Stellaris

[Yskonyn]

Off to bed for now. Will continue my journey tomorrow.

It was a good first impression. Looking forward to starting the game tomorrow again.  O0

[Huw the Poo]

There is an icon to click to enter galaxy view.  It's on the right of the system name.

[Huw the Poo]

Well two hours is all I can manage on a school night.  But holy shit.  Just sublime.  I can't even begin to put my thoughts into order right now, but I was instantly gripped.  What a game.  I'm figuring new stuff out at the rate of one Cool Thing per minute, and it didn't stop for the whole two hours I played.  Tomorrow is going to be yet another looooong day in work before I can come home to play again.

[Grim.Reaper]

Finally home from work...time to give this a ride...nice to see positive impressions so far.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I've restarted 3 times and it's good to see just how differently the game can play out based on random factors.  The very first game was very busy with aliens showing up almost immediately and with alarming regularity.  I lost my piddly little defence fleet almost right away and then was stuck in my local system because my science ships couldn't explore due to religious fanatics.  I thought I'd screwed up and so I restarted.

2nd game was the complete opposite.  I was stuck in a wasteland with no habitable planets, almost no resource planets, and no aliens around at all.  I ended up overdeveloping my home planet and got into a negative economy that I couldn't seem to recover from so I restarted.

3rd game, killer mining drones! ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

[Nefaro]

Thank the Gods I can finally pan the view, across a huge Pdox map, with the WASD keys.

It's only taken them what?  15 years?      I'd still like the ability to re-map hotkeys in the settings, but maybe in another decade or two.. 

Good impressions after a few hours. 

[Tuna]

Thank the Gods I can finally pan the view, across a huge Pdox map, with the WASD keys.

It's only taken them what?  15 years?      I'd still like the ability to re-map hotkeys in the settings, but maybe in another decade or two.. 

Good impressions after a few hours.

Agreed, really liking what I am seeing in the early moments of game play! I'm usually the type that just stares at the screen with CK II, Vicky II, EU IV.

[glen55]

I've read several reviews, and my impression is that . . . Paradox is back to its old habits.  This one is going to take a few patches, and probably an expansion or two, and then it will be a great game.

And for those who have posted enthusiastically about the early game, sadly a consistent thread in the reviews is that the early game rocks and then it bogs down in the mid- and late-games.

I haven't played at all, and reviews can be full of it, so take with the amount of salt you find tasty.

[Tuna]

Well Paradox has been known to 'improve' there games with their DLC, which often goes on sale for great prices very quickly. I'm having a lot of fun right now. More than with any 'other' 4x I've tried, and if it bogs later, I'm sure their improvements will fix that. Bottom line, glad I bought it!

[Barthheart]

Liking what I've seen so far. Novel combinations of several different takes on space 4X.  O0

Very Distant Worlds like in the exploration and scanning each planet in a start system. But ships don't seem to need to stay near your systems and can just fly from system to system for ever...

Very like every 4X in the speed with which ships get built... except Polaris Sector which seemed to hit the right epic scale of things. 15 game years in and I've colonised 2 more planets... I'd barely have 3 ships in that amount of time in PS.... hopefully that gets modded but probably not for the short attention span crowd... :P
But setting up a colony when you get there with a ships dose take 10 game months so there's that.

Combat is OK... need to be able to setup the formations... but maybe that comes later with better tech. Don't get attached to early ships...  :P

Economy seems tight so far which is good.

Space seems to be teaming with life in this universe... not sure if I like that or PS's take on sparseness.....

Loving the research/tech system. Scraping up debris from combat to get research boosts in areas that aren't native to you...  O0

Leader system seems OK for now but a little light... can see that as an area they will DLC the heck out of.

Haven't met a major race yet so don't know about diplomacy.

Not sad about the purchase at all.  8)

MP would be nuts... in a good way.  >:D

[Jarhead0331]

I spent a good deal of time just creating a bunch of different races.

[ghostryder]

A few hours i feel i barely scratched the surface. However overall the GUI and getting a grasp on things probably has never been easier in a Paradox game. You can pretty much do everything straight from the outliner.

It isn't nearly as deep as CKII--your leader won't have children who becomes leaders, etc etc=--I'm a bit dissapointed in that--I was hoping the game would dwelve much deeper here--and perhaps in future it will- but even though it doesn't the 'narative' of the game is already leaving every other 4x dry and in the dust- the game is layered with well written text to add layers of LORE---whereas most 4x game slaps a few stats on races and gives you zillions of ship options here it's much deeper as to regards to races while early one ship options seem somewhat basic.

Every area seems expandable by DLC---I can almost see the marketing angle from the get go--a contrast to CKII which seemed deep and full on release---here it's much more obvious. This isn't necessarily bad but it is very noticable even with just a few hours in. I'm already looking forward to future DLC. And I do not mind 5.99 here and there over time as the game grows and grows to a gem that I'll play 100s of hours--pretty much like CKII--it's just one of those games that never leave your harddrive--and even after you move on to another game- a new expansion will bring you back for another go.

Combat-as expected--isn't the main attraction here-but I must say it's much more cinamatic than DW combat--as you can zoom in and pan- and see real depth to the ships rather than 2d sprites zipping around like lemmings.---it's not quite like Sins of a Solar Empire but the approach is very simular in presentation--so overall it is much better than I expected and certainly better than say-a game like Gal Civ III- and again-I can see DLC expanding this as well.

I'm much too early to give thoughts on how the game plays out mid to late game--but the start has griped me--it's a game easily figured out thanks to the great GUI and the in game tutorial-some things are not apparant--I'm wondering if I can give multiple orders to a contructor, for example? If I click on a second sight to build a mine it currently changes the order---perhaps alt-click--who knows? those type of things will need to be asked on the forum or read in the online wiki--which is linked from within the game via the ? menu.

Browsing the various reviews it's interesting to note review sites like PCGamer and IGN rate the game rather low in the high 60s and low 70s wheras other sites more geared to strategy games are rating it very high. I chuckle as most game PCGAMER has in the 90s hold my interests for less than 5 minutes---so what that should tell everyone is this game is designed to appeal to a certain type of gamer not interested in twitch reflexes but rather the adventure and depth the world offers up-along with a nice heap of strategic play. Much like the old Emperor of the Fading Suns 4x--this is a game you Role Play. And that's a solid plus in my book.

So overall--some misgivings on apparant shallow areas screaming for DLC--but overall a very solid base to build on thus far in my early observations.

[Yskonyn]

I like the fact that the relative power stat can be deceptive aparently. 

One alien race had a big blob of territory right in my way of expanding further and I wasn't able to negotiate open borders. Their relative power to mine was about the same so I upped my warfleet production and quickly built up to my maximum fleet capacity at 18 ships.
I decided to start harassing the aliens hoping they would squeal soon, begging for mercy, forcing them to open up their borders so I could press on, possibly beyond their territory.
But the opposite happened and within a few weeks their relative power now was 'Superior' to my empire and they sent a massive fleet of about tripple the military power I could field straight to my homeworld and lay waste to my economy in short order.  ::)
Going to war isn't a lightly taken thing in this game!

[Pete Dero]

Thank the Gods I can finally pan the view, across a huge Pdox map, with the WASD keys.

Good for you (and the bigger part of the planet I guess) but now people with Azerty keyboards are stuck  (Z and W switch places, so for us the W key is below the S key).  Panning with the mouse works OK so I use that.

Looks like there is now way to change this (or any other key bindings) ...

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Yeah, we lefties are also buggered.  I have asked for numpad key support but it's fallen on deaf ears. 

Burn the WASD heretics!!!!!