Stellaris

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Troy
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Stellaris

Post by Troy »

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... review-pc/ - review on RPG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KanCiSGxSKM - Launch Trailer

Stellaris was released today - a 4x space game made by Paradox, who did Crusader Kings, and other giant strategy games. Have heard really good early buzz.
Last edited by Troy on Tue May 10, 2016 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Troy
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Re: Stellaris

Post by Troy »

Played last night for an hour. It's a pausable RTS, and I mostly fumbled around with the controls, resources, and exploration portions. I picked random race, ended up getting democratic representative bird people with space hats. I proceeded to build too many ships without the underlying infrastructure, and fucked over my energy production. I also assigned all my scientist to survey nearby systems in science ships and fucked my research efforts.

Had to call it a night before i scratched the surface. It's a very pretty space game, and it seems pretty deep.

I found a few pre-space civilizations in nearby systems. One, in the late industrial stage(basically humans), and another in the early Steam age (some kind of slug race).

I put an observation post into orbit around the humans because they had a nice continental planet. Bio engineered saboteurs to begin getting into leadership positions to take over and annex the place. My first saboteur fell in love with a human woman, renounced his allegiance to my bird race, and started sending me taunting messages about how he wanted to be a real human and started doing things that would reset my "annex" bar. Definitely a WTF? moment before I went to bed.
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Re: Stellaris

Post by Malcolm »

Bio engineered saboteurs to begin getting into leadership positions to take over and annex the place. My first saboteur fell in love with a human woman, renounced his allegiance to my bird race, and started sending me taunting messages about how he wanted to be a real human and started doing things that would reset my "annex" bar. Definitely a WTF? moment before I went to bed.
That's hilarious.
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Cakedaddy
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Stellaris

Post by Cakedaddy »

A bundle currently on Humble Bundle includes Stellaris. Is it any good? Is there multi potential, either coop or ffa? I'm going to get the bundle's $6 level. Not sure if I want to go to $12 for Stellaris. Seems like a very deep game with a huge learning curve. Is that accurate? A review would be appreciated.
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Post by Leisher »

Steam reviews are very positive. It's $40 on Steam right now.

Why don't you buy it and review it for us?
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Like I have time for that. I have no intention of playing it. Just curious if it's worth adding to the pile of good steam games I have that I haven't had the chance to play yet.

One review said it was "Europa Universalis in space". If that's true, I will probably skip it as I didn't have time to learn EU the last time I fired that up.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Cakedaddy wrote: Like I have time for that. I have no intention of playing it. Just curious if it's worth adding to the pile of good steam games I have that I haven't had the chance to play yet.

One review said it was "Europa Universalis in space". If that's true, I will probably skip it as I didn't have time to learn EU the last time I fired that up.
I think it's like Sins of a Solar empire, but turn based. Skippable and not super memorable.

Didn't try the multi.
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Stranger
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Post by Stranger »

I actually enjoyed the game, never got through a full playthrough as its pretty long. I've never played EU and only played Sins of Solar Empire once or twice so i can't compare it to those games, but i think of it as CIV in space.

You inhabit planets, decide what each planet manufactures, do scientific research, hire governors for planets, scientist for research and admirals for military. But its actually played in real time and isnt turn based, but in solo player you can pause it. The battles actually happen in real time like an RTS.

I'd give it a go for some multi, i don't think its so deep that you can't learn the basics in a couple of hours.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Been hitting this game hard lately. When I first got into it I was burned out on other space strategy games and didn't give it a fair shake. That was a mistake, as this game is a juggernaut of awesome. This is a pausable RTS, not a turn based game I wrote earlier in this thread.

Getting all the DLC on sale this weekend helped. So much content! So many things to explore and discover! Unless you end up be wedged between a Ravenous Hive Mind and some unfriendly Hegemonic Imperial Crusaders... then it's a fight to stop being enslaved and/or eaten.

Each game I play there's new stuff - played as a Xenophile race last night, and suddenly have species seeking asylum in my nation from a war on the far side of the galaxy. And then there are these robots! Should I keep them as subservient constructs or start to implement higher AI? And what about that system with the huge dormant dreadnought? The hostile space Amoebas? What - there's an entire nation of underground people living in caves under my Gaia planet? Boom - suddenly it's 2AM and I have to go to bed....

The multi is supposed to be fun here, but even in a 3 hour session on fast settings you could only get through a 1/4 of a game, max. I'd try it though.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

The Stellaris DLCs I got during the sale have a lot of content, and not all of it appears in every game and galaxy generated. I made a civilization of religious xenophobes last night and set off a new event chain DLC in a black hole. It was a "contact" type situation where my scientists were hearing their names coming from a voice inside the black hole, and when they would go to investigate they would perish terribly. After the first scientist, a second scientist was named by the voice, so I let him go investigate. He perished horribly too, but I wired his ship and got some good data.

At that point my civilization was down two science ships and crew, which I badly needed as I was expanding and surveying territory. When the third scientist heard his name in the void I decided to rig their ship to detonate and sent my third scientist to his death hoping he would take down the black hole entity in the process. The ship explosion worked, I think. The black hole creature stopped luring my scientist away.

Apparently related, one of my colonies reported weird population growth. "Extra colonists" were identified at first, and then local authorities stopped responding accurately. After a year or two every colonist on the planet couldn't be identified from the original group of pilgrims. I Ignored it at first but my Xenophobic empire WOULD NEVER accept the truth, so I had to quietly purge the entire planet.

The black hole entity contacted our people once more, saying cryptically "time is a circle" and I haven't heard anything since. I don't know what that means in game terms but it can't be good. A creepy ass DLC. It almost derailed my civilization from enslaving all our neighbors to make household goods. Almost.

I've also played multiplayer for the first time, it was pretty fun. I got my ass kicked and totally got assimilated into a machine race, but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
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Post by Stranger »

very fun and underrated game IMO.. I'd still be willing to give this a multi at some point, but i don't believe i own any of the DLC's.
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Post by Leisher »

Looks complicated.

If the price drops to $20 during the next sale I'll buy it just to multi.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Stranger wrote: very fun and underrated game IMO.. I'd still be willing to give this a multi at some point, but i don't believe i own any of the DLC's.
If the host has the DLC's in a multiplayer game, everyone gets them for the game. Pretty rad.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Update on the creepy DLC. 60 years later I was halfway through a galactic spanning war to expand my empire from the blue plant people when another scientist on my home planet pipes up they he’s been doing secret research to bring the black hole entity into our reality. It’s now a special project I can put my science labs on.

The options I got to choose on this seemingly huge event were strangely limited, usually you get a lot more than 2.

1. Wow that sounds amazing let’s bring this god-being into our reality - I’m sure nothing bad will happen!

or

2. Wow that sounds really dangerous, catastrophic even, but we should do it anyway for science!


If it was dnd I’d have felt railroaded. I let the decision ride until tonight.
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Post by GORDON »

So this has a strong single-player game?

That way I can get good and then no one will want to multi.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

GORDON wrote: So this has a strong single-player game?

That way I can get good and then no one will want to multi.
Very strong. But it will get you in bad habits for multiplayer. Using pause too much, for example. In multiplayer you usually keep it on normal or fast all the time. Very fast in the beginning.
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Post by GORDON »

Ok, installing.

Sorry that no one will ever multi it, now. That's what happens when I get a game.
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

Fun first game with Gordon.

Early on my arms dealer corporation ran into trouble trying to make a lane to Gordon's human federation. My early ships were turned away at the border by the two AI species separating the corporation and the federation. I decided to declare on them and G's federation joined the war. It was a bad call - the two AI empires were much stronger than I anticipated, and their military much closer to me. I lost most of my fleet and 3 stations in the initial engagements.

It was a bad war and decision! But on the positive side Gordon's federation spent the war pushing in on his side, raiding the empires I had enraged. His human federation occupied systems and destroyed economy, which let me settle peace talks for a total net loss of one system, a bargain. G lost his war spoils though - he was mad.

Next up Gordon's human federation decided to have a civil war with his close rival the other humans of earth(the UN). He built up an impressive fleet, but ran out of energy at a crucial time and his powered down forces got smashed early.

Through some good fleet and market management and some timely arms deals from the corporation he was massing for a push to Sol when we stopped for the night.

appears to be 10 bucks on the humblebundle
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/stellaris
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Post by GORDON »

Damn, I spent 70 on steam w/3 expansion packs
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Post by Stranger »

I’ll install this so if anyone wants to play tonight let me know.
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