Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2020
Pax Nova
Developer Grey Wolf Entertainment
Pax Nova is a 4X turn-based strategy game developed by Portuguese studio GreyWolf Entertainment and published by Iceberg Interactive. It was released for Microsoft Windows on April 28, 2020. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
196 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Aug 26, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
50
Mixed
97 positive · 97 negative
95% range 43–57%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 97 | 97 | 0 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
2 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
254 of 452 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 196 · most liked firstlooks and plays like a browser game. Wait for a deep discount. I'd say this is a $5 CAD game. edit: after a little research... the guy behind this studio is the same one behind lords of the black sun. Avoid entirely. He'll just disband his studio, make a new one, and regurgitate the same garbage.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've been sitting on that review for a longer while, but I feel like with latest updates I can finally recommend it, just not for everyone. You know that sentence, "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle"? Well, Pax Nova is like that. Just not in the negative way, in my opinion. It's a casual, simple Empire Builder/4X, that lets you just sit back and relax, something to occupy part of your brain not with a challenge, but heightened activity. Basically a sudoku of strategy games. Each playthrough…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a cross between Endless Legends and Space. One of the biggest problem with this game is its maps. It is procedurally generated and in many instances, it is not actually playable due to haphazard generation of mountain tiles; which also makes city development extremely difficult. Another big problem is the load time and initialization time of the game; one has to wait for a long time to load a game. The unit roster and combat mechanics is OK and immersing enough. The technology…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yet another release from a lazy developer more passionate about making a quick buck than developing good games. This game feels like a mix between a lazy update on Civ Beyond Earth mixed with their previously abandon title of Dawn of Andromeda. This title could show promise but that would take commitment and a lot more development something the developer now doesn't care about once they have your money an have presented a hollow minimum viable product. Save yourself the pain and just buy…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →To be honest, this game really didn't cross my radar until a couple of weeks ago when I saw an article on it and the combined planetary + space layers made me think of Emperor of the Fading Suns. It was on sale for launch and I picked it up. I was a bit soured to the experience initially due to bugs and some UI problems but it seemed like the devs were working on patches so I held off reviewing it. Since there's been an update I figured I'd go ahead with the review. Since I posted this…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So, you can see clearly that this game has people who love it and people who hate it. I personally could only play up to two hours and because of that, a refund till this game is fit to buy again is not an option so I write this review as a warning for what the games current state is. As with all things, there are two sides of a coin and I will present what I personally found thus far. Pros: - Concept is great: The idea of having a Civ like approach to a turn-based game usually is a pretty…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Nova is essentially unplayable due to the requirement to move each unit, every turn. There is no automation, such as an "ignore unit" option. You can set each one to auto explore, but this is a poor hack considering you now have units wondering aimlessly, however, after a planet is fully explored, you no longer have this option either. This would be a good game, but with this glaring issue, its unplayable in its current state.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a fun and unique (AFAIK) 4X game. Don't listen to all the negative reviews. Some people expect a one man show such as Pax Nova to compare to Civilization and other million dollar AAA titles and give it a bad review if doesn't meet the same standard. All that matters is if it's fun to play or not, and this game is.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has a lot of potential and all of the infrastructure is there -- a great story, tons original and potentially fun game play features, enormous variety of choices for the player to make/different game play styles. So why the negative review? "Potential" is the key word. The fun factor is completely missing, and the key reason is this: none of your choices/decisions matter in any way. At all. Where should you build? Doesn't really matter -- you'll have plenty of resources, money,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Solid little 4x with some nice innovations combined with some familiar features from other games in the genre. I get the feeling a number of reviewers are bitter over the devs previous titles, which were both fairly poor, but tbh Grey Wolf have learned from their mistakes here. For a small indy offering, Pax Nova is surprisingly detailed in more or less every main 4x area. Diplomacy is meatier than most much bigger titles of recent years; the military game features multiple damage types and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Built up my cities on my home planet until I was able to research Spaceflight, build a Starport, then build my first scout spaceship, and finally launch it into space!... where it was immediately destroyed by some weird looking space creature. F-u space jerk! 10/10, would obliterate space beasts again. Unfortunately, there are a few negative reviews complaining about this developer's previous games (can't speak to them, never played them) which is a shame because THIS game is not bad at all.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Nova is an interesting concept, that simply doesn't hold up in execution. I started several games but could not get past the initial planet, simply because there was no compelling reason to stick around. Most of Pax Nova's mechanics have been borrowed from other games - that is no crime, most games are built this way - but they don't mesh very well when all put together. The idea of only two cities per planet is off-putting for most conquerors, even if cities can grow to epic proportions.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Like the vast majority of games published by Iceberg Interactive: interesting premise, decent potential, incomplete execution.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I played this EA, then came back to it recently. While they still seem to be releasing new updates and content, there are some odd bugs that are STILL broken. Things that should be easy. For example: One of the first quests are "Extremists" and one of the options is supposed to give you +2 pragmatism. You don't get it. Also initial quests often have a "confirm" option to drop the screen but there is no visible text. Little things like that shouldn't be in the game almost a year after…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You start the game and its pretty much Endless Legend at the first glance but it is a lot shallower than that after about 100 turns you should be able to get to space and that feels like Endless Space once you reach that point. The mechanics feel lacking and rather than a complex gameplay its more of a chess like experiance. the game rewards you for waging wars and diplomacy is pretty lacking as it doesnt offer much benefit to you. Trading is pretty much none existant in the game other than Civ…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I purchased this game when it released fully. It was full of bugs. There was no text at all in the diplomacy screen, only some gibberish that leads me to believe it has broken pointers. There are misspellings and missing words and letters all over the place. After researching tech level V my build menu filled up with hundreds of embassies, and I was unable to build or queue anything, not even the embassies that were being shown.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →tl;dr: The game does nothing to recommend itself. The terrain is practically monochrome, making it hard to tell rivers from roads or sea from desert. UI often offers information without context, making it useless. Has tech quotes, fails to make them have any impact. Bugs in some dynamic texts. Poor English. Setting, visual style and writing are very generic and uninteresting. Suffers from a complete lack of personality. Even the talking heads in diplomacy can't be bothered to emote or do more…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Nova attempts to be a turn-based 4X blend of civ-style gameplay with a tint of Alpha Centauri and space-based strategy. While several systems for that are in place they really don't seem to like each other whilst each system feels barebone on its own. In addition to that, the game doesn't really communicate the intentions of its several sub-systems very well. Throughout my two games, I've got the feeling that the game attempts to be bigger than it really is. A huge galaxy doesn't feel huge.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The AI doesn't even try to keep up with you, but will declare war on you anyway, so toss any chance of diplomacy. There's a bunch of arbitrary restrictions on how large you can grow your base on one planet. It's not only possible, but *easy* to win the game without ever leaving your planet, and I never encountered anything on the space layer that made it interesting enough to go to. Overall a disappointment, wish I could get my money back.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you looked through the other reviews, you might already read this and I can second it. This game tries to Planetside and Space strategy and fails on both. The Idea isn't bad at all, it's just... it doesn't play well. I's not easy to really point my finger on whats wrong... The planets are too small, space too static, rivals everywhere on every planet. In most other games, you start in your corner of the galaxy and at some point meet your rivals. I guess this game wanted to skip this early,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I went in super excited about the mix of planetary and space sci-fi. It has some new mechanics, some different diplomacy options from Civ, some unit customization, etc. All very cool looking. Then I built an army and tried to assault the nearest Civ. Can't attack for no reason. A unit leaves their territory, I try to attack, "you need to declare war". I try to declare war, "you lack resource X (influency)". Buddy, I don't need influence, a declaration of war, or a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game's permition to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Long-time aficianado of 4X gaming...was hoping the unusual combination of both interplanetary play, with play on planet surface would be a breakthrough. Sadly disappointed in a number of things, but the coup de grace is the absence of a decent tutorial or manual. I know, I know...such things are so yesterday; but trying to figure out "prosperity", "harmony", etc. by spending hours watching you-tube videos with pointers flying over the screen to a rapid-fire narration...well, it just ain't…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There is a great old 4x game called Empire of the Fading Suns. As far as I know, it's the only game that let you fight in space, and then also fight on the surface of planets, with all the planets fully developed like in a game of Civ. It was an amazing game, despite trying to do more than was really possible at the time. This game also has that space/surface combat, but doesn't do either one very well. Moreover, everything here feels like it's trying to do the bare minimum. There are just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really enjoy 4x games but this game has many bugs and it just feels bland. I bought all the DLCs in hopes the devs would keep adding content and fixing bugs, but the devs don't appear to be doing anything with it anymore. I believe "it's dead Jim".
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Even at a massive discount not really worth it. This game just sloppily throws together all the ideas from many other 4x scifi games, lacking both depth and coherence. The only original idea is being able to play both planet and galaxy levels, but poorly executed. Found a city then create some districts and some units. Explore, research, kill some aliens. Build ships then find other planets and mine resources. Declare war and take a few enemy cities. Change your government. Finish researching,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite the many negative reviews on the forums, this is actually a game with a high fun factor for me. At first it looks just like another CIV:BE clone, but what makes this game cool to me is that its takes place on multiple planets simultaneously. Often times I wished that CIV:BE had a space part where you would launch into space and look for other planets and fight space battles etc etc. This game has exactly that extra layer where at some point you can launch into space from your starting…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a bugged mess. Don't be mistaken: It's not unplayable, but there are bugs that invalidate whole strategies (such as Residential Districts Harmony bonus disappearing on game reload, or global Science bonuses not applying at all). The music isn't something to write home about. The AI can't keep up with you on Medium difficulty at all. The game pace is incredibly slow, too. And yet... Something in it draws me back to it. It's like a haunting melody, it's like a feverish dream that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would recommend this game to anyone who loves 4X games set in space, and I would especially recommend this game if it can be purchased while on sale, for under $20. I don't know if I'd pay $40 given it's current condition, but if it was below $20, absolutely. See below for some explanation on the features n stuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It took me a lot of reading to get a feel for what PaxNova was…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Nova is a strong innovative step forward for the genre and lacks only in polish. The systems are intuitive for veterans of the genre- if you have ever played a civ-like 4x you will have no difficulty picking up the mechanics. Innovation lies mainly in game-flow. The seal system adds an interesting victory condition to the typical list. The wonder of starting the game on a planet's surface only to later travel about the cosmos cannot be stressed enough. The game aspires to combine the deep…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can´t recommend this game. Documentation is awful, UI is KINDA functional, but the whole game mechanics makes it feel grindy as hell. Too many clicks, a general lack of convenience for the player, not to mention the weird ram BLACK HOLE it is, sucking it more and more, and making it SUPER SLOW in a few turns. Is really a bizarre experience.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Totally recommend, and it's only getting better. It's ambitious, and there are only two other games out there that are even comparable to this; Emperor of the Fading Suns and Star General. It's getting patches/updates and more DLC to come (free DLC just got released) So, if you've been looking for a planetary and space layer 4X then you'll enjoy this. Definitely has good depth so it's not a lightweight imo. Units are highly customizable. Looks greats, sounds great. Don't understand all the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm a big 4x fan - Civ II to VI veteran - love the paradox grand strategy games. This game really stands up well and brings so interesting new dimensions to the genre. I love how layered and immersive it is. Start on a planet; progress to space. one or two minor areas where its still a little rough round the edges but for the price this is a bargain. Highly recommended for 4x fans
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →well as a tester of Mikes games for what seem a age now, i have a 100% completion for DOA and loved that one, while Pax is the same sort of game, the style and play is somewhat different and while it wasn't bug free to test, up to yet almost all major issues found have been fixed leaving only a few minor issues, so i've yet to do a 100 completion run, i've have more than 1000 hours in offline mode, but 17 so far in steam for achievement testing etc. so would i recommend it? well that all…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Nova is an interesting concept - essentially, gameplay starts something like Beyond Earth, and ends something like GalCiv. Unfortunately, its ambitious premise is only realized in a sort of muddy way, and the various systems don't really gel well. There's a lot of fiddly micro, and in the end I just didn't find it actually fun to play. One example that might be emblematic of the whole thing is unit design. It sounds fun to design your units. It's fun in other games, like Polaris Sector…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All I own are space based games. 4X, RTS, Strategy, Builders, etc. Been playing for more than 3 decades, and this one fall short for sure. A wannabe Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri crossed with Civ? Or something like that. Hours into it and i just can't get committed. There's definately no "One more turn..." aspect. It just falls short. Save your money and check it out when it's 10 bucks or so.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to recommend this game, but because of so many shortcomings I simply cannot. On the surface, Pax Nova is a robust 4X Turn-Based Strategy Game, but after a quick look under the hood it's actually rather shallow and unpolished. I went in wanting to love this game - I saw the mixed reviews, but I love 4X games and this bad boy was on sale, so I dove in head first. Immediately I noticed the lack of polish and attention to detail. The biggest problems seem to be the simplest things. I…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great demo of an interesting concept. It's so full of bugs and it plays like crap right now even after the alleged fixes, it can't be recommended to anyone. Even if they pay you to play it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Want to try something new? Nope, need influence. Want to adjust your cities? Nope, need some other stupid abstracted concept which prevents you from doing anything. This is just resources management hell because all the resources are abstracted, or not relevant except for very specific situations. Did not enjoy.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A game without depth. Pretty shallow indeed. I rarely give negative reviews as I always try to support the developers' initiative to expose themselves and create something new. Unfortunately this game promises "greatness" and exploration, but it delivers something very boring, meaningless and full of incongruity. The way the game plays out is just bizarre. As another reviewer said: I could play the game without having to go into space, but the "planetary" part of the game is absolutely…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There's nothing wrong with the game, it plays as expected and no major bugs I've found. It's just bland... nothing to really distinguish it from better titles or to hold interest. One upside, turn completion timers are nice and fast compared to similar games in the genre.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is playable... but that's about it. The game tries to have a lot of different things and systems, but it ends up being pretty barebones and lacking in depths. While there are some unique systems in the game, the lack of depth in every other part of the game hinders this game from being anything other than an expensive cash grab.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here are some helpful tricks Never build near a resource. It will attract attention early on that you can't handle. Border tension will always result in unwanted war. Build City in between mountains to prevent invasion force. Make sure you have more harmony than prosperity. Harmony increase border, prosperity increases the population. Later, you will have the opportunity to invite people in your capital. Do not hesitate to demolish districts to make room for something you need.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →bugged bugged bugged. wildly inconsistent mechanics for example forest planting sometimes has no cool down, other time has 20 turns, for no known reason. Hyperspace says it requires aether to power but when you try to use it it says it needs usselium. A lot more like this. There is so much of this that you can't implement a strategy, in a strategy game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting and massive-scaled 4X game. So far I've played it a little bit but am enjoying it. It reminds me most of the sci-fi campaign from Test of Time, albeit modernised and improved. Very much a Civ V vibe throughout. Some elements are a bit generic but overall good experience. Valiant effort by an indie studio which I would like to see more 4X sci-fi games of this style.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Has some decent concepts, but doesn't really execute on a great cohesive experience. Overall seems like it's only half finished, or at least that the core gameplay systems are not very well fleshed out. No multiplayer and I found the AI even when I just started playing the game pretty trivial to win against. Your mileage may vary of course. Either way there are much stronger offerings available in this genre, and it failed to leave much of a lasting impression on me at all. Had a hard time…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For nearly all intents and purposes, Pax Nova is identical to Endless Legend/Endless Space, except with 98% less documentation and 200% longer startup/load times. Still a thumbs-up, though, because the Endless games are really good.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great concept, really bad execution. There is no place to understand how many hexes cities will grow to, which determines where you place them, what an outpost does until you build it, and on and on. Meanwhile the AI is aware and while you waste time figuring it out you are 9th of 14 . If I have to play multiple iterations to be fully aware of how to play them game perhaps someone should have some kind of instructions. I am surprised Iceberg has normally produced relatively good games.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The best city management 4x game ever where city population really matters when producing from the various districts of your city.. If you don't have enough population in a district you have no production or all production is halted.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Followed this in EA but wait for launch to play. This has a solid foundation for a good game. Fun to play now with some bugs and quality of life fixes needed, but interesting takes on multi-planet gameplay, city management, diplomacy, and unit designing. I feel I’ll get my money’s worth out of the game as it stands now, but it could turn into a truly great game with some patches and DLC adding more life to the game like more unique planets, races/factions, technologies, and quests. I’m happy…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pax Nova is an ambitious science-fiction 4X strategy game that tries to bridge two scales of empire building: developing civilizations across the surfaces of individual planets and eventually extending their influence throughout space. Developed by Grey Wolf Entertainment and published by Iceberg Interactive, it presents a turn-based experience built around exploration, expansion, diplomacy, technological development, resource management, and warfare. Its greatest attraction is the gradual…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I hate to put the "not recommended", since the game has many interesting ideas. Unfortunately it doesn't execute them very well. The biggest flaw is that the AI is awful. In a strategy game with many layers like this, it makes it pointless to play. Second, the game is a chore to play. Nothing is really interesting. The colony system has lots of things to do, but none of them are worth doing. There's no planning, your colonies don't get better in any real way, or anything. The units get bigger…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My favorite 4X games are: -Civilization 4/5 -Distant Worlds 2 -Warlock Master of the Arcane There are other games that would be my favorites but they just aren't polished or rich enough, like Galactic Ruler and Pax Nova. I like space 4x games, but exact setting isn't as important as gameplay. I like unit/tech variety and logistics. Distant Worlds 2 has the appearance of my favorite game, but I wish many things were more fleshed out like building on planets.
unlabelledView post →This game is buggy and extremely unpolished. From a visual perspective it looks well enough, but everything else is deeply disappointing. From the error-ridden text to the audio loops that irritatingly fade to and from silence every few seconds, this game displays a terrible lack of attention to detail. And attention to detail is what the appeal of this genre is all about, right? The gameplay mechanics have a similar problem. There are quite a lot of gameplay systems, but they are often janky…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game in a truly epic scale, you play in both planet like in civilization but also on the space level like any other space 4x. An interesting game and concept excecuted pretty well but as you could imagine the problem with this grand scale is how long a single campaign takes. Example I played 9 hours and barely got of my first planet. If you got a ton of time on your hands try this one.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like the concept and play, but this game is a resource hog. I would not recommend this for anyone who doesn't have the latest & greatest PC hardware.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a fun little 4X game. It's a bit different from Civ or other 4X in that you expand both on planets like traditional Civ and in space like space based 4X. The combat is a bit barebones but functional. This is one of the few games where I actually had fun doing diplomacy. On the flipsiide some of the text has mistakes in it both grammatical and stylistic, there are bugs in the game but over 8 hours I only got two of them. one was where a unit got stuck on move and I couldn't end the turn,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So many bugs and not logical aspect in this games. 1. Like cannot skip turn after reach science in era IV but your knowledge are less than 80. So we must choose research, but there is no more you can research. 2. To launch one of leadership you must have 6 pragmatism. I got 5 pragmatism only, there is no way you can get 1 more pragmatism, Pls tell me how? Don't spend your time with this games.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Let me start by saying I've been playing 4X games for about 30 years now. I played the first Civ, MoO, MoM and many, many more. Pax Nova has me baffled. There are too many variables (resources, researches, and some things I can't categorize) to think about. Most of them aren't in the tutorial or are buried in a heap of information. That wouldn't be so bad if the game had a decent HELP function. It doesn't. There is a glossary but it's huge without search function. As it stands, the game is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a good game for people who like micromanagement. I have to say it's similar to Beyond Earth in some aspects, but I prefer Beyond Earth much more due to less micromanagement. Unfortunately, I have to change my review to negative. The game freezes while waiting for the end of a turn while the opponent is playing. This has happened twice. So, it's a demo where you can play about 200 turns before the game freezes. Until this is fixed, I can't recommend this game, which is a shame, because…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A good game, only problem I have is its hogging of memory and the slow load times I experience. That is likely my (old) computer though. Starting game takes 6 minutes, creating a new galaxy takes 28 minutes, saves only take 3 seconds, but loads take 4 minutes.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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