On Stellaris

 With Stellaris pre-orders being up since yesterday, I decided it's finally time I talk about this game, why I like it and why I'm probably not going to get it.

 First - Basic features. The game puts the player in the control of a globalized* civilization that has just discovered faster-than-light travel. From then on you'd expect it to go on like the average 4X** title, but it doesn't.

 First is the thing that's sold me from the start: Extremely varied customization possibilities. First, you can choose the ethos (ethics) of your empire, which come in four spectrums - Militarism/Pacifism, Xenophobia/Xenophilia, Individualism/Collectivism and Materialism/Spiritualism. You get three points to invest in these ethea, but once you pick a side in a dichotomy the other is instantly blocked from being invested in. For two points, you can make yourself a "fanatic" in an ethos. This picture presents the system better than I can with words:

More info here

 Once you pick your ethos, you have to choose your empire's government. Your options will be reduced or increased according to what ethos you have chosen in the previous stage. To cut it as short as I can, there are three main "categories" of government - Democracies (Available to empires that have not chosen collectivism as an ethos), Oligarchies (Available to empires that are not either fanatically individualistic or collectivistic) and Monarchies (Available to empires that have not chosen individualism as an ethos). Then, there are five main "flavors" - militaristic, religious, secular, pacifistic or basic. The following picture should clear up the image:

More info here

 I guess I should've started with this first, but regardless the player also gets a very rich assortment of species to choose from. Here's a list of all portraits -  A lot of art even before you take into consideration that there are different "races" of these alien species and possibly even different sprites for different genders. Congratulations to the Paradox art team for the effort.

 Last, and least interesting but still considerable customizing stage for me is picking your race's traits. I'm just the sociology > biology kind of person.

 You might have noticed that I have not talked about any concrete gameplay at all. If you wanted gameplay, you've regrettably come to the wrong place, because I don't really care tbh. All I want from this game is to be able to make my own special snowflake race and make it rule the entire galaxy by playing on the easiest difficulty. I'm also that kind of person.

 That said, the game costs 40 yuros here in Eastern Europe. I have 24 days to acquire the money for pre-ordering or else I will forever miss my chance at 5 exclusive alien portraits/species. I know this sounds really petty and stupid but I also happen to really want those irrelevant portraits. I'll probably have to settle for asking my parents for the money and going turbo with learning for school once spring break is over***.

 Background information being given out, let's present the empire I came up with so far:

 Irsaid Hegemony: 

 (Ripped off Heavily inspired by Persia and Iran)

 Traits: Sedentary, Slow Breeders, Adaptative, Intelligent

 Ethos: Individualist, Militarist, Spiritualist

 Government: Theocratic Oligarchy

 Backstory: Nothing too stuffy as of yet. I've got the basic outline of a relatively large but sparsely populated nation that exponentially grows to superpower status due to discovering nuclear power and weaponry - This allows them to reinstate a theocratic oligarchy of their Zoroastrian-y religion due to no longer having to fear crippling sanctions from other democratic nations. A century and four nukings later they make every other nation their dominions - hence the "hegemony". This is then followed by a slow process of administrative centralization around the capital of the "starting" nation.

 Culture: Again, nothing too stuffy. Even though the government is theocratic, people of different religions and political standings are left alone as long as they fulfill their mandatory military service.

 I plan to play my first game with these guys - A slow, RP-focused grind of conquering/colonizing every planet in a 1000-star galaxy. Just my kind of game.

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 *-                                                 

 ** - Xplore, Xpand, Xploit, Xterminate. Don't look at me like that, I don't make the names.
 *** - Oh, yeah, spring break is here. Yay?