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[Jopax]

There was also the whole 'shipping an utterly broken dumpster fire of a product' thing it had going against it. Was fairly surprised that Kerberos continued to exist after that.

[forsaken1111]

There was also the whole 'shipping an utterly broken dumpster fire of a product' thing it had going against it. Was fairly surprised that Kerberos continued to exist after that.

I mean, they shipped it in that state precisely because they'd run out of funds. They were quite open about it not being completed and were hoping sales from the fan base would suffice to fund the game's completion. It's happened before.

[Jopax]

I don't remember them mentioning anything about it being unfinished until after the fact tho. What I do remember was a bunch of people eagerly waiting for it to release and once they'd bought it finding out they bought a non-working buggy mess, which caused quite a shitstorm on some forums I frequented back then. They then released a free update of sorts after a couple of months but it didn't really change much in terms of the game being enjoyable or functional in certain aspects. Certainly didn't help the terrible performance any.

Other than that, looking at what they released over their lifetime as a company makes the original SotS seem more like a fluke than any real measure of their competence since everything else they released wasn't terribly good.

[forsaken1111]

I know there was a general announcement on their forum about it at the time, though whether those are even still up I couldn't say. Either way, SOTS2 was a clear flop. SOTS1 was a fun game, but again I would not call it the 'apex of 4x gameplay' or whatever

[Greiger]

Sword of the Stars 1 was my introduction to 4x.  I loved that you could individually control your ships, no other space 4x (that I know of) does that on the scale SotS does. I would love a new game of the series. 

Sure in the the actual 4x aspects of the game just about everything and it's cat has it beat, but the combat was where the game shined the brightest.  You could control the combat in a way that made it so that it wasn't just a matter of who had the biggest numbers, but it was also about who could control their ships with the most precision, who knew how and when to make your ships barrel roll when attacking another ship so that all guns could be brought to bear on a target, who could manage firing lines the best and build your ships in the best way to take advantage of your combat playstyle.

My only sadness about my time with that game was that I had a clunker of a rig that could barely play it without huge graphical errors and FPS in single digits.

[forsaken1111]

I remember one multiplayer game where I spammed the node missiles that humans get. I sent several dozen of them at one of his colonies and his fleet was unable to stop more than a handful before they all detonated on his planet killing millions. It was quite effective when hey was unprepared but wouldn't work if it were expected as you could stack a fleet made to shoot them down

[Majestic7]

SotS was great and although SotS II was horrible mess at launch, it turned out to be a pretty good game. Too bad it was always left unfinished. It had great ideas, such as different FTL for different species (that Stellaris tried and failed). Another thing I liked was there was prototype phase for every ship class and the designs could get "quirks" that were either bonuses or maluses.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The near total asymmetry of the different species' FTL methods was definitely the strongest point, and the biggest draw, of the SotS games as strategy games. Research system could be hit or miss (Stellaris did it pretty well too, though I'm still partial to Remember Tomorrow's), combat system was very neat and had nice quirks but also wasn't perfect, but the ways the different FTL systems interacted with others and affected the strategic component, really put the game a tier above others of its kind for me. Stellaris reverting to standardized FTL and choosing to become a traditional flat "province-based" strategy was more or less the point where I stopped coming back to it. If I want a nice and complex province-based strategy game, there's far more options out there.

[Akura]

...Y'all made me start a new game of this. About 60 turns in, and I've already researched AI. Not sure if that was a good idea or not, since I've never had an AI rebellion and I don't know if it's supposed to kick off immediately or if it happens somewhere down the line.

[forsaken1111]

...Y'all made me start a new game of this. About 60 turns in, and I've already researched AI. Not sure if that was a good idea or not, since I've never had an AI rebellion and I don't know if it's supposed to kick off immediately or if it happens somewhere down the line.

The AI rebellion can happen at any point between the time you have researched AI to the time you finish AI slave tech, if I remember right. The chances rise the more AI controlled ships you have. If you aren't lucky enough to have gotten the AI slave tech and you do get a rebellion I think you never get to use AI systems again, assuming you survive the rebellion.

[Akura]

Oh good, I did get AI Slaves tech, but I haven't researched it yet. Nor have I built any ships with AI controls.

I did run into the Hivers, though. They showed up at a border colony(actually a planet that was pre-inhabited that joined immediately) and killed everyone. Given the Human/Hiver backstory, I'm gonna go kill me some bugs. My first counter-attack, 5 cruisers against their force of several destroyers and the gate, went horribly. First, only two cruisers jumped in because I don't have cruiser CnC yet, and for some reason they were toggled to hold fire. Once I sorted that out, they failed to destroy the gate or deal any damage to anything.

Gonna build some Blazer hulls with Battle Bridges. If missiles and bullets didn't work, let's see what walls of big piss-off lasers will do.

[forsaken1111]

Just a warning, the chances for AI rebellion go up significantly if you have AI controlled ships active while you research AI slave technology. If you can get AI Slave researched before you actually use any AI technologies it may be best

[Akura]

Turn ~200 now. Might have screwed myself a bit. Put about 75% of my income for the first 100 turns into research(how I got AI so early), but now that actual fighting has started, it's left me pretty dry on funds for warships. I've also been really neglectful at expanding.

The one Hiver empire I've been fighting is bipolar, offering ceasefire one turn and declaring war again the next. Since she isn't actually attacking and is probably getting beaten back on other fronts, I'm backing off. There's another Hiver queen who merely signed a ceasefire with me and I haven't heard from her since. I would think she was wiped out, but the rankings put me in last place and her in second-to-last, so if I'm doing worse than someone who is already dead then that's an impressive display of failure on my part. The other neighbors are three human empires all friendly with me and each other. And lastly, what has shifted my fleets from the Hiver front: the Zuul. Specifically, the Catholic Zuul, which I thought didn't appear until the sequel. Actually, their leader pic has the cross upside-down on his pope hat, so it's the Antichrist Zuul.

[forsaken1111]

Actually, their leader pic has the cross upside-down on his pope hat, so it's the Antichrist Zuul.

The inverted cross isn't a satanic symbol, it's the cross of Saint Peter. Supposed to represent Peter the Apostle iirc

[Orb]

I don't think the chance for AI rebellion goes up if you have AI ships, at least I've never read that anywhere.

But if you do have a rebellion the AI ships will flip, naturally.

The chance is checked whenever you are researching AI technologies (faster research = higher chance, so it doesn't matter if you do it slow or fast).
Boosting significantly increases your chances.

I think it *might* be race dependent too, but I'm not sure (for example zuul are more likely to have a rebellion).