Stellaris is the kind of game that you start playing at 8:00 PM and you found yourself at 3:00 AM asking where your night as gone.

Review of version 1.3 "Heinlein"

Stellaris is a 4X space game focused on strategic sector level management, races interaction simulation, ship building and fleet combat, and nonlinear storytelling.

When you start a new game you can customize a lot of aspects of the gameplay as the galaxy size and shape, the number of habitable planets, the allowed FTL metods, and more. You can also create your own alien race provided with a peculiar philosophy and moral rules: you can be militarist or pacifist, materialist or spiritualist, xerofile or xenofobe, and Collectivist or individualist. Your moral choices are reflected in the type of government and rule restriction of your empire.

You start on a single planet in a system and you have just discovered basic FTL. The first part of the game is just plain exploration: the exploration is spiced up by random discovery in form of short textual stories and chains of events (similar to other paradox games). Then you start to colonize other planet, collect resources and expand. The first treats usually are some sort of random enemy like space pirates or roaming hostile creatures, so you have to create a fleet to clear them, even if you are playing in a pacifist style.

As you discover more and more empires you start to create alliances, and cooperate, or you expand trough war. Other empires are usually cool but if you start to be the bad guy they will react. Also a militarist state may attack you if you are defenseless. When the all galaxy is discovered the game became a kind of simplified Europa Universalis.

The narrative aspect of this game is spot on, and the pops simulation is really intriguing: will you allow free circulation of all races on your planet or will you enslave your conquered enemies? How can you integrate those xenophobe religious race in your materialist democracy?

Space combat is graphically great and ship design is fun but as now i tend to produce only capital ships of different kind because i have found no real reasons to have something below cruiser in the late game. Most of the wack-a-mole problems are solved in this version of the game.

The lack of end date, and the vague militaristic endgame condition are still a problem for me: you find yourself overpowered in the late game and your only real option is to wage wars against everyone only to get to the Domination victory.

In late game there are still some minor stuttering: the clock stop and the game doesn't respond to command, but you can move your point of view.

Modding is great

Stellaris is not perfect, but is currently my favorite strategic space game

Stellaris is the kind of game that you start playing at 8:00 PM and you found yourself at 3:00 AM asking where your night as gone. Review of version 1.3 "Heinlein" Stellaris is a 4X space game focused on strategic sector level management, races interaction simulation, ship building and fleet combat, and nonlinear storytelling. When you start a new game you can customize a lot of aspects of the gameplay as the galaxy size and shape, the number of habitable planets, the allowed FTL metods, and more. You can also create your own alien race provided with a peculiar philosophy and moral rules: you can be militarist or pacifist, materialist or spiritualist, xerofile or xenofobe, and Collectivist or individualist. Your moral choices are reflected in the type of government and rule restriction of your empire. You start on a single planet in a system and you have just discovered basic FTL. The first part of the game is just plain exploration: the exploration is spiced up by random discovery in form of short textual stories and chains of events (similar to other paradox games). Then you start to colonize other planet, collect resources and expand. The first treats usually are some sort of random enemy like space pirates or roaming hostile creatures, so you have to create a fleet to clear them, even if you are playing in a pacifist style. As you discover more and more empires you start to create alliances, and cooperate, or you expand trough war. Other empires are usually cool but if you start to be the bad guy they will react. Also a militarist state may attack you if you are defenseless. When the all galaxy is discovered the game became a kind of simplified Europa Universalis. The narrative aspect of this game is spot on, and the pops simulation is really intriguing: will you allow free circulation of all races on your planet or will you enslave your conquered enemies? How can you integrate those xenophobe religious race in your materialist democracy? Space combat is graphically great and ship design is fun but as now i tend to produce only capital ships of different kind because i have found no real reasons to have something below cruiser in the late game. Most of the wack-a-mole problems are solved in this version of the game. The lack of end date, and the vague militaristic endgame condition are still a problem for me: you find yourself overpowered in the late game and your only real option is to wage wars against everyone only to get to the Domination victory. In late game there are still some minor stuttering: the clock stop and the game doesn't respond to command, but you can move your point of view. Modding is great Stellaris is not perfect, but is currently my favorite strategic space game