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2018-12-17, 12:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
We hit 50 pages on the last thread. It's time to continue the discussions about the new economy, whether or not it is broken, and the trials and travails of our empires in their ever expanding quest for
mineralsalloys.
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Thread 1
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Paradox ForumsFormer Owner of GiTP's fanciest Bloodbowl Team: The Fancy Lads
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2018-12-17, 01:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I was a little intimidated in my current game when the Great Khan mini-crisis triggered for the first time. The Marauders had raided me several times, so I was expecting an onslaught.
Instead, the Khan and his fleets decided to go to the opposite side of the galaxy to wage unilateral war on the other Marauder clan, and proceeded to get his butt handed to him twice.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
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2018-12-17, 02:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
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- A nice, sparkly place.
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I completely approve of this thread title!
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2018-12-17, 03:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2008
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
So, just to gauge the economy, what are the size of fleets you're expecting to have in 2300, and in 2400? In my (suboptimal) hive mind game, I only scrapped 6k by 2280, but all my AI neighbours fielded 2k fleets, which made it underwhelming.
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2018-12-17, 03:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Turns out it was the only option I came across. The free marketplace of ideas triumphs again
The AI is still rather borked. It doesn't value alloys in the same way that the player does, which makes it a lot harder for the AI to build ships and upgrade its ships. In general though, I've seen my fleet sizes be way smaller in the early-mid game, but I don't know if that's optimal yet. I want to say that by 2300 I could scrape together something like a 9-13k fleet? I might be misremembering that date though.Former Owner of GiTP's fanciest Bloodbowl Team: The Fancy Lads
The League's Self-Proclaimed Perennial Favorites and Season III Champions!
Current Owner and Manager of Rampant Professionalism
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2018-12-17, 04:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I just got the Horizon Signal event for the first time in a long while. Going all in on this.
Interestingly and perhaps fittingly, my civilization is also life-seeded. Mechanicaly, it means they start with a fantastic starting world (gaia world with rare features of size 25), but they have Gaia preference and can only expand pretty slowly (I solved that by accepting refugees and settling them on various production planets, while my main planet is reserved mostly for the main race.)
So, my fluff explanation is that they life-seeded themselves from the future. Because what was shall be. And I'm soon going to be switching from Gaia world preference to tomb world preference.Resident Vancian Apologist
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2018-12-17, 08:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Derby, UK
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I did finish the game last night, after save-editing the counter to 7000 days before they triggered... Made a thread on it on the PDX forums, if anyone's interested.)
The AI opened a couple of Gateways in the end, but on the beta that did not, in fact, tank the performance.
By the end of my game, I had, what, three 200-cap fleest of about 60-80k, plus about the same in patrols. Didn't fight much in the ay of wars, but the massive expansion of the Unbidden in that aborted bit suggested not much was putting up a fight except maybe the FE that awakened.
In the cold light of morning, and knowing that the Gateways worked, I think I might hvae had an idea how I could have fought the Unbidden, but it would depend on ym initial forces penetrating to the system next to the portal with a constructors in tow, the influence cost to build a station that far away being affordable (i.e. less than a thousand) and the forces being able to survive long enough to upgrade the station and build a Gateway to it from my primary production starbase so that reinforcements and repairs could be maintained. By spamming a load more fortresses, I could hvae shoved my fleet cap higher still, and then maybe I would have had a foothold to tray and contain the Unbidden (expansion to the next system over with starbase would have bottled the dimensional portal up, and if I could have held those, I could have slowly wiped them out. But it was probably the work of some hours, and I just wanted to get that game over. (As it was, it elimnated by Watching Naruto time.)
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2018-12-17, 08:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
There is basically a "preferred species Tag", by the way, regarding that post. You can click on the species currently growing and force-grow a specific species. It gives you a 20% growth penalty though.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2018-12-17, 09:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Derby, UK
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
And therein lies the problem - under the current system, it is still better to simply have 20% more population than it is to bother to try to specialise - especially since that bonus is more than any one trait will give you. It is, in fact, double the penalty from slow breeders, which now I think about it, is INSANE.
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2018-12-17, 10:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2016
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- Earth and/or not-Earth
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Last edited by InvisibleBison; 2018-12-17 at 10:18 AM.
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2018-12-17, 01:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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- A long, long chain
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I mean, there's an easy solution to that, use Displacement and cast all undesirable species into the black void of space.
Rider avatar by Elder Tsofu
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2018-12-17, 02:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2015
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I'm playing with the patch but without the expansion. My second game is going ok, but I'm really hammered by the administration cap. The AI has empires similar to mine, and I've never been less than twice the cap (and frequently 3 times). I'm not sure what it is trying to make me do: less districts? Less population? Also, it should show as a delta like the other resources.
Finding that robots don't work generators until droids was a bit of a whoopsie.
In general, my biggest beef is that things seem to happen for no reason. One minute every resource is positive, the next several are negative. I can usually figure out what happened, but it isn't clear. And not having the rare resources visible on the bar is just wrong.
I've been building starbases on 6 trade systems and up, what's everyone else doing?Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?
Queso ipso custodes! - Cheese it, the cops!
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2018-12-17, 02:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
So, here's something annoying. The tomb worlds you get from the Loop Event? They can only support city districts. So, I can now build approximately 200 new city districts in my capital system, but no resources.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2018-12-17, 02:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- Greece
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
It counts districts, colonized planets, even if empty, and owned systems, even without planets. It wants to penalize ultra-wide play, though all it makes me do is prioritize rising the cap really, really highly. I only wish it scaled with galaxy size.
In general, my biggest beef is that things seem to happen for no reason. One minute every resource is positive, the next several are negative. I can usually figure out what happened, but it isn't clear. And not having the rare resources visible on the bar is just wrong.
I've been building starbases on 6 trade systems and up, what's everyone else doing?
Oh, wow. Kind of a big oversight, but I can't imagine it working as intended. It's already annoying that terraforming planets randomizes features, as I discovered when I lost my generator world.Many thanks to Assassin 89 for this avatar!
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2018-12-17, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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- A long, long chain
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Finished a Megacorp game! Fanatic Materialist, Egalitarian Trade League. Didn't use the beta patch and made extensive use of Gateways so the last thirty years were intolerably slow, but here we are. Endgame Crisis was the Contingency, which I got lucky with when the Ancient Caretakers actually decided to wake up and fight them! (They also gave me positive inoculations. Good Bot.)
My mighty empire in the end:Spoiler: spoiler
Some of my own conclusions:
-For wide play, Megastructures are a "win more" mechanic. For tall play, they are basically mandatory now. The Strategic Nexus and Matter Decompressor in particular are necessary for getting your resources/fleetcap/starbase cap up to a point where you can compete with your larger foes. The others are also super nice, but a tall empire won't lack for Research/Unity/Energy so nice is all they are. Ringworlds are nice (you can get insane amounts of trade value, or solve all your food problems when previously you were buying so much food that it cost more on the market than exotic gases) but not as good as they were. The tiny enclaves of my empire on the map are places where there were ruined megastructures.
-Subsidiaries! Get them if at all possible. All of the blue fleets belong to my faithful tributaries keeping me flush with cash. I don't want the systems (don't have the admin cap for them, as going over cap really hurts as a megacorp) but the money is essential for buying the nice things I want.
-Related to that, splurging on getting to be the galactic market hub early on is 100% worth every penny, as reducing the market fee by 10% (and then another 10% in Diplomacy Traditions) will save you an absolutely absurd amount of money. Tall play is always starving for Minerals and exotic materials, and pre-Ringworlds it will be starving for Food too. Buy what you need to stay afloat!
-There are diminishing returns on having too much money, though. Even with monthly trades things you buy too much of will get more expensive (just more slowly), so you will want to produce some of your own things.
-Egalitarianism has been getting boosts ever since 1.0 when Collectivism was hilariously better than everything else, but now more pops are basically the ultimate power now so being a refugee haven is a serious economic boost. My empire pops increased by like 30% in a couple of years year when the Great Khan midgame crisis struck and that catapulted me on the path to dominance.
-Related to that, you're going to get a silly rainbow of every species in your empire on every planet; Genetic Ascension is really the only viable ascension choice right now (unless you're purging), as it lets you turn those refugee pops into something useful cheaply and quickly.
-Specialize your worlds. It's not really mentioned unless you poke about, but a planet getting called "Forge World" isn't just for show, plonk enough alloy foundries down and it gives you an extra 5% alloys on that planet.
-Exotic material synthesis is worth it for certain values of minerals, and for early-game before every AI and their dog is selling exotic materials on the market (the AI is bad at upgrading their buildings). After that, replace them with buildings that give, like, actual jobs.
-Trade. My trade income is triple my generator income. My Dyson Sphere and my generators (with capacity overload) and my subsidiaries, combined, almost equal my trade income. The idea that hiveminds and robots don't get access to it and are even vaguely equal to other civilizations is a little absurd.
-A funny bug. When you get Synths, you have no choice but to restrict their migration (can't let robots migrate is probably a game restriction)... but this pisses off the Egalitarian faction that you're trapping some poor helpless sapient species on their planet!Last edited by Guancyto; 2018-12-17 at 03:26 PM.
Rider avatar by Elder Tsofu
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2018-12-17, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Thank you for that, I thought I was going crazy. Playing on Ironman so I couldn't reload to check, had a 8 generator district turn to 3. I thought I had clicked a different planet, but they were all less than 8...
It would be an interesting mechanic if it is intentional: keep what you have or roll the dice. Doesn't make much sense, though.Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?
Queso ipso custodes! - Cheese it, the cops!
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2018-12-17, 06:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2018
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
It does make the Mastery of Nature Ascension Perk more valuable, though, if you are a Terraformer to mitigate it somewhat. Ended up getting sandwiched and having to play a Tall Game with a low Adaptive culture, and Mastery of nature saved my bacon. I kind of wish it gave +3, or could be advanced to give more (repeatable techs speeding up/cheapening blocker cost available once taken, giving you additional uses of a +1 MoN decision.
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2018-12-17, 06:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Derby, UK
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Concur. Not being able to pick galactic wonders because I'd picked other things was, I think, a mistake, since I could have really used them. In fact, I'd have been utterly screwed for expansion were it not for the Cybrex's ruined ringworld.
Again, I think we have too many perks which lock buildable stuff behind (five now, with the three Space Building stuff, ecumenopolis and gaia terraforming - plus mastery of nature). And for a tall megacorp, that +10% research speed I find pretty cruical. In hindsight, Universal transactions might have saved me some influence, but was very likely inferior to galactic wonders in the logn run.
(I picked Consecrated Worlds, One Vision (for the unity bonus, mostly), Technological Ascendancy, Universal Transactions, Mastery of Nature, Void Bourne, Arcology Project, Master Builders in that order - I was trying to maximise unity to blaze through the traditions and get the perks; and to be fair, it wasn't until I hit the Admin repeatable I could have made much use of the Space Building ones.)
Originally Posted by Guancyto
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2018-12-17, 08:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Well I picked up the game (base only, no add-ons) yesterday, decided to go with a vanilla Commonwealth of Mankind and I'm getting to grips with it. It runs surprisingly well on my laptop, haven't even had to drop the graphics yet.
I'm thinking that building a second Science Ship and Constructor Ship for faster expansion might have been the wrong way to go. I can certainly explore systems faster, which makes me glad that I'll find useful systems faster (the first I surveyed had one planet suitable for mining and not much else), but now I don't have the alloys for a colony ship and my one fleet has barely any ships (although I'm only a couple of years into the game so far, lots of time to build up).
But I do like that compared to the last 4X game I played that there's a lot more micromanagement. I suspect that it'll get harder to manage as I get a larger empire, but learning to deal with it is part of the fun.
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2018-12-17, 08:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Honestly, colony ships can wait. What you really want the alloys for early on is starbase construction to branch out and start mining resources/research. A couple of years into the game is definitely a bit early for a second constructor, and probably too early for a second science ship, but it's not the end of the world. Make do with your current situation by sending your science ships scouting in opposite directions, and don't worry too much about your military power right now.
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2018-12-17, 08:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
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- In my library
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Opposite directions? I drew the cul-de-sac of the galaxy. (Still, I can send them away from each other quite comfortably when they finish their current systems.)
Honestly my thinking of the extra science and constructor vessels was essentially that it would allow me to build starbases and mining/research stations faster! Of course I forgot to account for the fact that those first resources, and it's no use building them faster if you can't afford them in the first place. As you've said it's not the worst result, just a slightly slower start than ideal. And now that I've worked out the basics of the interface (teen minutes to work out how to survey a system ) I'm just waiting for the alloys to build up so I can build a starbase and stations. Or will be when I boot it up after work tomorrow.
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2018-12-17, 09:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- Greece
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
How did you manage that? I tried with my Authoritarian Spiritualists, did all three planetary edicts to promote my capital's candidacy, but it was taken by a hive mind instead. Did I miss something?
-A funny bug. When you get Synths, you have no choice but to restrict their migration (can't let robots migrate is probably a game restriction)... but this pisses off the Egalitarian faction that you're trapping some poor helpless sapient species on their planet!
The second science ship was the right way to go. I always build 3-5, each as soon as I can afford to hire a scientist. The second constructor was kinda overkill that soon, yeah. And not because of alloys, a second foundry on the homeworld should give you enough to keep both busy. But expanding also needs influence, and it's not really possible to increase that income all that much. I usually wait until I've finished Expansion and grabbed the ascension perk that gives -20% influence cost. And don't worry about your fleet just yet, you're in no danger whatsoever until you meet your neighbours.Many thanks to Assassin 89 for this avatar!
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2018-12-17, 09:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I've found an early second science ship to still be one of the best uses of my early game alloys. Maybe not immediately, but as soon as I hit enough energy to pick up a new scientist. Getting out there, seeing the map and the resources really help me focus my limited early expansion in the best possible direction.
But otherwise I agree, no need for a second constructor for a really long time, and military ships are mostly forgettable until you start needing to expand into space creatures.Former Owner of GiTP's fanciest Bloodbowl Team: The Fancy Lads
The League's Self-Proclaimed Perennial Favorites and Season III Champions!
Current Owner and Manager of Rampant Professionalism
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2018-12-18, 12:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Thirding second science ship. It basically allows you to map the void faster and those anomalies give out good rewards to bootstrap your tech. You aren't going to be spending much of those alloys until your first neighbour.
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2018-12-18, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I'll fourth it. Two science ships to speed up exploration is practically compulsory. Second construction ship, not so much.
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2018-12-18, 03:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Well, Im going to lose this game. The Preythoryn scourge spawned right in my backyard, and are overrunning everything. I had 30k of total fleets. Had. The largest fleet anyone else has is 5k.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2018-12-18, 04:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2005
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- Baator (aka Britain)
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
If you had only 30K fleets in 2400 or so, you were likely going to lose, whatever happened.
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2018-12-18, 04:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Switzerland
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
I think I need to restart my game. I thought I was doing reasonably well, but now it's about 2300 and my economy suddenly and inexplicably tanked. I went from surplus in most resources to penalties of up to -50 and I don't have the slightest idea why.
Maybe I'll just randomize my next civilization and see what happens.Last edited by Eldan; 2018-12-18 at 04:56 AM.
Resident Vancian Apologist
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2018-12-18, 05:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Derby, UK
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2018-12-18, 05:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Switzerland
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Re: Stellaris III: Shop at the Paradox Megacorp!
Same. I went with three science ships pretty much from the start, later on about five.
Resident Vancian Apologist