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[PTTG??]

Yeah, I kind of want to get at the galaxy generator somehow. Not sure what I can do...

[Flying Dice]

The more I play with it, the more I like their approach to tech research times. It's one of the biggest things you have when trying to pull out of a crap starting position that left you with a tiny scrap of territory, and it's the polar opposite of most 4Xes where you'll be researching every tech in a handful of turns by the midgame because adding more territory points (cities, planets, systems, whatever) just increases your research income.

[Retropunch]

The more I play with it, the more I like their approach to tech research times. It's one of the biggest things you have when trying to pull out of a crap starting position that left you with a tiny scrap of territory, and it's the polar opposite of most 4Xes where you'll be researching every tech in a handful of turns by the midgame because adding more territory points (cities, planets, systems, whatever) just increases your research income.

It does work, but doesn't make a lick of sense. Whilst I completely agree that gameplay trumps any sort of 'realism' 9 times out of 10, it just isn't really even coherent.

I think with more rare techs (that had more of an impact) you could shake things up pretty quickly. I can imagine each race could be given 5 or so rare techs which were individual to them - possibly having fewer planets would allow for a greater chance of them showing up (as you were more 'internally focused') that would then cause you to make some pretty big strides.

I'm hoping things become a lot more balanced with the next updates by punishing overextending more (sector based factions and stuff) and some additional bonuses to more contained civs. Still, as it's 100% about conquering everyone with nothing else to do, there isn't much to do if you're punished for extending.

[Exerosp]

I'd like to see the research as one Scientist discovers the technology card you pick, then have to spend the research points teaching it out and implementing it to your nation.

[jocan2003]

I'd like to see the research as one Scientist discovers the technology card you pick, then have to spend the research points teaching it out and implementing it to your nation.

Changing infrastructre, fight bureaucracy to accept new blueprint, validate new blueprint, change tools of the trade and so on, thats how i see it too, not just a bunch of scientist face first in microscope and all. But one scientist fighting against an empire that doesnt like changes.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.

Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".

[Egan_BW]

Hmm. Then wouldn't it be cool if you got to use "prototypes" of the the research in certain localized areas? Like being able to put a new weapon on a single ship before the research is complete, or to use a mining tech on only one colony?

[Flying Dice]

RE: The warscore thing: You could go to common>war_demand_types>00_war_demand_types.txt and fiddle with the different base costs of the wargoals. But warscore is a percentage, not a flat number. It's just unbalanced as shit because some wargoals are bugged, it doesn't scale well in several ways, and the game lacks both the historical context and the larger variety of methods for engaging with other empires that previous Paradox games have.

That's the fundamental thing, Paradox games are not about conquering everything ever and warscore reflects that, but the current state of Stellaris is such that beyond a certain point you have nothing to do except fight, and they've not only included victory conditions but also only included ones which require conquest. Warscore works for their games in general because they're very clearly about the historical deviation and interactions with other states, and are backed up by more robust systems for both war and peace, as well as a lack of war-oriented victory conditions. Stellaris just doesn't have... any of that, really.

--

For reference, when I talk about keeping my distance from FEs before I can take them, this is what I mean:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those pink Uriy assholes are xenophobic isolationists trying to claim-jump me in a hyperspace-only game, so I cut around beneath them to block their growth. The orange are a Holy Guardian FE--that is, they're generally nice... fungi who are Fanatic Spiritualist and nothing else, who have a patronizing (i.e. about as good as it gets with FEs) attitude towards me and +80 relations despite the fact that I've got -20 from being Fanatic Materialists and -10 from my purge policy.

Getting that close to their borders is still what I consider to be a pretty high risk move, only worthwhile because it will lock my primary enemy out from basically all coreward expansion, ensuring that when the time comes I'll be able to gobble up all the high-tech goodies on the Antina worlds, paving my way to get down to the FE in galactic south-west with the juicy ringworlds.

If they'd been militant isolationists I would never have founded a colony that close.

One thing you've really got to watch out for is researching Galactic Ambitions multiple times when you're close to a FE, since it's very easy to accidentally push your borders too close and start generating friction.

Another thing, notice how far back the fog of war is pushed? That's because I scouted the shit out of everywhere I could a long time before my colony ships started going out. I knew what was on the far rim of the galaxy before I founded any of the colonies I have that're even halfway towards the core. You don't have to survey every system when you enter it. Save one ship to survey, send one or two more out running as far as they can to fill in your starcharts before everyone blobs out.

[Kot]

Geee, why does EVERY Humanity Fuck Yeah Empire must use that fucking eagle. I know we all aspire to be as cool as Imperium of Man from Wh40k, but come on, there are other cool symbols.

[Taricus]

Actually you can settle right next to a non-militant isolationist FE and most of the time they won't really care.

[PTTG??]

Hmm. Then wouldn't it be cool if you got to use "prototypes" of the the research in certain localized areas? Like being able to put a new weapon on a single ship before the research is complete, or to use a mining tech on only one colony?

I'd say, put it in as a colony event: "A scientist has an idea for a radical new weapon. Should we invest in an engineering effort that will give us a prototype?"

[Flying Dice]

Geee, why does EVERY Humanity Fuck Yeah Empire must use that fucking eagle. I know we all aspire to be as cool as Imperium of Man from Wh40k, but come on, there are other cool symbols.

Because I'm playing a fascistic militaristic shithole and there's few things authoritarians love more than symbolic callbacks to old heraldry? GW didn't invent the idea, you know?

Never mind that that's not even the goddamn Imperial Aquila knockoff. I'll refrain from calling you blind, but geez, the exact same symbol sheet has one that's a two-headed bird of prey which includes the grasping talons on either side of the tail plumes and vertically oriented wings with spread feathers. The one I used for that empire is fairly generic, and closer in form to the Starship Troopers one (which is in fact what I was aiming for, given that they're not total xenophobes).

Actually you can settle right next to a non-militant isolationist FE and most of the time they won't really care.

Yeah, but I like to at least pretend that my empire's leadership are justifiably worried about annoying the sleeping dragon. Games like this are too easy if you optimize a lot unless you've got the AI on a "cheats like a bastard" difficulty setting.

[Not good with names]

I don't really understand why people complain about the research penalties at all.  It was changed to stop 1 pop cheesing, but even then any size planet is still unarguably good because of spaceports.  So 1 planet adds a flat 10% research, but a fully developed spaceport even on a 8 tile planet will end up netting you ~20 in naval capacity and place for the boring bonus buildings (Silos and Army facilities come to mind immediately).  It moves those small planets into a spot where they're most profitable in the midgame when you need to train armies and save minerals after filling your naval capacity. 

If anything I think a buff to going tall could be interesting.  There's a few penalties for going wide, which mostly boil down to decreased relations with neighbors and slower teching.  Unfortunately, those are also the same disadvantages you get for increasing the difficulty, and the solution (War and debris analysis) doesn't lend towards a tall style. 

Spitballing I think maybe scaling policy cost with size to make happiness more difficult, so that going with social welfare isn't a no brainer 20% research bump.

[EuchreJack]

As a warmonger, I find conflict the ideal time to balance out the tech stagnation with Survey Debris.  Its great and probably completely broken.  After all, you get 10% of the every tech that was in the enemy vessels.  Ergo, after ten Survey Debris, you should get the tech for free.  And since the AI uses ships piecemeal after the Mega Battle Fleet is destroyed,  that is not hard.  The hardest thing is avoiding the automatic peace out at 100+.

Speaking of ending wars, it is extremely irritating that I have to lose 100 influence whenever the AI requests peace on a long war AND the AI spams peace offers.  Literally spams them, and I have to lose 100 influence each time.  And if I don't have 100 influence?  Auto-Accepted!
Note, the feature is sound and dates back to the Democracies in Civilizations, but the abusive spam by the AI is broken.  Let me finish conquering your system, then we'll talk!  Where is the "Kill the Diplomats" feature?

(The fact that I was playing a Warmongering race that loves war was also...peculiar.  I would have thought that denying a peace treaty as them would GAIN me 100 influence...)

[Shadowlord]

Can you do that to them?