Stellaris

[bbmike]

I started a new game, but I can't help but feel I'm already stagnating. Of course, that's usual for me in just about any 4x game. I am having fun so that is a plus.

[Anguille]

I started a new game, but I can't help but feel I'm already stagnating.

Because you're already surrounded by AI empires?

[bbmike]

No, I'm still alone in the universe, but I only have two systems. I also feel like I should be building more on the two worlds that I have. It could just be that I'm not used to playing Stellaris and it's normal.

[Anguille]

No, I'm still alone in the universe, but I only have two systems. I also feel like I should be building more on the two worlds that I have. It could just be that I'm not used to playing Stellaris and it's normal.

Development of planets is fairly slow in Stellaris. At the beginning, it's really important to eXplore as much as you can to find ressources and mostly habitable planets. I usually have 3-4 science ships at the beginning and 3-4 constructions ships to build up outposts in key systems (mostly with habitable planets, choke points and systems with ressources).

[ojsdad]

One of the issues the Devs have pointed out is the population growth was slowed too much.  So that may be why developing planets seems slow

The next patch is supposed to address that.  Just not sure when that patch will hit yet. 

[ojsdad]

I think the AI isn't too bad.  The couple of neighbors are have shown to be aggressive.  Or course, I'm a machine race setting out to destroy all intelligent bio life. 

The biggest issue I still see is that the sectors don't seem to react to the need for more housing. 

[Barthheart]

I actually like the slower pop growth. It makes things slower, more epic feeling rather than huge empires in only a short number of years.
Hope they don't speed it up too much.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Maybe I'm missing something because I'm really hating the new economic system.  Doesn't matter what I do, either my planets suffer massive unemployment or my sprawl is through the roof.  Even when I hold back and don't expand my borders at all, my sprawl levels are ridiculous thanks to the new district system. 

For me, this game seems to get worse with every iteration.  Bring back my different styles of  star travel, get rid of pops, and let my define my own sector boundaries, you Swedish bastards!

[Martok]

Maybe I'm missing something because I'm really hating the new economic system.  Doesn't matter what I do, either my planets suffer massive unemployment or my sprawl is through the roof.  Even when I hold back and don't expand my borders at all, my sprawl levels are ridiculous thanks to the new district system. 

For me, this game seems to get worse with every iteration.  Bring back my different styles of  star travel, get rid of pops, and let my define my own sector boundaries, you Swedish bastards!

On the whole, I agree with you.  While I do at least find 3.0 to be reasonably enjoyable, the fact remains is that it's merely the least crappy version of Stellaris since the debacle of the 2.0/2.2 updates.  This is sadly no longer the game I had such a blast with in version 1.9, or even 2.1. 

Not that I won't still have fun with Stellaris; heck, it will probably even remain my favorite 4x for the foreseeable future.  But it's definitely lost a lot of what made it special to me. 

[Anguille]

After two complete games with the last patch, i've started a new game with 1.9 and boy, it really feels like playing Stellaris 1 and Stellaris 2. There have been a many improvements in terms of UI and shortcuts. But it mostly plays very differentely.

About unemployement in 3.0, i build new districts only when i have some unemployed pops (i don't build in advance). I would say there's more micromanagement with 3.0 then with 1.9. but access to the planets economy is also a tad faster (UI wise).

[Martok]

Haven't had much time to play this past week or two (Stellaris, or anything else), but hopefully can get some more hours in next week.  I'm especially curious to try out the game with the new 3.03 beta patch that just dropped; looks like it includes a lot of much-needed balance changes. 


https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-team-3-0-3-beta-patch-released-checksum-1d63.1470855/

Spoiler: ShowHide

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 3.0.3 ###########################
#################################################################

###################
# Balance
###################

* Increased the minimum growth of planets near the top of the logistic growth curve to 10% from 1%.
* Significantly reduced the effect of empire pops on the required growth of new pops to 0.25 from 0.5.
* Reduced the number of pops required to upgrade capital buildings to 10/25/50 from 10/40/80.
* Hive Worlds now also have +1 Spawning Drone job.
* Machine Worlds now also have +1 Replicator job. Resource Consolidation homeworlds begin with a blocker negating this extra job until removed.
* The Constructobot civic now also grants +1 Building Slot.
* Slave Processing Plants now also enable automatic resettlement for slaves on their planet, but reduce the rate at which the planet does so. (Which can be offset by Transit Hubs or other modifiers.)
* Ceramo-Steel Infrastructure and Durasteel Infrastructure technologies now also grant +25% Colony Development Speed.
* Increased the duration of the Prosperous Unification planet modifier to 20 years.
* Espionage related edicts that lowered operation difficulty now instead increase Codebreaking (which will still reduce difficulty, but will also have other benefits.)
* Replaced +10 Maximum Infiltration on Ruthless Competition and Shadow Council with +1 Codebreaking.
* The Criminal Syndicate civic now also grants +1 Codebreaking.
* Reduced the alloy discount of GDF ships to 25% but added an extra 10% discount to the resolution that expands the GDF.
* You can now no longer permanently lose your Aetherophasic Engine. However, losing control of it will wipe out all progress you had made in upgrading it.
* Slowed down purging by about 50%, as we have significantly fewer pops in the game now. The exception is Neutering, which has increased in speed from 500 months per pop to 10 months per pop.
* You now get four months' worth of their purge output every time a pop is purged via Forced Labor, Processing or Chemical Processing.
* Slowed down First Contact investigation times by about 50%.
* Ion Cannons, Perdition Beams, and Titan Lasers are now considered energy weapons and benefit from repeatable technologies.
* Reduced Criminal job effect on trade to -5 from -10.
* Rogue Servitor bio-trophy buildings now also increase Planet Capacity to compensate for the trophies within.
* Bio-Trophies now provide 1 Unity instead of 2, and 1% Complex Drone Output instead of 0.25%, but only provide any benefits when at or above 50% happiness.
* Increased the effect of the Rogue Servitor Expanded Breeding Program to 20% from 10%.
* Terminal Egress is now a black hole (which cannot be cracked)
* Resolution Extra Dimensional Exploration is now again a dangerous resolution (which lets you get the Unbidden a bit early)
* Medical Workers now also increase Organic Pop Assembly by 5%, and increase habitability by 2.5%
* Significantly reduced the up front energy cost of espionage operations.
* Increased the power of starbase reactors. Fully upgraded bastions should be better at actually using all their weapon slots.
* Espionage edicts unlocked by Quantum Hacking now also grant +10 Maximum Infiltration Level.
* Pops will not automatically resettle away from newly founded colonies until 5 years have passed, so your habitats will no longer have one worker flee before you can give them something to do.
* The Gather Information operation now also grants +5 Maximum Infiltration Level for 10 years, stacking with itself up to +20. (Continuing to perform the operation will restart the 10 year timer if it's at +20 Maximum Infiltration Level.)
* Espionage operations no longer gain 1 Insight no matter how bad the roll, contrary to what is stated on the UI. They now need a score of at least 2 to gain an insight. If the die rolls 10 and the score is below 2, an insight will still be gained to prevent operations from freezing entirely.
* Made Menace Rewards scale with the number of empires in game.
* Reverted the behavior that shipyards in occupied stations could be used to upgrade and build ships.

###################
# Performance and Stability
###################

* Optimised spawning the L-Gate to not freeze the game.
* Fixed CTD in opengl that might happen when kicked from an MP while empire selection screen is open.
* Further optimised yearly tick from assimilation.

###################
# UI
###################

* The Necrophage Chamber of Elevation description now explains why the jobs provided by that building may vary.
* Added a tooltip in diplomacy view for civics when you do not have sufficient intel to see them.
* Fixed some instances of text and UI overlap in the (become the) Crisis view for some languages.
* Appended assign and unassign tooltip to espionage asset in create espionage operation view.
* Added right click to unassign espionage asset in Espionage Operation view.
* The best species for a habitable planet is now shown in the galaxy view tooltip and not only in the system view tooltip.
* Added tooltips and hidden/disabled some UI elements to show that an occupied shipyards cannot be used.

###################
# AI
###################

* Fixed Lithoid Tree of Life AI not ever colonising or using the decision to transplant the Tree of Life to conquered planets
* Fixed AI reserving food for planetary decisions even though no decisions require food

###################
# Modding
###################

* Trigger has_population_control and has_migration_control are now no longer simple booleans, but follow the format of has_colonization_control instead.
* Added intel_effects_surveyed attribute to country type for handling intel system toggle surveyed/unsurveyed planet status, was previously handled by the primitives attribute.
* has_intel trigger now works.
* Added dissolve_alliance effect.
* Fixed on_first_contact_stage_1_no_path using the wrong scope.
* Fixed a crash if you used an invalid starbase design in create_starbase; added error logging instead.
* join_war and join_war_on_side effects no longer allows you to join a war if you're already at war against one of the war participants and will log an error if it is attempted.
* "From" in the "active" trigger of resolutions now refers to the target, if valid.
* Added galactic_emperor and galactic_custodian scope changes.
* Added an "effect" field to declare_war effect.
* Menace rewards can now have modifiers to scale the reward.
* Added should_remove_response_message_when_not_possible property for diplomatic actions, to remove response messages of the diplo action type if the possible check fails.

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

* Organic Pop Assembly now respects population controls.
* Fixed cases where destroying an empire through war would not grant you the Menace from Destroy Empires.
* Fixed various error log messages relating to Crisis Objectives, along with several edge cases where the rewards were not granted when they should have been.
* Fixed an issue where Galactic Community resolution categories would not be hidden if they contain targeted resolutions that there are no valid targets for.
* Fixed an issue where the acceptance breakdown for diplomatic actions was available even if you didn't have sufficient intel.
* Fixed an issue where an already proposed Galactic Community resolution could be passed even if not all of its conditions were fulfilled.
* Fixed scripted trigger scope validation.
* Fixed scripted effect scope validation.
* Fixed an issue where it was not possible to invite others to a federation if you were a Custodian while a crisis was ongoing.
* Systems previously made visible no longer become unknown when your intel on a country is too low.
* Fixed tooltip of active operation in spy network view to show the operations modifiers and not only the spy networks.
* Fixed an issue where the capital location of special empires, such as the caravaneers, would not be revealed after establishing communication.
* Fixed long tooltip for war goal to close branch offices if they have multiple branch offices in your borders.
* Increased chance for Auto-Research to pick certain strategic techs.
* Fixed it being possible for the Caravaneers to request one of your systems when they lost theirs even if you have never met the Caravaneers.
* Fixed an issue where tooltips mentioning joining a war would sometimes be missing empire names and be oddly formatted.
* Fixed it being impossible to repeal the Pax Galactica.
* Fixed an issue where the name of your ally wouldn't be displayed in a notification when joining a war as the Galactic Imperium ruler.
* Made ketling country intel not affecting their planets surveyed status for other empires.
* Fixed so aggressive stance does not trigger the wrong animation state to be set on ships.
* Fixed edge cases where the event to prompt you to consider first contact protocols happened quite late.
* Fixed cases where event rewards granting progress in a technology would not save that as a permanent research option.
* Fixed an issue in the diplomacy view where the Closed Borders icon would also appear when you were the one that had closed borders to the other empire.
* Fixed some scripted localization functions in German.
* Fixed some minor intel leaks when finding out why you cannot make a pact with an Inwards Perfectionist country, and similar.
* Fixed base value for upkeep/production/cost sometimes missing in tooltip.
* Fixed excessive and unhelpful messages upon completion of a Galactic Rebellion (whether it fails or succeeds).
* Fixed an issue where the Fleet Manager showed that Federation and Galactic Defense Force fleets had command limits.
* Fixed an instance of a broken event title when an Aetherophasic Engine has been destroyed.
* Unemployed Lithoids will no longer move back to a Doomed homeworld through auto-migration, even if there *are* plenty of good jobs and housing available. (can_planet_receive_auto_migration added to Game Rules.)
* Purging a pop now gives Menace even if the pop runs away to another empire.
* Updated Cradle of Life event text to account for intel levels.
* Fixed an issue where Galactic Defense Force ship sizes would just be shown as '(GDF) Name' when adding a design to a fleet in the Fleet Manager.
* Corrected an event option which follows a successful completion of Operation Sabotage Starbase. If an opportunity to also destroy a Defense Platform arises, this action will no longer consume (or attempt to consume) a Military Asset on the relevant Spy Network. Also corrected a minor grammatical error.
* Aggressive stance set on a transport fleet is now reapplied to it after an invasion is completed.
* Fixed it being impossible to abduct pops to Necrophage purge them once their species is already set to Undesirables who are to be Necrophaged.
* Winning a Crisis vassalisation war no longer gives an additional notification that the war ended because the opponent was vassalized.
* Fixed strange occurrences when a starbase is reconstructed on the monthly tick when fighting a Wipe them Out war and the system has multiple colonies of which the assailant only controls some.
* Changing species rights of a cyborg/psionic species now works properly, instead of using the species rights requirements of the base species.
* Added scrollbar to victory view summary to avoid text overflow.
* Fixed First Colony event firing (with inappropriate text) when settling Tomb and Relic worlds.
* Modifiers from Crisis perks now show up with names.
* Further fixes to Finders Keepers event.
* Planet colonizations that can never be finished will now be properly aborted on a monthly basis.
* Fixed a broken First Contact notification in Brazilian Portuguese
* Fixed an integer overflow in border distances where if two countries had no possible connections they would have 1000 reasons to be your vassal (mainly happening in modded games)
* Modifiers from Relics should show up properly.
* Fixed a bug where if you captured the Aetherophasic Engine in a Total War, it would not be destroyed (and would carry on any in-progress upgrade)
* Fixed ownerless megastructures not cancelling upgrades
* The area of the envoy portrait in the envoy selection view should be correctly clickable.
* Determined Exterminators, Fanatic Purifiers and Devouring Swarms now remain true to their purity ideology, and may no longer adopt lost Space Amoebae.
* Fixed the event for establishing communications with Caravaneers inappropriately referring to them by their pre-comms code name.
* Fixed excessive rounding on species rights indicator for speed of purging.
* Fixed an error which would prevent Operation Arm Privateers from successfully spawning a Privateer fleet inside a valid target empire.
* Fixed a typo in the purging code that meant that you could have negative progress in purging the month after a pop is purged.
* Fixed Contingency worlds wiped out by Star Eaters not counting as destroyed.
* Fixed a large number of events, particularly in espionage, where failing to account for gender-neutral Plantoids and Fungoids would cause mistakes in English grammar. In other words, occurrences of "they is" are now correctly rendered "they are".
* Grammar fixes for descriptions of the "Master's Teachings" edicts.
* Fixed oddities when a Machine Uprising is given a planet that is under colonisation.
* Fixed Hive Worlds not getting the full benefit from Food Processing Centers.
* Fixed some typos in German.
* Acceptance breakdown is now hidden when proposing diplomatic actions if intel level is not high enough.
* Fixed it being possible to pass most of the Custodian and Imperial Resolutions multiple times when they were already active.
* Fix for crash on destruction of the last planet of the Galactic Custodian.
* Fixed the Unbidden Crisis' dimensional portals and anchors being destroyed by Star Eaters.
* Fixed a bug with being unable to survey an anomaly in foreign territory.
* The Imperial Crusade resolution can no longer be proposed against Fallen Empires or Awakened Empires.
* If two countries reach crisis level 5, the Galactic Community will now correctly declare war on both.
* The very first pop colonizing a planet will no longer feel strangely compelled to abandon their duties to go work in that... Odd Factory.
* Fixed the final event in the Cybrex precursor chain firing at the wrong time.
* Fixed typo in Nemesis Main Theme name in the music player.
* Fixed bug when fleet icon appears far away from ships.
* Removed some event script that was deprecated four years ago.
* Robots can no longer be acquired as assets unless the targeted empire has unlocked droids
* Megastructure icon is now shown on the galaxy map for L-gate systems.
* Fixed bug when fleet icon appears far away from ships.
* Fixed scopes in "Caravaneers: Local Franchise" event so that the event text correctly refers to the country rather than the species.
* Fixed an issue where brain slugs would not impact colony stability as intended
* If the initiator fails to win an Imperial Crusade, the resolution is no longer left active into perpetuity
* Fixed cases where the Galactic Community would fail to declare war on the empire Becoming the Crisis because the potential war leader was already at war with them. The crisis is now removed from all wars with Galactic Community members, and a new war is created.
* Fixed various oddities where passing the resolution to Declare a Crisis by vote would lead to federation members of the newly-declared crisis fighting against them (despite remaining federation members). They will now support the Crisis in this case (note: countries reaching Crisis Level 5 will continue to not keep their federation allies).
* Fixed an issue where if the galactic community declared war on one country as the Crisis, and then passed the resolution to declare a subsequent country the Crisis, various issues would ensure e.g. the war ending immediately, or the Galactic Community's leader having to face the crisis alone without the members to back it up.
* Fixed tooltip for why you can't replace a building saying there were too few pops.
* Fixed the confirmation message for commercial pacts and research agreements showing the information on their benefits reversed.
* Fixed an issue where Extradimensional Exploration would not let Gestalts learn about Zro.
* The Superconductive robot trait no longer requires Droid technology since Robots can now work Technician jobs.
* Fixed certain First Contact stages getting stuck and never progressing
* Neutronium Armor will now properly upgrade to Dragonscale Armor.
* Fixed it being possible to target Genocidal empires with the Imperial Crusade. Better just Declare Crisis on them...
* Sapient robots like Synthetics (including those created Synthetic Ascension) can now utilize the auto-migration system. AI Servitude policies will restrict their migration as if they were slaves (in which case they will relocate if a Slave Processing Plant exists on the planet).
* Fixed Mistaken for Food espionage random event permanently stopping the operation's progress
* Envoy Substance Abuse events can now no longer happen for gestalts either as the source of the envoy or the source of the substances)
* Fixed the confirmation message for commercial pacts and research agreements showing the information on their benefits reversed (simplified statement)
* Fixed Menacing ships not displaying weapon models properly.
* Spawned Star-Eaters now use correctly-dimensioned thruster components.
* A Galactic Custodian or Galactic Emperor will now always be able to propose Council resolutions, even if the Council has been abolished.
* Replaced references to 'Spy Power' in trigger localisation, instead referring to a spy network's 'Infiltration Level'.
* Fixed Mercantile diplomatic stance being visible to Gestalt Consciousness empires, taunting them with the tantalizing yet impossible promise of internal trade.
* Wrong advisor voice is removed from available ones for the case when a planet is successfully invaded.
* Vassals created by the Galactic Sovereign no longer get the Galactic Sovereign civic
* Espionage operation asset category icons now show tooltips with category names.
* The Pax Galactica is now correctly binding on the Emperor
* Notifications for refused peace offers are now properly removed when a war has ended.
* Some country modifiers that were removed much too slowly should now be removed faster.

Please note that 3.0.3 is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch.

[Anguille]

I think i am going to pause my game with 1.9. I just don't like it even though i do like the planet management and the different travel options. Will start a new game with the latest version.

[Martok]

I think i am going to pause my game with 1.9. I just don't like it even though i do like the planet management and the different travel options. Will start a new game with the latest version.

Yeah, I've found that even I can't really go back to 1.9, even if it's my "favorite" version of Stellaris.  There have simply been so many refinements and improvements since then, that earlier versions of the game feel...sort of rough, for lack of a better term.  In addition, I love the Distant Stars DLC too much; it just adds to the early/exploration phase of the game to such an extent that it's honestly difficult to play earlier versions. 

I suspect I'll never be entirely happy with the changes 2.2 made to the economy (especially with respect to colony management and resources), but 3.0 has at least made them somewhat palatable now -- enough that I can enjoy the game once again (which is far more than I had dared hope for). 

[ojsdad]

My biggest issue right now, is that I'm playing a machine race.  I am constantly in a negative on both credits and minerals.  I'm going to have to abandon the AI managing sectors and take it over. 

[Barthheart]

YIKES! I do not want to meet these guys!   
Fallen Empire in my current game.