Recent reviews by fabo

DEMOCRACY HAS PREVAILED!!!

GREAT GAME. SUPER FUN. WOULD DEMOCRACY AGAIN

One of the best cooperative games I've played ever! At first it looks chaotic, but as you learn the different jobs, you start to get an idea what's going on and how to react in emergencies. Best way is to give a simple example:

A team mate loads explosive shells in the rail gun as we will meet a big alien fish. The fish hits the hull where the diving gear is. The team mate shoots the fish and the explosion rips through our hull and blows up all the oxygen tanks. The forward compartment of the hull start to rapidly take water. 2 crew members struggle to swim to the door, but the pressure is pushing them in the wall and as the room fills up, the depth pressure crushes their bodies. The last 3 crewmembers quickly put on pressured diving suits as we realize the seriosness of the situation. As I start to repair the leaks I understand that we are getting no drainage of the forward part of the ship.

1. I swim to the engine room where the reactor is on fire. Put out the fire - regulate the reactor and fix the junction boxes that give power to the rest of the sub.
2. I open the ballast hatch which is empty so water starts to drain there and the huge pump throws it out of the ship.
3. As the engine room gets dry, I open the door to the next compartment to get hit by the incoming water. I equip a screwdriver and rip the wire from the motion detector so that the door doesn't close as I move away from it. The water start to drain to the pump in the ballast tank.
4. That pump alone won't be enough to drain the ship, so i dive in the middle of the ship at the bilge and repair the 2 smaller pumps and the junction boxes connected with them.
5. After that continue to help my teammates repair the leaks and kill the remaining enemies outside the ship that were hammering us the whole time.

The whole ordeal took us 15 minutes to stabilize the situation with many more stuff going wrong!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I had also an SMG equip the whole time because some of the bad fishes were already inside the sub.

tl:dr - it can go from 0 to 100 in 1.3 seconds!

Played for 8 months. 2 "finished" servers. Together with 3 other players, ruled over 30 vassals. So I kinda know the game, to make a decent review.

Lets start by saying that this game is not recommended for single player experience. The solo module is not well done and could get easily frustrating.

With that out of the way, we move on to the real game - multiplayer. Also at the end I put a recommendation on how to get the most of Ymir for enjoyment.

Pros:
1. Game is complex. It has depth. You have to take into account a lot of systems and plan accordingly.

2. If you really put the time and resources you can make your cities look really cool. Will it be resource effective meta game wise? NO. but they will look cool...

3. Graphics and theme? I like them.

4. One game can take like 4 months to reach the endgame. So you can really see your kingdom expand and prosper in the long term.

5. Free for all pvp where you get to "kill" other players. That's always fun. And you will have other players as vassals to pay you taxes - if you are the strong one (check in "cons" for the other aspect)

6. Game is made by a single developer who doesn't care about microtransactions and seems dedicated to his idea. You don't get much of that in recent years.

CONS... and this is where things get real...

1. Game is made by a single developer who JUST DOESNT HAVE THE TIME this game needs to get finished. Because at its core, Ymir is an ALPHA version. Rigged with bugs and exploits. And has been like that for years. So any hopes and dreams you have that you can play a stable finished product - throw them out of the window.

2. Numerous bugs and exploits including game braking ones where you get a huge advantage over other players. I've used some, I've seen others people find and use others. At one point it turned out we were exploiting a system which we though was a feature, up until the developer patched it and said that it was an exploit. Also, it is not fun seeing your 4 month old capital in the steel Era, get wrecked by a player who started a week ago, and attacks you with more armies than the whole server can't muster combined, equipped only with spears, because he found an exploit. And the developer can't help the server, since he is on vacation. And when he gets back, he tells you he can't or won't roll back the servers...

3. Diplomacy in this game is a must. You have to do it, if you want to survive. The diplomacy and vassal system are complex and at the same time buggy as hell. You can and you will lose cities to bugs due to the bugged diplomacy system. And you will get frustrated.

4. Vassals - you can get a really bad overlord who exploits you and makes the experience hell for you. And you won't be able to do anything. They will just have the upperhand and you will have to accept it. Yup, it is realistic. Does it make a fun game experience. Don't think so.

5. WARS - stay away from wars as much as possible. Bugs, bad pathfinding, unbalanced units. unbalanced fortifications. IF you don't finish a player within a day, chances are they will start exploting the system and ruin the game for everyone around them. It can get frustrating for everyone involved on both sides. AVOID at all cost!!!

6. BAD UI - it is just bad. ON so many levels. I've written pages of guides for my clan on how players to read, interpret information and act accordingly. It's work to get new players into this.

7. Did I mention bugs and crashes?

8. No end game. If you power play, it is possible to reach steel era in 2 months. Usually it takes 4. After that you are stuck. Biggest issue is, that it's not a good idea to do a city with more than 2k population. In one of the recent patches I've read that the "Waste" mechanic has been reduced, which means this number might be higher now. But still, at one point the game encourages you to stop improving your capital and go optimize a second city. Literally you will lose huge sums of money if you continue expanding your capital. And in this game money can be a issue.

9. Buildings and technologies you can build and do, that do nothing. Since the rest of the mechanics that are connected with them are not implemented. Which ones you ask? You will figure them out, when you build them :D

10. Getting involved into huge conflicts means that you will have to constantly log in to monitor progress on all fronts. This can easily turn the game into chore, rather than a fun experience. And don't tell me, you can move the troops of your vassals, so they don't have to log in so often. Did I mention the diplomacy is a buggy mess? It doesn't work as intended and you will get frustrated.

I can talk a lot about the game. But my final verdict? When I look back at it, i've had more frustration with it that enjoyment.

My advice for players on how to get the most joy out of it. Wish I knew this when i started:

1. Play multiplayer
2. Roleplay. No need for heavy roleplay. As much as you like. But do it.
3. Avoid conflicts as much as possible. Even if you think you have the advantage... I've seen lots of battles and wars. Avoid it!
4. Do diplomacy with other players to secure their intentions towards you and be at good terms with them. Don't be the silent king in a multiplayer game. You will get wasted for not cooperating. No empire ruler wants a loose end in their territory when the wars start.
5. Without getting involved in conflicts you won't have the urge to log in every day. So the game won't feel like a chore. Playing when you feel like it, is an important factor to enjoy it.
6. Find some guides, or log in the games discord and ask questions. Otherwise there might be mechanics that you will never find out about. I'm not joking...

Hope this helps!

I had huge hopes for this DLC. Unfortunately I now lost hope in the Paradox dev team.

The release of this DLC was buggy as hell. And in many ways the bugs were game breaking, where you just had to scrap your 100 year game to start another. Also huge balance issues. Robot empires were first underpowered, then overpowered. It took them 3 months to fix most of the issues. Megacorporations felt unfinished. Planet screen felt unfinished. The way pops produce and take jobs felt unfinished. It will be 6 months since release and there are still fixing things.

It was clear they didn't had the time to test this properly and wanted to release it for the holidays.

But worst of everything? Caravaners. This feature makes me furious, because I know that this game could have been great. It had great promises before launch. The features they promised... instead they've abandoned the initial idea of stellaris and are adding more useless content when they could be fixing the current one and expanding on it. This team has no clear vision of what this game has to be.

Since my last review, I've seen a lot of bad comments thrown on this game. Even though the MMO part of the game lack behind, the ships and battles are well executed and cannot be compared with any other game on the market. Huge battles will definitly keep you intense for hours.

The game does not deserve the bad attitude of a few bad apples in the community. Such people should be ashamed.

Still... the game was fun when it was arenas. Not the open world. BRING BACK ARENA FIGHTING!

Unfortunately, after Megacorporations DLC, the game has gone downhill. I cannot recommend the game in its current state!


Old review:
2.0 Best Stellaris update!!! Totally changes the game for good. Was waiting for fix on wars and battles for a year. So much stuff to learn and adapt, exploit and enjoy. I love it! Much more tactical, you need to think more in depth.

If someone told you they liked the previous version better, they are just bad at the game :D

Feels like I'm playing a unofficial mod. It feels unneeded and with bugs.