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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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TheDungen said:
Yeah they did that when they started makign the setting darker for DS9 I never really approved of it. So perhaps the vulcans abandon their pacifism in those days, but atleast as late as TNG when the romulans want to do their coup on vulcan they say that the vulcans won't defend themselves because of their pacifism.
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Turn the other cheek is a great moral standpoint and a brave thing to do but it doesn't exactly stop horrible bug monsters from eating you.
 
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The_Red_Star said:
Turn the other cheek is a great moral standpoint and a brave thing to do but it doesn't exactly stop horrible bug monsters from eating you.
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Pacifism has other tools at their disposal than turning the other cheek, as I said pacifist like vulcans have no problem with disabling or stunning their enemies. Statis bombs, unpeasent stimuli, stunning weapons (or EMP for non alive beings).
We have had very creative means to ward of pests on earth for millenia. some bugs for an example can't stand the colour blue, other don't like certain smells and so on. Just because these bugs want to eat us rather than our crops don't change that much.

There's always an alternative to killing, the hard choice for a pacifist is, can I accept the casualties that it causes on me while I find the alternative, do I even think that I will manage to find the alternative before they wipe me out of cripple my empire beyond the point where I can come back. The choice needs to be there, even if it does not need to be a competetive choice.
 
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TheDungen said:
Pacifism has other tools at their disposal than turning the other cheek, as I said pacifist like vulcans have no problem with disabling or stunning their enemies. Statis bombs, unpeasent stimuli, stunning weapons (or EMP for non alive beings).
We have had very creative means to ward of pests on earth for millenia. some bugs for an example can't stand the colour blue, other don't like certain smells and so on. Just because these bugs want to eat us rather than our crops don't change that much.

There's always an alternative to killing, the hard choice for a pacifist is, can I accept the casualties that it causes on me while I find the alternative, do I even think that I will manage to find the aleternative before they wipe me out of cripple my empire beyond the point where I can come back.
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And if they will not stop until the galaxy is a lifeless desert because their hivemind does not register any form of sapient life as anything but condiments to their biomass feast? Or if they are warmongering fanatics who regard your existence as a religious insult and thus you must be culled? Or perhaps they're extradimensional beings whose expansion will mean the end of all carbon based life as they make themselves comfortable here?

Science Fiction is full of beings who simply cannot be bought, bargained, or reasoned with. Beings who simply want to watch the world burn and can never be dissuaded from implacable hostility to you and possibly to everything else that exists in the universe. It's either you or them, and they're not going to care for any of your parlour tricks; just come back and kill you another way.

I mean, even Undertale acknowledged that universal pacifism wouldn't always work even in its pacifist ending because there are things just far, far too unflinchingly cruel or unreasonably hostile to be won over nonviolently. Sometimes, you need to compromise on your own ideals and do what you wish you didn't have to in order to save someone. To let your own people die because of your own moral cowardice (turn the other cheek is *personally brave*, not collectively brave) because you wanted to hug the eldritch abominations that wanted you dead is folly.
 
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Try to negociate with Berserker-type probes, who are programmed to do one job: "Seek and destroy enemy", and than confused the priorities becouse of poor programing.
 
We are the Blorg. You will be friend. Resistance is impolite.
 
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The_Red_Star said:
And if they will not stop until the galaxy is a lifeless desert because their hivemind does not register any form of sapient life as anything but condiments to their biomass feast? Or if they are warmongering fanatics who regard your existence as a religious insult and thus you must be culled? Or perhaps they're extradimensional beings whose expansion will mean the end of all carbon based life as they make themselves comfortable here?

Science Fiction is full of beings who simply cannot be bought, bargained, or reasoned with. Beings who simply want to watch the world burn and can never be dissuaded from implacable hostility to you and possibly to everything else that exists in the universe. It's either you or them, and they're not going to care for any of your parlour tricks; just come back and kill you another way.

I mean, even Undertale acknowledged that universal pacifism wouldn't always work even in its pacifist ending because there are things just far, far too unflinchingly cruel or unreasonably hostile to be won over nonviolently. Sometimes, you need to compromise on your own ideals and do what you wish you didn't have to in order to save someone. To let your own people die because of your own moral cowardice (turn the other cheek is *personally brave*, not collectively brave) because you wanted to hug the eldritch abominations that wanted you dead is folly.
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You are missing the point, how does th hive mind percieve the world, how does it communicate with it's parts? what impulses does it act on and how does it's mind work. If you can distrupt any of these things you can collapse this thing on itself (make hald the swarm not recognize the other half as it's own, or just find a node in the hiveminds mind and start pumping it full of drugs that will render it docile) or render yourself unpaletable or invisible from it.
Like I said a simple thing like the colour blue can disrupt bugs on earth.
A soundwave can disrupt locust.

The idea of grim dark enemy that must be fought may have a place in certain "sci-fi" universes (though I'd argue that those are not sci-fi) but not in others and it is by the actions of your empire you must be able to steer what kind of genre savvy is correct for your game. You obviously like grim dark I don't I find it smplistic and boring and since I won't head down those paths I really hope that those kinds of storylines will not be forced upon me.

And quite frankly if the swarm is as dangerous as you're describing then how is fighting it an option? You should at best be able to delay it until you find a real solution, consider dawn of war, even the space marines could only delay the nid swarm until they could create a macguffin that poisoned the hivefleet.
Sorry but if lasers and missiles can harm soemthing then more advanced better directed science can always do more. Why would the same tool you used to make war on your nieghbour be the only and effective way to deal with a bug swarm. We don't use machine guns on cockroaches we use bug spray.

And I have no idea what undetale is.

Saviour of Galaxy said:
Try to negociate with Berserker-type probes, who are programmed to do one job: "Seek and destroy enemy", and than confused the priorities becouse of poor programing.
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Disble one and either steal copy IFF or scramble it. Suddenly they are either guarding your space agaisnt people who can't fool them or seeking and destroying each others.
 
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TheDungen said:
And I have no idea what undetale is.
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It's a recent RPG made with deliberately retro style. You'd probably like it: it's designed almost as the antithesis of "you are the hero, kill the bad guys" grimdark RPGs.

People who love violent power fantasies have been known to really dislike it.
 
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TheBeautifulVoid said:
It's a recent RPG made with deliberately retro style. You'd probably like it: it's designed almost as the antithesis of "you are the hero, kill the bad guys" grimdark RPGs.

People who love violent power fantasies have been known to really dislike it.
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I'm quite fond of it myself but even in the pacifist ending they do acknowledge that the sparing everyone approach might not work outside of the context of the game.
 
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Sounds intresting, my inspiration for an extremist pacifist is the way of the leaf philosophy from wheel of time. Again none of the main characters ever adopt it. But it migth work better in sci-fi where there are more options to sticking a sword in someones gut.
 
TheBeautifulVoid said:
It's a recent RPG made with deliberately retro style. You'd probably like it: it's designed almost as the antithesis of "you are the hero, kill the bad guys" grimdark RPGs.

People who love violent power fantasies have been known to really dislike it.
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As do those who, like I do, find postmodernist "cleverness" tiresome. If you're gonna go for a game that sincerely explores the chilling consequences of heedless, mindless violence, Iji does it better; it explores many of the same themes, without the pretentious patina. Plus it's freeware.

EDIT: Still, a caveat. A lot of intelligent and competent people who I respect and generally have excellent taste in games loved Undertale -- I still think it's a load of arrogant bollocks, but at five bucks, it's worth giving a shot to find your own opinion, unless you plain don't like RPGs. I'll admit, figuring out why I didn't like it was actually quite educational and taught me why I do love the games I do, so I guess for me, it was worth the price.
 
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TheGrinningMan said:
As do those who, like I do, find postmodernist "cleverness" tiresome. If you're gonna go for a game that sincerely explores the horrible consequences of heedless, mindless violence, Iji does it better. Plus it's freeware.
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I really love postmodern cleverness, but I might check out Iji. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
TheDungen said:
And quite frankly if the swarm is as dangerous as you're describing then how is fighting it an option? You should at best be able to delay it until you find a real solution, consider dawn of war, even the space marines could only delay the nid swarm until they could create a macguffin that poisoned the hivefleet.
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Only a Tendril of a Hivefleet I am afraid, they adapted after that to nullify the Macguffin afterwards so it wouldnt work.

Also sometimes IRL use of Force is the only option, only Idealists think that force is always unnecessary. Realists acknowlege that Force can be necessary at times.
There is ALWAYS will b an enemy that cant be reasoned with, ALWAYS. Hitler for one, the only recourse was force. Daesh is another formthem it's Convert or Die, and Force is an absolute necessity.
In someways Pacifism can be viewed as a form of Cowardice on a civilisation scale, especially if they look down on those more Realistic Civs that use force when they have to. The Ancients of Stargate were Pacifist, only fighting when they had to, and look at what happened to them. Yes I know The Wraith could be dealt with the Retrovirus but what about those that didnt take it, how would you deal with them? The Goa'uld and Replicators were dealt with Force, The Ori? Genocide.
 
Voidlord said:
Only a Tendril of a Hivefleet I am afraid, they adapted after that to nullify the Macguffin afterwards so it wouldnt work.

Also sometimes IRL use of Force is the only option, only Idealists think that force is always unnecessary. Realists acknowlege that Force can be necessary at times.
There is ALWAYS will b an enemy that cant be reasoned with, ALWAYS. Hitler for one, the only recourse was force. Daesh is another formthem it's Convert or Die, and Force is an absolute necessity.
In someways Pacifism can be viewed as a form of Cowardice on a civilisation scale, especially if they look down on those more Realistic Civs that use force when they have to. The Ancients of Stargate were Pacifist, only fighting when they had to, and look at what happened to them. Yes I know The Wraith could be dealt with the Retrovirus but what about those that didnt take it, how would you deal with them? The Goa'uld and Replicators were dealt with Force, The Ori? Genocide.
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Yes but it was an example that even in a grimdark wardriven universe like wh40k you eventually have to resort to a macguffin to defeat an enemy of that magnitude.

As for reality, no there are always multiple solutions (I'd say an almost infinite amount of them) to every problem. There will always be pacifist solutions, that said it's not certain that pacifist slutions are the best. They may rely on letting a lot of innocent people die, but they always exist.

An example for hitler would be to let hitler win and start working against the nazis from within. Sure he'd still manage to butcher millions more before you could take him down by peaceful means but given enough time it could have been achieved.

As for the Daesh I disagree but will not discuss current politics here.

No the ancients of stargate were not pacifist, and what happened to them? They ascended, what a horrible fate.
The wraith could have been dealt with by relocating the people of pegasus to the milky way, and a number of other solutions. The replicators were not dealt with by force they were contained in a time dialation field and then dropped into a black hole, even the faction under replicarter was dismantled by what amounts to a research project. Jack Carter even says it outright, the replicators cannot be fought by conventional means all you do is end up feeding them tehcnology and materials faster.The power of the ori was cancelled out by the sangraal, no one ever said that they were killed by it (which makes it a somewhat good story point in an otherwise abysmal plotline). SG-1 dealt with the Goa'uld through force but both the asgard, the Nox and the Tollan dealt with them by peaceful means.
 
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