My name is Gibson Vasela. I am a freelance writer who has been playing video games for almost 20 years now. I play all kinds of games, but I especially love immersive sims and RPGs.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
Stellaris is a really fantastic game. It allows you to build the interstellar empire of your dreams, creating a unique alien race, choosing their ethics and government type, and deciding how they will interact with the galaxy at large. Whether you’re a die hard strategy fan or just a sci-fi nerd, you’re sure to love the game.
But if you are going to get into Stellaris, it’s best that you learn how to play the game first. And one of the best ways to learn is by getting some tips and tricks from those who play it often. That’s where I come in. Here in this article, I’ll be covering the Top 10 Tips & Tricks For Beginners in Stellaris!
#1 – Prioritize Colonization Early on
Colonizing worlds is one of the most satisfying parts of the game, in my opinion. It’s what allows you to truly expand and grow your empire, spreading your species across the stars. Colonizing planets has lots of benefits as well, such as allowing you to produce more resources and growing your population.
You’ll need to make sure to have lots of science ships exploring the galaxy as mentioned in a previous tip. This will allow you to find planets to colonize. Once you do find one, make sure to build a colony ship and get it sent over ASAP.
#2 – Build Many Science Ships Early on
When you first start out in Stellaris, the galaxy is a wild, unexplored frontier. The first step to taming that frontier is by exploring it. To do this, you’ll need to construct lots and lots of science ships. You can then select them and select an option to have them operate automatically, surveying systems and even conducting research projects on their own.
This is a really smart thing to do early game as you can run into other empires faster and you can complete research projects sooner. There is also the benefit of assigning science ships to assist in research, which will allow you to research new technologies faster.
#3 – Form Alliances Early on
The galaxy can be a wild and dangerous place. That’s why it’s good to stay prepared. One way to do this is by befriending the alien empires you come across before they have a chance to declare war on you. Even if you aren’t afraid of getting wiped out, there are still other benefits from making friends with other nations. You can trade with them, form federations and research agreements with them, and having an alley is a nice deterrent from other empires declaring war on you.
Befriending other empires is actually easier than you may think. Simply select an empire you’ve come into contact with from the diplomacy screen. You can then select the “Improve Relations” option and assign an envoy. An envoy will improve relations over time. You can add one, or several if you really want to make friends fast. You can also do things like offer open borders or form commercial pacts with them to improve relations.
#4 – Trade Often, Preferably With Energy Credits
Trading with other empires is something I wish I had done more early on in my most recent play-through. I was sitting on an overabundance of energy credits that I could have used to acquire the valuable resources I really needed early on. I’d recommend you make sure to do this too, especially in the early game. You may have lots of one resource, but be low on other ones.
You can trade with another empire by selecting them from the diplomacy menu and then selecting the option to trade from the menu that appears. When it comes to resources that you can trade, I recommend the energy credits I mentioned earlier. You can usually get a lot of them early on as long as you’ve been building many mining stations to harvest them.
#5 – Prioritize Economic Technologies Over Military Ones
Speaking of technologies, let’s take a second to talk about which ones you should research first. In my experience, the ones that boost your economy/resource output are more important early game than military ones. You are going to want to make sure you rack up lots and lots of resources early game, as this will be important for expanding your empire and making trade deals.
Military technologies are important, yes, but you can’t have a strong military without resources to build it in the first place! Invading other empires is typically something you’d want to do later on in the game, as by that point you’ll have more influence points and you’ll be able to claim more enemy systems.
#6 – Know How to Upgrade Your Ships
Upgrading your ships with new components is a key part of maintaining a strong military. You can outfit your ships with many features, such as more shields, more armor, laser weapons, missile weapons, etc. Some are better for attacking/defending against certain ships/weapon types.
When it comes to deciding what components to put on, it’s almost always better to make every ship a jack of all trades. Have a mostly even mixture of armor and shields. When you hover your mouse over a weapon component, it will tell you what that weapon is strong and weak against. Use this information to create a ship that has a good balance of different damage outputs.
#7 – Increase Naval Capacity Anyway Possible
Having a strong fleet is vital to keeping your empire alive in Stellaris. Even if you don’t intend on using it, other empires can learn if your fleet is stronger or weaker than theres, and they can use this information to decide if they should attack you or not. But in order to build lots of ships, you’ll need to have a high naval capacity.
There are many ways to do this. For starters, you can build a module on a star base which will increase naval capacity by +4. These modules are called anchorages. Another way to increase capacity is by researching certain military technologies. Some will even increase it by as much as +20!
#8 – Set Up Chokepoints to More Easily Defend Yourself
Assuming you didn’t tweak this in the options when starting a new game, most star systems will only be connected to a few other nearby systems. This means that in certain systems, there will only be two nearby star systems that have a hyperdrive lane connecting them, allowing you to create a chokepoint.
Chokepoints are important as they make defending your empire from invaders much easier. You can take control of a system and then upgrade the starbase and building defense modules in it. You can also move your ships to that system to provide additional defense.
#9 – Claim Enemy Territory’s Before Going to War
The best part about winning a war in Stellaris isn’t bragging rights, but annexing enemy systems and expanding your empire. But in order to do that, you’ll first need to claim a system. To do this, you’ll need to spend a currency called influence points.
Once you have a good amount of influence points, you can select the option to claim systems and then choose what systems you want to claim. Once you’ve claimed all the systems you want from an alien empire, you can then declare war on them. If you win the war, all the claimed systems you’ve taken control of will become yours!
#10 – Produce Loads of Consumer Goods & Alloys
If you want to win in Stellaris, you are going to need to either take total control of the galaxy, or get a very high score. Most players are probably going to go for a score victory in their play-through. An easy way to rack up a high score is by investing in your economy. More specifically, the more consumer goods and alloys you have, the higher your score will be. Even if you don’t want to get a higher score, you can use these valuable resources to trade with other empires.
To do this, first, you are going to want to get lots and lots of minerals. You can do this by building mining stations and/or mining districts. You should try to do this early on so you’ll have lots and lots of them later in the game. Once that is done, build some industrial districts on your worlds. This will allow your people to refine them into consumer goods and lots.
You must sign in to comment.
Don't have an account? Sign up here!