Space 4X sim Stellaris is to receive its next major overhaul in May this year, with changes to the pacing, presentation and systems affecting performance.
With Paradox, you get a complete and very complex game right from the start.
And then they shovel mountains of DLC on top for those who haven’t played anything else in the past 5 years.
If you played it with all DLC as a beginner, you’d be completely overwhelmed.
Ehhh, they can be rough experiences on launch so if that’s what you mean by ‘right from the start’ I disagree a bit. I very much wish I let Stellaris cook a year or so before I grabbed it.
Otherwise I definitely agree. The free updates they release with the DLC are usually excellent, and sometimes I still intentionally disable the DLCs because they add mechanics I’m not interested in interacting with. I own Man the Guns for HoI4, for example, and I almost never actually enable it.
You can generally get the base game for a bit of nothing(Stellaris’ historical low is $4), and then grab the DLCs you think will interest you down the line when they’re also on sale.
I am somewhat tired of them completely upending how Stellaris plays, though. I feel like every time I get comfortable with the game they overhaul some major system, and I’m learning how to play a new game again.
Hmm i have to say i kind of disagree. The to go strat has been for most empires: Get alloys, get eng-research>the rest of research>energy and minerals>everything else. This worked now for many years. While they change up things (for example the whole stuff with leaders etc.) this pretty much stayed true and will make your empire pretty powerful.
Most of my playtime is before alloys even existed lol. If I played the game more often I’m sure I’d be able to figure it out, but it’s just bad luck on my part. I tend to get interested like a month before they’ve released some massive groundbreaking update.
If you are interested in picking it up here is a short guide:
Use your science vessel to explore (not survey) the area around you first, until you meet alien empires or there are enemies in the way. Then survey a route to good choke points where you can use star bases to defend from other empires. Your empire should look somewhat like a sausage, ignoring star systems that other empires cant reach at first. You can claim those later.
The first ship you build, should be another science vessel, because staking your empire early on is important to keep the other empires at bay. Go for a third science vessel soonish.
Concentrate on building industrial districts for alloys (make your world a forge world). Get enough mineral production for your building needs. Everything else can be balanced around 0 (no loss/no huge gains). Alloys are worth a lot until very late in the game when there is too much peace, so you can always trade for what you need.
If the need for consumer goods arises you can always change the world into a normal capital again (and then forge capital once the need is gone).
Try to not to have open jobs or jobless people (keeping 1 to 2 open positions is advised).
Science is important and engineering is by far the most important branch so get as much of that as possible.
Colonize planets that have 60% or better habitability and a size of 14 or more districts as soon as possible.
Only build fleet if you have to. Ships before the cruisers are not really good.
I kinda feel you dude. I used to be pretty good at stellaris, and now it feels like I would need to learn it from almost the ground up to figure out armies and diplomacy and the rest
I get that, and I’m sure there are people who see that list of dlcs and only think about the amount of content positively.
I usually pirate games before buying, and I would have purchased it because I really enjoyed it with all dlcs, but going from all content pirated to only base content purchased (unless I wanted to fork out over £250) felt like a kick in the teeth.
With Paradox, you get a complete and very complex game right from the start.
And then they shovel mountains of DLC on top for those who haven’t played anything else in the past 5 years.
If you played it with all DLC as a beginner, you’d be completely overwhelmed.
Ehhh, they can be rough experiences on launch so if that’s what you mean by ‘right from the start’ I disagree a bit. I very much wish I let Stellaris cook a year or so before I grabbed it.
Otherwise I definitely agree. The free updates they release with the DLC are usually excellent, and sometimes I still intentionally disable the DLCs because they add mechanics I’m not interested in interacting with. I own Man the Guns for HoI4, for example, and I almost never actually enable it.
You can generally get the base game for a bit of nothing(Stellaris’ historical low is $4), and then grab the DLCs you think will interest you down the line when they’re also on sale.
I am somewhat tired of them completely upending how Stellaris plays, though. I feel like every time I get comfortable with the game they overhaul some major system, and I’m learning how to play a new game again.
Hmm i have to say i kind of disagree. The to go strat has been for most empires: Get alloys, get eng-research>the rest of research>energy and minerals>everything else. This worked now for many years. While they change up things (for example the whole stuff with leaders etc.) this pretty much stayed true and will make your empire pretty powerful.
Most of my playtime is before alloys even existed lol. If I played the game more often I’m sure I’d be able to figure it out, but it’s just bad luck on my part. I tend to get interested like a month before they’ve released some massive groundbreaking update.
Yeah i forget how old the game is at this point.
If you are interested in picking it up here is a short guide: Use your science vessel to explore (not survey) the area around you first, until you meet alien empires or there are enemies in the way. Then survey a route to good choke points where you can use star bases to defend from other empires. Your empire should look somewhat like a sausage, ignoring star systems that other empires cant reach at first. You can claim those later. The first ship you build, should be another science vessel, because staking your empire early on is important to keep the other empires at bay. Go for a third science vessel soonish.
Concentrate on building industrial districts for alloys (make your world a forge world). Get enough mineral production for your building needs. Everything else can be balanced around 0 (no loss/no huge gains). Alloys are worth a lot until very late in the game when there is too much peace, so you can always trade for what you need. If the need for consumer goods arises you can always change the world into a normal capital again (and then forge capital once the need is gone).
Try to not to have open jobs or jobless people (keeping 1 to 2 open positions is advised).
Science is important and engineering is by far the most important branch so get as much of that as possible.
Colonize planets that have 60% or better habitability and a size of 14 or more districts as soon as possible.
Only build fleet if you have to. Ships before the cruisers are not really good.
I kinda feel you dude. I used to be pretty good at stellaris, and now it feels like I would need to learn it from almost the ground up to figure out armies and diplomacy and the rest
I get that, and I’m sure there are people who see that list of dlcs and only think about the amount of content positively.
I usually pirate games before buying, and I would have purchased it because I really enjoyed it with all dlcs, but going from all content pirated to only base content purchased (unless I wanted to fork out over £250) felt like a kick in the teeth.