This game is at the top of complex 4X games in general and as space 4X. You best could imagine its depth by thinking about Stellaris, but with Hearts of Iron like complexity. Although like there, you can automate every catogery, so the AI designs ships, explores, etc. for you (I would activate the option that they ask you for permission first. Some actions are not that wise). Although it visuals look outdated (there are like in the pictures, just a few 2D sprites) it takes nothing from the game. Now as mentioned above with complexity, if you just want to sit and play after work, without much thinking, other 4X might be better. This game needs hours before you really understand it. But don't worry, it got an inside encyploedia with informations about actions, planet types, ship types, ship modifications, etc.. You still will need some time before you can plan while playing, and not have to pause for every step. But it is worth it. And if you can't start the game, because its crashing right after the launcher screen, you can try installing directX from June 2010 in the game folder. This worked for me, but you might have to download it. This should work for the steam version too. And you could try to set 'playmovie' in the startup.ini to 0.
