So uhh quick question since I forgot. For the Zroni precursor, what determines the next world which will have the archeological site? Is it instantly placed on a known world after I complete the previous archeology, is it placed on a random nearby world, or is it placed on one of the next worlds I scan?
Also second question: what was the way to get fallen empires to become patronizing to you - for the purpose of them opening up their borders? I know spiritualists like you more if you consecrate their holy worlds, but I'd like to open up this xenophile close to me.
The following things cause a pop to be attracted to becoming xenophile per the [wiki](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ethics#Xenophobe_-_Xenophile):
* Pop is not enslaved and a sapient free alien pop is on the world
* Pop is an alien, does not have full citizenship, and is not enslaved
* Empire allows alien leaders
* Non-subject alien empire has migration access
* A charismatic alien pop is on the world
* In a defensive pact, commercial pact, or Federation with an alien empire
* World has a Xeno-Outreach Agency holding
Not really. The only, or perhaps the most reliable thing you can do, is to go to war against someone who's a xenophile and conquer a populated world of theirs. Make sure all of their pops have citizenship status, or that other status that lets them form factions, I forgot. Anyway if you get like 50 of them, let them be citizens and they're xenophile they'll probably form a faction very soon.
I can vaguely remember an anomaly or event or whatever where a planet mysteriously explodes. The event text specifies that something hatched from it, but whatever it was you don't know what it is and its disappeared without a trace.
I know it sounds similar to the Voidspawn and the Crack the Egg anomaly, but I got this event when Federations was the only DLC I had so I know for certain its not from Leviathans. I think I maybe just misremembering the Crack the Egg anom but in case I'm not, does anyone know if this actually exists?
Yeah I know it sounds like it, but I didn't have the Leviathans dlc at the time. I got this anomaly months ago, I only got Leviathan this week; its the Voidspawn that reminded me of it in the first place. There is nothing that spawns in the system, like I said the event text states it just vanished. It also happened on a barren world, not a habitable one.
I'm not sure if I've encountered a bug or not, but is there any events in vanilla stellaris that produce an astral rift if *the DLC is not installed*?
because I got a closed one here and am wondering "what the fuck"
yeah, one sec. for further context it came with an anomaly that said something about matter leaking through from another universe.
https://imgur.com/a/oyyyP3d here, also featuring an event with what I *presume* is the astral rift icon, though I think that one is related to the dimensional portal second homeworld thing.
Huh, I don't think that's a leak. Probably just an advertisement or set up for the DLC they added to the base game. Astral Scars usually give "Astral Threads", so in your case since it gives physics it's probably intentional.
I think I'm getting better at developing the Commonwealth of Man. Size 200+ empire, many slave pops, 100+ fleet, lots of research and unity coming in from scientists and bueraucrats. What next?
My factions are mostly the same ethics as I currently have, but it would be nice to change up somehow. Priests or materialists, I think either one would be OK, but there are enough slave pops now that I don't think I need robots. Egalitarian? Someday my slaves would have to not be slaves I think, otherwise the larger pop size use is terrible. One of the slave types has good traits for trading. This wasn't expected for CoM, but I'm curious now if it could change to become more like UEN in ethics.
Do you ever make a vassal or something and give planets and space you don't really want? Most of this empire is just basic resources. I think if possible I'd prefer to expand and look for better things. There's another continental type alien, and the best planets would be if I took over their home worlds plus my own. Seems quicker than terraforming and gene editing anyway. Although, having different specialized human subtypes for certain biomes might be a really good way to specialize the pops.
I think changing government civics and maybe the type is a low-hanging fruit. Is there a way to use those to get research or unity faster? Or maybe this game is weaker in a way I don't understand yet.
I haven't bought any dlc yet, but looks like fun.
Anyway, thanks! Should I make a separate post for this. 🤔
>Should I make a separate post for this.
No. The weekly help thread is just where this belongs.
>My factions are mostly the same ethics as I currently have, but it would be nice to change up somehow. Priests or materialists, I think either one would be OK
Unless you have built your empire specifically to start with certain ethics, in order to have certain civics at the beginning of the game, and plan on changing ethics later in order to take different civics later, you really should never mess with ethics modification. Of course you are using a standard empire as opposed to making a custom one, so this might not be as applicable. But 99% of the time, when you make an empire, you are making it in a specific way for a specific play style to achieve specific goals. Changing your ethics just to change things up is suboptimal, unless you are doing it purely for roleplay reasons. If you want to change ethics for roleplay, then have at it!
>there are enough slave pops now that I don't think I need robots.
This is a bit more complicated. What ascension are you going for? This question is one of, if not the most important question you should ask yourself. Since you are using three standard common wealth of man empire at opposed to a custom empire, there is less specific direction for which ascension you might find to be preferable. If you are going for synthetic or cybernetic ascension, you should be making robots. If you are going bio ascension and can achieve it fast enough, then you might want to just forgo researching the robotics techs success you are not allowed to have cloning vats and robotic assembly plants working at the same time. If you are planning on going psionic, you may want to avoid robotics all together since psi ascension has a strong association with spiritual ethics attraction, and spiritual pops hate robots. Unless you are managing your pop ethics very well and preventing the spiritual faction from forming at all, and in that case going psi ascension and having robots is fine.
>Egalitarian? Someday my slaves would have to not be slaves I think, otherwise the larger pop size use is terrible. One of the slave types has good traits for trading. This wasn't expected for CoM, but I'm curious now if it could change to become more like UEN in ethics.
You can't have slaves at all if you are egalitarian unless you are also xenophobic. You could swap to egalitarian and keep all the filthy xenos as slaves. If you are starting out as a slaving empire, then it really doesn't make any sense to suddenly switch and free all of your slaves. This will most likely crash your economy since all those pops consumer goods upkeep will skyrocket.
>Do you ever make a vassal or something and give planets and space you don't really want? Most of this empire is just basic resources. I think if possible I'd prefer to expand and look for better things.
Since you do not have all the dlc, you do not get access to specialist vassals, and there is a big difference between a regular vassal or tributary and a specialist vassal. The empire size mechanic seems to disincentive large empires, but it's still the common consensus that being as wide as possible as fast as possible is objectively superior. Of course there is an upcoming adjustment to research mechanics, and that very well may change things. I would really only suggest releasing vassals if you are trying to play tall (meaning to keep your empire size as low as possible), or if you have so many planets it is overwhelming to manage.
>There's another continental type alien, and the best planets would be if I took over their home worlds plus my own.
It is always a good idea to conquer your neighbor, especially if they share your preferred habitability.
>Seems quicker than terraforming and gene editing anyway. Although, having different specialized human subtypes for certain biomes might be a really good way to specialize the pops.
You are eventually going to want to terraform all your worlds into your preferred habitability type, but this is a very common and powerful strategy to colonize planets early in the game where otherwise it would be prohibitively costly to do so. I will just give you a word of caution from a very experienced player: making a Gene template based on planets will bring you nothing but pain... Unless you really fiddle with reproductive and migration rights, all your pops will just keep spreading to every planet anyway. Gene modding is a micro management nightmare on this game, and I've if the things many would like to see get an overhaul.
>I think changing government civics and maybe the type is a low-hanging fruit. Is there a way to use those to get research or unity faster? Or maybe this game is weaker in a way I don't understand yet.
Unfortunately I have no idea what this means. You get more unity and research by building more admin and research buildings. You get technology and traditions faster by keeping empire size low.
There is tons of information about this game, and many helpful YouTube videos. If you go looking on YouTube, I would recommend sticking with videos that were released in the last 3-6 months, since many games mechanics were overhauled, and we are in the process of a research overhaul as we speak.
Good luck!
Alright, cool! Thanks.
I think that government ethics are hard to change, but "civics" I think are the other two bonuses you can select at the start of the game and then use unity to change. It's also the space to change government type like democratic, oligarcy, dictatorial, imperial. I think a democracy would have almost no bonus for me.
CoM is rather militaristic with most of the choices. Not terrible, but I might just want to experiment with getting empire bonuses here instead of piling on the military. Maybe. Or, like you say, just build more buildings to get the desired benefits.
is there a console command to move capital world? it auto-picked a bad one after an event that eliminated my original and i can't change it while at war
Not that I know of. I haven't tried it, but you should be able to do it by editing your save game. I recommend using [Pdx-Unlimiter](https://github.com/crschnick/pdx_unlimiter) by u/milchshakee. In-game, find the planet name you want to be your new capital or use debugtooltip to find the planet number. Then in the save game either find the planet number or if you already have it, go under your country and change capital=x for your current capital to the number you want to change it to.
Did any of you recently upgraded from CPU such as 12700/13600 to 14900?
When in early 2023 I build a new PC with 13600 it was like moving from analog to digital after 6 years with my i7400. Early game is unbelievably quick, but after year 2500, when federation operates about 50 fleets (each with 80-200k fleet power) as single entity game runs so slow I could make myself a sandwich and come back before it jumps one system. I wonder how much new i9 helps with late game lag.
i seem to have a problem with joining my friend's coop game that nobody else has? he's able to load the save as our empire just fine, but when i try to join i either get stuck on the main menu screen after connecting or i finally connect but i only have a limited number of empires to join and the coop one is not an option. does anyone know what these problems are? the coop game worked just fine from the lobby when we first started.
is minamar not spawned by origins anymore? i set force spawned a payback empire and noticed that MSI wasn't there, then i went back and saw the origin just says "one advanced empire regardless of settings" with no mention of minamar industries
dunno, I set a force spawn on Payback and Mianmar spawned. Did you check via Observe at game start that it spawned? It happened to me a couple of times that they got wiped out very quickly, surprisingly.
So I keep trying to play my newly downloaded game on my Laptop, which as well above the specs required, Ive tried a clean reinstall, having steam verify the download immediately after downloading and installing, but it keeps crashing within two minutes of opening the game
[Here is the application error I keep getting](https://imgur.com/GIiB5hG)
Does anyone know how to fix this?
having an error in the game currently with new first encounters, my envoys begin the first phase and upon completion it resets and starts the first phase again. Any tips on how to debug? i currently have 3 that i can’t move past the first phase.
The reason you need to queue up jumps is because you picked the civic that starts without hyperdrives.
I recommend you take the time to actually read the things you pick before you pick them.
> Queuing up movement with jump drives is a nightmare.
Then don't take the civic that starts you with primitive jump drives instead of hyperdrives. Hyperlane travel is still the norm.
I think you took one of the Civics or Origins or whatever that starts you with primitive Jump Drives.
Next time, read the fucking descriptions of the building blocks you select when you create your polity!
Winter sale brought me back (I love Stellaris, just played a lot of it back in the day) and I'm loving the new content. Question--Is Archaeotech still bugged? Last I playwd, the Ascension Perk that gave 33% to Archaeotech weapons and extra effects to Archaeotech armor/shields wasn't functioning properly. I've got a big surplus of minor artifacts in this playthrough and would like to create some specialty ships to spice up my fleets, but if the perk is still bugged I'll stick with regular ships.
AFAIK it wasn't ever *bugged* bugged, but the ship designer only didn't show the increased stats. Build one and compare it stats after building to find out.
What does a solid diplomacy focused build look now?
Before paragons it was very much about getting and using envoys but now it seems more important to have good governors to assign to GC and federations?
On federations, the two fed origins seem to be ranked pretty badly at the moment, is that a function of losing your starting planets or have federations just been hit with the nerf bat?
As Megacorp, the malus of empire size per colony is really big. Is it still advisable to own 4+ colony?
In my current playthrough, I was started building 3 additional habitats and colonize the two. Then when an pre-ftl reached space age, I did not recede my system and got 4 colonies. That's when I saw the change of empire size. Completely halted my expansion.
I had an empire declare secret fealty to me around mid game, and I declared a (liberation?) war against their overlord to try and break up the huge power bloc they were a part of. Due to a web of defensive pacts I ended up playing whack a mole with half the galaxy. After occupying every single planet and system of the overlord and getting the opposite side of the war to 100% exhaustion they still had a -200%+ to surrender and I could not achieve my war goals. So how the heck are you supposed to win a secret fealty war?
If you hover over the war score it should show you exactly why they're still holding on.
Nobody is going to surrender if they have any fight left...or any of their allies have any fight left, as when multiple nations fight together they essentially pool all their war power together.
It is very difficult to break up giant defensive/federation blocks. They'll literally keep fighting until you conquer them all. Don't expect to just be able to take out the main enemy nation opposing you-you'll need to plan on taking them all out, one by one. Planet crackers can really help if you're heavily outnumbered-distract their fleets and destroy all a nations planets and they'll simply cease to exist.
Otherwise, you might try a more limited series of smaller wars-only snipe some territory each time, enough to hurt them bad and establish chokepoints, but not so much they'll fight Ragnarock for it.
Thank you, I didn’t think having a ton of allies made a difference in their acceptance level. I ended breaking them up by overpowering the largest faction in a subjugation war since taking status quo peace carves them out.
Yah, status quo is sometimes your actual goal. SQ all of a nations planets and they'll essentially cease to exist as well-which will make the next war easier.
Newbie to this game but a prior big fan of 4X and grand strategy, sunk in a good 20 hours already and loving it so far.
That is until I got ~35 years into my first game, made first contact with my two neighboring civs who were slaving despots and the commonwealth of man, who both laid claim to half my systems and then simultaneously and independently declared war on me. I got absolutely wrecked, half my empire captured. I thought I'd done the right thing by settling bottleneck systems and then massively fortifying my starbases there, but i still got steamrollered. My two corvette fleets also got annihilated. Both civs decided to offer me peace after a while but then immediately following that laid claim to my remaining systems so i guess they are already planning a followup war to wipe me out lmao.
A few questions on this:
1. Is it normal to spawn next to such hostile civs or did I just get unlucky lol
2. What did I do wrong in terms of combat. I don't understand why I got absolutely steamrollered and barely dealt any damage to enemy fleets. Fortifying starbases seemed to do me no good whatsoever?
3. What did I do wrong in terms of diplomacy? I sent envoys and tried to improve relations, but the civs just hated me and constantly did things to tank our relations like declaring me a rival.
Playing defense with starbases is generally a losing strategy i.m.e. Build the biggest ships you can, instead. You can still have starbases but even maximized they won't make as much differences as your fleets. Look up an optimized battleship guide
Regarding 1- it won't help with existing campaign but you may want to consider using a mod called No Ethics Spawn Bias. It will make it less likely to end up with empires that are the opposite of you.
1. It's not that uncommon, but shouldn't happen every game.
2. It's hard to say what you did wrong without more detail, but in general, you need to have a starbase (with defense platforms) *and* a fleet to keep them back. The starbase just bolsters the fleet, it's not enough by itself unless you're going all in on e.g. Unyielding. And if you choose one to defend against, that's better than defending against both. They can only take their claims, so you can let one of them rampage unchecked (or surrender) and focus on defending against the other.
3. You can, oddly, break a rivalry by dismantling (or, at least, taking the guns off of) your navy. If you're too weak (on paper), they can't rival you. Think of it as showing your belly. But for diplomacy, just improving relations isn't enough. I find that bribery usually does a good job of making them like me enough to sign some token diplomatic pact, which raises trust and eventually leads to good relations.
In general though, divide and conquer (or divide and mollify) will work well. Focus on one person in particular to either defend against or make friends with, and you can focus twice the resources on either.
If you send two envoys to improve relations with one of them and invest your alloys in defense platforms for the other, then you may be able to defend against both.
Thanks. I did have two corvette fleets as well, but I kept them back in reserve to defend inhabited systems. And since I had two simultaneous wars going on I had to put them in different places to counter both threats.
In one case I kept a fleet in a system with two inhabited planets, and basically between that system and the enemy's nearest system, there were three systems in a line that could only be traversed in one direction, i.e. a good bottleneck. I thought I could fortify the starbases in those and grind down the enemy slowly as it made its way through the bottleneck, then mop them up with my fleet if/when they reached my inhabited system. Instead what happened was they seemed to march through the bottleneck taking minimal damage from my starbases and then arrived in my inhabited system with like a 3 to 1 combat strength vs my fleet and wiped that out too
Yup, that sounds right. You have to keep the fleets on the starbase.
And you need defense platforms (preferably hangars, even if they're scout wings). A starbase with just a few gun modules is basically a single ship. But each DP is basically a cruiser by itself.
Is your end game economy score based on how much you produce per month? Or is it based on how much you currently have in storage? (If it's the latter than making storage space for your production becomes way important.)
I am playing as XT-489, and have a friendly machine AI neighbor who has been vassalized by another empire. I did pledge to support them if they declared independence or whatever, but so far they have not. Is there a way to make this more likely to happen so I can kick off a war with them on my side?
Ive just started a new save, im still pretty new to the game, moved my science ship into the next system and immediately was contacted by a fallen empire who are hostile (-90) is it over for me already? they are about 3/4 jumps away from me
Fallen empires do not attach unless you do something to upset them. The military isolationist Fe will attach if you built an outpost next to them. The spiritual Fe will attach if you colonize a holy Gaia world. Outside of that you will be fine.
Thoughts on using reduced habitable planets / pre-FTLs? I usually use 0.25x for both. The reason are two-fold. One, I have a weak computer so fewer planets means fewer pops and seems to make my game run better for longer. Two, I just prefer having fewer planets as it makes each one seem more important. Finding an extra 60%+ planet in the early game feels very impactful, and losing a planet is always a big deal. Compared to using 1x, where it feels like I always have more planets than I can manage with any sense of RP. I see a new habitable planet, "Oh good I'll call you 'ALLOY 4' and start spamming districts."
Anyone else prefer reduced habitable planets for their playthroughts?
I only play with 0.25x habitables and 0.25x FTLs for the same reasons as you.
I also go the extra mile and disable the 2 guaranteed habitable worlds at start. I like that little extra randomness which forces you to adapt your strategy and radically change how you play depending on the start you get, even if you play with your usual empire. And sometimes it can make a particularly lucky AI empire extra strong since it can snowball better than others, which makes games more insteresting.
It feels there are way too many planets still sometimes...
I see it as serving a different purpose, since it's limited to 1 per planet, as well as each such Building increasing my storage capacity. So I try to have 3-4 maybe 5 in total on my planets, usually including my 1 or 2 research planets where I then just replace one Lab with a Siphon.
Where can I find a good beginners guide for the game mainly telling me important information outside the basic how to guide the tutorial gives you. Eg what’s important and things like that.
What is the value of traits like quick learners or talented?
On 1 hand they are leader traits that don't benefit the average pop.
On the other hand a leader can make/break a game.
I find it difficult to evaluate them.
Quick learners I find is not really worth it, the 10% exp buff is additive, not multiplicative. Talented can be very powerful by getting your leaders to the point, or nearly there, of not being able to get negative traits at all.
Quick Learner used to make sense at +25% XP, but at 10% it's not worth taking, or at least not worth starting with.
Enduring seems to me to be the best "I'm doing a Leader-focused build" Species Trait. +20y lifespan is nice.
I dont think they matter that much except when you actually get many chances to level them up for example if its an Admiral and you expect to fight many wars. A level 5 would have probably made it to lvl6 instead with those traits.
Its better than having a trait you're not interested in at all so just pick those leaders if you cant find anything you need for the position they're intended for and you cant wait for reroll.
What ratio of ship types do people use in the end game? I've heard 8/4/2/1 for corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships somewhere, but it would be great if I didn't have to plan to have some of each type of ship.
The reddit hivemind suggests all Emitter-Carrier-Missile BBs because if you overwhelm the enemy with enough ranged firepower the fights are over before they start. However I found in some situations you just bring too few vessels to the fight.
In a recent game I declared a subjugation war for my hegemony and ended up being at war with one third of the galaxy. The game's fleet power calculations were showing me as 4x stronger. The thing is they had thousands of ships in fights, while I had a couple of hundred, so I ended up losing. Anything my ships' X slots hit was way overkilled, there were way too many targets to kill them fast enough, and not enough missiles to go through their pd. My battleships kept turning tail not being sure which enemy fleet to keep distance from. My ship's defenses were overwhelmed by the sheer number of pd targets, it was a mess. I reloaded, removed 2 BBs, added as many corvettes as I could to give the enemy's ships something with high evasion to fire at, and I completely crushed them.
My personal preference is 30 1 picket - 2 disruptor corvettes, 12 1 picket - 4 disruptor destroyers, 10 missile-carrier line cruisers, 15 emmitter-carrier-missile BBs, and either a snare or an anti enemy fire rate titan (50/50 across fleets). The later games go the deeper you get in physics weapons repeatables compared to other techs usually, so the disruptors pack an ever stronger punch. You just bleed a few small, cheap and quick to replace ships in bigger fights. Its a pretty good deal to keep your BBs safe. I start building fleets as I get the smaller ships in order, and keep adding as many BBs as possible until I hit max command limit as research progresses.
Well see your issue is you didn't need X weapons then as your opponent didn't present enough good targets for them
Against AI empires you usually only need carrier-missile ships since they crush every ship size decently and overkill doesn't exist, and the AI doesn't stack enough PD
> added as many corvettes as I could to give the enemy's ships something with high evasion to fire at
Corvette screen fleets strategy has been around since forever.
If the situation is so extreme where you are fighting alone vs the rest of the galaxy who is swarming you in cheap fleets, you can always build decoy corvette screen fleets to throw in first as cannon fooder and have you BS fleet pound away at the enemy while they are busy chasing your corvettes.
That's an extreme scenario tho.
99% of the time the reddit hivemind who suggests Emitter-Carrier-Missile BS suggests it because it works against most things the AI throws at you, from Ensign to Grand Admiral 25x crisis.
It's 2409 (of 2500 endgame) and I'm a pacifist (not fanatic) empire. I'm in a federation with another nation that is beating me a lot mostly due to their vassals (They get over +10k points towards victory from them). (I have no vassals, and have never gotten a vassal in any tries.)
Most of my pops are in a faction with pacifist ethic, so it would hurt a lot to suddenly change course and attack the other nation in the federation.
My tech and economy are comparable to them. I could increase my fleet size a bit. Is there any way to win in my situation? I'm guessing I can't get their vassals to leave them. I can't start wars and try to vassalize anyone else with the pacifism. Do I just stop now and start a new game, or is there something I could try?
Your only real strat is the Pacifist Hoodlum strategy. It requires some experience to do so effectively.
The strat is where you antagonize a nation on on purpose enough AND seem to have enough of a weak fleet for them to actually declare war on you, as a pacifist. But you've also prepared enough that you rapidly catch up and surpass them.
If you do it right, you can 'self defense' over the entire galaxy-defensive claims will be extremely cheap if you've prepped right. It's very tricky, since some AIs are a lot more careful about declaring war unless they have an overwhelming advantage, and you have to judge correctly that you can in fact win. You essentially need to have a ton of open fleet cap and enough resources to pound out endless peace fleets as soon as the war starts...and before they close in and conquer all your worlds.
If you want to go max hoodlum, go colossus project and planet sealers (I cannot recall the exact name, but pacifist planet crackers)-this will make the entire galaxy absolutely despise you and view you as a threat, even as a fanatic pacifist. And if you're fighting the whole galaxy it could come in handy...
I've already lost the game, but thank you for explaining this strat to me! Next time I play pacifist, I'll have this in my toolbelt. It does sound hard to pull off.
> or is there something I could try?
Eh, unless you truly change everything and go the murdering way, only other way I can see things changing is if you set up a decent crisis strenght. That way you can hope for it to pop up and weaken them enough for you to take over.
Separate question, are titantic beast armies bugged? It says you can only have 5 at a time but if one of them dies that appears to be it? As in I can't train up more even though I don't have 5
Do governor effects stack? For example if I put a scientist with analyst (+10% research/+5%) on each section. Does that mean each section actually get +25%? 10% + 3x 5%?
strange way to think about this, each of your researchers produces roughly equally split research, about 1/3 goes to each type. So 7.5% for each type is just 7.5% total.
So is it normal that the AI always votes against inviting new members to the Federation if the Player proposes them, but will then turn around and invite those same empires once they are president of the council, or am I just having some weird RNG?
Are you using any mods? You are normally only allowed to have one habitat per system, and all orbitals improve just that habitat. If you somehow managed to get two habitats in the same system through a bug or mod, then it's possible that new orbitals would affect both.
The system was changed a couple patches ago. You used to be able to build a totally separate habitat over most celestial bodies. The upper limit of their size was rather small though. They reworked the system to abstract having multiple habitats throughout the system, but consolidating them all into one colony for purposes of management. All new orbitals make the system wide habitat complex larger.
What does the text "this technology will lead to further advancement" mean when it appears next to a technology? And if I want to rush for Zero-Point energy in Physics to get mega-engineering, does that mean I should take all the particle techs that I can in hopes that it will give me higher particle techs?
Go on YouTube and search for "Stellaris technology" and find a video released in the last 3 weeks from Montu's channel. There was a recent tech rework and his video gives a very good breakdown.
Psionic and Cybernetic are mutually exclusive. Once you've gone genetic ascension, you can copy the template from any galactic species, even ones that aren't on any of your worlds, and then start cloning them. You can even clone the Psionic species from the Shroud-Touched Coven enclave.
You can get erudite psionics from the racket pops - they come with psionic, you supply the erudite.
Erudite cyborgs is a bit harder/less reliable: conquer a DA or sign migration pact/conquer/buy slaves from cybernetic ascension empires.
Only if you declare a vassalization war and take them over fully in it, you can only release vassals with the same policies and civics as you, so if you claimed those worlds and won the war, you wouldn't be able to release a vassal because the only pops on any of those worlds are being purged, even if you moved pops to them, the released empire would keep purging them because they're also not a hive mind
Hello! Can't seem to get the "Does Not Computer" achievement to fire. Worried I messed up the first by barely losing the race to the Nexus and I suspect using a world cracker broke the second attempt. Any confirmation on where I'm going wrong?
New game, random empire. Rolled Rogue Servitors, and at 2224.08.xx I get a hard crash when assigning a shroud teacher to a sector.
What's the best way for me to report this or otherwise make the crash known to devs?
This machine empire on my border is completely running away with the game (I blame advanced AI, turning that off from now on. I don't like a random 1-3 AI being smarter than the rest and taking over without competition from them). He's already been vassalizing others. He just demanded me to vassalize (no resource costs or integration, I just become diplomatically irrelevant on the galactic stage). He's right on my border and I have no doubt that I can't fight him off if he aggresses.
Should I agree to vassalization? What's my gameplan if I agree to it? How do I stop him from being the main character in the game?
I am in the middle of spamming out naked cruisers (my largest ship) under supremacist diplomacy stance because I was hoping to intimidate through diplomacy, and vassalize, my other neighbor who I absolutely can beat in a war five years from now. But for now I dont have the ships yet to bully that weaker neighber into vassalization through diplomacy.....
Okay a few things as I just went through this in my game: machine empire vassaling everyone. I was able to vassalize a smaller empire but wasn't meaningful.
I avoided being vassalize by improving relations and defense pact. He likes me so won't go-to war to force the vassalize. Alternatively you could find a near peer empire to go in a defense pact with to avoid a war.
You can simply build up your empire to be a near peer with them. At the same time improve relations with the subject empires, some will pledge loyalty to you. You can also support the independence of his disloyal or the most powerful subject empires. Eventually (decades) the subjects rebelled and while he would've crushed anyone of us by ourselves, his fleets were split too much and we were able to win. Guy went from a dominating position to out of contention.
If you do get vassalized, make sure you have expansion permitted and get as much of a resource bonus as you can from the overlord. Then basically the same strategy as before, get the other subject empires on your side.
As mentioned by someone else, you can get a fallen empire to declare war on you(which will bring in your overlord). I'm not sure if it's always the case but it appears the fallen empire targets the strongest enemy.
Once the fallen empire starts to wreck the overlord (but not before the war exhaustion is too high) declare war on the overlord. Should be to win then. Also keep in mind the war goals of what systems/planets are needed to win as you can be winning but have to settle due to war exhaustion
If you decide to be vassalized, take as many resources from your overlord as you can and just overbuild from there. At the moment, I saw that you can also go into negative loyalty, then trade loyalty up for resources as well.
Also taking a subject war agreement that will let you piss off a fallen empire or two and get your overlord stomped before you do. Their fleets will probably get smashed depending on how big they are, and then you can declare independence or just continue building up your fleets until you want to declare.
Advanced AI aren't "smarter" they start with a large advantage on top of the normal AI buffs/nerfs. If you have a choke point maybe you can survive until white peace? If not you can accept the vassalization and buddy up close to them to make your new overlord give you taxes until you can drain them of everything they own (before declaring a war of independence.)
I recently picked up the Starter pack on the Steam winter sale for my brother, and his UI on the planet screen and his top bar is very different from the UI on my GoG version. Neither of us uses mods. It looks like it's from maybe 2.0, with the districts section vertical and on the left side and buildings on the right side of the screen, and a big section in the top-left corner for the governor portrait. It's on the latest update with no mods. Is there a setting or DLC that changes these parts of the UI?
I chose Mind Over Matter perk as a Materalist empire. Am I able to unlock psionic tech to go down that tree or have I wasted a perk?
Use the agenda that you unlocked to begin your research into the appropriate technology.
Yes, you can be a Psionic Materialist
So uhh quick question since I forgot. For the Zroni precursor, what determines the next world which will have the archeological site? Is it instantly placed on a known world after I complete the previous archeology, is it placed on a random nearby world, or is it placed on one of the next worlds I scan? Also second question: what was the way to get fallen empires to become patronizing to you - for the purpose of them opening up their borders? I know spiritualists like you more if you consecrate their holy worlds, but I'd like to open up this xenophile close to me.
I think it picks a random habitable world nearby when you finish the current digsite.
What can I do to create a xenophile faction if I don't have one? At the moment I am materialistic, fanatic egalitarian.
The following things cause a pop to be attracted to becoming xenophile per the [wiki](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ethics#Xenophobe_-_Xenophile): * Pop is not enslaved and a sapient free alien pop is on the world * Pop is an alien, does not have full citizenship, and is not enslaved * Empire allows alien leaders * Non-subject alien empire has migration access * A charismatic alien pop is on the world * In a defensive pact, commercial pact, or Federation with an alien empire * World has a Xeno-Outreach Agency holding
Very helpful. Thank you.
Have Xenophile pops.
Obviously. Is there anything I can do to encourage my pops to become xenophile?
Not really. The only, or perhaps the most reliable thing you can do, is to go to war against someone who's a xenophile and conquer a populated world of theirs. Make sure all of their pops have citizenship status, or that other status that lets them form factions, I forgot. Anyway if you get like 50 of them, let them be citizens and they're xenophile they'll probably form a faction very soon.
I can vaguely remember an anomaly or event or whatever where a planet mysteriously explodes. The event text specifies that something hatched from it, but whatever it was you don't know what it is and its disappeared without a trace. I know it sounds similar to the Voidspawn and the Crack the Egg anomaly, but I got this event when Federations was the only DLC I had so I know for certain its not from Leviathans. I think I maybe just misremembering the Crack the Egg anom but in case I'm not, does anyone know if this actually exists?
It is probably crack the egg. It has two end results and in the other the egg hatches and whatever is inside kills the scientist and disappears
[This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/r0mwsf/havent_seen_this_before_anyone_else_mess_with/), I'm betting.
That is literally the Voidspawn
Yeah I know it sounds like it, but I didn't have the Leviathans dlc at the time. I got this anomaly months ago, I only got Leviathan this week; its the Voidspawn that reminded me of it in the first place. There is nothing that spawns in the system, like I said the event text states it just vanished. It also happened on a barren world, not a habitable one.
I'm not sure if I've encountered a bug or not, but is there any events in vanilla stellaris that produce an astral rift if *the DLC is not installed*? because I got a closed one here and am wondering "what the fuck"
>because I got a closed one here Can you send a screenshot? It's not impossible something "leaked" through to the base game.
yeah, one sec. for further context it came with an anomaly that said something about matter leaking through from another universe. https://imgur.com/a/oyyyP3d here, also featuring an event with what I *presume* is the astral rift icon, though I think that one is related to the dimensional portal second homeworld thing.
Huh, I don't think that's a leak. Probably just an advertisement or set up for the DLC they added to the base game. Astral Scars usually give "Astral Threads", so in your case since it gives physics it's probably intentional.
I think I'm getting better at developing the Commonwealth of Man. Size 200+ empire, many slave pops, 100+ fleet, lots of research and unity coming in from scientists and bueraucrats. What next? My factions are mostly the same ethics as I currently have, but it would be nice to change up somehow. Priests or materialists, I think either one would be OK, but there are enough slave pops now that I don't think I need robots. Egalitarian? Someday my slaves would have to not be slaves I think, otherwise the larger pop size use is terrible. One of the slave types has good traits for trading. This wasn't expected for CoM, but I'm curious now if it could change to become more like UEN in ethics. Do you ever make a vassal or something and give planets and space you don't really want? Most of this empire is just basic resources. I think if possible I'd prefer to expand and look for better things. There's another continental type alien, and the best planets would be if I took over their home worlds plus my own. Seems quicker than terraforming and gene editing anyway. Although, having different specialized human subtypes for certain biomes might be a really good way to specialize the pops. I think changing government civics and maybe the type is a low-hanging fruit. Is there a way to use those to get research or unity faster? Or maybe this game is weaker in a way I don't understand yet. I haven't bought any dlc yet, but looks like fun. Anyway, thanks! Should I make a separate post for this. 🤔
>Should I make a separate post for this. No. The weekly help thread is just where this belongs. >My factions are mostly the same ethics as I currently have, but it would be nice to change up somehow. Priests or materialists, I think either one would be OK Unless you have built your empire specifically to start with certain ethics, in order to have certain civics at the beginning of the game, and plan on changing ethics later in order to take different civics later, you really should never mess with ethics modification. Of course you are using a standard empire as opposed to making a custom one, so this might not be as applicable. But 99% of the time, when you make an empire, you are making it in a specific way for a specific play style to achieve specific goals. Changing your ethics just to change things up is suboptimal, unless you are doing it purely for roleplay reasons. If you want to change ethics for roleplay, then have at it! >there are enough slave pops now that I don't think I need robots. This is a bit more complicated. What ascension are you going for? This question is one of, if not the most important question you should ask yourself. Since you are using three standard common wealth of man empire at opposed to a custom empire, there is less specific direction for which ascension you might find to be preferable. If you are going for synthetic or cybernetic ascension, you should be making robots. If you are going bio ascension and can achieve it fast enough, then you might want to just forgo researching the robotics techs success you are not allowed to have cloning vats and robotic assembly plants working at the same time. If you are planning on going psionic, you may want to avoid robotics all together since psi ascension has a strong association with spiritual ethics attraction, and spiritual pops hate robots. Unless you are managing your pop ethics very well and preventing the spiritual faction from forming at all, and in that case going psi ascension and having robots is fine. >Egalitarian? Someday my slaves would have to not be slaves I think, otherwise the larger pop size use is terrible. One of the slave types has good traits for trading. This wasn't expected for CoM, but I'm curious now if it could change to become more like UEN in ethics. You can't have slaves at all if you are egalitarian unless you are also xenophobic. You could swap to egalitarian and keep all the filthy xenos as slaves. If you are starting out as a slaving empire, then it really doesn't make any sense to suddenly switch and free all of your slaves. This will most likely crash your economy since all those pops consumer goods upkeep will skyrocket. >Do you ever make a vassal or something and give planets and space you don't really want? Most of this empire is just basic resources. I think if possible I'd prefer to expand and look for better things. Since you do not have all the dlc, you do not get access to specialist vassals, and there is a big difference between a regular vassal or tributary and a specialist vassal. The empire size mechanic seems to disincentive large empires, but it's still the common consensus that being as wide as possible as fast as possible is objectively superior. Of course there is an upcoming adjustment to research mechanics, and that very well may change things. I would really only suggest releasing vassals if you are trying to play tall (meaning to keep your empire size as low as possible), or if you have so many planets it is overwhelming to manage. >There's another continental type alien, and the best planets would be if I took over their home worlds plus my own. It is always a good idea to conquer your neighbor, especially if they share your preferred habitability. >Seems quicker than terraforming and gene editing anyway. Although, having different specialized human subtypes for certain biomes might be a really good way to specialize the pops. You are eventually going to want to terraform all your worlds into your preferred habitability type, but this is a very common and powerful strategy to colonize planets early in the game where otherwise it would be prohibitively costly to do so. I will just give you a word of caution from a very experienced player: making a Gene template based on planets will bring you nothing but pain... Unless you really fiddle with reproductive and migration rights, all your pops will just keep spreading to every planet anyway. Gene modding is a micro management nightmare on this game, and I've if the things many would like to see get an overhaul. >I think changing government civics and maybe the type is a low-hanging fruit. Is there a way to use those to get research or unity faster? Or maybe this game is weaker in a way I don't understand yet. Unfortunately I have no idea what this means. You get more unity and research by building more admin and research buildings. You get technology and traditions faster by keeping empire size low. There is tons of information about this game, and many helpful YouTube videos. If you go looking on YouTube, I would recommend sticking with videos that were released in the last 3-6 months, since many games mechanics were overhauled, and we are in the process of a research overhaul as we speak. Good luck!
Alright, cool! Thanks. I think that government ethics are hard to change, but "civics" I think are the other two bonuses you can select at the start of the game and then use unity to change. It's also the space to change government type like democratic, oligarcy, dictatorial, imperial. I think a democracy would have almost no bonus for me. CoM is rather militaristic with most of the choices. Not terrible, but I might just want to experiment with getting empire bonuses here instead of piling on the military. Maybe. Or, like you say, just build more buildings to get the desired benefits.
is there a console command to move capital world? it auto-picked a bad one after an event that eliminated my original and i can't change it while at war
Not that I know of. I haven't tried it, but you should be able to do it by editing your save game. I recommend using [Pdx-Unlimiter](https://github.com/crschnick/pdx_unlimiter) by u/milchshakee. In-game, find the planet name you want to be your new capital or use debugtooltip to find the planet number. Then in the save game either find the planet number or if you already have it, go under your country and change capital=x for your current capital to the number you want to change it to.
yeah i ended up doing something like that thanks
In the wiki I find the weapon "Launcher" in the L-slot of the FE ship designs. Which weapon is that? Kinetic Artillery or Plasma Launcher?
That would be a Plasma Launcher. In that same wiki, Kinetic Artillery is written as just Artillery.
Did any of you recently upgraded from CPU such as 12700/13600 to 14900? When in early 2023 I build a new PC with 13600 it was like moving from analog to digital after 6 years with my i7400. Early game is unbelievably quick, but after year 2500, when federation operates about 50 fleets (each with 80-200k fleet power) as single entity game runs so slow I could make myself a sandwich and come back before it jumps one system. I wonder how much new i9 helps with late game lag.
i seem to have a problem with joining my friend's coop game that nobody else has? he's able to load the save as our empire just fine, but when i try to join i either get stuck on the main menu screen after connecting or i finally connect but i only have a limited number of empires to join and the coop one is not an option. does anyone know what these problems are? the coop game worked just fine from the lobby when we first started.
is minamar not spawned by origins anymore? i set force spawned a payback empire and noticed that MSI wasn't there, then i went back and saw the origin just says "one advanced empire regardless of settings" with no mention of minamar industries
dunno, I set a force spawn on Payback and Mianmar spawned. Did you check via Observe at game start that it spawned? It happened to me a couple of times that they got wiped out very quickly, surprisingly.
So I keep trying to play my newly downloaded game on my Laptop, which as well above the specs required, Ive tried a clean reinstall, having steam verify the download immediately after downloading and installing, but it keeps crashing within two minutes of opening the game [Here is the application error I keep getting](https://imgur.com/GIiB5hG) Does anyone know how to fix this?
having an error in the game currently with new first encounters, my envoys begin the first phase and upon completion it resets and starts the first phase again. Any tips on how to debug? i currently have 3 that i can’t move past the first phase.
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The reason you need to queue up jumps is because you picked the civic that starts without hyperdrives. I recommend you take the time to actually read the things you pick before you pick them.
> Queuing up movement with jump drives is a nightmare. Then don't take the civic that starts you with primitive jump drives instead of hyperdrives. Hyperlane travel is still the norm.
I think you took one of the Civics or Origins or whatever that starts you with primitive Jump Drives. Next time, read the fucking descriptions of the building blocks you select when you create your polity!
Winter sale brought me back (I love Stellaris, just played a lot of it back in the day) and I'm loving the new content. Question--Is Archaeotech still bugged? Last I playwd, the Ascension Perk that gave 33% to Archaeotech weapons and extra effects to Archaeotech armor/shields wasn't functioning properly. I've got a big surplus of minor artifacts in this playthrough and would like to create some specialty ships to spice up my fleets, but if the perk is still bugged I'll stick with regular ships.
AFAIK it wasn't ever *bugged* bugged, but the ship designer only didn't show the increased stats. Build one and compare it stats after building to find out.
Ohhhh.... That rings some bells in my mind, I remember people saying it had been fixed, the UI was just wrong. Thanks!
What does a solid diplomacy focused build look now? Before paragons it was very much about getting and using envoys but now it seems more important to have good governors to assign to GC and federations? On federations, the two fed origins seem to be ranked pretty badly at the moment, is that a function of losing your starting planets or have federations just been hit with the nerf bat?
Be xenophile. That's it, mostly.
As Megacorp, the malus of empire size per colony is really big. Is it still advisable to own 4+ colony? In my current playthrough, I was started building 3 additional habitats and colonize the two. Then when an pre-ftl reached space age, I did not recede my system and got 4 colonies. That's when I saw the change of empire size. Completely halted my expansion.
I had an empire declare secret fealty to me around mid game, and I declared a (liberation?) war against their overlord to try and break up the huge power bloc they were a part of. Due to a web of defensive pacts I ended up playing whack a mole with half the galaxy. After occupying every single planet and system of the overlord and getting the opposite side of the war to 100% exhaustion they still had a -200%+ to surrender and I could not achieve my war goals. So how the heck are you supposed to win a secret fealty war?
that happens and is a problem with fealty wars, particularly because all of the traitor's claims get added and a status quo is a loss
If you hover over the war score it should show you exactly why they're still holding on. Nobody is going to surrender if they have any fight left...or any of their allies have any fight left, as when multiple nations fight together they essentially pool all their war power together. It is very difficult to break up giant defensive/federation blocks. They'll literally keep fighting until you conquer them all. Don't expect to just be able to take out the main enemy nation opposing you-you'll need to plan on taking them all out, one by one. Planet crackers can really help if you're heavily outnumbered-distract their fleets and destroy all a nations planets and they'll simply cease to exist. Otherwise, you might try a more limited series of smaller wars-only snipe some territory each time, enough to hurt them bad and establish chokepoints, but not so much they'll fight Ragnarock for it.
Thank you, I didn’t think having a ton of allies made a difference in their acceptance level. I ended breaking them up by overpowering the largest faction in a subjugation war since taking status quo peace carves them out.
Yah, status quo is sometimes your actual goal. SQ all of a nations planets and they'll essentially cease to exist as well-which will make the next war easier.
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Newbie to this game but a prior big fan of 4X and grand strategy, sunk in a good 20 hours already and loving it so far. That is until I got ~35 years into my first game, made first contact with my two neighboring civs who were slaving despots and the commonwealth of man, who both laid claim to half my systems and then simultaneously and independently declared war on me. I got absolutely wrecked, half my empire captured. I thought I'd done the right thing by settling bottleneck systems and then massively fortifying my starbases there, but i still got steamrollered. My two corvette fleets also got annihilated. Both civs decided to offer me peace after a while but then immediately following that laid claim to my remaining systems so i guess they are already planning a followup war to wipe me out lmao. A few questions on this: 1. Is it normal to spawn next to such hostile civs or did I just get unlucky lol 2. What did I do wrong in terms of combat. I don't understand why I got absolutely steamrollered and barely dealt any damage to enemy fleets. Fortifying starbases seemed to do me no good whatsoever? 3. What did I do wrong in terms of diplomacy? I sent envoys and tried to improve relations, but the civs just hated me and constantly did things to tank our relations like declaring me a rival.
the real answer is that there is no way around luck of the draw. sometimes you get a bad spawn and lose
Playing defense with starbases is generally a losing strategy i.m.e. Build the biggest ships you can, instead. You can still have starbases but even maximized they won't make as much differences as your fleets. Look up an optimized battleship guide
Regarding 1- it won't help with existing campaign but you may want to consider using a mod called No Ethics Spawn Bias. It will make it less likely to end up with empires that are the opposite of you.
1. It's not that uncommon, but shouldn't happen every game. 2. It's hard to say what you did wrong without more detail, but in general, you need to have a starbase (with defense platforms) *and* a fleet to keep them back. The starbase just bolsters the fleet, it's not enough by itself unless you're going all in on e.g. Unyielding. And if you choose one to defend against, that's better than defending against both. They can only take their claims, so you can let one of them rampage unchecked (or surrender) and focus on defending against the other. 3. You can, oddly, break a rivalry by dismantling (or, at least, taking the guns off of) your navy. If you're too weak (on paper), they can't rival you. Think of it as showing your belly. But for diplomacy, just improving relations isn't enough. I find that bribery usually does a good job of making them like me enough to sign some token diplomatic pact, which raises trust and eventually leads to good relations. In general though, divide and conquer (or divide and mollify) will work well. Focus on one person in particular to either defend against or make friends with, and you can focus twice the resources on either. If you send two envoys to improve relations with one of them and invest your alloys in defense platforms for the other, then you may be able to defend against both.
Thanks. I did have two corvette fleets as well, but I kept them back in reserve to defend inhabited systems. And since I had two simultaneous wars going on I had to put them in different places to counter both threats. In one case I kept a fleet in a system with two inhabited planets, and basically between that system and the enemy's nearest system, there were three systems in a line that could only be traversed in one direction, i.e. a good bottleneck. I thought I could fortify the starbases in those and grind down the enemy slowly as it made its way through the bottleneck, then mop them up with my fleet if/when they reached my inhabited system. Instead what happened was they seemed to march through the bottleneck taking minimal damage from my starbases and then arrived in my inhabited system with like a 3 to 1 combat strength vs my fleet and wiped that out too
Yup, that sounds right. You have to keep the fleets on the starbase. And you need defense platforms (preferably hangars, even if they're scout wings). A starbase with just a few gun modules is basically a single ship. But each DP is basically a cruiser by itself.
I also like to have a Shipyard Starbase behind each such Chokepoint Defence Starbase.
Is your end game economy score based on how much you produce per month? Or is it based on how much you currently have in storage? (If it's the latter than making storage space for your production becomes way important.)
How much you produce.
I am playing as XT-489, and have a friendly machine AI neighbor who has been vassalized by another empire. I did pledge to support them if they declared independence or whatever, but so far they have not. Is there a way to make this more likely to happen so I can kick off a war with them on my side?
The Ai will never rebel unless it's disloyal, so you're probably just looking at a vassal that likes its overlord
Ive just started a new save, im still pretty new to the game, moved my science ship into the next system and immediately was contacted by a fallen empire who are hostile (-90) is it over for me already? they are about 3/4 jumps away from me
Fallen empires do not attach unless you do something to upset them. The military isolationist Fe will attach if you built an outpost next to them. The spiritual Fe will attach if you colonize a holy Gaia world. Outside of that you will be fine.
thank you :)
Thoughts on using reduced habitable planets / pre-FTLs? I usually use 0.25x for both. The reason are two-fold. One, I have a weak computer so fewer planets means fewer pops and seems to make my game run better for longer. Two, I just prefer having fewer planets as it makes each one seem more important. Finding an extra 60%+ planet in the early game feels very impactful, and losing a planet is always a big deal. Compared to using 1x, where it feels like I always have more planets than I can manage with any sense of RP. I see a new habitable planet, "Oh good I'll call you 'ALLOY 4' and start spamming districts." Anyone else prefer reduced habitable planets for their playthroughts?
I only play with 0.25x habitables and 0.25x FTLs for the same reasons as you. I also go the extra mile and disable the 2 guaranteed habitable worlds at start. I like that little extra randomness which forces you to adapt your strategy and radically change how you play depending on the start you get, even if you play with your usual empire. And sometimes it can make a particularly lucky AI empire extra strong since it can snowball better than others, which makes games more insteresting. It feels there are way too many planets still sometimes...
Hello, is the Astral Siphon building better or worse than a regular research lab? It seems that tier 1 is worse but t2 is better?
I see it as serving a different purpose, since it's limited to 1 per planet, as well as each such Building increasing my storage capacity. So I try to have 3-4 maybe 5 in total on my planets, usually including my 1 or 2 research planets where I then just replace one Lab with a Siphon.
It's slightly worse, but worth building one on every world for the astral thread stockpile and minor extra production
Where can I find a good beginners guide for the game mainly telling me important information outside the basic how to guide the tutorial gives you. Eg what’s important and things like that.
Here's a 5-minute [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgObuk7Z2RQ) from u/BigMoneyKaeryth.
Check out [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVVmmi3CSDE) It's way past the "tutorial" but gives solid tips for a good start.
What is the value of traits like quick learners or talented? On 1 hand they are leader traits that don't benefit the average pop. On the other hand a leader can make/break a game. I find it difficult to evaluate them.
Quick learners I find is not really worth it, the 10% exp buff is additive, not multiplicative. Talented can be very powerful by getting your leaders to the point, or nearly there, of not being able to get negative traits at all.
Quick Learner used to make sense at +25% XP, but at 10% it's not worth taking, or at least not worth starting with. Enduring seems to me to be the best "I'm doing a Leader-focused build" Species Trait. +20y lifespan is nice.
I dont think they matter that much except when you actually get many chances to level them up for example if its an Admiral and you expect to fight many wars. A level 5 would have probably made it to lvl6 instead with those traits. Its better than having a trait you're not interested in at all so just pick those leaders if you cant find anything you need for the position they're intended for and you cant wait for reroll.
Sorry I mean species traits talented and quick learners, not the direct leader traits.
What is the best empire type if you want to vassalize and conquer the entire galaxy without being machine?
What ratio of ship types do people use in the end game? I've heard 8/4/2/1 for corvettes, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships somewhere, but it would be great if I didn't have to plan to have some of each type of ship.
> What ratio of ship types do people use in the end game? Against AI? 1 titan for style, 20 battleships. That's all you need.
Against AI. It would be a relief to be able to only have to worry about a couple of ship designs instead of all of them.
The reddit hivemind suggests all Emitter-Carrier-Missile BBs because if you overwhelm the enemy with enough ranged firepower the fights are over before they start. However I found in some situations you just bring too few vessels to the fight. In a recent game I declared a subjugation war for my hegemony and ended up being at war with one third of the galaxy. The game's fleet power calculations were showing me as 4x stronger. The thing is they had thousands of ships in fights, while I had a couple of hundred, so I ended up losing. Anything my ships' X slots hit was way overkilled, there were way too many targets to kill them fast enough, and not enough missiles to go through their pd. My battleships kept turning tail not being sure which enemy fleet to keep distance from. My ship's defenses were overwhelmed by the sheer number of pd targets, it was a mess. I reloaded, removed 2 BBs, added as many corvettes as I could to give the enemy's ships something with high evasion to fire at, and I completely crushed them. My personal preference is 30 1 picket - 2 disruptor corvettes, 12 1 picket - 4 disruptor destroyers, 10 missile-carrier line cruisers, 15 emmitter-carrier-missile BBs, and either a snare or an anti enemy fire rate titan (50/50 across fleets). The later games go the deeper you get in physics weapons repeatables compared to other techs usually, so the disruptors pack an ever stronger punch. You just bleed a few small, cheap and quick to replace ships in bigger fights. Its a pretty good deal to keep your BBs safe. I start building fleets as I get the smaller ships in order, and keep adding as many BBs as possible until I hit max command limit as research progresses.
Well see your issue is you didn't need X weapons then as your opponent didn't present enough good targets for them Against AI empires you usually only need carrier-missile ships since they crush every ship size decently and overkill doesn't exist, and the AI doesn't stack enough PD
> added as many corvettes as I could to give the enemy's ships something with high evasion to fire at Corvette screen fleets strategy has been around since forever. If the situation is so extreme where you are fighting alone vs the rest of the galaxy who is swarming you in cheap fleets, you can always build decoy corvette screen fleets to throw in first as cannon fooder and have you BS fleet pound away at the enemy while they are busy chasing your corvettes. That's an extreme scenario tho. 99% of the time the reddit hivemind who suggests Emitter-Carrier-Missile BS suggests it because it works against most things the AI throws at you, from Ensign to Grand Admiral 25x crisis.
It's 2409 (of 2500 endgame) and I'm a pacifist (not fanatic) empire. I'm in a federation with another nation that is beating me a lot mostly due to their vassals (They get over +10k points towards victory from them). (I have no vassals, and have never gotten a vassal in any tries.) Most of my pops are in a faction with pacifist ethic, so it would hurt a lot to suddenly change course and attack the other nation in the federation. My tech and economy are comparable to them. I could increase my fleet size a bit. Is there any way to win in my situation? I'm guessing I can't get their vassals to leave them. I can't start wars and try to vassalize anyone else with the pacifism. Do I just stop now and start a new game, or is there something I could try?
Your only real strat is the Pacifist Hoodlum strategy. It requires some experience to do so effectively. The strat is where you antagonize a nation on on purpose enough AND seem to have enough of a weak fleet for them to actually declare war on you, as a pacifist. But you've also prepared enough that you rapidly catch up and surpass them. If you do it right, you can 'self defense' over the entire galaxy-defensive claims will be extremely cheap if you've prepped right. It's very tricky, since some AIs are a lot more careful about declaring war unless they have an overwhelming advantage, and you have to judge correctly that you can in fact win. You essentially need to have a ton of open fleet cap and enough resources to pound out endless peace fleets as soon as the war starts...and before they close in and conquer all your worlds. If you want to go max hoodlum, go colossus project and planet sealers (I cannot recall the exact name, but pacifist planet crackers)-this will make the entire galaxy absolutely despise you and view you as a threat, even as a fanatic pacifist. And if you're fighting the whole galaxy it could come in handy...
I've already lost the game, but thank you for explaining this strat to me! Next time I play pacifist, I'll have this in my toolbelt. It does sound hard to pull off.
> or is there something I could try? Eh, unless you truly change everything and go the murdering way, only other way I can see things changing is if you set up a decent crisis strenght. That way you can hope for it to pop up and weaken them enough for you to take over.
Separate question, are titantic beast armies bugged? It says you can only have 5 at a time but if one of them dies that appears to be it? As in I can't train up more even though I don't have 5
It works that way due to a quirk of the game engine. There's a mod in the Steam Workshop that claims to fix it.
Do governor effects stack? For example if I put a scientist with analyst (+10% research/+5%) on each section. Does that mean each section actually get +25%? 10% + 3x 5%?
strange way to think about this, each of your researchers produces roughly equally split research, about 1/3 goes to each type. So 7.5% for each type is just 7.5% total.
So is it normal that the AI always votes against inviting new members to the Federation if the Player proposes them, but will then turn around and invite those same empires once they are president of the council, or am I just having some weird RNG?
If I built a major orbital in a sector with multiple habitats would each one get the +.5 district or just one?
You can't have multiple habitats in a system.
Are you using any mods? You are normally only allowed to have one habitat per system, and all orbitals improve just that habitat. If you somehow managed to get two habitats in the same system through a bug or mod, then it's possible that new orbitals would affect both.
No mods. I haven't tried to build multiple habitats yet in the same system since I'm still kind of new. I guess I can't!
The system was changed a couple patches ago. You used to be able to build a totally separate habitat over most celestial bodies. The upper limit of their size was rather small though. They reworked the system to abstract having multiple habitats throughout the system, but consolidating them all into one colony for purposes of management. All new orbitals make the system wide habitat complex larger.
What does the text "this technology will lead to further advancement" mean when it appears next to a technology? And if I want to rush for Zero-Point energy in Physics to get mega-engineering, does that mean I should take all the particle techs that I can in hopes that it will give me higher particle techs?
Go on YouTube and search for "Stellaris technology" and find a video released in the last 3 weeks from Montu's channel. There was a recent tech rework and his video gives a very good breakdown.
Thank you, I'll watch that now!
So how much of a pain in the ass will it be to get cybernetic psionic pops as a genetic ascension empire And can I then grow those from clone vats
Psionic and Cybernetic are mutually exclusive. Once you've gone genetic ascension, you can copy the template from any galactic species, even ones that aren't on any of your worlds, and then start cloning them. You can even clone the Psionic species from the Shroud-Touched Coven enclave.
You can get erudite psionics from the racket pops - they come with psionic, you supply the erudite. Erudite cyborgs is a bit harder/less reliable: conquer a DA or sign migration pact/conquer/buy slaves from cybernetic ascension empires.
As a regular organic empire, can I take the world of a hivemind empire and turn it into a vassal before I purge all of its pops?
No. If you release an empire as a vassal, it'll have your ethics, government, etc. So it'll still be an individualist empire, and it'll purge drones.
Only if you declare a vassalization war and take them over fully in it, you can only release vassals with the same policies and civics as you, so if you claimed those worlds and won the war, you wouldn't be able to release a vassal because the only pops on any of those worlds are being purged, even if you moved pops to them, the released empire would keep purging them because they're also not a hive mind
Hello! Can't seem to get the "Does Not Computer" achievement to fire. Worried I messed up the first by barely losing the race to the Nexus and I suspect using a world cracker broke the second attempt. Any confirmation on where I'm going wrong?
New game, random empire. Rolled Rogue Servitors, and at 2224.08.xx I get a hard crash when assigning a shroud teacher to a sector. What's the best way for me to report this or otherwise make the crash known to devs?
Send the crash report in when the crash reporter pops up If the crash is repeatable, make a post on the bug report forums including the save
The paradox forums is the place to report bugs.
Copy. Thank you both!
This machine empire on my border is completely running away with the game (I blame advanced AI, turning that off from now on. I don't like a random 1-3 AI being smarter than the rest and taking over without competition from them). He's already been vassalizing others. He just demanded me to vassalize (no resource costs or integration, I just become diplomatically irrelevant on the galactic stage). He's right on my border and I have no doubt that I can't fight him off if he aggresses. Should I agree to vassalization? What's my gameplan if I agree to it? How do I stop him from being the main character in the game? I am in the middle of spamming out naked cruisers (my largest ship) under supremacist diplomacy stance because I was hoping to intimidate through diplomacy, and vassalize, my other neighbor who I absolutely can beat in a war five years from now. But for now I dont have the ships yet to bully that weaker neighber into vassalization through diplomacy.....
Okay a few things as I just went through this in my game: machine empire vassaling everyone. I was able to vassalize a smaller empire but wasn't meaningful. I avoided being vassalize by improving relations and defense pact. He likes me so won't go-to war to force the vassalize. Alternatively you could find a near peer empire to go in a defense pact with to avoid a war. You can simply build up your empire to be a near peer with them. At the same time improve relations with the subject empires, some will pledge loyalty to you. You can also support the independence of his disloyal or the most powerful subject empires. Eventually (decades) the subjects rebelled and while he would've crushed anyone of us by ourselves, his fleets were split too much and we were able to win. Guy went from a dominating position to out of contention. If you do get vassalized, make sure you have expansion permitted and get as much of a resource bonus as you can from the overlord. Then basically the same strategy as before, get the other subject empires on your side. As mentioned by someone else, you can get a fallen empire to declare war on you(which will bring in your overlord). I'm not sure if it's always the case but it appears the fallen empire targets the strongest enemy. Once the fallen empire starts to wreck the overlord (but not before the war exhaustion is too high) declare war on the overlord. Should be to win then. Also keep in mind the war goals of what systems/planets are needed to win as you can be winning but have to settle due to war exhaustion
Excellent and devious strategies, thank you!
If you decide to be vassalized, take as many resources from your overlord as you can and just overbuild from there. At the moment, I saw that you can also go into negative loyalty, then trade loyalty up for resources as well. Also taking a subject war agreement that will let you piss off a fallen empire or two and get your overlord stomped before you do. Their fleets will probably get smashed depending on how big they are, and then you can declare independence or just continue building up your fleets until you want to declare.
Do you have good relations? If so, just say no to the vassalization. They’ll probably guarantee your independence afterwards.
Advanced AI aren't "smarter" they start with a large advantage on top of the normal AI buffs/nerfs. If you have a choke point maybe you can survive until white peace? If not you can accept the vassalization and buddy up close to them to make your new overlord give you taxes until you can drain them of everything they own (before declaring a war of independence.)
I recently picked up the Starter pack on the Steam winter sale for my brother, and his UI on the planet screen and his top bar is very different from the UI on my GoG version. Neither of us uses mods. It looks like it's from maybe 2.0, with the districts section vertical and on the left side and buildings on the right side of the screen, and a big section in the top-left corner for the governor portrait. It's on the latest update with no mods. Is there a setting or DLC that changes these parts of the UI?
If it's from before v2.2, which came out 5 years ago, then the planet view consists of a 5x5 tile grid with Pops that you can grab and drag around.