Stellaris

This is my favorite game, but I can't recommend it due to the way paradox seems to handle major updates recently.

Updates seem to follow a fixed schedule and are simply released regardless of the state they are in. Major updates always have had some minor issues, but now these release have become progressingly worse.

The current patch 4.0.x basically released in an early beta stage at best. It fundamentally broke performance, AI opponents, balance and game stability. Even after weeks of hot fixes and patching, it remains broken in many aspects. In some ways it also feels like a repeat of the 2.2 economy rework that left some aspects of the game like AI in a broken state for a very long time.

I think this both disrespectful to the players as well as the developers working on it, since they seem to be able to identify and fix the issues just fine if given enough time. Given this issues isn't specific to this PDX game, but occurs with other recent releases, it would seem there is a serious issue with the management/execs at the company, pushing unrealistic release dates.

So for now, until they rectified this behaviour, shy away from paradox games.

⚠️ Background:
This is a review of 4.0. I'm not allowed to put it on the accompanying Biogenesis expansion page (where it is perhaps more appropriate) unless I own it, and paying £20 for the privilege is not something I'm willing to do. A lot of people writing reviews are going on general vibes and that's perhaps OK. I may have a different perspective as I followed the development of this release very closely. I read all the diaries. Dev forum comments. Watched the streams. Followed discord dev messages.

📜Review:
To be blunt: 4.0 (the actual base game patch, "phoenix") has left the game in a MUCH worse place than where it started. Biogenesis itself was excellent and clearly had QA - the expansion team did very well. But they have been caught in the custodians crossfire - catching flak for things that aren't the expansions fault. I would be more upset about this, but the studio needs to see feedback somewhere right?

Some highlights for me from this mess:

1. Before Christmas PDX polled the community on any number of exciting reworks and improvements to various game systems. Long awaited features. High potential areas. Internal politics. Espionage improvements. Warfare resolution. Fleets. Immediately after christmas they announced 4.0: Affecting nothing listed and instead reworking the planet GUI for a third time which was already fundamentally sound and had no one asking for changes. Time wasting.
   
   
2. Around New Year PDX reflected on the fact that 2024 had been a messy year with lots of very large DLCs that didn’t have the time for quality they should have. They reassured the community that they would scale back for 2025. Give things more quality control. Breathing room. Immediately after (a matter of days!) they announced 3 massive DLC's for 2025, non negotiable launch dates, 4.0 squeezed in the middle and the busiest year to date.
   
   
3. The fundamental point of 4.0 - the primary objective - is to resolve many of Stellaris performance issues (with a fleet patch coming later for the other half of the problem). Understand that this is a promise the developers have made before, particularly with 2.0 and 2.2. And in those situations Stellaris had ended up with worse performance after the patches in question. Whatever gains they may have made the studio had eaten into those gains with scope creep and new ideas. Eladrin and his team knew this history. So to promise the same thing again in 2025 demonstrated real confidence. The result? Oh dear. 4.0 performance is not better than 3.14. In fact it's not even on par. In fact it's considerably worse! Unbelievable.
   
   
4. The new “District Specialisation” system is convoluted. Have fun guessing which buildings go where. Despite what the lay opinion might be: Implementing this had nothing to do with the new performance-relating pop changes and was not necessary. When asked multiple times on the forums why this was being forced Eladrin and his team were unable to give more than two or three tangible examples of cool applications in the entire game, present or future.
   
   
5. Further, when asked why not simply add some new districts to the game (e.g. research districts), which would have been quick to implement and universally applauded, PDX explained that they too loved the idea! It was actually what started this whole thing! But what concerned them was GUI space for districts. So instead they enacted this massive time sink of a rework, with all the implementation, bug fixing, and balance costs (still ongoing), that allow you to customise a district instead. This is staggeringly poor decision making:
   
   
   
   
   • UI space is not an issue for additional districts. Even with 20-30 district types. The selection area can be made scroll-able, and once the first is built it can be pinned to the top of the list. In 99% of situations the player never has to scroll again. This is perfectly usable. District expansion mods are extremely popular and have been for years. They are “solving” an issue that doesn’t exist.
     
   • The only reason the planet GUI is limited is because it must conform to 720p resolutions. When asked to relax this limit here in 2025, by both the community and his own UX designer, Eladrin has said no. There will be an experiment to go to 800 (marginal gains) this summer. More time wasting.
     
   • The new planet rework hasn’t saved players from unnecessary clicking regardless! Just as with performance, 4.0 delivers a worse experience. Myriad stats, buttons and options are now buried in secondary tabs and nested menus when they used to be on the main screen. Yes, you read that correctly. This rework started by quibbling over a little district scrolling and now instead half the planet GUI tools are buried behind multiple clicks. Great design work there.
     
   
   
   What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in those meetings.
   

1. The unnecessarily massive numbers. 1000's of pops and resources. Stellaris used to be elegant. 1 food for 1 pop. Now it's messy and tedious to parse. The studio argued this was necessary because they felt having fractional jobs wouldn’t make sense. When of course they would have.
   
   
2. Trade as a resource is a half baked idea trying to do too many things. It’s logistics, shipping, galactic credit and wealth stockpiling all in one. It makes no sense. As with many custodian initiatives (such as paying "unity" for leaders) the story considerations have not been made. Then there are still energy-credits. For the purposes of all the dialogue, stories and events already in the game that’s still the only currency! It’s an obvious half measure, but the team didn’t want to comb through all the files. Have fun juggling both.
   
   
[*]Civilians are likewise inaccurately named and have their own problems. They muddy the waters with unemployment. They’re intangible, spam negative notifications (that players are being asked to just ignore) often conflict with empire role-play and are un-fun to develop.

This is a good game. But the DLC system is pure robbery. The DLC's are overpriced for such a small amount of added content.

yes, you read that hour count right. I have had and played this game for years now, and honestly when it works, it is fun especially with mods.
The problem is the constant money grabbing, low iq releases by paradox. they make their dlc near required to play this game sepcially if you use mods, and they have nearly 300 dollars worth of dlc, most you will notice has mixed to negative reviews. thats because for its price point(being a 3rd to 1/2 the cost of a game) it adds very little to the actual game. This in and of itself isnt the main part of the problem though. The main problem are the update releases they do for this game.

And so begins the cycle of grief. You wil play on a huge map because, lets face it, small maps are boring and quick, and you will invest hours and hours in a modded playthrough only for the developers to update the game and defunct all your saves. "But MESovereign, you can just rollback the updates to the previous one and play" Well viewer this doesnt always work. sometimes your save will be on V3.93, but the rollback will go to 3.14 instead, invalidating your saves. also some mods will update, causing you to go through the hours long cyce of mod testing and reordering.

And that issue isnt the biggest one either. The biggest issue here is paradoxs paradigm on their players. Paradox will roll out an update that is flawed and buggy as all get out, making the gameplay nigh unplayable. this has happened with many updates post 1.0 and their response is always stubbornly the same "Even if we knew the problems ahead of time, we would still release this half baked junk". This is such an annoying attitude because its utterly clear they do not extensively playtest their main updates and just release semi developed milestones and then frantically update dump over the next couple weaks to even a few months.

Yes. That means at times you will be better off leaving this game for months instead of investing into an epic game after hours of modfixing only for a new update to ruin it the next day and cause you to remod spring clean. Paradoxs approach to this whole season update thing is just always so messy, buggy and broken, and youd think with a game that as a whole costs 300plus dollars without a sale, they would approach this with more care and integrity. But they dont.

all in all, i dont recommend this game, at least until it hits a period of stability. Small maps are too quick and boring. large maps, especially from mods are a blast, though get super slow and once an update drops and nukes your save, you will ragequit.

Dont make the same mistake i did. dont fall into the Paradox money farming trap. save 300 dollars, buy a good well done space game and use the extra money for soda snack and bacon. you will be happier for it.

post edit: the reason i say the dlc is near required because many times the game runs better(term used loosely) with the dlc. it will still be playable without, but you dont realize until you give in and fork over your money to them that the game runs better because you put in the piece the developers intentionally left missing post update. huzzah. 20 extra dollars spent to make their buggy, nontested update run alittle smoother

I've played this game for many years now, and had you asked me a few years ago I would've recommended this game in a heartbeat. Recently though, it seems like every "major update" has just broken the game while providing very little improvement, while locking up all the fun stuff that pairs with the update in an expensive DLC that's almost as much as the game itself. Though that seems to be the case with every update from Paradox for any of their games these days; release a major update that makes the game more difficult to play and less enjoyable, release an overpriced DLC to go along with the update, face the community backlash, claim their sorry that the players are disappointed but that they still made the game "better", release a bunch of patches over a period of a few months to return the game to a playable state, and repeat. I used to enjoy playing this game, but now when I'm thinking about playing I have to sit and think about if the time investment of playing from a new start is worth whatever little joy I can squeeze out of the experience before I hit a game breaking bug, a corrupted save file, the release of a random patch that doesn't even fix anything but stops me from accessing saved games, or such a gameplay slowdown that fleet combat feels like watching paint dry. From someone whose probably invested too many hours of their life into this game, DON'T BUY IT!

I love the game but Paradox's DLC model and way of operating their games is blatantly predatory towards consumers, with games targeted at players in a teenage age range who may not understand finances well yet. Its a good game, you should not have to pay near or over 300 dollars to play the entirety of it when its not on sale and near 200 when it is to have the devs taunt you in game with reminders you don't own the dlc like locked council slots if you don't have paragons. Just don't show it as feature if a player doesn't have the DLC, its blatantly trying to weaponize game mechanics by locking them behind a paywall but presenting them to the player despite players already paying for the title. Good game, shit business model that will see Paradox go under eventually from fed up fans leaving and warning others not to purchase their games as the company is building a reputation as a predatory business. 0/10, don't buy it till prices or the business model changes as the company will continue to overprice what are essentially mods for the game and then make them feel vital to game play by locking them behind paywalls but blasting that the feature exists in your face without letting you use it.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. The 4.0 update is a buggy mess that fundamentally breaks the game. What the hell, guys. You've been using the community as free beta for months. How is it such a mess? Typical paradox. I'm stepping away for several weeks. Hopefully it's better by then.

You do not even need the piles of DLC. The base game all alone is awesome. Buy the base game. Play it for 100 plus hours. THEN buy ONE DLC and play that for another 100 plus. Rinse repeat.

Guys, if you're on the fence about getting Stellaris — yes, do it. But immediately roll it back to patch 3.14 (or whichever earlier version you prefer).
Update 4.0 technically fixed the infamous late-game performance issues, sure. But it completely destroyed the science system — and replaced it with mini-quests?! What even is that? I already have enough brain-melting complexity to deal with.

Paradox said they wanted to "streamline" the interface to help new players. Yeah, right. It was already overloaded, but now? With 4.0? It’s a total mess. Where you used to manage 10–12 relatively simple systems, now you've got 400+ tiny numbers and stats screaming for attention. The UI is so bloated it's almost unusable. The number of things you have to constantly monitor has exploded, and it’s overwhelming even for veterans.

I love Paradox. I love grand strategy. From Crusader Kings to Stellaris — I’ve been with them all the way. But this "major 4.0 update" is just a poorly tested disaster. It's like I had a Tesla Plaid, and they updated the software to cap the top speed at 60 km/h and made it take 15 seconds to hit 100.

This is just my personal opinion — but I’m heartbroken. Absolutely gutted.

I think I am going to observe the 4.0 dumpster fire from safe distance for a couple of weeks. Even if the game miraculously runs for you, the balance is so all over the place that you might not be having a good time anyway. If you are interested to start playing Stellaris, consider checking the forums and major content creators for when the issues get ironed out.

Please note that me not recommending the game right now doesn't mean I hate it. 4.0 update was with best intentions and new content from Biogenesis DLC is just excellent and exactly what players wanted. Devs continuing to update the base game in major ways 9 years after the original release shows their dedication to the game.

Paradox may need to learn to give their devs more time to work on their products. It hurts to tell people to not play a game I love because corporate greed rushed a release that broke it.

I've been playing this game since its release and to be honest, considering the number of endless, all-breaking changes, I get the impression that this is some kind of strange, permanent, early access version. In all this time, I can remember three times when they completely changed so much in the game that I literally had to learn to play again. This is the fourth. I can't even count the number of updates that broke mods (literally the soul of this game). Stellaris modders are some kind of special caste of enlightened monks. I literally have no idea where they get the patience for all this from. In any case, my patience as a player ran out.

Releasing an unfinished product and slowly patching it to a playable state is not okay

Stellaris has taken so many hours for me, but no more.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game, and once it would have earned a thorough recommendation.

I'm not sure if it's genuinely gotten worse, or I've just woken up.
I CANNOT recommend it to a new player. RUN from this predatory DLC model.

It's bad enough that they lock the content behind DLC's, but the quality control is getting worse with every release, with bugs that shouldn't have made it past the dev floor somehow making it to release. They will eventually fix "most" of the major bugs, but some of the other bugs will never be fixed.

They are a DLC farm, preying on your FOMO.
Every DLC you add will give you a few minutes of enjoyment, a clunkier game, and overall a game you enjoy less and less.
Not that that's new for Paradox.

They say you need 10,000 hours to master something. I guess I'll stop at 9,944. I'll quit the addiction. Don't be like me, run before you get caught. It's not worth it.

4.0 update was meant to improve performance and the final result is that the game is about 25% slower now than before. Thanks.

Game itself is pretty good, DO NOT buy new DLC on release unless you want to work at Paradox QA department for free

I will remove my negative review when the things I paid for in DLCs work in the main game again. Or when the main game works again.

This costs money, guys. Give some of that money to your developers next time, maybe they'll develop the game instead of... whatever they did with 4.0.

Huge fan, loved the game. However, the update had a lot of unnecessary rebalances - some helpful some not, in particular GIVE ME BACK LEADER TRAITS EVERY LEVEL. leaders need an improvement, not a nerf.

The new update killed it for me, it made colony management feel much clunkier, more confusing, and half the information that used to be given such as the numbers for pop growth, what the deal is with Maintenance Drones, and more is just not there. it even makes their production seem much less per colony even if it isn't it definitely feels like it. Until this crap is fixed and information is given I'm strongly considering dropping it or reverting it.

They took my favorite 10/10 4x game and turned into a 1/10 non-functioning game. The devs released an overhaul of the economy system that I was looking forward to but it is literally unfinished. Population got modified by 100x but only about half of the in game modifiers actually work with that in mind. The rest operate pre-rework and makes the game non-playable as you are making 1% of the resources you should actually be producing. Dont buy for ~6 months because that is how much dev time is needed to make this update functional. I'm honestly baffled by how unfinished this is, Paradox is not known for bug-free releases but this is way beyond that.

The 4.0 update has seriously broken Stellaris. It’s clear this patch wasn’t ready — performance issues, broken mechanics, and constant crashes make it feel more like an unstable beta than a full release. Paradox seems to have pushed it out knowingly, turning the player base into unpaid testers.

The devs claimed this update was meant to improve lag and performance — but that’s clearly not the case. If anything, things run worse, and it’s obvious that any real performance gains are still a long way off.

To make matters worse, the Biogenesis DLC reintroduces the old citadel mechanic... but now it’s locked behind a paywall. If you’ve been playing Stellaris for years, this feels like buying content you already owned in a different form. I have the Season Pass, and even I can’t recommend this one right now.

The overhauled economy and planetary UI are confusing, undocumented, and poorly implemented. Even veteran players are struggling, with missing values and unclear stats across the board.

Stellaris is still a great game at its core, but this update is a major step backwards. This is unacceptable from a studio with Paradox’s experience. They need to take accountability, learn from this mistake, and stop using their community as a testing ground.

Avoid for now — especially if you're new.

With the 4.0 Update Paradox threw their game under the bus.

You cannot even call it lack of polish, instead its an unfinished mess despite an open beta.

Here is a simple example on just how much went wrong.

As a mechanical hivemind you colonize a new world and encounter a meriade of bugs and oversights.

- Your main buildings claims to give 300 Amenities. It doesnt.
- your main building doesnt provide any jobs
- all your drones start as advanced drones (there are no advance jobs yet)
-> stellaris changed gestalt pops to need time to switch strata (not in patch notes)
- due to zero out of 400 amenities (that your pop need) your colonie goes immidatly to 0 stability, aka it can rise up at any time and halfs all production of resources.
-> shows a DOUBLE oversight of a bug AND that the amenities - even if provided - wouldn't be enough
- 100 worker produce 700 amenities, but need 800 to sustain themselves.
-> this is also the "unemployed" category for your drones, that gets filled LAST.

What an untested, unfinished, bugy & disapointing mess.
And it shows failure cascading through the team lead, the designers, the devs, the QAs & the sales teams and general management for the brand, IP and paradox at large.

Edit for SoulBreaker:

Any performance gain they got they destroyed with their pop growth system.
It has also multiple bugs & oversights.

To be precise: popgrowth.

How it was: 1 pop was chosen based on % chance, it was on creation asigned a political faction and could get sloted initially into any job.
It was clear when the pop was generated and it was imidiatly usefull.

Now you have a monthly pop growth per pop-type per strata per jobtype per faction.
It is also influenced magically by imigration and emigration.
So instead of the game needing to track 1 popgrowth per planet, even in a single pop-civilisation it needs to simulate up to 8+ pop-subtypes.
monthly. Per planet.
Gee, i wonder where the whole performance went.

On top of it the player has NO idea what the actual growth per month is.
You get an "estimate". It's neither accurate, nor predictable, nor the same each month.
All planets each month are totally different. Even with "pure" pop assamble that should be a flat line.

Imigration and emigration is fully broken - if you have an event that give emigration % modifier your pop even vanish into thin air.

The galactic community removed my right to own slaves.
I removed their right to exist.

TLDR; Stellaris is incredibly fun and allows for many playstyles and an unrivaled amount of customization, but don't get it if you don't have the patience or if you aren't prepared to shell out quite a bit of money (or wait for sales).


I just reached 1000 hours in this game so I thought I would write a review finally. I will probably have to change it soon though since tomorrow is the release of the 4.0 update.

Stellaris is a very fun game to play on your own or with other people (if you can ever get someone to play with you) and I would absolutely recommend it. That being said there are a few things. Stellaris is not a game for people who like completing a match in half an hour, which makes sense because it's a strategy game. You can play it for like half an hour at a time but a full game of Stellaris can take days to finish if you have it on the default time settings. Also the DLC scheme is a little annoying. The base game is really not worth paying 50$ for if you aren't going to buy at least a few DLC over time. I would recommend waiting for a sale to buy it since you need at least like 3 of the DLC for it to be enjoyable long term.

Now that I've gotten the bad out of the way there are a lot of great things about the game:

1. Replayability: Replayability in a game is really important and Stellaris has a lot of it. Every time you play the galaxy is completely different with different events, systems, planets, and empires. Even if you played the exact same empire every time your experience between two games would be fairly different.

2. Customization: my favorite part of Stellaris is how customizable it is. I went into the game expecting it to be like a lot of strategy games with a few empires you can play as. The game is way different and allows you to completely create your empire from scratch; including your species, your government type and ideals, your origin which can drastically change your playstyle, and the look of your units and flag and stuff. In one playthrough you can play as a peaceful race of bird-people with psionic powers, and in another you can play as a collective of mass murdering machines who kill everything that breathes.

3. Appeal to different playstyles: Stellaris is a game that can be fun for very different people with different wants out of a game. If you are interested in being a peaceful nation of diplomats there are very in-depth mechanics that deal with diplomacy. If you like trade and capitalism then there you can do a lot of that. If you like playing strategy games just to murder everyone then you can be a purifier and go total war on everyone with the in-depth war mechanics.

4. Mechanics: the mechanics of Stellaris are very original in a lot of ways. The tech "tree" is more random and has a lot of mechanics dedicated to getting research of different types and specializing leaders to get the techs you want. The tradition tree mechanic gives you cool ways to customize the ideals of your nation and get different bonuses depending on how you want to play. You also get ascension perks for completing them which give you interesting new mechanics or massive bonuses. The game doesn't do turns or grids but instead uses an interconnected web of systems that ships can move about freely, and has everything happen in real time instead of being turn-based. I could go on and on about all the interesting and original mechanics but basically its very good and fun.

Basically Stellaris is a must have for anyone who likes any kind of strategy or roleplay, but requires a bit of a monetary investment.


If you have decided to get the game then this is the part where I give unsoliscited advice on which DLCs to get (you're gonna need a few). These are my top 10.

1. Utopia:
Basically everyone says to get Utopia first. This is for good reason because without it you basically aren't playing stellaris.

2. Machine age:
Machine age is a massive addition to stellaris. The DLC adds machine empires (as an alternative to synthetic dawn). It adds the cybernetic and synthetic ascensions which are super good. It adds a new megastructure that produces some minerals (arc furnace), 3 new fun origins, and a new Crisis path that allows you to leave the universe for a better one while annihilating the old one and anyone who stands in your path.

3. Federations:
Federations is important not just because of the mechanics, but also because of the origins. Federations adds the most origins of any DLC (8) and almost all of them are fun. It also adds federations (duh) which allows you to become allied with other empires and get useful bonuses.


4. Megacorp:
some people don't like megacorp (they are wrong) but personally it is my favorite way to play. Megacorp adds a few great things. It adds Ecuminopolis worlds which are worlds that are encased in a massive city, it adds a bunch of megastructures, it adds the caravaneers which are like space vegas, and finally it adds Megacorps. Megacorps are a style of government where you are governed by a massive company. This is THE DLC for trade empires and is a must have if you like money.

5. Overlord:
Overlord is a great DLC if you like conquering and war because it expands the vassal system. Even if you don't like war this is a good DLC to get because it adds the conclaves. The conclaves are independant groups that help you in different ways.

6. Paragons:
I didn't get why paragons was so useful until I actually got it. The DLC makes leaders actually good by letting you choose which skills they get as they level up. It also adds some cool leaders who you can hire periodically which can be really great.

7. Grand Archive:
I would put this one on par with Paragons honestly. Grand Archive adds a few really cool things. First of all the archive itself gives you a fun scavenger hunt to find specimens which give you good bonuses. The DLC also adds two more types of space fauna who are really cool, and even adds space fauna as ships which are a different and really fun way to play (though they may be overshadowed when Biogenesis releases).

8. Ancient Relics, Leviathans, & Distant stars:
These three DLCs are all basically on par. Ancient relics adds a ton of new archeological sites, and relics which make for powerful bonuses. It also improves the precursor system by a ton. Leviathans adds massive space entities that rival planets in size and adds a fun challenge to fight them. Distant stars adds a whole host of new features. It adds the L-Gates which are a really cool mid-game event. It also adds a huge host of new anomalies, special interactions, and interesting scenarios over the galaxy.

9. Nemesis:
Nemesis is such a cool DLC to play if you want to become the Crisis. It was the first DLC to add a crisis path and it is genuinely a very fun path. The Crisis path allows an empire to make entire star systems go supernova one by one in order to collect enough dark matter to build the aetherophasic engine and rip a whole in the universe. This DLC adds some cool interactions with the galactic community as well. The only snag is that cracking star systems goes from "super cool" to "boring and tedious" quickly once you need to crack like 100 of them.

10. Synthetic Dawn:
Synthetic Dawn is the OG robots DLC. It adds the machine intelligence government and robots, as well as a ton of interesting civics for robots. Obviously now Machine Age adds robots but you should still get this DLC eventually because it adds a bunch more stuff (Driven assimilator, 2 Origins by 4.0, and a genocidal civic for bots).

All the other DLC are kind of whatever or just didn't make top ten. I would especially avoid cosmic storms, some of the species packs (Necroid, Aquatic, and Toxoid are the cool ones imo), and Apocolypse because you never actually use any of the stuff in it.

Great game.

I picked up the game when it came out. Instead of making a Stellaris 2 they just improve upon the original game. Which is a plus in my book. You can pick up what ever DLC you want.

Yes. If you like idea of building space empire this game is for you. If you like idea of genocide of all life in universe - this game is for you. If you like idea of leading the galaxy against external thread as a custodian - this game is for you. If you like idea of just being on your own in the galaxy - this game is for you. If you just like complex strategy games - this game is for you.

have played every game as fanatical purifiers so i am not sure if diplomacy is in the game but war is fun

Fantastic sci-fi 4X game. Ignore recent reviews; they are by Chinese players who are whining about a new DLC for a completely different game.

Keep coping West Taiwan -10000 Social Credit
---
Stellaris is an outstanding game that I've spent countless hours playing. Its highly replayable content, combined with the vast array of choices available, keeps every playthrough fresh and engaging. On top of that, the modding community is one of the best I've ever been a part of, adding even more depth and variety to the experience.

I love my super tall empire, Taiwan. It really helped me with these great game features so I was able to beat out the larger empire next to me and turn it from Bhina into Greater Taiwan. Was good stuff.

I've got too many hours in this game. Too many. I don't agree with Paradox's DLC policies, they have a lot of interesting tactics. But you know what, I still love this game, even if I'm too dumb to figure out how to play properly.

And fuck West Taiwan.

Game is good, battles can work a lot better though but that is paradox for you. Also the Chinese players are salty because of HOI4 update go cry some more Commies!!

I don’t even remember when I first picked up Stellaris, but now, with over 400 hours played and all the DLCs, I can confidently say this game is incredible. It offers a deep and immersive strategy experience, though it does come with a bit of a learning curve.

For anyone who loves grand strategy games, empire-building, and the thrill of exploring the galaxy, Stellaris is a must-play. Highly recommended!

10/10 – Endless possibilities, infinite fun.

Stellaris is a very fun game with a lot to do. You can rule your interstellar empire, engage in both diplomacy and war with other empires. There is even multiplayer so you can play with friends. The downside of course, like many similar games, is a large amount of DLC. If you are picking the game up for the first time, I would recommend researching what DLCs are worthwhile to pick up. I think the earlier ones like Utopia, Nemesis, and Overlord are well worth it, since they add a lot of features that mods depend on. You can also try the subscription just to see what all the DLCs have to offer. Alternatively, have a friend with the DLCs host a multiplayer game and join them. You'll be able to experience what the DLCs have to offer.

Speaking of mods, the modding community is very active, and Paradox Interactive has made it very easy to mod the game personally. There are some really great mods that add an entire expansions worth of content. Also if you look at the achievement stats, most people never play unmodded. Of course this could also be they simply don't play with the Iron Man mode on, but eh.

Be warned though, late game performance is notoriously bad, especially on older machines. This is largely due to populations and colonies, however that is an issue that can be solved with... Xenophobic actions. You could also look for mods that clean up the code and improve performance, but come on, just crack a world or ten, its fine. NOTE: as of writing this review, the developer has showcased changes to the pop system, some late game performance may be better.

Very complicated game that requires a little bit of research on youtube before you really know what you are doing, but once you get a vague idea it is a super fun game.

I've been a long time Stellaris player, I have had some great games and lots of memorable moments playing! That being said, all of these happened before it's current build of many DLCs overlapping and constant AI "tweaks" that make it feel so very different to the amazing game I've played in the past.

Some things that have annoyed/frustrated me to the point of no longer playing:

1. Vassals near holy fallen empires will routinely colonize their holy worlds, the fallen empire will declare war on me to "purge" the vassal planet, then promptly ignore said planet and decimate my core worlds on the other side of the galaxy. This has happened in three separate games now, I just stopped trying to get vassals near holy fallen empires.

2. I've noticed AI fleets will often retreat to their systems a few jumps away after a few months following a defeat within their territory, health mostly intact around 60-80%, while my own fleets take vastly longer amounts of time (sometimes years) within my territory and are usually around 20-40% health. This makes it to where even when I win fleet engagements handily, I usually have to retreat for repairs or lose the next time I fight the same fleet a few systems over.

3. Not as often, I've attacked a reinforced capital system and before I took the station, I had to defeat their main fleet twice, once when I first attacked the system and again when they returned from MIA. Which leads me to think the AI just has reduced MIA times in general and feels very unbalanced when the player fleets can frequently take multiple years MIA.

4. Probably the rarest to occur but mechanics overlap from all the different DLCs, really breaking immersion and fun in general. It's gotten progressively worse with special events in particular, sometimes an event will trigger and then years later the opposite effect will happen. An example: The main one I have trouble with, to the point I contemplate restarting whenever I get this pop-up. You find a subterranean civilization on one of your worlds, do a preemptive strike against them and "wipe them out," event completes, wait a few years and then get a pop-up "the subterranean civilization sends a delegation of minerals to the surface or asks us to share our weapons with them" then followed a few years later by "your excavators explore the ruins of the subterranean civilization and find the treasury" or I've even gotten the "refugees fleeing political persecution" pop up, years after I destroyed their civilization. Also off the top of my head small events that explore the ocean beneath an ice planet double triggers and one where you excavate poor quality minerals for higher quality minerals. There's no shortage of little quirks and overlaps with events that are pretty minor individually but they pile up and make role playing way less enjoyable then it used to be.

In short, I would've recommended Stellaris a few years ago to anyone who would listen but now I don't think I could.

I cannot stop playing this game, I even play it during important meetings. This is probably one of my most high rated games ever! I love it. Hate end game Empires.

Seriously addictive. Love and hate the micromanaging aspect to it. Definitely recommend for people who want to roleplay as any interstellar nation from sci-fi media or just want to blow up the galaxy. It's just that the micromanaging aspect gets really tedious and repetitive and the mid-game can get boring. However, if you like seeing big fleets, ending late-game lag through questionable means, seeing your empire sprawl across the map, or becoming galactic emperor then this game is for you.

I remember playing this game some years ago. It was quite mediocre, not bad, enjoyable but not great, and not worth a replay. Came back few days ago: and it became quite great! They seem to constantly update the base game every year and it gets better and better. I have only one dlc as I had before. Some say that the base game is not worth it without dlc. Well, not anymore. Actually I don't even suggest playing your first game with all dlc-s enabled, it is just too overwhelming. Its much more entertaining to buy them one-by-one as you get used to the already super compex base game. However I should admit, you need to buy some dlc to fix some (non-showstopper) bugs, which is eh... For example I have asset window overlapping my covert operation progress (operation assets are dlc exclusive, so I would need to buy the relevant dlc to fix it).

Its amazing. Though the first 5 hour you had to learn some mechanic even now i learn new strategy, method and some hidden mechanic. I can assure you when you get hang of it will be enjoyable and a bit addicted. The long complex mechanism is to make you feel you actually can control all. You are the ruler or a god some will feel. must try game.

Bland point and click adventure in space. Instead of exploring the vast expanses of space you just are clicking small icons all game till some fallen empire or crisis wipes you out. It just bombards you with stuff that is utterly meaningless. Technologies gets researched faster then you can read them, leader traits pop up every 5 seconds,... If you manage to beat the spam of pop-ups you can try your hand at micromanaging probably the most sterile UI ever or maybe even attack some neighbor only to be stuck in a Galaxy wide ship chase where you can win all your battles but somehow lose systems.

But in the end, the thing that most irritates me is that its just another Paradox map painter. This time just without the historical aspect that makes their other games fun and engaging. Here instead of just coloring some part of Europe your color you get to paint a part of a plain circle with some glowing dots your color.

... But at least you get to establish communications with a duck/tree hybrid or whatever.

I would recommend it though to anyone who has tried literally every other game on the steam store already or people who just dont value their time.

people says it's hard to learn or whatever but if you just figure out the basic systems it's really easy

How to play:
1. learn how to play the game
2. find out about "the meta"
3. go to try out "the meta", game updates as you open it.
4. what
5. learn how to play the game again

I have spent the majority of my time playing as a Disney-like Mega corp species of Anthropomorphic dog creatures who make large political moves to centralize power on themselves.
My biggest win was banning organic slave trade (by a SLIM margin) while also being the galaxy's largest exporter of robot labor.
When the AI rises, my dogs will answer for their hubris, but that's a problem for the next generation.

Great game, but wait for a discount like 90 to 95% and wait for all the expansions to come out which will probably be never.

But it on summer sale in a giant discount, this game has so many DLC's that it makes me question the fabric of reality. It's fun, a very good game, don't get me wrong, but it's like being a Magic The Gathering user if you don't wait for sale.

Lovr this game played it a lot on console already and PC is as nice with less lag in the midgame

Like playing with a rubix cube for the first time if you're like me and new to the game! In a fun way that you just keep turning it over to find a new detail! Like a delicious, complex flavor profile :)

They also really capture what it must feel like to make first contact.

loving the game, but feeling like it was small when it could be soooo much more, and then we see the overpriced DLCs and yeah... pricing rerally hurts this game too. Still dont understand these games and monthly subscriptions either.

great stratgy game but the DLC is expensive

Good game. Wish for a fix on the low performing expansions. But this game is my favorite Paradox release. The head-cannon experience is amazing.

I really enjoyed playing this game. I like the random start locations and alien races. New races keep turning up. Exploration is fun. Good automatic settings. moderately complex. It took me 5 games to get it all under my belt. combat is OK but you have to work on getting your fleet together and then moved to the right location. Add in tech research to help with that and you have a well rounded game. Nice job Paradox team!!