Stellaris Game Thread

[Edward64]

Played my longest games so far (which really isn't that long). Got to where I could build destroyers.

Obviously I'm just scratching the surface and I can see myself playing this over and over again but the thing that bugs me is Stellaris visuals are not "pretty". Nothing really cool about them, you spend most of the time on the map of your galaxy and looking at minerals, energy etc. icons.

[tarcone]

Zoom in. It is very pretty.

I dont like that they changed the default info boxes to "on". Gotta find that and turn it off.

[Critch]

Dont know if it's enough of a difference to entice anybody, but Green Man Gaming has Stellaris: Plantoids Species Pack for 18% off ($6.57). They send you a Steam key for it.

[Edward64]

Its nice to have vassals who come to battles with you!

[Edward64]

Restarted a game yesterday. Got 3 vassals, battleship stage and bumped up against the borders of 2 fallen empires. My relationship with one was > 20 but the other was < 200.

That one came back with you are too close, back off. I accepted but like half my empire disappeared. I reloaded and this time said no but followed up with some free minerals. Didn't help, it declared war on me a couple turns later.

Needless to say, my 16K fleet combined strength didn't stand much of a chance. Thinking about starting a fresh game and giving lots of room for fallen empires.

Some things I noticed.

1) I really enjoy the early game but by mid-game, it seems to be a grind. I played most of mid-game on fast

2) By mid-game, research is coming in fast and furious. I didn't really know some of the things I was selecting. I know there's a "tech tree" out there and need to spend some time on it

3) Unlike another game, my first vassal didn't come help me on the fight for the second vassal. Wish I could control vassal's better

4) Current game, got 3 sectors going on. They look fugly twisted around my home system "Sol". I think I'm okay with the concept of sectors.

All-in-all, happy with the game. Currently at 150 hours and know I'll be spending more time on it so definitely got my money's worth. But I can see not playing this for a while because of middle game grind.

First Paradox game that I can say I played alot of. I bought CK2 a while ago on sale, didn't play alot of it, but may give it another shot.

[bronconick]

Finally played into the mid/late game. I didn't know their wiki was wrong ( The Unbidden could appear because other AIs had researched jump drives rather than me doing so) Fortunately I already had dozens of battleships with Tachyon Lances to reach their portal in a neighboring empire. After this, I wiped out a tiny Fallen Empire (2 planets on the other end of the galaxy) that was ticked I colonized a tomb world with an uplifted irradiated pop . Pretty sure its only a matter of time before I win this one. Might jump up the difficulty or aggressiveness.

[Edward64]

Star Trek mod. Anyone downloaded it yet and is it as good as the article says?

Stellaris: Star Trek Horizons mod review | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It might be far from finished, but I can’t think of many things that could make it feel more authentic. Everything from technology to statistical bonuses has been run through a Treky filter. So the Klingon Empire uses disrupters and the Dominion uses polaron beams, and when you’re designing your own ships, you can slap on modules like tactical stations and deflector arrays. And they’re more than just Stellaris components with fancy new names.

The scale of the thing astounds me. Downloading it, I prepared myself for loads of bugs and missing features, expecting just a slice of Star Trek rather than the whole cake. What greeted me was a cake buffet. See, New Horizons simulates the entire history of Star Trek, from the pre-Federation Enterprise era onwards. And while the galaxy evolves through conquest, expansion and technological advancement, it also transforms through the events system that Stellaris uses so well.

[bhlloy]

Yeah, it's well worth it. Completely new and vastly improved game

[Edward64]

I downloaded the New Horizons mod and played it some today. It does look good but think I'll wait until it progresses a tad more. The latest update will keep me busy and interested a little while longer.

[lungs]

The Utopia expansion and patch have gotten me back into this game big time.

[tarcone]

Is there a setting to change the amount of planets you control before you have to make sectors? I saw it was 3 when I played a couple days ago.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Is there a setting to change the amount of planets you control before you have to make sectors? I saw it was 3 when I played a couple days ago.

There are mods you can download from the Steam Workshop. With my first Utopia game, I'm actually finding I'm not having to make sectors and became the strongest empire with only 8 systems while others had 20+. I put up a habitat station over Saturn and had it generate a shitload of energy credits. Now I just finished terraforming Mars so I'm already generating a ton from the Sol system alone.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by lungs

The Utopia expansion and patch have gotten me back into this game big time.

Just started playing it again myself. I stopped playing it several months back because of the mid-game grind. Almost to mid-game now, empires are starting to connect with me.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Is there a setting to change the amount of planets you control before you have to make sectors? I saw it was 3 when I played a couple days ago.

The # of core system techs is heavily increased, and you can also get +2 systems with some of the governments. If you have Utopia, you get +2 with the Expansion Tradition. Utopia also has an Ascension perk which is +5. Otherwise, you're probably best of modding it.

[MizzouRah]

I haven't played this in a LONG time, is Utopia worth it?

Also, I can't remember... is there a tutorial? How easy is this one to pick up? I do remember at release I was able to jump right in but I know these guys like to up the depth.

[dzilla77]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I haven't played this in a LONG time, is Utopia worth it?

Also, I can't remember... is there a tutorial? How easy is this one to pick up? I do remember at release I was able to jump right in but I know these guys like to up the depth.

I stopped playing about a month after it came out. I am back to playing with Utopia. The changes do make it a better game.

There are 2 levels of help - tutorial and hints. If you put any time into the game when you first got it, you probably only need the hints. It will come back to you quickly.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by dzilla77

I stopped playing about a month after it came out. I am back to playing with Utopia. The changes do make it a better game.

There are 2 levels of help - tutorial and hints. If you put any time into the game when you first got it, you probably only need the hints. It will come back to you quickly.

Thanks.. I do remember that now.. think I'll use the tutorial just to get the hang of it again.

[PilotMan]

Humble has Stellaris for $12 in this months subscription bundle. Compared to Steam which just dropped a sale for $23 for it. Is it worth it to get the Humble Sub for 1 month?

[Thomkal]

I think 10 pages on the game and counting should be enough to convince you of that. They are still very actively working on it, as evidenced by the Utopia expansion that just came out.

[Shkspr]

For that matter, they just dropped a new patch today, and added all the preorder DLC to the base game for free.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Humble has Stellaris for $12 in this months subscription bundle. Compared to Steam which just dropped a sale for $23 for it. Is it worth it to get the Humble Sub for 1 month?

Well $12 < $23 so yes.

[PilotMan]

I guess my point was, not having signed up for the Humble monthly bundle before, is it a big deal to get it, then cancel it? Or is it a hassle?

[Thomkal]

It's the first anniversary of the release-was fun going back and reading the first few pages of this thread. They have released an update today to mark the occasion:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...ontent=fb-post

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

I guess my point was, not having signed up for the Humble monthly bundle before, is it a big deal to get it, then cancel it? Or is it a hassle?

ah sorry didn't realize that was what you were asking. I've not tried myself, but the couple of YouTubers I've seen promote it, they say its easy to do that.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

For that matter, they just dropped a new patch today, and added all the preorder DLC to the base game for free.

Beat me to it

[Edward64]

Still having great fun. Been playing it the past 3 weekends, got the "war in heaven" scenario. Went independent with a bunch of other "superior" allies and the 2 Fallen Empires slugged it out.

One won and now there is "peace" approx 170 years after game started. Not sure when the winning FE will get aggressive again but building up my fleet while I can.

Still no match though, I saw a FE fleet over 200K and I'm at 20K or so.

How do they get to build up their naval fleet that large without dragging down their economy? Does the computer "cheat" to do this?

[Edward64]

War is starting with the FE that won and the aligned independent states that did not take a side. The FE has a stack of 698,000 fleet strength.

I have no idea how anyone can beat that stack of doom/death.

[Edward64]

Its around 2470 now. The FE is still around and now with a 1.6M stack of doom. Pretty much anyone of significance has joined the independent union. It declares war but never really expands aggressively. It stays with one stack, even if it splits up into 2 or 3 stacks, it'll still be larger than anyone else's navy. It then calls/agrees to a truce without any real reason.

There is a Hive that is beside the FE and its largest fleet is 450K or so. It declares war pretty frequently with non-FE neighbors and takes 1-2 systems and then calls it a day until the next time. When the FE declares war, you would think it would take systems from the neighbor Hive, but it doesn't.

The Unbidden showed up on the other side of the Hive. It had multiple 200K fleets and one around 400K fleet. The Hive was able to destroy a couple of the smaller fleets and the Unbidden retreated back to it originating system sitting with a 400K fleet.

The AI seems to be broken

1) The FE stack of doom should have taken over the galaxy by now. It shouldn't be wandering about with just 1 stack declaring war and then agreeing to a truce

2) The FE and neighbor Hive should be fighting constantly but they don't. I even tried inciting real war between the 2, I would destroy a FE station close by the Hive border, wait for the stack of doom to pop in and I would disappear into Hive territory. Hoping it would follow me into the Hive territory and the Hive react to the intrusion ... but the FE does not follow.

3) The Hive actually had the Unbidden rocked and had a chance to finish its last 400K fleet but it stayed away from a final battle

Still having great fun exploring the game and am now further than I've ever been. But I'm not enjoying the nonsensical AI warfare logic.

[Edward64]

Another game diary entry.

Started a new game. I joined a Federation and we "won" with 60% (?) of planets colonized in the galaxy in early 2400 or so but I continued to play on (I want to build a Dyson Sphere).

The Unbidden showed up (other side of the galaxy) just before we "won" and the Federation (e.g. not me but the stronger Federation members) have been able to beat back its fleets (approx 110K or so) when it tries to expand and destroy the anchors. Its got a 440K stack in its home world that no one has touched yet.

I built a Frontier Post close by the Unbidden (e.g. some space freed up around their territory) and built a habitat. It started growing/expanding and then the Unbidden with about 100K popped into that system and destroyed the Frontier Post (but not the habitat).

I halfway expected that but before I knew it, a bunch of friendlies showed up and destroyed the 100K fleet. I saw the battle (actually slaughter) . I guess they showed up as the Unbidden attacked a member.

So you would think this combined mega fleet would jump into the Unbidden homeworld and destroy the 440K stack once and for all ... but it didn't, they all went home and the war continues. Goes back to my earlier post that the computer AI is dumb or buggy.

I did destroy a Fallen Empire in this game (first time ever, it was sweet). It had started a war with the Federation and we beat it down to a single system. I then declared war on it later and took over the last planet. Before declaring war, the game said the FE was "equivalent" to me but it only had like a 30K stack vs my 120K stack.

This game is pretty addicting, its got that one more turn factor for me. I've played it a ton and each game I'm learning more and more. I know Paradox has the strategy of expansions and looking forward to playing this game for years to come.

1) There needs to be more Federation coordination of fleets to fight a common enemy. Right now, its too unpredictable when friendly fleets show up to help out

2) I'm running this on a last year i7 model with 8GB RAM, SSD and 1050 Ti GPU. The late game with a 1000 systems is pretty sluggish. Task Manager tells me only 4GB RAM is used, CPU is between 30-50% and Disk Activity is minimal. I'm not sure whats going on but am thinking the graphics card is the bottleneck

3) There needs to be more variety to the end game. It seems that the Unbidden always shows up and some FE is always threatening the rest of the galaxy in all my games so far

4) Ships are boring after you get to Battleships. There needs to be more variety. I know there are mods but leery of them as they tend to break after a Paradox update

[Edward64]

Been playing a massive game of Stellaris (just before the next update). I’m currently at 2650 and game not won yet but some notes for any fans here.

1) I grabbed a broken Dyson sphere early in the game. After getting the Mega Engineering later, I was able to repair it relatively quickly. You get 400 energy and like what others have said, doesn’t seem significant enough.

2) I got a chance to whup up on a Fallen Empire (not an Awakened Empire). Not much of a challenge when I got to it but what a prize! I got 3 systems with 1 functioning Ring world and 2 broken ones that needed repair.

3) I also got a chance to beat up on an Awakened Empire. I had fleet strength of about 450K and a friendly had about 200K vs the FE 550K. The battle was very, very slow so I saved and then just let it run overnight. When I looked at it the next morning, I had about 175K left and the friendly had colonized 2 systems. After, I colonized a couple more, the AE gave up. No cool prizes with this one just about 7 nice systems.

4) I won that battle but because I was weaken, a competing federation declared war on me and friends. I lost several systems early but bided my time as I need to rebuild my fleet strength. After a while, it accepted a white truce.

5) Just when I thought I would have a breather, another federation declared war on me. This time my fleet strength was close to original and was able win my wars goals.

6) So that was 3 wars pretty much in a row. The last FE/AE attitude towards me increased after I finished up the other AE. After the third war, the last AE was open to being invited to my federation. I offered and it accepted. Grateful for that, I didn’t want a fourth war.

As of now, there are 3 big federations. The AE in my federation is the big boy with a 1M fleet strength and I’ve got a total of 600K. Unfortunately, I can’t control the AE because federation members do their own thing. I think we have to essentially take over 1 other Federation and we should achieve the victory conditions.

[Edward64]

Right now I’m in a strange state in this game. I actually have more food & energy than I need. My food is +1.7K and I use it to trade to others without asking anything in return. This gives me good positive reaction (e.g. I think you want to keep them above a -200 attitude).

I’ve got 2 Dyson spheres right now. My energy is +2.5K. Because my energy total storage is 20K, I have to trade energy for minerals twice a year (major pain). I can move my massive fleets and still be in the positive, definitely an embarrassment of riches here.

My mineral storage is at 160K, so lots of room for it. My mineral is about +1K but when I get into a war and have to move my fleets away from their stations, it dips into the negative.

At this stage, Science and especially Unity are worthless. It would make better sense to exchange all Unity for something else but it would be a pain.

The late end game is a bore and a chore because of the speed. And the slowdown is really bad even though I have an i7 and a discrete graphics card.

[Edward64]

So some parting thoughts

Stellaris is a great game because of the grand scope and replayability. It certainly has captured my imagination.

It has some major flaws but do think Paradox will eventually fix most of them. Paradox keeps coming out with DLCs which is great, but its almost as if they need focus on one major patch before bringing out additional features.

1) AI is pretty sad in battles (probably elsewhere also)

2) The late game slowdown is horrendous. It is really a bad playing experience. In battle maps, its impossible for large fleet battles and you can't enjoy seeing the battles

3) Can't coordinate with your federation allies at all. Kinda ridiculous

I may not finish the game as its just going to be more slow, painful battles now. I'll finish changing to a synthetic race and see if anything interesting happens after that.

[bronconick]

Fiddling around with the new Synthetic Dawn DLC, and my science ship just arrived in the Covfefe system.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by bronconick

Fiddling around with the new Synthetic Dawn DLC, and my science ship just arrived in the Covfefe system.

Yup, I got Covfefe one time also.

[Edward64]

My weekend is relatively free!

Just wondering Stellaris or updated Civ 6.

[Thomkal]

Stellaris!

[Vince, Pt. II]

Yeah, I'm with Thomkal on this one. Still can't get into Civ 6.

[CrescentMoonie]

Finally bought this on a Steam sale and sat down to play it this morning. 5 hours later and I can't believe I hadn't gotten into Stellaris before.

[Thomkal]

another recruit...

[Brian Swartz]

I was all in on Stellaris at the start, but I'm just done playing strategy games with bad AI. The way it's just hardcoded to not use it's resources efficiently, screw up it's sectors, etc. is just messed up. Also desperately needs some sort of supply/attrition mechanic to deal with a lot of the war issues. I view Stellaris as a good snowball/blob/wipe out the universe without breaking a sweat game -- I'm just no longer interested in that kind of game.

When I need my space fix, it's Distant Worlds or Aurora.

[bronconick]

You may want to check back when they release 2.0 sometime in 2018. A lot of it is being rewritten for it according to their dev diaries

[Brian Swartz]

I'll do that. I haven't given up on it or anything, just saying that it wasn't worth doing more with it last time I did. Add to that the fact that, while Paradox is a big company and all that, suggestions I made on how to improve the AI on their forums never got any traction/response, I just sort of shelved it for the time being. In general, I am a pretty big fan of what they do.

[JPhillips]

If you haven't played it recently, the new patch makes this a very different experience.

[Coffee Warlord]

Yeah, I need to pick up the new expansion.

[JPhillips]

Even without the expansion, everything's different. Removing warp and only having hyperspace links makes for a much different command. Then there's fleet command limits and new uses for influence, too.

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Even without the expansion, everything's different. Removing warp and only having hyperspace links makes for a much different command. Then there's fleet command limits and new uses for influence, too.

I like not having to play whack-a-mole and everything not being resolved with a pair of doomfleets. The price of losing warp/wormhole is worthwhile for that. I've used a wormhole a couple of times for exploration and rebuilt a Gateway but haven't tried it yet.

[Abe Sargent]

I just started and finished a game in the post 2.0 world and it was fine. The game worked. It was fun.

I got a little luckily. I was playing as world with the Gaia planet trait. You get a 25 pop Gaia world to start in, but your race prefers Gaia and will find settling anywhere else tough. I figured I would build up in that sector and then either send robots to other planets to colonize or to use giant celestial projects instead to expand in my home system.

I began fine. I was plant and I had a few nearby plants and friends that were okay with me. I began with a strong economic start, and I used it to expand and expand and expand, never having another colony until the midgame, just trading posts, research posts, and more. I had a strong navy early, and never fought a war, I just built up an entire galaxy, making friends, building a Federation, taking out the various nasty Leviathans, and then winning a Domination victory after I blitzed planets and won in 11 years after I cared to. I won before the end game event started. I could have won a military victory earlier, but chose not to.

I loved some of the event chains out there.

For example, this is who we began as:

The Chondarr Conclave

The Chondarr
Fanatic Materialist, Egalitarian,



Life Seeded, Beacon of Light, Direct Democracy

We had an event that happened in the late early game where we found and studied some early DNA of our race and saw that we had been mutated, and our race willingly choose to move back to an earlier form:



We gained the repulsive and expansionist traits from that move. I didn't choose it, it just happened.

Then about two-thirds of the way through the game our star became a black hole. Every planet in our home system became a Tomb World, and we lost Life Seeded and gained Post-Apoc, and we could now live on Tomb Worlds. Even worlds that had been uncolonizable before it were Tomb Worlds and settle-able after. That was pretty cool!

One of our best allies was:

Great Raxycodium Authority -



Fanatic Xenophile, Authoritarian, with Enduring Conservationist.

They were next to us and our best allies.

Also next to us was the randomly created first victory I had with the game. I keep previous winners from other games and then have them as options to face randomly in future games.

This was our foe:

Chittering Concordat

Fanatic Xenophile,Pacifist



Strong, Enduring, Nomadic,


They were another strong ally, and with the first nation, became our two founders.

Now I had created about 20 foes from previous space games I liked in order to have a random chance to face someone familiar. They include the Kilrath from Wing Commander or the Mycon from Star Control.

Only one random one was made in this game, and it was near me:


The Omior Collective




Xenophile, fanatic egalitarian, environmental, quick learners, etc.

They are from Star Chamber, in case you didn;t know:

Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga - Wikipedia

Another founding ally was...

Ketling Star Pack



Materialist, Pacifist, Egalitarian

Also preferred Tomb Worlds, were psionic, and were very much super-friends of the Chondarr


Nation of Chiril



Pacifist, Materialist, Xenophile


United Norilliga Authority



Authoritarian, Fanatic Militarist

Thrifty, Talented, Decadent


United Yax-Kayock Hierarchy




Fanatic spiritualist, Egalitarian


Gaia World Pref, like us, Adaptive, Natural Engineers


All of these, even the mollusks, were malleable to our money and much larger fleet.

Even the nearby Fallen Empire wast plantoid:


Vivisandia Ancients



Enigmatic Observers


The other one near us was also nice:


Cynn Chroniclers



Keepers of Knowledge


So I enjoyed a different 4X game!


I didn;t share all of the races and everything with you, nor the five conclaves we found, as well as the pre-space race or other folks on the other half of the galaxy.

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

I got a little luckily. I was playing as world with the Gaia planet trait. You get a 25 pop Gaia world to start in, but your race prefers Gaia and will find settling anywhere else tough. I figured I would build up in that sector and then either send robots to other planets to colonize or to use giant celestial projects instead to expand in my home system.

I've been playing with a Gaia planet race too, the fungoid race that looks like a floating bag of gas. Gaia/Pacifist/Xenophile, I pressed the "Random Civ" button and thats what it came up with.

I got a little lucky too, once my Gas Bag single planet empire got to a reasonable size, the insects next door split into three parts and had a huge civil war. My empire got 1 pop of Militaristic/Xenophile insect refugees.

Over 100 turns later, using that 1 pop of Insects to build colony ships, my Empire is now 80+% Militaristic insects ruled by the Gas Bag elite on their single Gaia world. Luckily with both groups being Xenophiles and Full Citizens, there's never been any unrest.

The 2.0 patch has really improved the game for me, forces a slow expansion.

[Thomkal]

Great stuff Abe, and scary looking aliens

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Great stuff Abe, and scary looking aliens

Thanks!