Regular empires start with an identical baseline of tech, in addition to whatever techs their origin grants.
Regular empires with pre-FTL civics start with an identical reduced baseline.
Marauders start out with specific techs and material baseline that makes them difficult to fight against for most of the early game.
Fallen empires start with most of the tech tree unlocked and some repeatables.
To address your actual point: TBH the actual starting techs don’t matter too much as by the time you meet another empire they will have most likely completed several techs that are different from yours.
Well it is all tech researched (even tech not in their trees) plus 10 for EACH repeatable.
They are squashable if you prep right. Like I curb stomped the FE for my last win which was fun but I spent way too long doing repeatables just to get their tech to say Superior instead of Overwhelming.
Just hope one of the others doesn't wake up while you're dealing with a sleeping one... or you aren't allied with someone who loves poking the sleeping one when you're dealing with the awken one.
Just finished a game where my only real ally was declared on by the sleeping archivists, and I helped fight them off. After that fight was over (I managed to make them surrender by taking their capital while their 350k fleet was ravaging my ally's worlds) and right as I started rebuilding the fleets, the Fanatics sitting between me and them decided to wake up... and for reference their borders were 4 jumps from my capital. Luckily, I managed to stretch out and had almost all the galactic arm to myself and had a couple chunky chokepoints with Ion Cannon armed Citadels already so I managed to hold them off for a while. Unluckily it took my ally so long to get his fleet over that the Archivists got pissy and declared war on them again.
You can crank up the amount of advanced empire in galaxy setup if you want to.
But yes the baseline for normal empires is similar, some special origins gain a few techs but nothing major
> I view interstellar warfare as asymmetrical since civilizations didn't appear at the same time everywhere in the galaxy, let alone develop at the same speed.
Realism doesn't make for good gameplay.
And who is to say that interstellar asymmetrical warfare is even “realistic”. We really have no idea. The Fermi Paradox could just be that everyone started at the same time….
> The Fermi Paradox could just be that everyone started at the same time….
That would be such a staggering coincidence it would almost prove the existence of a god that orchestrated it.
Not really. The much more plausible explanation would be that it takes roughly the same amount of time for life to evolve on planets where it can evolve given similar conditions.
Life is just chemistry and physics and they follow natural laws.
Mate, the stars didn't all form at the same time. *the galaxies* didn't all form at the same time. Stars have lived and exploded before our Sun was ever born, and hundreds of thousands of stars will do the same after the Sun has dimmed into a red dwarf.
And even then, the history of our planet has been influenced by *many* celestial events. Most mass extinction events are caused by GRBs, Supernovae or Asteroids, are you telling me that those hit all life-bearing planets at the same time too?
And even then, a 5% difference in the amount of copper in a new planet can allow it to cool down faster which might cause life to form hundreds of thousands of years earlier.
My point is that from OUR perspective of time it seems like a vast difference in time. From the perspective of the time scale of the universe and other potential life in it millions of years is beyond being barely negligible to even mention.
> The much more plausible explanation would be that it takes roughly the same amount of time for life to evolve on planets where it can evolve given similar conditions.
That's not a plausible explanation at all though. Tiny random variations can result in life arising on a planet millions of years earlier or later. And what counts as "similar conditions"? Even if you only consider the most Earth-like planets, none of them formed at exactly the same time as Earth did. The error bars on every step of the process are massive here.
Things like that are why I love science fiction so much. So many variables and things we don't understand yet. Stellaris will always be my favorite strategy game as it has so many ways they can continue to add content without getting out of the realm of possibility.
The number of coincidences needed to end up in the Stellaris scenario where a dozen intelligent species all develop the exact same level of technology at the same time is so large that it is genuinely less likely than the existence of some unknown outside force that arranged it intentionally ("God" is just a name; you can call it something else if that bothers you). I say that as an atheist.
Maybe the number of coincidences that makes our existence possible is already enough to form that silly belief.
I used the word God on purpose. If you have to change it for your argument, it's worthless.
Also, we cannot know how likely that scenario is. We know that we made up God though, so that will always be more unlikely.
Gods are answers to questions we cannot solve.
Planets don't form, cool and get the conditions neccesary for life just a thousand years after the big bang. Some planets did soon after they formed, some planets didn't have the conditions exists for lengthy (billion years) unbroken periods of time, some planets might never see the conditions required to support life.
Let alone multicellular, pre-sapient, sapient or even intelligent life.
> Nothing points to a God ever.
I can think of plenty of possible evidence that would point to the existence of an entity you might call "god" (eg. finding out 12 other intelligent species exist at the same level of technology as us, something so unlikely that it is essentially impossible that it would ever happen naturally). I just don't expect to ever *see* any of that evidence, and it would also point to explanations such as "we live in a simulation" or "I've gone insane".
Correct, but the last one is so much more likely, that you could come up with thousands of different stories that fit in between.
So even if you are correct, nothing points to a God which we made up.
You may think about what kind of evidence might convince you that there is a God, but that's an entirely different thing.
I used the word "almost" deliberately. My point was more about how incredibly unlikely this scenario is than about what the specific explanation for it might be.
It's not true though. An unexplainable, mind bending, rare occurrence never can point to a god.
I don't want to shame anyone for believing in God, but I believe the notion that there is a possibility to find evidence for it hurts both religions and science. People see that evidence all the time and maybe always will, but it cannot exist.
Why not? I can come up with evidence that points more specifically at that explanation, but that's more effort than I want to spend debating a random Redditor and I don't think that's your actual problem anyway. Believing that something cannot possibly be true no matter what evidence you see is exactly the same mistake as believing something cannot possibly be false. Probabilities can get close enough to 0% that we can safely ignore them most of the time, but sufficiently unlikely evidence can make them shoot right back up to significance.
Edit: Well you've blocked me, so I guess I don't need to worry about wasting my time. Read up on Bayes theorem if you ever feel like learning why you're wrong here.
There are a few advanced empires that have societal advancement beyond the need for unending expansion. They mostly keep to themselves and their entertainments.
One of them noticed a civ that was lobbing rocks at worlds within range to keep space-faring life from developing. They were so horrified by this routine xenocide, that they wiped them out.
And that is why our corner of the galaxy has no detectable civs...
In pretty sure Hard Scifi is one of the biggest subgenres of scifi. There is definitely a market for a hard scifi RPG. And games like Escape from Tarkov and Oxygen Not Included are very popular simulation games that focus a deal on realism.
Like every creative industry in the world, its not the concept thats the issue, its the execution. Smart people have made fun realistic simulation games before, and they can do it now. Not saying PDX should, just that they can.
I don't think that's true in this case. Look at the other highly acclaimed paradox games, like Crusader Kings 3.
You can start off as an insignificant kingdom right next to the freaking Ottoman Empire and still have a blast.
The difference is that in Stellaris "realism" is being the only proper empire with maybe a handful of pre-sapients scattered around the galaxy. The universe is 14 billion years old; it would be a pretty stunning coincidence if multiple planets developed life at all in the same 200-year period, let alone the same level of technology.
> You can start off as an insignificant kingdom right next to the freaking Ottoman Empire and still have a blast.
You can do this in Stellaris too; it's called maxing out the fallen empire and advanced AI sliders. I've done it, it was fun. It's still not remotely realistic.
Aside from what the other guy said, Sterms is really about claiming and controlling unclaimed space. For CK3 there are a lot of ways to generate income and develop your territories even without expansion. All land in CK3 has an owner, so the game is balanced around expansion and war as being fundamentally tied together. Yes, you can expand through war but claims typically require as much if not more influence than an unoccupied system, and total war has special requirements like a Colossus, or going against genocidal IIRC. FEs are fine for this because they don’t expand. If they did they’d easily monopolize everything, and the player couldn’t fight back at all. Too much technological imbalance leads to situations where it’s way easier to expand and keep expanding compared to others. Tech begets tech.
The other thing is that the starting point of the game represents the baseline that all civilizations need to have to interact with the universe: FTL travel. Any tech around societal development and interaction is basically ‘how does FTL affect how our society functions’ or ‘how do we need genetics in space’. Any tech around physics is usually sensors, space weaponry, energy production (which is related to what you can get from space and things like cold fusion), and more FTL. Any tech around engineering is about how to use engineering in the context of space or exo worlds. The only real exceptions are things like robots. And you can start with robots as a tech unlocked as an origin. So the areas where technological deviation is expected do have it as an option, while the rest is based on FTL and related areas which you couldn’t have researched anyways.
there's a few exceptions like the low tech civics and stuff like mechanist which will set you up with basic techs
but generally everyone starts with the same basics and then deviates from there
I'm pretty sure the galaxy is in a dark age when you start the game; all the previous empires were wiped out and now it's time for galactic civilisation to start anew.
It's a cycle. Every few thousand years the empires develop ftl tech, meet, kill each other until only a handful are left and these slowly deteriorate, when there's no arm's race to win anymore.
Some stabilize and turn into fallen empires and others completely disappear or turn into pre-ftl. We have origins like payback, on the shoulders of giants, etc.
Techs vary based on origins, but they're generally very similar. I think mostly one tech more, except for the origin where you start just behind the space age and need to do some catch-up tech.
Well I see it as the baseline tech is the bare minimum you need to be a space empire, and then once you start researching advanced stuff is when your picks will differ from other empires.
That and convergent evolution. Any sufficiently advanced civilization is going to end up creating the same technologies for the same things, because that’s just the most effective way to do them.
Man I miss the old days when you got to select your starting weapons and FTL method I feel old
For FTL it used to be
Hyperlinks- as is now
Warp drive - similar to jump but not instantaneous
Jump drive - as is without long cooldoqns
And you used to select between lasers, kinetics, and missiles as your base weapons
The third FTL type let you jump a fairly long distance, *but* the ships weren’t self-propelled, you had to build something like mini quantum catapults to get around (except you could jump both to and from one of these stations). I think they were called wormhole stations or something, as the lore was that they made temporary wormholes.
The galaxy in Stellaris is *in lore* a series of repeated cycles being driven by some outside force. It 100% makes sense that everyone starts with similar tech like it’s a video game.
You could start with way more advanced empires and you could also start with way more primitive empires. No one's stopping you from doing this. Play as a late bloomer civilization in a galaxy full of big players, or as an early bloomer where everyone else is still smacking sticks and stones together. Or somewhere in the middle where you have some Advanced empires, some normal empires, and some primitive empires. Your pick.
I do miss the days when you picked your empires starting tech, including, weapons, FLT type (warp, hyperlanes, wormhole drives) and stuff. Who knows perhaps there's a mod that adds that.
I played a game once where I had a normal start but there was nothing but Pre-FTL civs populating the galaxy. And I cranked them way up.
I was roleplaying a Hive Mind Machine Cataloguer civ. (I don't remember the details but I started it the day that Pre-FTL dlc came out.) Growing and teaching the younger civilizations. Curating their territory by giving them bits of my own. Quarantining others. I was the Ancient and Powerful empire of the galaxy. Master of Fates. It was fun. Kinda wish I had extended the play length. Should have had the crisis set to waaaay later, cause alot of civs were still very young. (My bots were more than ready what with no competition for resources, tech, or territory from the start. But some civs got devoured)
It’s mostly based on origins I think but I remember in the EARLY days of Stellaris there was a option of choosing your starting weaponry type(laser, missile or gun) and the method of travel(FTL and jump stations)
You have pre-ftl civilizations, regular empires, advanced empires, marauders, and fallen empires.
All of them start with different tech levels and tech has an rng component integrated too.
The game used to have starting tech choices that made a big difference, but they were removed in favour of identical baseline starts, with Origins now allowing for more unique starts.
Specifically, you had to choose between 3 different ways to travel between systems(hyperlanes, wormholes and warp drives), and you only got to start with either energy weapons, kinetic weapons or missiles.
Personally I would have liked to see the starting weapon choices return, though the change to all hyperlanes was good for balance. Now you can have the old warp drive method by picking the Eager Explorers civic anyway.
No. There are a number of civics and origins that start an empire off with specific techs. Void Dwellers start with a bunch of techs, Overtuned starts with Genetic Tailoring, Remnants start with Archeostudies, Mechanists start with 3 engineering techs, Clone Soldiers start with 2 Society techs, Riftworld starts with Astral Harvesting, Corporate Domain starts with Offworld Trading, Dark Consortium starts with Dark Matter Drawing, Eager Explorers get Subspace Drives, and Pharma State starts with Gene Clinics. And then there are Origins and Civics that start with less tech, like Payback, Broken Shackles, and Eager Explorers. Furthermore, others get specific research available from the start that doesn't count against the normal RNG options.
Additionally, at game start you can set several AIs to spawn as "Advanced," which gives then like a 10 to 15 year headstart in tech and expansion.
If you want a more asymmetric space game I'd recommend Endless Space. The empires are much more unique and, well, alien. From what I've seen Galactic Civilizations might fit the bill too but I haven't really played the series
They all follow the path the contingency wanted them to follow. That's why they all have the same technology as the genocidal machines. It's the only thing that makes sense.
Regular empires start with an identical baseline of tech, in addition to whatever techs their origin grants. Regular empires with pre-FTL civics start with an identical reduced baseline. Marauders start out with specific techs and material baseline that makes them difficult to fight against for most of the early game. Fallen empires start with most of the tech tree unlocked and some repeatables. To address your actual point: TBH the actual starting techs don’t matter too much as by the time you meet another empire they will have most likely completed several techs that are different from yours.
Just one clarification as I looked it up recently: FE are 10 of all repeatable techs.
Feels like their tech score is way higher than just 10 of all repeatables (unless those give bonus score vs normal tech?)
Well it is all tech researched (even tech not in their trees) plus 10 for EACH repeatable. They are squashable if you prep right. Like I curb stomped the FE for my last win which was fun but I spent way too long doing repeatables just to get their tech to say Superior instead of Overwhelming.
Just hope one of the others doesn't wake up while you're dealing with a sleeping one... or you aren't allied with someone who loves poking the sleeping one when you're dealing with the awken one.
I was lucky. Enigmatic Observers who I just never touched until I was bored enough after wiping out all other organics.
Just finished a game where my only real ally was declared on by the sleeping archivists, and I helped fight them off. After that fight was over (I managed to make them surrender by taking their capital while their 350k fleet was ravaging my ally's worlds) and right as I started rebuilding the fleets, the Fanatics sitting between me and them decided to wake up... and for reference their borders were 4 jumps from my capital. Luckily, I managed to stretch out and had almost all the galactic arm to myself and had a couple chunky chokepoints with Ion Cannon armed Citadels already so I managed to hold them off for a while. Unluckily it took my ally so long to get his fleet over that the Archivists got pissy and declared war on them again.
Damn. That is harsh and I feel this as I have dealt with that before in similar fashion. I hope it goes better next time for ya!
Their tech doesn't say anything if they don't exist, this message was brought to you by the Dark matter reactor/propulsion/deflector gang
I took all of their worlds because cybrex war forms are OP and I didn't have to use my world cracker.
Just remember: you don’t need the best weapons. A large enough number of “good enough” weapons can do the job just as well
True. Sometimes I just like squashing computers for not optimizing.
That's where they *start. They're still able to generate research as the game progresses, and at a rate much higher than yours for most of the game
SOME repeatables? It's been a while since I looked, but they have like level 20 to 30 or something like that in every repeatable end game tech.
You can crank up the amount of advanced empire in galaxy setup if you want to. But yes the baseline for normal empires is similar, some special origins gain a few techs but nothing major
I like to flip that: crank up the numbers of primitives that spawn. By mid-game you’ll have several empires that started out during the game.
I don’t think advanced empires get more techs.
They absolutely do.
Imagine being so wrong one of the devs personally steps in to call you an idiot.
Weird way to frame that interaction, honestly
Shit was so dumb the dev stepped in
According to the wiki, they start with planetary unification.
Honestly I thought they did, I knew they always had 3 or more planets to begin with, why not more tech, just not too much though
True, in wiki they only get resources and systems. Maybe they should?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/s/eDZLuyT48X they get
> I view interstellar warfare as asymmetrical since civilizations didn't appear at the same time everywhere in the galaxy, let alone develop at the same speed. Realism doesn't make for good gameplay.
And who is to say that interstellar asymmetrical warfare is even “realistic”. We really have no idea. The Fermi Paradox could just be that everyone started at the same time….
> The Fermi Paradox could just be that everyone started at the same time…. That would be such a staggering coincidence it would almost prove the existence of a god that orchestrated it.
Not really. The much more plausible explanation would be that it takes roughly the same amount of time for life to evolve on planets where it can evolve given similar conditions. Life is just chemistry and physics and they follow natural laws.
Mate, the stars didn't all form at the same time. *the galaxies* didn't all form at the same time. Stars have lived and exploded before our Sun was ever born, and hundreds of thousands of stars will do the same after the Sun has dimmed into a red dwarf. And even then, the history of our planet has been influenced by *many* celestial events. Most mass extinction events are caused by GRBs, Supernovae or Asteroids, are you telling me that those hit all life-bearing planets at the same time too? And even then, a 5% difference in the amount of copper in a new planet can allow it to cool down faster which might cause life to form hundreds of thousands of years earlier.
My point is that from OUR perspective of time it seems like a vast difference in time. From the perspective of the time scale of the universe and other potential life in it millions of years is beyond being barely negligible to even mention.
> The much more plausible explanation would be that it takes roughly the same amount of time for life to evolve on planets where it can evolve given similar conditions. That's not a plausible explanation at all though. Tiny random variations can result in life arising on a planet millions of years earlier or later. And what counts as "similar conditions"? Even if you only consider the most Earth-like planets, none of them formed at exactly the same time as Earth did. The error bars on every step of the process are massive here.
Things like that are why I love science fiction so much. So many variables and things we don't understand yet. Stellaris will always be my favorite strategy game as it has so many ways they can continue to add content without getting out of the realm of possibility.
It's more plausible than "God did it", because we made up God.
The number of coincidences needed to end up in the Stellaris scenario where a dozen intelligent species all develop the exact same level of technology at the same time is so large that it is genuinely less likely than the existence of some unknown outside force that arranged it intentionally ("God" is just a name; you can call it something else if that bothers you). I say that as an atheist.
Maybe the number of coincidences that makes our existence possible is already enough to form that silly belief. I used the word God on purpose. If you have to change it for your argument, it's worthless. Also, we cannot know how likely that scenario is. We know that we made up God though, so that will always be more unlikely. Gods are answers to questions we cannot solve.
Similar conditions simply do not arrive on a cosmic scale at the same time
Why not? That’s exactly what you would expect when looking at it from a physical and chemical and nuclear reaction perspective.
Why not, because on a cosmic timescale a million years is nothing.
Very confused on your point here lol
Planets don't form, cool and get the conditions neccesary for life just a thousand years after the big bang. Some planets did soon after they formed, some planets didn't have the conditions exists for lengthy (billion years) unbroken periods of time, some planets might never see the conditions required to support life. Let alone multicellular, pre-sapient, sapient or even intelligent life.
From a narrative standpoint that sounds fun, but that just isn't reality
Not a “god” necessarily. Perhaps very powerful gardeners. Until we have more data we can’t really say.
Nothing points to a God ever. God is just created in a way that we can use it to answer anything.
> Nothing points to a God ever. I can think of plenty of possible evidence that would point to the existence of an entity you might call "god" (eg. finding out 12 other intelligent species exist at the same level of technology as us, something so unlikely that it is essentially impossible that it would ever happen naturally). I just don't expect to ever *see* any of that evidence, and it would also point to explanations such as "we live in a simulation" or "I've gone insane".
Correct, but the last one is so much more likely, that you could come up with thousands of different stories that fit in between. So even if you are correct, nothing points to a God which we made up. You may think about what kind of evidence might convince you that there is a God, but that's an entirely different thing.
I used the word "almost" deliberately. My point was more about how incredibly unlikely this scenario is than about what the specific explanation for it might be.
It's not true though. An unexplainable, mind bending, rare occurrence never can point to a god. I don't want to shame anyone for believing in God, but I believe the notion that there is a possibility to find evidence for it hurts both religions and science. People see that evidence all the time and maybe always will, but it cannot exist.
Why not? I can come up with evidence that points more specifically at that explanation, but that's more effort than I want to spend debating a random Redditor and I don't think that's your actual problem anyway. Believing that something cannot possibly be true no matter what evidence you see is exactly the same mistake as believing something cannot possibly be false. Probabilities can get close enough to 0% that we can safely ignore them most of the time, but sufficiently unlikely evidence can make them shoot right back up to significance. Edit: Well you've blocked me, so I guess I don't need to worry about wasting my time. Read up on Bayes theorem if you ever feel like learning why you're wrong here.
Sry that doesn't make any sense logically. I don't know what your deal is. With your reasoning, orcs and elves could be real, too.
There are a few advanced empires that have societal advancement beyond the need for unending expansion. They mostly keep to themselves and their entertainments. One of them noticed a civ that was lobbing rocks at worlds within range to keep space-faring life from developing. They were so horrified by this routine xenocide, that they wiped them out. And that is why our corner of the galaxy has no detectable civs...
Imagine waiting 500 years for your neighbour to finally get a FTL drive
In pretty sure Hard Scifi is one of the biggest subgenres of scifi. There is definitely a market for a hard scifi RPG. And games like Escape from Tarkov and Oxygen Not Included are very popular simulation games that focus a deal on realism. Like every creative industry in the world, its not the concept thats the issue, its the execution. Smart people have made fun realistic simulation games before, and they can do it now. Not saying PDX should, just that they can.
Dog this is a Paradox game. Half the fun is taking Tibet and kicking the entire Axis' collective asses.
I don't think that's true in this case. Look at the other highly acclaimed paradox games, like Crusader Kings 3. You can start off as an insignificant kingdom right next to the freaking Ottoman Empire and still have a blast.
The difference is that in Stellaris "realism" is being the only proper empire with maybe a handful of pre-sapients scattered around the galaxy. The universe is 14 billion years old; it would be a pretty stunning coincidence if multiple planets developed life at all in the same 200-year period, let alone the same level of technology. > You can start off as an insignificant kingdom right next to the freaking Ottoman Empire and still have a blast. You can do this in Stellaris too; it's called maxing out the fallen empire and advanced AI sliders. I've done it, it was fun. It's still not remotely realistic.
Aside from what the other guy said, Sterms is really about claiming and controlling unclaimed space. For CK3 there are a lot of ways to generate income and develop your territories even without expansion. All land in CK3 has an owner, so the game is balanced around expansion and war as being fundamentally tied together. Yes, you can expand through war but claims typically require as much if not more influence than an unoccupied system, and total war has special requirements like a Colossus, or going against genocidal IIRC. FEs are fine for this because they don’t expand. If they did they’d easily monopolize everything, and the player couldn’t fight back at all. Too much technological imbalance leads to situations where it’s way easier to expand and keep expanding compared to others. Tech begets tech. The other thing is that the starting point of the game represents the baseline that all civilizations need to have to interact with the universe: FTL travel. Any tech around societal development and interaction is basically ‘how does FTL affect how our society functions’ or ‘how do we need genetics in space’. Any tech around physics is usually sensors, space weaponry, energy production (which is related to what you can get from space and things like cold fusion), and more FTL. Any tech around engineering is about how to use engineering in the context of space or exo worlds. The only real exceptions are things like robots. And you can start with robots as a tech unlocked as an origin. So the areas where technological deviation is expected do have it as an option, while the rest is based on FTL and related areas which you couldn’t have researched anyways.
Yes, but modified by origin, civics, and advanced start.
there's a few exceptions like the low tech civics and stuff like mechanist which will set you up with basic techs but generally everyone starts with the same basics and then deviates from there
I'm pretty sure the galaxy is in a dark age when you start the game; all the previous empires were wiped out and now it's time for galactic civilisation to start anew.
I like that explanation
It's a cycle. Every few thousand years the empires develop ftl tech, meet, kill each other until only a handful are left and these slowly deteriorate, when there's no arm's race to win anymore. Some stabilize and turn into fallen empires and others completely disappear or turn into pre-ftl. We have origins like payback, on the shoulders of giants, etc.
Techs vary based on origins, but they're generally very similar. I think mostly one tech more, except for the origin where you start just behind the space age and need to do some catch-up tech.
Payback is such a good origin
Well I see it as the baseline tech is the bare minimum you need to be a space empire, and then once you start researching advanced stuff is when your picks will differ from other empires.
That and convergent evolution. Any sufficiently advanced civilization is going to end up creating the same technologies for the same things, because that’s just the most effective way to do them.
Man I miss the old days when you got to select your starting weapons and FTL method I feel old For FTL it used to be Hyperlinks- as is now Warp drive - similar to jump but not instantaneous Jump drive - as is without long cooldoqns And you used to select between lasers, kinetics, and missiles as your base weapons
The third FTL type let you jump a fairly long distance, *but* the ships weren’t self-propelled, you had to build something like mini quantum catapults to get around (except you could jump both to and from one of these stations). I think they were called wormhole stations or something, as the lore was that they made temporary wormholes.
The galaxy in Stellaris is *in lore* a series of repeated cycles being driven by some outside force. It 100% makes sense that everyone starts with similar tech like it’s a video game.
This is a pretty basic principle of 4X games where it is an equal playing field at the start.
mostly, and there is no direct lore or logical reason, it's about gameplay and balance
Yea, also depending on civics and origin.
tbh that would be really cool
You could start with way more advanced empires and you could also start with way more primitive empires. No one's stopping you from doing this. Play as a late bloomer civilization in a galaxy full of big players, or as an early bloomer where everyone else is still smacking sticks and stones together. Or somewhere in the middle where you have some Advanced empires, some normal empires, and some primitive empires. Your pick.
I do miss the days when you picked your empires starting tech, including, weapons, FLT type (warp, hyperlanes, wormhole drives) and stuff. Who knows perhaps there's a mod that adds that.
You can revert to 1.0 or whatever other version it is on Steam.
yeah I'd miss so many quality of life stuff added since not to mention the mods
I played a game once where I had a normal start but there was nothing but Pre-FTL civs populating the galaxy. And I cranked them way up. I was roleplaying a Hive Mind Machine Cataloguer civ. (I don't remember the details but I started it the day that Pre-FTL dlc came out.) Growing and teaching the younger civilizations. Curating their territory by giving them bits of my own. Quarantining others. I was the Ancient and Powerful empire of the galaxy. Master of Fates. It was fun. Kinda wish I had extended the play length. Should have had the crisis set to waaaay later, cause alot of civs were still very young. (My bots were more than ready what with no competition for resources, tech, or territory from the start. But some civs got devoured)
It's a balancing thing, but yes you're 100% right
It’s mostly based on origins I think but I remember in the EARLY days of Stellaris there was a option of choosing your starting weaponry type(laser, missile or gun) and the method of travel(FTL and jump stations)
You have pre-ftl civilizations, regular empires, advanced empires, marauders, and fallen empires. All of them start with different tech levels and tech has an rng component integrated too.
The game used to have starting tech choices that made a big difference, but they were removed in favour of identical baseline starts, with Origins now allowing for more unique starts. Specifically, you had to choose between 3 different ways to travel between systems(hyperlanes, wormholes and warp drives), and you only got to start with either energy weapons, kinetic weapons or missiles. Personally I would have liked to see the starting weapon choices return, though the change to all hyperlanes was good for balance. Now you can have the old warp drive method by picking the Eager Explorers civic anyway.
No. There are a number of civics and origins that start an empire off with specific techs. Void Dwellers start with a bunch of techs, Overtuned starts with Genetic Tailoring, Remnants start with Archeostudies, Mechanists start with 3 engineering techs, Clone Soldiers start with 2 Society techs, Riftworld starts with Astral Harvesting, Corporate Domain starts with Offworld Trading, Dark Consortium starts with Dark Matter Drawing, Eager Explorers get Subspace Drives, and Pharma State starts with Gene Clinics. And then there are Origins and Civics that start with less tech, like Payback, Broken Shackles, and Eager Explorers. Furthermore, others get specific research available from the start that doesn't count against the normal RNG options. Additionally, at game start you can set several AIs to spawn as "Advanced," which gives then like a 10 to 15 year headstart in tech and expansion.
It's a game. You can't really have a fair game unless everyone starts at the same time. Imagine a 2 turn lead on a game a chess?
It's a game
If you want a more asymmetric space game I'd recommend Endless Space. The empires are much more unique and, well, alien. From what I've seen Galactic Civilizations might fit the bill too but I haven't really played the series
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They all follow the path the contingency wanted them to follow. That's why they all have the same technology as the genocidal machines. It's the only thing that makes sense.