Distant Worlds 2

This game made most other space 4X games unplayable for me. The scale is unmatched, and once you taste the sweet nectar of physicalised logistics there's no turning back. The devs are a small, but dedicated team that actively listens and engages with the community and deliver consistently. Cherry on top, modding is actively supported too, though it is still nascent. Would recommend if you're looking for more depth with less micro in your 4X games with some caveats: - Having a beefy CPU matters if you want to experience the full scale the game is capable of. - If you like role playing or focus on immersion/faction customization features at the moment you're still better served by Stellaris. Same if you're looking for more in-depth domestic politics. - Taking full advantage of automation requires being comfortable with some degree of inefficiency, if you're a rabid min-maxer you will probably be frustrated by this. Though it is worth noting that there is still plenty to enjoy depending on what you're willing to compromise on. - Managing the automation effectively has a steep learning curve for newcomers. Especially if you're more familiar with less complex experiences like the Endless Space or GalCiv series of games, and less-so with more complex wargames and sims like, say Aurora for an extreme example. It's very easy to cross wires and end up doing things that may look like bugs/glitches/"bad AI". - To expand a bit more on the prior point, this game sits somewhere between the noted two types of strategy games in a way that can easily frustrate people looking for something that leans more to, but still doesn't quite hit, either end of said spectrum depending on what you're looking for. For example, I love the logistics angle of the game but often find myself wishing for more personnel management elements in the military side of things like ship crews, and value and supply chains in the industrial logistics side. - Going back a bit to the automation point, if you're unwilling to take full advantage of said tools the game will feel like micro hell, especially in the late game. Many of the negative reviews seem to be because of this, and it confuses me. The automation is a key mechanic of the game, and it is scalable depending on how much micro the player wants to engage in. It has quirks and rough spots, but not to a game breaking extent and the devs are responsive and always making tweaks and additions/changes as needed. Not engaging with it and complaining about issues is like refusing to use cover mechanics in a tactical third person shooter and then complaining about the game being too hard.

I have spent nearly 150 hours trying to love this game that has a huge potential but it is far from being there yet. So, i am certainly not recommanding to anyone to get involved at the moment unless you are looking for quite a few moments of utter frustrations. The fleet management, particularly, is a catastrophy. When you put different types of ships in a fleet, for example, and send this fleet from point A in a system to point B in another system to attack a strongpoint for example, you realize that they do not travel together. The fastest ships will arrive first, get killed and the other one will arrive later, piece by piece to be killed as well because the game is too dumb to understand that a fleet that leaves together moves at the speed of the slowest ship and arrives together. This is a no brainer even if some people will try to explain different. Second problem ; what is the use to have 5 or 6 different types of destroyers or cruisers if you cannot use them in the model fleet as so but have to manage everything by playing in the ship management and having to watch your ships all the time so it does not get refitted the wrong way ? There might be a way to play with 5 types of cruisers but it involves so much micro management as to be nearly impossible for the casual gamer that i am. And if there is a way to do so easily, it is certainly not explained. in fact, except for the basic of the basic, nothing is neither explained nor intuitive. 3rd negative : The art. I am sorry but the art is quite bad. Childish even. Looking at a fight is sooo depressing. If you want to know what a good fight looks like, missiles, explosions, just look at "terra invicta". This is what a fight in space, explosions, should look like. And i dont even like the game. Even the general map is wrong in distant worlds 2. It is so difficult to figure out what is my space and what is the neighbour's, where his planets are. Sometimes, colors just look the same and i have one top notch computer so it is not coming from the hardware. To conclude, i like the idea of this game. The mix between public and private and quite a few other things but IMO the game is not ready at all. I dont want to get frustrated playing it now and never touching it later when, at last, it will be playable. There is still an enormous amount of work to do. So, i will wait for a year or 2 and see where it goes and maybe come back later.

Alien Ant Farm

I like the automation, the moderate complexity and mechanics, but the UI is a hot mess. The advisor boxes for the semi-automated reactions especially for war fleets quite simply don't have enough information on Who-Where-What. The game has options for AI handling some or many aspects of the empire, which can be set up to ask for confirmation beforehand. This is an awkward system, because extremely important decisions can just fly by, exacerbated by the lack of relevant popup box information. At least highlight the fleet in question and the target... It is equally frustrating that the map is highly cluttered, and e.g. enemy invasion fleets may sneak in colony captures just for the defenders being on a lunch break chasing rickety pirates, because the player misclicked, or simply being distracted by something else. Fleets tend to move comparatively very slowly, as the empire grows, which means bad moves cost the player potentially dearly. It's less player mistakes, and more UI and map clutter issues. There's so much going on...! Also, I never figured out the private/state funding for ships and buildings. Where that money comes from, what are the effects of funneling this or that much credits from fleet maintenance to wallet. I'm also annoyed by the fleet organization mechanics. It's just a lot of clicking and obscure systems just to create a quick battlegroup to respond to a sudden, major threat. Just select fleets, move ships, combine and send. Creating fleet templates is a convoluted mess, as well. It's like there are rules and optimization routes, but the player has to guess. What's up with the UI and map? It's a totally cool game otherwise, and I'm considering buying the DLC. This is competition to Stellaris, but in a proto-stage.

I'm not sure how to describe this, but I've had a blast and very glad I bought it. The level of customizable automation is probably the thing I've never seen done this well elsewhere. But I was more here for the exploring, finding weird stuff, building colonies, building my economy, and then taking my fleets around to kill stuff. I found some of the interface tough - once my empire got huge and if I got into wars it really bogged down because I had to micro manage my fleets and there was just so many targets to pursue. I probably just needed to watch more youtube videos on it but didn't feel like it Definite buy again for me though!

The best and most fun space 4X strategy i played so far

Initially this game started off incredibly rough. As time went on the devs released tons and tons of fixes and quality of life improvements. Now they continue to push out more content,fixes, and improvements to the base game races. and as of 2025 they will finally be bringing back playable pirates and i cannot wait for more :)) thank you erik and elliot!!!!