This is an interesting game.

I've heard from somewhere that Paradox needed to kick over an anthill to get any real work done, and I'm one of the players that says it's well justified, as a preface I speak of the 1.0 vs 2.0 problem that many players seem to bring up. It really does feel like two different games, which are both good in their own ways, however, I feel as though 2.0 had truly revitalized the content, namely the gameplay and how war works.

Now you may be wondering, what the hell is this guy talking about, tell me if it's worth 50~ dollars or not. I believe Stellaris is worth buying in a sale, as it's a paradox game, which unfortunately every vanilla paradox game starts off bland and is later fleshed out with a cocktail of DLC and mods. This is no exception, however one thing I like about stellaris is that the dlc doesn't feel like spam, save for maybe the apocalypse DLC, but that's more fluff--as that DLC adds new factions within the game that do alter the gameplay landscape. The fluff part being more the planet-killer and the titan as they do look and feel cool but really don't shake things up as much as you would believe initially. For the most part however, Stellaris is a good game with it's dlc.

For gameplay, lemme explain, it's been shaken up recently, like, really really shaken up. Back then it used to be whoever has the biggest glob of firepower tied to a fleet would win, now with the hyperlane system, there's more of a feel for choke points, rather than being able to manipulate where you can enter or leave in space making it hard to read where fleets might go to. With choke points, it makes systems much more "heavy" as you're able to judge whether there would be a nice point to stop as that one last star you claimed could be the other empires only way into yours. Which I very much like, it makes turtling much more viable in this game.

With that, Fleet combat I feel has improved, as every 4x game is probably the weakest in combat, save for Sins of a Solar Empire, which was in the vice versa, suffering from everything else (not too much mind you) that wasn't combat. With that, fleet combat for the longest time felt like an afterthought in this game, just a tool to grow borders, now it feels as though if you have a bigger fleet, they still might be wiped out from the game if the opposing faction has better tech, at the very least you'll lose more ships that could hinder a quick victory against an empire (which happens to me on occasion, no more happy go lucky expanding).

Alongside that, diplomacy is nice, factions will like you through non-aggression pacts, defensive packs, and through other mechanics you can also attain the ability to announce a federation with those closest to you. Or they can outright hate you, depending on how you build your empires government and beliefs (Pacifists don't like aggressive space nazies). With that, roleplaying is very easy in this game, you can be a capitalistic empire, a socialist state, space nazies, space commies, space Jerusalem, space commie nazi Jerusalem, space commie nazi robot Jerusalem, all sorts of combinations of everything.

The one thing that sold me on this game, however, which hopefully will be further expanded, are both the mid and late game crisis's. These are galaxy changing events (which are wars usually) that really shake up the game. Something you inevitably prepare for once the late-game hits (either the years 2400 or 2500 ingame), they could be an AI rebellion, extradimensional invaders, long stagnant 2 million year old empires doing absolutely nothing in your game but sitting with 100k+ stacks suddenly awakening and invading everything around them pissing off other 2 million year old stagnant empires, or a combination of everything when mods are involved. For mid game crisis's I believe we only have the khan forming a space mongol horde, I wish they expanded more on the mid game crisis, as I felt that was a fun answer to the mid game slog.

All n' all, this is a great game, I believe on sale the price is justified as base game drops near $15-$20, rather than the $50 Paradox straight up asks for. Buy it for that price, nothing more, as you'll unfortunately will be needing to spend the $$$ on the DLC to get the fully fleshed out game. A good 4x that won't kill you like Distant Worlds, thin enough for everyone, thicc enough for vets.

This is an interesting game. I've heard from somewhere that Paradox needed to kick over an anthill to get any real work done, and I'm one of the players that says it's well justified, as a preface I speak of the 1.0 vs 2.0 problem that many players seem to bring up. It really does feel like two different games, which are both good in their own ways, however, I feel as though 2.0 had truly revitalized the content, namely the gameplay and how war works. Now you may be wondering, what the hell is this guy talking about, tell me if it's worth 50~ dollars or not. I believe Stellaris is worth buying in a sale, as it's a paradox game, which unfortunately every vanilla paradox game starts off bland and is later fleshed out with a cocktail of DLC and mods. This is no exception, however one thing I like about stellaris is that the dlc doesn't feel like spam, save for maybe the apocalypse DLC, but that's more fluff--as that DLC adds new factions within the game that do alter the gameplay landscape. The fluff part being more the planet-killer and the titan as they do look and feel cool but really don't shake things up as much as you would believe initially. For the most part however, Stellaris is a good game with it's dlc. For gameplay, lemme explain, it's been shaken up recently, like, really really shaken up. Back then it used to be whoever has the biggest glob of firepower tied to a fleet would win, now with the hyperlane system, there's more of a feel for choke points, rather than being able to manipulate where you can enter or leave in space making it hard to read where fleets might go to. With choke points, it makes systems much more "heavy" as you're able to judge whether there would be a nice point to stop as that one last star you claimed could be the other empires only way into yours. Which I very much like, it makes turtling much more viable in this game. With that, Fleet combat I feel has improved, as every 4x game is probably the weakest in combat, save for Sins of a Solar Empire, which was in the vice versa, suffering from everything else (not too much mind you) that wasn't combat. With that, fleet combat for the longest time felt like an afterthought in this game, just a tool to grow borders, now it feels as though if you have a bigger fleet, they still might be wiped out from the game if the opposing faction has better tech, at the very least you'll lose more ships that could hinder a quick victory against an empire (which happens to me on occasion, no more happy go lucky expanding). Alongside that, diplomacy is nice, factions will like you through non-aggression pacts, defensive packs, and through other mechanics you can also attain the ability to announce a federation with those closest to you. Or they can outright hate you, depending on how you build your empires government and beliefs (Pacifists don't like aggressive space nazies). With that, roleplaying is very easy in this game, you can be a capitalistic empire, a socialist state, space nazies, space commies, space Jerusalem, space commie nazi Jerusalem, space commie nazi robot Jerusalem, all sorts of combinations of everything. The one thing that sold me on this game, however, which hopefully will be further expanded, are both the mid and late game crisis's. These are galaxy changing events (which are wars usually) that really shake up the game. Something you inevitably prepare for once the late-game hits (either the years 2400 or 2500 ingame), they could be an AI rebellion, extradimensional invaders, long stagnant 2 million year old empires doing absolutely nothing in your game but sitting with 100k+ stacks suddenly awakening and invading everything around them pissing off other 2 million year old stagnant empires, or a combination of everything when mods are involved. For mid game crisis's I believe we only have the khan forming a space mongol horde, I wish they expanded more on the mid game crisis, as I felt that was a fun answer to the mid game slog. All n' all, this is a great game, I believe on sale the price is justified as base game drops near $15-$20, rather than the $50 Paradox straight up asks for. Buy it for that price, nothing more, as you'll unfortunately will be needing to spend the $$$ on the DLC to get the fully fleshed out game. A good 4x that won't kill you like Distant Worlds, thin enough for everyone, thicc enough for vets.