Is it possible to play tall?

[Murmeldjuret]

I think a multi-species empire has great potential to 'Play tall'. The Blorg have quite a few worlds in systems they control that they cannot effectively colonize as they don't have the species for it. They already have 4-5 different species in their empire (Blorg, Owl People, Tebadoran, Quell, Penquin peeps) and they can't even colonize all their own worlds. Imagine an Empire that just opened migration treaties with every empire around it, they could colonize everything. Even though their territory might be half the size of their aggressive neighbors they might have 2x the worlds.

I would argue wide = number of planets, tall = productivity/planet.

 

[Dagda]

Wiz said in the last live stream that the best MP strategy was to do a colony rush early-on.

Well that sounds boring if true.

 

[KonradKurze202]

I would argue wide = number of planets, tall = productivity/planet.

Depends on your definition. I view wide as expanding territory, through military generally, or colonizing in EU4; and tall is making the best out of your existing territory, whether this is through building space stations and trade routes, or colonizing worlds already in your territory.

 

[Daekeyas]

I thin what Wz said in the last stream, was not colony rush early. but when you find a good planet put a flag on it early (something in the system) which makes sense if folks will be in very close prox.

I think there is a big difference btwn getting a few sat stations out to flag space and colony rush. I think it was stated pretty clearly that a colony rush would cripple an empire quickly.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Well problem in almost every 4X game is the snowball effect.
The wide snowball: Grow wide->get production->get more troops->grow wider.
The tall snowball: Get tech ->get fancier things to build->get further ahead in tech

They always cap early wide with exponential maintentance cost for empires or troops. This works early, but after a point, when they inevitably hand out things that mitigate this, or stuff that gives enough bonus to push the maintenance cap further away. EUIII had a small countries get most tech system, but only 1-2 tech tiers of blobbers, and 1-2 techs did not even come close to offseting 5:1 numerical superiority. Civ4 had exponential costs on everything, but % reduction available so you always profited from growing bigger. A dead neighbour is a friendly neighbour as the saying goes. Wide wins over tall as tall is not even close to able to defend themselves.

Civ5 with all expansions offset this with insane stacking limits of troops, massive increases in military tech relevance, slower tech per pop, tech based limit of trade, and happiness braking down expansion. In that game, you did not profit from growing wider unless you really got something worthwhile like resources or above average cities. It was better to level enemy cities than take them for yourself after you reached a critical number of cities. To rush victory, land was not useful. You still suffer a snowball effect, but it is from tech->more tech rather than land->more land. Thus, it is a tall beats wide system.

Now this is a PDX game which is why I hope the snowball effect will be mitigated by reasonable mechanics. Factions are a long overdue addition to a good 4X game, as dynamic internal problems should be the limit of snowball effect rather than meaningless numbercaps. Overcoming internal inertia should be what enables growth, and it should not be automatic and continuous, it should be a struggle worth fighting. It seems the snowball effect might not be the central decider.

As for tall vs wide in Stellaris, I would say it is very wide biased. The planets are heavily capped on slots, and it seems rather cheap to fill them up if you are not mineral starved. My guess is that it will be like EU4 in that wider empires always win, but a wide empire will profit from slowing down widening to build a bit tall now and again. A very tall but very small empire is not going to come close to competing with a big blob, it might put up a proportionally stronger fight, but it won't survive a war with a wide. The only offset is diplomacy and the AI diplomacy seems rather competent for a 4X game, so anti-wide might be forced into being from the diplomacy, rather than from tall being a better choice. Note, diplomacy should also stop tall if someone grew too tall. Remember, the bad mechanic is snowball, not wide/tall.

I agree... as long as someone are not punished for just being powerful I don't mind a smart AI trying to stop you.

As long as the AI is not in any way preprogrammed to gang up on a human player because he has a high score or power level everything is OK for me.

If you are able to become the most powerful entity in the Galaxy and uniting dozens of races in a huge Federation with several dozens more of loyal and happy vassal states there should be no particular mechanic to stop you.

Sure, a large and powerful warmongering empire should envy and fear you and want to stop you, but peaceful xenophiles and trading focused empires should love you...

This is especially true with Paradox games in general (especially in single play) where YOU as a player decide what the goal of the game are (for the most part), I presume this will be roughly the same in Stellaris. There will be ways to "win" the game, but those goals are as subjective as anything else in my opinion.

In any way, whichever way you choose to play the game there should always be challenges and difficulties to overcome, otherwise you will loose interest of that particular game (at least I do). This is why I don't like bad game mechanic that reward enormous conquest long term or arbitrarily set limits on expansions.


Personally I set short, medium and long term goals and just play until I'm bored and start a new game. I rarely "finish" a game anyway.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Well that sounds boring if true.

This is the nature of MP... you usually play on a constrained map so you get early conflict and can resolve a game within a reasonable time frame. There often are way too much prestige among players for MP game to progress naturally and you can easily see unholy alliances between empires who would never be allies otherwise.

MP games are often more competitions around player prestige and are nothing like a single player campaign.

 

[TheDungen]

I just hope that wargoals other than conquer will be useful and viable.
For an example the US strategy of free and trade with. It's cheaper to support the independence of some planet with resources you want and then trade with them for those than it is to keep a country full of people who very quickly will decide that they would rather not have you around under direct control.
Imperialism was also like this early on, instead of ruling people directly set up a puppet king who knows that your support of him depends in him cooperating with you.

 

[Tiaexz]

Wide means a lot of pops, tall is a few pops.
Wide is based on becoming stronger through conquest and expansion, investing into the means to do this.
Tall is based on development and research, putting your resources into doing this.

'Typical play' in Stellaris would be a hybrid approach where you are investing your resources in your core worlds, and expanding for your sectors.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

How do you define a Wide versus Tall empire in a 1000 star Galaxy with only 5-15 starting species?!?

 

[TheDungen]

Wide means a lot of pops, tall is a few pops.
Wide is based on becoming stronger through conquest and expansion, investing into the means to do this.
Tall is based on development and research, putting your resources into doing this.

'Typical play' in Stellaris would be a hybrid approach where you are investing your resources in your core worlds, and expanding for your sectors.

I would disgaree, tall of wide for their own sake are meaningless terms it's about how you invest your resources and what the returns are.

 

[Giacomo1405]

How do you define a Wide versus Tall empire in a 1000 star Galaxy with only 5-15 starting species?!?

44 starting ftl species + fallen empires + more species that start without ftl and can gain it + some empires may (hopefully) fracture...

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

44 starting ftl species + fallen empires + more species that start without ftl and can gain it + some empires may (hopefully) fracture...

Not sure it was an answer to the question though...

 

[Trithemius]

*turns to face the camera*

Following the disaster at Gallipoli, Australians have evolved short-distance teleportation. Scientists believe that this is why, when outside of their own country, Australians tend to cluster so much: they get taught in teleporter traps like Earl's Court or Bali.

*rematerialises*
Is that a The Stars My Destination reference?!

I guess not! :O
*redematerialises*