It's not a 4X game, it's not Transport Tycoon, or Railroad Tycoon, or Civilization, or Banished or Factorio or anything like that. Repeat - this is not anything like any of those games whatsover, and it doesn't try to be, if you just want to build trains or shipping lines or keep a Martian village alive, look away, this is a completely different genre. Think more in terms of Age of Empires, or Company of Heroes, or Starcraft. It's a bit more relaxed and with a very low APM requirement, but it's still a very deep competitive PvP game. And it rocks.

There is a rather lengthy campaign, but it won't motivate you to progress with the story. There is a minimal one, more or less just backstories of various characters. The real meat is the gameplay, and in this aspect it's really, really good. You play 30 minute RTS skirmishes against excellent AI, seriously I've never seen AI like this in an RTS before. It's almost like playing against humans, except you can slam spacebar at any point to pause the game and ponder your next move, kinda FTL-style. Your main objective is to buy out your opponent's stock and basically do a hostile takeover - if you don't know what means, don't worry, the game has an excellent tutorial. Money is obtained not by mining resources (this simply adds them to your endless storage), but by selling your existing resources at opportune times. Since selling a resource makes it cheaper and thus less profitable, you will need to build various buildings that convert cheap resources into more valuable ones (but do keep in mind that "valuable" is a temporary thing - sometimes food can be worth less than the water used to make it, which is when you want to sell your food farms and build a bunch of water wells).

That's the core gameplay loop, and it's oh-so-perfect. You'll be building and rebuilding your base nonstop depending on the current state of the market, which shifts according to how players affect it. And after a while, you learn that you can use the invisible hand of the market to grab other people by the balls. And that's where the real game starts.

For instance if your opponent goes full power-hungry electrolysis just to get all the oxygen for life support of their massive base, and you go full power production just to sell power to them, then you're the one laughing. You're gonna be laughing even harder when their plan backfires so hard their options slim down to A)have no power B)have no oxygen or C)have no money. The ultimate kek comes when, whatever option they take, their stocks take a plunge and you buy them out for a dime. If that sounds appealing, invest in this game immediately. If not, go build trains in Mashinky I guess.

[h1]This is a competitive RTS game.[/h1] It's not a 4X game, it's not [i]Transport Tycoon[/i], or [i]Railroad Tycoon[/i], or [i]Civilization[/i], or [i]Banished[/i] or [i]Factorio[/i] or anything like that. Repeat - [b]this is not anything like any of those games whatsover, and it doesn't try to be, if you just want to build trains or shipping lines or keep a Martian village alive, look away[/b], this is a completely different genre. Think more in terms of [i]Age of Empires[/i], or [i]Company of Heroes[/i], or [i]Starcraf[/i]t. It's a bit more relaxed and with a very low APM requirement, but it's still a very deep competitive PvP game. And it rocks. There is a rather lengthy campaign, but [b]it won't motivate you to progress with the story[/b]. There is a minimal one, more or less just backstories of various characters. [b]The real meat is the gameplay[/b], and in this aspect it's really, really good. You play [b]30 minute RTS skirmishes[/b] against excellent AI, seriously I've never seen AI like this in an RTS before. It's almost like playing against humans, except [b]you can slam spacebar at any point to pause the game[/b] and ponder your next move, kinda FTL-style. Your [b]main objective is to buy out your opponent's stock[/b] and basically do a hostile takeover - if you don't know what means, don't worry, the game has an excellent tutorial. Money is obtained not by mining resources (this simply adds them to your endless storage), but by [b]selling your existing resources at opportune times[/b]. Since selling a resource makes it cheaper and thus less profitable, you will need to build various buildings that convert cheap resources into more valuable ones (but do keep in mind that "valuable" is a temporary thing - [b]sometimes food can be worth less than the water used to make it[/b], which is when you want to sell your food farms and build a bunch of water wells). That's the core gameplay loop, and it's oh-so-perfect. You'll be building and rebuilding your base nonstop depending on the current state of the market, which shifts according to how players affect it. And [b]after a while, you learn that you can use the invisible hand of the market to grab other people by the balls[/b]. And that's where the real game starts. For instance if your opponent goes full [b]power-hungry electrolysis[/b] just to get all the [b]oxygen[/b] for life support of their massive base, and [b]you go full power production just to sell power to them[/b], then you're the one laughing. You're gonna be laughing even harder when their plan backfires so hard [b]their options slim down to A)have no power B)have no oxygen or C)have no money[/b]. The ultimate kek comes when, whatever option they take, their stocks take a plunge and you buy them out for a dime. If that sounds appealing, invest in this game immediately. If not, go build trains in Mashinky I guess.