Stellaris

[DaviddesJ]

I think we're arguing at cross-purposes - I'd see that tech trading, bribery, and war as part of a single strategy that is always essentially the same way of dealing with opponents, and always works - much as a single opening in chess may involve moving a knight, a pawn and a bishop rather than just moving the same piece.

I might get what I need through trade, or through war. To say those are all the same strategy doesn't make much sense to me. They are different routes to the same result. If in one game I only ever attack my neighbors and grow my strength and gain access to resources that way, and then in another game I only ever make peace and trade with my neighbors and grow my strength and gain access to resources that way, then am I really pursuing the same strategy in both games? Surely not.

 

[Ailedhoo]

Time for more SCIENCE!

Spoiler very large fleet plus a throne world :

This time it is the turn of the Ontotach Ascendancy to join the literally fallen empire club, as the great war fleet comes to their throne.

Spoiler surrender :

With their home-world occupied the Ascendancy has decided to avoid further pain.

Spoiler a new sector :

We now have new space, with worlds to be explored and colonised for the Ard-Rheam.

Spoiler AI :

Meanwhile one of our scientists, Torba'Keldi Nezkura'Ulkar, has began to study the potential future of the mind by commencing a project on AI sentience. We are aware there are those who give omens of danger from this line of research but the foolish cowards do not know that one must be prepared to leap forward into the undiscovered country if they wish to progress SCIENCE for the good of all!

Spoiler Russell's teapot :

There were things that even SCIENCE had trouble with however; during exploration of the newly formed Troyn Sector one of our scientists stumbled upon a unusual discovery in the Hyrma System: a ceramic pot in stellar orbit around a star. We tried to find out but faced a stone wall. This has placed us in confusion and has given food for thought for philosophy within the Ard-Rheam. Whatever the case: why? Why?! WHY?!

Spoiler current map :

Anyway we continue to expand the empire and our minds: Quocunque Jeceris Stabit!

 

[Leonel]

Here's my bird empire. Originally was the Yollese Empire but I wanted to include its goal of being an empire that takes up a galactic arm so renamed it to the Yollese Arm Empire. I think my only credible threats are the catlike planet states to the northwest and the Forerunners but they keep to themselves.

Spoiler :

The Yollese Arm Empire is also composed of several "incorporated" empires and while minority xenos aren't allowed into leadership positions for reasons of avian supremacy, they are allowed to immigrate to other parts of the empire as are avian administrators, advisors, and colonists. The purple fungoids with their homeworld of Huari integrated fairly easily as well as the molluscoid who were an early space age people when the Yollese discovered them. Those greenish blue slug people however are the latest to become a part of the empire and are having the most difficulty integrating to the point of staging open rebellion against their betters. The rebels were crushed.

Spoiler :

 

[Dell19]

On the paradox forums there seems to be a lot of hate for sectors but aside from a couple of bugs I actually like them as its nice knowing that I'm not going to run in to the late civ issue of having 100s of planets to manage whilst still being able to control the space port. There are some bugs though as for instance its weird that it costs influence to remove a system from a sector before clicking on finalise. It would be nice to be able to see planets that are in a sector as currently its a bit of pain to find which spaceports have just completed etc. Finally there is a bug where you can't change the observation method of a primitive race if its in a sector which puzzled me for a while.

 

[Arakhor]

Ailedhoo, how does General Flanagan have something like fifty traits?

 

[Ailedhoo]

On the paradox forums there seems to be a lot of hate for sectors but aside from a couple of bugs I actually like them as its nice knowing that I'm not going to run in to the late civ issue of having 100s of planets to manage whilst still being able to control the space port. There are some bugs though as for instance its weird that it costs influence to remove a system from a sector before clicking on finalise. It would be nice to be able to see planets that are in a sector as currently its a bit of pain to find which spaceports have just completed etc. Finally there is a bug where you can't change the observation method of a primitive race if its in a sector which puzzled me for a while.

I like sectors as it keeps the game from becoming a micromanaging nightmare (as what can happen in Master of Orion) and allows me to cheap use frontier outposts to expand my border without a permanent -1 to my influence. I concur on the primitive race notice, although the aggressive observation of one post in a sector did allow me access to a abduction event which leaded to a free 5 star scientist.

Of course the biggest bug I face is the "refuse to die" bug for the infected planets; I guess I will just have to live with a corner of the galaxy being ruled by horrors. Also I was beaten to the capture the queen event. On plus side my fleet is strong and the tech I got from the horrors have proved very useful indeed.

Ailedhoo, how does General Flanagan have something like fifty traits?

I think those are 50 troops, including a pair of titans.

 

[JohannaK]

Titans are so awesome. I unleashed all three titans I have onto a planet with quite a few armies on it and they didn't even lose as much as half their health.

 

[Kozmos]

Waging war three planets at a time against a giant federation is frustrating. And a million damn notices for enemy fleets skating around my systems.

 

[JohannaK]

You have to win the war before you fight the war. It is in the classics.

 

[Dell19]

You can vassalise the largest participant which seems like the most efficient way of conquering the galaxy currently.

I've started to unlock more planets to colonise and for a while I was happily colonising whilst still making an energy profit. I then had a few run at the same time and started losing something like 100 enery a month. Meanwhile I started a war which increased the monthly losses to nearly 200 a month. Once all my fleets returned to port and only one colony was left I found myself still losing slightly over 100 energy a month. Once it finished the loss dropped to 20 and is now around 5. I find it really weird how energy levels fluctuate so much as I'm not sure how I was able to make a profit whilst running 1 or 2 colonies whilst later just had a disastrous effect on my economy.

 

[Arakhor]

This is my attempt at playing a synthetic species from the Playable Robots mod. The two powers to my sides are superior to me, though the chaps on the right are moderately friendly and the ones to the left definitely are not, whilst the purple realm to my top is my ally.

 

[JohannaK]

You can vassalise the largest participant which seems like the most efficient way of conquering the galaxy currently.

I've started to unlock more planets to colonise and for a while I was happily colonising whilst still making an energy profit. I then had a few run at the same time and started losing something like 100 enery a month. Meanwhile I started a war which increased the monthly losses to nearly 200 a month. Once all my fleets returned to port and only one colony was left I found myself still losing slightly over 100 energy a month. Once it finished the loss dropped to 20 and is now around 5. I find it really weird how energy levels fluctuate so much as I'm not sure how I was able to make a profit whilst running 1 or 2 colonies whilst later just had a disastrous effect on my economy.

They were probably not in a sector. Although colonies don't seem to count for your home sector limit, they actually do for all intents and purposes, hence why you get massive energy losses with a single colony going on.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

WOW. I purchased Stellaris last night and played a bit for about 1 hour. I was very impressed. The game played flawlessly on my mid range laptop. The galaxy was impressive with a lot of attention to realism and detail like Sol being adjacent to Alpha Centauri. The game was easier to learn than EU or HOI. I also get the impression that you could easily get lost in this game. The game really pulls you in with so much going on. I imagine you could play for days and weave this galactic history of empires rising and falling.

 

[Barathor]

WOW. I purchased Stellaris last night and played a bit for about 1 hour. I was very impressed. The game played flawlessly on my mid range laptop. The galaxy was impressive with a lot of attention to realism and detail like Sol being adjacent to Alpha Centauri. The game was easier to learn than EU or HOI. I also get the impression that you could easily get lost in this game. The game really pulls you in with so much going on. I imagine you could play for days and weave this galactic history of empires rising and falling.

Nice! That's only the beginning...

Also, check out Paradox's forum and tweets, they communicate so much with their players and have laid out a nice schedule of updates so far. A beta hotfix (I think it may be the 3rd one since release) was just released today. Love Paradox, not only are they fun folks, but they get things done too (and communicate while doing it)!

 

[JohannaK]

Victory! I finally decided to attack the Fallen Empire that was in my way. One of my five battle fleets was scattered and being updated, but the other four, totaling around 135K jumped into the enemy core system in unison. It was a single, protracted naval engagement that only ended when the last military station in the system was destroyed. In the process I lost 3 Battleships, 9 Cruisers and dozens of Destroyers and Corvettes. Most of these losses, including all 3 Battleships and 6 Cruisers, were inflicted upon the Homeworld Combined Fleet which spearheaded the attack.

In spite of the severe battering that it received, the Homeworld Fleet inflicted as much damage as it received. The Outer Combined Fleet, which was the other fleet to suffer losses in the confrontation, inflicted a whooping 189K damage to the 42K damage it received. The Inner and Central Combined Fleets, although involved in the battle, saw far less action, although they were crucial in bombarding the ringworld sectors into submission. An almost disastrous event occurred when the transport fleet with 24 clone armies warped into the Beacon of Infinity system. A sizeable enemy fleet (12K) jumped into the system at that spot after it chased a small vassal fleet to the neighboring system, and managed to destroy most of the crafts. Assisted by these vassals and our allies, however, the enemy was brought to submission and all its planets liberated.

Now I have living metal, and a Living Metal Armory in Coruscant. Coruscant has pretty much every possible rare material buff to ship construction plus battleship yards. The only exception is no shield buff because I don't use shields at all. Now the living metal module provides monthly hull regeneration, so I'm thinking to rebuild the fleet from scratch in these superdockyards.

Also we hit 2500 and I think I have to declare war on the Spiritual FE in order to reach the Prethoryn. Either that or wait until the Prethoryn open a path through the FE.

 

[Kozmos]

I think I'm done with the game, I like it a lot but like Civ I feel like it needs a couple of expansions to reach its full potential.

 

[JohannaK]

probably the first patch will flesh out some of it.

 

[Kozmos]

I looked over the dev plans for the next couple of patches, they are good first steps but it will need a lot more for me. Espionage, trade, better diplomacy, more ways to deal with factions, more varied factions with different agendas (this is the future after all, I want to see all kind of ideologies), meaningful roles for your primary leadership as opposed to a simple change when he/she dies, a more fleshed out mid and late game, revamped AI for fleet combat, balancing corvette spam, some performance tuning and whatever else they think of to give it more depth. Potential for greatness is there and I'm sure to return at some point.

 

[Ailedhoo]

SCIENCE has won claimant over the galaxy!

First I like to report that thanks to the patch...

...the horror was removed; we nuked their worlds from orbit to be sure they were gone.

Meanwhile we won another war against the Lyrite Confederation and their vassal the Ruphaari Union; the war ensures we have but one planet left to claim before we can ensure the Ard-Rheam can dominate the galaxy as long as their is intelligent live in the universe.

Spoiler final map :

As you see our dominion is strong.

It ended with simply colonising one uncolonised world; tis a eternal day for the Ushag, the Ard-Rheam and SCIENCE!

Quocunque Jeceris Stabit: whichever way you throw, it will stand!

 

[Acken]

I looked over the dev plans for the next couple of patches, they are good first steps but it will need a lot more for me. Espionage, trade, better diplomacy, more ways to deal with factions, more varied factions with different agendas (this is the future after all, I want to see all kind of ideologies), meaningful roles for your primary leadership as opposed to a simple change when he/she dies, a more fleshed out mid and late game, revamped AI for fleet combat, balancing corvette spam, some performance tuning and whatever else they think of to give it more depth. Potential for greatness is there and I'm sure to return at some point.

You can expect a lot of expansions anyway. Its basically paradix business model.