Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Modders have been busy on steam workshop. 2 mods that will particularly appeal to the codex are;

1) planet limit raised from 5 to 995, for all your autistic micromanagement needs


2) Human race with only European names and white skin available for racial purists.

 

It sits at 5 for the remainder of the game? Jesus...

 

You can increase with tech.

 

And with some government changes etc.

Also you can create Sectors for this purpose.

 

People need to into sectors. Whining over planet cap is getting old fast

 

Got me worried there

 

Sectors make no sense though. Unless I've got like 50 planets its not that much micro.

 

It's not just there to ease micromanagement, though.

 

It's hard to accept black portraits with Asian names. I'd rather have no portraits, at all, and let my brain do the rest.

 

I mean, with the amount of politics in this game it kinda is.

 

Enslaved bronze age apes with the super strong trait, invincible slave shock troops hooo!

 

So what's the deal with wormhole stations? are you supposed to have one and gradually increase its radius through research or what? I can't seem to find a suitable system to build one more.

 

Fucking hyperspace using cheating bastards.

I'm using warp and cannot reach the planets of my enemy, so I figure he can't reach me either. OH NO, FORGOT ABOUT HYPERSPACE DID YOU?! There goes my homeworld.

Also, combat is fucked. Since the ships literally just ram at each other and then circle around shooting at random targets, the winner is always the one with more DPS. Yes, DPS. I created "sniper" ships and while they get couple of shots while out-ranging the enemy, they then close in just like the short-range combatants. Combine this with the fact that targeting seems to be completely random - there is no tech or doctrine or edict to influence it and closely watching multiple combats seems to confirm it - and it means that basically you want to create as many ships with as many guns that shoot as often as possible. Because long-range combatants cannot keep the range open, because there is no focus fire, because ships seems to switch targets randomly. It is saddening that the combat is basically a poor version of HOI3 naval combat - having shitty naval combat was acceptable when the ground combat was the main thing but jesus fucking christ, you're making a 4X space game with unbelievably retarded combat between space ships. There aren't even random combat events to spice things up. Compared to this, Space Empires combat is the pinnacle of strategic mastery.

 

Yeah combat is pretty shit, I was destroying mining station or something of the sort, when it had 70hp one of the smaller enemy fleets engaged mine (the one that was fighting with the station), so instead of finishing off the station it completely switched to a few measly ships, effectively losing time and sustaining unnecessary damage from a barely alive mining thing.

 

Im not sure the combat is so random. But I cant prove the opposite either.
There are combat AI technologies which later are installed to your ships but I don't really know what they do tbh
For sure the combat is obscure, that's certain. You have no real idea of whats up except some vague numbers and stats

 

Fleets generally fight fleets first, and target the first ships that get in range. For this reason, I made 2 fleets in my empire. A punching bag fleet of cheap ships with minimal weapons and maximum defence goes in first. Once the first volleys have been traded, I fly in my more expensive sniper ships to deal damage.

You can fly to or from any system in wormhole range. You can build a new gate at the edge of your range to extend it. For your core system, you may want 2-3 wormhole generators, as they can only move one fleet at a time

 

They cannot be built within a system gravity well so you need to place them way outside on the edge (outside the red bit), bit like your original station.

 

Hit a hump last night. Capped on resources. Uplifted two civs that have since integrated (That's kinda cool). Neighbors like me. Random distant opponents that I go to war with tend to be of the "I show up and win" variety, as opposed to any back and forth interplay.

The biggest gripe I have is that there doesn't seem to be a reason to expand. There is no logical progression. In CK2 you take your county, you go for the duchy, then the country, then the empire. Once you're at empire, you start taking out other empires and comfortably steamroll as your little lordlings do all the work for you, responding to their own whims.

Here, your sector commanders seem content to do nothing, additional planets merely reduce the research times from 60 months to 58 months, and you're practically post-scarcity so the drive to get 'more' is meaningless. I've a fairly small faction, yet I'm gaining minerals faster than I can use them to build ships with. My credits are capped, with +34 coming in anyway, on top of a full fleet and a third civ I'm uplifting. This seems to be a universal problem, as no one will accept credits in trades.

Joining an alliance lowers your monthly influence, and in the early game can be enough to put you in negative income. I've thought about creating a grand federation, but again, why? There is no threat. Everyone has plenty. Gaining more is an annoying bother. I feel like I'm playing past the point the game gave me a "You Win" screen, but without the sense of accomplishment.

 

Research AI or jump drives. That should kick-start fun for you. Or taunt a fallen empire. Their fleets have some sweet tech you can salvage after a fight

 

Or just try to win? Fastly? Federations and expansions in the end are the means to that. If you are so uberpowerful then go along and murder everyone, or capture 40% of the map and win

 

I researched robots hoping it would unlock something fun, it didn't. Same with droids. I've got a few AI techs already. I've got a fallen empire nearby, but they're friendly and powerful. I built for about 20 minutes and reduced their relative fleet strength from the most extreme rank to the second most extreme rank. So I guess I could just build for an hour, throw things at the empire and wait, but then I'd just have to deal with the inevitable annoyance of taking over their territory.

I'm not sure if CK2 spoiled me with how well it handled AI underlings, or if this game is just terrible at it. Since you literally have to click on each individual troop to give them their upgrades, I'm guessing it's the latter.

 

Robot fun things has a chance to trigger depending on how many are in the galaxy, AI empires included.

If your fallen empire is friendly, either declare it rival or check their ethos to figure out how go piss them off. If robots don't do it, it's either taking their holy worlds or having many slaves. There is a bit of a lull i in the mid game before one of the cataclysm events trigger

 

There isn't a fun reason to go to expand though. That's kind of my issue. Previous Paradox games, you'd conquer, place someone in charge, and they'd go build and conquer for you while you went and did something else. With the abstract 'sector' idea, you get the worst of both worlds. You don't gain the full benefit from resource exploitation, yet you still have to give the new worlds attention because the AI just won't do anything. The Warlord of the Dieron district will never go to war with anyone. Will never defend anything. Will never take care of the small picture so that I can concentrate on the larger one, and the larger picture isn't fleshed out enough to want to focus on anyway.

It's still a Clausewitz engine game, they just removed the most useful portions of it.

 

Can someone help me with orbital bombardment? I thought I'd give the game another shot but even though I have 17 vettes in orbit the fortifications won't reduce which means even with 7 armies to 3 I can't fucking win the fight because of damage reduction.

 

Gotta right click the planet with the fleet. Make sure your stance is set and bombardment tab set properly on the fleet.