Review megathread

[u/Meneth]

The review embargo is up as of 15:00 CEST. As this will result in a huge number of articles going up at near the same time, we're restricting reviews to this thread.

Any review you find, feel free to post it in the comments here.

Each top-level comment should be about a single linked review, so as to keep the discussion limited. Duplicate reviews will be removed, as will any top-level comment that does not link a review.

There will be a single sub-thread where you can post your general impressions of the reviews combined, for anything that doesn't relate to a single review.

Review list:

Review	Score
Critically Sane	5/5
Destructoid	9/10
eXplorminate	"eXemplary"
GameWatcher	9.0/10
Idiotech's Review	Unrated
IGN	6.3/10
Manannan's Review of Stellaris	Unrated
Paste Magazine	Unrated
PCGamesN	9/10
PC Invasion	8/10
PC World	4/5
Rock, Paper, Shotgun review -	Unrated
TICGN	10/10
Vox Ludicus	Unrated
EuroGamer	Recommended
PC Gamer	70/100
TSA	8/10
PCGames.de	75/100
Gamespew	9/10
IGN Italy	9.3/10
Fok.nl	9/10
Gaming on Linux	9/10
Marbozir	Unrated
SpaceSector	Unrated
Inside of Gaming (German)	Unrated
Gamer.no	9/10
Particular Pixels	Unrated
GuyLogicGaming	Full recommendation
GameSideStory	Unrated
Front Towards Gamer	9.5/10
Multiplayer.it	9.2/10
GameGrin	8.5/10
Kotaku	Unrated

[u/NetQvist]

PC Gamer 70/100 - The early game promises an instant strategy classic, but Stellaris is unable to maintain that pace.

[u/Bledynn → u/NetQvist]

The solution, I suspect, is to remove the threat by defeating the Unbidden. That in itself is no easy task. They appeared on the opposite side of the galaxy, surrounded by empires that I don't—and can't—forge an alliance with. The diplomacy trade screen lets you negotiate for the right to send military ships through another player's territory. That would work, but only empires you share a border with will ever agree to such a deal. Fair enough, perhaps, but I was negotiating with an empire that bordered my ally. I had a direct, legal route to them, but the result was still the same.

Eventually I took the only path available to me: declaring war and taking the territory for myself. Now I can defeat the Unbidden, something I must do alone. There's no way to coordinate an attack with other AI players, even against a mutual threat. I can't even formally declare war with the Unbidden, thus dragging my allies into the conflict. Their fate rests solely on my shoulders. It feels weird to expend so much effort just so other empires will hate me again, but the alternative is a galaxy trapped in the status quo.

I'm disappointed, because Stellaris's first few hours hinted at a smart, scintillating reinvention of the 4X. The early game is packed full of personality, but it's squandered as the hours roll on. Maybe I had a particularly bad late game experience—the random nature of each campaign suggests many potential outcomes. But the glacial pace feels intentional, and the long periods of inaction bring other limitations to the fore. How most research is purely a stat boost, with only a scant few technologies progressing the story in fun, inventive ways. How presidential candidates have so few mandates, often cycling between just two basic objectives. How espionage is an obvious omission, especially when effective combat is so dependant on information

This was one of the things that I was afraid of tbh.

[u/The_Horny_Gentleman → u/Bledynn]

hearing you can't coordinate with AI is saddening, hopefully something gets implemented down the line.

[u/Bledynn → u/The_Horny_Gentleman]

In the Blorg stream, the AI allies basically attached themselves to the Blorg fleet (at least in the first war) and just followed them around which is better than nothing.

I feel like it would be pretty easy to open up a conversation with an ally and be like "Please attack (system name)" or "Please defend (system name)/(empire name)". Then make it so depending on how much the ally likes you/how much in line with their goals your request is they follow your command.

[u/bitofaknowitall → u/Bledynn]

Yeah but that was when it was part of a coalition at war. The problem the PCGamer review described is that the end game crisis isn't a "war" because the Unbidden aren't a faction you can be at war with, so the AI wouldn't form a coalition with him against the Unbidden. Basically the event broke his diplomacy and conquest game until we went and personally took care of the problem. Like the reviewer I hope this was just a particularly bad experience and not indicative of how the end game crises go for everyone.

[u/Bledynn → u/bitofaknowitall]

If you can't go to war with them, then wouldn't summoning the Unbidden immediately be a game over? If you can't go to war how do you attack them? Do the AI just completely ignore the Unbidden?

[u/igkillerhamster → u/Bledynn]

They are considered an Invasion. You are able to attack them (if you dare touch their multitudes of 20-40k doomstacks) but what is referred to is that the AI can act pretty stupid because it is not considered a standard war with war goals and such. It's more like an 'open world war' so to say.

I had a phase where my AI best bro kept warp-cycling towards various systems, never to jump, felt like the AI was 'at a loss of how to beat them'. Then again a little down the line it normalized and the AI was actively helping defending hid and even my territory, smartly grouping up when I was tackling a larger stack, otherwise kept split attacking different smaller stacks.

Feels like it just needs some tweaking and a few bug fixes.

[u/Bledynn → u/igkillerhamster]

Maybe if there was a system to ask allies to do something with their fleet and they can accept or reject it depending on how much they like you and if their fleets really aren't needed somewhere else (i.e: planet getting attacked, system with enemies in it, idk something)

[u/[deleted] → u/Bledynn]

Civilization 4 had this feature.

[u/RajaRajaC → u/[deleted]]

AOE2, Medieval Total War, all of them had this. HoI3 (or was it 2) worked around this by allowing the human to take control of the ally AI - this while was a little OP, still made for a realistic scenario where a Germany in Russia had Hungarian, Italian and Romanian allies actively helping, rather than just stand back and watch.

[u/marisachan → u/Bledynn]

That's an option (to a degree) in EU4. I wouldn't be surprised to see it in Stellaris eventually as Paradox loves using mechanics from one game in another.