I would like to give Stellaris 3 or 4 stars. I LOVE Space 4X games and Stellaris had many good ideas. Sadly it was bloated and unintuitive from the start. But I muddled through and finished a few games. Lately I bought the DLCs and started again. But now it is unbelievebly bloated, it is nearly impossible to find out what effects your decisions as a player have, plus it is massively buggy. It is sad, but I go back to MoO2, and so should you!
Capitalism plus is a great game to try out as a CEO of a big corporation. I learned a lot of stuff about economics from this game, while having fun. It isn't perfect, but it is really adictive.
The classic 4X game. Excellent balance. Great racepick options. I have played this game for more than 25 years and still play it.
AoW3 is a solid game, with lot of options and different paths to follow. The fantasy flair works great. There are some very minor drawbacks, so I would give it 4.5 out of 5
This game is a descendant of "Commander-Europe at war" with a touch of "Panzer General", which are among my favourite games. But I don't enjoy playing it. Though there are many decisions to take, the game feels mostly railroaded. In Commander, you could build as many air and tank units as your oil production would support. And a lot of action in WW2 was about oil fields, like the Stalingrad operation by Germany in 1942 or the Japanese attack on modern day Brunei in 1941. As there is no oil in this game these attacks are almost pointless, and you can only build a limited amount of these units anyway. Another railroaded aspect is the Japanese engagement in China: Roads are so bad and chinese troops are so plentyfull that even playing on easiest I was unable to make any large scale progress there, which is historical correct but not real fun to play. There are some good aspects of this game too, like the map, the map-scrolling, the intuitive handling, and the naval AI, which is pretty good imho. But that is not enough to make the game fun for me.
For a game in development it plays very good so far. I have encountered no big bugs or fun sinkholes. I have played countless games of MoO I and II, even some MoO III, and this game is good with a chance to be a great game. If the developers iron out the few minor errors (like in text "-25% population growth" where it should read "+25%.....") and really listen to the players about balance and game play experience this game can be better than MoO II, which imhO is the best 4X game there is. 4 stars for now, 5 stars if the Devs keep up their good work :)
