Star Ruler 2 - Wake of the Heralds DLC

An EXCELLENT addition to an already unique, super entertaining game. This one's a steal for $10 and is definitely one of those DLC that will become the "new vanilla" once you've played it. I really can't recommend this one enough!

havent even installed it and I know it's going to be insane. This is the best 4x space game ever made.

Adds a good amount of content to an already great game.

If you're getting Star Ruler 2 get this xpac. Totally worth it in every way. Much more research, many more ship designs and options, new races with new mechanics. Great job!

A great expansion to a great game. Tons of quality of life improvements. They also released a patch for the vanilla game that improves graphics and the UI. Blind Mind Studios is woefully underrated developer and I can only hope this expansion is succesful enough to allow them to continue game developement. I really do want to see more

This is a solid expansion. If you like the base game, I think you will like the expansion, too. A coop map with endless waves of attacks, two different factions that certainly play differently (but don't simply obsolete the existing factions), and an alternative set of "attitude" bonuses permanent to a match that you can work towards during a game. And more - though I have trouble identifying what everyone got in the accompanying free patch that also much improved the game, and what is strictly only part of the expansion.

I'm going to keep this short and just say that an already great space 4x RTS game has been made several times greater by this expansion. Two new races, new techs, revamped research tree and overall improvement in pretty much every area make this a no-brainer. If you own the game, get this expansion, there is NOTHING to regret. If you don't own the game, get it and the exapansion together and tell your friends about this awesome 4x that far too few people know exists. Its games like this that are worth supportng way above the AAA publisher titles. A 3-man dev team made something truly amazing.

A review of: “Star Ruler 2: Wake of the Heralds” expansion (170507) (This review has been trimmed down to Steam’s 1000 word limit. The full review can be found here. [url=http://www.mercedesmace.com/announcements/mega-late-review-of-star-ruler-2-wake-of-the-heralds-expansion]The full review can be found here.[/url]) This is a review of Star Ruler 2 (SR2) as of March 2017 with the “Wake of the Heralds” (WotH) expansion. More, more, more Good expansions should (A) introduce more of good systems, (B) improve or eliminate poor systems, and (C) streamline ‘meh’ systems. The SR2 dev team delivered in spades! * More Resources! In each tier of resource, the number and their effects have increased. With these new resources, ‘specializing’ a planet to produce a specific resource is more effective. * Two new race archetypes! These options, along with two new map options, provide more options for veteran players. * More Researches! The research tree has been enhanced and expanded. New paths and combinations, more enhancements to resources, general enhancements to ships, ship weapons, ship hulls, and ship modules. Additionally, ‘infinite researches’ have been added for weapon damage, engine thrust, shield capacity, support capacity, and hex health. * More Ship Weapons! Additional weapons in each of the three primary weapon categories (projectile, beam, missile) have been added, as well as several novel weapon designs! * More Ship Modules! ‘Skip Drives’ and ‘Ion Cannons’. “Troop pods” can be unlocked to provide an alternative to sieging a planet using time and supply. “Broadcast antennae” mounted on capital ships will periodically convert other empires’ in-system support ships to be part of your fleet! Ship Hulls Don’t want a capital ship that can have support ships? The ‘Destroyer’ hull improves a ship’s damage and health, but cannot maintain a support fleet. On the other side of the spectrum? The ‘Carrier’ hull doubles the amount of support capacity on a capital ship, although it cannot sport any weapons itself. The ‘Titan’ hull is still available, and can be made even bigger with the ‘Colossus’ hull. There’s also a hull that decreases the costs of a capital ship by requiring an ore cost. Ship design is still 100% customizable! Planetary Satellites A great way to improve planets using what I consider SR2’s best, most unique, most fundamental mechanic: being able to use multiple types of resources to accomplish similar goals. Satellites can provide food, add pressure, improve planetary defenses, and more! Defense In WotH, one now has a ‘Defense Reserve’: a pool that fills at one’s Defense rate, to be expended anywhere in one’s civilization to instantly build support ships. Since Defense has always been a somewhat nebulous concept for SR2 neophytes: - Defense is a resource, one of the five global resources of the game (Credits/Money, Research, Influence, Energy, and Defense). Therefore, Defense is produced on planets. - The primary use of Defense is to spawn free support ships. - Defense uses a ratio of 1 Defense : 4 Labor worth of support ships. - If one’s Defense Reserve is large enough to cover the labor cost of one or more ships, they are built instantaneously upon triggering the Reserve. - The Reserve fills from global Defense production first; once it has filled, Defense production is then distributed to all star systems tagged to ‘Use Defense’. - Constructing Barracks on planets is a primary method for increasing one’s Defense Reverse capacity. - And although Defense provides one with very small benefits in the early game, many players use Reserve to create nearly all of one’s support ships—handy when one is building carriers that can support thousandsof support ships! Changes to the Senate, and the Popularity Win Condition The original senate diplomacy card remains unchanged. ‘Election’ cards now pop up in the diplomacy stack. Winning the election makes one the Leader of the Senate. Being the Leader of the Senate creates 3 new opportunities: (1) There are Leader-specific cards in the diplomacy stack. Any civilization can purchase these cards, just like any other cards. However: only the Leader can activate them! (2) As the Leader of the Senate, you are occasionally gifted a Leader-specific card. (3) Finally, only the Leader of the Senate can build the ‘Senatorial Palace’. Unlike the ‘Host Senate’ card, the Palace is an orbital. From the Palace, you can purchase three cards: Election, Galactic Superpower, and Galactic Utopia. All of these cards share a purchase cooldown. The Galactic cards each grant powerful effects in their own respect, but having both in effect simultaneously activates the new diplomatic win condition. Upon passage of the second card of the pair, planets in systems bordering yours begin to lose Loyalty—at a pretty rapid rate!—and when they reach zero, the planet converts to your control! When your trade borders increase, you begin converting those planets, ad finitum. It’s a very powerful win-condition which forces your opponents to maintain a vigilant watch on the diplomacy system. It’s not like Influence used to be useless; but now it’s even more effective. Attitudes The Attitude system is fantastic! There are six categories of Attitudes, each of which contains two quasi-mutually exclusive philosophies. Each civilization begins play with level 1 in a single attitude, based upon your Government type. As the game progresses, you may purchase level 0 in another attitude category, up to one philosophy in each of the six categories. Overall, the attitude system is a welcome addition to SR2 because it makes gameplay more dynamic. Art Assets The dev team overhauled every art asset in the game. The models, the planets, 2D and 3D surfaces all look crisper, grimier, shinier, etc. There exists some variety among art assets now, and blended effects on planetary surfaces look more natural, more subdued. Weapon, shield, and jump effects are more colorful, more smooth. And this graphical update was, of course, made available to all SR2 players, including those sans expansion. Conclusion Again: I was heavily biased for SR2 going into the WotH expansion. For me, for my playstyles, for what I wanted, the WotH expansion is nearly perfect.

A solid expansion to a solid game. Full of good additions without devaluing the base races/content. An expanded tech tree, two new races with each their own unique mechanic and one new type of FTL. Definitely a pick up if you enjoyed the base game!

You might be asking yourself, "What does this game do differently that makes it worth my while?" Well, in short, it’s not “yet another bad Masters of Orion clone”, It’s not “Civilization IN SPACE!” and it's not Sword of the Stars 2. What this game is, and I really stress this, is unique. While I have had a hard time getting into it (a fault of my own as you can’t simply zone out and play this like any other space 4x), it’s by far the most refreshing take on the genre yet. To go into great depth about why it's unique would make for a very long review but to have a few examples: * You can rebuild ancient wrecks and turn the war around, as if you were playing a space RPG from the perspective of the ragtag empire suddenly getting the heroic lead character’s assistance with the Ancient Relic Warship of Destruction. * And following on with that thought, said warship can then be used to blow up the supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy, obliterating the galactic core. Rival empire spiraling out of control? Not anymore. * You can spend political capital to rename your flagship. This inspires your people. Yes, renaming your flagship to “LongflongActual.” is inspiring. * You can convince the galactic council that a planet inside a rival empire should belong to you, and they will vote and agree on it, even as the rival in question desperately tries to stop it going through. * Someone put a bill into the galactic council encouraging research? The highest voter gets an extra bonus ontop of it. Watch as all the players race to be the most supportive of a bill that already helps them because only one can be at the top. All this, and more, because the core product has modding support and steam workshop integration. These are both great for the longevity of Star Ruler 2, and I'm certain this expansion will be the same. Now, you might be asking, what’s bad about Star Ruler 2? By being unique you will need to learn, and it can be a steep climb at that. You will need to be patient and want to explore something new but the wonderful dev’s behind this game have extensive tooltips and help to smooth that over. Can’t get the help you need or find it not enough? There is even an ingame IRC client you can connect to with no fuss from within game and ask. Get Star Ruler 2, and while it might date this review to say this, get it even with Stellaris on the horizon if you are comparing the two. This is A Good Game right now. A pleasant, solid reimagining of a genre filled with the wrecks and broken remains of so many alternatives. And it really never gets old to turn galactic politics into a wonderful game of “who’s bill do I ruin next?”