So, I think I just lost my first stellaris game. It was overall, pretty peaceful. All of the 3 bigger guys near me, were all traders or philes and the few that werent, were eaten by them. And then this zealot guy, got pissy that I was expanding and making a U around his space. (As I was expanding closer to the militarist isolationist fallen empire, but they were keeping a steady buffer between the two.) And they had buddies on the literal other side of the galaxy. I was playing an elliptical galaxy, and I had sorta just fat guy around the core. So I had a central gut my legs were pudging out.
Holy crap...
Several fleets of 6-7k. And here I was having chronic energy credit problems and could barely afford my fleet of 9k. I was super mineral rich, and ended up just having to do trades for monthly transfers for lump sums and some monthly transfers. But when you're buring -15, and at my worse, -130 EC, getting 5 a month is just a piss in the ocean.
Now the two big peaceful guys and I all alliance up, but man, we dont have the numbers. There was this huge epic battle over Sol. That was awesome. I had sent my fleet to my border, and I hadnt consider they would just make a bee line to my capital so my 9k fleet was just heading away...
And if you give, at least warp cable ships a long way point, they wont change their destinations.
Now, I did have a few Fortress platforms. Only 2 actually, as you cant build very many of them and they have some pretty intensive EC maintenance cost. But they were only 1k of power each, and when facing a total of 13-15k, it just didnt matter. .
SO eventually, my fleet manage to to get back into SOL before they were finished, and started to engage the massive fleet. I figure, that I was totally boned and may as well as watch the fire works.
Then one of my allies, /finally/ comes into the fray with two fleets of 6k. And we manage to to win that huge space battle...
(Which had a super tiny warscore value.)
But yea... My 9k fleet was shot down to 3k, and there no way I can a mass a navy to win this war to a white peace.
Overall, I had lots of fun and will be playing again.
I found it a real fucking bitch to get any influence. Yea, I had my rivals set up, but my three closet neighbors and I were chill, so the distance penalty really hurt me. But eventually, that smoothed out.
A thing that I couldnt figure out what to do, was how to get high level scientists. At the start of the game, it was pretty easy. I had them all up at 5 stars in what seem like quick order. Then they all died. And now I'm lucky to get anyone over 3 stars before they die. There are these neat quest things, but they all require lvl5 to do them.
I nearly bankrupted myself during my second or wave of expansion. For a good long time, I had only 3 planets. Then wham, I hit this critical point, and suddenly there was more planets for me to gobble.
Setting those things up, are /expensive/ which is a good thing. I like that. It makes colonizing really methodical and purposeful.
Colonizing eventually became kinda of a pain when I had uplifted several races and made them be succumb by my mighty humanity. They were in different sectors. I could build the colonizing ships just fine, it was just tedious. I was concern that the AI would try and control them, since I was forcing ship production out of stations I didnt control. You cant even control Observation Posts in other sectors. (Which seems dumb.)
But I needed them for this new batch of conolizing and the other sectors had planets that could sustain them. So More the merrier. I'd be happy if this happen on its own, but it didnt seem like it would happen.
I had a fine time keeping my sector happy. They were just room mates to my empire of five planets really.
I wish they were more active. I know there a big scary review shitting on the game... but I do wish they were more active. I wish they function something like an alien race Allie. Especially if I set one of them to a military sector. I want them to produce ships and then pay for their up keep, but I dont get to control them directly. Or maybe pay influence and you can assume command when you're at war.
It also felt kinda of dumb that I had several sectors with 1000s of EC sitting in the bank, but I still had to go out and trade for them. I wish I could just trade with the sectors. Or by taking a lump sum, you dont have to pay the taxes for x amount of time. Like taking an advance or something.
I like uplifting and having them become a vassal and integration. I really fucking love that new races pop up as space faring after the game start. Though at some point, there isnt any room for them.
Um...
The bonuses for planetary governors, and sector governors are kinda meh. Scientist traits and admiral traits seem much better. I have no idea if generals really matter. With only 10 slots for Leaders, generals seem to be the biggest waste. I dont get why its restricted to ten. Its already limited by influence, and you will be hard press to keep those leaders filled up, as they die.
Oh, I found it really hard to understand which special resources I had, and I dont quite understand if buildings 'use them' up or not. I also wish that if I want to use a special building, and the special resource is in a sector, that I can still use it. Or be sure that the Sector is using it.