Stellaris (Crusader Kings in Space)

VinLieger

Gonzovision wrote: »

Just got my key there, pre-ordered directly on the Paradox Site. Doesn't really make a difference, as there is no pre-load anyway.

I'd imagine it'll be a pretty small download.

Only 4gb apparently so yeah no preload necessary unless your on an awful connection

VinLieger

Reviews starting to pop up https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/4ijfh9/review_megathread/

IGN are the outlier with 6.3 but too be honest does anyone trust them anymore? Especially when it comes to non-mainstream PC games they are predominantly a mix of being completely clueless and bias towards consoles + shooters

ShooterSF

Wait. Its not out till tonight?? Nooooo I have a party to go to. Wont get to play till tomorrow and I'll probably be too hungover for grand strategy

Gonzovision

ShooterSF wrote: »

Wait. Its not out till tonight?? Nooooo I have a party to go to. Wont get to play till tomorrow and I'll probably be too hungover for grand strategy

It's out now.

mahoganygas

Enjoy boys and girls.

Let us know your initial thoughts!

The_Valeyard

Downloading now.


All shall fall beneath the might of the honey badger empire!!

Zillah

It's odd how reminiscent of Crusader Kings II this manages to be. Obviously not in many ways, but little things, like the GUI for money/expenses.

VinLieger

Mt space foxes empire is starting slow but its just a tester to learn the ropes, so far really enjoying it but i really need to work on my early game strat as im pretty sure im moving very slow compared to what ive seen on streams. Ive got my first colony in view but the research for the colony ship is taking forever.

So far a thumbsup though

The_Valeyard

Interesting so far. I have very mixed views on Sectors.

But story line is already interesting. My Arthropoid Xenomorphs are expanding rapidly. But my homeworld is facing mass extinction and need to find a replacement with exact needs!!!

Gonzovision

I'm finding it tricky to expand my borders. I've built 2 extra colonies and 2 frontier posts, but finding it hard to get influence....

Zillah

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Interesting so far. I have very mixed views on Sectors.

But story line is already interesting. My Arthropoid Xenomorphs are expanding rapidly. But my homeworld is facing mass extinction and need to find a replacement with exact needs!!!

lol wut

Sephiroth_dude

Decided not to get this looks wayyyyyyyy to complex for me

The_Valeyard

Zillah wrote: »

lol wut

Yeah about two hours into the game this popped up on my situation log. My homeworld has become unstable.....

Also pirates are really pissing me off.

VinLieger

Update from space foxes, finally got my economy moving and now have 4 planets and 2 frontier outposts giving me the largest swathe of territory of anyone I can currently see. I have found 3 Gaia worlds, 2 are holy and I ran into the fallen empire that observes them but did managed to settle the third one as they don't care about it.

Current roadblock is not having a large enough fleet to clear the amoebas and other stuff from my territory so I can access all resources, once that's done I can look towards further expansion and likely start sectioning off sectors.

3 empires I've run into, 1 fallen empire I already mentioned which I'm avoiding, 1 is a fanatic militaristic xenophile who have luckily taken a liking to me, the other is a pacifist fanatical individualist who have a massive navy but since they hate war and like to keep to themselves I should be okay

Sephiroth_dude

Would ye say its newcomer to genre friendly? don't have a lot of experience with this genre of games.

Sand

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Would ye say its newcomer to genre friendly? don't have a lot of experience with this genre of games.

Seems friendly enough - the Tutorial missions literally tell you what to do for your first few years, what technologies to research, what to build next, etc. Holds your hand until you get an opinion yourself of what to do next.

Zillah

Sand wrote: »

Seems friendly enough - the Tutorial missions literally tell you what to do for your first few years, what technologies to research, what to build next, etc. Holds your hand until you get an opinion yourself of what to do next.

Yeah I think that tutorial only really means anything to fans of the genre though. It's a decent enough intro but it's a pretty dense game.


My thoughts: I'm getting very very sick of manually telling science ships to explore. I just discovered you can queue them up, though, which should make it a little easier.

VinLieger

Zillah wrote: »

My thoughts: I'm getting very very sick of manually telling science ships to explore. I just discovered you can queue them up, though, which should make it a little easier.

Yeah you can shift click for pretty much everything, so you can set them to survey several systems by themselves pretty quickly from the galaxy map, however if you have them set to evasive once they meet any kind of hostile fleet they will stop and go back to the last safe system. Id recomend keeping them on evasive until you can beef up their shields or armor as science and construction ships are built with paper. This is my current issue ive cleared all the manageable pirates, dones and amoebas but theres a couple of bigger fleets i cant take yet so thats limiting my expansion.

Also for anyone playing if you havent noticed it yet in the bottom right corner theres some UI options, one is a tick box that when selected will show all your discovered resources for each system in galaxy map mode and whether you are working them or not, its pretty vital and should be on by default imo

Maguined

Played it for 2 hours last night. Still getting used to it but so far I am loving it. Just finished researching colony ships and saving up the minerals so I can get my first expansion going.

In nearby systems I have built up some mining facisilites but a tiny fleet and station started in a system adjacent to mine so I go impatient and attacked their small fleet so I can start expanding as that system was going to be a huge bottleneck for me. I haven't researched that species so I am expecting to find out they will come back to kick my impatient ass.

Zillah

So, influence is a stupid resource. I had to break off an alliance with a neighbour because I couldn't afford the influence cost because a bunch of my governors would be dying soon and I needed enough to hire more

Sorry guys, I know we've been friends for a very long time but I need to stockpile a mysterious and indescribable resource.

Oh I can get more influence by declaring rivalries? Sorry neutral neighbours, I called to say that I hate you for no reason and wish you harm - again, because I need to build up some intangible resource that is essential to the functioning of my empire.

Idiotic game design. What the hell is the point of a diplomacy system if they completely undermine it by tying it to a nonsensical resource?

The_Valeyard

Just met one race and their dislike of me is -436. I better start building up a defence fleet and platforms.

So far I like:
1) size
2) music
3) customisation
4) graphics
5) attention to detail
6) quests
7) randomness
8) game style

I dislike
1) lack of auto survey multiple systems
2) technology tree random cards
(Stuck with one starbase as I cannot research may drivers yet !!!!
3) sector control
4) low limits on unit leaders

mahoganygas

I've been looking at YouTube videos.

It reminds me so much of an old star trek PC game. Birth of the Federation I think it was called.

The_Valeyard

mahoganygas wrote: »

I've been looking at YouTube videos.

It reminds me so much of an old star trek PC game. Birth of the Federation I think it was called.

Great game. Someone tried to make a sequel called supremacy, but think it's faded away.


Give it time, already a Star Wars and Warhammer 40k MOD out. Star Trek be soon.

VinLieger

Zillah wrote: »

So, influence is a stupid resource. I had to break off an alliance with a neighbour because I couldn't afford the influence cost because a bunch of my governors would be dying soon and I needed enough to hire more

Sorry guys, I know we've been friends for a very long time but I need to stockpile a mysterious and indescribable resource.

Oh I can get more influence by declaring rivalries? Sorry neutral neighbours, I called to say that I hate you for no reason and wish you harm - again, because I need to build up some intangible resource that is essential to the functioning of my empire.

Idiotic game design. What the hell is the point of a diplomacy system if they completely undermine it by tying it to a nonsensical resource?

They have had a similar systems in all their other games however i dont think its ever been as difficult to generate it, ive currently got 2 frontier outposts to connect my empire all together and its draining my influence completely. From what ive heard its an early-midgame problem and by late game you might end up rolling in it. Ive managed to find 2 small empires relatively far removed from me to rival as a way to increase it.

I agree its a bit of an arbitrary resource but once you wrap your head around it it becomes easy enough to manage. FYI if you militarist and in an alliance it will drain your influence even more so this could be whats happening to you.

VinLieger

The_Valeyard wrote: »

I dislike
1) lack of auto survey multiple systems

You can easily set science ships to survey multiple systems from galaxy map mode using shift and right click options. Also if they run into an anomoly in that system and you set them to research it once done they will go back to whatever they were set to beforehand which is a nice feature ive noticed was missing from games before.

Zillah

VinLieger wrote: »

They have had a similar systems in all their other games however i dont think its ever been as difficult to generate it, ive currently got 2 frontier outposts to connect my empire all together and its draining my influence completely. From what ive heard its an early-midgame problem and by late game you might end up rolling in it. Ive managed to find 2 small empires relatively far removed from me to rival as a way to increase it.

I agree its a bit of an arbitrary resource but once you wrap your head around it it becomes easy enough to manage. FYI if you militarist and in an alliance it will drain your influence even more so this could be whats happening to you.

No I'm playing as the UN. I had two frontier outposts, -2 for the alliance, that was most of it. I then managed to get two or three technologies almost back to back that gave +1 each so I'm fine again.

It's not a question of getting my head around it, though, it's just a bad mechanic linking such unrelated things. They ruined the diplomacy by forcing me to end alliances so I could have an abstract resource so I could hire scientists.

VinLieger

Zillah wrote: »

No I'm playing as the UN. I had two frontier outposts, -2 for the alliance, that was most of it. I then managed to get two or three technologies almost back to back that gave +1 each so I'm fine again.

It's not a question of getting my head around it, though, it's just a bad mechanic linking such unrelated things. They ruined the diplomacy by forcing me to end alliances so I could have an abstract resource so I could hire scientists.

Linking it to alliances is an odd one alright, theres a couple of balancing issues they need to sort, one massive example is the other empire AI won't attack The Unbidden which are one of the crisis that can spawn. They just sit there and let themselves be eaten up. it becomes a real problem if you are on one side of the galaxy and the unbidden spawn on the other side, meaning you have to somehow bribe for access or declare war to get access to the routes needed to go and fight them because once they become big enough they are unstoppable. Basically if you get a bad spawn for them right now its a game ruiner

Zillah

Also I can't find anything to do with money. It seems to mostly be a game of making sure you are solvent and after that your stockpile doesn't really matter. There's a few things, like clearing tiles, that cost a bit, but it doesn't even seem to be useful for bribing in diplomacy.

When do I get more than 5 planets and how many can I have?

VinLieger

Zillah wrote: »

Also I can't find anything to do with money. It seems to mostly be a game of making sure you are solvent and after that your stockpile doesn't really matter. There's a few things, like clearing tiles, that cost a bit, but it doesn't even seem to be useful for bribing in diplomacy.

When do I get more than 5 planets and how many can I have?

Theres a cap on how many you can manage directly similar to their other games, once you go over that you have to start dividing them off into sectors to avoid penalties on your income. It depends on your government type and traits afaik, but theres also tech that can increase it. So you can have 7/5 planets but youll lose like -20% of your income i think. I was one over last night for a small time and the penalty was -10% so im guessing it scales that way.

You can buy friendship with money if you dont wanna use it for building ships to force people into friendship

Zillah

See, this is one of the reasons I think the tutorial isn't exactly exhaustive. All this time I've been assuming that 5 planets was a hard cap (it says 5/5 at the top!), but now it turns out I can go over that and there are entirely different mechanics to handle it. I was drowning in money for a while and decided to convert a bunch of power plants to research, if I had known I could have been expanding further...

EDIT: Although, this being a Paradox game, that suddenly makes so much sense...