Comparison

Galactic Empire Idle vs Nova

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Galactic Empire Idle

Build and expand your galactic empire by creating energy and colonizing planets. Purchase upgrades to accelerate progress and unlock new combat capabilities. Engage in 100 levels of solar system combat with 10 distinct ship types.

Highlights
  • Empire building
  • Planet colonization
  • Energy creation
  • Purchasable upgrades
  • Solar system combat
  • Unique ship types
Features
Read full description

Build up your empire through energy creation and planet colonization. Purchase large upgrades to speed up the process and to be able to afford new combat items. Fight your way through the solar system with 100 combat levels and 10 unique ships.

About

Nova

Command a star fleet in a real-time galactic conquest game. Engage in strategic battles, forge binding diplomatic contracts, and manage your empire efficiently. Play at your own pace, from quick sprints to long campaigns, with background notifications keeping you informed.

Highlights
  • Real-time galactic conquest
  • Binding diplomatic contracts
  • Fog of war for strategic depth
  • Customizable game pace and duration
  • Background notifications
  • Map editor for custom galaxies
Features
Read full description

You command one star at the edge of a contested galaxy, with a few hundred ships in the garrison and a clock counting down. Everything else is neutral, or held by a rival who wants it as badly as you do. Hold the most living stars when the mission timer ends and you win. Knock every rival out first, and you win early. Nova is a real-time space-strategy game of galactic conquest for two or more players. Every commander starts with exactly the same star, ships, and credits, so games are won by decisions, not dice. A war of decisions. You move under fog of war, seeing only what your own stars and scouts can reach, so a spy probe before an assault is often worth more than the ships it costs. The defender always holds the home-field edge, which means you have to outnumber a garrison by better than three to two just to fight to even odds. Capture stars, build factories, and your fleets and treasury compound together; spend on speed, range, or battle power and the advantage carries across your whole empire. Drop a nova bomb and a star is gone for good, which denies it to a rival but scores it for no one. Diplomacy you can hold someone to. Talk in-game on a global channel or in a private thread with a single commander. Then make it binding: a contract offers another player cash outright, or only if they send the fleet you ask for, to the star you name. The moment they accept, the cash moves and the fleet launches on their behalf, and it cannot be recalled. Alliances are only as good as the deals behind them, and here the deals actually stick. Set the pace yourself. A game's host decides how long it runs and how fast its clock turns. Spin up a one-hour sprint where production ticks every few seconds and the whole war is settled over a lunch break. Or stretch the same game over days or even weeks, a long campaign you think about between meetings and come back to when something shifts. Any player can propose a pause for sleep or work, and once a second player agrees, the whole game freezes, deadlines and all, until it resumes. Let it run in the background. You never have to keep the app open or refresh anything. Nova notifies your device when it actually matters: a star of yours under attack, a shield that just blocked a spy probe, a fleet that reached its target, a message from a rival, a pause proposal, the game kicking off. Leave a slow game running for days and you will not lose the thread. Less micromanagement, more strategy. Fleets route themselves through your territory, so you can strike far beyond a single jump without plotting every hop. Standing orders turn a safe rear star into a supply pump: keep a garrison, forward the surplus, and reinforcements march to the front on their own while you think about the next move. Build your own galaxies in the map editor and play them with friends, or drop into a balanced Risk-style world for two to six commanders. Play from your iPhone, iPad or a browser against the same opponents; a game runs identically whether you join from iOS or the web.

Screenshots

Galactic Empire Idle4 screens
Nova4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Nova at none against Galactic Empire Idle's 1. Galactic Empire Idle's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs weekly). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Galactic Empire Idle sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Nova asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Galactic Empire Idle against 5.0 for Nova. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 4 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Galactic Empire Idle ships an update every 3 days, Nova weekly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Galactic Empire Idle versus Nova: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGalactic Empire IdleNova
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (3 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings34 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.616.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size83 MB51 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperMATTHEW JOEL SPERRYKevin Gilpin

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Galactic Empire Idle

One-time1
  • Activate Hyperdrive$1.99
None

Nova

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Galactic Empire Idle free?
Galactic Empire Idle is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Nova free?
Nova is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Galactic Empire Idle or Nova?
Galactic Empire Idle and Nova are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 3 and 4 ratings respectively.
Do Galactic Empire Idle or Nova have ads?
Neither Galactic Empire Idle nor Nova shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Galactic Empire Idle or Nova?
Galactic Empire Idle ships an update every 3 days, and Nova weekly. Most recently, Galactic Empire Idle was updated on October 31, 2026 and Nova on October 31, 2026.

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