Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!

[The Glyphstone]

Did you mess with the tech tree costs? How do you get an L-gate open that early?

[Grim Portent]

It requires good luck. I've gotten them open in the first 70 years or so several times, but it necessitates having an L-Gate practically on your doorstep, lots of research and a curator station nearby.

Got lucky and got Gray in my current game, around 2260-ish I think, current year is 2282. One of my previous runs it was the Tempest about the same time. Half the Galaxy went up in smoke with no one in position to do anything about it.

[thirsting]

By stacking a lot of research bonuses, and getting lucky with research station density I guess?

I like the Iron Man mode, as I'm way too tempted to save/load spam otherwise, but sudden surprise galactic annihilations are a bummer when you're invested in your empire.

[Grim Portent]

I've not found research stations to be vital, the main thing is the curators, rushing research on your homeworld, and finding an L-Gate early. With the odd random insight event and the purchased ones from the curators it usually only takes two or three actual research projects to open the gates, which means you can get it done within about 20-30 years of finding a gate.

[GloatingSwine]

Given that the Grey Tempest is the most likely outcome in the L-Cluster, I don't go looking to open it until I'm confident I can at least kick a 40k fleet in the face, ideally 2 at once because that's what you generally have to do when you try and get into the L-Cluster itself.

I continue to iterate. Trying out an Aquatics/Catalytic Processing empire now. I've gotten what should be a pretty good start with 3 ocean worlds and 2 relic worlds, but one of the meanest of my preset empires (Xenophobic Necroids I play as the Crisis) has spawned next to me and there's no way they'll be signing any commercial pacts or joining a trade league so I'm going to need to fleet up.

[Grim Portent]

I've been tinkering with Aquatics too, done three different takes on it so far.

Here Be Dragons authoritarian empire of Aquatic fish people, the dragon wound up being kind of meh to be honest, but I did get Gray in that run so he kind of overshadowed it. Still a cool origin, but I might have to revisit it with a different build. I did become Galactic Emperor though, so that's always fun.

Necrophage, Criminal Megacorp Aquatic Lithoids, Fanatic Pacifist (which was a bad idea) and Xenophobic, with the Anglers civic. First time actually playing a megacorp, and didn't really use the branch offices properly, spent the game sitting in my little corner of the galaxy farming tons of food and CGs. Have left the save for now, since I'm past the end date and staring down the barrel of an awakened empire that has won the War in Heaven and rules most of the Galaxy and decided it hates me. Had the Dessanu Consonance in the L-Cluster this time, killed them and turned their planets into Ocean Thrall Worlds to try and provide more fodder for my Ecumenopolis and Ring World. Managed to become Galactic Custodian, but I had opted out of the League of Unaligned Powers, so now it's basically just me and the awakened empire.

Current game, Ocean Paradise, Aquatic Fungoids, Fanatic Xenophile Egalitarians, with the Anglers and Catalystic Processing civic. Popped the L-Cluster open very fast, got Gray, turned four empires into Protectorates/Vassals and integrated them. Facing an economic crisis because the new planets aren't well balanced and my energy and food incomes have tanked as a result and I honestly can't be bothered dealing with it.


I quite like the Anglers civic, though I hear it's not actually that good, it compliments my general playstyle well, since I normally struggle to keep CGs in any decent quantities because I tend to devote the bare minimum of districts and building slots to producing them. Having pearl divers churn them out makes it much easier for me to throw my Ecumenopoli into full alloy and research production.

[GloatingSwine]

Necrophage, Criminal Megacorp Aquatic Lithoids, Fanatic Pacifist (which was a bad idea) and Xenophobic, with the Anglers civic. First time actually playing a megacorp, and didn't really use the branch offices properly, spent the game sitting in my little corner of the galaxy farming tons of food and CGs.

I can see several problems in that. Mostly all of it :P

Criminal Heritage is a really bad civic for playing single player because the AI hates crime more than Batman and Judge Dredd combined, so your branch offices will be much weaker than they should be.

And given that, all the other options are really poor synergy for a megacorp because Necrophages are unpopular and xenophobia reduces your tools for making people like you and getting commercial pacts.

Pacifist is bad for Necrophages because it reduces your ability to smash and grab planets to do your special necrophage purge on to quickly get new specialist capable pops.

I find it much more valuable to be Xenophile as a megacorp, double down on the trade value, make some friends, and get a Trade League going.

[The Glyphstone]

Did the changes in 3.2 make Criminal Heritage viable? The patch notes say the AI will now make deals with crime lords.

[The_Snark]

My brief tinkering with it suggests it's more viable than it used to be: I planted a branch office on a neighbor's homeworld, built a smuggling post, and their crime shot way up; whereas last time I tried it, I could never boost crime enough to make any impact. Unfortunately, they declared war on me shortly afterwards, and it turns out that this shuts down criminal syndicates hard because even a white peace will close all branch offices (and you can't re-establish them while the peace treaty lasts). The war lasted long enough that I still made a net profit, but nonetheless annoying.

Now, these particular neighbors were Slaving Despots who'd already declared me a rival, so I'm 99% sure they were planning to declare war regardless of the branch office. It's possible that by picking your targets more carefully and using envoys to improve relations, you could avoid that - I'll need to test further.

[Silverraptor]

Well, I declared a criminal empire in my galaxy a menace in the galactic community. Turns out, I was the only one who voted yes. Stupid other AI. While I build up my diplomatic points to over shadow everyone else, atleast I have my psi corps to counter the criminal empire. Really want to use those building slots for better things, like alloys at this point, but I got to deal with the crime lords some how.

Also he is on the complete opposite side of the galaxy and the only empires with open borders to me are my vassals and tributaries so...

[GloatingSwine]

Sounds like you need more vassals and tributaries...

[Eldan]

Did the changes in 3.2 make Criminal Heritage viable? The patch notes say the AI will now make deals with crime lords.

It's working fine for me? It's still early game and I only know half the map, but I've bribed my two neighbors into Defensive Pacts, despite adding like 60% crime to all their planets.

[Silverraptor]

Sounds like you need more vassals and tributaries...

I'm working on it. Most of my neighbors are in a federation together so I can only vassalize and tributary one of them every 10 years...

[GloatingSwine]

I've managed to get my Trade League running on my latest Catalytic Anglers run, so I should never want for consumer goods again, I just need the pops on my science world to start growing and the game to stop withholding Terrestrial Sculpting so I can start the terraform spam and make loads of new oceans to feed my ecumenopolis (and Cybrex Alpha later).

[Silverraptor]

Okay. I have the craziest game going on right now. It's been a slow process of turning all of my neighbors into vassals or tributaries as there are 2 federations, and I can only vassalize one of their members per war, yet have to fight all of their fleets. Anyways, I declare war on a very small empire and quickly invade his planet and territory, only for his war exhaustion to be 4%. I was confused for a moment until I see there is another empire on the other side of him that he was in a defense pact with. So I invade him and take each system one by one. While doing that, I had crime problems due to a criminal heritage empire that I had to sit down and deal with. I decide to emergency measure the criminal empire a menace to the galaxy. I'm the only one who votes yes... Anyways, I get to the guy's capital so I decide I'm going to instead of invade it, start deluging it with my colossus. So I que up deluging that planet and 2 of his other biggest planets, as I discovered there was 1 more member apart of this war who was so far south and on the other side of me that he only now started invading my territory. I send all 3 of my fleets back to the shipyard to upgrade while my "Here Be Dragon" guy goes to the south of my territory to start beating this puny guy's fleets back and get those outposts back. As this goes on, after the second deluged planet, the xenophile fallen empire comes forward and is mad with me. I was a bit worried, but then I saw his fleet power was merely equivalent. So I ignored him, and with him being quite a ways away, I didn't expect him to be a problem. After the 3rd Deluged planet, the materialist fallen empire comes forward to yell at me. I tell him off. My fleet is upgrading and putting in more ships per fleet, and then the materialist fallen empire declares war on me, and he actually borders me! I wait a bit and keep my fleet together and upgrading to defeat the fallen empire's fleet in detail, in the mean time he is spreading out and invading my planets, even jumping across my territory.

After a few good engagements with almost no losses on my part, I notice that all his fleets are around 28k and mine is averaging 76k. So I decide to jump all my fleets to the 3 corners of my territory to reconquer all of my territory. As I start doing this, someone decides to open the L-gate and who comes out but the Gray Tempest. Now the good news is, I have no L-Gate in my territory, so I'm laughing and ignore it for a pretty long time as it's taking the Gray tempest a while to chew through my angsty neighbors and get to my territory. And not long after, suddenly the Drums of War Sound. Yup! The marauders woke up with a Great Khan. And it's on my territory borders. No wait, it's on my territory borders that the fallen empire took. And he starts winning against the fallen empire's fleets.

So the result is now, all my remaining territory and planets are back under my control, the fallen empires fleets are all dead and I'm beginning a massive invasion of the fallen empire's territory. I have nearly debris scanned enough fallen empire's wrecks to have the dark matter technology. The gray tempest have finally hit my territory, but have hit the wall that is my borders as their fleet isn't any larger than the fallen empire's. The Great Khan is hitting the wall that is now my fleets. My final fleet is starting an invasion of the fallen empire's territory was a bunch of armies following him in. And the dragon is guarding the southern front from the puny guy who was causing a mosquito bite down there.

Oh, and while ALL of this was happening, after my criminal empire menace vote failed, a new emergency measure was enacted. They wanted to form a custodian to keep the galactic community safe from the menace that is either me, the fallen empire, the great khan, or the gray tempest (I don't know which). And the person that they decided to enact as their great custodian, is the guy who's planets I was deluging at the start of all of this. Yes that guy, who has only a few size 10-12 planets left, who's main population centers are washed away, whose every outpost and star base is currently occupied by me. That is going to be their great saver from all of this...

This situation is so fantastically impossible that it's hilarious! And I don't have any fear at all of losing this. In fact, I'm poised to take on all 3 main threats simultaneously. And I bumped up this game difficult to commodore at the start as I felt brave cranking up the difficulty a bit more.

[Grim Portent]

I have attained a new personal best. I have opened the L-Cluster on 2240.07.03, beating my previous record by a good eight years, and that's without a curator station nearby. 6 L-Cluster insights discovered by my flock of science ships as they spread across the stars, and one researched the old fashioned way.

Unfortunately it's the Gray Tempest. And I'm playing a benevolent aquatic hive mind with no military build up, because of course that's when the tempest spawns.

EDIT: Unsurprisingly, the tempest destroyed the galaxy within a few decades.

[Grim Portent]

I decided to try the Gigastructural Engineering mod, and have finally managed to build a Stellar Systemcraft.

It is an even more ridiculous weapon than I anticipated.

Composed of a star, called Aluran, four planets, five moons, a ton of metal framework and a lot of guns, it seems to be able to one shot basically any other ship class, can mount a colossus weapon, and build ships.

I'm in two minds about this, on the one hand I poured a lot of resources and time into building the thing, so I want to use it, but on the other hand I'm not sure even the 4x difficulty crisis I have the game set to will be able to scratch it.

[The Glyphstone]

Almost certainly not. The ultra-crisis factions - Blokkats and A-somethingorothers in the galactic core - are designed to stand up to Systemcraft, but nothing in the base game stands a chance.

[Avaris]

So I’m on my first ever playthrough, no expansions yet, and overall really enjoying it! My corner of the galaxy is quite unfriendly: my three neighbours are a Militant Isolationist Fallen Empire and two factions who pursued a hostile first contact approach with seemingly everyone except each other, so now when I fight one of them the other comes along for the ride.

Our wars tend to be a process of them making progress on one front, while I make progress on the other, before ending in a Status Quo of me losing a few systems but also gaining far more. The most recent war I was focussed on reclaiming an old choke point I’d lost 10 years before, intending to restablish it as one of two heavily fortified places to focus on. I took that chokepoint quickly, and slowly pushed forwards, but the last time I’d fought the Empire on that side they’d been able to just rip through my fleets like they were paper, so was being cautious. Then I got a message from a slave world of theirs who had thrown of the chains of their oppressors and wanted to join me! Cue a frantic advance to claim a swathe of worlds and connect the slaves to my Empire proper. Final score at status quo was a gain of 15 systems, including a further forward choke point than expected, for a loss of 4 on the other flank! So pretty happy with that!

A couple of things I’m struggling with are managing war exhaustion and working out how to counter the enemy fleets:

On war exhaustion, I think both the Empires I fight are supremacist policy, so their attrition ticks up far slower than mine did before I changed policy. Is there any other way to counter this? As otherwise, it feels like a Supremacist policy just means you win wars by default (I was comfortably winning battles and occupying a lot of systems, but our war exhaustion scores were roughly level!).

On fleets, a lot of guides talk about looking at what your opponents have and building to counter that, but this seems to no longer be an option? Am I right in thinking that getting intel on ship design is now basically impossible in the base game? So I’m left with the post combat cards, which I struggle to interpret: they have % scores against shields/armour/hull both offensively and defensively, and a list of weapons used, but the weapons always seem to be a mix of types, and I don’t know what to do with the info from the %s! Any tips on fleet building? I’m at the stage where I have Cruisers (neither enemy empire does yet, which is helpful!).

[Grim Portent]

Almost certainly not. The ultra-crisis factions - Blokkats and A-somethingorothers in the galactic core - are designed to stand up to Systemcraft, but nothing in the base game stands a chance.

As is I started on a Birch World in the Core, so we'll see how that turns out.

The systemcraft allowed me to put the Katzens in their place once and for all. Their original empire crumpled after the Kaisermoon fell, but I couldn't be bothered to take out their Holy Katzen Empire through military might. They've surrendered to my rule after the systemcraft took flight though, which is preferable to drifting through their space cracking their planets I suppose. Now they shall join the other races of the Galaxy in glorious machine ascension.

I've set about the process of dismantling planets, with the intention to strip mine most of the galaxy, turn stars into black holes, neutron stars or more systemcraft. Whatever may come in the future, will be facing a weaponised Milky Way.

[Eldan]

On fleets, a lot of guides talk about looking at what your opponents have and building to counter that, but this seems to no longer be an option? Am I right in thinking that getting intel on ship design is now basically impossible in the base game? So I’m left with the post combat cards, which I struggle to interpret: they have % scores against shields/armour/hull both offensively and defensively, and a list of weapons used, but the weapons always seem to be a mix of types, and I don’t know what to do with the info from the %s! Any tips on fleet building? I’m at the stage where I have Cruisers (neither enemy empire does yet, which is helpful!).

One thing you should be able to do even without extensive intelligence is look at what debris they leave behind. You can send research ships to analyze the debris of battle, which should at least give you an idea which weapons they use and if those weapons are more effective against shields or armour.

Or you can watch the battle and just look at visually what they are using. The general weapon classes (in the early game, and not counting a few exotics like mining beams and lightning cannons) are:
Energy weapons: lasers and plasma, bad against shields, good against armor
Kinetic weapons: Mass drivers, autocannons, launchers: Excellent against shields, bad against armor
Missiles: ignore shields, high hull damage, very accurate, but defended against by point defence.

You should be able to see which of the three the enemy mainly uses by watching the battle happen.


That said, I think that shields are just generally better than armour? They refresh much more quickly, so unless your enemy has a fleet full of shield-ignoring weapons...

[GloatingSwine]

That said, I think that shields are just generally better than armour? They refresh much more quickly, so unless your enemy has a fleet full of shield-ignoring weapons...

Whilst true, weapons that are good against armour also eventually get bonus damage to hull, and monstrous amounts of damage which is what counts in the endgame.

The endgame meta is about a 4:1 ratio of battleships with a Giga Cannon and 4x Neutron Launchers with one with the middle section swapped for a hangar, and about 25 or so corvettes flying in front to use their evasion to soak up the enemy's first salvo or two.

Put a Titan with a tracking aura in if you want.

[Eldan]

I mostly ignore that meta because kinetic weapons look boring and energy weapons are awesome.

[The Glyphstone]

As is I started on a Birch World in the Core, so we'll see how that turns out.

The systemcraft allowed me to put the Katzens in their place once and for all. Their original empire crumpled after the Kaisermoon fell, but I couldn't be bothered to take out their Holy Katzen Empire through military might. They've surrendered to my rule after the systemcraft took flight though, which is preferable to drifting through their space cracking their planets I suppose. Now they shall join the other races of the Galaxy in glorious machine ascension.

I've set about the process of dismantling planets, with the intention to strip mine most of the galaxy, turn stars into black holes, neutron stars or more systemcraft. Whatever may come in the future, will be facing a weaponised Milky Way.

Then you've already displaced the Aeternum and they won't spawn, so it depends on if you disabled Blokkats or not.

Whilst true, weapons that are good against armour also eventually get bonus damage to hull, and monstrous amounts of damage which is what counts in the endgame.

The endgame meta is about a 4:1 ratio of battleships with a Giga Cannon and 4x Neutron Launchers with one with the middle section swapped for a hangar, and about 25 or so corvettes flying in front to use their evasion to soak up the enemy's first salvo or two.

Put a Titan with a tracking aura in if you want.

Huh, the meta has certainly evolved. I'm still in the ancient hoary days of massed 2 Kinetic Artillery/4 Plasma Cannon battleships.

[Artanis]

Huh, the meta has certainly evolved. I'm still in the ancient hoary days of massed 2 Kinetic Artillery/4 Plasma Cannon battleships.

Eh, not really. It's still "a volley of kinetics to bring down shields, then a sheet of energy balls to burn them".

[Grim Portent]

Then you've already displaced the Aeternum and they won't spawn, so it depends on if you disabled Blokkats or not.

I don't think I disabled them, pretty sure I left everything in the mod on default settings.

Now sitting at three systemcraft and slowly dismantling the entire galaxy in preparation for the end game.

I may have to try the original plan I had before I got distracted by the Birch World start, which was a Here be Dragons fish people run. Less of a headstart on everyone else than the Birch World gave me.

[The Glyphstone]

I wouldn't dismantle too much unless you are also building habitats and ringworlds. The Blokkat crisis is more about research; you need to research enough unique crisis techs to pierce their invincible shield before it eats the entire galaxy. All ships do is slow down the harvest.

[Grim Portent]

I wouldn't dismantle too much unless you are also building habitats and ringworlds. The Blokkat crisis is more about research; you need to research enough unique crisis techs to pierce their invincible shield before it eats the entire galaxy. All ships do is slow down the harvest.

I have an O-class Matrioshka Brain and a Birch World, I'm researching LXXXIII level repeatables in 6 months and have two centuries to go before the late game starts because I had set the timescale to 3200 thinking gigastructures would take ages to do.

Whatever the Blokkat do, I think they'll be too easy at this pace. I may need to restart and do things with a normal origin and more normal game length to get the right first impression and come back to this one later on to enjoy smashing giant doom ships into things.


Also, is the Nicoll-Dyson Beam supposed to destroy hyperlanes when it targets stars? I wound up making my territory accessible only through the L-Cluster and one fortified system on the edge of the Galactic Core and it seems pretty damn overpowered that it completely cuts off the system it hits.

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah, it basically erases the system including hyperlinks. It would be absurdly OP except that it can't fire on systems with crisis fleets in them for some inexplicable reason, and because everyone has jump drives by endgame anyways. So it becomes a neat toy rather than a truly OP superweapon.

[Silverraptor]

So I’m on my first ever playthrough, no expansions yet, and overall really enjoying it! My corner of the galaxy is quite unfriendly: my three neighbours are a Militant Isolationist Fallen Empire and two factions who pursued a hostile first contact approach with seemingly everyone except each other, so now when I fight one of them the other comes along for the ride.

Our wars tend to be a process of them making progress on one front, while I make progress on the other, before ending in a Status Quo of me losing a few systems but also gaining far more. The most recent war I was focussed on reclaiming an old choke point I’d lost 10 years before, intending to restablish it as one of two heavily fortified places to focus on. I took that chokepoint quickly, and slowly pushed forwards, but the last time I’d fought the Empire on that side they’d been able to just rip through my fleets like they were paper, so was being cautious. Then I got a message from a slave world of theirs who had thrown of the chains of their oppressors and wanted to join me! Cue a frantic advance to claim a swathe of worlds and connect the slaves to my Empire proper. Final score at status quo was a gain of 15 systems, including a further forward choke point than expected, for a loss of 4 on the other flank! So pretty happy with that!

A couple of things I’m struggling with are managing war exhaustion and working out how to counter the enemy fleets:

On war exhaustion, I think both the Empires I fight are supremacist policy, so their attrition ticks up far slower than mine did before I changed policy. Is there any other way to counter this? As otherwise, it feels like a Supremacist policy just means you win wars by default (I was comfortably winning battles and occupying a lot of systems, but our war exhaustion scores were roughly level!).

On fleets, a lot of guides talk about looking at what your opponents have and building to counter that, but this seems to no longer be an option? Am I right in thinking that getting intel on ship design is now basically impossible in the base game? So I’m left with the post combat cards, which I struggle to interpret: they have % scores against shields/armour/hull both offensively and defensively, and a list of weapons used, but the weapons always seem to be a mix of types, and I don’t know what to do with the info from the %s! Any tips on fleet building? I’m at the stage where I have Cruisers (neither enemy empire does yet, which is helpful!).

I don't think I've ever seen the event of throwing off the chains of their oppressors and having planets join me out of the blue. How would I go about doing that? Besides stop playing as empires with slaves of my own.