HoI4 vs Stellaris vs Polaris Sector

ghostryder · August 18, 2016, 04:40:10 PM

According to steam I have 555 hours in on Stellaris and 155 hours in on Polaris sector.

Stellaris vs PS is kinda hard to do as both titles shine in their own way. Polaris Sector probably is more combat focused -- it doesn't take long in the game to run through the research tree completely. Stellaris I've yet run through it. Both titles need content--and I believe both titles will eventually mature into meaty great offerings-- but i see a lot more dev activity with Stellaris and i expect that title to come to fruitation first. We,ve already seen a major patch and about 4 small ones and a DLC---in about a third of the time Polaris Sector released their one big patch. If LORE matters-and it should-the winner here would be Stellaris--race setup is far deeper- and i think modding possabilities are far greater. Star Trek Horizons is already on version .07 and is a substancial mod whereas I do not think you could do such a mod in Polaris sector-- the mechanics just are not there.

For my money long term outlook looks to lean heavily in Stellaris's favor but you really cannot go wrong with either.

Barthheart · August 18, 2016, 06:42:03 PM

Quote from: ghostryder on August 18, 2016, 04:40:10 PM
... but i see a lot more dev activity with Stellaris and i expect that title to come to fruitation first. We,ve already seen a major patch and about 4 small ones and a DLC---in about a third of the time Polaris Sector released their one big patch....

Just a quick note:
Polaris Sector is a single person shop game, where as the much larger Paradox put out Stellaris.

mikeck · August 18, 2016, 06:58:05 PM

I agree with Ghostrider in that Stellaris has a better race-creation system and dev support. As stated, Polaris is a one man show but in the end, the result is what it is: few patches, few mods and no DLC on the horizon. Stellaris gets updated regularly AND has an incredible amount of mods available.

But as it stands now, I think you would enjoy Polaris sector more. Of course neither compare to the depth of HOI IV

dinsdale · August 18, 2016, 09:28:52 PM

Quote from: mikeck on August 17, 2016, 09:28:19 PM
Hmmm...sorry for the book I wrote above. Didn't realize how long I was going on for

I want to thank you for your write up, more informative than any review. I had absolutely no interest in PS or Stellaris before reading this thread, on the verge of buying PS right now. It's not a genre I've been interested in since MOO3 came along, and while I tried to get into Distant Worlds it just didn't excite me for some reason. Not the game's fault, just my reaction to it.

One question though, is it micromanagement and UI hell? Would you compare it to other games (in other genres) in terms of UI design and micro. To be clear, I like having to make complex decisions, even low level decisions which impact game play, what I call micromanagement hell is something like the centers of trade mechanic in the older EU's - turning a trivial decision into a repetitive click fest.

mikeck · August 18, 2016, 10:00:37 PM

I don't find it to be a micromanagement hell. First, it (and stellaris) is pausable real-time. You can go slow or speed it up. Slow is "1x" in the galaxy map where days go buy slooowww. In battle, you can do 1/4x I believe.

You can que construction on planets if you want. Also, you can select- from a drop down- whether you want the planet to be agriculture, industrial, mining, research or mixed in focus. The "governor" does a pretty good job of building the right buildings to make the planet into what you want. You can delete choices he makes or you can select "micromanagement" which allows you to select buildings.

Other than that, no micro (and that isn't micro really). It's like distant worlds in that you spend most of your time organizing fleets and sending them to troubled spots...only in Polaris, you get to spend a lot of time designing them.

Now in combat there can be a lot of micro. Move this ship in this direction, have that ship launch fighters and direct them there, have this ship fire on that ship, etc, etc. it's not horrible and you can issue orders while paused, but there is no "fleet aggressive" orders and such where you give a general order and the AI directs the fight. That's a good thing for me but it does require a lot of player input.

Overall, not a lot of micro.

ghostryder · August 18, 2016, 11:27:26 PM

I agree with mikeck. Although on the surface Polaris Sector looks very simuliar to Distant Worlds grasping and playing the game is quite easy and straight forward-whereas as in all great games - grasping a winning strategy is not. The A.I. puts up guite a challenge and it is a game your likely lose a few times before winning...making that win a lot more gratifying. But as far as micro--I took to the game very fast-wheras it took quite a lot of investment to get distant worlds down.

I'd also agree with mikeck on his argument on depth--but will point out--as for the vision of both games-Polaris sector is a lot closer to being what it set out to be---whereas Stellaris is no where near what it's set out to be...Grand Strategy. Though the depth of race creation is there, for example--little is actually done with it. Diplomacy is almost nil , no spies..etc etc...so one can see the foundation of 'Grand" one cannot say it it there. Polaris sector on the other hand makes no pretense of even trying to be a grand strategy game--it just wants to be it's own take on the 4x gendre in which overall it has just about achieved. There's certainly room for an expansion, and bug and A.I. tuning, but overall one can say as for what it's trying to be it's there. You cannot say that for Stellaris, because unlike say...ck2---which felt complete on release Stellaris feels more like a blackboard for what it's trying to be. It needs lots of holes filled and to reach that depth it's current design needs a lot of expanding. I can invision a DLC or expansion on about every aspect of the game..including races, combat, ship design, fleet management, diplomacy, spying, and technology. Filling any of those lacking areas is going to change the game to a great extent, whereas nothing really needs changed or added to a great extent with Polaris Sector. So I also agree with Mikect's recommendation--- at least for now in both game's current state.

JudgeDredd · August 19, 2016, 05:13:26 AM

My apologies...ignore my post. I don't even have Polaris Sector...I was thinking of MoO

OJsDad · August 19, 2016, 02:01:39 PM

BTW MikeCK, and others, I appreciate the information on Polaris Sector. I'll have to pick it up later this year.

As for Stellaris, I get the felling that the Dev team didn't know for sure where to go with some things. So the put out what they had, and wanted to see what the community feedback was. Thus the updates, and DLC to get it to a more polished game.

mikeck · August 19, 2016, 02:16:55 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on August 19, 2016, 05:13:26 AM
My apologies...ignore my post. I don't even have Polaris Sector...I was thinking of MoO

You must have wondered what the hell I was talking about then! Lol

JudgeDredd · August 19, 2016, 03:44:14 PM

As I hadn't played for sometime, I thought there were some patches that had added a load :'(

mikeck · August 19, 2016, 10:28:32 PM

Quote from: OJsDad on August 19, 2016, 02:01:39 PM
BTW MikeCK, and others, I appreciate the information on Polaris Sector. I'll have to pick it up later this year.

As for Stellaris, I get the felling that the Dev team didn't know for sure where to go with some things. So the put out what they had, and wanted to see what the community feedback was. Thus the updates, and DLC to get it to a more polished game.

I like Stellaris but yeah, they really need to flesh it out. Diplomacy was a big disappointment, especially because it uses the Clauswitz engine. Also the political decisions like the kinds you could make in EUIV...picking focuses and such...non existent. It's almost like stellaris is a space version of EU: Rome (before the expansion) instead of EU IV

Rayfer · August 20, 2016, 08:37:57 AM

Interesting how this thread quickly evolved into Stellaris versus Polaris Sector comparison with HoI4 left out in the cold. I don't own Polaris but I do have a lot of time in Stellaris and HoI4....I find myself enjoying both but HoI4 more so.

W8taminute · August 21, 2016, 07:57:55 PM

^Agreed. However all three games are pretty good imho. I never looked at them in a way that said one was better than the other. Each of these games have provided me with a lot of entertainment and will be staying on my hard drive for quite a while.

Jarhead0331 · August 21, 2016, 08:52:22 PM

Quote from: Rayfer on August 20, 2016, 08:37:57 AM
Interesting how this thread quickly evolved into Stellaris versus Polaris Sector comparison with HoI4 left out in the cold. I don't own Polaris but I do have a lot of time in Stellaris and HoI4....I find myself enjoying both but HoI4 more so.

Probably because it is much easier to compare two space 4x games than it is to compare a space 4x game with a WWII grand strategy game?

FarAway Sooner · August 21, 2016, 08:57:01 PM

So, comparing the 3, which has the best AI? Or at least, the least noticeably bad AI?

My sense from some of the comments I've seen here and in other threads that the HoI4 AI just really drops the ball occasionally (e.g., leaving borders inappropriately undefended). I haven't seen those same complaints about Polaris Sector or Stellaris, and some of the Steam reviews are very complimentary of the PS AI, but I'd be curious to hear specific reactions from folks here who perhaps have more realistic expectations around AI.

From reading all these comments, I get the impression that HoI4 is the best game system but the AI is not yet in a place to make it that satisfying, Stellaris will be the best game eventually but is still feature-sparse, while Polaris Sector might be the most complete game but also has a few warts and the lowest ceiling due to developer limitations and a less open-ended structure than the other two games. Does that seem off-target?