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[DoomOnion]

If an empire is pro slaves, the most likely thing is that they don't give a flying fuck if other empires like slaves or not, unless they are condemned for having slaves, or they have religious / social reasons to promote slavery in other places.

[sambojin]

@Gimli.  Stars! has the only vaguely competent non-boosted AI that I've seen in a 4X game. Even then, you probably need to go up against 2-3 of them for a good challenge, which is essentially boosting them anyway. Although, a single tri or bi-immune hyper expander can often catch you off guard and romp through the universe unopposed if they get rolling early and you don't. The funny thing is, it doesn't cheat, but you can. There's plenty of anti-AI and even just anti-player exploits available, all of which are banned in multiplayer games. But in single player? Meh, do what you want.

My race? Benevolent interfering self-righteous arseholes. Sort of what angels would be like, if angels had planets and spaceships and guns. Not so much religious (they're angels, they're right by default) as very, very zealous in whatever they do (they're angels, they're right by default, and they're getting God's work done).

So, Zealous/Militaristic with interference and pro-slavery policies, with a nice helping of diplomacy to make sure they still look like the good guys while doing it.

[Zangi]

I think I forgot to put in the word 'mercantile' before slaver empire.  I reckon there will be some benefits to trading outside the empire, rather then trying to keep a self-sufficient bubble.  (Which should also be a valid policy type.)
But hey, conquering the worlds of the dictatorship and enslaving them also works.  What I'm getting at is there should be different reasons for war, other then the conquest of planets/empires.

If an empire is pro slaves, the most likely thing is that they don't give a flying fuck if other empires like slaves or not, unless they are condemned for having slaves, or they have religious / social reasons to promote slavery in other places.

Selling your slaves to them.  +Trade/Economy and +Relations
Buying slaves from them. +Trade +Easy source of Slaves and +Relations
Doesn't need to boil down to conquering the universe, does it?


I suppose Ideological Fanaticism is a valid reason to force others to change their ways to match yours.

[DoomOnion]

You forget that wars are ludicrously expensive business!

[Zangi]

You forget that wars are ludicrously expensive business!

Depends... are the ones fighting the wars short on resources and buying it from me at a premium?  I suppose I could give a discount on that premium for a friend.

[BFEL]

There have always been nutjobs trying to force their beliefs upon others through violence, but a philosophy/religion seeing war in itself as holy would be interesting. Something about existential threats provoking innovation and spiritual growth, testing the mettle of the species and so forth. Not about being commanded by some vegetable god to go and kill evil vegetarians, but about the very conflict in itself being holy and a chance to reach nirvana for all participants.

"Hey, hey, hey you, want to meditate with us? " "Uh, sure..?" "SWEEET! Here's an AK, see you tomorrow! *wink*" "??"

This is pretty much what I had in mind for my Militaristic Xenophiles.

[Jopax]

So, Orks?

[Cruxador]

Whilst I'm Mega-Hyped. I'm also foreseeing a ton of mechanics based DLCs. A bit like GalCiv3, where they stripped away a lot of the mechanics and plan to gradually feed them back in via expansions.

To be fair, when Stardock made a game with all features available from the get-go (Elemental: War of Magic) it didn't work out too well.

The base structure of Paradox games have been steadily improving, like I think EU4 is vastly superior to EU2. What was lost though were the historical events etc and other content. Instead Paradox now increasingly make just skeletons and frameworks, expecting modders to provide the real content. It is the same with CK2, although the base game is great it gets boring quickly; it is the fluff, flavor and events provided by modders in the Big Mods that make the game awesome.

It will be interesting to see if Stellaris will be the same kind of empty framework.

Paradox's new policy actually disallows major mods, they only like stuff they directly control, which means mods that fit on the Steam workshop.

Dev Diary 5: Empires and Species

So, Empires are defined by species (in the six major classes we know already: Mammalian, Arthropoid, Avian, Reptilian, Molluscoid or Fungoid), but also by their Ethos (which are designated at game start, but can also be manipulated in-game).  Species have genetic traits which are also bought separately, which are much more fixed when compared to ethos but are still not completely inviolate (quote from Sheng-ji Yang here).  Pops also have their own ethos which may or may not match their government, like Victoria 2 issues and parties, but it looks like they're a bit more unruly than they were in V2.  It sounds...promising, depending on how much control we actually have to influence population and government ethos directly or indirectly.

I'm a bit disappointed. A technological/synthetic racial class would be okay; something with robots and AIs and crystal people.
Based on previous stuff, the xenophobic/xenophilic axis doesn't seem to have much basis in either established sociology or in logic, and is more of a "good guy/bad guy" axis based on a modern pop political idea of tolerance.

"We think you are great! Now join us or else!"

Here's another aspect of why: Slavery is considered xenophobic, contrary to the definition of the word. It might be more accurately be called Equality vs Superiority or something.

Most leader types are recruited using Influence (a type of diplomatic "currency" in the game)

And that sets off blaring EU4-colored warning lights.

Other dumb choices include: A leader cap, meaning you'll have lots of ungoverend planets and systems.
Adjacency bonuses are by type, meaning you should make a cluster of power stations to maximize efficiency, rather than putting things that make power adjacent to things that consume power, to promote a realistic network of industry.

I always pictured spaceports being on planet surfaces, like on Tatooine, and in MoO 2,

In actuality, the most efficient way is to lift parts and supplies into orbit using an elevator and construct stuff up top.

so what is everyone's first race? i what to make a Utopian human federation like in Star Trek. i don't like the dystopian theme that seems to pervade most sci fi.

We don't know much about races, so I can't say that for certain. Depends on the traits and portraits available, but if nothing catches my eye I'll just go human. As for nation, I want to go spiritual collectivist to make an ideal society, and either xenophobic or pacifist, depending on how the mechanics work out; preserving my own race (and thus a predominance of my own ethics) seems overall beneficial but I suspect Paradox is making it the "bad guy" option rather than simply making it a tribal "us first" ideology. Might do it even if they do. Pacifism comes with a food (and thus population) bonus, which is nice and I like to build more than conquer, but it depends on how restrictive the mechanics are. Still gonna want to go on cheerful colonialist adventures in other people's nations, after all.

I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!

You endeavor to reach heaven through violence? The faithful of YISUN are a strange breed.

What if they don't?  What if they're freeing someone from the tyranny of choice, and replacing it with a system of safety in certainty?

Every slavery is inherently hierarchical; for someone to be owned, another must own. That would generally imply belief about who should fit which role, and the odd case where the ruling designated caste isn't necessarily the rulers of your slave nation seems to me an odd enough exception that it's reasonable to be omitted in the base game. Though "force them to adopt this policy we like" seems like a reasonable CB for the game to include. Even "force them to adopt this policy we don't like" if you want to play the USA disarm Japan, radicalize foreign religions, and etc.

a philosophy/religion seeing war in itself as holy would be interesting.

The Assyrians had something like that. Others too, including an Orthodox heresy that I don't recall the name of.

[Digital Hellhound]

I'm thinkin' some kind of spiritualist, militaristic order working on a code of morality no-one else in the galaxy will ever understand. Let us cut God to see if He bleeds!

You endeavor to reach heaven through violence? The faithful of YISUN are a strange breed.

I'm so glad someone got that reference.

[RedKing]

There have always been nutjobs trying to force their beliefs upon others through violence, but a philosophy/religion seeing war in itself as holy would be interesting. Something about existential threats provoking innovation and spiritual growth, testing the mettle of the species and so forth. Not about being commanded by some vegetable god to go and kill evil vegetarians, but about the very conflict in itself being holy and a chance to reach nirvana for all participants.

"Hey, hey, hey you, want to meditate with us? " "Uh, sure..?" "SWEEET! Here's an AK, see you tomorrow! *wink*" "??"

IIRC, there's a race like that in John Scalzi's books (the Consu). They war on other races to help bring them to a state of perfection, and despite being so technologically advanced that they culd wipe out every other race in the books without breaking a sweat, they deliberately hamstring themselves and use technology on par with their enemies, to make it a fair fight.

[Culise]

Paradox's new policy actually disallows major mods, they only like stuff they directly control, which means mods that fit on the Steam workshop.

The what?  I'm genuinely confused here, because I'm not certain how you yourself define a "major" mod.  I mean, for EU4, you have MEIOU and VeF, both of which massively overhaul significant portions of the game.  For CK2, you have some massive mods: Crisis of the Confederation moves it to space (in the process both requiring and receiving some specialized bug fixes from the devs that could never have affected vanilla due to the lack of female republican succession there); Warhammer, ASOIAF, and Elder Scrolls all transplant it to separate fictional realms with their own special rules and functions (some of which gets pretty complex, such as multiple species in Elder Scrolls); and CK2+ rather rivals such mods as DVIP, MEIOU (in either incarnation), or Magna Mundi.  I mean, something like After The End might not be quite as thorough in its overhaul of mechanics, but a complete transfer of the game from medieval Europe to a post-apocalyptic America is hardly minor, either, and easily matches up with mods like IES or Fantasia Plus.  If these are not major mods, what is? 

[Rolan7]

Woah wait, there's support for female republic leaders?
How can I get in on this.  Sounds rad, after playing vanilla republics so much.

[Nuttycompa]

Well, Paradox has been trying harder and harder to push mods onto Steam Workshop. Also you forgot HIP, which only can't be put onto the workshop due to an installer file in order to set up each module properly. M&T(MEIOU&Taxes) can't be put on because it's too large.

But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.

Umm, The reason most mod can only download from their forum is because they want the mod to act as their DRM, like "You want to use this cool mod? Buy our game then."
Which ,if you as me, is the most respective way the for the Dev to view their mod.
Hell,They even have the pinned topic where Dev and modder regular talk about modding problem.

[Leyic]

But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.

'No outside links' is different from saying mods 'can only be hosted on Steam or the forums'. I just did a Google search for "crusader kings 2 elder kings" and the first link is to the mod's moddb.com page which has downloads for that mod as recent as one month ago. Searching moddb for "Europa Universalis IV" turns up 11 mods (though none of the big ones).

[Nuttycompa]

Well, Paradox has been trying harder and harder to push mods onto Steam Workshop. Also you forgot HIP, which only can't be put onto the workshop due to an installer file in order to set up each module properly. M&T(MEIOU&Taxes) can't be put on because it's too large.

But yeah; Paradox only lets you host mods on either Steam or their forums. No outside links whatsoever.

Umm, The reason most mod can only download from their forum is because they want the mod to act as their DRM, like "You want to use this cool mod? Buy our game then."
Which ,if you as me, is the most respectful way the for the Dev to view their modding community.
Hell,They even have the pinned topic where Dev and modder regular talk about modding problem.