Paradox, please, tell us a story

[BlackUmbrellas]

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.

I also find the Horizon Signal an amazing storyline (if a tad tedious to start- the low firing chance means you really gotta break immersion and bounce your science vessel around a black hole for years if you want to play through it). But you'll note that that event chain is entirely internal, which makes it far easier to write and implement- it doesn't have to take into account "outside factors".

Consider a Reunification War- how would the story account for, say, you getting attacked in the middle of it by an outside power? By Earth getting gobbled up by the local Fanatical Purifiers? By Earth making a bunch of alien allies that help in the war?

Like, I could see there being an event or two- when you first meet Earth, maybe it gives you a "This is shocking! How should we respond?" prompt and one of the options auto-declares a war against them. But beyond that, you need to worry about A.) railroading the player (perhaps their CoM doesn't want to go to war with Earth) and B.) making an event chain that's functional and can be played through reliably.

Event chains between empires seem inherently difficult to plan, because there are so many factors to worry about.

 

[Tim_Ward]

@BlackUmbrellas

Doesn't need to be an event chain. A special war goal - 'Annex UNE' (or 'Reclaim Earth' if held by aliens/primitive humans/a tomb world) and some events that fire when you achieve it that give you options like moving the capital to Earth, or even form a new state with some hybrid CoM/UNE ethics set. You could make special pro-unification factions for when there are two empires with the same founding species, which kick up a stink until you rule Earth. You could add special diplomatic options for species with the same founding empire.

You could simply implement the Eu4 mission/decision system, and work this stuff in through that. It works well in Eu4 by giving the player story-lead goals to achieve but without rail-roading them into how to achieve them.

 

[Mackus]

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?

There is even some leftover script from anomaly about finding such splinter colony, but its been all dummied out.

Dammit, I'd really like if there were at least some flavour text acknowledgement when you meet your lost brothers, such as CoM vs UNE.

"We have encountered ships of an unknown origin in the [From.From.From.GetName] system! These suspiciously familiar vessels had hailed us in our own language! They identify themselves as §Y[From.GetName]§!"
Cue first contact screen...
"I bring greetings from [contact_empire.GetRulerTitle] [contact_empire.GetRulerName], the undisputed ruler of the [contact_empire.GetName]. This historic moment will remembered as day when we were reunited our long lost [contact_empire.GetSpeciesName] brothers and sisters!"

 

[Baldeagle91]

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.

Ohhh don't worry I do understand that wars context are made by the player.... however having things happen out of the players control, like your opponent initiating a unification war....

Also having a diplomatic option to unify factions outside the integrated mechanics would be useful for empires with the same species type. I had an empire created by an early war I lost from my main species protected by an ally of mine. Because they were a protectorate of my ally and federation member there was nothing to re-integrate my own people into my empire even after the empire who forced be to free them was long destroyed.

On the matter of how the game would treat such wars, like any other, if the mutual threat gets too high then you would go to peace. Also any declaration of wars on re-unification factions would effectively mean you'd have to fight both. Akin to declaring war on a country that is in the middle of a civil war CK2 style.

That said civil war mechanics are sorely missed in stellaris.

 

[Ace_of_Spades60]

You know, I once had a Commonwealth game where I crusaded and purged through 4 different xeno federations to liberate Earth which had fallen to alien conquest on the other end of the galaxy. Twas glorious.

More scripted story events are always nice; especially when there are real consequential effects from said events howver, most of the story from Paradox games always come from player internal rping while working with the game mechanics given.

 

[SadeRat]

I'd like to be able to click a battleship at the end of a war and be able to see a list of the battles it fought. Its a small thing and most people might ignore it, but it is something. Even better if ships can level up and increase in combat power. The same for armies. No more of this "leader can build one elite army" nonsense: an elite army is one you've had for decades or centuries, with hundreds of battles to its name, and the heightened skill and power to match! Stats like these tell a story. Each combat log is part of your story from a new and unique perspective.

More scripted events would be nice, but I think scripted responses to your own actions might be more memorable and meaningful. An enemy conquers your friend and you liberate him, and all you get from it is a boost to your relations. There should be feasts and festivals and celebrations! And, as with above, this should be permanently recorded somewhere.

We need a new screen devoted to the lore you have written with your actions.

 

[grommile]

I'd like to be able to click a battleship at the end of a war and be able to see a list of the battles it fought. Its a small thing and most people might ignore it, but it is something.

Specifically, it is something which has to be stored in the saved game.

 

[Revshawn]

@GAGA Extrem

If I ever see you on ranked NA, I'm going to squash you long D style.

 

[Vahilior]

1). Nice idea but i think many of us like to forge our own story entirely. Excellent feature for paid DLC.

2). Absolutely agree, should not take an enormous amount of effort but would significantly enhance immersion. Change those crappy ships you find to fallen empire ones. Maybe have events that hint about the unbidden or swarm having been to the galaxy before, planets with FE buildings and some backstory about war between FE's in the past. I should think it would be relatively quick to do, maybe a bit more challenging if you wanted it to refer to specific FE's.

3). Quite a nice idea, not entirely sure its necessary. If its quick and easy to do i think itd be worth doing but they shouldnt devote weeks to it if its tricky.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

@GAGA Extrem

If I ever see you on ranked NA, I'm going to squash you long D style.

That's quite unlikely, since I...
(a) almost exclusively play bot games
(b) only have a secondary account there

 

[Revshawn]

That's quite unlikely, since I...
(a) almost exclusively play bot games
(b) only have a secondary account there

Oh you're one of those folks! Dam. I was looking forward to it! Oh well.

 

[NakedBeast]

Agreed x1000

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

Also internal mechanics. And better sectors&ai.

 

[lief1]

I would like if they added a history option to empire creation were each option would be events that shaped your empire and could have special events associated with them or increase chances of specific events happening maybe even starting with +X% to a early tech or with that tech, maybe even letting you start with a second colony. This way when you write your empires back story it actually effects more than what ethos you pick guiding your early game.

 

[SolarGuy]

I'd like to be able to click a battleship at the end of a war and be able to see a list of the battles it fought. Its a small thing and most people might ignore it, but it is something. Even better if ships can level up and increase in combat power. The same for armies. No more of this "leader can build one elite army" nonsense: an elite army is one you've had for decades or centuries, with hundreds of battles to its name, and the heightened skill and power to match! Stats like these tell a story. Each combat log is part of your story from a new and unique perspective.

More scripted events would be nice, but I think scripted responses to your own actions might be more memorable and meaningful. An enemy conquers your friend and you liberate him, and all you get from it is a boost to your relations. There should be feasts and festivals and celebrations! And, as with above, this should be permanently recorded somewhere.

We need a new screen devoted to the lore you have written with your actions.

1) And this could also make it possible to turn into a small "Fallen Empire". Imagine having a battlefleet of two hundred ships, corvettes and destroyers, which you have been building for half a millennium. But then the Prethoryn came and destroyed most civilised parts of the galaxy. You somehow managed to drive them back and into extinction, losing 80% of your fleet in the process. You also had to lick your wounds as the Prethoryn invasion has annihilated most of your economy. Other nations? Barely exist anymore. You are a lucky one, of which there are at most two others in your galaxy.
But there are some pre-sentients that may have survived inside the Wasteland, being ignored as they were not useful, as well as a few pre-FTL species that might gain FTL within the next century. You still have the remaining 20% of your ancient fleet, and some of these ships have been built in the first 20 years of your empire that now exists for 600 years. That's clearly not enough ships for conquering the galaxy, nor could your incredibly weakened (but high-tech) economy afford building more ships, but the fleet will make any fear of the outside unnecessary: Maybe in a few centuries someone will be able to rival your elite fleet that you've been building up over the course of half an eternity.
And then you come to the, probably shocking, realisation that you are a Fallen Empire now, and that the Fallen Empires you saw in the early days of your empire were extremely similar to what you have become. Stagnated giants, with fleets that cannot be defeated with pure power, with technologies that have been invented and improved within a thousand years, with a population so ancient that there is nothing else left of their heritage except for some scattered ruins.

2) + 3)
Maybe this could be done with some kind of editable event log. The game automatically creates a timeline with those events, and you're free to write something about those events or add new points of interest in the timeline. Like the destruction of the restored automated battleship, which would normally not be shown in the list.
The timeline could include:
- any anomalies you've found (when you've found them, and when you've completed / failed them, and where that was, and who screwed the survey up and released the mutants)
- any combat logs (with the admirals taking part on both sides)
- any changes of policies
- creating / losing of colonies (by events, war, endgame crisis, purging the last pop,...)
- revolutions and civil wars, rebellions no matter how small they were
- any contacts you've made with other species, and for each empire a graph showing their opinion of you for the entire eternity (so you can see what event made which empires hate you)
- any genetic modifications, uplifts, various pre-FTL projects, self-genemodding events, so you can trace back the origin of any species pretty exactly
- once that feature is added, any renaming of species, to prevent confusion when it comes to your billions of different Human species that you genemodded for every single building in your empire
- once that feature is added, any planet destructions that have happened
- terraforming
- destruction of Fallen / Awakened Empires, leviathans, main space creatures (mining hub for example)
- awakening of FEs, appearance of leviathans and endgame crises

 

[Crissa]

To me, it the story doesn't mean 'more flavor text' - but instead being able to see results in space, look up events (a timeline, perhaps?), or interact with the items. Even if it's just 'This is where the X empire discovered the Y artifact' when selected or found in the history.