All the interesting decisions are over by mid-game, and that's a problem.

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Choosing your starting race's traits? Very fun (could be more so, but that's a matter of how you parse traits) Choosing ethics and Civics? Very Fun.
Ascension paths? Fun. Early colonization phase, which worlds and how to use? Wonderful.

The problem is by mid-game all that goes away. There's no room to explore and expand. You're half way or more into your chosen Ascension, you've not long gotten that third civic slot and all the big interesting choices are gone. Most SF presents the deep future of a civ as a time of unimaginable changes. Stellaris gives us am era of minute incremental % techs.

There's little to think about when a crisis hits, just fight or die, and no actual changes happening. I don't actually often make it to a crisis because, conquest at that point is busy work, victory is either impossible or foreordained.

Any one else in the same place?

 

[Pancakelord]

Most SF presents the deep future of a civ as a time of unimaginable changes. Stellaris gives us am era of minute incremental % techs.

This is perhaps a product of the tech system.

It allows you to always get every single technology. And technology really is magical in Stellaris, able to solve basically all your needs, ever, for ever and ever. If you give me a galaxy with 50 stars, a half dozen worlds (i.e. enough to "play out the early game" alone) and then sufficient time on my own, I'll eventually tech up and solve every single (economic) issue of my society, spam habitats everywhere and have like 10000 pops with all resources maxed out fully.

Once you have your "core" established, you really don't need to do anything else. You are post scarcity. By the time you're in to like T4 techs you are in to Clarke Tech (post-physics [as we understand it] lol). There is zero reason for you to interact with other empires - beyond wanting to spray the galaxy in your flag colour or exterminate others - and this goes for other empires too. Both AIs and Humans (though humans are often quite happy to oblige and kill anything that isn't like themselves in MP).

Stellaris' tech system is random.

• You can't plan for the future, you've got to roll with whatever it rolls for you.
• You can't make strategic decisions on which way to develop your society (beyond picking your lead 3 scientists and spamming more labs), most tech weights are hidden from the player and cant be biased much in-game.
• You always develop all 3 branches of science concurrently and don't have to make a choice/sacrifice in one vs the others (gone are the days where scientists would specialise in to one of the 3 branches), and techs often have interdisciplinary requirements making trade offs harder (e.g. X-level reactors[PHYS] and Y-level starbase construction[ENG] needed for habitats, I forget the exact techs off the top of my head).
• All techs [excl. event stuff like null void beams] can always be obtained.
  • There is no system whereby you can only research up to Tier 4 stuff, then you need to
    • Fight an FE to steal their T5 stuff
    • Form a science pact/federation and run a joint special project to "discover" T5 technologies (letting you then research them)
  • All empires have the same technical makeup and don't need to cooperate or trade to get otherwise "orthogonal" techs.
    • Sword of the Stars would have each empire only able to access "some" amount of the total pool of techs. For example (in Stellaris terms) in 1 match you might be incapable of deciphering T4+ Energy weapons, but someone else might have the same problem with T3+ Voidcraft, with this randomly varying from match to match [this system would also require stellaris tech disciplines to be less inter-dependent on eachother]. You'd have to steal/exchange/otherwise live with your own technical shortcomings.
    • Stellaris had a very mild form of this in early versions, locking you in to Energy/Kinetic/Missile techs, forcing you to scavenge them from other empires later to get a more well rounded fleet. I quite liked this. But then, I always liked using spies in Red alert 2 to unlock the disgusting Chrono Commando.

The lack of ... "technological scarcity" is one of the key reasons IMO, for the depressingly stagnant midgame in Stellaris. This is alongside a too-easy-to-please populace (no civil wars, strife, famines etc) and economical abundance (largely due to tech advancements).
The capacity to solve all your problems yourself robs the game of any sense of challenge, urgency or even need for animosity with others, beyond a simple desire to watch the galaxy burn.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

That's certainly a problem, yes, but I'm more bothered by the lack of any big transformative tech in the late trees.

 

[Pancakelord]

That's certainly a problem, yes, but I'm more bothered by the lack of any big transformative tech in the late trees.

It depends what you mean by transformative (some of the descriptions of late game techs sound pretty out there, even if their effects are, sadly, only stat changes). But ultimately, I think APs are PDXs chosen solution for unusual things happening to your empire during a game (whilst origins, and genocidal/isolationist civics, do this at game start).

Anything interesting or fundamentally unusual is gated behind an AP + a special project. Its too late for me to go digging for a direct quote now, but I'm sure I remember reading PDX had no plans in a Q/A response to touch the science system (neither the general card/RNG system, nor adding some events to Dangerous/Rare(Red/Purple) techs, like AI research). I have a feeling that's because they're content to use APs the main mechanic for "player led" transformative decisions that unlock some small mechanic or another, like the one decision that adds +2 districts to a planet, or ringworld construction [even if most of these are leading to more stat changes]. But as you've pointed out, this is a very 2D mechanic, with little player interaction in the midgame. (Personally, I struggle to find enough interesting APs to fill my AP slots unless im going for a specific ascension path).

For example, You can't cybernetically enhance your pops by unlocking cybernetics (as a tech) and spamming out medical centres + telling the medical workers to distribute cybernetic traits to pops each month (rather than just adding to habitability or whatever). You get an AP, you press run Special project, then everything magically transforms after you wait around long enough.
Another example, in much the same way, you decide to become a galactic crisis at the push of an AP button - no faction interaction, tech unlocks or anything else needed. Just a bit of space government bureaucracy (or whatever APs are meant to represent).

 

[Oculument]

Choosing your starting race's traits? Very fun (could be more so, but that's a matter of how you parse traits) Choosing ethics and Civics? Very Fun.
Ascension paths? Fun. Early colonization phase, which worlds and how to use? Wonderful.

The problem is by mid-game all that goes away. There's no room to explore and expand. You're half way or more into your chosen Ascension, you've not long gotten that third civic slot and all the big interesting choices are gone. Most SF presents the deep future of a civ as a time of unimaginable changes. Stellaris gives us am era of minute incremental % techs.

There's little to think about when a crisis hits, just fight or die, and no actual changes happening. I don't actually often make it to a crisis because, conquest at that point is busy work, victory is either impossible or foreordained.

Any one else in the same place?

What makes a decision significant and impactful is when it affects what happens later. If you are in the endgame there is no later. You are basically asking for a game that never ends.

 

[klopkr]

On of the aspects I kinda don't like about the midgame + is that other than the big ascensions there's no reason to see your empire change in any meaningful way.

I don't think anyone ethics shifts, You never change your authority, and other than adding one extra civic you probably are set on civic points for the rest of the game.

I kind a of wish there was a revolution mechanic that made your empire stagnate without a big change in its dynamic for too long. Or some late game civics or authorities.

Imagine giving your civilization up to a rogue servitor as a materialist. Or becoming a bio assimilator using gene modding to make all the various species in your empire into a single new species after a long campaign as xenophiles. Or balkanizing your empire intentionally to form a massive subject swarm that can declare on eachother while your subject sengoku style!

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

What makes a decision significant and impactful is when it affects what happens later. If you are in the endgame there is no later. You are basically asking for a game that never ends.

We're talking about the mid-game start here, not endgame start. It should be when there are still impactful decisions.

These are the main reasons why mid-game doesn't have real decisions:

1. Strategic resources aren't. Techs easily let you make them anywhere and you really don't need much of them to begin with (especially since most of the building upgrades using them are worse than just getting more building slots).
2. The overabundance of habitables (and the ease of getting habitability), and habitat spam capability, prevent you running out of new worlds.
3. You can't mix up or change ascension paths, so once you first decide which one to do (which is usually some time in the early game), you're set and don't need to make more decisions.
4. Methods of growth (arcology project, habitat spam, megastructures) don't really preclude each other, so every empire ends up doing about the same ones at this stage.
5. You run out of things to explore, and thus special things to find.

So in essence, all you've got left to do is stay the course on your ways of growing your empire, but every empire has the same ones with no real need to specialize. As to ideas on fixing this:

1. Making strategics should at least require the tech for harvesting them and be a tier higher, if not heavily restricted. Strategics should also make more of a difference (instead of rare crystals for mundane bigger admin offices, special armor). Strategics should also never have full crossover (no empire's corner should have all of them available).
2. Reduce habitable planets by a quarter. Increase habitat upkeep to something actually impactful.
3. Allow a way to change ascension perks, including paths when halfway thru. The second perk in each path also could be given 2 mutually-exclusive options (enter the Shroud or build terrifying psionic machines, become synths or become non-hivemind cyborg-assimilators, unlock super-traits or perfect cloning for instant armies).
4. Terraforming candidates could become an actual thing you come across somewhat commonly, and made to be expensive. This would allow an option to go wider with more colonies rather than do arcology projects that would make for an actual choice.
5. We really need archeological sites to be uncovered more often in the midgame. Also for archeological sites to have real options. Right now they're just later-earlygame chores to get goodies.

 

[UniqueNameHere]

In terms of helping keep the “unknown” factor and exploration going, I would also revamp the whole starbase system by changing the map to include pre-generated sectors/territories (like the Endless games or now Humankind). These territories would be claimed not by starbases, but by colonizing a planet within them. You could also have territories without any habitable planets that can only be claimed with the use of habitats, which would stay neutral for a longer period of time. I’ve also put suggestions out in the past to vastly slow down the early game exploration by starting out only with probes and not allow the opportunity to build exploration vessels until much later. In a sense, you send out probes, see if there are any habitable planets, and then send out a sort of combined science ship/colony ship to that system and hope for the best with only partial information.

 

[Atomcreator]

sounds like many of PDX games.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

The early game is the most fun for me as well. I have a few ideas to spice up the mid game.

More story event chains, something similar to the precursors or event horizon event chains. Have some that require science to complete, others military or economy. Maybe even have some unique to federations where each member has a part to play.

Civil wars. Have a chance for civil wars to break out, where half an empire tries to break away. For the player, they could choose which side to play if it's their empire, or which side to support if another empire.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

The early game is the most fun for me as well. I have a few ideas to spice up the mid game.

More story event chains, something similar to the precursors or event horizon event chains. Have some that require science to complete, others military or economy. Maybe even have some unique to federations where each member has a part to play.

Civil wars. Have a chance for civil wars to break out, where half an empire tries to break away. For the player, they could choose which side to play if it's their empire, or which side to support if another empire.

The main reason I didn't suggest civil wars is that I can absolutely guarantee you they'll be a DLC feature.

 

[Jaxck]

I would strongly suggest fiddling with your galaxy settings:

• 0.5 habitable worlds.
• Small number of empires, 8-10.
• Make all AI Advanced
• Maximum Fallen Empires
• Crank up AI difficulty & Crisis difficulty as high as they will go.
• Turn up Wormholes to at least x1.5
• Use Starnet/Startech AI mod

These settings will result in a few effects that I've found really make the game more interesting,

• It's largely impossible to balance your economy before 2300. Unless you take out all your neighbours, there's just not enough planets & growth is too slow to specialize into everything. Food & EC in particular are a drag to get into the black, and that's a very good thing.
• There's a vast tract of uncolonized systems somewhere, since there's too few naturally spawning empires to fill the space. Wormholes tend to tie the galaxy together in interesting ways, acting as a sort of proto-gateway network that enables early/mid game exploration.
• Intel & relationships really matter since you'll never be the biggest fish in the pond. There will always be at least two other empires that are capable of expanding and presenting a challenge to the player by 2300.
• And perhaps most importantly, fewer planets & fewer empires means less pops and thus less lag, often enough of a reduction to make the stupidness of logistic growth irrelevant as far as how it affects performance. The species screen is still broken unfortunately, I haven't found a solution yet.

 

[gamerk2]

I would strongly suggest fiddling with your galaxy settings:

• 0.5 habitable worlds.
• Small number of empires, 8-10.
• Make all AI Advanced
• Maximum Fallen Empires
• Crank up AI difficulty & Crisis difficulty as high as they will go.
• Turn up Wormholes to at least x1.5
• Use Starnet/Startech AI mod

These settings will result in a few effects that I've found really make the game more interesting,

• It's largely impossible to balance your economy before 2300. Unless you take out all your neighbours, there's just not enough planets & growth is too slow to specialize into everything. Food & EC in particular are a drag to get into the black, and that's a very good thing.
• There's a vast tract of uncolonized systems somewhere, since there's too few naturally spawning empires to fill the space. Wormholes tend to tie the galaxy together in interesting ways, acting as a sort of proto-gateway network that enables early/mid game exploration.
• Intel & relationships really matter since you'll never be the biggest fish in the pond. There will always be at least two other empires that are capable of expanding and presenting a challenge to the player by 2300.
• And perhaps most importantly, fewer planets & fewer empires means less pops and thus less lag, often enough of a reduction to make the stupidness of logistic growth irrelevant as far as how it affects performance. The species screen is still broken unfortunately, I haven't found a solution yet.

Changing Galaxy generation settings is a workaround, not a fix.

 

[Jaxck]

Changing Galaxy generation settings is a workaround, not a fix.

What? Of all the dumbass comments that come up on these forums, this might just take the cake.

The problem with the mid game is a lack of things to do, right. So how does balancing the game using existing inbuilt options, so that there are still things to do, not count as a fix?

Is it not the most desirable fix? Perhaps not. Maybe try out the Gigastructures & Planetary Wonders mods.

But trying to minimize a valid suggestion as "just a workaround" is idiotic & impolite. You didn't even contribute to the conversation with a suggestion of your own!

 

[AntiMachiavel]

I totally agree, mid-game customization would help a lot.

It could be interesting if in addition to Ascension Paths that modify species internally we had paths based on advanced external resource that the society is built on. For example:
1. Dark matter and black hole based society.
2. Nanite and nanobot based society.
3. Living metal and megastructure based society.
4. Zro and shroud based society (that would somewhat duplicate pscionic ascension but could focus on buildings, new megastructures and weapons, instead of leaders)
These could each come with special buildings, weapons, megastructures and upgrades to certain existing megastructures (dark matter decompressor also produces dark matter etc). These themes are already present throughout the game: Worm, L-Cluster, Zroni etc. Given exclusive ascension perks these would represent some real meaningful choices.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

I am digging the idea of strategic resources as gates to their own tech trees! that'd make the discovery and exploitation so much cooler and give the option of making their occurrence much more significant. Give us our Arakeen worlds that bend the galaxy about their controll.

 

[AntiMachiavel]

The Zro must flow!

 

[Jaxck]

I totally agree, mid-game customization would help a lot.

It could be interesting if in addition to Ascension Paths that modify species internally we had paths based on advanced external resource that the society is built on. For example:
1. Dark matter and black hole based society.
2. Nanite and nanobot based society.
3. Living metal and megastructure based society.
4. Zro and shroud based society (that would somewhat duplicate pscionic ascension but could focus on buildings, new megastructures and weapons, instead of leaders)
These could each come with special buildings, weapons, megastructures and upgrades to certain existing megastructures (dark matter decompressor also produces dark matter etc). These themes are already present throughout the game: Worm, L-Cluster, Zroni etc. Given exclusive ascension perks these would represent some real meaningful choices.

Good suggestion. This might also be a way to reapproach Ascension Paths, with Paths no longer being mutually exclusive due to a design decision, but mutually exclusive because of competing resource requirements. You *could* have telepathic cyborgs, but that would mean having a society that is dependent upon both Zro & Living Metal. Assuming those resources are highly limited, with renewability from rare deposits or new megastructures, it would put a serious dampener on the scale of your empire if your went down multiple Ascension Paths at the same time.

 

[grommile]

The problem with the mid game is a lack of things to do, right. So how does balancing the game using existing inbuilt options, so that there are still things to do, not count as a fix?

The settings you suggested included an AI mod, which is not an inbuilt option.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

I would strongly suggest fiddling with your galaxy settings:

• 0.5 habitable worlds.
• Small number of empires, 8-10.
• Make all AI Advanced
• Maximum Fallen Empires
• Crank up AI difficulty & Crisis difficulty as high as they will go.
• Turn up Wormholes to at least x1.5
• Use Starnet/Startech AI mod

These settings will result in a few effects that I've found really make the game more interesting,

• It's largely impossible to balance your economy before 2300. Unless you take out all your neighbours, there's just not enough planets & growth is too slow to specialize into everything. Food & EC in particular are a drag to get into the black, and that's a very good thing.
• There's a vast tract of uncolonized systems somewhere, since there's too few naturally spawning empires to fill the space. Wormholes tend to tie the galaxy together in interesting ways, acting as a sort of proto-gateway network that enables early/mid game exploration.
• Intel & relationships really matter since you'll never be the biggest fish in the pond. There will always be at least two other empires that are capable of expanding and presenting a challenge to the player by 2300.
• And perhaps most importantly, fewer planets & fewer empires means less pops and thus less lag, often enough of a reduction to make the stupidness of logistic growth irrelevant as far as how it affects performance. The species screen is still broken unfortunately, I haven't found a solution yet.

None of which actually makes the mid to end game slog any richer in interesting choices, it just makes it harder to get to the paltry few we do have.

That's fine if you want a challenge. I lean more to playing for RP / to occupy the maladaptive parts of my brain without needing too much from the rest, the white-hot fires of struggle are a shade too intense for me. More, doing something with the mid to end game, will not actually take away challenge for those as want it.