To be really honest, It's a very overestimated title. Yes, GUI is brilliant (bells and whistles for Windows interface was the main and only Stardock skill before they began to create games). But all the rest is questionnable at best. The most praised feature of GalCiv2, race-specific tech trees - are broken, because race AIs don't work as they planned to. So in fact the game is unplayable without Altarn's AI patch (google it). Stardock guys are arrogant and haughty, they never confess their mistakes and are interested only in profit (as Stardock always does, alas). God bless the community! Space battles are automatic and have shallow stone-paper-scissors mechanics as well as weapon system in whole. Ship designer could give some fun (at first) but you should realize soon that most of its features are just cosmetic changes and rather useless. Diplomacy is dull and inadequate (as always in 4X TBS games). The only really enjoyable part of gameplay is exploring the map, looking for sweet spots for colonize and for resources to build your war machine. There is also a quite interesting and useful system of space stations of various purposes (economic, diplomatic, war, influence, mining and so on). But overall impression is spoiled by broken AIs that can't let you enjoy the possibilities put into this game.
If you know Massive Assault title, you'll find yourself comfortable with this one. These were games that Wargaming company created before the infamous World of Tanks. Turn-based warfare at its best. Day/night cycle. Variety of units, tactics, strategies. Campaigns and scenarios are present. Aviation, artillery, infantry, mechanized assault, fortification, morale and all other traits and features are included, of course. This game is what Battle of Cronos should learn from. For its laughable price it is one of the best option turns-loving General would choose.
If you already have or played Space Rangers 2 game, you won't find here any new features really worthy of mention. Even the planet screens are the same, only redrawn for widescreensand high resolutions. Most of changes are cosmetic. Gameplay changes are contoversial and adding some imbalance. New soundtrack sucks. Stability is wanting. Price is inadequate. ONLY for newcomers in series, just to inspire them to play original Space Rangers 2.
I purchased it on Gamersgate some time ago. it was the first Soldak game I played and I was hooked with reviews that titled it "Diablo-in-space". It's NOT Diablo-in-space. It's NOT Space rangers. It's all the same Soldak game they made in different wrappings, be it fantasy-shaped in Din's Curse and Kivi's Underworld, or in scifi-shaped just like in DROX game. Evolving living world, much of diplomacy and much of balancing your relations with factions. Variety of loot and items, good sound effects, useful and handy help and tutorial system... It seems that everything is fine in this game... But it becomes boring very soon, I don't know why. I'm a big fan of space games, and the bland blackish void of cosmic space doesn't make me sleep at the monitor :), so it's not the visual part of DROX that causes this boring feel. It lacks something elusive that I can't name right away. This world is elaborate and enough well-crafted but it DOESN'T SUCK YOU IN, it remains FLAT, colorful and bleepy-bloopy with laser rays - BUT FLAT! I never was capable to play it more than an hour. Blizzard made this casino-like competition with the random number generator much more immersive and intriguing than Soldak did. Space Rangers had brilliant quest system - that Soldak game has not. It's more or less monotonous bang-bang-kill-them-all-and-sell-the-loot gameplay diluted with some not very enjoyable diplomatic exercises. So, if you played one of Soldak games - you played them all. If you didn't - try it and decide by yourself, do you like it or not.
I was trying hard to get into it, but I have failed. Not for the true die-hard roguelike fans. Rather chaotic character development. Overall atmosphere is... I don't know... unserious? Even the cartoonish The Pit beats ToME easily. There are really better options around (and free!), like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Only for beginners in genre.
The BioWare past background of developers is felt in this game. It's a very elaborate story-telling game with atmosphere and so on, but it lacks all the rest. Maybe safe the battles which are quite satisfying. The authors have depicted a vast and spectacular world but they don't let us to play with it. Instead of it, they play with it themselves. It may sound strange but this game reminded me Mass Effect trilogy: you are just an actor that chooses the variants of answers in multitudinous dialogues. Hey, guys, I want FREEDOM in such a beautiful world! Your story may be heart-touching but it's forgettable and it doesn't inspire to play it one more time. I hope though that this game will be sold well and we can hope for the trilogy (as devs promised). Maybe they will give us more freedom and maybe they'll can to grow some meat on game's bones. P.S. And the term "dredge" looks heterogenous in this harsh Northern world, it smells like awful Hollywood movies about aliens. It could be possible to invent something more Norse-like and suitable for the game world.
It's quite standard fantasy-TBS that pretends having kept the best traits of previous parts of the series but it has lost them in fact. "Spiritual successor of Master of Magic" claims are out of question and are far from reality. I won't talk about AI issues, and overall poor optimization and balancing because it could be repaired with patches and DLCs. But there is a number of controversial designing decisions (hero class system, new battle view and mechanics, and some other) that are irreversible, and they are making this game worse than its parents (AoW 1&2) in terms of unique traits that this series had. So now it's a game without any outstanding or catchy features. If you are new to the AoW series, you might like it. If you are fantasy TBS-veteran who remember Master of Magic, Disciples, Warlords, HoMM and even previous AoW games - you might find this game rather unsufficiently charming.
