Recent reviews by Ж Taeryc Ж

I think I'm just starting to understand the game now.

Solid surprise tactical RTS. Decent troop customization involving things such as veterancy, unit upgrades and acquisition (including taking them from the battlefield!, overall not expected at all, and including the fine detail of renaming units.

Campaign is decent, though the story that I experienced is a bit rote - some obvious splinter points involving choice are available, though I'm unsure how much it changes the main thread of the story, but I imagine it can be impactful especially involving what units you could acquire. It can be a bit buggy and/or difficult at times but im not particularly adept, neither have an insurmountable effect on the overall ability to progress and the former will no doubt be fixed, and hasn't caused any game over issues.

Solid recommend for anyone into this type of game.

Stellaris starts strong, putting you in charge of a pre-made race that populates the new game screen, or more interestingly, one of the many combinations that can be made to make your own unique race or variety of human, with various traits and ethics and bonuses from government forms.

The early-game is very much exploration and colonisation, with a variety of alien life not of another empire and the various event mechanics put to good use in anomalies that pop up as you survey. There are others that occur, tied to your colonies either through the previous anomalies discovering something or their own, seperate unique chains. Anomalies can range from everything to a resource or research boon, either on the planet or to your stockpile, to out-right changing some world's biosphere's or sending you to discover the secrets of a precursor race, something full of lore that kept my attention through many ingame decades.

The tech tree is "randomized" with a "card" system that draws 3, or more depending on certain techs or government types, cards, allowing you to choose from a selection of techs. You'll eventually see most of the techs - but some are tied to certain ethics and will never be seen whilst playing an opposing one, while others are rare and can take many a shuffle to re-appear. The tech tree also continues beyond actual techs, to minimally rewarding "buff" statistics. This system is a good compromise between meaningless stat buffs, a randomized tech tree, and a straight up "plow through this in the most efficient way possible". The tech system as such gets a solid thumbs up from me, but others may get frustrated by the random nature of it. This is complimented by a debris system where destroyed ships and stations add techs - don't forget to scroll the tech cards to see!

The mid-game is where Stellaris begins to lose some of its glamour. The galaxy fills with empires and many a time, you're cut off from exploring. There are still a few events, typically colony ones, here and there, but it becomes a period of saturising your own territory and often war for wars own sake. Personally, I like to fill this time with uplifting - a process of technological enlightenment for some of the planets in the galaxy that start with their own, pre-ftl or spaceflight civilizations (how cool is that?!) and a few rare worlds with pre-sentient races that require genetic modification. This part of the game is particularly weak, and some of the flaws in the systems meant to ease micromanagement falter.

The late-game becomes a traditional game of jockeying for power, with wars now serving a purpose of dealing with real rivals and threats that the mid-game doesn't quite seem to give. Most importantly, the true end-game crises begin in 2 flavours. The game has 3 end-game crises, that I won't spoil, that really shake things up, providing they don't stall out against a Fallen Empire - the other "end game". The end-game crises can wipe out old rivals and new friends alike. Don't underestimate them if they end up on your door and you're not prepared. Sadly due to the Fallen Empire mechanics currently crises can suffer if forced to push through one of these.

Fallen Empire's constitute the other, ever-present problem. Coming in four varities with differing views on the galaxy, each knowable by hovering over their "attitude type" in the diplomacy screen and from experience of them telling you exactly what they dont like - typically followed by the hammer. They exist from the start of the game and represent the apex of technology, though they have the full tech tree researched, they don't research any further than that. Provided you don't evoke their wrath, build up and take them on for valuable worlds and, if you're lagging behind in tech but adept at strategy and tactics, scanning their debris can offer you a leg up.

At this point, the galaxy is what you make of it and imagination and roleplay help. Stellaris features victory screens, but seem to be largely pointless.

There are lots of little things and systems inside the game I havn't touched upon here that I would encourage you to seek out and enjoy, particularly special systems that spawn, systems such as slavery and, of course, genocide, though you know, be nice! Even with all my time in the game, I'm still uncovering new things and experiencing new events and new emergent stories.

Also, you can have an actual Earth with the proper texture, what's not to love? Oh, and if you're aliens.. Sol is out there somewhere!

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Pros:
-A Strong Start, with fun customization leading to your own, unique characterization, particularly as you explore and pull back the veil.
-Damn pretty for a Clausewitz game. Most of the game is wonderful to look at.
-Lots of little touches and in particular some of the events and anomalies add atmosphere
-Fallen Empire's offer a unique twist to the galaxy
-Tech and debris offer an enjoyable overall system
-You can build robots and give them rights.
-End-Game Crises shake up the late-game galaxy.
-A fantastic emergent storyline that arises out of these systems can lead to great ~roleplay~ if you care for that.
-Multiplayer is incredibly stable.
-Game is stable in general.
-Moddability.

Cons:
-Sector AI is wonky and the AI in general can be wonky.
-Galaxy can become static, though this is largely due to the game seeming to love to fill it with pacifists, a minor deviation from this pacifists for all makes things much more violent - and even pacifists go to war. It's a problem I've not noticed but one I know occurs.
-AI is slow to expand. It doesn't weight certain colony techs as high as a player would and consequently takes it's time. It will, however, do so en masse in time.
-A few minor localization bugs and one rather moderate multiplayer bug I've found, though it doesn't affect stability.
-Combat a little wonky and brawly.
-Slaves can't currently rebel, making this broken if you min-max that route.

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I've mentioned a few of the flaws in this as we've gone through. Critically, mid-game suffers from not being fleshed out as the early game, nor with the threats posed in the late game. This is being somewhat addressed by the upcoming 1.1 patch, and should be treated accordingly.

Some say the universe feels a little lifeless without civilian traffic and such - this is hopefully being made an addition in 1.3, but is not "critical".

The 1.1 patch will also address a number of small AI issues, and larger ones related to sector management. Personally, I've noted lots of minor niggling flaws that I essentially could argue as being "inefficient" - and so I just let the sector AI do what it wants, but understand the problems others have.

One major stumbling block is currently how end-game crises are treated as "wildlife" and not at war with AI empires, allowing things such as the "at peace" fallen empire fleet respawn to occur, thus preventing the crises from knocking them out, as well as how the AI empires in general only react to the end-game crises assaults if they are actively threatening important worlds. This is hopefully being fixed, for the latter, in 1.1.

The mid-game slump is also due to be addressed by the 1.2 patch, with further flavour and life added in 1.3 - you may wish to hold off on your purchase till 1.1, if not 1.2.

Stellaris is a solid game, and despite its flaws and small bugs, though sometimes numerous, are all easily redeemable. Critically, none of the problems seem to be with the core mechanics and more with execution and the always tempermental AI.

Currently, a lot of mods address issues and add new gameplay. This is a blessing for the moddability and future of the game - but also a remark on how some dislike the combat, so go in with eyes wide open.

This is easily a recommendable purchase, but for those who want a "cleaner" experience I do advise waiting until 1.2. 1.1 if you can forgive a slower mid-game.

More like Europa AWESOMESALIS IV!

Simply Fantastical.

Do you like City Building? Then you'll probably like this on some level.
Do you like a bit of micromanagement, but not crazy amounts? You'll like this probably.
Do you like optimizing supply chains like some kind of crazy product line manager to please everyone? Then boy, you're in luck!

Oh, you like nuclear bombs? Well, it has those too!

GET THIS GAME. GET IT. SHUT UP. GET IT NOW.

SimCity 4, what better way to use up time than sorting through thousands of modpacks then building a megalopolis.

More like Sid Meier's AWESOME V

More like Rome: Total AWESOME - DOUBLE AWESOME Edition.

Anyone who hasnt played this hasnt lived.

Thats right, you're dead. And you're not even a zombie. For shame.