Foreword
Settings
Roleplay limitations
Default United Nations empire. Keep default no resettlement policy throughout the game, switch to utopian abundance as soon as the first unemployment event fires, give robots full citizenship as soon as first event relating to their sapience happens, keep the starting civics, keep demands of xenophilic and egalitarian factions always fulfilled. Tall playstyle, no galaxy wide conquest, no wars initiated by us (except the first one, tribute to the Mass Effect series First Contact War with Turians and a somewhat necessary step on these difficulty settings to avoid restarting to get planets in the starting cluster for early expansion). No cheese, trying to keep as close as possible to the gamedesigners' intentions regarding game mechanics. Also no psionic, synth or genetic ascensions, humans must stay human.
The Humble Beginnings
1. 2200. Earth is but a blue pale dot in the sea of stars. North-eastern quadrant midway between the rim and the core.
2. 2204. The strange cultist movement, that appeared from nowhere necessitated the creation of Earth's armed forces. Discovery of close neighbour further strengthened the position of the hawks. Bordering system of Bonos was taken and starhold constructed with haste, while Earth was hastily building the fleet of 20+3 corvettes to defend in a war that seemed inevitable.
3. 2219. By the year 2019. The attacking neighbour's fleet was decimated in the battle of Bonos, where UN admiral midway in battle ordered a retreat to save the fleet. The damaged attacker was unable to take over Bonos starhold and full strength UN fleet managed to take over Ganvos starbase and ensure the successful invasion of Ganvos. Diplomatic corps had some claim to the Ganvos system in place which allowed successful annexation.
The first tree taken is expansionist tree, so it is not always necessary to go supremacy first, have militaristic trait and build 30-40 corvettes to do an early corvette rush. Though this was a pretty close call.
4. 2219. United Nations have doubled their population and secured three more planets for colonization. And was looking strong facing the new civilizations to the north.
The Imur empire in the north has its capital system isolated by another empire. Both of them are 1 planet empires due to low setting of habitable worlds, so we should be fine in the short term.
5. 2220.
6. 2220. Intending to be a peaceful empire UN's primary goal is to stay on good terms with its closest neighbours. Diplomatic decision is to rival the Imari Combine, which has its capital isolated by Sacrosanct Lozavata Imperium, so that Sacrosanct would be more inclined to have good relations with Earth. Conflict between those two seems inevitable, so our diplomats are supporting the side, which has more territory.
Pretty simple straightforward decision. We need to prevent those two to unite against us, so we need to spoil relations with the one that is farther and improve relations with the one that is closer. Rivaling somebody your nearest neighbour does not like is a way to improve relations with the said neighbour. This case is just a bit strange because further neighbour actually has systems bordering us, but it is the capitals that count.
7. 2220. While news headlines throughout the UN inform the readers about "contacting the third alien empire", the official UN propaganda promotes the idea that the First Contact War has been more of a civil conflict rotating around the question of which race is assuming the leading role in the common state.
Dorbolan Intersolar is a megacorp. Finding a megacorp in your galaxy and getting commercial pact early is a nice way to ensure some additional income. Dorbolan Intersolar is behind my nearest neighbour, so befriending Dorbolan allows me to expect them to be on my side in case of a very likely war with our nearest neighbour. Not that we want it, but they are militaristic authoritarian spiritualists.
8. 2220. Sancrosancts demonstrate an improved relations with UN due to common rival. As expected.
9. 2220.
This is x5 tech cost game, so science is going to suffer. Limited lifespan of scientists is also a problem.
10. 2222. Megacorp almost immediately opens its first branch office on Earth.
This is in support of https://www.reddit.com/user/Valloross/ challenge of beating crisis x5, 0.25hw, 5tc, GA, no scaling, ironman, all advanced AIs.
Check the https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/essv4z/how_to_properly_beat_a_x5_crisis_with_a_x5_tech/ if you are interested.
My starting settings are set to max advanced AIs, because that was the original challenge proposed to him IIRC. (And it should be noted as alexti pointed out somewhere, if you are using early rush, maximising advanced AIs makes game easier, not harder).
To make things more interesting (and lazy), I am role-playing default United Nations, leaving default policy of resettlement prohibited and switching to utopian abundance asap. Robots will also get full citizenship as soon as the first event regarding their sapience fires.
Valoross was kind enough to waste a lot of time in his game and achieved victory in 2622, so it is not much of a pressure to win at least a little bit sooner.
I generally avoid using game breaking exploits, like running your economy at zero energy, rushing ascension paths, fishing for Horizon or corvette rushing some neighbour in 2215.
However, I make one exception in this game. Since it is the 2nd attempt and the first one has ended with UN being boxed at the edge map at 6 systems with one planet, this game I am doing early corvette rush to get 2nd planet from the start.
This is also going to be a super long AAR. I have got over 600 screenshots to choose from. So it will probably end abruptly too, but I will try to include as much useful information as possible without making it a second installment of War and Peace.
Shall we begin...
Check the https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/essv4z/how_to_properly_beat_a_x5_crisis_with_a_x5_tech/ if you are interested.
My starting settings are set to max advanced AIs, because that was the original challenge proposed to him IIRC. (And it should be noted as alexti pointed out somewhere, if you are using early rush, maximising advanced AIs makes game easier, not harder).
To make things more interesting (and lazy), I am role-playing default United Nations, leaving default policy of resettlement prohibited and switching to utopian abundance asap. Robots will also get full citizenship as soon as the first event regarding their sapience fires.
Valoross was kind enough to waste a lot of time in his game and achieved victory in 2622, so it is not much of a pressure to win at least a little bit sooner.
I generally avoid using game breaking exploits, like running your economy at zero energy, rushing ascension paths, fishing for Horizon or corvette rushing some neighbour in 2215.
However, I make one exception in this game. Since it is the 2nd attempt and the first one has ended with UN being boxed at the edge map at 6 systems with one planet, this game I am doing early corvette rush to get 2nd planet from the start.
This is also going to be a super long AAR. I have got over 600 screenshots to choose from. So it will probably end abruptly too, but I will try to include as much useful information as possible without making it a second installment of War and Peace.
Shall we begin...
Settings
Roleplay limitations
Default United Nations empire. Keep default no resettlement policy throughout the game, switch to utopian abundance as soon as the first unemployment event fires, give robots full citizenship as soon as first event relating to their sapience happens, keep the starting civics, keep demands of xenophilic and egalitarian factions always fulfilled. Tall playstyle, no galaxy wide conquest, no wars initiated by us (except the first one, tribute to the Mass Effect series First Contact War with Turians and a somewhat necessary step on these difficulty settings to avoid restarting to get planets in the starting cluster for early expansion). No cheese, trying to keep as close as possible to the gamedesigners' intentions regarding game mechanics. Also no psionic, synth or genetic ascensions, humans must stay human.
The Humble Beginnings
1. 2200. Earth is but a blue pale dot in the sea of stars. North-eastern quadrant midway between the rim and the core.
2. 2204. The strange cultist movement, that appeared from nowhere necessitated the creation of Earth's armed forces. Discovery of close neighbour further strengthened the position of the hawks. Bordering system of Bonos was taken and starhold constructed with haste, while Earth was hastily building the fleet of 20+3 corvettes to defend in a war that seemed inevitable.
3. 2219. By the year 2019. The attacking neighbour's fleet was decimated in the battle of Bonos, where UN admiral midway in battle ordered a retreat to save the fleet. The damaged attacker was unable to take over Bonos starhold and full strength UN fleet managed to take over Ganvos starbase and ensure the successful invasion of Ganvos. Diplomatic corps had some claim to the Ganvos system in place which allowed successful annexation.
The first tree taken is expansionist tree, so it is not always necessary to go supremacy first, have militaristic trait and build 30-40 corvettes to do an early corvette rush. Though this was a pretty close call.
4. 2219. United Nations have doubled their population and secured three more planets for colonization. And was looking strong facing the new civilizations to the north.
The Imur empire in the north has its capital system isolated by another empire. Both of them are 1 planet empires due to low setting of habitable worlds, so we should be fine in the short term.
5. 2220.
This is the way to make quick money early game. Alloys have the biggest added value to them and their price rarely goes below minimum. Not in the early game at least. Simple way to boost energy production to allow a lot of scientists and science ships for surveying the galaxy.
6. 2220. Intending to be a peaceful empire UN's primary goal is to stay on good terms with its closest neighbours. Diplomatic decision is to rival the Imari Combine, which has its capital isolated by Sacrosanct Lozavata Imperium, so that Sacrosanct would be more inclined to have good relations with Earth. Conflict between those two seems inevitable, so our diplomats are supporting the side, which has more territory.
Pretty simple straightforward decision. We need to prevent those two to unite against us, so we need to spoil relations with the one that is farther and improve relations with the one that is closer. Rivaling somebody your nearest neighbour does not like is a way to improve relations with the said neighbour. This case is just a bit strange because further neighbour actually has systems bordering us, but it is the capitals that count.
7. 2220. While news headlines throughout the UN inform the readers about "contacting the third alien empire", the official UN propaganda promotes the idea that the First Contact War has been more of a civil conflict rotating around the question of which race is assuming the leading role in the common state.
Dorbolan Intersolar is a megacorp. Finding a megacorp in your galaxy and getting commercial pact early is a nice way to ensure some additional income. Dorbolan Intersolar is behind my nearest neighbour, so befriending Dorbolan allows me to expect them to be on my side in case of a very likely war with our nearest neighbour. Not that we want it, but they are militaristic authoritarian spiritualists.
8. 2220. Sancrosancts demonstrate an improved relations with UN due to common rival. As expected.
9. 2220.
This is x5 tech cost game, so science is going to suffer. Limited lifespan of scientists is also a problem.
10. 2222. Megacorp almost immediately opens its first branch office on Earth.
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Xenophobic spiritualists. We won't like them and won't like us. So we can rival them outright for extra influence.
