Afterword and Future AAR Plans
After 16 months, my longest AAR to date, representing my longest Stellaris campaign, finally comes to an end.
When I started the campaign, I never expected that I would be able to get all the way to 2500 and then to 2519, given typical late game performance issues in Stellaris. And it was definitely getting quite slow at the end there, but it was still progressing. Real life, with the passing of my father and grandfather in May, a change in jobs, and then a cancer diagnosis in myself back in July at times brought the progress of the AAR to a crawl, but I kept at it, as I wanted to finish sharing the story with all of you.
And yes, that last bit about the cancer isn’t something I shared here before, but we managed to get it caught early and the tumor mass removed - I didn’t even need chemo. Preliminary follow-ups show no signs of spread in my body, and we’ll just be monitoring it regularly for the next few years to make sure it doesn’t return. And given the type of cancer and that we caught it when I did, there is an very high chance that the surgery already managed to eradicate it altogether, and an extremely good prognosis for me going forward. I continue to remain in good health.
Back to the AAR itself, that P’Konori assumed such a role in the narrative developed emergently from the gameplay. She was indeed an Ozkox refugee into the Alliance to Restore the Republic, with only a single Ozkox pop existing within my nation at the time that I hired her as a governor. This immediately brought to mind parallels to Eerabik in A Nemesis Ironman Saga, who also first entered the Republic with a single Ozkox refugee pop. And while Eerabik happened to seize power in that campaign when she unexpectedly won an election in the midst of reforms to a military dictatorship, I later would go on to promote P’Konori in the elections for the Alliance’s Chancellor in the lead up to the Galactic Rebellion because her ruler bonuses were quite well suited for the war that was about to occur. That only strengthened the view I had of P’Konori as the anti-Eerabik in the campaign, and would go on to influence how I would write her in the narrative.
P’Konori really survived to the end as well. Her stated life expectancy at the time was 295, but leaders usually live for some time past then, and if I had continued, I likely would have rolled and researched another life extension tech (or two) in the interim.
My goals upon starting the campaign were to 1) Earn the “Sic Semper Tyrannis” achievement and 2) earn “A Modern Cinncinatus”, which would also necessitate beating a Crisis. The Prethoryn were chosen to serve as a stand-in for the Yuuzhan Vong from Star Wars Legends, and were likewise written that way in the narrative. I set them to serve as a 25x Crisis because the 5x crisis in a Nemesis Ironman Saga had been far too easy by that point in the game. It was simple to cast the Prethoryn crisis in the earlier campaign as an early scouting group, and the 25x Crisis as the true invasion force.
Of course, the hardest thing about earning Sic Semper Tyrannis is getting the Galactic Imperium to form at all. This was one of the reasons why the Imperial Sector Authorities were given the Fanatic Authoritarian ethic (besides the fact that it matches the Imperium upon its formation) because this would increase their chance of proposing the Proclamation of the Galactic Imperium. But they still needed some help to actually pass that, so in-game I was actually voting FOR the Custodianship and the Imperium myself so that I could later rebel against it and earn the achievement. Narratively, I suppose we can just chalk it up to having to publicly vote with the Imperium as a screen for rebel activities.
After the Crisis was defeated and I had “A Modern Cinncinatus” in my achievements collection, I noticed that the game was still running (reasonably) well, so I decided to push on with defeating the other Sector Authorities of the Imperial Remants, which led in the narrative to the wars with the Third/Final Union and Eerabik Eternal.
And then, even though I had already won the game by 2500, I decided just to make the use of the Legacy era shipsets from Star Wars legends as the New Republic fought against the Rothana Sector authority, in what I presented in the narrative as a civil war in the Galactic Alliance. Actually, I kicked them out of the Galactic Alliance some time after they built that Death Star, rather than Rothana seceding itself. I also had kicked out the Imperial Center Authority too, only to immediately invite them back in as my vassal, which they accepted, because we had high enough relations even with the malus from being ejected from a federation. But with both the Imperial Center Authority and the Rothana Sector Authority subjugated, all of the Sector Authorities were my subject nations.
The Chicora Sector Authority really did secede on their own from the Galactic Alliance, only to accept diplomatic subjugation by the New Republic, which brought them back in after a short time. I’m still not sure what actually prompted them to leave.
But with all of the Sector Authorities awaiting integration into the New Republic, and all remaining independent nations being democratic, I figured that 2519 made for a good end for the campaign, as I couldn’t really expect much more of note to happen from that point out.
And thus, P’Konori’s tale came to an end, with a galaxy free and finally at peace after centuries of war.
But Stellaris Wars isn’t over. Now that I’ve finished Rebellion: The Imperium at War, I can resume updating a Clone Wars Ironman Saga, an alternate prequel to this story, which takes a more focused look at Eerabik’s rise to power and a greater focus on the narrative than the original Nemesis Ironman Saga.
forum.paradoxplaza.com
And although I have not actually started it yet, I am in the planning stages of my next Stellaris Wars campaign. Obviously, P’Konori has restored peace to the galaxy and balance to the Force in the modern era, but even from the original Nemesis Ironman Saga, we have a distant prequel hook, in which the homeworld of the Republic had been devastated in a sack by an ancient Sith Imperium millennia before...
Stellaris Wars: Knights of the Ancient Republic
(Screenshots tests only)
(Though I might try to finish playing Knights of the Old Republic myself first, for research purposes. I started a new file on that game just last night.)
And outside of Stellaris Wars, I’ll also resume updating Zro Effect soon, another memorable campaign that I completed some time ago:
forum.paradoxplaza.com
But until next time... May the Force be with You! And thanks for reading!
When I started the campaign, I never expected that I would be able to get all the way to 2500 and then to 2519, given typical late game performance issues in Stellaris. And it was definitely getting quite slow at the end there, but it was still progressing. Real life, with the passing of my father and grandfather in May, a change in jobs, and then a cancer diagnosis in myself back in July at times brought the progress of the AAR to a crawl, but I kept at it, as I wanted to finish sharing the story with all of you.
And yes, that last bit about the cancer isn’t something I shared here before, but we managed to get it caught early and the tumor mass removed - I didn’t even need chemo. Preliminary follow-ups show no signs of spread in my body, and we’ll just be monitoring it regularly for the next few years to make sure it doesn’t return. And given the type of cancer and that we caught it when I did, there is an very high chance that the surgery already managed to eradicate it altogether, and an extremely good prognosis for me going forward. I continue to remain in good health.
Back to the AAR itself, that P’Konori assumed such a role in the narrative developed emergently from the gameplay. She was indeed an Ozkox refugee into the Alliance to Restore the Republic, with only a single Ozkox pop existing within my nation at the time that I hired her as a governor. This immediately brought to mind parallels to Eerabik in A Nemesis Ironman Saga, who also first entered the Republic with a single Ozkox refugee pop. And while Eerabik happened to seize power in that campaign when she unexpectedly won an election in the midst of reforms to a military dictatorship, I later would go on to promote P’Konori in the elections for the Alliance’s Chancellor in the lead up to the Galactic Rebellion because her ruler bonuses were quite well suited for the war that was about to occur. That only strengthened the view I had of P’Konori as the anti-Eerabik in the campaign, and would go on to influence how I would write her in the narrative.
P’Konori really survived to the end as well. Her stated life expectancy at the time was 295, but leaders usually live for some time past then, and if I had continued, I likely would have rolled and researched another life extension tech (or two) in the interim.
My goals upon starting the campaign were to 1) Earn the “Sic Semper Tyrannis” achievement and 2) earn “A Modern Cinncinatus”, which would also necessitate beating a Crisis. The Prethoryn were chosen to serve as a stand-in for the Yuuzhan Vong from Star Wars Legends, and were likewise written that way in the narrative. I set them to serve as a 25x Crisis because the 5x crisis in a Nemesis Ironman Saga had been far too easy by that point in the game. It was simple to cast the Prethoryn crisis in the earlier campaign as an early scouting group, and the 25x Crisis as the true invasion force.
Of course, the hardest thing about earning Sic Semper Tyrannis is getting the Galactic Imperium to form at all. This was one of the reasons why the Imperial Sector Authorities were given the Fanatic Authoritarian ethic (besides the fact that it matches the Imperium upon its formation) because this would increase their chance of proposing the Proclamation of the Galactic Imperium. But they still needed some help to actually pass that, so in-game I was actually voting FOR the Custodianship and the Imperium myself so that I could later rebel against it and earn the achievement. Narratively, I suppose we can just chalk it up to having to publicly vote with the Imperium as a screen for rebel activities.
After the Crisis was defeated and I had “A Modern Cinncinatus” in my achievements collection, I noticed that the game was still running (reasonably) well, so I decided to push on with defeating the other Sector Authorities of the Imperial Remants, which led in the narrative to the wars with the Third/Final Union and Eerabik Eternal.
And then, even though I had already won the game by 2500, I decided just to make the use of the Legacy era shipsets from Star Wars legends as the New Republic fought against the Rothana Sector authority, in what I presented in the narrative as a civil war in the Galactic Alliance. Actually, I kicked them out of the Galactic Alliance some time after they built that Death Star, rather than Rothana seceding itself. I also had kicked out the Imperial Center Authority too, only to immediately invite them back in as my vassal, which they accepted, because we had high enough relations even with the malus from being ejected from a federation. But with both the Imperial Center Authority and the Rothana Sector Authority subjugated, all of the Sector Authorities were my subject nations.
The Chicora Sector Authority really did secede on their own from the Galactic Alliance, only to accept diplomatic subjugation by the New Republic, which brought them back in after a short time. I’m still not sure what actually prompted them to leave.
But with all of the Sector Authorities awaiting integration into the New Republic, and all remaining independent nations being democratic, I figured that 2519 made for a good end for the campaign, as I couldn’t really expect much more of note to happen from that point out.
And thus, P’Konori’s tale came to an end, with a galaxy free and finally at peace after centuries of war.
But Stellaris Wars isn’t over. Now that I’ve finished Rebellion: The Imperium at War, I can resume updating a Clone Wars Ironman Saga, an alternate prequel to this story, which takes a more focused look at Eerabik’s rise to power and a greater focus on the narrative than the original Nemesis Ironman Saga.
Stellaris Wars: A Clone Wars Ironman Saga
A galaxy divided! Led by the charismatic Cor T’Duku, Separatists and their droid armies have seized control of crucial hyperlanes and cut the Republic’s local sector defense forces off from each other. Most of the Outer Rim has already fallen...
And although I have not actually started it yet, I am in the planning stages of my next Stellaris Wars campaign. Obviously, P’Konori has restored peace to the galaxy and balance to the Force in the modern era, but even from the original Nemesis Ironman Saga, we have a distant prequel hook, in which the homeworld of the Republic had been devastated in a sack by an ancient Sith Imperium millennia before...
Stellaris Wars: Knights of the Ancient Republic
(Screenshots tests only)
(Though I might try to finish playing Knights of the Old Republic myself first, for research purposes. I started a new file on that game just last night.)
And outside of Stellaris Wars, I’ll also resume updating Zro Effect soon, another memorable campaign that I completed some time ago:
Zro Effect: A First Contact Ironman AAR
“The stakes could not be higher as we reach into the vast uncharted expanses of the galaxy. We’re gambling with the very survival of our species!" “That’s true... but there exists in all of us a deep-seated fascination for the unknown. An...
But until next time... May the Force be with You! And thanks for reading!
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