 |
| Either this gets you hard or it doesn't |
Maybe it’s fond memories of Master of Orion. Or you love the
needless complexity of all Paradox games. But you’ve found yourself making an
impulse steam purchase and now you’re pot committed. The good news is that the
tutorial is actually quite excellent at teaching the basic nuts and bolts of
the game. I’m going to try and give a mid-game overview of some strategic
considerations. So first play a few hours of the tutorial then come back. If
you need to be talked into this game more than me leering, “Master of Orion
LIVES” and waggling my eyebrows suggestively, then read the following reviews
here and here.
Quick Overview on Resources
Energy: cash-flow.
Minerals: industrial production.
Minerals: industrial production.
So if you build a ship/building/outpost/whatever it will
have an upfront mineral cost. The maintenance is in energy. Unlike Civ, the
mineral cost is subtracted from your bank immediately and building speed fixed.
Your smallest city will build a hydroponic farm at the same rate as your megalopolis.
Influence: unlike energy & minerals, this is pretty
firmly capped at about +5. It is used to purchase leaders (scientists,
governors, etc.) and some specialty buildings There are also some very powerful
empire-wide boosts that are a constant drain on your influence. Whereas buying
an admiral to lead your fleets costs a flat 50 influence, you can also set an edict
to increase all mineral production by 20% for a ongoing 1.5 influence a month. Most
commonly, influence expenses and drains are your frontier outposts as well as
entering an alliance. I find managing influence to be one of the biggest
restraints on how I play.
Special Resources. A few planets will have special resources
that allow very powerful one-off buildings. Here’s what they do:
Alien Pets :
Xeno Zoo building, boosts happiness (happiness above 60% boosts production,
below 40% reduces it. Also planet may rebel)
Betharian Stone : building, boosts energy weapons
Dark Matter: spaceport, boosts armor of ships built
Engos Vapor: Two options: either boost empire-wide happiness by 5% or spaceport module boosting energy damage by 10%
Garanthium: Two options: building reducing planetary build-time by 10% or spaceport module increasing ship HP by 10%
Betharian Stone : building, boosts energy weapons
Dark Matter: spaceport, boosts armor of ships built
Engos Vapor: Two options: either boost empire-wide happiness by 5% or spaceport module boosting energy damage by 10%
Garanthium: Two options: building reducing planetary build-time by 10% or spaceport module increasing ship HP by 10%
Living metal:
spaceport adds hull regen and additional armor
Lythuric Gas: two options: reduce ethics divurgence on
planet or boost shields
Neutronium ore: two spaceport options, huge armor boost or
huge +energy/minerals
Orillium Ore: two options: boost to empire minerals or
explosive weapon damage.
Pitharan Dust: either +10% to food (empire-wide) or boost
ship speed and evasion
Okay I got tired of copying these, there are a lot more than
I had thought. They’re also a lot more powerful than I thought. Go here: http://www.stellariswiki.com/Economy#Strategic_resources
Planets Controlled: You can only directly manage 5 planets
(homeworld + 4 colonies). Not systems, individual planets. In order to expand
your empire beyond that, you will need to set up a sector. Basically the
computer takes over the micromanagement of planetary management, pays you a
(variable) tax rate of energy/minerals and you still control the military
functions (spaceport, army recruitment, etc.) Note that if you tell a sector to
build a ship (military, colony or otherwise), you have to manually go find it
and manage it. It won’t appear on your quick access bar. More on sectors later.
Early Game
The early game is dominated by exploration and cautious
expansion, military & civilian. Your construction ship builds mining and
research outposts, your science ships reveal what’s out there, and your
military will kill the early hostile critters.
Definitely build a second science ship (and probably a
third) and get out there! Finding early anomalies is a great source of
resources and experience (and experienced scientists really help crank out the
research). But fundamentally you are looking for great colonies (size &
habitability foremost) and rich systems with minerals and energy to fuel your
initial expansion.
Then send your construction ship to get out there and mine
it. Initially, your minerals are your limiting resource so prioritize
accordingly. Keep enough energy up so you’re not in debt but that first colony
ship costs 350, so drill baby drill. You can only place mining stations around
systems you control and only colonies and frontier outposts expand your
borders. Don’t be shy about putting down one or two frontier outposts early to
grab some rich systems (any +4/5 mineral system is pretty valuable early).
During your science ship explorations, you’ll run into
barbarians, excuse me, random space-faring species that can use killing. The
benefits are real, as the post-combat debris provide great research benefits.
So once you have enough minerals banked and you got that colony started, start
building up your fleet: a swarm of corvettes is perfectly serviceable. Also,
throwing them into combat where they have an advantage but take some losses is perfectly
acceptable. This isn’t Civ where losing a single military unit early is a
serious setback. It’s just minerals, get out there!
Planetary Expansion
Okay, you’re looking at your home planet and new planets.
Planets consist of tiles and tiles might be blank, blocked or have a base
resource or two. Each tile can support one population and one building. There
are a variety of buildings, most provide resources (food, energy, science,
etc.) and some odder one-offs. Placement only matters for two things
1)
Resource suppression. If you want to build a
mine that provides minerals, it will suppress any other resources on that tile.
So the best fit is to place it on a tile that already has minerals or a blank.
Try to optimize this part (it’s pretty easy). Occasionally there are some tiles
that provide one food and one mineral (or something similar). Here you’ll have
to choose between the different resources.
2)
The initial landing site is HUGELY important.
When you get five population, you can upgrade it to a Planetary Administration
which grants +2 resource to the four adjacent tiles. This is a pretty
significant boost and can really cause growth to skyrocket. You CANNOT change
your initial landing site. Also the adjacency bonus does not apply to any
science tiles; food/mineral/energy only. Try to pick something in the middle
and surrounded by material resources.
Other tips: there’s a Spaceport slot called Orbital Gardens
that provides a bunch of extra food.
At this point, the game play branches. Are you crowded with
neighbors or lots of elbow room? Hostile neighbors or friendly ones in
alliance?
Powering out planets and more on sectors
Right now I find I create sectors two ways. The first sector
creation is when I have 5 mature planets. It takes about this long to research
advanced buildings, unblock a majority of the tiles, and generally manage them
well. Since it’s best to create a sector all at once (fidgeting with a sector
costs 25 influence per system added/subtracted, so try to commit), you’ll
probably make a 4 planet sector. Now, economy allowing, start a fresh wave of
colony ships (you can have your planets in your new sector build colony ships
for you) and go plant a few new planets, ideally close geographically (your
future second sector)
Your build order should roughly go like this: Frontier
Outpost, Hydroponic Gardens, and if you’re mineral rich, Spaceport w/ Orbital
Garden. Since you can only build a building OR clear a tile at any given time,
it’s good to try and clear as many tiles as possible while the population is
small since there’s no point in building without a population to inhabit it
(again, funds pending). Once you get your population to 5, build the Planetary
Administration building ASAP. Now, depending on expansion opportunities, you can
turn this set of semi-finished planets into a sector and being a new wave of
colonization.
Other Random Advice
Do try and replace frontier outposts once you have a sector
established that encompasses it. In a perfect world, in the same system there’s
a planet that can be colonized. Failing that, find a nearby planet or two.
Crappy ones are a-okay. Have your sector build a colony ship and throw it down
there. Now it’s the sector’s responsibility to grow it (though if you are
feeling flush with cash, you can help out and build them a spaceport + orbital
gardens) Once the colony is established you can disassemble the outpost and
regain the influence income.
Especially if I’m fielding a lot of science ships, I have a
LOT of scientists. Once a scientist gets to lv 4 or 5, I rotate them to the
research role and bring in a younger scientist. Because you can instantly swap
around scientists (bit of a hack), if you come across a difficult anomaly, you
can swap in your best researcher (there’s an archeologist trait that’s very
helpful) to go to town. The ideal setup is you have one anomaly specialist and
the rest are researchers (or future researchers for when the current generation
dies).
When you set up a sector you can give a sector a governor.
The sector governor gives a bonus to all planets within the sector. I usually
have either a development governor (granting bonuses to food, growth, or build
cost) or a mature-sector governor (bonuses to science research especially)
Declaring rivalry is a neat mechanic that gains you monthly
influence but it causes parliament to perhaps declare war preemptively. Be
aware.
When you create a sector, that sector only has the resources
that it owns. For the basics, that’s not really an issue but if you built any
specialized building requiring special resources, either ensure that they are
part of the sector or rebuild somewhere else.
I haven’t gone to war too much but don’t just defeat the
enemy fleets and throw your armies into battle. There are always planetary
fortifications that need to be worn down from orbit first. This is just like a
siege in other Paradox games. If necessary, split your fleet to leave behind
some bombardiers and move on with your primary fleet.
Your available research options are randomized after each
research. So if you see something you really want but need something else more,
it will (eventually) come back. Apparently it’s weighted so critical
progression topics come back more frequently but it’s not guaranteed when. So
be sure to separate the ‘nice to have’ from the ‘need to have’
No comments:
Post a Comment