Space strategy roll-call!

[Martok]

Much of this has been done already, but I'd like to see even more:

- variety in races with differing but balanced strengthes and weaknesses.

- differences in racial GUI interfaces, music, ship designs, objectives, and tactics

- a highly dynamic universe with numerous setup parameters that allow me to design and play a wider variety of scenarios

- a dynamic tech three that was a bit different each game, one where certain innovations were available through research only by certain races, or even one race. Other races would have to acquire these special technologies through espionage, trade, or capture and reverse engineering.

- intricate espionage and diplomacy models/engines. Much more involved that in the games I've played in the past. I want to be able to play scenarios with heavy-duty politics (or not, if I choose in my initial game set up).

For what it's worth, GalCiv 2 actually has a lot of these features you've mentioned, especially if you have both expansion packs (Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor). To highlight a few aspects:

The game's diplomacy system maybe doesn't appear very intricate per se, but it's surprisingly robust underneath. Alliances are actually meaningful, and it's perfectly possible to manipulate two or more races into going to war with each other (often useful when race A is threatening you and/or in your way, so you pay off race B to attack them). Also, races generally don't declare war at the drop of a hat or for no good reason; i.e., if you're race C's biggest trading partner, they'll be much less likely to attack you (since who wants to destroy one of their major sources of income?). If someone declares war on you, you'll usually see it coming.

If you have the TotA expansion, every race has their own tech tree, including technologies specific to that particular race. Also, the various races are pretty well balanced (you have the option of disabling their "Super Abilities" if you think they throw things too far out of whack), and you can always further tweak them to your satisfaction. You can also create your own races and save them for use in later campaigns if you wish.

In fact, the game's degree of customization in general is just absurd -- you can set the map size, density of stars, planets, habitable planets, anomalies, etc. You also determine the number of races, individual intelligence/difficulty level of said races, even their ethical alignment (good, neutral, evil). One of the big reasons this game has such a high replayability factor is the degree to which you can customize everything. There's very little you *can't* change.

GalCivs lack the crucial space combat aspect, and SE IV / V races are just bland and boring. Sins is a rather shallow game.

I concur with all three statements. I love GalCiv 2, but the lack of tactical space battles is a major sore spot for me. Also, I would argue that the Space Empire games have too much stuff -- I always feel overwhelmed by the enormous number of ships, buildings, and technologies at my disposal. Sins is fun for the fleet battles, but I agree it's pretty shallow otherwise.

Also, I don't like that in Sins, the only way to take over planets militarily is to wipe out the current population and recolonize. As it happens, I have the same problem with Sword of the Stars. I mean seriously, why couldn't they include good old-fashioned invasion and conquest? I strongly dislike it when my options are limited to genocide.

So, are you actually playing the current version and is that any good?

One of my buddies picked up the game several months back, and I've played it on his PC a few times. Compared to the demo, it's....better. I'd still hesitate to recommend it, however, as the game's sheer size still makes it difficult to properly run an interstellar empire. Also, I have to admit the inability to control tactical combat still really bothers me.

I started out with VGA Planets and along with Stars! are the games I played the most back in the day. Played some MOO2 too of course and have tried out a few of the games on that list of yours Martok. Just never really found the magic.

Well for what it's worth, there's only a small handful of those games I still play. In addition to BOTF and GalCiv 2, I only have Spaceward Ho! IV and Star Wars: Empire at War currently installed on my PC. I wish I still had Imperium Galactica 2 and Homeworld, but I somehow managed to lose my copies.

Sword of the Stars has some of the right focus that I want in a game along with real time tactical combat. Still its VGA Planets I always look back at as it had logistics that no other game wants to deal with properly. Plus I liked the idea of not having any techs to research.


CBR

Yeah, Sword of the Stars actually looks pretty good. Unfortunately, I can't get past my previously-mentioned hangup with being forced to blow up the existing population instead of just conquering them. Also, it feels distinctly more military-oriented to me; I'd really like to have another option than just "take over the whole map by force".

Never played VGA Planets, although I certainly know of it. How did the gameplay work exactly, especially if there wasn't any tech to research?

Played a lot of BotF, it's fun but there are problems (I really need to try the mods).

I can recommend both the Balance of Power Mod (BOP) and/or the Ultimate Dominion Mod 3 (UDM3).

The former is often described as BOTF as it *should've* been, and I agree with that assessment -- it just feels much better balanced overall (hence the mod's name), and the major races now tend to play a bit more like they should. Of course, UDM3 alters the game even more dramatically since it replaces the Ferengi with the Dominion (although the Ferengi are still in the game as a minor race), and it radically redoes the shiplists for all 5 powers (including new ship graphics, which look incredible).

Either way, you can't really go wrong with either one.