its stronghold come on you gotta love it
It's hard to add to everything that's written about this game. It's a classic. I've been playing it since it came out. Still come back to it. Still love it.
Calling this 'spreadsheets in space' would be too harsh, but there is quite a bit of managing lots of details involved. Not micromanagment, which would be lots of the same actions or decisions over & over again. But there is a lot to keep track of. It's good, and has some cool mechanics - discovering more of the galaxy as you go is actually really cool. I read about that and thought it might be cheesy, but it isn't. On the other hand getting to know another system is 3 steps: must be remote surveyed, then you can send a scout, then you need to send a survey ship. If that kind of layering works for you, then rock on. For me, it's a bit much. It take away from the strategy aspect and adds complexity for the sake of complexity. At that point I'm not making strategic decisions about how close to another empire I want to get, or how close to a fabled galactically-famous star system I might be by colonizing there, I'm just going through iterations in order to be able to decide if I can colonize. Ship design, on the other hand, is pretty cool. I like it. As good and as fun as the grand master in this category. Leader specialization is also rather cool. I like that too - it's not automatic, it's something you guide and choose over time. Diplomacy is a little weak and a little weird. Overall, I like the game, but I don't love it. Definitely not having as much fun at it as I would playing the classics - ok the single best classic - of this category. Of my recent playing time of space 4x games, I would rank, for fun & enjoyability: (#1) MOO II - still the king, then (#2) Master of Orion Conquer the Stars (aka MOO IV, the 2016 release), then (#3) Interstellar Space Genesis
