Stellar Sovereigns Reviews

Was really looking forward to a turn base 4x game. I loaded the game and less than 10 min I requested a refund. Not even worth the 13 bucks I spent on it. Save your time and money don't even buy it.

EDIT: Ok that last patch seems to have fixed my issues, and am playing the game now. So far it is exactly the way i expected a 4X game like this plays. So far its really good, aside from UI and quality life stuff, all the stuff it says is there and working exactly as they should, and they work well. EDIT II- ya with the constant updates and improvements, and developer responding very well, this game is definately shaping up to be a really a great 4X game. Give it try if you like these kinds of games.

This game is fantastic. Developer is active and patches are regular.

Easy recommend. Lacks polish in certain areas including an unideal UI, however the mechanics and combat more than makes up for it.

I play a lot of 4X and strat games in general, this one has some decently fresh takes that appeal Finances rule everything, having money means financing more research, more development and no "RUSH" button. In general a more realistic approach with less gamey feel to it which I myself really enjoy. An RPG-ish politic approach where your ruling party is affected by perk points you spend for small bonuses which in turn affects what governments you can pick from. It's different and has enough variety to be a bit novel at least. And the use of a 3D map is also rather unusal - Most games present in a 2D scape because of it's UI advantages, so it was refreshing just to see something different - Even with some confusion caused since it causes optical illusions. My biggest gripe is the tutorial - It uses images to show a lot of controls which is great, it pops up when first visiting menus which is ok. But it's to big all at once and could really use partioning - a little "?" to click for guidance or meaty tooltips when hovering over buttons would work better. Because there is A LOT of information to read in the tutorial and most people will not manage to remember half of it since it all hits home all at once. A redesign to give a short introduction to help ensure "Turn 1, check this out" is clearly pointed out would work better to then allow a player to explore the rest after they feel comfortable with having 'set things up'. I'm afraid the current barrage would scare off quite a few folks even with a high tolerance for reading a lot.

I have played a lot of 4x games. This is not at all like any of them. You have a ton of different systems that all feel familiar - a galaxy map, worlds with resources, systems with resources, ships you build, a real time combat system a la sots. There's a tech tree, trade of resources and as planets mature they get stronger and stronger at pumping out stuff that you need. Sounds really 4x-y right? It's nothing like any of the traditional games. Resources are numerous but finite. Fleets are very small and incredibly expensive. The systems overall are very complicated and world management is a giant portion of the game. It feels like if Shadow Empire and Sword of the Stars 2 had a baby. Yes, SotS2. There's definitely a strong influence from that style of game - smaller scale empires, smaller scale battles, smaller scale universes. Losing a single fleet can be devastating and there is very little hand holding in this game. You fly or die. It I'm still learning the game but it feels like a wonder. This isn't a $60 AAA title, but they aren't selling it for that. It's something very, very different than what we're used to and I think it's worth taking a look. If you aren't comfortable putting in time to learn a game and just want something you can relax play on easy and hit next turn until your empire grows to huge and you demolish people I would look for another game. Edit: after a few more hours of understanding some of the basic mechanics it seems like this game has some serious balance issues and built-in options that trivialize any complexity there might be hiding under the surface.

This is not SOTS like. This is why I don't recommend for Sots fans like me. All the other things can be considered as personal taste. At SOTS, goverment management is %5-10 of the game, here it's about %80. You have all the ship and weapon options at the beginning. There is no progress about ship hulls so you can build a battleship at day one. Research trees are there and there are many trees but they are not high enough, only 3 lines with 3 options each, so max 9. UI is strange, looks like something for mobile. Ship Edit UI is not so well, way worse then Sots. Everything is shiny and flashing.. everything.. background, UI, shields, explosions. Even you see it at the game video here. But space lighting is not enough so you can't see you ship properly as there is no light from above. Space battles like Sots yes but the motions are not. It's like ground RTS rather then Homeworld style. You press somewhere and ships go there directly without a weight feeling. There are details you really don't need. Ship energy management, repair management, all the sencors, engines. Yeah nice to have all the control but the battles are not too long or strategic. Imagine to have them all at Sots or Homeworld, it would take away the experience. There are auto options too so not so big deal I guess. In the end, you govern much more then Sots and it took me off and I refund in the end.

Never played SOTS so walking into this review with fresh eyes. This game feels like a work in progress. It has potential since it is unlike most other 4X games currently on the market but needs a good bit of polish. There are some good systems under the hood to be built on and there are some good graphics here and there. Overall, though, the game just feels rough. To the developers credit I've seem more updates to this game addressing feedback in a week than some games get in a year. So I have confidence that this will grow into a great game.

I am sure this game was meant for some specific niche of players, but it wasn't me despite my long history of Gal Civ, MOO2, Stellaris, Endless Space and other such 4X Space games. The interface and UI is just..god awful. It looks extremely dated, as if this game was made around the time of Master of Orion 3 then thrown into a cyro-pod for several years. Nothing about this game is intuitive or easy to grasp, and this is not due to some complexity of the game but just outright bad design. The fact your first move in the game is building a space fleet of..just 3 ships? Why 3? Doesn't make any sense, and the interface is extremely vague. The planet interface/UI looks like something off of a mobile phone. The game brags it won some award in a Development Championship in 2021, so I guess I am missing something here. Maybe this game is meant for those who want retro games, and this game is retro in that it looks ALOT like Imperium Galactica 2, just maybe a few years older for..for a game in 2023? For a game that won some reward? I just don't get it. Get this game if you absolutely love retro space games from 15+ years ago, but don't expect to have any fun. You'd be better off picking up a copy of Imperium Galactica 2 instead.

This game feels weird to me, it has some odd contrasts: On one hand good resource system and economy that is more detailed than usual (and fun too), on the other hand research tree is a hard to parse trough flat mess. Combat mechanics are excelent, nicely detailed yet for some odd reason player is limited to 3 ships per fleet. Nothing stops you from sending multiple fleets, just for some reason you can't merge them. Trade routes are nicely detailed yet for some odd reason are singleway as if freighters do not need to do a return trip... Major cons: - Tutorial is a wall of text. - UI needs to be more informative in a lot of cases (ex: tooltips for power management, easy to see ETA in turns, planet shows only half of relevant stats in a very compact view prior to colonization) - Tech tree and political perks are problematic to navigate - Diplomatic screen is plain confusing. - Scouting can be tedious, is not automatable Despite issues and being a bit overpriced it is in decent enough state and is interesting enough.