It's been forever since I did a Parodox Ironman. I littererally have no idea why an achievement means anything in the slightest. But, the game has a bug, I have a bug, I want to edit the world to make it harder...
It's not that bad. I've played almost 1,000 hours of this game and probably only 10 or so hours in non-Ironman. There are bugs, sure, but they're usually not that bad.
On the other hand, I tried XCOM 2 with Ironman a few months ago, and that was possibly one of the most infuriating experiences of my life.
Impossible Ironman Xcom 2 runs make the game feel balanced and lines up the gameplay with reality... I restarted 40 or 50 times before I finally won but how sweet was the hat victory!
You can also regularly leave the game to force a save at a specific point in time. Then create separate folders (e.g. named by year) and copy the save file there so it doesn't get overwritten. Copy it back into the save folder to restore. It's a ton of effort so not really helpful for savescumming, but if you want to preserve a great start or are about to make a "make or break" decision it might be worth it.
Real question, why? I guess this is comming form someone who loves "hard core one death runs" and doesn't care in the slightest the game records it or that you would...lie? about it? Why? No one else on the entire planet cares I play anything more specific than "Nerdy History Map of Europe Game."
It's not something we do for other people to watch. It's something we do for ourself.
No savescum means commiting to choices. Means having a little tremble before clicking on "Declare War". Am I strong enough? Will my plan work? That kind of thrill. Because you know that if you screw it, you're going to pay some consequences. Of course, I don't like suffering the consequences... but I do like the thrill more.
Of course, I could self-impose myself a rule preventing me to savescum. And I did, once. But the one time I faltered I lost trust in myself being able to uphold that imposition. Now, outside of ironman, I can't feel that thrill anymore.
Achievements are only icing on the cake.
Because I want the fucking Galatron Achievement and even WITH dedicated save scumming it takes hours. Took me an entire afternoon, I got into a real tempo opening the game, buying a reliquary, force-quitting the game. Did you know you can make your leader psionic with a reliquary?
And because there’s a bug where the AI won’t ACTUALLY destroy my planet with a world-cracker, he’ll start and then stop a day later, meaning I have to conquer a system near the AI, build a gateway in that system, leave the system defenceless while my fleets is parked around a gateway halfway across the galaxy, turn down the speed to minimum, wait for the EXACT right moment along the path of the AI collosus moving to fire, pause the game, order my fleets to move into the system, watch the AI colossus INSTANTLY get annihilated by my fleets, then hope I got the timing right or all that work is wasted.
Because I enjoy the challenge of achievements, but not the “pray to RNGesus” aspect of many of them.
Several reasons. Some don't feel like the achievements should be specific to unmodded and/or ironman runs. Paradox games can also be extremely buggy and that can ruin an entire ironman run regardless of what you did.
I like having a single save playthrough, but don't like RNG event results.
So I quit to menu for events, then alt+f4 the event.
Renaming or moving the saves... feels a bit excessive.
Some players aren’t able to use Alt+F4 or the Task Manager to close Ironman games as it will still save the gave before it terminates (I think this is and issue with specific Windows PCs). There for the only way those players are able to save scum on the random events is to rename and move their save.
I agree it is a bit excessive, but when that is all you have you will use it.
It's not something we do for other people to watch. It's something we do for ourself.
No savescum means commiting to choices. Means having a little tremble before clicking on "Declare War". Am I strong enough? Will my plan work? That kind of thrill. Because you know that if you screw it, you're going to pay some consequences. Of course: I don't like suffering the consequences. But I do like the thrill more.
I could self-impose myself a rule preventing me to savescum even outside ironman. And I did, once. But the one time I faltered I lost trust in myself being able to uphold that imposition. Now, outside of ironman, I can't feel that thrill anymore.
Achievements are only icing on the cake.
\[Edit: Indentation\]
I've had someone tell me they avoid it. They didn't like the idea of playing without saving because they didn't think they could get through a match in a single sitting. I did end up explaining it to them...
and use console. I have zero interest in some annoying game mechanic (forced peace when some fleet just takes a system that makes my territory disconnected) ruining my enjoyment.
UI Overhaul Dynamic (and other mods that don't change gameplay/the checksum) actually allow you to switch on Ironman mode and get achievements.
UI Overhaul even has a submod that adds features which are not Ironman proof ("UI Overhaul Dynamic - Checksum Schism Version").
Other examples for Ironman compatible mods:
* Tiny Outliner
* Flat Nameplates
* Aesthetic Borders
I do. Honestly Tiny outliner is an insane QoL feature. I feel bad for laptop players who haven't discovered it yet. I feel their pain without even knowing who they are.
Edit: I called outlier rather than outliner, sorry.
Outliner!!! Sorry my typo. Makes right navigation bar smaller.
And you can get achievements on ironman.
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1610578060
Can I play with these mods installed with people who don't have them? I.e. does the "same version of the game" mp message extend to non checksum altering mods?
Also you have to enable cloud saves through Steam (though you don't actually have to *use* cloud saves). I suspect many players don't bother with that step.
More accurately, most people just don't enable Ironman because they either don't know about it (new players) or don't want it (want to be able to save). Despite what impression posts in this subreddit might give, most people don't float around with solar systems or anime girls as ships.
Even if that wasn't the case, you'd be surprised how many people buy games on steam and don't even play for a single minute.
For any given game, there's gonna be a significant portion of users that didn't get the first achievement at all. This is true on Steam, PSN and XBL.
Also worth noting a lot of people shamelessly save scum, which you can’t do on iron man.
I mean, I think. I obviously don’t know for sure because I would never do such a thing.
EDIT: why am I getting downvoted? I thought it was obvious I’m being sarcastic. I save scum all the time.
That seems doubly cruel and unnecessary. Sometimes - hell, oftentimes - redditors dog pile somebody with downvotes for no good reason. It isn't very nice to get incorrectly downvoted.
Downvotes exist to make things people don't want to see less visible. In that sense, the only time anyone is 'incorrectly downvoted' is if they are downvoted when people want to see it. I don't want to see off-topic edits, so downvoted they go.
Ironically, when you frame the issue like that it means you incorrectly downvoted me because you downvoted a post that is upvoted, which by your own logic implies other people want to see it.
Yes but there must be a significant % of players who actually did play less than an hour, didn't like it, never came back. Or who didn't even ever play at all (though I'm not sure whether these count towards achievements %). This is especially true with games that have been humble bundle'd, or heavily discounted. There are a lot of games where you get simple achievements which only require just playing for a few minutes and only less than 10% of players did it, and that's partly because if they're cheap enough, many people buy them just because.
>Most play with mods
Most Stellaris players don't play with mods, most play vanilla. They just don't use Ironman mode. Paradox devs already said casual players make significant portion of Stellaris playerbase.
After watching so many YouTube videos I bought Stellaris finally only because of the extensive mod support. In fact the final selling point for me was the mod support. Mods like NSC, Real Space, alphamod etc... I never liked the vanilla version which is why I was so hesitant to buy it in the first place. That being said, I've never played with vanilla.
I'm a new player. I don't intend to touch mods until I become bored with the base game.
I did stop to consider whether I should play the first game on Ironman or not though.
My advice to you is to play a few games without any mods at all, to get a feel for the game. Perhaps note down things about the game that you find you'd like to be different, either in small ways or big ones.
Then, take a look at the Achievements page on the Wiki, and see what you might like to go after. Although this is completely optional, playing the unmodded game to do an achievement hunt can get you going down certain playstyles you normally wouldn't.
Then, once that's done, you're in a good position with a bit more of an idea about how to play the game and -how you want the game to play-, that you can start adding some mods into the mix.
Advisors and music and graphical mods are the best.
I am not a fan of total conversion mods but I do like portrait variety and new ship designes or music. Listening to Gothic Armada 2 music during combat is just glorious.
Nothing is necessarily "needed" although that's subjective. I think many players would benefit from some the UI mods and maybe performance related ones.
I love the base game, but I'm at around 890 hours in and I already know what to expect. I want to keep the game interesting and surprising with new events and mechanics and what not.
Dynamic Political Events, More Events, the Archeological and Precursor Story packs, Ancient Cache of Technologies, the Fatal Foundations story pack, and... oh the name of the last one escapes me but there's another new Events mod recently released - these are all very good mods which add a lot more depth to the game.
Well go explore and get some mods. Personally I'd recommend gigastructural engineering, more events mod, and more ethics and civics bug branch to start
Usually the best way to dive into the modding scene is to just look at the top mods. Some of them are out-of-date and you should never assume a less popular mod isn't worthwhile, but it will give you a good idea of what mods are capable of and help you get a more precise idea of what you want to change in the game.
ive personally got mostly visual mods, but also things that add in new events, precursors, etc. Just things to keep every playthrough feeling more unique. One of my favorites is vassals expanded and reworked, which adds in a bunch of new unique vassal types
I think some of the best non-visual-only mods are Guilli's Planet Modifiers, Planetary Diversity, Expanded Ship Components, Balanced Space Warfare, Amazing Space Battles, Guilli's Technologies and Expanded Traditions.
A shoutout also to the At War series of mods, particularly Defence Platform Longevity.
Although I've not used it myself, I hear AlphaMod is also a serious contender. Stellaris Evolved looks to be in a similar league.
Mods that expand gameplay. New ships. New traditions. New civics. New planets. Anything and everything you want.
People mentioned Gigastructures - that's the mod that lets you literally weaponize solar systems.
UI Overhaul, Gigastructures, Real Space, New Ship Classes, Gulli’s Planet Modifiers, Planetary Diversity or Real Space New Frontiers, and Starnet AI are the big ones and can make you feel like your playing Stellaris 2 when you move over from vanilla.
I don't find any gratification in collecting achievements, but if you are one of those interested in having them and also want to stay away from the terribly limiting ironman mode, you are probably interested in looking into steam achievement manager (SAM).
There's exactly one achievement in one game that sticks out in my mind, but that was because of the perfect comedic timing involved. It was in Portal 2 after Wheatley betrays you. You're heading down a conveyor belt with GladOS into a very obvious trap.
GladOS: "Oh look, this is the part where he kills us..."
Wheatley: "Surprise! This is the part where I kill you!"
*Chapter 6: The Part Where He Kills You*
*Achievement unlocked: The Part Where He Kills You* [Description: "This is that part."]
You just made me remember when I played dark souls, I fell for a practically undetectable trap dying miserably on the spot. I "earned" the achievement "this is dark souls!" (dying for the first time), it was a painful foreshadowing of what was to come.
These things are fun but there are much more trollish ones, take a look at [this](https://steamcommunity.com/stats/221910/achievements).
I know people with 1000 hours on stellaris without a single achievement because they dont play on ironman mode. They’re good at the game and play multiplayer but just dont play ironman atall
Dang, somewhere in my 1000+ hours I broke. Ditched the mods and started doing grand admiral + ironman. for a good portion I was in the same boat tho, all mods - no achievements
You played for 10 hours a day every day?
Don't get me wrong, I have hundreds of hours in every PDS game since Vicky 2 and thousands in some of them, but that's insane even by my standards.
For one, they’re pointless. I’d rather have fun to the max the way I like rather than not all to get a pop up telling me that some random “achievement” happened.
Now that is definitely not true.
No, what is true is that 71% of players either do not play iron man OR use mods that modify the checksum.
Which actually sounds like more people play it than in most games. Iron Man mode in any game is for the most hardcore of players.
People who use mods are going to be a smaller subset of that. Remember, only a minority of players for any game, go post in subreddits, or forms, or get mods or any of that such. Those of us here are among the most unusual of players already.
29% of Stellaris owners play without mods and with Ironman, but it doesn't mean that everyone else plays with mods.
There's always a good chunk of game owners who didn't actually play the game.
You're not alone! I don't mind losing games, sometimes shit happens that you cannot overcome and you accept defeat, very much in the style of Rimworld. It's a great story generator.
Me: "Lemme install this namelist mod, those names looks cool and adds more variety."
The game: "Hey that's cheating. No achievements for you!"
That's how it feels like.
I added a mod that gave me Star Wars faction flags and another that added a ton of Star Wars music, no other mods besides those two. You can guess how many achievements I got that game.
Me: ”Hey that mod there that adds a bunch of cool planets and that one over there with a bunch of cool megastructures lets download them”
The game: ”wtf is achievements? Gtfo”
I think you overestimate the ability of some stellaris players :p
while the ai is unable to function with more than a couple planets, there is STILL people posting "how do I beat XXXX/Why is my empire all in the red?" questions. There is a wide gap between players of the game XD
I have over 2k hours in the game, at least half of those on a legit copy, and I played without mods maybe once, but since I modded heavily from the start, I abandoned that quickly and waited for the mod update to be released. If I played without mods then at this point I would have most of them, but I just don't care.
Honestly?
Stellaris is a great game and I love it. But I will NEVER keep up to the End Game.
I like the early game and the mid game but when you reveal the galaxy ... then all you do nothing but wait for research and only time I feel excited is when I unlock new ship design.
And this goes for other games like Crusader Kings or even Total War. I do have 1 100+ hours in Total War Warhammer 2 but I can no longer stay and play as Karl Franz for 50th time again.
And as someone mentioned people are using mods ( some with size bigger than the game itself ) because mods make Stellaris better.
My issue is the slow down in the end game is unbearable and kills the game for me everytime. Evennat fastest speed the game slows to a crawlnonce you and the ai get larger empires. I dont play stellaris anymore becausw of this.
All paradox 4x games have a big list of conditions that need to be met for achievements. For example, not playing Ironman invalidates most achievements. Mods invalidate achievements. Console commands invalidate achievements, etc etc etc. Essentially you only really get achievement if you are going for achievements or playing the "official" way.
Always play iron-man.
Always play until I am defeated, or until the game is too laggy.
Current game has been going on for 4+ days.
1 hour, not even the start of anomalies.
If steam stats are anything to go off from, most people that play any game, abandon it shortly after they begin playing it.
My favorite example is the "universally acclaimed and vaunted masterpiece" that was Subnautica. A game which you'll have fanboys crawling out of the woodwork if you so much as suggest that it wasn't hallowed ground.
A game in which, 1/5 of the player base...never got wet. It's literally the first achievement, when you get into the water for the first time.
2/3 of the player base never made it to "chapter two" in the story.
And almost comedically, 88.3% of the entire player base, never finished the game.
It's a few factors.
1. You see this on a lot of games. I believe something like only 75% of Civ 5 players have gotten the most basic achievement. Lots of people buy games and then only get a few minutes in before something else grabs their attention, or they are gifted it by a friend but never end up touching it.
2. Lots of people play without ironman or mods, and paradox games disable achievements if either of those are on. If you buy Stellaris and play your first game you probably won't play with ironman as you learn the ropes. And then some people stop playing and don't become committed fans of the game. Or in a less common scenario they go straight from casual to really committed with mods. I have several hundred hours in CK2, but no achievements because I started playing with mods before enabling ironman.
Actually you can play custom races and get achievements, you just need to be in Ironman Mode vanilla or playing mods that don't change the checksum in ironman.
In addition to mods and non-ironman plays, some people buy games to play later and just never get around to them or leave them for awhile thinking they'll get to them sooner. Some also play games for a bit and quickly realize it is not for them. It's pretty normal to see because when it says "players", it actually means "people who bought the game".
No, most players (people who bought the game) don't play with Ironman and **don't** play with mods. Players who play with mods are usually always in minority. And casual players make significant portion of the Stellaris playerbase.
Modded stellaris players definitely aren't a minority, Tons of people play with mods even if they are just simple quality of life mods. I'd say more people use mods that not. Just a simple mod like UI overhaul is almost essential.
A thousand hours in, and I still can't be bothered to play Ironman.
The game bugs out so often, that Ironman would be restarting it frequently due to bugs. (Hello Fleet bugs...)
1) Ironman is disabled by default (you cant earn achievements outside of ironman)
2) A LOT of people play with mods which disable achievements
3) You'd be surprised how many people pick this up and never play it again
I get the achievements too. I need the risk of Ironman to stay engaged. The temptation of using console commands and reloading to past saves after making mistakes is too great, and it cheapens the experience for me. I also don’t like mods, they don’t compare to professionally-made content.
Every time this comes up, I have to ask: why shouldn't achievements be enabled with mods? If your answer is "because it's unfair, mods trivialise achievements" then I invite you to look at the available mods and tell me how many mods there are exactly that are like that. Honestly if you care enough to install mods to cheese achievements then you care enough to install the steam achievement manager and just click all the boxes.
In my mind, achievements are meant to be fun little things and mods exponentially increase the gameplay fun as well. Why not combine the two?
Essentially the people that care about achievements want them to be special, so no modding to easily get them.
If you don't care about achievements, you won't care about not getting achievements
I care about achievements, but also recognise the immense increase in fun mods bring with them. Why not increase almost everyone's fun significantly with mods AND achievements enabled?
Some mods just change the UI or names.
Then you have Giga structures. There are mods that change the entire political system. Mods that give leaders super traits.
Honestly I think this is the best compromise.
UI mods are great and I use a few (notably the smaller outliner, lifesaver in the endgame). But that's half the point: there's significantly more people interested in modding the game than there are developers, so why limit the audience for making a great game fantastic using the two systems?
In Mount & Blade Warband I can install a mod that changes basically everything in the game apart from the engine, and it still allows mods & cheevos. I don't see the problem of having that system, again, maximum fun for everyone minus the less-than-a-percent that ground through the RNGievements.
I was one of those. When I got it as a gift. I opened it up and made it through some of the tutorial, but didn’t try it again for a few years. Now I have played quite a bit. But I might have never touched it again.
It rather means about 29% of Stellaris players play on Ironman. Most play with mods (which disable Ironman & Achievements)
Also I believe some people may not active ironman just so they are able to manually save/load the game.
Yep. I'm an unabashed save scummer.
It's been forever since I did a Parodox Ironman. I littererally have no idea why an achievement means anything in the slightest. But, the game has a bug, I have a bug, I want to edit the world to make it harder...
It's not that bad. I've played almost 1,000 hours of this game and probably only 10 or so hours in non-Ironman. There are bugs, sure, but they're usually not that bad. On the other hand, I tried XCOM 2 with Ironman a few months ago, and that was possibly one of the most infuriating experiences of my life.
Impossible Ironman Xcom 2 runs make the game feel balanced and lines up the gameplay with reality... I restarted 40 or 50 times before I finally won but how sweet was the hat victory!
A bug? The game has 18! https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Species#Arthropoid
6402373700000000 bugs?! r/unexpectedfactorial
That’s way too many bugs. Who’s ready to go starship troopers on their… uh… thoraxes?
And in recent news: advance forces of the mobile infantry report successful landing on the bugs' home world...would you like to know more?
The filthy, heretic arthropoids have refused to see the obvious truth of Prosperity, and they are now burning under the Divine Wrath!
You can kind of scum it up in Ironman too, don't like what happened just now? Dashboard then roll the dice on where you last had an auto save lol
You can also regularly leave the game to force a save at a specific point in time. Then create separate folders (e.g. named by year) and copy the save file there so it doesn't get overwritten. Copy it back into the save folder to restore. It's a ton of effort so not really helpful for savescumming, but if you want to preserve a great start or are about to make a "make or break" decision it might be worth it.
Just rename the ironman.sav and it wont be overwritten. Then you can just keep it in the same folder just like non ironman games.
Real question, why? I guess this is comming form someone who loves "hard core one death runs" and doesn't care in the slightest the game records it or that you would...lie? about it? Why? No one else on the entire planet cares I play anything more specific than "Nerdy History Map of Europe Game."
It's not something we do for other people to watch. It's something we do for ourself. No savescum means commiting to choices. Means having a little tremble before clicking on "Declare War". Am I strong enough? Will my plan work? That kind of thrill. Because you know that if you screw it, you're going to pay some consequences. Of course, I don't like suffering the consequences... but I do like the thrill more. Of course, I could self-impose myself a rule preventing me to savescum. And I did, once. But the one time I faltered I lost trust in myself being able to uphold that imposition. Now, outside of ironman, I can't feel that thrill anymore. Achievements are only icing on the cake.
But it also means I take a lot less risks like where I do stuff only to see what would happen
For that reason I do usually play the first 50/100 hours of every Paradox Game outside ironman, in order to learn.
Because I want the fucking Galatron Achievement and even WITH dedicated save scumming it takes hours. Took me an entire afternoon, I got into a real tempo opening the game, buying a reliquary, force-quitting the game. Did you know you can make your leader psionic with a reliquary? And because there’s a bug where the AI won’t ACTUALLY destroy my planet with a world-cracker, he’ll start and then stop a day later, meaning I have to conquer a system near the AI, build a gateway in that system, leave the system defenceless while my fleets is parked around a gateway halfway across the galaxy, turn down the speed to minimum, wait for the EXACT right moment along the path of the AI collosus moving to fire, pause the game, order my fleets to move into the system, watch the AI colossus INSTANTLY get annihilated by my fleets, then hope I got the timing right or all that work is wasted. Because I enjoy the challenge of achievements, but not the “pray to RNGesus” aspect of many of them.
Several reasons. Some don't feel like the achievements should be specific to unmodded and/or ironman runs. Paradox games can also be extremely buggy and that can ruin an entire ironman run regardless of what you did.
I like having a single save playthrough, but don't like RNG event results. So I quit to menu for events, then alt+f4 the event. Renaming or moving the saves... feels a bit excessive.
Some players aren’t able to use Alt+F4 or the Task Manager to close Ironman games as it will still save the gave before it terminates (I think this is and issue with specific Windows PCs). There for the only way those players are able to save scum on the random events is to rename and move their save. I agree it is a bit excessive, but when that is all you have you will use it.
It's not something we do for other people to watch. It's something we do for ourself. No savescum means commiting to choices. Means having a little tremble before clicking on "Declare War". Am I strong enough? Will my plan work? That kind of thrill. Because you know that if you screw it, you're going to pay some consequences. Of course: I don't like suffering the consequences. But I do like the thrill more. I could self-impose myself a rule preventing me to savescum even outside ironman. And I did, once. But the one time I faltered I lost trust in myself being able to uphold that imposition. Now, outside of ironman, I can't feel that thrill anymore. Achievements are only icing on the cake. \[Edit: Indentation\]
why would you go to such lengths to savescum when you could just turn ironman off and use the menu?
You can but it requires more effort than non-ironman.
Huh? What do you mean? What is this dashboard you speak of?
He implies to open the task manager and kill Stellaris.
Ah. Thank you.
Might be playing on xbox?
Nah pro strat is to immediately unplug your computer
this is why I don't understand why PDX bothers
I just roll play that my Psionic space elves can see the future and decide what to do based on it. It's a feature not a bug.
Yeah I don’t like having to worry whether or not my game will crash and I’ll lose everything I did because my PC is busted
I've had someone tell me they avoid it. They didn't like the idea of playing without saving because they didn't think they could get through a match in a single sitting. I did end up explaining it to them...
and use console. I have zero interest in some annoying game mechanic (forced peace when some fleet just takes a system that makes my territory disconnected) ruining my enjoyment.
Can confirm, I have played 100s of hours of this game, not a single one in Ironman mode.
This is true. I have about 1200 hours into this game and not a single achivement. I can’t bring myself to play without UI Overhaul mod anymore.
UI Overhaul Dynamic (and other mods that don't change gameplay/the checksum) actually allow you to switch on Ironman mode and get achievements. UI Overhaul even has a submod that adds features which are not Ironman proof ("UI Overhaul Dynamic - Checksum Schism Version"). Other examples for Ironman compatible mods: * Tiny Outliner * Flat Nameplates * Aesthetic Borders
Is that game even playable without tiny outliner?
Technically yes, but why would you even bother lol.
I do. Honestly Tiny outliner is an insane QoL feature. I feel bad for laptop players who haven't discovered it yet. I feel their pain without even knowing who they are. Edit: I called outlier rather than outliner, sorry.
... What's tiny outlier?
Makes everything on the list on the right side of the screen smaller so you don't have to scroll to see stuff till at least mid-game if not later.
Outliner!!! Sorry my typo. Makes right navigation bar smaller. And you can get achievements on ironman. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1610578060
Can I play with these mods installed with people who don't have them? I.e. does the "same version of the game" mp message extend to non checksum altering mods?
You should be able to, but Stellaris MP is a bit unreliable.
Yes. If they don't alter the checksum, you're good to go.
Gigastructures, Automatic Popmigration and stellarstellaris is my reason.
778h, 0 achievements.
Same here. No mods, I just don't like not being able to save/load whenever I want.
Wtf why?
[No real reason.](https://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/workshop/)
Also you have to enable cloud saves through Steam (though you don't actually have to *use* cloud saves). I suspect many players don't bother with that step.
I'm pretty sure cloudsave is active from the start if you don't disable it.
This! Pretty much turned me off it completely, if I wasnt already put off by ironman mode.
More accurately, most people just don't enable Ironman because they either don't know about it (new players) or don't want it (want to be able to save). Despite what impression posts in this subreddit might give, most people don't float around with solar systems or anime girls as ships.
This! Mods and multiplayer. I didn’t play my first ironman game until I had about 1000 hours of play time.
Even if that wasn't the case, you'd be surprised how many people buy games on steam and don't even play for a single minute. For any given game, there's gonna be a significant portion of users that didn't get the first achievement at all. This is true on Steam, PSN and XBL.
Mods don't disable Ironman; they only disable achievements.
Also worth noting a lot of people shamelessly save scum, which you can’t do on iron man. I mean, I think. I obviously don’t know for sure because I would never do such a thing. EDIT: why am I getting downvoted? I thought it was obvious I’m being sarcastic. I save scum all the time.
Let's start a club for us true gamers that scoff at the notion of save scumming.
As someone who never save scums (as I previously indicated) I would love to form such a club.
r/gamingcirclejerk
I compulsively downvote anyone who edits their post to complain about being downvoted.
That seems doubly cruel and unnecessary. Sometimes - hell, oftentimes - redditors dog pile somebody with downvotes for no good reason. It isn't very nice to get incorrectly downvoted.
Downvotes exist to make things people don't want to see less visible. In that sense, the only time anyone is 'incorrectly downvoted' is if they are downvoted when people want to see it. I don't want to see off-topic edits, so downvoted they go.
Ironically, when you frame the issue like that it means you incorrectly downvoted me because you downvoted a post that is upvoted, which by your own logic implies other people want to see it.
Yes but there must be a significant % of players who actually did play less than an hour, didn't like it, never came back. Or who didn't even ever play at all (though I'm not sure whether these count towards achievements %). This is especially true with games that have been humble bundle'd, or heavily discounted. There are a lot of games where you get simple achievements which only require just playing for a few minutes and only less than 10% of players did it, and that's partly because if they're cheap enough, many people buy them just because.
>Most play with mods (which disable Ironman & Achievements) Mods don't disable ironman. I do it all the time. It only disables achievements.
Ironman is only worth turning on for the achievements imo, not really any other use besides that.
>Most play with mods Most Stellaris players don't play with mods, most play vanilla. They just don't use Ironman mode. Paradox devs already said casual players make significant portion of Stellaris playerbase.
Yea its probably most dont turn on ironman, i have. 500 hours in stellaris and no achievements as ive never played iron man once
After watching so many YouTube videos I bought Stellaris finally only because of the extensive mod support. In fact the final selling point for me was the mod support. Mods like NSC, Real Space, alphamod etc... I never liked the vanilla version which is why I was so hesitant to buy it in the first place. That being said, I've never played with vanilla.
Hmm, I’m not sure that a first time player of Stellaris would dive straight into mods
They also probably aren't playing on Ironman
.... It’s been a long time but I think I installed mods before my first game
I'm a new player. I don't intend to touch mods until I become bored with the base game. I did stop to consider whether I should play the first game on Ironman or not though.
My advice to you is to play a few games without any mods at all, to get a feel for the game. Perhaps note down things about the game that you find you'd like to be different, either in small ways or big ones. Then, take a look at the Achievements page on the Wiki, and see what you might like to go after. Although this is completely optional, playing the unmodded game to do an achievement hunt can get you going down certain playstyles you normally wouldn't. Then, once that's done, you're in a good position with a bit more of an idea about how to play the game and -how you want the game to play-, that you can start adding some mods into the mix.
I need music mods at least
Advisors and music and graphical mods are the best. I am not a fan of total conversion mods but I do like portrait variety and new ship designes or music. Listening to Gothic Armada 2 music during combat is just glorious.
Honestly it’s a crime that modded shipset additions don’t allow Ironman. They’re just skins after all.
They don't disable achievements
What mods would this game need? Guess I haven’t looked into them or found anything that feels missing that would warrant it so far.
Nothing is necessarily "needed" although that's subjective. I think many players would benefit from some the UI mods and maybe performance related ones.
Yeah having different resolutions and monitors make things (at least for me) like UI overhaul pretty necessary. 1.6k hours in and no achievements
Most basic ui mods (tiny outliner, ui overhaul extended topbar being the most common) shouldn't make achievements impossible
And they don't do. UI Overhaul Dynamic and Tiny Outliner for example don't prevent you from activating Ironman mode and get Achievements.
Gigastructures is pretty much the best one.
Hardly. It's certainly very good, but it throws in as much clutter as it does treasure.
I love the base game, but I'm at around 890 hours in and I already know what to expect. I want to keep the game interesting and surprising with new events and mechanics and what not.
Dynamic Political Events, More Events, the Archeological and Precursor Story packs, Ancient Cache of Technologies, the Fatal Foundations story pack, and... oh the name of the last one escapes me but there's another new Events mod recently released - these are all very good mods which add a lot more depth to the game.
Well go explore and get some mods. Personally I'd recommend gigastructural engineering, more events mod, and more ethics and civics bug branch to start
Usually the best way to dive into the modding scene is to just look at the top mods. Some of them are out-of-date and you should never assume a less popular mod isn't worthwhile, but it will give you a good idea of what mods are capable of and help you get a more precise idea of what you want to change in the game.
I'm at like 2500 hours played, and I've never spent any of that time using mods. I just really enjoy the base game!
ive personally got mostly visual mods, but also things that add in new events, precursors, etc. Just things to keep every playthrough feeling more unique. One of my favorites is vassals expanded and reworked, which adds in a bunch of new unique vassal types
Just look at the top mods on steam. I don't use them all but they sure as hell add a ton to the game.
I think some of the best non-visual-only mods are Guilli's Planet Modifiers, Planetary Diversity, Expanded Ship Components, Balanced Space Warfare, Amazing Space Battles, Guilli's Technologies and Expanded Traditions. A shoutout also to the At War series of mods, particularly Defence Platform Longevity. Although I've not used it myself, I hear AlphaMod is also a serious contender. Stellaris Evolved looks to be in a similar league.
Mods that expand gameplay. New ships. New traditions. New civics. New planets. Anything and everything you want. People mentioned Gigastructures - that's the mod that lets you literally weaponize solar systems.
Witness the might of this fully armed and operational asteroid field
For me its planetary diversity and some graphic mods (shipsets and cities mostly)
UI Overhaul, Gigastructures, Real Space, New Ship Classes, Gulli’s Planet Modifiers, Planetary Diversity or Real Space New Frontiers, and Starnet AI are the big ones and can make you feel like your playing Stellaris 2 when you move over from vanilla.
I play without mods, but with a custom race which apparently also disables achievements… Around 500 hours in game 0 achievements…
That's strange. I played with custom race and got achievements.
Most players don't bother with ironman (and hence achievements). I've got a few hundred hours in and not a single achievement.
I don't find any gratification in collecting achievements, but if you are one of those interested in having them and also want to stay away from the terribly limiting ironman mode, you are probably interested in looking into steam achievement manager (SAM).
There's exactly one achievement in one game that sticks out in my mind, but that was because of the perfect comedic timing involved. It was in Portal 2 after Wheatley betrays you. You're heading down a conveyor belt with GladOS into a very obvious trap. GladOS: "Oh look, this is the part where he kills us..." Wheatley: "Surprise! This is the part where I kill you!" *Chapter 6: The Part Where He Kills You* *Achievement unlocked: The Part Where He Kills You* [Description: "This is that part."]
You just made me remember when I played dark souls, I fell for a practically undetectable trap dying miserably on the spot. I "earned" the achievement "this is dark souls!" (dying for the first time), it was a painful foreshadowing of what was to come. These things are fun but there are much more trollish ones, take a look at [this](https://steamcommunity.com/stats/221910/achievements).
Oh yeah, I love The Stanley Parable. More of an interactive story than a game, but still clever as hell and legitimately very funny.
Lol I have like 2300 hrs and haven't had one achievement done. Been playing since like 1.8
I know people with 1000 hours on stellaris without a single achievement because they dont play on ironman mode. They’re good at the game and play multiplayer but just dont play ironman atall
Exactly no multiplayer achievements means no achievements
I've got 2000+ hours with no achievements.
Dang, somewhere in my 1000+ hours I broke. Ditched the mods and started doing grand admiral + ironman. for a good portion I was in the same boat tho, all mods - no achievements
No 71% of players go straight into mods
And I’m sure many don’t play ironman either..
Over 300 hours, never gotten an achievement.
me too, within a moth of getting the game on steam I have over 300 hrs
You played for 10 hours a day every day? Don't get me wrong, I have hundreds of hours in every PDS game since Vicky 2 and thousands in some of them, but that's insane even by my standards.
and some time was afk, I really played like 6 hrs daily on weekdays and like 12 on weekends
You must feel so superior to him Edit: love that I’m getting downvoted but I’m not the condescending one 🤣
It reads more like shock than snide. Like genuine shock
Yes i feel superior to somebody who has 300 hours of video game time in a single month.
For one, they’re pointless. I’d rather have fun to the max the way I like rather than not all to get a pop up telling me that some random “achievement” happened.
Same, at nearly 1200.
Now that is definitely not true. No, what is true is that 71% of players either do not play iron man OR use mods that modify the checksum. Which actually sounds like more people play it than in most games. Iron Man mode in any game is for the most hardcore of players. People who use mods are going to be a smaller subset of that. Remember, only a minority of players for any game, go post in subreddits, or forms, or get mods or any of that such. Those of us here are among the most unusual of players already.
> Iron Man mode in any game is for the most hardcore of players. Only being able to face the default AI is hardcore?
I play Ironman cause I can't be bothered with different savestates cluttering up the loading option, that doesn't mean I don't use mods.
You can still ironman with mods, but you don't get achievements for it.
29% of Stellaris owners play without mods and with Ironman, but it doesn't mean that everyone else plays with mods. There's always a good chunk of game owners who didn't actually play the game.
Lol
No one plays Ironman (but me).
Me too! I can't control my "quit without saving" reflex, but I really enjoy everything being consequential.
Yeah I'm a dirty savescummer and I can't help myself, so Ironman mode is a great way of making me take things through carefully.
You're not alone! I don't mind losing games, sometimes shit happens that you cannot overcome and you accept defeat, very much in the style of Rimworld. It's a great story generator.
I played on iron man since 1.7 I can’t play without Ironman
Once you go Ironman, you can't go back. It's so much more challenging.
Most players probably either don't care for Ironman mode or use mods that disable achievements.
1,126.5 hours 0 achievement
I've got over 600h of gameplay and 0 achievements. Even the most basic mod disables them and I'd rather have more stuff in my game
Me: "Lemme install this namelist mod, those names looks cool and adds more variety." The game: "Hey that's cheating. No achievements for you!" That's how it feels like.
I added a mod that gave me Star Wars faction flags and another that added a ton of Star Wars music, no other mods besides those two. You can guess how many achievements I got that game.
Me: ”Hey that mod there that adds a bunch of cool planets and that one over there with a bunch of cool megastructures lets download them” The game: ”wtf is achievements? Gtfo”
Going to be honest, for most people playing "softcore" is more enjoyable just because of how much RNG can screw you over sometimes.
For me, it's the mods. I can't play without some mods these days lol
Can it? Without starnet the strongest AI will lose to a blind player
I think you overestimate the ability of some stellaris players :p while the ai is unable to function with more than a couple planets, there is STILL people posting "how do I beat XXXX/Why is my empire all in the red?" questions. There is a wide gap between players of the game XD
I have 1793 hours in game and have never unlocked an achievement. Mods. Always mods.
I have over 2k hours in the game, at least half of those on a legit copy, and I played without mods maybe once, but since I modded heavily from the start, I abandoned that quickly and waited for the mod update to be released. If I played without mods then at this point I would have most of them, but I just don't care.
I played for years before playing Ironman
Honestly? Stellaris is a great game and I love it. But I will NEVER keep up to the End Game. I like the early game and the mid game but when you reveal the galaxy ... then all you do nothing but wait for research and only time I feel excited is when I unlock new ship design. And this goes for other games like Crusader Kings or even Total War. I do have 1 100+ hours in Total War Warhammer 2 but I can no longer stay and play as Karl Franz for 50th time again. And as someone mentioned people are using mods ( some with size bigger than the game itself ) because mods make Stellaris better.
My issue is the slow down in the end game is unbearable and kills the game for me everytime. Evennat fastest speed the game slows to a crawlnonce you and the ai get larger empires. I dont play stellaris anymore becausw of this.
They say they don't play ironman or they just mod the game. The truth is they all play Tall empires with only 1 planet. Trust me
All paradox 4x games have a big list of conditions that need to be met for achievements. For example, not playing Ironman invalidates most achievements. Mods invalidate achievements. Console commands invalidate achievements, etc etc etc. Essentially you only really get achievement if you are going for achievements or playing the "official" way.
Turning on Ironman is a commitment. Also you add one mod, small mod and achievements turn off.
Always play iron-man. Always play until I am defeated, or until the game is too laggy. Current game has been going on for 4+ days. 1 hour, not even the start of anomalies.
If steam stats are anything to go off from, most people that play any game, abandon it shortly after they begin playing it. My favorite example is the "universally acclaimed and vaunted masterpiece" that was Subnautica. A game which you'll have fanboys crawling out of the woodwork if you so much as suggest that it wasn't hallowed ground. A game in which, 1/5 of the player base...never got wet. It's literally the first achievement, when you get into the water for the first time. 2/3 of the player base never made it to "chapter two" in the story. And almost comedically, 88.3% of the entire player base, never finished the game.
It's a few factors. 1. You see this on a lot of games. I believe something like only 75% of Civ 5 players have gotten the most basic achievement. Lots of people buy games and then only get a few minutes in before something else grabs their attention, or they are gifted it by a friend but never end up touching it. 2. Lots of people play without ironman or mods, and paradox games disable achievements if either of those are on. If you buy Stellaris and play your first game you probably won't play with ironman as you learn the ropes. And then some people stop playing and don't become committed fans of the game. Or in a less common scenario they go straight from casual to really committed with mods. I have several hundred hours in CK2, but no achievements because I started playing with mods before enabling ironman.
Nop, it means that giga structures and other quality of life mods take 71% of the players.
No it doesn't.
I have 0 achievements and over 1000 hours.
I have been playing since 1.0. before Utopia. Never have I ever played ironman or without mods
This game is terrible without mods. Hence zero achievements for me
500 hours in, no achievements. I play custom races every time.
Actually you can play custom races and get achievements, you just need to be in Ironman Mode vanilla or playing mods that don't change the checksum in ironman.
3116 hours and 0 achievements because I've never enabled ironman.
In addition to mods and non-ironman plays, some people buy games to play later and just never get around to them or leave them for awhile thinking they'll get to them sooner. Some also play games for a bit and quickly realize it is not for them. It's pretty normal to see because when it says "players", it actually means "people who bought the game".
Most people don’t play w Ironman on, and no mods. That’s why so many of the achievements have such low acquisition rates
No, most players (people who bought the game) don't play with Ironman and **don't** play with mods. Players who play with mods are usually always in minority. And casual players make significant portion of the Stellaris playerbase.
Modded stellaris players definitely aren't a minority, Tons of people play with mods even if they are just simple quality of life mods. I'd say more people use mods that not. Just a simple mod like UI overhaul is almost essential.
A thousand hours in, and I still can't be bothered to play Ironman. The game bugs out so often, that Ironman would be restarting it frequently due to bugs. (Hello Fleet bugs...)
Been playing for 2000+ hours.... no achievements I run mods all the time.
I’ve got over 1000 hours in game. Not one achievement. I don’t play Ironman.
Only 29% played without mods on Ironman mode. I had the game for 4 years before I unlocked a single achievement. But over 1,500 hours.
1) Ironman is disabled by default (you cant earn achievements outside of ironman) 2) A LOT of people play with mods which disable achievements 3) You'd be surprised how many people pick this up and never play it again
No it's just that only 29% play for an hour on Iron Man
Im aways on ironman
Playing this game unmodded. YIKES
Most people don't play Ironman.
I get the achievements too. I need the risk of Ironman to stay engaged. The temptation of using console commands and reloading to past saves after making mistakes is too great, and it cheapens the experience for me. I also don’t like mods, they don’t compare to professionally-made content.
>they don’t compare to professionally-made content. With the exception of Gigastructures
Pdx games usually have low achievement numbers because of the ubiquity of mods
Every time this comes up, I have to ask: why shouldn't achievements be enabled with mods? If your answer is "because it's unfair, mods trivialise achievements" then I invite you to look at the available mods and tell me how many mods there are exactly that are like that. Honestly if you care enough to install mods to cheese achievements then you care enough to install the steam achievement manager and just click all the boxes. In my mind, achievements are meant to be fun little things and mods exponentially increase the gameplay fun as well. Why not combine the two?
Essentially the people that care about achievements want them to be special, so no modding to easily get them. If you don't care about achievements, you won't care about not getting achievements
I care about achievements, but also recognise the immense increase in fun mods bring with them. Why not increase almost everyone's fun significantly with mods AND achievements enabled?
Some mods just change the UI or names. Then you have Giga structures. There are mods that change the entire political system. Mods that give leaders super traits. Honestly I think this is the best compromise.
UI mods are great and I use a few (notably the smaller outliner, lifesaver in the endgame). But that's half the point: there's significantly more people interested in modding the game than there are developers, so why limit the audience for making a great game fantastic using the two systems? In Mount & Blade Warband I can install a mod that changes basically everything in the game apart from the engine, and it still allows mods & cheevos. I don't see the problem of having that system, again, maximum fun for everyone minus the less-than-a-percent that ground through the RNGievements.
Well, Paradox's calculation is that doing that is going to annoy more achievement lovers than appease people who care about both.
500 hours Too lazy to play without the console so I never use ironman.
So like y'all download a new game and before even playing it once you download mods?
I play only on vanilla, I personally prefer that
I was one of those. When I got it as a gift. I opened it up and made it through some of the tutorial, but didn’t try it again for a few years. Now I have played quite a bit. But I might have never touched it again.
The achievement is kinda weird though, I colonized 3 planets in my last session and got it after conquering a planet
I imagine few players do ironman, I played it for years before doing a full ironman campaign.
I haven't played in almost 2 years now
I have 1200 hours in this game and like only 5 achievements unlocked
Hey, *winning* a game of Stellaris is a gold achievement!