Stellaris, the wildly successful – but not entirely without controversy – grand-strategy game with enormous scope and space exploration at its heart, has today received an update.
The Stellaris Asimov update brings changes to several in-game systems, including diplomacy, warfare, and empire expansion. Here’s the full details from Paradox Interactive:
- Access through empires’ borders now open until closed by diplomatic actions.
- Colonising planets and building outposts now costs influence.
- Embassies replaced by building long-term relationships with other empires via trustworthy actions.
- Diplomacy interface includes additional actions and options – and diplomatic incidents.
- New possible goals for warfare.
- Battles are clearer and have improved appearances.
- New ways to view maps with a variety of data shown.
- New nomadic fleets and varied population factions.
You may be wondering why the Stellaris Asimov update is named after legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov. Asimov is most well-associated with his three laws of robotics, first outlined in full in the novel I, Robot:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
But it’s worth pointing out that while the laws of robotics are his most well-known and lasting gift to the world, Isaac Asimov didn’t just set down the rules for which robots should conduct themselves towards humanity. He also wrote two other major series that weren’t preoccupied with the morals and ethics of robotics, called Foundation and Galactic Empire, which as the latter’s name suggests, has plenty in common with the content of Stellaris.
The Stellaris Asimov update is out now, and available to download for free by all players.
