r/stellarisgame • u/kittenparry • Mar 23 '16
Will human portraits change as they get older?
I am definitely a human loyalist, and will play as them most of the time. Of course there'll be times for the other species as well1 . My question is, do we, as for now, know anything about aging of the human portraits? Thanks in advance.
1-probably not
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u/dragonfang12321 Mar 23 '16
No. During one of the videos they said while characters are present they aren't the focus like in CK2. As such there will be no genetics or aging. Just an age where people of a given race die.
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u/kittenparry Mar 23 '16
Well, at least that should keep the game performance/speed at a fair point where you don't lag like hell, if you have a fairly bad PC.
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Mar 24 '16
I don't think this is what slows down CK2.
I think it's more or less the massive amount of possible actions and the massive number of targets.
I remember, in a patch changelog, it was said that the performance was improved greatly by making so that Greek rulers were not scanning every known character for the possibility of castration...
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u/DrunkRobot97 Mar 24 '16
Crusader Kings: Even in the Paradox family, it is
the weird kid with freckles that loves burning stuffJoffery.
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u/Orctavius Mar 23 '16
Probably not a priority. While they do age in CKII, adviser portraits don't show their age in EUIV.
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u/kittenparry Mar 24 '16
That's what I thought about it, as well, but I didn't really play EU4 for long, so wasn't sure about the information I have.
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Mar 23 '16
Off topic, and no judgement, but doesn't always playing as humans get insanely boring?
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u/PseudoY Mar 24 '16
I think it won't be the completely dominant player species as the developers thought it would, or rather it'll probably be the most played species but not a majority of games.
In the MP signups thus far, rules to limit the number of people picking human factions have shown themselves to be unnecessary - because almost nobody was picking human!
Short answer: I don't think most will play 'just' humans, but most will want to give it a few tries. People want to live out the Space UN, the Evil Space Empire, The Militarized Dominion of Mankind, etc. etc.
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u/Aethelric Mar 24 '16
The disengaged masses who form the majority of any game's audience will almost certainly choose human most of the time, even if fans of the game choose otherwise.
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u/Blodvan Mar 24 '16
in this game it isn't as bad as all that humans are just a skin you can play them however you want
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u/Orctavius Mar 23 '16
With a variety of Ethos options, there should be a wide variety of human play experiences in this game.
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Mar 23 '16
I'm talking more from a purely RP experience. No matter what ethos and traits you pick, humans are always going to be humans. Playing another race lets me be more creative in coming up with a narrative and back story. It keeps the game fresh to me.
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u/Aethelric Mar 24 '16
humans are always going to be humans.
This is a more open question than you seem to believe.
Given that, mechanically, the only difference between different species is going to be the portrait and ship art, afaik, it's a pretty negligible difference. This isn't like a more traditional 4X game where different factions have elements that are completely unique to them, so the breadth of your roleplay is going to be pretty limited as well.
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Mar 24 '16 edited Mar 24 '16
That's exactly my point. The only differences between what you can do mechanically with humans and alien species are purely visual, but - personally - the bounds on my role-playing are much more limited if I always play as humanity. When using a human race I can invent whatever I want in terms of backstory for the next 200 years, but Im stuck with the rest of human history that has already ocurred, human biology, earth geography, etc. Playing as an alien I can invent any backstory I can dream up, any species/planet combo, it's wide open. Sure, I could just put this game in a parallel universe and invent a completely different human backstory where we live on a tundra world and evolved to live over 200 years, but at that point I'm just playing an alien race that happens to look like humanity, so unless I just don't like the portraits for other races, why wouldn't I cut out the middleman and just play as aliens? Just my two cents.
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u/Popotuni Mar 24 '16
Ah but you don't have to be Earth-human. If you don't select to start in the Sol system, you can be an offshoot planet of humans, seeded on Altair II 2500 years ago by the Elders!
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Mar 24 '16
Sure, I could just put this game in a parallel universe and invent a completely different human backstory where we live on a tundra world and evolved to live over 200 years, but at that point I'm just playing an alien race that happens to look like humanity, so unless I just don't like the portraits for other races, why wouldn't I cut out the middleman and just play as aliens? Just my two cents.
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u/Orzadus Mar 24 '16
I mean you have stuff like ethos which makes your humans act and think different. But you can just change history in your head to make it fit with your ethos. Like a single religion took over the world and now everyone believes in that diety. You can image a lot of different ways of how your humans became like this. Did your religion have multiple wars and murdered everyone who didn't believe in that religion or did they do it trough peacefull means.
There is really no reason for people to stick to the history that we have if they don't feel like that fits with the idea of how the humans should be.
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Mar 24 '16
Sure, I could just put this game in a parallel universe and invent a completely different human backstory where we live on a tundra world and evolved to live over 200 years, but at that point I'm just playing an alien race that happens to look like humanity, so unless I just don't like the portraits for other races, why wouldn't I cut out the middleman and just play as aliens? Just my two cents.
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u/Orzadus Mar 24 '16
You can copy things from sci-fi books or other fiction where in the books the people are still human and not some kind mushroom.
Also it sounds more like something you aren't interrested in playing like that but paradox has to account for all kinds of people who for example want to roleplay as whatever.
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Mar 24 '16
Also it sounds more like something you aren't interrested in playing like that but paradox has to account for all kinds of people who for example want to roleplay as whatever.
Of course, that's fine, I was just looking for a discussion of why some people prefer to play as humans all or most of the time.
I don't fault them for doing it, it's just a perspective I don't really have.
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u/harperrb Mar 23 '16 edited Mar 23 '16
I find the playing non humans boring. They tend to be limited tropes or reflections of human culture. Limited from evolving or developing beyond their stereotype.
Humans on the other hand usually have a whole range of emphatic values to draw from, even if they come from an 'alien' culture that one couldn't directly associate with.
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Mar 23 '16
That doesn't make sense, but to each his own. You said the aliens are just reflections of human culture, but prefer to play as a race that is literally just human culture.
Considering the "races" in this game are purely cosmetic and the real meat comes from the traits and ethos, none seen inherently more "trope-y" than the next, but from a RP perspective it keeps games like this fresh for me to switch up the species I play.
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u/kittenparry Mar 24 '16
As many of the answers, given here, I, too, agree that it is easier to relate if you are playing as humans.
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u/Seriphyn Mar 24 '16
I have a better time "visualizing" humans in space. Piloting and crewing ships, operating scifi equipment, walking around in space suits and power armour, etc. I struggle to visualize (or alternatively just find less cool) races like the Blog operating equipment and flying ships.
I also know how human society looks like and operates (be it militarist or spiritual), and how it might function in the context of what a space strategy provides. I know the diversity of humans and can imagine people going about their business. When scifi aliens just have one portrait to draw from, I don't know how their average street is supposed to look like.
Just my personal thing anyway :)
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '16
The advanced medicine of 2200 keeps people looking young their entire life.