Stellaris: Galaxy Edition

I own this on Steam. I owned it before it was fully released and ever since too. I've invested hundreds of hours in it only to discover endless series of mission-ruining, strategy-impairing, and game-breaking bugs and scripting errors, play-balance issues and like kinds of frustrating, enjoyment-robbing issues with the software. Paradox's strategy seems to be to shut-down and shut-up all criticism of the company in view of the fact they know their software is flawed. It maintains tight control of their forums and even Steam pages to this end. It's as if they're engaging in a bizarre, almost mafia-esque campaign to shutter dissent or serious representations demanding accountability for their practices. Were it not a computer game company (allegedly,) one would hardly be misled believing something worse was behind it! Try criticizing them or their products yourself if you care to get a taste of this treatment and don't believe me! If they're willing to put that much effort into stamping out objections to their policies, I can only imagine what type of company this must be to work for or go up against in their native Sweden! One gets the impression they must enjoy some kind of protected status based on their behavior as a company. In any case, having tried over years now on versions ranging from .8 all the way to 2.2 to enjoy a playthrough without recurring issues with poorly-designed AI, disjunctions in everything from ship transit times, fleet movement behavior and related processes especially related to scripted/scenario events, (not to mention all the one-off undocumented, oftentimes inexplicable no-go travel/selection and AI privilege/cheating bugs/design weaknesses) I can only say it's been a huge exercise in frustration really trying to play this as a game and not an endless beta mess. Their endless "updates" break mods that were the only things keeping it working! The DLC's therefore end up really being only an on-going cash-grab scam. In all recommend avoid!

As many other reviewers have already stated, this is just the standard game with a couple of cosmetic (some exclusive playable race portraits) and out-of-the-game features (OST, novel, poster, etc.). The game itself is fun, lets you create your own space empire and explore your galaxy. It's got beautiful visuals and a nice soundtrack. Problem is, without the DLCs, it feels - as is - kinda empty. You'd think that with a title like "Galaxy Edition", they'd include all of the DLCs (it'd cost way more, obviously), but no, it's just a small improvement over the base game, as mentioned, a couple of cosmetics and some out-of-game content. If you're a completionist collector, go ahead and buy it, but otherwise, save yourself the trouble (and money) and maybe buy just the standard edition, which is, ironically, just a couple of dollars cheaper. Kinda makes you wonder what this additional content is worth at all.

Once this game was THE Space Strategy. It had the similar impact and promises as Master of Orion 2 had decade before. It was huge. Full with possibilities. Offered three main different strategy style as players and AI could choose from three different travelling mechanism: 1. jump/warpdrive 2. black hole network 3. space pathways Guess what happened at 2.0? The devs removed the first two solution and forced everybody to... defend choke points. In the Space. Where you can travel in 3D. Chokepoints. Of course the game became very dull and shallow and nothing changed since then. Yes, you can invent the original two travelling methods, but with very strong limitations and not before the mid-game. Of course there are tons of content with DLCs. Of course you are given the illusion of hundreds of different gaming experience because you can make your own empire. Do you want a xenophil psyonic race with a civilization based upon slavery? Go on. Or you want an undead civilization with strong spirituality and mercantilism? As you wish. The problem is that these are just cosmetics. None of them gives any real, meaningful differences, because... well because you have to build up the very similar planetary economies, you have to invent the very similar technologies, and frankly - there will be always at least one neighbour who will have got several advantages miracolously. Till the midgame you will run out of - anomalies to research - archaeological places to explore - rare technologies to discover After a while you will find the micromanagement of planets utmost boring (except if you love micromanagement) and the spave battles will be simply "who got more ships" because the technological similarity. There are no tactics, no sabotage, no cloaking, no organic technology - nothing. Just medieval massacre at space choke points... Boring. After two or three start you will uninstall the game and forget it.

The business management of Paradox Interactive is a real tragedy. It's the worst kind of greedy incompetent spineless destroyers with zero respect for art that make such horrendous moneymilking decisions without bating an eye. Like now trying to sell a game with 75% discount thinking no one will notice they have to pay dozens times more for dozens of DLCs. I feel sorry for any developer that ended up working there. Run before your artistic soul burns out completely! I just can't understand how desperate someone could be to work for a company that sacks a main game designer and a father of Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines long before the sequel is finished. People being ignorant about supporting such business models and practices by buying their products is another tragedy.