Stellaris: Apocalypse - With A Cherryh On Top

[@TheGeekCupboard]

Do you know what I like about Jon's playthroughs of strategy type games? Explanations and justifications of why he's done what he's done. So many other playthroughs just go "I've chosen this, that and the other, let's go!" with no reason why, but Jon explains things. And I like that.

[@50mt]

Y'know, it was quite fun to see Jon commenting about those sliders... I'd love to see him play an early HoI game!

[@annoytanor007]

This is why I love his strategy games and get so so annoyed at his engineering games

[@50mt]

*Silently judging: "You're late"

[@devotedtrashcan9076]

Mansplaining xD

[@stetson_newsie2600]

It's so wonderful. I knew NOTHING about this genre of game before MATN, and now I not only have a vague idea of how they work, but thoroughly enjoy them as well!

[@archapmangcmg]

RIP Tabby.

[@builttoserve5719]

Jon, the Tech/Tradition cost slider works the opposite way. If you put it all the way to the right, it takes five times as long for all the empires to progress, and if it all the way to the left, it takes each empire a quarter of what is normally does.

[@ManyATrueNerd]

Oops - my mistake!

[@zetaomega8708]

"Spiritualist got a bit better" *FANATIC MATERIALIST INTENSIFIES*

[@FonVegen]

ethos_materialism_confirmed

[@SuperLeetroy]

REMOVE ROBOT YOU ARE WORST POP

[@rhyzvanic3660]

Im sorry that your inferior mind is incapable of tapping into your true potential. I really am.

[@SuperLeetroy]

MFW you will never experience the shroud, because your creator killed himself and put his memories into a soulless machine

[@50mt]

Truly, also: How can a spiritualist empire be a beacon of liberty? Isn't religion an inherently authoritarian system?

[@cedeelbe]

"What's everybody so excited about? We only found alien writing." Oh Jon... Never change

[@DriftLV1]

"Let's get these to start as early as possible" Makes endgame start 50 years later than default...

[@ManyATrueNerd]

Ha, I forgot what the actual default date was - I was assumed it must be fairly early as the slider was far to the left. Ah well, the 50% increase should offset that.

[@ModernWhoFan5B]

Quick tip for you. If you want a ship to do something while it already has a command (or set of commands), hold "Ctrl+Shift" and click the command, and it will move that command to the top of the list. For example, a science ship that has been told to survey a system, and you want it to survey a habitable world first. Rather than cancelling everything, just hold "Ctrl+Shift" and tell it to survey the planet. It will survey the planet first, and then the rest of the system.

[@SingAboutSwayze]

n'oh my god

[@oneofmanyjames-es1643]

The main reason you would prbably want some shields is because it regenerates. To regenerate armour you have to go back to a spaceport and repair it. I think, I haven't played it... unlike some people.

[@kokkinosman9]

That's true, to repair armour you need to return to a port although you can get a repairing armour tech too.

[@albo__7804]

Fred Johnson to^

[@acrefray]

Also there are admirals and strategic resources like Living Metal that add monthly hull regen (possibly armour too at 2.0), and it's also possible the defence stations still have the hull (and possibly armour) regen abilities as they did pre 2.0.

[@RobBCactive]

Null shield ships are fast and good in some systems or against some opponents that rely on shield bypassing weapons. For instance, avoid fighting the Prethoryn scourge in shield nullification systems. But a double choke point, with null shield anti-armour weapons, followed by a balanced system defence that deflects the energy weapons effective before, makes for in-depth base defence.

[@stephenwithav9171]

Ooooooh fingers crossed this becomes a series, I miss the Mighty Duck playthrough, Jon's series led to me buying Stellaris😊

[@sycua42]

StephenWithAV same.

[@kylefast9650]

He says new series at the end, so yes it is a series

[@donkeydawejr8902]

Spoiler a catapult is the final boss

[@donkeydawejr8902]

Typically Thomas until I think of moor jokes

[@samreid6010]

United Nations why????!!!!!

[@nocanseegreen3845]

United Nations Not even a trebuchet? What a shame

[@alexisauld7781]

Good luck aiming a catapult in space! You're going to need Moor than your usual tactics up here! :P

[@donkeydawejr8902]

Yes It's a catapult the most powerful seige engine and we have got it to work in space

[@RobBCactive]

This actually still stands up as a basic starter guide today, so long as you watch the Megacorp start which explains the district + building slot and pop based economy introduced in 2.2 Le Guin.

[@Nuibuddy]

Great video Jon! I can't wait to play this update myself. Thanks for helping introduce me to the new mechanics so I don't have to be confused as all heck when I play.

[@emmy9345]

DO A NEW PLAYTHROUGH

[@ManyATrueNerd]

CONFIRMED.

[@emmy9345]

Many A True Nerd CHEERS

[@dextercritten6167]

More

[@Nick5ash1]

Jon I have watched like 2 mins of this video so far, but you must watch quill18's playthru so many similarities

[@BaseShowGaming]

You are my hero O.O

[@jacksurvivalwolf9671]

This was a huge surprise and was not spoiled in any capacity!

[@donkeydawejr8902]

Cough cough Claire cough cough

[@sharkofjoy]

Last month or so, I started reading the dev diaries out of curiosity just to see what the fuss was about, and I ended up reading all of them about this new version. It was fascinating to try and imagine how all of the systems worked together, more like a scifi novel than a series of charts and lists. It's a different game now, as this episode shows, and I can't wait to see more of it!

[@azraelbatosi]

Between this and the impossible run, I’m subbed, you’re an excellent commentator, but most of all, you play well. You explain systems clearly and concisely, which is far too rare amongst commentators. Thank you for the content

[@TheNzFox]

I can't thank you enough for this video Jon, I have not been closely following the changes coming in 2.0, and all the posts are 'lots of changes'. The break down of the 'minor' ones is awesome, I know for a fact I would of wondered if the game had bugged when my corvettes where not able to explore

[@ryancunningham7305]

You know the whole quasar and environmental hazard things is really interesting, you could make smaller fleets dedicate for combat in those sort of environments. Like special forces.

[@hazardtg3008]

Ryan Cunningham cool idea

[@RobBCactive]

Bases in particular can have specialised defences with platforms, plus as shieldless ships are very fast, you can catch the attacker out with unexpected reinforcements especially if you use sublight speed debuff building

[@verdantsquire950]

Jon please be psychic so we can have tabby control your mind

[@RobBCactive]

His Psi ascension requires Utopia DLC

[@michaelrich7066]

Its ok Jon, it wasn't like I was about to start doing homework and stuff

[@michaelrich7066]

That is like telling Jon to be perceptive

[@AstroPsych_]

Jon, when you want to prioritize a planet while surveying you can just start with it. From the galaxy map, "Survey System" starts with the closest planet to the ship's entry point, but from the system view, it'll start with whatever you've right-clicked on. You don't need to first tell it to survey the Tropical planet and then survey the rest.

[@jbx12]

A very useful video - learnt a lot. Look forward to the series.

[@roidesfoux]

Three tips, Jon: 1) If the ideal spot for the planetary capital is covered by a tile blocker, you can colonize the planet, clear the blocker, demolish the reassembled ship shelter, and rebuild it in the ideal location. 2) The bonus from full food storage is based on the food surplus and number of planets growing. With +3 food and 1 planet, you were getting +7% growth. In my current game with +64 food and 13 growing planets, I'm getting +24% growth speed. 3) Growth rate is divided among all species on a planet. With a base rate of 1 and +20% growth rate, your Tabbies were only growing at 0.60/month. The Humans are growing at 0.50/month. Syncretic evolution doesn't give you double growth.

[@sharkofjoy]

I've never wanted to get home and watch a video this badly. I AM EXCITED.

[@julianusvictor327]

How often will you be posting this series?

[@HeartlandHunny]

Yay! A new Stellaris series! I love Stellaris. And no one stellarises like you stellaris, Jon! Long live the Tabbies!

[@RinAldrin]

This new version reminds me a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire, namely that your fleets take a while to get places so you ether have to split up your fleets or invest a lot in defenses.

[@birdbot02]

Now can we also see the second Orwell game

[@ManyATrueNerd]

I'm hoping to get hold of it very soon...

[@cmv4532]

I love the Cat Empire with the Human serviles, Stellaris doesn't get better than that.

[@mrspidey80]

It's also very close to reality.

[@ring-tailedlemur3338]

I had no idea you were going to be playing this early, I never could have guessed, the only possible way I could have guessed was if someone told me, someone like Claire, but she would never do that right?

[@amandareynolds-gregg5962]

All hail our Feline Overlords. May they knock over every glass cup off every counter in the galaxy!

[@FireFan44]

You can Ctrl+Shift+Right Click to add orders to the beginning of your queue

[@lordthennek2045]

this guy might be the one youtuber who I can watch play stellaris

[@jacobgarrison1510]

You need to play the other Paradox titles, Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV, and Hearts of Iron IV.

[@jacobgarrison1510]

It would be both amazing and frustrating to watch him put the pieces together on how to play these games.

[@jhallberg702]

Or a Magicka Jon+Claire Co-Op! (Hey- it’s a paradox game)

[@Hornwiesel]

Victoria II

[@jacobgarrison1510]

I'd rather he didn't play Victoria II because that would be more frustrating than fun to watch.

[@jamesfisher8700]

hear, hear.

[@Rateus_Johanson]

You can hear the joy in his voice during the first few words of the introduction! :-D New mini-series :-D

[@mrchackerify]

Series please Jon, Its what we neeed, its what we want!

[@bulktrout7984]

My body is ready for this to be a series

[@CarlMarx]

I need a complete series of this.

[@Hugni81]

Im so happy with the beginning of this series Long Live TABBY.

[@makeitmodded]

Oh god a strategy game that has peaked my interest. Oh no, there goes all my free time.

[@jemal999]

Something you should know about multiple species - All species on a planet SHARE growth rate, having two doesn't make you grow at double speed, it makes each of them grow slower, proportional to how many of them there are, so for example right off the bat having 4 of each means they each grow at HALF the speed they would if you had just one species.

[@thomaskirkness-little5809]

I started a new game a few days ago. There's one of those cosmic terror world-eating things 3 jumps from home, and about 4 of those random spawn 2-5k enemies between 1 jump from home and 4. My fleets keep trying to auto-pilot through one of them. I'm looking forward to taking those systems when I'm strong enough.

[@acbthr3840]

This seems to play remarkably similarly to Sins of a Solar Empire now, just with more stuff to do. I can get on board with that.

[@Sevaekor]

Acb Thr Yeah, that was my thought as well as Jon went explaining the new stuff.

[@Hollowrider2501]

Thank you so much for uploading this. I'm currently stuck in bed with chicken pox (I'm nearly 30) and you've distracted me from the constant itchy misery :)

[@mrspidey80]

Three different kinds of hitpoint pools stacked on top of each other? Hyperspace lanes as the only way of interstellar travel with jumpdrives being way up the tech tree? Environmental hazards in systems with more exotic types of stars? Pushing sov by building space stations? This game has become EVE Online - Singleplayer Mode.

[@supr3m3panda]

All this is telling me is that I really need to find the time to sit down and watch any of the Stellaris playlists.

[@peterknutsen3070]

There’s a mod in the Steam Workshop that prodces a map that’s mid-point, between 0.75 and 1. I think that 1.25 vanilla is ideal, though.

[@AstroPsych_]

The main tactical difference between shields and armor is regeneration. There's an admiral trait that slowly repairs armor, but it's rare. Shields regenerate fairly quickly between battles, which makes shielded ships ideal for longer wars between large empires. Having heavily shielded ships basically nullifies attrition at the cost of power (and inherent weakness to solid-shot weapons). Outposts are tiny and weak, but now they're in *every single system.* If a fleet has only armor, it'll lose a tiny amount of overall HP in each engagement and it'll eventually have to return home for repairs, but if it's shielded, it'll regain that HP back before each battle. There's still the matter of shield-piercing missiles, but with good point defense and proper fleet composition, thanks to shields, it's theoretically possible for a fleet to remain in enemy territory continuously taking outposts indefinitely, until it is countered by an intercepting fleet or a more heavily defended system.

[@uranshvoria6150]

YAY!! I'm so excited!!!!!!!

[@nickreed3924]

So excited for this! Loved the mighty ducks.

[@Troubledworld]

I love that you can hear Jon smiling in the intro

[@Silly2smart]

Awesome advise! Thanks!

[@redacted3557]

I love this, I’m going to start a massive game and just have the fun if my life. Great video as well. :D

[@YeOlArkman]

*thinks within seconds of hearing Jon's voice* "hoo boy! He's excited for this one"

[@Kraktzor]

This new update/expansion looks so good!

[@Mankorra_Gomorrah]

You’re advisor sounds kinda like Tali from Mass Effect

[@Simon-ki3gg]

i thought the same

[@thehiggyultimatum6691]

This already looks so good

[@chrisbellamy7145]

This made my day thank you :)

[@poolwatertea8229]

If this doesn't become a series I'm gonna cry! A video series too, I don't like live streams

[@theobrill5161]

I imagine the reason they raised the amount of hyperlanes was because of the slow movement of the fleets, so that it doesn't take too long to get anywhere

[@chrisoverton3848]

You always start with two close habitable planets its how the empire initializer is setup.

[@chrisoverton3848]

Stellaris is easy to mod just like total war is all text files

[@twinsocks]

I have realised even though I only moderately like or understand stellaris, I was super excited to watch this because I got to hear the spoiler. Claire accidentally performed genius marketing!

[@humanperson9952]

This feels like a better Sins of a Solar Empire. I like it!

[@Kaiimei]

I find it funny how I immediately said "I'm Jon! I'm Claire!" I think I watch too many streams.

[@R0ok]

YESSSS! I was worried we wouldn't have another strategy game to watch because medieval is coming to an end!

[@anuragshah6243]

Jon can you please increase the overlay HUD size? I really cant see stuff like minerals per month etc. without squinting

[@zachblaine259]

id like to see a way for the devs to counter warp travel, like a tractor beam from a star destroyer but capable of pulling nearby passing ships out of warp traveling to another star if they travel too close to the star they are passing by

[@robertchamp2268]

Also Jon Jump drives don't work like that anymore, they're now an emergency jump type of movement, so lets say you need to get your military to the far end of your empire quickly that's the only way you can use it, otherwise it's normal movement.

[@koganusan]

one thing: the UI is very small. im watching this on a laptop and i cant read anything

[@ManyATrueNerd]

I'll have a look, but tinkering with the UI scaling in Stellaris has traditionally caused a bunch of other ugly visual bugs to show up...

[@koganusan]

No worries. Just a thing I noticed

[@ManyATrueNerd]

Yeah, they still haven't fixed it - UI scaling just horribly upscales lower resolution text boxes - it just looks weirdly out of focus and gives me a headache. What I'll do is up to bitrate a bit more to make things a bit clearer, but the default UI is fairly minimal with small text.

[@TitaniumDragoonNeo]

There IS a 1080p UI mod that resizes all windows and text specifically for hi-resolution, low physical size displays. Unfortunately, I doubt that it'll be updated until a few days after 2.0's launch. I'd recommend it if you plan on recording more Stellaris.

[@alecnorman6613]

*Cries in mobile*

[@hitomisalazar4073]

Looking to get into Stellaris again myself recently as part of an epic long megacampaign I've been doing, from Imperator: Rome through Crusader Kings 3, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 2, Hearts of Iron 4, and finally Stellaris. I have to say just from the start up here... the change to FTL is still something I kind of dread. The thing is the "Hyperlanes" FTL style has basically been the standard for space 4X games since... well since the early 1990s really. It's been done to death. One of the things that interested me about Stellaris when I first got it was the different FTL types and what that really meant. Like I found the standard pregenerated Terran Lost Colony an interesting concept. They're an aggressive, militaristic, expansionist empire... who has a FTL method with the Wormhole Stations and Drives that is best suited to a defensive play. Because they can't force project anywhere that doesn't have a station in range, requiring them to build in advance of areas they want to go in, and carefully guard it so no one snipes the station to take it out. I haven't played since that change to FTL because I always felt like it was taking options that were incredibly interesting and stripping down to things I've had in gaming since the old Space Empires. Everyone plays by rules I've been using in Space 4X games for literally 25+ years now. Maybe I'll be surprised by the new run I'm doing. But man even that Hyperlane density thing just makes me dread it, with either being far too linear and filled with hardened choke points or far too open to the point where they might as well not even have any sort of lane limits. Imperator: Rome surprised me while playing it. As much as everyone has slagged it as utterly trash I found it a delight to play just a few weeks ago. Irish Empire of Albion shall prevail! In a world where the only organized superpower religions on the map are Gaelic Druidism and Mithraism Hellenism splitting the map in CK3. But only one will get to go to the stars...

[@Rally_Stache]

Rewatching this to fill my Stellaris void.

[@justincarnes1656]

I was super excited for this update and DLC, but now I'm unsure. Wormholes were my favorite FTL system. I knew how to work them. Hyperspace was the one I hated the most. I loved the tactical advantage that Wormholes gave me. Whenever I'd play with my friends, I'd always blindside them by having a couple wormholes behind them with my fleet ready to rush in. I'd have 2 or 3 wormholes for my navy and 1 wormhole for my army to ensure that my army and navy never mixed and created delays.

[@ManyATrueNerd]

Well workholes are still there - they're just natural features now, and there's a slider to make them way more common. Plus jump drives still exist too.

[@Makrillo]

I think they settled on this new reworked transportation-mode to strengthen the defensive capabilities of empires.

[@Altrescu]

From the streams, Wiz says that's kind of exactly why they took them out to be honest. In addition to the three different movement types making it a nightmare to balance defenses and such, from a player perspective, it was just always a pain to try to keep track of "where can my enemy actually attack me, and if I attack him, how safe am I from his fleets?" With hyper only, those both become much easier to wrap your head around. You can still kind of do surprises, nebulae are completely impervious to sensors of anything outside the nebula, and mid game you can still get jump drives, which are sort of like mini warp drives, but with big military penalties for using (120 days of reduced weapon fire rate or damage, can't remember, as well as reduced sublight speed while the drive cools down).

[@Dudbun]

I think I am in love with this game again, all these changes are perfect and makes it feel so much better in my opinion

[@lordgong4980]

Yeah Clair and Jon and Stellaris Christmas has Come Early

[@MWSin1]

You know what type of planet it is on first sight, but not what its habitability is. Before they introduced orange as the "unsurveyed" color for planets, it was possible for the planet to be pushed across the boundary between red, yellow, and green. That could let you know it had a trait that gave it a bonus or penalty to habitability, before you were really suppose to.

[@J0hnzie]

I took one second looking at that empire creation screen and thought- ''Democratic Egalitarian Slaves.''

[@Paltse]

- It's a space station - No, it's a moon.

[@sophiew757]

John, on the armour/shields debate, you are technically right, except shields regen and armour doesn't

[@MadTurnip]

Listen, your cat scientist just found a living thing. Of course it would kill it... eventually.

[@markalcala8551]

What days will new videos uploaded? I didn't catch if this will be a once a week thing or two.

[@enderalden1290]

I also tried finding this out immediately after finishing the video. Sadly, I couldn't find it :(

[@harisharry2968]

Take a shot every time Jon says "choke point".

[@romanraguz2056]

please make this a series !!!

[@sherman128]

For some reason I had closed captions on and it thought your name was Jasmine Jones and I'm cool with that.

[@jaredcicero3449]

Wonder when jon is going to bring his benor obsession into this series

[@SearynSever]

The clustering of same planet types is deliberate, Wiz has mentioned it during live streams before.

[@amcghie7]

I'm not sure if its meant to be the Tenets of Tabby - as in a doctrine or belief, or its meant to be TeneNts of Tabby and Jons just misspelled it, as in like humans living under the roof of the Tabbys? I'm off to a confusing start haha

[@Altrescu]

They're the tenets of Tabby, the religious writings followed by the cult of Claire (to fully reference the community joke). Oh, and the people living there would be the tenants, so double misspell if that had been the intention, lol.

[@amcghie7]

Right now I'm getting confused between the resident tenant and the Scottish second name haha

[@JoshuaKevinPerry]

Ive had Doomsday weapons since the release, so it's nice of them to catch up to 1970s scifi

[@ChiaroscuroxX]

I can just see some tabby downloading those alien souls into futuristic cat toys, dooming them to being batted around with "accidental" claws for eternity

[@Alex-0597]

There are two reasons you don't go "full armor". First, armor doesn't regenerate like shields do, at least without Living Metal deposits or Regenerative Hull components. Second, some weapons are designed to cut through armor, but have a hard time with shielding. It would be quite the risky gamble to leave your ships completely unshielded, hoping the enemy doesn't have lasers or plasma weapons. Power isn't as much of an issue because reactors take up their own slot, and you only get more by filling up Auxiliary slots with reactor boosters.

[@christiangonsalves1132]

Does anyone else think that Jon should play hearts of iron 4 with the old world blues mod

[@christiangonsalves1132]

Drillsgtteddy that would also be good but I do think because of his love for fallout it would be a good start

[@JagmasterGeneral12374]

I hope he doesn't play hoi4 it's not very tactical or challenging

[@JagmasterGeneral12374]

I literally drew a larrow across the ussr and left to eat lunch came back as I took moscoe and Stalingrad

[@eugenlovin6788]

@@JagmasterGeneral12374 then hoi 3

[@JagmasterGeneral12374]

@@eugenlovin6788 yeah or darkest hour

[@justincarnes1656]

OH! THIS is what Claire almost spoiled. Okay!

[@BlazeInjun]

She just said Jon was playing Stellaris. Jon blow it into the craziness it was on the live stream.

[@juancariasr7932]

Jon, about the randomness of neighboring systems I can attest that they are indeed not so. The game files contain a series of system startups, some of which are for your neighboring systems and they are guaranteed to spawn the same kind as your homeworld. I don't know if this applies to the new gaia world start though.

[@TheDaFort]

No Tabby's star? :( I like how you explain your set-up so it makes watching easier. Thank you!

[@dementio2239]

It’s a series... ITS A SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@catsquidcatoverlord9842]

Anyone getting sins of a solar empire vibs from the new fleet movement system?

[@danbrown4781]

Those damn housecats finally did it uh

[@NewestViewer]

I don't think two different organic pops growing at the same time doubles growth speed. The growth rate gets split between them.

[@ManyATrueNerd]

I'd be surprised if that was true - as the mechanist civic folks get to effectively double up pops so why not the syncretic civic too...?

[@ManyATrueNerd]

Just looking over the Stellaris wiki now - I can't see anything that suggests growth is divided between pops.

[@Matt-tube]

At least before 2.0 growth was divided between species, I doubt they changed that. Robot build speed is indeed separate from natural pop growth but biological pops share the total growth on a given planet. You can verify this by comparing growth speed of pops on a planet with 1 single growing pop vs. one with 2 different growing pops.

[@NewestViewer]

It has been that way in my experience. You can hover over the pop growth bar to see the growth rate. Also the mechanists have to pay for robots

[@discododgeball8153]

He pretty much turned the humans into clone troopers

[@alexanderfrederick-preece9770]

You seem to be really lucky with planets Jon. I have had several playthroughs in the old version with no fully compatible planets within seven jumps before. Indeed I had one with only red compatibility until five jumps out and that one was a size eight with tile blockers.

[@WildeHondremaurt]

Smells like series spirit