>>12704Seconding Endless Space. I love that game even though the mechanics are very open to abuse and the end game fleet clutter is abominable; it's such a nice change in 4X from being basically a Civ remix. The music and graphics create a really nice, consistent aesthetic and the tech tree is the working version of what Beyond Earth tried to do, minus the God-awful affinity mechanic. It's very thematically strong, the best advice I can give you with it is to pop open a beer and try and roleplay being the commander of your faction, at least internally. The combat is great for that, it's basically capital ship battles on the model of Great Age of Sail fighting, with very satisfying graphics and animations for plasma bolts and kinetic weapons going everywhere in glorious chaos, ships diving out of formation as they catch on fire … mechanically it's glorified rock-paper-scissors modified by the base strength of the fleet you posed vs theirs, but as a spectacle there's nothing else really like it.