Sword of the Stars Redux (full version)

[Ambush Bug]

Note that I write this before the 'release day patch' has come to pass. Said patch fixes almost all of the UI problems noted in the demo, and then some. Here's alink to the post about the patch.

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That said... I'm having a ball.

As expected, the immense defensive potential of the Hivers has called out to me. I don't like doing piecemeal attacks on the enemy; I prefer sizing him up and then crushing him completely. The Hivers suit this purpose remarkably well.

Example:

I recently started up a 4-player game in a large (200+ stars) spiral galaxy map. In these maps, every player starts at the end of one of the arms, with the obvious objective being to capture the center and then work over the other empires. Obvious == correct in this case, as the center of the galaxy is loaded with big planets to colonize.

Early on, my expansion was slow--Hivers are not known for their speed on the attack. I had to send out multiple sublight 'gating' crews at once, anywhere from three to six at a go. Fifteen to thirty turns later, they'd end up at thier destination. Sometimes they encountered random baddies, sometimes not. In any case, once things were peaceful for them, they'd deploy a Hiver Gate.

Once a gate was deployed, I'd send a whole fleet (10+) colonization ships to any viable planet. The Hivers may be slow, but they can colonize just about anything that's round. Anyone watching the map would see a few slow ships setting up a gate, and then a massive incursion of colony ships to the planet, all the better to have said planet up and running in no time flat.

As of right now, I've got about an eighth of the galaxy under my control. There are three AI players on the map, and one of them has been makling incursions into my territory. Thanks to the numerous deep scanning scouts I've sent out, I know where he's going pretty much all the time. It's then a simple matter of sending my 'swordblunter' fleet to intercept. I've yet to have any major incursions to my core planets.

Behind this defensive barrier, I've been devloping some pretty lethal tech. I've got dreadnaughts that have tractor beams, which they use to pull bad guys to a stop while they hammer said baddie with heavy kinetic weapons. I've got point defense cruisers capable of covering a large area of space, totally denying the enemy any missile or torpedo attacks. I've built 'electric death' destroyers, each of which has a massive engine and an array of EMP weaponry, which they then use to charge in and disable ships.

As a Hiver, the offensive is slow. I got lucky and managed to place a couple of gates on the top and bottom of the main bulge in the center of the map. I had a pair of 'Invasion Gates' set up--equipped with Bussard ramscoops, they have no need of refueling. I sent 'em out around Turn 50, and they ended up in place around Turn 110--lucky me, they both landed on huge, colonizable planets. Now I've got a ready platform from which to send attack fleets at will.

Best part is that my core planets back on the arm of the galaxy are armed to the teeth with defensive satellies and fleets--I built my ships there in total peace and them jump 'em in one go to the center of the galaxy, whereupon I send them after the most likely target.

Right now, I'm setting up research for dreadnaughts--I like to have a couple of dread fleets sitting around for mop-up and hot-spot duty. Once I get weapons where I like 'em, I'll be investing heavily in biological warfare, all the better to destroy enemy planets with.

I've already learned a cruel lesson this game: Hiver ships have some truly awesome slower-than-light (read: combat) speed once you get the better engines... but they have the maneuverability of a lead rhinocerous. Learned that the hard way when a human opponent sent a whole fleet of fast minelayer ships--my dread, which had been heading for their reinforcement point, couldn't stop in time and didn't have enought point defense to protect itself. POW, one million-plus in cash down the drain.

BTW, beam weapons are cool. Nothing like loading up a cruiser with beam weapons and some point defense guns to crash through a nest of destroyers.

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This game is much more complex than the demo would suggest. The limited tech of the demo doesn't do it justice. Once you get the big stuff going, it's a whole 'nother ball game. On top of all that, the random encounters are, well.... surprising.

Google//Wikpedia 'Von Neumann' and fear, because those are in the game, totally true to the original sci-fi intent. There's one harsssing my arm that's already eaten a few torpedo destroyers and a cruiser, and it's making heavy use of my own stuff against me.

All in all, I'm haivng a total riot with this game. It gets steadily more complex as you go in--I've had to adjust fleets to meet certain bad guys, not to mention the fun of setting up 'all around' escort forces for my gates.

[XMEN Gambit]

"'electric death' destroyers... to charge in and disable ships. "

yuk, yuk.

Is the tech tree clearer than in the demo? If so, how? (Manual, help, etc)

[XMEN Iceman]

Got any pics of it?...sounds cool!

[XMEN Gambit]

Official website. With pics:
http://www.swordofthestars.com/

[Ambush Bug]

No, the tech tree is still random and still 3-D. One adapts to it pretty fast, though.

[Ambush Bug]

Report Two:

Patch day has cometh. If you get the box version of the game, you can download it now. GamersGate version should be out tomorrow. Direct2Drive.... well, who knows? They're a bunch of losers.

Now, that said, I've managed to complete a couple-three full games against the AI. Before I did this, I tried out a mod (yes, there are some already!) that enabled the full tech-tree for whatever race you played... and oddly enough, I hated it. So much to choose from and so little time... plus the AI got all those toys too. Got quite nasty at one point and I got blowed up good.

Game #1: Hivers vs. Liir, 70 star 'Arm' galaxy.

Now this was after I’d spent some time feeling out (what I thought was) the full array of tech in the game. I’d turned off that tech-tree mod, was ready to accept my fate with whatever I got, and fired up a random opponent game with myself as Hivers.

I’ve tried all the races, and so far I have to stand by Hivers as my favorite. They are the Masters of Logistics in SOTS. The sheer speed at which you can build up a reactionary fleet and get it to where it needs to go is nothing short of amazing. Given two turns’ notice, it’s not impossible to throw a mass of some five cruisers and maybe thirty destroyers as an initial ‘sword-blunter’ fleet against whomever’s coming at you. “Quantity is its own quality,” as Stalin once noted.

Back to the game.

First thing I do is check the tech-tree and see what starting branches I’ve got. No emitters/lightning guns, which wasn’t a big deal, but slightly annoying. I’d make it up in kinetics or lasers. Too bad, really--emitters are dang handy for dealing with The Swarm.

No biggie, though. I’ve gotten a nice method set up for flinging out initial scout-fleets--you start with three basic Gate units, which you can quickly match up with a small escort and fueling ships. Once I’ve got the initial three Gates off and running, I then do some queue-management so that I’m spitting out a Gate, an escort, and a fuel-ship every turn. A trio comes off the line, I set the auto-refuel status, give it a destination, and queue up three more. This goes on until I’ve gotten a trio headed for every star within about 15-20 LY of home.

Scouting with Hivers is fairly useless. You need every Gate you can get.

While these are heading out, I get some research going--specifically, colonization research. A little terraforming, some cryosleep, and maybe some genetic engineering if I’ve got the time. Also, I’m probing the tech tree to see what kind of weaponry I can get--point defense cannons are a biggie. If you don’t get those, you have to get inventive. Got lucky this game and got ‘em.

By now, my Gate fleets are running into potential colonies. I swarm a mass of colonizers and get to habitating. I’ve also run into a couple of dangerous (and yet helpful) random encounters, which I won’t spoil here.

The goal at this point is to get an economic base going, because in SOTS it is entirely possible to spend yourself to death. Some turns later, I’ve got five colonies and enough industrial output to do some serious research, and this time I get working on information warfare. As the U.S. Army is fond of noting: “If you can see it, you can hit it, and if you can hit it, you can kill it.” A few turns later and it’s time to hurl some scoutships out into the void--it’s at this point I know that I control roughly 2/5ths of the whole map, and the Liir have been pushing forward, possibly overextending themselves.

They’ve got a few colonies up front, but not a whole bunch of ships as of yet. That’s fine, neither do I… yet. This is when I run into tech-tree problems--I’ve gotten all the way up to antimatter technology, but without the major leap in weapons power that this usually provides. I’ve got fusion cannons (nice all-around short range), midrange kinetics, fusion torpedoes (tracking, decent damage)… but no beams of note. Apparently my scientists can’t grasp antimatter weapons or high-energy particle weapons.

Crap. The Liir are known for having some way high-tech stuff, this is gonna be brutal. A few turns exploration reveals that my scientists, while stupid in the area of energy weapons, have created for me some truly awesome kinetic weapons and some amazingly dense armor. And they’ve figured out tractor beams!

Now I begin building up in a big way. Cruiser fleets first, missiles for range, loaded to the gills with point-defense, a single tractor beam for snagging ships, and lots of railguns to pound them with. These I send out to wreck the Liir front lines, which they do, with fairly heavy losses since the Liir are tossing torpedoes like they’re going out of style.

I should add that it is hysterically amusing to watch a cruiser snag a destroyer with the tractor beam, wave it around like a flag for a bit, and then conveniently hold it front of the guns of its fleet-mates so they can blow it to bits.

I’m working on building some dreadnaughts now, and suddenly two things happen. My scientists tell me they can now build ships that hurl whole asteroids as ammunition, and there’s a funny white speck way out off the side of the arm. My own fleet color is white, maybe I left a ship out there? Zooming in gives me chills--it’s HUGE. It’s labeled ‘Alien Menace’, and the icon is very pointy-looking. And it’s headed for my homeworld.

Instantly, every fleet that’s not in battle is recalled home. I watch over the next four turns as it leaps closer and closer… and suddenly it turns away. I have no idea what it was (and still don’t), but whatever it was, it decided the Liir were tastier looking. Maybe it likes tuna.

Disaster averted, I send the fleets out, and thus begins a long slog of bashing down world after world. The Liir make a good attempt at a deep strike on my best factory-planet, but I managed to have company waiting for them. The Liir put up a good fight both at home and with the strike--they sent forty ships at the factory planet, cruiser and up, and even though I’m attacking three worlds at a time, they’re managing to have a dozen-plus heavily armed ship at each world.

Of course, hurling huge chunks of rock at their planets from long range tends to disrupt fleet formations and tactics. In fact, I’ve taken to smashing the planets but leaving the fleet intact--the strategic ranking shows that the Liir still have more ships than me, despite the swarm I’m fielding. We’re talking a little over a million in cash a turn for fleet upkeep. Who knows how much the Liir are spending, but it can’t be healthy for their wallets.

By the time I’ve gone through about a dozen Liir colonies, the strain is starting to show. Less and less ships come at me, and within a few turns of their homeworld, they’re defeated, being so far in debt as to be unable to build anything, repair anything, research anything, or maintain the fleets they have in orbit. I subject them to fishy enslavement once again. Rawr.

Victory! Three evenings for this one. I still don’t know what that alien menace was, and I don’t want to find out. Von Neumann ships are bad enough.

Game #2: The Upstart Apes scenario.

SOTS comes with ‘scenarios’, where there are predefined sides, rules, races, and objectives. This particular one is Tarka vs. Human.

The Humans have the goal of forming ten colonies and holding them for 20 turns in order to win. The Tarka need to take and colonize Earth, then hold it for 10 turns to win. In addition, the Tarka can go as deep into debt as they wish, with an increasing chance of being ‘recalled to the Empire’ the more debt they rack up.

Humans start with one planet (Earth) and the Tarka with five. A bit lopsided? Nope!

See, the Tarka have but a few scientists. They get a fair amount of starting tech, but it’ll take at least 70 turns to research even the small stuff. And then there’s the Emperor. At varying points, he will issue edicts that restrict what you can do. Here’s a small list:

“Energy weapons are too extravagant!” You may not build/design anything with energy weapons for 20 turns.
“The Emperor fears your power!” You may not build cruiser-class ships for 16 turns.
“The Empire needs money!” 25% of your income goes to the Empire for a number of turns. This one hurts.
“The Empire demands a victory!” You have ten turns to glass a human colony. If you haven’t got a fleet set up for that already, it’s murder to get one built and get there in time.
“The Empire must expand!” You have ten turns to colonize ten planets. This one’s a total pain.

I was playing the Tarka for this one. Keeping up with the Emperor’s demands was very difficult, and it allowed the Humans several opportunities to slip through my fingers. I got lucky enough that I already had a sizable cruiser fleet out by the time the Emperor got scared, and used that to smash colonies. That fleet was a barely-taped-together wreck by the time I had Earth under my thumb, though, as I couldn’t field any repair ships to fix battle damage.

This one was pretty short--about two hours from start to finish, and a total riot the whole time.

The Hiver vs Everybody scenario, on the other hand, looks to be a MAJOR undertaking. The idea is that the Hiver homeworld has been glassed, and they need a new one. The other three races simply have to survive, while the Hivers need to kill everybody. Hivers start with no planets at all (and 15 turns to hit the first one)… but they have roughly five hundred ships at their disposal. Yow. I’ll try that one some long weekend.

All of this was on Easy AI settings. Now that I’ve got a couple of victories under my belt, I’ll ramp it up.

I am really enjoying this game. The patch is reputed to be awesome by the box-owners that have it already, fixing almost all of the bugs with multiplayer. I’m looking forward to getting on some multiple-week games with various people--you can save multiplayer games and come back to them later.

Anyhoo, thought this’d give you all a nice idea of how the game goes.