Introduction
Hi and welcome to my Stellaris strategy guide, where I decided to compile all the useful strategies, tactics and tips I have gathered while playing this game or have seen being shared by other people. If other sources are used, I will include a link to their respective origins. I am trying to provide as much strategic advice as merely possible, not to necessarily repeat what tutorial or the wiki is already telling you.
NOTE: THIS IS WORK IN PROGRESS! Should you have anything to add, please contact me via this form or leave a comment in the section below.
Current guide version: 1.0.3.
TOP STELLARIS TIPS
Let me start with these tips that will bring you the “best bang for your buck” ingame, or simply put will prove to be the most useful tips I can offer you in regards of this game. Some of them I will expand upon alter on, some are quick and “dirty”, thus obvious.
Spend your money quickly!
A lesson I actually learned from playing Starcraft; money not spent is money wasted. If you find yourself, at any point of the game, with huge amounts of some resource and half-built up planets, you are doing things wrong. You need to know exactly what you want to do next and spend the money for it as soon as it is there. If you start a development of a colony a month or two alter than intended because you didn’t figure out what you wanted to do with it, well, that counts a long way towards you losing a game.
Only times when you should hoard money is when you know exactly what you are hoarding it for (for example, a sudden fleet buildup to crash your enemies!). If you have surplus, trade others for the resources you lack!
So, make sure you always invest all your money/resources in new technologies, ships and changes!
Science
An interesting feature of science is the fact one can actually research three different areas at once, and has, accordingly, three different resources for research spread across the worlds.
However, there is no technology tree.
There is no way to actually say where which decision will lead to which final cause in the next round. Usually, in games such as this, one can easily trace the future of development; in Stellaris, the developers have intentionally left this unclear.
The concept of research in Stellaris is based on random card generator. Imagine research possibilities as a stack of cards; each time one researches something, a new option will be offered on a (more or less) random number generator. Naturally, there are factors that determine what might come next.
This means that technologies that might come up next very much depend on what you have discovered so far, what kind of empire you have, what your researchers are good at and so on. In the early game, there is a number of techs that will keep appearing before anything else. This is so that everyone might have an equal start, more or less.
There is also a requirement of certain technologies being researched before the next technology can be presented. For example, to be able to use the Blue Laser one needs to have researched the Red Laser beforehand.
Can you research all technologies in Stellaris?
In theory, yes, but in practice this will probably not happen.
Can you trade technologies in Stellaris?
If you are looking for a way to trade technologies with other alien species in single player or give/take technologies to your allies in multiplayer matches, you won’t have any luck. You can’t trade technologies in Stellris like you can, for instant, in Master of Orion. But what you can do is apply some Reverse Engineering, which is a way to discover technologies from enemy debris.
How do I pick the best technology research option for me?
There is a simple answer to that; pick the technology which will grant you the greatest possible imminent advantage.
What does that exactly means is following – pick technologies according to your degree of development and circumstances. In the beginning this means exploration and expansion. However, timing is also of the essence. You can’t neglect the research of military options just because you haven’t seen any alien races around your systems for the first  couple of hundred game years! It will be too late to focus first on researching the weapons and new ship classes and then building up your fleet once you encounter a hostile species sniffing around your outer systems.
Technology is divided in three types: Physics, Society and Engineering. However, all of these specific areas have distinct tiers (levels) of research. Tiers 1, 2 and 3 will carry specific buildings and other research goals that are stronger as they respectively increase in tier.
The best advice I can give you here is to focus on building up all of your tier 1 aspects before engaging deeper into any tier 2 research. What good is society research of tier 2 buildings when you don’t have half of tier 1 military research done and the enemy comes knocking!?
For all the general questions on Stellaris technology you should go to the respective Wiki.
How to get more energy in Stellaris?
Step 1: Do you have Beltharian Stone? If so, make Beltharian Power Plants. If not, get some. Go conquer! Your core worlds can use Stone from anywhere in your empire, but if you apply a planet with these special power plants to a sector, that sector needs that resource as well.
Step 2: What is your robotic population like? Every Robot/Droid/Synth will consume 1 energy. Considering dismantling your robots.
Step 3: Sectors like to have 1 Defensive Army per 3 Pops on their planets. Go through all of your sectors and give the Defensive Armies a Neo Concrete Bunker addon. This reduces their maintenance by about 0.01. It’s small but it can add up over dozens of armies.
Step 4: Invest in Engineering Bays for Spaceports where your fleets will be stationed. This will reduce your energy consumption when at peace by A LOT. All spaceports should have Solar Panels and Crew Quarters.
Step 5: How many Power Hubs are you using? They do not produce much on their own, and if your planets don’t produce much energy, you’d be better off using a standard power plant in it’s place. On high energy planets, use a Power Hub.
Step 6: Save up Influence and spend it on Capacity Overload during war time.
Step 7: You will see a HUGE increase in energy after getting higher end power technology. Focus your research on Reactor upgrades to get Power Plants to show up.
Step 8: Make big fleets and apply an Admiral. All Admirals give a slight decrease to maintenance costs which improves with level. Some even have a trait that gives a HUGE bonus. Like 30% or something.
Step 9: Trade other things to AI empires besides minerals. Some won’t give you a Research Agreement or Migration Rights unless they are your ally or a part of your Federation. But if they like you, they will usually be happy to take Research Agreements or Migration Rights from you in exchange for paying you Energy Credits. Also consider offering them rare resources you don’t need.
All credit for 1-9 goes to Mcsproot from Steam!
Food
When you get a food surplus on your planet, you should reduce the food production to 0. Currently, at 1.0.3. version, the surplus food does nothing. I am really expecting that future DLCs will introduce some kind of trading, enabling us to move excess food – possibly through an automatized system of convoys – from a planet to planet. Of course, there would have to be some freighters, similar like in Master of Orion 2, in order to sufficiently transport food on and off the planets, and blockades would render them ineffective, causing instant shortages of food and starvation. But, as I said, I am fairly sure this will be the case in the near future.
The way to push the food production is with a specific edict that can be activated if you have enough influence.
TO BE CONTINUED…
