Stellaris Dev Diary #261 - Challenge Accepted

[Lorenerd11]

Will the new achievements be added retroactively? Cause I already kinda did DIY...

I'd recommend you load the save to check, but probably not.

 

[Kommunist Fried Chicken]

Can we expect modding game-start option?
It's important, so that we don't need a event in the start to give more choice any more, and you can expand it easier.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

I'm going to join the horde of people asking for the ability to set the scaling start level, but I'll go a little further in justifying it than most:

Most people here (myself included) would probably like to see scaling from "small AI bonuses" to "huge AI bonuses". However, what about the people who want to see scaling from "large player bonuses" to "no bonuses at all"? Or "small player bonuses" to "moderate AI bonuses"? Currently that's flat-out impossible without mods, and no amount of tweaking the scaling end year will produce anything like it.

You're going and adding a whole new difficulty level just for the newbies / casuals, and I'm sure they'll appreciate you for it, but you're also still de-facto locking them out of scaling difficulty. To me, this seems a huge mistake. A Stellaris game takes so long, even a rank beginner will be far more competent at the end of the game than at the start. Furthermore, snowballing is so powerful, that even a newbie can likely turn a large initial bonus into something that could go toe-to-toe with AIs who didn't get an initial bonus. Letting the player keep that bonus all the way through the game is going to make it a cake-walk, which could be resolved by letting them gradually fade out their bonus (and optionally fade one in for the AI, who despite your best efforts still fail at making good decisions for themselves empire-development-wise).

Seriously, just make there be four options:

• Initial difficulty: [all the difficulty options]
• Final difficulty: [all the difficulty options, yes including the ones weaker than the initial, why not]
• Difficulty scaling: [Off (locks Final to the same value as Initial), Early-game (scales across the early period; reaches max at mid-game start), Mid-game (reaches max at late-game start, the current scaling behavior), Late-game (reaches max only at the end-game year - which of course isn't necessarily the game end if there's a crisis on - and means in practice the AI gets better steadily "all game")]
• Difficulty-adjusted AI modifiers [as detailed in this DD]

There! In one fell swoop you would:

• satisfy the newbies (maybe make the default be Initial: Cadet, Final: Ensign, Scaling: Late-game, so first-time players start with modest bonuses that fade out slowly over time, rather then the now-live no bonuses or the proposed bonuses-all-game)
• satisfy the the expert players who love GA-no-scaling except for the thing where the first 20 years are a crapshoot of whether you start next to a genocidal or not
• satisfy the hardcore players who are disappointed that there's no way to feel challenged past the first decade or so (by having the AI economic bonuses scale harder too, plus things like multi-crisis)
• satisfy the multiple weirdoes (affectionate) who have asked for the ability to make the game difficulty scale down over time

 

[Primarch Victus]

You know, one option of customization that I would like to see is to be able to force Earth to spawn in one of states present in-game (pre-historic Earth, Tomb world Earth, Modern Earth, etc.) -- let me play Stellaris as humans from another planet (like the Coruscant of Star Wars or the Twelve Colonies of Kobol from Battlestar Galactica).
Also, playing as a Precursor (by turning off all other empires) would be more interesting if we could be able to turn off any event/gameplay mechanics that could ruin it (like having a Modern Earth spawning in a galaxy millions of years before it should or having Fallen Empires stopping our fun; after all if we are playing as the very first life forms in the galaxy, such thing would not make any sense).

 

[DeanTheDull]

Out of curiosity, is there a reason that there isn't a '2 crisis' option?

I doubt there's any great demand, but if there's ever another crisis added by the Custodians or in the future, I imagine increments rather than 'all or nothing' would be expected. Especially as the 25x Crisis players get used to balancing from 1 to 3 crisis, 2 as the middle point might be a meaningful metric of progress.

 

[Troyen]

My guess for the sequential crisis instead of simultaneous (which would be cool) is there's so much custom scripting in the crisis scripts that they might be afraid two crises interacting would break something. E.g. if a machine world appeared in a dimensional portal system or weird interactions with the custom infested/machine planets and whatnot. Or another example, there was an issue in 2.x where a crisis + WiH would bug out the victory condition (finishing crisis would clear the victory blocker and let you end the game even though WiH was still ongoing).

But if there are no technical limitations, allowing all three crises to spawn simultaneously sounds incredibly fun. Would also appreciate a "random" option so we don't know if we're getting 1 or 3.

 

[SeraphAscending]

Can we expect modding game-start option?
It's important, so that we don't need a event in the start to give more choice any more, and you can expand it easier.

Yes, similar to CK3 Game Rules, which mods can expand easily.
Though, if you were already at it: Please allow Game Rules to be in custom tabs. Having a few mods installed means a lot of scrolling...

 

[L.Y.HJ]

Can I randomize the map types?

 

[-Herek-]

Like a Branch Office Expansion Planner?

Look, if I don't lobby for it nobody will.

You have my sword.

but seriously, it's been years since Megacorps release and there's no way you can manage your branch offices without being in an immense pain......................!!!!

 

[Ikael]

All of those sound sweet! Also, I bet that your artists had a blast when designing the icons for the new achievements (sounds like a fun exercise of creativity!)

 

[Strangedane]

x3x25 2325 sounds like a lot of fun.

I'm all sorts of worried that the difficulty adjusted AI modifiers just means more snowballing for players as there will be more infrastructure to steal earlier.
When doing x25 2275 on 200 stars I'm already filling the galaxy with advanced GA AIs to have more to snowball off, and this just seems like another lever to pull.

Not sure it'll be enough to go down to 2250 on a non-cheese build, but I sure am going to try.

More AI makes the game easier as there is more infrastructure and pops to steal.
More advanced AI makes the game easier for the same reasons.
I see no reason why this modifier wouldn't do the same.

 

[HFY]

When doing x25 2275 on 200 stars I'm already filling the galaxy with advanced GA AIs to have more to snowball off, and this just seems like another lever to pull.

Sounds like for your playstyle the more difficult setting would be lower "difficulty" slider with a high Crisis multiplier.

 

[Strangedane]

Sounds like for your playstyle the more difficult setting would be lower "difficulty" slider with a high Crisis multiplier.

Hardest possible game is an empty 200 star galaxy.

This is the weirdest situation ever for a 4x-ish game.

 

[HFY]

Hardest possible game is an empty 200 star galaxy.

This is the weirdest situation ever for a 4x-ish game.

Only until you realize that the "eXploit" part is about exploiting game mechanic bugs.

More empires = more mechanics = more bugs = more to eXploit.

 

[Strangedane]

Only until you realize that the "eXploit" part is about exploiting game mechanic bugs.

More empires = more mechanics = more bugs = more to eXploit.

That rings true at least, but not the expected behaviour.

It's not a matter of more mechanics though, because the pattern is the same.
60 vettes gives another cap, which gives another 40 vettes which gives all the caps you have seen so far, which then closes the game really fast for the remaining 1-3 AI.
It takes roughly 25 years to lock down the 200 stars, and about another 5-15 to be the sole empire.
That sets you at around 2240 and every planet in the galaxy colonized or getting close to it.
If you do it as a genocidal it's even faster.

I don't even think there is anything in this sequence that can be considered bug-abuse.

 

[MadCow94]

As per tradition, I would like to request we be allowed to force pre-made empires to spawn. I really wanna play my UNE vs. COM game without a third party ruining it.

I would punch babies for the ability to use the spawn selector (Force, Allow, Ban) for pre-mades that is used for player-made empires.

Because criminal megacorps are just annoying, but Voor delenda est.

Edit: And here is hoping the Stellaris team sees the light that the Victoria team saw and allows mods/no ironman for achievements.

 

[Slaughter]

Does this also means we will get the possibility of having ALL the Crisis at once, or does one crisis only show up after the other one loses?

Because I remember there was a mod which allowd you get a multi-crisis situation.

 

[TrotBot]

For me it looks like fleet formations or tactics

no it's definitely megastructures i can recognize the science nexus and the strategic coordination structure there. i think there's also a ringworld and a sentry array or a quantum catapult there.

 

[Tessrana]

Difficulty Adjusted AI Modifiers is a new toggle that can dramatically increase the strength of the AI on higher difficulty levels as the game progresses. If enabled, the AI bonuses apply to all other modifiers the AI accumulates.

As an example, the Geothermal Fracking technology grants +20% Minerals from Miners. On Grand Admiral difficulty with this setting enabled, this technology would instead grant AI empires a 40% bonus.

I would actually prefer a version where you can set the bonus seperat from difficulty.
Hence you are given the option to give the AI a specific bonus in this setting while turning the general bonus ressources off (play a difficulty that gives no general bonus).

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

So we get all them happening sequentially, but what about simultaniously? You know, for that triple crisis experience.