Civilization 5, Brave New World: Review

Big expansions come with equally large expectations, and Brave New World is Civ 5’s second major piece of DLC. Now expansions and strategy games are old bed fellows, you can find one for just about any strategy game you care to name and the majority of them followed a familiar trend. Lots of new toys to play with no attention paid to balance issues.

You spend hours investigation all the new options, but once you’d finished that exploration, the cracks would be laid bare and you interest would be gone again. And this is what makes Brave New World so interesting. It bucks the trend completely, instead being a carefully crafted expansion to fix the problems Civ 5 already has.

And Civ 5’s biggest problem by far was a lack of mid to late game action. It was all too easy to build empires that would be entirely introverted; completely focused on their path to victory which involved no one else. You’d just be clicking next turn to see if you could complete your science victory before someone else filled the culture bar. Only a warring nation could throw a spanner in the works, provided they had the technology to do it.

So what does Brave New World do to get players round a table and interact? Well it introduces a very important table in the form of the World Congress and makes you pull up a seat. Once an early game technology is completed and the simple matter of meeting everyone is achieved, the World Congress begins. Every thirty turns, new proposals are put forward for approval by all nations. These range from putting trade embargos on your enemies to trying to decide the world religion and ultimately, voting for the world leader as a diplomatic victory.

It elevates the importance of diplomatic relations and makes them relevant again. You can use spies you gain to instead act as diplomats, allowing you to haggle over back room deals with the other leaders. A large sum of gold and a few resources may well secure you those crucial votes to enact the policies you need. Each vote can be quite a tense moment as you never know exactly who will be in favour and who might see your proposals as being one step closer to war.

Other changes see a revamped cultural policy tree as well as the introduction of ideologies. Each of the three ideologies is an extra tech tree of cultural policies with some powerful late game bonuses. These also have a great impact on international relations by affecting your empire’s happiness. If your populations think it looks more fun over the border, your happiness can take a serious hit. Riots can spring up, and you may be forced into towing the line and switching to the more popular ideology.

Cultural victory has had a complete re-work which it definitely needed. Before it was simply a case of building culture producing buildings and filling up a progress bar to win, hardly engaging.  Now a cultural victory sees you doing battle with tourism as your offence and your own cultural progress as a defence. You utilise great writers, artists and musicians to produce works that you can put on display giving you tourism points. This will slowly build up through the game and if you focus on it, your tourism begins to eclipse the culture of your opponents. If your tourism score is greater than every other’s nation’s culture, the game is yours as the world marvels at your artistic output.

The UI does a good job of tracking and displaying you tourism progress, with clear indicators to show if you’re making progress or if you’re falling behind. You can also swap great works with other nations to achieve theming bonuses that can give you a little extra boost. It also adds another late game element with archaeological digs. These appear as a bonus tile improvement with the right technology and with a little effort, will let you find artefacts to display in museums (where they belong), further boosting your tourism output.

All these new elements are also nicely accommodated by the previous expansion, Gods and Kings. There’s clearly been a lot of effort put in to make these expansions feel like a cohesive whole, as all the new elements can interact with the religious choices you make. If you get other leaders to agree that your religion is the world religion, you gain further votes in the world congress. Other choices can give your tourism a boost, so there’s a nice link to the new mechanics.

Crucially the AI is capable of playing a competent game with all the new additions. It’s able to sensibly assess the proposals made at the World Congress and knows where its votes will benefit it the most, as well as how much it should demand if you want to buy its votes. War is also a lot more predictable, if leaders start denouncing each other, you know war is only a few turns away unless you make efforts to smooth things over. Not that a war focused AI will care much for your offerings, but I felt that war didn’t suddenly arrive on my doorstep as a surprise like it used too.

So the real question is, do the additions give you enough to consider in the late game, or are you still doomed to click next turn? Playing a standard pace game against the AI, there were moments where that did happen, yet it was never long before something required my attention. A quick paced game or one with friends will likely give you plenty to do for most of your turns. So on this point Brave New World is a real success. It may need a few balance tweaks, but considering the complexity of Civ 5 with all its DLC, it’s likely that any imbalance is perceived rather than it being a real underlying problem.

It does however fall down at my second question. Is it worth the money? Not really. If you buy it full price, it’s nearly as expensive as the original game and it’s only an expansion. This probably won’t be a problem for long though as Civ 5 and its DLC is regularly on sale. So as soon as that happens, Brave New World jumps triumphantly into the must buy category for anyone who already owns Civ 5.

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty Campaign

RTS used to be a prominent genre within gaming, but recent years have seen the amount of releases dwindle. A large problem has been a lack of innovation in the single player campaigns. Each new title followed the old model of merging story with an extended tutorial, and if that story was lacklustre; there was little purpose to its existence. A prime example of this is Supreme Commander 2. A poor story married with very limiting missions.

So it surprised me when Blizzard took a real step forward in design with the first Starcraft 2 campaign: Wings of Liberty. And it needed to be a step forward as well considering Blizzard announced form the start that Starcraft 2 was to be released a full price trilogy rather than a traditional main game with expansions or DLC.

To begin with I was a little worried about jumping into the story having not completed the original game and its expansion. The installer handily provides an overview of all the major events as a slightly confusing barrage of names and places; although it does manage to convey the key pieces of information. Going into the campaign I knew that Arcturus Mengsk was a traitorous leader from the Saturday morning cartoon school of evil. And as the player I would be controlling the forces of Jim Raynor, a former member of Mengsk’s rebel group who is now an outlaw of the Terran Dominion.

And that was all I need to know as new and returning characters were introduced properly. Their links to Jim Raynor were explained, so I never felt that I had missed part of the story. To achieve this, Blizzard has used a mix of cut-scenes, in game dialogue and optional conversations between missions. The core cast of characters is reasonably small, as the game focuses on Jim Raynor’s story and the future of the Terran forces.

It keeps events easy to follow, which is an advantage considering the campaign’s length. There are a total of twenty three missions if you follow all of the optional paths, with each mission averaging twenty to forty minutes of gameplay. The flip side is that the characters are very one dimensional. Everyone can be easily defined by one or two motives, making the events of the game rather predictable.

There are a couple of missions which give you a choice on how you approach them. Either choice provides a different mission, but the actual effect on the story is minimal. That being said, I wasn’t expecting a wide branching story structure similar to Bioware’s titles.

And the lack of story choice is made up for in the upgrade options you can select from between missions. As you progress through the missions, you acquire cash and can discover research artefacts which are invested in persistent unit upgrades. These range from hiring mercenaries who are elite units to activating new battlefield abilities. All the customisation is accessed by wandering around Raynor’s flag ship between missions. It also gives you the opportunity to indulge in extra dialogue with the supporting characters.

Crucially the missions themselves don’t feel like an extended tutorial. The first few of course are very basic, but the game quickly spreads its wings as you get access to the optional missions. The majority also introduce new units to your arsenal which can then be used freely in later missions. Several of these units are unique to campaign, adding another reason for players that usually focus their attention on multiplayer to come and take a look.

Thankfully you don’t need competitive skills of multiplayer to complete the campaign. I was able to breeze through it with basic tactics on normal difficulty, only having to restart the final mission as I started with wrong strategy.

Blizzard has set the bar for single player RTS campaigns with Wings of Liberty. Like all good trilogies, they have been careful to make sure that on the whole, the story provides a complete chapter with its own conclusion. It would be nice to see a few more complex characters, but the story does manage to pull a few convincing twists. With the release of Heart of the Swarm, it may be possible to find Wings of Liberty for a reduced price; making it worth the purchase if you’re not that interested in the competitive multiplayer scene.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

It’s fair to say that even if you’re a PC gaming veteran, the titles that inspired the development of the latest XCOM may well have passed you by in your youth. So luckily, Firaxis decided it was time for a revival of these classic games.

XCOM is a turn based strategy game set in the near future. Aliens have just made first contact with Earth, and strange occurrences have been reported around the world. Tasked by a shadowy council of nations, your job is to command an elite squad to tackle and repel the invasion.

Your time is split into two distinct halves. The action takes place commanding your squad through tricky missions, fighting the aliens head on. When your missions are complete, you return to your home base where you manage your resources carefully between a number of high priority projects.

The action on the ground is well designed as the gameplay offers up a number of different strategies for you to choose from. You command up to a squad of six soldiers, each with their own specialist skills and equipment. Each encounter with the aliens starts with your team landing in the corner of the map, leaving you to push out and reveal the pesky aliens lurking in the darkness.

Every member moves in a set turn order. So using the terrain to approach in cover is vital. As soon as the enemy is spotted, it gets a chance to scurry into cover.  Planning your firing positions is a good idea as cover plays a key part. Fire-fights are often short and brutal exchanges of shots. When you have enemies in your sights, the game tells the odds of hitting each target and the chance of doing critical damage. Hitting fire is always a tense moment, watching your soldier line up a shot that can make the difference between victory and defeat.

Each time you score a hit is satisfying as your volleys thud into the target. Every enemy downed bringing you closer to a successful mission. However, that can be quickly turned around by a bit of bad luck. What can appear to be a simple shot can easily end up being a rather embarrassing miss, leaving you crossing your fingers while the enemy return fire.

It is possible to carefully advance across the maps. But the missions mix things up. Sometimes all you need to do is sweep the area of threats. On other occasions the council will task you with saving as many civilians as possible, forcing you to swiftly push out into the map.  Your performance will make all the difference when it comes to your funding.

And you funding is your most important resource. Several nations around the globe are willing to contribute funds to you on the condition you keep them safe. Ignore a country in need for too long and its citizens will reach a state of panic, causing your funding to be cut. Failure to keep global panic levels down will lead to the aliens taking total control as each nation falls prey to them.

Every dollar you earn can be pumped into various projects in your home base. Both research and engineering are vital to understanding your foe and bringing new equipment to the field. However both will take a lot of time unless you fund team expansions. You also have to maintain a fleet of fighter aircraft and satellites around the globe to intercept UFOs. Balancing you budget is a tricky choice, especially on your first play-through.

I never really felt sure where to use my money. I was always worried that I might not advance in technology quickly enough to combat the tougher aliens, or not build enough satellites and lack funding. As it turned out, the game is quite lenient on normal difficulty and I never found myself in tricky situation. Although I did miss out on a few UFO events as I had focused a little too heavily on research.

My main criticisms of the game come from the combat. There’s only a small amount of maps and you will spot some repetition after a while. Also, far too much of the game was set at night. It was only after several hours play that I actually got a mission set in the daytime.

The cover and line of sight mechanics are also a bit wonky. Cover is clearly indicated by shield icons, but with the game having an isometric view of a square grip map; it’s not always clear what directions you’re covered from.  Shots can also happily go through large chunks of scenery as if they weren’t there. Spotting an enemy through solid objects is no problem, and it’s the same vice versa!

I didn’t mind losing a team member when I made a clear tactical error. But every now again the AI would be extremely lucky and pull off an impossible shot, usually getting a critical hit and killing a team member in cover with a single shot. Since the game uses probability to resolve all the combat, there will always be some unfair moments, that’s a given. However it doesn’t stop it from being incredibly frustrating.

Thankfully, as I’m a sane person who played on normal difficulty; a quick save game reload would undo any ridiculousness. If you’re a madman who plays iron-man mode where there’s no such luxury, be prepared to recruit many new team members.

Overall, XCOM is probably the finest example of a turn based game in the modern era of gaming. Completing the game once took a good twenty hours and left me looking forward to upping the difficulty and heading back in. 

Blood Bowl: Not so Legendary Edition

Many years ago, Games Workshop created Blood Bowl. A fun table top game where the warring races of the Warhammer Fantasy world could settle their differences with a simple football match. Only, it’s a football match where brutally murdering the enemy team is a perfectly valid strategy! Fast forward to 2010, developer Cyanide released the first version of Blood Bowl on Xbox 360 and PC. A faithful recreation of the table top game, however it was missing the expansion set content.

Cyanide has since created the Legendary Edition as a follow-up title. It adds in all of the teams left out of the first edition, a couple of game tweaks and a few extra stadiums to play in. A reasonable amount of expansion content, if only it were priced like one. But no, instead you’re expected to pay full price again for the same game. If you bought the first edition like me, there was a very small discount offered. With the recent Steam winter sale, the game finally reached a reasonable price, so I decided to pick up and see if it was worth it.

Short answer, no. The first Blood Bowl was a good package. A near perfect recreation of the table top experience, although it did have a few problems. Most notable was the poor AI which was only capable of two different tactics, which meant the randomness of the game was your greatest challenge. It also lacks a soundtrack, which is a bit odd. Presumably Cyanide expected the ‘wacky’ commentators to keep you entertained through your matches. If only they had enough dialogue to last more than one match without repetition.

The Legendary Edition was the perfect opportunity to fix all the criticisms levelled at the first game, sadly it added to the list. Some small tweaks have been made to the UI, but it really needs an overhaul. It took me several matches just to work out how I could substitute players. The dice rolls that are the core of the game are still only displayed as text in a chat window, rather than being given a clear and visible display so you can see what is happening.

Thankfully, the gameplay hasn’t been touched. The controls work well allowing you to easily select players and give orders. It’s a reasonably fast paced turn based strategy game. Turns are time limited, then again you’ll easily finish with time to spare as the clock stops each time the dice are rolled and the outcome played out. The animation quality is good, although after a few matches, I found myself wishing for an option to turn off replays as they kept breaking the flow of the action.

And you’ll be forced to watch a lot of replays. Each time a player smashes another into an early grave or manages to complete the very tricky task of throwing and catching the ball; the camera suddenly jumps to a close up replay just so you can pointlessly watch it again! The various camera angles already give you a good view of the pitch, allowing you to keep tabs on what’s happening to every player on a turn.

Only a few extra rules are introduced with the new teams. It takes the total rules in the game to a dizzying amount. If you haven’t played Blood Bowl before, spending some time with the tutorial is definitely advised. You’re unlikely to have a match where a lot of the rules come together in a complex mess, but sometimes a player with an obscure special skill can really catch you off-guard.

The bulk of the single player is coaching a team of your choice through a series of tournaments. As you progress, your players gain experience to put towards new skills, but can also pick up injuries or even worse, be killed. With all the new teams that have been added, there’s plenty of variety in matches. Although, the AI is once again the weakest part of the game. They’re capable of a few new tricks, yet still lacking depth. A veteran player’s biggest worry is still unlucky dice rolls. Multiplayer is also included with a variety of game modes. It’s easy to set up a quick game with pre-set teams or jump into the persistent multiplayer and coach a team to glory.

If you haven’t played Blood Bowl and you’re looking for a turn based game, I would recommend this version. There’s a good ten to twenty hours play to be had with the AI and more with the multiplayer. However, if you’re a veteran that’s put plenty of hours into the first title, there just isn’t enough new content to justify the purchase.

Sword of the Stars 2: Enhanced Edition

To say Sword of the Stars 2 (SotS2) has had a troubled release is an understatement. Developer Kerberous made a real impression with their take on the Sci-fi strategy 4X sub-genre. So when the sequel was unleashed on unsuspecting consumers (me) with more bugs than an Ant hill; it hit their credibility and the goodwill they had with fans very hard.

On start-up you were greeted with barely functioning menus and incomplete features. If you got a game running you’d need to pray to the old gods and save regularly to avoid crashes ruining your fun. Alpha versions of games shown by other developers at conferences have been more complete than SotS2 at launch.

A year later, SotS2 is back with an enhanced edition. Supposedly this is close to the version of the game developer Kerberous intended to release. They certainly get a medal for effort as they could have just cut their losses and run. Now there is new DLC including an extra faction and it’s been added for free.

Sadly the game is still not quite up to standard when it comes to setting up a multiplayer game. The menus are still tedious and feel unresponsive; however the real killer is the long load times. So long I assumed my game had crashed. Users have posted on forums that you have time to take a shower before you’ll be playing.

Single player is now mostly functional, but this is the sort of game best played with friends. The AI still aren’t the sharpest tools in the box and only function as training opponents. It’s a shame that the sequel still hasn’t achieved its full potential, as the original was an innovative. And SotS2 builds on those features, in particular an expansion of the semi-random tech tree. Rather than standard tech trees found in other games, SotS has a set of core technologies that when researched, may branch out into other intriguing systems and weapons. It’s carefully balanced to avoid a player lacking firepower or key ship structures. And it adds uniqueness to each game, stopping players from relying on set strategies.

Hopefully Kerberous will carry on polishing the game with further patches to remove the remaining issues. But for now, my total playtime is going to stay around the one hour mark and my go to game for the genre will still be Endless Space.

Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013

Yes, there back again! Those Planeswalker chaps (whoever they are) with their menagerie of sorceries and twisted bestiaries. Too once again do battle for some reason or goal; maybe? Meh; who cares about the Lore of Magic, let’s just play a card game.

It’s the latest edition of the yearly franchise that brings you the core card set of Magic wrapped up in a convenient bundle. And for its price point, there’s some real value for money here. If you’re not already familiar with Magic; Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 takes the popular collectable card game and digitises it all. Allowing you to enjoy a game against the AI through a series of different game modes, or play against human opponents through the online multiplayer.

The game ticks the most important box for new players. It has some extensive tutorials to introduce the basic mechanics, before all the special rules of the various cards are piled on top. During duels, you can inspect any played card at any time. It gives you a nice close up of the card so you can appreciate the artwork, as well as get a detailed explanation of any rules on it.

Any veteran of the 2011 and 2012 titles will find this year’s offering very familiar. It has the expected changes such as a slightly different  interface and the 2013 card set, which swaps a few new cards in and takes a couple out. The single player campaign mode is slightly extended with more duels and challenges. The AI is capable of providing a good few hours entertainment by itself with three different difficulty settings. But in a somewhat silly move, you have to play through the single player to unlock a lot of the card decks. So you can’t just jump straight into multiplayer as your options will be very limited.

The new game mode for this year is Planechase, a free-for-all four player duel with a twist. An extra deck of Planes are added which can affect the game in various different ways. These can throw out extra creatures, provide healing or reset the playing field. To add to the chaos, each Plane can be activated by the roll of a die, throwing out another twist into the game. Alternatively the same die roll can cause the Plane to change and cause other effects. Rolling the die is limited by how much spare mana a player has in a turn, but any Planechase game can quickly devolve muddled mess. Forget your perfectly crafted and honed strategy, ‘cause it won’t work here.

Planechase also replaces the Archenemy game mode that was included in 2012 which is a real shame. Archenemy was a rather fun three against one mode, which admittedly does similar problems to Planechase. But it’s the only three against one format and I feel that 2013 should be bigger and better than the previous title in every way. Not losing segments.

The presentation of Magic has changed much from the previous titles. Mostly because they got it pretty much spot on the first time. The animations do a good job of depicting spell abilities and making you aware of cards moving in and out of the playing field. However the sound in 2013 is a bit off. The menu sound effects are very distant, as if the games sounds are coming from the bottom of a well.

Game options are still fairly limited with not many options. You can tweak a few gameplay settings if to determine if you want full control, or if you’re happy with the AI making certain choices for you so duels move at a faster pace.

Overall, for those familiar with Magic. The Duels of the Planeswalker games are serious value for money. The entire game costs a similar amount to one physical deck of cards. Duels does have some restrictions as your deck building options are limited. But for players of any skill level, the ability to play against each other online with fairly balanced decks is an excellent selling point. If you haven’t already played any of the Duels games, there’s not enough new features in 2013 to justify buying it over a previous, possibly cheaper title. Also, the advertising for physical card game is somewhat more egregious in 2013. I don’t want special cards Wizards of the Coast, I just want to play my card game! 

To Boldly Flee! Faster Than Light

Aaaaaahhh! There’s fire everywhere! Missiles are flying and engineering is tied up dealing with intruders; at least the shields are holding. The pilot is glaring at the console, counting down the seconds before the FTL drive can be engaged. This was poor choice of sector to jump to. The Rebel fleet had caught up with the brave crew of HMS Waffle. But there’s only one way out of the system, so flying through the jaws of the enemy was a necessary risk. At the last second, the engines are fired up flinging the ship into the next zone where new threats lurk.

Of course there’s danger everywhere in FTL. The Rebel fleet is always on your tail, chasing you through every sector. The intelligence your scout ship has collected is vital to the Federation cause. Your only chance of success is to beat the random pirates and aliens on the way to the Federation Fleet. Collecting salvage from the scraps of your enemies gives you currency to trade at friendly merchants. Buying upgrades is not only vital to your final goal, but is necessary to survive the journey.

 There’s plenty of choice available in ship systems, however the random nature of the game means you might not always find what you want. Weapon systems are divided into standard lasers and missiles, to exotic ion guns and beam weapons. Each has different power requirements and is affected by enemy shields in a different way. Arming yourself to the teeth with guns is not a wise strategy however as powering it all is expensive.

And there are plenty of other systems you’ll be relying on to keep your ship in one piece. Salvage can be spent on increasing the reactors power output. This allows you to boost shields and run auxiliary systems such as teleporters and cloaking devices. Sending an away team to board the enemy ship has become a favourite tactic of mine. Killing the enemy crew gives a nice bonus to the precious salvage you recover. That being said, I did lose a few brave souls to friendly fire accidents. Remembering to hold fire and teleport your party back is a good idea.

So how do all these weapons and system work in combat? Manning systems gains a little extra performance. Having an engineer working the engines and pilot in the cockpit gives you a chance to dodge attacks entirely. It also charges your FTL jump allowing you to make your escape if necessary. Shields can hold off light laser fire, but missiles, boarding parties and teleporting bombs can bypass them entirely to deal nasty interior damage. If a system is hit, it loses power and can even go offline until you move a crew member to repair it. Fires can break out and sustained fire can punch holes in the hull, causing precious oxygen to start leaking out. Thankfully space bar pauses the action so you can plan crew movement and reassign power. Land enough hits on your opponent and you’ll see them satisfyingly break up into little pieces.

Being a Roguelike game; I would have a normally strayed away from a title like FTL. The genre is famously defined by randomness, high difficulty and unfairness. Similar to arcade games of yesteryear. FTL changed my mind with some smart design choices. The game itself is fairly short. A good run will only take an hour or so to play. So dying part way through is not such a problem. There’s plenty of unlocks and achievements to strive for. There not just the standard, well done you’ve played the game achievements either. They actually challenge you to use a ship in particular manner and reward you with new ship layouts.

The aesthetic design of the game is clean and crisp. The sprites in the game are of a very high quality and are backed up by an excellent bit tune-esque soundtrack. The sound effects are also cleverly chosen to suit the atmosphere of the game, whilst providing clear feedback of what’s happening.

There’s plenty to discover on each journey. The random events are well designed and often given you tough choices to make. Some enemies are smart enough to beg for their life, offering you a bounty. Others fire up their engines to try and make an escape.  The environments such as nebulae give you a chance to delay Rebel pursuers. Asteroid belts, solar flares and ion storms also add twists to your combat plans.

Overall, FTL has just jumped its way onto my list of favourite games of the year. It provides a lot of entertainment for a very sensible price. There’s even an easy mode for people like myself who want to play with all the cool toys, rather than being turned into space dust on a regular basis. And FTL is one of the first Kickstarter game projects to see release. The small development team has really delivered for those who backed it.

Endlessly Enthralling: Endless Space

Endless Space is the recently released 4X title developed by Amplitude Studios. Their first game since the company was founded in April 2011. They set themselves the challenge of developing the best strategy games, and Endless Space is an excellent start.

The format is very traditional. Pick one of eight races to conquer the galaxy through military power, scientific discovery, diplomacy or economic dominance. Each race has a unique design for its ships, but the real differences come from the traits. The Amobea can see the entire galaxy map and are master diplomats. The Sophons are great scientists and the Cravers build large navies, stripping the worlds they own for bonus resources. If none of the default choices take your fancy, there’s an excellent customisation option allowing you to tailor a faction to your liking.

What really sets the game apart from its peers is the focus on simplicity. The genre is defined by complex titles, allowing players to micromanage empires down to the minute details. But here, everything is kept at a high level. There are only four resources in the game: food, industry, dust (money) and science. The UI provides clear information on the production of your systems, allowing you to easily shape worlds to needs of your empire. The happiness of your citizens acts as a fifth resource. High taxes and barely inhabitable worlds will lead to strikes and shrinking populations. So remember to research technologies like Infinite Supermarkets to keep your peons happy and industrious.

Fleet battles also take a minimalistic approach. For the most part, the player sits back and watches as the ships close, unleashing their broadsides. Clashes take part in three phases. Each phase allows you to pick from a number of tactic cards to determine your strategy. Do you unleash a full broadside, repair damage or flee from the fight? Every tactic can counter another. Predicting your opponent’s moves correctly gives a powerful bonus. This can be enough to overcome a slightly more powerful fleet.

The weapon systems and ship classes you have researched have the biggest impact. Ballistics, lasers and missiles all have different mechanics and each is countered by a different defence. Clashes can often be as one sided as rock- paper- scissors if you focus too heavily in a single weapons technology. This leads to some great tactical situations, battles can swing back and forth based on your choices.

Heroes can also be the difference between victory and defeat. Each has two specialities which can be developed to improve a systems’ production, or bring clever tactics and bonuses to battle as an admiral of a fleet. You’re limited to three to begin with, but research allows for more as long as you can pay the bills.

The camera does a great job of following the action, as colourful laser exchanges and ship explosions contrast against the darkness of space. It does sometimes focus on the wrong areas, but a free camera mode is provided. Simply hit the button to enable the feature, and then manoeuvre using the arrow keys to follow the fighting.

Simplicity is also the game’s one weakness. The tech-tree has four branches, each representing different fields: science, warfare, colonisation and diplomacy/economics.  But since it’s all unlocked by science, it dominates the game. The other resources should help contribute to particular research fields, counter-balancing the problem that if you ignore science, you fall behind in production and have inferior ships when war breaks out.

And war is inevitable. Holding out for economic or scientific victory can only be done with military supremacy. So why not take the rest of the galaxy if you have that advantage? Diplomacy and co-operation between human players is the only counter, working together to overhaul another’s lead.

But of course, finding several people with the spare time for a game isn’t always a possibility. The AI is capable of putting up a good fight on norm al difficulty. The diplomacy of the AI isn’t particularly nuanced. But they are smart enough to make deals to their benefit, and try to appease warmongers. They do have an odd liking to lots of small strike fleets, which would give them a lot of tactical flexibility. But instead they like to throw all their might against your navies in waves, allowing you to swat away their advances like pesky flies. You'll get tired of pressing the auto-resolve button very quickly.

Overall Endless Space is an incredibly accessible game for the genre. Its simplicity is a real strength and its sole flaw. The aesthetic design is fantastic; all the races look distinct in battle. The use of colour in the UI is well done, giving consistency to the multitude of icons. And the music perfectly captures the optimism of space exploration. It leaves me looking forward to Amplitude Studious’ next title.