Stellaris

So I've had this on my wish list for a long time and it's on sale this weekend on Steam. Lots of negative reviews related to the 2.0 patch now though, so I'm wondering what you guys think. I tend to really enjoy Paradox grand strategy games like CK and EU. Is this still a buy, or did they screw it up with the recent updates?

Before 1.0, the game was very open. You could play tall, you could play wide. Cap fleet was much looser, research was faster, exploration was significantly faster. You could set games to Hyperlane, Jump, or Wormhole styles (or mix all of them) - to give variation/limit to how movement would happen.

After 2.0, they severely nerfed fleet cap, research suffers more from population, exploration can only be done by science ships. Travel is only by hyperlanes until the very end of the game.

I have played one total game of it since 2.0 came out and I did not even finish it, compared to the 270 hours I put into it previously.

Look at the number of negative reviews before 2.0... and look at the number after. Mind boggling.



And of course, Paradox has refused to walk back the changes. We will see how well their next DLC for it sells.

It is a shame. I REALLY enjoyed Stellaris. It was the best space 4x in the last decade.

FWIW I noticed a ton of negative reviews were about a chinese specific issue.

Thanks guys. I definitely noticed the reviews for the lack of a chinese localization too. I was just interested in the opinions of the folks here. This helps a lot. I may hold off a while to see if they wind up making some additional changes that smooth things over before purchasing.

Post 2.0 is just way too micro. It's tedious. Games like Hearts of Iron have a lot of macro level stuff so you can avoid tedium if the choices aren't interesting to you.

Game is just too slow. No idea why EU4 is fine late game but S slows to a crawl.

sadris said:

Game is just too slow. No idea why EU4 is fine late game but S slows to a crawl.

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The number of pops and tiles that the AI needs to consider or simulate for explodes in the late game as every planet gets colonized. The difference is very noticeable if you play on a small galaxy vs a larger one.

Apocalypse mitigated that quite a bit tho. I've had several playthroughs on large galaxies now and it's nowhere as bad as it was.

Sadly it's probably because of forced hyperlane-only travel....so the trade-off isn't worth it. I'd gladly go back to playing medium galaxies if they reverted back to three travel options.

Really digging the new DLC but holy shit this early-game (more like pre-midgame) kicked my ass. I went with a tech build to maximise the exploration phase so I wasn't ready for it at all.

Started a new robot game and I know how much this forum likes meme magic so had to post this screen of the neighboring system to my capital, this might end up as too easy of a run.

Careful now, rhis thread triggers the politics-containment nazis.

Onigen said:

Started a new robot game and I know how much this forum likes meme magic so had to post this screen of the neighboring system to my capital, this might end up as too easy of a run.
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Man, that would be amazing to have spawn next to you. Especially as a robot race.

Dioblaire said:

Man, that would be amazing to have spawn next to you. Especially as a robot race.

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Yeah no kidding. A 4 planet system is a real good start

I just won as a devouring swarm on a medium galaxy around 2560ish....was a fun game that dragged for a bit since the Scourge are kinda crazy in 2.0.... but it was remarkable that there was VERY LITTLE SLOWDOWN even at the height of of the Crisis.

I was a devouring hive-mind so the whole galaxy was united me against for most the game but when the scourge game everyone went neutral. During the big battles with the enemy federation's 400k+ swarms + my 400k swarms vs the Praethoryn it dipped my framerate a bit but the actual game didn't slow down or get very choppy at all.

Last game I finished was prior to 2.1 and although there was some improvement, the game still slowed down in the endgame. Now I only noticed it because some guys on reddit said that the new 2.1.1 beta patch is even more improved.

I'm excited for the changes in base design. Instead of laying-out every building, its just a simple boolean. I'm hoping it will vastly speed up the game.