Hello Stellaris Community,
We’re pleased to announce that the 4.5 “Cygnus” update is now available!
Before we dive into what’s included in this update, we want to talk about who put it there.
Of the 525 lines of changes in this patch, 46.7% of them (by our internal count, so we may be off by one or a few) come directly from something flagged by our player community through bug reports, forum threads, Reddit posts, and Discord discussions. Many of those arrived this summer during the Open Beta that opened the first week of July and went through nine updates before today's release, each one shaped by your playstyles and your feedback. Others have been sitting in threads and dev notes for longer than that, but nearly half of Cygnus started as somebody typing it out and hitting “post”.
The result is the largest bugfix patch in Stellaris history: more than 350 bug fixes, plus stability improvements, desync fixes, AI improvements, player requests, and more - all clocking in at about 3.857 Pierres. (If you haven’t met Pierre, the notes for the first Custodian update [3.1 "Lem"] were long enough that we photographed them next to Experienced Content Designer Pierre for scale, and the community
promptly worked to reverse-engineer his height from the paper and the tangerine next to him. It’s been a unit of patch-note-scale ever since.)
Custodian updates are free to everyone who owns Stellaris, and when we announced the initiative, we said outright that “working with the community is going to be crucial to really make this work well”. The Cygnus update is the result of the Custodian team’s commitment to constantly listening to and talking with our players, as we have for the last five years.
So, thank you. To everyone who ran the Open Beta, filed a report, replied to someone else's thread with "same here, here's my save" or just kept telling us what wasn't working. Every one of those ~245 lines began with a player who pointed us toward something that needed fixing. Thank you for speaking up and for telling us again when we didn't get it right the first time. And, if you've been away from your galaxy for a while, Cygnus is a good time to come home. The game you love is still here, and now it’s in even better shape than you remember. And we’ll still be here to listen when you have more ideas on how to improve this game that we all enjoy so much.
Now, let's get into what’s changed.
Game Director Stephen Muray runs us through changes coming in the Stellaris 4.5 “Cygnus” update.
Before you update: Cygnus breaks save compatibility
The Pop Group rework changes how Pops are stored, which means saves from 4.4 and earlier will not load correctly in 4.5. If you have a campaign you want to finish, do this first:
Back up your save folder before updating:
- Windows: /Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/save games/
- Mac: $HOME/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/save games/
- Linux: $HOME/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/save games/
On Steam: right-click Stellaris, open Properties, go to the Betas tab, and select "Stellaris 4.4 Rollback" from the list.
Once a save has been opened in 4.5, it can't be opened again in 4.4. Roll back first, then play.
More Content for Nomads
Post-release, you told us which existing content you most wanted opened up to Nomadic Empires. 4.5 unlocks three of them: the Cosmogenesis Ambition, the Knights of the Toxic God Origin and the Storm Chasers Origin. Each requires its respective DLC: The Machine Age, Toxoids Species Pack and Cosmic Storms.
Pop Group Changes
In 4.5 “Cygnus”, Pop Groups are no longer split by Factions and Ethics. Each Pop Group now tracks what percentage of its Pops holds which Ethics and belongs to which Faction. The result is far fewer Pop Groups in the late game and considerably less clutter on your planetary management screens. Pops also switch Ethics and Factions more readily than before and new tooltips break down exactly what's pulling them.
Faction Changes
Alongside the Pop Group faction rework, Factions themselves got a review. The Factions screen now shows how attractive each Faction is within your Empire, along with the factors driving that attractiveness. Suppressing and Embracing a Faction is also better reflected in its growth rate, so the choices you make have visible consequences.
Ship Autodesigner and Starbase Defense Preference Policies
New Government policies let you weight what the Ship Autodesigner reaches for. If you never want to see another evenly balanced Kinetic and Laser loadout, now you can say so. Starbases get the same treatment, plus reworked defense modules - so now you can pick your weapons, pick your defenses, and let your neighbors discover the results.
Nomad AI Behavior
We did a pass on Nomad AI behavior, resulting in better Economic Plans and weights, smarter system selection logic, and a range of other improvements. Nomadic AI empires should be noticeably more competent opponents.
Federation Economic Laws
Federations can now enact Economic Laws granting members free Research Agreements and Commercial (or Wayline) Pacts. These laws are blocked for Federation types that already provide these benefits, such as the Trade League.
Native Apple Silicon Support
MacOS builds now ship as a universal (arm64 + x86_64) binary and run natively on Apple Silicon, no longer requiring Rosetta 2 translation. Apple Silicon Macs should see a significant performance improvement.
Empire Color Customization
You can now choose map border, map fill, and ship colors independently of your primary and secondary Empire colors. We also corrected certain Empire emblems that sat slightly off center and rendered the game literally unplayable.
How do you feel about the new changes in Stellaris 4.5 “Cygnus”? Let us know in the comments below.
The full changelog for 4.5 can be found here.
If you experience bugs or other issues on the latest version without mods, please make a bug report – they genuinely help us and a report with reproduction steps and a save attached is worth its weight in minerals.
Updated Mods
As is customary, we have a list of mods that we expect will be updated on release day. This list will not be updated, and if you’re looking for a specific mod, you can join us on Discord and go through the #updated-mods-feed channel (or check the Workshop directly).
Thanks to all the modders who responded for this post. Without further ado:
Start a New Game With Us
Game Director Eladrin and Product Marketing Manager Davide will be streaming Stellaris 4.5 "Cygnus" tomorrow on Twitch and Youtube! Join us to find out what's changed in Stellaris 4.5.
Thank you for playing Stellaris!
