Solar Nations 2

TLDR: Cool game but the politics are bogus This is definitely an interesting game. Its like victoria but in a grander scale, and made by a guy trying to push an indecipherable worldview. Despite that, I really enjoy it and the guy is talented. I recommend but my honest opinion is that it needs an ideology revamp. Its hard to make a nuanced political ideology because anything left of wet-towel liberalism is equated with dystopia. Its also pretty easy to tell where the developer stands politically because right-wing civics are insanely overpowered, and leftist civics are misrepresented and less viable in general. I mean the guy is sourcing heritage foundation for his worldbuilding info, so it tracks. That being said, there is a whole reddit thread about this full of equally odd worldviews and people upset about this. Frankly despite all of it I like that its a little edgy. It's refreshing in an age where most projects shy away from taboo political concepts. Its one guy, his project, and his own game to do whatever he wants. But really, the way it is now is unrealistic and arbitrary. The interest groups feel weird too. I could write an essay about how odd it is but who wants to read that? Bottom line is it needs a revamp- I don't really expect we'll get one, but it needs one. If you can get over the quirky and unrealistic ideology system, the economy is actually pretty fun and in depth. The warfare and unit design is fun too. The game has potential, and fills an otherwise untapped niche for a near future grand strategy game somewhere in-between stellaris, hoi4, and victoria.

It's a good concept, but the dev has to ruin it with their extreme political views. Their extreme political views ruin the balance of the game by giving debuffs to ideologies and cultures he doesn't like, while giving huge buffs to Traditionalism, Libertarianism, and Christianity (how does Christianity get a 20% research buff?). There are also in your face references to the great-replacement theory and other far-right lunacy. If there a culture that isn't white and Christian you can bet it is misrepresented in this game. I play a lot of Paradox-Interactive games that are 1000 times better and more politically neutral. If you are looking to spend your money by one their games instead.

Its a fun game that needs a lot of work, but my issues stem from the politics of the dev. The game is riddled with strange nods to white supremacist world views and ethnonationalism by the hand of the dev in a real way, not in the Paradox game "fake" way that people are supremacist in a game like Stellaris. I do like how there are hundreds of different types of human based on ethnicity and the like, which many games tend to handwave, but its done in a very strange way and the dev is very hostile to pretty much everyone. Its a shame because I really like the scale of the game but the dev completely ruins the experience for me.

Let me start by saying this game has the bones of a really good game. It does, honestly. HOWEVER, there’s some serious issues with it and I can’t recommend it in it’s current state. I played the demo mostly, and decided to try the full version quickly to see if the issues were fixed there since sometimes demos are outdated. The 2025 start date is really just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ completely. I played exclusively in Europe, so can’t really speak how the rest of the world is. Sweden has no industries except for a seaport, neither does Norway. Finland has some other industries but no farming at all. However, Finland is in NATO but not EU, lmao. As Finland I was able to diplomatically annex Sweden by literally just improving relations and then asking nicely. Then, I was able to just grab vast tracts of land from the moon by just colonizing it without a spaceport. Funny, but is not engaging for very long. The policies are also not accurate to the real world. European nations have no welfare policies and low government spending, when one would think that it should be at least medium with higher taxes. Finland somehow has a very powerful aristocratic lobby. Then there’s the politics… It’s hard to even put my thoughts to words. North Germans and French are Marxist, what? Honestly the cultural traits seem to be a mix of lazy stereotypes or just nonsensical. In my opinion, the game would be served better by just cutting them out altogether or greatly simplifying them. It’s at least clear that the developer does fundamentally not seem to understand Europe at least. Reading it combined with the start screen starting with the US is all I need to know that the developer is very, very American. I’m sorry but with the hours of sleep I got last night that’s the only way I know how to put this. To get back to the gameplay, I think stability is overused as a resource everywhere. Why founding colonies costs stability is puzzling, for example. Now to get to what I like about this game: The feeling of taking the country you actually live in and trying to get a space program going and colonizing in space. That fantasy of “[self.homeCountry] CAN into space!” is real fun, especially if you live in a tiny country like Finland with 5 million people. The graphics are just at the right level for this game. The gameplay just needs a ton of polish, and some of the political stuff needs rewriting/cutting and we’re off to the races. I mean seriously, the effort required to do cultural traits that will neither cause people to get mad or be so immersion-breakingly funny and absurd is probably just not worth it for this game, since there’s only one dev. I think the devtime would be just better spent on polishing and tightening the main gameplay loop to make things fun. I also hope that the dev puts their focus on the 2025 scenario, as I imagine many people just like me are more interested in playing in our current time and see how our home countries could stake their spot in space, and not some fantastical future scenario. I wish the developer of this game all the best, I’ll keep an eye on this game. You have all the cards to make this into a great game, just don’t toss them into the shredder. :)

game is super unpolished, which might be fixed with time. game mechanics are all separated, and mostly unfun to interact with which i doubt can be fixed with time game is easy and tedious. scale is cool, map painting is alright, but every other element i do not like at all. game's representation of how politics works is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane (although less so than launch) and the community is full of chuds, which the developer has expressed he will not fix with time (at least not fully, again some improvements have been made). Because I have read other reviews I want to clarify that my politics did not get in the way of my enjoyment of the game. I did not enjoy this game because of the gameplay and game design. The weird politics just make it hard to want to mod this game and make the community unbearably toxic. The mismanagement of the community has made it hard to root for this game, but I still hope it makes a turn and I can come back and recommend it. no thanks!

In the 2025 starting scenario, Mexico does not control ANY territorry but their Capital wich is obviously unrealistic, as nearly every major city and about half of all states are under government control. The developer decided to create a "Yucatan Cartel" wich does not exist in real life just for the purpose of denigrating the country. Also, this should be obvious, but cartels dont act as souvereign states, they don´t collect taxes and don´t have flags, they are merely criminal orginasitions. This is extremely disrespectful toward Mexico.

I know it's early access, but there are too much problems and issues with this game to recommend it. The UI is boring, most nations feel the same to play as, diplomacy has no depth, odd political biases that impact the gameplay negatively (like conservative nations almost always being stronger than more liberal ones, multiple liberal country's descriptions insult the country directly, and the gay Mars country that "converts straight people"?) I think this game has great potential, but needs more depth and less of the dev's own biases and beliefs affecting the gameplay. 4/10, it's a good start but needs more work.

Reviewing this game is confusing to me. It's a lot of fun, has a lot of good concepts, and is clearly a passion project. It occupies a niche in Grand Strategy Games that is very unique and interesting, that of early Sci-Fi and the initial expansion of Humanity into the stars. It's quite fun, and I respect the effort taken to make essentially a full paradox game with all of the mechanics and bells and whistles of every installment, even if it's rough around the edges a bit. AI needs work, the game does feel too easy at times, but in the end, these are things that I can definitely forgive. It's a passion project, it's a solo dev. I get it, I respect it, especially when the asking price is only $10. I have enjoyed my time with it, especially uniting Mars into a Single nation and colonizing the moons. There are a good amount of reasons for me to recommend this game, but I simply can't in good faith. I can excuse a large amount of quirks and hiccups, a lot of roughness, I play lots of Indie games and EA games, so I'm no stranger to jank. What I can't excuse is leaking your personal worldview into the foundation of the game. In making a game based on geopolitics, you are always treading risky waters, and I understand that. There can be no way to model such systems without intentionally or unintentionally creating biases. However, The political views of this developer, leaning on the Right-Wing Conspiracist side, are baked into the game, from the Government Types and Ideologies to the Cultural Systems and the territorial integrity of the Nations themselves, as well as entire Nations ("Materialist" Leftist EU using Davos to flood the country with Migrants). For Example, Mexico in both start dates is balkanized, with Cartels (Including a fictitious "Yucatan" Cartel) ruling the entire country except for Mexico City. Many, Many countries have government systems that are entirely different than what they have in real life (I saw many monarchies in Africa). Granted, the Developer has been making improvements, removing some of these more ideologically-motivated concepts such as the Radical LGBT colony on mars trying to make everyone gay, but at the same time, it still permeates the Political systems of the Game, and a lot of the flavor. The problem this creates in my case isn't my disagreement with the worldview, I can get over that. I just think that it stunts and limits the potential of the game (and rips out a lot of Immersion) when the world is portrayed with such a Narrow and narrativized view of the world. I'm not asking for a PHD in Geopolitics, I'm just asking for an attempt at impartiality. And there has been effort made, even if it could be argued it's not enough. I will remain cautiously optimistic that the Developer cares more about the continued success of the game than getting his views across, and I will continue to play the game, but I cannot recommend it to others until this critical flaw is addressed.