I feel like I've hit a roadblock
This is less of an ask for advice post and more a vent post because I need to just get this out there. So I've recently gotten into Stellaris proper, playing over 100 hours in the past 2 weeks alone, watching youtuber, scroll the sub, the whole deal.. And I've enjoyed my time for the most part however for the past 20 or so hours, basically my last 3 games, I've noticed that the things I'm learning about the game has seriously slowed down and my improvement slowed down. I thought after finishing top 3 on cadet consistently I'd at least be able to survive an Ensign game. No luck. Fleets overwhelm me, I get out-etched, out econ-ed, frankly outscaled. I see youtuber with +3k in year 100 while I'm happy to have that number when the crisis rolls around. I see some people have their perfect rp experience while I have to optimize my fanatic materialists to a T to even survive. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong at this point because it makes me sad. I want that power fantasy of steam rolling a Fallen Empire but I never do. I have to fight to even be the strongest non FE. Often I'm just sitting there wondering: Is it a Dlc issue? I've been playing base game with Utopia for the majority and recently got Apocalypse because frankly destroying a planet is rad. But getting to that point doesn't feel earned on Cadet as the AI just stops trying. And on Ensign they out scale me.
Not sure what my goal was with all of this, I suppose maybe I was wondering if anyone hit that slumb? That ceiling? Did you break through it or do I really just suck :(