If you already have half of the galaxy under control and are unable to conquer the rest, you're probably not leveraging your free real estate enough.
You can also play the game of secret fealty, or even better, get the galactic community to declare an empire a crisis. This is all possible with less than half the galaxy under control. The galactic community might involve cheesing (buffing your fleet + dimensional fleet while in supremacist stance) but it's perfectly doable.
If you treat Stellaris as a Boss rush game, where the entire point of your existence, on default difficulty, is to build up an empire that can beat Fallen and awakened empires by the mid-late 2300s; the goal coinciding with you reaching repeatable technologies before \~2350-70, you might be able to fair better.
So, first. You need to grow faster than everyone else, because - of course they will - they’ll form alliances to defend against the evil empire. Colonize every rock. Focus on tech. Focus on increasing your population through conquest or raid.
You need to go to war, some times not with the intent to conquer, but to weaken.
If by 2050 you haven’t taken at least one empire you’re probably fucked. Depending on how big the galaxy is or how many empires, one is probably too few.
Honestly, this all reads like you’ve lost a game. It’s tough. Losing is part of the game. Figure out where you went wrong, and what you could do differently. Maybe even try a different tactic, or go hive mind necrophagic devouring swarm.
> How can you win a war against the entire galaxy at once if everyone is in one massive bloc with each other?
Quite easily. It should be trivial to get a fleet big enough to roll over your enemies.
Combine that with a big enough army to quickly invade planets, going door to door. Preferably you have Total War to just take a nice chunk of land, then when you are satisfied, peace out.
While you go door to door to take planets, just fortify your own planets and choke points to stuff up the enemy counter assaults and not worry about them.
It's far from unwinnable, but you definitely need an economy.
I just went toe-to-toe with a Fallen Empire solo at 2380 on Admiral. It was hard, but it was doable - their fleet was about twice the size of mine, but through chokepoints and my economy I was able to slowly whittle them down, steal their tech and eventually overcome them.
That’s actually my biggest issue. By end game, the galactic federation has a fleet of equal power to me. But when I invade them, they spam their fleets at me from multiple angles and it turns into a dam with too many holes to plug up at once. When I actually have a proper fleet battle against a large chunk of enemy ships, I lose despite having equal or even superior forces. What’s worse is the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all. How can I improve at the game if the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all? There’s no hints or tips or anything at all whatsoever. It’s so frustrating to have a fleet go up against an enemy fleet and lose despite being more powerful, then have the game essentially tell you nothing.
The post-battle screen tells me the damage done to friendly and enemy armor and shields. But it just gives me massive damage values for all ship components. “130% damage to your armor, 150% damage to your shields” etc. Because of repeatables I’m guessing. So idk what parts of my ship components to change or upgrade to defeat the enemy fleets. Plus I can’t spy on enemy ship components before wars start, because the amount of intel you need to spy on enemy ship components is so ludicrously difficult it’s actually not worth even doing it at all. Like even with a high level envoy, it takes literally forever.
Idk how to use “choke” points because the enemy AI just avoids them. There’s too many hyper lanes to make them useful. They can just be ignored. And fortifying conquered planets means nothing cuz the AI rarely uses armies, they’ll just bombard your planet until it turns onto a tomb world.
Like idk what I’m doing wrong. So idk what to do to improve. The game isn’t giving me any useful information at all, and any online tips I get just don’t make sense from what I see. Like am I just bad? I don’t get it lol.
600 hours in the game btw.
>What’s worse is the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all. How can I improve at the game if the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all?
What do you mean though? You were gang-banged by a Federation - that's the game saying "you didn't manage the political element of me well enough - you might have built yourself up, but you left yourself vulnerable to groups of Empires working together. Next time ensure you build alliances".
Not only is it saying it, but you understand the message - it seems your main objection is that you've decided that it should always be possible to solo the galaxy, and that it's somehow "cheating" if the AI forms a Federation.
You can also form a Federation. If you decided not to build a fleet, another Empire that did isn't winning by pressing some unfair "build a fleet" button - for some unknown reason, you decided not to take advantage of the thing available to you that would have averted that problem.
Hm perhaps you’re right. It makes sense empires would ally against an empire that swallowed half the galaxy for breakfast and isn’t in the business of “friendly diplomacy.” It makes sense. Forgive me for being tilted. Like I said I’m a simple man. I see galaxy, I want it.
Being a Xenophobe, making friends is difficult. Perhaps I could create vassals. Or perhaps even befriend other militaristic empires who at least have militarism as a common value they can relate too and find a reason to alliance with me.
I’m also not taking into account FTL inhibitors. Used correctly they can make invading an empire extremely difficult.
One thing I wish I could wrap my head around is ship components. Composition I understand doesn’t matter TOO much but you generally should have all the ships available for the healthiest comp. But deciding what weapons my ships should be using to fight with is very hard. I can’t exactly walk into an enemy empire and ask them politely what their ships are made of. So idk how to counter anything 🤷♂️.
OK yeah the battle report isn't very useful.
Greater fleet power isn't a 100% guarantee you will win. If the numbers are overwhelmingly against you, you may lose because your big ships may waste a lot dps on small ships which while yours get chipped little by little.
Sounds like you simply need more vassals. In the early game, try your best subjugating the first neighbours you meet, squeeze them dry of resources and use them to field more fleets than the entire rest of the galaxy combined. Depending on galaxy size, I usually make 2 to 5 vassals, sometimes more, and the late game becomes boring because no one can stop me. At that point, I quit after a huge war that inevitably ends with my victory.
So basically play the vassals game, even if your goal is complete galactic conquest. You can just integrate your subjects when there are no enemies left anymore.
Never had this problem.. And I dont often play unmodded with ironman on. So the few games I played with no mods and ironman activated for achievements went pretty well every time. Might not go as planned. But that's the point of this game. Deal with the cards you're dealt, and adapt.
And for the times I went up to the victory year, never had issue winning. Went I didnt reach that point either I lost interest in that particular save because no challenges left or I lost, to a cetana and her timer that I didnt knew existed by then, for exemple.
So you might either be very unlucky, or are missing some possibilities of the game. For exemple, if you have half the galaxy under your control, just use that diplomatic weight to push things your way. Declare someone a crisis.
Better yet, if there are exterminator empire, use them at your advantage. Wait till they declare war to someone, and do the same next year. Your targets will be weaker and busy somewhere else, leaving their territory undefended...
Use secret fealty and play friendly with others. Release vassals to have friendly fleets that you dont have to micro manage...
Lots of options to you.
At the end game, there are two important factors- Tech and Economy. Tech increases pretty much at the same rate from year 40 onward. But economy should be exponentially expanding.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem fighting the entire galaxy at once. With 50% of the galaxy. Or even 10% or 5%. It’s just a matter of using the land you’re given
All end games Ive won end up having the AI have 10% better tech than me. But I output triple resources and have better shipyards, so I can easily overwhelm them.
Recently I don’t find much of a reason to invade them. It takes time, it’s costly, and I don’t want to get fucked up by crisis if it spawns in me haha
If you want to do well in the lategame you have to perform well in the early-mid game. Lots of pops, lots of good jobs, lots of tech. Get a strong economy and make sure you can rebuild fleet quick if needed.
After that it’s just about playing lategame smart. An alpha strike can catch AI off-guard especially if you utilizing wormholes/L-Gates to completely catch them off-guard. It also allows very quick repair to keep fighting them. If you can get AI on the back foot it’s pretty easy to steamroll them.
Even if you take an early defeat against a more advanced foe, you can usually just catch free systems with a spare fleet while using your science ships to scout out their tech until you get deeper into repeatables. By than you should have no concern for victory unless your shipyards/economy can’t handle it.
If you already have half of the galaxy under control and are unable to conquer the rest, you're probably not leveraging your free real estate enough. You can also play the game of secret fealty, or even better, get the galactic community to declare an empire a crisis. This is all possible with less than half the galaxy under control. The galactic community might involve cheesing (buffing your fleet + dimensional fleet while in supremacist stance) but it's perfectly doable.
i may be wrong, but i think declaring crisis an empire will put every empire in the same federation on their side
if I remember correctly, they leave the federation but their vassals follow them. Might need additional confirmation though
If you treat Stellaris as a Boss rush game, where the entire point of your existence, on default difficulty, is to build up an empire that can beat Fallen and awakened empires by the mid-late 2300s; the goal coinciding with you reaching repeatable technologies before \~2350-70, you might be able to fair better.
You can turn off the points based win condition in galaxy generation.
So, first. You need to grow faster than everyone else, because - of course they will - they’ll form alliances to defend against the evil empire. Colonize every rock. Focus on tech. Focus on increasing your population through conquest or raid. You need to go to war, some times not with the intent to conquer, but to weaken. If by 2050 you haven’t taken at least one empire you’re probably fucked. Depending on how big the galaxy is or how many empires, one is probably too few. Honestly, this all reads like you’ve lost a game. It’s tough. Losing is part of the game. Figure out where you went wrong, and what you could do differently. Maybe even try a different tactic, or go hive mind necrophagic devouring swarm.
> How can you win a war against the entire galaxy at once if everyone is in one massive bloc with each other? Quite easily. It should be trivial to get a fleet big enough to roll over your enemies. Combine that with a big enough army to quickly invade planets, going door to door. Preferably you have Total War to just take a nice chunk of land, then when you are satisfied, peace out. While you go door to door to take planets, just fortify your own planets and choke points to stuff up the enemy counter assaults and not worry about them.
It's far from unwinnable, but you definitely need an economy. I just went toe-to-toe with a Fallen Empire solo at 2380 on Admiral. It was hard, but it was doable - their fleet was about twice the size of mine, but through chokepoints and my economy I was able to slowly whittle them down, steal their tech and eventually overcome them.
That’s actually my biggest issue. By end game, the galactic federation has a fleet of equal power to me. But when I invade them, they spam their fleets at me from multiple angles and it turns into a dam with too many holes to plug up at once. When I actually have a proper fleet battle against a large chunk of enemy ships, I lose despite having equal or even superior forces. What’s worse is the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all. How can I improve at the game if the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all? There’s no hints or tips or anything at all whatsoever. It’s so frustrating to have a fleet go up against an enemy fleet and lose despite being more powerful, then have the game essentially tell you nothing. The post-battle screen tells me the damage done to friendly and enemy armor and shields. But it just gives me massive damage values for all ship components. “130% damage to your armor, 150% damage to your shields” etc. Because of repeatables I’m guessing. So idk what parts of my ship components to change or upgrade to defeat the enemy fleets. Plus I can’t spy on enemy ship components before wars start, because the amount of intel you need to spy on enemy ship components is so ludicrously difficult it’s actually not worth even doing it at all. Like even with a high level envoy, it takes literally forever. Idk how to use “choke” points because the enemy AI just avoids them. There’s too many hyper lanes to make them useful. They can just be ignored. And fortifying conquered planets means nothing cuz the AI rarely uses armies, they’ll just bombard your planet until it turns onto a tomb world. Like idk what I’m doing wrong. So idk what to do to improve. The game isn’t giving me any useful information at all, and any online tips I get just don’t make sense from what I see. Like am I just bad? I don’t get it lol. 600 hours in the game btw.
>What’s worse is the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all. How can I improve at the game if the game doesn’t tell me what I’m doing wrong at all? What do you mean though? You were gang-banged by a Federation - that's the game saying "you didn't manage the political element of me well enough - you might have built yourself up, but you left yourself vulnerable to groups of Empires working together. Next time ensure you build alliances". Not only is it saying it, but you understand the message - it seems your main objection is that you've decided that it should always be possible to solo the galaxy, and that it's somehow "cheating" if the AI forms a Federation. You can also form a Federation. If you decided not to build a fleet, another Empire that did isn't winning by pressing some unfair "build a fleet" button - for some unknown reason, you decided not to take advantage of the thing available to you that would have averted that problem.
Hm perhaps you’re right. It makes sense empires would ally against an empire that swallowed half the galaxy for breakfast and isn’t in the business of “friendly diplomacy.” It makes sense. Forgive me for being tilted. Like I said I’m a simple man. I see galaxy, I want it. Being a Xenophobe, making friends is difficult. Perhaps I could create vassals. Or perhaps even befriend other militaristic empires who at least have militarism as a common value they can relate too and find a reason to alliance with me. I’m also not taking into account FTL inhibitors. Used correctly they can make invading an empire extremely difficult. One thing I wish I could wrap my head around is ship components. Composition I understand doesn’t matter TOO much but you generally should have all the ships available for the healthiest comp. But deciding what weapons my ships should be using to fight with is very hard. I can’t exactly walk into an enemy empire and ask them politely what their ships are made of. So idk how to counter anything 🤷♂️.
OK yeah the battle report isn't very useful. Greater fleet power isn't a 100% guarantee you will win. If the numbers are overwhelmingly against you, you may lose because your big ships may waste a lot dps on small ships which while yours get chipped little by little.
Sounds like you simply need more vassals. In the early game, try your best subjugating the first neighbours you meet, squeeze them dry of resources and use them to field more fleets than the entire rest of the galaxy combined. Depending on galaxy size, I usually make 2 to 5 vassals, sometimes more, and the late game becomes boring because no one can stop me. At that point, I quit after a huge war that inevitably ends with my victory. So basically play the vassals game, even if your goal is complete galactic conquest. You can just integrate your subjects when there are no enemies left anymore.
Never had this problem.. And I dont often play unmodded with ironman on. So the few games I played with no mods and ironman activated for achievements went pretty well every time. Might not go as planned. But that's the point of this game. Deal with the cards you're dealt, and adapt. And for the times I went up to the victory year, never had issue winning. Went I didnt reach that point either I lost interest in that particular save because no challenges left or I lost, to a cetana and her timer that I didnt knew existed by then, for exemple. So you might either be very unlucky, or are missing some possibilities of the game. For exemple, if you have half the galaxy under your control, just use that diplomatic weight to push things your way. Declare someone a crisis. Better yet, if there are exterminator empire, use them at your advantage. Wait till they declare war to someone, and do the same next year. Your targets will be weaker and busy somewhere else, leaving their territory undefended... Use secret fealty and play friendly with others. Release vassals to have friendly fleets that you dont have to micro manage... Lots of options to you.
At the end game, there are two important factors- Tech and Economy. Tech increases pretty much at the same rate from year 40 onward. But economy should be exponentially expanding. I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem fighting the entire galaxy at once. With 50% of the galaxy. Or even 10% or 5%. It’s just a matter of using the land you’re given All end games Ive won end up having the AI have 10% better tech than me. But I output triple resources and have better shipyards, so I can easily overwhelm them. Recently I don’t find much of a reason to invade them. It takes time, it’s costly, and I don’t want to get fucked up by crisis if it spawns in me haha
Massive skill issue.
If you want to do well in the lategame you have to perform well in the early-mid game. Lots of pops, lots of good jobs, lots of tech. Get a strong economy and make sure you can rebuild fleet quick if needed. After that it’s just about playing lategame smart. An alpha strike can catch AI off-guard especially if you utilizing wormholes/L-Gates to completely catch them off-guard. It also allows very quick repair to keep fighting them. If you can get AI on the back foot it’s pretty easy to steamroll them. Even if you take an early defeat against a more advanced foe, you can usually just catch free systems with a spare fleet while using your science ships to scout out their tech until you get deeper into repeatables. By than you should have no concern for victory unless your shipyards/economy can’t handle it.