Stellaris Leviathans Review | 7 Years Late Edition 

I scripted an entire section about the infinity sphere and I'm pretty sure I recorded it. The fact that it somehow didn't make it into the video just shows how much of an impact it makes on me. 😢

Who is this new Stellaris RU-vidr? 😉

Man this Aspec guys seems like a cool content creator, I wonder if he'll do a Smash or Pass test with the Stellaris' aliens/portraits?

Hola, hola, 2 minor points: 1) Curators offer service of estimating how your fleet would do against a Leviathan 2) Traders offer strategic resources at fixed prices, and IMO this shouldn’t be underestimated. For one, they might be a first source of a given resource, allowing to start the edicts. Next, they unload the need for refineries, which are inefficient. Thirdly, fixed price means that we can supplement trade from market, without rising the prices.

I genuinely think that Leviathans was one of the coolest DLC's at the time. Though there is no disputing the fact that the Leviathans have kind of been muddled when combined with all the other content added. They aren't so special to find and fight anymore. But I do genuinely wish we could get a sequel to Leviathans. Adding more Mini-bosses and so on. Leviathans, Ancient Relics, and Synthetic Dawn are DLC's I believe could do with a sequel of sorts, we are getting one for Synthetic Dawn already. But would love more variety of bosses to fight. Like imagine taking some notes from something like Gigastructure. And give us living planets. Imagine coming into a system. Where all planets and the sun are living beings. Almost like animals. They live together in a pack around the sun. Requiring extreme fleet strength, probably having the highest health pool by a long shot of anything so far. Imagine varied types of bosses. Like a moon and normal Earth/Mars type of planet would be weak to lasers. Ice planets something like Missiles, Gas Giants and the Sun would be a bit trickier to try making a unique weakness to. But I love the idea of a boss fight where you can't just have one giant fleet of all the same type of weapon and armor. But need to look into having your own task force for each planet. Edit: Enigmatic Fortress disappointed me with the fact that you don't get any type of cool buff to defense systems.

I don't wanna talk about the tile system Dad, we promised we wouldn't :(

You forgot to mention that the Artisan Troupe will also steal the bolts that hold everything down.

Man I love The Automated Dreadnought's design. Personally my favorite Guardian design. Really wish they made The Dreadnought into a Juggernaut style Specialist Ship that you could build multiple of. Maybe have defeating The Automated Dread unlock them for you way earlier than otherwise as a fun reward. I just want to see more of it since its dope looking. Honestly its pretty disappointing how few Guardians have interesting aspects like that if you arent specifically playing a necromancer build. Wish there was more hard incentives to kill em for all empires

its been a while ASpec i hope you are safe and healthy

Once had a war in heaven that the contingency spawned halfway through and the robot fallen empire went rogue as well as robot uprisings spawning in my allies systems, I refer to that entire period as the 60 years war, for what should be somewhat obvious reasons.

Leviathans is peak. It adds stuff to do read about and makes the galaxy more mysterious. Also combat even if you don't want wars with other empires.

One of the first things when I think of Stellaris is "How to train your Space Dragon" Leviathan is a fun expansion, not needed for base game mechanics but makes me more invested in being happy, excited, sad and joyful. The more "needed" expansions to have a "complete game" with the needed mechanics, don't make me as emotionally invested as the Leviathan expansion. The Leviathan expansion is what makes Stellaris a unique game from the many other space games that makes Stellaris more unique and fun. (arguably its now the steam wrokshop mods that carry the game for the last few years in making the game unique and fun)

There are 4 dlc's that I would love to see completely integrated. Utopia, synthetic Dawn, megacorp, and leviathan.

How’s the shed going

Man, Leviathans and Utopia have a special place in my heart. I'm an OG player, been here since day one and I remember listening to your reviews/videos for it and Utopia back in 2016/2017 when I was an Erasmus student in Sofia, Bulgaria (one of the best times of my life). I remember when Utopia came out, I came back from uni, told my flatmate that I couldnt go out that night, went to KFC alone to eat while listening to Aspec talking about megastructures and ascension perks and than went back to kill my first damn Space Dragon in Stellaris after buying Utopia. I didnt get out of my room for a week. This video hits directly my nostalgia. Also War in Heaven is still my favorite event. I know it's not everyone's favorite but I get excited everytime when those scary giants decide to wake up and choose violence.

I hope they overhaul leviathans MASSIVELY because they added some really cool more technical leviathans or made some better through other dlcs or updates ie. Here be dragons and the Star eater. I will say though I never realized that trader enclaves were a part of the dlc lol. Although slim I could see the automated dreadnought and enigmatic fortress getting some touch ups with the new dlc releasing in early may.

Glad to see you back, hope you've been well

Wow, awesome new expansion! I really hope they don’t do something dumb like removing planetary tiles in the future, that would be horrific!

Traders are great if your empire is severely lacking in a resource. Had a few times where exotic gases were almost non-existent within my empire until I finished a few conquests which would have been much harder without the gases I bought from the trader enclave to use to improve the research labs which gave me the edge to defeat the rivals that had the gases and worlds I wanted. So traders might be nerfed into the ground, but if you're dealing with a bad situation they really do provide a backdoor to saving yourself.

They added end game crisis slider to make that challenge more challenging. Why not add a slider for Leviathans to make it more challenging?

I think your last couple comments there about the state of Stellaris in general and the type of game it's become explain why I've been playing other things lately, and I agree completely. At this point some of the early DLC needs to be listed as free and therefore a part of the base game. Still, it's good to see you're back around and all is well.

Missed you, man! ❤🎉

Ah, the old, easily approachable tile system...

Nice to see new videos after few months

I hope it will get far more story to the guardians in the future. Maybe some guardian crisis, where the organic and energy based guardians start to reproduce and take more and more systems. Or something that you can add better components to the automated dreadnought, or maybe build new ones. Or add a relic to every of the guardians. The point is that the main feature need more interactions or rewards.

Now how could one make Leviathans more interesting? As a roleplay enjoyer, I'd love to see each leviathan give a unique empire defining reward. Maybe an exclusive ship type (looking at you, Dreadnaught), maybe an unlockable civic (Who doesn't want to be a dragonhunter culture?) or ascension perk (Infinity sphere kilostructures for all your research needs anyone?), maybe a unique species trait (Something Worm related perchance?). Something fun, something which would make the defeat of one of these behemoths have a more noticeable lasting impact than just a trophy relic. Besides that, expanding on the event chains associated with each leviathan might make them more interesting than the big damage check most of them are now.

Gonna say wish defeating the automated dreadnaught unlocked a new class of ship to build but i suppose adding a dreadnaught class to each shipset that only unlocks if you beat a specific levithan is a bit much.....but it would be a nice surprise.

I wouldnt say they are completely obsolete. Just did a play through with only advanced AI starts GA AI starting as a hive mind with stargazers and slingshot origin. If i didnt manage to kill and ressurect the ether and void drake i would not have been able to win crucial wars declared on me when it was 75% ressurected. It was the leviathans that made me galactic emperor

The best use for the mid game unique ships is harassment and clean up, especially the ones with jump drives Their health is high enough and regens fast enough that they can be used to capture small stations and outposts on their own without dedicating any other ships/fleets

I would like the Here be Dragons origin to have a version with the automated battleship, that the Doomsday origin was related to the void dragon or the Stellarite Devourer.

Did you forget about the Void Spawn and Tiyaniki Matriarch, or were those not a part of this DLC? I think it's also worth mentioning that you can necromance the Void Spawn, Titanki Matriarch, and Either Drake if you have necroids. That's pretty fun.

Always wondered where this video was lmao

I just got called incompetent 😂 why you gotta call me out like that 3:25

yeeeeah, i guess youre right about how the leviathans not really giving you a lot for the effort but i dont want to miss it. i just like those silly gigantic things that just look freakin awesome :)

traders give you starbase buildings, that reduce market fee(5% per owned trader system, up to 15% if you contol all 3 of them), which is nice

It really is a shame that those 'event' ships (Automated Factory, the Automated Dreadnought, etc) can't be researched somehow. Even if just for a percentage towards something in their tech. Exactly how might need some balance runs, but it would give a lot more oomph to them than the very limited use you get. Half the time I'm disbanding them instantly! Something else (Especially for Memorialists?) some sort of 'Museum piece' option where you could turn them into a Museum bonus or something to unity?

"... shot alian, reeve bacon." Hey, I love me some bacon!

Hey ASpec. I remember when this expansion came out, it was good. I played it but left Stellaris for several years. I'm just revisiting the game and had a War in Heaven event trigger. I have no idea how to beat an awakened empire's fleet at almost 400k, I've already reached repetable weapon techs and I'm still miles away from that kind of power. I've been searching for a while now how to defeat one of these things. I think it might be good content for you to make an updated video on this mechanic for people like me who are revisiting the game.

One day paradox will let us modify modules of rewarded ships, starbases and other stuff that is uneditable, but this is the whole another story (or they never will) Yeah space dragon become a thing I believe because of it's rewards that back in the time had the most value than others. P.S. Oh, looks like someone finally decided to get out of his S.H.E.D. and talk to internet again. Nice to hear you again

I'm real curious how many other DLCs could be combined with each other or merged into the base game to give better value.

Will you do any Homeworld 3 content when it releases?

I blew up a system that geld my farming world in a questljme and turned it into a black hole that spawned the dimensional horror which turned out to be an old god my people then decided to worship for some research bonus but reduced pop growth because drawback for praying to a ancient cosmic horror never comes cheap. Since the system that sucker now lives in as a neutral being to me is also the only choke point where enemies could potentially reach my capitol I now have a pretty cool guardian and last defense when shit goes wrong. Alone for this the leviathan dlc is worth it. After all stellaris is a great story generator.

I think a Leviathans 2 would be glorious

you should focus on the incoming dlc we need some info dumps and lore and whatever

Make leviathans great again by having the expansions main selling point a 5k star galaxy and a 10k star galaxy.

will paradox ever create a new iteration of games?

Did the infinity sphere section get cut? It's very briefly mentioned at 5:55 alongside the fortress Easily my favorite leviathan of all of them, especially when it unfolds... not that I've ever seen it unfold past the first couple times because I always help it and hope like hell Pantagruel happens

What about the tyianki matriarch? Was that not in this DLC?

I agree. Anything older than Nemesis or so should get baked in at this stage. I adore Stellaris, its one of my most played games that isn't World of Warcraft, a whole other beast, but its impossible to recommend Stellaris to anyone due to the mountain of outdated DLCs that are such a massive turnoff for anyone coming in at this point.

Traders are fine becuase purchase 5, then offer a trade deal to another empire for 200-700 energry.

actually, with cloaks and frigates you can easily kill the dimensional horror very early on. Just have to get lucky with cloaks

The BFG-9000, not 5000 Also, pretty sure Bubbles is what everyone associates with Stellaris, not the Space Dragon =p Also Genocide.

As someone who enjoys diplomatic gameplay, I've been reluctant to pick up Leviathans after hearing the War in Heaven dissolves Federations - has this been an issue in the experience of others here?

Ngl i have no idea how this missed out on reanimating leviathans, especially when it brings up smaller features from other DLCs like the leaders

I with my grandfather was alive to see this 🥹

7 years? Jesus

I still miss the blobby borders of pre-apocalypse stellaris

No scavenger bot?

Tile system was a superior alternative to expand on than jobs which tanked performance and AI competence. Three different starter FTL techs were more interesting and flavorful. Finally, removing contested system ownership was a mistake and a big blow on many mods.

I admit it's not super original but kill aliens get bacon is awesome. I like bacon.

Wait, the War in Heaven is supposed to happen 50% of the time? I've played for ~2000 hours and seen it I think twice. Only one of those times was it actually a credible threat by the time it triggered.

805 like

Kinda sad how paradox went from along content to crumb full price “DLC”

"tile based system" good its gone in stellaris , sad that it returned in Millennia .........

Montu won

Dude common, you could have at least waited another 3 years

Tbh thats why i pirated it