Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain

The Good
1) The ability to create your own ships is one of the best features in the game, I really spent most of my time making new ones.

2) The option to choose from 8 different races or to create your own is pretty neat.

3) There are really some fine options in the race-creation screen.

4) The intro-movie is very well made for a game from around 1997.

5) As of yet, I haven't seen any other game which comes anywhere close to this game's diversity in gameplay. It's truly still the #1 in it's genre.

The Bad
1) There aren't enough slots to save your ship-designs in.

2) I would really like to know how to make custom pictures for the different races.

3) There aren't enough options in the race-creation screen and the amount of points you get to distribute aren't nearly enough.

4) You can't fine-tune the galaxy enough. All you can choose from is how many stars you want and how many players should be there.

The Bottom Line
Pax Imperia II - Eminent Domain is a game where you try to dominate a piece of the galaxy. The galaxy's size can be set beforehand and you get to make your own race as well. When the game starts, you have 2 transport-ships (To colonize other worlds with) and 1 scout (To explore the different star-systems.). The race you choose/make in the beginning will determine how many habitable planets you have at your disposal and it can be quite tricky to find a suitable planet for your subjects to live on. (Some planets may be habitable, but are very poor or can only sustain a limited amount of people.) Throughout the game, you can research technology to improve the range of your starships, the power of your weapons, the population growth, etc. If you get new weapons or other things for your starships, you can actually design your own, using those parts. That way, everyone has his/her own unique fleet, which results in some pretty good multiplayer-battles. You can also spy on the different races and incite a revolution on one of their planets, sabotage their projects/buildings, steal technology and even assassinate one of their governours! Beware though, for as your empire grows, your friends might decide to turn against you and you cannot afford to be the weaker party when that happens. All in all, it's a fun game to play and will, even now, keep you busy for a couple of months.