Since your research requirements go up per each planet you colonize I find for me personally that it is better to only colonize larger worlds (15 tiles or more minimum). Highly stable, unified group thats close proximity keeps together. Playing tall may make that a waste of a perk though. Playing tall is more viable now, there will be buildable habitats which are basically small planets and the new unity mechanic will also favour smaller empires. I'm a poor guy, can't afford the DLC. Considering the asking price I suggest of buying this DLC only if you are interested in playing as a Megacorp or if you already have a good selection of DLCs. Throughout my (noobish) playthroughs of Stellaris I have always tried to play wide. In Stellaris you can't colonize a planet or build a habitat without claiming a system. r/Stellaris • How does playing tall work?Stellaris Tall vs Wide is total number of colonies / habitats in general. It's okay to limit yourself to a smaller, more defensible slice of space, at least initially. So really you will want to find some sort of mod that provides benefits to those with few planets. We have another 2. Since you play pretty much the same if you have 50 habitats rather then 50 planets. And it can help a lot of your species has traits like intelligent or strong to take advantage of the bonuses, every plus 5% can help your empire survive longer. Related. 8 that I finally was able to bring into the current patch with the new planet mechanics. He plays stellaris and stands above 6’5 Reply Modo44 •. That doesn't mean a low amount of colonies; in fact, often more. tall mechanism, so you are not forced to conquer new territories to become stronger. However since few systems with a lot of planets/habitats pretty much are the same mechanically I do not consider it playong tall. 22 Badges. 1 rules, the best way to play Tall was to reduce the number of systems you controlled. Pick the difficulty level that matches the challenge you want to face. Paradox you're doing it all wrong. That fixed a lot of problems. Currently, playing tall is neither fun nor competitive if you ask me. Weekly PSA's PSA- the definition of playing wide is disputed, and many people use systems as opposed to planets as the model in Stellaris. It is relatively. Warscore, the fleet manager, land warfare, etc. Expand at all costs! Wide in general, less-wide if you intend to do an early war of conquest. Weekly PSA: Habitat spam is the definition of playing wide. You could do a subterranean origin with lithoid using reanimator civic…. We have "wide with many systems" and "wide with few systems, but those systems contain thirty billion habitats". But it’s basicaly giving yourself a handicap for little to no reason. Subscribe to downloadChoices Matter: Tall vs. There is no such thing as “playing tall” in Stellaris. You can do quite well by building a few colonies on nice big planets, and using wars to establish a lot of vassals and tributaries. A “tall” game usually involves investing in and building up your local empire rather than focusing on expansion. 2 I would venture to say the consensus is wide game play is going over the administration cap and tall is staying under it. The second approach is a colossus rampage. Discovery is super important when playing tall. ChronicallyDepressed. A tall empire gets the resource benefit without the sprawl cost. Habitats are incredibly bad now. walter. Hegemon. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but people who play tall are "wrong". I felt like I wasn't playing Stellaris, I felt like I was playing high elo StarCraft match. 0 has brought massive changes to how buildings are acquired, how pops grow and how districts work. Especially if you've been away for 1-2 years. 400 stars is a good balance between the extreme crowding of tiny where you are guaranteed 100% constant war, and medium where. Well it depends. Jul 10, 2023. Driven Assimilators are some of the easiest robot empires to play. Go to Stellaris r/Stellaris • by Nimitz-View community ranking In the Top 1% of largest communities on Reddit. 2 and before) because a wide and a "tall" empires will grow at the same rate, to about the same cap, with only some minor buffs for "tall" like mastery of nature that don't even come into play until later. This is going to be my updated take on the basic builds. Step 2: pretend that you wanted to be small and ineffective in the first place. I have been thinking about something like this since playing a tall Void Dwellers game right after a very successful wide Overtuned game, but the work involved in sorting it all out was. With shattered ring, you get 3 big ring sections in your starting system, great for tall play. You. You get 20% from level 3 holy covenant, 25% from finishing the Harmony tradition tree (required to form holy covenant) and 25% from the civic. You can mix and match whatever civics, ethics, and traits as you wish but fanatic xenophile will significantly help if you’re going down the trade route, and functional architecture helps void dwellers if you choose to go. 416K subscribers in the Stellaris community. 3. But you're right. The ultimate wide starting origin which is void dwellers gets called tall showing how much the community have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Spoken like someone who isn’t even seven feet tall! Step 1: get boxed in by superior powers. Report. OP, there currently is no such thing as a tall build for this game. Build a world cracker or pacifier, declare war, and proceed to destroy all their habitable planets to wipe out the other empires and win a conquest victory. It’s the ignorant contrarians claiming that only playing tall should be a valid play style who are being told to screw off. 3 was plenty to tackle every unmodded challenge available. Though 25x crises was a serious challenge. Spreading all over the map is playing wide. #9. Stellaris Tall Build Guide. Even though there are many reasons why players might want to play tall, Stellaris indeed lacks functionalities that provide incentives for tall play (unless you count the negative incentive of planet & pop management). Overlord has changed a bunch of things when it comes to vassals and such. It also allows you to focus on building up your core planets MUCH more from my experience, since I can just keep to myself while my allies/defence stations act as. Admin cap is super important since you're more sensitive to sprawl penalty. For tall, your best bet is a megacorp. In a sense, they behave like planets you can construct yourself,. Been playing stellaris for a little bit now let’s say a couple of months and I was wondering if playing tall is worth it I’ve heard mixed opinions on the topic but if it is worth it could you all give me some tips!Well there is a method of playing 'tall'. How to Manage Empire Size in Stellaris. Diplomacy options just feels like a bandaid to try and force a play style that doesn't exist. After spending 82 let’s play episodes on insane difficulty (watch it here: ) testing the viability of a tall. InflationCold3591. walter. This is an inescapable reality that makes Tall a challenge run and not a legitimate strategy in most situations: fewer systems = fewer planets = fewer pops = weaker economy. ago. Realistically when going tall it means some small set of orbital mines and research stations that weren't your core priority anyways - the core priority ones were covered by your frontier outposts to begin with. Make sure you are the only megacorp (by force if necessary) and make a trade federation or hegemony (depends on what you want to accomplish) become custodian (not emperor. Since tall isn't a particularly viable long-term strategy, however, skipping those structures and investing the resources into widening your empire is likely more optimal. Those would be some of the most basic types of non-linear mechanic which could make Tall play start to exist. Try to expand early if you are playing wide (owning lots of systems) so you don't get cut off by other empires. You want to find all the enclaves asap, kill monsters for more tech, and just generally get that tech up. That also doesn't fix a billion unnecessary pop ups per game, half of the anomalies requiring manual intervention that consisted of "click buttan. If the devs want to make the game all about. 3 comments. Report. You'll have tall/wide elements in all empires depending on how you play, whether you're role-playing or not, whether you're playing single or multi and also your ethos and civics. Let's get the disclaimer out of the way first: traditional tall tech-focused builds just aren't very strong in the current version of Stellaris, and get easily out-teched by wide builds. very strong. Alternatively, you can use automation, which is actually pretty easy and works well enough for most people. Trying to conquer whole empire's as soon as met them and have a stronger fleet. In stellaris many consider playing tall means few systems. What's your strategie to play Tall. Clone army with the Ascendant path since you get 100 pops with +40% ruler output and +20% specialist output. Making this a great strategy for beginners to try out. If you want you can call this "its dead", but as long some people write a guide, there is a way to play tall. As a result, my mineral and energy credit production is a bit stunted until later in the. In 5 hours I will play Stellaris with my friends. In Civ 5, taking tradition and limiting yourself to 4 cities for most of the game typically means your cities will grow much faster than if you play wide. And it can help a lot of your species has traits like intelligent or strong to take advantage of the bonuses, every plus 5% can help your empire survive longer. I believe the large consensus among Stellaris players who pay attention to meta is that, in 2. !remindme 1 day. 4; 4; 3; Reactions: Reply. Intro Stellaris Tall Guide Montu Plays 130K subscribers Subscribe Subscribed 3. The problem with that is the ai manages resources terribly so you’ll need to play on a higher difficulty in order to have an even fight. Stellaris. I play tall and use tributaries. Conventional wisdom is that playing wide is easier than playing tall, but my experience has been the opposite. The game itself doesn't lend itself to tall play, as the main way the empire can grow is to have as much minerals as possible. This includes systems such as the Sanctuary ringworld system, the system with the planet Zanaam and any special systems in the DLC (if you have the appropriate DLC). Makes every world a fortress so just expand enough to have planet choke points then turtle with dedicated tech worlds. You can have 1/3rd of the galaxy and only 20 colonies, or 15 sectors and 50 habitats. 100% habitability is nice for migration treaties with other species that have desirable traits, and increases the chances of refugees in the lategame for more pop growth. Either that. If you're going to war, every system claimed is most of a corvette in alloys and a few dozen influence, meaning fewer system claims and fewer corvettes to conquer them. Think about it like this: A 25k fleet will cost around 15-20k minerals, and a 25k starbase will cost about the same, but a 25k fleet takes roughly 300 minerals per month in upkeep. Tall really does not exist in Stellaris as you can be wide without expanding allot of territory. The current raiding playstyle (whether from civic or ascension perk) is worthless. Okokok this is a pretty cool story, but of a long one but still. Set Galaxy to 4 Spiral Arm. For Stellaris I tend to prefer the term "Dense" as in few systems, but densely populated with habitats. 20 comments. Playstyles are how a player plans to tackle playing or even winning the game. If you're spamming habitats, you aren't playing tall. The game design of Stellaris will always favor wide over tall. Step 3. Currently in 2. Tall is more chill and easier. I'm considering turning down habitable worlds. In that case, megacorp is always good, and void dweller will help overcome the main downside of tall: not enough planets. also if you're mass vassalizing that's not really tall play, that's just playing wide with extra steps. A tech tree geared to this Play style would be. This video is my Guide for: How to Play Tall in Stellaris Console Edition, full of tips and tricks and gameplay to show you How to Build a Tall Empire and Play as One. Technology_Training • 3 mo. Since you dont have many planets, you cannot match the natural pop growth of wide empires. This system warps the game and the way we play it in an unhealthy way. Agreeing with PsySom here. r/Stellaris. Tall Machine Empire, what to spend influence on? Thread starter roboemperor; Start date May 17, 2018; Jump to latest Follow Reply Menu We have. 0 wide was getting as many planets as possible while taking the large tech negatives from having those planets. HappySack Mar 25 @ 3:07am. Weekly PSA: Habitat spam is the definition of playing wide. The winning strategy was always to expand as widely as possible because doing that. When I play tall, and only conquer like 10-12 systems, and find good chokepoints, and focus on tech and development on my worlds, I end up with 100s of each resource per month, and by midgame every non-FE empire is 'inferior' to me. I cant play stellaris this weekend to try and min max this build, so monday I can give you a stronger suggestion. demotronics • 5 yr. In Stellaris tall games are a lot of fun where you limit yourself to around 20 systems and play as a galactic defender and mediator protecting the less advanced empires. If you get stuck with it, ignore this step. Playstyles are how a player plans to tackle playing or even winning the game. Then set your fully enslaved, indentured servitude species to social welfare for the best stability and production/upkeep efficiency. Enemies might scoff at you and only spare you because of your bigger friends. The big idea with playing tall will. I was watching quill18's latest series on stellaris. I believe this is OPS's most valuable asset. I have been getting back into this game for the past few weeks and i am still unsure how some things work. I am enjoying playing "Tall" and focusing on tech, planets etc. What are some key things to do in Stellaris to build tall effectively? I want to play tall because I have been a wide, rapid expansionist in playstyle in basically every 4x/grand strategy game I've played. Tall builds could opt for a characteristic that gives them a tech boost but at the cost of maybe doubling the influence needed for outposts. Techno Necro. Forcing it to inevitably conquer them as time goes on No it doesn't. This can boost its trade value over 80%. Tall vs wide isn’t really something that makes sense in context of stellaris or real history. 0 ruleset that was revised in 3. Currently it's 2460, there are 39 empires, I'm the permanent Galactic Custodian. #9. Galactic footprint is a common usage for "wide vs tall" so you're not wrong, but op is correct in terms of game mechanics. A small mod that actually re-balances the Tall vs. I think the whole tall vs wide dichotomy is dumb. (So your space is tall; not your planets)The only tall builds that can be considered good right now are Void Dwellers (which is actually wide under your definition since it has lots of colonies) and the Nihilistic Acquisition raider which is a very aggressive build that is constantly a war to steal pops. With that just build as much farming and later industry and become. Playing tall works. Fluffy-Tanuki Agrarian Idyll • 4 mo. 10x was very doable. A Tall play now isnt about just being small, it is about being efficient. Yeah, I actually agree I don't think Stellaris really has 'tall' playstyles because of the way pops and economics work, I don't think you so much as play tall, but as varying levels of efficient. So you can play builds that are better at tall but your going to lose out late game. Related. 2 updated for 1. Tall empires. Having lots of systems is not a wide play-style, having. Too many planets to manage. But it doesn't. 9 (2. How to play tall (yes again) Alright so I've been doing a little research and i know there is a bunch of threads about this already but hear me out. #7. Darvin3 • 2 yr. Wide strategies focus on having lots of cities and territory, often with each city having minimal upgrades. In Stellaris, some people play tall by only using a single planet, some go for a small number, like your starting 3, etc. The extra difficulty in higher difficulties is getting to where you can get to late game. We will be (almost). 2. You cannot go tall, becuase you have already cut off your legs and stumped your hands by going standard hive. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement. Wide shouldn't be better 100% of the time. Here is what I have to report back: -This mod is very impressive and proves a greater challenge than Glavius mod by far. The tall vs wide playstyle has devolved from: tall (low systems low planets) vs wide (many systems many planets) to a new style of tall (low systems many planets/Habs) vs wide as it was before. Ethics, Civics, Traditions and other choices strongly support or hinder certain Playstyles. In some updates, it was a very effective strategy to get ahead technologically and get early ascensions - it's much less the case now. . Technically voidborn in a very small space is playing wide, in a very small space. z0rbakpants • 2 yr. Trying to conquer whole empire's as soon as met them and have a stronger fleet. 6 did: it removed the single functionality that provided a mechanical incentive. Wide was nerfed, but it's still "better" than Tall. It is perfect for roleplay purposes, and gives great bonuses, including a +10% increase to pop growth, +5% happiness, and +20% unity. Originally posted by twistedmelon: Tall is still a strategy, but it is more grey. For how to: watch some of montuplays newest guides regarding playing tall. I would say it's not even extra steps anymore, since there's no way you'll get enough leaders to effectively sector an integrated vassal. Go fanatic xenophile. The best way to play is to have as close to zero empire size whilst having the biggest science income. The guaranteed strategic resources is helpful if you end up not having any in your corner of space (plus it gives higher chances of researching those techs for extraction). Flag was a pyramid symbol with yellow and black (split down the middle) yellow as the primary I think. I've had several starts go right down the drain immediately because none of my surrounding stars have a single mineral in any of them, while neighboring empires have stars with 6-8+ minerals per. Stack research until you burst, playing tall without Megacorp or Inward Perfection is tricky, and the problem is that going wide will almost always work out better for you, even with DLC. As quill is trying to get 200 years of peace achievement. I've always preferred playing tall in 4x games and was wondering if there is any effective strategy for playing tall in this game. It depends on your definition of tall. I would say going tall is even more viable now. It does require playing the game a lot differently than previously though. [deleted] • 3 yr. The bonus of it is you can probably defend your entire space with one fleet. You stick to yourself, and they like it. A Dyson Sphere is a vital part of a very tall empire, and the Science Nexus can similarly propel you centuries ahead of the pack when playing a very compact empire. Thanks. But wide in Stellaris doesnt require any more work to maintain and keep stable, so its hard to ever make Tall the more viable option without changes that just make playing wide miserable. 0. We will use these. Okay, first things first, if you PLAN to play tall go for the pacifist build and just switch out later on. When I play tall, and only conquer like 10-12 systems, and find good chokepoints, and focus on tech and development on my worlds, I end up with 100s of each resource per month, and by midgame every non-FE empire is 'inferior' to me. Your empire’s planet is going to explode. 48. You can still play that way. Your civics should be Private Prospectors (you can use energy credits to build colony ships and you get a -33% empire sprawl from systems). Tall vs Wide. This is in part due to victory conditions which allow a "tall" strategy to work throughout the game, but also because you can leverage your "tall" advantages into a temporary tech advantage at the right times to break out as a large conqueror -- you don't need to. Get a branch office going as early as possible, even if it yeilds +0. Void Dwelling Megacorp is strong but unless you can balance the Influence (Not as bad now but still tight) and alloys early game. Playing tall is very effective as long as you play smart. Best. Yeah, I actually agree I don't think Stellaris really has 'tall' playstyles because of the way pops and economics work, I don't think you so much as play tall, but as varying levels of efficient. Even a faction with a single city all game. If you stick to 10 systems and spam a bunch of habitats you are playing tall. Playing tall infers having fewer and more productive planets instead of a ton of mediocre planets. Building slots don’t expand from population anymore and city districts do not expand them; so, every habitat will be a few slots big until end game. . Any other build will be strictly superior playing wide, and tall is just a. I think my problem is that i am too eager to expend. Not coincidentally, it’s also the biggest driving incentive toward playing wide. 3 and my solutions for it. 23. . Stellatis is tough. The pop growth bonus in particular is also augmented by the bonuses of xenophobe, for a possible 30% base pop growth. You need to go wide to get more resources and fund a larger army. I prefer to use my custom made tall chair and pc table to play tall. So, there needs to be a growth penalty for Wide or a bonus for Tall. 29 comments Best [deleted] • 1 yr. ago. Since you play pretty much the same if you have 50 habitats rather. If you want to play a Machine Empire with a special starting world, you could pick the origin that starts you on a Machine world. Tall is NOT Pops over Systems. Planets are capped in tiles, jobs and housing. 3. 6 put the nails in the coffin, but Tall had one patch where it was "good" and that was quickly fixed. I've seen a lot of people point out that playing tall in Stellaris has often basically been synonymous with just playing suboptimally, since for a long time now it's basically just meant not expanding to fill as much space or colonize as many planets as you could fill, and thus collecting less resources, all while confering little to no benefit in. At this building, I'm pretty certain declaring Imperium would be a net loss. R5: I just love having vassals and building a hegemony over conquest. For tall since you aren't conquering pops you MUST grow them. I'm RPing a Determined Exterminator empire that doesn't want to grow…Honestly, walls like this I can live with, it's when the AI is blatantly pulling things out of it's ass it should have no way of obtaining that I start rage-quitting. I really love stellaris and want to try something new, but run out of ideas, also Stellaris has great communityTall vs wide use to be about science before 2. It is how the terms have worked for the majority of games since I was paying by the minute to access the internet. This mod creates a new trait that will allows both Human and AI to play “play tall”. The player "developed" these systems to the heights of their abilities, using Habitats and Ringworlds. It doesn't work in Stellaris (at least in 3. Yes, and this is not Civ 5, this Stellaris. e. For this approach, you'd want origins that can benefit as early as possible from. (influence tries to do this, but it doesn't do a good job of it at present) You just do both. If you want you can call this "its dead", but as long some people write a guide, there is a way to play tall. It is great for high difficulties because you don’t have to attack the really powerful empires and can get them to pathetic by mid to late game. ChronicallyDepressed. r/Stellaris. It is what gives you access to resources, it is what you use to claim territory. To me, playing tall means investing resources in things that increase the efficiency of your pops, which allows you to produce roughly the. -By the proposed time of 2350, you will still be ahead of the AI's. Hello, since the Galactic Comunity came out with Federations, I been trying to get towards the frists empires that have the most Diplomatic Weight, however, my playstle are mostly playing tall, with few sectors and planets on it, and with a 1000 Star and 25 empires, it seemed that wide empires tend to have more diplomatic weight because they. Get those techs and traditions which will make your pops more efficient. Having every planet in a system with a habitat or colony. I'm crushing on tall on hardest on my current game, dominant by the 2300's, overwhelming by 2400. ago A common misunderstanding is that playing tall means having a small number of systems. Tall builds are barely viable with DLCs, without them they're basically impossible. Even if we never get a way to truly play tall, we still need to fix the current pop growth model (dominated by how many worlds contribute their base 3. The "3. Are you using the -dx11 option and borderless window, because trust me Stellaris is NOT single threaded, there was a dev blog post specifically discussing this in the past. 1. There's 2 ways to play Stellaris. The only playstyle I do not enjoy is playing with vassals, because I do not fully understand how to make that work and the little bits I do understand just make it seem rather bland. This ironically makes the Expansion tradition really good for tall builds, since it gives bonuses to both Admin cap and pop growth speed. Ascensions are cool. Now that every system increases tech costs by a flat rate playing tall is merely minmaxxing system ownership. One thing you can watch out for is that each precursor has areas of the map where their events can spawn. 1" patch out on the 14th shouldn't really change habitat. After 2. That’s 350x the population of China with much more area and a much more productive and advanced economy not just capable of building highways and skyscrapers, but advanced megastructures and entire artificial worlds. You get more and more ways to focus your power inward. It is way to easy to spam Burocrats to avoid any penalties from rapid expansion. I've read on here that playing tall in 2. With the Hegemon, you will get 2 AI-powered allies who will do whatever you wish early into. Ryika Jan 29, 2022 @ 11:08pm. Totally viable. To be fair, Tall was more of a fun gimmick run than a serious strategy even before this update. ago. Often multiple playstyles apply and synergize. Tall builds are barely viable with DLCs, without them they're basically impossible. By building robots and getting % pop growth speed modifiers. Empire sprawl will stay low if you play tall which allows you to tech up and tradition ascend at fast rate. But the tall/wide distinction isn’t all that meaningful in Stellaris — you’re still managing more worlds and taking up more empire size, just in a smaller geographical space. Tall v wide is a bit of a false construct in stellaris specifically (always has been). How to win at Stellaris: Play Wormhole only. In 3. large empire size) at present. I was playing stellaris and got bored of losing, so made a perfect species, necrophage, demigods. Originally posted by twistedmelon: Tall is still a strategy, but it is more grey. There is also the older mechanics such as increased tech cost per planet and ethics divergence by distance which will favour building tall. Playing tall and thinking about it cause 1 choke point that's a black hole with 3 planets and and a system that's huge and takes a bit to traverse sounds great to lock my empire behind since I'm playing tall. It does make sense in stellaris to play as a "Tall" empire. The benefits of playing tall are as follows: Smaller empires are easier to manage. Worth noting that the "drag" on research from empire size is pretty much the most negatively impactful (mechanically-speaking) aspect of a galaxy-spanning empire (i. But I think there's another, even more key reason why Stellaris should enable tall play, ideally without diminishing other playstyles in the process: Stellaris has a goal to accommodate a variety of story experiences, and to let the player enact a variety of classic sci-fi tropes. Stellaris. ago. ago. A "tall" empire's colonies aren't going to be much stronger or more populated than a wide empire's colonies. Tall empires are easier to defend from. Twenty systems is the breakpoint where number of systems owned raises your starbase cap, which is why it is sometimes given as a guide point. Stellaris has no such restrictions, in fact it’s the opposite; there are almost no consequences for conquering other empires early, you even have choices depending on your situation, and early conquests allow you to conquer even more mid to late game. This is a synergy-guide, not a min-max guide, for playing Necrophage origin. So today we're going to take a look at a general overview of. You can do quite well by building a few colonies on nice big planets, and using wars to establish a lot of vassals and tributaries. 8 ‘Gemini’ release during Q2. ago. 2;. If you play habitats you can get more resources from jobs without actually taking up more space. Unless a lower setting is fine for the Tall. #12. To start, I'll explain my usual play-style as a Determined Exterminator; I like playing tall, and investing heavily into Physics, Society, and Engineering sciences. Cons: Lots of micro, allows for a degree of dabbling in tall play for otherwise wide empires. However, nihilistic acquisition allows you to take other peoples pops to absolutely FILL your planets. As I understand, the point is to focus on research and traditions and less so on economy, but I'm trying a tall run now and it feels like everything's sorta slow since my research speed is at 10, 7. If you're going for clone ascendant, you really don't want to be slavers on top of that, otherwise you're just locking yourself to 5 planets until you research synthetics. 2 councillor traits out of 3 is good enough for me. Tall since well, ever, hasn’t been a great option but now more. It is viable to for example use diplomacy and just build shit loads of habitats to grow populations and form alliances and federations and mostly invade to create new versions of your own empire and include them in your federations. . 0 there is no difference between science going tall or wide. If you aren't trying to min-max, you'll be happy, and if your empire is big enough, it wont matter anyway However you decide to play, have fun!Stellaris Galactic Paragons DLC has given us the Crusader civic and the Under One Rule Origin. Some good tall origins are shattered ringworld and voidborne. Playing tall is not only possible, it's insanely powerful and (on Insane), I am always the most powerful empire in the galaxy by 2400. This dichotomy really isn't applicable to Stellaris. Empire strategy that minimizes empire size. On easy difficulties though, wide is better than tall most of the time. In Civ 4, which is an actual 4x game unlike Stellaris, playing "tall" is viable. The upcoming 3. 2.