3042

Add me to the list of people having fun with it. Which isn’t necessarily saying much since I’m pretty sure we all had fun with Civ V, Civ VI, and maybe even Daikatana back in the day.

However, I’ll also say the design improvements since release are considerable. Especially improved is the pacing. There’s plenty of meaningful gameplay during the mid-game that simple wasn’t there previously. I’m just holding out to see what endgame event I get and whether it’s more than fighting blobs of superalien fleets. But even if the crisis is still a dud, the endgame buildings/ascension stuff seems to add more gameplay that wasn’t there previously.

-Tom

3043

I managed to squeak in a couple of hours on the weekend. I haven’t gotten very far, but definitely having fun. Though habitable planets seem pretty darn sparse at default settings. I think last time I played at 150%.

3044

Can anyone advise on whether Leviathans is worth it? It’s hard for me to separate the core changes (especially to mid-game flow) from the dlc additions.

3045

I’m having a great time with the expansion, and looking forward to playing with some of my old races with the new civics. One issue I’m having is trying to get with a Federation. Since I’m a fanatic pacifist, my friendly neighbors are reluctant to get into a federation with me because I only fight defensive wars. They ended up forming a federation and I was able to get association status, but I can’t get full membership. Before joining as an associate I had defensive pacts with them. An aggressive neighbor declared was on me and they only race who helped are a small nation I have a defensive pact with. My association members are staying out of the fighting which baffles me… shouldn’t they want to pitch in and help? Did my defensive pact with my two good pals go away when I joined as an associate member of their federation?

3046

An association status with a Federation is basically declaration of friendship and non-aggression agreement, it doesn’t confer any military obligation to defend you. I don’t believe being granted association status would affect your defensive pacts with other parties, but perhaps they joined the federation and that cancelled them? I’m not sure if that’s how it works at all, just brainstorming.

3047

Playing my first game with hyperspace drives (the one with the space lanes), and I can’t say I am liking it too much. I am now completely boxed in due to aliens/pirates with huge fleets blocking numerous routes out from my little corner. I can get around them through a friendly neighbor, but it takes forever to get to the area I need to go to. I can’t quickly pass through some of them because of enemies close to the edge of the systems, lost far too many ships trying. The only thing I can do at this point is hunker down and try to get as much research going as possible so I can improve my fleets quickly. Doesn’t make for a very exciting game. I would scrap it, but now I want this to work.

Think I will stick with wormhole drives in the future

3048

In a lot of space 4x games, such a situation would be hopeless, because you couldn’t grow your economy enough to get the research done. This is a case where you might not be giving up as much as you thought by keeping small for a while and avoiding ballooning research costs.

3049

I’ll have destroyers in 80 months, that should give me the firepower to take out the smaller fleets I hope. My economy is actually booming, despite the fact that I can’t expand out to where I want to be. Just waiting on research/pop growth.

Anyway, for those who don’t follow Wiz on Twitter, this morning he said they were working on a hotfix for current bugs and they will give us a preview of the Adams update (as in Douglas Adams) next week.

3050

Well, Leviathans is $6.29 right now on GMG: https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/stellaris-leviathans-story-pack/

In case people getting back into the game are looking for a sale on that.

3051

I’m having a great time with this game. The original release didn’t grab me at all, but this expansion has me pretty hooked. It kinda reminds me of Distant Worlds, but it’s less overwhelming. I like that there are limits on things: a dozen leaders or so (and thus a small number of science vessels), a finite number of ships, 15-odd discrete pop slots, a handful of ship sizes, etc. It’s complex but still manageable, and it’s fun.

I especially like the story elements. I actually read all the flavor text, because I find it worth reading. I’m curious: if I play a new game, will I see completely different story lines, or do the same stories tend to resurface in every game? I hope it’s the former.

3052

You’ll notice some differences but you’ll see plenty of repeats as well. They keep adding more, though. I ran into multiple long event chains in my current game that I’ve never seen before.

3053

i’m having this ‘meet a fallen empire and they destroy you next turn’ thang. anyway to avoid this sudden end to a fair few hours of gaming investment? aside from reloading an earlier save and not sending ships in their direction?

3054

They usually have a “thing” that brings their wrath down upon you. Don’t do that thing.

3055

Dead horse question time. I just have the main game at this point. Do I want any story, species or upgrade packs, or just the Utopia add on? In other words, am I missing anything awesome from the story/species/upgrade packs from the main game?

I own other Paradox games, I realize this is a loaded question. As a gamer, it’s really hard for me to walk away from something that appears to be “extra stuff.”

3056

You get the gist of it just by having the main game, the expansion adds late game, and the other stuff adds some storylines, its not vital at all.

3057

Perfect answer, Janster. Thank you.

3058

Each one has a reason for getting angry. You colonized a holy world, built outposts too close to their borders, or something along those lines.

Even if they get pissed, it’s not game over. They typically just want the issue resolved. If you cede the outpost, colony, etc they will typically let you go on your way. Check the war screen to see what they want and offer it to them.

3059

thanks for the tips! it happened again, and I just took it on the chin. what continues to be strange is that the cowering to the initial demand caused all my outposts to disappear, but still appear in subsequent war demands. The FE had to invade a planet to humiliate me and strutted about for a bit and buggered off. now i’m just confused. can i never build another outpost again?

3060

What kind of fallen empire is it? There are guardian empires that protect certain planets. Was your outpost extending over one of those worlds? That usually causes them to react in such a way.

3061

Like @LeeAbe said, check the type of Fallen Empire (you can see it on the diplomacy screen). The tooltip for it explains what sets them off.