Experiences with Shroudwalker event chains?

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Ixal

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Apr 5, 2008
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What are peoples experiences with the Shroudwalker event chains?
I am kinda confused by them and never know what I am supposed to do (which is also why I am not sure if they are bugged/broken or if I am missing something)

Example:
When doing the Visitor situation it simply timed out without anything happening. When I started another event I got visitor again and this time got a popup that a ancient hero visits. Then the situation timed out again and only after that I realized I had a special project to investigate him (which resulted in him just retiring, doing nothing)

Then I got the Locust situation which does not progress at all. It sits at 0, does not increase and I have no idea what to do.
 
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Seems like a bug, then.

I use the Shroudwalkers quite often and had a bunch of events. Ok, sometimes nothing happens, that's to be expected.

Sometimes you get a bunch of notifications, maybe even a buff, and then it ends. Sometimes you get an event with special projects to finish in your situation log, and sometimes they spawn you an anomaly on a planet you already explored. That's how I got my Brainslugs for the first time ever.
 
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Mine always just starts an event that triggers a situation log thing, and then ends with some minor resources or something. Honestly, I forgot about them like 30% through my Psionic origin playthrough and stopped doing them because I needed the influence for other stuff and they weren't giving me anything good lol
 
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My experience was ruined because of influence cost.
Please, stop adding things that require influence, I don't understand why some people have problems with spending it unless the are playing only Fanatic Purifiers. IMHO it was over-used even before Overlord. I was happy when PDS replaced some influence costs with unity, and now they continue adding influence costs for literally any action.
 
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I’ve found it kind of bugged. I wasn’t sure if it was due to my empire being fanatic materialist, but the situation for fate did nothing the two times I did it. It simply ticked up and ended.

Also I built a shroud beacon in terminal egress and it created a tunnel that can’t be used. Ships don’t path through it and can’t be told to use it directly.
 
My experience was ruined because of influence cost.
Please, stop adding things that require influence, I don't understand why some people have problems with spending it unless the are playing only Fanatic Purifiers. IMHO it was over-used even before Overlord. I was happy when PDS replaced some influence costs with unity, and now they continue adding influence costs for literally any action.
Just stop doing so many claims or habitats and you won't have too few
I had enough influence to do a bit of everything, espionnage, hyper relay, galcom, orbital rings, the quest, using favors, changing vassal contract and some claims
 
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My experience was ruined because of influence cost.
Please, stop adding things that require influence, I don't understand why some people have problems with spending it unless the are playing only Fanatic Purifiers. IMHO it was over-used even before Overlord. I was happy when PDS replaced some influence costs with unity, and now they continue adding influence costs for literally any action.
I built a cheap fleet to force limit, and got high force projection. Then I elected a latent psionic ruler. This means 2+ more influence per month. Add in a couple of rivals and you are golden.
 
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My experience was ruined because of influence cost.
Please, stop adding things that require influence, I don't understand why some people have problems with spending it unless the are playing only Fanatic Purifiers. IMHO it was over-used even before Overlord. I was happy when PDS replaced some influence costs with unity, and now they continue adding influence costs for literally any action.
What should influence be used for? Most of its uses were removed.
 
Just stop doing so many claims or habitats and you won't have too few
...and stop building hyper-relays, orbital rings, do not have any diplomacy, do not build megastructures and do not interact with shroud coven, do not build branch offices as megacorp, do not use espionage, just sit down in 3 systems and maybe you will not be screwed with influence. If you play effectively - you will suffer because influence exists in this game unless you are Fanatic Purifier or until you get +5 influence edict and become Custodian/Emperor.
In my last game I had only one habitat (because no influence to build more) and no claims, very limited diplomacy (just a couple of commercial and research pacts), but I anyway got screwed with mana because new Overlord stuff. It means that in the next game I will obviously reject Shroudwalker events at all because rolling this events today means that you can't build a couple of orbital rings tomorrow. And that is sad, because witch enclave will become another dead mechanic because of influence.
What should influence be used for? Most of its uses were removed.
Yes, they removed influence from some planetary decisions (including building ecumenopolis), from GC, from diplomacy, from outposts and claims, from habitats, from megastructures... oh, wait, they did not.
Influence is okay only as limiting factor for early outpost expansion and, maybe, for claims (but anyway claims can be realised, for example, as envoy task and/or with unity, without using mana).
But for everything else - just meh, it is so only making this game frustrating. Some people can't imagine how to spend their influence cap, some people can't imagine how to get enough influence for all their needs. PDS can't satisfy needs of both of these groups of players.
Stellaris is 4X strategy, it means that you have full control over your economy... except of influence, because it is mana with very limited ways to get more. The main thing that represents your economic power is pops, and influence doesn't depend on pops at all. All resources have a strong bonds between them... except of influence.
We got unity rework and I wish influence will also be reworked (or even removed, Stellaris dev team is brave enough to make bald decisions) in the next major update, because it is the most problematic resource in this game. Not only because I'm suffering with getting more influence, but because at the same time someone has no ways to spend it.
 
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...and stop building hyper-relays, orbital rings, do not have any diplomacy, do not build megastructures and do not interact with shroud coven, do not build branch offices as megacorp, do not use espionage

I did everything of that in my game, including a Federation

Most megastucture do not even cost influence, only Ring worlds and Quantum catapult

I had a Federation, research pacts, interaction with the Coven, a hyper relay network, orbital rings, used espionage, all of that before even becoming Custodian or using t he Influence Ambition

You're acting like you couldn't do any of that, where did you influence go?
Do you have 8 defensive pacts ?
 
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It also helps to play to your strengths, influence wise. Ethics, tradition trees, ascension perks etc etc, they all can impact influence expenditure and gains, but not all at the same time, so it is important to choose wisely, depending on your plans.

About the Shroudwalker Origin, I find the Shroud Wormhole/tunnel thing vastly underwhelming.
You get one(1)! tunnel, that takes up a valuable building slot and go to somewhere in the galaxy. Why would I use this?
 
You're acting like you couldn't do any of that, where did you influence go?
I guess the main problem is timings.
I got enough science and resources to build hyper relays in every system and build ring on every planet, turn the half of them into ecumenopoli.... but my abilities are very limited because of mana.
For example, in 2263.12.09 my alloy income was +192. That means that I can build something like two orbital rings per year... But the mana income (+3.95, that isn't so bad) says that I can build only one. I don't even mention that T1 ring is quite useless for boosting planetary production. Upgrade, of course, requires influence, as most of Overlord features. And within 1 month I'll finish 4th tradition tree, which means that I should have 200 more influence to turn my capital into ecumenopolis. All previous influence was spent to outposts, hyper relays, shroudwalker roulette, for one habitat and for one mercenary enclave.
If we return to the original topic, this means that next time I should forget about shroudwalker coven because it delayed another stuff for something like a decade.

I've got hyper relays and habitats techs in 2240, orbital rings in 2260, ecumenopoli AP in 2264 and mega-engineering in 2280.
And I know that for someone it will take twice more time to reach the same technological and industrial level. That someone will have twice more mana (because it doesn't scale as literally every other resource in this game) and will have quite less problems with it. There is a lot of people, who plays better than me and they will struggle with influence even more.
So why the infuence overall is bad mechanic. Very limited sources of getting it punishes fast science/tradition/economic development, while the small influence cap is punishing players, who play with increased tech/tradition cost or just develop their economy slowly.
Do you have 8 defensive pacts ?
3 commercial pacts and 1 research pact, lol. AIs are spamming me with NAP requests for decades and I'm forced to witness this spam because I can't afford losing 0.25 precious mana per month.
 
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But the mana income (+3.95, that isn't so bad)
Are you serious?

Assuming base cost, with 3 commercial pacts and 1 research pact, it means you produce 5 per month, which is kinda the minimum you can produce.
You get 3 base influence and 2 from power projection, so 5.

Let's not do anything to have more influence when I struggle with influence.

It means:
- You're not Auth (+0.5 or+1)
- You don't have domination tradition (+0.5)
- You're not psyonic (Leader +0.5)
- You've no Rival (+0.5 per rival up to +1.5)
- You don't have the leader trait (+1)
- You don't have vassals (+1 per vassal)

I mean, you don't need to get every bonus, but at least, having 3 rivals is the minimum
 
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I think it depends on prefered ways of playing. For example I'm not using much of subjugation wars so I lack influence from vassals (I prefer liberation wars) and I find myself just short of influence more often than not. If someone is doing claim wars without reduction or is forcing votings in GC it is easy to spend hundreds of influence instantly. You also are not at full power projection since day 1, leader trait deep connections is rng.

Lately playing Fan. Egalitarian + Xenophile for diplomatic trade deals and building trust with pacts even on Diplomacy Tradition is influence sink as I'm warming several potential buyers for my Consumer Goods.
 
I find the influence problem scales with galaxy size. 1000 stars needs 5x the influence as 200 for claims, expansion, hyper relays, habitats, planetary rings... more AI nations = more opportunities for diplomacy... But influence / month is the same at 1000 star galaxy as it is at 200 star galaxy..

No idea why the shroudwalkers need influence.
 
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