An Excellent Strategy Game
I discovered this fantastic 4X RTS game a few weeks after it was released on TotalGaming.net, Stardocks digital distribution service. I always enjoy sci-fi games, and it looked pretty cool on the screenshots. And the fact that it's realtime was good for me as I'm not a huge fan of turn-based games. (with the exception of the Jagged Alliance games, which are brilliant)
If you've played such games as Master of Orion, Space Empires and Galactic Civilizations, you know what 4X is all about. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate! And as with all great games, it's easy to learn but hard to master.
The story of the game is interesting, but unfortunately there is no single player campaign, only skirmishes against the AI. The game's main focus is definitely multiplayer, but then again this is where the game really shines.
The goal of the game is of course to conquer the entire solar system. You have three different races to choose from, the TEC (Trade Emergency Coalition), descendants of early human explorers, the Vasari, an alien race running away from their home seeking new worlds to conquer, and the Advent, religious freaks out to convert everyone in the galaxy to the "Unity". All the races have different research capabilities and things they are good at, so you can easily find the one you like to match your playstyle. The research tree is one of the great features of the game, it has two main branches, empire and military, each with three subclasses ranging from armor, weapons, trading, culture etc.
When you start the game you start with a single planet, and very little resources. To acquire resources you must build metal/crystal extractors on asteroids around the planet. You can build research stations (either military or empire, depending on what you want to focus on), as well as trading ports, refineries, broadcasting satellites, as well frigate factories which lets you build all the ships in the game. You can also build capital ship factories, which let's you build large vessels that deals alot of damage, as well as having useful abilities to augment your own fleet or cripple your enemies. And while we're on the subject of capital ships, each race has five different kinds of battleships, ranging from colonization ships, planet bombarding and support ships. Another cool feature is that the capital ships gain experience points in battle, and when you gain a new level you can spend a point on 4 different skills, each unique for all five of the capital ships and the races. There are alot of different strategies that you can use when combining the different ship types, which adds great depth and variation to the gameplay.
As for the planets and exploration, each planet has a set number of slots (either tactical or logistical) that you can use for construction. You can upgrade your planet, to allow for more buildings to be constructed. If you upgrade the logistical slots, you can build more research stations, trade ports etc, and if you upgrade the tactical slots you can build planetary defenses such as planetary shields, flak cannons and defense platforms which can deploy a squadron of fighters. As your planet grows so does the population, and you gain more income from taxes. You can upgrade the planet's infrastructure, making it stronger against bombardment, and you can also explore the planets surface giving you a chance to find powerful rare artifacts that give you bonuses to for example ship building speed, resource income, combat damage etc.
Aside from planets you also find asteroid belts, plasma storms, dead asteroids and gas giants, some of which can't be colonized, only exploited for resources.
Each planet also has a ring around it, called the gravity well. This is where you build all your structures and where the fighthing happens. You cannot jump away from within the gravity well, so you have to retreat beyond it if you are traveling to another planet.
Movement between planets takes place on phase lanes, that connect all the planets/asteroids in a huge web. Each star can have any number of planets, and each game can have more than one star, leaving the possibility for huge games with hundreds of planets. These games are rarely playable though (on current hardware) because when you start exploring and colonizing the game gets really slow with having to calculate everything. This is not a huge problem though, since it's more fun to play shorter games with more intense fighting, in my opinion.
The AI is decent, and will give you a challenge, but it tends to get a little easy when you play several human players against other AI players. Overall though, it's definately not bad, and there are several behaviors you can set them too so they behave differently.
While dealing with your human or AI enemies, you may also have to deal with NPC pirates marauding the solar system. The pirates will randomly attack players, depending on the bounty system. Every payer can place bounties on each others heads, "directing" the pirates to attack them. This can lead to an unfortunate bidding war among players, causing them to spend all their money trying to get the pirates off their backs. While slightly entertaining, this becomes tiresome in the long run.
You also have a dynamic black market at your disposal where you can buy and sell resources. If one player buys alot of crystal increasing the price, another player can sell all his crystal and make lots of money. This can be fun at times, deciding when you buy or sell you resources. You can also lend money to you allies.
Another feature worthy of a mention, is the achievement system. There are lots of small achievements you can do such as having the most capital ships, winning the game as each of the races, having the most resources etc. Though it has no impact on the actual gameplay it's a little addition that adds to the wholeness of the game.
Upon finishing the game, you are taken to the stats screen. This is really good, as it has graphs and stats that cover everything in the game, ranging from most ships destroyed, most planets colonized, most resources mined... the list goes on. It is easily the most comprehensive stats I have seen in a game, there is ALOT of stats, every strategy game should have this kind of stats. It's always fun to see who did best at certain things after playing a long round.
The game is also very mod-friendly and already has a large active community contributing to the game. As of 23.02.08, the game was the top selling PC game in the US with over 100.000 copies sold, leading over Call of Duty 4, WoW: The Burning Crusade and The Orange Box.
So, if you like strategy games and sci-fi, this game is a MUST for you. It's easily learned yet deep gameplay will keep you busy for many hours until your boss calls you wondering why the hell you didn't show up for work!