Stellaris: Galaxy Command has Arrived!

[KennethMR]

Hello Everyone,

This is a special post as we are announcing a new game! My name is Kenneth Mei, and I am a Product Manager at Paradox. I will be sharing details about our new mobile game announced just today -- Stellaris: Galaxy Command!

Stellaris: Galaxy Command is a persistent massive multiplayer mobile strategy game based on the Stellaris universe. The game is available immediately for beta testing in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden. If you live in those countries, you are in luck! You will be able to try the game immediately! If you live outside of those regions, stay tuned! This initial rollout to just a few countries allows us to gather player feedback, make adjustments, and work out some kinks before releasing the game into the hands of all players. This also means a lot can change between now and the global release.

We know you have a number of questions about what Stellaris: Galaxy Command is, and that’s the great part about a beta: we can show you what we’ve got, and you can tell us how you feel about it. So, let’s dive right in!




An independent team

Some of you may have correctly pieced together that Stellaris: Galaxy Command is not being developed internally. We are developing this game in collaboration with an external studio called Gamebear. We picked Gamebear for a number of reasons, but one of the first and foremost is that they turned out to be huge fans of Paradox and Stellaris from the get-go! They were incredibly eager to work with us, so we issued them a challenge: Can you develop a mobile game with complex ethics and decisions, interactive alliance mechanics, full-fledged empire management, a player-driven economy, and with an intricate trading system? Gamebear quickly accepted the challenge.

With Gamebear hard at work, we offered our guidance and suggestions to keep this game an authentic Stellaris experience, but they've taken on all aspects of development, leaving the Stellaris team at Paradox to stay focused on the core game (stay tuned for news from them, by the way)!




A game for a different part of your day

In considering which Paradox game would work well on mobile, Stellaris always felt like an obvious choice, but it needed to feel both like an authentic Stellaris experience while also feeling right for a mobile game. We built a game based on the same universe, but one that fills a very different part of your day. Stellaris: Galaxy Command is a game with a grand scale in a new format.

Mobile games are frequently played in short bursts. Maybe you are waiting for friends for dinner, at the airport, or even on your way home to play Stellaris on PC. Galaxy Command allows you to scratch that strategy itch wherever you are, any time. Your empire can wait a while for you to handle your day-to-day non-conquering tasks, and will be there when you’re ready to return.




A living and changing universe

We wanted to build a persistent and living universe shared by thousands, where territorial control, economy, warfare, and trade are all player-driven. As with any Paradox game, you will still get to paint the map, but this time you’re not painting alone!

In Stellaris: Galaxy Command, we pushed the concept of forming alliances into overdrive. Effectively, you will work with others to build an empire rather than doing it on your own. As an alliance, you can pick your own name and flag, set your own political system, colonize planets, build defensive structures, sign trade treaties with other alliances, initiate blockades against hostile factions, declare war, and impose your will on others.

You'll experience a familiar Stellaris universe that evolves daily based on player actions. What you do will have very real consequences for the entire galaxy.

Unlike most mobile strategy games on the market, where you merely read battle reports, here you must play through battles in real-time. This creates a much more engaging dynamic where you can reinforce the battle as the situation develops. This also allows for strategies such as sending in a robust defensive fleet to trap your enemy and then deploying a high damage fleet to hit your enemies hard—a very effective tactic during an alliance war.

Ethics, which are a core pillar of Stellaris, make a comeback in Galaxy Command as well, albeit with a twist. Instead of picking ethics at the start of the game, your behavior in-game will directly influence your ethics.

Empire customization is an important part of Galaxy Command with some new spins on familiar systems. We'll talk more about them in the future.

As an alliance leader, you will have a variety of political systems, featuring unique decrees, to choose from, depending on the collective ethics of your members.

Besides fighting an actual war, you have many political options to settle differences among alliances. While we won't go into detail about this today, there is a reason why there are so many trade-related options here.

If you decide to go to war, you can force others to accept your terms.




This is just a start to give you a glimpse of what is coming. In the future, we will discuss many more features, including base building, trade, alliances, war mechanics, and monetization, etc. Stellaris: Galaxy Command has an in-game news system and forum, accessible through the game and on the web, where we will be sharing further updates!


One last thing before I leave you to the rest of your day—I want to reiterate the reason that we are offering a beta right now. As this is our first major mobile game that allows for a different gaming experience, it will depend on your feedback. We would like to hear your constructive suggestions and criticisms. As you'll see in the gameplay, some systems were streamlined, while others are expanded. This is the opportunity for you to tell us where you would like to see deeper mechanics.


We have big ambitions for our first major mobile game and hope that you'll see the same potential in Stellaris: Galaxy Command that we do!

 

[Harlot]

Hey guys! Kenneth let me jump in here to answer some questions before he can join us here live!

The performance sucks enough on PC, I wonder how laggy it will be on mobile, like who TF thought that putting one of the laggiest PC games on mobile wouldn't end up as a disaster?

No worries. This is not a port. It's a new game that was developed specifically for the mobile devices.

This actually looks rather nice, but the apparent multiplayer focus and what looks like a premium currency named "G" are big red flags. I'm pretty sure that whatever merit this game might have will be ruined by its monetization. Luckily, I don't even have a smartphone, so I will not be disappointed too much.

Monetization is actually one of the main reasons why we're doing a closed beta in the first place. We have a good idea on how we want to do it, and we do want the purchases to provide something tangible for the players who make them, but we are 100% looking for feedback about the balance of the Battle Pass (more on that soon!).

Wow, hope you are prepared to be flamed because this is NOT what people wanted, with the two weeks between dev diaries, the failed launcher release, no fixes, and you guys think releasing a mobile game teaser was somehow a good idea?

So are we to assume you will no longer be working on the actual stellaris game, since you have put all your eggs into other baskets?

Really disappointed, everyone was hoping for a diplomatic DLC, not this mobile garbage.

edit - you still need to use resources to get the game up and going for another company, which means members and money, they dont just plop a game on another company and say, "good luck", people. maybe learn how things work...

Nah. As some already said, these are completely separate teams. And if you're worried about money, I can tell you right now that it's not the bottleneck at Paradox. If you look at the career page, you'll see that there are over 40 job postings. And since this is developed externally, it doesn't take up the time of any of the PC or Console devs.

Premium currency mobile game. And then there's the added disappointment that I thought that teaser with the ethics slider was coming to the main game, nice.

We tried to steer everyone clear of that impression over the whole week. But if you feel we didn't do a good enough job of that, it's a lesson for us for the future.

 

[Harlot]

>when the mobile Stellaris game seems to have better diplomacy than the actual game.

I will only say "Stay tuned"

Galaxy Command will definitely have a different type of diplomacy. It's an MMO so it's very meta, in a sense that it's human driven. PvE is in the game but the core of interactions is between players and their alliances.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I have some interest in this and I would be willing to pay an upfront cost but the slightest hint of pay to win MTX and I'm steering clear.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paradoxplaza.lassie

 

[Harlot]

As long as I can do everything without having to buy a battle pass or any "premium" currency its good. The minute I have to do a MTX im out.

I will talk very shortly about the Battle Pass here. It's a system in development and likely to be tweaked so I'll go for broad strokes.

The battle pass is a linear series of rewards for the player. You unlock rewards as you complete objectives. The free battle pass has its set of rewards and so does the paid one. So to unlock the paid rewards, you still need to be a good player, performing well at the game, to level up the pass and unlock rewards. It's not an insta-win button.

I think I need to reiterate here that, like all the gameplay features, the monetization is also one of the things we want to tweak over the beta. See what is the fair price, whether some rewards should be permanent or temporary, what order should they unlock in, at what levels, should some rewards be unique, how many resources should be granted, ships etc. It's a complex system that will require feedback.

In general though, it's definitely the team's aim to have the kind of monetization that can help the game support itself in the realities of the mobile market (quite different to PC) but is still something everyone playing is comfortable with.

So whether you want to praise or rip, keep it coming.

 

[Harlot]

Well..someone has learned from Diablo Immortal and didn't announce their mobile game on the big stage :>

So far, this looks interesting. If it doesn't have any predatory mechanics, I'll give it a try.

Oh and I assume you will get your own forum from now on? Could get pretty confusing and...lets face it...toxic otherwise.

We'd lie if we said we aren't keenly aware of the Blizzard's influence on any mobile announcements right now.

Monetization is a thing to be determined by the beta, though we have a starting point in place already. I explained it roughly in the last post. More details soon!

And yeah. Separate community hub on KT Play. One - it's integrated. Two - Let's not cross streams too quickly.

 

[Harlot]

@KennethMR I just tried to download it. It doesn't seem to exist in (western) Canada.

If you're on iOS we're still rolling out. Bear with us.

I mean... Does anyone who plays paradox even give a 2 craps about this? Just give us stellaris news already ffs...

Keep an eye on PDX Con.

 

[Harlot]

As a former Nova Empire player it’s quite obvious this is a re-skin with added Stellaris ethics/diplomacy/trade. Gamebear couldn’t even be bothered to change their generic pirate portrait or the name of the G currency. Combat looks the same as does UI and many other things.

Was/is Paradox aware of this? Can’t tell if Paradox wanted to cash in with their IP by slapping the Stellaris name on Nova Empire or if Gamebear is just going low effort making a “new” game.

Nova Empire was fun at first, but within two-three weeks I was hitting 21 day building times that could only be sped up by paying cash. Definitely became pay-to-win in alliance wars when rebuilding fleets/stations quickly was key to victory. Nova Empire was missing flavor that Stellaris could clearly add, but if this game keeps Nova Empire’s monetizing scheme I’ll be sadly disappointed.

The Gamebar team used the framework of Nova Empire as the starting point for Stellaris: Galaxy Command’s development. Some of you here mention trade, diplomacy, a new ethics system. With that we also bring the Stellaris exploration and storytelling. Hardly a case of changing a logo and calling it a day.

There are a few more of these forum threads we want to open in the coming weeks to go over each of those elements in more detail.

There were also mentions of the "Nova Empire" name when the game asks for permissions. Admittedly, a technical screwup. The whole text was a placeholder the team used from Nova Empire before Stellaris: Galaxy Command was named.

 

[Dnote]

It's not a question of balancing monetization models. Honestly, read the room. Why is that mobile game developers can't just make a decent product and sell it for a fair price?

Because, unfortunately, not enough people buy premium games on mobile.

The situation may change in the future, with the introduction of cloud gaming services and subscription services we might see viable ways of making non-f2p games work on mobile, but right now that isn't the case.

This is only one game out of our entire catalogue, if it isn't your thing, keep an eye out for the news from PDXCon.

 

[Harlot]

I doubt anyone has a problem with the idea of a mobile version of Stellaris or a version that's grounded on the design of another popular game.

It's the microtransactions, the ads, and the game design that follows from that monetization practice. It's predatory, and Paradox has curated a community of players (like myself) who have higher standards for the games they play and the ethics of the game studio / publisher.

The placeholder image was unfortunate less because game was derived from another, but because the game is already being seen as a cheap cash grab.

Now you have to do damage control. I don't envy the situation you (or the game's devs) have been put in.

I don't think there was a single person at Paradox who didn't expect we'd get strong reactions to a mobile game announcement. Naturally, it's now up to us to respond to the questions. I have no illusion that we'll go to business as usual today.

But yeah. The monetization itself will likely have its own forum thread later. But, as said before, this whole beta deal is also because we want to iron that element out. Get the kind of in-app system for monetization that the players can be comfortable with and the game can be supported by.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Because, unfortunately, not enough people buy premium games on mobile.

The situation may change in the future, with the introduction of cloud gaming services and subscription services we might see viable ways of making non-f2p games work on mobile, but right now that isn't the case.

This is only one game out of our entire catalogue, if it isn't your thing, keep an eye out for the news from PDXCon.

Yup, and it honestly sucks. I can completely understand why it's the type of game it is. The mobile market is far more likely to reward titles that are free to play with loads of microtranstions, it just makes business sense to release titles that follow that model.

That said, I've been after a mobile Paradox titles for ages (I've got Civ VI installed on both my iPad and iPhone and it runs fine - however it has a £30 upfront fee). My issue is I'd happily pay the same prices for a mobile title that was as engaging as PC titles, but since others aren't willing I'm a minority audience and thus those games don't get made. I might give this a test when it's out in the UK, but the MMO aspect is incredibly off-putting (I go to sleep and someone in a different timezone undoes all my work? No thanks!), even so I'll still wish won't wish any of you ill will, for putting out a title that I'm not in the audience for (much like I don't complain at Blizzard for making WoW and not WarCraft 4).

 

[Dnote]

It's not the dev studio calling the shots.It's the suits upstairs.

For the strategy games, that suit upstairs would be me. I tend to lean on the experience of the developers though, I mean our Game Directors are pretty good at what they do.

Yup, and it honestly sucks. I can completely understand why it's the type of game it is. The mobile market is far more likely to reward titles that are free to play with loads of microtranstions, it just makes business sense to release titles that follow that model.

That said, I've been after a mobile Paradox titles for ages (I've got Civ VI installed on both my iPad and iPhone and it runs fine - however it has a £30 upfront fee). My issue is I'd happily pay the same prices for a mobile title that was as engaging as PC titles, but since others aren't willing I'm a minority audience and thus those games don't get made. I might give this a test when it's out in the UK, but the MMO aspect is incredibly off-putting (I go to sleep and someone in a different timezone undoes all my work? No thanks!), even so I'll still wish won't wish any of you ill will, for putting out a title that I'm not in the audience for (much like I don't complain at Blizzard for making WoW and not WarCraft 4).

We'll figure something out, one day. I see an opportunity to have a premium gaming experience on mobile through cloud gaming, either directly through that, or through it reducing the costs of porting to make premium mobile itself more viable. Little early to really explore that though, kind of need the cloud gaming services to actually launch to give us some data.

 

[Harlot]

I'm sorry but you're incredibly misguided if you believe that this possible. By their nature, games with MTX's are designed to be addictive and to force players into shelling out or giving up on the experience. That's why they are successfully making so much money, because it's essentially unregulated gambling. If you design the MTX to not be predatory, you won't have a successful game.

With that in mind, make a premium upfront cost game, and make it a great experience. Anything else is slick PR to tone down that the game will use the usual psychological exploits of MTX in games.

I think we can both agree at this point that words can only take us so far. There is an extended beta period ahead of us and this will be a major part of it. Once tweaks start happening, we'll be able to see where we take monetization.

As for the premium cost. @Dnote talked about this better than I could.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

* Will it go on the Apple Arcade and why not?

It can't be on Apple Arcade as there are microtransactions. - https://www.macworld.com/article/3385024/apple-arcade-faq-games-price-compatibility.html#toc-5

We'll figure something out, one day. I see an opportunity to have a premium gaming experience on mobile through cloud gaming, either directly through that, or through it reducing the costs of porting to make premium mobile itself more viable. Little early to really explore that though, kind of need the cloud gaming services to actually launch to give us some data.

I disagree with the perspective that mobile devices aren't powerful, because as mentioned modern iPhones and iPads are more than powerful enough, though budget Android devices might not be powerful enough. Apple also allows developers to build the same app for Mac OS and iPadOS (https://developer.apple.com/mac-catalyst/) which should imply that development time can be shared between different platforms for the same titles?

 

[Harlot]

So I have a question, if they are not using resources, why is this here, and why are the devs responding to this and not the ones who made the game?
Seems like there should be another completely different forum for this, and that they should have their own team answering questions.
Because the pdx devs responding means they are not working on the game, which means they are wasting resources on this instead of the much needed fix.
so clearly resources are crossing...

You are correct on this front. After this post, we'll most likely be posting them natively to an integrated community app in the game and maybe sharing them here.

Just for the record, neither me nor Dnote are devs.

EDIT: As for why here? I imagine there are many reasons. We don't want you to think we sneak around. We want to be able to talk about what's in the game also with our players. And while it's likely not to appeal to many PC players, this is still a Stellaris game and I do think that once some people start playing, they'll see it has some cool stuff in it.

 

[Dnote]

If anyone here is going to be at PDXCon, I'm quite happy to make time to talk about these things.

 

[Harlot]

If someone else higher up thought he would be doing marketing here, tell him he's wrong. This has the exact opposite effect. Just saying. Best of Luck in PDXCON, you'll need it!

Eh. I think I'll be repeating myself but we didn't make this post expecting the core of our PC community to jump into the game right away.

As mentioned before, transparency is something we care about, and that means we wanted to post here.

 

[Harlot]

Any good places to send bug reports as of now? Noticed a few graphical issues and a few weird UI things

Yep! I the game there is a "Community" section under "Function". You can report there.

Why is your game lazy reskin of "Nova empire" or maybe this Reddit thread is misleading ?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/diah5m/stellaris_galaxy_straight_up_tells_you_its_a/

It's not. Addressed this earlier. Admittedly a technical screwup on part of the team. In the earliest stage of the development, the team used placeholder text from Nova Empire before our game had a name.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

If anyone here is going to be at PDXCon, I'm quite happy to make time to talk about these things.

How about lunch time on Friday?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

What Epic exclusive? As far as I remember the only thing with Epic is them giving Surviving Mars for free

Surviving the Aftermath is on Epic and XBox Early Access for a year before the Steam/ParadoxPlaza/PlayStation launch.