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Stellaris |OT| Imperium Universalis

Well I am enjoying the game, but the AI seems to be lacking to put it mildly. The sector AI seems almost non-existent and the enemy AI is lacking as well.

I don't really expect the AI to be able to keep up with a human player, but when it has annihilated my fleet and still has 1.5k fleet strength, a powerful fleet at the time, I expect it to do more than sit in its home system and let me rebuild my new fleet with the right weapons to turn the tables this time. The AI might not of been able to conquer me, but it could of raided my poorly defended systems no problem. Instead it just sat there.
 
The game is definitely very fun, and after a couple of hours, I've finally found my groove and the "one more turn" effect is definitely starting to appear in this game. Firstly although it seems a bit daunting with a lot of buttons, options and text everywhere, its pretty easy to get into and no harder than Civ or other expansion games. So that's a good thing because Crusader Kings II was pretty darn confusing right off the bat. I'm doing a whole of bunch of research, building buildings to increase production, exploring nearby star systems and its all been pretty intuitive. I feel like the real game though is the grand strategy aspects in late game, so there's a long way to go yet, but its interesting they were able to take the 4x part and blend it with the game as seamlessly as they have.

I don't really have any complaints, the only thing is that I'm getting stuttering on the global map when an incident occurs. Also I hope there's a mod with a built in music player or music streamer from internet radio stations. Would be nice to include it within a game so I don't have to pop in and pop out of the game.
 
i'm only like, i don't know, 4 hours in or whatever but one thing I'd like to see more is other stuff AI doing not just expanding/moving borders that affects your nation. Spread of ideas or more generalised trading or information about revolts on other planets or all kinds of weird galactic bullshit. I think that's what I really liked about Civ V brave new world, trying to handle memes and cultural value dissonance and shit from outside worlds, not just my own little networks.

as it is i'm kind of thankful it's not quite complex enough that I see me playing it for weeks and weeks because fuck man I don't have that kind of time right now
 
I was thinking the same... what is max relation score? It just stuck at 150 for a while and I still wasn't having luck. Just kept saying our war philosophy is different.

I've seen over 200 which even took Quill by surprise. That was a combo of basically having exactly the same feelings about everything and an embassy I think.

Twelve hours into my first game still and I’m finally making progress. The alliance above the green/orange declared war on them, so I found this the perfect opportunity to backstab orange. Took all their worlds besides the capital after that I sued for peace. I wanted more, but green had an almost a 5k fleet and I know I couldn’t fight that atm. So I’ll let the other alliance wear them down and I’ll backstab again later.

You filthy bastard, I love it.

What are the advantages to the smaller hull sizes in this game? I'm ending up with almost all battleships and a couple of cruisers just due to battle attrition, is there a reason to replenish corvettes and destroyers?

Is soaking up damage for my battleships just their purpose?

The AI currently attacks small ships first which is why they fall so fast.

Small ships have higher evasion than large, so while being targeted a lot they'll evade more than the cruisers and battleships could.
 
Oh one part I'm finding rather annoying is trying to add a planet to a sector if there are ships there. The ship icon covers the addition icon, so you can't click it. That's why my sectors are all messed up.
You can directly click the planet itself if the ships are covering the icon.

I've seen over 200 which even took Quill by surprise. That was a combo of basically having exactly the same feelings about everything and an embassy I think.
I have over 300 with several Empires, but I think it's because the Unbidden are rampaging.
 
Has this happened to anyone else? During a war I won while I was invading another planet. These assault squads are stuck eating up my resources. I can't disband or do anything?
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Based on what I've played so far, I definitely think there needs to be a diplomacy overhaul. The formation of a galactic united nations type thing (on a Babylon station no doubt) would be beneficial. The ability to raise disputes and just... interact in some way with other parties except on a 1-1 basis would be great to help the world feel more lived in and real. Precursor races could have interesting ways to interact here too. Like the xenophobic isolationists don't even have a seat but the keepers of knowledge might want to interfere in policymaking and such. Perhaps a new kind of falen empire might be all Shadows and try to manipulate wars into breaking out.
 
Based on what I've played so far, I definitely think there needs to be a diplomacy overhaul. The formation of a galactic united nations type thing (on a Babylon station no doubt) would be beneficial. The ability to raise disputes and just... interact in some way with other parties except on a 1-1 basis would be great to help the world feel more lived in and real. Precursor races could have interesting ways to interact here too. Like the xenophobic isolationists don't even have a seat but the keepers of knowledge might want to interfere in policymaking and such. Perhaps a new kind of falen empire might be all Shadows and try to manipulate wars into breaking out.

I definitely think the first DLC is diplo based, it's VERY barebones right now. I'd also like to see one change Fallen Empires a bit more to make it just slightly more likely and realistic that one will just snap after a century or two and decide "fuck it, the Galaxy is mine again".
 
I definitely think the first DLC is diplo based, it's VERY barebones right now. I'd also like to see one change Fallen Empires a bit more to make it just slightly more likely and realistic that one will just snap after a century or two and decide "fuck it, the Galaxy is mine again".

Ya diplomacy and its setup is a weakness here. Tracking for my review I found a couple really odd issues and what actually looked like possible bugs/loss of tracking by the enemy AI.
 
So if I sector an area, can I still send a colony ship over to colonize another planet?

Yes, the only problem is that the interface gets in the way. You have to keep track of which pop you want to send where, where to find it etc, without being able to even see the ships in the overlay.
 
Based on what I've played so far, I definitely think there needs to be a diplomacy overhaul. The formation of a galactic united nations type thing (on a Babylon station no doubt) would be beneficial. The ability to raise disputes and just... interact in some way with other parties except on a 1-1 basis would be great to help the world feel more lived in and real. Precursor races could have interesting ways to interact here too. Like the xenophobic isolationists don't even have a seat but the keepers of knowledge might want to interfere in policymaking and such. Perhaps a new kind of falen empire might be all Shadows and try to manipulate wars into breaking out.
That would be cool, and maybe do things like "Dangerous Research" bans or "No Slavery/Purging" Bans on all members involved. And if you don't do it you're out of the Federation/Pact/Alliance and also take a hit from everyone in that group over it.

Also the ability for separate peace sometimes, cause goddamn I had a Federation war with neighbors I liked that gave me nothing but I did 85% of the fighting.
 
started up a multiplayer game with a friend after we both played a few games through their early stages to get a grasp on mechanics. he's playing a pretty standard industry/trade race, while i'm going full on concept - after donald trump destroyed the earth with a nuclear war, cockroaches thrived. millions of years later, they gained sentience, and developed a religion around the precursor society's leader, donald trump. the newly christened trumproaches crafted their society around trump's teachings and as such are militarist xenophobes. like their god, they stick the word Trump onto everything.

i'm like 99 percent certain somebody has done this already but it's hilarious to play
 
Anyone else deal with dissent problems by taking the unhappy pops, and just throwing them on a planet that isn't unhappy?

I have one Arctic planet directly under my control and I've been throwing unhappy bird people there for years. It's basically Siberia at this point and it's like I'm throwing them in Exile.
 
Anyone else deal with dissent problems by taking the unhappy pops, and just throwing them on a planet that isn't unhappy?

I have one Arctic planet directly under my control and I've been throwing unhappy bird people there for years. It's basically Siberia at this point and it's like I'm throwing them in Exile.

I throw my unhappy fucks on to Tomb Worlds and name them after gulags.

Seems to work.
 
Based on what I've played so far, I definitely think there needs to be a diplomacy overhaul. The formation of a galactic united nations type thing (on a Babylon station no doubt) would be beneficial. The ability to raise disputes and just... interact in some way with other parties except on a 1-1 basis would be great to help the world feel more lived in and real. Precursor races could have interesting ways to interact here too. Like the xenophobic isolationists don't even have a seat but the keepers of knowledge might want to interfere in policymaking and such. Perhaps a new kind of falen empire might be all Shadows and try to manipulate wars into breaking out.

I'd like more robust Diplomacy option but certainly not something set in stone like "There's always a galactic council"
 
Anyone else deal with dissent problems by taking the unhappy pops, and just throwing them on a planet that isn't unhappy?

I have one Arctic planet directly under my control and I've been throwing unhappy bird people there for years. It's basically Siberia at this point and it's like I'm throwing them in Exile.

I just buy a couple happiness edicts.
 
Thinking about it more, I feel like Federations need more overhaul. Beyond the Federation Fleet it really feels like a Federation is just a fancy way to say Allies. I've found other than the fleet benefits there no real reason to go into one and in fact because of how diplomacy is handled, you can more often than not get screwed over. I hope that gets majorly changed in the first run of DLC.

I just buy a couple happiness edicts.
I prefer throwing these asshole xenophobic terrorist birds onto an Ice Ball. I can't back down from this type of aggression.
 
Ack, I'm 13 hours into this in three days. That includes some AFK and alt-tab time, but still. D:

My empire feels like it's really taking off now though. I started off kind of squeezed between several neighbors, ending up with a long, skinny territory. I seemed to hit critical mass and rapidly enveloped one of my neighbors. And they happen to have Sol just within their borders. I'm playing a non-Earth human civ, so I'm thinking I want to get Sol into my realm somehow so I can help out my stellar bros. The question is, can I do it peacefully.

On a sad note, a bunch of my star leaders all bought the hydroponic farm within a few years of each other. I have the technology to traverse the galaxy, but my people still croak in their 70s and 80s. rip. :[
 
Lmao, I just found a bronze age world that has a crystalline entity and three mining drones under its control, all neutral. I don't have an observation post or anything, but I suspect it's a bug.
 
I'm thinking about just opening up on my neighbor who has shared me from the beginning. It says he is inferior to me in fleet strength, perfect time to attack. I also have a mixed fleet composition that should, theoretically, counter whatever he has.

I've never fought in war before, what are the benefits? What are the downsides? Can I easily take some border systems that I can later colonize?
 
HAH the funniest thing happened. I managed to make the local superpower my friend and ally (twice my fleet strength at least, "Superior" in every category with occasionally "overpowering"). +150 attitude etc.

Well, the superpower declared war on another empire and I didn't really care about it so I stayed home with my fleets. About halfway through the war (60+% war points) I wondered why the progress had stopped. It turns out, my ally had parked all of his fleets in orbit of one of my border planets (with space station)!

For a while they just sat there, so I decided to finish the war myself. I moved all of my fleets to attack the enemy... and my ally fleets seemed to follow my admirals fleet everywhere. I attacked a fleet, ally superfleet followed. I started orbital bombardment of a planet, my ally brought transport ships to occupy it.

We won the war. Some time later I started and finished the 2nd war of our alliance and the same pattern repeated. Ally fleets seemed to be auto-following me everywhere. I would have lost this war too, without my allys help. I was stronger than my enemy #1, but the enemy #1 had allies and combined they had barely enough ships so they would have wiped out my fleets if it hadn't been for my allies superfleet following me.

It's awesome, like having a pet :D Gigantic, tyrannosaurus-rex-AI-pet that could wipe out me and everything I own instantly if he decided to. Luckily I have managed to keep good relationship between us..for now..
 
Not that it matters, but I have not unlocked any achievements on Steam with this game. I have certainly colonized planets. Is it because I created a race at the start instead of going with a prefab?

Also, I'm trying to trade to get border access to complete some events as a pacifist race, but the fuckers keep changing the trade terms and my only option is to say ok when they are like "yeah, we'll accept" and I notice they switched out the stuff they seemingly agreed to give me for my stuff to NOTHING.
 
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
 
Not that it matters, but I have not unlocked any achievements on Steam with this game. I have certainly colonized planets. Is it because I created a race at the start instead of going with a prefab?

Achievements can only be earned playing iron man I believe.
 
Anyone else deal with dissent problems by taking the unhappy pops, and just throwing them on a planet that isn't unhappy?

I have one Arctic planet directly under my control and I've been throwing unhappy bird people there for years. It's basically Siberia at this point and it's like I'm throwing them in Exile.

Can you do this with conquered planets? One major issue that I'm facing that if I take over enemy planets, they are filled with unhappy pops that are not my race. I'd rather try to see if I can't spread these pops around my other sectors (does it work with sectors or only with directly controlled planets?) to bring down revolt risk.
 
Can you do this with conquered planets? One major issue that I'm facing that if I take over enemy planets, they are filled with unhappy pops that are not my race. I'd rather try to see if I can't spread these pops around my other sectors (does it work with sectors or only with directly controlled planets?) to bring down revolt risk.

You can only resettle planets you directly control.
 
AI trading is so broken. I wanted some minerals so asked around, species with 100+ reputation and it was completely off the table. They wouldn't give me 1 mineral for 850 energy credits....insanity. I don't think there'd be a human player out there who'd knock that back.
 
I haven't really gotten more than 40 or 50 years into any single game at this point, but the AI seems to be... bad. Actual enemy AI is okay... ish, though with some pretty glaring faults. Survived my first war against some Fanatical Purgers because they a) decided to send their fleet to my only planet other than my homeworld after they smashed my fleet, at which point they posted up and proceeded to do nothing much for months on end. They eventually lost because they rivaled and got DoW'd by another, even nastier bunch, who proceed to wipe them out entirely while I was still rebuilding my fleet. So while it's okay expanding itself, the strategic portion still needs a TON of work.

Even more egregious was my first enlightened species. I brought them up from the early space age, at which point they spent around 15 or so years just... sitting there. Building their fleet. And that was it. No exploring, no building up their infrastructure, just pumping out Corvettes.

And of course there's the sector AI, which makes such bad choices I'm not even sure it's technically there? I had a planet I colonized before forming the sector, which sadly only had the one natural resource tile, and the AI filled it with literally nothing but farms.

The sector system as a whole is a pretty finicky with what it will and will not let you do. Like, I built an observation post, then handed the system to a sector, but when I came back around to switch it into enlighten mode, it refused. Plus, you can't freely alter the structure of a sector when you're first defining it, which is really obnoxious.

AI trading is so broken. I wanted some minerals so asked around, species with 100+ reputation and it was completely off the table. They wouldn't give me 1 mineral for 850 energy credits....insanity. I don't think there'd be a human player out there who'd knock that back.

That particular deal, yeah, but if the AI is doing something really minerals-intensive, like large-scale fleet or infrastructure building, it won't trade minerals. Which makes sense.
 
I... Have the option to research jump drives AND sentient AI at the same time. It sounds so good......... I'm already dead, aren't I?

There is no option to do so. They are for all intents and purposes invisible and I am unable to control them.

Well. That sucks.
 
AI trading is so broken. I wanted some minerals so asked around, species with 100+ reputation and it was completely off the table. They wouldn't give me 1 mineral for 850 energy credits....insanity. I don't think there'd be a human player out there who'd knock that back.

It's probably because they're really slow on minerals; so the arbitrary -1000 number of whatever it is just means "no deals at all for minerals, sorry". I realise it seems silly that for 1 mineral they won't trade 850 energy credits; but I just think it needs some tweaks to the UI. One way of doing it would be to grey out the minerals option; and have a tooltip that says "We are unwilling to entertain trading for minerals at this time, foolish mushrooms!!" or something like that so that you can't even drag that into the trade window.
 
It's probably because they're really slow on minerals; so the arbitrary -1000 number of whatever it is just means "no deals at all for minerals, sorry". I realise it seems silly that for 1 mineral they won't trade 850 energy credits; but I just think it needs some tweaks to the UI. One way of doing it would be to grey out the minerals option; and have a tooltip that says "We are unwilling to entertain trading for minerals at this time, foolish mushrooms!!" or something like that so that you can't even drag that into the trade window.

I think they really need to pull back the curtain on some of the math. I know exactly why I'm being refused in CK2, a tooltip as long as my arm with the various positive and negative modifiers that make up their decision. But this.....I don't feel like I have enough information. Tool tips need massive overhaul.
 
AI trading is so broken. I wanted some minerals so asked around, species with 100+ reputation and it was completely off the table. They wouldn't give me 1 mineral for 850 energy credits....insanity. I don't think there'd be a human player out there who'd knock that back.

Hover over the -1000, it'll say something like "They dont want to trade that much of resource X" not the most intuitive place for it, but its there.
 
I think they really need to pull back the curtain on some of the math. I know exactly why I'm being refused in CK2, a tooltip as long as my arm with the various positive and negative modifiers that make up their decision. But this.....I don't feel like I have enough information. Tool tips need massive overhaul.

I do disagree slightly, but that's a personal thing. I don't want a massively long list of numbers explaining why they won't trade an item; I'm happy just being told that they won't trade for something because they're currently low on that resource; rather than it showing -1000 or something which can appear buggy/glitchy.

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!
 
Christ I'm after putting 4 hours straight into it after impulse buying.

Very very slowly expanding my network of planets. 3 colonies so far and some frontier outposts.

Encountered some bird race who have been super aggressive so far but haven't gone near me thankfully. I'm staying on the defensive near their border though just in case.

Was also thinking about my military a while ago. I have one fleet of 27 ships but thinking about it, I think that fleet can only engage one fleet at a time, regardless of the opposition fleet size. So I should probably split it up if I get engaged my multiple fleets maybe? I have no hard proof that this is the case, just speculation.
 
Hover over the -1000, it'll say something like "They dont want to trade that much of resource X" not the most intuitive place for it, but its there.

Yeah, the numbers always give a reason. The -1000's are based on their needs and personalities, and mean there's no changing their mind until the conditions are met.
 
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.
 
Christ I'm after putting 4 hours straight into it after impulse buying.

Very very slowly expanding my network of planets. 3 colonies so far and some frontier outposts.

Encountered some bird race who have been super aggressive so far but haven't gone near me thankfully. I'm staying on the defensive near their border though just in case.

Was also thinking about my military a while ago. I have one fleet of 27 ships but thinking about it, I think that fleet can only engage one fleet at a time, regardless of the opposition fleet size. So I should probably split it up if I get engaged my multiple fleets maybe? I have no hard proof that this is the case, just speculation.

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.

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.

About the same experience. Spent the first quarter of my current game relying on other civs to keep the lights on. I think they refuse to trade more monthly because they refuse to go into negative income. I shop around with multiple civs to get a decent amount of monthly.
 
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