Newbie in despair

[Garuda]

I personally feel the best way to quickly learn paradox games is to watch Let's Plays of someone playing them who knows what they are doing. It doesn't have to be a perfect player, but just someone better than you.
Though I am curious how you ended up with 2.5k fleet power after 100 years of play.
- Did you remember to upgrade your ships using the ship designer and by clicking "upgrade fleet" on your main fleet?
- Did you remember to increase your naval capacity using starports?
- Did you expand at all? Colonising is relatively cheap and a very fast way to expand.
- Did you remember to research and build non-corvette ships?

Thanks for all the replies guys.

In direct answer to the last post.
- Upgrade? err, I haven't messed with that button for ships yet I have to admit.
- I thought one startport would be enough. So, I just stuck with the starting one - I did upgrade it though. I can see from the posts above that that philosophy is wrong.
- I had five core planets and three more in sectors. Two of the sector worlds were poor habitability - so I colonised them with a couple of droid pops each just to claim them.
- Yep. I had just researched battleships and upgraded my starport to level 6. I had two in the production queue when my neighbours decided to declare war. I only had two in the queue as that would max out my fleet.

I suck at warfare in most paradox games and prefer peaceful empire building, but with a distinct lack of good allies out there to use as protection I'm guessing I have to be a bit more military focused, which (pardon the pun) is a bit alien to me.

 

[Pile_O_Gunz]

I found you had to play aggressive almost like an RTS game, rush for land, continuously build army,rush to get an alliance early. Upgrade your ships or all the research is wasted(in moderation I found quantity>quality)

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

Thanks for all the replies guys.
- Upgrade? err, I haven't messed with that button for ships yet I have to admit.
- I thought one startport would be enough. So, I just stuck with the starting one - I did upgrade it though. I can see from the posts above that that philosophy is wrong.
- I had five core planets and three more in sectors. Two of the sector worlds were poor habitability - so I colonised them with a couple of droid pops each just to claim them.
- Yep. I had just researched battleships and upgraded my starport to level 6. I had two in the production queue when my neighbours decided to declare war. I only had two in the queue as that would max out my fleet.

I suck at warfare in most paradox games and prefer peaceful empire building, but with a distinct lack of good allies out there to use as protection I'm guessing I have to be a bit more military focused, which (pardon the pun) is a bit alien to me.

1. You should upgrade all your ships to the newest vesrion, but remmember you need good economy to mantain your fleet.
2. No, one SP is NOT ENOUTH. This is the most serious error you did. With only 1 SP your fleet capacity will starve you as soon as you try to get some reasonable power.
3. like others here, I generaly advice you to grab as many planets as you can. On normal difficulty the only thing that could go wrong is...oh, who I'm kiddin. ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY NOTHING CAN GO WRONG WITH AGRESSIVE EXPANTION. Just do not build too many stations outside before having at last 6 corvets, or pirate attacks will punish you. Remmember about building new SP. Ow, and information for you - if you are strong, most AI will be reluclant to attack you - but they will attack you like a hungry piranhas when your power will drop.
4. If you really not confident with your fleet power, you can always do a savescamming during early wars. Remmember that fun is more important than proving yourself of beeing "pro".

 

[GamerSteve]

Yeah 1 starport is not enough. With 8 worlds you want 8 upgraded starports. Your navy capacity would probably double or triple.

 

[Sopbucket]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but don't use missiles. Unfortunately, because of the delay between when they are fired and when they do damage, they tend to target ships that are already doomed, and thus at lot of their firepower gets wasted. I know that United Nations of Earth start with missiles, so if you decide to use them again I would switch out their starting weapon for something else.

 

[LizardCommander]

I am not the sort of player who thrives on adversity. I am not the sort of player who is happy to continue playing a defeated empire with only a single a fragment of rock remaining for the last remnant of my pops to cling to.

If you can't thrive on adversity, perhaps this kind of game is not your forte.
This might be more of your kind of game if you don't like facing the desperate odds to survive.
http://www.popcap.com/peggle-1

 

[Meneliki]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

In direct answer to the last post.
- Upgrade? err, I haven't messed with that button for ships yet I have to admit.
- I thought one startport would be enough. So, I just stuck with the starting one - I did upgrade it though. I can see from the posts above that that philosophy is wrong.
- I had five core planets and three more in sectors. Two of the sector worlds were poor habitability - so I colonised them with a couple of droid pops each just to claim them.
- Yep. I had just researched battleships and upgraded my starport to level 6. I had two in the production queue when my neighbours decided to declare war. I only had two in the queue as that would max out my fleet.

I suck at warfare in most paradox games and prefer peaceful empire building, but with a distinct lack of good allies out there to use as protection I'm guessing I have to be a bit more military focused, which (pardon the pun) is a bit alien to me.

Ideally you'll want a starport at each of your planets. Starting out, don't worry too much about manually designing your ships - i'd stick to making the ships that are labelled 'auto-best'.. the game will create what it feels are 'optimal' designs based on your currently available technology. When new tech becomes available, your current fleet will be upgradeable to the new designs. (There will be a yellow "up" arrow on the top of the window when you have your fleet selected.) You'll want to keep your fleet at the forefront of your technology as best as you can.

As for peaceful expansion, that's a bit trickier in Stellaris. We're hopeful that more options will be available for it in the future, but for now you can vassalize empires if they are sufficiently weak/small compared to you, and they have a high opinion of you. Once they're vassalized, you can slowly integrate them into your empire proper. Another way is to uplift/enlighten primitive races that you find while exploring. Once the process is complete, they'll be loyal to you (usually... check their ethics first. more options on this to come in the next patch) From there you can integrate them down the line as well.

Hope this helps!

(Also, one thing I forgot to mention in my last post... you start off with only 1 science ship and 1 construction ship.. i'd reccomend building a few more of each and keeping them constantly busy, exploring, surveying, building. Colonize suitable worlds as you find them. Again, build spaceports around all your planets. This will help you maintain a high naval capacity and give you a strong production base for when you need to crank out a fleet.

Good luck!

 

[Garuda]

If you can't thrive on adversity, perhaps this kind of game is not your forte.
This might be more of your kind of game if you don't like facing the desperate odds to survive.
http://www.popcap.com/peggle-1

75 Grand Master challenges? This is far too confrontational for me I'm afraid.

 

[Garuda]

Meneliki,

The advice you and others have given may seem blatantly obvious to most players - but its invaluable to me I can assure you.

Thanks.

 

[Meneliki]

Meneliki,

The advice you and others have given may seem blatantly obvious to most players - but its invaluable to me I can assure you.

Thanks.

No problem! Try not to get discouraged. I see you've got a handle on Victoria 2 - if you can master that game, Stellaris will be a breeze! Hang in there

 

[Pile_O_Gunz]

I found you had to play aggressive almost like an RTS game, rush for land, continuously build army,rush to get an alliance early. Upgrade your ships or all the research is wasted(in moderation I found quantity>quality)

In retrospect Garuda you might want to ignore what I said. I started Stellaris up for game tonight using my own advice. Started next to a Fanatic Militarilist Xenophobe, he hated me immediatly couldn't find any other civs and despite me building to force limit I got crushed. War demand - both my planets - utterly defeated like a newb before things even got started 3 hrs down the drain.

I evidently still have no idea(despite 44hrs on steam lol) so ignore my advice Back to EU4 for me.

 

[GamerSteve]

No, no, you're correct... expansion is the only way to play, and you have to push out your borders as far as you can and then some.

You just have to be careful, if you have a fanatic militarist xenophobe on your border, you have to watch him like a hawk and, you need to try, if you can, to settle *away* from him.

Also I'll throw two more things out there...

One... don't be afraid after 20 or 30 minutes of seeing what the startup is like, to restart your game if your startup stinks.

Two... consider playing co-op. I play almost exclusively with an old friend of mine, and it is really fun... AND we can help each other if someone comes after us. Last game we played, he got his empire split in half by an adjacent AI, and I had to send my navy up there to help him take out his enemy. We both declared war on him at the same time, we each took a planet or two, and then I ceded the captured planets back to him so he could re-consolidate his space.

Plus if you get into a federation with a friend you get the benefits of the federation (which are numerous) without the negatives of having to team up with an annoying AI that insists on working at cross-purposes to you.