Isolationist playstyle viable in 1.5/Utopia?

[Cat Crusade]

It's the same as saying that introverts will be always inferior to extroverts. If i managed to snatch a big chuck of territory and instead of messing with wars\diplomacy and further attempts to expand outwards, start to expand inwards, why i should be weaker?

But if game doesn't give you the ability to obtain enough territory peacefully, that's a completely different story.

Thing is, its not really possible (currently) to snatch that much territory that you'd be permanently ahead of the arms race and thus would deter invasion. Also peaceful acquisition of territory isn't what I would call isolationist either, its expansionism through different means. When we say isolationism should be harder to pursue, we mean it shouldn't be possible to become 100% able to deter any invasion into your territory just by building up defenses while having no allies and remaining independent diplomatically. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be a viable strategy, but should come with downsides to it like all of them do.

 

[Maybeman]

Maybe have a Covert operations feature? you can infiltrate industrialized pre FTL civilizations, don't see why empires would stop doing that with FTL empires.

Maybe have the ability to sow discontent between the different species within another empire inspiring race wars to destabilize their empire.

Influence the ethos of populations inspiring government reforms that would be more pro peace, or it could lead to a civil war. Or even the ability to influence a particular character from another empire, like an admiral and convincing him and a portion of his fleet to turn coat and fight for you, for example, you have an admiral whose empire ethos is xenophobic, he maybe convinced that xenophobic beliefs are morally wrong and galactic peace can only be achieved if all of the races worked together etc...

oh and false flag operations, where you convince one empire that the terrorist attack conducted by your empire was actually the work of another empire, and have them declaring war on one another as a result, or at the very least create distrust between empires, and alliances.

 

[Madzai]

Thing is, its not really possible (currently) to snatch that much territory that you'd be permanently ahead of the arms race and thus would deter invasion.

I think it's possible, even if unlikely. Lower the number of starting races a bit, select non-clustered start, and you have some chances to be generated without neighbors or with an Empire from one side.

Also peaceful acquisition of territory isn't what I would call isolationist either, its expansionism through different means.

Yeah, it doesn't fit the standard definition of "isolationism". But it cannot be applied to Stellaris - you have to acquire new planets. So on Stellaris it's like: "don't fight offensive wars, don't involve yourself in diplomacy aside from Non-aggression pacts".

 

[Hertzila]

Full-on isolationism shouldn't really be a viable alternative. Being powerful enough to stand against major empires by just turtling a few systems and doing nothing else seems really counter-productive.

On the other hand, an empire that usually keeps to themselves should be viable, or at least more viable. We are getting a lot of internal politics in Banks to keep the non-expansion gameplay interesting. Just doing a few wars for planets and/or getting allies should help with staying independent, even if it's not really "isolationist". Hopefully when rather than if, trading and spying DLC would help immensely with this as well.

I think the core problem is the lack of other competitive fields aside from war in the (mid-to-late) game. Diplomacy is not really all that great as an alternative and the lack of trading and espionage systems means that you can only really flex your empire's influence and settle differences with war. It might not be isolationist to be the great diplomats, merchants or spies of the galaxy, but it should help you fight / scare off bigger empires.

 

[Drakonn]

I only see one definitive way to make this ultimately viable: trade. One of the things that GalCiv 2+3 did right was to make the AI actually weigh the value of their trade against the possible gains of going to war. Declaring war on one's main trading partner has to be a bad idea even if they are much smaller and militarily inferior.

Alas, Utopia doesn't look like its additions will be enough to expand on that particular topic.

Edit: I realize that playing a small trading hub is not strictly "isolationism". However, considering only nations that are economically strong in their own right could historically afford isolationism (isn't that right, North Korea?), I would say that some degree of establishing other empires' dependence of its own resources is required to successfully keep out of galactic strategic conflicts.

That said, they could also just allow mega defense stations and make defending friendly space generally easier overall.

Yea, the GalCiv trading and being an economic hub is the thing I miss the most right now in Stellaris. If I had to guess, I'd say trading is what will make up the next major expansion.

On the other hand, an empire that usually keeps to themselves should be viable, or at least more viable

I think this is what a lot of people, including myself, would like to see. It doesn't necessarily have to be the winning strategy but it should be viable enough to play without being pounced on by every empire.