I don't really know what I'm doing?

[Evanz111]

I've colonised 4 planets now, I've sometimes had to build a couple of army fleets to fight off random people in sectors I want to survey, all my resources are at cap and I'm trying to upgrade everything at every available opportunity. What am I supposed to be doing though?

I've never really played any grand strategy games before, which I think may be the problem.

[Dog Of War]

Welcome to MY world! VIR just gets in the way of viewing my map and others say VIR is useless. Try going down to help key on lower right is about all I can suggest.

[AllenCecil]

Originally posted by Evanz111:

I've colonised 4 planets now, I've sometimes had to build a couple of army fleets to fight off random people in sectors I want to survey, all my resources are at cap and I'm trying to upgrade everything at every available opportunity. What am I supposed to be doing though?

I've never really played any grand strategy games before, which I think may be the problem.

It appears you're doing fine. Take a look at the Victory condition you've chosen as your strategic guide, and have fun with your tactics as you've been doing very well. You'll be ok, and may even win the game. :-)

[chirulahr]

Having exactly the same problem...
This game really takes a while to get used to.
I was in the same situation as the OP in my first game, but then got killed by another civ.
Reason being, I think, because I had no idea what I was doing and where some of the buttons/ options were hiding. The tutorial is only partially helpful.

[Evanz111]

Now that I've made a few sectors I'm getting more of a feel for the resource generation. I had a problem with getting influence, but I learned to make rivals and delete my frontier outposts, as well as forming embassies in order to gain access to other people's borders. I feel like my next step is war, but I don't know where to begin.

[Dark Thoughts]

It's a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), far away from grand strategy.
Anyway, usually 4X titles are empire building games.
They all have often a little bit of a different focus, Stellaris tries to focus a bit more on the depth and exploration part of this genre by having a good number of different events. Generally I would suggest trying to play them like a roleplaying game, that's at least the most fun for me.
The different goals can be set up for each of your empires.
Playing as the typical human you could go very neutral but with a tendency to be a good guy trying to form a big alliance, or maybe you're the galaxies menace and try to conquer each and everyone else to put them into the mines to to even purge them.

There is no right or wrong here basically.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by Dark Thoughts:

It's a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), far away from grand strategy.

Except this is grounded IN Grand Strategy with 4X on top of it.

[Dark Thoughts]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Originally posted by Dark Thoughts:

It's a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), far away from grand strategy.

Except this is grounded IN Grand Strategy with 4X on top of it.

It is grounded?
What does that even mean?

And sorry, I wouldn't even call it normal strategy at this point when the AI is literally non existent and there aren't really enough diplomatic ways of handling things except the enforced war goals mechanic.

[Mansen]

I could do the mean thing and tell you to open a dictionary once in a while... but I haven't had my morning snark caffeine yet.

The game was built with a grand strategy game as the foundation, not a 4X. And then 4X elements were added to bring it into a space theme without historical context.

As far as what you want to call anything is none of my concern.

[Evanz111]

Originally posted by Mansen:

I could do the mean thing and tell you to open a dictionary once in a while... but I haven't had my morning snark caffeine yet.

The game was built with a grand strategy game as the foundation, not a 4X. And then 4X elements were added to bring it into a space theme without historical context.

As far as what you want to call anything is none of my concern.

Damn, the sass~

[Dark Thoughts]

Originally posted by Mansen:

I could do the mean thing and tell you to open a dictionary once in a while...

You shouldn't say you could do something but aren't going to just to do it anyway.

Anyway, that's what I did but even then it didn't made any sense in that context.
Something can be grounded like a ground coat.
Or something can be grounded like earthed.
And someone can be well grounded like a preparatory training or for having a good reason.

Maybe you meant founded ...
But what game was that foundation then?
And what are the grand strategy elements in Stellaris that we don't have in any other 4X title?

You're just eating the advertisement and ignoring facts.
You're probably that kind of person that thinks rendered trailers of games are actual game footage too.

Stellaris is currently lacking in literally every aspect in comparison to other 4X titles.
And a game without any strategic elements can be hardly called grand strategy either, if you like that or not isn't MY concern though.

[Evanz111]

Originally posted by Dark Thoughts:

Originally posted by Mansen:

I could do the mean thing and tell you to open a dictionary once in a while...

You shouldn't say you could do something but aren't going to just to do it anyway.

Anyway, that's what I did but even then it didn't made any sense in that context.
Something can be grounded like a ground coat.
Or something can be grounded like earthed.
And someone can be well grounded like a preparatory training or for having a good reason.

Maybe you meant founded ...
But what game was that foundation then?
And what are the grand strategy elements in Stellaris that we don't have in any other 4X title?

You're just eating the advertisement and ignoring facts.
You're probably that kind of person that thinks rendered trailers of games are actual game footage too.

Stellaris is currently lacking in literally every aspect in comparison to other 4X titles.
And a game without any strategic elements can be hardly called grand strategy either, if you like that or not isn't MY concern though.

Boom! This isn't what I expected from this thread, but damn I'm enjoying it.