Utopia is overall a great expansion, adding a lot of features that were requested and others that weren't but still welcomed.
However I think most of these features are lackluster and need some balancing/tweaking imo.
I'll talk about each feature separately and in the order they come in the official wiki : http://www.stellariswiki.com/Patch_1.5
- Habitats: they seem pretty decent on paper even though they are a bit too good at producing energy and science on a smaller scale. I'm not sure they are really good because they add huge penalties for research (22%) and unity. This means that wide empire would probably preffer to colonize bigger planets and tall empires would not benefit from them as much as needed. I never built any in my playthroughs as I didn't feel I would benefit much from them.
Maybe they should nerf energy and science output a little but make them considered like half a planet (for research and unity) so that 2 habitats are somewhat equal or just a bit worse than a 24 size planet. Though that could be exploited by wide empires as well so they could be considered half a planet only if you have less than 6 or less planets (what a tall empire should have). Past that limit they'd work just like now.
- Ring Worlds: way way wayyyyyyy too long to get. They seem really good once you get them but by the time it happens the game is almost over or doesn't have any challenge remaining to keep you interested.
It takes ages to meat the requirements (Mega engineering tech, Circle of Life and Voidborn perks) and then it takes 60 years to build (45 with Master Builders). And you can only build one MS at a time. They really should lower the requirements and the time it takes to get this thing.
- Dyson Sphere: 400 energy is pretty good but like Ring Worlds they take way too much time to complete to make any good use of them before the game ends or becomes boring.
Side note : it would be cool if the energy provided could vary between different star types.
- Science Nexus: 50 of all sciences for free energy seems decent but still not enough for the amount of requirements you need to build one. Once again, comes way to late in the game that you might already have researched most non repeatable techs.
- Sentry Array: the effect looks pretty damn good and the fact that it comes so late is less annoying than other MS.
Overall Mega Structures come way to late in the game. Many players don't play until very late game and that makes this feature completely useless for them. To high requirements and being able to build only one at a time make this feature badly balanced.
However there are some poor design choices among this feature.
- Traditions: the fact that you HAVE to take and complete every tradition tree to get all ascension prek if pretty dumb. Especially when a Pacifist empire takes Supremacy, Harmony for Autoritarian empires or Domination for Xenophile empires. It just ruins immersion and roleplay.
I think you should be able to take only 3 tradition trees (out of the 7) just like Europa Universalis with Ideas.
Then add more tradtions in each tree and more tradition trees with time.
But then you would have only 3 ascension perks from the tradition trees. No problem, currently you can get 7 from tradition trees and one from tech, just give 4 more ascension perks from techs or from other means.
Maybe a bit of balance aswell as it seems to easy to fill every tree with the right civics.
- Ascension perks: we need more, a lot more (just like traditions) but it's only the begining hopefully.
They all seem pretty good unless a few of them like :
1) One Vision:
I don't know, governing ethics attraction seem useless but I'm not sure about that.
2) World Shaper:
Not enough. I feel like an additional cost reduction or a small bonus (hapiness or habitability) to the terraformed planet could be great.
3) Galactic Contender:
Too situational imo. Once you're done with FE this perk is useless. Though, once you're done with them the game is almost over so... It's similar to the Defender of the Galaxy perk but Defender also gets a +20 bonus to diplomatic relations that can help diplomatic empires/federation builders or evil empires.
- Ascension paths: they add a little bit more roleplay and depth to this game but I'd like some more of them aswell.
1) Biological path: I think it is great, it's powerfull and flavourfull.
2) Psionic path: I didn't try it yet but I will in my next game. It looks pretty decent at least but I don't really know.
3) Synthetic path: this path however is pretty "meh" imo. Having all your pops transformed to synths is good I think but there are too many limitations. You can't transform other species you conquered and if you built robots/droids/synths before they are not considered the same specie whereas they are exactly the same. Moreover they are very slow to grow as you can only build one at a time on each planet and they grow at a slower pace than biological species. I think that going into the Synthetic path should allow you to build at least 2 pop simultaneously. You're mastering the art of robotics after all... But yeah it definitely needs something else to be really interesting.
They have unique civics which is good but I would also like if they had some unique techs and tradition trees and ascension perks to make them even more unique.
This is still a step in the right direction though.
That's all I can think about. Just want to remind that overall I really like this DLC and that I can't wait for more content for this game. I got every DLC for EU4 and I probably will for Stellaris.
I realized it's a bit long to read everything... sorry
What do you guys think about it ?
You are more than welcomed to share your opinions even if you don't agree with me.
Anyway, thanks for reading
However I think most of these features are lackluster and need some balancing/tweaking imo.
I'll talk about each feature separately and in the order they come in the official wiki : http://www.stellariswiki.com/Patch_1.5
- Megastructures
- Habitats: they seem pretty decent on paper even though they are a bit too good at producing energy and science on a smaller scale. I'm not sure they are really good because they add huge penalties for research (22%) and unity. This means that wide empire would probably preffer to colonize bigger planets and tall empires would not benefit from them as much as needed. I never built any in my playthroughs as I didn't feel I would benefit much from them.
Maybe they should nerf energy and science output a little but make them considered like half a planet (for research and unity) so that 2 habitats are somewhat equal or just a bit worse than a 24 size planet. Though that could be exploited by wide empires as well so they could be considered half a planet only if you have less than 6 or less planets (what a tall empire should have). Past that limit they'd work just like now.
- Ring Worlds: way way wayyyyyyy too long to get. They seem really good once you get them but by the time it happens the game is almost over or doesn't have any challenge remaining to keep you interested.
It takes ages to meat the requirements (Mega engineering tech, Circle of Life and Voidborn perks) and then it takes 60 years to build (45 with Master Builders). And you can only build one MS at a time. They really should lower the requirements and the time it takes to get this thing.
- Dyson Sphere: 400 energy is pretty good but like Ring Worlds they take way too much time to complete to make any good use of them before the game ends or becomes boring.
Side note : it would be cool if the energy provided could vary between different star types.
- Science Nexus: 50 of all sciences for free energy seems decent but still not enough for the amount of requirements you need to build one. Once again, comes way to late in the game that you might already have researched most non repeatable techs.
- Sentry Array: the effect looks pretty damn good and the fact that it comes so late is less annoying than other MS.
Overall Mega Structures come way to late in the game. Many players don't play until very late game and that makes this feature completely useless for them. To high requirements and being able to build only one at a time make this feature badly balanced.
- Ascension Perks
However there are some poor design choices among this feature.
- Traditions: the fact that you HAVE to take and complete every tradition tree to get all ascension prek if pretty dumb. Especially when a Pacifist empire takes Supremacy, Harmony for Autoritarian empires or Domination for Xenophile empires. It just ruins immersion and roleplay.
I think you should be able to take only 3 tradition trees (out of the 7) just like Europa Universalis with Ideas.
Then add more tradtions in each tree and more tradition trees with time.
But then you would have only 3 ascension perks from the tradition trees. No problem, currently you can get 7 from tradition trees and one from tech, just give 4 more ascension perks from techs or from other means.
Maybe a bit of balance aswell as it seems to easy to fill every tree with the right civics.
- Ascension perks: we need more, a lot more (just like traditions) but it's only the begining hopefully.
They all seem pretty good unless a few of them like :
1) One Vision:
Governing Ethics Attraction: +30% and Unity Output: +10%
2) World Shaper:
Terraforming Speed: +100%
3) Galactic Contender:
Damage to Fallen Empires: +33% and Damage to Awakened Empires: +33%
- Ascension paths: they add a little bit more roleplay and depth to this game but I'd like some more of them aswell.
1) Biological path: I think it is great, it's powerfull and flavourfull.
2) Psionic path: I didn't try it yet but I will in my next game. It looks pretty decent at least but I don't really know.
3) Synthetic path: this path however is pretty "meh" imo. Having all your pops transformed to synths is good I think but there are too many limitations. You can't transform other species you conquered and if you built robots/droids/synths before they are not considered the same specie whereas they are exactly the same. Moreover they are very slow to grow as you can only build one at a time on each planet and they grow at a slower pace than biological species. I think that going into the Synthetic path should allow you to build at least 2 pop simultaneously. You're mastering the art of robotics after all... But yeah it definitely needs something else to be really interesting.
- Unique Civics
- Hive Minds
They have unique civics which is good but I would also like if they had some unique techs and tradition trees and ascension perks to make them even more unique.
- Additonal Species Rights
This is still a step in the right direction though.
That's all I can think about. Just want to remind that overall I really like this DLC and that I can't wait for more content for this game. I got every DLC for EU4 and I probably will for Stellaris.
I realized it's a bit long to read everything... sorry
What do you guys think about it ?
You are more than welcomed to share your opinions even if you don't agree with me.
Anyway, thanks for reading