Recommended0 hrs played
How come I can review this game even though I never played it on Steam?
0 found this helpful, 2026-09-03
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Malfador Machinations / Oct 13, 2020 / Strategy
1 playing now
CompareExplore the galaxy, discover and colonize new planets to acquire enough resources. Design your ships, choosing from different hulls, weapons, shields, and several devices. Once you advance with technologies, new systems will be available, and you will have to update your designs.
| Part | Your PC | MinimumNot sure | RecommendedNot sure |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Not set | 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster Can't tell | 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster Can't tell |
| GPU | Not set | Video card with 16 MB RAM Can't tell | Video card with 64 MB RAM Can't tell |
| RAM | Not set | 1024 MB RAM Can't tell | 2048 MB RAM Can't tell |
Mixed
57% positive, 14 reviews
How come I can review this game even though I never played it on Steam?
0 found this helpful, 2026-09-03
Well, I didn't expect to see this on Steam! Classic "beer and pretzels" 4X game, rather simplistic compared to later Space Empires games but still fun to play. The UI is a bit clunky, particularly when it comes to issuing ship commands and building things, and pathfinding through warp points is nonexistent. I wish you could play online against other humans, rather than just locally or vs. the AI; the AI doesn't seem...
19 found this helpful, 2020-10-26
There's elements of this game design which still influence space strategy games to this day. The controls are awkward, but it's a 25+ year old game. Once you get the hang of the shortcuts the awkwardness of the UI will disappear and you'll be engrossed in the strategy. It's totally absorbed me for 2-3 days. - Shift+Click Moves focused stack - Make sure you put at least 1 engine on any outpost/colony/settle ship or...
14 found this helpful, 2021-07-01
***** Editing after a night of messing around with the game to add this: I do still recommend the game, per my original review below. But don't try to play it on native Win10 (I can't speak for other operating systems). Find the steam install location, grab the game folder, throw it into a virtual machine running WinXP or older. Combat is a glitchy, game-freezing mess in Win10. ***** 0.1 hours on Steam, sure,...
7 found this helpful, 2022-04-04
“Previously on Deep Space Nine...” ~Majel Barrett-Roddenberry Even though it's 2022, Steam still has that nasty character limitation, so, I won't waste my time telling you about the origins. You want to know about how it all began, feel free to check out my review of the original Space Empires game. Which... Wasn't much of a game, really. To be honest, I still can't believe it that Strategy First is actually selling...
16 found this helpful, 2022-07-29
This is an old game and was released in 1995. I discovered this title from old shareware disks with games magazines, and as such, never played the full game until this last play-through. While I have recommended this game and this title introduced a 4-player hotseat, which was quite innovative for the time, my recommendation only extends to fans of the 4x genre and collectors of historic games. For everyone else,...
0 found this helpful, 2026-01-10
I really enjoy this game. I played it years ago and now have 77 hours in the steam version. It has plenty of bugs, and once you figure out how to beat the computer you can always beat the computer even on hard mode, but its still fun to play offline. I would recommend especially when it goes on sale!
0 found this helpful, 2025-11-08
Buggy. One bug is game-breaking. In the tactical board, during the movement phase enemy ships will disappear and you have to click around to make them reappear in their new position. At other times, it would duplicate both your ship and the enemy ship like apparitions in an old position. Occasionally certain combat animations would freeze the game I would have to restart. This was annoying, but I could work around...
0 found this helpful, 2025-07-14
I own The original game and that version makes this look like an Atari 400 game. very poor game style and graphics.
1 found this helpful, 2024-05-11
Only buy this if you are interested in the dark ages of technology, when gaming was a niche hobby for a reason.
0 found this helpful, 2024-06-05