Thoughts from a newbie

[Keizer Harm]

Heya. I picked up the game yesterday for the first time, to celebrate the end of my semester and played it for about 7 hours right away. Here's some thoughts.

• This game probably has the lowest entrance barrier / un-steep learning curve of all the Paradox games. The tutorial is great. I did not feel out of depth at any moment, whereas with HoI4 I need a manual and even then won't understand it.
  • Expand the tutorial with warfare though. I was bombing a planet for a year before I realised that you need to land a ground army. You're this close to having a game that can be played without needing a wiki in a different tab - so why not go all the way?
• The stars being connected by fixed paths feels a bit weird, but I guess it's a gameplay thing. You could justify it a bit more though, by stealing a certain Mass Effect element, to add to the ones you stole from them already =P
• Why does automating ship designs automatically delete your own designs? I just want to have at least one ship with nukes, the rest you guys can take care of.
• Why can I not prioritise research projects? I had a "translate old texts" one for a bazillion months that was half-way done, and then I got a new one for contacting an alien species. I clicked "research" on that too, but it did not do anything until my slooow project finished. Then again, some projects can be researched in parallel. It's a bit confusing.
• A couple bugs / QoL things.
  • One is that when in a star system with multiple stars, and you get a notification, and you double-click on it to scroll that location (sometimes it teleports but for close systems it scrolls) the camera will jam against the edge of the star system and just twitch around there, never going any further.
  • Clicking a shipyard queue complete notification brings up a screen which overlaps with the actual notification button, preventing me from double-clicking the thing to pan to the system of origin.
• Really unique among Paradox games - I have not been bored one moment yet. It's only the 2240's though.
• Need more event chains! Right off the bat I had one about precursors that thought they lived in the matrix, and one for Space Daesh, so now I need more
• The graphics are AWESOME. There, I said it. I has a potato laptop, and the 3D moveable camera and stellar background, up to the tiny details with the planets and spaceship battles, they all make my mouth water.
• Soundtrack is rad. Haven't gotten bored of it yet.

Now a few small questions for the actual players...

• In a nutshell, what should I do with trade routes? Just connect all the systems/sectors? Is there any way to see which systems produce enough food for themselves and which ones don't, or are all the resources pooled together?
• What can I do after conquering a hateful yet fertile parrot empire to ensure they do not out-breed my humans? Don't judge me =P
• What can I do to make the pacifist spiritual xenophile dog empire my vassal? I'd rather not conquer them, because I'm nice like that (even though their army is pathetic), but they won't accept my vassalisation offer either.
• Anything I should be doing now? It's the 2240's, I've got a fleet of some 1.5k military power (peaked at 2k when I was conquering the parrots, then disbanded a bunch because I was losing energy credits), a dozen settled worlds (half of them parrot worlds), plenty of every resource, and a bunch of empty systems to one side and the pacifist empire to the other. Just keep exploring until I meet Genghis Khan, or is there something I should prioritise at this stage or in the near future?
• I haven't got any DLC. Which one(s) should I have, in your opinion?

 

[Typee]

In a nutshell, what should I do with trade routes? Just connect all the systems/sectors? Is there any way to see which systems produce enough food for themselves and which ones don't, or are all the resources pooled together?

You only need to collect trade route value in systems that have trade value. It's the little ring-like symbol. Don't forget that your colonized planets generate trade value too.
Food has nothing to do with trade routes, and yeah it's all pooled together.

What can I do after conquering a hateful yet fertile parrot empire to ensure they do not out-breed my humans? Don't judge me =P

Enable the population control law if it's not already, then go to that species right and enable population control. Then go to your planets to the population tab, click the icon showing the current growing population, and you can turn that species off, preventing them from breeding on this planet.
Otherwise, giving that species residence instead of citizenship will also reduce their breeding rate.

What can I do to make the pacifist spiritual xenophile dog empire my vassal? I'd rather not conquer them, because I'm nice like that (even though their army is pathetic), but they won't accept my vassalisation offer either.

Hover over the red cross to the right of the "offer vassalization" button, it'll tell you why they won't accept, in particular the "relative power of empires" number is important. Try to increase their trust by guaranteeing them, or being in a defensive alliance for a long time, and having treaties with them. You can also do a trade deal where you give them resources for nothing to increase their opinion of you.

Anything I should be doing now?

Make a big fleet. Troops don't matter that much.

 

[peenerz]

Glad you’re enjoying it! A few tips though

-don’t use the automatic ship designer, it’s much better to design your own because the AI isn’t so good at designing ships

-it’s never really worth researching very long projects, I usually save them for later when they take only a few months

-As for trade routes, they represent the flow of trade value (the ring shaped icon), which basically makes money for you. Your other resources are all shared, you don’t need to link sectors to make sure all of them have resources. If you really want to see resource production tho you can look under the sectors and planets tab. Back to trade routes, they flow “downstream” to your capital system, so you should try to link them going downstream as well. For example, you have systems A (capital) B and C in a straight line. By default the routes would be linked C > A and B > A, but it’s better if you link it C > B > A because that reduces piracy from my knowledge.

-There’s a few counters to the Xeno Menance. You can always purge them, but if you want them as slaves but control their population, you can either enable population controls for them under the species tab, spend a few years (or decades) bombing the shit outta their planets to kill them off (make sure you have Armageddon or indiscriminate bombing), sell them into slavery, or simply go to the population section in planet view and force humans to grow instead of aliens

-concerning vassalization, it really depends. You can hover over the number to see why they won’t accept your offer. From my experience though other empires won’t accept vassalization unless they’re much, much, MUCH weaker than you.

-If you’re at peace, explore, expand, and grow your economy to the fullest. You need a strong economy to sustain a strong military. Build up your fleet when possible and bully some neighbors

-Utopia is a must have DLC, it makes the game much more playable and reworks a lot of mechanics. The other DLCs aren’t so neccesary but add a lot of cool content. I personally like Distant Stars and Leviathans a lot. You can check them out in depth here
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Downloadable_content

 

[elitesix]

I definitely second utopia as the best single gameplay adding dlc without consideration of price.

Of course, if price is an issue (Utopia retails at $20), synthetic dawn is a close second at $10 retail if you like machine empires, but if you aren't into machines it doesn't add to much imo.

 

[JangoBunBun]

• What can I do to make the pacifist spiritual xenophile dog empire my vassal? I'd rather not conquer them, because I'm nice like that (even though their army is pathetic), but they won't accept my vassalisation offer either.
• Anything I should be doing now? It's the 2240's, I've got a fleet of some 1.5k military power (peaked at 2k when I was conquering the parrots, then disbanded a bunch because I was losing energy credits), a dozen settled worlds (half of them parrot worlds), plenty of every resource, and a bunch of empty systems to one side and the pacifist empire to the other. Just keep exploring until I meet Genghis Khan, or is there something I should prioritise at this stage or in the near future?
• I haven't got any DLC. Which one(s) should I have, in your opinion?

In order:

• If you can beat that xenophile empire in a war, you can demand vassalization and will get a CB on them when they decline.
• In the 2240's you're still fairly early game, so I tend to focus on my economy and tech, as well as try to grab a few chokepoints and fortify them so if I'm caught off guard I have time to react.
• As for DLC, in order I recommend:

1. Utopia. Adds a number of General-use megastructures. Dyson spheres for energy, ringworlds for more living space. All around good expansion.
2. Megacorp. Megacorps are pretty fun to play (as they make you play tall), plus the additional megastructures and Ecumenopolises allow you to benefit even if you aren't a megacorp.
3. Might get some flak for this, but Distant Stars and Synthetic Dawn. Both are story packs, so they're a bit cheaper. Distant stars adds the L-Cluster, which is a neat addition. Synthetic dawn allows you to play Machine Empires, which adds another way to play. Plus I'm a big fan of Driven Assimilators myself.
4. Apocalypse. Colossus-class planet killers, Titan-class Capital ships, plus Marauders as a mid-game crisis. All around nice if you like war.
5. Leviathans Story pack. Again, a story pack so it's cheap, but having some space-mega-fauna is useful, since you can typically beat them and get a nice bonus by the mid game, but early game it makes you build around them. Overall alright, but not the best.
6. Humanoid and Plantoid Species pack. Adds new species portraits, ship sets, namesets, and cityscapes. IMO the Humanoid shipset is the nicest looking in the game.

 

[Ramiel]

Welcome welcome

The stars being connected by fixed paths feels a bit weird, but I guess it's a gameplay thing.

Whoo boy, heh. A very valid opinion, but let's not open that can of worms any more than that~

Why does automating ship designs automatically delete your own designs? I just want to have at least one ship with nukes, the rest you guys can take care of.

As said before, automated designs are usually not that great. But if you don't want to bother filling out every ship you can just hit 'autofill' and it'll fill everything in. Usually I just use autofill, then make a few tweaks here and there. Also be sure to hit 'auto-upgrade' so designs will automatically update when you research new tech.

Why can I not prioritise research projects? I had a "translate old texts" one for a bazillion months that was half-way done, and then I got a new one for contacting an alien species. I clicked "research" on that too, but it did not do anything until my slooow project finished. Then again, some projects can be researched in parallel. It's a bit confusing.

Most research projects are tied to a specific research type (Physics, Society, Engineering, a few aren't tied to any). They have an associated research point cost and are completed much like technologies, putting your actual research in that category on hold. Different projects may be in different research areas, so they can be researched at the same time. They'll always research in the order you tell them to start. I think you can pause (cancel) a project in the middle and resume it later, but I could be very wrong about that. I also usually just wait till mid-game when they only take a few months max.

Soundtrack is rad. Haven't gotten bored of it yet.

Yes it is. Soundtrack is fantastic. Depending on your edition of the game you can get it as a separate download to listen to anytime. And it keeps getting better with every expansion.

In a nutshell, what should I do with trade routes? Just connect all the systems/sectors? Is there any way to see which systems produce enough food for themselves and which ones don't, or are all the resources pooled together?

Resources are global, trade routes have no effect there. Trade routes are solely for the Trade Value 'resource'. Stations collect from nearby systems (range depends on modules) and the routes transfer it to your capital where it directly translates into credits or other resources, based on your policies.

What can I do after conquering a hateful yet fertile parrot empire to ensure they do not out-breed my humans? Don't judge me =P

Best solution would be to check your Species tab and see what the parrot's species rights are. Assuming your government policies allow it, you can enable population or migration controls on the species. The former stops all pop growth, the latter prevents them from immigrating to other worlds. I'd probably recommend the latter - they can still breed, but will stick only to their current planets or any new ones you colonize with them. If they've already moved away, just force-resettle them. Your main species would be able to move to their worlds though, and if you changed their citizenship status to 'resident' then only your main species will be able to take all the ruler jobs on their worlds. What better way to maintain control and show them who's boss?
Also for the future, there's the 'default species' rights, which are automatically applied to any new species that arrive in your empire, one way or another. You can set that to what you want early (I usually check it before first unpausing the game) so you don't have to worry about it for every newcomer.

What can I do to make the pacifist spiritual xenophile dog empire my vassal? I'd rather not conquer them, because I'm nice like that (even though their army is pathetic), but they won't accept my vassalisation offer either.

If they won't submit willingly, the only option is war. Once you've demanded vassalization and they've declined you can then declare war to force it on them. It's a hefty war goal though, so you'd better be sure you can completely defeat them beforehand.

I haven't got any DLC. Which one(s) should I have, in your opinion?

Utopia is almost universally considered the #1 DLC for Stellaris. Megastructures and Habitats, Ascencion Paths, a few new civics, and Hiveminds.
After that, it completely depends on what your priorities are and what parts of the game you find the best.
Apocalypse adds war-centric content - Player Titans, Planet-destroying Colossi (which many people build just for the Total War CB having one gives), Marauders and the Great Khan mid-game crisis, etc. IMO it's the weakest of the major expansion DLC, but still worthwhile (especially on sale).
Megacorp is nice, the Megacorp Empires are a pretty unique and different way to play the game. The new Megastructures and Ecumenopolis worlds are really nice, and possibly enough to make this #2 after Utopia. The Caravaneers are a fun addition, but IMO don't actually add that much to the game. Unless you get lucky and get the Galatron.
Synthetic Dawn is for if you really like robots. Playable Machine Empires, new Robot portraits, and AI rebellions (which will hopefully be an actual threat once the dust has settled on this new update).
Leviathans and Distant Stars are all about exploration. Both have (different) deep-space Leviathan encounters with unique stories, features and rewards. The former also has ancient enclaves you can interact with, while the latter adds a huge number of new anomalies, several new unique systems, and the L-Cluster, a small sector of space outside the galaxy only accessible sometime in the mid-game (or later).

Without knowing what parts of the game you like the most it's really impossible to rank them after Utopia. They're all worth getting eventually if you really like Stellaris.

Edit: I totally forgot about Plantoids and Humanoids. Purely cosmetic DLC. Unless you really, really value the portrait diversity they're almost always ranked last. Still quite nice and worth getting eventually IMO, but at the price I'd generally wait for them to go on sale.

 

[Starisc]

Glad you enjoy the game. As many have said Utopia is likely the best choice for a DLC. Lucky for you the winter sale is on, so you get it 50% off: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/stellaris-utopia/STST01ESK0000001.html

Here is a good DLC buying guide from ASpec:

Happy Holidays!

 

[Jorrhast]

A couple bugs / QoL things.

• One is that when in a star system with multiple stars, and you get a notification, and you double-click on it to scroll that location (sometimes it teleports but for close systems it scrolls) the camera will jam against the edge of the star system and just twitch around there, never going any further.
• Clicking a shipyard queue complete notification brings up a screen which overlaps with the actual notification button, preventing me from double-clicking the thing to pan to the system of origin.

1) it doesn't depend on you being in multi-star system, this glitch can happen anywhere. Moving out to galaxy map stops it, obviously.
2) You can press Q to move to selected object. I agree it's not optimal but at least there is a way to do what you want more or less quickly.

 

[Keizer Harm]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I got Utopia, thanks to the holiday sale (here's hoping it'll work on the existing save). Everything else I'll just try out and see what happens xD I'm a xenophile, so I hope that doesn't get in the way of keeping the parrots on their homeworlds.

 

[Keizer Harm]

I played 7 more hours, and control about 1/6th of the galaxy now (it's a small one). I found a "Fallen Empire", which doesn't look very fallen to me as they are still alive and kicking.

The influence resource is my main bottleneck - I have to wait months for every 60, so I can found another starbase. I guess there's no easy hack to get more of it...

Another weird thing: I moved my fleet to the enemy homeworld, declared a subjugation war, and suddenly all of them went MIA! Thank you very much, game.

 

[YagabodooN]

You are not going to survive your first galactic crisis. Unless you cranked down the difficulty or get really lucky with an awakened empire's help you will almost definitely realize how unprepared you are. Just keep your head up, fight the good fight and learn.

 

[Nakkivene]

You are not going to survive your first galactic crisis. Unless you cranked down the difficulty or get really lucky with an awakened empire's help you will almost definitely realize how unprepared you are. Just keep your head up, fight the good fight and learn.

Unless the crisis starts really close, you definitely can survive it. There's plenty of time to defeat, say, the Unbidden.

The most difficulty would be when the Prethoryn Scourge starts very near and stacks all of it's ships and sends them at you in a super-stack, you can't fight that until it disperses a bit, and then possibly the Contingency if you have bad luck with the purgation world spawning.

 

[Awakezzz]

I played 7 more hours, and control about 1/6th of the galaxy now (it's a small one). I found a "Fallen Empire", which doesn't look very fallen to me as they are still alive and kicking.

The influence resource is my main bottleneck - I have to wait months for every 60, so I can found another starbase. I guess there's no easy hack to get more of it...

Another weird thing: I moved my fleet to the enemy homeworld, declared a subjugation war, and suddenly all of them went MIA! Thank you very much, game.

Influence is the hardest "resource" to come by in the game, but it's used for extremely powerful stuff. It's completely natural to be bottle necked by it in almost all cases. Careful spending of it is one of the strategic aspects of the game. If you find yourself needing more, try looking at your pops factions and seeing if there's anything you can do to increase their happiness, as pleased factions generate more influence per month.

As for your fleet going MIA, that's because any fleets in enemy territory when war is declared or border status is changed to closed are kicked out. This is to prevent the exact thing I assume you were trying to do, by already having a fleet in orbit over an enemy system to try and gimp it quickly right when the war started before the other empire could react . The best you can do is have your fleets and armies setup right outside their borders before declaring war.

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

• What can I do after conquering a hateful yet fertile parrot empire to ensure they do not out-breed my humans? Don't judge me =P

If you are asking about so obvious question, you are not a true Stellaris player.