Oh and here's my current game, I'm the Shiranth Coalition The Free Gas Commonwealth is by far my biggest issue, but they haven't attacked and I declared them a rival for influence needs. Everyone on my north / north west are allies, the purple to my west I uplifted from barbarianism, made a vassal, set free and then made them into an ally. I've now evolved our alliance to a federation since I haven't done that before, so basically everyone on the west side of the map is on one team. I also got the purple Ugantak's on our side, so if the free gassians decide to do something stupid I have backup.
Speaking of influence, take care with edicts too. They are extremely useful on right planets but don't spam them. Good for boosting newly colonized planets usually or further boosting specialized planets. Didn't knew that about military outposts. Good to know. Also, Direct Democracy masterrace.
PROTIPS! Learned a lot in the past 24 hours of gameplay (yeah, I binged a bit). Here's some solid tips/impressions of combat and empire building: COMBAT Combat is simple, but gorgeous. It isn't as in depth as Sins of a Solar Empire or some other 4x, but I believe it is sufficient for what it needs to be. Combat is what i'm going to call "semi-instanced" in the sense that fleets remain in your control until they engage in combat. At that point, you lose direct control, but combat happens in real time and you retain the option to order them to retreat (READ: hit and run tactics are very effective). What you DO have control over is how your ships are upgraded and where the fight takes place. Now having fought a couple of 9000+ rated battles (in game terms, that's a lot), i can definitely say upgrading your ships and deploying them effectively can have potentially a huge outcome on your wars. For example, the below fight I actually ended up winning despite having initially an apparent disadvantage (the blue/red bar in the Fleet Combat window): EQUIP SHIELDS AND SELF-REPAIR ARMOR ON YOUR SHIPS ASAP! It doesn't help as much for smaller ships, but this will keep your Cruisers and Battleships on the frontline much longer than without either. Otherwise, you will be forced to order them to return for repairs at a fairly regular rate (depending on how much fighting you are doing). FLEETS ARE CHEAPER TO MAINTAIN WHEN DOCKED AT STARPORTS I try to maintain at least one active fleet wherever a I think an invasion is likely to occur. The costs of this can be mitigated by building a few starports at key systems and using them to park your fleets when not in use. STARPORTS: FOCUS ON EITHER SHIP BUILDING OR MAINTENANCE & DEFENSE... NOT BOTH! You can add modules to starports that will improve the stats of ships you build there... BUT only ships that are built out of that specific starport. For this reason, I recommend choosing carefully which starport you build your ships from. Late game, these buffs can make your ships nearly twice as powerful (for the same cost) so it definitely important to keep in mind. I recommend having your best protected starports serve as shipyards with a few smaller starports along your fringe to help with repairs and maintenance of your fleets. WAR! Wars are done VERY differently. In some ways, I actually think this mirrors real life more than most games. Stellaris recognizes the fact that wars are usually fought over some more nuanced grievance beyond "kill everyone". Unlike pretty much every other strategy game I've seen, when you declare war, you also declare your terms for waging that war (again, not altogether different from how declarations of war are issued). Sometimes you don't actually want or need to wipe out a whole civilization. Maybe you are just pissed at them for taking a few planets you had your eye on. Maybe you want to knock the wind out of them a little without getting stuck in a perpetual war that they are too stupid to give up on. Stellaris lets you do all that and more. Even better, the game actually rewards you for being conservative in your demands; the less severe your demands, the sooner your enemy is more likely to capitulate. In the below example, a xenophobic fungi nation had refused my multiple attempts at trade and requests to allow civilian traffic through their systems. One of their systems also held objectives that I needed to complete, but they refused me access. My only choice was to declare war on them, but I was not interested in trying to bring their whole nation into submission (which has its own problems). So when I declared war, I demanded only those worlds I needed to further my own interests. Our nations had roughly an equal sized navy, but after giving them only one major defeat and raiding some of their bordering systems, they ultimately conceded those worlds and offered me a truce. In all, the war lasted only about 20 minutes and I walked away with THREE systems. My enemy once rivaled my own strength, but with their navy and economy decimated were now effectively no threat to me anymore: USING SECTORS IS IMPORTANT! Can't stress this enough. I really like how the game handles this (to hell what some game reviewers have said; they don't know what they are talking about). You can build any number of military outposts to expand your influence, but influence is its own resource and for each outpost you place, your influence rate decreases. Planets that you manage directly will also decrease your influence rate. To increase your influence rate, place military outposts and planets under sector control. To create a sector, you need at least one planet and 200 influence points. Once a sector is created, you can also assign empty systems (including military outposts) to that sector. This will ensure you have a steady stream of influence coming in. I can't be certain, but I think influence also affects nation borders and trade deals so the more you have, the better. Use it wisely. below is an example. notice that I directly control only 5/5 planets (green icon at top) and my Influence (purple resource at top of screen) is maxed out at 1000 with +6 income... that's HUGE! SECTORS ARE NOT PERMANENT! You can change your sectors or remove them at any time (costs influence of course). Always avoid having more than FIVE systems under your control. While you technically can control more than five (I did for a long time), the penalties to your economy do not make it worth it in the long run. Sometimes it is beneficial to placing newly claimed planets under temporary sector control to alleviate the burdens they place on your economy. Even better, if you can reduce your management load to four key planets with massive economies (>15 planet tiles), you will be swimming in resources and influence in no time. HOPE THAT HELPS! HAVE FUN CONQUERING THE GALAXY!
The war mechanic is interesting, the first time I used it, it totally screwed me over. I asked for 1 border planet. I then, through guerrilla tactics (the AI sucks at guerrilla strikes, he likes head to head duels to the death), wiped out the starbases on 4/5 of his planets, destroyed all mining/reserach outposts, and landed and successfully invaded 3/5 of his planets. At this point, he surrenders. Guess what I got? 1 planet that I originally asked for. The other 2 planets automatically went back to him and I had no say in whether or not the war would continue or if I accepted those terms. He basically got an auto 'let me get my stuff back' button. I do wish combat was a little more in depth, while there is a bit of rock paper scissors with point defense, armor, shields and the weapon types, it really just feels like the bigger number always wins when it comes to the actual fight. Also I want more espionage options. Spy on the enemy to get a view of their economy, fleet locations, sabotage their cities, incite factions within their borders, etc.
Unfortunately haven't had time to play as much I want 'cause school/uni. Gonna marathon over the weekend so hard though... Oh, well; Can have fun with the empire creator 'till Friday... I think espionage was on Paradox's list of things they wanted to improve. They had some sort of prototype of spy system but they felt it wasn't good enough for the release. So, I'd assume espionage and trading are gonna be one first thing we'll see expanded.
Having played alot of CK2 (crusader kings 2) I immedietly felt at home with this. They are very similar in many ways. Enough for the possibility of calling it ck2 in space. There are differences between them but most of them feels like they have been done to fit the new theme better. Most things will probably be improved with DLCs in the future. Just look at CK2 and how many DLC that game have plus another one on the way. Overall, I will enjoy this game for some time but I will eventually go back to ck2 as I prefer that setting.
Well, can't figure out how Federation runs to save my life... they're are supposed to be rotating leaders and Federation fleets, neither of which I can find anywhere
I almost... ALMOST... made a bunny nation... but I didn't like the look, so I made a mantis warmachine, then when I learn the game BUNNIES!
Alright folks, I have been sufficiently intrigued. I have a couple of reservations, and I'd like some input on from those who have played. While I enjoy 4x games, if I'm being totally honest, I am occasionally unpleasantly surprised at how complicated and involved some are right out of the gate. While I like the genre as a whole, if the initial barrier to entry is too involved or overwhelming, it just kills my desire to play. How complex do you feel this game to be compared to other 4x titles? How significant is the learning curve? How many hours of gameplay did you need before feeling like you had a decent handle on the gameplay? I am not asking for how long it took you to master every facet and nuance.
I havn't played a -whole- lot of this game but the main "thing" i have learned is that almost every button on the screen does something important when you click or right click it. Even little random pieces on info you glance at. If you click....there is more. Always more, keep clicking.
The learning is really much better than almost any other 4x I've played in a while. The tutorial helps, and I felt like I was able to do the basics within an hour or so. Magnus is the one to get real details from though. I think he's clicked more hours than the rest of us put together.
Low learning curve for 70% of the game. There are some mechanics that aren't well explained but the basics are simple. I went from overwhelmed to fine in about 30 minutes
At first I was like WOAH then I was like woah, now i'm like woah.... basicaly it's a shit load of information to start out with, once you're through the initial shock, it took me about 20 minutes to realize what was important to me ASAP, and what I didn't need to know about right away. The tutorial / single player campaign took care of that, the AI is helpful. Don't blindly follow what the AI says and you get hurt for resources quick, but learn from your mistake and you can start spreading like wildfire.
Situation update: Ok, so context. I'm Shirant (top left). I'm the same color as the Gas Coalition, you can kinda tell the borders based on the white sector lines (they're bigger). Everything to me north and left is in my federation. My federation was a bunch of pansies, so I left it, declared war on the Gagassi (vassal demand), destroyed them, made them my vassal, rejoined the same federation. I also waited out the time period required and started integration into my empire, so soon, they will be my own territories and the red blob will truly be all mine (muahahaha). So, The Bilnocs to the east of Gas Coals is also in my federation. To Pogo sticks to their east are non-allied solo capitalists. So, obviously, they were going to die. I had Federation Presidency, declared war on them, my solo fleet of about 30k would have rolled them, but all my allies threw in their navies of similar sizes and it wasn't even a steamroll, it was like crushing newborn sloths. So now they're my vassals as well. Basically everything on this side of the galaxy is mine in some way or form. Once the Gas men are mine and integrated, I'll do the same to the Pogos, creating the great Pogo Gas Empire. Apparently The Myrrans didn't like this and declared rivalry with me. Really? Like you literally just rivaled yourself with half the galaxy.
