So, after playing Stellaris for more than 200 hours, I have decided to gather all my thoughts about it here and explain, why I both love and hate this title at the same title.
First of all, I love the premise and the idea of it. Creating your own empire with different species, developing, finding about mysteries of the universe, waging great wars, etc.
That said the game falls flat on many of it aspects, making it both boring and tedious for the most part.
Let's start with something simple, shall we? Empire Creation, Species Creation and how similar everything feels. When you first boot up Stellaris and see all those portraits and how you can set your empire to be xenophobic warlike with huge adaptivness makes it feel good for the first time. Then once you play through once or twice, you notice how shallow and pointless the whole thing is.
First of all, every species feels almost exactly the same. They might have different traits, they may look different but they act in exact same way – put the pop on the tile and let it do it's job. Some are strong, some are enduring, some are intelligent, but they all act exactly the same way. They are just pops. The basic problem with it, the very limited pool of traits, both positive and negative. It makes all the species act basically the same, for all intents and purposes. You can not recreate Yuht empire and even if you have got like 20 different species in your empire, there is no depth in there. No racism, no phobia, no scuffles, everyone is just okay with each other, except when their faction is not respected, then they rebel. The unrest itself is just dull and hardly ever matters for the most parts. The unrest is high, build some armies, then even if they rebel, they won't be able to reclaim the planet. Only some ethics divergence.
Just in case, have a look at this mod, that gives each race some unique features.
https://www.nexusmods.com/stellaris/mods/7/?
Moving on, the empires and different civics. The differences between them are a bit better, since every edicts has got some different agendas or policies you have to have in mind. Not much to say about it, except it is just there and dictates your early game the most.
Now we get to the early game. Honestly, the best part of the game is when you first start up, hope for some good resources, planets and neighbours, struggle to gather your fleet, etc. This is where Stellaris shines, you get planets, do anomalies, gather your forces, 40 years pass and you are in the dreadfull midgame.
The midgame is one of the worst aspects of Stellaris. The diplomacy is non existent and you really want to avoid doing defensive parts, fedarations and such with the AI, since it is pretty much brain dead. Lack of options, no spies, limited options, enforced truces by the game rules, even when you are fanatic purifiers are a few things that stick out like crazy. The biggest part of this period is basically when you go the war for the most part, since in early game you want to claim as much 'space' as you can. Also, when Unbidden arrived I had to declare 2 wars, just to get my fleet to their portal, just great...
The wars are... awful. They are a complette and utter chore and I hate going to them. It's basically declare war -> Blow up enemy fleet -> Get 50 Clone Armies -> Land them on enemy planet -> WarScore up by 5% -> Rinse and Repeat. Then at the end of it, you get like 5 planets and you have to hand everything back and wait till the truce runs out to do the same thing again.
That's not the biggest fault, worse it complete and utter lack of any and all sorts tactics. It's nothing more but a doomstack vs doomstack, the one, which counters the other wins or just has got more fleetpower. You can't tell give ships specific orders, or even how they should move when going against other doomstack. Corvettes – Rush Forward. Cruises – Tank and rush forward, Destroyers – Stay between those two, Battleships – Stay back and shoot. There is a mod, that let's you do that! The Battleships are one of the least useful things in the game for the most part. They cost a ton, they have got huge shields and armour, which they never use, since they stay back and just use Giga Cannons every now and then.
The armies are just awful and terribly balanced. It's even worse than a doomstack vs doomstack. All you do is if your army is < Enemy Army, you bombard, send them in and retreat them. If you have got a bunch of clone armies and just overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers. This needs a complete overhaul. I will tell a bit more at the end, where I will tell you, why I find the balance a huge problem in this.
Moving on, the depth of the empire, resource managements, interractions and such. I admit, I am not a seasoned 4X player, but I have played games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft 1/2, Stronghold, original Kossacks, etc. To put it simply, mechanics are simply broken and a huge mess. Stellaris is able to craft wonderful stories, but when it comes to being immersive and feeling like you actually make a difference in the universe, it really falls apart. The whole management comes to building a bunch of research/mining stations, putting planets in sectors and moving on. This game has got staggering amount of pointless clicking. Want to upgrade all your buildings on the planet, click the mouse up to 25 times, need more ships? More Clicking! The brain Dead AI put a Planetary Capital on Betherium resources? Click some more to replace it! You built the armies on five different planets? Don't forget to embark all them, send them to a star system and then merge them! Also you can spend more clicking, by giving all troops special attachements! And the worst part it, this whole clicking is there to distract the player from just putting fast forward on the max speed. Since the mechanics are crap, the game discrats us with something like this.
Next is lack of stuff to do in the galaxy and victory conditions. Once you research all anomalies, build all mining stations, you are pretty much stuck with doing nothing but building your fleet to go to war. This is the biggest problem Stellaris has got, for a game that is supposed to let you create your own empire, it has nothing to do but War! You can not buy out or undermine others, cut off their trade routes, sabotage them, etc. Once you get rid of guardians from Leviathans that's about it. Adding a bunch of events won't fix it, because sooner or later you will just skip it, since it is exactly the same solar powered starship! That's the problem, the mechanics are so poor, so underdeveloped, the war is the only thing you can do for the most part. It has to be overhauled and expaned or the Stellaris will stay as boring doomstack simulator.
After that, we get to the Crisis mechanics. Honestly, I like them, but I am disappointed with how they work. All the crises are just massive fleets trying to kill you and everyone else, with some different interactions. The idea is nice, but I think we need more mini-crises and something besides giant wars, which Stellaris focuses on.
Now, the main problem with combat is that Stellaris tries too much to stay balanced. I get it, you want the game to played on multiplayer and everyone just using the same stuff is boring. But if there is perfect balance, the game is just dull. Wha't the point of getting all those OP technologies and megastructures when everyone ends up basically the same? I mean, Enigmatic Fortress was so good, you nerfed it to the ground. I mean, if the player works hard and gets, he should be rewarded. The megastructures were not worth it in 1.6, but in 1.8 the idea is just as dumb. You can only build one of each (except Ringworlds and Habitats) even if you own the entire galaxy.
NOW, WE GET TO THINGS I ACTUALLY ENJOYED:
1.I like early game a lot.
2.The visuals are good and especially music are good.
3.The game has got potential to become truly great.
4.The lore and anomalies are great the first few times.
5.Huge Modabillity.
6.The stories for the species you come up with can be great, it is like a novel in a good way.
Overall, the Stellaris has got solid foundation, but is just so bad in so many ways. I want this game to be good, but unless they overhaul some of the mechanics the game will forever suffer from the issues above.
Overall, it is at best 7/10 game, good, but could be so much better.