Stellaris 2.2.x 'Le Guin' and MegaCorp review

[TelperionST]

Don’t be afraid to go over the limit and run a deficit

The Galactic Market is clearly a good addition to the game, because now I can sell what I don’t need and buy what I do, but there’s a 30% markup on all the prices on the Galactic Market. If you make a mistake then that’s a lot of energy you just wasted, because every transaction has the same 30% markup. No refunds available. For myself alloys and food were the most frequently purchased items. I bought most of the alloys I needed for big things like starbase upgrades and fleet upgrades, because I couldn’t be bothered to wait for a few years until I could afford them through the production I had. I was constantly losing a bit of food. Those darned farmers just wouldn’t stay on their farms and waiting for Specialists to turn into Workers seemed to take forever. Thankfully I could always buy a couple of thousand units of food on the Galactic Market, which would last me for years.

Stellaris has steadily introduced new limits to the game, but very few of them are hard limits. You have an administrative cap, which is used up by districts, systems and colonies. I built tall, so my total empire size is 240 with an administrative cap of 100 (30 plus lots of tech). Even with all the cumulative costs of being 140% over my administrative cap, I’m still superior in both economic power and technology level to most of the other empires. There’s a starbase capacity, but going over that limit only adds an increased upkeep cost. Same deal with naval capacity. The game expects you go over these limits at least momentarily and the administrative cap is definitely one that everyone will go over. The Galactic Market is a great way to take risks and lower the odds of losing outright.

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Starbases, trade piracy and corvette patrol fleets

It used to be that pirates would spawn on the edges of your controlled space, but not anymore. The new piracy system is relatively easy to manage, but it does require more fiddling around. Every bit of trade goes to the capital of an empire, which means that trade routes are automatically created from wherever there is trade exists and linked all the way to a capital. Building trade hubs near trade good sources collects the trade and turn it into energy - or a combination of energy and Consumer Goods, or a combination of energy and unity. Depends on Trade Policy. Building defenses on trade hubs will reduce some piracy, but the real pirate-busters are corvettes. While playing I created half a dozen fleets of corvettes, whose only task is to endlessly patrol along a multitude of trade routes. At first I kept taking these patrol-corvettes off-duty for upgrades, but after a while I just couldn’t be bothered. Their only task is to move from system to system to suppress piracy and to make sure that no pirates spawn.

What is more interesting is the strategic placing of starbases to gather maximum amount of trade. Each trade hub built into a starbase gives it +1 range, so if there are two source of trade in systems that are next to each other then a single trade hub will collect both. Similarly, each weapon system built on a starbase gives +1 pirate protection range. The reason why corvettes are so much better is because they move between the systems where the protection of the starbases doesn’t reach and they give better protection than your basic gun and missile batteries. Where there is a lot of trade, piracy is constantly rising higher and higher, but a corvette on a patrol will reduce or even reset the piracy to zero. Only to start rising again, but that’s why I have set the corvettes on permanent patrols.

All of this means that starbases have a new role beyond creating defensible choke points at the edges of my empire and building ships. There’s a lot of trade just floating out there in space, which gives an incentive to build starbases in places where I previously wouldn’t. Sometimes even creating entire networks of starbases to capitalize on all the trade. Upgrading all the way from starport to citadel makes a big difference, because more modules on a starbase means greater trade collection and piracy protection range. A single well-placed starbase can grow big enough until I can start dismantling nearby starbases. Only to build more starbases elsewhere and once again create new trade routes, which requires more corvettes on patrol.

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Amenities make for Happy Pops

Amenities is a new kind of number that currently affects the happiness of pops on a planetary basis and also improves the growth rates of new pops. There are various buildings that make amenities, but by default each clerk-job produces one amenity. I have found it easiest to make a lot of Commercial Zone buildings, because not only do they offer large numbers of clerk jobs, but also increase planetary Trade Value. A win-win if there ever was one: shopping opportunities and amenities for the masses, and money for the empire. Prior to the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update you could clearly see that happy pops made for more efficient workers. I haven’t found a way to see how much happiness affects the productivity of an individual pop, but I’m going to guess that it still does.

Amenities and pop happiness is currently something that’s obviously good for every empire, but it’s obfuscated enough where I can’t tell you exactly how much of an impact it really has. High amenities affects pop happiness, which affects pop approval and that affects Stability. Stability affects the productivity of pops, but no longer does the happiness of individual pops matter so much. Pop Approval is calculated from an average of the happiness of all pops living on a planet weighted based on their Political Power. Ergo, on average, happy pops make for more efficient workers, but not all pops have to be happy for a high stability. In the example I have given a Specialist Artisan pop has +9.60% productivity due to High Stability.

What I have found out is that Pops with higher tier jobs matter more than others in a stratified economy. All pops of the same tier and living conditions have the same Political Power. In this example, Workers have Political Power 1. Specialists have Political Power 2. Rulers have Political Power 8. If I make Specialists and Rulers happy, then the happiness of the Workers doesn't matter so much for the overall Pop Approval Rating - which impacts Stability. The Workers' combined Political Power is only 43 (43 * 1), whereas the Specialists have a Political Power of 54 (27 * 2) and the Rulers have a combined Political Power of 64 (8 * 8) on the example planet.

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New resources: Alloys and Consumer Goods

Consumer Goods aren’t a new concept to Stellaris, but they used to be a much more abstract concept prior to the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ -update. Before now you would lose x amount of minerals depending on the living standards you set for your pops. Higher living standards meant better modifiers, but also higher upkeep per pop. Now Consumer Goods have been separated into a resource of their own. Right beside the three basic resources, I have found Consume Goods to be the most important resource in the game, because so many jobs use them to create bigger and better things.

Meanwhile, alloys are used mostly for building ships, star bases and making upgrades. I don’t remember seeing such high costs for upgrades in the past, but then again I could be remembering wrong. The separation between alloys and minerals feels significant. I usually don’t have a lot of Alloy Foundries on early planets, because there’s usually a less of a reason to have a large fleet of ships.

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Jobs for Everyone and for Robots too

Before the 2.2‘Le Guin’ update, every colonizable planet was divided into tiles that offered different kinds of base resources, science or nothing at all. A single pop would occupy a tile and work it. You could upgrade the tiles for better output in exchange for a higher upkeep, but for the most part once a planet’s tiles filled up, you could forget about the planet until it came time to upgrade. Then it was a painful chore to go through half a galaxy full of planets, clicking through everything to upgrade multiple tiles on most planets. The 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update didn’t entirely get rid of this need to visit individual planets and decide on upgrades, but it made it a much more interesting experience. Instead of a chore, it feels much more like a decision that depends on more than one factor. More on this in a moment.

Like before, you have your energy, mineral and food producers, but these are relegated to a very smart corner of the screen where I can at a glance see how much potential production a planet has. What should I focus on with this planet? What sort of natural resources or specialties does it have? The latter question can be answered by clicking on either one of the two buttons underneath the generator district button. This is something that I had to get used to in the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update. Almost every picture is actually a button that opens up a side panel that will offer more options. While not an entirely new concept I have read more than one Reddit conversation that starts along the lines of “Doh, I didn’t realize that’s a button!” Personally I didn’t at first realize you can build City Districts by clicking on the image immediately to the left of the generator district.

Unlike before, there’s a real sense that the decisions I make while building a planet have a significant impact on the pops that live on said planet. Just because a faction is upset with me doesn’t seem to have such a significant affect on individual pops - regardless of their political affiliation. There are still planet-specific modifiers and events that can cause all sorts of headaches, but I have found that with enough care and attention most planets will thrive with happy, quickly growing pops that don’t care so much about the agendas and politics of the factions that dominate the political system. Beyond the city and production districts, there’s a wide variety of buildings, which are unlocked according to the number of pops you have on a planet. In this regard “pops” also include robots that you can build in specialized buildings. Be weary, though: while building robots increases the number of pops available, doing so consumes a lot of basic resources at the beginning of the game and leads to potential overcrowding towards the end of the game. You might think that it’s okay to start getting rid of excess robots, but more often than not I have run into a faction with an agenda similar to “robot lives matter too.”

The major difference between districts and buildings is the kinds of jobs they offer. A basic robot is good for mining minerals in a mining district, but not so good when it comes to producing scientific research in Research Labs or consumer goods in Civilian Industries. The AI governing regular pops favors Ruler jobs over Specialists, and Specialist jobs over Worker jobs. Every pop on every planet wants the highest tier job available, but this is where I have had to take a firm hand in managing pops or otherwise I keep dropping into constant basic resource deficits. Having a deficit in one basic resource isn’t a big deal, but two or three? Then your empire is starting to have issues.

Those base resource (energy, minerals and food) districts are crucial to the well-fair and happiness of the entire empire. I can’t give all of my regular pops higher tier jobs, because I don’t have enough robots to fill the rest of the jobs. And, if I did have enough robots then how would I employ regular pops? Most of the buildings only employ a handful of pops until I can upgrade them and upgraded buildings consume additional resources to operate – some of which are Strategic Resources I don’t have unlimited access to. This creates a constant loop of having to grow bigger, so that an empire can support higher tier buildings, have more higher tier jobs and ultimately grow to become the greatest empire in the galaxy (at least briefly).

The threat of overpopulation was never really an issue before the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update, but now it is something that I have to think about while building planets. Encouraging migration to newly colonized planets is certainly an option and one that doesn’t cost an unreasonable amount of resources in the short-term. However, towards mid-game there’s usually very little space to expand. Luckily, the game comes with population controls that answer this problem, if you are willing to make hard decision as a ruler. The downside to using population controls is that there are plenty of factions that don’t like them, which can lower the amount of monthly Influence income. Alternatively, you can always declare rivalries, make claims and finally declare war on neighboring empires. That will limit diplomatic options in the future, but in the meanwhile you will have alien planets to conquer.

[TelperionST]

Strategic Resources upgrade

In the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update, Strategic Resources are pooled just like basic resources, but for every Strategic Resource you need a specific technology to either manufacture it from basic resources or mine it wherever available. Having a single source doesn’t necessarily get you very far, because a lot of the advanced buildings in the game now have a maintenance cost that requires 1 unit of a specific Strategic Resource per month. Not to mention that a lot of them also require you have to 50 units of said Strategic Resource to make the upgrade in the first place. For example, if you are mining a single source of Rare Crystals then you can usually pay the upkeep of a single Civilian Fabricator, which is the upgraded version of a Civilian Industries building. An upgraded building offers more bang for your buck by offering more Specialist jobs for your pops. Jobs that produce more Consumer Goods in this case. You can buy Strategic Resources through the Galactic Market, but I have found that that costs a lot of energy, which can add a significant upkeep cost per building. I noticed that having trader enclaves within the borders of my empire is a significant boon, because they will (always?) provide you with a better deal than going through the Galactic Market and you are also not subject to price changes in the Galactic Market.

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The Basics going into 2.2

Stellaris is a 4X sci-fi space strategy game where you take on the role of building your own space empire. First you get to create a sci-fi race and nascent empire, or pick one from a list of pre-generated ones. IMO, the game is way more fun with custom empires. If you follow a YouTube content creator or Twitch streamer, check out if they offer an entire package of custom empires. If they do, import the empires (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9BNIYJfYBk). As of the writing of this review, I would also highly recommend that you take a look at mods that enhance the game’s AI for a better gaming experience. iGlavius’s Ultimate AI seems to be the most popular one right now.

After you launch the game set the imported custom empires to “force spawn” from the “New Game” section of the main menu. Click once on the phoenix-icon next to each empire to change “Empire Spawning Allowed” to “Empire Spawning Forced.” After that make an empire of your own. If you are new to the game then you don’t need to fiddle around with the plethora of options while setting up a game. Like with other Paradox titles you are expected to learn as you play.

You are now ready start a new game.

Once in the sandbox, you find yourself as the ruler of a nascent space empire that has just developed FTL-capabilities. Your civilization has explored its own solar system, but outside of that is an entire galaxy filled with mysteries and unexplored space. Technically speaking this is a real-time strategy game, but in practice I would call it turn-based. On the first day of each month, you get the basic resources (energy, minerals and food) used for building and upkeep. Additionally you get research and unity points, which are used to unlock new technologies and tradition perks. Completing an entire tradition (for example Discovery) also opens up an ascension perk, which are powerful boosts to a variety of game mechanics or unique abilities. But before you get into all of that you build your first science ships and send them into the vast darkness of space to discover the galaxy. From there you will build a network of space stations, colonize other planets, build fleets of ships, encounter other empires, probably go to war at some point, discover numerous ancient mysteries and endless anomalies.

Before the 2.2 update the final two resources you had to keep track of were Influence and Strategic Resources. Influence is very important, because you need it to expand, lay claims to systems within the borders of other empires, activate Edicts - timed boosts that affect your entire empire - and make Decisions that do the same for individual planets. There are a lot of other ways to spend your Influence, but to me those are the most common ones. Monthly Influence can be gained through researching a few technologies, but mostly you will gain influence by making factions within your empire happy and by declaring neighboring empires your rivals. Conversely, I mostly lose monthly Influence by signing Defensive Pacts and joining a Federation. To this day I actively stay away from Federations, because AI Empires in a Federation will declare wars I’m not interested, but still have to pay for through War Exhaustion and destroyed fleets.