The successor to a great game, Sword of the Stars II left many things to be lacking when first released. After mot than a year of patching it is finally ready to stand on its own. The graphics can be astounding and the way ship battles are handled makes most of the games in the genre look simple and lacking in comparison. A great game for a 4x fix.

It's a good strategy game, but I can't help to compare it with the first game in the series. It doesn't seem as slick or streamlined as the original and it's way too easy to get bogged down in the menu system.

Dispite all the harzard in the orginal release, the Enhanced Edition finally gets things right. It has a deed 4X game in it core, spiced with fun ship customization and epic space battle. This is not a easy game though. You do have a steep learning curve to climb, but it is certainly rewarding. The game looks great, each factions look unique and the designs are cool. The battles have the very epic feeling there. Overall a good game.

This game is an overlooked gem. It's graphics are at par with or even better than games like Sins of Solar Empire Rebellion and Endless Space. The game had bugs and a clunky interface when it was released (still have some bugs), however, its developers have introduced dramatic improvements and continue to support their game with new updates and content. Ship customization and 3d battles are the strong points of the game, while long-turn times on larger maps and some AI mistakes are the weak points. I picked up this game during a recent sale and don't regret having bought it.

SotSII:EE is a marked improvement over the original release... With that being said, it is not a game for the casual player. There are literally mountains of options and pathways to victory (or defeat). If the new player can, however, climb out of the steep learning curve, SotSII is a fantastic 4x strategy game with nearly endless replayability. I have not delved into the multiplayer, so I will let others comment on that.

The game has been heavily patched since the disastrous release, and it's now playable to the point of reaching that 'one more turn' feeling. You'll have to earn it however: the simplicity of the first game was lost on the way to more depth, and you'll have to wade through an amount of details and micromanagement that tends to be unrewarding, while the confusing UI and the vague tutorials will have you puzzled about the game mechanics for quite a while. Once you 'get' it, however, it's an enjoyable game that still needs a bit of polishing.

This game is finally finished and we can hopefully expect some expansions to it.

There's a massive amount of content in this game, alot of replayability! And though there are still problems with the AI lacking in the I department, the product is just so much better than it was a year ago and so much closer to the real gem it is.

I can highly recommend it, not least for the constant stream of support it's received from the developers. They did not leave us players in the lurch!

While hte game was a massive bundle of bugs and missing feature on release, the devs have kept patching it at an incredible rate of 1 pathc a week for months. The game is curretnly practicly done and is very fun.

Note that like all Kerberos games, its's not the same old. It's someting new and different in many ways, even when compared to SOTS1.

Very inventive in terma of mechanics and gameplay. Graphics are gorgous and you'll love and each every ship you build.

All in all a diamond that need just a little bit more of polishing. Definately the best space empire 4X out there.

First of all you should probably know that when the game was released the developers themselves said it was too early. Second even thou they dont have to, the developers have been working hard on patches that would eventualy make a great game of SotS II.

I'll be reviewing two things: technical issues the current (july) game have and the changed mechanics in comparison with the first SotS with all expansions.

The technical issues are that of game performance, in a long game after 100 turns or so, waiting for next turn takes longer and longer until the wait time can be measured by minutes and the game becomes unplayable. However this is issue only in large maps game with 5 or more AI players. So you can still enjoy the game on small map with two AI players with no problems at all. The performance can also slow down on diferent "screens" (research and so on) but that wasnt a real issue to me, it took a litle bit longer (like 5 sec) but it was nothing that would make game unplayable.

As of the mechanics I've played SotS with all expansions and loved it, so initialy I didnt like the change in game mechanics at first, but after playing a couple of games I actually like it more, its much more "neaty" and organised (no stranded ships, no idle construction fleets etc.). And it definetly makes much more sense in "how it would probaly work in real" point of view. I won't be giving you any details, so you can savour it for yourself. :)

Overall its a nice game, and I hope after some time (and patches) it'll become a great one like first SotS was. If you are fan of 4x games and looking for a new one. especialy with great tactical real time battles (this part of the game works perfectly well and is great!) go for it. If you are just casual player probably wait for some discount and then buy it. Anyway even thou its not a great game it has a big potential to become one.

Sots 2 is a great game and good successor of the original Sword of the Stars. There are many great additions to the game including full star systems rather than individual planets. The game was made slightly more realistic than the original. The only real downside is that at the time of this review the game is still buggy and does not have all intended features, but the developers are releasing regular fixes and content patches so soon the game will be complete as it was originally intended.

If you've play'd the original Sword Of the Stars be warned the interface is quite differnt and it plays differntly to SOTs, I think it plays worse. Certainly watch videos online before you buy. I would also like to note its still fairly buggy at the time of writing this.

After a horrific initial release where the game was basically an Alpha, Kerberos has slaved away to such an extent that the SotS2 is now a functional and fun game. Sure, it will take another 10 decent patches to make it into what it initially promised to be, but it says a lot about the game that it's fun enough now to the point where I don't regret my purchase. Random tech trees and a great ship builder complete with a very nice 3D battle mode really are the games' strengths. The rest of the 4X system like colony development and diplomacy are more barebones compared to other games of this type but the SotS series always was more about the ship combat rather than pure empire building and it succeeds. That's probably why the game is so playable now despite its limitations as it focuses on one narrow aspect.

Fun Fun fun!!!(with the update's) The game was broken when it came out but, now the game works good. Its is a turn based campaign real-time battle goodness. If you are fan of space strategy its a must have. If you like to explore space its fun to have. If you ever wondered what it would be like to rule the galaxy must have. Fighting battle in huge space dreadnoughts and cruiser is the best part. Buy it and rule the galaxy with mankind or destroy it.

The game has alot of features but is very complicated. The UI isnt bad its just there are so many menus you can get lost sometimes. Overall its the best 4x title i have ever played and its stunning graphics and mechanics is just awesome. The reason i take a point off is the fact there are a bit of things here and there that are EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. Such as the fact you HAVE to assemble a fleet to protect ever single system you own. This is so frustrating its unreal. Plus combat gets annoying because you cant freely move the camera, you have to double click on your units and then the camera follows. So really the game just needs a few tweaks and it would be perfect.

Many reviews complain about this game crashing all the time. The good news is the game did not crash on me once.

I was so disgusted with the poor user interface that I uninstalled it before I finished a single game.

* The ability to speed up time during tactical combat has been removed.

* Once you've cycled through the log messages, you can't go back. If you view all the past log messages, you can't click on them to take you to the relevant place

* On the colony window, you can't list all your colonies and sort by a given attribute. Instead, you have to laboriously click on each solar system. Once you finally find the colony you want, clicking on it won't take you there.

* Weapon characteristics and ship design are now baffling.

Avoid this game. Stick with the original Sword of the Stars, which is brilliant!

It has been nine months now since release, and the game is creeping close to being playable.

Playable i say, not enjoyable.

For that, it's still far too slow, clunky - there's no smoothness to play.

Otherwise, well. It's SoTS1 major graphical update. Same core features, more playthings in it, interesting new approach to research. Major feature for a 4x is detailed combat. You build your ships from sections, not too uncommon. You can customize those with turrets and special modules, still pretty common. Then you get into combat - there's all the meaty goodness! The number of active ships depends on engaging fleet sizes as well as active command ships. Control your fleets positioning in real time, mind the inertia (depending on your race/kind of engine as well), keep your ships together or split them up, kite with fast, long range ships, lay mines, launch drones, attempt to take over enemy ships... lots of content there.

Shots have impact, may spin and toss ships about. Turrets and modules can be targeted and shot off, as can whole ship sections. Apart from whittling down total hp, destroying 2 sections will also take out a ship - or you can cripple it and leave it on field as dead command point for your enemy.

Find and destroy command ships to limit enemy numbers and take away his choice of what ships come in next as replacements. (mh, juicy tanker ships instead of dangerous battleships!)

This is the point where part 2may at some point surpass SotS1 in for all the added detail and pretty graphics.

I gave SotS1 4 stars, and i've been waiting for an age now for the sequel to be enjoyable.

9 months, they're still working on it. They're working, but they're not close to done. Here's my rating for my 40€ (release price) game.

Props to the developers, would like to see big companies support some of their terrible unfinished releases (though never as unfinished as this, by far!) with as much dedication.

It's been an...interesting year for Sword of the Stars fans. The long-awaited sequel was delivered to us unfinished, and honestly, what was meant to be there wasn't as interesting as I thought I'd been promised. So far, Paradox and Kerberos have been working at it to get it into some sort of playable state. I'm not going to say that it's still not playable (it is, for a given value of playable), but for the moment I'm just not sure that a fan of the original game will find much here. It may be worth a shot, if you're a huge fan of 4X.

Well, this is a nice space game, turn based in the campaign, real time in the "encounters" (just like a space total war), with complex mechanics (the ships have a aserie of system, armor, and shields, not just a HP bar). The graphics are real nice.

The problem: the game ins't finished yet, a lot of bugs and performance issues are still to be fixed. I bought this game for $7,5, when it was on promo, but i'm still waiting they to "finish" the game before going to play for real.

Wait until they finish it, or buy it on promo. If the devs keep patching this up, soon we'll have a nice game.

After picking up this game on a sale at 10 dollars I figured I'd try it out. Hearing so much about how broken and uncompleted the game was kind of put me off. However it has come a long way after viewing some of the patch notes. Don't expect a flawless experience with that being said it's still enjoyable. I would recommend buying this game on sale and letting it serenade for a while and wait for improvements.

This Game is not ready yet, we are still Beta Testing it essentially. It has come a long way

since the October release but still needs more patches to add back content and fix more bugs. Watch this game in a few months as it will be well worth the purchase. It is Def. a diamond in the rough that will eventually shine bright. There is a strong community and the Dev's are working hard to fix up the game so it has allot going for it.

Don't even think about picking this one up - it's broken beyond playability.

Steam is also still advertising it, even though the game has - NEVER - worked.

I can understand the need for funding, but releasing a game when it isn't even finished, after having had it up for pre-order for ages, is NOT a good business model.

I like paradox - I have magicka as well, and had no major issues at release. But this game is just... unplayable, sadly.

I'd advise anyone interested in this to pick up the first game with the expansions if you can find a good bundle deal.

Leave this be until they fix it properly. They being Kerberos, not Paradox (albeit they surely must have known the state of the game at launch being the distributor)

Played the first version, and thought I'd enjoy this one. It was on sale, so I figured "Hey, why not" and bought it. Bad idea. I figured it would've improved since the 2011 reviews, and at least it doesn't crash, but... it's slow. So so so so slow. Loading the game takes a few minutes for me (I honestly thought it had crashed at first), and leaving the research window takes so long I sometimes think I missed the button while clicking. Generating a new turn on turn one takes way too long; it's comparable to a mid-game turn in SotS. I honestly didn't bother continuing playing after the second turn had finished generating, it was that bad.

And just so you don't think it's my computer: I have absolutely no problems playing any other game. Skyrim on highest settings? No problem at all.

I can say that there is no reason to give this game more than 1 star and any review that gives more should be ignored. We now have something like 19 patches. That is good in that they are working on the issues. It is bad in that the game has only had one of some dozen missing features added to date.

I bought the game knowing it was probably in poor shape, but I am a nut for TBS space games. The manual does not even give you minor needed info such as what a Survey ship is and why do I need one.

The game plays like sap dripping from a tree, very slow and unresponsive. You can either see a few planets or zoom out to where you have tiny dots. This makes it hard to stay focused. If you have questions, like all new players will, you better not go to their forum and ask them.

They are quick to slam customers and take you to task as if you were paid to get the game, rather than the one that put up the cash. They will suggest you look things up, really. Most forums love to give answers and look like a hero.

So far I have not had any enjoyment from the game, but have not givenup. So unless you are like me and must try these types of games, I would wait for an expansion and the new reviews.

Shows promise, highly modular and consequently moddable structure.

SOTS prime is was, is a great game. This one will be also after a couple of more patches.

But don't pay premium if for nothing else to punish the publisher for crowdsourcing this game without being upfront about it.

Interesting game with very good concepts and ideas, it is a shame it was released broken and out of balance, but at least the company who developed it have patched it and are continuing to patch is as each problem arises.

Take it from a sucker who knows. IF this game ever gets close to its original promise, it will be a couple of years and a few expansion packs away. Don't believe any ratings on what the game maybe like - you are browing thru the reviews wondering on if to buy the game 'as it is'. Also I highly suggest going to the Kerberos and Paradox forums and read the change logs and check out the culture there.

There is supposed to be an announced 'all's clear' meaning the game will, in someone's estimation, be in release status - is it not as of today, so ask yourself, do you want to spend $40 on a game that isn't even in release candidate shape?

I wish I had gotten my refund back in the first month, but - like I said, take it from a sucker who knows - now - that this game will not be finished 6 months past release (That would be March 28th). $40 wasted and all I got was a pretty little user icon at the Paradox forum.

This game is broken to the point of being unplayable. When it's not crashing or showing corrupted graphics, it's lagging in the menus and crashing. Did I mention it crashes? It crashes. A lot. Most of the interface is broken and what works is a downgrade from the original SOTS: for example, the ship designer is too dark to be usable and when creating a game you can only play with the one set galaxy size they provide.

Other reviewers say it has potential; they're not wrong, but why would you pay anything for a game you can't play now? As it is, even $5 is a ripoff. Check back again in a few years.

Sword of the Stars II is as it stands a horrid mess, I wish I could say otherwise, I anticipated the release for months I even pre-ordered the game (My first pre-order ever) and was severely disappointed. The interface is so needlessly complicated to accomplish simple tasks, do you want to send a fleet anywhere, have fun dredging through the slugfest that is controlling your own empire. I have yet to play combat more than twice, honestly, the beginning of the game(which has always been my favourite part of strategy games, expanding, exploring etc) feels more like a chore than fun, I cannot have fun with this game as it is, I try the game after every new patch and then go running back to Starcraft II, Civ5, and Metro 2033. What kills me most of the load time lag, every time you need to switch to a new screen (example being switching from the star map to the tech tree) you're greeted by a load time that increases ridiculously depending on how many players there are in the game.

However there are many positives to the game that needed to be addressed.

The game has an enthralling fiction behind it, even if it doesn't change the gameplay much. Kerberos Productions has excellent support, patching twice a week almost every week, these aren't little baby patches, these are serious bug fixing game addition adding fixes. And I have every confidence they will continue these until the game is highly polished. The graphics are terrific, the weapons are interesting, the design and ideas behind this game are GREAT, but the implementation is so poor it ruins the experience.

If I had to rate this game on how it released it would be a 1/5, if I had to rate it on how it is now it'd be getting a 1/5. But I know the patches are coming, Kerberos has stated the interface lag is being worked on, many problems that have been afflicted the title since launch have been cut, but there are still many more. With these promises in mine I rate it 2/5.

If you have yet to buy the game but would like to get it, I would highly recommend you watch the Kerberos forums for the 'all clear' from the dev team, saying that it is in a polished state.

Link is here: http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forum/index.php

A Game with great potential. unfortunately the developer released it too early.

there are still many bugs in the game and a lot of features missing or only implemented as a basic.

Everybody who liked SotS 1 should take a look at this new title, but be warned that some game mechanics have been changed. it's not just SotS1 with new graphics, it's a whole new gameplay.

(i.e. fleet movement is now based on missions, you send em somewhere and they come back. no free movement of fleets) so you need to decide wether you like the new mechanics or not.

currently (02.12.2011) i would wait for the game to be more polished and patched.

only reason to buy it earlier (from my point of view) is if you get it cheaper or with some goodies (free dlc's or such) or if you realy like kerberos (the developer) and want to support them.

about the rating: as i think the game will be great in a few weeks i´m giving it 4 stars.

the current version would get 2 stars from me.

I pre-ordered this game from Gamersgate soon after it was first available for pre-order. I've been a long time fan of 4X games and have spent at least a hundred hours with SotS1. I don't give bad reviews lightly... But this is an unfinished game with simply too many issues to deserve a score above 1. As the editors of Computer Gaming World used to say... "We review games as delivered, no patches". They would have given this game a 0. I give it a 1.

The original SotS was all about simplicity. You scouted with single ships, sent out colonizers to create new colonies on suitable planets, and designed warships which would conquer the galaxy. The tech tree was the only real 'complex' thing, and even that was relatively easy to learn.

With SotS2 they tried to keep things 'simple' by tying you down to a set number of fleets based on the amount of planets you have settled on. Gone is the simplistic 'click on fleet, click order, click destination'. Say Hello to ships tethered as a group to a single base, unable to change orders easily and obscured through a terrible UI.

I haven't finished a single game of SotS2. I haven't even put in more than five hours. Every time I have played it has been a crash fest. Although they have been releasing patches to try and clear things up - this game is far from finished. The head of Kerberos - the guys that created the game - has said it would take about a month to fix the issues and finish up the main game. I can't say this game will even be finished in six months. It was released way too early and the only real recompense for fans is free 'skins'.

Hopefully some day this game will be fun. Hopefully some day the options menu will work in game. It will likely take two or three expansions before the game has the depth that SotS1 had - if the developer stays afloat after this.

I would simply stay away from this game until a "Complete Collection" comes out, like SotS1 did (with extra maps and other bonuses that people could not get unless they purchased the entire collection again got). That way you'll save a boat load of money on expansions and get the extra content even the guys who blew tons of cash on each expansion as it came out did not get. :)

While the game had a terrible release the Devs have looked after the initial buyers and from past experience i knew the game would be sorted and not forgotten, Im having a great time now ive figured out the diffrences from the original sots and its just as worthy as its predessesor.

If you like 4x gameplay sprawling univeres amd a huge amount of customization get this game...

Crappy game. The interface is not natural, for instance how do I colonize a planet make 6 ships and send them there (how, don't click on the ships instead the object you want to colonize and then send then wait multiple turns why? who knows you just do). Paradox has made another flop which is strikingly similar to the failure that is MOO3. Dont waste your money buy Vicky 2 or EU3 instead.

In Sword of the Stars 2, gamers will be reaquianted with the original six races from Swords of the Stars I and its expansions as well as reveal the dark secret of the original series, the Suul’ka - an ancient race that is responsible for tampering with the Liir, Zuul, and other races in the SotS universe! Not limited to another entire new race and their unique drive technology, SotS2 is a major step forward in the SotS approach to 4X gameplay, taking the easy-to-learn-hard-to-master philosophy set out in SotS1 and following that path to a new standard in space strategy games. If you liked the first, buy the second.

While I'm giving it 3 stars for now, when it gets fixed up it'll be 4, or maybe even 5. It's quite enjoyable even in its current state and provides a wonderful experience for those who enjoy the areas of science fiction not often covered, like newtonian mechanics or logistics. It's also beautiful, with every ship wonderfully rendered in full detail, including its name and serial number. All in all, it's good for now, but not quite playable. I suggest waiting a few weeks for the major patches before you buy,

I see lots of high stars given to this game but no reviews. This must be fixed, for many reasons.

Do -not- under any circumstances, buy this game.

1) A horrible start with a botched release to Steam by uploading an old beta version. This wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact you can hardly tell the difference between the full release and the beta. It really is that bad.

2) Crashing. Lots of it. A good majority of people can't even get the game to start, and for those that can there are tons of errors that crop up ~80 turns. This can be avoided by reloading old saves and trying to find one before the script errors... which will just happen again a dozen or so turns later.

3) Video options don't even work. I am not joking, the options for each setting are blanked out.

Now for the gameplay itself.

1) A horrible UI. I would almost want you to buy it just to see how horrible it is. It looks like they haven't touched it since alpha. Anyone who has played SotS 1, with its (mostly) streamlined interface will cry when you see the abomination that is the Ship Design screen.

2) Lack of ability to manipulate game settings. Want to play 2v2? Want to adjust how many stars in the map? How about distance between stars? All of these and more that were available in the first SotS are not available here.

3) Slow AI. This one should be expected in a 4X game, but it is far, far worse than SotS ever was.

This is just a list of some of the major issues with the game so far.

Side note: A few things that they -did- do right.

1) The ships look gorgeous. Everything in the battle screen looks far more realistic, and both ships and weapons flow better than the first game.

2) Ship Design. The UI for the screen is horrible, but the amount of detail you can get into controlling every gun on the ship and even where special parts are located is a great thing to see.

I tried to think of three things per section, but that is the end of anything good.

You should check out the major forums at Kerberos and Paradox first if you still want to buy this game.

Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter is really two games. It is the game that was released in late October 2011, and it is the game it *will* be around the annual shift to 2012.

The release of Lords of Winter has been, to say the least, somewhat plagued by issues. Initially, Kerberos uploaded an alpha version to the Steam servers, which wasn't even playable. They then updated it scant hours later with a release candidate that, from my POV, wasn't much better. The options menu in-game is disabled. The game won't run in anything but windowed mode, and yet gets graphical glitches when it does. Decals do not work. The game crashes randomly when accessing certain maps. The sound falls out at random intervals. Several ship pieces have no name. Even the game's splash screen won't work and gives a 'server not found' reply. The list (or, at least, my list) goes on. I haven't even gotten time to really test the 4X gameplay over all this, but from what I have seen this game offers some radical changes from the original, has a quicker start that requires you to catch up to speed, and an even more complex-layered game-play that really should need an easily accessible tutorial... Which the game does not seem to have.

If you are reading this review now in fall 2011, I would tell you that this game is (currently) not worth your money and time unless you want to show your support to the developer and ensure they stay alive to fix the current game's prodigious errors. If you are reading this in 2012 or later (and provided I haven't deleted or updated this review by then), try finding a more recent review and basing your opinion on that. This game promises to be a worthy successor to the first Sword of the Stars, but at the moment it has some child diseases to iron out.

This game as it was released 10-28-11 is unfinished and buggy. That said, there is a very strong likelihood that it will be soon.

Kerberos can be trusted to finish this game to the best of their ability and as quickly as they humanly can.

Holding off on a purchase of this game until a later date would be reasonable. Just don't fly to judgment at first.

If you haven't bought this yet, hold off for maybe a month... or two. Game is busted and seemingly unfinished out of the gate. Even after a quick patch, the options button is grayed out. Game is very UNintuitive, unlike SotS 1. I thought I could just jump in after playing the first game for 6 years. Nope. You can no longer adjust the number of stars so we're stuck with the same 5 or 6 static maps to play on. Ship design feature sucks. Should have kept it at least close to how it was. Research menu sucks. "Feasibility study" just to see how long research will take before you can start the research? How does that make things more fun? I could go on, but you get the point. Boo, Kebros! I expected better from you. Sword of the NO Stars for now.

Somehow it seems to be a step back from the original SOTS in terms of gameplay, it's clumsy and complicated. but a few new developments are in there that could have made it a great step forward: new starbase system, ship construction (shooting range!), more complex star systems, improved tech tree. Alas, somehow much 'fiddlier' to play - and currently at best BETA. Also the new graphics give a bit of a funfair flair to it (blinkblink, very colourful, for no apparent reason).

Not yet ready and perhaps never will be.

The game is beautiful and take what made the first sots and improves on it. The new ship design is in 3d and gives you the ability to check out the weapons load out to see how they might do in combat. The tech tree is also much larger than it was in the first sots and give lots of new techs to play with. The new missions options on the map are also a nice addition to the game allowing you to select a system and fleet to do missions such as colonize, patrol, scout, and many others. If you liked the first game and its expansions i am sure you will also like this one.

Anyone acquainted in first series of this game, need no review, but people seeing this game for the first time, its best explained as Best from Master of Orion series, game that will reap all the rewards, true 4X game, with all dull concepts that are plague in modern Strategy games as: "who research most makes super-ship that kills everything" or "Gather resources for 4/5 of the game, then in last 1/5 build asuper-army and overwhelm the opponent" or "I played it 1...50 times and I saw it all, played it in every possible way" are TOTALLY gone.

This game deserves all the praises, especially looking at the small dedicated Developing Team that made this superb game. Most million worth AAA games in the market can hide in shame from this game. (divide by zero)/5!