Stellaris: Overlord

Pros: -I love the new vassaliztion system, with its specialist empires. They really flushed out one of the more basic systems in the core game. -The new hyperlanes are fantastic. It speeds up space travel in friendly empires, making it much easier to respond to threats. Neutral: -Orbital rings. It's extra micromanagement to make your worlds even more specialized. It's a straight buff, but brings nothing new. The game would be better without. Cons: - STELLARIS HAS TOO MUCH CONTENT. The more content they release for Stellaris, the more compatibility conflicts, and the more bugs. Have federations? One of your federation members might sneak in a "Subjects can join" vote, and then immediately leave with the rest of the federation because they hate your subjects. But that's alright, because you can just have a federation with your subjects that can never leave. Also, if you're playing as an "Inward Perfection" civ, and conquer a specialized vassal, the vassal type will bug out. -The new Megastructure, Quantum Catapult, is the most underwhelming in the game. By the time you can build it, you won't need it. -The new enclaves are as boring as they get. The only "neat" one is the mercenary enclave... except the AI will rent them all out forever. On the rare case you are able to hire a fleet, you better be well below your fleet cap. No telling how much the fleet will count towards it. -The new origins... they sound great, but don't work well in practice. I don't think I'll touch any of them again.

People saying that mods aren't working are simply lying. Everyone being able to read can look it up at the Steam Workshop Downloader website. You can still paste in the link of your desired mod, then the website tells you (after answering the question whether you know what SteamCMD is) step by step how to download the mods the legal way. It's easy enough. True story. Only different than before. But now it's the legal way, and Steam doesn't hinder you from anything. You even use an official cost-free Steam tool. That's it. I downloaded and installed the most recent version of Star Trek: New Horizons base mod plus Federation UI mod (just before writing this review), and it works perfectly. No issues. I am as happy as the other verified owners here on GOG. Nuff said.

Like most Paradox games no DLC for Stellaris is really mandatory but without any the game feels very bland and bare bones. However, not all DLCs are created equal as some have much larger impact on the overall game than others. In my opinion Overlords is in the top three along with Utopia and Apocalypse in terms of gameplay implications. Specialized vassals are quite powerful either as your subjects or when playing as them yourself (great in multiplayer with a friend!). Even more important are Hyper Relays as they speed up fleet movement massively during midgame before Stargates can be deployed. Orbital Rings are an other great improvement for everyone who prefers to build tall. Of course, like all the DLCs by Paradox it is heavyly overpriced and should only be obtained at a discount, therefore I'm subtracting a star

The changes introduced are not substantial enough to warrant the asking price. The new systems... they're there, nothing really more advanced than variations on Federations. Except being subject to a stronger empire gives you godlike bonuses. Being an overlord is meh, though. "Fixed AI" still has nothing on the player paying even fleeting attention. Bug fixes etc are probably nice, but I didn't notice much working any better. New Megastructures seem to me way too superfluous and forcedly implemented just to have something done in that regard. They're either a gimmick or they merely improve slightly something already done with other things. New Origins are OP in modifiers: you get to pick subterranean which makes you good at digging into your planets for defense, or you can be a subject to someone else [a.k.a. the cuckold god], or you get to start already on the path to Psionics - you know the path so OP for early rush it had to be gated behind RNG? Yeahhhhhh On the last and least important note - I keep meeting humanoids who look like the Galaxy has been taken over by Alpha Centauri's Spartans. Can't actually make them look any different in any way which would be funny if it didn't impact negatively the game's only real worth: variety.