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Space, as Captain Kirk once said, is big and empty and boring. Okay, maybe not boring, but it's sufficiently large that you can quite easily miss the important stuff that's going down if you've got your head stuck up the wrong nebula. We seem to be terribly alone out there, which is why it's such a blow when fast-radio bursts that appear to hail from intelligent life in the centre of the universe turn out to come from a microwave oven left on in the observatory canteen, or when killjoys argue that the Wow! signal is just a bunch of old comets. Comets, as Captain Kirk also said, can do one.And now Stellaris is here: a wild dream of a 4X game, expansive and inventive and shot through with mystery. I already love Stellaris, and I suspect that I'm going to spend the next few years lost within it. But for now, right at the start of things, as I'm starting to learn the rules and get to grips with the rhythms, I thought I would see if Stellaris could help me solve this central usability problem with our universe. If our own galaxy seems to be huge and lonely, I decided to make a miniscule galaxy in-game and then stuff it with aliens. Testify! Galaxy Size? Tiny (150 stars). AI Empires? Eight! Ironman Mode? No chance. With eight alien empires, a spaceman could get killed out there.
Dress for the day you want to have. Can't remember if Captain Kirk said that, and if he did, his velour sex tops suggest he had some pretty strange days in mind. Anyway, when it comes to picking an empire for myself, I go with boring old Humans, as I am already a boring old human. Besides, humans in Stellaris are Xenophiles, and that seems like a good choice for a titchy galaxy I've already crammed, elbow to elbow, with ETs. We are all going to be so happy together!
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