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Splicer posted:About when yearwise do you feel like you've fallen behind? There are advanced start empires that start with more planets and tech than you so if you're measuring against them, don't be. Zane posted:this is like every other 4x in that expanding provides an exponential increase to your power while turtling cedes this power to others. unity is a mechanic that mitigates but does not eliminate this very basic rule of thumb. minerals and planets are the primary bases of power. minerals create colony ships. colonies means more population (more minerals) and a higher fleet cap. fleet cap allows you to gobble up and to dissuade enemies. energy and research are secondary facilitators for these primary bases. Tomn posted:Hard to say without knowing more - one thing I can suggest off the bat, though, is that if you're colonizing every habitable planet you can, you're probably penalizing your tech rate - the more planets you have, the slower you research, so planets with a habitability of less than 10 are probably not worth it barring fantastic modifiers. Beyond that, though, as I said, hard to figure out what the problem is just from your description, and I'm not even sure if that warning is applicable to you if as you say you're focusing on high-development colonies. Thanks for the tips, and to everyone else too. As for when I fall behind, pretty much all the time. Unless a faction is getting swallowed up by someone else, every other empire I meet is at least "Superior" in terms of fleet strength and this usually only accelerates. Also, the advanced empires part was a thing I didn't pay close attention to, which might explain why a neighboring empire in my first game was able to swallow up two other empires handily, one of which had been a rival of mine. Typically, I try to expand mining posts as rapidly as possible but I also beeline for colonies as early as I possibly can too. The research penalty for colonies was something I had no idea about at all, but it never really seemed to be an issue as I was typically ahead of the curve on tech in many cases during my first game. I guess the thing I'm wondering is, given the limited mineral available, I have trouble deciding wether it would be wiser to push for as many ships as possible or to prioritise mining outposts. Also, I typically spend a lot of resources on clearing out planet tile blockers and bulking them up as much as I can. A good example during my first game: I was neighbouring another empire that went from being about the same size as me, to getting bigger and bigger and eventually having the strength to swallow an entire empire, followed by a second empire. During this time, I was concentrating on building up my planets and taking up ever availble mining outpost I possibly could but I still struggled to find the resources to upgrade my spaceports and build large quantities of ships. In addition, the strength of the fleet seemed to be constantly behind my rivals even with similar numbers of ships. Maybe my mindset is too locked into games like Space Empires or Master of Orion. It's just taking me some time to get a feel for the balance and get used to the tech and ship upgrade system.
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Jan 28, 2018 15:17
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GotLag posted:The thought occurs to me: if I leave biological populations on a world that I am terraforming to a machine planet, will this kill them all when it's finished? Once the planet is terraformed it will start to purge them due to 0 habitability, but you'd have time to move them or they will move if you have no restrictions.
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Jan 28, 2018 15:21
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PiCroft posted:Also, I typically spend a lot of resources on clearing out planet tile blockers and bulking them up as much as I can.
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Jan 28, 2018 15:25
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PiCroft posted:In addition, the strength of the fleet seemed to be constantly behind my rivals even with similar numbers of ships. It's worth noting that this is definitely a CONCERN and something that should be remedied if you can, but it's also not usually a disaster - the AI doesn't usually go to war the moment they see a window of opportunity, they usually need to dislike you badly/have rear end in a top hat ethos and be superior on multiple counts before they decide to go for the war option. If they're only superior in just one category, it's not a big deal. If they're superior in two categories, worry a little more but don't panic. If they're superior in all three, definitely try to get yourself out of that hole and seek allies but it's not the end yet. Overwhelming is when you start seriously worrying about potential invasion due to weakness, and even then it can be deferred for a little while. It's also worth noting that fleet power doesn't necessarily tell the whole story - if your ships are well-built to counter the enemy or possesses notable technological advances (you have shields, they don't, or something), it's possible for a fleet with less fleet power to beat a supposedly more powerful one. In general fleet power DOES take technology into account, but not fully. Either way, remember that defeat isn't necessarily the end. If you really are too weak to stand trying to become someone's vassal is a perfectly viable option to allow yourself to develop under your overlord's protection until you think you can break free. Even if you lose a war and chunks of territory, it is sometimes viable to use the outrage your enemy will generate to form a coalition of the worried against them. By the way, I apologize if this is an obvious question, but have you been focusing on starbase technology and and getting larger ship sizes? Those can make a very significant jump in fleet power, and it's entirely possible to gain early advantages in warfare by being the first to have a fully viable cruiser arm, for instance. As a final note, one way in which Stellaris is fundamentally unlike traditional space 4Xes is that the win condition is basically optional. Most people will find a satisfying end point to their game (beating back a late game crisis, putting down a Fallen Empire, turning the entire galaxy into a democratic union, etc.) long, loooong before the formal and frankly insane victory conditions are achieved. Nor do you lose the game if another empire achieves those conditions (I think, I've never seen an AI empire get to that point by itself before). You're not a zero-sum "If I'm not winning that means I'm losing" situation - as long as you can keep your empire roughly competitive and able to credibly defend itself you're doing all right. Spread space democracy. Subjugate primitive civilizations. Dive deep into knowledge sapients were not meant to know. Whatever floats your boat.
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Jan 28, 2018 15:53
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That said, the victory conditions about domination/conquest are tied to planet count, so you can make it really easy on yourself if you just put the chance for planets waaaaay down during game set-up. That's how I won my first game. That, and spamming habitats everywhere to gain enough of an energy advantage to have larger fleets than even the awakened empire that was the only enemy power left at that point. 
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Jan 28, 2018 16:11
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Splicer posted:Unless it's something amazing like a betharian plant or something don't bother clearing tile blockers early game until your planet starts running out of space. Also migration is based on how full a planet is, so clearing a space for a new pop on an existing planet sometimes means another pop won't emigrate to your new planet. Wow, there's a lot of little mechanics I had no idea about. I wish the game made some of this clear (although if it does, I have no idea where it's stated). Thanks for the tip tho, that is definitely somewhere where I might be going wrong. Tomn posted:snip This is something I've actually been really pleasantly surprised with. The general feel is unlike a lot of other 4X games, where there's a steady ramping up of ship tech and a more or less inevitable push towards conflict and war. In my first game, despite being terrified of my massively superior neighbour, we were best buds and they were a prime candidate for forming a Federation. I'm also pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to make invasion fleets, something I've occasionally found to be an annoying chore in other 4X games (yes, I did experiment with a borg-like assimilator machine race and lucked out with no less than four primitive civs nearby. And yes, their technological and biological distinctiveness was most definitely added to our own.) I do generally go for larger ship tech when I spot it but because I can't see the tech tree, it's difficult to know how to beeline for those techs. Same goes for weapon tech too, but as I said, the issue is affordability; larger ships are even worse in this regard.
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Jan 28, 2018 16:35
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Also it's really dumb how my neighbor just got made a satellite state by an AE and now can suddenly go through my borders despite me being closed because I can't control borders to satellites, apparently e: Of course, the science nexus event just triggered on a curator I had so now she's Curator, Spark of Genius, Maniacal so that's quite the speed boost there Shugojin fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jan 28, 2018 |
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Jan 28, 2018 16:59
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PiCroft posted:Wow, there's a lot of little mechanics I had no idea about. I wish the game made some of this clear (although if it does, I have no idea where it's stated). Thanks for the tip tho, that is definitely somewhere where I might be going wrong. Well, at a basic level, on a planet resources are gained through pops. If a pop isn't working a tile, the tile isn't doing anything. That's why clearing blockers before the planet fills up is usually a waste. Related to that, if you're laying down buildings everywhere before the pops actually spawn to work in those buildings that might explain some of your resource shortages. Build as fast as the pops spawn and no faster unless you have a surplus of minerals and don't care, and don't forget that you can move both existing pops and future pop spawns around on the same planet as you see fit if you want to prioritize certain resources. Also since pops harvest resources and pop-spawn speed is determined in part by food, it's worthwhile building more food buildings than you need early on. If your policies allow for it, it can also be worthwhile to manually migrate pops from a developed planet with large food surpluses to a newly-developed colony to get them up and running faster than their natural growth would have done, while your more developed planets fill in the empty spaces quickly. PiCroft posted:I do generally go for larger ship tech when I spot it but because I can't see the tech tree, it's difficult to know how to beeline for those techs. Same goes for weapon tech too, but as I said, the issue is affordability; larger ships are even worse in this regard. Well, this at least this is simple: Anything that makes your starbases bigger leads to bigger ships. Pretty cut and dried there, otherwise the only tech requirement is that you unlock X of lower-tier techs in that category before the higher-tier techs appear, no real tree.
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Jan 28, 2018 17:26
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Man, it just occured to me that you could rip the ship and station models from Sword of the Stars/SotS2 and they would fit pretty well into the game, being similarly modular. If only I knew how to do that. The SolForce ships would look pretty sweet. Or the Loa for Machine Empires.
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Jan 28, 2018 18:21
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PiCroft posted:Wow, there's a lot of little mechanics I had no idea about. I wish the game made some of this clear (although if it does, I have no idea where it's stated). Thanks for the tip tho, that is definitely somewhere where I might be going wrong. Tomn posted:Well, at a basic level, on a planet resources are gained through pops. If a pop isn't working a tile, the tile isn't doing anything. That's why clearing blockers before the planet fills up is usually a waste. Related to that, if you're laying down buildings everywhere before the pops actually spawn to work in those buildings that might explain some of your resource shortages. Build as fast as the pops spawn and no faster unless you have a surplus of minerals and don't care, and don't forget that you can move both existing pops and future pop spawns around on the same planet as you see fit if you want to prioritize certain resources. Also since pops harvest resources and pop-spawn speed is determined in part by food, it's worthwhile building more food buildings than you need early on. If your policies allow for it, it can also be worthwhile to manually migrate pops from a developed planet with large food surpluses to a newly-developed colony to get them up and running faster than their natural growth would have done, while your more developed planets fill in the empty spaces quickly. There's also a little tweak added a few patches ago where "crowded" planets get increased emigration pressure, so new planets will hit the magic 5 pops faster the less free tiles you have on other planets. Robots are also great for getting planets up to speed.
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Jan 28, 2018 19:33
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I'm playing Inward Perfection and (partly because this medium galaxy only had 4 civs and one fallen empire) this might be my most comically overpowered run ever "Hey, you know those pacifist hippie tree people we declared war on? Turns out they can make a fleet way bigger than ours inside of a year"
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Jan 28, 2018 22:48
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Those new borders in 2.0 cannot come quickly enough.
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Jan 28, 2018 23:49
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VirtualStranger posted:Those new borders in 2.0 cannot come quickly enough. Borders like that make me think the the galaxy deserves to lose to the Contingency. That is some Class-30 border crime.
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Jan 29, 2018 00:17
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Where's the crossover point between using kinetic v. plasma? For example, I've got Kinetic IV but just got Plasma I. Rail does a lot more damage, I think even with the modifiers. At what point do I start using plasma? Or is the "target the one with no shields" plasma advantage just real big regardless of the actual numbers?
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Jan 29, 2018 01:21
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Where's the crossover point between using kinetic v. plasma? For example, I've got Kinetic IV but just got Plasma I. Rail does a lot more damage, I think even with the modifiers. At what point do I start using plasma? Or is the "target the one with no shields" plasma advantage just real big regardless of the actual numbers? I think as it currently stands the difference in technology levels for weapons just isn't big enough to worry. In fact I think a big problem right now is that more advanced versions cost so much more you end up getting less bang for your buck. They're trying to address all this in 2.0 but for now it's generally best to have a nice mix of kinetic and plasma regardless of tech levels. It's not just a matter of per-slot DPS but also like you said the targeting AI and like I mentioned the cost. Having lower tech plasma just makes those ships that much cheaper, allowing you to build more.
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Jan 29, 2018 01:33
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Just checking in to confirm that I'm really excited to see war and terrain unfucked in 2.0 but also can't bring myself to start a game until the patch hits. Keep up the good work, devs!
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Jan 29, 2018 02:16
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Baronjutter posted:I think as it currently stands the difference in technology levels for weapons just isn't big enough to worry. In fact I think a big problem right now is that more advanced versions cost so much more you end up getting less bang for your buck. They're trying to address all this in 2.0 but for now it's generally best to have a nice mix of kinetic and plasma regardless of tech levels. It's not just a matter of per-slot DPS but also like you said the targeting AI and like I mentioned the cost. Having lower tech plasma just makes those ships that much cheaper, allowing you to build more. The last big patch already addressed that with maintenance/cost rebalancing. Killing naked corvette spam in the process. Better guns are better, but plasma is good for its armor shredding on its own.
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Jan 29, 2018 03:55
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Is there any way to change your vassal's name? My vassal is called like "Lagging Chuds" or something bizarre.Baronjutter posted:I think as it currently stands the difference in technology levels for weapons just isn't big enough to worry. In fact I think a big problem right now is that more advanced versions cost so much more you end up getting less bang for your buck. They're trying to address all this in 2.0 but for now it's generally best to have a nice mix of kinetic and plasma regardless of tech levels. It's not just a matter of per-slot DPS but also like you said the targeting AI and like I mentioned the cost. Having lower tech plasma just makes those ships that much cheaper, allowing you to build more. Cool added in the plasmas.
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Jan 29, 2018 04:04
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I don't know why you'd want to change a name like that, but no, I don't think there's anyway to rename a foreign empire from whatever the game decides to grace them with. That is yet another change coming in 2.0 though; provided you create the vassal. Wiz didn't really specify if you could rename another empire you take control over or if you carve something out of your opponent after a war.
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Jan 29, 2018 04:49
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If we could at least rename/logo/colour our own country at the worst we could tag-switch over to AI empires and fix up same-colour similar-name issues. (I think we can already rename at least)
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Jan 29, 2018 04:55
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Baronjutter posted:If we could at least rename/logo/colour our own country at the worst we could tag-switch over to AI empires and fix up same-colour similar-name issues. We can, if you hit F1 and then click on your civ name in the top of the box, you can change it there.
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Jan 29, 2018 06:40
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Something I'd really like as a machine empire: the ability to flag a robot template as not using randomised pop colours, and being able to assign a specific colour to that template.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:12
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GotLag posted:Something I'd really like as a machine empire: the ability to flag a robot template as not using randomised pop colours, and being able to assign a specific colour to that template.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:23
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That's why I said robots. Comedy option: allow it for all species types except humans
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Jan 29, 2018 09:28
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God drat it I bought this game less than a week ago and I'm 24 hours in.
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Jan 29, 2018 09:30
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Shugojin posted:I'm playing Inward Perfection and (partly because this medium galaxy only had 4 civs and one fallen empire) this might be my most comically overpowered run ever Glorious nippon steel fleet blows yours out of the sky. Filthy baka xeno gaijin, go home!
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Jan 29, 2018 09:36
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Do livestock slave pops all die off after a certain time or do they linger forever?
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Jan 29, 2018 10:08
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I still have no sense of good ship design. Can I just click autocomplete and autoupdate and just poo poo out cruisers forever and have that work, or does it pay off to create specific designs?
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Jan 29, 2018 10:17
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I'm really glad all my misgivings about the game have melted away. I kinda wish there were more Space empires-ey stuff you could do with ships (like building space shipyards) but my god, the diplomacy stuff is awesome. The politicking around wars as well - liberating planets and creating a new empire that matches my ethics. I like that the game pace feels pretty chill, even when other empires that don't like me are around. in other 4X games, these empires would pretty much be a "start building warships and get ready for war in T-minus 10 turns..." One thing I hope they introduce (or maybe modded in) was something from Space Empires V, which is the ability to add a bunch of different things to a trade deal and then give the deal a name. Like, if you wanted to add Non-Aggression, the other empire has to give you money each turn and they can't make treaties with any other empires, you could name it the "Treaty of Lol you're my bitch now". There's so much I want to try out and play with and I've been playing pretty much non-stop since Friday.
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Jan 29, 2018 10:22
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GotLag posted:Do livestock slave pops all die off after a certain time or do they linger forever? They last forever unless you turn on purging.
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Jan 29, 2018 10:24
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GotLag posted:Do livestock slave pops all die off after a certain time or do they linger forever?
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Jan 29, 2018 10:26
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PiCroft posted:I'm really glad all my misgivings about the game have melted away. I kinda wish there were more Space empires-ey stuff you could do with ships (like building space shipyards) but my god, the diplomacy stuff is awesome. The politicking around wars as well - liberating planets and creating a new empire that matches my ethics. AFAIK that's something you can do with Cherryh? Like, not just make them anywhere, but some of the frontier outposts once upgraded the right way can produce multiple ships at once, if I remember correctly?
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Jan 29, 2018 10:34
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GotLag posted:Do livestock slave pops all die off after a certain time or do they linger forever? They will eventually die off. Of course, my only experience of it is under Devouring Swarm.
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Jan 29, 2018 11:07
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Bloodly posted:They will eventually die off. Of course, my only experience of it is under Devouring Swarm. That's not livestock, which is a kind of slavery. That's processing, which is a kind of purging. "Livestock" doesn't kill em
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Jan 29, 2018 12:41
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will the xenophile FEs get grumpy if you go around exploding planets?
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Jan 29, 2018 12:45
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Seams posted:will the xenophile FEs get grumpy if you go around exploding planets? Presumably not if you explode theirs first.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:34
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Can you use planet crackers peacefully, to blow up uninhabited planets and get at their dense, mineral-rich, gooey centres. The space equivalent of fracking, haha.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:40
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Nightgull posted:Can you use planet crackers peacefully, to blow up uninhabited planets and get at their dense, mineral-rich, gooey centres. The space equivalent of fracking, haha. Our nuclear reactors are for peaceful purposes, we swear!
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Jan 29, 2018 14:42
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Nightgull posted:Can you use planet crackers peacefully, to blow up uninhabited planets and get at their dense, mineral-rich, gooey centres. The space equivalent of fracking, haha.
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Jan 29, 2018 14:45
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Death Stars For Peace
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Jan 29, 2018 14:45
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