Too many events?

[Pugzilla]

I'm new to Stellaris in that I only have 50 hours playing. But every game I play I always end up swamped by events even at normal speed. Is this normal and do others also experience this?

I feel like I'm getting a new science every few minutes, my leaders won't stop asking me to set traits and relics and astral things keep spamming me. I find when I'm trying to have a war I have to pause the game every minute just to sort out the list of things going on.

[Cerodil]

Yep, at it's heart, as far as game play is concerned, Stellaris in a management game with strategy elements. Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming especially at the start of a game but you can always pause when needed.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Pugzilla:

I'm new to Stellaris in that I only have 50 hours playing. But every game I play I always end up swamped by events even at normal speed. Is this normal and do others also experience this?

I feel like I'm getting a new science every few minutes, my leaders won't stop asking me to set traits and relics and astral things keep spamming me. I find when I'm trying to have a war I have to pause the game every minute just to sort out the list of things going on.

Yeah there are ways to cope with it.

Under the old system, your first generation of captains could simply survey and not resolve anomalies. Then closing out the anomalies is like a 2nd generation task around the time that borders are stabilized and you have enough colonies to keep some guys busy assisting research while others hit the anomalies. I'm pretty sure the AI can't find the anomalies once you have discovered them - I don't recall ever seeing them close out an anomaly in their territory that I had discovered before they claimed it. So that's another late wave of anomalies to resolve when you go to war. Since the anomaly-related research bonuses are tied to your own production, the later you discover them the more you get for them also, fwiw.

I also never do more than one archaeology site at a time. It's another thing that there's no reason to rush and they just suck when they sorta all come round at once.

Also yeah the normal tech pace is too fast. I found myself skipping whole generations of tech because I knew the next one would be blinking by in a moment. I recommend slowing the tech tree and the population growth rate in tandem till you find a pace that suits you. I use 5x tech progress myself, then push the mid game and end game back.

[dcain3456]

That's why I play it on slow. and hit pause for each event.

[krunjar]

You can configure it to auto pause when you need to read. But yeah It's definitely a bit annoying because it can interrupt your train of thought. I don't like the approach of leaving anomalies for the next generation because the vast majority of space deposits come from anomalies. And you need to get to exploiting those early. Since at the very start of the game they will make up the majority of your income.

I do play cheat games every now and again. And with anomaly discovery jacked right up systems have SO many more resources to exploit that it isn't even funny. Don't underestimate the power of taking discovery chance early ;)

[Pugzilla]

Thanks for the advice. I'm yet to play the game on anything but default settings so I might try slow things down in the options for my next game. I also may simply go into slow mode when I'm at war. Like you said I can just pause things and I do a lot. Its just a little much when you're trying to move fleets and constantly get spammed.

One thing I did try today to unload some stuff was auto traits and also auto planetary management. In the early game I tried auto planets and was not a fan, but now I have so much stuff to manage going auto actually help automatically fill in blanks simply because you have so much stuff you generally don't seem to have any cracks form in your economy.

Thanks for all the perspective and help!

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Pugzilla:

One thing I did try today to unload some stuff was auto traits and also auto planetary management. In the early game I tried auto planets and was not a fan, but now I have so much stuff to manage going auto actually help automatically fill in blanks simply because you have so much stuff you generally don't seem to have any cracks form in your economy.

You'll hear a lot of people diss using automation. But, at the worst it just puts you equal to the AI. I haven't seen any evidence that production automation is actually *worse* than the AI. So, if it works for you, then by all means have at it.

That said, though, one of the dirty secrets of this game is you can relax a lot more than it wants you to and like... most of it will run itself. If your people get so mad you get the revolt pending situation, fix it. But like... if a world's got the buildings it needs and a little extra room for new pops to find jobs, you can neglect it without even using automation for a really long time and nothing super bad happens to it. You can also scroll through the planets on your outliner sometimes and look for some of the warning messages that are no good - lacking housing, unemployed pops - and then jump in and deal with it.

So, for sure use the planetary automation. But if it frustrates you or creates more problems than it solves, at least consider just relaxing your grip on the steering wheel and letting your planets kinda drive themselves. This is a real-time strategy game. It's built to tolerate really sloppy play and a lot of its "hard core" fans can't really admit that.

[Confector426]

You can also automate certain things such as leader trait picks, and research so you don't need to personally manage that if you don't want to (be advised that smart ai is not smart so be prepared for some goofy selections if you go that route) but for ease of settling in and 'learning' the gamescape, it can help.

Then as you get more experience and more confidence you can take some of those training wheel/automations off and be more sure of which things need attention and thought and which things are more just fluff text with a reward/action attached.

[Kypamop]

Originally posted by Pugzilla:

Thanks for the advice. I'm yet to play the game on anything but default settings so I might try slow things down in the options for my next game. I also may simply go into slow mode when I'm at war. Like you said I can just pause things and I do a lot. Its just a little much when you're trying to move fleets and constantly get spammed.

One thing I did try today to unload some stuff was auto traits and also auto planetary management. In the early game I tried auto planets and was not a fan, but now I have so much stuff to manage going auto actually help automatically fill in blanks simply because you have so much stuff you generally don't seem to have any cracks form in your economy.

Thanks for all the perspective and help!

Do not adjust tech speed etc until u learn to play on normal settings.
Just learn using game speed slider and pause on space button.
Pausing the game to read all the stuff you want to read is a game mechanic that must be used.

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Kypamop:

Do not adjust tech speed etc until u learn to play on normal settings.
Just learn using game speed slider and pause on space button.
Pausing the game to read all the stuff you want to read is a game mechanic that must be used.

Counterpoint: If you don't enjoy playing the game at the default speed, change the speed to see if you enjoy it more.

Default speed is meant to race through a game in a single day. If that's what you want to do, then by all means play at that pace. If you're looking for a slower more contemplative experience, absolutely slow the game down. The slower you play the more you can examine the game mechanics in close detail.

[tathen]

Originally posted by Pugzilla:

I have to pause the game every minute just to sort out the list of things going on.

Turn Event auto pause on in the Settings-Messages, you can make most things Auto pause the game, play on fastest speed, keep a finger on the spacebar, toggle between Government and Ship on the Outliner to keep an eye on whats going on