Stellaris: Nemesis DLC Review

Oh Stellaris, it has been a while since we spent some time together.

For those who may remember, my first review for the site was the previous DLC expansion, Federations. While I enjoyed that DLC, it did not have the staying power for me – partly because other games came around (*cough* Shadow Empire *cough*), and partly because I felt the game still had some unresolved issues. The Necroids species pack then came and went, and while I picked it up the new Necrophage origin was not enough to pull me back in. This time however, Nemesis and the accompanying 3.0 Dick update (in honor of the great science fiction writer Philip K. Dick) have really enticed me and brought me back in a strong way – even if folks here in this community are skeptical, to say the least…

With a new intel and first contact system starring in the free patch, along with the (second!) economic update, Stellaris 3.0 is certainly a brand-new game once again. The Nemesis DLC further introduces a new espionage mechanic and added story lines to become with a Custodian of the Galaxy or the Next Crisis. Before I jump into the DLC however, I will go over some of the changes in 3.0 patch, as they are intertwined.

The Emperor’s New Dick

First and foremost is another level of refinement, or rework (if you are dramatic), of the economic system of Stellaris. While the changes in patch 2.2 “Le Guin” were welcomed alongside the release of the MegaCorp DLC, the system was not without its faults. It introduced the new pop and job system, a feature ubiquitously requested by Paradox Development Studio (PDS) fans who pine for the days and mechanics of Victoria II. While generally well received, it certainly fell apart due to the need for micromanagement and the impact the pop system had on mid/late game lag. Pops conducting job checks used a lot of computing resources and caused the late game to be in many cases literally unplayable. The 3.0 patch attempts to correct some of those flaws.

The first major change is to the planet building system. A new Industrial District has been added, which creates metallurgist and artisan jobs that produce both Alloys and Consumer Goods respectively, whereas in prior versions those jobs were only provided by building multiple Alloy Foundry and Civilian Industries buildings. Alloy Foundries and Civilian Industries are now unique to a planet and mutually exclusive – the player now can choose to build one or the other to specialize a planet. Building slots are also unlocked by building City Districts, upgrading planetary capital buildings, and techs.

This change addresses one of my biggest criticisms of the previous system; planets would end with the same few buildings and were hardly unique. That is not to say it does not happen in 3.0, but with fewer slots and more unique buildings I rarely found myself building more than one of the same building – the only exception now being Research Labs. I find the planet management to be much more interesting as a result, with more thoughtful decisions to be made instead of just filling my planet with Alloy Forges so I can get reasonable alloy production.

This changes the dynamics of the game, as it allows the player to really push the limits of their planets in terms of production. Properly built planets can now pump out alloys and consumer goods like junky pop music in the 2020’s, and as you can see, I was able to get my alloy production to over 1K a month for my empire – and that is on a galaxy with the smallest number of habitable planets while also selling some of the excess on the Galactic Market. In the two games I have played and “mostly” finished (I did get end credits on one) production seemed to scale very well throughout the game as I was playing on scaling Admiral (read: Hard) difficulty – which is also a function of the changes to pop growth in 3.0.

To help curtail micromanagement (and largely to help with late game performance) PDS implemented mechanical changes to population growth, where instead of a straight-line increase affected mainly by migration, it now follows a curve. Newly colonized planets will have a boost to pop growth in the beginning as population reaches a “theoretical carrying capacity” before levelling off and slowing down. In addition, pop growth is affected by the total number of pops in an empire – which has been somewhat of a controversial change. I largely found the new pop system worked much better than before, as a big turn off I had from playing Federations was that in the mid-game my planets were full of unemployed pops and I had no way of bringing more jobs to them (an allegory of real life?). I did notice that pop growth slowed substantially in the late game and sympathize with some of the complaints, who felt that it was too slow (note: as of writing, PDS is tweaking the formula for pop growth in its 3.0.3 beta patch). Especially during the late game, the player may find themselves building Ring Worlds or Habitats, which will be challenging to fill up even with late game bonuses to pop growth – leading to the opposite “problem” where there are too many unfilled jobs. I say “problem” in quotes because I prefer it to having too many pops and it gives me the option to micromanage, if I so desire, to maximize certain outputs.

This may be frustrating for inexperienced players, as I found it necessary for certain empire types. For example, in my Necrophage game where I played to become the Crisis, I was juggling my pops a lot more, partly due to the unique Necrophage mechanics of creating pops out of subservient pops and lack of migration from other empires, and I was always short on specialists (higher level jobs, such as researchers, artisans, and metallurgists). I could easily swing from having negative consumer goods production to positive, just by prioritizing the jobs on my planets. I felt that it was more engaging however and kept the midgame interesting as I was fighting to expand and defend.

The last major change in the 3.0 patch was the addition of the First Contact and Espionage systems. No longer will you know how your neighbor’s military stacks up against yours as soon as you meet; instead, First Contact follows a mini questline (with a similar UI to the archaeological sites introduced in the Ancient Relics story pack) where you assign envoys that gradually establish first contact. This can be done through various means, and it is possible to either pursue them aggressively (of all the patches that added alien probing, it had to be Dick…) or peacefully. This also changes the outcomes of first contact, and the player can either end up with higher starting relations, or lower relations but greater Spy Defense.

While Espionage is mostly utilized by the DLC, the free patch gives access to the “Gather Intelligence” operation, which is used by your envoys to gain more intel on other empires – this included relative strength, tech, and economy, which starts off as unknown to the player. In addition, this information can become stale – lulling the inattentive player to comfort if they only see a “Pathetic” relative strength comparison. With the DLC, a variety of intelligence operations are unlocked – more on that later, however.

Overall, the changes to the economy, pop growth, intel, and First Contact are welcome changes in my opinion, even if some of the new mechanics add to the clicker game feel of Stellaris. The UI is not perfect and adds to the feeling of tacked on mechanics – it would have been great to have this built into the game on release (guess we’ll have to wait for Stellaris II for that) so that the UI was more streamlined, in that it takes many clicks and menus to get to the new mechanics. First Contacts can be easy to lose track of as they appear just as icons on the map that you must click on to interact with. Conducting operations involves finding the target species, initiating diplomacy, switching to the Espionage tab, picking the operation you want to launch, then launching it; it becomes as tedious as it sounds. That being said, mechanically they are great additions to the game, and I appreciate them despite the weaker UI and QoL aspects.

Big Dick Diplomacy

The Crisis storyline is truly the star of the DLC, and the most unique to play. As the Ravenous Vat’Na Ka Necromages, a custom faction, I chose the path of the Nemesis. It has been challenging, as I have been in multiple wars with my advanced neighbors who are also federated. While defeat seems imminent, I plan to inflict the most casualties I can. Next run I am sure I will rule the Galaxy!

The Nemesis story line adds a new “Become the Crisis” Ascension perk that unlocks special projects that push your empire to become the Crisis (fair warning: this adds a penalty to relations as you progress, so make sure you are ready before you take it!). By accruing Menace through aggressive actions like destroying ships or vassalizing empires, which can be tracked in the Crisis tab in the Society Management view and completing special projects, various ships and bonuses are unlocked to pursue the goal of galactic domination. Menacing ship hulls (e.g., Menacing Corvettes, Menacing Destroyers, and Menacing Cruisers), which have a fitting shipset, are made available. They are stronger than base ship models as they have more slots and are built with minerals instead of refined alloys to boot, but also gain more bonuses with each Crisis rank, from Menace to Existential Threat. This gives the Nemesis a boost as they will likely be standing alone in the galaxy (or possibly with some thralls).

On the other hand, there is a Galactic Custodian story line that guides the player to creating an empire out of the Galactic Council. I did not manage to become the custodian in my United Nations of Earth game; however, I was not that interested in pursuing it. It is relatively simplistic as it is a consolidation of the Galactic Council. It mainly functions as a counter against the Nemesis, with the ability to create your own fleet – it is a terribly similar mechanic to the Federation. I think its inclusion is better than nothing, but do not expect this feature to wow you. I am personally content with that, considering the patch improvements on top of this, and the uses it may have to counter the crisis.

The other headline feature is subterfuge. While the free patch introduces the Espionage system, the Nemesis DLC adds many more operations to play around with. Infiltration is gained by assigning envoys to create spy networks in other empires. This process can be sped up by improvements to Codebreaking which is defended against by Encryption – including when the player is getting spied on. Once Infiltration is high enough, and operation can be conducted.

While there are a variety of operations, from sabotaging stations to sparking diplomatic incidents, the operations did not feel like they had big impacts as I did not find the effects to be as perceptible. Granted, the operations were maybe made a bit weaker as to avoid them being overpowered or annoying when used against the player, but I would have liked to see operations with a bigger impact – like starting civil wars, completely disabling starbases for a set amount of time, and the like. Sparking Diplomatic Incidents seems interesting, but all it does is “causes diplomatic embarrassment involving an envoy of the targeted empire” … which does not sound overly exciting. Overall, there are a few fun and effective operations, like Stealing Technology which can grant you a tech or research, but in general the system does feel like it would have been better served being built into the game from the start, as it feels like a tacked-on feature.

A Good Dick-ing

If you have stuck through this far with my childish puns, congrats here is a cookie (sorry not sorry). All things considered, I found myself enjoying the changes in the 3.0 “Dick” update more than the Nemesis DLC itself. I think this speaks to PDS’ development strategy of funding the patches and updates through the sale of DLC, which serve to enhance the overall game experience and are not necessarily required. To note, I played my first game without the Nemesis DLC and barely noticed the missing features – apart from Operations which are barebones without it (that is to say, only one is available to the player).

I imagine the question that will get asked by many folks who fell out of love for Stellaris is, “will I now enjoy Stellaris?” and the answer is… it depends. Fans of the game will certainly enjoy the changes, as it makes economic decisions carry more weight and more interesting. If your complaint is that the game drags too long, these changes will not fix that – and I suggest trying different game settings to suit a faster game (i.e., smallest maps, fastest research, lowest habitable planets, adjust the dates for the mid game, crisis, and end game to the earliest possible dates, to name a few) and see if that helps. For those who have fundamental issues with the game itself that are not resolved by this patch, like combat, then pass over it. If you like to have a victory screen at the end of your 4X games, then Stellaris will disappoint you.

However, if you want a galactic empire simulator with some interesting emergent storylines, then I think Stellaris is a game you may enjoy. I do think there are still improvements to be made though, and I hope the next patch(es) will give touchups to faction and sector dynamics as well as leaders (if not Stellaris II altogether).

That being said, I’d like to hear your thoughts if you have played the latest version of Stellaris or the Nemesis DLC. Leave us a comment below, or join us over at Discord and the Steam forums to chat about it and other 4X, Strategy, and Tactics games!

Omar Hamza

Omar is a big fan of 4X games who first found eXplorminate through the podcast, and has been a supporting member of the community since. In addition to 4X games, Omar enjoys Grand Strategy games, city builders, and other turn-based tactical games. Some of his favorite games include Shadow Empire and Stellaris. You may have seen him around as omzh on the site and the Discord, so feel free to say hi to him!