Tips for the ultimate builds for expansion, exploration and colonization

[The Singularious]

I am enjoying this game so far, but wanting to maximize the enjoyment I get from expansion and exploration.

Any tips from the experienced players out there on how to maximize my capabilities when both setting up my species, and making choices thereafter?

I know that is a bit general, but hopefully you can help.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

It's not so much about your species, really, as it is about density of AIs: max them out and you won't get to do any of that more often than not.

[MissedHurry]

Here are some things I do when I want to maximize exploration and expansion:

First of all, if you're playing an empire that's a major threat, like a Devouring Swarm, or Fanatic Purifiers (or some of the machine empires), you won't have to spend any influence making claims on other empires' territory when you go to war and try to get what they have. But if you're not that kind of empire, you need to make claims on other empires that are also not major threats. I keep my eye open for government ethics, civics, and traditions that reduce influence costs for both outposts and claims, in this case.

Also, some of the major traditions and perks that reduce influence costs and boost research and expansion need to be acquired with Unity - so I also try to focus on race traits, gov. ethics/civics, traditions and buildings that boost unity to grab those faster. For example, getting all the bonuses from the Expansion and Discovery tradition trees, and the Interstellar Dominion ascension perk for -20% cost of influence on outposts and claims.

As for science ships and building outposts - even though my long-term goal may be to expand far and wide, I often sit and wait to start building a lot of outposts until I've gotten my science ships to survey a lot of star systems. This way I can be getting through those traditions to reduce outpost costs before I start building a bunch, amassing influence the whole time so when I'm ready to go, it's like "boom! boom! boom! Outposts everywhere you want them". Also you can make a more strategic path of expansion when you have more of the map surveyed. I mean, if you can only afford to build about 10 outposts right now, do you want to deliberately make that path across those rare resources, the black hole, and right over to that strategic chokepoint that you can defend against a neighbor, or do you want to just blindly expand one star system at a time from your home base?

Also, by the time I've researched auto-explore, I usually have around 8 science ships (sometimes more) auto-exploring the galaxy. The faster you can explore and find anomalies, the sooner you can research them and get the little (sometime big) bonuses from those - plus you rank up scientists while they're doing this, so when scientists in your tech dept. die/need replacing, you have skilled ones to replace them.

Another thing that's sometimes fun to play is a galaxy with fewer (maybe even no regular a.i. empires) but a handful of Fallen Empires. That way, there's more time and room for you to explore and expand, but eventually you'll still have to build up your fleet strength big enough to fight the crisis, and maybe even some Fallen or Awakened empires (even if just to get their special tech).

[The Singularious]

Thank you so much!

It sounds like I am on the right path. I usually reduce the total number of AI empires and start with a very large map.

I learned the hard way the 1st and 2nd games to wait until I start building outposts.

But what remains unclear to me are a few things:

1. How many science ships *should* I build? I have been limiting myself to about 3. But if you say 8, hey maybe I'll do 8. :)

2. Do I always need to put outposts on adjacent systems? If I don't, won't it greatly complicate my trade networks? If I "trap" systems between claimed systems, is it a good strategy?

3. How do I know when a system is "worth it" to claim? I usually just look at high-resource, high-trade, and (sometimes) high-habitability as a trifecta, and then work my way down to best available from there.

4. I don't understand the tech trees well and don't understand the randomness of available research options. That's not really a question, but a weakness.

5. I like to play as the type of civilization that avoids conflict, but relishes retaliation. I had one game where I had a half dozen deals with a neighboring civ and things were going amazingly, had I not overextended myself and ground the game to a halt, with me being unable to really DO anything. Are those mutual relationships sustainable in this game (assuming I can manage my own civ reasonably well)?

Sorry for all the questions, but I am digging this game, but wanting to play it my way and not entirely sure if that is possible.

TIA!

[corisai]

Originally posted by The Singularious:

3. How do I know when a system is "worth it" to claim? I usually just look at high-resource, high-trade, and (sometimes) high-habitability as a trifecta, and then work my way down to best available from there.

Find AI (you can even ignore anomalies - just open systems and find it).

Lock it as hard as you can via outposts (depend on you influence & distance to them).

Then eat them. Sorry, for playing genocidal almost every time :)

P.S. Seriously - you want ALL. Especially now with soft-removal of admin cap. So it's better to lock your enemies first then grab everything that remains. Ofk - you should be capable to win early wars if they will be mad on you (again being genocidal <3).

Originally posted by The Singularious:

4. I don't understand the tech trees well and don't understand the randomness of available research options. That's not really a question, but a weakness.

Beeline is insanely powerful option, especially in single-player. Especially in engineering tree - there is so many things that you're able to entirely remove from your tech choices : missiles, strike craft, kinetic weapons... Play Fanatic Purifier and you're no longer need mineral repeatable tech, so currently I'm digging into armor level 23 :) And it's still 2350 and not min-maxed game.

[MissedHurry]

Originally posted by The Singularious:

I usually reduce the total number of AI empires and start with a very large map.

1. How many science ships *should* I build? I have been limiting myself to about 3. But if you say 8, hey maybe I'll do 8. :)

2. Do I always need to put outposts on adjacent systems? If I don't, won't it greatly complicate my trade networks? If I "trap" systems between claimed systems, is it a good strategy?

3. How do I know when a system is "worth it" to claim? I usually just look at high-resource, high-trade, and (sometimes) high-habitability as a trifecta, and then work my way down to best available from there.

4. I don't understand the tech trees well and don't understand the randomness of available research options. That's not really a question, but a weakness.

5. I like to play as the type of civilization that avoids conflict, but relishes retaliation. I had one game where I had a half dozen deals with a neighboring civ and things were going amazingly, had I not overextended myself and ground the game to a halt, with me being unable to really DO anything. Are those mutual relationships sustainable in this game (assuming I can manage my own civ reasonably well)?

The only problem with a huge map is toward the end of the game, it can lag so bad with so much population and various species spawning and massive fleet spawning and whatever else makes the game crawl to a stop. You haven't experienced this yet? Lucky you. Best to stay small to avoid the heartbreaking disappointment of having to start a fresh game before your current one gets to the end.

1. I've done/and read about other players having as many as 10 ships on auto-explore. Like Corisai said, you can ignore the anomalies for awhile. I tend to let them explore till my anomaly list is overwhelmingly long, then send them all to research them till the list is basically cleared up, then go back to exploring. That's just my style (maybe a little laziness and inefficiency that way, but it works for me).

2 and 3: It costs more influence the further away from your empire border you try to build an outpost. I generally don't skip all over the place except if I manage to find a wormhole and have the tech to explore it to the other side, I send a science ship to survey and construction ship to build an outpost (that actually doesn't cost more influence). But also, I like to turn up the number of gateways at the beginning of my game, so they're sprinkled generously all over the galaxy, and if I need to skip over some other empire's territory a few star systems - even if it costs me 100-200 influence to make that outpost and spread from there, I know I can pull the two patches of empire together eventually through gateways (or taking over the neighbor blocking the path when my fleets are stronger). What's a good system? Yeah, basically lots of resources, rare resources, and strategic chokepoints.

4. I got a link to this tech tree from the Paradox website: https://bipedalshark.gitlab.io/stellaris-tech-tree/vanilla/
It shows the tech paths, but I'm not sure how the randomness / rolls play into it. I just figure choosing the things that add one research alternative to the list each time a tech is researched is helpful in getting to the techs you want, faster.

5. I can't answer much on this, since I generally play greedy, xenophobic empires of some sort, who aren't really interested in what others think of them - but I do know that giving gifts to earn opinion points helps stave off a potential invasion, so I might be nice for awhile before I turn two-faced, cancel the commercial pact, revoke my non-aggression agreement, and take what I want.

[The Singularious]

Thanks to everyone. Really appreciate it. Gonna start a new game this evening and use some of these tips.