Stellaris

[gadrael]

I have finished my campaign yesterday (after 50 hours), and it was slightly dissapointing - I force vassalized two very big empires and inherited their vassals. Vassalization definitely should be harder, also starting war after war against the same alliance should be punished in some way. But in spite of that it's very good game and will definitely replay it, this time as xenophobe militarist humans

 

[Rawls]

Found out why I hadn't seen anybody coming at me from the other direction. A large Fanatic Materialist Fallen Empire was one more wormhole station's ride over. I don't think I'll be bothering them too much. I can make one more expansion push out to a pretty empty area of outer rim space with just a few planets. After that it will be time to fill in the remaining planets in my space and then make some decisions.

 

[Phinnway]

My brother & I got on the wrong side of a Militant Isolationist (Xenophobic) fallen empire in our campaign today. I resisted their demand that I surrender my colonies and they declared war immediately. The combined fleet strength of our alliance was 35K. The enemy fleet strength was 108K. :crazy:

My pilots bravely went on a suicide mission to attack one of the enemy's Halo-style ringworlds, and got annihilated. I was forced to abandon 9 colonies because of the war. The sad thing is.... the AI gave me no warning that I was infringing on their space. They simply demanded I surrender my planets and then attacked immediately. Something to complain about on the forums, I think

Despite losing so many planets, I'm still the most powerful empire on the map. So it's no biggie

 

[gadrael]

The sad thing is.... the AI gave me no warning that I was infringing on their space.

Yeah, with fallen empire nearby you have to constantly check if there is no border friction penalty in their opinion of you (I think you are save if it's above -50). If you are prepared to constantly keep your embassy there, you can grab all their buffer space. I was stuck between two fallen empires, and in the long run it was good thing, as most of the empires are afraid of them, so there was a lot systems to grab. Also systems in their vicinity were "anomaly rich", at least in my case.

 

[Phinnway]

I started a custom campaign with pre-made StarWars races. The result was surprisingly successful!

Pics: http://imgur.com/a/LJU6z

I'm using mods that increase the number of habitable planets and the number of pre-FTL civilizations. I'm playing on an 800 solar system map with the number of civilizations turned up as high as it can go.

 

[Phinnway]

They released a dev diary today highlighting some of the changes in the next patch. I asked the developers, and they said due dates for the first two patches are end of May and end of June. May patch is mainly minor fixes, especially to AI and the the UI. June is a bigger patch that adds in additional content and reworks some broken gameplay systems. The patch after that is still being conceptualized, but they did tell us some of the items on their to-do list in last weeks dev diary.

I have to say, I'm a little mad at them for releasing the game unfinished. But this rapid patching is sure smoothing things over

 

[arkhenon]

And several of the mods are amazing. There are mods out there that nearly fix the AI Double edged sword with open-ended modding tools: Your community might actually do some stuff better...

 

[Phinnway]

StarWars overhaul is coming along nicely, I see

 

[Rawls]

The ME Mod still looks like it needs some work. I might play Uncharted 4 before coming back to check out the mods for my second playthrough. Btw @Phinnway love the new avatar.

 

[Sild]

Well well, I recently began playing again and.. Oh boy.. Things have changed. I like it. The planet development mechanics and resources overhaul (2.2 patch) made a big impact and now, peace isn't such of a bore. And that's just one of the changes, though the most important by far.

P. S. Necro of the year? My personal best.

 

[Rawls]

Well well, I recently began playing again and.. Oh boy.. Things have changed. I like it. The planet development mechanics and resources overhaul (2.2 patch) made a big impact and now, peace isn't such of a bore. And that's just one of the changes, though the most important by far.

Yeah I haven't played in a couple years ... maybe it's time to give it another go. Paradox strategy games almost always get better with time.

 

[Sild]

Yeah I haven't played in a couple years ... maybe it's time to give it another go. Paradox strategy games almost always get better with time.

Then I'd say you're in for a few surprises (especially if you have the DLC's. I think Utopia and Apocalypse added some cool stuff, haven't played enough with Megacorp to say yet, I know they add a new government type though. )

 

[kabukiman1973]

I finish playing a democracy, in a federation with other democracies. We conquered 2/3 of the universe,. That was before the changes of megacorps. I'm curious to play with the new rules.

 

[Metropolice]

Been awhile since I played.

Curious to see how it is now, might go for a new game. I always kinda hope to end up in an infinite scenario like that famous civ 2 game.
Not sure if possible and comparable with Stellaris though.

Spoiler: reddit post

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil

E: link embed might look wonky on mobile, not sure how to fix on the go

Imagine playing the same game of Stellaris for literal years, hoping for an eventual in-game power shift.

 

[kabukiman1973]

I never played something similar. But once in stellaris I stopped playing because after the endgame crisis, all the 5 federations were friendly to each other, and if one would declare war (by breaking the treaties and alliances), all the others would gang. So after a while I stooped playing because it turned boring in perpetual peace.

 

[SigilFey]

Wooow...I was just checking this out. That is a lot of DLC. Holy farbenguffen.

 

[kabukiman1973]

Yes. Some are essentials (like utopia), others are just for flavor (like the plantoid pack).

 

[SigilFey]

Summer Sale, perhaps. (So many games.)

 

[Restlessdingo32]

Summer Sale, perhaps. (So many games.)

Yeah, you're best bet is to wait for a sale. If you're going to get Stellaris it's probably wise to get Utopia and Apocalypse with it. Megacorp supposedly isn't amazing and Synthetic Dawn is for machine empires. Leviathans and Distant Stars are more for flavor. The rest is purely cosmetic/vanity.

I picked up the base game, Utopia, Apocalypse and Leviathans recently. It's certainly fun but not without it's weaknesses. As an example, some stuff with population management can get irritating . Late game micro can become a burden as well.

Also, keep in mind it's not like a lot of the popular strategy games. Total War games are more battle simulators with strategic maps, for instance. Civ is more 4x. Stellaris is arguably a bit of a hybrid between Civ and Grand Strategy games, like Crusader Kings, with more in common with the latter of the two.

 

[Suhiira]

I like Stellaris, but it's not as compelling to play as some other games. Don't get me wrong, it's fun (assuming you're into 4X type games) but rarely does it leave me going to bed planning what I'll do next.