Stellaris: New Paradox Sci Fi Grand Strategy

[jztemple2]

Hey, I finally won something! I posted a question that was used in a Stellaris developer's live stream and won the following:

Stellaris: Project Augustus (Sign-up bonus)
Stellaris: Symbols of Domination (Sign-up bonus)

Of, I haven't actually bought the game yet and so I don't know what those things are. Still, free and all...

[tgb]

Downloading as I write this. It's going pretty quickly, too. I would have thought the servers would be jammed up.

[GreenGoo]

Steam just emailed me that Stellaris is now available.

Whether that means it's unlocked or not, who knows.

edit: tgb is on the job. edit2: and Sepiche.

[Holman]

What's funny is that the Paradox forums themselves are jammed and failing to load right now, and I don't believe you can even get the game from Paradox servers.

[Tampa_Gamer]

For those of stuck on the road with a measly business laptop the next few days , I am especially interested in any first impressions on whether or not this will de-throne Distant Worlds from those that have played that game. Even though I have played nearly 20 full games of Distant Worlds to the end, I still keep returning to it for whatever reason...

[Pyperkub]

Someone posted this on the Paradox Stellaris forum:

Metacritic 77 Metascore - 8.5 User Score
Destructoid 9/10!
IGN 6.3/10
IGN (Italy) 9.3/10
PCWorld 4/5
PC Invasion 8/10
GameWatcher 9/10
Explorminate eXemplary (5/5)
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
PC Gamer 70
PCGamesN 9/10
Eurogamer *Recommended* badge
Critically Sane 5/5
TICGN 10/10
Multiplayer.it (Italian) 9.2/10
GameSpew 9/10
TheSixthAxis 8/10
PCGames.de (German) 75%

So basically the shooter crowd doesn't like it

PS I want my 2 dollars!

[$iljanus]

Was able to grab it off Steam very quickly and I'm in the very early stage of play since I had to go out. Picked one of the vanilla human empires which were militaristic and will probably make lots of problems for their neighbors. Will post more impressions after some real play tonight. Before I left one of my research ships did find an anomaly on one of the moons in my system. It's currently researching it and I hope we don't get vaporized when it finishes up...

[ColdSteel]

I created a race of space cats and have been in the early exploration phase. So far I've found 3 anomalies but have left 2 of them unresearched due my scientists having a high failure chance due to low XP. I'll get back to them later when they level up some more.

I was very excited to find 2 colonizable planets in nearby systems within my sphere of influence. Even more exciting is that one of them is a Gaia planet with 100% habitability. The other is just a normal continental world (80% habitable).

So far I'm not seeing any bugs, glitches or other issues and am having a lot of fun. The tutorial works pretty nicely. I haven't run into any other races yet. More later.

PSA: If you login to your Paradox account from the game launcher, you get a free space owl race portrait. It will automatically add it to your game.


EDIT: PSA #2. This game has no DRM. You can run it directly from the game .exe without the Steam client running.

[Apollo]

Beginning to get worried about all the less than stellar reviews from the major reviewers. Think I'll pass on this one for now to wait to see how DLC changes things. Paradox does an excellent job of supporting their games over the long run, so maybe I'll be ready to grab this one in a year or two.

[tgb]

I created a race of space cats and have been in the early exploration phase.

Ha. I created space dogs (home system is Sirius, of course, and home world is Hydrant). We should play multi and get them together.

Speaking of which, is it possible to export custom races and send them to other people? Also one of the neater things about AoW 3 is that any custom race you might have created can pop up in other games as an AI-controlled faction. Anyone know if the same can happen here?

[GreenGoo]

Beginning to get worried about all the less than stellar reviews from the major reviewers. Think I'll pass on this one for now to wait to see how DLC changes things. Paradox does an excellent job of supporting their games over the long run, so maybe I'll be ready to grab this one in a year or two.

Steam reviews are "very positive", for what that's worth.

[jztemple2]

Review from Kotaku. The reviewer makes some interesting and well thought out conclusions I think.

[ColdSteel]

Speaking of which, is it possible to export custom races and send them to other people?

I think that you can. I'm not sure of the process, however. I think it's something they added late in development but it may be that it has to be done as a mod. Not sure.

In my current game I've discovered 4 races already and they have me pretty much hemmed in. I can already tell that I'm in trouble in this game. I have nowhere to expand and I have hostile neighbors to my right and upper left. I tried expanding to the lower right but while the world there has a good colony world, there are hostile space creatures there in that system and my navy has a pathetic 5 little ships and are vastly out powered by them. So, things aren't looking so good for the 'Hello Kitty' home world, I'm afraid. I'm about to colonize the Gaia world but I can't seem to get enough mineral income to build more ships and I'm gaining exactly 0 energy per turn.

There's a lot to learn in this game. I just found the policies and edicts section for my race. I'll have to go through that and figure out how I want everything set. If I should live so long, that is. I think for a first game I probably should have set the number of other races in the galaxy way lower than I did.

[Lorini]

For those of stuck on the road with a measly business laptop the next few days , I am especially interested in any first impressions on whether or not this will de-throne Distant Worlds from those that have played that game. Even though I have played nearly 20 full games of Distant Worlds to the end, I still keep returning to it for whatever reason...

Nope, I can tell you that from watching play throughs. DW is simply more complex than Stellaris. I think it'll be a good/great game for what it is, but what it's not is a DW clone.

I bought a copy and fired it up for a little while this morning, but it's been a busy day. Maybe I'll get more play time in tomorrow.

[tgb]

I think I'm going to restart with my Spiritual/Technocrat Space Dogs. Some interesting stuff happened right off the bat (a pack of religious zealots stole some corvettes, and I was tasked with chasing them down and stopping them), but it felt like I was constantly being bombarded with new things to research- anomalies, ruins, space debris - the projects were coming in hot and heavy, and I haven't felt this overwhelmed in a Paradox game since I was bombarded with notices in EU 2.

I'm thinking you need two science vessels right from the start - one to explore, and one to research everything being thrown at you.

[GreenGoo]

The Blorg videos touched on the need to get at least 1 more science vessel up and gaining experience, so it sounds like a good idea.

[ColdSteel]

Yep, and the tutorial also tells you to build another one. You definitely need more than one.

[Max Peck]

Yeah, if you are playing with the full tutorials enabled you get a mission to build a second science vessel, iirc.

My empire, the Dominion of the Draka, is off to a slow but stable start. They are just in the process of building their first colony ship, but they've staked out several nearby systems with mining and research stations, along with a couple of frontier outposts to push the borders out to the neighbors frontiers. I'm playing in a spiral galaxy, so the Dominion has only two rivals to worry about for the forseeable future.



Aside from hostile and eventually-justifiably-xenophobic neighbours, my biggest worry is Jebben's Maelstrom, which is currently home to enough Abyssal Hosts to annihilate the most powerful fleet the Dominion could muster, several times over. Best to let sleeping minions of the Elder Gods lie. For now...

[Lorini]

For those of stuck on the road with a measly business laptop the next few days , I am especially interested in any first impressions on whether or not this will de-throne Distant Worlds from those that have played that game. Even though I have played nearly 20 full games of Distant Worlds to the end, I still keep returning to it for whatever reason...

One other thing, when I say it's more complex than DW, I mean DW with no AI help.

It's pretty good however, I really like the roleplaying aspects. I'm playing as a Xenophile, so every time I have an opportunity to study aliens, I always say yes .

[baelthazar]

My love of WH40K made this my first race:



So far I have been slowly expanding and have two filthy xeno empires next to me. I also invaded a pre-warp planet and promptly enslaved the pathetic xenos infesting a perfectly good earth-like world. For the Emperor!

[Doomboy]

I created a race of space cats and have been in the early exploration phase.

Ha. I created space dogs (home system is Sirius, of course, and home world is Hydrant). We should play multi and get them together.

Speaking of which, is it possible to export custom races and send them to other people? Also one of the neater things about AoW 3 is that any custom race you might have created can pop up in other games as an AI-controlled faction. Anyone know if the same can happen here?

Yep, when you create a race, after you are done and on the race selection screen, there is a button on their portrait to allow them to be used, force them to be used, or ban them from AI use.

One thing I am wondering, if I set up a large galaxy with dozens of races, does it randomly generate races, or do I get to see multiple copies of the starter races if I haven't created any?

[ColdSteel]

Yep, when you create a race, after you are done and on the race selection screen, there is a button on their portrait to allow them to be used, force them to be used, or ban them from AI use.

Yeah, but how you export them to get them onto a friends PC? I don't see where that file is stored.

if I set up a large galaxy with dozens of races, does it randomly generate races, or do I get to see multiple copies of the starter races if I haven't created any?

It will randomly generate races.

[tgb]

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there really no notification of when a Pop comes of age and is ready to work? How can that have made it past the testers?

[Stuie]

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there really no notification of when a Pop comes of age and is ready to work? How can that have made it past the testers?

Glad I'm not the only one struggling with Pop management. If there's some secret to this, please clue us in.

Also, I didn't realize my scientists were the ones running for President. Oops. Now I don't have enough influence to fill the vacant research post. hahaha always learning.

[Lordnine]

I haven’t followed this very closely, how much personality would you say the other races have? Do they come across as actual people or are they just a collection of stats?

[tgb]

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there really no notification of when a Pop comes of age and is ready to work? How can that have made it past the testers?

Glad I'm not the only one struggling with Pop management. If there's some secret to this, please clue us in.

Also, I didn't realize my scientists were the ones running for President. Oops. Now I don't have enough influence to fill the vacant research post. hahaha always learning.

Have you figured out the purpose of endorsing a candidate before an election? I assume that increases his/her chance of winning, so you want to find one with a mandate you like, but I don't see it documented anywhere.

[dbemont]

I haven’t followed this very closely, how much personality would you say the other races have? Do they come across as actual people or are they just a collection of stats?

I'm not seeing personality, exactly, but it matters to you because it affects the probability of gaining any sort of cooperation from them.

[dbemont]

There has to be an easy way to get a list or see where the habitable planets are in the area you have explored, but I'm not seeing it.

[ColdSteel]

There has to be an easy way to get a list or see where the habitable planets are in the area you have explored, but I'm not seeing it.

The icon bar at the bottom right of your screen has a checkbox (the leftmost item) to show extra details on the map. If you check that and then look at the galaxy map, all systems with a world you can colonize will have a green globe icon. The ones you can't will be red. Then when you go to the system map, the planets will also have those icons.

[Stuie]

There has to be an easy way to get a list or see where the habitable planets are in the area you have explored, but I'm not seeing it.

The icon bar at the bottom right of your screen has a checkbox (the leftmost item) to show extra details on the map. If you check that and then look at the galaxy map, all systems with a world you can colonize will have a green globe icon. The ones you can't will be red. Then when you go to the system map, the planets will also have those icons.

In other words: No, there's not an easy list you can reference. Huge oversight in my opinion; a list view of worlds seems like a standard feature in games like this.

[dbemont]

There has to be an easy way to get a list or see where the habitable planets are in the area you have explored, but I'm not seeing it.

The icon bar at the bottom right of your screen has a checkbox (the leftmost item) to show extra details on the map. If you check that and then look at the galaxy map, all systems with a world you can colonize will have a green globe icon. The ones you can't will be red. Then when you go to the system map, the planets will also have those icons.

Thank you! Not a total substitute for a list, but WAY better than trying to get my aging memory to simply remember.

[GreenGoo]

There has to be an easy way to get a list or see where the habitable planets are in the area you have explored, but I'm not seeing it.

The icon bar at the bottom right of your screen has a checkbox (the leftmost item) to show extra details on the map. If you check that and then look at the galaxy map, all systems with a world you can colonize will have a green globe icon. The ones you can't will be red. Then when you go to the system map, the planets will also have those icons.

In other words: No, there's not an easy list you can reference. Huge oversight in my opinion; a list view of worlds seems like a standard feature in games like this.

Even Stardrive 2 (a flawed game imo) gives you a list of explored but uncolonized planets that you can sort by climate, size or resources. It's a pretty important feature if your galaxy is decent sized or above and you're trying to decide where to expand to next.

[Tampa_Gamer]

One other thing, when I say it's more complex than DW, I mean DW with no AI help.

It's pretty good however, I really like the roleplaying aspects. I'm playing as a Xenophile, so every time I have an opportunity to study aliens, I always say yes .

Thanks - appreciate the comparison. I still don't have access to my gaming computer for another day or so while travelling, but at least I get to read up on the game far more than I normally would before plunging in. Since I have a current DW game in play (utilizing the extended, AI and my own mods), it will be interesting to compare the two side by side later this week. The lack of a civilian sector is troubling because it really brings DW "alive" in my opinion.

[Stuie]

Maybe I'm missing something, but is there really no notification of when a Pop comes of age and is ready to work? How can that have made it past the testers?

Glad I'm not the only one struggling with Pop management. If there's some secret to this, please clue us in.

Also, I didn't realize my scientists were the ones running for President. Oops. Now I don't have enough influence to fill the vacant research post. hahaha always learning.

Have you figured out the purpose of endorsing a candidate before an election? I assume that increases his/her chance of winning, so you want to find one with a mandate you like, but I don't see it documented anywhere.

Each click of the endorsement button increased the likelihood of their election by around 10% or so. Cannot recall if there was a diminishing return on that - only clicked it twice "for science". Still in my mess-around playthrough.

[baelthazar]

That PC Gamer review really irks me. What irked me was the comment "Perhaps I had a particularly bad endgame in my play through..." Yeah... because a game this complex can be fairly reviewed in one playthrough...

[ColdSteel]

Some folks are being affected by a bad game stuttering issue. They now have a hotfix up for that that you can select under the betas tab (from the game properties in Steam).

Thank you! Not a total substitute for a list, but WAY better than trying to get my aging memory to simply remember.

You can also get this same info if you have the 'show details' checkbox off by hitting and holding the ALT button. For me it's easier to just leave it on all the time but you don't have to.

[Sepiche]

Took the day off yesterday to get some time in with it, and enjoying my game a lot so far. Regardless of some of the UI and mechanical nit picks, I think they've really got a fun formula for the early exploration game, and on the whole their event/quest system does a great job of breathing life into the galaxy.

Only odd bug I found so far was when I was colonizing a new world... I had previously researched robots, and right after I colonized my third planet and it was still being settled I noticed I could build robots, so I started one with the expectation it would be ready shortly after I finished settling the planet, however apparently adding the robot pop that early messed up whatever adds the initial colonists, as they never got added, and once the planet was settled the robots took control. It wasn't exactly alien controlled at that point as it showed my faction symbols over it, but it gave me the investigate option when I clicked on it instead of the actual planet. I just reloaded to before I started the robot and everything went fine.

[Unagi]

But after the initial seed of humans, you could add the robot ok, is that right?

[Sepiche]

But after the initial seed of humans, you could add the robot ok, is that right?

Yeah, once a colony is established and has it's first pop I've had no issues with robots.

[El Guapo]

Did you remember to turn off the "kill all humans" setting before building the robots?