Stellaris

i hope 1.6 will fix the pacing issues of the game. utopia messed the game up. you basically won before you get all the cool stuff

I bought the game when it came out and only played once. I didn't like the early game pacing at all. I ran into aliens right away and had to fight them. I was hoping to slowly expand and stuff
 
Have they overhauled war scoring yet? I remember a lot of criticism in that regard.
 
Have they overhauled war scoring yet? I remember a lot of criticism in that regard.

I can't remember if they tweaked the actual numbers, but one of the patches added some researchable technologies that reduce the cost of war demands, so wars can become larger in scale as the game progresses.
 
Thanks. So where are there still issues then? That thing with doomstacks? Shallow diplomacy and economy?
 
There's a number of combat changes planned in 1.8, particularly the planned obsolencence of the 'naked corvette' strategy.
 
i really like the slower start*. it makes some ascension options more viable (notably expansion) and give you much more time to explore and makes some techs more desired. the rogue servitors are imho the strongest of the 3 unique robot empires (tons and tons of unity)

*colonization cost minimum is 100, which makes expansion techs useful
*colonization time is much longer
*colony ships are much more expensive (500mins)
 
Decided to get this in the sale. Does anyone fancy giving me a list of hints and tips for a noob when it comes to paradox grand strategy games?

Things I am currently thinking:

Should I be pausing all the time? I'm worried about wasting time or not responding quick enough. And some rebel faction destroyed one of my mines.

Expansion seems quite slow. Am I supposed to build mines everywhere first, then the thing that lets you claim the star, then finally colonies once you can afford them and have enough influence?

I'm guessing defence wise it's best to have ships in every system you control until you can afford defence platforms?

I'm worried about the large number of projects that seem to be piling up and I'm making very little progress.

Research seems to complete very quick and I can never seem to actually do anything useful with what it unlocks.

Should I only have 1 science ship and construction ship. Or should I build more.

Sorry if these seem a bit basic.

I actually quite like it so far. I really like SOASE. But didn't like the focus on combat. I'm more of an empire builder.
 
Pause whenever you need to. That is what it is for. As you explore and expand, you will need more ships to keep up with exploration and construction. Dont be afraid to build more, and be aware that an untimely declaration of war or investigating an incident will tend to destroy your science ships unexpectedly. Technology will play a role when it needs to, any tech has a place in the mid game.

That said its not a terribly great game and without DLC some features lag behind others. It is good though, and you can get a bunch of hours out of it. Once you get bored, there are always mods to spice it up.
 
Decided to get this in the sale. Does anyone fancy giving me a list of hints and tips for a noob when it comes to paradox grand strategy games?

Things I am currently thinking:

Should I be pausing all the time? I'm worried about wasting time or not responding quick enough. And some rebel faction destroyed one of my mines.

Expansion seems quite slow. Am I supposed to build mines everywhere first, then the thing that lets you claim the star, then finally colonies once you can afford them and have enough influence?

I'm guessing defence wise it's best to have ships in every system you control until you can afford defence platforms?

I'm worried about the large number of projects that seem to be piling up and I'm making very little progress.

Research seems to complete very quick and I can never seem to actually do anything useful with what it unlocks.

Should I only have 1 science ship and construction ship. Or should I build more.

Sorry if these seem a bit basic.

I actually quite like it so far. I really like SOASE. But didn't like the focus on combat. I'm more of an empire builder.

-build at least 2 science ships (one at the very start) so you have 2-3 total
-split you starting fleet into 3 (3 fleets of 1 corvette each)
-scout your nearby regions with the 3 fleets and explore them, especially planets
-build mining stations especially minerals
-if you find system with lots of minerals build an outpost
-if you find good planets (20+ tiles, few tile blockers) colonize them
-you only need 1 constructor ship for most parts of the game
-research priorities in the early game are better mines and power plants
-don't bother with defence platforms and many fleets. just build military ships and put them all in 1 fleet. unless you are much stronger than your enemy, then you can split your fleet up
 
-build at least 2 science ships (one at the very start) so you have 2-3 total
-split you starting fleet into 3 (3 fleets of 1 corvette each)
-scout your nearby regions with the 3 fleets and explore them, especially planets
-build mining stations especially minerals
-if you find system with lots of minerals build an outpost
-if you find good planets (20+ tiles, few tile blockers) colonize them
-you only need 1 constructor ship for most parts of the game
-research priorities in the early game are better mines and power plants
-don't bother with defence platforms and many fleets. just build military ships and put them all in 1 fleet. unless you are much stronger than your enemy, then you can split your fleet up

Ok, tried this. That worked better. Im finding this a bit easier to learn that EU III. Is EU IV like Stellaris in terms of ease of learning? Maybe i should give that a go after all as i am enjoying Stellaris so far. I couldnt get on with EU 3 so gave up.
 
EU4 is more complex in terms of game systems and a bit more unintuitive, especially ui wise. however it is the superior game in terms of the core gameplay. my main issue in stellaris is that the diplomacy system and the mid game are extremely boring. some core differences:

-alliances are a lot more loose this makes the diplomacy systems an integral part to warfare
-provinces (the equivalent to planets in stellaris) can be states or territories (-75% to all important stats) and the number of states is mostly dictated by tech level. this means that medium empires/kingdoms can be on par with large empires
-tech progression is much more uniform, unless you colonize distant lands (e.g. conquering the new world) you will be roughly on par with your neighbours military wise
-large wars are much more draining on your economy. getting manpower in EU4 is much more difficult than getting minerals in stallaris
-empires can become unstable internally and break up without outside pressure (although outside pressure can certainly help)

all in all this makes the game a lot more exciting because even large empires can be brought down, e.g. if you have two empires both with all their provinces as states used, the other empires needs to have 4 times the provinces to gain double the economic and hence military might. put together with a much more dynamic diplomacy systems the game does not become boring. most wars you fight are not large wars of conquest but smaller quick wars to break up important alliances.

in stellaris especially player empires tend to become unassailable, until some endgame crisis kicks in. to get that kind of resilience in EU4 you are often in the last 100 years after a successful run and even then a large coalition might be difficult to overcome.
 
On the Dawn: I did my first game as a machine empire. I was a servitor, helping organics by allowing them chance to do pleasure as we did all the work, research and determination for them. Game ended up with the redone robot crisis and ended with a federation victory. Anyhow it was fun playing as robots and I made a few machine planets.

I enjoy this machine DLC! Robots FTW!


BTW I think they changed the sectors: you can upgrade the improvements on the planets now?

At the moment BTW I am doing a Hive Mind run: this was the greeting with the robots I played:

Spoiler robotic greeting to hive mind :
61935AADBA1FF7B3AE80C4B1CE4EE9A92B6A887D
 
Thanks for the helpful hints so far. I just want to check on my progress. I have met most AIs now. And have 5 systems I have colonised. I look to be about a similar size to other empires.

I'm playing on normal difficulty. Is it normal to be quite far behind on tech? I'm not massively surprised as I don't know what I'm doing lol and I focused on minerals and energy before research. But I'm behind most if not all AIs, although catching up it seems. I'm a bit worried about when an AI may wage war. I'm right next to the bird people who are a bit unfriendly and far ahead of me. I signed a defence pact with another ai. But they are miles away so it will probably be a hindrance than a blessing in the event of war. Any diplomacy hints? Roughly where am I in terms of the game? The beginning? The middle?

I like it so far. I was genuinely upset when my lead scientist died right after my other scientist became my ruler lol.
 
You can normally expect any game to last at least 150 years, with the crisis showing up after 100-120 or so (at least in my experience).
 
I'm playing on normal difficulty. Is it normal to be quite far behind on tech?
If it's compared to a Fallen Empire, yeah :p
A few AI also start with several more tech ("advanced AI" or something like that in the world options).
If it's not one of those two cases... No, you should be ahead :p
 
it really depends on what techs you are behind. the most important techs in the early game are better power plants, mines, tile clear blockers and terraforming. you can easily catch up in tech with a few wars and scanning the wreckage of the enemies ships.
 
Ok, maybe I jumped the gun a bit. I am not behind :D . I am equivalent to all other AIs except 1 who is superior to me, 1 who is overwhelming (I think they must have had a very good start as they seem to be eons ahead of everyone), and 3 other AIs are inferior to me. So that’s not too bad I think. I am bigger than most other AIs and I feel like my game is starting to snowball a bit as I seem able to afford to expand frequently now.


Just another question on sectors. I get that they work like vassal states. But when you make them, are you more limited by geography (you must have colonies near each other to form a sector). And can you reform them after you have created them (add existing colonies to a new sector and then either add new colonies to your core, or add colonies from other sectors to your core)? Reason I ask is that I spent my 5 colonisation slots on a wider berth of highly habitable planets. But theres lots of smaller brown planets in between that currently have no colonies. I am worried that if I now build colonies here, I will be stuck with them in my core when I wont want them there. Surely you only want your uber planets in your core. Or is that a misconception?


I also seem to have a lot of influence built up and do not seem to be doing much with it. So I passed a load of edicts. Although, I think now this might change as I am generating over 100 mjinerals per month now so can afford colony ships more readily.
 
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