Are large galaxies pointless?

[Saphire]

There is almost no really "special" systems what makes difference at all - Huge Ultra-Rich Gaia world from MoO2, a world with a bunch of good tile and rare resource in GC3, a rich Province with a very important location( a center of trade?) from EU, etc. Stellaris have almost nothing like this. I though at least new Strategic Resource system will fix this a bit, but it did nothing, since you have to convert minerals in them anyways, since amount of deposits aren't enough at all. As special planetary features, that, quite frankly, are toothless and bland.

I mean stellaris does have a lot of special systems, especially with leviathans, but even then, there is the great wound, random gaias, the precursors, and with the Utopia DLC, you can find destroyed megastructures.

 

[permeakra]

It's actually sad that Stellaris being a hybrid of GS and a 4X fails to really make use of any systems that may make Exploring and conquering systems fun in those too genres. There is almost no really "special" systems what makes difference at all - Huge Ultra-Rich Gaia world from MoO2, a world with a bunch of good tile and rare resource in GC3, a rich Province with a very important location( a center of trade?) from EU, etc.

Aside from L-cluster...
- Most ruined megastructures have a chance to spawn in a large galaxy
- There is plenty of unique habitable worlds with a good chance to spawn. Last game I got a cluster with six tomb-worlds - a great boon for mid-game, there are occasional guarded ringworld (sanctuary), a guarded max-size gaia-world, and so on.
- Fallen empires themselves offer a plenty of interesting features.
- And that's not counting Leviathans, which usually offer a good technological boon and/or interesting system to own.

I'll grant that all those features loose much of their appeal because they are relatively rare and the GS micro aspect drowns them. A galaxy generator rework could be good.

What I would love from Stellaris is emphasis on galactic history. Hopefully, Stellaris 2 would do some good.

 

[gathomas88]

Indeed. I like to play "big". But space start to become empty with bigger maps. You have almost nothing to actually look forward to, because the further you explore from Starting system the less each new explored system means to you since there is simply not enough Influence to get there while it's matters (with exclusion of some rare cases). Also, the travel speed of exploration phase is too slow.

It's actually sad that Stellaris being a hybrid of GS and a 4X fails to really make use of any systems that may make Exploring and conquering systems fun in those too genres. There is almost no really "special" systems what makes difference at all - Huge Ultra-Rich Gaia world from MoO2, a world with a bunch of good tile and rare resource in GC3, a rich Province with a very important location( a center of trade?) from EU, etc. Stellaris have almost nothing like this. I though at least new Strategic Resource system will fix this a bit, but it did nothing, since you have to convert minerals in them anyways, since amount of deposits aren't enough at all. As special planetary features, that, quite frankly, are toothless and bland.

Internal political systems would really have to be more developed to make it worthwhile to have maps much larger than 1000. Civil wars and internal politics, for example, *desperately* need to be beefed up in this game.

As I said in my intial post, you could actually make Feudal Empires kind of interesting with a very large map. You could simply use them to explore and colonize areas you don't want to. Paired with just a few basic mechanics borrowed from CK2 or EUIV (plots and councils from CK2, colonial nations and exploration missions from EUIV), trying to manage the resulting sprawl could actually be pretty engaging.

You could also have the occasional "exodus" and things of that nature. Say, a group of pacifist and egalitarian / spiritualist pops become fed up with how you're running things, and decide to vamoose with a couple of colony ships a small fleet. You can either try to stop them, or let them go, and potentially have to face them as a rival at some future point.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Probably you can counter the drawbacks of large galaxies with more Wormholes. I guess it is a personal preference (like many game options). If playing wide wasn't so harming, then large galaxies would be more funny to play, Now it is mostly pointless as you will barely interact with someone on the other side as a tall empire.

 

[LayZboy]

Normally played on 600 stars, as it seems like a nice middle ground between empires not being too far apart for travel times & not seeing the same events over and over again.
I went down to 400 after 2.2, but increased habitable planets to 2x to give the AI a better chance at resources (with Glavius' AI mod of course).

 

[maxp779]

My PC can handle it. It's the micro that's driving me nuts. I'm certainly in the minority here but I'm not enjoying the extra planetary handholding required. Miss being able to just take over planets and hand them over to a sector (with minimal touch-ups to the planet buildings). Now, take over a planet and you have to micro the buildings and districts otherwise an imbalance can easily swing your resources into the red.

I miss my grand strategy game. Not this Space Planet Manager 2.2

100% agree. Also im not so certain that you're in the minority.

 

[Halapo]

I have two computers in the house, one is 5 years older so I normally play small and tiny maps on it. On the beefy computer i play 800-1000 star maps.

It's a very different game, but I will admit, the default settings for each map size are about right. 6 Empires on Tiny means you get 3-4 systems then its war time, and while in that 1 war you will find most of the other empires. 2nd war with alliances and then as that war is going on, end game starts. It a nice quick game that ends in about a day of play. I find this is a good way to try out a race build, test late game mechanics and strange combinations in the late game.

Beefy computer is where I really take the time to RP the map. renaming systems, robot versions, min/max the pops and their jobs. The new planet/pops/jobs/sector systems are not much fun on large maps right now, so I have been putting off a serious 2.2 large map.

As it is, I have played 3-4 quick small maps in 2.2 and only part way through 1 large map.

 

[evilcat]

You can play with 1000 systems but half habitable planets.
So you can explore, but the planet count is similar to the 600 star one.

 

[Flame13223]

I used to play exclusively on 1000 stars but honestly 800 is probably much better now that I tried it a bit more.

 

[Madzai]

Aside from L-cluster...

That are severely nerfed from their initial state( even after a "buff" in latest patches) and are lategame stuff

- Most ruined megastructures have a chance to spawn in a large galaxy
- There is plenty of unique habitable worlds with a good chance to spawn. Last game I got a cluster with six tomb-worlds - a great boon for mid-game, there are occasional guarded ringworld (sanctuary), a guarded max-size gaia-world, and so on.
- Fallen empires themselves offer a plenty of interesting features.
- And that's not counting Leviathans, which usually offer a good technological boon and/or interesting system to own.

- Sure they do. Lategame stuff again or something for tall Empires( that have lower chances to get them, since they are tall). But how many per large galaxy anyway?
- Plenty? Maybe on smaller maps they are tied-packed and are "plentiful" because of it? I played a couple of games in 1.5k Stars galaxy and maybe saw one such world while controlling 1/3 of it. And a Ringworld from Precursor event.
- FE are lategame
- Lategame and much weaker compared to their original state.

So what about mid-game?

 

[nuyu]

Never play below than 1k size.

 

[Zeelilus]

To everyone saying you hate how quickly you bump into other empires on small compared to large...you do realize that's dependent on the amount of other empires compared to the size, not the size itself. If you're not overcrowding your medium map you still get plenty of room before hitting other empires, I'm 120 years in on 600 stars with 7 empires total and I'm just now nearing the end of room to expand without war.