Solar Nations 2

I'll start this with downsides, to get the bad out of the way: Early access game is *very* early access when it comes to mechanic polish. Mechanics are janky, AI doesn't know how to scale (good at the war aspect though) or use the tech tree properly. Some things (such as being able to bring the Earth back from mass nuclear contamination) are missing when they could be expected on the scale of the game (somehow I think decontamination of Earth is slightly easier than terraforming venus, but I haven't done research). The tech tree as currently exists is serviceable, but a bit shallow compared to what I would expect. You can tell that the dev primarily focused on the 2092 start date compared to the 2025 one (for example, NATO acts as an offensive and defensive alliance, Russia can diplomatically integrate Ukraine extremely easily, as well as Poland and arguably the Baltics). The diplomatic game is a bit too easy to diplo annex everyone. For example, in a Russia game I played on the 2025 start date, I diplo annexed the entire former USSR, including Ukraine, Iran, half of Africa, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, all of Eastern Europe other than the Baltics, Iceland, Japan, Taiwan, Ireland and the UK. Followed by annexing the rest of the EU by federalizing it, and I could have probably diplo annexed the entirety of NATO that way as well if I had wanted to. Another example of the difference in focus is how casually nukes are gained and tossed around. I can see how 2092 post WW3 it's not that big a deal, but for the 2025 start it does matter. The AI doesn't seem capable of colonizing outside the inner solar system in the 2025 start date, but that's understandable given that the dev doesn't really care for that start date and it's early access. I've played 2 games that went past 2400 and in both the AI failed to ever leave the inner solar system. In one of them, they didn't even manage to finish colonizing the inner solar system. Development gain (a very important stat) is abysmally slow for late game. I had a 2025 start game as Japan where I got to 2450 and it was only at 7.65/19.63 in Tokyo. This makes some late game colonies not really worth it economically in many cases, which while that makes some sense, still feels really off. Some kind of tech or ability to spend stability, money or resources to increase development change late game might work well. Maybe tie it to infrastructure to encourage a player to actually build it up in places that are already built up for non-LARP reasons? Some balance is a bit ♥♥♥♥♥, with certain culture ideas being completely unbalanced. Resource prospecting being both a "one and done" and never improved on is also fairly strange. The idea that you can go to another planet as evolutionarily modified super-humans backed up by cybernetic augmentations and AI but you're just as good at surveying for resources as some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in 2025 with none of those options doesn't really make too much sense to me. Other Solar systems feel a bit underdeveloped, as do some of the outer planetoids and moons. Some way to colonize gas giants and oceans would be nice, but I don't know if that's feasable code base wise as that might start to get into gating colonizing certain terrain types behind technology which I don't know if that's an option. Same with a terraformed Venus or Mars still having the "space plains" terrain type, though I don't know if the game is capable of updating terrain types midgame or not. The fact that there's no option to just view the graphics is also kind of annoying, I went through the trouble of terraforming Mars and Venus, it would be nice to see what that looked like without being shrouded in the haze of either my country color or whatever other view I'm looking at. This is so far down the priority list as to be functionally irellevent though given I don't know how much dev time it would take because code is an arbitrary and capricious thing. Now for the positives: The game is stable. Not "stable for an early access game", stable in general. I haven't experienced a crash yet, and the game only starts to slow down towards the 2300s with massive armies (I think between myself, Giga-Nato and Giga-China+India there were ~100 million troops or so). The frame of the game is extremely solid. The mechanics mesh in ways that make sense and are fun. The fact that if you use too many nukes you can make the planet an irradiated mess isn't new, but the fact that it takes many, many barrages to achieve it is a nice change of pace. Trying to optimize my income against costs, figure out when I should maximize my stability gain to explode in culture traits vs using it to alter my government to gain advantages vs expanding. The political system, while relatively simplistic, allows a lot of freedom to RP and have fun. Want to do Moon Nazis? That's an option. Communists on the red planet? That's an option. Revive the monarchy and transform humanity into the Kingdom of Sol? also an option. Democratic utopia? Still an option. Great potential to produce wacky fun, even if it's a bit too easy to make sweeping changes to a political system without any resulting turmoil. Also anything that the middle class, corporate and rural labourers like is a bit strong given their bonuses (education efficiency, reduced debt impact and increased development equilibrium respectively) comparatively speaking. I have yet to get a formable that made the swiss an accepted culture, not sure if that's a bug or a joke, but the very fact that I'm not sure is something I enjoy. The tech tree, while relatively short can be extended and altered relatively easily. The resource system can similarly be expanded relatively easily. Given that mods are already popping up, it seems like the game is relatively easy to mod. The formables, while relatively limited (I do think there should be a China+India formable, for example), are probably easy to add as well. The ages system has the potential to allow some really game shaking effects every 100 years, and given that it's a replaced modifier I imagine it will also be relatively easy to alter, mod and add to, even if it's relatively barebones right now. Some crisis like Eugenics unleashed turn the nation who gets them essentially into an endgame crisis for everyone, and while it's kinda broken for a human player, you can stop it if you want to. The debt system is also fairly good. Though it currently lacks interest, the fact that it penalizes stability gain and development equilibrium means that if you let it get out of control it gets crippling. The fact that it's scaled by your own income (possibly GDP? I'm not 100% sure) is a nice way of incorperating the modern debt system of countries where having debt isn't really an issue as long as your economy is growing fast enough to outpace it. Overall opinion: Given that the game is 13 CAD and I've managed to get 38.5 hours in so far, and I know I'll be putting more in as I tinker with personal mods, I heartily recommend the game. The fact that it's an early access game means that I'm more forgiving of it than I might be of other games (example: AI issues with colonization range getting, people migrating into a nation that has living standards of non-accepted culture living standards set to "extermination", AI being unable to develop their economy in many cases, the state of infrastructure and resource exploitation in the 2025 start in the developed nations) however as a playable product right now I recommend it. It is a good game, with the majority of its obvious flaws being related to either AI performance (a genre wide problem, and it doesn't stand out in a negative way from the competition on that front) or lack of expansion on solid already existing mechanics. I'm looking forward to seeing how this game develops in the future.

extremely janky and unbalanced

When it comes to grand strategy game, especially indie titles I typically expect to be diving into a largely clunky intricately connected mess of mechanics more complicated then their worth. Solar Nations 2 is not that. Sure, its UI could certainly use a little refining, and debugging; but the larger game is clearly based in the realm of common sense mechanics. I sincerly thank Flomgus for making this game intuitive enough that even my tiny brain can understand it!

this one is gemmy

Genuinely one of the best space grand strategies as of late. I already put ~8 hours or more into the demo then picked this up. My favorite starts are in Io where I become a rich af resource output or Venus, which is hard, but awesome.

As of writing this the game is still in early access, please keep this in mind when reading my thoughts on the game. For those who don't want to read the whole thing here's an abridged version: I personaly enjoy the game, but I do not think it is ready for the "average Joe". I play a lot of games focused on strategy, focused primarily on war or economics like Stellaris or Hearts of Iron IV, but also a lot of resource managment and similar, so keep in mind that I might be a bit harsh because of comparing it to such games. The game has some concepts wich I really like and are not familiar with, like the devision of the game world wich goes as far down as regions - cultural and political - up to several solar systems. Furthermore I enjoy the ways players are able to customize the name, color and even flag of a Nation, it reminds a bit of Crusader Kings III, so every Paradox fan who likes Hearts of Iron will probably loves the feature. In addition I haven't notice any major bugs (only mild inconveniences like the flag of my nation weirdly chaning to a alternative flag and name eventho i only added something like a colony law), wich is rather uncommon these days in a early access. Starting by the balancing: I may understand the way factories and industries work, if you would want to have a more realistic approach, you would struggel as you would need to build hundreds of thousends of structures to get some progress, so I do not understand the other coments being negativ about this; but I personaly don't like who debt is handeled, in a game starting as argentina I started by colonizing basicly halv the moon on day one, wich put me in a huge debt crisis, but at the same time it realy did not impact my game that much, I was able to just wait it out, wich is rather irritating. In addition I only partially like the way surveys are handeled, from my (little) testing it seemed to assign rather random ressources, wich I wish there to be a difficulty option to turn off and instead have a permanent result. Furthermore I would also like some strategic resources wich are realy important, like the ressource systewm in hoi4 as the ressources here onyl seem to provide bonuses rather than actual use on their own. To the pop magment: I find it to be rather frustating that the game does not tell you how assimlation work as well as not having the option to relocate pops manually (other then migration incentives). Other genarl thoughts: In generall I would like more tipps and warnings in the game, like a warning that nuclear bombs might radiate a whole planet (wich is not the case in many other games). The alliances are kept rather simply and can provide buffs in addition on millitary help, but I think its weird that these buffs are regardless on how many nations are in a alliance or how many pops it involves. The politcs themself seem rather unpolished, they have some interesting ideas and quirks, but most of the time its rather easy to silence your political opponents even when playing democratic. The education and welfare system as well, thy provide only rather small buffs but come at a heavy cost (espacially welfare); That feels quite off-putting for someone growing up in a state with actual welfare, it is expensive yes, but not economy breaking and it has massive benefits for the general populus. I also experienced some problems with my performance, but I think that came from my world turning into compleate insane maniacs. I'd like to again call out, that it is in early access and as far as I know is developed by a single person or a small team, who update it rather regularry. It is a big acomplishment and I can feel the passion when playing, but it still needs some polishing before I could recommend it to any person, which isn't atleast as much into these kind of games like I am. Note for the developer: If you're reading this I'm actually impressed (as I come from games made by paradox or even ea), and I believe your work to be great, I might even say I respect it. You really should strive to make this game better, maybe add some more scenarios (like a alien threat or ne human colony like earth being discovered), maybe rework the economy a little, but be sure to give the players options (like I discussed with the survey) as I think that is currently the biggest strength of your game, it is like a strategy sandbox, wich may be the next big hit! (If I change my mind about some of the points because of uptades who solve said "issues" or come up with a alternative resolution I'd be more than happy to change this review)

Watching improvement testing new thing in game. I really like this game I try my firt full playthrough to 1.0 but still game is good even in early access better than vanilla hearts of iron 4 I think but it's personal opinion.

I have been having fun with the game so far and I really like how open it is to letting you go with whatever ideas you have without too much restriction and I love being able to customize your nation flag and name and government on demand. I also love being able to use the editor and make fun situations or edit the world in various ways for my game. Right now there are a fairly large amount of bugs that I believe will get worked on with the most serious being one where I was saving my game while using the editor and when I quit and then went to reload the save the save game was gone and now my save game was strangely in the new game scenario selection with a bugged description, strangely I could load that and it would load but it was a very strange glitch and problem to encounter that made me lose that save.

Insanely fun, lots of potential, very rough around the edges, but the current gameplay loop already ahs me locked in.