Unfortunately, Space Empires V asks you to make a lot of these choices right away without giving you any indication at all as to whether or not they might be useful or fun.

While these types of decisions aren't unusual for the genre, the level of detail that Space Empires V presents requires lots of very specific choices from the player. You'll also have to select from a wide range of game options that control everything from victory conditions to the state of the galaxies you'll be playing over. Rather than relying on stock races that have been designed for drama and balanced for playability, Space Empires V asks players to design their race from scratch. Setting up a game gives you a good taste of the hours that lay ahead.

Add to that some serious problems in the presentation and stability of the game and you'll have to force yourself to love the game in spite of its faults. In other ways, this unrestricted depth is a total disaster, burying the player under layers of pointless micromanagement with no clear benefit.

In some ways, that's a revelation, giving players exactly the kinds of imaginative options they've wanted for years, particularly with regard to often neglected areas like ship design and diplomacy. Space Empires V is probably the most open-ended and variable 4X game we've ever played.

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