like they want you to buy the DLC seperately rather than a bundle that is actually cheaper.

Keep in mind that a lot of the content updates for EUIV have been done through free patches also. If you just want to see if you like the game, buy the base one and you'll have a lot to enjoy. The DLC is really not required.

I'm bracing myself for the inevitable 20+ cosmetic DLCs. The one thing I dislike most about Paradox is how they split everything up into tiny mini payments instead of including it all in one expansion. Paradox is no CDProjekt for sure. Liking the game though, just invaded a Bronze Age planet that somehow had space crystal guardians defending them.

I don't really mind. The cosmetic stuff is totally optional and we have the workshop for a ton of free stuff already with mods. They also do a lot of free updates with those expansion packs, so you get new features and things for free even if you don't buy them.

 

[Bregor]

You could set an AI to manage them if you want. I just think the fact that Paradox forces you to give planets to AI is silly. I would love to micromanage all 100 of my planets if I could...

If the AI was good enough to develop the planets as well as a human could, players would complain that the game played itself and that the planetary development mechanics were pointless.

If the AI was not as good as the player, players would feel compelled to do it all themselves to maximize their advantages and the end game would become tedious.

This is the way it's always been in 4x games, in the end game micromanagement becomes annoying. Many 4x games have tried automation as a solution but that brings it's own dilemmas.

The Paradox solution is to force automation but couch it in such a manner that there appears to be political reasons for losing direct control over the planets beyond the limit. This works as long as you don't step beyond the 4th wall and look at the game merely as a collection of mechanics.

Even from that viewpoint I don't really object to what they have done because I understand the quandary they were in.

 

[bjaelke]

I have like a hundred planets in my current play through. God help me if I had to micro manage them all.

Well the alternative isn't much better:

 

[Maledict]

Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with the Sector AI right now.

One of my sectors has a Gaia world in it, with every square full apart from two squares that need clearing. Instead of clearing the volcano, instead it's replacing the Biolab with a Hydroponics farm. Despite the tile it's on having a large science bonus. The sector is under orders not to replace existing buildings, and to focus on building the appropriate building for the tile bonus - so there's absolutely no reason for it to be replacing a science lab with a food lab on that world at all.

It's completely broken right now it seems - it makes completely random decisions that are very detrimental and illogical. I don't mind handing over control of worlds to the AI, and it doesn't have to be perfect - but it should at least do what the in game controls tell you it will do and not utterly bizarre and useless things like that.

 

[Grief.exe]

Well the alternative isn't much better:

This is how alien-bug Donald Trump gets elected.

I will build the space wall and make the Talk'zians pay for it.
I will bring mining jobs back to Vurl-Zaldr

 

[Huw_Dawson]

There's a mod called Sector Manager that's attempting to fix the Sector functionality (by scrapping the influence cost and adding in some more things the AI can do).

Honestly it does look like Paradox focussed on making a really good engine and opening for the game. This game is not a grand strategy game at the moment - that's why the mid game feels so empty. There's no way to manipulate people into fighting each other, there's nothing to aim for other than domination victory, and space ends up feeling super small.

It's all very easy fixes, though.

The modding functionality of the game really helps, I think. There's a mod that adds a lot of Star Wars music to the game, and another that adds the FTL OST. It really adds to the game's ambience.

 

[hobblygobbly]

Welp, I knew this time would come. I became really aggressive lately, also began terror bombing planets since most of the galaxy hated me already and I've been stuck with two other empires in my alliance for half the game so I haven't been able to form a federation and get more in. Now I get declared war by a federation, and I'm already fighting another war. My two alliance members are strong because the AI really worked well with me in the wars (from fleets to troop transports), but we won't be able to fight their numbers, I think the end may be near for us, I knew that this would be the ones to end us, they're pacifists but due to our threat (got almost -200 with half galaxy, and -100 with rest except the martial empire right next to me) they have no choice but to act against us - I kind of fucked up though by getting the entire galaxy to hate me really early on so I struggled to get more into my alliance and form a federation (what's even worse is that one empire I was really in good terms with couldn't join because the other empire in my alliance kept voting no because they were rivaling them).

They start to show their faces, their first fleet warps into a system I thought they would first but myself and my alliance have been waiting for the first stand to protect Molsir (even though they've got about 12 fleets heading to other systems right now that I can see, but at least I'll have my own decisive engagement here)

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

When you give a planet to a sector, does the ai ever clear tiles?

 

[Ucchedavāda]

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/games

Paradox has a sale goin on with CK2/EU4 fro $10. Also discounts of like 66% for all their DLC/Expansions except for the most recent ones for CK2 (only 25% off) and the recent expansion/dlc Marestrom for EU4 with no discount

I bought all the expansions for CK2 except for the most recent since it had mixed/neg reviews.

Thanks! I've been waiting for a sale like this.

 

[eschiver]

When you give a planet to a sector, does the ai ever clear tiles?

Yes, they do. They also build planetary administration building if its still a colony.

 

[Jisgsaw]

Honestly it does look like Paradox focussed on making a really good engine and opening for the game. This game is not a grand strategy game at the moment - that's why the mid game feels so empty. There's no way to manipulate people into fighting each other, there's nothing to aim for other than domination victory, and space ends up feeling super small.

It's all very easy fixes, though.

Yeah, being in mid-late game right now, I definitively get the criticism from the IGN review: I played it safe and wasn't really aggressive, but expanded fast everywhere building up my tech, and in 300 years, I haven't been declared war to even once, I always had to be the one to initiate it.

As a result, I own almost half of my galaxy (medium sized), and except for the three fallen empire, all other races are at "pathetic" level compared to me... I may have had a strange game though, as far as I know there's only a single alliance in the whole galaxy that just recently formed a federation. I even was in the alliance at the beginning, it'd have been even more boring had I stayed in it.
Adding the annoyance of the pathetic Sector AI, the mid game is getting pretty boring for me.

I'd love them to make the AI a bit more aggressive, adding espionage (like creating dissent, knowing what tech your enemy has and so on) and reworking the diplomacy to be more up to par to their other games.
Having the sectors work like vassals in CK II and a more developped faction system would be the icing on the cake.

 

[DBT85]

Well the alternative isn't much better:

What a potato. ffs. So glad I can currently control 7 and will get 9 hopefully soon. Want to get them all setup before handing off. I totally understand not micoing every planet, but the only having 5 at the start really is quite limiting.

I'm sure they'll fix it, at least they better had.

 

[ZZMitch]

If the AI was not as good as the player, players would feel compelled to do it all themselves to maximize their advantages and the end game would become tedious.

This is the way it's always been in 4x games, in the end game micromanagement becomes annoying. Many 4x games have tried automation as a solution but that brings it's own dilemmas.
.

I disagree with this. As someone who has played 4X games for years and years and Min-Maxes everything (people would probably get a headache watching me play Civ 5), it is perfectly possible to min-max and have an interesting end game.

This is where difficulty levels and asymmetrical starts are for. By playing at the higher difficulties and with AI buffs (i.e. advanced AI starts in Stellaris), the game can remain interesting into the late game even with excessive micro-management (which is my cup of tea ).

 

[John Dunbar]

so corvettes are totally op in this game? when i stopped playing today, just for fun i saved and then declared war on a fallen empire to see how my doomstack would fare against them. to my surprise, i pretty much wrecked them given how much greater they were numberwise: they were still "overwhelming" in all categories, and my fleet was only about 21k in total. i had like 80 corvettes, and they are insane. i managed to wipe two of their stacks and only lost to the third, and they were left with 6 battlecruisers, 5 of which were almost dead. i think they had one more stack left, but if i had had like 50% more corvettes i think i could have schooled them.

with corvettes' evasion combined with the rapid damage they inflict (i used mainly torpedos and quantum missiles, so they never miss), i am not sure how anything in the game can counter a swarm of them. other than rpg purposes, not sure why i should even bother with the bigger ships. my destroyers were wrecked in the fist encounter. and don't think the cruisers and battleships did much except maybe tank a bit of damage.

 

[eschiver]

What a potato. ffs. So glad I can currently control 7 and will get 9 hopefully soon. Want to get them all setup before handing off. I totally understand not micoing every planet, but the only having 5 at the start really is quite limiting.

I'm sure they'll fix it, at least they better had.

This is not always the case. My sectors built up normally.

 

[User 85168]

I'm sold on the "Fun Killer" Corvette Spam.

My 19k Stack of Corvettes took on around 30-35K of Unbidden and destroyed them.

Take notice on their hit ratio of 6%

 

[cyress8]

Well the alternative isn't much better:

From the looks of it, the ai is focusing on maxing out the population before changing to resources. I've done the same on some of the bigger planets. Pretty much a snowball effect when dealing with quick growth. Now once the pop is maxed and if the ai does not change to gathering resources, I would say something is extremely wrong.

 

[Ucchedavāda]

Alright, I really need a break from Stellaris.

I just spent more than an hour beating down angry

Spoiler

toasters

after the

Spoiler

artificial-intelligence

rebellion spread to my empire. This despite me

Spoiler

having integrated them into my empire from the start, the ungrateful sons of bits

. Luckily I did not have a lot of them in my empire.

It didn't help that a vassal kept losing planets, that I would then win back, gift back to them, and then they'd immediately lose them again .. how!? So now I have a sector in the middle of my vassal, which ended up cutting their territory in two.

On the bright side, my military strength is is now "equivalent" of the religious nuts in the north-corner, right next to me .. so soon, I just need a few more vassals to back me up. And then, SCIENCE!

 

[Jazzhole]

so corvettes are totally op in this game? when i stopped playing today, just for fun i saved and then declared war on a fallen empire to see how my doomstack would fare against them. to my surprise, i pretty much wrecked them given how much greater they were numberwise: they were still "overwhelming" in all categories, and my fleet was only about 21k in total. i had like 80 corvettes, and they are insane. i managed to wipe two of their stacks and only lost to the third, and they were left with 6 battlecruisers, 5 of which were almost dead. i think they had one more stack left, but if i had had like 50% more corvettes i think i could have schooled them.

with corvettes' evasion combined with the rapid damage they inflict (i used mainly torpedos and quantum missiles, so they never miss), i am not sure how anything in the game can counter a swarm of them. other than rpg purposes, not sure why i should even bother with the bigger ships. my destroyers were wrecked in the fist encounter. and don't think the cruisers and battleships did much except maybe tank a bit of damage.

It depends what your packing and what the fallen are packing in the ships. You might have been lucky with your resistance and/or what type of damage you had. Perhaps they're ship designer had a bad day.

 

[DBT85]

so corvettes are totally op in this game? when i stopped playing today, just for fun i saved and then declared war on a fallen empire to see how my doomstack would fare against them. to my surprise, i pretty much wrecked them given how much greater they were numberwise: they were still "overwhelming" in all categories, and my fleet was only about 21k in total. i had like 80 corvettes, and they are insane. i managed to wipe two of their stacks and only lost to the third, and they were left with 6 battlecruisers, 5 of which were almost dead. i think they had one more stack left, but if i had had like 50% more corvettes i think i could have schooled them.

with corvettes' evasion combined with the rapid damage they inflict (i used mainly torpedos and quantum missiles, so they never miss), i am not sure how anything in the game can counter a swarm of them. other than rpg purposes, not sure why i should even bother with the bigger ships. my destroyers were wrecked in the fist encounter. and don't think the cruisers and battleships did much except maybe tank a bit of damage.

Its not just the ship type that matters, your build will play a huge role.

Had they had more point defense it might have played out very differently for example. However one nice thing with any missile is that its easy enough to missile spam and overwhelm PD if the fleet hasn't been protected enough. A few ships in there at the front of the formation with only PD and it might have changed a lot.

I've little doubt the systems will be balanced as time goes on in all sorts of ways.

Its a shame that the mod that makes ships not just end up in a complete ball doesn't entirely work properly, as otherwise it really improves the spectacle of the battles by having ships maintain a distance and not clip into one another as much.

It's odd to me that its not designed like that. If I've got a missile boat then I'm sitting off in the distance and spamming you. Anyone that's played EVE knows that!

 

[John Dunbar]

It depends what your packing and what the fallen are packing in the ships. You might have been lucky with your resistance and/or what type of damage you had. Perhaps they're ship designer had a bad day.

i am bordered by two fallen empires, so i am going to try against the other one as well. i do suspect that corvettes are crazy op no matter what the result.

by the way, have i totally missed it, or is there really no way to choose all the ships of the same type from a fleet? and the form a new fleet system is a absolutely dreadful: the ships are in totally random order and when you click one, the list jumps back to the top. whoever designed this system is a bad person and should feel bad.

 

[Jazzhole]

i am bordered by two fallen empires, so i am going to try against the other one as well. i do suspect that corvette's are crazy op no matter what the result.

by the way, have i totally missed it, or is there really no way to choose are ship types from a fleet? and the form a new fleet system is a absolutely dreadful: the ships are in totally random order and when you click one, the list jumps back to the top. whoever designed this system is a bad person and should feel bad.

We are looking into the ship order, I can tell you that. Can't promise though, Im in the audio department and have little say in the design choices.

(edit) I might have read that too fast, I took for granted you meant the order in the ship designer.)

 

[pigeon]

The other point in terms of the "corvettes OP" argument is that I still kind of think you want a few battleships to provide auras, because they can be pretty powerful (+15% shield health, -15% fire rate for your opponent).

Battleships are clearly not designed to be spammed, they're designed to be command ships carrying powerful force multiplier auras. So a comparison between all corvettes and all battleships is probably going to make battleships look pretty bad.

 

[pigeon]

Also, I'm currently in the middle of a huge expansionist surge after unlocking a couple of new colonization targets. I noticed a couple of systems with weird names on somebody else's star chart so I sent a ship over to visit them. Maybe they're a Fallen Empire, right?

Oops, they totally were a Fallen Empire and they're fanatic isolationists. They immediately dropped me a line asking me to abandon 12 colonies.

So I guess we'll see how this new war fleet is going to perform. Luckily I'm the biggest empire in the galaxy, so even if I get beaten a little, I can probably come back and get their technology and get a leg up that way.

 

[call_kotaku]

I feel like the larger hulls will be useful just based on their durability and how good a lot of the longer range late game weapons like tachyon lances or kinetic artillery are. Plus FTL snares are vital in my experience.

A front line of defensive corvettes is pretty important to soak up damage before the fleets close distance, in my experience. Reading on the paradox forums strike craft are getting a buff soon, which will be nice.

 

[User 85168]

The other point in terms of the "corvettes OP" argument is that I still kind of think you want a few battleships to provide auras, because they can be pretty powerful (+15% shield health, -15% fire rate for your opponent).

Battleships are clearly not designed to be spammed, they're designed to be command ships carrying powerful force multiplier auras. So a comparison between all corvettes and all battleships is probably going to make battleships look pretty bad.

I had them in my fleet fighting the Unbidden. Just one of each aura. The time and cost of battleships don't make them worth having more than one, I think.

 

[EndcatOmega]

I'm no longer sure I understand percentages.

 

[Sickboy007]

Didn't find a Starfleet costumes mod anywhere so I made one myself

Let me know if someone is interested, I'll upload it!

 

[pigeon]

I had them in my fleet fighting the Unbidden. Just one of each aura. The time and cost of battleships don't make them worth having more than one, I think.

If damage really gets assigned to smaller ships first (which looks more or less accurate based on my results), then I agree, I would just run one battleship of each aura.

 

[User 85168]

If damage really gets assigned to smaller ships first (which looks more or less accurate based on my results), then I agree, I would just run one battleship of each aura.

I'm not sure how that works though. I had my fun killer fleet with about 150 corvettes and 3 battleships, and then the battle ended with my about 135 corvettes surviving. Hmm. Maybe they had AOE weapons?

 

[DBT85]

Star Trek Infinities is the name for the Trek mod that's underway

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/wip-star-trek-infinities.929730/

TNG/DS9 era, basically every race, and they have models of pretty much every ship ever to add in.

We havent decided how will handle the federation, however for maps I think well have both set maps and how the game currently works.

The Borg will be event based in order to truely show how menacing they are.

When it comes to ships expect a lot!
With new classes and weapons and a ton of hull variations. From the huge and well know galaxy class to the more obscure yeager class. You'll be able to build all of them.

 

[Mobius 1]

Didn't find a Starfleet costumes mod anywhere so I made one myself

Let me know if someone is interested, I'll upload it!

Hellz yeah!

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Didn't find a Starfleet costumes mod anywhere so I made one myself

Let me know if someone is interested, I'll upload it!

make it so

 

[Unicorn]

wtf is up with every un-password MP game denying me to join? I got into one game, said it was my first time in MP and they kicked me.

I just want to see how this fucking game works in MP and not a single game will let me in. If you're going to be exclusionary, then put a fucking password on your game.

Especially infuriating is a room called "All Welcome" that did nothing by deny me over and over.

 

[CloudWolf]

Corvette-only fleets remind me of my archer-only armies in Crusader Kings 2. It looks and sounds silly, but absolutely wrecks everything it comes across.

 

[Jintor]

feeling that midgame grind. no anomolies coming in so no fun event chains. all empires either peaceful explorers or grudging isolationists or too busy at war with each other. all my fucking scientists died off at once so mainly just grinding influence to replace them + upgrade new colonial capitals. zzz.

what's the best way to raise diplomacy with other empires besides have an embassy with them? One guy's been stuck on 40 influence for the past fifty years and still won't let me in his borders.

 

[Unicorn]

The lack of border crossing unless declared at war is frustrating. As is the expensive as hell outposts at 200 influence. Military outpost should count for borders, albeit easy things to break to claim the land for other nations.

border movement and boundaries should be more fluid to allow for more expansion and contension. I hate juggling planetary limitations, colony ships, diplomacy with nations that won't allow exploration access, etc.

bring on the patches/expansions.

 

[Calabi]

In lieu of nothing happening my scientists got a bit bored and decided to make their own entertainment. I'm sure it's fine nothing can go wrong.

 

[Shaldome]

Finished my first game, as said earlier, I took my time and could have ended it sooner.

The last war to get another vassal to win the game was kind of funny.

First I get an offer from out of nowhere:

Ehm, sure. I do not know why, but sure I take it.

Then my mighty protectorate with all his might seen in the picture, comes with this..

M'kay. I will send one of my warp gate and transport buster corvette fleet over.

All in all, although it dragged a bit in the end, I am looking forward for the next game tomorrow.

 

[Unicorn]

I'd also love more victory conditions, or the ability to unlock new ones during a campaign (I assume there aren't).

A 4X board game I play with a group of friends, Twilight Imperium, had several objectives everyone shot for, as well as secret personal objectives. The first player to complete objectives to get a set number of points was deemed the winner. A playthrough variant for Stellaris, either for MP or SP, would be really interesting to me.