23rd Jan
This bundle is amazing, all I have to say is, If you don't have it, buy it now! The game is really worth it and so much fun to play. The real-time battles are a blast and the turn-based strategic portion is well-executed and quite rewarding.
4th Dec 2009
SOTS is a great game for those looking for some combat-oriented TBS. As others said, empire management is quite simple and mostly focused on expansion, while the battles are reminiscent of games like Ogre Battle, but with much more freedom, and the random encounters are reminiscent of most JRPGs. Each species offer a different kind of gameplay and the options available for custom games are really good, as a PC strategy game should have.
The interface is also simple, which is a must for this kind of game, and while the game does have its small details, it's pretty accessible.
29th Oct 2009
Different aliens that are unique and play differently from each other? Check. Random tech trees that affect how you play each game? Check. Random encounters that range from system killers to alien infestations? Check. Fun ship battles with different weapons and ship classes to spice things up? Check. And there's so much more to this game that includes trade, diplomacy, bio wars and even 'tech accidents'!
And did i mention how friendly the developers are at their forums? They definitely provide good post-purchase support.I got this copy at a bargain for $9.99 and it is definitely one of the best games i have. Fans of 4X strategy games will definitely love this.
15th Oct 2009
Awesome space strategy game, with less micromanagement than Space Empires V and GalCiv. The demo is too short to let you appreciate the deep and variety of the simulation. The AI is smart, so you can play tough solo games; multiplayer is the best. If you like space strategy games this is a must-have. Sometimes (like now, 9.95$) it's available at a very discounted price, and its value is far greater.
24th Aug 2009
Bought it on a half off sale because it had really good reviews, while a somewhat fun 4x strategy game and space tactical game, I found some aspects lacking. Empire building and upgrading planets is fairly one dimensional, you just wait for their populations to max out and can't do much otherwise. While the combat is fairly fun, it quickly wears off and the lack of a third dimension(IN SPACE of all places) severely limits maneuver and replayability. Still, an entertaining game, though not worth it unless it goes on sale again.
7th Aug 2009
This game is a lot of fun to play. It has a tremendous amount of replayability with each race having a different playstyle. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a space strategy game that focuses on combat and doesn't require much micromanagement.
31st Jul 2009
This game is for 4th graders strategically. The graphics are really good, the ways you can look at the universe takes a little getting used to but is very nice when you get the technique. It is very boring waiting to build up some technology and ships so you can even play anything. This is a turn based game too with no real-time option. I recommend this only for children.
31st Jul 2009
What a great TBS game! It seems like such a simple concept: a variety of races, each with their own methods of travel and dynamic tech trees, vying for galactic supremacy. The graphics are great, the controls are easy to pick up, and the game is very addictive. I love the ability to create my own maps, and you can do this just by using Excel. I bought it before it went on the 50% off sale recently, and I do not regret the purchase at all. It is a great game. I have yet to get the Argos Naval Yard Expansion, but hope to soon. Recommended for people who love games like GalCiv and, to some extent, Sins of a Solar Empire.
23rd Jul 2009
In many ways this is a great 4x space strategy game. Unfortunately it falls short of such a lofty goal. Its shortcomings are all the more noticeable and annoying given the game's many strengths.
The game's strengths are obvious:
1. innovative races, each needs to be played in its own unique way.
2. well implimented variable tech tree.
3. strong tactical combat engine for a 4x game.
The game's shortcomings vary from the mere annoying to major and can generally be summarized as not paying sufficient attention to the gamer's point of view. Many if not most of them can easily be rectified but it is telling that they have not been addressed (and I suspect not even recognised) after many patches:
1. Poor documentation. Much information important to a player's enjoyment are difficult to find or not in the game's manuals at all. Most of it are available on line but there should at least be some reference to the availability and location of such on-line information.
2. Strategic combat. The strategic combat engine is actually not bad given that it is only meant to be an option to the tactical engine. However, it could be a lot better with just a little fine tuning. As it stands, many encounters that could be easily handled strategically needs to be fought tactically -- and these tend to be very boring battles. For example, there are no strategic option to run away, to destroy enemies in space but not the enemy colony, or for the Zuul's to capture slaves. The first is particularly annoying when your ship(s) have superior tactical speed and can withstand a volly or two from the enemy. You must play the tactical game (very boring 30 sec. at 8x acceleration just clicking at the endge of the screen) to save your ships from engaging the enemy head-on.
3. Encounter information. At the beginning of the turn you get a table showing details of the forces in each of the encounters that turn. However, once you start resolving the encounters, there is no way of retrieving this earlier information. This is no trival matter. In later stages of the game you could face more than 10 encounters a turn and not many would remember what battles they are fighting half way down the list and what objective you might have for that particular encounter (not every encounter is a head on fight to the death: some could be hit and run abd it is important to know which is which)
To cut a long story short, buy the game if you can stand its shortcomings.
18th Jul 2009
Honestly. In general it is a good game [even if I rate it at 2.5/5] with many interesting features. But there are also problems. 1.. Most annoying is cheating AI (it is not good AI, it is cheating AI and that is the difference - typical Paradox Interactive). On normal/hard level, 350 stars map is completly colonized by AI in space of ~100 turns. There is not much time to have fun. If you enjoying to play "turling" kind of game I have only one thing to say - STAY AWAY and/or buy Lost Empire Immortals for 6000 starmap *Thumbs up*. SoS is just constant rushing. Never sit back. Rush AI no matter what or you will regret it. 2.. Game is very much LAN/Internet oriented, if you buying this for single-player mode you won't be entirely satsified - to put it mildly. 3.. Terrible map. Usable for small scale conflicts, but with big starmap you just want to shot whoever developed it. 4.. + few others smaller issues (annoying voice speaking same kind of garbage over and over, ship command limits, ship management during combat, no proper single-player campaign, impossible to rename planets). And finally if you own SoS bundle you must buy also Argolis Naval Yard. A.N.Y. should have been in the game from the start!
17th Jul 2009
Really great game. I bought this during a sale for $15 and it was definitely worth it.
SotS is a 4x/RTS game, comparable to the Total War games. What this means is the strategic portion of the game takes place in a turn-based environment, whereas the conflicts are resolved in real-time, where your tactical skills takes place.
The interesting thing about SotS is that the developers went back to the roots of the 4X genre. They rethought everything, simplifying things and generally making it more fun. For example, you are no longer staring at spreadsheets most of the time. Specific stats of numbers and techs are generally hidden, so you don't have to worry about making an absolute optimal ship design. Colonies are easy to manage, with only a population limit slider and sliders controlling trade versus construction, or balancing between terraforming and industry when building a new colony.
Probably the best thing about SotS (for me) is that it was pretty simple to figure out and get playing. There aren't many strange buttons or sliders that you have no idea what they do, and the controls are standard enough. Don't take it the wrong way though; SotS may seem simple but it's actually quite complex, especially how in combat, it uses a physics engine to figure out if your ship hits or not.
One of the most interesting things in SotS is that the tech tree is randomized each game (it's randomized from the start so you can't re-load games to get a tech). This is interesting because it forces you to try different strategies.
What with multiplayer, a great AI (it doesn't cheat - it adapts to the player!), scenarios and some mods, this game is definitely for those who are interested in 4X games.
30th Jun 2009
The first SotS was plagued by a Legion of bugs and that was a real pitty because all of the ideas were pretty nice and after 2 Months I stopped playing and put the Game away.
Now after 2 Years or something I look into my e-mail account and see the GamersGate Newsletter for the Megabundle 50% off and thougth "well let´s give it a new try, for this price it won´t hurt even if it turns out to bed... BUT the improvements that come across with the 3 Expansion Packs(Born of Blood/A murder of Crows/Argos Naval Yard) are indeed awesome
It is like playing a completely different game and it´s yust awesome.
Here the things I like the most:
1. It is easy and fast to controle your Empire
2. A random tech-tree that changes Every Game
3. The Ship design is easy and you have never-ending posibilyties aswell that there is no Ultimate Ship
as the AI will adept to you for e.g. if you use mainly missiles the will start using counter-missile-measures
4. Diplomatics are usefull and the AI will interact with you in many unexpected ways
Wll as everywhere there are also some "bad" points as
1. your Ships have no health bar(damage can only be noticed visiually(plasma Fire on board))
2. A rather SpartanStarMap
In conclusion I would recommend this game strongly to every fan of 4-X Games aswell to friends of RTS Games cause the RealTimeCombat makes a lot of fun against a hard AI,
So I say BUY IT!!!
23rd Jun 2009
This game is excellent. If you like the original Master of Orion, buy this game. Designing different ships is fun. Researching is fun. The map can take some getting used to, but it's not too bad. Huge games are not very feasible, given that a game with only 100 stars takes forever. The space battles can get kind of monotonous. Maybe I just haven't figured out yet how to exploit all the different ship types and weapons and shields etc. This is the best game I have bought in a while. I jumped at the chance for the 15 dollar ultimate edition. The game has a pretty big scale. The interface is excellent, except for the starmap. Developing the planets is simple, but yet it still matters a lot to the game. Like I said, it's like the original Master of Orion. Master of Orion II had too many options and too small of scale. I was disappointed. I can't decide if this game is better than Master of Orion I, but I think it is as good. You will not regret buying the game.
2nd Jun 2009
i am a fan of the 4x genre from way back. i still have my original disks (floppies) for master of orion on my shelf. ive played probably every 4X, turn-based and real-time, to come out in the last 25 years. so as you can imagine, i originally bought sword of the stars years ago when it was first released.
ill be frank: it was HORRIBLE. buggy, terrible interface, terrible combat, bad documentation, just an all-around bad game. i finally gave up on the game after about 6 weeks, and never looked back. fast forward 3 years. i notice that the "ultimate collection" is on sale for half off... and i think to myself, "collection of what? dont tell me enough people played the game to warrant expansions, did they?" and evidently the answer was "yes"...
my first thought was to pass on the sale, seeing as i hated the game the first time around. however, as i said, im a fan of the genre... and Sins of a Solar Empire was getting old. so i decided to give the game another shot since it was so cheap.
man am i glad i did. the game is so much more improved, it barely qualifies as the same game. pretty much every complaint i had with the original game has been resolved, and the end result is OUTSTANDING. after an 8-hour marathon "just one more turn" play session this weekend, i think id go so far as to say i like it better than Sins even... which is really saying something. now that the bugs, combat, and interface issues have been worked out i can finally see past them to the game the developers probably wanted to make in the first place.
the most distinctive feature of SotS is the randomized tech tree. each new game, the tech tree for your race is shaken up... some games you may have a lot of armor tech available to you. others, you may have shields. some games you have lots of laser and missile techs. others, ballistic weapons. the variable tech tree solves one of the biggest replayablity and realism problems in other 4X games, where every single play is the same as the last and once you learn what the ultimate techs are, you can just race up the tree to them and ignore other techs. you cant do that here, since the techs (and the links between them) are different each time. you have a more realistic progression of tech, and can still be surprised by new techs youve never seen before. you also get the opportunity to experience new tactics and playstyles thanks to the varying, organic tech progression. i cannot emphasize enough that this feature is nothing short of sheer genius, and really makes the difference with the game.
the combat is real-time, but pausable (in single player) to give you time to survey the battle when needed. ALL shots are modeled and simmed, so theres no "dice rolls" determining if you hit or not... the shot is fired, and if it crosses a ship, it hits. damage and targeting is at the polygon level (yes, really) meaning you can target specific subsystems on ships, including blowing off individual weap
30th May 2009
If there ever was any 4X-Game that could be described as "quick and simple" and suitable for LAN parties, it was the original Sword of the Stars. That doesn't mean it's bad, quite the opposite: It's rather refreshing and, in contrast to Master of Orion 3, for example, it's a rather coherent experience. The two expansions, which are included herein, add a layer of complexity or two - the game stays a lot quicker and simpler than most of the competition, and the new stuff adds quite nicely into the equasion. As with most modern 4X-Games, empire management is Turn-Based, while combat is Real-Time. The former plays out on a rather spartan interface with a true-3D spacemap, the latter with very good and very detailed (though not exactly mind-blowing) graphics in (Star Trek Armada-like) actual 3D (ships can be above or below one another on a Z-Axis) with simple 2D-controls (by default, ships move on a plane). The six races are, by default (don't know about modding) non-customizable, but VERY diverse, especially in ways of movement techniques (although other features vary as well). Research is interesting, and the tree is not only different race-to-race, but also game-to-game, as some parts (availability of some non-essential technologies, as well as (more often) links between them) are flexible. Ship-Design is quick and simple, yet interesting and effective, and ideally suits the overall pacing of the game. Finally, the expansions have done away with the weaknesses in diplomacy, making this complete collection a well-rounded experience in the 4X-Genre. A demo is available, but it doesn't show the vast improvements the two expansions added. If you're new to the 4X-Genre, or a veteran who want's a rather fast-paced, slightly less complex game, this might be a game for you. Also, if you are a casual gamer - not matter if you seek a LAN-party-suited game, one for the internet, or something to play that one hour after work, this might be THE genre-representative to play. If you want greatest possible complexity and customization, however, this may not be your game. (You could try Space Empires V. That's pretty much the other end of the complexity spectrum for 4X-Games.)
29th May 2009
I've played SOTS and each expansion on a buddies computer and couldn't wait for the bundle pack, and when it arrived it was a good deal. Then I got an email about the sale for 50% off today, and let me tell you at $15 this is a STEAL!!
These are 4x games with a slight variation of the usual formula. There is better overall looks in the GUI and ease of use overall, on top of the great strategic depth. While this isn't the most complicated 4x game out there, it doesn't bog you down or waste excess time, you do what you want to and move on to the next turn. I really enjoy the graphics in the GUI the most though. The starmap display, everything is well done and spot on. This game has polish on top of great core gameplay.
I repeat, alone this is a bargain but at 50% off this is a STEAL and I almost feel bad for getting the SOTS bundle at this price :)
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