Is Universal Conquest Not Possible?

[Oahkoah]

Listening to some of the videos this week it seems that it the game is designed so that at some point your empire does not get any bigger and becomes fractured by factions.

Now, is this avoidable? I want to play as maybe an all consuming hive mind or a xenophobic militant race who want to purge all races from the galaxy and bring their planets into their empire cult.
One of the reasons I stopped playing CK2 was changes to vassal limits and opinions. I know it is not for everyone, but the reason I love EUIV is because I can take over the entire world and just get stronger. I like to snowball, I like to endlessly expand, I like to be the one big fish in the pond at the end.

If I buy this game will I be able to do it with my playstyle, or will there always be limits on myself expanding past a certain number of systems? I don't want to have to mod the game simply to play a race of insects that are unstoppably eating their way across the galaxy.

 

[Xylophone]

One of the victory conditions was 40% control of the galaxy. I guess you create vassals and puppets as the Demesne is limited.

 

[barolo]

There was a "conquer all" victory condition in one of the videos

 

[Lomi]

I am confident that one of the victory goals is to control 40% of the galaxy, not sure how feasible it is to control much more though.

 

[Zentay]

Limiting ethics divergence is probably a way to limit internal instability. There is a Conformist trait that gives -20% ethics divergence, although it's costly at 2 points.

Having one of the spiritual governments allows an extra -10% ethics divergence. Divine Mandate allows building a monument that reduces ethics divergence by 10%. The other two spiritual governments give -10% ethics divergence directly.

I'm sure there are other sources of ethics divergence reduction.

It's not yet clear how it will work but in the end it probably leads to having to worry less about separatist factions.

 

[Oahkoah]

So if I want to play a race that simply wants to eat the faces of every living thing in the galaxy as part of an all-consuming hive mind then I'll likely not be able to do it in this game and I might suddenly get to 60% of the galaxy and not be able to eat any more? If I have a population that forms into a faction that diverges in the slightest from my militaristic conquerors then I want to purge them, their family, their planet.
I quite like the idea of terraforming everything also, and even if it takes a bazillion resources to terraform Pluto into a thriving jungle planet (resources that would be better spent elsewhere) I'd like to be able to do that eventually.

I feel like the designers have made their decisions about what way they want this game to go and, unfortunately, it doesn't suit my individual playstyle. I'm sure lots of people will have a great amount of fun with this game and it will be very successful for Paradox, but unless I can wipe out every sentient species other than my own in a great purge then it won't be my kind of game.

 

[barolo]

but unless I can wipe out every sentient species other than my own in a great purge then it won't be my kind of game.

I really hope you can do this in a xenophobic empire. Would be pretty silly do have a multitude of species in a xenophobic society.
Let's wait for the next DD about slaves and purging ;D

 

[lockdown51]

I'm sure there will be mods for it. The 40k Mod spring to mind. Purge everything would be the victory condition for the IoM

 

[Orkonkel]

I completely relate to people who don't want to have to use mods. Never used one in my Paradox games, probably never will.

 

[Kayden_II]

I want to play as maybe an all consuming hive mind or a xenophobic militant race who want to purge all races from the galaxy and bring their planets into their empire cult.

Why Not ? ...

Your Advantage could be a Opinion-Boost, because all your POPs would be from the same (your) Species ...

But, You would to live with all Dis-Advantages ...
For Example, that your Growth-Rate has the Restriction of your own Species, instead, that You would (after a Conquest) integrate foreign POPs, Which already exist ...
In Addition with That, your own Species has a particular Home-World-Type ("Desert" for Example), Which could mean, that your Colonization has the Restriction of "Desert"-Worlds till You achieve the (expensive ?) "Terraforming"-Technology, Which is (also ?) expensive in the Case, that You terraform a Planet/Moon.

 

[Madzai]

Listening to some of the videos this week it seems that it the game is designed so that at some point your empire does not get any bigger and becomes fractured by factions.

If I buy this game will I be able to do it with my playstyle, or will there always be limits on myself expanding past a certain number of systems? I don't want to have to mod the game simply to play a race of insects that are unstoppably eating their way across the galaxy.

I have same feeling, too. I asked similar questions in relation to Administrative Sectors - why i'm forced to use them - if i want to have a rather small Empire (like 30 planets versus 100+ Empires everyone are so crazy about) and play something as hive mind with one central mind like Queen or something else that allow you direct control but over strictly limited number of planets. But it turned out there is no way around Administrative Sectors.

For a game that supposed to give a player a lot of different player-styles, actual number of way you can play seems pretty limited (at this point, maybe everything changes with later videos about mid-late games). I hope, i'm wrong about it.

 

[Danarcis]

It doesnt look like hive minds are a possibility at first, but if I know paradox right, it should probably be in an expansion. It would be a different government type from the paradigm all the others exist in. So it would require an expansion.

About conquering it all, I would also think that depends on the size of the galaxy you are playing in. With 1000 stars, you can probably become gigantic but wont be able to swallow it all up. Furthermore, about the demesne limit, I think it is unavoidable that your populations will diverge into other ethos in a big empire.

 

[vyshan]

Is Universal Conquest Not Possible?
Yes because we are limited to only 1 galaxy. Now galactic conquest might be possible, but Universal, nope.

 

[barolo]

Is Universal Conquest Not Possible?
Yes because we are limited to only 1 galaxy. Now galactic conquest might be possible, but Universal, nope.

all the other galaxies will come as dlc

 

[cosmeIII]

I'm sure it would be akin to world conquest in EU4: feasible, but so hard and tedious that you probably won't bother.

 

[moglus]

I'm sure it would be akin to world conquest in EU4: feasible, but so hard and tedious that you probably won't bother.

it's most likely "possible" but probably a little harder than it is in EU4

 

[Grunthex]

Hypothetically, it seems like it should be possible. Pop divergence/mutation and rebellions are likely to take time, so if you develop a strong enough force that you can both expand AND quell internal dissent fast enough, I don't see why you couldn't. But it feels like you'd have to be at end-game+ kind of tech, with the ability to be everywhere at once. Kind of like an EU4 world conquest, only without peace breaks. Constantly at war with everyone, including your own rebels.

 

[Denkt]

Im pretty sure you can eventually control the whole galaxy but it may require alot of purging, ships and civil wars.

 

[Umega]

I personally do not care about victory conditions, I want to play Stellaris my way and see how far I can go. If there is a some kind of limit on how much of the galaxy I control, I will mod it out.

 

[Praetori]

So if I want to play a race that simply wants to eat the faces of every living thing in the galaxy as part of an all-consuming hive mind then I'll likely not be able to do it in this game and I might suddenly get to 60% of the galaxy and not be able to eat any more? If I have a population that forms into a faction that diverges in the slightest from my militaristic conquerors then I want to purge them, their family, their planet.

I'm pretty confident you could (with the right species and attributes), but you would be hard pressed with everyone else throwing aside their differences to stop you as well as internal imperial friction. Going on a generic strategy game stampede and just snowball over all other empires works less than well in PDS titles due to diplomacy and internal friction which IMO is great.
It's actually one of the most promising mechanics with Stellaris compared to the usual 4x games where you just play the last XXX amount of turns/years on semi-auto since victory is assured. CK2 for example is basically a new "round" every time your ruler dies, empires crackle and fall because of other factors than external ones, small city states flourish and dominate their neighbors through other means than sheer force etc. I really hope to see the same in Stellaris.

I have same feeling, too. I asked similar questions in relation to Administrative Sectors - why i'm forced to use them - if i want to have a rather small Empire (like 30 planets versus 100+ Empires everyone are so crazy about) and play something as hive mind with one central mind like Queen or something else that allow you direct control but over strictly limited number of planets. But it turned out there is no way around Administrative Sectors.

They did specifically state that there are races/species that are not really bound by those limitations. Also you're free to not subordinate the administration and go beyond your imperial/federal demense, and deal with the consequences.