Paradox Interactive Thread: V3 'Check out my sick Germany blob' - Games

[QUOTE=kharkovus;50323755]My chief problems with stellaris right now, after observing dozens of simulated AI games are: 1. AI for war fleets is terrible. They rarely ever attack, and usually idle while they could be defending, or otherwise avoid making confrontation (this is because fleets are massively valued above all else and the AI will take no risks regarding them). They skirt and raid and patrol, but most times they're idle. And when they do decide to bomb a world, they have severe problems occupying it due to bad transport management. Some funny things I've seen with this include: A human civilization has a 2k fleet a star away from Sol. An alien race is FULL bombarding earth to oblivion with an equal-sized 2k stack. But because the AI never likes to risk anything, it lets earth die. And then, I saw an AI who's homeworld was being invaded. It's solution? Throw transport ships at the massive fleet, over and over, while your large fleet sits only a couple systems away. 2. The AI diplomacy gets gridlocked and stagnant. I've ran simulations for a thousand year long game, and past a certain point, nothing ever changes. It all goes into large federations that either never fight, fight and get very small increments due to shitty unproportioned wargoals, or fight and never win because the AI is way too stubborn with peacing out. It doesn't help that the AI has built-in modifiers to not even colonize (certain planet thresholds make AI place less emphasis) all the space on huge maps, so there's not even any change or conflict in colonization rushing, either. 3. End-Game crisis are fucking broke when it comes to AI. The AI largely ignores endgame crisis. I've seen them battle a scourge from time to time, but it's mostly ignoring. They nearly completely ignore the unbidden, and the AI rebellion oftentimes spawns, but it never goes anywhere. When I tagswitched into an AI rebellion civ, they had AI outlawed, and gradually purged all their pops. Was quite funny. Also, AI rebellions almost never happen, simply because the AI doesn't get enough synth pops before the other two crisis (only one crisis per game.) These are, in my opinion, why the game gets so boring towards the mid and late game. That, and there's just not enough content in the game, and some UI inconveniences (no ledger/mapmodes.) So for now I've downloaded AI rebalance and disabled all the crisis.[/QUOTE] You should run the simulation with this mod [url]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683412153[/url] And see how it goes

It just clicked to me that frontier outposts are temporary things. No wonder I've been at 0 influence for a few decades

[QUOTE=EuSKalduna;50324128]It just clicked to me that frontier outposts are temporary things. No wonder I've been at 0 influence for a few decades[/QUOTE] I'll admit I did this on my first play too, was having troubles with getting leaders because of it and was getting annoyed trying to figure out why I wasn't getting enough influence for maybe an hour or two. :v: I'm not smart.

[QUOTE=Mr Flexi;50324136]I'll admit I did this on my first play too, was having troubles with getting leaders because of it and was getting annoyed trying to figure out why I wasn't getting enough influence for maybe an hour or two. :v: I'm not smart.[/QUOTE] This was my third game :tinfoil:

Honestly if the tech RNG doesn't give you the right colonization techs they can end up being a bit more than temporary.

[QUOTE=blazingfly;50321924]Oh damn, evasion is a broken mechanic. Corvette swarms wreck everything.[/QUOTE] Mind expanding on that? I kind of need anything to help against the Golden Axis. Space Russia has already swallowed up three of our fleets. I suspect that all survivors have been put to work in the mines. [QUOTE=Govna;50321939]You pissed off Space Britannia. [t]http://i66.tinypic.com/6gjw2x.jpg[/t] [editline]14th May 2016[/editline] That's what I get for idling forever.[/QUOTE] You should idle more.

[QUOTE=kharkovus;50323755]My chief problems with stellaris right now, after observing dozens of simulated AI games are: 1. AI for war fleets is terrible. They rarely ever attack, and usually idle while they could be defending, or otherwise avoid making confrontation (this is because fleets are massively valued above all else and the AI will take no risks regarding them). They skirt and raid and patrol, but most times they're idle. And when they do decide to bomb a world, they have severe problems occupying it due to bad transport management. Some funny things I've seen with this include: A human civilization has a 2k fleet a star away from Sol. An alien race is FULL bombarding earth to oblivion with an equal-sized 2k stack. But because the AI never likes to risk anything, it lets earth die. And then, I saw an AI who's homeworld was being invaded. It's solution? Throw transport ships at the massive fleet, over and over, while your large fleet sits only a couple systems away. 2. The AI diplomacy gets gridlocked and stagnant. I've ran simulations for a thousand year long game, and past a certain point, nothing ever changes. It all goes into large federations that either never fight, fight and get very small increments due to shitty unproportioned wargoals, or fight and never win because the AI is way too stubborn with peacing out. It doesn't help that the AI has built-in modifiers to not even colonize (certain planet thresholds make AI place less emphasis) all the space on huge maps, so there's not even any change or conflict in colonization rushing, either. 3. End-Game crisis are fucking broke when it comes to AI. The AI largely ignores endgame crisis. I've seen them battle a scourge from time to time, but it's mostly ignoring. They nearly completely ignore the unbidden, and the AI rebellion oftentimes spawns, but it never goes anywhere. When I tagswitched into an AI rebellion civ, they had AI outlawed, and gradually purged all their pops. Was quite funny. Also, AI rebellions almost never happen, simply because the AI doesn't get enough synth pops before the other two crisis (only one crisis per game.) These are, in my opinion, why the game gets so boring towards the mid and late game. That, and there's just not enough content in the game, and some UI inconveniences (no ledger/mapmodes.) So for now I've downloaded AI rebalance and disabled all the crisis.[/QUOTE] I think late game crisises are extremely easy if you know what to do and for the reasons you described. The Praetory scourge doesn't use shields, so if you upgrade your ships with weapons that are good against armour and nothing else, you basically wipe the floor with them. That and that event is bugged. I think they should allow all 3 crisises to happen, and increase their strength or something, maybe give a much higher chance for the AI rebellion to happen. The Unbidden spawned in my galaxy but it spawned kinda far and nothing has been happening. It's been gaining some territory but not much else. I remember they described these things as something dramatic and hard, but it's meh. I think the Unbidden and the Praetory Scourge should declare a permanent war on every empire in the galaxy as soon as they spawn.

I played CK2 and EU and couldn't wrap my head around either. But I love me some Sci-Fi, and Beyond Earth was garbage. Just bought Stellaris and downloading it now, any tips?

And now I only just discovered sectors I love learning Paradox games almost as much as I hate learning paradox games

[QUOTE=EuSKalduna;50325050]And now I only just discovered sectors I love learning Paradox games almost as much as I hate learning paradox games[/QUOTE] There is a tutorial that pretty much covers everything.

[QUOTE=kobalt;50325026]I played CK2 and EU and couldn't wrap my head around either. But I love me some Sci-Fi, and Beyond Earth was garbage. Just bought Stellaris and downloading it now, any tips?[/QUOTE] For the early game, it's a good idea to make a second science ship fairly quickly. You don't need to worry about military for a little bit, just scout out the juiciest solar systems. Also unless you're close to finishing a society project, it's a really good idea to learn the language of the Alpha, Beta, ect aliens you encounter to see if they're going to be complete assholes.

[QUOTE=kobalt;50325026]I played CK2 and EU and couldn't wrap my head around either. But I love me some Sci-Fi, and Beyond Earth was garbage. Just bought Stellaris and downloading it now, any tips?[/QUOTE] Each weapon type is specialized. Your empire's starting choice for weaponry only matters up until you research another type. Lasers are good against armor but terrible against Shields Kinetic weapons are the opposite, good against shields and bad against armor Missles/Torpedoes are good against both, but can be shot down by point defense systems and are pretty slow. ALWAYS use your science ships to scan debris, it can give you anything from a flat research bonus, to rare or uncommon tech, or even just tech you don't have yet.

I recently got EU IV and I love it, sank ~100 hours into it already. Question: I'm playing as England and from experience, France deathballs after ~50 years so within the first 20 years I allied Portugal, Castile and Austria and pounced on him while he was fighting Burgundy. As a result, I got Paris and some other province, Aragon (who was allies with France) ceded Valencia to Castile, I took most of Scotland and the weakened French army had to give some land to Burgundy. Am I doing this right?

[QUOTE=TheTalon;50323796]You should run the simulation with this mod [url]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=683412153[/url] And see how it goes[/QUOTE] I have quite a bit, haha, that's the mod I downloaded. It doesn't really change much, since war fleets are still broken, but it helps a bit with the gridlocked diplomacy (however wargoals are still bad.) AI still ignores endgame crisis. I hope the mod gets further with it's objectives but I think the warfleet AI will have to be changed by paradox. [QUOTE=JCDentonUNATCO;50325100]For the early game, it's a good idea to make a second science ship fairly quickly. You don't need to worry about military for a little bit, just scout out the juiciest solar systems. Also unless you're close to finishing a society project, it's a really good idea to learn the language of the Alpha, Beta, ect aliens you encounter to see if they're going to be complete assholes.[/QUOTE] Society research builds up while you research those, so it's not even a loss, either.

Man, getting a bit fed up with this AI. It's not so much that they arent aggressive towards other factions thats the main problem, its that they sit on their asses not even trying to expand into unclaimed space. Meanwhile im snaking between everyone and just grabbing everything, and by the time I've run out of unclaimed systems I am so powerful compared to anyone else (including any coalitions) that there just is no challenge any more. [thumb]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/269465930024183348/DC7E6B5A943E5A39274FD429B21E0E76B3750FA5/[/thumb] Also, anyone notice the AI must be cheating hard when it comes to research? Even in this game I can't find a single empire that I have superior tech to, some even having better tech than me.

[QUOTE=kirderf;50325520]Man, getting a bit fed up with this AI. It's not so much that they arent aggressive towards other factions thats the main problem, its that they sit on their asses not even trying to expand into unclaimed space. Meanwhile im snaking between everyone and just grabbing everything, and by the time I've run out of unclaimed systems I am so powerful compared to anyone else (including any coalitions) that there just is no challenge any more. [thumb]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/269465930024183348/DC7E6B5A943E5A39274FD429B21E0E76B3750FA5/[/thumb] Also, anyone notice the AI must be cheating hard when it comes to research? Even in this game I can't find a single empire that I have superior tech to, some even having better tech than me.[/QUOTE] Pretty much everyone but newly formed Empires have superior tech to me the whole game.

[QUOTE=Tuskin;50320394]I love pirate ship names, I found a hidden base on an asteroid, there are 2 corvettes, one named "Comet Sighted" and the other is "Inconspicuous Asteroid"[/QUOTE] I once had a wormhole station very appropriately named "Why Me" which I only noticed after starting to demolish it with a wall of missiles

[QUOTE=kirderf;50325520]Man, getting a bit fed up with this AI. It's not so much that they arent aggressive towards other factions thats the main problem, its that they sit on their asses not even trying to expand into unclaimed space. Meanwhile im snaking between everyone and just grabbing everything, and by the time I've run out of unclaimed systems I am so powerful compared to anyone else (including any coalitions) that there just is no challenge any more. [thumb]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/269465930024183348/DC7E6B5A943E5A39274FD429B21E0E76B3750FA5/[/thumb] Also, anyone notice the AI must be cheating hard when it comes to research? Even in this game I can't find a single empire that I have superior tech to, some even having better tech than me.[/QUOTE] I actually don't think the AI cheats with research, it just prioritizes research buildings more than players, and players tend to focus on expansion so they get the negative research modifier from having too many pops.

[QUOTE=kirderf;50325520] Also, anyone notice the AI must be cheating hard when it comes to research? Even in this game I can't find a single empire that I have superior tech to, some even having better tech than me.[/QUOTE] Probably either Materialists or using Edicts/Policies for research bonuses. But who knows, in EU4 the AI gets bonuses to colony distance, doesn't have any Naval fog of war, and they don't take Naval Attrition damage because Paradox couldn't make them handle it, so it wouldn't surprise me if the AI in Stellaris has some hidden bonuses.

For anyone using the playable robots mod: [I]do not trust the AI to manage your planets[/I] - they'll just build a single (unneeded) hydroponics farm then break, doing nothing at all :v: [editline]a[/editline] Also I can't tell if this is a subtle, [I]'tip-toe-around-copyright'[/I], Star Wars reference [t]http://i.imgur.com/qPZBCP2.png[/t] [editline]a[/editline] A scientist came out in Early Access~ [t]http://i.imgur.com/m29RCDP.png[/t]

The Paradox devs are known to have some sort of sense of humour, so it might be. [editline]15th May 2016[/editline] I thought the word 'Droid' was a trademark LucasFilm. I remember the commercials for the 'Droid' smartphone had 'Droid is a trademark of LucasFilm.' or something like that in the disclaimer.

Droid might've been a title I set for them in the empire creator - I was the Mandroid Empire or something :v: [editline]a[/editline] Either that or the mod set the title for leaders, maybe. Can AI even become leaders in the base game?

Is using Sectors worth it? I've seen a few people on Reddit who set up a sector only to have the AI build fuck loads of stupid shit on the planet.

A friend of mine just went to sleep. But not before setting up a 40 empire 1k star game, watching as an observer, and setting it on the fastest speed. Also a screenshot is being taken every minute. This should be interesting [editline]15th May 2016[/editline] Also, I'm taking a liking to robots. Synthetics get pretty gnarly bonuses to everything. 20% Increase to Energy, Minerals and Research. I'm going to purge my own population and replace them with synthetics

Tell your friend about the 'overnight' command. You can have the game run even faster. 'overnight #' the number being how many in game 'ticks per second'. So Overnight 10 would be 10 times faster the normal game speed for example.

[QUOTE=dookster;50325945]Is using Sectors worth it? I've seen a few people on Reddit who set up a sector only to have the AI build fuck loads of stupid shit on the planet.[/QUOTE] They arent worth it but if you have more than the allowed planets then you need to use them.

[img]http://puu.sh/oT3nO/384f5e6008.jpg[/img] [img]http://puu.sh/oT3l5/dcf16c89e8.jpg[/img] [img]http://puu.sh/oT3fc/cb37611758.jpg[/img] The three main ships in my basically invincible fleet. The corvettes have over half the health of a "normal" battleship One of those battleships is also worth almost 3k Military Power by itself. With this I basically solo'd over 100k worth of scourge ships using a fleet of only 32k and all I lost was two corvettes and a destroyer. [editline]15th May 2016[/editline] they have so much health that shields and armor are actually useless since the flat 5% repair from the nanobot cloud swarms on the helper battleships repairs most of the damage done to them.

I haven't played a Paradox title before but do you think I will enjoy this if I like Total War and Civ?

[QUOTE=General;50327295]I haven't played a Paradox title before but do you think I will enjoy this if I like Total War and Civ?[/QUOTE] It's completely different from both of those games, practically nothing alike, but I don't think the leap would be too far. I guess the combat would be mostly like if you fought Total War battles and autoresolved everything. Overall it's definitely one of the easier Paradox games to get into, along with CK2. You can also, ehm, acquire the game first to see if you're interested.

Man again with these paradox games. I'm really loving the game but i just cant get over how much missed opportunity and glaring issues there are. I'm not talking about expanding on it too much, mostly just fixing what they have. The game is just filled with annoying slow downs and tedious clicking because of how badly the UI is designed. Also the AI is in massive need of help I'm pretty sure their DLC model has gotten to their head because they know they can just leave shit for later. I can't imagine them struggling for money considering they are doing hiring campaigns and have had their most successful years ever. [editline]16th May 2016[/editline] The combat is so broken and wormholes so op that i dont understand how they expected people to want to play this against each other in multiplayer.