At First, I would have put a recommendation.
as you can see I played this game quite a lot and I liked it as I do modding with it.
However, Paradox interactive are going the same road as Sims and total war with this one and now we have a list of DLC ranking up at the time of this review at 375 € without sales.
I will stay civilized but squeeze a game like this after now 10 years and show no stopping signs to switch to another game is kinda not great for anyone.
Just make a new game like a stellaris 2 instead of changing stellaris again and again. Even total war and sims did it.
But we all know they wont because they are aware people are playing it, but when modders will be feed up by the constant change of the core code that force them to update all the time, players number will drop. I am sure this will be the main reason they will stop.
Ho yeah, let's do points to have a better view on why I can't recommend anymore :
- bugs delivered with updates.
- DLC cash grab that should be give less frequently and in better quality. This will not happen as they have sub contracted some of the works, you can see it on the quality of the updates and the mechanics becoming very suspiciously less new game mechanics but more game balancing as they have run out of ideas.
- game business model and how the game is made is not modding friendly even though mods are the life support of the game (this gonna be very technical and long one) :
As I use mods and do mods, you have to updates all mods as the core code is nearly all the time change even with very small DLCs.
The game is starting to be very old and modders are doing this in free time, some big mods have teams that have already switch of ownership because they cannot keep up with the game or their life cannot let them do it anymore. Modders are not paid (a few get some money and it very little compared to what they give to us).
This is one of my big red flag because instead of reducing releases schedule and making stable code, they change it constantly and spit more DLCs than Lama spit on tourist. I see how modders was keeping was DLC schedule in the past but now some skip some release because they know it will change AGAIN the code and this behavior will increase.
True there are modding instructions and manuals given by the devs but you can't expect modders to keep up.Even Warhammer total war, another strategy game with same business model of DLC miniguns have as far as I can see a code that stay the same at the core and make some mods that was uploaded far back still working because they keep it stable.
Be aware than when the back of the camel will brake Paradox, you will lose big time. Some very known mods have gone dark already but when the most used ones will go dark too, you can say ciao to your player count.
Until then, see ya later Stellaris, it was fun but now you are too bothersome to play.
