Reviews are meh, but what are your first impressions?

[Unfaced]

Played around 2.5-3 hours yesterday and I love it. It is really what I hoped for and way better than e.g. Civ BE or Endless Space in my opinion.
And it only can get better later on

 

[VaLee]

Played until 5am. Nuff said.

 

[Magdaki]

This is what I posted as a Steam review. I recommended it.


I am really enjoying Stellaris. It is described as a blend of a 4X and grand strategy game (GSG); however, I think it is much more of a 4X. Many people, including reviewers, have tried to liken it to Crusader Kings II or Europa Universalis. Personally, I think it is more similar to Hearts of Iron as the game, at its heart, it is a war game. If you go into it with that expectation than it is excellent. If you are expecting a political similuation like EU or CK2 you may be disappointed.

Pros:
+ Galaxy exploration / colonization best in any game of this genre
+ Very little micromanagement
+ Great graphics (for a 4X)
+ A galaxy that feels alive (but not to the degree of EU or CK2)
+ Music (A+++)
+ The AI is respectable.
+ Wars are fun with a caveat (see cons below)
+ Great decision tempo. You constantly have to make hard choices.
+ Great tech tree design.

Cons:
- Early Bugs (this is a Paradox product after all, and so similarly they will be fixed quickly)
- More 4X, Less GSG (this doesn't bother me but it is worth noting)
- Wars can have a long mopping period. Basically, often wars come down to a couple of skirmishes and then one major battle. If you win, the enemy will generally just fold up because it is very hard to recover enough fleet strength quickly. If you lose, similarly, expecting to take a beating as it takes a long time to build your fleet back up. HOWEVER, I find the wars to none-the-less be a lot of fun because the positioning of fleets and getting yourself into that key position is challenging.
- Sometimes hard to track what is happening in your empire due to a lack of immediate information

 

[wickermoon]

I'm loving it so far, although the game does have its flaws. Some of them are minor, like spelling mistakes (especially the Paradoxian have/has, even though it's super easy to not screw that up), or wrong name associations in flavour text (The Gather Specimen Project comes to mind, which always refers to the Science ship instead of the planet), some of them are annoying like the diplomacy menu that'll close itself and not return to the races tab when negotiating with another race (and several other UI related quirks), or that a fight summary won't tell you how many ships you've lost during a fight, but none of them have been severe, as far as I can tell.

And I somehow feel like this is the first game I can actually convince my friends to play. <_< Yes, I've never played EU4 or CK2 in multiplayer. T_T

 

[oak]

I have only played about 2 hours so maybe I am totally wrong here but I feel the game lacks a bit of depth.

 

[monsterfurby]

Really?

Most of the added 'content' in EU4 doesn't keep me busy. In fact the busiest part is figuring out how to exploit adjusted mechanics. But it's nevertheless still accumulate, spend in all but warfare.

The fundamentals of the game matter, because they're unlikely to change. With Stellaris they've chosen the EU4 path of discrete one-off choices and point accumulation. That grind in the mid game isn't going anywhere...

I respectfully disagree here. Yes, the fundamentals of the game matter - and to me, those are very solid here. Those bones just need more meat on them.
We seem to play EU4 differently as well, though, so I suppose we won't agree on this one either.

 

[kulw]

I am now about 5h in the game and it is fun, but also terrible annoying sometimes - where is the autopause and the settings for the messages? - sorry but this is something that caught me on the wrong foot, i totally expected the features that are in all other good pds games. But it is missing and the system now used does not work good enough to justify the removal of the old one.

For the other bugs - yeah if the savegame is gone because the leader clothings are not saved (and atm i expect they are defined for all empire-leaders for your game) its a bit broken at this point, but playable.

For the overview itself - there is a button to display more details: if i put it off, there are still all details regarding the used resources in the systems, so it does not get more oversee able. Most buttons seem way to big, if you want to choose a leader you have to scroll if there are more than 3 in the list, all such things, ...

Conclusion: The game itself is fun, but the UI and design-decisions seem to focus on making this a mobile-game. You know? - you could play Victoria 1 on 800x600 and there was perfect overview about all things when you needed them. Now you can play Stellaris on 1920x1080 and it does not give you the information you want to see but gives you information you don't want on screen all the time.

While writing the text my feelings for the interface are similar to them that i have considering the new "windows 8" and "windows 10" menu at a destop pc:

And so - i like the game as grand strategy, but i don't like the feeling.

 

[Magdaki]

Hi guys! It's great to hear your opinions, and I'm glad to hear that you are mostly positive.

We've heard the feedback on mid-game, and this is where we will put our focus to begin with. Doomdark is hard at work coming up with ideas on how to improve that aspect of the game. I'll let him talk more about that himself later.

We know that there are some other areas of the game that aren't as fleshed out as they could be. But you need to stop somewhere when you make a game, or it won't be finished ever I can guarantee that we will continue developing the game and expanding on different areas of the gameplay as we always do.

Thanks for playing Stellaris and posting your feedback!

Two things that I feel are missing to really give the GSG experience:

1 - Trade.
2 - EU style interactions with other civs. For example, expressing an interest in particular star systems.

The Big Bug That Is So Small But Annoys The Heck Out Of The Most Is...... *drum roll*

When the AI surrenders they hand everything over to you instead of giving into to your stated war goals! No, AI, I don't want all the planets, this was was to expand my vassal into your space. Sigh. Opens diplomatic channels to vassal.

Yeah I know minor. Drives me nuts.

 

[Werther]

Destructoid: 9/10
Gamwatcher: 9/10
PC Invasion: 8/10
Eurogamer: recommended
PC World: 4/5
PC Games N: 9/10
RockpaperShotgun: very positive
TICGN: 10/10
eXplorminate: eXemplary
Critically Sane: 5/5
Gaming on Linux: 9/10
GameGrin: 8,5/10

...

Ok Pc Gamer gave a 70/100 (but positive) and IGN a 6,3/10 (but it's IGN, who care !!!).

It's not what i call a "meh"

 

[Aquae Sulis]

We seem to play EU4 differently as well, though, so I suppose we won't agree on this one either.

I'm genuinely curious. In EU4 outside of war, what is happening except waiting for resource to accumulate (e.g. Tech) or actioning accumulation of resource (e.g. sending out diplomats).

With the current short expansion cycle, Stellaris will also get a load of tacked-on 'features'. That's great if you want more things to occassionally interact with (and lots of folk do) but I really hoped for a more dynamic, more alive simulation of space.

I'm now convinced that Vic 2 was the high water mark for Paradox and that it's on a superficial, slippery slope ever since...

 

[Xomus]

I played it for 4 hours and it was great. Very enjoyable experience, I like it better than Distant Worlds right now, its less fiddly. Money well spent. But I treat game more as RP experience, not excel number crunching and exploit searching.

 

[minami26]

I haven't read anyone liken Stellaris to SoaSE, Gameplay, UI and Decisions play out like SoaSE.

War/Battle Mechanics and Fleet Engagements aside (Since those are not yet fully integrated or shall we say polished) might become a Wartime DLC to fully realize space naval engagements.

All that mid-game grindy stuff I'm reading, that's what will usually happen once the galaxy has been scoured, actions comes to a halt, along comes diplomacy and war.
I have been playing SoaSe a lot and with the game's cheaty AI on high difficulties war is inevitable and it becomes a tug-of-war with planets and asteroids.

So maybe that's it...
many games nowadays have aggressive AI, diplomacy and empire wide interactions that everyone has been in touch with that they forgot to mention what it is.

Shouldve put in the reviews that "A couple more patches and game mechanics implementation and Stellaris will become the space strategy game we all dreamt of."
9.9 for potential great awesome game.
Stellaris FTW!

 

[spinoza013]

It's a great platform. Once they add more intrigue and diplomatic options it'll be a great game, Seems ideal for modders so I'll be looking forward to what the community produce. 8/10 great start soon be a 10/10 game i'm sure

 

[Invader_Canuck]

The AI isn't tame. It's playing more or less the way a player would.

It doesn't suicide against stronger players/AI, and it gobbles up smaller/weaker players/AI.

If there is a problem, it's that the AI tends to get outstripped by a player early game, but believe me, advanced AI starts, they will ruin your day if you start next to one.

 

[Silenalex]

4 hours playing here and I had a lot of fun. Would like an IA a little more aggressive though.

 

[Balfuset790]

I'm really enjoying the game so far. Though to be fair I watched a lot of pre-release YouTube content - which I do these days instead of reading reviews - and knew pretty early on this was going to be a game I would really enjoy.

In my eyes it combines the best parts of Space 4X games like MoO with the best parts of EU4 - my favourite PDX grand strat game that I've played. That and I'm a sucker for sci-fi XD

 

[Invader_Canuck]

4 hours playing here and I had a lot of fun. Would like an IA a little more aggressive though.

The AI is plenty aggressive if it has the upper hand. I just had an 8 person multiplayer game end, because an advanced start AI that was marginally stronger than the players near it, declared war on a player. It obliterated that player, and then not wanting that guy to get eliminated in the first 35 years, everyone nearby tried to help. The AI steam rolled all of them. Then all the players on the opposite side of the map began feeding the other guys resources and sending fleets and declaring war on that AI.

That AI still smashed everyone, it was hilarious. In the end it conquered two players and we restarted. It wasn't even that much stronger, it had a fleet strength of about 1.2k, took about 10 years to capture the guys planets, but its fleet was indestructible.

 

[-Marauder-]

Canuck, might've been you guys fell for the Rock - Paper - Scissor thing. Then again, it's unlikely all of you did. I can't say I've seen anything like it even on Hard. There were some conflicts initially between various AI's but now everyone is in a Federation or huge Alliance and all conflicts have ground to a screeching halt als Cold War seems to have broken out with all the big blocks just staring at each other.

It feels as if they're far to likely to ally and even more far too likely to form a Federation.

 

[Waplo]

Very fun and addictive but it lacks many things (especially espionage and internal politics).
I guess we'll have to wait for a bit.

 

[GitmoOZ]

I'm really enjoying it. As advertised as far as I am concerned. I love it