Stellaris grand strategy space game by Paradox discussy thingy thready thingy

Really looking forward to the details on this expansion. The teasers all look really good thus far.

Yeah just a few more days until they start up DDs again.

It begins! They won’t be going into the new planetary development system until next week, but here’s a dev diary on economic overhauls:

It will be interesting to see what mods can do with this system.

Here we go! This Dev diary is long and is only part 1 of 4 of the planetary rework.

It seems like like mostly stuff that we’ve known from the teasers so far, but it’s nice to get his take on the benefits and drawbacks of tiles and the possibilities of the new system.

That was a huge dev blog sharing a lot of insight. I get a powerful Victoria in Space vibe from these changes. They don’t change the game as I expected, but rather well beyond my expectations.

I feel optimistic about Stellaris 3.0 after reading Martin’s design document.

I think Martin’s design choices have been spot on ever since he took over. He really identified the major design problems he inherited and kudos to him and Paradox for having the guts to rip out what holds the game back.

Yeah I had a post on their forums a couple of months after the release of Stellaris, bemoaning the tile system but declaring that we are basically stuck with it as they aren’t going to just rip out core aspects of the game. People told me then not to underestimate how much Paradox is willing to change things, and it turns out they were right.

I’m very glad they are willing to do this. Stellaris doesn’t have the advantage of 2-3 previous versions of the game to learn from. It’s as if Paradox released Hearts of Iron, then gradually put in all of the changes from HoI1 to HoI4 as updates.

So, four parts just for planetary rework. That’s a solid month. And then we’ll need more diaries for all the other new stuff.

I’m going to say November at the earliest.

For sure. I think they’ll try to squeeze it in by EOY because there’s clearly been a lot of work already done. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it slips to Jan/Feb though.

If I had to guess I’d say late November to mid December at this point.

EDIT: Oops, I didn’t see that @SamS posted this in the other Stellaris thread.

Okay, I did not see that coming.

Someone on the forum said they were basing the initial console version on 1.7 of Stellaris. I’m surprised that they would want to go through all the drama of the FTL changes once again. Maybe 1.7 is the version they started working on and they will move up to 2.1 (or for that matter 2.2) before console release?

Yeah the press release confirms Version 1.7 on launch, they’ve also confirmed Plantoids, Leviathans & Utopia Expansions will be coming, perhaps not at launch, but anyone who gets the Deluxe edition gets them for free. Other “popular” DLCs are hinted at coming too, but this 1.7 thing is well weird.

That’s really weird. What an odd decision.

I guess I should have read the release before spouting off. I guess it’s just the realities of software development. But keeping up with Wiz’s team will be quite a ride…

Seems like Hyperlanes would be much nicer with a gamepad UI as well.

Yeah… I’m not so sure this is a “oh well game dev” thing? I honestly don’t know… really wish I was at Gamescom myself now, but I’ve got a freelancer who will hopefully do the digging for me.

The only thoughts I’ve had so far are:

  • Something about 2.0 makes them think it might not be as console friendly as pre-2.0.
  • Perhaps Version 1.7 is when they started, and they decided to make a fixed build work before adding to it.
  • They want to keep Pre-2.0 alive via console for some reason.

Not sure why not 1.8 or 1,9… but perhaps those versions weren’t as good as 1.7? I honestly can’t remember what that game was like now back then.

It is very odd to be sure. I think it is very likely that they started with 1.7. Another thing to keep in mind is that if they try to get into the post-2.0 mode, they are after a fast-moving target. 2.2 is another set of giant changes, and there’s nothing to say that more core elements won’t be changing in 2.3 or 2.4. They know more about the long-term development plans than we do.

One possibility is that they plan to evolve the console version up to 1.9, and then (once Wiz is done all his core v2.x changes - probably 2.2 features plus giant internal/external diplomacy overhaul) release a new console version that consolidates all of them. They could give the new version to existing console owners for free or maybe just a large discount. It’s certain that 1.9 to 2.2+ is a different enough game to be a sequel, even if the PC people are getting it for free.

Absolutely no inkling of what actual gameplay looks like on a console.

I’m really dubious about this. Stellaris does not strike me in any way as being console-friendly.