Paradox, please, tell us a story

[Elfin]

There is one thing Stellaris really lacks. That's history. Yoy see, in all other PDX games, like HoI 4 or CK 2, we have a back story, we all know (and who don't can google it) e.g. how Hitler came to power or why do we have that big bad Abbassid empire. Unlike those games however Stellaris does not have such a history. Of cource, when player creates his empire he can write something or just think in his head, but it will have little influence on actual game (aside from ethos).

So, what should be done at least:

1) Something to start with.
OK, now we already have some event chains like cultists and probes but we also can have something much bigger. What if your homeworld is really dying either due to ecological issues or as a result of world war and there is nothing you can do about it but to evacuate in 20 years or extinct as a species? What if you've tried sending generation ships into space a hundred year ago and now there is a real chance to find out what happened to them? What if your scientists can't trace down evolution of your species and suspect that your ancestors had came from outer space? All these things can be random or semi-random depending on your ethics.

2) Anomalies.
We have plenty of them concerning debree fields and derelict ships, but none of these anomalies is connected to real power of ancient space - the Fallen. The War in Heaven event tells us about ancient rivals, but there are no traces of their wars in the past. Why cant you link some of those anomalies to existing FE? Why can't we find not just derelict cruiser but an older version of a FE battlecruiser, or discover that ancient shipyard actually used to belong to one of FE's?All these things together with ancient minefields, automatic defence systems, traces of orbital bombardment can help us to understand, what happened in the long past.

3) Other species.
We've got limited number of portraits and sometimes there are few species using the same. I think that it must be used. Just imagine that we, humans, have finally gone into space and discovered that one of the planet is populated by sentient creatures that looks just like us. I think, we'd investigate it. The same here, in Stellaris. When you meet someone who looks just like you there must be an option to study this. Maybe its just a coincidence but maybe not. Maybe in a distant past you were both parts of something big, some powerful space empire. It would be even more interesting if one of FE's uses the same portrait you do. They could welcome their long-lost brethren offer you protection and even give some technologies that are rightfully yours... or they can try to force-reintegrate you.


Why am I asking you? Well, I probably could do it myself, it's not a problem to write few (or few hundred) events, although I'm not so good at scripting (can understand when see one, e.g when I want to figure out how one of event chains works, but I doubt I can write one on my own) and I just do not like mods - they have compatibility problems, you have to update and adapt them each time. I'm too lazy for this

I hope someone from PDX will notice it. Just in case: I meant it, about writing events and I can do it just to help make one of my favorite games better.

 

[SolarGuy]

1) Something to start with.
OK, now we already have some event chains like cultists and probes but we also can have something much bigger. What if your homeworld is really dying either due to ecological issues or as a result of world war and there is nothing you can do about it but to evacuate in 20 years or extinct as a species? What if you've tried sending generation ships into space a hundred year ago and now there is a real chance to find out what happened to them? What if your scientists can't trace down evolution of your species and suspect that your ancestors had came from outer space? All these things can be random or semi-random depending on your ethics.

With at least four to five different outcomes / event lines to each of these things (rather than a straight line without any story-wise branches, like Cultists or Space Probes), this would bring the game a lot closer to being "perfect". At least in my view.
And please, Paradox, please put some more lore / flavour everywhere! For example the space probes... WHY is one of them possessed by some subspace entity? Can we communicate with it? Is it a prelude to the Unbidden invasion? Or a remnant of the last Unbidden invasion?

2) Anomalies.
We have plenty of them concerning debree fields and derelict ships, but none of these anomalies is connected to real power of ancient space - the Fallen. The War in Heaven event tells us about ancient rivals, but there are no traces of their wars in the past. Why cant you link some of those anomalies to existing FE? Why can't we find not just derelict cruiser but an older version of a FE battlecruiser, or discover that ancient shipyard actually used to belong to one of FE's?All these things together with ancient minefields, automatic defence systems, traces of orbital bombardment can help us to understand, what happened in the long past.

I'd love it if such "special planets" were actually special. Even if the Orbital Shipyard anomaly fails and the station gets destroyed, this should generate a small debris field in orbit of that planet. And on that toxic world that has an ammonia biosphere there could be a pre-sentient species suddenly emerging from it, bringing unique traits and toxic-world-habitability with it tht you would otherwise never get.

3) Other species.
We've got limited number of portraits and sometimes there are few species using the same. I think that it must be used. Just imagine that we, humans, have finally gone into space and discovered that one of the planet is populated by sentient creatures that looks just like us. I think, we'd investigate it. The same here, in Stellaris. When you meet someone who looks just like you there must be an option to study this. Maybe its just a coincidence but maybe not. Maybe in a distant past you were both parts of something big, some powerful space empire. It would be even more interesting if one of FE's uses the same portrait you do. They could welcome their long-lost brethren offer you protection and even give some technologies that are rightfully yours... or they can try to force-reintegrate you.

I'll just quote myself from reddit, where someone posted pictures about having Human FE named "Human Remnant" and Sol-Humans in the same game:
"But wait. If those Humans are just a remnant, and the Humans from Sol are also just nothing more than a smaller and low-tech remnant, then where the hell do the Humans actually come from!?"
This should say pretty much everything.

The general behaviour when meeting a new species, especially the first one, is just utterly underwhelming. You would expect something more than 6 months of stopped colony ship research and then just getting a short message of them explaining what you can see on the top of the screen anyways.
You immediately know their planet/system count, their homeworld's and colonies' positions, their borders, their ethics and opinion of you, all that stuff. I think that such things should be revealed *very* slowly. And those pre-contact-wars do exist, they just never come to work properly because the ships usually take longer to travel to the others than they take to research your comms. This should be changed. 5 years of (not research-blocking) special project, or maybe 10 years, just to make hostilities possible before knowing how the others even speak.

Meeting your very first species however should be even more impactful:
Depending on their tech level (FE, advanced, normal, just-out-of-pre-FTL, early space age, industrial, pre-industrial, stone age, pre-sentient) your population should feel differently about this encounter. (I colour-coded this by tendency: Green = Nicer and Red = Worse)
Stone age = feeling of real superiority and not having to care at all (+much autoritarian, +much pacifist)
Pre-industrial other pre-FTL = feeling of superiority and not having to care (+authoritarian, +pacifist)
Industrial and early space age = feeling of having to help and protect them (+xenophile)
Same tech as us = feeling of having to get along with them relatively well, but also needing defenses (+egalitarian, +militarist)
Fallen Empire (friendly, which means either xenophiles or materialist/spiritualist [whichever is your empire]) = feeling of the galaxy being awesome and quite peaceful (+much xenophile, +pacifist)
Advanced start = feeling of having to secure borders against threats (+xenophobe, +militarist)
Fallen Empire (hostile, which means either xenophobes or materialist/spiritualist [whichever is your opposite]) = feeling of having to secure a lot of borders against huge threats (+much xenophobe, +much militarist)

I hope someone from PDX will notice it.

@Wiz
Now, let's hope

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

While I don't think a focus on Fallen Empires is, strictly speaking, a pressing matter (they can be turned off, after all), I can agree with giving players more variety and depth to their civilization's history. I'd like to eventually see a lot more of those starter quests. I'm not concerned about them being overly specific, mind- I don't mind having to use my imagination if I want the angry ghost probe to be related to the Unbidden- but more opportunities to tell a story would be great.

It would be nice if some of those sorts of more "personal" event chains came up later in the game, though.

 

[spannbeton]

They are already on some new story elements (Look up alexis kennedy, the reson for kennedy update name).
So a good chance for your Ideas to somehow get noticed.
Like the ideas.

 

[Druesling]

I'll just quote myself from reddit, where someone posted pictures about having Human FE named "Human Remnant" and Sol-Humans in the same game:
"But wait. If those Humans are just a remnant, and the Humans from Sol are also just nothing more than a smaller and low-tech remnant, then where the hell do the Humans actually come from!?"
This should say pretty much everything.

There are those who believe...that life here began out there, far across the Universe...with tribes of humans...who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians...or the Toltects...or the Mayans...that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids...or the lost civilizations of Lemuria...or Atlantis.

Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man...who even now fight to survive--somewhere beyond the heavens!

Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest...a shining planet known as Earth.

 

[Elfin]

Just another thought.
Even nowdays astronomers are looking for potentially habitable planets, so I think in Strllaris insted of simply having few of those in the nearby systems we can have a start quest? a mission for science ship to survey the most promissing systems and discover the truth.

 

[safe-keeper]

I'm probably going to make a thread on this in Suggestions, but my suggestion is just as much more "dynamic storytelling", like in CK2 and Dwarf Fortress. Check out a a CK2 Let's Play or AAR or Boatmurdered -- part 11 and 12 are fantastic -- if you don't know what I'm talking about.

I was playing CK2 and my mother plotted to kill my cousin. I sent her into exile in Sweden. Then my wife plotted to kill the same cousin. I locked her up in the dungeon. Two years passed and I realised I didn't know what to do with her, so I relased her.

Scripted stories are well and good, and I enjoy all such content in the game, but you do burn through them pretty quickly. The game needs more "springboards" that in themselves aren't stories, but which work as plot points the same way various characters' actions do in CK2. The more such things are in the game, the more engaging it becomes, because it starts stories that the players can enjoy for themselves, and share on the forums and YouTube channels.

 

[LastLeviathan]

I'm probably going to make a thread on this in Suggestions, but my suggestion is just as much more "dynamic storytelling", like in CK2 and Dwarf Fortress. Check out a a CK2 Let's Play or AAR or Boatmurdered -- part 11 and 12 are fantastic -- if you don't know what I'm talking about.

I was playing CK2 and my mother plotted to kill my cousin. I sent her into exile in Sweden. Then my wife plotted to kill the same cousin. I locked her up in the dungeon. Two years passed and I realised I didn't know what to do with her, so I relased her.

Scripted stories are well and good, and I enjoy all such content in the game, but you do burn through them pretty quickly. The game needs more "springboards" that in themselves aren't stories, but which work as plot points the same way various characters' actions do in CK2. The more such things are in the game, the more engaging it becomes, because it starts stories that the players can enjoy for themselves, and share on the forums and YouTube channels.

Hopefully they overhaul characters to be more like CK2 in that manner. It would add infinitely more depth if governors, scientists, admirals and such all vied for different things and effect your empire in dynamic ways.

 

[extrapancake]

Id like to avoid something set in stone, stellaris is great because you can craft your own story for every playthrough, I dont want my people to be shoehorned into one a few generic storylines every time. That said, premade puzzle pieces that you can use to build your story like the leviathans or the anomalies are great and I can only hope for more.

 

[safe-keeper]

Hopefully they overhaul characters to be more like CK2 in that manner. It would add infinitely more depth if governors, scientists, admirals and such all vied for different things and effect your empire in dynamic ways.

Yeah, a CK2-esque character system would fit Stellaris so well.

 

[Emraldis]

I think another good way to inject story/history is to have a timeline feature. Remember in the game spore you had your species timeline and it would record the major events that occurred and shaped your species? I'd like to see stellaris have a similar feature, where with the push of a button you can see your history from the moment your species discovered FTL travel and took to the stars to the current day. This timeline would show anomalies discovered, events that have occurred and the decisions you made during those events. (Things like you encountering a new species, you going to war, encountering a fallen empire, discovering abandoned terraforming equipment and deciding to reactivate it.) It could then fill in these events with some story blurb that relates to your ethos or government, giving you a more colorful view of your empire's history. Perhaps this could be incorporated with other species as well, you can learn about the history of other factions, and slowly piece together their timeline through events and anomalies within their borders.

 

[Milten]

Yeah, a CK2-esque character system would fit Stellaris so well.

I personally think it shouldn't be the main focus with Stellaris scope. Right now it's missing more in terms of species and empires.
They have nothing to tell or surprise you with. They have some AI modifiers, but you even know these right from the start. Not to mention how century old relations can be destroyed by just declining same proposal five times a year. Diplomacy and AI strategy could really use some love.
For example, they are well aware about my little genocidal habits, they should consider everything before handing over their last planets to me. Sell everything to some big militarists in order to get them into war, enter vassalage, beg xenophile FE for help, become Space Nomads or just
"We've lost contact with troops on Toria 4, commander"
*go to location*
"Huh? Why would there be troops on a Tomb Wo...wait a second"

 

[SolarGuy]

or the lost civilizations of Lemuria.

If this game's story was as complex as Perry Rhodan's... oh my god, that would be... AWESOME!
Somewhat confusing for those that don't care, but the most amazing thing ever to people like me who read all the event texts ^^

I personally think it shouldn't be the main focus with Stellaris scope. Right now it's missing more in terms of species and empires.
They have nothing to tell or surprise you with. They have some AI modifiers, but you even know these right from the start. Not to mention how century old relations can be destroyed by just declining same proposal five times a year. Diplomacy and AI strategy could really use some love.
For example, they are well aware about my little genocidal habits, they should consider everything before handing over their last planets to me. Sell everything to some big militarists in order to get them into war, enter vassalage, beg xenophile FE for help, become Space Nomads or just
"We've lost contact with troops on Toria 4, commander"
*go to location*
"Huh? Why would there be troops on a Tomb Wo...wait a second"

We *kind of* have that as an event. Although I think it may be from More Events Mod. The planet that was nuked in a... very interesting pattern that...
Okay, I'm not gonna talk around it: The planet's craters said "F*** You"

 

[jazzglands]

I think part of the idea is that we make the "initial history" ourselves over the first 50 or 100 years of the game. I kind of like the idea, but we need more politics-related mechanics before that history becomes terribly interesting. I have a lot of hope for Banks giving us that stuff.

 

[SolarGuy]

I think part of the idea is that we make the "initial history" ourselves over the first 50 or 100 years of the game. I kind of like the idea, but we need more politics-related mechanics before that history becomes terribly interesting. I have a lot of hope for Banks giving us that stuff.

And better diplomacy. Banks will most likely (or at least hopefully) give us some nice internal politics to deal with, so everything we need then is external awesomeness.
A timeline showing all events that have happened in the entire galaxy would be useful too, especially for the part of "making our own history".

 

[Baldeagle91]

It's akin to how underwhelming the commonwealth of man event chain is. Oh we finally meet the humans from earth and nothing happens.

I was hoping for the chance for re-unification wars or something.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

"There was once a pale Xeno with dark appendences that was very lonely."
'Why was it lonely?'
"All things must meet this Xeno. So, they shunned it."
'Did it chase them all?'
"It took a Bat'leth and split itself in two. Right. Down. The Middle."
'So it would always have a friend?'
"So it would always have a friend."

On a more serious note:
Writing events is easy, but writing *good events* is quite a bit harder and more time intensive.
I'd say both Leviathans and Horizon Signal show that the Paradox content designers are quite aware that we have great story-telling potential in Stellaris, so hopefully we will see more good stuff in the future.

edit: Blessing this post with a PDS Background for extra indulgence.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

It's akin to how underwhelming the commonwealth of man event chain is. Oh we finally meet the humans from earth and nothing happens.

I was hoping for the chance for re-unification wars or something.

You can tell that story. If you want reunification wars, declare war on Earth and try to reclaim it.

Like, I'm all for more story content- but the game shouldn't hold your hand in letting you tell your own stories. Imagination can go a long way- the black hole system I've found the Horizon Signal in has been home to a Curator Enclave once or twice... so obviously those curators are spooky cultists of the Worm, who helped guide my empire into studying the black hole in the first place.

 

[Tim_Ward]

You can tell that story. If you want reunification wars, declare war on Earth and try to reclaim it.

Yeah, but it'd be nice to have something in the game to differentiate the war to reclaim Earth from Just Another War of Conquest*. I hear what you're saying about 'you can just make it up youself', but I can invent my own fan-fiction any time I feel like, don't really need to be playing Stellaris to do that. The stories you try and tell through your games should be reflected to some extent through mechanics, or else why even bother with the game?

I'd like to add how successful Horizon Signal was in this regard. Really helped give my game a sense of story, after it fired. Just goes to show, a little can go a long way with this sort of thing. More like this please.

* Empires of the same species time should have a few unique diplomacy mechanics, for example a way to peacefully unify through diplomacy and a special type of guarantee independence that still allows you to declare war on them - essentially saying 'we are going to eventually reclaim these worlds, but we will attack any aliens that try and take them first'

 

[CrusaderJoe]

Agreed x1000

Overall, more event chains and flavor is just what this game needs.