[EmperorMagus]

I have been playing Stellaris for the past couple of days, and I've got to say, I love the game so far. Although I think I've been purging population a little bit too much.
I'm ashamed to admit that I've yet to win a single war though, the combat system seems a little bit too confusing for now.

Anybody else getting addicted to this?

[Morgoth]

We did have a bit of a discussion the video game thread, but it is probably better to keep it in it's own thread.

I've had a lot of fun so far, especially in my current game where I acquired the option to build Xenomorph armies. Nothing good will come of it I am sure, but it did make invading the neighbouring pacifists a breeze. Now I also have slaves for my army.

I have to say, my ant civilization feels really good. Might just be a good starting position, but the collectivist/militarist with communal and some other skills which I can't remember right now seems to work really well. I'm way ahead in tech comapred to my neighbours, population is happy and productive.

Alas, warp drive just feels really lackluster after having gotten used to wormhole generators in my last game.

[EmperorMagus]

Morgoth, on 13 May 2016 - 06:08 AM, said:

We did have a bit of a discussion the video game thread, but it is probably better to keep it in it's own thread.

I've had a lot of fun so far, especially in my current game where I acquired the option to build Xenomorph armies. Nothing good will come of it I am sure, but it did make invading the neighbouring pacifists a breeze. Now I also have slaves for my army.

I have to say, my ant civilization feels really good. Might just be a good starting position, but the collectivist/militarist with communal and some other skills which I can't remember right now seems to work really well. I'm way ahead in tech comapred to my neighbours, population is happy and productive.

Alas, warp drive just feels really lackluster after having gotten used to wormhole generators in my last game.

Yeah, warp seems like the weakest option overall. I personally like the Hyperlanes more simply because I can explore far areas of space without having to use influence for border stations and credits for wormhole generators.

My current game is with one of the default human options (Military dictatorship, Fanatic Militarist Xenophobes), I won my first war against a neighbouring empire and got a couple of colonized planets off of them, the systems I got overall gave me four new planets, I did some genociding and got myself a shiny new sector.

My next war I defeated a neighbouring civilization with my 16k strong battleship fleet (the damns things cost me almost 120 EC each month during wars), I've vassalized them but they really hate me for now, I don't think my slaving, purging ways are really making me popular (Also they have twice my number of planets, dunno if that's important or not).

I'm neighbours with a gigantic empire (like 5 times my planets, one empire with three mid-sized vassals) which has a "superior" fleet compared to me. My other neighbour is a two star empire that has an "overwhelming" military advantage compared to me. So I'm in a bind, can't attack them and can't get border access (what with genocide, slavery, and purges making aliens hate me).

I've not really used armies at all yet, I just have one 16 unit army sitting in my capital for when I need to capture planets after bombardment (full orbital bombardment BABY), and they don't cost much. I don't really see the difference between droid, normal, and slave armies.

Have you tried the multiplayer yet? I have no idea if there is anything like "pick up" multiplayer games going on, but I think they would be really fun.

[Morgoth]

It would be fun if we could manage a MP game. Paradox games are supposedly pretty well tuned for that sort of thing, but I've never tried.

As for ground armies, the pacifist guys had some serious defences built up. Even after having bombarded them down to nothing I couldn't seem to break through. Until the Xenomorphs showed up that is.

Also, the ship system is fairly straight forwards in some ways. Every kind of tech has a hard counter, so the best way to build a fleet is not to specialise the fleet, but rather have counters for the main situations. For instance, you need point defence in case you encounter missiles and torpedoes, but not every ship needs that. I've had some success building ships that are basically designed to be anti missile platforms. They fly around with the rest of the fleet as a form of support. I have torpedo boats too, while the majority of my ships use a combination of energy and projectile weapons.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 13 May 2016 - 08:03 AM

[Primateus]

I haven't really purged anyone yet, I suspect I'll play a xenophobe next time. But my One Earth Hegemony has managed to conquer and vassalize four other races with one of them having been integrated into the OEH.

I've set my eyes on the Rothak League, but they're allied with the United Yalon Territories, a race I enjoy good relations with. Luckily the Prethoryn Scourge has arrived in the galaxy and landed in Rothak space. It brought the Rothak down from having superior fleet power to only having inferior.
And the best thing is my fleet is ideally suited to absolutely destroy the Scourge swarms. Having long ranged weaponry really helps with this.

So, the One Earth Hegemony is the only nation enjoying success against the Scourge, and with the advent of Sentient AI and droid armies, war seems like a foregone conclusion. Because when has that ever ended badly?

[EmperorMagus]

Morgoth, on 13 May 2016 - 07:58 AM, said:

It would be fun if we could manage a MP game. Paradox games are supposedly pretty well tuned for that sort of thing, but I've never tried.

As for ground armies, the pacifist guys had some serious defences built up. Even after having bombarded them down to nothing I couldn't seem to break through. Until the Xenomorphs showed up that is.

Also, the ship system is fairly straight forwards in some ways. Every kind of tech has a hard counter, so the best way to build a fleet is not to specialise the fleet, but rather have counters for the main situations. For instance, you need point defence in case you encounter missiles and torpedoes, but not every ship needs that. I've had some success building ships that are basically designed to be anti missile platforms. They fly around with the rest of the fleet as a form of support. I have torpedo boats too, while the majority of my ships use a combination of energy and projectile weapons.

Yeah a ME multiplayer game would be pretty fun ... kinda like mafia/eclipse are fun

Ah, I've never had to fight pacifists yet, I'm surrounded by militarist crazy factions.
Also, I've figured that point defence works well against missiles, shields work well against enerygy weapons, and that armor is great against projectiles. It's just that I can't figure out a way to determine the enemy's configurations. Furthermore, because I need a ridiculous amount of minerals and EC to keep my gigantic fleet running (as I said, 16k with 8 planets), I don't have a lot of research points. So My tech is a little bit behind compared to ... everyone. The only weapon I have that is comparable in tech to everyone else is plasma II which means my ship loadout is pretty much just cold fusion and plasma II.

Primateus, on 13 May 2016 - 08:17 AM, said:

I haven't really purged anyone yet, I suspect I'll play a xenophobe next time. But my One Earth Hegemony has managed to conquer and vassalize four other races with one of them having been integrated into the OEH.

I've set my eyes on the Rothak League, but they're allied with the United Yalon Territories, a race I enjoy good relations with. Luckily the Prethoryn Scourge has arrived in the galaxy and landed in Rothak space. It brought the Rothak down from having superior fleet power to only having inferior.
And the best thing is my fleet is ideally suited to absolutely destroy the Scourge swarms. Having long ranged weaponry really helps with this.

So, the One Earth Hegemony is the only nation enjoying success against the Scourge, and with the advent of Sentient AI and droid armies, war seems like a foregone conclusion. Because when has that ever ended badly?

Purging is pretty useful against those pesky factions, I can sadly say that I feel like I understand the Communist Party of China mindset a little better than I did a week ago. Although I haven't had to purge humans yet, as my four planets are close and militaristic empires have enough influence to continuously run reeducation campaigns.

How many levels did you have to upgrade your droids before getting them to full sentience (no negative modifiers on any resource)? I think it would be really fun to get the great droids and then purge every remaining population left.

Yeah I'm going power crazy.

[Primateus]

I researched Sentient AI and Android Army, both of which are classified as "dangerous technology". Later I got an event where it was discovered that robots had been secretly diverting resources away to build a ship. They purged their memories before it could be investigated.

Because that has never ended badly before

Here's hoping that I'll soon be able to research Jump Drive technology, so as to really screw over the galaxy.

In the end, only the One Earth Hegemony shall stand.

This post has been edited by Primateus: 13 May 2016 - 09:37 AM

[Morgoth]

I also hope further dlc will introduce many more interesting modules for the ships. I want sci fi battles like described in Reynold's books, or Banks, or in Babylon 5 or whatever. Cloaked fleets emerging out of nowehere, clouds of nanomachines and so on and so forth. I have faith there'll be all sorts of cool stuff, though there's plenty right now too.

[Serenity]

I really don't know what the IGN review was on about when it criticised the AI for being too passive - I've had three wars declared on me so far, and had my arse kicked on all three occasions. Obviously xenophobic space cat slavers are quite unpopular. Thinking I've made it quite difficult for myself with those choices. And now the Unbidden have turned up

[Primateus]

What type of galaxy do you guys prefer? I like the four spiral arm galaxy myself. With this galaxy there's a void between each arm that you have to jump across. You can't do that with the beginning warp drive. You can only do it a few places with hyperdrive. I think you can jump right away with wormhole drive, but I haven't tried that out yet. But it does give you an incentive to play with wormhole drive if has the reach to begin with. Also, it makes for a nice defensive barrier, which the Inari Republic learned the hard way when I invaded.

The elliptical galaxy is just boring. That's really all I can say about that. The two spiral arm is okay, but if two is good, then four must be better. I have yet to try out the ring galaxy, but I'm looking forward to it. But the four spiral arm galaxy is my preferred so far.

This too, gives opportunities for future expansions to the game. What if it takes place in a galaxy that is colliding with another galaxy? Cool. How about a trail galaxy? The opportunities are endless.

This post has been edited by Primateus: 13 May 2016 - 12:42 PM

[Macros]

downloading now

damnit

[Macros]

hmm.
i just clicked the standard earth one for first, with full tutorial.
I must be missing afew of the points though.
How does one direct the research? I just get 3 random options everytime.
how do i combine fleets? I found a ship and want to add it to the first fleet, all I can get it to do it follow the first fleet.
when I try to move the first fleet, my spaceport and a mining station also try to follow the bloody fleet!

[EmperorMagus]

Macros, on 13 May 2016 - 08:50 PM, said:

hmm.
i just clicked the standard earth one for first, with full tutorial.
I must be missing afew of the points though.
How does one direct the research? I just get 3 random options everytime.
how do i combine fleets? I found a ship and want to add it to the first fleet, all I can get it to do it follow the first fleet.
when I try to move the first fleet, my spaceport and a mining station also try to follow the bloody fleet!

The research is random draws, I assume that's a game design choice to stop an optimal option being developed and used solely, while some techs are completely ignored.

To combine fleets, choose them and then use the top left option in the fleet window, it's a picture of two planes. I haven't been able to figure out which fleet moves to merge with the other one yet though.

[Morgoth]

Macros, on 13 May 2016 - 08:50 PM, said:

hmm.
i just clicked the standard earth one for first, with full tutorial.
I must be missing afew of the points though.
How does one direct the research? I just get 3 random options everytime.
how do i combine fleets? I found a ship and want to add it to the first fleet, all I can get it to do it follow the first fleet.
when I try to move the first fleet, my spaceport and a mining station also try to follow the bloody fleet!

It's an attempt to simulate a more believable technological progress and also make it so civilizations develop in different directions. Make note though that purple technologies may only ever appear once, if at all.

[Serenity]

EmperorMagus, on 13 May 2016 - 11:37 PM, said:

Macros, on 13 May 2016 - 08:50 PM, said:

hmm.
i just clicked the standard earth one for first, with full tutorial.
I must be missing afew of the points though.
How does one direct the research? I just get 3 random options everytime.
how do i combine fleets? I found a ship and want to add it to the first fleet, all I can get it to do it follow the first fleet.
when I try to move the first fleet, my spaceport and a mining station also try to follow the bloody fleet!

The research is random draws, I assume that's a game design choice to stop an optimal option being developed and used solely, while some techs are completely ignored.

To combine fleets, choose them and then use the top left option in the fleet window, it's a picture of two planes. I haven't been able to figure out which fleet moves to merge with the other one yet though.

It's the one you click on first that they merge into. So select the target fleet that you want to merge others into, then shift-click on each of the fleets you want to join it. They'll come up as a list on the bottom left of the screen, with the main fleet at the top. Then click on the top left button of the main fleet's box (the two planes/ships icon).



Separate question: when you form an alliance, can you then safely withdraw your embassies from the other empires in that alliance without them getting annoyed and leaving said alliance? I started a new game in Ironman mode, so I don't want to do that if the alliance then falls apart as a result . . .

[Siergiej]

Started playing yesterday. I just wanted to quickly check what's what. After 6 hours, my Forkrul Assail have been utterly crushed by a civilization of space-faring warrior fungus, so that was pretty humiliating. Need to go back a couple of years and pump my fleet.

[EmperorMagus]

Serenity, on 16 May 2016 - 08:55 AM, said:

It's the one you click on first that they merge into. So select the target fleet that you want to merge others into, then shift-click on each of the fleets you want to join it. They'll come up as a list on the bottom left of the screen, with the main fleet at the top. Then click on the top left button of the main fleet's box (the two planes/ships icon).



Separate question: when you form an alliance, can you then safely withdraw your embassies from the other empires in that alliance without them getting annoyed and leaving said alliance? I started a new game in Ironman mode, so I don't want to do that if the alliance then falls apart as a result . . .

Why would you form an alliance with inferior alien scum when you can just enslave them?

Death to all Xenos!

[Gothos]

My Abbyssal deep sea murloc empire is doing pretty well. I've vassalized and then absorbed one of my rivals, now I've munched through another, I have 3 nice sectors under me and a fleet strength of about 27k. My ground armies are droids and/or xenomorphs, though we all know it's all about the fleets.....

Militarist / Fanatic Materialist seems to be doing a good job the one problem I have is that I have more minerals coming in then I could spend, but my energy balance is always depending on trade with cordial aliens. Now I wonder which crisis will happen in this galaxy? I figure if the Unbidden strike within my territory I should be able to beat them back before they can spread. Most curious about the Prethoryn Swarm, though.

[Primateus]

Gothos, on 16 May 2016 - 09:40 PM, said:

My Abbyssal deep sea murloc empire is doing pretty well. I've vassalized and then absorbed one of my rivals, now I've munched through another, I have 3 nice sectors under me and a fleet strength of about 27k. My ground armies are droids and/or xenomorphs, though we all know it's all about the fleets.....

Militarist / Fanatic Materialist seems to be doing a good job the one problem I have is that I have more minerals coming in then I could spend, but my energy balance is always depending on trade with cordial aliens. Now I wonder which crisis will happen in this galaxy? I figure if the Unbidden strike within my territory I should be able to beat them back before they can spread. Most curious about the Prethoryn Swarm, though.

I haven't faced the Unbidden or a machine uprising. But I've fought with the Prethory swarm and utterly dominated them. A 20k fleet of battleships armed with Tachyon Lances and Kinetic Artillery can pretty much wipe the floor with anything the swarm can throw at you.

[Morgoth]

Psyker armies are absurd. You don't even need to do bombardment beforehand.