I’m super excited for this title, any other fans of it, 4X space games, or Paradox titles out there?
So what is it, for those who don’t know?
A fresh new take on space 4X and Grand Strategy games. The game is deeper than your average 4X, but there’s been considerable effort made to make the game much more accessible than Paradox’s other Grand Strategy titles. The UI looks like something a 4X gamer would be more accustomed to seeing, for one, and the various systems are introduced organically as you play - which is another feature of the game - the systems change and interact in new ways as the game progresses, leading to entirely new types of challenges for you to assail as your empire expands.
For example, populations aren’t just little guys you move around your tiles to produce food or money or industry, they have their own ideologies and those ideologies can change as they adapt to new worlds and to an evolving galactic political scape, as well as your own decisions. They might band together to form political coalitions, they might change genetically as bio-science improves, and they will react differently to various external and internal stimuli: war, influx of alien citizens, political alliances, etc.
In these types of games technology tends to play a big part, and it’s no different in Stellaris, But here, unlike in most other 4X space games, there is a random element to the technologies your civilization develops. There are things you can do to stack the deck in a particular direction, but new discoveries can be unpredictable, just like in real life. Some technologies can’t even be researched, but can instead be uncovered as a result of the trials and tribulations of space exploration. Anomalies, for example, can lead you down scientific “quest” lines than can culminate in discovering ancient alien technology, or in knocking a nearby planet off its orbit to cause havock in a system.
Other civilizations can be extremely varied in their makeup: political, genetic, military, as well as in their disposition. You might encounter isolationist xenophobes which will want nothing to do with you, or aliens that will jump at the chance to form a federation of worlds. Pre-FTL civilizations who can offer all sorts of possibilities to your colonists, or ancient civilizations who were once masters of the galaxy, but are now Rome with barbarians at the gate. Traders, warmongers, zealots, the possibilities are limitless.
Planets offer yet another multi-faceted system to play around with. Terra-forming planets is very HARD in Stellaris, so planets capable of sustaining life are precious, and they each offer various possible scenarios when encountered. Do you study pre-FTL civilizations to glean something of interest to sociologists? Do you oppress them, or kill them? Or do you welcome them into your galactic empire? Perhaps a particular planet is just just not hospitable to your species, but you might posses the technology to raise a native one to sentience, or maybe sending in robots to colonize might be a good option.
And that brings me to the various stages of the game. At the beginning you are exploring the galaxy, meeting new cultures and expanding your empire. The middle game is about dealing with internal factions and external politics, as well as facing the possibility of wars. The end game can have you dealing with an empire on the brink of civil war, or a coalition of civilizations led by that one species that still remember how you probed them in the nethers when they were pre-FTL. And it can also be about dealing with a Galaxy wide crisis. Those robot you sent to Colonize Polaris IV? Well, they and a bunch of other AI’s around the galaxy have gained sentience and are ready to purge the galaxy of all disgusting meatbags. Or perhaps the Galaxy has been careful not to develop AI too much/too fast, but look, invaders from another galaxy with unheard of tech have reached us, and they mean business.
From their website:
Main Features
[ul]
[li]Anomaly Events – Strange discoveries offer emergent storytelling. [/li][li]Deep & Varied Exploration. [/li][li]Enormous procedural galaxies, containing thousands of planets. [/li][li]Numerous playable species, each with their own traits and engineering styles. [/li][li]Vast number of Unique Random Species. [/li][li]Advanced Diplomacy system. [/li][li]Ship Designer (even civilian ships can be customized). [/li][li]Stunning space visuals. [/li][li]Up to 32 player Multiplayer.[/li][/ul]
I’m super excited about this game, in case you couldn’t tell! Unfortunately I was going to link to a video showing off some of the game, but it’s been pulled down, and won’t be available until tomorrow. I’ll link once it’s up.
Trailers:
Announcement - STELLARIS - Reveal Teaser - GAMESCOM 2015 - YouTube
This guy on reddit, https://www.reddit.com/user/Gargou_MotW, has a PDF with all of the developer blogs of the game so far. Great stuff to go through here if you’re interested: Dropbox - Stellaris Dev Diaries.pdf - Simplify your life