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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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If the Scourge is supposed to be like the Tyranids; you won't be able to talk to them because all biomass is food to them. You don't talk to the bacteria on your mashed potatoes do you? Because when you're talking about a hive minded species that devours whole planets worth of biomass at a time; sapient life is just so much bacteria on the main course; maybe a bit feisty, but not existing on the same level as you. And why should they listen to what you have to say? Their driving goal is to devour everything there is and multiply, then move on to another galaxy and do the same. Negotiating with you would be a waste of calories and time. Letting you flee would be letting some biomass go and potentially warning others of their advance. And thus you must die, so that they can make it as if the Galaxy never harbored life at all as they leave nothing but lifeless; barren worlds stripped of all atmosphere, oceans, life, and minerals useful to life before moving on.

This is why the Tyranids are arguably the greatest threat in 40k, beyond them having crushing numerical suepriority over every other faction combined (having consumed literally thousand of galaxies beforehand), even Chaos, the Orks, and the Necrons can be talked to to some extent. You can bargain with them, you can buy yourself a little respite even if it costs your soul. To the Tyranids though; every culture, every civilization, every living being in the galaxy is just condiments to their meal. Hardly worth a second thought as their gestalt consciousness goes about ending yet another galaxy. And given the very trope overdosed nature of Stellaris I'd wager that the Scourge is likely to evoke the Tyranids in that regard.

Can't really talk or run from that. You have nothing to offer them but your death. So it's stand and fight.
 
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The_Red_Star said:
If the Scourge is supposed to be like the Tyranids; you won't be able to talk to them because all biomass is food to them. You don't talk to the bacteria on your mashed potatoes do you?
Click to expand...
Don't you?
 
The_Red_Star said:
If the Scourge is supposed to be like the Tyranids; you won't be able to talk to them because all biomass is food to them. You don't talk to the bacteria on your mashed potatoes do you? Because when you're talking about a hive minded species that devours whole planets worth of biomass at a time; sapient life is just so much bacteria on the main course; maybe a bit feisty, but not existing on the same level as you. And why should they listen to what you have to say? Their driving goal is to devour everything there is and multiply, then move on to another galaxy and do the same. Negotiating with you would be a waste of calories and time. Letting you flee would be letting some biomass go and potentially warning others of their advance. And thus you must die, so that they can make it as if the Galaxy never harbored life at all as they leave nothing but lifeless; barren worlds stripped of all atmosphere, oceans, life, and minerals useful to life before moving on.

This is why the Tyranids are arguably the greatest threat in 40k, beyond them having crushing numerical suepriority over every other faction combined (having consumed literally thousand of galaxies beforehand), even Chaos, the Orks, and the Necrons can be talked to to some extent. You can bargain with them, you can buy yourself a little respite even if it costs your soul. To the Tyranids though; every culture, every civilization, every living being in the galaxy is just condiments to their meal. Hardly worth a second thought as their gestalt consciousness goes about ending yet another galaxy. And given the very trope overdosed nature of Stellaris I'd wager that the Scourge is likely to evoke the Tyranids in that regard.

Can't really talk or run from that. You have nothing to offer them but your death. So it's stand and fight.
Click to expand...
Actually the orks are the biggest htreat of 40k, at least used to back when I played, when the nidz annaexed ork biomass the beings created from them joined the orks as soon as they ended up commining into contact with the whaagh field. I always loved that the most dangerous faction was the most comedic, that was so 40k, so bleak and sarcastic. I'm guessing they changed it since, because games workshop havent made a good decision since the 90s.
 
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TheDungen said:
Actually the orks are the biggest htreat of 40k, at least used to back when I played, when the nidz annaexed ork biomass the beings created from them joined the orks as soon as they ended up commining into contact with the whaagh field. I always loved that the most dangerous faction was the most comedic, that was so 40k, so bleak and sarcastic. I'm guessing they changed it since, because games workshop havent made a good decision since the 90s.
Click to expand...
...

That's...not how it worked?

Ever?
 
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The_Red_Star said:
...

That's...not how it worked?

Ever?
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Yeah it is. Back in the day atleast. It kind of makes sense they are kind of alike, swarm beings who infect and convert the local flora and fauna to form their own ecosystem to support them and and tied togheter by a psychic field. The diffrence is that the Orks were engineered by some of the most brilliant beings in the history of the 40k universe to be the perfect bioweapon.
But like I said GW lost their humor a long time ago so I'm not surpriseed if they changed that.

Saviour of Galaxy said:
Would you 40k fans spare us the "orkz zpeecz" at last in this thread, please?
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Why we've already mentioned every other dangerous faction from 40k in this thread, nid proxys, necron proxys, chaos god proxys, well the orks are basically the only original and intresting thing about 40k (biohorrors are old news, dark gods too, and don't get me started on homocidal AI). I could easy see a ork proxy show up, a race of humanoid fungoids obessed with war, that cna regenrate an entire army from a single spore if given time. In fact I think someone made a space ork reference in one of the streams actually.
 
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TheDungen said:
Yeah it is. Back in the day atleast. It kind of makes sense they are kind of alike, swarm beings who infect and convert the local flora and fauna to form their own ecosystem to support them and and tied togheter by a psychic field. The diffrence is that the Orks were engineered by some of the most brilliant beings in the history of the 40k universe to be the perfect bioweapon.


Why we've already mentioned every other dangerous faction from 40k in this thread, nid proxys, necron proxys, chaos god proxys, well the orks are basically the only original and intresting thing about 40k (biohorrors are old news, dark gods too, and don't get me started on homocidal AI). I could easy see a ork proxy show up, a race of humanoid fungoids obessed with war, that cna regenrate an entire army from a single spore if given time. In fact I think someone made a space ork reference in one of the streams actually.
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Excerpts from the relevant codexes or it didn't happen.

I am calling you out.
 
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The_Red_Star said:
Excerpts from the relevant codexes or it didn't happen.

I am calling you out.
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I haven't played 40k in alteast half a decade.
Pretty sure it was a story in white dwarf when they released a unit, the red jumping things if I recall corectly, then again I can't remember seeing those in 40k in later editions at all so that part might be wrong.
But the point remains every codex state word per word that "[the faction in this codex] is the most dangerous one", so sayign that the nidz are it by the nid dex is no more right than saying that chaos is it because the chaos dex says so.
But just go on dakka and ask which is the most danerous faction of 40k and you'll get somethign like 20 pages of discussion for diffrent factions, proving that there's no real clear answer, me I like the orks for the role since like I said, it's awesomely ironic. It's that tounge in cheek that GW used to have.
 
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TheDungen said:
But just go on dakka and ask which is the most danerous faction of 40k and you'll get somethign like 20 pages of discussion for diffrent factions, proving that there's no real clear answer,
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Where I come from, a question which is recognised as having no clear answer is a meaningless question.

Your mileage may very.
 
TheBeautifulVoid said:
Where I come from, a question which is recognised as having no clear answer is a meaningless question.

Your mileage may very.
Click to expand...
Where I come from a question with a clear answer is considered boring, or even non existant.
 
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TheDungen said:
Actually the orks are the biggest htreat of 40k, at least used to back when I played, when the nidz annaexed ork biomass the beings created from them joined the orks as soon as they ended up commining into contact with the whaagh field. I always loved that the most dangerous faction was the most comedic, that was so 40k, so bleak and sarcastic. I'm guessing they changed it since, because games workshop havent made a good decision since the 90s.
Click to expand...
Yeaaahh... No
Just No
Really Just No
 
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Voidlord said:
Yeaaahh... No
Just No
Really Just No
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Suit yourself ;)
When you get back from whatever is the name of that marty stu that suckerpunched a chaos god (or the entire age of sigmar thing, oh how the mighty have fallen) let me know.
 
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Ain't the Prethoryn supposed to be the extra-Dimensional invaders? One of them atleast. They look very demonic.
Also...obligatory MUGANI? HAK HAK HAK!
 
TheDungen said:
Suit yourself ;)
When you get back from whatever is the name of that marty stu that suckerpunched a chaos god (or the entire age of sigmar thing, oh how the mighty have fallen) let me know.
Click to expand...
I have played 40k for over a decade, and NEVER heard that Ork biomass stays Orky even when consumed.
In fact have you heard of a war called the Octarius War? No? Its a massive war between the Orks and Tyranids, that is just a meatgrinder, and its never mentions that bullshit that was mentioned.
 
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Voidlord said:
I have played 40k for over a decade, and NEVER heard that Ork biomass stays Orky even when consumed.
In fact have you heard of a war called the Octarius War? No? Its a massive war between the Orks and Tyranids, that is just a meatgrinder, and its never mentions that bullshit that was mentioned.
Click to expand...
Again not the place or the time to have this discussion there is as I said a massive thread on this on dakka.
And a decade ending now means you started in 2006, isn't that the year they rebooted the franchise? Or was that 2007? Anyway sounds like you started about the same time as I quit.
Let's just say there's a diffrence between Warhammer and Wardhammer.
 
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Haldan said:
Ain't the Prethoryn supposed to be the extra-Dimensional invaders? One of them atleast. They look very demonic.
Also...obligatory MUGANI? HAK HAK HAK!
Click to expand...
Those are the Unbidden, not the Scourge.
 
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The_Red_Star said:
Those are the Unbidden, not the Scourge.
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As said, "One of them at least". There might be several extra-Dimensional invaders, more than just the Unbidden.
 
TheDungen said:
They have promised to cater to ever sci-fi trope. And I give you the Vulcans from star trek who are pacifists who won't raise their hand even to defend themselves (hence the neck pinch) and won't supply weapons for federation vessels, nor serve as weapons officers. Even when one fires a phaser it's always set to stun.
Why? Because they have realised that going around killing people tends to foster more conflict not less. It's simply not logical.
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Well, there was an all Vulcan ship that served with distinction during the Dominion War, a Vulcan who resorted to gun running to supply the Maquis, and of course the tactical officer of the Voyager was a Vulcan.

Whilst pacifism is the logical option most of the time, they do resort to violence if there is no other logical course of action. And basically everyone in the UFP is pacifist to some degree, only fighting when necessary
 
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bel3338 said:
Well, there was an all Vulcan ship that served with distinction during the Dominion War, a Vulcan who resorted to gun running to supply the Maquis, and of course the tactical officer of the Voyager was a Vulcan.

Whilst pacifism is the logical option most of the time, they do resort to violence if there is no other logical course of action. And basically everyone in the UFP is pacifist to some degree, only fighting when necessary
Click to expand...

What the argument boiled down to was Naive people believing you NEVER had to use Violence, and Realists who acknowledged that diplomacy and talking was preferable, sometimes you have to fight because there is no other choice
 
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bel3338 said:
Well, there was an all Vulcan ship that served with distinction during the Dominion War, a Vulcan who resorted to gun running to supply the Maquis, and of course the tactical officer of the Voyager was a Vulcan.

Whilst pacifism is the logical option most of the time, they do resort to violence if there is no other logical course of action. And basically everyone in the UFP is pacifist to some degree, only fighting when necessary
Click to expand...
Yeah they did that when they started making the setting darker for DS9 I never really approved of it, it made the setting more generic. In universe wise some vulcans began abandoning their pacifism in those days but atleast as late as TNG when the romulans tries their coup on vulcan they say that the vulcans won't defend themselves because of their pacifism. The threat of this coup might actually be the reason that some vulcans start to stray.
But there have been extremists before, remember the vulcan assassin in the undiscovered country.
But as a whole they are pacifist.
 
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