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Currently developing Interstellar Space: Genesis
A turn-based space 4X strategy game for the PC.

Interstellar Space: Genesis | Turn-based space 4X strategy game for the PC

Stellaris Announced

By on August 7th, 2015 9:23 am

Stallaris | A real-time Space Grand Strategy Game by Paradox Development Studio and Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio have just announced Stellaris at Gamescom, Paradox’s attempt to break away from their molds of history and push their Grand Strategy genre into space. Formerly known as Project Augustus, Paradox has teased many times that some sort of science fiction game was in the works, and though the company’s publishing arm has published them in the past, this is their first in-house attempt. The game’s lead developer is Henrik Fahraeus, a veteran of the company and the designer behind Crusader King II; he also worked on many other projects as well.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Paradox brand of Grand Strategy, they are pause-able real-time (though not to be confused with traditional RTS, as commands can be issued while paused and the game’s speed can be changed in mid-play) strategy games with a focus on the finer arts of governance such as internal management and wars serving as political tools as well. Despite their real-time nature of lapsing time, Paradox games tend to have a pace that is much closer to a turn-based game.

Information is still scarce but from the information that has been shown and revealed along with the presentation during the livestream it is clear Paradox is planning to keep their legacy of the Grand Strategy model alive in space. This said, the elements of the 4X genre will be present as the player will explore and expand as the game will have a strong focus on these elements in the early game, and then the age diplomacy and warfare comes as contact is made with other empires.

Here is a short list of features from the Official Website:

  • Discovery Events – Emergent Storytelling
  • Deep & Varied Exploration
  • Enormous procedural star systems, containing thousands of planets
  • Numerous playable species, each with their own traits and engineering styles
  • Vast number of Unique Random Species
  • Advanced Diplomacy system
  • Ship Designer (even civilian ships can be customized)
  • Stunning space visuals

During the presentation some details were given on some of these elements. The game will break away from their own tradition of having an end-date and the player having no real win condition except for being number 1 or scoring the most points by the time limit. The game will have a win state and no end date. Also, they want to mix up the formula a little by having something called a “Galactic Crisis” happen in the late game. These events will be random and will often times hail from classical sci-fi tropes, such as an AI uprising.

They also stressed the game will have your typical domestic and internal political tomfoolery that Paradox games are renowned for. Your population will apply pressures on your empire and form factions that you’ll have to deal with, which can include going with the flow of your empire’s will. As you conquer and spread out, the composition of your empire will change and so will its internal affairs as a result.

Stellaris | Alpha Image

It seems that diplomacy will also play a major role as relations between the empires will be an important factor of the game, hopefully giving something to the more peaceful minded individuals. Aliens will be procedurally generated and events will play out to hopefully ensure no two games is the same. Technology will also move away from using a fixed and predictable tree/web and instead focus on unlocking techs which will be less predictable.

“Those technologies are not contained within a tree. The system is similar to a deck of cards, with three departments – physics, social and engineering – each with a character placed in charge of discoveries in that sphere. When a piece of research has been completed, three cards will be presented to choose between. The techs offered are semi-random but their availability is heavily weighted by the ethics of your empire, as well as the skills and traits of the scientist in charge of the department.” – Courtesy of Adam Smith, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

The player will also get to choose their method of FTL travel. So Star-Lane haters, there is no need to panic.

“There are three forms of faster-than-light travel and each species chooses one at the beginning of the game. Hyperlanes connect systems directly but those who use them are tied to the existing layout, turning the map into a series of nodes. Travelling through the warp is slower but provides freedom of movement. Wormholes require stations, constructed at the edge of systems, but allow for long jumps.” – Courtesy of Adam Smith, Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Henrik also spoke about how wars will still be governed by the rule of law. For those unfamiliar with past Paradox games, territories and other concessions are eked-out during a Peace Deal. This means many times a war can be fought and no territory is permanently taken as other considerations are agreed to in the Peace Deal. Till such deals are signed occupied territories are just that, occupied. Naturally annexations tend to happen to the territories you have occupied.

Stellaris | Alpha Image

Overall, this is exciting news. Personally, I’ve always wanted to see these two genres (space 4X and Grand Strategy) mix together ever since I played my first historical grand strategy game and my first space 4X game. I’ve always enjoyed Paradox titles, especially their recent offerings which are much easier to get into and play as the company has significantly improved their UI design.

One criticism some space 4X fans have had is that the same ideas are constantly being rehashed. Hopefully, this will breathe some fresh new ideas into the genre even if most will be classical to Paradox itself. Paradox has their work cut-out for them as they walk into unfamiliar territory. We will keep you informed on future developments about this title.

You can go to the Official Site or Steam store page to find more information or watch the Live Stream (reveal at: 52:30 (you can skip to 54:17 if you don’t want to see the trailer) and a short Q&A at: 1:19:36) to hear what was covered in this article first hand. The game has no official release date but it’s slated for next year. Making 2016 potentially an exciting year for the space strategy genre.

Stellaris | Alpha Image

Stellaris | Alpha Image

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Interstellar Space: Genesis | Turn-based space 4X strategy game for the PC

62 Comments


  1. Mark says:

    Wow, a Europa Universalis type game set in space is really the holy grail. I hope they keep all the depth, complexity and rich diplomacy of their land-based games. Color me interested Paradox.

    Also, let me say a huge thanks to the devs for not forcing starlanes. Playing a space game which feels like it is actually set in space rather than on a glorified chessboard is a big plus.

    • Gunlord500 says:

      Yeah, this seems like it might be really cool. The sort of game I’ve been waiting for for a long time. I hope they let you build your own spaceships tho :D

  2. Overspark says:

    This should be interesting. I’ve tried CK2 a couple of times but never really got into it, maybe a change of scenery will seal the deal for me.

  3. Xyggy says:

    This excites me almost a little more than the MOO reboot. CK2 and EU4 are such deep, emergent games that a space version makes me giddy. Can’t wait.

  4. Melkor says:

    Looks very promissing, however, I see most of realtime 4X games failed (the only success is Distant Worlds, afaik).

    the description sounds interesting and EU with CK are very deep and detailed games. Will see, moved it to the top of Steam wishlist

  5. dayrinni says:

    This will be the dawn of a new age of gaming.

    • JD says:

      Dayrinni!!! is that you? I miss those cool dev articles you use to write here man. I hope for you that life just got in the way. Nice to know you are still here.

      You might be right about this new age. Although I am thinking a lot of these so called ‘events’ are pop-up windows with some graphical illustration and several options to click, like “enslave species” (+50 infamy), deploy planetbustermissle (+ 100 infamy) etc.

      That sort of usual Paradox mechanics. And of course after clicking said event the game crashes. I mean Paradox and stable games. Also a lot of DLC… I am already seeing the DLC to buy more stars ;-)

      • JD says:

        PS. Spacesector folks, the editing of comments is not working!

      • dayrinni says:

        Hey JD,

        Yep it’s me! I’m surprised you remember but it definitely makes me pleased to know you do :) We’re still cooking along on the game, have made some great progress. If you’d like to do some late alpha testing, feel free to email me.

        I’ve actually made this post on the forums here:
        https://www.spacesector.com/blog/forum/thread-5504.html
        Where I ask if there is any interest in continuing the development journals on the forums instead of the front page.

        To stay on topic:
        I’m a HUGE FAN of PI. I love their games – HoI and CK series in particular. I play HoI heavily modded, but as you mentioned, it’s not very stable. In fact, recently I had to stop playing a great HoI3 mod BlackICE because the game engine just can’t support it very well and I crash on save. Yes…crashing on save. It’s apparently some log file issue and doesn’t affect all systems.

        Anyways, I have high hopes for this game and look forward to it. I have complete faith that PI will be able to make a really fun and epic game here. I hope they sorta blend HoI, CK and some EU in there. That’d be quite fun, imo.

  6. Kyle Rees says:

    Don’t get too excited. HOI4 has been pushed back a whole year after Paradox’s huge announcement and dev video walkthrough. This will probably be released Q3 2016!

  7. zigzag says:

    I’ve never enjoyed Paradox’s grand strategy games, but Stellaris will probably be the exception. It seems much more “game-like” than EU, CK, HoI, etc. That said, I’m somewhat disappointed that it’s symmetric. I’d love to see Paradox carry over some of the themes and mechanics from EU and CK and make a game about feudalism in space ala Dune or Empire of the Fading Suns.

  8. Gary Vandegrift says:

    I’m looking forward to hearing more about Stellaris!

  9. t1it says:

    I wonder if there’ll be a day 1 DLC. You know it’s time for Paradox to step up their DLC game.

  10. Martok says:

    It’s about bloody time Paradox made a space strategy game. Can’t wait to see to see this one in action!

  11. vmxa says:

    Well I waited a long time for Distant Universe, so I hope this one is not only good, but reasonable in price.

    As a big TBS fan and horrible at 3d space games, I hope it is more like Stardrive 2 or SoTS, rather than true rts 3d.

    In any event always glad to see space games.

  12. Jeff P says:

    The screen shots (if that is what they are and not promo cut scenes) are beautiful, and really seem to capture the depth and immensity of space. It spoils the immersion when space ships and stations display as large or larger than planets, so I was gratified to see the more appropriate ship/planet perspective in the trailer.

    However, I’m a little suspicious of a real-time game combined with “enormous procedural star systems”, “vast number of Unique Random Species” and a “Ship Designer” that promises considerable customization. That sounds like you would need a beast of a computer to run such a game at an acceptable frame rate. But it is still very early, so I guess we will see how it shakes out in the coming months.

    • zigzag says:

      I’d be surprised if Stellaris’s requirements were significantly higher than EU IV. It’s likely CPU-bound, and none of the features you mentioned would significantly affect the processing requirements while the game is being played.

      • Jeff P says:

        I don’t know… I’m not a programmer, but I recall that Distant Worlds struggled for years with memory leaks, crashes, slow-downs, etc. as the result of real-time movement combined with huge galaxies and tons of customization. I hope you are right.

        • zigzag says:

          Of course, I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Distant Worlds updates tens of thousands of objects on a per timestep basis, performing collision checks, etc. Paradox games don’t. They’re also on their fourth or fifth iteration of the engine, so I’d expect it to run much more smoothly than Distant Worlds.

  13. hakkarin says:

    Well, I can’t say I was expecting a space game. I hope Victoria 3 will be made next.

  14. enpi says:

    realtime again? Lame. Doesnt the world have enough of this crap?

    • zigzag says:

      It’s real time in the same sense that EU or Star Wars Rebellion are real time. In other words, it’s pausable and plays like what you’d expect from a turn-based game. (Not that there’s anything wrong with other turn-based games. :p)

    • Dominus says:

      I hate to break it to you, but some of us enjoy this crap. I swear every time a real time game is announced someone complains about it. Don’t get me wrong, I love turn based games, but they are not inherently better. I get it, you don’t like it. Don’t spoil the fun for the rest of us.

      • Avon says:

        How is he spoiling anyone’s fun by stating his opinion on a games forum? What an incredibly weird thing to say. Its not as if the devs are going to look at it and change their minds.

        I hate to break it to you but a games forum is the exact place where people get to state their various opinions about games.

        • Dominus says:

          Yeah I kinda regret my comment. I should never write late at night. My annoyance was not that he disliked the real time. I get that. It just bothers me though that people take their preferences and make them the standard from which everything ought to be judged. It’s fine saying that this doesn’t look interesting because of something you don’t like and that’s probably what he was going for, but I took it as him saying that the mechanic was dumb, which is an opinion and doesn’t necessarily make the game “crap”. Also my phone wants to correct crap into craps for some reason.

        • Avon says:

          Well that’s fine, I actually agree with you, 2 of my fav games are Sins and Distant worlds. It was just your “Don’t spoil the fun for the rest of us” comment that had me scratching my head.

          A one line (or 1000 line) comment in a game forum cant possibly spoil anyone’s fun.

    • MarcusAurelius says:

      Apparently there has never been such a game before, which is why it is causing such a stir in gaming circles. A grand strategy game set in space and with visuals to match is a first. Do not mistake this game with run of the mill attempts of the past. Paradox is a respectable company with alot of accolades under its belt. So expectations are high.

      1. There has never, I repeat, never been a space 4X game using procedural generation, to bolster its exploration gameplay dynamics and enable massive replayability. It simply has never been attempted as a way of keeping each experience unique and engaging.

      2. Never has a space 4X game successfully managed thousands of worlds or celestial bodies in an intuitive way. Paradox has a rich experience in delivering games of such scope and scale, their new Hearts of Iron 4 title will feature 15,000 provinces alone. So this is manageable for them and not a lofty goal.

      3. Space 4X games are not known for strong diplomacy, political intrigue and diverse and nuanced notions as these that can further the games playability. However Paradox games are renowned for their deep and complex dynamics concerning large to medium powers and how they interact on a global scale, with superpowers usually sphering smaller powers and how they operate in foreign affairs. I expect Stellaris to continue this tradition and even expand on some points.

      4. Up until now most space 4X games have been a marbles in space, tabletop experience. Boring and rehashed with little in the way of innovation or realism. Stellaris seems to be poised to give astronomy buffs, some scale and actual planetary orbits. We will get moons and according to them, hundreds if not thousands of celestial bodies to explore and exploit. We might find black holes, binary stars, red dwarfs or blue hypergiants. The possibilities are endless, especially when throwing procedural generation into the loop.

      5. And finally Stellaris will feature some alien race custom tool as well as a ship custom tool that will determine every bit of minutia control freaks crave in such titles. No two games will ever be the same. This is a huge plus for space strategy fans.

      All in all it seems a win win for all of us. I doubt the real time elements are going to be a major deterrent. Especially given how few good space strategy games there have ever been. Most you could count on one hand.

      • Wodzu says:

        “1. There has never, I repeat, never been a space 4X game using procedural generation,”

        What do you mean? Every 4X game has a procedurally generated galaxy.

        • MarcusAurelius says:

          Absolutely not. I believe there will be a very big distinction between static rehashed marbles in space that are repetitive and seeded in the most generic manner with no life or soul in them, than having real procedurally generated planet terrain and compositions that will have a huge bearing on habitability and exploration and resources.

          Saying every other 4x game has been procedurally generated and no different to Stellaris’ ambitious targets, is like comparing the procedural content in something like Space Engine to Sins of a Solar Empire or Armada 2526. Completely different orders of magnitude and significance. To say otherwise would be intellectually dishonest.

        • Wodzu says:

          From where you have such informations? The description says “Enormous procedural star systems, containing thousands of planets”. This is a pretty vague description which might mean anything.

          Besides, there is no need to generate planet terrain in much detail for a 4x strategy game that takes place on scale of thousands of planets. Who would micromanage that?

        • dayrinni says:

          I’m going to be completely honest, at first I thought Marcus’ post was sarcasm, but I guess I misread that.

          Anyways, to reach the level that he’s talking about is going to cost a lot of money to really achieve and do it very well. This is just on the implementation of that feature. All the other features on top of that (ie: managing that) will cost even more. I’ll be really surprised if PI goes that far into detail.

      • Mark says:

        You seem to be assuming a vast amount of detail based on a relatively vague and terse teaser blurb from Paradox.

        Frankly I’ll be happy if it just contains some of the event and diplomacy elements present in CK and EU.

        EU-in-space sounds awesome even if it doesn’t end up being the “holy grail” of space gaming.

        • MarcusAurelius says:

          Well granted any other developer would stir feelings of pessimism and doubt in me, Paradox actually makes me cautiously optimistic. Although my initial zeal made me very convinced this is the holy grail of space strategy games. Hell innovation in this genre hasn’t been seen since the Imperium Galactica series, which led to hybrid games like Nexus Jupiter Incident, and one of my favorites, Hegemonia Legions of Iron.

          Having said that, and having read Wodzu, dayrinni and Marks comments, I have to reflect and say this could be the biggest show on earth or a complete and total gaming blunder. I err on the side of caution for now. But will say this, if anyone can pull off such a monumental feat it will be these guys. I am less thrilled about an Endless Space 2 or even a Master of Orion remake. The reason being that I KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT from those guys. And it will be pretty much the same things, and the same tired rehashed formula. As can be seen with Galactic Civ 3.

          However with Paradox and its tantalizing claims so far, and deep strategy gaming history, I am far more hopeful than anything else currently in development. This and Anno 2205 have me on the edge of my seat. I can only await patiently for now to be proven right or wrong on my expectations.

  15. Jodet says:

    Will it have the patented Paradox tiny, unreadable fonts and ridiculously small icons?

  16. Johann Gambolputty says:

    …Enormous procedural star systems… Ship Designer (even civilian ships can be customized)…

    Hmm… Why on Earth (and a couple of starbases)? I am a little bit tired of this 4X cosmic populism. Both features are rather harmful for any final 4X product. That gigantomania is not good for AI and strategic layer.

    Fancy designer? When you are operating on the fleet level, time spent on designing is not worthwile, because it has too little impact on results. Only 4X with well designed and detailed turn based tactical battles would be a reason to make a ship designer a more important feature.

    Sorry for truisms. Just an ad hoc thought.

    • Wodzu says:

      I agree about “enormous procedural systems”. First of all, who would like to manage 1000 or even 100 star systems? I was even tired of managing 20 systems in MOO2. Second of all, it is easy to create procedural galaxy, so there is nothing here to be proud of. For me it is more like a marketing talk.

      What I would like to (finally) see is a good A.I. which does not cheat and pose some threats to human player. Will we ever see that?

    • zigzag says:

      I also agree. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a popular position. With practically every game, there’s always several comments to the effect of “What? Only 100/200/500/1000 stars? That breaks my immersion (whatever that means)!”

      • Vendor-Lazarus says:

        I’ve always preferred the option of having a choice but today’s environment seem to foster a simplification with an “either/or” mentality.

        I want big maps with many stars but not everyone does.
        I want to play space sims with a chase cam..
        I like starlanes..
        I don’t like over-the-shoulder cams..
        I detest “cinematic” games..
        I loath QTE’s..
        I avoid any DRM (including Steam)..

        Many such conflicts can be solved with giving the players options.
        A bit more work for the devs but it gives them a whole lot bigger audience and a lot less strife amongst their potential buyers and fans.

      • One of the sneak peak articles mentions you can choose the size of your galaxy.

        Now small is their small, no one knows, but I think 1000 system is their biggest (again, not sure). We will have to wait and see to know what the sizes are and what range we get from the options.

        • BlueTemplar says:

          I’m not sure it’s possible to design a game to play well at a vast range of sizes. Get too small or too big compared to what it was designed for first and things start to break down…

    • MarcusAurelius says:

      I think the makers of Stellaris aren’t wanting to overwhelm you with 1000 earth like planets. I really believe they are going for realism and immersion. My guess is that out of thousands of stars, there might only be 1/10 of them harboring Earth like planets, maybe even 1/20th. The remainder will still be crucial for resource gathering or setting up listening posts or terraforming with varying degrees of success. But I think they are really trying to capture the sense of space and vastness the galaxy really has. If this is the case, we are in for a treat. And the exploration aspect will be immense. This is something not yet done before. And if delivered in the right manner it could potentially redefine the way future 4X space games are approached.

  17. ACEofHeart says:

    EU and CK are great games for what they offer. To me they are very detailed but at times very complex for average strategy gamers. They are very dry when it comes to personality though. Everything seems to play out as a matter of fact rather than a sense of fun adventures. How any of their structure could be applied to a 4x space game should be interesting to follow in the coming months.
    Also as some have mentioned, bigger is not always better when it comes to strategy games. Having more and more star systems without good AI governors has shown to be a very tedious experience.
    Anyway looking forward to follow it’s development.

    • BlueTemplar says:

      Yeah, personality-wise it’s a risk, and in this case they won’t be able to use real world history as a pre-made background. Hopefully they won’t fall in the same trap as Civ : Beyond Earth. Though what we’ve seen so far (them insisting on the exploration and random events aspect) gives hope about that.

  18. BlueTemplar says:

    “they are pause-able real-time (though not to be confused with traditional RTS, as commands can be issued while paused and the game’s speed can be changed in mid-play) strategy games”

    To nitpick, there are some “traditional RTS” that allow to pause & give orders and/or change game speed in mid-play : Homeworld or Total Annihilation – derived games come to mind (or even W40k : Dawn of War 1 after a little bit of tweaking).

    • The purpose of that comment was to help distinguish Paradox games from RTS’s like Company of Heroes and StarCraft, and other RTS that are based off of those models. This includes games like the upcoming Act of Aggression as well. You can pause them in single-player but they lock you out of giving commands.

      However, you comparisons are also misleading. Even if the games you listed allowed mid-play pace-changing and pause-commanding, they still had a much brisker pace and focused on similar gameplay elements as the games I listed (though the scope and setting is different).

      Paradox games are far more similar to Distant Worlds in this regard. Hence why I rounded off the statement with, “Despite their real-time nature of lapsing time, Paradox games tend to have a pace that is much closer to a turn-based game.”

      The point of that section was not to discuss which RTS gives players the ability to issue commands when they’re paused or not, but to convey to the reader what a Paradox GSG is and the mechanics it uses. Hence why I did not use examples and focused only on descriptive statements.

      • Gary Vandegrift says:

        You tell ’em, Edward! :)

      • BlueTemplar says:

        And you’re right – especially with regards pacing (though it can get pretty hectic in DW when your empire gets bigger and you have to deal with multiple fronts at once).

        I think that by this comment I was more trying to raise the awareness that such features exist in “traditional” RTS games…

        • Mark says:

          Hectic as in “unplayable” unless you automate almost everything or play only small galaxies. Real-Time in a 1500 star galaxy (pausable or not) rapidly results in Real-Chaos and ends in a Real-Mess.

          I do love DW, I think it is one of the best recent 4x space games. But nothing is perfect and DW’s design which incorporates a bizarre insistence on galaxy-wide RT at all costs is its greatest weakness.

        • Warning, this comment will be long, this happens to be a topic I like to discuss a lot! :)

          Though some people might be turned off of RTS because of the lack of pause-command and certainly the ability to do so helps Paradox games.

          However, most people I know that hate RTS tend to hate the play-style more than they do the lack of pause-commands. The ability to do so in some games won’t change their mind. Might help some perhaps feel more comfortable to try one, but for the most part it doesn’t change the play-style.

          This will be a shocker, not all strategy gamers like 4X games! :O Since SpaceSector does tend to cover games outside of the 4X genre, we had a few of them post in some of our threads (usually wondering about our bias towards 4X). The Strategy genre is pretty large and doesn’t simply fall under the divisions of TBS or RTS; or 4X, war/economic simulator, or GS anymore.

          This said, there are still some staples that developers haven’t fully shaken off, nor do they want to. Since these paradigms and archetype help define a target audience. It takes a lot of bold thinking and risk-taking to try an overly unique blend. Sometimes it pays off and you create a new sub-genre (Sid Meier’s Civilization) or your game gets relegated to the dust-bin of history. So most developers play it safe and stick to conventions. Sometimes, a little too close.

          The most obvious difference to consider in this discussion about “RTS” and “4X/GSG” is one has you play a 15-60 minute segments (depends on the game and players) that are strung together in a series of missions (SP campaign) or matches (Skirmish and MP). While the other is 10+ hour long campaigns (yeah that is a low-ball, we all had our 100+ hour long marathon games I am sure) where the core of the gameplay is in the ’empire building’.

          Now enter the endless debates of TB or RT, if there has to be tactical combat, if the tactical combat has to be RT or TB. I sometimes wonder why someone even wants to make a 4X game or a GSG. I tip my bowler to Paradox for even trying, even Firaxis gets some grudging respect even if their games have fallen a little to the wayside lately.

          Of course the waters get murky fast because you have C&C3 Kane’s Wrath and Dawn of War: Dark Crusade that have a persistent campaign map, and on the other hand DW and Paradox games that are a lot like your TBS 4X or GS but that lapses their time in real time.

          But even in these murky waters, one does not need a professional pigeon-hole categoriser to know one still holds a style similar to the C&C archetype (which is really just Dune 2) at its core, while the other is closer to the your typical GS or 4X TBS game.

          Paradox definitely follows in the footsteps of games like Koei’s old-school strategy games before they went all Dynasty Warriors on us. Even Crusader Kings is similar in vein to Romance of the Three Kingdoms (especially VII and VIII which allows you to play even as subordinates).

          They chose to lapse their time in real-time instead of going the classical approach for these games to be turned-based. They definitely have a different place of origin, mechanical consideration, and play-style than the games that spawned from C&C and its competitors and predecessors. Paradox has even caused other game franchises to follow them, case-and-point Supreme Ruler.

          I am sure if we dig deep, we will find another less known game that did what Paradox did before hand. Just as its hard to say if DW might have been influenced by them as well. Convergent thinking happens quite often in the game’s industry.

        • Mark says:

          I’m not opposed to RT on general principles, I’m only opposed when it breaks the game. When so much is going on simultaneously that I cant possibly observe or address even a fraction of it manually, even with constant pausing, then that is a serious design failure. And its a failure that is most prevalent in DW but also occurs to a lesser extent in other RT 4x games.

          In most Paradox games, I never get the feeling that RT is interfering in my ability to think and plan strategically. If Paradox can use RT to pull off the same feat in a space 4x then good luck to them. But they cite DW as an inspiration so I hope they manage to avoid the chaotic, frantic cluster f**k that you routinely end up with in a 1500 star DW galaxy.

  19. There is a bit of info being mentioned.

    Here is a short Clarification Forum Post that tackles some of the confusion people had from the announcement:

    https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/clarifications.876380/

    A reddit thread that condenses the Giant Bomb Interview with the lead developer:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/3hma09/giant_bomb_interviews_henrik_fahraeus_about_the/

    This second link does have some nice information. It’s also in bullet list form for ease of reading! Always a plus.

    • Mark says:

      Interesting stuff! I love the fact that you have to sue for peace to win territory, just like in their ground-based games.

  20. Paradox has started to push their weekly dev diaries for Stellaris. They tend to be released on Monday.

    Here’s the link to the Archive Page:

    https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-developer-diary-archive.882950/

  21. Gary Vandegrift says:

    Good news for those of you who don’t like starlanes. From Dev Diary #4:

    “Stellaris will have three methods of FTL that players can use; Warp, Hyperlanes and Wormholes. They all have distinct advantages and disadvantages when it comes to the strategic movement of ships and fleets causing expansion paths, diplomacy and wars to be quite different depending on the method used.”

    • Mark says:

      Yep, if it comes to a choice between Stellaris or MOO 4, Stellaris will definitely be getting my money. Freedom and options win out every time.

  22. salvo says:

    alpha gameplay video

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRp7T5irXTQ

    looks awesome

    • Mark says:

      It looks pretty amazing TBH. About the only downside is that there’s no tactical combat, you just “sit there and watch it”. Pretty much all paradox games have this sort of combat though so I wasn’t really surprised. In general though I think its looking great, thanks for posting the video.

    • Gary Vandegrift says:

      Thanks for the info :) I’m really looking forward to this game.


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