Mini Gal4Xy Jerome Bodin Genres: Games Strategy GAME CENTER ENABLED $1.99 USD Minimum iOS Version: iOS 9.0 Download Size: 176.1MB Mini Gal4Xy Jerome Bodin *Warning: the game will work on iPhone 5C and iPad Pro / 4 (and above). Other devices are not supported* Mini Gal4Xy is… $1.99 Buy Now Watch Media Details*Warning: the game will work on iPhone 5C and iPad Pro / 4 (and above). Other devices are not supported* Mini Gal4Xy is a light strategy game set in space. We took all the parts of the '4X' genre that we love, then tried to make them more accessible. It's easy to use, open to everyone, but will also scratch that itch for 4X fans. Mini-eXplore A new galaxy is procedurally generated every time you start a game Set your foot on more than 30 different kinds of planets Customize your galaxy generation Mini-eXpand A synthetic and simple set of 3 different resources: Population, Science and Material Use your Population to colonize new worlds and improve existing ones Use your Material to build new ships and customize them Use your Science to discovers some of the 38 available Technologies Mini-eXploit A simple 'slot system' allows you slightly customize your planetary incomes Build new constructions to improve your planets You can trade your extra resources for the one you're missing Mini-eXterminate Simple tactical battle system, with 3 phases Customize your ships to adapt to the enemy Fight one of the 4 enemy factions Information Seller:Jerome Bodin Genre:Strategy Release:Apr 25, 2019 Updated:May 26, 2019 Version:1.075 Size:175.2 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating:Unrated Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal Tulki Well-Known Member Oct 27, 2014 150 1 18 #2 Tulki, Apr 29, 2019 This is by the same dev as the Frost card game, which was really good. Anyone have impressions? I’m not sure how good the name will be for searchability.... Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #3 Ringerill, Apr 29, 2019 Downloaded the game and I have to admit that the art style is pretty and goes well with the minimalistic side of the game. It seems that from the beginning, we only have access to 1 race from the 9 existing. Also the settings are set to "Short Game", "Poor Galaxy" and only "Indigens" are ennemies. I guess it is here to serve as a first hands-on game. Still strange to not give the possibility to immerse yourself in a full game right from the start. I wonder if the rest will be unlocked gradually or if after this first game everything will be unlocked afterwards. I don't know if it will because actually the game is quite broken on my iPhone 7+. If you leave the game in the background for 2-3 minutes, it will shut down and you will have to reload your save (if you did one). Also, the first combat is what actually makes it broken because after the fight is resolved, the screen just hangs resulting in a hard-lock of the game. Wonder if others are having this problem too. Wilbair Well-Known Member Aug 13, 2009 207 11 18 #4 Wilbair, Apr 29, 2019 Seems great. I will try this one out! ColeDaddy Silver Supporter<br>Moderator Staff Member Patreon Silver Patreon Gold Patreon Bronze Mar 20, 2010 4,232 131 63 Male Sojourner Washington D.C. #5 ColeDaddy, Apr 29, 2019 Great pedigree. Bought Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #6 Ringerill, Apr 29, 2019 Managed to find a workaround the bugs and finish some games (still the bugs might need some corrections because I got a corrupted save at one point and had to restart). The game really reminds me of all these 4X games like Endless Space, Master of Orion, etc. But this one has a very simple and minimalistic feeling. But that doesn't mean that the case is easy. At first, you can indeed select only 1 race and the length of the game is predetermined: you have 20 turns until it ends and the score is calculated. But these are the quickest settings so it will last longer later. After reaching the 20 turns limit, the scores are calculated and there is a progression bar with lots of unlocks at the bottom. So the more you play, the more upgrades, races and settings you will be able to unlock! The gameplay is similar to other space strategy games: you have you home planet that generates resources. In this game you have 3 of them: Minerals (for ships constructions and upgrades), Science (for research unlocks) and Population (for colonising planets). Each turn, you can move you ships to explore more planets, get some rewards from visiting planets, fighting with ennemies, advance your research tree or trade ressources. It is interesting to note that the research tree seems to be randomised, probably to match the generated map and your selected race). Unfortunately I can't tell more because I keep coming across another bug that keeps crashing and corrupting my save and leading me to a blank map... But I think I would definitely recommend this game to turn-based strategy lovers Ijipop Well-Known Member Jul 25, 2012 557 268 63 #7 Ijipop, Apr 30, 2019 Dev is aware and update have been submitted to Apple. edbrannin likes this. edbrannin Active Member Aug 15, 2010 25 5 3 #8 edbrannin, May 2, 2019 Oh, good. After working through the issues described above I finally beat my first game and decided to wait for an update to try again. Even accidentally swiping the app into the background while trying to drag ship parts into place would kill the game and corrupt its save. Combat took me a while to figure out: To start a combat, tap on the crossed-swords icon in the middle. To exit combat, tap on the X in the upper-right. This can be done before all phases are complete. I assume this doesn't stop the later phases from happening, but I can't tell because I've only had phase-1 weapons so far. Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #9 Ringerill, May 3, 2019 I can't do that... This actually locks my screen and I can't click anywhere. I have to quit the game and come back. But sometimes I actually can. It really seems to be random. Sometimes even after I wait for fight to end and the red cross to light up, I still get blocked on the greyed map screen... Did someone find a way to contact the devs? I can't find any support or email anywhere ThirdMoon likes this. Quoad Well-Known Member Apr 17, 2015 1,108 217 63 #10 Quoad, May 3, 2019 +1. However... The tutorial is appalling. The tech tree appears to be Randomised, and doesn’t contain the upgrades im the tutorial. I only discovered that I could only settle the closest planet after a deeply frustrating / confusing game. Early game battles (and there is nothing but early game battles to begin with) are dreadful. Presumably meant to discourage flat out colonial warfare, but - particularly when your randomised start blocks off every escape route with defended planets - there isn’t really much choice. Like the aesthetic. I will keep on playing. Not sold on the mechanics yet tho. Quoad Well-Known Member Apr 17, 2015 1,108 217 63 #11 Quoad, May 3, 2019 I mean, this is professionally joyless. New race. No ships to begin with. But can colonise by observatory. Hostiles are on one side at the outset. So make do with the other side. Which is swiftly colonised. So I only have one planet. And no ships to explore. Lit. nothing to do for ten turns (out of 20 max) but press “end turn” and wait for more people to fill home planet slots TIL I can trade resources for a shipyard. Finally afford a ship. 0 (zero) attack, 2 hit points. It has to pass through colonised planets to get anywhere. Any colonised planet will attack it for >0 hit points. That’s just bad. A bad start, but I’m not sure I appreciate the design that allows it, either. A futile and joyless 20 turns. With no potential to do anything. Anything creative or, tbh, anything at all. Quoad Well-Known Member Apr 17, 2015 1,108 217 63 #12 Quoad, May 3, 2019 The tech tree sucked on that run too. It sucked, and as the indicators up top suggest, it sucked plus I had zero research building capacity. Except trade (3:1 exchange of any resource. My only means of resource generation was 1 planet). Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #13 Ringerill, May 3, 2019 Ok the problem seems to come from the first race of Pandarus: if a combat happens, it gets stuck after resolution. However it looks fine for the others. So now that I have been able to advance a little bit more into the game I can share some information about the game First thing to know is that you will have to play to unlock the whole game, it does not offer the whole experience from start. So you will begin with small maps, 20 turns and only 1 race. Based on your score at the end of the game you will advance the progression bar and unlock technologies, other races and game settings (such as size of the map, number of turns and difficulty/presence of ennemies). However it seems that the progress is not cumulative. Meaning that if you got a score of 600, if you play another game, the progression bar will only increase if you score higher than 600. So you will have to play with each race and try to achieve a ~3 stars run to unlock the next race. A small tip for that is to set the game to the larger size possible and chose the indigenes as ennemies. Also, don't hesitate to restart some runs to have the best home planet and surrounding ones. Once you reach the possibility to have long games (25 turns) and rich systems (larger map and more slots on planets), it should progress smoothly. I don't know if it is a spoil or not but here are some informations on the races I have unlocked so far: Spoiler: Pandarus They are indeed versatile: they have good ships with 4 defence and can unlock most of the technology. I would maybe say that they are a mix of every races and have access to primary upgrades (colonisation, weapons, defense, etc.). No particular recommendation on how to play it but they seem to be well balanced to go full attack or just spreading throughout the galaxy Spoiler: Fermulons Quite a defensive race. They specialise in population and they begin with a green planet capable of producing lots of population. They have no ship from start but you can build one if you research it (however these ships have 2 hull and not attack). To compensate the lack of ship, they can build a race exclusive observatory allowing to inspect surrounding planets and eventually colonise them. My recommendation: try to start with a home planet surrounded by many others so that you can spread efficiently (just restart if you have enemy guarded planets around you). If you really want it, construct a space port and add the module for colonisation from ship to you ship: this will allow you pass through inhabited planets. But you can also wait and get the research for colonising farther by 1 tile. So don't hesitate to colonise you home planet quickly and then exchange your population for some science to be able to colonise more and more! Spoiler: Brains This race specialise in Research. They have an exclusive Satellite building that generates 1 science per turn and costs 6 mineral to build on a colonised planet. They have a ship with 2 hull and 1 attack but it is a start. I can't really understand how they are meant to be played appart that they can generate research points faster from the start and potentially unlock technologies of interest faster. So you can use them as invaders as I did but they can spread quite fast because you can unlock technologies for settling on various planets quite fast. Don't forget that the research tree is random with each run so you can be lucky or not and this can have an impact on how fast you colonise the surrounding planets. Spoiler: Nomads I have just recently unlocked them but I get the point. The idea is that you start with only 1 ship (4 hull 0 attack), no home planet and planets generate less population. However, you have enough population to settle on a green planet and your ship is equipped with modules allowing you to colonise directly from a ship as well as to absorb ressources from the planet your ship is orbiting around. So you would be able to generate minerals, science or population depending of the type of planet (green planet -> population, rocky planet -> minerals, icy planet -> science, etc). Generally you begin near a habitable planet from the first turn but you may have to explore a little bit depending of your luck. But don't hesitate to settle on a green planet and alway keep you ship safe as it does not have any damaging means. However, if you create a new ship, it has all the modules by default so it could be interesting in creating multiple ships because they can generate a lot of ressources and help you colonise. All in all, this really feels like a cartoon version of Endless Space, in a good sense! You have several races each with its own exclusive trait, ship and building. You can only construct one type of ship but you can customise it with different modules that you can unlock through research. You can make you ship protected with more hull points, shields blocking attacks or repairing drones for your hull. You can add modules to generates ressources from your ship or use it as a colonisation one (normally you can only settle on planets that are in close proximity to your colonised planets). When you explore the galaxy, you can discover barren planets that will require specific technologies to be able to settle in and each planet is unique and can produce ressources to help you in advancing you research tree, colonising more planets or creating more ships (for destruction or exploration purposes). The runs are fast at first but you can unlock setting allowing to upgrade the limit. Even on easy difficulty, I sometimes don't have enough time to defeat all ennemies, colonise all planets and unlock the whole research tree so it feels quite well designed. So there is no particular way to win the game against the AI like in other similar types of games (no destruction victory, no diplomacy or technology victory either). You just have to do your best and get the highest score possible. I am having a nice time trying you to get 3 stars runs with every race (except Pandarus which cannot attack without locking the game). It is always a matter of chance (location of your home planet, structure of the research tree, number of enemy planets...) so it can annoy strategy gamers. But as the runs are short, you can always try your luck again without much regret. Ijipop likes this. Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #14 Ringerill, May 3, 2019 Last edited: May 3, 2019 I totally agree with you on that point. The Fermulons are really badly balanced. If you happen to have a good start, it already takes you around 10 turns just to begin colonising surrounding planets (maybe less if you don't need any technology research to settle). Then you have to heavily rely on the chance of not having any enemy controlled planet that stops your progress... And even if you manage to craft some ships, they are way to brittle (2 hull and 0 attack). If only they had more Hull or maybe 1 more action to spread faster? They are not even equipped with modules allowing colonise from ships. Too many variables enter into account for having a normal run. And if any of them is not satisfied, then your run is either bad or just awful to the point where you are stuck just as you were. I believe that by adding more defence to the Fermulons ships by default could be a good way to balance this race. Or maybe give them a generation of 1 science naturally? The home planet always has a slot to produce 1 mineral. But I couldn't care less for that because I need 3 science to research the star port anyway before construction any ships. So it's 9 resources to trade for 3 Science, then 6 Minerals to build a start port and then 4 minerals to actually build a ship. Just to have 1 ship, you have to spend at least half of the run and you still would be at the starting point compared to other races. I have stumbled across a new technology called something like "Cloning" that reduces the amount of population needed for trading resources. But as you can guess, it was in the middle of the research tree... Why not having this trait by default or unlockable early in the tree? Edit: Just realised that it was the other way around... It reduced the cost of other ressources ot get population (2 Minerals/Science to get 1 Population). Why would I need that? I already produce too much population and am in extreme need of Science and Minerals to spread through the galaxy. Something is definitely off with Fermulons. Hope the dev comes here. Unstablefan Well-Known Member Patreon Bronze Feb 22, 2013 858 12 18 #15 Unstablefan, May 3, 2019 It sounds like with some tech fixes and some balance changes (maybe restrict how random the tech tree can be?) this could be to MoO as Polytopia is to Civ! I'll be watching the game's progress eagerly! Quoad Well-Known Member Apr 17, 2015 1,108 217 63 #16 Quoad, May 3, 2019 Perhaps predictably, I’ve just had my most dominant game to date. Cleared out the whole of my small universe, with fermulons. Decent starting position, weapon and defence upgrades as two of the first options of the tech tree, and steady away, really. Nothing left to do by turn 20. Still not 3*, dammit. But close. Quoad Well-Known Member Apr 17, 2015 1,108 217 63 #17 Quoad, May 4, 2019 I don’t think I’ll be playing again until the “screen freeze after battle win” issue is fixed. It’s stalled my progress on a couple of occasions, and has just proven to be a turn 19 game breaker. (On a 25 turn game, admittedly. But.) Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #18 Ringerill, May 6, 2019 I have spoken to the dev and the update is on its way to fix this. In reality, this game has become more or less a 1 person project so that explains why updates may take some time to come The good news is that updates are planned, maybe some tweaks as well. No more info about what is planned but it's good to see that the dev is planning to improve the game and updating it! Quoad Well-Known Member Apr 17, 2015 1,108 217 63 #19 Quoad, May 7, 2019 Fully appreciated, and fully appreciate his pedigree. Hence not refunding this despite it currently being broken. Ringerill Well-Known Member Dec 13, 2012 315 170 43 #20 Ringerill, May 7, 2019 After some time, I finally managed to unlock all races so feel free to be spoiled about the potential fun you can have once you unlock them too Spoiler: Arnachids Quite similar to Fermulons in term of gameplay, this race is more focussed on spreading than fighting (but feel free to do so). They gimmick is the fact that they don't even have the ressource Population. Instead, they colonise using Materials and for that they have a bonus of production. They also start with one ship having only 4 Hull and 0 Attack, so it does look like this race is all about strong defences. And thanks to their Mineral production boost, you can build Observatories (to discover surrounding planets), Satellites (Science production) and have a fleet of ships more easily than other races. I guess that if you want to cheat your way through this race you just have to start a run in a Mineral Galaxy Spoiler: The Empire Original race that focuses on having a strong start. It begins with 4 planets already colonised and 3 ships ready to fight. The downside however is that they have a negative number and production of population (-13 population and -1 Pop/turn). If you are lucky, you can start with one or several Green planets and buildup you population quite quickly to be able to colonise again. Other than that, they are balanced but heavily oriented toward fighting. This is a fun one to play with even if the starting point is really influenced by luck. Spoiler: Pirates As the name states it, this race is definitely fighting oriented. You begin with just 1 ship but boy are they strong (4 Hull and 2 Attack). You also get Materials when you fight other ships. So this race plays better if you have ennemies close to you right from the start. Nothing really to add appart that if you want to wreak havoc on the whole galaxy, this race is for you and you can have some fun attacking poor defenceless ships from the beginning and be rewarded for it Spoiler: Cephalloids UFOs, UFOs everywhere... Your role? Invade all the planets that crosses your path and bombard them! Sure your ships are fragile and don't have many slots available for Modules but you have a prebuilt Bombarding module allowing you to destroy Indigenes with efficiency. Did I also mention that you get Science points for doing so? And you also can have more ship slots to simply have them flying all over the galaxy. I can recommend you to not totally destroy life on planets and let them repopulate from time to time to get more Science out of it. If you obliterate them, you will just be left alone in the galaxy and that is sad... Spoiler: Ktulus Last Race to unlock and I totally like the gameplay even if I find it hard to play on higher difficulties. You start with just 1 planet and 1 ship and that's the only ship you are gonna get! Sure you could rebuild one but you can only have 1 at a time. The good news? Well, you have a visual on the whole galaxy (i.e. you see all the planets but not their content) and you can warp to any of them instantly. But don't rejoice too fast because there is also one problem you are going to face: you have no Population production and you will never have. The only way for you to earn some population is by destroying ships and bombing planets (and from rewards for exploring planets of course). So try to be gentle and leave some sort of life in the galaxy or you will be left alone and without any possibility to colonise other planets. Well, this concludes the possible spoilers. At least people will have the chance to know the extent of the game and what they can get out of it. The amount of races is nice, the difference in planets too. The technology tree is well furnished too and even if it is randomised, it still conserves some structure (e.g. the production of Minerals, Science and Population will alway cost 3 Science and will be in the first 3 steps of the research tree). You will have the possibility to play for 35 turns on quite large maps (that you probably will never scout entirely) and you will be able to fight against AI with various degree of difficulty (Indigenes who will stay on their planet, Robots that will wander randomly on the map, Pirates who will focus on destroying everything they see and Humans who I consider to be an actual enemy who will colonise and play just like a regular person). (You must log in or sign up to post here.) Show Ignored Content Page 1 of 2 1 2 Next > Share This Page Tweet Your name or email address: Do you already have an account? No, create an account now. Yes, my password is: Forgot your password? Stay logged in
This is by the same dev as the Frost card game, which was really good. Anyone have impressions? I’m not sure how good the name will be for searchability....
Downloaded the game and I have to admit that the art style is pretty and goes well with the minimalistic side of the game. It seems that from the beginning, we only have access to 1 race from the 9 existing. Also the settings are set to "Short Game", "Poor Galaxy" and only "Indigens" are ennemies. I guess it is here to serve as a first hands-on game. Still strange to not give the possibility to immerse yourself in a full game right from the start. I wonder if the rest will be unlocked gradually or if after this first game everything will be unlocked afterwards. I don't know if it will because actually the game is quite broken on my iPhone 7+. If you leave the game in the background for 2-3 minutes, it will shut down and you will have to reload your save (if you did one). Also, the first combat is what actually makes it broken because after the fight is resolved, the screen just hangs resulting in a hard-lock of the game. Wonder if others are having this problem too.
Managed to find a workaround the bugs and finish some games (still the bugs might need some corrections because I got a corrupted save at one point and had to restart). The game really reminds me of all these 4X games like Endless Space, Master of Orion, etc. But this one has a very simple and minimalistic feeling. But that doesn't mean that the case is easy. At first, you can indeed select only 1 race and the length of the game is predetermined: you have 20 turns until it ends and the score is calculated. But these are the quickest settings so it will last longer later. After reaching the 20 turns limit, the scores are calculated and there is a progression bar with lots of unlocks at the bottom. So the more you play, the more upgrades, races and settings you will be able to unlock! The gameplay is similar to other space strategy games: you have you home planet that generates resources. In this game you have 3 of them: Minerals (for ships constructions and upgrades), Science (for research unlocks) and Population (for colonising planets). Each turn, you can move you ships to explore more planets, get some rewards from visiting planets, fighting with ennemies, advance your research tree or trade ressources. It is interesting to note that the research tree seems to be randomised, probably to match the generated map and your selected race). Unfortunately I can't tell more because I keep coming across another bug that keeps crashing and corrupting my save and leading me to a blank map... But I think I would definitely recommend this game to turn-based strategy lovers
Oh, good. After working through the issues described above I finally beat my first game and decided to wait for an update to try again. Even accidentally swiping the app into the background while trying to drag ship parts into place would kill the game and corrupt its save. Combat took me a while to figure out: To start a combat, tap on the crossed-swords icon in the middle. To exit combat, tap on the X in the upper-right. This can be done before all phases are complete. I assume this doesn't stop the later phases from happening, but I can't tell because I've only had phase-1 weapons so far.
I can't do that... This actually locks my screen and I can't click anywhere. I have to quit the game and come back. But sometimes I actually can. It really seems to be random. Sometimes even after I wait for fight to end and the red cross to light up, I still get blocked on the greyed map screen... Did someone find a way to contact the devs? I can't find any support or email anywhere
+1. However... The tutorial is appalling. The tech tree appears to be Randomised, and doesn’t contain the upgrades im the tutorial. I only discovered that I could only settle the closest planet after a deeply frustrating / confusing game. Early game battles (and there is nothing but early game battles to begin with) are dreadful. Presumably meant to discourage flat out colonial warfare, but - particularly when your randomised start blocks off every escape route with defended planets - there isn’t really much choice. Like the aesthetic. I will keep on playing. Not sold on the mechanics yet tho.
I mean, this is professionally joyless. New race. No ships to begin with. But can colonise by observatory. Hostiles are on one side at the outset. So make do with the other side. Which is swiftly colonised. So I only have one planet. And no ships to explore. Lit. nothing to do for ten turns (out of 20 max) but press “end turn” and wait for more people to fill home planet slots TIL I can trade resources for a shipyard. Finally afford a ship. 0 (zero) attack, 2 hit points. It has to pass through colonised planets to get anywhere. Any colonised planet will attack it for >0 hit points. That’s just bad. A bad start, but I’m not sure I appreciate the design that allows it, either. A futile and joyless 20 turns. With no potential to do anything. Anything creative or, tbh, anything at all.
The tech tree sucked on that run too. It sucked, and as the indicators up top suggest, it sucked plus I had zero research building capacity. Except trade (3:1 exchange of any resource. My only means of resource generation was 1 planet).
Ok the problem seems to come from the first race of Pandarus: if a combat happens, it gets stuck after resolution. However it looks fine for the others. So now that I have been able to advance a little bit more into the game I can share some information about the game First thing to know is that you will have to play to unlock the whole game, it does not offer the whole experience from start. So you will begin with small maps, 20 turns and only 1 race. Based on your score at the end of the game you will advance the progression bar and unlock technologies, other races and game settings (such as size of the map, number of turns and difficulty/presence of ennemies). However it seems that the progress is not cumulative. Meaning that if you got a score of 600, if you play another game, the progression bar will only increase if you score higher than 600. So you will have to play with each race and try to achieve a ~3 stars run to unlock the next race. A small tip for that is to set the game to the larger size possible and chose the indigenes as ennemies. Also, don't hesitate to restart some runs to have the best home planet and surrounding ones. Once you reach the possibility to have long games (25 turns) and rich systems (larger map and more slots on planets), it should progress smoothly. I don't know if it is a spoil or not but here are some informations on the races I have unlocked so far: Spoiler: Pandarus They are indeed versatile: they have good ships with 4 defence and can unlock most of the technology. I would maybe say that they are a mix of every races and have access to primary upgrades (colonisation, weapons, defense, etc.). No particular recommendation on how to play it but they seem to be well balanced to go full attack or just spreading throughout the galaxy Spoiler: Fermulons Quite a defensive race. They specialise in population and they begin with a green planet capable of producing lots of population. They have no ship from start but you can build one if you research it (however these ships have 2 hull and not attack). To compensate the lack of ship, they can build a race exclusive observatory allowing to inspect surrounding planets and eventually colonise them. My recommendation: try to start with a home planet surrounded by many others so that you can spread efficiently (just restart if you have enemy guarded planets around you). If you really want it, construct a space port and add the module for colonisation from ship to you ship: this will allow you pass through inhabited planets. But you can also wait and get the research for colonising farther by 1 tile. So don't hesitate to colonise you home planet quickly and then exchange your population for some science to be able to colonise more and more! Spoiler: Brains This race specialise in Research. They have an exclusive Satellite building that generates 1 science per turn and costs 6 mineral to build on a colonised planet. They have a ship with 2 hull and 1 attack but it is a start. I can't really understand how they are meant to be played appart that they can generate research points faster from the start and potentially unlock technologies of interest faster. So you can use them as invaders as I did but they can spread quite fast because you can unlock technologies for settling on various planets quite fast. Don't forget that the research tree is random with each run so you can be lucky or not and this can have an impact on how fast you colonise the surrounding planets. Spoiler: Nomads I have just recently unlocked them but I get the point. The idea is that you start with only 1 ship (4 hull 0 attack), no home planet and planets generate less population. However, you have enough population to settle on a green planet and your ship is equipped with modules allowing you to colonise directly from a ship as well as to absorb ressources from the planet your ship is orbiting around. So you would be able to generate minerals, science or population depending of the type of planet (green planet -> population, rocky planet -> minerals, icy planet -> science, etc). Generally you begin near a habitable planet from the first turn but you may have to explore a little bit depending of your luck. But don't hesitate to settle on a green planet and alway keep you ship safe as it does not have any damaging means. However, if you create a new ship, it has all the modules by default so it could be interesting in creating multiple ships because they can generate a lot of ressources and help you colonise. All in all, this really feels like a cartoon version of Endless Space, in a good sense! You have several races each with its own exclusive trait, ship and building. You can only construct one type of ship but you can customise it with different modules that you can unlock through research. You can make you ship protected with more hull points, shields blocking attacks or repairing drones for your hull. You can add modules to generates ressources from your ship or use it as a colonisation one (normally you can only settle on planets that are in close proximity to your colonised planets). When you explore the galaxy, you can discover barren planets that will require specific technologies to be able to settle in and each planet is unique and can produce ressources to help you in advancing you research tree, colonising more planets or creating more ships (for destruction or exploration purposes). The runs are fast at first but you can unlock setting allowing to upgrade the limit. Even on easy difficulty, I sometimes don't have enough time to defeat all ennemies, colonise all planets and unlock the whole research tree so it feels quite well designed. So there is no particular way to win the game against the AI like in other similar types of games (no destruction victory, no diplomacy or technology victory either). You just have to do your best and get the highest score possible. I am having a nice time trying you to get 3 stars runs with every race (except Pandarus which cannot attack without locking the game). It is always a matter of chance (location of your home planet, structure of the research tree, number of enemy planets...) so it can annoy strategy gamers. But as the runs are short, you can always try your luck again without much regret.
I totally agree with you on that point. The Fermulons are really badly balanced. If you happen to have a good start, it already takes you around 10 turns just to begin colonising surrounding planets (maybe less if you don't need any technology research to settle). Then you have to heavily rely on the chance of not having any enemy controlled planet that stops your progress... And even if you manage to craft some ships, they are way to brittle (2 hull and 0 attack). If only they had more Hull or maybe 1 more action to spread faster? They are not even equipped with modules allowing colonise from ships. Too many variables enter into account for having a normal run. And if any of them is not satisfied, then your run is either bad or just awful to the point where you are stuck just as you were. I believe that by adding more defence to the Fermulons ships by default could be a good way to balance this race. Or maybe give them a generation of 1 science naturally? The home planet always has a slot to produce 1 mineral. But I couldn't care less for that because I need 3 science to research the star port anyway before construction any ships. So it's 9 resources to trade for 3 Science, then 6 Minerals to build a start port and then 4 minerals to actually build a ship. Just to have 1 ship, you have to spend at least half of the run and you still would be at the starting point compared to other races. I have stumbled across a new technology called something like "Cloning" that reduces the amount of population needed for trading resources. But as you can guess, it was in the middle of the research tree... Why not having this trait by default or unlockable early in the tree? Edit: Just realised that it was the other way around... It reduced the cost of other ressources ot get population (2 Minerals/Science to get 1 Population). Why would I need that? I already produce too much population and am in extreme need of Science and Minerals to spread through the galaxy. Something is definitely off with Fermulons. Hope the dev comes here.
It sounds like with some tech fixes and some balance changes (maybe restrict how random the tech tree can be?) this could be to MoO as Polytopia is to Civ! I'll be watching the game's progress eagerly!
Perhaps predictably, I’ve just had my most dominant game to date. Cleared out the whole of my small universe, with fermulons. Decent starting position, weapon and defence upgrades as two of the first options of the tech tree, and steady away, really. Nothing left to do by turn 20. Still not 3*, dammit. But close.
I don’t think I’ll be playing again until the “screen freeze after battle win” issue is fixed. It’s stalled my progress on a couple of occasions, and has just proven to be a turn 19 game breaker. (On a 25 turn game, admittedly. But.)
I have spoken to the dev and the update is on its way to fix this. In reality, this game has become more or less a 1 person project so that explains why updates may take some time to come The good news is that updates are planned, maybe some tweaks as well. No more info about what is planned but it's good to see that the dev is planning to improve the game and updating it!
Fully appreciated, and fully appreciate his pedigree. Hence not refunding this despite it currently being broken.
After some time, I finally managed to unlock all races so feel free to be spoiled about the potential fun you can have once you unlock them too Spoiler: Arnachids Quite similar to Fermulons in term of gameplay, this race is more focussed on spreading than fighting (but feel free to do so). They gimmick is the fact that they don't even have the ressource Population. Instead, they colonise using Materials and for that they have a bonus of production. They also start with one ship having only 4 Hull and 0 Attack, so it does look like this race is all about strong defences. And thanks to their Mineral production boost, you can build Observatories (to discover surrounding planets), Satellites (Science production) and have a fleet of ships more easily than other races. I guess that if you want to cheat your way through this race you just have to start a run in a Mineral Galaxy Spoiler: The Empire Original race that focuses on having a strong start. It begins with 4 planets already colonised and 3 ships ready to fight. The downside however is that they have a negative number and production of population (-13 population and -1 Pop/turn). If you are lucky, you can start with one or several Green planets and buildup you population quite quickly to be able to colonise again. Other than that, they are balanced but heavily oriented toward fighting. This is a fun one to play with even if the starting point is really influenced by luck. Spoiler: Pirates As the name states it, this race is definitely fighting oriented. You begin with just 1 ship but boy are they strong (4 Hull and 2 Attack). You also get Materials when you fight other ships. So this race plays better if you have ennemies close to you right from the start. Nothing really to add appart that if you want to wreak havoc on the whole galaxy, this race is for you and you can have some fun attacking poor defenceless ships from the beginning and be rewarded for it Spoiler: Cephalloids UFOs, UFOs everywhere... Your role? Invade all the planets that crosses your path and bombard them! Sure your ships are fragile and don't have many slots available for Modules but you have a prebuilt Bombarding module allowing you to destroy Indigenes with efficiency. Did I also mention that you get Science points for doing so? And you also can have more ship slots to simply have them flying all over the galaxy. I can recommend you to not totally destroy life on planets and let them repopulate from time to time to get more Science out of it. If you obliterate them, you will just be left alone in the galaxy and that is sad... Spoiler: Ktulus Last Race to unlock and I totally like the gameplay even if I find it hard to play on higher difficulties. You start with just 1 planet and 1 ship and that's the only ship you are gonna get! Sure you could rebuild one but you can only have 1 at a time. The good news? Well, you have a visual on the whole galaxy (i.e. you see all the planets but not their content) and you can warp to any of them instantly. But don't rejoice too fast because there is also one problem you are going to face: you have no Population production and you will never have. The only way for you to earn some population is by destroying ships and bombing planets (and from rewards for exploring planets of course). So try to be gentle and leave some sort of life in the galaxy or you will be left alone and without any possibility to colonise other planets. Well, this concludes the possible spoilers. At least people will have the chance to know the extent of the game and what they can get out of it. The amount of races is nice, the difference in planets too. The technology tree is well furnished too and even if it is randomised, it still conserves some structure (e.g. the production of Minerals, Science and Population will alway cost 3 Science and will be in the first 3 steps of the research tree). You will have the possibility to play for 35 turns on quite large maps (that you probably will never scout entirely) and you will be able to fight against AI with various degree of difficulty (Indigenes who will stay on their planet, Robots that will wander randomly on the map, Pirates who will focus on destroying everything they see and Humans who I consider to be an actual enemy who will colonise and play just like a regular person).
