Stellaris

[OJsDad]

Paradox ha released a very rough outline of the next few patches. Open borders, battleship class weapons, and civilian ships I find particularly mouth watering.

Wasn't until I hit mid game where the closed borders "issue" really became evident. The AI hardly ever grants border access, which makes doing all the quest stuff difficult.

Dev Diary 33 - The Maiden Voyage

There's already 20 pages of comments on this post, and it was posted today.  This is why I avoid the Paradox forums for Stellaris at this time.

[Huw the Poo]

He gave up after 30 minutes, I gave up reading after two paragraphs. I'm not sure why people think that their lack of ability to enjoy a particular genre of game is something worth writing about and sharing.

Well said, my friend.  I didn't even start, seeing as it was RPS...

Those patch notes look good don't they?!  It shows that Paradox are clearly listening to the fans.  Excellent.  For me the highlight is the border access issues.  Not only is my main fleet cut off from my empire at the moment (which has really annoyed me) but I have quests that I can't do because my science ships can't to any of them.

[jamus34]

Yeah I am currently locked up between a race I am trying to build an alliance with, a race that is on the negative side with me and a fallen empire. So I either need to go to war or make the other race happy enough with me to go into alliance. The disadvantage to using star lanes

[panzerde]

Those patch notes look good don't they?!  It shows that Paradox are clearly listening to the fans.  Excellent.  For me the highlight is the border access issues.  Not only is my main fleet cut off from my empire at the moment (which has really annoyed me) but I have quests that I can't do because my science ships can't to any of them.

Yep, the border access issue is a big one. I haven't even played that long yet and I'm running into it. Changing that will really enhance the game.


I, too, miss the civilian economy and ships from DW. Overall I find Stellaris the closest in terms of features to where Distant Worlds ended up of the 4X games I've tried in the past couple of years. It isn't 100% there but neither was DW when first released, and it's obvious that paradox is going to keep adding to and improving it.

[FarAway Sooner]

Sounds like the game is a B+ at release, but with lots of potential to expand the whole space 4x genre.  We'll hope that they're able to churn out new content and improvements at a fast and efficient pace!

The vibrant economy in DWU was one of the most revolutionary aspects of that game.  I could have done with maybe a 25% - 33% reduction to the number of resources and a corresponding reduction in the frequency of resources on each planet, just to reduce the micromanagement.  But the brilliant embedding of the civilian sector within the game mechanics made for a great dynamic around commerce raiding during war and planets in particular.

I'm not sure why, but it was so much more immersive/satisfying to know "Argggh!!!  Pirates keep raiding my one high-value mining station that's producing Helium and I need that to build more Solar Panels for my starships..." than to abstract that into "Argggh!!  Pirates keep raiding System XYZ and that's costing me 7 credits per month..."

[ghostryder]

Ha, I quite reading at two paragraphs also.

Did the guy not know there is a pause button.


This guy should stick to console games--with led by the hand quest pointers, linear gameplay and twitch reflexes. It may sound negative but you can spot a console gamer a mile away- just ask them to multi-task 2 things, stop and think or read a tooltip and they go bonkers. I just cannot understand why he's having a hard time with just the basic gameplay -- Stellaris has got to be the easiest Paradox game to get into there is. Sure-some strategy things need learned--like how the rce ethics work--but basic play has never been easier.

[Kushan]

Does civilian ships suggest at a more developed (autonomous?) free market a la Distant Worlds is in our future? That would make me extremely happy.

Have to say I don't quite get why people are finding Stellaris's initial 'exploration' phase all that interesting. Again, compared to Distant Worlds, where there are actually interesting things to discover in practically every solar system, all I'm doing in Stellaris is hoping one planet actually has minerals or energy. The barrenness of the systems -- where 6 out of 8 planets contain absolutely nothing of value -- really kills the enjoyment of the early game for me.

He did mention depth of economy early in the dev diary but it wasn't in connection to the civilian ships flying around. He also mentioned the need for making strategic resources overhaul so I guess we'l see.

I'm happy DW:U and Stellaris have different economies. At first I wanted a DW:U/Vicky 2 style economy but the more I played, I changed my mind. I like being able to focus on the macro stuff in Stellaris; do I have positive mineral and credit income? rather then having to manage 20-50 different resources. If I want to do that I'll go play DW:U. Granted, I'm probably one of the minority who doesn't use any of the DW automation.

Not going to turn down them adding civilian ships into Stellaris though. It brings a lot of life to the game. Maybe instead of overhauling the economy, they can make you lose some credits and minerals if you lose a civilian freighter. That could still allow raiding of an opponents economy without completely redoing the economy from the ground up.

Ha, I quite reading at two paragraphs also.

Did the guy not know there is a pause button. 

made it farther then me, I quit right after I read "I have written far too many times over the years about my dislike of strategy games."

[panzerde]

Ha, I quite reading at two paragraphs also.

Did the guy not know there is a pause button.


This guy should stick to console games--with led by the hand quest pointers, linear gameplay and twitch reflexes. It may sound negative but you can spot a console gamer a mile away- just ask them to multi-task 2 things, stop and think or read a tooltip and they go bonkers. I just cannot understand why he's having a hard time with just the basic gameplay -- Stellaris has got to be the easiest Paradox game to get into there is. Sure-some strategy things need learned--like how the rce ethics work--but basic play has never been easier.

+1 QFT

[OJsDad]

I'm happy DW:U and Stellaris have different economies. At first I wanted a DW:U/Vicky 2 style economy but the more I played, I changed my mind. I like being able to focus on the macro stuff in Stellaris; do I have positive mineral and credit income? rather then having to manage 20-50 different resources. If I want to do that I'll go play DW:U. Granted, I'm probably one of the minority who doesn't use any of the DW automation.

I don't totally disagree with you that having a beer and pretzels level of economy isn't all bad.  I think if strategic becomes more prominent in ship building, then this will add a lot of the needed depth.

There are a few things that I think DW could barrow from Stellaris to greatly improvement;

1.  I've always had a very difficult time understanding the civilian economy in DW.  I'm never sure why my economy is growing or shrinking.  Am I expanding too quickly.  Are there resources I'm missing.  If DW would do a better job of explaining what's happening under the hood it would be great.  In Stellaris I have great handle on why things are happening or not.  If someone wants to help me with this, please start a new thread. 

2.  Sectors.  I know some people like micromanaging their empire, but I like the way Sectors are implemented in Stellaris.  I get enough information on what's happening to know what's going on.  I can give them guidance on what I want them to do.  There's some refinement and questions on them in Stellaris still, but it's a great start.

3.  Stellaris allows a lot more variety of ships to be designed.  With the planned changes to BB's and formations, this will make it a lot better than DW.  I'm always frustrating in DW when my ships jump on top of any enemy, with a couple of ships close the other out of support range.  Those few ships usually end up getting picked off quickly.  DW really needs to allow more military ship designs and formation and to allow your ships to jump short of the bad guys. 

[Ian C]

Speaking of border access...
has anyone got civilian ship access yet? I'm trying to gain access for my science ship to research some planetary stuff for one of those quest things and no matter what I offer the aliens, they won't budge for a 10-year access treaty.

Out of interest, I offered them all my minerals, energy, all systems, all other treaties and the deal meter was still at -1000.
Is this broken?

[jamus34]

Speaking of border access...
has anyone got civilian ship access yet? I'm trying to gain access for my science ship to research some planetary stuff for one of those quest things and no matter what I offer the aliens, they won't budge for a 10-year access treaty.

Out of interest, I offered them all my minerals, energy, all systems, all other treaties and the deal meter was still at -1000.
Is this broken?

Based off of that I would say yes.

"Hey, I'll give you control of my empire if I can run some ships through your territory"
"Request denied"

In all honesty I'm not sure why the game doesn't let you do it. If you break lines then at the least there would be a diplomatic hit and if there is a fleet or defensive structures then you would risk your ship getting blown up.
You can also work in aggressive negative diplomacy if you send an attack fleet into someone's sovereign space; IE make every one hate you for not respecting borders.

[FarAway Sooner]

My guess is that's part of the "open borders fix" mentioned in the DW Dev Diary as a high priority.

[Huw the Poo]

Speaking of border access...
has anyone got civilian ship access yet? I'm trying to gain access for my science ship to research some planetary stuff for one of those quest things and no matter what I offer the aliens, they won't budge for a 10-year access treaty.

Out of interest, I offered them all my minerals, energy, all systems, all other treaties and the deal meter was still at -1000.
Is this broken?

Yeah, same here.  It is clearly broken, which is frustrating.  This is already a game mainly about conquest; at least get what diplomatic options there are working!  Here's hoping it gets fixed soon.

[Pete Dero]

Speaking of border access...
has anyone got civilian ship access yet? I'm trying to gain access for my science ship to research some planetary stuff for one of those quest things and no matter what I offer the aliens, they won't budge for a 10-year access treaty.

Out of interest, I offered them all my minerals, energy, all systems, all other treaties and the deal meter was still at -1000.
Is this broken?

Based off of that I would say yes.

"Hey, I'll give you control of my empire if I can run some ships through your territory"
"Request denied"

In all honesty I'm not sure why the game doesn't let you do it. If you break lines then at the least there would be a diplomatic hit and if there is a fleet or defensive structures then you would risk your ship getting blown up.
You can also work in aggressive negative diplomacy if you send an attack fleet into someone's sovereign space; IE make every one hate you for not respecting borders.

So far I haven't got any deal working (even when giving stuff without asking for anything in return).   Might be a bug but the manual isn't very clear on this  ;).

[Rayfer]

Speaking of border access...
has anyone got civilian ship access yet? I'm trying to gain access for my science ship to research some planetary stuff for one of those quest things and no matter what I offer the aliens, they won't budge for a 10-year access treaty.

Out of interest, I offered them all my minerals, energy, all systems, all other treaties and the deal meter was still at -1000.
Is this broken?

I just had a tech research become available to build civilian colony ships. Haven't researched it yet so I'm sure how it works. It does warn you that the colonies they set up might not adhere to your empires chosen governing ethics.