Stellaris Dev Diary #382 - The Next Step in Evolution

[Ajacoba]

So are we gonna consider murderous xenophobe empires a crisis when they conquer half the galaxy? Are we gonna get a special event for doing that?

That special event is when you're manually declared a crisis by the galactic community and suddenly find yourself in total war with literally everyone

 

[LystAP]

Any special interaction between the Behemoth crisis with the Here be Dragons origin? Considering the lore behind that origin being you have a dragon leviathan that explicitly sought your civilization out to take grow and take care of its young?

 

[Spaceman78]

What is this? Is the Pokemon; Stellaris edition? In a good way.

 

[BaliorPal]

All civics are useful though
It just entirely depends on your current build and playstyle

My civic tier list – in some places I mention personal RP preferences, and I might be wrong about a few picks. It’s possible that a couple civics I’ve called trash aren’t entirely trash after all.


Cutthroat Politics – Trash (20% isn't worth it)
Efficient Bureaucracy – Trash (-20% upkeep and minor edict bonuses aren’t worth taking)
Functional Architecture – Good civic
Mining Guilds – Good civic
Agrarian Idyll – Not terrible, but not worth considering in my opinion
Aristocratic Elite – Trash
Beacon of Liberty – Trash
Citizen Service – Not complete trash, but compared to the corporate equivalent, still trash
Corvée System – Trash
Distinguished Admiralty – Strong civic
Environmentalist – Trash
Exalted Priesthood – Decent
Feudal Society – Fun, but not very useful—might have some abuse potential like when the leader system was reworked
Free Haven – Trash
Idealistic Foundation – Trash
Imperial Cult – Good, but I don’t play Spiritualists
Meritocracy – Very good
Nationalistic Zeal – Trash
Parliamentary System – OP for the early faction reform abuse into oligarchy
Philosopher King – Trash
Police State – Trash
Shadow Council – Weak in its current state, but I hope it gets reworked into something more interesting, like a second shadow council mechanic
Slaver Guilds – Not bad, but I avoid slavery for RP reasons
Technocracy – Decent, but it used to be better before the nerf
Warrior Culture – Bad, but not outright trash
Ascensionists – Bad
Catalytic Processing – Very good
Masterful Crafters – Straight up OP
Pleasure Seekers – Trash
Pompous Purists – Could’ve been better; for now, just okay
Byzantine Bureaucracy – Slightly better than trash
Merchant Guilds – OP for trade builds
Shared Burdens – Average, could’ve been better
Selective Kinship – Haven’t played it due to RP reasons, can’t judge
Diplomatic Corps – Decent
Death Cult – Different playstyle, but good
Memorialists – Trash
Reanimators – Fun
Scavengers – Trash unless you’re playing on low difficulty and rushing early wars
Mutagenic Spas – Trash
Relentless Industrialists – Very good
Heroic Past – Trash
Vaults of Knowledge – Average
Crusader Spirit – Trash
Dimensional Worship – Average
Hyperspace Specialization – Average, thanks to the science bonus
Dark Consortium – Slightly above average
Genesis Guides – Might have some abuse potential, otherwise mid or trash; haven’t played it
Astrometeorology – Trash
Inward Perfection – Fun, but a different kind of gameplay
Idyllic Bloom – Average, probably needs a buff
Fanatic Purifiers and Barbaric Despoilers – No need to explain, doesn’t fit my RP
Anglers – Fun and seemingly strong
Oppressive Autocracy – Haven’t played it due to RP
Sovereign Guardianship – Good
Natural Design – Trash compared to its Hive counterpart
Storm Devotion – Trash
Planetscapers – Very good
Galactic Curators – Fun, but not super impactful
Beastmasters – Haven’t played it due to RP reasons

 

[Kataclyszm]

That special event is when you're manually declared a crisis by the galactic community and suddenly find yourself in total war with literally everyone

And does this actually ever happen? (Actual question because I think the Nemesis DLC sucks and don't have it)

But this also gets into the question of "Why is this hyper-murderous map-painter not given the Crisis treatment but the robots turtled in their territory, with 40 of their own pops in the lathe, is?"

 

[Sarawen]

I guess...
Elder Voidspawn？

 

[Ajacoba]

And does this actually ever happen? (Actual question because I think the Nemesis DLC sucks and don't have it)

But this also gets into the question of "Why is this hyper-murderous map-painter not given the Crisis treatment but the robots turtled in their territory, with 40 of their own pops in the lathe, is?"

Because genociders get massive buffs from their civics and are, in theory, only a threat to their direct neighbors

They need no fancy mechanic to motivate nor reward them, they literally start with those

Meanwhile the robots in your scenario are causing galaxy wide mayhem with their science experiments and in addition will cause even more mayhem once they finish working on whatever they are working on

The community declaration happens regularly btw, in fact it's a major risk of playing the "proper" crisis as well, the community might declare you a crisis before you are ready to receive them

 

[Kataclyszm]

Because genociders get massive buffs from their civics and are, in theory, only a threat to their direct neighbors

You can say 'only a threat to their direct neighbors' to the Prethoryn, too.

Also you're vastly overstating the galaxy-wide mayhem. Unless you roll into Superlight, the 'mayhem' is inconsequential and the 'time warp' is still less dangerous than the 'not even a purifier, just aggressive hegemonic imperialist'.

And while it's good to hear the community 'regularly crisis-declares', it's upsetting that they even needed that feature rather than just giving Mutual Threats some actual teeth. "All events, no emergence" seems to be a major theme lately.

 

[HFY]

Randy the Ravenous


... oh.

This is the professional wrestling Ascension.

Can we do a heel-face turn and become the Crisistodian?

 

[Miuramir]

- Prepare Invasion is exclusive to this civic, and for a cost of pops, will let you strike from the shadows at the beginning of a war, flipping starbases in systems close to you and even spawning a handful of armies on some planets in an attempt to conquer them by surprise. The total number of systems affected by this effect depends on how many pops you choose to sacrifice when preparing the operation with a maximum of 2000 pops of the victim’s species for 50% of its controlled systems.

Can we get a version of this for plantoids with the Invasive Species trait? I mean, it's right there in the name, and makes logical sense. "Secret Seedbeds", perhaps? Perhaps related to some of the mechanics used for Fruitful Partnership.

 

[DragonJXD]

Will farmer bonuses from the crisis path apply to anglers? I hope behemoths like seafood.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

And does this actually ever happen? (Actual question because I think the Nemesis DLC sucks and don't have it)

But this also gets into the question of "Why is this hyper-murderous map-painter not given the Crisis treatment but the robots turtled in their territory, with 40 of their own pops in the lathe, is?"

Isn't the solution to make the AI better at threat evaluation and make the galcom more likely to declare a crisis war against genocidal empires that have grown too big? Maybe add a modifier to voting weights based on the percentage of galcom members the genocidal empires in question has wiped out?

This seems more like an issue with the AI to me.

 

[ValinShadow]

Nice Star Wars EU reference with the Killik

 

[khazit66]

Huh.
So we can Yeerk now.

 

[15JTaylor]

Some of my thoughts:

Very disappointed there aren't civics buffing biological ships for normal empires. I mean, there's beastmaster for space fauna, so I don't understand why there aren't civics buffing biological ships specifically. Very disappointed. Maybe I'll make a mod for it.

Most of the civics are meh. Aside from the hive mind civics, none of them really fit the biological narrative imo which is dissapointing.

The behemoth fury does look fun. But since my default playstyle is some form of fanatic xenophile, and the crisis appears to be more in your face evil than cosmogenesis, it won't be my default crisis path which is dissapointing. The galactic community declaring war on you also means a diplomatic playstyle is very discouraged with this. So, cosmogenesis is still the default crisis pick for me.

Hive pops not being purged is fun. I just hope this means you could in theory, conquer a devouring swarm, then release their planets back as a normal hive mind. But I doubt the devs went that far with it.

 

[Nyrael]

But this also gets into the question of "Why is this hyper-murderous map-painter not given the Crisis treatment but the robots turtled in their territory, with 40 of their own pops in the lathe, is?"

As someone who has finished a campaign with a "Benevolent Cosmogenesis" (never buitt a Lathe, only triggered one Thesis), I can assure you that such a Cosmogenesis Empire is not going to be hated and treated as a Crisis. There is an opinion penalty, but not so hard that you won't be universally loved. Nobody ever suspected how much destruction I would cause with that strange ship.

The Hyper Murderous Map Painters CAN be declared a Crises (if you own the Nemesis DLC which adds the anti-crisis mechanisms), and can find themselves in Total War against the entire Galaxy that also gets buffs while fighting you (while the Custodian or Emperor might have a nice no-maintenance fleet) even if the empire in question doesn't take the Nemesis trait.

 

[indalecio248]

For the Smuggle Population espionage operation, can you completely depopopulate a planet via this?

 

[zombiezome1444]

Would love for a little more details on how keeping hivemind pops in your empire works, since this seems like a big buff for individualists since we can't keep their pops without being jerks about it. I don't want to turn my neighbors into food or violently birth new beings from them, but the alternative is giving up the resource which seems to be a problem individualists no longer have.

Also, is there a backtrack of story where hive mind pops, even disloyal ones, need to be within the presence of the hive to survive?

 

[Kataclyszm]

Isn't the solution to make the AI better at threat evaluation and make the galcom more likely to declare a crisis war against genocidal empires that have grown too big? Maybe add a modifier to voting weights based on the percentage of galcom members the genocidal empires in question has wiped out?

This seems more like an issue with the AI to me.

Yes. It is. Hell, I'd say for those of us who don't have Nemesis the galaxy should be able to reliably unify against genocidals with or without a fancy crisis resolution. (Seriously: the custom Devouring Swarm I force spawn always ends up eating like 1/3rd of the galaxy if I the player don't stomp it early with Supremacy traditions).

My argument is that instead of forcing a solution through events and DLC like the dev team seems hell-bent on doing, they should fix their god-damn AI. Stop with the bandaids, I'm so sick of them.

As someone who has finished a campaign with a "Benevolent Cosmogenesis" (never buitt a Lathe, only triggered one Thesis), I can assure you that such a Cosmogenesis Empire is not going to be hated and treated as a Crisis. There is an opinion penalty, but not so hard that you won't be universally loved. Nobody ever suspected how much destruction I would cause with that strange ship.

The Hyper Murderous Map Painters CAN be declared a Crises (if you own the Nemesis DLC which adds the anti-crisis mechanisms), and can find themselves in Total War against the entire Galaxy that also gets buffs while fighting you (while the Custodian or Emperor might have a nice no-maintenance fleet) even if the empire in question doesn't take the Nemesis trait.

So then, WHY is Cosmogenesis a 'crisis path' in the first place if they're objectively less hazardous and less loathesome to the galaxy than John MapPainter? It can't be both ways. I half expect the next 'crisis path' after that weird infernals thing to be "Behold, we are the dangerous empire who sneezes without covering our mouths! Oogabooga, tremble before us!"

 

[Critical Ethics]

So are we gonna consider murderous xenophobe empires a crisis when they conquer half the galaxy? Are we gonna get a special event for doing that?

There's no good justification for this. People have tried with better arguments than 'well what if ALL of your stuff is around those stars?!'

So again, why aren't regular murderous empires also considered 'crises'? The argument falls apart there.

You or the AI can declare all these a crisis via the galactic community, yes.

I'm curious what you think game AI is? It's mainly a bunch of weighted if/then statements. "IF an empire takes the blow up the galaxy perk AND you're in the galactic commmunity THEN (100% chance) flag them as the crisis" is "fixing the AI".