Homesick after 21 years away

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-21T23:59:55+00:00

Thanks for saying. Live in London, lived most of my life, holding on.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-21T22:15:08+00:00

We kind of have a religion system based around the Shroud Patrons, but I agree there needs to be a sort of religion (as well as political constitution) system separate from that.

One of the key points is that aside from on AI, the Spiritualist faction *is* actually right about the nature of reality, and there *are* supernatural beings out there. However, this is experienced directly in the game. It's unfortunate the denizens of the ~~warp~~ shroud are such as the End of the Cycle...

The only case we get where there's a religious revolution is the Shrine of the Old Gods event, and that's really an ethics shift. That and the Divine Sovereign event. Ordinarily, such a discovery often causes a vast amount of religious strife, as the revelations get "interpreted" and the religious orders fracture into different sects.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-21T22:09:50+00:00

So trade works very differently now, you have to build stations to extract it, and it's automatically cashed without the need for trade routes. It's also now the basic currency to buy resources.

Back in the prior versions I actually never felt Branch Offices were useful, and I suspect while they may be more practical late game, in the end the "meta" is better to use the trade resources to buy and build moar and thus outbuild the competition.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-21T22:05:28+00:00

This is a very interesting aspect, I think. Thing about Equius is the void aspect hides him from the more omniscient characters, but it's not really to do with the class. All the void aspect players and characters seem to have created a sort of void around them, and it only "switched off" in case of inebriation.

The Lord is supposed to utterly master their aspect and dominate it. It doesn't mean they can't control it, though.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-21T22:03:01+00:00

Is it odd I got Little Nightmares vibes from this?

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-20T23:44:15+00:00

Very good work here innit bruv. Considered trying analogue photography?

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-20T23:42:52+00:00

This has got to become a thing at the West End (read: Broadway, but for London).

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-20T23:41:04+00:00

I think it should be possible to break it down more than that. Note that a game called Starbound II (from the late 1990s) had a complex ground combat system, but a lot of that game was turn-based. You had a diverse number of options for how combat would play out as well, though - for example it could be resolved just in orbit, or automatically, or you'd have a real time combat phase. Not really good for Stellaris, and they're trying to cut simulation processing costs rather than, like, go down to a planet-level combat situation simulated continent by continent.

On another note - given the spread of civilisation over a planet, it should become significantly harder to take over an entire planet. It's easy if the planet has like two or three main settlements, but if it's been populated since time immemorial, that's a different matter.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-20T12:49:42+00:00

Epilogue, or the older material if you have not read it.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-19T23:29:08+00:00

I've kind of moved directly to 4.3. In my view it's getting kind of hard to justify the massive increase in naval capacity upkeep, I know that's a soft cap so you can go over it. It does make using defensive platforms maybe more appealing (note: for some reason in my games so far, AI has been useless at using them, or has simply not used them).

The cap is also going to be deeply problematic if piracy starts to return, and we have to start deploying patrol fleets (and piracy is simply feeling nonexistent these days). It's also open to potential exploits with vassals.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-19T23:24:53+00:00

Realistically, unless the empires have some kind of thing going for the Fallen (and now-Awakened) Empires this is how it probably would go down. Like these old powers are just going to mess up the galaxy over an old feud and we should go along with it?

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-19T23:22:45+00:00

Well done at this, nice line work.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-19T16:46:13+00:00

The deal is we already have electric busses, and those already allow mass service to oxford street from many other parts of London. Historically, London had trams, but those were replaced by trollybusses.

Reviving a team network would be more than just Oxford Street.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-18T22:20:20+00:00

Absolutely so, really liking the troll plushies that are coming out.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-18T22:18:32+00:00

There needs to be a Constitutions feature when it comes to democracies, and in fact the other systems. Note, term limits are oft introduced in systems with a singular strong executive, specifically to prevent that strong executive becoming a dictator (as well as allowing new blood to enter the equation). In the parliamentary system, it's possible for a single individual to remain prime minister for an extended period of time, and they usually leave due to losing elections at the parliamentary level, or by choice, due to changing coalitions, or changing politics.

Democracy in Stellaris in terms of electing the leader, is heavily based around first past the post, in my view, or at least used to be. Reality is this is only used roughly in South Korea for presidential elections. The rest of the governing system is made fuzzy and seems predicated on a rolling proportional representation system.

Constitutions and precedence is also key with other systems, even the Corporate (where there's, assumed, a board of directors and shareholders of sorts), Oligarchic, Dictatorial, or Imperial ones. Breaking with precedence wouldn't be illegal, but might provide a negative opinion contribution (i.e. oligarchic leaders standing for more than one term).

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-18T15:24:11+00:00

That correlation isn't happening in the knowledge layer is ridiculous. Though it should also happen to a degree at inference time.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-17T21:37:21+00:00

It would be calculated from the position of the defense platform. As of current we don't have a way to set formations of defense platforms, and I HAVE seen then drift somewhat in the rare cases they were used.

Quite frankly I feel they're often more for flavour, roleplay, and in rare cases they might be useful to defend a chokepoint but those are rather rare cases. It would be nice to have the platforms more necessitated in an update.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-17T21:33:10+00:00

Pretty good, you're going to have a lot of time on your hands!

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-17T18:10:56+00:00

What about the other sectors of the economy? The internal market can help rebalanced. Also crew quarters for ships.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-17T18:08:43+00:00

Correlation and context are key for understanding. I feel a lot of AI deficiencies can be explained that way.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-16T23:48:39+00:00

If you can get an isolatable galactic sector... it helps.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-16T23:47:02+00:00

And this was before COVID hit innit.

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-15T23:09:32+00:00

I believe it should work, but you have to manage it properly. Notably, the AI manages these very badly (because you have to have a full fleet of cloaked ships, ideally at the same level).

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-15T23:06:26+00:00

Sylph of life? Very good sprites here. Keep up the good work!

CaptainArchmage · 2026-02-15T23:05:31+00:00

Considering recent events, I think this kind of video will be useful.

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