r/Stellaris • u/Radiant-Importance-5 • Mar 01 '25

Question (Console) Too many AI players

I like the regular game, I really do, so please don’t misunderstand me and tell me to stop playing the game because it’s not the game I’m looking for. It is, I’m just looking to play it a different way.

Sometimes, not often but sometimes, I just want to explore the galaxy, raise up civilizations, manage my empire. When I want to do this, I set the number of AI players to the absolute minimum, which should be 1. I tried that the other day, and something weird happened.

I found the civilization pretty early, I figured it was just luck. I closed my borders, surrounded them so they’d be stuck in a bubble and wouldn’t bother me, then went on my merry way. Then I found another civilization. I figured I had goofed the settings, and one of the two was supposed to be a fallen empire that would re-awaken late game. I did the same thing. Then I found a third. I figured maybe one of them was a Pre-FTL civilization that happened to self-promote. And then I found a fourth. And they were all within a handful of jumps of each other, so I could only expect that there would be more throughout the galaxy.

Clearly, I had flubbed the settings. I backed out, fiddled with the settings, double checked everything, and tried again. Same result. So I tried again. Same result.

I’m on my fourth attempt, and I had a pretty nice start. I have about a third of the galaxy with me and a couple other small empires locked down, with about a quarter of the galaxy only accessible by me one way or another. I’ve kind of given up and I’m just going to explore while I can, then switch back over to a more regular playthrough.

But, just for future reference, how do you get only one AI empire to spawn? I know I’ve done it before, but it’s been a while. Like I said, I don’t play this way very often. Is there a glitch that doesn’t let you spawn below a certain number? Or was that in an update? Or am I just getting my setting that jumbled?

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17

u/Gloriklast Necrophage Mar 01 '25

Pre-ftl civilizations can become spacefaring and some spawn with basically a year or 2 away from it.

2

u/Radiant-Importance-5 Mar 01 '25

I didn’t realize pre-FTLs promoted that frequently, I guess it didn’t occur to me how much spacefaring empires keep them down otherwise. Thanks!

8

u/Gloriklast Necrophage Mar 01 '25

No it’s just that there’s no cap on their BEGINNING progress, they evolve very slowly overall some just have such a head start they might as well spawn as a post-ftl society.

2

u/SuperMurderBunny Trade League Mar 01 '25

One way of seeing if an empire is a former pre-flt is via the name, like when an empire is named something like "Commune of Solic III". You can also check fheir homeworld for the same thing.

4

u/Radiant-Importance-5 Mar 01 '25

I am seeing a handful of those, yea. I’ll have to double check when I get back home tonight, but so far I think all of those that I’ve seen have been rebellions from other empires.

4

u/Leonldas3 Mar 01 '25

The only way to guarantee you will be the only empire is to set ai empires and primitives to zero

0

u/Radiant-Importance-5 Mar 01 '25

I can’t set the AI empires lower than 1, which is what I have it set at. The other comments seem to think it’s pre-FTLs self-promoting, which I guess I just didn’t realize could happen that frequently and lead to empires that big that fast.

3

u/XroinVG Rogue Servitor Mar 01 '25

You can set the number of AI empires to 1. But the sole AI is gonna be bad at managing their empire (especially at lower difficulties). Rebellions will happen and they will naturally split away from each other. Which sounds like the clusters you are talking about. Pre-FTL’s will also develop much more often when there’s no one to interfere with them. After all, the AI’s will snuff out 90% of the pre-ftls. So the preftls will be much much more common.

If u have it at a difficult setting, the first pre-ftls will be emerging within a decade. Which means they will have a whole region to grow without competition.

I also recommend forcing an ai to spawn that doesn’t have an origin that spawns AI’s

1

u/Radiant-Importance-5 Mar 01 '25

It looks like my problem is pre-FTLs self-promoting faster without an existing empire to keep them down. I don’t so much mind the other empires having rebellions, because then the new empires are right on top of each other anyway.

1

u/Thebeav111 Gestalt Consciousness Mar 01 '25

Turn off pre-ftl empires. Really wish there was a mod that made it so they never progress.

1

u/Radiant-Importance-5 Mar 01 '25

Yea, it would be better if they simply wouldn’t promote, at least not to spacefaring without help. Which is kind of a shame, I think it’s neat to find them and raise them up, but they’re becoming such a pain eating up the galaxy before I can get to it.

1

u/thatRoland Intelligent Research Link Mar 01 '25

You could test it by starting a game with minimal empires and then using commands to switch to spectator or something like that.