Galactic Ruler

I bought this game for multiplayer. Though the officially-supported multiplayer doesn't work because the galaxy save file will not transfer to other players. Meaning I bought this game for nothing. If you are also interested in buying this for 4X multiplayer experiences I would recommend against this game. Edit: So I finally went ahead and played a bunch of this solo. The AI doesn't know how to play the game. As a player, you will likely see the abysmal resource situation at the start and begin to fix it. The AI will take hundreds of years in game to catch up to even conservative initial player actions. This game functionally doesn't work in a non pvp environment (but good luck connecting to multiplayer).

I can't believe I bought this in Early access and now my eyes hurt from even watching this game. Colors are too much, UI is too much. I played it for 7 hours in EA and hoped they would listen to players about bad UI, but it is somehow even worse. Can't even make myself play it for the sake of checking what they added in theses years. I hope they will come back and rework it, but as sr2030 is out I don't think it will be for a couple of years or maybe even ever. I have made new game and started playing as this planet has normal colors but even watching other plantes sometimes can make you go dizzy. I will keep updating as I play but for now not recommending. :(

This game has a lot of potential, but it's not balanced/finished. The devs are a small team and they intend to use the proceeds from another game to finish this game. But there is no concrete timeline or roadmap that I've seen. The UI is very complex and perhaps not explained well enough. The game is also very complex and lets you do things other games don't, but the micromanagement is inconsistent and gets tedious at times. On a large-scale 4x with multiple solar systems you should not have to micromanage things like loading troops and landing them on enemy planets. This is the sort of game I'd love to play but it's not quite ready yet IMO.

There are a lot of things that are an improvement on top of earlier Supreme Rulers. Every unit (that I've seen) has a description that tells you what it does. The naming schemes for space vehicles is great too, with a quick distinction of FTL capable ships coming from a "Stellar" or "Planetary" moniker. I like the art and lore of all the alien species. The game has an animated intro too, which I haven't seen in other BG titles. The lack of needing to simulate the IRL world also means a lot of things have been streamlined. The tech tree is intuitive and everything is descriptive and all of them have an impact. Combat is fun; the reduced amount of units, since BG doesn't have to simulate the arsenal of the entire military stockpile of every nation of earth, means everything more or less has a clear niche and balance. The resource system is also simplified with automated trading. The game speed also goes CRAZY fast compared to earlier BG titles. The planet map/solar system swap is neat, and I like that you have to plan a military landing and survey the entire planet. The solar system map is very ugly and difficult to navigate due to the stars' icons being HUGE. If they were smaller it would be easier to navigate visually and with my ships. When you colonize a planet it becomes a separate nation - a "colony". This makes building a planet difficult and confusing. I understand the intent of the developers, to simulate trade and logistics across stellar distances. However it's a pain in the butt because your colony has to deal with shortages and you have less control over your colonies' workings without switching to it. It would probably be better if they had the colony be an annexed territory but have its produced resources sent up into 'crates' to be sent to the home-world, so we have the convenience of building on it/in orbit with our resource stockpile. All in all the game has a lot of improvements to the underlining engine, tech tree, unit balance, and UI. However the meat of the game is incredibly unintuitive. I love the push into scifi, and the fact I haven't seen planetary invasions simulated like in this game before, but I can't recommend the game. I feel like if all this set place in one big map such as in GalCiv 2 but still keeping the planetary maps a big chunk of problems would be solved. I keep playing the game on and off in bursts because I love the presentation and intention, but the execution remains disappointing.

Please devs take this out of the store so new players don’t get confused. If you are a new player and are interested in this game go and find Galactic Ruler Enlightenment (GRE) instead, which is a re-release of this game with extra features. This one is dead and not receiving further updates. GRE is also not receiving updates in terms of new features and dev say will only receive engine updates and updates on existing features as time permits.

TL;DR -- This game is for hardcore strategy enthusiasts, and not for (even remotely) casual 4X fans. If you took classics like Empire (an amazing precursor to Civilization), and used it for ground combat (eschewing it's simplicity, in the process), and then other classics for space (still pondering a good example... Space Empires but without warp points? I dunno. Space Empires is far better, though. Stars! doesn't have warp points/lanes, but, TMK, you can't sling mineral packets at enemies in this game, and that's basically what Stars! boiled down to), and made the UI absolutely terrible (like, from the 90s, doesn't scale decently with resolution, doesn't use good visual language, not organized well), you'd have this game. There's no ship design -- units you get are the result of tech research (like Civ). Often it's a little unclear as to why a unit is locked behind a certain node on the tech tree, so designing your empire around its military strategy is... hard. Maybe impossible. In a sense, it's exactly Civ's tech tree concept, but a lot of the technologies are fictional, so you can't understand it as innately as you can with Civ. They even seem odd/abstract for 4X addicts, like myself -- they are... kind of unfun, whereas many 4X games, which derive from game concepts closer to MoO, have "scifi fun" embedded in their tree. The ground combat is a cool addition, even if it suffers from the same micromanagement as the rest of the game. That said, if you've ever played Empire of the Fading Suns, you've already played better. This is a RTS-at-your-speed game, which I have always found a little irritating, but some people enjoy their 4X in this manner, rather than turn-based. Navigation of entire fleets with the UI, in realtime, is an interface nightmare, from my perspective. Loading cargo/armies is insane micromanagement -- literally the worst of any serious 4X. I can't give this game a thumbs-up -- it just doesn't shine in any way, other than it's sheer complexity, and the detailed ground combat. If it had decent UI, the complexity might be more manageable, and I, being a total 4X grognard, would probably play it like crazy. As is, it's not worth my time, given all the competition. I'd rather wait for someone to do ground combat well, than spend time with this interface.

Worst UI in all the battlegoat releases

Been trying to figure out how to play this game and got stuck at the tutorial, i got to the part where the objective is Pirates! Not sure if you are supposed to declear war on the faction you found in the starter system or if there is a pirate fleet somewhere you are supposed to destroy its to vague for me to understand what you are supposed to do at that stage. I tried to figure out the building system in this game and while i have noticed that you can build ore mine etc at special spots i am not sure if these resources are limited, is there a point to doing more mines etc on the starter planet or are you supposed to just find a new planet to build at? It has been a very confusing 3 hours for me but at least i now know how to produce ships and give basic orders. I can guess how the building system work but i am not sure yet. Going to keep trying to play this game but it feels way to complicated for me at the moment and is giving me a heacahe every time i try to play it. At the moment i recommend this for people that are patient and love allot of depth and micro managament in their game. Update, about five hours now and i have my first taste of battle, seemed to work fine at first and then unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured,unit captured. Poof my fleet was gone or rather it was now no longer my fleet to use. Not sure how combat is supposed to work but i tried again with 20 ships and same result so i guess i must be missing something tho no clue what that something is. I have now figured out to build supply buildings so that i can build production buildings but i still got no clue how to get power or if there is a resource limit on each planet, for all i know my starter planet is empty and all i am doing is buildings stuff that does nothing. Update, 22.04.2023 So i have messed around for over 10 hours and i still dont understand how to play this game properly. I know how to build things and i have figured out that there is allot of junk on the starter planet that you need to delete before you start playing and then rebuild everything centered around the production buildings..what a pain in my ass sigh. I have no way to defend against the hostile faction capture tactics, i have tried everything i could think of and even started a game with no tech start but apperently that no tech looks like its only applied to the human player as the ai raided me very quickly and with zero defenses nothing i could do about it and even if i had ships they would have just capture em. The idea behind this game is good, its a pretty complicated game..to complicated for me to figure it out. You start the game with a negative income, this is due to the buildings on the starter planet being dumped randomly all over the place so you need to clean all that up and rebuild everything before you can even start the game. That is assuming the random map you started with has the basic resources plus one planet that you can settle on and if not have fun doing new game over and over again until you get a map that has the basics at least. I would say the worst thing about this game is not how hard it is to figure things out but how boring it is to play it as everything you can do take forever to do. Even if you try to speed up the game it still takes to long to get things done. At the moment i would not recommend this game, its a slow and complicated game that makes it harder for the player for no good reason. Update, 29.04.2023 After 30 hours of trying the game on normal i ended up playing it on easy economy and with the workshop mod Easier Energy, with this the game seem to work properly tho still progressing slowly.

Picture this: I, a valiant gamer, encountered a glitch that threatened to eclipse my thrill. Undeterred, I reached out to the legendary Mr. BattleGoat, the maestros behind the game. Me: "Oh, great Mr. BattleGoat, I've stumbled upon a glitch that's dimming the sparkle of my adventure." BattleGoat, ever the sage in the digital wilderness, responded with the swiftness of a warrior. BattleGoat: "Fear not, brave gamer. Your saved game has revealed the gremlin in our code. Behold, we've vanquished this foe in our upcoming update, set to soar across the digital realm today. Soon, you'll reignite your journey, unleash your forces, and conquer as intended. Await our update, and your saga shall resume in full glory!" Apologies were offered for the temporary shadow cast by this bug, a mere ripple in the grand tapestry of gaming. Me: With the update unleashed, I dove back into the fray. The game, now flawless, beckoned me into hours of exhilarating gameplay.

Might be a good game somewhere under this horrible UI, but I haven't been able to find it.