Stellaris: A Cosmic (Re)View

An Intergalactic Kegger

Ready to explore the cosmos?

Introduction:

Hello everyone, I’m Nolan aka Totaltoad and this week I’m tackling my first grand strategy game review with Paradox Interactive’s space race to rule the galaxy: Stellaris. I’m more used to rushing to space as a victory condition like in Sid Meier’s Civilization V or hoping planet to planet spreading control in Starcraft, but laying out an entire galaxy for a battlefield sounds spectacular. Stellaris does just that, while simultaneously tickling our minds with the unknown. Your galaxy is vast and awaits you to discover the answers to it’s mysteries; there will be many. Maybe you’ll solve them all, but with deadly space creatures, tenacious pirates, robot uprisings, galaxy-wide catastrophes, and up to 23 other contending empires Stellaris doesn’t make it easy.

Gameplay:

I had to go with the toad-est one!

Stellaris demands dedication; don’t expect to sit down for a quick round of galactic takeover. Get nice and cozy, because a single game can last anywhere from 20–50+ hours. No matter how much your “into” space exploration, if you can’t sit through YouTube commercials without getting antsy then Stellaris is not the game for you. Having incredibly long game sessions doesn’t bother me much, in fact I wish many games were longer, but they must keep a good pace. Players do have control over game-speed, anywhere from paused to months a minute.

Stellaris starts off quick with a hurry to survey your home solar system. Click away using the provided Science Ship to unlock the resource potential of each planet. Completing a survey will hopefully reveal one or more of the following resources: energy credits, minerals, and research points. Displayed as a yellow lightning bolt, I like to think of energy credits as fuel for these are needed to maintain use of various structures, modules, and ships. Minerals are represented by red diamonds and are needed to purchase/upgrade just about everything, while also being needed to maintain and repair your ships.

Research points come in three varieties: Physics (represented by an atom), Society (represented by a globe) , and Engineering (represented by a cog) . Due to the variety, it was somewhat rare to find planets that offered a great amount of research resources, and I never found one with all three. This didn’t seem to be too much of an issue, as I seldom ran low on research points. You ultimately use research points to conduct research into various fields of technology. They will take time to complete, but assigning the correct scientist for the job helps a ton.

In order to extract resources from planets, players will have to use their trusty Construction ship to build the corresponding structure: Mining Stations for energy credits and minerals, and Research Stations for research points. Simply click the construction ship, select the structure you desire, and give a final click to the planet you want. You also start off with a fleet of three space fighters called “corvettes”. Early-game, I used my fleet to visit my neighboring unexplored solar systems ahead of my science ship to ensure it’s safety. There are space pirates and other monster lurking in the dark matter, some of which can easily destroy an ill-equipped fleet let alone a science ship.

GIANT SPACE MONSTER CRYSTALS!

I increased the size of my army and constructed another science ship to help survey faster by using the provided Spaceport. A spaceport possesses the ability to construction colony ships, construction ships, and once upgraded many other mid/end game vessels. Modules discovered during research can also be constructed; installing a Solar Panel Network will produce 3 energy credits per turn, while adding a Crew Quarters cuts down ship maintenance by 20%. Stellaris is full of decisions, even some for controls. With options to micro-manage you fleet after every action, or to queue actions by holding Shift, Stellaris does a great job of not complicating controls. Hot keys and quick tabs are easy to use, though not always obvious, but there is an extensive tutorial and faq section, both of which I highly suggest utilizing during the first few playthroughs or you’ll miss out on some sweet tricks.

This planet looks promising

So with hours upon hours of gameplay potential in one match, you may be wondering just how exactly do you win. Tucked behind the Situation Log is a Victory tab; here you can find the maps terms of victory. I’m not entirely sure if new victory terms can be discovered throughout anomaly research or end-game catastrophes, but so far I’ve only had two victory conditions to choose from: a Domination Victory and a Conquest Victory. In order to win by domination I would have to own over 40% of colonizable planets, while a conquest victory tasks me to conquer or subjugate all other empires. I would like other victory options, possibly a survival option to outlive all other races through waves of galaxy wide catastrophes, but Stellaris isn’t really designed for much more than that.

Design:

My homeworld needs some major work.

Above in the lower left side of the screen is the surface of my human home-world “Earth”. My Earth consisted of 16 land tiles, most with the ability to produce resources. In order to farm a resource, first I had to make sure any debris was cleared from the tile, second establish a population big enough for a moderate workforce, then finally construct the corresponding building to harvest the mineral. This aspect of the game had me flash-backing to long games of Catan, and is really enjoyable. You’ll discover alien worlds, with dangerous beasts, new resources, more complex obstructions, and primitive civilizations. Of course specific research is required prior to mining a new resource, or to clearing a foreign obstruction, but it’s all part of being at the mercy of the RNG gods. Cool note: you can terraform planets to meet your living and resource needs!

What does conducting researching, piloting ships, commanding ground forces, and running world governments all have in common in Stellaris? They all require personnel. If you have enough room for a new employee you could hire: a Governor for colonized worlds, a Scientist to fly a science ship or conduct homeworld research, an Admiral to command a single fleet of spaceships, or a General to push ground soldiers to destroy the enemy. They all have their own unique names, and helping talents that with each successfully completed event grows stronger and stronger, till a new level is reached and possibly a new talent achieved. My only advice is to pay attention to those talents and make you have the right employee for the job, as eventually they will die from natural causes or if you are unlucky through anomaly research:

Anomaly research can lead to surprising decisions.

There is much to gain from studying anomalies: random events and data spikes that your scientist discovers through planet and debris surveys. Scanning alien remains and lost cities, I came across new research trees, new schematics, mineral treasures, and overall knowledge of my galaxy. There is almost always some sort of decision to make like whether to resurrect an ancient aliens or to let them lie (pictured above). Your scientists receive experience for each new anomaly successfully scanned, but there is always a chance the research will fail, and when this happens you can lose your scientist, the ship or both! You can always perform homeworld research (pictured below) that can increase the odds in anomaly research to your favor. Its a win-win situation, completing anomaly research can lead to rare “purple” homeworld research trees and regardless homeworld research boosts everything!

Purity Campaigns or Regenerative Hull Tissue? Both are rare research options

Interactions with other empires:

Oh so pesky!

In a galaxy as vast as Stellaris, you may think it would get lonely in endless space, but in fact it gets crowded fast. Coming across a competing empire can become a hindrance as you will not be allowed to pass into a non-allied empire’s territory without consequences. This often left me restricted to a zone with limited resource output. I quickly found one of the best approaches was to “Demand Vassalization” and when refused (they almost always refuse) I declared war and used force to slowly whittle away their resource production. More times than not, I was offered whole planets and their surrounding territory as pleads for peace. I know it’s not the nicest thing to do, and there are pacifist races available for play if peace is your plan.

Alliances can be forged with other empires to establish trade routes and battle support, but not without cost. You can easily lose Influence, the currency used to established governmental strategies and policies such as edicts, from generally not following your chosen Ethos, the sum of all beliefs and ideals of your population. A violent war-bent population’s ethos will probably be unhappy with decisions of peace, and creating Rivalries with other empires generates more Influence anyways. I overall didn’t micromanage my Diplomacy as many people probably will. There are a lot of political angles to try, and much diplomatic mischief to dive into with options to even insult other races.

Presentation:

4 armed spiral galaxies are fun to play on.

At the start of each match, Stellaris creates a randomly generated galaxy for you to explore. Players can select between Elliptical, 2 armed Spirals, 4 armed spirals (pictured above), and Ring (pictured below) shaped galaxies. Starting a match in a 2 armed spiral galaxy may restrict your movement to climbing the arms from one edge to the other, while starting a game in an elliptical galaxy allows the player to explore almost everywhere. My favorite set up is the Ring, because empire locations are more predictable to lay siege to with a strong military force.

Ring galaxies are all out brawls for me.

I was extremely happy to see a huge variety of alien species to choose from: Mammalian, Reptilian, Avian, Arthropoid, Molluscoid, and Fungoid. When you become comfortable with game mechanics, I urge you to create a custom race. Within race creation is a library of choices, one of which is your races appearance. Digital paint never looked so good in space before: regal bird-creatures, fur covered space werewolves, and slimy tentacle beings designs are creative and exotic. It’s easy to start a new game so don’t get held up on which to choose from, and race design doesn’t limit any other choices or force unwanted talents. Extra cool note: custom races can show up as another empire while exploring!

I’ve always wanted to be a tentacle monster.

Black and green go well with my frog-like race.

Customization if space king in Stellaris. Along with race, players can spend a lot of time designing ships and buildings, then providing each with a name and eventually modifying them with upgrades once researched. You can rename everything from planets to schematics, and if you don’t want to spend the time renaming everything you can select from Name Lists that will create common themes among your race’s language structure. I had fun naming every star I scanned, starting with naming my homeworld system’s sun “Big Whoop” and the closest neighbor’s “Little Whoop”. Customization is so fun and easy that I already know there is going to be thousands of mods created for Stellaris. I can’t wait to for a Star Wars mod!

Class A. stars burn brilliantly as wisps of solar radiation spread

The overall lack of animations surprised me; amazing wisps of solar radiation come dragoning out of stars, and strange alien ships quiver and breath, but battle animations are sub-par and lack flare. Zooming in does reveal a great amount of texture and skin details, but overall various ships and structures feel incredibly small, a feeling that also translates to the amount of time designing planet invasions, which is basically staring at a battle meter for each platoon. One saving grace is Stellaris’s soothing soundtrack. While waiting for events to unfold, the soundtrack reminds me of waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland. You wait and wait for days, but the song playing through the speakers keeps you on edge, ready to soar!

This alien ship almost destroyed my science ship.

Conclusion:

Stellaris needs more content, it get’s kinda boring waiting through a long mid-game, but not boring in the way that you can focus on multiple things at once, like play gameboy while waiting in-between turns. Remember: Stellaris demands dedication, and as fun as micro-managing can be there still needs to be more flare. I enjoy watching my spaceships wage war in a burst of laser fire and missile sparks, but where is the ground battle animations? Staring at battle gauges quickly lost its flare, as well as staring at my homeworld screens. Mid-game citizens become agitated easily as population soon outgrows space, and is a constant source of stress. There is some light at the end of the wormhole as free updates and DLC are being made to rub out Stellaris’s more boring moments. At the moment, there is mod after mod to try out and loads of more research to conduct, like on the Black Hole below, that will keep me coming back to Stellaris.

Do I dare venture close to a black hole?

Thank you for reading. Nolan — Totaltoad

Stellaris gets a 7/10 (Average)

Thank you to Zack Hage and Paradox Interactive for supplying me with the code and giving me this chance to share my opinion with everyone. Check out my random video game videos on YouTube. For more reviews and features like this one, please check out The Cube on Medium.com, or our twitter account @TheCubeMedium