I played the game here and then I purchaed the gold edition on Gamer's Gate before it was available on Steam. The game is fun to play and moddable. However once you hit turn 200 or colonize 20 planets (this is RAM dependent I found out(16gb, at 32gb you can colonize upto 30-50 planets maybe)) the game has a dramatic slow down in game play. At this point you'll mostly be waiting on the Resource or Population Manager, often times 20 mins plus for your turn to come up. At turn 200, I was just getting into the game and having fun. So I checked if there was a fix for this. No fix. Per the developers, the game is not designed to be played for long periods or for you to colonize every planet in sight. I usually won the game after 30-45 minutes of game play, often winning before I ever met another race, having ♥♥♥♥♥♥ bored with that, I modded the victory conditions for more time. What's the point of having a universe with hundreds of planets, but if you colonize more then 20 planets, the game becomes unplayable with long periods (many minutes waiting on the AI to complete processing your turn) between turns. Eventually you'll get tired of waiting and hit crl+alt+del, kill the game and go play something else.

The other thing is that diplomacy is a joke. The ai will attack you, make peace, agree not to attack you for 20 turns, 5 turns later will attack you again, make peace, make you an ally, attack someone else, you'll attack the enemy of your ally, they'll make peace, you won't even know they made peace, etc. Or you can attack another race, make peace, attack them again, make peace, etc. If a planet has too amny defesnses, buy the planet, the ai will sell any planet they have except their home base. Hey, there's an invasion fleet at your planet, just buy their ships if you have the cash.

If you manage to wipe out a race, they'll become friendly and start asking you for tech, even though they don't have any ships or planets and you've completely wiped them out.

I've never been able to get thru all the techs in the game, just takes to long to research them and playing with the default game without modding, you'll just barely scratch the surface. Once you've researched every tech in a particular catagory, it would have been nice to get a messages about it, but you don't so you have to keep checking and then remember to go thru every planet and delete that type of research facility. I have noticed from conquered planets that the ai does not have the same limitations as you do when it comes to building research facilities. So the top tier reseach facility, you can only build 1 for your empire, where as the ai can build 4 per planet. And on top of that, the ai will always be willing to sell you any tech that you don't have and they've researched.

There really isn't much difference between the standard game and the gold edition. This game stil lhas all the bugs it did in the original, all they did was add about 2 buildings as far as I can tell.

When I bought the gold version on Steam, I was hoping that the bugs and gameplay had been fixed, but I came to find out nothing has changed. Luckly i got it for around $4 so it's no that big of a loss, definitively not worth $20.

So all in all the game is fun in the beginning, is moddable, but has too many issues to keep you inteserested for any length of time.

Update:
I'd like to note that most of my playtime is watching TV and waiting for my turn

7/23/2016 Update: Still works on windows 10.
7/26/2018: 2 years later I install it, get to turn 350, it hangs on Population Manager, I quit and delete it.

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I really wish I could recommend this game. Most of the reviews I've read aren't even aware that this is an unpdate of a game so old is pre-dates MOO and MOO2. So to compare this with the MOO games isn't really fair, since it's just as likely MOO took ideas from the old Armada 2525.

There are some great features to the game. In particular, the events notifications after each turn allows itself to be used as a sort of checklist when resolving issues, in a way that not even the new Civ games do. However, there are several tedious features. Moving population around planets is necessary, and it just takes a little too long to issue each transport command. The issues are minor, such as having to move the mouse far across the screen, instead of having common commands set right next to each other. So it isn't awful, just a little tiring to me after some hours of play.

Alien races keep spamming me with requests and deal offers, and there is no way to stop them. Unfortunately, most of the offers just aren't that important. I finally declared war on one race to stop their nagging, which reduced communications to a series of offers for peace. The aliens will also sometimes park on your planets, doing no harm, but causing the game to prompt you to declare war every single turn, which also gets tedious.

This is basically a good, relatively simple sci fi 4x game that probably has some good strategy. But the polish isn't there, for me. The pace of play tends to tire me rather than energize me. So I recommend avoiding it, although it might be enjoyable if you are really interested in 4x sci fi games, of which there are not enough.

I have only played the Gold edition. Based on the new features list, I would avoid the regular edition and only buy the gold, if you do buy it. It adds quite a lot.

Update: Okay, I changed my mind. But with some caveats. The game is funny, quirky, and easy to mod. If you like exploring a game to see what makes it tick, and if you don't take it too seriously, this might be a good buy. The problems I mentioned lessen as the game progresses, and there are many ways to win. Myself, I have made small changes to the random planet generation to reduce the number of useless planets. It appears to have been made by one person, which I find quite admirable. It isn't really polished, but it has a good heart.

Armada 2526 is a 4X space strategy. Explore, Expand, Exhaust and Extort your way to victory against a number of rivals. Multiplayer by PBEM or virtual IP connections.
Visually it's a little dated but packs some nice features under the hood. It's one of the deeper but also clunkier 4X space strategy games.
Gold edition is the base game + Supernova expansion which ads some new features and gives the UI a little bit of a facelift. It's exceptionally moddable.

Overall i'd recommend it. Lots of planetary management and some not-thrilling-but-nice battles. Good diplomacy and pretty straightforward research. Nothing is dumbed down, and nothing is awful except maybe loading transport ships.

Now for the excruciatingly thorough review.

This is actually an old game. Very old. It came out in 2009-ish, but is actually a sequel of sorts of Armada 2525 which dates back to the days of Apple IIs, when cavemen dragged large stone blocks with holes chiseled into them and bashed primitive computers with clubs for a few weeks until the program loaded. Sounds very alien today.

And on the subject of all things alien, the aliens you can play in this game are decent, quirky, and a well thought out bunch. More on the cartoony side in terms of their overall aesthetic but well designed.

The bulk of the game takes place on a 2D galaxy map, populated with mostly stars and fleets, and criss crossed with fleet paths, ship trails, trade links and other spaghetti. There are filters to get rid of things you don't want to see if it gets very messy. A vast network of trade links looks lovely and really makes me feel i've built up a sprawling empire, but it's nice to have control over map detail.

The map is hex based and fleets can be ordered to any point within range. plotted course is drawn on the map with a clear and intuitive indication of how many turns the trip will take. Orders can be repeated a set number of times or repeated indefinitely.

Nearby stars have some information revealed about them, but hidden features require a survey or colonization before they're revealed. Visual details such as comets, star types, present resources, etc. all look very nice and make the map a little more alive.
And there's plenty of useful feedback. Hover the cursor over a system and a detailed description will pop up listing all it's features. For example if the planet has an eccentric orbit, it's habitability shifts each turn and this is reflected in the report. Attention to detail is not lacking in Armada 2526.

Unfortunately the UI overall is a mixed bag. Very counter-intuitive at times and you might feel cheated when misunderstandings result in a mistake. Fleet controls and loading/unloading transports is more complicated than it needs to be, and requires a whole bunch of clicks.

But there's good with the bad. Helpful lists of fleets, production facilities, colonies, etc. make finding rich planets, ocean planets, planets near enemies, or unsurveyed planets easy and all done with minimal clicks. Same goes for defenses or shipyards, or recent completed production. Navigating a massive empire and focusing on exactly what you want is shockingly easy.
As previously mentioned, tooltips are everywhere and provide a wealth of information. Right clicking on some things brings up an encyclopedia description.

Colony management itself is a little bit dull and drab. A planetary system is reduced to what amounts to a inventory menu with a planetary background. It's ok, and it's at least easy to understand, but it's not exactly eye popping.

Research is simple with the exception of so called "Skunkworks" lab. More efficient BUT completely random.
Techs broadly fall into areas like weapons, shields, and the usual. The odd one out is Psychic research which unlocks what can either be described as special abilities, or magic spells. Some offer empire wide bonuses while combat "spells" range from useless to downright vicious.

Planetary construction is separate from space shipyards so they have separate queues, and you can build more than one! A colony can build 3 ships simultaneously and queue up several dozen more. Finished spaceships can be instructed to relocate to a rally point. Smooth.

Colonies can be fussy creatures though. Environmental damage harms population, and full complement of top tier facilities costs an arm and a leg. Not every colony needs to be a super shipyard. Ones that are favorable for pop growth or income are just as important.
In addition to being useful moneymakers, specials can also help cement good relations with other empires, as they can benefit from a resource without fighting you over it. It's not all about big fat fleets. Unless you meet someone completely uninterested in trade and terribly interested in war, i suppose.

When it comes to diplomacy, Armada 2526 is above average and features plenty of overtures and treaties. It's well thought out, but it could use some more options like espionage or covert pacts.

Here the design of each species becomes very important, as each has their own victory conditions. Victory by domination is possible but it's the highest ranked empire that wins.
Each considers 2 or 3 factors important, and scores points accordingly. Population size or population happiness, battles won, money looted, research, etc. can secure a win. Those sporting the biggest fleet might be behind someone with a lot of techs unlocked, and both could be behind the guys with the most rollercoasters and tourist traps built!

This allows every empire, warlike or peaceful, to play to their strengths and win. Although it's fair to say that if the guys with the most ships get very angry about not being No. 1, they might go and bomb a few planets to get their way. It's never a good idea to be undefended but it also means that you have no reason to blow stuff up if it doesn't affect your chances of winning.
It's certainly a different take and it happens to work out pretty well.

Furthering the variety are the alternate empire forms. Humans might be their regular vanilla selves in one game, or a religious sect or traders the next. Every empire has two or three alternates (Think Korath offshoot of the Drengin empire in GalCiv). Sometimes when colony rebellions occur, these can show up organically as the rebels set up their own splinter empire.

Battles are multi pronged and take place on a 3d plane in pausable real-time. Not hugely tactical, but deeper than just collecting your forces into a furball and throwing it at the enemy.
Combat vessels are not overly complicated with a squintillion damage types and resistances. Instead it's more important to use different ship classes effectively so they complement one another. The combat area could be bigger, and the UI less clunky. It's ok but not as fun as it could be.

Spaceships have variations across different alien species. All will have destroyers or cruisers, but with subtle differences in attack power or shields. There's support types like carriers or the more wacky roid-rollers, glass cannons and bioweapon bombers. Less customizable overall, but on the other hand the AI doesn't "get lost" trying to figure out what to do.
It adds up and packs enough variety into a simplified system. Some empires will prefer different research paths or have a slightly different research tree, so not all ship types will be uniformly used throughout the galaxy.

The music is solid and easily moddable (I've added lots of music from Space Empires V and Starfury). The athmosphere isn't much but it's nice and the strategic aspects are far more important in this type of game anyway.


If all this sounds like a lukewarm recommendation, it's because it is. Armada brought a few interesting ideas in design and gameplay but never put them together in a perfect package. It's main fault is that it gets boring before you get to complete a game, but that is kinda true of a lot of these 4X titles.

I've played this game since 2009 when it was released by Matrix. I really love the space map as it's easy to navigate, great to look at and shows everything you need to know. One of the biggest difference to other 4x games is that each race has it's own goals. So it's not so much about conquer everyone but to achieve your own objectives (happiness etc.). The game is really complete with very different races to play with. While the combat could still be better, i really like it because you can lead many ships as well as ground troops on a single screen. This game is a classic and any 4x player should have it in it's Library.

Some special key aspects:

- This game works great on Windows tablets (surface etc) without any touchpad or mouse. Perfect to play it on the go (train etc.)
- The game scales really well on any screen sizes i've played it on.
- Multiplayer by pbem is easy and great.

I have owned this game for over two years and i bought two seperate editions for each computer when (if i remember correctly) i bought the basic Armada 2526 and the expansion Supernova at $20 a pop. Twice, once for each computer. So now i have bought it on Steam and i have laid out $100.


Now i can play it on either computer without porting problems.

The game is by far more interesting to me as my years of playing it go on.

Yes, it needs some creative tinkering to make it an even better game in forms of management. I would love to be able to find just the planets that have reserch staions that have become obsolete so i can both remove them and replace them without going through hundreds of planets,

But if you like broad expansive strategy as well as figuring out how to make an economy work I think you will like this "game of chess with few limits."

It is enjoyable but not a great replacement for Games like Masters Of Orion or Galactic Civilizations. Those are much better games than this.

In just a short time, I was very disappointed with this game.
--Space combat feels clunky, as weapons fire only once per several seconds (at least to start).
--The great graphics shown are only visible if you're zoomed way in. Combat starts at ranges where the ships are practically just blue and red blobs.
--Building space is severely limited on new colonies, often allowing just *one* building during colonization.
++Parallel queues on a single planet are very nice, and something I wish was present in other 4X games, but...
--Somewhat unwieldly and confusing menus
--Confusing and incredibly time-intensive research "tree", which doesn't seem to be a tree so much as a pool of options in broad categories.

If you're looking for a space 4X game, I would recommend Galactic Civilizations II or Space Empires V. They offer much more choice, allow custom starship designs, and offer much better interfaces.

Its a wonderful strategy game! Witha plethora of starships to choose from Armada2526 GE allows for limitless in battle strategies. While at the same time allowing for dictator like control over all that goes on in your empire. If for one reason or another micromanaging becomes a pain, several features allow you to hand different aspects of control to the AI. Alothough there are only 18 different alien races, there are several other factions with differnt perks than the main branch of that race. The map designer enpowers you to create just about any galaxy you heart desires and choose the riches at each planet. The only down falls to this game may be that the game can become a little monotonous after 200 turns if you don't set new goals for your-self and time between turns can be long if you are playing with a lot of races. Above all the game provides a wide variety of stratagies to conqur the galaxy.

This game is much better than I expected. Having played a lot of hours of it I continue to be impressed by the gameplay. I've played a lot of 4X games and although many of them have some excellent features they tend to be a massive grind. I've found that to be a problem, mid-game they become less space! and more spreadsheet. I'm impressed by this game because it has a strong strategic component, it is very well designed and a lot of fun.
Pros. Gameplay is much better than I expected. Movement is unusual but excellent and the simple but effective flight range mechanic turns this into a proper strategy game. It has sufficient 4X meat on its bones to stay interesting. The alien species are numerous and sufficiently different to give replayability. There is actual strategy in this game compared to many more recent 4X games which can be simply economy sims or CIV inspired. This game loads and processes action extremely quickly on a modern PC. This is also cheap which makes it a low cost to try.
Cons. This is an old game. Graphics are not what you would get in a 2016 release. There is no vessel design system (ship classes and upgrades only). It lacks the bells and whistles of a modern release.
This is very much of the vintage of the original "Masters of Orion" but it is also a bit of a lost classic in the 4X genre. It is rare for me to find a 4x game that is better than I expected, this one is definitely better IMHO than many much more expensive alternatives. Try it!