Chaos Galaxy

[h2]Chaos Galaxy is a potentially good game, but annoyingly flawed that it becomes a chore to play. [/h2] TLDR: If I could give it a `~` score, something between "meh", I would. If you really think it looks interesting, go ahead and try the game out. But, I would not recommend this title to a random person. It is an okay game muddled by a bad interface that makes playing more of a chore than it needs to be. I played through two with two factions: Northsky (Vassal and Northsky victory), and Mozi. [h3]The Good[/h3] [list] [*]Each team has unique units that actually play differently. I especially liked Mozi because of their high range weapons with the railguns and wave cannons after my lance fleet with Northsky. [*]AI that knows to join the winning side: Neutral AI asked to become my vassal as I slowly destroyed the Empire. Pretty cool. [*]When you have a good fight, it's a fun game. [/list] [h3]The Meh[/h3] [list] [*]The translation in some areas is rough but understandable at least. [*]Special events triggering are too random. As Mozi, I got an event to steal tech. That's really cool! Except it didn't happen until too late into the game where I was already steamrolling the map and new ships didn't matter. It would have been nice to have that tech earlier in the game when I wasn't just autoresolving every battle. [*]Prestige seems kind... pathetic or completely useless to some factions. I had maxed prestige (999) well before the game was over and never got nuke tech so nothing ever brought it down. [*]Commanders are unique: That's good! But some are totally worthless while others have extremely powerful abilities. All commanders seem to get there power at the same rate (without upgrades) which doesn't seem right given power differences. [*]Planet management is very basic and wish assigning people to govern was automatic because feels like another time waste with too many clicks to get stuff done. [/list] [h3]The Bad...[/h3] [list] [*]Alien Impact, or lack there of: I thought maybe there'd be an event where the second invasion happened and something would threaten me late game but it never happened. Then I realized, it wasn't a thing. [*]Useless abilities and upgrades: Speaking of lack of aliens, there are character abilities that only works on aliens, and upgrades to increase damage to aliens. Except, there is only one alien unit in the game. The Black Khalif can get a Space Worm (which I assume is the target of these effects), but the Black Khalif die so early into my campaigns to AI factions, they'd never even have to chance to get for the research for worms let alone use them. [*]Annual meetings: having an update on the empire is cool in theory but in reality it is a waste of time. I'll be told the planet I just conquered has low loyalty, I need to build more forts or the commanders I'm not using and have set to sleep need reinforcement. Then you get to pick a goal for the year. This gives you Prestige which, again, is worthless. [*]AI cheats in that it will always know when to radar scan for a submarine in Dive that you were using to scout. [*]And my biggest gripe: [b]CLICKING. SO MUCH CLICKING! [/b] This game's interface is HORRIBLY OPTIMIZED. It takes way too many clicks to get things done. This could [i]easily[/i] be optimized to remove 1-2 clicks per action which would save A LOT of time. [u]This is probably THE biggest problem I have with the game[/u] because I feel I waste so much time clicking because there are so many unnecessary steps. I ended up auto resolving battles because manually fighting just took too long. [*]"Bug" I encountered while playing Northsky, as a vassal: Galactic Empire controlled entire galaxy. Empire had four vassals and we had no enemies or other factions to fight. And yet, the game did not end. Goal is that vassal or 'suzerain' control 50 planets. I controlled 38, Empire had 16 (and other 3 vassals had 16 between them). But that wasn't 50 in the hands of one so it didn't count. I had to declare war on the empire, take 12 more planets then ask to be a vassal again so I could get the vassal ending. Really stupid to have to do. [/list] I want to want to play other factions, but when I think of how much of a slog it is to click through everything I lose interest. Maybe I'll comeback to it in the future for a bit more. Does the sequel fix these problems? I don't know.

I really want to love this game, the concept is wonderful and all, but it's simply impossible to win in some scenarios. The AI is quite literally cheating, able to find your submarines anywhere, will shoot you through fog of war, you can't use the shield ability like how your AI opponents can and all. Otherwise, it's promising but that's all, it's just promising with seemingly no coming updates to work on the issue

TL;DR: 6/10, a cautious and conditional recommend - buy on a sale if the setting and/or gameplay interests you. An enjoyable, albeit shallow and repetitive experience. Clear inspiration from TRPGs like Fire Emblem and TBS games like Advance Wars, Super Robot Wars, etc. Pixel art is excellent for both the characters and units. Despite having lore and factions that piqued my interest, the repetitive and somewhat simple gameplay hindered my motivation to continue playing. Full Review: Chaos Galaxy is a Turn Based Strategy game with some elements of RPG and "Grand Strategy" thrown in. The game features a Total War style overworld map, where fleets are moved and planets are managed, whereas combat is conducted on a grid map, with you and your opponent taking turns to move your units. Lets focus on the good parts first. For one, the game has excellent presentation. The art for the units, the characters, the UI - everything is great, and really helps immerse you into the role of the leader of whatever faction you chose. Not only are they asthetically pleasing, but units are also visually recognizable at a glance. Once I learnt what a unit does and what it looks like, I was able to see what you're fighting without having to check through the units again each battle. The gameplay was also intuitive - Aside from the included tutorial, which gives a good rundown on how things work in the game, I was able to pick up on how to fight my battles relatively quickly. Using submarines, which has a "dive" mechanic allowing them to remain undetected, I would scout out enemies at the start of a battle, then, depending on their composition, I would either swarm them with cheap mech units, or begin a long range bombardment with my battleships. It was very satisfying, being able to pull off a successful attack or defense against your opponent, especially against superior numbers and stronger units. Unfortunately, the game's intuitive gameplay also becomes a part of its weakness later on. While being able to pick up on the game quickly was very much appreciated, it became very clear by the 8 hour mark that the game really did not have the unit variety required to have such a simple and intuitive gameplay - Most factions only had 2-3 unique units, and a third of the factions are also actually the same "Imperial" faction. In addition, a lack of combat map variety also became increasingly apparent as time went on. While maps tended to have some differences in terrain placements (such as asteroid fields), the overall feel of each map remained mostly the same. Finally, numerous small issues compounded onto the flaws in gameplay - issues such as enemy and allied fleet spawn placements being seemingly random at times, your space forts placements around your planets not being manageable, the AI's somewhat questionable attempt at "pretending" it doesnt know where your submarines are, and so on. All of these contributed to make the game feel more and more like a slogfest, and despite my inherent interest in both the game's setting and overall style of gameplay, I simply could not find the will to continue playing. Overall, Chaos Galaxy was an enjoyable experience while it lasted. I was firmly sold on the setting and gameplay of Chaos Galaxy from the day I wishlisted the game, and the game's aesthetics certainly lived up to my expectations, but unfortunately the gameplay made the game feel shallow and somewhat dull by the 9 hour mark. Despite my best effort to persevere, I was unable to continue and explore what feels like an interesting take on a classic sci-fi space opera setting. Recommend buying on a sale if the setting and gameplay is of interest to you, but definitely go in knowing that the game is not as in depth as other turn based strategies such as SD Gundam/Super Robot War, or even Advance Wars.

I took my time before giving my recommendation: I waited to complete an entire first game, which I could play with pleasure for 26 hours. This game is a little gem, with some flaws which you could more or less be concerned about, but also extremely good things. Overall a good experience to enjoy for one or two playthroughs especially. [i] - factions have their own several unique unit models, flavor, commanders, story and even have their own epilogue, surrender, and so on - some important random events will ask you to make a decision which will impact your entire game - diplomacy is a thing ; factions can refuse to join you in a war because "they think you will lose the war", for instance. - every commander has his/her unique passive skill, and unique active skill, and can learn new skills too from a skill tree - unit fight animation is good ; even if unfortunately we will skip it after some time to quicken the pace - contrary to its predecessor Chaos Sector, fleet now require supplies, and still need many extra supplies and gold when you make them - sometimes the strategic part "thickens", with you having to buy your time or thinking you nearly lost the game, yet you can still pull something and gain it - there is some kind of style and atmosphere unique to Chaos Galaxy, a bit old school of course, that immediately welcomes you and then slowly builds up - the interface in this game is much better to navigate than Chaos Galaxy 2. Despite some problems mentioned below, the horizontal list of commanders remain practical here compared to CG2. - compared to Symphony of War or other games of the genre (even if that comparison is far-fetched), Chaos Galaxy is sandbox, with fleets and many unique commanders, and focusing on war-mongering and faction diplomacy. [/i] The flaws of the game are: - when you win against an enemy, his flagships will constantly popup even when it does not allow it to make a real comeback - when you beat an AI, it can be vassalized by another AI and this will force peace on you, remove all your besieging units and give that AI back its commanders and vessels.. - auto save is saved right as you begin a new turn, which means you can't use it in case you tried auto battle when an enemy attacked you out of your turn, because the auto save is overwritten already! - auto battle gives no estimation of the results - some many message popups, some of which are not useful especially when you auto combat - on the interface part you have to click on a fleet then on data to see the list of your individual ships. Having it seen immediately would have been better. [ the sequel Chaos Galaxy 2 does it worse at the moment ] - there may be more asymetry than balance here ; it's impossible to guess how your own experience will be with the game because factions are very different. - factions have unique units but unfortunately share a common tree (old imperial ships) which may be too present or present for a too long time. - for replay value, it's possible that diplomacy even as interesting as it is, and even as good as it is to avoid having to paint the map, may be too much of a shortcut to victory ; and could make things a bit too easy - ships being built immediately makes some odd gameplay situations - some of the english wording does not look perfect, however all of it can be understood flawlessly - AI does cheat in tactical combat, nothing to do with rolls though. Radar guessing: for instance, AI will always position its radar action in a way to detect the highest number of hidden units (whereas not seeing where the units are hidden means it should not know how to best position the radar) ; but on the other hand hidden units are still very useful in the game and AI can still run into hidden units too and be ambushed. Bonus experience: AI seems to receive bonus experience from nowhere. AI also seems to have a gold and supply printer somewhere but this is hard to really know. - auto-combat is really practical, it works but makes it so that the rest of the game may become a bit less useful Congratulations to the developer for completing this work.

一周目初见有非常好的游戏体验，战斗我就手动打过几次后面就全委任了，只要战斗力条比敌人长就能稳赢，这点非常直观，前期心流不错，然后就是常规策略游戏后期都难以解决的问题，我其实已经赢了，但是对方就是不退，还要我再机械的蚕食对手或者外交，操作太过机械，其实前期每回合星球发展也可以适当做一些自动的设计，参考endlessspace指定总督的发展倾向，虽然势力有很多，但是专属兵种大同小异，都是几套基础的模版，每个势力的流程并没有非常大的区别，使得我停在了第二次游戏的中期，此时游戏已经没有了新鲜的期待感，也没什么自发的追求，武将虽多但是没有独立的事件，只是脸和技能不同，兵种都是几个模版，星球开发项目只有上限不同，甚至4种不同势力也没有那么大直接影响到玩法的区别，看到3代快出了，加愿望单先，总的来说有十小时左右的心流体验，打折入手也不亏，缺少重复游玩的动力，这方面应该参考战国兰斯，三国志也有类似问题。

This is a very enjoyable wargame. It combines the map conquest of titles like Total War and Warhammer 40K with some turn based combat like Advance wars, Fire Emblem, FF Tactics etc. [h2]Story:[/h2] The game's story is basically a series of wars that divided the galaxy left it in a disorganised state with a predominent faction (The imperial army) surrounded by its vassals which are themselves surrounded by minor factions that they may or may not be at war with. Each faction on the map including the smallest ones are playable and have their own leaders, musical themes, units, missions and so on. All factions will have different story events where the player will be able to make choices based on the state of the galactic war and who they are allied/ennemies with. [h2]Gameplay:[/h2] [h3]Campaign:[/h3] There are multiple ways to win a campaign as a faction and some have unique win conditions although the easiest is total conquest by owning most of the existing planets of the galaxy. All factions will start with a few planets (from 1 to 4) as well as 3 fleets with 3 commanders (one per fleet) and their army. Every turn like in many map conquest games, you recieve gold and supply based on how many planets you own and how much they are develloped. This gold and supply can be used for many things like improving your planets, build more troops, negociate with factions and so on. Commanders allow you to recruit troops in their armies, attack enemy commanders or planets and can serve as overseers for planets. The combat loop usually boils down to recruiting units>attack and defeat enemy commanders>capture planets and do so until they either lose all their planets in which case the faction will be eliminated and its commanders become recruitable, or you could try to vasalize them to use them as support for future wars. You can also do research to improve your economy, army or even unlock new recruitable units. Diplomacy also has a small impact on the campaign as factions may go to war with you but usually most factions will leave you alone and if you're in a losing war, you can always try to save up money and get a truce to rebuild which the AI will never betray. [h3]Combat:[/h3] Once a fleet led by a commander engages another fleet or tries to attack a planet with defenses, a battle will be initiated. It is possible for multiple fleets of the same faction to engage in battle, if so, the distance between where the battle happens and where the reinforcements are will determine how quickly the reinforcements get to the battle. The objective is to rout all enemies on the map. At the start of the battle, both opposing fleets and their reinforcements (if they are close enough) will be deployed on the map. The map itself will be covered in fog of war for the player which means they won't know where the enemy is at first. There are many ways to scout and some commanders can even reveal the entire map at the start of the battle. The fleet that initiated the battle will move first. During that turn, all units can be moved around in whatever order the player wants, there are many actions like diving submarines, using radars, attacking and so on that can be done. Each unit can only move and act once before being exhausted (with some exceptions). Attacks will have different hit rates depending on which weapon is used and how the enemy decides to react to it. The game seems to use a single RNG to determine if an attack hits or not which may lead to some questionable results like six 3% attacks that hit 3 times despite having a hit rate of 3% or missing two 98% shots. There are however ways to increase or decrease hit rate by using support units or terrain to tilt the odds in your favor. There are also some 100% guaranteed hit attacks like melee attacks (with some exceptions) and AOE attacks like lazers and nuclear bombs that hit all the time. The game also uses angles to calculate how much damage is dealt and if the unit is able to retaliate or not. For instance, attacking a unit on its sides or rear will deal more damage and units cannot retaliate if they are attacked from behind (though they can still try to dodge or use shields). As you kill or lose units, your commander's power bar will fill. Once full, you can activate your commander's power which will usually allow you to win decisively or to make a comeback. Of course that is also true for the enemy commander, which is why taking out the commander is a good strategy as it prevents the enemy from using their power and lowers all of their units' morale by half. [h2]Conclusion:[/h2] I really enjoyed my time playing this game as it has some great music, good animations and has some sick designs for its units. Even factions with a hellish start can succeed and there's a great deal of joy in making an underdog nation that would basically be the generic bandits you beat early on in Civilisation to become a fully fledged galactic empire with vast fleets of advanced warships. TL;DR : This is a very enjoyable wargame. It combines the map conquest of titles like Total War and Warhammer 40K with some turn based combat like Advance wars, Fire Emblem, FF Tactics etc.

Easily recommended for fans of turn-based strategy, 4x, and sci-fi, even at full price. Fairly streamlined and polished, good fun, and replayable due to so many factions. Could benefit from some more optional random elements as well as options for smaller games/maps with fewer factions. I would also recommend Sins of a Solar Empire, Warhammer Gladius, Battletech, or Into the Breach. +Visuals, art style +Music +Variety of factions (14) +Events, advisor updates +Choice of advisors +Turn-based tactics battles +Variety of ships/troops +Variety of research/upgrades +Strategic layer development +Capture/develop planets +Diplomacy, alliances/vassals +Unique units/elements for each faction +Auto and manual saving +Units level up +Choice of hero skill on level up +Variety of heroes/commanders +Optional auto-resolve for battles +Fleets can support others nearby +One more turn -Mouse only, no hotkeys/rebinding -No custom scenarios, can't set length/number players -Text-heavy intro -Fleets take a long time to move/ wasted turns -Lacking tutorial -Pacing / can drag the longer games go -Can't have fleets without a hero -Slow to gain new heroes/fleets -Many lackluster/5% bonuses -Some choices can result in instant game over without warning -WSAD/arrows move cursor instead of panning map -Only 1 extra nearby fleet can participate in battle -Fleets cannot assist others capturing planets -Forts nearly useless, planets can't defend themselves

朝廷怎么不能选？想用帝姬 补充：谢谢开发者，原来是我格局不够大啊

Having finally got my 100%, I've been thinking on how to properly review this. I played it's proof of concept game Chaos Sector a year or two back and so I shall start by saying this game builds vastly upon Chaos Sector yet the core mechanics remain recognisable. Grid based ship and mecha combat unfolds as the galaxy's powers clash against each other; there are several kinds of factions, each with at least two contrasting starting positions and unit sets, and a staggering amount of combat depth once you figure out how to unlock your own ships and other factions. The translation quality is best described as word for word over thought for thought. In other words, the Chinese is generally translated literally but legibly, but is often formed into... less common or logical structures than you might expect from a native developer. This isn't a point of contention though... as there isn't a terrible amount of story in this entry. Don't get me wrong, there is both lore and events for each faction, but there are at most four unique multi-line dialogues for each faction (most of which come from whichever characters serve as your adjutants, so there's not unique dialogue for anyone but the leaders themselves). Functionally, this is a very satisfying game for its combat and flavour. There is enough variety that nearly all the factions felt and played differently, the music is good if a bit repetitive, and the developer has clearly learnt from their original game and corrected some... painful elements (such as the number and scale of the maps) and added more complicated diplomatic interactions. To my joy, diplomacy in this game is actually useful. Vassals aren't just "conquer you later" like many grand strategy games (though annexing them is still often the way to go) and they are generally competent in battle and will properly assist you against your enemies. One critique I would uphold is that... a large number of statistics are labelled with words rather than a number scale. This would not be a problem if it was explained anywhere what they did and at what levels things changed. Legitimacy for example is a crucial stat as it effects your diplomacy, vassalisation power, likelihood of attracting new commanders, and more; however, while you can see the number at any time it is nowhere explained at what threshold you can actually DO any of the late game diplomacy actions (vassalisation is somewhere around the five hundred mark and annexation upwards of seven hundred for nearly every faction). Overall, this was a very fun (if occasionally hair-ripping) game and I recommend it to those with patience and a love of the beautiful pixel art style it embodies. I would also recommend it for those who want to try a less... eurocentric grand strategy game that isn't Japanese for a change (nothing against either type, but they have a stranglehold on the market).

上手后欲罢不能。好玩解压。