A thoroughly outdated game
It is a game with few redeeming qualities. It is a functional game, but it lacks personality. Even factions themselves have same capital ships and planet annihilators. Due to that, there is nothing unique about the game and it is easily replaced by any other game. Speaking of it, just play sequel instead as there is nothing worthwhile seeing here.
Twist on Gameplay
The twist in this game is that it is traditionally 4x game, but in real time. As a result, everything is slow. Ships move slowly and everyone is very durable. The problem which this creates is that it is difficult to issue precise commands to your units. There is very little impact to be had in maneuvering your ships. They do not do damage. Abilities are designed for your units to be blobbed into one massive formation. It is a type of game where you and your friends log in, play same session for 10 hours and then proceed to smash two giant fleets together. Limited Strategies
- Game actively discourages different playstyles due to how easy it is to rush to flagships. This concentration of force discourages various non-combat types of flagships. Why would you use support ship early on when combat ship would bully you away from colonizing planets? In addition, dormant pirates and ease of digging in, discourages early rushes or aggressive gameplay. It is too hard to do mass expand strategy and simultanously too hard to take colonies away from enemy player, because you need specialized ships to destroy a colony and gameplay is so slow that they literally can build up defenses when you are atacking planet.
Tech Tree - Tech tree is nothing more than uninspired +% bonuses to your ships. Getting cheaper costs, faster research, more resources or better ships. It is kind of upgrades when you wonder if it even have any impact on your gameplay. It makes impact only in accumulative fashion when you research bunch of upgrades or start spamming only one type of ships since more often than not, research is tied to only one specific kind of ship.
Economy Management - Economy system in this game is uninspired and boring. It does not feature anything special. Expanding is boring as you only get flat -X% of your income for more supply. This creates a lot of problems, because if you invest huge lump of sum, you get more supply with a permament negative economic multiplier. This is a huge design flaw, because it always makes you feel bad. You never appreciate permament -10% bonus to your income for 100 supply. This also creates a very swingy gameplay. In better games, you get taxed as you increase your army. In this game tax is permament. This means if you lose your fleet, you still be crippled economically. You will never be able to produce ships at a greater pace than your enemy and since it will have more ships in every further encounter, you will be losing more. Game is designed with no comeback mechanics. When you start losing, you start losing very slowly and for very long if there are no other players to backstab your opponent.
Game tries to have some more interactive elements like galactic trade. However, this does not add anything meaningful to gameplay. There are far too few ships and their impact is neglible of overall economy. Most resources are generated and added to your pool instantly. Having some small part being carried through ships as a trade is completely meaningless. It does not create supply lines which you could intercept. Combat system is not set up for raiding. Economy as a whole does not simulate resource movement. It would make game more interesting, but how it is applied in this game feels so tacked on.
Soulless Experience
The key problem with this game is that it has no personality. Factions are all the same. Their flagship units are just re-skinned copies of each other. Their superweapons do the exact same thing, but with different names. There is no depth in economy or buildings you construct. There is only slight difference in defensive structures, but it is very minimal difference. Gameplay has no difference between factions. Influence victory is only possible if another player does not built any influence related structures. Diplomacy victory is impossible, because AI will betray you for absolutely no reason. Every match is fight to the death. This game pretends to be bigger than it is.
It is also incredibly dated. It falls where it looks older than it is, because advances which this game had a time are not sufficient in making this game look that much better. Combine all what I had said with the fact that a sequel is coming and there will be no reason for you to play this game.
A game with nothing unique to offer
Overall, gameplay feels shallow. It is functional, but there is so little special about it. It is not tactical as there is next to none tactical possibilities. It is not strategic as gameplay discourages various types of play. As a grand strategy it is boring. Tech tree is uninspired. There is nothing in this game which would be interesting or worthwhile to try it out. There are plenty of other games which did one or the other aspect better. As a final nail, sequel is right around the corner which promises to be just a straight up upgrade to this game. As it stands, it is just an outdated experience which no one new should bother investigating.Calicifer’s Reviews
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