Sins of a Solar Empire®: Rebellion

Sins of a Solar Empire®: Rebellion

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a space strategy game and a real-time strategy (RTS) game which incorporates 4X strategy game elements. This game was developed by Ironclad Games and published by Stardock Entertainment and is only available on PC.

While you may notice another game with Sins of a Solar Empire in its title (Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity), that is an older version of the game. Rebellion is the definitive and superior version as it not only offers numerous additions to the game, like Titans and new Factions to play as, but also contains everything from the previous versions of the game.

Real player with 1719.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best Real Time Tactics Space Sim Games.


Sins of a Solar Empire represents a fun and visually spectacular 4x game. But the 4x is a bit tilted. There is diplomacy and you can win with diplomacy, there is exploration and you will need to explore and there is exploitation. But Sins of a Solar Empire at it’s core is a game of extermination, combat drives the game and will dominate the majority of what you do, but that is perfectly fine considering how fun it is.

This game is well supported considering it’s age though optimisation in multiplayer is poor and they do not allow you to local host your games instead requiring you to connect to their servers. The attention to detail in the base game is excellent from space elevators and space traffic around your planets to having individual weapon ports on ships with their own firing arcs. It’s hard to get bored of this game especially if you have friends to play with.

Real player with 663.8 hrs in game

Sins of a Solar Empire®: Rebellion on Steam

Solaris

Solaris

So fun! If you like games like Risk or Chess you will love this game. But instead of turns its all in real time just really slow, like make your move to set up what you want your ships to do, then come back and check it hours later when they are there. Or you can set your ships to loop, so they pick up and drop off troops where you want them FOREVER. I just started playing and entered like 15 games at once and I spend all day playing it without having to wait haha. Addicting, fast and great learning curve, and good replay value (harder for me to claim this latter one as I’ve only put in 40 hrs so far, just seems like a game I will always come back to).

Real player with 124.6 hrs in game


Read More: Best Real Time Tactics 2D Games.


The only negative reviews about this game are people who are mad because there are no tutorials and don’t know how to play. I mean… I was in the same boat but I had no problem learning, it is actually really easy to learn and only took a couple minutes, so I’m not sure what the problem really is. There is a wiki tab right in the game to help learn and beginner games.

I like it because it doesn’t need my full attention. I can play another game and have this up on my other monitor. Only have to play a few minutes each day and you can have multiple games going at once.

Real player with 83.0 hrs in game

Solaris on Steam

Astra Exodus

Astra Exodus

I was a beta tester for this although I came into the testing in the later phase (Super4est on Slitherine, Nandus). Sorry I’m just now getting my review here but as another posted, it came on a busy weekend for me and I wanted to get in some games of the actual steam version before reviewing.

Gaming background - mostly wargamer (board and PC), also like many video game genres such as 4x with MoO being one of my all time favs. I’ve enjoyed 4x since playing its early board game origins - Avalon Hill’s versions of Stellar Conquest, Civilization, etc.

Real player with 343.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Real Time Tactics Indie Games.


I have played hundreds of hours of MOO 2, and I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying this take on its style. If you have to have tons of eye candy, this game is probably not for you, but for me the graphics are perfectly fine. This game has a good number of traits like MOO 2 with which to customize your race {and some like creative are handled in a more balanced manner}. This game is far more easily modded than MOO 2 {and if for example you want to create races with a different style of images it is not hard to do, you could even change the art in the premade races if you wanted {although it is more than fine for me}. I liked the fact that there was not only a basic tutorial, but also a series of videos explaining the different aspects of the game. I like the random tech tree. I don’t mind the real time combat {one of the biggest flaws in the MOO 2 was that with certain techs, it was way too easy to take advantage of the AI in turn based combat}. The dev is very active and quick to work on any bugs, as well as listening to constructive ideas. I am already having a great time with the game and believe it is only going to get better and better. One thing I would like to see {as someone else has mentioned} is the ability to retrofit. A big thumbs up for me!

Real player with 93.3 hrs in game

Astra Exodus on Steam

TerraMartis4x

TerraMartis4x

Background story

A short but fragile period of peace followed the cold war. Humanity is divided into two factions. The western part under the leadership of the USA and the eastern part under the leadership of Russia.

That peace ended shortly after the beginning of space colonization. Under the continued pressure of the hegemonial western faction on Earth, large parts of the eastern factions left Earth completely and moved to Mars and are now known as Martian.

Gameplay summary

In TerraMartis4x you take the role as leader of one of the factions, either Terra or Mars. Both factions are at war over the uncolonized space. Your goal is to lead the faction of your choice to victory.

TerraMartis4x is divided into two layers. On the galaxy map you make strategic turned based decisions about which planets to colonize, which fleets to build, where to attack, what to defend and which planet to conquer. When two fleets meet you can dive into the battlefield the second part of the game where you make tactical decisions for each unit in your fleet in real time.

Beside the two larger factions Terran and Martian there are also some minor factions in TerraMartis4x mostly from the outer asteroid belts and not recognized as a united faction by the former two.

TerraMartis4x on Steam

Empire Takeover

Empire Takeover

This is a fun & amazing tower crush game! Crush enemy’s towers, take over the empire!

● Fight: Connect all your buildings together to grow them taller and then takeover the enemy’s buildings.

● Control: Simple drag controls from one building to another.

● Build: Build your empire, occupy more territory, crush your opponents.

● Heroes: Recruit legendary heroes.

● Special art style: Lowpoly Style Game.

● 3 Special Mode:

#1 Stage Maker Mode: design levels by yourself and share it to your family, your friends or all the worldwide players.

Empire Takeover on Steam

Tachyon Wars

Tachyon Wars

That is an interesting one, space strategy with the real-time flow. I am looking forward to try out PvP.

I read some reviews below and wanted to say - not much of a point to expect it to be another space strategy clone with different race pictures. Here you offered some novel ideas, and you’d need to dive into it to see the difference.

I enjoyed tactics, some good tunes, and 3D space combats, even though some polishing was needed here and there.

Thank you.

Real player with 10.4 hrs in game

Well, it takes time to get used to the interface, however, I see how it stands out from other similar strategy games. The gameplay includes plenty of action planning, reconnaissance, resource distribution - what a good strategy game should have.

Overall, I like what I see. And I am looking forward to future updates, guys!

Real player with 5.7 hrs in game

Tachyon Wars on Steam

Polaris Sector

Polaris Sector

Nice and deep space 4X game, definately the best of the recent releases. It also avoided a common fact with 4X which is that many features are copy/pasted beetween games, so it will feel fresh even if you’re used to the genre.

In a nutshell, it’s a bit rough but a must for every space 4X fan. It shines in empire management, elegant mechanics, diplomacy. It would deserve a bit more streamlining.

Why is it better than most other 4X?

+ Rewarding diplomacy:

Interactions pretty rational. There are many possibilities, from trading ressources (shortages are common so that’s handy), to technologies, to being able to use friendly planets as bases for your fleet or asking for a 3rd party to negociate a peace with your ennemy, or bribe them into getting into war against your ennemy (or request a bribe to help them!)

Real player with 229.8 hrs in game

Lets get to it.

Pro:

[olist]

  • A.I. (Articial Intelligence) - I cannot emphasis or stress enough of how extremely good the A.I. is. It’s probably one of the most advanced one I’ve seen in a 4x game genre. I absolutely love how it handles playing against me and handling my orders for planets, colonization, and etc (without the need to micromanage everything). Again, the A.I. in this game is just so good that it cannot be expressed sufficiently of how good it is. Even the developer of this game admits that hard is very tough for him.

Real player with 159.5 hrs in game

Polaris Sector on Steam

Structura

Structura

This is a niche game intended for a small group of people that enjoy the concept of turning DOS into a game, and manually handling every aspect of base building and logistics through text commands - in lieu of having situational action buttons that figure what you are trying to do when you aim at x thing.

I am not one of those people. I don’t know any of those people.

But I do hope the devs find their audience.

Real player with 0.2 hrs in game

Structura on Steam

Total War: ROME REMASTERED

Total War: ROME REMASTERED

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it

🔲 Easy

✅ Normal

✅ Hard

✅ Dark Souls

It can be changed to hard or Dark Souls depending of your difficulty settings and your faction choice.

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 Graphics don’t matter in this game

🔲 MS Paint

🔲 Bad

🔲 Meh

✅ Good

🔲 Beautiful

🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Soundless

🔲 Just SFX

🔲 Not special

🔲 Bad

✅ Good

🔲 Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story

✅ Like playing Temple Runners for the story

🔲 It’s there for the people who want it

Real player with 156.2 hrs in game

Even with it’s problems it is the best way to play Rome Total War. Wish the new menus and intros were better and wish it got more updates and also that co-op campaigns would be added. Other than that it’s a great looking game and a lot of fun.

Real player with 153.7 hrs in game

Total War: ROME REMASTERED on Steam

Heathen Engineering’s Terran

Heathen Engineering’s Terran

This is one of the worst games I’ve ever played. Complete waste of money. It should be withdrawn from the market until it is more than a shell of a game.

The tech tree is extremely thin. Only 3 branches, and a depth of 5-10 in each of the sub elements. Dull.

The ability to customise fleets is poor, limited to the balance of 6 standard ship classes from corvette to dread. No ability to customise ships, just general upgrades to attack/defence/speed/cost as one of the 3 tech tree branches.

It’s very buggy. Frequently, the game hangs and sometimes you can recover by restarting, but not always.

Real player with 11.2 hrs in game

Great game, I liked the build system its only limited by your imagination.

The game is by far from finsihed and is in its infant stage but I can’t wait for it to be finished.

The Dev team are very quick in responding to questions and input which is very nice to to see.

Real player with 10.4 hrs in game

Heathen Engineering's Terran on Steam