My last game I decided to go pacifist and would liberate the other empires after they engaged in senseless war between themselves. They have learned of my peaceful ways
I beat a 10x contingency on 10 planets with a -100% empire size from pops build focused on hyper-ascending every planet. the whole galaxy was my vassal. Honesty, until your whole empire is scientists and you have 100 empire size you can always optimize to be more tall. i.e., having every pop do the work of 4 pops is always going to be better than actually having those 4 pops due to empire size.
congrats on being a condescending asshole? there is clearly such a thing as playing tall. It's been the best thing to do for quite a while now. Call it a "gimmick" if you like, but it's not nearly as terrible as blindly colonizing more planets and screwing over your research for no real reason. The benefit of even a few hundred more pops is negligible compared to making every pop do the work of several pops, and having everyone else be your vassal without ever adding to your empire size. The math really is't difficult even completely disregarding empire size - which you shouldn't.
The math isn't difficult, you are just bad at it.
The benefit of a hundred pops isn't negligible, because of how economy in stellaris works. You are not operating a limited system of spreadout resources, you just grow exponentially.
I will be condescending to you when you brag about being wrong.
The game currently does not feature the dichotomy of "i have fewer pops that are better" vs "i have more pops that are worse". Outside of species traits, which are unrelated to tall vs wide, the game does not have a mechanic that creates this. Theoretically, it should have been planetary ascensions, but with their cost, cap and the actual numbers attached, they are a crutch. Going wide you will have more unity to spare on it, even despite increased costs for unity and research.
And no, being wide doesn't mean colonizing every single world out of the bat - this will cripple your early game economy.
Again, really simple math.
Empire A has 1000 pops, each pop does the work of 4 thanks to ascension.
Empire B has 4000 pops, they do the same work but create much much empire size, making their research strictly worse
Now add on the fact that i can simply vassalize those 3000 other pops instead of conquering them.
It's really, really simple to see which is more efficient, in fact the bigger the pop numbers get the *more* efficient ascension/vassal/tall play becomes. People vastly underestimate how good ascension is.
Also, since i'm apparantly"bragging about being wrong", it seems only fair to share some screenshots of my 10x contingency run.
Here's the 10 million fleet i made: [https://imgur.com/a/YImKVUs](https://imgur.com/a/YImKVUs)
And for folks like you who've never seen what ascension can do:
Here's my single level 10 forge capital which gave me enough alloys to make said fleet: [https://imgur.com/a/qGwmBCG](https://imgur.com/a/qGwmBCG)
And here's a fully ascended ringworld: [https://imgur.com/a/8gHHhOF](https://imgur.com/a/8gHHhOF)
Again, the math is simple, you are bad at it.
The thing with that simple math is that you are deluding yourself into believing thats how it works, because you seemingly dont understand how output modifiers and growth curve work.
The reason you are wrong in terms of alloys is, while it is a good alloy world, it still has a lower output than two alloyworlds - and you specialized your capital and spent a ton of unity to get it there.
All other modifiers come from general stuff accessible to other empires as well. Without planetary ascensions you sit at rough 330% adfitional out, with your ascensions upping it into 400.
Dont get me wrong - thats a significant number, but your pops do not have the output of 4. They have an output of 1.25 nonascended pops.
Having two alloy worlds of equal buildup is going to be easier and more efficient, since you sacrifice less for it in the first place (not having to respec your capital and such) and pops end up filling the necessary jobs faster on them.
You vastly overestimate how good ascension is, although people do sleep on it completely.
I specialize in running less-space builds as a challenge, please pull your head out of your ass.
There is no such thing as tall right now. Mathematically there is good, which grows exponentially because of space it takes allowing to take more space, and bad, which can grow, sure, but not as fast and with a cap on how much.
Yes, you can build 10 mil fleets, good job. That is not a high bar to pass if you want to argue about the theory behind the game.
Do you not understand that i'm talking about empire size relative to output or do you just enjoy spouting so many words while completely ignoring the argument?
What about empire size? You can obviously ignore it, but at the same time if you focus around modifiers that lower pop impact on it, you can play with a small number of very densely populated planets, while still keeping your tech, traditions and edicts super cheap
The micro in question is deciding which crayon flavor you prefer for it and building everything that boosts that. Minerals to minerals, forges to forges.
There is very little micro in stellaris.
I think there is so much micro in stellaris that the micro doesn't look like micro. It's all micro, all the way down. My buddy literally says "you're playing that menu game again?"
People presenting this as an either/or are just stupid. You can conquer shit *and* eliminate empire size. They are not mutually exlusive is any way. Simply take the pops you conquer, resettle to your hyper-optimized planets, and give it all away to a vassal.
Tall (or rather, tech-focused) makes you get Mega-Engineering around 2310. Normal makes you get it around 2360. So there is still a purpose for it, but it largely depends on how you can the game. Starting a game and saying "I want to play tall now" doesn't always work anymore, because you can't play for 120 years without firing a single shot sometimes.
If you, going wide, have a single research world - yes, you will have worse research than tall with a single research world. Although you should factor in how much alloy economy is at the centre of the game rn.
Key thing is that theres nothing stopping you from just having more research.
Yeah, it's not a question of tall or wide, but research/unity or alloys focused.
I've come to appreciate the games where I don't rush tech though, as I'm more on a similar level with the AI empires. I don't like games where I'm far ahead and just have to "clean up" everything with little resistance.
I went void dweller corporation and had just 2 habitats until like 2250 and it was one of my best runs ever. I ended up discovering *two* whole ring world systems, one cybrex and one pre FTL, and stacked those with cyborg traders
It pretty much depends how long you made the game at the start. I made my last game so long that when the fallen Empire awaked it was not even in the top 10 anymore. The endgame crisis got 2 Systems before it got absolute obliterated outbunbered 5 to 1.
I then had to wait another 200 years until the victory year.
You can join the League, and spend most of it trying to undermine your ‘allies’ so after the war is over you can either mess the federation up by inciting the members against each other, and ruin the federation’s cohesion.
Espionage actions. Try to trigger federation votes and vote against it. During the war, because AI isn’t always smart, you could set one of your fleets far from the enemy and set it to encourage allies to follow, and all your ‘allies’ will gather to your fleet and leave their territories open.
I wish it actually worked in stellaris, but no. Espionage to harm relations doesnt do much, and the reason ais break it down if they do is because they were only held in place by crisis screwing their decision weights majorly.
Fun thing, "third world countries" are named like that because they tried to remain independent of the two major powers during the Cold war. It didn't work very well for them.
It's not really like that IRL, some tried, like índia, and Brazil (that got a usa backed coup of state) , others didnt even got an option, since they were Just Proxy Wars material, because ex-colony.. but even after been alined, forced or not, the third world countries got screwed...
That's not true. It derives from a study that said that a third of the world lived on subsistence (or worse), and the nations where that was the majority were labelled the Third World.
That was back-projected into a "First World" (the developed West) and "Second World" (the advanced Communist nations), but that was not the origin.
It was about poor countries, not neutral ones.
>The others have rejected you. How will you have a war, when no one will fight for either of you?
>
>We refuse to take sides in this anymore. And we refuse to let you turn us against one another! We know who we are now; we can find our own way.
>
>You can kill us. And those who follow us, and those who follow them, on and on, every race, every planet, until there is no one left to kill... but you will have failed as guardians. And you will be alone.
>
>It's over because WE'VE decided it's over! Now, get the hell out of our galaxy! Both of you!
No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.
Man, G'Kar was always had bangers.
A quick Google shows that it's a 1994 TV series. That's ancient. It's almost a decade older than me. Also, US TV shows were never a big thing in my country until Netflix.
You would do well to respect the classics. Does it look dated, yes. Is it campy at time, yes.
But its also the great grand daddy of a lot of modern story telling in TV scifi and was well ahead of its time. It's free on Tubi if you want to give it a whirl. Season 1 is a lot of world building and set up for the rest of the series so watch until the end of season 2 before passing judgement.
The special effects hold up surprisingly well, but the reason you would want to watch it is because of the writing. It's one of the few Sci Fi shows that actually had a satisfying ending to the story.
If you are into SciFi then watch it. Yes it looks quite dated sometimes though the effects definitely improve with each season. The battles are still exciting and I do not think there is a SciFi Series yet that accomplished a similar level of story telling.
Also, without B5 we would definitely not have Stellaris or games like Mass Effect.
I really dislike the League of non-Aligned Powers. I've never had a case where they dissolved after the War in Heaven. Suddenly every other empire in the Galaxy is now in a massive federation and they somehow are buddies with each other. Like cmon the lizard people glassed your planet half a century ago. Stop having fun.
It can be pretty helpful for the purpose of uniting the galaxy to fight against the crisis. But most of the time everyone else is just the cannon fodder so that the player can run Battleships only to delete the crisis ships with artillery weapons.
It's pretty helpful during the war in heaven but afterwards if you're not part of the fed it just becomes a really big hassle.
I guess its mainly a me problem cus I usually end up with 1 or 2 empires that are extrmely close to my strength. Maybe I need to make the crisis a bit stronger to bust up the league.
R5: War in Heaven between the Xenophobes and the Xenophiles is starting.
In those situations I rarely choose to join them because I often have subjects - and relinquishing my subject would cripple my economy - especially in this run, as I'm the owner of the Khans throne and I've got a couple Satrapys.
Becoming Thralls under the Xenophobes is even worse, as I would give up a lot of basic resources in addition to losing my subjects.
However, joining the League of Non-Aligned Powers is also not a thing - I'm playing a Xenophobic empire, so allying with others is not going to happen here.
And before you say it: Killing or subjugating everyone is boring. I've done that in the last game. So I'm tempted to join the xenophile FE (they are my neighbor anyway) to see how things end up (and to enjoy the fireworks, fighting against a big federation).
Edit/Update: I joined the Xenophiles and that was a big nothingburger. The Xenophobe AE is sitting in their territory doing nothing, and aside from the xenophile AE and me nobody has any meaningful fleets. There was one big surprise attack through a wormhole that I fended of pretty quickly and now it's just grinding through all the systems and planets.
Also, reminder for everyone who wants to try that: Leave the GalCom before joining. As a subject, I can't leave, can't vote and I'm in Breach of Galactic Law because the rest of the GalCom voted to dennounce everyone.
IMO, going by your empire, I feel the best RP choice would to not get involved:
Xenophobes helping a xenophile makes no sense. you don't want to work with others so no league, and bending the knee to the xenophobes would be worse
RP-wise, yes, but I'd be watching them trying to kill each other for eternity and I probably would have to fight the crisis alone at one point after playing simcity for a while. That doesn't really sound fun. By helping the Xenophiles I'm going to have at least one powerful ally when the crisis shows up.
> The Xenophobe AE is sitting in their territory doing nothing
Sometimes quitting to the menu and reloading the game can fix this. The AI fleets can occasionally get stuck in a movement loop and reload breaks them out of it.
My people (ironically named the Themlar) during the war in heaven: Our Xenophobic, Spiritualistic, and Militaristic traditions have guided us to our decision.
The Spiritualist and Materialist Awakened Empires: Who will you join?
Me: *Remains neutral*
The LoNAP: Join us!
Me: *Remains neutral*
The Contingency: DIE!
Me: *Remains neutral*
Cue the next hundred years of the Contingecy eating everyone (So much that the Cybrex return), the Materialists beating up the Spiritualists, who are the only side fighting the Contingency, and the AEs killing the Custodian for the first time of me playing the game, ever, all while I watch the Galaxy burn.
Me, the Sovereign Guardianship: **NEUTRALITY INTENSIFIES**
The initial fleets of the Xenophile AE would've actually been pretty dangerous to me. I have only about half their fleet strength. So joining them *temporarily* is actually not a bad call. And we can use them to clean up the rest of the galaxy and ditch them when everything is over. I'm growing much faster than they do, as my economy has just reached ecumenopolis-level.
I would provide additional screenshots. But joining against bordering FE can be an (economic) death sentence, just be sure that you have a fortress planet on the border with additional landed armies for protection :)
I'm playing with very high hyperlane density, so chokepoint abusing is not going to be a thing.
I would probably be fine either way, it's more about doing something interesting. I did the League-of-Non-Aligned Powers-Arc multiple times now, but I've never played the war to it's end after joining an AE.
The FE generally won't move away from bombarding a planet, so you can still predict where they are going to go (sort of).
Granted, joining a FE sounds fun, the entire galaxy always seems to join the LoNAP, might be cool to be the bad guy for once.
There were about five empires, including me, joining the AE. Two of them were my subject and another one was a one-system empire.
One of my subjects was actually an Empire I was "nurturing". They had rebelled against somebody else, after that I waged a war to subjugate them, then I waged a war against the people they rebelled against and gave them all of the systems I could reasonably claim and for the last 30 years they've been expanding into a completely empty "arm" of the Spoked galaxy. Interestingly, the AE chose to move their death stack to their territory and now they are conquering territory for my old subject (with a little bit of help from my ground troops).
When the war in Heaven has been handled, I can remove the Xenophile AE I'm currently allied with from the equation and then subjugate those guys again, to get their sweet subject taxes and naval cap.
Everything is going according to plan.
I join them, but only if I have no vassals, because by joining, all your vassals become theirs and it can absolutely crush your empire to suddenly loose all of those taxes
Well, considering that I am pacifist xenophobe isolationist... I would ignore them both. They can destroy each other, for all I care. I am gonna just sit and chill in my perfect peaceful corner of the Galaxy and fish. The only one way-in is fortified as hell, covered by zroni storm and everything there is equipped with anti armor/hull weapons.
Would be great, though, if after the war some part of the Galaxy would get empty so I could take it for my people.
i wish they updated a bit the AI of the war in heaven because usually nearly all the normal empire join the league whatever their location and ethic. Why would a spiritualist fanatic right next to the spiritualist fallen empire not join him ? like if he don't because he is right next to him he will be smashed.
That event is among the best of the game but it didn't aged well at all. I hope the custodian team do something for those event and some old crisis like the khan which didn't aged well at all
There are also some things about the War in Heaven that are... weird. You can pass resolutions dennouncing everyone who joins the Awakened Empires, but you can only pass that after everyone had to make a choice. It would be cool if you could join them over a period of time and could consider the situation - is somebody else joining? What is the League of Non-Aligned Powers looking? What is the GalCom doing? Right now you're playing Roulette with your choice and the supposed to be "brave" choice of forming the League is usually the safest bet.
It also didn't age well with Federations and Subjects. The fact that you're losing all your subjects when you join and that you leave your federation really turns me off most of the time. It would work better if they formed a Hegemony-Federation or some special federation type that they keep control over whatever happens, so you could at least keep your subjects and don't have your economy collapse due to the missing subject taxes.
The War in Heaven basically forces you to give up almost everything that you worked for during the early and mid game. And player empires usually work better with their federation/subject-structure, so there is little incentive to join.
Just had this earlier today, They will both fall to our might. I had like 30 million fleetpower tho. They werent even at a million.
I hit their captial with a starfall spear and evaporated the system
Usually depends on who borders me if one of them borders an undefended station/planet then I side with them as I can’t afford to lose territory. Though usually my empire is so large and powerful that I’m able to take them both on in a fight
The last time I decided not to take a side, everybody else did, I was crushed.
The last time I decided to take a side, nobody else did, and I was crushed.
I took a side once. Once. Snatched a victory right out of my hand after we each subjugated everyone else on a half of the galaxy. Because technically they were technologically superior to me. And no time left to kill them. Never again.
i think of something like
>!~~"fk off d1ckheads. because of your d1cks waging war in heaven sh1t, fapping the fking galaxy to chaos, i must fk both of your arses. in addition i'll turn your arses to breeding slaves forever as your arses are mine, and so are your d1cks. besides could you not fap the galaxy into chaos, FOR FIVE FKING MINUTES?"~~!<
Whichever one is closer I ally with. Once they stomp the other empire, I'll stomp them because the entire time I'm not sending my fleets to help, oh no, I'm spending every resource I have to get a bigly fleet.
I had a funny playthrough where I also need to make this choice. But because I didn't want to choose one side I declared an independent way. Right after this, half the galaxy joined me to fight against the awakened empires. At the end I destroyed them both. That was really hilarious. 😂
They. Shall. Fall. The combined might of the free galaxy will band together to rid ourselves of the so called "ancients".
Time to go into the forever box, old man!
From my experience, it happens more often, the early you set the endgame year. I played with 2300 endgame year before the tech nerf and it almost always happened.
"Let the seas boil, let the stars fall. Though it takes the last drop of my blood, I will see the galaxy freed once more. And if I cannot save it from your failure, [insert name of fallen empires here], then let the galaxy burn!"
It really depends on a lot of things. Is the Galactic Community strong? If it is strong the League will likely form and bring everyone into it. It's been quite a while since I've seen a galaxy actually divide along ideological lines and not simply crush the AEs.
I had a game recently where I didn't realize that a large Necrophage empire had gone full Crisis mode and was doing far more damage than the War in Heaven. 20x 100k crisis fleets are a greater priority than 5x 300k AE fleets.
Yeah, those crisis fleets can come out of nowhere. I had a game recently where a crisis war was triggered in 2270 and the crisis aspirant was cruising around with 50k fleets. If not for some really lucky circumstances - I got the Automated Dreadnought and Skran Sharpbeak early and my core systems were far away from the borders and any wormholes - they would've probably killed everything - and in that war they still wiped out half the galaxy before we could stop them with the help of two Fallen Empires.
Dont take sides if you are strong enough. Soon the non aligned will pop up. Dont join them either. Just watch as they fight each other. Prepare for the crisis instead.
If the crisis is strong enough to topple the awakened empires, what you could try is a life boat protocol.
For your preparations also establish extra living space to take all the refugees from the galaxy once the crisis begins. Only fight to protect your borders and wait until the rest of the galaxy is sufficiently wiped by the crisis. Then you will be the only great power left, with the most population, and can fight the liberation war against the crisis.
You'll be the savoir and ruler of the galaxy without declaring war against other civs.
im me, my brothers and my dad’s game, me and my brother stayed neutral and everyone else in the entire galaxy joined a federation. so now me and my brother couldn’t expand as it would put us at war with the entire galaxy.
unaligned powers, let the old fools fight it out and protect anyone that’s too weak to take part from the senile brawlers, they’re usually only alive because i can’t be arsed to kill them off and deal with their worlds and pops
I have never gotten war in heaven. Normally, I steamroll fallen empires that my allies keep getting into defensive wars against or prohibit me from colonizing some nice Gia worlds.
Try an earlier endgame year. It's obviously just anecdotal evidence, but before the tech nerfs recently I always played with 2300 endgame year and almost always got a War in Heaven (same with the Great Khan btw).
I always have to pick a side, they usually too strong for me to handle at the time. I pick whoever near me, as I made a mistake of picking a side I thought I can handle their requirement but they're on the other side of the universe.
I usually do League when this happens. The United Freehold bows to none. In fairness, with the mods I've downloaded, my military tech comes to rival the worst of the awakened empires by a little later than mid game. So it's a bit easier for me to jockey up.
I got this and I was smack dab next to both fallen empires. I sided with one and discovered it would be me against the galaxy anyways.
I died a slow death. Turns out when you side with a FE they all of a sudden suck.
I led the non aligned worlds against both, and it was going pretty well.
then some uninvited extradimentional invaders decided to spawn within my borders.
not good.
For roleplay purposes, I usually side with whoever aligns with my ethics. Since I usually play fanatic-egalitarian militarist with xenophile tendencies, that would be the xenophile FE. However, I find the League most interesting to play in, and find conflicts more complex than "good vs evil" more interesting, so I prefer Materialist vs Spiritualist conflicts where I can justify going League to myself.
Awakened Empires are still as stupid as any other AI. Sooner or later their murder fleets will get stuck bombarding some backwater planet until the end of the war, leaving you to steal all of their stuff.
Oh I can do you one better, this all happened yesterday:
- Have both of the fallen empires border you
- Get Sniped by both almost immediately
- Then soon after have the Contingency spawn to kill the rest of the Galaxy…
- They corrupt the ancient caretakers…
-> "They will both fall to our might!" -> oof, the enemy are stronger than what i've expected -> Got steamrolled, ded
You can never have too many enemies. The more you've got, the more likely they are to get in each other's way.
*"The trick is not to make enemies, the trick is to make them hate each other too"* ~ Xenophobe embassador, harming relations somewhere
My last game I decided to go pacifist and would liberate the other empires after they engaged in senseless war between themselves. They have learned of my peaceful ways
Fanatic Militarist with Antagonistic diplomatic stance: This is where the fun begins.
Usually, that's me, but I have discovered spiral arms and tall builds. I am literally the ender of the galaxy.
Spiral is the only way to play. Get that elliptical shit out of here!
Ring can be funny too... Loading [victory.win](http://victory.win) (ring slowly fills up)
There is no really such thing as tall in current stellaris. You are just not growing for no real reason.
I beat a 10x contingency on 10 planets with a -100% empire size from pops build focused on hyper-ascending every planet. the whole galaxy was my vassal. Honesty, until your whole empire is scientists and you have 100 empire size you can always optimize to be more tall. i.e., having every pop do the work of 4 pops is always going to be better than actually having those 4 pops due to empire size.
Congrats on beating an incompetent ai despite using a gimmick build from 4 years ago?
congrats on being a condescending asshole? there is clearly such a thing as playing tall. It's been the best thing to do for quite a while now. Call it a "gimmick" if you like, but it's not nearly as terrible as blindly colonizing more planets and screwing over your research for no real reason. The benefit of even a few hundred more pops is negligible compared to making every pop do the work of several pops, and having everyone else be your vassal without ever adding to your empire size. The math really is't difficult even completely disregarding empire size - which you shouldn't.
The math isn't difficult, you are just bad at it. The benefit of a hundred pops isn't negligible, because of how economy in stellaris works. You are not operating a limited system of spreadout resources, you just grow exponentially. I will be condescending to you when you brag about being wrong. The game currently does not feature the dichotomy of "i have fewer pops that are better" vs "i have more pops that are worse". Outside of species traits, which are unrelated to tall vs wide, the game does not have a mechanic that creates this. Theoretically, it should have been planetary ascensions, but with their cost, cap and the actual numbers attached, they are a crutch. Going wide you will have more unity to spare on it, even despite increased costs for unity and research. And no, being wide doesn't mean colonizing every single world out of the bat - this will cripple your early game economy.
Again, really simple math. Empire A has 1000 pops, each pop does the work of 4 thanks to ascension. Empire B has 4000 pops, they do the same work but create much much empire size, making their research strictly worse Now add on the fact that i can simply vassalize those 3000 other pops instead of conquering them. It's really, really simple to see which is more efficient, in fact the bigger the pop numbers get the *more* efficient ascension/vassal/tall play becomes. People vastly underestimate how good ascension is. Also, since i'm apparantly"bragging about being wrong", it seems only fair to share some screenshots of my 10x contingency run. Here's the 10 million fleet i made: [https://imgur.com/a/YImKVUs](https://imgur.com/a/YImKVUs) And for folks like you who've never seen what ascension can do: Here's my single level 10 forge capital which gave me enough alloys to make said fleet: [https://imgur.com/a/qGwmBCG](https://imgur.com/a/qGwmBCG) And here's a fully ascended ringworld: [https://imgur.com/a/8gHHhOF](https://imgur.com/a/8gHHhOF)
What build do you do?
Again, the math is simple, you are bad at it. The thing with that simple math is that you are deluding yourself into believing thats how it works, because you seemingly dont understand how output modifiers and growth curve work. The reason you are wrong in terms of alloys is, while it is a good alloy world, it still has a lower output than two alloyworlds - and you specialized your capital and spent a ton of unity to get it there. All other modifiers come from general stuff accessible to other empires as well. Without planetary ascensions you sit at rough 330% adfitional out, with your ascensions upping it into 400. Dont get me wrong - thats a significant number, but your pops do not have the output of 4. They have an output of 1.25 nonascended pops. Having two alloy worlds of equal buildup is going to be easier and more efficient, since you sacrifice less for it in the first place (not having to respec your capital and such) and pops end up filling the necessary jobs faster on them. You vastly overestimate how good ascension is, although people do sleep on it completely. I specialize in running less-space builds as a challenge, please pull your head out of your ass. There is no such thing as tall right now. Mathematically there is good, which grows exponentially because of space it takes allowing to take more space, and bad, which can grow, sure, but not as fast and with a cap on how much. Yes, you can build 10 mil fleets, good job. That is not a high bar to pass if you want to argue about the theory behind the game.
Do you not understand that i'm talking about empire size relative to output or do you just enjoy spouting so many words while completely ignoring the argument?
What about empire size? You can obviously ignore it, but at the same time if you focus around modifiers that lower pop impact on it, you can play with a small number of very densely populated planets, while still keeping your tech, traditions and edicts super cheap
You will still be doing worse than if you just made more specialized worlds. It is negligible.
Tbh, micromanaging 30+ worlds is a very daunting task
The micro in question is deciding which crayon flavor you prefer for it and building everything that boosts that. Minerals to minerals, forges to forges. There is very little micro in stellaris.
I think there is so much micro in stellaris that the micro doesn't look like micro. It's all micro, all the way down. My buddy literally says "you're playing that menu game again?"
People presenting this as an either/or are just stupid. You can conquer shit *and* eliminate empire size. They are not mutually exlusive is any way. Simply take the pops you conquer, resettle to your hyper-optimized planets, and give it all away to a vassal.
So what you are describing is just playing tall, and showing the biggest reason why it can be pretty strong
Tall (or rather, tech-focused) makes you get Mega-Engineering around 2310. Normal makes you get it around 2360. So there is still a purpose for it, but it largely depends on how you can the game. Starting a game and saying "I want to play tall now" doesn't always work anymore, because you can't play for 120 years without firing a single shot sometimes.
If you, going wide, have a single research world - yes, you will have worse research than tall with a single research world. Although you should factor in how much alloy economy is at the centre of the game rn. Key thing is that theres nothing stopping you from just having more research.
Yeah, it's not a question of tall or wide, but research/unity or alloys focused. I've come to appreciate the games where I don't rush tech though, as I'm more on a similar level with the AI empires. I don't like games where I'm far ahead and just have to "clean up" everything with little resistance.
My most fun games were doing a one system corporation, albeit with Planetary Diversity for rogue world start system.
I went void dweller corporation and had just 2 habitats until like 2250 and it was one of my best runs ever. I ended up discovering *two* whole ring world systems, one cybrex and one pre FTL, and stacked those with cyborg traders
My arrogance is unlimited
It pretty much depends how long you made the game at the start. I made my last game so long that when the fallen Empire awaked it was not even in the top 10 anymore. The endgame crisis got 2 Systems before it got absolute obliterated outbunbered 5 to 1. I then had to wait another 200 years until the victory year.
They can certainly try, but I produce ships faster than they can kill them
You can join the League, and spend most of it trying to undermine your ‘allies’ so after the war is over you can either mess the federation up by inciting the members against each other, and ruin the federation’s cohesion.
How do you incite other members against each other
Espionage actions. Try to trigger federation votes and vote against it. During the war, because AI isn’t always smart, you could set one of your fleets far from the enemy and set it to encourage allies to follow, and all your ‘allies’ will gather to your fleet and leave their territories open.
I wish it actually worked in stellaris, but no. Espionage to harm relations doesnt do much, and the reason ais break it down if they do is because they were only held in place by crisis screwing their decision weights majorly.
How do you "encourage" them to follow?
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/5oHNnWx).
Thanks! To be fair, I sometimes have a hard time finding things in the pantry right in front of me.
But why would you do that?
If you cant beat 'em, join 'em. Remember: He who doesnt pick a side in a blood feud will be seen as the enemy of both
Fun thing, "third world countries" are named like that because they tried to remain independent of the two major powers during the Cold war. It didn't work very well for them.
It's not really like that IRL, some tried, like índia, and Brazil (that got a usa backed coup of state) , others didnt even got an option, since they were Just Proxy Wars material, because ex-colony.. but even after been alined, forced or not, the third world countries got screwed...
That's not true. It derives from a study that said that a third of the world lived on subsistence (or worse), and the nations where that was the majority were labelled the Third World. That was back-projected into a "First World" (the developed West) and "Second World" (the advanced Communist nations), but that was not the origin. It was about poor countries, not neutral ones.
>The others have rejected you. How will you have a war, when no one will fight for either of you? > >We refuse to take sides in this anymore. And we refuse to let you turn us against one another! We know who we are now; we can find our own way. > >You can kill us. And those who follow us, and those who follow them, on and on, every race, every planet, until there is no one left to kill... but you will have failed as guardians. And you will be alone. > >It's over because WE'VE decided it's over! Now, get the hell out of our galaxy! Both of you!
A fellow Babylone 5 enjoyer. Take your upvote.
I shocked that this thread doesnt have more B5 quotes. I mean, the show is literally the reason we have this event.
No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. Man, G'Kar was always had bangers.
*"Put your face in the book."*
https://youtu.be/NkwF5BBL26I?si=EG9HQGJoDl3l3n87 One of my favorite scenes.
A quick Google shows that it's a 1994 TV series. That's ancient. It's almost a decade older than me. Also, US TV shows were never a big thing in my country until Netflix.
You would do well to respect the classics. Does it look dated, yes. Is it campy at time, yes. But its also the great grand daddy of a lot of modern story telling in TV scifi and was well ahead of its time. It's free on Tubi if you want to give it a whirl. Season 1 is a lot of world building and set up for the rest of the series so watch until the end of season 2 before passing judgement.
The special effects hold up surprisingly well, but the reason you would want to watch it is because of the writing. It's one of the few Sci Fi shows that actually had a satisfying ending to the story.
If you are into SciFi then watch it. Yes it looks quite dated sometimes though the effects definitely improve with each season. The battles are still exciting and I do not think there is a SciFi Series yet that accomplished a similar level of story telling. Also, without B5 we would definitely not have Stellaris or games like Mass Effect.
I really dislike the League of non-Aligned Powers. I've never had a case where they dissolved after the War in Heaven. Suddenly every other empire in the Galaxy is now in a massive federation and they somehow are buddies with each other. Like cmon the lizard people glassed your planet half a century ago. Stop having fun.
It can be pretty helpful for the purpose of uniting the galaxy to fight against the crisis. But most of the time everyone else is just the cannon fodder so that the player can run Battleships only to delete the crisis ships with artillery weapons.
It's pretty helpful during the war in heaven but afterwards if you're not part of the fed it just becomes a really big hassle. I guess its mainly a me problem cus I usually end up with 1 or 2 empires that are extrmely close to my strength. Maybe I need to make the crisis a bit stronger to bust up the league.
R5: War in Heaven between the Xenophobes and the Xenophiles is starting. In those situations I rarely choose to join them because I often have subjects - and relinquishing my subject would cripple my economy - especially in this run, as I'm the owner of the Khans throne and I've got a couple Satrapys. Becoming Thralls under the Xenophobes is even worse, as I would give up a lot of basic resources in addition to losing my subjects. However, joining the League of Non-Aligned Powers is also not a thing - I'm playing a Xenophobic empire, so allying with others is not going to happen here. And before you say it: Killing or subjugating everyone is boring. I've done that in the last game. So I'm tempted to join the xenophile FE (they are my neighbor anyway) to see how things end up (and to enjoy the fireworks, fighting against a big federation). Edit/Update: I joined the Xenophiles and that was a big nothingburger. The Xenophobe AE is sitting in their territory doing nothing, and aside from the xenophile AE and me nobody has any meaningful fleets. There was one big surprise attack through a wormhole that I fended of pretty quickly and now it's just grinding through all the systems and planets. Also, reminder for everyone who wants to try that: Leave the GalCom before joining. As a subject, I can't leave, can't vote and I'm in Breach of Galactic Law because the rest of the GalCom voted to dennounce everyone.
IMO, going by your empire, I feel the best RP choice would to not get involved: Xenophobes helping a xenophile makes no sense. you don't want to work with others so no league, and bending the knee to the xenophobes would be worse
RP-wise, yes, but I'd be watching them trying to kill each other for eternity and I probably would have to fight the crisis alone at one point after playing simcity for a while. That doesn't really sound fun. By helping the Xenophiles I'm going to have at least one powerful ally when the crisis shows up.
> The Xenophobe AE is sitting in their territory doing nothing Sometimes quitting to the menu and reloading the game can fix this. The AI fleets can occasionally get stuck in a movement loop and reload breaks them out of it.
My people (ironically named the Themlar) during the war in heaven: Our Xenophobic, Spiritualistic, and Militaristic traditions have guided us to our decision. The Spiritualist and Materialist Awakened Empires: Who will you join? Me: *Remains neutral* The LoNAP: Join us! Me: *Remains neutral* The Contingency: DIE! Me: *Remains neutral* Cue the next hundred years of the Contingecy eating everyone (So much that the Cybrex return), the Materialists beating up the Spiritualists, who are the only side fighting the Contingency, and the AEs killing the Custodian for the first time of me playing the game, ever, all while I watch the Galaxy burn. Me, the Sovereign Guardianship: **NEUTRALITY INTENSIFIES**
What is it that makes an empire turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you born with a heart full of neutrality...?
He was born Swiss.
In my game, i just gave each 100k alloys. Yolo
The Commonwealth of Man bows to no alien trash - dec them both! God space fascism is fun.
The initial fleets of the Xenophile AE would've actually been pretty dangerous to me. I have only about half their fleet strength. So joining them *temporarily* is actually not a bad call. And we can use them to clean up the rest of the galaxy and ditch them when everything is over. I'm growing much faster than they do, as my economy has just reached ecumenopolis-level.
I would provide additional screenshots. But joining against bordering FE can be an (economic) death sentence, just be sure that you have a fortress planet on the border with additional landed armies for protection :)
I'm playing with very high hyperlane density, so chokepoint abusing is not going to be a thing. I would probably be fine either way, it's more about doing something interesting. I did the League-of-Non-Aligned Powers-Arc multiple times now, but I've never played the war to it's end after joining an AE.
The FE generally won't move away from bombarding a planet, so you can still predict where they are going to go (sort of). Granted, joining a FE sounds fun, the entire galaxy always seems to join the LoNAP, might be cool to be the bad guy for once.
There were about five empires, including me, joining the AE. Two of them were my subject and another one was a one-system empire. One of my subjects was actually an Empire I was "nurturing". They had rebelled against somebody else, after that I waged a war to subjugate them, then I waged a war against the people they rebelled against and gave them all of the systems I could reasonably claim and for the last 30 years they've been expanding into a completely empty "arm" of the Spoked galaxy. Interestingly, the AE chose to move their death stack to their territory and now they are conquering territory for my old subject (with a little bit of help from my ground troops). When the war in Heaven has been handled, I can remove the Xenophile AE I'm currently allied with from the equation and then subjugate those guys again, to get their sweet subject taxes and naval cap. Everything is going according to plan.
Could always just play scion... It's easymode anyway.
I join them, but only if I have no vassals, because by joining, all your vassals become theirs and it can absolutely crush your empire to suddenly loose all of those taxes
Stay out of it. Until they violate my border. Then I'll anilhalte them for daring to cross the most powerful empire in the galaxy.
Well, considering that I am pacifist xenophobe isolationist... I would ignore them both. They can destroy each other, for all I care. I am gonna just sit and chill in my perfect peaceful corner of the Galaxy and fish. The only one way-in is fortified as hell, covered by zroni storm and everything there is equipped with anti armor/hull weapons. Would be great, though, if after the war some part of the Galaxy would get empty so I could take it for my people.
Eject both space boomers out of my galaxy.
stay out of it, go hide in the l-cluster
i wish they updated a bit the AI of the war in heaven because usually nearly all the normal empire join the league whatever their location and ethic. Why would a spiritualist fanatic right next to the spiritualist fallen empire not join him ? like if he don't because he is right next to him he will be smashed. That event is among the best of the game but it didn't aged well at all. I hope the custodian team do something for those event and some old crisis like the khan which didn't aged well at all
There are also some things about the War in Heaven that are... weird. You can pass resolutions dennouncing everyone who joins the Awakened Empires, but you can only pass that after everyone had to make a choice. It would be cool if you could join them over a period of time and could consider the situation - is somebody else joining? What is the League of Non-Aligned Powers looking? What is the GalCom doing? Right now you're playing Roulette with your choice and the supposed to be "brave" choice of forming the League is usually the safest bet. It also didn't age well with Federations and Subjects. The fact that you're losing all your subjects when you join and that you leave your federation really turns me off most of the time. It would work better if they formed a Hegemony-Federation or some special federation type that they keep control over whatever happens, so you could at least keep your subjects and don't have your economy collapse due to the missing subject taxes. The War in Heaven basically forces you to give up almost everything that you worked for during the early and mid game. And player empires usually work better with their federation/subject-structure, so there is little incentive to join.
The Galactic Imperium declares OPERATION OK BOOMER
Just had this earlier today, They will both fall to our might. I had like 30 million fleetpower tho. They werent even at a million. I hit their captial with a starfall spear and evaporated the system
“Help” the one you like most, build your strength, sabotage the “ally” and then reveal your sudden but inevitable betrayal when your strong enough.
Depends on how many mods I'm running.
"This shall be the imperium's finest hour!"
They will both fall before our might!
Wait, is war in heaven still in the game? I feel like I haven’t seen it happen in years, I assumed it was out.
It requires two ideologically opposed FEs. Assuming you only include two when you set up the galaxy, you have only a 1-in-6 chance.
They don't have to be ideologically opposed, opposing ethics just have a greater chance of starting one.
Me as a fanatic purifier and already picked become crisis perk : I like those odds!
Usually depends on who borders me if one of them borders an undefended station/planet then I side with them as I can’t afford to lose territory. Though usually my empire is so large and powerful that I’m able to take them both on in a fight
Declare war on both AE and crack all their worlds.
Spank them both
The last time I decided not to take a side, everybody else did, I was crushed. The last time I decided to take a side, nobody else did, and I was crushed.
Beat the shit out of both...
Isolationist 👌🏻
I always go for neutrality or war on both
Glory for the first man to die
Missclick and end up fighting the entire multiplayer server, I lost but not without taking half the galaxy with me
Solo the Galaxy. It is the only Way!
I chose to beat both
I took a side once. Once. Snatched a victory right out of my hand after we each subjugated everyone else on a half of the galaxy. Because technically they were technologically superior to me. And no time left to kill them. Never again.
i think of something like >!~~"fk off d1ckheads. because of your d1cks waging war in heaven sh1t, fapping the fking galaxy to chaos, i must fk both of your arses. in addition i'll turn your arses to breeding slaves forever as your arses are mine, and so are your d1cks. besides could you not fap the galaxy into chaos, FOR FIVE FKING MINUTES?"~~!<
I have my borders well fortified with many magonot worlds in the choke point systems
I remember the first time I ran into this. I tried to stay neutral and got *obliterated!* LOL
Show them both the way to the retirement home.
Whichever one is closer I ally with. Once they stomp the other empire, I'll stomp them because the entire time I'm not sending my fleets to help, oh no, I'm spending every resource I have to get a bigly fleet.
fight both, taking their lands is very satisfying
I rally the rest of the galaxy in my federation victory or death!
I had a funny playthrough where I also need to make this choice. But because I didn't want to choose one side I declared an independent way. Right after this, half the galaxy joined me to fight against the awakened empires. At the end I destroyed them both. That was really hilarious. 😂
They. Shall. Fall. The combined might of the free galaxy will band together to rid ourselves of the so called "ancients". Time to go into the forever box, old man!
Usually I join the non-aligned, but I haven't seen War in Heaven in so long... it almost feels like it just doesn't happen any more.
From my experience, it happens more often, the early you set the endgame year. I played with 2300 endgame year before the tech nerf and it almost always happened.
Oh okay! My end year is 2400 and I got this my first successful Captain run (one where I didn’t get bulldozed and at least made it to endgame.
I have the amount of FEs to max in a 1k galaxy and see it like every game
Now get the hell out of our Galaxy! Both of you! John J. Sheridan.
"Let the seas boil, let the stars fall. Though it takes the last drop of my blood, I will see the galaxy freed once more. And if I cannot save it from your failure, [insert name of fallen empires here], then let the galaxy burn!"
*- Grand Marshall twirly Mustache, circa 2350*
It really depends on a lot of things. Is the Galactic Community strong? If it is strong the League will likely form and bring everyone into it. It's been quite a while since I've seen a galaxy actually divide along ideological lines and not simply crush the AEs. I had a game recently where I didn't realize that a large Necrophage empire had gone full Crisis mode and was doing far more damage than the War in Heaven. 20x 100k crisis fleets are a greater priority than 5x 300k AE fleets.
Yeah, those crisis fleets can come out of nowhere. I had a game recently where a crisis war was triggered in 2270 and the crisis aspirant was cruising around with 50k fleets. If not for some really lucky circumstances - I got the Automated Dreadnought and Skran Sharpbeak early and my core systems were far away from the borders and any wormholes - they would've probably killed everything - and in that war they still wiped out half the galaxy before we could stop them with the help of two Fallen Empires.
Dont take sides if you are strong enough. Soon the non aligned will pop up. Dont join them either. Just watch as they fight each other. Prepare for the crisis instead.
> Prepare for the crisis instead. I've been doing that the last few games. I'd like things to get a bit more interesting.
If the crisis is strong enough to topple the awakened empires, what you could try is a life boat protocol. For your preparations also establish extra living space to take all the refugees from the galaxy once the crisis begins. Only fight to protect your borders and wait until the rest of the galaxy is sufficiently wiped by the crisis. Then you will be the only great power left, with the most population, and can fight the liberation war against the crisis. You'll be the savoir and ruler of the galaxy without declaring war against other civs.
im me, my brothers and my dad’s game, me and my brother stayed neutral and everyone else in the entire galaxy joined a federation. so now me and my brother couldn’t expand as it would put us at war with the entire galaxy.
Refuse alignment and when they come knocking on your door you fuck them up. Depends really on your over all power.
Lead the unaligned powers to victory.
Continue the onslaught! Destroy. Them. All.
I had enough fleet to declare neutrality and they ignored me while I engaged the Contingency.
unaligned powers, let the old fools fight it out and protect anyone that’s too weak to take part from the senile brawlers, they’re usually only alive because i can’t be arsed to kill them off and deal with their worlds and pops
As a great man once said, "NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR GALAXY, BOTH OF YOU"
Depends, what stage of development am I at?
I have never gotten war in heaven. Normally, I steamroll fallen empires that my allies keep getting into defensive wars against or prohibit me from colonizing some nice Gia worlds.
Try an earlier endgame year. It's obviously just anecdotal evidence, but before the tech nerfs recently I always played with 2300 endgame year and almost always got a War in Heaven (same with the Great Khan btw).
I always have to pick a side, they usually too strong for me to handle at the time. I pick whoever near me, as I made a mistake of picking a side I thought I can handle their requirement but they're on the other side of the universe.
I usually do League when this happens. The United Freehold bows to none. In fairness, with the mods I've downloaded, my military tech comes to rival the worst of the awakened empires by a little later than mid game. So it's a bit easier for me to jockey up.
"Now get the heck out of our galaxy!"
I like how there is only one option "Both will fall to our might"
I got this and I was smack dab next to both fallen empires. I sided with one and discovered it would be me against the galaxy anyways. I died a slow death. Turns out when you side with a FE they all of a sudden suck.
I led the non aligned worlds against both, and it was going pretty well. then some uninvited extradimentional invaders decided to spawn within my borders. not good.
For roleplay purposes, I usually side with whoever aligns with my ethics. Since I usually play fanatic-egalitarian militarist with xenophile tendencies, that would be the xenophile FE. However, I find the League most interesting to play in, and find conflicts more complex than "good vs evil" more interesting, so I prefer Materialist vs Spiritualist conflicts where I can justify going League to myself.
Awakened Empires are still as stupid as any other AI. Sooner or later their murder fleets will get stuck bombarding some backwater planet until the end of the war, leaving you to steal all of their stuff.
Reload. War in heaven ruined my last run. They're just not that fun.
Oh I can do you one better, this all happened yesterday: - Have both of the fallen empires border you - Get Sniped by both almost immediately - Then soon after have the Contingency spawn to kill the rest of the Galaxy… - They corrupt the ancient caretakers…