catbarf on 14/9/2008 at 16:36
I'm interested in seeing what space strategy games people play. I've gone through the three Homeworld games many times, dabbled in Hegemonia, and beaten Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. What others should I see if I can get?
And on a related note, are there any 'realistic' space games?
doctorfrog on 14/9/2008 at 17:18
I know that Galactic Civilizations II will be rewarding and wonderful once I have the time to dive in. It's a 3-D, single-player-only turn-based 4X. Biggest plus of this game is the AI: it's supposed to be very smart and darn near merciless, it doesn't cheat, each enemy race has its own AI and none of them cheat or 'see' you as The Player, just another enemy.
If you could cram that AI into Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, you'd have just about the greatest game of all time, ever.
I haven't gotten into it yet, but (
http://www.siliconcommandergames.com/) Solar Vengeance is the opposite of GCII. It's a real-time, single or multiplayer space strategy game with 2-D graphics, and open source AI. Also free. The graphics are primitive, but the gameplay is pretty pick-up-and-go.
There are others of course, such as (
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2719394&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1) Sword of the Stars, but the above two are on my radar at the mo.
EvaUnit02 on 14/9/2008 at 17:25
Star Trek Armada 1 & 2?
Sins of a Solar Empire?
demagogue on 14/9/2008 at 17:27
As for commercial games I've just been playing the Homeworld games like you.
A little older games -- I was playing through Hardwar and pimping it in some other threads ... it's Wing Commander set on an alien planet. It has a very realistic flavor, though. I love it. Another one in that vein is Freelancer.
And Vega Strike and Transcendence are pretty good open source sims. FreeOrion is another one still in an alpha stage, but should be good over time.
(Of course nothing gets more realistic than Orbiter, but that's not a game, just a pure space flight sim.)
dj_ivocha on 14/9/2008 at 17:34
If you liked Haegemonia and Nexus, try Imperium Galactica 1/2. I've only played 2 and it's quite decent, though I can't compare it to your two games as I haven't played those.
Also Conquest: Frontier Wars - some similarities with Starcraft but has enough innovations to stand on its own (multiple star systems connected with wormholes come to mind). IIRC the story was somewhat (or VERY?) cheesy, but the gameplay is good nonetheless.
Also the (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(game_series)) X games are supposed to be quite good, if sometimes frustrating due to various reasons.
catbarf on 14/9/2008 at 17:58
Quote Posted by doctorfrog
I know that Galactic Civilizations II will be rewarding and wonderful once I have the time to dive in. It's a 3-D, single-player-only turn-based 4X. Biggest plus of this game is the AI: it's supposed to be very smart and darn near merciless, it doesn't cheat, each enemy race has its own AI and none of them cheat or 'see' you as The Player, just another enemy.
I may have seen this before- is that the game that allows you to design your own ships, or am I thinking of Master of Orion?
Quote Posted by dj_ivocha
If you liked Haegemonia and Nexus, try Imperium Galactica 1/2. I've only played 2 and it's quite decent, though I can't compare it to your two games as I haven't played those.
I have a vague memory from when I was six of my father attempting to play IG2, but near-constant freezing and other bugs prompted him to uninstall.
doctorfrog on 14/9/2008 at 20:28
Quote Posted by catbarf
I may have seen this before- is that the game that allows you to design your own ships, or am I thinking of Master of Orion?
Yeah, that's GalCiv. As far as
practical ship design goes, it's pretty basic, you slap weapons, shields, armor, etc. modules on, and you're good to go. It's pretty simple, but there's some typical rock-paper-scissors strategy involved (3 types of weapons and 3 types of complementary shielding, plus heavy metal armor).
However, you can slap an unlimited amount of non-functional 'jewelry' on your ship to get as wild a design as you like, and it's open to mods as well. There are the typical fan-made Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Star Wars mods if you want to go that route.
Or, you can ignore the ship design feature almost completely, since slapping weapons and shields onto an invisible cube is equally as effective as designing a detailed ship. I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to spend at least a little time designing their own ships and send them across the galaxy, it's a nerd's wet dream.
Shadowcat on 14/9/2008 at 22:08
Quote Posted by catbarf
are there any 'realistic' space games?
Orbiter, as mentioned already, is as close to a real space flight simulation as you'll find on a PC.
If you're interested in space exploration/combat with Newtonian physics (which is what 'realistic' typically means to me in the context of games set in space), there are a few of those. The I-War series is my personal favourite.
catbarf on 14/9/2008 at 22:48
Ah, yes, I've played I-War many times, but I've never seen a space strategy game like that.
As for GalCiv- How does it stack up next to MoO? What are the gameplay differences?
demagogue on 15/9/2008 at 00:29
By the way, didn't mention it earlier but (
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page) FreeOrion is inspired by Masters of Orion (sort of obvious by context anyway).
Anyway, looking at their site just now, I saw this list:
Also, our own Crispy has made a mini-space strategy game called (
http://www.inventivedingo.com/mayhemig) Mayhem Intergalactic.
The demo is free-standing enough to play around with for a while.
Edit:
Quote Posted by catbarf
Ah, yes, I've played I-War many times, but I've never seen a space strategy game like that.
If you're interested in space games with proper Newtonian mechanics, still not strategy games, but the two sequels to Elite did that ((
http://www.eliteclub.co.uk/download/) link).
