Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[Zboj Lamignat]

Looking forward to the -1000% nerfs :excited:

 

[Preben]

That reported performance drop is worrying. I was seriously hoping that performance would improve once the AI no longer has to manage all those tiles.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Why is it CK2 currently runs the best of any Paradox game when its arguably running the most complex simulation?

Good question.

CKII started to get serious feature creep since Rajas of India, but the devs were smart enough to optimize it. That said, the game started to get more and more bloated and badly-running with Sons of Abraham, Way of Life and Horse Lords. Game was borderline unplayable before Reaper's Due. Since then, every patch is faster than the previous one. I'm legit hoping that they don't stop making CKII DLC, just because I need more performance enhancements to it.

Stellaris starts running like ass after the first century.

 

[Grotesque]

thta surface art looks dope

 

[Sranchammer]

Bros, today's the day we wait another 3 months!

 

[Jimmious]

It is out

 

[Space Satan]

This DLC may be bugged but it has the best and mosty magnificent music most fitting for space sprawling empire so far

 

[miles teg]

I bought the game 2 weeks ago, it took me some time to get used to most of the mechanics, and now they totally change the planet management. Back to square 1 I suppose :S

How often does this happen? It looks like a total overhaul! I have some mixed feeling with production chains: It feels like Anno (which is not a bad thing per se) but I fear that micromanagement might take a lot of time now. I suppose this is what we are supposed to do mid-game when exploration is almost done and we need to consolidate our eimpire: with tiles, there wasn't much to do, while now we can micromanage how many minerals we want to convert into alloys vs goods.

I do have one question though: it seems that if a pop of a non-worker class loses her job, he/she becomes unemployed and it takes years to get "demoted" to worker state. But this means there is no easy way to boost worker jobs quickly in case of need. You need either to wait for demotion or for new pops to be created. I guess this was done to promote careful planning of the colony? Or am I missing something here?

Last thing: this system is much more complex than before, I have no idea how people think the AI can be better at this than arranging pops on tiles...

 

[Space Satan]

You can't shuffle pops from elite rulers to manure farmers and back often

 

[Preben]

Dunno why, but I bought that DLC and cant wait to play it. I feel like an abused spouse who just keeps returning.

 

[ZeniBot]

Not feeling the criminal syndicate mechanics. The AI seems too jumpy and shuts down my branch offices too quickly. I don't advise it. I thought it'd be fun because you don't have to ask to place down a corporate office but they can just hit a button and destroy all your hard work.

EDIT: yeah overall the DLC is a bit shit. the 2.2 Update is really good however but remember you don't have to pay for that. I like the eco changes. Shame they had to get rid of so many graphics to cater for the changes. But I do really like these changes, feels less gamey and more grand strategy.

 

[Space Satan]

okay I am trying it and it is almost impossible to reach max population. You can ramp it to absurd levels, plus pops start migrating from overpopulated planets

 

[ZeniBot]

yeah I'm pushing it as hard as I can, I'm assuming they want you to unlock techs to get more population growth boosts.
If you want you can just restrict migration if they're emigrating. I am enjoying my Scientology run but I found the actual unique stuff of Megacorps has very little impact on the flavor of the game, its basically a unique faction that gives mega-corps special relations. Other than that there's not much here.

 

[Average Manatee]

As far as I can tell there's no real reason to aim for super high pop on a planet. The only multipliers from buildings you get to production are the single +15% building. Meaning all of your planets should mine only 1 base resource + use that building (since it's otherwise awful to be building 2 or 3 of them for the different base resources). Since pop still gets base growth from planets (i.e. 1 planet has 3 base growth while 2 have 6), and the research penalty is basically linear with pops, there's no reason not to get as many colonies as possible. Additionally habitability only affects the pop upkeep costs (e.g. food) now, so you can basically ignore habitability since Farmers produce base 6 food. There's no habitability penalty to growth or happiness/stability that I can see, my pops produce 8.2 food apiece as soon as they land on 0% habitability land. So that's kind of broken. Game is all about maximizing your total pop growth, way more than before. The only slightly speed bump is that you suffer -50% growth before upgrading to planetary administration at 10 pops, but that's additive with +10% (Rapid breeders) + 20% (Fan Xenophobe) + 10% (genome Mapping) +10% (Nutritional plentitude) +10% (A new Life) +25% (Encourage growth policy).

The automation options are basically broken IMO. You can't manage sectors well at all, you have to delegate resources to the autocreated sectors individually, which is awful. Sectors are way too small and you'll never figure out what is what. Sectors can't be set to focus on a specific base tile (what you need), only focus on base resources OR research OR high-tier resources, which is unfortunately the opposite of what you need since there's no real reason not to mix energy with alloys for example. Because of this the game effectively becomes unplayable past around 20-25 planets as far as I'm concerned. Any you STILL can't automate fucking constructors, even as you need to send them back across your territory to mine new high-tier resources.

Also is it just me or is the game even slower in terms of ship movement speed? It takes 2-3 months for Corvettes to warp through a system. Really frustrating, especially when Pirates randomly spawn in your systems (despite the fact that I have all the gaps filled in this still happens, think it might be bugged).

As for race design, funny enough Police State looks to be one of the best economic bonuses since +5 stability = +3% to all resource production.

 

[Space Satan]

Colonies develop SLOW. I mean it takes huge time for it to reach planet level.

 

[Preben]

Played this for a couple of hours.

- The new economic system is overally a huge incline. With those stupid tiles gone, it sometimes actually feels like managing an actual economy. It's better, but still not good yet - it's badly optimized and needs lots of balancing. They are definitely going in the right direction, too bad it's more than two years since the game was released in its initial (atrocious) state.
- The game is a lot faster than before at the start, and grinds to a halt after around 2300. Fuck you Paradox for not only not solving an issue reported since day 1 but somehow making it worse!
- Caravaneers are nice, but they started to travel in a loop. meaning I am spammed by their "offer" (singular intended, they offer the same shit each time) every two months or so. If there's a way to shoot them down, I would appreciate help.
- AI is absolutely atrocious at managing its domains. It's barely 2340s and everyone except the Fallen Empires if "Pathetic" compared to me. AI's planets are overcrowded, crime-ridden and have huge unemployment. Other empires are nowhere near the production capacity of my own empire. And this is my first run, for fuck's sake. I barely managed to scratch the surface of new features!
- There are LOTS of changes in many places, you basically need to learn the game almost anew.
- Nobody, literally nobody uses the "Galactic" market besides me. That's some serious programming skillz right there, Paradox!
- The most annoying thing is that now minority POPs are prioritized to grow. Let one migrant in, and soon his kith and kin will constitute half of your empire's population. Even if that's a sedetary slow-breeder! Of course you can (unless you are a fanatic xenophile I believe) set up the priority species, but you get a hefty -20% growth penalty in return. Oh, and this also makes the Xenophile faction hate you. Insane!

Some tips:
- Expanding too fast at the start can fuck you over, because of pirates, huge upkeeps and low population density. Don't rush in order to procure rare resources - the game now allows you to later manufacture them from basic resources.
- Don't make buildings unless you actually have to. Buildings provide better jobs, meaning that your proles will choose new career paths, leaving you with no workforce to produce basic resources.
- Having crime syndicate branches on your planets is actually beneficial if you keep the crime down with enforcers and telepaths.
- As Space Satan said, the colonies grow really slow.

Also, I haven't yet figured out the new migration treaty mechanics. It seems that migration treaty allows you to:
1) colonize planets with POPs from other species (even if they don't live on any of your planets)
2) let foreign POPs grow anew on your planets,
3) get a modest bonus in POP growth, regardless of specie of the POP that is curretly growind.
However, so far I haven't received a "free" POP moving from another empire. Was that feature axed, or is it just my bad luck? I need those POPs for digging in the ground, since my native POPs all went to do better jobs.


EDIT: almost forgot. Whoever defined that self-expanding menu on the left deserves to be purged.

 

[Average Manatee]

Some tips:
- Expanding too fast at the start can fuck you over, because of pirates, huge upkeeps and low population density. Don't rush in order to procure rare resources - the game now allows you to later manufacture them from basic resources.

This isn't really true. If you colonize 3 worlds and build a mining improvement, farming improvement, and energy improvement, those starting 3 or 6 pops will easily produce enough to support them and turn a profit even at 0% habitability. The issue is that the starting jobs for a colony are managerial jobs that don't actually produce anything, you need to disable those immediately.

Rare resources are kind of useless for most of the game though IMO. The buildings that use them concentrate jobs, but the jobs aren't actually more efficient. The only point at which centralizing makes sense is once you unlock the buildings that give +15% alloys or +15% research bonuses, and those both come way, way later in the tech tree and require 40 pop planets. The only building requiring rare resources that is actually a priority is the lab that boosts pop growth, 5 jobs there gives +25%.

- Don't make buildings unless you actually have to. Buildings provide better jobs, meaning that your proles will choose new career paths, leaving you with no workforce to produce basic resources.

Yeah, this is a big one. Buildings and districts not being worked cost energy too. You want every job worked before building more. Except Clerks, clerks are kind of the shit job that is just there as a buffer against unemployment.

 

[IDtenT]

I find resource balancing to be much better than I've seen it before. Struggling to keep everything green and nothing sees insane growth.

Don't upgrade buildings unless you can afford it!

 

[Preben]

This isn't really true. If you colonize 3 worlds and build a mining improvement, farming improvement, and energy improvement, those starting 3 or 6 pops will easily produce enough to support them and turn a profit even at 0% habitability. The issue is that the starting jobs for a colony are managerial jobs that don't actually produce anything, you need to disable those immediately.

That's my experience, though I admit I seriously f'd up my start by expanding like crazy while having only shambles of an economy.

Best of all, it turned out I started sandwiched between imperialists and fanatic purifiers, with other borders blocked by marauders and a xenofobe FE. Had the AI had any brains, it would roflstomped me while I was struggling to keep everything in green.

Rare resources are kind of useless for most of the game though IMO. The buildings that use them concentrate jobs, but the jobs aren't actually more efficient. The only point at which centralizing makes sense is once you unlock the buildings that give +15% alloys or +15% research bonuses, and those both come way, way later in the tech tree and require 40 pop planets. The only building requiring rare resources that is actually a priority is the lab that boosts pop growth, 5 jobs there gives +25%.

They are pretty useless at the start, becoming more important later.

Yeah, this is a big one. Buildings and districts not being worked cost energy too. You want every job worked before building more. Except Clerks, clerks are kind of the shit job that is just there as a buffer against unemployment.

Clerks can produce insane amounts of energy AND amenities, basically freeing you from the burden of building structures that also provide amenities.

-----

Also, sign commercial agreements with everyone you can in mid-to-late game. There aren't many useful influence sinks left by that point and the agreements provide a hefty energy bonus.

 

[Average Manatee]

This isn't really true. If you colonize 3 worlds and build a mining improvement, farming improvement, and energy improvement, those starting 3 or 6 pops will easily produce enough to support them and turn a profit even at 0% habitability. The issue is that the starting jobs for a colony are managerial jobs that don't actually produce anything, you need to disable those immediately.

That's my experience, though I admit I seriously f'd up my start by expanding like crazy while having only shambles of an economy.

I mean, it's objectively true that colonies pay for themselves as soon as you force pops to work actual jobs. I've had 8 or so newly formed colonies growing at once with only my capital highly populated.

Yeah, this is a big one. Buildings and districts not being worked cost energy too. You want every job worked before building more. Except Clerks, clerks are kind of the shit job that is just there as a buffer against unemployment.

Clerks can produce insane amounts of energy AND amenities, basically freeing you from the burden of building structures that also provide amenities..

Clerks are just worse than dedicated jobs to produce energy and amenities. 1 amenities and 2 trade value for 1 job is not good. A job that produced 2 amenities would be awful (e.g. gene clinics produce 4 amenities per worker and +5% pop growth, while entertainers produce 7). A job that produced 2 trade value (= 4 energy) would also be pretty awful since you can lose that to piracy and direct energy producers get way more buffs. By the mid/late game technicians should be producing 7 or 8 energy apiece. If you disable all your clerks and then re-tool your planets to work without them you'll be much more efficient.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Got it, played a bit recently.

1. I'm liking a lot the new economic system. I do find it a bit too alloy-dependant, everything really important (spaceships, outposts, space stations) seems to be gated behind alloys now. But the economy is massive incline to what existed before.

2. Game still runs like ass, or runs even worse, because I don't remember how well it ran before. Granted, my computer is a bit of a potato, but I see dudes with super-computers complaining about late-game slowdown. Mods only do so much. They really need to take a look at what the CKII team is doing and do it like them - every patch should run faster than the previous one. CKII has never been more complex, yet it has never been faster.

3. The Game is kinda bugged so far. So far, I think I got the First League Homeworld pop-up twice (when it is finally explored) and got the bonuses twice, too, and there was something that once went weird with the trade window. Lots of complaints about typos and things working weirdly in places they should't.

4. The AI is fucking broken. Glavius is trying to fix it, but...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/a4kkyk/can_we_give_shoutouts_to_glavius_for_fixing_the/

5. The price for upgrading ships is atrocious, you could build a brand-new fleet with all these alloys.

6. Diplomacy is even more bare-bones than in the older versions, because you can't make research treaties anymore. On the other hand, you now can trade more things. Diplomacy needs a overhaul pronto.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Honestly, right now the main worth of playing Stellaris is to pick up and learn how the game works now, so you can properly play after they release a decent patch (before Christmas or next year, I guess. January is more probable). I think I'm gonna restart and try the AI Patch when I get the time.

Its a pretty big overhaul to the game system, possibly as big as Apocalypse and 2.0. I don't think Apocalypse was this much of a buggy mess, tho.

I hope they can fix the AI and patch these bugs out, then it will be pretty great.

Then they will be able to overhaul parts of the game that really a overhauling - namely, Diplomacy.

 

[Turjan]

Any opinions on which DLC's are actually worth it? I have the base game and Utopia at the moment.

 

[Space Satan]

Welp
Last 30 Days peak players 50,061

 

[Jimmious]

Almost all changes of this patch are really cool and make the economy a much more "involved" part of the game....
However the AI is braindead and until they (or more probably Glavius as The Brazilian Slaughter wrote) fix it, it's very awkward to play the game