OK, maybe I'm the resident Paradox fan boy, but so what. I've never been a space game fan, just never really got in to any, aside from XCOM I suppose, but even that is more of a game set in space than a space game. But Stellaris looks really good. Anyone playing it yet? I know there is a space forum here, but this is grand strategy and I hang out in this forum so I chose to put this thread here.

The descriptions and reviews I've read sound amazing, and I certainly tend to enjoy the Paradox formula, attention to detail and interwoven and complex mechanics. I think I will need to pick this one up today, even though Hearts of Iron IV is due out in a month and I can see a gaming time conundrum about to emerge.

Game was released on Steam today. I read one Steam user who wrote something along the lines of the game is like Civ 5 meets Europa Universalis IV, but in space and way cooler. Sound like it's worth a punt to me.

Stellaris

So I'm downloading the game -- download is only 1.6 gigs by the way -- and hopped on the Paradox forum to read up a bit while doing so. Quoting a post from a player in response to the question 'how is your first empire going?"

Pretty dire. I started off in a medium Galaxy of 400-600 stars (can't remember) as the Shadowy Anthropoid creature from the Void DLC under the empire title Shadow of Ungol (LOTR in space!). Despotic Empire, Militarist, Fanatical Xenophobes. Got declared war on by Imperial Hegemonic Fungi who were able to nab 2 of my 3 planets before my fleet (150 smaller) was ass kicked across the universe. I'm having a great time!

I mean come on, right?

Yeah picked this up today as well, just starting out and following the tutorial and so far so good, great UI, interesting discovery gameplay, looking forward to playing this and it's DLCs for a long time.

Bought it too. Looks amazing. The music, the UI and the general feel is simply awsome. Paradox is such a solid developer. But everytime i try to play their game i'am actually scared. It's so overwhelming, so much depth. I hope i can overcome it this time:)

Cool, happy to see others playing it. I played for a few hours and I'm impressed. After installing I hopped in and had a bash about. Looked at the different options and thought the Commonwealth of Man sounded interesting. The premise is that years ago, Humans from Earth sent four colonization ships out and were never heard from again. Unknown to them, one ship succeeded and established a colony, and that's who I'm playing. Well, sort of.

I customized the starting template. By default, the Commonwealth of Man are fanatically militaristic and Xenophobes, which isn't the best path to diplomacy. So I started tweaking. Became the Xenophilic, Spiritualist and Militaristic Human Interstellar Republic living on the planet Arakima in the Deneb system. Chose Mass Drives as weapons tech. I renamed our star Stellaris in honor of the game.

Game parameters I chose were medium sized universe with 600 stars, 17 empires (both default), gave no empires head starts.

I chose full tutorial mode and off we went. Three years in, we have spent our time establishing mining operations, building infrastructure on Arakima, researching tech and exploring nearby solar systems. Tentative contact has been made with alien life forms, and we even had a chance to battle some partisan or rebel sort of characters, with an actual space battle played out in real time, which is a nice departure for Paradox, an improvement on their usual method of highly abstracted combat.

The tech to build colony ships is nearing completion and I've discovered a couple of habitable planets and we should begin colonizing shortly. I'd like to establish some sort of defense perimeter if I can before the proverbial scheisse hits the fan.

Having a good time with the game. Unlike other Paradox games I play (CK II, EU IV for example) this game has a rather peaceful start. You aren't even aware of any other civilizations and so have no need to defend yourself or plan an invasion. But I know they're out there, and not knowing how close, how advanced or how aggressive my closest neighbors might be adds a certain level of trepidation to the proceedings.

Here's my little slice of celestial paradise. The home planet of Arakima, next to our huge gas giant neighbor Olympus (site of our first mining operation) with the star Stellaris in the background. Our tiny defense fleet and construction ship are visible as well.

Never played a previous Paradox strategy game, but I'm a lover of all things space. I'm finding it damn enjoyable so far!

Janes: with the tutorial it's really not a complex game to figure out. I found it just as easy to learn as any other empire building RTS game.

Looks like a great start... just be careful, some of those aliens neighbors might find you and not be peaceful...

In my game my starting system Sol has some bug aliens in the system right next to me in Barnard's Star that aren't friendly, so I have to start focusing on defense right away.

Useful starting tips video I was watching earlier:



I'm really enjoying it so far, finding it more approachable for a newbie than the other Paradox games I've played.

I think you're right Kludger, and I was coming back to the forum to amend my earlier post and say that I should have said the start seems peaceful, because you have no idea what's lurking right around the corner. By eliminating advanced AI nations for this playthrough I shouldn't find anyone significantly more advanced at this stage, though they certainly could be more powerful. We are now encountering 'hostile fleets', and with considerably more combat power than my own. So I'm expanding our fleet and researching spaceport upgrades. What I can't know is if the hostiles' combat power comes from more powerful ships or just more of an equal one.

I also don't know how we know that they are hostile. They haven't attacked so what gives there?

We discovered an alien race next door. A bunch of Mollusks that are incapable of diplomacy and appear to have no army or navy. We'll leave them be for now as we don't need to be startin' nuthin' just yet.

Reading the Paradox forums there is a bit of an undercurrent of discontent regarding the performance of the AI nations, and lack of depth during the mid and late game. Haven't gotten that far myself so can't say. But I do know that if these issues exist, Paradox is sure to address them in patches.

I'm a little more than 25 years in. It's been interesting, successful and peaceful. Aside from some skirmishes with pirates, space amoebas and rebels there has been no conflict. We've met sentient aliens and became chums. Diplomacy options are a bit shallow I'd say, but with the better relations over time modifier and an Embassy, even the race that distrusted us have come around.

Colonized a new planet and that went well. Very simple to do, aside from the high cost of the colony ship. Our economy is booming and the fleet is up to force limit. I've been concentrating on tech, but I don't see a way to know how my progress compares to other empires, there's nothing like EU IV's ledger that I can see, though in the diplomacy screen I see it tells me I am 'equal', which is an indicator I suppose. The Molluscoid creatures I mentioned earlier exterminated themselves in a domestic nuclear war. A lesson for us all, I think

I've also made some new ship designs, designated Black Swans. Several variants with differing armament and other do-dads. Not sure of the best fleet compositions. Seems to be mostly a matter of rock-paper-scissors depending on what your foe has. Not sure how to know that ahead of the first battle though, and haven't come to grips with how easy or expensive it would be to refit your fleet for a new threat.

I'm happy that I've had a chance to get used to the mechanics without having to fight for my existence. But I wonder if the peace has been just one of those things (and a result of the traits I chose, the peoples I've met and my lack of aggression), or if it points to a deeper lying issue with the AI empires. Time will tell.

I have been eyeing this as well. But with HOI IV less than a month away, I am not sure if I want to pull the trigger on both. Although the price is pretty decent.

I had the same thought as mentioned in the first post. But I reasoned that a month was enough to get a good run or two through the game, and there's no guarantee the HoI release target will be hit, though it probably will. Stellaris was released on time and HoI IV will be too I imagine.

Bah, just go for it

FYI Stellaris can be had for $30 via cdkeys.com, that's where I got it from (pre-ordered)... that price point makes it not too hard on the wallet to try out.

I will probably be buying HOI IV from them too.

My only issue with Stellaris has been finding time to play it some more, hope to spend some quality time with it this weekend, so far I like what I've seen and I'm glad to dive into it before they add more complicated systems and depth in later DLCs like they did with EU4, which will be great but might be harder to dive into as a newbie.

Good point Kludger, as EU IV is so very different now than it was in the early days. I expect Stellaris will follow the same model, and mechanics and features will be added, fleshed out, and in some cases removed. I managed to play for almost 15 hours in the past couple of days, largely by staying up way too late to be reasonable. But games like this have such a strong 'just one more turn' attraction, if you forgive for a moment that there are no turns at all.

Anyone been building frontier outposts? It's high time I did so, and I'd really like to know the theory behind using them. Like for example you wouldn't want to build one in a solar system you will colonize shortly afterwards. The basics are on the wiki and general discussion on the forum. I suppose the main use is to claim systems that are resource-rich but won't be colonized by the player for a long time, if at all?

There are a few I've discovered in my game that would be ideal. I've only colonized one planet thus far and I suspect I need to expand my borders before my neighbors do so. The other 'green' habitable planets are rather puny and I'm not sure if I should colonize them because i can, or if I should wait for better opportunities. These are the things the player learns over time I suppose.

Another thing I am hazy on.... there is a system near my home planet that is listed as being in my territory, but there is a race/species living there. What are my options? I have no desire at this point to purge them, but how do I go about making them an asset?

I'm not quite sure I understand what Stellaris is. Turn-based 4X? Real-time? How does it compare to Masters of Orion?

Yep, I usually check CDkeys as well and right now its 32 bucks. Funny how they had the retail price of 59.99 but marked down.

Still contemplating....

Not sure of MoH as I've never played, but just like other Paradox games, it is a real time game that can be paused, sped up or slowed down at any time.

Also GreenManGaming has it for 29.99 using SPACE25 25% off code...

Not having played MoO I cannot say, but it does seem to be the game most players compare it to in the user reviews I've read. It's essentially a real time (pausable) 4X grand strategy game set in space. You start off with a single isolated planet in a great universe. You then develop technology, obtain resources, build infrastructure, engage in diplomacy and explore and expand if possible. Fairly standard formula that you've seen before, but by Paradox which might or might not mean anything to you. Meet Fanatical Collectivist Materialist Militarist Xenophobe Fungii and be friends. Or not.

Just a quick update on my game... It's all going rather well thus far. I've answered my own question regarding the frontier outposts. I've used it to good effect a couple of times, but the Influence cost is steep. We are about 40 years in and still going about our business peacefully. The Human Interstellar Republic is now 5 planets, and I used the 'create sector' mechanic to free up some of the planet limit. We had found a Gaia World (ideal habitability) and quickly moved to colonize it before out neighbors to the south could, so created the sector, threw in two of my planets, in order to avoid hitting the planet cap. Not sure why creating sectors, or more accurately handing over resource and infrastructure development autonomy to these sector worlds, is mandatory. But currently that's how it stands. I'm all for having mechanics that can reduce micromanagement, and I completely agree with penalties for exceeding administrative capability thresholds, but surely handing over development could be optional.

Those neighbors to the south, who incidentally are Fanatical Pacifists, have rivaled me, so I immediately returned the favor for a nice Influence boost. War appears to be on the horizon. To this point, 40 years in, I've seen no indication that any wars between Empires have taken place. But borders are starting to collide, and I imagine Universe War I is imminent.

Despite many Empires having positive opinions of me, up to about +140, I've had no luck making any alliances. We seem to be one of the stronger (known) civilizations, but others are beginning to form alliances, and I think I need to as well.

Random Events have always been a staple of Paradox games, and while they seem to be far less frequent in Stellaris, they are still there and are capable of throwing the player some curveballs. For example, I had one of my Science Ships out surveying the distant galaxies. On board was a level 6 scientist. Suddenly an Event fires that said someone on board the ship accidentally hit the self destruct button and the ship and crew were lost. That's a bummer.

So I just took the plunge. Downloading now! I guess for 30 bucks and hopefully HOI IV is around 39.99 and possibly another discount, I look at it as getting two games for the price of one.

Picked it up! Thought I'd fire it up and check it out before going to bed last night and an hour and a half later.......