AI War 2

It was quite intimidating seeing the UI at first, but after the 20-30 minutes of OPTIONAL tutorials, I felt much less intimidated. There isn't a whole lot of lore, but what is there is great! The game isn't fast paced which i appreciate, the ability to pause gives you however much time you need to think about any decisions, and there isn't a ton of micro that keeps me away from other RTS games. I appreciate that the wiki is literally accessible from the menu, complete with strategy guides and every bit of info you could need! The unit variety is pretty good, with many different fleet setups possible, and the models are genuinely impressive, my favorite part of getting new units is just seeing the models! Another strength of the game is how customizable the game is, there are enough options to make your head spin, just about any setting can be changed to your liking! I also appreciate that many of the mods are also just in the game, waiting to be enabled if you are interested, i appreciate when the developers give tools and visibility to the modders, who add quite a bit of free content for everyone! I bought all the DLC and i enjoy all that they add, and of course the options let you only use the parts that you want to see! The other species have cool asthetics and mechanics to add, and with all the DLC there are many factions to choose from to make each game you play quite different, and the skill floor is very high. The depth is impressive, the AI seems to make good choices, and feels very fair compared to other 4x games on higher difficulties. Highly recommend to anyone that enjoys the theme and can get through the tutorial, after the tutorial the UI won't be intimidating and you can enjoy the struggle against the AI or powerful aliens and other oddities!

This game can be summarised as roughly:
A strategy game where you plan your next steps like in a puzzle, where the progression in a is similar to a roguelike, and the difficulty and playstyle of a session can be adjusted extensively to whatever degree you desire.
Make sure you read the things the game tells you, and you'll get the hang of it quite quickly.
If you want an easy and relaxed experience, you can have that. If you want it ridiculously difficult - you can have that too.

It's honestly a crying shame that a game this original and distinctive should have lost money and disrupted the lead developer's life. The strength of his design is apparent in how willing a core group of supporters have been to keep the game updated half a decade after its release. I don't play this as often as I should, but its rhythm is like nothing else on the market. I blame the decline of the indie-games press between the release of AI War: Fleet Command and its sequel, but that's neither here nor there.
Play this if you want a game that only gets harder and never lets up until the great climactic final battle. The expansions are wonderful, but even the vanilla game has much to love about it. You will have to get over some cheap bits: The graphics are not top-of-the-line, and you'll never want to hear "It's either death or success!" again after three campaigns. But it's well worth the effort to acquire this taste. One day I'll go back and get serious about this game.

Here’s a curious fact: look at the achievements and you'll quickly notice something funny. Only about 20% of players have unlocked even the easiest ones that pop up after ten minutes of gameplay. That means 80% of you bought this strategy gem and immediately decided: "Nah, not today, I have 200 other unplayed games anyway."
I get it. This isn’t exactly the kind of game that greets you with cinematic explosions or eye-candy visuals. The graphics are functional, like my microwave, practical but not winning beauty awards anytime soon. And yes, the UI might initially give you that "did someone spill spaghetti here?" feeling, but trust me, it's quicker to figure out than it looks, especially with the built-in help system ready to guide you (assuming you actually read it).
But jokes aside, the developer has poured genuine care into continuous improvements and expansions. Behind the awkward first impression lies strategic gameplay that can be deeply rewarding if you give it a fair shot. If you're among the majority who bought it but haven’t played yet do yourself a favor, spend at least two hours and see what you're missing. If you don’t own it yet, wait for a sale. It's definitely niche, but it's the good kind of niche.
Just remember: clicking "buy" won't magically grant you achievements. Trust me, I tried.

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.

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.

Did not read the Subvert Super Terminal hack right and proceeded to cause a wave the strength of 1.24k to descend upon me and my buddy's home worlds while all we could do is sit and watch 3 hours of work be destroyed. 10/10 would get absolutely curb stomped again.