The diplomatic system is pretty extensive as well. You can mix and match a large variety of conditions to your negotiations, from your typical peace treaties and technology exchanges to agreements to share resupply centers. It’s hard to think of another game that gives you so many options; it’s just too bad that it comes with its share of bugs and quirks. Sometimes technology other than that specified in the agreement was somehow traded and at others diplomatic communiqués just seemed to vanish on their way to their recipients.

For a game with so much detail, it is surprising that there is not more in the way of detailed summary screens available. Sure you can bring up a list of all of the ships in your fleet, but trying to get a handle on where they are or what they’re doing is another matter. The game will warn you if you try to end your turn while there are still ships that haven’t moved, but determining which last ship or two were the culprits was an endless source of frustration for me. Furthermore, I could really use more in the way of production summary screens to help manage my galactic economy especially when my borders start to expand.

Fortunately for the game, its designers built it to be highly moddable. This means that odds are good that eventually many of the bugs should be worked out and that some of the things missing from the game’s interface can be added by one of the game’s fans. As it stands now, the game will take a lot of patience. If they can put up with the quirks, bugs, and game-ending crashes to the desktop, then detail-oriented space emperors-to-be might have some fun with the game. Everyone else should take a wait and see attitude and watch for news on the game’s patch history.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 64%. This space is full of bugs, and not just the alien kind.

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