Stellaris | 4x Space Grand Strategy

[Soupy]

Hey folks, I know there are a few 4x'er strategy gamers out there so I thought I'd give this game another mention. Paradox Interactive, creator of the Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron and the Victoria strategy game series' have ventured into space with Stellaris.

The game is very accessible (despite a UI that does need tweaks imo) and is friendly to first time 'Grand Strategy' players if you've never played a Paradox game before. It plays very much like your typical space 4x games, but just loads that sandwich with extra meat, cheese and toppings. Then toasts it for you while also grabbing you a drink. The Race/Empire creator is beefy, and also completely moddable. There is a 40K conversion mod already pretty far along, with Star Wars, Star Trek and Babylon 5 not far behind.

I've been slowly doing a Let's Play/Let's Try with it but with life and work currently the way it is, time to record is sparse. I recommend checking out Quill18 (his Dwarf Fortress inspired Dwarves in Spaaaaace livestream is pretty good), Arumba, MsCarsonelle or Paradox's own series featuring THE BLORG!

TLDR; buy Stellaris, it's good.

 

[bhamv3]

I'm definitely intrigued by this game, but as with all my game purchases I'm waiting for a sale.

 

[Dave]

I've looked at this a couple times but will probably wait until my PC gets fixed. I'm hoping in July. I plan on getting a new mobo, power supply, and GTX 1080 (if I can afford it - it'll depend on whether I get a bonus or not this year.)

 

[Soupy]

My Arctic Space Turtle Empire was slowly and steadily expanding their shell power. Until a race of mushrooms using fancy lasers and warp drive completly bi-passed my defensive fleet that uses hyper drive technology and thus took the long way to return to my home system along the hyper lane system... by the time they got there the Mushrooms had taken the planet and their warscore was high enough to enforce their war demands. I lost 3 colonies to them and was pushed to vassal status. I now plot my revenge. Mushrooms belong on pizza, and every sane person knows Turtles love pizza.

 

[Dave]

I think that's the best post ever.

 

[PatrThom]

I've looked at this a couple times but will probably wait until my PC gets fixed. I'm hoping in July. I plan on getting a new mobo, power supply, and GTX 1080 (if I can afford it - it'll depend on whether I get a bonus or not this year.)

By then wouldn't you rather have a GTX 1080 Ti instead?

--Patrick

 

[Dave]

By then wouldn't you rather have a GTX 1080 Ti instead?

--Patrick

The benchmarks probably won't mean that large a difference for the price. Usually. I mean, the benchmarks between the 780 and 780 Ti were negligible (8014 to 8963) while the 980 went from 9757 to 11573 with the Ti. But they basically doubled the price. (This price gap has narrowed but is still about $145.

So again it'll depend on the benchmarks and price.

 

[PatrThom]

it'll depend on the benchmarks and price.

My guess based on specs would be 15-25% faster just based on the wider pipelines and larger number of shader cores. This does not account for any architectural improvements.

--Patrick

 

[CynicismKills]

I've found myself kind of interested in the game, but with a backlog full of 30+ hour games, Legion beta and Overwatch I just don't have a good reason to pick anything else up right now.

 

[Bubble181]

I've heard both good and bad things about it - being a not-always-well-balanced combination of Grand Strategy and 4X....

Crusader Kings has no win condition, but there are a million things to do. In Stellaris, once you complete the early game and gobble up all the unclaimed territory, your options are to wage a war of expansion or do nothing. Science is only useful for gathering more minerals and building stronger ships, there’s no wonders, no culture victory, just war. Zero-interactivity “throw your stack of doom at their stack of doom and cross your fingers” war.
You can’t even accumulate resources because there’s a cap on stored minerals, if you’re not going to war or expanding your empire, you’re clicking “next turn” without doing anything.

Haven't played myself, so I can't judge, but how would you respond to that criticism?

To be clear, I'm not entirely sure what my next strategy game will be, this is a candidate, but it's competing with Total War:Hammer and waiting for Civ VI, so....

 

[Soupy]

I've heard both good and bad things about it - being a not-always-well-balanced combination of Grand Strategy and 4X....



Haven't played myself, so I can't judge, but how would you respond to that criticism?

To be clear, I'm not entirely sure what my next strategy game will be, this is a candidate, but it's competing with Total War:Hammer and waiting for Civ VI, so....

Up to last night, I would not have been able to respond as I've always played on giant maps and thus never really got very far into the mid game. However, I do think it's totally valid after running a tiny galaxy last night. The expand or do nothing thing is honestly the only thing I could do. Very slowly build up enough diplo points with neighbors and get into an alliance and form a federation maybe, but again, would just lead to more war.

Luckily, a major content patch is incoming before the weekend which fixes some dumb AI choices, and the next one due a few weeks from now apparently has some more beef for the mid and end game. Paradox is known for putting out pretty decent DLC's (accompanied by free content patches) that are reasonably priced that expand on base game ideas. My bet is on a trade based DLC sooner than later, followed by espionage.

 

[Ravenpoe]

The best thing about Paradox games are their mod support. Crusader Kings 2 was good, but the Game of Thrones mod for it was amazing. I think the same will probably hold true for Stellaris, and both the Star Wars and Star Trek mods that are currently in the works for it.

 

[Terrik]

The best thing about Paradox games are their mod support. Crusader Kings 2 was good, but the Game of Thrones mod for it was amazing. I think the same will probably hold true for Stellaris, and both the Star Wars and Star Trek mods that are currently in the works for it.

I had never played so much Sins of a Solar empire until the Star Trek mod came out. Ill probably get stellaris too, once the mods are out and polished.