Stellaris borrows a lot of mechanics from the other Paradox game Wiz has closely worked on, EU4. You got the weird army capacity thing that tries to block you from using too much of your resources to build your military might. In both games you can choose between minor stats deviation between your basic infantry (laser, kinetic) or a special cavalry unit that has a distinct strength and weakness (missiles). You have ideas (traditions), rivals, war goals, truce timers, coalitions (federations) and so on and on. Some of these mechanics are shared between all of Paradox games and they define Paradox as a company and some are there just because they are leftovers from the last Paradox title. But the best mechanic in Stellaris is very different from EU4 and it is my passionate plea that this thing survives all the years of changes that will inevitably come.
The most important difference between these games is that Stellaris has a soul and EU4 has not.
Okay that sounds pretty harsh. Let me explain why I say that. In Stellaris you don't paint maps, you create stories. It's filled with rich, interesting universe with all kinds of strange phenomena carefully written to create a sense of mystery. It enables you reshape the life of people around the galaxy in various ways. It allows to make your people telepathic and summon a giant doom to destroy the world and see the various species flock as refugees while the world as they know it ends. It is not Excelis, it is Stellaris.
In EU4 we can't have that. Imagine if they gave some backward tribe -50% to production or wrote a negative/neutral event concerning a historical woman. It would be a public relations catastrophe. So what is the solution? Make everything impact as little as possible to not create controversy. You play an insignificant nation? You get 5% bonus to damage. Play as an important nation? Whooping 7.5% bonus damage (Nerfed from 10% coz people cried). Reform a religion and declare yourself the second coming of Jesus Christ? 10% bonus against enemy converting your religion. It has to be this way, because even now there are forum flame wars about why some Balkan province of Neverheardia has 1 less development than neighboring Insignificantia.
Why be scared now since Synthetic Dawn was mostly a success? Today it was announced in the dev diary that in the next patch Stellaris would take the most arbitrary mechanic from EU4. One that at one point served a purpose but has evolved in to a weird mess that makes little sense today. Thats right, coring is coming to Stellaris in form of starbases.
What is coring? In EU4 if you want to expand your borders, you have to buy little flags to plant on your land called cores. If you don't, your people will eat you alive and overthrow the government. I guess they are really passionate about those flags, just like I am about Stellaris. Anyway, you can choose to designate some very important counties as strong cores which are not lost so easily and produce small bonuses. You buy these cores with admin points commonly known as paper mana. Why is it called that? Because it magically appears every month, completely disregarding your current situation and player choice, and like magic, let's you buy things that money cannot.
In Stellaris 1.9 you wont have those smooth naturally growing and changing borders that change depending on your internal situation and external power of your empire. You buy core stations with radar mana (looks like a radar station to me), most of them will be weak core stations but some can be upgraded to strong core stations with small bonuses. You mostly can't destroy them just like you can't in EU4. You can't ignore them since they are a core mechanic. This is your life now. Waiting for radar mana, because it buys you things warships and natural resources can not.
If you need to pick an old Paradox title to emulate, pick Victoria 2! It has a lot of interesting mechanics that Stellaris could emulate with no loss of soul. Great star nations having a universe spanning war to solve a small crisis concerning if a medium power should cede a planet to a small power. Tyrannical species increasingly pressured with internal calls for reform or revolution and complete change of ethos and primary species through civil war.
Global interconnected economies that can thrive and crash, causing increased unrest for undiversified species.
TL;DR. Stellaris is pretty cool. EU4 is also cool but for extremely different reasons. Please dont try to mix these.
The most important difference between these games is that Stellaris has a soul and EU4 has not.
Okay that sounds pretty harsh. Let me explain why I say that. In Stellaris you don't paint maps, you create stories. It's filled with rich, interesting universe with all kinds of strange phenomena carefully written to create a sense of mystery. It enables you reshape the life of people around the galaxy in various ways. It allows to make your people telepathic and summon a giant doom to destroy the world and see the various species flock as refugees while the world as they know it ends. It is not Excelis, it is Stellaris.
In EU4 we can't have that. Imagine if they gave some backward tribe -50% to production or wrote a negative/neutral event concerning a historical woman. It would be a public relations catastrophe. So what is the solution? Make everything impact as little as possible to not create controversy. You play an insignificant nation? You get 5% bonus to damage. Play as an important nation? Whooping 7.5% bonus damage (Nerfed from 10% coz people cried). Reform a religion and declare yourself the second coming of Jesus Christ? 10% bonus against enemy converting your religion. It has to be this way, because even now there are forum flame wars about why some Balkan province of Neverheardia has 1 less development than neighboring Insignificantia.
Why be scared now since Synthetic Dawn was mostly a success? Today it was announced in the dev diary that in the next patch Stellaris would take the most arbitrary mechanic from EU4. One that at one point served a purpose but has evolved in to a weird mess that makes little sense today. Thats right, coring is coming to Stellaris in form of starbases.
What is coring? In EU4 if you want to expand your borders, you have to buy little flags to plant on your land called cores. If you don't, your people will eat you alive and overthrow the government. I guess they are really passionate about those flags, just like I am about Stellaris. Anyway, you can choose to designate some very important counties as strong cores which are not lost so easily and produce small bonuses. You buy these cores with admin points commonly known as paper mana. Why is it called that? Because it magically appears every month, completely disregarding your current situation and player choice, and like magic, let's you buy things that money cannot.
In Stellaris 1.9 you wont have those smooth naturally growing and changing borders that change depending on your internal situation and external power of your empire. You buy core stations with radar mana (looks like a radar station to me), most of them will be weak core stations but some can be upgraded to strong core stations with small bonuses. You mostly can't destroy them just like you can't in EU4. You can't ignore them since they are a core mechanic. This is your life now. Waiting for radar mana, because it buys you things warships and natural resources can not.
If you need to pick an old Paradox title to emulate, pick Victoria 2! It has a lot of interesting mechanics that Stellaris could emulate with no loss of soul. Great star nations having a universe spanning war to solve a small crisis concerning if a medium power should cede a planet to a small power. Tyrannical species increasingly pressured with internal calls for reform or revolution and complete change of ethos and primary species through civil war.
Global interconnected economies that can thrive and crash, causing increased unrest for undiversified species.
TL;DR. Stellaris is pretty cool. EU4 is also cool but for extremely different reasons. Please dont try to mix these.
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