Sid Meier's Starships announced today

Rhaedas

Rhaedas
Good, more space stuff! Eager to learn more.

Is it bad that I look at this game's concept and say, yeah I could see that in Elite at some point?
 

Andy Kappa

Andy Kappa
Interesting.

It's a long time since I played it, but this gives me a bit of a feeling of the Master of Orion series... anybody else?

While I'm here, the narrator is the same as the one used in 'Beyond Earth' unless I'm very much mistaken.
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
Andy Kappa said:
Interesting.

It's a long time since I played it, but this gives me a bit of a feeling of the Master of Orion series... anybody else?
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That would be great...so long as it's not MOO3...surely the worst/most disappointing game of all time.

I tried to get beta access to this (and Beyond Earth) but 2K like to try to keep their games under wraps until launch.
 

Andy Kappa

Andy Kappa
adoredtv said:
That would be great...so long as it's not MOO3...surely the worst/most disappointing game of all time.

I tried to get beta access to this (and Beyond Earth) but 2K like to try to keep their games under wraps until launch.
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The launch of Beyond Earth was a bit of a fiasco TBH. For those of us who'd pre-ordered it was supposed to be unlocked at midnight on 25th Nov (if memory serves) - except it didn't. I tried numerous times and then went to the game forum, and everybody else was having the same problem. So I waited, and tried, and waited a bit more and tried again.... At 2 a.m. I gave up and went to bed. Loaded ok the following day, but a tad frustrating all the same. Let's hope we don't get a repeat of that.
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
Andy Kappa said:
The launch of Beyond Earth was a bit of a fiasco TBH. For those of us who'd pre-ordered it was supposed to be unlocked at midnight on 25th Nov (if memory serves) - except it didn't. I tried numerous times and then went to the game forum, and everybody else was having the same problem. So I waited, and tried, and waited a bit more and tried again.... At 2 a.m. I gave up and went to bed. Loaded ok the following day, but a tad frustrating all the same. Let's hope we don't get a repeat of that.
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I used my VPN to get it early (it launched in Asia first for a change), played it for a few hours and tbh I enjoyed the game a lot for the first few tries - but it quickly became apparent that it was too easy. I was gonna cover BE at first but the state of it meant I went and bought Elite instead when I hadn't really intended to. Pretty glad I did now. I haven't looked at BE since then except to check out the patch details. Roll on Civ 6 tbh...
 

Andy Kappa

Andy Kappa
adoredtv said:
I used my VPN to get it early (it launched in Asia first for a change), played it for a few hours and tbh I enjoyed the game a lot for the first few tries - but it quickly became apparent that it was too easy. I was gonna cover BE at first but the state of it meant I went and bought Elite instead when I hadn't really intended to. Pretty glad I did now. I haven't looked at BE since then except to check out the patch details. Roll on Civ 6 tbh...
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Didn't think to do that. Ah well...

I know what you mean about it being easy. It has toughened up quite a lot in recent weeks though - AI is a bit smarter (and gets quite significant advantages at the higher levels now); the aliens are tougher and in bigger numbers too. I still have some doubts about the victory criteria though - not least because as soon as one of the AI opponents builds their warp gate/emancipation gate/mind flower/beacon you might as well stop playing the game there and then (not quite as simple as that I know); and if you manage to build yours first then the rest of the game is just a grind. I'm not convinced this is the best way to do it - and since it lies at the heart of the game, it means that the game itself is built on a bad premise. Shame.

Like you say, roll on Civ 6...
 

Roybe

Roybe
Sad panda. So many great RTS games and I have no interest in the genre! I wish I could get into it, honestly. Just never could. Always felt more work than fun. They look so good when battles are being fought.
 

1500

1500
It does look interesting. It seems to be focused on just the space combat, and from what I have read it does that very well. Anyway had some GMG bucks hanging out for something like 2 years that I had forgotten about, so I went ahead and picked this up. But then I purchased Cities: skyline yesterday so I am not sure when I will have the time to play Starships.
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
Had a quick look at the game today.

[video=youtube;fwKkcKy1QLA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwKkcKy1QLA[/video]
 

adoredtv

adoredtv
And Part 2 with a bigger battle.

[video=youtube;SgQN9uF3aH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgQN9uF3aH8&list=PLNxrmUjuEWPMU-0PrT4ftrzXvIQUz2zH6[/video]
 

Andy Kappa

Andy Kappa
Is it just me or is there a bit of a nod to ED in the way the ships are kitted out? Maybe it's just a coincidence...

Definite hints of Master of Orion too I'd say.

On a related matter, I got the latest upgrade to BE yesterday, and it includes a utility to link across to Starships once it's released (it's called my2K). I'm now getting messages telling me about achievements in BE that will appear in SS as gameplay upgrades of some sort. I haven't worked out the details yet but something's definitely going on.
 

Andy Kappa

Andy Kappa
Well, it's out...

Had a bit of a first play - not enough to reach any conclusions about the gameplay (although I am getting quite a strong vibe of Master of Orion 2), but the interface looks pretty slick to my untrained eye.

They do seem to have cut down dramatically on both scientific research and wonders though, and they're all focussed around the ships (understandably I guess given the title, but it still feels a bit weird). I haven't worked out the details yet but although it's not hard to see the family resemblance to Civ V and Beyond Earth, it's a major reworking of the basic idea.
 
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adoredtv

adoredtv
Pretty fun but light game I think. I've only started a couple of games but there is surprising depth there too. I liken it more to X-Com actually, just with ships instead of little green men.
 

Hellhawk666

Hellhawk666
Downloaded this last week. It's very light in comparison to what I was expecting. I enjoyed the two short games I had (small board with 4 players took about 2 hours, large board with 8 took about 4 hours) but have not played since.

The civilization development / tech tree aspect has been pared right back - the game is essentially just a string of fleet encounters, and is pretty simplistic. There's nothing actually wrong with the game, but nothing to really sink your teeth into, either. It's all about small fleet battles (maximum 8 cap ships + fighter squadrons), and is very constrained. You can't split the fleet. It feels like it should have been a board game rather than a computer game.

Civ 4 came with a space-war scenario built in which was much better than this, except it lacked the tactical/strategic battle aspect.
 
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