I'm on my second game. My first one was more of a stab so I could understand what to do and what not to do, and what sort of play style I want to go with; without trying to deduce it from a bunch of articles written by other people.
So far my experiences are considerably different, my first game had me shoved in a large pack of other civilizations, and I was involved in an alliance. My second game had me at the centre of the Galaxy on an arm, and no one was around, I thought I might have made a mistake in the settings until I sent a military fleet out to explore further up the arm - sure enough, there were 5 or 6 Empires not too far out, and then I ended up in Fallen Empire space; a Fallen Empire is an extremely powerful old empire which has since stopped expanding, and remained focus on living in their part of space and making sure the younger races Don't do something disastrous - they're like the Nox from Stargate, or the Vorlon from Babylon 5. I accidentally flew deep into their space, and they vanished, lost at sea. They appeared back in my own borders years later.
1. Allying is much more fun than other 4X games as you vote on bringing people into a pack; when it gets big enough you can form a Federation - which is an alliance with a single leader, rather than governance by all.
2. There're multiple stories to uncover, similar to other Paradox games.
3. They clearly developed this game with LOTS of space for additions. It is already one of the biggest, if not the biggest, space strategy game I have ever come across, and if it's anything like EU4 or CK2, it's going to dwarf the competition by the end of year 1. And make them seem like Brownies by year 3.
4. Unlike other 4X games, Empires are multi-racial, beginning with one race, but others can move in or be incorporated. Plus members of your race can emigrate out into other Empires, or form factions of their own. I have come across conflicts against people from my own race who have gone off to do their own thing.
5. You can raise up other species into spacefaring races, if you do so, they can become your vassals - I currently have two vassals in my second game, lately because no one else was around to bother me.
6. Democracies at least, give quests based on promises from the democratic leader; these are currently just build quests from what I see, but there's big room for expansion.
7. There are lots of remnants of more ancient civilizations that are long gone, kind of like the Ancients from Stargate, and these trigger stories.
8. Unlike other recent 4X games I have played since the 90s, it's fun to study and settle new regions.
9. Tech system is more like a tiered card game than a tree, and there's LOTS of tech. Also, you assign scientists to learn the tech, and unlike other 4X games, you study multiple techs at once, not just one. You have a biologist, and physicist, and an engineer, and they all are learning different techs in their field simultaneously, you also have biology, physics, and industrial research points that you acquire from facilities and quests. In other words: imagine Civ, but instead of just the beakers, you had other sorts of research currencies; let's say a accuses and DNA helixes, and you would gain all three, and they would go towards researching different tech trees. Also, you could assign characters from your Empire to help things along.
10. Not really a point, but the B5 and Star Trek inspiration is very apparent.
Right now, the game plays like a 4X with grand strategy elements (such as having the characters in your empire that assign to things, like as a governor of a planet or sector, a scientist, president of your empire, etc...), but I haven't been far enough to see how that is going to evolve. My current goal is mostly expansion and raising pre-space aged races up into becoming vassals of mine. I am doing quite . Some valuable strategies I have found for this is to study as much tech in regards to other planetary biomes to live on, this will expand the number of planet types you can colonize.
More to come, I am just getting started. And yeah, like CK2 and EU4, this is a long long game.
If you like strategy, this is definitely a game to get now. It is half the price of the upcoming Sid Meier's Civilization 6, and very likely much better than Civ6 will be until at least the second expansion. Also, assuming they run with the CK2/EU4 strategy, there will be lots of expansions, I usually wait on these until I am ready to play them - since they are MUCH cheaper on Steam sales, and because my games usually last a half a year or more, I can afford to wait. My current CK2 game started in October.
And yes, I highly recommend this game. It's cheap enough that you can't really go wrong.
Plus, there will definitely be awesome B5, 40K, and Star Trek mods. Those universes are perfect for the framework set up in Stellaris; and there are a lot of scripts for modders to work with.
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