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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:
They could have gone out fighting against this new enemy that had appeared but then the writers would have had to decide if the asgard were more powerful than the Ori forces or not. This way they could get the sense of urgency without having to apply the worf effect to the asgard, I just hated the decision because they could have kept them out of the fight be other means, oh and that it was coupled with that the storylines were getting worse in general, the only thing I liked about the late seasons were Vala.
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Well that I agree with, there were several lost opportunities and bad storylines, especially near the end.
 
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Wait is the first screenshot from the star wars Legeacy Series ( used to be expanded universe ? ) is that the waster bunny for the Yuuzhan Vong War who are known to have Organic ships and hated Technology ?. If so that is pretty sweet as that was my favorite series to read.. In the now Legacy Series for Star wars expanded universe
 
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Demonsul said:
Grimdark mod: Each LGC increases the chance of another LGC rather than reducing it.
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Grimdark 2: Everything increases the chance of a LGC.
 
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TheDungen said:
I disagree a peaceful empiremay find other means to protect them while they achieve victory by other means. There should aways be alternative solutions to fighting.
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What "other means to protect them" do you have in mind? Maybe some kind of force field that seals of sections of space on a galactic scale? Sort of like what was done to the Primes in Pandora's Star, but a larger scale. I think that would assume an unlikely degree of technological superiority. Changing the nature of the apocalyptic threat probably also fall into the 'we don't have the technology' category. Diplomacy doesn't work very well when they eat your diplomats.

Overall, I don't see why "There should always be alternative solutions to fighting." The game presents situations where fighting is not a solution (see early-game defiance of Fallen Empires), so I don't see a problem with a situation where fighting is the only solution. Even on earth, when facing threats from humans who are a lot more amenable to reason than hell-dimension invaders, it is very occasionally the case that your only options are to fight or die.
 
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Ifreann said:
Grimdark 2: Everything increases the chance of a LGC.
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How about:

You take your first steps into space, discovering (slowly ) the dark remains of a thousand galactic empires snuffed out like candles millennia before
You learn how they lived and the conflicts among them
You slowly learn what disaster exterminated all intelligent life in the galaxy
Then the disaster starts to happen to you......
 
TheDungen said:
I disagree a peaceful empiremay find other means to protect them while they achieve victory by other means. There should aways be alternative solutions to fighting.
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For a pacifist, the alternative isn't not fighting... it's, after making a reasonable good-faith effort to try and reason with the invaders, spending all that goodwill built up over the years to unite the as much of the galaxy as is willing to listen to reason into a single, coordinated powerhouse that, working in unity, can respond to the threat with both power and agility that a singular blob of the same size, even a fanatic militarist one, couldn't possibly hope to match.
 
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How many of these crises will be in the game at launch? Also, how long on average does it take for the Scourge to show up? Do we always get a couple of centuries to build up, or could they arrive as early as 2300?
 
i'm wondering if the extragalactic invasion is always "biological". Could be possible something like the Sith Empire from the old republic?. Big nasty empire hiding in the shadows outside the galaxy waiting for a way to invade :eek:
 
EntropyAvatar said:
Overall, I don't see why "There should always be alternative solutions to fighting." The game presents situations where fighting is not a solution (see early-game defiance of Fallen Empires), so I don't see a problem with a situation where fighting is the only solution. Even on earth, when facing threats from humans who are a lot more amenable to reason than hell-dimension invaders, it is very occasionally the case that your only options are to fight or die.
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I agree, but only, and I say this very vehemently, only if there are endgame crises that cannot be solved through force. Handling the Fallen Empires doesn't count in my opinion, because it only applies to the early game, since they've made it pretty clear you can eventually be as strong, if not stronger, than them. They're basically just normal empires that have had a few hundred years head start. Crisis empires, on the other hand, like these Prethoryn or the Unbidden the mentioned a while back, are intended to be much stronger, and can only be handled in specific ways.

What if there was some sort of invading empire - something they've already mentioned - that would keep coming and coming with no sign of stopping until the entire galaxy was conquered and destroyed, with a seemingly infinite number of ship at their disposal. The trick is that, while a Militaristic empire would be invaluable when it came to keeping them at bay, the only long term solution would be for a Pacifist, Xenophile, or Spiritualist empire to talk some sense into the invaders and convince them to stop. Similarly, there could a galactic plague only solvable through science (for the Materialists out there), or some kind of ritual that had to be performed on several, far flung planets to prevent reality from ending (for the Spiritualists and Xenophiles; or Militarists if you want to take the planets by force).

There shouldn't always be an alternative solution to fighting, but that doesn't mean it has to be the only option, or that there can't be times when it's not a viable option. What's the point of playing a Pacifistic empire if you're always getting the short end of the stick?
 
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