Loading up Dawn of Andromeda, I was given the task of starting my civilization. While my first instinct was to blast through this process, I fought against my natural urges and decided to make an informed decision. There are all types of things that are taken into account at the beginning, we have to choose our race, which has a huge impact on your gaming style, elect our council, and choose your research, among other things. All of these choices intertwine with each other. An example of this was a grant that I decided to take to increase my research. When I did this, my research project went from more than a two months wait, to just over two weeks. After setting up the parameters for the galaxy we begin. First part of this 4x game? Exploration. Given my single scout ship, I set off to explore planets and galaxies alike. Dawn of Andromeda has a lot to offer.
Looking at the graphics, I was pleased; not only were they appealing, they also set an ambiance that greatly enhanced the game. You get this empty feeling in the pit of your stomach. You see the beautiful open expanse, and know there is more out there. On my first contact from another lifeform you realize, I’m not alone, although you start to wish you were. Then it is on to phase two of the game; expand. This was difficult for me. While there was not much direction with the game, and it was a lot of trial and error, I did eventually find another inhabitable planet. The problem that arose though was that it was already being colonized. This ended up being a short problem, one that was fixed later in the game. At this point, I had started production on my ships, having even created some of my own. Among these ships was the miner module. Buying a handful of these ships, I set them around the galaxies to start collecting my resources. The game revolves around making money, to do this; I mainly focused on taxes and trade routes.
Overall, the game offered much. I started with my exploration and expansion, then hit the exploitation aspect, and finally hit extermination. A tip I would give to players who are starting would be to pay attention to the speed of the game; while faster is sometimes better, the faster it is, the more that happens. I made the big mistake on playing through too fast and having a log backed up with requests and events. Take your time, enjoy the game, and go explore those galaxies.
In the end, I would give this game
3.5 out of 5 stars.
