[BTS] Pax Stellaris
Strategy Gamer
PAX STELLARIS: THE GRAND-STRATEGY 4X GAME HAS BEEN ELEVATED TO NEW HEIGHTS THANKS TO FEDERATIONS AND 2.6 'VERNE'
BY ALEXANDER WILLIAMS 23 MAR 2020
If you’ve been holding off on getting into Stellaris because there just wasn’t enough under the table and over the table diplomacy, I think this might be your time to jump in thanks to the recently released Federations expansion. Inter-Empire relations have gone from a near binary “can I take him in a fight?” to a much more involved give-and-take, push and shove, in both the Galactic Community and any federation that you join.
-- Excerpt from Pax Stellaris on StrategyGamer.com
Behind the Scenes
It's no surprise that I really enjoy writing these behind-the-scenes articles. There is something about the opportunity to expose the thinking and experience behind being a freelance writer that we usually just don't take the time to share with the audience. That's a loss for both parties because the greater the connection between you and I, the greater chance that you were going to enjoy the work that I produce and follow it no matter where it goes.
This piece in particular came as a surprise because I wasn't sure that it was going to see the light of day. If you read my last BTS, you already know that StrategyGamer.com is cutting its use of freelancers for the foreseeable future because of issues around COVID19. This article tagged along for free with the previous one because I simply had too much to fit in and rather than simply cut what was effectively the length of the review itself, I packaged it up, gave it a rough formatting, and handed it to my editor with my blessing. If it ran it ran, if it didn't run it didn't run, if it ended up being the skeleton of a larger article in the future that was fine, too.
When it popped up today, I felt that certain tickle that every writer gets when they come across a piece of their work in the wild. I've stumbled on remaindered copies of the books I co-authored in the dark, back shelves of game stores and felt that same electric charge. My suspicion is that it is the same one that keeps every writer going, the belief that someone can trip over your work, read it, enjoy it, and it will make a difference to them in that moment. It is, in a very pretentious and overblown way, our only real chance at immortality. Whether it be words chiseled into a cave wall or your modern EPUB, it's all the same – the chances someone, somewhere, will see your work and enjoy it.
Cut and Uncut
Things get cut on the way to publication. Not so much this time because the article had to be reworked so heavily in order to make the word count but there was part of the article that I really wish had made its way in.
Every time there is a patch for Stellaris, one of the best contributors on Reddit writes up the "What They Really Mean" based on the original developers' publicly released patch notes and they are, without a doubt, some of the finest game humor ever published. I had an entire section devoted to the best excerpts. Unfortunately for me, it had to be cut for word count reasons.
I don't have a word count limit on my blogs.
- Join the Galactic Community and pass resolutions by voting with the rest of the Community to make the galaxy a better place for every.... pffffft, sorry, I couldn't keep a straight face through all of that. I know you're just going to use your diplomatic might to place self-serving sanctions on your enemies that you can now enforce without having to commit your material resources to it.
- Origins represent a new way to give everyone else in the galaxy some clues about why you're like this.
- Empires may now have a Diplomatic Stance such as Fuck You, Leave Us The Fuck Alone, Let's Fuck, and We're The Fucking Best.
- A progress bar in the diplomacy view will now show you just how much your neighbors are blowing it way out of proportion that you turned a bunch of their people into a wholesome nutrient slurry.
(This one is particularly painful to me because other species are just so tasty.)
- Xenophile empires are now better at forcing their self-serving policies through the Senate under the pretense of camaraderie.
- Added the "Indentured Servitude" slavery type, which is a great solution if you want to have slaves but you feel like it's bad marketing if you call them slaves.
- Late game is now Playable on most PCs (increased from Unplayable)
- Science ships that can't escape from a bad situation will now have their comms cut off automatically after the first 30 seconds of constant screaming.
Hey, thanks for reading all the way to the end! The patch notes rewrites generally take me around 2-3 hours. I do this for fun and it will never feel like a waste of time even if I make nothing, but if I can at least break even compared to other things I could have spent that time on, I might be able to conquer the world sooner. Consider helping fund this nonsense at https://ko-fi.com/tjhafer
While much of the humor is deeply inside, if a quick scan of that list doesn't make you interested in trying to run your own space empire whether you ever played Stellaris or not, check with your physician because you might be dead inside.
Futurism
Where do we go from here? That is an excellent question. Freelance journalism isn't, technically, my "day job," it's just the way that I assemble a monthly videogame budget. Just like a junkie who sells drugs to buy drugs. A lot of freelance journalists are in the same situation even though sorting through piles of information and distilling it into something which is or could be useful to the public was always sold to me as what journalism is for.
With any luck, business will be on the upswing in a month or so, at least for online information traffic, and I can go back to selling my pen to the highest bidder like some sort of information age mercenary (though I prefer the term "prostitute", "whore" if you're nasty). If things are going well for you, I encourage you to give to creators that are helping you get through. If you can't give them money, make sure that they know that you're enjoying their work, that it matters to you, and it wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for their efforts. It's very difficult to be a writer without being some kind of psychopathic narcissist; there's no other way to survive the waves of rejection and criticism that it takes to sell that first article, that first book, that first screenplay, or your firstborn. If you want more things you like, feed that ego.
As for me, I will still be blogging and still be selling some of my other work in other places. Keep an eye on this space for more details.
If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here today and want to support my continued efforts to bring engineering, art, and the occasional philosophical divergence to the masses, please feel free to send me a tip. Or thousands of dollars, I’m really not that picky. It’s through the efforts of you and others of like mind that content like this gets created.
Thank you for your time.
Do check out my portfolio if you'd like to get in touch or see more of my work.
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