Darren S
ClioSport Club Member
Has anyone played Paradox's space strategy of Stellaris yet? It's been out a while (2016) and was initially plagued by issues, broken processes and general player frustrations.
Now it seems that they have got the measure of most of the problems and have produced several official DLCs for it. On top of that, the Steam Greenlight community is very active at creating mods for the game - cleverly marshaled by the game launcher to let you know if the mod works (or not) with the current version of the game that you're running.
At its heart, Stellaris is a complex, deep and expansive space strategy game. The real genius within the game however, is that you can play it as in-depth or as superficially as you like. On the surface, it appears that there's a bewildering array of options and much head-scratching could be had in clicking on options and various menus to see what does what. However, played at normal difficulty, the game does a great job of risk & reward, without hammering you to oblivion by making a small mistake when encountering your first pirate fleet.
Your race and core beliefs play a very strong part within the game. You can even create your own race from the ground up. I'm playing a middle-of-the-road human race that is the equivalent of a future United Nations. They are not all sweetness and light - but far from being interstellar tyrants either. As you would expect, research and technology plays a big part in the game - and again as a stroke of genius, the technology trees are not displayed. This makes you progress down paths of the unknown - after all, how would you ever know that researching Science A now - would lead to Science X and Y in the future? It plays out as you progress and is all the better for it.
I couldn't honestly say how good or bad the core game was due to the fact that I bought it with a couple of DLCs at the time. Since the recent Steam Summer Sale, I bought the remainder and the amount of content and game choices I have at my disposal is very expansive indeed. From ancient burial sites, to researching black holes, to warp-hole travel, pirates, intergalactic trade, mercenaries, friendly races, corporation tactics, slavery, space battles, orbital bombardment, star bases, colony expansions - it's all in here. I was originally attacked by a xenophobic neighbour who sued for peace once I proved myself not to be a walkover. I returned and pretty much laid waste to his/her/its? entire navy - claiming several systems of their's as my own, including their homeworld.
They still didn't back down - and after ordering a orbital bombardment from my fleet that destroyed about 30% of their homeworld, I sent my ground army in. I damaged a fair bit more, but they wiped out my invading troops. I have one solution left - total annihilation from space. I'll lay waste to their homeworld, even to the detriment of the resources it has, to simply prove a point. Not because it's right - but simply because I can.
If you fancy an RTS that is very immersive and probably quite different to your usual type of game - I'd highly recommend Stellaris. Unusually for an RTS also, it's available on both the PS4 and XBox One - as well as Mac and Linux.
Some screenshots from my game in it. Don't be put off from the perceived complexity - it looks a lot more complicated than it is!
Now it seems that they have got the measure of most of the problems and have produced several official DLCs for it. On top of that, the Steam Greenlight community is very active at creating mods for the game - cleverly marshaled by the game launcher to let you know if the mod works (or not) with the current version of the game that you're running.
At its heart, Stellaris is a complex, deep and expansive space strategy game. The real genius within the game however, is that you can play it as in-depth or as superficially as you like. On the surface, it appears that there's a bewildering array of options and much head-scratching could be had in clicking on options and various menus to see what does what. However, played at normal difficulty, the game does a great job of risk & reward, without hammering you to oblivion by making a small mistake when encountering your first pirate fleet.
Your race and core beliefs play a very strong part within the game. You can even create your own race from the ground up. I'm playing a middle-of-the-road human race that is the equivalent of a future United Nations. They are not all sweetness and light - but far from being interstellar tyrants either. As you would expect, research and technology plays a big part in the game - and again as a stroke of genius, the technology trees are not displayed. This makes you progress down paths of the unknown - after all, how would you ever know that researching Science A now - would lead to Science X and Y in the future? It plays out as you progress and is all the better for it.
I couldn't honestly say how good or bad the core game was due to the fact that I bought it with a couple of DLCs at the time. Since the recent Steam Summer Sale, I bought the remainder and the amount of content and game choices I have at my disposal is very expansive indeed. From ancient burial sites, to researching black holes, to warp-hole travel, pirates, intergalactic trade, mercenaries, friendly races, corporation tactics, slavery, space battles, orbital bombardment, star bases, colony expansions - it's all in here. I was originally attacked by a xenophobic neighbour who sued for peace once I proved myself not to be a walkover. I returned and pretty much laid waste to his/her/its? entire navy - claiming several systems of their's as my own, including their homeworld.
They still didn't back down - and after ordering a orbital bombardment from my fleet that destroyed about 30% of their homeworld, I sent my ground army in. I damaged a fair bit more, but they wiped out my invading troops. I have one solution left - total annihilation from space. I'll lay waste to their homeworld, even to the detriment of the resources it has, to simply prove a point. Not because it's right - but simply because I can.
If you fancy an RTS that is very immersive and probably quite different to your usual type of game - I'd highly recommend Stellaris. Unusually for an RTS also, it's available on both the PS4 and XBox One - as well as Mac and Linux.
Some screenshots from my game in it. Don't be put off from the perceived complexity - it looks a lot more complicated than it is!
