Current Events > Humble Stellaris Bundle!

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/stellaris-discovery-bundle

$1 - Stellaris (base game)
$9.20+ - Utopia and Leviathan expansions and Plantoid Species Pack(meh)
$15+ - Apocalypse and Megacorp expansions and Synthetic Dawn and Ancient Relics story packs

Only stuff not included is the Federations expansion(meh) and the Lithoid and Necroid species packs.
So, yeah: if you pay $15 you get basically all the good stuff.

Stellaris is a good modern Space 4x with Paradoxian trappings that will annoy you because you'll be constantly reminded that the game is almost something special but isn't. Still fun to play, and you'll probably never get as good a deal as this on it.

i have the base games but buying for the DLCs, thx for sharing

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Bump

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I have everything already except the necroid and plantoid packs. Still, a very good deal for people who don't.

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It's a 4x like Civ but there's a lot more to learn than Civ imo.

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ImAMarvel posted...

I'm really into space and want to get into a space-related game but they all seem so boring to me. >_>

I might buy the base game at least though. Sell me on it. Is it really like Civ?

It has a Traditions system that's clearly inspired by the Civics Trees in Civ V, but you're intended to eventually take all of them.

It depends on what you like about Civilization. Do you like interacting with a bunch of flavorful leaders with distinct and predictable personalities? Because Stellaris really doesn't have that: although there are preset races, everything is designed for procedural generation: you're not going to see, say...Alexander next door and know you had best buckle up, for example.

The way civs work in Stellaris is this: there's a race portrait(with minor variations) that is assigned species traits and civics and ethics and a government type, and that's how its behavior is determined. You might see the exact same portait multiple games in the row assigned a completely different name and profile. You can create your own, of course, and you can even set your created empires to have a chance to spawn or force-spawn them(so they'll always appear).

The game does have a civ-like flow: in the early game, you're mostly exploring your sector of space, meeting other civs, etc. Anomalies (and archaeological sites, if you have Ancient Relics) are generated to give your scientists things to research out there: completing anomalies can open up event chains or quest lines, but mostly just give you some science. The tech system is card-based, and you research three techs at a time: one each from the physics, society, and engineering trees.

Planet management is a major aspect: you don't have tiles, you have pops, districts, housing, and buildings. Pops have upkeep, and work jobs. Districts provide basic jobs(miners, energy workers, farmers, etc.) while buildings provide more specialized jobs(scientists, manufacturers, entertainers, etc.) Pop management is radically different depending on what kind of species you're playing as: Authoritarians have access to policies that curtail pop upkeep and can have slaves, whereas Egalitarians get better specialist output and overall happier pops. Pops come in stratas, corresponding with how politically powerful they are. All of this works, but it all kind of feels a bit undercooked.

War is fought by fleets: you can design your ships, and doing so is optimal. Wars are fought until one or both sides maxes out on war exhaustion: you need a casus belli, which can be generated by spending influence to claim a neighbor's system. Starbases provide hard defense and can prevent fleets from passing by when active(i.e. hostile fleets cannot simply bypass them), but generally won't stand up to a fleet by themselves, so you need to have fleets ready to defend them. Sadly, you have to actually send armies to invade hostile planets to capture them, and it's tedious and boring.

The game really shines in its events and its emerging narrative and the feeling that the galaxy you're in has seen millenias of civilizations come and go before you. There are even some remnants of great empires left. There are some really neat events and event chains and a few emergent challenges The Great Khan. The War in Heaven. The Three Flavors of End-Game Invaders. You can send your civilization down three game-altering ascension paths: becoming psionics, becoming robots, or becoming supreme genetic engineers(Utopia). You can build several megastructures that won't be completed until you've basically already won like Dyson Spheres and Ring Worlds, and there're several flavors of Death Stars(Apocalypse).
It's a good game, you can have a lot of fun with it.

Oh, and I just realized this pack doesn't have Distant Stars, which is a shame, because that's one of the best expansions.

Would this be fun for me to try if i've never really played a Civ game?

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Hard to say. It has some basic tutorial stuff, but it's a lot to chew on and figure out. Watching video guides or LPs can help a lot(that's how I got started on Paradox strategy games).

Deal bump.

Weekend bump.

The nice thing is based on your races ethics, civics, and type of Government there are probably half a dozen play styles that are viable.

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I think I already own all of it but Necroids, but this is a great deal

Cant wait for Nemesis so I can be the Senate

ImAMarvel posted...

Out of all the DLC, what would you recommend? I'm about to just buy the base game b/c I don't have much experience with 4X games honestly.

I think the standout best of the expansions is Utopia. Megastructures are great and ascension paths are key to making your species as good as they can be. Apocalypse is geared toward warlike players, which I'm not really one of, but the titans are nice. Megacorp is decent if only for the ecumenopolis and the new megastructures it adds, and Federations has some really nice species origins and a very useful shipyard megastructure.

In terms of the story packs, I like all of them, but Distant Stars is my personal favorite. Tons of new events and new planets and systems. Leviathans adds enclaves, with help a lot with unity and research, and giant space creatures that serve as mid-game minibosses. Ancient Relics adds excavation sites, which give you rewards for digging them up, and relics, which give you various different bonuses for holding or using them. Synthetic Dawn lets you play as robots, which play differently since they don't require food and have full habitability on every planet.

Overall, if I had to recommend one expansion and one story pack, I'd say Utopia and Distant Stars. Unfortunately, the latter isn't included with this deal.

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ImAMarvel posted...

Out of all the DLC, what would you recommend? I'm about to just buy the base game b/c I don't have much experience with 4X games honestly.

I'll break it out with Pack DLC and then the other DLCs after.

Tier 2

Leviathan - The game's first expansion, and still one of the best. Highlights include sequestering space wildlife in specific systems, "home" systems for each species, superpowered space fauna(Leviathans) including the Ether Drake, Enigmatic Fortress, Dimensional Horror, etc. that are extremely powerful but give great rewards if defeated, and the War in Heaven event chain, a late-game process whereby Fallen Empires which have "woken up" wage war against each other and attempt to force younger empires to join in.

Utopia - The most consequential ascension perks(especially Psionics, Cybernetics, and Genetic Engineering) are gated by it, along with a few other things I don't remember. Interesting stuff.

Plantoids - Just plant-themed species portraits. No special mechanics attached to them. Purely cosmetic.

Tier 3

Apocalypse - Newer than the first two, and one of the most consequential. Gates marauder empires: marauder empires control a few systems without planets and command powerful fleets. They can be hired as proxies or paid to attack rivals(they'll always attempt to extort a protection payment before launching a raid). After the mid-game year, a Great Khan may arise and unify a Marauder Empire, making it launch a massive campaign of galactic conquest. You must either fend off the Horde, prostrate yourself before the Khan, or die. However: once the Great Khan dies(whether in battle or by natural causes), the conquests stop, vassals are liberated, and some fate befalls the Khan's former empire.
Also lets you build several flavors of Death Star(Colossus). You could blow up a planet, or just deactivate all the robots, encase it in a hard, permanent shield, mass assimilate the organics, or maybe just make them see the light.

Megacorp - An overall mediocre expansion: adds mechanics for Megacorporations: trade-focused empires that seek to establish trade posts, sometimes for nefarious or spiritual aims.

Synthetic Dawn - Let's you play as one of four flavors of machine empires. The three interesting flavors are: Determined Exterminators(Skynet), Assimilators(Borg), and Rogue Servitors(they basically keep organic sentients as pampered pets). Machine empires are a little different and a fun twist even without the "Big 3" civics.

Ancient Relics - A bit of an odd inclusion - it's much newer than anything else here(Distant Stars would have been more natural). Ancient Relics adds a bunch of new event chains, and a new mechanic: archaeology. Basically, your science ships will discover archaeological sites as they scan planets, and once you control the system, you can dispatch a scientist to "excavate" the site, unfolding the site's story and eventually producing a reward. Also adds relics: powerful items and totems that give you some kind of small empire-wide bonus.

Expansions not included:

Distant Stars - Adds a ton of events and some new anomalies, but revolves around the L-Gates: mysterious sealed gateways that lead to an extra-galactic cluster of stars. Who sealed them, and why? In any case, there definitely isn't anything bad in there! Pretty good.

Federations - A mostly meh expansion that adds additional mechanics to Federations(without solving the problem of Federations being a thing the player won't want to be in most of the time) and a Galactic Senate, which can pass laws and eventually embargo outlaws.

Nemesis - It comes out April 15th and looks cool.

Humanoid Portraits - Purely cosmetic: if you really want dwarves, elves, orcs, definitely-not-Klingons, and various Star Trek style "rubber forehead" aliens, get it on sale.

Lithoids Portraits - This was the point where they realized not giving out mechanics was lame. Lithoids are silicon-based lifeforms that eat rocks, live really long, and breed very slowly. They're a little bit like robots, but still technically "organic". It's probably worth grabbing on sale.

Necroids Portraits - This sounds like some one got really excited about Halloween, drank a lot of awful pumpkin liquor, wrote down a spoopy idea, and then woke up, nursed a hangover, and made it a thing.
Necroids are parasites, but they completely missed the boat and failed to allow for anything Yeerk-like. Basically, they infest living creatures and turn them into Necroids. There are a few civics, and random necromancy. Why not? We already have psionics. Get it on sale, or don't.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Humanoid Portraits - Purely cosmetic: if you really want dwarves, elves, orcs, definitely-not-Klingons, and various Star Trek style "rubber forehead" aliens, get it on sale.

Gotta be honest, I got it just because I liked the shipset that came with it

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ImAMarvel posted...

I'm really into space and want to get into a space-related game but they all seem so boring to me. >_>

I might buy the base game at least though. Sell me on it. Is it really like Civ?

Honestly i'm not sure this game would be for you, there's a pretty steep learning curve and a few people I recommended it to said it was boring. I'd buy the base game for a dollar and give it a shot, if you seem like you are gonna like it go for the DLC. I'd say for sure though give it at least 10 hours, it took me a little while to catch on, there's a lot to learn and understand. I think the game is great but it's not for everyone.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

Gotta be honest, I got it just because I liked the shipset that came with it

Right: all the portrait packs have attached ship sets.
They basically exist to keep the art team busy.
Lithoids and Necroids also have special Advisors The Lithoid one rocks.

If only humble bundle was for console

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Smackems posted...

If only humble bundle was for console

The console versions are only just getting Lithoids! Its sad.

It could be entertaining to a CE stellaris multiplayer game.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

It could be entertaining to a CE stellaris multiplayer game.

I dont know that Ive ever played unmodded Stellaris LOL.
But yeah, Stellaris has an excellent modding scene, even though the new launcher is awful.
I highly recommend Gullimans Planetary Modifiers. Makes planets way more interesting.

Stellaris base game good? Or is it like EU4 where you need at least a couple of the important dlc to get a really good experience?

Also, I saw it on Xbox game pass. My laptop sucks so I don't know if it will even run decently on it. Has anyone played it on Xbox?

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doomcrusader posted...

Stellaris base game good? Or is it like EU4 where you need at least a couple of the important dlc to get a really good experience?

Also, I saw it on Xbox game pass. My laptop sucks so I don't know if it will even run decently on it. Has anyone played it on Xbox?

Stellaris is newer and thus a bit better about that than EU4. Mostly base game Stellaris has all the mechanics: the DLCs just add a lot of flavor to them, expands them, or adds a unique one(like Distant Stars and L-Gates).

This is still going for another week, so necro-bump. I figure I'll explain ethics.

Basically, there are four axis for ethics: Militarist/Pacifist, Xenophile/Xenophobe, Egalitarian/Authoritarian, Materialist/Spiritualist. You have 3 points to spend on ethics on race creation, and may spend up to two on any one axis(spending two makes you fanatic i.e. Fanatic Egalitarian, increasing the bonuses you receive at the cost of increased restrictions). You may not select opposed ethics(i.e. you cannot be both Materialist and Spiritualist). They're mostly what they say on the tin, and a lot of civics are restricted based on ethics(i.e. you can't have an Aristocratic Elite if you're Egalitarian, you need to be Pacifist to take Agrarian Idyll, you have to be Materialist to be Mechanists, only Spiritualists can have divine emperors, etc. etc.) Some civics have very tight requirements(Shared Burdens and Technocracy require Fanatic Egalitarian and Fanatic Materialist respective, Fanatic Purifiers requires Fanatic Xenophobe and either Militarist or Spiritualist, etc. etc.) Megacorps, Hive Minds, and Robots have their own civics(though they're mostly just slight variations on standard civics).

This sounds really cool, think I'm gonna pick it up. Big fan of Civ, although I'm absolute trash at it, so maybe something similar will still suit me. Thanks TC!

A couple years ago I bought the base game. I think I played Stellaris for just a few minutes before feeling overwhelmed >_>;. So many choices and menus and things!

I've never played any of the other Paradox games either. My BF likes the Crusader Kings games. But it just seems like there is too much to learn especially if you aren't sure if you actually like this style of game or not.

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It's paradox interactive
You're gonna have a good time

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https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-dev-diary-205-announcing-the-3-0-dick-update.1462688/
This is a good example of how progression works in this game re:patches and expansions. Yes, they're adding espionage, and I'm sure it will be as tedious and boring as espionage is in literally every single damned strategy game, but this next patch is named Dick for famous sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, of course, and it's pounding away at some accrued tech debt! And the first contact changes seem really cool.