Stellaris grand strategy space game by Paradox discussy thingy thready thingy

Heheheh. Had I been playing, it would’ve been.

Does anyone know how to turn off Marauders? I keep reading that you can turn them off in the settings but I’m not seeing it anywhere.

If I haven’t touched this in forever, is just updating to 2.0 sufficient, or are there essential expansions and DLC?

I think this is a huge improvement to the game. War is much more interesting now, operating on multiple fronts. This addresses one of my big problems with the game.

Unfortunately, it remains that the only real way you interact with other empires is via war. I’m hopeful they address this next. As it is, I’ve played up to getting battleships and particle lances, and haven’t interacted at all with other empires beyond trading their minerals for my energy.

Yes I think 2.0 is sufficient. Utopia’s nice if you want most of the ascension perks and mega structures. I just got Synthetic Dawn so I could play a machine empire, with I think was worth the money.

I like Research Agreements.

In the game setup there is a slider for “Marauder Empires” You can slide it to down to zero if you don’t like them. Same with Fallen Empires (though they have a separate slider).

Wiz said something along the lines of - Utopia was about increasing design options for civs, Apocalypse is about revamping War, and the next focus is going to be on Diplomacy and Trade. I think everyone realizes that is now the weakest part of the game. War just had to be first because it was fundamentally tedious and actively not fun, and as you’ve pointed out, it was the main interaction you had in the game.

My God, and I forgot how much stuff was in this game to begin with and they seem to have added a lot more (Traditions?) in patches and expansion.

It is interesting, not sure if it is a lot of fun.

Isn’t that what we expect from Paradox games? And Stellaris, in my opinion, is much easier to figure out than EUIV, CKII, or HoI.

Okay. I don’t have that so it must be something that’s only in the latest DLC.

Yep, Mauraders are Apocalypse expansion content.

I didn’t get the Apocalyspe expansion, but I just got Mauraders or at least I think I did.

Sure they aren’t just pirates? Pirates take over one random star just outside of your territory and send a fleet to say hello.

… “here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

:-)

In 1.0 it was more than one system, there was a minor story around tracking them down through 3 systems. The final base was something like a fleet size of 1000. Just an early game mission basically. My 2.0 game pirates are around, but I haven’t found a story line/mission like there used to be. They have been raiding systems that aren’t defended and I just go clear them out. Just an annoyance.

I think I found a marauder empire though. They aren’t a story line or a mission, just a large base in a system with some large fleets and very large ships. They haven’t been very active though. They destroyed my science ship from long range when it entered the system, and I haven’t seen them since.

My Butterfly people were divided into two factions: One ultra-peaceful faction who hated outsiders, and one group who ultra hated outsiders and were somewhat peaceful. I decided to embrace the ones who really hated outsiders so I could undertake a war to retake lost lands, as Butterflies do. This caused significant social strife, which I suppressed through governmental action.

The suppression proved too draining on Butterfly society, however, so the Mighty Monarch chose a different way: official suppression of the peaceniks was ended, hooray! But silently hovering over each peace loving Butterfly stronghold was a starbase, glittering menacingly in the dark. Officially, they were part of our lines of defense against the alliance of foes that surrounded us. Unofficially, though, my elite secret police, the Butterflatzi, would bring dissidents to Black Sites aboard those stations. For most, if not all of the hippie Butterflies, this would be a one way trip.

Look, all of this made sense when I was doing it.

It still is easier, than any of those three. I would like very much that future expansions don’t become the sliderfest or pixel hunt that EU IV and CK user interfaces start to feel like to me.

So I’ve played a huge amount of a game with a race of peaceful scientific mushrooms, and so far basically nothing has happened. There was a vaguely interesting event with the black-hole with a taste for mushroom flesh, and I finished a progenitor plot. But now the galaxy is explored and I am researching end game techs, and nobody is really in a position to fight anybody. The new war system means I can’t even go and pick a fight with the galactic bullies an empire over, as I have no reason to go to war. I am building mega-structures, but the gameplay loop is quite quite dull.

I have neither Synthetic Dawn (so no AI rebellions) nor Leviathans (so no war in heaven) - are these necessary for an interesting game? The Ascension perks just aren’t cutting it.

I am also sick to death of upgrading buildings on planet tiles. I am tempted to just stuff the entire empire in one sector and let an AI governor deal with that nonsense - except I am sure they would mess it up.

A bit the same here, entire galaxy explored and every system taken by someone but nobody has declared war on me. Nothing is happening except research and upgrade tiles, fleet or starbases. Kinda boring. Don’t have Apocalypse or Synthetic Dawn but do have Utopia & Leviathans. Is the A.I. able to handle the new war system?