Star Trek Voyager: Across the Unknown got a lot of criticism (and sometimes praise) at its release for how difficult it is. This actually caught me off-guard when I played, because I played the demo back in November or December, and I thought the demo was really easy. Boy did that demo not do justice to the challenge of the actual game!

I struggled a lot and had to restart the game multiple times, and save-scum sectors over and over again, in order to learn how best to approach the game's challenges. Without giving away any specific spoilers, I particularly struggled to get through sectors 4 and 5 without running out of Deuterium. These sectors are, in my opinion, the peak of the game's difficulty. If you can get through sectors 4 and 5, I think the rest of the game should be mostly downhill. That isn't to say that the remaining game is easy. It will still require careful and methodical play. But if you get past sectors 4 and 5 in relatively good condition, then you should have developed the infrastructure and techniques to give yourself enough buffer for sub-optimal play that the rest of the game will feel a lot less stressful.

With that in mind, I want to coalesce my experience with the game and offer some tips to help new players get through sectors 1 through 5, without having to necessarily go through all the trial-and-error that I had to go through. These tips will be specifically focused on the early game, and I'm going to try to avoid any specific spoilers, as this post is intended for people who are stuck in the early sectors of the game, or people who have not played the game yet, but are considering doing so. Also, please check out the full review.

Across The Unknown can be unforgiving and difficult.

If you play simulation Madden Franchises, and you take the preseason even remotely seriously, then you've probably noticed that EA hasn't changed preseason substitutions logic since the NFL shortened the preseason to 3 games instead of 4. This means that the third preseason game is still treated as the old "dress rehearsal", with the starters playing through the 3rd quarter. This is not how NFL teams play the 3rd game anymore. Now, the starters maybe play through the first quarter -- if at all. Instead, coaches now use the 3rd (and final) preseason game to field test their rookies and deep reserves before the final cut days.

But in every Madden since, the CPU leaves its starters in through the 3rd quarter. If you want to sub in your backups, you put yourself at a huge disadvantage, and their relative poor play can even result in loss of morale that can hurt their overall ratings.

Because I do take the preseason seriously as a team-development tool, the 3rd preseason game might very well be the single most infuriating thing about Madden for me. I hate it. Not only is it horribly unfair due to the talent level imbalance, if I try to sub deep reserves in early, but I swear the CPU also goes into robo / turbo mode and throws downfield every play.

Worse yet, being that I play Da Bears, I keep getting my 3rd preseason game scheduled against the Bills. Even though the Bills actually have one of the highest run percentages in the NFL, the Bills in Madden are allergic to running the ball. Now, granted, quite a few of those real-life runs are probably un-scripted scrambles by Josh Allen, but still... In any case, in my Madden preseason games, Josh Allen puts up 400 yards passing and 5 TDs in 3 quarters, and its so fucking annoying, and it makes me want to stop playing Madden altogether.

EA has provided no settings or options to change the CPU's behavior, nor mechanics for making the CPU intelligently substitute its reserves for evaluation or development, and we cant change CPU depth charts (even for "meaningless" preseason games).

As such, it always comes down to us in the community to to fix the things EA refuses to fix. Whether that be custom slider sets, disabling broken features (when possible), updating rosters to fix player ratings, or providing house rules for running Franchises. In this video, I want to share a method for forcing CPU substitutions early in the 3rd preseason game with minimal cheating.

Civilization VII is a considerably different game compared to Civ V and Civ VI. As such, the leader guides that I wrote for those games won't quite work for Civ VII. Instead, I'm going to be experimenting with a slightly different format of doing independent guides for civilizations and for leaders separately. Leader guides will be complicated, so I'm starting with civilization guides while I figure out how I want to tackle the problem of creating guides for leaders that can change civs 3 times in a single game. Unfortunately, the lack of Hot Seat multiplayer severely limits my ability to do specific testing of things like the damage dealt by unique units in different circumstances, certain diplomatic actions, pillage effects, and other things. Hopefully, Hot Seat will be added soon.

As always, I welcome feedback. I will probably need a lot of feedback as I learn the new game and experiment with the format of these guides. Of course, you can also support the creation of this content by becoming a Patron.

As has been my tradition with these guides, I plan to start by focusing my attention on civilizations and leaders who have never been playable in Civilization games before.

The early life of Chandragupta Maurya is steeped in legend with few historical facts known. What is known is that around 322 BCE, after the death of Alexander the Great, Chandragupta raised an army to overthrow the Nanda Empire and Greek occupiers of India. He was the first to unify most of the Indian subcontinent, and may have abdicated his throne after converting from the Brahmanism religion to Jainism late in his life. One of his successors, Ashoka, would go on to convert to Buddhism, and declare Buddhism to be the official state religion of the increasingly-urban empire. Ashoka would go on to oversee the construction of many stupas and temples across India and expanded the influence of the religion into Afghanistan and Thailand.

Maurya gets to adopt multiple pantheons, and it excels in keeping its citizens happy. That happiness can then be converted into other yields, or be used to support military conquest.

DISCLAIMER:

Civilization VII is a "live service" game, which means it will be periodically updated with new content, new features, and balance changes. I may update this guide if Firaxis updates the game such that it considerably impacts this civilization, or if new strategies are discovered by the community. This guide is up to date as of the 1.2.5 patch on 30 September 2025.

I welcome any feedback or suggestions that readers wish to offer. Feel free to post on the linked forums, or by posting a comment at the bottom of the page.

Civilization VII is a considerably different game compared to Civ V and Civ VI. I'm starting with civilization guides while I figure out how I want to tackle the problem of creating guides for leaders that can change civs 3 times in a single game. Unfortunately, the lack of Hot Seat multiplayer severely limits my ability to do specific testing of things like the damage dealt by unique units in different circumstances, certain diplomatic actions, pillage effects, and other things. Hopefully, Hot Seat will be added soon. As always, I welcome feedback. I will probably need a lot of feedback as I learn the new game and experiment with the format of these guides. Of course, you can also support the creation of this content by becoming a Patron.

As has been my tradition with these guides, I plan to start by focusing my attention on civilizations and leaders who have never been playable in Civilization games before. So this guide will highlight the rookie civilization of Askum.

The Persian prophet Mani considered Aksum to be one of the four great powers of the 3rd century C.E., alongside Persia, Rome, and China. It's strategic position straddling the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, separating the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean, gave Aksum a de facto monopoly on trade between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and they were among the first African polities to mint their own coins. They also built impressive stele monuments throughout the kingdom, as well as complex agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation, dams, and terraces.

The Aksumites in Civilization VII are a naval trade-oriented civilization who also indirectly favor cultural development and wonder construction.

DISCLAIMER:

Civilization VII is a "live service" game, which means it will be periodically updated with new content, new features, and balance changes. I may update this guide if Firaxis updates the game such that it considerably impacts this civilization, or if new strategies are discovered by the community. This guide is up to date as of the 1.2.0 patch on 29 April 2025.

I welcome any feedback or suggestions that readers wish to offer. Feel free to post on the linked forums, or by posting a comment at the bottom of the page.

Manor Lords had a big update recently (with more coming soon), which has encouraged a lot more people to start playing it again. I even started a Let's Play, with commentary on my secondary YouTube channel, "MegaBearsFan_Plays". I've been playing the game off and on since it's initial launch into Early Access, and so I thought I might also take this opportunity to share some tips and advice that I have for any players who are new to the game, or who might be struggling.

Remember that it's Early Access

The first "tip" is actually more of a disclaimer. If you play Manor Lords, please remember that it is an Early Access game. Though it is playable (and quite good), it is not fully-featured. It contains bugs, isn't finely-tuned or balanced yet, and has entire features and modes that don't actually work yet. For example, take a look at the Policies menu, and you'll notice that there are only a couple working policies, and the rest are place-holders that cannot be activated.

More importantly for the purposes of this guide, the game will change considerably over the coming months (or years), and leading up to its eventual retail release. These tips apply specifically to the Early Access build (in early 2025), and may not be relevant in the final release version of the game. I may write an additional tips guide for the full retail release, if I think the game has changed enough to warrant additional tips.