It's so nice, I played it twice. A great Turn-based strategy for any fan of the genre.
When starting a game, you have a number of choices to make. You can choose one of the existing races or customize and build an entirely new race. Even if you choose an existing race, you can still customize the race to a certain degree. Each race has inherent bonuses which can be changed in any way you like. After choosing and customizing your race, you choose who will share your area of space with you and then the game gets underway.
Basically, you start out on your home world with a Flagship and a colony ship and you immediately begin your quest to conquor the universe. As with all games of this type, exploration and quick expansion is the key to success. When you colonize a new planet, you can zoom in and build any number of buildings. Choices range from manufacturing, to research, spaceports, entertainment, money, and influence to name a few. You also start with a flagship you can use to run around and gather up the nearby anomalies. These anomalies can give you bonuses to a variety of things, but they disappear fast so get out there and get collecting.
At first you can only build a handful of ships including the aforementioned colony ship, a scout, and a constructor ship. The scout's function is pretty clear, but the constructor is very important. This ship lets you build space stations. Space stations are vital as well in the early game and should be built on any special resources you find. Later in the game, space stations can expand your influence (think culture from Civ III and IV), give you economic bonuses, or strengthen nearby military ships. Space stations have a large area of influence which can span multiple sectors of positioned right.
The gameplay is great from many stand points. There is a huge technology tree with a variety of paths to choose from. You can choose to specialize in one area or be a jack of all research. Also, you can create your own ships in a variety of designs using the in-game ship designer. You can make most any shape you want and add any components you have researched. You can spend as much or as little time here as you want. Diplomacy is straight forward, however, I find it difficult to know when the computer offers a trade if it is a good deal or not. In diplomacy, you can research technologies which will give you a bargaining advantage. The interface does do a good job at letting you know if you have a diplomatic advantage or not.
Another great aspect of gameplay is that throughout the game you will be presented with ethical choices to make. For example, on a planet you colonize, you find a sentient being that feeds off the life force of your people. The good side is that the being keeps the planet healthy and more productive, however, it kills your people when it feeds. So you must decide if you will not feed the entity and let it die to save your people, let terminally ill people sacrifice themselves to the entity, or hold a lottery and feed 100 people to it every week. The decisions you make will begin to develop your reputation either good, neutral or evil. It's an intriguing aspect of the game that adds variety each time you play.
The end game is much like other TBS games in that everything comes to a head. Tensions mount and eventually war breaks out across the galaxy. But conquest isn't the only way to win. All types of victories seem plausible and attainable where as other games I have played, some victory conditions always come up far more often than others.
This game is great for it variety of options, engaging gameplay, interesting tech tree and, ethical decisions. All in all, a great game.