Stellaris

The game constantly stops launching, demanding that I accept new Terms & Conditions before I can play it again. I'm fed up - I accept no more T&C! I regret having given them even just the validation of having sold a copy while they keep treating their paying customers like their little beaches.

After playing the game for a bit I can't really say I recommend it for this price. - The game is extremely shallow. There are some interesting 'events' happening but for the majority of them you'll get a generic bonus. After the first 1-2 games you're probably going to ignore the flavor text and just click next, get the reward and go on. - Very limited without DLC and each DLC by itself adds very little content. This really feels like a game cut into pieces and sold separately. There are free mods that add more content than the DLCs... And since I mentioned mods : most of the modding scene seems to revolve around steam workshop so you might not even get those (Paradox's mod site is a joke at this time. Not sure if they are investing into it). There are ways around this but they are a pain and kinda shady so it's up to you. - The races have no real diversity (Especially if you don't get some DLC ones). The same anthropomorphic entities everywhere. And with genetic engineering you can literally make ALL races the same - Tech tree always ends up the same. You might take different paths but you'll never play a game where, let's say, you only get kinetic weapons or only laser weapons. In general each game is pretty much the same thing with different minor events (and due to point 1, you will quickly get tired of them too) - The tutorial SUCKS. All in all, only buy this game if you have a sci-fi itch that you cannot scratch and you're the type of person that buys very few games and gets heavily invested into them. The game is the 'make your own rules' type of game where you might decide to be a peaceful technocrat in one or a xenophobic slaver in the next and make your own fun. PS: If you decide to lookup gameplay online, keep in mind how many DLCs the person that's playing has installed and how much money you'll have to invest to get the same result. The game you buy might not be the same as the one you saw. Also, they fixed end-game performance issues.

Want to play as a Hive Mind? How's about utilizing a planet killing weapon to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies? Maybe assemble your very own Ringworld or Dyson's sphere? Fight gigantic space leviathans? Or just give it all up to play as a galaxy spanning devouring swarm that goes planet to planet eating your enemies? Maybe space borne Necromancers sound a bit more to your liking? Well I hope you're willing to pay at least $30-40 extra for those features because they're not in the base game. Stellaris is primarily a DLC marketing tool. The game will show you all the neat features you simply do not own and even go so far as to suggest stuff from DLC you do not own in an attempt to literally market you content while you create your first race to play as because you had the audacity to not buy all the DLC. I also hope you're ready for the same game breaking AI bugs that have been around since launch and the worst implemented war system I have ever had the displeasure of playing with. To put it simply, this game has a balancing mechanic called War Exhaustion. Wanted to role play as the Zerg or the Borg and go around assimilating or devouring the galaxy? Say hello to War Exhaustion! It is entirely a mechanic to keep players from ROFL-stomping the galaxy because the AI cannot keep up with you. This balancing mechanic is to ensure players can't become too powerful or ever feel powerful. What's that? You conquered all their planets and all destroyed their fleets? Too bad! You lose the war because they managed to kill off three corvettes and conquer this backwater planet that only produces alloys. Now you have to forcibly settle for the 'status quo.' Too bad galaxy spanning devouring swarm that eats everything it touches! You'll just have to try again later to eat my face because I am being defended by an arbitrary mechanic to keep you from having fun!

Impossible to support a developer which takes this approach to releasing their games, when the base game plus all the DLC will set you back more than €200. The problem here isn't continuing to support an initial release with 'added' content, as the developer and publisher will claim. The problem here is that based on experience from other Paradox games, all the DLC is actually needed to make the base game worthwhile playing. In this particular genre of space strategy games, there are far better and more 'complete' alternatives, all of which are available at a fraction of the cost. Part of the problem is that in other grand strategy gaming genres, Paradox have created somewhat of a niche, which they seem only too willing to exploit to the maximum. They do create some excellent games, however, their approach to releasing required content makes it hard to justify the eventual final cost. I prefer to support alternative, more fairly priced games and developers instead.

The game delivers a decent Master of Orion experience but the later gameplay is just plain tedious. Here are some of its problems: - Planetary and resource management is complicated. 25 hours into the game I still do not understand it. - The in-game documentation is lacking. The provided tutorial offers some hints but many important aspects (e.g. resource, war and diplomacy) do not become clear. I had to frequently browse wiki sites instead. - War rules just suck. After a certain time you are forced to make peace. You may loose whole occupied sectors that you controlled for year just because you did not had the resource required to "claim" the systems. - Relocating ships takes forever. This is especially bothersom if you happen to start at rim of the universe. Then your territory might well stretch into a belt. Moving your army from one end of the belt to the other takes years. When your fleet arrives at its destination its ship designs will most likely be outdated and the forced peace period on the front they just left will be over. - Having more than one effective fleet seems impossible due to the cost involved. - Even with auto managed sectors, developing your empires is complicated and get quickly out of hand. And did I mention that resource management is a complicated mess? Appart from the games flaws, I am insulted by the DLC rip-off! You can easily tank twice as much money into the DLC as into the main game. Most of the DLC do not offer much, just a few missions. At worse they include game-mechanics which should have been in the main game. I would have rated the game three stars, recommending it to MOO-fans. But because of the DLC-ripoff its only two.