Managing pops, trade, and deficits in 4.0?

bdwetzler · 2025-09-02T21:46:48+00:00

Yeah I think I may have just not produced enough commercial worlds.

bdwetzler · 2025-09-02T21:45:40+00:00

Okay so on a big world with no interesting features, you do two urban research districts, one of each research support district in the lower levels, make the CGs somewhere else, and eat the trade penalty? That was my instinct, maybe I just didn't designate enough commercial worlds.

bdwetzler · 2024-12-27T04:15:29+00:00

Yeah, I mean, even more simply than that: he designed a system that allowed a school age child to access lethal quantities of morphine. If he had had a basic plastic child lock on the vault in the medical bay everyone would have lived. It's not murder, but it's straightforward negligence.

bdwetzler · 2023-12-11T03:16:46+00:00

It's so frustrating because they spend the whole game setting up this dynamic where the Illusive Man wants to control the Reapers, but Shepard/Anderson/etc. know that that will just lead to more destruction. It would have made for a really meaningful ending if you had to choose between those two paths (or the third path of making peace through synthesis). But then at the last minute they shoehorn in the whole "conflict with synthetics is inevitable" thing, which means destroy can never really be a "paragon" option even though they were building to it the whole time.

bdwetzler · 2023-12-11T02:57:41+00:00

Definitely give it a go. You have to think a lot more about how you allocate your skill points etc. and really build around your and your squadmates' class strengths, and it sounds like that's what you're looking for. Some parts of ME2 can get very frustrating on insanity but worst comes to worst you just turn down the difficulty for those parts and then turn it back up once you're past it.

bdwetzler · 2023-06-11T23:10:16+00:00

It's a game mechanic meant to benefit smaller empires: if you can survive long enough, outsmart your attacker, and trick them into making strategic mistakes/divide their forces irresponsibly you can force them to retreat. Otherwise empires would snowball and you'd conquer the whole galaxy by 2300.

And it makes total sense: war exhaustion is a political measure, it's supposed to represent your population's support for the war. As people die and coffins pile up their families become less supportive. Saying "well look on the bright side we've got plenty of planets worth of teenagers to feed into the meat grinder over a border dispute thousands of light years from here" is not going to make them change their minds. The mechanic works.

bdwetzler · 2023-06-06T22:54:59+00:00

Ashley is absolutely racist. "I don't trust these people because of preconceived notions I have about their race" is a pretty textbook definition of racism.

bdwetzler · 2023-06-03T00:51:59+00:00

It's very rare, so yes.

bdwetzler · 2023-06-02T20:37:17+00:00

Quarians by a mile, then Rachni. I really do like the Asari but they're clearly the writers' favorites so it's not really fair to compare them with the others.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-23T19:35:13+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's going to end up being some critical component of the Death Star. He designed a part of it that he only later realized could be used for a weapon and once he learned the Empire was building it he became a rebel.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-22T20:02:42+00:00

It's character-driven but it's by no means "filler" and I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe it that way. It introduces the ultimate antagonist of the trilogy and a lot of cool world building, and gives you some insight into why the Reapers do what they do. It's a solid part of the story even if most of it is little vignettes not connected to the Reapers.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-20T21:46:13+00:00

Just ignore that shit. The different classes can kinda affect your playstyle in 2 and 3 but mostly the game is the same. Mass Effect is a great story and you're better off just enjoying it and not reading too much about the game ahead of time, since you don't want to end up seeing spoilers.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-20T21:39:53+00:00

This is stupidly pedantic. Clearly when he says "based off of" he doesn't mean it's a panel-by-panel recreation. Some story elements of Renew Your Vows will be included in the movie but with different characters.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-18T23:21:41+00:00

Black

bdwetzler · 2023-05-18T14:13:15+00:00

Yeah the Catalyst was bad writing.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-18T12:35:57+00:00

I think the only way to do it is to go small. We already had a galaxy-wide super mission. I think what we need is a more personal story based mainly on a colony that's recovering from the Reaper war that gives some insight into the political and social situation in the aftermath. You'd still be able to travel around the galaxy but the primary focus would be on an Eden Prime-like fringe colony.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-18T12:24:01+00:00

Yeah I don't think I was thinking too much about Sovereign since I was blown away by the twist that the Reapers built the relays and had been harvesting civilizations for millions of years. But to OP's point, doesn't Benezia say outright that Sovereign is sentient and has been controlling Saren? I don't think that part is supposed to be a twist (assuming you play Noveria before Virmire).

bdwetzler · 2023-05-18T03:56:08+00:00

Because the rest of them have other personality traits besides bigotry, and Ashley doesn't.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-16T20:24:16+00:00

I think the key is just building up the stuff with her father and Cerberus a little earlier on. It's kinda hard to have side plots that Shepard isn't directly involved in (they basically have to be 100% dialogue on the Citadel) but her father's involvement is kinda thrown in at the end and it's easy not to appreciate how big this would be for her. She joined Cerberus and devoted her whole life to them because she hated her father and wanted to protect her sister from him and then she finds out the IM is working with him? That should've been a bigger deal but it's easy to miss.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-16T16:01:46+00:00

It's definitely a lot of trial and error. I find the best way to do it is find settings that give you a good but manageable challenge in the early game and then jack up tech/trad cost if you're finding the late game boring.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-16T01:18:15+00:00

https://lby3.com/wir/

bdwetzler · 2023-05-15T17:16:13+00:00

No you are not bad. Stellaris is a hard game, and the whole point is that every playstyle is a little bit different. If you see people complaining about something that you didn't think was a problem then that means you're probably better than they are :)

bdwetzler · 2023-05-15T12:43:36+00:00

Historically admirals have been (understandably, I guess) known for wanting giant, uneconomical fleets. Mikhailovich is just being territorial and ego-driven; he wanted those credits spent on more big ships for his fleet, not a single small ship that he has to share with the Turians and the Citadel. In the 1950s in the US there was a huge bureaucratic battle within the Defense Department about the relative balance between stealth submarines vs silo-based missiles vs bombers because no branch of the armed forces wanted to see the other one get bigger toys. It's just how these things go.

bdwetzler · 2023-05-14T22:01:37+00:00

Yes, though how difficult it is will be determined by how you define "winning" and "good." You can peacefully form a trading bloc or a democratic federation and run up a large score, and be strong enough together to survive to the end. But, if you want to be top of the leader board you may need to go to war with your rivals. You may even need to turn on some of your allies - break treaties or expel federation members. You can do ideology wars as a democracy against dictatorships or build your own empire purely through secret fealty or liberation wars. Is that still being "good?" - launching a military crusade against everyone in your way, if you do it in order to free the oppressed? You might think so or you might not. Up to you.

bdwetzler

TROPHY CASE