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Stellaris Dev Diary #30 - Late Game Crises

Hi folks!

We’re getting close to release and there is not much left to talk about that we haven’t already covered. The only remaining major feature is, I believe, the “Late Game Crises” events, and I really don’t want to spoil them, so bear with me if I’m being slightly vague this time…

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Now, last week I talked about how large empires will have to worry about keeping all manner of political Factions in check. This is one of the ways we try to keep the game interesting and challenging past that crucial point when you often tend to lose interest in most strategy games and feel that you’ve already won. It’s not much fun to spend hours of your life mopping up the final resistance just so you’ll get to see that sweet acknowledgement saying “Victory!”. Another way to keep a game interesting is through random occurrences that can upset your plans even at a very late stage. This is where dangerous technologies and late game crises enter the picture.

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Some technologies are clearly marked as being “risky”, for example Robot Workers. Now, you might not always risk having your victory snatched out of your grasp, but in this case at least, you really are gambling with the fate of the galaxy. Just researching such a technology is safe; it’s the actual use of it that carries the danger. For example, the more sentient Robot Pops there are in the galaxy, the higher the risk is that they will come to deem organic life unfit to exist and rise up in a well-planned revolt. Unless crushed quickly and with overwhelming force, such a Machine Empire will quickly get out of hand and threaten all the remaining empires in the galaxy. Sentient robots will out-research and outproduce everyone. If the revolt is centered in a powerful rival empire, you’ll need to think carefully about when you want to intervene; a savvy player might time it just right and be able to mop up both the robots and the remnants of the rival empire. Leave it too long, however, and the robots will overwhelm you.

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The idea is that you will usually see one of the possible late game crises every time you play, but the chances increase the longer it takes you to win. However, it’s very rare to see more than one in the same game. The different threats vary in nature and behaviour, and can offer opportunities as well as posing an enormous danger to your survival. For example, it might be possible to reverse engineer some really unique technologies from these galactic threats, but the geography of the galaxy might also change in your favor…

That’s it for now my friends! Next week, we’ll change tack completely, and do a two-part, in-depth guide for modders.
 
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We probably know even less on this topic than on most others since it is the one most easily ruined by spoilers and devs want to avoid this. So speculations are fun but remember this is only the tip of the iceberg. I suspect other end game disasters might not be linked to certain techs and more to a certain critical mass of planets/score points etc... to trigger when you are way way ahead.
 
Yeah thought so too, it makes the decision far too easy to not research it.
Not really, unless you're already dominating the galaxy you can't guarantee that some other species doesn't research it. So you also want to research it because otherwise the other species would have an initial advantage. And it's not guaranteed to happen, it could just not happen for a very long time and maybe yet another species researchs more into jump technology and causes an entirely different crisis to happen before, delaying the robots and causing you to lag even more behind because you delayed the benefits for nothin.

I mean sure, you could decide to never invent gunpowder, but don't expect to stay competetive that way.
 
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Yuuzhan Vong and HK-51 confirmed.
 
Okay, a lot of people are acting like robots, even if treated exactly the same as normal citizens, have some special property that makes them inclined to omnicidal rampages against organic life.
But... do they? If they're treated good, there's no reason to rebel other than 'eh i hate organics'. But why would they start hating organics? If they're treated nicely, a revolt only makes sense from xenophobic robots (and not at all from xenophilic or pacifist robots)
 
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Not really, unless you're already dominating the galaxy you can't guarantee that some other species doesn't research it. So you also want to research it because otherwise the other species would have an initial advantage. And it's not guaranteed to happen, it could just not happen for a very long time and maybe yet another species researchs more into jump technology and causes an entirely different crisis to happen before, delaying the robots and causing you to lag even more behind because you delayed the benefits for nothin.

I mean sure, you could decide to never invent gunpowder, but don't expect to stay competetive that way.

A tiny research bonus isn't anywhere equivalent to gunpowder. I don't see why you shouldn't be competetive, since you can easily have a much bigger bonus just by traits from the game start.
 
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I'd like to be able to do something like this too, but it really shouldn't be as simple as pressing the "give rights to robots" button, or else literally everybody would do it. Gotta be some significant downsides.


Well, if you gave full rights to robots each one of them would get one vote. Probably even our smartphones would be sentient in the future, so there's nothing stopping the robots from outnumbering the organics 1000 to 1 (they could just make more robots). The next step would be a galactic congress dominated by robot politicians.

Let's all vote now for Senator Bender's proposal 1001, the Constitutional Amend to Kill All Humans. Let's count the votes. 600 to 1 for it. So, let's start now.
 
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Ahn, the Stargate SG-1 tactics. Let's destroy the Ori by unleashing the replicators against them. Well, replicators destroyed the Ancients one time, why not another?
Eh... what? Now I havent seen the two last movies but I don't remember that part.
 
I'd like to be able to do something like this too, but it really shouldn't be as simple as pressing the "give rights to robots" button, or else literally everybody would do it. Gotta be some significant downsides.


Well, if you gave full rights to robots each one of them would get one vote. Probably even our smartphones would be sentient in the future, so there's nothing stopping the robots from outnumbering the organics 1000 to 1 (they could just make more robots). The next step would be a galactic congress dominated by robot politicians.

Let's all vote now for Senator Bender's proposal 1001, the Constitutional Amend to Kill All Humans. Let's count the votes. 600 to 1 for it. So, let's start now.
 
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Well, if you gave full rights to robots each one of them would get one vote. Probably even our smartphones would be sentient in the future, so there's nothing stopping the robots from outnumbering the organics 1000 to 1 (they could just make more robots). The next step would be a galactic congress dominated by robot politicians.

Let's all vote now for Senator Bender's proposal 1001, the Constitutional Amend to Kill All Humans. Let's count the votes. 600 to 1 for it. So, let's start now.

I suppose to counterbalance the make more robots, we must make more of our species. Is your body ready?
 
Well Martin said on tiwtter that you could have robot rebels and aknowledge them as your central ethos, so you could probably be assimilated by AI then play the AI yourself.
 
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Well Martin said on tiwtter that you could have robot rebels and aknowledge them as your central ethos, so you could probably be assimilated by AI then play the AI yourself.

Oh really?! That could be very nice! Does it work too if you remplace all your pops by sentinent synthetic?
 
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Well, if you gave full rights to robots each one of them would get one vote. Probably even our smartphones would be sentient in the future, so there's nothing stopping the robots from outnumbering the organics 1000 to 1 (they could just make more robots). The next step would be a galactic congress dominated by robot politicians.

Let's all vote now for Senator Bender's proposal 1001, the Constitutional Amend to Kill All Humans. Let's count the votes. 600 to 1 for it. So, let's start now.
Why would smartphones need to be sentient? What possible benefit would that give?
The reason robots are made sentient in Stellaris is for research; this is why that'd happen in real life too. There's not many other reasons that robots need sentience.
 
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Spotted something that would be good as a Late Game crisis, hope it makes it in.

Covert Infiltration
This is an interesting one. Essentially, agents that have been surgically altered to resemble individuals from a primitive species are sent to infiltrate their society. Political and military leaders are gradually replaced, until a point is reached where the primitives can be made to willingly accept an offer of annexation. This spares the need of a messy ground invasion, but more importantly, the primitives will be more positively inclined towards their new overlords, since they are living under the illusion that they accepted their rule willingly.

The truth will out! Hopefully this would see your empire split or a chunk of it rebel in outrage.
 
A tiny research bonus isn't anywhere equivalent to gunpowder. I don't see why you shouldn't be competetive, since you can easily have a much bigger bonus just by traits from the game start.

That's not the point of the analogy. How would you even quantify the benefit of gunpowder with a simple tech/modifier.

Anyway, the tech either has passive/indirect bonuses (like enabling edicts or events that improve your robot pops) or lead to more beneficial technology options. Also 5% is 5%. There's no reason to avoid it when someone else has already embraced the risk.
 
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Do I read this screenshot well? Does it means that some unique ways to deal with crises can be unlocked depending on ethos?
 
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Do I read this screenshot well? Does it means that some unique ways to deal with crises can be unlocked depending on ethos?

I read the screenshot text as kind of a joke. As in, if you are fanatic pacifist, you might be tempted to think that peace is an option, even with hell-dimension entities, but it's really just a forlorn hope.
 
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