Yep, completely disagree, I'm having a ton of fun with it so far - more fun than I've had in any game since CK2 came out.  No game will appeal to everyone, and I still haven't experienced the mid or end game yet, but so far no regrets, and I love the slow pacing of the early game (for reference, I play Distant Worlds with a pre-warp start, expensive tech and default speed, so that's how I'm inclined).  I prefer 4X games where a single playthrough will last me weeks.

We live in a time of plenty when it comes to space 4X.  We shouldn't be complaining that Game X isn't like Game Y, we should be celebrating that fact.  Instead of us space 4X fans being thankful for whatever meagre table scraps fall our way, as was the case not too long ago, we should be thankful that there are now gourmet meals out there for all appetites and tastes.

Nope, haven't gotten that far yet.  I've seen complaints that the AI is too weak and passive, and I've seen complaints that the game is too hard and needs an easy difficulty setting, so I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

Masochist.

I'll probably give it another crack if they fix the AI, but Masters of Orion is a beta and Stellaris is already released.  It should really have a better AI at this point.  GalCiv3 was much better at waging war than that months before release.

After spending 60 hours in Stellaris I am finding the following points in comparison with the RTS/4X games that Stardock makes.

Exploration

• Planets are very similar to GalCiv3, galaxy is very similar to SotSE/Endless Space.
• Events (GalCiv3), galactic/end-game-disasters events (GalCiv3), planetary research events (SotSE) mostly matches what already exist in SD games. However, many events are time-limited, and events can be chained (i.e. not a single point of text-box that allows you to make a selection but that the story continues after a few years).
• Flavour text is much better with events. And chained flavour text is also good.
• Mixture of different travel methods makes the game more interesting instead of hyper-lanes only.

Expand

• Species evolution/traits makes the game interesting especially when you are the creator influencing the population's lives.
• Random deck-based tech tree, feels very fresh and makes the game fresh not knowing what tech to expect down the line.
• There seems to be more diplomacy types and stats, which is not surprising. Species traits and stats seem to be defining the AI behaviour better as compared to optimising AI logic specifically for a race type.
• Leaders (with limited lifespan) injects a personal relation into the games, but ultimately it is still a fill-in-the-box option for selecting the best leader.
• No option for fair resources and planet placements, and thus your starting environment is a hit-or-miss thing with major differences in empire potential.

Exploit

• Diplomatic options such as vassals, integration, liberation, or cede planets are superior to GalCiv3 in managing extended empires.
• Diplomatic options such as federal seems to work similarly to UP (not tested yet).
• Sector AI works similarly to GalCiv3's governors though.
• Planet management requires more macro than in GalCiv3, especially in terms of core planets management.

Exterminate

• Combat is very similar to SotSE.
• Ship designer is similar to GalCiv3.
• Invasion is similar to GalCiv3.
• Having fleet size tied to number of space ports instead of technology/research makes for a large difference in war potential depending on your starting environment and the number of planets that one can colonise.
• Fleet debris that can be researched is interesting, especially if there's rare technologies involved and ties in with the random tech-decks. However, it is quite tedious to manage these debris when there is a war going on.
• Troop transports are easier to manage and deploy. Planetary bombardment is also easier than SotSE as there is no special ship class required to bombard the planet.
• War score seems to be a good alternative to conquer and manage the galaxy as there is no need to fully conquer each or every planet as compared to GalCiv3 whereby it is may be hard to get the AI to surrender and hand over control.

Yeah, the Stellaris AI is currently dumb as hell It cannot even be compared with Galciv AI.

Hope they will fix it soon.

Totally agree.  

A few things I think GalCiv III needs:

• Some sort of refinery system that you can build to move resources and convert them around (i.e. another type of starbase)
• More resources
• Some sort of quest system (make the anomalies more interesting)
• Spacers (I have wanted  this forever) but basically civilizations that exist in a single massive ship that can be traded with and have unique items

Paradox is about to fix some of the major tricks I think. You can get tons of free resources for trade deals that don't matter. There is a way to grow ~2-7 pop a turn on one planet and resettle it for 1 influence each. Corvettes are incredibly over powered. Several other issues.

As far as the random tech, its really only interesting if you haven't seen it before. Otherwise you know what you are likely to get and what techs to go for. And generally the important techs all appear with regularity. Sure you might not get them in the same order every time but you'll get them in a different order that still includes them all.

The events get old after a couple games. So I guess for people who don't play much or play slow and/or long campaigns they might not have an issue. The diplomacy is simplistic and limited. Most of the treaties have no real purpose. Fallen Empires are rather meaningless. You just avoid pissing them off until you can kill them and then get ring worlds and free tech. If you get Enigmatic Observers you can trade research agreements and later civilian access for piles and piles of minerals no one else can use.

The AI is utterly useless. Sector AI is the opposite of helpful, many people prefer to have the core sector planet cap modded and then ignore sectors. The extra planet penalties don't even make sense. -10% production per extra world? Its incredibly gamey to do it like that. Its barely even a choice like it would be if you using some sort of better scaling value. You are probably better off taking 6 or 7 planets though because you are often stuck with too many resources to use anyways so you can trade off credits or minerals for research or something. Meanwhile the sector AI is so bad you probably get more out of having 7 worlds than 5 and 2 in sectors.

The end game events are all broken. The AI empires don't care. If they spawn inside a fallen empire either they spawn in its fleet storage system and die horribly or inside another system and the AI ignores them even though it could kill them easily. Birth of piracy event is basically one shitty fleet and one station and then over. Grinding out the AI monsters to clear systems is boring as hell. All the fancy events and event chains end up giving you some research and maybe some influence at the end and they repeat identically every game. Well, sometimes they break when parts of them spawn in fallen empire territory.

There is almost no internal politics to speak of except hard coded stuff like the AI events which your own choices regarding AI often don't affect. Also some of the AI rebelled against themselves, but I think they may have patched that.

Havent played stelerous but in distant worlds they felt small empires were just as good as large empires wherevis the historical equivalent to that. I would give them kudos for their automation if you like that kind of thing. I like big galaxies but the documentation was useless as far as learning the game. I got lost in the charts since manual exploration was pointless.

Well this is the advantage turn base haves over real time.

It's actually not much of an RTS at all.  There's no real challenge and you basically just doomstack your entire armada into one fleet and watch it trade fire with the enemy doomstack.  There are minor strategic considerations, zero tactical considerations beyond fleeing if a fight will be lost.

No - Not even close.  I recently bought both games and they are very very different types of games.  Stellaris plays more like a space board game, the closest game that comes to mind for me is CIV 3.  I like the way it handles a lot of things, in particular the way every game involves different species of Aliens, The management of government and leaders, and the simplicity of using Energy as currency.  However as I said it plays like a really cool strategy board game vs. fully immersing yourself in a fantasy space world.

Distant Worlds on the other hand is something very special, it is a fully automated persistent Universe that allows you to jump in and control a ship, a fleet, an entire federation, or .... just stand back and watch the whole thing unfold.  The level of detail is insane .... all the way down to fighter fleets, trade ships, mining ships, etc .... .  Certain aspects are overly complex for many .... like rather than resources being generic, you have to keep track of every resource down to the element .... however it can all be automated.  Where distant worlds suffers a little is in the UI.  I have heard they are coming out with a Distant Worlds 2 in 2018, and if its the same game with a cleaned up UI, updated graphics, and ease of building custom alien races that can be put into games (which is to me the big thing missing from the game as of now) .... it will be like no game I have ever seen.  Even Distant Worlds 1 is like no game I have ever seen, it is incredible.

Quoting Campaigner,

reply 48

That's funny. People on the forum say that the A.I doesn't do that....but its good it does that so the challenge is up!   You should try the same

You can make a doomstack but you need some defenders around cities as well. In Heroes V it's superhero vs superhero....I liked the campaigns there but I never started a custom map.

Well that map I lost due to it (and basically because I've not any effective spells available to go against the Shadow Stalker unit). Nevertheless I found out where the hostile target city was and just rushstormed that in a replay. The AI had already a near-invincible full army there but I just stayed adjacent to that city and bombarded it every turn with a spell taking away 10 or 15 HP from all units, until their combat strength was in acceptable levels ^^ AI could have offensively engaged me in a single turn with a sure defeat of me but instead decided to be bombarded... anyother flaw in the AI IMO.

The campaigns in HOMMV are ok except for the rather dull dialogues, some are too easy due to your heroes abilities (esp. Necromancer) some quests can be bugged and require a restart.

I found the Scenarios much more interesting and played all of them, successfully on heroic, although usually picking Necromancer & Dungeon faction which I find the two most powerful (under certain starting heroes). I'd venture to say that it's near impossible to win some of these scenarios on heroic under a weak setup.

I've also collected many fan-made scenarios but most of them aren't that well-balanced or professional than the one coming with the game. IIRC the 2 xpacs don't add any scenarios anymore but you can play the multiplayer ones solo against the AI having an AI ally.

In some of the larger one you can actually raise multiple heroes to max level, the rushstorm-the-AI tactic doesn't work there on heroic (the AI basically sacrifices all his power to get high-tier units as fast as possible and how you survive the first engagement against these units is the #1 thing to care about if you wanna survive in the long run).

The AI is very good in monitoring the placement of your offensive forces and the time it takes to retreat back to your fortress. So if you decide to go offensively against an adjacent AI another one will surely try to capture your own home before you can be back. So a lot of time you're forced to play in a stalemate. However, the AI against themselves will take their chances and one of them will emerge as victories --> which means that, by the time you get the message that one AI got obliterated from the map, the successor now got 2 fortresses to draw units from each week, which he could possible throw against you, so your position to just play defensively will gradually result in a defeat as more time passes. Thus you are forced to take risks.

I've found that the very best strategy to counter this is to have a number of own heroes, placing them in a row so you can move back your mainarmy in a turn or 2 from your expansion-front back to your castle.

That's why I'm basically fine with granting the AI hidden bonuses on higher diff levels. Lots of folks out there calling that "cheating" when they don't understand the necessary function of it (or they could simply play on normal/standard levels instead...)