Stellaris: Galaxy Command has Arrived!

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KennethMR

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Jun 21, 2017
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Hello Everyone,

This is a special post as we are announcing a new game! My name is Kenneth Mei, and I am a Product Manager at Paradox. I will be sharing details about our new mobile game announced just today -- Stellaris: Galaxy Command!

Stellaris: Galaxy Command is a persistent massive multiplayer mobile strategy game based on the Stellaris universe. The game is available immediately for beta testing in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden. If you live in those countries, you are in luck! You will be able to try the game immediately! If you live outside of those regions, stay tuned! This initial rollout to just a few countries allows us to gather player feedback, make adjustments, and work out some kinks before releasing the game into the hands of all players. This also means a lot can change between now and the global release.

We know you have a number of questions about what Stellaris: Galaxy Command is, and that’s the great part about a beta: we can show you what we’ve got, and you can tell us how you feel about it. So, let’s dive right in!




An independent team

Some of you may have correctly pieced together that Stellaris: Galaxy Command is not being developed internally. We are developing this game in collaboration with an external studio called Gamebear. We picked Gamebear for a number of reasons, but one of the first and foremost is that they turned out to be huge fans of Paradox and Stellaris from the get-go! They were incredibly eager to work with us, so we issued them a challenge: Can you develop a mobile game with complex ethics and decisions, interactive alliance mechanics, full-fledged empire management, a player-driven economy, and with an intricate trading system? Gamebear quickly accepted the challenge.

With Gamebear hard at work, we offered our guidance and suggestions to keep this game an authentic Stellaris experience, but they've taken on all aspects of development, leaving the Stellaris team at Paradox to stay focused on the core game (stay tuned for news from them, by the way)!




A game for a different part of your day

In considering which Paradox game would work well on mobile, Stellaris always felt like an obvious choice, but it needed to feel both like an authentic Stellaris experience while also feeling right for a mobile game. We built a game based on the same universe, but one that fills a very different part of your day. Stellaris: Galaxy Command is a game with a grand scale in a new format.

Mobile games are frequently played in short bursts. Maybe you are waiting for friends for dinner, at the airport, or even on your way home to play Stellaris on PC. Galaxy Command allows you to scratch that strategy itch wherever you are, any time. Your empire can wait a while for you to handle your day-to-day non-conquering tasks, and will be there when you’re ready to return.




A living and changing universe

We wanted to build a persistent and living universe shared by thousands, where territorial control, economy, warfare, and trade are all player-driven. As with any Paradox game, you will still get to paint the map, but this time you’re not painting alone!

In Stellaris: Galaxy Command, we pushed the concept of forming alliances into overdrive. Effectively, you will work with others to build an empire rather than doing it on your own. As an alliance, you can pick your own name and flag, set your own political system, colonize planets, build defensive structures, sign trade treaties with other alliances, initiate blockades against hostile factions, declare war, and impose your will on others.



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You'll experience a familiar Stellaris universe that evolves daily based on player actions. What you do will have very real consequences for the entire galaxy.


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Unlike most mobile strategy games on the market, where you merely read battle reports, here you must play through battles in real-time. This creates a much more engaging dynamic where you can reinforce the battle as the situation develops. This also allows for strategies such as sending in a robust defensive fleet to trap your enemy and then deploying a high damage fleet to hit your enemies hard—a very effective tactic during an alliance war.


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Ethics, which are a core pillar of Stellaris, make a comeback in Galaxy Command as well, albeit with a twist. Instead of picking ethics at the start of the game, your behavior in-game will directly influence your ethics.


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Empire customization is an important part of Galaxy Command with some new spins on familiar systems. We'll talk more about them in the future.


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As an alliance leader, you will have a variety of political systems, featuring unique decrees, to choose from, depending on the collective ethics of your members.


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Besides fighting an actual war, you have many political options to settle differences among alliances. While we won't go into detail about this today, there is a reason why there are so many trade-related options here.


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If you decide to go to war, you can force others to accept your terms.




This is just a start to give you a glimpse of what is coming. In the future, we will discuss many more features, including base building, trade, alliances, war mechanics, and monetization, etc. Stellaris: Galaxy Command has an in-game news system and forum, accessible through the game and on the web, where we will be sharing further updates!


One last thing before I leave you to the rest of your day—I want to reiterate the reason that we are offering a beta right now. As this is our first major mobile game that allows for a different gaming experience, it will depend on your feedback. We would like to hear your constructive suggestions and criticisms. As you'll see in the gameplay, some systems were streamlined, while others are expanded. This is the opportunity for you to tell us where you would like to see deeper mechanics.


We have big ambitions for our first major mobile game and hope that you'll see the same potential in Stellaris: Galaxy Command that we do!
 
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Question, I notice in the flag view you have to pay energy credits to change it. Is this purely internal like the caravaneers, or are these actual things to buy with real money? EDIT: And does it go further? Are there gameplay mechanics and other things blocked by, or made easier with real money?

Personally, if real money is involved, or has to be to continue development, I'd prefer if you only had to pay (once) upfront, and that was that. Nothing monthly, and no microtransactions within (cosmetics may be an exception).
 
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This actually looks rather nice, but the apparent multiplayer focus and what looks like a premium currency named "G" are big red flags. I'm pretty sure that whatever merit this game might have will be ruined by its monetization. Luckily, I don't even have a smartphone, so I will not be disappointed too much.
 
Looks interesting. Might pick it up to lessen the tediousness of public transport.
 
Besides fighting an actual war, you have many political options to settle differences among alliances. While we won't go into detail about this today, there is a reason why there are so many trade-related options here.

hmm - could the reason, why there are so many trade related Options here be, that in the base stellaris game the next big update will be the diplomacy update? And Galaxy command already has the new diplomacy Options, that the base game still has to get in the future?
 
Premium currency mobile game. And then there's the added disappointment that I thought that teaser with the ethics slider was coming to the main game, nice.

I normally would pretend it didn't exist, but starting out region-locked because obviously Swedish and Australian people are scientifically proven to be the best beta testers? Thanks Paradox, glad to know that I'm in the wrong part of the world. I hope this is the first of many times I'm punished as such.
 
hmm - could the reason, why there are so many trade related Options here be, that in the base stellaris game the next big update will be the diplomacy update? And Galaxy command already has the new diplomacy Options, that the base game still has to get in the future?
Nah, I think this will be a completely different game.
 
As someone who plays quite a bit of stronghold:kingdoms, I always wanted something similiar but set in space instead of medival ages. A mobile game was not quite what I had in mind but it´s fine I guess.

Working together with other players to create a flourishing space-empire sonds quite appealing and I´m looking forward to it´s release.

Though, now that the mobile-announcement is out of the window, how about some news on the next stellaris expansion ? It seems you won´t repeat blizzard´s mistakes and make a mobile-announcement your main-focus.
 
While I personally have zero interest in buying this (like any other mobile game), I still wish them luck.

I think, however, the marketing for this was not very smart and will probably generate some fan backlash (at least on youtube it seems so).

If you are a (almost entirely) pc game company, its not clever to "hype" up a mobile game by given ambiguous hints via social media. Many people were expecting another expansion (or at least a major patch).
 
Question, I notice in the flag view you have to pay energy credits to change it. Is this purely internal like the caravaneers, or are these actual things to buy with real money? EDIT: And does it go further? Are there gameplay mechanics and other things blocked by, or made easier with real money?

Personally, if real money is involved, or has to be to continue development, I'd prefer if you only had to pay (once) upfront, and that was that. Nothing monthly, and no microtransactions within (cosmetics may be an exception).


I have some interest in this and I would be willing to pay an upfront cost but the slightest hint of pay to win MTX and I'm steering clear.
 
I'm not a big mobile game player so I'm not your target audience for this but, I do use them to fill some time occasionally. I'd be interested IF there is a way to do single player. I have never had a good experience with any of the MMO's I have played.

If Single player isn't available. I still wish you the best of luck even though it's not my cup of tea.
 
Hey guys! Kenneth let me jump in here to answer some questions before he can join us here live!

The performance sucks enough on PC, I wonder how laggy it will be on mobile, like who TF thought that putting one of the laggiest PC games on mobile wouldn't end up as a disaster?
No worries. This is not a port. It's a new game that was developed specifically for the mobile devices.


This actually looks rather nice, but the apparent multiplayer focus and what looks like a premium currency named "G" are big red flags. I'm pretty sure that whatever merit this game might have will be ruined by its monetization. Luckily, I don't even have a smartphone, so I will not be disappointed too much.
Monetization is actually one of the main reasons why we're doing a closed beta in the first place. We have a good idea on how we want to do it, and we do want the purchases to provide something tangible for the players who make them, but we are 100% looking for feedback about the balance of the Battle Pass (more on that soon!).


Wow, hope you are prepared to be flamed because this is NOT what people wanted, with the two weeks between dev diaries, the failed launcher release, no fixes, and you guys think releasing a mobile game teaser was somehow a good idea?

So are we to assume you will no longer be working on the actual stellaris game, since you have put all your eggs into other baskets?

Really disappointed, everyone was hoping for a diplomatic DLC, not this mobile garbage.

edit - you still need to use resources to get the game up and going for another company, which means members and money, they dont just plop a game on another company and say, "good luck", people. maybe learn how things work...
Nah. :) As some already said, these are completely separate teams. And if you're worried about money, I can tell you right now that it's not the bottleneck at Paradox. If you look at the career page, you'll see that there are over 40 job postings. And since this is developed externally, it doesn't take up the time of any of the PC or Console devs.


Premium currency mobile game. And then there's the added disappointment that I thought that teaser with the ethics slider was coming to the main game, nice.
We tried to steer everyone clear of that impression over the whole week. But if you feel we didn't do a good enough job of that, it's a lesson for us for the future.
 
Question, I notice in the flag view you have to pay energy credits to change it. Is this purely internal like the caravaneers, or are these actual things to buy with real money? EDIT: And does it go further? Are there gameplay mechanics and other things blocked by, or made easier with real money?

Personally, if real money is involved, or has to be to continue development, I'd prefer if you only had to pay (once) upfront, and that was that. Nothing monthly, and no microtransactions within (cosmetics may be an exception).

This. Pay to win games are a dime a dozen. Most of them let you play for awhile, then you hit the "wall" where you absolutely cannot proceed unless you spend real money (or they slow it down to such a grind it's not worth the time), then the game becomes no fun anymore. I fell for this a few times with a few games when the concept first started appearing about 8 or so years ago, now if a game isn't a premium purchase game, I don't even bother anymore (especially if it's multiplayer only). I have bought a few games that were premium ($10-$15 if it's fun enough) so long as I can play the game on my own terms and am only limited by my progress and not my wallet, but I never have and never will spend a dime on P2W games.
 
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I have some interest in this and I would be willing to pay an upfront cost but the slightest hint of pay to win MTX and I'm steering clear.
Agreed
 
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Hmmm, multiplayer, that's a shame.

The ethics drift sliders actually look pretty interesting, maybe even better than what we have in the pc game.

All that's left to say is that I hope to god that your not pulling some bullshit premium currency stunt (looking at you G) to get round intentionally grindy antifun design.
 
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