I want to be fair to this one because on paper it’s exactly my kind of game, engine building, meaningful faction choices, place-workers-then-pull-it-all-back-to-activate-your-stuff mechanics I already like from this designer’s other work, and a genuine 4X sprawl of exploring, developing, building a fleet, climbing five separate scoring ladders. Three plays in, all at two players, and I keep landing on “fine” when the box is clearly asking for more than that.

The battle system is the specific thing holding this back for me, it runs luckier than I want from a game this heavy, dice swings can undo an otherwise sound plan, and the escalation step around combat has produced a real runaway-leader problem in two of our three games, once someone gets ahead on the battle ladder it compounds in a way the rest of the systems don’t seem built to check. Downtime between turns crept up more than I expected too, turns spanning several minutes once the tactics cards start piling up on the table, which slows the whole session down more than the box’s stated playtime suggests.

Production quality, art, and theme are all genuinely excellent, full ten out of ten on presentation, and the modules that expand your options as the game goes are a nice structural idea even if the specific content on them didn’t grab me as much as I wanted it to. If you already own and love this designer’s previous engine-builder, I’d say try before you buy rather than assuming this one is a strict upgrade, for me it isn’t, it’s a sidegrade with more moving parts and a battle system I trust less.

Three stars. Not a bad game at all, just a game that kept reminding me of a better one I already owned.