Stellaris Nexus is like a digital board game of the 4X grand strategy

thesixthaxis.com:

If you’re looking for a game that can consume dozens or hundreds of hours of your life, then the 4X and grand strategy genres are pretty safe bets. From Civilization through Crusader Kings and Stellaris, you can easily start playing in late afternoon and before you know it, it’s 3AM and you’ve lost half the day. But does it have to be that way?

Coming out in Steam Early Access on 4th December, Stellaris Nexus looks to try and condense all the expansion, development, wars for supremacy and diplomacy into short and pithy 60-90 minute games. It actually does a pretty good job of it!

Nexus comes with many of the trappings of Stellaris, leaning on Paradox’s alien life forms, ship design, and more, but shifts from real time play and a galaxy with hundreds of planets to turn-based and just a couple dozen. It distills all the various gameplay mechanics down, simplifying and limiting what you can do on any given turn with what amounts to action points, and randomised cards for actions.

Whether you play solo or in multiplayer, six budding star empires start a game dotted around the fringes of a small galaxy. Naturally there’s the United Nations of Earth, but you then have the cybernetically enhanced Voor, skilled warriors Kel-Azaan, the corporate Chinorr, the slow and steady Turtuon Federation, and more. Each one has specific strengths and quirks, that are then furthered by the leader that you choose who have their own particular traits. There can only be one of a given species in a match, so choose wisely.

While the game is turn-based, you all play simultaneously, passing down orders and actions that will then all be resolved and calculated once the turn is ended by everyone – combat will take place if two hostile fleets are