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Apr 10, 2015 Star Ruler 2. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews Star Ruler 2 Star Ruler 2 Discussion Topic Details. Dancing Sun (DSC) Apr 10, 2015 @ 9:47pm trade, ore, and budget just wondering how to get the trade income up that shows up in. We have no player reviews for Star Ruler 2 yet. If you've played it, write a review and tell us what you think! Games You May Like. Amoeba Battle - Microscopic RTS Action First Released Mar 3, 2020.
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If you have any questions about the rules or need clarification please do not hesitate to message the moderators and ask!What's the game in the banner?. Created by, it's a collage of some of the 4X genre's greatest games: Endless Legend, Civilization, Endless Space and Galactic Civilizations. I can recommend not pre-ordering over pre-ordering.I bought into the original star ruler very early and didn't like it. The sequel looks better. But 10% off is hardly a deal and it's not finished yet.Galciv 2 was phenomenal. After many patches and expansion packs.
The base game wasn't that fun for me. I think elemental is still the last 'big' game they tried to make. And that was utter crap. Even after three iterations it's still a mediocre fantasy 4x.
I honestly don't see galciv 3 coming out any less half-baked at release.tl;dr just don't buy it yet. After they come out and people love it, then buy it. After they come out and people love it, then buy it.Completely agree, and I'll add to that:Wait a month or so after it comes out, possibly more, and specifically look for some people with honest reviews showcasing the good and bad, with some specific and detailed criticisms and praises.People naturally get excited about the good parts of a gaming experience while they're playing it.
It's only as time goes on that those same people may stop playing and have more of the negative experiences to discuss.It's easy as a reader who wants to get a game to get swept up when someone says 'best 4X of the year' (paraphrase of the top-comment from Endless Legend post in this sub). We do each other a disservice by not trying to describe our full experience of a game rather than our opinion of it. I bought Star Ruler 2 and I do play it every week or so. The game is rapidly changing as new patches as released. The devs are very active in developing it as well as responsive on the Steam forums.In my opinion, Star Ruler 2 has a strong foundation. It is very well playable right now.
It is an RTS sort of game. Its all in real time, but its a very slow real time. When I say 'real time' I mean it plays more like EU or Hearts of Iron rather than Starcraft. This is not a game that requires fast reflexes whatsoever. Its all about the grand strategy.That said, Star Ruler 2 is still very much unfinished.
While core functions are there, the game has little in the way of balance. Systems and mechanics have not yet been balanced. The AI is also in dire need of work.
The AI and balance are improving, but it is early access. Don't expect a finished product.Its not a bad game, don't get me wrong. It looks like it is shaping up to be a good game, but you have to keep in mind it is an unfinished game.If you buy it now I think you'll enjoy it despite the rough edges and so long as you don't go in expecting a finished, fully balanced and polished product.I have not played GalCiv3 so I can't offer any feedback on that one.
Hahah, that's actually me in that old thread.I did end up buying Star Ruler 2 and it's definitely a fun, large-scale game with some very cool ideas, most of which have been implemented well.But I must confess I haven't played it a ton and haven't been keeping up on what they've updated and whatnot since I bought it. Just flipping through their patch notes now and I'll have to fit some time in to try out some of the new stuff though.For what it's worth I do plan on buying Gal Civ III once it gets good enough to do so. Star Ruler 2 looks really cool so I bought it, but I can't play it on my laptop. It exceeds the the recommended system specs and it can handle games like Sins of a a Solar Empire and Age of Wonders just fine, but the text and graphics in this are all bloated and blocky, I can't read or see anything, so I can't even get past the menu screen. Doesn't seem like other people are having this problem, but at least for me the game is unplayable. Wish I could recommend it but I can't even play it so I'm pretty bummed. Does your laptop have an integrated GPU (particularly an intel chipset) for its graphics hardware?I ask because, as stated on the minimum hardware requirements, the game currently only officially supports chipsets/cards from AMD or nVidia.
If you're on an intel integrated GPU your main menu due to the (unfortunately common in Intel chipsets) incomplete/irregular implementation of OpenGL draw/shader functions in its graphics driver.In any case, updating your drivers will probably solve the issue - unless you're on an intel GPU in which case it's a roll of the dice. Some folks have had success in getting their intel chipsets to run the game after playing around with driver versions but we can't guarantee success.Sorry for your troubles - lemme know if you can get it up and running. So I never got Star Ruler 2 working on my laptop, but I wanted to play it badly enough that I decided to drive out to my storage unit, dig out my gaming PC, clear some space in my apartment and set it up.I am glad I did. This is an awesome game, and as far as I can tell, exactly what I was lookng for: a real time 4x space game that finds a nice medium ground between Sins of a Solar Empire (fun but a bit too simplistic for my tastes) and Distance Worlds (fun but arguably too vast and complex. It reminds me a lot of Imperium Galactica 2, my first and still favorite game of this genre. I only played about 6 hours but I had a lot of fun.First of all, the graphics are pretty great, the fleet battles look really impressive and the FTL effects blew me away (sometimes I stop what I'm doing just to watch ships jump between systems).
Fleets are controlled by a 'flagship' that you can attach support ships to, although I haven't yet figured out how to add extra 'large' ships to the fleet so for now it's just one big ship and a host of support ships. One thing I didn't like was that it seemed like all of the ships only served to increase the health and firepower of your fleet, as opposed to having different ships that served different purposes (like Sins of a Solar Empire for example). Also I couldn't seem to build up my economy enough to maintain fleets big enough to defend my empire. I'm sure some of this stuff I'll figure out as I play more (there IS a ship design feature that I haven't quite figured out yet).The resource management / planetary development system is really cool and makes for a logical system of empire building. I wish it had a little more to it though, because after a while it felt like all I was doing was searching for certain icons and creating long chains of them - basically 'connect the dots' when you boil it down.
One unique thing about your economy is that you have a budget that works in cycles as opposed to a grand sum of money - but unfortunately your budget surplus doesn't pool into a reserve bank of any kind and I'm not quite sure where that surplus goes when the budget resets. Hopefully they change that during release.Diplomacy is another really unique feature: it is based on 'cards' that you can buy off of a bidding system, each card has an effect or action tied to it (like initiating a senate vote to annex a planet, add voted in favor or opposition to a proposal, spying, etc.) That's really cool and I imagine it will encourage me to use diplomacy more than in most 4x games. Spying could have some more options available other than just 'seeing' another empire's activities, but that's a small thing.Overall it makes for a really fun game. There were some things that were not so good (some of which I alluded to already) but it was hard to tell if it was because I just hadnt really figured it out yet or if it just wasn't in the game (still in early access / beta). So I am looking forward to playing it in it's finished state, but regardless of when that is, I highly recommend it. This is an awesome game, and as far as I can tell, exactly what I was lookng forAwesome.
We're glad you're enjoying yourself.I'm not quite sure where that surplus goes when the budget resets.As explained in the tutorial, excess money is placed into your Welfare option (defaults to Influence production).Some of that is because we're still in Early Access, yeah. We're almost done rolling out our big feature changes (traits, for instance, are about to be ) and we're mainly just adding content and fixing bugs at this time. Oh I didn't realize you were on the dev team. I guess I don't need to sell you on it then!Well let me just say thanks for offering help on my laptop issue and great work on the game!
I tried to get into the ship design aspect a little bit last night and now I'm really excited to get into the meat of it and integrate that with the rest of the gameplay. Seems like it will be really fun and interesting.One thing I thought would be pretty cool is, when you are in the design blueprint for a ship, if there were a several ship models to choose from (not the blueprint generator but what they actually look like when they are produced) instead of picking one 'family' of models when you choose/customize your face before a game.Also, I can't be the only person to ask for a human race to play as, can I?.
You know, I think it does actually (integrated GPU is when the video card is a soldered part of the circuit board right?). I don't have it with me right now, but I think it's an Intel Dual Core 2 something.I don't know a ton about computers, so I didn't think that the brand of the video card would make much of a difference, I just checked to make sure the specs were right.
My laptop is a 64-bit system and has 4GB RAM and the processor operates at 2.6GHz I think.something that was pretty good in like 2008.I've made sure the drivers are all up to date, but that didn't help. When I open it up, it's not nearly as bad as the picture you linked. I can see what looks like it should be the games actual menu screen, with a dark blue background and white text menu options on the left side of the screen. I can see them enlarge slightly when I move my cursor over them.
Each one takes me to a different set of menu options, each one with what I have determined to be a 'back/main menu' button. I've even clicked a series of buttons which have led me to a 'new game', I can see the grid layout and circles for planets/stars, but everything else including the text is blocky and indiscernible, like the menu. So I can tell that I'm 'in game' but it's like all the individual units and letters have zero resolution.Another weird thing is that I've tried to take a screen shot of it, but when I look at the image it just my usual desktop background, like it's not registering that there is a program opened.I've read that turning off anti-aliasing might help but I don't know how to do that from the computer's control panel and the in-game graphics options are, as with everything else, unreadable. I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do, hopefully it will be fixed by the time it's in the 'finished' state because this game looks right up my alley.
Developed and published by.The Good: Potentially huge randomized galaxies, competent planetary building automation, detailed combat, multiplayer, modding supportThe Not So Good: Incomplete interface makes managing your empire difficult, superficial strategy, tedious exploration and ship management, mandatory automation of various tasks but the inability to efficiently automate others, confusing research treesWhat say you? An ambitious but currently rough 4X strategy game: 4/8NOTE: 8/28/10.
Recent patches have turned some of my complaints into outright lies. Lies, I tell you!
Techs in the research tree are now better organized, related to things only one space away. Freeform spaceship design has automated upgrades. Scouted systems are now indicated. Zooming problems have been resolved.
Future development would continue to improve the product as well; raise your expectations accordingly.NOTE: 10/4/10. Star Ruler continues to improve,. I'll keep the review as it originally was (as I do with all other games), but keep in mind that changes have solved some/most of my initial complaints.MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTIONIf, it must be true: we humans are destined to colonize the galaxy. There have been many 4X strategy games set in space, from more recent triumphs like to older titles like,. Add another new entry into the genre as Star Ruler attempts to bring its own flavor of large galaxy automation to the table, eerily similar in approach to the aforementioned. Does Star Ruler rule the stars, or simply become explored, expanded, exploited, and exterminated?GRAPHICS AND SOUNDThe graphics of Star Ruler are simply functional.
The planets look nice, with animated cloud cover that make them slightly more interesting than simple spheres. It goes downhill from there, however, as the ships use dark textures and generic designs with simple shapes that are uninspired. While more realistic, the stark black background is devoid of colorful nebulae that populate most games of the genre. The game needs some audio notifications for in-game events (like building ships or finishing research) and more interesting effects overall.
At least the music is OK. Overall, Star Ruler looks and sounds like an indie game.ET AL.Star Ruler lets you carve out an empire amongst the stars. The game allows you to customize your galaxy, specifying as many star systems as your computer hardware will allow. The game scales well from a small galaxy with one system per race all the way up to an expansive space of space.
You can also make the galaxy map more two-dimensional or use a randomized technology tree. Still, the options here are less comprehensive than what we’ve seen in other titles: there are no settings for victory conditions and you are limited to only ten AI opponents, so extremely large galaxies would be quite boring to play in reality. The tutorial does a decent, though dry, job teaching the basics of the game, although you the game doesn’t advance the tutorial automatically or check to see if you’ve actually done what it had instructed.
Star Ruler has multiplayer: a browser can search for dedicated servers, and online games can be saved and then played in a single-player format. The game has nice support for mods, extending the life of the game as a whole.The worst part of Star Ruler by a large margin is the interface. It tries to incorporate some features of recent 4X games, like an empire tree, but fails miserably.
First off, there is no minimap; while you can zoom out fully, no useful information is available from this display (large icons for planets or ships are all identical), allowing you to easily get disoriented in the galaxy. There is no list of all your systems to cycle through, and the planet list only cycles through planets in the current system.
The pinned objects list (empire tree) is limited, requiring you to manually pin objects to the list for easy access. This should be done automatically. In addition, the game only displays five of your pinned objects when you reload a saved game. Finding things must be done through the object list, buried in your empire information window; though it is comprehensive, it doesn’t list fleets you have created (so why have them?).
The system ships list is always disabled (so why have it?). Box-selecting will preferentially select ships (good), but doesn’t say what the ships are (bad), just how many are selected. There are some orders (like explore) that aren’t listed anywhere in the game, either as an icon you can click on or from the right-click menu; you must issue them using keyboard hotkeys. The system-wide building queues, a great idea meant to decrease tedium, simply don’t work (or I haven’t figured out how to use them properly), never overriding AI build orders. Camera controls are problematic: the camera sometimes doesn’t rotate, you can’t zoom until you rotate the camera, the camera occasionally rotates around your current position instead of the selected object, and selecting an object always moves the camera to that object, which is extremely unhelpful when you want to send ships to another system. The right-click build menu is a nice idea that works most of the time, but overall the interface of Star Ruler needs a significant amount of work to make the game playable.Step one in any 4X game is to explore, and Star Ruler tries to make this process as painful as possible. There is an auto-explore command (using only “X”, as there is no other way to issue it), but it must be given each time a new system is scouted: annoying.
Also, there is no “fog” or other indication of where you have scouted, and a system’s planets are only displayed if there is a unit present: annoying for colonization. The game also does not indicate how far away other systems are; you just have to base it off of visuals, which can be difficult in a 3-D space game. Once you have found other planets, it’s time to colonize them.
Apparently any planet can be colonized regardless of type, which is odd considering that pretty much every other 4X game has some restrictions imposed in this area. Each planet has a size, which dictates how many structures can be built on them and how much ore they are likely to hold. Ore is mined into metal, which is manufactured into electronics, which are used for advanced parts. This simple resource chain is completely automated by your workers, and excess goods can be stored for future use. There is a variety of structures you can build on any of your planets: farms, cities, factories, research labs, storage facilities, and defensive structures. New colonies can be issued an AI governor, who will automate all of the structures, a nice feature for expansive empires that works well: the AI is pretty smart in deciding which structures are appropriate to maximize planet output. You can also mandate civil acts (like a shorter work day), which provide both positive (higher happiness) and negative (but lower work output) effects.What would a galactic empire be without ships, and Star Ruler has a number of styles to choose from, from small scouts and fighters to large tankers, dreadnaughts, and colony ships.
Construction of these ships can be instantaneous if all the resources are present, a change of pace from arbitrary construction times seen in most strategy games. Each of these default designs can be upgraded through research or new designs can be built. Star Ruler allows you to specify engines, shields, power, storage, control, sensors, and weapons systems from beams to projectiles.
The interface clearly displays if a mandatory part is missing. However, ship design and upgrades cannot be automated. Ships can be grouped into fleets, which, in theory, would make it slightly easier to manage your military, but fleets are not listed in the object display and units in the same fleet do not stay together in formation when moving to a new waypoint. Why have the option if it’s not used properly? Optional automation in this part of the game would be nice: colony ships will colonize planets in their system (but not in other systems, even if they have been explored), but scouts won’t fully explore on their own. It’s this constant feeling of incompletion that makes Star Ruler fall far short of potential expectations.Star Ruler features a randomized research tree that is very confusing.
All of the techs are displayed in a square arrangement with some of them initially locked. There is no clear indication of how to unlock the locked technologies, no “branches” on the tree that relate techs together. Instead, you have to use the “guess” and “hunch” options (which take an extraordinary amount of time to research, making their usefulness even more questionable) on each individual technology to maybe, hopefully unlock a new item. It’s a really weird system that honestly makes no sense whatsoever. You can continually upgrade the same technology, which offers benefits the game fails to explain. You can control-click to queue up a menu of spicy new technology (not double-click, which would have made more sense) and you can stop one tech and start a new one at any time while preserving the progress made.You can negotiate with any of your opponents, even before you come into contact with them (kind of weird). Options are typical: peace treaties, declarations of war, trade pacts, and research swapping.
The AI loves to swap resources for research, so be prepared to be bombarded with these requests. The AI is very aggressive, declaring war on you without significant notification (there’s a text message that quickly scrolls by) or provocation or before they’ve actually found you or scouted you.
The AI seems to be quite efficient at handling the game, providing a good opponent for offline play. The game’s combat is well done, offering directional damage and individual components that can become disabled, hindering the performance of the craft.The strategy of Star Ruler is quite limited: since you can colonize everywhere and most planets have sufficient size to build enough structures to satisfy the population, there’s no strategy beyond simply colonizing everywhere. Whoever does so the fastest wins, as they will have the resources to out-produce, out-fight, and out-research the enemy. The resources are plentiful and gathered at a quick enough rate that a colony can expand quite quickly. The AI can (and should, especially if you have hundreds of colonies) build all of the structures automatically, so your role in the game revolves around wrangling up the troops and invading enemy worlds.
Strategy games should be about choice, and in Star Ruler there is no choice: go everywhere, my son. The interface and other shortcomings in Star Ruler really inhibit the fun, and the game really doesn’t offer anything significantly new to the genre. There are simply too many similarities to games like to recommend Star Ruler: you can get a much more polished experience elsewhere.IN CLOSINGStar Ruler’s most notable features (large galaxies, randomized research, automation, ship design) are completely offset by a handicapped interface that makes running your expansive empire tedious.
There are several problems here: no minimap, an odd (or absent) organization of information, hidden orders for ships, and camera control oddities. Exploring other planets is tedious since you have to issue an auto-explore order for every new system and the game doesn’t indicate scouted territory. The distances between star systems are secretive, leading to less efficient expansion.
Automation is inconsistent: colony ships will auto-colonize without your consent but scouts will remain stationary once a new system is reached. Ship design is comprehensive but offers nothing innovative and cannot be automated. The research tree layout is highly confusing, unlocking new techs is not explained well, and the benefits of higher levels of knowledge are not concrete. Diplomatic options are basic but the AI seems to be a competent foe.
As advertised, you can have massive galaxies but it’s hard to manage all of your assets yourself due to the inefficient interface that doesn’t let you see all of your systems easily. The AI can direct planet-level production, but Star Ruler really lacks strategic depth: simply colonize everywhere because you can, and quickly build up your forces. Multiplayer is an interesting feature, as is the support for user modifications. The graphics and sound are budget-level, though.
The bottom line is that Star Ruler offers nothing we’ve never seen before in, and the current shortcomings with the interface and strategy are too much to overcome.
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