We’ve still got a couple of weeks left to wait before the Stellaris: Nemesis expansion release date, when we can all live out our Star Wars power fantasies. In the meantime, browsing the Stellaris mod scene is always a great method for finding ways to keep the grand strategy 4X game fresh.
Some mods are really creative, or offer an excellent quality of life buff, while some simply convert the game to your favourite sci-fi universe. Others are simply cursed. Grid World 2.8 is one of these latter mods, offering an answer to a simple question no-one was asking in the first place: “What if space was a grid?” Created by user AnyPairIsTheNuts, this download replaces the default galaxy with a 21 x 21 star grid, which can support up to 50 empires.
Key differences this mod brings out in terms of a typical Stellaris game include ‘hegemon’ and ‘common ground’ starts being stronger and travel appearing slower due to “Manhattan pathing”. Funnily enough, Nuts has a mod to help with that, too.
This mod is cursed in more ways than one, however. If you read the mod’s description you’ll see there’s a range of known issues, as well as any potential workarounds or solutions.
The problem is, there aren’t really many fixes for a lot of the known issues, although they’re not all guaranteed to trigger. Luckily, Stellaris fans on reddit are enjoying the zany energy this mod puts out, so it seems it’s all part of the charm.
Grid World is still in its early stages, so with time and experience I’m sure the mod will become more fine-tuned. Although, I don’t think anything can fix the fact that you’re playing on a square grid, though. That’s just madness.
Related: Stellaris DLC guide
Stellaris: Nemesis is due for release on April 15, 2021 on PC via Steam and the Paradox Store. Pre-orders are available now.