Chaos Galaxy Reviews

Good Game

This is a very enjoyable wargame. It combines the map conquest of titles like Total War and Warhammer 40K with some turn based combat like Advance wars, Fire Emblem, FF Tactics etc. [h2]Story:[/h2] The game's story is basically a series of wars that divided the galaxy left it in a disorganised state with a predominent faction (The imperial army) surrounded by its vassals which are themselves surrounded by minor factions that they may or may not be at war with. Each faction on the map including the smallest ones are playable and have their own leaders, musical themes, units, missions and so on. All factions will have different story events where the player will be able to make choices based on the state of the galactic war and who they are allied/ennemies with. [h2]Gameplay:[/h2] [h3]Campaign:[/h3] There are multiple ways to win a campaign as a faction and some have unique win conditions although the easiest is total conquest by owning most of the existing planets of the galaxy. All factions will start with a few planets (from 1 to 4) as well as 3 fleets with 3 commanders (one per fleet) and their army. Every turn like in many map conquest games, you recieve gold and supply based on how many planets you own and how much they are develloped. This gold and supply can be used for many things like improving your planets, build more troops, negociate with factions and so on. Commanders allow you to recruit troops in their armies, attack enemy commanders or planets and can serve as overseers for planets. The combat loop usually boils down to recruiting units>attack and defeat enemy commanders>capture planets and do so until they either lose all their planets in which case the faction will be eliminated and its commanders become recruitable, or you could try to vasalize them to use them as support for future wars. You can also do research to improve your economy, army or even unlock new recruitable units. Diplomacy also has a small impact on the campaign as factions may go to war with you but usually most factions will leave you alone and if you're in a losing war, you can always try to save up money and get a truce to rebuild which the AI will never betray. [h3]Combat:[/h3] Once a fleet led by a commander engages another fleet or tries to attack a planet with defenses, a battle will be initiated. It is possible for multiple fleets of the same faction to engage in battle, if so, the distance between where the battle happens and where the reinforcements are will determine how quickly the reinforcements get to the battle. The objective is to rout all enemies on the map. At the start of the battle, both opposing fleets and their reinforcements (if they are close enough) will be deployed on the map. The map itself will be covered in fog of war for the player which means they won't know where the enemy is at first. There are many ways to scout and some commanders can even reveal the entire map at the start of the battle. The fleet that initiated the battle will move first. During that turn, all units can be moved around in whatever order the player wants, there are many actions like diving submarines, using radars, attacking and so on that can be done. Each unit can only move and act once before being exhausted (with some exceptions). Attacks will have different hit rates depending on which weapon is used and how the enemy decides to react to it. The game seems to use a single RNG to determine if an attack hits or not which may lead to some questionable results like six 3% attacks that hit 3 times despite having a hit rate of 3% or missing two 98% shots. There are however ways to increase or decrease hit rate by using support units or terrain to tilt the odds in your favor. There are also some 100% guaranteed hit attacks like melee attacks (with some exceptions) and AOE attacks like lazers and nuclear bombs that hit all the time. The game also uses angles to calculate how much damage is dealt and if the unit is able to retaliate or not. For instance, attacking a unit on its sides or rear will deal more damage and units cannot retaliate if they are attacked from behind (though they can still try to dodge or use shields). As you kill or lose units, your commander's power bar will fill. Once full, you can activate your commander's power which will usually allow you to win decisively or to make a comeback. Of course that is also true for the enemy commander, which is why taking out the commander is a good strategy as it prevents the enemy from using their power and lowers all of their units' morale by half. [h2]Conclusion:[/h2] I really enjoyed my time playing this game as it has some great music, good animations and has some sick designs for its units. Even factions with a hellish start can succeed and there's a great deal of joy in making an underdog nation that would basically be the generic bandits you beat early on in Civilisation to become a fully fledged galactic empire with vast fleets of advanced warships. TL;DR : This is a very enjoyable wargame. It combines the map conquest of titles like Total War and Warhammer 40K with some turn based combat like Advance wars, Fire Emblem, FF Tactics etc.

My completion run of reviews for the indie Chaos games continues, in almost sort of a backwards fashion to how I played them. Now with CG1 & CG2 the latter is essentially a polished version of the game as a direct follow-up, taking the experience gained in development and putting out something further refined. That's not to say 1 was bad, just that 2 was a natural improvement over time. It is also interesting seeing the development of the plot between the two games with some characters/factions falling to the chaos or changing station between the two (would be quite exciting to see how things would further develop in a potential CG3) Looking forward to Chaos Front.

Easily recommended for fans of turn-based strategy, 4x, and sci-fi, even at full price. Fairly streamlined and polished, good fun, and replayable due to so many factions. Could benefit from some more optional random elements as well as options for smaller games/maps with fewer factions. I would also recommend Sins of a Solar Empire, Warhammer Gladius, Battletech, or Into the Breach. +Visuals, art style +Music +Variety of factions (14) +Events, advisor updates +Choice of advisors +Turn-based tactics battles +Variety of ships/troops +Variety of research/upgrades +Strategic layer development +Capture/develop planets +Diplomacy, alliances/vassals +Unique units/elements for each faction +Auto and manual saving +Units level up +Choice of hero skill on level up +Variety of heroes/commanders +Optional auto-resolve for battles +Fleets can support others nearby +One more turn -Mouse only, no hotkeys/rebinding -No custom scenarios, can't set length/number players -Text-heavy intro -Fleets take a long time to move/ wasted turns -Lacking tutorial -Pacing / can drag the longer games go -Can't have fleets without a hero -Slow to gain new heroes/fleets -Many lackluster/5% bonuses -Some choices can result in instant game over without warning -WSAD/arrows move cursor instead of panning map -Only 1 extra nearby fleet can participate in battle -Fleets cannot assist others capturing planets -Forts nearly useless, planets can't defend themselves