1781

I think they use the term “enlighten”.

1782

Thanks! I knew uplift was the word used for pre-sentients but couldn’t remember the other term to save my life. :)

1783

You can ‘enlighten’ some civilizations. I’ve done it with Sol twice, after finding them in an ‘early space age’ state. After a few turns, they join your empire as happy, spacefaring vassals.

1784

Yeah, that’s an excellent point. I was thinking for just hyperspace only games. It wouldn’t work to just gimp hyperspace and have warp and wormhole be even more effective.

I honestly just can’t get into the warp or wormhole modes. Even with the hyperspace lanes there is a lot of silly “tag” going on in the interior of your empire. Some type of logistics variable might be interesting. The longer you operate from star base the lower your stats get until you refuel/resupply. Civilian vessels could be exempted. Not complaining about how it is right now mind you. Just thinking out loud.

1785

Pshaw, why don’t you try to design a game before… oh, nevermind! :) Seriously though, I completely agree with the the “tag” stuff going on. I’m guessing the military outposts are intended to curb that but as it is they don’t work very well right now, from my experience. If it’s strictly a balance issue I hope that is addressed in one of the upcoming updates, but I also wouldn’t mind an expansion that focused on a lot of this stuff.

Right now, the different forms of travel don’t feel as unique or impactful as they did in Sword of the Stars, which they obviously cribbed from. It might have to do with the fact that all forms of travel are very fast. In SOTS, it was a big deal if you could get to a star in 4 turns using hyperlanes or 8 using a regular warp drive. As a Hiver with a gate, you could easily reinforce a system under duress. None of that really holds true in Stellaris so far, from what I’ve seen.

1786

Yup. Stellaris is very clearly a “newcomer” game. Some interesting ideas (with some “lifted” from other games), some twists on standards of the genre, but clumsy/uneven execution. Which is expected, really - though with Paradox’ history of post-launch support, they have the opportunity to improve the game markedly and perhaps turn it into a classic.

1787

Yep, I’ve really enjoyed it so far but there are certainly problems. I’d expect them from any new strategy game, but especially one that is branching out into new territory for a developer. It’s still the first 4X game in a long time that’s really sucked me in and felt new and if they’re able to give the same level of character and storytelling in the midgame as they do the early game (which I think they can do), the game is going to be a classic for me. It’s not there yet but I don’t see any insurmountable obstacles preventing them from getting there.

1788

I was deeply unimpressed with the first versions of SotS. It’s now one of my favourite games. I hope Paradox can pull a similar turnaround here.

1789

That’s a good point. Sword of the Stars was at best a mediocre game with an interesting idea or two for me, when I first played it. It left such a “meh” impression on me that it wasn’t until years later with the Murder of Crows expansion that I gave it another look, and that was only after hearing people rave about it for a while. It became my favorite 4X game at that point.

I’d completely forgotten about my impression of the vanilla game until you mentioned that. I find Stellaris significantly more enjoyable than vanilla SOTS, so if it follows anywhere near the same trajectory, that would be terrific news for me.

1790

Hyperspace jumping from a gravity wells is one of the few advantages it has imo. Wormholes are much faster since they jump across distances and often warp drive is quicker as well since it doesn’t get railroaded into a strange path.

1791

I agree, and I think it’s down to the scaling between in-system travel, interstellar travel, and production. If FTL travel was slower, you’d have to think a lot more about your fleet dispositions, because you can’t ride to the rescue across your empire in the time it takes your enemy to drive across the system. Since FTL travel time is small, differences in time due to different travel methods are less important.

1792

Yes, the first version of SotS was pretty bare bones, and there were some bugs and balance issues that detracted from the fun. I was actually thinking back to reading some of the online reaction to MoO2 when it was released. A lot of thread about how 30 turns to build your first colony ship is crazy, there is nothing to do in this game, the weapons are so unbalanced, the combat model is dumb, the AI is too stupid, but at least the shield graphics are pretty! People certainly didn’t treat it with reverence at the time.

It’s the flaws in the games that I really feel could be amazing that grate on me the most!

1793

Arguably true of Distant Worlds as well, which didn’t really blossom until the second expansion. So yes, Stellaris has the potential to join them in the list of great 4X games.

1794

Most of my enlightened have been that way. But one was just … not. The attitude was more like “Thanks for the tech help, now go suck an egg.” They still join as vassals. Unhappy, disloyal ones that dislike you.

All my uplifts have been very happy loyal campers from the get go, but
Uplift Spoiler

You get the opportunity to shape some of their traits in the process, and the choices are clear on mouseover. So their traits matched my main guys government well. I wonder how it would have worked if they didn’t?

1795

After having one of the species I helped get into space turn on me I now turn a blind eye to the “deadly asteroid” event for any of my observed species.

I get my boost for the observations while they are around but if they get snuffed by an asteroid then there is no long term problem for me to worry about, I feel mildy bad about this :)

1796

playing a mp game with a friend, had a shit start, my 3 starter vessels dead, and the empire north of me has me at -1300 and constantly sending me insults, when my science ships unearth something, which after reassigning to a better scientist I get a whopping 55% failure rate at, but I succeed and I unearth a frigate with mark 4 lasers…oh sweet joy, saved my bacon big time. Small things like that is pure awesome

1797

I actually think Hyperlanes is the worst FTL. When chasing a warp or wormhole fleet you have to go through every system, which means fighting every military station on the way. And upgrading the drive doesn’t make a noticeable difference.

Warp skips the inbetween systems out, so I quite like it, though it has that really annoying problem of sublight drives not working after warp, so they’re sitting ducks to the people chasing them if they get caught up.

Wormholes are basically OP, especially if you spam wormhole stations everywhere. There isn’t a downside I can see, apart from energy upkeep?

ps: My current game I genuinely got 3 of those derelict construction yard events in a row right at the start of the game!

edit: Plus, and I think this is a bug, but there was an enemy wormhole in one of my systems that I didn’t destroy before the AI accepted peace, and it’s still there. I can’t remove it :(

1798

Tom’s front page review is up. Brace for impact!

1799

I like the hyperspace lanes because they tend to give the map some structure…you can have choke points, little stems of systems that you can explore and then seal off and develop. If you get plopped down in the middle, 4+ fronts is overwhelming to plan for defense or expansion.

In my current game I have a big rival who has crept towards my east border. There is a line of 3 systems that he will have to pass through to get into my 6 core worlds network. I have multiple layers of fortresses and minefield outposts defending those 3 systems and a frontier fleet stationed nearby with home fleet 6 jumps away. It will be very interesting to see what happens when the balloon eventually goes up.

It would be nice if you had an option that made the hyperspace lanes also only view able if you have surveyed the system (hyperspace only games). That alone would add another fun layer for exploration.

1800

Game 1 - I ran into the swarm end-game crisis. Defeated several of their fleets, bombed several planets to the ground to no effect. Leaving it until it gets fixed (or it was done in 1.03 right?).

Game 2 - Fanatic Materialist, Xenophile, SuperAdaptive, Repungant, Slow Learner, Sedentary citizens of the -random_empire_name-. Wormhole FTL, kinetic weps. Smallest map size with Ring setting, 7 AI, 1 fallen.
As it turned out, the Fallen AI was the nomadic one, no idea when I actually met them, but by the time I researched the species, I could not find them anymore. Or the game bugged and the Fallen never appeared. I colonized left and right (literally, as I was at the top of the ring), conquered left and right. Then went and vassalized one of the neighbors as he had like 10 planets. A normal Cede planets war can take 4 planets at most. Would be too slow this way and I was interested what would vassalizing do. As it turned out, nothing. No events, no problem with disloyal vassals, no anything. The integration took like 400 month on the other hand. Blah. Then I vassalized another neighbor. This took me 2 planets shy of the colonization victory. Since vassals do count in that victory condition, playing a repungant nation with 2 spiritualist and 1 xenophobe “enemies” alliance is a non-existing option, the domination victory is also not a possibility. You get the 40% planets earlier than killing the last independent nation. So I vassalized the last one too and yes, it did give me the colonization victory, not the domination. Whateva…

Game 3 - Fanatic Materialist, Collectivist, Intelligent, Fast Learner, Repungant, Sedentary humians of the M.A.T.I. Star Corps. Wormhole travel, missile weapons. 1000 star map, ring setting, max AI, 6 fallen, middle difficulty.
Was kind of lucky with my random SOL and the general neighborhood. I am boxed in with 3+2 neighbors (2 south, 1 west, 2 north). I went for the aggressive colonization route early on. Managed to box in the western neighbor alone and stop the expansion of the other races short of the north-eastern one. There were no colonizable planets in that direction :’(. Neither for him, so it isn’t that big of a problem. He also got boxed in and remained weak enough to pounce on him later. Sooo… I was expanding aggressively, leaving my fleet weak. Lot of planets but short on pops, as I can hardly hoard enough credits to remove blockers. Also building mining stations left and right.
So I decided, it was time to build up my fleet a bit, to not get caught with my pants down. And the western fungus enemy just thought the same of me and decced me some months later catching me with my pants around my knees. I had 13/17 navy, his first incoming fleet was 19 already. He used the warp tech, so I went and played a lot of catch the mouse game with him. Big disadvantage of the AI is, that he targets the strongest fleet and tries to catch it if it’s weaker. And that’s his first priority whatever happens. Since I am a lot faster with my wormhole tech than his beginning warp drives, I can use the hit-and-run tactic against his homeworlds. Both of us were constantly building our fleets. I ended up with 32/28, he 39+. So I destroyed all of it’s starbases, at least half of the mining stations, while he could not do any real damage anywhere. So he just went and offered 1 of his planets for the peace. I gladly took the offer as I couldn’t bombard and occupy any of it’s planets and a messed up order made my fleet caught in a corner.
This neverending guerilla war took a toll on my improvements and got me lagged behind in tech a much. Most neighbors are like 15-20 tech ahead of me, while I have 3 different +10% research bonuses (fanatic materialist ethos, materialist edict, intelligent species trait). I stabilized myself, improved my everything.
Then I started to improve my navy again and some months later the fungus people attacked me again… Oh right, in the meantime, they conquered 3 planets of another empire and I took the remaining one. So the second war with the first enemy. They didn’t look like they were that strong. His 6 planets against my 13. I killed an 1k fleet of theirs with my 2.5k. I thought the hard part is over, when a new fleet of 4k with several cruisers arrived (I had only corvettes). Both of us use missiles (no evasion) and I still not had point defense. Ohshitohshit. They targeted my fleet again and the cat-n-mouse game started again. During a starbase + small fleet attack, my main force got reduced below the auxiliary forces I was building up and the AI switched over the targets. Then while they were travelling through one of their system to get to my fleet parking just outside the grav well on the other side, I went and attacked his home system with my first fleet. The AI got a serious meltdown and constantly switched the target between the two fleets on a daily basis (one in the same system, the other rampaging in ther homeworld). Which resulted in an almost frozen state. He could not warp away, but could not get to my fleet in system either. I casually destroyed his starbases, bombarded and occupied 2 systems and was ready to occupy the third one I set in the wargoals, when he just went and offered all 3 in a peace.
I knew the fleet AI has some stuff in need of improvement, but to be this… broken?!?

I love wormhole tech though! Need to try out the warp one too, but I doubt I’ll like it more. Yes, the wormhole stations are a lot bigger investment in the beginning, when you’re short on everything. They are a big bottleneck until you spread your network out a lot. But wow, they are fast like a real FTL when the route is empty. I can get from one end of my empire to the other end of the enemy faster than he can make one warp jump (and it takes them at least 4 to get to the same system) :-D. Right, the wormhole using AI is kind of good. If the destination is 2 jums away through several routes, the AI wil pick the shortest one not in “use”, even when it might be dangerous. On the other hand, if the station is already in use on that route, but there is an other route with the same jumps away, it will pick that. Once I had my fleet divided into 3 groups in the same system and ordered all 3 of them to the same destiation system 3 jumps away, they actually took 3 different routes there, so they did not have to wait for each other to use the same wh station.