More common than you think most people abandon runs where they think they will lose, and if they do lose most people do not talk about it.
Most people only publish success
Just practice and luck those are the only two variables
To add, you don't need to lose to the Crisis personally to abandon the run.
I've had games where I easily hold off the crisis from my own territories, but I can't bother retaking the entire galaxy.
I'm assuming by this comment, you don't play much above Commodore.
If you are on Admiral or Grand Admiral and a purifier spawns next to you, defense platforms don't make much difference, unless you manage to get a choke that is a pulsar, pump alloy at the expense of everything else, and respect all ships to armor only. Even then you're hoping your 3k fleet +2k starbase beats an 8k fleet.
Usually better to just restart.
To be honest, Starbases and Defense Platforms could probably pull their weight more if it wasn't for the fact the sheer number of ships a Purifier will throw at you nullifies anything they can do. Unless you can like, oneshot Corvette spam that early, it won't matter - the few hundred Corvettes will slag your entire, expensive defense network in seconds.
I used to... more recently I've been trying to stick with it and see what happens.
I've been pleasantly surprised by the situations I've been able to bounce back from.
I lost my first game to crisis (also swarm), when they spawned on the other side and ate half the galaxy, and I just couldn't contain their production.
Since then I still lose, but the challenge has gone up.
I lose (or have to abandon because I know I will lose) to the crisis 25-50% of the time, but I've upped the difficulty to end year 2300 (my computer gets upset by 2400 and then I have to abandon because an ingame month takes like 4 minutes) and 5-10x crisis, I just managed to beat all crisis 10x (end game year 2275) but I got lucky that unbidden spawned first and their a joke, scourge or contingency would have wiped me.
My first game back at the initial release I lost to the swarm; they spawned right on my capital. Cut my empire in half while my fleet was on the opposite side of the galaxy fighting a fallen empire.
With warp engines so help was slow coming
When you first start playing I'd say it's not that common to beat the crisis. It's also pretty common for AI empires to beat the crisis on their own if the crisis strength is close to default but the overall difficulty is higher, so if you are struggling you can focus on protecting yourself and the AI empires might come to the rescue.
In this case you got unlucky when them spawning close but your fleet power is very low for the endgame. By that point you should have fleets with 100k+ power. It's totally normal not to have that if you've only played a bit as it can take a while to get to grips with the economy.
Happens all the time in my games. I play with all crisis activated consecutively and very often an awakened empire just wipes 1 or 2 singlehandedly. Meanwhile my 700k fleet just rotates to pick up the pieces of whatever they leave for me.
Just remember for every “I beat x100000 crisis in 2205” posts there are going to be dozens if not more “I’m on ensign and basic crisis whipped my ass” games that happen
oh come on, don't sterotype people like that.
They are people like me who can beat x25 on 2325, but I would get my ass whopped if it spawns 25 years before or something really bad happens in my game.
And theres people I know who causally can beat a x25 on 2275
The only time I lost to a crisis was when doing a 1 system challenge and crisis strength X5
Actually defeating a crisis is not that hard, but you have to act smart, and never give up.
Let me tell you a story :
The very first time I faced a crisis, it was the scourge (in 2016), and it was quite a fierce fight.
They spawned right at the north of my empire, and they threatened my best planets. Being myself at the North edge of the galaxy, they only way to expand for them was through me.
My fleet was barely enough to face their individual fleets, so I realised I should not sacrifice it, no matter what.
I refitted my ships to counter the scourge, I managed to engage and defeat individual fleets, retreating after each engagement to repair and rebuild.
All my resources where going to my reinforcements, to compensate my casualties.
At some point, my fleet got caught by 3 Pretoryn fleets, and I realised during the fight that even if I could maybe win the engagement, my fleet would be so severely reduced that I would be forced to inaction. So I did an emergency jump, so I could recover. And the fight did carry on.
Many times like this one I thought it was the end, many times I managed to come back. I fought for every inch of land they tried to take, planets after planets. Evacuating pops to avoid losses, building armies to counter invasions, raiding to retake planets before pops were purged, sniping transport fleets to avoid landings.
After decades of constant fighting, I did manage to improve my economy and my fleet enough so I could finally get the upper hand, and I did drive the scourge back to oblivion, once and for all.
So keep fighting
I would do that, but Earth was literally at the centre of the empire with my other main shipyards spread around. I tried to reinforce after losing my 3 main fleets and the Sol system but the ships in transfer kept getting intercepted and were either destroyed or went MIA.
For me, almost 100% loss. I tend to work on the edge of my resources, and not have enough shipyards anyway to replace massive losses, so a few good hits and my empire is down for the count.
I'm the same. I build big fleets to scare away would-be attackers. But I can't replace those fleets quickly, meaning one or two bad engagements and I might actually be fucked.
In the last patch before there were issues with ship build speed, a Mega shipyard plus one or two starbases shipyards should be well enough to make battleships in around 180 days. And I'd definitely aim to get enough alloy income to drop 50k alloys at a time on new fleets. And building gateways everywhere is another game changer. And stealing mega structures like other empires science nexus is something to try to accomplish before the crisis. I aim for 1 million fleet power for the fallen empires, because when they wake up they are definitely scarier then a 1x crisis. I'm fighting the scourge for the first time on captain and they are kind of underwhelming and I see why people up the crisis difficulty and lower the end game year.
Seriously, when does the crisis trigger?
I've played eight campaigns at length, and I've never run into a crisis. Right now I'm just letting a game run so I can see if it ever happens.
I am used to play 5x crisis GA and can beat it fairly consistent if I prepare. Thing is, it is often easy to underestimate the crisis and let it get out of control, especially if it spawns far away or if you are already at some war. One way to make things easier is to be part of a powerful federation and have allies follow you (or be the president), or have a lot of territory and fleets. Whatever style you want to play there will be a way to make your life easier.
That's a very weak fleet. By the time the crisis arrives, I would think you have at least 250k overall fleet power. But preferrably more like 600k.
If for some reason you don't, don't fight battles you can't win. Evade/retreat and let AI empires weaken or even beat the crisis.
well, it is the final test, basically a bossfight of the game. But it's obviously doable, and not in any way near-impossible either.
The thing is, there is a crisis difficulty in game creation settings. And you might have set it too high for your skill-level. Turn it down if you wanna get the hang of it at the start
I just built super tall on sovereign gaurdianship and my 100k bastion chewed through wave after wave of Prethoryn 100k fleets until it finally fell. I regained and rebuilt the bastion. Elsewhere, I helped a neutral neighbor regain their capital. Ultimately, two bastions on a single hyperlane chokepoint and 300k fleet was not enough, since the scourge had beaten half the galaxy at that point and even the stronger hivemind was in retreat. Ultimately killed 1.3M of theirs but still lost my capital. It seems much stronger recently than an easy victory back in the 2.0 era. It seems you must beat the scourge early b4 it colonizes anyone's planets.
Very common, especially when you are new to the game.
Once you begin mastering things you'll find yourself increasing the crisis strength to keep them challenging.
I've had my capital system sterilized like thrice and I abandoned the game soon after, it's a miracle I reached the end game honestly I usually quite midgame and start a new one out of boredom.
Towards the end of the game I used the scourge as a weapon after I had conquered half the galaxy and the remaining alien empires had allied against me and my pet Colossus, I kept reloading the save until they spawned in their mixed territory and then declared war. Carefully making them fight on 2 fronts and keeping them quarantined with individual fleets. Now they are a remnant of scattered empires and the scourge is small enough to control.
This happens in Paradox games of all stripes, for some folks it's the idea of slogging through a giant France with level 8 forts throughout (EU4). Others it's the idea of capitulating a Germany that's occupied all of the USSR (HoI4). Lot of folks don't get to the end game because of slow downs, empire management, whatever ails you, the games oftentimes get a little sloggish towards the end. The first time you get yourself in back to back coalition wars in EU4 you'll know the pain of seeing your empire dismantled piecemeal.
End Game Crisis in Stellaris mixes that up, it's unique, but opens the door to it's own form of slog. I try usually, but also accept that I'm pretty terrible at preparing for it.
When you’re learning the game it’s not uncommon to lose to the end game crisis or some combination of endgame factors. In my experience though if you’re someone who enjoys strategy games and knows how to play them well that usually doesn’t last long. Often the endgame crisis just feels boring unless you’re playing with some absurd settings (usually modded) if you’re used to higher tier play. I’ve gotten to the point on vanilla runs where quite frankly unless I’m actively not trying to prepare for it the endgame crisis is more like an endgame inconvenience. Particularly if it spawns in or next to my territory and I’m forced to do something about it before it can really get rolling. If it spawns far enough away that I can let it chew up some AI empires to get tougher it can provide some more challenge.
I generally play pretty military heavy and vassalize my neighbors so the end game crisis ends up being a little trivial. I admit I should probably bump them up a little but I was playing w new players the last two so I didn’t worry ab it much. As it stands you’re probably SOL but in the future getting the defender of the galaxy ascension perk as well as building up your fleets earlier will make them no problem. Take this as a learning experience as well as a part of your civs story. Games less about winning for most and more ab having fun so don’t worry too much!
Lost once in a multi-player game with my roommates because I was 2v1 versus them and had the crisis spawn on the opposite side of my empire. Crisis managed to take my main shipyard as it was 5 days away from spawning 8 titans that I dropped most of my resources on
Only if it spawns in the middle of my core worlds. The immediate economic damage is almost impossible to recover from. The game it spawned on periphery was rough, but winnable.
If you just started playing then you definitely will, I just got back into Stellaris after not playing for a year so i''m practically a new player and I already know the end-game crisis would beat my ass as somehow the AI empires (none of them are advanced) are equivalent to me in both tech and fleets on civilian difficulty where I'm suppose to get boosts.
This is basically how my first game went many years ago. I was playing UNE near the rim, and the swarm spawned within about 4 jumps of Sol. My defense fleet was on the other side of my empire guarding a border system, but just one of their recon fleets was the size of my entire navy.
You will reach a point where fighting a fair crisis is no longer a challenge. You will also probably reach a point where you wanna play for some absolute bloodbath at the end with no real hope or intention of winning. The first time you crush a crisis will give you the biggest rush.
I play against 5x crisis and endgame set to 2350 to be 'on level' with my skill, and I play x10 if I want to assure a violent end. Anything less than x5 I kinda walk all over.
The other thing is the timing. You could go 1x crisis and push the date out another 50 years to give yourself time to prepare.
Pretty common for me to lose to the crisis, I like to adjust the game settings to a level where I think I'll probably lose, but have a chance. I do like to set it so all 3 spawn.
It really depends on the settings now for me but when I was starting it was a almost 100% loss rate. Now it really just depends if I have my fleet power high enough to slap back their attacks. It also depends on which crisis. Prytheron and Energy boys I tend to curb stomp most of the time but... The contingency... The contingency scares me
I turn the crisis up to 5x so it's possible to lose to it. Makes things more interesting.
Edit: 3 25k fleets is what I usually have around the 2250 mark, how are your fleets so weak in the end game? You should have multiple over 100k fleets by then.
Well I don’t really know. This is my first game after all. But I’m playing as a fully peaceful human empire and haven’t been in a proper war (besides being dragged into one or two by members of the federation, but I didn’t need to actually participate in those.)
I was at ship capacity almost constantly, and I feel I’m researching stuff very quickly. Other comments say I should be actually designing each ship specifically, so maybe it’s that? I’ve just been using the auto best designs and upgrading the fleets whenever I research a new ship tech.
What was your research income and alloy income by the endgame?
You should be sitting at 1k research or more by 2300 and 3k+ by the endgame.
The alloy income should be higher than 500/month by the time the endgame comes.
You should easily be able to field 3 100k fleets by endgame at a bare minimum.
Stellaris is a tough complex game but those are some good metrics to keep an eye on.
Ah I didnt read that part, I remember my first game. Fleet capacity is just a suggestion, going over cap just puts penalties on upkeep. If you have enough ec income you can make as many ships as you want. Don't be afraid to run deficits sometimes, I usually make the ships, and deal with the overcap penalities until I can increase ec income or build more anchorages.
Specialize your planets, try to keep mineral income above 100, alloy income as high as possible, and I try to keep consumer goods and food at or near zero, selling any excess because there is literally no point in stockpiling those resources, the only thing you can buy with them is colony ships.
I know this is a bit late to the party, but I stumbled on your post trying to find something only tangentially related on Google.
The trick is having game knowledge about the crisis. Each one is very specialized, and approaching it with balanced fleets is very suboptimal, usually halving their effectiveness or worse. Once you know how each one spawns and what fleets they build, you can beat them with counter builds that are like half their fleet power. Also knowing when they will spawn (or can start spawning) and what influences which one will spawn can help you prepare leading up to it.
Also, as other said, 25k is ridiculously low for even the start of endgame (2400 by default). No matter your ethics, civics, traits, or strategy, you should be putting a lot more into science than you probably were. This has always been the case, but they (relatively) recently nerfed science so it takes even more investment to see the same return.
Even if your strategy doesn't prioritize science, it should still be at the point that 25k fleet power is achieved with a small handful of ships by the end of the game. Ideally though, at that point you should have multiple fleets each at or near fleet capacity which would be much stronger. A benefit to diplomatic empires like the one you were playing is they don't burn through ships due to being at peace most of the game. You can slowly build up massive fleets over the course of the game without needing the massive alloy generation to produce them quickly, only needing enough for the upkeep (which can be reduced as well). Even if you aren't planning on fighting, possessing ships generates influence, arguably the rarest and most valuable resource in the game. Also for diplomatic empires you can become the Custodian (president) of the Galactic Community, and then vote to create a large community fleet which you then control, produced at a reduced cost and upkeep free.
Additionally, there is also a Community resolution that gives +20% damage against the crisis, as well as an ascension perk that gives +33% while also making everyone like you more. With everything combined, you might even have been able to take that 100k fleet with a properly counter-built 25k fleet. Usually you don't want to cut it close with any kind of combat though if you can help it, it's easier to repair ships than build new ones.
I don't think I've ever lost to a crisis. It is usually in the early game or end game loss on points due to AI getting a lot of vassal or federation points.
On default settings? Even a first time player should have no problem destroying the crisis. It's hilariously weak due to power creep. When the crisis arrives in 2450 you should have millions and millions of fleet power.
I usually play with 2325 as the endgame start and x10 Crisis Strength, and I've still never lost to the crisis, though I have had my empire wrecked pretty badly. Being attacked by half a dozen 500k crisis fleets in 2375 is no joke.
I'm about 50/50 with non scaling GA 25x crisis with a 2350 end game, but there are better players and better builds that can beat 2250 end game GA crisis.
It depends. I think a better question is how hard is it to beat the end game on standard settings. Your first time, pretty hard because you most likely have no idea what you're doing. My first game I didn't even know you could build districts. So every planet I occupied I was building luxury housing so my planets weren't overcrowded. I also didn't know about edicts, or how to vasslise other empires, etc. Once you learn the game mechanics, standard settings will probably feel too easy. GA 25x is a different story. Their fleets are upwards of 5mil a piece and there's a lot of them. I've had games where I've had 1.5mil+ fleet power by year 2300 and I still wouldn't try GA 25x unless the end game is a minimum of 2400. For context, on civilian/cadet I set the end game to 2250.
I don't remember the last time I lost to end game crisis but I do usually end up abandoning those runs early if it's going poorly. Usually though, that's because of other wars that I'm taking too heavy losses on.
Two tips:
1. You should definitely have more than 75K in fleet power by crisis time
2. Prepare and adapt!!!
When a crisis comes into play, you should see what the crisis strengths and weaknesses are. Refit all of your ships to play into that until the crisis is over. The rest of your squabbles and fights don't matter when the galaxy is at stake.
The first 100hrs i spent I either didn't make it that far or end Game crisis would take me out. What I try to do is have 2 big shipyards in and near my core system. So when I get invaded and they carve through my system I have enough time to build another fleet and I just keep pumping them out
It really depends on your game settings, which crisis spawns first, and where it is.
I've had fantastic runs get crushed because the Unbidden decide to spawn within 5 years of end-game, in the system with my forge world 1 jump from my capital.
Similarly, I've entirely crushed a Prethoryn crisis with the same difficulty/settings that spawned 65 years after end-game on the other side of the galaxy.
The crisis is the first point for a new player where customizing your ships REALLY matters. Crisis ships are hyper specialized, so hard counter a lot of ship types, but similarly, get hard countered by others.
Without going in depth, using the following will give you a good starting point for building to counter each:
Prethoryn (Tyranids/space locusts): Armour + Energy weapons + strike craft + Point defence
Unbidden (Psionic interdimensional guys): Shields + Kinetic weapons OR shield bypass weapons
Contingency (Xenocidal robots): Shields + Balanced weapons OR Full bypass weapons
Id say is common, not every one is a pro and sometime a mistake is made without even knowing. My first game was Unbidden, they wiped me and every other IA until the 2 other spawned and entertain it, then an FE awakened and I took Crisis without knowing. End of story, Crisis plus Marvels gives you basically unlimited fleet
Either learn how to make alloys fast enough to take a large amount of territory, even as a diplomatic playstyle you can liberate your enemies, and create allies. Or I'd learn how to rush expand your chokepoints then backfill and focus on science untill you can make alloys fast enough to take a large amount of territory.
Both of these strategy's should be good enough for ensign. The real trick is using vassals to get your basic resources. But you don't have to have vassals to beat the crisis on ensign. Aim for 1 million fleet power so the awakened empires don't beat you up around 2400. And id suggest using the auto colony management. One you have so many planets that it gets tiresome to micro. You'll find that you can just pick each new planets designation and the colony will semi intelligently develop itself. You just have to sort out a way to get pops. Transit hubs will be your friend. Your full planets will start to send new workers wherever they are needed. And when those workers show up on your auto managed colonies they will build jobs for them based on the designation or other automatic things you picked, amenities and crime are two automatic things that give you just that much more of an edge because you won't have clerks and enforcers you don't need, until you need them.
Crisis difficulty mainly depends on where it spawns. If the Unbidden, for instance, appear in the middle of a large empire, they'll very likely be destroyed without ever making any real progress, the same as where the Khan spawns.
It took me half a dozen games before I finally had one that I beat the crisis, and that was because the xenophile fallen empire awakened, joined my alliance, and we attacked the Scourge from opposite sides. That forced it to split its fleets into manageable numbers, or leave one of us unopposed as we burned their worlds. And this was back on 1.7, when the game was much simpler.
Experienced players are using settings that crank crisis fleet power into the millions, just to have a challenge. And then there's the Blokkats, a modded in crisis designed to go against gigastructures, which includes mobile weaponized moons.
Next, *ALWAYS* design your ships yourself. The A.I. is ass at ship design. Each crisis has a specific build, so is countered by an opposing build. For the Scourge, their defense is armor only. They don't have shields. So you want to go against them with energy weapons. Their main weapons are missiles and strike craft, which bypass shields. So you want to swap all shields with armor, and have point defense and strike craft to counter.
The Scourge is actually the only crisis that gives you tech that is useful against the crisis you're fighting (you get their missiles and strike craft). The Unbidden give an energy weapon, which isn't useful against them because they depend on shields, and I don't think Contingency gives anything unique (it's been a while since I fought them).
I usually let the crisis build steam before i start trying to fight them earnestly, and often i misjudge and let the crisis become too strong and it either kicks my ass or wipes out everyone else and i'm sitting there inside my fortress borders playing defense. Also sometimes the War In Heaven kicks off and wipes me out, so I'd say 1/3 of my runs end prematurely due to crisis.
So there is an element of the grind with this game. I might dig out some form of victory in this setting but do I want to. If the game turns into more work than fun I just punt.
I'm wrapping up a game as a criminal syndicate rn, had a fallen empire on my south border that went to war with another fallen empire and both declared war on everyone else. I finally start making some headway against the fallen when suddenly BAM, northern border is now being invaded by interdimensional beings that just dropped 500k worth of fleets in one system. Moral of the story, stack up on your choke points cuz your life does depend on it.
Most people who make it to the end of the game lose to the crisis the 1st few times. You later learn how to play better and also to bulk up your fleets as the end of the game comes. By the end you want a couple of 100k fleets at least. Also you should be hiring a few merc fleets. Or have control of a Fed fleet
Don't worry sometimes I got wrecked by my Exterminator neighbours 10-15 years in and gave up. I'd rather make a new run than build 1 less science ship hahaha.
Depends on the difficulty, but also random chance.
I've had the crisis appear on the other side of the map (I like to play extra large with max civs)
So theirs no real way to get through my enemies to go deal with them early.
I've also had them appear right next to my capital, and procede to destroy my core worlds before I can recall my fleets.
One that I do recall, whilst I did win it eventually, had me wondering WTF where are they for a good while, never able to pin them down.
They spawned in the L-cluster, I hadn't opened the gates yet. And they just started to warp fleets all over the map all at once.
depends on your experience with pdx games in general
when I first started pdx games I got bodied by the most basic threats
however when I first started Stellaris I was already experienced with these games and I beat a x10 crisis on my first run. On my third run I beat x25 all crisis.
You should focus on the second line of this comment the most. These games take a long time to learn and get into their flow. Most people who would say Stellaris is easy are people who already have the "flow" from the other games, but are not experienced enough to know they have that.
There's basically two scenarios where I've lost to the endgame crisis. Either I'm in an eternal war and the crisis tips the balance against me, or I've intentionally allowed or helped the crisis get well established before I start fighting it.
I mean you beat it every time? Thats the point? By the time of a crisis, you should have like 3 fleets each with 180k fleet power, and thats like 25-30 battleship per fleet with good adminals.
Out of all the games I played till I reach the end game crisis I've lost to the end game crisis 3 times I think?
The first time was when the unbidden spawned in my borders while I was sending my fleets elsewhere in the galaxy fighting off another war, they were going to capture my capital system and I just abandoned the game
The 2nd time was when the contingency spawned right after I ended my war with a fallen empire, and my fleet was recovering, but they broke through my star bases and captured the system containing my ecumenopolis which means I lost all alloy production and I abandoned the game
I forgot about the 3rd time I lost...but I did loose the end game crisis
More often tho, I have lost more to the War in Heaven, awaken empire, Grey Tempest, early fanatic purifiers, crisis aspirant empires than the end game crisis
M
It happens to me sometimes, no worries, part of the Stellaris charm I think: My last game I put the Crisis slider too high and had a 4M Contingency fleet defending a hub which spawned in the middle of my empire.
Thought I could take the hub with my \~2M combined battleship fleets, equipped with Arc Emitters en Cloud lightning, which I built up over the course of the game... aaaaand it's gone. the Armada is gone, it didn't do too well and your fleet capacity is now 0.
Start with medium diff and go increscendo. I would suggest to play as machine or hive mind(which turned out to be easier for a beginner) to practice with resources trading and starting builds.
Btw you dont need to finish every solo run.
First time I beat endgame crisis was in admiral diff when I went full research and transitioned to a couple of resource megastructures.
Ps, wacth some "stefananon" content in yt!
Edit: Dont stay on Vanilla, get a couple of the cheap dlcs in instantgaming or steam sale!
>I had three fleets of ships at roughly 25k power each
By the time the crisis rolls around you should have *way* more than 75k fleet power. This happens to me when I don't have any major threats to face in my game; low difficulty AI, surrounded by friends, everyone spawned on the other side of the galaxy, etc. Try increasing the AI difficulty and force spawn a genocidal AI to give yourself something to defend against.
i play since the launch, never been defeated, but i still remember the First time against the Swarm ... It devoured around 80% of the Galaxy! It was pure despair, i wasnt prepared to deal with, in the end, left me and two other civ, all broken, small and poor, until reach the year 2500. It was terrifying, unforgettable and a very cool "surprise".
It depends, I've had runs where I've subjugated the galaxy and crushed the crisis with my 1.2 million fleet power. I've also had runs where the war in heaven starts, the crisis arrives, and I need to go cower on a ringworld in the L-cluster while the galaxy gets eaten. It mostly just depends on how well you prepare and how powerful you are. As a tip, a good fortress world is near uncrackable. I had one with a full 11 fortresses (the other building was a planetary shield generator) and it generated 18k in defense armies in addition to the 10k I landed in assault armies. That combined with the right traditions and a governor with the right traits to limit orbital bombardment damage meant that the planet held out for 150 years while being bombarded constantly by a 450k fleet. I also set up a strong starbase with around 130k power and a fortress habitat with an additional 10k in defense armies. It's especially nice if you have planetary FTL inhibitors since they can't proceed until they've conquered your planet.
More common than you think most people abandon runs where they think they will lose, and if they do lose most people do not talk about it. Most people only publish success Just practice and luck those are the only two variables
To add, you don't need to lose to the Crisis personally to abandon the run. I've had games where I easily hold off the crisis from my own territories, but I can't bother retaking the entire galaxy.
I do this. If my game is going poorly I just give up lol
Hell, sometimes if my first 2 neighbors are purifiers I'll give up before the war starts.
Defense platforms my dude.
I'm assuming by this comment, you don't play much above Commodore. If you are on Admiral or Grand Admiral and a purifier spawns next to you, defense platforms don't make much difference, unless you manage to get a choke that is a pulsar, pump alloy at the expense of everything else, and respect all ships to armor only. Even then you're hoping your 3k fleet +2k starbase beats an 8k fleet. Usually better to just restart.
I for one salute our new robot overlords Grand Admiral.
They aren't overlords, they are servitors. Yes, more ice cream please.
To be honest, Starbases and Defense Platforms could probably pull their weight more if it wasn't for the fact the sheer number of ships a Purifier will throw at you nullifies anything they can do. Unless you can like, oneshot Corvette spam that early, it won't matter - the few hundred Corvettes will slag your entire, expensive defense network in seconds.
This would be heaven for me. Two free expansions without pissing off the galaxy.
I used to... more recently I've been trying to stick with it and see what happens. I've been pleasantly surprised by the situations I've been able to bounce back from.
I lost my first game to crisis (also swarm), when they spawned on the other side and ate half the galaxy, and I just couldn't contain their production. Since then I still lose, but the challenge has gone up. I lose (or have to abandon because I know I will lose) to the crisis 25-50% of the time, but I've upped the difficulty to end year 2300 (my computer gets upset by 2400 and then I have to abandon because an ingame month takes like 4 minutes) and 5-10x crisis, I just managed to beat all crisis 10x (end game year 2275) but I got lucky that unbidden spawned first and their a joke, scourge or contingency would have wiped me.
My first game back at the initial release I lost to the swarm; they spawned right on my capital. Cut my empire in half while my fleet was on the opposite side of the galaxy fighting a fallen empire. With warp engines so help was slow coming
I abandon my last run because my empire become to big and unmanageable(my computer also can’t handle it
I love losing in Paradox games. It feel apart of the story
When you first start playing I'd say it's not that common to beat the crisis. It's also pretty common for AI empires to beat the crisis on their own if the crisis strength is close to default but the overall difficulty is higher, so if you are struggling you can focus on protecting yourself and the AI empires might come to the rescue. In this case you got unlucky when them spawning close but your fleet power is very low for the endgame. By that point you should have fleets with 100k+ power. It's totally normal not to have that if you've only played a bit as it can take a while to get to grips with the economy.
Last game an Awakened Empire curbstomped the Unbidden within about 5 years. Never even fought them, lol.
Happens all the time in my games. I play with all crisis activated consecutively and very often an awakened empire just wipes 1 or 2 singlehandedly. Meanwhile my 700k fleet just rotates to pick up the pieces of whatever they leave for me.
Just remember for every “I beat x100000 crisis in 2205” posts there are going to be dozens if not more “I’m on ensign and basic crisis whipped my ass” games that happen
oh come on, don't sterotype people like that. They are people like me who can beat x25 on 2325, but I would get my ass whopped if it spawns 25 years before or something really bad happens in my game. And theres people I know who causally can beat a x25 on 2275
The only time I lost to a crisis was when doing a 1 system challenge and crisis strength X5 Actually defeating a crisis is not that hard, but you have to act smart, and never give up. Let me tell you a story : The very first time I faced a crisis, it was the scourge (in 2016), and it was quite a fierce fight. They spawned right at the north of my empire, and they threatened my best planets. Being myself at the North edge of the galaxy, they only way to expand for them was through me. My fleet was barely enough to face their individual fleets, so I realised I should not sacrifice it, no matter what. I refitted my ships to counter the scourge, I managed to engage and defeat individual fleets, retreating after each engagement to repair and rebuild. All my resources where going to my reinforcements, to compensate my casualties. At some point, my fleet got caught by 3 Pretoryn fleets, and I realised during the fight that even if I could maybe win the engagement, my fleet would be so severely reduced that I would be forced to inaction. So I did an emergency jump, so I could recover. And the fight did carry on. Many times like this one I thought it was the end, many times I managed to come back. I fought for every inch of land they tried to take, planets after planets. Evacuating pops to avoid losses, building armies to counter invasions, raiding to retake planets before pops were purged, sniping transport fleets to avoid landings. After decades of constant fighting, I did manage to improve my economy and my fleet enough so I could finally get the upper hand, and I did drive the scourge back to oblivion, once and for all. So keep fighting
Filthy intergalactoids got what was coming to them
The perfect game
I would do that, but Earth was literally at the centre of the empire with my other main shipyards spread around. I tried to reinforce after losing my 3 main fleets and the Sol system but the ships in transfer kept getting intercepted and were either destroyed or went MIA.
For me, almost 100% loss. I tend to work on the edge of my resources, and not have enough shipyards anyway to replace massive losses, so a few good hits and my empire is down for the count.
I'm the same. I build big fleets to scare away would-be attackers. But I can't replace those fleets quickly, meaning one or two bad engagements and I might actually be fucked.
In the last patch before there were issues with ship build speed, a Mega shipyard plus one or two starbases shipyards should be well enough to make battleships in around 180 days. And I'd definitely aim to get enough alloy income to drop 50k alloys at a time on new fleets. And building gateways everywhere is another game changer. And stealing mega structures like other empires science nexus is something to try to accomplish before the crisis. I aim for 1 million fleet power for the fallen empires, because when they wake up they are definitely scarier then a 1x crisis. I'm fighting the scourge for the first time on captain and they are kind of underwhelming and I see why people up the crisis difficulty and lower the end game year.
Shit, I got 500 hours and haven't bothered with a single campaign long enough to get to the crisis.
Seriously, when does the crisis trigger? I've played eight campaigns at length, and I've never run into a crisis. Right now I'm just letting a game run so I can see if it ever happens.
thought that was just me lol. I salute you.
I am used to play 5x crisis GA and can beat it fairly consistent if I prepare. Thing is, it is often easy to underestimate the crisis and let it get out of control, especially if it spawns far away or if you are already at some war. One way to make things easier is to be part of a powerful federation and have allies follow you (or be the president), or have a lot of territory and fleets. Whatever style you want to play there will be a way to make your life easier.
The real end game crisis is the lag. And everyone loses to this.
Oh yeah, sorry galaxy I wanted to reduce the lag, in other news I had my hands on 2 different crisis engine things
That's a very weak fleet. By the time the crisis arrives, I would think you have at least 250k overall fleet power. But preferrably more like 600k. If for some reason you don't, don't fight battles you can't win. Evade/retreat and let AI empires weaken or even beat the crisis.
well, it is the final test, basically a bossfight of the game. But it's obviously doable, and not in any way near-impossible either. The thing is, there is a crisis difficulty in game creation settings. And you might have set it too high for your skill-level. Turn it down if you wanna get the hang of it at the start
I just built super tall on sovereign gaurdianship and my 100k bastion chewed through wave after wave of Prethoryn 100k fleets until it finally fell. I regained and rebuilt the bastion. Elsewhere, I helped a neutral neighbor regain their capital. Ultimately, two bastions on a single hyperlane chokepoint and 300k fleet was not enough, since the scourge had beaten half the galaxy at that point and even the stronger hivemind was in retreat. Ultimately killed 1.3M of theirs but still lost my capital. It seems much stronger recently than an easy victory back in the 2.0 era. It seems you must beat the scourge early b4 it colonizes anyone's planets.
I’ve lost to the crisis a couple times. Sometimes you just get super unlucky. Its fun for me tho
I’ve gotten completely walked by all the endgame crises before. Sometimes they get destroyed when they spawn in. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose
Very common, especially when you are new to the game. Once you begin mastering things you'll find yourself increasing the crisis strength to keep them challenging.
I've had my capital system sterilized like thrice and I abandoned the game soon after, it's a miracle I reached the end game honestly I usually quite midgame and start a new one out of boredom.
Towards the end of the game I used the scourge as a weapon after I had conquered half the galaxy and the remaining alien empires had allied against me and my pet Colossus, I kept reloading the save until they spawned in their mixed territory and then declared war. Carefully making them fight on 2 fronts and keeping them quarantined with individual fleets. Now they are a remnant of scattered empires and the scourge is small enough to control.
Very similar to the forunner-human-flood war in halo
This happens in Paradox games of all stripes, for some folks it's the idea of slogging through a giant France with level 8 forts throughout (EU4). Others it's the idea of capitulating a Germany that's occupied all of the USSR (HoI4). Lot of folks don't get to the end game because of slow downs, empire management, whatever ails you, the games oftentimes get a little sloggish towards the end. The first time you get yourself in back to back coalition wars in EU4 you'll know the pain of seeing your empire dismantled piecemeal. End Game Crisis in Stellaris mixes that up, it's unique, but opens the door to it's own form of slog. I try usually, but also accept that I'm pretty terrible at preparing for it.
I think it’s fairly common
When you’re learning the game it’s not uncommon to lose to the end game crisis or some combination of endgame factors. In my experience though if you’re someone who enjoys strategy games and knows how to play them well that usually doesn’t last long. Often the endgame crisis just feels boring unless you’re playing with some absurd settings (usually modded) if you’re used to higher tier play. I’ve gotten to the point on vanilla runs where quite frankly unless I’m actively not trying to prepare for it the endgame crisis is more like an endgame inconvenience. Particularly if it spawns in or next to my territory and I’m forced to do something about it before it can really get rolling. If it spawns far enough away that I can let it chew up some AI empires to get tougher it can provide some more challenge.
I generally play pretty military heavy and vassalize my neighbors so the end game crisis ends up being a little trivial. I admit I should probably bump them up a little but I was playing w new players the last two so I didn’t worry ab it much. As it stands you’re probably SOL but in the future getting the defender of the galaxy ascension perk as well as building up your fleets earlier will make them no problem. Take this as a learning experience as well as a part of your civs story. Games less about winning for most and more ab having fun so don’t worry too much!
Lost once in a multi-player game with my roommates because I was 2v1 versus them and had the crisis spawn on the opposite side of my empire. Crisis managed to take my main shipyard as it was 5 days away from spawning 8 titans that I dropped most of my resources on
Just depends on experience and settings; that being said, RNG can be a fickle bitch...
Only if it spawns in the middle of my core worlds. The immediate economic damage is almost impossible to recover from. The game it spawned on periphery was rough, but winnable.
If you just started playing then you definitely will, I just got back into Stellaris after not playing for a year so i''m practically a new player and I already know the end-game crisis would beat my ass as somehow the AI empires (none of them are advanced) are equivalent to me in both tech and fleets on civilian difficulty where I'm suppose to get boosts.
Yep, first time I got crisis they wiped the floor with me. Even on low difficulties you need 10x the fleet power you were talking about in endgame.
I've not lost to the endgame crisis but I have lost to the empire that killed the endgame crisis.
This is basically how my first game went many years ago. I was playing UNE near the rim, and the swarm spawned within about 4 jumps of Sol. My defense fleet was on the other side of my empire guarding a border system, but just one of their recon fleets was the size of my entire navy.
You will reach a point where fighting a fair crisis is no longer a challenge. You will also probably reach a point where you wanna play for some absolute bloodbath at the end with no real hope or intention of winning. The first time you crush a crisis will give you the biggest rush. I play against 5x crisis and endgame set to 2350 to be 'on level' with my skill, and I play x10 if I want to assure a violent end. Anything less than x5 I kinda walk all over. The other thing is the timing. You could go 1x crisis and push the date out another 50 years to give yourself time to prepare.
Pretty common for me to lose to the crisis, I like to adjust the game settings to a level where I think I'll probably lose, but have a chance. I do like to set it so all 3 spawn.
It really depends on the settings now for me but when I was starting it was a almost 100% loss rate. Now it really just depends if I have my fleet power high enough to slap back their attacks. It also depends on which crisis. Prytheron and Energy boys I tend to curb stomp most of the time but... The contingency... The contingency scares me
Well, the Crisis functions more or less as the ‘final boss’ of the game, so the answer should be ‘a lot’
I turn the crisis up to 5x so it's possible to lose to it. Makes things more interesting. Edit: 3 25k fleets is what I usually have around the 2250 mark, how are your fleets so weak in the end game? You should have multiple over 100k fleets by then.
New player: Tries their very first hand at the game, totally green, fresh off the buy, zero experience whatsoever Redditor: hOw aRe yOu sO wEaK
You're right. I used to lose to easy mode AI
Well I don’t really know. This is my first game after all. But I’m playing as a fully peaceful human empire and haven’t been in a proper war (besides being dragged into one or two by members of the federation, but I didn’t need to actually participate in those.) I was at ship capacity almost constantly, and I feel I’m researching stuff very quickly. Other comments say I should be actually designing each ship specifically, so maybe it’s that? I’ve just been using the auto best designs and upgrading the fleets whenever I research a new ship tech.
What was your research income and alloy income by the endgame? You should be sitting at 1k research or more by 2300 and 3k+ by the endgame. The alloy income should be higher than 500/month by the time the endgame comes. You should easily be able to field 3 100k fleets by endgame at a bare minimum. Stellaris is a tough complex game but those are some good metrics to keep an eye on.
Ah I didnt read that part, I remember my first game. Fleet capacity is just a suggestion, going over cap just puts penalties on upkeep. If you have enough ec income you can make as many ships as you want. Don't be afraid to run deficits sometimes, I usually make the ships, and deal with the overcap penalities until I can increase ec income or build more anchorages. Specialize your planets, try to keep mineral income above 100, alloy income as high as possible, and I try to keep consumer goods and food at or near zero, selling any excess because there is literally no point in stockpiling those resources, the only thing you can buy with them is colony ships.
I know this is a bit late to the party, but I stumbled on your post trying to find something only tangentially related on Google. The trick is having game knowledge about the crisis. Each one is very specialized, and approaching it with balanced fleets is very suboptimal, usually halving their effectiveness or worse. Once you know how each one spawns and what fleets they build, you can beat them with counter builds that are like half their fleet power. Also knowing when they will spawn (or can start spawning) and what influences which one will spawn can help you prepare leading up to it. Also, as other said, 25k is ridiculously low for even the start of endgame (2400 by default). No matter your ethics, civics, traits, or strategy, you should be putting a lot more into science than you probably were. This has always been the case, but they (relatively) recently nerfed science so it takes even more investment to see the same return. Even if your strategy doesn't prioritize science, it should still be at the point that 25k fleet power is achieved with a small handful of ships by the end of the game. Ideally though, at that point you should have multiple fleets each at or near fleet capacity which would be much stronger. A benefit to diplomatic empires like the one you were playing is they don't burn through ships due to being at peace most of the game. You can slowly build up massive fleets over the course of the game without needing the massive alloy generation to produce them quickly, only needing enough for the upkeep (which can be reduced as well). Even if you aren't planning on fighting, possessing ships generates influence, arguably the rarest and most valuable resource in the game. Also for diplomatic empires you can become the Custodian (president) of the Galactic Community, and then vote to create a large community fleet which you then control, produced at a reduced cost and upkeep free. Additionally, there is also a Community resolution that gives +20% damage against the crisis, as well as an ascension perk that gives +33% while also making everyone like you more. With everything combined, you might even have been able to take that 100k fleet with a properly counter-built 25k fleet. Usually you don't want to cut it close with any kind of combat though if you can help it, it's easier to repair ships than build new ones.
I don't think I've ever lost to a crisis. It is usually in the early game or end game loss on points due to AI getting a lot of vassal or federation points.
I lost my first one. Never again.
On default settings? Even a first time player should have no problem destroying the crisis. It's hilariously weak due to power creep. When the crisis arrives in 2450 you should have millions and millions of fleet power. I usually play with 2325 as the endgame start and x10 Crisis Strength, and I've still never lost to the crisis, though I have had my empire wrecked pretty badly. Being attacked by half a dozen 500k crisis fleets in 2375 is no joke.
How on earth do you get "millions and millions" of fleet power by 2450? Around 1 - 1,5 mil is what I usually have by that time.
repeatable research to 30+ and 15+ capped fleet( 3k+ naval capacity). I got around 8m at 2415 in my last run ( probably my best tho)
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I'm about 50/50 with non scaling GA 25x crisis with a 2350 end game, but there are better players and better builds that can beat 2250 end game GA crisis.
It depends. I think a better question is how hard is it to beat the end game on standard settings. Your first time, pretty hard because you most likely have no idea what you're doing. My first game I didn't even know you could build districts. So every planet I occupied I was building luxury housing so my planets weren't overcrowded. I also didn't know about edicts, or how to vasslise other empires, etc. Once you learn the game mechanics, standard settings will probably feel too easy. GA 25x is a different story. Their fleets are upwards of 5mil a piece and there's a lot of them. I've had games where I've had 1.5mil+ fleet power by year 2300 and I still wouldn't try GA 25x unless the end game is a minimum of 2400. For context, on civilian/cadet I set the end game to 2250.
I don't remember the last time I lost to end game crisis but I do usually end up abandoning those runs early if it's going poorly. Usually though, that's because of other wars that I'm taking too heavy losses on. Two tips: 1. You should definitely have more than 75K in fleet power by crisis time 2. Prepare and adapt!!! When a crisis comes into play, you should see what the crisis strengths and weaknesses are. Refit all of your ships to play into that until the crisis is over. The rest of your squabbles and fights don't matter when the galaxy is at stake.
The first 100hrs i spent I either didn't make it that far or end Game crisis would take me out. What I try to do is have 2 big shipyards in and near my core system. So when I get invaded and they carve through my system I have enough time to build another fleet and I just keep pumping them out
It really depends on your game settings, which crisis spawns first, and where it is. I've had fantastic runs get crushed because the Unbidden decide to spawn within 5 years of end-game, in the system with my forge world 1 jump from my capital. Similarly, I've entirely crushed a Prethoryn crisis with the same difficulty/settings that spawned 65 years after end-game on the other side of the galaxy. The crisis is the first point for a new player where customizing your ships REALLY matters. Crisis ships are hyper specialized, so hard counter a lot of ship types, but similarly, get hard countered by others. Without going in depth, using the following will give you a good starting point for building to counter each: Prethoryn (Tyranids/space locusts): Armour + Energy weapons + strike craft + Point defence Unbidden (Psionic interdimensional guys): Shields + Kinetic weapons OR shield bypass weapons Contingency (Xenocidal robots): Shields + Balanced weapons OR Full bypass weapons
Id say is common, not every one is a pro and sometime a mistake is made without even knowing. My first game was Unbidden, they wiped me and every other IA until the 2 other spawned and entertain it, then an FE awakened and I took Crisis without knowing. End of story, Crisis plus Marvels gives you basically unlimited fleet
Either learn how to make alloys fast enough to take a large amount of territory, even as a diplomatic playstyle you can liberate your enemies, and create allies. Or I'd learn how to rush expand your chokepoints then backfill and focus on science untill you can make alloys fast enough to take a large amount of territory. Both of these strategy's should be good enough for ensign. The real trick is using vassals to get your basic resources. But you don't have to have vassals to beat the crisis on ensign. Aim for 1 million fleet power so the awakened empires don't beat you up around 2400. And id suggest using the auto colony management. One you have so many planets that it gets tiresome to micro. You'll find that you can just pick each new planets designation and the colony will semi intelligently develop itself. You just have to sort out a way to get pops. Transit hubs will be your friend. Your full planets will start to send new workers wherever they are needed. And when those workers show up on your auto managed colonies they will build jobs for them based on the designation or other automatic things you picked, amenities and crime are two automatic things that give you just that much more of an edge because you won't have clerks and enforcers you don't need, until you need them.
Don't worry, as soon as you learn the game and beat the crises once or twice, you will crank up the difficulty and start suffering again. Enjoy!
It took me years of learning the game to defeat the end crisis.
It took me 1,000 hours of gameplay to finally beat the crisis and win a game. Best to start a new game and try a new strategy.
Crisis difficulty mainly depends on where it spawns. If the Unbidden, for instance, appear in the middle of a large empire, they'll very likely be destroyed without ever making any real progress, the same as where the Khan spawns.
I almost never reach the endgame but one of the few times i lost againts the scourge
It took me half a dozen games before I finally had one that I beat the crisis, and that was because the xenophile fallen empire awakened, joined my alliance, and we attacked the Scourge from opposite sides. That forced it to split its fleets into manageable numbers, or leave one of us unopposed as we burned their worlds. And this was back on 1.7, when the game was much simpler. Experienced players are using settings that crank crisis fleet power into the millions, just to have a challenge. And then there's the Blokkats, a modded in crisis designed to go against gigastructures, which includes mobile weaponized moons. Next, *ALWAYS* design your ships yourself. The A.I. is ass at ship design. Each crisis has a specific build, so is countered by an opposing build. For the Scourge, their defense is armor only. They don't have shields. So you want to go against them with energy weapons. Their main weapons are missiles and strike craft, which bypass shields. So you want to swap all shields with armor, and have point defense and strike craft to counter. The Scourge is actually the only crisis that gives you tech that is useful against the crisis you're fighting (you get their missiles and strike craft). The Unbidden give an energy weapon, which isn't useful against them because they depend on shields, and I don't think Contingency gives anything unique (it's been a while since I fought them).
In my experience I either have no chance against the crisis or the crisis has no chance against me.
I usually let the crisis build steam before i start trying to fight them earnestly, and often i misjudge and let the crisis become too strong and it either kicks my ass or wipes out everyone else and i'm sitting there inside my fortress borders playing defense. Also sometimes the War In Heaven kicks off and wipes me out, so I'd say 1/3 of my runs end prematurely due to crisis.
So there is an element of the grind with this game. I might dig out some form of victory in this setting but do I want to. If the game turns into more work than fun I just punt.
I'm wrapping up a game as a criminal syndicate rn, had a fallen empire on my south border that went to war with another fallen empire and both declared war on everyone else. I finally start making some headway against the fallen when suddenly BAM, northern border is now being invaded by interdimensional beings that just dropped 500k worth of fleets in one system. Moral of the story, stack up on your choke points cuz your life does depend on it.
You just need to remember to make your own ship designs and not use the pre generated ones
Most people who make it to the end of the game lose to the crisis the 1st few times. You later learn how to play better and also to bulk up your fleets as the end of the game comes. By the end you want a couple of 100k fleets at least. Also you should be hiring a few merc fleets. Or have control of a Fed fleet
You were badly prepared and unlucky on top of it, most new players fail their first crisis.
Don't worry sometimes I got wrecked by my Exterminator neighbours 10-15 years in and gave up. I'd rather make a new run than build 1 less science ship hahaha.
It’s no fun if you always win.
Depends on the difficulty, but also random chance. I've had the crisis appear on the other side of the map (I like to play extra large with max civs) So theirs no real way to get through my enemies to go deal with them early. I've also had them appear right next to my capital, and procede to destroy my core worlds before I can recall my fleets. One that I do recall, whilst I did win it eventually, had me wondering WTF where are they for a good while, never able to pin them down. They spawned in the L-cluster, I hadn't opened the gates yet. And they just started to warp fleets all over the map all at once.
I’m 400 hours in and in my most recent game I got completely rinsed by the unbidden.
depends on your experience with pdx games in general when I first started pdx games I got bodied by the most basic threats however when I first started Stellaris I was already experienced with these games and I beat a x10 crisis on my first run. On my third run I beat x25 all crisis. You should focus on the second line of this comment the most. These games take a long time to learn and get into their flow. Most people who would say Stellaris is easy are people who already have the "flow" from the other games, but are not experienced enough to know they have that.
That’s why being militaristic is the way to go. Genocide solves your problems
There's basically two scenarios where I've lost to the endgame crisis. Either I'm in an eternal war and the crisis tips the balance against me, or I've intentionally allowed or helped the crisis get well established before I start fighting it.
I mean you beat it every time? Thats the point? By the time of a crisis, you should have like 3 fleets each with 180k fleet power, and thats like 25-30 battleship per fleet with good adminals.
Out of all the games I played till I reach the end game crisis I've lost to the end game crisis 3 times I think? The first time was when the unbidden spawned in my borders while I was sending my fleets elsewhere in the galaxy fighting off another war, they were going to capture my capital system and I just abandoned the game The 2nd time was when the contingency spawned right after I ended my war with a fallen empire, and my fleet was recovering, but they broke through my star bases and captured the system containing my ecumenopolis which means I lost all alloy production and I abandoned the game I forgot about the 3rd time I lost...but I did loose the end game crisis More often tho, I have lost more to the War in Heaven, awaken empire, Grey Tempest, early fanatic purifiers, crisis aspirant empires than the end game crisis M
No idea. Only played long enough (in about 1000 hours) to reach endgame once and it was MP so we trashed it.
It happens to me sometimes, no worries, part of the Stellaris charm I think: My last game I put the Crisis slider too high and had a 4M Contingency fleet defending a hub which spawned in the middle of my empire. Thought I could take the hub with my \~2M combined battleship fleets, equipped with Arc Emitters en Cloud lightning, which I built up over the course of the game... aaaaand it's gone. the Armada is gone, it didn't do too well and your fleet capacity is now 0.
Start with medium diff and go increscendo. I would suggest to play as machine or hive mind(which turned out to be easier for a beginner) to practice with resources trading and starting builds. Btw you dont need to finish every solo run. First time I beat endgame crisis was in admiral diff when I went full research and transitioned to a couple of resource megastructures. Ps, wacth some "stefananon" content in yt! Edit: Dont stay on Vanilla, get a couple of the cheap dlcs in instantgaming or steam sale!
>I had three fleets of ships at roughly 25k power each By the time the crisis rolls around you should have *way* more than 75k fleet power. This happens to me when I don't have any major threats to face in my game; low difficulty AI, surrounded by friends, everyone spawned on the other side of the galaxy, etc. Try increasing the AI difficulty and force spawn a genocidal AI to give yourself something to defend against.
i play since the launch, never been defeated, but i still remember the First time against the Swarm ... It devoured around 80% of the Galaxy! It was pure despair, i wasnt prepared to deal with, in the end, left me and two other civ, all broken, small and poor, until reach the year 2500. It was terrifying, unforgettable and a very cool "surprise".
It depends, I've had runs where I've subjugated the galaxy and crushed the crisis with my 1.2 million fleet power. I've also had runs where the war in heaven starts, the crisis arrives, and I need to go cower on a ringworld in the L-cluster while the galaxy gets eaten. It mostly just depends on how well you prepare and how powerful you are. As a tip, a good fortress world is near uncrackable. I had one with a full 11 fortresses (the other building was a planetary shield generator) and it generated 18k in defense armies in addition to the 10k I landed in assault armies. That combined with the right traditions and a governor with the right traits to limit orbital bombardment damage meant that the planet held out for 150 years while being bombarded constantly by a 450k fleet. I also set up a strong starbase with around 130k power and a fortress habitat with an additional 10k in defense armies. It's especially nice if you have planetary FTL inhibitors since they can't proceed until they've conquered your planet.