As we expand across the galaxy, Stellaris will inevitably change in scope. At the same time, regardless of your war efforts (or lack thereof) with rival species, you'll want to have a standing army that can defend your territory when necessary. No matter your play style, you'll want to explore as much as possible and ensure a steady stream of resources, both from your own planet and other sources. Higher-ranking officers make battles go your way more often, even when your fleet is slightly outnumbered.
Higher-ranking scientists are better equipped to research anomalies, which grant resources and background information about an ancient alien race that vanished a long time ago. This can create gaps that are hard to fill with new and inexperienced personnel. They level up with every successful action, and they all inevitably die, either due to old age or in combat. Their expertise and traits decide how successful their ships are in what they do. Once that's completed, we'll want to gather resources by building mining stations and expanding our reach in far-away systems or colonizing habitable planets.īack in space, combat and exploration revolves around ships, which need to be led by scientists or officers, who we have to recruit and appoint. The first step is to explore our surroundings within our own system and then slowly move to neighboring systems in search of resources and habitable planets. Our people have just discovered Faster-Than-Light travel, so we have no idea what lies beyond our home planet or the boundaries of our local star system. We start every game with a basic fleet, a science ship, a construction ship and a space station orbiting our home planet. We will be placed in a random spot with a random home planet and get to work on our plan of galaxy domination, annihilation or peaceful expansion. The galaxy we play in is equally randomized (there is the option to play in our known solar system), creating a new playing field every single time we play. If that's too much, you can choose from existing creations or opt for a randomized pick to make things interesting. When starting a new game, you may face off against your own creations from previous games. The best part of the creation process is that everything you create is saved. Our race may be highly adaptable or not, reproduce faster or slower, and so on. On top of that, we also have to set philosophies, tendencies and traits that define our strengths and weaknesses. You can even create your own race and nation by mixing an extensive preset of assets until everything - from your banner to your leader - is to your liking.
There is no linear campaign or tutorial, and every game starts the same way: choosing or creating your faction. What's surprising is that it plays surprisingly well on a console with a controller in hand.īefore diving deeper into the actual port and how a strategy game on console can work without making too many sacrifices, let's break down what Stellaris is and how it plays. Stellaris: Console Edition is a fully featured release, with some exceptions. If you have played Stellaris on the PC, that may not come as a surprise.
How to play stellaris with all dlc free full#
The game features planet and fleet management, space exploration and combat, full diplomacy systems, and other traits that make every playthrough unique. It belongs to the 4X genre (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) and combines the joys of deeply strategic gameplay systems with science fiction and space exploration. That alone makes ports of strategy or simulation titles to consoles an almost impossible task that only gets more strenuous as the game's complexity rises. The sometimes convoluted nature of the interfaces and navigation grids often required precise mouse movements and keyboard shortcuts to navigate successfully. For example, simulation and strategy games have never had a firm place on consoles, mostly due to a lack of input options. Some genres and platforms don't mix well.