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I figured that since RBCiv iseems to be on the lookout for new 4X gaming opportunities, this would be a good time to post some info about one of the titles I am most looking forward to in the not-too-distant future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhjCEFmlo5M
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/swor...e=previews
There's quite a few other trailers, interviews, and dev diaries out there to look at as well, plus of course the Kerberos forums.
Anyone else looking forward to this one? IIRC T-Hawk mentioned he was thinking about it.
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Not heard of this one before, looks alot like Sins, Prob give it a spin when its out as i do have a soft spot for Space Strat Games (Gal Civ, MoO, Sins, Homeworld etc)
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I've heard it being described like MoO. It's turn based strategy, real time tactical hybrid a la the Total War series. The real draw is that the tech tree is randomly generated, and different races have different probabilities of having a particular tech chain available. The races are further characterised by different drive systems, some use point-and-click warp drives, others set up stargates, others exploit natural tunnels between systems.
The problem is that the builder side of things is rather weak, the only micromanagement is setting an optimal slider for terraforming or industrialising planets, investing in trade routes, and binary research. The combat is pretty fun, you run around targeting ship sections and weapon hardpoints.
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I'm interested in this. I'm a bit wary of the real-time aspect, but admittedly haven't looked into the game mechanics much yet. And less micromanagement can be a plus for me - MoO was a lot of fun without that aspect. 
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
April 6th, 2011, 04:52
(This post was last modified: April 6th, 2011, 05:27 by Zed-F.)
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Nicolae Carpathia Wrote:I've heard it being described like MoO. It's turn based strategy, real time tactical hybrid a la the Total War series. The real draw is that the tech tree is randomly generated, and different races have different probabilities of having a particular tech chain available. The races are further characterised by different drive systems, some use point-and-click warp drives, others set up stargates, others exploit natural tunnels between systems.
The problem is that the builder side of things is rather weak, the only micromanagement is setting an optimal slider for terraforming or industrialising planets, investing in trade routes, and binary research. The combat is pretty fun, you run around targeting ship sections and weapon hardpoints. You're probably thinking of the original SotS here, SotS2 is due out in Sept 2011. SotS1 does have a couple other things to do as far as building goes (space stations, mining, etc.) but you're correct that it tries to keep the micromanagement of running an empire relatively light-weight and the focus on the fleets.
We don't yet know how things will play out in SotS2 as far as building stuff goes. On the one hand the same philosophy of keeping micromanagement very much under control will almost certainly still obtain. On the other hand, the game aims to trade scope for detail, so I would expect to see what builder options the game has to be more involving. For instance, space stations will take a much larger role this time around and be very customizable. The decisions you make regarding your economy (slider placement, etc) will inform the game as to your style of government, which will in turn have diplomatic repercussions, and so on.
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Do we want to do a SotS1 succession game? I'd be very curious to see how it actually plays out.
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Holy crap, Amazon's got SOTS 1 for $2.89. I just bought it and a succession game sounds like a fine idea.
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SotS has some nice and some horrendous properties.
The Good:
- It's 4X and each race is INSANELY different. Even how they get around the map and the types of ships you field are vastly different. Heck, one race moves by "skipping" through space, so during tactical battles their ships don't worry about momentum while turning. Also, this influences which techs are likely to show up for you.
- Strategic vs Tactical fights. Bring in your fleet, micro to victory. There's nothing quite like target firing the enemy capital ship or the Hiver's gate ship then running away as fast as you can.
- Variety of strategies. However, at the end of the day, only ONE RACE CAN STAND. Also, the design was aimed at MP balance.
- Technology research is a little... interesting. There's a budget of how much they predict it will take. However, sometimes these things take a little extra or a little less time. So, do you overspend to ensure it gets researched this turn? Or gamble?
The Bad:
- UI could use some work when trying to manage everything. I couldn't figure out if there was a way to have all my ship production rally to a central location where I could then build individual fleets to go out and do my bidding. Eventually I just picked a few locations and manually moved ships there.
- Some things are viewable, but a pain to get to. For example, let's say you want to see every planet that's not yours and colonizable, and sort by how harsh the environment is. Sounds reasonable. Except you can only filter "your" planets versus "not your" planets, and the UI designer thought it cool to show you a large picture of the planet so you can only see 3 planets at a time on your screen.
- During turn resolution if there are any engagements you set whether to auto-resolve or fight. All at once. And you can't save in between battles. Nope. Do a surprise attack on 15 enemy worlds? Enjoy a long stream of 15 battles you may (or may not) need to fight manually. And keeping track of which engagement is which (did I want to nuke this planet or capture it? What was the intel on the enemy composition? Which fleet was this?) is really, really hard.
Overall though, a fun 4X game. Biggest gripe is they give you a huge expanse to control, and not enough UI control to control it properly.
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Absolutely I'd be up for a SotS1 SG! I even hosted a couple over at the Kerberos forums quite some time ago. Admittedly the community there was a tad lukewarm to the idea back when I first pitched it, but I'm sure folks here will be more willing to take a dive into that format. 
For anyone wanting to dive into SotS1 -- make sure you have the game patched up to the latest version which is 1.8.0. You'll need the Argos Naval Yard expansion (included in the Complete Collection) to do it. Also, make sure if you are getting the complete collection, that you get the right one! There have been several bundled packages (ultimate, complete, etc.) and the one you want is the Complete Collection.
If anyone is interested in reading up on some game reports (called TARs over on the Kerberos forums) there are quite a few available to peruse, including a number by yours truly. Many of the older ones have lost pics due to a forum housecleaning a while back, but there are still several good reads.
Some links to featured TARs can be found here:
http://sots.rorschach.net/Strategy_And_T...um_Archive
This thread a fairly exhaustive list of links to most of the TARs on the site (including a fair number of abortive attempts) but it also has links to the few SGs that have been run on the Kerberos forums to date.
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/foru...12&t=14904
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Also very important (the tech tree):
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![[Image: 1367939.png]](http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/1367939.png)
![[Image: SOTS_ANY_1.7.1_techtree_v1.4.png]](http://sots.rorschach.net/images/8/87/SOTS_ANY_1.7.1_techtree_v1.4.png)