Paradox Games

Oh, the first two I encountered both had it (and were the only ones in my empire that game), so I just assumed they all did and never bothered to check again.

You use word hate a lot .-.

Anyhoo, all Fallen Empires will probably get worse once they add the "Fallen Empire starts behaving like regular empire" end game crisis that is apparently planned or something?

If you enlighten things early enough, they become vassals right out the gate. Once a species has been a vassal for a while, you can annex them. How that works out depends a lot on what their personality is like, Integrating xenophobes into your empire is a nightmare. The "alien overlords" malus is just obnoxiously enormous.

Also, for hilarity: If you start the game with negative total gene traits, you can spend that surplus once you get genetic engineering. I used this to start with venerable + sedentary + nonadaptive + slow breeder and slap on intelligent as soon as I got splicing. Arguably, the best build would be to just start the game with 4 negative traits you don't mind, but that would require me to start the game with leaders that are mortal, and.. just no.

edited 27th May '16 10:13:38 AM by Izeinsummer

...How is that more helpful than just choosing less penalties and starting with Intelligent?

Oh, and for the record, Spiritualist Fallen Empires also dislike it when you colonize any tomb world. It's not just the clearly marked Holy Worlds.

edited 27th May '16 10:16:19 AM by Clarste

I do?

Well, that's something, but it's fairly obscure, since unless you find and uplift presapients who can colonize Tomb Worlds, you can only do it with robots.

Time to test how mad they get, since I have a size 25 Tomb World and available Synthetics.

edited 27th May '16 10:22:30 AM by Balmung

You are limited to four traits total starting out. Genetic engineering will not let you add disadvantages, but is also *not* limited to four traits total. It is limited simply to coherence (no being both strong and weak and so on ) and a total points limit.

So if you wanted, you could start with something like Slow breeder / non adaptive / sedentary / solitary giving you 6 unused points. Genetic engineering adds one, so as soon as you get it, you could now buy 7 points worth of traits (that do not conflict with the malus) such as Very Strong + Intelligent + enduring.. or Venerable + intelligent + engineers, or whatever. But of course, genetic engineering cannot be relied on to show up early, so this would kind of hurt in the early game.

Not very mad. It had a modifier of -50 for one tomb world, last I checked.

Interesting Fallen Empire fact - it is, at least in theory, possible to research and use AI without ever getting DOWed by Keepers of Knowledge (Fanatic Materialist Fallen Empires). The trick is that, even though legal AI produces a -200 relations hit, Fallen Empires will not declare war above -75 relations. While Xenophile diplomacy bonuses do not apply to non-Xenophile Fallen Empires, the same ethos bonus does, as does Charismatic, which can produce a combined total +35 base relations. Add an Embassy to push it up to +135 total, and even with the AI penalty, you can sit at -65, which is above the wardec threshold.

Is there any reason, beyond roleplaying, to not spend all your Ethos points at the start?

edited 27th May '16 9:09:29 PM by Rationalinsanity

You can do that?

Ugh, I'm tempted to buy Stellaris to have something to play, but I'm going to have plenty of time to play it in like a week and Dark Souls 3 will occupy all the time I'm not working anyway XD

So I think I've just discovered a bug: the endgame crisis enemies, for whatever reason, seem to get "stuck" when they capture a system without destroying the space stations in it first, because that causes the stations to go neutral, which prevents them from attacking it, even though their AI keeps trying to do that.

You only need one Ethos, though the game warns you if you don't spend all your points.

The ethos all confer some advantage or another, however, so not spending all the points you have is ill advised mechanically. So, really, roleplay is the only reason.

Being neutral on all axes means no one hates you though (except xenophobe).

On the other hand, what makes a species turn neutral ... Lust for gold? Power? Or were they just born with hearts full of neutrality?

Started a game as a race of Xenophobic, Collectivist, Fanatic Materialist space foxes (with French names, just because). I think I'm the bad guys this time - I've engaged in a first contact war with BOTH of my neighbors (in my defense, empires start far too clustered), the second of which resulted in me taking some even more xenophobic bird people's colony on a size 21 world of my primary type, then immediately enslaved their POPs to make them shut up about how much they hate me until I can settle their world with space foxes and purge their filthy xeno asses.

My end goal is for space to be populated with two things, my space foxes, and my synthetics. If it's not one of those two things, it will be purged.

Your synthetics probably won't be happy about all the genocide and slavery.

Since the synthetics would also be xenophobes and collectivists, I'd think that they'd be as indifferent to the suffering of random aliens as my native POPs. Or would I have needed fanatic collectivism for them to absolutely not care about purges?

Of course, I could pursue more roundabout means of xeno removal, such as exploiting a crisis when it comes and simply letting the Unbidden/Praethorians eat them all.

Still, if my POPs are going to be mad about xenos dying, this could be trickier. Still, I intend to make it work somehow.

edited 28th May '16 2:40:15 AM by Balmung

Why would I enlighten primitives with years of work, observation and energy, when I can enlighten them with my armies instead?

Your Foxes sound like they should be Fanatic Xenophobes instead.

That is currently a problem, yes. Stellar shock just isn't really any worse to deal with than he conquest malus the more peaceful methods of taking a world saddles you with.

I don't suppose there's an option to go Goa'uld, is there?

Not yet, no. That would require a significant mod/expansion. You can at least enslave primitives though.