Stellaris: Iron Victoria Europa Kings in space!

[Nappi]

I really enjoyed my first couple of hours with the game. The systems did not feel overwhelming, but it was impossible to parse the full significance of different discoveries, events, technologies, etc. Basically exactly what I wanted from a space 4X game. 

[brkl]

It annoys me that I have species fit for tropical worlds but colony ships made on their planets still can't colonize those worlds because I don't have the tech.

[brkl]

Huh, I'm not so happy with my first game. I basically just stumbled forward while nothing much happened. I did bring two atomic era civs to the stars and then I had those guys in my other planets as well eventually. I liked that. Then one of the old empires just ate me and I couldn't do anything.

So nothing for fourteen hours and then sudden death.

[Sorbicol]

Huh, I'm not so happy with my first game. I basically just stumbled forward while nothing much happened. I did bring two atomic era civs to the stars and then I had those guys in my other planets as well eventually. I liked that. Then one of the old empires just ate me and I couldn't do anything.

So nothing for fourteen hours and then sudden death.

You need to be in an alliance. I had a much more powerful neighbour who could easily have defeated me by myself. However he couldn't take both me and my two allies on, and when he tried I vassalised him in petty short order. However it is taking me 215 years in game to integrate into my empire......

[brkl]

They didn't wanna

[Sorbicol]

They didn't wanna

Repulsive are you?

[Dewar]

Fallen Empires should only attack you if you do something specific to anger them. You can see the specific triggers at http://www.stellariswiki.com/Fallen_empire

 

This weekend I beat the end-game disaster I mentioned in an earlier spoiler, and it just winked out with a whimper.  I expected at least a page of flavor text and a cheer or something? Not only that but the rest of the galaxy didn't seem to give a crap that a galaxy ending disaster was going on, I got attacked twice during the event.

 

At this point, I think I'm done. I saw and beat an end-game event, and taking over 40% of the habitable planets in the galaxy seems like a huge grind-fest.

[DocRandal]

I've just hit the mid-game of my first playthough and I think I'm going to put the game down for a rest until the next few patches go in. Stellaris is pretty solid and I'll be glad to go back to it once they fix up the issues they've detailed in their dev diaries.

[Nappi]

I'm enjoying this game quite a bit, and am definitely in the "one more turn" mode even if the game isn't exactly turn-based. I really like the sense of discovery that comes from the anomalies, the fact that you have to study the aliens before you can understand them, and the non-obvious tech tree. At this stage, the systems feel manageable but still complex enough for me not to try to optimize everything board-game-style. Interested to see where Paradox goes with the game in updates and DLC.

 

I felt pretty dumb when I finally realized yesterday that I can go to the unknown stars without waiting for them to be "revealed". I think the fact that the arrows pointing to these stars were greyed out in the solar system view was the source of this confusion. As a result of this, my frontier outposts are probably not as ideally positioned as they should be.

 

I hope that I haven't fucked up my game entirely by building so many frontier outposts early on. I have +1 monthly influence left and I don't know to go about increasing my monthly influence income at this point. I have only met two other civilizations and I'm not sure if I'm ready to declare them as my rivals. I am also two tiers away from fully upgrading my planetary administration building (by the way, is the influence gain from that building per planet or per civilization?). Are there any other good ways of gaining influence? How the fuck am I supposed to conquer 40% of the galaxy this way?

[Gormongous]

I hope that I haven't fucked up my game entirely by building so many frontier outposts early on. I have +1 monthly influence left and I don't know to go about increasing my monthly influence income at this point. I have only met two other civilizations and I'm not sure if I'm ready to declare them as my rivals. I am also two tiers away from fully upgrading my planetary administration building (by the way, is the influence gain from that building per planet or per civilization?). Are there any other good ways of gaining influence? How the fuck am I supposed to conquer 40% of the galaxy this way?

 

One influence a month is somewhat low, but it's not irrevocable at all. The ceiling for bankable income is so low (1000) and there are so many things that are hungry for it in the early game (outposts, capitals, special buildings) that it's pretty easy come and easy go. Once you start putting some of those outposts into sectors, which don't play influence costs (currently thought to be partially a bug and partially a design oversight), the pressure will be off of you and, even if it's not, you can just disband the offending outposts. Once you reach the midgame, most planets will be fully developed and outposts will only be used occasionally to tweak borders with other empires. Ninety percent of my influence, at the endgame, is just paid out to suppressing rebels, which is... eh.

 

One thing I will say about Stellaris, the early game does a great job of making you feel like every little mineral and influence point is dear, even though most economic contests in the game are rarely close-fought things.

[brkl]

Repulsive are you?

[Nappi]

One influence a month is somewhat low, but it's not irrevocable at all. The ceiling for bankable income is so low (1000) and there are so many things that are hungry for it in the early game (outposts, capitals, special buildings) that it's pretty easy come and easy go. Once you start putting some of those outposts into sectors, which don't play influence costs (currently thought to be partially a bug and partially a design oversight), the pressure will be off of you and, even if it's not, you can just disband the offending outposts. Once you reach the midgame, most planets will be fully developed and outposts will only be used occasionally to tweak borders with other empires. Ninety percent of my influence, at the endgame, is just paid out to suppressing rebels, which is... eh.

 

One thing I will say about Stellaris, the early game does a great job of making you feel like every little mineral and influence point is dear, even though most economic contests in the game are rarely close-fought things.

 

Cool, thanks! I got the sector tutorial prompt but did not divide my empire yet, because I assumed that it would only affect the number of planets I can colonize without penalties. I will definitely try sectoring soon.

 

Is there a way to preview what removing a frontier outpost would do, or should I just save and try it? I think the other way in which I fucked things up was expanding my boarders with frontier outposts and then building a colony in the region. I now assume that colonies can be build in star systems outside my borders?

 

I hit a series of governor, scientist and admiral deaths and as a result I'm currently quite low on influence (maybe I shouldn't have replaced the leaders immediately), so I could definitely use a monthly influence boost.

[Jaraknarn]

Outposts are a fine stop gap, in the later game i started using them to spread my borders over terraformable worlds and then dismantled them once i colonised them.

 

The late games going ok so far, although this super cool sounding event pop up LITERALLY fizzled away and required no action which was crazy disappointing

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686714575

[Dewar]

Cool, thanks! I got the sector tutorial prompt but did not divide my empire yet, because I assumed that it would only affect the number of planets I can colonize without penalties. I will definitely try sectoring soon.

 

Is there a way to preview what removing a frontier outpost would do, or should I just save and try it? I think the other way in which I fucked things up was expanding my boarders with frontier outposts and then building a colony in the region. I now assume that colonies can be build in star systems outside my borders?

 

I hit a series of governor, scientist and admiral deaths and as a result I'm currently quite low on influence (maybe I shouldn't have replaced the leaders immediately), so I could definitely use a monthly influence boost.

 

A completed colony will have a longer border range than a frontier outpost, so it's generally a good strategy to build frontier outposts, then colonize, then remove the outposts. Unfortunately, there's no way to preview that I know of. There are technologies that give you monthly influence (and also border expansion,) the top level capital gives you an influence, having rivals gives you more, and allies less.

[Dewar]

Outposts are a fine stop gap, in the later game i started using them to spread my borders over terraformable worlds and then dismantled them once i colonised them.

 

The late games going ok so far, although this super cool sounding event pop up LITERALLY fizzled away and required no action which was crazy disappointing

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=686714575

 

That's not an endgame event. it's just a random event chain. You will continue to get messages about it as time goes on.

[Jaraknarn]

That's not an endgame event. it's just a random event chain. You will continue to get messages about it as time goes on.

 

Many decades have passed and I have not.

 

On a side note this destroyed me.

 

I was like "I. . . I . . . . dont even know man. . . . your just weak and I. . . . . want your planets to do a stupid animal research. . . ."

[Dewar]

interesting, I guess I took another path for that event, because..

 

I had a ton of different bits that ended up with me allying with them in one case, and my cities collapsing into gian underground caverns in another.

 

I got that same bit of text when I attacked one of the federations. It was much less entertaining to me since they had attacked me three times prior. You know why...

[Nappi]

I reached what could probably be considered the (early) mid-game, where I had 6 or so colonized planets, no more habitable planets in my region, and not much room to expand or survey due to other empires blocking the hyperlane routes. In other words, things were getting a bit boring. Then two new early-FTL empires popped up, one of which prevented travel between two parts of my empire, and the other acting as a neat buffer between me and another empire with superior firepower. I decided to let at least the latter one be for the time being, although I immediately declared them as my rivals for that sweet sweet influence. Things changed when one of the more powerful empires declared a war on them. I acted fast, declared a war on the puny empire, and quickly took over their one inhabited planet before the other attacking empire could do anything.

 

Elsewhere in my empire, I finally managed to research the required tech for uplifiting pre-sentient species and boosted some arctic-dwelling creatures into space age. As a result of these events, I now have two new species within my empire, at least one of which lives in a completely different environment from my original species. In other words, I can now colonize new planets within my system but will probably also have to deal with space racism (?). I also have to figure out what to do with the early-FTL empire that is cutting my dominion in two. Oh, and it seems I can terraform planets now. I think things should be quite interesting for some time now.

 

Also this happened:

I did not select the middle option because I got scared. Shortly after that, though, I decided to actively pursue interesting scenaries, so as not to get bored. I'm not really that interested in winning the game anymore, as the victory conditions seem to require a huge time investment.

[Jaraknarn]

Where the hell are the victory conditions? I actively cannot find them in the UI, I've just been playing to expand with no real direction or purpose.

[Cordeos]

Where the hell are the victory conditions? I actively cannot find them in the UI, I've just been playing to expand with no real direction or purpose.

If you go to where quests/missions/events are there is a second tab with victory conditions. Pretty much control 40% of colonizable planets or wipe out all other sovereign empires (Not sure if this counts vassals and allies)

[SuperBiasedMan]

If it does expect you to wipe out vassals and allies that creates an interesting end game conundrum.

[Jaraknarn]

If it does expect you to wipe out vassals and allies that creates an interesting end game conundrum.

Or a really long and boring conundrum, taking 4 planets per war is pretty tedious.

Also, has anyone successfully intergrated a vassal yet? I'm at 600 months to go but, the games performance has ground to a halt in the late game, it seems to buffer each 5 seconds of game play for about 1.5 seconds. So I cant rush through to see what happens

[Gormongous]

If it does expect you to wipe out vassals and allies that creates an interesting end game conundrum.

It doesn't count vassals, allies, or federation members, no.

[Nappi]

Umm... Do you guys have any suggestions on how to spend my time during mid-game? I just started a war out of sheer boredom and obtained four new planets. The new subjects are resisting a bit but I don't think that will hold my attention for too long. There was one potentially interesting event chain recently, when

our galaxy was attacked by an unknown species

but since that event took place at the other side of the spiral galaxy, I think I don't have to worry about that for some time still. Furthermore, hyperspace engines combined with the difficulty of gaining border access mean that I can't really explore the galaxy anymore.

 

Will interesting events keep popping up or is this my space-life from now on? I can see now why people are looking forward to a bunch of DLC being released. With loads more systems, I would probably have my hands full just keeping my mess of a galactic empire from exploding into tiny pieces.

[Dewar]

That event is an endgame event and it is something worth worrying about, even if it's on the other side of the galaxy. Once you beat that, I'd say that you're "done" unless you want to conquer the whole galaxy or something.