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. :)
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!
I’m mashing the like button and nothing is happening. Damn it, now I need to play Stellaris while rocking Y.
Some good changes there. I’m glad food is going empire-wide, that seems simple and fun (with stockpiling options as a policy and benefits/drawbacks to each option). I’m also glad terraforming will be in, but very rare. Kind of a cool touch.
I haven’t played in about 9 months… about time to jump back in. Is it worth picking up the expansions?
Leviathans isn’t really an expansion, just a story/content pack (most of the goodies were in the free patch). I’d wait for the first major expansion, Utopia, that comes out on April 6th. Leviathans will probably be go on sale at the same time.
The star trek conversion is quite good if you are looking for something to do before Utopia.
From a Paradox Forum Summary of Reddit AMA, Wiz had an interesting take on the multiple-FTL techs in Stellaris:
[quote]
I think the different FTL types falls into the category of ‘cool idea, but wrong game for it’. In a game like Sword of the Stars (another 4X with vastly different FTL types) it works because SotS is much smaller-scope… games have only a handful of players, and wars are rarely more complex than 1v1 or 2v1. The game is also turn-based, which automatically allows the player time to more easily react to and calculate for the different kinds of movement.
In Stellaris, on the other hand, you can have wars involving over a dozen empires with a mix of different FTL types. It ends up being impossible for the player to get any sort of overview of who can move where… it’s just a mess of fleets appearing and disappearing. It also creates a variety of design headaches for static defenses and is the primary reason we can’t really make them all that useful right now.
So yes, I do think the 3 FTL types were a mistake, and I’m considering redesigning them, but we’re not just going to cut two of them from the game and call it a day. That would not be fair to our players.[/quote]
I wonder if the “mess of fleets appearing and disappearing” would be some what helped if FTL was slower. Curious what changes he would make if he redesigned them.
I felt the appearing and disappearing of fleets is huge part of the problem with war. Unless you play the game constantly pausing and looking for wormholes, you can’t really keep up with that the PC is going. And what makes it worse is the player allies seemed designed to follow your lead, so even if a computer could keep up with another computer, they won’t. And whatever is calculated to make them retreat is borked too.
Maybe wormholes that are forming should show up on the strategic view, if you have sight range on either end?
Last time I played the game, which was actually after quiting the first time around, we had the exact same problem as before. 3 in an MP game. Alliances are made, not between us since I didn’t start next to them initially, and while the AI only side moves in unison, the AI / Player side can’t come even close to being cohesive because there’s is really a front. They can literally sneak in their little worm hole ships in the middle of a war because the UI and feedback during battle is just awful. And again 5k enemy, 3k and 3k AI/PC armies, very close battle but the AI decides to throw the battle and retreat dooming the battle. Why? The tech isn’t that titled and we were winning. There’s another fleet in the allies territory, our reinforcements are almost there and it just ups and leaves.
I really enjoy the game until the border wars cause actual wars; then it falls apart. Oh yeah, meanwhile, constant pausing in an MP game else you don’t stand a chance in maneuvering anything.
Why would it not be “fair to our players” to nuke a huge design error from the game to fix it?
Because it would be cutting out a feature. It would be like thinking a fighter in Street Fighter isn’t working, and so instead of fixing it they just remove it. Then you have one fewer fighters to pick from.
He’s saying he wants to fix the problem, not just remove the other options.
Plus I am sure everyone has their favorite FTL method and no matter what one they picked as the “one” it would piss off a bunch of people. There is no easy way at this point. Anyway, I doubt most people are that concerned about the different methods, or like the game as is with them. It has been awhile since I played, but it didn’t bother me trying to track who would show up where and how. That was part of the fun.