Stellaris

[Proteus_MST]

I can't seem to do anything with early civilizations. Is it because I'm a xenophile?

You can build qan observation station in the orbit of their planet. That gives you Bio/Society research.
Later then you can try to bring them to space age level. It can be a lengthy process, if the society is backwards (like Bronze or Iron age),
but if the raising is succesful, the civ automatically becomes your vassal (that can later be incorporatedf into your empire, if you desire so).
I wouldn't raise an xenophobis cxulture, however.

Sometimes the cultures even rise in cultural levels on their own.
I had an early space age civ (which already had an early space station around their planet) which, on their own, mqade the step to space age (and became a minor space empire). And sometimes they kill themselves off (leaving a toxic or graveyard world)

It seems to be a real pain to bike frontier stations in order to expand. I never seem to have enough influence points.

I only rarely use them ... I expand with colonising instead

[Proteus_MST]

I got the crystalline plate armor thing in my last game from elite Space Crystals for the first time. This thing seems OP. It doubles your corvettes HPs and is not countered by anything.

The most worthwhile thing you can get.
Unfortunately the crystal elites are only artound neutron stars, meaning tzhat you have to kill off at least one elite fleet early enough,
before the othert space empires do so

[pchang]

The ones I saw came in a fleet of 4 with a power of 655 and there were 2 of them. It took destroyers to kill them withou incurring too many losses.

[Ellestar]

Stellaris is meh. Hearts of Iron 4, on the other hand, is awesome. I didn't like 2nd and 3rd, but 4th seems to be the thing. I'm playing Communist USA and i conquered Japan a little bit before Germany conquered Poland. It's awesome

[pchang]

In my latest game, there are no neutron stars anywhere close.

[rah]

What version should be bought. i.e. the basic or deluxe etc.

[Proteus_MST]

What version should be bought. i.e. the basic or deluxe etc.

IMHO the basic one suffices ...
the only in game difference of the other versions in game is, that you have an additional picture of an Arachnid species that resembles the shadows in Babylon 5, which you can take as your species.
Aside from this the games are totally the same.

The only other difference is the amount of out of game content, like a novel from within the Stellaris universe, or the OST.

If you aren't keen on these things, or want to gicve additionaöl monetary support to the publisher, the basic version suffices

[rah]

Thanx, that was the answer I was expecting but I always like to have it confirmed.

[pchang]

I bought the basic version.

[pchang]

I could not bombard or invade a planet when my fleet was mixed with allied ships. Is this a bug? I had to leave and come over with a fleet with only my ships.

[kentonio]

I could not bombard or invade a planet when my fleet was mixed with allied ships. Is this a bug? I had to leave and come over with a fleet with only my ships.

Were their ships still there when you came back? I saw that happen but assumed the allied fleet must have arrived first and gained the right to invade the planet. I just presumed that it was to stop allies turning up when you were bombarding and suddenly dropping an invasion force and gaining a planet you wanted or vice versa. Could be completely wrong of course.

[pchang]

When I got there with allies in tow, I was first. When I came back, I was alone.

[pchang]

Peaceful expansion gets stuck. The only way to really do anything is to be a warlike bastard. Prethoryn spawned on the opposite side of the Galaxy. I couldn't get there to do anything. Prethoryn seem to be stuck to a single system or two and haven't budged in decades.

[pchang]

It takes 20 years or so to make someone a vassal/protectorate and then integrate them. Being a xenophile kind of sucks when you need to go to war to do anything interesting.

[pchang]

I ran into some bugs with diplomacy and invading planets. I started over with the 1.2 beta and game play is much better so far.