Over a year after Paradox Interactive released their grand-strategy Sci-fi game, “Stellaris,” their second story-pack update is set to be released in just a few weeks. Synthetic Dawn” will expand on the use of AI and robots in the game, and allow for playable Machine Empires. With the popularity of other strategy games, now is a good time to give "Stellaris" a try, as it is continually updated.

A new dawn

The biggest change coming with the new update is the Machine Empires, hivemind organizations that have overthrown organic life and built their own stellar empires.

“Synthetic Dawn” has introduced different types of robot organizations; there are those who seek to destroy all life, empires that wish to assimilate or even enslave all organics, and empires simply built up from rebelling AI workers.

Additionally, there are new Fallen Machine Empires, remnants of past glories, and as with the regular Fallen Empires, these must be approached with the greatest of care. New flavor will be added to the VIR assistant, who can be given different robotic voices with the new update.

Included with the larger “Synthetic Dawn” update will be a smaller “Čapek” patch, which will add several new features to the game. First, they are adding a Decadence feature to Awakened Empires.

When these Awakened Empires conquer the galaxy and have been ruling for more than a few years, their decadence meter will start to fill, making rebellions more possible and weakening their fleets. This will hopefully reduce the feeling that there is nothing to do once an Awakened Empire almost inevitably captures your own territory.

The developers are also making changes to the ways that Megastructures work. Building Dyson Spheres or Science Nexus’ will result in a far greater resource output than before, although you can only build one of each now. This change was made to ensure that these megastructures felt more unique and powerful than they did before.

Stellaris a game for space lovers and strategy fans

“Stellaris” allows you to play a developing, space-faring civilization as it makes its way from the home planet to carving out a galaxy-wide empire through diplomacy and war. The game is popular for the ability of customization it gives players, allowing them to decide how their alien race looks, speaks, and acts. Different government models are included in the game, as well as different ruling ethos, making each play-through potentially much different from the last.

“Synthetic Dawn” will be released September 21st on Steam.