Metacritic is going for 79 right now. Even the more-positive reviews, however, seem to acknowledge the problems if you read between the lines.
I read all the reviews, they all say pretty much the exact same thing but come to vastly different conclusions. Basically, it had the problem I anticipated from the Blorg stream and prerelease LPs: the inter-empire diplomacy isn’t as fleshed out as EU4, so you once you get past the colonization/expansion phase the game slows way down and you don’t have as many ways to deal with it as you do in EU4.
Federations also seem a bit dumb unless you’re playing multiplayer, there’s no way to tell the AI you want something.
The game probably needs a diplomacy patch, especially if they add some EU4 features like declaring systems of interest. I’ll post my own thoughts after I play, though.
However, the late-game seems to be better with the empire collapse and end-game event mechanics like the AI revolts, it just seems like there’s a bit of a slump in the middle.
I’m interested in the idea of creating your own aliens. I’m already thinking of how to make a Stellaris Mass Effect universe.
I haven’t got it yet though. The only thing putting me off is the arbitrary limits they put on things like embassies, sectors and controllable planets.
I am having so much fun with this game. I’ve already put 8 hours into it, half in single player and half in a 3 man multi player game. It’s really excellent.
It should be really easy to mod the caps on those things. I don’t know if the game would be balanced around it, but you could do it easily.
Well, I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far. My first race got lucky, started up in one end of a largely empty spiral arm with lots of room to grow, and even when I found other empires they were mostly friendly due to having similar-ethos too.
I had a few false starts in my first hours of play. I kept restarting because I wanted to try a different trait or ethos. I think I’m going to stick with my current game, because I suspect that I got very lucky in terms of starting conditions.
This version of the Sol system is extremely rich in minerals, with my stations extracting 15 units per month. On top of that, Director Andrew Dyson gives me a discount to the cost of mining stations, so I’m practically swimming in minerals (at least by very early game standards). I’ve actually had my constructor ship remain idle for a while, though, because no other star systems fell within my borders and I didn’t want to jump the gun with some poorly placed frontier outposts.
I’ve just recently managed to send out a few colony ships. The first went to an enormous planet in the Sirius system to establish the appropriately named colony of Pangaea. The second went to Alpha Centauri to found New Roanoke. A third colony ship will be sent to Procyon before too long.
There seem to be a lot of space-dwelling creatures to the “north” of my empire. Giant amoebas and crystals and even stranger things. I thought about culling them, but they may serve as an unofficial barrier between The United Nations of Earth and the Havoll Confederated States. They don’t like us. We get along a bit better with the Imperium of Gavaz’Xull and the Republican Hiffnar States, but not by much. It’s early days yet, though.
Will Stellaris support successor games as easily as other Paradox games have?
You mean like a CK to EU save file migration?
Kicked it off last night and lost 3 hours just mucking about trying to craft the Vool Unification. I only restarted about 3 times just trying to get a feel for exploration, what to run first, how to best kill my science ships etc.
Lots of fun so far.
I’m building up a fleet now. I’ve mostly cleared out the space monsters from my neighborhood. I’ve recently invented UV lasers and destroyer-class ships; as soon as I get a few new warships built, I’ll see about showing the Havoll Confederated States who’s boss.
As a result of what is almost definitely a glitch, I’ve encountered a spooky double of the Sol system. In this one, “Sol III” is a tomb world whose inhabitants killed each other in a nuclear war. Seems like as good a place as any to build a frontier outpost.
I’ve just finished founding my sixth colony on a small gaia planet in the strangely empty expanse to the “west” of my territory. I guess I’ll have to see how much of a pain it is to establish sectors and whatnot.
No, sorry. I mean passing off save files from one player to another so that Dopers (or whomever) can take turns playing the same Empire over a long period of time. In CK and EU this was done by playing until a ruler died. I suppose different parameters would have to be used in this game.
If it’s a democracy you could probably do until someone else is elected or dies (which would make me actually want to do one of the mandates).
Mwa ha ha! The Havoll Confederacy is no more! That’ll teach 'em to declare a rivalry against me out of the blue. Now to decide whether to purge them or just enslave them.
I must say that I’m a little relieve that war goals are far less restrictive than cassus belli in the other Paradox games. I just announced that I would be taking all three Havoll planets. I couldn’t find a war score readout, which I was expecting. Shortly after I successfully occupied their homeworld, they surrendered, though.
It exists - I saw it in the Blorg stream. I haven’t been in a war yet so I don’t know where it is, though.
Has anyone gotten into the mid-game? I’d like to hear some Doper opinions about the negatives expressed in some of the reviews, especially in comparison to other Paradox games (which I’ve enjoyed).
I’ve played for about 6 hours and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I just now started diplomacy with a few other factions, and have mostly been spending my time having fun building up my little corner of the galaxy. I also just started dabbling with the ship designer, which is great fun, specially when you get your ass kicked by space whales, then you comeback with a better design and eradicate the pests.
I keep forgetting to look at the right panel for some reason. There’s useful info there, like when a ship is idling. Also, it looks like you need to be playing in ironman mode for achievements. Wish I would have known that!
The music is so fantastic I created a playlist for the commute tomorrow 
The mid game does bog down a bit, the diplomacy system is very weak in comparison to CK or EU, and there is no espionage whatsoever. I’m still enjoying myself, but I see where they are coming from.
The things my society (The Shellback Empire) have discovered are amazing, but they have never grasped fusion reactors for spaceships! So many fission batteries to power these battleships makes for very few shields! I’m about to start a war and see if I can scrap someone else’s fusion reactor.
Ah, so the warscore button is in the bottom right.
I got kind of blindsided by the Condign Pact, a coalition of not-that-strong alien races that are mad at me for genociding the Havoll. I sent part of my fleet west to guard that front from the weakest member of the coalition, and the rest north into enemy territory. The bastards outlfanked me and beat me back to the Sol system. They blew up my best shipyard, right as I was about to develop cruiser hulls. There was a bit of a dustup near Luna, and they hightailed it back to Vool space. I chased down some stragglers, but I think their main fleet is still out there.
I scrambled to build some destroyers, and now I think that I have enough muscle to strike at the enemy and guard my territory at the same time. The war has been suspiciously quiet for a few months.
I managed to develop the technology for terraforming, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it any time soon. It takes a lot of energy, and I’m running a small deficit at the moment.
I’ve also discovered the Onotach Guardians, a fallen empire. They’re way, way ahead of the rest of us technologically, but their description says they don’t much care about what happens outside of their borders. I’ve established an embassy with them, but it’s probably a waste; they’re sprititual and we’re materialist, so I doubt we’ll ever get along.
I understand that the most important reason to have an embassy with a Fallen Empire is to keep their approval up just high enough so that they won’t attack you, assuming that you are doing something that might potentially irritate them.
If they are Spiritual-focused Fallen Empire, that means that it’s colonizing one of their “Holy worlds” that sets them off.
I got kind of a weird start. I had basically no resources, but I also only had one other empire immediately next to me so I had fairly unrestricted expansion. They naturally boxed another friendlier empire in on one of the galaxy arm’s spirals, to the point they couldn’t expand. Then there was another friendly empire I managed to box in.
I vassalized my rival, then proceeded to vassalize the friendly empire and annex the one-system-minor. Nobody cared when I annexed my rival, because everyone rivalled them too. Nobody was left to care when I ate the others. I’m basically the only person in my corner of the galaxy. There’s nobody else for lightyears except one of those fallen empires that REALLY hates your border touching their’s.
Surprisingly, there are a few empires far away with “equivalent” leaning on “superior” forces, but given the AI I’ve seen so far I’m not exactly worried. They are absurdly dumb at war.