'Space... The final conquest. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission... To discover and subjugate strange new worlds. To advance our dominion and vanquish all who stand against us. To conquer the galaxy for the glory of the empire.' -Star Trek Continues 'Fairest of them all'
@@VORASTRA *2 YEARS LATER...* _The Republic will reorganize into the first GALACTIC EMPIRE!_ _For a safe and secure society!_ *22 YEARS LATER* _I've built a planet killer. FOR A SAFE AND SECURE SOCIETY!_
Running down the Psionic path and getting the rare event where you make one of your leaders immortal + claiming the throne to form the galactic empire with said leader just all sounds too good for me.
I play with mods and console codes and lets just say my Immortal God-Emperor that leads a superior humanoid Sith race fantasy is very, very happy right now.
Pah... Ya week grot-lovin' humies iz no match fer Orkz! We'ze gonna krump ya good cuz da Orkz iz da best dere iz! WAAAAGHHH!!!! I literary tried to make Orks race. It is not perfect as it gave me"bandit kingdom" but it works fine
always fun to see someone praise content you bought already. Recently got stellar is from humble, should I first get all the old dlc or dive right into this one? or is it just preference?
@@DankDungeon I would recommend getting other DLCs first such as Utopia, Federations or Apocalypse, these will make your Nemesis experience way more fun
@@DankDungeonsame dude , I got the bundle with a lot of included content. Only had to buy distant stars , federation and nemesis. There is a website that details each pros and cons of the dlc released. If you want more deals yet gamebillet haven’t had an issue yet and got nemesis for 13 dollars
"I will not be stopped, not by you, or the Confederates, or the Protoss or ANYONE! I will rule this sector, or see it burn to ashes around me!" Figured there would be some Mengsk fans who'd appreciate a change of pace that's still perfectly relevant to the topic.:p
It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy… I love the Galactic Community. The power you give me I will lay down when this Crisis has abated.
I buy all the Stellaris DLC. For me though it's because it adds new toys to my Space Opera simulation. Anything that adds more to this toybox of mine is just something I have to have. I cannot even put into words how long I waited for someone to make a game like Stellaris. The fact that it comes from Paradox is also beyond ironic for me, because I generally do not like Paradox games.
I can understand only wanting to be the Crisis once. OTOH, all the spy-ops, Custodian/Empire shenanigans added, plus the Imperial set and new art that comes with being the menace itself easily puts it over the top for me. Plus, yes, new music. Stuff that kind of recalls the Franke B5 material, imho.
I paid $20 for the free patch, basically. :P Actually, that's kind of a lie, the main reason I paid for it is that I realised that the empire concept I wanted to play once the patch hit (a Death Cult) would definitely end up becoming the crisis...
There might be a problem of replayability for the Crisis, but I'm sure that modders will create alternatives to the Aetherophasic Engine. Maybe The Worm ?
I really appreciated the devs explained why they made the choice to do an in depth single crisis type. Here's hoping it's expanded in the future although I feel this might be a Stellaris 2 kind of deal.
My wish is to have a crisis that doesn't just end the game instantly and is rather similar to the naturally spawning ones where they receive massive bonuses, fleets and dialogue where it's more or less just a huge bar fight between the galaxy and one super power
I'm really looking forward to "becoming crisis expanded" or whatever the mods end ups being. Even the relatively limited amount of perks and flavor text hints at such an interesting society, and I can't wait for someone to make a mod that expands on it with more features and alternatives
@@The_New_Bob Well. The other Crisis' do deatroy the galaxy. It's just that this new one has the ability to destroy the stars, instead of the planets only.
Mankind Prevails, was allways to me my favorite series, I remember the "we stand alone" mentality, to not surrender even in the most dire of situations and to be de bastion of perceverence. When I thought of nemesis, I remembered that series, to be the Nemesis you do not need to be evil, you need to be against everyone, and I think that the galatic manace missed that, it did not make you a force of caos, but a force of evil. I really hope it gets more flavour, it has so much potencial and so much possible fun.
I am loving Nemesis so much! It’s so fun, I literally took over half the galaxy while playing about 12 hours straight and I swear I’ve never felt more badass while playing stellaris
That sounds cool, but it would be pretty upsetting to be on the receiving end of. Imagine you get into a fairly evenly matched, but winnable war, and then the fleet power of the AI randomly doubles. Maybe if it was integrated more into the espionage operations so you could separate them from their allies before going to war, and the cost of said operations scaled down against less powerful empires to make it viable to perform said operations in the early game.
This patch is a heaven's blessing for me. For the first time in years, YEARS, on my less than ok pc... I have a fluid game. And this is new soundstrack, I was so immersed with the graphics, the ambiance... Oh boy, I didn't slept at all that night. Was it worth like 20€ ? To me, yes. Oh boy yes.
Wow with the way the review was going I was not prepared for you quickly saying at the end that it's on par with Federations. To me that means it's completely awesome. I do see what you're saying about the replayability problem with BTC, but basically, I think I'm going to love this. I've bought it to support them for all the work (especially in the free update), and all the upcoming content they can now build on top of this stuff.
Saw the title and thought "Too late for me, Stellaris has me and will never let me go, they might as well chain me to a desk with a computer that can only play Stellaris and UA-cam, wouldn't make a difference..."
I will be picking this up for MP games, I still love that Paradox makes it that somebody in the lobby just has to own the DLC for everyone to gain access in the multi-player game. That and you never know if one of your mates goes mad with power, or becomes the senate.
I mean... there is the mechanism for spawning new starsystems (precursors, l-cluster) -decision (edict) that gives a prepariation to invade timer -spawn a small 200 star galaxy (don't want to burn pc), maybe with a loading screen -too far for even jump drives to reach normally, but you get a temporary (10/20 years) modifier that increases jump range -your goal is too get the fleets in, secure beachhead, build gate (maybe a special gate so it doesn't connect to your entire galaxy) -maybe have the preparation period be a megastructure project that builds an orphan gate in a specific system on the edge of the galaxy and while in the system fleets have more jump range (to get to the other galaxy), then you build a second for the invasion force
@@Kjrov Just so long as one of these demigod-tier individuals doesn't start ranting about star gods and leading half of them in open rebellion against me. Otherwise, daddy's gonna grab the belt.
Thank you for your work, but also for your voice and way of talking. I explain: I'm not a native English speaker, and I sometimes struggle to understand fully English speakers -native or not- and here your voice is perfectly understandable for someone who did not learn good enough english. Hope you'll continue this way for people like me, and as good as you are to present things in a short video. Take care, Arthur
I bought it because it feels very Star Wars. While I bought stellaris at the point of federations being added, as it felt very Star Trek. And this just made me think cool get that and I’ll added some more official flavours, while wondering to myself, I wonder how many of my mods will have been updated to work with the latest patch.
Its an interesting expansion. But tbh what i really want is more acension perks. And more TECH, new types of weapons. Maybe an acension path (akin to biological, robot or psionic, but you become like the stargate sg1 lanteans).
I think that the game might be running out of big features/mechanics to add in DLC, in terms of mechanics that can be used by any empire in any playthrough. More stuff like becoming the crisis will most likely be the focus of new DLCs, i.e a religion system that applies mostly to spiritualists
They still have religion, institutions and probably a few event dlcs. I'm sure they could squeeze out some ideas. But it does seem like there aren't as many ideas. I'm not even sure what species pack they could do besides beings made of energy. Maybe they could do one last addition to the galactic community, some changes to war like an appocolypse dlc, land battles.
@@gunki8342 xD I'm finishing up my old game right now. Can't wait to play the new dlc soon :))) I have a vampire based vassal empire who forces everyone to join my slave ridden hegemony :D I really wish I had played this one with the Emperor aspect of the new dlc. Might have to do a re-run of it :) The necroid bat looking portrait is perfect for the Vampire Counts xD
Its not that op imo.. More like balance since hive mind need double the amount of mineral for research/dont have trade and cant build robot (they buff trade in 3.0)
My main consideration on this will really be how well it's picked up and expanded by mods - if it's flexible enough to be modded well, both the crisis and custodian paths offer a lot of new angles for modders to approach the game. I could see this being a must-have expansion for lots of really interesting mods, giving that depth to the replayability that you were concerned on.
I hope by getting a ship set like this, that is kind of a stand alone. We will finally get a ship set for robot and hive mind empires. I have all ways felt they have been lacking in a ship set that reflexes there empires.
Thanks for the informative review! The content looks absolutely awesome but I'm going to wait for a sale and pick it up almost instantly after that. 20$ for this is just a bit too pricey for me atm
I like the idea of becoming your own massive endgame crisis to conquer the galaxy and... idk turn people into snacks. Maybe not the same as the Contingency or intergalactic forces. I also like the Custodian route where you can be the guardian of peace for roleplay options. Maybe add another option to flesh out ways the endgame can go between the crisis' and War in Heaven. Economy gets an update as well as intelligence gathering, the patch is all nice features. How's the espionage? Competent but could use more expansion or updates.
8:11 Beautiful massive majestic ship models flowing in space, but suddenly the guy on the left starts turning on a dime and the whole immersion is ruined, now all the ships look like cheap plastic miniatures. Why paradox! Why?! 😭
I see what you say when you say you worry about replay-ability with the crisis. Id argue that yes it might be true IF every game you chose that. But we have the ability to choose our own game. The fact its on the table as a possibility is more than enough. So i say no thats not an issue.
I was gifted the expansion and looking forward to having fun with it. I will say, the #1 thing I wish most Stellaris main expansions had... were more events that tie into everything else in the expansion, either thematically or mechanically. As much as I like getting the perk of Orbital Speed Demon, I wish for more different things.
The Ai will form the galactic empire and will be the crisis based on which line the player goes down. If the player is a custodian then an ai may become the crisis.
@@vladthelad7508 so, the empire thing will only happen when the player goes crisis? Meaning, you can't play in a galactic community with an AI custodian and then playing the rebellion against them when they go power mad? :/
@@h3adban60r I am not entirely sure, in my play through ad the crisis you either win and end the galaxy or lose and die. When I played normally the ai formed the empire after the crisis was defeated. As the crisis they just have an all out galactic war so in that scenario no but maybe if you had a friend and you played as the crisis and lost you could see what happens.
If they do perform a complex overhaul of the Leader system it could be interesting to see leaders be able to take on several different roles throughout their lifetimes and have a leader's experience in one field improve their performance in another. What I'm thinking is a system where leaders exist in one giant pool rather than several smaller ones and have different randomized stats in several categories that define what they are originally good at. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking the categories would be something like "research, exploration, diplomacy, spycraft, administration" as well as categories relating to being an admiral or a general. Each new leader would have a level in each stat 1-3 which would dictate which position they would be most qualified for (i.e. someone with high exploration would be good on a science ship, someone with high administration would be good as a governor of a sector). As a leader spends more time in a certain role, they level up their stat relating to that role, which makes them better at filling that role, just like how the game currently is. However, a leader can be moved from one role to another, and high stats in one role give bonuses to another role. For example, a high-level spycraft former envoy as a governor would make it more difficult for another empire to establish a spy network in their sector. A former governor turned spy master would be more efficient at disrupting the ongoings within sectors of an enemy empire. An admiral who spent a long time as the leader of a science ship has a better sensor range and can see down an extra hyperlane and an admiral who led a research division for a long time regenerates shields faster or does more energy. A governor turned admiral could do less planetary devastation during orbital bombardment while still damaging ground forces due to his experience-based knowledge of the layout of cities or could have reduced upkeep of his fleet due to his experience maintaining the infrastructure of a planet while managing a budget. It could also get really powerful or interesting bonuses when a stat gets maxed to level 10. An Admiral with level 10 in spycraft and exploration could be only visible to enemies at a senor range of one due to his experience with sensors as the leader of an exploration vessel and subterfuge as the leader of a surveillance network.
What they need to add is some sort of empire legislatures. Like in real life I highly doubt that some person would just be elected with absolute power, no?
As weird as it is, I’m pretty sure thats how the Roman ‘Dictator’ worked during the republic, if at any time the two consuls either died or were unable to lead, they elected a dictator who carried out the remainder of the term weird near absolute power, normally the power was balanced by there being two consuls who had to agree.
Too bad, when it said play as the crisis i was kind of hoping to be able to start off the game as a fallen empire or some other force with near limitless resources and just go ham on the whole galaxy. If it's an ascension perk that means you already have to have your basic infrastructure, a powerful military, and all that other stuff needed to conquer the galaxy and if i have all that already why would i need the perk?
Question for the experts here: Has there ever been any word from Paradox reg. an overhaul of the fleet combat? This is imho something that really keeps Stellaris from the great Grand-daddy of all 4X games, the ability to properly custom built my fleets and specialize designs.
Custodian turned out to be more powerful fleet-wise, than the Galactic Emperor, as you have not only your fleet capacity and capacity of the united galactic fleet but also your federation fleet capacity. I had around 600 fleet capacity in my Hegemony when I proclaimed the Galactic Imperium and it's gone
I've always viewed the expansion model as the patch is part of the expansion; they give some of the expansion out for free for funsies and because some changes are so integral to the game that you just make future development a nightmare if not everyone has X, Y, and Z. It's a good way of keeping development straightforward, not making the mod community splinter too heavily, and probably helps enable such things as only the host needing the DLC for MP games. With Nemesis, like with Apocalypse before, I feel like a lot of the work went into the sorts of stuff that makes sense to offload into the free patch (it's why they made it 3.0 instead of 2.x), while the actual DLC content is a lot of cool stuff that builds on the patch or runs wild on its own. If you consider 3.0 and Nemesis together, it's definitely $20 worth of improvement. Rather than seeing the situation as "Everyone better buy the expansion or we won't get any more patches", I see it as "buying the expansion subsidizes the work that went into the patch as well as getting you its goodies".
I think I have such an interesting idea... maybe make a nemesis option when you play (for an example) as Earth Custodianship and someone becomes s crisis in the galaxy, you choose to become a crisis, but your only purpose is to save the galaxy from the other one, so you get bonuses against them, and when you take care of them and there are no crisises left to threat the galaxy, your whole faction shuts down as it's purpose was complete, so you're like "the last hope of galaxy"
I just started an Iron Man game as the United Federation of Nations with all current expansion DLC. Really enjoying the new spy network mechanic. I also like the addition of the Industrial districts, they give you both consumer goods and metal alloy
I bought every DLC 4 Stellaris, day it came out, including this one. But I didn't actually play the game since "Relics" DLC came out. Today started the game up. OMG its amazing! I'm so impressed with it. Not sure which features are Nemesis, n which are Federations, but it's incredible. Lov it.
Maybe have more crises? I think a crisis where a jump, or gateway use would randomly send one or a few of your ships to a completely different galaxy where some form of life has completely conquered everything. You only get to see one or two systems but from what you see, there's giants ships that are vastly superior to the ships even fallen empires make. No matter how big your fleets are, they just does not compare to the home fleet they have on any of the systems this extra galactic empire has. It could be that the ships sent there barely return and they warn you of this empire, or maybe they get imprisoned, and you only get to know of the scale of this empire when they send a fleet to defeat you. Maybe have it so that initially, their fleets completely destroy your fleets unless one of the fallen empires takes a liking to you and decide to give you technology that unlocks weapons with overpowered bonuses that specifically destroy the fleets from the invading empire. This scenario can be expanded upon in so many ways. A halo style glassing event could happen on one of your habitable planets and you have to stop them, or evacuate everyone somehow.
I preordered because I love stellaris, and I want to reach the "ground combat rework" that I know will come out in two years maybe :T Now the true question: what would be next?
1st time playing: Pacifist, Egalitarian, Materialist 2 seconds after playing: "In order to ensure the security and continuing stability. the REPUBLIC, will be reorganized...into the FIRST...GALACTIC...EMPIRE! for a safe...and secuuuuuuuuuuure...soceity" *Proceeds to adopt, Authoritarian, Spiritualist, Militaristic*
me and a friend where in talks a few hours ago saying that if we can get one or two more players with us he was going to go down the Nercon route while I went down the Tyranids. The funny part about this is that our friend who may join us wont know whats going on.
Truth be told, I bought it minutes within launch. I watched because I wanna be told I made the right choice. And if Apec had said otherwise, I would still politely disagree.
@@hedition9346 oh hard agree, definitely buying it. but only a small fraction of the player base watches aspec religiously and sink thousands of hours into the game. "normal" players are the group that makes bank, not hardcore fans
@@TheKurtkapan34 of course I agree. Business don't run on small cult of paying customers. I do not expect I will single handedly keep Paradox afloat lol. Players still have to hold them to their quality.
Feature list of the DLC: - Useless espionage system - Lazy new shipset - New ascencion perk with a copy paste dyson sphere, and cubes as ships - Negligible changes to the galactic community (emperor/custodian)
Would be posibble to get some sort of Gasroid or maybe an Spiritoid? Think like an voidmade living being with connection to space with mysterious origins. They could use Voidmotes (think like an gathered space food made out of dust and shadow of sort) and only way to gather is from space and forces to expand more often for cost of not eating anything. maybe can make alternatives with civics such as haunted creatures who possess others or religious version where gets stronger as spread more influence which makes sense for spiritualists since they are spirits. i can imagine spectral looking buildings and ships.
I was playing stellaris once in while but I always got bored with mid to late game, until recently, the game improved a lot and I finally made the decision to buy the expansions, now it feels very rich. I think RP is the strongest point of stellaris right now, which is something that is not obvious at first, and this expansion adds a lot on that front, the game is more than painting the map with your colour right now and this is awesome.
Played my first Nemesis game last night...only neighbor I had was a Fallen Empire, so I wasn’t given the opportunity to spy or the First Contact stuff. It was like moving into a new neighborhood, and the the guy next door just barges in saying “yes, we’re neighbors, here’s a pie, don’t touch my stuff.” and then leaves. Should’ve probably not had my map size set to huge. 😅
The subtext for reducing the galactic council size to one is "I am the Senate". The menacing ship set was a huge letdown for me. They literally just copy and pasted the pirate vessels. Being the galactic crisis and being the sole galactic council member was pretty fun. Until the broken ai rebellion mechanic happened. I literally have 24 robots in a entire empire and the ai rebel on planets that don't even have 1 robotic pop. I think something should be done about that in my opinion.
Thanks for your honest opinion A-Spec, I come back over and over because I feel you give a balanced view even though you clearly are invested in the game. That can be tough. Cheers!
I agree about the Crisis mechanics. What if I just want to do a military galactic conquest and feel like having a couple Genocide Cubes around for when some rebels are annoying me and the Planet Cracker doesn't feel like sufficient catharsis?
I picked it up and so far so good. I do honestly wish they wouldve taken some more time to overhaul the nemesis system to work more like a tree progression system. Naturally, you start at the roots of becoming a crisis by taking some universal first step tech/event/origin (simply becoming powerful enough within a natural game is a good enough reason imo) then after you've made your first step, you start making decisions along the way that change your motives/what you unlock and therefore what kind of crisis you become. As it is now its very one dimensional and unfortunately linear. The funny thing is similar to how you said the custodian position leads to a lot more of a natural tree branch progression based on your choices offering way more replay-ability. Trying to become the Galactic Emperor is like its own Crisis in and of itself just without the huge amount of work that was put into the nemesis system. How much more ironic does it get to do the same thing the wrong and right way within the same update/expansion 🤣
I wouldn't be surprised, and in fact would be impressed, if the simplicity of the Menace tree and the complexity of the Custodian path is deliberate. How many times do we talk about one-dimensional, moustache twirling villians who want to destroy the universe (insert OF COURSE!! meme). On the flipside, you have the multilayered, complex villian playing the long game, extending the hand of friendship with a knife behind his back. The RP potential in Nemesis is insane, and I can't wait for my favourite mods to be updated to make it even better. P.S. The music is dope. Battlestar Galactica meets Stellaris music is so much better than I thought it would be.
I'd swear I saw one of my envoys get a trait today, but I had no way to confirm it. Mousing over a picture on any screen that I can find them on showed nothing
I enjoy the Nemesis features. As a mostly Xenophile player who prefers the soft power mechanics, the Custodian and Imperium, and other changes to the community, feel like great win conditions for where you don’t necessarily want to conquer the whole galaxy. On the other hand, the Espionage system feels bad because it takes away a lot of that passive intel/why empires don’t like you. If the Custodian Team improves Espionage (and for example let’s you do operations on Fallen Empires), it would make the expansion well worth it.
I think the Custodian/Emperor stuff sounds like an awesome addition in theory, but in practice it comes way too late into a playthrough. You can only become the custodian once a crisis emerges, and for me (and I imagine for most players) the crisis marks the end of a playthrough. I have never bothered playing after I've defeated the crisis, and if the galactic empire and all the cool stuff like rebellions only come after that then I probably won't want to play until I've reached that point. I feel the Custodian/Empire stuff should come lot earlier to be more impactful Granted I haven't played the expansion so maybe it plays better than it sounds, maybe one AI empire is guaranteed to go the evil route and trigger the custodian decision early, in that case it would be lot better, but I think I'll sit this one out until it's on sale
Stellaris, a game that began as essentially Star Trek and over time turned more and more into Warhammer 40k and Star Wars
I mean, it could still be Star Trek, but let's be real... Who really wants to play Stellaris as a peaceful federation?
'Space... The final conquest. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission... To discover and subjugate strange new worlds. To advance our dominion and vanquish all who stand against us. To conquer the galaxy for the glory of the empire.'
-Star Trek Continues 'Fairest of them all'
The Warhammer 40k galaxy p much started out like Star Trek and ended up as Warhammer 40k after everything went horribly right
You mean, it got better?
There was always Warhammer there at the start mixed in with lots of other sci-fi.
Hype to finally become the Actual Necrons though
I don't know how I am gonna play as the custodian and not making prequel jokes every 5 seconds
We all have burdens to bear. Do it.
why would you not want to?
*[choose egalitarian]*
I love democracy. I love the Republic.
@@VORASTRA
*2 YEARS LATER...*
_The Republic will reorganize into the first GALACTIC EMPIRE!_
_For a safe and secure society!_
*22 YEARS LATER*
_I've built a planet killer. FOR A SAFE AND SECURE SOCIETY!_
@@bigbangrafa8435 Two years? rather 5 mins. later
Running down the Psionic path and getting the rare event where you make one of your leaders immortal + claiming the throne to form the galactic empire with said leader just all sounds too good for me.
Praise the God-Emperor!
Venerate the Immortal God Emporer
I play with mods and console codes and lets just say my Immortal God-Emperor that leads a superior humanoid Sith race fantasy is very, very happy right now.
The immortal emperor....sounds like vitiate
Pah... Ya week grot-lovin' humies iz no match fer Orkz!
We'ze gonna krump ya good cuz da Orkz iz da best dere iz!
WAAAAGHHH!!!!
I literary tried to make Orks race. It is not perfect as it gave me"bandit kingdom" but it works fine
Due to a typo I became the Galactic Umpire.
Underrated
Now you can say, "Yer Out!"
You sure that was a typo and not on purpose?
@@silverbird425 as opposed to “your fired”
@@ChaddeusPrime Enderrated!
Me, a guy who already both buyed and played nemesis: mmmh, interesting
always fun to see someone praise content you bought already. Recently got stellar is from humble, should I first get all the old dlc or dive right into this one? or is it just preference?
@@DankDungeon I would recommend getting other DLCs first such as Utopia, Federations or Apocalypse, these will make your Nemesis experience way more fun
@@DankDungeonsame dude , I got the bundle with a lot of included content. Only had to buy distant stars , federation and nemesis. There is a website that details each pros and cons of the dlc released. If you want more deals yet gamebillet haven’t had an issue yet and got nemesis for 13 dollars
@@DankDungeon federations costed $9 , idk if you care lol just enjoying talking to people in the community
I bought it last month the day it went on sale
"I will not be stopped, not by you, or the Confederates, or the Protoss or ANYONE! I will rule this sector, or see it burn to ashes around me!"
Figured there would be some Mengsk fans who'd appreciate a change of pace that's still perfectly relevant to the topic.:p
It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy… I love the Galactic Community. The power you give me I will lay down when this Crisis has abated.
literally calls it a ''crisis''
Still peeved that they had a bunch of gorgeous imperial ship set concepts, but decided to go with grey bricks instead.
Gold and white ships would have been great
“Already sprawling stellaris” -Aspec 3:36
Then you should build more administrative buildings.
I buy all the Stellaris DLC.
For me though it's because it adds new toys to my Space Opera simulation. Anything that adds more to this toybox of mine is just something I have to have. I cannot even put into words how long I waited for someone to make a game like Stellaris. The fact that it comes from Paradox is also beyond ironic for me, because I generally do not like Paradox games.
Stellaris is quite literally HFY: The game
(HFY =Humanity, Fuck Yeah)
I can understand only wanting to be the Crisis once. OTOH, all the spy-ops, Custodian/Empire shenanigans added, plus the Imperial set and new art that comes with being the menace itself easily puts it over the top for me. Plus, yes, new music. Stuff that kind of recalls the Franke B5 material, imho.
I paid $20 for the free patch, basically. :P
Actually, that's kind of a lie, the main reason I paid for it is that I realised that the empire concept I wanted to play once the patch hit (a Death Cult) would definitely end up becoming the crisis...
Necrophage infiltration to Crisis? Yes, I will do that at least once.
There might be a problem of replayability for the Crisis, but I'm sure that modders will create alternatives to the Aetherophasic Engine. Maybe The Worm ?
I really appreciated the devs explained why they made the choice to do an in depth single crisis type. Here's hoping it's expanded in the future although I feel this might be a Stellaris 2 kind of deal.
My wish is to have a crisis that doesn't just end the game instantly and is rather similar to the naturally spawning ones where they receive massive bonuses, fleets and dialogue where it's more or less just a huge bar fight between the galaxy and one super power
@@AzureRath97 what's was the explanation they give?
I'm really looking forward to "becoming crisis expanded" or whatever the mods end ups being. Even the relatively limited amount of perks and flavor text hints at such an interesting society, and I can't wait for someone to make a mod that expands on it with more features and alternatives
@@The_New_Bob Well. The other Crisis' do deatroy the galaxy. It's just that this new one has the ability to destroy the stars, instead of the planets only.
For Condarra II, I will buy
FOR CONDARRA II!
What about the drug cartel attack on Potato Prime?
@@KraNisOG What about it?
Mankind Prevails, was allways to me my favorite series, I remember the "we stand alone" mentality, to not surrender even in the most dire of situations and to be de bastion of perceverence. When I thought of nemesis, I remembered that series, to be the Nemesis you do not need to be evil, you need to be against everyone, and I think that the galatic manace missed that, it did not make you a force of caos, but a force of evil. I really hope it gets more flavour, it has so much potencial and so much possible fun.
Mankind Prevails.
@@A_Spec Mankind Prevails.
I mean if you like the idea of destroying the galaxy or going full palpatine then I say go for it
bought it so I could PURGE EVEN MORE XENOS
@@reizyka3044 I like your way of thinking
You missed the chance to say "Do it" at the end.
Patch adds a CG+Alloys district on the ringworlds, 10 out of 10.
I am loving Nemesis so much! It’s so fun, I literally took over half the galaxy while playing about 12 hours straight and I swear I’ve never felt more badass while playing stellaris
I wish the nemesis DLC added the ability for us send volunteer fleets to other empires that are at war with others.
That sounds cool, but it would be pretty upsetting to be on the receiving end of. Imagine you get into a fairly evenly matched, but winnable war, and then the fleet power of the AI randomly doubles. Maybe if it was integrated more into the espionage operations so you could separate them from their allies before going to war, and the cost of said operations scaled down against less powerful empires to make it viable to perform said operations in the early game.
Just do what america does, feed the empire you’re helping supplies under the table with some advice.
This patch is a heaven's blessing for me. For the first time in years, YEARS, on my less than ok pc... I have a fluid game. And this is new soundstrack, I was so immersed with the graphics, the ambiance... Oh boy, I didn't slept at all that night.
Was it worth like 20€ ?
To me, yes. Oh boy yes.
This is the first time I've done a complete playthrough of a paradox game to the victory screen.
“1/2 the galaxy has been destroyed”
That was my on past play through, I have butter fingers
Wow with the way the review was going I was not prepared for you quickly saying at the end that it's on par with Federations. To me that means it's completely awesome. I do see what you're saying about the replayability problem with BTC, but basically, I think I'm going to love this. I've bought it to support them for all the work (especially in the free update), and all the upcoming content they can now build on top of this stuff.
The last time i was this early Aspec was still doing lets plays.
He even uses a facecam and everything recently. He has the perfect streamer setup. Not that stellaris necessarily makes for a good game to stream.
@@peterandersson4243 i know what you mean but i like watching people play as i like the game and its cool ti see how other peoples games go :)
6:06 Don't have to ask me twice. I AM THE SENATE!!!!
So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause.
Saw the title and thought "Too late for me, Stellaris has me and will never let me go, they might as well chain me to a desk with a computer that can only play Stellaris and UA-cam, wouldn't make a difference..."
I will be picking this up for MP games, I still love that Paradox makes it that somebody in the lobby just has to own the DLC for everyone to gain access in the multi-player game.
That and you never know if one of your mates goes mad with power, or becomes the senate.
Isn't it that the host has to have the dlc?
The first few thousand views of this bought it over a month ago. :)
Imagine if you could invade other galaxies after forming the imperium...
Heh that’ll be fucking neat.
I mean... there is the mechanism for spawning new starsystems (precursors, l-cluster)
-decision (edict) that gives a prepariation to invade timer
-spawn a small 200 star galaxy (don't want to burn pc), maybe with a loading screen
-too far for even jump drives to reach normally, but you get a temporary (10/20 years) modifier that increases jump range
-your goal is too get the fleets in, secure beachhead, build gate (maybe a special gate so it doesn't connect to your entire galaxy)
-maybe have the preparation period be a megastructure project that builds an orphan gate in a specific system on the edge of the galaxy and while in the system fleets have more jump range (to get to the other galaxy), then you build a second for the invasion force
@@Kjrov I already see where this is going, and support it 40,000%
@@Kjrov Just so long as one of these demigod-tier individuals doesn't start ranting about star gods and leading half of them in open rebellion against me. Otherwise, daddy's gonna grab the belt.
@@cathulionetharn5139 This turns into Become the Nemesis: Scourge edition, AND III LOVE IIIT
Yes, for love of god, yes. It's wonderful.
The only end for being the Crisis should not be Galactic Destruction. Enslaving or Purging the Galaxy also make perfect sense for a Crisis.
I hope they add those in. My stellar slave empire doesn't want to destroy the galaxy. They want to enslave them. Corpses make terrible slaves
Thank you for your work, but also for your voice and way of talking. I explain: I'm not a native English speaker, and I sometimes struggle to understand fully English speakers -native or not- and here your voice is perfectly understandable for someone who did not learn good enough english.
Hope you'll continue this way for people like me, and as good as you are to present things in a short video.
Take care,
Arthur
You're welcome.
I bought it because it feels very Star Wars. While I bought stellaris at the point of federations being added, as it felt very Star Trek. And this just made me think cool get that and I’ll added some more official flavours, while wondering to myself, I wonder how many of my mods will have been updated to work with the latest patch.
thats why i love this game lol
With Nemesis the start is 200% Star Treck then it either becomes Warhammer or Mass effect then it goes full Star wars mode imo ofc .
Its an interesting expansion. But tbh what i really want is more acension perks. And more TECH, new types of weapons. Maybe an acension path (akin to biological, robot or psionic, but you become like the stargate sg1 lanteans).
I think that the game might be running out of big features/mechanics to add in DLC, in terms of mechanics that can be used by any empire in any playthrough. More stuff like becoming the crisis will most likely be the focus of new DLCs, i.e a religion system that applies mostly to spiritualists
They have yet to add the option to go to other galaxies though
They still have religion, institutions and probably a few event dlcs. I'm sure they could squeeze out some ideas. But it does seem like there aren't as many ideas. I'm not even sure what species pack they could do besides beings made of energy.
Maybe they could do one last addition to the galactic community, some changes to war like an appocolypse dlc, land battles.
How about adding a few more endgame crisis? I can think of one :
Space zombies (like the beast in HW)
@@withnoname31 that would actually be pretty neat! Interesting synergy with necroids too!
Hooooly shit,...hive mind + tree of life is OP now...12+ pop growth (dual like normal pops + robots) from the start...amazing..
Right? Life seeded got a similar buff. The pop system is such a needed game changer :)
@@renaldoawesomesauce1654 nice :) i am at year 2010 and habe 13+ pop growth. Thats amazing
@@gunki8342 xD I'm finishing up my old game right now. Can't wait to play the new dlc soon :))) I have a vampire based vassal empire who forces everyone to join my slave ridden hegemony :D I really wish I had played this one with the Emperor aspect of the new dlc. Might have to do a re-run of it :) The necroid bat looking portrait is perfect for the Vampire Counts xD
Its not that op imo.. More like balance since hive mind need double the amount of mineral for research/dont have trade and cant build robot (they buff trade in 3.0)
@@nicolasbram165 yeah noticed that now too. At least they are really fun now :)
My main consideration on this will really be how well it's picked up and expanded by mods - if it's flexible enough to be modded well, both the crisis and custodian paths offer a lot of new angles for modders to approach the game. I could see this being a must-have expansion for lots of really interesting mods, giving that depth to the replayability that you were concerned on.
I hope by getting a ship set like this, that is kind of a stand alone. We will finally get a ship set for robot and hive mind empires. I have all ways felt they have been lacking in a ship set that reflexes there empires.
Thanks for the informative review! The content looks absolutely awesome but I'm going to wait for a sale and pick it up almost instantly after that. 20$ for this is just a bit too pricey for me atm
5:58 He literally was called a dictator, that's where we got this word from
I don't know about you guys but I already pre-ordered it a long time ago so oh well. Still will watch anyways for Aspec's opinion
I like the idea of becoming your own massive endgame crisis to conquer the galaxy and... idk turn people into snacks. Maybe not the same as the Contingency or intergalactic forces. I also like the Custodian route where you can be the guardian of peace for roleplay options. Maybe add another option to flesh out ways the endgame can go between the crisis' and War in Heaven.
Economy gets an update as well as intelligence gathering, the patch is all nice features. How's the espionage? Competent but could use more expansion or updates.
8:11 Beautiful massive majestic ship models flowing in space, but suddenly the guy on the left starts turning on a dime and the whole immersion is ruined, now all the ships look like cheap plastic miniatures.
Why paradox! Why?! 😭
The aetherophasic engine looks like they forgot to replace the placeholder with the actual model.
I see what you say when you say you worry about replay-ability with the crisis. Id argue that yes it might be true IF every game you chose that. But we have the ability to choose our own game. The fact its on the table as a possibility is more than enough. So i say no thats not an issue.
I bought it. Ill dive in after i watch an episode of B5. WOW im old. Dear god.
Yo, B5 is awesome.
@@aurorajones8481 Stellaris is grand.
B5 is eternal.
I was gifted the expansion and looking forward to having fun with it. I will say, the #1 thing I wish most Stellaris main expansions had... were more events that tie into everything else in the expansion, either thematically or mechanically. As much as I like getting the perk of Orbital Speed Demon, I wish for more different things.
I was at work and I get an email saying my wife gifted it to me. ❤️
1:05 It's Stellaris... how can you NOT look at this expansion in a vacuum? o_0
"I am the final crisis"
-Aspec
regarding the replayability: does the AI use the new crisis / custodian mechanics? Because if not, then yes, very little replay value...
The Ai will form the galactic empire and will be the crisis based on which line the player goes down. If the player is a custodian then an ai may become the crisis.
@@vladthelad7508 so, the empire thing will only happen when the player goes crisis? Meaning, you can't play in a galactic community with an AI custodian and then playing the rebellion against them when they go power mad? :/
@@h3adban60r I am not entirely sure, in my play through ad the crisis you either win and end the galaxy or lose and die. When I played normally the ai formed the empire after the crisis was defeated. As the crisis they just have an all out galactic war so in that scenario no but maybe if you had a friend and you played as the crisis and lost you could see what happens.
@@h3adban60r you can rebel with an ai emperor
@@vladthelad7508 I see. Thank you
If they do perform a complex overhaul of the Leader system it could be interesting to see leaders be able to take on several different roles throughout their lifetimes and have a leader's experience in one field improve their performance in another. What I'm thinking is a system where leaders exist in one giant pool rather than several smaller ones and have different randomized stats in several categories that define what they are originally good at. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking the categories would be something like "research, exploration, diplomacy, spycraft, administration" as well as categories relating to being an admiral or a general. Each new leader would have a level in each stat 1-3 which would dictate which position they would be most qualified for (i.e. someone with high exploration would be good on a science ship, someone with high administration would be good as a governor of a sector). As a leader spends more time in a certain role, they level up their stat relating to that role, which makes them better at filling that role, just like how the game currently is. However, a leader can be moved from one role to another, and high stats in one role give bonuses to another role. For example, a high-level spycraft former envoy as a governor would make it more difficult for another empire to establish a spy network in their sector. A former governor turned spy master would be more efficient at disrupting the ongoings within sectors of an enemy empire. An admiral who spent a long time as the leader of a science ship has a better sensor range and can see down an extra hyperlane and an admiral who led a research division for a long time regenerates shields faster or does more energy. A governor turned admiral could do less planetary devastation during orbital bombardment while still damaging ground forces due to his experience-based knowledge of the layout of cities or could have reduced upkeep of his fleet due to his experience maintaining the infrastructure of a planet while managing a budget. It could also get really powerful or interesting bonuses when a stat gets maxed to level 10. An Admiral with level 10 in spycraft and exploration could be only visible to enemies at a senor range of one due to his experience with sensors as the leader of an exploration vessel and subterfuge as the leader of a surveillance network.
Sounds good but I'll wait for the sale.
What they need to add is some sort of empire legislatures. Like in real life I highly doubt that some person would just be elected with absolute power, no?
As weird as it is, I’m pretty sure thats how the Roman ‘Dictator’ worked during the republic, if at any time the two consuls either died or were unable to lead, they elected a dictator who carried out the remainder of the term weird near absolute power, normally the power was balanced by there being two consuls who had to agree.
Thats how the Roman Republic worked. They could vote in dictators for life.
Too bad, when it said play as the crisis i was kind of hoping to be able to start off the game as a fallen empire or some other force with near limitless resources and just go ham on the whole galaxy. If it's an ascension perk that means you already have to have your basic infrastructure, a powerful military, and all that other stuff needed to conquer the galaxy and if i have all that already why would i need the perk?
One of my Envoys did earn a trait after a successful "incident." I have no idea what it is or what it did but it did happen.
Question for the experts here: Has there ever been any word from Paradox reg. an overhaul of the fleet combat? This is imho something that really keeps Stellaris from the great Grand-daddy of all 4X games, the ability to properly custom built my fleets and specialize designs.
i'm so ready to play as weyland-yutani
Custodian turned out to be more powerful fleet-wise, than the Galactic Emperor, as you have not only your fleet capacity and capacity of the united galactic fleet but also your federation fleet capacity. I had around 600 fleet capacity in my Hegemony when I proclaimed the Galactic Imperium and it's gone
I've always viewed the expansion model as the patch is part of the expansion; they give some of the expansion out for free for funsies and because some changes are so integral to the game that you just make future development a nightmare if not everyone has X, Y, and Z. It's a good way of keeping development straightforward, not making the mod community splinter too heavily, and probably helps enable such things as only the host needing the DLC for MP games.
With Nemesis, like with Apocalypse before, I feel like a lot of the work went into the sorts of stuff that makes sense to offload into the free patch (it's why they made it 3.0 instead of 2.x), while the actual DLC content is a lot of cool stuff that builds on the patch or runs wild on its own. If you consider 3.0 and Nemesis together, it's definitely $20 worth of improvement. Rather than seeing the situation as "Everyone better buy the expansion or we won't get any more patches", I see it as "buying the expansion subsidizes the work that went into the patch as well as getting you its goodies".
Thanks for the review, always love that you are so neutral even though you seem to be in close contact with the devs at times.
I think I have such an interesting idea... maybe make a nemesis option when you play (for an example) as Earth Custodianship and someone becomes s crisis in the galaxy, you choose to become a crisis, but your only purpose is to save the galaxy from the other one, so you get bonuses against them, and when you take care of them and there are no crisises left to threat the galaxy, your whole faction shuts down as it's purpose was complete, so you're like "the last hope of galaxy"
Wait is that a new shipset at 9:48 ? It looks like a dark sided version of fallen empire ships. That would be freaking badass
I just started an Iron Man game as the United Federation of Nations with all current expansion DLC. Really enjoying the new spy network mechanic. I also like the addition of the Industrial districts, they give you both consumer goods and metal alloy
I bought it and I'm enjoying it, plus you get the imperial ship set which look awesome
Paradox: You can destroy the galaxy with this overpriced DLC!
Gigastructures: The same but for free.
I bought every DLC 4 Stellaris, day it came out, including this one. But I didn't actually play the game since "Relics" DLC came out. Today started the game up. OMG its amazing! I'm so impressed with it. Not sure which features are Nemesis, n which are Federations, but it's incredible. Lov it.
Maybe have more crises?
I think a crisis where a jump, or gateway use would randomly send one or a few of your ships to a completely different galaxy where some form of life has completely conquered everything. You only get to see one or two systems but from what you see, there's giants ships that are vastly superior to the ships even fallen empires make. No matter how big your fleets are, they just does not compare to the home fleet they have on any of the systems this extra galactic empire has.
It could be that the ships sent there barely return and they warn you of this empire, or maybe they get imprisoned, and you only get to know of the scale of this empire when they send a fleet to defeat you.
Maybe have it so that initially, their fleets completely destroy your fleets unless one of the fallen empires takes a liking to you and decide to give you technology that unlocks weapons with overpowered bonuses that specifically destroy the fleets from the invading empire. This scenario can be expanded upon in so many ways. A halo style glassing event could happen on one of your habitable planets and you have to stop them, or evacuate everyone somehow.
I preordered because I love stellaris, and I want to reach the "ground combat rework" that I know will come out in two years maybe :T
Now the true question: what would be next?
My favorite QOL feature is the ability to turn on automated research
When finishing the crisis path:
"I will unleash the pah-wraiths!"
It's that Picard move that no one talks about? Cool!
1st time playing:
Pacifist, Egalitarian, Materialist
2 seconds after playing:
"In order to ensure the security and continuing stability. the REPUBLIC, will be reorganized...into the FIRST...GALACTIC...EMPIRE! for a safe...and secuuuuuuuuuuure...soceity"
*Proceeds to adopt, Authoritarian, Spiritualist, Militaristic*
me and a friend where in talks a few hours ago saying that if we can get one or two more players with us he was going to go down the Nercon route while I went down the Tyranids.
The funny part about this is that our friend who may join us wont know whats going on.
6:07 "you can add your prequel memes here" don't mind if I do
6:06 "that's...good news"
Sure, but what about the gang wars on Potato Prime?
@@A_Spec this couuld be the new "what about the droid attacks on the wookies" lol
Aspec should have just made this a 3 second video saying "Yes"
did you watch the end tho? it looks great, but it is certainly not something you must have when you buy the base game for the first time.
Truth be told, I bought it minutes within launch.
I watched because I wanna be told I made the right choice.
And if Apec had said otherwise, I would still politely disagree.
@@hedition9346 oh hard agree, definitely buying it. but only a small fraction of the player base watches aspec religiously and sink thousands of hours into the game. "normal" players are the group that makes bank, not hardcore fans
@@TheKurtkapan34 of course I agree. Business don't run on small cult of paying customers. I do not expect I will single handedly keep Paradox afloat lol. Players still have to hold them to their quality.
Finally. Have been waiting for this before I buy it... And I actually will buy it now, thanks for the review!
Sorry what did you say? I too busy buying nemesis
I would need 10 lifetimes to play all Stellaris scenarios I would like to try.
Feature list of the DLC:
- Useless espionage system
- Lazy new shipset
- New ascencion perk with a copy paste dyson sphere, and cubes as ships
- Negligible changes to the galactic community (emperor/custodian)
I'm looking at espionage actions... and... where the f*** is 'Assassinate a leader'?
Here i was wanting them to add in a stealth ship that acted like the science ship to the game that needed an envoy to go around causing havoc
Thank you Aspec, I think I will wait for the next sale before purchasing it.
Would be posibble to get some sort of Gasroid or maybe an Spiritoid? Think like an voidmade living being with connection to space with mysterious origins. They could use Voidmotes (think like an gathered space food made out of dust and shadow of sort) and only way to gather is from space and forces to expand more often for cost of not eating anything. maybe can make alternatives with civics such as haunted creatures who possess others or religious version where gets stronger as spread more influence which makes sense for spiritualists since they are spirits. i can imagine spectral looking buildings and ships.
I was playing stellaris once in while but I always got bored with mid to late game, until recently, the game improved a lot and I finally made the decision to buy the expansions, now it feels very rich. I think RP is the strongest point of stellaris right now, which is something that is not obvious at first, and this expansion adds a lot on that front, the game is more than painting the map with your colour right now and this is awesome.
Played my first Nemesis game last night...only neighbor I had was a Fallen Empire, so I wasn’t given the opportunity to spy or the First Contact stuff. It was like moving into a new neighborhood, and the the guy next door just barges in saying “yes, we’re neighbors, here’s a pie, don’t touch my stuff.” and then leaves.
Should’ve probably not had my map size set to huge. 😅
The subtext for reducing the galactic council size to one is "I am the Senate". The menacing ship set was a huge letdown for me. They literally just copy and pasted the pirate vessels. Being the galactic crisis and being the sole galactic council member was pretty fun. Until the broken ai rebellion mechanic happened. I literally have 24 robots in a entire empire and the ai rebel on planets that don't even have 1 robotic pop. I think something should be done about that in my opinion.
Thanks for your honest opinion A-Spec, I come back over and over because I feel you give a balanced view even though you clearly are invested in the game. That can be tough.
Cheers!
No problem
I agree about the Crisis mechanics. What if I just want to do a military galactic conquest and feel like having a couple Genocide Cubes around for when some rebels are annoying me and the Planet Cracker doesn't feel like sufficient catharsis?
I hope a future content has that center of the galaxy open up for some fun....
I picked it up and so far so good. I do honestly wish they wouldve taken some more time to overhaul the nemesis system to work more like a tree progression system.
Naturally, you start at the roots of becoming a crisis by taking some universal first step tech/event/origin (simply becoming powerful enough within a natural game is a good enough reason imo) then after you've made your first step, you start making decisions along the way that change your motives/what you unlock and therefore what kind of crisis you become.
As it is now its very one dimensional and unfortunately linear. The funny thing is similar to how you said the custodian position leads to a lot more of a natural tree branch progression based on your choices offering way more replay-ability. Trying to become the Galactic Emperor is like its own Crisis in and of itself just without the huge amount of work that was put into the nemesis system. How much more ironic does it get to do the same thing the wrong and right way within the same update/expansion 🤣
1:01 actually the main question is "is it worth my money"
Liking the new update so far but I hate the new building/pop mechanics tho its really ruining the experience for me.
same here
Aspec hit on it, "With new expansions, come new patches"; if we want more content, we should continue to support the company as we have all along.
I wouldn't be surprised, and in fact would be impressed, if the simplicity of the Menace tree and the complexity of the Custodian path is deliberate.
How many times do we talk about one-dimensional, moustache twirling villians who want to destroy the universe (insert OF COURSE!! meme). On the flipside, you have the multilayered, complex villian playing the long game, extending the hand of friendship with a knife behind his back.
The RP potential in Nemesis is insane, and I can't wait for my favourite mods to be updated to make it even better.
P.S. The music is dope. Battlestar Galactica meets Stellaris music is so much better than I thought it would be.
Die hard fan : Well most us pre-order this already aspects.....
I'd swear I saw one of my envoys get a trait today, but I had no way to confirm it. Mousing over a picture on any screen that I can find them on showed nothing
I enjoy the Nemesis features. As a mostly Xenophile player who prefers the soft power mechanics, the Custodian and Imperium, and other changes to the community, feel like great win conditions for where you don’t necessarily want to conquer the whole galaxy. On the other hand, the Espionage system feels bad because it takes away a lot of that passive intel/why empires don’t like you. If the Custodian Team improves Espionage (and for example let’s you do operations on Fallen Empires), it would make the expansion well worth it.
I think the Custodian/Emperor stuff sounds like an awesome addition in theory, but in practice it comes way too late into a playthrough. You can only become the custodian once a crisis emerges, and for me (and I imagine for most players) the crisis marks the end of a playthrough. I have never bothered playing after I've defeated the crisis, and if the galactic empire and all the cool stuff like rebellions only come after that then I probably won't want to play until I've reached that point. I feel the Custodian/Empire stuff should come lot earlier to be more impactful
Granted I haven't played the expansion so maybe it plays better than it sounds, maybe one AI empire is guaranteed to go the evil route and trigger the custodian decision early, in that case it would be lot better, but I think I'll sit this one out until it's on sale
An issue with the espionage mechanic though is still how slow it charges. It is just too slow to undermine an empire that is a threat to you.
I would actually like a live news feed like the trailer has.