|
The heavy diminishing returns in tech research would probably make more sense if most tech didn't also have an extremely small effect... ...except for ship-type techs, which have a frankly overwhelming impact compared to most other techs.
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 13:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 03:09 |
|
|
So I've been playing this game a bit and it's fun, but I'm at a point in my game where I don't know what to do. My race is hive-mind, I'm probably the 2nd or 3rd best civ in the game and hold the 2nd largest area. However, there's a militant xenophobic civ that owns as much as the next 3 of us combined and now they are on my border. I've got a few NAP's going and am on really good terms with a peer race similar in size, fleet and tech. However I can't form a federation yet given my current techs. The big militant race declared war on me and their fleet is far more than my fleet or planetary defenses can manage. I have a few saves earlier on I can restart from, but I don't even know how to go about 'winning' or even if there is a way to do this at all. When I mean their fleet is bigger, their offensive power of their doomstack is about 8-10x larger than my single doomstack. Even if I tried to play it out by sending ships all into their area to knock out resource points they more or less roll my entire empire before I can even make a dent. Is this game just done and I am boned or is there something cool I can try out that I haven't thought of / learned about yet?
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 14:55
|
|
|
That Works posted:So I've been playing this game a bit and it's fun, but I'm at a point in my game where I don't know what to do. I would reload a save from a little bit before the war and see if you can get a defensive pact with any of the guys you have NAPs with. That might discourage the xenophobic dudes from declaring war, or at least delay them long enough to give you time to build up. If you're having trouble getting a defensive pact, try setting the xenophobic dudes as your rival - if they are so big and aggressive they are probably also rivalled by other empires that are friendly to you and the same rivals diplomatic bonus could help secure a pact. If that doesn't work then yeah it sounds like you kind of lost this one. Can't win 'em all.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:07
|
|
|
/Ragequitting this game again the same day I got sucked back in by the Humanoids species pack. It seems like no matter what I do, all my neighbors always have fleets 10x the size of mine and technology way more advanced. What the hell? Is there some thing I'm not doing to optimize my research? If I build fleets to keep up with the size of my neighbors, the upkeep crushes my economy, and if I don't build fleets and focus on research, I'm still behind my neighbors. This is some bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:12
|
|
|
Applewhite posted:/Ragequitting this game again the same day I got sucked back in by the Humanoids species pack. Keep your fleets in orbit when you're not at war and buy the station upgrades that decrease their maintenance. Try to make friends with any neighbours that you can, a defensive pact can put off aggressive neighbours but at least try to keep everyone nearby positive opinion of you at the start. Keep an eye on the reported strength of neighbours to make sure you're investing in ships when you need to. Generally when I lose to the scenario you mention, it's because I've expanded too quickly - tried to keep energy costs too low so I can pay for my colonies and spent all my minerals on colony ships. There's a sweet spot between expanding too fast and stagnating with a big fleet which will allow you to do enough to keep threats at bay while still expanding quickly, but it's difficult to always get it right.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:25
|
|
|
Applewhite posted:/Ragequitting this game again the same day I got sucked back in by the Humanoids species pack.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:25
|
|
|
Applewhite posted:/Ragequitting this game again the same day I got sucked back in by the Humanoids species pack. Are you building and upgrading buildings on your planets?
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:32
|
|
|
Splicer posted:I think there's a bit of an issue where the phrase "building tall" is being used to mean both "focussing more on the eXploit than the eXpand" and "super weird gimmick builds which require massive expansion but only in a very specific manner". Yeah tall/wide doesn't really map well to Stellaris. In civ, you claim territory exclusively with cities, so your map footprint is determined by how many cities you have. If you're going "tall", you're going to have a small amount of very large cities, and very many small cities if you're going "wide". But in Stellaris you have frontier outposts, or just outposts in Cherryh. The way to get the most out of a small territory is actually to have lots of colonies (including habitats, and ring worlds too I suppose) in that territory. So you'd go tall by colonizing everything, and wide by using lots of frontier outposts/only colonizing select planets (big, or just one climate type, or whatever criteria). With planets having a hard pop cap that's reached pretty quickly civ-style tall just isn't really possible. But people still call having only a few planets tall, and having lots of planets wide. A lot of the time "tall" strategies in Stellaris that aren't one-planet gimmicks would be better termed "small", which was actually a gimmick strategy in Civ V too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:37
|
|
|
Staltran posted:Yeah tall/wide doesn't really map well to Stellaris. In civ, you claim territory exclusively with cities, so your map footprint is determined by how many cities you have. If you're going "tall", you're going to have a small amount of very large cities, and very many small cities if you're going "wide". But in Stellaris you have frontier outposts, or just outposts in Cherryh. The way to get the most out of a small territory is actually to have lots of colonies (including habitats, and ring worlds too I suppose) in that territory. So you'd go tall by colonizing everything, and wide by using lots of frontier outposts/only colonizing select planets (big, or just one climate type, or whatever criteria). With planets having a hard pop cap that's reached pretty quickly civ-style tall just isn't really possible. But people still call having only a few planets tall, and having lots of planets wide. A lot of the time "tall" strategies in Stellaris that aren't one-planet gimmicks would be better termed "small", which was actually a gimmick strategy in Civ V too. Well, I haven't played Civ much, but IIRC, in that game you can choose to spend your money on a) building up a few cities into large megalopolises, or b) building a large number of cities that aren't all that great. Development is too limited or expensive to really do both. In Stellaris, you can't really build up like that. The random galaxy generation has far more influence on a planet's quality than the player does. You just can't take a small planet and build it up into a large planet. In fact, development potential is relatively limited in this game, and also rather cheap - the difference between a planet filled with level 1 buildings and a planet filled with level 3 buildings isn't all that high, cost-wise or output-wise. Unless you're specifically going out of your way to limit your number of planets for the sake of "playing tall", there's never going to be a case where you say "hmmm, I could colonize that high-habitability size 25 planet, but I'd rather spend the resources on beefing up my other size-25 planets into powerhouses". Neither the costs nor the returns on developing your existing planets are really high enough to justify not expanding.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 15:52
|
|
|
In civ, you can and should do both, actually. ICS has its advantages if you wanna win quick, but for longer games it's not optimal because big cities generate more than 4 small ones, they just take much longer to get there. e: ICS being infinite city sprawl, where you build city - empty square - city - empty.... as opposed to cities spaced out by enough tiles that they don't steal each other's resources. Truga fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Dec 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 16:00
|
|
|
Depends on which Civ you're talking about. The three most recent Civs have been quite different in their approaches to expansion, infrastructure, and the like (incidentally, the first three were largely the same in that regard). One reason I like having more costs attached to pops is that it actively encourages infrastructure and building up, because if you're going to have pops that cost you, then you want to get the absolute most out of those pops. But it's not about penalizing expansion. It's about rewarding the player for investment in building up. That's what I'd like. While we're looking at making ship components better, maybe also have a look at buildings and making them better.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 16:33
|
|
|
Well I picked this up since it's 60% off. Are there any must-have DLC's as a new player?
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 17:12
|
|
|
The non-cosmetic dlc are must have, especially the Megastructure one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 17:32
|
|
|
honestly id play your first game or two bare-bones without dlc. then pick up Utopia and possibly leviathans. There's enough to do with event chains and the like to keep you busy and both the major DLC add a degree of complication and endgame shenanigans.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 17:44
|
|
|
I disagree, I had leviathans and utopia and it made my first experience a lot more interesting. Only problem really was my going in blind and not knowing endgame crises begin at around 2400ish and the Unbidden showing up right in my backyard. How many endgame crisis factions are there? There's the unbidden and the contingency, any others?
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 17:55
|
|
|
Leviathans adds neutral trading stations that have an incredible impact on how the game plays, so I'd recommend that. Utopia is also important (although it's going to be less so after the big 2.0).
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 17:57
|
|
|
Captain Invictus posted:How many endgame crisis factions are there? There's the unbidden and the contingency, any others? One more, the Prethoryn Scourge (basically Tyranids/Zerg).
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 18:01
|
|
|
Dutymode posted:Well I picked this up since it's 60% off. Are there any must-have DLC's as a new player?
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 18:18
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Also the 2.0 patch is going hyperlanes only (this is a good thing) so try out the other movement types while you can I wouldn't recommend wormholes to a new player, they can be really confusing. Especially because it's not obvious that you can build them in neutral space.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 18:46
|
|
|
I think if I was going to replace the scaling costs-per-colony thing I would probably just give the homeworld an inherent bonus to productivity because it's literally your species' homeworld, you have thousands of years of practice working it. And then add some heavy infrastructure options to the game and let your homeworld start with them. You can build them in other places with a lot of investment, but again your homeworld is old and was developed before you invented FTL so it already has a lot of really good buildings and infrastructure. That keeps small empires strong because their homeworlds are good, and also gives you a "tall" option ala megastructures but in the form of high tier planetary tile development. Cos I definitely don't think that the scaling costs have a very consistent and intuitive effect on empire output, nor are they very interesting and they create the issue where you actively don't want to colonize small worlds because it's hard to even make them pay for themselves which is daft.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 19:02
|
|
|
Just hit me, but maybe small worlds could have a scaling "low gravity" modifier that decreases building costs/time and maybe gives a slight bump to mineral extraction.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 19:05
|
|
|
Alpha mod does precisely that with its barren world colonization though it makes less sense now that you don't need a strategic resource to colonize them, and also it's irrespective of planet size, and also it's "zero gravity" even on a 25 tile world. Actually it doesn't make much sense at all tbh but gravity being tied to actual planet size (as I think it already is) and having good effects at both ends of the scale would be nice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 19:13
|
|
|
Re: making tall empires feasible through research mechanics, what about creating something along the lines of "great leaps forward" where the ratio of your research speed to population could trigger rarer and rarer tech options that give exclusive, tangible advantages for each stage of the game. Either in the form of bonuses or valuable assets, or something crazy like hidden, alternative resolutions to the Guardian or Precursor chains. Could also be combined with late game anomalies which were brought up earlier itt - more Roadside Picnic in my Stellaris please.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 21:08
|
|
|
Applewhite posted:/Ragequitting this game again the same day I got sucked back in by the Humanoids species pack. Post diplomacy screens, and maybe fleet screens for comparison. Unity picks would be nice to know also.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 23:33
|
|
|
Split Pea Superman posted:Post diplomacy screens, and maybe fleet screens for comparison. Unity picks would be nice to know also. Farms $200 Labs $150 Energy $800 Pretty Borders $3,600 Ships $150 someone who is good at the stellaris please help me budget this. my empire is dying
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2017 23:50
|
|
|
Artificer posted:Are you building and upgrading buildings on your planets? Yes all the time
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 01:37
|
|
|
Are there any good Ironman compatible Roman things that are up to date? Mostly I'd like a name list, the ones I found are all out of date.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 01:42
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Farms $200 spend more on pretty borders
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 02:03
|
|
|
Achieve pretty borders through fleet spending instead
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 02:41
|
|
|
Shugojin posted:Achieve pretty borders through fleet spending instead Give vassals poor quality worlds. Colonize poor quality worlds within your borders and give them to vassals. Make your space look like a Pollack painting. With the vassal research bonus, and the AI's tendency to prioritize chasing vassal fleets over your fleets you'll end up much further ahead. Submit yourself to altar of optimal compounded growth 
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 03:07
|
|
|
ShootaBoy posted:Are there any good Ironman compatible Roman things that are up to date? Mostly I'd like a name list, the ones I found are all out of date. As far as I know it's still impossible to make a name list mod that won't break achievements, sorry.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 08:53
|
|
|
Dallan Invictus posted:As far as I know it's still impossible to make a name list mod that won't break achievements, sorry. loving really? What the hell is the logic behind that? Some custom names aren't gonna do jack to change the game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 09:10
|
|
|
ShootaBoy posted:loving really? What the hell is the logic behind that? Some custom names aren't gonna do jack to change the game. I imagine it's because it's non-trivial for the game to work out that the game isn't being changed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 12:20
|
|
|
And also that if the name file contains code that's being executed, you could probably put some code in there to do all sorts of things. Paradox's ironman achievement limit thing is still dumb though, since Steam Achievement Manager exists.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 12:40
|
|
|
561 hours played? 0/70 achievements earned. At this point, I don't want your 'chevos, Wiz. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 13:47
|
|
|
Just lol if you play Stellaris without mods.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 15:18
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:Just lol if you play Stellaris without mods. What's good?
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 16:25
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:Just lol if you play Stellaris without mods. replace stellaris with "any paradox game"
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 16:36
|
|
|
Gort posted:What's good? I can't imagine playing it without guili's planet modifiers, it basically just adds more poo poo to find when you're surveying.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 16:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 03:09 |
|
|
Shugojin posted:I can't imagine playing it without guili's planet modifiers, it basically just adds more poo poo to find when you're surveying. I just bought stellaris too. Anything else that you recommend that is up to date and adds a lot more flavour to the game? I played it when it first came out and the game seemed... empty.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2017 18:13
|
|
