Dotted throughout the universe are wormholes, which function as shortcuts from one area of space to another, but you won’t know exactly where it will lead you until you enter it, meaning you could end up discovering a valuable anomaly at the other end, or you could exit right in the middle of a hostile civilization, and provide them with a backdoor to your homeworld. This screen proves incredibly useful for coordinating the efforts of your entire empire, and becomes increasingly important as your empire grows.Īside from managing your empire, StarDrive 2 also gives you the chance to navigate the galaxy, in true explorer fashion. Above all of this you can also view the Empire Management screen, which presents a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of a planet, as well as what each planet is currently building or working on. Clicking on a particular planet allows you to manage an individual colony, from their build queue, to labour allocations and military forces. This screen provides information on the fertility of a planet and it’s climate, and allows you to more closely manage your fleets. Zooming in allows you to focus on a particular system, with a number of planets orbiting a central star. The basic view consists of a galaxy map, much like that found in the Mass Effect series, and from here you can see the extent of your galactic empire, with your borders represented by a blob of your faction’s identifying colour. Most of your time within the game will be spent flicking between three or four main screens, and thankfully the navigation in StarDrive 2 is both smooth and speedy. Within a number of turns my entire system had collapsed, and I quickly learned the importance of not over-stretching my resources. In a similar fashion, the removal of one of these pieces can cause the whole thing to come tumbling down, as I found when I lost a farming planet in a particularly far-flung system in one game, leaving my research and production colonies to starve. StarDrive 2 does a great job of giving the feeling of building a true empire, with individual elements coming together to form a cohesive whole. For planets that are unable to support themselves in terms of food production, you can establish trade routes, which allow fertile planets to support more barren colonies, where research is completed or where your starships are built. Planets vary in size and climate, which in turn affects how much of a population they can support, and whether or not they’re better suited to farming, production or research. Ultimately, the goal of StarDrive 2 is to establish a galactic empire, through whatever means necessary. There’s a genuine sense that the player is allowed to choose the type of game that they want to play, whether they merely want to explore a galaxy, engage in diplomatic relations with other species, or merely have an all-out war against alien races. You can also increase or lower, or even remove entirely, the presence of space pirates, who will randomly attack your fleets, convoys or colonies.
For example, if you want to start the game with extra wealth, or with above-average mechanics, you may have to leverage your abilities, by also choosing to be slow breeders, or poor farmers.Īs well as figuring out the setup of your chosen faction, you’re also given the choice to customize the game-world too, from the number of systems and the distance between said systems, to the occurrence of fertile or mineral-rich planets. What’s more, if you’re unhappy with the build of a particular race, you can customize it, but weighing up negative traits against positive ones.
There are bears, bugs and wolves, as a quick sample, and these have various underlying factors, from being reliant on the slave trade, to being exceptional farmers. Of course, there’s the human element, who are a typical middle of the range option with slightly higher than average aggressiveness, but the other eight options offer a fair deal of variety, in both appearance and characteristics.
StarDrive 2 perhaps comes closer to Total War than Civilization, though, as it contains real-time battles, but instead of horsemen and knights, players use a variety of starships and space-faring vessels.īefore you start a game in StarDrive 2, you are given the choice of nine different races to play from.
Stardrive 2 planet management series#
In the same way that the Civilization and Total War series give players the chance to establish and manage an empire in Earth-based environments, StarDrive 2 presents the opportunity to extend an empire to the stars, colonizing planets, meeting new species, and waging war to establish dominance of the universe.
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