An excellent, fresh-feeling 4X TBS. Feels solid all around, from an expansion, military and tech perspective, but the standout features are population management and politics. Politics tend to be a secondary system in these games, providing passive boosts, with little in the way of interesting tradeoffs. Also, the politics of your empire are almost entirely under your control. In this game, the politics system feels like its own beast, with the player only able to influence the political leanings of the empire, not dictate it. The hardest, most interesting part of the one game I played was when a quest line made me pass a law from a party that was a distant fifth in my empire. I had to pull out all the stops to push them into a leading position, and it conflicted with other goals I had. It was fascinating. There's also some truly inspired sci-fi world building, with some truly wild ideas for factions. The cons I see for this game: a few minor bugs, I had one crash, and it doesn't quite escape the 4X trap of only officially winning long after you've taken control of the game. The UI is excellent overall, but there were some places where it was hard to find the information I needed.