I just started and finished a game in the post 2.0 world and it was fine. The game worked. It was fun.
I got a little luckily. I was playing as world with the Gaia planet trait. You get a 25 pop Gaia world to start in, but your race prefers Gaia and will find settling anywhere else tough. I figured I would build up in that sector and then either send robots to other planets to colonize or to use giant celestial projects instead to expand in my home system.
I began fine. I was plant and I had a few nearby plants and friends that were okay with me. I began with a strong economic start, and I used it to expand and expand and expand, never having another colony until the midgame, just trading posts, research posts, and more. I had a strong navy early, and never fought a war, I just built up an entire galaxy, making friends, building a Federation, taking out the various nasty Leviathans, and then winning a Domination victory after I blitzed planets and won in 11 years after I cared to. I won before the end game event started. I could have won a military victory earlier, but chose not to.
I loved some of the event chains out there.
For example, this is who we began as:
The Chondarr Conclave
The Chondarr
Fanatic Materialist, Egalitarian,
Life Seeded, Beacon of Light, Direct Democracy
We had an event that happened in the late early game where we found and studied some early DNA of our race and saw that we had been mutated, and our race willingly choose to move back to an earlier form:
We gained the repulsive and expansionist traits from that move. I didn't choose it, it just happened.
Then about two-thirds of the way through the game our star became a black hole. Every planet in our home system became a Tomb World, and we lost Life Seeded and gained Post-Apoc, and we could now live on Tomb Worlds. Even worlds that had been uncolonizable before it were Tomb Worlds and settle-able after. That was pretty cool!
One of our best allies was:
Great Raxycodium Authority -
Fanatic Xenophile, Authoritarian, with Enduring Conservationist.
They were next to us and our best allies.
Also next to us was the randomly created first victory I had with the game. I keep previous winners from other games and then have them as options to face randomly in future games.
This was our foe:
Chittering Concordat
Fanatic Xenophile,Pacifist
Strong, Enduring, Nomadic,
They were another strong ally, and with the first nation, became our two founders.
Now I had created about 20 foes from previous space games I liked in order to have a random chance to face someone familiar. They include the Kilrath from Wing Commander or the Mycon from Star Control.
Only one random one was made in this game, and it was near me:
The Omior Collective
Xenophile, fanatic egalitarian, environmental, quick learners, etc.
They are from Star Chamber, in case you didn;t know:
Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga - Wikipedia
Another founding ally was...
Ketling Star Pack
Materialist, Pacifist, Egalitarian
Also preferred Tomb Worlds, were psionic, and were very much super-friends of the Chondarr
Nation of Chiril
Pacifist, Materialist, Xenophile
United Norilliga Authority
Authoritarian, Fanatic Militarist
Thrifty, Talented, Decadent
United Yax-Kayock Hierarchy
Fanatic spiritualist, Egalitarian
Gaia World Pref, like us, Adaptive, Natural Engineers
All of these, even the mollusks, were malleable to our money and much larger fleet.
Even the nearby Fallen Empire wast plantoid:
Vivisandia Ancients
Enigmatic Observers
The other one near us was also nice:
Cynn Chroniclers
Keepers of Knowledge
So I enjoyed a different 4X game!
I didn;t share all of the races and everything with you, nor the five conclaves we found, as well as the pre-space race or other folks on the other half of the galaxy.