Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[EnigmaticHat]

AFAIK its not empire size but # of pops that determines the research penalty.  A little reward for people who only have tiny planets I guess.

[celem]

Hmm, need the help of some armchair strategists..

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not sure where to guide the humanlike Valdari next in this thousand-star 4-armed spiral.  We are Collectivist, Militarist, Materialists, a Despotic Hegemony.  We are wormhole-FTL, and as far as I can tell none of my contacts are using wormholes.

State of Affairs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Starting in the outermost-most arm I wanted a bridge to the next in as fast as possible.  Managed to get that established with the basic wormhole range and set up a frontier outpost to make a bridgehead. Before setting up our first offworld colony we get an event that turns 3 pop on the homeworld xenophile, so all colonists are pulled from these populations.

Expanding inward along my own arm I met a puny species I have forgotten, with the United Slerpanor Clans behind them (reds).  They are Fanatic Collectivist Xenophobe Molluscoids.  Border tensions looked to doom the relationship, but i gifted them with all the agreements in a 1-sided fashion for a few decades until their rivalries allowed me to manouever myself over the Alliance threshold.  So they are now allied, but still have a distinct tech edge and wont share unless I can federate the alliance.  They are the only empire apart from me with the ability to cross the arms (warp 2  edit:  actually the xeltek are hyperlaners, and the source of much of my map).

Problem is with the block of empires northwards.  Rimwards along the arm in from me.  Not long after crossing I ran into the Dima'Xarian (black).  Fanatic Individualist Xenophobes.  They hate absolutely everything about me and out-tech me.  I was able to keep them just moderately rabid with embassies and 1-sided NAPs etc, but the moment I allied up they aligned with just about everyone in that arm, turns out its a load of individualist democrats and theyve build a powerbloc.  My only friend in that arm is the Xeltek Confederation up the far end, but they are honestly hard-pressed and a bit far away for me to help.

I just picked up the extended wormhole range so I can now cross the arms anywhere along my borders, but I'm really not sure where to strike at, I cant leave this new grouping threatening my original bridge or foothold.  Im torn between prosecuting a war against the rimward section of the arm or jumping through my ally to run corewards along this arm, or even right through to the innermost.  I want to come back to the rimward stretch of my own arm, its unpopulated and i'll work it in the background maybe.  There are two little protectorates under me which you can see by the blue allied fleet markers, but both are recently bootstrapped from various primative civs and have no power to speak of.

Which way would you push?

Should I jump the gun and move against this threat?

[Majestic7]

You can still win against technologically superior foe with bigger fleet if you specialize your ships to beat the snot out of them. This requires you scanning their ships and putting exactly what counters them on your vessels. Like if they use only missiles, get loads of point-defense. Of course, if you are facing multiple foes with different type of designs, this does not apply...

[Cyroth]

I have just found out that the galaxy at large really hates it when you conquer "enigmatic observer" type fallen empires.
-1000 threat relationship with everybody except for my servant empires, total war with everybody. The galaxy looks like Yurop during WW1, a giant clusterfuck of everybody vs everybody else.

Holy carp.

[LoSboccacc]

You can still win against technologically superior foe with bigger fleet if you specialize your ships to beat the snot out of them. This requires you scanning their ships and putting exactly what counters them on your vessels. Like if they use only missiles, get loads of point-defense. Of course, if you are facing multiple foes with different type of designs, this does not apply...

how do you scout?

[Orange Wizard]

Send out a corvette and click the "view vessel" button when you select the enemy fleet.

[LoSboccacc]

Send out a corvette and click the "view vessel" button when you select the enemy fleet.

but I can't reach in the enemy territory before declaring war

[GentlemanRaptor]

Yeah, the lack of an intelligence system in the game is irritating. Currently, there isn't a way to tell pre-war. Hopefully an update or a DLC or something adds in better spying.

[Majestic7]

You can scout ships within sensor range, no need to be in the same system. Just get better sensors with a longer range. You could try plopping spy stations on the border, you can build platforms outside your own borders.

[Orange Wizard]

It's the Rapture (IN SPAAAAACE)

[Furtuka]

Spoiler: We're all gonna die~ (click to show/hide)

(I'm the little blue blob all the way at the bottom of the picture.)

Spoiler: Day 2 Progress Report (click to show/hide)

It appears that the tide of Unbidden has been stalemated by the larger empires they've encountered. As a matter of fact if I'm looking at this correctly they've lost more systems than they've gained. However its going slow enough that I'm continuing on my plan of beating up my neighbors to steal their tech and vassalize them for the sake of making a giant wall of allies, along with a clear path to the Unbidden territory. Also it seems the Unbidden don't really seem to notice construction ships until they enter the portal system. No idea what's up with that.

Spoiler: Day 3 (click to show/hide)

Those Super Empires stalemating the Unbidden are really starting to freak me out man. Specially considering one of them managed to rip a Fallen Empire in half at some point during day 2. (The Til'Lynesi Primacy that you can see on the far left of Day 1)

Also amusingly it seems that if a primitive society reaches space travel during a Crisis they'll have no idea what's going on and receive none of the "Greater Thread Exists" relationship bonuses. Even more amusing is that in the case of the ones I encountered while learning this (The Tezekan something or another), with their ascension they appear to have unintentionally stole a chunk of territory from the enigmatic observer Fallen Empire (Entheri Guardians) on the far right.

I used to think the same thing about Frontier Outposts. It was either waste one of my 5-7 precious colony slots grabbing some useful resources or take the 2 Influence hit to build a outpost, neither of which seemed worth it. Then I realized I could just throw all my developed planets into a sector with a 75% tax and use the freed up colony slots to start another wave of land grabs. Now I barely use Frontier outposts unless I need to grab an area of space that has no habitable planets.

You are tanking your research. Research costs increase with empire size, so having lots of undeveloped planets is baaaaaad. Especially so if they are planets with no research potential whatsoever.

I kind of think they made frontier posts expensive and with a hard limit on purpose to push us towards warfare, though, both for resource systems, pre-ftl civs and better borders.

Oh goddammit that explains so much. No wonder I've been forced to use zerg rushing to win all my wars.

[sprinkled chariot]

Do policies on sentient ais affect chance of machines going rogue? Or it is just lol, we go rogue now.
Vassals are pretty useless, and protectorates are even more useless, as you are forced to give them access to your precious technology( and I want to be only one with  battleships shooting lightening bolts through shields)
How does oversized ship work?
How to get lists of events, factions, ids and stuff? It might be interesting to change faction to prethoryn/ fallen empire/ something of that kind.
What means - 100 % to shields on energy torpedoes if they have 100 % shield bypassing already?

[celem]

Your policies on AIs will affect the chance of *your* machines going rogue.  But if someone else doesnt do the smart thing then their machines can trigger the Rogue AI crisis.  And I think at that point your sentients are gonna flip sooner or later too regardless of rights since they form a new empire basically.

Protectorates upgrade to vassals, and then after 10 years you can integrate them by spending influence.  This merges them properly into your civ and gives you a new race to play with in terms of traits and world pref.  If their ethics are too harshly opposed to your culture then they are going to be pretty miserable for quite some time though.

not sure on the others

[Neonivek]

Goodness I got so bored with my current run that I actually sabotaged myself and intentionally lost it.

I will say that taking on a technologically superior but military inferior species can be REALLY FREEKEN HARD depending on the tech they have behind them.

I also found that some species advantages and disadvantages pretty much don't matter in the long run... or are secretly amazing...

I just REALLY REALLY wish sectors could look after themselves more... Build space stations, stock them, get out constructors... that jazz.

[Zangi]

boy I miss the distant world universe interface, where you can say build this here and ai makes it happen

This. Being able to queue construction would really lower micromanagement.

Shift key. Also you can right click a system and ask it to build all of everything.

That's about the extent of it, and goddamn I wish there was an auto button, but that's better than doing it one by one.

Yeah, but this isn't like Distant Worlds, since in Stellaris you need to have available resources in order to order construction, in every screen.
But I've seen videos of people not doing Order Queueing with Shift even on Science ships. Even though they will evade hostile aliens a lot, it just seems crazy not to queue some systems.

Distant Worlds requires that the resources be at location (starport/construction machine/base)... or else the construction project grinds to an absolute standstill.  It doesn't tell you that you don't have enough resources at location nor the status of the supply chain for said resources.  The AI will try to acquire the needed resources, if possible.

Freighters will automatically collect the needed resources from mines/storage hubs and will even purchase it from a neighboring empire if they are non-belligerent and have the spare resources to sell.  Freighters will also automatically stockpile resources on its own, but that could be a limited amount and the travel distance much greater.

That supply chain can be disrupted by pirates/hostiles.  The source can be blown up.  Or if the source is via trade, same problems can happen for them.

Yes, you can put in an order for a hundred capital-sized boats you don't have the resources for at the barren fringes of your empire and it'll get done eventually.  But it will stall for years if the supply chain is unable to supply it in a timely matter.