Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Been there, done that"

4X is my fave type of game but in my opinion the complexity has been diminishing since Galactic Civilizations, which this game certainly emulates. The ship combat is only slightly better than GC. It's not entirely "watch it happen" and the strategy modifiers during the combat phases are interesting, however the outcome of a battle is essentially based on a roll of the dice.

The Space Empires series is my favorite, I think it's close to perfect but it suffers from many of these gripes I'm discussing, except one. Space Empires' tactical combat required a significant level of involvement from the players. You can adapt to the battlefield, position/group ships, attack/defend against different ship/base designs on a case by case basis (e.x. do hit and runs, position point defense ships to shoot down a flood of missiles, etc). Its implementation could've been refined, sure, but it's at least part of the game that doesn't come off as tacked on just because it was needed, which unfortunately is how this game's tactical combat appears. The basics of this game's combat is that each battle is broken down into 3 phases: long, medium and short (melee) ranges each lasting an equal but short time each. Missile weapons are more effective in long, beams in medium, and projectiles in short range. You can select a combat strategy each phase which is a modifier to your fleet (for example +15% to missile defense but -10% to your beam damage). The strategy randomly succeeds/fails. You then watch how it all plays out, and that's it. There's no positioning, weapons fire in every range and a "dice gets rolled" to determine hit/miss and dmg dealt. Rudimentary.

Other gripes people have made, e.x. AI empire diplomacy is just as poor as games 10-15 years ago. Uh oh mega evil empire, all declare war. I've found that a dominant empire tends to emerge at/around 100 turns at which point there's little stopping them. There have been exceptions, and those were extremely tense (fun) games, a lot of "ping pong" losing and retaking systems, but they've only occurred for me when I've played in tiny galaxies. I think the reason why is due to the chance based combat and that fleet sizes are capped (caps are raisable a few points by researching certain techs but all empires eventually reach the same cap). Basically if the other empire's fleet has any combat tech advantage (e.x. one level better beam than you have) they'll most often outweigh the power of your fleet and win. Smaller galaxies mean fewer ships and thus more randomized (smaller) fleets. Larger galaxies mean more ships and more fleets of max size. I think if you could bring any fleet size then the combat wouldn't have as much of an impact since you could always even things out with larger numbers.

I really liked the hero aspect though: governors that enhance production in star systems or admirals that enhance fleet offense/defense and abilities. That was executed very well and I think it should become a staple in the genre.

The research tree is complicated until you become familiar with it, but it's also interesting. Each tech area yields 1 (usually 2) components/facilities/tactical combat strategies that are useful and prove worthwhile to have researched.

Ultimately, I'd rate this game as fair to good. It definitely has its great moments, and possesses a beautiful presentation as the graphics and music are sensational. However, I think once you realize the gameplay flaws/deficiencies/design choices, and just how similar it is to games 5+ years older, you'll be left wanting something more improved.