Hello!
I bought Stars in Shadow a couple of weeks ago, and now that I've started to get a feel for how things work I thought I'd share a few thoughts.
General impression is that it's a very well thought out game, both in game mechanics and the UI. I'm loving all the hyperlinks in the various explanation windows, I spent the first few hours just reading stuff and writing down important-seeming info.
The art is great (I've known Arioch's comic for a long time, was half expecting to find Loroi and Umiak in here as well).
First I've played a simple "get to know the game" round, Normal with Yoral (everything abundant, 80ish stars, all factions). Without really knowing what I was doing, I found myself colonizing 30-odd systems while the AIs were around 10 at the most. Quite a peaceful corner of the galaxy that was, nobody attacked me, I blasted a few pirate and marauder bases, at some point the Orthin even offered themselves to be annexed. Trade and science agreements with everybody I could meet. Experimented with carriers and battleships. Played around with resettling different races on various planet types to increase max population limits. That's a really nice idea.
Someone killed off the humans without me ever having met them (opposite sides of the map). Some wars amongst the AIs, though I didn't interfere as they were too distant for me to reach.
Then I went with the Phidi, Hard, 130ish stars, again everything abundant (hourglass galaxy shape, it's... strange). Compared to the Yoral (though I don't yet know how much is due to the difficulty level, and how much due to the different race) I found myself struggling with production and population growth. Decent number of Ocean planets in the vicinity, though as it turns out, Phidi consider them low fertility and pay hostile environment costs. Economy seemed decent, the mercenary exchange is an awesome game mechanic, though as soon as I hired a few cruisers, income fell noticeably. Mercenaries do cost a lot in upkeep!
The humans started nearby, and very quickly seemed to have swarms of ships everywhere, were spamming outposts and colonies with abandon and I found myself boxed in and unable to catch up. No hope to beat them militarily, my few mercs couldn't compete with their ship swarms (and they were researching faster than me as well).
Barely managed to fend off a Orthin attack (they wanted a planet in one of my systems). Their first exploring Cruiser was barely stopped by my desperate pirate-capturing Destroyer flotilla (taking substantial losses), but for some reason the Orthin got scared and sued for peace, even gifting me a system they had just colonized. That was unexpected.
Still, I felt boxed in and falling behind more and more, so abandoned the game.
Now I'm on a second go with the Phidi, almost same settings, only difference is that it's a "circle" galaxy. This time I'm surrounded by wonderful Island planets, and my problem is I can't crank out colony ships fast enough. Production is still a struggle.
Again got Humans as neighbours, this time, forewarned, I expanded aggressively in their direction, putting up an outpost and a colony (both money-rushed to save a couple crucial turns) only 1 or 2 turns before their own colony ships got there. That managed to put up a sort of wall between us, and the humans expanded in the other direction for a while.
Later, while I'm still working with only one truly productive planet (the capital, the others are still too low on population and buildings), and barely settling around and clearing the first easy pirates (mercs are great in this regard, also scrapping captured pirate ships is surprisingly effective as a metal source), I see a human colony ship coming towards one of the garden worlds next to my capital, from like 15 turns away. I manage to rush a colony ship barely in time and settle the place one turn before their arrival. The humans didn't like that. (Also I love that this is considered a heavy diplomatic penalty.)
The humans aren't graceful losers, and have the gall to demand the planet off me. I of course refuse, and they attack.
My fleet consists of three merc light cruisers and a couple of my own boarding destroyers (which seem more like shuttles, just a boarding module and a PD coilgun with an engine). I scramble all the money I can and hire a couple "command cruisers" from the Gremak mercs (had met the Gremak proper exploring the far side of humanity thanks to the extended range from a new colony settled along their border, the Gremak meanwhile at some point also declared war on me, but only one cruiser ever arrived, and I managed to make it retreat after it bombed one of my outer colonies. Lost contact after that, though the mercs remained available.). These are instrumental in fending off the human heavy cruisers, though I still lose my most distant colony to invasion.
As a side note, the assault shuttles that the "command cruisers" come with are awesome... or would be, if they didn't constantly get shot down immediately by PD (even at "ramming" distance). At least they are replenished the next turn.
Anyway, having repulsed the first serious human attempt against my worlds, I decide that I can't really compete in an attrition war (my income has already fallen enough that it's impossible to hire new mercs anytime soon, and I definitely can't compete in production, considering the most I can field are... those same destroyers from the start of the game, and they still take too many turns to build anywhere except the capital, despite having built up a couple more planets with factories.).
Luckily by this time I had already researched the strategic speed increase, and the human systems on the border are a mere 1 turn travel away. So off to raid we go! (Had a laugh when I opened the diplomacy screen at some point, and my own leader tells me something along the lines of "War is horrible, no point trying to make it better. The more horrible the better in fact, it'll end quicker".)
After having depopulated a couple border worlds, tangled with a couple light cruisers and avoiding the planets with planetary guns on them, the humans finally sue for peace, and to my suprise they not only offer me back my distant colony that they had conquered at the beginning of the war, but even throw in one of their own border worlds!
And this with one of their fleets about 5 turns away from my undefended factory border world. Strange decision on their part, but I'm not complaining. At least I get some human colonists to settle those arid worlds I couldn't yet touch.
Of course I'm aware this is only a cease fire, and I need to find a way to build up a substantial military to hit their fortified worlds when hostilities will inevitably resume. No idea how to, though.
And that's where I am now.
Coming from games like Distant Worlds, the galaxy size in SiS feels... small. Less than a hundred stars is snug compared to the sprawling galaxies of DW. So far I've played with "abundant" habitable worlds. I guess it's a good abstraction for "we're considering only the systems actually worth mentioning, and outright ignoring empty systems with nothing of interest whatsoever". It works well with how production and resource mining is centered on habitable worlds, empty or uninhabitable systems would be pointless (and a waste of endturn calculation time).
I'm still getting used to the pacing of production compared to research and travel times. So far it feels that as soon as I manage to cobble together a couple of ships, they're still on their way somewhere when something new comes up and they ought to be refitted. Research, even with only a couple of labs from a "derelict colony" event in my current Phidi game, feels quite fast compared to population growth and building and starship production. Though maybe for the Phidi that's intended and I should focus more on money and rush everything?
I suppose I should try the Tinkers next. Though the imperial Ashdar are also interesting, rapid travel (especially with dense stars) must be a big advantage in the early game.