Sword of the Stars 2: Electric Boogaloo

Click here and disable ads!

Ah whoops. Did star wars rebellion have real time battles? I seem to recall it did. Homeworld 1/2 or Nexus is probably a better bet if you want real time space battles though.

Are you insane ? I'll grant you tech tree, but other than that the UI is just excellent ! Everything is fast, comprehensive, and no more than two clicks away. Probably the fact that there isnt much economy and infrastructure to control, as well, but still, the UI is not where SotS was lacking.

Yes, it did, but they were rudimentary at best.

Not 4x.
How about Sins Of a Solar Empire?

Sins is... mediocre at best. It's boring, the real time adds nothing, and the combat is very simple.

I'd have a hard time calling Sins a 4x game. I know some people will lump everything into that category, including all the civilizations and many rts games, but to me it'll always need a specific set of features to fit in.

This. Also, Space Empires 5 for all its faults did end up with okay'ish real-time space( and ground) combat, partially because of all the different stuff( ships, satellites, missiles, drones, beams, projectiles, bases, fighters, mines, etc.) you could use.

Space Empire V

YEP!!! THAT'S THE ONE!!!!!

i dont know ... maybe im too into SE saga.shit who knows.. started to play Sots many times and never got use of it.. that technology is killing me every time i see it.. but still cant wait to try second part

did anyone of you people tried Armada 2526 supernova.. its not great but since wee all know how it goes with genre think its worth of trying
http://www.ntronium.com/Supernova Home.html[/url]

There is also Distant Worlds, how many of these little known games are there?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQgeJML_tMw&feature=related

We had a few threads on Distant Worlds here when it came out. Is the combat/shipbuilding in it good?

It's bad at the end. It has lack of features, and one of strategies is to move population from planet to planet.

So it's something like Haegemonia in 2D?

There is also Star Ruler, which I may be getting.

http://starruler.blind-mind.com/


Star exploshun!

How is star ruler now? I know it was released much earlier due to financial; reasons, but it is also getting constant support and it is a 1.1 now.

Anyone tried it at its current state?

Should we wait a bit more?

Star Ruler and Sword of the Stars (SotS) share a lot of problems. I liked both games in theory, but prolongued, repeated play was stiffled by the simplicity of the management parts.

For example, Star Ruler does have a nice colony buildup ala Civilisation (list of buildings per planet) with space constrains based on the size of planets. But there never really is a reason to micromanage them besides the first two planets or so. Just set the governor AI to one of the handful default builds, and you'll be done with colony management.

While you can create ship models (no visual changes), there is no reason to specialise them as general designs work much better for the combat model of this game. Of course, building more or less the same ship in different sizes over and over is not very interesting. In the end I favoured heavy armor/shield builds with one or two weapons, and a few repair modules. Survivability is cost effective, and going all out in weapon use is not possible due to the crew/ai and power constrain model used.

Diplomacy is nonexistent, as you can't become friends with the AI at all, and the main focus of the game is to expand as quickly as possible, without outproducing your resource income, at which point your empire would be crippled, and overcome by the competitions size advantage. The diplomatic AI in general seems to revolve around a simple true/false question wether they're bigger or smaller then you (with war when they're bigger and random, often unfullfillabe trade deals otherwise).

I was too bored with the overall mechanic to really solve the overextension growth puzzle. I guess I was probably supposed to only colonise fabulous planets in the beginning, taking the less interesting ones later on. Combat is determined by whom has the bigger production, respectively who has more ships at the battle system. That is also why jump drives are vastly overpowered, and the most important technology to get.

Technology research in general is weird and seems to only exist to postpone the key techs like bigger ships. Colonies get minor updates to their buildings from Techs, but they are applied automatically and should always be done. Technology has an automation checkmark, and I suggest leaving it on, because all advancement stops once the queue runs out, and I often forget to set it. In addition, what you research first is pretty inconsequential. Despite the automation, you do need to choose manually which closed tech paths to open, it can take up to 5 tries. But again, you'll want them all, and the only decision is when to get which, so no risk/reward or other choice needed. The tech tree is not randomised at all.

I did win against an easy ai twice, and started about 6 games, before putting the game aside. I will most likely not play it again. Because of that, I'd say the price is slightly too high for the entertainment that it gives. Oh, and also: Whole game is real time, not turn based, which leads to me pausing the game all the time, making gameplay feel slow and weirdly boring (nothing important ever happens syndrome, similar to eu3 and other paradox offerings).

Yeah, Star Ruler was kinda fail in my eyes. I don't know exactly how the devs envisioned it, but in my eyes it's still missing like two thirds of the content it should have, if not more. Obviously there's no way that'll be patched in, even as supportive as the devs have been.

Back when it was released star ruler played like the alpha version of a really shit game, the difference now is that it plays like the full version of a really shit game now, which is an improvement but still far from enough.
If you want a real time 4x game sins of a solar is a infinitely better alternative.

Well, it is settled then. Maybe after a big expansion. Too bad about sins not having a good expansion other than those small additions. Maybe it does not need them, i guess.

Sins is RTS, not 4x. Kthx.

Oh right SotS II...

Gonna buy it without waiting for the demo (unlike for example Stronghold 3).

It's not going to be the best 4x game ever, but it's gonna be worth the 50-70 bucks, at least to me.

4x are not necessarily turn based nutt butt.

Correct, that's why the real-time Distant Worlds is a great 4x game.

But the last time I checked Sins didn't even have spying and ship design. Add that to a very simplistic colony system, ship limits, few stars and countless other gameplay limitations, and it doesn't really play out as the proper 4x games do.

Thus, RTS.

Sins is definitely an RTS. It's even marketed as such. RTS with "4X elements". Makes me think of every first person shooter having "RPG elements" these days because they have an inventory system. Soon everything with a spaceship in will have "4X elements" and everything where you command an army will have "Grand Strategy elements". SotS is 4X, just skipping out on most parts apart from combat.

It's out, anyone tried it?

What?

Oh, yeah...