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[Damiac]

That raises an interesting point about Paradox AI design.  Replacing that governor immediately is definitely the best move (the 200 energy is almost never going to be too costly).  But the AI isn't designed to make the best moves, it's designed to make as interesting-looking a galaxy as possible.  Having a neighboring empire fall to pieces because of a bad governor is interesting and even a little surprising, and that means their AI design worked in that case.

Likewise, the existence of useless governors like that rewards the player for replacing them.  I used to think of that as annoying busywork.  But now that I've played some multiplayer games where everyone wants to avoid pausing the game constantly, I see how it's an actual skill to be multitasking and checking up on such things.  Player attention becomes a limited resource and there are small or huge consequences for missing stuff.  I was shocked and delighted to see the subterranean empire burst to the surface and claim one of my first planets, because apparently that happens if you accidentally forget the special projects!  My friends and I ended up welcoming them into our federation and they played a clutch role later against the Khan.

Just a ramble about how "success" isn't really the AI's purpose.  Of course in some patches it's been too silly/incompetent and stretched credulity that way.  Maybe that's the case here though I haven't personally experienced much trouble.

You're cutting them way too much slack.

The AI sucks because the AI sucks. It sucked from day 1, and as they keep changing major systems it's just kept sucking in different ways. They can't iteratively improve on it because they keep having to teach it to play a different game.

Back when the game was new they bragged about how great the AI was and how it didn't cheat. Then players discovered, actually, it cheats a LOT.  After lying and denying it for a while they eventually came clean.

Because of the varied ways it cheats, you can't use tactics that would work on a human, and the tactics you can successfully use on the AI are stupid and wouldn't work against humans.  In a game where supply lines and war fatigue are simulated to some degree, it breaks down when one of the players doesn't have to play by those rules.

The idea that the AI is shitty so that real time multiplayer has more penalties for forgetting to do basic stuff is a stretch. I suppose it could be considered an example of emergent gameplay if you're feeling generous...

[Nelia Hawk]

the whole corrupt governor... rebellions, crime thing sounds like a great story creation...
makes me wish we COULDNT just replace governors with the click of a button, but instead have to workaround it.
it kind of reminds me of crusader kings were you get some maluses for just replacing people and it might be better to just keep a bad guy in council than throwing them out and half their family rebelling aganist you or so.

it would be cool if such a corrupt governor would be a thron in your side and you are happy, if you got rid of them after 30 years of them doing bad stuff in their sector.
but stellaris is more about grand strategy decisions and doesnt worry much about one governor.

[MrRoboto75]

Really governors should follow your government type.  So if you're democratic they're voted in by election just like the main ruler, or if you're monarchy maybe they're royal family or in line for the main throne.

Speaking of leaders, for my megacorp I named the leader's title as "Final Boss" so I get messages like "The Final Boss died" or whatever.

[Duuvian]

I have a cat species that syncetically evolved with a subservient species named "Hooman". I had several Hooman single star empires pop up throughout the cat empire through rebellion.

It seems like the AI just usually lets them go, maybe because they are in such economic trouble themself. In the first game I started I was able to nab some star systems from my friendly neighbor who I was in a research Federation I started with them. I would guarentee their rebels, send the rebels some envoys and alloys, and then make the rebel a vassal until I could integrate them. My ally did not mind one bit it seemed.

That was in the difficulty setting that gave the AI empires no bonus though, and had no advanced start Empires (unless Fallen/stagnant count) with 2.5x I think research multiplier.

Really governors should follow your government type.  So if you're democratic they're voted in by election just like the main ruler, or if you're monarchy maybe they're royal family or in line for the main throne.

That could be cool. Maybe planets could differ in their own government type from yours if you aren't an authoritarian leaning Empire too, and choose their governor in that way unless your Empire ethics combo or whatnot allows you to try to change the planet's government type. That way if you take a planet from a different type of Empire, you'd have to either deal with it being a different government system on the planet or try to change it in whatever way your ethics allow. I do end up with a whole lot of Unity I can't figure out how to use once all the Traditions trees are unlocked...

That might be better if planets/colonies could someday have a designated leader in addition to  the sector governor for multiple star systems.

[Iceblaster]

Yeah, that'd help a lot of the omplaints about very little internal politics if you could have Star Wars esque issues where your nominal vassal is a government completely from your own and you need to figure out how to handle it.

[Duuvian]

There is a new Beta patch that might help computer empires keep their economy together. They also added population sliders at game start it looks like.

[Telgin]

A welcome change, though anyone with a current save should be aware that the changes also removed the extra jobs created by upgraded resource buildings and replaced them with increased job efficiency.  You may have some redevelopment to do.

[Rolan7]

A welcome change, though anyone with a current save should be aware that the changes also removed the extra jobs created by upgraded resource buildings and replaced them with increased job efficiency.  You may have some redevelopment to do.

Oh *hell* yes!!

Edit:  To expand on this now that I'm at my computer, I don't like the way the upgrades for the furnace and factory sites create more jobs in each district.  I guess it's interesting that the number of specialist jobs increases a lot as you increase in tech and rare resources, but that sorta sucks when your population growth is probably tanked by the time you get to the good stuff.  In general I prefer the concept of specialists becoming more efficient, not more numerous.

Maybe it's because there are already good options for gaining more specialist jobs:  Ecumenopoli and habitat-spam.  And ecumenopli are not exactly an obvious pick in 3.0, so maybe this brings them back a bit.  At least in my unscientific feeling.

[Telgin]

That seems to be the general consensus among players, and it's a way of thinking that I'm coming around to.  I feel like the game still has some perverse incentives with the way breeder planets work, and housing feels weird and almost too easy to get / pointless now, but I do think this is the right direction to be going.

Small aside, but I had an interesting interaction with the galactic community in my current game and actually shot myself in the foot for the first time.  I helped pass the tiyanki conservation act early after the GC was formed, and later discovered the tiyanki matriarch.  After amassing enough fleet power to fight it, I was promptly informed that the tiyanki matriarch is indeed a tiyanki, and that I was now in breach of galactic law.  Oops.

What's funnier is that a few years later I got a stern letter asking me to bring myself into compliance with galactic law, which I couldn't do since I wasn't actively breaking the law, and nothing happened when I said okay.  At least the sanctions only lasted 10 years, and not many sanction laws had been passed.

[MorleyDev]

Playing around in a current playthough using a near-empty galaxy (Marauders, Fallen Empires and Primitives only), Fatherland, Planetary Habitats, Legendary Worlds, Dynamic Political Events, a custom mod that makes outposts cost ~500 influence (but with no distance penalty, and with techs to bring that down to vanilla levels by the midgame), and colonising all of Sol with a Doomsday origin whilst the galaxy gets populated by the Hegiran.

Basically you can't realistically expand in time, so the challenge is to get your habitats built and pops migrated to them before Earth goes kaboomie without running out of all your resources, then you're basically playing as voidborne without the buffs. Then from this seat above the ashes of Earth-that-was, unite the scattered remnants of humanity.

I quite like the feel of expansion being expensive for the first half of the game, means you get to really invest in the areas you have and also encourages smaller vassal-driven empire building and habitats/megastructures over just blobbing out. Plus even by the late game there can still be uncolonised sectors of the galaxy to explore or be threatened from, so the opposite side of the galaxy to you isn't just a mesh of other empires you largely ignore.

[Bralbaard]

I'm having an interesting game.

I cracked open the L-cluster very early (2250) and the grey tempest rushed out of the gates. I was utterly unprepared.
In my defense: I did not know that could happen. I only opened the L-cluster once before and it was a friendly, happy place that time.

There are no good chokepoints in my part of the galaxy. When I opened the cluster I had a combined fleet strenght of 3k, and over the last decade I managed to bring that up to 11k. That is not nearly enough to face them, but if I can avoid direct confrontation for another decade I might be fine. I'm focussing on tech and buildings that increase my naval cap. I have so far only lost two systems and maybe three or four science ships.
On the bright side, the crisis is giving me a lot of free pops. refugees are fleeing to my gaia world from everywhere. I've got citizens from 12 different races in my empire right now. 

[Telgin]

They've tinkered with the crisis AI a few times over the last few patches so it may have changed recently, but in my experience the Gray Tempest doesn't focus down anyone and is usually pretty slow to spread past the L-gate systems, so you might have time to recover.  It'll be a real stretch and uphill battle though.  Something else to keep in mind if you have the resources and haven't tried them is to activate the edicts for increased weapon damage using crystals and/or motes.  It's a small boost but every bit helps.

You can also try building ships to counter them, but I'm not sure what the best build even is since I always try to delay opening the L-cluster until I have at least 60k in fleet power, which is going to be in battleships.  Battleships definitely work, but my experience in fighting the Gray Tempest is that they still kind of suck.  The nanite titans will consistently one-shot a battleship with their titan weapon in almost every engagement, which makes me wonder if smaller ships that can avoid the shots are better.  The nanite ships use lots of strike craft too though, so smaller ships may be more vulnerable to those.  This may actually be a decent case for building point defense heavy destroyer fleets, but I've never tried it against them.

60k in battleships is usually enough to keep you safe, if you can afford to replace one every few months, but it won't be enough to stop the Gray Tempest as a whole.  You're going to need a fair bit more for that.

[Bralbaard]

I have activated all edicts I have access to, I have  a lot of special resources. The tempest fleets I have seen were 30k, so I was hoping to get to 40k myself as soon as possible, that would at least allow me to take out the tempest fleet that is closest to me, which hopefully will buy me time to further increase my strength.

Based on what I have seen so far I was going to go for pd heavy destroyers mixed with cruisers for firepower. I have just got battlecruiser tech but they just take too long to build, and if they are gone in one shot that will be a waste of resources, unless I have a lot of them.

 I also have a relic that apparently will give my ships a significant boost in battle if timed right. (Vultaum reality perforator). I've never used it but I'll keep it charged for when I'll need it.

Edit: This will not end well. I had hoped to get at least 2 decades to prepare but I only got 8 years and the first fleet will attack next month. I have a 27 K fleet versus his 31k fleet, so the odds are not good to start with.
What is worse is that there are TWO other 31K fleets right behind the first. I expect one of them to strike within months after the first, possible while the first battle is still going, the other is distracted with glassing the homeworld of my neighbour and will likely arrive a year later. I have some hope to abuse what I've observed about their pathfinding too divert one fleet, but it is a long shot.

[Bralbaard]

Continued from the mess in the previous post:



General Lishtima looked nervously at his data pad.  He had observed the nanite swarms for years and had found that they always seemed to path to the nearest occupied system, in an attempt to purge the galaxy as efficiently as possible. Over the last year the Luuvisk had made terrible sacrifices to take advantage of this fact. Several valuable systems had been  abandonded. Their science and mining stations destroyed, and their outposts scuttled. This was done to carve empty corridors through Luuvisk space to  guide the incoming nanite swarms to the desired direction, as there were no good choke points in nearby space, and fleets were ariving from three directions. He had even ordered the destruction of the mighty Irriamun defense station, this massive station was one of the most powerful ever build, but it was in a location that would have compromised his strategy.
Constructors had  been send out to claim a number of systems at great influence cost to further guide the enemy ships, but Lishtima did not know if they had been succesful. All he could do was wait.
Suddenly the alarms sounded, a fleet was dropping out of warp at the system's edge.

It was not the nanite swarm, but a small fleet of  first generation corvettes that had been recalled from pirate patrol duty on the far side of the empire. These ships were over 65 years old, and had never seen an upgrade since. They would not make a noteworthy difference in the total fleet power that had been gathered here. Still general Lishtima opened comms and greeted them as equals. In this final hour, all would stand together.
The massive base orbiting the central star was the core asset of the allied fleet in the Shard's Nest system. It packed 14k of raw power, and was even larger than the decommissioned Irriamun base. The three orbiting fleets together had a similar calculated value. Lishrima had 28K under his command but still felt completely unprepared.
He and everyone else in the fleet knew that three fleets of 31k were approaching.

The nanite swarm warped into Shard's Nest. This particular fleet was responsible for the destruction of both the Tarvarite empire and the Huvidi-Zaan, once the largest empire on this side of the galaxy. In addition it had, over the last few years, reduced the core worlds of the Cithin empire to nanite dust.
The mothership quickly and methodically identified the targets in this system; a large base and several fleets of mismatched ships. Like it had done countless times before, it calculated optimal trajectories and then fired it's weapons: massive swarms of missiles and other nanite ammunition.

The projectiles tore through the vacuum towards the Luuvisk fleet; At the last moment the local dust cloud was lit up by the fire of hundreds of point defense beams. The void filled with massive explosions that obscured the battlefield from view, the radiation oversaturating even high tech sensors. All was silent.

the mothership was almost ready to set course to the next system, expecting the enemy fleet to be torn to bits. Then  a small ship emerged from the clouds of hellfire. A tiny corvette armed with first generation lasers that limped towards the Tempest fleet. The mothership calculated new weapon trajectories, it was displeased that it would need to spend more energy on this. Then, suddenly,  a rag-tag fleet of ships, a mix of corvettes and destroyers with some cruisers and a single battleship  emerged from the radio-active dust.

These ships were flown by pilots from at least 22 different races, all refugees from the destruction that the Grey Tempest had wrought. Born in different parts of the galaxy they were united in the hardship they had faced. All had fled from worlds ravaged by nanite fire and all had everything taken away from them.

Today was their one chance to fight back.  The Nanite swarm once more fired it's powerfull weapons. Again in response point defense fire lit up the void. A few ships were struck by terrible beams of concentrated energy, but the rest continued. The tiny but fast corvettes were the first to reach the agressors, and their weapons started tearing up the nanite hulls. When the cruisers joined the battle the enemy ships were suprisingly quick to fail. The mothership lasted the longest, but it too went down in a massive explosion.

This one battle might have changed the fate of the galaxy. The allied fleet had not only won against the odds, but it had done so with minimal losses. Only 3 destroyers, 7 corvettes and one cruiser were missing. 55 ships remained. The allied fleet of refugees now had a fighting chance against the other two fleets that were fast approaching. That though, would only be the start.

[Mephansteras]

Nicely written!