>>3981826>>3981826Stellaris. It's like Europa Universalis in space.
You can design your own alien race and homeworld, or just use humans and Earth. You can design your own government type from a wide election of ethics and authority types. For instance, you can be a pacifist xenophile direct democracy, or a fanatic xenophobe military dictatorship; and you can even have various types of corporation governments and LARP as a lolberg.
The game centers around colonzing new planets, collecting resources, researching new tech, and building fleets and armies to rek other aliens. Games start with randomized AI empires to fight against, but you can make your own custom races and make them spawn by default. I think the maximum number of alien "starts" allowed is like 30 on the "huge galaxy" setting. Also, you can engage in trade deals and alliances with other alien empires, who are more likely to accept depending on how similar your ideologies and government are.
Also, there are "Fallen Empires" which are ancient races auto-spawned by the game with specific ideologies and behavior, and really advanced tech that you can't challenge until the late game. The maximum amount of Fallen Empires is 4 on the "huge galaxy" setting, but you can also decrease this number yourself in the settings. also there are 3 types of "crisis events" where the entire galaxy is threatened by invaders: either ancient AI, extra-dimensional energy beings, or an analog of the Tyranids from 40K called the "Prethoryn Swarm".
Also, you can create AI yourself, but you run the risk of an AI rebellion, and spiritualists and some Fallen Empires will not like you for it, possibly even attack you.
To me, the most fun comes from autisticly designing huge fleets of ships, and watching them rek enemies and bombard their planets. Also, Stellaris 2.0 update is released on the 22nd this month, and will improve a lot of things, namely FTL and expansion mechanics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl5IjvPvSPs 
