Still on my first real game since I've purchased it (technically the third; I had a brief go of the game when it was first released, and recently after purchasing it on GOG I had to abandon the game since I didn't know how to build fleets by the time pirates started owning me).

I bought a few of recommended DLC's, but I can understand why Utopia is recommended (building ring-worlds, Dyson spheres, etc).

It's been an amazing first game, with so much going on:
-Integrating sentient symbiotic brain-slugs into my empire after finding them on a planet (kind of like the Stargate Tok'ra symbiotes).

-Raising another civilization from an industrial era to a space-faring one, and a pre-sentient race to sentience.

-Having a full multi-species federation (playing the human faction), where my president is actually from a bug-like race (see pic).

-Downloading a forgotten civilizations brain-patterns early on in the game, and when discovering sentient robots, being able to integrate their brain-patterns into them, effectively raising an extinct civilization from the dead as a synthetic one.

-Building mega-structures like ring worlds (built a Dyson Sphere as well, since my empire is resource hungry).

-Most alien races joining my Federation to help defeat the Galactic crisis, Prethoryn Scourge (recently defeated, didn't think we would prevail as their armies were insane (12 stacks of 50k fleets), but just in time I got the final Ascension Perk and chose "Defender of the Galaxy" which gives a nice buff).

I'm having so much fun, and I can't stop playing it (but I must be near the end now). I've made a few mistakes (like accidentally genetically engineering all of the brain-slugs out of my population, but I still get that trait for leaders, so it isn't all bad).

I also have no idea really what half of the stuff is in the game...I've played around with supporting factions (eg think political parties with various support with your race; some I believe form from immigration of other alien species with quite different ideologies), and played around with policies (like allowing resettlement from planet to planet) and often implementing Edicts.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, neither did I at the start of this same game (30 hours ago was it?). I don't generally like real-time because of how quick things move, but this game moves slow enough that I'm happy to leave it on normal play-back speed most of the time. If things get tricky, or you want to queue a lot of production (ships/buildings), or think about different research options you can pause which is nice.

Just to note that I got several of the DLC's:
-Utopia
-Distant Stars
-Leviathans
-Synthetics (after being quite far through this current game, but it did add speech for some dialogue after purchase).

I have no idea exactly what content could account for the experiences I had in this game unfortunately, but the mega-structures is something I would definitely miss now, having found great satisfaction in building these decades-long engineering marvels (part of the Utopia DLC).

Good luck, I'm in the same situaition, just starting Stellaris. There is a lot of buttons to learn, lol. We can do it!!:-)

you can watch people playing it on Twitch... Darksaber2k did a full play about a week ago, I like the music as much as the game itself

Stellaris Dev here, this topic made my day! Thank you for trying our game, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy it!

Good for you for taking on new challenges! One fun thing is to make your own collection of different species and play a game with them to see how they interact. It's like your very own space opera!

From hidden objects to Stellaris, that's quite THE jump. My advise is to take it slow, try to follow tutorials and search for Stellaris Let's play on Youtube, it is important however that they are updated since this game has changed quite a bit since it's first release.

The game can be a bit challenging, so try to lower difficulty and aggression from AI players when you set up your first game. The game usually starts slow, tho, so you have plenty of time to learn the ins and outs. It is also very fun as you start to interact with other species and your empire becomes more cosmopolitan.

Good luck and have fun!

I just started playing Stellaris about two weeks ago, and I've dumped about 40 hrs. into it so far (Retired + its Winter). I bought all of the DLC's (except Megacorps) and the main game at one time (here on GOG of course). I've started six games so far, and they have all been vastly different, so I would say replay value is very good with this one. My second game allowed me to claim a very large chunk of the Galaxy early on and my fourth game had me boxed in on all sides by hostiles. The fourth game was begging me to "play tall" as I had only 17 stars and two habitable worlds to play with, plus a system with ring worlds that needed repair to utilize. I hung in there for quite awhile (better part of a day) but finally succumbed when one of my bad neighbors took me out. I'm not experienced enough yet to handle a situation like that, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. I've played probably every 4X game out there, and not many Grand Strategy games, and I think Stellaris is at the top of the charts for me right now. I've learned so much in the past couple of weeks, and the strategy element is the most addicting factor that this game has to offer. I am purchasing Megacorp today and updating to the latest patch since this will change the game dramatically, and I may as well get used to it . Thanks GOG for getting this title and thanks Paradox for the vision to create this game.

That is no good substitute for an actual manual.