izigame.me

I was a big fan of the mobile game, but unfortunately the PC version suffers from problems with the AI and some mechanics.
I love the new maps, as well as the introduction of new game mechanics to keep the experience fresh even to experienced players. The introduction of multiplayer is nice, although I've had difficulty finding more than one active server regardless of when I come online. This can be changed by playing with some friends, where it's a good time. One minor thing (super minor) is that there are unlockable planet skins which can be used in single player which can only be unlocked by winning X number of multiplayer games. Not a fan of that, but it may convince some people to play multiplayer which is a good thing in my opinion.
The thing that frustrates me to no end about this game is the AI. It is biased toward attacking the player and plays inefficiently, which does not mesh with a challenging experience. When one opponent gets ahead, it makes sense for everyone to team up against the largest player in order to have a chance at winning. An alternative would be to attack the weakest player, in order to claim their production for your own to stand a chance against the stronger opponent. The AI does neither of these two, and seems predisposed to attacking the player when it offers no tactical advantage. This makes almost every game devolve into frustration, and achieving victory becomes RNG of where your neighbor attacks rather than skill or tactical planning. These are the same problems I had with the app, but the simplicity of the maps and the fact that the AI would retreat to defend attacked planets was a way to make this at least tolerable. With the new complex mechanics and maps, it's even more frustrating seeing the lack of interaction or planning the AI has in this game.
One mechanic that is missing from this is enemy AI retreating to defend planets. I think this is because of slight gameplay changes made to this version which almost guarantees that you will lose any defending battle. If you are attacking an enemy planet, defending units will group together to intercept the attackers, but the attackers will simply swarm around the defenders or tunnel a path through the center of the defenders, which the defenders do not move to fill. This means that you can lose a planet even if you have hundreds of units defending it, just because the enemy was an equal size and tunneled through your defender. The only way to get around this that I have found is to micromanage defense and manually direct your defenders to the exact point the attackers are pushing from, or constantly order your units to heal your planet as it's being beaten down by the attackers. This is not fun gameplay in my opinion, especially when you're being attacked from two directions by different AI while the neighbor between them swallows each of them up with no retaliation.
Finally, very often my game will just straight up fail to launch. When I click on it in Steam, it will prepare for a moment and try to sync before just not launching (no error message). I can play literally every other game in my library with no problem, and I've tried reinstalling and validating my game files a few times with no luck,
I really wish this game was better, because discovering and playing the mobile app while it ate my battery is literally one of the best things that have ever happened to me. Replaying the old levels in Constellations gives me vivid flashbacks to where I was when I first played those levels, and I remember telling all of my friends to play it. As much as I would love to recommend this game to others, I can't do that right now knowing how frustrating of an experience it can be. I'll continue playing with hopes that the developer is responsive and maybe addresses some of my concerns or points out where I'm stupid, but I'm not going to be buying any lootboxes.