r/Stellaris

As one of the rare people that enjoys the "making a utopian civilisation for all beings" playstyle, I've felt pretty left out since the nemesis dlc

And as the updates rolled by, paradox basically only added new ways of killing everyone

It wasn't until very recently with the nomads dlc that just randomly happened to have a defenders of the galaxy rework, which was a welcomed surprise but it didn't really have much meat on it compared to the other 4 ambitions that came before it

So how would a dlc focused on not killing everyone work? Some random ideas I had:

• More involved diplomacy where you need to balance the interests of the various nations

• New class of tech in the vein of observation insights which you get from joint research programs

• Alternative ways of dealing with the crises that isn't just blasting them with your ships (This path should be harder than just the regular way)

Thoughts?

I guess it depends of your perks and traits but what do you do in general ?

Do you colonize all the planets in your system as fast as possible to develop pop and economy or wait ?

Of course i mean colonize planets that have a good habitability not under 50%

In a long game i played lategame i ended up after lot of wars and territory with something like 25 planets and it was a pain in the ass to manage all of them because IA ennemies had 100% criminals on it or shit buildings, half my game was trying to make these planets making economy again

What do you think about Habitats for little empires and planets ? Are they worth building ?

Anyone else feel terraforming is way too easy?

I intentionally design games with very few planets. I want ideal worlds to be extremely rare, so habitats and finding ways to live with low habitability is a big part of the game.

But then I get terraforming early on. And it just takes 2 years to turn a 20% habitability planet into an 80%. It only costs 10,000 energy.

Now I'm approaching 2300. I have 70 systems and 7 perfect planets (all but the homeworld terraformed.)

It was just... too easy. the costs were low. the payoff was huge. the wait time was trivial. And there's no need to get into all the other interesting work arounds - genetic engineering or robots, migration treaties or cyborgs (love cyborgs), Voidborn habitats or automation.

Well, you get it.
Think at me please, fellow nerds.

After killing the 12,000x Contingency and surviving a brutal 24,000x Prethoryn Scourge invasion, we rebuilt our entire navy, pushed into Scourge territory, and somehow conquered their planet with a Behemoth. We then nearly got humbled by the 1,000x Grey Tempest, which killed a 145-million-power Behemoth. After reverting, rebuilding, and wiping them out, we conquered the galaxy and ascended our planet holder's Behemoth Fury to Tier 5, reaching 145 million unity and 26 million research per month.

What is this run?
We're a group of Stellaris players attempting a 1,000x All Crisis challenge with Endgame Year 2275. Our setup revolves around five Wilderness/Behemoth players, a Nomadic Tankbound support empire, and an Arc Welder economy empire. We specialize heavily and funnel planets, resources, megastructures, and bonuses toward whoever benefits most.
Earlier in the run, we killed the Unbidden at 4,050x and Cetana at 2,025x, then faced a 12,000x Contingency that nearly wiped out our entire navy. We eventually quarantined the Contingency and used our invincible Behemoth to destroy its hubs, finishing with only around 10,000 naval capacity. We spent the next session rebuilding to roughly 120,000 naval capacity while continuing to expand our economy and prepare for the Scourge.
Then the Scourge arrived.

The 24,000x Scourge
Shortly after starting, we received the Subspace Echoes notification. Normally, this gives us years to prepare, but the Scourge spawned within about 10 minutes. We were still rebuilding our navies, and this was the strongest crisis we'd deliberately fought so far.
We tried to brute-force them and took heavy losses. After seriously damaging the first wave, the second wave arrived, and we spent roughly nine hours fighting a brutal containment war. We discovered we could realistically handle only two Scourge fleets at once, despite having over 100,000 naval capacity of Harbingers. Later, our Nomad and Arc Welder players brought psionics online, including Zro launchers and psionic strike craft, which helped turn the tide once we had enough ships.
The Scourge spawned in the bottom-left of the galaxy and strangely skipped some edge systems. We managed to contain them, but every victory cost us tens of thousands of naval capacity. They only infested one planet, a Gaia world behind a wormhole guarded by a psionic entity. We never let them take any of our own planets.
Eventually, we lost practically our entire navy in one disastrous engagement. We used the Behemoth's speed, boosted by Strategic Coordination Centers, to keep the Scourge chasing it and prevent them from expanding. We then handed all our Mega Shipyards to the main Behemoth player, who had a 500% ship build speed bonus and rebuilt a navy exceeding 100,000 naval capacity incredibly quickly. Everyone else continued building through regular starbases, with over 40 shipyards per player.
Once rebuilt, we used the Behemoth's roar to delete the fleets chasing it and pushed into Scourge territory. We were finally outproducing them and had more displayed fleet power. When we reached their planet, we bombarded it, but the Behemoth somehow landed armies and conquered it. To avoid a potential softlock, we used a Deluge Colossus to kill the occupying armies, turning the planet into an ocean world.
We then had our Behemoths enrage and fight the remaining empires one-on-one inside a black hole. All planets were transferred to Wilderness, our main planet holder, and we cleaned up the remaining systems.

The Grey Tempest Strikes Back
Eventually, only three players remained: the Nomad, Wilderness, and one Behemoth player without the invincible Behemoth. We opened the L-Gate to claim the Nanite worlds.
That was a mistake. A 1,000x Grey Tempest managed to beat a 145-million-power Behemoth.
We reverted the save, rebuilt our navy, reopened the L-Gate, and wiped them out. During the fighting, the Nomad player even started suiciding Arkships into the Tempest.
With the Grey Tempest gone, only two players remained. We conquered every planet and ascended Wilderness's Behemoth Fury to Tier 5, ending with 145 million unity per month and 26 million research per month.
And that's the end of the run! We survived the Contingency, contained a 24,000x Scourge invasion, and conquered the galaxy. Apparently, the only thing capable of embarrassing a 145-million-power Behemoth was a bunch of nanites.
Feel free to ask questions about the builds, fleet compositions, economy, or how we managed to survive these crises. We're also working on getting more of this madness onto YouTube.

So as someone who sees people blow the lid off the game and have +2k in all resources I wanna know, how can one git gud with tips that aren't just "specialize your planets"?

I typically find, for example, when a crisis comes up or I get raided by mindwardens or raiders, my military can blow the socks off of my neighbors but won't even hold a candle to raiders or a voidworm fleet who will travel far and wide just to come for my systems specifically (leaving the empire their nest was in untouched btw). I know there's the "just take it and come back" but I wanna get good to where I don't have to take that in the first place.

I also find that I like playing a "just right" empire (not too tall not too wide) and I find that I struggle with getting pops to fill out jobs quickly, especially when I'm trying to get a forge world up and running. How can one get better at that? I keep hearing about a "logistics cap", is that what's up?

Also, science. I have recently shifted from focusing unity to tech and I wonder, how do yall handle rushing tech/building up tech worlds? I feel like I make good progress on tech as I've simply just improvised, but I wanna know how to take it to the next level.

Also, how much of this game is "your success is a dice roll" and "just build it better"? I feel like I'm right on the cusp of truly being sick with it, but rn I feel like I'm being held back by either focusing too much on rp and not the numbers or simply not knowing the systems well enough.

Any input is appreciated!

I wanted to do a run based off of an AA video about him playing as a pre FTL civilization, but is there a way I can go absolutely back to monkey?