L
ike all of Paradox’s
grand strategy games,
Stellaris has received
a space freighter full
of DLC and free
updates since its release over five
years ago. From huge expansions
that significantly change how you
play, like Apocalypse and Megacorp,
to smaller, story-focused packs like
Leviathans and Ancient Relics, you
could spend about £150 all told if
you’re too impatient to wait for a
sale. But with September’s Lem
update, they’re trying something
a little different: adding new
content to old DLC.
It makes sense if you think about it.
You spent money on the base game,
which continually gets updated,
rebalanced, and injected full of free
features. You also spent money on the
DLC packs, so why shouldn’t they get
the same treatment to increase their
value going forward? This round of
sprucing up mainly targeted two
somewhat lackluster offerings: the
Plantoids Species Pack and the
Humanoids Species Pack.
Species packs in Stellaris add a
new set of 3D ships and space
stations, city art, and a bunch of alien
portraits you can use to customise
your empire. Plantoids is flora-
themed, featuring battleships with
leafy motifs and a collection of
flowery, bark-covered, and pistil-
packing species. Humanoids could be
calledthe‘rubberforeheadpack’,
with a ship set clearly inspired by
Star Trek and homages to Klingons
and Vulcans – but also some portraits
appropriate to classic fantasy races
like dwarves and elves. On release,
though, these packs were entirely
visual. Your tree men and not-
Romulans don’t actually play any
differently from other kinds of aliens.
With the Lem update, a selection
of new civics have been unlocked for
owners of these packs that let you
lean into the fantasies they present
with appropriate mechanics. You can
finally make a photosynthetic race- they still need some food, but half
of their nutritional requirements are
fulfilled by energy credits instead.
The Humanoids Species Pack now
grants access to the Clone Army
origin, allowing you to play as a race
of short-lived, militaristic clones
(clearly inspired by the Republic
army from the Star Wars prequels)
who can only reproduce artificially.
PUTTING DOWN ROOTS
And that’s not all. Your plantoid
empire can now use Catalytic
Processing, which uses organic
matter (represented as food) to createdurable alloys used in warships and
other military constructions, which
normally requires you to refine
minerals. This allows you to focus on
agriculture over industry and not fall
behind in terms of fleet strength.
Humanoids can pick up Masterful
Crafters, which the devs say is
custom made for your space dwarf
fantasies, which replaces the vanilla
Artisan job with Artificers who are
more productive, additionally
generating trade value and
engineering research for your empire.
This is all part of what Paradox is
calling the ‘Custodian Initiative’, a
new team that will be responsible
for putting out smaller updates at a
quicker pace for Stellaris. They’reaimingtogiveusplayerssomething
new to point our scanners at about
every three months, though not
every update will be as ambitious in
scope as Lem. Among other things,
they want to continue looking back
at older DLCs to add additional
value to them.
Plantoids and Humanoids weren’t
the only empire types that got some
love. Rogue Servitors, which are
basically robots who look after their
pampered, lazy organic creators, can
now build Sanctuary Arcologies to
house even greater teeming masses of
useless, ungrateful organics. Necroids
with the Reanimators civic can now
bring back slain space dragons as
zombie space dragons. And for
everyone, the Traditions system that
lets you evolve your empire over the
centuries has been totally reworked.
There are now more Traditions than
there are Tradition slots, meaning
you won’t be able to get all of them.
Previously, it was just a matter of
which order you took them in, so
everyone would have basically the
same bonuses by the endgame.
The Lem update is out now, and
while there’s no new DLC to go
along with it, you’ll be getting access
to new stuff for owning the Plantoids
Species Pack, Humanoids Species
Pack, Lithoids Species Pack, Necroids
Species Pack, Synthetic Dawn,
Apocalypse, Megacorp, Ancient
Relics, and Nemesis.NEEDTOKNOW
RELEASE
2016
PUBLISHER
In-houseDEVELOPER
Paradox
LINK
paradoxplaza.comSTELLARIS
Making old aliens new again. By Leana Hafer
YOUR PLANTOID
EMPIRE CAN NOW
USE CATALY TIC
PROCESSINGDIGGY DIGGY BLACK HOLE
How to make a space dwarf empire- Pick this portrait.
3. Pick up the Masterful Crafters Civic
(Mining Guilds and Functional Architecture
are great, too!)
4. For an added twist of reclaiming
your ancient mines from the cold earth,
try the Remnants origin! - Add some dwarfy
traits like
Industrious, Natural
Engineers, and
Quarrelsome.
WHAT’SNEWINTHE BIGGEST GAMES
UPDATE