Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!

[GloatingSwine]

I don't think so. They're kinda always going to be a game of snowballing because a lot of the strategy of 4X games is identifying and compounding small advantages.

The good ones have a lot of different advantage strategies to identify and optimise for.

[Grim Portent]

I have gotten bored waiting on the crisis. To entertain myself I have begun the banishment of all xenos that aren't human or of the same species as the God Emperor. Humanity and Lilarobian shall rule together, but alone.

This means the removal of some 80% of my empire's population, which should cause some interesting things to happen. My economy has already tanked, my political influence halved, crime now runs rampant. The galaxy will be flooded with the psionic hybrids and subspecies that have flourished in my lands. I anticipate the rest of the civs becoming massively overpopulated as they deal with the ensuing refugee crisis.

[Rockphed]

Is there actually a 4X game ever created which *doesn't* suffer from the Win More problem? You always seem to end up in either a losing or winning position long before the end of the game and just have to run the clock out to get the actual relevant win/loss screen.

Some games (Space Empires comes to mind) had win conditions based on % of total score. Various versions of Civilization I have played all the way to the end and barely squeaked out a score victory (but somehow the last 50 turns were always a chore to get through). Part of the problem is that it is very hard to quantify when you have won enough to have won.

[Lord Raziere]

Some games (Space Empires comes to mind) had win conditions based on % of total score. Various versions of Civilization I have played all the way to the end and barely squeaked out a score victory (but somehow the last 50 turns were always a chore to get through). Part of the problem is that it is very hard to quantify when you have won enough to have won.

I mean I've played Civ 6 twice now, both domination victories and despite both times getting huge amounts of land with my armies, my biggest worry was some AI with like 17 diplomacy points in the late game nearing a diplomatic victory and me having to destroy their entire civilization before they can do that.

while in Stellaris, the two games I've had? well I got a good portion of the galaxy by being a megacorp and playing "block the hyperspace routes into the territory I want" but in my first game the end game crisis started happening, the crisis showed up in my space and started destroying all my ships, only being beaten by the reawakened old power next door which was acceptable until that old empire started grabbing my territory and there was no way for me to fight back. while with my second game despite taking all other systems I nearly lost a war with an AI with only one planet left due to the attrition system. still haven't won a game of Stellaris even though I've won two of Civ 6.

[Silverraptor]

I returned to Stellaris after a lengthy break, decided to buy the Nemesis DLC for my inaugural return.

I blew up the galaxy as a race of cloned insectoid necromancers seeking to take control of the Shroud. Remarkable how badly the AI does in a war when their stars are going supernova behind their lines while they try to storm a handful of worlds covered in vast hordes of undead soldiers. I snuffed out three empires in the process of gathering dark matter before finishing the rest in one final stroke.

For round two, I fired up a game as the United Nations of Earth, and was being all nice and peaceful, building tall and dominating the tech game, leading a federation. Then I psychically awakened and one of my leaders from a plantoid pop became the Chosen One. For the giggles I embraced the reign of my new God Emperor, set about changing my federation to a hegemony and working to secure absolute control of the Republic Galactic Community. Now the galaxy has been forced to bow to God Emperor Fronds of Khaki, who rules the galaxy from the imperial capital of Earth. One precursor empire has been conquered, the other sends me free ships because I have the head of Zarklan. Now I sit and await the Crisis at the head of a safe and secure society.

Wait, you can change the type of Federation you're in without having to kick it down and start over? I don't make federations as often as I should, so I don't know the nuanced mechanics that I feel I should know.

[Grim Portent]

Wait, you can change the type of Federation you're in without having to kick it down and start over? I don't make federations as often as I should, so I don't know the nuanced mechanics that I feel I should know.

A unanimous vote by the members can let the president change the federation type. I had to kick out some of the other members to do it, because they weren't all open to a hegemony, but I was able to get two of them to rejoin it.

[GloatingSwine]

So I thought it would be good to show the progress of my latest empire. Not quite an in-depth lets play, but just a checkin from time to time.

First off, who are we playing:

Spoiler: Mirovandia Harmonious Kingdom

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Life Seeded + Inward Perfection makes for a very different early game as you can't colonise at all without rushing for either droids, habitats, or waiting until you get World Shaper. I intend to take the latter path if possible, plant mans need real soil. But the amount of production bonus I'll be getting from the Gaia world start plus being Intelligent means I can tech up pretty strongly (I won't be beelining techs because I've forgotten how they all relate to each other) so I can use that advantage to keep my head above water until the mid to late tech tree then take off.

I plan on mostly being a hermit kingdom, not going to do things like join the galactic community, just going to defend my borders and maintain my independence.

This is a 1000 star galaxy with 15 empires, as you may be able to tell from all the locked spawns they're all hand crafted, and they represent a pretty good spread of ethics and types (two megacorps, two hive minds, no genociders), playing on Grand Admiral difficulty with scaling on.

Spoiler: Day One

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Here's the starting situation. Pretty much in the bottom middle of the galaxy. There's a black hole nice and convenient and my home system is in a dead end. Always like that. The black hole would turn out to have the Infinity Machine in, so I did its project and got Pantagruel (+10 all researches). Took me 2500 hours to get that achievement then it goes off two games in a row. Figures. A lucky start because it gives another +10% research rate factionwide.

Since I'm not able to colonise early in this game, I skipped on Expansion as my first tradition and went for Discovery for the survey speed and research alternatives and took Technological Ascendancy as my first ascension perk.

Otherwise I pretty much just do early game stuff. Explore around, do all the anomalies that come up. Manage to get the Alien Box which is nice, gives me another -5% housing usage for a fast growing species with one planet to its name and meanwhile I fill my homeworld with industrial districts and science. I manage to enact some edicts along the way as well. The empire is good at edicts, starting capacity of 3, so I get some of those going. Peace Festivals, Nutritional Plenitude, and Research Subsidies.

Spoiler: Twenty Year Check-In

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Here's what things look like at the 20 year mark. We've met our neighbour, and it's someone who we can sort of get on with. I'll be using some of the limited diplomacy I can do to make sure they don't go hostile too fast though. You can't see it on this picture but in the bottom corner I've found a naturally occurring Gaia World (not a holy world either, so it's up for grabs), so that sets my expansion priority and gives me a nice fixed point to aim at to stop my expansion that way. There's another black hole system that way as well so I don't have to overwrite the science output from Pantagruel later on when I get my Matter Decompressor. That turns out to have an L-Gate in. I expect to be able to hold back anything that comes out of it later on, but I won't be opening it too early (this time).

Meanwhile I continue to develop my capital, my capital worlds tend to end up being reasonably general purpose with a mix of science and industry and go through the Prosperity tradition.

Spoiler: Forty Years In

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Here I am at 40 years and the end of my first session. I've expanded out to that Gaia world and just started colonising it, and continue to tech up, I reckon I've got a pretty comfortable tech advantage already and that'll continue to grow. I've met another couple of empires, none of whom like me much and so partly for that and mostly for roleplay I've started building up bastion stations on my borders so I have at least a delaying tactic until I fleet up properly (if you have a big enough fleet the AI usually won't pick fights).

There's not going to be a lot of expansion left for me this game, going to fill in up to the caravan corp on the other side and at the bottom of the map and that's pretty much it.

As you can see my capital's getting pretty built up, plenty of labs and industry, starting to get the production booster buildings in place. Some of the things there will be getting replaced. The entertainment building is temporary until I have capital upgrades and other ruler level guys to provide amenities, it'll get replaced with a culture building then and as the capital upgrades and I get the building slot techs I'll replace city districts with more industry. Unity is a bit of a weak spot for this empire build due to the limited building slots, so are strategic resources, although the life seeded starts you with one of each deposit on your homeworld there's no way you can justify the building slots. All my food comes from hydroponic farms on starbases, it's a very good idea to focus on that building to free up districts on your planets. Since I expect to be going extremely starbase heavy that'll pretty much be my food source for the entire game.

[Silverraptor]

Interesting start. I'm interested in seeing where your species goes from here.

[GloatingSwine]

Well, it's not a build that really tries to go anywhere, but there is more:

Spoiler: The year is 2261, the name of the place...

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By the 2260s I've filled out all the space I'm going to, and have run up against more neighbours. The Cevanti Mandate like me even less than I like them, they've rivalled me and claimed some systems, but I've got a bastion on my border and they almost certainly won't get past it, plus our fleets are rated equivalent so they probably won't have the stones to try. The Life Tree anomaly spawns on the far side of Endurga space so I cozy up to them and briefly open borders so they reciprocate and let me go and get it, 5% happiness for everyone.

My capital's pretty much full slots wise, it'll be getting some more special buildings and upgrades later though, and my second colony is still just starting out with the basics of a bit of unity and admin cap.

Spoiler: Not much happens...

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By the 2280s a couple more tradition trees are finished and perks taken. Grasp the Void and Mastery of Nature for more starbases and to squeeze a little more out of these two planets. The new colony is going to get all its districts built up now.

Somewhere along the way I finally get my precursor sites, as without border access it was hard to complete the chain. It's the Irassians which is probably the weakest one but their home system does have +5 exotic gas which is good for all the lab upgrades.

Spoiler: The midgame arrives

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The second planet is all districted up now, and a fourth tradition tree filled out (Unyielding, for even more starbases). That's when a decision was made, I had the tech prerequisite for world shaper, but decided to push it and go for Master Builders instead so I could get megastructures out faster. I'm running pretty much to the extraction limit of this empire now, with no way to get more base resources without another planet but a great desire to keep my alloys full for when the next ascension perk comes and I take Galactic Wonders.

I'm about at the end of the ship tech tree though, so my fleet is at about a two power standard (I could fight the next two strongest empires at once) especially on the defence, and I'm getting ready to start megastructure construction.

Spoiler: I remain on the economic edge

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At 2330 with the midgame well established it's time for the AI to do something potentially extremely harmful. I'm still riding the knife edge of economic stability, I'm actually selling off a lot of food and even some alloys to get the strategic resources I need to operate advanced buildings, my science nexus is finished and I've just gotten the ascension perk tech to take Galactic Wonders, so I'm on the edge of being able to solve all my extraction problems forever with a Dyson Sphere and Matter Decompressor. But the AI are starting to get all the L-Gate insights and it's nearly time for one of the stupid gits to open it. If it's the Grey Tempest they're all in the turds, I outpower any of them 2:1 still and I would have a hard time. I have my fleet parked on my L-Gate and a bastion station there which can hopefully keep control because I want that black hole for a Matter Decompressor and I can't afford to fleet up any more.

[Silverraptor]

Atleast you have a casino reserve for your people to gamble at and have fun in the middle of your territory.

Also, don't the irassians give you an ecumonopolis?

[The Glyphstone]

You're thinking of the First League.

[Artanis]

Atleast you have a casino reserve for your people to gamble at and have fun in the middle of your territory.

Also, don't the irassians give you an ecumonopolis?

You're thinking of the First League.

Yup. The Irassians' system gives +10 of each research, 5 alloys, and 5 gasses. Their relic gives +20 lifespan and the Javorian Pox bombardment stance.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, it's the First League that give you a relic world/ecumenopolis. Which I would have been able to colonise if I'd gotten that one or the Rubricator one. But I didn't in this game.

Anyway, as predicted the AI did go ahead and open up the L-Cluster at a stupid early date, and in a moment of relief for me and I'm sure disappointment for all of you, it was not the Grey Tempest.

Spoiler: What it contains

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The Dessanu Consonance don't bother you if you don't bother them, and even if you do they don't leave the L-Cluster so they're not a threat. That means I can breathe easy and wait for the khan to show up, which won't threaten me, they're too far away and wouldn't get past my borders if they weren't. This game will have to wait for awakened empires or crisis to get hairy now (I do have an FE right next door).

As you can see from my income, the first stage matter decompressor is finished and my dyson sphere is on the verge of providing energy. So my empire is about to have an explosion of build capability that should get me into position to come out on top in the late game.

Spoiler: Preparation

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I finish up another tradition (Supremacy) and now finally take World Shaper, so I've started terraforming another planet to stuff more industry in. Meanwhile I start putting a gateway network around my empire. A megashipyard at the core plus at every possible entry point so that no matter where a threat comes from I can respond.

Spoiler: Once there were economy problems...

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Now on the edge of the 2360s and ready for the push into endgame, you can see that the economic situation has turned around thanks to the megastructures completing, energy and minerals coming out of my ears now, and a third planet just about ready to begin colonisation (that one was picked because it has a growth speed bonus and is size 24, none of the other available ones were terribly interesting).

[GloatingSwine]

Time to check in again:

Spoiler: In the year 2400, not much was happening...

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It's still a lull in activity, the great khan event didn't fire this time so there was no midgame crisis event, so I have continued to build up peacefully. Three planets at mostly full production now, megashipyard running, finish up traditions and ascension perks (I haven't taken one of the ascension paths this time), fleets are expanded and so on. Nothing continues to happen for a considerable amount of time but then...

Spoiler: Something that might actually be relevant.

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It's going to be the Unbidden, they seem to be the most common for me even now in the times of just random crisis, unless they spawn on top of me I'm not going to bumrush them this time though.

Spoiler: Meanwhile

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At the same time someone tries to drop a raiding fleet on me, spoilers they will go nowhere and achieve nothing. They take several decades to spawn and then run into the Unbidden and die. The Xenophile fallen empire, which confusingly has the same name as mine and is a plantoid but uses a different portrait, awakens as the guardian of the galaxy and immediately declares war on the hive mind next door instead of doing anything about the Unbidden.

Spoiler: I do have some problems though...

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The Unbidden managed to move into the L Cluster. Bad news because I have a suddenly very vulnerable matter decompressor, they catch my fleets out of place and give me a shoeing but I manage to retreat and reinforce before they push more than a few systems in. They dither around for a bit, a few empires try throwing themselves at the L-Gate system including a fleet from the awakened empire, but in the end I am able to get my fleets both back up to strength and refit them for combat against the Unbidden with stronger shields and a lot of torpedoes on the corvettes.

I have to rearrange some of my economy, scrapping static defence platforms that are suddenly not in the right places so I can park my fleets out of port with a large number of very big guns pointing at the L-Gate into my territory so that if the Unbidden come through it again they can get a proper thumping this time.

Spoiler: I've never let this happen before.

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Eventually the crisis has reached the point where the Aberrant and Vehement show up, I've never waited long enough to let that happen before, I usually start fighting crisis factions instantly, but now we've got a nice three way extradimensional scrap going on and they're all trying to eat the galaxy.

Spoiler: You realise, of course, this means bordergore

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The map is starting to look distinctly untidy, I'm building a Sentry Array to let me idly watch everyone get eaten by interdimensional energy gits, I've expanded my fleets again, and they're not docked at a crew quarters station. That means I need to take a momentous step. A fourth colony, one which is going to be pretty much fully dedicated to generator districts, my only primary production districts (they are all otherwise cities or industry for the alloys).

I am not sure whether to bother trying to tidy up the crisis factions, they've gotten far enough out of hand now that I'd need to colonise like a normal empire to get my fleet cap and productions up to serious scale.

[Silverraptor]

It sounds like everything is going on at the same time.

[GloatingSwine]

The saga continues:

Eventually I decide I'm probably going to need to do something about the Unbidden. They're slowly but surely consuming the galaxy but it's too slow to be all that interesting and I mostly just want to call time on this one in order to do that I'm going to need to control the L-Gate network more decisively. That means owning the L-Cluster.

Spoiler: They're red now...

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A bit of poking at a sore subject turns the Dessanu Confluence hostile, and so I can send my battleships to sweep them up. The Unbidden have done half the work anyway, but I sweep around knocking over their nanite sandcastles and then push out the rest of the Unbidden. The L-Gates are locked down now, Terminal Egress has a set of battleship fleets pointing giant guns at anything that tries to use them.

Spoiler: On the other side of the galaxy

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As I do that I notice the Vehement are on their last legs, they've been pushed down to three anchors and those are the only systems they own, meanwhile their dimensional portal is in Unbidden space. I use my mobility advantage to snipe the last remaining anchors and their portal starts taking damage from the Unbidden station parked next to it.

Spoiler: One down, two to go.

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The same thing eventually happens to the Aberrant, meanwhile I finish up my generator planet and terraform all the nanite worlds in the L-Cluster, settling on one as a fortress world so I can get some more naval capacity to make sure I can get enough fleet concentration to win cleanly in long term fights.

Spoiler: Some new planets

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The unbidden continue to spread with the other two defeated, and so I finish off my preparations to start pushing them back.

Spoiler: The galaxy before I start pushing

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I get up to 9 main fleets and a Juggernaut to act as a mobile replenishment station for the ones that are going out into long term combat. All my fleets are refitted to full kinetic weapons as the best against the Unbidden. Each of my fleets is 34 corvettes, 20 artillery battleships, 5 carrier battleships, and a Titan with a rate of fire aura. Three fleets act together with the Juggernaut sweeping clockwise around the galaxy pushing the Unbidden out, three more guard the eastern edge of my empire and push the Unbidden away from my borders, and three hold Terminal Egress so the Unbidden can't spread through the L-Gates any more.

Spoiler: The sweep begins

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As I sweep round they are still managing to spread in the eastern half of the galaxy, but they're out of the strong fleets they start with so they're getting progressively easier for my fleets to defeat, most of the return fire they manage gets absorbed by easily replaceable corvettes. They can still use wormholes and other gateways to sneak fleets over to the western half, but controlling the L Cluster and having my own gateway in Terminal Egress as well so I can effectively use the L-Gate and standard Gateway networks as one big thing means I can swiftly get a response force in and keep them from getting established again.

It's still a relatively long process because they got up to 10 dimensional anchors and I don't know where they are, so I have to sweep thoroughly and I have to hold fleets at Terminal Egress to engage any of them that enter. There are still probably around 40-50 unbidden fleets in the galaxy and basically none of the other empires are capable of dealing with even one of them (if they weren't still all at war with each other...)

[Silverraptor]

Are you going to claim these newly unclaimed systems behind your unbidden sweeps? Expand your borders sneakily?

[Grim Portent]

After a long and surprisingly prosperous run as a life seeded species of barbaric despoilers I've managed to claw my way into being the Galactic Emperor again, stomped the Unbidden when they popped up in my territory, though I will admit it looked dicey for a bit, and am well on my way to vassalising the remaining factions that have avoided swearing fealty to me so far.

I got quite lucky in the run, the majority of my space was bordered by four fallen empires that gave me a nice big space to expand in, with just three star systems needing blocked off to keep out my neighbours. I also managed to open the L-cluster and get Gray at a vital moment, while being overrun in an ideological war by the federation that had banded together in response to my kidnapping their science crews on first contact. Gray broke the enemy that were pushing into my territory and then I camped him and my fleets over the nearest enemy capital, the mammalian Klaggians, and abducted about 90% of the population. That was the last war of aggression against me in the early game until the Khan arose and got swatted by Gray.

My luck stuck with the Baol precursors, which was the perfect precursor for the run. For the first few centuries I expanded slowly, one planet per decade turned into a gaia world and got a good foundation for my economy sorted out, something I usually fail to do because I expand too fast. Plus the Nu-Baol are great livestock, and since I was xenophobic/auth/militarist I was able to chow down on plant boys and not bother with agri districts while my enslaved Klaggians did most of the remaining worker jobs.

With the L-cluster secure, my borders fortified, and Gray in my pocket I decided to hunt the Leviathans, but most were in the space of other empires, so I declared wars to vassalise some of the weakest nations that surrounded the Ether Drake and Eldritch Horror. Two simple wars later and I had some vassals and two leviathan kills under my belt. I eventually managed to get five kills, adding the Scavenger, Tiyanki Matriarch and the Dreadnought to my list.

I decided to join the Galactic Community, having left it when it became apparent near the beginning that I would be in violation of it's laws. I was indeed still in violation of the community edict to protect the space amoebas, and unable to correct that because I wasn't in the community when the law was passed. Regardless I was still one of the top three powers in the senate through military might, and through the proper expansion of fleets and assigning of envoys I became the most powerful voice in the senate, but it still took me over a century to get the amoeba protection act repealed because I was not looked on fondly by most of the galaxy.

I ultimately conquered two of the FEs around me, more or less because I could. The second such war, against the xenophilic oldies broke my fleet into scrap though, dropping me from about 1000 capacity worth of ships to 400, which prompted the federation, now boasting several new members to challenge me and my vassals in a war for territory. I won, but it was a slow grinding affair and involved the abduction of hundreds of pops from the largest enemy empire. The main species, the plantoid Lavis, had annoyed me in the Galactic Community as they were my main rivals for policy decisions and so I purged most of their pops that I adbucted, keeping their xenophilic crossbreeds and immigrant pops as slaves. I later reversed this decision and included the Lavis among the many nerve stapled slaves of the empire following future conflicts.

The late game has been a time of great war, and massive expansion. I went from about 10 worlds to 57, after deciding to settle non-gaia worlds with synths, then skyrocketed to several hundred with the integration of some of my vassals. I'm still sorting out the mess of terrible planets I inherited, and dealing with the mass unemployment issues caused by gaining so many slaves in one go. The federation that opposed me dissolved with the formation of the galactic empire, which took several attempts and a lot of bribery and extortion, and with them broken up I was free to start vassalising them before they could form a proper defensive pact, though several are still free.

I'm big enough now that I basically just use my fleets to smash the enemy citadels and then let my vassals do the actual invading for me. I have 11k gene warriors, slaves soldiers and xenomorphs to throw at planets, but I'm at the point where I'm sick of the micro involved in invading the 30+ useless habitats that everyone seems to have built.

[GloatingSwine]

Are you going to claim these newly unclaimed systems behind your unbidden sweeps? Expand your borders sneakily?

No, it's not really worth grabbing unclaimed space at this point. You want to be grabbing colonised planets so you don't have to grow the pops yourself. I'm only colonising at this point to use up otherwise unemployed population or resettle clerks to real jobs.

Spoiler: The work continues..

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As you can see, I'm popping down another colony on another world with a lot of energy districts, all my other planets have unemployed pops that I can resettle over to quickly get it up to speed.

Spoiler: Still plenty to do though

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The Unbidden still have quite a lot of fleets, and they're still managing to spread a little on the east of the galaxy, but they've been pushed back a considerable way from my borders and so I can use the fleet there to keep pressure on them.

Spoiler: They keep trying to sneak out though

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There are wormholes connecting the two sides of the galaxy that the Unbidden keep escaping through and trying to reestablish themselves, so I have to flip back and forth through gateways continually pushing them back out of territory on the left, but every time they do that that's another few fleets I kill. I manage to briefly push up to the portal but I'm not quite able to spawncamp them there and there are still anchors available. Over this time I take a seventh planet and fill it with industrial districts to be able to reinforce better and build a tenth fleet.

Spoiler: Pretty much the last stand

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I nearly have them pinned back to the portal with two of my fleets and they collect five fleets together to try and push out. I would have taken pretty serious losses in this one, might have won it but it would have been savage, so I fall back a system and bring in the fleets that usually camp Terminal Egress, that makes this a five on five which is very good odds for me.

That's pretty much the last stand though, I've been grinding fleets down over and over and this was about half of what they had left.

Spoiler: A straight shot now

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I briefly reinforce and drop the last anchor with another fleet group, then I can go straight in on the portal.

Spoiler: And that's a wrap

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The last portal is destroyed, the Unbidden have no more active forces, and it's time to put this empire to bed. This is mostly a showcase of a relatively off-meta empire. Tall, but without many of the usual options for tall play, no ecumenopolis, no ascension path, biological pops only, and still managing to turn 7 planets with just over 500 pops into 2500 naval cap, which could all be out of port together, and somewhere close to 1.8 million fleet power, letting the crisis rampage for 70 years before even starting to do anything about it and still pushing it back and ending it.

It was never an empire that was designed to achieve whatever Paradox redefined "victory" as, too low a population for that (I would have come second if I had officially ended the crisis and allowed someone to win by knocking out the last couple of unbidden stations), but it achieved everything I wanted it to and ended up able, had it been possible for me to declare war in any case, to take on every other empire in the galaxy all at once and be able to not just win but absolutely smash them (none of them had as much power as any one of my fleets, and I had ten).

This set of empires is going to have a bit of a rest until the aquatics pack comes out now, when I'll update some of them to use the new features and do a playthrough with an Anglers/Mastercraft Inc. megacorp. Selling the bounty of the ocean to the drylanders.

In the meantime, time to see how New Horizons is getting on with another UFP playthrough.

[Eldan]

With the new DLC out, I'm trying to consider how best to make an empire of space pirates. Despoilers? Egalitarian-Militaristic Free Haven with Admiralty? Mercenary Corporation?

Here be Dragons origin is a must, though.

[Lord Raziere]

I've only been playing my Ork Empire that has become this strange.....kind of thin and full of holes western empire extending from the north to the south. as soon as I can fill all the holes in it I'll think about about conquering the smaller nations surrounding me.

though might want to start some hivemind, necrophage or other empire at some point. there is as always, options.

[Silverraptor]

I made a bunch of Fanatic Spiritualist/Xenophobic species whose one true religion is worshiping the Space Dragon. I have a tributary and made a vassal out of one of my neighbors who attacked me 3 times before (I'm playing on a difficulty higher than normal). First war I lost, but it was just a humiliation war. Second war was a settle status quo, but he took a handful of systems. 3rd war was all my territory back, a bunch of his territory, and vassalization. Now it's time to turn my other nearby neighbors into vassals.

Also, when am I going to get the liquid metal technology? I got mega-engineering and I'm working on mega structures, but it would be really nice to use that liquid metal to start spitting out space dragons.

[tonberrian]

I made a bunch of Fanatic Spiritualist/Xenophobic species whose one true religion is worshiping the Space Dragon. I have a tributary and made a vassal out of one of my neighbors who attacked me 3 times before (I'm playing on a difficulty higher than normal). First war I lost, but it was just a humiliation war. Second war was a settle status quo, but he took a handful of systems. 3rd war was all my territory back, a bunch of his territory, and vassalization. Now it's time to turn my other nearby neighbors into vassals.

Also, when am I going to get the liquid metal technology? I got mega-engineering and I'm working on mega structures, but it would be really nice to use that liquid metal to start spitting out space dragons.

Liquid Metal comes from three anomalies and possibly a rare dig site - one of the options for the Sentinels. Liquid Metal's pretty rare and if you don't have any more places to get anomalies you won't find it, though maybe it's also available on one of the fallen empires? I forget.

[Eldan]

Here Be Dragons should give you a liquid metal deposit near your homeworld.

[Silverraptor]

It gives the deposit, I just need the research to mine it. That's the problem I'm having.

[tonberrian]

It gives the deposit, I just need the research to mine it. That's the problem I'm having.

It's a high level tech, you might have to wait to draw it. The anomalies give you access to it immediately though.

[GloatingSwine]

The guaranteed living metal deposit you get for the dragon start isn't always giving the tech option at the moment. Usually you would only get the tech unlock if you've seen a living metal deposit but it's not always happening, so if you survey enough to get an anomaly that pops it you get it then.

Anyway, I have three new empires for the new patch:

Stormrider Consumer Products: These are the ones I've tested the most, they're a Materialist/Egalitarian/Xenophile Megacorp with the Anglers and Corporate Decadence civics and Aquatic and Thrifty traits, starting on an Ocean Paradise world.

Makes for an interesting early game as you don't get guaranteed worlds and you generally want to shift as much of your consumer goods production into coming from trade value and pearl divers as possible, had one semi-successful run but I'm also trying out 2.5x tech costs to slow down the battleship rush.

Heirarchy of Cevesia: This is my old Syncretic Evolution empire, Fanatic Authoritarian Xenophobes, they've been moved onto an ocean world and their servile species given the Aquatic trait. The main species is Extremely Adaptive so they can take all the non-ocean worlds and the servile species be confined to ocean worlds where the aquatic bonus for worker jobs production will stack with the servile and slavery bonuses.

Republic of Havensky: A Spiritualist/Pacifist/Egalitarian idealistic foundation protected by a mighty sky dragon. They don't do anything particularly special other than "have a dragon" and fill in a slot so I have 16 preset empires to fill a 1000 star galaxy.

[Eldan]

I tried Barbaric Despoilers for a bit, but found I didn't enjoy them much. So I switched over to the Sathweer Dragonriders, who are a militaristic/egalitarian megacorp with criminal heritage and admiralty. Also Here Be Dragons.

[GloatingSwine]

Barbaric Despoilers is an odd one. I don't think it synergises well with Aquatics because Aquatics have bonuses to worker jobs and you generally use Barbaric Despoilers to get slaves to do the worker jobs.

You could in principle use it with indentured servitude slavery and habitats to fill up your habitats with pops to do your specialist jobs especially science with those science districts whilst your free main species works the worker jobs on ocean planets (Aquatics otherwise don't like habitats much).

Feels weird though.

[thirsting]

Today I learned it's really fun to open L-gates at 2250 or so. REALLY FUN.