The Unbidden show up too often

[Chronos_Sk]

I know that sounds purely subjective, but hear me out: I've gotten to the endgame crisis many times (in the double digits). I've played most empire archetypes. I done all three ascension paths multiple times. I've played on most difficulty levels, with difficulty scaling on and off ¹, on medium and large maps, across the 300+ hours I have in this game.

I have never seen any crisis except the Unbidden. Literally.

Honestly, I am taking it on faith that this game even has other crises. I know there is a crisis-choice setting (and yes, I've made sure it's set to Random and not Unbidden). But I find Stellaris (and most games) more interesting when I don't know exactly what to expect. Unfortunately, for me instead of a "Random" option, the crisis-choice setting just has a second "Unbidden" option ².

I could just be remarkably unlucky, but I think I can reject that null hypothesis by this point.

¹ Off topic, but it'd be nice if there was a middle ground where the difficulty stills scales, but it peaks sooner, e.g. mid-game.
² It doesn't help that the Unbidden are, IMO, one of the most annoying parts of the game. Please put known anchor points on the galaxy map. :/

 

[DukeLeto42]

Crisis chance is meant to be impacted by a number of game events. Most have small impacts.

However, the odds off the Unbidden rise as more empires research jump drives, and again once they use them. The AI lacks any sense of caution regarding them. The AI always researches them and always equips them.

Thus, instead of the chance of a given crisis averaging out to 1/3 over all your games but locally varying based on events encountered and your empire's build in a given run, it's Unbidden almost all the time.

 

[Acheron]

I have seen the Prethoryans precisely ONCE.

 

[styroler]

Crisis chance is meant to be impacted by a number of game events. Most have small impacts.

However, the odds off the Unbidden rise as more empires research jump drives, and again once they use them. The AI lacks any sense of caution regarding them. The AI always researches them and always equips them.

Thus, instead of the chance of a given crisis averaging out to 1/3 over all your games but locally varying based on events encountered and your empire's build in a given run, it's Unbidden almost all the time.

I think that paradox should fix this by creating other similar impacts to increase the likelihood that the other crisis's happen. These should include increased chance of the contingency appearing if there are alot of robotic pops in the galaxy and the Prethoryans if there is alot of hive mind pops. It would be nice if the crisis that appeared was more relevant to the galaxy it ends up in so for instance in my spiritualist game where I have heavily suppressed robot research and destroyed every robotic empire there is not a high chance for the contingency, but in a robotic filled galaxy it will be the most likely one. The problem right now is that the contigency is the only one which gets a significant boost to appearing, and its not a particularly worse crisis than the others so it just ends up being rather lacking in flavor because everyone is going to get jump drives and its going to be the most likely to appear. Either they double down with the chance of appearing thing or they get rid of it because there's always going to be some crisis and knowing which one its going to be is just boring.

 

[Acheron]

Or giving us a "True Random" option, that give each crisis 1/3 a change, with nothing modifying it.

 

[DukeLeto42]

I think that paradox should fix this by creating other similar impacts to increase the likelihood that the other crisis's happen. These should include increased chance of the contingency appearing if there are alot of robotic pops in the galaxy and the Prethoryans if there is alot of hive mind pops. It would be nice if the crisis that appeared was more relevant to the galaxy it ends up in so for instance in my spiritualist game where I have heavily suppressed robot research and destroyed every robotic empire there is not a high chance for the contingency, but in a robotic filled galaxy it will be the most likely one. The problem right now is that the contigency is the only one which gets a significant boost to appearing, and its not a particularly worse crisis than the others so it just ends up being rather lacking in flavor because everyone is going to get jump drives and its going to be the most likely to appear. Either they double down with the chance of appearing thing or they get rid of it because there's always going to be some crisis and knowing which one its going to be is just boring.

Robot prevalence once did increase the Contingency spawn chance, though I believe it's been removed; it was almost that jump drives ensured Unbidden, synths the Contingency, and Prethoryn if nothing else.

I must admit, though, that I would enjoy the Contingency spawning more as a Spiritualist - after all, what better final boss for your "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind" empire? A similar thing goes for materialists - psi jump drives boost Unbidden chance as well, making a Spiritualist-heavy galaxy more likely to get them, yet I much prefer the narrative of a Materialist empire driving back these absurd creatures from realms of thought and energy.

In any event, I don't think the hive mind pops boosting Prethoryn will happen, because gestalts are DLC empire types and we don't want two models of Crisis spawns having to be curated based on DLC access.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

I've got 2k hours and I've only seen another crisis by setting them manually.

Basically, the problem is that the Unbidden can spawn up to 50 years early if any empire has researched jump drives, and the other crisises can only spawn early if no fallen or awakened empires exist. Destroying all FE's is a vastly less likely, and the trigger function to check that is broken so it's impossible for it to return true, so every game has 50 years of rolling to see if the Unbidden spawn before any other crisis even has a chance.

 

[Chronos_Sk]

[...] so every game has 50 years of rolling to see if the Unbidden spawn before any other crisis even has a chance.

Huh, ya, that sounds like it could be the root cause.

 

[GhostDanny]

Bring back the Prethoryn Scourge and Contingency!

 

[styroler]

In any event, I don't think the hive mind pops boosting Prethoryn will happen, because gestalts are DLC empire types and we don't want two models of Crisis spawns having to be curated based on DLC access.

I may be wrong but don't Hive Minds still spawn if you don't have the DLC? I know that necroids still spawn in my game and I don't have the neceoid DLC. I can't play as them obviously but they do exist none the less.

 

[DukeLeto42]

I may be wrong but don't Hive Minds still spawn if you don't have the DLC? I know that necroids still spawn in my game and I don't have the neceoid DLC. I can't play as them obviously but they do exist none the less.

Thank you for the correction! I must admit there's generally a fairly short period between "DLC comes out" and "I buy the DLC," so the only thing I've noted is gameplay features not being available to the AI (as opposed to empire creation features).

 

[GOLANX]

Thank you for the correction! I must admit there's generally a fairly short period between "DLC comes out" and "I buy the DLC," so the only thing I've noted is gameplay features not being available to the AI (as opposed to empire creation features).

I don't think that's true, if you know how to use console commands it would be trivially easy to take control of the Hive mind empire and play as them. There is no way the devs would sign onto that idea

 

[AUSTINZ]

It almost feels like the unique aspect about the Unbidden was supposed to be that there are (were?) so many ways to spawn it early:

• Research jump drives
• Spoiler

  the Extradimensional Experimentation resolution
• Spoiler

  that one early game event where your physics scientist disappears into another dimension

I think the relative frequency of the crises needs to be fixed (as OP mentioned), but the Unbidden should also get a redesign pass. They feel to me like the least interesting crisis, for a number of reasons.

• Single surprise point of origin often means they either immediately get wiped out, or else they just screw over the player.
• The fact that they have no restrictions on gateway and L-gate usage means they spread too fast.
• They're not particularly interesting to fight compared to the other crises.
• Their 'late-crisis twist' feature is just different flavors of the original crisis faction and some infighting if you're lucky.
• Anchor killing is so tedious.

A very rough concept for redesign:

• Rather than making them spread uncontrollably, have them spread up to a certain point, then fortify their borders
• Have them start building their version of an Aetherophasic Engine in their portal system, or a close by system
• Once they start, have them send out raiding fleets that will try to kidnap pops and bring them back to feed into their Engine
• Their Engine doesn't kill the galaxy. Rather, it slowly drains pops and decreases habilitability of planets. The closer the planet, the more effect it has. The more pops it eats, the bigger the radius and the stronger the effect. If you let it grow out of control eventually it'll suck the entire galaxy dry of life.
• The stronger the Engine and the more time has passed, the more likely they'll send out extermination fleets rather than raiding fleets.
• They can try to exterminate machine empires like normal.

 

[gamerk2]

As has been noted elsewhere, the reason the Unbidden spawn is because of what is quite possibly a bug in the Crisis trigger. The Scourge and Contingency have a 50 year wait period before they are allowed to spawn; the Unbidden do *not* have that check; they can spawn as early as the lategame start year.

As a result, for the first 50 years, the Unbidden have some percent chance to spawn if *any* Empire has researched Jump Drives, where the Scourge/Contingency have a 0% chance to spawn. I forget what the chance of the Unbidden spawn is offhand, but even at a low % (say, 5%), over a 50 year span its statistically likely they'll trigger before the other two even have a chance to roll.

 

[Acheron]

And would that that bug have been around?

 

[Pillage]

As somebody who is an amateur modder and digs around in the game files, I can answer the question as to why the Unbidden are so common.

Prior to 3.0, what crisis spawned was dependent on certain events in the galaxy. I don't recall what the exact weights were, nor would that really add anything to this conversation, but here's a general summary:

• the unbidden's weights were tied to if you messed around with jumpdrives and/or extradimensional experimentation.
• the contingency's weights were tied to the percentage of synthetic pops in an empire.
• the scourge's weights were tied to how many years have passed, which resulted in the scourge becoming a fallback crisis if the other two didn't spawn.

In 3.0 the crisis weights got an overhaul, and now all of the crises have roughly equal weights that are only based on how many years have based (similar to pre-3.0 scourge) instead of the state of the galaxy, with the unbidden having a slightly lower base weight than the contingency and scourge. However, as we all know from anecdotal evidence, the unbidden is much more common than the scourge or contingency now. This is because if any empire researches either type of jump drive or the galactic community passes the extradimensional experimentation resolution, the unbidden gets a 50 year head start over the other two crises as well as a doubled weight modifier. While the other crises can also spawn early, they require a much more specific set of "Anti-Boring" triggers that also double the weights for other crises and nullifies the unbidden-only modifier. I will list the anti-boring triggers below.

• All Fallen/Awakened Empires are destroyed
• The WiH has not happened yet
• The WiH has already concluded
• The WiH started 15 or more years ago

In theory, these weights are meant to prevent the game from getting boring, as aside from the endgame crises themselves, the awakening of fallen empires and the War in Heaven (if you have the Leviathans DLC) are the biggest events that happen in the endgame. In practice however, these triggers are much harder to achieve than an empire simply researching jump drives. Finally, All 3 crises get a 2x weight if its been 35 or more years since endgame. As I've mentioned though, all this really does is make it even more likely for the unbidden to spawn before the other two crises even get a chance to start rolling.

If you want to get around this, I recommend either setting the crisis you want to fight or lowering the endgame year in the galaxy settings. The first option is guaranteed to work, but removes the surprise of finding out which crisis you get. The second option isn't a guarantee, but the earlier you set the endgame year the less likely it is for an AI empire to research jumpdrives, thus preventing the unbidden from getting their headstart.

 

[Pillage]

Also, here is a related meme

 

[Chronos_Sk]

While the other crises can also spawn early, they require a much more specific set of "Anti-Boring" triggers that also double the weights for other crises and nullifies the unbidden-only modifier.

As noted above, the "anti-boring" trigger group is also broken, using AND instead of OR, so that it can't actually trigger.

 

[Pillage]

As noted above, the "anti-boring" trigger group is also broken, using AND instead of OR, so that it can't actually trigger.

I did not know this, but this only further exacerbates the problem.

 

[Shaeliss]

Speaking of crises... Is there a specific reason for there to only have *one* crisis? Would it be possible to have a game option to allow for *all* crises (as long as the Galaxy meets it's requirements) to show up, even if another crisis showed up (early in case of Unbidden)?