Sword of the Stars - a new 4X space strategy

[Straybow]

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[Spaced Cowboy]

It came in last week and I have yet to load it. I'm still playing Dungeon siege II....alas to many games and not enough time to play them.

[DrSpike]

Hmm, review that instead. From what I recall most reviewers were quite underwhelmed.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Straybow
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download the demo if you want to see for yourself. The game is quite modable, multiplayer focused(can join and leave games at will without effecting the game unless you are the host).

the only real strike against the game that I have is that the tactical combat stuff is loaded from the harddrive for every single battle instead of leaving it in memory.

[DrSpike]

Is that slow?

[Whoha]

Yes,yes it is.

[Sandman]

Any word on this? I saw it for sale in an actual shop.

[DrSpike]

Well, it's slow, and other than that no one cares about it. Doesn't bode well.

[solops]

I like the game. But, after playing the game for a couple of weeks I do have mixed views. I like the game much better than Galciv II, but it is a bit light on economic management and control. The emphasis is on fleet/ship design and management, i.e. it is about pushing fleets around. It is not really as much an "empire" game as a "Chief of Naval Operations" game. SOTS has a very good R&D tree. And, it changes from game to game, very nice. It has a "spacier" feel than GCII, which plays a lot like a land game. SWOTS lacks some things but it has some good stuff. It's fun, mostly. However, its information system is AWEFUL. They have a silly ticker for current events. The alternative is a listing that is fluffy with graphics, not concise at all. There are no concise reports on planets or fleets. The best you can do is get a screen that shows the details of only 5 planets at a time, each in its own big box. The same thing with fleets. Be prepared to do a LOT of clicking and scrolling to find out what is going on. All in all, it is a very, very enjoyable game married to one of the WORST information systems I have seen in a long time.

[El_Cid]

Its by the same people that did the homeworld series of games. I quite liked the atmosphere of those games, but found the real-time enviroment hampered control to some extent. Still i'll wait to see what the verdict is from you guys here.

[DRoseDARs]

Just finished uninstalling the game and chucking it across the room.

Total. Useless. Garbage.

I don't believe for ONE SECOND that the people that did the Homeworld series had anything to do with this game. Sierra, Vivendi Universal, and Relic are named on the HW2 jewel case while Kerberos, Lighthouse Interactive, and Destineer are on the SotS box. Feels like a cheap version of vanilla Moo3, but far less enjoyable.

Where to start?
Well, first I should mention I played vanilla then patched to the latest patch (v1.2.1) and as you all know, patches are supposed to improve vanilla games...

Research: If you set economic and research efficiency to 150% during game setup, you can easily blast through all 150 techs in 50 turns. Ok, whatever, it shouldn't be THAT easy even with the settings placed that favorably or at least provide a few hundred more techs.

Combat: Blows. Completely non-intuitive. When attacking an enemy's world you get to send 3 ships - T H R E E S H I P S - at a time to shoot at all of the planet's defenses shooting at you, the planet itself shooting at you, and several enemy ships shooting at you. If you have a command ship in the fray (in the first wave of three f*cking ships!) and it gets destroyed you don't get to call in any of your 30 other ships for reinforcement (I've tried to like this game, but that right there ended this relationship for me. I am done with this game). AI is more concerned with shooting at asteroids that are moving away from the ship than at enemy ships bearing down on you. This is all assuming you get any of your ships to actually physically face the enemy ships to bring your weapons to bear on them. And if you're looking for the damage bar, don't bother. There isn't one. In what has to be the biggest bonehead move of any shooting game, the designers of this game decided that having damage show on the ship (again, three flavors - none visible though you know it's there 'cause you're being shot at and hit, some minor plasma fires, and finally some major plasma fires with twisted metal) is much more preferable than letting the player know more precisely when might be a good time to withdraw a particular ship from battle. You know, other games have shown the ships slowly getting damaged and yet also managed to include a health bar. I guess these guys were on a budget. When the enemy attacks your planet, you may as well abandon the size 10 planet with the 30 orbiting defense platforms because they're completely useless (except for target practice for the enemy) and if you've got a bunch of ships there to defend, they'll valiantly throw themselves at the invading fleet ONE AT A TIME. Christ, like something out of a bad kung fu movie where 500 bad guys attack the single good guy or like The Matrix in reverse, with Neo getting his ass kicked by the umpteen thousand agents swarming around him. One last thing I'll bother mentioning - Don't bring dozens of ship to a battle unless you want to wait 5-10 minutes for it to load, unless of course you're looking for an excuse to go to the bathroom or fix yourself a sandwich in the meantime.

Main Map: Crap. No free camera movement - You have to be focused on either a planet/star or ship and swivel/zoom around it. Information like nodes (Human-only interstellar movement) and which planets have ships and defenses (you have to zoom in pretty closely to see anything) is a pain because their icons fade really quickly as you zoom or move around the map. This can be modded, but it shouldn't have to be.

Diplomacy: What diplomacy?

Ship design: Clickfest, but not in an enjoyable way. Three ship classes - Destroyer, Cruiser, Dreadnought - divided in three sections - Command, Mission, Engine - and it all looks roughly the same. Wow. A little red laser looks just like a little purple meson beam looks just like a little gray mass driver looks just like every other weapon.

Space travel: Ok, each race gets its own seperate form. Humans get stuck either with starlanes for fast travel or they can opt for direct flight at much slower speeds. The dolphins get to do direct travel, the lizards get to do... direct travel and the ants get to do... direct travel. Yeah, those are pretty awesome and unique forms of travel. Really, Flipper gets to use his space drive both between stars and in combat, which is supposed to be an advantage but in practice isn't - they move just as slow and clumsy as any other ship. The ants have to crawl towards a given star, build a stargate and transport ships between any two stargates very quickly (erm, isn't this node travel?). Godzilla gets warpdrive (which is totally different from Flipper's warpdrive. How? Because they're named different) but has to use regular Newtonian propulsion in combat... like everyone else (except Flipper, but as metnioned before Flipper isn't moving any better in combat) and just as slow and clumsy.



Now, this game is apparently very moddable, I even made some minor changes (really, just adjusting how many stars in a galaxy and a mod to make all 150 techs available for research - oh yeah, without modding, you don't get access to all 150 techs every game, you just get a random selection on some of them), but I can't see how this game could be shipped so awful. Even the patch did nothing useful.

Gamespot reviewed this game and had said, "Reinvents the genre in a refreshing way." Well, yes this game did that. It's refreshing to see that games can be made to be even more craptacular than vanilla Moo3 on an underspec system (my system is fine; exceeds specs). I regret having spent money on this travesty of a space game. If you want to see for yourself, I'd suggest pirating it first. If you like having your intelligence insulted while playing this game, then by all means do the right thing and buy a legitimate copy of the game. Otherwise, wait until it's in the bargin bin for $1.

[Sandman]

Good review, at least.

Galciv 2 was boring. Is this genre completely stale, or what?

[DRoseDARs]

GalCiv2 was another disappointment, but not as much as this game was.

Edit: Opps, just noticed I forgot to put the word "not."

[DrSpike]

Nice hard hitting review.

[Whoha]

Well heres my long winded review:

Kerberos tried to make a good multiplayer 4x space game, rather then the single player grinds that most have become through no failure of their own. And while this is a definate improvement on other multiplayer games it still lacks some features which would improve it further. One can leave or join a game in progress, the host can alter the combat time slider as required, and so on. With research one can watch the battles of your allies and eventually nearby enemies. These should be default though, waiting 4 minutes for someone to finish combat isn't so great. This is exacerbated by multiple battles per turn and the only way I can think of to resolve that would be having multiple players on each race. Still, blowing up other people's stuff is fun.


The races all do have distinct drive systems which have an impact in tactical combat as well as on the strategic view.
The humans have node drives which are generally the fastest, and have the longest range on the strategy screen and because of the node lines will frequently resupply at friendly planets. As an added bonus human ships travelling down a node can not be intercepted, and can frequently launch attacks from beyond sensor range which gives them a big advantage in combat. But they are constrained by the nodelines which they must travel down, and if none are present, or the node line is longer then range, you'll have to make an STL voyage to get to that star. In tactical combat the human drive is a reaction based drive that is poorly armored and armed, though the reaction thrusters have the highest top speed. Finally the node missile allows the humans a cheap and highly exploitable way to kill and blow up things.


The lizards have the basic warp drive which can travel anywhere, at a dependable, but not extremely fast speed. their ships also have the lowest range, and also spend a good deal of time away from their planets, so they'll need more tankers. Their engines are initially reaction based in combat, but the highest level drive works in combat as well greatly improving maneuverability.


The fish have stutterwarp, which is a direct go anywhere drive like the lizard drive, but is impacted by the presense of stars. near any star on the strategic map their speed is cut by 2/3rds, but out in deep space they are nearly as fast as humans who have to travel along nodes. In combat they use their ftl drive, which has the second most # of guns on it. during deep space intercepts they are the fastest in tactical combat, and even around planets they are very manueverable and accelerate quickly. In addition, because the ship spends a portion of its time "not there" fire will pass through their vessels. Because of the gravity well issues the fish will only be able to launch sneak attacks very rarely.


The bugs have to travel everywhere in stl until they get their gate set up. once the gate is set up the bugs can move ships,up to their gate capacity(3/6 per gate they have deployed), between any two gates instantly. much later on, with research, the bugs can throw ships at stars up to 10 LY away from any gate they own. Occasionally it will miss and the ship will be within 2 LY of the target, but when they hit it is a suprise attack. In tactical combat the bug ships engines are the most armored, and have the most weapons, being reaction based they are very slow to turn/accelerate but have good top speed. The gate itself is also present during tactical combat, and must survive two combat rounds before reinforcements can be sent through. The first turn occurs right as you arrive but before you have the opportunity to deploy the gate. During this turn the gate can be safe and sound in the reserves. The second turn has the gate deployed/immobile and ready but you must survive combat to get to the strategic turn to move ships through the gate(at this point the bugs pretty much own the planet).


Every race expands by moving colonyships to worlds that it can settle on. the hivers have this the easiest, and can send extremely cheap fission colonies anywhere once a gate is set up. More colony ships will speed colonization, as will overharvest. Overharvesting involves burning off some of a planet's resources in exchange for immediate payoff. Everyone also has a habitability value, and some planets may not be habitable immediately, or even at all. some weapons effect habitability. Planetary management is very simple, you have between 2 and 5 sliders. Overharvest which burns resources off for a large bonus that turn.construction/trade determines how much industrial output goes to the next 3 sliders,Terraforming/infrastructure/ship building, which may not be present, in that case unused construction becomes trade.


Colony Management may seem light, but during a multiplayer game with a limited timer your ability to monitor colonies and fleets is at a premium. The fleet screen is much improved from eariler versions,filters are available and fleets can be designated guard and will be placed at the bottom of the fleet list.


The tech tree is a mixture of core technologies that will always be obtained, and random technologies. and while on 150% economy + 150% research + 10 planet start + 10Million in the bank it is possible to burn through the tech tree really fast, the opposite is true on 50% econ, 50% research.


There are three ship classes in the game each can mount a command section, a mission section, and an engine section the loss of which deprives the ship of its capabilities.
Destroyers are the first ships buildable, and they make poor combatants, but if you have to raze a world early in the game you'll be doing so with assault shuttles carried by destroyers. The destroyer satellites have two missile launchers and 8 light turret spots.Destroyers can only survive the loss of a single section. when this happens there is a loud explosion,the model changes to be a wreck, and there are red exclaimation points over the ship display where weapons that used to exist have been destroyed. But there is no health bar. Finally destroyers have their own support roles. They can mount deepscan command sections which reveal more of the battle on the sensor screen and detect cloaked units. the wild weasel section allows destroyers to spoof missile targeting and directs missiles towards them and away from more valuable ships. jammers can hide your overall ship strength on the strategic window, as well protect your fleet from detection by sensors(forcing visual detection). Tankers are required to make longer voyages then current ship range allows, and to refill engines which were destroyed and then repaired. The biowar destroyer mounts a single biological weapon missile, 3-5 of which are required to hit to kill a planet. Finally the destroyer command and control ship will allow between 10-15 destroyers to be on the field, as well as allow you to direct which ships appear when. without command and control fewer ships are able to participate in the battle and you can not direct which ships will. Destroyers basically become either support, or sacraficial targets later on as cruisers and dreadnaughts can be designed to absolutely crush destroyers.


Cruisers are buildable with researching 3 technologies. They are 3 times bigger then destroyers, and much more heavily armed. As with destroyers they can only survive the loss of one section. The cruiser satellite has 2 large missile launchers, as well as 4 other medium mounts, and 8 light turrets. Cruisers have real planetary assault options and can mount much heavier weapons which will allow them to compete with dreadnaughts, in addition to the support roles they perform. Refineries can refill themselves and other tankers at uncolonized worlds further away from your empire with the refining option, which burns resources. Repair ships can undo a certain amount of damage, and can very rarely also salvage an enemy technology that was unavailable to you. Mining cruisers can quickly strip uninhabbited planets bare of resources, and dump them on your worlds. Biowar cruisers can mount 3-4 bio weapons. Finally the cruiser command and control ship will allow 6-7 cruisers to be fielded, or 15-20 destroyers.


Finally Dreadnaughts, which require fusion, as well as a good deal of technology to build. Dreadnaughts to not lose sections, and must suffer the complete destruction of the entire ship to be destroyed. Dreadnaughts are 3 times bigger then cruisers, and even more heavily armed then they are. The dreadnaught satellite is absurdly powerful, if tractor beams are mounted into their large turret spots they will grab any enemy ship of any size that comes too close, and chuck it into the planet, which nets you a nice 20 resource bonus, and of course the instant destruction of the enemy ship. Dreadnaughts do not perform support roles, the Dreadnaught CNC is a battleship in its own right. The dreadnaught CNC will only allow 2 other dreadnaughts as well as a few destroyers or cruisers. dreadnaughts have the most heavy beam,torpedo,large and medium turrets. The Bio-war Dreadnaught can mount between 8 and 12 bioweapons. Only the dreadnaught class can mount the siege driver which allows you to accelerate asteroids at a planet and kill it very quickly at long range.


With regards to diplomacy there are many options. within the ballistics weapon tree you will find weapons capable of throwing around enemy ships, or outright crushing them up. In the energy weapons tree there are pulse lasers,beams,heavy beams and energy cannons. pulse lasers do very low damage, but can be used to knock turrets off of enemy ships, or to shoot down missiles if you missed point defense. energy cannons shoot out a ball of death that does good damage, and isn't easy to defend against. The beams are instant hit and accurate weapons which do a great deal of damage, and the highest level beam combines damage with the tractor beam's ability to grab,hold or throw other ships around. Heavy beams are the very large spinal mount beams that throw out the most power of any weapon system. Emitters are area damage weapons which are well suited to killing destroyers, and the lightest version can also shoot down missiles. Missiles and torpedos are longer ranged weapons, and as long as the ships they are mounted on can keep distance between themselves and other warships the missileboats will do quite well. Missiles are also the single best way to wreck an enemy planet's habitability rating and can burn a planet into an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland. Minelayers may have originally been intended to deny/delay access to areas on the battlefield but are best employed as kamakazes right into the enemy fleet.


In addition to other players there are other threats, asteroid strikes may wipe out a colony and will always send its resource count way up. Von Neumans will eat a colony's resources, but if you kill them there is a research bonus. slavers will attack and grab(kill) population, killing slaver cruisers nets a savings bonus. The Swarm must be cleared from any planets they are "nesting" around to be able to settle the planets. Derelicts can be raided for technology, provided you can shoot off their weapons, and asteroid monitors can be subverted to your control with enough effort. One of two grand menaces can appear in some games, and tour the galaxy visiting to say hi, steal your fleets, and devour your planets.


The game is quite modable. The first thing I did in the demo was up the command point limit on the destroyer command & control vessel. I find that I like the command limits for the full game, but it would be a simple matter to bring 5,6, even 10 dreadnaughts to a battle. Originally the visibility on all the weapons was quite low, and had to be modded up, but under 1.2.1 there is a particle effects slider which determines the distance at which all the explosions are viewable at. When a ship is destroyed there is a random chance that crew members will be chucked out of the ship, the numbers can be tweaked upwards so that 200 bugs are ejected when one of their ships blows up. Ship models and weapon effects aren't easy to create but putting them in the game is easy. However some data is hardcoded and simply not available to the player.


Try out the demo, rather then pirating the game, it will be a faster download.