Stellaris

BrotherWu said:

I bought this last night and messed around with it a little. Seems like a lot to learn.

I find myself doing this a lot with games lately. Interface is complicated and/or steep learning curve? Fuck it. Fire up World of Tanks.

Maybe I have become a lazy gamer. I don't mind putting time in, that's kind of the point, but if it seems like it will be difficult to learn how to play, I just don't do it anymore. CKII, for example, I have tried to play probably half a dozen times but I never get through the tutorial because, god damn, that seems pretty involved.

Click to expand...

Yeah it's the same engine as CK2 though it's a lot more approachable.

It's well WELL worth learning to play it if 4x or grand strategy is a genre you like, but if you can't bring yourself over the hump I'd say refund it while you can.

If strategy is your thing though, it's down to this and EU4 at the top.

Started again aswell. Wanted to do a more peaceful approach, but I am hating it. I always want to bomb everything to oblivion and take over their shitty systems. Still haven't figured out to eradicate people properly.

Ridas said:

Started again aswell. Wanted to do a more peaceful approach, but I am hating it. I always want to bomb everything to oblivion and take over their shitty systems. Still haven't figured out to eradicate people properly.

Click to expand...

You have to take authoritarian. Itunlockstheability to purge populations on planets. It also unlocks abandon planet as a war goal. You can force them to purge an entire planet themselves.

I had a fun game where I went super tall, turned my entire population into synths, and basically became the PC unbidden.

From my diplomacy playthroughs, it's kinda lame. You take pacifist or fanatic, blob out asap, get a federation going, and then you have to wait for the war in heaven or the crisis to expand again.

And fuck migration treaties. Why do the arctic bird people set up shop on my lizard arid mine world? Is it for the express purpose of creating a faction size one that will never be a threat and also never go away?

We moved here because we're fucking idiots and now we're real mad about it.

Space American InventorS.

RESETTLE. Oh, wait. I'm not authoritarian and can't. Balls.

Authoritarian is basically a must.

Sounds like it. I always play human and hate everything that is different. Must be my German genes. Off to the camps, Birdpeople.

Playing as a Hivemind is loads of fun/amusing, but it seems sort of overpowered at the moment. Not having to worry about Happiness is incredible. Everyone hates you as you tend to eat strangers, but it is still awesome.

Guessing the big 'downside' is you cannot access the new Psionic traits/ascensions. Will probably aim for that mode in my next game.

Ridas said:

Started again aswell. Wanted to do a more peaceful approach, but I am hating it. I always want to bomb everything to oblivion and take over their shitty systems. Still haven't figured out to eradicate people properly.

Click to expand...

There's something deeply satisfying about regime change in Stellaris though. It took a while for me to get into the groove, but once you get the hang of provoking defensive wars and forcing the aggressors to break up and vassalizing the small, sympathetic chunks of their country it's a pretty chill way to run things.

As of the previous patch you could demand the Become Tributary wargoal, which was a looser form of Vasalhood where they still get to make foreign policy decisions but they have to pay you a chunk of their energy income. I ended up preferring this to directly occupying, subjugating and eventually integrating new territory.

It kinda sucks that only protectorates provided influence tho.

Rime said:

Playing as a Hivemind is loads of fun/amusing, but it seems sort of overpowered at the moment. Not having to worry about Happiness is incredible. Everyone hates you as you tend to eat strangers, but it is still awesome.

Guessing the big 'downside' is you cannot access the new Psionic traits/ascensions. Will probably aim for that mode in my next game.

Click to expand...

Heh yeah, I'm enjoying Hivemind. I imagine I can supplement my population with Synths eventually and have them co-exist in my empire? I haven't gotten far enough yet for robots

Zajeer said:

Heh yeah, I'm enjoying Hivemind. I imagine I can supplement my population with Synths eventually and have them co-exist in my empire? I haven't gotten far enough yet for robots

Click to expand...

Nope. Hivemind cannot use robots/synthetics. You can, with the right Ascension perks/Genetic Modifiers, assimilate other species into the Hivemind, though.

Have they fixed the atrocious enemy AI since the release? Game used to be too easy back then.

Apollo64 said:

Have they fixed the atrocious enemy AI since the release? Game used to be too easy back then.

Click to expand...

Like most AIs in 4x games, it is made 'difficult' by cheating. They ignore most caps, get free energy/minerals, etc. The War in Heaven update means that sometimes (at least once a game if there are 2 or more of them) Fallen Empires mobilize and go to war with each other. They can and will wreck your shit super easy.

You've got to crank aggressiveness if you want it harder.

But it is like 4x games. There's not a difficulty curve so much as there are difficulty terraces. And in Stellaris in particular, if you start next to some advanced start metalheads -- well, good luck. If you start next to two you might as well reroll the map. One of them is going to jihad you. The game very much is colored by your starting seed. That's not smoothed out. It does provide replay, so that's good. And without a carefully tuned map like they have in CK2 or EU4... it's the price you pay for random mapgen.

I've had starts where you swim in resources but struggle for science, and I've had the reverse as well.

I haven't found planet based research facilities to be very often worth building beyond maybe a few on your initial planet just to bootstrap yourself. Not on directly controlled planets at least. I sector out and let Governors build that shit. Because you only get tax on their resources but you get the full value of their research. Industrial sectors are actually kinda balls.

They do, too. It takes a few years but once you start to sector out research it's a steady increase that tends to beat the population curve.

They made it a little bit more difficult by chaning fleet combat. But it's still blob to win. Mass produce the fuck out of Cruisers and Destroyers because those always get targeted first. I've played around with different fleet comps. The only effective pure fleet comp seems to be 100% cruisers. But the cost of building fleets like that is gross. 100% Bship, Destroyer, or Corvette all suck -- they all get mutilated. But a full on cruiser fleet will get 'er dun. And from what I've seen from playing with mixed fleets it doesn't matter too much, you want to be heavy in the middle is all. And mass driver is pretty much the best. Lazers blow, Missiles are kinda ok, but nothing beats just throwing rocks at people IN SPACE.

Welp, there goes my empire. Played against aggressive AI. I got declared on three times in a row. First two I was able to win, but on the third I was not able to replenish fast enough. Off to another try.

Hmm this is on sale.

Kharzette said:

Hmm this is on sale.

Click to expand...

If you've played CK2 or EU or VIctoria or are familiar with the Paradox Clausewitz games then this is a must-play imo. Even if you haven't but you're willing to invest time in a complex 4x game then this is prolly the best investment outside of Distant Worlds.

What does "go tall" mean by the way? In other news my empire is taking over this time. Some complaints about genocide but what can you do *shrug*

It means investing in a small number of core production points to the exclusion of expansion. With the way research is tied to tech it's a viable strategy in stellaris. But with the way fleet cap is tied to population it's not obviously best. And with the way fleets work you want that fleet cap. I'm pretty sure that aggression factors in both your relative percentage of fleet cap and their actual numerical strength. There are times where I just can't get someone to declare war on me unless I disband 10 or 15% of my fleet. I try to ride fleetcap as a matter of habit. I should try a game where I only go like 50%. I bet my ass gets jihaded way more often.

And there are times I'll be retooling my fleet balance and out of nowhere a wardec. That's what makes me think they pay attention to % as well as the raw number.

Going wide is blobbing out.

If you are going 'tall', I suggest picking up the Voidborne Ascension perk as soon as you can. Being able to build a Habitat (12-Population/Slot stations) on any planet that cannot be inhabited (Barren, Gas Giant, etc) makes it significantly more viable - However, the Habitats do NOT provide Fleet Capacity, so you still have to blob a bit if you want to have any military defense.

Just had the Unbidden show up around year 2300 in my Hivemind game. They are happily munching away on the other side of the galaxy and the three empires that are surrounding their blob will not let me in so I can kill them /feelsbadman.jpg

Also sort of annoying how hard it is to unlock the Mega Engineering. I JUST WANT TO BUILD DYSON SPHERES EVERYWHERE!

It was sorta possible to build tall and win as a materialistic/xenophile empire and just go for the alliance victory. It's just tricky once you get a lot of allies and it takes 60-70 years before your planet count is assessed for the victory condition.

More importantly, tall empires are BRITTLE. You can be fairly solid but losing just one or two colonies can really shit the bed fast.