It is one of the most complicated and in-depth 4x strategy games I've ever played. Super addictive, I am 50 hours into the game, and I am just now getting a basic grasp on how to play the game

It is a very deep game but it FINALLY CLICKED this last game and now the insane crazy-nerd-levels of sci-fi and military strategy are melding together wonderfully. Think one of those WWII Grand Strategy Games where you have to manage supply lines and flanking and whatnot- only with a HEAVY dose of hard sci-fi and a post-apocalyptic flair.

My last little match- my MadMax-Style Buggy stumbled upon some old ruins on the super-massive Earth-Like Planet I was living on (300 years post apocalypse, 50/50 land/ocean world with crazy chemical waters) and I my RoadWarriors found a bunch of these old mech combat-scout-things leftover from an old war. While my tech and resources would make it hard to maintain them- I decided to use them to attack a local raider faction that I had been holding back with some entrenched MGs and RPGs. My mechs helped lead a charge against the nearby faction- allowing me to save precious soldiers (this planet took the apocalyptic war especially hard and people were probably it's scarcest resource). I'm just now taking the remaining mechs back to military HQ where I'll mothball those suckers until my society has the capability of using and maintaining such high-tech stuff..... but at least I've got a handful of extra settlements to speed the process.

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Oh- for those of you like me that are still figuring out how this game works - there is a video out there called something like "Shadow Empire Stupidly Simple Beginner Guide" or "Oversimplified Guide", i'll try to remember the exact name and post it but it was about 40 minutes and it gets you able to successfully play at a good enough level to where your empire can survive long enough to REALLY get the details. Until that video I was making progress- but afterwards I can now make an empire do what I want it to and start to thrive. This game is super-amazing once it clicks and if you like grand-strategy and hard sci-fi this game can be very special. They added a Navy DLC (and air-units are already in-game) and overall game progress is ongoing- so it'll be cool to see how it evolves even further.

A mixture of Civ 5, Command Ops 2, and deckbuilding. Good first impression. Still a bit overwhelmed by logistics etc. though