Stellaris: Paradoxian Space Stategy.

[Leecros]

Edit: So, Paradox... er... manual?

Or are we supposed to play with no instructions at all aside from the extremely bare (understandably) wiki?

'Cos there's no "manual" link on steam.

There are a bunch of tutorial missions at the start of the game that explains a bunch of the basics.

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't think I can afford this this month

My idea for a first race is human though. But alternate future where Soviet won. So basically Stalinists In SPACE!

[Narkis]

Meet the Narkosian Directorate:

Spoiler

Show

20 years in, we're the top dogs in our parts of the woods, though we're boxed in between the Democratic Crusaders on one side, and the Evangelizing Zealots on the other. Needless to say, we don't get along with the neighbours. Thankfuly right behind them were two races of Fanatic Materialist Erudite Explorers that were more than happy to form an alliance. Only a single rare tech so far, and no dangerous ones, but I have faith. Ethics divergence seems to not be a big deal. It only requires a bit more micromanagement, some of my pops gave up their materialism in favor of pacifism and I didn't notice them and remove them from the research labs for years.

[Leecros]

Sadly, my Fennec race isn't having too much luck with a slow early game due to lack of resources in the surrounding planets...

[Aotrs Commander]

There are a bunch of tutorial missions at the start of the game that explains a bunch of the basics.

Considering how badly useless the EUIV tutorial was, this fails to inspire with any great confidence...

Not even a hotkey list Paradox?

Whelp, nevermind, I'll carry on with my first EUIV playthrough anyway, give the wiki some time to catch up. (I mean the EUIV wiki isn't always right, but it'd be impossible to play without it, but at least there was a manual to show you the buttons and such.

I know Paradox and it's associates generally suck at documentation, but it extracts the urine to have a game as compelx as their gransd strategy ones and to not even bother with any official documentation...

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

The tutorial seems really intuitive at least being somewhat familiar with the genre, and I know a few reviewers not familiar with the genre who did fine with the tutorial as well.

[factotum]

Considering how badly useless the EUIV tutorial was, this fails to inspire with any great confidence...

Can't say how the EU4 tutorial was, but the one in Stellaris is pretty reasonable and the UI is pretty intuitive (definitely compared to the God-awful mess that was CK2). The entire game download was only 1.6Gb and I was able to start it shortly after 5pm (because we're in BST not GMT at the moment), so I've played it for about the last four and a bit hours and so far have not encountered any "huh?" moments.

If I have a criticism, it's that some aspects of the game are lacking polish--I've done a number of research missions so far where the name of the science ship has got substituted for the name of the planet it was studying, which is the sort of basic error that should have been fixed months ago, IMHO.

[Razade]

Considering how badly useless the EUIV tutorial was, this fails to inspire with any great confidence...

Not even a hotkey list Paradox?

Whelp, nevermind, I'll carry on with my first EUIV playthrough anyway, give the wiki some time to catch up. (I mean the EUIV wiki isn't always right, but it'd be impossible to play without it, but at least there was a manual to show you the buttons and such.

I know Paradox and it's associates generally suck at documentation, but it extracts the urine to have a game as compelx as their gransd strategy ones and to not even bother with any official documentation...

Tutorial was actually pretty damn solid. This game is also...so far...not as complex as EU4.

[Leecros]

Currently my biggest complaint is the lack of ability to just zoom out and see everything. You have to hop to the galactic map to see it. The whole thing just feels kind of jarring and bothersome than just zooming out...

Unless i'm doing it wrong

[Knaight]

My idea for a first race is human though. But alternate future where Soviet won. So basically Stalinists In SPACE!

The Union of Soviet Socialist Planets?

[Narkis]

Currently my biggest complaint is the lack of ability to just zoom out and see everything. You have to hop to the galactic map to see it. The whole thing just feels kind of jarring and bothersome than just zooming out...

Unless i'm doing it wrong

Yeah, it bugs me too that I have to hit "e" to go from system to galactic map instead of just using the mouse wheel like every other game does.

Also, I kinda take it back what I said about ethics divergence not being that bad. A whole bunch of my pops have turned into filthy neutrals and I no longer have enough materialists to work all my labs. And holy cow is genetic engineering expensive. I have to spend 15 years worth of research to upgrade everyone.

[Leecros]

Also, I kinda take it back what I said about ethics divergence not being that bad. A whole bunch of my pops have turned into filthy neutrals and I no longer have enough materialists to work all my labs. And holy cow is genetic engineering expensive. I have to spend 15 years worth of research to upgrade everyone.

Yeah, i'm only 30 years into the game. I'm playing at a nice, slow pace because I'm getting a new computer tomorrow anyway and will probably have to restart and I want to take my time. So i haven't gotten genetic engineering yet. I am, however breeding space-fungals to be used on my planets as slaves.


On another note. Does anyone else have an issue with having a massive glut of energy? At any given time, my Mineral reserves are tapped. Meanwhile my energy is nearly capped. I have compensated by massively increasing my mineral income compared to my energy income, but I'm still dancing around the energy cap.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that there weren't really much in the way of initial resources. So i don't have a massive amount of mining/research stations to burn 1 energy each on. However, even if i had...Everything you build takes minerals. energy just seems like it's mostly used as a maintenance resource. Perhaps that stuff just comes in later. No Idea...

[Razade]

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that there weren't really much in the way of initial resources. So i don't have a massive amount of mining/research stations to burn 1 energy each on. However, even if i had...Everything you build takes minerals. energy just seems like it's mostly used as a maintenance resource. Perhaps that stuff just comes in later. No Idea...

It's basically this when you have a glut of anything I'm finding. I one game I had so many minerals and science but was hurting so bad on money. Now I'm surrounded by...pretty much everything I could want. It's like a buffet in my new game.

[tonberrian]

My first game was apparently Star Trek: TOS, what with spawing some crystalline entities and space amoebas.

[AgentPaper]

Canary empire is coming along nicely:

http://i.imgur.com/pyjFc0P.jpg

14 planets so far, and 3 outposts to help push the border out. I've yet to actually declare war on anyone, but instead just seemed to get fairly lucky in my starting position, everything to my east was empty right up to the Screk Syndicate, allowing me to expand pretty much constantly since the start of the game. Only now am I starting to get hemmed in, and even so there's still a couple planets up north that I can still reach before I'm forced to start conquering to get more land. I'm also running out of ways to spend my minerals on things that give more minerals/other resources, which leads me to believe that I'm reaching the end of the 4X stage and am going to be heading into the Grand Strategy stage from here on, so that's exciting.

While I haven't declared war yet, that doesn't mean I haven't been at war, though. I got a bit over-zealous focusing on expansion early on, and neglected to build a powerful enough fleet to hold off the 3 empires to my direct north, all of whom I had rivaled and had allied each other. Individually they were weaker than me, but together they were confident enough to declare war. It was close, but I just managed to push them away from my homeworld with the combination of my existing fleet, some rushed out corvettes, and my home station. After that, I was able to focus all my resources to building up my fleet to the cap, and proceeded to turn things around and not only avoid losing anything, but in fact turn the war around on them and make the Dominion of Zukai'Mondor (the tealish empire to my north-west) into my delightfully grumpy vassals. I even got a bonus Protectorate out of it: the Human Confederacy which consists of just one system (Sol) which you can kinda see as a blemish on my vassal's west side.

I don't actually have any allies, but I've managed to stay on warm terms with the larger empires to my west and south, making those borders fairly secure. I'm currently building up my forces in perperation for my second war (and first declared) against the Vool United Regions (the whitish empire to my north). They're allied to the Kedeshi Concordat (blue empire north of them), but are at war with the United Ugarlak Planets (green to their north-west), so I figure I'll be able to take advantage of that. I can't quite annex them fully, but I figure I can annex most of their planets now, and then take the rest and vassalize the Kedeshi in the next war, by which point I will probably have already taken over the Ugarlak as well, which I actually need to do in order to get access to the Kedeshi Concordat, since the only hyperlanes into Kedeshi lands runs through them.

[factotum]

On another note. Does anyone else have an issue with having a massive glut of energy? At any given time, my Mineral reserves are tapped. Meanwhile my energy is nearly capped.

I'm generally maxed out on energy, but then, I had a lot of energy resources in my starting system--not to mention that energy isn't really used for that much in the game, and also the mineral cap is much higher than the energy one (8000 versus 3250 for me at the moment). I need to bring more mineral resources online in my first sector, because they only have +7 per turn and they're not going to be developing very fast on that!

[AgentPaper]

I'm generally maxed out on energy, but then, I had a lot of energy resources in my starting system--not to mention that energy isn't really used for that much in the game, and also the mineral cap is much higher than the energy one (8000 versus 3250 for me at the moment). I need to bring more mineral resources online in my first sector, because they only have +7 per turn and they're not going to be developing very fast on that!

I think this varies by starting position. For myself, I had only just about enough energy to squeeze by at the start without having to cut back on station building, and later had to build a lot of power plants on empty tiles to ensure I didn't run out.

Energy definitely is a maintenance thing, though. It doesn't really matter if you're making or losing it at any given moment as long as you don't run out. If you have an excess, then I'd suggest that you build more frontier outposts and prioritize building as many mineral and science producing stations as you can, and also fill any empty tiles on your planets with non-power buildings of course. You may also want to build up your fleet or even build some defense platforms if you can afford it, though that should come after mineral stations unless you're threatened.

[GloatingSwine]

And on this day the United Iskar Directorate looked up from the deserts of their home to the stars and said "I bet there's some awesome stuff out there, let's go and poke it with sticks and see what happens!"

And so they set out, for SCIENCE!


(Only just started before I had to go to work, have found a couple of candidate worlds for colonisation within my initial wormhole range, need to build colony ships, and two races of primitives on Tundra and Arctic worlds respectively, so I will be able to integrate them and use them as science minions to expand my range of colonisation options eventually as they're in the iron age/medieval period so far and do not understand the path of SCIENCE)

[Ailurus]

So, I know this is a very minor thing, but: anyone find a way to enter backstories for custom races into the game yet? The pre-built races all have their histories entered, but I can't figure out how to do it for my races (either in-game or out-of-game).

[Avilan the Grey]

The Union of Soviet Socialist Planets?

The People's Democratic Alliance

[Siosilvar]

I wish this game allowed truce-breaking or enforcing military access for warscore. Not great to have the enemy surrender suddenly and trap 2/3 of your fleet onto one of the planets you took.

Word to the wise for hyperspace nations: make sure you've got a way to get home if you're suddenly peaced out.

Frankly I don't know why they were allowed to instantly peace out in the first place, but there's a whole load of slightly unexpected mechanics that contributed to this situation.

[factotum]

Word to the wise for hyperspace nations: make sure you've got a way to get home if you're suddenly peaced out.

If this was "real world" then going deep into enemy territory while leaving unconquered bits along your supply lines would be a really bad idea anyway...of course, the game doesn't really model things down to that sort of level, so you get away with it!

[Leecros]

Frankly I don't know why they were allowed to instantly peace out in the first place, but there's a whole load of slightly unexpected mechanics that contributed to this situation.

If you crush them, then they'll surrender for your demanded wargoals. I had that happen to me after i destroyed an enemy's whole fleet and half of their space stations while looking for slaves...

Speaking of slaves...I sort of wish you could still relocate pops within Sectors. I had originally planned on putting my Slave worlds in their own sectors, so that I didn't have to manage their planets, but you can't actually do anything to planets within a sector. So i'm going to have to have like just their homeworld stay under my control or something...

I'm also having my first ethic divergence problem. It would appear that some of the backwater hillbillies are starting to have an issue with slaves. It's interesting yet somehow annoying how a race with the Decadent trait(-10% on all income unless the planet has slaves) can have a problem with slavery. I could just purge them i suppose, but the empires in the region already hate my empire of cute fluffy Fennecs for being genocidal slavers.

[Grif]

I... I think the wait was worth it. This is the game of the year for me now.

[DigoDragon]

I wish this game allowed truce-breaking or enforcing military access for warscore.

I'm watching different folks play and a few ended up in bad situations because they can't break an alliance or drop out of a war.

Seems odd not to have espionage.

[factotum]

Speaking of slaves...I sort of wish you could still relocate pops within Sectors. I had originally planned on putting my Slave worlds in their own sectors, so that I didn't have to manage their planets, but you can't actually do anything to planets within a sector. So i'm going to have to have like just their homeworld stay under my control or something...

Couldn't you temporarily remove a planet from the sector, resettle or relocate pops, then put the planet back into that sector?

[Leecros]

Couldn't you temporarily remove a planet from the sector, resettle or relocate pops, then put the planet back into that sector?

You can...

It costs 50 influence to remove a planet from a sector though. So I don't know if it's worth it unless you have a large amount of influence.

[Siosilvar]

If this was "real world" then going deep into enemy territory while leaving unconquered bits along your supply lines would be a really bad idea anyway...of course, the game doesn't really model things down to that sort of level, so you get away with it!

Frankly, I don't think it was possible for me to take anything in one war to NOT get stuck there somehow. But I should have tried killing that frontier outpost first, despite nothing actually inhibiting any ships of mine from coming through. Eh, live and learn.

Speaking of slaves...I sort of wish you could still relocate pops within Sectors. I had originally planned on putting my Slave worlds in their own sectors, so that I didn't have to manage their planets, but you can't actually do anything to planets within a sector. So i'm going to have to have like just their homeworld stay under my control or something...

Sectors are weird. I had a governor seize total control of 75% of my mining bases in one, despite not having any factions or anything. Thankfully it was easy to notice since my income suddenly went negative as Betharian power plants shut down, and the problem solved itself rather quickly after firing (well, executing in that campaign) the upstart.

Also, is there any way to easily access starbases in a sector? I probably shouldn't have built so many since I can't support the full 195 supply limit or really have even two production lines running at maximum capacity, but it was in character so myeh :)

I'm also having my first ethic divergence problem. It would appear that some of the backwater hillbillies are starting to have an issue with slaves. It's interesting yet somehow annoying how a race with the Decadent trait(-10% on all income unless the planet has slaves) can have a problem with slavery. I could just purge them i suppose, but the empires in the region already hate my empire of cute fluffy Fennecs for being genocidal slavers.

Pops should at least not lose Fanatical beliefs in one go, I'm having the same issue with my set of xenocidal bugs.

[Wookieetank]

Saw almost my entire list of friends on steam playing this yesterday, figured it was worth checking out. Almost didn't go to bed last night/this morning(1am counts as night right?).

Things of interest I've found so far:
Inhibitor/Reaper/Vex mining drones and evidence of an omnicidal machine race
Scientists are abject cowards (despite being from the science based race)
Earth was only 3 systems from my home world in a random map which was fun, subjugation planed, just hasn't happened yet.
Retreating from battles is in fact useful and possible.

[Leecros]

well, as expected, me jumping over to a new computer has not brought my save along. That's okay though, because with 4 mineral resources already found in my starting system; I already have a better start than I had last time.