Paradox Studio Thread

[AcidityLiquidity]

Known several people who play Paradox Interactive games and have been watching many more. Always wanted to dive in, but was afraid of the daunting size and time requirements. Well, I just noticed Stellaris has a massive discount on Steam, so I said "fuck it" and dived in. Wish me luck, lol.

Buying the base game is fine, but be sure to pirate all the DLC- check out creamapi

 

[Goodbye Horses]

You can't just tease us like that, man. Specifics!

All the late game high capacity colonies like ring worlds are useless because you can never fill them. The only way to really get your empire over the pop limit is to capture planets from other empires or buy slaves, but as I tend to play determined exterminators a lot it doesn't do me much good.
In my last game I had to build a dyson sphere and matter decompressor to get enough power and minerals, but even then there was a bottleneck on the alloys. I only had 10 colonies, including one ringworld section, and the only one fully developed was my capital, the rest were barely at half capacity.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

Oh, no wonder I've hit a ceiling then. I've been so confused as to why my ringworld won't fucking grow for like two hours now.

That means an effective bottleneck on fleet size as well then, since you can only really access large amounts of crystal, gas and motes from the on planet buildings that make them; and they need large pops to be available to build. Paradox drops the ball again it seems.

 

[Poop A Loop]

I haven't been able to play much but I have seen this mod recommended to make up for that shit design decision.

Steam Community :: Error

steamcommunity.com

 

[Solid Snek]

Buying the base game is fine, but be sure to pirate all the DLC- check out creamapi

Can confirm. I love Paradox and have spent more money on their shit than is reasonable, but if you're not "borrowing the DLC from a friend in Russia", you're doing it wrong.

 

[God of Nothing]

For Stellaris, I just want my slaves to be working their menial jobs and my master race of 200+ living Übermensch to do the bartering and selling. Seeing the vice versa makes me want to purge those filth we domesticated into eternal servitude.

 

[Snekposter]

For Stellaris, I just want my slaves to be working their menial jobs and my master race of 200+ living Übermensch to do the bartering and selling. Seeing the vice versa makes me want to purge those filth we domesticated into eternal servitude.

Every Stellaris Run in a Nutshell:

CLEANSE! PURGE! KIIIILLLL!

 

[God of Nothing]

Every Stellaris Run in a Nutshell:

CLEANSE! PURGE! KIIIILLLL!

God I want to but it gets boring fast. I like genetically engineering the aliens into perfect slaves.

 

[Cisna H. Scumale]

Welp, I haven't had too much time to play Stellaris 3.0 except one game playing a megacorp criminal heritage/subversive cult.

And man did they get fucked badly. Even with that 20% infiltration bonus, the whole espionage/first contact change ruined the token perk those empires could have: first dibs on branch office establishment in advanced empire capitals. Because now finding those planets require a long ass time of spy network establishment. And by the time you do manage to get branches up and running, it'll be long enough for the other megacorps to build commercial pacts to install their own branches.

That, and they nerfed the criminal branch building that negatively affects pop ethics attraction. Fuckin' bullshit.

 

[Mnutu]

Welp, I haven't had too much time to play Stellaris 3.0 except one game playing a megacorp criminal heritage/subversive cult.

And man did they get fucked badly. Even with that 20% infiltration bonus, the whole espionage/first contact change ruined the token perk those empires could have: first dibs on branch office establishment in advanced empire capitals. Because now finding those planets require a long ass time of spy network establishment. And by the time you do manage to get branches up and running, it'll be long enough for the other megacorps to build commercial pacts to install their own branches.

That, and they nerfed the criminal branch building that negatively affects pop ethics attraction. Fuckin' bullshit.

Paradox in general seems to have nerfed espionage in their games. CK3 intrigue was the most effective way to play until they rolled out the patch that makes it almost impossible to kidnap anyone. At least in my experience, with a well built Intrigue ruler it’s almost guaranteed that the scheme will be found out (which tanks success). I even tried it cheating and that fucker still gets discovered.

 

[Marshal Mannerheim]

the patch that makes it almost impossible to kidnap anyone

I don't play CK3 but that seemed like an overreaction to a bug which was:
• as a one or two province minor surrounded by hostile neighbours (the one people always used was the Jews of Axum) kidnap neighbouring rulers (Abyssinia, Egypt)
• demand religious conversion for release
• hey presto, Jews now control Egypt!

(edit - wrong vidya)

 

[HeyYou]

I don't play CK2 but that seemed like an overreaction to a bug which was:
• as a one or two province minor surrounded by hostile neighbours (the one people always used was the Jews of Axum) kidnap neighbouring rulers (Abyssinia, Egypt)
• demand religious conversion for release
• hey presto, Jews now control Egypt!

It was more that people would start wars, kidnap the enemy ruler (which automatically gives you 100% war score), gain territory, and rinse and repeat. Intrigue is still very potent, it's just that they specifically made it almost impossible to kidnap a ruler you're at war with.

 

[Mnutu]

It was more that people would start wars, kidnap the enemy ruler (which automatically gives you 100% war score), gain territory, and rinse and repeat. Intrigue is still very potent, it's just that they specifically made it almost impossible to kidnap a ruler you're at war with.

The cycle was;
Start a kidnap scheme against a ruler whose land you want and possess a claim on
Once the scheme actually starts, pause, declare war, play
In three days time, you kidnap the ruler and immediately win the war.
I’d be alright with nerfing that if they didn’t end up rendering kidnap overall kind of pointless. They adjusted the success/discovery chance for it. It’s ridiculous how quickly ANY kidnap scheme is uncovered. I have much better luck with murder than kidnapping.

 

[HeyYou]

The cycle was;
Start a kidnap scheme against a ruler whose land you want and possess a claim on
Once the scheme actually starts, pause, declare war, play
In three days time, you kidnap the ruler and immediately win the war.
I’d be alright with nerfing that if they didn’t end up rendering kidnap overall kind of pointless. They adjusted the success/discovery chance for it. It’s ridiculous how quickly ANY kidnap scheme is uncovered. I have much better luck with murder than kidnapping.

I agree, but they need to overhaul kidnap in general. I basically never use it because fabricating a hook is always more useful.

 

[jje100010001]

I honestly wonder if Paradox should have just released a Stellaris sequel instead of progressively changing so much about the original game over time.

 

[vulg]

I honestly wonder if Paradox should have just released a Stellaris sequel instead of progressively changing so much about the original game over time.

Paradox only releases a new game if they're interested in scamming you or if there's a radical change to the engine

Paradox's greatest asset (and liability, I guess) is their engine, I appreciate how they make it easier to mod with each new addition, especially since their base games are too simplistic and repetitive (for me atleast)

 

[Mnutu]

I agree, but they need to overhaul kidnap in general. I basically never use it because fabricating a hook is always more useful.

I guess it’s about situation; if you’re a vassal, intrigue is 100x more useful, but if you’re independent it’s kind of pointless. Even dealing with vassals as a lord is incredibly easy to manage without schemes. I just fall into a cycle of “Martial/Steward/Learning” depending on expansion, growth, or tech needs. I don’t think I’ve ever used Diplomacy, no real need for it unless France or Byzantium starts eye-balling my shit and I’m too small to be intimidating.

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

The Stellaris devs are flying by the seat of their pants worse than the average manga author. Every change just introduces new problems that need their own fixes which in turn create their own problems... Maybe you should decide these things, I don't know, before releasing the game? Imagine Doom suddenly patching in turn based combat, that's how bad some of these changes have been. But nobody notices because the game just has to look pretty and play itself for most people to be satisfied. Most players didn't even realize back when the AI was so terminally fucked that it stopped playing halfway through the game.

 

[Cisna H. Scumale]

The Stellaris devs are flying by the seat of their pants worse than the average manga author. Every change just introduces new problems that need their own fixes which in turn create their own problems... Maybe you should decide these things, I don't know, before releasing the game? Imagine Doom suddenly patching in turn based combat, that's how bad some of these changes have been. But nobody notices because the game just has to look pretty and play itself for most people to be satisfied. Most players didn't even realize back when the AI was so terminally fucked that it stopped playing halfway through the game.

The sad thing is that the 3.0 update was meant to address the endgame slowdown that was happening that makes even high-end PCs run the game at snail pace because of the game tracking 10,000s of pops. So all the devs did was fix a problem everyone hates with new problems everyone hates.

 

[Bobbobson]

Speaking of Paradox fucking up, Leviathan DLC for EU4 released today and it's probably the biggest shitshow of Paradox release I've seen in over 10 years of playing. It was developed by their new Spanish studio and man, did they fuck up:

-It added some new half-assed mechanics - ability to siphon development from subjects/enemies as a wargoal, monuments, some decisions to encourage tall play etc. People complained about them even before release and most of the videos made by content creators who got early access to the DLC featured them abusing the shit out of the mechanics.
-We got bizzare amount of dev stacking in the capital, abuse of the new CB given to Majahapit etc. It's not even exploits, just playing the game as intended. I've seen a screenshot of a guy having 105 dev in Beijing in 1445 just by taking dev from his tributaries as Ming. Even AI OPM natives have 40 dev for some reason.
-Some of the monuments are joke while other are extremely OP. Alhambra gives you 15% admin efficiency which basically means that any WC game in Europe will start with no CB against Granada.
-The amount of bugs and unfinished content led some people to unironically believe that Paradox released earlier build of the game.
-Pacific nations are missing some icons in the menu. There are literally placeholder assets and text used for sikhism. Mission trees are missing images.
-One of the newly added horde policies gives you a 100% missionary strength meaning you can convert every province within a month.
-Newly added native federations are unplayable as members keep joining and immediately leaving.
-Game can't properly calculate relative strength between two countries. The stronger the country is, the faster you gain favours with it while it should be the opposite.
-Game crashes when you mouse over certain elements when playing new Australian nations.
-New free patch broke the game. Diplomatic window doesn't work unless you have DLC.
-Despite free patch being called "Majapahit", the nation is basically unplayable without DLC. Majapahit has a nasty crisis that fucks you over. To prevent it you need to complete a mission which is locked behind a DLC. Crisis will occur even if you don't have Leviathan.
-And many more...

I am a Paradox whore and usually buy their DLC, but I'm sure glad I didn't buy this one. The new mechanics introduced seemed lame from the start but I was interested to try new content as I like playing outside Europe and still have some achievement missing for SEA nations who lacked unique ideas and mission trees before.