Paradox Grand Strat meets Sci-Fi 4X; Boners Explode

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Fri May 13, 2016 12:15 pm #176171

Bottom post of the previous page:

If you click on your flag you can set your policy like migration, as for a certain species I don't think you can, its either primary/xenos/all. If you by chance have purge or collectivism I think it's called you can purge XENOS SCUM population.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 3:43 pm #176210

Collectivism and maybe xenophobe let you purge pops.

I started a single player game after revamping the Noot to be a little more role-play autism friendly and slightly shuffled around their traits (slow breeders really does murder your early game, don't do it).

We are now "The Illuminated Flock" empire, which has Noot as its primary race and all that. It makes more sense that way when you go conquering people, they'll become fellow Illuminates but they aren't Noot.

K-64 · Post by **K-64** » Fri May 13, 2016 3:46 pm #176211

If you're wanting a good flaw, I've not really seen any real downside to nonadaptive yet. At least for me, it seems like a free trait point since the only unhappiness I've ever had was from filthy xenos thinking they should be afforded independence.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 3:54 pm #176215

There's a building you can build once per empire after discovering SPACE GEMS that gives the planet you build it on +10% happiness and also your ENTIRE EMPIRE +10% happiness.

Real fuckin' good. Hey dude I know you're upset we just conquered the shit out of you

But dude, we got GEMS.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Fri May 13, 2016 3:59 pm #176220

Btw genetic uplifting is pretty neat. It's basically a free colony that ignores your habitat restrictions and costs 600 research points. And once you've dropped a planetary administration and a few farms...

Spoiler:

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri May 13, 2016 4:16 pm #176225

I love how flexible the race creator is, but I wish there were more negative traits to pick from.

Haven't had the time to actually start a game yet, but putting together Twilight Imperium races and Alpha Centauri factions is fun, and soon I'll be able to play with both.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Fri May 13, 2016 4:18 pm #176229

Heh, I was actually thinking about doing the Human Hive at some point.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 4:22 pm #176230

Grazyn wrote:Btw genetic uplifting is pretty neat. It's basically a free colony that ignores your habitat restrictions and costs 600 research points. And once you've dropped a planetary administration and a few farms...

Spoiler:

That's a waste of the pops! Build colony ships out of a spaceport then and deport those fuckers to frontier worlds your loyal MASTER RACE can't sully their hands colonizing.
Uplifting radroaches so you can colonize the shit out of tomb worlds, for example.

Also
>tfw xenphobes complaining that they can't play with genetic manipulation because it fucks up their RACIAL PURITY and pisses off their pops
>meanwhile my xenophile science directorate is ADAM JENSEN level augmented and it only makes them love eachother even more
>"DUDE CHECK OUT MY AUGS"
>"DUDE. CHECK OUT MY AUGS."
>"DUDES THEY JUST RELEASED NEW AUGS!"

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Fri May 13, 2016 4:45 pm #176240

Yeah that's actually what I'm gonna do with my roaches, 2 problems tho:

>they gain sentience but there are no buildings and no food because tomb world, so they immediately start starving (what the fuck were they eating before?)
>since they're starving they decide it's migration time and move to another of my planets before I can drop administration and farms
>they're disgusting radroaches and my other pops complain the neighborhood is now ruined

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 4:57 pm #176247

What is your ethos? As long as your aren't individualist you could force resettlement of them.

Unfortunately the place you send them has to have at least a planetary administration built so brand new colonies aren't valid targets.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri May 13, 2016 5:13 pm #176253

If anyone here wants some additional traits or stuff to pick from in our next game, I could give modding a go and we just have to make sure we all use the same mod. It doesn't look very difficult, the scripts are easy to read and the language is very simple.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Fri May 13, 2016 5:16 pm #176254

An0n3 wrote:What is your ethos? As long as your aren't individualist you could force resettlement of them.

Unfortunately the place you send them has to have at least a planetary administration built so brand new colonies aren't valid targets.

Yeah the whole point is to keep them away from my other planets and I can't colonize tombs yet, I guess I'll just leave them there and eventually purge the ones who migrate

THE MIGHTY GALVATRON · Fri May 13, 2016 5:18 pm

This game is missing super weapons. Like super space viruses and black hole generators. I want to blow up a planet!

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 13, 2016 5:31 pm #176260

I found an event to search a tomb world for the super weapon that caused it to go from tropical paradise to bombed out hellhole. I was HYPE.

Unfortunately the quest ended with no results and just a bunch of wasted time.
Not sure if I missed the chance (events don't usually have random outcomes tho, just anomalies) or what.

The game has a bit of a sense of humor to it sometimes. You can find a lot of odd references to stuff around (I've run into references to Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide, and some others) and sometimes what sounds like the joke result can actually be pretty powerful. I discovered a bunch of really fancy monoliths on a planet that were very artistic. I could scan them for a couple free physics research points (why not social I dunno) or sell replicas across my empire as souvenirs. I chose the latter because fuck it why not.

Turns out that choice encouraged Xenophile ethos across my empire and all my pops got a boost in that direction. Nudged all my guys towards double fanaticism Xeno/Materialist...which is a-o-fuckin-kay by me.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Fri May 13, 2016 6:10 pm #176267

I've almost got the mod system figured out, it's very modular and it's easy to enable/disable mods. If you have any ideas for traits/techs/government forms etc that you would like me to give a shot at, post them here.

EDIT:

Spoiler:

It's kinda annoying that you have to completely overwrite existing game files. I have to figure out if there's some way to tell the game it only needs to combine my new trait list with the old one, I don't want to have to include all of the old traits as well. Not to mention the entire damn localization file. That is the kind of bullshit that causes mod conflicts, and I'm sure there exists a solution for it that I haven't figured out yet.

EDIT 2: And sure enough, there is a way to not have to do that and it was extremely easy. All files have a base type in their name, such as "species_traits", and in front of that base type you can put anything you want to identify that the file contains data for that base type but should or should not overwrite another file. In this case the vanilla traits are in "00_species_traits.txt", and my extra trait is now in "ricotez_extra_traits_species_traits.txt". This shit even works for localisation files, where the base is "l_english" for anything that contains english localization instructions.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Fri May 13, 2016 8:47 pm #176299

Gotta love this game with friends last night. Was about to wardeck a neighbor with only one system and weak forces.... Only to remember I was buttering them up and had done a thirty year NAP. Shit.

30 year cold war then sudden invasion?

tedward1337 · Post by **tedward1337** » Fri May 13, 2016 9:42 pm #176309

ThanatosRa wrote:Gotta love this game with friends last night. Was about to wardeck a neighbor with only one system and weak forces.... Only to remember I was buttering them up and had done a thirty year NAP. Shit.

30 year cold war then sudden invasion?

Easy there, slight variation of Hitler :^)

Incomptinence · Fri May 13, 2016 9:46 pm

Seems to be a bit of whining on their forums but eh only thing I really care about is that sectors can't build planet capitals/ mineral/ energy hubs. Like this is some pretty basic tech and setting up a new worthless colony is probably the most boring micro but now I know if I don't do it myself it will be stuck on sub basic buildings forever? Like let me give them influence like I can minerals and energy? Oh well at least I am not a TRAAAAAADE ROUUUTES obsessive, like you knew from the dev diaries and streams there wasn't a trade route system shut up.

Like totally an EA game guys because I can't squat in a corner and win through research and time mashing face!

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Sat May 14, 2016 12:19 am #176322

Oh god I've just noticed the last fungoid portrait is actually a furry alien CONTROLLED BY THE FUNGUS

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Sat May 14, 2016 12:26 am #176326

tedward1337 wrote:
ThanatosRa wrote:Gotta love this game with friends last night. Was about to wardeck a neighbor with only one system and weak forces.... Only to remember I was buttering them up and had done a thirty year NAP. Shit.

30 year cold war then sudden invasion?
Easy there, slight variation of Hitler :^)

Well, one of my buds is on the other side of him and another empire. Which I'msorta friendly with both. I guess I could keep being friendly and intimidating them until I force them to submit as Vassals.

THE MIGHTY GALVATRON · Sat May 14, 2016 12:32 am

ThanatosRa wrote:I guess I could keep being friendly and intimidating them until I force them to submit as Vassals.

Getting the peasants to BEND THE KNEE is always a good time. They need to learn their place on the galactic scale, even the synth's have more rights than them.

tedward1337 · Post by **tedward1337** » Sat May 14, 2016 2:34 am #176341

speaking of synths
Ive started to build robits and start resettling them close to unfriendly territory. The goal here is to have them declare war and cede those planets, hopefully there is a robot rebellion because of it.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Sat May 14, 2016 3:47 am #176348

An0n3 wrote: >tfw xenphobes complaining that they can't play with genetic manipulation because it fucks up their RACIAL PURITY and pisses off their pops
>meanwhile my xenophile science directorate is ADAM JENSEN level augmented and it only makes them love eachother even more
>"DUDE CHECK OUT MY AUGS"
>"DUDE. CHECK OUT MY AUGS."
>"DUDES THEY JUST RELEASED NEW AUGS!"

Incomptinence · Sat May 14, 2016 5:51 am

There should probably be a replacement thingy for the founding race nonsense. Like you could mod out repulsive at a latter date have alien leaders on all your leaders are now from the new population and bam still get the repulsive relations penalty.

Same with ethos. There are some events that allow you the option to radically change it on all planets.

I mean as xenophobic materialists with genetic modification synths and the right policies you would only generate robot leaders maybe. Wait do you still generate leaders out of the aether of the original race when you have none of that pop left? I wonder.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat May 14, 2016 6:05 am #176381

Xenophobe's inability to toy around with their own genetics and other racial leaders makes sense both from the fluff and from a balancing stand-point.

Xenophobe has a ton of advantages when it comes to bullying around other pops and in wartime that other races don't get. Purge conquered pops at will! Full bombing for everyone!
There has to be some things it can't do, or struggles to do from a balancing point.

As far as fluff goes, modern day "xenophobes" can't even handle people from the same species who are a different color. Tattoos. Piercings.
You think they'd tolerate full-blown genetic rewrites?

>The Imperium of Man would have a xenophobic ethos
>what are ogryns
>what are ratlings
>what is the space marine program

Yeah nah. Collectivist Militarist Spiritualist.

Incomptinence · Sat May 14, 2016 7:27 am

The option is there to genetically modify the entire empire at once.

Then its not xenophobia its like a bunch of literal ubermench in some nightmare alternate world looking at the statue to the now extinct less lily white man and sighing wistfully.

Plus for slavery and purges isn't collectivist like more of that and better? They actually have an increased chance to get the second trait point the ones who are meant to hate this mass gene altering shit are individualists.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:40 am #176391

Funny thing is my empire name is The Imperium of Man, my race is Americans on the planet America in the Mc Donalds System.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:43 am #176392

For a xenophobe, undergoing genetic therapy that drastically alters your race would be admitting you weren't actually the superior form of life you believed you were up until now.

Like...look at how much opposition there is to genetic experimentation on our own planet right now and we aren't even close to anything that drastic.

RE: purging

It depends on who you do it to. Collectivists are only mildly disturbed when you purge a pop. Doesn't matter if its a Xeno or loyalist. They get equally upset. Fanatic Collectivists don't give a shit who you purge.
Xenophobes barely care when you purge an alien pop, but go full blown riot if you purge a loyalist pop. Fanatic Xenophobes don't give a shit how many alien graves you dig but still go apeshit if you purge a loyalist.

Considering how unlikely you are to ever purge a pop for your loyalist group vs. xeno's, xenophobe has an advantage in controlling dissidents (since most of your dissident pops are going to be aliums pissed off with you after being integrated/conquered).

Incomptinence · Sat May 14, 2016 7:54 am

Not saying I don't see why they shouldn't oppose it. It's a janky mechanic that needs more polish plainly. Once it is done though a xenophobe is like a goldfish they support what they are because it is what they are. The moment you drop the genes on em and suddenly they are a species of children playing throne is lava at present, that''s not balance that's an incomplete feature.

mrpain · Post by **mrpain** » Sat May 14, 2016 10:57 am #176410

Just bought this.

TIme to make space great again

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Sat May 14, 2016 11:04 am #176412

The Soviet Union of Sol is now challenging neighbors and conquering primitives! Recently conquered these horse people. Invaded their renaissance tech world with like.... 6 Armies using modern weapons. Still early, but still. Had a migration pact with a sentient robot army so now the planet has been infested with robotic settlers and a human Governer with some captured pirate vessels as a system garrison. I still say this. These horse dudes don't get party representation until they've earned it.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Sat May 14, 2016 12:05 pm #176418

My collectivists were pissing off a few stronger neighbours with their slave and purge policies so I've outlawed those for now. I'll probably legalize them again when I'm the strongest player in my corner of space, I'm racing through techs right now. It's a shame that I have unlocked the PSI tech but no source of spice zho to actually do something with it. I've only found a single source of zho and it's smack-dack in the middle of another empire. Already writing the war declaration.

And god damn my mineral production is through the roof as well, I've just started pumping out ships because I have nothing better to do with it.

On the downside there's a Fallen Empire just north of me who are fanatic xenophobes, but they don't really seem to care about anything as long as I stay away from them. I'll try to conquer them when I'm at their level, they live on ring worlds which look really neat.

tedward1337 · Sat May 14, 2016 12:25 pm

An0n3 wrote:modern day "xenophobes"

You mean the Japanese?

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Sat May 14, 2016 1:24 pm #176427

We all good for a new round at 4:30 EST? 5/14/2016

Incomptinence · Sat May 14, 2016 1:34 pm

Consensus seems to be corvettes late game be OP because you can just stack engine + computer and whatever evasion bonuses to hit like 60% then while they still die a bit they are so much more efficient that they break combat while the defences large ships excel at get negated by high tech weapons. Like only counter is guaranteed hit missiles and corvettes also make the best pd boats that and maybe maybe arc emitters. Mid game the natural thing happens and destroyers mow down the chaff though.

Like I know their corvettes counter battleships design was a thing but sheesh maybe have some ways to increase accuracy the sensor slot is right fucking THERE man.

Grazyn · Post by **Grazyn** » Sat May 14, 2016 1:35 pm #176430

I can't play today, if you're using the same map feel free to hotjoin as my Union of Hiro, it's a fairly well-placed megacorporation

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:21 pm #176475

Incomptinence wrote:Not saying I don't see why they shouldn't oppose it. It's a janky mechanic that needs more polish plainly. Once it is done though a xenophobe is like a goldfish they support what they are because it is what they are. The moment you drop the genes on em and suddenly they are a species of children playing throne is lava at present, that''s not balance that's an incomplete feature.

It seems like it works to me. You force genetic modification on a bunch of xenophobes and now you have a gigantic pissed off faction of mutant Neo-(You)'s that both hate your previous empire and the last vestiges of your race refuse to allow into power. If you uplifted a xenophobe, wouldn't they now look down on their previous genetic-neighbors? MUH MASTER RACE.

The only fix is maybe not allowing you to bone yourself so badly, and removing the option for Xenophobes to go with that tech at all.

Think of the tone. You're taught from day 1 that your race is the best race in the universe. Genetically perfect master race.
Then some asshole bureaucrat releases some gas or nanovirus or something that warps all of you into some kind of neo-human.

You'd hate your government, but also each-other and yourselves for being freaks. "B-but now you can live in the desert" the leaders say, like that excuses the fact that your entire genetic legacy just got flushed down the toilet and you're some kind of space mutant.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:24 pm #176476

What do people want to play tonight? I'm up for hosting again in an hour. Or someone else could do it, whatever works for everyone.
I don't mind making another new game, I think I was well on my way to steamrolling the universe in that one. I had already consumed four other empires when we stopped playing on Tuesday(?) night.

Game One: K-64 top player
Game Two: An0n3 top player(?)
Game Three: ??????

Skorvold · Post by **Skorvold** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:36 pm #176480

Yes! New game!
Definitely want in on this.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Sat May 14, 2016 8:38 pm #176488

If we're doing a new game I have to reconsider what race I want to play

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat May 14, 2016 8:54 pm #176491

GAME GOING UP GET IN NOW

Incomptinence · Sun May 15, 2016 3:46 am

Fucking whelp crashes booted me out of my own race. I hope the furries don't get too ruff.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Sun May 15, 2016 4:19 am #176532

Well due to a certain sombodies constant bitching my cable company discontinued services so I went through the entire day without internet and in a moderate amount of pain from tearing a muscle from the previous day's work out. I'll catch the next game then

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun May 15, 2016 6:07 am #176543

An alliance between Laharl, Incomp, and myself is running wild all over the place. I've been manipulating our wardecs so that we continuously target the same empire's stuff through proxy wars with their alliance members, giving us SICK GAINS in terms of military profit and such.

Comparing the relative strengths of our empires, everyone else is inferior to me militarily except for Laharl, Incomp, and this random AI player in the "Dickbutt Dominators" alliance.

It's funny, no matter what angle you try to take on the game you will end up in a gigantic galactic war for territory eventually.
It's just not the kind of game where you are going to politic your way to the win like maybe Endless Space/Legend or some other offerings.

There are too many random triggers that cause an empire to hate you too much to ever want to ally unless you share a mutual rival.
So you rival their rival and now you can ally with them.
Then their rival maybe allies with some others and so on, eventually the Archduke gets assassinated and all hell breaks loose.

My biggest hope for the game is that they fix the sector system and update slave AI to rebel at some point.
Sectors would be fine if you could confidently slap a bunch of new systems or conquered systems into a group, and then let the governor upgrade it according to a general want.
Unfortunately at the moment there's a lot of critical stuff they just never build (planetary administrations? fuck that noise!) optimizations they could make but wont (putting a +% power hub down instead of another generator for total output) and some special buildings that would really help a colony out but they just don't use (happiness facilities, slave controlling stuff). At the moment you're stuck temporarily removing a system from a sector at the cost of 25 influence, fucking around with everyone, then setting it back up. In the end it still works out, and 25 influence as a cost to wrangle a planet around as much as you want isn't awful. It's just annoying.

The slaves are an obvious problem still. They're actually not as powerful as you might think, when it comes to generating planetary resources. You get an immediate return on all your minerals and energy credits, but they don't research for shit. In comparison, it's not too too difficult to just install some happiness structures (if you've researched them which you definitely should when they come up) and then wait out the "You invaded us!" penalty. In a surprisingly short amount of time you'll got a planet full of dudes who are pretty chill, turning out all the same minerals and energy credits but also all the science and other goodies you would want slaves have a really hard time producing. It all just hinges on you getting a tech that will make the populace happy again (or building your once-per-ruler structure...remember when I said the best thing pacifists get is that monarchy? I wasn't lying, that no-tech-required building we get to slam down is fucking awesome for improving people's moods)

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun May 15, 2016 6:34 am #176550

Oh another thing I want to point out to everyone, since I'm pretty sure everyone can use it:

In the government screen under policies is the "War Economy" policy.
This is super fucking handy for prettymuch everyone, I think. It gives you a boost to production if you are loosing a war and a penalty to production if you are winning one.
The thing is, you can use this to build up a huge FUCK OFF fleet when you are losing a war, and then as long as you don't need to build more stuff once you're winning, ignore the penalty completely.
If you stockpile a gigantic fleet and then crush everyone with it by the time you'll want to build more the war will be over and the penalty with it.

It's basically insurance against getting your ass kicked at the cost of not being able to build much when kicking someone else's ass...when you shouldn't really need to build more anyway because you're already winning.
Oddly enough the best way to counter it is to also use it. If you're wailing on someone who has this enabled they will start to outbuild you and overpower you back...at which point your own bonus will kick in while theirs diminshes and you get this see-saw thing until you both fuck off.

Incomptinence · Sun May 15, 2016 7:15 am

Militarists can't go all the way up that policy branch. They get an edict which speeds up production and makes starbase upgrades cheaper though, although the production speed up is bugged.

Also sectors can't build planet admins because those need influence, since the AI uses sectors on all its new colonies I think this might explain the expansion stopage when I came back from my absence the AI always prioritised putting new colonies without admin into a sector. The AI is waiting on colonies that will never develop to do so before it colonises, so after a point it only expands through war.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun May 15, 2016 7:25 am #176559

I ran into a weird problem during a war where the empire I was after had been caught in the middle of uplifting a pre-sentient species.

So I've conquered this planet that is full of space bugs I can't interact with at all, not having that technology. It has one of the previous empire's pops in a colony ship, and every other fucking tile is bugs. That are pre-sentient, basically giant cattle, but somehow they have ALL JOINED THIS FACTION TO BECOME INDEPENDENT AGAIN.

I just imagine somewhere out there in the universe one asshole alien is standing on a box shouting out his independence manifesto and a bunch of space bugs are gathering around him because he is making so much noise, and meanwhile an official political observer is watching this and is like "yep this political group is growing!"

Laharl Monthy · Sun May 15, 2016 9:19 am

An0n3 wrote: Comparing the relative strengths of our empires, everyone else is inferior to me militarily except for Laharl, Incomp, and this random AI player in the "Dickbutt Dominators" alliance.

Glad to hear I'm still holding my own after I left - I was kinda scared.

Still snickering on how I fucked up my first try at a vassalisation tho. Didn't set the War Objectives correctly, immediatly resulting in a white peace.
Then the Yiff Collective nearby saw the occasion and swooped in.
Wooooooops.

srifenbyxp · Post by **srifenbyxp** » Sun May 15, 2016 10:01 am #176584

When do we plan on having another new round? Maybe that time the imperium of man and make slaves of you xenos loving scum.

Incomptinence · Sun May 15, 2016 10:13 am

Yeah I am good for another one probably that bug with my race data won't happen again seems like a rare bug didn't happen the first game we did.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Sun May 15, 2016 10:22 am #176590

The Holy Hegemony of Elk is hegemoning every empire in local space. When I logged out I just finished my 3rd Holy Crusade, conquering two planets that had once belonged to the same empire but split up into their own smaller factions when another empire started kicking their asses. That other empire also suffered heavy losses in that same war, and was left in an incredibly precarious position, ready for another crusade. It was a glorious day for the Holy Star Elk.

I think I actually prefer vassalisation+integration to just good old planet ceding. It takes longer and costs a lot of influence, but you only need 1 war to dominate another empire, you can use the extra time to make your vassal loyal to you before you suddenly have all these xeno pops you need to take into consideration, they will rebuild the infrastructure they lost, and until they fully integrate you get extra fleets that you don't have direct control over (though they'll team up with your own fleets and target the same things you target), but also don't take up fleet slots and don't require upkeep.