Info about Stellaris: Necroids Species Pack:

Official game description:
Necroids, an intelligent undead species that live death to the fullest, will allow players to form empires that thrive where others might perish - and perish that others might thrive!  
The Necroids Species Pack features a brand new selection of portraits, civics, ship sets and other cosmetics for players who don’t fear the afterlife, and a unique Necrophage origin with new civics.  
The Necroids Species Pack includes:  
NEW ORIGIN  
The Necrophage Origin offers players a powerful primary species which consumes others within its grasp, blurring the line between cult and empire with three unique civics. New cosmetic changes will reincarnate playthroughs of Stellaris for long time players, while also bringing new life to killer empires.  
4 NEW CIVICS  
Death Cult: enables powerful edicts which require the sacrificing of pops  
Reanimators: allows the deployment of morality-immune, undead armies. Leaving your Necromancers alone with slain Leviathans can lead to … unexpected results.  
Permanent Employment: a variant of the Reanimators civic for Megacorps that ensures that the mortally impaired continue to add value to the company’s bottom line. Forever.  
Memorialists: erect monuments to the galaxy’s past, improving planetary stability and honouring tomb worlds  
COSMETICS  
● 16 new portraits (15 organic, 1 robotic)  
● New ship set  
● New advisor voiceover  
● New city set & diplomacy room  
● New Name lists  
● New building appearances  
Some features may require content sold separately

Release date: Oct 29, 2020

Categories: 4X, Empire Building, Diplomacy, Resource Management, Research and Technology, Exploration, Faction Management, Fleet Management

Feature scans:
- MTX: score 10; verdict: Fair (No Predatory Monetization); summary: User reviews predominantly complain about the DLC being overpriced and lacking content, with some criticism of misleading store page descriptions. However, there is zero evidence of predatory in-game monetization such as pay-to-win, gacha, loot boxes, or currency obfuscation. The complaints are entirely about the base price and value of the DLC itself, which per the scoring rules cannot push the score above 20. Therefore, the monetization model is fair, with no predatory elements.
- Proton/Linux: score 0; verdict: Works Well; summary: The filtered user feedback contains no Linux/Proton compatibility information. The only review discusses a general gameplay grievance about a game update, which is irrelevant to the assessment. Hence, the game is assumed to work without Linux-specific issues.
- Steam Deck: score 85; verdict: Broken - Major Stability Issues; summary: User feedback for Stellaris: Necroids Species Pack highlights severe issues with the Necrophage origin after the 4.0 update, including game-breaking bugs and a nerf that makes it nearly unplayable. The DLC also requires significant tinkering to make the origin work. These problems translate to poor Steam Deck compatibility, as stability is compromised and extensive setup is needed.

- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $5.00 - $8.00
  - Reasoning: The reviews consistently mention $8 as a fair full price for the DLC, but many recommend waiting for a sale around $5. Some consider it overpriced at full price, suggesting the community's acceptable range is $5–$8. This range reflects both the perceived value and the common advice to buy on sale.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: N/A
  - Story completion: N/A
  - Session length: 1.5h
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: The only direct playtime evidence for the DLC is a single session of 1.5 hours reported in one review, which is used for session length. Another review mentions 'an extra hundred hours' of cumulative use, but this is not a typical completion or endgame metric and is too vague to assign to any specific field. No evidence exists for game completion, story completion, or endgame hours specific to the Necroids Species Pack.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: The Necroids DLC offers powerful early-game snowballing through the necrophage origin and pop sacrifice mechanics, but arbitrary empire restrictions and inefficiency malices create friction, delaying the fun until players find effective workarounds.
  - Stance: Clicks after
  - Anchor: N/A
  - Time to anchor: N/A
  - Friction: Cannot create gestalt consciousness or xenophile empires; Slow growth and inefficiency malices from early restrictions; Pop conversion clashes with many empire types; Civics and origin feel underdeveloped compared to potential
  - Unlock drivers: Necrophage origin for fast early pop growth; Nihilistic Acquisition for stealing pops; Death Cult civic for sacrificing pops to get massive bonuses; Upgraded buildings providing +30 stability without pops
  - Conditions: Playing a xenophobic empire to maximize pop conversion; Rushing military traditions and early wars for pop acquisition; Using multiplayer to test the DLC via a friend's copy; Accepting initial restrictions to focus on necroid-specific strengths
- Player Archetypes:
  - Roleplay-First Storyteller (buy)
    - Motivation: Immersive storytelling and thematic roleplay.
    - Playstyle: Creates thematic empires with detailed backstories, focuses on narrative and flavor over pure efficiency.
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: roleplayer; storyteller
    - Reference games: Lithoid (species pack comparison)
  - Mechanics-Focused Optimizer (sale)
    - Motivation: Strategic depth and new build possibilities.
    - Playstyle: Experiments with new civics, origins, and mechanics; optimizes builds and seeks strategic depth.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: min-maxer; veteran player
    - Reference games: Devouring swarm (playstyle comparison)
  - Price-Conscious Pragmatist (deep sale)
    - Motivation: Value for money and avoiding buyer's remorse.
    - Playstyle: Waits for discounts, evaluates cost vs. content, and may be aware of bugs but still enjoys the game.
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: deep sale
    - Labels: budget-conscious; patient gamer
    - Reference games: N/A


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Excellent cosmetics and art (weight 0.5): The DLC's cosmetics, including ship sets, portraits, and city designs, are highly praised for their quality and atmospheric design. Players appreciate the variety and detail, with some calling it the best shipset in the game.
- Good value and content (weight 0.35): Players generally find the DLC to be a good value, offering substantial content for its price, especially when purchased on sale. It is considered better than other species packs like Lithoids, with high replayability and solid cosmetic assets.
- Necrophage origin is highlight (weight 0.33): The Necrophage origin is a standout feature, providing unique early-game mechanics like fast pop growth, strong colonization, and conversion of pops. It enables new playstyles and synergizes well with other origins like Lithoids, though some note it can be powerful.
- New civics add fun mechanics (weight 0.26): New civics like Death Cult, Reanimated Armies, and Memorialists add fresh mechanics and are fun to use. Memorialists provide easy stability bonuses, and Reanimators allow resurrecting leviathans, which players find awesome.
- Great roleplay potential (weight 0.24): The DLC offers strong roleplay potential, especially for xenophobe or undead-themed empires. Players enjoy creating cool races and exploring new gameplay-lore opportunities, with humorous combinations possible.
- High replayability and variety (weight 0.15): The DLC provides high replayability through new origins, civics, and cosmetics, allowing for many empire combinations. Players find it adds value to multiple playthroughs and can be enjoyed in multiplayer.
- Better than Lithoids DLC (weight 0.15): The Necroids DLC is often compared favorably to the Lithoids DLC, with players finding it better for roleplay and more compatible. Some note that combining Necroid and Lithoid traits can be powerful or broken.
- Fun and fitting addition (weight 0.14): Overall, players find the DLC fun and a fine addition to the game, with new mechanics that are cool in theory and practice. It fits well with the existing Stellaris experience.
- Advisor voice and ships cool (weight 0.13): The new advisor voice is well-received, with players finding it soothing or creepy, and it adds to the atmosphere. The ship models are also noted as cool and well-designed.
- Adds many new game elements (weight 0.12): The DLC adds a variety of new elements including origins, civics, traits, perks, buildings, and factions. This breadth of content keeps the game fresh and engaging.
- Reanimators resurrect leviathans (weight 0.1): The Reanimators civic allows players to resurrect leviathans and create undead meatshields, which is a standout feature. This mechanic adds a unique strategic element to the game.
- Leader bonuses and unity rush (weight 0.08): The DLC introduces leader-focused gameplay with bonuses like +80 years lifespan and +5% ruler/specialist output. Unity rushing is noted as incredibly fun, adding a new strategic layer.
- Conversion mechanics are unique (weight 0.07): The conversion mechanics, such as turning slaves into the main race via buildings or converting pops to undead, are appreciated. This allows for unique empire management strategies.
- Performance improvements noted (weight 0.07): Some players note performance improvements with the DLC, such as better optimization and the -dx11 option. They also appreciate the accompanying bug fixes and patches.
- Believable design (weight 0.03): The design of the Necroid species is considered believable and atmospheric, fitting the undead theme well. This adds to the immersion for players.
- Neat gameplay aspects (weight 0.03): The DLC introduces neat gameplay aspects that enhance the overall experience. While not detailed, this feedback indicates general satisfaction with the mechanics.

Common complaints:
- Disappointing and lacks novelty (weight 0.97): Overall, the DLC is seen as disappointing, boring, and lacking novelty. It fails to deliver on the necromancy theme, feels like a reskin of existing content, and does not significantly change gameplay. Many players recommend skipping it or using mods instead.
- Poor integration and balance (weight 0.4): The DLC's mechanics are poorly integrated with the base game, causing balance issues, negative interactions with existing systems, and logical inconsistencies (e.g., undead needing food). Many features feel shoehorned or broken.
- Necrophage origin clunky and tedious (weight 0.31): The Necrophage origin is criticized for being clunky, requiring excessive micromanagement, and imposing severe population growth penalties (-75%). It forces manual resettlement and constant pop conversion, making it tedious and frustrating to play.
- Overpriced for value (weight 0.26): Many players feel the DLC is overpriced for what it offers, with some suggesting it should cost significantly less or be part of the base game. The price-to-content ratio is seen as poor, especially compared to other Stellaris DLCs.
- Numerous persistent bugs (weight 0.25): Numerous bugs are reported, including sound notification issues, game crashes when using shift-click, loading screen freezes, and Necrophyte jobs stopping. Some bugs have persisted for months without fixes, and developer responses have been unsatisfactory.
- Very light on content (weight 0.24): The DLC is widely criticized for offering very little new content, with many reviewers noting it adds only a few portraits, ship appearances, and minor mechanics. It feels more like a cosmetic pack than a meaningful expansion.
- Generic and recycled portraits (weight 0.21): Portraits are described as generic, recycled, and limited in number, with no gender dimorphism. The ship designs are seen as uncreative, and the advisor voice is unremarkable.
- Weak civics and origins (weight 0.19): The civics, traits, and origins added by the DLC are considered weak, boring, or mechanically inferior. Many reviewers note that only a few are worthwhile, and some are outright useless, such as the Undead Army civic.
- Undead Army civic useless (weight 0.17): The Undead Army civic is heavily criticized for providing only a single weak unit that is easily replaced, and it requires a national focus slot. Players find it underwhelming and not worth using.
- Lacks unique events and features (weight 0.15): The DLC lacks unique events, special diplomacy options, and necromancy elements. Events are underdeveloped, and there are no meaningful interactions with other empires.
- Mods offer better content (weight 0.11): Players note that free mods offer more content and better quality than this paid DLC. Some also criticize the store page for listing free update features as DLC content, misleading customers.
- Feels rushed and unfinished (weight 0.09): The DLC feels rushed, likely for a Halloween release, and comes across as a barely finished product. This contributes to its low quality and lack of polish.

Gameplay feedback:
- Necrophage conversion mechanics (weight 0.33): The Necrophage origin enables converting other species into your primary species via a special purge type or Necrophyte jobs, with an event every 10 years. It provides fast pop acquisition and snowballing potential but requires careful management of ethics and traits.
- Cosmetic-focused DLC (weight 0.26): The Necroids DLC is primarily a cosmetic and flavor pack, adding new portraits, ship models, city appearances, and an advisor voice. It includes a few civics and one origin, but is not a major gameplay expansion.
- Reanimators undead armies (weight 0.24): The Reanimators civic allows resurrection of leviathans and creation of undead armies immune to morale damage. However, the special army has weak combat characteristics and requires military academy tech to build.
- Pop conversion mechanics (weight 0.21): Necroid gameplay revolves around converting subservient species into necroids via special buildings like the Chamber of Elevation, which converts up to 3 pops per planet every 10 years. Assimilation retains the species' power status after conversion.
- Growth and productivity penalties (weight 0.19): Necrophage origins cause significant penalties: primary species reproduction rate is reduced by 75%, workers are less productive, and pop growth is slowed. This makes the early game very difficult and requires manual resettlement of pops.
- Death Cult sacrifice mechanic (weight 0.18): The Death Cult civic allows players to sacrifice pops for temporary empire-wide bonuses like production and happiness. However, players cannot choose which pops to sacrifice, which can lead to micromanagement issues.
- Memorialists stability bonuses (weight 0.15): The Memorialists civic builds monuments on tomb worlds for stability and unity/society research jobs. It synergizes with tomb-world origins and provides stability bonuses without requiring jobs.
- Necroid species traits (weight 0.12): Necroids are an intelligent undead species that consume food and minerals despite being undead, and have habitability restrictions. They play similarly to other factions, which some players find underwhelming.
- Leader and specialist bonuses (weight 0.07): Necroid leaders live 80 years longer, and the main species has halved consumer goods cost. Specialists are more productive, but workers are less so.
- Unique Necroid perks (weight 0.07): Necroids specialize in pop conversion and leader improvement, with new perks and technologies exclusive to them. This adds depth to the gameplay.
- Stability mechanics (weight 0.07): Stability above 50% provides resource and trade value bonuses, and the Sanctuary of Repose building grants +5 stability without jobs, upgradable to +15. This is a key mechanic for Memorialists.
- Roleplay opportunities (weight 0.07): Players can roleplay as a parasitic species with strict rule sets, or as an undead race. Despite being parasites, they have equal civil rights, which some find interesting.

Performance notes:
- 30% loading screen freeze (weight 0.04): A significant bug causes the game to get stuck at 30% loading, preventing players from accessing the game entirely.
- Shift key crash bug (weight 0.04): The game crashes when the player holds the shift key to assign multiple tasks simultaneously, disrupting workflow and causing frustration.
- Optimization improvements noted (weight 0.04): Recent updates have improved optimization, including faster startup times and better handling of multi-line task allocation, enhancing overall performance.

Recommendations:
- Wait for a sale (weight 0.37): Many players advise waiting for a sale before purchasing this DLC, with specific price points like $5 or 50-60% off mentioned. The consensus is that the content does not justify the full price.
- Recommended for niche players (weight 0.31): This DLC is recommended for specific player types, such as fans of Stellaris, roleplayers, those who enjoy necroid/xenophobe themes, or advanced players. It offers unique mechanics and cosmetics that appeal to niche interests.
- Not recommended overall (weight 0.27): A significant number of reviews strongly advise against buying this DLC, citing reasons such as high price for limited content, bugs, and better alternatives. Some explicitly say 'do not buy' or 'strongly do not recommend'.
- Optional and not essential (weight 0.16): Several reviews indicate the DLC is optional, not essential, or only okay for the price. It can be avoided or is only suitable for certain playstyles like roleplaying.
- Bugs and patch issues (weight 0.11): Some reviews warn about bugs or compatibility issues, particularly with the 4.0 update, and suggest waiting for patches or playing on older versions. The current state is not recommended.
- Worth it for some (weight 0.09): Some players find the DLC worth the money, especially if they already own other DLCs or value the specific mechanics like the necroid civic. The price is considered fair by a minority.
- Lower priority DLC (weight 0.07): A few reviews recommend prioritizing other DLCs like Utopia or essential story packs before this one. It is seen as lower priority content.

Other player notes:
No miscpoints

Emotions:
- Disappointment (weight 0.21): Players feel the DLC lacks unique content, with weak mechanics and a rushed implementation that fails to deliver on its necromancy theme. It is seen as overpriced and boring, offering little novelty compared to the base game or mods.
- Frustration (weight 0.19): Frustration stems from broken mechanics, bugs, and poor balance, such as the Necroid DLC's ascension perk being incompatible with machine ascension. Players also cite high cost for low quality, tedious gameplay, and a lack of developer responsiveness to issues.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.14): Satisfaction arises from the DLC's good value, new content like ship sets and civics, and performance improvements. Players enjoy the strategic advantages it provides, such as pop snowballing leading to tech dominance.
- Approval (weight 0.07): Approval is driven by the powerful Necrophage origin and Memorialist civic, which offer strong early-game growth and easy stability bonuses. The DLC is also considered cheap and fun.
- Excitement (weight 0.07): Excitement comes from new roleplay possibilities, especially with the Necrophage origin and Death Cult synergy enabling Unity rushing. The alien portraits and xenophobe gameplay also contribute to the positive response.
- Confusion (weight 0.03): Confusion arises from the absence of the Corpse ascension feature and a lack of understanding why the DLC receives mostly negative reviews.
- Anger (weight 0.03): Anger is directed at bugs, such as fanatic purifiers incorrectly necro-converting, and what is perceived as shameless behavior from the developers.
- Awe (weight 0.02): Awe is inspired by the epic quality of the portraits included in the DLC.
- Optimism (weight 0.02): Optimism is based on the belief that Paradox is unlikely to nerf the recently added content, preserving its current power.
- Confidence (weight 0.02): Confidence comes from a clear step-by-step strategy that leads to consistent victories when using the DLC's features.
- Mixed satisfaction (weight 0.02): Mixed satisfaction reflects a view that the DLC is good but overpriced, balancing positive content against cost concerns.
- Agreement (weight 0.02): Agreement is expressed with negative reviews, indicating alignment with criticisms of the DLC.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.02): Enjoyment is derived from creating cool races using the DLC's cosmetics and traits, enhancing the creative aspect of the game.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0.02): Mild disappointment stems from the DLC being only average, with potential for more that was not realized.
- Satisfaction with price (weight 0.02): Satisfaction with price comes from the DLC costing only 32 yuan, which is seen as cheaper than mobile game microtransactions.
- Disappointment in value (weight 0.02): Disappointment in value arises from the DLC not being cost-effective compared to other Stellaris DLCs.
- Shock (weight 0.02): Shock is caused by a bug that still causes crashes after six months, indicating a lack of timely fixes.
- Delight (weight 0.02): Delight is found in the concept of converting other species, which is seen as a form of in-game racism that adds thematic depth.
- Amusement (weight 0.02): Amusement comes from the funny concept of an undead decaying civilization, adding a humorous element to the game.
- Desire (weight 0.02): Desire is expressed for a unique society tech tree for the undead race, indicating a wish for more specialized content.}