Having to build stations makes the crawl through the galaxy a lot more linear, a snaking construction effort through the stars, especially versus the previous, proximity-based system, although it does give maps more structure and shape - especially the spiral systems. Instead, it’s down to who maintains the station around the star something which takes effort to build, but is militarily easy to flip if undefended. In short, the game has gone from one where you drag your single-group space force around the web of planets you own to fight baddies to one where it’s best to have multiple fleets - and pump some money into defences.Ĭontrol of the galaxy is no longer a case of being the first to colonise a planet or the one with a controlled system nearest. Select routes and passageways have become more critical to guard. Due to Hyperlane’s promotion to the main method of transport, new tweaks to defensive platforms have become critical. This means that FTL, a now late-game technology, is both a slower method of getting around and a more tactful one. No longer are they the galaxy’s arteries, but have instead changed so that on generation, they blossom to cover every system, no matter how remote. Travel in the post-Cherryh world has seen Hyperlanes completely refined. War was, previously, a case of pushing until they surrendered - a case of conquest and advancement. Travel was, previously, an affair that could take place in one of three ways: Hyperlane, where you could only travel along set paths Warphole, where you could fold space to travel from station to station and FTL, which was very much ‘old faithful’, a method which saw players increase their drive capacity to jump further and further in classical, measured space, between jumps.
#STELLARIS APOCALYPSE STATIONS UPDATE#
Where the expansion focuses on that late game bloom of chaos, the update sees most major changes happen in the first half of the game through travel and through the game’s war system. The Cherryh 2.0 update, then, operates at a completely different level to Apocalypse. Unlike the majority of the expansion content, the marauders are a pain in the wallet from the early game right through to the end especially so if they unite into the new mid-game crisis where a great leader unites the factions and start a grand campaign. Essentially the hordes of Crusader Kings II, but with the ability to transcend borders. A group of kindly, charitabl… whew, they’re gone… A new type of purely militaristic space foe which floats around space, occasionally stopping to shake people down for pocket money/resources. Just check out the size of this warning notice, phew.Īpocalypse also brought organised pirate marauder factions.
It was an oddity then, that Apocalypse, with its late-game planet-cracking devices, late-game giant battleships and more options made available through the game’s ascension system - a top echelon to a perk system - launched alongside an extensive, fantastic, foundation-shaking update. 2.02’s balance fix came both optionally and quickly, and that’s what I’ve been playing of late. In my memory, a 4X game has never shuffled and refined quite so many established game features as this game’s Cherryh 2.0 update wrought. Stellaris’ 2.0 update was utterly unprecedented.