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Stellaris Dev Diary #187 - Post-mortem

Zaztl’s time had come. The Ritual of Elevation was soon to begin, and as she was inching ever closer to her own final destiny, she wondered “Is this perhaps the start of a new life?”. She couldn’t help but to latch on to hope in her moment of dread, but she also knew the futility of the question.

No Jeferian would ever know the answer to that question.

Shumon ins-Beth was born, the newest individual to join the Pasharti species.


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The result of dark experimentation by the Jeferians - the former owners of the planet Taralon - the Pashartians are the ultimate parasites. Originally a semi-sapient creature dwelling in the depths of Taralon's mountains, the Jeferians uplifted and augmented them to act as a subservient slave race. However, their uplifting was rather too effective, and they unleashed a monster. Horrified at the capabilities of their creation - which included the ability to absorb other sentient species and turn them into Pashartians - the Jeferians tried to shut down the experiment. However, a small group of uplifted Pashartians escaped.

Over the years, they bided their time, managing not only to evade capture, but also gradually increase their numbers and develop a technological base to rival the Jeferians. Eventually, the Jeferians noticed that something was amiss, but by then they were powerless to resist.

Soon the Pashartians had seized control of the planet, unleashing violent pogroms on their erstwhile oppressors - all the while further increasing their numbers. Now poised to take to the stars, the Pashartians stand ready to pursue what they see as their solemn duty - the conversion of all lesser life forms to their likeness.


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Hello everyone!

Two weeks ago we announced the Necroids Species Pack, and today we’ll be giving you more information about the gameplay aspects. But first, I’ll take the opportunity to link the trailer once again, in case you missed it.


For Necroids we wanted to add some new gameplay that would be available to many more different types of empires and species. Unlike Lithoids, these Civics and Origins will not require you to use a Necroid portrait. For Lithoids we felt like it made sense, but in this case we didn’t want to impose any limitations on your imagination and creativity.

Necroids gameplay includes:
  • Necrophage (Origin)
  • Memorialist (Civic)
  • Death Cult (Civic)
  • Reanimated Armies (Civic)

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Necrophage is a new Origin that means that your primary species has a very hard time to procreate by themselves, but is instead dependent on transforming other Pops into themselves.

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Necrophage Trait - live long and consume

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Chamber of Elevation - when regular Uplifting isn’t enough

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Necrophytes - Hey, what does the necro part of my job title stand for anyway?

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In addition, there is also the Reanimated Armies civic that we showed in DD #185. This civic replaces the Military Academy with a Dread Encampment, and can recruit Undead Armies that are unaffected by morale.

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Reanimated Armies - the ultimate in recycling.

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Dread Encampment Building - wouldn’t want to get caught dead here

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Undead Army - it’s not wight how they work them to the bone, but they don’t complain

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Necromancer job - some say it’s a dead end job, but they’ve made a grave mistake
(Note: Above image includes the bonus from Ground Defense Planning)

This civic has a few restrictions - no pacifists, and it conflicts with Citizen Service since it replaces the Military Academy. Some subtle differences exist between Soldiers granted by Military Academies and the Necromancers from Dread Encampments - they’re Specialist tier and provide more defense armies, provide some research benefits, and will summon additional defense armies under Martial Law instead of increasing Stability.

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That is all for this week! Next week we’ll take a look at the art process and all the effort that goes into creating the Necroid portraits!

We’ll be eagerly reading your responses, and remember that...
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Jeff sees all
 
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What Stellaris really needs is a complete overhaul of its gameplay mechanics. And a dev team able and willing to fix all the problems in the game.

This is just vague and weird since Stellaris has done this a lot. The question is what to do. I think another layer of work on the economy would be fun, and reworking the whole ethics system/political system would be the best area to work on. My issue with the necros is that it doesn't seem like as big of a change as synthetic dawn, which was a huge change of pace.
 
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I agree with you.
My point just was that the development of Stellaris in general feels directionless/without purpose/not coherent.
I much prefer that they change their mind when they're wrong to them being coherently wrong.
 
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More content is always good -- but only when the game receiving that content works with 100% of perfection.
 
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For that, they would need a notebook -- a very, very big notebook...
I know it's not what you meant but that just made me think of using a Death Note to purge.

The design for reanimated armies feels kind of bland to me. Here is my idea to make them feel different: Instead of being regular armies, the undead should be generated for free at the moment of invasion. These undead would only last for the duration of the battle. The number of undead armies would depend on planetary devastation at the moment of troops landing on the planet: there would be none on an intact planet, but more and more as devastation increases. Similarily the Dread Encampment could provide free undead armies for the defender based on devastation.
I was originally expecting undead armies to be produced when you purge or sacrifice POPs, but your idea sounds a bit more interesting.

Maybe each POP killed in the bombardment spawns an undead army? Would give invaders a reason to use "selective" bombardment.
 
More content is always good -- but only when the game receiving that content works with 100% of perfection.

Depending upon who is asked 100% perfection in a game is a rare if not impossible thing.

While it certainly would be nice for the game to have less bugs, I would say demanding 100% perfection from any game is just setting one side or the other up for disappointment.

Hope I phrased that right.

Besides, as with other changes in the past, the Necroids and their mechanics might just be the first wave as it were in setting up the game for later changes, bug fixes included.
 
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Besides, as with other changes in the past, the Necroids and their mechanics might just be the first wave as it were in setting up the game for later changes, bug fixes included.
Reread what you just wrote. "It's the first wave preparing for bugfixes. Just like all the other times."
 
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Depending upon who is asked 100% perfection in a game is a rare if not impossible thing.

While it certainly would be nice for the game to have less bugs, I would say demanding 100% perfection from any game is just setting one side or the other up for disappointment.

Hope I phrased that right.

Besides, as with other changes in the past, the Necroids and their mechanics might just be the first wave as it were in setting up the game for later changes, bug fixes included.

Well, I don't wanted to say 100% perfection exactly, but I think you can see that.
 
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Reread what you just wrote. "It's the first wave preparing for bugfixes. Just like all the other times."

That is not what I said, I try not to lie and speak untruths, and the way you phrased that would be untrue as I interpret it anyways

Going from the Tile system to the current system, not a bug fix.

Adding the Origins, not a bug fix

The archeology Shenanigans, again not a bug fix.

While bug fixes may have indeed been included in the changes referred to above(and others besides) I do not think that bug fixes were what those changes were centered around. They were game changing mechanics certainly but not bug fixes in and of themselves, which do likewise change games, just in a different manner I'd say.
 
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That is not what I said, I try not to lie and speak untruths
Except it is. Quote:

Besides, as with other changes in the past, the Necroids and their mechanics might just be the first wave as it were in setting up the game for later changes, bug fixes included.

All I did was swap the order of the bolded sections.
and the way you phrased that would be untrue as I interpret it anyways
I'm sorry, but I cannot read your mind.
 
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Robots came with an entire proper expac. And never got their own ships, cities, etc.
The Reptilian ships/cities look like Machine stuff to me because of their blocky look.
 
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The Reptilian ships/cities look like Machine stuff to me because of their blocky look.

Yeah, it would be cool to have a Reptilian City that have some Mezo-American/Egyptian influence in its architeture -- the vanilla Reptilian looks more like a Machine city than with a proper Reptilian city.
 
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I didn't really read the whole thread, so I don't know if anyone else said it, but I think that the reanimated armies seem to be Frankenstein monsters expies, that are actually sci-fi, well for that time when the book was written. The Necromancer name confuses it with Deathtrap and Dungeon death mages (frankly speaking I wish they'd change it), but the fact that they give Physics(Lightning Bolt for Reanimation) and Society (Biology from Corpses) makes me think all necromancers are Frankenstein tribute.

I also find it kind of interesting that they also add naval capacity, and that means there might be Frankenstein monsters mateys in your Space Navy here and there XD .
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I didn't really read the whole thread, so I don't know if anyone else said it, but I think that the reanimated armies seem to be Frankenstein monsters expies, that are actually sci-fi, well for that time when the book was written. The Necromancer name confuses it with Deathtrap and Dungeon death mages (frankly speaking I wish they'd change it), but the fact that they give Physics(Lightning Bolt for Reanimation) and Society (Biology from Corpses) makes me think all necromancers are Frankenstein tribute.

I also find it kind of interesting that they also add naval capacity, and that means there might be Frankenstein monsters mateys in your Space Navy here and there XD .

[snip]

Yah this is what I was saying. The SF genre was literally invented with a novel that included reanimating the dead; to say necromancy doesn't have a place in SF is a very... unclassical view on the genre I suppose. SF isn't all spaceships, aliens, and robots. I do wish the flavor jobs were renamed to something more in line with SF theme though, instead of just "necromancer," which I feel is a bit of a fantasyesque name, although I'm not sure what else I'd call it.
 
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Yah this is what I was saying. The SF genre was literally invented with a novel that included reanimating the dead; to say necromancy doesn't have a place in SF is a very... unclassical view on the genre I suppose. SF isn't all spaceships, aliens, and robots. I do wish the flavor jobs were renamed to something more in line with SF theme though, instead of just "necromancer," which I feel is a bit of a fantasyesque name, although I'm not sure what else I'd call it.
That's EXACTLY the problem. There's a way to flavor things as 'Frankenstein' as opposed to 'Magic necromancers' and Paradox has not done that.
 
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