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Stellaris |OT| Imperium Universalis

I had a lot of success trading minerals for energy credits. But I have noticed that even if they are willing to trade hundreds or thousands immediately, most civilizations refuse to trade more than a handful monthly.

I'd imagine that's a limit of the AI, to prevent them from making bad strategic decisions that strangle their expansion plans or war efforts down the road.


On another note, and I haven't confirmed this or anything, but I think when they refuse large sums of energy for no reason it means they're capped out on the stuff. It can happen easily enough, especially for smaller empires.
 
You'll want to keep them together to bust their biggest fleet, once that's done you should shard off a bit to tear apart smaller fleets while you either bring in ground troops or glass the planet.

Ah I see! That makes sense! It makes me feel safer having one giant fleet too! :P


I had a lot of success trading minerals for energy credits. But I have noticed that even if they are willing to trade hundreds or thousands immediately, most civilizations refuse to trade more than a handful monthly.

I find that to definintely be the case in games like Civ too!
 
Pinning down enemies fleets feels like Cylon vs. Galactica sometimes. It's like I finally have you oh look emergency FTL. Oh and you don't need to use your normal travel method at the edge of the system, huh?

Also had the unbidden show up. Naturally it's on the other side of the Galaxy and no one will let me through their space to deal with the issue and I don't particularly want to declare war against like three Federations to get there.
 
Forgot to mention, I like how the AI has different personalities. Once they fix up the military problems everyone's mentioning (I haven't seen it for myself, but I believe it) and tighten it up a bit, I think it'll be really fun overall.

Like, in my own game, some of the more oppressive empires gobbled up more pacifistic or downright weak empires, while others banded together. There's currently a giant war on the other side of my game's galaxy against a giant theistic empire and a handful of federations. Meanwhile on my side of the galaxy, I'm sandwiched by federations and two warlike empires, with a pacifistic empire on my flank--which can only mean war is coming. It just leads to really "sci fi" galaxy compositions that I love.

Once the AI is operating properly, then revolts will presumably work well, which will lead to more interesting, Crusader Kings 2-esque uprisings that split giant, oppressive empires in half for decades at a time, perhaps forever, and improve the overall flow of the game, for both peaceful and warlike factions.
 
But then again, I can't get into CK2 or EUIV; they're overwhelming. But I'm new to strategy so I'm happy to some degree that Stellaris seems more simple and doesn't lay lots of icons and tooltips on you. I might change my mind as I become more familiar with the game!
If thought the same thing. Way too overwhelming. Then one day I decided to watch a CK2 tutorial on YouTube and all of a sudden it clicked and I realised the beauty of the "map simulator". The small details allow the game to tell a far richer story than it would without them.
 
Having a few vassals around makes wars pretty easy. They'll bring in good sized fleets and troops and clean up for you after the big engagements.

I managed to integrate a very large vassal that left me a 35k doomstack that actually came in very handy against another opponent, due to how it was fitted. Now upgrading it and... it's going to take 12 years. Lots of jobs to be had at that spaceport.
 
Once the AI is operating properly, then revolts will presumably work well, which will lead to more interesting, Crusader Kings 2-esque uprisings that split giant, oppressive empires in half for decades at a time, perhaps forever, and improve the overall flow of the game, for both peaceful and warlike factions.

Speaking of this, in my first game I actually had a (custom-made) Zerg Empire that was fanatic collectvist/millaristic split in 3, one of which was the individualistic Zerg League.
 
I managed to integrate a very large vassal that left me a 35k doomstack that actually came in very handy against another opponent, due to how it was fitted. Now upgrading it and... it's going to take 12 years. Lots of jobs to be had at that spaceport.

I broke my 100k power fleet up into like 4 squadrons specifically to shorten upgrade times.
 
Speaking of this, in my first game I actually had a (custom-made) Zerg Empire that was fanatic collectvist/millaristic split in 3, one of which was individualistic.

Oh, cool. I just figured that couldn't happen due to the military logistics issues. The giant theistic empire I mentioned is comprised of like 6 different species, so I figured it couldn't split due to that.

Then again.... Fanatic Spiritualist give a happiness boost, which now makes me realise how deadly they are for this purpose. Hrm.
 
I don't understand the logic of having to grant migration access to get military access. Bruh I want to go fuck up some guy on the other side of you not take in your poors.
 
I don't understand the logic of having to grant migration access to get military access. Bruh I want to go fuck up some guy on the other side of you not take in your poors.

Refugees? Helps to take in other species that can colonize stuff yours can't initially. Easier to do than terraforming.

Got my first rare + dangerous tech, psi warp drives aka 40k navigators. Not touching that. Already got 'humiliated' by a fallen empire for pursuing AI.
 
After playing some more I have some gripes with the game.

Trading for minerals seems to be impossible overall trading resources is iffy even with empires you have great relations with.

Federations are just stupid, I'm locked in into a War that is on 100% Warscore for years because the Originator doesn't want to sue for peace but also doesn't take the planets that are in the wargoal. Why can't I as the leader of the Federation sue for peace it doesn't make sense......

And everytime there is a War my Allies just send their stacks to follow my biggest Fleet, it's a bit uninteresting that they do nearly nothing on their own. And if I assemble a bigger Fleet they leave my current one.....

Still enjoying the game but I feel there need to be serious AI tweaks and fixes and way better diplomacy.
 
is there anything like a replay or post-game graphs of research & income & population or something?

i want to see how i was making progress relative to my opponents so that i know what to do differently next time and what difficulty level to pick
 
After playing some more I have some gripes with the game.

Trading for minerals seems to be impossible overall trading resources is iffy even with empires you have great relations with.

Federations are just stupid, I'm locked in into a War that is on 100% Warscore for years because the Originator doesn't want to sue for peace but also doesn't take the planets that are in the wargoal. Why can't I as the leader of the Federation sue for peace it doesn't make sense......

And everytime there is a War my Allies just send their stacks to follow my biggest Fleet, it's a bit uninteresting that they do nearly nothing on their own. And if I assemble a bigger Fleet they leave my current one.....

Still enjoying the game but I feel there need to be serious AI tweaks and fixes and way better diplomacy.

This been annoying me too, it makes me feel like i am fighting the war by myself on only 1 or 2 fronts.

Edit: but other than that I have been having a blast.
 
is there anything like a replay or post-game graphs of research & income & population or something?

i want to see how i was making progress relative to my opponents so that i know what to do differently next time and what difficulty level to pick

If there isn't, I hope they patch it in. And a Civ4-style growth chart, to show how the galaxy evolved. It's such a small, but awesome touch.
 
So I'm on my 4th start (yeah I tend to restart a lot) and it feels like I've already encountered at least 90% of the early to mid game events. And I'm already kinda fucked because I have a vastly superior fallen empire to the south and a "benevolent" fellow xenophile to the north who would like to include my territories in his empire.

I also noticed that while I'm fanatically xenophile and spiritualistic I didn't not get any tech seemingly aligned with my ethics. I almost only get weapons stuff :(
 
So I'm on my 4th start (yeah I tend to restart a lot) and it feels like I've already encountered at least 90% of the early to mid game events. And I'm already kinda fucked because I have a vastly superior fallen empire to the south and a "benevolent" fellow xenophile to the north who would like to include my territories in his empire.

I also noticed that while I'm fanatically xenophile and spiritualistic I didn't not get any tech seemingly aligned with my ethics. I almost only get weapons stuff :(

From my small experience with fallen empires, they tend to stay in their own corners and won't expand so there's that. You have nothing to fear from them as long as you don't go near hostile ones. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I got.
 
From my small experience with fallen empires, they tend to stay in their own corners and won't expand so there's that. You have nothing to fear from them as long as you don't go near hostile ones. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I got.

Fallen Empires do not expand or interact with the galaxy at all, save to punish those that trangress their beliefs. The diplo area should explain what activates that specific Fallen Empire. Obviously, do not trangress or you will suffer the consequences--their punishment is swift and unwavering.
 
The problem is these damn mollusks are better at everything and hate my guts for being xenophile, yet they completely limit my sphere of influence. I can't really expand, thus I can't really catch up with them. It's a vicious cycle :D
 
I didn't realize you could only get 75% of what your sectors produce. That plus the fact the IA sucks at managing planets make Direct Democracy very good and its upgrade (subconscious consensus) even better. I switched from Megacorp to it and I gained +50EC just by getting back some cool planets and microing them better than the AI (despite losing the 10% bonus of megacorp). And the mandate thing is cool for influence too. I think I won't pick Plutocracy as my starting gov anymore.
 
Vassals can drag you into fallen empire wars apparently. Not sure how, considering you take over their political ability. Border friction? tech? Oh well. Handled it.

edit: the debris is like tech candy. almost worth it, even if you lose.
 
Is there way to view all anomalies that You researched?
I had a ancient mining factory on one of the planets, but i cant localize it now ;/

Also this game just steals Your time, I played till 1am yesterday, which is like 2h later than i normally go to sleep ;p

Anyone? :>
 
Are there more Victory conditions than the first two available? Seems pretty limiting, especially when there seems to be a possible way to win peacefully.
 
I finally have a good game going as the Roman Empire who have conquered the earth and ascended into space. I'm not sure what I've done, but I get an absolutely crazy amount of resources. It's kinda nice.

The empires to my direct north and south hate me though, time to bring them into some good ol' fashioned Roman rule.
 
Saw this twitter exchange, might see a post next week detailing some stuff for the first content update.

Cqa3Jtq.png

Basically for those unfamiliar with Paradox's approach with their games when it comes to patches they have hotfix patches and content patches. Content patches are free, sometimes they come out at the same time an expansion DLC comes out, sometimes not. Hotfix patches are typically about bugs fixes only, while content patches are usually balance changes (i.e AI improvements), revamped systems, extensions to systems, UI changes, new small features like mapmodes, etc.

For example, the first content patch for Europa Universalis: IV roughly a month after release to give an idea: http://www.eu4wiki.com/Patch_1.2

Whole patch history for EU:IV to give an idea of what their process is like over time: http://www.eu4wiki.com/Patches

One thing I'd like to see regarding UI for example is when upgrading fleets that I get a drop-down list for what design to choose for the upgrade. Say you have two class designs for the same ships with different names, when I click upgrade I want to choose the design. Right now when you click upgrade, it uses directly the name of the design so you have to overwrite the name in the ship designer if you make upgrades to the class.

To be clearer: Say I have destroyer class design "A", I build a fleet of "A". Then I make a new design which is similar to "A" with some upgrades called "B", and I make some fleets of "B". Now later I want to upgrade "A" fleet, but right now I can't make it use "B" class design, it can only use "A" class design. Right now I would have to have modified "A" directly and saved it with the same name. A drop-down list when I click upgrade to choose from would be a good quality of life addition for the UI.
 
aren't they just flavor text?

they have some backstory on a lot of the anomolies, but at the end of the day they just seem like a rock that gives +3 to something when you put a mining station on it

No, in some You discover some structures on the planets on the tiles.
This was one like that.
 
Just linked Rikard Aslund (the Stellaris project lead) to my Paradoxplaza thread about the colour blindness stuff I mentioned earlier in the thread. He said he'll be looking into it next week. Victory for the visually impaired! :D
 
Some very valuable systems are being held by mining drones and Void Clouds... I kind of want to drive them off, but I'm worried it'll annoy their big brothers out in the void somewhere!
 
Some very valuable systems are being held by mining drones and Void Clouds... I kind of want to drive them off, but I'm worried it'll annoy their big brothers out in the void somewhere!
Pretty sure they are equivalent to civs barbarians, I've cleared several systems and haven't seen any negative consequences - also you can get some tech and research bonuses from clearing the systems they inhabit.
 
Thinking about starting a new game. Winning the one I am in now would take ages.
Maybe I play it a bit more and decide it later today.
 
Anyone? :>
I don't believe there is any way to see a history of that (unlike you can with research for example). I'd recommend you make a quick thread suggestion on their subforum though, I'd like to see that too.

aren't they just flavor text?

they have some backstory on a lot of the anomalies, but at the end of the day they just seem like a rock that gives +3 to something when you put a mining station on it

Some anomalies yes, but anomalies can lead to things like event chains which can uncover rare technologies/research, etc. Also I believe even there is potential for researching anomalies to lead to disputes like certain empire/species who may have an interest in the anomaly and see it as a symbol for something and that you are violating it etc.
 
The problem is these damn mollusks are better at everything and hate my guts for being xenophile, yet they completely limit my sphere of influence. I can't really expand, thus I can't really catch up with them. It's a vicious cycle :D
Mollusks > all
Submit or perish.
 
Hmmh so now that I'm clearly the largest (non-fallen) empire on the map what is there to do but to slowly grind through everyone? Go bother some Fallen Empire for fun?
 
Uplifting pre-sentient race is the shit. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing your empire diversified with loyal subject, skipping through the hassle of separatists and such.
I hope there will be mods that'll increase their number.
 
I don't believe there is any way to see a history of that (unlike you can with research for example). I'd recommend you make a quick thread suggestion on their subforum though, I'd like to see that too.
Good idea, i'll maybe write on their forum.

From now on though, its time to start using pen and paper :)
 
I'm preparing for my first war now, since I'm boxed in by a bunch of hegemonic dicks, an advanced start trading empire and some fallen xenophobic isolationists.

I'm not sure if I should just fight my hegemonic rivals directly, or wait until their latest colony grows a bit and impinges on the border of the fallen.
I have a military advantage and no diplomatic problems (my enemies have no friends), so I know that I should just attack now.
Still, I really want to just sit back and break out the popcorn if/when the fallen decide to humiliate them.
I'm also playing a Culture-style civ (I am so original!), so I think that allowing my enemies to kill themselves via overexpansion is what my civ should do.

BTW, should I just be colonising everything I can? Other than the short-term set-up expense is there a long-term downside to having a load of low habitability planets?
I was going to just constantly expand and give the shitty desert colonies to sector governors.
 
BTW, should I just be colonising everything I can? Other than the short-term set-up expense is there a long-term downside to having a load of low habitability planets?
I was going to just constantly expand and give the shitty desert colonies to sector governors.
None besides you must giving some of them to the just working sector governor AI. Unless you forcibly colonize an arid planet with your tropical dwelling turtle-man and other things that can cause significant unhappiness.
 
BTW, should I just be colonising everything I can? Other than the short-term set-up expense is there a long-term downside to having a load of low habitability planets?
I was going to just constantly expand and give the shitty desert colonies to sector governors.

technologies cost more to research the higher your population is, but since having more real estate probably leads to more research it most likely balances itself out.
 
The buildings that increase happiness like the Paradise Dome and the Zoo don't seem to be working at all.. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Edit: Also just found out that i can still use the spaceports that are in my sectors..... I had no idea....... i might actually have too much spaceports now.
They could really make some things a bit more clear.
 
roll up with fitted armour and point defence... and they have lasers. is there a way to figure out what the enemy has fitted without actually seeing them in action first? if not, I hope they add some kind of spy mechanic.
 
i basically think i have to restart. a neighboring group keeps declaring war. i reload a save before they do and start amassing an army. but every time, when they enter my space, they are obnoxiously overpowered compared to me, and just shread me into pieces
 
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