Polaris Sector

[Lucian]

I always meant to give Stars! a try, I absolutely loved the UI but I never quite managed to scale the learning curve and figure the game out properly. I'll have to give it another go some day.

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: phi6

I find I always switch between this game and Stars! (which incidentally also does not have starlanes ).
These two are the only "epic" feeling space strategy games I've played. All other titles just feel like boardgames.

Fingers crossed Stellaris and DW2 will hit expectations

also "VGA Planets" (now playable on the web on the PlanetsNu site), of the same period of "Stars!", has the same free space movement
and it is very similar for many elements to "Stars!".

another "light" space 4X that I play sometimes is "StarShips Unlimited 3.5" also from Matrix Games.

[phi6]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

I always meant to give Stars! a try, I absolutely loved the UI but I never quite managed to scale the learning curve and figure the game out properly. I'll have to give it another go some day.

You should definitely try it again. I also recommend you run it off Windows XP via Oracle's Virtualbox VM (free to use) as opposed to DosBox Win 3.1. VirtualBox's seamless mode will make it appear like a native Windows app, its basically magic.

By the way, I think the UI is incredibly well designed, especially for its age and the tutorial is really effective. It's nowhere near as convoluted as some of the Distant Worlds screens/panels are.

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: phi6

ORIGINAL: Lucian

I always meant to give Stars! a try, I absolutely loved the UI but I never quite managed to scale the learning curve and figure the game out properly. I'll have to give it another go some day.

You should definitely try it again. I also recommend you run it off Windows XP via Oracle's Virtualbox VM (free to use) as opposed to DosBox Win 3.1. VirtualBox's seamless mode will make it appear like a native Windows app, its basically magic.

By the way, I think the UI is incredibly well designed, especially for its age and the tutorial is really effective. It's nowhere near as convoluted as some of the Distant Worlds screens/panels are.

I'm curious: where I can find this Oracle's VirtualBox VM ?

[phi6]

Virtualbox dot org. Apologies as I can't post links yet.
Let me know if you have any problems getting XP and seamless mode to work!

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: phi6

Virtualbox dot org. Apologies as I can't post links yet.
Let me know if you have any problems getting XP and seamless mode to work!

thank you very much Phi6, I will contact you if I will meet any problem [:)]

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: phi6

You should definitely try it again. I also recommend you run it off Windows XP via Oracle's Virtualbox VM (free to use) as opposed to DosBox Win 3.1. VirtualBox's seamless mode will make it appear like a native Windows app, its basically magic.

By the way, I think the UI is incredibly well designed, especially for its age and the tutorial is really effective. It's nowhere near as convoluted as some of the Distant Worlds screens/panels are.

Thanks I'll give your recommendations a try and yes I was incredibly impressed with the way Stars! UI displays information so well, one of the best UI's I have ever seen, old or new.

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

another "light" space 4X that I play sometimes is "StarShips Unlimited 3.5" also from Matrix Games.

Starships unlimited is indeed a fantastic underrated game with some amazing ideas. Definitely one of my favorite older 4x games.

[solops]

Polaris Sector is my favorite Space conquest game of all time, no question. As far as I am concerned it is, as others have said, my Game of the Year choice. It has warts, but so do they all. This one has fewer and they are mostly in places I don't care about. The focus on war and development is what I wanted, more of a 2X Than a 4X. If they keep the espionage and diplomacy to a minimum, as it is now, I'll be ecstatic, though the espionage is a bit new and well done. Love the UI, the battle graphics are first rate and getting an upgrade and many other minor annoyances are on the list to get fixed. The 800 pound gorilla in the mix is the AI. It needs work, but I have never seen a game whose AI was worth s--t. This one is already getting a bump in today's patch. DW took years to get decent and Polaris Sector is starting off way ahead of that. BTW, don't like starlanes? They have variable frequency in the game startup, just max them out. Later tech lets you build your own starlanes. Don't like the graphics? Put in your own. I find the stock graphics to be just peachy. The dev has promised better battle graphics, which I think is overkill, but who turns down better graphics? Polaris Sector is the belle of the ball for my money. Whether she'll be that way in the morning only time will tell, but she' off to a great start. More AI work and a few UI improvements...

[NephilimNexus]

I've played Polaris Sector and was not impressed. It's resoundingly generic in every way.

[Hattori Hanzo]

I read the SpaceSector review and my enthusiasm about Polaris Sector has greatly weakened.. [:(]

our only hopes are on Stellaris and DW2

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

I read the SpaceSector review and my enthusiasm about Polaris Sector has greatly weakened.. [:(]

our only hopes are on Stellaris and DW2

I agree, I read the same review and it seems that even ignoring the forced starlanes, Polaris Sector would be considered pretty mediocre in most other respects and the exploration phase and general AI are particularly bad.

Stellaris is looking very promising except that there will be absolutely no tactical combat but I guess that's to be expected from any Paradox title. Would have been nice though.

DW is still clearly king of the space 4x hill IMO and I doubt anything will challenge that title until DW2.

[HerpInYourDerp]

'Tactical Combat' is a generally a complete sham in all space 4x games tbh.
It's all done in a 2D arena and there's rarely benefit in actually microing battles over the effort it takes. The only aspect of positioning that only ever matters is the range of your weapons vs the range of your opponents'.

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: HerpInYourDerp

'Tactical Combat' is a generally a complete sham in all space 4x games tbh.
It's all done in a 2D arena and there's rarely benefit in actually microing battles over the effort it takes. The only aspect of positioning that only ever matters is the range of your weapons vs the range of your opponents'.

Sadly this seems to be mostly true. The only games where I think tactics truly matter are..

1) MOO2, early to mid game only.
2) SOTS, both 1 and 2. The strategic layer in #2 is a complete mess but tactical combat is great.
3) Homeworld (not a 4x I realize, but I'm running out of examples).

It would be nice to have more 4x space games where tactical combat actually involves some tactics.

[NephilimNexus]

ORIGINAL: Fishers of Men

The Paradox grand strategy 4X game Stellaris allows the player to choose their empire's FTL technology during the game's setup phase.

Sword of the Stars did this too with great success. What I love about that game is that it's a Frankenstein Monster of bad sci-fi tropes, but it owns up to them all so well that it still works. It's solution for "FTL tropes" is to use ALL of them at once - each race gets it's own FTL system.

Humans use star lanes, or at least they're supposed to. They can ignore them and free-fly, but only had a massively reduced speed. The second fastest travel method in the entire game, but also one of the most limited in freedom.

The lizard guys use classic Star Trek style "warp drives" that allow free flight without star lanes at a linear tech-progression. Catch is that even at their best it's still slower than a human in a star lane. Upside is, oh yeah, can go anywhere.

The hyena/gnoll trope use "tunneling" - they have special ships that carve their own starlanes for them to use in any direction they want. The catch is that the bore-ship itself isn't very fast and the lanes eventually collapse after a while.

And the insect "hivers" use good old star gates. Which is to say completely instant travel from one gate to another. The catch is that the gateships themselves are the slowest ships in the entire game, taking forever to plod their way to a destination before being able to set up. Also, the "network" can only move so many ships in a turn, based on how many stargates you have (the more the better).

This does amazing things to the strategic game. The humans can come in hard & fast, moving like lighting down their star lanes, but you always know which direction they're coming from and exactly where they're going to arrive, so you can ambush them easily. The tarkas (lizard guys) aren't as fast, but they can hit & run from any direction at any time (once they get stealth tech watch out!). The hivers are weak on the attack because you can see them coming from years away, but they're devastating on the defense because they can have their entire fleet waiting for you, anywhere and anywhen you show up.

By far one of the best x4 games out there. Which is funny because the sequel was absolutely terrible.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: NephilimNexus

Sword of the Stars did this too with great success.

A decade ago...

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: NephilimNexus

Sword of the Stars did this too with great success.

A decade ago...

for me it doesn't matter if it's a decade or a century ago.

the good things retain their value over time.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: NephilimNexus

Sword of the Stars did this too with great success.

A decade ago...

for me it doesn't matter if it's a decade or a century ago.

the good things retain their value over time.

Yeah, I think I'd probably still play Reach for the Stars, if I had a way to transfer it from my floppy disk! Although if I did, I might think it wasn't such a good thing after all.

Speaking of good things, I think you can distinguish a 'timeless' good thing, from an 'of it's time' good thing. The latter may well have been very very good at the time, but not so great ten years later. I can't speak for Sword of the Stars, however, because I only tried playing it several years afer release, and couldn't get into it!

(By the way, that last sentence is not intended to be serious - just a light-hearted wind up.)

Osito

[NephilimNexus]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz]

A decade ago...

Sorry, was busing playing MOO2.

[phi6]

ORIGINAL: Osito

Yeah, I think I'd probably still play Reach for the Stars, if I had a way to transfer it from my floppy disk! Although if I did, I might think it wasn't such a good thing after all.

Osito, here's a little present for you. Works best in Chrome
http://playdosgamesonline.com/reach-for ... alaxy.html

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: phi6

ORIGINAL: Osito

Yeah, I think I'd probably still play Reach for the Stars, if I had a way to transfer it from my floppy disk! Although if I did, I might think it wasn't such a good thing after all.

Osito, here's a little present for you. Works best in Chrome
http://playdosgamesonline.com/reach-for ... alaxy.html

G-R-E-A-T !!!!! [&o][&o][&o]

ps: I tried it with Chrome but I was unable to go after the player selection screen.. [&:]

Phi6: can you help me to start the game ?