Stellaris News

Stellaris: Necroids Species Pack announced, huge Paradox sale going on

Paradox are set to return to my favourite grand strategy game, with the announcement of a brand new DLC coming to Stellaris with the Stellaris: Necroids Species Pack.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/09/stellaris-necroids-species-pack-announced-huge-paradox-sale-going-on

Stellaris Dev Diary 185 - Announcing Necroids

Hello everyone!

Today we bring you some exciting news about our upcoming Species Pack! We’re happy to announce that our next species pack will be themed around death and should allow you to live death to the fullest! Check out the trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WbgYFvb5I&feature=emb_title

Necroids will feature:

15+1 new portraits (the +1 being machine)
1 new Ship Set
1 new City Set
1 new Room background
1 new Origin
3 new Civics
1 new pre-scripted Empire
1 new Advisor Voice

We wanted to add ships that had a more sinister or evil appearance, and I’m very happy to say we’ve made something really great. We’ll go into more detail about the ships, and give you a peek into the art process, in a future dev diary.

True to the theme, we wanted the portraits to revolve around death, but not look outright undead or decaying. We never intended the Necroids to be specifically undead, but rather themed around death. Similar to the ships, we will be doing a dev diary in the future to give you a peek into the art process, and also reveal all the new portraits. Stay tuned!

Regarding the other features, we have already shown you some of them, such as the Death Cult Civic and the Memorialist Civic. The remaining features will be revealed over the next couple of weeks, and maybe you'll even get to learn about Jeff. But for now, let’s pass the Mishar Cabal into our memories.

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General Donnten threw her bloodied axe next to Ostiir’s severed head. The others in the Leadership Council would remember this the next time they considered interrupting her in the Mishar Althing.

She pushed past the acolytes that were coming to deal with the corpse. They were annoyed - the rites were always harder if the head was removed - but they would just have to stitch it back together.

Smiling to herself, she left the arena. At least Ostiir would be an obedient little soldier now.

Stellaris is getting corporate death cults

Any empire worth having requires great sacrifice, and sometimes that sacrifice must be great, for the good of all. The latest update for Stellaris adds death cults to the strategy game, allowing all your subjects thoroughly prove their loyalty.

Per the announcement on Steam, cults come in two flavours: regular, and corporate. The former is religious, having initiates dedicate themselves to a decade of fervent study before voluntary death that generates societal bonuses. As you might have guessed, the latter's all about stone cold profit - continuous sacrifice is believed to bring good fortune, resulting in, well, good fortune.

Inspired by the Sunset Invasion expansion for Crusader Kings 2, which brought human sacrifice by way of the Aztecs, developer Paradox Development Studio wants to continue its "exploration of mortality" with this content in the space game. "Death Cults that have Mortal Initiate positions filled gain access to three new Sacrifice Edicts that let them perform the ritual slaughter to the gods (or whatever force your empire's pops believe in)," read the post. "They're a bit fickle though, and the magnitude of the benefits varies, but the more blood that is shed, the more likely you are to get the better blessings."

Read the rest of the story...

Stellaris Dev Diary #184 : Fwd: Notice of Termination

Congratulations, [Employee.GetFirstName]!

Due to consistently meeting or exceeding performance goals and receiving high marks from both your manager and colleagues, you have been selected for termination at the end of this quarter! Your sacrifice is greatly appreciated by all of us here at Dodacorp™, and we’re lucky to see you go!

Your manager will be in touch with you to provide instructions related to termination benefits, reallocating your Dodacorp™ retirement credits to your next of kin, and the necessary paperwork for your desired post-termination arrangements. As a valued member of Dodacorp™, remember that you have an employee discount on cremation services from our partners at Burnatech™ and don’t forget that you can claim your complementary Eternal Interment™ urn from our Repositrexx™ subsidiary.

Ask your manager about securing a spot for your urn on the Wall of Honor™, the most desirable places are going fast!

Please make sure to complete all of the requisite forms by the first of [Employee.TerminationDate.PreviousMonth] so you don’t miss this exciting opportunity.

We’d like to thank you again for your service here at Dodacorp™, and appreciate that your sacrifice today will lead to record profits tomorrow!

Sincerely,
[Employee.Division.Supervisor.GetFullName]
[Employee.Division.Supervisor.GetFullJobTitle]

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Inspired by the extreme popularity of CK2’s Sunset Invasion, we continue our exploration of mortality with two more civics that we’re planning for an upcoming release, the Death Cult and Corporate Death Cult.

Death Cult civic - sadly the Curators aren’t allowed to secretly be a death cult

Corporate Death Cult civic - ritual murder for funds and prophet

Available to Spiritualist empires, empires with either of these civics replace the Temples that Spiritualists can normally build with Sacrificial Temples that provide both Death Priest and Mortal Initiate jobs.

Sacrificial Temple building - funny how there always seems to be a Help Wanted sign in the window

Death Priest job - dedicated to improving game performance

Mortal Initiate job - the benefits are to die for

Death Cults that have Mortal Initiate positions filled gain access to three new Sacrifice Edicts that let them perform the ritual slaughter to the gods (or whatever force your empire’s pops believe in). They’re a bit fickle though, and the magnitude of the benefits varies, but the more blood that is shed, the more likely you are to get the better blessings.

To read the full forum post, follow the link here.

The Best Stellaris DLC

Paradox's take on the space 4X genre is slowly growing its DLC offering. It'll still take a few years to grow to the size of the studio's other games like Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II, but after three years there is enough of it that frugal gamers may still need some help picking through the options.

We've sent our science ships to scan each add-on for value and return with their results, so come check out our breakdown of all of the add-ons and expansions released to date, what they're good for, and whether they're worth picking up.

Strategy Gamer is affiliated with the Paradox Store.

The Best Stellaris DLC

In order from most essential to least...

* = All of these are $20-tiered expansions which feels a little steep considering the feature sets are quite lean. There's an argument to be made that you're subsidising all of the work that's gone into the free patch, but as a 'Value for Money' PSA, might be worth waiting until these are on sale.

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