A solid 4X game with some cool twists. As a Paradox game, the focus is often on the story of your space empire - whether it's a democratic utopia, a dictatorial military junta, or even some stranger political system. The action takes place over real-time, but you can pause and speed up the clock whenever you need to. The lack of turns can be disorienting for players familiar with Civ or other 4Xs, but is easy to grasp and have fun with.