Reviews are meh, but what are your first impressions?

[Sonereal]

I'm not sure how you can say every material put into a corvette is wasted and then complain about cultists stomping your face in.

I built my corvettes early, improved the capital planet, and use the fleet to go after ayys for the juicy research.

 

[Exemplar Voss]

I like it, but the mid game is... a bit dull. I can either fight pointless wars against my immediate neighbors or watch techs unlock.

Mind you, a lot of that is choosing hyperlanes, so I'm literally boxed in by other empires (though I grew well before that point, and eventually had enough of peace and fought to a hyperlane to the next arm over, which was completely empty barring a fallen empire further down the line. So I expanded far more than I really should have been able to without resistance).

However at 10 hours and a century or so in... I'm lacking on things to do. I've fought one small war and one medium war successfully, and just pulled the trigger on another one, basically for want of anything else to do. It will net me one (1) system (44 warscore), and 1 each for my two allies (1 liberation for 18, 1 conquest for 25, and nothing else would fit), if I bother to fight beyond the minimum necessary. But frankly I'm not terribly inclined to do that, because mostly at this point combat seems to be about chase scenes, emergency FTL and more chasing.

Wars at this stage are pretty meaningless (because I can take so little), and tricky with allies, because the warscore adds up so absurdly- I should be vassalizing, but don't have the war score room to do so and still give my allies something so they'll vote yes. It is extra galling because the game's 'suggested demands' rack up to 180 something warscore and are invalid. [And the only reason I use them is to find out what the most distant empire (non-adjacent to every enemy) will actually accept, sadly he won't go in for free.]


Everything else is... in hand Sectors have enough resources, my numbers look good (and I have no way to increase them beyond wait for growth anyway), and at this point, I'm waiting for techs to unlock, or something big to happen.

I even cuddled up to the Holy Fallen Empire's borders (and forced them inwards, to the point that they lost control of an uninhabited system), built planets in the same system as their holy worlds (but not on the holy worlds) and built research and mining satellites in orbit of the holy worlds, just to see if something would happen. It didn't. Without colonizing the actual holy worlds (which is not what their description says, it says system) they don't care, and their opinion didn't twitch at all. [+25 because I am also fanatic spiritualist]

Weirdest thing of the game: I can make psionic armies [psionic army is a rare tech] out of my conquered slave race's former robots. I... don't know how psionic robot armies work.

 

[Agridvfzak]

My FIRST impressions were good but after many hours playing i can tell you this game isn't very fun at all.

The early game is basically a bad 4x game, sending those stupid science ships around is the most boring thing i have ever done in a paradox game, and the late game is a bare bones grand strategy.
I don't recommend it at all, regret buying it, wish i could still return it.

 

[Exemplar Voss]

My FIRST impressions were good but after many hours playing i can tell you this game isn't very fun at all.

The early game is basically a bad 4x game, sending those stupid science ships around is the most boring thing i have ever done in a paradox game, and the late game is a bare bones grand strategy.
I don't recommend it at all, regret buying it, wish i could still return it.

Huh. See, I love the early game, and at that stage it is the best 4x game. The big problem is the grand strategy never really materializes.

 

[kulw]

There are now 314 threads about bugs so maybe around 280 unique ones... i don't understand how all this test magazines say it is a 9/10 etc.

I expected some, but: wormholes not working with allies, bugged elections, missing message settings, missing autopause, no updates for transport ships, no control over own armies on foreign planets after ending war, a terrible german translation, missing research bonuses from events, reset on leaders after loading the game, no working genetics, ...

Every system that is not like other 4x games and could make this game unique is bugged to a amount where you can expect a gamebreaker after 20 hours playing. This all makes me sad thinking about the game in the current state.

 

[small.cpu]

First impression without going into the mid- to lategame:

Its beautifully written. Really well done. I think I found a reference to almost all sci-fi I know.

The early part of exploration is pretty nice.

But imo the game needs some serious polish. Especially the UI misses so many things that are standard in other Paradox games like EU IV (pop up settings). Additionally the option menu for the UI is non-existent. (Where are my rebindable keys? My scrolling speed setting?)

Controlling certain parts is sometimes wonky and even though the standard planet limit is 5 its still surprisingly micro heavy with all the upgrading (and no notifications for those).

Going in the mid-game now I don't really see the grand strategy part. Stellaris seems (as an initial impression) to be a very standard 4x game.

 

[Mivo]

I'm still in the early game (where I send science ships around), about three hours of playtime. I'm having a blast, so my first impression is great and keeps improving. (I sometimes feel as I've become jaded with video games, so finding one that triggers that "can't stop playing" spark so quickly is an anomaly that requires further investigating! Sending a cup of science tea.)

 

[Umega]

This so much. The worst offenders are certainly ship design and planet management. The first is really just an unnecessary element of the game, I'm a interstellar Emperor, I don't give a damn if Cruiser #492 in Fleet Alpha-C uses A/AM Missiles or Missiles with Microsingularity Warhead. This is the stuff i have ministers and admirals for. But no, I have to update every design manually whenever I research some new stuff, confirm that I really really want to overwrite my new design, and then manually order every ship in my celestial realm to plese fly to the nearest spaceport and get the newest longrange sensor.

Planets are much the same. I don't care if pop#327 (Human, Materislist, Fanatically Xenophile, member of Loyalist Faction) works in a Power Plant II or a Power Plant III. I hire people whose job it is to care about that so that I no longer have to care. Also, for some reason it is good UI design to put tiles and total tile yield on two different tabs.

I don't mind the actual "micromanagement" of my empire. But it does feel like the game is actively trying to make it difficult for me to navigate the menus and interface.

 

[SirRobin]

I like it but the AI is too tame and it really needs more in depth diplomacy/espionage/trading.

 

[alanschu]

Gal Civ 3 - IGN gives 8.6
Stellaris IGN - 6.7

I think the problem here is with IGN if they can give a crap uninnovative game like Gal Civ 8.6

Again, it always depends on the reviewer.

Rowan is a huge Paradox fan and reviewed EU4 for IGN giving it an 8.9.

Unfortunately for Rowan he felt the game wasn't his cup of tea and there were aspects of it he didn't like that left him wanting more.

It's a compelling reason for why we should get rid of game scores altogether, personally.

 

[kosmoface]

Unfiltered first impressions.

I like it a lot. It is a little bit like Star Trek - the game. Simply to boldly go... and find things. It is a little bit simpler than other Pdox titles, but that is not a negative. I like that you can have only a limited number of planets under your direct control. There are more limitations like that in the game and I very much like them, because it alters your style of play compared to your-next-door 4x-game.

I sometimes would like to turn off the orbit lines/rings, to declutter the view. All in all, very well done Paradox. Now let me preorder HOI IV

PS: I seldom Preorder, let alone buy on day one, baut Stellaris and HOI IV really got me excited again. Yay!

 

[IrishGirl]

I don't mind the actual "micromanagement" of my empire. But it does feel like the game is actively trying to make it difficult for me to navigate the menus and interface.

That was my first thought when I read that post, but this could be resolved with some sort of auto-manage button. I do agree that the UI needs to be more streamlined, without removing gameplay choices and features.

And I love the ship designer.

 

[AmpsterMan]

In comparison to Galactic Civilizations 2, i really like this game. So far, my favorite thing has been uplifting races. I have about 6 races that I am observing and three that I introduced into the intergalactic community once they split the atom. This one mechanic alone I love xD.

Otherwise, this game seems to have the same issues other Pdox games have... clickmania. Sectors are also underwhelming and the lack of a screen detailing all my spaceports and what they are building; rally points, etc. Reduces the enjoyment of the gme for me.

Otherwise, it's a great game and I look forward to seeing the mid-end game stuff (I have robots working for me... *gulp*)

 

[Uncron]

First impressions are that it is a visually astounding game with a slick well polished GUI. It is also stable and runs well technically. The start with exploration, building up and colonizing is exciting and well designed.

However, going on a few decades things start to get a little stale and you sit on fastest speed, spamming out ships and getting recycled anomalies. AI also behaves very tamely and passively and that is not necessarily a game design flaw. The pop system is awesome from a bird perspective but very shallow in execution.

I still enjoy the game but I don't think the base game has much replayability. At least in EU4 and the other games with asymmetrical starts you had different challenges and even achievements to stretch for.

Lastly I think Stellaris is an excellent base platform for a game in this genre, but it needs to be saved by mods and patches.

 

[DaveDash]

I think the mid game grind depends on your start. In my game my mid game is great because I am not boxed in. However if you get boxed in then yes, mid game probably feels a lot like being in the HRE waiting for AE to burn down.

I love the game. It's vastly better already than a lot of space 4x games in its vanilla state, and will be one of the classics after some DLC and patches.
I haven't had this much fun playing a space game since the Sins, Sword of the Stars (1), or GalCiv 2.

 

[Shkur]

I played about 15 hours and decided to uninstal it.I am 300 or so years in to the game,i have around 60-70 terraformed planets and around400 pop,my fleet is around 50000 with only half my fleet cap and there is nothing to do but to watch the tech going up terraforming and colonizing planets.I waged two offensive wars and took 6 planets.My empire was genocidal xenophobic militarist and nobody liked me so i used the diplomacy menu only five times, two times for war declaration and 3 times for rivaling neighbors.The diplomacy in that game is super bad.I dare someone to say that declaring war is fun when your enemies have around 40 planets and you have to find it in that stupid war declaration list.Also i fought two pointless defensive wars.They ware pointless because there is no way(i didn't find any) to demand anything from your enemy.There is only two options for declaring wars,taking planets and vassalizing.There is no war reparations or forcing military access.So i decided to sit home with my doom fleet wait the tech clock and from time to time beated the fallen empires. Also there is the tech cards problem.In my 300 years of play i don't have a single energy upgrade because it never appears in the tech options.In my Huge game with a lot of empires in the late game there is a lag and my pc is powerful.

 

[Maizel]

I played about 15 hours and decided to uninstal it.

Bit dramatic, are we?

 

[Shkur]

Bit dramatic, are we?

Not really.Why?

 

[Golub]

I am normally against preorders and this is the first game I preordered. Played it for about 5 hours and I am not disappointed. It is a blast.

 

[Denkt]

It's a compelling reason for why we should get rid of game scores altogether, personally.

Agree, you should read the text, score feels arbitary then you look at stuff like Civilization V 90%, Stellaris 63% I have played both on the release and I would say with my current experience of Stellaris that Stellaris is the better game, Civilization V is more or less inferior in every area I can think of.

Stellaris is definitely not perfect but I don't see any significant problems with it like Civilization V in which one unit per tile basiacally made the combat ai harmless, Stellaris ai seems to have destroyed more empries in these two days then Civilization V have done in its lifetime.

Stellaris is a game in which you really have to think ahead. You can not be sure which technology you can get, while you can build a frontier outpost now maybe you can find a better location for it if you give your scientist an extra year to explore more systems. You have to adopt to the current situation instead of build orders and such which is a really good thing.

The issues I have had are extremely minor such as that there is no automation for science and constuction ships, I have yet to see an major design problem for this game.

I think you will have a hard time finding a better 4x game and a better grand strategy game as it is probably the best game in both genres, this game do what it do very well.