Stellaris grand strategy space game by Paradox discussy thingy thready thingy

Like Trump on a taco salad?

(FYI)

Government, Civics and Hive Minds (obligatory chastising of Kevin C for being too slow)

[quote]While the old government grid worked alright to give you a broad range of governments to pick from, they were a bit lackluster, not very well balanced and I rarely felt that the government I picked truly corresponded to my own idea of what my empire’s society was like. To address all of these issues at once we decided to go back to the drawing board and redo the way governments are constructed completely. In Banks, instead of picking from a preconfigured government, you build your own from Authority and Civics.

The Authority determines how power is transfered in your government. The different Authorities are:
Democratic: A ruler is democratically elected every 10 years.
Oligarchic: A ruler is elected every 40 to 50 years.
Dictatorial: Rulers are elected but rule for life.
Imperial: Rulers rule for life and are succeeded by appointed heirs on death.[/quote]

Also some advanced civics and hive minds available in the DLC.

I’m liking the direction they are taking this. It sounds like Wiz has definite ideas about how to rework the game and I look forward to what they come up with in the next iteration. Will definitely be diving in once Banks is released (time permitting!).

Well, there are loads of Star Trek mods out there that haven’t been slapped down with intellectual property law shenanigans (like the two mods for Sins of a Solar Empire), so I’m not sure why Paramount/CBS/whoever would now start complaining about a mod for Stellaris. Not saying it would be impossible, but I’m not expecting any trouble.

The Banks/Utopia update is sounding almost like Stellaris 2, rather than a mere expansion pack. I’m really liking where they are going. If the game could be accused of being dry before, it seems like they are adding oodles of flavor in the form of interesting and thematic game mechanics.

It’s not my fault! Blame Utah drivers who go two weeks without snow and suddenly forgot how to drive in the stuff. :)

I believe he was simply notifying us that there is already a separate thread for Star Trek: New Horizons.

This right here. I’m not really sure what @JoshoB is referring to. Maybe he meant to quote someone else?

What you quoted had this line, “I suspect that sooner or later (probably sooner) the owners of the rights to Trek will figure out that there’s gold-plated latinum in them thar hills, and it will be pulled and/or monetized, so grab it while you can” (among others), so I figured that was what you were referring to! ;-)

Yeah, no, I would have just copied and pasted that line then. :)

Utopia now has a release date and a price point: April 7th 6th, $19.99.

EDIT: They clarified that their tweet was incorrect, the release date is April 6th, not the 7th.

Damn, I was halfway through writing my “oblgatory chastising of KevinC” link again.

Anyway, looking forward to it!

I took your scolding to heart and am trying to do better! :)

I’m really excited for this one, can’t wait to see how it all comes together.

Very cool!

It’s a bit more than I would have assumed based on the previous expansion, but I hope that means we’ll get even more content out of it. The date works out well for once - I don’t know of any games in April that I have on my plate, so maybe I can finally dig into Stellaris.

March is a busy month (Ghost Recon, Mass Effect). Probably a wise move.

There’s primarily two tiers of expansion prices for Paradox games, $15 and $20. $15 is a moderate sized expansion, $20 is usually one that adds a lot of content, mechanics, etc that really shake up the game.

Leviathans wasn’t considered an expansion (being marketed as a $10 “story pack”), with most of the fundamental changes being given out in the patch. Utopia should be a lot bigger! Here’s a listing of all the major features coming, if you’re not a goober like me and follow each and every dev diary. :)

  • Ethics Rework
  • Unity and Traditions
  • Ascension Perks
  • Species Rights
  • Habitats
  • Megastructures
  • Psionics and The Shroud
  • Indoctrination, Unrest and Faction Interactions
  • Government, Civics, and Hive Minds

And we still have a month of dev diaries to go (although the biggest features will have already been talked about).

Oh, excellent. I’m actually really glad they are considering this a major expansion - it sure sounds like a big deal from the dev diaries, and I’m looking forward to it quite a lot!

Day One for sure. With that and Banks hitting I can finally delve deeply into the vanilla game.

Synthetic and Biological Ascension (should we send out a search party for KevinC?)

The non-psionic paths seem alright, but maybe lacking a bit in flavour? Particularly the Synthetic stuff. OK, now my pops are synths. This is ascension? I could see all the population standing around in their new synth bodies, looking at each other and wondering, uh, so what do we do now? I would take that as the middle stage, with the final stage being something a bit more wild. Hopefully there are at least some interesting events around this.

A bit like the megastructures, it seems like a welcome addition, but maybe not as crazy and OMG and end-game defining as it could be.

I’m, uh, just trying to fly under Discourse’s radar. I don’t want it shaming me again like it did in the EU4 thread! Actually, I got to spend this morning contemplating if I’m looking at replacing the water heater in my house. Who needs video games for entertainment when you get to have fun with stuff like that?! Home ownership, woo!

Neither of those paths knocked my socks off or anything, at least as described. Wiz does mention that they’re building on existing mechanics instead of creating new ones like they did with the Shroud, so maybe that’s part of it. I’ll have to wait to see how it ties in with everything else, but I can see why these were left for one of the last dev diaries.

Oh don’t worry, prog metal has already covered this question extensively!