Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4301130/Riftborne/

One of the reviews on Steam:

Day 1. Already obsessed. Send help!!!

Look, I'm not going to pretend I knew what I was doing for the first hour. Riftborne threw me into a terminal-based space empire and basically said "figure it out." And you know what? That's the best thing about it. Every time something clicked - a trade route, a raid, a spy mission — it felt amazing because I actually worked it out myself. No hand-holding. Just pure "wait, I think I get it now" energy.

The Discord community is half the fun right now. Everyone's in the same boat, piecing things together, sharing discoveries, hyping each other up. It's got that rare early-game buzz where the whole playerbase is exploring something new together.

And the dev? Absolute legend. Active in the community, great to chat with, and was pushing out fixes on the spot during launch day. That's the kind of passion that tells you this game is going somewhere.

It just launched and it's brilliant! If you like deep strategy games and enjoy actually thinking, buy it!

Some screenshots:

Looks great - though according to Steam Forums, it's currently not working on Linux/Proton - though the dev appears aware of this, and hoping to patch it to work.

I love the idea of this but I feel like I’d be too dumb to play it!

It sounds like one of those games where you barely understand what's going on the first ~5 hours. But if you stick through it, you get access to an in-depth, engaging game that you can play for years.

I don't even mind the text UI, I've played a few other spreadsheet simulator games (not fully text based) and they can be a lot of fun.

Oh so like Dwarf Fortress!