Stellaris

[FarAway Sooner]

Watching the Paradox video, as soon as he said you could only do FTL outside of the system I immediately thought of Honorverse.

It also sounds like you can build defense bases a the entry points into your systems.  Should make system assaults expensive.

Yeah, I think they're going with the Honorverse notion of "anybody w/the right drive can fly FTL, but warp lanes are faster".  I've always liked this approach in space 4x, as it does a nice job of introducing "space terrain" with strategic implications, rather than just the "Move 50% slower" or "Your shields don't work here" effects.

Ghost, Distant Worlds definitely had different alien populations living on the same worlds.  Population migrated across empire boundaries (although you could set immigration policies to manage that at the cost of missing out on growth).  They were all your citizens, but each race's attitude towards you was modeled and tracked separately (based on whether bug-races like water-races, whether you were at war with the empire that was once their homeworld, etc). 

Distant Worlds is NOT the be-all/end-all, but if I understood your complaint about "each planet isn't just made up of one race with one core government and belief system", I think it does a decent job of that.  Where it didn't go far enough was in creating flavor for the different races. 

DW did have race-specific victory conditions, which was a really nice touch, but they weren't big enough to drive significantly different strategies.  If I'm fighting an alien race that has a reputation for being genocidal maniacs, I want their victory conditions tied to being genocidal maniacs.  No "Political Alliance victories" for the Daleks!!!

[OJsDad]

One other thing I wasn't a fan of in DW was the economy.  I didn't have a problem with it being automated, but it was too much of a mystery as to what was happening.  Why your tax revenues were down, what you were doing or not doing to effect it ect.  Hopefully Stellaris does a better job of telling the player why something is happening. 

[ghostryder]

Ghost, Distant Worlds definitely had different alien populations living on the same worlds.  Population migrated across empire boundaries (although you could set immigration policies to manage that at the cost of missing out on growth).  They were all your citizens, but each race's attitude towards you was modeled and tracked separately (based on whether bug-races like water-races, whether you were at war with the empire that was once their homeworld, etc). 


Once you started conquering sure--most 4x games do that--what I'm saying, as a race itself --you have different factions within it before the conflict ever gets underway. Just like planet earth who has multiple countries, multiple religions, multiple government types-- You may be the leader of the planet but your race simply isn't defined by what planet type you like and the stats that go around it. adding ethics to the mix brings a new depth - and if they bring in religion-well that's a depth never seen since the fanatic in civ3 or alpha centuri--and distant worlds just can't do a "believers" race no matter how hard you try to mod one in...and believe me-I've tried.

Paradox still went with the soap opera races ala Star Wars, so we're still gonna have talking rodents and kittens- but the race depths will allow those to modded to a depth of hard sci-fi if you want- and you can count on me doing just that--as I like my science fiction in that vein when it comes to games. Soap opera works fine in a movie like Star trek but it only kills emersion in these games.

The last time i modded a game was Pandora:First contact. As a comparision to alpha centuri I think it did better than Civ:beyond Earth-but the art of the races was cartoony--so I set out to fix that--here is what I did:

[Anguille]

Nice job!

[FarAway Sooner]

Impressive stuff!  Visuals are key in shaping a lot of that stuff, fer sure.

[Grim.Reaper]

Well, I did what I said I wasn't going to do...and already pre ordered:)

Saw on sale at cdkeys.com and got for $27...if I end up missing out on any pre-order bonus, the price is cheap enough for me to add the DLC later, if I end up liking the game.
http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/stellaris-pc-cd-key-steam

I also saw this posted about pre order on german amazon site...does say some kind of human content and soundtrack included with pre-order, I can do without those if true.

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01D2SB8MU?keywords=stellaris&qid=1458477917&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

[Huw the Poo]

If there's an English version of that box, I'm having it.

[republic]

I'm really looking forward to this, I've said since Victoria II I'd love to see a space game based on that engine.  Speaking of Victoria II, do we know if there will be a long list of resources like Victoria II or will there just be a handful?

One of my favorite things in Distant Worlds is having to craft your ships and strategies around access to resources.

[Huw the Poo]

Dunno.  There are basic resources such as food of course, but there are also rare resources which each confer their own bonuses.  No idea how long the list is, though.

[Huw the Poo]

FOUR WEEKS TO GO!!!

It's close enough that it now appears in the "upcoming events" of my diary. :D

I'm a bit excited for this one.

[Yskonyn]

Me too!

[bbmike]

I can't help but feel we are getting too excited for what is released. But release it now!

[pfig]

Argh, I saw new posts in the thread and thought it had been released!

What do you mean, "too excited"?

[Rayfer]

The ongoing Polaris Sector thread is full of mostly very positive comments. I was tempted but held off awaiting the Sellaris release. Can't wait to read the initial impressions from you day-one purchasers. Will it be a better game or just different?

[Grim.Reaper]

I am ready to go...pre ordered and just waiting until release.