Stellaris

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah, I did the pre-Warp starts and enjoyed them a lot.  Even if you're micro'ing everything, it only takes 60 or 75 minutes to break out of your home system.  But you have a strong sense of connection with your humble beginnings, which makes it immensely satisfying.

And it's a fun way to really get some of the nuances down.  You can't just spam mining stations everywhere--you really have to analyze your long-term plan to get enough of the different resource streams flowing your way.  And those decisions in turn shape your medium-term strategy in a serious way (e.g., "What do you do if you can't find any decent Helium deposits in your home system?").

It was a great game, but ultimately, each replay felt an awful lot like the last--except for which customizedly stupid thing my AI would do that would set my Empire back years or more!

[Destraex]

Have to ask.
What do people consider easier to play:
Xenophiles or Xenophobes?

[Anguille]

Following Martok's advice, i am finally giving time to Stellaris (even though i bought the nova or galaxy edition, can't remember which one, when it was released). It's a nice game. One thing that i am wondering, as an experienced Master of Orion 3 player, i have the feeling that Stellaris is the same kind of game where very few ever finishes. How many of you have finished a game of Stellaris (by winning)? Like MOO3, it seems to me that Stellaris is one of these games you keep on playing for ever and then start a new game. Thoughts?

[joram]

That was certainly my experience.  Keep wanting to get back into it but the end game for me was always a drag.

[OJsDad]

Be aware, there are significant changes coming in the next release that going to impact planet management, trade, and economics.

[Ubercat]

I bought Stellaris on sale recently and I'm holding out for the massive new "Le Guin" patch to come out before installing it.

[W8taminute]

I bought Stellaris on sale recently and I'm holding out for the massive new "Le Guin" patch to come out before installing it.

In the meantime you could check out the Star Trek mod on the Steam Workshop for Stellaris.  It's actually quite good and there is a lot of content in it.  I highly recommend giving it a try whether you are or are not a Trekker/Trekkie.

[Destraex]

I bought Stellaris on sale recently and I'm holding out for the massive new "Le Guin" patch to come out before installing it.

In the meantime you could check out the Star Trek mod on the Steam Workshop for Stellaris.  It's actually quite good and there is a lot of content in it.  I highly recommend giving it a try whether you are or are not a Trekker/Trekkie.

I second that. Although the many story pop ups are very annoying sometimes.

[W8taminute]

I finally won a war against the AI since I bought this game when it originally came out.  I'm so psyched!  I think I have a better understanding now on fleet management and conducting war in this game. 

In my opinion this is one of Paradox's best games ever...

[Rayfer]

I finally won a war against the AI since I bought this game when it originally came out.  I'm so psyched!  I think I have a better understanding now on fleet management and conducting war in this game. 

In my opinion this is one of Paradox's best games ever...

Agreed....I've tried most all of the 4X space games but keep coming back to Stellaris.

[CJReich46]

I'll admit I keep coming back to see how it's improved.

I am curious about Le Guin is going to be. Megacorp sounds interesting too - especially the massive city worlds (Trantor, Coruscant, etc)

Destraex, I haven't figured out if it's easier to play as Xenophobe or Xenophile. I did one game where I was the Commonwealth of Man, (this was a long time ago) and I RP'd a bit with the xenophobic nature, instead of saying "we hate aliens." it's "we don't trust them. we know we have to deal with them. But we don't trust them." that kind of made more sense than "Kill'em all."(at least in my "logic."

I do use some mods. One Mod I really liked was Origin Civics. - Like for example I tend to RP that Earth basically got either screwed because of nukes or climate or BOTH. So I used a civic that stated our home world was environmentally wrecked. We could colonize different worlds but our goal was to eventually research how to fix ours. (call it researching the "Japanese Miracle" if you watch Ghost in The Shell).  Made for some fun RP.

My one gripe though is: I find myself in these situations
1) I can't produce enough ships to deal with my more 'less-enlightened' neighbors. (Xenophobes or Hegemonic Imperialist or my 'favorite' Evangelical Purifiers.) meanwhile they're ahead in fleet strength or tech or colonies.

2) My economy doesn't keep up nor does my research

3) I find some PvE (Enigmatic Fortress, The Pirate Home world, etc) that somehow boxes me in.

To be honest I have never finished a game. I have tried to get a Federation started but that was it.

[PanzersEast]

MegaCorp has just released....

I picked it up at GMG for -20% off.


Cheers,

[W8taminute]

My current game is on hold for now until I can figure out what to do about the end game galaxy invasion by those one eyed alien thingies. 

Sent three fleets against their one fleet of 40k attack power and was wiped out in seconds.  I thought I had it figured out on how to counter the aliens weapon tech but I was wrong.  I sent in one fast moving high evasion fleet of 8k power to soak up the initial barrage from the enemy.  This fleet was backed up by two fleets of 12k power each which were composed mostly of CAs and BBs. 

Not sure what to do from here other than bring more ships next time.

[Destraex]

A friend of mine is saying that you get all the features of the DLC in the regular patches but are not able to use them in game unless you have DLC. So this would mean I can face robot empires without having the synthetic dawn DLC. Does this seem right? I would not think this is correct. Maybe for some minor things but not most things.

[Sparhawk]

I've spent some time playing the new MegaCorp DLC/Le Guin update. Here's some quick observations. Of course many aspects have changed including planet population and building management. Centered around districts and building slots that open up according to population. It's easy to overbuild and have infrastucture that isn't being used. Keeping pops and jobs balanced is the goal.  There is a bit more resource management now than before but the outcome is the same: Mine/harvest resources and use to build/research. There are trade routes now that degrade into a pirate fest if you don't patrol them. It took me awhile to figure out setting up trade routes. There is a trade route tab on the lower right UI. There is no more core sector and you get massive penalties for overexpanding, so the game does throttle you back a bit and makes for more measured expansion.