Tall play super viable in 2.0

[Sacrii]

Wouldn't it be more optimal to go for Materialists instead of Spiritualists if one is relying heavily on droids? Then upgrade them to Synths and do the Synth ascension. Sure, a bit less unity that way, but more science (directly from ethics and via their special living standards) and more influence because of a super happy faction, I believe you can't make Spiritualists happy with robots without a hallowed world, which if you found another gaia as Life Seeded, it would be better to colonize it with your main species than to declare it holy.

Well I did several game in materialist too but since i prefer to pick psy ascension i prefer to go on spiritualist! I Need to rush tradition and ascension perk as fast as possible since i play with life seeded i can't go inward perfection + agrarian + adaptability wich is actually the best way to rush tradition i think! So I chose spiritualist + pacifist + agrarian do still gather a lot of unity! Its a bit slower but working very well.

You are right Materialist is a great way to play lifeseeded too and I did get even in tech with FE within 150-200 years And you can do mass colonization even faster with droïd! But actually in the way i play i do control my development and don't need more thant 2-3 Mining planet After that i go full habitat ringworld because I'd like to play a bit rp and my species don't want to much droïd... That's all still working very well but start is a bit slow! Actually playing with 5 advanced AI in difficult and i finnaly get even to them in 180/200years with spiritualist and bit before with materialist! it's way more funny when you are not always the strongest empire in the galaxy anyway or game becoming boring... Life Seeded can be play in many ways and its more malus than a boon after all so it's make game more interresting and force you to be smarter in your choice! That why i love Life Seeded but it is not the most efficient way to play this is 100% sure, but i think one of the most interesting in my opinion! Gaga Build is way too strong it may be fun with full Advanced AI in insane difficult but i tryed once and its just overpowered once you understand how to optimize it... I think it's going to be nerfed because adapatibility giving 1 mineral for farm so farm product food/minera/unity i way too much and the cumulative Unity bonus of adaptibility up to 30% is way too much too my guess but we will see. This is just my opinion and people may think differently, we all have different way to play after all!

 

[Itsalive]

Your description is a great little way on how you can use a tall build for RP. From looking at it it shold be immensely inferior to mechanists, or inward perfectionist typical tall builds; but anything below insane difficulty with max agressiveness this should not be an issue. I foresee lots of boredom in the early midgame, when your entire economy is dedicated to get those ringworld Prereqs, and the minerals to build it + 2 habitats concurrently.

From a minmax perspective, it is senseless, but it's more fun if you gimp yourself a bit.

Unless you enjoy alot with messing with the regular empires 2300+, I'd bring a good book to accompany you on the playthrough, because you will have even less to do than previous strats =D

There IS a design issue there with life-seeded though: I have not come up with any approach to this civic that makes it worth it from an efficiency standpoint, so it currently only makes sense for RP. Pitty, since Ringworld starts were available in the modding commnity since Utopia launched. Maybe sometimes in the future the devs can come back to the civic and see how they can make the playstyle rewarding and unique at the same time (feudal lifeseeded probably works on captain, but I dobt it is viable on the high difficulties)

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Define tall, please.

Tall in pre-2.0 fashion? Planet or two and resources from space? Not an option, at all. The debuffs for tech and tradition costs per outpost are enormous, so forget going with low planets count and 100500 outpost if you don’t want to lag in terms of upgrades and traditions. 2.0.2 might fix that, but not by much - you still want to avoid garbage systems without resources or strategic location.

As far as I can tell, wide is almost the new tall these days. A lot of planets, but the smaller you territory gets, the better. Yes, planets spoil your research and tradition costs too, but with planets you can actually afford it, generating even more unity and research. Outpost, on another hand, they produce marginal science in most cases, they do not generate unity completely, yet spoil your ascension rate.
It was ridiculous to see how I started to tech up in MP game when RNJesus blessed me with Spectral Wrath, who spawned waaay too early without any alert, devoured half of my territory and that territory was stolen by my “neighbors” before I even thought about it. I thought I was doomed. Hah. HAH.

For me tall is deliberately stopping your expansion after certain number of systems, to minimize the tech and tradition penalties. And then you turtle, play nice with other empires and develop your space as much as possible, with early habitats and then with ringworlds, while keeping minimal fleet to minimize upkeep. Going wide on the other hand is never stopping to expand and instead of building habs you just build buildings on your new colonies and mainly keep building your fleet, which you use to kill everything around you, tech is irrelevant to some degree, you just overwhelm them. The difference in the end is what you use your economy for, either internal development or building, repairing and rebuilding fleets.

As a Civ V player this was always the difference for me, didn't really like tall in Stellaris pre-2.0 with outposts.

But yeah, there certainly exists many other different playstyles, combinations of these two opposite poles.

Planet or two and resources from space, is not tall. Tall and wide aren't really opposites. If a guy is 5ft and gigantic, you might call him wide and short. If he's 5ft and 100lbs, is he tall? No. Not being wide, is not enough to be tall.

Jeffry has it right. Wide means you have expanded a lot. Tall means you have developed your territory heavily. It usually involves stopping or slowing expansion at some point, to focus on growing tall.

One planet 500 system empires did work in 1.9, but thats not tall or wide. It's just easy. And it's good that the new penalty system breaks it.

It's also great that the new penalty system encourages eventually colonizing even the crappiest, tiniest worlds in your borders, eventually. Though some people are so used to the old system, they haven't learned that lesson yet. To be fair, it was that way for a very long time.

Wide is the new tall because lots of planets in a small territory is good? You just described tall play. Lots of planets stacked tall instead of spread wide.

 

[Sacrii]

Your description is a great little way on how you can use a tall build for RP. From looking at it it shold be immensely inferior to mechanists, or inward perfectionist typical tall builds; but anything below insane difficulty with max agressiveness this should not be an issue. I foresee lots of boredom in the early midgame, when your entire economy is dedicated to get those ringworld Prereqs, and the minerals to build it + 2 habitats concurrently.

From a minmax perspective, it is senseless, but it's more fun if you gimp yourself a bit.

Unless you enjoy alot with messing with the regular empires 2300+, I'd bring a good book to accompany you on the playthrough, because you will have even less to do than previous strats =D

There IS a design issue there with life-seeded though: I have not come up with any approach to this civic that makes it worth it from an efficiency standpoint, so it currently only makes sense for RP. Pitty, since Ringworld starts were available in the modding commnity since Utopia launched. Maybe sometimes in the future the devs can come back to the civic and see how they can make the playstyle rewarding and unique at the same time (feudal lifeseeded probably works on captain, but I dobt it is viable on the high difficulties)

I dont play in Insane yet but I will, and im sure it still possible ^^' as i said there is a lot of way to expand has life seeded civic and this is not because it give you a disadventage that it's impossible to win with it ^^' All depend on you're strategy and the way you choose to play... But its depend what you want on you're game! I like chalenge so even with life seed i don't take migration or refugies exept if they are spiritualist! In my opinion there is no real honors to win a game with the best build possible ^^'. But this is my opinion and people can have fun playing like this but not me ;p I can assure you that is a lot viable ;p and it's way stronger than you think but I admit to play life seed is not the best efficient way to win a game! Now my question is can't you win a game if you are not one of the best empire in the galaxy? If you can it's way more enjoyable than to bully everyone without any realthreat... I did play a lot of game that i almost never finish because since you are the most powerfull i loose interest in the game because no more real chalenge exept end game crisis youhou ^^'. To change that i love life seed in 2.0 Its more interresting to resist and finally beat them after 200years or even more than to be the hegemonist under 100 years ^^' Now i play some game more than 500 years and still have a balanced galaxy wich is very interesting to play ;p And defensive play is very powerfull too you can crush a fleet wich 40% more powerfull than your's easy in defense so... Even if you are not the strongest it's not a problem to play anyway!

As I said i don't play yet in insane, but when i will, i will proove you that even with lifeseeded you can win a game May not be the most efficient way but who care since you enjoy your game and still be able to win?

 

[Itsalive]

I find nothing to refute there . I tend to do some things suboptimally in this game on purpose to add to the fun all the time; even though I probably do not fit your profile of player entirely; I tend to always at least find some factor of the game's mechanics to try and 'break', it is nice to read someone posting about the fun they have in a space opera game instead of starting thread like LIFE SEEDED IS NOT META !

BTW your build is fine for insane/gadmiral. You will win with this. Once you start using sliders to up crisis difficulty and other things, I think it may not be viable (I predict +/- 20-50 yrs lag of a true competitive build designed to beat x5 crisis, and therefore very very hairy), but for default Gadmiral, should be fine.

 

[Sacrii]

I find nothing to refute there . I tend to do some things suboptimally in this game on purpose to add to the fun all the time; even though I probably do not fit your profile of player entirely; I tend to always at least find some factor of the game's mechanics to try and 'break', it is nice to read someone posting about the fun they have in a space opera game instead of starting thread like LIFE SEEDED IS NOT META !

BTW your build is fine for insane/gadmiral. You will win with this. Once you start using sliders to up crisis difficulty and other things, I think it may not be viable (I predict +/- 20-50 yrs lag of a true competitive build designed to beat x5 crisis, and therefore very very hairy), but for default Gadmiral, should be fine.

What do you mean Gadmiral? And what the X5 crisis modify (sooner? Stronger?) Because never tryed it yet i've bought the game like 5/6monthe ago so im not yet at this point XD But i think you are right at the end

Yeah life seeded can't be meta but meta is not always the funiest to play in my opinion

 

[PhilUK]

With these Tall builds that include life seeded, is it worth getting World Shaper for terraforming those mineral worlds into Gaia and removing the robots later in the game?

 

[Valentin Vattista]

Playing tall is literally the opposite of a viable playstyle right now.
What I've found to be stupidly good at the moment is using Syncretic evolution to snowball into the widest empire on the map as early as 2250. The early mineral advantage you get from stacking serviles; industrious; strong and Chattel slavery is redicoulous and allows you to take the first of your neighbours over as early as 2220, and, since it continues to stack, grants you place amongst the mineral richest empires even in the late game. I even managed to have a higher mineral production and population than player-run machine empires in most multiplayer rounds so far. Their highly sophisticated and overengineered mining machines couldn't possibly hope to outproduce my peasentry, even if they were working on machine worlds.

You don't even need to go into one of the ascension paths to remain among the strongest empires. You can just go straight for megastructures, and become even more redicoulous. The worst thing with Syncretics is that a sucessfull snowball grants you so many ressources that the tech malus from playing so wide becomes obsolete. Technologically superior fleets stop being an issue if their fleetpower is inferior or pathetic in comparison.

2.0.2 and the following patches are not necessarily the patches of wide empires. They are the patches of early snowball and superior numbers. Playing tall will only ever achieve that either another player or one of the AI empires, if you're playing single player, gets the chance to snowball into a huge blob and proceeds to just overrun you at some point.

 

[Sacrii]

With these Tall builds that include life seeded, is it worth getting World Shaper for terraforming those mineral worlds into Gaia and removing the robots later in the game?

In my opinion it's not worst at all... Since a ringworld is equal to 4 gaia 25sized I doubt that you find so many 25sized to terraform... Next you get it very late in comparason of Ringworld rush. In conclusion it's not worst to pick both and waste an ascension perk...
So you can choose terraformation over ringworld but it's a lot less efficient! In my opinion Gaia terraforming is not worst in a tall build with lifeseeded. Doesn't mean it's not viable with other build!

And i don't have so much mining planet XD 2 or 3 because don't like droïd it just help for start! Later i turn all mining spot in ressource converter! If you do a correct rush you will get ringworld arround 2250(if lucky) mostly 2270-2280 and before that you will have habitat so no need To mass colonise with droïd.

But this is my way to play, and to be honest colonise all innahabitable planet by droïd will be a lot more efficient after all! (because droïd dont work with biopop develpment so it wont decrease you're biopop grow speed)
I did one game like that with materialist and tech and ressource trait, it was i think the most efficient way i did play lifeseeded. But now i'm focus on psy ascension so trying something else XD

Playing tall is literally the opposite of a viable playstyle right now.
What I've found to be stupidly good at the moment is using Syncretic evolution to snowball into the widest empire on the map as early as 2250. The early mineral advantage you get from stacking serviles; industrious; strong and Chattel slavery is redicoulous and allows you to take the first of your neighbours over as early as 2220, and, since it continues to stack, grants you place amongst the mineral richest empires even in the late game. I even managed to have a higher mineral production and population than player-run machine empires in most multiplayer rounds so far. Their highly sophisticated and overengineered mining machines couldn't possibly hope to outproduce my peasentry, even if they were working on machine worlds.

You don't even need to go into one of the ascension paths to remain among the strongest empires. You can just go straight for megastructures, and become even more redicoulous. The worst thing with Syncretics is that a sucessfull snowball grants you so many ressources that the tech malus from playing so wide becomes obsolete. Technologically superior fleets stop being an issue if their fleetpower is inferior or pathetic in comparison.

2.0.2 and the following patches are not necessarily the patches of wide empires. They are the patches of early snowball and superior numbers. Playing tall will only ever achieve that either another player or one of the AI empires, if you're playing single player, gets the chance to snowball into a huge blob and proceeds to just overrun you at some point.

Well i don't play in multiplayer yet but i'm not very often in trouble during my game... No problem to handle an ennemies fleet wich is supérior ^^' because i'm playing defensively and use all adventage that defensive play give... Fleet can be superior in power but never in tech And for the first 100 years my space station are stronger than most fleet.... So i don't fear early at all since there is no jump early, i'm waiting someone to attack me with a big smile even purificator ;p I did push back a FE fleet in 2290 because didn't give what they want twice in like 20 years lol, in another im facing a federation of 6 AI with a federal fleet of 680k and still win (arround 2400 after i did go out of turtling XD) Since i can keep lead in tech well in defense hard to loose... For exemple a Star base of 35K wich is not so high can handle a fleet of 80 100k for while (and not talking about damage lol), way enough for your fleet to come... And since station will keep the aggro you will have almost no lost... Since i play deffensively i did got a station of 60k when you are starting stacking tech... (and without using the ascension perk for defense) And this point is after 250 years Dont't have a huge fleet power but my naval capacity is so i can build fleet very fast in case of need...
I don't say My way is the best because i know its not, but a lot of what you say does't give me any trouble yet... Always playing with advanced AI wich are a lot stronger than me early...

After that i'm speaking for solo not multiplayer but i can assure you its a lot more viable than you think even if its obviously not the best way... But can't you play a build wich is not the best or one of the best? If not all this discusion is pointless anyway, if yes well than you can understand that playing an overpowerd build is not what i prefer to play,that why i play with life seeded wich give more malus than bonus after all...

 

[Surutcra]

Playing tall isnt viable at all in 2.0. Since tech penalty no longer increases by POP and only by planet at a rate of +5% per planet (im not counting tech per systems since it evens out nicely the panalty incured by the amount of tech that u can extract from them), it means that grabing as many systems and planet as you can will always improve your research rate over time making every kind of wide empire technologicaly superior (same for traditions) then smaller empires, since the penalties arent strong enough to even the playing field.

When before large empires already had similar tech then smaller ones but way bigger fleets and more resource prodution at least small empires had the chance to band together and create an interesting challenge for larger ones, or even build some kind of fanatic pacifist with realy strong traditions and tech that could at least protect their own space, but now i dont see any other way of playing stellaris exept wide, wich after midgame is no longer interesting since you can kill everything.

I also think that wide empires should be stronger, and they are (any nation that can outrpoduce you and have larger fleet should crush you), just think that the gap betweed our strenghs should not be this large (and tech\tradition are the best resource to bring some equilibrium)

The point of making tech\tradition cost increase by pop (1-2%) is that would give a close to equal ammount of research rate between large or small empires wille overall wide empires keep the advante for having larger fleets and strong economies.

Smaller planets and habitats could also become desirable if the tech cost per planet got completly removed and replaced by pop cost.

 

[Itsalive]

I don't know what you people are on about. From a multiplayer perspective, Tall probably remains too risky, but the build I posted some info about on page 5 of this thread literally has DOUBLE the mineral income of 'normal' runs. I have not gone for the full balls to the wall pure conquering style yet this patch (probably up next), but Tall, executed correctly, is just bananas for singleplayer right now, to the point I think they overdid it.

I mean look at the screenshot page 6. I've got 1,8k mineral income before Dyson sphere is done on 2300 ! I played another 20 yrs of that game and had same income + a 500k fleet out !
This is on 30 systems, so my research and unity is through the roof ! I'm not even bound by my ethics because of the worm messenger event, if I choose to pursue it !

How bout you people show some screens/savegames about how your wide run is going before declaring it non viable ?

 

[MadDemiurg]

This is an FP 2314 win, in no way optimized:

Probably similar mineral income, but I have a lot of upkeep. I'm also obviously too lazy to replace farms or plants, current income is without capacity overload. Had kinda meh start with only 5 planets I could colonize without going to war. Also I played without robots to please my spiritualists but probably should have anyway, they make things a lot easier. I only play ironman, so no fixing mistakes which I made a bunch. This is GAdmiral as well. I can probably manage double the pop and eco as determined assimilator because I won't have to purge people. This is on the version where they fixed unity penalty for planets, so rushing unity trees isn't as easy anymore. I had a lot better games when it still was bugged but I haven't saved any.

 

[Itsalive]

Ok you get the splas

h screen 100 years earlier. Noone was saying you can't beat the game on
Gadmiral blobbing. my remark was aimed at people waltzing in here saying tall sucks without reading the thread or supplying data of their own. I didn't get the splash screen so early on that tall run, but by that timeframe, I did bitchslap 2 fallen empires for giggles (which might be a challenge with your fleet) Benchmark I typically play for isn't the splash screen, but beating the crisis.

I do appreciate the nuance of the game version played, since I have to admit that at least part of the game I screenshotted was played at the start of the beta patch.

Pic of proof having bitchslapped FE by then, basically stating that if I wanted to see the splash screen, I would have long ago; go for it boys, tell people on the forum tall play is bad in 2,0x

 

[MadDemiurg]

How is this 100 years earlier if its 10 years later?

I can kill an FE 2300 no probs.

If that's the same game you've been showing, it's on patch without unity penalty for planets, timings are way off now. I don't have saves left, but I had even earlier wins back then with a lot better eco (and this isn't some exemplary game on this patch either, it's meh at best tbh, just the one where I've made a screenshot for another thread). I'm also too lazy to optimize planets if I'm winning anyway as you can see, I'm playing of v fast with little to no pausing usually and just adding planets to an autobuild sector, so it's probably possible to optimize it a lot if you would bother to.

Tbh this tall vs wide is BS. From my experience you want as many planets for as little influence as possible. If you're playing a non xenophobe/purifier empire it's more efficient to spam habitats and ringworlds. Otherwise, you can get a lot of extra cheap planets from conquest. You can even do both if you can be bothered.

I also kinda doubt you could win much earlier with non FP in med galaxy as you simply won't have the influence to grab/build enough stuff. Maaaybe if you get spawned next to several FPs you can conquer for free. But then you probably would not be able to sit back and tech.

 

[Northernwwater]

I define tall as 15 - 25 systems all the way to and I've found it very viable. I use one seeded to get plenty of startup resource. Then edicts are basically always enabled.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Playing tall isnt viable at all in 2.0. Since tech penalty no longer increases by POP and only by planet at a rate of +5% per planet (im not counting tech per systems since it evens out nicely the panalty incured by the amount of tech that u can extract from them), it means that grabing as many systems and planet as you can will always improve your research rate over time making every kind of wide empire technologicaly superior (same for traditions) then smaller empires, since the penalties arent strong enough to even the playing field.

Why do you believe that per system penalty can be overcome via space resourses while per planet penalty can't be overcome via labs? That makes no sense as you usually get more science (and much more unity) from planets than from space deposits. Grabbing planets increase you research rate while grabbing non-habitable systems can reduse it due to per system penalty. That's the difference between tall and wide strategies: either have not too many but well developped systems with lots of planets/habitats/ringworlds or have a huge but not so develloped territory and get most of the resourses from space mining.

The point of making tech\tradition cost increase by pop (1-2%) is that would give a close to equal ammount of research rate between large or small empires wille overall wide empires keep the advante for having larger fleets and strong economies.

This system used to be and it led to the perversion of the one planet strategy. Per pop-penalty makes colonisation less desirable and space mining more effective. Nothing here helps tall player.

Smaller planets and habitats could also become desirable if the tech cost per planet got completly removed and replaced by pop cost.

They are already desirable as there is less of a penalty for colonisation due to removing per pop one. Bringing it back but removing per planet penalty may work as well but I think it will not favours tall. Per planet penalty encorages you to develop your worlds and fill them with pops before future colonisation, while per pop one does not.

 

[serpentskirt]

So, I've done 2 one system runs on the same map but with different approaches (v2.0.1).

Traits: Nonadaptive, Industrious, Charismaric, Natural Engineers

Ethics: Authoritarian, Xenophobe, Pacifist​

Civics: Inwards Perfection, Life-Seeded
Imperial Government

In first run I unlocked paradise domes first, then finished adaptability, then harmony and discovery. I used "balanced" buildup, generally respecting tiles, only building over excess energy tiles. I built only engineering labs.

In second run I went adaptability, harmony, discovery. I focused on building farms on food tiles, then on energy tiles, then on mineral tiles. After I filled population, I replaced farms with engineering labs. After I researched star fortresses, I replaced labs on non-engineering tiles with mines.

Results (first run / second run)
Fully filled planet (2252 / 2230)
Able to build first habitat (2264 / 2260)
Researched techs @ 2261 (70 / 79)

I was really surprised by the results of second approach. Looks like sector AI is not that dumb building farms everywhere!

Resources breakdown (dash-dotted lines on the bottom plots are for research income):

Edit: corrected number of technologies.

 

[Sentrus]

Tried your 2nd approach out. Got kinda boned with Star Fortress card RNG, but otherwise a pretty solid start.

 

[serpentskirt]

Tried your 2nd approach out. Got kinda boned with Star Fortress card RNG, but otherwise a pretty solid start.

I'm looking at the tech tree in the moment. Looks like you can sorta beeline to Star Fortresses if you skip Mass Drivers, Destroyers, Fusion Power and Colonial Centralization paths. Depending on how fast you get additional research alternatives, you can reduce amount of technologies in-between to something like 19. Which means it's probably better to go discovery right after adaptability.

You might even want to force pirates to spawn in order to reverse-engineer stuff like armor, guns and thrusters to narrow down research alternative even further (if my understanding of how reverse-engineering works is correct).

 

[Sacrii]

So, I've done 2 one system runs on the same map but with different approaches (v2.0.1).

Traits: Nonadaptive, Industrious, Charismaric, Natural Engineers

Ethics: Authoritarian, Xenophobe, Pacifist​

Civics: Inwards Perfection, Life-Seeded
Imperial Government

In first run I unlocked paradise domes first, then finished adaptability, then harmony and discovery. I used "balanced" buildup, generally respecting tiles, only building over excess energy tiles. I built only engineering labs.

In second run I went adaptability, harmony, discovery. I focused on building farms on food tiles, then on energy tiles, then on mineral tiles. After I filled population, I replaced farms with engineering labs. After I researched star fortresses, I replaced labs on non-engineering tiles with mines.

Results (first run / second run)
Fully filled planet (2252 / 2230)
Able to build first habitat (2264 / 2260)
Researched techs @ 2261 (141 / 159)

I was really surprised by the results of second approach. Looks like sector AI is not that dumb building farms everywhere!

Resources breakdown (dash-dotted lines on the bottom plots are for research income):
View attachment 349110

Could you put the same kind of graphic for tech plz to see the progress during time? Very nice data anyway thx