Your favourite thing about the upcoming expansion and patch

[Kiwibaum]

I am interested what you are most excited for in the upcoming content for stellaris.

For me it's for sure the buffs to tall empires since I love it when different playstyles are viable and you don't have to do the same thing over again!

The traditions could also be an interesting addition!

 

[FonVegen]

Megastructures. Especially since I only recently actually bought and read the first two Ringworld novels by Larry Niven, and the idea of ringworlds and orbital habitats is something that I was already interested in before.

Beyond that: Synthetic ascension. I'm not much of a spiritualist player, so I'm going with robots instead; although I might give The Shroud a try, as that one is the most expansive of the three we've got so far.

 

[Me_]

What I like the most is more variety in the type of empires - the three ascention paths, hiveminds, advanced civics are all going to make the glaxy a more diverse place.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

Considering the sheer size of Banks+Utopia I don't really have a favorite but if I had to single out a single thing it would be civics (both mundane and advanced) they just make your custom polities far more modular and interesting, now you can really build the polity that you want in a way that static governments never could!

 

[Pizzarugi]

Definitely synthetic ascension! I've not been much on using robots (despite my playstyle always having materialist) since I didn't wanna start an AI Rebellion crisis, but what I've learned of this ascension path has made me reconsider this.

From what I understand based on dev diaries and Wiz's posts on his reddit AMA and this forum:
- Synths will be immortal on Utopia
- All ascended pops will become synths
- Any synths you built before ascension will become part of the ascended race
- Any synths you build after ascension will be part of the ascended race
- Ascended synth pops gain reduced costs to consumer goods and reduced maintenance
- All farms worked by synths transform into power plants

This means I won't have to worry about terraforming whatsoever, because all my pops will (should?) have the mechanoid perk which means habitability issues no longer matter. I won't have to worry about subjugating other species in order to occupy planets that my primary race otherwise couldn't. All of my planets will gain the synths' inherent bonuses to energy/mineral/science output rather than just a select few where I built them. All leaders can't die of age anymore so that means I don't need to worry about swapping out high leveled scientists with newbies, the only time I'd have to replace them is if they get killed by events or combat. And it all comes at the cost of manually having to build your pops (and there's no telling if you can speed up the process).

Other than that, I'm also looking forward to the new customization options for my empire in the form of civics, traditions and ascension perks!

And then you factor in buildings like ministry of benevolence no longer being gated behind collectivist-now-authoritarian ethic on top of the new 'Harmony' tradition that provides happiness on adoption and has a perk that reduces negative empire ethics attraction, it just makes my expansionist playstyle that much less stressful overall.

 

[ashbery76]

Factions.Internal game and pops is boring atm.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Definitely synthetic ascension! I've not been much on using robots (despite my playstyle always having materialist) since I didn't wanna start an AI Rebellion crisis, but what I've learned of this ascension path has made me reconsider this.

Definitely this. I look forward to coming up with as many different bizarre ways to make my synths

Once my Hedonism Bot playthrough is done, I'm thinking of doing a Terracotta Warrior style run where I play as Xenophobe Pacifists, isolate myself from the outside world, and build incredible wonders.

 

[artemis667]

I really don't know if I can pick one thing. I'm more excited about just getting stuck into a game with more evolved mechanics and more things to do in the mid to late game.

 

[Promethian]

Bio Ascension. I've been in love with the xenophile playstyle (all the races on every planet!) for a while and the extreme amount of gene mod points we get from bio ascension makes customizing each race even better.

 

[CrowScape]

Eating people.

My first ever empire was called "The Great Feast." I found a charismatic conformist turtle species nearby, conquered it, then slowly relocated and enslaved its pops to run food production on all my planets.

Now, with Banks, I get to give a proper go of exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and then consuming them with drawn butter.

 

[Ikael]

Factions. Intra-politics is, in my humble opinion, the main difference between 4X games and grand strategy games, and this will deliver.

Traditions. The best feature of civ 5 getting carried on by Paradox fills me with joy. My only fear is that there wont be enough traditions for the late game, but alas, that's what mods and further patches / expansions are for.

Habitats, ascensions, galactic wonders and generally talking, tall gameplay. Now this fits my gameplay style much more than map painting could ever do!

Living standards. As minor as it might sound, I really think that this simple change can add a lot of strategic depth and more important, flavour to empires. Is your empire a nice place to live or not? Is it depending on which species you are, or which sector you inhabit? Sounds like cool decisions to make.

Generally talking, it would seem to me that while there are some things that will still need development (warfare, diplomacy, hiveminds, civics), there has been a conscious effort at trying to improve the flavour of the game, and most importantly, the flavour of what I think that is its core, the ethos axis. This is my most wanted "feature", even if it is not something distinctly defined content.

 

[Kayden_II]

It's more the Stuff, Which I don't have to care - Anymore ...
Empire-Wide Food since I don't have to care about "Amount of Tiles on a World = Amount of Food on that World" - Anymore or Species-Rights since I don't have to care about each single POP - Anymore or this little Symbol, Which shows Primitives on the Galaxy-Map, so that I don't have to check each Empire or each Star-System - Anymore.

 

[Saviour of Galaxy]

Civics. Definitely gonna play syncretic evolutionists and purgers.

 

[Summin Cool]

Civics + Factions are looking pretty good.

I want them to fix more basic stuff rather than adding to the game for the next expansion however,

 

[Fourthspartan56]

I want them to fix more basic stuff rather than adding to the game for the next expansion however,

Then you should be happy to know that the next patch is focused on bug fixes+QOL improvements, though obviously its accompanied expansions (if it has one) will most likely not focus on that.

 

[henzington]

Empire wide food as it allows Agro-worlds

 

[Magnificent Genius]

It's kinda hard to say. This expansion has the sort of feel that Art of War and Rights of Man(to a lesser extent) had for EU4 where there was just so much good stuff everywhere you looked in both the patch and dlc that you weren't sure what you liked most. Props to the dev team, because Levathans was great too.

 

[TheShah]

It's so hard to choose.

I think Syncretic evolution and icons for primitives lol.

 

[SS Boss]

I'm a simple man, my favs are global food and habitats.

 

[Acularius]

Easily Global Food and Warscore cost reduction over the course of the game through techs.
Global food (Galactic Food?) is great, I can now have 20 agricultural worlds for Trantor. ;p
Warscore cost reduction. I can now wage a Galactic war, for MORE THAN 3 PLANETS!

Everything else is just succulent gravy