A game about expanding your empire across the stars. Pick (or make) and alien race, start off on one planet with just a few basic ships and start from there. Explore your galaxy, colonise planets and encounter other aliens.

You can focus on taking things by force, or try playing nice – or switching between the two depending on what civilisations you encounter. Sometimes war may be the only option – especially if you encounter an aggressive people and something about your species greatly offends them, so they won’t rest until you are purged from the galaxy.

There is a lot in the game that you can manage, but Stellaris manages to not feel overwhelming either. The mod support for the game is great, too – there’s a Star Trek mod that is brilliant, and adds in missions and small events that can happen, turning it into an amazing Star Trek game.

Steam says that I've played 400+ hours of this game, but I'm not sure I really enjoyed most of them. A lot of it was "something moves a little on screen while I listen to a podcast", and then each game takes a stupendously long time. I think it's unfortunate that the game doesn't have too much to shake things up without completely smashing the player's experience. Mostly things either get smashed flat by the player or will themselves smash the player flat. I haven't experienced anything where there was a sort of back-and-forth, so that I lost a little bit but I could recover if I changed my tactics or something.

I am bad at RTS. I cannot micro. Previously Sins of a Solar Empire was my happy go to RTS, as the scale rewards large-scale thinking. Stellaris is so huge and different, that it almost seems like a turn based game. The scope is that huge that a rush, failed attack, or utter defeat that it is not the end of the game for you makes for some of the most amazing emergent gameplay (especially with friends) in all of gaming. I remember one game I was playing multi-player and I had become a vassal essentially to a warmongering state and my friends and the rest of the galactic community fought against the tyrannical government was awesome. The rebellion I waged as they fought wars with the greater portion of the galaxy is an epic that I think cannot be rivaled by any other art medium. That's the big thing Stellaris does, I think, it provides a huge, engaging, amazing backdrop to tell amazing stories; either alone or with friends.

petite mise en situation :
première fois que je joue, il est 22h et je sais pas quoi faire, je me dis : "tien je vais tester ce petit jeu il a l'air sympa".
je lance le jeu, me plonge dedans, j'y joue sans m'arrêter, plus rien n'existe autour de moi.
Arrive un moment je ressent une pointe de fatigue, je regarde l'heure, IL EST 6H DU MATIN.
Un des seuls jeu qui m'est fait cette effet.

I love the concept of starting with a species who has just discovered a form of ftl travel and seeing them through eons of their civilization. Unfortunately for me, I just can't get in to the minutiae of the mechanics no matter how often I try.

I think this game does what its trying to do very well, and if you love micro managing a civilization, and then slowly delegating parts of your civilization off to middle managers as you decide how you will proceed through the challenges of space.. well you'll love this.