PDX Games IX: Western Pre-Turkic Empire

[Danubian Peoples]

Pics and more details
So I finally got that religion thing sorted out.. And maybe founded a Jewish republic of Yamnat too. So here are some annecdotes:
1. Becoming a republic was a slog. These pics were in fact taken right after I made the switch as well as formed Yamnat. You need 50 Civilization point whatevers in your capital, and those are really hard to come by as a tribe, considering that you usually get them from Oratory tech.
2. I built a bunch of cities. Peppered the western half of my country with 'em. And I made sure that the cities incentivized citizen pops. Now this was mostly a means to combat my crippling technology woes. See number 1 for why.
3. Religion. So like I said, converted to Judaism early on. This has been quite the boon, as the Jews have a much more diverse Pantheon consisting of some of your favorite Old Testament holy persons (Solomon, David, Abraham, etc.) than the Arabic pagan religion. Their effects are also sometimes just flat-out better.
5. People. They're weird in this game. They do a lot of things that CK2 people do (die of Cancer, join Factions, be all dynasty-y), but also some rather eccentric things. For instance heir isn't always of your family, and that's okay? Also you can adopt randoms into 'said family as you please? This is really weird. But also exciting I guess.

Genuinely considering buying the game with all DLC and playing Imperator after the free week,

[Bralia]

Whats a good Shared Burdens build for stellaris?

I'm a master of creating builds and doing very little with them. What kind of build are you looking for? RP-wise or mechanics-wise?

[Licana]

Whats a good Shared Burdens build for stellaris?

I used to use a Shared Burdens + Byzantine Bureaucracy build to make consumer goods costs a joke, but that doesn't work anymore. You could go with a high diplomacy build using the civic that gives extra envoys as there's a space UN resolution that prohibits the use of living standards other than shared burdens, utopian abundance, or chemical bliss. If you pass that, every other empire that doesn't have shared burdens is forced onto one of the two other, much more costly living standards. Then you can pass all of the condemnation resolutions to make these other empires suck if they keep their old living standards.

edit: something like this

[The Huskar Social Union]

Whats a good Shared Burdens build for stellaris?

I used to use a Shared Burdens + Byzantine Bureaucracy build to make consumer goods costs a joke, but that doesn't work anymore. You could go with a high diplomacy build using the civic that gives extra envoys as there's a space UN resolution that prohibits the use of living standards other than shared burdens, utopian abundance, or chemical bliss. If you pass that, every other empire that doesn't have shared burdens is forced onto one of the two other, much more costly living standards. Then you can pass all of the condemnation resolutions to make these other empires suck if they keep their old living standards.

edit: something like this

Thanks, thats an interesting one.

Whats a good Shared Burdens build for stellaris?

I'm a master of creating builds and doing very little with them. What kind of build are you looking for? RP-wise or mechanics-wise?

Either honestly, tho im leaning more towards mechanics this time around.

[Licana]

I'm a master of creating builds and doing very little with them. What kind of build are you looking for? RP-wise or mechanics-wise?

Either honestly, tho im leaning more towards mechanics this time around.

Mechanically I don't think shared burdens is all that great tbh, I think the cheesy diplo build I posted is probably the best way to leverage what Shared Burdens actually does in a way that benefits you (also it's thematically hilarious). You can still try a consumer goods-centric build using Shared Burden + Environmentalist civics and the Conservationist trait, but honestly consumer goods aren't really a problem unless you're running a lot of utopian abundance and if you're doing that then why pick up shared burdens in the first place? If you're going for something more thematic but still mechanically strong, here's a more militant space commie build.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Either honestly, tho im leaning more towards mechanics this time around.

Mechanically I don't think shared burdens is all that great tbh, I think the cheesy diplo build I posted is probably the best way to leverage what Shared Burdens actually does in a way that benefits you (also it's thematically hilarious). You can still try a consumer goods-centric build using Shared Burden + Environmentalist civics and the Conservationist trait, but honestly consumer goods aren't really a problem unless you're running a lot of utopian abundance and if you're doing that then why pick up shared burdens in the first place? If you're going for something more thematic but still mechanically strong, here's a more militant space commie build.

Cheers Li.

[Danubian Peoples]

Imperator post-game annectodes+questions and stuff
Now that I've wrapped up my Qataba game, I've decided that I want to buy Imperator. Sooner or later.

[Cisairse]

I very much enjoyed my first couple of hours with Imperator last night. I started as Rome, because I assumed it would be easy and have a lot of flavor to guide me through learning the mechanics.

It was lots of fun.

[Danubian Peoples]

I very much enjoyed my first couple of hours with Imperator last night. I started as Rome, because I assumed it would be easy and have a lot of flavor to guide me through learning the mechanics.

It was lots of fun.

What was it like? Tutorial was pretty confusing for me (learned about game mechanics a lot faster actually playing). And what are you planning to do. I'd reccomend Qataba if you like waiting decades to reform out of Tribal gov. Same is probably true for all other tribal countries.

[The Huskar Social Union]

So..... turns out i accidentally created the same empire twice (mostly) and the duplicate empire spawned into my current Shared Burden campaign

Im the Sinrath Aggregate, they are the Sinrath Solidarity. Im a "Remnants" origin, they are a "On the shoulder of Giants" origin. I thought i was saving over the other one but it just made another empire haha

[Cisairse]

I very much enjoyed my first couple of hours with Imperator last night. I started as Rome, because I assumed it would be easy and have a lot of flavor to guide me through learning the mechanics.

It was lots of fun.

What was it like? Tutorial was pretty confusing for me (learned about game mechanics a lot faster actually playing). And what are you planning to do. I'd reccomend Qataba if you like waiting decades to reform out of Tribal gov. Same is probably true for all other tribal countries.

I'm planning on just following the missions to slowly build up the Roman borders. I had a ton of food playing the political game, bribing senators, ensuring that loyalists were in key positions, gaming certain votes based on factions, etc.

Rome starts off hilariously overpowered compared to the southern Italic powers that are the targets of the first few missions, so the internal politicking is wayyyy more entertaining.

[Serrus]

as the devs can't get everything all at once, can they?

They absolutely could if Paradox would stop releasing games in a pre-alpha state. EU4's metascore probably would be ten points higher if they had waited six months and released 1.8 as 1.0.

What worries me is that Imperator's awful launch, rather than teaching them that they need to actually release games instead of pre-alpha tech demos, instead was so much of a loss financially (compared to CK2, EU4, and Stellaris at least) that they're going to rush to release a pre-alpha CK3 in order to get the revenue stream back up. Especially considering CK2 is now f2p.

I mean, clearly they have actually learned that lesson. Furthermore, if they had waited 6 months, someone in this thread would probably have wanted them to wait another 6, etc. etc. I'm not saying PDOX is perfect, I'm just saying that time isn't always the antidote, and games with a development cycle like this do eventually have to come out, or else we'd have a perfect game and a scant 5 minutes to play it before the sun explodes, so stuff will have to be temporarily left out. However, the issue with Imperator was most of the game being left out, which is clearly not the case here.

It would be ahistorical, yes, but you'd be going back so far in time in CK3 (presumably going back as far as the Charlemagne DLC?) that the theology of marriage would still be poorly developed.

I mean, if you can make your own religion, why not same-sex marriage in that religion?

If the After the End Fan Fork devs can do it, we can do it.

[Cisairse]

They absolutely could if Paradox would stop releasing games in a pre-alpha state. EU4's metascore probably would be ten points higher if they had waited six months and released 1.8 as 1.0.

What worries me is that Imperator's awful launch, rather than teaching them that they need to actually release games instead of pre-alpha tech demos, instead was so much of a loss financially (compared to CK2, EU4, and Stellaris at least) that they're going to rush to release a pre-alpha CK3 in order to get the revenue stream back up. Especially considering CK2 is now f2p.

I mean, clearly they have actually learned that lesson. Furthermore, if they had waited 6 months, someone in this thread would probably have wanted them to wait another 6, etc. etc. I'm not saying PDOX is perfect, I'm just saying that time isn't always the antidote, and games with a development cycle like this do eventually have to come out, or else we'd have a perfect game and a scant 5 minutes to play it before the sun explodes, so stuff will have to be temporarily left out. However, the issue with Imperator was most of the game being left out, which is clearly not the case here.

I mean, if you can make your own religion, why not same-sex marriage in that religion?

If the After the End Fan Fork devs can do it, we can do it.

Fair point. I also believe that Stellaris was good at launch, which many people disagree with.

But I also says that HoI4 is bad now and has always been bad, which many people disagree with.

So maybe I'm just a radical paradoxxer.

[United Muscovite Nations]

It would be ahistorical, yes, but you'd be going back so far in time in CK3 (presumably going back as far as the Charlemagne DLC?) that the theology of marriage would still be poorly developed.

I mean, if you can make your own religion, why not same-sex marriage in that religion?

That's what I mean. The theology of marriage circa Charlemagne was still very malleable and if you're doing an alt history run, why not?

[The Huskar Social Union]

I mean, if you can make your own religion, why not same-sex marriage in that religion?

That's what I mean. The theology of marriage circa Charlemagne was still very malleable and if you're doing an alt history run, why not?

*Looks at title*

So you're telling me there's a chance

[Genivaria]

Can we make a clergy that is all female and have lust promoted as a virtue?

[The Imperial Reach]

Can we make a clergy that is all female and have lust promoted as a virtue?

Zoroastrians actually lose piety for turning down the "I think [ X ] courtier fancies me..." event. Just go into a Random World game, set religions to historical, set religious traits to custom and give them Enatic Clains.

Presto!

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Can we make a clergy that is all female and have lust promoted as a virtue?

Zoroastrians actually lose piety for turning down the "I think [ X ] courtier fancies me..." event. Just go into a Random World game, set religions to historical, set religious traits to custom and give them Enatic Clains.

Presto!

Why would you ever turn down that event?

[The Huskar Social Union]

Zoroastrians actually lose piety for turning down the "I think [ X ] courtier fancies me..." event. Just go into a Random World game, set religions to historical, set religious traits to custom and give them Enatic Clains.

Presto!

Why would you ever turn down that event?

Roleplay reasons i would imagine. Its what i do with some characters on occasion. Others ill have bang anything that moves.

[Genivaria]

Zoroastrians actually lose piety for turning down the "I think [ X ] courtier fancies me..." event. Just go into a Random World game, set religions to historical, set religious traits to custom and give them Enatic Clains.

Presto!

Why would you ever turn down that event?

I find that playing super virtuous Christian characters does a lot to help stability when you combine that with the monastic order.

[Cisairse]

Why would you ever turn down that event?

Roleplay reasons i would imagine. Its what i do with some characters on occasion. Others ill have bang anything that moves.

brother

spouse opinion is temporary

members of dynasty are forever

[The Imperial Reach]

Zoroastrians actually lose piety for turning down the "I think [ X ] courtier fancies me..." event. Just go into a Random World game, set religions to historical, set religious traits to custom and give them Enatic Clains.

Presto!

Why would you ever turn down that event?

Plenty of reasons.

You don't want your wife to find out and get pissed, the girl in question has shit traits/is too old/just doesn't interest you, you're trying to get a Saint character, you have plenty of children and don't need any more, you need piety and every little bit counts, it's out-of-character and you want to RP, you're trying to stay on a character's good side and want to avoid an opinion hit for adultery, etc.

[The Imperial Reach]

Why would you ever turn down that event?

I find that playing super virtuous Christian characters does a lot to help stability when you combine that with the monastic order.

^This.

There are benefits to trying to be as Saintly as possible, even without a bloodline.

[The Huskar Social Union]

I have an army of Sentinels guarding one of my colonies after completing an archaeological project, it put the garrison strength up to 2.5k. Sweeeeet

Roleplay reasons i would imagine. Its what i do with some characters on occasion. Others ill have bang anything that moves.

brother

spouse opinion is temporary

members of dynasty are forever

Bastards causing issues are forever too.

[The Huskar Social Union]

There is also a shield world with a bunch of fallen empire ships guarding it on my borders. I must have it in the future.