Stellaris

buy it. spend 500 hours learning it. get bored for a while, come back. remember nothing. spend 500 more hours relearning it. 12/10

Stellaris is my first real experience with Paradox, and on a larger scale, 4X games in general. I literally don't realize where the hours go when I'm playing it. Extremely deep and detailed mechanics make Stellaris insanely replayable. You'll never run out of ideas to do in a playthrough.
At the time of writing this review I've played the game for 75 hours and I still haven't seen the infamous end-game crisis. Hell, I don't even know how the game ends and someone wins. That's how insanely big it is. I just keep restarting my games in favor of implementing a better idea, only for it to fail even more miserably :D
Be warned though, you'll have to give it time, maybe watch a few tutorials as well. So the barrier to entry, on a complexity level alone, is already high. And is made even higher with Paradox's business model for the game and its DLCs. You simply don't want to spend that much money on a single game. I get that. So if you do decide to give Stellaris a shot, I'd recommend picking up the Starter Edition and then expanding your collection with each discount sale (Stellaris goes on sale a lot) if you enjoy it.

I have played this game quite a bit. It's a great game. It's deep and engaging and everything I like about a 4X game. I played Master of Orion when it was released, I have been hooked on space civilization games for a very long time. So, of course I will recommend this game because it is a very good and well made game.
Having stated all this: I want Paradox to stop adding to this game - I really despise this "new" business model of continual development. It's a bit much. Expansion Packs were a concession at first for Devs and Players to build on enjoyable success - but not these projects are designed to never be finished.
- It wreaks havoc in the modding arena because the player base eventually gets spread over varying DLCs.
- it is has questionable value over time because invariably some of the DLCs are not worth the coin.
- it is off putting - who wants to play a game without buying all the DLCs - many will simply choose not to and move on to a newer title.
tldr: Great game, stop with the DLC deluge - the business model ruins the fun.

TLDR; Stellaris is incredibly fun and allows for many playstyles and an unrivaled amount of customization, but don't get it if you don't have the patience or if you aren't prepared to shell out quite a bit of money (or wait for sales).


I just reached 1000 hours in this game so I thought I would write a review finally. I will probably have to change it soon though since tomorrow is the release of the 4.0 update.

Stellaris is a very fun game to play on your own or with other people (if you can ever get someone to play with you) and I would absolutely recommend it. That being said there are a few things. Stellaris is not a game for people who like completing a match in half an hour, which makes sense because it's a strategy game. You can play it for like half an hour at a time but a full game of Stellaris can take days to finish if you have it on the default time settings. Also the DLC scheme is a little annoying. The base game is really not worth paying 50$ for if you aren't going to buy at least a few DLC over time. I would recommend waiting for a sale to buy it since you need at least like 3 of the DLC for it to be enjoyable long term.

Now that I've gotten the bad out of the way there are a lot of great things about the game:

1. Replayability: Replayability in a game is really important and Stellaris has a lot of it. Every time you play the galaxy is completely different with different events, systems, planets, and empires. Even if you played the exact same empire every time your experience between two games would be fairly different.

2. Customization: my favorite part of Stellaris is how customizable it is. I went into the game expecting it to be like a lot of strategy games with a few empires you can play as. The game is way different and allows you to completely create your empire from scratch; including your species, your government type and ideals, your origin which can drastically change your playstyle, and the look of your units and flag and stuff. In one playthrough you can play as a peaceful race of bird-people with psionic powers, and in another you can play as a collective of mass murdering machines who kill everything that breathes.

3. Appeal to different playstyles: Stellaris is a game that can be fun for very different people with different wants out of a game. If you are interested in being a peaceful nation of diplomats there are very in-depth mechanics that deal with diplomacy. If you like trade and capitalism then there you can do a lot of that. If you like playing strategy games just to murder everyone then you can be a purifier and go total war on everyone with the in-depth war mechanics.

4. Mechanics: the mechanics of Stellaris are very original in a lot of ways. The tech "tree" is more random and has a lot of mechanics dedicated to getting research of different types and specializing leaders to get the techs you want. The tradition tree mechanic gives you cool ways to customize the ideals of your nation and get different bonuses depending on how you want to play. You also get ascension perks for completing them which give you interesting new mechanics or massive bonuses. The game doesn't do turns or grids but instead uses an interconnected web of systems that ships can move about freely, and has everything happen in real time instead of being turn-based. I could go on and on about all the interesting and original mechanics but basically its very good and fun.

Basically Stellaris is a must have for anyone who likes any kind of strategy or roleplay, but requires a bit of a monetary investment.


If you have decided to get the game then this is the part where I give unsoliscited advice on which DLCs to get (you're gonna need a few). These are my top 10.

1. Utopia:
Basically everyone says to get Utopia first. This is for good reason because without it you basically aren't playing stellaris.

2. Machine age:
Machine age is a massive addition to stellaris. The DLC adds machine empires (as an alternative to synthetic dawn). It adds the cybernetic and synthetic ascensions which are super good. It adds a new megastructure that produces some minerals (arc furnace), 3 new fun origins, and a new Crisis path that allows you to leave the universe for a better one while annihilating the old one and anyone who stands in your path.

3. Federations:
Federations is important not just because of the mechanics, but also because of the origins. Federations adds the most origins of any DLC (8) and almost all of them are fun. It also adds federations (duh) which allows you to become allied with other empires and get useful bonuses.


4. Megacorp:
some people don't like megacorp (they are wrong) but personally it is my favorite way to play. Megacorp adds a few great things. It adds Ecuminopolis worlds which are worlds that are encased in a massive city, it adds a bunch of megastructures, it adds the caravaneers which are like space vegas, and finally it adds Megacorps. Megacorps are a style of government where you are governed by a massive company. This is THE DLC for trade empires and is a must have if you like money.

5. Overlord:
Overlord is a great DLC if you like conquering and war because it expands the vassal system. Even if you don't like war this is a good DLC to get because it adds the conclaves. The conclaves are independant groups that help you in different ways.

6. Paragons:
I didn't get why paragons was so useful until I actually got it. The DLC makes leaders actually good by letting you choose which skills they get as they level up. It also adds some cool leaders who you can hire periodically which can be really great.

7. Grand Archive:
I would put this one on par with Paragons honestly. Grand Archive adds a few really cool things. First of all the archive itself gives you a fun scavenger hunt to find specimens which give you good bonuses. The DLC also adds two more types of space fauna who are really cool, and even adds space fauna as ships which are a different and really fun way to play (though they may be overshadowed when Biogenesis releases).

8. Ancient Relics, Leviathans, & Distant stars:
These three DLCs are all basically on par. Ancient relics adds a ton of new archeological sites, and relics which make for powerful bonuses. It also improves the precursor system by a ton. Leviathans adds massive space entities that rival planets in size and adds a fun challenge to fight them. Distant stars adds a whole host of new features. It adds the L-Gates which are a really cool mid-game event. It also adds a huge host of new anomalies, special interactions, and interesting scenarios over the galaxy.

9. Nemesis:
Nemesis is such a cool DLC to play if you want to become the Crisis. It was the first DLC to add a crisis path and it is genuinely a very fun path. The Crisis path allows an empire to make entire star systems go supernova one by one in order to collect enough dark matter to build the aetherophasic engine and rip a whole in the universe. This DLC adds some cool interactions with the galactic community as well. The only snag is that cracking star systems goes from "super cool" to "boring and tedious" quickly once you need to crack like 100 of them.

10. Synthetic Dawn:
Synthetic Dawn is the OG robots DLC. It adds the machine intelligence government and robots, as well as a ton of interesting civics for robots. Obviously now Machine Age adds robots but you should still get this DLC eventually because it adds a bunch more stuff (Driven assimilator, 2 Origins by 4.0, and a genocidal civic for bots).

All the other DLC are kind of whatever or just didn't make top ten. I would especially avoid cosmic storms, some of the species packs (Necroid, Aquatic, and Toxoid are the cool ones imo), and Apocolypse because you never actually use any of the stuff in it.

WARNING: PARADOX GAMES HAVE TONS OF SCAM DLC. YOU DO NOT NEED ALL OR MOST OF THEM TO ENJOY THE GAME. To make it easier for you, here are some DLCs I think you SHOULD buy and DLCs I personally enjoy that you shouldn't necessarily buy if you don't want. I advise you to BUY ALL DLC ON SALE.

You SHOULD buy: Utopia, Federations, Synthetic Dawn, Leviathans, and The Machine Age.
I personally enjoy: MegaCorps, Humanoids Pack, Necroids Pack.

That aside, the game is complicated but unlike some other Paradox games can be picked up quickly and the game has many mechanics to forgive the player for not understanding or engaging with other mechanics. Following the advice above, I think you will find it fulfills all your Sci-Fi Space Empire fantasies. As a great space man once said, "this is where the fun begins."

How to play:
1. learn how to play the game
2. find out about "the meta"
3. go to try out "the meta", game updates as you open it.
4. what
5. learn how to play the game again

>Be Stellaris
>245 different species
>Hundreds of star systems
>Thousands of mods
>Huge replayability
>Hundreds of different ways to play the game
>Game full of oppertunities and different stories to be told
>Be me
>Still only play Xenophobic Imperial Humans
>Still buy all species packs so I am able to exterminate them to
10/10 would purge again