Wow…just wow, it already seems slow as F… with the base settings.
It’s very slow at the start, but if you keep your admin up, then as your research capacity expands, the cost doesn’t scale up (beyond the regular scaling for higher tier techs), so it gets faster and faster.
Yeah might be a good idea.
I find max research costs a good setting in nearly all 4X games.
That’s a common setting for me as well in Civ-like games. I like having research be something I have to think more over and dedicate more resources to rather than being guaranteed I get to the end of the tech tree 3/4 of the way through the game.
I also dislike when techs advance so quickly you barely use any single one.
Yes! What motivated me to play 4X games like that was the Civ series. I would get so annoyed when I would get a tech advantage but by the time I could get an army together and march over to the enemy’s city, my units would be obsolete!
I’m having this problem somewhat with AoW Planetfall. I didnt go into the advanced settings.
In Stellaris tech goes quite slow early and by mid-game starts exploding. I feel like the problem is more with the curve of tech costs at the higher tiers than anything else. You could probably keep the current cost of t1 techs but proportionally bump up the cost of t2 and t3 etc. But yea, the default research speed is definitely too quick in mid-game+ right now. Way too easy to finish off the tradition tree as well. Picking traditions is one of the more fun choices you get in the game but you’ll have them all by 2300 and so will everyone else, which makes everyone very same-y.
Yeah the tech cost progression doesn’t match the current mechanics. The tech costs were set when there was an unavoidable escalating multiplier for costs as an empire developed. Now that multiplier is not unavoidable, so things get faster and faster.
Just the way the functions are set up, I don’t think there is a setting for bureaucrat effectiveness that will make this work out. So either higher tier techs need even higher base costs, or there needs to be something that escalates costs as you go (like a cost escalator based on the number of techs you have).
The base game and big expansions are all $9 at GMG. Which expansion is a better grab: Utopia or Apocalypse? I plan on grabbing Leviathon and Distant Worlds as well.
Edit: I’ve read up on both, and the consensus seems to be Utopia. However, it seems like its big feature (Ascension perks) has since been incorporated into the base game?
I think Utopia is still more important. You will probably want to do an ascension path and some megastructures. Titans and planet killers are optional.
Thanks. How noticeable are the marauders / space khans from Apocalypse? That’s probably the feature I’m most interested in.
For all I’ve talked and read about Stellaris, I haven’t been able to actually play it that much (having a kid in the time frame is a factor). So far I haven’t had a game where I was directly effected by the Khan. The marauders - well I found them annoying sometimes and somewhat useful other times.
I am enjoying this new build of Stellaris more. Possibly because I haven’t played in a long time and there is a lot of new content and events I haven’t seen before.
The marauders are available from the start, they occassionally demand resources to not be attacked by them.
Te Khan is a mid-game event that can happen, dont know the percent chance of it happening.
I’m really starting to get addicted again.
Yeah I think they did a good job on this expansion. There is a good density of stuff now (at least with all expansions). Some things could still work a lot better, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
I have not bought Federations or MegaCorp yet.
Yeah, they’ve been really generous in giving away most of the stuff for free. The DLCs do add some fun extra content though.
Picked this up for the PS4 with the recent sale. Apparently they just patched it to 2.2 which was an upgrade of some note. I launched into my first game and wow, really loving it so far. The interface took a little bit of getting used to but it works surprisingly well on the console. Good stuff - I already bumped into my first alien neighbor but we’re begrudgingly getting along so far. Planning on just staying as peaceful as I can to explore as much of this place as possible.
2.7 just launched on PC - I’m always hesitant to dive back in after a big update for fear that they’ll have broken the AI. Anyone playing the new patch at the moment?