We’re a week out from the release of Stellaris’ Star Wars expansion, Nemesis, and the development team has just released the patch notes for both the DLC pack and the free update that will launch alongside it – 3.0 ‘Dick’.
It’s worth reading the patch notes in full, especially as it sets out clearly what you’ll need to pay for in the expansion, versus what you get for free. As has been the tradition with Paradox grand strategy games of late, there’s actually quite a lot that’s free.
With the upcoming ‘Dick’ patch, headline features include a brand new system for first contact, as well as the concept of building spy networks in foreign empires. You have to send diplomatic envoys now to initiate first contact with other polities, and these envoys can build up EU4-style spy networks. There’s nothing else you can do with these networks other than gain intelligence on the target empire, but a premium Nemesis feature will involve the operations we’ve written about before. These operations can range from stealing technologies to arming insurgents, and will require you to ‘use up’ your spy network to initiate.
The free patch will also come with another overhaul to planetary economies and populations. There have been some changes to how building slots work along with industrial districts, and there’s plenty of changes to population growth as well, such as new colonies no longer incurring an explicit pop growth penalty.
There are also several new event chains, some new quality of life features, and plenty of balance tweaks and bug fixes. This is the biggest patch the team has released to date, and there’s honestly too much to try and summarise in full, although some of the fixes will elicit a chuckle, such as: “Uplift button now works instead of just giving you the sad button noise.”
We’ve covered the majority of Nemesis’ premium features in the past, but just to recap: On top of the new espionage operations, the end game has also been reworked so that you can become the crises. You can also become the galactic ‘Custodian’ and defend the galaxy, before creating a Galactic Empire. Other features include a new ship skin set and some music tracks.
Related: The complete guide to Stellaris DLC
Stellaris: Nemesis will release next week on PC via Steam and the Paradox Store on April 15. There’s still time to pre-order, if you’re so inclined.