Stellaris: A little late to the party, but OK....

Started by 88mmkwk, September 20, 2021, 11:15:05 PM

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88mmkwk

I noticed that the first Stellaris thread in the forums was October 01, 2015, 12:58:22 PM.  Nearly 6 years later, I finally jumped in and bought it during this past weekend's Paradox strategy sale on Steam.  I had previously checked it out, but had skipped buying it.  But I bought it the weekend.  Why?


  • I already own GalCiv3 but don't play it.  Why? Jeez I wish I knew.  I tried it a couple of times but it never seemed to click for me.  Even today, it sits in my Steam library regularly screaming at me "what is your PROBLEM?" as I continue to play other games and wish I had a space game that grabbed my interest and held on to it....
  • Stellaris seems to be still well supported.  There was a new update release in September, and so even a late comer like me can hope that he doesn't jump into the pool shortly before it is drained....
  • It was on sale.... as it often is....
  • The Livestreaming got me.  I saw the twitch sessions with live gaming of Stellaris and it seemed like everyone was having such a good time playing.  Then why not me?
  • I like deep games. And this fits the bill.  I dont have the time nor the willingness to learn a new game every week, and all indications are that learning one game will give me many hours of entertainment
  • Reflexes not spoken here.  I tend to prefer strategic games and not a twitchfest shooter fan - I am too old.  So the ability to pause Stellaris and figure out what is going on works to my benefit.
I've started YouTube tutorials to figure out what I should be doing and hope to jump in soon.  Kinda embarrassing to be getting into something so late, but I made sure ahead of time which DLC's and Add-ons to get with the base game.  I'm excited to start playing and see how it captures my interest....

88
Gaming Rig:
HP Spectre x360 Convertible Laptop w/Pen Support
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HP Omen Thunderbolt 3 External GPU/Storage Chassis with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and 1TB SSD
27" Dell S2716DG 144Hz 1440p with GSync at 2560x1440

-----------------------------------
"Still here and alive. On kindlenso thisnwill be short.  Of wtf.
Day 3 to.borrow.  weather is bad.  Had first fall; good call on gloves.  Heavy rain tomorrow.ngut check.  Inshall prevail.  Jesus thisnisnworse than a drunk post.  F you kindle."        - Toonces

Jarhead0331

Stellaris in 2015 is a totally different game than Stellaris in 2021. The updates and dlc have completely altered many of the core concepts and mechanics of the game.

As a result of this extreme evolution, I don't think being "late" to the party really matters. It's one of my top 4x titles and I really like it, even though some of the changes over time I did not like. It's one of the few games in my steam library that I have literally hundreds of hours playing.

Take your time learning this deep game and enjoy!
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


SlagDog

I sorta feel the same way about GC3 as well MM88. I have Stellaris on my computer but I've only played about 3 hours worth of it. I would be interested in what you think about Stellaris after you have played a bit.

88mmkwk

#3
I must admit I found it interesting that after purchasing it that there wasn't a game manual.  Fortunately, YouTube has lots of newbie videos including an entertaining one called "I Will Teach You Stellaris (3.0) in 10 Minutes".



Definitely a 4X onion here ready to have the layers of goodness discovered over time.

I'm gonna hit up a few YouTube videos on it (gotta make sure they are for Stellaris V3 due to the changes noted by JH), read the newbie guide on the Stellaris wiki at https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Beginner%27s_guide and then give it a go.....
Gaming Rig:
HP Spectre x360 Convertible Laptop w/Pen Support
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz w/16GB RAM
HP Omen Thunderbolt 3 External GPU/Storage Chassis with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and 1TB SSD
27" Dell S2716DG 144Hz 1440p with GSync at 2560x1440

-----------------------------------
"Still here and alive. On kindlenso thisnwill be short.  Of wtf.
Day 3 to.borrow.  weather is bad.  Had first fall; good call on gloves.  Heavy rain tomorrow.ngut check.  Inshall prevail.  Jesus thisnisnworse than a drunk post.  F you kindle."        - Toonces

W8taminute

Like you I'm old but the funny thing is I'm able to play shooting games much better than I did when I was younger but my brain can't handle deep strategy games anymore.  At least for time periods greater than 15 minutes. 

This pains me because my first love was and still is strategy games. 

Back on topic, I fired up Stellaris last week really excited to get back into it and my brain short circuited.  I couldn't focus and didn't know what to do even though I used to play this game with a passion back when it first came out. 

Maybe a video tutorial will help me back into the swing of things. 

And another thing...but not to rain on any parades just doing some good old fashioned kibitzing.

One must laud the genius of Paradox Interactive for to release a game and then issue patch after patch along with DLCs to completely transform the gaming experience from what it's original intent is either diabolically brilliant or insanely stupid.  Look at the bottom line.  Paradox makes a boat load of money and gamers are happy?
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

88mmkwk

Quote from: SlagDog on September 21, 2021, 12:54:36 PM
I have Stellaris on my computer but I've only played about 3 hours worth of it. I would be interested in what you think about Stellaris after you have played a bit.
Since a lot smarter folk than me might wanna try Stellaris in the future, I thought maybe I'd chronicle here my FLAILEX as I try to wrap my arms around this beast....  Here goes....

Sunday Sept 19, 2021:  Paradox Strategy Weekend on Steam has Stellaris and all it's miscellaneous mods/add-ons/DLC's on sale.  I've seen Stellaris around for a while and heard that it with some combo of Deep/Complex.  I ended up watching the Livecast "Developer Plays" sessions on the Steam Stellaris homepage, and that's what drew me in to buying it.  After a quick search of GOG and other discount game sites, looks like the Steam sale is a decent deal and so I decide to buy it on Steam.  Steam has the Stellaris Ultimate Bundle for around $110USD, but I wonder if I really need the whole shebang.  Did some searching on both the product discussion forum on Steam and on the web, and made a decision to initially skip most of the species packs along with the MegaCorp and Nemesis add-ons.  If I really get into the game, I can always add those later.  Total out the door for me was ~$60.

Tuesday Sept 21:  Hopped up onto YouTube and started watching Stellaris Intro videos, tutorials, and How-To's.  Also hopped over to the Stellaris Wiki (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Stellaris_Wiki).  So much info and only a fraction sticks in my brain at this point....

Wednesday Sept 22:  Time to jump in and discover all the things I don't know yet!  Fire up Stellaris, select the Human Federation, make sure I dial down the Xeno option (important for a newbie per multiple threads), and away we go.  Screen pops up and a little tutorial help guy appears in the top right of the screen.  One cool note is that the game showed G-sync in the top right corner, letting me know that Stellaris was being rendered using my external GeForce 1070Ti vs my embedded laptop graphics chip.  The 1070Ti fan shortly kicked on and I must admit that I was quite impressed with the graphics detail.  Sol appears in the middle of the screen along with Earth and I start clicking on everything to see what screens pop.  Oddly, I missed a couple of the screens from the tutorial bot, and could not figure out how to "re-show" them.  Miss a tip and it's your loss I guess....

Time to do something......but what?  I remembered from the intro that I needed to first send a survey ship to discover other systems.  So I click a bunch of the stacked icons above earth and see one that looks like a science ship.  But where to send it?  And is moving done via right click or left click?  I see some arrows that seem to point to other systems, but no matter what I do, I don't see how to get to the other systems.  I scroll in and out, but everything seems just focused on my solar system.  What am I doing wrong?  I start looking around and suddenly I notice on the bottom center of the screen a GALAXY button.  What does this do?  I click it and suddenly the map zooms out and VOILA I see other systems! Yay!!!  So then I go back to my Earth spacedock, select the Science ship and right click (I think?) to send it on a survey mission to a nearby system.  I sit there for a minute and wonder how long until it start to head to the next system.  Maybe it takes some time to get up to speed?  Or maybe due to the scale, it is moving and I just don't notice?  Or maybe - just MAYBE - this idiot forgot to cancel pause mode for the game to run???  Jeeeeshhh..... I click the run button in the right corner of the screen and my little space discover science vessel starts to fly toward the next system.  It eventually gets there and I can now access info about the newly discovered planet.  Cool!  And my little survey ship sits there.....and...sits....... and sits some more.... OK, now what?  I think I'm supposed to send another ship to colonize or something.  But do I have to build the ship first?  Or is there one already at my space station I can send?  I click on the space station and realize that the stacked entries of what is in the space station have icons on them but I have no idea what icons mean what.  So I could easily send the wrong kind of ship and have no clue about what I'm doing.  At this point, I is getting late and I recognize that I need to save and close the game for tonight.  I also recognize that my action plan before coming back includes:

  • Spend some time up on the Stellaris Wiki learning the different ship type icons.  Next game I'll Alt-Tab regularly between the game and the Wiki page with the icons up.
  • Spend some time refreshing on the sequence of what comes after survey in the sequence for planet discovery, survey, and eventual habitation.
  • Figure out what make a planet worth investing time/resources to colonize
  • Figure out what the heck I should be doing with the settings for Earth.  Lots of screens to click for Earth - what settings do I need to pay attention to?
Where I stand now:  Feels good to have my first newb session out of the way.  The game graphics are wonderful, and I'm enjoying the game discovery process so far.  I'm still into it and looking forward to my next session!!
Gaming Rig:
HP Spectre x360 Convertible Laptop w/Pen Support
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz w/16GB RAM
HP Omen Thunderbolt 3 External GPU/Storage Chassis with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and 1TB SSD
27" Dell S2716DG 144Hz 1440p with GSync at 2560x1440

-----------------------------------
"Still here and alive. On kindlenso thisnwill be short.  Of wtf.
Day 3 to.borrow.  weather is bad.  Had first fall; good call on gloves.  Heavy rain tomorrow.ngut check.  Inshall prevail.  Jesus thisnisnworse than a drunk post.  F you kindle."        - Toonces

solops

I liked Stellaris OK until version 2.0 when they got rid  of all travel modes except starlanes. They just did
not want to expend the effort to write an AI that could handle that and warp drive.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Destraex

Quote from: solops on September 24, 2021, 05:54:21 PM
I liked Stellaris OK until version 2.0 when they got rid  of all travel modes except starlanes. They just did
not want to expend the effort to write an AI that could handle that and warp drive.

I actually missed out on the other modes of travel and really lamented that fact. Because being able to jump past defences is very space like. By making sure you cannot jump past defences and locking you to star lanes the game became every other game of this type. That is to say like a land campaign. However I still enjoyed it with friends.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

Rayfer

Quote from: solops on September 24, 2021, 05:54:21 PM
I liked Stellaris OK until version 2.0 when they got rid  of all travel modes except starlanes. They just did
not want to expend the effort to write an AI that could handle that and warp drive.

Just curious because I know nothing about what goes into coding an AI in any game.....did they not want to expend the effort or is it next to impossible to do so in a game where anyone can warp anywhere on the map?  Or said less wordy....they didn't want to or just couldn't?

solops

#9
Plenty of other games have done it. Some did it well, some not, just as has been the case with land movement and starlane movement decisions in games. The original "Reach for the Stars" on my Apple IIe did a bang up job with warp drive back in the mid 1980s. Multiple movement systems and, perhaps more importantly, defending against them, complicate the task.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Karri

I still haven't had a Stellaris game that wouldn't slow down to a crawl by mid-late game. Unless I play on the tiniest of maps, but then it's not quite so enjoyable.

KR777

I quite enjoyed my time with Stellaris, however limited it may have been. I remember, though, building/customizing a ship was not very intuitive and even felt like unneccesary micro (it may have been reworked since, idk). The main problem I had with it, however, was when the exploration was done and the universe was divided up into claims. That was when the whole thing devolved into a map painting exercise à la late game EUIV and I somehow never came back. It's sad because I grabbed some of the story DLC in sales with the firm intention to try them later. That must be 2 years already, now. I'm not sure what's holding me back - maybe my frustration with the state of EUIV has been spilling over?