Ngl, the biggest thing I enjoy from Overlord has to be the Orbital Rings and Hyper relays. Adding even more Unity and Alloy generation for my Ecumenopolis is something I very much enjoy. Along with space roads, this helps my play style of turtling and building up my economy. While the specialized vassals are good, the only one I'm currently seeing worth it at the moment is the Scholarium specialization.
I love hyper relays so much. As someone who loves wide builds, it always felt like a bit of infrastructure was missing and lead to needing so many different fleets just to deal with threats in different parts of my empire in a reasonable time before gateways. A great simple addition that beautifully solves the problem
@@rnglillian8081 That thing you are complaining about (needing more fleets for a wide empire) was one of the intentional changes to prevent doomstacks and to actually force players into a more realistic sci-fi approach - if you have a wide empire, comprising of many sectors, it is only expected that each of them will be protected by its own fleet and that, as a wide empire, you are vulnerable to attacks from various angles and that it takes time to mobilize your troops properly. Just as we would expect. While I too like the hyper relays, they are just returning us to some of the earliest tropes of Stellaris, when there were 3 different drives for the ships and hyperspace drive was fast but limited to predetermined routes... just like we get now with hyperspace relays. Also, now, unless you are moving from one part of the galaxy to the other, gateways have largely lost their meaning. They simply offer very limited mobility compared to the relay, and in fact I haven't used them once. There was no need to. What we need though, is the ability to destroy the relay.
I hate the hyper relays, I don't build em, I only build gateways, and Considine the ai always builds them, and I will conquer the ai. Well then only my farthest regions will suffer. But my inner systems? Goodluck taking my worlds and trying to run when my fleets come. No hyper relays for you to skip through xeno.
@@Wustenfuchs109 yeah, while I understand the desire to prevent deathstacks, the amount of fleets needed started getting excessive, especially if you did alot of conquering or did runs like becoming the crisis where many nations were declaring war on you. While I don't agree with complete destruction, having a mechanic where taking key systems in the network would shut down functionality for certain parts completely could be intresteing coupled with some kind of subterfuge mission to do a similar effect
I want vassals to be less of a hassle to create. I tried playing a Feudal empire and spinning off all of my outlying sectors into specialized vassals, but the difficulty of negotiating specializations and contributions with them made it a complete headache. I literally made them independent, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to dictate terms to them instead of them starting off as default vassals. I hoped this would be a way to play tall while playing wide, but sadly it’s just not worth it.
The new hotfix has solved much of those issues. But yes. It's silly that you can't define any terms at all, and you are REQUIRED to gain your vassals trust. Even if you're space Hitler, with a colossus, and massive fleets.
Yeah, it would be logical for you to be able to dictate all the terms when creating a vassal. But why they put so many restrictions is likely because of a balancing thing. I would love for it to be easier too. I wanted to do that exact same thing (i like to play as a feudal empire as it facilitates haviing many science vessels and speeding trough the first tradition tree). But its not easy to do at all.
The entire idea of vassals who can decline your offers is pretty insane to me, as I saw in the steam comments for it, I have double the power of the rest of the entire galaxy yet some weak ass puppet can defy me? It makes little sense really.
@@hengry2 something as simple as factoring in relative fleet power seems like an easy fix for a lot of this. A super powerful core empire should be able to use its vassals as little marionettes, while if it got smashed by a rival empire its vassals might start making demands or refusing to pay tribute.
It took me awhile to understand a lot of the new mechanics. I definitely struggled at first and pre-patch. But since the update I’m really enjoying the game now. Just vassilized the entire galaxy on my last run. And the take point thing working made taking out the scourge much easier. Had fleets from pretty much every empire in the galaxy following my fleet around.
What you describe is using two exploits though. Being able to effortlessly order the galaxy around is not a good thing. Both the vassalization acceptance and the take point mechanic are currently broken.
@@CaptainFalcoyd how is either an exploit? I made empires vassals by declaring war on almost all of them. Only a couple volunteered to be vassals. (One I made myself by splitting off a section of my empire). And all the empires were fighting the crisis, the take point just had them group up on me, they had all grouped up on each other before that.
I think one of the things that made Hyper Relays hard for people to understand is that it seemed like nobody described it simply with an example or even a visualisation. Like explaining clearly that the ships are sent from one relay to the next in sequence (it kind of reminds me of that intergalactic bridge from Stargate, the one that used a long line of stargates that would forward people on from one to the next without re-materialising them until they reached the station at the middle of the bridge). "Say this fleet needs to travel five systems over and all five systems have hyper relays. When you give them the order, they'll fly to the relay in this first system, which will carry them to the next relay which will forward them on to the next which will forward them on to the next and so-on, until they exit at the final relay. They never have to fly across the intervening systems, just sit at each system's relay for a few days for the next jump to be prepared. Where normal travel could see a fleet take several weeks to cross a single system, this cuts the travel time down to an insane degree."
I figured the name 'Hyper Relay' was honestly a pretty selfexplanatory name. 'Hyper' ought to immediately invoke the idea of Hyperlanes or something to do with them, and 'Relay' would suggest that it is transporting something along a set line of other relays in a network. Combing the two to a 'Hyper Relay' would thereby suggest that it is a Relay system that has something to do with Hyperlanes. Combine this with the description on the tech in-game, and it shouldn't really be difficult to understand.
I thought it was pretty intuitive really. Understood from the get go that you'd have to daisy chain the relays to create a network. Its a super nice addition.
Fixing the auto-cancelling trade agreements has saved it for me. Imagine you're me, me and my friends are super excited to play, we all boot up the game and get to it. 20 years into the game, I start noticing vassal bugs first when I release a sector: The loc key was broken so I had no idea what a critical dialogue was supposed to say. I can't adjust the contract for 5 years which was a massive disappointment. I can no longer make trades with ANYONE without the trade auto-cancelling, which was really disappointing because taxless trades are a key part of how I play MP.
The best use I've found for mercenary enclaves is retiring my early corvettes into them as I move up to better ships. It becomes a choice between scrapping for a one time bonus, or setting up the enclave, which will pay me taxes for the rest of the game. In my current run, I did just that relatively early on. Retired my old "Just here for the power projection" corvettes for better ships, and have had said mercenary enclave making me a bit of money. I wasn't using the ships anyway. I don't even hire them, I just use the +naval capacity purchase from them and let them go about doing what they do. Not a bad use for a few corvettes on trash equipment.
Watching all these cinematics makes me wish for a Stellaris-esque game with the 4X strategy that we have now, combined with a battle system that allows players to control their fleet or a singular ship. Sort of like Mount & Blade, but make it Stellaris.
There's many RTS following this minus the direct control, which is done well by Starsector, however far less weight in the "empire-building", albeit this can be changed by mods. But i'd lie if i say i didn't sacrifice all kinds of farm animals to the ancient gods in hope of one day witnessing a 4X or (good/nonP2W/notspreadsheet/actuallyfinished) MMO with a direct/partialRTS fleet battle system.
I want a marriage between Total War and Stellaris. Stellaris depth of economy and diplomacy with Total War style battles that you can play out or auto-resolve
@@scorpixel1866 I see a Starsector enjoyer. It feels like REDACTED mechanic should be in Stellaris. Together with trade acces. Like every shortage is fixed by allied empire with trade agreament. And its like market of excess income that show who needs what.
Montu, long time listener first time caller here. I love your content you are without a doubt my favorite stellaris player in the world. I bought all the dlc for this game after watching your videos. Keep doing what you are doing. And I loved your role play videos with the evil wallpaul and first citizen Underhill just brilliant.
Imagine getting the Worm event, turning your system into tomb worlds, and putting rings on all those size 7 mini planets. Good luck seizing that system.
@@roblaquiere8220 1 starbase, but as many OR as you have habitable planets. I’ve only used it for pre-mega shipyard fleet production myself, but let me tell you it can do some nutty stuff when you have 2+ planets in the same system. Get Citadel tech, some choice turtling techs, fill every single ring and the starbase with defense platforms, and watch entire hoards of foes break themselves on that one system trying to get through.
I play primarily psionic races. It's hands down my favorite, and the play style I find the most fun. It's been frustrating trying to roll it every game though. TBH I would've picked up the dlc even if the shroud origin was the only thing in it lol.
As someone who plays Ironman/vanilla out of preference and enjoys Psionics moat, I wish they would redo it. I'm basically forced to alt+f4 sometimes which is cheesy but COME ON MAN THE ADMIRAL HAD A GREEN CHANCE OF BEING CHOSEN ONE AND STILL FAILS
I like where it is going. More defence options = less snowball effect and more potential for playing tall. It's kinda meh, that if empire falls behind earlier, it has no chance to catch up.
I personally gravitate towards narrow and tall for both the roleplay and the challenge of it. So this DLC has made that playstyle much more enjoyable for me, even if it’s still not quite meta.
Ahh, the Paradox cycle. "The next DLC looks so cool, I'll start my next game when it lands" -> "The new DLC is so buggy and my mods don't work, I'll start my next game when it's fixed" -> "Oh wow, they've announced a new DLC, let me read this dev diary before I start my next game"... To be fair, it's gotten a lot better since the introduction of the custodian team, there's now a decent grace period between phases :)
I hate that they consider Mercenary Enclaves not gaining Cyborg or Psionic traits as "working as intended." Psionic ascension ascends all of your species, no matter what empire they're in, so that should directly affect Mercenary Enclaves with your species, granting their Admirals the Psionic trait and relevant bonuses. As for the cyborg trait, sharing your technology with your Enclaves quite feasibly should allow them to become cyborgs.
Problem I have with the scavengers is usually 9/10 times I can't ever use their main Feature of scrapping fleets as they typically spawn too far away and/or just happen to be in an empire who hates everyone else and closes borders. Would hope they change it where You are not required to send the fleet you want to scrap to them directly or make the scavengers own their own system like the caravaneers which could make accessing them Easier. Or even add an option like the Shroud Beacon (Allowing you to build a 'wormhole' between your empire and their system).
Yeah I have the same issue, I thought it would be cool if they had like 3 different scrapyard across the galaxy, or if you could fund them to setup a new scrapyard somewhere in your empire.
They even have a fleet that can occasionally wander into your territory and sometimes drop an abandoned ship, creating a special event that nets you progress towards a random engineering tech. I don’t see why I’d have to rely on having their home station inside my empire in order to use what I consider to be their core feature: ship recycling.
Sorry for all the videos that got invalidated after the hotfix! But honestly, after the hotfix, the dlc is much better. Orbital rings are bonkers, allowing better tall builds, and it is much easier to get prospectorium and scholarium vassals. You can use vassals to build pretty insane mid game economies. Montu question: Do you know if they changed the Megastructure tech weight or tech pre-reqs? It seems to be rolling around 10-15 years later in the game than in 3.3. Thanks for all your content!
What bothers me the most was the performance impact of the update. I can deal with bugs and exploits because I only play single-player. But the game struggling at 2300 is just too much of a hassle for me.
@@greggreg2458 Ye, though I suppose it's not a problem if you got a great pc, mines kinda ok. I do know it runs like shit now way sooner than it did before with Overlord.
I had some good fun as a megacorp with Mercenaries. if you take the right civics, them grab Lord of War and get the first GC legislation for Mercenaries, your cap can be 5 enclaves (6 with more GC laws). it was wild how often I'd get a free 2000 credits and some bonuses like extra ships or research. I started to use the five fleets as like a Medieval "Levy" where when I'm not at war, I have a small retinue of ships and save tons of money on upkeep, but when a war starts, I suddenly jump from 200/800 naval capacity to well over 800/800 capacity, with the option to rent more fleets for short term boosts. the 10% naval capacity bonus from the deal with Mercenaries is probably a decent enough reason to throw up one fleet of them when you have a lot of alloys to rebuild the fleet.
Ngl, I was very unhappy after 3.3, but 3.4 + Overlord pretty much solved most of my issues. The reason my empire almost always ended up huge is because I always integrated subjects. That was simply the best use I could see for them given my play style. The DLC gave me two things that suited me right down to the ground: shroud-walker origin and vassal specialisation + levelling. Now I no longer need to integrate vassals, which keeps my empire size within reasonable limits while giving me the kind of benefits most suited to me. Scholaria ftw! Honestly? As exciting as the orbital rings and relays are, they're just the cherry on top. I haven't bothered with the yeetapult at all. Personally I haven't run across too many of the bugs, but I'm glad to hear they're fixed.
Have fun when there is a rebellion in one of your vassal empires and a bug makes it mathematically impossible to win the war because it doesn't recognize occupied systems and planets.
The Yeetapult is really just for the gambling addicts in Stellaris, for when rolling techs and leader traits just isn’t enough and you feel the urge to gamble whole fleets on a whim.
they need to ''buff'' the quantum catapult, reduce the alloys necessary and reduce the time per levels, so it can have the impact in the game it should, hope they do that with the changes to the enclaave. :)
The main problem I have with 3.4, even now post hotfix, is the awful performance drop I have noticed on my game. Game speed is much slower, and lategame lag is just as bad for me as it has been in 3.2. 3.3 made massive improvements to the game performance, where normal speed in 3.3 felt the same as fast speed in 3.2, or even faster, and lategame lag only caused minor slowdowns, usually kicking in around 2350+, now however in 3.4, performance is the same as it has been in 3.2, with further slowdowns starting to compound exponentially from 2230 onwards, getting especially bad around 2300, much worse than the slowdowns in the mid to late game in the 3.3 update. Fast speed in 3.4 feels slower than normal speed in 3.3, and none of the hotfixes have changed this for me. I also have no idea why this happened anyway, since nothing in the update said much about changing the pop mechanics or anything else, yet somehow this update caused a very large noticeable drop in game speed, indicating that there is a lot more internal calculating going on than before, or somehow they messed up the previous performance improvements.
I was thinking it might be vassals and how they work but even early game with no vassels is slower (not horrible for me tho, closing the current game and reloading it has helped me)
Honestly my general rule for paradox dlcs is usually to buy it and then wait for at least two weeks before I actually play the game, worked quite well so far
Montu, your a great youtuber who makes wonderful content. You do great testing, you back up your tutorials with chats on the results of your testing and your presentation is enguaging. You got me back into stellaris after I gave it up when they nerfed playing tall empires. I recently tried Imp Feifdom after the hotfix and have had fun to do tall as a megacorp with my partner (she was playing clone army, fantic purifiers)
I had a chuckle when overlord first came out, i did my normal type of dominating empire and only ran into the relays... it was like the xpac was for a single megastructure :)
The only really big game-breaking bugs that i've found with the Overlord DLC that have subtracted from my enjoyment of the game have come from mods (specifically one is that the Subterranian Origin does not give my empire pops the Cave Dweller trait, so i'm skipping that origin for now hoping that whatever mod caused this gets fixed, because the time it takes from starting the game to actually getting into the game, since i don't have a SSD, is very long so going through each mod individually would take a few days). Overlooking that, i've been enjoying all the features from the game so far. EDIT: I love the Military Enclaves. I always try to get at least one ASAP, since i've played with them they've gotten me through defensive wars i would have lost otherwise, and i think th main point there is that with those military ships there, i could keep my fleet and fleet expenditure lower than usual, an AI empire sees that and declares war on me, i hire the merc fleets and then i strike deep into their territory with my now superior fleet numbers, always making sure the merc fleets take the brunt of the fighting. For the first time in a long while, with these Mercs, i've had empires ask ME for status quo peace.
Building a Relay Network that expands from every corner of the Empire back to the Capital is such a good feeling. Not to mention slapping an orbital ring down on every world I control. In my opinion, everything else is just icing on the cake for this expack.
I played with an empire around the merc enclaves, and honestly, they are really fun (now bear in mind I do play on captain difficulty, sooo things may be different for me) and the individual fleets are awesome to have in your pocket, it let me focus my economy on massively strengthening economy with very little regard to your standing fleet, the only thing I wished is that the merc fleets after contract was over...would actually go back to your section of space.
Tried playing as lithoids from the deep mines. Stepped difficulty dove twice from GA. Had a great start. Got vasselizef promptly. Transitioned from vadsrl to prospectorium. Is an interesting play through
Overall quite happy with the content and direction the DLC has gone in. I was really disappointed with Nemesis as I was most looking forward to espionage mechnics which have been a complete flop imo so having a dmc that I want to play and enjoy is good. I just wish that when I went Fiefdom that my overlord wouldn't implode everytime after 50 years I want to work towards fighting for my freedom so feels kinda cheap and takes the fun out of a playthorugh when everytime I go for it the games like, oh your overlord toppled over now you're free and its only 2250 have fun.
This is about where I'm at as well. I think the idea is that you can rely on your enclaves instead of paying upkeep on normal fleets all the time, but... you just do both. Have your usual standing army, then if you actually need the fleet power hire the mercs and when the war's over/the upkeep from going over naval cap is too much just end the contract.
I've used them to a great degree, if you have abundant energy or need a fleet immediately that can stand toe to to with an enemy it's been very solid. Also consider the fleet borrowing system in place which used to have to be a mod.
This expansion changed this game so much and most of it for the better. Which is more than most expansions. I've had a few playthroughs with relatively few bugs and my last play through i had an empire vassalized who I would switch to supplying me resources or who I would supply resources to. We engaged in both our offensive wars. And I would really love to know I'm right here, but I'm pretty sure the steady supply of resources I have him helped make him into a formidable foe of the galaxy. He became strong and ruthless and he was loyal. He basically helped me conquer the galaxy and implement the first galactic empire. Sometimes his offensive wars were a surprise or bothersome I usually just engaged and we conquered more and more. It was a lot of fun. Having a vassal in any sense seems to be rather crucial in the power creep later in the game. By the end of the game I had 5 vassals without the ascension perk and if managed well are not hard to keep loyal. I did have to integrate 2 of them because that was way too many. By 2500 I had roughly half the galaxy under my control either directly or indirectly. Fun times.
Basically; subjects rebel, slave species rebel, newly conquered primitives rebel and robots rebel. The only solution is exterminatus; playing with only one primary species and genocide ASAP whatever species your conquer. Not that I mind but I thought devs wanted to move away from kill everything in sight playstyle.
Also pretty sure they literally made it this patch so that newly conquered primitives cannot start rebelling from stabillity issues for a long while so you got tons of time to fix stabillity.
Honestly only thing I've personally liked about Overlord is the Orbital ring as they offer some nice bonuses to your planets but that's about it. I'm still fairly new to the game but I've only found the Hyper Relay nice if you get you manage to get the crystals or a vassal for it and the Quantum Catapult to be a nice gimmick if the RNG gods haven't screwed you out of a Neutron Star for it
In regards to the military enclaves you can get a Starbase building that increases fire rate. You can stack this with the command center so you can get major buffs for defending fleets, especially if stacked with the Harmony and/or Unyielding ascension tree
My friends and I did a multi-player game right after the release and we all played as imperial fiefs. We only played a hundred years or so, but it was the most fun we had in a stellaris multiplayer run in a long while. All of us are EU4/CK3 fans as well, so seeing the Holy Empire break into the Palatinate and Prince Elector was a pleasant surprise and taking advantage of the situation to acquire our own subjects was also really, really fun. The difficulty in expanding in the early game was also very interesting and forced us to pursue non-meta plays and adapt to the situation. Overall I think the purchase was well worth it from just that one game
The gamers reported all sorts of bugs and imbalances, and complained Paradox didn't make a QA for this patch and DLC. But the gamers didn't realize that they're the QA! Besides, I believe they need to take relative power into vassal negatiation more properly, maybe use both diplomatic weight, fleet power, and economics as well
I’d say it is a good expansion. My only complaint is the usual early days more unstable than uranium. Most notably I keep crashing when I try to make protectorates. But at least they care about the game enough to patch it.
To me, and this might be a weird opinion, but I feel like Mastery of Nature is finally worth it. Being able to add 2 districts to a planet plus 4 from an orbital ring, and 1 more from expansion, adds up fast. If playing wide, super-wide is your cup of tea, like it is for me, it adds so much depth because now it makes every planet you can get, worthwhile. That size 10 planet you thumbed your nose at before? Suddenly with a bit more work, that size 10 now has 17 districts, and now all of a sudden it seems way more worth colonizing. Especially since they've added in more about terraforming too, making it so that you can do things like tidally lock a planet on purpose, which adds more generator districts to it, which can seriously add up fast, especially in the mid-game. Couple this with more districts and an energy-production boosting building on the orbital ring, and now that planet, once decked out in pops, can easily be producing several hundred energy by itself. Also the L-cluster has become an even better 'pocket empire' as I like to call it, than it was even before. Now obviously it depends on exactly *what* you get out of the L-cluster once you open the gates, as for what you can do with it. But if you can terraform the planets within, then it can become the ultimate backstop no matter what happens elsewhere in the galaxy. Couple that with the new orbital rings, and you can make it so turtle-y that no enemy, no matter how many ships they send, can break your lines. Even if you can't terraform planets, nothing stops you from building habitats and perhaps a ringworld (among other megastructures) regardless of anything else, so you can still have a tremendous power out there.
Also the change to void dwellers Is a perfect case in point. I played void dwellers because I wanted to get simpler experience. The traditional colonist jobs just make things even more confusing. Because void dwellers technically don't colonize. They build habitats
Honestly after playing through with the new features I think I preferred the old way we did vassals. It seems the contracts are almost always going to be better for the vassal rather than the overlord until you renegotiate.
Thats actually something you can change in your policies. You can set it to be really nice to newly created vassals or really demanding. Then obviously can customize it when you renegotiate. Also when you split off a vassal from your own colonies you can renegotiate immediately now.
Thanks for all the content you publish! In my opinion Overlord instroduces many things and is worth it. Pre-patch it was impossible to enjoy as overlord as all vassals (as you explain) were unwilling to change its conditions. Now it is worth it. Keep on the good work m8!
I really enjoyed the Imperial Fiefdom origin. It's kind of an early-game crisis and you've got some very important choices to make. If you don't know how to manage your economy, you'll be eaten alive. I went from two planets as a vassal to owning a dozen vassals across half the galaxy. And yeah, I waited until after the hotfix to try it because turns out giving vassals the ability to guarantee independence and enter into Defensive Pacts outside your empire was a bad idea. They should be free to trade, though, go nuts. Oh, and there's a vassal building that gives you Influence, make you sure you build it! And there are loyalty problems if you have too many, unless you take certain Civics or Ascension. btw Space-Highways ought to be the term.
Luv your vids....!!! Man id luv 2 see a megastructure building origin where the main focus is spamming multiple SCC and Dyson sphere an that sweet nexus...downside is u get really bad debuffs to all resources.
As long as I've been playing Paradox games, I fully expect a new expansion to need some significant patching shortly after release. The number of interacting systems makes it inevitable. Personally, I enjoy the week or so of chaos with all the goofy exploits. Part of enjoying the game. But I'm always amazed at how upset people are about it. We all know this is a thing and if it is going to tilt you, why not just wait a week and see? Congrats on all the bugs you caught by the way.
I like the quantum catapult not for its abilities but rather because it’s now the fastest built megastructure, tied with the mega shipyard. The physics tree is much less cluttered at that point though than the society tree, so it’s much easier to roll after unlocking mega engineering. Other than that, yeah I agree it’s just a pretty gimmicky megastructure.
Regarding merc enclaves - the concept and flavor of them is awesome and I personally love them but they need more work by the devs I believe. I'm asking for simple QoL improvements like making it clear on rented fleets when the contract ends and ask with a popup whether to renew it. Also make it clear which fleet belongs to which enclave (would be useful when you're the patron of multiple enclaves). (Note: these are my experiences on single player Admiral difficulty games with other settings default) As for how good they really are - like Montu says your own fleets are generally better but merc fleets do have some benefits even if their ship designs are generally trash. You either don't use them or just one (from the GC laws) or you focus on them and have 3 or more coupled with Lord of War ascension perk to get the most out of it. 1. If your economy is strong enough to invest in their fleet size to max and sustain them in costs/naval cap the returns are pretty great - a 400 naval cap fleet by around 2250-60 is not that difficult to achieve and it's pretty strong (around 30k fleetpower or more is definitely possible) 2. Besides investment and contract/monthly upkeep you don't pay the build costs and reinforcements are neutral fleets and won't be shot down as they fly to join your big fleet - that's something you have to pay a lot of attention/micro managment to do safely with your normal owned fleets 3. Getting dividents with stored Tech - effectively doubling your research speed for two or more years is obviously amazing. 50 ships to start the company isn't all that difficult to do either - just use cheap corvettes with a weapon or two and FTL drives. On Admiral or GA it's hard to rush AIs anyway so you probably rely on diplomacy anyway so you buildup those corvettes asap anyway for that extra Influence from power projection.
Dude, i hate my voice too. Listening to yours is like taking a warm soothing bath after a hard day's work. I really love the game but I never even made it to a mid game crisis because I really don't have time to play until the next version comes out and crashes my saved games.😆 Keep up the good work.
Hi, I would really love to get a tutorial on automation of planets/sectors. I know they are not really good, but how to make use out of them and stuff would be really great.
That's the trick, you don't. Otherwise you have to fully built the sector yourself before releasing them. The AI is still not properly optimized for managing sector development.
Usually I manually do my planets until they are fairly built out. Then I turn on the planet automation, turn off the planet designation option, and make sure I add some resources to the automation thing. I’ve never bothered with sector automation because it’s much too limiting.
Hyperrelais have ofcause also advantages for offensive empires. I can't count how often i got declared a second war when i was just ready to take on a neighbour on one side, then having to rush to the opposite direction only to be late to the party and getting overrun. Rome needs its roads. To me the bigger question is, does it make sense to build them if you later have jump gates allowing you to travel instantly from one point to any other with a jump gate? How much do the relais station cost in comparison? I am glad that they seem to look at mods what players like there and adept concepts from there into the base game.
Thats my current play trough, and i can say, its bonkers ^^ i got one war declared but they are scared about my 20 corvettes that protect my borders xD that bonus for offense/defense by the starbase is soooo strong for defending your empire is absolutely cool. I play as lithoid terravore hivemind, best play trough as hivemind ever for me :)
I got the dlc for the orbital ring. I like my remnant mega Corp build and was just missing the ring to make it my Rogue Trader home world. Should be fun
My friends and I have discovered a new feature of Overlord, it turns out that you can have the crisis ascension and be a galactic custodian, you just need a third party to nominate you
One limitation of the Orbital Ring - it doesn't effect the base size of a planet. This means a 13 size world with an Orbital Ring and two Habitation Districts doesn't meet the size 15 requirement for making Penal or Leisure Worlds. I found that one out myself as I was testing it out (it was a pretty poor quality world with not many useful districts, so I wanted to see if I could turn it into an Amenities generator for my empire - I couldn't).
The one issue I have with the orbital rings is that all of the upgrades cost influence. Orbital rings just drain my influence to nothing in no time. I agree that the initial building of it should require influence just like a lot of other mega structures, but no other mega structures requires influence to upgrade.
biggest problem with hyper relays is it doesn't recalculate the transit times for reinforcing fleets, it still seems to go off the raw distance sometimes
Loving it after the hotfix! IMO the second best DLC, after Utopia. Hyper Relays are awesome. Also I really enjoyed playing with subterranean + lithoid.
Got Progenitor Hive, was Worth. Though i still want new layouts for titans & juggernauts. Still want bio-ships for my Devouring Swarm I do like the Orbital Rings.
Ah good, they fixed the AI not taking into account relative power for subjegation proposals. It was so easy to get almost anyone to be a subject as long as you offered them a really sweet deal lol.
Orbital rings are great but the hyper relays come out too late. I'd only linked my homeworld to my 2 guaranteed worlds and my closest border (4 jumps away) when I got offered Gateway construction.
I don't know if I like the Hyper Relay as much as you do. Gateways have already screwed with the pathfinding of fleets in micro intense situations but the Relays make it basically impossible. Have you ever stationed a fleet at the edge of a system to jump into the next at a specific timing (ie ambushing an enemy fleet)? Can't really do that anymore since fleets will ALWAYS try to use the Relay even if it means they have to cross 2 systems (the start system and the target system) in their entirety instead of just going through the regular hyperlane. And yes, it does make a difference which entry my max-range artillery battleships take into a system when the relay is close to the hyperlane the crisis sends their fleets in. Max range fleets have become a lot less viable in general since everyone enters and leaves neutral systems through the same point.
For me orbital rings and the hyper relay network along with keepers of the shroud actually making spiritualist worth playing make the expansion worth it also being able to diplomatically vassalize is very good and a cool feature as well! Overall I have liked all the exoantuons on some level though so that's just me. I mean this is paradox we are talking about. Lol probably should have expected a buggy mess at release. I bought it waited until the UI Upgrade mod was working again. And then waited for a patch. Because... Well its paradox 😊 I do like a lot of what they have been doing lately, even though there are generally issues with the releases.
Before I begin, please not this comment was made when I was 15:14 through the vid. @Montu, ever since I started watching your videos from almost a year and 3 months ago, my gameplay has gotten much better, I literally couldn’t even make it to midgame without completely crashing my economy or getting rekt by captain Ai, after I started watching your videos I got much better and can actually play without cheating to survive. You are an amazing TH-camr, better than Stefan Anon and Aspec because of the way you explain things and research things for this game. If I wasn’t broke as all hell I’d be one of your patrons!
@montuplays I am currently playing a Progeniturhive and the Popgrowth from the midgame onwards is nuts, with clonewats and hiveworlds you get a base popasembly of 7. And since you get a second of these special Asemblydrones with the hiveworlds you also get antoher 10% productionbonus for these worlds. Maybe you should make a video on that.
I like it for the most part, I hope they make some updates tho, I think dominating someone should be easier as an Overlord, I invade you, then you should be doing exactly what I want. The performance drop is a problem for me too, some people seem to be experiencing it aswell.
Could you make a video with a Lithoid Subterranean Crisis Build with Feudal Society and the Subterfuge tradition for high evasion mineral built destroyer fleets? Add a bulwark vassal for a meta/meme worthy turtle build.
I dislike Military Enclaves being abused by the AI. They can go through boarders as neutral then suddenly become an enemy once they get to the place they need to be. I've also noticed that oddly enough, I kept having these same Military Enclaves just phase past hyperlanes. So, still buggy as sin.
I have a vision, of every single system in the galaxy being linked to their empires capital, and having every single one of those capitals being linked to my entry system of terminal egress, that being linked to my galactic emperor capitol in the l-cluster- perfect unity of the galaxy :p
Haha, exactly what I expected from Paradox and exactly why I did not buy the Overlord so far. I will wait few more weeks until they patch and balance everything. This will also allow mods to catch up with the new features.
I am not finished with my new Psi origin game, but by 2350 I have completely wiped out a devouring swarm empire that had taken 1/3 of the map. And, although the Great Khan is about to spawn right next to me I am certain I will destroy him. Or, I just might take him out before he spawns. I am #2 in the Council and on the victory list. The AI has definitely changed. Espionage seems to be more effective as well.
I'd love stellaris to have biological based empires, in which all ships, citadels, maybe even some megastructures could be reskined to appear domesticated superanimals, or domesticated superbeings via genetic modification or something like that. I would do these civilizations food have much more weight to it, since alloys aren't needed (minerals could still be used to feed these beasts) or just change the name of alloys to a mix of food and minerals. I imagine a plant based dyson sphere made of some kind of giant fungus, or a colossal which sucks all of the gasses of a planet and makes life impossible, or a science nexus being some king of giant floating brain-looking tree or something like that. Idk how to roleplay things like hyper relays, or portals, or spy megastructures, or ringworlds, but I'd love to do that in stellaris
Ngl, the biggest thing I enjoy from Overlord has to be the Orbital Rings and Hyper relays. Adding even more Unity and Alloy generation for my Ecumenopolis is something I very much enjoy. Along with space roads, this helps my play style of turtling and building up my economy. While the specialized vassals are good, the only one I'm currently seeing worth it at the moment is the Scholarium specialization.
I love hyper relays so much. As someone who loves wide builds, it always felt like a bit of infrastructure was missing and lead to needing so many different fleets just to deal with threats in different parts of my empire in a reasonable time before gateways. A great simple addition that beautifully solves the problem
@@rnglillian8081 That thing you are complaining about (needing more fleets for a wide empire) was one of the intentional changes to prevent doomstacks and to actually force players into a more realistic sci-fi approach - if you have a wide empire, comprising of many sectors, it is only expected that each of them will be protected by its own fleet and that, as a wide empire, you are vulnerable to attacks from various angles and that it takes time to mobilize your troops properly. Just as we would expect.
While I too like the hyper relays, they are just returning us to some of the earliest tropes of Stellaris, when there were 3 different drives for the ships and hyperspace drive was fast but limited to predetermined routes... just like we get now with hyperspace relays.
Also, now, unless you are moving from one part of the galaxy to the other, gateways have largely lost their meaning. They simply offer very limited mobility compared to the relay, and in fact I haven't used them once. There was no need to.
What we need though, is the ability to destroy the relay.
I hate the hyper relays, I don't build em, I only build gateways, and Considine the ai always builds them, and I will conquer the ai. Well then only my farthest regions will suffer. But my inner systems? Goodluck taking my worlds and trying to run when my fleets come. No hyper relays for you to skip through xeno.
@@Wustenfuchs109 yeah, while I understand the desire to prevent deathstacks, the amount of fleets needed started getting excessive, especially if you did alot of conquering or did runs like becoming the crisis where many nations were declaring war on you. While I don't agree with complete destruction, having a mechanic where taking key systems in the network would shut down functionality for certain parts completely could be intresteing coupled with some kind of subterfuge mission to do a similar effect
Really like that there available earlier in the game compared to other megastructures.
I want vassals to be less of a hassle to create. I tried playing a Feudal empire and spinning off all of my outlying sectors into specialized vassals, but the difficulty of negotiating specializations and contributions with them made it a complete headache. I literally made them independent, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to dictate terms to them instead of them starting off as default vassals. I hoped this would be a way to play tall while playing wide, but sadly it’s just not worth it.
The new hotfix has solved much of those issues. But yes. It's silly that you can't define any terms at all, and you are REQUIRED to gain your vassals trust. Even if you're space Hitler, with a colossus, and massive fleets.
Yeah, it would be logical for you to be able to dictate all the terms when creating a vassal. But why they put so many restrictions is likely because of a balancing thing. I would love for it to be easier too. I wanted to do that exact same thing (i like to play as a feudal empire as it facilitates haviing many science vessels and speeding trough the first tradition tree). But its not easy to do at all.
The entire idea of vassals who can decline your offers is pretty insane to me, as I saw in the steam comments for it, I have double the power of the rest of the entire galaxy yet some weak ass puppet can defy me? It makes little sense really.
Lucky… I keep crashing when I make protectorates
@@hengry2 something as simple as factoring in relative fleet power seems like an easy fix for a lot of this. A super powerful core empire should be able to use its vassals as little marionettes, while if it got smashed by a rival empire its vassals might start making demands or refusing to pay tribute.
It took me awhile to understand a lot of the new mechanics. I definitely struggled at first and pre-patch. But since the update I’m really enjoying the game now. Just vassilized the entire galaxy on my last run. And the take point thing working made taking out the scourge much easier. Had fleets from pretty much every empire in the galaxy following my fleet around.
What you describe is using two exploits though. Being able to effortlessly order the galaxy around is not a good thing. Both the vassalization acceptance and the take point mechanic are currently broken.
@@CaptainFalcoyd how is either an exploit? I made empires vassals by declaring war on almost all of them. Only a couple volunteered to be vassals. (One I made myself by splitting off a section of my empire). And all the empires were fighting the crisis, the take point just had them group up on me, they had all grouped up on each other before that.
@@CaptainFalcoyd yeah it might be unbalanced, I don't know but it makes sense and is a cool feature
That sounds exactly like how Lathland literally just beat the game in his latest video lol
@@slipknottin also your reply to Christian Floyd sounds exactly like how I would do it pre 3.4 lmao
I wish i make a human that looked like the overload dude
I think one of the things that made Hyper Relays hard for people to understand is that it seemed like nobody described it simply with an example or even a visualisation. Like explaining clearly that the ships are sent from one relay to the next in sequence (it kind of reminds me of that intergalactic bridge from Stargate, the one that used a long line of stargates that would forward people on from one to the next without re-materialising them until they reached the station at the middle of the bridge).
"Say this fleet needs to travel five systems over and all five systems have hyper relays. When you give them the order, they'll fly to the relay in this first system, which will carry them to the next relay which will forward them on to the next which will forward them on to the next and so-on, until they exit at the final relay. They never have to fly across the intervening systems, just sit at each system's relay for a few days for the next jump to be prepared. Where normal travel could see a fleet take several weeks to cross a single system, this cuts the travel time down to an insane degree."
Mass effect in a nutshell
@@urieldraconis857 Yeah! I was trying to remember the name of the game that had those galatic catapults.
I figured the name 'Hyper Relay' was honestly a pretty selfexplanatory name. 'Hyper' ought to immediately invoke the idea of Hyperlanes or something to do with them, and 'Relay' would suggest that it is transporting something along a set line of other relays in a network.
Combing the two to a 'Hyper Relay' would thereby suggest that it is a Relay system that has something to do with Hyperlanes. Combine this with the description on the tech in-game, and it shouldn't really be difficult to understand.
I thought it was pretty intuitive really. Understood from the get go that you'd have to daisy chain the relays to create a network.
Its a super nice addition.
ohhhhhh so thats how it works, finally! Thanks, dude.
It was pretty hard to understand yeah.
Fixing the auto-cancelling trade agreements has saved it for me.
Imagine you're me, me and my friends are super excited to play, we all boot up the game and get to it.
20 years into the game, I start noticing vassal bugs first when I release a sector:
The loc key was broken so I had no idea what a critical dialogue was supposed to say.
I can't adjust the contract for 5 years which was a massive disappointment.
I can no longer make trades with ANYONE without the trade auto-cancelling, which was really disappointing because taxless trades are a key part of how I play MP.
Friendly multi-player is tons of fun but without trade it would be way less enjoyable.
Planetary invasions need to be redone
it is, montu made a video on it in april
The best use I've found for mercenary enclaves is retiring my early corvettes into them as I move up to better ships. It becomes a choice between scrapping for a one time bonus, or setting up the enclave, which will pay me taxes for the rest of the game. In my current run, I did just that relatively early on. Retired my old "Just here for the power projection" corvettes for better ships, and have had said mercenary enclave making me a bit of money. I wasn't using the ships anyway. I don't even hire them, I just use the +naval capacity purchase from them and let them go about doing what they do.
Not a bad use for a few corvettes on trash equipment.
Watching all these cinematics makes me wish for a Stellaris-esque game with the 4X strategy that we have now, combined with a battle system that allows players to control their fleet or a singular ship. Sort of like Mount & Blade, but make it Stellaris.
ooo
There's many RTS following this minus the direct control, which is done well by Starsector, however far less weight in the "empire-building", albeit this can be changed by mods.
But i'd lie if i say i didn't sacrifice all kinds of farm animals to the ancient gods in hope of one day witnessing a 4X or (good/nonP2W/notspreadsheet/actuallyfinished) MMO with a direct/partialRTS fleet battle system.
I want a marriage between Total War and Stellaris. Stellaris depth of economy and diplomacy with Total War style battles that you can play out or auto-resolve
@@scorpixel1866 I see a Starsector enjoyer. It feels like REDACTED mechanic should be in Stellaris. Together with trade acces. Like every shortage is fixed by allied empire with trade agreament. And its like market of excess income that show who needs what.
@@ryszardwodarczyk8452the Starsector commodity trade system in Stellaris would be amazing
Montu, long time listener first time caller here. I love your content you are without a doubt my favorite stellaris player in the world. I bought all the dlc for this game after watching your videos. Keep doing what you are doing. And I loved your role play videos with the evil wallpaul and first citizen Underhill just brilliant.
Gadzooks
Imagine getting the Worm event, turning your system into tomb worlds, and putting rings on all those size 7 mini planets. Good luck seizing that system.
I thought you can only have 1 orbital ring in each system?
@@roblaquiere8220 Nope! You can only have one per _planet,_ but if you have multiple colonized planets in the same system, each can have its own ring.
Now stack that with the subterranean origin, resilient trait, and the necromancer civic.
@@roblaquiere8220 1 starbase, but as many OR as you have habitable planets. I’ve only used it for pre-mega shipyard fleet production myself, but let me tell you it can do some nutty stuff when you have 2+ planets in the same system.
Get Citadel tech, some choice turtling techs, fill every single ring and the starbase with defense platforms, and watch entire hoards of foes break themselves on that one system trying to get through.
I play primarily psionic races. It's hands down my favorite, and the play style I find the most fun. It's been frustrating trying to roll it every game though. TBH I would've picked up the dlc even if the shroud origin was the only thing in it lol.
yeah its stupid good.
As someone who plays Ironman/vanilla out of preference and enjoys Psionics moat, I wish they would redo it. I'm basically forced to alt+f4 sometimes which is cheesy but COME ON MAN THE ADMIRAL HAD A GREEN CHANCE OF BEING CHOSEN ONE AND STILL FAILS
I like where it is going. More defence options = less snowball effect and more potential for playing tall. It's kinda meh, that if empire falls behind earlier, it has no chance to catch up.
I personally gravitate towards narrow and tall for both the roleplay and the challenge of it. So this DLC has made that playstyle much more enjoyable for me, even if it’s still not quite meta.
Ahh, the Paradox cycle. "The next DLC looks so cool, I'll start my next game when it lands" -> "The new DLC is so buggy and my mods don't work, I'll start my next game when it's fixed" -> "Oh wow, they've announced a new DLC, let me read this dev diary before I start my next game"... To be fair, it's gotten a lot better since the introduction of the custodian team, there's now a decent grace period between phases :)
At least Paradox still loves their space game.
_glares at Frontier and Elite: Dangerous_
I hate that they consider Mercenary Enclaves not gaining Cyborg or Psionic traits as "working as intended." Psionic ascension ascends all of your species, no matter what empire they're in, so that should directly affect Mercenary Enclaves with your species, granting their Admirals the Psionic trait and relevant bonuses.
As for the cyborg trait, sharing your technology with your Enclaves quite feasibly should allow them to become cyborgs.
Enclaves are independent, why should they follow your empire's ascension path?
@@roblaquiere8220 For the convenience of the player. I shouldn't have to wait to fully ascend to get the most out of the mercenary enclaves.
Problem I have with the scavengers is usually 9/10 times I can't ever use their main Feature of scrapping fleets as they typically spawn too far away and/or just happen to be in an empire who hates everyone else and closes borders. Would hope they change it where You are not required to send the fleet you want to scrap to them directly or make the scavengers own their own system like the caravaneers which could make accessing them Easier. Or even add an option like the Shroud Beacon (Allowing you to build a 'wormhole' between your empire and their system).
Yeah I have the same issue, I thought it would be cool if they had like 3 different scrapyard across the galaxy, or if you could fund them to setup a new scrapyard somewhere in your empire.
I do like the idea of a scavenger fleet.
It could also disassemble abandoned starbases.
They even have a fleet that can occasionally wander into your territory and sometimes drop an abandoned ship, creating a special event that nets you progress towards a random engineering tech. I don’t see why I’d have to rely on having their home station inside my empire in order to use what I consider to be their core feature: ship recycling.
@@OneBiasedOpinion that sounds like a caravaneer event.
@@adamnevraumont4027 …you are entirely right. @_@
Sorry for all the videos that got invalidated after the hotfix! But honestly, after the hotfix, the dlc is much better. Orbital rings are bonkers, allowing better tall builds, and it is much easier to get prospectorium and scholarium vassals. You can use vassals to build pretty insane mid game economies.
Montu question: Do you know if they changed the Megastructure tech weight or tech pre-reqs? It seems to be rolling around 10-15 years later in the game than in 3.3. Thanks for all your content!
What bothers me the most was the performance impact of the update. I can deal with bugs and exploits because I only play single-player. But the game struggling at 2300 is just too much of a hassle for me.
true its much worse
So with the update the game runs worse?! I haven't played it yet.
@@greggreg2458 Ye, though I suppose it's not a problem if you got a great pc, mines kinda ok. I do know it runs like shit now way sooner than it did before with Overlord.
@@Figgy_Jub How does it play if you turn off the DLC but keep the update? is it a combination of the two or just the update?
I had some good fun as a megacorp with Mercenaries. if you take the right civics, them grab Lord of War and get the first GC legislation for Mercenaries, your cap can be 5 enclaves (6 with more GC laws).
it was wild how often I'd get a free 2000 credits and some bonuses like extra ships or research. I started to use the five fleets as like a Medieval "Levy" where when I'm not at war, I have a small retinue of ships and save tons of money on upkeep, but when a war starts, I suddenly jump from 200/800 naval capacity to well over 800/800 capacity, with the option to rent more fleets for short term boosts.
the 10% naval capacity bonus from the deal with Mercenaries is probably a decent enough reason to throw up one fleet of them when you have a lot of alloys to rebuild the fleet.
No YOU are the lovely one Montuwu!
I actually didn't realize that your channel had only been around for 18 months or so. You're definitely my go-to Stellaris channel by a huge margin.
Ngl, I was very unhappy after 3.3, but 3.4 + Overlord pretty much solved most of my issues. The reason my empire almost always ended up huge is because I always integrated subjects. That was simply the best use I could see for them given my play style. The DLC gave me two things that suited me right down to the ground: shroud-walker origin and vassal specialisation + levelling. Now I no longer need to integrate vassals, which keeps my empire size within reasonable limits while giving me the kind of benefits most suited to me. Scholaria ftw! Honestly? As exciting as the orbital rings and relays are, they're just the cherry on top. I haven't bothered with the yeetapult at all. Personally I haven't run across too many of the bugs, but I'm glad to hear they're fixed.
Have fun when there is a rebellion in one of your vassal empires and a bug makes it mathematically impossible to win the war because it doesn't recognize occupied systems and planets.
The Yeetapult is really just for the gambling addicts in Stellaris, for when rolling techs and leader traits just isn’t enough and you feel the urge to gamble whole fleets on a whim.
they need to ''buff'' the quantum catapult, reduce the alloys necessary and reduce the time per levels, so it can have the impact in the game it should, hope they do that with the changes to the enclaave. :)
I feel like the biggest Issue i had with it is finding a bloody star to build it on
The main problem I have with 3.4, even now post hotfix, is the awful performance drop I have noticed on my game. Game speed is much slower, and lategame lag is just as bad for me as it has been in 3.2. 3.3 made massive improvements to the game performance, where normal speed in 3.3 felt the same as fast speed in 3.2, or even faster, and lategame lag only caused minor slowdowns, usually kicking in around 2350+, now however in 3.4, performance is the same as it has been in 3.2, with further slowdowns starting to compound exponentially from 2230 onwards, getting especially bad around 2300, much worse than the slowdowns in the mid to late game in the 3.3 update.
Fast speed in 3.4 feels slower than normal speed in 3.3, and none of the hotfixes have changed this for me. I also have no idea why this happened anyway, since nothing in the update said much about changing the pop mechanics or anything else, yet somehow this update caused a very large noticeable drop in game speed, indicating that there is a lot more internal calculating going on than before, or somehow they messed up the previous performance improvements.
yeah its much worse for me
Same. I‘m sure the custodians will fix it soon though.
I was thinking it might be vassals and how they work but even early game with no vassels is slower (not horrible for me tho, closing the current game and reloading it has helped me)
Honestly my general rule for paradox dlcs is usually to buy it and then wait for at least two weeks before I actually play the game, worked quite well so far
Montu, your a great youtuber who makes wonderful content.
You do great testing, you back up your tutorials with chats on the results of your testing and your presentation is enguaging.
You got me back into stellaris after I gave it up when they nerfed playing tall empires.
I recently tried Imp Feifdom after the hotfix and have had fun to do tall as a megacorp with my partner (she was playing clone army, fantic purifiers)
I had a chuckle when overlord first came out, i did my normal type of dominating empire and only ran into the relays... it was like the xpac was for a single megastructure :)
The only really big game-breaking bugs that i've found with the Overlord DLC that have subtracted from my enjoyment of the game have come from mods (specifically one is that the Subterranian Origin does not give my empire pops the Cave Dweller trait, so i'm skipping that origin for now hoping that whatever mod caused this gets fixed, because the time it takes from starting the game to actually getting into the game, since i don't have a SSD, is very long so going through each mod individually would take a few days). Overlooking that, i've been enjoying all the features from the game so far.
EDIT: I love the Military Enclaves. I always try to get at least one ASAP, since i've played with them they've gotten me through defensive wars i would have lost otherwise, and i think th main point there is that with those military ships there, i could keep my fleet and fleet expenditure lower than usual, an AI empire sees that and declares war on me, i hire the merc fleets and then i strike deep into their territory with my now superior fleet numbers, always making sure the merc fleets take the brunt of the fighting. For the first time in a long while, with these Mercs, i've had empires ask ME for status quo peace.
Building a Relay Network that expands from every corner of the Empire back to the Capital is such a good feeling. Not to mention slapping an orbital ring down on every world I control. In my opinion, everything else is just icing on the cake for this expack.
All relays lead to Rome!
Favorite thing about the patch? Being able to make monthly trade deals with non-subject AI again
I am sad
Can't do accurate Zerg
Can't have vassals as devouring swarm :(
Can someone tell the devs?
Call the Hyperspace Relay what it is: a bypass...... just without Vogons
I think the influence required to propose subjugation is about 3 times higher than it should be.
I played with an empire around the merc enclaves, and honestly, they are really fun (now bear in mind I do play on captain difficulty, sooo things may be different for me) and the individual fleets are awesome to have in your pocket, it let me focus my economy on massively strengthening economy with very little regard to your standing fleet, the only thing I wished is that the merc fleets after contract was over...would actually go back to your section of space.
Tried playing as lithoids from the deep mines.
Stepped difficulty dove twice from GA. Had a great start. Got vasselizef promptly. Transitioned from vadsrl to prospectorium. Is an interesting play through
Overall quite happy with the content and direction the DLC has gone in. I was really disappointed with Nemesis as I was most looking forward to espionage mechnics which have been a complete flop imo so having a dmc that I want to play and enjoy is good. I just wish that when I went Fiefdom that my overlord wouldn't implode everytime after 50 years I want to work towards fighting for my freedom so feels kinda cheap and takes the fun out of a playthorugh when everytime I go for it the games like, oh your overlord toppled over now you're free and its only 2250 have fun.
“Also everyone is eyeing you. Hope those ‘liberation’ plans of yours had contingency for your next-door neighbors as well. :^)”
The overtime payout if you upgrade the PMC enclaves to the max is incredible IMO but I don't see a point in actually hiring them.
This is about where I'm at as well. I think the idea is that you can rely on your enclaves instead of paying upkeep on normal fleets all the time, but... you just do both. Have your usual standing army, then if you actually need the fleet power hire the mercs and when the war's over/the upkeep from going over naval cap is too much just end the contract.
I've used them to a great degree, if you have abundant energy or need a fleet immediately that can stand toe to to with an enemy it's been very solid. Also consider the fleet borrowing system in place which used to have to be a mod.
This expansion changed this game so much and most of it for the better. Which is more than most expansions. I've had a few playthroughs with relatively few bugs and my last play through i had an empire vassalized who I would switch to supplying me resources or who I would supply resources to. We engaged in both our offensive wars. And I would really love to know I'm right here, but I'm pretty sure the steady supply of resources I have him helped make him into a formidable foe of the galaxy. He became strong and ruthless and he was loyal. He basically helped me conquer the galaxy and implement the first galactic empire. Sometimes his offensive wars were a surprise or bothersome I usually just engaged and we conquered more and more. It was a lot of fun. Having a vassal in any sense seems to be rather crucial in the power creep later in the game. By the end of the game I had 5 vassals without the ascension perk and if managed well are not hard to keep loyal. I did have to integrate 2 of them because that was way too many. By 2500 I had roughly half the galaxy under my control either directly or indirectly. Fun times.
Basically; subjects rebel, slave species rebel, newly conquered primitives rebel and robots rebel. The only solution is exterminatus; playing with only one primary species and genocide ASAP whatever species your conquer. Not that I mind but I thought devs wanted to move away from kill everything in sight playstyle.
Genocide is the only answer
I didn’t see nearly as many rebellions since the patch. There were some here or there, but nowhere near as bad as it was pre-patch
I have yet to have a single rebellion.
Also pretty sure they literally made it this patch so that newly conquered primitives cannot start rebelling from stabillity issues for a long while so you got tons of time to fix stabillity.
Hyper relays have really been a game changer for me.
Honestly only thing I've personally liked about Overlord is the Orbital ring as they offer some nice bonuses to your planets but that's about it. I'm still fairly new to the game but I've only found the Hyper Relay nice if you get you manage to get the crystals or a vassal for it and the Quantum Catapult to be a nice gimmick if the RNG gods haven't screwed you out of a Neutron Star for it
In regards to the military enclaves you can get a Starbase building that increases fire rate. You can stack this with the command center so you can get major buffs for defending fleets, especially if stacked with the Harmony and/or Unyielding ascension tree
My friends and I did a multi-player game right after the release and we all played as imperial fiefs. We only played a hundred years or so, but it was the most fun we had in a stellaris multiplayer run in a long while. All of us are EU4/CK3 fans as well, so seeing the Holy Empire break into the Palatinate and Prince Elector was a pleasant surprise and taking advantage of the situation to acquire our own subjects was also really, really fun. The difficulty in expanding in the early game was also very interesting and forced us to pursue non-meta plays and adapt to the situation. Overall I think the purchase was well worth it from just that one game
The gamers reported all sorts of bugs and imbalances, and complained Paradox didn't make a QA for this patch and DLC. But the gamers didn't realize that they're the QA! Besides, I believe they need to take relative power into vassal negatiation more properly, maybe use both diplomatic weight, fleet power, and economics as well
I’d say it is a good expansion. My only complaint is the usual early days more unstable than uranium.
Most notably I keep crashing when I try to make protectorates.
But at least they care about the game enough to patch it.
To me, and this might be a weird opinion, but I feel like Mastery of Nature is finally worth it. Being able to add 2 districts to a planet plus 4 from an orbital ring, and 1 more from expansion, adds up fast. If playing wide, super-wide is your cup of tea, like it is for me, it adds so much depth because now it makes every planet you can get, worthwhile. That size 10 planet you thumbed your nose at before? Suddenly with a bit more work, that size 10 now has 17 districts, and now all of a sudden it seems way more worth colonizing. Especially since they've added in more about terraforming too, making it so that you can do things like tidally lock a planet on purpose, which adds more generator districts to it, which can seriously add up fast, especially in the mid-game. Couple this with more districts and an energy-production boosting building on the orbital ring, and now that planet, once decked out in pops, can easily be producing several hundred energy by itself.
Also the L-cluster has become an even better 'pocket empire' as I like to call it, than it was even before. Now obviously it depends on exactly *what* you get out of the L-cluster once you open the gates, as for what you can do with it. But if you can terraform the planets within, then it can become the ultimate backstop no matter what happens elsewhere in the galaxy. Couple that with the new orbital rings, and you can make it so turtle-y that no enemy, no matter how many ships they send, can break your lines. Even if you can't terraform planets, nothing stops you from building habitats and perhaps a ringworld (among other megastructures) regardless of anything else, so you can still have a tremendous power out there.
Also the change to void dwellers Is a perfect case in point. I played void dwellers because I wanted to get simpler experience. The traditional colonist jobs just make things even more confusing.
Because void dwellers technically don't colonize. They build habitats
Colonist job is a crappy output job, never run a colonist if you can help it.
Honestly after playing through with the new features I think I preferred the old way we did vassals. It seems the contracts are almost always going to be better for the vassal rather than the overlord until you renegotiate.
Thats actually something you can change in your policies. You can set it to be really nice to newly created vassals or really demanding. Then obviously can customize it when you renegotiate.
Also when you split off a vassal from your own colonies you can renegotiate immediately now.
If you set your policy they can start with terrible deals for them.
I yeeted 5 fleets into the general vicinity of my enemy’s capital system. Only one made it to the objective.
10/10 would play again.
Thanks for all the content you publish!
In my opinion Overlord instroduces many things and is worth it. Pre-patch it was impossible to enjoy as overlord as all vassals (as you explain) were unwilling to change its conditions. Now it is worth it.
Keep on the good work m8!
I really enjoyed the Imperial Fiefdom origin. It's kind of an early-game crisis and you've got some very important choices to make. If you don't know how to manage your economy, you'll be eaten alive. I went from two planets as a vassal to owning a dozen vassals across half the galaxy.
And yeah, I waited until after the hotfix to try it because turns out giving vassals the ability to guarantee independence and enter into Defensive Pacts outside your empire was a bad idea. They should be free to trade, though, go nuts. Oh, and there's a vassal building that gives you Influence, make you sure you build it! And there are loyalty problems if you have too many, unless you take certain Civics or Ascension.
btw Space-Highways ought to be the term.
Luv your vids....!!!
Man id luv 2 see a megastructure building origin where the main focus is spamming multiple SCC and Dyson sphere an that sweet nexus...downside is u get really bad debuffs to all resources.
As long as I've been playing Paradox games, I fully expect a new expansion to need some significant patching shortly after release. The number of interacting systems makes it inevitable.
Personally, I enjoy the week or so of chaos with all the goofy exploits. Part of enjoying the game. But I'm always amazed at how upset people are about it. We all know this is a thing and if it is going to tilt you, why not just wait a week and see?
Congrats on all the bugs you caught by the way.
So many things have changed bringing new stuff, I just had to buy it. Didnt regret
I like the quantum catapult not for its abilities but rather because it’s now the fastest built megastructure, tied with the mega shipyard. The physics tree is much less cluttered at that point though than the society tree, so it’s much easier to roll after unlocking mega engineering.
Other than that, yeah I agree it’s just a pretty gimmicky megastructure.
Keep it up Motu! We love you! Your voice is perfect
I’ve enjoyed the psionic origin the most it’s so fun being able to settle the other half of the galaxy really quick lol
I rather like the RP of a psionic civilization. And, more mechanically, the mind glow for 'certain' infiltrators.
The Hotfix portion of the video about a hotfix starts at 15:37.
Regarding merc enclaves - the concept and flavor of them is awesome and I personally love them but they need more work by the devs I believe. I'm asking for simple QoL improvements like
making it clear on rented fleets when the contract ends and ask with a popup whether to renew it. Also make it clear which fleet belongs to which enclave (would be useful when you're the patron of multiple enclaves). (Note: these are my experiences on single player Admiral difficulty games with other settings default)
As for how good they really are - like Montu says your own fleets are generally better but merc fleets do have some benefits even if their ship designs are generally trash. You either don't use them or just one (from the GC laws) or you focus on them and have 3 or more coupled with Lord of War ascension perk to get the most out of it.
1. If your economy is strong enough to invest in their fleet size to max and sustain them in costs/naval cap the returns are pretty great - a 400 naval cap fleet by around 2250-60 is not that difficult to achieve and it's pretty strong (around 30k fleetpower or more is definitely possible)
2. Besides investment and contract/monthly upkeep you don't pay the build costs and reinforcements are neutral fleets and won't be shot down as they fly to join your big fleet - that's something you have to pay a lot of attention/micro managment to do safely with your normal owned fleets
3. Getting dividents with stored Tech - effectively doubling your research speed for two or more years is obviously amazing.
50 ships to start the company isn't all that difficult to do either - just use cheap corvettes with a weapon or two and FTL drives. On Admiral or GA it's hard to rush AIs anyway so you probably rely on diplomacy anyway so you buildup those corvettes asap anyway for that extra Influence from power projection.
Dude, i hate my voice too. Listening to yours is like taking a warm soothing bath after a hard day's work. I really love the game but I never even made it to a mid game crisis because I really don't have time to play until the next version comes out and crashes my saved games.😆 Keep up the good work.
"a warm soothing bath," wow, I wish I could hear my own voice like that. It sounds very pleasant and relaxing haha
One of my favourite DLC's still. Even with the bugs
Hi, I would really love to get a tutorial on automation of planets/sectors. I know they are not really good, but how to make use out of them and stuff would be really great.
That's the trick, you don't.
Otherwise you have to fully built the sector yourself before releasing them. The AI is still not properly optimized for managing sector development.
Usually I manually do my planets until they are fairly built out. Then I turn on the planet automation, turn off the planet designation option, and make sure I add some resources to the automation thing. I’ve never bothered with sector automation because it’s much too limiting.
Hyperrelais have ofcause also advantages for offensive empires. I can't count how often i got declared a second war when i was just ready to take on a neighbour on one side, then having to rush to the opposite direction only to be late to the party and getting overrun.
Rome needs its roads.
To me the bigger question is, does it make sense to build them if you later have jump gates allowing you to travel instantly from one point to any other with a jump gate? How much do the relais station cost in comparison?
I am glad that they seem to look at mods what players like there and adept concepts from there into the base game.
All we need now is Devouring Swarm Progenitor Hives to be thing. That's the one thing that caught me off guard with the DLC.
Thats my current play trough, and i can say, its bonkers ^^ i got one war declared but they are scared about my 20 corvettes that protect my borders xD that bonus for offense/defense by the starbase is soooo strong for defending your empire is absolutely cool. I play as lithoid terravore hivemind, best play trough as hivemind ever for me :)
I got the dlc for the orbital ring. I like my remnant mega Corp build and was just missing the ring to make it my Rogue Trader home world. Should be fun
I hope when it gets to console next year we don’t have such a messy launch
My friends and I have discovered a new feature of Overlord, it turns out that you can have the crisis ascension and be a galactic custodian, you just need a third party to nominate you
One limitation of the Orbital Ring - it doesn't effect the base size of a planet. This means a 13 size world with an Orbital Ring and two Habitation Districts doesn't meet the size 15 requirement for making Penal or Leisure Worlds. I found that one out myself as I was testing it out (it was a pretty poor quality world with not many useful districts, so I wanted to see if I could turn it into an Amenities generator for my empire - I couldn't).
The one issue I have with the orbital rings is that all of the upgrades cost influence. Orbital rings just drain my influence to nothing in no time. I agree that the initial building of it should require influence just like a lot of other mega structures, but no other mega structures requires influence to upgrade.
biggest problem with hyper relays is it doesn't recalculate the transit times for reinforcing fleets, it still seems to go off the raw distance sometimes
Hyperrelays made wide empire suddenly very fun for me
Thank you for all your videos
Personally i like your voice and i also think your pretty good at these videos.. so as a long term subscriber, thank you :)
Still waiting for them to fix the name generator for hive minds.
Loving it after the hotfix! IMO the second best DLC, after Utopia. Hyper Relays are awesome. Also I really enjoyed playing with subterranean + lithoid.
Hyper Relays are a godsend. I wish the DLC was cheaper but its definitely worth getting at some point just for the Relays alone
Your voice is fine and your content is very helpful so thanks!
Got Progenitor Hive, was Worth.
Though i still want new layouts for titans & juggernauts. Still want bio-ships for my Devouring Swarm
I do like the Orbital Rings.
Ah good, they fixed the AI not taking into account relative power for subjegation proposals. It was so easy to get almost anyone to be a subject as long as you offered them a really sweet deal lol.
So the hyper relays are actually mass relays from mass effect
Main issue I have with the hyper relays is that it prevents you from jumping normally.
The video I’ve been waiting for before I make a decision to buy the dlc or wait
Orbital rings are great but the hyper relays come out too late. I'd only linked my homeworld to my 2 guaranteed worlds and my closest border (4 jumps away) when I got offered Gateway construction.
i had 2 fairly stong vassals that betrayed me due to having a deffensive pact with an evangalizing empire i declared war with,..
I don't know if I like the Hyper Relay as much as you do. Gateways have already screwed with the pathfinding of fleets in micro intense situations but the Relays make it basically impossible.
Have you ever stationed a fleet at the edge of a system to jump into the next at a specific timing (ie ambushing an enemy fleet)? Can't really do that anymore since fleets will ALWAYS try to use the Relay even if it means they have to cross 2 systems (the start system and the target system) in their entirety instead of just going through the regular hyperlane. And yes, it does make a difference which entry my max-range artillery battleships take into a system when the relay is close to the hyperlane the crisis sends their fleets in.
Max range fleets have become a lot less viable in general since everyone enters and leaves neutral systems through the same point.
Hi! Do you make various Tier Lists soon? Can't wait to see them.
For me orbital rings and the hyper relay network along with keepers of the shroud actually making spiritualist worth playing make the expansion worth it also being able to diplomatically vassalize is very good and a cool feature as well! Overall I have liked all the exoantuons on some level though so that's just me. I mean this is paradox we are talking about. Lol probably should have expected a buggy mess at release. I bought it waited until the UI Upgrade mod was working again. And then waited for a patch. Because... Well its paradox 😊 I do like a lot of what they have been doing lately, even though there are generally issues with the releases.
Before I begin, please not this comment was made when I was 15:14 through the vid. @Montu, ever since I started watching your videos from almost a year and 3 months ago, my gameplay has gotten much better, I literally couldn’t even make it to midgame without completely crashing my economy or getting rekt by captain Ai, after I started watching your videos I got much better and can actually play without cheating to survive. You are an amazing TH-camr, better than Stefan Anon and Aspec because of the way you explain things and research things for this game. If I wasn’t broke as all hell I’d be one of your patrons!
@montuplays I am currently playing a Progeniturhive and the Popgrowth from the midgame onwards is nuts, with clonewats and hiveworlds you get a base popasembly of 7. And since you get a second of these special Asemblydrones with the hiveworlds you also get antoher 10% productionbonus for these worlds. Maybe you should make a video on that.
I like it for the most part, I hope they make some updates tho, I think dominating someone should be easier as an Overlord, I invade you, then you should be doing exactly what I want. The performance drop is a problem for me too, some people seem to be experiencing it aswell.
Could you make a video with a Lithoid Subterranean Crisis Build with Feudal Society and the Subterfuge tradition for high evasion mineral built destroyer fleets? Add a bulwark vassal for a meta/meme worthy turtle build.
I dislike Military Enclaves being abused by the AI. They can go through boarders as neutral then suddenly become an enemy once they get to the place they need to be. I've also noticed that oddly enough, I kept having these same Military Enclaves just phase past hyperlanes. So, still buggy as sin.
They removed my leader names
The orbital ring was kinda wonky for me. For some reason, there’s this giant building right next to it. Like the end of a giant carrier.
I have a vision, of every single system in the galaxy being linked to their empires capital, and having every single one of those capitals being linked to my entry system of terminal egress, that being linked to my galactic emperor capitol in the l-cluster- perfect unity of the galaxy :p
Haha, exactly what I expected from Paradox and exactly why I did not buy the Overlord so far. I will wait few more weeks until they patch and balance everything. This will also allow mods to catch up with the new features.
I am not finished with my new Psi origin game, but by 2350 I have completely wiped out a devouring swarm empire that had taken 1/3 of the map. And, although the Great Khan is about to spawn right next to me I am certain I will destroy him. Or, I just might take him out before he spawns. I am #2 in the Council and on the victory list. The AI has definitely changed. Espionage seems to be more effective as well.
I'd love stellaris to have biological based empires, in which all ships, citadels, maybe even some megastructures could be reskined to appear domesticated superanimals, or domesticated superbeings via genetic modification or something like that. I would do these civilizations food have much more weight to it, since alloys aren't needed (minerals could still be used to feed these beasts) or just change the name of alloys to a mix of food and minerals. I imagine a plant based dyson sphere made of some kind of giant fungus, or a colossal which sucks all of the gasses of a planet and makes life impossible, or a science nexus being some king of giant floating brain-looking tree or something like that. Idk how to roleplay things like hyper relays, or portals, or spy megastructures, or ringworlds, but I'd love to do that in stellaris
Definitely needed some fixes, but i am overall loving the new DLC. Has anyone else noticed that the game is a LOT less laggy now?
That was like the fastest and biggest hotfix Paradox have ever made