So I'm making yet another "tell me about good games" blog. Today's theme is space-strategy. I'm looking at several games, and not quite sure which to buy. I think my *ideal* game would be some sort of cross of Battlefleet Gothic, Civilization, and Total War... all in space. If such a game existed, I would be delighted. I love the tactical combat from BFG/TW, and the randomly generated maps/progression from Civ. Things I am hoping for in a game:
Ship design! I loved this aspect of Gratuitous Space Battles. Being able to customize ships, make your own designs, etc etc. Sword of the Stars had a pretty decent ship design system. Sins of a Solar Empire apparently lacks it entirely.
Tactical Combat: Because of this, I'm also open to Age of Sail type games. I'd like a game where positioning of ships, maneuvering, formations, etc are actually important. This is where GSB totally failed, and games like Sins look very simplistic. Ideally I'd love to play BFG on a computer, if such a game exists.
Complicated as f***: The more complex, the better. I love nerding out over tech trees and stats and numbers and spreadsheets and trying to make the best fleet possible. Managing infrastructure in addition to fleets would be awesome.
Battles + Campaign: I love the Total War series for its wonderful mix of tactics and strategy. If the AI were competent, those games would be perfect! Anyway, SotS had this a bit, but the 3d space campaign map was stupidly complicated, and the game basically always boiled down to "expand as fast as possible, SPAM shps, and overwhelm your enemy with numbers". The battles were fun, but the grand strategy was like always the same.
Mix of ships: My favorite thing about the Homeworld series was the vast difference in scale of ships. Fighters, bombers, frigates, cruisers, and the massive destroyers. Awesome. The cannons on a destroyed couldn't hit a bomber if they tried, and so protecting it with flak frigates and interceptors was important. SotS had 3 classes of ships, but no fighters. Sins looks like it has attack craft, and 3 classes of capital ship, but no customization of such. The more variety, the better!
Familiar Universe: If GW ever made a 40k space combat game, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
RTS/TBS: Either. Both are snazzy.
Anyway, so here are some of the games I'm looking at. If anyone's played them and enjoyed, or has input, or thinks that a game would really fit my criteria, do please let me know!
Sins of a Solar Empire: This is one of the games I'm really considering getting. Upsides are the massive scale of the campaign map, able to fight over several star systems, and what seems like a nice complicated game structure. Downsides are 0 ship design/customization, and seemingly overly-simple battles. From what I've seen in videos, the general strategy is to just shift-queue your entire fleet on the enemy ships one by one. How dull.
Sword of the Stars: I already have this game, and it's alright. The tactical combat is nice, as is the ship design, but the campaign map and strategy are seriously lacking.
SotS 2: Has anyone played this? I've heard it's shit, but the original had its merits so I'm willing to give it a try if folks recommend it,
Galactic Civilizations: This looks a lot like civilization in space, which would be nice, but I haven't really looked into the combat and it seems like a pretty unheard of game overall. Can anyone who's played it fill me in on whether this game would fit my criteria or not?
Master of Orion: This game, (while dated) is touted as a classic of the genre. I've never played it however, so I'm not sure how it would fit in.
Alpha Centauri: Another dated classic I'm told. Don't know much about it.
Anyways, any recommendations or reviews are much appreciated. Thanks!
Master of Orion 1/2 both were pretty simple, but brilliant games. Actually I play a game of MoO every now and then even now, despite how dated it is. If you don't mind awful graphics, check these out. It might look like a very simple game (the planet development options in particular are very basic), but there's quite a lot of depth in that game once you get into it. Can't recommend the 3rd in the series since I didn't like it at all, but it might actually fit your requirements too. Another little heard of game you might want to look into (again, if you don't mind nearly non-existant graphics :p) is Stars! - it sure has got a lot of numbers and stuff to nerd over. :p
Alpha Centauri is literally Civilization 3 on an alien planet. There are some minor differences, like the ecology and 'natives' play a bigger part, and there is some unit customization (which typically comes down to putting the best weapons you have available on your units, though), but overall it feels and plays exactly like a Civilization game does. Not saying that as a bad thing - if you enjoyed Civ series, you'll probably like AC too; don't count on space battles or multiple planets, though.
Again, if you don't mind older games, you could also check out Reunion and Imperium Galactica - spent a lot of time playing both of these back in the day.
Dear Hammernculers, EVE Online is the most complicated game of all time in space. Come play with us. It's not TBS or RTS or any of that, it's a single shard MMO. You have a character, and that character can do anything, it's just a matter of training the proper skills. You can wage war against the entire universe (like Kwark), kill NPCs for money (like Kwark), scam the entire player market into giving you all of their money (like Kwark), and more. When you sign up, ask for anyone but Kwark as a mentor. Love, TL EVE Corp (or you can use the cool people thread)
PS, Yesterday's alliance map. Each tiny little blueish white dot is a solar system. Black space is empire (NPC) controlled and can't be claimed by players. + Show Spoiler +
Sins of a Solar Empire is cool if you just want to build up an awesome fleet and have space battles. But there's really not much strategy that I found and battles consist of two lines shooting at each other unless you use mods.
Galactic Civilizations is a great empire builder, but the planet building and expecially ship combat is pretty lackluster, which is a shame because fully customizable ships is really cool.
Honestly, I don't think there's a game out there that satisfies your criteria. If you find one let me know because all the games I've found are either RTS and don't have the empire building I'm looking for, or are turn-based and lacking the combat I'm looking for.
Hmmmm... I've heard a lot about Eve, and I'm willing to check it out, but isn't it more of an MMO than a naval strategy game?
I'll look into it this afternoon, but again what I'm really hoping for is Battlefleet Gothic on PC. I doubt a game exists that satisfies *all* my listed preferences, but I'm hoping I can at least snag a few of the big ones.
I guess the actual battles are what I'm most interested in. Something like GSB where I can actually control ships would be great.
As a fellow fan of WH40k, and someone who would be interested in the game you described in the OP, I must second this man's opinion:
On June 15 2012 00:39 tofucake wrote: Dear Hammernculers, EVE Online is the most complicated game of all time in space. Come play with us. It's not TBS or RTS or any of that, it's a single shard MMO. You have a character, and that character can do anything, it's just a matter of training the proper skills. You can wage war against the entire universe (like Kwark), kill NPCs for money (like Kwark), scam the entire player market into giving you all of their money (like Kwark), and more. When you sign up, ask for anyone but Kwark as a mentor. Love, TL EVE Corp (or you can use the cool people thread)
PS, Yesterday's alliance map. Each tiny little blueish white dot is a solar system. Black space is empire (NPC) controlled and can't be claimed by players. + Show Spoiler +
I've been playing for ~7 months now, and I'm hooked. I've never been into the MMO genre either.
Also, I'm not sure if tofu emphasized this point well enough, but do not get Kwark as a mentor. Bad things will happen to you if you do.
EVE combat is like...you're captain of your own ship, in a fleet, shooting at another fleet that's probably bigger than yours and systematically dismantling it (that's just how we roll)
Master of Orion: This game, (while dated) is touted as a classic of the genre. I've never played it however, so I'm not sure how it would fit in.
I'm working on a pretty in-depth blog about this game that I'll be posting later tonight; make sure to give it a look. It's really, really fantastic game.
Sins of a Solar Empire is pretty darn fun, but there's a shocking lack of strategic depth. There's pretty much one perfect fleet composition and tech path for each of the three races, and if you don't have the expansion everything pretty much comes down to giant death ball armies. If you can get it cheap, definetly worth playing; but don't expect to spend hours in real time stratagy game heaven like you did with Homeworld. It's good fun but it's just not got the depth that can keep you playing for hours.
As for turn based strategy, first two MOO games and Alpha Centari are probably the finest ever made.
On June 15 2012 00:29 Sethronu wrote: Master of Orion 1/2 both were pretty simple, but brilliant games. Actually I play a game of MoO every now and then even now, despite how dated it is. If you don't mind awful graphics, check these out. It might look like a very simple game (the planet development options in particular are very basic), but there's quite a lot of depth in that game once you get into it. Can't recommend the 3rd in the series since I didn't like it at all, but it might actually fit your requirements too.
I can second this, especially master of orion 2! That game is pure awesome, you get to design your own ships, like do I want 100 lasers or 10 phasors or maybe 50 lasers and 5 phasors? Do I want them to only be able to shoot forward or should they have a 360 degree arc? Do I want to heavy mount them, give them autofiring capabilities etc, which would make them more powerful but have tradeoffs? Do I want extra crew pods to defend against boarding attempts? Do I want tractor beams to allow easier boarding of enemy ships and thus possibly taking over their ships and even their technology? Do I want shields or should I focus on just havings lots of armor? Do I want point defence lasers to defend against missiles and small interceptor ships? Do I want extra fuel cells allowing the ship to explore further into space? Do I want to install bombs to make attacking planetary defenses easier but being useless in normal ship to ship fights? Do I want the ship to be a large doomstar class ship or a small frigate? (The doomstar is 100 times bigger and stronger at the same tech level than the smallest ship) Do I want a deathstar beam to annihilate planets on my ship? (Yes, of course they have such a thing! It is called a stellar converter, a lot of the technology in this game is based on starwars)
Add to that an infinite tech tree with miniaturization. Basically when you first research the laser it takes up a lot of space and is expensive to build. But as you delve more into physics your laser will get cheaper and smaller allowing you to fit more of them onto your ships. So even when you have researched everything you can continue on researching the advanced techs which will make your corresponding ship equipment cheaper and smaller allowing you to build better ships. Then there are also an alien race with the best technology in the game that attacks randomly (Antarans), you get that technology by capturing their ships and then scrapping them, but that is kinda hard earlygame.
Overall it is a neat game, you start out looking for that perfect planet, usually finding a monster guarding it as well. You can't travel that far into space before you have better technology so you are limited to the closest ~3 stars, you can extend that range by building outposts or by researching better fuelcells. This gives everyone a bit of breathing room early since you basically can't reach each other and really gives a sense of accomplishment for each new star you find. Some star sucks, just having astroid belts or nothing at all making them useless. But then sometimes you find an unguarded star with a really good planet on it and you get really happy. The ship design system is the most free with the most options of any unit design system I have ever seen, if you like designing units you will spend hours here trying to make the perfect killing machine.
If there was a Total War game in space, I would be so happy. I wonder how long it would take for someone to make a Legend of the Galactic Heroes mod for it?
Example of tactic combat in Sword of the Stars. It is probably the game closest to what you want that I can think of. I personally don't like tactic combat in 4x space games, though that is just me.
AI Wars might also suit you. Where you mass units, throw them against the AI and die a horrible death even after microing your heart out.
Here is a short video showing ab it of what you can expect from master of orion 2:
If you wonder why some ships explode, when you have penetrated a ships armor and is damaging its hull you are also damaging its internal systems sych as weapons and the engine. If you destroy the engine before the hull it explodes damaging nearby ships, if you destroy the hull before the engine it just implodes. Blue hits are shield hits, red hits are hull/armor hits.
Try Imperium Galactica 2. It's from 2000 but it's graphics look more like from 2003/2004.
It's a 4x space game, with spying, research, simcity, diplomacy and an interesting story, lots of space and planetside battles and it's realtime. There are some reviews (PC not iOS) out there and all state it's amazing - a timeless classic indeed, it fit on 4 CDs back then. It's got an intuitive interface that's not too hard to learn, yet the game is very complex as it features empire and fleet management to a very detailed degree.
Galactic Civilizations: This looks a lot like civilization in space, which would be nice, but I haven't really looked into the combat and it seems like a pretty unheard of game overall. Can anyone who's played it fill me in on whether this game would fit my criteria or not?
It's pretty much like Civilization in space. There's a medium learning curve, nothing too hard and lots of difficulty sliders. The campaigns are mostly useless at teaching how to play but you can figure it out for the most part on your own. For other bits there's a extensive in game encyclopedia and an online community. It's pretty fun.. kinda like civilization; Once in a while dust it off, play a game, uninstall and 13 months later remember it, have another go. 4X turn based strategy obviously
Oh and pick up the sequel and its expansions, I wouldn't recommend the original unless you're a glutton for creaking nostalgia. Forgot to mention that its heavily steeped in a sense of humor that sometimes borders on cheesy but does make you grin more often than not.
I've only played Master of Orion 2 and Alpha Centauri extensively and they're both awesome. Alpha Centauri was so good that I wrote a mystery novella set in its universe. Master of Orion 2 also has a lot of depth both management wise and tactically, as well as an extensive rebalancing mod in VDC (http://www.spheriumnorth.com/orion-forum/nfphpbb/viewtopic.php?t=613) I can't wait to read TheToast's blog on MOO.
Also tofucake's EVE advertisements make me smile.
... we should get a TL sub-community to play SMAC and/or MOO2.
I found Sins of a Solar Empire to be okay, but not that great. It just ends with deathball vs deathball when you play the AI, can't speak about multiplayer.
Here are my tips: 1) Starfarer. It's similar to SPAZ (Space Pirates and Zombies). just more complex and still in development. If you play it with mods it's pretty cool for short periods here and there if you want to kill a few hours. Fun nonetheless, updates are done on a ~monthly basis and it's evolving quickly. (And it's like 5-10 bucks total) + Show Spoiler +
2) (And this will blow your mind if you're even remotely into that scenario.) AI War: Fleet Command. I can't really recommend good videos, but I can recommend to read this blog article from the designer as to what some of his design does in practice: http://christophermpark.blogspot.de/2009/06/designing-emergent-ai-part-1.html
The AI in this game is completely nuts compared to anything I've ever seen in a game. It's scary. Imagine sending fighters to flank the enemies bombers, the enemy bombers spread out and he sends his own stuff to intercept your fighters. While you are busy microing that battle you notice he used cloaked units to pass your border defenses and starts hitting your resource bases which (silly you!) had only lightly defended because you thought heavy border defenses are enough.
The basic design is incredibly addicting and the stuff the AI does in terms of cleverness is really insane. You won't find a single case of "Hole in the wall"[1]-exploit in this game because the few that emerged got patched quickly.
Gameplay tl;dr: You're a poor human force in a random solar system, AIs have taken over the entire galaxy and the more you piss off the AI the more it tries to make you disappear for good. Pricewise it's 16.99$ for the entire bundle including expansions and... they still update this game and they still keep producing more content.
The approach that I settled on, and which gave surprisingly quick results early in the development of the game, was simulating intelligence in each of the individual units, rather than simulating a single overall controlling intelligence. If you have ever ready Prey, by Michael Crichton, it works vaguely like the swarms of nanobots in that book. The primary difference is that my individual units are a lot more intelligent than each of his nanobots, and thus an average swarm in my game might be 30 to 2,000 ships, rather than millions or billions of nanobots.
[1] Hole in the wall stuff means that e.g. you create a base, leave one spot open in your wall and the random BW/AoE/whatever AI will try to run through that. Basically any fixed behaviour could be exploited, AI War aims to eliminate all of that stuff with various tricks.
Edit: btw, go ahead and join the new Dwarf Fortress succession game. =P
Master of Orion 2 is great when you're learning how to play, but if you decide to read up on strategy on the Internet, the computer becomes pretty easy... and I'm not even micro managing every turn either.
Ohhh sick, a new DF succession game? I haven't touched DF in like a year lol.
AI wars sounds awesome. I'll absolutely check that out, thanks!
Been playing around in Sword of the Stars lately as I hadn't played it in ages. Fun game but also frustrating at times. Getting an hour into a campaign and then discovering that your randomly generated tech tree doesn't contain point defense systems... lol. Reroll, no shield OR armor techs. FML
EPT
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