Are you an avid gamer who loves sci-fi games? Have you ever played Stellaris? If you have (which is the case for the majority of the players), then you may be well-versed with its fantastic gameplay and grand strategy genre.
Stellaris is a 4X video game of the grand strategy genre, released by Paradox Interactive. It is purely science fiction mixed with space exploration at its core. It was released for Windows, OS X, and Linux initially in 2016 before being released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019.
This Paradox Interactive game is set in a futuristic era beginning in 2200 with a desire to survive. The primary aim is to establish yourself as a species capable of living in this new universe with the help of futuristic technology and resources available.
Stellaris Gameplay
As already mentioned, Stellaris is a 4X grand strategy game that allows you to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate other worlds. The game is set from the year 2200, where all possible advanced technology is functional. Spaceships that travel faster than light are available.
Depending on your choice, you can choose to go on a galactic conquest or coexist with your neighbors peacefully. You can develop your technology further or hoard the resources available.
Since this is a grand strategy game, it involves the use of military vessels, construction, and science. There is logical combat for wars along with other diplomatic options for forming relations with other species.
The game kicks off by giving you a choice to select a premade empire or create your own empire or randomize the realm set up. You can then proceed to pick a species based on their positive and negative traits. The next step involves customization of the empire, followed by a selection of the ethics of the empire. Once the ethics have been decided, you can move on to determining the finer details of your empire, such as the name, flag, appearance, ruler, and more.
You start off with a single planet that has several mines and research stations. There is also a construction ship, a science ship, and three small warships along with a starbase. You have to explore and colonize before you can invade or form alliances. Your planet’s economy is decided by your resources, namely minerals, consumer goods, food, alloys, and energy credits.
In between all this, there can be minor interplanetary events or major crisis events affecting the entire galaxy.
Stellaris Guide and Tips
When we are in the middle of the game and experience losses due to a critical point that could have been known to us initially, it is quite frustrating. So, keeping this in mind, we have prepared a small list of Stellaris tips you must keep in mind while playing this game.
- One of the primary steps you must take is that you must colonize in the early stages of the game, and you must do it frequently. The mission to colonize other worlds is not assigned to you until you gain a positive balance in both minerals and energy. This is something that will take quite some time before it is adequate, and this time lag may lead to your downfall at the hands of a well-planned conqueror. Try to grab every opportunity of conquering other lands without going to war. Try to gain technology, which helps in capturing your neighbors.
- The second tip is to not over-equip your warships. Keep a little of everything so that you have the choice when you need it. Have a few small ships along with a few large ones to help you fight the enemy according to their warships. Try to keep as many types of weapons in your arsenal as possible.
- Understand the Fallen Empires and endeavor to maintain harmony with them. These empires are the least bit interested in conquests but have quite the military fleet. There are four types of empires, namely the Enigmatic Observers, Militant Isolationists, Holy Guardians, and Keepers of Knowledge.
- You have to manage your influence. Avoid influencing the Frontier Outposts just to gain more space than your competitors. This influence plays a crucial role in recruiting leaders and election cycles later on.
- Do not stop exploring at any given time. Even if you are pressed against your neighbor’s borders, you can still send your spaceships to discover new planets beyond your local area.
- When you are constructing buildings or districts, do not make them more than the pops you have to work in them. This tip is applicable in the early game. These districts are responsible for generating resources as long as you have pops working on them, but there are upkeep costs. If you make more buildings than pops, then you will face additional expenses that will ruin your economy. However, having fewer districts than pops results in the upkeep costs of the pops. So, you must learn to maintain a balance between the number of districts and pops.
- During the middle or late phase of the game, it is advisable to build districts in advance. This results in an additional incentive for immigrants in the form of job opportunities. You also require less time for each planet individually. Now that your economy is stable, you can afford the upkeep costs without any detrimental effects.
- You do not need to bother yourself over the balance of the planet’s resources. Although balancing seems favorable, there is actually no benefit in doing this. Since the resources are in constant exchange with your global pool, there is no benefit from balancing each planet individually. You can, however, aim to specialize in your planet. Undertake this endeavor in the later stages of the games and not in the starting. By specializing a planet, you stand to gain planetary and building bonuses.
- Maintain a strong fleet at all times. Having a strong fleet ensures that other empires do not attack you first. Also, any surrounding space bugs that limit your colonization can be exterminated. Always have a strong economy that can backup your military fleet at any given time.
- Colonization and expansion is something that was advised in the first step. But that said, you must not do this too quickly. If you expand beyond the administrative capacity, the costs of research, leaders, and more will increase. This, in turn, cripples your economy if it isn’t stable. Expand only when you are confident of your economy’s ability to support the colonization.
- One of the most powerful boosts for the empire is the ascension perks and traditions. The traditions improve various aspects of your empire, such as military power and prosperity, while the ascension perks give you permission to specialize in the empire or build new structures. Before the endgame crisis hits at 2450, try to complete all the traditions and ascension perks. Observe your unity income, and the time it takes to complete traditions. Try to keep it at 60-70 months per tradition so that you can finish all by 2400-2450. You can also generate additional income with unity buildings, ruler skills, and more.
Stellaris Tech Tree
The Stellaris Tech Tree is not quite a tech tree, as imagined as there is a card shuffle system to introduce an element of randomness. However, there is an essential tree-like structure underlying the whole system.
There are mainly three different fields of technology, namely, Engineering, Physics, and Society.
Engineering is concerned with applying materials into tools and unlocks missiles, buildings, military ships, and more.
Physics deals with the manipulation of energy in the universe. This technology is responsible for unlocking power plants, artificial intelligence, shields, and more.
Society is responsible for the organization of the empire’s civilization. This includes planet colonization, genetic modifications, government options, and more.
There are 12 subcategories available further, and these have been distributed among these three fields of technology. These subcategories belong to either one of the significant areas but are not necessarily exclusive to it.
Stellaris Cheats
If you are facing any minor setback in your game, then there are chances that there is already a cheat code to help you out. Although cheat codes are usually frowned upon, taking a little help once in a while doesn’t really harm anyone.
To employ the cheat code, open the console in Stellaris. Start a brand new game or load your current game and press the “~” key (Tilde key) on your keyboard. You need to enter these in lowercase for them to work.
Now, let us take a look at all the cheat codes:
- For cash, enter: Cash [Desired Amount]
- For resources, enter: [Resource] [Desired Amount]
- For invincibility, enter: Invincible
- For researching all technology, enter: Research_Technologies
- For enabling/disabling AI, enter: AI
- For surveying, every star system and all the planets on the map, enter: Survey
- For influence, enter: Influence [Desired Amount]
- For making all AI accept your demands (society), enter: Debug_Yesmen
- For finishing all incomplete construction, enter: Instant_Build
- For finishing construction for all current research projects, enter: Finish_Research
- To play as a different faction/Fallen Empire, enter: Play [Faction ID]. Note that faction IDs for Fallen Empires begin one number higher than the total empires in the current game.
- For adding new trait to species, enter: Add_Trait_Species [Species] [Trait Key]
- For removing any trait from species, enter: Remove_Trait_Species [Species] [Trait Key]
- For changing the class of your current planet, enter: Planet_Class [Class ID]
- For increasing the happiness of current planet, enter: Planet_Happiness [Desired Amount]
- For adjusting planet size, enter: Planet_Size [Desired Amount]
- For damaging selected ship, enter: Damage [Desired Amount]
- For causing the next election, enter: Democratic_Election
- For moving ahead in the calendar, enter: Fast_Forward [Desired Amount]
- For enabling/disabling FTL, enter: FTL
- For enabling/disabling instant colonization, enter: Instant_Colony
- For enabling/disabling instant teleportation of ships, enter: Instant_Move
- For switching to observer mode, enter: Observe
You can check all cheat codes in the Stellaris Console cheats.
Conclusion
This Stellaris Guide was carefully curated to help out fellow Stellaris gamers through tips and cheat codes. Stellaris is a grand strategy game that can be quite difficult to grasp for a newbie. Hence, we hope that this guide helps you through the early phase of the game and well into the late stages. Happy Exploring!
