Star Dynasties

I am going to give this Reviewing thing a go. Let me know if it helps or if I rambled too much.

I consider this one of my perfect "Sunday Afternoon" games. A game that is perfect for turning your brain off and not getting too heated before Monday shows its ugly head. This game is not a masterpiece, so why is great for a lazy Sunday Afternoon?

PROS:
Many random events. The game allows for many different scenarios and events to take place as attempt to help your Space Family survive the Game of Galactic Thrones.

Art: great art. Some of it is really well made, and I enjoy the portraits of the events. (Not the characters. More on that below.)

Replayability- This game is so replayable. So many starting conditions, different ways for the AI to play, and you can go from winning to loosing to winning again in a turn or two. Always gotta stay on your toes in this game.

CONS: No game is perfect. Here is some of the glaring issues.

Character- Kinda ugly. They don't look great haha. They work though.

Battles- You can have some cool wars, but the battles take place in menus that are pretty confusing. Takes time to understand but there is still more RNG than is comfortable. Usually comes down to making sure your Commander has a crazy high Military level and that is about the only strategy to win.

Lost in Menus: Takes awhile to get used to the menus. Once you are used to it, you are fine, but the first little while is quite the quest.

Conclusion: Perfect Single Player, no internet required, randomly generated, Family in space, strategy game for that afternoon that you just want to zone out before returning back to real life. I find myself going back to it every other week due to it doing exactly what I want out of a 7/10 game. (5/10 if the issues bug you that bad.) Reliable, not addicting, and has an entertaining element that allows me to revisit when it whenever I want. It is also not too demanding of a game, which is also fantastic. Enjoy!!

After playing Star Dynasties for 62 hours I can definitely recommend this hidden gem. Other players often describe it as Crusader Kings in space, but there are many differences. It's turn-based and it's much less complicated. In my opinion it's more like a political sim. The gameplay itself is quite simple: each turn you get a string of events and then you use your action points to appoint your house members to various tasks. The game became one of my all time favorites. It's even more impressing once you know the game was made by just one guy. But I understand it might not be for everyone, cause the strict moral system is very challenging.

Amazing game... a hidden gem! If you think you might like it... you will!
However... (there's always a "but")... this game rewards a particular play style one might call "deep contemplation." What is "deep contemplation?" Well, after playing my fair share of different kinds of strategy games over the decades, I have found that there are certain games where a not-so-insignificant amount of the pleasure actually comes from allowing yourself to get lost in the narrative that you are essentially creating turn-by-turn. This is kind of like "role playing," but it's also kind of more than that: you aren't just playing a role, but actually enjoying the aesthetics of the game world that you have helped to craft, turn-by-turn, as story lines evolve and decisions branch out in interesting ways... does that make sense? It may not, probably, to some of you, and that's fine. No judgment here and by no means am I saying that this is the only way to play this or any other game.
I find that a lot of my favorite war games (hex-based, operational level war) have this aspect of deep contemplation, where -- in later turns -- it becomes fun to simply look at the map and think about all the decisions, battles, etc. that got you to where you are. The cool thing about this "vibe" is that: it's kind of fun regardless of whether you are "winning" or "losing." When a game is memorable and fun even in stalemate or defeat, folks, that's a gem of a game right there. Anyway, this game rewards making careful decisions and taking advantage of opportunities. This makes the journey fun, no matter the destination. I like games like that.
Last thing I'll say: a big thing this game gets right is that, while all the decisions bear upon your House's fortunes to one extent or another, the "big" decisions are never too big in their consequences -- you can try things! You can recover from some slip-ups. Similarly, you might have a few big triumphs -- ok, awesome -- but it doesn't mean that the rest of the way will be a pushover. Far from it! You will still need to pay attention, manage your House's affairs, and keep going.
TL;DR: Get it but be patient; this one is not a sprint but a slow build.

Star Dynasties is a space empire-building strategy game. I really like it.
Let's make one thing clear: when people hear about space empire-building games they envision some sort of spiritual successor to Master of Orion or Civilization, what you call a 4X game. This one isn't that at all and you'd better not come here with preconceived notions of what such a game should contain. It's also not a huge sprawling game with 10 DLCs trying to be infinitely replayable. It is a focused, polished, well-thought-out game with elegant mechanics, great UI. Everything comes together in it.
The closest comparison is the Crusader Kings series, but in a way it's even more CK than CK itself. It doesn't need a lot of the fluff necessary for a historical game - it doesn't have religion and church, different cultures, and the mechanics aren't bound by history. Here the mechanics come first, and the setting adds a little flavor and justifies those mechanics. You control a specific person in a galactic human-only society at some point in the future where most technologies were lost, but people can still travel in space and wage war. Dune is an obvious inspiration. The galaxy is organized as a feudal society and the goal is to control more than half of the galaxy by diplomacy or conquest - in that order. You only directly control a single star system/colony, everything else is controlled by vassal "barons" or (if you're an "archon", or space king) "dukes" . Every ruler and everyone in their court has stats and traits and participates in events and diplomacy. The focus of the game becomes its greatest boon: we deal with a single specific culture and it's a culture of interesting mechanics. The map variety is guaranteed, with every star system only having pre-existing buildings you can "repair", so every colony is unique. You get natural borders and varied regions of space because fleets can only travel close to their home system, and any battle means only using what nearby colonies can provide (and mercenaries, but they cost a lot). There's no succession partition like you'd expect in a historical setting - but on the other hand, there's no way for the sovereign to ban vassals from waging war on each other or outward, and rules like that make for really interesting gameplay. The game is extremely dynamic. In many games like this, colony trading or demanding vassalage is extremely limited so as not to be exploited, and the empires stay static and boring, but here actors do it all the time, and the galaxy feels alive. There's a system of laws codifying transgressions and demands, resulting in interesting situations – if your liege has wronged you, then you're justified in, say, not answering the call to support them in battle, or your rebellion might be semi-justified and not affect your reputation as much. It's all a beautiful complex machine.
The game looks and feels decent, the UI is great. I can see why people might have issues with its turn-based nature. Every new turn start makes you acknowledge what happens around you and demands your reaction to many events, which might feel frustrating if you don't have much to do on your own turn. However, I find that it benefits the pacing: in similar games I feel like I'm missing what's happening around the world unless I force myself to slow down and look around, but here you effortlessly consume the galactic drama and become familiar with all the houses and important characters.
So far I've only had one full campaign in the game and I can clearly see that while there's a lot of variety in how you can approach it (space geography is done very well, maps are randomly generated and you can choose some transformative traits for your starting character and dynasty), it's obviously not as replayable as less deep and wider games. Still, even a single playthrough felt wonderful. I highly recommend it.

Fun domain management and political dealing game with a science fiction setting.

I've seen so little movement on this I am beginning to wonder if it was abandoned. There's a lot of potential here.

It's no Crusader Kings, and it's a bit rough around the edges, but it has a certain charm. For an indie game, I would say it is pretty well done. The setting is very similar to the Mechwarrior or Dune universe where interstellar travel and technology exist, but they are in a state of stagnation or decline and the government has devolved back into feudalism.
The game doesn't do anything incredibly revolutionary, but it is competent. If you like these kinds of games, it's definitely worth getting on sale.