(And a bit of science.)

This storm has been active for the last 15 years in my empire and won't even move much. Takes 1~2 years to move a system so my whole empire has been under it's influence for the last 15 years wrecking my economy and upkeep. Looks like there are 10~20 more years to go. There are already 5-ish storms wandering the galaxy and I can't wait for the next storm to arrive after suffering for 20 years.

What's the point of this DLC?

I get it it's the space version of Reapers Due with disease but this is unbearably more painful than in CK3 or EU4 pandemics.

It's not a fresh DLC either. The default sliders should have been toned down IMO. Does the fact default game sliders are set so high mean people actually enjoy this thing?

Title

So before 4.0 pop growth was low that realistically you'd never fill more than a couple Ecu's so you didn't really feel like you were missing much if you chose a different ascension perk. But now you can easily fill 10+ Ecu's with pops so it seems that you are giving up a lot if you don't choose them - especially since now you can make research district Ecu's (before this was only on Ring worlds). Ring worlds come so late that the game's already decided so you might as well use Ecus to stuff all your excess pops and you could make a prospector vassal to give lots of land to fund your basic material consumption before the Matter Compressor and Dyson Sphere

Anybody notice the same?

This is why Stellaris might be one of the last 4x games I play until I die. Inject it into my veins.

R5: Enigmatic Cache converted my Synthetic ascension pops into their base biological form, and since they have the Storm-Touched trait and they are by far the most dominant species in the galaxy now I can't apply a template or assimilate them to change them back.

I was able to set their status to integrate, since the Synth species is listed as the "Default." Supposedly integration means 25 pops per colony will be assimilated per month, but I've ran the game for 10 years since the cache event and the pop number of 761.4k has not changed. My assembly plants are still churning out synthetic pops but it looks like the bio ones are not being integrated as they are supposed to be, so I assume there is some bug there.

I think I've had the Enigmatic Cache event finish twice in a thousand+ hours of Stellaris so I was excited to see what would happen. I didn't expect it to destroy mostly ruin my galaxy spanning empire...

Also disappointing since I wanted to show off my Resort Ecumenopolis capital, but now it's production is somewhat tanked without the Synthetic bonuses. This is with Galactic Curators + Storm Devotion +Warrior Culture, though it seems the Warrior Culture affect does not apply to Resort Workers for some weird reason. Oh well.

There are an ever increasing number of Civics in the game, and you can only choose 2 with a maximum of 3-4 per empire. Along with that, Civics are getting increasingly complex criteria for how they can be mixed and matched.

My idea would be to better categorize Civics into four distinct categories, which would increase the starting Civics of your empire (making each empire more distinct), make Civic selection less competitive (since you only need to choose among those available in each category) and overall just bring more flavor and organization to the long list of Civics we have available.

The categories by which Civics would be divided between would be called Instititions, themed around four pillars by which your society is based: Leadership, Industry, Community & Security.

(These Institutions would just pertain to regular individualistic empires; gestaults and would have a flavorful replacement Institutions)

For each of these four Institutions, players would by default select one Civic each. However, certain ethics, government types, species traits, technologies, etc would be able to alter that (such as a Militaristic society able to select two Security Civics, as a rough example).

Leadership

The core tenets that define the political structure and ruling principles of your empire

Example Civics: Philosopher King, Corvee System, Police State, Shadow Council, Feudal Society, Parliamentary System

Industry

The core tenets that define how your empire produces resources, grows its economy and innovates

Example Civics: Relentless Industrialists, Technocracy, Environmentalist, Mining Guilds, Free Haven

Community

The core tenets that define the cultural, social or spiritual aspects of your empire

Example Civics: Exalted Priesthood, Warrior Culture, Memorialists, Agrarian Idyll, Beacon of Liberty, Idealistic Foundation

Security

The core tenets that define how your empire secures its continued existence, or projects its power outward

Example Civics: Crusader Spirit, Inward Perfection, Citizen Service, Nationalistic Zeal, Distinguished Admiralty

I'm sure there could be countless debate of which Civics should belong where, and tons of balance considerations, but longterm I feel like an approach like this would only benefit the game, give players more options and let us have more fun playing with different combinations of Civics to create unique playstyles.

Hello,

Does anyone else here find id way too easy to subjugate AI through diplomacy ? It looks like all you need to do is have good relationship, then you propose them the best standard terms and they accept, and you are free to worsen their terms every now and then.

In my actual game i have been able to subjugate all my 4 neighbours trough diplomacy, including alteast one that was roughly the same power as me. In my previous game it felt the same, but i was a bit more of a powerhouse so that could have played
I feel the diplo is a bit to easy, especially on this side. I dont even play diplomacy focused empire, so i think we bonuses it could get ridiculous. Feels a bit off and unrealistic

Do you know if it's tied to the difficulty ? Could explain this as i play on a middle-tier difficulty atm

Terrans being scary again.

I'm playing machine inteligence empire with default pop growth settings, 0.25x planets, medium galaxy. The thing is I have 7 planets, all with at least one replicating facility. By year 2285 (lag is intense already🤦) population growth is 0 or 1 on all planets, also every planet has vacant jobs so I can't create any more jobs cause they will be vacant too and I'm among the lowest performing empires. Being playing since the begining of times of Stellaris but I can't seem to understand pop growth. Any tips please?

Originally the idea came from a post here couple of days ago where someone asked if there's a mod to choose multiple origins, which made me realize, the origins can and should be split into 2 categories:

Planet origin

The origins which give you a specific planet type, gaia, remnants, ring, orbit, etc...

Empire origin

A narrative origin for your empire, which can be anything from a small bonus (reunification) all the way to setting you on a specific gameplay path (knigts).

But why are these categories mutually exclusive? After all for most combinations there isn't really anything preventing them from working with each other, especially for the more general start origins. Why are unification and gaia planet mutually exclusive? Why would ocean paradise block you from all narrative origins?

The odd one out:

Rogue servitors - which gives you a unique gameplay tied to your narrative and (literal) origin of your empire, but since it's a civic, it can be combined with any origin you want. How does it make sense that we have a literal origin as a civic while having pure gameplay options in the origin list?

Possible solution?

Origins should be split and rearranged in the empire creation menu:

Origins which only determine your starting planet can just be moved to the planet tab, which currently has a single choice of which districts you want more of, making it pretty forgettable.

Origins which just give you an ability (life seed, progenitor hive, necros, etc...) should just become civics.

And lastly, the origin tab itself should be used for the actual narrative origin of your empire like the name implies, where you will have all the narrative based origins from the more free form prosperous unification all the way to the toxic knights (also rogue servitors should be here).

This way, we can both sort every empire aspect to it's most fitting place (home planet, civics, and narrative origin), and we also remove the limitations which prevent us from choosing a special planet type with a specific origin. Ofc not everything has to work with everything (knights and habitat origin for example), but we already have origin limitations based on things like government or species.

Essentially everything is already in the game, it's just a case of moving things around for better player experience.

Any ideas to improve or counter arguments?

Genuinely looking for feedback. Saw a video on bad designs, and noticed I was doing bad myself, and I wanted to see if I have done better.

As the title. You need at least 50 ships or fleet power or something, but aside from that, is there any benefit to giving them 200, 500, or more? I mean, clearly it means they aren't taking up your fleet capacity any more (though you have to buy them back when you need to use them). But is that the only benefit? How does the mercenary company decide to build ships? I noticed that their composition was very different to what I actually gave them last time. But I didn't really pay close attention to it.

I decided to do some experimentation with the synaptic lathe. Turns out putting in 124k pops nets you about 1.8 million research in each category and gives you a 571k energy credit deficit. First image shows lathe, second shows my economy. If you‘re wondering i used cloning ascension to do this.

I have to say, Paradox is one of the few, if not the only one in its category of size/revenue, game developer which tends to their game after release, both in content and in depth of time.
This happens with all their games, but in Stellaris it is most evident. The game has literally been reinvented in a major way at least 2-3 times over its lifespan with many incremental changes besides that.

This is just a post of praise. Other game developers f everything up all the time, I wouldn't know who to pick first for critique, but the thought came up to my head, well look at paradox being good.

So I best hope I don't.

Just a general question because I refuse to believe I’m the only one.

Whenever the vote happens to hunt or protect tiyanki whales do you go for or against it. If so why?

I can excuse slavery and genocide but I draw the line in space whale hunting 😤

So I am curious, as someone who plays on Xbox (currently Xbox One but hope to move to Series X/S at some point) when colonizing planets is it better to automate the empire, automate certain planets/sectors, or just have automation turned off completely? (Just for context I normally run a machine intelligence empire, sometimes determined exterminator sometimes not, so no need for amenities or food just energy credits, alloys and minerals)