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 only play as The Culture or as some Skynet analogue. One time I started conquering the galaxy and used the gigastructures mod to collapse every star in my grasp into black holes since they're much more enduring than stars, and built black hole ring worlds harvesting ergosphere energy. Every star had a warp gate for instant point-to-point travel across the empire. Turned an O class star into a star system eradicator weapon with galactic reach.
All my Culture type playthroughs are as those life-loving robots and I win by making nice with everyone until they just join my side, making war only against eradicator types and sometimes slavers