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.
Steam User 27
I hesitate to call this the Dwarf Fortress of RTS, but that's the most apt comparison I can make.
AI War II is extremely dense in information presented to the player, as well as strategies and mechanics available to both the player and the AI. It is not a game someone can just turn on willy-nilly and break the AI in five minutes. It is a commitment, and I find this to be both its greatest strength and its biggest flaw.
AI War II does not shy away from giving the player a consistent challenge no matter the difficulty level. The AI is always stronger than you and can destroy you whenever it feels like it. The idea is to pick your battles and strategically weaken the AI so that you can win before the AI decides it doesn't want you to. This adds vast strategic depth, but can easily instill a crippling case of analysis paralysis in new players. It will also likely turn off any players that try coming into the game looking for an easy victory. You should look elsewhere, for it shall not be found here.
However, if you are willing to commit and learn the games secrets, you will find a richly rewarding strategic experience rarely seen today. This is a genuine labor of love, and it shows. If you so choose to accept this mission, then start a campaign, learn a mechanic or two, take your lumps, and repeat the Dwarf Fortress creed:
LOSING IS FUN!
Steam User 20
Quite possibly the quintessential space macro-RTS game with excellent computer opposition. It has several player faction flavors, continued ongoing post-release support, highly moddable, highly customizable, supports multiplayer.
Future-proofed in the sense that it will happily let you overload your PC without crashing. When we upgrade to more powerful systems in the future, it appears to be capable of taking full advantage of the increase processing power to load even more optional features or factions at one time in a campaign. I appreciate that.
Steam User 12
I haven't seen much of the depth and breadth of this game yet, and so this is heavily subject to change, but here is a review primarily about my criticisms.
Firstly, the AI seems weird. Even when it is moments from destruction, it will boldly announce you have 0% chance of defeating it and considering what it can do, it really won't do a whole lot to stop you. I know this is to make the gameplay more playable because if it actually went all in once it realised it was about to die you'd certainly be crushed, but it seems weird that going too far away from your controlled planets incites a much greater response than a direct attack on the AI overlord itself. Maybe this changes on higher difficulties, I don't know yet.
In the first AI War game, it seemed a bit more understandable to me - maybe this isn't the intended interpretation but it seemed like the galaxy you operate in was but a tiny piece of the AI's true extent - it felt more like you were trapped under the AI's toenail and the goal was to detach that toenail and run off with it. The lack of extreme response could be justified then as ultimately it's not even a big deal to the AI if they loose the galaxy, but while I know canonically the AI isn't restricted to just the galaxy you play in in the second game as well, the game doesn't really do much to show it, and it feels like you're actually taking down the whole thing. Making its relative unresponsiveness kinda immersion ruining.
Secondly, I will first say the game leans heavily into the concept of "strategy over tactics", micromanagement of your forces isn't really important other than in making sure they get to the right places at the right times. But this is weird because it feels like a lot of the game was built for tactics. There are a huge range of ships in this game, every game your army will have a unique assortment of all sorts of craft specialisations, many of them having situational crazy attack modifiers or unique mechanics... and that in itself is a great deal of complexity, there could be a lot of depth to battles, but really whatever you choose doesn't matter as long as it fits with the tech you've specced into and you kinda just vaguely gesture "go and kill everything over there" to the large clump of your assorted forces. They automatically decide how far they should engage from and what to engage to make the best out of their properties for you. It almost feels like there's too much variety, most strategy games have a rock-paper-scissors going on with a few things to fill more niche roles, but here there are five hundred different hand positions and any mix of ten of them will do at least alright against pretty much any other mix.
It makes the great complexity in combat between fleets feel kinda wasted, as you just don't see it, it's just a mush of 3d models clipping into each other with neon lights everywhere in a battle where very little player oversight is actually required.
Thirdly, and I guess this links into the second point, your lack of ability to adapt in the way that you can in most RTS games is a bit disappointing, even though I know it is intentional for so much of this to be kinda abstracted away as this isn't supposed to be the focus of the game. In most RTS games, if you loose a big group of forces, you go and look at what the enemy used and try to rebuild new forces with the goal of anticipating what your enemy will bring next time and try to counter it. That doesn't really exist here. Once you have a ship line, that's sort of it. Your fleet got wiped out? Send your flagships home and two minutes later your fleet is back, exactly the same as it was before. You can only seriously change it by altering what techs you've got, but reverting science upgrades just to buy new ones is kinda pointless as really you should already have specced into what you have. Because that's how science works, it isn't to get new stuff but to upgrade what you already have.
Fourthly, after playing the first game, metal and energy just seem too generous. Not to say the game is too easy of course, but managing your metal and energy seems basically trivial in this game compared to the first. You're low on metal or energy? Just spend a small amount of science and get a massive boost. You seem to never really have to cut back on your defences or repairs in order to not have your ability to maintain yourself severely compromised.
It just feels... simple. The game looks complex with all the stats windows, and is internally a marvellously complex piece of software, but the actual gameplay just feels simple. In my opinion, the developer took the de-emphasis of the more menial parts of the game a bit too far.
That being said it's a good game. I look forward to experiencing all the variety I'm yet to bring in. There are also a ton of built in mods including one that brings back a lot from the first game that I'm keen to try out, and the game has so many other factions including the DLC ones, many of which I am yet to experience as well.
Steam User 19
A unique RTS with a toe in grand-strat. It has this completely different model of conquest b/c you can't out-economy the enemy. Instead, you have to look at the map and figure out how you're going to steal power from them while constantly staying under the radar and hiding your true strength so they don't just turn and crush you like an ant.
The map of the galaxy is a puzzle. A tactical and strategic one that bears careful consideration and constant risk-reward assessment which I found to be completely engrossing.
I have immense respect for the developer for making the higher difficulties pit the player against an ever more capable/smarter foe. Demanding more nuanced tactics and resource balancing. This isn't some "just add zeros" difficulty. You'll have to play differently, building on what you've learned, for each and every difficulty you aspire to.
And then there's game-mode modifiers like expert and logistician mode which layer on top of the difficulty levels.
You could play this game for a very long time and never master every aspect of it I feel. I've already beaten it 5 times (from difficulty 4 through 8) and am still learning.
Steam User 12
One of the best RTS Games I've played.
You are playing against a severly overpowered AI opponent, but the AI only fights back once it feels threatened by you. This adds an important strategic component that is usually missing from games like this. You have to pick your fights carefully and weight the risks and rewards to win.
The difficulty however is VERY variable, going from "the AI barely acts against you" to "basically unfair". Apart from that the game offers a ton of additional options to make the round more diverse. Different kinds of allies that jump in to help your offense or build up defenses, to neutral threats that roam around and help or hinder either you or the AI to AI allies and independent factions. All these settings keep the game interesting even after a few rounds.
All in all, a great game.
Steam User 7
Great space 4x with almost no micromanagement. Bit of a rogue like since as the oppressed humans you'll have to figure out the most efficient way to scrounge up the available resources scattered about without getting noticed by the super powered AI.
Steam User 7
AI War 2 is a fun little game hidden behind a UI which gives way, way, way too much information at first glance. If you give this a try, don't even pay attention to most of the text it shows at first and just focus on the tutorial. How strong an engine is, the exact damage multiplier against a thing and the mass of a ship are almost entirely irrelevant at lower difficulties thanks to the large amount of automation AI War 2 contains, which makes ships prioritize shooting at what they're good against anyways.
I gave this a try without any of the expansions, and I get the feeling they add the depth the base game is missing. The base game has some interesting stuff, but there's only so many macrophages, nanocausts, marauders and space trains the game can throw at me before I feel like I've seen them already during my battle against the AI's.
Maybe more stuff will be revealed at higher difficulties. Supposedly, the developers don't want to scare new players with advanced enemies. It's a pity they don't feel the same about their UI. I feel AI War 2 is worth it at its asking price, but be ready for a bit of a learning curve.
Having played this with the expansions, I definitely recommend buying them if you enjoy the base game AI War 2. They add a lot more to the game and new, interesting ways to play as well.