Tips for a newbie

[Wolfskrieg]

HI, had this for ages but really only just tried it very recently. I watched a video for starter guides and dove right in. Like most Paradox games it is very intensive at first so does anyone have any basic and simple tips for a new player please?

Thx

[EleventhStar]

i'd just dive in for your first game and do what the tutorial bot says. just play until you feel stuck or like you should restart.

that's the best way to organically get a feel for things and you'll end up with some specific questions/things to improve, instead of watching some beginners guide before you even play which will just be information overload at that stage.

[cswiger]

You could start by playing the game until you figure some things out and have more specific questions. Or you could read the beginners' guide from the wiki:

https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Beginner%27s_guide

You could also look for guides on Steam about the recommended species builds and traditions / ascendance perks:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=910342178

Have fun and try role-playing different things.

[Assaultin]

I'd suggest focusing on your economy and exploring anomalies. Become a very diplomatic empire but have the warrior ethic (makes enemy empires less likely to wage war on you).

This game takes a lot of trial and error. Expect your first few empires to flop.

[Wolfskrieg]

Thx guys.
A specific question then, if I may. How may survey ships is a good number. I have played a couple of short runs just to see how it goes and I only had one survey and one construction ship, grouped, going area to area, surveying then building in it. Then moving on. If I have more ships obviously I would survey more of the galaxy faster but would it not be difficult to keep a track of things? I feel I might get confused.

Again thx.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Wolfskrieg:

Thx guys.
A specific question then, if I may. How may survey ships is a good number. I have played a couple of short runs just to see how it goes and I only had one survey and one construction ship, grouped, going area to area, surveying then building in it. Then moving on. If I have more ships obviously I would survey more of the galaxy faster but would it not be difficult to keep a track of things? I feel I might get confused.

Again thx.

Depends on how you want to play. Realistically, if you want to be efficient you want around 10 or so, since anomalies provide a lot of value.

But if you feel overwhelmed by the information that's coming in and just want to play a more relaxed game, you can also stop at 3-4.

[cswiger]

You want more explorers surveying around you as soon as you can afford them-- although, build out new colony ships first if you've got places for them to go as your top priority.

3 - 4 is a good # to start with, and add more once you start doing dig sites or learn how to assist research on planets.

[Wolfskrieg]

Thx guys. I'll build up slowly til I get used to things and maybe stop at 3 or 4 for now.

[Exarch_Alpha]

My suggestion is to decrease AI numbers by 33%.

You need room to breathe and the stardard number of empires are WAY too unforgiving.

[ScreamCon]

All the ethic picks are lame. I only pick them for the bonus. Their all shortsighted if you look hard enough :(
I wish there was something more lifeless, something more like the study of the mind. Something as a base to help diminish all the other ethics
Gestalt ethic. . .

[jacobellinger]

Originally posted by Wolfskrieg:

HI, had this for ages but really only just tried it very recently. I watched a video for starter guides and dove right in. Like most Paradox games it is very intensive at first so does anyone have any basic and simple tips for a new player please?

Thx

shift click can override current task for a ship but keeps the ones you had in it's que so that if for example you had a ship set to auto explore and it finds an anomaly you don't have to babysit it and tell it to research it then wait and then tell it to go auto explore, instead you hold shift and click on the anomaly and then tell it to do that first and it will continue exploring after it's done with that. this is also nice for going around hazards you can set a route for a ship that goes through a system with enemies but does not aggro them but you don't have to baby site it, you just que up the rout and forget about it, you DO have to reset science ships to flee after it goes through that system though because otherwise it will go back to that same system when auto exploring and get killed if you forget about it.

[yuzhonglu]

If in doubt, build a mining district. As long as you have minerals you can build your way out of any economic imbalance.

Run out of minerals, however, and you can't build your way out of it because the mineral district requires minerals to build.

[Multifaced]

Click on everything, study and learn about everything, while learning the game and as you go, the more you uncover the more you realise how things work as it begins to come together

The entire game is basically a balancing act of your economy and military

Early on, focus on exploring and uncovering your boundaries and setting up strong territorial boundaries and fortifying preferably at chosen chokepoints

Protect your strong economical planets

That usually sets you up for a good start,

[AceKing47]

I didn't really watch any youtube videos or read any guides when I started. So the easy road not taken, bc there are tons of them out there. It took me dozens and in many cases hundreds of hours to figure some mechanics out.

The one thing I did right (IMO), since I've been playing one game since then, and I'm still figuring things out as I go is this: pick the beginning stats you want, but the starting territory is very important. I guess I only play on hardest and with max size/number of players, which probably makes a difference. What I did was start over 5-6 times, if I wasn't able to grab enough/well placed galaxies in the beginning. You want to have as few points of contact with neighbors as possible, to be able to defend well. The rest likely depends on the government, etc. you choose.

[Peter34]

You want to get started exploring around you, to find potential friends and potential enemies as quickly as possible.

You also want to get started with science.

Your Science Ships will find Anaomalies, and if you examine those you might get Research Points as rewards. These rewards are proportional to your Research production at home. This means that, crudely, of you have 3 Labs instead of 1 Lab at home, then you will get x3 times as many Research Points from the Anoms.

For this reason, the ideal might be to send a bunch of Science Ships out quickly to explore, but to click "ignore" every time you find an Anom, until you're ready to construct your 2nd, 3rd or even 4th Lab. Once that's built, you send your experienced Scientist-Explorers back to examine all the Anoms, so you can harvest a *lot* of Research Points.

I tend to do it in a more lazy way. I just don't send out Science Ships to explore at all, until I have my 2nd or preferably my 3rd Lab, and then I send out *lots* of them, at least 8 and sometimes as many as 10, plus I have one more on Assist Research on my home/capital planet. That method is easier on the brain, but ultimately the first one is preferable if you can be arsed.

[Regalia]

as a relative newbie (or at least what feels like it after not playing since 2017 if my achievements aren't lying to me), my piece of advice is to turn down the number of hyperlane connections on the setup screen when you start a new game. You're MUCH more likely to get a defensible cluster with a lower number. I find 0.75x works well, but play around with it.

Another thing is reduce the number of AI empires, and especially "advanced" AI empires. Although empire placement is random at best, this will (on average) give you more room to expand in. Again, my recommendation is to reduce it by about 1/5 to 1/4, but play with it and see what works for you.

Lithoids are an easy species to play as, with a whopping +50 to planet habitability and +40 to leader lifespan, just for existing! And they have one fewer resource to juggle, not needing food. That's a lot of room for error while you're getting your feet under you.

Specialize your planets! When looking to colonize a planet, look at how many districts it has, and of what type, then consider what you need. Remember that you need housing districts to open up building slots, so even a small resource oriented colony will need a few of those for things like cloning vats, holo centers, autochtons, etc.

Hand in hand with the above, is to set the colony designation manually. The AI sucks at determining what you're doing with the planet, and the designation gives some nice bonuses to help with the planet's focus, so pay attention!

A special bonus: The colony level automation (found next to the planet designation button) isn't too bad, as long as you know how it works. It only builds for more housing, amenities, or jobs when there are none available, for instance, and it's pretty good at making sure there's a health clinic or robot assembly built first thing. It's EXCELLENT at managing individual pops and where they're working, but not so good at managing crime. It also tends to spam "clear the blocker" if it has nothing else to do. If you right click on the button you can edit what it's allowed to do (be sure to read the tooltips!), I recommend turning off the blockers, crime, and upgrading buildings.

Now, it requires that you put resources into a general pool at the top of the sectors management tab (don't use the automation on that tab, it's a remnant of an older, not nearly as good system), and you can't get resources back OUT once they're in... but it doesn't care what they are. Dump 10k credits in, and you have 10k points that can be used as credits, minerals, gasses, motes, crystals, alloys, whatever, allowing you to use a cheap resource instead of rarer ones on a 1-for-1 basis. Only by the auto-build, admittedly, but it's not that bad at auto-building.