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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Stavrophore

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The only 4x i ever played was Alpha Centauri, is this game more complex?

Do yourself a favor and stay the hell away. This is one of the worst strategy games ever made. The biggest gaming disappointment in 5 years, not least because it means we will probably never get a real CK2 style grand strategy set in space. It's a far worse letdown than Pillars of Eternity or Tides of Numenera, which were merely mediocre in all respects. Instead, Stellaris is plain awful in every way except the graphics, which are just average. And it's all because of the utter incompetence of the designers. Everything about this game is retarded, from the original pitch of having Paradox make a straight MOO clone with no experience instead of a real grand strategy, to the breathtakingly abominable UI, to the idiocy of randomly generated races, to the game elements scavenged from random Paradox games and haphazardly assembled in a primitive tribesman's cargo cult idea of 4x gameplay. Every time I think of this unspeakable disaster of a game, my heart is stricken with grief at the thought of what could have been, if they had just let Doomdark make his CK2 in space. Such massive potential incline, lost forever like tears in rain. I appreciate what Wiz is trying to do, but it's like putting makeup on a harlequin baby. Just kill it!


I think that when we get the patch removing the tiles system your view might change. Although i agree that currently the game is superfluous without the soul. Spam minerals and energy, build fleet, crush the enemy, rinse and repeat. Factions are pretty weak, rebelions are just whack a mole, or put some soldiers and buildings and never care about it, at a cost of sanity and slight resource uptake. Stellaris is only good, if you binged on star trek/star wars and then have this urge to LARP your space empire, for few hours and after spending that time, you ask yourself, why im playing this boring game, where my empire is resembling the star trek empire only because it has same flag, same ethos, but the gameplay didnt differ much when you would play as other empire type. Peace time or war time doesnt matter -stellaris is an exception in 4x where both of these are similiarly boring.
 

Space Satan

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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today marks the first dev diary about MegaCorp, the major expansion accompanying the 2.2 'Le Guin update', and the topic is the titular feature of MegaCorp: MegaCorporations. As said before, screenshots will contain placeholder art, prototype interfaces and non-final numbers.

MegaCorporations
A MegaCorporation is a type of empire that uses the new 'Corporate' authority added in MegaCorp. It is an interstellar empire that is structured like a business, and is focused on trade, building tall and generating large amounts of Energy Credits. Unlike the other two new authorities added in Utopia and Synthetic Dawn, the Corporate authority does not have a special ethic, but rather can support any combination of the regular empire ethics - you can play your MegaCorp as an authoritarian spiritualist corporation with indentured workers, or an egalitarian co-op that looks after the welfare of its citizens. Regardless of your ethics though, the Corporate authority has the Oligarchic election format, with a new leader elected every 20 years from a pre-selected pool of candidates.
index.php


The Corporate authority comes with its own special set of civics and a number of advantages and drawbacks. MegaCorps get a higher administrative cap (how large your empire can grow without suffering penalties such as tech and unity cost increases), but take double the penalty that normal empires do from being above said cap. This means that MegaCorps are ill-suited to controlling large swathes of space directly, and should focus on claiming fewer, better quality systems and planets. MegaCorps also have special variants of the Administrator and Culture Worker jobs called 'Executive' and 'Manager' respectively, that both produce trade value in addition to their other effects.
index.php

index.php


The Corporate authority fully replaces the old 'Corporate Dominion' civic for those who have the MegaCorp expansion, but Corporate Dominion is still available as a civic pick if you do not have MegaCorp.

Branch Offices
To compensate for their deficiencies when it comes to controlling territory directly, MegaCorps have the ability to construct Branch Offices on the planets of other empires. A Branch Office is a separate part of the planet screen that is managed by the controlling MegaCorp, where said MegaCorp can construct special Corporate Buildings. Branch Offices can normally only be established on the planets of regular (non-Gestalt, non-Corporate) empires that the MegaCorp has signed a Commercial Pact with. Commercial Pacts are trade agreements signed between two non-Gestalt empires that allow each empire to gain income relative to the size of the other empires' collected trade value, and is a part of the free Le Guin update. For MegaCorps, however, they additionally open for the MegaCorp to establish Branch Offices by paying a fixed sum of Energy Credits.
index.php


Branch Offices generate income for the owning MegaCorp based on the amount of trade value present on the planet, and so are best constructed on planets with a large number of Pops. Additionally, for every 25 pops on the planet the MegaCorp can build one Corporate Building, up to a maximum of four. Corporate Buildings are typically mutually beneficial, providing the Corp with some sort of modifier (such as Naval Capacity) or production of a resource (such as Alloys), and giving the planet owner some sort of modifier (such as Amenities) or an increased number of jobs. Many Corporate Buildings also incrase trade value, which benefits both the owner of the planet and the MegaCorp. As a general rule however, the MegaCorp will always benefit more than the owner of the planet. Branch Offices add a small amount of empire size to the MegaCorp, and it will generally not be worthwhile to build them on sparsely populated worlds.
index.php


While Branch Offices require a Commercial Pact to be established, cancelling the Commercial Pact does not automatically close them down - once a MegaCorp is established on your planets, it's not that easy to get rid of! Instead, any empire with a planet where a MegaCorp has an 'unlicensed' (no active Commercial Pact) Branch Office will get the 'Expropriation' Casus Belli on the Corp, which if pressed successfully in war shuts down all Branch Offices on that empire's worlds, with the attacker gaining a sum of Energy Credits for each office shut down. However, one should be careful not to declare an Expropriation war they might lose - if the MegaCorp forces surrender on the attacker, the attacker is forced to become a Subsidiary of the MegaCorp (see below for details). It is not possible for a MegaCorp to establish a Branch Office on the planet of an empire they are at war or have an active truce with.
index.php


Subsidiaries
Subsidiaries are a special kind of subject available only to MegaCorps, and replacing all the other normal forms of subject (Vassal, Tributary, Protectorate) for them. Subsidiaries have some diplomatic independence, and can expand into new systems and wage war among themselves, but are required to join the MegaCorp in their wars and pay 25% of their energy credit income to their Corporate overlords. Subsidiaries can not be integrated.
index.php


In addition to their more straightforward 'regular' civics, MegaCorps also have two gameplay-changing Civics, Criminal Heritage and Gospel of the Masses:

Criminal Heritage
Criminal Heritage has no ethics requirements but cannot be added or removed once the game has begun. It turns the MegaCorp into a criminal syndicate that cannot enter into Commercial Pacts, but does not need the permission of other empires to establish Branch Offices on their planets. The income of their Branch Offices scales to the level of crime on the planet, with a higher level of Crime providing more income, and they have their own set of Corporate Buildings that generally increase crime on the planet in addition to their other effects. Criminal Corporate Buildings are not entirely negative for the owner of the planet, however, especially if that owner has opted to co-exist with criminal elements on the planet. It is also possible to counteract Criminal Syndicates by heavy use of law enforcement, as a low level of crime on the planet will both cut into the income of the Crime Syndicate and makes it possible for an event to fire where law enforcement shuts down the criminal Branch Office on the planet and blocks any further such offices from being built for a time.
index.php


Gospel of the Masses
Gospel of the Masses requires spiritualist ethics and can be freely added and removed after the start of the game. It turns the MegaCorp into a MegaChurch that gains a large boost to spiritualist ethics attraction and which gains economic benefits from spiritualist pops on their planets and branch office planets in the form of increased trade, representing tithing and a general cult of consumerism and spending. They can build a special Temple of Prosperity building on their branch office planets which boosts Spiritualist attraction, resulting in more spiritualist pops and economic benefit to both the MegaChurch and the owner of the planet, though an empire that does not wish its pops to start turning Spiritualist may want to consider carefully before allowing the MegaChurches to gain a foothold on their planets... assuming they have a choice in the matter, as Gospel of the Masses can be combined freely with the Criminal Heritage civic.
index.php


That's all for today! Next week we're going to continue talking about the MegaCorp expansion, on the topic of Ecumenopolises and new Megastructures.
 

thesheeep

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Some of that sounds a bit weird and not too well thought out.
Why would you ever sign a Commercial Pact with a faction that you do not plan to ally with and that could at some point become an enemy if they are such a MegaCorp? With allies, it is ok if they benefit more from a deal than you do, but for everyone else that would just be silly.
Would a faction also become a subsidiary even if only one of their hundred planets has a Branch Office - the description sounds like that? Wtf?
Also, being able to settle on more systems seems like an extreme advantage for fast growth - and I never expanded beyond the maximum anyway, so the downside doesn't really do anything to me.

Anyway, that Crime Syndicate thing alone seems to be pretty hilarious.
And I'm sure the MegaChurch will find many fans here ;)

Combining both sounds like a recipe for desaster. Well... if the AI would be more capable.
 

Preben

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Apparently, signing a commercial pact will also benefit the host empire, though not to the same extent as it will benefit the megacorp.
 

azimuth

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The only 4x i ever played was Alpha Centauri, is this game more complex?

Do yourself a favor and stay the hell away. This is one of the worst strategy games ever made. The biggest gaming disappointment in 5 years, not least because it means we will probably never get a real CK2 style grand strategy set in space. It's a far worse letdown than Pillars of Eternity or Tides of Numenera, which were merely mediocre in all respects. Instead, Stellaris is plain awful in every way except the graphics, which are just average. And it's all because of the utter incompetence of the designers. Everything about this game is retarded, from the original pitch of having Paradox make a straight MOO clone with no experience instead of a real grand strategy, to the breathtakingly abominable UI, to the idiocy of randomly generated races, to the game elements scavenged from random Paradox games and haphazardly assembled in a primitive tribesman's cargo cult idea of 4x gameplay. Every time I think of this unspeakable disaster of a game, my heart is stricken with grief at the thought of what could have been, if they had just let Doomdark make his CK2 in space. Such massive potential incline, lost forever like tears in rain. I appreciate what Wiz is trying to do, but it's like putting makeup on a harlequin baby. Just kill it!


I think that when we get the patch removing the tiles system your view might change. Although i agree that currently the game is superfluous without the soul. Spam minerals and energy, build fleet, crush the enemy, rinse and repeat. Factions are pretty weak, rebelions are just whack a mole, or put some soldiers and buildings and never care about it, at a cost of sanity and slight resource uptake. Stellaris is only good, if you binged on star trek/star wars and then have this urge to LARP your space empire, for few hours and after spending that time, you ask yourself, why im playing this boring game, where my empire is resembling the star trek empire only because it has same flag, same ethos, but the gameplay didnt differ much when you would play as other empire type. Peace time or war time doesnt matter -stellaris is an exception in 4x where both of these are similiarly boring.

"Stellaris will be so good after the next DLC when they do x" is a sentence I've seen so many times I'm starting to think it's the official company line.
 

Stavrophore

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The only 4x i ever played was Alpha Centauri, is this game more complex?

Do yourself a favor and stay the hell away. This is one of the worst strategy games ever made. The biggest gaming disappointment in 5 years, not least because it means we will probably never get a real CK2 style grand strategy set in space. It's a far worse letdown than Pillars of Eternity or Tides of Numenera, which were merely mediocre in all respects. Instead, Stellaris is plain awful in every way except the graphics, which are just average. And it's all because of the utter incompetence of the designers. Everything about this game is retarded, from the original pitch of having Paradox make a straight MOO clone with no experience instead of a real grand strategy, to the breathtakingly abominable UI, to the idiocy of randomly generated races, to the game elements scavenged from random Paradox games and haphazardly assembled in a primitive tribesman's cargo cult idea of 4x gameplay. Every time I think of this unspeakable disaster of a game, my heart is stricken with grief at the thought of what could have been, if they had just let Doomdark make his CK2 in space. Such massive potential incline, lost forever like tears in rain. I appreciate what Wiz is trying to do, but it's like putting makeup on a harlequin baby. Just kill it!


I think that when we get the patch removing the tiles system your view might change. Although i agree that currently the game is superfluous without the soul. Spam minerals and energy, build fleet, crush the enemy, rinse and repeat. Factions are pretty weak, rebelions are just whack a mole, or put some soldiers and buildings and never care about it, at a cost of sanity and slight resource uptake. Stellaris is only good, if you binged on star trek/star wars and then have this urge to LARP your space empire, for few hours and after spending that time, you ask yourself, why im playing this boring game, where my empire is resembling the star trek empire only because it has same flag, same ethos, but the gameplay didnt differ much when you would play as other empire type. Peace time or war time doesnt matter -stellaris is an exception in 4x where both of these are similiarly boring.

"Stellaris will be so good after the next DLC when they do x" is a sentence I've seen so many times I'm starting to think it's the official company line.

Well aren't we all living in the "live service" era :fallout3:. Recently EA devs moaned about BF4 being "overdid" with "too much content" and that they could milk more money if they've made it live service.
 

Norfleet

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Or if you play as the Galactic Confederacy, find Earth while it is still known as Teegeeack and full of dinosaurs and Volcano Tile Blockers, and then stack your enemies in the volcanos and then bomb them. Also need DC-8 Cruiser Shipset.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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Or if you play as the Galactic Confederacy, find Earth while it is still known as Teegeeack and full of dinosaurs and Volcano Tile Blockers, and then stack your enemies in the volcanos and then bomb them. Also need DC-8 Cruiser Shipset.
Personally I would say the best DC-8 would be a Titan or Colossus.

In fact, mighty Lord Xenu deserves his unique Colossus dedicated to transporting his feeble enemies to Teegeeack and imprisoning their brainwashed souls there.
 

Space Satan

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Hello everyone!

On this stellar day you will be able to read another of our dev diaries about the upcoming expansion - MegaCorp.

Like always I have to mention that we’re not yet ready to reveal when MegaCorp is due to being released, and that this article may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

For this dev diary we will be exploring some of the new cool features in the MegaCorp expansion – namely Ecumenopolises and new Megastructures.

Ecumenopolis
“Thus shall we make a world of the city, and a city of the world”.

index.php


The city planet is here. To create a Ecumenopolis, you first need to unlock the associated Ascension Perk. The ascension perk is only available for non-gestalt empires, and requires the new Anti-Gravity Engineering technology.

index.php

index.php


Once you have the ascension perk, a decision will appear on your colonized planets. To be able to enact the decision, you need your planet to be entirely filled with only City Districts, in addition to the cost.

index.php

Ecumenolopises replace the regular districts with special districts available only to the ecumenopolis. These districts are Residential Arcology, Foundry Arcology, Industrial Arcology and Leisure Arcology. These districts are more powerful and provide a lot more jobs than regular districts. Additionally, Ecumenopolisis provide a bonus to pop growth and resource production for all jobs on the planet.



The Arcology Project is a must for anyone wishing to build a truly "tall" planet.

Megastructures
MegaCorp is releasing with 4 new Megastructures:
  • Matter Decompressor
  • Strategic Coordination Center
  • Mega Art Installation
  • Interstellar Assembly
These new megastructures will be unlocked by the Galactic Wonders Ascension Perk.


Megastructures have also received a balance pass to fit the new economy, and thus they now cost alloys to build instead of minerals.
Matter Decompressor

The Matter Decompressor works similar to the dyson sphere, but using technology far too complex to try to explain here, it extracts minerals instead of energy. It has 4 levels which provide:
Minerals: 250/500/750/1000

Strategic Coordination Center

The armored hull of the Strategic Coordination Center houses the cream of our military command, who devote their time to strategy and planning in this state-of-the-art facility. It has 3 levels and provide the following effects:
Naval Capacity: 75/150/225
Starbase Capacity: 5/10/15
Defense Platforms: 8/16/24
Sublight Speed: 5%/10%/15%

Mega Art Installation

An artistic beacon on a stellar scale, this installation inspires and represents the spirit of its creators. The Mega Art Installation also has 3 levels, but with the following effects:
Unity: 100/200/300
Amenities: 5%/10%/15%

Interstellar Assembly

A meeting place for galactic powers, increasing immigration attraction and global opinion of us. The Interstellar Assembly has 4 levels with the following effects:
Immigration Pull: 25%/50%/75%/100%
Other empire's opinion: 10/20/30/50

----

Don’t forget to tune in today to our Twitch stream at 15:00 CET for the Stellaris dev clash. The campaign will begin its second session, and you would not want to miss it!

That's all for this week, folks. Come back next week when we will be talking about The Caravaneers and the Slave Market.
 

The Wall

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That's all for this week, folks. Come back next week when we will be talking about The Caravaneers and the Slave Market.

At least next DD sounds promising. Space Gypsies & Goyim market. Some things time and space can't change. Their existance only switches to next background...
 

Agame

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The only 4x i ever played was Alpha Centauri, is this game more complex?

Do yourself a favor and stay the hell away. This is one of the worst strategy games ever made. The biggest gaming disappointment in 5 years, not least because it means we will probably never get a real CK2 style grand strategy set in space. It's a far worse letdown than Pillars of Eternity or Tides of Numenera, which were merely mediocre in all respects. Instead, Stellaris is plain awful in every way except the graphics, which are just average. And it's all because of the utter incompetence of the designers. Everything about this game is retarded, from the original pitch of having Paradox make a straight MOO clone with no experience instead of a real grand strategy, to the breathtakingly abominable UI, to the idiocy of randomly generated races, to the game elements scavenged from random Paradox games and haphazardly assembled in a primitive tribesman's cargo cult idea of 4x gameplay. Every time I think of this unspeakable disaster of a game, my heart is stricken with grief at the thought of what could have been, if they had just let Doomdark make his CK2 in space. Such massive potential incline, lost forever like tears in rain. I appreciate what Wiz is trying to do, but it's like putting makeup on a harlequin baby. Just kill it!

Well said sir! Its tragic that we didnt get "Dune" the grand strategy game (ck2 in space) given this was the best opportunity to ever see this created. Its interesting you mention POE as it seems to be a trend with current "nu-retro-wave" developers, to make games with all the mechanics and themes of games we used to love, but utterly devoid of the heart and soul of those old games. There is something mechanical and corporate about these games, sure they are not made by the big evil companies but it still feels like they have been developed by a boardroom of accountants ticking all the feature boxes. Both stellaris and POE have a deadness that lies just underneath their shiny graphics and over tuned "balanced" gameplay. I get a similar feeling playing both games, boredom, tedium and ennui. There is no joy or excitement here.
 

thesheeep

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The only 4x i ever played was Alpha Centauri, is this game more complex?

Do yourself a favor and stay the hell away. This is one of the worst strategy games ever made. The biggest gaming disappointment in 5 years, not least because it means we will probably never get a real CK2 style grand strategy set in space. It's a far worse letdown than Pillars of Eternity or Tides of Numenera, which were merely mediocre in all respects. Instead, Stellaris is plain awful in every way except the graphics, which are just average. And it's all because of the utter incompetence of the designers. Everything about this game is retarded, from the original pitch of having Paradox make a straight MOO clone with no experience instead of a real grand strategy, to the breathtakingly abominable UI, to the idiocy of randomly generated races, to the game elements scavenged from random Paradox games and haphazardly assembled in a primitive tribesman's cargo cult idea of 4x gameplay. Every time I think of this unspeakable disaster of a game, my heart is stricken with grief at the thought of what could have been, if they had just let Doomdark make his CK2 in space. Such massive potential incline, lost forever like tears in rain. I appreciate what Wiz is trying to do, but it's like putting makeup on a harlequin baby. Just kill it!

Well said sir! Its tragic that we didnt get "Dune" the grand strategy game (ck2 in space) given this was the best opportunity to ever see this created. Its interesting you mention POE as it seems to be a trend with current "nu-retro-wave" developers, to make games with all the mechanics and themes of games we used to love, but utterly devoid of the heart and soul of those old games. There is something mechanical and corporate about these games, sure they are not made by the big evil companies but it still feels like they have been developed by a boardroom of accountants ticking all the feature boxes. Both stellaris and POE have a deadness that lies just underneath their shiny graphics and over tuned "balanced" gameplay. I get a similar feeling playing both games, boredom, tedium and ennui. There is no joy or excitement here.
You guys get it all wrong.

I just discovered a hidden attribute of Stellaris: It is a great way to get people to learn grand strategy games. It probably wasn't designed to be this way, but hey, it works.
Seriously, I wanted to try getting my GF to play grand strategy games. Who never played strategy games before other than Civ, let alone those intimidating excel-sheet-like experiences like EUIV or CK2 (that's what they appear like to outsiders).
We're only about 4 hours into a Stellaris game with the Star Trek mod - it upgrades the entire game and gives you something recognizable (if you're a Trekkie like us, that is) - and she is playing along just fine, needing to pause less and less often, grasping the concepts of where to build what for maximum effect, managing your resource incomes, building ahead of need, balancing troop production with income production, etc.

That the game is so... basic and generic mechanics-wise is actually helping her learn all of that.

So, not only is the game good for zen-like LARPing for those who already know their grand strategy games, it is also a good entry into the genre.
If you play it for the challenge, well... bad luck.
 
Last edited:

lophiaspis

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I just discovered a hidden attribute of Stellaris: It is a great way to get people to learn grand strategy games. It probably wasn't designed to be this way, but hey, it works.
Seriously, I wanted to try getting my GF to play grand strategy games. Who never played strategy games before other than Civ, let alone those intimidating excel-sheet-like experiences like EUIV or CK2 (that's what they appear like to outsiders).
We're only about 4 hours into a Stellaris game with the Star Trek mod - it upgrades the entire game and gives you something recognizable (if you're a Trekkie like us, that is) - and she is playing along just fine, needing to pause less and less often, grasping the concepts of where to build what for maximum effect, managing your resource incomes, building ahead of need, balancing troop production with income production, etc.

That the game is so... basic and generic mechanics-wise is actually helping her learn all of that.

So, not only is the game good for zen-like LARPing for those who already know their grand strategy games, it is also a good entry into the genre.
If you play it for the challenge, well... bad luck.

Yes, this game is only fun for 2 types of people: casuals and larpers. Casuals like Stellaris 1.0 because it's basically a shiny Farmville. As for larpers, all they need is fluff.

Imagine how much better of a Star Trek larping sim it would be if it was a complex grand strategy simulation with a CK2-like character system. Then you could simulate the internals of all the different races down to the individual heroes like Kirk and Vader, constant Starcraft type civil wars among the humans (why is there only one state per species? WHY?), and ideological conflict with everything from the techno-libertarianism of the Culture to the WH40k Imperial Cult fighting for the hearts and minds of the same race. The only races using the current mechanics would be the Borg and insectoid hivemind species.

But that would require a different design goal from the start: "let's simulate Science Fiction down to the details using Grand Strategy mechanics" instead of "those space games are kewl lets make a game like that durrrrr!"

As it is, Stellaris is just another Borg simulator like every other Master of Orion clone, where the only thing resembling real science fiction universes is the fluff, and every race is just the Borg fluffed up to look like humans, Klingons et cetera. And even compared to the other Borg simulators, in a genre distinguished by mediocrity, it stands out for being truly awful.
 
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Zboj Lamignat

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All the patches/revamps (both their number and the actual changes that they introduce) prove beyond any doubt that people behind this game don't know what they're doing and don't know what they want to do at the same time. Such game can never be good.

Still, I played it for like 30-40h some time before the idiotic expansion/movement rules retconning and it definitely was the most enjoyable paradox experience I had since HoI II Arma.
 

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