>>2319141
i only played 2 and i found it incredibly disappointing
>expected huge giant battles
units not only stack ontop of each other they clip through one another
>expected huge macro
there is no macro
>is there micro instead?
you target fire the enemy and that's it
>what do you do?
the game revolves entirely around ai progression which does make the ai more aggressive but the main issue is it spawns infinite free units at home
if aip gets too high you straight up will not be able to win when attacking the ai king
so the game boils down to chaining as few planets as possible to get to the ai king while taking the best rewards for them and that's it
i would sooner compare it to a roguelike than something like homeworld or sins of a solar empire

i found it boring and repetitive as well as cheap in how it handled the ai
there is no ai economy you can meaningfully damage to allow yourself to attack stronger planets or a reason to split your forces to distract their defenders so you can take what you really want or anything even close to that engaging
you just have your deathball and you roll around stopping at planets you want then moving on
it sucks plays sins instead (and i'm no huge fan of sins either)

>>2319141
Wish more people played it and that I had people to play MP with.

>>2319141
Played the first one with no expansions a couple times on difficulty 7.
Interesting concept but poorly handled.

Bigger maps are tedious rather than hard, picking the right planets to take over is usually no brainer but the distance increases.

Being able to reliably defend planets depends on enemy ships (bombers, anti-armor and plasma siege ships are the only real threat unless they have 1k+ ships in which case you probably fucked up).

Contrary to what the tutorial teaches, small ships are pretty shit, only good for defending and a fleet full of starships can usually take over planets by themselves with minimal or no losses.
Not to mention that there's eyes and ion cannons which further disincentivize using them.

Hacking is only worth it to get permanent mkIV or mkV ships and maybe a bit of extra knowledge for researching ships.
Most ships are functionally the same but with different damage/armor types.

Micro management revolves around raids to destroy some specific structure then get out, otherwise you select the entire fleet and attack-move until everything is dead.

All units have their separate ship-cap which removes any decision making when creating units, you'll simply create max amount of each unit and if you want more of a specific one, you research an upgraded version of it.
Riot control starships break that mold by being customizable but their purpose is to destroy ship engines, not deal damage and they're too fragile without a shield generator.

>>2319224
>Interesting concept but poorly handled.
This is every Arcen game. I'm convinced the company was founded with that sentence as its guiding principle.

>>2319141
Plays like a tower defense game

>>2319635
They're truly committed to it too. idk how you take a concept like Heart of the Machine's (you're a rogue AI in a futuristic city sandbox) and go "ahhh yes, what this needs is a bunch of extremely tedious surface-level tactical combat, surface-level city building, and a bunch of on rails choose your own adventure narratives with reddit writing"

>>2319141
One word: overwhelming

Every time I try to play 1 I feel overwhelmed by the wall-of-text ship descriptions and three dozen ships to choose from. I play a bit, put it down and don't touch it for another year. When I try again I have to redo the tutorial just to get started and then the problem repeats. I captured maybe 5 planets and that's as far as I got. Don't know if I still want to learn the game

The music slaps tho

>>2320644
How is HotM reddit?

>>2319141
Tried the first one but really couldn't get into it. Something about the mechanics didn't click for me.

However I did like that other strategy game they made: The Last Federation. Was cool for a couple playthroughs, though I can't vouch for how much variance & variety it has in subsequent campaigns. Get it if you can buy at a discount, it's worth at least one playthrough.

>>2320894
just the overall snark of the narrator, who is also supposed to represent your inner thoughts as the AI or whatever

>>2321061
I mean, if I were a superintelligent AI, I'd probably end up being a snarky piece of shit too.

I've played around 80 hours ln 2 with first dlc. I enjoy it's not classic RTS with mircro and macro, more like playing a chess with goal of winning a game with least moves. Spiral dlc changes dynamic a lot turning from larping as resistance to full open war as long you keep unlocking spire cities. AI is pretty fun with vanguard ad manruder fleets. I just hate whole aspect of tower defense.

>>2319635
Arcen is one autist's passion project. Dude went bankrupt making failed games which led to a divorce and then married a rich woman to keep funding his game dev hobby.

>>2320644
>on rails choose your own adventure narratives with reddit writing"
To be fair stellaris proves this is a good choice.

>>2321717
>and then married a rich woman
holy based, didn't know this was how he bounced back

>>2321717
>married a rich woman just to fund his autistic meme games
based