Stellaris: Utopia

Stellaris Utopia is coming out in a few days, its the first major expansion to the game.

>Hive mind government
>Overhauled slave system. Now you can assign slaves as workers, soldiers or food.
>Overhauled faction system. Now factions generate influence for you when they are happy
>Overhauled ethics. Each civ will have a % of ethics and the highest one will be their ethic. Also the actions of your empire decides the ethic. For example, if you do a lot of war, your people become militarist.
>Unity system. Get unity points to get empire traits. Fill a trait tree to unlock a perk such as +200 fleet strength. Turning your species into robots, building ring worlds and such
>New 'habitat' construction that lets you build a space colony over planets that you won't colonize/ So if you get boxed in by AI, you can still thrive.

Played Stellaris for few runs after it was released. How much has it changed so far?

>buying DLC sim

>next patch lets you push alien pops off ceded planets rather than purge them
>can finally have pure empire without pissing literally everyone off

A lot, but they still devoutly cling to their core mistakes.

Just pirate the DLC you stupid goy.

Nobody buys the DLC for Paradox games, retard

>still can't conquer more than 3-4 planets in one war no matter how powerful you are

>Not systematically purging the xenos
By the way they are adding shroud which is something like warp in warhammer. Can´t wait to encounter some possessed chaos empire

Problem with the shroud is you have to be space Christians to use it

I think they are actually reducing warscore cost for planets in lategame

>late game
>have an empire controling half of the galaxy
>40k fleet, I start going into debt if I have more
>war in the heavens, cant do shit without starting WWII galaxy edition
>Unbidden spawn in my capital
>over 100k fleet

What the fuck happened to this game? I remember having at least 2 40k fleets while having 1/4 of the galaxy under control in the past.

Does only the host need to buy the DLC? Looking forward to some multiplayer.

Yes which is great for me because I always RP as imperium of man

You must have fucked up your economy somehow. I had already 200k stack when I controlled around 1/4 of galaxy. I had to have dedicated mineral/energy plants planets though and even then my ships would have to be docked otherwise I would go -100 energy

Good news then

Maybe at least it'll be a tiny bit less boring with factions reminding you they exist.
The game is still so devoid of content it'll need a mountain of DLC to even approach being fun.

>Can use armageddon bombardment sstance
BOY

I think I will pirate it after it will get patch or two
That or I will just watch as someone that likes playing this game will make Tyranids

>making Tyranids instead of Zerg

Good joke

I always tried to balance out my fleet so that I never reach less than 0 income of energy, and I also made a most of my sectors to generate science because it takes so long to research technologies once you're big.
Maybe that was my mistake I dunno.

>not going all in on minerals and then just trading them away for energy

Utopia is going to add 'consumer goods' and rework upkeep so you will require more minerals to maintain shit

Worst part of Stellaris is easily the diplomacy and warscore system. Are they fixing/removing it in Unity or otherwise making it so not shit?

I always make my sectors focus on energy while also respecting tile resources.
You'll find shitload of asteroids and planets with metals so that won't be a problem.

They've changed it so every time you do the border expansion tech it lowers the cost of war score goals and in Utopia, some of them unity perks will make it easier but we don't know if the problem is actually resolved or not.

You still can't really do anything good with diplomacy though

how the fuck do i gain the advantage in wars in the early game? seems like all the wars i do end in a stalemate or me getting completely rekt.

>Focusing sectors on research
>Not just going full dark age of technology and using your numbers instead of technology
I was able to cheese fallen empire that took 1/3 of galaxy with outdated technology

Too bad you cant use them both at once

Will these improvements make endgame playable?

So is the game still corvette spam or do you have to build actual fleets now?

Shit that sounds pretty cool,maybe I'll actually play this game again.
I just hope that I wont get the war in the heavens event, this is the worst thing ever.

Build more space ports to raise your fleet cap and make sure your tech is geared towards ship upgrades. Also you get a flat 15 points in research every time you use a science shit to salvage a wreck. Later on, this isn't really useful. Early on it can make you a tech power house Declare war on someone, destroy their mining platforms and skirmish their fleet then occasionally have your scientists scan the wrecks. You will have a huge tech lead over them in no time

You absolutely can´t give up. Once you go into war you have to shift ALL of your focus on millitary. Always have some ship in queue in spaceports and in case you see you are getting rekt, don´t engage and just evade with ships until you have enough power

Don't use missiles. Seriously. In the upcoming patch they are buffing them slightly but they are still sub-par.

Also try to bait the enemy fleet into attacking one of your stations then hit them with your fleet while they are engaged.

Standing up to xenophobic ancient race of aliens that want to genocide your already dystopian genociding empire is the coolest fucking thing you can do in this game

thanks guys.

If they fought me alone the it would be nice, but they bring the rest of the galaxy with them.

No matter how many guns I bring they just outswarm me.

>assign slaves as food
Neat. I'm not gonna buy it, but neat

>Be race of slaver assholes hated by everyone
>Primitive race of starfish in my space reaches space age
>Cute little guys are FANATICAL PURIFIER XENOPHOBES
>Okay.tiff
>Decide to ignore them for now and see if they are able to gain any tracted.
>Even toss them some research and minerals
>A few months later they throw up a space station and try to curb my expansion
>Send my fleets in to massacre them
>Instead of enslaving or purging, I decide to liberate the little guys because they are cute.
>Then make them my protectorate because free influence.
>Much later on I get a message saying they have reached a point of tech that they are now vassals
>Go to war and have a cute little 800 strength fleet of starfish accompanying me while I burn worlds.

This is what it must feel like to be a dad.

Does the expansion make combat not shit?

Does it make managing sectors not shit?

Does it make the diplomacy not shit?

Does it make War Score not a shit mechanic?

In my playthrough they spawned in middle of medium sized empire which were between me (already a superpower at the time) and another equally large (or even larger actually) empire. They ate up the smaller empire and declared war on me. This went on for three times but I always managed to negotiate white peace. Next time they declared war on the other empire so I used the chance and declared war. I didn´t actually win that one either... But I destroyed all their stations and some spaceports before white peace. On the fifth war I fucking won finally. Although AI was a bit bugged at the time so maybe that helped... AI is surprisingly opportunistic because whenever we got into war I got war declaration from other neigbouring empire on the northern side

>late game
>40k fleet

early midgame maybe

But I want to play a race of merciless world devourers, not a race of misunderstood Mary Sue good guys.

I am having problems making races.

Then play as Starcraft 1 Zerg.

Can I planet crack to mine?
Can I get my military up to strength and planet buster some xenos?
I was tired of doing a full bombardment in name only.

You can do 'Armageddon bombardment' now which possibly kills off pops and Wiz confirmed planet destroying devices are in the pipes but they wont be any time soon

Every time I do this as well. Everyone hates me as a purify the galaxy. A primitive planet reaches space and I hel0 them out, they become vassals and I give them a small region In my empire.

Awesome, thanks.

No

No

No

No

...

This game is not for you, feel free to fuck off

>War score
Fucking reeeee
Random losses in the war history even though I completely stomp them in every battle, and they take off enough score to be a problem and I have to go annex more planets.

>beginning Core system cap reduced to 3

They're really doubling down on what is by far the worst part of this game

That's one way to ignore all criticism, I guess.

The only proper way to play is to mod the core system limit to 999.

Fuck sectors and fuck whoever thinks they were a good idea.

Shouldn't you be posting at paradoxplaza?

I don't mind sectors or war score. Gives Stellaris a little flavor over being Master of Orion clone#225. granted they need to touch up exactly how they function a little.

We have these people in every single stellaris thread ever. Some people like diplomacy, combat and sectors some don´t. There is nothing ot fix

I just hope sector AI won't be as shitty I read that you can watch their build que now. God sector AI was/is just absolute cancer

I wouldn't hate sectors as much as I do if they didn't take practically all control away from you. If they functioned more like planetary governors that allow a planet/system to develop independently without your interference, without actually keeping you from manually correcting things if you felt it was necessary, I probably actually would like them. But the way they are, they're almost like little vassal empires that just do their own thing.

I think they are fine as they are and just need to be touched up. Stellaris' gimmick is that you play it for the macro so it tries to limit your micro. Which is why combat is just point and click and sectors are their own thing.

My only real issue with the game right now is that from about halfway through the mid into the late game- there is really nothing to do but warwarwar. On one of my early games the Unbidden swallowed up the cosmos then there was a second land rush for all the space that was now empty.

I think having some kind of event like that take place at the second half of the mid game would be pretty nifty.

But what is actually good about it?

I can understand not caring about the diplomacy, but it seems to me like the only kind of people who enjoy the current combat and the sector mechanics are people who hate playing video games and only like to watch them.

>Combat

What would you do to "fix" the combat. Turn it into an SRPG?

I'd actually like that, but that would be way outside the score of the game so let's not go there.

It's really simple though:
1) Allow the player to set formations and rules of engagement for their fleets.
2) Give small fleets something to do other than uselessly get crushed by megablobs.
Presto, I just fixed combat.

>Stellaris' gimmick is that you play it for the macro so it tries to limit your micro
Pfffffffhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Automating surveying is a fucking randomly researchable tech.
You can't automate the goddamn construction ships ever, you have to manually queue up a trillion orders.
Up till 1.3 rally points weren't even in the game.

Stellaris revels in micro - probably because they have to keep the illusion of interactivity - there'd be absolutely nothing to do but stare at the tech progress bars starting from the midgame.

I need this, why is there no preorder?

JUST TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY

I ALREADY FUCKED UP BY NOT PREORDERING

>1) Allow the player to set formations and rules of engagement for their fleets.

What would this do mechanically?

>2) Give small fleets something to do other than uselessly get crushed by megablobs.
Presto, I just fixed combat.

In order to do this, you'd need to nerf the speed bonus ships get from being in their own space. In which case the guirella warfare and baiting you can do with them goes out the window and you're back to square one

Sort out the fleet UI

reduce military fleet speed and give them an option of losing defences and weapon in exchange for speeding up.

that allows for raiding areas of stuff rather than the current shitblobs. It'll feel more like a war and less like a skirmish.

Fix the warscore system

Add more weapons for missiles and kinetics,
Add more ship components for different damage types and defenses.

Throw in different design philosophy for more flavour between empires.

Then throw it all out and play empire at war instead

This is wrong. The only people who don't buy the DLC are the ones who stick to playing Vic2 and the older games. In a lot of their new games (CKII, EU4) not having DLC will mean you are playing a gutted game with DLC gated features.

You're misinterpreting what he's saying.

Everyone plays with the DLC, but nobody BUYS it. The conventional wisdom when it comes to Paradox games is to buy the base game and pirate all the DLC. This way you support the devs, but don't give in to their DLC hyper-jewery.

Didn't they break Spacewar?

>What would this do mechanically?
Add a layer of interactivity to the otherwise bland and overly hands-off combat, and allow for a greater variety of tactics and counterplay.

>In order to do this, you'd need to nerf the speed bonus ships get from being in their own space. In which case the guirella warfare and baiting you can do with them goes out the window and you're back to square one
Not really. For example, you could increase the speed of small fleets, and allow smaller fleets to disengage more easily if caught. This would make baiting and guerilla strikes far more efficient than the current system. You could even add a stealth mechanic where small fleets are harder to detect to further emphasize it.

One of the problems with combat is that the only really viable way to fight is to crus the enemy fleets as hard as possible, and the only way to do that is to throw as much firepower as possible at them. This encourages moving your fleet as a huge blob, minus anything you might as a defensive measure (which is usually nothing unless you're fighting on multiple fronts. Once your blob has defeated the enemy blob, the war effectively ends right away and just becomes a long and tedious mop-up operation to inflate your Warscore.

>You need to fix this
How
>I DONT KNOW JUST FIX IT SOMEHOW

These threads always go the same way.

>I can pretend I'm right by ignoring 90% of the other guy's post
Why are you shills always this pathetic?

...

>slow breeders

I guess that makes sense when you've ruined your own anus with all of those dragon dildos

Anuses aren't used for breeding, user.

You try doing proper hip motions when you have a giant, stretched, bleeded and ruined anus, user.

Sounds like you have experience.

Why do furries always feel the need to broadcast to the world that they are furries?

...

A fair point.

They're only reducing it to 3 because they're adding a bunch of ways to get a lot more core systems besides the lategame recurring tech, depending on the kind of empire you are.

I don't care.

Being forced to shove parts of my empire off into the hands of a retarded child that doesn't even obey the 'don't demolish the shit already built and replace it' order is bullshit. It should be optional at best, not a core game mechanic that balance is designed around.

It's not even like micromanaging planets is hard. If they'd add an 'Upgrade all buildings to latest' button then it would actually be easier to manage 100 planets manually than with Sectors honestly. Sectors do nothing interesting except suck your resources and create extra micromanagement/influence costs as you have to remove planets from them, fix them, then readd them later.

There's also a mod which lets you glass planets

>they're adding megastructures
>turning a moon into a massive defense station isn't one of them

I just want to build a defensive death star, for fuck's sake.

Fuck year.

>dat research imbalance
>dat weak ass fleet at 2400 (TWO THOUSAND FOUR HUNDERED).

Nigga what are you doing?

If you're not rolling 200K+ stack(s) into the last awakened empire's core by 2300, then you dun goofed.

>they're making it so you can finally have different colored spaceships

based paradox

They technically are when reptiles are involved. Same hole and all that.

Don't know what you're talking about. Sector ai always obeys the don't replace buildings command. Sectors focused on energy do it pretty well. I always build a massive energy sector and set it and forget it. Boom, no more energy problems. No mineral problems either. Just focus on purging the stars.

>Sector ai always obeys the don't replace buildings command
This has been a grand lie since launch and is just plain untrue. They've had to 'fix' it like 3 times and counting.

>Sectors focused on energy do it pretty well.
That's the only thing sector AI is remotely decent at, and even then it's shit at it relative to just building plants and upgrading them every once in a while yourself. Sectors don't properly understand the multiplier buildings or grid layouts for adjacency.

>visuals still based on species type
>no influence from ethics

still needs work

Does it still have Sectors? Whoever thought that was a good idea needs fucking shot.

problem is they can't get rid of sectors because the AI is absolutely braindead and could never keep up with a player

which is something I utterly despise about the 4x genre as a whole, literally none of them have good AI

whoa buddy, are you asking for more ship models? They will take literal hours of work so you better for over 20bux for each set

I'm willing to bet the only reason this hasn't happened yet is because there's vastly more competition to stellaris than their typical games so they can't jew without consequences

Ah that's a shame. Thanks for the answer man.

>literally none of them have good AI
Galactic Civilizations 2 is the only one I can think of.