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Our superior science predicts that the cold-blooded nature of the Ubarians will render them slow to react to our declaration of war, and so our military takes the time to regroup and re-arm at Xelxic Prime.

These predictions are proved wrong & the delay costly, when a huge Ubaric battlefleet warps into the Condarra system & begins laying waste to our orbital refineries. With the colony world Goxesh under threat, our warships are deployed immediately, and arrive in-system just as the Ubarians have begun to bombard our fledgling colony.

New Frontiers

For three more years, Xelxic science vessels searched our neighbouring stars for suitable colony worlds, to no avail – finding only inhospitable wet worlds, covered by oceans or jungle.

We watched, horrified, as the Ubaric lizards increased their sphere of influence, inching closer to Xelxic Prime with each passing month.

Desperately, the Cardix was tasked to conduct a detailed survey of our closest star, Condarra – one which Xelxic deep space probes had already analysed decades before.

The probes were wrong.

To recap: the glorious Xelxic Empire Hegemony are taking their first steps into space, as an Extinction Level Event threatens the free people (and slaves) of Xelxic Prime.

Terrifyingly, just over two years after the Xelxic interstellar programme has begun, we encounter evidence of intelligent spacefaring life – but not as we know it.

I’ve been looking forward to the launch of Stellaris for a while; I’m a fan of Paradox Interactive’s other games (more specifically Crusader Kings II) – which are well worth getting into despite their rather steep learning curve – and I’m also a big fan of interstellar grand strategy, so my hopes have been up.

Rather than doing a review, I’ve decided to write this up as a full-blown After Action Report. Optimistically, I’m writing up my first actual playthrough. I’m sure everything will work out fine.