FreeOrion

Don't forget my OSS game Thousand Parsec (http://www.thousandparsec.net/)

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http://www.thousandparsec.net/ - A journey of a thousand parsec starts with a single step

3. Stars! Supernova Genesis
as i know Stars! Supernova Genesis was closed because there are not distributions comands who want to to let out game

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Shekly, Bredbery, Azimov, Lem, Strugackie, Limonov, Pelevin... F. Gerbert.
MoO, Ascendancy, Fallout, Alpha Centaury, Stars!, Dune 2...

Excuse me for my bad englih =(

I've heard something about a game called Hegemonia. Has anyone played it? I think there might be a sequel coming out.

"Hegemonia: Legions of Iron"
about this game?
screenshots:
http://space.diaspora.ru/images/games/h ... t.00.1.jpg
http://space.diaspora.ru/images/games/h ... t.01.1.jpg
http://space.diaspora.ru/images/games/h ... t.02.1.jpg

and.
there is a review of the game by Richard Leader, and you can find it here:
http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_te ... =hegemonia

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Shekly, Bredbery, Azimov, Lem, Strugackie, Limonov, Pelevin... F. Gerbert.
MoO, Ascendancy, Fallout, Alpha Centaury, Stars!, Dune 2...

Excuse me for my bad englih =(

"Star Trek: A Final Unity" is an Adventure game, but I love its star map: 3D, rotatable, vast (thousands of stars), every star system is detailed and different, and there are several ways to specify a destination.

The map is very impressive for the time (about a decade ago), especially considering that the ST:AFU map is much larger and more detailed than MOO3's, and operates smoothly on ancient (P-100 and earlier) computers.

Modern games, even freeware ones without teams of full-time graphic designers and software engineers, should easily be able to do even better.

ST:AFU is fun, too.

Cons: (1) one can only land on a few planets; (2) it's not a strategy game; (3) at one point if you make a wrong decision you miss out on getting the coordinates of the final destination.

But even that one bug is entertaining: it's single-player and considerately designed, so you just have to save the game before that point. I hadn't, so I suggested visiting every sector until I found the right one, but the computer controlled character Commander Riker responded by estimating it would take 2 years to complete the search. A quick mental calculation confirmed his estimate as correct in real time (assuming I never needed to sleep or work).
Fortunately, the coordinates were provided on a website.

What followed was a series of tests of decision-making skill and character that capped off one of the finest games in the genre of Space Exploration Adventures.

Now, how to get as much atmosphere (and diplomacy) into a strategy game? SMAC/X comes close, but I want more planets!

Wouldn't it be best to only list the really good 4X games, so that people who are new to the genre don't find themselves swamped with choices?

Perhaps something like:


Really Awesome:
Super Space Tactical 2

Quite Good:
Empire of Awesome 4
Space Nuggets

Galactic civilization II is out and It's really good
Check it!

Stars! is lightyears ahead of the competition and I don't think there will ever be a better 4x game. Latley I have come to realise that grapichs make a game less good. It's better if the game lets you make up your own inside your head. The spreadsheet nature of it is brilliant. All the information is available without going into different screens. This lets you click half as much. It's much easier to get the big picture. Also the spreadsheet lists you can use to sort your planets and fleets after anything you want is excellent. Not to mention the amazingly powerful map overlays. The key here is information, you have a decent chance of actually keeping track of your big empire in stars! The simultaneous turns make multiplayer actually work and feel superior to the one player at a time approach for a computer game.

Simultaneus turns like in stars! are avoided like the plague for some reason, even tough it's superior in every way. Everyone thinks the spreadsheet game should be avoided at all cost (usually a cost of more screens to wade through). The more grapichs cluttering up the screen with as little information as possible the better they think, so like I said, there will be no superior to stars!

- There is, it's called Microsoft Excell, and not only can it track your fleets and resources, but it can also be used to track other things like payroll, budgetary finances, mortgage calculations, vaccine tracking sheets and hockey statistics. It also allows for an excellent customizeable window and can be used for many other things than controlling your space empire!

- And I'm real lucky, I get to play with it at work every now and again!

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There are three kinds of people in this world - those who can count, and those who can't.

I love that game! It can produce cool charts about your empire, like this one I made:

Bah too much graphics, whats with these unnecessary colors? You do know excel was just Jeff Mcbrides first game. Then he realised all those fancy bells and whistles suck and started work on the real deal.

Honestly? Stars! was good but not THAT good. It's modeling of solar systems left a lot to be desired. I think the best modeling I've seen of those is in the MoO games and ST:BotF(made by the same guys). I did like the way it did planet statistics though. Maybe we can talk the guys here into doing planet sizes that way....

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Computer programming is fun.

What do you mean with a lot to be desired? The abstraction of 1 solar system = 1 planet? I think that makes perfect sense from a gameplay perspective. The thing with stars is that all information is displayed directly from the starmap. I really hate extra screens. For example galciv2 has two layered planet screens. You have to go in and out of the galactic map all the time with 2-4 cliks for each planet you want to check some data on. In stars it's just a quick click on the planet without leaving the starmap display. Or even just turn on some overlay on the starmap to get the information directly on the starmap.

BOTF i havn't looked into at all. I also like MOO1 but not as much as stars! Well, I guess moo1 (and now Galciv2) makes more sense with singleplayer then stars! and vice versa.

It makes gameplay easy to write, but expecting solar systems to only have ONE colonizable planet is absurd.

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Computer programming is fun.

Gameplay wise, if there is multiple colonies in the same place, that would mean layering = bad. Easier to get an overview if all colonies are in different places on the starmap then stacked together I think. If one colonizable planet is absurd or not is a highly subjective realism argument. I could just as easily say it's absurd to assume a star system has ANY colonizable planets. But those can be abstracted out of the starmap altogether, say just interesting stars are displayed at all. Or that 2 colonizable planets is highly unlikely in the same system. Judging from out own solar system.

You COULD have multiple planets/starsystems on top of each other in a stars! style game, but it would mess with the starmap overlays I think.