GUI definitely takes some getting used to, but in terms of "polish" the gameplay is definitely nice, combat is hands-off, and can get very very epic scale. Very little required micromanagement, planets develop themselves though you can boost certain things if you want. And a very clever planet advance system that promotes fast expansion and makes it very easy to actually DO that. And you have the choice whether you want to push your homeworld to max level or make every planet somewhat equal (though for lvl 1 resource worlds that's impossible)

Got the game gifted because I worked on Star Ruler 1, and have to say it's fairly good. Much better (imo) than Star Ruler 1.

JaguarUSF wrote on Apr 10, 2015, 15:01:
My Star Ruler 2 video review went up earlier this week. Funny that Star Ruler 2 and StarDrive 2 both came out about the same time.

So confusing i clicked on your link thinking it was for StarDrive2... lol

My Star Ruler 2 video review went up earlier this week. Funny that Star Ruler 2 and StarDrive 2 both came out about the same time.

Cool! Thanks Slashman. I might give it a whirl this weekend.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Apr 10, 2015, 12:23:

Slashman wrote on Apr 10, 2015, 11:23:
As much as I'm looking forward to playing Stardrive 2, I feel I have to plug Star Ruler 2 here.

I highly recommend anyone interested in 4x games to check out Star Ruler 2. Those guys deserve some publicity and support.

From what I have seen of Star Ruler 2, the interface seems very...busy. Can you confirm?

I haven't found it to be so. It is very intuitively laid out.

The interface uses a tabbed system like a web browser. You can switch between galaxy, diplomacy, designs (ship), research and open additional tabs. If you double click on a planet, that opens in a new tab. There is a limit to how many tabs can be open at once though so it will close the least used ones as you go. You can click the button on the right side of the rightmost tab to open a new window with a choice of additional tabs to open as well...exactly like a web browser.

The galaxy interface is pretty clean. There are alert along the top right side which descend in a column. Each set of alerts can be minimized or turned off altogether by clicking the small '...' button on the bottom. There are about 19 toggle-able categories in all.

Screenshot


Note in the screenshot that I have the menu open for selecting which alerts are visible. You can see some alerts are open and some are minimized. Most alerts which have no events don't appear even if toggled on.

Slashman wrote on Apr 10, 2015, 11:23:
As much as I'm looking forward to playing Stardrive 2, I feel I have to plug Star Ruler 2 here.

I highly recommend anyone interested in 4x games to check out Star Ruler 2. Those guys deserve some publicity and support.

From what I have seen of Star Ruler 2, the interface seems very...busy. Can you confirm?

As much as I'm looking forward to playing Stardrive 2, I feel I have to plug Star Ruler 2 here.

Star Ruler 2 is one of the best RTS 4x games I have played. It's currently way higher on my list than Sins of a Solar Empire.

It has great empire management, a great ship design system and one of the best diplomacy systems I have seen in a 4x. the UI and interface is also one of the best I have seen to date.

I highly recommend anyone interested in 4x games to check out Star Ruler 2. Those guys deserve some publicity and support.

Tried the first one and it was good. Waiting for that review...

I'll look for your review when its up Jaguar.

I've been playing it this week for a video review that will be going up on my channel early next week.
It's not bad, has some good ideas such as limiting diplomatic actions, automated freighters that carry food or trade items to other planets, nice custom ship design, ship fuel usage to limit surprise attacks, distributing colony labor between food, production, and science, and a research tree that only allows you to pick one topic per level (the rest must be traded for). Real-time battles are poor and there are too many hostile units to deal with, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Oh nice!

I enjoyed the first one. Looking forward to playing this.

Although it will have to wait until I am done with Pillars of Eternity.

Yeesh, you have to manage the empire, manage the battles, and manage ship boardings. There seems like a lot to do in this game. Might get a bit tedious. Anyone play this yet?

No MP

Did they get multiplayer into this yet?