When comparing Stellaris vs Star Walk 2, the Slant community recommends Stellaris for most people. In the question“What are the best 4X space games on PC?” Stellaris is ranked 2nd while Star Walk 2 is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Stellaris is:
The fact that Stellaris is so modifiable makes a huge difference to the game. There are so many ways to customize the game to your liking. If there's a design decision you dislike, you are always capable of changing it yourself (within certain limits), and you can make the game completely different. You can play as a race from your favorite books, anime, whatever, because so many talented people are making mods for the game.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Highly moddable
The fact that Stellaris is so modifiable makes a huge difference to the game. There are so many ways to customize the game to your liking.
If there's a design decision you dislike, you are always capable of changing it yourself (within certain limits), and you can make the game completely different. You can play as a race from your favorite books, anime, whatever, because so many talented people are making mods for the game.
Pro Emergent stories
Oftentimes, if you play the game without min-maxing everything, you will find yourself with interesting stories to tell. While the coded events themselves may lose their touch after a while, the interactions with the various races nearby will often be different. You might find yourself in situations where the whole galaxy is against you. You also might find a race of primitives who you uplift, who will become fast friends with you. It's possible that you might grow attached to them, only for them to suddenly and violently be taken over by that Xenophobic Militarist on your borders.
The reason some stick with this game for so long is because they love these interactions, despite how shallow they may be sometimes. The fact that you can even be a Fanatic Militarist in the game and still have friends afterward is something that some may find particularly fun.
Pro Great early game exploration
The exploration, and the early game in general, is very interesting, with a plethora of events, not limited to Anomalies surveying player and AI science ships can encounter.
Pro Constant updates
Stellaris is steadily receiving updates, tweaking game balance and fixing bugs alongside with quality of life improvements and new content. Though some of the bigger updates content is often sold as DLC.
Pro Displays different parts of the light spectrum
Instead of only displaying what would be visible to the human eye, Star Walk displays gamma ray, x ray, h-alpha, infrared, microwave, and radio.
Pro Users can choose which objects are displayed
Users can toggle which features are activated, such as constellation description or satellite display.
Pro 3D view of stars up close
Just tap on a star and see what it looks like from a closer perspective.
Pro Identifies satellites
For 99 cents, satellites can be tapped for identification. This app contains information on over 9000 satellites.
Pro Contains information about all the planets
Star Walk 2 attempts to give users a comprehensive view of all the things that are currently happening in space, this includes events at other planets. For instance, it displays the angle of rotation around the sun, sunrise, sunset, and length of day on that particular planet.
Pro Adds illustrations over feed from camera
Instead of just displaying a feed of what the sky should look like when the device is aimed in different directions, Sky Walk paints stars, constellations, and satellites over real time images taken from the device's camera.
Cons
Con The AI is inconsistent
While the AI in Stellaris works fine most of the time, it has its fair share of problems and oddities.
One of the main problems is automation with the help of the AI. When your empire grows too large, you have to relegate some star systems to “sectors” that are controlled by the AI, automatically performing upkeep and advancement tasks with settings and rules assigned by you. In theory, this would reduce the amount of micromanagement you have to perform, but the AI has a tendency to ignore your inputs, and just randomly reassign resources. This creates a situation where 10 solar systems manually controlled by you have a higher output than 80 systems controlled by the AI.
Another significant problem is the AI controlling the enemy empires. While these function well enough to give you a decent challenge, they sometimes get stuck into logic loops. For example, the AI can decide to endlessly rebuild a single structure, needlessly wasting resources, which causes that empire to stagnate and eventually collapse. Or it can “forget” to allocate food resources after a war while spending everything on just rebuilding, causing a collapse from starvation. It can feel really aggravating when enemy empires just start imploding for no apparent reason, leaving you with a massive fleet with nowhere to point it at.
These two AI problems, among various others, can worsen the overall experience and sometimes take the enjoyment out of a playthrough.
Con Lack of uniqueness ever since the 2.0 update
Ever since Paradox released the 2.0 update, the game has become trash. They simplified the game to the point of absurdity, so now it's pretty much just EU4 in space, except unlike EU4, it's just bad now.
Con Basic economic system is unrealistic, illogical, unworkable and very badly explained
When the game had a simple 'tile' system it worked fine. Now the need for specialist workers creates a level of frustration which simply ruins the playability of the game.
Con Lack of vanilla content, currently
Unfortunately, the game is lacking a bit in certain types of content. There is a great number of events in the game, but not enough as it is. With how many events there are, it is likely that you will see many of these events occur over multiple games. For instance, finding Sol or Sanctuary once may be interesting, but finding it every couple games makes it seem less special.
Con High learning curve
There is a lot to learn in this game that isn't explained very well and is sometimes hard to find. Edicts, policies, and civil rights for example.
Con Needs more traits/ethics/flavor
There are very few options to really make your species unique. There are mods that address this but they can break when patches are released. More added to vanilla would be great.
Con Unstable for many users
Many people who have this app complain that it crashes within seconds of starting.
Con Outdated data base
2016 and 2017 are not in data base. Can't view anything discovered after 2015. Comets like johnson can't be found.