This is a game i played very casually for around 20 years and to which i could always come back. I dont know if it is the atmosphere of the game or the mechanics which make it fairly unique and oh so compelling...... and now now 25 years after it hit the shelves these madmen of developers patched it to Version 1.5! Okay, so what to expect? - Pretty unique universe (based on the fading suns RPG) with a heavy influence of Dune. Expect feudal nobles with swords, tanks, starships, OP-aliens, shapeshifting symbionts and the spanish inquisition thrown together in one setting. - Manyfold game mechanics. Sadly the AI cannot use all of them to their full functionality (which means some of the are reserved for Multiplayer). Want to assign your ally or yourself the imperial fleet and curbstomp the fleets of the enemy houses or blockade their planets? You can do that. Want the church and inquisition to go after a enemy house and raze down their laboratories, crippling their research? You can do that too. Dont want a enemy house to vote for the wrong emperor (or voting at all)? No problem, sent some spies or assassins to byzantium secundus and eliminate the voting noble. In short: The tactics allowed by the mechanics are mindboggling. - Great soundtrack. Seriously, you can listen to it on youtube if you dont believe me. Fits the dark age theme perfectly. - Modding. This got even easier with 1.5. You can change almost all of the parameters with a text editor. For example: I always change the engineer unit to be only producable in palasts. On a sidenote: This is recommended, it makes for a slower game and prevents the AI from plastering all their planets with cities in the first 50 turns. So for the negative side of things: - As i already said, the AI cannot use all of the mechanics., - Some of the mechanics have almost no effect on the game. This got better with 1.5, but is still kind of a issue. - Graphics: It came out in 1997. So what do you expect? 4.5 of 5 Stars.
