Paradox Development Studio has a reputation for crafting complex games. In their titles, players often find new content to engage with, experience, and solve even after putting in at least 50 hours of playtime. Stellaris is another such game from Paradox: a magnificent space opera that mingles with empire-building simulation systems to craft something truly unique. Stellaris has received rave reviews for its exploration gameplay mechanics, as well as the player's need for strategic intervention at every turn.
While this makes the game an absolute thrill to play through, it also ensures that players have to take their time to understand the gameplay. In fact, it can be a daunting situation for beginners to find themselves in. Fortunately, there are a few things that beginners can keep in mind before they delve deep and get lost in Stellaris' space exploration.
Updated February 27, 2022 by Russ Boswell: Stellaris is one of the most engaging, detailed, and entertaining Space Simulators out there. Players can craft their own fleet to move through the stars and colonize a wide array of planets, all while trying to keep the peace with neighboring allies and enemies. It's a ton of fun, but can be downright overwhelming for beginners, especially those out there that aren't familiar with how the genre works. Thankfully, there are a lot of great tips and tricks from veteran players floating around the web. To better help newbies that are just starting their spacefaring adventure, the following guide has been updated to include even more tips for Stellaris.
10 Colonize As Much As Possible
A lot of players mistake energy as a resource that has to be hoarded in the game. In fact, it's best to ensure that the energy is balanced throughout their playtime. Stellaris makes it difficult for players to manage both minerals and energy, and might take the player a long time to find the correct balance. Once this balance is achieved, players will have the option to pursue the mission for their first colony.
However, in that time, the in-game opponents will have colonized much more and may attack the fledgling base of the player next. To avoid this, it's recommended that players start developing colonies as early as possible — even if they are in an energy deficit.
9 Prepare To Colonize Before Actually Colonizing
Colonizing planets is important and using this simple trick, players can actually set themselves up for success far before their colony actually touches down on a given planet. One of the main aspects of colonizing is that players will need to construct a "mining district" to help them in extracting materials from a given planet.
If players spend the extra time and resources constructing machines and mining equipment to set up a district beforehand, it will give them a pre-established setup that will make colonization much easier when the time comes to "get boots on the ground."
8 Maintaining The Fleet
Players have to ensure that even if they don't go to war at the first instance, they should maintain a facade of strength. Devote a substantial amount of resources into building a strong fleet. This may lead to slower development in other areas of the game, but it will deter other empires from trying to annex the player's new base.
The economy must be crafted in such a manner that despite other crises, the player can have a strong defense in the terms of an efficient fleet. This fleet can also help destroy the errant raiders in space who will try to block the player's plans to expand further.
7 Variety In Warships
When the players are designing their warships, it's quite easy to get carried away and specialize most of the fleet with railguns or lasers only. However, doing this will only lead to failure later on, as players may have to deal with enemies who could have the perfect warships to counteract such a strategy.
The best steps for the player would be to expand the military research and development to different fronts and to have the latest tech for all the different types of weapons. Good shield and armor penetration is a must in any capable warship. A weapon with a high DPS would also work quite well.
6 Treat Ship Warfare Like Pokemon
It's a strange analogy, but Ship Warfare in Stellaris works a lot like any other "type-advantage game," similar to the age-old Rock, Paper, Scissors. Ships come equipped with different stats in hulls, armors, and shields. These numbers differ from ship-to-ship and specific weapons will do additional damage to these ship parts. For example, missiles will pierce through hulls, while lasers can do additional damage to armor. Lastly, kinetic-type weapons will trash any shields.
Learning what weapons hurt what ship types can help players better prepare for large-scale battles.
5 Upgrade Buildings Carefully But Consistently
Upgrading buildings is one of the most useful mechanics in Stellaris, but it's a bit of a dual-edged sword. Upgrading buildings will help provide additional resources and jobs for a player's growing population but it's incredibly easy to mess up a supply chain or operation by consuming too many resources at one time.
Although additional jobs and growth are an essential part of the Stellaris experience, players will often upgrade their buildings whenever possible, or too often. The end result has them using too many resources from another aspect of their operations, which can cause everything to come to a screeching halt. It's important for players to keep a close eye on their resource production levels, and to understand that upgrading one area will mean that additional resources will need to come from another.
4 Build Science Ships
In the base game, having two Science ships was more than enough to carry out thorough research and development for the player's empire. However, the new DLCs have made it almost impossible to progress properly without the addition of a third Science ship.
This ship could focus more on Archaeology. With the addition of Ancient Relics, these archaeological ships can initiate digs at relevant sites. Digs may take time, but they can be quite rewarding. Finding certain artifacts can grant a substantial passive boosts, which will be a welcome addition at any stage of the game.
3 Galactic Market
The game's economic system can be quite unforgiving to new players. Most find themselves running on deficits; however, this doesn't mean that the player is doing anything wrong. In fact, as the population and economy grow, it will reach a state where the growth starts to lag.
Sometimes, jobs that consume more initially will be more active than the more rewarding ones. This is part and parcel of the experience of playing Stellaris. Players can approach the Galactic Market to buy resources that they are lacking. Moreover, players can use the Galactic Market to keep themselves at an energy surplus, if they invest wisely.
2 Dealing With Fallen Empires
Fallen Empires are not to be trifled with in Stellaris. These ancient civilizations have been around for quite a while and are no longer interested in expanding their reach or in conquest. Fallen empires are very powerful though, and players will need to be fairly advanced if they wish to take on these ancient fleets.
Moreover, if players have offended a fallen empire, they should try to placate them as much as possible. This is especially important if there's not much distance between the player's empire and the fallen empire that has been offended. They can ignore the fallen empire if they are far away, and are flanked by neutral civilizations.
1 Planet Resources
As players start expanding their empires, they might make the mistake of trying to manage the resources of every planet individually. This approach could spell disaster, as this level of micro-management can be quite taxing. Instead, players should manage their larger pool of resources, as the resources from these individual planets will be exchanged with a larger pool.
Once the player has multiple planets at their disposal, they should start specializing them for specific tasks, based on the requirements. This could lead to planet bonuses such as a tech world bonus, or building bonuses that work in cohesion with specialized planets.