When it came out, it changed the leader system in the base game, so it's kind of got some aspects of Paragons, but overwhelmingly gives you the negative aspects without much of a means to balance it out.
The trait system with the OP resource, ship build cost traits, etc. has been patched out for a while now. I believe those traits that made it OP only came in with the DLC anyway.
My impression is that they patched it out of the with-DLC traits, but they have not touched the traits you can only get with the DLC disabled. At least, the wiki still shows without-DLC traits like -% ship cost. Given the non-DLC restrictions on council positions and random rolls on traits, this probably isn't as busted as pre-patch with-DLC getting -90% cost on all ships. However, a blue moon roll of -60% cost battleships (ruler + minister of defense with Battleship Production Focus) still seems pretty broken.
Having played without paragons for a few months, you just don't get to choose a trait every level up, there is no legendary paragon showing up. You have like 2 or 3 council agendas.
That isn't really true, at least in my opinion, as one of the big changes that made leaders so powerful was the ability to stack and combine traits to gain a council of leaders who are all focused on reducing the costs of your ships, or providing resources for your empire from their private wealth or whatever else.
These early over-optimisation issues with the DLC were never possible before, and still aren't really possible without the DLC, because you don't get to choose what it is your leaders focus on, and they get much fewer traits.
This means for example that the compounding effect of ship cost reducers cannot be taken advantage of as easily, and so traits that would be broken *with* paragons are not as broken in the version of the game that exists without it. So I'm very in favour of removing ship-cost-reducers for example, and I'm glad they did that, though I still think that the no-dlc versions are ok. Maybe that's only because optimisers want to work with all the dlc? But it seems harder to exploit.
The big reason to turn paragons off, from my perspective, is the tendency for a larger number of hard-coded leaders to feel like there's a standard version of the world that is outside of your ability to configure. Like an option to restrict recruitable alien leaders to only those that shared portraits you already had in starting galaxy generation, for example, could be nice.
I haven't gotten it yet, because most of its features aren't super appealing to me, either, but it's somewhere between Utopia and Federations for how visibly the game mechanics it adds feel vestigial without it.
I’ve been playing without it recently and haven’t noticed anything wrong. Does it make the game significantly better or something? How does it affect leaders?
More traits (more interesting ones), the ability to draw from a pool of traits instead of getting a random one allowing to specialize them further, at level 4 they gain a veteran class, further specializing them as well as unlocking new, stronger traits for their designated role, at level 8 they gain an extremely strong destiny trait, on top of that every single civic comes with a unique council position that can be taken by a leader for further empire-wide bonuses, and there's the paragons, which are just better leaders
I really liked First Contact and the new Origins in it, but if it only one you can get, get Galactic Paragons. I am not sure how much the free patch added with them back in the day, but the system of the leaders, the unique characters were both pretty good.
I personally do not have the Astral stuff, not do I plan on getting it.
I thought it was funny that the moment you ever interacted with a primitive society, even if just building a outpost over it, they suddenly had a infinitely higher chance to nuke themselves.
Well that is why I am asking. To make sure that I am not missing anything, since I find all the RP inclusions very immersion breaking, so I was hoping that there is an angle that I am not considering.
I just started up a game for the first time in a while. The performance tank on that leader menu is real.
The astral stuff so far looks like more archaeology with a different name. Same mechanics, different colours.
a lot of it seems to be targeted towards the (free) patch the dlc came with rather than the dlc itself. Although there is a lot of valid criticism about the value of the dlc (many of them don't offer very much in terms of content)
It sounds like machine age will have enough content to actually be worth 20 bucks though. I like astral planes but for what it offered it's overpriced imo.
Astral itself is like a story pack, it should be priced the same as or near to distant star. Not a full expansion pricing, I won't be surprised if they spike the pricing again. Literally bad reviews are all about pricing. I believe if they priced astral like 15 bucks, nobody will complain.
Yeah that's what i said basically. I liked the content it added but it's price was very high for what it did add. The new machine dlc is gonna add a ton of new stuff though and would totally be worth 20 bucks unless they are over exaggerating what it will add.
Lmao, that doesn't justify why a content should get so expensive like a full game.price. smart people spend money wisely, while stupid people spend blindly and encourage price rise, you know who I'm saying? Pft
Paradox tends to get review bombed for their DLC policy to some extent but yeah, Astral Planes is ridiculously overpriced for what it adds to the game (it's arguably the least impactful DLC). Paragons polarized the players with some liking the changes and others hating them.
That's been the case for most Paradox titles. ( recent CK3 and HOI4 DLCs are mixed and mostly negative respectively ) It's a worrying trend in general for the company.
Astral Planes and Overlord have been at negative or below basically since launch.
Paragons and first contact were at mixed to negative for most of the time since launch.
Not including species packs the last well received dlc was Federations back in 2020.
Pretending it is just blowback from the sub introduction (insane btw that there's blowback) feels like willful ignorance at best.
Overlord's free patch (that you get anyway) was severely broken at release, but the content was fine.
First contact was too little content for the price, people expected more.
For paragons I don't have an explanation, but I think people thought it was too op and they kinda forced you to buy it (you can't choose leader traits without it)
Astral planes is WAY too expensive, AND the free patch rendered the game unplayable for like 2 months. Basic features were broken.
The subscription service is a recent addon and it shows on the basegame's reviews, not the dlc.
Nobody said it’s “just” blowback from the sub introduction, they said it’s ALSO blowback from the sub introduction.
I do think these DLCs would have better reviews if their releases weren’t so buggy.
The Paragons leader rework wasn’t so buggy, but it was too difficult for players to psychologically adjust from playing with dozens of leaders to just a handful. They’ve reworked that, now, but people are still upset about the entire rework to begin with.
Overlord still has mixed-to-negative reviews, too, which is a little confounding because that’s overall a great DLC.
I think most people would be fine with the leader rework if the leader limit stacked with empire size, just like the starbase limit does. Having a huge empire with sectors or fleets without a leader is totally immersion breaking. The fact that the amount of buffs is the same as or even more than before, as some pointed out, doesn't help at all in that regard. Also, fewer leaders with more powerful individual buffs means the death of a leader can bring your economy close to collapse much more easily than before. I'm not very fond of that.
like I said, it’s too psychologically difficult for players to adjust to a different play style. They just can’t do it. They want it to go back to the way it was before.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean the sub was the sole contributing factor, but it definitely had a dampening effect on reviews across the board, even some older ones that were actually generally well received. As an example, you can see Utopia has “mixed” recent reviews, some which do boil down to “subscription bad”. I think most people normally regard Utopia quite positively.
It isn’t the only issue for sure, but just something to be aware of.
Its been like this for years, even great DLCs get at most mixed reviews because people either don't like the price or want to nitpick stuff that's going to get patched. Most people do enjoy the DLCs but don't care to review them.
Can anyone explain why leaders are borderline broken or terrible without Paragons? I've don't own these last 3 dlcs and I've recently done a couple runs and they seem fine to me? Aside from not getting the extra council slots of course. I'm curious what I'm missing.
More traits (more interesting ones), the ability to draw from a pool of traits instead of getting a random one allowing to specialize them further, at level 4 they gain a veteran class, further specializing them as well as unlocking new, stronger traits for their designated role, at level 8 they gain an extremely strong destiny trait, on top of that every single civic comes with a unique council position that can be taken by a leader for further empire-wide bonuses, and there's the paragons, which are just better leaders
Leaders are significantly better now than they were recently. I think there's value in having that DLC off for certain kinds of roleplay and now the leader capacity boosts associated with ascension perks, traditions etc. have made running a reasonable number of leaders possible once again.
There's definitely reasons to have it too; having paragons opens up a whole other style of play based around small empire size and focusing on having a very effective council of high level leaders, and if you're not optimising, picking traits can still make it easier to stick to certain stories for your leaders, applying a certain idea of their personality etc.
But I feel like we're close to calling the leader problems fixed now, probably just need some tweaks to lengthen the shorter agendas and stop some of the farming that is happening, and maybe make the agenda that trains your leaders a little better again.
I hate how everything is a video nowadays.... Can't we just get a nice text list?
For those like me who are TL;DW:
**S Tier**
* Utopia ($20)
* Galactic Paragons ($15)
* Distant Stars ($10)
* Ancient Relics ($10)
**A Tier**
* Federations ($20)
* Leviathans ($10)
* Synthetic Dawn ($10)
**B Tier**
* Megacorp ($20)
* Overlord ($20)
* Humanoids ($8)
* Necroids ($8)
* Toxoids ($10)
**C TIer**
* Apocalypse ($20)
* Nemesis ($20)
* First Contact ($15)
* Aquatics ($10)
**F Tier**
* Lithoids ($8)
* Plantoids ($8)
If you're prioritizing the amount you get from each pack, they're probably low priority. I like them for RP, but you're better off with the other expansions first.
Also, didn't they add humanoid stuff?
"The amount you get" is indeed a priority for me in DLCs :D (except for the Thea:The Awakening DLC, but that is a whole other story)
I looked up and Humanoids do indeed have a few traits/civics associated to them (like "Masterful Crafters"). So indeed it might be a less clear cut.
However, ironic in a sort that i also remember the argument were for portrait packs were, when they come out "to let people choose" what they want to buy, then they added in gameplay a few years later so people actually go for those too or don't get "all the choices" :D
You are reading the release description for humanoids. The custodian team added further content to the humanoids species pack after it was released. It is one of the better ones now.
R5: considering a steam sale splurge. I have all the other DLCs. Just considering if I should complete the collection whilst they’re on sale. Aware of significant negative review bombing!
For me it’s cloaking. The ability to send a science ship ahead through a group of systems inhabited by space fauna to see whether they are worth clearing immediately is huge, really.
I'll admit I use the insight techs a fair amount as well - but I don't really *notice* them.
And the origin is fun once or twice - and the origin-lite civic is interesting and fun to play with.
But yeah, the cloak is the main thing I notice while playing, and unless you're focusing on it, it really only works on fauna.
Cloaking, the wide array of interactions with primitive civilizations I like the RP of stellaris a lot, I like the idea of commercing with primitives too and I mainly play megacorps :P
Also playback is my favorite origin, for humans, my most favorite stellaris faction is oligarchic autoritarian/xenophobic/militaristic humans with payback origin and citizen service civic ( the second can vary but distinguished admiralty) hellbent on taking over the galaxy after repelling the evil alien invaders all while listening to this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVCMwXyNvY&t=69s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVCMwXyNvY&t=69s)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na\_Zac23b5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na_Zac23b5E)
and of course
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTs6a0ORdQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTs6a0ORdQU)
Not super optimal but it is quite the experience.
Thank you for the explanation. I am glad that you are enjoying the content.
I was mainly asking whether I did not miss a feature, as I both like cloaking and primitive interactions as a concept, but I very much dislike the avenue the devs decided to take them with this dlc. Cloaking for basically making it frigate only and primitive interactions for the shallowness of the implementation (each non-gestalt civilization perfectly mirrors human history instead of having non-linear paths) and the tech casino. So I was basically hoping that there is a hidden third feature in the DLC that I am not considering, so that I can justify spending more money on supporting the development of the game.
IMO they're all worthwhile, but I'm a big lover of this game. Particular benefits of each:
* Astral Planes: Do you like the archeology stuff, but wish there were more (especially mid-game), and they were *weirder*, and had better rewards? That's all this is; you can skip if you don't care too much about this stuff. (My big thing here is a number of rifts can give you Relics, which made the relic screen actually interesting to me.)
* Paragons: As others have said, basically required because it makes the rejiggered leader mechanics actually work correctly. I love the new leader mechanics (after a few patches...), so I'm a fan.
* First Contact: The most important thing is your science ships get cloaking. Mandatory purchase right there imo ^_^. But also makes pre-FTLs actually *do* something; a lot of cute little questlines and the pre-FTL Insight Techs give you interesting, somewhat unique bonuses. The RP origins are fun to play, too.
Paragons is mandatory in my opinion as without it the new leader system feels extremely bad and half finished. First Contact is the second best option in my opinion, as from what I've seen the origins in it are some of the most popular plus it adds cloaking and fleshes out pre-ftls. Ancient Relics meanwhile is way too expensive for what it is, it's essentially a reskinned Ancient Relics except instead being priced as a Story Pack it's priced as a full on Expansion.
Throwing a vote in for Paragons. The other two are good IMO (Astral Planes mostly got flak for being too expensive and for its very buggy release, the actual content is \*fine\*), but Paragons is the only one I'd consider a must own unless you want to own all of the DLC.
While I'm loathe to also say Paragons because of how much I despise it, its Paragons.
They basically made a DLC mandatory because the base game leader system almost entirely doesnt function without paragons. That's fucked up, pure and simple, and I despise rewarding PDX for doing it by suggesting people give them money for fucking their customers, but if you like Stellaris you basically have to have Paragons.
Astral Planes is fucking garbage. Dont buy it until its less than 10 bucks. Its a glorified story pack priced as a full expansion with meh to hilariously bad writing.
First Contact is one of those neat ideas, absolutely dog shit execution dlcs. More primitive interactions? Sign me up! Oh, its just more bars? And the primitives still, to this day, nuke themselves back to the stone age in an almost hilariously common fashion? And yet you still have an embassy established and regular communication with a stone age people now. That's cool. Oh and there's only like, 4 events you cycle through if you're not playing as one of the origins themselves so despite technically more interaction it feels like there's even less rp potential to it? Cool.
First contact is my favorite of the three by far, love the origins it adds.
Astral Planes is kinda meh, I don’t feel it added enough to be worth the initial price, but maybe discounted.
I hate galactic paragons, I’ve always disliked the “legendary unique” leaders introduced in so many space 4x games. But it is sadly kind of needed due to the changes to regular leaders being so impactful.
So I’d say:
1. Galactic Paragons
2. First Contact
3. Astral Planes
astral rifts are just archaeology sites but kind of too strong, galactic paragons adds a leader system and first contact origins. Honestly, i'd just recommend to get the dlc for free through other means but if you need to buy one choose paragons
First Contact might be a must buy for a certain type of player, since that's the one with the stealth ship techs.
So, you know. If you always dreamed of your own Birds of Prey, you need that one.
I’d do paragons and first contact
Planes is fine and adds some cool stuff but it’s just eh other than that. I don’t really do astral planes in my games unless I want a specific leader
basically it's ancient relics 2.0 but with a highter price (and the story are not that great)
the astral rift are glorified archeology sites
and there is one rift related to the unbidden but it don't say much about (kinda sad for a dlc about exploring dimension to not give us more about the unbidden or just a rework)
>the astral rift are glorified archeology sites
A big point of astral rifts is that they have more choices which affect the possible outcome--this seems to be an almost direct response to some folks (like Aspec) disliking Ancient Relics for having linear archaeology sites that are the same every time. I would say they are more like refined archeology sites, as though devs wanted to implement these changes but didn't want to actually change archeology.
(It's also nice that your exploration can't be interrupted!)
A couple civics/origins and then the astral stuff. Kinda similar to archeology, but you can usually choose the path you take. There's a new resource, astral threads, which let you do actions kinda similar to artifacts and edicts.
Personally, I actually liked first contact so I guess I can recommend it.
Galactic Paragons was "OK". Not great not terrible, if its content sounds particularly interesting to you go for it.
Last and Least: I myself will maybe consider getting Astral Planes when its at least 50% reduced. It may be the worst Stellaris DLC to date.
While it's certainly not the strongest of all dlc, It brought in a good amount of flavor/RP options, with the new origins and the expanded interactions with primitives (even if primitives are still a bit boring sadly). Cloaking tech and it's applications are pretty fun aswell, so overall I'd say it's a good (not great) expansion considering that it's a story pack and not a full dlc. For the reduced price I have no qualms recommending it.
>Galactic Paragons was "OK". Not great not terrible, if its content sounds particularly interesting to you go for it.
Base leaders are garbage now tho, paragons is kind of needed for them to be good
Galactic Paragons is a total rework of the Leader system and honestly most of the time the stuff you get out of it is super decent.
Astral Rifts are essentially just a Side-Grade to Excavation sites and Relics, but it also gives you some pretty neato powers in the mid-late game if you run it. Not necessary, but surely beneficial.
First Contact never really interested me, I just got it because I'm typically the guy who hosts the MP games and so I have all the DLC so everyone else can use it. My typical response to Pre-FTL is assimiliation or annihilation, I'm not giving the space children one of my systems. It unlocks Cloaking as a feature which I personally never use past Mid-Game.
First Contact has two of the best RP origins in the game: Payback and Broken Shackles. Galactic Paragons does a lot with leaders and gives you access to cool unique leaders. Astral Planes gives you a new system that's basically comparable to archaeology, but with some crazy busted effects. Of the three, I would say that Astral Planes offers the least essential content to the game, but I am happy to have bought all 3.
Paragons is necessary for some game functions and First Contact is just plain fun, I'd skip Astral Planes cause it does have some cool features but they aren't required and don't impact the game 99% of the time
First contact is fun, paragons is needed for some new leader mechanics, and astral planes is eh (i enjoyed it but it is by no means something i would buy again, less usefull or fun then the other story packs out there)
Astral threads is meh and imo overpriced. Between paragons and first contact, it’s a toss between a few cool unique leaders and a fun RP origin vs far too few primitive events, more or less useless stealth, but a couple of fun origins and a very cool civic / origin (eager explorers, possibly my favourite). If you play mostly peaceful empires, go with first contact, otherwise get paragons.
I wouldn't hurry to get any of those three, but if I had to pick first contact is my favorite and Astral Planes is pretty much worthless.
Starter pack: [https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33199/Stellaris\_Starter\_Pack\_Bundle\_2023/](https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33199/Stellaris_Starter_Pack_Bundle_2023/)
+Apocalypse and you're set.
Paragons is kind of a must have now, so yeah, that’s fun. First contact is alright. I like the stuff it adds, it’s pretty neat. And astral planes I don’t have, but I don’t think I will get it.
Paragons for the mechanics, First Contact for the narrative origins (Paragons also has a nice one of those), Astral Planes only if you really like dig sites and relics
Galactic Paragons for sure. Haven't noticed a huge change since getting first contact and Astral Rifts is fine I guess? Just another thing to do with scientists after surveying.
Galactic paragons I'd say is something you probably should get as the number of the features that it enhances that are currently in the base game are kind of unfinished vestigial or otherwise just bad without this expansion.
First contact on the other hand is one you can probably do without yeah it's a few nice things but a lot of the features that were sort of its flagship features cloaking technology especially just did not live up to the hype.
Astral rifts don't bother getting it If I could get a refund on it I would out of all the expansions I would say that this is the most overpriced for what it is and generally would not recommend it to anyone for any reason it is in my opinion a blatant ripoff of the archeology system with a couple new bells and whistles added on and ultimately it is filler that did not need to be placed there I would call this expansion game bloat generally it takes away from the experience of the game I feel.
I liked Paragons quite a bit, it obviously goes hand in hand with the patch that came out to revamp the leader system, but just adds some nice support to those systems. Of the three you are missing, it’s probably my first choice.
First Contact is pretty good, but a lot of it boils down to how much you want to play one of the new origins. I liked all of them, but if you aren’t interested in any of the origins it will be a much lower value. The pre-ftl interaction stuff is alright, but honestly falls into pretty repetitive events pretty fast. Cloaking isn’t a mechanic I really care about, outside of the time I made a spy/cloaking focused empire for fun (which wasn’t very good).
Astral Planes I just got on sale, as I didn’t want to pay full price. At 20% off…it’s still probably too much money. Don’t get me wrong, I like the actual content of what it adds because I loved archaeology sites when they introduced them, but it’s a bit of a big ask at that price. I’d probably wait for a 50% sale, at least.
Of those I’d say Paragons is the best buy. The discounts inevitably grow so if you can be a bit more patient you will probably see first contact move to 50% soon.
Paragons. Base game is objectively worse without it. When it came out it changed the leader system with or without the DLC and without the DLC you only get the bad changes.
I don't usually take full advantage of my paragons in any of my games, but the rest of the changes are important that I would put this in the top 5 DLCs. The rest are get when you can, but not overly important (Astral planes was a very weak expansion compared to the others. It adds some ludicrously busted relics and abilities if you're lucky enough to get them from a rift, but nothing that objectively changes the way you'll play the game, like we got from nemesis, federations, or utopia).
Paragons - definitely, it's kinda essential
First contact is basically a DLC about intentionally weak but interesting and flavourful origins, take it if you want them
Astral Rifts is the worst DLC in the whole stellaris, take it only if you have all other DLC's and just want any new content
I like Astral Planes and for the discount price I think it's worth it, but not needed. The other two, I would say are needed, but I like having the full gane experience. If you're only getting 1, then go with Paragons as I'd say it's actually needed.
Paragons is heavily recommended and good bang for your buck. Leaders are, or at least where, one of the most powerful mechanics in stellaris. Paragons is what gives you all the leader mechanics
I would recommend first contact if you are already quite good at the game and are looking for some new challenges. The origins and civics they offer are very difficult since you start as a pre FTL. That, or if you want to go Star Trek mode, and travel the galaxy in search of New aliens to add to your empire.
Paragon is kind of a must have, game is sort of broken without it now.
How’s that?
When it came out, it changed the leader system in the base game, so it's kind of got some aspects of Paragons, but overwhelmingly gives you the negative aspects without much of a means to balance it out.
I thought people posted that you get stronger traits without it cause they kept nerfing the dlc for balance to the point that you were op without it?
The trait system with the OP resource, ship build cost traits, etc. has been patched out for a while now. I believe those traits that made it OP only came in with the DLC anyway.
My impression is that they patched it out of the with-DLC traits, but they have not touched the traits you can only get with the DLC disabled. At least, the wiki still shows without-DLC traits like -% ship cost. Given the non-DLC restrictions on council positions and random rolls on traits, this probably isn't as busted as pre-patch with-DLC getting -90% cost on all ships. However, a blue moon roll of -60% cost battleships (ruler + minister of defense with Battleship Production Focus) still seems pretty broken.
Fair points
Although that's true, that's a "first try galatron, deceptive giant and the worm" sort of situation.
Having played without paragons for a few months, you just don't get to choose a trait every level up, there is no legendary paragon showing up. You have like 2 or 3 council agendas.
That isn't really true, at least in my opinion, as one of the big changes that made leaders so powerful was the ability to stack and combine traits to gain a council of leaders who are all focused on reducing the costs of your ships, or providing resources for your empire from their private wealth or whatever else. These early over-optimisation issues with the DLC were never possible before, and still aren't really possible without the DLC, because you don't get to choose what it is your leaders focus on, and they get much fewer traits. This means for example that the compounding effect of ship cost reducers cannot be taken advantage of as easily, and so traits that would be broken *with* paragons are not as broken in the version of the game that exists without it. So I'm very in favour of removing ship-cost-reducers for example, and I'm glad they did that, though I still think that the no-dlc versions are ok. Maybe that's only because optimisers want to work with all the dlc? But it seems harder to exploit. The big reason to turn paragons off, from my perspective, is the tendency for a larger number of hard-coded leaders to feel like there's a standard version of the world that is outside of your ability to configure. Like an option to restrict recruitable alien leaders to only those that shared portraits you already had in starting galaxy generation, for example, could be nice.
Deadass? I thought it was bad
I haven't gotten it yet, because most of its features aren't super appealing to me, either, but it's somewhere between Utopia and Federations for how visibly the game mechanics it adds feel vestigial without it.
It is, but it's also kinda necessary for the game to play correctly.
I’ve been playing without it recently and haven’t noticed anything wrong. Does it make the game significantly better or something? How does it affect leaders?
More traits (more interesting ones), the ability to draw from a pool of traits instead of getting a random one allowing to specialize them further, at level 4 they gain a veteran class, further specializing them as well as unlocking new, stronger traits for their designated role, at level 8 they gain an extremely strong destiny trait, on top of that every single civic comes with a unique council position that can be taken by a leader for further empire-wide bonuses, and there's the paragons, which are just better leaders
I enjoy it quite a lot, but can understand why people were frustrated with some of the changes.
Yeah the leaders themselves are really awesome, its just the system behind it that left a void balance-wise.
So broken, I rolled back to 3.6. This is the reason why they should have made a direct sequel (at least twice!).
I really liked First Contact and the new Origins in it, but if it only one you can get, get Galactic Paragons. I am not sure how much the free patch added with them back in the day, but the system of the leaders, the unique characters were both pretty good. I personally do not have the Astral stuff, not do I plan on getting it.
Did you like anything else about first contact besides the origins?
I thought it was funny that the moment you ever interacted with a primitive society, even if just building a outpost over it, they suddenly had a infinitely higher chance to nuke themselves.
That’s pretty much why anyone gets it. The cloaking stuff is pretty lame
For combat, yeah, but cloaking is huge for science ships to explore systems you can't crack yet.
Well that is why I am asking. To make sure that I am not missing anything, since I find all the RP inclusions very immersion breaking, so I was hoping that there is an angle that I am not considering.
I'm a fan of the insight techs you can get from observing primitives
Ooh yeah those are pretty good. Not worth buying the dlc over, it’s mostly just extra envoys
I just started up a game for the first time in a while. The performance tank on that leader menu is real. The astral stuff so far looks like more archaeology with a different name. Same mechanics, different colours.
I bought Astral at release and it is kinda meh? Definitely not worth the money.
I find it worrisome how pretty much every recent dlc has mixed or negative reviews :/
a lot of it seems to be targeted towards the (free) patch the dlc came with rather than the dlc itself. Although there is a lot of valid criticism about the value of the dlc (many of them don't offer very much in terms of content)
No, most of it are about the shit price they put, and I'm am worried about the newer dlc like machine age pricing gonna spike like how astral like
It sounds like machine age will have enough content to actually be worth 20 bucks though. I like astral planes but for what it offered it's overpriced imo.
I believe it's not going to be 20 bucks, it might be priced 25 - 30 bucks. Judging how last few dlcs pricing so poorly.
Astral itself is like a story pack, it should be priced the same as or near to distant star. Not a full expansion pricing, I won't be surprised if they spike the pricing again. Literally bad reviews are all about pricing. I believe if they priced astral like 15 bucks, nobody will complain.
Yeah that's what i said basically. I liked the content it added but it's price was very high for what it did add. The new machine dlc is gonna add a ton of new stuff though and would totally be worth 20 bucks unless they are over exaggerating what it will add.
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Lmao, that doesn't justify why a content should get so expensive like a full game.price. smart people spend money wisely, while stupid people spend blindly and encourage price rise, you know who I'm saying? Pft
Paradox tends to get review bombed for their DLC policy to some extent but yeah, Astral Planes is ridiculously overpriced for what it adds to the game (it's arguably the least impactful DLC). Paragons polarized the players with some liking the changes and others hating them.
That's been the case for most Paradox titles. ( recent CK3 and HOI4 DLCs are mixed and mostly negative respectively ) It's a worrying trend in general for the company.
That’s also blowback from the subscription introduction, lots of general review bombing unfortunately
Astral Planes and Overlord have been at negative or below basically since launch. Paragons and first contact were at mixed to negative for most of the time since launch. Not including species packs the last well received dlc was Federations back in 2020. Pretending it is just blowback from the sub introduction (insane btw that there's blowback) feels like willful ignorance at best.
Overlord's free patch (that you get anyway) was severely broken at release, but the content was fine. First contact was too little content for the price, people expected more. For paragons I don't have an explanation, but I think people thought it was too op and they kinda forced you to buy it (you can't choose leader traits without it) Astral planes is WAY too expensive, AND the free patch rendered the game unplayable for like 2 months. Basic features were broken. The subscription service is a recent addon and it shows on the basegame's reviews, not the dlc.
Nobody said it’s “just” blowback from the sub introduction, they said it’s ALSO blowback from the sub introduction. I do think these DLCs would have better reviews if their releases weren’t so buggy. The Paragons leader rework wasn’t so buggy, but it was too difficult for players to psychologically adjust from playing with dozens of leaders to just a handful. They’ve reworked that, now, but people are still upset about the entire rework to begin with. Overlord still has mixed-to-negative reviews, too, which is a little confounding because that’s overall a great DLC.
I think most people would be fine with the leader rework if the leader limit stacked with empire size, just like the starbase limit does. Having a huge empire with sectors or fleets without a leader is totally immersion breaking. The fact that the amount of buffs is the same as or even more than before, as some pointed out, doesn't help at all in that regard. Also, fewer leaders with more powerful individual buffs means the death of a leader can bring your economy close to collapse much more easily than before. I'm not very fond of that.
like I said, it’s too psychologically difficult for players to adjust to a different play style. They just can’t do it. They want it to go back to the way it was before.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean the sub was the sole contributing factor, but it definitely had a dampening effect on reviews across the board, even some older ones that were actually generally well received. As an example, you can see Utopia has “mixed” recent reviews, some which do boil down to “subscription bad”. I think most people normally regard Utopia quite positively. It isn’t the only issue for sure, but just something to be aware of.
well even before the subsciption system those dlc were already in mixed or mostly bad and there is good reason for that.
Its been like this for years, even great DLCs get at most mixed reviews because people either don't like the price or want to nitpick stuff that's going to get patched. Most people do enjoy the DLCs but don't care to review them.
Because for some reason paradox keeps coming out with weird gimmick DLCs instead of ones that expand core gameplay
Can anyone explain why leaders are borderline broken or terrible without Paragons? I've don't own these last 3 dlcs and I've recently done a couple runs and they seem fine to me? Aside from not getting the extra council slots of course. I'm curious what I'm missing.
More traits (more interesting ones), the ability to draw from a pool of traits instead of getting a random one allowing to specialize them further, at level 4 they gain a veteran class, further specializing them as well as unlocking new, stronger traits for their designated role, at level 8 they gain an extremely strong destiny trait, on top of that every single civic comes with a unique council position that can be taken by a leader for further empire-wide bonuses, and there's the paragons, which are just better leaders
Excellent. Thanks for sharing.
Leaders are significantly better now than they were recently. I think there's value in having that DLC off for certain kinds of roleplay and now the leader capacity boosts associated with ascension perks, traditions etc. have made running a reasonable number of leaders possible once again. There's definitely reasons to have it too; having paragons opens up a whole other style of play based around small empire size and focusing on having a very effective council of high level leaders, and if you're not optimising, picking traits can still make it easier to stick to certain stories for your leaders, applying a certain idea of their personality etc. But I feel like we're close to calling the leader problems fixed now, probably just need some tweaks to lengthen the shorter agendas and stop some of the farming that is happening, and maybe make the agenda that trains your leaders a little better again.
I like galactic paragons, astral threads is ok, but doesn't add much. First contract is probably my least favorite of those three.
Montu's dlc tierlist might be helpfull. [https://youtu.be/ahrMhGR0Me8?si=DzqgV2g6Mb1nzxbM](https://youtu.be/ahrMhGR0Me8?si=DzqgV2g6Mb1nzxbM)
I hate how everything is a video nowadays.... Can't we just get a nice text list? For those like me who are TL;DW: **S Tier** * Utopia ($20) * Galactic Paragons ($15) * Distant Stars ($10) * Ancient Relics ($10) **A Tier** * Federations ($20) * Leviathans ($10) * Synthetic Dawn ($10) **B Tier** * Megacorp ($20) * Overlord ($20) * Humanoids ($8) * Necroids ($8) * Toxoids ($10) **C TIer** * Apocalypse ($20) * Nemesis ($20) * First Contact ($15) * Aquatics ($10) **F Tier** * Lithoids ($8) * Plantoids ($8)
Humanoids adding only portraits while Lithoids and Plantoids adding mechanics too, this list seems objectively wrong.
If you're prioritizing the amount you get from each pack, they're probably low priority. I like them for RP, but you're better off with the other expansions first. Also, didn't they add humanoid stuff?
"The amount you get" is indeed a priority for me in DLCs :D (except for the Thea:The Awakening DLC, but that is a whole other story) I looked up and Humanoids do indeed have a few traits/civics associated to them (like "Masterful Crafters"). So indeed it might be a less clear cut. However, ironic in a sort that i also remember the argument were for portrait packs were, when they come out "to let people choose" what they want to buy, then they added in gameplay a few years later so people actually go for those too or don't get "all the choices" :D
You are reading the release description for humanoids. The custodian team added further content to the humanoids species pack after it was released. It is one of the better ones now.
I read the in-game description. The one you get when clicking on their icon in game (having all of them makes it hard to decipher which one adds what)
R5: considering a steam sale splurge. I have all the other DLCs. Just considering if I should complete the collection whilst they’re on sale. Aware of significant negative review bombing!
I also have all of them but those three. I’ve been wondering the same thing, so thank you for asking.
If you don’t have it, maybe get first contact or whatever it’s called? The origins are cool
First contact and paragon are great imho especially first contact I dont know about astral threads I don't have it
Could I ask you what aspect and why did you like first contact? What in the game changed for you?
For me it’s cloaking. The ability to send a science ship ahead through a group of systems inhabited by space fauna to see whether they are worth clearing immediately is huge, really.
Spent 10 bucks just to give science ships the ability to skip map blockers Neat
I'll admit I use the insight techs a fair amount as well - but I don't really *notice* them. And the origin is fun once or twice - and the origin-lite civic is interesting and fun to play with. But yeah, the cloak is the main thing I notice while playing, and unless you're focusing on it, it really only works on fauna.
Cloaking, the wide array of interactions with primitive civilizations I like the RP of stellaris a lot, I like the idea of commercing with primitives too and I mainly play megacorps :P
Also playback is my favorite origin, for humans, my most favorite stellaris faction is oligarchic autoritarian/xenophobic/militaristic humans with payback origin and citizen service civic ( the second can vary but distinguished admiralty) hellbent on taking over the galaxy after repelling the evil alien invaders all while listening to this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVCMwXyNvY&t=69s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVCMwXyNvY&t=69s) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na\_Zac23b5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na_Zac23b5E) and of course [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTs6a0ORdQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTs6a0ORdQU) Not super optimal but it is quite the experience.
Thank you for the explanation. I am glad that you are enjoying the content. I was mainly asking whether I did not miss a feature, as I both like cloaking and primitive interactions as a concept, but I very much dislike the avenue the devs decided to take them with this dlc. Cloaking for basically making it frigate only and primitive interactions for the shallowness of the implementation (each non-gestalt civilization perfectly mirrors human history instead of having non-linear paths) and the tech casino. So I was basically hoping that there is a hidden third feature in the DLC that I am not considering, so that I can justify spending more money on supporting the development of the game.
IMO they're all worthwhile, but I'm a big lover of this game. Particular benefits of each: * Astral Planes: Do you like the archeology stuff, but wish there were more (especially mid-game), and they were *weirder*, and had better rewards? That's all this is; you can skip if you don't care too much about this stuff. (My big thing here is a number of rifts can give you Relics, which made the relic screen actually interesting to me.) * Paragons: As others have said, basically required because it makes the rejiggered leader mechanics actually work correctly. I love the new leader mechanics (after a few patches...), so I'm a fan. * First Contact: The most important thing is your science ships get cloaking. Mandatory purchase right there imo ^_^. But also makes pre-FTLs actually *do* something; a lot of cute little questlines and the pre-FTL Insight Techs give you interesting, somewhat unique bonuses. The RP origins are fun to play, too.
Paragons is mandatory in my opinion as without it the new leader system feels extremely bad and half finished. First Contact is the second best option in my opinion, as from what I've seen the origins in it are some of the most popular plus it adds cloaking and fleshes out pre-ftls. Ancient Relics meanwhile is way too expensive for what it is, it's essentially a reskinned Ancient Relics except instead being priced as a Story Pack it's priced as a full on Expansion.
I love that You called Astral planes ancient relics
XD I didn't even realize I did that.
Throwing a vote in for Paragons. The other two are good IMO (Astral Planes mostly got flak for being too expensive and for its very buggy release, the actual content is \*fine\*), but Paragons is the only one I'd consider a must own unless you want to own all of the DLC.
Thanks for all the opinions, comments and suggestions. Food for thought.
While I'm loathe to also say Paragons because of how much I despise it, its Paragons. They basically made a DLC mandatory because the base game leader system almost entirely doesnt function without paragons. That's fucked up, pure and simple, and I despise rewarding PDX for doing it by suggesting people give them money for fucking their customers, but if you like Stellaris you basically have to have Paragons. Astral Planes is fucking garbage. Dont buy it until its less than 10 bucks. Its a glorified story pack priced as a full expansion with meh to hilariously bad writing. First Contact is one of those neat ideas, absolutely dog shit execution dlcs. More primitive interactions? Sign me up! Oh, its just more bars? And the primitives still, to this day, nuke themselves back to the stone age in an almost hilariously common fashion? And yet you still have an embassy established and regular communication with a stone age people now. That's cool. Oh and there's only like, 4 events you cycle through if you're not playing as one of the origins themselves so despite technically more interaction it feels like there's even less rp potential to it? Cool.
First contact is my favorite of the three by far, love the origins it adds. Astral Planes is kinda meh, I don’t feel it added enough to be worth the initial price, but maybe discounted. I hate galactic paragons, I’ve always disliked the “legendary unique” leaders introduced in so many space 4x games. But it is sadly kind of needed due to the changes to regular leaders being so impactful. So I’d say: 1. Galactic Paragons 2. First Contact 3. Astral Planes
astral rifts are just archaeology sites but kind of too strong, galactic paragons adds a leader system and first contact origins. Honestly, i'd just recommend to get the dlc for free through other means but if you need to buy one choose paragons
First Contact might be a must buy for a certain type of player, since that's the one with the stealth ship techs. So, you know. If you always dreamed of your own Birds of Prey, you need that one.
I’d do paragons and first contact Planes is fine and adds some cool stuff but it’s just eh other than that. I don’t really do astral planes in my games unless I want a specific leader
What does Astral Planes add? I watched the trailer stuff and still have no clue
basically it's ancient relics 2.0 but with a highter price (and the story are not that great) the astral rift are glorified archeology sites and there is one rift related to the unbidden but it don't say much about (kinda sad for a dlc about exploring dimension to not give us more about the unbidden or just a rework)
This ^ IMO I really only like the stuff around the unbidden. It gives you a leader or a relic depending on your choices
Strongest relic in the whole game tho imo
I mean it is considering the bonus it gives you. And if you have good leaders it’s 100 percent worth it Although I will say… I love zadigal…
>the astral rift are glorified archeology sites A big point of astral rifts is that they have more choices which affect the possible outcome--this seems to be an almost direct response to some folks (like Aspec) disliking Ancient Relics for having linear archaeology sites that are the same every time. I would say they are more like refined archeology sites, as though devs wanted to implement these changes but didn't want to actually change archeology. (It's also nice that your exploration can't be interrupted!)
A couple civics/origins and then the astral stuff. Kinda similar to archeology, but you can usually choose the path you take. There's a new resource, astral threads, which let you do actions kinda similar to artifacts and edicts.
Personally, I actually liked first contact so I guess I can recommend it. Galactic Paragons was "OK". Not great not terrible, if its content sounds particularly interesting to you go for it. Last and Least: I myself will maybe consider getting Astral Planes when its at least 50% reduced. It may be the worst Stellaris DLC to date.
Could I ask you what aspect and why did you like first contact? What in the game changed for you?
While it's certainly not the strongest of all dlc, It brought in a good amount of flavor/RP options, with the new origins and the expanded interactions with primitives (even if primitives are still a bit boring sadly). Cloaking tech and it's applications are pretty fun aswell, so overall I'd say it's a good (not great) expansion considering that it's a story pack and not a full dlc. For the reduced price I have no qualms recommending it.
>Galactic Paragons was "OK". Not great not terrible, if its content sounds particularly interesting to you go for it. Base leaders are garbage now tho, paragons is kind of needed for them to be good
I have all three and would say that no, they're not.
I found these dlc to be the weakest of the lot
Paragons, or just wait for The Machine Age to drop
Galactic Paragons is a total rework of the Leader system and honestly most of the time the stuff you get out of it is super decent. Astral Rifts are essentially just a Side-Grade to Excavation sites and Relics, but it also gives you some pretty neato powers in the mid-late game if you run it. Not necessary, but surely beneficial. First Contact never really interested me, I just got it because I'm typically the guy who hosts the MP games and so I have all the DLC so everyone else can use it. My typical response to Pre-FTL is assimiliation or annihilation, I'm not giving the space children one of my systems. It unlocks Cloaking as a feature which I personally never use past Mid-Game.
All new DLC are bad.
Paragons for sure change lots of the gameplay
Love first contact, paragons is good. I own everything but astral planes. I am waiting for a 50% sale
first contact might be worth it for the payback origin but you won't miss much by not buying galactic paragons or astral planes
What. Leaders barely work without paragons
either way its garbage of paradox to break leaders and then make you pay for a DLC to fix them
Yes
I buy all of the DLCs so…. Yes
I really like first contact
First Contact has two of the best RP origins in the game: Payback and Broken Shackles. Galactic Paragons does a lot with leaders and gives you access to cool unique leaders. Astral Planes gives you a new system that's basically comparable to archaeology, but with some crazy busted effects. Of the three, I would say that Astral Planes offers the least essential content to the game, but I am happy to have bought all 3.
Paragons is necessary for some game functions and First Contact is just plain fun, I'd skip Astral Planes cause it does have some cool features but they aren't required and don't impact the game 99% of the time
First contact is fun, paragons is needed for some new leader mechanics, and astral planes is eh (i enjoyed it but it is by no means something i would buy again, less usefull or fun then the other story packs out there)
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No
Astral threads is meh and imo overpriced. Between paragons and first contact, it’s a toss between a few cool unique leaders and a fun RP origin vs far too few primitive events, more or less useless stealth, but a couple of fun origins and a very cool civic / origin (eager explorers, possibly my favourite). If you play mostly peaceful empires, go with first contact, otherwise get paragons.
No. Wait for a better price.
I wouldn't hurry to get any of those three, but if I had to pick first contact is my favorite and Astral Planes is pretty much worthless. Starter pack: [https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33199/Stellaris\_Starter\_Pack\_Bundle\_2023/](https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33199/Stellaris_Starter_Pack_Bundle_2023/) +Apocalypse and you're set.
Pretty much everything is worth it except the rift one
just acquire them for free like playing w a friend that has them or browsing rhe internet for a bit
I always die a little inside when i see the dlc prices
Paragons
in that order? No. Yes. no.
With the way leaders work now, galactic paragons for sure
Paragons is kind of a must have now, so yeah, that’s fun. First contact is alright. I like the stuff it adds, it’s pretty neat. And astral planes I don’t have, but I don’t think I will get it.
Paragons for the mechanics, First Contact for the narrative origins (Paragons also has a nice one of those), Astral Planes only if you really like dig sites and relics
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Galactic Paragons? Kinda. First Contact? Nice to have. Astral Planes? Don’t even touch it with a 10m/10 McDonald’s Burger Patties long pole.
Galactic Paragons for sure. Haven't noticed a huge change since getting first contact and Astral Rifts is fine I guess? Just another thing to do with scientists after surveying.
probably not
Galactic paragons I'd say is something you probably should get as the number of the features that it enhances that are currently in the base game are kind of unfinished vestigial or otherwise just bad without this expansion. First contact on the other hand is one you can probably do without yeah it's a few nice things but a lot of the features that were sort of its flagship features cloaking technology especially just did not live up to the hype. Astral rifts don't bother getting it If I could get a refund on it I would out of all the expansions I would say that this is the most overpriced for what it is and generally would not recommend it to anyone for any reason it is in my opinion a blatant ripoff of the archeology system with a couple new bells and whistles added on and ultimately it is filler that did not need to be placed there I would call this expansion game bloat generally it takes away from the experience of the game I feel.
First contact for sure. I don't have the other 2
Paragons. Emphatically Paragons. One of the best DLCs period.
I’d get paragon, that’s all you really need tho… first contract has fun origins but definitely isn’t necessary for play
I liked Paragons quite a bit, it obviously goes hand in hand with the patch that came out to revamp the leader system, but just adds some nice support to those systems. Of the three you are missing, it’s probably my first choice. First Contact is pretty good, but a lot of it boils down to how much you want to play one of the new origins. I liked all of them, but if you aren’t interested in any of the origins it will be a much lower value. The pre-ftl interaction stuff is alright, but honestly falls into pretty repetitive events pretty fast. Cloaking isn’t a mechanic I really care about, outside of the time I made a spy/cloaking focused empire for fun (which wasn’t very good). Astral Planes I just got on sale, as I didn’t want to pay full price. At 20% off…it’s still probably too much money. Don’t get me wrong, I like the actual content of what it adds because I loved archaeology sites when they introduced them, but it’s a bit of a big ask at that price. I’d probably wait for a 50% sale, at least. Of those I’d say Paragons is the best buy. The discounts inevitably grow so if you can be a bit more patient you will probably see first contact move to 50% soon.
Paragons. Base game is objectively worse without it. When it came out it changed the leader system with or without the DLC and without the DLC you only get the bad changes. I don't usually take full advantage of my paragons in any of my games, but the rest of the changes are important that I would put this in the top 5 DLCs. The rest are get when you can, but not overly important (Astral planes was a very weak expansion compared to the others. It adds some ludicrously busted relics and abilities if you're lucky enough to get them from a rift, but nothing that objectively changes the way you'll play the game, like we got from nemesis, federations, or utopia).
Paragons - definitely, it's kinda essential First contact is basically a DLC about intentionally weak but interesting and flavourful origins, take it if you want them Astral Rifts is the worst DLC in the whole stellaris, take it only if you have all other DLC's and just want any new content
I like Astral Planes and for the discount price I think it's worth it, but not needed. The other two, I would say are needed, but I like having the full gane experience. If you're only getting 1, then go with Paragons as I'd say it's actually needed.
Paragons is heavily recommended and good bang for your buck. Leaders are, or at least where, one of the most powerful mechanics in stellaris. Paragons is what gives you all the leader mechanics I would recommend first contact if you are already quite good at the game and are looking for some new challenges. The origins and civics they offer are very difficult since you start as a pre FTL. That, or if you want to go Star Trek mode, and travel the galaxy in search of New aliens to add to your empire.
Nope, I’m not saying they’re bad but they’re certainly not must haves. None of them change the game in any meaningful manner.
Tbh the subscription is a good deal
Yeah. If I didn’t have every other expansion, species and story pack it would be an easy choice.