Stellaris End-All

The game still lets you get away with nuke vette swarms pretty well.
Back them up with some armor shredding destroyers and capital ships and you cruise.

polypusher wrote:

@Glycerine - I can't shake the feeling in this game that stack power is the only thing that matters most of the time. As an example, I sent 2 fleets against a pirate stack of 1k once. The first fleet was 700 with a good admiral. They were wiped out (warped out to escape after doing very little damage) The 2nd fleet was 1200, basically the same fleet, same admiral, just more of it. They won with only about 200 power loss.

Stack power matters the most, usually. But your tech level matters, as do your weaponry and defense types.

For example, the Unbidden are vulnerable to shield-busting/bypassing weaponry. When they happen in your game, your laser ships will be much less useful than torpedo/force lance ships. The normal AI empires will also have a preferred weapon and defense type. When you fight them, there is a battle report that will let you know how efficient your ships were in taking and dealing damage. This may inform research decisions (large pesky rival empire with lots of shields, yeah I am taking torpedoes next time I see them).

Ultimately though, having the most and biggest guns will win pretty much any fight, especially in the early-to-mid game when tech differences are not as great (he has coil guns, you have nuke missiles, they are both pea shooters, so bring more pea shooters).

In one of the earlier MP games(before Leviathans), I and a few others were able to take down the Prethoryn swarm early on with a massive amount of lasers and point defense. As luck had it, that was pretty much all I had researched, so I was punching way above my fleet strength against them. IIRC, I took down a 10k swarm fleet with a 6k stack of PD destroyers and laser cruisers.

I am excited not only for all of the current civics, but for the new ones in the works!

IMAGE(https://i.redd.it/75074t5gwpsy.jpg)

I can't wait to play that in an MP game

Tanglebones wrote:

I can't wait to play that in an MP game :P

Oh man. I propose a "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" edition of Stellaris, where all PCs are Devouring Swarms and all NPC races... aren't.

Also, they need to get a Hippo-like alien species image in there.

Filthy skim: Is the Leviathan DLC worth it? I plan on hopping back in with Utopia soon.

PaladinTom wrote:

Filthy skim: Is the Leviathan DLC worth it? I plan on hopping back in with Utopia soon.

I like it. You get: the Leviathans, which are nice mid-late game obstacles; the Enclaves, which expand your options in the mid-game; and the War in Heaven which adds a lot of variety to the late game. You also get the cute species avatars.

It's not as big a change as Utopia, but it's priced accordingly.

I'm a fan of Leviathans as well and I think it matches well with Utopia. I read somewhere that Utopia is the "carrot" and Leviathans is the "stick" and that feels right to me.

Finishes reading through patch notes for 1.5 and DLC.

Plans new civilization.

"OK ladies and gents, back to the cryopods while we wait for the next update..."

I mean if you wait for the last update/DLC for any Paradox game before you start playing, you are going to wait for a long long time. Play now and, if in the middle of a game when the next thing comes out, Paradox keeps the old versions around so you can finish.

Yeah, I was thinking that after I watched that vid, as Martin was keen to point out that there were no massive changes in mechanics, more what he termed 'quality of life stuff' - ie bug fixes.

Just came across an event chain called Horizon Signal. It is by far the most involved chain I've seen in the game. I spent most of yesterday evening on it, and I'm still not done. I've gotten techs and buildings that I didn't even know existed.

I hit that for the first (and so far only) time in one of our multiplayer sessions. Which was really frustrating, because I felt like I couldn't take the time to completely read everything...but yeah, it was an extremely cool chain. I imagine it must have multiple outcomes like most of the quest chains.

I finally hit it in a solo game and I suspect it might be something we want to disable in future MP games, as it is super text heavy. I would imagine it might also be an unusual game balance in an MP. I know in my single player that the time and resources needed to build some of those buildings and research things is a hard needle to thread. I can only imagine what it must be like in an MP game. I'm sure the reward at the end of the chain is good enough to make it worthwhile, but who knows? So far the chain has cost quite a bit for me.

I haven't run into that event yet, though it sounds like fun. I also didn't get a chance to take down several leviathans, experience the other endgame crisis, as well as one particular event that didn't quite give the super-rare reward I was looking for. Hopefully I get lucky and run across most or all of it when I start a new game after 1.6 releases.

In my opinion I think Stellaris is inching ever closer to becoming the greatest space 4X of all time. I can't wait to see what the next DLC and expansions bring. There are lots of 4X games out there, but I cannot think of a single one that's had me itching to start a new game right after finishing the last one.

The one thing I liked from MOO3 was that you could make and encounter gas giant dwelling species, so some of those useless worlds in the galaxy would become habitable for them. I'd like to see that come here.

polypusher wrote:

The one thing I liked from MOO3 was that you could make and encounter gas giant dwelling species, so some of those useless worlds in the galaxy would become habitable for them. I'd like to see that come here.

There is a quest chain that is almost exactly that. And it is a rather long chain that goes beyond just helping them find a home.

I meant as a playable race. Having overlapping types of planets you care about changed politics a bit. There's some of that here for sure, but it was fun having gasbags around.

IMAGE(https://lparchive.org/Star-Control-2/Update%209/02.jpg)

Gotcha! That would be cool, and I could see that happening in the framework they have built so far. Weird races expansion

Part 2. I adore write ups like this

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...

Starting to get to the end game more often than not now in single player. I do wish there was more to do after a crisis broke out. More faction based quests or something that turned internal politics into a major component for late-game large empires.

The last game, my peace loving, psionically-ascended hippies, were in a huge federation, and had basically no real enemies. The Unbidden appeared and I wiped them out in about 5 years. Game over.

Yeah, the Crisis (or the War in Heaven) are basically the climax of the game right now. The War in Heaven has a bit more potential to get everyone involved (unless a Crisis really takes root).

Next single player game, I'll probably turn the difficulty up a bit.

I'm giving the Drow I almost played in the multiplayer a whirl in single player. I haven't touched authoritarianism or spirituality at all in any of my plays, so it should be interesting.

I put it everything in a circular galaxy with a hyper lanes only game for fun with choke points.

I'm hoping to upgrade my laptop situation soon as well. As it is the 2011 macbook pro gets really slow in the mid to late game when I have the galaxy map open. I'm looking forward to what it might be like to play on a large map with scores of other empires!

Still have not finished a single game yet. Also, don't care. To be fair, between The Witcher 3 and now Mass Effect: Andromeda sucking up all of my time, it's kind of understandable. When I do have a little time, I'm just obsessed with creating factions at the moment to actually play.

That reminds me. I need to create factions for the Salarians, Asari, Krogan, Rachni, Turians, Hanar, Drell, Volus, Quarians, Batarians, Vorcha, Yahg, and Protheans. I'd add the Thorian as well but I don't have the Plantoid DLC.

[Unintentional Oversight]: The Elcor should also be created.

Ive just come back to this and am now deep into a game and its bloody brilliant.

One thing though, I keep getting offers for my strategic resources, but the offers are pitiful.

I cannot see any way of negotiating though, am I missing something here?, surely there must be a way of making a counter-offer?.