latest update

[Sieben]

Whatever it's called. The silence is deafening. Is the game improved? playable? save-able? Come on, all you post-beta testers, how about some feedback. I'm actually thinking about spending money on this game.

[anguille]

The game has improved a lot. Imho, the game is where it should have been for release (i think the game was released six months too early). I think it's a solid 4x. There have been many issues with saves that have been solved. Some are still in the game but there's already a new patch on the way. I am not a fan of the art style and the galaxy map, so you really should look at some gameplays before. So far i've played it about 30 hours.

The game is on sale right now (Slitherine).

[Teppic]

In very short?
I have fun with game, most of the times.

In short:
Interface is sufficient, sometimes weak. Game mechanics: Very good, high replayabilty.
It is no casual and you need to think about the things you to do and manage in the game.
Most of the times it is fair and balanced enough.
Grafics design (2D) is not fancy but accurate, in some places very good, and sometimes... not so.
Modding might be a potential plus, but I am no modder and cannot properly comment on this.
Game is more ressource demanding as I thought at first.
With my older PC (RIP) and its poor configuration only HDD and 4GB RAM I was limited to small and medium galaxies.
That was in 01/2020 and it diddn´t really limit my fun.

[Baron Wombat]

Yes, it is MUCH better. I pretty much agree with Anguille’s comments. I just completed a game that went 253 turns. The turns save properly now. The battle results are correct. However, as your position gets bigger the responses to your mouse clicks do get slower. Up to the Commander level at least, the AI is fairly weak. IMHO the other factions seem to concentrate too much on colonizing worlds. They rarely build orbital defenses or garrison their worlds. A typical navy for them consisted of 6 unarmed scouts and a Titan. When they declare war they don’t seem to try very hard to actually capture enemy worlds; they seem to blockade them to keep the opponent weak, and let it go at that. The game is very re-playable and the next step for me is to increase the difficulty level and see what happens.

[matt3916]

Baron Wombat -- Re increasing difficulty, I'd recommend at least Admiral. I don't think you'll see much difference at General (and you may not see much at Admiral, I haven't tried that one yet).

[Baron Wombat]

Thanks for the tip Matt.

[Sieben]

Thank you for the replies, gentlemen. I went ahead and bought the game when it was on sale for $20. I've played several 4X games from MoO to Distant Worlds Universe (best so far) and am sure I can find something enjoyable to do in this one. I hope the new patch rejuvenates interest in the game, since the best way to learn a new game is to have a forum of helpful veterans available if I have questions.