Product Description

This 4X space strategy game for the PC offers players a breakthrough gaming experience by incorporating multiplayer for the first time ever in a 4X space strategy game, as well as an innovative blend of turn-based decisions and real-time fleet combat. Players ‘eXplore’, ‘eXpand’, ‘eXploit’, and ‘eXterminate’ their way across the space as they encounter other players and battle for interstellar dominance in real time combat resolution. With crisp graphics, an epic back-story and real-time battle action, Sword of the Stars offers a riveting mix of strategic turn-based empire building and real-time tactical combat resolution that puts players in control of cosmic empires, alien technologies and vast interstellar armadas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5506 in Video Games
• Brand: Destineer
• Model: 21133
• Released on: 2006-08-22
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platforms: Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: .31 pounds

Features

• Play as the Humans, insect-like Hivers, reptilian Tarkas & enigmatic Liir
• Travel to 40 stars in a spherical galaxy, with unlimited turn gameplay
• Unique, random technology tree helps pave the road to galactic domination

Customer Reviews

A very different 4X game
Okay, the previous review was very harsh and sounded as if they expected a MoO or SEIV clone. To get a better of idea of the strategy portion of this game, think of a boardgame. It's very simplistic (only one planet per star)in the sense that it is like controlling squares of a board. The planets are really there to fund your research and ship building. Of course, you can place defenses around them and station ships there, but there is no city building options like in most games of this type. The meat of the game is the RTS ship-to-ship battles. At first, they appear relatively simplistic, but as new technologies become available, you start to see the implications of ship building. For instance, ships have weapons banks on each side, top, and sometimes bottom with various firing arcs. So, you may wish to pass an enemy ship instead of going head-on to get a particular weapon group to deal damage. You can also target specific sections or weapons on the ship. So, if a particular weapon is giving you grief, you can target it specifically. As an example, I had a Tanker ship that the AI destroyed the refueling portion of the ship, which stranded my ships in that area of space. Finally, there are random elements to the strategic game that can affect planets in big ways (think of the episode Doomsday from Star Trek TOS). There's nothing like showing up in a system and finding a long-dead alien civilization's defensive structure still in operation.

Version 1.1.1 patch review
4x space strategy games are my favorite type of computer game. It has been many years since I have found one that was any good. (The last one that was any good was Masters of Orion II). The folks at Kerberos have really done a good job with Sword of the Stars.

After playing the game only once I looked to see if there were any updates or patches available. [...]

The one game I played without the update, I found the interface to be a little bit clunky and awkward. It was especially difficult to manage my fleet in combat. For example, while focusing on one of your ships during a battle it could be difficult to find your other ships. After the patch you can simply tab through your ships with the TAB and SHIFT+TAB keys. This is just one of dozens of things that were fixed/added in the patch. Virtually everything in the patch addressed and fixed issues with the user interface. After I added the patch the usability, as well as my lever of fun, was greatly increased.

What I liked:
After getting a colony started it requires very little maintenance. Other than building the latest defense satellites the colonies actually require zero upkeep. This frees up time to build your fleets to explore and exterminate.

The combat is done well. I'm running the game on a blazingly fast computer so I have not experienced the lag in loading the combat others complain about. At first I didn't think I would like real time combat, and it does take some getting used to. The nice thing is you can micromanage your fleet and try to control each individual ship, or put some on auto and just control a few.

Each race is truly unique and different form the others. A strategy that works well for one race will not work for the others. The biggest difference between the races is there mode of star travel.

The technology tree is unique and different every game. Even if you play the same race every time your technology tree will be distinctive each game. The random tech tree was a nice touch.

What I don't like:
The diplomacy is nearly nonexistent. Your relation with other empires simply has three states: hostile, non-aggression, and alliance. The hostile and non-aggression states are pretty straight forward. The alliance state plainly doesn't have enough benefit for being in the alliance.

There is only one planet per system. I would have liked to see multiple planets per system, even the potential to have 1 to 3 would have been better. Also the planet maintenance is just a little too simplistic. For example, it would have been nice if there were some way to designate a world as a science colony or industry world.

Overall it's a great game I highly recommend for many hours of fun.

Macro Management fun!
After playing for quite a while I have found that this game is very entertaining and is hugely replayable. While the 3D star map does take some getting used to, the simple tech tree and simplified system development controls free the player to think about strategy, instead of micromanaging every single colony.

It reminds of Master of Orion, rather than Master of Orion II or III. Real time combat is exciting and more involved than just the rock / paper / scissors approach so many RTS games use. Each tech has multiple counters and there are no ultimate technologies that lead to instant galactic domination. Your early ships are never really obsolete and can compete even in the late game stages (albeit, not very effectively. Still, they can slow an enemy advance or thin out the enemy fleet to allow your main force an easier combat) which says volumes for thought the developers put into the technology tree.

The game itself is set in the earliest stages of galactic exploration and conquest. Each race begins without any real contact with the others, and default to a hostile reaction. Your ships are very small, ~30m for destroyers, ~90m for cruisers and around 270m for dreadnoughts. For size comparisons think about a WWII German U-Boat for Destroyers, Firefly's Serenity for a Cruiser and a modern aircraft carrier for Dreadnoughts.

This games most standout feature, however is the use of momentum physics in its real time combat. Ships have to fight inertia when maneuvering, which can lead to some interesting, even disastrous combat situations with collisions and radical evasive maneuvers. The graphics in combat are superb considering the low end system requirements and the developers active participation on their game forum is truly remarkable. Their constant attention to fan input and their efforts to improve their product are constantly making this game better and more fun to play.

I would recommend this game to fan of the 4x genre.