Amidst all the good ideas that ES 2 has there is one fatal flaw within this game: the narrative. 


Don't get me wrong, the stories are writen in a competent manner and I do not blame the writer for this. Rather it is how the game itself has taken shape that throws his hard work into the garbage. The quests? The upgrades? All of these things have no impact beyond the numeric bonuses they provided. Once an upgrade is built it vanished, never to be remembered again. You understand, right? Everything in the game is bent so hard towards FIDS that there is no room for actual reactivety or storytelling, things that would make your empire feel alive and less like a resource machine.


At the very least, in Stellaris, you are often able at least see the buildings you have constructed. When you open a planet the icon is there as are the pops working it. In ES2, everything you build and everything you do just blends into the formless blob that is FIDS.


You need to add features that fight against this, both visual and gameplay.