I would say some of these ''mistakes'' are more opinions. I myself do like to just build a unity building for it doubles that of the average empire, this can be counted as being useless, but I just grab the one from the science building which only gives me 4 science spread out. The unity is way more worth than the 4 science points. Another science ship also isn't needed in my experience, yes you can start to scan faster but you can only exploit your surroundings as much as you got minerals and energy. This makes it so that I would rather have +2 minerals than extra things discovered. What I may lack in exploring I can make up by getting what I do have explored faster than the ones who choose for an extra science ship. Ofcourse, Planetary survey corps is absolutely fantastic for science, in the other update it would pretty much double your output if you had 3-4 ships, now it provides only a 33% of that bonus, it's absolutely worth it to just go discovery first, with the 10% boost to science at the end of that it's great, 20% if you also take technological ascendancy. However it can go against roleplaying your race, and so shouldn't always be picked if you find your species would do something else first. In a max efficiency playthrough however you're absolutely right I totally agree, never research them immediatly. You may get influence but it will ofcourse cost science. A lot of early game science. I see nothing wrong there, that is the right place as it would make your way out of the spiral secured, and secure a great system which would give you 2 planets for 1 administration cost, housing 32 pops total it's great. However, that singular tundra world would't pose a threat if settled, it's too far away and I better hope you would make that 20 tile planet your first colony due to it's location and size. Being in a deficit while going to war is no problem at all, I have had times where my deficit was -700 or more, this is no problem because you can just use your mineral income to increase your energy income over long periods of time. In that same game I also had a mineral income of roughly 1500, this could be used to : A trade at the trader enclave making my -700 instead a +50 due to the 2-1 ratio. B trade 30 year monthly income to an ally or somebody who likes you at the other side of the galaxy, this can give you insane amounts of stabilising energy. Oh. I absolutely despise getting an immediate Adm. in the early game. This is due to multiple reasons, yes they don't cost a lot of influence, yes they can be pretty major. However not in ht e early game, they may gain some xp but the Bonuses are still a bit too small for me, it's the same with planetary governors on small 9-15 tile planets, the bonus on such a planet is too minor to impact the game too much. Admirals are only needed in my opinion once you start to go to war, or well wars. You can easily gain 3 levels within 1 or 2 wars, or just gain the supremacy +2 levels and then start to conquer the galaxy. The admirals will also become older and without the T2 age trait they will most likely die not so long after your first couple of wars due to the length you have had them. It's better to suddenly burst gain levels than to slowly increase them. Yes, generals are useless. Building up such a 14 size fleet in 8 years is dealy inefficent lng-term. I would ratehr build more mining stations and let my only spaceport be the detterant factor as the ai really won't attack until at least 30 years or more in on normal or hard. On Insane ofcourse you should do this much faster, but not quite this fast. The only situation I could see this needed is if you're playign a FP or DS, and you literally rush your nabourghs first colony to gain an insane 4 planet start as them (Which you'll need due to the amount of defensive pacts will be around you in the mid-game) Ctrl + Shift is really handy indeed.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply, I am sure other viewers will profit very much from it! Well, I tried to make these as universally applicable as possible, but it is opinion in the end of course. True, the unity building at the start is a must, I forgot that one ;-) I agree with you on almost all points, except for the fleet buildup. It may be that I only ever play on insane difficulty, but building up the fleet when you have time and minerals is something I am forcing myself to do these days, since I have paid a couple of times in the past where I was too greedy and invested all the minerals while letting the fleet stagnate.
The unity building start is very, very strong. Getting the private colony ship twice as fast? Do i even have to emphasize how powerful this is. Honestly i don't think there is a better way to start the game. Saving 700 minerals for the second and third colony and getting them out way faster while building my economy with minerals? Pretty much a baseline start for me. And getting that twice as fast with the monument is incerdibly powerful. Compare that to a second science ship.
It can be worthwhile to have a general, but only 1, and even then they MUST have the Invader trait. Additionally its only really worthwhile with long lived species. Good ground armies are only necessary for time purposes. You are effectively besieging a world and a good army is used to to reduce the time that your fleet is needed to be locked in that system. The invader trait gives +20% Moral Damage, and +20% Army Damage. Its still only worth it for the purposes of late game multi-tasking in large wars. I agree early on, they are a complete waste, but that's different from them being useless forever.
Another bonus for newbies is that just spamming a bunch of armies as you approach the midgame, typically clones or slaves, with (maybe) an invader general can let you blitz right through the enemy planets ignoring fortifications allowing you to keep an AI busy, especially if you need time to build up. The cost, especially for slave armies, is rather minimal compared to the immense cost of your fleet. Invading enemy planets has no limit to the number of armies used. If you spam these armies *do *NOT buy the upgrades* (at least at first) as they cost *more* than the slave army itself. The invader general is probably a better idea if you feel you need the multiplier. Also, as a bonus, this ensures you always have plenty of surplus troops to occupy planets. Good points in the video, influence and minerals are the key to early game expansion and security for sure.
My biggest mistake today was thinking I could play Ironman mode without the game rigging against me *I spawned right next to a xenophobe fallen empire and was wiped within the first 5 years*
I don't know why, but when I play on ironman, I always get into terrible situations. When I play without ironman, I dominate, even without save scumming.
GG, you can loop that, by surrendering every 10 years, fallen empires aren't scary at all. And when you reach a break even point with your fleet you will destroy them. And problem solved ;)
You mention picking admirals with the fleet logician perk over others. I used to do this too, as reducing upkeep is the best trait, but Fleet Logician is also the only trait Admirals can gain while doing nothing (All other traits only proc under specific circumstances. Victory in battle, emergency FTL, repairs etc.). This means that Admirals wihtout Fleet Logician will often end up with it anyway since they'll spend most of their time in orbit of your starbases.
One more tip: when recruiting Admirals, they are actually assigned to specific ships, so if that specific ship gets destroyed, you lose your Admiral. By default, the Admiral will automatically station on whichever ship is the "best" but the way the game determines "best" is based on ship class and/or mineral value. If you have, for example, a ship with massive missile banks but weak hull, and another ship with heavy hull, armor, and weak weapons, it's entirely possible the game may see the missile boat as the "best" ship and place your admiral there. So, when assigning an Admiral to your fleet, you can actually click a specific ship in the fleet window and assign the Admiral to that particular ship. Since the Admiral's bonuses ALL apply to the ENTIRE fleet regardless of which ship they're on, it's wise to select whatever ship has the most defenses, even if it may be weak offensively and not technically the "best" ship as far as the game is concerned. You can also specifically design a ship as a "Command Ship" for this very purpose. This allows you to build a ship with extreme defenses but minimal armaments to keep maintenance cost low while still keeping your Admiral well protected. Personally, I recommend a ship with only Flak or Point Defense for this, as these weapons are cheap but increase the survivability of the ship even further. (Especially Flak since it CAN be used offensively.)
Some great tips! I've also found that diplomacy goes smoother when you have fleets closer to the cap... when you've got an inferior fleet their attitude tends to slide to the Dismissive and Patronizing ends, where they want to vassal/protectorate you "for your own safety" and thery seem to insinute that not agreeing may lead to troubles down the road. Things often become more Cordial/Friendly once fleet sizes equal or surpass those neighbours.
Great video. I have a tip as well that is most effective. Don't colonize worlds already in your border, spread out. The more you spread out the more resources you gain and when you are finally boxed in you will have plenty of planets to expand to within your borders, the 1-2 planets that are within your borders at the start are essentially traps.
Yes, we are in agreement there. Especially if you take into account how easy and cheap terraforming is now. Keep those planets for later, terraform them and have fun. Though since the introduction of the mega structures this strat is not quite as crucial as it used to be...
RU-vid recommended this and I watched it out of pure nostalgia. Was the first tutorial I watched. Boy, stellaris sure has come a long way since... I kinda miss the old days. It wasn't as refined as it is today but I cannot shake the feeling it was in its own way, much simpler and better. Today it feels like a micro-managing hell.
@@miraak8523 Well, since two years ago I got used to the -new- Stellaris, but it still a lot of micromanaging depending on your Empire. Don't get me wrong, it takes learning but it ain't impossible. It was undeniably easier before. Planets used to be square based, with each square having a pop you can more, making adjacent bonuses. Far simpler than today. Better ? I don't know, it's... Very different.
whoa.... Ctrl+Shift inserts a new order at the top of a series? So... I don't have to redo the 15 system queue I built up for my science ship to research that giant skeleton they found? I can just ctrl+shift click and he'll research that and move on with his queue? WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS!? MY LIFE HAS BEEN A LIE.
This is a good video IMHO. Basic, clear ideas without any smoke and mirrors. I had not known about the hotkey shortcut at the end so that alone was worth it.
Very. I already knew a lot of it after hundreds of hours of play time, but a video that delivered what was on the tin instead of 15 minutes of good ideas interspersed by 15 minutes of the creator cracking bad jokes and otherwise raving about themselves is never a good idea IMHO.
a tip to others, go on 1.25 or 1.5 speed, over time you get used to the speed and can process information faster and also have more time to watch more awesome videos like this one. I recommend starting out with 1.25 and then 1.5 later, but that is just me. Have a wonderful day day!
Yes but you may want to reduce the resolution as well, as increased speed means more videos, but also more bandwidth, and if you are doing other stuff or can't afford to go pass a bandwidth limit like with Comcast, than it might be better to stick with regular. Never go below 1.0 though unless your looking at a frame that goes by fast.
i wish i could do that, i always play at normal speed and pause frequently which makes the game go by at a much slower pace. I'm always paranoid about not leaving anyone idle on strategy games, a habit i picked up in Warcraft and Age of Empires with my peasants :P
Andrew Lewis shift + right click would add the order to the end of the unit's order queue. Shift + ctrl + right click will add the order in front of any of the unit's pre-existing orders, which is handy if you often queue your ships with orders and something pops up that you want done first.
Nice tips, especially the hotkey but I disagree on some points. Most of it are special cases but still. 1. Early Buildings? 1.1 Wait with planetary building until a new pop is grown. Building a Monument is almost always a good idea. Also building needs time so start before the pop is completely grown. Last but not least food is completely broken without 1.7.2 beta hotfix so you can remove the pops from farms asap. 1.2 Ignore tile blocker when you have free tiles The natural resources on the blocked tiles may be high enough to justify the effort. especially the +2 energy for just 40/40 is a Goto tile when you want to expand fast or have no possible energy mining stations. 1.3 Concentrate on orbital mining stations in the beginning If you started with a monument and go for (the OP) Prosperity right away it's actually better to wait with the mining stations until you have your first tradition. The only exception may be when you have 4+ possible mining stations in your home system because then build time becomes a factor. 2. Starting Corvettes? 2.2 Put your fleets on evasion From experience I can say "Don't bother". The ship will evade by itself because it jumps right to the next system and if it comes to a fight it will never survive until you can emergency jump out. Also the evasive stance can really mess up pathfinding especially when you use hyperlanes. 2.3 Explore any system Subjective, but I would leave Black Holes, etc. because they can't have colonizable planets. 3. Science Ship(s)? This may be personal but I strongly disagree. Your first science ship will almost always survey things in you start empire faster then one construction ship can construct mining stations over the found resources. After that there is enough time to survey possible colonization targets found by your fleets. I would never build a second science ship before my first colony. Depending on my neighbors, who may trade star maps, I sometimes never build a second one. "Planetary Survey Corps" were nerfed but if you want to utilize them you should survey as little as possible before you actually got them and never ever trade for star maps. 5. Frontier Outposts? I agree to the point but most of the time you should just colonize these planets right away. Also if you have the chance you may prefer building them in systems that your enemy can colonize not yours. Last but not least use your outposts to aggressively push back the enemy border over valuable systems, best case colonizable systems. 6. Ready for War? I think negative energy while at war is normal. ^^ 7. Energy? Research? Minerals? Concentrate on Energy, Energy, Energy. The one and only bottleneck at the start is energy for having as much parallel colonizations as possible. You also want to stockpile energy for the point you explained just before this one and to get the enclave contracts as fast as possible, because their cost scales between 1.000 and 5.000 and you want that unity bonus asap. The only exception is multiplayer because colonization there is suicide, just build fleet and 4-5 armies and invade the first colony you see. 8. Admiral(s) At the start Fleet Logistician is nearly worthless, you should just get the youngest admiral so he will be still alive to fight his first battle some day. 9. Fleet Cap? In multiplayer yes, but in singleplayer NOOOOOO. The only reason to build fleets in single player is aggression. If you just don't want to get attacked build spaceports. Their fleet power to cost ratio is infinitely better especially because the don't have upkeep with the solar module. As a pacifistic empire when you come to the point where an AI may be able to destroy a spaceport you can start thinking about a serious fleet. And even when you are an aggressive player you may want to wait with the serious ship building until you have a corvette shipyard. Before that just build enough corvettes to kill your pirates.
Thanks for creating such a detailed comment! Seems to me that you are coming from a mainly mulitplayer focused perspective, what with all the colonization rush and all. I do disagree on the energy focus, but mainly because I only play on maps with 0.25x habitable worlds. Makes every world feel more meaningful. I guess the priorities shift if you have a huge amount of colonizable worlds around yourself, although I am not a fan of too much early colonization - pushes up your tech and unity costs way too much. I am sure viewers will profit from the perspective you provided though, thanks again!
About your science ship point. I am against it. Why you might ask ? Well its easy. Anomalies! Even quests that gain research (the star quests/survey and Anomalies, gaining 60-150 research is a big deal at the beginning of the game) and finding predecessor event lines. I find the the traits you want to look for are the 10% anomaly chance (seriously can just reload if you fail, but I dont tend to start projects over 40%, since sometimes they are timed events needing a high level scientist) the 5% research and 10% genius traits. Most likely you could put a Genius into research being 10% an all. but if you can spare to swap him to surveying when he can be replaced, they level faster and if you get lucky, they can gain a field research trait, giving them 15% or 20 % into that field. Pretty useful. I'd say get a 2nd one from the get go, and then a little later get 3rd (as events pop up). Getting that juicy physic research is godsend when trying to get that Colony Tech before your first colonization. Well unless the tech RNG is a bitch and doesnt give it to you.
I get the point, but I personally would never risk to loose a scientist to a critical fail even with 10% chance, especially in early game. Most of the time, when I grow to a size where I can expand in two different directions I build 2 science ships at once and use the already leveled scientist to research the stockpiled anomalies in an order where he won't face any risks. But this behavior developed while playing a lot with my sedentary Hive Mind which may be the influence hungriest race ever build. Extreme colonization and one really costly resettle per conquered planet (except for other Hive Minds).
Thanks for the tips ; ) Subbed! I like your vids because you jump straight into the topic without time wasting intros & bad music a lot of vids have. Sharp and sweet is the way to go! That also makes it very watchable and I keep coming back to rewatch to pick up points I missed earlier.
I've been playing it for a while now and have realized these myself, but thanks for that last tip! Queuing something to be the current order while maintaining the list of orders after it will save so much time spent on re-adding orders :)
That bonus tip at the end. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! I have googled that before and all I have found was the shift + right click. I already knew shift + right to add a order, but the Ctrl + shift + right is a god send to finally know.
I started playing Stellaris after watching 15min of a Let's Play and I'm surprised by how much of these tips I had already incorporated into my playing without even knowing it! With that being said, I didn't know about the hot key, the idle admiral experience gain or the mining stations; great video!
Glad to hear it! If you run into problems during your playthroughs and have questions, just leave a comment and I'll try my best to help. All the best!
I used to do the split the starting corvettes to explore thing, but lately I've taken to not doing it to make it easier to get an anti-pirate fleet up and running in time.
One mistake he made in his intro, you do in fact want to build a building right from the start for tradition output and place one of the pops on it immediately. Otherwise what he says is correct. It's better to use a construction ship for exploration.
Thank you very much! Doing my best to keep it short and concise! Can't do anything about the videos on other channels, but I can make more tutorials myself ;-)
Very nice video. All points are excellent, and very helpful. I´ve struggled to figure a lot of them out myself. That said, I wanted to add a few things about the points in the video. For the sake of clarity I´ve repeated the advice given in the video, so everyone is on the same page about what tip I am refering/adding to. Good video, keep it up! 1. Early buildings. Correct, don´t build too early. However, if you are lack good mineral asteroids in the start, it´s a good strategy to clear a slot with minerals on your homeworld and move one of your existing pops there. This allows you to trade energy for minerals early, which is normally good since you start with a surplus of energy and can afford to go in the negativ for a while. Getting mineral production to around 15-17 as fast as possible is a good goal at the start of the game. 2. Scout with single corvettes, ahead of science ships. Yes, a very good strategy. 3. Build another science ship right away. Yes, almost always a good idea. However, if you are using wormhole-drive you may run out of systems to explore before reaching level 5 with your scientists. This will leave some anomalies/quests locked away during the early game. Either stick to one science ship early, or have one of your science ships stop exporing and leave most of the exploration to one of your science ships to make sure you get a level 5 scientist before the exporation phase of your local region is over. 4. Delay special projects. Yes, techs are more important in the beginning. It used to be possible to research the "discover aliens"-quests at the same time to save research, rip. If you wait long enough, the A.I might do the quest for you. Saving you some research. 5. Know where to place outposts. Very well outlined, steal planets early with outposts. The A.I stupid, and won´t know the difference between you taking empty "mining space" and actually colonies. You might as well go all the way if you plan on making an A.I your enemy. It is also better to place outpost in habitable systems for another reason: When you have coloniesed the system you can remove the output. Which will give you have back the lost 1 influence per turn, to mabye build another outpost. It´s basically a long term commitment to build an outpost in a system without a planet and should therefore normally not be done. However, if you happen to find a system just out of reach with 8-10+ minerals early, then by all means, build an outpost there to jump-start your economy. Note: With a hyperdrive empire, you also have to take lane-access into account. And with a wormhole empire, you might want to consider outposts on systems that allow you to explore/colonies a large number of new starsystems; mid-way points between clusters. 6. Be mindful of energy costs of fleets, not only while docked. Good tip. 7. Minerals are king early. Before 50 minerals/turn nothing else matters. After that it is a good idea to get to around 20 science/turn of each type. Science is very powerful in this game (obviously), and can be more worthwhile than production gains. 8. Recruit admirals early. Yes, but be careful. Sometimes you really need that extra influence to be able to colonise a key system. This is often the case with a warpdrive empire, which has a steep scaling with distant from controlled planets. Be sure you don´t spend influence you need to colonise. 9. Never build generals. All too true. Paradox, pls fix! 10. Keep close to your fleet cap. Yes, good advice. Spaceports also increases fleetcapacity slighty, which is a good reason to build them on every planet when your ecenomy is strong enough to handle the expense. The solar panel research also gives free energy with every spaceport, so building them actually help with fleet upkeep. Also, never build defense platforms! They are too weak and you get them too late in the game. You´ll be able to get 2k starbases by the time you and everyone else has 20k fleets. 11. Control/shift is your friend! Indeed.
I agree with all of your points, thanks for taking the time to type up such a detailed answer! Will surely help other viewers that are browsing the comments!
11:38 Big mistake here: Recruiting an Admiral is fine and should be done ASAP as you said. But never ever do you want to recruit an Admiral with the Unyielding trait. He might get good boni but a fleet with an Unyielding Admiral can not use the "Emergency FTL" should a battle swing in favor of your opponent potentially destroying your whole fleet in the process. The same goes once your Admiral gains that trait via a level up. Dismiss him right away as he got useless at that point.
I guessed so ;-). But knowing people, especially beginners i felt it was necessary to point at that error. Many tend to copy thinking: "He did that so it must be good."
Yeah, I always knock off tile blockers for energy and minerals, because it’s a cheep way to get more of them in the early game while you’re scrambling for both
The first one is a situational tip, but good nonetheless. 10:00 I discovered that the hard way and had to restart, and within 30 years I made 33 minerals per month although I only had 5 energy per month due to location, so I had to dedicate my planets to produce my power.
About buildings, I put them up once the pop starts getting to a point where I can officially build the building and when its done, the pop is almost done.
I really like just rushing colonies, I've got a Hive mind with the Extremely Adaptive trait and they can literally colonize every system(Except for Tomb worlds) from the very beginning, it is handy not being limited to just your starting category. I take as many large systems as I can.
I think an exception to the "No Generals" rule is the Avatar from the psionic path. These one-unit armies have a TON of health, well above average damage, and the highest morale damage available. They are also unbuildable, so very limited in number. Between their health and morale damage they are individually worth multiple armies, and the high base value for damage and the -extreme- level of healthy is just begging for xeno cavalry and a good general. Get a couple of these guys on one planet with generals and xeno cav, and maybe some defense armies in addition to the militia as meat shields, and even with your fortifications at 0 they will still chew through many, many assault armies. The Avatar vs standard assault armies is like how you would expect a battleship vs corvettes to be if there were no evasion mechanic.
I don't mind my energy starting to drop as long as I have enough of it stored and I know I can increase my energy production before I run out of energy.
An advice: When aiming for wide empire (thus waging mostly cede planet wars), make your battleground in a territory that is not going to be ceded. You definitely want spaceports and mining stations intact when you win the war and the territory shifts to your control. But, if you're not sure you can steamroll your enemy, send a small detachment of your fleet inside their far territory, one that is not a subject of demands and set it to aggressive stance. Destroying their mining stations will significantly reduce their capacity for rebuilding fleets, and destroying their research stations will slow their research, meaning even if you're a bit weaker than they are, losing a ship will hurt them more than you, since ai never attacks your civilian stations and whatever you lose you can quickly rebuild. Other thing is, AI empires will never build ships if it would cause negative energy income. This means that destroying energy mining stations will reduce their practical fleet capacity as well. Moreover, destroying enough mining or research stations will grant you a few warscore points in itself. Now the other thing is aftermath of a war - with their mining/research stations broken, the remaining territory will struggle with low income, having to put that low income into stations rather than military fleets. And so, 10 years later, when truce will expire, they will be significantly weaker than otherwise - generally, if you manage to destroy every mining station in the non-ceded territory, if it's an early game, the enemy empire will be reverted back to start game potential once you win that war. Meaning you'll generally be able to demand the rest of their territory on the next war. Even a strong empire can be effectively crippled if you target their economy.
I am working on various tutorial videos right now, 1.8 change a bunch of stuff. Not sure many of these tips are affected though, they are pretty basic and therefore mostly untouched by the patch...
Not sure if it changed since the last time I've played, but if not: Do NOT build mining (space) stations, unless it gives 3 minerals, and even then only do it if you REALLY need it. The ideal would be 4 or more. It is just inefficient, considering its 1energy/month upkeep. Mines, regardless of their level, give you minerals equal to: energy cost*2, which will then get boni like -tile mineral bonus (+1/+2 usually, but I've seen some with +6 too) -silo bonus (+1 to max 4 tiles) -processing plant bonus (+10-20%) -strength trait/robots/whatever else (not sure about the numbers) so at the bare minimum you get 2 minerals for every energy spent, but it's usually very easy to bump it up to 3 with some of these bonuses. It's more beneficial just to build an additional mine on a random planet you own than to build mining stations on +1/+2 celestial bodies, and it's much more beneficial to designate a mining planet (later on). But you should ALWAYS take energy (if it gives more than +1). E: I said "regardless of their level" but I was mistaken: The max level mine you can only build on planets with "Empire Capital-Complex" building built on them [aka your "capital planet"], which gives you +8 minerals for 3 energy (2.6^* minerals/energy) excluding boni.
You are right, but my point was more that at the beginning of the game, you do not have the pops to work all those mines. Mining stations don't need pops, so they can help you expand in the beginning.
I thought it was "Beginner Mistakes" not "Early-game Mistakes". Well, this caused my first and most spectacular fail. I haven't done the math to see if it's worth building them and then destroying them, or going straight for the mines. Personally, I explore, build stations for +3/4 minerals and all energy, and build mines as I can/need them, which is a large step in the right direction from taking all those +1/2 mines and keeping them.
Nah, you definitely need to keep all the mines once you built them. Build some energy mines to support the mineral ones, those don't cost any upkeep. And it is a beginner mistake to not concentrate on minerals, either orbital or planetary. You need lots of them, because they allow you to expand, to build ships and to build more mines, buildings etc. The rate at which you gain minerals is basically the rate at which you can do things in the game.
Planetary mines, yes, +1/2 orbital ones, definitely not. Not worth it. Energy is also needed for expansion, and if you don't give a single about mineral efficiency, you'll either find yourself with negative energy income, or spend vast amount of resources building power plants which have to be manned anyway, and which hinders your expansion. +1/2 mining stations are just not worth it.
Excellent video! There is one thing that I disagree though, regarding Generals. Sure, they are useless in the early game, but in the mid and end game, they can be decisive when you are fighting a war against a opponent with a stronger fleet than you have. You can't directly engage it's fleet because it is certain defeat, so, to keep the war going and force them to the defensive I usually make a big army with a good general, so I use the fleet to take down the space station, and immediately retreat, using the big army with the general to invade the planet without wasting time for bombardment. I occupy the planet, win some warscore for a while with little-to-no losses. It is really useful until I have enough time spent in war to successfully make a white flag peace.
Glad you found the video useful! You can still brute force invasions without generals, you just need quality troops like robot armies or xeno-morphs in big stacks. Saves a lot of time!
I've never had the issue of my fleet suddenly bankrupting me when it comes out of mothballs. Mainly because I didn't know that was a feature and I've always been stationing several medium-sized fleets right on the border of rival Empires so Wars declare they can rapidly Blitzkrieg some of their smaller worlds before combining together and taking on their core systems
Well, it can save a significant amount of resources to have your fleet in orbit, especially if you build a crew quarters module on that space port (reduces upkeep of orbiting fleets by 20%). Having them on the edge of a system's gravity well can make them good fast response fleets though, I approve of your strategy!
Here is an even better tip: You can colonize outside your own borders; DO THAT and DON'T put frontier outposts(FO's) in colonizable systems if you can help it. FO's and Colony ships have negligible difference in cost in minerals, time and same cost in Influence. Reserve FO's for systems you cant directly colonize. Second: The optimal number of armies for invading is 30 per stack, assuming you bombard the enemy fortifications and they DON'T have the Resilient trait or universally use robots for defence, in those cases; double the number for Resilient and add about 5-10 in case of all-robot defence force, unless you're using robots for invading. Oh yeah: BRING A GENERAL, preferably with the Invader trait. Finally for invading planets: Make sure you drop your armies BEFORE the fortifications hit 0, the exact number on which you should drop depends on fleet power of the bombarding fleet. Also, fortification damage is CAPPED at 100, in that case: drop at 1000.
Well, starting colonization too early increases your tech and unity cost, so outposts have a role to fill. And they are cheaper in terms of minerals. 350 compared to 200 is quite the difference, especially with early game income. Nothing is stopping you from bringing a general, even if I think they are useless ;-) I tend to just brute force invasions later on without waiting for the fleet to finish bombardment. Pretty viable if you have enough stacks to throw in. Makes wars go by very fast!
IMO if you have synth leaders and full synth rights, you can get a general that has the invader perk for an extra 50% dmg + if he gets glory seeker after levelups you can destroy a 25 gaia planet fully build with planetary shielding without bombing it with like 5 clones. So IMO that is worth.
Thanks for the tips. I find the CTRL + SHIFT tip especially helpful. But I would like to add something important to the fleet capacity tip: If everybody around you has a favorable view of what you are doing (AI only of course) you don't need a strong defense fleet. But you should check their moods and intentions on a regular basis. If they are reaching the level hostile and they have a superior fleet you are pretty much fucked since they will declare war on you if they are hostile AND you have a inferior fleet.
I put frontier outposts down for 1 (or more) of 3 reasons. 1: To secure the gal region i want to build in from other entities. Typically by placing F.O.s on chokepoint stars. 2: to secure regions super densly packed with mining & research opportunities. 3: to secure systems i want to colonize in the near future, but am not ready to do it just yet. Im relatively new to this game. And my experience has so far shown that influence doesnt make or break your game at the beginning untill you start spreading. But resources & research (or lack theoreof) can set you up for failure from day 1.
how I start my runs are: Start a 2nd sience ship build Temple asap (either when pop is like 90% ready to spawn or emediatly depending on what stations I have found) I focus Influence research, +5% research if I can and maybe engineering research building)
Great tips! The kingdom of Noobia will surely go on to rule the stars. I didn't know before that chaining Frontier Outposts increased their border push, so that'll be a useful tool for me at some point. Frontier Outposts are also good for grabbing nebulas early on, as they sometimes spawn 20+ minerals and other goodies in four or five systems.
one thing to consider is that building outside your home star will cause pirates to be able to spawn, so when you do that you need to be ready for pirates.
1. build a monument (or temple) on your start planet right away. the extra unity is far more useful than the 4 extra science from your research lab. 2. research solar panels first. the extra energy will help you in the beginning and to grow wide. 3.leave the anomalies till you can do them at 0%. your scientist will nearly always reach level 5. 4. pick the prosperity tradition first. this will help your early economy with minerals and energy (wich will be most stations). also, this will please the pacifist who will always pop up. (even in militaristic empires). extra: wait with building mining station to max out your savings. 5. pick private colony ships tradition as your second tradition. This will help you spread faster, cheaper (these ships cost 50 percent of a normal ship in energy) and save up your minerals for other things, like spaceports with solar panels (more energy more colonies) 6. watch your energy. if you buy a colony ship and lack the energy to maintain the colonisation effort it will really hurt your economy. build extra powerplant and wait with the research station if you have too little energy stations. 7. try to get as much unity early on to finish your first tradition tree (mine is alway prosperity ) so you can get mastery of nature. this will save you both in research and resources in tile blocking clearing. 8. place your colony ship on a energy tile first. you can always demolish it and place it on a better place later (like when you colony gets 5 pops and you have mastery of nature and can remove the tile blocker). 9. place your administration next to as many tiles as possible to get a big bonus in food, energy and minerals. (try not to place it next to tiles with research or buildings wich produce unity.) 10.DO NOT send you Corvettes out right away. wait till you science ship has scanned a habitable planet (without primitives) to get a research bonus. (you will not get this bonus if you encounter any other aliens) 11. bonus tip. slave proccing plants rule. place them next to your capital building and get a massive resource bonus. try to do this on a tile with both food and minerals. Also, you can build this building on any planet with slaves. (even planets without a capital building)
When I played my first time I accidentally clicked become vasile and I had to start a war of independence with three nations which were superior and I won
Researching right away isn't the best thing to do, I usually wait for the first two unity thingies that give a higher chance to find something (anomaly discovery chance). It's ok to wait in my opinion, one usually doesn't have the ressources to span stuff anyway and the cheaper science stations are neat, same goes with the thing that gives cheaper mining bases.
You mean surveying right away? Yeah, it is a viable strat to wait until you have the survey tradition that gives you research points. But that is some advanced stuff, the thing about advice for beginners is to start simple. Then people can experiment after they have mastered the basics.
One mistake I make is getting rekt by empires with a similar strength, as they somehow have double my fleetstrength (even though we have equal fleet strength and limits)
In the early game, you most definitely don't need to build to fleet capacity, because your spaceports are a lot tougher than any navy your opponent can throw at you for years into the game. I've had an enemy declare on me with 2.3k fleet power, run into one of my spaceports on the border, and then limp home, having destroyed the spaceport but losing half their ships. That left me plenty of time to build up from three corvettes to a force that could defeat them. I have a significantly different view on frontier outpost placement. If you intend to expand to a system, you can start building your colony ship while you're still waiting to survey the planet. It's more expensive in terms of minerals, but it's typically a savings in influence. I use frontier outposts to block other empires from moving, especially on spiral galaxies, to limit their expansion options. And sometimes I use them to push against their borders so I can seize planets to colonize, or get an FTL route around them. But that's a bit immaterial with the 2.0 Cherryh update.
For standard buildings, (I think the basic versions you construct on new colonies build faster) I find if you start a building just as the pop reaches the last division on it's growth bar ( 7/8ths grown) then the building should finish construction at pretty much the exact time the pop finishes growing. All things being standard that is, obviously if your empire has fast or slow growth modefiers that probably won't work.
The Control + Shift method to gain priority is gonna help me sooo much from requeuing stuff up. 277 hours into playing the game and i didnt know about that hotkey way. :) I guess even if you arent a beginner, you learn something everyday :)
holy smoky you got alot of views with this one! started playing Stellaris yesterday. saved me alot of trouble with the early game. the imediate scientist ship is really a difference maker. went with a scientific focus and the extra borders helped me win a domination game without ever going to war, i simply loved the flexibility of the game, very diferent from paradox stantards
Glad to hear it, Lucas! this video did very well indeed ;-) If you have more Stellaris questions just shoot me a comment, I'll do my best to help. Or watch the rest of my tutorial series, I have a lot of Stellaris videos: bit.ly/HorathsStellarisTutorials
Regarding the early fleet cap I tend to get a little greedy and wait till I have researched (and built) the corvette assembly yard, saving my minerals for expanding/constructing, since the spaceport is virtually indomitable before that point anyways.
Sounds legit. Could go wrong depending on your neighbours, if they are very aggressive and have you rivaled. But most of the time this will save a bunch of minerals!
Nice tips. As for building buildings to expand on. The only one you should build is the Unity building. Just keeping your pops sitting on tiles will give you those resources without paying any energy upkeep. This is good for getting started when you have limited resources and energy to spend, which you covered. Well you should wait til the first pop is created so he can used the unity building. So you have 1 pop time. Outposts can be situational, but not wasting them or putting them in bad placement is good. You made that clear. But you should expand a bit more on outposts. Theres a few roles they can be used for.. yes containing planets from Ai is one. Getting a strategic resource is another... But you could also be using them to expand your borders. Cover as much "resourceful" star systems as you can or linking up 2 planets for more resource star systems. But thats when you have an understanding how borders work. Another interesting thing to note, which I take into considering. Is Outposts can double up as a resource mine. If the Star has a resource, it will collect it like a normal mine. So ideally putting an outpost on a resource star is like a double function letting you forgo that mine and its upkeep (you still pay outpost upkeep tho). You still pay the outpost upkeep but get the resource too. Expansion tree is also very useful for dropping a few outposts to make larger borders. It makes a difference, rather than having 2 outposts , you can have 4 for the same upkeep cost. Anyway, felt those 2 could of been expanded on. and I always start by building a 2nd science ship from the get go too. Then try get a 3rd a little later which your getting missions to research stars and stuff (those missions give you research).
First time i see a video about Stellaris which i find usefuel. Most others i feel just wasting my time to watch people who feel excited about everything and tell me constantly how great the game is and talk so much about obvious stuff which i can find out by myself by just reading what is in front of me. I missed the real deeper information. Thank You !
I'm not 100% sure about generals: Armies take a LONG time to train, while recruiting a general is instant, and a general with the "invader" trait can allow your armies (especially early ones) to take on bigger enemy planets without having to retreat mid-battle for healing. I guess it depends how big your leader pool and influence growth are: My Fanatic Purifiers game gives me a lot of influence.
I have to disagree on the fleet cap it can be beficial as long as you have enough reserves to quickly build up your fleet. The mineral gain from not having your maximum fleet cap can allow you to build more stations.You just have balance it to not stay to far behind.And if they actually attack you can still beat them and just take their planets.
Agreed, that can sometimes be good. You can even try to bait the AI in attacking you, if you want your allies to get involved. But it can backfire spectacularly, which is the reason why I would not recommend that to a beginner ;-)
Most "mistakes" shown here are either obvious ones (empty buildings for instance - you have to be deaf, blind and dull to miss the multiple hints about this) or just opinions. That being said the bonus one - that was GOLD!!! 10X
Well, people approach the game from different levels. If you are already on a higher level, then good on you. No need to insult other people that aren't there yet. Glad to hear you got something out of the video at least ;-)
Since you didnt got it the first time ... I am essentially telling you that some of the tips are just filler and cannot bring anything of value to the viewer. For instance: In order to play the game you need to install it. In order to install it you need to know how to read. If you can read - you can understand/hear/read the multiple hints/explanations and pop ups that straight up tell you that your buildings don't work due to you not having enough pops to operate them. Finnaly I am acknowledging that the last, so called, bonus tip is in truth the one who I believe to be of most value to me. Lastly I don't believe I am insulting you. Im just giving you constructive critisicm. If however I did offend you - well I am sorry - that wasnt my intention. G'day!
Disagree about tile blockers early. Energy is not needed for anything early, after you get your first couple extra scientists, and you can free tiles with 2x resources
Nice tips & good video! Small mistake there, the "Planetary Survey Corps" gives you only 10% of your monthly research points per explored planet, nevertheless if choosen from the get go it is the best tradition in my opinon. Oh and i personally never get an admiral with "Fleet Logistician" perk, because they usually get it anyways.
Not sure where that mistake should be, I correctly said you gain one tenth of your monthly research points if you take the survey corps tradition. Time stamp? Yes, I should have included that admirals get the fleet logistician trait just from hanging around in orbit...
Somehow i overheard the "point" when you explained how much researchpoints someone will get with the survey-tradition. Mistake is on my side, i'm sorry :/
Great tips overall. But OH MY GOD! that bonus tip will save me so much micromanagement and frustration!!! The only one I'm not going to follow is researching new aliens immediately because it will be immersion breaking. "Sir, we have made contact with a new species of aliens. Should we begin to study them immediately?" "Slightly more efficient tractors" "Sir....but...." "TRACTORS!!!"
Most of these are pretty good newbie tips, though I would claim that an early second science ship comes down to preference. I personally like to spend those 100 minerals on rushing out the first colony ship as fast as possible.
Agreed, some of these are preferences. I'd go for the first colony quite that early, would have to be a 20+ sized planet to induce me to do that since you get hit with +25% unity cost and +10% tech costs. Unlocking the first level of the expansion traditions is what I aim for before I start, getting that second pop instantly gives you a crazy boost!
Hi, thanks for the guide. I haven't played the game yet, but I'm sure it will be helpful. One criticism that I have regarding the presentation, is that the title didn't match the content entirely, and this led to some awkward phrasing. The title is about mistakes, but some of those were tips, so on those cases, your phrasing was: "#x mistake, is not doing y". You could have avoided that, by changing your title to add tips.
Glad to hear you found this useful! Since I have so many, many tips videos already for Stellaris that are called "Ten tips for XYZ" I wanted to do something different with the title for a change ;-)
At 5:50, am I the only one that put the outpost on Gndix (to the left)? Sure it will piss off the Vivis, but by the time they decide to war you, you'll probably be bigger than them. since you will cut them off of expansion possibility.
I would do that too, I think it is a good idea. Just gotta make sure that you can reach it in time and have the influence for it. So going for an outpost in Zabeen is still a good idea, it will reduce the amount of influence you need for the Gndix outpost as well as stop them from settling that planet in the Wezen system...
The only problem with Ctrl+Shift is that the game doesn't swallow at least one of those buttons outright; It passes both over to the OS, which, in the case of windows, means that you're switching your keyboard presets. If you're using only a single one, it's not an issue, but when you have more than one... Well, it gets weird to suddenly realize that your z became a y...
With patch 1.5 an army limit was added - you can have only as many armies of a certain species as you have pops of that species. Ten peacock pops, ten armies possible.
Interesting... as have had full planets of defence soldiers on top of multiple fleets of assault soldiers, which would easily outnumber the base population in games as recent as yesterday. So what was said remains, the number is how many you can have on the planet at a time, not the the total.
Yes, what you said is true regarding the amount of armies that can fit onto a planet. Not sure if the limit applies to defense armies, that could explain it. Maybe they only count armies that can actually leave the planet...
I think this is a very informative video, for one, but I do have to disagree with building to fleet capacity (at least when playing against AI) as, I've noticed, they will try and maintain equivalence with you - which they most likely will do in the early game. So, by spending resources on building and maintaining a full-cap fleet, I would normally just be wasting resources in the early game that I could instead by putting towards trying to open up that gap either technologically or in naval capacity by colonising planets. However, I'm probably just being very specific to my preferred style of play (Imperial Militarists w/ either Xenophile or Spiritualists). Normally I'm on medium to good terms with my neighbours (with a couple I'm rivalled to) and even allied with a couple, meaning I can count on their military to at least distract the opponent if I need a naval buildup (VERY rarely as wars can often be seen coming from at least a decade before). If you're still reading by this point, I guess I should give a brief overview of a couple other things that you said. Firstly, about the ability to place at the top of a queue with science ships is amazing and I'm annoyed I didn't get that before. Thank you! Secondly, I do often just get a single general, but that's because I do like the difference they make - I can see a good argument for having no generals at all and saving that leader space. I do also find Frontier outposts a fantastic way to steal a potential colony from an expanding neighbour, which makes me laugh sometimes (especially if it's habitable to them). Other than that, good stuff, and thanks for the video.
Well, since I play on insane difficulty 99% of the time I have been burnt a couple of times when I tarried with the fleet buildup ;-) True though, if you play a "friendly" nation, then you should be on good terms with at least some neighbours. Stealing colonizable worlds is my favorite past time, glad to hear that you enjoy it too XD XD XD Thanks for watching & all the best!
I would colonize that planet instead of putting a frontier outpost there.Might take a bit longer but that's why i have a extra colony ship on hand for times like these.
would love to see a dlc with world ships like The Culture uses where pops can live on massive ships that can move around at will. Then having a good army and general would be required to take the ship fast and efficient like to avoid it escaping.
Yes, agreed! An armada like the Quarian Flotilla in Mass Effect would do it as well for me ;-) I think Endless Space 2 has a race like that, but I haven't played it.
True dat. Just wanted to show the +4 mineral income there. Although, even if it only takes you a little while to colonize that, once you take longer than 15 months until you send a colony ship, you'll turn a profit even if you colonize it later on...
First mistake is not a mistake, you actually want to build one mine, even if it requires clearing a blocker, and move your science lab pop to work that mine asap in order to fuel your early expansion. It's better return for your minerals than building a standard mining station if you don't have to clear a blocker, and even if you do have to clear a blocker it's worth it because you get to enjoy the benefits so early. Another building you might want to consider as an alternative first building is the one that generates unity so that you can get your expansion perks early; that extra pop, and reduced colonization time are godsent in the early game, and the faster you get those the faster you can start efficiently colonizing your immediate surroundings, all the while that reduced influence cost for colonizing far away helps tremendously in grabbing the best worlds and frontier systems early on. You might also want to consider a power plant, if you get loads of minerals early on from mining your starting system but lack the energy you'll need for colonization. Building a freaking science lab on the other hand indeed IS a mistake.
Ditching your science lab for minerals? Sounds like a mistake to me, that is going to cut your early science income in half ;-) Agree on the unity building, that one needs to go up first since you cannot get unity from orbital stations, but you should steal that pop from an energy building. The focus on stations early on comes from the low amount of pops that you have at the start, whereas a station can work on its own. Geeting the expansion traditions early is indeed a good idea, though you could also make an argument for discovery and even prosperity.
You really shouldn't give a rat about your early science, early on you must focus on expansion, get that mineral income up asap so that you can spam those colony ships. As you develop your colonies, you'll more than make up for the early science loss with all the things in your massive territory. Besides, depending on how much minerals/energy you get from your early mining stations, you can put a pop in that science lab as soon as one spawns. If you're lacking in either minerals or energy however, you should just clear another energy/mineral spot accordingly. In general, in the beginning of the game, minerals are your top priority, energy comes second, because you need those for that aggressive expansion. Science becomes a priority only after you've established your initial territory. In the very beginning of the game, research is good, but if you can ditch science for minerals and credits, you should always do so, and you should avoid building research stations unless they provide 4 or more as a yield; you can always build those stations once you've secured your initial territory. EDIT: oh, and discovery and prosperity do serve a purpose in the early game, and one of them should be your secondary focus. If you've gotten high enough unity output, you may want to get the prosperity opener for cheaper colony ships and that discovery opener for more anomalies, but those goals are secondary in importance to your aggressive expansion. Unless ofc you're lacking good planets to settle on, in which case you really want to get that tradition that gives unity from assist research on all your initial planets, which will let you fly through the tradition trees and give you a powerful early advantage. EDIT EDIT: oh, and if you have to prepare for an early war, then you're going to need that prosperity opener.
On the Version 1.9 you can't be available to divide your three corvettes for explore the systems around your home location. I think that is one of the big change for the early game.-
