This game is bad. It is really, really bad. I played it for like 40 hours or something, and I literally physically cannot play it any longer, after seeing my federation member try to merge a federation fleet, with a non-federation fleet, ad infinitum. This cannot be done.
There are so many holes in this game, I am gonna start calling it 'swiss cheese' instead of Stellaris.
The diplomacy system is worse than galciv's which it ripped off.
Space battles are worse than even... I don't even know. Tetris?
No random events. Anomalies are pretty much all similar and there's like... 6 different ones.
The galaxy is ... eh, not really big, but not really small either.
Why the hell does something have to be inside my influence sphere before I can put mines and stuff on it? Didn't galciv do the same thing? That's the stupidest mechanic ever.
If you are going to make me spend influence to build specific stuff, then make me spend influence for building everything, otherwise it makes no sense. What, I have to bribe some dude to build a fleet academy? What the blyat?
You can get boxed in. I got boxed in. But the AI is too stupid to understand this, and won't attack my weakling allies.
The AI will never give you military access or research agreement.
Research is dumb. At best you can pick out of 4, and the late-game ones are so expensive it takes a billion years to complete them.
The game is horribly optimized, but at least it doesn't crash.
What is the point of the heir system, if I can't change my damn heir? Like, there's literally no point to it.
Alliances suck. They all have to like what you are doing and vote yes, but are too mentally retarded to understand the benefits of starting wars or inviting others into the alliance.
Federations are even worse. Everyone takes turns being the leader, and then horribly fail when they try to merge federation fleets with non-federation fleets.
The Warscore system. Oh god. Epic fail. Stupider than ever before. And if you hit 'suggest demands' your allies all start picking crap, that puts the Warscore above 100, which cannot be done. And even when you satisfy all your allies, so they vote yes, you end up being able to maybe get one planet. And then you have to wait 10 years before you can get another one. Really?
Thanks, Paradox. You are still as bad as ever.