Stellaris - Yet another Paradox fail game

[Shooty Manz]

Like many who come here, I have tried to like this game a lot. I'm a huge fan of space domination games like these but Paradox makes these half-assed games all the time.

The problem with Paradox games in general is the stuff they make gives you the illusion that you can 'play the way you want to'. You can't. If you want to play pacifiist, you're not really being a pacificst ever because a massive part of the game revolves around DoomStacks and war. The one I had highest hopes for playing was the total Xenophobe type race that goes to war with everyone and is beset on all sides. Not only does it sound challenging but has more active engagement and action. Too bad it doesn't work because by the time mid-game comes around you are going to face a federation that will just wipe you out.

The AI in this game is atrocious and all the same. There's no variables at all between different empires/races and the way their AI functions. I had hopes that certain races would attack more even if they had slighly less numbers in their fleet or other races that would have different tactics or fight differently. Nope. Its all the same bland crap.

Either you have to hope you have hyperlane or worm hole drives to get away from their doom stacks and avoid them magically or you have the doom stack and they avoid you completely. Its a game of cat and mouse and its not even the slightest bit fun. The game has huge potential but until their garbage combat system is overhauled its just going to be a second-rate game... like all Paradox games.

TLDR: There is no point to anything except doomstacking. The entire game revolves around it which should have been fixed ages ago. Its a massive flaw in the games design and prevents any kind of diversity or variation in builds.

I've heard rumours that they are going to patch this in the future, but until I see in devs own words "we're going to heavily penalize doom stacking and change the AI", I won't believe you.

[Serangel]

Get ready for rabid paradox fans.

You arnt wrong though, there are only two ways to play, militay industrial complex and doomstack everyone to death, or join/form a federation and just get 60% of the planets. But hey, were getting more paid DLC right?

I dont regret getting it, stellaris is enjoyable, but its still second rate and not worth the 80 some odd $ for it and the DLC.

[Tericc]

Problem is there isn't another game as good as this (or better) that isn't already aged by at least a decade.

No don't bring up moo2 that game is ancient,or how about space empires 4/5? wait they are at least 13 years old.
Galactic civ is more of a console version of 4x. Sins is an arcade shooter. Endless space feels like a death match game.
Distant worlds is aging fast. Stil a good game "if" you can get it to run +mods.

Sword of the stars was not really known to the public till the 2nd game came out, oh boy what a sinking ship with someone pouring gas on the fire, that release was...

(Oh and it was thnx to paradox for that one,with the devs contributing to the lie)

Not hating any of the above mentioned but stellaris is successful since its the only one in recent memory that is a grand space game to come out in the last decade with the vacuum of competition.

[Syth Exodus]

hmmm, a failed game with very positive recent reviews and very positive overall reviews. if you hate the game then get out because you clearly don't want to be here and all the fans don't want you here either.

[Meewec]

well, "doomstack" will be a thing unless admirals get limits on how much fleet power they can control just like any game like this. unless you have absolute superiority your fleet is safer as one fleet otherwise it just gets killed peicemeal.

except for hearts of iron, combat seems to be the weakest point of paradox games(haven't played victoria) because that's not the main focus of the games. ck2 the focus is the characters, eu4 the focus is your country, stellaris the focus is on building your space empire and exploration, hoi4 the focus is the combat which is why it is so much more in depth than the other games.

they all have combat, but i wouldn't say it's good in most of them

[Shad]

There isn't really any easy way out of "doomstacks". You either have a controllable combat (like Moo2/SotS/total War) where the experienced player can win any battle, unless they are completely outnumbered/out-teched.

Or you have the indirect control like most Paradox games, where ultimately doomstacks are strong (though some measures can alleaviate them). Neither attrition or frontage would really make sense in a space game.

[Chucktown]

Another fail post! 85% of the people who reviewed this game disagree with you! It has almost 7k people playing at the moment to, thats not including those who pirate the game or who play offline either. The game just isnt what you want it to be and thats ok because you don't have to play it. You call the game a fail but the facts disagree buddy!

[RandomDude]

I can't think of a space game where you didn't have to have more fleet power than your enemy in a battle to win. MOO2/MOO3, Imperium Galatica 1 & 2, Haegemony, Distant Worlds, Ascendancy and all the rest of them, no doubt.

It's usually the same in medieval conquest games too.

Some games allow you tactical control of your vessels and that can sometimes add to your "power" (or lessen it, if you suck) but the guy with the bigger guns will most often win.

They can't exactly put a limit on how many ships you or the AI can bring to a sector (that would be even more annoying, right?) and if the AI split up its fleets all the time, they wouldn't ever be a challenge as you could wipe them out 1 by 1.

Certain game mechanics can add an advantage or disadvantage to fleets and ships and Stellaris' version of that is the components you put on your ships.

I've read some players counter an end game doomstack by splitting up their fleet and using it the cripple the enemy before they take too many worlds. That's another way to play it and if you don't have as much fleet power as the other guy, you have to resort to tactics like that.

Pacifist Empires will get wiped out if they can't protect themselves. Xenophobic empires aren't going to just let you be.

You also have to pick and choose your wars. Sometimes I have to leave my immediate neighbours alone because it would bring too many other empires into a war with me. I nibble where I need to and when I'm strong enough, I crush them.

Even Xenophobic empires have to think "Hmm, is it better to cleanse these worlds now, or just conquer them, terraform them into habital worlds for my own people and screw the former inhabitants."

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Originally posted by Serangel:

Get ready for rabid paradox fans.

You arnt wrong though, there are only two ways to play, militay industrial complex and doomstack everyone to death, or join/form a federation and just get 60% of the planets. But hey, were getting more paid DLC right?

I dont regret getting it, stellaris is enjoyable, but its still second rate and not worth the 80 some odd $ for it and the DLC.

Well that's not reasonable. Just because people disagree with you doesn't make them rabid fans, that's rather irrational.

On the cost, sales are often and it's quite easy to pay for everything well under $80. Not to mention that I've spent 393 hours enjoying Stellaris so $80 is well worth the hours spent.

[Cloud Breaker]

I feel like quite the opposite. I feel like Paradox is or rather has built the foundation of what is going to be a fantastic game that stands the test of time.

[breakfast]

I agree that the combat is the weakest part of Stellaris, though to say that Doomstacking is unbeatable isn't entirely true. A savvy player can equip their ships for long distance skirmishing, fire off a salvo or two before taking much return fire, then emergency FTL out, effectively kiting the larger fleet while picking off their ships a chunk at a time.
Also, if you want it to be competitive, go play multiplayer. AI has never been competent or challenging in any video game, ever.
After I figured out how to min/max and quickly win the game every time, I realized that's not how it's meant to be played. Stellaris, like all Paradox games, is a sandbox game.
Let go of the need to "win" as quickly as possible, it literally does not matter one bit if you're playing single player. Make a cool race that you actually like, and get into playing as them.

[Jerek Adams]

Originally posted by Ser DJ Hold the Door:

Like many who come here, I have tried to like this game a lot. I'm a huge fan of space domination games like these but Paradox makes these half♥♥♥♥♥♥♥games all the time.

The problem with Paradox games in general is the stuff they make gives you the illusion that you can 'play the way you want to'. You can't. If you want to play pacifiist, you're not really being a pacificst ever because a massive part of the game revolves around DoomStacks and war. The one I had highest hopes for playing was the total Xenophobe type race that goes to war with everyone and is beset on all sides. Not only does it sound challenging but has more active engagement and action. Too bad it doesn't work because by the time mid-game comes around you are going to face a federation that will just wipe you out.

The AI in this game is atrocious and all the same. There's no variables at all between different empires/races and the way their AI functions. I had hopes that certain races would attack more even if they had slighly less numbers in their fleet or other races that would have different tactics or fight differently. Nope. Its all the same bland crap.

Either you have to hope you have hyperlane or worm hole drives to get away from their doom stacks and avoid them magically or you have the doom stack and they avoid you completely. Its a game of cat and mouse and its not even the slightest bit fun. The game has huge potential but until their garbage combat system is overhauled its just going to be a second-rate game... like all Paradox games.

TLDR: There is no point to anything except doomstacking. The entire game revolves around it which should have been fixed ages ago. Its a massive flaw in the games design and prevents any kind of diversity or variation in builds.

I've heard rumours that they are going to patch this in the future, but until I see in devs own words "we're going to heavily penalize doom stacking and change the AI", I won't believe you.

Well I didn't read it all but there is a simple lesson to remember about every.. well... marketed thing out there in the world. Games by Paradox included.

Money talks.... B*llshit walks.

No matter how good or bad it is people vote with the dollar. Paradox has to be doing something right because they keep selling the new content they release and they still have players in game whenever I click on Stellaris.

So I guess people like it enough despite its shortcomings to keep paying. This is saying essentially that they are doing good enough work that people believe what they do is worth the money they pay.

\And nobodies opinion here seems like it will do anything to change that.

[Jerek Adams]

Originally posted by wideo james:

I agree that the combat is the weakest part of Stellaris, though to say that Doomstacking is unbeatable isn't entirely true. A savvy player can equip their ships for long distance skirmishing, fire off a salvo or two before taking much return fire, then emergency FTL out, effectively kiting the larger fleet while picking off their ships a chunk at a time.
Also, if you want it to be competitive, go play multiplayer. AI has never been competent or challenging in any video game, ever.
After I figured out how to min/max and quickly win the game every time, I realized that's not how it's meant to be played. Stellaris, like all Paradox games, is a sandbox game.
Let go of the need to "win" as quickly as possible, it literally does not matter one bit if you're playing single player. Make a cool race that you actually like, and get into playing as them.

This doesn't work with all combatants and if the fleet is too much bigger you will always suffer catastrophic losses in the 30 days it takes before emergency FTL is available.

Lets just say a few games back I discovered a new respect for arc emttiers for late game combat.

[Serangel]

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

Originally posted by Serangel:

Get ready for rabid paradox fans.

You arnt wrong though, there are only two ways to play, militay industrial complex and doomstack everyone to death, or join/form a federation and just get 60% of the planets. But hey, were getting more paid DLC right?

I dont regret getting it, stellaris is enjoyable, but its still second rate and not worth the 80 some odd $ for it and the DLC.

Well that's not reasonable. Just because people disagree with you doesn't make them rabid fans, that's rather irrational.

On the cost, sales are often and it's quite easy to pay for everything well under $80. Not to mention that I've spent 393 hours enjoying Stellaris so $80 is well worth the hours spent.

A wild rapid paradox fanboi has appeared.

[gingerboyz4]

if u want a good RTS game then get star wars empire at war, its actually not dead

[Jerek Adams]

Originally posted by Serangel:

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

Well that's not reasonable. Just because people disagree with you doesn't make them rabid fans, that's rather irrational.

On the cost, sales are often and it's quite easy to pay for everything well under $80. Not to mention that I've spent 393 hours enjoying Stellaris so $80 is well worth the hours spent.

A wild rapid paradox fanboi has appeared.

I guess mathematicaly he has paid $0.20 / hour which is cheaper than almost all forms of entertainment out there.

Videogamin' is cheap!