The strategy of Star Ruler is quite limited: since you can colonize everywhere and most planets have sufficient size to build enough structures to satisfy the population, there’s no strategy beyond simply colonizing everywhere. Whoever does so the fastest wins, as they will have the resources to out-produce, out-fight, and out-research the enemy. The resources are plentiful and gathered at a quick enough rate that a colony can expand quite quickly. The AI can (and should, especially if you have hundreds of colonies) build all of the structures automatically, so your role in the game revolves around wrangling up the troops and invading enemy worlds. Strategy games should be about choice, and in Star Ruler there is no choice: go everywhere, my son. The interface and other shortcomings in Star Ruler really inhibit the fun, and the game really doesn’t offer anything significantly new to the genre. There are simply too many similarities to games like Distant Worlds to recommend Star Ruler: you can get a much more polished experience elsewhere.