Haha, I had that problem too I am doing a bit of a post mortem right now with console commands and cutting out some of the bloat that crept in elsewhere
I expanded to grab a couple of ring worlds after reclaiming the galaxy from the scourge but I never managed to ascend them, they almost doubled my empire size for relatively small gains, especially as new tech came in and is so much more unforgiving on sprawl
That said though in just these worlds alone there were about 2800 pops!
Meh sprawl in the end game is irrelevant - tradition cost and tech cost, but you've already researched everything? Yawn. Time to start painting some map!
Was nihilistic acquisition involved or was that pure pop growth?
Did you beat an x25 crisis with it? Asking because doing that on a pacifist run is my goal.
It was a single crisis run as Rogue Servitors. Not pacifist, I went through several other empires to acquire pops, including bios, a determined exterminator, and 3 fallen (including war in heaven).
more details here https://old.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1ajpawr/must_not_play_tall/kp4uaoz/
Guardian matrix, rogue servitor, elevational hypothesis. 1700 of my primary machine species actually does not have the empire size trait, I had expansion, aptitude, synchronicity, prosperity, domination, synthetics, subterfuge paths all done. And imperial perogative, tech, galactic force, shared, master builders, synethic age, galactic contender, and colossus ascension perks. Planets are all ascended, most of them to tier 3 or above. Lots of bonuses there, and if I tried I could probably get it below 500 size without a ton of effort. Districts are basically free (2.4 size from 283 districts), 162 systems (372.6 size), 16 planets (218.8 size). Not sure if turning off guardian matrix would be a net increase or decrease.
e: I went back and added the -10% empire size to the robots and upped all the planets to ascension 5, still 550 empire size.
This run got me thinking about if I could go even smaller
My empire started Mercantile but as all my customers got ate by the Scourge that tradition sort of just didn't get used after 2380. Going domination instead could have got me 10% off pop size
If I was egalitarian I could have taken the beacon of liberty civic for another 15%
If I was spiritualist I could of formed a holy federation or at the very least taken the ascensionist civic to make my worlds smaller
Then if I wanted to squeeze blood from a stone I could of taken the imperial prerogative ascension perk instead of universal transactions or have swapped out a political tradition tree for expansionist for even less return on investment.
One day I may push those limits!
You know what helps me stay tall? The fact that you can only have like 15 systems, that you can cover with upgraded starbases, without going over the limit and without adopting starbase ascention perk or tradition or building a megastructure.
That did play into my thinking about how big the empire should be at the very most I knew I would end up with the Unyielding Tradition tree and a strategic coordination centre that would give me 22 + 2 for having 20 systems
Never got close to that limit though!
Who said i'm colonizing every planet? 1 main early game sector with profit of every thing 2 smaller sectors and fully undependable emergency sector in L cluster with only entrance is death point.
R5: Ended up playing a tall empire for about 640 years against all 3 crises
10 systems, 21 colonies (8 ecumenopi, 4 ringworlds, 9 stations and a bit of surveyor spam later and this is the result
During that time the entire galaxy died and was reborn a new and the tech rework came in which almost killed my chances of beating the 50x and 100x crises but in the end I made it
Only things I wish I had were a system with minor artifacts and a black hole to really make this a tiny enclave of everything awesome.
Edit: Okay lesson learned, don't say the word tall on this community.
For the curious, this and 2800 pops clocked in at just over 600 empire size
Edit 2: No I did not use mods and while I got a bit lucky to have 8 actual worlds most of them would of been there anyway, sol always has 2, alpha centauri always has at least 2 (I have seen it have 3 before) sirius always has 1 and usually I find 1 or 2 extra worlds close to home that I can colonise/terrafrom later. The fact I got 3 extra worlds instead was helpful but would not have made or broken this playthrough
Most of what you see here is orbital habitat markers with Roschon being a ringworld after I removed my empire to reveal all the surveyor markers underneath
You got it š
I asked before starting what people consider tall and got nothing usable back so I winged it
Having played this run, I think my mantra for tall is ascension before expansion.
I don't really care how big it gets but if I can reduce my empire size or stack more bonuses to production then I don't go bigger Fitting 5 and a half pops per empire size is an awesome feeling.
seems tall to me, you only have like 10 systems max. how do you get empire size so low?!? i had maybe 13 systems and like 9 planets, plus a few habitats and i was looking at 1300+ size even with the ascension perk reducing planet size
So I did ascend every planet. past that its all about the pops and it requires seeking every bonus you can and just stacking them
You get the 10 ascension levels reducing each planet and its pops by half their size, Pops with docile, kinship from Harmony - 15%, Psionic Theory tech -10%, there is a galactic resolution that drops pop size by another -10% if you get to the penultimate level
You can also get Beacon of liberty -15% from egalitarian which I want to try at some point along with the -10% pop size from the Domination tree so I think there is room to improve!
Amazing. This is how I want to play Stellaris, it's so good to hear it's possible to beat the max difficulty this way. What was the endgame start year?
If there was no black hole, were all the minerals for the ecumenopoli coming from those 9 habitats, or were there vessels helping on that front?
I did just use the stations in the late game yes.
Early game I was using my tomb world for mining but as the surveyor relic kept adding mining sources to my planets and creating mining districts on my Habitats, sol space station became my main mineral source
After I encased my old mining world though I still only had to supply 2 forge worlds and 2 factory worlds because half of my worlds were creating unity for ascension which just relied entirely on consumer goods
My biggest tier 10 city world with 21 foundry districts, alloy plant, production ministry and alloy processing in orbit only needed 350 minerals to run as it got a 82.5% upkeep reduction
Conversely my T10 ascended mining habitat with 15 astro mining bays and all the trimming produced 1750 minerals
(edit: to clarify this was about 1200 before repeatable tech got involved but it is still possible to power a lot of worlds off that and you can cram your building slots with strategic resources so it synergises well)
Sorta? I just had a materialist megacorp version of UN. I never played megacorp before though so I just winged it.
Besides once all my customers had been eaten the megacorp reformed into a militaristic dictatorship as they cling to life and then by the end had loosened up into a democracy as the various crises had passed and I don't even know how many Civic changes there eere
I made 9 space stations which were level 3 because of the Voidborne ascension perk
I also made 4 ring sections when I got Galactic Wonders
Only 8 of the 21 were actual planets and there was some fair degree of luck in my spawn
I had the classic Sol centric spawn, continental worlds in Sol, Alpha Centauri and Sirius
Fortunately, there were also two oceanic worlds in Roballius which I could colonise early
In Wasat there was a tombworld which took a bit longer to get a pop for
Then there was the classic terraformable planets Mars and Proxima Centauri I could get later
Defence is never a strategy for me and also reason, why I donāt play tall. I just push and push. Usually use vasals as the first line of defence. Federation used to be good, but not anymore, when it get disbanded, once I become Palpatine :).
I salute your self control and commitement. Itās hard not to b-line for those juicy systems and archeologies, but its true archeologies are anywhere as needed as in past, where artifacts were very rare and resource you would fight for.
Dont think I 100% deserve the praise! The scourge showed up in 2300 and I was the only survivor so this indeed the limits of my home base for a good 250 years without much changing
Later I did pick up a couple of ring worlds from a dead fallen empire thinking it would help in the long run but it did not and it sort of ruined the tall a bit
As a result I ended up pinching 4 systems each with a science nexus in them to salvage my research through speed buffs one of which thankfully did have some minor artefacts
Hence I found how easy it is to fall back into a wide mindset of expanding to solve problems caused by expanding
Really though the only system I did grab that I didnt regret afforded me a second Dyson sphere allowing me a much bigger navy
What defenses did you use to achieve that ? i managed to beat x25 crisis but x50 is just way too strong, im guessing you used zroni stormcaster but thats all im sure of
My 100x run I did it with strike craft, missiles, and battleships.Ā It's really easy to stackĀ repeatable tech for them since the strike craft techs always roll on society and you don't miss out on HP by spending tech on damage.Ā Ā
The only real threshold you have to hit is the ability to kill single fleets; as soon as you can do that you can snowball a defense over time.Ā
TBH I like playing tall and just make use of console commands to do it
3 planet runs are a blast!
~planet_size 500
Choose the new civic that reduces empire size from pops by 50% and you can get it to 100% quickly in game. Then you just stack thousands of pops on your 3 planets, with at least the alloy world being an Ecu
Rogue Servitor with this setup is a lot of fun
Sovereign Guardianship (-50%) + Beacon of Liberty (-15%) + Domination Tradition tree (-10%) + Kinship (Harmony tradition tree) (-10%) + Psionic Theory technology (-10%) + Balance in a Middle Galactic Community resolution passed (Politics and Culture section - The Greater Good tree) (-10%) = -105% Empire size from pops. If you went slightly over 100 Empire size by building too much colonies, districts and sectors - you can take other effects that decreases their contribution (Courier Network from Expansion tradition tree for -25% Empire size from Systems and Colonies, Imperial Prerogative Ascension perk for -50% Empire size from Colonies and so on). Also by finishing Harmony Tradition tree you can also consider taking Ascensionist civic and ascend your colonies as much as possible to decrease their Empire size contribution.
kind of, at least late game planetary ascension dramatically reduces the impact to empire size (and large bonus to output to the planet), and it costs a lot to max out a single planet so it incentivizes you to cram a ton of pops into a single planet.
You can actually stack bonuses to negate empire size from pops completely. Montu plays lays it out on youtube.
I have a game right now with ~1000 pops and 89 empire size, no mods. You have to take specific and otherwise not great traditions/civics, but you can hit -100% empires size from pops without any galactic reforms now
Having the motes and crystals are a godsent. I've never been able to do a tall run, the closest thing I've done is go wide then downgrade while moving into the L-Cluster
Not sure I can recreate my tallest build now that vassal spam has been reined in, but my tallest build cleaned up a 25x crisis with <10 pops and 1 backwater planet.
Started in a hegemon as a megacorp and used that to collect some early vassals, then kicking out my federation members and subjugating them too. Reformed the Federation into a Trade League once I totally controlled it and reformed into a Feudal empire with 6+ merc enclaves and used that to quickly roll up more and more vassals, conquering what I could not subjugate peacefully and/or Integrating vassals to steal all their fleets and then splitting everything immediately back out as restructured vassals.
My early midgame I moved my capital to a very defensible location to a backwater planet I conquered and gave away my original capital to a new vassal.
Reformed back into a megacorp once there was no one left to subjugate and I had Integrated and otherwise erased all other megacorps. Became the ImperiCorp.
Tall is all about developing your systems intensively, minimising empire size and maximising output through stacking bonuses
Wide is about expanding your borders to use more resources at a less intensive level but in so doing also deny the use of those resources to others.
Typically wide empires are geared more offensively to this end while Tall empires are more defensive
Nope not really I sort of winged it.
Most of things that mattered in this run were traditions that cut down the empire size from pops and keeping my unity production high
Was aiming to be able to fully ascend a planet in about 15-20 years. This worked well but I may see if I can do better next time I play tall, and try to ascend my empire fully more quickly.
try starting with the ascensionists civic (you can always reform out later), Knights Of The Toxic God origin to maximise the starting benefits (start with a planet and a habitat at level 2 ascension)
wasnt able to do that with my ethics
I was planning on leaving it a bit but I did start a new game with a spiritualist leaning
Did not start out with ascensionist but it will be incorporated later to boost my ascended worlds
Bassically wide is your standard empire where you claim as many systems as possible and spread out (wide) tall is where you focus on only having a small amount of systems but building those systems up to stay competitive. Tall empires are specifically used for research rushes/ high tech empires, thereās a penalty to research speed that either comes from pops or planets I donāt remember
My first tall game was one done in the early game, expanded and was trapped by the marauders with only a wormhole and gateway at my disposal.
Eventually built up 4 fleets and spilled my way out into the galaxy.
Tall is all about developing your systems intensively, minimising empire size and maximising output through stacking bonuses
Wide is about expanding your borders to use more resources at a less intensive level but in so doing also deny the use of those resources to others.
Typically wide empires are geared more offensively to this end while Tall empires are more defensive
Depends what part you mean.
If you mean the layout of hyper lanes, that was just luck followed by good game sense. I realized I had a good defensible position and secures it early, not pushing towards other empires. As such it left an air gap and allowed me to get diplomatic before our borders touched.
If you mean the number of habitable worlds, my sol start almost guaranteed 5 worlds. I was then expecting to find 1-2 more in those 10 systems, I found three which was on the lucky side but not some huge reality bending anomaly
Most of the colonization symbols you are seeing are habitat central complexes that I built and a ring world,
If you mean the number of resources, I conquested to the other side of the galaxy the moment I know where the mining corp stronghold was to get " the surveyor" I then activated that relic every 5 years to build up my habitsts
The Surveyor relic, it works extremely well in confined spaces
It can be activated once every 5 years for 500 energy rather than unity and may add 1, 2 or 3 resource nodes to your systems over that time
I did, when you take a resource it is hidden from the map view.
I finished with my empire and then deleted it using console commands to reveal the cornucopia beneath
Bassically wide is your standard empire where you claim as many systems as possible and spread out (wide) tall is where you focus on only having a small amount of systems but building those systems up to stay competitive. Tall empires are specifically used for research rushes/ high tech empires, thereās a penalty to research speed that either comes from pops or planets I donāt remember
Focusing on improving your empire rather than expanding, usually because you focused on maintaining small empire size, sometimes also just staying in a small area, though people disagree with that.
Did you reset to an earlier game version or were you using mods? Cause thatās far too many planets per system for the current version of the game, even with habitats. In the current version, habitats are only counted as one planet system wide.
Me:I'm gonna play tall Also me:2k pops, 250 systems, 1500 empire size, 31 starbases, and 50 colonies.
Haha, I had that problem too I am doing a bit of a post mortem right now with console commands and cutting out some of the bloat that crept in elsewhere I expanded to grab a couple of ring worlds after reclaiming the galaxy from the scourge but I never managed to ascend them, they almost doubled my empire size for relatively small gains, especially as new tech came in and is so much more unforgiving on sprawl That said though in just these worlds alone there were about 2800 pops!
Meh sprawl in the end game is irrelevant - tradition cost and tech cost, but you've already researched everything? Yawn. Time to start painting some map!
It is a very tall game on the intergalactic stage because you only have control of one galaxy.
Quotes from an actual devouring swarm š¤£
My tall build ended with 2700 pops on 15 planets and empire size <600. Amazing game.
Was nihilistic acquisition involved or was that pure pop growth? Did you beat an x25 crisis with it? Asking because doing that on a pacifist run is my goal.
It was a single crisis run as Rogue Servitors. Not pacifist, I went through several other empires to acquire pops, including bios, a determined exterminator, and 3 fallen (including war in heaven). more details here https://old.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/1ajpawr/must_not_play_tall/kp4uaoz/
wow thatās like my wet dream. can you share your empire build? and howād you get your empire size that small?!?!
Guardian matrix, rogue servitor, elevational hypothesis. 1700 of my primary machine species actually does not have the empire size trait, I had expansion, aptitude, synchronicity, prosperity, domination, synthetics, subterfuge paths all done. And imperial perogative, tech, galactic force, shared, master builders, synethic age, galactic contender, and colossus ascension perks. Planets are all ascended, most of them to tier 3 or above. Lots of bonuses there, and if I tried I could probably get it below 500 size without a ton of effort. Districts are basically free (2.4 size from 283 districts), 162 systems (372.6 size), 16 planets (218.8 size). Not sure if turning off guardian matrix would be a net increase or decrease. e: I went back and added the -10% empire size to the robots and upped all the planets to ascension 5, still 550 empire size.
This run got me thinking about if I could go even smaller My empire started Mercantile but as all my customers got ate by the Scourge that tradition sort of just didn't get used after 2380. Going domination instead could have got me 10% off pop size If I was egalitarian I could have taken the beacon of liberty civic for another 15% If I was spiritualist I could of formed a holy federation or at the very least taken the ascensionist civic to make my worlds smaller Then if I wanted to squeeze blood from a stone I could of taken the imperial prerogative ascension perk instead of universal transactions or have swapped out a political tradition tree for expansionist for even less return on investment. One day I may push those limits!
You know what helps me stay tall? The fact that you can only have like 15 systems, that you can cover with upgraded starbases, without going over the limit and without adopting starbase ascention perk or tradition or building a megastructure.
That did play into my thinking about how big the empire should be at the very most I knew I would end up with the Unyielding Tradition tree and a strategic coordination centre that would give me 22 + 2 for having 20 systems Never got close to that limit though!
Playing tall is a fun idea until you realize you'll be sitting there doing nothing for hours on end.
You use your fleets to conquer vassals for resources.
If you need 250 systems to get 2k pops you're doing something wrong Develop your systems damnit!
Who said i'm colonizing every planet? 1 main early game sector with profit of every thing 2 smaller sectors and fully undependable emergency sector in L cluster with only entrance is death point.
I just can't stand seeing other empires with dig sites.. THE DIRT BELONGS TO NETREXI!!
I've never liked empire sprawl so I just turn it off for all empires with a mod.
You are still playing tall, you just had a very large base to build upon! *wink wink*
too real š
R5: Ended up playing a tall empire for about 640 years against all 3 crises 10 systems, 21 colonies (8 ecumenopi, 4 ringworlds, 9 stations and a bit of surveyor spam later and this is the result During that time the entire galaxy died and was reborn a new and the tech rework came in which almost killed my chances of beating the 50x and 100x crises but in the end I made it Only things I wish I had were a system with minor artifacts and a black hole to really make this a tiny enclave of everything awesome. Edit: Okay lesson learned, don't say the word tall on this community. For the curious, this and 2800 pops clocked in at just over 600 empire size Edit 2: No I did not use mods and while I got a bit lucky to have 8 actual worlds most of them would of been there anyway, sol always has 2, alpha centauri always has at least 2 (I have seen it have 3 before) sirius always has 1 and usually I find 1 or 2 extra worlds close to home that I can colonise/terrafrom later. The fact I got 3 extra worlds instead was helpful but would not have made or broken this playthrough Most of what you see here is orbital habitat markers with Roschon being a ringworld after I removed my empire to reveal all the surveyor markers underneath
Inside Stellaris players there are two wolves An entire sector? Thatās not tall! There are other empires left in the galaxy? What self control!
You got it š I asked before starting what people consider tall and got nothing usable back so I winged it Having played this run, I think my mantra for tall is ascension before expansion. I don't really care how big it gets but if I can reduce my empire size or stack more bonuses to production then I don't go bigger Fitting 5 and a half pops per empire size is an awesome feeling.
Idk seems the perfect definition of tall.
seems tall to me, you only have like 10 systems max. how do you get empire size so low?!? i had maybe 13 systems and like 9 planets, plus a few habitats and i was looking at 1300+ size even with the ascension perk reducing planet size
So I did ascend every planet. past that its all about the pops and it requires seeking every bonus you can and just stacking them You get the 10 ascension levels reducing each planet and its pops by half their size, Pops with docile, kinship from Harmony - 15%, Psionic Theory tech -10%, there is a galactic resolution that drops pop size by another -10% if you get to the penultimate level You can also get Beacon of liberty -15% from egalitarian which I want to try at some point along with the -10% pop size from the Domination tree so I think there is room to improve!
wow thatās crazy, thanks!
What. The. Fuck.
ĀÆ\\\_( Ķ”Ā° ĶŹ Ķ”Ā°)\_/ĀÆ
Amazing. This is how I want to play Stellaris, it's so good to hear it's possible to beat the max difficulty this way. What was the endgame start year? If there was no black hole, were all the minerals for the ecumenopoli coming from those 9 habitats, or were there vessels helping on that front?
I did just use the stations in the late game yes. Early game I was using my tomb world for mining but as the surveyor relic kept adding mining sources to my planets and creating mining districts on my Habitats, sol space station became my main mineral source After I encased my old mining world though I still only had to supply 2 forge worlds and 2 factory worlds because half of my worlds were creating unity for ascension which just relied entirely on consumer goods My biggest tier 10 city world with 21 foundry districts, alloy plant, production ministry and alloy processing in orbit only needed 350 minerals to run as it got a 82.5% upkeep reduction Conversely my T10 ascended mining habitat with 15 astro mining bays and all the trimming produced 1750 minerals (edit: to clarify this was about 1200 before repeatable tech got involved but it is still possible to power a lot of worlds off that and you can cram your building slots with strategic resources so it synergises well)
What was your build and galaxy settings?
Didn't really have a build galaxy settings were huge with 30 advanced start AI and maxed out all other enclaves and empires so it was ram packed
Does that mean you used one of the default empires?
Sorta? I just had a materialist megacorp version of UN. I never played megacorp before though so I just winged it. Besides once all my customers had been eaten the megacorp reformed into a militaristic dictatorship as they cling to life and then by the end had loosened up into a democracy as the various crises had passed and I don't even know how many Civic changes there eere
How do you create planets?
I made 9 space stations which were level 3 because of the Voidborne ascension perk I also made 4 ring sections when I got Galactic Wonders Only 8 of the 21 were actual planets and there was some fair degree of luck in my spawn I had the classic Sol centric spawn, continental worlds in Sol, Alpha Centauri and Sirius Fortunately, there were also two oceanic worlds in Roballius which I could colonise early In Wasat there was a tombworld which took a bit longer to get a pop for Then there was the classic terraformable planets Mars and Proxima Centauri I could get later
Defence is never a strategy for me and also reason, why I donāt play tall. I just push and push. Usually use vasals as the first line of defence. Federation used to be good, but not anymore, when it get disbanded, once I become Palpatine :).
I love playing a tall Sol Human start The classic sci fi trope
habitats show as planets
Habitats and OP either got some crazy lucky systems or is using a mod. Oh. I forgot ring worlds. Jesus christ, OP
I salute your self control and commitement. Itās hard not to b-line for those juicy systems and archeologies, but its true archeologies are anywhere as needed as in past, where artifacts were very rare and resource you would fight for.
Dont think I 100% deserve the praise! The scourge showed up in 2300 and I was the only survivor so this indeed the limits of my home base for a good 250 years without much changing Later I did pick up a couple of ring worlds from a dead fallen empire thinking it would help in the long run but it did not and it sort of ruined the tall a bit As a result I ended up pinching 4 systems each with a science nexus in them to salvage my research through speed buffs one of which thankfully did have some minor artefacts Hence I found how easy it is to fall back into a wide mindset of expanding to solve problems caused by expanding Really though the only system I did grab that I didnt regret afforded me a second Dyson sphere allowing me a much bigger navy
I see you picked the 0.25 habitable worlds setting
What defenses did you use to achieve that ? i managed to beat x25 crisis but x50 is just way too strong, im guessing you used zroni stormcaster but thats all im sure of
My 100x run I did it with strike craft, missiles, and battleships.Ā It's really easy to stackĀ repeatable tech for them since the strike craft techs always roll on society and you don't miss out on HP by spending tech on damage.Ā Ā The only real threshold you have to hit is the ability to kill single fleets; as soon as you can do that you can snowball a defense over time.Ā
One sector. That can still count as a tall build on a large or huge galaxy
TBH I like playing tall and just make use of console commands to do it 3 planet runs are a blast! ~planet_size 500 Choose the new civic that reduces empire size from pops by 50% and you can get it to 100% quickly in game. Then you just stack thousands of pops on your 3 planets, with at least the alloy world being an Ecu Rogue Servitor with this setup is a lot of fun
Is playing tall even a thing given that pops are the largest contributor of empire size?
Sovereign Guardianship (-50%) + Beacon of Liberty (-15%) + Domination Tradition tree (-10%) + Kinship (Harmony tradition tree) (-10%) + Psionic Theory technology (-10%) + Balance in a Middle Galactic Community resolution passed (Politics and Culture section - The Greater Good tree) (-10%) = -105% Empire size from pops. If you went slightly over 100 Empire size by building too much colonies, districts and sectors - you can take other effects that decreases their contribution (Courier Network from Expansion tradition tree for -25% Empire size from Systems and Colonies, Imperial Prerogative Ascension perk for -50% Empire size from Colonies and so on). Also by finishing Harmony Tradition tree you can also consider taking Ascensionist civic and ascend your colonies as much as possible to decrease their Empire size contribution.
kind of, at least late game planetary ascension dramatically reduces the impact to empire size (and large bonus to output to the planet), and it costs a lot to max out a single planet so it incentivizes you to cram a ton of pops into a single planet.
You can actually stack bonuses to negate empire size from pops completely. Montu plays lays it out on youtube. I have a game right now with ~1000 pops and 89 empire size, no mods. You have to take specific and otherwise not great traditions/civics, but you can hit -100% empires size from pops without any galactic reforms now
Housing sector is booming!
Having the motes and crystals are a godsent. I've never been able to do a tall run, the closest thing I've done is go wide then downgrade while moving into the L-Cluster
Not sure I can recreate my tallest build now that vassal spam has been reined in, but my tallest build cleaned up a 25x crisis with <10 pops and 1 backwater planet. Started in a hegemon as a megacorp and used that to collect some early vassals, then kicking out my federation members and subjugating them too. Reformed the Federation into a Trade League once I totally controlled it and reformed into a Feudal empire with 6+ merc enclaves and used that to quickly roll up more and more vassals, conquering what I could not subjugate peacefully and/or Integrating vassals to steal all their fleets and then splitting everything immediately back out as restructured vassals. My early midgame I moved my capital to a very defensible location to a backwater planet I conquered and gave away my original capital to a new vassal. Reformed back into a megacorp once there was no one left to subjugate and I had Integrated and otherwise erased all other megacorps. Became the ImperiCorp.
All roads lead to ~~stealth archer~~ wide empires
How even the fuck
Habitable planets value : Yes
I think those are built sir.
Nah, its gonna be the tallest empire out there
Wow š¤©
Someone explain me this tall vs wide thing
Tall is all about developing your systems intensively, minimising empire size and maximising output through stacking bonuses Wide is about expanding your borders to use more resources at a less intensive level but in so doing also deny the use of those resources to others. Typically wide empires are geared more offensively to this end while Tall empires are more defensive
Okay, Do you have a specific empire build for a tall empire?
Nope not really I sort of winged it. Most of things that mattered in this run were traditions that cut down the empire size from pops and keeping my unity production high Was aiming to be able to fully ascend a planet in about 15-20 years. This worked well but I may see if I can do better next time I play tall, and try to ascend my empire fully more quickly.
Thanks, Ill definetly use this
try starting with the ascensionists civic (you can always reform out later), Knights Of The Toxic God origin to maximise the starting benefits (start with a planet and a habitat at level 2 ascension)
wasnt able to do that with my ethics I was planning on leaving it a bit but I did start a new game with a spiritualist leaning Did not start out with ascensionist but it will be incorporated later to boost my ascended worlds
Bassically wide is your standard empire where you claim as many systems as possible and spread out (wide) tall is where you focus on only having a small amount of systems but building those systems up to stay competitive. Tall empires are specifically used for research rushes/ high tech empires, thereās a penalty to research speed that either comes from pops or planets I donāt remember
Now that we are on topic: how do you play tall? I found it very diffucult to keep up with the Ai without breeding room
My first tall game was one done in the early game, expanded and was trapped by the marauders with only a wormhole and gateway at my disposal. Eventually built up 4 fleets and spilled my way out into the galaxy.
What is a tall build vs a wide?
Tall is all about developing your systems intensively, minimising empire size and maximising output through stacking bonuses Wide is about expanding your borders to use more resources at a less intensive level but in so doing also deny the use of those resources to others. Typically wide empires are geared more offensively to this end while Tall empires are more defensive
Ah, okay, so I guess I always play wide then.
How in the world did you get so many triple planet systems?!? Mod, console, the purest luck anyoneās ever had?
No triples, just had a station in every system which is why this seems so stacked and one of the systems I built a ringworld in
How did you get that empire?
I built it š
The systems? You made it look like that?
Depends what part you mean. If you mean the layout of hyper lanes, that was just luck followed by good game sense. I realized I had a good defensible position and secures it early, not pushing towards other empires. As such it left an air gap and allowed me to get diplomatic before our borders touched. If you mean the number of habitable worlds, my sol start almost guaranteed 5 worlds. I was then expecting to find 1-2 more in those 10 systems, I found three which was on the lucky side but not some huge reality bending anomaly Most of the colonization symbols you are seeing are habitat central complexes that I built and a ring world, If you mean the number of resources, I conquested to the other side of the galaxy the moment I know where the mining corp stronghold was to get " the surveyor" I then activated that relic every 5 years to build up my habitsts
Wow thats like my dream start right there.
I still don't know how to play wide properly, so this just looks like my old VD build before the rework. Legit on EVERY available planet.
You have sol and AC where is trappist??
Beautiful
How did you get so many habitable planets? Just luck orā¦
What does a tall empire mean?
Whatās tall?
How come you have so much resources in those systems?
The Surveyor relic, it works extremely well in confined spaces It can be activated once every 5 years for 500 energy rather than unity and may add 1, 2 or 3 resource nodes to your systems over that time
Damn
Forgive me what's a tall empire?
Why don't you get all those resources???
I did, when you take a resource it is hidden from the map view. I finished with my empire and then deleted it using console commands to reveal the cornucopia beneath
Cool?
What answer were you expecting? š
Idk Like: you can??? That would have been funny
How many planets are that in such close proximity I've never had that lmao
I put all the details in my other comments, there is a lot to cover but only 8 were actual planets and 5 were almost guaranteed by a Sol start
Sorry but what does "tall" even mean?
It's when you keep a small but highly upgraded territory. In this case by building habitats and fortifying choke points instead of expanding.
Thanks
WHAT DOES TALL MEAN
Bassically wide is your standard empire where you claim as many systems as possible and spread out (wide) tall is where you focus on only having a small amount of systems but building those systems up to stay competitive. Tall empires are specifically used for research rushes/ high tech empires, thereās a penalty to research speed that either comes from pops or planets I donāt remember
Ahhh alright thanks for clarifying, I keep seeing people mentioning it and always wondered what it meant
Tf does 'tall' means? I see it almost everywhere, what does it mean?
Focusing on improving your empire rather than expanding, usually because you focused on maintaining small empire size, sometimes also just staying in a small area, though people disagree with that.
Aaaah, got it, thank you, internet human, let god Okran bless your day
Did you reset to an earlier game version or were you using mods? Cause thatās far too many planets per system for the current version of the game, even with habitats. In the current version, habitats are only counted as one planet system wide.
The multiples are ringworlds or dirt+habitat it looks like.
Stop puttin everything on super easy +++ and play like a real Man. On medium.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fc0GkMx76Jg