So Earth is being invaded by aliens and you pick one of seven ideologies to lead the response of. It combines an Earth-side political simulation with a space strategy game. On Earth you send agents around to promote your ideology and undermine others, and you can gain control of countries to use their soft and hard power including armies and nuclear weapons to further achieve your goals. In space you build habitats in orbits or on celestial bodies to build warships and mine resources. Space travel involves realistic rocket calculations and space combat has Newtonian physics. How you make use of the tools is up to your strategy and your ideological goals.

The game isn't perfect, but I highly enjoyed it even in its day 1 Early Access state and it has been improved in many substantial ways since then. Many tech improvements, balance changes, and new pieces of content have been added in the last several months. The game still has some balance and midgame pacing issues but at the current rate of improvement I will expect it to keep getting better and better. The game also has mod support that currently lets modders change or add to many aspects of the game.

This is essentially XCOM from the strategic perspective and you can play as people who want to do things other than resist the aliens. If you like the theme and the gameplay concepts this is an easy game to recommend.

So Earth is being invaded by aliens and you pick one of seven ideologies to lead the response of. It combines an Earth-side political simulation with a space strategy game. On Earth you send agents around to promote your ideology and undermine others, and you can gain control of countries to use their soft and hard power including armies and nuclear weapons to further achieve your goals. In space you build habitats in orbits or on celestial bodies to build warships and mine resources. Space travel involves realistic rocket calculations and space combat has Newtonian physics. How you make use of the tools is up to your strategy and your ideological goals. The game isn't perfect, but I highly enjoyed it even in its day 1 Early Access state and it has been improved in many substantial ways since then. Many tech improvements, balance changes, and new pieces of content have been added in the last several months. The game still has some balance and midgame pacing issues but at the current rate of improvement I will expect it to keep getting better and better. The game also has mod support that currently lets modders change or add to many aspects of the game. This is essentially XCOM from the strategic perspective and you can play as people who want to do things other than resist the aliens. If you like the theme and the gameplay concepts this is an easy game to recommend.