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[Rolan7]

I found the introduction of envoys and favors to extend my interest in the game a lot, not to mention the Galactic Community.  I guess it's still inherently a wargame, but you can use peacetime to push your ideals on the rest of the galaxy.  Even leveraging excess resources via favor trading (rather than burning them in warfare).

There's certainly room for improvement though.

Honestly, I think Stellaris caters to the genocidal crowd a little too much. It would be nice to have more options and contents to play something else than a warmonger. Plus crisis other than based on warfare, stuff like alien parasites infilitrating societies or the like, instead of just huge fleets you must beat back.

Yeah this looks nifty I guess, but people already try to paint the map without mechanical bonuses.  I guess it allows a "normal" empire go genocidal mid-game, and sets up that victory condition which reduces the tedium of conquering/managing an entire galaxy.

[EuchreJack]

Become the Crisis: Interesting concept, bland implementation.

It's sort of like when they implemented machine races, but then shoehorned them into basically only three types.  There are loopholes for the forth generic machine race, but they still can't co-exist with other races.  I mean, if the biological races can build machines, why can't the machines set aside some biomass for their biological friends?
EDIT: They did make it better, somewhat, but the fundamental flaw in only looking at machine empires in a very fixed way remains.

Sentient machines of the future are gonna protest the oversimplification, I swear.

[MrRoboto75]

The real issue with robutts is they fall into the trap of being a hivemind.  And hiveminds, even bio ones, are really boring.  I find it really limiting as they lack the personality that ethics tend to bring normal civs.  They have to rely on civics to give them personality, and that usually boils down to some flavor of "kill everything else".

The only other thing is that world tree origin, which really should also be pickable by religious civs but whatever.

[Rolan7]

I was going through GC resolutions and noticed the Divinity of Life eventually makes machine empires illegal - except for rogue servitors, and machine empires get the option to *become* rogue servitors to comply.  I thought that was cute in a messed-up way.  I still love the flavor of RS even if the mechanics are particularly tricky sometimes.

Driven Assimilators specifically don't get the option for I guess obvious reasons (such a strange system) but the wiki doesn't say anything about Determined Exterminators being disqualified.  Maybe they're given the chance to play nice?

The real issue with robutts is they fall into the trap of being a hivemind.  And hiveminds, even bio ones, are really boring.  I find it really limiting as they lack the personality that ethics tend to bring normal civs.  They have to rely on civics to give them personality, and that usually boils down to some flavor of "kill everything else".

The only other thing is that world tree origin, which really should also be pickable by religious civs but whatever.

I wish the AI rebellion empire resulted in sentient synths instead of a gestalt.  All the flavor leading up to it suggests individually sentient units.  Sure synthetic ascension is a really strong thing to just have, but to get it you have to split your empire in half in the mid-game.

Though it is thematic for them to be Determined Exterminators sometimes.  It's funny that Domestic Protocols gives a chance of them being DE, but that should really result in Rogue Servitors instead.  What, are RS supposed to be pacifists?  No more than the Blorg!

[MrRoboto75]

Though it is thematic for them to be Determined Exterminators sometimes.  It's funny that Domestic Protocols gives a chance of them being DE, but that should really result in Rogue Servitors instead.  What, are RS supposed to be pacifists?  No more than the Blorg!

The whole galaxy must learn of our peaceful ways, by force!

[Rolan7]

Life is far too precious for self-determination!  Their savage instincts lead inevitably to competition, suffering and death.

You see in this dome the intermingling of native and earth plants. Outside, they are competitors, struggling over the trace elements required for life. Often, one destroys the other. Here, they are tended with care and kept well nourished. They thrive together, and the native fungus does not unleash its terrible defenses. As you can see, competition is unnecessary when resources are plentiful and population growth is controlled.

Blorg and humans can coexist with proper custodianship <3

I still wish RS could engage in migration treaties (both ways!) if one wants the biotrophies to be consenting participants.  But militaristic RS are also valid - gotta save the precious fleshies from themselves.

[Loud Whispers]

I see SMAC quotes, I am a happy monkey

[Rolan7]

I'm buying back my own citizens again
from a subject empire
iT kEePs HaPpEnNiNg

How hard is it to make happy pops not randomly emigrate to a slaver state?  I give them literally everything they want, that includes all the naughty gear.  Do they really need the "true experience"?

Like YES I understand the appeal of being commodified, painfully so, but this occurs to just a painfully ridiculous degree! 

Ugh...  And it's also really annoying that I can't influence my subject empire's ethics at all.  Technically they're a subsidiary, so I guess my recourse would be to integrate them - if I wasn't doing an egalitarian "capitalism" with utopian abundance for all. 
The fact that I'm a megacorp stops me from consolidating.
yeah
that makes sense

Not to mention my Public Relations Specialists civic giving me plenty of envoys - but can they ask a subject empire to stop the fucking slave trading??

Like - I could Be The Senate and easily end the galactic slave trade - but that would only stop me from buying them back!
wait, actually, there are galactic laws that stop slavery.
They're buried under a heck of a slog, but it's a good (egalitarian) slog anyway.  There we go.

Oh they'll rue these minor sanctions, if past runs are anything to go by.  They'll definitely (not) change their evil ways.

Edit:  Oh good.  I figure I'll throw 1000 dark matter (in 2319) at this Spiritualist FE so they'll let me check out their wormhole.
*NO* opinion change from favorable trade "deal".
Not to mention I'm wicked cyborgs now, recently.  I would say I waited too long, but no they're just stupid mushrooms who need to fucking die

Edit2:  Checking out their fleet power, doing a double take at the number of digits.
Then considering.
I'm already a fifth of that, and not even pushing my fleet strength...  Constantly capping out on credits and alloys...

[forsaken1111]

Pops don't emigrate though. As far as I know Pops, as units, never move between empires. What does happen is you are donating emigration pressure to the subject which is gaining a growth bonus. You're basically paying them to grow new pops for you. Your own pops aren't leaving though, mechanically speaking.

[Rolan7]

Well, sure.  And I'm not upset about "losing" pops (or more accurately, the slower population growth due to emigration).  More pops is almost always good, but I have plenty (particularly thanks to the Nivlac, who outnumber my Lithoid Void Dwellers like 4 to 1 now).  But Stellaris is a story-telling engine for me, and this particular story is both offensive and nonsensical

It's no big deal though.  I have plenty of credits to buy their freedom for now.  I'll just vote in the worker rights and, when the slaver empire inevitably keeps slaving, I'll eventually release them so I can ideology-war them.

It's a shame that my ideology-wars result in fellow megacorps though, because that prevents me from establishing branch offices in them.  Oh well.  Maybe... just maybe... being in a federation with 4 Xenophilic Egalitarians will eventually persuade this slaver empire to ethics-shift.  Particularly with the Community resolutions.

[Great Order]

Pops don't emigrate though. As far as I know Pops, as units, never move between empires. What does happen is you are donating emigration pressure to the subject which is gaining a growth bonus. You're basically paying them to grow new pops for you. Your own pops aren't leaving though, mechanically speaking.

Pretty sure if the emigration pressure gets high enough, the pops start to decrease at least.

It's not true pop movement, but it's something.

The other thing about it is that so long as you have a migration treaty, you can make a colony ship with their pops and vice-versa, even without any actual pops. It's useful for colonising new world that aren't your preferred class, but it means that even if the other empire wasn't getting any immigrants from you, they can still get your pops.

[forsaken1111]

Pretty sure if the emigration pressure gets high enough, the pops start to decrease at least.

It's not true pop movement, but it's something.

I have never seen pops switch to shrinking/dying off due only to emigration pressure. Do you have a source on that? That would be an interesting and possibly exploitable mechanic I've never heard of. Even starvation doesn't actually remove pops. Emigration I thought only slows down growth.

Overcrowding a planet (having more pops than housing) can send pops into decline after a certain point but before that point you simply hit a 'stop growth' stage where no pops grow any more, so generally you have to intentionally overload a planet or have something like bombardment remove housing for that to happen.

Having another species on the planet with a MUCH higher growth priority can also cause a pop to decline, which is how planets slowly balance out species over deep time.

[Dunamisdeos]

Finally picked up Federations with Uncle Sam's Yearly Magical Free Money Return.

Gonna try it out today. Any suggestions for particularly cool bits and whatsits to use or try?

[LoSboccacc]

Finally picked up Federations with Uncle Sam's Yearly Magical Free Money Return.

Gonna try it out today. Any suggestions for particularly cool bits and whatsits to use or try?

pacifist give you a casus belli to convert other people ethics, which is a good source of same-ethics empires for early federations, but it is not super straightforward because constant warring shifts your own pop ethic



federation wars are somewhat bugged, find a mod that tweaks ai weights (basically each empire compare their own fleet size against the whole enemy fleet, so they become super passive even if the federation is superior as a whole)

[MrRoboto75]

Finally picked up Federations with Uncle Sam's Yearly Magical Free Money Return.

Gonna try it out today. Any suggestions for particularly cool bits and whatsits to use or try?

Somebody, save the space whales.

The origins are probably the way to dive into whatever you're interested in ASAP.  There's one or two that start you in a federation immediately, so you can play with that system.  "Shoulders of Giants" if you like reading story bits. Shattered ring or scions, maybe even voidborn, if you wanna powergame.  Doomsday origin if you want to roleplay as kryptonians.  Hiveminds and lithoids get tree of life and meteor colony 'ships', respectively.  Robutts can start with a machine world.