Since we are done for this game, I'd like to take the time to discuss a few things for our next iteration of DLP - Saturday.

I really liked the experience, and everyone was very friendly despite in-game rivalry. Thank you all for participating, I know that some might not have liked being killed so early (Rentar/Oment) or being back stabbed (sorry again Frank!), but overall the experience was enjoyable.

Speed: I really liked the current speed (normal). I know some people were talking about increasing it later on, and personally I'm not a big fan. I think the fact that we didn't take a break every 30 minutes in the 2nd session made a big difference in the pace of the game. I would suggest keeping that format for next game. Normal speed with a break once per hour perhaps?

Voice Chat: I think Skype worked quite well for the last two sessions, however there were a few kinks that I feel were annoying. I would suggest moving to Discord. Here's why:

• Overlay works with Stellaris: You can place an overlay of the voice chat you are currently in over your stellaris game. It shows who is talking and who is in the channel, which I think is awesome because sometimes I wasn't sure if it was Fen, Frank or Anarchy talking. The only person I never doubted was Palindrome
• The Notifications of discord are pretty good and easily noticeable. You get a nice little sound when someone is talking in a channel you are involved in and also a visual alert on the discord app for when you alt-tab. Plus, contrary to skype where you probably have a bunch of friends and/or old conversations, the channels and notifications are easy to spot with a quick glance while alt-tabbing.
• The voice channel is always available. No more problem of host d/c making the call drop.
• Selective Volume. You can mute or lower someone's output. Pretty useful.
• Separate Voice Channels. I think this is awesome for a diplo game with political maneuvering. Perhaps you wish to discuss a matter privately with your alliance member or simply entice another player to join you. Well, hop into your private alliance channel and discuss to your heart content without having to alt-tab every seconds to type into the private conversation that gets lost amidst the whole lot of old conversations you have or that you simply forgot to check while annihilating your enemy's fleets.
• Private Messages. Another great thing. While you can't do that with voice (or at least I don't think so), you can send player private messages via text. I don't know for you, but I have so many contacts in my skype that sometime I just didn't see a player's name and didn't realize he was talking to me.
• Separate text channels. We can make a text channel to discuss next week time or attendances. Another where to discuss during game. Another for each alliances. The possibilities are infinite.
• Usernames. Everyone can change their nicknames on a whim, making it easy to change our name for our DLP name to avoid confusion or even our Empire's name; whatever we choose.
• Push-To-Talk/Voice Detection: You can either decide to use push-to-talk, which can be interesting if we want to record the session (as Anarchy and I are doing) and talk to the viewers without disrupting the flow of conversation. Or you can keep the voice activated which has a threshold, which should reduces the ambient noise around everyone, hopefully.

So this is why I think Discord would be a good choice for future game. I know a new app might take a little bit of adaptation at first, but I think once everyone gets comfortable with it, discord would work well for Stellaris. I'm far from being comfortable with Discord yet, I just fiddled with it a bit earlier. Perhaps we could make a few pre-made channels for alliances and when players form alliances the server Admin just assign the Alliance #1 tag to those players, granting them access to the premade Alliance #1 voice and text channel (they can change the name once they are assigned to one if they want).



Mods: I think we'll have to talk mods. There are a few interesting one out there, however considering the Clarke Patch is supposed to get out at the end of May, I guess we could wait for Monday or Tuesday before discussing this topic. Fen made a few suggestions earlier in the thread (Mod Suggestions), something to keep in mind.


Session length: I think having a preset session length would be best. So far we've played something like 6-7 hours the first session - I think - and around 4 hours the second. Personally, I have the next 2 weeks where I can play for 5h+ and then I'm going to be restricted to 3h on Saturdays (if we keep the same starting time). Obviously, I'd like us to fit to that schedule, but I understand that everyone does not have my schedule . According to the survey Jon did at the start (Survey) the majority (33.3% were up for either 1 or 6 hours). I'd like to suggest the 3 hours compromise. While it's quite short, especially early game, I'd prefer less time/session but with more consistency than more time and having player dropping every week because they have other obligations, and their empire being picked up by stupid AI. I think Stellaris is best played with a bunch of players for MAXIMUM FUN, so yeah. Shorter session, more people.



If we do shorten the session length, people will have to be ready 15-20 minutes before game time so that we may start the game on time (especially for Game 2+ since the Hotjoin system is shit at the moment).



Also, if we keep up with speed normal, and a short session, we might want to split the session in two with a small pause after 1h30 or simply go straight through since it's not as demanding as playing 5h+ straight.


Players/AI: I really would like if we could get more players, and reduce the number of AI to 0 (except for FE). I think that would make things way more interesting early on, especially if we agree on some form of limited size alliance as well. I know a few people who play, and I think Jon mentioned he had a few friends in his list. I would suggest to everyone to perhaps scout their friends to see who might be interested in joining us? Think about it. A good 17 size galaxy with only players. The political game would be even better. If we can't get as many players, perhaps upping the difficulty of the AI would be best.



Alliances: We talked about restricting alliances size. I agree with this. The size of the Divine Salty Fed pretty much forced me to scramble and try to grab EVERYONE else that wasn't in either alliances to be able to oppose them. As such, I would suggest 4 players/alliance max. This would still allow federation but would reduce the amount of blobbing alliances we'd get. If we can get about 18 players/AIs, that's about 4-5 alliances minimum. I think this is would be pretty good. However, if we're playing with AI, I think 3 per alliance max would be best. No one really wants an AI into a Fed to be honest and I think most of us are probably going to bust the AI early on leading to a smaller number of empires to form alliances with.

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TLDR: Normal, Discord > Skype, 3H/session, +Mods, +Players, 3-4/alliances


Those are my thoughts so far. What says you?

 

So how would you guys rate this game? Worth buying?

 

Agree mostly with Basilisk's points, except the lack of AI. I think keep it to about 4 AI, pretty much.

Wanted to watch the end of last night but ended up falling asleep. For 13 hours. I just woke up.

 

I say we have 1 AI for every human player. I highly doubt we're going to get more people for the second round than we did the first, and have that amount of people stick around for multiple sessions. And, it feels pretty bad to get knocked out halfway into the first session because you happen to start in the wrong part of the galaxy.

 

I'd join any new multiplayer session. just sent me a steam text as a warning

 

That's why you use wormholes Hyperdrive's tactical use is impressive but on pure usability points wormholes win out every time.

As a side note, since next weekend I won't be distracted with Eurovision and you're making a new campaign I'd be happy to join you guys. I've got a Fanatic Spiritualist/Xenophobe build that I should try out in a MP game.

 

Mostly because @Yeagan was actually a rather good neighbour, so I was a bit reluctant to destroy him at first. Eventually I came to the conclusion it was unavoidable though.

 

We played for five hours this session - and bear in mind that we ended because we agreed to stop, and not because players had to leave this time.

If you want fixed session lengths, I wouldn't want to go for anything under four hours at least. Organising this many people into a game is too difficult to waste like that. Personally, I think it'd be quite nice to go for a fixed length - at least four hours - guaranteed, and then continue on as a bonus until someone wants to stop.

I'm not too keen to play with non-DLPers, but I'm neutral on the idea for the most part. The AI, on the other hand, I wouldn't want to see go too much, because of what Anarchy said.

I have no problems with your other suggestions. Don't you have to pay for a discord server, though?

 

I know that there already is one that's been made, from when I was browsing. Honestly, I think it's kind of odd that Alliances cost Influence, but Federations don't, considering their relative strengths. If anything either it probably should be the opposite, or Alliances shouldn't cost anything, or somewhere in between, logically.

Hmm, based upon the big + button on the left side, after clicking on it:
"Create: Create a new server and invite your friends. It's free!"

So, that shouldn't be an issue at all. Also handier than if I invited you to the main server I use, since while I have permissions to add/modify chat and voice channels and the like, I can't create user tags, which makes allocating private Alliance/Federation member channels something I would need the main Mod(s) to do.

 

The alliance influence cost is there to prevent the diplomatic builds from running away with the game thanks to allying with everyone even remotely well intentioned. For multiplayer games I could see it being reduced, because there's less emphasis on gaining opinion with human players.

 

I can see your point. My idea with having more Players and less AI was to put more emphasis on the alliance system, both official and non-official (non-aggression pledge/unofficial deals/etc.) which I think is always big fun for diplomatic game. However, you raise a good point that someone could be eliminated early if stuck in a position like Palindrome was.

Well, I'm only going to be able to do 4h for the next two weeks so my suggestion was quite selfish and I know it

I could get behind the whole 4h fixed and if everyone is available to keep going, we do. It would give everyone a chance to plan their day and it would avoid people perhaps feeling guilty of being the first to leave.

I can understand your reluctance.

Discord is free to use, which is awesome. Like I said, I tinkered a bit with one just to see if it could fit Stellaris.

What I had in mind (and feel free to correct me if it's less than efficient @Jon), was to make a couple of premade Alliances channels. When someone form an alliance in game, the Admin grants these players the appropriate alliance role.

Now, one option was to give the Alliance role the opportunity to change the role of people. So they could add or remove someone from their alliance without having to go through the Admin again. It raises the issue of trust, but I think everyone here is way more interested in having a good game than absolutely winning. If we include more players (strangers & what not) I'd probably be more at ease to keep the role management to a couple of admin only. It's not like joining an alliance is anonymous in-game, everyone sees the popup. If you want to play more of a cloak and dagger stuff, you'd have to use the private messaging with one of the alliance member until you can declare your intention to the rest of the galaxy.

Here's what it would look like: here

As for reducing the influence cost, I'm not sure I agree with that. It makes the early game a bit more insecure. Most won't want to spend their influence point into an alliance and so there's a lot more cloak and dagger stuff, people trading non-aggression pledge and all that instead of jumping into an alliance straight away. Which I think is fun and makes sense. So I would say no, I didn't see it as a problem last game and I don't really see it as a problem next game either.

Federation have their downsides too: You have no vote when the president declares war. You can't declare war if not the president. Basically, you're not busy using your influence to force other members of your federation to vote in the favour of your proposal, whereas in an alliance you are. Which is why I think it makes sense that Alliance costs influence and Federation don't.

 

"The AI between Anarchy, Frank and I was like the balloon waiting to burst. The very moment war was declared on this poor defenceless civilisation, the entire region exploded into a flurry of battle. Combatants scrambled to tear a chunk out of the so-far peaceful AI.My neighbour Frank, however, was swarmed by the AI and lost his entire military fleet in one fell swoop. It was at this point that the galaxy smelt blood in the water"

The Stellaris game was really fun, I'm glad I got to play. I do however, want to clarify a few things. First of all, I did actually have a decent fleet but I made a major mistake against the ai by Anarchy, when I first declared war on it, it was rated as inferior. They were not a poor defenseless civilization as Palindrome describes, the Pogonan Polity actually had some teeth. I was surprised then when they did have a larger fleet then I did and invaded my home system. I had an almost 2k fleet to their 2k fleet but what happened was I should have built more ships before attacking them but I was concerned with the ai aggressively bombarding my home world. So my first mistake was prematurely engaging, the second mistake was not using ftl when I could see the battle was going poorly. However, thru unfortunate bad timing I did get a phone call right at the engagement of that battle, and then subsequently did not pay enough attention to either the call or the game.

A third major mistake I made in that game in general was trusting Palindrome and possibly Basilisk as well, as soon I let Palindrome know my fleet was destroyed, she did end up telling me she would attack me but give me a little time to rebuild(how very thoughtful of her) . I then told Basilisk this information and he decided to almost immediately declare war on me and make me his vassal.

I'm not actually bitter about this, despite how I sound, I have learned you have to be careful in online games about what you tell potential opponents and in Palindromes defense, I did almost entirely block her off, so I can see why she wanted to eliminate me. I did promise open borders but again, how could trust me either not to close those at some point?

The game also would have gone much better for me if Merrill had been around as I was promised that I could join the collective but then it was only up to Basilisk and the other ais, and one of the ais in the collective was not too happy we had been rivals. With the collective's help, I think I could ensured the total obliteration of Anarchy.

I had one major goal that game and I made it very clear to my neighbors, which was of course, the utter destruction of Anarchy and all that he stands for. He was my closest neighbor and all diplomatic attempts to talk to him beyond initial star chart sharing had failed. I also wanted his systems, and he did prevent a decent amount of expansion. At this point, it became an obsession to destroy him. When questioned by one of my neighbors why, I responded "Because he existed". Sadly, my plans never came to fruition because of the events already described.

Ultimately, the collective did win and I was technically part of the collective as Basilisks vassal, aka the collective mascot or b**ch. I was basically the interstellar cheerleader for the collective but it was nice to be victorious over the dastardly Federation who a certain member of used insidious tactics such as orbital bombardment and researching dangerous techs to anger their fallen empire neighbors. Pride come before the fall they say, and in a way, the Federations blatant disrespect of their more powerful neighbors brought their doom.

On a final note, being a vassal is really not fun, I did have a 2k fleet at the end but you cannot colonize or declare war on someone without your overlords permission. Repeated attempts to ask my overlord for independence were rejected. I was going to rebel on my overlord in three years and most likely die in glorious combat. I will just say, in the future for multiplayer games, its almost certainly better to wipe out a player then just keep them as their vassal. At that point better to kill them and its really not enjoyable for the vassal player as they can't do hardly anything. At end game, I was running around destroying what little alien races I could fine crystalline entities, and preparing for my rebellion and subsequent destruction against my overlord, because that's literally ALL I could do.

Overall though, I had a immensely good experience and it was quite enjoyable. You folks seem pretty friendly and relaxing to play with. My downfall was mine and mine alone for the reasons I already listed. I would love to play next week and hopefully do a little better, I'm still fairly new to Stellaris. I think I will do better in future mp games, it was ultimately a learning experience after all! I got to feel the height of anticipation of joining the Collective and the low of being the only galactic serf empire!

 

Stellaris Dev Diary #34: Clarke Patch Details

So, it doesn't give real numbers on specific changes, but what it does list is quite appealing. To roughly summarize:
UI:
- Sector Management now also via Outliner (handy)
- Diplomatic and Combat notifications more detailed (meh)
- Galaxy-view Habitability tooltips include planet size (yay)

AI:
- "Greatly improved sector AI handling of pops, buildings, spaceports and mining stations." (!!!)
- Various AI improvements, including fleet management
- If a player drops(and the game isn't paused), the AI will limit itself for 10 years. No wars, changing sectors, ship disbanding, etc. (neat, I suppose)
- AI Aggressiveness setting during game setup

Empire Setup:
- Biography and Ruler Titles (eh-ish)

Balance:

• War score costs now scale to the size of your target, so you can take more planets from large empires but can't vassalize them in a single war.
• The ability to stack evasion on Corvettes was nerfed.
• Strike craft had their range substantially increased.
• Ethics were rebalanced to make Xenophile/Xenophobe stronger picks, among other changes.
• It is no longer necessary to control planets to demand them in war, but controlling planets that are set as wargoals are now worth more warscore.
• Technology cost is now increased both by number of planets owned and size of population, instead of just population. Accordingly, the tech increase cost from population was lowered."

Bug Fixes:

• Military Station maintenance is now correctly calculated (was far too high previously).
• Numerous fixes to events, including fixing up the Old Gods event chain.
• Fixed 'ghost' trade deal entries and trade deals silently failing when you traded above a certain percentage of your resource stockpiles.
• Democracies that don't allow slavery will no longer get the Slaver mandate.
• Difficulty settings are now available in multiplayer setup.

Well, looks pretty solid so far. With a Beta version of the update planned to drop before the end of the week, I wonder which mods, if any, we'll even want.

 

that pretty awesome. especially since I love using defence station. mines passive is really good against AI using cruiser/battleship. or well any1 using those I guess. Since mines can be dodge, but bigger ship dodge chance is much lower.

 

@Yeagan I would have taken out the Polovon Polity years before any of you guys touched it, but like I said in an earlier post, the Federation system sucks. I could not declare a war while a war was currently going on, and I was literally 30 seconds away from declaring war on that AI before Jon had an uprising and dragging us all into it as well, because of the Federation system. Somehow I was the one who ended up quashing it, mostly because the quicker it ended, the quicker I could go and take out the Polovon Polity, but by that point, too much time had passed and you guys went at it. Ultimately it was my mistake because I took over the AI to my left first, instead of taking out the one that was closer to you guys.

Also, your idea of what a decent fleet is funny, since if you declared war on me at any point, you would have gotten crushed. If it hadn't been for the two surprise wars by the Fallen Empires, I would have taken you out myself. That being said, they never did make it to me because they were too busy having a party on Jon's home planet, so my civ was completely intact at the end.

 

Looking at the Dev Diary I'm liking what they've got for the next patch. This should fix most of the major complaints about the game so far, and with the Asimov patch next month we should have a game that's interesting from start to finish, rather than just at the beginning and end.

 

I'm pretty excited about the war score changes, although I wish there was a bit more to it. If I have a 200k murder stack of planet crushing proportions and you have a fleet of run down Science Vessels, it should really be worth more than 20 war score. In a perfect world, it would also factor in the relative economies of the combatants somewhat. This wasn't meant to be a big balance patch though, so there's hope for future changes.

I'm managing my expectations when it comes to the AI. If all it does is fix pop shuffling, I'll be happy.

Curious about the Strike Craft buff, although the End of Battle facelift is probably going to make me cry after seeing PD effectiveness in stark relief.

edit:

 

My thumb was for that last quote section, and the second question therein, in particular.