Stellaris

INTRO:

Before this expansion, there have been slavery, machine-domination, species genocides, and even extra-dimensional dooming in Stellaris – but not weapons of mass destruction and atrocities worse than indiscriminate orbital bombardment. With Apocalypse, players can fulfil their (fictionally) hideous fantasies of (fictionally) causing (fictional) deaths of many (not-real) sapient lives.

Unfortunately, this expansion also turns the spotlight on some of the worst and persistent shortfalls in the designs of Stellaris, despite the significant revamps of the Cherryh update.

POST-APOCALYPTIC CIVIC:

There are two civics that Apocalypse introduces, which affect the starting world of a civilization.

The first of these is the eponymous Post-Apocalyptic civic. This one automatically grants the Survivor trait, which increases the primary species’ habitability rating on Tomb-Worlds by 70%. This is in addition to any basic climate preference that the primary species has. This in turn means that the civilization with this civic has the advantage of being able to colonize Tomb-Worlds outright, in addition to any worlds within their default preference.

This is not the same as Tomb-World climate preference, which cannot be had by any civilization-associated species. In the base game, only pre-FTL or pre-sapient species can have this preference (which makes them uncomfortable living on any other kind of habitable planet, except Gaia worlds).

Conveniently, the Survivor trait also (somehow) increases the life-span of the species by ten years.

(Incidentally, the Determined Exterminators in Synthetic Dawn content also starts with a Tomb World, but this is a moot point because they are already machines and no organics are expected to live in their civilizations.)

Overall, this civic is very good for players who want a civilization that has a deterrent against early-game invasions. After all, there are few other civilizations that would want Tomb Worlds. In other words, this Civic offers an “easy mode” for starting a playthrough with.

LIFE-SEEDED CIVIC – ALSO KNOWN AS HARD MODE:

Conversely, there is the Life-Seeded civic, which grants a 25-tile Gaia world as a homeworld for the civilization. This comes at the cost of making the primary species only capable of living on Gaia worlds (as well as Habitats and Ringworlds), which is a terrible handicap. The Gaia world is a juicy prize for just about any other civilization. Not being able to gain other colonies easily means that the civilization would have a hard time obtaining the economy to maintain defences.

Some successful playthroughs with this civic orient around grinding out Unity as fast as possible, with the target of attaining the World Shaper perk, or the Voidborne or Galactic Wonders perks, if Utopia content is enabled. Even so, utilizing such perks often requires tremendous resources that the Gaia world might not be able to provide.

Ultimately though, the less scrupulous players would just resort to getting other species integrated into the civilization, or getting machines as soon as possible. This compensates for the handicap of the primary species. On the other hand, this defeats the purpose of using the Life-Seeded civic for a playthrough with a hard handicap.

BARBARIC DESPOILERS:

The Barbaric Despoiler is another Civic that provides different gameplay experiences throughout a playthrough, albeit not to the extremes of the genocidal civilizations or the special machine ones. Other civilizations dislike Barbaric Despoilers, but not as much as the genocidal civilizations.

Barbaric Despoilers cannot have migration treaties and can never join federations or even have association status with federations. Otherwise, they have the rest of the usual diplomatic options for dealing with other civilizations – which do help in avoiding gang-ups on them.

The main gimmick of the Barbaric Despoiler is that it has the expansion’s additional “bombardment” stance by default. Its other gimmick is the Despoilation casus belli, which it can always use on any of its immediate neighbours and which is unique to Barbaric Despoilers only. As a justification for war, Despoilation applies a relatively small bump to the threshold for claiming victory, compared to even Animosity.

If the Barbaric Despoiler is victorious, it gains considerable Minerals and Energy, more if the loser has more colonies. These resources are taken from the loser’s account, which makes things worse. Interestingly, even if the loser cannot afford the loss, the Barbaric Despoiler is paid the promised amount anyway.

This gives the Barbaric Despoiler an option for an economic advantage, if it is strong enough to bully its neighbours. The neighbours are, of course, likely to be very hostile to the Barbaric Despoiler.

RAIDING:

The Raiding “bombardment” stance is introduced in this expansion. The Barbaric Despoilers get it by default, but everyone else has to spend a precious Ascension perk to get it. This is not to be done lightly, because Raiding has some mid-term drawbacks.

Raiding causes the least damage to the defence armies, does little damage to infrastructure and has zero chance of causing tile blockers to appear on the target colony. This is perhaps just as well, because the raiders are likely not interested in causing long-term harm.

A population unit on the target world is guaranteed to be lost when Planetary Damage reaches 100%. Lost population units reappear on the colonies of the Barbaric Despoiler, often subjected to slavery by default. They are also very cross, which is to be expected of people who have been snatched from their homes. The civilization that lost them is also likely to be very angry.

However, if the raiding civilization is capable of managing the unrest caused from this, raiding can be an easy way to obtain more population units to quickly improve the productivity of colonies – at the expense of the civilization’s enemies.

However, in the case of Barbaric Despoilers, if they treat their abductees right, they risk bolstering factions that go against their Governing Ethics, thus causing unrest and rebellion. If they are forced to change ethics to stave off rebellion, the Barbaric Despoiler civic can end up being disabled.

MARAUDERS - FOREWORDS:

Despite all the pizzazz of the other pieces of content that Apocalypse introduces, the most significant addition of the expansion is the Marauders. Unfortunately, the Marauders are also the ones that highlight how frustrating the space battles in Stellaris are.

The Marauders are people that had been around for a long time, having already gained FTL technology long before the planet-bound civilizations did. However, for all kinds of reasons, the Marauders refuse to settle on worlds, and instead chose to live in star systems that are inundated with massive space stations.

They are mostly self-sufficient, but they are watching the civilizations too for opportunities to gain more things. After some decades from the start of a playthrough, the Marauders consider the civilizations to be ripe enough for extortion, raids and contracting of their services.

There are up to three separate Marauder societies in any galaxy by default, but there may be more if the player wishes it. Marauders bring both benefits and setbacks, which will be described later.

Long-time followers of the game would know that the Marauders are actually reworks of the old pirates in the base game – albeit the Marauders are placed behind a DLC paywall. (The base game pirates are now miscreants and misfits from civilizations, by the way.)

COMPLICATED HOSTILITY & SERVICES RENDERED:

The Marauders’ assets in their home systems are by default hostile to any other civilizations. Indeed, first contacts with them often have them joking that they welcome anyone into their home systems, just so that they can have target practice.

On the other hand, they are willing to have a kind of conversation with the other civilizations. One of the conversation options involves the hiring of one of their admirals or generals. Marauder species often have traits that bolster their ability at waging war, and the leaders that can be hired often already have several levels of skill. They charge a high fee for each leader, but they are worthwhile having because they have very little impact on the society of the civilization that employed them (for life, by the way; they are practically exiles). (The same cannot be said about the population units of their species.)

The other kind of service that they extend is paid raids. As long as a civilization has a rival, it can pay the Marauders to launch a raid on the rival. The Marauders do not inform the rival about who paid them, but if that rival civilization does not have a lot of rivals in the first place, it would be easy to figure out who paid them off.

One benefit of paying them to go on raids is that the Marauders will treat their clients as, well, honoured customers. As long as their paid raids have yet to be completed (the raiding fleets must return to their home system), the customers are allowed to move fleets past their home systems without being attacked. This is a sure-fire way to identify who has been paying them, but CPU-controlled civilizations are generally none the wiser. That said, there is an incentive to be able to move past their home systems, as will be described later.

MERCENARY FLEETS:

Rarely, but not always, the Marauders might offer the service of one of their fleets for a substantial amount of Energy. The fleet is of a fixed composition and cannot be reinforced or upgraded in anyway, but it is always stronger than any early- to mid-game fleet, does not take up any naval capacity and does not incur any maintenance costs.

EXTORTION:

Even if they are not paid off, the Marauders launch their own raids against random ‘soft’ targets. However, they do warn their intended targets, and make extortions. Paying them diverts their raids to other civilizations, upon which they repeat the extortions. Failing to pay up causes them to target a specific world in the victim civilization, usually the one closest to their currently active raiding fleet.

The extortion fee can be paid in any of the three tradable resources. In actuality, they simply disappear when they are paid; the Marauders are scripted to have infrastructures that are simplistic and are based on cycles.

MARAUDER RAIDS:

For a civilization that has just entered the mid-game point, even if it is that of a meticulous micromanaging player, a Marauder raiding fleet is often strong enough to crush anything in its way.

A Marauder raid always targets a specific colony, and generally will not change. If the raid is related to an extortion attempt, the victim can always pay off the raiders while the raiding fleet is in transit, albeit with a premium on top.

If the player is the target of a raid, the player can still attempt to figure out which colony is targeted (usually by buying the Active Sensor Links of other civilizations). There might be time to stiffen the defences of the target colony, especially if it already has an upgraded starbase. The player might also place more defences in their way, like other upgraded starbases, to inflict casualties on them.

If the player could manage to destroy the raiding fleet, the Marauders grudgingly recognize the player’s strength and place a moratorium on further raiding attempts on the player’s civilization for many years. (It is unclear exactly how long though.)

On the other hand, if the raid has been sent by a rival, that rival might be waiting for the player’s defences to be softened before declaring a war.

If the raiding fleet manages to sweep aside any defences and attack the target colony, they use a form of ‘bombardment’ stance that is unique to them. It does considerable damage, and does not stop until several population units have been abducted (though they actually disappear from the game, as the Marauders do not have colonies). Afterwards, the Marauders call their victims, gloating over their success and inflicting a penalty on happiness on the planet that they ravaged.

Obviously, Marauder raids are unpleasant.

MARAUDERS WILL NOT ANTAGONIZE FALLEN EMPIRES:

The Marauders may have been around for a long time, but their lack of worlds have meant that they have forgone opportunities to develop their societies to great heights. The Fallen Empires had, and the Marauders know it. They will not target the Fallen Empires, if the upstart civilization that wants to pay them to do so has become powerful enough to rival the Fallen Empires (in which case they are better off not bothering with the Marauders anyway).

MARAUDERS PREVENT OPPORTUNISTIC FAST EXPANSIONS:

The Marauders’ extortions act as dampers against fast expansion strategies, especially those that make use of other (preferably friendly) civilizations as buffers against opportunistic invasions. After all, their raiding fleets completely ignore borders, open or otherwise, and most civilizations would not want to accost them if they are not their targets already. Therefore, any ‘buffer’ civilization is not going to stop them from coming through and hurting a neighbour that is isolated from other enemies.

Most importantly, the Marauders often occupy “junction” star systems. Indeed, the procedural generation of the galaxy often places their home systems such that civilizations have few alternatives other than eventually having their expansion impeded by neighbours, quickly putting them into conflict with each other.

In hindsight, the damper that the Marauders place on expansion is the most sophisticated addition that the expansion makes to the gameplay of Stellaris. Unfortunately, as mentioned a few times already, the Marauders are also associated with something bad about the gameplay of Stellaris.

MARAUDER HOME SYSTEMS:

The home systems of the Marauders are no joke. They are littered with powerful space stations that are slightly past mid-game tier.

The biggest advantage that the Marauders have is actually the stupidity of the fleets under any civilization’s control, or rather, the lack of control over them. Chances are that as soon as the attacking fleet engages one space station, it would eventually be engaging all space stations. When this happens, the awful deficiencies in the target prioritization scripting reveal themselves, such as the attacking fleet failing to finish off a badly damaged space station in favour of going after a fresh one.

That is just a scenario with only the space stations involved. If there are Marauder home fleets about, things get much worse.

Speaking of which, the Marauder home fleets always include Galleons. These are variants of the Titan-class ship that is introduced in this expansion, which will be described later. These are nasty and tough ships. Getting them involved in a battle for the home systems is often a bad idea, because the same deficiencies on target prioritization also happen with them around.

Smaller Marauder home fleets also appear to have special behaviour scripts that can be troublesome. Upon engaging enemies, these fleets often fly back towards the space stations, thus dragging their enemies into battle with the space stations as well. This can be unpleasant to learn the hard way. (Galleons will not do this, however.)

CLEARING MARAUDER HOME SYSTEMS:

There are few good reasons to go after Marauders even after the player has become powerful enough to defeat their fleets. Any other alternatives for expansion is better than trying to take their systems. Furthermore, chances are that the player’s ships already have tech beyond theirs.

Of course, their heavier space stations do have first-level Kinetic Batteries, which are obtained from post-mid-game techs. Even so, the player would be close to getting that tech anyway.

Rather, the main incentive to destroy their homes is that they are sitting on top of celestial bodies that have considerable amounts of minerals. (Presumably, that is how they could keep building their fleets.) More importantly, removing them opens routes to whatever is beyond them.

Then, there is the (understandable) reprisal from them. Afterwards, any surviving Marauders (be they raiding fleets or mercenary fleets) become all too aware that their homes have been wrecked, and will swear vengeance on whoever trashed their homes. Ostensibly, their surviving fleets group together and rampage through the civilization that destroyed their homes – or they would try to. Most likely, their enemy has become too powerful for them.

AGGRO RANGE FOR MARAUDER HOME FLEETS:

The Marauder fleets in the home system will not actively pursue any civilian ships, unless they are stupid enough to get into range. The player could exploit this behaviour by having science ships and construction ships move around the fringes of their systems and go to the entry points of any hyperlanes that are not in their range.

Indeed, this is a good way to have an advantage over CPU-controlled civilizations in the competition for exploration and expansion opportunities, because CPU-controlled civilizations would not even dare to enter Marauder home systems until they have very powerful fleets.

If there is a naval fleet that is in their home systems, the Marauder fleets use aggro ranges to decide whether they want to pursue or not. These aggro ranges are generally twice their longest weapon ranges.

Cunning and observant players might notice that they can lure away individual fleets (and the Galleons) by using their aggro ranges against them. This requires micromanagement, e.g. observing their movements and pulling back so that when the fleets clash, others would not be drawn in. With systematic effort though, the player could have the Marauder home systems cleared of their defence fleets; they will not produce replacements. The space stations are then at the player’s mercy, although as mentioned earlier, due to their placements, engaging one of them eventually leads to engaging all of them.

BUGS WITH MARAUDERS:

There is an extant bug that is still around in the game; it occurs after the player’s civilization has gotten strong enough to repel the Marauder raids.

The Marauders will still routinely attempt to extort the player. Refusing them, of course, elicits the response that they will carry out an attack. A few in-game days afterwards, the game informs the player that the raiding fleet has somehow been defeated even though it did not even appear on the map.

This is actually a gap in the coding; the message was supposed to be one about the Marauders thinking twice. That said, they do have scripts that determine if the player’s fleets or defences that would be in their way are just too much for them.

Another extant bug is that Marauders that have their homes destroyed might not have their surviving fleets go on a revenge strike against the ones responsible, despite having made the threat. This can happen if that civilization is powerful enough to crush their surviving fleets.

In such a case, they purportedly revert to refugee behaviour, as explained earlier, or a nomad fleet wanting some place to settle. Either way, they are effectively gone from the playthrough.

MARAUDERS AS NEIGHBOURS:

Having Marauders as neighbours is generally bad, but their adjacent presence does result in some special events that can be used for their neighbours’ benefit.

The Marauders frequently abandon their smaller dwellings, which can be salvaged for minerals. They might even abandon ships, which can be repurposed. They also stash away loot and forget about them, which means finder’s keepers. There might even be exiles that request to settle down in their neighbours’ worlds. (They are terrible at making friends though.) These are just some of the small windfalls that their neighbours can have from their volatile existence.

GREAT KHANATE:

Interestingly, there is a mechanism in place to prevent the Marauders from being eventually outclassed by the civilizations, if an over-eager player has not wiped them out.

Sometime after the mid-game point of a playthrough, the game considers the circumstances across the galaxy. If the civilizations have barely even gotten past the mid-game stage, things continue as is.

However, after the civilizations have managed to amass tech and resources to maintain mid-game-strength fleets (typically of 12000 points or higher in power ratings), the Great Khan rises from among one of the surviving Marauder clans. The Marauder clan becomes much more active, producing more fleets and most importantly, armies. The Horde has emerged.

If the Marauder clan that became the Horde has any extant mercenary fleets out and about, these mercenary fleets cancel their contracts and revert control over to the Horde. This can be bad.

The Great Khan gives the civilizations an ultimatum: submit, or be conquered. Those who refuse will face considerable invading fleets and armies. Any colony or star system that the Horde takes immediately switches ownership, and vice versa, if a civilization has the strength to retake territory. A civilization can always choose to submit afterwards, if it has refused before.

The other Marauder clans also face absorption, upon which their strength will be added to the Horde. This causes the Horde to gain even more scripted reinforcements.

The Horde, however, will not antagonize the Fallen Empires. The Great Khan is proud, but also wise.

SATRAPY:

The civilizations that submit to the Great Khan become Satrapies, which are a special type of subject to an overlord, in this case the Horde. The Satrap is a combination of Tributary and Vassal, having to give over both resource incomes and naval capacity. Worst of all, a Void Dwelling owned by the Horde appears next to the capital of the Satrap; the Void Dwelling will spawn Horde fleets too. Therefore, the rebellion of a Satrap is very much guaranteed to face immediate reprisal.

However, a Satrap is allowed to expand its territory and attack any other civilization that has not submitted. This is perhaps a good time to defeat a hated enemy that was foolish enough to refuse submission – unless this enemy happens to be powerful enough to rival the Horde.

A Satrap that rebelled will not be offered satrapy again. The rebel risks the full wrath of the Horde and possible annihilation of its civilization.

FIGHTING THE HORDE:

It is possible to fight the Horde. More often than not, this would be the player’s civilization. Some players might look forward to this with glee, though it should be said here that the Horde does not function like a civilization at all.

It spawns fleets from its Satrapies and Marauder home systems every few years, which allow it to engage on multiple fronts. Any systems and worlds that the Horde has conquered do not contribute to its war effort like they would to regular civilizations. Rather, it just speeds up the arrival of reinforcements.

Its Satrapies will be hostile too, but they are not likely to contribute much – unless they hate the player’s civilization a lot.

The greatest hurdle is the Great Khan’s own fleet, which is expectedly very powerful and led by the Great Khan itself, an admiral of skill level 10 and with special traits.

If the player manages to crush the Great Khan’s fleet, the Great Khan manages to escape – and return later with an even bigger fleet, within a year. The Great Khan is also likely to be very angry and eager to engage the player’s civilization again. Defeating the Great Khan for the second time defeats the Horde for good though.

(RE)TAKING TERRITORY FROM THE HORDE:

When the Horde captures any system, a special label is placed on it to mark it as part of the Horde’s conquest. (By the way, this label also causes the system to contribute to the Horde’s strength according to the special scripting that has been described earlier.)

When the system is retaken from the Horde in the war against it, the victor can choose to keep the system, or return it to its previous owner. If the victor keeps it, the previous owner gains simmering resentment to the victor for being “finder’s keepers”. Alternatively, the system can be returned, which provides a temporary boost to relations between the two civilizations.

EVENTUAL FALL:

Ultimately, the Horde only formed because of the will and charisma of the Great Khan.

The Great Khan and its fleet is the Horde’s greatest strength and also its greatest weakness. If the player could defeat it twice, as mentioned earlier, the Great Khan dies in a blaze of vain-glory but dooms the Horde to infighting.

Alternatively, the Great Khan could simply die from old age, or it could die in an embarrassing assassination. This is guaranteed to eventually happen, without any effort by the civilizations (perhaps to the dismay of any Stellaris follower that had been hoping for an espionage system).

With the death of the Great Khan, all Satrapies are freed, and the Horde breaks apart. What it turns into afterwards depends on how many colonies that it has conquered and how many Satrapies that it has.

If it has conquered colonies, the Horde is guaranteed to turn into at least one regular civilization; if it creates any more, the resulting civilizations do not like each other outright. All of them will be of the Hegemonic Imperialist archetype, and their primary species are the same ones as those of the Marauders. Any other species in their conquered and converted territory is likely to be subjected to slavery. Some of the resulting civilizations might even form Federations of their own, and the Federation would include the Horde’s former satrapies.

NO REGARD FOR GENOCIDAL EMPIRES:

For all their brutality, the Marauders – and the Horde that they might form – would never deal with genocidal civilizations. The latter can never hire leaders or fleets from them, and the Marauders will never make demands of the latter – they are well aware of their uncompromising positions. (By the way, Marauders will always be organics.)

Unfortunately, this means that until the Horde has formed and broken apart, the genocidal civilizations are at a disadvantage. Regular civilizations can declare genocidal ones as rivals, and pay for raids on the latter. Regular civilizations can hire leaders to bolster their ability to wage war against their genocidal rivals. Genocidal civilizations cannot pay off incoming raids (the option to do so is simply not there).

This has only piled on the complaints about genocidal civilizations being gimped. Furthermore, considering that the Marauders are space-faring aliens, the genocidal civilizations cannot gain much from fighting them.

ADDITIONAL ASCENSION PERKS:

Apocalypse introduces three perks for the Ascension system. One, Nihilist Acquisitions, has been described already. Another is Enigmatic Engineering, which increases sensor range while preventing any debris fields from being made with any of the civilization’s space vessels. Finally, there is the Colossus Project, which enables the poster-darling of the expansion. This will be described later.

UNITY AMBITIONS:

Prior to Apocalypse, any Unity that is generated after all Traditions have been obtained is just wasted. Apocalypse introduces the Ascension Theory tech, which unlocks a perk slot and gives a perk point. More importantly, the tech enables “Unity Ambitions”.

Unity Ambitions are implemented as edicts, except that they consume Unity points instead of Influence or Energy Credits. The Unity costs for each edict happens to be exactly the Unity cost of the next tradition, so if a civilization has obtained all Traditions there are, the Unity costs would be extensive.

Nevertheless, these edicts grant considerable buffs, and the civilization is spoilt for choice. For example, there is Scientific Revolution, which is practically a buffed-up version of Research Grants. Perhaps the most lucrative of these is Will to Power, which grants a flat five extra points of monthly Influence income.

Unfortunately, Unity Ambitions are only ever available within Apocalypse content.

TITANS:

The Galleons that Marauders have are examples of the Titan-class ships that this expansion introduces. In actuality, these had been there in the base game, in the form of the super-heavy ships that the Fallen Empires can field. The Leviathans expansion then introduces the Automated Dreadnought, a way to obtain one of these juggernauts for the player’s own use, but it does not have the very big gun that Titans have.

With Apocalypse, players can now build Titans of their own, after having researched the Battleship tech as a prerequisite. Fully upgraded starbases with Titan construction modules are also needed too, resulting in considerable opportunity costs. The construction time for one is also staggering.

Being heavier and bigger ships, the player should expect that they are even more of a punching bag than Battleships are. Indeed, if Leviathans content is enabled, Leviathans are likely to target them with their death beams first. On the other hand, Titans can take a lot of punishment before going down.

The Titan-class has no multiple options for sections: it has one section each for its bow, core and stern. Its bow section has only one slot, which is only ever used for the Titan ships’ signature weaponry. The core and stern slots have large-weapon slots, rounding out its armaments. However, generally, Titans are terrible at hitting corvettes, which eventually overwhelms them if there are many.

TITAN SIGNATURE WEAPONRY & ION CANNON PLATFORMS:

The signature weapons of the Titan-class ship is the Perdition Beam. It is technically a slightly watered-down variant of the Titan Lance mounted on Fallen Empire Titans, but it can still crack open cruisers and lower-end battleships with a single shot. Like the Spinal-mount guns on battleships, it requires the Titan to point itself at its target, meaning that it is best used against large and slow things.

A derivative of Titan technology, Ion Cannon platforms are practically the bow sections of Titans turned into a turret. Expectedly, they are used to supplement the defences of upgraded starbases. Their Ion Cannons are practically Perdition Beams (which perhaps is just a dramatic naming of Ion Cannons). Ion Cannon platforms are as durable as battleships, though they are likely to draw a lot of fire for packing their eponymous weapons.

There are no other options for the Titan-sized guns, however. Gigantic mass drivers would have been very gratuitous.

TITAN AURAS:

On the merits of their own armaments and durability, the Titans are not that much better than the Fallen Empire Titans, much less Leviathans. Indeed, these other monstrosities can tear Titans apart in one-on-one exchanges, discounting repeatable techs that greatly empower them. Rather, their main merit is their Aura components.

Auras are core components for Titans, and it so happens that they come free of charge; this also means that the player can have Titans refit with different Aura components, where convenient.

Auras grant bonuses onto any allied ship in the same star system as the Titan, or inflict penalties on enemies in the same star system; this includes space monsters. There are six types of Auras, none of which can stack their effects if there are multiples of them. Nevertheless, the effects are considerable enough such that the presence of Titans can greatly influence the outcome of a space battle – assuming that they are not targeted for destruction first.

Despite being larger than Battleships, Titans move at the same speed – which is just as well because they are meant to be archetypal flagships.

RESTRICTIONS ON TITAN NUMBERS:

There is a clear restriction on the number of Titans that can be had. In addition to their hefty naval capacity cost, there can only be one more Titan for every 200 points of Naval Capacity, in addition to the minimum of one, just so even the smallest fleets can have one of these behemoths.

COLOSSUS:

The poster-darling of the Apocalypse expansion is the Colossus. This is practically Stellaris’s take on Star Wars’ Death Star.

The tech for it can only be obtained after having obtained the tech for Titans, and after obtaining the Colossus Project Ascension perk. Even after that, the Colossus has to be built through a fully upgraded starbase with a Titan Assembly Yard. The construction time is far, far longer than that of a Titan too. All the while, the unsuspecting and inexperienced player might be getting all giddy about the gargantuan weapon that it would have.

Then the player realizes that its gargantuan weapon is all it can have. The Colossus is a giant floating target in space, and it can only use its weapons on colonies. Even a single corvette can eventually kill it. This is the first drawback of the Colossus – one of many.

That said, Awakened Empires can also construct Colossi of their own, if Apocalypse content is enabled, and they build them faster. Woe to the upstarts.

COLOSSUS WEAPONS:

Of course, the “best” part about the Colossus should be described first.

The player gets to pick the first weapon tech for the Colossus. The weapon techs that are available to it depend on the Ethics of the civilization that created it. Pacifist civilizations have the least options (though one would wonder why they even want to have a Colossus in the first place). However, none of the weapons are exactly the kind that can blow up planets like Alderaan – that’s just silly, and would have Paradox hit with a lawsuit from Disney. (Never mind that Stardock already did something like this in Galactic Civilizations.)

The first option is the Planet-Cracker, which resembles the Death Star the most. It works not unlike the planet-cracking technology seen in Electronic Arts’ Dead Space. Obviously, it screws over planets and other kinds of colonies, as well as anything on them. If the target is a planet, it turns the planet into a major Mineral source, if it is a habitable world. Habitats are outright destroyed. Ringworlds can still be salvaged, but at great cost. Amusingly, Fanatic Purifiers and Determined Exterminators gain one-time Unity windfalls from its first use.

(The caveat of Mineral sources only forming if the target is a habitable planet is a gameplay-balancing measure. Indeed, there have been eager players who used the Planet-Cracker on useless celestial bodies, hoping to get something from them.)

Next, there is the less bad “Global Pacifier”, which somehow places an unbreakable planet-sized shield on a target. This effectively cuts off the colony from the galaxy, albeit without terrible violence. Its previous owner is not going to be happy, however; it has practically lost that colony.

Third, there is the ominous-sounding Neutron Sweep. This effectively kills all population units in a colony. Somehow, the owner of the colony finds this even more abhorrent than planet-cracking (and perhaps it is; technically, this would allow enemies to quickly colonize the cleansed world).

Fourth, there is the Divine Enforcer, which is exclusive to Spiritualist civilizations. Interestingly, there is one other prerequisite, which changes depending on whether Utopia content is enabled or not. Anyway, it spares organic population units that are not Hive-Minded, while frying any other population unit outright. All of the survivors become followers of their civilization’s Spiritualist faction (or start one if there is not any), and the target colony has a modifier that greatly increases attraction to Spiritualist factions for ten years. Obviously, this is a good thing for Spiritualist civilizations, who probably will use the Colossus on themselves first.

If the target is an enemy colony, it does not cause the owner of the target to lose it. However, if the owner is not already a Spiritualist civilization, it might be facing considerable unrest from that planet.

Finally, there is the Nanobot Diffuser, which is exclusive to the Driven Assimilator. This effectively removes the steps of invading planets and assimilating the organics: it just does it outright. Of course, the ownership of the colony changes over to that of the civilization with the Colossus.

All of the weapons take a long time to prep though – a few months in fact. During this time, the Colossus could be intercepted; however, it cannot be interrupted. Of course, it is left to do its work, the target colony actually suffers severe penalties – likely due to the looming doom above them.

Also, for whatever strange reason, the Colossi weapons that do not destroy colonies seem to completely remove tile blockers.

PERMANENT OPINION PENALTIES & THREAT BUILD-UP:

No one likes having Colossi used on them. Doing that causes huge and permanent Opinion penalties – but that is perhaps no longer important if a civilization has committed to using a Colossus on its enemies. Even using a Colossus on oneself (as a Spiritualist civilization might with the Divine Enforcer) causes ruffles civilizations. The use of the Colossus also causes the build-up of the Threat modifier.

Planet-crackers generally cause the worst Opinion penalties, for obviously having colonies destroyed permanently.

COLOSSUS CASUS BELLI:

Having a Colossus gives a civilization a simple justification for going to war with another: simply the use of the Colossus is enough. Colossus usage happens to inflict severe war exhaustion on the opposition anyway. However, the civilization is also subjected to the converse justification for war: simply the destruction of the Colossus. Both casus belli results in a Total War, which can get messy quickly.

However, upon the destruction of the Colossus (likely to the dismay of its creators), the war winds down to a regular war, which can be ended with white peace.

Cunning players might just have a Colossus anyway, not to use it, but to have a casus belli that leads to Total War. After all, Total War is so much simpler than the other kinds of wars.

WRITING & REFERENCES:

Even Apocalypse could not get out of the way of the Stellaris reference train. Fortunately, most of them are concentrated in the content for Colossi.

Hilariously, all of the Colossi weapons have their own text in the user interface of the game. For example Divine Enforcing Colossi “prepare to make a believer” out of the target colony when it moves towards it. Furthermore, the event for choosing the first weapon for a Colossus has a name that makes a reference to Halo.

VISUAL DESIGNS:

As the poster-darlings of the expansion, the Titans and the Colossi make up the bulk of the visual assets that are introduced in this expansion. Titans certainly look majestic and intimidating, especially considering that even at full outwards zoom, they are still visible.

On the other hand, the Titans’ Perdition Beams and the Ion Cannons appear to use remixes of particle effects that had been in the game for awhile.

The Colossi, of course, could not look like the Death Star from Star Wars, for litigious reasons. On the other hand, they do look like ominous and bizarre contraptions, which go a long way in eliciting glee. They look quite impressive as they open up to deploy their weapons, though the animations can seem a tad slow.

Regardless of which weapon is used, Colossi fire energy beams at their targets, albeit of different colours, depending on their effects. The effects on their targets have more visual variety though. To cite some examples, shielded worlds gain a translucent honeycomb shell, whereas a wave of bright light washes across a world as the Divine Enforcer “gifts” enlightenment to everyone on it – or perhaps the bright lights are machines exploding. The Planet-Cracker has the best animations though; watching a planet come apart is very gratifying.

SOUND DESIGNS:

Of course, the poster-darlings get all the audio assets too. Still, there is the complaint that the Titans seem to use remixes of sound assets that are already in the game – especially those for the Fallen Empires’ Titans.

The Colossi get the bulk of the more original sound assets – though that is perhaps an overstatement because there can only be so many noises that energy beams can make in science fiction. The sound clips of the targets being subjected to whatever that the Colossi inflict are gratifying though.

SUMMARY:

Despite Paradox’s commitment to further improve its 4X baby with more sophisticated gameplay, the systems that govern battles still remain the most frustrating parts of the game due to the player’s lack of control over them, even at this time of writing. The mid-game content in Apocalypse only serves to highlight how near-unmanageable space battles are in Stellaris.

Granted, of course, Apocalypse came at the same time as the Cherryh update, which greatly overhauled the gameplay of Stellaris, mostly for the better. Yet, on the merit of its own content, the expansion highlights Paradox Studios’ persistent stubbornness about not improving the system of battles in its game. Furthermore, the promotional focus on the most dazzling content in the expansion is not exactly a good sign of Paradox’s design direction, especially considering that they are late-game content.

This is a shame, because Apocalypse otherwise brings a lot to the table, such as further expansion of mid-game content and gameplay balances that work against tried-and-true expansion strategies.