4X Fans, have a look at Sword of the Stars

[Ambush Bug]

Here's the official website.

If you've got an account on FilePlanet, grab the demo here.

The last 4X space exploration game I got into was Master of Orion when it was out on the Genesis. So yeah, I haven't played these in a while.

After mucking around with the demo, I have to say I'm impressed.

The main thing is its almost bug-free state of affairs. I had one lockup with SOTS. Happened when I was mucking about with the graphics options and cranked everything up all the way--so far as I can tell, sliding the gammo around while it was still thrashing textures in and out was a bad idea.

That said, it's a good demo. You get half of the races (Humans and Takara, who both have very straightforward means of transportation.) You get a fair amount of tech to play with, but only one ship class, and you're limited to 40 stars maximum per map and one particular layout.

Frankly, those limitations make me want to try the other two races very much.

So, what is SOTS? It's space game, of the 4X variety (eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, and eXterminate) which means you control a vast armada of planets and ships. You colonize planets, smash enemy fleets, and generally try to kick everyone's butt.

It's a turn-based game as well--you get to make large decisions every turn, and you have the option of manually controlling your fleets in battle in a real-time environment as things get messy.

Pros:

Simplified system management: It's not hard to set how each planet is going to be used. You don't have to build specific items on it, you just tweak a couple sliders and you're done.

Randomized Tech Tree: You will always end up with a different tech tree each time you play. You'll get the basics for sure every time, but some of the more estoteric stuff (tracking plasma torpedoes, for instance) may not show up in each game. This forces you to be creative.

Nice art: The drawings done for each race are pretty good, and set the mood well.

Homeworld-esque controls: Pretty much the same camera controls, though movement is 2-D waypoints only--your ship captains handle the 3-D stuff for you.

Easy-to-tweak economy: Sliders again. Set it where you want it, check your projected income, and have at it. You can even operate on a deficit if you like. Very simple controls, very nice summary screen for the economy so you don't need to do any math.

Easy-to-tweak ships: The ship design interface rocks. Three sections on each ship, each of which can be customized with a very easy point-n-click interface. Built cheap throwaway scoutships or vastly hardened and horribly beweaponed attack ships. Best of all, the game keeps track of your revisions, so you can easily differentiate upgrades.

Different movement systems per race: Humans are fast, but are confined to inter-star routes if they want to keep their speed. Tarkas can go anywhere at a good pace. Liir slow down near stars, but speed up massively in open space. Hivers are the slowest of all... until they get where they're going, then they can instantly teleport whole armadas between the warpgates they set up. The differences are a bit subtile, but they change your strategy by a lot.

Cons

Tutorial: Not nearly as good as other tutorials I've run across. Text-only, no interactive voice-guided stuff like in Homeworld.

Auto-battle: The automatic battle resolver (a feature that lets you have the computer determine who wins in a fleet engagement) seems to be a bit... wierd. I've had long range bombardment ships in groups of 7 or more, which are capable of bombing a planet and its satellite defenses to dust, get totally destroyed by two measly light defense satellites. Among other wierdness. Currently, if you want to have a good battle, command it yourself. Should be better by release, so the official forums say.

Meat: If you're the kind that wants to get deep into every planets' economy, tough luck. Set your sliders and go in SOTS. This is a game of maneuver warfare.

Tactical overlay as a researched item: In Homeworld, you could hit a key and get a VERY nice overlay of the battle that showed you health, ship type, heading, and so on. In SOTS, you can apparently get the same thing, but it's a researched tech item. Bad in the beginning, as you have to find and assign targets manually if you want any kind of precision. Makes it a bit rough, picking ships out of the background.

Voice: The game needs more voice acting variety. I can't tell you how many times I"ve heard "...another pearl in your crown" when colonizing a planet.

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Overall: It's fun. I'm going to buy it, learn up the Hivers, who seem to suit my strategical bent, and make war on the computer.[/url]

[XMEN Gambit]

I was wondering if you'd tried Galactic Civilizations II, and how it compared. I'm interested because I got GalCiv2 and like it quite a lot.

[Ambush Bug]

Nope, I've never tried GalCivII, Gambino.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

I'm actually replaying Homeworld in large part due to you, Bug.


Missed ya on the forums, and playing some Homeworld cause it reminds me of you.

[XMEN Gambit]

Bug - Ok, download the demo and lemme know.

http://www.galciv2.com/

BTW, the game has no copy protection. Sort of their protest against some really intrusive nasty cp software that was out there.

[Ambush Bug]

All right, I'm grabbing it now. Thanks for the link, Gambit, I'd forgotten completely about StarDock Software. I used to own a copy of their shell replacement for OS/2.

[XMEN Gambit]

I'm getting the SOTS demo now, too. I prefer the fileshack link as opposed to Fileplanet, tho.

I decided the Hivers portrait must be why you like this thing so much.

[XMEN Gambit]

Ok, I've given the SOTS demo more than a fair shot, I think. I prefer GalCiv2. Will be happy to discuss why when you're ready.

[Ambush Bug]

Sure, let's hear it. I tooled around with GC2 for an evening or so myself.

[XMEN Gambit]

Pros:
3d map very nice.
Different movement technologies by race are way cool.
Overall pretty. 3d, colorful, etc. The cartoony art feels kind of odd, but it's ok.
The ship design is OK. Obviously not as flexible as GalCiv, but it works. It is nice to see that research turn into new designs. I like the model naming system better than GalCiv's.

Cons:
I just really don't like the combat mode at all. Slow to load, difficult to tell what's going on on the battle view, can't issue orders in sensor view, no way to speed up the action thru the boring parts. Yes, you can skip that mode entirely, which helps. Would like to be able to free up the camera a bit, or overlay the sensor view on the battle, stuff like that.
Interface feels cumbersome, even on the strategy side. Not sure why, because it's not overly complex - maybe cumbersome's not the word. Will think about this. I do know I felt information-starved at various points throughout.
No way to choose which audio alerts get played and which not. Normally not an issue, but in this game some get irritating as you mentioned above.
How can you tell what an enemy ship's status is? What are its weapons and defenses - how are you supposed to pick the best target, assuming you can locate it in the black starry void? The AI certainly had no trouble finding my CnC ships and picking them out of the crowd. If you lose a battle, how can you tell how much damage you caused? No tally of ships destroyed. For that matter, if you win a battle, how can you tell how costly it was unless you memorize the list of ships you sent in?

I've spent between seven and eight hours of intense play on the demo.

'nuff for now. Your turn.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

I'm downloading it too.

My fiance is going up to Washington to sort out a bunch of wedding things, so I've got a couple of weeks after work and physical therapy to play!

[Ambush Bug]

GC2: Sad to say, I couldn't even get into combat. Oh, believe me, I tried.. I ran colony ships and my Enterprise-esqe explorer ship allll through the other territories. I got yelled at, but wasn't declared war on.

Probably a good thing, as I'd yet to build any combat ships. Plenty of economic goodness to play around with.

... sadly, I'm not an economics person. As much as I liked how very well CalCiv2 was put together, the sheer amount of money-handling was a huge and immediate turn-off for me. This is not a reflection on the quality of the product, it's a reflection on my preferred style.

So I don't think GC2 is for me.

SOTS: To answer some of your questions:

I just really don't like the combat mode at all. Slow to load, difficult to tell what's going on on the battle view, can't issue orders in sensor view, no way to speed up the action thru the boring parts. Yes, you can skip that mode entirely, which helps. Would like to be able to free up the camera a bit, or overlay the sensor view on the battle, stuff like that.

Yes, the lack of a free camera makes following a battle a bit of a PITA. Time-compression would be nice for those meteors. As for the sensor-manager complaints, that supposedly gets better later one when you have more tech. I thought that an annoying way to do it. Telling what's going on in the battle though... yeah, I'm with you there. I think that'll get better once you have larger ships on hand and more CnC tech.

Interface feels cumbersome, even on the strategy side. Not sure why, because it's not overly complex - maybe cumbersome's not the word. Will think about this. I do know I felt information-starved at various points throughout.

Odd, I didn't find the strategic interface a problem at all. Double-click to focus on any area, hit the pie-chart to see your overall economic status and access a right-click-sortable list of all your holdings, along with live updates of your income and expenses as you adjust things. I'd call it majorly cut-down compared to GC2.

How can you tell what an enemy ship's status is? What are its weapons and defenses - how are you supposed to pick the best target, assuming you can locate it in the black starry void? The AI certainly had no trouble finding my CnC ships and picking them out of the crowd. If you lose a battle, how can you tell how much damage you caused? No tally of ships destroyed. For that matter, if you win a battle, how can you tell how costly it was unless you memorize the list of ships you sent in?

So far as the demo AI was concerned, I figured out that grouping my CnC ship with a couple of point-defense ships and then having that group run about as a lure worked wonders. Then the other seven ships I brought could clean up.

NME status/outfitting: Focus-zoom on it. Annoying. I too would have liked more info there.

Damage caused: Zoom in allll the way on the conflict area in the strategic view, you'll then be able to get a count of hostile ships, both before and after the battle. As for the cost of your own ships, no idea. I started making standard battle groups that went for about 800K a pop--1 CnC, 3 point defense ships, four missile boats, two close-in brawlers, three tankers, and a deepscanning jammer ship to cloak it all. I'd churn these out at my homeworld, then move 'em out to various spots as needed, merging fleets to match the incoming threat.

I think the overall thing with SOTS is, as the developers have stated, they've swung a very large axe at the 4X genre. Economy's there, and it can be complex if you've got half the galaxy under your thumb, but it's definitely geared more as a support to your fleets. Combat's hard to read, but I suspect it'll get better with more tech and larger ships. Interface is definitely pared down compared to MOO and CG, but I have to say I like it that way.

[XMEN Gambit]

Odd, I didn't find the strategic interface a problem at all. Double-click to focus on any area, hit the pie-chart to see your overall economic status and access a right-click-sortable list of all your holdings, along with live updates of your income and expenses as you adjust things. I'd call it majorly cut-down compared to GC2.

Oh, yes. I didn't communicate my issue very well because I'm still having trouble pinning it down meself. Obviously if you don't care for economics the way the game lists colonies is wonderful. Don't really have a problem with that part. I guess when I'm playing a 4x, I expect to do more with the planets than manage shipbuilding queues.

The tactical combat is a neat thing, but it's not tied into the overall strategy enough for me (via battle reports) and the long load times and handicaps in managment really killed my enjoyment of this mode.

Galciv2 combat is not interactive at all (didn't like that at first), but you can watch from a variety of perspectives and see every shot fired. Then rewind the battle and watch it all over, if you like. And speed up and slow down as desired. You're probably right that it comes down to styles and preferenced, but I won't give up my point on the combat mode load time. Waiting for two big fleets and a well-defended planet to load up really stinks.

[Ambush Bug]

Yeah, the load time can get to be atrocious. I'm hoping that having the larger ships will allow one to cut down on the number needed. Or having large defense satellites--I've heard they're meeeeaaaaan.

[Ambush Bug]

Not really a necro-post here, but rather an update.

SOTS has had its first expansion come out. Lots and lots of changes. I'll outline changes and overall game info, now that I own a copy.

---

The Races: There's five races now.

Humans still have their node drives. Way Fast, but confined to specific routes.

Tarkas have their Star-Trek style warp drives... slow starts, but they get good and quick later on, with no restrictions on movement.

Liir are the grand masters of deep-space combat with their stutter-drives, and they get about a hojilliion nasty tricks to use on their ships.

Hivers won't be leading any offensives, but then again, they won't have to. They spread like a plague, brute-forcing their way to planets and then setting up a teleport network to make for instantaneous travel afterward. If the Liir are the grand masters of intercepts, the Hivers are likewise the final word in defensive logistics. (My favorite race)

And, the new guys, the Zuul. (Yes, that IS a Ghostbusters reference, the game's chock-full of 'em.) These fellows move like humans, but unlike humans, they make their own routes by ripping apart the space-time continuum. Fragile ships cobbled together out of junk, but invariably stuffed to the brim with heavy weapons. Remember the Slavers you'd run into as a random encounter? These guys are that; they can steal population, and in fact, they HAVE to later on.

---

There's been a huge number of improvements to the game. The 'Empire Pie Chart' now has graphs to keep tabs on a lot of things, there's a new symbolic communication system you can use with the AI players, there's been performance improvements, graphic upgrades, a slew of new techs to make use of (BOARDING PODS!), new ship designs, new singleplayer scenarios, inter-system trade routes and trade route raiding, new map views... pretty much everything got at least a touch-up, if not more.

Heck, there's even been a doubling in the number of galaxy shapes you can use now.

Sadly, there's not a demo of the expansion (yet, anyway. Keep your eyes open for it)