PDX Games IX: Western Pre-Turkic Empire

[Lunas Legion]

I started up my first Stellaris game in quite a while and it's been a lot of fun so far. I started as a Fanatic Materialist/Militarist empire with the Mechanist origin and decided I'd go all in on tech rushing and becoming the most advanced empire in the galaxy. Overall that's actually gone pretty well, it's about 2370 now and I've long since taken Synthetic Ascension and mind uploaded my entire species to further spec into research and I've gotten almost every tech in the game now, even the ones from Gigastructures. I do border a Fanatic Spiritualist FE who abhors me for becoming a machine species but thus far I've managed to avoid them declaring war on me and I'm at about 70k fleet power and still rapidly increasing that number so in another decade or two I should be ready to knock them out, especially if I build a Planetcraft or two to accompany my main fleets.

The big worry though is Aeternum, I explored the galactic core and found them and oh boy they're scary. Even in their fallen state they have millions of fleet power. I want to eventually conquer their Birch World but that is going to be an incredibly difficult war.

Aeternum?

[Washington Resistance Army]

I started up my first Stellaris game in quite a while and it's been a lot of fun so far. I started as a Fanatic Materialist/Militarist empire with the Mechanist origin and decided I'd go all in on tech rushing and becoming the most advanced empire in the galaxy. Overall that's actually gone pretty well, it's about 2370 now and I've long since taken Synthetic Ascension and mind uploaded my entire species to further spec into research and I've gotten almost every tech in the game now, even the ones from Gigastructures. I do border a Fanatic Spiritualist FE who abhors me for becoming a machine species but thus far I've managed to avoid them declaring war on me and I'm at about 70k fleet power and still rapidly increasing that number so in another decade or two I should be ready to knock them out, especially if I build a Planetcraft or two to accompany my main fleets.

The big worry though is Aeternum, I explored the galactic core and found them and oh boy they're scary. Even in their fallen state they have millions of fleet power. I want to eventually conquer their Birch World but that is going to be an incredibly difficult war.

Aeternum?

Aeternum is a precursor empire that can rarely spawn in games when you have Gigastructures enabled. Their civilization is millions of years old and controls the galactic core, specifically the supermassive blackhole around which they've built a massive artificial world. They're extreme isolationists, to the point where you can't even interact with a member of their species, contacting their empire simply has an automated AI tell you to piss off. They're also unbelievably powerful (like I said, their fleet power numbers well into the millions) but much like the fallen empires their society is stagnant and they don't awake until one of the big crises happens.

My plan to deal with them is to integrate a large empire that voluntarily became my protectorate, wipe out the aforementioned fallen empire on my borders and then just go full total war and try to crank my fleet power as high as possible as fast as possible to zerg rush the core and hopefully knock them out. Their awakening can be delayed but they get even more powerful if it happens and they declare war on the entire galaxy if they do and that prospect is scary.

[Bralia]

Hey Luna, did you ever get GFM working for you?

[Lunas Legion]

Hey Luna, did you ever get GFM working for you?

Ye I just haven't gotten around to playing it, just needed to shuffle where files were located around.

[Bralia]

Hey Luna, did you ever get GFM working for you?

Ye I just haven't gotten around to playing it, just needed to shuffle where files were located around.

Nice, nice, I suspected that was going to be the issue, I made the exact same mistake. Those instructions they offer on their download site are definitely a little misleading.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Might try a Bukharin run at the USSR with the new dlc, see how that goes. Also need to decide on which soviet achievements to go for via ironman runs

[Lunas Legion]

Ye I just haven't gotten around to playing it, just needed to shuffle where files were located around.

Nice, nice, I suspected that was going to be the issue, I made the exact same mistake. Those instructions they offer on their download site are definitely a little misleading.

ngl I did not read any of those I dumped it into the mods folder, didn't show up in launcher, went 'okay what's the problem here', moved .mods out of the original folder, mods now showed up in launcher but didn't work, did the exact same thing with all the other files, problem solved.

Now I just need to remember to sit down, actually pick a nation and play it instead of clicking play, looking at a nation's decisions and then quitting.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Tfw you forgot to increase Crisis Strength when you started the game so the Unbidden are dead within 5 years, oof. It's not like they're the main big bad anyways because of Aeturnum but damn that was anti-climactic lol.

[Endem]

Does anyone else feel the AI has been improved a bit this patch? I see them actually using orders like Last Stand and Force Attack and moving their units around a bit better to not cripple their supply lines.

Yeah, that is very new, it is also making the game rather interesting.

[Dakran]

I think the AI hijacked my army on a MP game I have going on, because after a reload it did that dumb AI thing where it assigns one soldier to an army at a time RAPIDLY

[Renoa]

I finally broke and bought La Resistance for HoI, so now I'm only two expansions behind. I'm hearing good things about the new update, too bad I probably won't be able to start a game until the end of the school semester.

Blasted higher education keeping me away from my vidya.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

I finally broke and bought La Resistance for HoI, so now I'm only two expansions behind. I'm hearing good things about the new update, too bad I probably won't be able to start a game until the end of the school semester.

Blasted higher education keeping me away from my vidya.

As one of my friends pointed out, Estonia now has more free factories in its focus tree than do most majors. :p

[Endem]

I finally broke and bought La Resistance for HoI, so now I'm only two expansions behind. I'm hearing good things about the new update, too bad I probably won't be able to start a game until the end of the school semester.

Blasted higher education keeping me away from my vidya.

As one of my friends pointed out, Estonia now has more free factories in its focus tree than do most majors.

( a stupid joke translated in Google translate )
Eesti saab tööstusesse

it should translate to: Estonia can into industry

[Bralia]

The Stellaris teams are not fazed at all by a release, here's a brand new Dev Diary illustrating what's next.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Definitely feels like the Right Opposition path with Bukharin is a lot tougher to pull off than the Left Opposition with Trotsky.

edit: I think Bukharin just died.

edit edit: Yup, got Rykov when the civil war started. I also feel its incredibly hard to built up sufficient support to keep generals on your side, you get like one or two most and its random who it is.

[Endem]

Definitely feels like the Right Opposition path with Bukharin is a lot tougher to pull off than the Left Opposition with Trotsky.

edit: I think Bukharin just died.

edit edit: Yup, got Rykov when the civil war started. I also feel its incredibly hard to built up sufficient support to keep generals on your side, you get like one or two most and its random who it is.

I think that's how it was intended by the devs

[Ifreann]

The Stellaris teams are not fazed at all by a release, here's a brand new Dev Diary illustrating what's next.

And it's windy weather, boys, stormy weather

Oh no, now I want to play Black Flag again.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Definitely feels like the Right Opposition path with Bukharin is a lot tougher to pull off than the Left Opposition with Trotsky.

edit: I think Bukharin just died.

edit edit: Yup, got Rykov when the civil war started. I also feel its incredibly hard to built up sufficient support to keep generals on your side, you get like one or two most and its random who it is.

I think that's how it was intended by the devs

I like that the soviet civil war mechanics are meant to be hard (though the actual civil war is fairly easy, you can win it in a few months) but some of the events/focuses are a bit brutal coupled with the randomness of the paranoia system. Sometimes you do a focus and its immediately undone or countered by a random event a few minutes later.

Like i did another run as Trotsky and picked the "Cooperation against Stalin" focus to ally with the Rightest opposition and like five minutes later Bukharin got killed via a random event with only one clickable option so he had to die. Like that's a complete waste of 70 days and i might as well have done something else.

I also wish you could get some of the other generals back via the desertion events during the war itself when you capture a stockpile or major city. It would help if some generals defected with them too or that you could imprison some then release them later after the civil war to have a somewhat decent officer pool afterwards.

[Heloin]

Like i did another run as Trotsky and picked the "Cooperation against Stalin" focus to ally with the Rightest opposition and like five minutes later Bukharin got killed via a random event with only one clickable option so he had to die. Like that's a complete waste of 70 days and i might as well have done something else.

I like Pdx taking my suggestion that any move rightward should be meet by firing squad if you intend to play as the Soviet Union.

[Continental Free States]

New VicIII Dev Diary dropped, I think

[Bralia]

New VicIII Dev Diary dropped, I think

. . . I really did forget that it's Thursday somehow. My brain just checked out after getting the Stellaris DD, I guess.

[The Batavia]

Okay so my realm split into two between Brittany and England. I intend on fixing that problem but i haven't figured out what exactly I want to do to get my lands back. Someone else did suggest murder, though.

[Continental Free States]

Okay so my realm split into two between Brittany and England. I intend on fixing that problem but i haven't figured out what exactly I want to do to get my lands back. Someone else did suggest murder, though.

If you're England, an invasion would probably be quicker. Murder is more cost-effective though, since it won't leave a claimant.

[Serrus]

Definitely feels like the Right Opposition path with Bukharin is a lot tougher to pull off than the Left Opposition with Trotsky.

edit: I think Bukharin just died.

edit edit: Yup, got Rykov when the civil war started. I also feel its incredibly hard to built up sufficient support to keep generals on your side, you get like one or two most and its random who it is.

That's why we go with the coup-- infiltrate the NKVD, sway Yagoda, kill stalin

[The Huskar Social Union]

Definitely feels like the Right Opposition path with Bukharin is a lot tougher to pull off than the Left Opposition with Trotsky.

edit: I think Bukharin just died.

edit edit: Yup, got Rykov when the civil war started. I also feel its incredibly hard to built up sufficient support to keep generals on your side, you get like one or two most and its random who it is.

That's why we go with the coup-- infiltrate the NKVD, sway Yagoda, kill stalin

Definitely gona try that route next time i go for Bukharin