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This is the fifth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Stellaris. See the previous reviews here:
Stellaris: Paradox Among the Stars
Leviathans: There Be Dragons Here!
Utopia: No Place Among the Stars
Synthetic Dawn: Synthetic Intelligence

The second major expansion for Stellaris was announced on Jan 1, 2018, and came out on Feb 22. It continued the idea of large projects from Utopia, and the accompanying patch 2.0 was a major rewrite of the basic game.

This is the patch that I initially played the game, and so 2.0 is the version I generally referred to in the original review, and this one will still be primarily concerned with new features. But it is worth noting that the list of major changes in patch 2.0 is practically longer than this review. I’m also noting all the things the expansion currently unlocks, including things like origins, which did not exist at the time of release.

Marauders

A noticeable expansion feature carries on from the fallen empires of the base game, and the stations from Leviathans. A new type of advanced pocket empire can spawn as part of the setup of the galaxy. These marauders are about the size of a fallen empire, and start with many powerful fleets.

Most of the time they are quiescent like the fallen empires, but do take a much more active role. They have a highly violent militarized society, and will regularly extort resources from their neighbors. Not paying up means they send those big fleets after you and shoot up the neighborhood. At the same time, they can also be hired as mercenaries, either loaning a fleet to a regular power, the services of a high-skill admiral, or hired as ‘raiders’ who will target another empire (who is presumably currently at peace with you).

The good news is while much more powerful than an early player empire, they are a long ways down from a fallen empire, and as the game moves into the later stages, regular empires become much more powerful than they are. But they are a real force to recon with through the mid game, and their mid-game crisis event is a good shakeup to the game.

Bigger Ships

The expansion enables two new ship classes. The easier one to get at are titans, large capital ships with their own limit on construction (instead of the ‘pool’ used by all corvettes, destroyers, etc.). Like with the regular ships, getting access to this size requires researching a technology.

However, once that is done, a shipyard starbase requires a special module before construction can be started, so there is a lead time to being able to build them (which of course takes a while) after getting the technology. Once you have the technology, you can always build one titan, the limit goes up from there depending on the empire’s overall naval capacity.

The second new class are colossi, even bigger ships that can only be gotten at by having titans and taking an ascension perk to enable them. They also require a starbase module at a shipyard to build, and have a much harder limit on construction (generally, one).

They also only have a single weapon slot (type “W”) as opposed to titans, which are essentially battleships writ large. These do one thing: destroy planets (or something equivalent). The main version just puts an impenetrable shield on the planet, making it effectively dead, but with a society research bonus, while the world cracker will destroy it, leaving a mineral deposit. There’s another three more specialized variants, plus two more available in combination with other expansions.

A third addition is actually the ion cannon, a special type of defense platform that can be built at starbases (but only at the most advanced, “citadel” type). They eat a number of platform ‘slots’, and have relatively high upkeep, but have the basic type “T” weapon of a titan, and can destroy most ships at extreme range.

Both of the ships are space opera ideas, and pretty much straight out of Star Wars, with the titans being Executor-class star destroyers, and colossi the Death Star. Even titans can be a pain to get to, but despite some tries at giving smaller ships their own things to do, big ships generally dominate everything else in combat, so building titans is always worth going after. I’ve never gotten to using a colossus, since I’m generally content to defeat someone militarily. Though some planets have an amazing number of ground forces….

New Knick-Knacks

There is one new civic available with the expansion: barbaric despoilers. This can’t be removed later, and demands militarist, authoritarian, or xenophobic ethics. It unlocks a couple of fairly marginal effects, but prohibits migration treaties and some federation types.

Two new origins are unlocked by Apocalypse: life-seeded and post-apocalyptic. The former indicates a species was “seeded” there some time in the distant past, and means they start out on a max-size Gaia world with features to generate the three main strategic resources. The latter merely means the empire starts on a tomb world, and there are a few civics they can’t have. It also means they have the survivor origin species trait that grants good tomb world compatibility (but does not give them a tomb world preference), and adds to leader lifespan.

Humanoids

Humanoids is a species pack to add extra variety to humanoid aliens, featuring new portraits, city art, and ship models. Originally released when species packs were mostly just extra art assets, it has since become a fairly extensive package of new civics, origins, and other traits. It was originally released on December 7, 2017, with patch 1.9.

It includes a new preset empire, the Voor Technocracy. They’re a materialist authoritarian science directorate from an arctic world. They have a good mix of species traits (quick learners, talented, adaptive, and repugnant), but don’t actually use anything specific to the expansion (most of which was added later anyway).

The clone army origin gives an empire whose population is… well, warrior clones, whose original masters have disappeared. They start with cloning technology, and get an archaeological site on their homeworld. The population all get the clone soldier trait, which gives them shorter lifespans, and only reproduce through cloning. They do get a bonus to ground combat, and the trait may be replaced with one of a pair of enhanced versions (clone soldier ascendant/clone soldier descendant).

Three new civics are included. Pompous purists is a xenophobic civic that helps with establishing diplomatic relations, but can only initiate interactions, and cannot receive them. Pleasure seekers can increase population growth and amenities, while allowing the decadent lifestyle living standard (extra upkeep in return for happiness and trade value). Masterful crafters replace artisans with artificers to generate more consumer goods and trade value. With MegaCorp, the last two can be used as the corporate civics corporate hedonism and Mastercraft Inc.

Two new negative species traits are included: psychological infertility is the opposite of existential iteropathy (available in the base game) and lowers population growth during wars and crises. Jinxed increases the maximum number of negative traits a leader can have (a concept not introduced until 3.8 and Galactic Paragons).

These are all secondary, or specialized traits and the like, but it is a large collection, and I recommend getting Humanoids on the strength of all the new options. The original point, art assets, are just an extra bonus.

Conclusion

Under older models of development, patch 2.0 would have been Stellaris II. A lot of the basic underpinnings of the game changed, more than any old, large, expansion would have bothered with. There are people out there who miss the 1.x version of the game, and I can’t speak to that, as I haven’t really played that version. From what I’ve seen, I think the original version was a bit too ambitious, trying to borrow mechanics from every other space 4X game. 2.0 went to an easier to work with system for warfare, and a lot of the changes hang off of that.

In the meantime, the expansion features seem small in comparison, especially as it is supposed to be a major expansion, but it doesn’t add much in the way of new mechanics. But the marauders and titans are really good additions, and I recommend the expansion on their strength.