Upon embarking on your universal takeover, you have the option for a general skirmish which offers you the opportunity to be one of the 10 different races and start your space exploration. You also have the opportunity to begin a campaign either starting as the terran alliance (humans) or as part of the Precursors who are split into two groups Dread Lords and Alnors. They are split into two because the Precursors are the most evolved races in the game and the Dread Lords wanted to use the other primitive civilizations as slaves where as the Alnors want peace. This difference in opinion sparked a civil war on Precursor’s planet.

At the birth of your new civilization if you’ve chosen a skirmish or a campaign you will start on your race screen where you are given the opportunity to customize your race’s abilities with a point system which can improve a number of things such as bravery and cultural influence as well as many more. You even get to choose what political party your race will be a part of. Your home planet and basic colony ships are the most important foundation to your civilization, the main planet will also come with a star port; these are very important for making other ships that you’ll need to improve and evolve your civilization further. Before I set my colony ship off on a space exploration journey I went into the planet management screen where you have to utilize the available pieces of land, I found it much easier to utilize each planet for a specific use e.g. more factories will mean a faster rate in manufacturing which can help your planet’s economy and trade possibilities rather than having a mish mash of things going on, all on one planet.