Stellar Reach

Tentative thumbs up. If the game had better UI around fleet management and economy management, it would be so much better. As is, these two share the common weaknesses of most space 4X games, becoming more and more cumbersome as the game goes on. For fleets, it really needs a fleet manager like Stellaris or Distant Worlds 2 (or better). Building and adding ships manually is a drag - I just want to top up based on a template I define. For the economy, it feels like there is a lot of interesting developments going on under the hood, but are not well communicated in the UI nor easy to understand how to manage. This feels like a really great economy mechanic, just lacking the UI to make it interest for the player to either track (which is fine) or tinker with ocassionally. I personally do NOT want a system like the Endless Space games (and most 4X) where I build the same series of buildings on all planets, over and over. Great the planets have unique features that (maybe) shakes that up.

OMG but wow! Where the heck did this game come from? I hadn't even heard of it before it just snuck into my queue (I guess because I own every 4X game known to man). If you're an old school 4X nerd like me, this will absolutely blow your mind. The polish and attention to detail are first class. The tutorial--which is the ABSOLUTE BEST I've ever seen in any game, by the way--will peel away the layers of an incredibly deep game. This is grand scale 4X at it's best. No theme park on rails; no bespoke alien races; no diplomacy or allies as near as I can tell. It's just you against the universe and you'd better 4X like nobody's business! The "pause on event" nature of the gameplay makes this pretty close to a turn-based game (and, I guess my only "complaint" is that it needs more speeds beyond "too slow" and "way too frickin' fast"). Stelleas are obviously fans of the genre and the price is an absolute steal. I can see myself being groggy at work for a while...

This game deserves some love. Although steep learning curve somewhat as you begin to grasp the mechanics of it the result is very rewarding. The price is reasonable and I am finding it to be quite enjoyable.

This is a fun little 4x game that works well, few bugs. Some interesting systems and tech tree/economy features.

A bit odd and the UI takes getting used to but it is quite fun, the enjoyment is similar to scaling in something like eu5.

should be a neutral, but I do want to support scifi games. The mechanics basically makes the game a waiting game, and the balancing and many other stuff are not very well designed. For instance the only benefit of population seems to be allowing you to build a few items, vs machine that could accelerate everything, build everything, turn into money and research, etc.