Stellaris Dev Diary #171 - Federations Stream

[Methone]

Do you see this? This is what you are doing.

Don't I know it. And yet I can't bring myself to stop.

 

[Monturiol]

And we keep trying to tell you, that an excess of imbalance, like what we currently have, is not good. People REPEATEDLY say "It's fine for empires to not be exactly equal in minmax power, but what we have now is just ridiculous".

But of course it does keep going right over your head, doesn't it?

1. As long as the power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium, then it's less than I expect in a Paradox game and you haven't got a leg to stand on calling it "ridiculous", because it is in fact exactly what one should expect of a Paradox game.
2. The power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium
3. QED

 

[Methone]

1. As long as the power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium, then it's less than I expect in a Paradox game and you haven't got a leg to stand on calling it "ridiculous", because it is in fact exactly what one should expect of a Paradox game.
2. The power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium
3. QED

So in one breath you say "I'm not expecting Starcraft, so we don't need perfect Esports balance" and in the next you say "Other games have a bigger imbalance, so it's fine in this game."

So? Which is it? Other games can be a good standard or not? Or are you going to twist yourself into knots as you mental gymnastics yourself into not actually contradicting yourself?

 

[TofuFox]

Stellaris is even farther away from EUIV than Starcraft in a lot of ways (no historicity goals, etc), so your analogy doesn't work; even if it did, it would act as a criticism of EUIV rather than a defense of Stellaris. And what kind of imbalance you expect in paradox games isn't actually a basis for an argument to begin with, so none of it works at all.

I prefer RP to min/max, so my limited amount of playing MEs is primarily due to that, but an additional factor is they are imbalanced enough they're moving towards this kind of strategic depth, which is of course not what I want in my single player grand strategy games. And if I don't play Machine Empires they either don't show up or always win their neighborhood, which is boring and repetitive, with samey midgames, another thing I don't want in my single player grand strategy games.

 

[SkyGuy7617]

(This post will be updated with more information during the day)

He said that, but where are the updates? The stream has been over for hours and isn't even on YouTube.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I keep trying to tell you, but you never listen, but Imma keep trying: IMBALANCE IS GOOD, NOT ALL EMPIRES SHOULD BE EQUALLY OP, STOP BRINGING YOUR ESPORTS STARCRAFT BALANCE FETISH INTO MY SINGLEPLAYER GRAND STRATEGY GAME.

Not everything has to be perfectly balanced, but it sure would be nice if some civics weren't Literally Useless, robots weren't practically mandatory, and machine empires weren't so broken they dominate every game they're in.

 

[Malecord]

I'm happy about the hole diplomacy thing. Federations, galactic community and stuff. It finally seems like some mechanics to influence foreign polities without resorting to hardware.

But I'm still not sold on the actual influence mechanics. I mean, how you actually interestingly play (for instance) to make the galactic ONU or your fed fellows converge on you ethics and gain cohesion. I will look to some reviews on that after launch. Just in case it's another 2.2.

And regarding warfare I still think it's pathetic. That monstrous carrier thing they added reminds me of the titans and colossi thing in 2.0. It has no other purpose than leverage inferiority complexes to inflate sales. It's a gratuitous fan service. Now that they added production mechanics and soon diplomacy, I wonder when some actual sensible warfare mechanics will be added to the game.

 

[Methone]

And regarding warfare I still think it's pathetic. That monstrous carrier thing they added reminds me of the titans and colossi thing in 2.0. It has no other purpose than leverage inferiority complexes to inflate sales. It's a gratuitous fan service. Now that they added production mechanics and soon diplomacy, I wonder when some actual sensible warfare mechanics will be added to the game.

There are sensible warfare mechanics in the game already, but I agree about 'big things' to inflate sales. It was understandable with Utopia, it raised an eyebrow with Megacorp, but this is just painfully obvious.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

There are sensible warfare mechanics in the game already, but I agree about 'big things' to inflate sales. It was understandable with Utopia, it raised an eyebrow with Megacorp, but this is just painfully obvious.

I don't really mind it.

Also, considering one of the concerns about the Juggernaut's mobile shipyard capabilities was "why would I reinforce my fleet using it instead of my huge shipyards at home", it bears looking at the new reinforcement mechanics... within which the Juggernaut seems much more useful to me.

 

[Badesumofu]

As long as the power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium, then it's less than I expect in a Paradox game and you haven't got a leg to stand on calling it "ridiculous", because it is in fact exactly what one should expect of a Paradox game.

That's completely ridiculous. In fact, it's so ridiculous that I'm not going to try to explain why it is ridiculous because if it's not obvious then you're either unfamiliar with the subject matter, deliberately making a dishonest argument, or so unreasonable that it's not worth attempting to reason with you.

 

[Nevars]

I'm of the opinion that excluding Hivemind from ruler challenge succesion is a good move and make sense because if they can participate there will only be 2 options that don't break my immersion but really suck gameplay wise which are, 1st they win forever because the entire collective should have overpower any individual and 2nd they can lose which means ruler die thus resulting in entire hive disintegrate into nothing and gameover.

Any other result like some other suggesting losing lvl or exp wouldn't fit for me but this is just my opinion about this.

 

[methegrate]

Not everything has to be perfectly balanced, but it sure would be nice if some civics weren't Literally Useless, robots weren't practically mandatory, and machine empires weren't so broken they dominate every game they're in.

This is where I fall on the scale myself.

I mean, spiritually I agree with Monturiol's point (if not the way he makes it). I think the MP-balance focus in Stellaris can often break the fun in a game that should be about single player strategic roleplaying, with multiplayer strategy as a nice bonus on the side. It bugs me to absolutely no end that every empire plays the same game, fields the same units, and pursues the same strategies regardless of ethics, government, leaders or technology.

But there still has to be some balance, because this is still a competitive strategy game. There's no point including a bunch of civics that do nothing. If one tech is overwhelmingly dominant, then every empire will either use it or get wiped out by the empires that do. And it's no fun to include ethics that just get steamrolled every time they blip up onto the board or that always, inevitably gobble up their neighbors.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

1. As long as the power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium, then it's less than I expect in a Paradox game and you haven't got a leg to stand on calling it "ridiculous", because it is in fact exactly what one should expect of a Paradox game.
2. The power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium
3. QED

You literally don't even understand what Stellaris is supposed to be. I don't know how somebody so ignorant of the design goals for this game runs his(?) mouth about them so much, but here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-1-the-vision.882808/

Stellaris diverges from all of our other games in certain key respects:

• It is not historical.
• It features a symmetrical start.
• You start out small.
• Most of the world is unknown.

The last three points happen to be defining features of "4X" games, so - although I somewhat dislike the term - Stellaris is in many ways a 4X game

(Emphasis added, obviously.)

Hard mode in Stellaris can be achieved all sorts of ways, without even using mods. Options:

• The obvious (turn up the difficulty, turn up the AI aggressiveness, turn up the advanced starts, allow them to begin near you, don't use scaling, etc.)
• Galaxy of evil (Ever tried making a bunch of FP empires that all have the same species and force-spawning them? Or a bunch of DEs and not going as machine yourself? Or even a bunch of fanatic spiritualists and you're a machine?)
  
• Deliberately-self-gimping (aside from obvious stuff like trash-tier civics, did you know it's possible to make a species with five negative traits and no positive ones?)
• Roleplay (e.g. Post-Apoc, or stuff like never using Negotiate with Crime Lords because your people "wouldn't stand for it", or building gene clinics everywhere)
• Self-imposed handicaps (just don't ever use the market, or build colony ships, or whatever).

However, none of those things require that you do, or do not, play a particular empire type. Every game style should be balanced, absent deliberate unbalancing by the player. Exact balance may not be the highest priority, but player options shouldn't ever be imbalanced by design. Stop trolling this forum with your ridiculous claim that the game should be something that it deliberately, and explicitly, is not.

 

[Abominus]

Hello everyone!

This week we’re back with another dev diary! I apologize in advance for it being a shorter one, but don’t worry, we aim to make up for it with a stream!.

Later today at 17:00 CET we will be hosting a stream over at Twitch where we will be talking about Federations and showing off all the features in more detail (such as all the federation perks). We will also be announcing the release date for the Federations expansion and showing off a cool new trailer!

If you have things you want us to show on stream, please don’t be afraid to mention them here!

See you on the stream!

(This post will be updated with more information during the day)

I don't see anything new...

 

[Annihilat0r]

I don't see anything new...

I think they forgot about us...

 

[Nahadoth]

1. As long as the power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium, then it's less than I expect in a Paradox game and you haven't got a leg to stand on calling it "ridiculous", because it is in fact exactly what one should expect of a Paradox game.
2. The power discrepancy between Hives and Machines is less than the discrepancy between EUIV's Ottomans and Byzantium
3. QED

What the hell does the situation in another completely unrelated game have to do with Stellaris? This is the dumbest bit of balance reasoning I've seen in a long while.

 

[mirco297]

Life Seeded can go with Agrarian Idyll.
Shattered Ring (and Void Dwellers) do not use standard districts, which conflicts with the effects of Agrarian Idyll (which modifies districts).
Mechanist (and Syncretic Evolution) create separate, subservient species of worker pops, which contradicts the "worker life is best life" of Agrarian Idyll.
Post-Apocalyptic I guess they just think Agrarian Tomb World doesn't make any sense.

Oh, you are right. Life-Seeded can have Agrarian Idyll

And you got a point with the standard districts and an Agrarian Tomb World, Didn't think of that.
Didn't think of the ideal behind it either. "worker life is best life" sums up Agrarian Idyll pretty well I think.

Thanks <3

 

[Turnil]

the stream is on youtube

 

[Venatos]

well, it was a nice rehash of the already available info, and we got a little teaser about the performanceimprovements earlier.
but what about the AI? its unreasonably bad for a game about basic math and all of these additions will make it even worse if we cant get the AI out of its "complete potato"-state.

 

[KyuuET]

I would appreciate a text version of the key matters as well, if you would.

Not preordering myself. First I want to see that the performance matter is fixed. Should the game be smooth sailing, I'm sure I'll put my money down for Federations.