Hey, all,
I know I haven't been around RBMoO much since the Imperia got started again. Kudos to you guys for keeping it going.
Personally, I've been getting my 4X from another game by the name of Sword of the Stars. I posted about this game a long while back when it first came out, and a couple people expressed opinions, positive and negative.
Since then a lot of changes have happened in Sword of the Stars. It's gone through two expansions and several patches. There is a third and final, smaller expansion due out this month. After this, I'm pretty sure SotS development will be done for this iteration of the game, though there are plans for a SotS2 down the road.
By this point in time nearly all the rough spots have been polished out of the game. The UI has a lot more little user-friendly features added to help improve information flow and usability. The AI has been tweaked a lot and is capable of putting up a reasonable challenge, and moreover extra handicapping capabilities have been added for those people who want to tune the difficulty knobs to specific and/or even higher settings. Many functions people expect of 4X games such as trade, piracy, diplomacy, accelerated victory options for end-game mop-up, and the like have been added to the game. And of course, the 6 unique races with their unique drive systems and the random tech tree contribute a lot to replayability, and the real-time tactical battles continue to provide a great combat experience.
In short, it's a pretty complete package, approaching the 4X genre from the MOO1 point of view that abstraction is a good way to eliminate micromanagement without sacrificing depth. There is a fairly sophisticaed economic model underlying a UI with very few 'fiddly bits' that require constant micromanagement to get optimal or near optimal performance.
Another change is that the game is now available not just on GamersGate, but also on Impulse and Steam.
Here's an example description of a game I posted on the Kerberos forums, to give you a feel for what it's like:
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/foru...12&t=10697
I've enjoyed the game quite a bit since it came out, so now that it's nearing its final form and is more available than ever, I thought I'd make mention of it again.
I know I haven't been around RBMoO much since the Imperia got started again. Kudos to you guys for keeping it going.
Personally, I've been getting my 4X from another game by the name of Sword of the Stars. I posted about this game a long while back when it first came out, and a couple people expressed opinions, positive and negative.
Since then a lot of changes have happened in Sword of the Stars. It's gone through two expansions and several patches. There is a third and final, smaller expansion due out this month. After this, I'm pretty sure SotS development will be done for this iteration of the game, though there are plans for a SotS2 down the road.
By this point in time nearly all the rough spots have been polished out of the game. The UI has a lot more little user-friendly features added to help improve information flow and usability. The AI has been tweaked a lot and is capable of putting up a reasonable challenge, and moreover extra handicapping capabilities have been added for those people who want to tune the difficulty knobs to specific and/or even higher settings. Many functions people expect of 4X games such as trade, piracy, diplomacy, accelerated victory options for end-game mop-up, and the like have been added to the game. And of course, the 6 unique races with their unique drive systems and the random tech tree contribute a lot to replayability, and the real-time tactical battles continue to provide a great combat experience.
In short, it's a pretty complete package, approaching the 4X genre from the MOO1 point of view that abstraction is a good way to eliminate micromanagement without sacrificing depth. There is a fairly sophisticaed economic model underlying a UI with very few 'fiddly bits' that require constant micromanagement to get optimal or near optimal performance.
Another change is that the game is now available not just on GamersGate, but also on Impulse and Steam.
Here's an example description of a game I posted on the Kerberos forums, to give you a feel for what it's like:
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/foru...12&t=10697
I've enjoyed the game quite a bit since it came out, so now that it's nearing its final form and is more available than ever, I thought I'd make mention of it again.
