This version has interesting features (the new planet management for example) but it seems none of the devs played the game before release.
Playing as a pacifist materialist empire coming from a continental world. I discover a tiny Gaia planet size 13.
A few years after colonization, ONE refugee from Z'Chell land on that Gaia planet. As they are desert people, they are welcome on my tiny Gaia world instead of one of the 12 continental planets.
But after a while, on all planets, the growing pops is Zchell on all planets. I can't understant the underlying logic (or lack of logic) of the growth management :
1) How a ONE pop can lead to 13 growing pops on all planets ? excluding all growth from other species ?
2) How a desertic species can be chosen to grow on continental world on which the desertic species is NOT present, instead of the continental species already in place => Non sense
At the moment, this kind of lack of apparent logic is totally breaking the immersive /narrative part of the game which is an important part of the gameplay I like(d) in Stellaris.
On another game I played, once my empire reached 1000 pops, my "main species" was less than 300, the other 700 were "provoluted" species and illuminated ones . No invasion, migration treaties only with the illuminatesd vassals : just by the way the growth is managed, the original specie is only 30%. On NONE of the planet, the original species is chosen as the growing ones. Again - no logic.
The pop growth management needs a full revamp - it's game breaking : Species management is useless, worker management same. I can't even assign specific robots to a given task (eg agri robot to farming).
Further Addition to original post :
An agri / slow learner specie refugee pop just arrived on my tiny gaia world.
Despite having room as a farmer, it joined as governor rank, put a "clever" specie on the dole queue. Frustration, I don't understand the way the game choose (except maybe let's annoy the player ? ) Again no apparent logic - can't find any clue on the behavior. Again the feeling to not have any kind of control on the game.
Sector Management - Randomized stuff -
That's a game - I'd like to do things in the game, and manage things on my own ; of course within clever limits. For the moment, I'm just mourning about what seems to be a randomized sector creation which leads to 80% of the sectors being one planet.
Very poor release with too many drawbacks from previous release despite interesting unpolished features.
