You're welcome, Drejk. ;)
Bluenose: A lone ringworld system without a fallen empire? Too bad you didn't take a few screenshots of it!
I am thinking of restarting (again... ~sighs~) because my tech seems to be lagging. I think I expanded too quickly and have not settled down to research up the tech tree.
Yikes... I just got this game and it is already way too much of time sink :-)
I am probably starting over the game again :-), one thing I don't like is "trade agreements" expiring before you noticed them...
(yet not plopping dialog box on top like random meteor showers granting "good omens" will do)
Although I guess that was partly due to running SUper Fast Time, but they should really fix that
so you don't have that one singular reason to avoid running on Super Fast Time...
Other events use dialogs, and trade agreements etc could force-Pause the game until you respond to them
(and in fact could have an initial force-Pause, and a second one just before they expire if you decided to delay deciding)
And wierdly, if somebody offered you mutual Free Movement but it was (auto) turned down,
the game seems to not let you immediately propose back to them the same treaty... GRRRR...
(sucks especially when you were about to colonize planets on the far side of "treaty ally" that otherwise pins you in)
(and I really wanted that planet with Alien Toy Factory located nearby that region)
I guess not as bad as my first game, where I discovered "Disband Fleet" didn't just break the fleet down into individual ships,
but just seemed to wipe all those units from the game permanently (not sure if I gained anything from that?)
Which destroyed my entire naval force at the time, meaning I couldn't even deal with the first "pirates".
(Although it wasn't huge deal and I continued anyways)
I had been liking the Science Directorate, although not clear on what it's bonus is...
Is it giving a 4th option (card) to research, when you would otherwise get only 3? (haven't tried others yet)
I saw a research option or something that was supposed to grant +1 Research Alternatives,
is that also granting another "card" draw to choose from more options? Or are thse both somehow
boosting percentile events like "you can now research this anomaly" (instead of regular cards)?
The downside seems the 50 year Presidential terms, which is fine when you like their bonuses,
(like my first game where research progressed quickly, due to specific leader bonuses)
but when you get a crappy one you can't get out of it without spending Prestige for emergency election.
(one of my game restarts was because I had run out of Prestige to do necessary things... Yes, I accepted first Alliance offer)
Some Goversnmetns change every 5 years, although then you don't benefit from good bonuses very long.
Somebody said you gain alot of Prestige or whatever from that option... How? (1 time effect each President?)
Also, problem is Scientific Directorate "stealing" my researchers (I guess Military would do same for General/Admirals)
Any way around that? I assume others would still draw from "Governor" pool as well?
would they do that even if you only have ONE leader of that type, i.e. would not have another available?
what if you don't have Prestige to recruit a new one? I guess Governors are best type to lose if you need to lose one.
Question on Outposts: Does it matter where you place them? (Sun etc) I read they somehow can function as Mining/Research stations etc. Only on Suns? I read you can remove them "when no longer needed" and if you build Colony in adjacent system I get that, but what happens when you build Colony in same system? I just had a situation where if removed the Outpost first, then neighboring Empire would control system, so I couldn't remove it first before Colonizing planet in same sytem...
Question on Uplift: Do you need to Colonize planet with the aliens in order to do that?
People talk about using them as colonists but do you need to colonize their home world first and then build Colonization Ships
at that location in order to fill them up with those aliens?
Question on Fleets: I haven't done much besides the absolute minimum to deal with early game Pirates,
what should I do there? It seems like Admirals don't gain XP except by fighting? So letting them fight
low power pirates/random aliens alot seems like what I should aim for...?
Question on Spaceports: Is there any other value for upgrading them besides allowing larger Navy ships?
Question on Scientist/Leader tasking: Sometimes it seems to give a "is moving to X in 10 years". But then it seems like by pausing activity, I am able to bypass that and immediately switch them into task (restarting it when they arrive). Huh? And also I noticed that when you switch scientists in Research it gives you a new list of cards (bad for me when i did it at first, but on the other hand that can be a great tactic to use). Is each Scientist's list of research "cards" persistent to them, or each time you put somebody into Research role it generates a new set of cards? (or is there a minimum time for each scientist to get new set of cards?)
Re: Big Mecha comments, I haven't gotten into robot tech at all yet, but I have found "Titan" lifeforms
which I've been able to recruit to allow them to join my armies... And I've seen a comment elsewhere on interwebz
that when you have access to both Titans and Robots, that Robot Titans become available...
If you're low enough on Influence that you can't recruit new leaders, then you probably want to find out what you're doing that costs so much. Improved government buildings are a good things, maintaining lots of frontier outposts is usually a bad idea.
Sure, although "lots" means like more than 1. This game I just have one persistent outpost which happened to be unclaimable via Planets, but between the two systems it controlled (one not showing up well from Map graphics but I later realized it was controlled after bashing the Rando Aliens there) it yielded at least 15 resources about half being Energy, along with Research.
You can build a colony ship and fill it with a population from anywhere in your empire, including aliens if you want them for a particular habitat. I don't know about uplifting pre-sentients, the only game where my technology is that advanced I have a non-interference policy. I have done some technological advancement on intelligent species, a nice Iron Age one that were so grateful to become my vassals their territory spawned including a system that was giving me nine engineering research.
Yeah, so it seems the Aliens DO need to be on the planet you are building the Colony ship on, i.e. needs a Spaceport. I haven't quite figured out how to create multi-species Colonies from scratch, I guess impel immigration somehow???
I did run into another civilization coincidentally called Sol in an Earth copy world, which I just turned into my Vassal, and apparently may soon absorb them. (what's cool is they are different trait Humans than I am, eventually I should be able to tweak their Traits as well)
Unforunately... It seems that move may have triggered the neighboring Empire on the Block to Declare War on me... Coincidentally when I "let" my sole naval force get wiped by going to aggro on Space Amoebas. AND I have run into the Planet limit (already having switched to Direct Demo for extra Planets) so am faced with learning War AND Sectors at the same time. (I might need/want to get some friendly neighbors on my side too, which I've done little with beyond trade/freemovement/starmaps) I'm also regretting my move with my Uplift species, letting them gain the "Pacifist" trait... What was I thinking? :-)
BTW, would it seem true that the special Alien research tech, at least some of it, like Droid Mining lasers isn't actually particularly good if you were already researching that Tech Tree? (lasers) I can see how it would be good if you went down another Tree branch (missiles, etc) but in my case it just isn't any better in the stats it shows... Although honestly, my allowing my Admiral to go Rambo on Aliens "unattended" was the worse idea, seeming like it was cutting thru them like butter, until health and # of ships is worn down, and by the time I intervene I can't even withdraw from combat alive. ;-O
Sure, although "lots" means like more than 1...Hmm. If you've got one Outpost and an active Edict, you should still be gaining 1 Influence/month (3 base, -1 outpost, -1 edict). Even at that rate you're getting enough to replace a leader every five years. Have you been upgrading government buildings on your planets? That costs Influence. You might also find that if you expand 'past' the Outpost and settle there, your territory will fill backwards so it includes the systems in question without the Outpost being there.
Yeah, 1 Inf/month is rather tight to cover Colony HQ costs, Leaders, and other stuff (the Outposts themselves are crazy expensive at 200 Inf, so it's great you can delete them after a planet supersedes them, but you spent a chunk of Inf for that). By this point I have gotten a bunch of upgrades to Influence so it would be 6/month if I had no outposts, etc. I can see after this point then stuff like Alliances could be viable, although I'm leery of getting involved because it seems like giving up control to AI.
I haven't quite figured out how to create multi-species Colonies from scratch, I guess impel immigration somehow???You have government options to control or permit immigration (even from alien empires if you've that sort of treaty with them). Or with some governments you can forcibly resettle people, though that costs Influence. If you allow free immigration then the planets likeliest to receive it are the ones most attractive to the species in question. Gaia worlds are most attractive, but then you'll find ones with the right sort of environment and I think ones that are already well developed attract particular species more.
Yeah, it seems the non-Individualist ethos lets you do Resettlement at will, I am stuck without that tool for this game. Previous game I tried an Edict which seems to make that planet more attractive for any and all immigrants, although it seems a pricy cost most of the time (150 influence) like all Edicts. Incidentally I finally discovered that hovering over Pop happiness gives the breakdown about what causes that... And then checking Empire policy again (showing some new policies not available last time I checked), I was able to juggle policies to bring most all unhappy pops back into green (some humans didn't like Xeno leaders, so I went back on that, while keeping Full Vote which makes the Xenos happy, also adjusting Bombardment policy down made the Pacifist Xenos happier)
Incidentally that will help because I had turned off some Colony Ship HQs because they increase Ethic divergence which seemed a problem on some planets... But with happier Pops, I can probably turn them back on now for more Food. Funnily, I now can no longer see AT ALL what is happening on one planet, because I put it in a Sector so it doesn't show up in Planet list sidebar, and the local system map is borked in that the planet is too close to other objects and no matter how you rotate the view, the planet is never revealed or clickable (I've managed to get similar cases to reveal clearly in some particular angle, but this one doesn't... Kind of makes me hate the pseudo-3d view more, if they just had simple 2d view where stuff could NEVER overlap it would just work).
Unforunately... It seems that move may have triggered the neighboring Empire on the Block to Declare War on me... Coincidentally when I "let" my sole naval force get wiped by going to aggro on Space Amoebas.Not a coincidence. Most likely they were waiting for an opportunity, and saw that they suddenly had an advantage in naval forces so could declare war. Border friction might have contributed, but it's only one factor and some species are very likely to attack any time they think that have an edge.
Yeah, it's interesting to learn the quirks of each political "personality", the one in question (at war) is like Fanatic Spiritual/Militarist... F+@*ing Hippies with Guns. Their sleaze move was IMMEDIATELY before declaring war, getting me to trade star charts. Gotta remember that myself. :-) On the other hand, my other neighbor seems even more powerful yet while not super helpful, doesn't seem incline to fight... Although their friendliness rating won't go above 45 now for some reason (at first it was higher). (Fun thing is they vassalized a low-tech civ on our border, so I figured most I could do is offer the low-techs a Free Movement treaty while they're still independent, to possibly get some immigration from them so I can get a Artic species)
BTW, would it seem true that the special Alien research tech, at least some of it, like Droid Mining lasers isn't actually particularly good if you were already researching that Tech Tree? (lasers) I can see how it would be good if you went down another Tree branch (missiles, etc) but in my case it just isn't any better in the stats it shows...They often have other advantages. The droid mining laser has 100% armour penetration, compared to the 50% of standard ones. It's a little better than the Mark III laser (UV, iirc) without needing to research all the techs up to that. It is less good if you're already far into the energy weapon tree, which I think is hurt by several pretty decent weapons being available through destroying some of the early spaceborne enemies that aren't too tough for an early fleet.
Yeah, I think if I had gone into Droid debris research earlier it would have been great, I just had largely avoided naval stuff earlier to focus on research and economy, although next I'll probably do differently. I'm just letting it auto-design ships, I can't bother with micromanaging ship design at this point, although I'm sure it's better to do so. Crazy learning curve on this, I even did use the console to "cheat" just to fix errors like inadvertently spawning Colony Ship from wrong planet right next to planet I intended, and not having right Pops for planet I wanted to colonize (so I console-hacked it to colonize it with Pop I wanted, and then just disbanded the Colony Ship, no harm done).
Having now had the chance to sit down with the game at length, a couple of things that have sprung up in my play through.
*Decided to try playing as the "spider-people" addition you can get on Steam. Started with a highly intelligent, Plutocratic Oligarchy types.
*First neighbor state I encounter: a Plutocratic Oligarchy that also happens to be an Arthropods race. Needless to say, they hate me and war is quickly becoming inevitable.
*Within the first 100 years, have managed to encounter three, mammalian Industrial Age civs; taken them over; and turned them into vassal states. It's like they've turned into pulp movie spider conquerors.
I do wonder if there is viable way to infiltrate empires by emigration, then get these "separatists" with morals amenable to yourself to ally with you?
My "spider-people" game ended with a classic good conquers evil scenario. I was the evil here. ;-)
Basically, managed to find 4 more Industrial Age civs in my wing of the galaxy. I had purged or vasseled them all. I was working on a solid Cold War scenario with the other Oligarchy, they never attacked (lots of threats; no action). It was my other neighbor - a democratic trade federation - who had been a solid partner who promptly expanded their borders and then declared war. Although my fleets had precursor tech and were fairly solid affairs, they brought in overwhelming numbers that was unexpected.
Hindsight, I'm pretty sure conquering all those non-FTL planets had really ticked them. Or at least, the AI finally realized what I was doing and that turned them. Thanks to the destruction they inflicted, rebellion spread across the annexed planets and I couldn't contain it. It was about this time the other Oligarchy decided to take a stab at my capital and I held it only after a drawn out siege with my warships.
At the end of it, I had seceded or lost like 90% of my territories to the Trade Federation in the process of beating back the other Oligarchy to keep my capital system. At this point, looking at the loss of tech and resources and backed up with only a few systems at the edge of the galaxy, plus two strengthened powers blocking advancement I was going to call it.
Unless they add more infiltration/stealth elements to the game to allow you to manipulate an existing nation (like Spies can do to City-States in Civ 5), I didn't see much point in trying to push back.
Nicely done everyone.
I finished a game after annexing the local FE (no ringworlds, but their home system was 3 "moons" orbiting the same gas giant) down to all but their home world. Demands were ignored - the FE had not even a starport to its name.
New game: rushed science ships w/ escort corvettes and mapped almost the entire galaxy, snapping up all four (or five?) "ancient writings" events and discovered the remnants of a Precursor ringworld. Result of said ringworld's survey: 25 engineering research and 5 living metal for the taking.
Didn't survey the entire galaxy, not anywhere close, but I've gotten a ping on every empire in the map: 3 fallen empires and nearly 30 starfaring empires besides my own. 2 of the fallen empires are of the "don't inhabit planets near me" persuasion with the third being of the "don't contaminate our holy worlds" type. I've yet to discover any such holy worlds, but there is a tomb world in my space. It's size 10, so barely worth the effort to even consider colonizing. Sadly, I've yet to discover radroaches in any game.
Hemmed in north and south on my starting galactic arm by neighbors, my expansion is across the sole hyperlane to the adjacent arm containing said ruined ringworld. 8 core worlds and 4 frontier outposts is excruciating, but techs are humming along VERY nicely. The statecraft expert scientist is unlocking additional core worlds and sectors regularly and often while the total population count + core world penalties under the 1.1 beta rules are insufficient compared to the raw sciences research output. One world has 3/22 tiles crammed with stone age primitives granting adjacency Society research bonuses. Only 1 appropriate tile to benefit from, but that one biolab generates 10 (!) Society research points all by itself.
Added bonus was snaring a spark of genius scientist (skill 5!) from a Space Age civ along the border with the closest Fallen Empire. She has the statecraft expertise alongside Spark of Genius, so the combined research speed is +60% or so.
I have the AI aggressiveness set to High with the leader capacitor tech at 2 and a talented race: new leaders now start at skill level 4. If/when war comes, the admiralty and generals will be more than capable. Ground troops wise, my best are psi with most of the attachments available, although I don't think I've figured out gene commandos yet. +25% army attack is brutal. The currently available admiralty are all veterans of the Great Scout Race, field promotions at a mere skill level of 2 .. but all five of them have Aggressive and Engineer traits. Were I to build starports to take advantage of the living metal, those fleets would have 4% hull regen/month plus the benefits of the fortress' pair of nano-clouds that are defending home territory and Precursor Alpha. This last system has 6 fortresses with overlapping repair fields.
At this point, I have spare "Core World cap" enough to simultaneously colonize six planets - and terraforming techs. 6 planets are being terraformed right now, of which 2 are arid (so I have to walk them arid --> desert --> something --> continental) while the other 4 are one-step terraforms away from continental.
Titanic life form worlds unlock an event that seems unlikely to resolve favorably. Sadly, I've yet to succeed on this event, so I can only sigh wistfully and attempt to locate more such planets for later acquisition once I'm happy with my techs.
Right now my empire is in a ridiculously happy place when it comes to research output compared to population. Currently the repeating techs aren't taking more than a few years to complete which is ridiculously fast compared to my previous game.
I don't begin to have finished all of the weapons techs, but the rest are basically done as the dangerous techs are now repeatedly available. Weapons techs are where I lag dangerously behind at the moment: point defense 3, blue lasers, ion disruptors and most of the "critter" weapons are all I have. Defenses are much higher, with hull integrity already up to X (double hull hp).
It'll be interesting when war inevitably breaks out. This time I've peacefully expanded without declaring any rivalries, but I'm unable to fire any planetary edicts due to the slow trickle of influence income that will be necessary once the leaders start dying of old age. They're all within a decade of each other and there's 20 of them, making mortality costly...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Update/corrections:
The trio of FEs are (closest) "no dangerous techs ... or else", (almost as close) "lebensraum" and (other side of the galaxy) holy guardian.
8 core worlds. Shiny new sector across the arm with 8 brand new colonies, the Cybrex Alpha system and its adjacent entry system (I'm footing the bill for those 2 frontier outposts, but now the sector pays the maintenance costs from the 5k energy and 15k minerals I started them off with. Harmony sector is tasked with paying for its own defense. I'll worry about taxes in a century or so.
Protectorate state (same empire that I abducted the super genius scientist from) has my star maps and began a war against an alliance of empires directly south of Harmony sector along that arm of the galaxy. Lucky for them my empire controls all three hyperlanes that their foes could use to get to their two paltry systems and nuke them back to the stone age.
More amusingly, I'd not paid attention as to whom the aggressor is when the notice popped up, so my empire has remained neutral. My protectorate can sally forth in an attempt to wage war. A few dozen laser armed destroyers against an enemy welcoming committee of 2 battleships, 6 cruisers, 6 destroyers and 12-15 corvettes is going to die before they can fire off an emergency jump.
Direct neighbor to the north is enjoying a trade agreement for 30 years for (to me) useless Satramine gas in exchange for which I have unfettered civilian access to their space. Those gas giant critters' home system is in their space now (it wasn't when I first found them), and I'm aflame with curiosity as to how the saga of the gas giant life forms concludes.
Direct neighbor to the south hates my empire with a passion that has never cooled. They're not feeling their oats enough to have ever fired off a DoW (being out-planet'd 3:1 will do that I hear), but we exchange heated insults annually to keep relations at a saucy -325. When this war comes, there will be terror bombing and pop purging. Which of us is on the receiving end remains to be seen.
They completely block any hopes of southern expansion along what I currently believe to be an almost entirely unpopulated galactic arm with few hyperlane crossing points.
Funny thing about repeatable techs: they can make "lesser" weapons systems et al on par or better than their more advanced versions without correspondingly increased fitting requirements.
To wit, my empire's super-genius scientist abductee of arid preference invented particle lances that are now on par with or a smidge better than tachyon lances while still requiring 100 power instead of 120 power to fit. She has statecraft and acquired particles expertise along the way. Very useful!
Every L fitting slot I have has been reconfigured to accommodate these shiny red beams of death and destruction. All 64 cruisers' worth of them. (This might be another reason the aforementioned despised southern neighbor has yet to fire off a DoW ... "overwhelming" apparent fleet strength is daunting!)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Here is the Stellaris AAR subforum. Already up to 3 pages.
After having a relatively easy time with my first game (Materialist Xenophile) through strategic alliances and using them to keep my allies reasonably strong, but not give them time to expand too much, and my enemies fairly modest as well, I decided to try something harder.
I went Xenophobe.
So I've absorbed the two fallen empires I was sandwitched between at game start (yes, really), and have four 60K fleets (slightly over the cap of 1000), which is the most powerful in the game.... but, there's a problem and it's political. Specifically: Xenophobe (and behaviours it encourages) have ensured I have never had enough good will with anyone to join an alliance, nor could I manipulate such to my benefit. To make matters worse, all but one of the other major empires (about 8 out of 10) is in a pact together, where their combined fleets punch around the 250-300K mark. I have 240K of fleets, so it should be actually feasible to hold out in a war... which brings me to a beef I have with the War mechanic.
- I can win every major engagement.
- I can destroy multiple 5-20K fleets thrown against me (over 100K destroyed in total
- I can foil every planetary invasion they attempt, and occupy 4 of their worlds (while the war lasts).
- I can lose less than 5K of my total fleet strength.
- And I still lose the war. Quickly.
The reason? Every time the Sector AI attempts to rebuild a busted shipyard, and the enemy fleet shoots it again = +1 War Score to them. And for the most part, that's what the enemy does: Troll through systems attacking fortresses (almost worthless at this point) and spaceport busting to get points, then trying to run if a fleet turns up.
When I managed to kill pretty much half their fleet, losing virtually nothing, but hit the -98% on the war... I may have turned the damn game off for a bit <_<
Hehe... Yeah, the AI is pretty silly at some points...
In my current game I happened to get caught with my pants down and probably could have been wiped.
After my first fleet was wiped out (should have evaded and waited to build it up just a bit more),
they occupied one planet, but I decided to play guerrilla in their backyard with my tiny remnant ships,
destroying mining stations and so on, which the AI absolutely hates and will try to hunt you down for.
Of course my Warp Tech was way more advanced than theirs, so pretty easy to criss-cross their big blob of territory,
wiping out mining stations while they try to catch up, just in time for me to warp to another of their systems.
Meanwhile I built up my super fleet which can wipe anything they can manage...
Now I'm just in the position of having to build up enough war score to totally remove them from the picture.
Kind of shocking is that the AI will offer you negotiated peace (which sometimes is all their demands) and if you turn it down, you get charged 100 influence. WTF!? I mean, I happened to have it, but what if you didn't? You automatically submit to their demands?
Kind of pissed that my "Pathetic" minor ally (who I made only because they wouldn't trade military access, neither would my other neighbor, and I needed it to attack somebody else, but they would Ally with me which does the exact same thing re: military access.) would never bring their fleet over for the action. And of course I can't change alliance while in a war, not even to demand vassalization.
Honestly, the war demands and trade demands/offer should be integrated, as well as letting you trade control of non-planet systems like outposts (which was crux of original mini-war i needed ally for transit... as soon as i declared war, wiped their outpost and a bit more, i just said f+*$ it when the other AI attacked me, so I declared white peace since their outpost was gone). I think I saw the devs saying the AI has a problem assessing value of planets/etc for trades, which is why it isn't fully implemented, yet of course the system lets you offer them planets which they will asses the value of and trade you minerals/transit/starcharts/etc in return... :-(
I wish it would just show you what the space-control zone of a system would be if you (or somebody else) controlled it, either for outposts, or planets (where i guess it could show 1 pop minimum and full pop control zone potential). As is I build outpost in wrong system, and just destroy it and build another (refund myself the influence via console, don't worry about the minerals of original outpost).
I wish the system would show you tech trees in some way, or somehow at least let you understand how potential research options fit into what you already have... It seems many of them are flat out inferior to what I already have, yet's it's kind of unclear. I have just been letting ships auto-design themselves, but it seems clear much of the tech I have is being unused by that... Yet not clear how to focus to avoid that, or what approach I should take there. I had completely avoided researching reactor techs until recently, it just wasn't clear what they would do for me, but I've quickly caught up by now. Apparently research costs scale per populace... So strange that the system does not show you an effective research rating per populace score, just the raw research rating but you have little idea how that has changed relative to populace, which is what ultimately matters.
I did the Cybrex sequence, but haven't activated the 25 engineering nodes yet. Did the gas aliens stuff, so far transplanted them to 2 planets, and they gave me some free loot the last time. I did have a scientist find a free cruiser in a planetary anomaly, way before i had that capacity, i don't even think i had destroyers yet. Rad Roaches seem to be the thing for Tomb Colonization, but I just found the coolest thing with an uplifted Avian species which was desert living but had the Irradiated trait giving them 100% tomb livability AND can also live on regular planets unlike tomb living species. I'm not sure but right after I uplifted them I had a TON of influence, possibly uplifting a species gives you that? If there was a notification, I missed it. (motto of this game)