This game is fun. Great, even. There simply isn't any game out there like Stellaris and I will continue to both play and enjoy this game. I, however, have a hard time being able to ever recommend this game when taking into consideration the Paradox™ Business Model of having everything locked behind a paywall to the point that everything costs an absurd amount of money for the complete game, as well as the fact that *so many* features of this game are simply lackluster to say the least even WITH the Expansion Packs and DLCs.

The modding community for this game is AMAZING and through tremendous effort have managed to put a band aid over them, but these features are simply under-baked at a fundamental level.

Diplomacy has always been a hassle to deal with, with arbitrary restrictions that only serve to undermine it further. As opposed to simply invading another empire to enforce whatever it is that you need be it territory or an ally since the only way the game can muster difficulty is by having the randomly created empires have the ethics opposed to that of the player empire. This means that past a certain date, all that's left of the galaxy is one or, at most, two power blocs of one or two independent empires and more than 4 vassals. No federations, just power blocs of empires with no independence.
Planetary Invasions have effectively remained *completely* unchanged since this game's release and simply offer no weight. These are *planet-wide invasions* and yet the only actions the player can take are just to either bomb the planet until it surrenders or press two buttons and land an army with no further interaction until victory is achieved.
The Spy Network is, on paper, a fantastic idea. This however lacks the depth one would expect from espionage and other forms of an information war. The only interaction the player can ever have is assigning an Envoy, starting the operations and the only way to increase your empire's abilities for such is, primarily, simply through research and maybe some edicts and traditions.
And that's just to name a few.

On the surface, Stellaris appears to have a TON of content with incredible depth, but only upon actually getting your hands on the game do you realize that all this game has to offer are mere puddles. It's simply one of those games where you NEED to download mods and there's no other way around it

This game is fun. Great, even. There simply isn't any game out there like Stellaris and I will continue to both play and enjoy this game. I, however, have a hard time being able to ever recommend this game when taking into consideration the Paradox™ Business Model of having everything locked behind a paywall to the point that everything costs an absurd amount of money for the complete game, as well as the fact that *so many* features of this game are simply lackluster to say the least even WITH the Expansion Packs and DLCs. The modding community for this game is AMAZING and through tremendous effort have managed to put a band aid over them, but these features are simply under-baked at a fundamental level. Diplomacy has always been a hassle to deal with, with arbitrary restrictions that only serve to undermine it further. As opposed to simply invading another empire to enforce whatever it is that you need be it territory or an ally since the only way the game can muster difficulty is by having the randomly created empires have the ethics opposed to that of the player empire. This means that past a certain date, all that's left of the galaxy is one or, at most, two power blocs of one or two independent empires and more than 4 vassals. No federations, just power blocs of empires with no independence. Planetary Invasions have effectively remained *completely* unchanged since this game's release and simply offer no weight. These are *planet-wide invasions* and yet the only actions the player can take are just to either bomb the planet until it surrenders or press two buttons and land an army with no further interaction until victory is achieved. The Spy Network is, on paper, a fantastic idea. This however lacks the depth one would expect from espionage and other forms of an information war. The only interaction the player can ever have is assigning an Envoy, starting the operations and the only way to increase your empire's abilities for such is, primarily, simply through research and maybe some edicts and traditions. And that's just to name a few. On the surface, Stellaris appears to have a TON of content with incredible depth, but only upon actually getting your hands on the game do you realize that all this game has to offer are mere puddles. It's simply one of those games where you NEED to download mods and there's no other way around it