I haven't played a longer session of Stellaris in quite a while, but I think I'm back. It's really quite fun, and the current version of the game feels very polished, coming from someone who has been playing Stellaris since 2016 (I "only" have 660 hours in it).
I've actually never finished a full game of Stellaris. I usually play max-size galaxies, so that might have something to do with it, but I run out of steam after 15-20 hours. This time, though, I want to try to stick it out until the end, either winning or dying trying.
I know some people dread micromanagement, but I love juggling different resources and maximizing my economy in this game. It also helps that I actually enjoy warfare most of the time in Stellaris, which I can't say for all Paradox games.
I usually play some degree of Spiritualists or Xenophiles, but with the last DLC being focused on machines, I had to bring some robots. So, I'm playing as Fanatic Militarist/Authoritarian bots. It's going pretty well—I have 3 vassals/tributaries, and I'm the strongest force in the Galactic Community.
I want to give Fanatic Pacifists a try sometime and play a very diplomacy-focused game with lots of envoys
I've only ever finished a campaign when I used "Become the Crisis".
I think the game would benefit from scarcity being introduced. As it is right now, there's rarely a need to fight because there's nothing to fight over. If your deposits and planets could actually run out of resources, you would need to either negotiate trade agreements or fight over territory to keep things running and it would add a more natural and narratively coherent end to campaigns rather than the current system. Right now, some guys just show up in the 3rd act, completely unrelated to anything happening prior.
They'd have to make a big change where basic resources come not from inhabitated planets, but instead uninhabited ones. You'd instead fight over the limited uninhabitated planets for basic resources, while conveting inhabitable planets where you can turn those basic resources into something useful.
As someone who has played Stellaris since day 1, I've seen massive reworks where they ripped out entire systems and replaced them, etc. I doubt they're going to touch something as basic as resource generation this late into the game's lifespan though.
Mind you, I'm pretty sure there are going to be some fundamental changes in Stellaris 2 (which is almost certain to happen sometime before 2030)