Hooves

As the Ottomans continue to expand into Europe. The forces of France and The Commonwealth extend their influence aggressively. Austria is my one true enemy and destroying them is key to taking the Balkans. I've released Bosnia from Ragusa, and crippled Hungary greatly by breaking their alliance with Austria. I found myself at war with Austria after declaring war on Genoa for the small island off the coast of Istanbul. After constant warfare of attrition and skirmishes. I was able to surround their soldiers at their capital of Wien.

After the war was finished and the island came under my control. I moved to conquer more of Egypt after recovering from the wars against Hungary and Austria. Egypt was nothing more then an ant to me and was quickly dispatched. My control over the Mediterranean was growing nicely.

I've noticed that the Commonwealth found themselves at war with Austria a few years later due to Brandenburg's greed for Saxony. Seeing this as my chance to further my plans. I declared war on Hungary who was allied to Austria, but not Spain. 

After constant backs and forths, and numerous skirmishes. Brandenburg peaced out while Austrian troops were still in Commonwealth land. Leaving my backdoor wide open. Thanks to the multiple layers of forths, it wasn't quite easy getting to me. Pushing back Bosnia from Crimea, and Hungary/Papal States from Greece. I moved to corner the combined forces of Austria/Hungary/Papal States.

Due to superior Ottoman tech and strong discipline. I was able to wipe out their forces.

Cancelling Austria's treaties with Spain and Hungary. I look forward to further Balkan gains in the future.

In this session I fought

-Austria twice
-Hungary twice
-Egypt twice

I should have pictures next time when my own PC arrives. But in short I've been murdering my heirs, and my heirs are rebelling against me. Meanwhile I burned Venice's fleet and gained dominance over the Mediterranean. Eating up the Mamelukes and their petty allies.

Next session I hope to make some moves against Hungary.

Guild Wars 2 is a game about your own pace. If you commit too much you'll burn out easily. I burnt out quickly myself at first, but playing with friends now. It's more enjoyable, especially with the new additions they added. It's also buy to play so no subscription pain. You can transfer ingame money to paid currency if you want fancy costumes and all. They are starting to add raids, and casually adding stuff over time. It doesn't have the speed of subscription game but that's a given.

Obviously I'd be #3 on that list so /shrugs

Portugal is at the bidding of Castille or Aragon. If they don't side with one or the other. They can easily get steamrolled by Castille. It takes the combined effort of Aragon and Portugal to take Castille. Even with major colonization Portugal is still pretty incompetent to be classified as a superpower.

I find the limit to allies interesting. Although it can lead to issues with people wanting to form a diplomatic coalition against the Overlord player.

Honestly I'm looking for something else as well. Just need a community to jump ship with.

I'd like to ask what style of MMO are you looking for? RPG? Survival? I have a good list but I'd like to know specifics. Can your computer hold graphic-intensive games?

Wildstar truly is dying out, and Tera is pretty bland from my experience. Neverwinter can get dull over time since it heavily relies on player-created content. While Skyforge doesn't know what it wants in life.

Calling dibs on Ottomans

I'd like to add an anti-rerolling to Lithuania, Aragon and Hungary. Those are some really key nations to screw over tier 1 nations. In that if nobody picked it or plays it anymore, nobody can reroll to them. Just like you shouldn't reroll to tier 1 nations.

-TKR changes into Infinite Legions

-Wait for confusion

-$$$

Little Witch Academia will save anime!

Winter 2017 doesn't have any anime that's out of the ordinary I feel. 

1 hour ago, japan77 said:

Seriously @Hooves you've lost you're thread to others...

It's more fun that way no?

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to this session because I was really exhausted from move preparations. But I should be able to make it next session to control a random AI Empire (dont know how it all works but we'll find out).

Stellaris session cancelled this week due to 50% missing players. Will be rescheduled to January 10th at 10 PM EST.

If next session doesn't work we'll just go back to EU4 Tuesdays.

It's all about time management

Final Setup

AI Empires (18)

Fallen Empires (3)

Advanced AI (4) / (6 if Clustered)

Now the final question remains

Clustered Players or Distributed Players

Clustered Players will make it so we can prevent any new player from getting conquered in 5 seconds. Will also instigate early diplomacy/world council between each other. Distributed Players will allow everyone more breathing room from each other, but will be at the mercy of the AI.

4 hours ago, Rin said:

I actually did a single player game with the previous settings (replacing human players with AI ofc), and the map turned out surprisingly spacious. Maybe bring habitable worlds back to 200% if you're lowering the empire count.

One of the biggest problems seemed to be empire placements. I've had Huge Games with 39 ai empires and 4 fallen empires and there was still massive space between some. Of course some of the big empires might have just eaten everything beforehand. 

So I'll be doing 3 single player test runs, counting 15 minutes in triple speed to test how many planets to find an empire. Test will be 28 empires, obviously replacing us with ai and ai being defaulted to 18. For now I'll revert ai empires back to what they were before at 18. Any final tweaks will be finalized on Saturday.

I'll also test run a 5 hour game to see how things are. One of my biggest worries is how brutally aggressive in war declaring the AI is in this game. Lord save you if you get an advanced one.

AI Empires will be reduced to (10). Advanced AI Empires will be reduced to (4) Fallen Empires will be reduced to (3)

This would mean we have equal AI Empires equivalent to our current guaranteed players.

If this is fine with you @Rin

9 hours ago, Rin said:

So RSVP:

 

Yes: Hooves, Fanag, IC, Rin, penguin, Bear, Ragnar, Koso, Rickky, Hippo

 

Maybe: Augustus

 

So that's like 10-12 human players + ~14 AI, 0-4 of which are FE.

 

On a 1000 star map, that seems pretty crowded. I'd vote for 250% habitable worlds, just to give a bit of an advantage to the more pacifist empires.

 

I think I'll be doing a fanatical military empire. Not really to conquer anyone, which is a really ineffective way to expand, but more because I like the rivalry mechanics. 

 

Knowing TKR, I guess most other people will be playing militant too.

This is a good point, which is why I've considered decreasing the AI Empire. The FE to 4 is just an idea atm, with the Leviathan DLC we only need 2 anyways to trigger War of the Heavens. So I guess we can drop it to 2. I'll gloss over specifics a bit more. I'll bring up another proposal on Saturday.

1 hour ago, Smith said:

Is Sterllaris noob friendly? I haven't really played many strategy games outside Paradox ones and the Total War series. Don't think I've ever played it 4x one

It has an in-game tutorial to teach you the various parts of the game as you click everything. Of course there's more hidden elements like Ship Designer that have an entire new game in themselves. It's easy to get into but hard to master.

Due to a lot of interested players. I'll be expanding the Galaxy Size to (Huge 1000 stars) Fallen Empires will be maxed at (4)

Habitable Worlds to 250% is debated atm

The huge interest is highly appreciated folks.

Time to party at the Snuggle Syndicate. Pacifists that believe in our lord and savior Cuddles.

21 minutes ago, RagnarBuliwyf said:

I'd be interested in it too, are we doing custom races or vanilla ones? 

if custom = mods = no

if custom = create = yes

There will be 0 mods. People are free to create their own galactic empires, since that's a great portion of the fun of Stellaris.

Updated Information:

Stellaris will replace our EU4 sessions, as the expansion just ruined the entire fun

The first session will be January 3rd, every Tuesday at same time (10 PM EST)

We will be running the Leviathan Story Pack

Host will be decided on, although I will host if needed

Stellaris is on a massive sale for those interested in hopping in.

Depending on the amount of interests, these are the considered multiplayer settings. These settings are open for discussion

If functional, hotjoin will be on.

Settings

Galaxy Size (Huge 1000 stars)
Galaxy Shape (Elliptical)

AI Empires (18)
Advanced AI Starts (4)

Max Fallen Empires (3)

Habitable Worlds (250%)

AI Aggressiveness + Difficulty (Normal)

FTL Method (Warp)

Advanced Neighbors (Off) //// (On if Clustered Players)

Endgame Crisis (On)

Empire Placement (Distributed Players)

The reasoning for Habitable Worlds + FTL Method are as such

-Increasing Habitable Worlds by a little bit helps new players not feel like their entire system is just a dead circle

-FTL Method enforced to (Warp) lets everyone play around. Without having someone who's (Hyperspace) FTL get screwed over by someone with Warp FTL. Also that (Warp) FTL is the most beginner-friendly. Note: While creating your new species/empire, any FTL method you pick will be enforced to (Warp) regardless.

If we're looking for a more jam-packed, close-up game. We can change Empire Placement to (Clustered Players) so everyone is bunched up next to each other, but in doing so there will be a rule placed to not instantly declare war on each other. This will also help a lot for beginners to buddy up with the more advanced players to get them through the early game.

The game speed will be set to 1 during the first 15 minutes of the game to let beginners listen to the tutorial bot. Important: This game has a lot of reading as it's focused on a more story/immersive aspect. 

Depending on whatever we go with, and if we can actually get this going. Basic common sense will be typed out before beginning any session. As such, if we can get this organized, that'd be nice.

Anyone interested in a potential Stellaris MP?