I've never played the first one, but in Imperium Galactica 2, combat is anything from "none" to "high". If you wish, you can choose to have both space combat and ground combat auto-resolved, making the actual amount of combat you'll have to deal with zero.

I've never played any other game which let you adapt the game so much to your individual play style. Damn near everything in the game can be automated, with a very fine level of detail, letting you focus only on those game mechanics you enjoy. It is absolutely fantastic. I wish it was here.

Really? GOG has games which are more than $30, like Blackguards and Age of Wonders III. For people affected by regional pricing, they will do that compensation business, no doubt; I guess the question is if this game is worth it.

Well, this looks to be on another level beyond Blackguards and AoW: the discounted launch price for the pack will be 50 USD rising to the normal price of 60 -- and this is without regional pricing/retail considerations being involved as in those cases, the publisher's store here has the same prices worldwide from what I can see, so how and who could GOG possibly compensate? ;) Of course the Steam release will be regionally priced as always, perhaps fairly perhaps not, but regional pricing doesn't seem to be something the publisher cares about. Again, I'd love to see this come here, but an indie title (or any title really, though I guess people would be more accepting of that price tag for AAA, e.g. a DRM-free Diablo III) launching on GOG with a price tag of 60$? The forum reaction would likely be harsh. ;)

Oh okay, so these prices are discount prices, right now?
http://i.imgur.com/2SzdURc.png

I thought they were regular ones.

That/those prices are for the game without expansions, the 50/60 USD Distant Worlds Universe (game + prev. expansions + new expansion) doesn't launch until Friday.

Thanks for clarifying!

NP :)

IIRC, one or two of the campaign missions require combat to finish the enemies off. Otherwise you're correct, though, and you can certainly build up your forces in private until the actual battle becomes a formality.

From the Oldies section:

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia:_The_Creation_of_a_Nation]Utopia[/url]
A little like SimCity in space - with a bit of combat against a competing alien colony.

<span class="bold">K240</span> (Amiga only)
The successor - this time you settle asteroids with a handful of alien competitors trying the same. I played this a

Fragile Alliance is the successor to K240, already listed by the OP.

<span class="bold">Millenium 2.2</span>
Mostly resource management and exploration. But then there are the Martians that attack with ever increasing force making the game a race against time to make Earth inhabitable again.

<span class="bold">Deuteros</span>
The successor to Millenium 2.2. This time the aim is to leave the solar system and cope with an aggressive alien race out there. Like it's predecessor it's mostly resource management with a little combat thrown in.

Deuteros is one of my favorite games of all time. Hopefully the remake project that I'm a part of will get going again soon.

Interesting! This one?/ Do you have any contact to Ian Bird? To me it seems he fell off the face of the earth.

Just to add a note on this one, it's an Early Access game, so take what you will of that. In my mind it's still worth a look in and a check up further down the road, development willing.

Good luck then! I'd like to see a modern version of that game.

Well, the first planned version is a faithful recreation, so no modernization involved there, other than running on modern hardware without emulation. However, the engine we are making should make it possible to update at least the visuals of the game quite easily.