Agreed. I grew up on MOO2, played too much of it, mostly hotseat with a friend.

I tried a few other 4X space games, but none scratched the itch that Stellaris did. It's the only 4X space game I play now. And Paradox keeps adding content!

The late game crisis is such a good idea to solve this problem.

At that point you're strong enough that you can beat all the other empires but then an extra-dimensional invasion happens that's just so much stronger than anything else you've encountered and it works really well to spice up the late game and make everything relevant again.