Stellaris has become stale since the midgame and endgames are just research lab building simulators and nothing is done about it.

[klopkr]

Some of you guys talk about the mid game crisis, and the crisis like they're a pittance no matter how you play.

What the hell are you guys doing? I've sunk nearly a thousand hours in this game and I try to do basic good strategies with my RP empires and whether I'll be able to fight the great khan when they show up is only 50/50 at best. I still have to rely on killing the much weaker Marauders. I've only beaten back the grey tempest once and every other time they've been released I'm decades away from even having a pittance of a fleet to fight them and the AI is significantly worse. I can only beat normal crisis in a long play.

Do you guys only play min maxed civs? Am I missing an important part of this game? I watched plenty of guides on youtube and other than preciley building the meta fleet for every enemy it doesn't seem like there's anything special being done. I've lost plenty of wars to the AI recently on grand admiral and only mostly win through gaming the war system (Just wait to take everything at the end of the war so they can't snipe it back).

How do you guys play this game that the crisises aren't enough? Do I just suck that much?

 

[gamerk2]

Some of you guys talk about the mid game crisis, and the crisis like they're a pittance no matter how you play.

What the hell are you guys doing? I've sunk nearly a thousand hours in this game and I try to do basic good strategies with my RP empires and whether I'll be able to fight the great khan when they show up is only 50/50 at best. I still have to rely on killing the much weaker Marauders. I've only beaten back the grey tempest once and every other time they've been released I'm decades away from even having a pittance of a fleet to fight them and the AI is significantly worse. I can only beat normal crisis in a long play.

Do you guys only play min maxed civs? Am I missing an important part of this game? I watched plenty of guides on youtube and other than preciley building the meta fleet for every enemy it doesn't seem like there's anything special being done. I've lost plenty of wars to the AI recently on grand admiral and only mostly win through gaming the war system (Just wait to take everything at the end of the war so they can't snipe it back).

How do you guys play this game that the crisises aren't enough? Do I just suck that much?

I'm a mediocre at best player, so here's my opinions on the subject.

The Khan:

The Khan isn't a huge major problem. For one, once you get Battleships you should deal with any Marauder spawns near you. Even if the Khan does spawn near you, a single all-Battleship fleet (lets assume a single fleet contains 12 for now) is about a 50/50 to beat the Khan himself 1v1, higher if holding at any Citadel (especially one devoted to defense). Even without Battleships, two Cruiser fleets can do the job, albeit with likely unacceptable casualty rates unless at a Citadel built for defense.

Really by 2300 you should realistically have 3-4 fleets with at least Cruisers already built; I phase those out as Battleships come online (and if I know I'm not pressed I'll just skip Cruisers since Alloy production is likely only about +200 at this point, so Battleship production is still relatively expensive).


Tempest:

If they spawn Pre-Battleship, they can be a major problem, but the AI usually won't unlock them until the early-2300's (the tech *is* relatively expensive after all). The "real" problem is if they send multiple fleets your way at once; 70k for two fleets is a bit much for the early 2300s even with Battleships, but holdable if at a defensive position. But since you should know all the L-Gate entrances by that point, you should have a good idea where to set up your defenses (remember Wormhole systems near L-Gate clusters!). Once you get to Terminal Egress you've basically won though; the real problem is just getting the 100k or so necessary to finish the home system off.


All this assumes you go wide, of course. I could see smaller Empires having issues getting the Alloy production necessary, but getting north of 100 Alloys/Month isn't that hard; that's like half a dedicated Alloy world. But really, *always* go ham for alloys and any Starbase/Ship upgrades that show up in the Engineering tech tree, and *always* be near your naval capacity. Not only will the universe at large leave you alone (too powerful to bother attacking), but you'll be well prepared to carry the AI on your back. Destroyers no later then 2220 (and I'm being GENEROUS here), Crusiers by 2240, Battleships by 2270, 2280 at worst. Gives you 20 years to stock the Alloys before you need to start worrying about the Crisis.

It really does come down to optimizing your economy; the mid-game crunch is definitely a thing, but eventually your raw output should deal with those issues. Make sure Clerk jobs remain open as long as possible to focus on important jobs (Alloy/Tech/Raw Resources), put one Admin building on each planet to stay around the cap (I've found this easier when you lack planets then trying to make a dedicated Admin world), and you'll find no major resource issues and simply outscale everything.

 

[Tacticus101]

Crises magnify the issue however.
Without them Stellaris has theoretically many different approaches: Trade, diplomacy, military.
However those usually are quite empty, because of the way nothign much happens and the tools to do things are limited.

Now for the crises: The Khan is interesting, because it shakes up the at that point common galactic stalemate but ends naturally if not defeated relatively soon. It is disruptive but usually every one makes it out again.
The war in heaven is similar, though its natural end takes way too long, but it disrupts power blocks.
These are good, if in need of tuning.

The rest: The Grey Tempest, Prethoryn, Unbidden and Contingency (and the ascension perk)however are worse. They demand military opposition, and if you can't defeat them, it's game over.
Since their introduction military build-up has also been significantly slowed, so as a result unless the player wants to have his game suddenly end at certain points with a loss, they need to build up the military force to defeat those crises. As the AI is incapable of it often (It actually vcan defeat the crises but rarely amnages to have the power to do so), the result is the player as a stupidly disproportionate military power, by necessity.

Crises basically force playstyles on the player due to their inherent design.

Thats a facet of 4X games though, eXpand and eXterminate are fully half of the concept. There is maybe one 4X game i know of that you can actually ignore military and still win a game, let alone survive; most games, even the few with peaceful victory conditions, require large miitaries to not die to the AI at least. Stellaris has never pretended it isnt supposed to be a wargame.

That doesnt preclude there being different approaches. The end goal is being strong enough to survive the Crisis, the method to reach that point can be achieved a variety of ways. You can go for the simple conquest of the Galaxy, or you could use diplomacy to form a federation and be declared custodian, or you could build branch offices everywhere and fund a powerful force through trade. The Crisis requiring military to deal with does not have an impact on your playstyle.

But really is is kind of irrelevent; if you think the Crisis is bad for the game, disable it in Game Settings.

Some of you guys talk about the mid game crisis, and the crisis like they're a pittance no matter how you play.

What the hell are you guys doing? I've sunk nearly a thousand hours in this game and I try to do basic good strategies with my RP empires and whether I'll be able to fight the great khan when they show up is only 50/50 at best. I still have to rely on killing the much weaker Marauders. I've only beaten back the grey tempest once and every other time they've been released I'm decades away from even having a pittance of a fleet to fight them and the AI is significantly worse. I can only beat normal crisis in a long play.

Do you guys only play min maxed civs? Am I missing an important part of this game? I watched plenty of guides on youtube and other than preciley building the meta fleet for every enemy it doesn't seem like there's anything special being done. I've lost plenty of wars to the AI recently on grand admiral and only mostly win through gaming the war system (Just wait to take everything at the end of the war so they can't snipe it back).

How do you guys play this game that the crisises aren't enough? Do I just suck that much?

Stellaris is a snowbally game, a few advantages early game or an optimal start can make you be a lot stronger later in the game. The way i tend to see it is in years, so you might be hitting that "mid game" power level 25 years before the midgame starts if you are doing well.

When people talk about the Khan being easy, generally it means they have optimised to an extent, rushed tech and have a strong enough economy to support battleship fleets by the time midgame hits. If you have a battleship fleet when the Khan appears, rather than having to play a complicated defencive war you can just find the fleet the Khan is leading and kill it (you might have to do so twice), which end the Khan.

Same with the Grey Tempest. If your fleet is a certain power then rather than having to defend every L-gate you can just move into the Terminal Egress system and block everything, making them a non-threat.

So it isnt so much you suck as the Crisis is very binary in terms of how much of a threat it is. Just work on your early game and economic optimisation if you are worried, or set the mid game date 25 years later.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

Some of you guys talk about the mid game crisis, and the crisis like they're a pittance no matter how you play.

What the hell are you guys doing? I've sunk nearly a thousand hours in this game and I try to do basic good strategies with my RP empires and whether I'll be able to fight the great khan when they show up is only 50/50 at best. I still have to rely on killing the much weaker Marauders. I've only beaten back the grey tempest once and every other time they've been released I'm decades away from even having a pittance of a fleet to fight them and the AI is significantly worse. I can only beat normal crisis in a long play.

Do you guys only play min maxed civs? Am I missing an important part of this game? I watched plenty of guides on youtube and other than preciley building the meta fleet for every enemy it doesn't seem like there's anything special being done. I've lost plenty of wars to the AI recently on grand admiral and only mostly win through gaming the war system (Just wait to take everything at the end of the war so they can't snipe it back).

How do you guys play this game that the crisises aren't enough? Do I just suck that much?

I think you are close to getting where people that discuss this are.
The first lesson you need to learn: Don't lose wars. Don't even fight wars. Dominate them.
Now that's easier said than done, especially on GA, where you might start too close to a belligerent AI to do that.

But the core approach is:
- Build up synergies. You can develop your economy better and stronger than the AI given enough time. And in time you can have a much better targeted research. The first priority is getting that time.
- Be dangerous. The AI will evaluate your military power and defensive pacts first and foremost when looking to fight. GFetting those into a place where the AI doesn't want to fight you is key until you are strong enough to no longer need them. Often the goal is to coast by on minimal military spending for as long as possible, but where that is varies and needs some experience.
- Don't fight wars. Wars cost a lot of resources now for gain later. Usually you are better off not doing that. So when you then have a good military, then it's time to pick someone that can't effectively fight back. Set up your fleets and blitz them down, then go after their retreat and reinforcement points, then pick them apart. Sometimes it is better to get them as tributary, and there is also the diplomatic approach here, where you federate the AI instead. If you mange to grab enough real estate early on to keep building up, you can even forgo all of that.
- The Khan/Tempest: Here the key is understanding how they work (which can be gamed) and in part counterdesigning ships. Also they vary greatly to when they spawn, so that time can play a massive role as to their impact (I have seen Khan in 2300 and in 2392, the latter did much less)

Thats a facet of 4X games though, eXpand and eXterminate are fully half of the concept. There is maybe one 4X game i know of that you can actually ignore military and still win a game, let alone survive; most games, even the few with peaceful victory conditions, require large miitaries to not die to the AI at least. Stellaris has never pretended it isnt supposed to be a wargame.

That doesnt preclude there being different approaches. The end goal is being strong enough to survive the Crisis, the method to reach that point can be achieved a variety of ways. You can go for the simple conquest of the Galaxy, or you could use diplomacy to form a federation and be declared custodian, or you could build branch offices everywhere and fund a powerful force through trade. The Crisis requiring military to deal with does not have an impact on your playstyle.

But really is is kind of irrelevent; if you think the Crisis is bad for the game, disable it in Game Settings.

The difference is that 4X games without a crisis mechanic don't require you to maintain sucha military force. Add tot hat the known reluctance of the AI to engage and the target priorization of the crisis AI, and mostly it means in Stellaris you have to crush a supposedly "challenge for the whole galaxy" on your own.
And to have that military power you need to focus a significant amount of all your output in the military stuff (science and alloys). At the cost of other things (though Stellaris doesn't offer much there).
And the different approaches are all about getting to the same point in different ways.

Imagine if you could bribe the Prethory with food, or if psionic armies could counterinvade the Unbidden.
Also while you can disable the endgame crises, the Grey Tempest, Khan and War in Heaven require mods or DLC deactivation.

Also my point is that it is bad for the game, because it restricts other aspects and impacts how people play severly. It's like "Your toy can be any color, but in a week you need to have a blue toy".

 

[Tacticus101]

The difference is that 4X games without a crisis mechanic don't require you to maintain sucha military force. Add tot hat the known reluctance of the AI to engage and the target priorization of the crisis AI, and mostly it means in Stellaris you have to crush a supposedly "challenge for the whole galaxy" on your own.
And to have that military power you need to focus a significant amount of all your output in the military stuff (science and alloys). At the cost of other things (though Stellaris doesn't offer much there).
And the different approaches are all about getting to the same point in different ways.

Imagine if you could bribe the Prethory with food, or if psionic armies could counterinvade the Unbidden.
Also while you can disable the endgame crises, the Grey Tempest, Khan and War in Heaven require mods or DLC deactivation.

Also my point is that it is bad for the game, because it restricts other aspects and impacts how people play severly. It's like "Your toy can be any color, but in a week you need to have a blue toy".

Plenty of 4X games require massive investments in military as the game goes for a variety of reasons. Just because they dont have a crisis mechanic doesnt make that untrue, there are even 4X games that include very little other than a need to build fleets.

The AI doesnt engage fleets that would crush them and is bad at combining their forces, i have seen the AI still try to fight the Crisis and defend their territory plenty of times. Hell, i have seen the AI actively fight awakened Fallen Empires as well. The AI is just weak late game, that is a facet of most strategy games.

Where does a "challenge for the whole galaxy" come from? You put it in quotation marks but it doesnt seem to be a quote.

The need to focus resources on fleets and war is not the fault of the Crisis, Stellaris is a game built around conflict and has been since release. Even if you removed the Crisis that would still be the case because the end point of the economic system is building ships. Yeah, it would be great if there were alternative ways to deal with the Crisis (which i elaborated in another thread), but it wouldnt change the fundemental nature of the game. Thats why i refer to it being a 4X game, some games focus more on the exploit part (like Humankind) but Stellaris and other Paradox games have always been much more expand focussed.

The crisis doesnt restrict other aspects of the game. You can still build a trade empire, you can still peacefully build up your federation, you can still become the Imperium, you can still become the Crisis and take over the galaxy. On most difficulties the Crisis can even be defeated without excess investment in ships, and if you want to make it easier you have complete control over crisis power. You dont have to be some military focussed specialised Empire to play the game and there are lots of game creation settings beyond the default you can play with if you want to empower certain styles. I know what your claim is, i disagree with it.

 

[klopkr]

Stellaris is a snowbally game, a few advantages early game or an optimal start can make you be a lot stronger later in the game. The way i tend to see it is in years, so you might be hitting that "mid game" power level 25 years before the midgame starts if you are doing well.

When people talk about the Khan being easy, generally it means they have optimised to an extent, rushed tech and have a strong enough economy to support battleship fleets by the time midgame hits. If you have a battleship fleet when the Khan appears, rather than having to play a complicated defencive war you can just find the fleet the Khan is leading and kill it (you might have to do so twice), which end the Khan.

Same with the Grey Tempest. If your fleet is a certain power then rather than having to defend every L-gate you can just move into the Terminal Egress system and block everything, making them a non-threat.

So it isnt so much you suck as the Crisis is very binary in terms of how much of a threat it is. Just work on your early game and economic optimisation if you are worried, or set the mid game date 25 years later.

I get what you're saying but it seems like you guys are the ones with a problem enjoying the game rather than me. Only the grey tempest causes me actual trouble but I'm pretty sure i've been getting them bugged because I had them released in a few games now by the AI within 50 years of game start.

If you look up strats to defeat the bosses of the game, it seems a bit weird to complain they're too easy. I get the impression that people here are minmaxing their economies so they can rush tech so fast that they're multiple ship types ahead of the AI. It's not exactly hard, not to rush tech.

I agree that the crisis are kinda inherently 'weak' in the way that they're always set to specific values and designs. As. player if you play enough you end up just metagaming them. Even I know not to open the L-gate until I have at least 20ish k fleets and to kill the marauders nearby just before the midgame. Usually I get caught out when the AI does something weird or blocks me making those meta options unavailable in the game.

I understand the rolling on past advantages but I never get my own advantages really running properly until the late game. Though I it looks like tech being king might be part of what's going on. I make my own tech worlds but idk if you guys are pumping your entire economy towards tech.

It makes me kind of wonder if this game would be better for noobs and veterans alike if tech was elastic banded to some degree so most proper empires in the galaxy will catch up to advanced empires faster than they can be outpaced. A noob would be able to use that to keep themselves from being crushed and the AI could use it to get out of being pathetic.

I think you are close to getting where people that discuss this are.
The first lesson you need to learn: Don't lose wars. Don't even fight wars. Dominate them.
Now that's easier said than done, especially on GA, where you might start too close to a belligerent AI to do that.

But the core approach is:
- Build up synergies. You can develop your economy better and stronger than the AI given enough time. And in time you can have a much better targeted research. The first priority is getting that time.
- Be dangerous. The AI will evaluate your military power and defensive pacts first and foremost when looking to fight. GFetting those into a place where the AI doesn't want to fight you is key until you are strong enough to no longer need them. Often the goal is to coast by on minimal military spending for as long as possible, but where that is varies and needs some experience.
- Don't fight wars. Wars cost a lot of resources now for gain later. Usually you are better off not doing that. So when you then have a good military, then it's time to pick someone that can't effectively fight back. Set up your fleets and blitz them down, then go after their retreat and reinforcement points, then pick them apart. Sometimes it is better to get them as tributary, and there is also the diplomatic approach here, where you federate the AI instead. If you mange to grab enough real estate early on to keep building up, you can even forgo all of that.
- The Khan/Tempest: Here the key is understanding how they work (which can be gamed) and in part counterdesigning ships. Also they vary greatly to when they spawn, so that time can play a massive role as to their impact (I have seen Khan in 2300 and in 2392, the latter did much less)

Yeah I don't think these are my issue. I already get all that. I only lose wars in the early game because my defensive pact options aren't enough and one of the strong vicious AI's I create always gets put next to the player because paradox thought that you should always be surrounded by enemies.

The real issue I'm getting in this thread is that you guys have battleships way before midgame and entire fleets decked out in them. How hard do you guys rush on tech? It's mind boggling to me.

Maybe my biggest weakness is that I don't game the tech tree. I know people have memorized the unlocks and know how to do that. It just doesn't seem like a fun option outside of multiplayer.

 

[MatthewP]

I definitely think Stellaris would be better

It makes me kind of wonder if this game would be better for noobs and veterans alike if tech was elastic banded to some degree so most proper empires in the galaxy will catch up to advanced empires faster than they can be outpaced. A noob would be able to use that to keep themselves from being crushed and the AI could use it to get out of being pathetic.

I definitely agree with this. Being always on the cutting edge of tech should bring severely diminishing returns both from a gameplay and realism perspective. There should also be more ways to share tech, voluntary and otherwise, and they should be stronger.

The real issue I'm getting in this thread is that you guys have battleships way before midgame and entire fleets decked out in them. How hard do you guys rush on tech? It's mind boggling to me.

Maybe my biggest weakness is that I don't game the tech tree. I know people have memorized the unlocks and know how to do that. It just doesn't seem like a fun option outside of multiplayer.

Personally I am in a similar boat. If I play a really strong build/strategy (e.g. void dweller merchants) I can beat the AI on hard difficulties without too much trouble but with any more normal setup it's hard and I may lose. I also don't game the tech tree and quickly lose interest in optimizing planets once I have more than a few.

 

[klopkr]

I definitely think Stellaris would be better

I definitely agree with this. Being always on the cutting edge of tech should bring severely diminishing returns both from a gameplay and realism perspective. There should also be more ways to share tech, voluntary and otherwise, and they should be stronger.

Personally I am in a similar boat. If I play a really strong build/strategy (e.g. void dweller merchants) I can beat the AI on hard difficulties without too much trouble but with any more normal setup it's hard and I may lose. I also don't game the tech tree and quickly lose interest in optimizing planets once I have more than a few.

I'm glad my idea isn't too out there. In the back of my mind I feel like some people really love being overpowering and I don't want to step on that too much.

That's also exactly how I play. I can do 2-3 sectors well then the rest are kinda always gonna be a mess. I can recognize good techs whent hey show up but I don't follow any techs knowing another will spawn later or use scientists to get specific techs. I can play this game at a perfectly competent level but I'm not smashing through it. I'm always shocked to find out people play with max crisis and say that's still not enough.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

In my opinion Stellaris is not in a good place in terms of fun past the early game, say the first 50-100 years, at least in my opinion.

A game that did this allot better was Distant Worlds Universe and soon Distant Worlds 2. They give a few different ways you can "win" that also are different between empires which makes the reason for how you play somewhat different depending on what you play as.

This game also made someone win long before anyone could conquer the whole galaxy... and even if you were strong an AI could sneak in a win anyway if you neglected the path to victory for just expanding and conquering.

This made that game more "realistic" as empires had goals and reasons for what they did.

Stellaris is all about one thing, war and expanding which is boring. There are really not that many reason to befriend other species rather than as a stop gap until you conquer them. You can role-play differently and still "win" but it just is sub optimal as more planets and more POP just make you snowball faster and faster.

I don't even remember the last time I ever played Stellaris past 100 years as I always get bored long before that. There simply is nothing to keep me interested past this point.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

I know what your claim is, i disagree with it.

Here's the thing. Your arguements don't adress my claim. So at this point I am uncertain if you don't know what my claim is, mix it with other similar discussions and thereby miss it or are just strawmanning.

If you look up strats to defeat the bosses of the game, it seems a bit weird to complain they're too easy.

Until Nemesis you could take a look at the crisis ships and see what they were fielding. So it was not that mcuh "looking up strats" and more "see what's there and build counters". (You can still do that via battle screens and visual observation to a degree)

And using the right counters makes them much easier to deal with.

I understand the rolling on past advantages but I never get my own advantages really running properly until the late game. Though I it looks like tech being king might be part of what's going on. I make my own tech worlds but idk if you guys are pumping your entire economy towards tech.

Maybe my biggest weakness is that I don't game the tech tree. I know people have memorized the unlocks and know how to do that. It just doesn't seem like a fun option outside of multiplayer.

Yes, pump your entire economy towards tech.
In the end Stellaris has a lot of resources and systems that are all about maintinaing what you have.
There's only three things that grow you: New colonies, techs and fleets.
Colonies usually require no particulr dedication, just techs and fleet and as such the approach is simple.
Do I need more ships?
Yes -> Build more alloys
No -> Build more science

As for the tech tree, part of it is that after playing enough you lkinda know what you want and the tech tree has some really unintuitive prerequsities hidden in it. Classic one is the Mega-Engineering requirements, but there are others (like the robot techs). Knowing those does make a difference.
There is a very informative tech tree on github, and there even exists a mod that adds a button on the research screen to open it in the ingame browser.

 

[klopkr]

Here's the thing. Your arguements don't adress my claim. So at this point I am uncertain if you don't know what my claim is, mix it with other similar discussions and thereby miss it or are just strawmanning.



Until Nemesis you could take a look at the crisis ships and see what they were fielding. So it was not that mcuh "looking up strats" and more "see what's there and build counters". (You can still do that via battle screens and visual observation to a degree)

And using the right counters makes them much easier to deal with.



Yes, pump your entire economy towards tech.
In the end Stellaris has a lot of resources and systems that are all about maintinaing what you have.
There's only three things that grow you: New colonies, techs and fleets.
Colonies usually require no particulr dedication, just techs and fleet and as such the approach is simple.
Do I need more ships?
Yes -> Build more alloys
No -> Build more science

As for the tech tree, part of it is that after playing enough you lkinda know what you want and the tech tree has some really unintuitive prerequsities hidden in it. Classic one is the Mega-Engineering requirements, but there are others (like the robot techs). Knowing those does make a difference.
There is a very informative tech tree on github, and there even exists a mod that adds a button on the research screen to open it in the ingame browser.

Honestly the more I hear about how other people play this game the more I'm happy not actually doing the math on every ship and using my meta knowledge to play.

If anything this gives me the impression more should be done to stop min maxing, like hiding fleet stats, randomizing crisis stats and loadouts, changing the linearity of parts of the tech tree and banding tech advances.

I love the fact that certain fleets are kitted out heavily in one way for crisis' lorewise, but you're kind of taking advantage of an aesthetic choice to aim only for their weak spot. If this was dark souls and there was a specific weapon that destroyed the boss the challenge would naturally be not to use that weapon to prove your skill.

If anything, if you want a challenge then you should look up the meta and build your ships the opposite way.

 

[Tacticus101]

I get what you're saying but it seems like you guys are the ones with a problem enjoying the game rather than me. Only the grey tempest causes me actual trouble but I'm pretty sure i've been getting them bugged because I had them released in a few games now by the AI within 50 years of game start.

Oh i dont play like that, i play interesting RP Empires with deliberate fun goals, my ships get designed for certain themes rather than optimally and i very rarely expand heavily because it makes the game boring. Plus i endlessly adjust the settings for my games to make interesting games, if i am playing something strong then i make the mid/end game years earlier or up tech costs to keep things balanced.

That said, the tech system design directly encourages looking at the wiki because there are a lot of important and interesting techs that are locked behind others or require a certain number of early techs to appear.

It makes me kind of wonder if this game would be better for noobs and veterans alike if tech was elastic banded to some degree so most proper empires in the galaxy will catch up to advanced empires faster than they can be outpaced. A noob would be able to use that to keep themselves from being crushed and the AI could use it to get out of being pathetic.

I agree. It always struck me as odd that every other Paradox game and most 4Xs have a mechanic like that, but Stellaris doesnt. Making already researched techs much cheaper at the very least would be an option. It would make the tech system much more one dimensional, though Research Agreements would need to be adjusted.

Here's the thing. Your arguements don't adress my claim. So at this point I am uncertain if you don't know what my claim is, mix it with other similar discussions and thereby miss it or are just strawmanning.

Your claim, by your words is that "it is bad for the game, because it restricts other aspects and impacts how people play severly". With further embellishment such as "without a crisis mechanic don't require you to maintain sucha military force" and "And the different approaches are all about getting to the same point in different ways".

Is that not what your claim is?

My points have been:
1) It does not restrict how people play, there are still clearly different approaches to play the game, whether that be a peaceful diplomacy game or a trade empire or a ravenous horde.
2) I agree that the game is military focussed
3) That Military focus is not because of the Crisis, it is because of the core design of the game and its economic system. Remove the Crisis and you still have a military focused game. I can go into more detail.
4) If you dislike the crisis and think the game would be better without it, you have the option to disable it or turn down its power enough for the AI to beat it.
5) I agree the Crisis would be more interesting if there were non-military ways to deal with it, i have gone into detail about this in another thread.
6) Any game with a discrete Victory condition or finite expansion is about getting to the same point in different ways, it is the nature of 4X games.

I also directly addressed specific statements about the AI, other 4X games or that the Crisis is supposed to be a challenge to the whole galaxy.

How is that not a direct response to your claim?

 

[gamerk2]

Honestly the more I hear about how other people play this game the more I'm happy not actually doing the math on every ship and using my meta knowledge to play.

If anything this gives me the impression more should be done to stop min maxing, like hiding fleet stats, randomizing crisis stats and loadouts, changing the linearity of parts of the tech tree and banding tech advances.

I love the fact that certain fleets are kitted out heavily in one way for crisis' lorewise, but you're kind of taking advantage of an aesthetic choice to aim only for their weak spot. If this was dark souls and there was a specific weapon that destroyed the boss the challenge would naturally be not to use that weapon to prove your skill.

If anything, if you want a challenge then you should look up the meta and build your ships the opposite way.

Realistically, it makes more sense then rather then having weapons do better against certain defensive types (Kinetics versus Shields, Energy versus Armor), you instead have the weapons have their own unique attributes that have a larger effect. Some examples I've been tossing around:

Weapon Type	Power Draw	Accuracy	Damage ​	Rate of Fire
Kinetic (Railgun)	Medium	Low	Medium	High
Kinetic (Autocannon)	Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very High
Energy (Laser)	Very High	Very High	Low	Medium
Energy (Pulse)	High	High	Medium	Low
Missile	Very Low	High	Very High	Very Low
Torpedo	Very Low	High	Excessive	Comical

Basically, make Weapon choice more a preference thing, but have each weapon type have clear strengths and weaknesses relative to the others.

 

[Millbot]

I'd like to see the devs implement new mechanics that keep the whole discovery aspect of the game flowing. That's really my pet peeve with midgame and endgame, is that's the point where discovery pretty much dries up. Maybe you get lucky and a few dig sites are discovered in your empire later on or your the one that gets to explore the l-cluster.

It's also a thing where you're mileage is going to very. A downside to the archology mechanics, is that it favors expansion because you need to own a system in order to excavate the dig site. So if tall empires come back into vogue, that's going to be less opportunity for exploration and discovery.

I know there needs to be a balance between game performance and everything else. So not sure how they'd go about adding in more discovery and exploration.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

Honestly the more I hear about how other people play this game the more I'm happy not actually doing the math on every ship and using my meta knowledge to play.

It's really rarely necessary.

Only the endgame crises have a lopsided enough setup that retuning your ships is important. And given the pure amount of ships they bring out, especially if they come early, maybe even required.

Most of the time military in this game boils down to bringing more ships with more guns that shoot more.
Now counter-designs, and even positioning at the start of the battle can have massive impacts, but in the end those aspectsa re rather fiddly and none of the Ai sues them.
There's no need to math out ship designs or use meta knowledge. Just build the most best ships and give attack orders and you will succeed if you economy is strong enough.
I have won games where my ship design was: One of every color of laser.

Is that not what your claim is?

My claim/argument is not the fact that the game has a military focus, but the degree to which. Very different things.

5) I agree the Crisis would be more interesting if there were non-military ways to deal with it, i have gone into detail about this in another thread.

As I do not read every thread, that really doesn't help here, especially without a link.

 

[klopkr]

@Ferrus Animus I'm not talking about winning, I'm talking about people skunking the AI and not being happy about it.

Anyone can raise their fleets large enough eventually.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

@Ferrus Animus I'm not talking about winning, I'm talking about people skunking the AI and not being happy about it.

Anyone can raise their fleets large enough eventually.

You asked how people do it. You got the answer how people do it.