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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Gepeu

Savant
Patron
Joined
Oct 16, 2016
Messages
986
How could one remodel Stellaris' combat, though?
 

Lone Wolf

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
3,703
I wanted Space-EU4...what I got was a game that has meaningless diplomacy, combat that has no depth and shallow empire management.

Uhh, where is the depth of combat in EU4? Ditto for deep empire management?
 

Elim

Augur
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
Messages
330
Project: Eternity
Stellaris doesn't even have trading! Sure, you can trade resources, but I mean trading that matters. No civilian trading routes like in DW: U.
There is one direction you can take your empire.
Concerning combat, Stellaris is number vs number, corvette spam coupled with destroyers and cruisers. There is no strategy involved. You just doomstack the other guy. That's it.
Meanwhile in EU4 you have to watch terrain and all these things. I guess they are pretty "same-y" when I think about it, but you still need to put more thought into EU4.
 

tindrli

Arcane
Joined
Jan 5, 2011
Messages
4,465
Location
Dragodol
How could one remodel Stellaris' combat, though?

adding fast forward battle result button so we dont need to watch it in a first place.
Then adding commands to actually control possiton of your fleets when battle starts. Then adding multiple targeting system and allow player to target things with specific weapons
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,818
Location
Italy
working what we already have: stellaris needs a huge refocus on ground combat, buff planetary defenses by tenfold, cut the fleets numbers to one tenth and maybe switch to starbases to be fully disabled only by troops, with the lore explanation that they're just too big to be destroyed by ships and more technobabble. starbases should work like habitats do now: orbitals which work like planets.
and maybe much more unrest, and definitely much more internal struggles, like low faction ratings causing even more unrest which leads to riots which leads to dead pops.
 

Sturmgewehr44

Novice
Joined
May 8, 2017
Messages
36
Location
Welsh Scenic Byway
It has been a few months since I played Stellaris so perhaps I judged it unfairly, but this was one of those games that for the first twenty hours seemed amazing but then the magic wore off and I started to wish I was playing Sins of a Solar Empire instead.
 

Inf0mercial

Augur
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
264
Ok seriously all you guys saying "spam corvettes" have you played since release? Stack battleships long range and you can take on 2-3 time your fleet size anything below a battleship dies too quick these days in big battles and once you get flak cannons you simply negate 2 branches of the tech tree.

Throw in Exo weapons on 80 Battleships and watch enemy fleets simply disintegrate before they an even fire a shot off.
 

baturinsky

Arcane
Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Messages
5,526
Location
Russia
Battleships (and even Cruisers) can have ~90% armor, which can be only breached by Large weapons, which does not fit on Corvettes.
Are missiles/torpedos/fighters any good?
 

Althorion

Learned
Joined
Apr 22, 2017
Messages
111
Are missiles/torpedos/fighters any good?
I’ve been using torpedo corvettes with limited success—they can be a poor man’s replacement for heavier, stronger ships if you suddenly find yourself without battleships of your own, but I wouldn’t put them on my fleet on a more permanent basis. Carriers seem like a “win more” option when you fight against enemy with only light ships, so I didn’t test them properly.
Maybe those two tactics could be successfully used in tandem, reversing somewhat my standard approach (instead of making light ships good against light ships and heavy against heavy have light ships specializing against battleships and make battleships into carriers), I’ll test that in my next playthrough.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
Ok seriously all you guys saying "spam corvettes" have you played since release? Stack battleships long range and you can take on 2-3 time your fleet size anything below a battleship dies too quick these days in big battles and once you get flak cannons you simply negate 2 branches of the tech tree.

Throw in Exo weapons on 80 Battleships and watch enemy fleets simply disintegrate before they an even fire a shot off.

Corvettes beat anything else in an equal cost scenario. Specifically cheap T1 corvettes that cost around 50 minerals. Downside is that the game mechanics break when fleets get too big (ships won't fire and don't move properly), and huge corvette fleets still take constant attrition even in victory while if you overmatch with cruisers you take almost no losses.

Battleships (and even Cruisers) can have ~90% armor, which can be only breached by Large weapons, which does not fit on Corvettes.
Are missiles/torpedos/fighters any good?
Corvettes with Plasma penetrate armor better than M/L class weapons hit Corvettes.

Missiles/Torpedoes are alright at the very early game but suck more and more the bigger fleets get. Reason is that when a target dies all missiles targetting it can't retarget and just disappear, so you lose lots of DPS. Fighters are just bad.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Got this in the latest Humble Monthly. Stellaris is rather fun, it's one of those "just one more turn" games that you can just play for hours and hours... and hours and preventing Save-Scumming on "Ironman Mode" is for the better as I probably would've reloaded a bunch of times, but they seriously need to work on that Tutorial shit, because some "Options" are not obvious at all.

For instance for the first 10+ hours I flew around the Galaxy with my unchanged Level 1 ships because I had no idea you could actually Upgrade them, since they've hidden the Option in a Screen called "Ship Design" and I didn't really feel like visually updating the design of my ships. I only found out that they don't self-upgrade with the newest tech after I founded a Federation and got the Federation fleet for a few turns, which had the Option to Upgrade the ships automagically from the Fleet menu.

And there's also some other minor stuff that isn't exactly very obvious, only found out about Armies and how invading of planets works because a quest required a "Transport ship" and I looked it up and the way "Factions" and "Influence" as a resource works and how to increase it (had my population nearly Revolt before I had to start decimating my furthest outposts to quell it and got down to being only able to hire like 3-4 Scientists because of a lack of Influence for a while with a lot of the others dying due to age and being unable to replace em) or how to set up and properly use the Star Clusters to run themselves isn't exactly the most obvious thing either. Also I still don't know if there is a way to influence which Technologies to Research pop up or if it's entirely by luck? I missed to upgrade the Starport the first time it showed up and it took rather long for it to reappear again limiting me to Corvettes for large parts of the early game.

Had an annoying Lizard empire block my way to the South of the map acting all aggressive the first time till a part of his empire broke off and decided to join me limiting me to interactions with some Pacifist neighbor to the East which I managed to encircle early, I almost managed to encircle the Lizard too but at the last moment of building an Outpost they managed to expand their influence to said tile and my construction ship went lost:
20170508080428_15qk7w.jpg


So I started up a Federation and got the Pacifists to the East in on it relatively early, managing to convince some other empires far off to the SouthWest from my position to join up in the alliance by Midgame by picking the right rivals, then I managed to (barely) encircle the strongest of em from all sides and contain him and in two Federation-declared wars fucked the Lizards to the South and their allies a bit, breaking apart their empire and decimating their fleet:
20170508165939_1nxjxf.jpg


Which ending should I go for, Federation planets, Domination or beating em all and is there like a tech victory? What are those Dormant Empires with "Overwhelming" strength but limiting themselves to a few planets about? Also, is there actually a way to goad empires into war with you? Cause no matter how hard I tried in early game with the "Pacifist" war settings, whether I Insulted the lizards or tried to get my reputation with them down, they never actually bit and started a war themselves, just made some noises and annoyed me by blocking the way.

Also LOL VR:
20170507134230_1oxjvs.jpg

And Oooh, pretty space battles, managed to get my ass handed to my Fleet and had to Retreat twice the first time I attacked the lizards because my ship composition didn't have enough Corvettes, which they used as shields while decimating my fleet, but I got them back right after:
20170508121235_18ak44.jpg

20170508132431_1d3kev.jpg
 
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Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Continued playing and reached the Victory condition of 60% of all habitable planets being in Federation space which just got me a rather disappointing Victory screen. I was in the middle of upgrading my 100K fleet with the new Jump Drive and weapons I'd researched when my Federation partners declared war again, so I tried to make the best of it and decimate the Themlar Compact Empire to the West a bit, going in with my fleet and splitting it in two as I usually do against weaker enemies creating two 40K stacks and killing em dead:
20170509181932_17vsmk.jpg


When all of a sudden a fucking portal opens up in the system I had just been fighting in and several 60K stack enemies flood out of it declaring me to be food, I had just lost 20K Fleet strength before I realized what was happening and Warped the fuck out of there quick, hoping I am not doomed since there are no Reloads and I was already in the middle of a war:
20170509213217_1qtsos.jpg


From there they spread out across the galaxy eating unsuspecting planets and species along the way, the Themlar Compact got the brunt of it, but they got into my territory too and ate like ~4-5 of my planets and destroyed several vassals slowly making their way to Sol and my core systems while I retreated to Earth and the systems around, upgrading my Fleet and building additional shit with every bit of minerals I still had (and trading Energy and other resources for more):
20170509220620_1z0sra.jpg


Worse yet, while this was going on my Experienced Fleet Admiral died of old age and left me with 20K or so less Fleet strength, so I had to hire a new one and built the Fleet up as strong as I could till the minerals ran all out while they were devouring my outer worlds and seemingly multiplying their Fleet since they had like at least 6-7 50-60K fleet stacks, leading to a valiant last charge at the system they appeared in, at least the previous war had ended meanwhile:
20170509222901_1o2sbw.jpg

20170509222946_13qs2q.jpg

Alas, more and more of their Fleets came jumping in, I managed defeating three of them and another two appeared with even more on the way, leaving me no other way than to get the fuck out of there again with less than 90K Fleet strength left since they were attacking and decimating my expensive battleships from the rear, at least the new Admiral had gotten some much-needed experience and was Lvl5 afterwards boosting the strength of what remained:
20170509223009_1lhsdq.jpg


So one more attempt to wipe them out, after another bit of building up my Fleet while they were eating more worlds and two more battles against them trying to save random systems of mine, I ran into them again and sustained more losses:
20170509223723_10ksex.jpg

20170509225332_1jysef.jpg

After a while one of those Dormant Empires woke up, since they had gotten close to their territory and were presumably starting to attack them too:
20170509225138_175szj.jpg


So while I was fighting my way back to their portal they demanded I become their "Satellite", the Remains of the Themlar Compact and a few other Empires had already agreed, since I didn't know how much of the Unbidden there still were left and upon looking at their Fleet power being "Superior", all the shit they had gathered up there and not wanting to have to deal with two enemies at once while in an Existential crisis I agreed, and this is how the Federation ended and I became a "Satellite" under one of the Dormant Empire thingies and had to agree to destroy any of the robots I still had left:
20170509225841_1u2sc3.jpg

20170509230615_1fgs59.jpg

Alas, they weren't that much help, so I jumped back into the portal system, destroyed the remaining few fleets and finally fucked up their portal Saving the galaxy, and am in the process of colonizing the areas they had razed down and building up my Fleet strength and Tech to take on the Awakened Fallen Empires:
20170509232046_1lrs7v.jpg

20170510030527_1kzk6h.jpg

They went on to instead exterminate some other suckers first:
20170510060921_14usbv.jpg
 
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thesheeep

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Mar 16, 2007
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Tampere, Finland
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Dexter Please use spoiler tags for images. Such large posts fuck up the scrolling (as in, takes forever to scroll down).
Also... the AI actually did something against Unbidden in your game? Wow... usually, they just sit there, being happily annihilated.

Anyway, you can stop playing now. Unbidden are much, much stronger than Fallen/Awakened Empires. If you can beat them, you have beaten the strongest.
Except, of course, if you want to go on painting ;)

And yes, FEs awakening at the same time the crisis happens is really annoying. Dealing with both at same time can break you, so I think you did good agreeing to become their satellite.
 

baturinsky

Arcane
Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Messages
5,526
Location
Russia
On Normal, at least, Awaken are not that big problem, because they merely occupy your planets, so you can just fly around with tour transports and un-occupy them as they go. After a while, they are bored enough for White Peace.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
So, on the expansion release Paradox had a game-screwing bug where the AI would constantly run out of food and never recover.

Seeing this, Paradox decided "Let's wait a month doing nothing and then release a big bug-fix patch to get the game working properly".

Now the game is bugged so that the AI has an insanely high chance to switch to pacifist ethics and the galaxy will have no wars unless started by FEs/Hiveminds.

Thx?
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
I built up the strongest Fleet I could draining almost all of my Energy and Mineral reserves, asked them if I could have Independence and they declined, which made me enter into a war of Independence against the fuckers:
20170510105635_1s8sps.jpg

20170510110300_1jhsbh.jpg

Amassing the fleet near their home world and trying to lure them out, no luck, so I entered one of their empty systems and started destroying their shit, no luck either, they didn't take the bait. So I finally got my Fleet to attack their main Fleet and defenses directly, which they had stacked up into a 350K stack not knowing the outcome that will likely decide the Empire's fate, my numbers started to drop till I got close and after his Titan exploded in the first 30-60 seconds or so his numbers started to drop... and drop and drop, after a short while invading and taking over his worlds I was finally granted Independence:
20170510110614_1pys4l.jpg

20170510110727_1jcsv2.jpg

20170510110909_1yis2a.jpg

This triggered various things: Some smaller Empires willingly became vassals in order to get protection, another Dormant Empire awakened and actually started conquering a few systems and asked if I want to become a subordinate to which I said no, and I could seek an Association Agreement with the Federation and later rejoin.

Then I tried to go to war with the Ragerian Regulators again and it got stuck at 78% with every fleet and ship destroyed and every planet occupied without wanting to end, so I started another war with the other Awakened Empire and it ended in an Epic Fleet battle where everyone gathered to shoot a few mining stations and stuff but none of the other Fleets followed into their home system, where they retreated to. No matter, I made decimated the rest of them, even if I was only left with Battleships at the end with everything else dead.
20170510141023_1w5sa6.jpg

20170510141435_1ous3g.jpg

20170510141629_1mpsom.jpg

Finally I ended up Vassalizing the remainders of the Themlar Compact to humiliate them some more and I think there's not much left to do in the game, some "Galactic Nomads - Military Commissariat" appeared from nowhere, but I can't actually see it on the map and all they do is talk and all the Upgrades left seems to be boring +5% stuff:
20170510124458_119slp.jpg

20170510143803_1cmsjf.jpg

I think I'll wait till I can get all the other content cheap till I might give it another shot again in a few years.
 
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Sturmgewehr44

Novice
Joined
May 8, 2017
Messages
36
Location
Welsh Scenic Byway
All of these photos being posted led me to playing this game again last night and it seems pretty entertaining and fun again, but I'd like to know if anyone thinks the Utopia DLC is worth that twenty dollar price point.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,500
I just had NASTY bug which made my main species meta species. Now it's impossible to set it as main species.
 

Grotesque

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All of these photos being posted led me to playing this game again last night and it seems pretty entertaining and fun again, but I'd like to know if anyone thinks the Utopia DLC is worth that twenty dollar price point.

Yes
 

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