Stellaris

I discovered this awesome game on Steam: Stellaris

If you are into 4X style games, then chances are you will love this. You control a galactic empire, starting out with just a single planet and very little technology. You get to customize your starting species a lot, like giving them longer lifespans, higher intelligence or greater strength. You can choose a natural affinity for a type of research.

The game itself can be played without really caring about victory conditions. You just manage your empire, slowly expand, come into contact with other species. You can choose to go for a diplomatic approach, or more aggressive style. You can form alliances, and big alliances can even vote to form Federations. And yes, you can "win" the game by being part of a large federation that controls at least 60% of the galaxy.

For a Star Trek fan like me, this game is just perfect. I get to simulate Star Trek. Even war in this game is very different from other 4X games. You can't eliminate another empire in one war. When you decide to declare war you must state your war goals. Each war goal has a certain value attached to it, and you can't exceed a certain total value for each war. This means that eliminating an enemy empire can only be done through several long lasting wars.

There are also ancient civilizations in the galaxy, which are vastly superior to the other normal civilizations. You can also encounter primitive species, which you can observe and even push to evolve faster. You can choose to integrate such species, or form alliances or even exterminate them.

Overall, I love this game! So definitely check it out if you like 4X (grand strategy), managing empires and sci-fi.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the game comes with a native Linux version that runs perfectly.

****SPOILER ALERT****

So I have been playing this game when I have the time, and the developers put a lot of effort into this game. I was doing quite well. My fleet among the very best and I was part of a federation. So even if my fleet was not the absolute best I still had lots of allies. Since my federation was winning all wars I thought we had the galaxy under our control.

But when a game has been going on for long enough, there are apparently late game events that come into motion. In my case, we started detecting something coming from outside the galaxy. Pretty soon the galaxy was being overrun by monsters that had enormous fleets. In this game, there is something called Fallen Empires, which are extremely old empires that don't really participate in the galaxy. They have technology and fleets far beyond anyone else. This threat to the galaxy made one fallen empire awaken and participate in the defence against this threat.

I thought we were safe, threat averted. I was planning to go back to enlisting more allies into the federation. Unfortunately, the newly awakened fallen empire was expanding fast. They demanded my unconditional surrender and subjugation. I wish I had done that, because when I resisted they started attacking with fleets that my combined federation stood no chance against.

At the moment I am contemplating if I should see it through, watch the total annihilation of all I worked so long for, or just start a new game. In any case, this is awesome! These late game events really brought the game to a whole new level and I am curious how I could handle events of this scale. I will definitely give it another go while also trying to prepare for an end game crisis.

****SPOILER END****

The conclusion is that my respect and appreciation for this game just increased by a lot! This is not just some generic space empire sim game, you really feel like you are part of a living universe where you never know what might happen.