AI War 2
The most devious and acclaimed artificial intelligence in strategy gaming returns… with a host of mutual enemies. AI War II is a grand strategy/RTS hybrid against an overwhelming, inhuman enemy who has conquered the galaxy. Face off against a more advanced version of the original AI, who once again has captured the entire galaxy leaving you only a tiny planet to yourself. Then strike out and find a way to cleverly outwit it nonetheless. All the new capturables, larger fleets, and hacking abilities are sure to help. (You're going to need it.) Or immerse yourself in a far more complicated galactic struggle involving the nanocaust, macrophages, dyson spheres, and more. Other factions each have their own goals, rules, units, and entirely unique economies. Make the scenario complicated enough and it can become "World War XV is in progress, you're in a tiny farm in the middle of it, nobody likes you, but if you can just kill that one giant angry enemy leader this will all be over." If that sounds over the top — and frankly that bit is wearying to us to imagine even though some people seek it out — then take a break and maybe hack the all-consuming computer virus to be your ally, and convince the star-sized alien hives to watch your back as you take on a suddenly-less-arrogant AI.
Game Discussion
Steam User 48
It is hard to recommend to the people who might just read the tags for this game, if you do you won't have the right mind set of what to expect. It's closer to a stealth mission with limited units in an RTS. If you go in blowing up everything and increase your threat level too much you will die spectacularly.
You must plan and have a good reason for taking out certain bases, falling back to defend occasionally until you are ready to take apart the enemy at their core. Fail to get it in one or two attempts and they will be knocking at your door with units you can't possibly stop.
It is no exageriation to say if you set the difficulty too high or set more than 1 AI it might be impossible to win. I'd highly recommend no higher than a single AI at 2-3 until you have a few games under your belt and know what to expect.
Remember that you are always the underdog and the odds are stacked against you.
The learning curve will be massive.
My only complaints would be the neutral factions taking out bases counting against your threat level and the massive CPU usage if you set up the game too big or complicated.
If none of these things have made you run away you are the person that I would recommend this game.
Steam User 19
Completed the Rite of Passage (the game's "filter" difficulty) and a couple custom games. It's better than most 4X games, that's for sure.
I don't really buy into the whole "the AI is way smarter than you bro, it's really devious" type of message Arcen Games tries really hard to push, but it is a more competent AI than most. The truth is that - much like most strategies to make AI harder - the AI is just given way more to work with.
That being said, the game is lovingly crafted with some tough choices made by the devs to make their game better (perfect example is the controversial fleet system, where ships aren't individually built, instead being attached to a "fleet ship"). The music and setting really are enjoyable as well.
But it just feels like I'm doing work for the sake of work. My improvements don't feel like anything. They're just another step towards "winning" the game.
Honestly... I don't know if I should rate this positive or not.
6/10, the music sways me to a narrow recommendation.
Steam User 17
I am very fond of this game, that is an engine + lots of contents to tune the challenge in very varied ways. I buy a DLC from time to time as a support to the (almost) solo dev, and I end up enjoying the new content.
It works great on my HP Envy laptop, which is rudimentary gear. Congrats to the dev(s) for optimizing so well the engine, with thousands of units taking decisions and performing the pew pew smoothly.
The game is best played as intended : the player has a tiny fraction of the might of the opponent AI, yet must defeat it with calculated moves. Stacking too many factions on the player side looses the fun, and might cause some slight performance alteration.
Steam User 25
This is one of the best RTS games I've ever played.
I always loved the genre, but didn't like the high APM necessary and mixed macro and micro tasks at the same time. This game takes a different approach to the standard formula and it gets it so right.
Basically, the AI owns the galaxy and you own one measly planet and need to somehow help humanity survive and ideally wipe out the AI. Lucky for you, the AI doesn't think wiping you out is worth its time... yet. As you expand, that changes. You have to make interesting choices about what to take, where to expand, and how quickly to do... pretty much everything.
The ships/turrets/flagships are varied and interesting with their own strengths and weaknesses, and you don't get to fully decide what you want to produce, which is actually genius rather than annoying, making you figure out how to best use the resources at hand. The difficulty was good for me, though I've seen others say it's quite difficult, my natural strategy I fell into seemed to work well, though I only played on normal with nothing weird enabled.
Speaking of which, there seems to be a ton of variability and settings to tweak - some of which seem to really have the potential to ramp up (or in some cases, down) the difficulty and/or chaos. There's a ton of galaxy configurations and factions and situations to switch between. I can see this being very replayable and I'd love to try it multiplayer. All in all I'm very impressed with it and encourage anyone who enjoys the genre to give it a shot.
Steam User 15
Might be the best 4x game ever made and I say this as a person with more than two thousand hours in Stellaris. Its a hard call for me between the two but its definitely between AIW2 and Stellaris. I know I have low hours as of now but I've played almost all of these types of games and I can just already tell.
For newcomers, it skews more Sins of Solar Empire than it does Stellaris. But if you enjoy either of those games, there's no reason you won't love this. They say it has a steep learning curve and I'm sure I can go much deeper, so there's that for people who enjoy that kind of depth, but it should also be a pretty easy learn for anyone who plays 4x games frequently.
Steam User 10
one of the main reason's I've played this game so much is the mods and the randomness of the game, you never know what might happen next. and it keeps one on their toes when they're up against a high level AI (difficulty 7+ for me) and the amount of potential factions with all the DLC's can really add a little spice to the game. one of my top 10 favorite games of all time
Steam User 10
I almost never write games reviews on steam. And frankly at this moment I am not in mood to write long detailed review - I want to go back to the game and beat those godd**ed level 8 AIs. =)
But I will say this - I have been playing deep strategy games for 3 decades. This (and deep RPGs) are my two favorite genres in computer games. So over the years I've played probably 70-80%+ of games on most "Best strategy games of all times" lists.
And this game is certainly in the top 5 or even in the top 3 strategy games I've EVER played, out of hundreds. It's really amazing. And it is also absolutely original - there is really nothing like that out there.
And I think it is also criminally relatively unknown, likely because it's just too complex and strange for most major reviewers, and also obviously it doesn't have much eye candy. (although its artwork if totally fine for this type of game)
Bottom line - if you love deep, deliciously complex strategy games with very strong (but infinitely customizable for any difficulty level or preference) AI opponents - do yourself a huge favor, stop wasting time by continuing reading reviews, and get this game. It's *really* that good. :)
Fair warning - it does have learning curve. It's not a large curve, and it is certainly not a vertical wall, but it is there. Although let's be real - all interesting and deep strategy games have some learning curve, pretty much by definition - they would not be "deep" otherwise. :) Fortunately there are excellent tutorials both within game, as well as many video tutorials on youtube. (in particular, those made by "Strategy Sage" really helped me to upgrade my mastery of this game to beat higher levels of AI)