Why Stellaris Is TERRIBLE For New Players

[@Strategiser2]

What do you think is the worst for New Players?

[@cheesysealAnon]

pretty much everything for me, the phrase "its harder than it looks" under sells it

[@RocketWeaponsGuy]

kinda unrelated but i remember my very first eu4 game after getting it free with epic (later bought for steam with all dlcs minus the hot new one at the time, origins, for 7x less price), i wish there was an actual tutorial, started as frankfurt and after agressively expanding in the hre (ae is just a number isnt it hehe?????) with 50-50 (50% inf and 50% cav, basically if ur tag dosent have cav bonuses cav is just worthless especially in europe, its just infantry that costs 2x more) i died to a coalition (agressive expansion mechanic, as you conquer and force vassalize all others that can see you/you see get a opinion malus, with a coalition, basically temporary alliance, forming to counter you. if youre one of these "ae is just a number" guys coalitions easily get all the small tags that are way more efficient in military size, forming over 400k deathstacks in fucking 1444). Now, look at me, still not fucking lambda (man did a world conquest in less than 50 years (game is intended to last for ~380) doing the most cheeky strats in a older version of the game cuz exploits and people like it more i think im not a connoisseur) but i can hold my own agianst the ai and generally do well unless i get coalitioned trying to do an achievement. Last thing, in eu4 multiplayer is heavily imbalanced towards pacifist "tall" nations who stay out of everyones shit because their economy and manpower scales much faster much better this way, so it can just become boring, so many modders looked to fix that. idfk why i went from my experience at the start to multiplayer imbalancing but i guess my hands have a conscious of their own

[@terramancer7240]

That they haven't tried worb, hehehe.

[@darkner2390]

Skipping the empire creation screen, which throws so many options at you, without you knowing what you should and shouldn't pick and assuming a new player chooses one of the default empires for their first playthough. At very first glance, the planetary management system. Figuring out how districts and building slots work, combined with stratums and jobs and what resources they produce, crime and trade value, tile blockers, special resources, housing and amenities, planetary decisions, plus balancing it all together. And generally the entire learning curve, which is taller than Mount Everest.

[@isuckatusernames4297]

the tendency of the AI empires to spawn with the prosperous unification origin. let's say you bought all the DLC during a massive sale or something similar, you're gonna get very disapointed when you see that the ai doesn't use any of the cool stuff you bought. also, the pop growth scaling, it bassically makes getting more ressources impossible for new players after a while.

[@SlayXemnas]

1 hour: "I have no idea what I'm doing." 1000 hours: "I have no idea what I'm doing but my economy doesn't crash anymore."

[@StarboyXL9]

3000 hours: "I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I stopped leaving before EGSD a few hundred hours ago. 5000 hours: *I understand everything. The universe itself opens before me like a book. I have transcended mortal existence and achieved apotheosis. I am eternal* 6000 hours: *Opens Loverslab*

[@hanneswiggenhorn2023]

1 hour: I have no idea what I'm doing and my economy is collapsing 100 hours: my economy is collapsing but at least I have an idea why

[@Renvira]

@@StarboyXL9 💀 why is this true tho

[@nathanschmitt2457]

@@hanneswiggenhorn2023300 hours: my economy doesn’t collapse but everyone seems to surpass me. 900 hours: I am finally getting strong enough to not become beaten up by the AI Immediately.

[@arandomcommenter412]

@@StarboyXL9Loverslab…? What would you even mod to make it…?

[@00huZz]

1.5k hours an I've only seen the victory title twice.

[@Strategiser2]

💀

[@blikizz_nils7541]

I never see it i always get murder by fallen empire, crisis and horrible choice

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

I genuinely think I’m close. I got to become galactic emperor and everything. I’m genuinely terrified about having to fight the Contingency as I know it’s going to happen very soon and I’m very likely to lose everything. This is the best I’ve ever done and it sucks to see it all go down the drain

[@antontribelgorn3641]

what difficulty do you play on?

[@Plok431]

I've only seen it once

[@vainthatoneoverhere]

I actually like Stellaris changes and constant DLCs. Technically, it invalidates my builds over time, but practically it forces me to invent new builds with every expansion. It's a journey.

[@schwingedeshaehers]

It depends on the builds and so on, meta / strategic builds are more likely to need changes, RP builds often don't have a problem with changes, but change in difficulty because of the changes

[@limonbattery]

I will always miss 90% evasion destroyers. I only recently broke 1000 hours, but those were a fun build if giga cannon neutron battleships got too boring. I do prefer the current ship combat by a lot though - yeah there are clearly better designs than others, but it feels more meaningful to play around with other components now to see how much you can get away with.

[@blacklightredlight2945]

I literally can't play stellaris anymore. The constant dlc's changing how the game works, but without them you only get half the content and breaks it.

[@schwingedeshaehers]

@@blacklightredlight2945 use an older version (U can switch in the betas tab)

[@RobBCactive]

It depends on the changes, I loved Stellaris and have > 2,500 hours, I got into it from watching MATN play throughs. Unfortunately the vassal spam in the game annoys me, you used to have different viable strategies. That included tactical possibilities the developers have never considered or discussed.

[@CapitalTeeth]

The golden thumb for any game, is that if you need to search up what to do, you've failed. Paradox games are notorious for getting this exact part wrong.

[@PLScypion]

I have to disagree on Stellaris tutorial, it actually helped me enough to learn basic things to do (like 99 times better than EU4 one) to a point where I wouldn't die in first 5 minutes but in 20. Obviously after that came watching like 2 hours total of actual good tutorial on yt.

[@Strategiser2]

💀

[@PLScypion]

@@Strategiser2 Yep. Pdx game be like that: learn for hours about a new topic you have no idea what it's about or DIE (give up and play something else)

[@delivererofdarknessshoguno1133]

​@@PLScypionEu and Hoi tutorials be like that. I mean, they don't tell you anything about the game other than basic controls.

[@Ronald98]

​@@delivererofdarknessshoguno1133 I'm still sad that they deleted the HOI4 tutorial 😢

[@Вгостяхуютубера-л3ц]

eu4 tutorial is literally unplayable when it comes to colonization part

[@darkner2390]

When I first bought the game, that was back when the game still had wormhole generators and warp drives. Even then, the game was complex to learn, despite the fact that 90% of what is in the game now(tradition trees, planet management, enclaves, espionage, galactic community, etc.), wasn't there yet. Didn't know how to properly wage war, didn't know what vassals did or tributaries or even how to properly take advantage of the old planetary resource tile system. Today, even with my thousands of hours, I struggle with every new update's new and overwhelming systems. It feels like Paradox is purposefully trying to create a game so complex, you need to build a Matrioshka brain in real life first, just to enjoy a casual run.

[@helikopterbojowyka-5234]

Same reason why I will never try Hoi4

[@kiwuuspurr1927]

hoi4 and ck3 are the easiest of the paradox games in my opinion@@helikopterbojowyka-5234

[@_Lumiere_]

I started playing at the same time and I usually take long breaks between playing. I actually really like this aspect of the game. I've never really disliked the changes and always felt like I was coming back to a new game every time. I understand why both hardcore and casual players may be annoyed by the changes, but I personally like it.

[@aggroknight4259]

I wonder if they make the game complicated on purpose so that they retain players to sell DLC to. Every modern game dev/publisher's philosophy seems to be to make their games more addicting than everyone else's. It keeps their players coming back for the next new thing. And Stellaris is similarly addicting as Sid Meier's Civilization, but in perhaps the worst possible way.

[@isaacshultz8128]

I wosh we still had the 3 ftl types and frotier outposts

[@kieranhosty]

485 hours here, played on-and-off since utopia, I have never seen a victory screen and I don't intend to start now

[@vergulyanets]

Playing in single player: AI is weak Playing in multiplayer: I am AI

[@Krom5072]

1:57 I disagree with 'easy to learn, hard to master' thing. Every Paradox game has a VERY high entry level for newcomers - mainly those unfamiliar with Paradox's grand strategies, or with the genre as a whole - due to sheer abundance of mechanics and things to keep track of. My girlfriend asked me once to teach her EU4 and she quit after 10 minutes. But upon figuring it out you realize that most of the mechanics are pretty shallow, and don't necessarily interact with one another in a way that's challenging for the player. Hence, the learning curve is steep in the very beginning, but then essentially flat once you're several finished runs in. For instance, I am confident in my ability to handle 25x crisis, even though I played only about 5 Stellaris campaigns to some sort of conclusive end. Similarly, I am confident I can do a WC in EU4 (with hordes, Ottos or Austria) even though I have at most 500 hours. That actually translates between Paradox games, as a lot of the mechanics are organized in a similar way, and every game is a map painter with the same goals (conquer as much as you can - there is no reason not to, outside of roleplay) and concurrently very similar strategies behind them (be aggressive towards the AI, prioritize the military, etc.). I think that Stellaris skill, for example, almost directly converts to HoI or EU, and once you figure out how mechanics are rearranged in these games (instead of alloys you have ducats or military factories), you can very easily pull anything off in these titles as well. I would argue that Paradox games, then, are 'hard to learn, easy to master'. Which is a bigger problem than the opposite. If you don't deliberately constrain yourself with roleplay/challenging mods/self-imposed restrictions then, once you achieve some general mastery in any Paradox game, every single run goes almost exactly the same way. So you struggle in the beginning but then it's just boring. I would prefer to have easy learning at start (such that you can ignore some mechanics) and then have the game's intricacies open up to you.

[@Strategiser2]

an interesting perspective

[@domaxltv]

I can second this, I have a thousand or so hours in EU4 and this has led me to (at launch) dominate HoI4 MP lobbies (stopped playing the game because unlike most paradox DLCs, Hoi4 tends to have very little fun content outside of RP and generally makes the gameplay more tedious) I recently got to play some stellaris cuz a friend gifted it to me, very quickly in MP I rose up through the ranks to being one of the best players in the group I played with even though I didnt know what half the buttons do in actuality, because well "oh its like x thing in EU4 but in spaceeeeeeeeee", though watching tutorials did also massively help because the game doesnt explain anything EU4 remains my main game because it is quite grounded while still having a lot of interesting things to do,especially in MP with some friends (note: I refuse to play meta nations like otto or... Well anyone reallly who has essentially free reign to conquer their whole region, its a lot more fun to build up from nothing than to be handed everything, which is why the first part of Stellaris is also fun to me, fuck the end game tho)

[@tevarinvagabond1192]

No, you're just suffering from the "insufferable ego" phenomenon of acting like you have to play the "meta" way and use exploits to beat the game. Sure, if you play that way using dirty tricks and exploiting the AI with cheap tactics then yeah it could be easy once you watch a few KZbinr speedrunners. But, that's such a stupid way to play games...imagine breaking the rules of Monopoly just to "get an advantage", no one would want to play with you ever again, and it cheapens your victory. Paradox games are meant to be played, at baseline, in a semi-RP fashion... obviously the devs don't expect everyone to do full RP, but they add enough elements to allow players to craft their empires/nations/creations into something believable based on your starting conditions, and then continue to play the game accordingly. I feel sorry for people like you that think that "beating" the game is the point...it's not. It's literally the journey to the end that matters the most, it's why there's so much lore and stories jam-packed into most Paradox games to give flavor and substance as you go along... trying to ignore that by playing in a "meta" way just gets rid of creativity and uniqueness of the games, and it really is a disservice to yourself.

[@TheJimmy11]

Completely agree, there are hundreds of buttons but only one correct way to press them 99% of the time. Wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle is a good saying.

[@ChemySh]

How the mechanics interact with each other is actually how I judge the quality of Paradox DLCs. Good DLCs tend to integrate well with existing systems, whereas bad DLCs tend to stay in its own niche. Examples of good DLC: By Blood Alone which introduces the tank designer. Certain components are objectively better but comes as a tradeoff that forces you to sacrifice sth else (like needing to import rare resources by trade, or higher production cost per unit, therefore impacting your whole weapon inventory). The tank design also impacts how it performs in certain terrain. Not to mention how fuel/supply hungry it is. An interesting example of mid DLC: CK3 Royal Court. The good part is the culture system (allowing you to change the buffs and debuffs of your own kingdom to suit your playstyle). The bad is the language system (whose only use is to affect the relationship score, which you can bypass if you give them money) and the royal court system (that only kicks in once you're King level or above, and easily forgotten once you set the various sliders which only affects prestige). Examples of DLCs considered bad due to lack of integration: any recent Cities Skylines DLC. Airport DLC for example. Sunset Harbor's fishing DLC. University DLC that has a shallower job system than Victoria 3 (a nation simulator, compared to CSL which is a city simulator).

[@fedhori4407]

Paradox gamers: This game sucks, overpriced, unbalanced, broken Also paradox gamers: Playtime: 1487hours, own 14 dlcs

[@quiscon]

I remenber when I started playing this game it took me a couple a days to realise districs were a thing.

[@LowbrowDeluxe]

3.7k hours here. Game's fine. It is what it's designed to be and is in far better shape than it was 2 years ago. Yea, it's a complicated hot mess. That's like...practically it's mission statement. Is it daunting for new players, undoubtedly. If I take a break I'm confused when I restart. But that's also part of why I have 3.7k hours in it.

[@Pan_Z]

Power creep is probably one of the worst things to happen with the updates (despite them generally being good changes individual). The End covenant with the Shroud, for example, used to live up to its name. Now you can summon it to troll the galaxy, and the AI will steamroll it. Same with the end-game crises, which didn't require a slider to make them even a tad challenging.

[@falknauvn8724]

Power creep is honestly one of the biggest issues this game faces. Even for new players the Khan event, Crisis and fallen empire get steamrolled by the AI. Mid and late game really don´t offer much of anything anymore. Tech acquisition is also just crazy.

[@sincereflowers3218]

​@@falknauvn8724 I leave settings on default and every campaign I've started ends with the contingency eating the galaxy for breakfast 😂 am n00b. Figured I was just trash.

[@michal_1725]

I really agree with this. I played a game before the Aquatics DLC and the Great Khan managed to take over a good quarter of the galaxy before dying of old age, not having been defeated even once by the AI empires. Nowadays what happens is that the Khan dies to any empire who has managed to aquire a decently sized fleet faster than the "Focus : Great Khan" resolution can even be passed. Same with the Endgame Crisis. I would greatly appreciate if Paradox Interactive made the Khan, Tempest, Endgame Crises and End of the Cycle just purely stronger. It was actually kind of good when the Khan was able to buy mercenary fleets to add to his armada as it made him a more dangerous opponent. The game is in a much different state than it was when these crises were added and I think the next update the game needs should take a good look at the crises and rebalance them to actually be difficult for the entire galaxy without setting the difficulty to 3x and above.

[@sincereflowers3218]

@@michal_1725 See comments from experienced players are terrifying bruh 😂 like what? I keep the endgame crisis on 0.25x and STILL get cooked as soon as it starts.

[@michal_1725]

@@sincereflowers3218 I'm now genuenly curious - what difficulty do you play on and how strong are the crisis fleets on average?. In my games even the AI empires can beat a 1x crisis with ease.

[@pestotron8291]

Plays seven hours of gameplay. Reaches early end game. Gets bored waiting for crisis. Attacks fallen empire. Has 700k fleetpower swept easily by a dozen battleships. 10/10 game, not at all infuriating

[@Plok431]

I wish I subbed to channels like yours when I was learning Stellaris, it would have been so much easier to learn how things worked. The robot assistant did its best, but I learned mainly through trial and error. Keep up the fun videos!

[@Emanon...]

I think the hardest thing is explaining how you spent all that money, not on the game, but the DLCs, to your partner...

[@doxun7823]

I'm always impressed with how many visual memes you pack into these vids. I sometimes have to hit the go back 10 sec button just to catch them all.

[@pebbles9973]

Reminder to new players: It's always morally correct to pirate Paradox DLC if you own the base game

[@olegoleg258]

the problem about development is that for one, the only thing a company CAN care about, unless it is completely privately owned, is money, whether in the short or long term you operate at a loss for some time (developing a game, making a site awesome to use) and then squeeze as much money out as you can (no longer delivering updates, massive advertisements that make a site unusable) before moving on, using the money to have another similar cycle, and we cannot even point at one specific figure to blame due to the layers of management and bureaucracy. even the CEO often does not have as much say as we thing they do, because if a CEO in a publicly traded company decides to do something the investors (who like short term profits) do not want they can basically fire them and instate a new one, so it's not even the company's decision what they make, in a sense, which really sucks cuz it is very likely possible to remain profitable and safe while maintaining a high quality product, just with less profits than possible anyways enough of my autistic ranting, nice video as always strat.

[@CeriTsujimura]

me who modded the shit outta stellaris after like 1 unmodded game and never went back lmao at 1.2k hours already

[@crusader-yv9zr]

Can confirm, I have more than 2,500 hours, but I have never seen the victory screen.

[@duchessofburgundy3576]

I've been playing Stellaris for a little under a year and this has been my experience: 1) I spent a month watching let's plays and reading through the wiki before I even bought the game, and that probably prepared me better than a tutorial ever could. You can't learn everything about the game in this way, but it does greatly simplify learning as you play. 2) I waited another two months before buying any DLCs. It seems to me like the vanilla experience is more beginner-friendly as you avoid a lot of pitfalls (e.g. challenging origins, dealing with genocidal empires) and can focus on learning the core game mechanics. 3) I started in 3.5 and while I love the 3.6 combat rework, I do think it requires a bit more understanding of the "meta" than older versions. The first time I took a hard loss in fleet combat was in my first playthrough of 3.6 because I didn't fully understand the power of missiles; I could see a situation like that being frustrating for a new player. 4) I don't generally experience late-game lag (unless I'm zoomed in on a system with lots of fleets), but I think that's more a product of my preferred game settings. After buying Utopia I nerfed myself down to a small galaxy because I was worried about the AI spamming habitats - they do, but since I only play with 9 of them at 0.75x habitable worlds it basically evens out. 5) I tried 3.7 and wasn't really a fan, so I reverted to 3.6.1 and have been playing that ever since. I really can't speak on 3.8's leader rework but it seems to me like it tries to re-center the Stellaris experience to be more about character roleplay than previous versions. Honestly I'm happy playing 3.6 for the rest of my days; together with the DLC's I've bought Stellaris feels like a complete game. I haven't tried any mods yet but assuming backwards compatibility I might in the future.

[@waleedkhalid7486]

Having 100 hours in a regular game means that you are a master among masters. Having 100 hours in a paradox game means you finished the tutorial.

[@TKnightTea]

I just quitted - didn't understand the purpose of the gameplay - i was hoverer attracted to the game because of all the videos showing all the possible races and events - but the UI is so unfrieldy to new players - and there is just so much overwhelming information that i just gave up after 10 min , and refounded.

[@fletcherreder6091]

Possibly a hot take, but I actually like the DLC model. If this was a standard subscription or micro-transaction based game then I wouldn't be able to play. Sure, they may be a bit pricy for what they are, especially next to some of the free mods (looking at you Gigastructures and ACoT), but for that price I get a living, constantly expanding game that I can continue to play even if I don't have the budget for the DLC immediately on release. The lag really is bad though, I'm actually writing this while waiting for a Birch world to finish which will be another half hour at this rate. Maybe one of my vassals will start a war or something, but until then it's time for KZbin!

[@tevarinvagabond1192]

Don't have a potato PC then lol

[@fletcherreder6091]

@@tevarinvagabond1192 It only does it when modded to hell, which it definitely is.

[@hanneswiggenhorn2023]

Learning stellaris was for me 40% fuck around and find out and 30% reading the wiki. The other 30% are a mystery only known to ancient scholars and long forgotten scripts

[@Ayden-vi1io]

I was only able to actually play stellaris after like 30 hours of playtime just fumbling around with the game

[@deathbed105]

1.6k hours in stellaris and ive only got the victory screen once, this was to win and get the achievement

[@RogerValor]

I had several friends starting not long ago, and most of them had only the issue that they thought they have to manage everything. The hardest part was probably that the AI is either way too easy, or way too strong most of the time.

[@thetuerk]

Imo, Paradox should periodically contact modders to discuss adding them to the base game, with code reviews and payment (if consented too by the modder)

[@johndunn1625]

it took me until about 50 hours of gameplay to consistently figure out enough of the game to muddle my way through to the victory screen playing on the lowest difficulties about 30% of the time. this is the first game of its kind i've played, so it was very rough for the first ~100 hours of gaming, and i think i had to try new run throughs like 8 or 9 times before i made it to the end game in 4th place or so. very rough for beginners unless you've got a natural knack for 4a games like this

[@arcaneforce5885]

i have 700 hours on stellaris and still have never touches a youtube tutorial i usually only use tutorials if there is truly no hope for me i just learned on the fly by dying to AI over and over again

[@cristianalbert6389]

Also the game has an interesting way to promote DLC's. I am talking about the Message in a Bottle archeological site. Chapter 1 provides a basic description of a sailing ship buuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttt Chapter 2 literally is a translation of a song which is the song for aquatics species pack trailer. Biggest bruh moment of my life. Literally felt worse than getting rickrolled. The best part is that I don't EVEN OWN AQUATICS SPECIES PACK!

[@unnamed1613]

As someone who plays since release, I agree with pretty much everything. I still remember when MegaCorp. dropped and my whole UI was clattered even more with the holdings, since I farm achievments and usually don´t use mods on most of my play-throughs. As an achievment hunter I´m also in a special love-hate relationship with Paradox, since most of their games have a ton of very specific achievments some of which require very specific RNG-events in a very specific order. Sometimes I get a random achievment and think "where the hell did that came from?"

[@snozate]

now I have 2000 hours in eu4 and 500 hours in evry others paradox game, i have never see any tutorials x). paradox game are a hell to learn, you should play 20 hours just for understand 1% of the game

[@b0realclipdump]

Remember: Paradox's dlcs are more fun after you hoist the black flag ☠️

[@mattoverton9087]

As an ironman enjoyer i feel like a vampire in sunlight when you mentioned the UI overhaul mods (i have no good excuse for not using them lol *edit spelling)

[@DaleWrecker]

Those mods dont conflict with achievements so they're 100% safe to use.

[@thenovideoman5886]

i do miss when stellaris was stellaris, and not "paradox but space". it wasn't perfect, but it had a good direction.

[@rattled6732]

The console edition experience is only for true masochists like myself. Also WHERE THE FUCK IS TOXOIDS PARADOX!?

[@bpg5530]

I previously played EU4 and HOI4 before Stellaris. Stellaris was far easier in my opinion, everything was much more straightforward. Maybe im thinking this because i survived the hell called EU4

[@nathanstruble2177]

Bruh fr, I started on HOI4, and Stellaris is SOOO much easier. I can actually experiment with Stellaris

[@mattoverton9087]

Sometimes i feel like the TF2 medic when playing stellaris mishmashing mechanics till my empire lags my pc to death or my empire is so rich the win screen feels like a side objective

[@notarealfirstnamenotareall746]

Going to be honest, Stellaris is the first paradox game I've ever played, and I never found ot hard. Started in pure vanilla on maximum sized galaxies. I've played RTS games for over 20 years, so I feel at home in the genre. Lost my first game ever to the endgame crisis on Admiral because I didnt know how it worked, and it ramped up in power much faster than I could. But my second game ever was a win, and I've only lost once since then after the pop update had me losing to a neighboring fallen empire that I wasnt able to beat on Grand Admiral because I always decrease the time midgame and endgame hits so I can churn out more games. I play a heavily militaristic style, and pick traits that support that. Compared to micro heavy games like StarCraft or Command and Conquer, Stellaris is much calmer where you only need to manage about ten to fifteen fleets that take sometimes minutes to get where you want them to go on 4x. My first half dozen games had me pausing a lot to do a bunch of reading and looking through the menus, but still you can generally figure out how something will affect your overall economy. In RTS eco is king, and you can be at war with half the galaxy as long as youve got the eco to pump out more ships than them. Falling behind in miltec? Its fine to lose five or six systems in order to fortify ones you've already won in so your science ships can research the higher tech that's being used against you to even the gap. Hotkeys are your friend, and the notification popups allow me to view anything important immediately so I dont even have to keep up with times in my head, like when research is finished. Imagine if StarCraft pinged to let you know that your 2/1 just finished and then immediately took you to your research building so you can upgrade to 2/2. I find the UI to be not horrible, but that just may be because I've gotten used to it. I can see my sectors, use them to divide up my planets so I don't have to scroll through a thousand different things, and consistently keep anything unnecessary tabbed away so it isn't in the way. It's not bad once you find your way to work with it. Honestly Stellaris seems entirely too biased towards wide and agressive players, which is exactly my playstyle. I always focus hard on eco and tech, at which point military will fall in line to become more powerful anyways. It sucks how in the early game my influence can never keep up with the speed I want to expand. I think the problem is that without knowing the specific mechanics the game only really fits a specific playstyle, and is heavily dependant on your first 30-50 years. If you cant maintain a fantastic start then you'll watch the rest of the galaxy outgrow you. Even now I dont play tall, ever. I know how to, but would probably lose a game the first time I tried because Stellaris is unforgiving when it comes to mistakes. The problem with Stellaris is that there are just mathmatecally correct ways of playing, and anything else is severely handicapping the player. Like when mechanical empires on a ringworld allowed you absurd science, or devouring swarm focused on pure pop growth was king.

[@rylorthreev1353]

Started playing on consoles, tutorial actually helped me a lot, I only had to look for help on youtube to deal with the end game crisis and the fallen empires having an existential crisis Now the dlcs... oh boy theres a lot BUT. They have discounts and you don't really feel left out if you don't pre order them unlike some other online shooter that I play with season pass, expansions each year, and some extra paid content twice a year that makes you feel left out if you don't buy

[@Boopity7739]

This games tutorial is so bad, after I colonized a planet it basically stopped. I didnt even know I could build districts until my 3rd game

[@funnelvortex7722]

Stellaris is more of a hobby itself than a game. I think that's why so many people have a hard time getting into it. Introduced the game to my GF and she's definitely been overwhelmed by the learning curve to the point she needs breaks, I think updated and better tutorials might help new players.

[@chickenwings1444]

as a new player that started 3 months ago i just ignore 90% of anything i don't understand like edicts, trade routes, ect.

[@TimothyHemp]

The learning curve is rough but few games are as satisfying once it all clicks

[@ANTIMONcom]

But if you watch guides you will not get the complete mind blow when you half way into the game figure out that it is possible to build districts on planets 🤯 Speaking for a friend of course

[@VictorDiasBrasil]

I Have 70h and 200learning from youtube!

[@tanthokg]

I started playing the game since 2019 (after Ancient Relics came out) and I didn't have the slightest idea about Ethics and Civics and what they do to my games until 2021 (after Necroids). Heck, I didn't even know the concept of JOBS. I thought every building will automatically generate resources, and pops are there simply to unlock building slots (back when there were 16 slots and you get one unlocked for every 5 pops). After that point, I started watching playthroughs and guides on KZbin. I know more and more about basic concepts of the game, such as Empire Customization, Species Traits, Pop Growth (yes, you read it right), Space Exploration, Ship Designing, Fleet Management, Planetary Designation, Editcs, Traditions, Ascension Perks, Fallen Empire, Endgame Crisis, you name it.

[@TheContingency25x]

3k hours and I’ve seen the defeat title more than I’ve seen the victory one (I’ve only seen the victory title once)

[@quack3891]

reminds me a lot of PoE, you're on the grind wheel and it's live (make it past the filters) or die. Like hell, one of the super early midgame bosses like black star only has a 4% completion on steam, you usually fight them at like t10 or t11 maps, which is after the campaign (considered the tutorial). Like there's just so many filters like act 3 (dominus for new players), act 6-7 (resistances aren't capped/build isn't good enough), act 10 to t1 (can't complete kitava/do maps/do labyrinth), then t6 (can't map sustain/do rare yellows), then t11 (can't map sustain/ do corrupted yellows), t16 (can't boss/map/sustain/farm), then after that is t17's, ubers, and a bunch of other content and stuff. So many knowledge filters that can sometimes flip around entirely.

[@godlessgod6609]

2000 hours and have yet to get past mid game I keep restarting , but I can't stop playing

[@amog8202]

I got the game like a month ago, and my main problem was finding stuff. The tutorial thing was telling me about this tab, or this feature, and i had to pause the game and take like 5 minutes to find it. My advice is for new players to get in single player and just pause whenever you need. Learned pretty quick myself

[@BaloldaliKároly]

I'm a New player and I half aggre whith it couse the tutorryal is helpded me a lot but I still need tutoryal from yutube😢

[@pizzamamamita4782]

The tutorial actually wasnt that bad atleast for me

[@economicserfdom4087]

Just spam research, alloys and meta your fleets, problems solved

[@funnelvortex7722]

I am a total non-meta RP player, but I do have to agree it's important to know how to meta first, then you can go RP however the hell you want. It's how I learned. LIke they say, learn the rules so you know how to break 'em.

[@sett1583]

I have over 2k hours clocked on this game. Still don't know what I'm doing I just like the sound when I press button. XD

[@ghosterino]

I could honestly count **four** main versions of Stellaris. Stellaris 1: the launch version, when you didn't yet need to build outposts to claim a system and there were planet tiles. Stellaris 2: when we switched from tiles to districts and alloys needed buildings. Stellaris 3: industrial districts and combat rework. Stellaris 4: leader rework, aka Galactic Paragons (I might as well start with First Contact, because it's clear that DLC design was already changing there).

[@OzixiThrill]

One thing worth noting is that in the case of Paradox, it's not the suits coming down from above demanding the games to be released unfinished. It has been their business model since their first game and still is to this day. Back when they were only a few guys in a shed, catering to an extremely nieche market, this was perfectly understandable and part of the players' deal with Paradox. Nowadays, when they are essentially a colossal corporation, it's far less accepted.

[@cbl1199]

The absurd paywall is basically the main reason why I probably will never actually buy a paradox Grand Strategy game, like on one side I love them but at the same time it just suck how much content are hidden behind the gazillion dlc, especially with how most if not all of them bring new gameplay elements to the table that may or may not drastically change how you can play the game. Like honestly, nearly 200 bucks (not including the base game) to have everything is ludicrous imo, and with the taxes here it would go up to 250 or something like that, it doesn't seem like that good of a deal. I know its a niche genre and that paradox effectively hold a monopoly on it, so high prices are kind of expected, but still, that is a lot of dosh. And its even worse when you realize they do this for almost every single one of their games.

[@endarus6053]

It took me two irl months to figure out how to colonize planets.

[@Ralticz]

It has taken me 10+ games in a row of constant restarting and learning from my mistakes

[@InvadeNormandy]

I'm so sick to my ass of games as a service mindset polluting all games period dude. The paranoia that if you ever stop patching or re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic, your game is "Dead" (never mind the fact that this logic only applies to always online and multiplayer only games on top of that.) It's surreal to see it bleed over into entirely single player experiences that are unrelated in the most irritating form of balance obsession brain rot that takes over developers brains too. You know- Where the developer begins to OBSESSIVELY comb the game community for fun builds, exploits or winning strategies and almost takes it upon themselves to patch every molecule of fun out as if it were a goddamn MMORPG or competitive title 💀. When irony of ironies a lot of our favorite games had to release as is, one and done. The game is on the disk and that's the game you play and nothing is going to change it. And balance be damned if it's FUN. (Even the multiplayer ones, I assure you- NONE OF OUR MOST BELOVED TACTICS AND STRAT GAMES WERE BALANCED.)

[@Smile_Inside_Facts]

1.25k hours and I've only seen the victory screen like 3 or 4 times maybe ... still I love this game and come back to play it multiple times every year after like 1-2 months of break

[@Nightfang1001]

My introduction was a bunch of friends telling me hey download this game and a everchanging list of mods, its all we are are going to be playing for the next month for the few hours we are all on togther. Hated it, gave up, automated what I could and sat there watching stuff on my phone for every session. Sucks I kind of wanted to get into it but now I know if they see me playing it, they will try to get a session going again.

[@prestongarvey4080]

a lot of what helped me is playing around with console commands and after 925 hours i finally feel like im just learning how to play the game

[@Tom_Cruise_Missile]

I've never won the game, ever. Almost exactly 1250 hours. I started during the ancient days of tiles, and lost track for a while, and got back in when districts became a thing. Played on and off since.

[@Lordblow1]

as a veteran playing with friends who are new this is something I rly needed to hear. The games weren't so bad that I feel it is necessary to apologise but I am definitely going to do things differently next time. It doesn't help that I kinda never felt I was overwhelmed because I had watched at least a dozen Aspec vids or those from other youtubers before I even decided to buy the game. I now rly get how things went a lot worse then they should have.

[@westernbody]

It was even worse when I jumped from SOTSII to this. But as to the gamestyle changing, I am used to that from 7 days to die

[@lady_luna2292]

This game has so many downsides and things I want the devs to change but still is one of the most fun and repayable games I know.

[@Nobody-pc7fq]

As a new player, i just have a ton of fun being a big part of the galaxy. I know I’m probably not going to be able to win, but then game just keeps getting more fun as I discover more things and improve.

[@Bjulce]

Great videos as always. make them more often than they make DLCs.

[@Strategiser2]

...OUCH

[@Deaglan753]

I remember trying to learn how to play stellaris and ended up rage quitting the game so many times, now I can get around the basics and such to keep going but am by no means an experienced player at stellaris, esipcally when new features are added than change everything

[@sincereflowers3218]

"If you're on console sucks to be you" Me, playing tall in a medium galaxy on a base Ps4: 😢😢😢

[@llamaboioflusatia]

1.2k hours and I’ve never seen the victory screen, not even pnce

[@Roaddawg1705]

I don’t own all the dlc so I’m missing out on a lot but I come back to the game every so often because I know something changed. That new council system made my head go boom.

[@BeanBro66]

Honestly one of my favorite parts of this game is just that there's so much stuff, for better and for worse there's just so much to do you can either try and play optimally or slow or just turn down the difficulty and roll with it (RP).

[@lisaruhm6681]

Personally I would say from my experience so far, Stellaris is probably the easiest Paradox game to get into. But the difficulty of getting into the game depends, if you play with or without dlcs, as they add a lot of content. And the Stellaris tutorial actually helped me to get into vanilla Stellaris back in 2018 or 2019, also imo it atcually teaches you things compared to other paradox tutorials, in hoi4 the "tutorial" gives you one of the more difficult nations to play and the tutorial is basically poijting you to a giant wiki article.

[@Joetheknight406]

HOLD UP! when you said "subscribe" at the beginning, your subscribe button glowed. SINCE WHEN DID KZbin DO THAT!?

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

I only have 300 hours of game time and I can tell you the learning curve is very hard, but it’s worth it eventually. Most of the time however I just play some form of human empire whether it’s space Romans or the sus empire from that one hoi4 mod. And then when I’m losing I just rage quit and give up. But hey, that’s the Stellaris experience for you. Don’t like it? You should’ve stucked to another Paradox game or even Total War when you had the chance. And don’t get me started on armies. I just wish they had some improvements even if most players secretly like seeing colored disks because they’re “fire and forget” until the planet is taken.

[@sonawhite8813]

Started playing stellaris with all dlcs with a friend. He taught me the game for one run with pausing. I only play the game when we play multiplayer. And he is apparently terrifiied, causs i keep getting close to winning and am the one now usually against ever pausing. I like the pace of the game.

[@phizu]

it took over 60hours to win the first game (first paradox / strategic game i played) by most points and over 10 games which is pretty good.

[@jamiehughes5573]

Apocalypse is basically a requirement if you want to roleplay as the Ur-Quan Kzer-za from star control 2. Slave shielding all non Ur-quan sentience who refuse vassalage

[@iLLya_]

I have 2k hours and i dont have a even single achievement because i refuse to play without mods

[@5x385]

I've known of some bugs/glitches since like... 2020? Maybe even 2019? They haven't been looked into from what I can tell. May not sound like a huge deal but I literally have stopped playing multiplayer because I couldn't stop myself from abusing them and I also have no way to confirm if anyone else knows of them. These are REALLY incredibly strong/game breaking things by the way but I'm obviously not going to elaborate. It's not that I haven't reported them either, it seems that they're convoluted enough that the average player probably isn't abusing them--probably. So, if someone sees this and knows vaguely of the exploits that I might be talking about then that's confirmation, for me at least, that it's probably just not a big deal to them because it hasn't been put in front of them by a big KZbin video or something. I've thought about bringing it up to a dev or programmer at a con or something, but I don't really attend those. I think if I showed a bunch of people how to perform *one* of these exploits, the rest would probably follow? Probably? I mean there's been exploits like this in the past (so maybe that assumption is wrong as they haven't followed), but the number has been decreasing but it's just one of those things I personally don't like about Stellaris--it almost always just feels like a min-max experience there's very little thought going into anything I'm doing especially considering the random variability of so many elements. It has always felt pointless for me to try and be good at Stellaris. It's fun as a simulation and a numbers game where you play with strategies but actually implementing them is entirely a pointless exercise. Because Paradox refuses to support pretty much any sort of multiplayer scene for nearly any of their games besides maybe HOI4 (though that was only recently) I have no real faith in it as a multiplayer title which for me is where all of the fun is. The game is obviously WAY better in a group of people where there's lots of things to interact and play with--but that isn't what happens in multiplayer because it's unhealthy. I would never suggest Stellaris to anyone, not even on sale, there's lots of DLC with Paradox models so I know that at the end of the day they'll enjoy the game but always be disappointed by the implementation of the content within it. There are mods but even those require a vast community to organize so you'd have to at least pursue that--which you can I guess, and the game is probably worth it at that point.

[@runelt99]

As someone who paradox games in past, one thing that screwed me over was not death stacking. First actual game (after 3 times trying new game because I did research inefficiently and only found out afterwards) I did pretty well in my first war (yes it was civilian diff, how did you know?) then proceeded to have another war where I sent only 1/3 of my army. Aaaand they died. Free stellaris weekend was ending so I said said screw it and uninstalled the game.

[@tevarinvagabond1192]

Um, you don't need to "death stack"...most Paradox games you can literally beat larger enemy forces with your own smaller force. You can do this in various ways, but for Stellaris you can do this by creating fleet compositions that can counter your enemy in how THEY are composed. Also, focusing on long range can be good for having a weaker force because you can get rid of their superior number disadvantage by destroying some of their ships before they can get in range to actually start firing. So yeah, seems it's really more of a skill issue with you, but makes sense since you don't have the patience to actually learn and are a typical ADHD uninstaller and just give up when you can't get your immediate dopamine fix

[@runelt99]

@@tevarinvagabond1192 I just looked up best compositions, put disruptors on them and sent them. I lost my fleet because as I mentioned, I sent 1/3 of it and rest were too far away. I could have probably routed with first fleet and combined with all 3 and won the war. I mean I got it on free weekend and the weekend was coming to an end. I didn't intend to buy the game because I only spend as little as I can and the dlcs inflated the price too much. I'll stick with factorio. Also did you completely ignore part of me being an eu4 player?

[@XIKaMuIX]

This might be the first game where answard to "are you winning son" is NO 😂

[@maximusharbour3463]

I have never glitched in stellaris or used mods, is the game really glitchy?

[@Pan_Z]

Thank you for commentating on just how boring the late-game is. It's been a problem since Stellaris launched. Early game is about discovery and set-up. Mid game is about geopolitics between a few strong space empires. Late game is pointless to play, because one empire is unstoppable at that point.

[@edslayerrunt]

3:20 My lag's so bad I experience 86400 seconds a day.

[@ghosterino]

One interesting thing you could do is make a video about "essential" mods.

[@ghosterino]

You should make a collection of mods against 'late-game frustration'.

[@gambinobolognese]

I love the constant rate of change of stellaris. I think most of the changes are cool. The DLCs arent too expensive, and i get them on G2A. I dont think there really is a good way to do a tutorial for this game. But most games need youtube tutorials nowadays.

[@Peaches-i2i]

It's terrible for any player who isn't a sweaty spreadsheet nerd. The RNG plays so much of a role I've waltzed through end events one playthrough and in another felt impossible. Then losers will claim "skill". The game just tries to juggle too many mechanics.

[@KeinNiemand]

I never had any trouble understanding anything, even without a guide the tooltips are self explanatory and explain everything if you read all of them.

[@antonzhdanov9653]

Checking game from the very release I kinda adopted a particular scenario. I play what I consider the hardest possible setup. I did that with 2.4 version. Like, now I'm still going through 3.2 version, so the slowest pop curve, the earliest crysis, the longest tech, the biggest galaxy, nomads, stagnats, all empires are advanced, my race is terrible lazy, rigid, unruly creatures adopted inward perfection elitists- hippies society. I failed to beat it getting archeology site with artifact making religious stagnate your friend and likely triggered unbidden crysis in 2250 while the best ship even AI got was a cruiser and I with around 80k fleetpower of destroyers was absolutely dominating. I don't want to use glitch strats and play vanilla. So, I absolutely failed. Now I try another one. If I prevail, I move to actual version with all DLCs and start again. And I still can totally understand new players, as I tried EU4 and had to retaliate to simple play through, to get understanding of mechanics. And lets say, Stellaris is somewhat easier than other paradox games in this matter bcs you can calculate a freaking effect of what you are doing. In CK2 or EU4 there is no exact info about that and you should go through wiki everytime. Though, having more than 1000h in stellaris I often use wiki as well, so its not that relevant. Though, in stellaris I understand mechanics at least. Feels like stellaris became my first and the last experience of paradox strategies experience bcs I freaking love space 4x games. Also loved city builders, but skyline feels kinda too realistic. At some point your mega-city starts simply crumble due to transport collapse so you should build city agglo joined with highways and other transports. What is how it works irl, but kinda sucks cuz I wanted to build a MEGA city. Ofc, agglo can grow as well, still going to mega city strategically joined with all kinds of transport to avoid transport collapse. Though, its exponentially difficult as without mods freaking people commuting to job daily for hundreds miles what is unreal, bcs they even never make it to destination, but repeat same cycle stubbornly bugging transport flux a lot. And it fells underwhelming for some reason. I don't even get why. As well last I played there were several flaws like you can't build metro station joining several lines, what cripples metro capacity a lot. Surviving mars is relatively fun but kinda too cartoonish. A lot of futuristic city builders do way better job in this matter.

[@duckthe1st955]

I read the stellaris wiki for fun

[@Boi-dj3eo]

Bought the game at 2.9 a month later 3.0 came out. Did not feel like learning the game again that I just took a 100 hours of learning. While I have played later on, it's never been long or as enjoyable as the first time. And right now I've had the game deinstalled for over a year.