Matt Chatt #341 - Stellaris Review

Matt checked out the space strategy game Stellaris:

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I havent seen any other reviews from Matt, but that one was very weirdly structured.

Here are just some of my thoughts when watching the video:

The explanation of when to buy the game right at the start and making purely dependent on the amount of time the game takes…well, wrong place and somewhat weird argument.

Rulers die frequently? Not really. In democracies they are exchanged frequently. But if you are in a monarchy and get a bad leader at the start you might want him to die early…instead you have to keep him for maybe 50 years. And then you have maybe 3-4 Rulers during 200 years, which is like 40h of game play.

Also explaining the leader mechanic as the very first mechanic in the game? Not that well structured.

The science explanation and the exploration was ok, the small "cannonfodder ships" are somewhat broken at the moment as they are the most powerful ships in the game apparently due to evasion stacking (should be fixed in the next patch)

He calls the decisions of creating sectors as "dumb" and wants to give players the freedom the opportunity to do everything on their own.
However this suggestion is somewhat dumb because as soon as you give players the option, they will try to max out the efficiency. And an automatic Gouverner is of no use if it's a bad choice to use them. Being forced to used them is much preferable imho.
I can see that someone might to micromanage it. But making it optional…isn't an option. Either allow it or disallow it. There is nothing in between.

Also he mentions that the research time is wasted when researching other aliens. I thought so as well, when I started the game. I was wrong though. The research is queued up during these researches and will speed up the "normal" research after that.
(well, researching other players is pointless anyways)

He mentioned the lack of victory conditions but then justified it by saying that he thinks that other victory conditions but kill everyone are boring anyways.

And renegades and wild aliens will certainly not "destroy you quite easily". They are either passive, don't move out of their system, or get destroyed by your space station…
he is correct about AI being non-aggressive though.

On Leader dieing - the notification is there. But the problem is that it doesnt make it easy to find out who actually died and which position needs to be refilled.

While he mentioned that it might be better to have a single big fleet instead of multiple small ones, he doesnt really point out that this is a weak point of the game.

I like the enthusiasm he put into it, but as a Review I'd say that it was rather unstructured, incomplete (left out actual flaws) and partially incorrect.

So, I enjoy his interviews quite a lot. But this review…not so much.

No time for watching the video. I'm finding the game, however, to be highly addictive. Enjoying it a lot already, and I'm sure it will be refined much over the next year or more, if you are willing to pay for much of it, in true Paradox style.

You are right Kordanor, Matt's reviews are not reviews per se, those are Matt's impressions while playing. I like to watch them anyways, because he is a funny guy.

I own the game and have only been able to play for about 20 minutes so far. Too many other games to play right now, but it does look promising as far as a 4X game is concerned. As far as space games are concerned, I do recommend SPAZ 2, having fun with that one.

Originally Posted by Hyperion
I own the game and have only been able to play for about 20 minutes so far. Too many other games to play right now, but it does look promising as far as a 4X game is concerned. As far as space games are concerned, I do recommend SPAZ 2, having fun with that one.

I'd definitely recommed to watch someone else play first for an hour or so.

Quill did a very good job in showing the game while explaining most of the elemental mechanics to start the game in his first LP about Stellaris.