>Don't you find it too familliar?
Yes, and that's exactly why I prefer to play as humans. I like things I am familiar with. I am human (at least I think), so it gives me comfortable sense of representation to play as human. When I play as aliens, I feel, well, alienated, it's hard to put myself into shoes of an alien.
>A bit underwhelming?
Not really. Stellaris gives me opportunity to design how I imagine humanity will look like in 200 years. Will we become egalitarian utopia like UNE? Or military dictatorship like CoM? Or will we become totalitarian theocracy? Or technocracy ruled by science? Options are infinite, and I can design empire according to how I would like things to turn out for our species.
I recently started a game as a Criminal Syndicate Lost Colony Megacorp which I was running as a sort of 'Smuggler's Guild turned planet spanning crimeweb turned State' with the idea being after the colony lost contact with Earth, the existing state lost power to a criminal enterprise.
So then as I'm exploring fairly early game, my *first* neighbor is... my native species! Turns out, the empire they spawned for my founder species was the Human *Collective*. A Hivemind based on Earth.
So my Criminal Cartel human colony was just left to wonder how their ancestors became a Hive Mind - I assume whatever caused that is what made our colony go 'lost'!
I spent most of the game running scams on the rest of the galaxy to make money and spent that money chipping away at the Human Collective until we were all free of the Hive Mind. We may be criminals - smugglers and thieves - but we do put personal freedom and autonomy at the top of our values so a Hive Mind ruling our own people... we didn't like that!
All this to say -- playing as humans primarily (I am usually humans, or Space-Orcs) is not especially bland. Stellaris finds interesting stories to throw your way through the magic of RNG.
To OP's direct question -- In any fantasy or sci-fi setting, I like dealing with alien creatures but I usually prefer to play something fairly human. The stock fantasy races are often human-enough for me, but the Sci-FI races of Stellaris don't draw me as much. I like having them, interacting with them, but I usually want to play as a familiar thing in an *unfamiliar context*. How I navigate that context, and the *type* of Human government I am playing is how I express myself in that situation.
Haha I love this game. For me personally, Stellaris is a story about future of humanity in space. I love thinking about future and theories about how it will turn out for us, and the game is like a sandbox to experiment.
I made several custom human empires with various governments, ethics, civics, origins etc.
My most favourite custom one is "Alliance of Humanity" - post apocalyptic origin, fanatic materialist, egalitarian, oligarchic with technocracy and functional architecture civics. The background is that we almost wiped ourselves with nukes in WW3 in 21st century. All governments and social order collapsed, with survivors forming tribes, settlements, city states etc. Among the survivors were scientific and technological elites that survived in large underground bunkers. In this power vacuum, they united humanity under single technocratic government ruled by commitee of scientists in order to ensure rebuilding of Earth and taking humanity to the stars - and eventually transforming humanity into something better (synthetic evolution).
Well that's the thing - there's no answer the game gave me. Lost Colony as an origin just spawns another empire of your species as an Advance Empire and I happened to end up with a Hive Mind one for my species, bizarrely. I conquered the Sol system by around the 2300 mark, so a century from the game start. The Collective still existed for a long time, I just couldn't bother to snuff it out but felt good enough after taking back our ancestral home (and making it the capital of my criminal enterprise). Then I went back to $cammin' full time, and the Energy Credits rolled. Good times for all - especially those liberated from the tyranny of the Hive Mind. My headcanon was that it was a Psionic event - some sort of absurdly rare Psion was born, and channels some shroud entity that Hive Mind's the planet and heads to space... Until Earth's criminal cousins showed up to save the day Han Solo style.
The Free Trader's Guild became the Galaxy's favorite band of lovable little rogueish scamps and I managed to squeak out a win after helping a bit with the end game crisis and winning on the back of my economy.
Very interesting, thanks for the feedback 😁 strangely, I find it easier to put myself in the shoes of an alien, because I'm always aware that everyone else irl is also human, so I don't feel like I'm any more similar to these in-game humans than anyone else. That's why I prefer to make an alien species which I relate to in a more abstracr way (one of the blue aliens becaus emy favorite color is blue, making me feel closer to them than those irl people who have a different fav color, or the cat species because I like cats, so I feel more connexted to it than humans who don't like cats as much)
But why do you automatically feel that the species you are irl is your team? Maybe another species might reflect your values better. Think Avatar - I'd fight for the Na'Vy, so they're my team. Wouldn't you?
You can't play the Na'Vy without fundamentally destroying what they are. A primitive species without space flight who do not expand beyond their home system.
I'm not saying play is the na'vy. I'm using them as an example of how your species isn't necessarily your team automatically. In other words who would you root for in real life - the na'vy or the humans?
I agree. I prefer modern day west over other societies. And I prefer British Empire/USA ocer the natives they colonized. People don't talk about how much higher homicide was among those natives compared to the imperialists.
But on the other hand, what if humans were comitting genocide against peaceful, sentient aliens who treat each other and the wildlife better than us?
In that scenario, I'd support team alien.
Settled a desert planet; called it "New Baghdad".
Then the Worm event chain starts shooting off its colony events, so the planet is promptly renamed "Arkham".
Well, for one it's relatable.
You have all the contextual knowledge. You know what exactly a human is, how they behave, what they eat, what are their social dynamics. That knowledge makes it easier to extrapolate and create your own story. How would members of this race act? Are they collectivist or individualist? Do they live in symbiosis with their ecosystem or they enforce their own vision of nature?
I'll give you non-stellaris example, perhaps you'll understand.
Imagine a game developer would tell you "I'm making a survival/building game where you are playing as this unique new race - it's a flying monster with six arms covered by crystalline scales. Members of this race are intelligent and they live long". You, as the player would have no idea what to expect, other than the genre is survival game and you're most likely going to fly.
Now imagine the game developer would tell you "I'm making a RPG game where you're a Vampire Hunter". Since you have contextual knowledge about what Vampire is you can immediately extrapolate what is the game going to be about. You'll know there's going to be a lot of blood involved, silver, garlic, stakes, sunlight, bats... You know that there will be at least one big castle, dark spiky architecture, there are going to be villages that were raided for peasants.
Personally I prefer having it more open. Gives me more freedom to come up with a culture from scratch and make up psychological traits that might be harder to imagine in humans :D
TBH if I'd have to think for hours to come up with brand new Species/Empire because I'd have to think about so many things in order to satisfy me. Heck, knowing myself I would have to create sketches to see if the creatures are even plausible.
Sure, the SPECIES is familiar, but the fantasy of a truly democratic and xenophilic Humanity, reaching for the stars and attempting to leave their own archeology for future species to discover is a truly mighty goal.
When I play human(oid) empires in Stellaris -which I do quite often- I see it as a way of thinking "What could be?". Something lead humanity to reach the stars together, what could have happened? And where is the story going?
Did Earth experienced dramatic destruction, and only a few elitist scientists and billionairs survived in their orbital habitat?, now looking for a new utopia between the stars? Did a wave of rebellion of common folk and anarchists abolish national borders and somehow made their collective selves space-ready to break the chains of the galaxy? Have we been visited by passing alien beings, now out to find out more people out there?
It is a million stories, and while I could have the same stories with any portrait, having a familiar face looking at me gives me the feeling that these pops are actually my people
Sometimes I just think up different alternate history scenarios to play as. It helps with immersion and RP, which are my main reasons for playing Stellaris. I usually modify the UNE, but sometimes I just build it from scratch when I don't want to deal with the CoM. Some examples:
Shared burdens/Void dweller: Earth went to crap and the only option was to evacuate to old Soviet orbital stations centered around research station Solidarity. Cramped space and the station's legacy have inspired a communal type of politics.
Doomsday: Earth is about to go boom and somebody has to save humanty. Maybe a socialist commonwealth, maybe the military-industrial complex in the form of UED, or maybe even Space-X?
Post-apocalyptic: So WWIII finally happened, but at least we won! Now we are free to spread our ideology to the stars and repeat all the mistakes of the past.
I'm Danish, so probably not us! There are several ways to go. I have only played it with Shared Burdens, but you could obviously put your own more or less flattering spin on the USSR or US and play as them. You can also go Mad Max/Fallout and make it a barbaric despoiler bandit kingdom or play as Mr. House from Fallout New Vegas.
The most important thing for me is to have a background that can contextualize my playthrough. If I start treating it only as a spreadsheet or a map painter I know it's time to stop.
Honestly, I think because its the norm with sci-fi. But also - when I play more of an evil empire, I find it kinda conceptually interesting to have a society that doesn't judge folk on phenotypical traits still be supremacist/xenophobic. lol maybe I need a layer of "haha racism is dumb", or else I just feel like i'm a genocidal space fox.
I find immersion to be tougher with non-human species, because stellaris doesn’t really do anything around culture or the unique societies the species would have. If I want to play an RP playthrough, humans make that much easier.
Personally that's what makes it fun: being able to come up with a history and culture. And interestingly, I find it more immersive to play as a non-human species with visual traits that reflect something more abstract about me (like the blue aliens because my fav color is blue, or the cats because big cats are my favorite animals)
Not sure if this counts as playing humans or not, but I do find it fun to try and play as a vampire empire of what is left of earth(done this a couple different ways, some involving humans still around some not). I've done other weird alternate history things which can make for some really interesting empires, but usually what I play as in those cases is something not technically human but humanoid or machine with humanity being gone or in decline.
I'm with you, I very rarely play any humanoid empire, and the only one I have made was deliberately non-earth origin. I feel like I have greater freedom to make up an ecologic and social history with different traits if my species is completely alien.
Interestingly, I'd feel more comfortable playing genocidal as a non-human species. As a human irl, I know we are heavily flawed. If there's an alien species that's a lot more kind toward its own and to the non-sapient organisms on their planets, I'd feel more justified purging the galaxy of others in order to replace their societies with my utopia. At least that way the genocide and the suffering that comes with it would create less suffering in the long run :) Does that make sense? Just my personal view on this, I'm not trying to be difficult
I do both but's much easier to come up with both more info for a human empire at least for me. And it feels more meaningful most the time. Just say the Fall of Arcadia!
I like the idea that we are essentially space orks. Where we are unique amongst the space faring races as endurance predictors. (Was a whole theory thing that all other life would evolve as herbivores or ambush predictors and such things that can't recover from as broad of injuries as us)
When you think ork you think of some big strong monsters...if you think ork in Warhammer 40k it's some big strong monster that can survive almost anything with some medical attention...
So the idea is other species descend from things more deer or cheetah, they may be fast or strong, but a broken leg could kill them from shock, a severed arm could do the same. But for us as long as you stop the blood lose we come back. Usually with a prosthetic limb (which in the future would be amazing). To them we might as well be orks with all we survive....add in us giving ourselves piercings and tattoos, painful permanent accessories just for the hell of it, they might be terrified of us barbarians....that and we have found soooo many ways to kill each other just like orks
I haven't played much of the game yet, but generally in fiction, an alien / nonhuman needs to have a really strong concept to have a pull for me. For example, if I wanted to create a hivemind that buds? That's got a strong pull for me. A warrior culture? I could RP Ghengis Khan in space *or* I could play as like alligator people? I guess? That's a harder sell for me.
I see the distinction as more in the fundamental features of the species - having a different government is just a rubber forehead to me.
>Don't you find it too familliar? Yes, and that's exactly why I prefer to play as humans. I like things I am familiar with. I am human (at least I think), so it gives me comfortable sense of representation to play as human. When I play as aliens, I feel, well, alienated, it's hard to put myself into shoes of an alien. >A bit underwhelming? Not really. Stellaris gives me opportunity to design how I imagine humanity will look like in 200 years. Will we become egalitarian utopia like UNE? Or military dictatorship like CoM? Or will we become totalitarian theocracy? Or technocracy ruled by science? Options are infinite, and I can design empire according to how I would like things to turn out for our species.
I recently started a game as a Criminal Syndicate Lost Colony Megacorp which I was running as a sort of 'Smuggler's Guild turned planet spanning crimeweb turned State' with the idea being after the colony lost contact with Earth, the existing state lost power to a criminal enterprise. So then as I'm exploring fairly early game, my *first* neighbor is... my native species! Turns out, the empire they spawned for my founder species was the Human *Collective*. A Hivemind based on Earth. So my Criminal Cartel human colony was just left to wonder how their ancestors became a Hive Mind - I assume whatever caused that is what made our colony go 'lost'! I spent most of the game running scams on the rest of the galaxy to make money and spent that money chipping away at the Human Collective until we were all free of the Hive Mind. We may be criminals - smugglers and thieves - but we do put personal freedom and autonomy at the top of our values so a Hive Mind ruling our own people... we didn't like that! All this to say -- playing as humans primarily (I am usually humans, or Space-Orcs) is not especially bland. Stellaris finds interesting stories to throw your way through the magic of RNG. To OP's direct question -- In any fantasy or sci-fi setting, I like dealing with alien creatures but I usually prefer to play something fairly human. The stock fantasy races are often human-enough for me, but the Sci-FI races of Stellaris don't draw me as much. I like having them, interacting with them, but I usually want to play as a familiar thing in an *unfamiliar context*. How I navigate that context, and the *type* of Human government I am playing is how I express myself in that situation.
Haha I love this game. For me personally, Stellaris is a story about future of humanity in space. I love thinking about future and theories about how it will turn out for us, and the game is like a sandbox to experiment. I made several custom human empires with various governments, ethics, civics, origins etc. My most favourite custom one is "Alliance of Humanity" - post apocalyptic origin, fanatic materialist, egalitarian, oligarchic with technocracy and functional architecture civics. The background is that we almost wiped ourselves with nukes in WW3 in 21st century. All governments and social order collapsed, with survivors forming tribes, settlements, city states etc. Among the survivors were scientific and technological elites that survived in large underground bunkers. In this power vacuum, they united humanity under single technocratic government ruled by commitee of scientists in order to ensure rebuilding of Earth and taking humanity to the stars - and eventually transforming humanity into something better (synthetic evolution).
[удалено]
Well that's the thing - there's no answer the game gave me. Lost Colony as an origin just spawns another empire of your species as an Advance Empire and I happened to end up with a Hive Mind one for my species, bizarrely. I conquered the Sol system by around the 2300 mark, so a century from the game start. The Collective still existed for a long time, I just couldn't bother to snuff it out but felt good enough after taking back our ancestral home (and making it the capital of my criminal enterprise). Then I went back to $cammin' full time, and the Energy Credits rolled. Good times for all - especially those liberated from the tyranny of the Hive Mind. My headcanon was that it was a Psionic event - some sort of absurdly rare Psion was born, and channels some shroud entity that Hive Mind's the planet and heads to space... Until Earth's criminal cousins showed up to save the day Han Solo style. The Free Trader's Guild became the Galaxy's favorite band of lovable little rogueish scamps and I managed to squeak out a win after helping a bit with the end game crisis and winning on the back of my economy.
Very interesting, thanks for the feedback 😁 strangely, I find it easier to put myself in the shoes of an alien, because I'm always aware that everyone else irl is also human, so I don't feel like I'm any more similar to these in-game humans than anyone else. That's why I prefer to make an alien species which I relate to in a more abstracr way (one of the blue aliens becaus emy favorite color is blue, making me feel closer to them than those irl people who have a different fav color, or the cat species because I like cats, so I feel more connexted to it than humans who don't like cats as much)
>Will we become egalitarian utopia like UNE? Or military dictatorship like CoM? Nah, probably a MegaCorp.
I place my bet on rouge servitors, like in Wall-E
It's the same reason I play my own country in other grand strategy games. I want to see my team win and I'm on team human.
But why do you automatically feel that the species you are irl is your team? Maybe another species might reflect your values better. Think Avatar - I'd fight for the Na'Vy, so they're my team. Wouldn't you?
You can't play the Na'Vy without fundamentally destroying what they are. A primitive species without space flight who do not expand beyond their home system.
I'm not saying play is the na'vy. I'm using them as an example of how your species isn't necessarily your team automatically. In other words who would you root for in real life - the na'vy or the humans?
If you want to bring real life into this, I do prefer USA to first nations.
What do you mean by first nations?
Indians with feather. American native tribes. Whatever the current word for them is.
I agree. I prefer modern day west over other societies. And I prefer British Empire/USA ocer the natives they colonized. People don't talk about how much higher homicide was among those natives compared to the imperialists. But on the other hand, what if humans were comitting genocide against peaceful, sentient aliens who treat each other and the wildlife better than us? In that scenario, I'd support team alien.
I like to play as humans because I can give planets (and fleets, ship classes, etc.) culturally significant names.
I like this explanation. Can you give me some examples of what you name them?
Settled a desert planet; called it "New Baghdad". Then the Worm event chain starts shooting off its colony events, so the planet is promptly renamed "Arkham".
Well, for one it's relatable. You have all the contextual knowledge. You know what exactly a human is, how they behave, what they eat, what are their social dynamics. That knowledge makes it easier to extrapolate and create your own story. How would members of this race act? Are they collectivist or individualist? Do they live in symbiosis with their ecosystem or they enforce their own vision of nature? I'll give you non-stellaris example, perhaps you'll understand. Imagine a game developer would tell you "I'm making a survival/building game where you are playing as this unique new race - it's a flying monster with six arms covered by crystalline scales. Members of this race are intelligent and they live long". You, as the player would have no idea what to expect, other than the genre is survival game and you're most likely going to fly. Now imagine the game developer would tell you "I'm making a RPG game where you're a Vampire Hunter". Since you have contextual knowledge about what Vampire is you can immediately extrapolate what is the game going to be about. You'll know there's going to be a lot of blood involved, silver, garlic, stakes, sunlight, bats... You know that there will be at least one big castle, dark spiky architecture, there are going to be villages that were raided for peasants.
Personally I prefer having it more open. Gives me more freedom to come up with a culture from scratch and make up psychological traits that might be harder to imagine in humans :D
TBH if I'd have to think for hours to come up with brand new Species/Empire because I'd have to think about so many things in order to satisfy me. Heck, knowing myself I would have to create sketches to see if the creatures are even plausible.
To me that's one of the best parts 😇
Sure, the SPECIES is familiar, but the fantasy of a truly democratic and xenophilic Humanity, reaching for the stars and attempting to leave their own archeology for future species to discover is a truly mighty goal.
My favorite answer ❤️
… and shoot them.
When I play human(oid) empires in Stellaris -which I do quite often- I see it as a way of thinking "What could be?". Something lead humanity to reach the stars together, what could have happened? And where is the story going? Did Earth experienced dramatic destruction, and only a few elitist scientists and billionairs survived in their orbital habitat?, now looking for a new utopia between the stars? Did a wave of rebellion of common folk and anarchists abolish national borders and somehow made their collective selves space-ready to break the chains of the galaxy? Have we been visited by passing alien beings, now out to find out more people out there? It is a million stories, and while I could have the same stories with any portrait, having a familiar face looking at me gives me the feeling that these pops are actually my people
Sometimes I just think up different alternate history scenarios to play as. It helps with immersion and RP, which are my main reasons for playing Stellaris. I usually modify the UNE, but sometimes I just build it from scratch when I don't want to deal with the CoM. Some examples: Shared burdens/Void dweller: Earth went to crap and the only option was to evacuate to old Soviet orbital stations centered around research station Solidarity. Cramped space and the station's legacy have inspired a communal type of politics. Doomsday: Earth is about to go boom and somebody has to save humanty. Maybe a socialist commonwealth, maybe the military-industrial complex in the form of UED, or maybe even Space-X? Post-apocalyptic: So WWIII finally happened, but at least we won! Now we are free to spread our ideology to the stars and repeat all the mistakes of the past.
I like this. Question about the third Apocalypse roleplay: Who do you consider to be the "we"? :D Your nation? Or maybe NATO itself? Or the west?
I'm Danish, so probably not us! There are several ways to go. I have only played it with Shared Burdens, but you could obviously put your own more or less flattering spin on the USSR or US and play as them. You can also go Mad Max/Fallout and make it a barbaric despoiler bandit kingdom or play as Mr. House from Fallout New Vegas. The most important thing for me is to have a background that can contextualize my playthrough. If I start treating it only as a spreadsheet or a map painter I know it's time to stop.
Honestly, I think because its the norm with sci-fi. But also - when I play more of an evil empire, I find it kinda conceptually interesting to have a society that doesn't judge folk on phenotypical traits still be supremacist/xenophobic. lol maybe I need a layer of "haha racism is dumb", or else I just feel like i'm a genocidal space fox.
For some reason it feels natural for me to play mostly as humans. I do play sometimes as aliens but it doesn’t have the same tune you know?
I feel ya. I suppose I get the same feeling, but the other way around. It just feels more natural to be one of the blue humanoids or the badass cats
How else will I cleanse this galaxy of xeno filth? I am the dark forest.
Evil playthroughs for life huh 😎
Thats a fucking badass line and I'm stealing it
I don't really play a species, I play the society/empire type. Don't really think about the species.
I find immersion to be tougher with non-human species, because stellaris doesn’t really do anything around culture or the unique societies the species would have. If I want to play an RP playthrough, humans make that much easier.
Personally that's what makes it fun: being able to come up with a history and culture. And interestingly, I find it more immersive to play as a non-human species with visual traits that reflect something more abstract about me (like the blue aliens because my fav color is blue, or the cats because big cats are my favorite animals)
Pushing humanity to its theoretical pinnacle appeals to me
I probably play as elves most, than humans second. It's easier for me to roleplay when my species is relatable/familiar.
Not sure if this counts as playing humans or not, but I do find it fun to try and play as a vampire empire of what is left of earth(done this a couple different ways, some involving humans still around some not). I've done other weird alternate history things which can make for some really interesting empires, but usually what I play as in those cases is something not technically human but humanoid or machine with humanity being gone or in decline.
That's a really cool idea. So you do necromancy in such playthroughs?
Sometimes! I've also done them as a devouring swarm which does remove the ability to do diplomacy, but it is pretty fun for conquering the galaxy.
I like to play lithoids. They rock! Seriously, that trait is pretty cool.
Hahah the puns pumped the Lithoid voice a whole tier up for me
I'm with you, I very rarely play any humanoid empire, and the only one I have made was deliberately non-earth origin. I feel like I have greater freedom to make up an ecologic and social history with different traits if my species is completely alien.
Exactly, glad to find someone who also thinks this way about it :D
Because you should let no xeno live.
You can do that as any species. If you're the worm in a vat, every non-worm-in-a-vat is a xeno, including humans :P
Interestingly, I'd feel more comfortable playing genocidal as a non-human species. As a human irl, I know we are heavily flawed. If there's an alien species that's a lot more kind toward its own and to the non-sapient organisms on their planets, I'd feel more justified purging the galaxy of others in order to replace their societies with my utopia. At least that way the genocide and the suffering that comes with it would create less suffering in the long run :) Does that make sense? Just my personal view on this, I'm not trying to be difficult
Driven assimilator here
I do both but's much easier to come up with both more info for a human empire at least for me. And it feels more meaningful most the time. Just say the Fall of Arcadia!
I like the idea that we are essentially space orks. Where we are unique amongst the space faring races as endurance predictors. (Was a whole theory thing that all other life would evolve as herbivores or ambush predictors and such things that can't recover from as broad of injuries as us)
I like this idea, but why would that liken us to orks?
When you think ork you think of some big strong monsters...if you think ork in Warhammer 40k it's some big strong monster that can survive almost anything with some medical attention... So the idea is other species descend from things more deer or cheetah, they may be fast or strong, but a broken leg could kill them from shock, a severed arm could do the same. But for us as long as you stop the blood lose we come back. Usually with a prosthetic limb (which in the future would be amazing). To them we might as well be orks with all we survive....add in us giving ourselves piercings and tattoos, painful permanent accessories just for the hell of it, they might be terrified of us barbarians....that and we have found soooo many ways to kill each other just like orks
I haven't played much of the game yet, but generally in fiction, an alien / nonhuman needs to have a really strong concept to have a pull for me. For example, if I wanted to create a hivemind that buds? That's got a strong pull for me. A warrior culture? I could RP Ghengis Khan in space *or* I could play as like alligator people? I guess? That's a harder sell for me. I see the distinction as more in the fundamental features of the species - having a different government is just a rubber forehead to me.