For my 20th birthday yesterday, I got a game I've been looking forward to a while. It's called Stardrive 2, and it's a kind of neat game.

On the surface it's a very pretty and charming remake of the old 4x space game Master of Orion 2, but once you dig deeper, you find that it's actually a very pretty and buggy remake that's full of wasted potential. But we're going to play it anyway since I like it.

And yes, I do mean "we" - if any community is used to being invested in interesting games with lots of wasted potential and bugs, it's this one. So, join me on this questionable adventure.

Let the games begin! Or this game, more specifically.



Are you ready? I'm not. Let's go anyway.





This is the first screen that comes up when we start a new campaign. We have to select the race we want to conquer the galaxy. A tough decision, I know, but I think we can do it.

Here's some info on all nine races in order, so you can make your decision,

Cordrazine Collective
Those little guys are called Owlwoks. Aren't they precious?

United Federation
That guy's name is Admiral Pipesmoke. It goes without saying, this race is the ugliest.

Pollop Symbiosis
Have you ever seen a Pollop ride a lawnmower to collect food? It's a little upsetting.

Chukk Affiliation
That's Xalador Xahn. Nobody cares about him. He might look threatening, but that's just how Chukk look when they cry.

Kulrathi Shogunate
I love these guys. Bears in space, people. Bears in space. Space bears. Space marine bears. I love it. Oh, and that bear's name is Jardir.

Ralyeh Theocracy
They're the emo scene kids of the group. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Draylok Council
They might look hot, but they're hiding behind quite a lot of makeup.

Opteris Hive
Pictured: An Opteris drone playing with simulations of paper airplanes. The Opteris really like paper airplanes.

Vulfar Imperium
Worse versions of the space bears.

Vote here!

Space bears a go go.

Space bears it is! But now we have another question, and one without a formal poll.



Do we want to customize our bears, and give them unique traits? Or are they good as-is?

Alright losers, since you don't know what you want, here's the customize screen.



The name of a pick is on the left, with the cost to the right of it. Negative cost means we gain points for choosing it.

Here's the poll, with some information on each option.

Ugh. Stardrive.

A good game ruined by a terrible developer who ran out on the first game and weaselled his way out of the promises he made to the people who bought the game. I bought Stardrive 1 for the multiplayer that was promised inside both the Kickstarter and on the game's website, only for the dev to remove the references to both and never add it to the game.

♥♥♥♥ Stardrive with a ten foot pole, and ♥♥♥♥ its developer with the gamma ray burst of two neutron stars colliding.

Choose Corrupt and Lazy Workers, so that this civilization is the same as the game's developer.

Yeah I love the game and the ship customization but the developer is really bad. Sort of like with Cortex Command, to be honest.

Luckily I dodged a bullet by not getting Stardrive 1, and instead getting Stardrive 2. The first one isn't even really playable. I'm so sorry you got ♥♥♥♥, man.

Good news is that the dev, Zero, doesn't want to make another 4x game. He instead wants to try and make a game centered around the ground combat system, which means there won't be a Stardrive 3. So hopefully that means he'll actually work on Stardrive 2 patches more in the future. Maybe. Shouldn't count on it. But it's still enjoyable.
(I only decided to pursue Stardrive 2 after watching a playthrough and investigating a lot about it. It's a problematic fave.)

If you want a similar space 4x game with lots of ship customization, a Galactic Civilization game is a safe choice. Wouldn't recommend buying Stardrive 2 to anyone unless they knew what they were getting into.

I got in on Stardrive 1 long before there was any information about a Stardrive 2, sadly. It was the first time I let myself get carried away and preorder a game, and the last time I've ever allowed myself to get excited for a game's release. To make it worse, Steam wouldn't give me a refund since that wasn't their policy, then, so I got ripped off for a game that isn't even finished, yet alone work properly. The dev is easily worse than Data, since at least Data didn't scrap his game halfway through to switch to a turn based model and give everyone who bought the first game a ♥♥♥♥ coupon as consolation for the fact the game they bought would never be finished.

I honestly suggest to not believe a word Zero says, he promised a ton of stuff to the players of Stardrive 1, saying that the game would be finished and that the missing shiptypes (the Titans!) would actually be added...but they never were. I'm generally a positive and friendly person at all times, but if I did a review for Stardrive 1 or 2, I'd tear him a new one in it.

Anyway :p I'd recommend getting a refund an agricultural build, because they were unbalanced as ♥♥♥♥ a good way to get an extremely high population as quickly as possible, which directly translates into shipbuilding potential.

As for other 4x games, I'm a huge fan of this genre, but over the years it has gone into the gutter : Sword of the Stars II was even more broken than this game, though the dev's owned up to their problems and fixed it, so I have huge respect for those guys now (even if Paradox probably forced them to do so), Legends of Pegasus...jesus christ, I don't even know where to start about that game, but boy am I'm glad I pirated it before buying it, having learnt a lesson from Stardrive.

Man, even MoO3 wasn't this bad, and I've got that game on CD and it feels even more unbalanced than Stardrive, since I could spam indirect fire ships as the Meklar and just win every battle...and Space Empires V was brilliant but with a woeful UI that really, really hasn't aged well.

The 4x genre is pretty much cursed.

Alright! The results are in.



Here are the resulting picks, using data generated by the poll. (click spoiler to see interpreted response data)


Here are the descriptions of the chosen options:


Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Find some way to get rid of that pollution modifier - there's no point in having such high production bonuses if we're going to lose a quarter of our output to pollution.

Indeed, and I was going to leave it that way for giggles, but since you pointed it out, I think we can go ahead and replace it with -ship hp and -ground hp. Here we go!

Split the fleet and send the colony ship to the coreward blue system, then send the scout to the rimward red one. Start construction of a second scout ship so that we might explore a little quicker, and start research on an improved research philosophy.

I actually prefer the way the research system was in Stardrive 1 over 2, as this one reminds me of MoO2 and a little of BOTF...and I don't mean that in a good way. From my experience, the Psilons always came to dominate MoO2 because of their research benefits.

Additionally, we can rename our homeworld! First one to reply gets to decide the name.

Neo Bearistan.