I feel like I am behind...

[Slayrix]

idk if this gives much info but here is a screenshot of my game
https://imgur.com/a/biC9kPo

What resources am I lacking and how do I go about increasing them

Also another thing I should probably note, there are 14 AI, most AI's relative power is Superior/Overwhelming in pretty much all aspects, there are only 3 AI empires that are equivalent to me right now.

Where did I go wrong?

[Synopse]

You have definitely lots of unspend ressources. What are you saving for?
You have 60/200 fleet build but 22k alloys.
You have 251 research but it is almost year 2300. That is way too little. Same with favor.

However it is hard to tell, what you have selected on starting the game (difficulty, race, customization,...).

I would start with spending ressources to make use of them and increase research and favor.

[Slayrix]

Originally posted by Synopse:

You have definitely lots of unspend ressources. What are you saving for?
You have 60/200 fleet build but 22k alloys.
You have 251 research but it is almost year 2300. That is way too little. Same with favor.

However it is hard to tell, what you have selected on starting the game (difficulty, race, customization,...).

I would start with spending ressources to make use of them and increase research and favor.

But what do I spend these resources on, I am building things on planets as much as I can and I can only build like 10 starholds or whatever they are called and it seems best to place those in strategic places. I have started building habitats but I am not entirely sure what those do yet, I just unlocked them and my first one is still under construction. I don't care to build up my fleets until I can build a cruiser and not max out its power, so basically I am waiting for the hyperdrive 2 research I think until I really start building out my fleets.

[Synopse]

If you cannot spend the ressources don't be shy to go temporary into a negative or close to zero rate untill you need more. That will save slots you could use to build research and administrative buildings. But plan ahead when to make adjustments.
Edit: Only build things you need. More of everything is not necessarily better.

You can use your alloy to build a larger fleet. You still have 140 fleet unused. This will help alot to catch up in fleet power and start a war (or defend yourself). If you have a large fleet then make use of it. Take the initiative if you think you can win a war.

Don't worry to fail. Take your time to find out how things work and to find strategies that work for you.

[Ansaraina]

if you got Discord, I can go over some of the basics of running a decent economy that can keep up or outproduce the AI.

Year 2300 research should at around ~1k, shifting pops away from basic resources by getting economic tech that increases production by 20% each. And buildings that increase the base production value.

Faction pleasing to pump out unity and stability with the benefit of reduced crime.

You have a lot of systems, tech that give resources from space are worthwhile.

energy and alloys are dependent on the scale of war and ship types. Typically alloys should be in the hundreds by year 2300, and enough energy to field 2-3 fleets.

Starbases can have buildings that produce food and trade value. its a good way to use alloys when war probably won't happen. having a star base on every planet collects the local system trade value. putting defensive modules helps protect the trade routes up to a certain value and range. this can be somewhere around 10-30% percent of the energy income in your empire.

research orbital rings when you can. Build them around your planets. upgrade it, the building slots should be used for whatever you're specializing the planet on since it improves the base production value.

[R for Reload]

my resources are in the minus for like the first 100 years till I get galactic wonders.
Being in debt puts you in a better position, Both in life and in game.

[Lascannon]

Originally posted by Slayrix:

idk if this gives much info but here is a screenshot of my game
https://imgur.com/a/biC9kPo

What resources am I lacking and how do I go about increasing them

Also another thing I should probably note, there are 14 AI, most AI's relative power is Superior/Overwhelming in pretty much all aspects, there are only 3 AI empires that are equivalent to me right now.

Where did I go wrong?

You should have typed the word 'invincible' in the command box.

The bottom line is the computer cheats heavily. I don't mean by getting a small bonus, I mean you can literally wipe out a computer fleet well over 300k or more and they'll reconstitute it in no time. They have the ability to use the market, which alone isn't a cheat, but since they are given more resources, they can simply purchase whatever fleet they need at any time. Add to that they have no waiting time to build and you've got a cheating opponent.

And if you don't believe so, type invincible, wipe out their fleets and measure how long it takes for them to build back. Last game my empire was probably 3 times larger than my opponent and their fleet strength was ALWAYS overwhelming just a few short years after wiping the floor with them.

The game flat out cheats to make up for horrible AI. And Stellaris isn't the only PD game to do so. Hearts of Iron, EU 4 etc, etc, etc.

So no, it's not you.

[R for Reload]

Originally posted by Lascannon:

Originally posted by Slayrix:

idk if this gives much info but here is a screenshot of my game
https://imgur.com/a/biC9kPo

What resources am I lacking and how do I go about increasing them

Also another thing I should probably note, there are 14 AI, most AI's relative power is Superior/Overwhelming in pretty much all aspects, there are only 3 AI empires that are equivalent to me right now.

Where did I go wrong?

You should have typed the word 'invincible' in the command box.

The bottom line is the computer cheats heavily. I don't mean by getting a small bonus, I mean you can literally wipe out a computer fleet well over 300k or more and they'll reconstitute it in no time. They have the ability to use the market, which alone isn't a cheat, but since they are given more resources, they can simply purchase whatever fleet they need at any time. Add to that they have no waiting time to build and you've got a cheating opponent.

And if you don't believe so, type invincible, wipe out their fleets and measure how long it takes for them to build back. Last game my empire was probably 3 times larger than my opponent and their fleet strength was ALWAYS overwhelming just a few short years after wiping the floor with them.

The game flat out cheats to make up for horrible AI. And Stellaris isn't the only PD game to do so. Hearts of Iron, EU 4 etc, etc, etc.

So no, it's not you.

AI only cheat on difficulties above Ensign

[Xaphnir]

Did you not colonize your guaranteed habitable worlds for some reason? You have a continental world as your homeworld, but not one of your three colonize match your starting planet type. And I'd think you should have more than 4 planets when you control that many systems. Those three planets are also low habitability for your starting species, giving significant penalties for pops on those planets. You should research Terrestrial Sculpting and Ecological Adaptation as soon as they're available, as terraforming those three planets into continental worlds will help quite a bit.

You are correct that you're far behind. Your research is where it should be at 2215, not 2295. And your other resources except for minerals are lacking, as well. Your main problem really is just a lack of planets and poor habitability on the planets you do control. Probably more you could have done as far as buildings and districts on those planets and job management, too, but without seeing those specifics I can't say what.

For comparison, this is what I have in 2273 in a game I started recently. Granted, it is modded, and I do have habitable worlds set to 2x, but so far at this point I'm barely getting anything from the modded content and with 2x habitable worlds I'd still have 2x your planets on a little more than half the systems you have. If you want to see any of my planets to get an idea of how to build, I can show you a screenshot of that.

One thing that could help you a lot would be to find a video that goes over the specifics of what you want to do in the first 30 years of a game. Could be for a specific build, could be in general. It'll give you a general idea of how to get your research going early, which will make you much stronger at every stage of the game later.

Originally posted by Ansaraina:

research orbital rings when you can. Build them around your planets. upgrade it, the building slots should be used for whatever you're specializing the planet on since it improves the base production value.

I doubt OP has much DLC, so there are things we can do they won't be able to.

[Ansaraina]

use late scaling. it removes the chance of a runaway ai while still having empires that can put up a fight by endgame date.
AI will also offer to become subjects of another empire they like them, and are inferior in two catagories = there might be empires with 2 or 3 vassals without fighting a war by mid-game.
add in the possibility of federations forming, and them dragging their vassals in, it could be half the galaxy in a single federation by mid-game.

While yes the ai cheats. players can fight a war much more intelligently. AI struggle to get armies where needed, love sending fleets into a death ball when federated, or all over the place if not.
They will also engage into a starbase while your fleets are in nearby systems.
weaker fleets are a great bait to get the ai to attack it, while having a much bigger fleet in another system ready to jump in.
or dont. have enough fleet power to smash fleets, and redirect somewhere else to smash another fleet. before they can ever group into a system.

attacking star-bases where ships are constructed, attacking planets if they have a few of them. a single stronghold on a planet will keep a fleet in that system bombarding it.
its okay to lose pops, that fleet will stay there for ages. use that time to take their planets an win a economic war.

Ai just cant wage a war like a human can, they don't even use their warp drives. they will overproduce basic resources and adavance resources and dump them into the market. alloys can be brought in masses for .7 energy. during peace time. Sky rockets when big empires go to war. their overproduction is literally a saving grace if you are falling behind.

Ai is terrible is fixing an economic crisis. so attacking its planets and settling important systems with massive armies can be more useful than destroying fleets like a wack a mole game. they might even bombard their own planets instead.

[jeetrix]

you def need to prioritise science/research dev in your game the coming decades, build research spots on your planets , replace less needed infrastructure, your mining income is relatively speaking way to high , also build some science ships that are assisting research on planets that produce research , you can also use that one envoy youre not using to build better relations with one of your neighbors and try to sympathise one or more into research agreements, i c all those borders are closed you have been neglecting diplomatic leverage and united nations of earth do thrive on good diplomatic relations

with those alloys you can build a lot of ships to fill your fleet capacity and upgrade all your stations to max , this fleet will also up your power projection which will grant you more influence, which in turn you can use to pay for agreement upkeep or further claiming of those southern systems. tbh in my own games at this stage of the timeline i usually have double of my fleet capacity

it doesnt matter if you go over the limits for stations or ships, it will cost you more but seeing as you have those massive resevers its a good idea to keep growing the numbers

[Count D'Cinamon]

a couple things to note:

- You are severely under utilizing your star base capacity. my general go-to rule of thumbs, build a star base 1 hyper lane away from each other along your trade routes and put 2 hangar bay on them to protect trade route. you can check and set which hyperlane route the trade goes with the bottom right-ish button.

- build starbase on border with hostile, 2 layer if possible. put gun platforms and all the fancy war buildings, and have at least 1 shipyard id say so you can repair things quickly.

- build starbases that focus solely on anchorage to increase your naval capacity. fortress world is also very good for increase naval cap but thats for later when you have set foundation for everything else.

- you dont colonize enough. building tall (few planet and system till mid-late game) is a thing, but only if you focus on research and unity, which you don't (and that play style is harder for new comer anyway).

- make at least a couple dedicated mining, forge and consumer good producing planets. keep scaling things up and up, never sit idle letting resources rot in storage. excess consumer good will also feed into dedicated research planets.

- more research. even if you arent playing tall research is almost always important to keep up.

- Habitats are used to compensate for the lack of habitable planets. when there's a better alternative (planet sized at least 17 and above) go for planet first.

- not only that, habitat are used mostly to turn those natural +2 or +3 mineral planet to produce more resources. based on where you put them they can have "special" district. for example, if put on mineral planet it unlock mining district. if above research or special resource, they unlock research district.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Lascannon:

The game flat out cheats to make up for horrible AI. And Stellaris isn't the only PD game to do so. Hearts of Iron, EU 4 etc, etc, etc.

"I'm not bad, everybody else is cheating!"

[Elitewrecker PT]

Originally posted by R for Reload:

Originally posted by Lascannon:

You should have typed the word 'invincible' in the command box.

The bottom line is the computer cheats heavily. I don't mean by getting a small bonus, I mean you can literally wipe out a computer fleet well over 300k or more and they'll reconstitute it in no time. They have the ability to use the market, which alone isn't a cheat, but since they are given more resources, they can simply purchase whatever fleet they need at any time. Add to that they have no waiting time to build and you've got a cheating opponent.

And if you don't believe so, type invincible, wipe out their fleets and measure how long it takes for them to build back. Last game my empire was probably 3 times larger than my opponent and their fleet strength was ALWAYS overwhelming just a few short years after wiping the floor with them.

The game flat out cheats to make up for horrible AI. And Stellaris isn't the only PD game to do so. Hearts of Iron, EU 4 etc, etc, etc.

So no, it's not you.

AI only cheat on difficulties above Ensign

Instant build isn’t one of them

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

You could definitely use more monthly alloys and way more research. If you have too many minerals (above 50 a month) that's a sign you could be creating more jobs for alloys or consumer goods / science.

After you colonize your guaranteed worlds and the borders are settled, you want to have an idea of what to do next.

you can:

Play tall and go for habitats and terreforming (Or just get another species with different habitability)

You can go to war.

You can play peacefully and build federations.

Also make sure you get good pop growth on your planets. Pops are life.

[Legiondorf]

Oh man alloys should be at zero min max every station and fleet cap pause if you need too. If you run out once spent spam diplomacy like tomorrow. UNE - alien friends for explout.