The best 4x space strategy, period. From 400+ hours.

[Baleur]

Note i do not have it on my steam account as i bought it from their website years ago (and the expansions).

I've loved 4x space strategy games my entire life. Some of my favorite games of all time.
Master of Orion 1&2
Galciv 1&2
Sword of The Stars (1, obviously)
Anno 2070
Europa Universalis 3&4
Victoria 2
Hearts of Iron 3
Crusader Kings 2

If we share the same taste in games, read on.
The thing about Distant Worlds is that after spending hundreds of hours on it, since the initial release until the present day with several expansions of game-changing feature additions, i can safely say that it is The best 4x space strategy game i've played.
Yes i'm even calling it better than Galciv2 and MOO.
It is quite literally Europa Universalis in space.

Don't let the semi lackluster graphics dissuade you, the gameplay on offer is incredibly deep, from the metalevel of governing the overarching goals of a galactic empire, a one-planet colony or a pirate nomadic faction, to the in depth fiddliness (for those who want it) of colony bombardment, ship designing and logistics of your fleets.

Everything is simulated.
Each ship needs fuel, they don't magically recharge.
Without fuel their generators can't run, they can't fire and their shields can't recharge. They can however move at very very slow speeds, but even in hyperspace it is so slow that you're better off scrapping them and rebuilding, or sending a refuel mothership.
Yes, you need to consider logistics, as you would in Hearts of Iron 3.

To fuel all these ships, you need to establish mining outposts around gas giants and in nebulas. Now here is where things get interesting, this game is split up in 2 aspects.
1. Player (The state) empire ownership.
2. NPC (The civilian) establishment.

You control the government, you are the emperor or the despot, king or oligarch. You make the big important decisions AND the small crucial decisions regarding strategic resources, colonies (do you want to enslave all aliens that are not humanoid? set up a penal colony for all the scum to be transported to!), research and military.
The civilian establishment controls all the transport and logistics unrelated to the military (but by consequence become very connected).

Civilian trade ships gets ordered to be built from your space docks, by the civilian "companies", who have their OWN budget, income and expenses, and treasury. They pay their own maintenance on their ships, their own fuel, everything.
For example they make money by "buying" Helium or Plainum from the state owned (your) mining outposts or planets, then "selling" them where they are needed, such as the state owned (your) space docks or refuelling stations.
The civilian sector makes all the money from your colonies. Think all the industries and commercial businesses on a planet. YOUR money comes from the TAX on these industries and businesses on the planet. Hence the civilian income is by definition far higher than your tax cut of this, but you have the power and the military.

Keep in mind that the civilian sector is still "you", they are your species, your race. It's just the sector of your empire that is not directly under your control. Much like in real life, even in a complete planned market economy or dictatorship, the despot does not order around every individual truck. The trucks simply deliver the resources from the supply, to where there is demand. The despots concerns himself with more pressing matters.

Add in a complex diplomacy system similar to Europa Universalis where you can make protectorates, trade offers (tech, money, maps), spy for their galaxy map, steal tech, sabotage their bases or refueling stations. You can even initiate rebellions by ensuring their colonies are blockaded by your fleets, starved of luxury resources.

There's even a tourism mechanic, building resort bases around exotic pulsars or ringed planets, and seeing your civilian personell transporters ferry people across the galaxy.
Not to mention that one of the expansions introduced a new game start where you start as a pre-hyperspace tech civilization.

Yes, you pretty much start off as humanity "today", starting by building a small modest spaceport, having to send construciton ships off into your solar system to build mining outposts slowly one by one.. With no hyperspace, travel is slow.
Eventually you encounter vastly technologically advanced nomad factions, or better put, pirates. They will extort your puny pre-warp civilization as they roam your solar system and the stars nearby.
They will demand protection fees, and generally try to guide your development into a path they see fit.
Once you grow your tech (possibly from finding lost derelict ships in an asteroid belt or from reverse engineering a defeated pirate ship), you can finally start to build up your own forces.
Your much weaker ships will be no match for your previous opressive pirate overlords, but with numbers you can survive as you get stronger and finally discover hyperdrive technology.

Then the true game begins, the exploration and colonization of the galaxy, with dozens of other civilizations that just went through the same thing you did, or with one custom-setup civilization that has existed for thousands of years before you even started the game.
You can set up the starting conditions as you desire. As even empires starting out, or as two massive empires locked in galactic war as you try to simply survive amongst their destruction and coercive diplomatic pressure.

There really is too much to tell. All i can say is i wish this game had more exposure than it did all these years, it's nice to finally see it on steam so other fellow gamers who always wanted a game like this after MOO finally learns of its existance!

[PipFromSlitherine]

I've had a lot of fun with Starhammer playing the beta. It's a very different game to DW:U though. You are more Kirk than the Federation President :)

Cheers

Pip

[KORR]

Цитата допису PipFromSlitherine:

I've had a lot of fun with Starhammer playing the beta. It's a very different game to DW:U though. You are more Kirk than the Federation President :)

Cheers

Pip

I'll have to check it out ;)

[Cypher]

Цитата допису PipFromSlitherine:

I've had a lot of fun with Starhammer playing the beta. It's a very different game to DW:U though. You are more Kirk than the Federation President :)

Cheers

Pip

Awwww, wish i'd known about the beta before :-( I usually get emailed these things, got into the beta for Pandora after an email (or did i sign up for it first? dam, i cant remember now:-s)

[Siddha]

Цитата допису Baleur:

I loved Alpha Centauri, and Space Empires gave me lots of hours of entertainment too. But frankly Space Empires pales in comparison to this. The reason being the controls and UI of it, though Space Empires had a great thing that doesn't exist in this game though, the birth and death of stars (loved seeing stars go supernova).
In this game however all stars are static, even a blue supergiant will remain so throughout the entire session. Though there are random events which can in extreme cases shatter planets, and there is a "planet buster" superweapon..

I forgot to mention that every planet, moon and asteroid has accurate orbital motions.

No they dont. Planets dont orbit their stars in perfect circles.
There is nothing realistic about the DW universe. It's 2D!

But those are not complaints in my opinion.
I think the game is excellent within its own terms, which I accept and enjoy.
It is essentially a space-fantasy game after all.

[Siddha]

I have heard of a game called Aurora. Supposed to be detailed and complex.
Has anyone had a look at that?

[Ri0Rdian]

I am just checking that... from the screenshots it looks almost like a batch of excel spreadsheets and the ui is way worse than DW. Seeing how those thinks look, people that did not play DW due to poor graphics would not consider Aurora a game at all.

For those that though DW has boring combat with bad graphics:

http://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac91/PABremen/lolz-1.png

Now onto some gameplay info. :D

Edit:

On the other hand, I never actually got into Dwarf Fortress due to it looking too terrible even for me (and i am quite forgiving but that one was crazy, which saddens me seeing that I am a dwarf-a-holic), Aurora might have terrible UI and graphics but at least it is clean and one knows what is he looking at. Spreadsheets are infinitely easier to read than ASCII.

[Ri0Rdian]

I've tried Aurora. What a great game it is! I recommend everyone that can get past the fact that it is spreadsheet based, lacks proper graphics, has crazy UI and a learning curve akin to Olympus Mons.
Very detailed, has something like the private sector here in DW (shipping companies, build ships, transport goods for a fee, colonists, minerals etc), extremely detailed ship design (you design individual components!) and a great research system which I particulary love (multi/2stage, you research a tech, design a component, research that component and only then can you use it in a ship).
There is a distinction between military and civilian tech (civilian is larger size and weaker, but more efficient), you get civilian and military shipyards that have multiple slips and you have to tool a shipyard for a specific ship class (which takes time) and if you wish to build another class you have to retool again.
The game even has proper terraforming, I was able to terraform Luna by pumping lots of N, O and CO2 into the atmosphere slowly increasing pressure and temperature till the ice melted, which further increased temperature. I stopped at about 0.4atm and fully breathable atmosphere there.

Strangely enough, I think the game's biggest problem is not the graphics, UI or the spreadsheets but the performance. The turns (it is actually turn based but with scaleable turn time up to almost realtime speed) get slower with more ships and more systems discovered. But I've read the author is working on a spinoff Newtonian Aurora, which should bring in proper physics and also be written in C instead of Visual basic or whatever Aurora uses atm. Give it a try, you will not regret it, although it certainly is not a game for everyone.

[| |]

Цитата допису Ri0Rdian:

I am just checking that... from the screenshots it looks almost like a batch of excel spreadsheets and the ui is way worse than DW. Seeing how those thinks look, people that did not play DW due to poor graphics would not consider Aurora a game at all.

For those that though DW has boring combat with bad graphics:

http://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac91/PABremen/lolz-1.png

Now onto some gameplay info. :D

Edit:

On the other hand, I never actually got into Dwarf Fortress due to it looking too terrible even for me (and i am quite forgiving but that one was crazy, which saddens me seeing that I am a dwarf-a-holic), Aurora might have terrible UI and graphics but at least it is clean and one knows what is he looking at. Spreadsheets are infinitely easier to read than ASCII.

The graphics in my opinion is a minor thing that can be improved on any time. It's the in depth features that I love about Dwarf Fortress, Aurura, DW and Supreme Ruler (You guys didn't forget about Supreme Ruler did you?). I would add on X3 in there as well, but their latest release was absolute crap.

[ponasozis]

Цитата допису PipFromSlitherine:

I've had a lot of fun with Starhammer playing the beta. It's a very different game to DW:U though. You are more Kirk than the Federation President :)

Cheers

Pip

combine dw with starhammer combat tactics

and you got yourself potentially best space strategy game
for like 50 years

[Cryostorm]

Personally I am looking forward to Stellaris, if any developer can make a good 4X space-empire strategy game its Paradox, unlike Sword of the Stars Paradox is developing Stellaris in-house. Hopefully it will be close to how good DW is and go further.

[| |]

Haven't seen Paradox make anything close to a 4x game like DW. Victoria II would be the only one.