Stellar Sovereigns

First off, I've played Stellar Sovereigns for about 250-300 or more hours on itch.io before the game fully released on steam. Which is why I can make my review on release day with a good conscience. Stellar Sovereigns is a game that is inspired from Swords of the stars (not the broken one, the first working good one) . It does take a new twist compared to the other main stream modern 4x strategy/space games, by having you making mining fleets, and proper exploration that will either make or break your empire since all resources are finite (they run out) compared to gal civ, or stellaris so you have to plan what sort of fleet/bases you'll be wanting to make since they are all big investments. If you remain to passive, the AI will outpace you in income, and create more fleets (both battle fleets and mining fleets) and get a upperhand against you, and the AI will even try and "snipe" your mining fleets if you're using them to close to the border of the AI and they manage to spot it. all combat fleets have designable/upgradable/improvable parts on the ships (every fleet is 1 main capital ship and 2 escorts), that rely on your tech level to aquire and the research system itself is a nice one, you can either research alot of things at the same time, of go deep into 1 things to try and rush it (inspired by the research system in SOTS1 and MOO i guess) There are plenty or other indepth systems like the colony system where you'll be setting up trade routes between your planets to min/max the happiness so you can squease out the most tax of them to support more fleets/bases of various types, and also slowly increase the factory amount on planets to increase the 'consumer goods' that is varied types of planetart resources that all give different bonuses. The game also have a "Empire" screen where you can decide on how to specialise your empire, which rewards you more points for various tasks that can be anything from winning a battle, to researching new tech, to exploring and lots of more things that you can do will give you more points to spend on your empire. The few bugs that i experienced during the ichi.io stage of the development phase of the game were fixed very fast, considering it's a 1 developer indie game. This game would go under the category of "labour of love" on steam, so I do expect it too get even better then it already is, I've gotten my moneys worth many times over. The fleet vs fleet battles are fun, since you have to be pro-active and scout out what the enemy fleets are running, so you'll know what fleet would best battle the enemies fleets, the colony management takes a bit of learning but once you get the hang of it, it'll be very easy too see how you'll be building your planets to use their advantages the most. The tech is fine, I would not mind double the amount of techs, but I'm also one of those people that prefer to play on the longest/slowest tech speeds in any 4X game. I don't have any complaints about the game other then the UI (the fleet/moving UI parts) can take a bit too learn. Hitting the enemies resources miners can cripple their faction for quite sometime and in some cases even flat out deny them of some vital materials, and give you a huge advantage so scout alot to know where too hit! - Not using a fleet that's just sitting somewhere doing nothing, can be a fatal mistake for a human player. This is a 10/10 hidden-gem in a very toxic-game market where there are developers and publishers that are release barely alpha-stage development games as '100% released functional products' (that even years afterwards are still just embarrassing) , or stripped down games with no shame or second thoughts, so they can release already developed game content as DLCs later on and yet again, with no shame.

For context, I am a HUGE fan of SOTS. I bought all the DLC multiple times so I could play multiplayer, I bought all of Arinn Dembo's books, and I played the absolute crap out of that game. I even tried to like SOTS II more than once, although like the rest of the world I was not successful. I was hopeful that this would be a different take on the same concept. However, the central conceit of SOTS was that you should not spend a lot of time screwing with your planets because combat was the star of the game. The research/design/combat loop was the primary system that made the game tick. Stellar Sovereigns appears to invert that formula. Planet management is so amazingly fiddly that if you take a few turns off of fiddling with your sliders you'll either go into massive debt or massive disapproval, or heck, maybe both. I found that I was spending very little time with my ships and a lot of time managing unemployment and housing shortages. Maybe I'm spoiled by Distant Worlds, but can't these people figure out how to build housing themselves?! I picked a libertarian government, I don't want to be housing and unemployment dictator. In any case, if you DO want to play as housing and unemployment dictator to maximize the tax harvest of your worlds, this is going to be great for you. If you're hoping for something that looks like updated SOTS, you're likely to be disappointed.

Stellar Sovereigns is a flawed labour of love that has already been through 2+ years of early access development on itch.io. There is a [b]lot to enjoy in this game[/b] and it is obvious the developer poured their passion into it, but it is held back by a lack of standard quality of life features, and a number of features that while present are not fully fleshed out which makes it a conditional recommend from us. The developer has said they will work on improving these. There is no story mode which is fine by me as deep repeatable sandbox action is where it is at, but anyone looking for a narrative will be disappointed. [b]The combat[/b] is definitely the highlight of the game and the most fleshed out major system. The depth of the gameplay here is very engaging, with a large assortment of weapons and modules usable on a nice variety of hull types, each of which has suitably different statistics to specialise them. There are a number of meaningful tradeoffs like management of power to ensure your sensors have enough strength to detect enemies at the range you want, your ships can maneuver at the rate you need, your weapons can recharge and continue firing optimally, and so on. This all factors in on ship building, research, and modification and plays out nicely during combat. The [b]graphics and sound[/b] are consistently good across the galactic map, interface and combat. The music is atmospheric, the combat sounds are suitably distinct and flow together nicely and the interface sounds are crunchy and responsive. The combat looks beautiful too and comes with cinematic and battle cameras, the latter is a nice way to see better what’s going on in a little centered window while you command, and the former is great for when the outcome is decided or when you want to take screenshots. The ships are all well designed and cover a nice range of sci-fi themes, the combat graphics are good across the board from weapon effects to ship damage and explosions. The research tree is better than most, being split into many specialised categories and works well. You can research multiple technologies at once depending on how much you’re willing to invest, and the mechanic of rushing research – with the chance for problems it entails – is a very nice trade off to be able to choose. Planetary development is also good as you balance your population, their employment and happiness, building requirements and investment with your economy and current situation. The governor works well to keep things going by itself within the budget allowed and, unlike bureaucrats in real life, won’t use more of the budget than is needed. Quality of Life issues are the major problem for me. As is tradition for German games it seems (looking at you Gothic), genre standards of interface usability are quite literally a foreign concept, much like PC optimisation is for Japanese games. One of the most standard of standards is using the escape key to close windows in order and then when none are open, to open the system menu. Neither happens in this game – windows must be closed with their own X (can’t click outside of them to close them either), or you have to click on the menu to open it. The game also suffers from the same “indie Unity game” [b]interface problems[/b] where windows are oversized, contain too little information, rely on tooltips to provide some of said information, and do not use tooltips for the standard practice of explaining what something is. It also prevents two commonly desired things – having multiple windows open at once, and still being able to interact with the main interface while a window is open. Even simple things like no spaces or underscores in save games is a minor annoyance that is nothing by itself but that adds up with all the others. There were a few bugs mainly forgetting the map/interface settings and crashing on load/exit, but they were minimal. There’s fun to be had, but the game makes you walk up hill in the summer sun to get to it. If TBS/RTS combo 4X is your thing this will be an easier sell. All the expected elements are there – empire, colony, and military management, exploding spaceships, pretty aliens and citizens to exploit. If the interface issues don’t seem like a problem and you prefer the sandbox over the story, [b]I can see this being a lot of fun to play through a number of times[/b], but the constant interface frustrations really hold it back for me. Read the full [url=https://roundtablecoop.com/reviews/stellar-sovereigns-flawed-labor-of-love/]Roundtable Co-op review here[/url] for more detail and follow the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42258148-Roundtable-Co-Op/]Roundtable Coop Curator here[/url] for more unbiased reviews by fans of the games genres.

This is not SOTS like. This is why I don't recommend for Sots fans like me. All the other things can be considered as personal taste. At SOTS, goverment management is %5-10 of the game, here it's about %80. You have all the ship and weapon options at the beginning. There is no progress about ship hulls so you can build a battleship at day one. Research trees are there and there are many trees but they are not high enough, only 3 lines with 3 options each, so max 9. UI is strange, looks like something for mobile. Ship Edit UI is not so well, way worse then Sots. Everything is shiny and flashing.. everything.. background, UI, shields, explosions. Even you see it at the game video here. But space lighting is not enough so you can't see you ship properly as there is no light from above. Space battles like Sots yes but the motions are not. It's like ground RTS rather then Homeworld style. You press somewhere and ships go there directly without a weight feeling. There are details you really don't need. Ship energy management, repair management, all the sencors, engines. Yeah nice to have all the control but the battles are not too long or strategic. Imagine to have them all at Sots or Homeworld, it would take away the experience. There are auto options too so not so big deal I guess. In the end, you govern much more then Sots and it took me off and I refund in the end.

a game where i wish there would be a third category. while the game may be good, ( i actually don´t really know- at least what i saw on features looked good)- the ui and controls are so §/$$"§ that i ragequited it after half an hour. it feels like it´s made for a touchscreen. i gave it a try even tho i feared such thing from the pictures. i recommend it for people that can get over this and actually enjoy the game but i can´t recommend this for people like me i have no problem with complexity btw, i actually love it. i also play aurora4x wich should say everything to that. it´s just the ui and controls. (i also got lost on the galaxy map- wasd and arrows not working). if you can get past that it may be a good game- i can´t so its nothing for me, sadly

It's early going yet, but here's some initial gameplay: https://youtu.be/19ly-UjPrWo There's something here, if you can parse through a lot of new systems and some dense tutorials. I'll be reporting back as I play more!

I play a lot of 4X and strat games in general, this one has some decently fresh takes that appeal Finances rule everything, having money means financing more research, more development and no "RUSH" button. In general a more realistic approach with less gamey feel to it which I myself really enjoy. An RPG-ish politic approach where your ruling party is affected by perk points you spend for small bonuses which in turn affects what governments you can pick from. It's different and has enough variety to be a bit novel at least. And the use of a 3D map is also rather unusal - Most games present in a 2D scape because of it's UI advantages, so it was refreshing just to see something different - Even with some confusion caused since it causes optical illusions. My biggest gripe is the tutorial - It uses images to show a lot of controls which is great, it pops up when first visiting menus which is ok. But it's to big all at once and could really use partioning - a little "?" to click for guidance or meaty tooltips when hovering over buttons would work better. Because there is A LOT of information to read in the tutorial and most people will not manage to remember half of it since it all hits home all at once. A redesign to give a short introduction to help ensure "Turn 1, check this out" is clearly pointed out would work better to then allow a player to explore the rest after they feel comfortable with having 'set things up'. I'm afraid the current barrage would scare off quite a few folks even with a high tolerance for reading a lot.

This game feels weird to me, it has some odd contrasts: On one hand good resource system and economy that is more detailed than usual (and fun too), on the other hand research tree is a hard to parse trough flat mess. Combat mechanics are excelent, nicely detailed yet for some odd reason player is limited to 3 ships per fleet. Nothing stops you from sending multiple fleets, just for some reason you can't merge them. Trade routes are nicely detailed yet for some odd reason are singleway as if freighters do not need to do a return trip... Major cons: - Tutorial is a wall of text. - UI needs to be more informative in a lot of cases (ex: tooltips for power management, easy to see ETA in turns, planet shows only half of relevant stats in a very compact view prior to colonization) - Tech tree and political perks are problematic to navigate - Diplomatic screen is plain confusing. - Scouting can be tedious, is not automatable Despite issues and being a bit overpriced it is in decent enough state and is interesting enough.

I am sure this game was meant for some specific niche of players, but it wasn't me despite my long history of Gal Civ, MOO2, Stellaris, Endless Space and other such 4X Space games. The interface and UI is just..god awful. It looks extremely dated, as if this game was made around the time of Master of Orion 3 then thrown into a cyro-pod for several years. Nothing about this game is intuitive or easy to grasp, and this is not due to some complexity of the game but just outright bad design. The fact your first move in the game is building a space fleet of..just 3 ships? Why 3? Doesn't make any sense, and the interface is extremely vague. The planet interface/UI looks like something off of a mobile phone. The game brags it won some award in a Development Championship in 2021, so I guess I am missing something here. Maybe this game is meant for those who want retro games, and this game is retro in that it looks ALOT like Imperium Galactica 2, just maybe a few years older for..for a game in 2023? For a game that won some reward? I just don't get it. Get this game if you absolutely love retro space games from 15+ years ago, but don't expect to have any fun. You'd be better off picking up a copy of Imperium Galactica 2 instead.

Solid indie 4x that takes a lot of ideas from SotS and adds a fresh take on managing planets that's pretty easy to understand but hard to get perfect. Deep combat mechanics and a lot of ship variety makes for interesting encounters and fun combat. Pretty steep learning curve, but a great entry if you can get past a slightly clunky UI.