A Brief Commentary On… the best-worst game ever: Space Empires V
A Brief Commentary on… the worst-best game ever: Space Empires V. Long before Stellaris was released, I had another sci-fi 4X game that I spent hours on - and it was Strategy First’s Space Empires V. The game was remarkable for it’s complexity, with massively in-depth empire customization, a huge tech tree, ship designing, and awesome real-time battles. Players could play as space bugs with more mineral production, as humans with increased research speed, or even as a timelord-type civilization that starts with exclusive access to time-manipulation technology. When creating an empire, there was nearly unlimited options! The tech tree gave players further options, with players having the ability to focus their efforts on techs that produce shields, armor, new hull types, weapons, or just better imperial infrastructure. Once these techs are produced, the player is then allowed to design their own ships that exploit these techs, and once that is done, they can throw them into combat ...
