Stellaris is boring and tedious

[Monphat]

It is interesting how different people perceive the same thing in a different manner. Just how it should be, I suppose.

Players primarily interested in roleplay and sandbox aspects of Stellaris have a blast. They have an ability to create unique species with unique goals and go on their way having fun, setting on their own journey. No other strategy comes even close to the level of customization Stellaris offers, especially with mods, and I see how players interested in those aspects can play for hundreds and hundreds of hours non-stop. Leviathans and Utopia focused on and reinforced this strength of the game.

On the other hand, people interested in 4X experience or even something closer to Paradox grand strategy historical experience are at loss with this game because it is undeniably lackluster as far as strategy goes. These people expect proper warfare, diplomacy, trade etc. and it looks like for those people lack of depth in this area on the launch along with lack of progress in this area for a year is enough to call Stellaris a failure.

In addition, a lot of frustration seems to come from this:

I think the real problem with Stellaris compared to other Paradox games is the lack of meaningful, defineable goals. Taking the rulership of a tiny kingdom and trying to become the master of all of Europe through political deals, conquest and marriages is an incredible undertaking and feels momentous and awesome to try and do. Because we have a real, meaningful way to judge what that involves. Over the course of the game you have to deal with great powers and find ways to bring them under your control and deal with them. And that way doesn't always involve conquest. You have plenty of built-in options beyond that. Maybe you want to try and unify the new world and prevent the American Revolution from ever happening, or try to undertake the problem of rebuilding the Holy Roman Empire as a lasting enduring symbol of enlightenment. These have context and meaning to a person.

Compare this with Stellaris. What meaningful, defineable goals are there in the game, really? Basically just to conquer your neighbors and control as much space as possible. In trying to provide a blank-slate galaxy for us to exist in, the game loses all of that context for action and backstory for the setting which gives those goals meaning and context to their actions. Dominating all the stars in a specific stellar cluster might be something super important to your civilization, but there's no meaningful differentiation for that in Stellaris. No context to what your race is or what their history is beyond what you provide. This lack of context, while meant to give you freedom to tell whatever story you want, also strips the game of any sense of character and personality for those involved in it.

The game attempts to get around this by giving us artificial goals in the form of victory conditions for the game. But the problem there is that those victory conditions are sparse and relatively uninteresting. Which contributes heavily to why, for instance, almost all of my games end around the point where I've successfully beaten the end-game crisis and subjugated the fallen empires of the galaxy or won the War in Heaven. Because all that's left at that point is trying to conquer the whole galaxy, which I could do, but without the feeling of that relating to anything meaningful or having a reason to want to there's just no motivation there to do it.

Before we can make Stellaris an interesting place to tell stories, we first have to provide a world to tell those stories in. Stellaris needs a default backstory, default factions and a universe which reflects those things, with reliable and repeatable personalities for AI empires, into which our custom empires can be inserted.

because for certain players, accustomed to more linear narrative approach it seems that Stellaris offers too much freedom and strips the game of pre-defined context making the game frustrating to them. But for the roleplaying crowd I started with, it is precisely the lack of context and endless possibilities that make Stellaris so great to them.

It is clear that there is a pretty serious clash of priorities and values (in a like/dislike sense) here. And that is fine, you can't make everyone happy.

My personal opinion is that there are enough games with pre-defined lore and goals. Stellaris should continue with its total customization and versatility approach and maybe either remove victory conditions altogether or create custom victory conditions, set by a player before the game is launched. For the time being, though, development team should bring their full attention to pressing strategic problems, namely warfare and diplomacy and immediately switch to economy and internal management afterwards. Then they can move to even more customization potential, I am particularly interested in species interaction mechanics.

 

[Spyhawk]

Players primarily interested in roleplay and sandbox aspects of Stellaris have a blast. They have an ability to create unique species with unique goals and go on their way having fun, setting on their own journey. No other strategy comes even close to the level of customization Stellaris offers, especially with mods, and I see how players interested in those aspects can play for hundreds and hundreds of hours non-stop. Leviathans and Utopia focused on and reinforced this strength of the game.

On the other hand, people interested in 4X experience or even something closer to Paradox grand strategy historical experience are at loss with this game because it is undeniably lackluster as far as strategy goes. These people expect proper warfare, diplomacy, trade etc. and it looks like for those people lack of depth in this area on the launch along with lack of progress in this area for a year is enough to call Stellaris a failure.

Yes. But to me, the point of origin of most complaints and issues is that many players expect Stellaris to be a 4X/GSG hybrid (well, it's been mainly marketed as such), and that we don't know what the vision of the current dev team for the game is. We can only observe its course of progress over time through patches, but without a common point of reference - that is, the vision of the dev team - we can only judge that progress through that initial 4X/GSG hybrid lenses.

I really feel the vision of the game is something that needs to be clarified, once and for all. We need to know if the captain is steering the ship North or South, provided they know themselves where they are going. "Going to make the game better" as Wiz repeatedly said doesn't mean anything if "better" means North for players and South for the vision of the dev team. Worst, it makes many players feel the dev team is completely disconnected from the player base, and even wonder if they are themselves completely lost with a broken compass.

The game vision should be clearly defined, not through many dev diaries that focus solely on a particular aspect, but through a more global, less detailed report that nonetheless underlines the whole gameplay concept, as in "This is what Stellaris should look like, in 6 months, in a year, etc.". At this point, one year after release, I cannot help myself but even imagine that a barely short "We're going for a RPG in space" or "We'll focus on making any decision strategically important" would be enough as an official design concept.

The great thing is that we don't even need to agree with the dev vision (some people will be disappointed, while some other will rejoice anyway), only to acknowledge its existence to understand and even appreciate the work of the developers better.

 

[Tim_Ward]

I think making war a lot more involved than doomstacking would really help a game that relies so much on war. But that's beating a dead horse that Wiz and co. are quite aware of and in that particular case I'm actually looking forward to a DLC that focuses on fixing that. I agree with others who have said war is a dull chore. I cringe at it whenever it comes up in my games now. It really isn't fun and modding in some stuff to make it fun is high on my todo list.

A) I definitely agree that war mechanics need a serious shake up, as a priority, because they are quite bad
B) But the overall design of Stellaris is supposed to produce situations where war isn't a viable option - it has an entire ethos called 'pacifist' for christsake - but there's nothing (fun) to actually do in those situations. That's a problem, a big problem, and isn't going to be solved by improving war.

It's like making a FPS with entire sections where you're not allowed to shoot people because you're in a civilian area or something, but then putting nothing for the player to do in those areas but walk around.

In Alpha Centauri, I can go an entire game without fighting a war and still have a lot of fun because the building/economy aspect of the game is so compelling, and you're still in a competitive situation with the other players, because you're still after those secret projects and ultimately, three types of victory are available that have nothing to do with fighting.

Whereas in Stellaris, in those situations, you really have nothing much to do but accumulate stuff - minerals, population, planets &c but for no particular end.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

I don't think that Stellaris needs to go the Distant Worlds: Universe direction of fleshing out its universe. I think the main problem is that the only way to compete with the other empires is via conquest.

I would like to see more mechanics along the lines of increasing the variety and efficacy with which you can interact with non-player empires. I think that the game needs more levers to pull, so to speak.

I don't think the problem is with having objectives per se, but that currently the game itself is quite limited in the mechanics it offers the player to fulfil those objectives. I mean, the objectives you set yourself are only limited by your imagination and the game mechanics.

I think it would be neat if you could offer the AI missions (or conditional trades), if you could set some kind of strategic direction (e.g. saying to an AI "I want to form a federation with you, what do we need to do to make that happen", or say "I want to go to war against a mutual rival in 2 years, build up your forces" etc.)

 

[Ikael]

Very interesting debate here about rigid, pre-defined, flavourful factions VS fully customizable yet less flavourful empires for greater roleplay. I would like to add my 2 cents:

I think that Stellaris has a huge potential for being a "jack of all trades" of science fiction. I love to see how it clearly reerencs multiple sci-fi sources: Warhammer 40K (the shroud), Star Trek (discovery tradition tree), Blade Runner (prosperity tradition tree), etc.

The most valuable tool that Stellaris has in order to accomplish this, is its ethics axis. It is the sci-fi equivalent of the "lawful evil, chaotic good" D&D charts, and it is brilliant, for it allows the player to "project" himself into his or her empire and show to the the rest of the players what its empire is all about with a couple of descriptions ("We're an evil, militaristic and xenophobic reptilian race!"). Further customization, such as civics, phenotypes or tradition trees, help to further define and customize your empire.

The problem is that for all the customization options that the game offers, there are very little tangible effects and goals that goes with them and thus, little viable different gameplay styles (even few warfare styles!) and consequently, little incentive for replayability. Most customization options amounts to little in the end. No matter if you're playing an evil reptilian race hell bent on galactic genocide or a peaceful federation builder plantoid, there are few strategies viable (expand, expand!), you are always going to win by conquest, you are always going to finish every single tradition tree, you are always going to depend on minerals, you are always going to be slowed down and "boxed" by the mid game, and you are always going to define your warfare style by doomstacking. Everything is too same-y, and that is a problem.

Now, there has been lot of moves in the right direction, such as more game-changing civics, fleshing out endgame crysis or planet types affecting their output, but there ought to be far more asymetrical balance and diferenciation, and I do believe that ethics-specific victory conditions (perhaps tied to endgame crisis) could help a lot in that regard.

 

[methegrate]

The problem is that for all the customization options that the game offers, there are very little tangible effects and goals that goes with them and thus, little viable different gameplay styles (even few warfare styles!) and consequently, little incentive for replayability.

I agree with this.

I don't think Stellaris necessarily needs an Amplitude-style universe and faction set, but the trouble is that for all of the customization options available none of the races ever feel different. There are a few numbers moving differently on the spreadsheet behind the scenes, but that doesn't really contribute to gameplay.

Earlier on the forum I made reference to how Stellaris could be built with Dungeons and Dragons in mind, and I think this is one area where that analogy fits. If I'm playing a good RPG there's tons of room to customize my thief or wizard or warrior. Two good wizard builds will feel completely different from one another. But at the same time, a wizard plays a very different game from a warrior. (Heck, a wizard plays a very different game from a sorcerer.)

This seems like the template for an ideal middle ground in Stellaris, at least imho. When you're shooting for bespoke factions every time, you're never going to get the kind of fully developed characters you do in an Alpha Centauri or an Endless Legend (and these are characters, even if they represent billions of little pops). But it's still possible to make from scratch characters that feel very different from each other. It's one of the reasons why I really liked the hive mind addition. It feels like you're playing something different.

 

[apoc527]

I agree with this.

I don't think Stellaris necessarily needs an Amplitude-style universe and faction set, but the trouble is that for all of the customization options available none of the races ever feel different. There are a few numbers moving differently on the spreadsheet behind the scenes, but that doesn't really contribute to gameplay.

Earlier on the forum I made reference to how Stellaris could be built with Dungeons and Dragons in mind, and I think this is one area where that analogy fits. If I'm playing a good RPG there's tons of room to customize my thief or wizard or warrior. Two good wizard builds will feel completely different from one another. But at the same time, a wizard plays a very different game from a warrior. (Heck, a wizard plays a very different game from a sorcerer.)

Just for fun, I'm jumping into this thread (against my better judgment). As one of the "roleplayers" mentioned in a previous post, I find Stellaris to be the single best 4X space game I've ever played. No hyperbole. Now, perhaps that says more about the state of the 4X genre than it does Stellaris, but Stellaris tells stories in a manner that you just don't see in most other games. And this is in spite of the flaws that people have pointed out in this thread.

But on that point, one thing I don't get is when people call this game "shallow" or say that its "diplomacy is weak." Compared to what, exactly? EU4 and CK2? Okay, fine, but Paradox's historical GSGs are really quite different beasts than Stellaris. How do you plausibly build in the depth of options from CK2 into Stellaris? The diplomatic/non-military interactions that are possible between an in-bred set of royal cousins of the same species are significantly greater than the possible interactions between different species on different worlds. Compared to other 4X games (including GalCiv and MOO), Stellaris's diplomatic options are far superior than what you normally see. Like, it's not even close and I'm just stunned that there is any argument otherwise.

And to prevent this from being a massive post where I argue with everyone in this thread, I'd like to just argue with my fellow attorney (@methegrate ). I must respectfully disagree that the races never feel different or that they play the same. I have found quite a few alternate ways of playing the game, but it takes an intentional leap into experimenting with playstyles that may be decidedly inefficient. For example, I'm playing a race of fanatically pacifist xenophilic federation builders--this is a VERY different experience from a fanatic xenophobe militarist. You simply play the game differently--the focus is on peaceful expansion and diplomatic power. It's possible to do it right now. You can also play religious zealots (with or without slaves) and move towards a psionic race of telepathic warriors. There are quite a few examples of these different playstyles.

Now, I must agree that there is not an infinite number of plausible playstyles. And war needs further development. Lots of things can be tweaked or added and they would make an already great game into something legendary. But to say it's "boring and tedious" is, to my ears, an exercise in hypocritical exaggeration. One can describe every 4X strategy game made as "boring and tedious" and most are after a few hundred hours of gameplay. What this thread should be titled is "I'm bored with Stellaris, what else can be done to make it feel new again?" I think that would be more accurate anyway.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

But on that point, one thing I don't get is when people call this game "shallow" or say that its "diplomacy is weak." Compared to what, exactly? EU4 and CK2? Okay, fine, but Paradox's historical GSGs are really quite different beasts than Stellaris. How do you plausibly build in the depth of options from CK2 into Stellaris? The diplomatic/non-military interactions that are possible between an in-bred set of royal cousins of the same species are significantly greater than the possible interactions between different species on different worlds. Compared to other 4X games (including GalCiv and MOO), Stellaris's diplomatic options are far superior than what you normally see. Like, it's not even close and I'm just stunned that there is any argument otherwise.

The game quickly stagnates in the mid-game. The AI is quite passive and rarely declares war/interacts with the player. In my current game, despite being a fanatic egalitarian in an overwhelmingly authoritarian galaxy, the AI has only just figured out that my vile ethos can no longer be tolerated and started periodically rivalling/war deccing me. This is happening after the war in heaven has already concluded. For 150 years the game was simply research simulator, it took until the war in heaven and the unbidden spawned for the AI to start interacting with the player in any meaningful capacity. Interestingly, these critiques are very similar to the professional critiques Stellaris received when it was first released. Normally I don't give much credence to professional reviews.

Implicit in your posting is the assertion that Paradox's historical GSGs are less shallow than Stellaris. It's not much of a defence to acknowledge this as the case and attribute it to setting.

I'm also not sure what 4X games you've played, but compared to Distant Worlds, Stellaris is on par with diplomatic options?

 

[AlphaAsh]

It's like making a FPS with entire sections where you're not allowed to shoot people because you're in a civilian area or something, but then putting nothing for the player to do in those areas but walk around.

A lot of FPSs actually do do this, because just immersing yourself in a near photo-realistic 3D environment can be a lot of fun for some. Hell, there are 3D RPGs, like Skyrim, where wandering around aimlessly is 50% of your time. Agreed there is at least some interactivity beyond combat in that particular example.

We are on the same page I think though. Whilst war needs a revamp, so the 3D environment also needs more interactivity than the current repetitive building spammery planet development and stale, predictable diplomacy. Personally I like the planet development - but then I overhauled it with AlphaMod, but even I have a point of saturation with clicking to upgrade buildings.

 

[Ikael]

And to prevent this from being a massive post where I argue with everyone in this thread, I'd like to just argue with my fellow attorney (@methegrate ). I must respectfully disagree that the races never feel different or that they play the same. I have found quite a few alternate ways of playing the game, but it takes an intentional leap into experimenting with playstyles that may be decidedly inefficient. For example, I'm playing a race of fanatically pacifist xenophilic federation builders--this is a VERY different experience from a fanatic xenophobe militarist. You simply play the game differently--the focus is on peaceful expansion and diplomatic power. It's possible to do it right now. You can also play religious zealots (with or without slaves) and move towards a psionic race of telepathic warriors. There are quite a few examples of these different playstyles.

The problem is that If said different playstyles are vastly unefficient, not merely "weaker than a competitive professional multiplayer gaming build", they became boring very, very fast. If a gameplay option has only cosmetic value with very little gameplay effects, the players will rarely use it, and that would be akin to don't having that option in the first place. If in order to avoid repetition I must take not merely sub optimal, but downright suicidal, or un-interactive strategies, then there's a problem there.

Unfortunately, there are far too many examples like these. Ok, so my evil xenophobe empire can enslave and use alien as cattle. That's so sick and twisted, love it! Oh, it only gives me a crappy-ass amount of food in exchange for massive hatred from every other single empire, you say? Why would I ever use that? For roleplaying? Are you kidding me? Do you want to encourage roleplay? Ok then:

- Make a xenophobic empire entirely dependant on cattle food viable, or even better than regular farming empires at the expense of massive galactic hatred
- Make ellections in democratic egalitarian regimes be a matter of life or death, not a question of "plus 0.12 extra influence"
- Make mega-structures give huge-ass bonuses that can tip the balance of the universe and make you win the game rather than being a resource sink
- Make pacifists empires able to make their enemies crumble from within without firing a single shot
- Make Technologist empires have an overwhelming advantage against less advanced yet far bigger armies

And so on, you get the idea. Customization choices must not be only cosmetic, they should open up efficient, vastly different gameplay styles, ignoring the accusations of "unbalanced" by making said differerent strategies balance each other in their overpowered asymetry. Or else, why bother with these options on the first place?

 

[Lordban]

Ok, so my evil xenophobe empire can enslave and use alien as cattle. That's so sick and twisted, love it! Oh, it only gives me a crappy-ass amount of food in exchange for massive hatred from every other single empire, you say? Why would I ever use that? For roleplaying?

Well, yes.

Sure, every other species and their mothers are going to hate us (especially their mothers), but it isn't exactly our practice to go over to the Blorg coop and ask them how we can make their use as seasoning less offensive to their government. All we really need is a system for inviting their local authorities to dinner, and we have specialists for issuing invitations that can't be refused. That's the extent of our diplomatic needs. The various species of cattle are inferior anyway and incapable of matching us economically or technologically. Hak hak hak.

Roleplaying aside, as to the need for serious efficiency, that frankly isn't really an issue before turning the difficulty to Hard, and even there there's a lot of room for non-optimal play... The gamestyles, however, are already different. A Psy/Pacifist Unity/Farming build is not a Fanatic Purifier build is not a Droid/Synth build is not a Federation Builder build is not a high growth/high adaptability Hive Mind build is not a Tall/Core Only build - they all play differently, expand differently, build up their worlds and pops differently. Not all of them are going to have the same resilience if executed optimally, but they are going to play differently if you are executing them optimally. They're just not all going to beat Insane difficulty or eat that crazy-ass punk who's just going to rush you with mass naked corvettes in MP, but in both cases you chose the game mode.

And they'll cater to different types of players, who will gravitate to a build that gives them less/more micromanagement, favors/disfavors diplomacy, rushes traditions/technologies or not, snowballs/stays home.

 

[Almond_Brown]

Silly question? How does one "expand" Peacefully?

P.S. If that means taking on board a bunch of "Pathetic" Civs, who are more burden than help, via Federations, then watching them all die one after another, until it is your turn, never seems very "Peaceful" to me.

 

[Lordban]

Silly question? How does one "expand" Peacefully?

P.S. If that means taking on board a bunch of "Pathetic" Civs, who are more burden than help, via Federations, then watching them all die one after another, until it is your turn, never seems very "Peaceful" to me.

An early landgrab is a must if you're going to be a pacifist. After that, it's building taller (Voidborne), extending border range if it can net you a few planets more without wrecking your relations, making protectorates/vassals and integrating them.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Silly question? How does one "expand" Peacefully?

You colonize all nearby habitable planets ASAP and secure non-habitable ones with Frontier Outposts.
...and then you are conent with what you have and use Habitats and Ringworlds for extra living space.

There are some options during the late game as well.
If you build a large enough fleet for defensive purposes and have weak neighbors, there is a good chance that these AIs will request vassal status once they feel threatened by other empires (usually after losing a war). You can than intergrate them to enlarge your empire and shift your borders, which in some cases allows the new neighbors to request vassalge as well.

 

[Tim_Ward]

You colonize all nearby habitable planets ASAP and secure non-habitable ones with Frontier Outposts.
...and then you are conent with what you have and use Habitats and Ringworlds for extra living space..

And then you sit around drumming your fingers until the end game crisis shows up, because there's nothing else to do once you play in this style.

 

[methegrate]

And then you sit around drumming your fingers until the end game crisis shows up, because there's nothing else to do once you play in this style.

I have to agree. This is the point people keep making about Stellaris' missing middle. The galaxy's borders fill in pretty quickly, so that's the early game. And megastructures come along at the very end. And in between?

Being content with what you have strikes me as an excellent philosophy on life, but it doesn't make for a particularly interesting or exciting game.

Although, and I say this knowing that this is a minority opinion, I really like Stellaris as a game about taking over the galaxy. That's a narrow, clear goal and you can focus around that win condition. So you have this great big sandbox with lots of tools to choose from and the goal is to control most of the galaxy through diplomacy or conquest. Great! Do I do that by conquest? Do I go pacifist and diplomatic and create a grand alliance/Federation of Planets? A mix? Do I try and trigger a War in Heaven or an endgame crisis and pick up the pieces? Do I make a challenge for myself and go for a diplomatic win with a repulsive slug species?

Now, I think a lot of systems need to be improved and made more interactive for this to really work. For example, @apoc527 (Btw, hello counselor! Always a pleasure to meet another member of the bar.) and I might as well be playing two different games as far as diplomacy is concerned. I don't find it to be interactive at all. Opinion seems largely defined by traits and ethics, and I've never been able to disrupt a status quo. But if I could bust up other alliances, win enemies to my side or otherwise really use diplomacy to affect diplomatic change, that'd be great.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

And then you sit around drumming your fingers until the end game crisis shows up, because there's nothing else to do once you play in this style.

To each their own.

I prefer that calm, "dull" planet-development gameplay over the boring, pointless micro-intensive clickfest of an intergalactic war.
If you unlock Habitats in due time (around year 55-60) you will always have new colonies to manage and build up - and for me, that is good enough. But then again, I am at a point where Paradox games are mostly clicker companions while watching YouTube videos.

(That doesn't mean that I am opposed to have more mid-game relevant things, though. For example, I'd love to see some more faction dynamics and actual politics that drive me to certain actions.)

 

[Tim_Ward]

If you unlock Habitats in due time (around year 55-60) you will always have new colonies to manage and build up - and for me, that is good enough.

"""manage"""

 

[methegrate]

To each their own.

I prefer that calm, "dull" planet-development gameplay over the boring, pointless micro-intensive clickfest of an intergalactic war.
If you unlock Habitats in due time (around year 55-60) you will always have new colonies to manage and build up - and for me, that is good enough. But then again, I am at a point where Paradox games are mostly clicker companions while watching YouTube videos.

(That doesn't mean that I am opposed to have more mid-game relevant things, though. For example, I'd love to see some more faction dynamics and actual politics that drive me to certain actions.)

Maybe this is just a different philosophy on games, but to be honest a lot of these strike me as really big problems.

For example, war is a huge part of a 4x game and an even bigger part of a grand strategy game. Certainly it was billed as a big part of Stellaris. Isn't it concerning that you can describe it as a "boring, pointless micro-intensive clickfest"? I mean, many people on this forum agree, but that strikes me as a reason to urgently fix the warfare system, not a reason to play pacifist.

Similarly, regarding "mostly clicker companions while watching YouTube videos," I agree completely. I mean, for me it's Netflix, but same difference. I've logged more hours than I even know on the game because tbh, I just completely forgot it was running.

Strategy games should be challenging and thoughtful though. At least for me, I like having to track multiple conflicting systems and balance competing priorities. Figuring out that zero-sum balance is all the fun. Doesn't it worry you to describe the game as an idle clicker while distracted?

Again, all one person's opinion, but these strike me as urgent problems to be solved.

 

[wthree]

To each their own.

I prefer that calm, "dull" planet-development gameplay over the boring, pointless micro-intensive clickfest of an intergalactic war.
If you unlock Habitats in due time (around year 55-60) you will always have new colonies to manage and build up - and for me, that is good enough.

I too really like building up and developing my empire rather than going on a question. The problem with Stellaris as it is now is that both of those fell like just a mess of constant clicking. Warfare can just feel really messy, and internal development feels like industrializing china in Victoria 2 with a communist government, its just constant clicking. It doesn't really feel like I am developing a society or an Empire.

I think Stellaris (and pretty much all 4x games) could learn a lot from Victoria 2. The feeling of a changing demographic through relatively slow and more subtle changes over time allows you to watch your empire grow rather than just jump discordantly to a higher tier.

While Im not suggesting Stellaris should go for the whole Vicky 2 pop model (although I would love to see that), I feel that peacetime development would be far more enjoyable if development was accomplished with a gradient that increases over time and with investment. Possibly having pop development (i.e education) and infrastructure development. This gives the satisfaction of checking up on your colonies to see how they are growing, without having to develop RSI from clicking over and over and over and over and over and over again.

A similar thing can be seen with species. Like many things its an all or nothing situation, where you can either completely wipe out any species you want, or you cant get rid of any.

I have to agree. This is the point people keep making about Stellaris' missing middle. The galaxy's borders fill in pretty quickly, so that's the early game. And megastructures come along at the very end. And in between?

This early/mid/late split might actually be a large course of the problems Stellaris has. While Stellaris is generally a sandbox game, it is very rigorously divided into those three section which a lot of the other paradox games don't really have as much of.