This or Stellaris

[Green Raven]

Thank you for your time!

[CHOO CHOO]

Stellaris is more addictive, but for all the hundreds of hours spent playing it, I regret wasting so much time.

Distant Worlds doesn't have the same addictive qualities, but I don't regret having spent time on it.

[Green Raven]

So... which is the better game?

[Nikiforos V Fokas]

Distant Worlds despite its age has no equals in innovation outside Aurora 4x. Poor paradox with their formulaic retreads, including stellaris, is merely an imitator. Old DW may be, and still expensive but the DLC avalanche that paradox crimps out is more expensive in the long run. DW and its private sector is still amazing a feature as it ever was, and its full-on manual mode is about as fun as fun can be in a game.

[Nikiforos V Fokas]

Imitator: Rome is crud too. : P

[MuthaF]

Well yeah. Distant worlds offers scalability, rather advanced economy / civilian sector model and lots of options and game-play styles no other game can match and quite satisfying ship designer at the cost of dated GUI and graphics.

Stellaris offers streamlining, event chains and generally updated nice-looking grand scale strategy at the cost of options, scalability and ecoomy /civilian sector.

Tough choice. If only there were ANY news about DW2 that should have been in works for few years by now...

Aurora4x is something different entirelly - in few months when C# version releases, i will try to reccomend it to one or two friends to see if they gonna hate or love me for the rest of life :D

[Nikiforos V Fokas]

Aurora as an experience is obfuscated by the horrific and ancient programmed UI; once you have your survey ship pairs out, the whole thing begins to click and you're aware that this is something special -and -plausible for the species if you start at Sol. Can't wait for #.

DW is nudged out by a hair's breadth tbh. Stellaris is yet another piecemeal retread for the sake of pdox's fat wallet and only their fat wallet's sake.

[MuthaF]

...if only at least Aurora NPC difficulty worked for realz, i usually set it to 10 000% in a vain hope it will actually generate AI empire with enough muscle to compensate for AI...

Cant wait for Aurora C# - have you read the test AAR about Swarm fight/boarding?

As for Stellaris, i dont have an issue, its a good game. Its no Distant Worlds 2, but it isnt supposed to either... And its no lame money grab as countless AAA open worlds for 60+ eurs are - i played couple in last year and its basically just lame-ass skin mods - almost every mechanics is exactly the same in all of em, brrrr

OP, let us know how you decided and what made you so, i'd like to know...

[HUH]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

Stellaris is more addictive, but for all the hundreds of hours spent playing it, I regret wasting so much time.

Distant Worlds doesn't have the same addictive qualities, but I don't regret having spent time on it.

That wasnt realy helpfull at all :)

[AK_icebear]

DWU is a better game, however Stellaris is easier to learn and much nicer looking, given the modern graphics. Personally I think DWU is better value over the long run, assuming you are willing to push past it's initial difficulties. DWU gives a better sense of the grand space opera and being a emperor of your corner, which is my preference.

[Spud]

Stellaris
Pretty graphics
Polished UI
Linear repetitive gameplay
Shallow rigid mechanics
Poor AI
Extremely expensive if you want the entire experience
A fairly decent space based 4X game, maybe it scrapes into the top 10


Distant Worlds
Dated quite ugly graphics
Functional but clunky UI
Incredibly dynamic and unpredictable (by design) gameplay
Deeply complex and customizable mechanics
Good AI
Comparatively cheap for the entire experince, in a sale it's a steal.
One of the greatest space based 4X games, definitely top 3

In an nutshell you must decide if you want mediocre gameplay with amazing eye candy that could cost a small fortune or incredible gameplay with less appealing visuals that'll cost a lot less. I guess it depends on whether you want to feel like you're carving out a living breathing space empire or just want to take expensive screenshots.

[Gopher]

Distant Worlds is way better because it's a 1/10th of the total cost when on sale and on par with the fun-factor of Stellaris. They both suffer from the same problem, in that the AI's are dumb and you eventually master the games and stop playing them.

The one reason you might spend a fortune on Stellaris before Distant Worlds is if you have friends who want to play multiplayer, and even then the desync issues suck so meh...

[GreenFox1991 🦊]

Stellaris is more casual with a not-so-wide gameplay. in DWU you can play again and again and have a lot of different way to play.

[TheCr33pur]

Distant Worlds is better IMO, just a little more complex. But also seem more realistic than Stellaris. Stellaris use to be pretty good until they ruined it.

You could grab both if you can afford it.

Endless Space II isnt bad either.

[💖 Officer Hotpants 💖]

Distant Worlds for sheer customizability and nitty-gritty details, Stellaris for a more streamlined, combat-focused game with grander scale objects and slightly more interesting diplomacy.

And nickel-and-dime DLC. Lots and lots (and lots) of nickel-and-dime DLC. Except it's more like $10 DLC. And half of it is simply them charging you for glorified patches for vanilla features and "story packs" (text adventures). The grand total of which is something like $180. And counting.

And Bethesda-levels of feature removal over time. If they dumb the mechanics down much more, the game will need a handler.



"This", I guess I'm saying.

[Wilhelm]

Both are excellent games. If you want a challenge in stellaris, then download Starnet AI mod and play on Hard +