How to Start Every Game of Stellaris

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[velvetthunder]

Legit started stellaris today. After a few hours of learning on my own I thought I should maybe look up a guide on youtube. Lo and behold you this video pops up without me even having to search anything. And it was released not even 2 minutes ago. Get out of my walls.

[magmakojote]

don't colonize planets with low habitability. Should be obvious but a new player might not think too much about that

[DisasterMax]

This is an excellent guide, but I do disagree with a couple things from an economic standpoint.
1) The +20% Research Points/+5% Research techs are very tempting opening picks, but in the early game, jumpstarting your economy should be top priority. The general consensus amongst minmaxers is to go for Global Energy Management for Energy Grid and Capacity Subsidies, Mineral Purification for purification plans and Mining Subsidies, the +20% miner and technician output techs, Hydroponics to move food production to space and free up farmer pops, and powered exoskeletons->robots to speed up pop growth (unless you’re playing spiritualist of course). Only then should you really start going for the +20% research techs (unless you just have bad luck rolling the others, then go for them sooner).
2) Expansion traditions are tempting, and the right side of the tree is excellent, but the left side is so underwhelming that general consensus of minmaxers is to skip Expansion traditions entirely in favor of Prosperity to jump start your economy. Like, its increases to output and decreases to build cost, build time, and pop upkeep are just so powerful for the early game economic boost. A really powerful tradition order is to start Prosperity and get the -10% build cost/+25% build speed trad, then dip into discovery and grab the Research Alternatives+1 trad to make rolling good techs easier, then go back and finish up all of econ. It’s been my standard order my past few games and it’s really potent.
3) Interstellar Dominion is, similarly to +20% research points, very tempting, but its actual impact on your expansion speed is not high enough to justify using an ascension perk on it. There’s a strong consensus nowadays amongst minmaxers that Executive Vigor is the best first pick. While EV seems underwhelming at a glance, it’ll allow you to run both Cap and Mining Subsidies simultaneously in the early game, which is just hilariously powerful and will do incredible favors for your economy. While the edicts will eventually grow too expensive to maintain both even with EV, the economic foundation that EV lays will allow you to snowball like crazy in a way that interstellar dominion absolutely can’t match.

Again this is a really excellent tutorial and will definitely get a new player off to a good footing in their first games, this is just my two cents on fully optimizing a game start. :)

[richard]

The optimal station build order before unpausing is to prioritize the highest mineral sources first, then energy, then science. Minerals are required to build stations, making them the first currency you will immediately be spending. If you set set your constructor to auto-build, they might not build in the most optimal order and you could lose out on maximizing your snowball in the early game.

[BigMisterApple]

I have about 2000 hours in the game. Its easy to forget how much info is coming at you, its okay to feel bombarded. Just take your time, read a little, roleplay a lot, just have fun at (most likely) losing the first 100-300 hours, you'll figure out what to do soon enough.

[fenril]

A tip for early exploration and expansion that are not covered here:

1. Use explore only before surveying with your first couple of ships. This has some serious advantages for the first few years, such as being able to find your guaranteed habitable world faster, and defensive choke points to cut off any AI neighbors from expanding into your territory.

Also, with the new rework to leaders and release of paragons, there are some trade offs with building way more science ships and you should probably limit to 3 in the early game so as to not seriously hurt your leader experience gain. Not to mention other leader types now offer significant bonuses which rival the benefits of having more scientist, particularly admirals and governors are very strong now if you can find the right traits.

[jomojas]

*has 455 hours of stellaris played*

*still watched*

[seb]

To touch on his point about not stopping to survey anomaly, you CAN stop to survey the anomaly IF it is low level 1 or 2 AND very very near your homeworld for 1-3 system jump away. Why? The extra benefits to early expansion will help snowball once you claimed that early system. Anything outside of L1 or L2 anomaly and out of 3 jumps out of your immediate border, dont bother. Instead, charge outwards and see where the goodies are in which system. You will know where are the juicy mineral rich systems and the direction to expand. Next, find CHOKEPOINTS to cut off the enemy factions. Try to rush chokepoints first, once you marked out your border, you can slowly circle back to those systems you reserved.

[sophisticatedredneck]

The Colonel knew I just started Stellaris and was using his older videos to learn. Thank you!

[nublarrex]

In terms of starter tech I always go for the ones that boost research resources by a certain amount since it can really help you get advanced techs faster in the long run.

[hutch]

Why are all these videos for beginners taught at neck breaking speed. I'm still trying to figure out why sometimes I can or can not build a starbase.

[simon-elrondir]

At the start when making your fleet, try to remove most components so that you reduce the cost, buy your first 17 corvetts that are only husks. That way you can just upgrade them whenever you really need them and get to your naval cap 20 filled up. If you do this you will gain more influence from powerprojektion.

[Bumbaskida]

Man i havnt played this game is years, it has changed so much, have it installing now and cant wait to play it for the first time again.

[haconen]

This is a fantastic little guide for the start, very well made

[UnDragonized]

I gotta thank you I just got off my first really good game with a war on stellaris and I was kicking earths ass… until I found out I stopped micromanaging everything and I started having rebellions and resources starting to go into negative 😂😂 so thank you for these tips

[Archon]

Or, you know, just do what the Emperor did during the Great Crusade. That works too. 😆

[bizmasterTheSlav]

Remember to offshore your food production onto your space bases as early and as much as you can. You need hydraulics technology for this. This will allow you to employ less farmers and more of actually useful jobs.

[greedowins]

Really glossed over some stuff, and should advise checking policies before unpausing at the beginning.

[temmy]

I will usually use a few science ships to explore until i find the chokepoints, while 1 science ship is surveying, ignoring the anomalies at first. once the chokepoints are mapped, i close them off with constructors and then set everyone to survey the space

[philteale]

Quite a good guide, but I would add: 1/. Set policy to civilian economy immediately and build up consumer goods; 2/. Focus on finding two other worlds ASAP and get two colony ships for them ASAP; 3/. limit expansion to planets and choke points; 4/. Use the market to buy up to 40 or 50 minerals per month (prioritise technicians over miners - more output); 5/. Focus one colony on consumer goods and build up a stockpile of 8, 000+ by year 2225 or so - at which point, focus economy on military production and change your consumer goods world to alloys (the other colony should be for tech - aim for 500 total monthly research by 2040); 6/. Only choose the traditions and perks you need - it's OK to wait if you don't know what to go for (e.g. you may need to pick up unyielding quickly if you border a fanatic purifier); 7/. Choose techs which increase your odds of getting key techs like mote extraction/refining and disruptors in physics, destroyers and cruisers in engineering and alloy mega forges; 8/. only start building your fleet at year 2235-40 when you have some good military techs and a strong alloy stockpile - building up earlier wastes on upkeep; 9/. Don't forget to work with your edicts and civics (e.g. if you have shared burdens consider putting robots onto workers and organic pops into higher strata).