AI War 2

Pros: doesn't feel like a "real time strategy" but it's a strategy that is in real time.This is an incredibly GOOD thing.Breaks the mold, does right what so very many do wrong. Incredibly in depth Intuitive tutorial GUI does not test-patience of player Unbelievably good settings options menu. Tons of options. Every time you click a button in the settings, the sound is actually DIFFERENT I detect an insane amount of love went into this game Mentions of modding multiple times in JUST the settings alone! WOW! One big fun chess game where you really have to think about your next move Gameplay itself is EXCELLENT Cons and other very annoying things: When zooming out, your screen angle (set with Q) resets automatically to a TOP-DOWN view No option that changes the scale of the "Selected Ships And/Or Fleets" If you press the button "Set to defaults" in the settings, on some pages it will only reset the defaults of the current page, while on other settings pages it will revert 100% of ALL OF YOUR SETTINGS back to DEFAULT. You will lose fullscreen and ALL settings and have to customize the whole entire settings ALL over again. Even if you press V multiple times, pursuit mode refuses to turn off on a group of your ships, forcing the player to turn off V on 100+ ships one by one each time. I can't understand anything the enemy AI is saying. I just perceive a threatening tone from them but the words are impossible to make sense of. There is way too much emotional piano music and also "cute soothing baby music" like when I was little and they would put the little music maker above my bed. It's beautiful but it doesn't feel "spacey" "scifi" "danger" "mysterious" "suspenseful" enough to match the theme of the game. The game is extremely quiet-no noticeable ambient/spacey/environmental/ship engine/engineers building ships or objects sounds. The universe doesn't feel "Alive" at all. My comp could run Witcher 3 on high settings, but the game makes my computer fan run a lot. 10/10

AI War is about an AI with its own mind which took over the whole galaxy. You are the last bastion of humanity and your ultimate goal is to defeat the AI core but without being too much a threat for the AI. It is pretty much Terminator but in space and in a much larger scale. AI War is Arcen Games best product and the first one is definitely in my top 5 strategy games list of all time. AI War II is pretty much the first one but with better graphics, more refined systems, tons of quality of life improvements and a much better UI. Pros: ~ Unique setting ~ Deep strategy game with high replayability ~ Multiplayer is super fun ~ Crossplatform-support since day one ~ Game is much more accessible for beginners ~ Very cool developer who listens to the community ~ Very good ingame tutorial ~ Has a lot of potential for future content ~ Even for the full price it is a bargain for what you will get ~ Game receives updates regularly (weekly) ~ You can notice that a lot of love went into this game Neutral: ~ Music is kinda meh, some tracks are good and some just do not fit Bad: ~ Still a couple of minor bugs to find but nothing game breaking ~ Others mentioned it before, there are no engine or ship-/factory-sounds so the game can feel a little bit too artificial Overall AI War II is like the first one but better and much more accessible for beginners! And imho it is an absolute no-brainer for every scifi strategy fan!

Let me give you a small taste of this game and the strategic thinking that you will require. Imagine sitting at the galactic map, paused, for about 10-15 minutes. You are looking for your next target. You are deciding how best to use the hour you get between forced encounters with the AI. Each encounter could give the AI that critical moment of weakness that it can, and will, use against you. Just how much are you willing to trade for that extra fleet? That defensive bonus? That extra economic output for your forces? How much is too much? What if it's too little? Everything you do can give your opponent the power to crush you. This opponent knows your weaknesses. It understands them. It will prod and poke you to understand what is where and how best to counter it. And it will, when the time is right, try to kill you. It will succeed at least half of the time, if not more. The name of this game is Critical Mass. You need to reach this as fast as you can, as safely as you can, and in the best position that you can before it is too late and the AI crushes you. Best piece of advice I can offer you -- If you go into this thinking it's Starcraft, Civ, or any other RTS you've played before that has a large emphasis on quick growth in the early game to outpace our opponents -- You will not like this game until you train yourself to not think that way. You're resistance fighters. A rough collection of misfits who think they can topple a god. It's all a gamble and you better be damn sure what you're gambling with. Everything you do is critical. Every second counts because that timer is ticking to the next instigator that will force you to make a move against the AI or suffer the consequences. When you do make your move, the AI is watching. The AI is waiting. It's going to go for your throat at the worst possible time.

This review is my first impression of AI War 2 after having previously played AI War: Fleet Command. I got into the first game after all its expansions had already been released, and would consider myself a late beginner player of that game. I have an understanding of all the base mechanics, though I have not played with or experienced every ship type available. AI War 2 retains the same feel of AI War: Fleet Command while overhauling several of its central features such as how space ships are managed and how to explore the galaxy. Graphics and sound are both improved. The user interface has been revamped to fit AI War 2's new features. This is a complex game, and I think the UI does a good job of helping the player navigate within the game world. The most apparent difference between AI War 2 and its predecessor is that ships are now managed within fleets that populate themselves automatically based on their composition of ship types. The effect of this is that I spend less time managing ship production and delivery of new ships to the front lines. It's easier to direct my forces around the galaxy because I can now do so from the galactic map. On the other hand, it's a little more difficult for me to isolate specific ship types to use on an ad-hoc basis. Overall, I like the new fleet management because it distinguishes the 1st game from the 2nd and it allows me to speed up my games. AI War 2 has several other exciting new features that I am unable to evaluate yet. The AI has been rewritten, and is supposed to be more sophisticated. We have even more options for setting up a new game including the ability to have 1 or many AIs rather than being limited to 2 for each game. In my games so far, I've seen many new structures and ships that were not in the first game. I think that anyone who likes the first game will like this one too. AI War 2 feels like an improvement over the first, and will likely be my go-to galactic conquest game moving forward.