Reality mod : https://sites.google.com/site/efsreality/

So, for those new to the game (not you nostalgia dudes ;P) how's it been so far? Yay or nay? Yeah I know it may seem a little dated but I don't thinl that's the case here.
I shunned this game in the day, way too complex for my liking. Sad to regret this, heh.

How do taxes work (Nova Mod)? I lowered taxes thinking it would increase Loyalty but not only did it not do that, but also I was told I'd have a loyalty drop if I raised the taxes back up to where they were.

Reading the manual is highly recommended. In the manual there is a sort of guided tutorial: start with the pro-church House, do what the manual says and you will be familiar with the most relevant mechanics.

So, reading the short manual really pays off for this game.

I would suggest to play vanilla a little before trying any mod. If you try a mod. When you do, possibly the Reality Mod might be your friend, or Nova, alternatively. Emperor Wars puts you in the middle game already, and Hyperion includes lots of changes.

That's me, always a purist heh.
Thanks for the info. Couldn't play this in the day sadly.

Oof, the combat system has an unholy trifecta of things I hate in a TBS - doomstacks, one-turn combat resolution that usually kills the units involved, and worst all, near-total lack of transparency on combat resolution. This would be halfway-acceptable only if the combat were completely deterministic and fairly simple so you can figure out yourself why it turned out the way it did. But it isn't - it's a complex system with RNG elements.

RNG is bad enough on its own, but then not letting you even see the dice rolls is just heinous. I always thought Civ 5's reworked combat system was the best thing to ever happen to that series, so playing EoFS is like going back to the dark ages when it comes to combat mechanics in a turn-based grand strategy game. Actually, no, it's like going back to sticks and stones. At least Civ 3 and 4 let you know your odds before engaging in combat. This kind of thing is exactly what I'm thinking of when I say that even classics and cult classics can have BS game design that has since been weeded out by the industry and gaming community.

I've been trying to mod the game by editing the .dat files. This always worked in the past but when I try to run it on steam it causes a crash to desktop after I've played it for a few minutes. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

Run it directly through the Emperor of the Fading Suns .exe instead of going the unnecessary and utterly pointless detour via any client software?

This is the address of the subforum dedicated to the game:

https://www.gog.com/forum/emperor_of_the_fading_suns#1644177995

Seems like today we received a big update for Emperor of the Fading Suns.

Game is now called "Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced" and has some big 1.5 update, list of changes:

https://items.gog.com/emperor_of_the_fading_suns/emperor_of_the_fading_suns_changelog.pdf

Also, now in library there is installer of the "updated" version and (in bonus section) installer with the "classic" version of the game.

Interesting. I was interested in the game before but was also put off by some negative comments. Have to take a look into it.

A welcome patch for a game without mods, it should help to fix some problems the game had out of the box. To see a game patched 20 years later is something very special and exciting.
I wish there will be more patches, specifically in the graphic engine. The wrapper does a very good work and is pretty stable but even with the ew patch I still suffer some kind of mouse lag in the galaxy main screen. Pretty uncomfortable. The rest is very smooth and stable indeed. Movies, flow, loading speeds, everything.

Came upon this:
Emperor of the Fading Suns 1.5 Patch Tutorial

Wow, totally missed that one. Thanks for bringing it up! :)

Damnation, this is like the best news of the year, topping the release of DRM-free Skyrim, and of courseeeeee there's not even an update flag for it. Sheesh, GOG!