Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

[GreenGoo]

I will probably start a game in the next week or so. Probably by the weekend.

No new game yet, but I have switched my youtube video watching habits to include more Stellaris.

Probably not the thread for it, but anyone playing Distant Worlds 2?

Finally started a game. Being used to doing something on every turn in 4x turn based games, I find I'm waiting for things to happen a lot more in Stellaris, and it makes me uncomfortable, like I'm forgetting to do something for early development.

And I don't want to speed up time because that just makes the feeling worse. Once I have a better handle on the needs of the early game, this feeling will go away. Right now it feels like failure.

[Lassr]

I will probably start a game in the next week or so. Probably by the weekend.

No new game yet, but I have switched my youtube video watching habits to include more Stellaris.

Probably not the thread for it, but anyone playing Distant Worlds 2?

Finally started a game. Being used to doing something on every turn in 4x turn based games, I find I'm waiting for things to happen a lot more in Stellaris, and it makes me uncomfortable, like I'm forgetting to do something for early development.

And I don't want to speed up time because that just makes the feeling worse. Once I have a better handle on the needs of the early game, this feeling will go away. Right now it feels like failure.

Oh it'll pick up, without the pause you'll feel overwhelmed.

[Kraken]

My first major war did not go well at all. Going to see if I can reverse a major hit, but I have a backup save if not.

Is this normal? I have an archeological site that simply will not yield. Had my best scientist on it forever and she never made any progress. Sent a different ship/scientist just in case the game hated Margaret Mead for some reason, but her replacement is faring just as poorly. The site has a "hell" rating (9) and I've been excavating it for 25+ years with no progress whatsoever.

[Anonymous Bosch]

My first major war did not go well at all. Going to see if I can reverse a major hit, but I have a backup save if not.

Is this normal? I have an archeological site that simply will not yield. Had my best scientist on it forever and she never made any progress. Sent a different ship/scientist just in case the game hated Margaret Mead for some reason, but her replacement is faring just as poorly. The site has a "hell" rating (9) and I've been excavating it for 25+ years with no progress whatsoever.

From the sounds of it, you likely need to wait until you've levelled your scientist(s) up a bit and can assign a higher-level scientist to that particular task. Difficulty goes down with higher scientist skill. Also, while scientists do gain experience performing archaeology, they gain less than exploring typically yields. So, it's often useful to let your scientist(s) explore some more until he or she is level 4+, and then assign them to archaeology.

[Kraken]

My war went well, then poorly, then well again, then middling. I loaded an autosave and did a little worse than the first go-round. I ended up with a few new inconsequential border stars and I didn't lose any turf. I relied heavily on my federation fleet, which I lost control of when one of my allies took over the presidency shortly after the war ended.

How long does it take war weariness to tick down? This war ended because of exhaustion. I'm rebuilding to go after two worlds that I narrowly missed taking. I might need to wait until my turn as president comes up again, because I want that federation fleet back.

Does planetary devastation heal itself? I don't see a way to fix it.

This won't be a game for the nonexistent Hall of Fame, as my allies are both bigger and badder than I am, but I'm confident that I'll make it to the end (which I've never seen yet), so that's cool.

[Anonymous Bosch]

My war went well, then poorly, then well again, then middling. I loaded an autosave and did a little worse than the first go-round. I ended up with a few new inconsequential border stars and I didn't lose any turf. I relied heavily on my federation fleet, which I lost control of when one of my allies took over the presidency shortly after the war ended.

How long does it take war weariness to tick down? This war ended because of exhaustion. I'm rebuilding to go after two worlds that I narrowly missed taking. I might need to wait until my turn as president comes up again, because I want that federation fleet back.

War exhaustion depends on a variety of factors, as explained in the Warfare and war exhaustion section of the Stellaris Wiki:

War exhaustion

War Exhaustion goes from 0% to 100%, and measures the total weariness and attrition suffered by all empires on one side in a war. War exhaustion goes up from suffering losses during space and ground warfare, destruction of planets (either from Colossus weapons or Armageddon Bombardment), and a passive accumulation over time called Attrition. When a side's war exhaustion hits 100% they can be forced into a status quo peace after 24 months. The speed at which war exhaustion accumulates is influenced by factors such as ethics, traditions, technology and the amount of claims being pressed - an empire that is fighting to hold onto a handful of border systems will tire faster in a costly conflict than one whose very independence is being threatened. War exhaustion also means that an empire that is losing a war can still fight to minimize their territorial losses by inflicting high war exhaustion on the enemy.

War exhaustion gain can be lowered by the following factors:

Source	War exhaustion gain
Crisis level 2	-75%
Never Surrender tradition	-25%
Gestalt Consciousness ethic	-20%
Nationalistic Zeal civic	-20%
Supremacist diplomatic stance	-20%
Rules of War resolution 5	-20%
Rules of War resolution 4	-15%
Rules of War resolution 3	-10%
Belligerent diplomatic stance	-10%
Interstellar Campaigns technology	-10%
Galactic Campaigns technology	-10%
Media Conglomerate civic	-5%
Display of Power agenda	-5%
Impenetrable Border agenda	-5%
Military Backup agenda	-5%
Rules of War resolution 2	-5%

Does planetary devastation heal itself? I don't see a way to fix it.

Yes, planetary devastation goes down if the planet is fully colonized. Because you need pops to repair the planet. It will then automatically take resources and repair itself over time.

[Lassr]

My first game after the update patch did not go well, I was playing my Octopus Overlords civ and they got hymned (hemmed) in quickly and was not strong enough to expand so I was having to bow down to a stronger race...so much for being overlords.

My next game I tried the robot Civ and named it AI Matrix, once again I got hymned (hemmed) in but I was able to break through the "southern" boundary, going "west", during a war and expand my territory. I'm in another war now started by my ally and I am about to take that long purple "peninsula" to the "south." This game is going much better, it helps the robots are an easier race to play also.

[Kraken]

"hemmed in." You were only "hymned in" if your neighbors were religious fanatics.

[Lassr]

"hemmed in." You were only "hymned in" if your neighbors were religious fanatics.

that's what i get for typing in a hurry. I selected the wrong autocorrect

[Kraken]

The Federation asked if we should declare war on my belligerent neighbor -- the one I was regrouping against from the last war. Oh hell yeah...I'm not ready for them yet, but with federation help let's do it. Well friends, the cavalry never came, even though they had to pass through my space to meet our mutual foe, I never saw a single allied ship. I got steamrolled and couldn't recover without reinforcements. I quit when the damnable Cynurians took Sol.

Begin again. I'm going to keep playing the default humans with the default settings until I make it to the endgame.

[Kraken]

Begin again. I forgot to update to the new version.

First question is How does one raise one's leader cap? The wiki doesn't say. I raised it from 6 to 8 with a society perk, but I dearly hope it scales with population because Imma need a lot more than 8.

[Unagi]

First question is How does one raise one's leader cap? The wiki doesn't say. I raised it from 6 to 8 with a society perk, but I dearly hope it scales with population because Imma need a lot more than 8.

• Transcendent Learning ascension perk gives +2.
• There's a civic that gives +1, and variations of it for different empire types.
• Colonial Centralization and Collective Self technologies each give +1, for a total of +2 from tech. Gestalt consciousness empires get Embodied Dynamism instead of Collective Self.
• The Aptitude tradition tree has a tradition that gives +1.
• Finishing the Statecraft tradition tree gives +1.
• If you go psionic ascension and make a compact with the Composer of Strands, making your ruler be the Chosen of the Composer gives +1 leader cap.
• There's a leader trait exclusive to the Under One Rule origin that gives +1 leader cap.

[Lassr]

Begin again. I forgot to update to the new version.

First question is How does one raise one's leader cap? The wiki doesn't say. I raised it from 6 to 8 with a society perk, but I dearly hope it scales with population because Imma need a lot more than 8.

I got mine as high a 10 with a few research options, and perks but couldn't get it higher. I'm also curios if I'm missing something. I ended up going over the cap by 2 or 3 during times of war to have admirals in my fleets. You would think it would scale but I have not seen that.

And I ended finishing second in my last game. I was in the lead but then one Civ sneakily kicked members from our federation and then subjugated them with like 20 years left in the game. That added 32k to his score which jumped past me by 10k. Sneaky, but a little irritating at that point. My only option was to kick him from the federation and declare war, but my resolution failed. Only other option would be for me to leave the federation and declare war against the entire galaxy...that would have led to the destruction of my civilization. So I let everyone live and finished #2. We all sang hymns to the Gods of Peace....

[Kraken]

Begin again. I forgot to update to the new version.

First question is How does one raise one's leader cap? The wiki doesn't say. I raised it from 6 to 8 with a society perk, but I dearly hope it scales with population because Imma need a lot more than 8.

I got mine as high a 10 with a few research options, and perks but couldn't get it higher. I'm also curios if I'm missing something. I ended up going over the cap by 2 or 3 during times of war to have admirals in my fleets. You would think it would scale but I have not seen that.

I appreciate managing scarcity, such as influence points, but capping leaders so low is a big change. I've got four scientists working, two colony managers, and two doing I-forget-what, and I'm already maxed without any generals or admirals (and more colonies coming). I'll be able to retire a couple of scientists when the expansion phase winds down, but I don't know if I like this change. If the previous version had a cap, I never hit it.

[Unagi]

A lot of people are complaining about that change. (I've not yet played with it)

Also, you're welcome.

[Kraken]

Bug or user error? I can't unassign envoys. I go to the management screen, the heading is Dismiss Envoy, I select the guy who's improving relations with my rival and click Accept. Nothing happens. It is long past his cooldown time from moving there.

If I had contact with any other AIs I'd try reassigning Mr. Do-good to them, but I don't. And I can't change his assignment from Improve to Harm. If I click Harm, I'm told that I can't do that while Mr. Do-good is Improving.

I am not liking this build.

[Lassr]

Comments on the recent update, coming patch and reasoning behind a lot of the decisions, especially on leaders. I have not watched it all, kind of skipping around since it is 49 minutes, but the first few minutes covers leaders and the reasoning on capping them.

[Kraken]

Bug or user error? I can't unassign envoys. I go to the management screen, the heading is Dismiss Envoy, I select the guy who's improving relations with my rival and click Accept. Nothing happens. It is long past his cooldown time from moving there.

I'm gonna go with "bug." I was never able to recall an assigned envoy to the pool, but I could reassign her as soon as I had someplace else to send her.

[GreenGoo]

Finally started a game.

This game uses the United blah blah Humans with the starting conditions AB suggested for a tutorial/beginner game. I've run out of expansion areas awhile ago. I have a few planets within my control that I need better habitability or terraforming to occupy, so I'm waiting on tech.

My game has boiled down to waiting for tech and adding jobs as pop grows.

I need to read a primer on waging war, because there isn't much for me to do otherwise. I suppose I could explore the diplomacy and/or espionage systems, but neither hold huge interest for me. I have envoys developing spying networks and a couple of vassals. One just volunteered early on, and another was formed when I gave a special project planet back to it's original owners (who didn't exist until project finished. Note: Not uplifted).

Any suggestions for what I should be doing now?

[Anonymous Bosch]

Finally started a game.

This game uses the United blah blah Humans with the starting conditions AB suggested for a tutorial/beginner game. I've run out of expansion areas awhile ago. I have a few planets within my control that I need better habitability or terraforming to occupy, so I'm waiting on tech.

My game has boiled down to waiting for tech and adding jobs as pop grows.

I need to read a primer on waging war, because there isn't much for me to do otherwise. I suppose I could explore the diplomacy and/or espionage systems, but neither hold huge interest for me. I have envoys developing spying networks and a couple of vassals. One just volunteered early on, and another was formed when I gave a special project planet back to it's original owners (who didn't exist until project finished. Note: Not uplifted).

Any suggestions for what I should be doing now?

Learning how to wage war seems only prudent, as it's almost inevitable in any game. If you prefer to read a primer about this, I'd suggest perusing the relevant sections from the official Stellaris Wiki on Warfare, Space Warfare, and Land Warfare. Don't forget, you can use the question mark button illustrated below to open an in-game browser straight to the main page of the official Stellaris Wiki, making for a quick and easy way of directly accessing it from within your game:



And here's a brief video guide courtesy of Colonel Damneders on How to Build Ships & Fleets you may find useful:

[GreenGoo]

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Now I have to find time to absorb it.

[Kraken]

Finally started a game.

This game uses the United blah blah Humans with the starting conditions AB suggested for a tutorial/beginner game. I've run out of expansion areas awhile ago. I have a few planets within my control that I need better habitability or terraforming to occupy, so I'm waiting on tech.

Having open migration treaties with other races can bring in citizens suitable to worlds that humans can't settle. Most of my red worlds turned green when I started welcoming immigration.

My fourth and current game is about 100 years in. I'm slowly absorbing the remaining stars within my borders. I founded a federation, currently being run by one of the other races, and have been at war twice. The first one was short and sweet. When my federated ally suggested reopening that war I voted Yes, only to discover that our adversary had out-built me in the interim. They sent one of my main fleets packing. The other fleet is holding a chokepoint with a well-armed starbase while the superior enemy lurks at the next system over. Meanwhile, I cobbled together a small fleet and opened a second front on their undefended flank, where I've picked off a couple of inconsequential stars. Unfortunately I spent most of my influence claiming systems on the main front, which is currently impenetrable.

The current build's resources seem stingier than the first three games I played. I'm constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel for erasers -- um, alloys, I think? The pink rectangular icon that looks like an eraser.

Most of the galaxy feels kindly toward me, so I'm emphasizing diplomacy, and I have a lot of young colonies that are starting to pull their weight.

[GreenGoo]

Found the latest design meta for corvettes, frigates, destroyers and cruisers since patch 3.6 (major combat revamp). So I feel ok about my ship designs.

Now to figure out the actual process and all the consequences of waging war. This game has a lot of moving parts and just the claim system is weird and confusing to me, let alone everything else. I just want to take my fleet and acquire other peoples' property. But there's so much paperwork involved.

[GreenGoo]

I should mention that 3 separate empires have volunteered to be vassals. I have no idea what that means in game terms, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I've built 1 Hold with one of the 3 just to have done it and see what happens.

I really should start a new game but until I know how to wage war (watching a video on this right now) I'll end up in the exact same situation, unless someone attacks me.

[Zarathud]

Basically they think you’ll protect them and let them survive. At a certain point in game, the Galaxy gets pretty unfriendly if you don’t have Alliances.

[Kraken]

until I know how to wage war (watching a video on this right now) I'll end up in the exact same situation, unless someone attacks me.

As one who is still figuring out the finer points, I am here to tell you that the war system is quite fun once you grasp the basics.

[GreenGoo]

not my usual modus operandi, but I just started a war to see what would happen. Picked on a vassal of the only ai remotely near my power levels.

At least my fleet isn't sitting around being bored any longer.

I'm now occupying their homeworld (purely at random). Not sure what that means in terms of game mechanics (do I get resources? What do I gain?) and unsure of what to do next. Occupy another planet I guess. Secondary fleet can wait around to plug any holes in the front line.

Also, my troop ships seem to still exist, presumably full of troops. Not sure who exactly is doing the occupying.

Well, I won that war. I had only claimed 2 systems, 1 from the vassal and 1 from the vassal(er?). I had taken all systems from the vassal and 3 from the boss (including the claimed one) so by the time I reached 100% war exhaustion, I was able to keep those 2 claimed systems.

Neither enemy has a fleet now, so I am the sole galactic power at the moment. Gaze upon my egalitarian democracy and tremble!

Yes I understand the game settings are way too easy, but I was just (re-)learning the game.

[Kraken]

I launched a war tonight that went badly enough for me to roll back to my last save and waste the whole night's play. Usually after a major judgment error I'd just suck it up and start a new game, but this is the farthest I've ever made it in Stellaris so I'm determined to keep going.

[Zarathud]

It makes sense to hold off a war until you have claimed most of the enemy’s territory, if you can.

[GreenGoo]

Local mercenary empire decided they wanted everything for themselves, so they started smashing up the place. Needless to say I was not prepared for an actual challenge, so I lost a bunch of territory (but no colonies) and half the galaxy capitulated almost immediately.

I managed to kick them out of my territory and am reclaiming lost outpost systems, and a few extras because why not. I defeated the fleet with the enemy "Khan" leading it, so he went home to lick his wounds. He's announced a second armada is on its way, but I haven't seen signs of it yet.

I lost most of my alloy reserves scrabbling to defend, so I'm not in a place where I can throw together another fleet or two. I hope I can hold them off for a bit.

Anyhow, things are a bit more exciting now.

[GreenGoo]

Oh, and we're psionic and have breached the veil. Let's see what happens.

[GreenGoo]

Khan died from mysterious space sickness, then Khanate split into warring factions and now 4 new empires have joined the galaxy. I am no longer allowed unfettered war against anyone. Boo!

My conclave of Telepaths went insane when the Shroud showed them the myriad of futures and pasts that may come to be.

So now we wait for a new conclave to form.

[Kraken]

I need to play faster. Still being in learning mode, I pause after almost every event popup and spend at least a few minutes micromanaging some aspect. Unpause for 30 or 60 seconds, then pause and micromanage, etc. If I'm at war, it goes even slower. In a typical 2-3 hour session I don't advance much more than 5 game years.

I need to let more of the event tiles slide and spent less time tweaking when I do pause.

[GreenGoo]

I need to play faster. Still being in learning mode, I pause after almost every event popup and spend at least a few minutes micromanaging some aspect. Unpause for 30 or 60 seconds, then pause and micromanage, etc. If I'm at war, it goes even slower. In a typical 2-3 hour session I don't advance much more than 5 game years.

I need to let more of the event tiles slide and spent less time tweaking when I do pause.

This is exactly how I play. I get annoyed that the game doesn't auto-pause for research successes. And I get (very minor) anxiety when I haven't paused in a long time because I think I'm missing doing something.

There are so many systems in this game that I haven't a clue about half of them. I just assume everything that isn't telling me it's broken is working fine.

[Kraken]

I need to play faster. Still being in learning mode, I pause after almost every event popup and spend at least a few minutes micromanaging some aspect. Unpause for 30 or 60 seconds, then pause and micromanage, etc. If I'm at war, it goes even slower. In a typical 2-3 hour session I don't advance much more than 5 game years.

I need to let more of the event tiles slide and spent less time tweaking when I do pause.

This is exactly how I play. I get annoyed that the game doesn't auto-pause for research successes. And I get (very minor) anxiety when I haven't paused in a long time because I think I'm missing doing something.

There are so many systems in this game that I haven't a clue about half of them. I just assume everything that isn't telling me it's broken is working fine.

Somehow, somewhere, I acquired a Relic. Probably from an archeological dig. Periodically, I get to activate my Relic, which gives me more cash than I can handle and bestows a promotion on a leader. That's just one example of a "huh, whaddaya know about that" game element. I finally learned to spend all of my money before activating it.

My most recent war went well, then poorly. I'm at 100% weariness but haven't been forced to peace yet. It looks like I'll end up winning one insignificant system and losing one significant one. This war took me two playing sessions, during which the game advanced all of about three years.

I've also played enough combat now to suspect that it's all about Stacks of Doom. There's probably a rock-paper-scissors aspect going on under the hood but I use default ship designs so that's opaque to me. The fleet with the larger combat value almost invariably wins. I try to max out my fleet sizes and keep them constantly upgraded, and it seems that the AI is doing the same thing. When they group 2-3 big fleets together on the same tile, it's going to steamroll.

Anyway, despite the disappointing war I'm going to keep on keeping on. I'm 155 years in now, which is (I think) halfway through.

[GreenGoo]

I have 2 relics. One creates a "create gaia" decision on any planet I want which runs about 720 days I think.

The other gives me a few pop from an unknown race. I wouldn't be surprised if the species is created randomly. The species changes per activation.

They are both on the same cooldown (I've been assuming all relics are).

The first relic came after a long archeological event with many phases. The second? No idea. Probably the same.

[GreenGoo]

Definitely rock paper scissors for combat. You can make generalist ships against the AI (I think) and do ok, but you should be emphasizing your most advanced tech at a minimum, or you could min/max for best effect.

I realize ship design isn't going to be intuitive at first, but I think it's an interesting aspect of the game, even if I just find out what the latest meta designs are and go with those.

[Zarathud]

Strategy comes down to choke points and picking your battles.

Fortifying nebula systems where there are no shields with anti-armor weaponry can create nasty surprises during a war. A stack that loses its shields is severely compromised.

You can play cat and mouse, letting a big stack take over systems with low value or no claims. When the stack spreads out to conquer faster, pick off a sub stack.

[GreenGoo]

Right now armour is more valuable than shields, and the designs I've been seeing are basically 1 shield for every 2 or 3 armour. This was a recent change with the latest combat rebalance. Prior to that they were closer to being on par.

[Kraken]

Far from wrapping up as I thought it would, my war turned fatal. The AI took out my (smaller) federated ally and then turned its full attention to me. Being overwhelmed on both fronts, I lost two chokepoints, and then a shipyard, with nothing left against some really impressive stacks of doom.

Begin again.

Steam says I have played 230 hours, and I still haven't gotten past the midgame. If game 00000005 goes as badly as its predecessors did, I might need a break before starting 00000006. I'm not thrilled with my starting position.