Risk of early game demise when playing multiplayer?

[Ragnarrr]

Wasn't quite sure how to title this thread but what is the risk of dying/losing in the early game?
I'm likely going to be playing quite a lot of multiplayer Stellaris with 4-8 other people when this game is released so it wouldn't be too fun to have to restart an hour or two into a game because someone did something silly that caused them to lose. Restarting as an another race doesn't seem like it will be as fun as switching countries in EU4.
So is it possible to survive most early game threats or are there threats that create a high risk of a loss when one is unlucky enough to encounter it? I understand this isn't as much of a problem in singleplayer as I believe most people wouldn't mind losing early game due to something interesting occurring as it isn't too big of a deal to restart.

Part of the reason why I'm asking this is because I remember reading a tweet by a dev where they encountered a fallen empire that invaded their home system. Though if I remember that correctly it was due to the dev declaring war on them or something similar.

 

[Sonereal]

I don't think anybody except the devs and testers can really answer that question well. From the stream, it seemed like the biggest threat within the first five years was a space amoeba, which never actually attacked them. I'm not sure if space amoebas are even dangerous to your planet yet.

Fallen empires are dangerous, but only if you provoke them. Expanding into their territory, attacking them, claiming their "holy planets" make fallen empires angry. Your mere existence probably won't anger them at game start.

 

[Yenzen]

Fallen empires are not aggressive unless you piss them off, even xenophobic ones. Wiz specifically poked them with a stick before they incinerated Earth.

 

[Windlife]

Fallen empires are not aggressive unless you piss them off, even xenophobic ones. Wiz specifically poked them with a stick before they incinerated Earth.

When was this?

 

[Tiaexz]

The biggest issue in MP is first contact war, as you can take a planet for free...good bye Homeworld.

 

[Grif_E]

I imagine whatever early game rush strategies the community develops will be patched out of the game if any do exist at launch that is. I'm less certain about the scope of the negative effects of anomalies or whatever they're called.

 

[Tiaexz]

I imagine whatever early game rush strategies the community develops will be patched out of the game if any do exist at launch that is. I'm less certain about the scope of the negative effects of anomalies or whatever they're called.

I hope so, as rushing ruins a lot of games for me. So yes, my biggest concern is someone just building corvettes, rush for closest system, take Homeworld and move to next, getting a ton of early game bonus to population, resources, etc.

 

[Mundicus]

I wonder if you would need to research some sort of troop transports firsts and then build them. Or is planet occupation just as as simple as sending the fleet?

Restarting as an another race doesn't seem like it will be as fun as switching countries in EU4.

Why? I on the other hand think that if there are 30-40 other AI empires randomly generated to choose for your new empire - it would offer a really big variety and replayability. It would be as much fun, too!

 

[ProfPain77]

From what we've seen so far, it looks like the space station will be the initial rush defense. It's armed and has 3850 hit points on the build Doomdark and Quill18 were playing. By contrast, each corvette in the starter fleet had 240 hit points. Assuming roughly equal armament, that means you would need to build another 13 corvettes on top of your initial fleet just to take out the orbital station, in addition to X number of transports needed to carry your army there.

This assumes that you have to destroy the space station in order to assault the planet with troops.

 

[NakedBeast]

I don't think there can be both gameplay variety/replayability and starting balance. I choose first cos its more fun.
Not really concerned about winning PvP competitevly in Stellaris. Might be just me, but Paradox games multiplayer is better for immersion/narrative games with some competition then pure competition. I have RTS and FPS for that.

 

[Ironsir]

i don't think its possible to take out another player early on and by the "first contact" war
for someone to destroy you so early he will have to first find you on the map, research the invasion techs, build a fleet large enough to destroy your fleets and the star base, and send enough troops to conquer your homeworld. and we can assume you would also build warships,research military techs and leave your worlds defended.

and i think the first contact war will end as soon as one of the sides establish contact. so maybe the other player won't try to establish contact but you still can, it's no a one way road.
at least as i understand it

 

[TheDecider]

Even if you somehow manage to die quickly in an MP, you don't "restart" as a new specie, you simple leave and rejoin (Stellaris supports hotjoin!) so the host doesn't have to do anything or interrupt any other player. Or maybe you don't even have to leave, best would be if there was just a button to continue.
...anyways....
You don't restart from the start, rather you pick one of the other AI-countries on the map to take control of. Granted they will not look like what you wanted, but they will have developed and researched during the time you played too.

 

[KonradKurze202]

It is the same in EU. If you start as one of the German OPMs and Austria comes calling, bye-bye.

Given the fact that Stellaris is a mostly symmetrical start this will be less of a factor. The early game is all about exploring, and even with max # players the largest galaxy had a fair bit of free space in between Empires. Unless you play terribly you should have at least 3 colonized systems before anyone really starts thinking about War. At that point if a player is destroyed it is probably at the hands of another player (or an extremely aggressive AI), and they can tag switch. Nothing really special needs to be done to ensure people don't lose too early, Stellaris looks like there will be far more viable ways to expand early than through military conquest. So real full scale wars shouldn't be a big thing until the galaxy is fairly well inhabited.

 

[Tiaexz]

From what we've seen so far, it looks like the space station will be the initial rush defense. It's armed and has 3850 hit points on the build Doomdark and Quill18 were playing. By contrast, each corvette in the starter fleet had 240 hit points. Assuming roughly equal armament, that means you would need to build another 13 corvettes on top of your initial fleet just to take out the orbital station, in addition to X number of transports needed to carry your army there.

This assumes that you have to destroy the space station in order to assault the planet with troops.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be over difficult if you are up against someone who knows what they up to. Because they don't need to invade you ASAP, simply being able to wipe you out is enough, or severely crippling you enough so if you managed to research communication, they could simply declare war on you and finish the job.

I agree that the space station would most likely prevent any super-early rushing tactics, but someone concentrating military could easily gain an upper hand by eliminating their foes fleets, science ships, etc, and cause a greater disparity that way too.