"After the wars which had seen the Cartel emerge as the dominant civilization there was definitely a lot more room for the now growing population and more than enough food to go around. However a new planet was not about merely space or food for the Cartel, it was to be a symbol, a rallying cry to stretch forth their hand and take what they believed to be rightfully theirs. Even if that was the galaxy."
Stardate: 13-07-2212
Here we are again, guiding the fledgling Cartel on their quest for galactic domination and shiny things. There are a few more fairly decent resource rich systems nearby that our construction ship will lay claim to and exploit whilst the science ships consider their never-ending quest to find us another planet. I am finding it a little strange that not only have we not found a single worthwhile planet yet but we haven't seen any other empires. Which is good as that means there is no-one trying to nuke us from orbit but bad because it means we have no-one to deprive of their shiny loot.
More fairly mundane anomalies are scanned, researched and nothing shiny is falling out leaving our science ship crews in dismay but something finally turns their way, hopefully. Also a tip for those of you wanting to send your science ship to do a research project without interrupting the route you plan, CTRL+Shift+Click sets the order you give to the front of the queue. Another planet which initially showed as possibly habitable turns out to be a desert world, we do not have the technology for that just yet, the search continues. I was initially hoping to get at least two or three half decent planets by now to give us a solid base to work from but this is starting to feel like a 'One Planet Challenge' at this stage.
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| A literal dust-ball that taunted the Cartel with being nearly habitable. |
Some unemployment pops up on the home-world again so let's see what we really need a new building or a new district more. Looking at our resources there is one we might need more of soon and that is Consumer Goods, so I use our building slot for now to build Civilian industries but I also queue up a city district so we don't run out of space for Foxes. Districts do take a long time to build so it is worth planning ahead. Also as we have plenty of resources I start clearing those tile blockers and then we get a nice new shiny technology! AI controlled colony ships, perhaps a little optimistic at this stage but let's hope we get some use out of it later, now, what do we want to research next in the physics department?
Whilst all four options are good, more physics research, better orbital research stations, better shields, I opt to go for Automated Exploration Protocols whilst exploration is still a thing. That and whilst more research is good, 10-20% of not a lot is.. Well, not a lot. A short time later all of our science department heads level up simultaneously just as we get, yet another tech! Ground Defense Planning, that'll please the military, let's see what our next choices are.
Better farming, more society research, faster population growth or increased leader pool with reduced cost for recruiting them, hmm. I am going to throw caution to the wind here and go for Genome Mapping for the population growth, lets hope the next research roll is a bit more exciting. Just as I say that one of our science ships finds evidence of precursor activity, let's hope it doesn't explode.
A new tradition to choose but that is a simple choice, I finish the discovery tree with 'Faith in Science' which makes it so science pops have less upkeep. Also for finishing the discovery traditions we get a further 10% increase in our research speed and a nice shiny ascension perk, what shall we choose?
The ascension perks we can choose right now don't seem massively exciting if I am entirely honest, of the six we have available the only two that seem good to me right now are Mastery of Nature and Technological Ascendancy. Now mastery of nature is very interesting for a tall empire like I predict the Fox Cartel will be as it gives each planet a one time improvement to increase it's maximum districts by 2. Technological Ascendancy on the other hand gives us another 10% bonus to our research speed, a bit more bland but definitely very helpful.
However as I don't see myself getting more than a handful of planets anytime soon it means I will likely only get about 10 more districts, the Fox Cartel is definitely heading for tall not wide. So I choose technological ascendancy, I am sure the military will be happy at getting new ways to explode things. I knew this wasn't going to be as initially dramatic and eventful as Rimworld but it's definitely proving to be a very slow burn right now, it'll pick up once the early game is done though (I hope.)
To end this part of the play through we finally get a choice with those mining drones, we can opt to get a bonus to destroying them or increase our mineral station output. The Fox Cartel are nothing if not a fan of getting more stuff so they opt to take the bonus mineral output. I'll likely still destroy them anyway but the bonus to damaging them would only be helpful once, maybe twice.
I am genuinely getting a bit concerned this isn't an exciting enough Stellaris campaign so far but hang in there, I promise there will be space battles and galactic conquest! Just as soon as we find anyone, I may go a bit longer in the next part though to help nudge us toward the fun stuff a little more quickly. My last few Stellaris games before I decided to write one up were all kinds of crazy, early wars, hostile neighbours, long-time rivalries, staunch allies etc! I have a feeling the wait is just a sign we are in for an epic campaign so hang in there with me!
Thanks to everyone who reads and enjoys, leaves feedback it all means the world to me!
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| The final score for the episode, plenty of room to expand in terms of systems but not a single worthwhile planet. And no neighbours to exploit.. I mean, 'befriend' |
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