When I first got my hands on this game, like with most space strategy games, the learning curve was reasonably steep but once I got over the initial hump, I found that it was intuitive and fun to play. Basically, the game is broken down into two parts. Turn based strategy and real time strategy.
The turn based strategy covers most of the game play, research, colonisation, fleet movement, ship design and economics. There’s less focus on building up your planet but more focus on designing your ships.
Once there’s combat, the game will switch to RTS and you can either set your ships stance (e.g. engage, stand off or hold position) or manually get them to engage via standard RTS controls. The graphics are great and a real pleasure to watch. There’s just something satisfying about your dreadnoughts full to the brim with beam weapons, unleashing on an enemy fleet!
There isn’t a “health” display for each ship, rather they use visual damage. Individual weapons or areas on the ships can be targeted (like engines or turrets) or you can just focus on it’s hull. Each ship can sustain the loss of one hull section but the loss of two usually results in destruction.
I really recommend this game to anyone who’s into space strategy games (like Galactic Civilizations).
Very helpfull hints and tips:
- In the ship design screen, click on the “i” at the bottom to find out what each ship component does.
- When colonising planets, you can use more than one coloniser. You can also add additional colonisers at later turns
- The news ticker at the bottom can be dragged along with your mouse. Pressing U will also take you to the first news event. Double clicking on that event will take you to that planet or fleet.