#Is there anything besides mrhythmizer upgrade

It's the emergent stories that arise from unexpected game-play and require an imagination, that breath life into each new game.

But that kind of scripted storytelling will always fade. The crises are great, though sort of broken atm. I love the scientific exploration of Stellaris, and the event chains are great. The geography of a Stellaris game really only dictates which irrelevant sector I dump identical planet number 42 in so as to minimize my energy credit loss.

Geography (in the sense of planet proximity & characteristics) has almost no impact on what an empire becomes, which is sort of mind-blowing, because in most space 4X, what planets you find profoundly dictate how your empire will grow and what strategic elements you should focus on to gain an edge over other empires. Once I've played through with a particular government/ethics set-up, I pretty much know exactly what my empire is going to look like, how I'm going to build my ships, and what every planet is going to look like once it's fully developed. My point, (and I think the OP's point?), is that regardless of what Stellaris might become, right now that there is nothing to do but expand and go to war AND these activities are currently hobbled by systems that do not offer the kind of emotional/imaginative investment that invites emergent stories. well, I think we all know the pros and cons of sectors at this point. Our fleets behave foolishly, out of our control, with no targeting and suicidal behavior. Once a planet's tiles are cleared and filled with basic structures, there's nothing exciting to do or build on those planets for the rest of the game.

Our planets are almost totally interchangeable except for a few bonus buildings or maybe a 'diverse' population. Our rulers are bland and almost totally out of control. Right now, in Stellaris, there really isn't a cornerstone to the game-play that invites player attachment & emotional investment. Even in the SM Civ games, we watch our cities grow and specialize over the course of the game.

#Is there anything besides mrhythmizer upgrade

In EU3/4 this is our provinces and how we choose to upgrade them, because the upgrades are critical and we can never get everything we want. In CK2 this structure is our dynasty and ruling family. However, most games provide a cornerstone structure of some sort around which players can invest their emotions and imagination. I agree that one needs to enjoy emergent game play/story-telling, and in essence bring one's own story to the events of a strategy game as they unfold. I appreciate what people are saying in the other posts above, about needing an imagination. I want to love this game, but I'm finding it disappointingly boring even with the new DLC. You have no way of knowing it in Stellaris, and even if you did, I don't think it would matter, given how thin internal politics I'm in the same boat as you. In CK, the moment to strike is when the enemy is embroiled in a succession crisis, or in regency, or otherwise handicapped by internal politics. There are also multiple interesting ways to manage them that don't boil down to 'spend Monarch points.' I once averted a civil war by seducing a faction leader and fathering a bastard, for instance.Д®DIT: Also, this spills over to dull stellar politics and warfare. They're not something that happens once in a blue moon, and factions with the same goal are not all the same (because they're composed of different vassals).

Factions and their prevention are basically 50% of CK gameplay. There is no personnel strategy in Stellaris, you just plop your best captain on the science ship farthest away from your capital, and hope he doesn't get elected. In CK, traits of people in your realm matter tremendously, and a single trait affects multiple things, resulting in trade-offs with personnel strategy. All this feature did was cost me a good captain. He gets elected one year after I hire him, and his agenda/traits have zero to do with his initial trait. Stellaris has the tantalizing taste of that kind of gameplay in leaders, factions and elections, but there's just no meat on that Skeleton.ДЇor instance, what's the point of making your on-map leaders electable, with eligibility a major differentiator between government types? I had a young science ship commander with an excellent trait. That's true, but, say, in Victoria or CK you can play in your sandbox on the edge of the world for the entire game and still have a fun time, depending on how screwed up your country is internally.