#HOW TO PLAY STELLARIS IN 20 MINUTES HOW TO#
This allowed us to come to grips with how to play the game and give us an opportunity to build up our empires. On the first day, Paradox told us that attacking each other was forbidden and so the room entered into a non-aggression pact. (Thank you, Steel Panther.) As the day went on, my name became less and less fitting-Death To No One But Myself would sound more accurate. I decided to make a xenophobic human race who had direct democracy, which meant every five years there would be an election. Before getting into the action, we had to customize our empire, deciding things such as its name, what race our people would be and defining our government and ethics. Despite my reservations, I sat down at a PC, listened to a short presentation, and then we were told to start the game. I didn’t know what they were talking about and I was now more afraid than ever of what I might find in the room opposite me. Standing outside, I joined a conversation with some fellow journalists, their talk of strategy games going completely over my head. However, I’m not one to shy away from a challenge, so I agreed to travel to the event, for better or worse.Īs soon as I arrived, I felt out of my depth. My research also told me that Paradox, the developers behind it, were renowned for making particularity complex strategy games. Stellaris, the 4X grand space strategy title that I’d be playing, sounded complicated. When I was asked to go to a two day multiplayer event to play one of these games, you can then imagine my trepidation. As far as I was concerned they were games I would never play, my lack of a capable PC allowing me to forget all about them. I’d heard of Sid Meier’s Civilization, Total War, Europa Universalis and others, but I’d never really paid attention to them. Up until a few days ago, I had never played a grand strategy game.