Stellaris thread, reviews, and opinions!

Regarding dlc, yes you can argue that it's a monetizing scheme and yes you can argue that several components should have been in the base game to make it more enjoyable. But honestly, expecting the base game to have the same amount of content games with tons of dlc's have is a bit unrealistic. There's a huge difference between releasing obviously cut content as dlc (which is usually released on day one and/or as pre-order bonuses) and content that the developers keep working on after the release of the base game. Sometimes the lines are blurry, but there's definitely a trend from gamers to think of all future dlc of a game as content that should have been available from the very beginning. Would people honestly be happier if the game was released two years from now instead? The developers need to release within a certain timeframe, they can't have an endless developement timeframe and only release when the game is perfect. At some point, they need money from sales. But if you're fine with waiting another two years, then do so, shut up for now and buy the game later for dirt cheap with all dlc's when it's on a bundled Steam sale.
 
Yea with 4X strategy games DLC and expansions usually end up making the game better. It did it for Civilization and the Endless games and apparently the Paradox games as well.

Civ 5's AI was really bad on release and then all the expansions were created and the game felt a lot more complete and playable. Endless Legend's base game was good and with all the expansions it has an incredible amount of variety and depth and interesting mechanics. I hope to see the same with Stellaris.
 
Irwin John Finster said:
You're calling Paradox games "casual trash" and "browser game" without offering anything to compare them to. If their games are for "casual trash" as you keep saying, then what in the world are you playing that is deeper than the Paradox Grand Strategy games?

I really want to know, because I have never heard of any such game. I do agree Stellaris needs work and is easy in a way though.
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I'm only comparing them to other Paradox games which were actually believable simulations of their respective time periods (most notably Victoria 2 and Crusader Kings 2 to a point).
 
Yeah! If you're not writing a history thesis while playing the game, it's not a Paradox game! Even I know that much :p
 
There is a guy who used to play the auction house of Diablo 3 to get knowledge for his economy class or something. He also made a hell lot of money on it too.
 
I've found the game to be very lackluster in the endgame. If you're patient enough, you can dominate the galaxy and the only thing which remains are the "old" empires. When you engage them, your war goals can never be to wipe something out, "free" their empire or to turn them into vassals. You always need a bunch of wars to achieve that (with enforced periods of peace) to force them to fall in line.

It's a bit ridiculous when you've just wiped out their entire fucking fleet and have ever planet blockaded. Either they should bow to you or you should have the option to declare exterminatus on their ass.

What sometimes happens is that you need to disengage, wait for them to build space stations, destroy those, disengage, wait for them to build space stations, destroy those, and then rince and repeat. Simply to get sufficient "war score". That's just silly. Once you blockade an entire empire's planets and have destroyed their military power, it should be game over (either through surrendering or be exterminated).
 
War score has always bothered me.
I am still not even sure if I understand the concept entirely - or if I do understand it, and it's just dumb.
The best example is when I play as Spain in EU3 and utterly annihilate all of Granada, for then to conquer all of it except the capital, which I for some reason simply cannot take. As in - not allowed. I must then wait. And attack them a 2nd time. Then I can!

I'm prettttty sure that's not how real wars work :I

In Stellaris however, I must admit I have yet to actually try to destroy an enemy :0 I'm the patient-peaceful type, and I am still figuring out exactly what kind of playing style suits me best.
The only aggressive war I waged was when an emerging civilization sprung up too close for comfort, and begun expanding rapidly from there. I felt I had no choice but to deviate from my usual pacifist route, and blast their puny little space fleet into oblivion. They offered their vassalage (almost immediately) and I accepted, for then to rule over a race that hated my guts and would rebel as soon as they had the might to do so (which was mildly annoying in itself)

I'm very likely being too patient and too peaceful though, but the game-pace runs away from me eventually. Somewhat of spoilers:
At least there is the late game dangers, but even that I found to be slightly wonky. Such as the inter-galactic invader. I had it appear right inside my empire once, and I've never enjoyed being wiped the fuck out so damn much, it was amazing! But in another save, they appear on the other side of the galaxy, and as I prepare for a galaxy-wide invasion, nothing further happens. The invaders seem unable to break through, and are isolated exactly where they appear for the rest of the game :I
 
zegh8578 said:
War score has always bothered me.
I am still not even sure if I understand the concept entirely - or if I do understand it, and it's just dumb.
The best example is when I play as Spain in EU3 and utterly annihilate all of Granada, for then to conquer all of it except the capital, which I for some reason simply cannot take. As in - not allowed. I must then wait. And attack them a 2nd time. Then I can!

I'm prettttty sure that's not how real wars work :I

In Stellaris however, I must admit I have yet to actually try to destroy an enemy :0 I'm the patient-peaceful type, and I am still figuring out exactly what kind of playing style suits me best.
The only aggressive war I waged was when an emerging civilization sprung up too close for comfort, and begun expanding rapidly from there. I felt I had no choice but to deviate from my usual pacifist route, and blast their puny little space fleet into oblivion. They offered their vassalage (almost immediately) and I accepted, for then to rule over a race that hated my guts and would rebel as soon as they had the might to do so (which was mildly annoying in itself)

I'm very likely being too patient and too peaceful though, but the game-pace runs away from me eventually. Somewhat of spoilers:
At least there is the late game dangers, but even that I found to be slightly wonky. Such as the inter-galactic invader. I had it appear right inside my empire once, and I've never enjoyed being wiped the fuck out so damn much, it was amazing! But in another save, they appear on the other side of the galaxy, and as I prepare for a galaxy-wide invasion, nothing further happens. The invaders seem unable to break through, and are isolated exactly where they appear for the rest of the game :I
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lucky that (and glad) you enjoy the game at current build. for me i just simply wait for the first expansion came out because the game is feel bland in current state. Like you, there is also in-game concept that i slightly disagree of how it works (such as the collectivist vs individualist that affect slavery mechanic and more )
 
I've only played a save or two with slavery. A problem I have with this type of game is that I get into routines and try to better my play-style little by little, which means I end up not trying out alternative ways of doing things.
Stellaris was good at inviting for different play-styles though
I also think it handled well the problem of too-weak/too-strong by having super-strong rivals to compete with right from the start, while at the same time letting you completely dominate newly formed civs right from the same start.
Kind of like an "in medias res" approach, instead of everyone starting at the same level (with the inevitable effect of a routined player becoming super-strong after a given ammount of time)

I really liked how they dealt with the tech tree.
Aggravatingly slow research, mmm, seriously, I love that
I also liked the notion of "dangerous" techs, it felt naughty :V
 
For dangerous techs, if you like using robots, DO NOT INVESTIGATE SYNTHS/ANDROIDS i reloaded, but all robots convert to it and ask for rights.
Mmm
Space Trump sim 10/10

The Mid-Late game is VERY stagnated, my Fed and i hold 50% of the universe, and a super empire 40%, while new/broken empires roam the rest.
My 120K fleet and genetic armies shred through everything, followed by the federation forces...
Hope they spice up a bit this stretch, it feels very grindy
 
Arnust said:
My 120K fleet and genetic armies shred through everything, followed by the federation forces...
Hope they spice up a bit this stretch, it feels very grindy
Click to expand...

I managed a similarily strong fleet once, playing as an insectoid race on a very tiny map, where I mostly tried out tech trees and such, still unfamiliar with the game
This was when I got the famous static message, communication from somewhere else. I didn't know about the mechanics, and I had untill then refused to wiki or look up stuff, insisting on just taking everything as it comes. I clicked the mysterious message away, untill I got the super ominous "They're coming" or something. I went "ooo-kaaay" a bit more nervous

and then they came. I thought "Well then... !" and moved my entire fleet towards the invaders, who were appearing right inside my territory, near my capital, in a small ring-galaxy. I guessed they were some kind of late-game surprise, and figured they would/should be defeatable by my late game mega-fleet

I moved it in to attack inside one of the star systems, and charged one of several individual fleets visible. I was annihilated in seconds.
I couldn't believe it. My entire fleet gone, in just moments. Gone!

I thought, no, this is not how we go! I stubbornly set every single planet to mass produce battleships, and meticulously sent all finished ships to the furthest corner of my empire, as star after star got conquered. By the time I was getting seriously cornered, I had once again mustered a fleet consisting entirely of battleships. Once again I moved it into a hostile star system, again occupied by several individual fleets. This time I managed to destroy one whole enemy fleet, and damage a second, before I was pulverized again.

Spoilering precisely because, whoah, talk about late game surprise!
I've had a save where I get the extra-dimensional civ appear inside my empire too, but didn't play it through.

On a slightly related note, I am more and more refusing to wiki or google game mechanics. At some point it was new and fun to look up libraries of game mechanic facts, I did it with Morrowind (after playing it, since game wikis were kind of new allready), but more extensively with Oblivion.
With FO3 (ugh) and again with FONV I have also wikied heftily, both of them in order to fix stupid errors through console, broken quests, and such.
With Stellaris I made a point to NOT look up anything, untill curiousity just got the best of me, and I checked a few things, like, the nature of "fallen empires"
 
zegh8578 said:
This was when I got the famous static message, communication from somewhere else. I didn't know about the mechanics, and I had untill then refused to wiki or look up stuff, insisting on just taking everything as it comes. I clicked the mysterious message away, untill I got the super ominous "They're coming" or something. I went "ooo-kaaay" a bit more nervous

and then they came. I thought "Well then... !" and moved my entire fleet towards the invaders, who were appearing right inside my territory, near my capital, in a small ring-galaxy. I guessed they were some kind of late-game surprise, and figured they would/should be defeatable by my late game mega-fleet

I moved it in to attack inside one of the star systems, and charged one of several individual fleets visible. I was annihilated in seconds.
I couldn't believe it. My entire fleet gone, in just moments. Gone!

I thought, no, this is not how we go! I stubbornly set every single planet to mass produce battleships, and meticulously sent all finished ships to the furthest corner of my empire, as star after star got conquered. By the time I was getting seriously cornered, I had once again mustered a fleet consisting entirely of battleships. Once again I moved it into a hostile star system, again occupied by several individual fleets. This time I managed to destroy one whole enemy fleet, and damage a second, before I was pulverized again.

Spoilering precisely because, whoah, talk about late game surprise!
I've had a save where I get the extra-dimensional civ appear inside my empire too, but didn't play it through.
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Which one you got? I got the Hive one, they did destroy a weak empire, but when i got there and released their empire from the menace without many problems, they didn't care and kicked me out of the reconquered territory ): I've herad that threr are 2-4 events of this kind, and the Hive being one of the weakest
 
Arnust said:
Which one you got? I got the Hive one, they did destroy a weak empire, but when i got there and released their empire from the menace without many problems, they didn't care and kicked me out of the reconquered territory ): I've herad that threr are 2-4 events of this kind, and the Hive being one of the weakest
Click to expand...

First one I got was extragalactic invader. I really liked the idea. You're working your ass off to conquer a galaxy - these guys are conquering galaxy after galaxy, and your galaxy is just one more on their way. They are absurdly powerful, in my experience, and chirned me to dust in notime - but I've seen them struggle against really big empires, on bigger maps. I've had them appear on 2-3 saves.

I had the extradimensional invader appear in just one, but saved and quit immediately after, considering it bedtime, for then to just start a new save next day, since I was still working my way up the learning curve. I don't know how powerful they are

There should then also be the singularity/AI-revolution but it's triggered by AI-tech, which I tend to avoid.

I believe - but not sure - that what you refer to is a "fallen empire" punishing you, or someone, for something. That's another late-game surprise, but of another category altogether, since they will start to punish behavior that is more likely to happen during late games - some punish you if you conquer too much, some if you expand too much or bully the weak, and some if you research dangerous techs, amongst other punishment-reactions. I accidentally researched a forbidden tech after recieving warnings from them, and in order to keep them from attacking me, I had to maintain an embassy with them, which saved my ass from their wrath (They *did* attack me soon after my faux-pas, and steamrolled me, but I had an autosave to go back to, and successfully ass-kiss them)
 
liked the latest update :)

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Hah, it's been a while, but I played so intensively, the lil briefcase icon seemed so familiar, like something I've known about for ages and years

it also reminded me of
Hostile fleet detected
Evading hostile fleet
:V
 
Oh, has this happened to anyone else?
My Engineer scientist has been in the post for... wait for it... 300 whopping years. While his brethren die between 80-140, he has outlived every single being in the galaxy.
I have a lot of life-extending techs, but they don't have the genetical perk that makes them live longer too, and my leaders don't live that long. Wtf?
 
I wish mine lived that long :I
Seems like bug, but I haven't delved deep into all the mechanics.

Maybe a dumb suggestion, but some individual perks make them live longer. Dunno how much longer, if 300-and-running, then wow, what a perk :0
 
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