Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!
1. Distant Worlds (suggestive helper AI, living economy and galaxy, great enemy AI, Pirates done very well, galaxy feels very old and good story)
2. Master of Orion 2 (almost EVERYTHING was groundbreaking at the time and synthesized well, awesome game!)
3. Galactic Civilizations 2 (great AI, amazing diplomacy, cool galactic wonder and commodity system)
4. Sword of the Stars (wonderful variable tech tree system, real 3d map, and coolest looking battles!)
5. Armada 2526 (unique victory conditions and wormhole system)
6. Imperium Galactica 2 (very cool intergalactic market, a decent stab at interactive planetary surface combat)
Honorable Mention: Master of Orion 1, Space Empires 3 & 4 & 5, Birth of the Federation, GalCiv1, Spaceward Ho! (anyone play that one???)
Distant Worlds has ship design, great AI, and a pretty smooth gameplay system with AI automation and awesome combat. Just needs more of the good things from the other series. Oh, and Distant Worlds barely beat out Master of Orion 2 for first place...
Have any 4x's ever attempted ground combat in a decent way. SEV tried but it was simply god awful.
I must admit I am in two minds when people suggest ground combat for DW as I think ground combat is simply not neccesary as it would have to be on a grand scale.
Spaceward Ho! was a game created by New World Computing back in the early nineties. It would run in Windows 3.0 without sound and run in Win 3.1 with sound, it would not run it in DOS. The game had a cowboy theme and limited planet development and ship design. It's unique feature was limited metal. You had a finite amount of metal in the universe so that meant you had to keep expanding in order to build new ships. Combat was simplistic as well, ships just lined up opposite each other and pounded away. No ground combat, you just blasted the population to bits then re-colonized. It was quite fun at the time, but MOO came out a year or two later and surpassed it.
Have any 4x's ever attempted ground combat in a decent way. SEV tried but it was simply god awful.
I must admit I am in two minds when people suggest ground combat for DW as I think ground combat is simply not neccesary as it would have to be on a grand scale.
Well, I love ground combat for any 4x and think that DW will be great if has some ground combat feature. But of course, don't make it like SV5 where you must enter separate windows to handle the RTS kind of battle just like SV-5 or Imperium Galactica 2
Maybe limit it to Europa Universalis 3 combat engine is more than enough for everyone here.
I might add that the game included simplistic tech advnances in weapons, shields, and engines (?). Later versions also had cool stuff like "living bio ships" that costed money but no metal (the finite resource). It was actually a lot like Sword of the Stars, but without realtime combat, extensive ship customization, and the supercool tech tree (that I hope DW adopts, btw). In fact, the first time that I loaded up Sword of the Stars I had a major flashback to Spaceward Ho! Deomrve was also very correct when he said that Master of Orion blew Spaceward Ho1 out of the water in complexity and features of all kinds. In fact, i feel that SotS has the same weaknesses as the venerable Spaceward Ho!, namely too much focus on combat and not enough depth in other areas. Other players may see that as one of it's strengths, though [:)]
ORIGINAL: TheDespot
Have any 4x's ever attempted ground combat in a decent way. SEV tried but it was simply god awful.
I must admit I am in two minds when people suggest ground combat for DW as I think ground combat is simply not neccesary as it would have to be on a grand scale.
I dont know what space 4X's you have played, but there are a few different methods that have been tried.
Master of Orion 1 and Galactic Civilizations used population as troops. Some people liked it, I did not. It means you wont throw troops away and there is something at stake (hard earned population), but I think that it is both "unrealistic" and also ends up with a decidedly genocidal bent to the combat. I prefer the more "Star Wars" feeling with multiple races coexisting, etc.
Imperium Galactica 2 had realtime ground battles, with customized land units similar in options to custom space units. Space Empires 5 brought this idea back. Both games did a poor job of it IMHO, not enough depth.
Master of Orion 2 ground combat seems similar, but actually isnt. Troop transports werent custom designs, they were static ship types. Planets built and maintained a garrison, with the size and make-up dependent upon population and facilities built, respectively. Players could also bomb planets with conventional weapons or bio weapons, this would have detrimental effects on the target planet, though.
Armada 2526 has realtime ground combat that occurs on the system space battle map simultaneously. This usually just means that the winning fleet blasts the ground troops from orbit (no damage to the locals), and then invades later. Both the space combat and ground combat failed to hold my interest in the long run.
I think that Distant Worlds is more "epic" than most space 4X's, and that a ground combat system that was very much more involved would hurt the game's pacing by slowing it down too much. I would like to see some variation thrown in though, maybe tech advances that improve "troops" and their combat values. However, I actually think that the current system is pretty good and meshes well with the overall game.
If you want to do decent ground combat, I think it should be a turn-based affair similar to RISK/AXIS&ALLIES (for you boardgamers), or Emperor of the Fading Suns (anyone ever play that 4X game?).
Just balance, really. I'm a huge SotS fan, but have always thought of it more as a sci-fi wargame than a 4X as such because of the emphasis both on tactical combat and fleet movement. There's an awful lot of the usual 4X stuff SotS doesn't even attempt to do, and would probably be a poorer game if it did.
Actually, I play SOTS using automatic combat resolution and it works out as a pretty enjoyable 4X game. I find the small number & very specialized races somewhat limiting, but until my very recent discovery of DW I'd have called it my favorite contemporary interstellar 4X game.
Maybe limit it to Europa Universalis 3 combat engine is more than enough for everyone here.
An interstellar 4X game based on the Paradox RTS games (EU series, HOI series) is something I've been wanting since the original EU. As I currently envision it...
Still "area movement" but with that not being used to model planetary terrain just make all the "areas" the same size & hex shaped. Each hex works like a sea zone in the paradox historical games. A star system contains the star (just graphics) and 0-whatever planets that work like island provinces in the paradox historical games. Exploration & colonization per EU3, except the presense & spectral type (color) of satars is not concealed prior to exploration of the hex. Movement could alternatively be through interstellar hexes ("sea provinces") like in the Paradox historical games, or just across them (no interaction/combat in interstellar space - number of hexes just determines travel time, with ship speed of course) like MOO/MOO2. Units & combat more like the HOI series, especially the different tactical roles of ship types so that balanbced fleets are required (you have battle line & midsized cruisers & escort type from the start of the game, they just get bigger/better with tech, unlike most interstellar 4X games where you can only build small escort-type ships at start).
SE5 is the most advance 4x there is, but considering the long development cycle, and the large series based,
Distant Worlds has great potential, and for it's initial release beats all other games (small development companies) in the past for features and maturity (credit to Microsoft framework must be acknowledged though) however, being a longtime fan of "Space Empires", it will take some more doing from Distant worlds to be as full featured as SE5, but I have high hopes that distant worlds could be as big, assuming that the developers has half the will power as "Aaron Hall" Space empires developer.
as for combat, Starwars Empires at war has done the best, but it took an entire combat engine to be made to pull it off, and of course nearly 35 developers....LOL
I've been playing interstellar 4X games since the pre-computer board game era, and have been a fan of the genre all along - so I"ve owned and played most everything. BTW, a lot of the early computer games in the genre lifted major portions of the mechanics of previous board games wholesale - including the original MOO and the earliest entries in the SE series. Prior to MOO, the most popular IS4X computer games were essentially computer ports of the most popular board game in the genre, Stellar Conquest.
MOO started out with the familiar feature set & mechanics from Stellar Conquest, but taking advantage of the computer medium added so much more. Although SC and its computer clones were true 4X games with all the X's, MOO was the first computer game to really have all the additional features that genre fans now take for granted - race art & capability differentiation, diplomacy (in SC all races were at war from the start), ship design and an expanded tech tree to support it, a tactical game (in SC combat resolution was a dice rolling excercise), ground combat system (in SC once you wacked the missle bases the panet surrendered and you just had to keep a warship in orbit as a garison). However, it dropped the SC feature of multiple planets per star (0-4). How ships/fleets moved on the map, the nebula/gas cloud impact on interstellar movement, the ship range concept, the very mathematics of how planet population & economy were modelled - direct copy from SC. In a lot of ways, I still think MOO was the most fun to play of all the computer IS4X games. Its principle feature deficiencies IMO were - only one planet per star (fixed in MOO2), use of population as troops (fixed in MOO2), and the strange tactical system where you can only have 5 classes of ship and all ships of the same class must move as a single stack in combat (fixed in MOO2).
As noted, MOO2 fixed the principle feature deficiencies of MOO and for a long time I thought of it as an improvement. Eventually I realized that it had made a fatal mistake, though, which most later IS4X games followed - modelling planets more or less as the Civ series models cities. This guarantees unfun micromanagement overload with a big empire. I gradually came to realize that the simpler planetary economy model of SC/MOO was far superior in freeing me to do the fun stuff without worrying about worker allocation between functions within the colony or managing pollution. OK, most later games dropped those last two concepts, but they kept the buildings and that still creates constant micromanagement of the planetary build que.
I was a regular on the Dev boards during MOO3 development, but I always feel the thing went south after Alan Emrich left the dev team (probably before that, but Alan's departure marked a clear transition). I bought the game, but never really got into it. Probably a good idea, but bad execution.
I pretty much owned & played every other solo turn-based game in the genre - the SE series II through V (never managed to get my hands on I, but II & II were clearly influenced by the board game franchise Starfire - the later still kicking & in its 5th rules edition), The Birth of the Federation, STARS!, The GalCiv series, SOTS, probably other stuff I'm forgetting...
Key features I've learned to look for (or avoid) include...
1) The less you have to micromanage what goes on within planets, the better. I like massive empires, but I hate massive micromanagement. Although I have played a lot of the Civ series, I hate late game but also dislike artificial victory conditions (prefer to conquer the map or die trying). Accordingly in Civ-type games I often drop a particular game before completing it, because it has gotten too boring to manage my empire long enough to conquesr the rest. Better to be like MOO where this is not a problem.
2) I hate population being treated interchangable with troops. In 1940 the population of Germany did not invade and exterminate the population of France. German troops invaded and occupied France, forcing the French population to support the German war effort until Allied troops drove them out. This is how it needs to work in the game.
3) I dislike intrusive backstories that dictate who my race is. I don't consider a "plot" about ancient ruins & lost planets & so forth the troublesome sort of backstory. However, I don't want to be the Star Trek Federation or the Star Wars Galactic Empire or some equally defined but unique to the game entity. I have my own ideas on that, thank you very much.
DW gets back to a simple planetary model without buildings, not a reapplication of the old SC system but one equally free from micromanagement. The other automation features support big empires as well. The "private economy" thing is something I've wanted to see for years. The realtime thing is less preferred than turn-based, but as with the Paradox historical games it has been implimented in a way that makes it manageable & enjoyable - pausable, you can look at everything & issue orders while paused, a customizable system of messaging so you don't miss important events that happen "offscreen". I can see room for improvement, but as of today I'm calling it the reigning champ.
1) The less you have to micromanage what goes on within planets, the better. I like massive empires, but I hate massive micromanagement. Although I have played a lot of the Civ series, I hate late game but also dislike artificial victory conditions (prefer to conquer the map or die trying). Accordingly in Civ-type games I often drop a particular game before completing it, because it has gotten too boring to manage my empire long enough to conquesr the rest. Better to be like MOO where this is not a problem.
Same here. Although, I usually reach a point where I declare victory, when it's clear my enemies are almost completely crushed.
2) I hate population being treated interchangable with troops. In 1940 the population of Germany did not invade and exterminate the population of France. German troops invaded and occupied France, forcing the French population to support the German war effort until Allied troops drove them out. This is how it needs to work in the game.
I like the way we can 'merge' the conquered races army with our own. However, I'd like to have a choice. When you think about it, aliens that are so very different from us, they could go about things differently. There needs to be more things that differentiate races from each other. Some could merge armies, others could exterminate the natives.
3) I dislike intrusive backstories that dictate who my race is. I don't consider a "plot" about ancient ruins & lost planets & so forth the troublesome sort of backstory. However, I don't want to be the Star Trek Federation or the Star Wars Galactic Empire or some equally defined but unique to the game entity. I have my own ideas on that, thank you very much.
The backstory gets in the way of creating a richer history for each race. Having these mystery ancient races playing such a large part takes something away from the races that could be playing out their own story now.
DW is the reigning champ for me also, and I think it will improve even more. I have faith that it will get better yet.
And I'm not joking, these games are always in english, I remembre when I was younger (I'm 21 now) I spent hours playing SE III, MOO2, Ascendancy and understanding nothing [:@]
ORIGINAL: Barnacle Bill
DW gets back to a simple planetary model without buildings, not a reapplication of the old SC system but one equally free from micromanagement. The other automation features support big empires as well. The "private economy" thing is something I've wanted to see for years. The realtime thing is less preferred than turn-based, but as with the Paradox historical games it has been implimented in a way that makes it manageable & enjoyable - pausable, you can look at everything & issue orders while paused, a customizable system of messaging so you don't miss important events that happen "offscreen". I can see room for improvement, but as of today I'm calling it the reigning champ.
I couldnt agree more, very well put. Its nice to see another board gamer on the scene, by th way
And I'm not joking, these games are always in english, I remembre when I was younger (I'm 21 now) I spent hours playing SE III, MOO2, Ascendancy and understanding nothing [:@]
And here in the US, there are people that basically want all games banned because they believe all games teach is violence.
And I'm not joking, these games are always in english, I remembre when I was younger (I'm 21 now) I spent hours playing SE III, MOO2, Ascendancy and understanding nothing [:@]
You might try the Paradox historical games, of which the EU (Europa Universalis) series is a 4X game covering Columbus through the American Revolution (typically - he latest EU3 with all expansions added covers 1399-1820). They put the language stuff in localization files that let there easily be translations into any language, and if yours is any European language there is at least a chance they support you.
ORIGINAL: the1sean
Its nice to see another board gamer on the scene, by th way
Kind of gives you the looooong view[;)]
Yeah, and it is interesting to see how the PC games influence the board game market as well. for instance, Twilight imperium seems very PC game influnced, and yet it then influenced games like GalCiv...
ORIGINAL: the1sean
Yeah, and it is interesting to see how the PC games influence the board game market as well. for instance, Twilight imperium seems very PC game influnced, and yet it then influenced games like GalCiv...
I'm not familiar with Twilight Imperium, but it stands to reason that there would be some overlap in interest between designers of computer & board games of the same genre.
