[reviewed Summer '23, circa Early Access v 0.3.99; played since Fall '22] First, I *love* this game. I don't play many strategy games, and I dislike Early Access, but I have no regrets with TI. It is very forgiving. In some ways this is good, in others it's not. I've never lost a game, but I've only won one, with the "Easy Mode" faction, by avoiding space research and keeping everyone on Earth. The rest got abandoned when the AI is clearly taking over the solar system (or Earth) in the next 5-10 years. TI merely starts as a strategy game. Where it really shines is as a space exploration simulator. Getting to scroll through a to-scale model of the solar system (out to the Kuiper belt) is an amazing experience. Researching a wide variety of real-world theoretical space drives and power plants, then seeing how long they take to get from Earth to Mars... or Mercury to Pluto... or Neptune to Quaoar... gives a better sense of "Space is BIG" than anything else I've done. :mindblown: However, at this point the "game" starts to break down and logistics take over. There's a lot of waiting for tech to research, then ships to build, and still more waiting for fleets to arrive (Space Is Big!) There are space mines to build and space battles to fight, but those are minigames compared to the Earth Strategy portion. There are few points where the devs decided in favor of gameplay over reality. TI is a fun intro to orbital mechanics, but slogging through the end-game is not for everyone. Individual items: + The Earth strategy game is the most fleshed out section, but the game is 100% playable + Devs are very responsive; beta [Steam] branches get frequent updates ~ It's a *huge* game: there is still a lot of work and polish to do - UI needs a lot of love: too much info, not shown consistently - AI still does poorly (but is continually getting better!) - Earth is less important once you get to space, but you still have to manage your councilors every 2 weeks
