Eclipse - 2nd Dawn for the Galaxy

I do recommend this game... But it's right there on the line. Because there are just so many things that need to be improved. The UI is garbage - it lacks so many critical functions for a game like this. Need more information available, an easy to access rule set, details about what players did on their turn (not just the brief moment when they are taking their turn), and pretty much just a huge overhall with every detail available on the map. Now, that said, the game works. If you know what you're doing, it's an enjoyable experience, and a great way to try some strategy you can take to the table top game. But on that same note, if you don't know what you're doing, the tutorial is garbage and you'll be spending the majority of your time frustrated trying to figure it out. So if you know the game, and want something to practice with. This is it. Pick it up for sure. Otherwise, unless the developers are going to listen to the feedback here and fix these issues - you'll probably want to pass.

Pros: Seems reasonable to play offline against the Ai. Assume it fairly closely maps to the boardgame, and purchased as much as a personal tutorial as for the digital fun. Cons: 1. Needs AI in multiplayer. no option to add Ai is really disappointing. Can we get the options to add Ai players when online please? 2. Need private game option to invite friends. This is just weird not having this option. I have zero interest in playing against people i don't know. This was supposed to be a simple way to show a few buddies how the game plays before cracking the physical copy out and maybe for those occasions when we cant make it in person to game night. Summary: Game really needs the above 2 things fixing to allow us to play privately online against friends with a mix of Ai and Humans. Still enjoyed learning the game offline and its not very expensive so its fine, just limited until the online stuff is sorted

I wish there was a middle option. I would not recommend this game to just anyone, but there's a good chance if you're looking at this game it is because you're interested in the tabletop game. So as just a video game on steam, I do not recommend this game. As a way to learn and play Eclipse the tabletop game, I very highly recommend this game. It teaches you how to play and it's such a fun game that playing it against AI is a great way to learn and enjoy the game. That said, it is very buggy and crashes a lot. For the most part this is *not* an issue since you can always restart and pick up where you left off. Of the many, many games I've played, I've only "lost" 2 games where it bugged out so bad I had to completely restart. And the stakes are low so it's not a big deal to start over. Also, I suspect some of the tech isn't working correctly either, but that's just conjecture. The UI isn't the best either. I would love to see more customization options, maybe daily challenges, something along those lines, but that's a wish list. I have not touched online play. And of course I hope they continue to squash the bugs.

Eclipse is a great board game. This digital version is not. It is buggy, often crashes if you try to do something during the AI turn. This crashing happens on different machines from very powerful to notebooks. The AI isn't strong enough, so on 'hard' it actually starts with a dreadnaught to compensate, meaning you can't actually practice tactics you would want to use in the physical board game. The Ui is abysmal and buggy, specially fight scenes. The board has far too little information and makes it hard to see what units there are on the field. The way discounts for research are portraid in this adaptation made me first believe it was a bug, only after fiddling with it and testing I realized it's just very unclear. The multiplayer game creator isn't very clear either. It be nice to have the common house rule implemented where turn order is fully based on the order in which was passed and not only the first one to pass. Giving more strategy to passing and not be on the whim of just someone passing and you forcefulling being last. I keep playing it, because I love the game itself. But the adaptation is probably the worst adaptation of a board game I have played so far. And I have played many. However, I do think many of these improvements can be fixed with smaller tweaks (other than AI).

This negative review pains me deeply, but as a developer myself I feel it is needed, though I'd gladly reverse it if big changes took place. I love the physical game, and this version is a fairly faithful representation, which is why I have 22 hours on this. Having working AI instead of making them up via custom rules in the physical edition is such a nice thing, makes for good sparring and relaxed games, but 2 things make me pull on the devs' ears. Firstly, the fact that the multiplayer component is absolutely bugged. Constantly logging me out on its own makes it impossible to play with friends despite the fact that this is advertised as cross-platform. No matter how many times I've disconnected, logged out or deleted the account, it keeps failing, so it's something of a promise betrayed. Secondly, there's the fact that this game has 2 race expansions, and quite a few miniexpansions, but there appear to be no plans to get any of this extra content in here. The first edition was also here but was unpublished when this one came out (which was annoying since what I have at home right now is the first edition), and that one didn't get any expansions either despite having 3 big ones and 4 miniexpansions. Due to the extremely low player counts, I doubt this will ever get looked at, which is quite a shame IMHO. So, do I recommend it? Depends on your focus... Do you want this to learn, spar or have some chill games against bots? Then go for it. Do you want this to play with friends (or random people) without the hassle of taking out a hundred tokens, tiles and ship miniatures? Then I would recommend that you try on Vassal or Tabletop Simulator, the system won't be as bugged and there will probably be a bigger player pool. I will keep playing it because it fulfills my specific needs, but it is such a shame that a great board game like this is getting substandard attention on its digital version.

Game is buggy and crashes which is pretty unacceptable.... UI is not very good, I have set the accurate resolution yet text boxes display off the screen. I was reading reviews on this wondering, surely it cant be as terrible as people are indicating, but its pretty bad, I picked it up at 40% off which would be worth it if it wasnt buggy and crashing. Feels like an incomplete product....

User interface is mediocre, difficult to tell what systems belong to which faction, which planets are colonized, what the different technologies are, ect. Multiplayer doesn't appear to be working. There is no way title your game so it can be selected by friends, the servers seemed to be full of games from weeks ago. When I tried to create a game my friend could not even see it. Worst of all, you cannot play with AI players in multiplayer games!!! I bought it on sale, and still don't think I got my money's worth. I would have asked for a refund, but had already left the game on for more that two hours before I realized the multiplayer limitations.

Buggy Mess. Crashes and the graphical options are a joke. This could be just a cash grab by the non-existent developers. It shouldn't take any competent developers this long to fix the main issues. This is my first negative review. "Stechmuck  [developer] Posted: 26 Jun @ 1:47pm The bugs/freezes were fixed with the March and April updates." No they were not!!

The game interface is not intuitive and it makes for a frustrating and unenjoyable experience. It is too easy to click the wrong thing and often not possible to undo it. This is very punishing in a turn-based strategy: you wan't it to be about the game decisions you make, not your struggles with the interface. An example is passing at the end of a round: this is done by a dragging a slider which you can end on one of three options. If you slide it too far or not far enough, there's no option to take it back. You might have intended to "pass, unless attacked" but ended on "pass, always". There would be no harm in being able to undo this (it's based on a board game where you can do exactly this), yet in this implementation it's not an option. There are many similar seemingly-minor issues such as this that would've been exposed quickly with more play testing.

It's a pretty okay variant if you want to play the game or experiment with ideas, but don't want to gather an entire party of people to do so. It's quite a buggy mess with crashes when you open menues, AI getting stuck without executing any actions which forces you to reboot the game (however you can pick up from where you left so you don't need to restart the entire game), and sometimes the AI just ends up doing completely random things. However, overall it's pretty okay and a decent implementation. Wouldn't recommend it as a game in of itself due to it being so unstable and the AI being pretty bad, but consider it more as a sandbox for Eclipse players that want to mess around a bit. Price is a bit steep for what it is though so keep that in mind.