Star Ruler 2

Total mess that made the studio bankrupt.

Get Star Ruler 1 with Galactic armoury mod. (Latest version has more bugs, then older version of the mod, so might want to use a older mod version of GA if you like me have a 100% lockup rate with the latest version)

This is one of the deepest games I own, and I never knew it. I got the expansion (which is a must) played around a bit, but then I read this;

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=824408837

This is a superb title that may confound you at first, but this is a triumph of design, and functionality, once you understand some concepts. I have barely played it, but now that I have the expansion, and read the guide I linked, it all kinda clicked.

I now want to play at, a slow considered pace, liberaly using pause, and reading all the completely useful tool tips, and the Wiki which is build in the game, and the IRC chat, and learn this game. You have to learn it, but all the tools to do so are there.

Buy the game and expansion, read the guide to get you going, study the forum, and challenge yourself to master a great game.

Backstory: this game was released not two weeks before the much-anticipated Stellaris. It looked promising, and was on special, so I said, why not, I have a good 10 days to kill waiting for Stellaris. That is why and how I purchased this game. So I got to play 32 hours before Stellaris hit. For comparison, I have 36 hours in the Paradox space strategy game. So yeah, I'll do some comparions but first, let's talk about Star Ruler 2,

The first thing that hit me is that it was intriguing from the start. It has its own flavor, its own style. The graphics are actually very nice, and you can zoom in to see the details of a ship, or zoom out until the whole galaxy takes up a third of your screen. You can make the galaxy humongous, over two thousand systems. You can design your own ships, it's easy, fun, AND effective.

And this game is complex. If you want a challenge to wrap your brain around, then this is it, because it has empire-building, resource exploitation, warfare, piracy, technology, and last but not least, galactic politics, where grievances such as "he took a system in my arm of the galaxy, make him give it back!" can be put forth and voted on by the various empires.

Of course, there is no voice acting. The menus and interface look somewhat primitive. Obviously the game is from a small studio and they didn't have a million bucks to throw at these very secondary considerations. If you prefer a very glitzy production, you'll be disappointed in this title. However, if you are looking for a space 4X with infinite replay value, then this is probably your ticket.

So while Stellaris is basically Europa Universalis IV dressed up as a space 4X with some glitz on top, this is a unique, engaging, intriguing, and yes, complex space game that can have you coming back for more and more.

Many a time during my 36 hours of Stellaris my thoughts went to this game instead... A year from now, I believe I will have many more hours playing Star Ruler 2.

TL;DR:

This game gets a 9/10 from me. Looks good, runs great, fun to play, game style is fairly unique, discovery and mystery abound, the replay value is infinite, the only thing missing is some more refinement on the UI.

Star Ruler 2 is the best 4X I've ever played, and I don't say that lightly. I've played virtually every 4X ever released for the PC, starting with the original Civilization all the way to the newest releases such as Endless Space. None of those games have come close adding the same amount innovation as Star Ruler 2, and I'm afraid I won't enjoy any other other 4X from here on out. Why? Because Star Ruler 2 breaks the old rules, distilling the genre down to what is fun, and minimizing what is not.

eXplore: You are rewarded for early exploration, just as in many of the modern 4x titles. However, In Star Ruler 2 this is particually important and exiting because you need certain types of planets to have an effective empire - money, labor, research. High-grade planets of these types can be rare to find, and may result in early conflict. The AI also does a great job of

eXpand: In a typical 4X expansion is a multi-step, time consuming, and once the shooting starts - tedious process. I want to focus on combat, not on building a new granary out on an island somewhere. Large empires becomes an especially annoying chore; turn after turn going through dozens of cities / colonies, with only a few actually contributing to the war effort. Star Ruler 2 requires literally less than one click to colonize in some cases. Planets require no management. Furthermore, which planets to expand to is a strategic decision based on income, boundary disputes with other empires, future expected resources, and strategic / tactical value.

eXploit: Planets typically only have one resource. Lesser resources are exported to planets with greater resources, forming supply chains. You can build structures on your planets, but mostly you don't need to; structures are built automatically based on the type of resources supplied to the planet. If you do build, it's not usually for the benefit of the planet itself (the granary example), but to address higher level tactical concerns such as increasing your combat reserve cap. This is a more fun and direct expression of what you do in other 4x games anyway, with a few key colonies contributing to the war effort.

eXterminate: Star Ruler 2 lets you build your own ships from the hex-up. This directly ties into the combat system, with a hex-based damage system. You can place weapons on the sides of your ship to make them less vulnerable to being disabled by frontal attacks. You can add interior armor to protect your reactor from going offline. You can add bulkheads to internal systems to increase their toughness, at at greater cost. There's no limit to the number or size of ships in a fleet. And for the first time I've ever seen, larger ships are not automatically better for the cost, such that a mixed fleet is superior to a single large ship.

The diplomacy system feels like actual diplomacy, with an intelligent AI making good decisions behind it. You use a resource called influence to buy cards, which you spend for various effects such as negotiation points, planet annexation, or becoming the galactic senator. Use too much influence on one measure and you may not be able to get your way on a later more important measure.

Up until about 20 hours in I lost the majority of my battles because the AI just plays that well. It does a great job at picking when to attack, attacking with coordinated fleets, and responding to your own attacks.

In summary, I don't usually spend this much time on a Steam review but Star Ruler 2 wasn't even reviewed at all by the major gaming outlets. It's true that many aspects of the game could be explained better given how complex the game is. Still, the developer did an overall excellent job on all aspects of the development and I feel deserves more credit.

I really think that SR2 is one of the best space 4x games out there. It also has some elements that are very different and unique, which take some getting used to but I think are things that I would really like to see future 4x games model themselves on.

I really like how SR2 handles the economy model. Each planet has a resource token, and you improve planets by connecting them with supply lines to other planets. So for example to get a level 2 planet you will need to connect it to a level 1 planet, and a level 0 planet. And that level 1 planet will itself need to be connected to two level 0 planets. Leveling up your planets allows them to generate more player resources (money initially, and then the other resources too as the civilian economy builds up), which you then use to spend on stuff like normal.

Unlike other 4x games where building your economy means collecting resources from the environment and spending them on upgrades, in SR2 you essentially build your economy by gaining access to planets (by colonization or by force) which you then use to create a web of supply lines. There's a lot more depth to it than that, but there's the basic idea.

It's very different from other 4x games and kind of board-game like. It also takes some getting used to, but I love it. Supply lines REALLY MATTER in this game, and it makes strategic warfare really interesting. While in other 4x games you kind of just build the biggest stacks you can and throw them at your enemy's homeworld, in SR2 it really pays off to figure out what systems form the "critical link" in your enemy's supply chain, and strike there. While likewise protecting your own critical systems.

Sure you can try smashing your fleets into the enemy's home planets, but generally highly developed worlds also have large automatically generated defense fleets to go with them. Meanwhile, breaking that link could cause those powerhouse level 4 or 5 planets to start turning back into level 2s or 1s!

There's also lots more about this game that I really like, the diplomacy system, the ship building system. It's really fun watching the back-and-forth on a contentious issue in a diplomacy vote, or trying to push your side of a vote with the right use of diplomacy cards. Diplomacy is another one of the game's strong points, but this review is already long enough. I've also spent hours in the ship design sandbox playing with designs, it's a fairly solid system, even if the hex grid causes ships to be a bit oddly shaped sometimes.

And now to the minuses. The game REALLY needs better documentation. While the tutorials and tooltips do an adequate job, it takes some time to get the gist of things, and there are a few UI tricks (like using the mousewheel when transferring ships between fleets) that you can only find out about by searching online. It took me several hours into my second game before the philosophy behind the economy in this game really clicked (which is why I made sure to describe it above, once I realized the idea behind it, my enjoyment of the game literally went up an order of magnitude). Other things like how damage penetrates into the insides of ships along lines on the ship's blueprint's hex grid (which has a big impact on how you design ships), you can only find out through playing the game, really. The default race portraits are kind of bland looking, but that was easily solved by picking up a portrait pack from the Workshop.

Even if everything was well documented, the game still has a fairly steep learning curve. Even if you are a 4x veteran, I highly recommend starting your first game with all AIs on the lowest possible difficulty setting. Yes, the one lower than "easy," and starting a new game once you've mastered the basics of building an economy up to at least the tier III level. It does take some time to get used to SR2's way of doing things, but once you do I really think there is a lot to like about it.

I'm going to make this short and sweet. I like the diplomacy part of the game, it's better with more participants. I have won matches without firing a shot just due to good diplomacy. The card system is perfect.

The tech tree is a mess. The developers may have had a logical flow in mind but whatever they were thinking I don't see it. The tech upgrades go all over the place and don't seem to fall in a logically linear order that we see in many other similar games.

The planet management portion is probably the biggest part of the game. Upgrades to make planets more capable require certain planet types. The level five planets require a huge chain of planets. Lose a planet at the bottom of the chain and a large portion of your chain of upgrades comes slowly crashing down, along with your income.

Fleet management is rather easy, the flag ship-support ship relationship is ingenious.

Ship design is an art form. Literally. It's like a mini-game in itself, just trying to get the most effective ship design with what tech you have, interior space and funding available. The more you design and test in battle the better you'll get. Note that the support ships can perform certain roles within the fleet, like protecting the flagship, killing the opposing flagship, etc. So you can design support ships to fit those roles.

The only thing i've not really figured out is the rate at which you gain anything other than money... influence, energy, FTL, etc.

Otherwise I like the game.

Star Ruler 2 is a hybrid space 4X/RTS set in a fictional galaxy.

What is Great about this game:

- Intuitive and enjoyable fleet design, mechanics, and combat
- Nicely paced 4X/RTS that does not require twitch reflexes or ADHD to have fun
- High level of easy modification available and Steam Workshop support

What is Good about this game:

- Detailed ship builder allows for different ship designs as the game progresses
- Significant options such as diplomacy and trade to play the game as you would want to
- Good use of Steam features such as Workshop, trading cards, etc

What is Bad about this game:

- Frustrating initial difficulty that requires mods to become more reasonable
- Some systems such as the economy, resource dependency, and planetary development are too obtuse even after hours of play

Conclusion:

If you can modify the game to relax its difficulty to a more manageable degree, Star Ruler 2 has a lot of good ideas to bring to the space 4X/RTS genre.

8.0 / 10.0

Alright, here's what happened-
I mined all of the asteroids in my home system, even tractoring some from other systems
I built and artficial planetoid and upgraded it to a level 5 and built a gate and outpost in orbit
I added additional layers to it for more space
I then filled it with production facilities and REALLY BIG GUNS
I then slapped a massive planetary thruster onto it
I then used a rename card to call it the Death Star


TL;DR- I built the Death Star

I also made a massive size 10,000 ship that can destroy a planet in 6-8 seconds(But it has a cooldown of 30 seconds).

Or another awesome thing-
I use a Star Forge to eat multiple star systems to build a massive ringworld around my capital
Unfortunately, it uses the health of the nearest star, so I left it there too long and the star went supernova and blew the Star Forge and the new fleet I'd been building to Hell!

TL;DR- Don't leave your Star Forge unattended or bad things will happen


1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000/10 - I built a Death Star and accidentally caused a supernova (and then later caused a couple on purpose)

This is an utterly stellar game (pun... partially intended). It's hard to express in a brief review what this game does and how well it does it, but suffice to say, it delivers on every promise it makes in the store page breakdown. It takes the basic 4X formula, then does so many innovative little things with it that I never once had another 4X game in my mind. As bold as it is in this regard, everything it changes WORKS, and oh so well.

I'm really at a loss for how to properly lay out this review, so I'll refer you to some other users' reviews and instead touch on some of the highlights for me personally. It'll get long-winded, so if you want a summary, here it is: Star Ruler 2 is a spectacular game, both for 4X fans and sci-fi fans in general. Even RTS fans are like to find appeal. If you're on the fence, thinking, "Well it looks good, but I dunnooooo...", my advice is get it. I was, I did, and I'm not sorry.

Now, to the point-by-point breakdown:

- The hex-based ship design is way more fun than I'd have imagined. It really makes every ship "count". It attaches you to your creations. Furthermore, the design MATTERS. It's more than just racking up numbers and min/maxing; the combat in Star Ruler 2 actually simulates physical interactions between ships, meaning you have to take care to lay out your ship in a way that protects vital subsystems without sacrificing too much in the way of firepower and maneuvering.

- The fleet system is just so great. Where most games force you to tediously build every single ship by hand and then group 4 to 12 of them to call it a "fleet", Star Ruler 2 centers fleets around one (often expensive) flagship, and has hundreds of smaller support craft attached to it. Each individual ship acts on its own in battle, but as a part of the whole the is the fleet. it's awe-inspiring to watch, and it somehow doesn't break my system, either!

- One of my favorite features regarding ships is the ability to set a size. You input a size when designing ships, and that size scales everything from the health offered by each hex to the amount of damage your weapons inflict and your armor soaks.

Even more impressive is that the ships ACTUALLY scale, physically, with the number you input. I was shocked when I made a copy of a size 500 battleship and set it to 5,000 as a test, to find it turned out to be bigger than the SUN. Given that you can make orbital battle stations and the like, you can literally build a Death Star; a hulking behemoth with over 8 million HP. (I am not exaggerating one bit; of course, this is if your empire can afford such a thing.)

- For those who fancy ship creation and simply watching battles, there's a ship designer sandbox that allows you to create anything your heart desires, ignoring cost and all else, and spawn it in open space as an ally or enemy. If you just feel like watching ten massive fleets of your creation duke it out without all the 4X fluff, you can do that.

- Empire management is meaningful. Where other 4X games just have you taking a planet and letting it get bloated with population to become a big producer of the major resources, Star Ruler 2 forces you to think. Planets require certain resources to grow, and these are supplied as exports from other planets. But a planet can only export a resource to one place. This means you have to really pour resources from several planets into one key planet, rather than just sitting idle while everything grows to insane proportions.

- The 4X resources - in this case, things like wealth, influence, FTL charge, energy and research - aren't automatically produced based on abstract values attached to a planet. In general, they require pressure. Each planet can handle so much pressure, and pressure tells the planet what to produce. It's hard to explain... Here's an example. Electronics generate wealth pressure, because if electronics are being imported to a planet, this means they're being sold as a consumer product. That leads to sales tax revenue. In other words, the types of luxury resources a planet has, either natively or by export, drive the production of the major resources in your empire. It's a novel and very fun mechanic to play with.

- Diplomacy matters! Influence is a resource you can generate, and you use it to pick up diplomacy cards or to play cards you possess. You can play these cards for a variety of effects, from spying on other empires to giving your flagship a name, but one key way you spend many of the cards is in diplomatic events. These are events that pop up, either organically or when played by another empire, and affect every empire equally. However, there are boons both for the empire who placed the most votes in favor of the motion and to the one who placed the most opposed votes, depending on whether the motion ends up passing or failing.

These are often significant bonuses, and thus it can be worth going after them, plus there's the matter of the actual policy being voted upon and the outcome you desire for it. It becomes a tug of war for votes one way or the other before time expires on the vote, and you can either spend Influence to cast votes with certain cards, or you can offer gifts to empires who supply at least a given number of votes for or against the motion, according to your request. It's fascinating little minigame that makes the political side of the game fun and engaging.

- The creation of races is pretty fun as well, and not extremely time consuming even if you want to bring in custom portraits and flags. The latter is simply a matter of dropping PNG images in the appropriate folders. The rest is a matter of choosing options for your civilization using a point-buy system. Similar to customization in the Endless 4X games. What makes it feel cooler, however, is the fact that you get two very specific types of options that feel like they have a pretty big impact as opposed to the options in similar systems: government and FTL method. Your choice of government dictates several starting bonuses for your empire, and certain choices will even affect your play style for the rest of the game. FTL method is something I'd never have thought of myself; you pick how your race achieves faster than light travel. You can build gates that allow fleets to jump between them, similar to the FTL in Mass Effect lore, you can have your race build standard old jump drives, tear holes in time and space to achieve instantaneous travel... Or, for a huge increase in points to spend on other aspects of your civilization, you can say you haven't even achieved FTL travel.

There are several more things, and I could rant all day, but this review has already gone on far longer than I'd have liked. The summary: Star Ruler 2 innovates the genre in an astounding way, and is proving to be the most fun I've had with a 4X game since Civilization was a new series to me. It's a breath of fresh air that I feel is precisely what this genre needed. I've owned the game for around 20 hours and have been playing for nearly half of those; I can easily see myself playing for 150 more.

There are two types of people who play Star Ruler 2.

The first type are the kind of people who will not like this game. These people generally will lodge complaints including but not limited to:

- Not as complicated as the first game
- Art style differs from my preference
- I dislike the economy system
- Combat is too hands-off
- There is no "soul"
- The menus don't look like the first game
- Research sucks
- Diplomacy is confusing/useless

These people also often do not have more than a few hours in game time. I'll tell you right now, at 5 hours in I had exactly the same complaints. The problem is that SR2 doesn't have a very good tutorial and that a lot of the complexity is somewhat hidden. Some of those complaints are also purely subjective and therefore cannot be addressed beyond "Yep, ok". For the rest of them, see below.

To a person who hasn't played more than one or two games against some regular AIs, the combat would most certainly appear to be blob vs. blob. However once you realize how damage works and how to effectively utilize the support AI patterns it becomes obvious that, while not micro intensive, the combat is far from hands-off. It's just that the hands-on part happens in the preparation. Armor type makes a HUGE difference. Taking a torpedo on reactive armor will produce very different results that taking it on ablative. Neutronium may seem like an uber-armor but since it's so heavy and expensive it's rarely cost-effective. Weapon types are very important, the difference in effectiveness between a railgun and a laser depending on the situation can be vast. Ship speed is vital to not only engaging in time but fleeing as well, especially if you have no hyperdrive. Speaking of FTL, the type you have plays a big role in how you approach combat. Pinpoint Hyperdrive strikes are certainly effective, but fling beacons are far superior for offense (due to their speed and usually lower cost vs distance) though they lack easy-retreat capability. Gates are usually only used for turtling, but a gate in deep space can attack an opponent at points and from directions they don't expect. Slipstream can be used the same way except with less setup and more risk (since the enemy can also use your slipstream tears). There is a ton of depth, but again most (though not all) of it is in the setup.

The economy would certainly seem strange and stupid, after all you can't stockpile resources and have to expand. Except that the cycle system discourages inactive play and actually results in the player actually making MORE ships and improvements than they would otherwise. Dry Docks can help you build ships that you couldn't otherwise afford. The forced expansion eliminates AI abuse strategies and also makes empire defense more of a priority. Even the smallest world can be a critical component in the supply chain for your L5 forge world. Losing a link in the chain doesn't have immediate crippling effects but it's certainly not something to ignore. The pressure system eliminates the need to micromanage planets beyond choosing good supplies and letting the system do its work. The level 0 resources (they don't contribute to planetary development) provide a variety of useful effects and if used correctly can provide a significant advantage. Terraforming can help provide more L1 resources for extra income and Artifacts/building/diplomacy can provide food and water if there is a shortage.

Research would seem like a step back from the first game until you realize that SR1's research system, while unique, was inherently broken. Ships were outdated before they were even finished being built and the effectiveness of subsystems grew to such absurdities that tech advantages were instant-win conditions. The new tree applies passives automatically without the need for retrofit except if new systems are to be applied, and while not infinitely scalable is not the silver bullet in engagements that it was in SR1. Good tactics and planning can easily defeat fleets of twice the strength of what you're throwing at them. However it's fairly obvious why a lot of people would fail at this, since if you believe the combat to be DeathBlob Fights 2015 you wouldn't think of using any flanking or varied fleet makeups.

Very few people complain about the diplomacy beyond "I don't like it" but the solution is simple. Add "Influence Peddling" to the main screen by clicking the "...". Keep track of who votes where and USE THE SYSTEM. It's incredibly effective if you put some time into it. Save some cards in case you need them. If you ignore it you're inevitably going to get screwed by it at some point. Oh and for god's sake read the Zeitgeist cards. Zealotry can be game changing and so can Co-operation.

Well that was longer than I expected.

The second kind of person is the type that will buy this game and enjoy it because they aren't looking for MOO2 Remake #232432 and are willing to put some time in to truly appreciate its uniqueness. If you read this far without downvoting this review you're probably in the latter category. Bear in mind that this is by no means a perfect game, but it is certainly worth the money. I paid full price for this game, and that is not something I do very often.

There are a few key elements which makes this game special:

• 1) You cannot stockpile money. If you didn't spend your budget then the excess will be transfered to either diplomacy, science, labor, energy or defense. You can also spend all your money for each budget but it means that you won't boost one of the resource listed above.
  
  
• 2) Diplomacy is played through cards. Each card is an action, a vote or a proposition. All these cards are purchased with the diplomacy resource from a global pool showing who purchased what. The cards are sold in a kind of auction system so if you have a strategy and you really need to purchase a specific card then you will have to pay early and pay more for it. You can also purchase the leftovers and try a more defensive diplomatic approach while you beat your enemy with military.
  
  
[*]3) You cannot just colonize each planet as soon as you discover them.. This is how the game limits the "rush to expansion". If you just rush and colonize every planet you will find that your planets won't produce any money and will in fact cost you money. Planets have level, ranging from 0 (colony) to 5 (huge metropol). For a planet to produce money you have to upgrade it (starting from a L0 colony) by providing it with resources from other planets. In the end your empire will look like a pyramid of planets, a lot of small planets providing food, water and material to bigger and bigger planets. This works well, you can choose to auto-upgrade your planets and the game will make the import/export of resources for you. Some people prefer to optimize it and do everything by themselves.

Star Ruler 2 is a really good game. Although it is real time the speed can be slowed down so as to handle things nicely. Colonies level up real well, just connect food + water and maybe some resources and good to go. It is a nice looking game with decent graphics for the small size of the game (600 MB). The technology tree is varied and fun to explore - every tech makes a nice difference. Diplomacy is great! There are cards to play and votes to influence. Ship design is fun and highly recommended to get the best ships built. Watching the battles is a blast!

Global resources include Influence for diplomacy, Energy for artifacts, Money for buying things, and Research for new technologies. There are all slightly different in how they work and are handled very well. There is not a lot of micromanagement in the game, just enough to keep a player busy just right. This is a good game design. The AI is fun to fight.

I have played many space 4x games in the past 30 years and Star Ruler 2 is one of the very best!

First of all, I'm a fan of 4x games. Now, I've somewhat strayed away from them over time; I've found a differing love for grand strat in the vein of Paradox games, specifically the economical and political ones such as Victoria 2. I ended up having a distaste for civ 5 and certain other new games (the endless bunch, etc) because they were just.. well, either too easy, or too messy. Several decent ideas wrapped in a gross tortilla, or something like that. I started to dislike how board-gamey they got to cater to the people who couldn't stand micro. I hadn't even really heard of Star Ruler 2(SR2) until earlier today, when I saw Scott Manley blow up a black hole. I pretty much bought it on the spot.

I've not played SR1.

Steam says I've played almost 8 hours of this game. An hour of that was in the tutorial and a 'practice' game I played, and the other seven hours were in a full game I did. The full game took place in two galaxies of 40 and 30 planets respectively, with myself and 4 AIs. I used a custom race.

I will go through each of what I feel are the main elements of a 4x game, rate them, compare them, and write criticisms.

--- The UI ---
Positives: One of the biggest dinks that most 4x games get- the user-friendliness of the UI. It is understandable, as pushing enough information to the user that's required can sometimes leave the UI cluttered, with too many buttons, too many numbers, etc.. SR2 does both extremely well and somewhat poorly in this regard, neutralizing out to it having a decent UI. The big pluses are fantastic- the game operates in a tabbed format with different types of windows, so if you want to have four tabs for your best planets, you can. You can customize your different views of the galaxy, zoom to them at will, etc- keep a tab open for research, keep a tab open for whatever you want, really. The quick-ui that shows fast info on the side of the screen is also fairly informative, and makes it easy to do things at a glance.

It also doesn't restrict much of what you can do, as you can affect the game using the UI (tethering planets for trade is one of the most important game mechanics as I will explain later, and you can tether a planet from its notice on the ui, for example). For what it does, the UI is extremely functional, and superior to its competitors. The built-in wiki that runs very well and the IRC to get quick help/talk to other players is also very nice, as while I may not want to play multiplayer at this time, I do still like talking to other players.

Negatives: On even a medium sized map, the UI gets extremely cluttered near the end of the game. You get lost in a sea of information that takes quite a while to discern exactly what you want to do. A lot of the 'resource icons' on planets are fairly small, so when I'm looking at 20 unused resources I seriously have to mouse over to see what each one is, unless it's something very easy to remember and see like water. There are quite a few resources, so I can't imagine how to fix this without shafting users with a lower resolution.

The technology grid is a chore. It's somewhat difficult at a glance to tell what is researched and what isn't, what is available and what is. It took me much longer than it should have to even find the starting point of the grid. In most other 4x games, even Distant Worlds, the research grid/chart is extremely easy to understand, though the actual contents of it may not be. Greying out techs you can't even possibly buy yet(but you can still mouse over for info) would be a huge step in the right direction. It's also sometimes hard to tell where the tech grid is going.. it will end up in weird places that aren't really logically conducive to itself. Overall, the grid isn't very nice to look at. I'm sure familiarization with it would help, but compared to something like Endless Legend which has a pretty good tech grid system, this is just a bit too ambiguous.

The technology grid has been redone to be easier to understand and find what you're looking for.

--- Core Mechanics ---

Just like every other 4x game, the core mechanics are to build your empire, strengthen your military, create a massive economy, protect your borders or crush your enemies, and be the dominant empire on the map. SR2 uses some traditional 4x systems (such as the building construction), some things of its own design, and things from other genres. The game, first of all, runs in real time. You can slow down, speed up, and pause the game. It is not the pseudo-realtime of Paradox games- it is true real time. Thankfully, everything happens slow enough at 1x speed that it is not much of an issue. The most imporatant part of the game is managing your resources, colonizing useful planets, leveling up your core worlds, and making economic powerhouses. The game REQUIRES expansion; you cannot support a huge economy by trade alone, and there is no way to turtle. I think it is one of the few games where I got to the end of my expansion and truly started eyeing my neighbors for what they have, rather than being content with my borders while being able to endlessly improve on itself. You 'tether' trade from worlds to other worlds, leveling them up by tethering a certain amount of resources to a specific world. For example, it takes merely food and water to level a planet up to level 1. After that, it requires more food to sustain the higher population, plus raw materials of some kind to create planetary 'production' which is reflected in a higher population, level, labour (production), and more things.

Each colonized planet has a single resource, and rarely two (typically one that it supplies to itself for free). Some resources have extra special effects, such as increasing research, influence (to be explained), or your 'energy'(also to be explained).

This leads to feeding all your expansion planets into one of your core worlds to make a few very powerful economic powerhouses; managing all your resources to efficiently make as many strong planets as possible to support a larger military and production base. No longer can one create a Venice and protect it only; you MUST keep your logisitical supply lanes protected, as one lost system can break your whole economic structure down and require a full restructuring. This is the core, and the essence of the game. It reminds me very dsitinctly of the Anno series, though you do not specifically need certain resources to enhance planets.

Although you may find yourself strained for resources, there are ways to increase your number of planets without conquest. There are a few 'relic' type things scattered around the map which let you do things like create new stars, new planets, etc etc. There are lots of cool things. Using one of these requires energy, which is gained via research and resources. Energy is simply a 'mana' type substance which is used to activate these abilities and certain extra special abilities ships have that can be equipped later via technology, such as blink. These types of abilities are very cool, and you definitely start to feel like an interstellar god as your empire grows bigger.
Construction is based on the civilian sector. Much like Distant Worlds, you, as a federal government, have little control over your civilian sector. It automatically constructs cities and improvements on your planets as long as you supply them correctly. There are buildings you can put on planets which are expensive and cost upkeep, but for the most part, civilians and the AI take care of everything on the surface. Orbital space stations are player-built, at least.

Steam reviews has a limit on characters, so please go here to continue reading:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/282590/discussions/1/611703999978496608/
Thanks if you got this far already!

Star Date: Wrote this on Patch 1.0.0
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Captain's Log: Have been playing 4x Space Games since I was in elementary school starting with MOO, SE, Gal Civ, Stars!, etc. If there's been a good 4x game, I've probably at least tried it.

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Combat Systems Ready:

(+) Diplomacy - Faction on Faction diplomacy is simple enough. All of the basic functions are there. What really stands the game out is the innovative card system. Use influence to purchase cards to suggest new universal regulations such as annexing a rival's system or declaring your own homeworld as the home of the Galactic Senate. Buy other cards to support your own proposals while rejecting those of your rivals. Manipulate other empires to join your crusade against your enemies lest they remember your wrath in their future proposals. The possibilities are extremely deep and I'd place this as the #1 innovation for SR2.

(+) Ship Building / Planet Building - Ships you build tile by tile. The larger you build a gun and it's subsystem, the stronger it'll be. Place armor around vulnerable areas such as the front but don't forget to neglect the rear lest the enemy sends in a pincer fleet. Planets have building room dependent on size. Each planet also has unique terrain features that seperate from other worlds. Depending on the terrain, buildings such as research labs and farms cost less so you'll have to plan accordingly to maximize your credits.

(+) Fleets - Most games you'll command 20 ships in the late game. Some give you a hundred. Here the basic unit of combat is the fleet. You build a capital ship and then attach up to hundreds of smaller support ships to that capital ship to fight. What results is hundreds of laser beams, missiles, cannons firing off at each other. Each ship is rendered and simply put, that's just awesome.

(+) Economy - I'm hesitant to label this as purely a strength. I find the economy a bit simple but more on a positive note than a negative note. For those who are used to the complexity of games such as Distant Worlds, SR2 will be a big downgrade. Each planet usually produces 1 resource. You then connect those resources to other planets that produce more complex resources to level them up and then you ship those complex resources to a major population center to level them up so they grow more and are more productive. What results is many resource worlds and a few concentrated centers in each empire. Now this does provide interesting opportunities such as allowing an apt leader to focus their attention on those major centers to deal the biggest damage. On the other hand, perhaps the regional capital is too difficult to assault and knocking out all of the food suppliers might be a more effective way to neutralize the population.... Overall, I'll label this a positve because for new players, it's simple enough to get into and only the most diehard captains of industry will feel bored with the economy of SR2.

(+) Tutorial - There's a lot of games that do the tutorial wrong or make it super confusing. SR2 did it right. It explains all you need to know to get started and does so in a UI-friendly manner.

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Out of Supplies

(-) Empire Customization: Yes you can customize by assigning your empire a unique government / space travel method and a few other features. You can also give your empire a portrait and which set of ships to use but that's about it. I'd have liked to be able to pick more bonuses for each empire such as maybe I'll take +10% budget but my ships do -10% damage or some trades like that. These are usually basics and for the game not to have them available was a bit of a let down.

(-) Tech Tree: The tech tree is a bit convoluted to look at. There's simply too many options being thrown onto a beehive grid that just disorients the eyes. Oh I need more budget, let me find how I can get to more business techs. Scan, scan, scan, oh there it is. Now I need more budget, oh the next tech and it's prerequisites for more budget is up here. It's just a bit too disorganized, especially for new players.

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Overall I'd give this game 8 fleets blowing up out of 10. You'll find some new features that are unique to this game such as fleet design and diplomacy done right. I didn't touch on this but moddability will surely fix some of the weaknesses such as the lack of empire customization so that's why I didn't weigh too heavily on that part.

Anyways, fleet battles are epic and hopefully we can see thousands of thousands of ships fighting one day over some backwater planet that was only made important because multiple fleets decided to clash over it. That's my dream and the dream of many 4x space lovers!

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I recorded the tutorial for those who want to see some gameplay of all the features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWXO4cpcMoc

https://www.youtube.com/user/xBr0wnBear

Having played for over 40+ hrs so far, my conclusion is that this is a solid 4x space game. Space 4x is my favorite genre and I've plaved many of them, and this game comes off as a very original and innovative game to me (have not played Star Ruler 1).

First off, the game is an RTS, but its really meant to be paused...a lot (early on at least), and thats ok. It takes quite some time to get the hang of how colonizing works, what to build, what orbitals do, how pressue works, etc. There is a wiki to help you with most things, and some things you have to figure out by trial and error. I've restarted quite a lot of games because I'd always realize something new I wasn't doing. Main thing is if it seems too complex, just hang in there, read the wiki, experiment and you will figure it out, and its well worth it, trust me!

-Research is nice, but the research screen could of been better. Easy to get lost, but it works.

-Ship design is daunting(for me). Others I'm sure will enjoy it. Thankfully you can have the AI design any size ship you want, or you can see what other players have designed and just use their ship!

-Diplomacy is unique, but good. Has a system where you can vote on certain propositions using cards and influence points. Has your standared treaties as well (don't need cards), like Alliance, Trade Treaty, Mutual Defense, etc.

-Exploration is nicely done as well. When you start exploring you can run into multiple things, like Debris Fields, which you can scan to bring up events in which you choose what you want to do. You can find Pirate ships guarding special items which will give you certain bonuses. There is also Artifacts to find in which you can spend energy to activate whatever bonuses they hold.

-Colonization is uniqe in this game as well, in which you constantly need to colonize planets for their resources in order to export them to planets you want to grow. It can get confusing, but pretty much how it goes is, growing a planet needs resoucres, and those resources need resources, and those resources need resources. Just pause the game, look at your surroundings, look at the planet you want to upgrade and it will tell you exactally what you need.

-Buildings can be constructed on each planet by the AI and user. The user can build things like Research complexes, Labor Factories, Megafarms, and more, the AI builds smaller buildings helpling the planet as it grows. You can also build Orbital structures that go in space, like shipyards, supply stations, outposts, etc. Careful on what you build though, they come at a hefty maintaince cost.

-Economy is done well in this game. You get income from population and "Income Pressue" and you have maintaince costs from buildings and ships. Every 3 minutes you will get cash based on the difference in your income and maintaince. So you can spend all your money and once the 3 minutes is up you will get another sum of money to spend in that time, based off the difference in Income and Maintanice. Seems confusing but it works nicely.

-Combat consists of having a flagship with multiple support ships under its wing. Those support ships can specialize in missles, rail guns, lasers, rockets, etc. The flagship has a certain amount of support capacity, which means you can only carry so many support ships. Your ships move in which your flagship is in the middle and the support ships make a big circle around it, so its like a circle of death. Combat is real time and you can zoom in to see the action, but its pretty much just a bunch of balls of death shooting at one another, but it works for me. Although ship building and making your fleets can be confusing.

-UI is only ok in this game for there are many things I wish they would of done. Can easily lose track of what you have building.

-Graphics and Sound are just average, if not below par. Graphics never mean much to me in these types of games, and the soundtrack didnt do anything for me. Effect sounds are ok at best.

-Scale can be whatever you want to be. You can choose from multiple types of universes and even ones with multiple universes, so you can make a game however big or small you want.

Overall this is a solid game that id give an 7.5/10. It might take a bit of getting used to, but its really fun once you get the hang of it. One of the better space RTS games to come along since Sins of a Solar Empire.

Just really good. The UI is intuitive and beginners can easily get into this game. Multiplayer is enjoyable and it supports over 20 players, which is mad to think about. Galaxies can have as many systems as you want and you can even build more than one galaxy. You can even blow up a blackhole!

These are my favourite features of the game.

• The race and FTL you choose can drastically change how you play the game.
  
• Ship design can be fully customized with gun, armour and engine placement and much more. Having no armour in the back will leave your ships vulnerable in the back when retreating, for example.
  
• Ship AI can be customised, ships can be made to attack in the rear or to shoot from afar, very impressive.
  
• Buildings on planets can be placed but civilian buildings will automatically be generated based on the pressure of the planet (a resource to determine how much the population build)
  
• You can build moon bases, halo-esk ring worlds, ship yards, customisable orbital stations and customisable gateways. Content like this just makes it more enjoyable.
  
• The resource, democracy and research mechanic is much better than it was in Star Ruler 1 and is really enjoyable.
  

• The AI is hard, even on easy, so I would recommend playing with passive AI first. You need to expand or you will be out-expanded by the AI, I wish you could create a more quality over quantity empire but an AI is a computer and the larger they get, the more they can do.
  
[*] It needs to feature more modules for the ships, there were tons in Star Ruler 1 but not as many here.

I do not even know where to begin. There are some amazing ideas in this game, and it seems a lot of polish even during early access. The diplomacy is unique and very complex, with influence and interactions that feel very very real. The planetary resource systems are fascinating to me, as is the resulting trade networks that grow organically. The ship builder is actually better than the first Star Ruler, which had an amazing ship builder. FTL was weak in Star Ruler 1, here there are 5 different methods each unique and tactical. Combat seems solid, manageable, and interesting. The flagship system means that you are ordering around fleets, not ships, but you still have a nice amount of control and the ship numbers are amazing. Everything is . . . perfect.

I'm a highly critical gamer with jaded tastes. I've been disappointed by one 4x game after another. MoO3, Endless Space, Sword of the Stars 2, all sad memories. Even Galciv and Distant Worlds weren't quite good enough for me. I have never been so completely blown away just playing a tutorial, realizing the depth of the systems I'm seeing laid out in front of me. Assuming there is nothing horribly wrong with this game that is hidden from me currently . . . well damn, I'll say it, this might be the game that surpasses Master of Orion 2.

It's an overused cliche, but it fits with this game. Things could go wrong, the AI may turn out to be useless, or some other chronic mistake, but I don't think so. Star Ruler 1 was visionary and flawed, fascinating but clunky. It seems they learned a lot from that game. Seeing this come from a small studio . . . I hope it gains the accolades it deserves. I also suspect modding will be amazing, since Star Ruler 1 had a wonderful modding scope, and I suspect they did the same here.

Buy this game. No seriously, if you like 4x gaming at all, buy Star Ruler 2. This isn't a game you buy just to support the ideas of the devs, though those ideas are amazing. This is the game I wish I had paid more for, because I think I cheated the devs and got way more than I paid for.

:::Post-release:::

The game remains very strong, with several major improvements over the beta. The ship design remains the high point of the game, and sadly the AI remains a little weak. The AI is competent, certainly. It does know how to play the game properly, but it lacks aggression. On the other hand, it is smart enough to know when it has lost.

I won a game recently without actually taking a single enemy planet. I out-expanded them slightly, and while they fought wars against each other, I offered surrender to whichever side was near to losing. Most of them accepted subjugation, since I was a friendly power that was roughly 10 times their strength. After I did this three times, I turned on the one remaining AI. I declared war, sent my massive ships. Three of my ships arrived in their systems and I received an offer of surrender before they could reach the planet. I think they just saw the ships blotting out the sun and said "Nope, this is not winnable." That is smart design and saved me a long slog to a certain victory.

Recent improvements to the tech tree have made it far more understandable and elegant. Technology in general seems far more unique and useful as compared to the beta tech tree, which was somewhat repetitive. Performance remains very good, I've yet to see a bug or crash in any of my games. The races and various FTL methods have vastly improved from the beta, and the AI knows how to play every combination without error.

The modding community is rapidly expanding, as predicted, and has already furnished several very solid mods. The devs have already incorporated some of the best additions as core gameplay, which does not surprise me. I still recommend this game highly, it remains a very original and solid 4x game. I have high hopes for the future, and I do feel they have delivered a solid game as it currently stands. Of course, I always yearn for more.

Don’t get me wrong its a good game but If you have been playing Star Ruler 1 and think this is an improvement to that stop right here.

Lets first go over the things missing in Star Ruler 2.

Economy: You no longer have a galactic bank with credits, food, metal, electronics, advance parts and luxury items. Nope your planets basically run themselves without the need for these in fact what they need are items you have to import from others in a glorified connect the dots experiment.

Your income doesn't pool up instead your on a budget that resets after every cycle.

Research is capped in that you cannot level a type of research over and over instead there are x amount of research options with x amount cost involved in unlocking them.

Some changes in shipbuilding schematics:

Firstly now most support ships don’t have a power requirement unless you research shields and give them those.

Schematics now called designs abandon the old way of doing it and now use hexes that you place on a hex grid. While this sounds good at first you will quickly be asking yourself, why can I specify size of my ship then still have to scale things on the hex-grid compared to adding different size components in like in Star Ruler 1.

Additionally this system is a bit strange in my opinion. If you create a probe using 3 hexes it will cost more than a fully fledged out scout ship?

Mining asteroids is your fancy? Well give up here you wont be making civilian ships anyway... yip no more miners, traders, colonizers, repair ships, scanning ships, heck military vessels don’t even have boarding parties.

All this aside the game gets you in combat quickly and fleets are controlled by flag ships that replenish their support ships which make the game allot easier to micromanage so you can get straight to the combat.

Overall I understand many gamers are put off by StarRuler 1 however Star Ruler 1 is the most unique game in its genre and the most complicated. Its a jewel that this game is not even close to.

As for this game I personally think Sins of the solar empire is more fun. Want space combat? That game has awesome graphics too!

Now only if Star Ruler 1 was on linux like this game is I'd play so much more. 1 up to the developors for supporting another OS in this build!

A hidden gem in the space RTS genre

I haven't had much time to put into this game as of yet but so far I am loving how everything fits together. This is a complex game that doesn't have a big learning curve and is extremly addictive. Below i will describe the elements I like and some improvements that could be made.

Empire Management:
In most space rts games your star systems are pretty much self reliant and doesnt require reasources to travel from one system to another. Here, if you want to have a powerful industrial/economic/science system you will need that primary stystem to have trade connections to other systems. Each planet can level up, increasing the population and amount of structures that can be built on them but to level up the planet must meet certain reasource requirements (example to get to level 1, a planet must import food and water from both a food and water planet). What this does is allows the player to have multiple home worlds that have a specific purpose (industrial,economic,science) thus opening up a wide range of tactics an enemy can use to damage an empire. It's difficult to explain but once you see it for yourself it makes perfect sense.

Fleet Management
the combat in this game is all about building fleets and the start of every fleet begins with a flagship. Once you have a flagship built you can link multiple support ships, the only limit being the number of support points a flagship has and that number gets bigger the larger the flagship is so a size 100 flagship may only support a size 300 support fleet whereas a size 500 flagship can support 3000 using the right modules. Which brings us to....

Ship Design
Like other space RTS games you can design the internal specs of your falgships and support ships (weapons, armor, shields, command and control modules ect) which allows you to change your tactics when approaching an enemy. Maybe you want a flagship designed around amassing a huge fleet, or a flagship that is a WMD, its all whatever you make of it.

Combat
Support ships will always stay in formation with the flagship so managing which supportships go with which flagship is not an issue as they are linked. This makes it easy to coordinate offensives and defenses with multiple flagships. in combat your flagship targets an enemy flagship (or whatever target you specify) and the fleet engages. It's very simple with the fleet management that is implemented here and it looks epic when you have massive fleets duking it out.

Diplomacy
This is the crown jewel imo. In most space rts's diplomacy takes a backseat with very limited options. Here it's a card game.... Not kidding, it's all about using influence (a reasource you aquire from specific planets) to buy cards that pop up from time to time. Certain cards are very desirable and your enemy may buy them before you do if you aren't quick enough. For example certain cards allow you to capure an entire solar system without ever firing a shot. Such cards when you use them bring up a galactic vote where you can use negotiation cards to win favor and it turns into a game of who has the more votes wins! It's pure genius and much like how politics works in real life. (it's all about political capital)

There are some things that could use some improvement but i expect some of these things could be handled with mods. For example there could be more ship designs and different ship formations. The graphics are also not stellar (no pun intended) but that also allows for bigger fleets and smoother gameplay (I haven't run into any latency at all). A storyline would also help not only get new people into the game and learn the mechanics but also immerse people into the lore of the game.

I think that's enough from me, this is a must buy for any fan of the space RTS genre that crushes others like it. I'm suprised I only heard of this after scrolling through page 10 of steam's top sellers in the strategy section.

This will be my longest review of a game ever for me , I am over 40 gamer and all those years, I thought they forgot how to make an indepth game. Now enters StarRuler 2 this game is great from top to bottom it keeps giving and giving.

RTS customize and make your maps and systems in space till it fit you and your friends.
so many options.
Design and test ships before you ever go into battle !
The economy and way you look at your planets linked together is just wow good to say the least
Game Play smooth as glass , never lagged once and this game is in beta !
Huge Huge Huge battles and Ships design vs ship design is a challenge!
I love that a friend logs on to spectate a game we have been playing for hours and can just hop right in and play or watch!
How many games have diplomacy that is a joke? alot This one I still dont know all the things you can do but the things you can do are sweet. Boost stystem output , increase cap ship stats ect.
I felt i owed the Star Ruler 2 Team a thank you for a game with some depth and fun! Hours of FUN so
Thank You! been long long while sence my friends and I had a great RTS! IN SPACE thats it for now
If you like space RTS multi player this is the game for you!
Did i mention you can generate a star or planet that is just to cool!

THIS REVIEW IS OUT OF DATE, I'm no longer updating. I will release a new one when the game comes out. Ps. It's awesome buy it if you like RTS's or if you like fun.
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(Edits now at the bottem of the review)

(Excuse the terrible grammer and such.) (12am and I'm tired.)

Since this game seems to be getting more hate than love I thought I'd throw in my two logical cents in, and take a real look at this game.

In it's current state (7/21/2014) the game is playable and very enjoyable. Im not a big fan of Rts games when it comes to space. I've played sins and AI war, neither seemed to grasp me as this game has. Sins is certainly enjoyable, and has a slight one up when it comes to combat. However sins is a fully realized game and is complete. This isnt, and thats what people need to realize when it comes to early access games. AI war in my oppinion was a mess. I'm sure it was a great game but the UI just made my mind explode. Star Ruler 2 has a fantasic UI and an awesome alert system on the right side of the screen. The UI reminds me a bit of paradox's games, CK2, and Europa. In regards to visablity and ease of access that is.

Comparasins aside:

The diplomacy, from what I've seen, Is very orginal and fun. It keeps you on your toes and makes diplomacy a real part of the game, and not so much as a side mechanic. It has you buying cards. The cards are used in a multitude of ways, from an eco boost, to the annexation of an entire star system.

Economy is in my oppinion very fun. Planets need resources from other planets to help your population grow and become more andvanced. There are tierd resources that go up to 3 and range from common to uncommon. There are even special resources that you can export to certain planets for an added boost to a certain stat. Aside from planets you can also mine comets and astroids to gain more reasources.

Research is a bit lack luster. Dev's can correct me if im wrong, but I've heard that they will be working on it more and making it more intresting. As it is now, you pick a catagory to research and depending on your science per minute you will accumulate points in that catagory until its complete. With ceratin tech, you will get these other things that go with them. (I'm %0 sure on what these are or how that work) From what I've seen, you get a point to spend after youve researched 4 peices of tech. That point is random in its specialty, but with that point you can spend it in the special things youve gotten from past tech. (If this review gets popular, the devs might want to put in how it actually works, otherwise I can edit this once I figure more out.)

I also can't really speak for the ship building as I havn't really used it. I've heard that the ship building will also be worked on extensivly. (I may be wrong on this too.)

The combat is not special but has potential. You can do cool moves with the FTL drives but besides that, you kinda just build your ships and throw them at the enemy.

My favorite things about this game:

-You can explore space in anyway you like (Sub-light, FTL, there are no set paths)

-THE FUCKING PLANETS DONT ALL ROTATE AROUND ONE STAR (shit really bugged my about sins)

-You can manage buildings on your planets


Things I don't really like:

-The 2D artwork is a bit nasty. I really hope it's a place holder (profiles, buildings on the planet view)

-The lack of races to choose from. (betting that there will be more)

-Combat could be a little more interactive. Rather than just throw stuff at eachother
-I would like to see maybe some fleet formations that you could set
-Maybe some sepical heavy weapons
-Really you can do a lot with combat


(This review will be edited in the future) (Prolly left some stuff out by mistake)

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Edit 1:

I forgot to say that there's also an ingame wiki that works really well!

Edit 2:

I would really love to see some patch notes on the game. Like an archive. I do realize that there is a live patch notes discussion on the steam fourms. However thats only talking about up coming patches, and isn't reported down somewhere after it goes live. (There might already be something like this, I could be really blind)

Edit 3:

Sadly I've gotten two crashes now, once when first starting a game and the second was during a game in which I had put in good couple of hours into. Save often if you dont wanna end up like me ;_;. Dev's Please fix.