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    Stellaris

    Game » consists of 5 releases. Released May 09, 2016

    A sci-fi grand strategy game set in a procedurally generated universe from the creators of Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis.

    Stellaris vs Sins of a Solar Empire

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    AgentZigzag

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    Asking the obvious question: how does Stellaris compare to Sins of a Solar Empire?

    Sins was a game I really wanted to like but never quite got into. It didn't do a great job of explaining itself and combined with the real time nature of it, this meant that my first few games were a frustrating experience where I never knew what I was meant to build and then a rival a.i. fleet (who did) showed up and wiped me out.

    Stellaris seems to have some similar aspirations of grand space strategy and from Austin's quick look it feels like they've gone some way beyond Sins in a lot of important ways.

    I'd be interesting in hearing any thoughts from people who've tried both.

    Peace,

    ZZ

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    chaser324

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    #2  Edited By chaser324  Moderator

    I haven't played Stellaris, but it doesn't seem like it's streamlining its strategy layer nearly as much as Sins of a Solar Empire did. I loved Sins of a Solar Empire, but it really was in a lot of ways more RTS than 4X just because of how much simplification it did to keep things moving.

    The scale of Stellaris also seems far bigger. Sins restricted you to only traveling between a relatively small number of planets on a predetermined network of paths between them whereas Stellaris looks like the galaxy is way bigger and doesn't restrict your travel at all.

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    Arabes

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    @agentzigzag: I haven't played Stellaris yet but I did play Sins. Sins was much more of an RTS, Stellaris is far more of a traditional Space 4X like MOO or GalCiv. The overall pace is a lot slower and the scope is much bigger in Stellaris than in in Sins. Have you played many 4X games?

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    AgentZigzag

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    @arabes: Some Civ5 and Endless Legend is my main 4X experience, and I guess the Total War series kind of counts. Looks like Stellaris happens in real-time instead of the turned based nature of your traditional 4X. It has that mechanic where you can issue orders while things are paused like in FTL.

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    Dimi3je

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    I'm more into the Stellaris vs Endless Space jam myself.

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    BisonHero

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    #6  Edited By BisonHero

    @agentzigzag: Yeah, when learning a game like Crusader Kings/Stellaris, it doesn't hurt to keep the game speed at its lowest, and pause often, so you give yourself room to read things as they happen and appropriately issue commands and whatever. It's not strictly turn based like Civ, but there's nothing stopping you from regularly pausing and basically making it turn based.

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    paulmako

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    What didn't you like about Sins? That it wasn't immediately clear what to do?

    I'm not sure Stellaris is a straightforward game either. If it's anything like other Paradox games, it's probably a lot more complicated than Sins.

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    rethla

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    #8  Edited By rethla

    @paulmako: Yes its complicated and alot of stuff to do. The key difference though is that even if you dont get everything right as a new player the game will still be fun to play. You can have fun playing a shitty empire in Paradox games :)

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    Arabes

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    @agentzigzag: Ya Stellaris is real time, but it's real time in the same way Crusader Kings is. You set the pace your self so it's rarely that frantic as you have multiple speed options. If you enjoyed Civ and Endless Legend then I'd say you'll probably enjoy Stellaris. It is more similar to those games than it is to other Paradox Grand Strategy games and not really like Sins at all.

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    Fenris_

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    I just want to say that Sins of a Solar Empire might be the best game name of all time. So cool.

    Sins of a Solar Empire. Man, I'm just gonna say that like fifty more times.

    Sins of a Solar Empire x50. There.

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    deactivated-63f899c29358e

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    I would tell you about it, but I'm still salty about the release time for Stellaris :(

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    Arabes

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    @firepaw: What's wrong with the release time?

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    AgentZigzag

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    @fenris_: Yep. Closely followed by Beneath A Steel Sky.

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    AtomicEdge

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    @arabes: Release day is today, and people assumed midnight, but it actually works out as 6pm GMT, which is actually the 10th for Aussies and some others. Some people took today off to play and are bummed out. I don't mind, because it gets released at the time I finish work!

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    INCSlayer

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    @firepaw said:

    I would tell you about it, but I'm still salty about the release time for Stellaris :(

    what your upset that the game that is made by a swedish studio is released at a time that makes sense for swedes and most other europeans?

    Now you know how we europeans feel about almost all other games that are released

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    AtomicEdge

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    @dimi3je: I would play Endless Space Jam.

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    Arabes

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    @atomicedge: Ah, I can see how that might be a bummer for some people. I'm in the same boat as you though, it'll be ready when I get home from work!

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    deactivated-63f899c29358e

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    @incslayer: I'm European myself actually, I randomly had the day off today, so I had thought I would have plenty of time to play it :)

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    rethla

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    @firepaw said:

    I would tell you about it, but I'm still salty about the release time for Stellaris :(

    what your upset that the game that is made by a swedish studio is released at a time that makes sense for swedes and most other europeans?

    Now you know how we europeans feel about almost all other games that are released

    Thats not true at all. Today is the first workday after a long national swedish holiday so its a **** terrible time to release the game in Sweden ;P

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    AtomicEdge

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    The guys from Paradox said on reddit that they needed to wait for people at Valve to get into the office to launch the game. Not sure why some people can do midnight launches though. Maybe if the game is big enough Valve have people in over night.

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    rethla

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    The guys from Paradox said on reddit that they needed to wait for people at Valve to get into the office to launch the game. Not sure why some people can do midnight launches though. Maybe if the game is big enough Valve have people in over night.

    Well i dont know if its related but Paradox is trying some new tactic to battle the shady steamcode reseller sites. As a part of that there is no pre-loading etc. so maybe that has something to do with that.

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    Ry_Ry

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    Honestly the machinations of the CEO at Stardock makes me never want to buy anything they sell. That's just me so I'm going to go with Stellaris.

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    AtomicEdge

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    @rethla: I always wonder why companies can't just stop the grey market if they don't like it. The codes have to come from somewhere, and I assume can be traced back to where they came from relatively easily. I assumed that those companies are just happy to sell another copy, even if they get less than a direct steam purchase.

    Where did you see paradox's stance about this? Sounds interesting.

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    INCSlayer

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    @rethla: i hadnt noticed there being a holiday here in sweden i was to busy drinking.

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    Arabes

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    @atomicedge: I could be wrong, but I'd say it would be up to steam to stop their party resellers (in the case of steam keys) not individual companies. And they totally could, I just don't think it matters to them all that much.

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    rethla

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    #26  Edited By rethla

    @atomicedge: I read about it in their faq at the Stellaris forums.

    • Will the game have the option to pre-load it before release?
      • This is not an option we can offer due to issues with Grey Market and not approved retailers that are likely to scam customers.
    • I found this other retailer that is selling the game cheaper, how is that?
      • According to European law, retailers are allowed to set a different price than the suggested price. However, in the most cases, the a cheaper retailer is usually not legit or have got keys to our games in an unauthorized way. We recommend that you purchase keys from ParadoxPlaza, Steam or any other major retailers.

    Important information about retailers!

    There is a large so called “grey market” which has made it a business to obtain Steam keys through illegal means (false credit card information usually) that they sell under market price. The most common outcome of buying keys like this is that after a few days the game will be removed from your Steam account due to the payment never going through. You will still have paid money however, and you will not get this money back. You have been warned!

    Link: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-is-now-available-for-pre-order-information-faq.920646/

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    BrotherBran

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    Wow maybe there are some even worse EU specific ones, I have noticed people stating some outrageous prices in pounds, but I've used green man quite a bit and I even used CD keys to get mad max for $20 when it came out and have had no issues. Is this steam account revoke thing a real issue anymore?

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    rethla

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    @brotherbran: Well i mean i have no experience from it myself but we are talking about a game that releases to day so i would assume its still a thing. From the way i see it that business is unethical at best and probably most of it is illegal aswell.

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    Arabes

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    @brotherbran: I've bought games from Green Man and G2A and never had any issues. I've also never heard of anyone having any issues outside one fairly publicised event a couple of years ago where keys for a load of keys for a particular game were cancelled. I can't remember the game but I don't think it was on steam. Other than that I don't think people really have their key cancelled after purchase. It smacks a bit of fear tactics.

    Are there any bombers out there who have had a steam key cancelled for being originally purchased with stolen credit card details?

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    BrotherBran

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    @rethla: in what way is it unethical? The most coherent explanation I have heard is that they buy keys from a region with weak currency and sell them for a marginal profit. Never found out if it's true or not, but that doesn't sound unethical to me.

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    BisonHero

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    Ahhhhh yeah, another thread derailed by the ethics of key resellers. It certainly would help if the key reseller sites were more transparent about where they obtain the keys, but maybe that would give away their "trade secret" or something.

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    YoThatLimp

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    I got it from GMG for $30 and the key worked for me, if that helps anyone hah.

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    audioBusting

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    #33  Edited By audioBusting

    Not to bring the discussion even further off-topic, but as far as I can tell GMG is pretty legit. When they are called out, they usually have contracts or people in the publishing company to back them. They even adhere to regional restrictions at times (often to my frustrations lol.) They default to MSRP and have said that they cut into their profit margins with their limited-time discounts for promotional reasons. I mean, Steam practically does this too, and nobody bats an eye. I got my key from them 5 minutes before launch as usual and it worked fine so far.

    I haven't played much of it yet, but it's pretty different than Sins of a Solar Empire or even most 4X games. In terms of roleplaying fluff vs crunch, it kinda has less crunch than even other Paradox games. I'm glad because good 4X games are usually more geared to hardcore strategy/board game type players, which I'm not really.

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    BrotherBran

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    #34  Edited By BrotherBran

    Yea to get back on topic Austin linked to a podcast he did called three moves ahead and they compare it to stuff pretty well.

    The thing that I never could get into with other paradox games was a lack of visual representation, like your armies and cities don't change at all. There is still some issues here with that, but it makes some amount of sense since its on such a scale and you can see your ships which is important to me. Based on only watching stellaris so far and a ton of hours in sins I wouldn't really compare the two in gameplay terms.

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