Started another game, a nice egalitarian materialist xenophile civ, and was placed directly adjacent to... fanatic purifiers, who were expanding faster than me and already had three times the fleet power and several planets (i hadnt found any suitable colony worlds yet). I immediately set up a station on the border and expanded my fleet and posted it there, but it was too little too late. I almost, almost had enough overall fleet power between the starport and navy to hold the system, but they won and proceeded to conquer everything, then met at my homeworld and wiped out the remnants of my fleet again, and began to bombard my homeworld. Once again, they ended the war before wiping me out, but this time I got luckier. They were attacked by another militarist civ on the opposite side that slowly conquered them until their collapse. At which point all the territory I had lost got abandoned and I could start expanding back out again.
It's not really been going great. I made friends with the civ that saved me and another one on my other flank, and reclaimed everything that I had lost, and pushed to the center of the galaxy (I started way out on the edge, with my homewold connected by a single hyperlink to the galaxy at large). But all my civ accounts for at this point is that one blue wedge like a slice of pie through the southwest corner of the galaxy, with a measly three habitable worlds to its name. I had abysmal fleet power, economic activity and technological progress. My friends to the north got conquered by another civ north of them i got dragged into that war through our defensive pact but never saw any combat, so I buddied up with the conquerors for good measure, and then the civ that saved me from extinction subjugated two other neighboring civs on their side. Now these two powers rule 60% of the galaxy, before the southeastern guy subjugated a fourth civ on the opposite side, who still hate me but can't do anything about it because daddy loves me. So I'm kinda safe.
But I'm stuck, and for a hundred and fifty years can barely eek by and in every way im still abysmally weak compared to the rest of the galaxy. I built three habitats and gain a single additional colony for my own species from an anomaly event. But migration treaties let me build four more colonies, three on tomb worlds with an avian species that is radiation resistant. But with poor tech I can't advance far at all.
But then one of the fallen empires, my saving friends neighbor, contacts me to build a black site, and then to borrow a scientist. Given im in no shape to piss them off I agree. They open their borders to me and behind their territory, cut off from everyone else, are five systems left unclaimed. So I take them, gain a new colony and two new habitats over valuable planets. Long way from home, though.
Apparently my savior civ thinks they're tough shit, because they pissed off this guy and they declared war. I figured they were screwed, but amazingly half the navy in the galaxy can put a fallen empire on the defensive, and they end the war claiming one of their systems and losing nothing. But at this point the fallen empire has had enough of me not wandering through their space in the last twenty years and shuts off the border. My little colony is cut off from the galaxy at large permanently. After a second war they take back their planet from my saviors, but before thirty pops from their species migrate to some of my worlds.
The other guys in the north have gone to war a few times with another big empire bordering mine, another friendly civ to me, but have only made a little headway in taking systems from them. And then they also piss off the other fallen empire in the galaxy and are currently getting their asses handed to them. This is why I haven't signed any more defensive pacts... absolutely agree to have them guarantee my independence though, love that.
I can't get anywhere anymore though, because my tech development and economy are so weak compared to everyone else, I'm permanently playing catch up. I've got another 150 years to go, and then all three endgame crisis will trigger in succession. Either I will die with my buddies, or they will save me yet again, because I have no hope of defending myself from anything at this point, I'm stuck in a rut.
Author
Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE (Read 1668833 times)