Stellaris..new Paradox scifi grand strategy game

Review after 50+ hours.

Totally agree with IGN and RPS reviews. The game UI is atrocity of the highest degree, it is literally the biggest challenge in game. Fonts are too small even for 1080p screens, on 1440+ UI is just microscopic and broken. Things are hidden for the sake of being hidden, restoring flights back to previous numbers takes tremendous effort, no way to queue up multiple ships at the same time. I though that was a basic feature for any RTS in 2005.

Unable to finish some event chains like precursors or collect animals because quest objectives are either controlled by an empire unwilling to allow civilian access or just in the non-surveyable systems (traded star charts?). End game events (scourge, unbidden, etc) spawning behind other empires who are not interested in fighting them off or allowing access to my fleet.


Some pops on my planets are with 0% happines, no idea why and how to fix that. Sometimes they get happier if I re-terraform the planet to something weird and back to normal.

Mid-end game is boring as hell and full of micro-management, trying to balance station/fleet energy demands with planet's output. Sector AI is retarded at best.

So overall I have a feeling that this game is like Spore - tons of fun at the beginning, horrible and terrible mess at the end.
 
Looks like they plan to have a patch, that addresses some of the problems, out towards the end of the month.
Link
 
43 hours in

I disagree on the UI, I'm running 3240 x 1980 and have no problem reading things.

Queing actions would be wondrous. It's great that you can group your worlds into sectors and they just run, but you have to babysit your ships.

Tuning your sectors to produce just the right balance of energy/minerals is an art. Just when it's perfect you needs will change.

I haven't followed the Precursor chain at all, but the collect animals ain't so bad if you have patience. Eventually you'll get to the other side of the galaxy. It may take many turns, don't go all OCD.

Scourge was frustrating not because they spawned behind someone. They spawned right next to my initial cluster and in an ally's domain. It was frustrating because the AI was so stupid that 2 massed fleets just stopped at the edge of the ally's system and FROZE. They should have conquered 3x or more territory. The single world they colonized was UNCONQUERABLE, all I could do was park ships above it and continuously bomb it to keep it from spawning stuff.

I've seen colony ships in my fleet hotlist (maybe they were moving?), but most of the time I have no idea if ones available or if the world it's at is on the other side of the galaxy.

It's a pain in the freaking ass to find a close ship to something. You have to 'ping' each one individually or zoom out and mouse select icons in the world map till you find an idle ship of the right type. A 'number of jumps' value from a selected point would be a huge improvement.

All your planets should be labeled #name of planet / name of system. Same with events. I cannot tell you how many times I've thought WHERE THE EFF IS THAT?!?!?!?

FYI, I've read that terraforming the world under a pop makes them VERY unhappy.

"Requires a planetary Admin Bldg" I had to Google this to find out it's the cobbled together initial starship landing bldg. After dozens of worlds colonized I was finally able to upgrade MY HOMEWORLD : /

Interaction with other civs is soooooo limited. At least give me a greyed out option in all cases. Options depending on your current relations are just not there and I don't understand why. Trading to THEM energy or minerals is never acceptable, but they are always happy to trade YOU for useless stuff like star charts and research agreements and migration access. Great if you have good standing and need to build.

The other empires are so busy attacking, vasselizing, conquering you can just zoom out and watch the map change. Amazing and frustrating 'cuz that empire you just had passage with now has a new name or split in 2 pieces and one or both don't like you much.

edit:

and why stop at Battleships? Where's the dreadnaughts and super capitals?
 
Last edited:
Definitely not a fan of the UI at 2560x1440 and a lot things are not explained or confusing with little to no information but the game has promise. I'm shelving it for a while in favor of Doom.
 
Yeah, I think it'll probbaly get much better in 6-12 month after some extensive patching.
 
ashmelev75 said:
Yeah, I think it'll probbaly get much better in 6-12 month after some extensive patching.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much how Paradox games go. At least this release is free of major bugs. A few here and there that need work but the game works so that's an improvement.
 
First patch is said to be in beta release next week and general release the week after. It should fix a ton of things.
 
Better, but still waiting for the 2nd patch to be released before I sink any more time in.
 
I went ahead and got it, fun game so far...well until i got jumped by the large empire on my border that grew and grew and I ignored it til it was too late.
 
I picked up Stellaris and Utopia. Pretty good game after getting the hang of it.

I think the tutorial teaches you how to play.... wrong. I guess it teaches you the basic controls but not really a very good starting strategy. I am on my 7th "match" and finally won a game.

stellaris_2017-04-10_16-05-49.jpg
 
Anyone here play this??

Its got some fantastic Star Trek and Star Wars mods.

Its also one of the most CPU demanding titles I know of. IPC and MHz are king as it is largely single threaded.

If anyone plays here, I'd love to see how AMD's latest 5000 series fares against Intel when it comes to time for "turns" to elapse.

My 2500U laptop is nigh unbearable for a large map, but my broadwell (overclocked) Intel CPU fares MUCH better.
 
Neapolitan6th said:
Anyone here play this??

Its got some fantastic Star Trek and Star Wars mods.

Its also one of the most CPU demanding titles I know of. IPC and MHz are king as it is largely single threaded.

If anyone plays here, I'd love to see how AMD's latest 5000 series fares against Intel when it comes to time for "turns" to elapse.

My 2500U laptop is nigh unbearable for a large map, but my broadwell (overclocked) Intel CPU fares MUCH better.
Click to expand...


There's a reason this thread is dead for four years; this game is AN incredibly overrated Master of Orion ripoff, with more boring combat, a worse UI...and, dare I say it, even worse mid-game micromanagement then MOO2

I gave u[p after multiple playthroughs pirates continued to sack my exploration ships (you can't do something obvious like group together a fleet of science vessels wit a group of warships, even though they start you off with both.)

whereas there is nothing stopping you from grouping science and beefcake in one fleet in literally every other space 4x.
 
Last edited:
Its an amazing game that has dramatically changed with three major iterations, it doesn't even resemble its launch self.

I play, can't wait for the Nemesis expansion in April.
 
defaultluser said:
There's a reason this thread is dead for four years; this game is AN incredibly overrated Master of Orion ripoff, with more boring combat, a worse UI...and, dare I say it, even worse mid-game micromanagement then MOO2

I gave u[p after multiple playthroughs pirates continued to sack my exploration ships (you ccan't do something obvious like group together a fleet of science vessels wit a group of warships, even though they start you off with both.)

whereas there is nothing stopping you from grouping science and beefcake in one fleet in literally every other space 4x.
Click to expand...

And if you did that in Stellaris you'd lose both. The shit that blows up your exploration ships are not pirates, but some type of either left over rogue tech (mining drone complexes), unfathomable horrors from beyond, space Mongols, or space organics. Each one has a different way to deal with depending on your faction ethics. They are always much stronger than your starting fleet. Basically you either get lucky and your science ship evacuates system (auto set to run from hostile systems) or they jump in too close to a hostile and die, so build another.

It is by no means insurmountable or even difficult to manage. The midgame has been streamlined since the La Guin patch in 2018. I'm serious when I say this game looks nothing like launch, you can test yourself as every version is available in the betas tab of steam.

For anyone that hasn't played since OG, different types of travel are gone (have been for a LONG time) everything is hyperlane now supplemented by Wormholes and Gateways (gates you build and link to other friendly gates), you also can research any weapon so play depends a bit more on card drops that OG start. In exchange, there are a huge number of civics, ethics, and origins to customize your play style, ranging from relatively easy and OP (Ringworld start) to hard as nails (Doomsday Start), you can play everything from standard Humanoid races to Parasites like the Goa'uld, Living Rockmen, AI, Hivemind, etc. You can also chose to be a total war species like a devouring swarm (the Flood), fanatical purifiers, religious zealots, etc.

There is no more border pressure, so you cannot just expand your regional influence and assume control of systems. Instead everything is a function of war goals and Cassis Belli's, you can spend influence to claim systems, humiliate, impose ideology (Pacifist only), etc. The most power game is actually pacifist and impose ideology, thump the empire, change their ethics to yours, then befriend them and federate them, no need to spend valuable influence on claiming systems, nor the time to manage a WIDE empire.

They added in Alloys and Strategic resources, then refined them, so its no longer a game of just energy and minerals. Planets are completely overhauled and function nothing like they did.

They've really balanced out a lot of the flow of the game and Nemesis aims to further fix populations (the major slow down for the game).

I am however not surprised this site does not like it, you can see how much attention any 4x gets here (practically none). Different folks, different strokes is all.

Add in the insane level of mods (gigastructures for more vanilla gameplay, star wars and trek total overhauls that are both amazing, Halo mod, anime mods, on and on) and each mod can dramatically change the gameplay, want less
economy management and more combat, Star Wars is for you, want insane levels of megastructures with a massive challenge to boot, gigastructure away.

Owning and playing every space 4x on the market, yes others do certain things better than Stellaris, but only Stellaris keeps me coming back after thousands of hours.

If your still stuck on MOO 1/2 then thats on you.

Edit: If anyone wants to get into it, the best tutorials are on youtube by Aspec. He isn't flawless, but he will point out every function and hidden feature, and give any new player a good base to start from and he is always posting up to date videos to match Paradox's changes.
 
Last edited:
Neapolitan6th said:
Anyone here play this??

Its got some fantastic Star Trek and Star Wars mods.

Its also one of the most CPU demanding titles I know of. IPC and MHz are king as it is largely single threaded.

If anyone plays here, I'd love to see how AMD's latest 5000 series fares against Intel when it comes to time for "turns" to elapse.

My 2500U laptop is nigh unbearable for a large map, but my broadwell (overclocked) Intel CPU fares MUCH better.
Click to expand...

Never done the tests, my Intel Core i5-8600K OC to 5Ghz performs the best out of my systems and it only slows down to about normal in end game, where as my older systems would hit slow or slowest.

The easiest way to test is multiplayer, as it tracks where each player is star date wise on their own CPU, if you hover your mouse over the date it will display every player and if they are getting out of sync (or you are) depending on their CPU. To fix you have to drop the speed of the game.

I play with my buddy on and off, he uses a i5-4670K standard clocked will out of sync with my I5-8600K about 2375 and start falling 2-3 days behind, by 2425 its 5+ behind and we have to drop the speed from fastest to fast or normal to keep from de-syncing.
 
Aireoth said:
Never done the tests, my Intel Core i5-8600K OC to 5Ghz performs the best out of my systems and it only slows down to about normal in end game, where as my older systems would hit slow or slowest.

The easiest way to test is multiplayer, as it tracks where each player is star date wise on their own CPU, if you hover your mouse over the date it will display every player and if they are getting out of sync (or you are) depending on their CPU. To fix you have to drop the speed of the game.

I play with my buddy on and off, he uses a i5-4670K standard clocked will out of sync with my I5-8600K about 2375 and start falling 2-3 days behind, by 2425 its 5+ behind and we have to drop the speed from fastest to fast or normal to keep from de-syncing.
Click to expand...
Yeah I really want to find a semi-reliable way to benchmark this game as no one ever attempts it on review sites. This is one of the few genres where FPS in near meaningless. Might as well be playing on a GT1030, but the CPU makes a huge difference. Hoping to get my hands on a 5600X to do some testing. Maybe compare it to some older CPUs I have. Ryzen 2000, X99 Broadwell. I'd even try something crazy like Intel's TECs they've been teasing. Time is finite so something like a faster CPU can really save you hours of time quite quickly. (easily weeks if you routinely play a game like this for 5 years)
 

The difference in performance from Xbox One to Xbox Series X is staggering. Such an advantage for modern consoles to have such a great CPU. (Storage and graphics too)
 
It maybe, but this is not a game I'd want to play on a controller, yikes.
 
Its a Paradox grand strategy, their dlc strategy is aggressive but many of them do introduce dramatic changes to the gameplay.

Best way to do a paradox game is grab the base for free, play it plenty, get the dlc when its on sale, and then its almost like playing a new game. Plus all paradox games are capable of supporting thousands of play hours if you get into them.

I do love their titles, well hearts of iron and stellaris as I haven't dared the learning curve on the others, but not their pricing.
 
FYI, if you don't want the paradox launcher to run or even install, don't run the game via the shortcut. Make a new one that links to the stellaris.exe file directly. If you run the regular shortcut, it runs dowser.exe which will then run their launcher, or install it if it isn't installed already. You can uninstall it if you accidentally installed it by add remove programs -> paradox launcher. Not sure if not running the launcher kills multiplayer though so if you're interested in MP you might have to install the launcher.
 
LurkerLito said:
FYI, if you don't want the paradox launcher to run or even install, don't run the game via the shortcut. Make a new one that links to the stellaris.exe file directly. If you run the regular shortcut, it runs dowser.exe which will then run their launcher, or install it if it isn't installed already. You can uninstall it if you accidentally installed it by add remove programs -> paradox launcher. Not sure if not running the launcher kills multiplayer though so if you're interested in MP you might have to install the launcher.
Click to expand...
Their launcher also manages all the mods, and you should always eventually mod a PDX game as the mods are insane and great.
 
Ranulfo said:
Welcome to Paradox games. A lot of their DLC is fluff. Humble often has deals on their games/dlc that can make them very cheap. Really its the best way to buy them if you like the base game.
Click to expand...
Some of the dlc is fluff, primarily the species packs though even they come with some game changing elements. Much of their DLC dramatically disrupts the game creating new experiences.

Two must have expansions are Utopia and Federations, Utopia adds megastructures (dyson spheres, ring worlds, etc) several accensions perks, hive minds as a playable race, and options to interact with primative races.

Federations is right on the nose, you can form feds of different types with different bonuses with other empires. It also features a galactic senate that you can pretty much manipulate (if your good) into what you'd like, want to be the galactic emperor and abolish the senate, go ahead.

Then I would say megacorps, synthetic dawn, necroids and ancient relics roughly in that order.
 
Utopia is probably the only one I would recommend, at least up until a year or two ago. Federations have been in the game since launch, they were just stupid and pointless to form especially in 1.0-1.9 where your borders were culture based not on actual physical claims to systems. I only own the last 3-4 major dlc's (not story/races) because I got them at sub $5 a piece during a sale.
 
I'm begining to think that Paradox is never going to make a proper Stellaris 2 with an updated engine that works at end game.
 
Ranulfo said:
I'm begining to think that Paradox is never going to make a proper Stellaris 2 with an updated engine that works at end game.
Click to expand...
Yeah i stopped buying stuff form them.... All of their games other then older games like ck2 are unplayable past mid game even on a top end rig.

Also I can't deal with how bad they taken to being just an dlc maker now.....I think part of how bad their games run nowadays is the shear amount of junk/dlc they keep adding to the allrady weak engine instead of making it playable or making a new engine.....how long and how many games have they been using more of less the same engine for?
 
I know they've been moving a lot of Stellaris developers to other future products for awhile now. Its my hope that is to a Stellaris 2 of sorts. I would definitely be disappointed if there were not an engine improvement because performance is the biggest killer.
 
The only time I buy their DLC now is the mega combo deals on Humble Bundle 2-3 times a year. Buy 3-5 dlc items and get between 50-75% off. Even then, it probably isn't worth it because I rarely play any of them besides City skylines. I tried Stellaris again last year, a little bit of multiplayer with a friend and neither of us could figure out the new planetary building system.
 
tunatime said:
Yeah i stopped buying stuff form them.... All of their games other then older games like ck2 are unplayable past mid game even on a top end rig.

Also I can't deal with how bad they taken to being just an dlc maker now.....I think part of how bad their games run nowadays is the shear amount of junk/dlc they keep adding to the allrady weak engine instead of making it playable or making a new engine.....how long and how many games have they been using more of less the same engine for?
Click to expand...
CK3 was the first game running on a new Engine.

Also, Stellaris runs a TON better now; my 8700k can handle a Huge galaxy without issue.

As for DLC, that's kinda Paradox's thing. You aren't required to buy any of it, but Stellaris in particular benefits from it significantly.
 
Ranulfo said:
I'm begining to think that Paradox is never going to make a proper Stellaris 2 with an updated engine that works at end game.
Click to expand...

tunatime said:
Yeah i stopped buying stuff form them.... All of their games other then older games like ck2 are unplayable past mid game even on a top end rig.

Also I can't deal with how bad they taken to being just an dlc maker now.....I think part of how bad their games run nowadays is the shear amount of junk/dlc they keep adding to the allrady weak engine instead of making it playable or making a new engine.....how long and how many games have they been using more of less the same engine for?
Click to expand...

Please, stop buying DLC. Paradox doesn't make sequels until people stop buying DLC.

gamerk2 said:
CK3 was the first game running on a new Engine.

Also, Stellaris runs a TON better now; my 8700k can handle a Huge galaxy without issue.

As for DLC, that's kinda Paradox's thing. You aren't required to buy any of it, but Stellaris in particular benefits from it significantly.
Click to expand...

Modded? I just did a playthrough a month ago, pretty heavily modded, it started bogging down to shit at mid game. I gave up at end game.
 
Master_Pain said:
Modded? I just did a playthrough a month ago, pretty heavily modded, it started bogging down to shit at mid game. I gave up at end game.
Click to expand...
Depends on the mods; obviously more stuff = more lag. But 3.3 is much better then 3.2, which was much better then 3.0. It's been a focus the last few releases.
 
Master_Pain said:
Please, stop buying Stellaris DLC so they make Stellaris 2. They literally have said that they won't make a sequel until people stop buying the DLC.
Click to expand...
Sorry bought the DLC. Game is basically Stellaris 3 with how many reworked systems it has since launch.

A sequel would be nice, would like a completely revamped ground combat system.
 
WarriorX said:
Sorry bought the DLC. Game is basically Stellaris 3 with how many reworked systems it has since launch.

A sequel would be nice, would like a completely revamped ground combat system.
Click to expand...
Stellaris, 3 times as slow, now with an unplayable mid game!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top