Sid Meier's New Game Is About Starships

jones_supa writes: The next game from the mind of veteran strategy and simulation game designer Sid Meier has been revealed. 2K and Firaxis Games have announced Sid Meier's Starships, a turn-based interstellar strategy game scheduled to arrive in early 2015 for Windows, OS X, and iOS (iPad). In the game, you control a fleet of starships as you journey through the galaxy to complete missions, protect planets and their inhabitants, and build a planetary federation. As you trek through the stars, you will be challenged to expand your federation's influence and reach. You shall also amass futuristic technology and take part in combat using a deep roster of customizable ships. When designing Starships, Meier was intrigued by the idea of exploring the next chapter in the story of Civilization: Beyond Earth. "What happens after we colonize our new home and eventually build starships to take to the stars? What has become of our long-lost brothers and sisters from the planet Earth," Meier asks. "My goal was to create an experience that focuses on starship design and combat within a universe filled with interstellar adventure, diplomacy, and exploration."

Comments

We can only hope...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wonder if they'll find a way to keep it from feeling like little more than a reasonably ambitious Civ5 mod, notably unlike last time?

Re:We can only hope...

[Fwipp]

Just edit Wikipedia and it should fix itself, right? :)

Re:We can only hope...

[sound vision]

The weird thing is, Beyond Earth runs much more smoothly for me than plain Civ 5. Civ 5 is choppy as hell, and it's not due to the graphics. Specs:
AMD Phenom X4 9850 (ca. 2008)
nForce 4 based motherboard (ca. 2007)
GeForce 275 GTX (ca. a while back)
4 GB ddr2-800 main memory

Starting to get dated now, but Beyond Earth runs very smoothly on it.

Re:We can only hope...

[theArtificial]

"Let's do it in JavaScript!"

Re:We can only hope...

[GNious]

I just tried Beyond Earth (free on Steam - wuhu).
Seems smooth, but manages to be more glitchy than Civ5 - has several of the same issues, but throws in a few extra (incl being not-stable).

Overall: Good game, shame they forgot to fix things.

Re:We can only hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, it was one of the first games to be created with MS' XNA framework, which seems to be a terrible choice, given it's overhead and the fact it didn't get an XBox-release.

I don't know how it's running on Linux or OSX, but i guess, the conversion from .NET to the tools available on the other platforms isn't flawless either.

Re:We can only hope...

[war4peace]

Next step: Endless Legend. Go try it, you'll likely be impressed.

Re:We can only hope...

[Elad Alon]

Some cities were owned by different empires at different times. Could that be the issue?

Re:We can only hope...

[moonlandingchap]

Said the 40-year old living in his mom's basement, whacking off to underaged pan-species porn... featuring his mom.

but his mum makes my wang happy :D

Re:We can only hope...

[juanfgs]

I wish they'd import some of the Civ4 concepts to Freeciv, so that we can enjoy it as well outside Windows

give it a shot with wine, it works flawlessly.

Re:Old stuff.

[C0R1D4N]

Or FTL

Re:Old stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't mind a big-budget FTL knock-off.

Wot?

[Greyfox]

Kind of like Galactic Civilizations III? I'd guess they'd better hurry if they don't want Sid Meier to steal the wind from their sails.

Re:Wot?

[T.E.D.]

The Gal Civ series is part of a long-existing genre of space-based 4x games. We even had them back in the day when we used ASCII characters for the graphics (stars of course represented by asterisks), and the games were typed in by hand from BASIC source code in books.

The same goes for Civilization of course. At its heart, that series is just a re-imaging of classic Empire. The trick is what new things can be done with the genre, and can it be made more fun. Sid's got a good track record with that, so it will be interesting to see what he does here.

Re:Old stuff.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Yeah it's the same song played with different instruments.

So what, it's a damn good song.

I don't like to hear about competition

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I too am working on a space civilization style simulator for Ipad/Android tablet.

My theory was that with all the fame of games like Clash of Clans, why not take competition one step further to games like Risk, Civilization, or Master of Orion?

Touch pad is perfect for those turn based games like that. They're just a bit more challenging to write since you need to write a custom active server since P2P would just invite hackers to ruin your day.

I could talk more on this project, but its so early in development that it isn't anything more than a hobby affair. I was thinking of taking my time on this one, sculpt it just right, and have good polish on it for 2-4 years out from now. One of the things slowing me down is that I can't seem to get Java to communicate with AS3 via sockets. So it is looking like I'll probably have to write my game server in C/C++ which will be a challenge without garbage collection, nice arrays, debugging, nice strings, an ide, and so forth.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[adonoman]

Why not write your game server in C/C++ with garbage collection, nice arrays, debugging, nice strings and an ide? Leaving those out seems like you're intentionally making things difficult on yourself.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I understand this. The project is mostly a hobby project that I may or may not be able to put time into because I'm already working on another project. So while I've made video games in the past, I'm not sure I'll actually finish this. I just don't want to dash anyone's hopes right now.

If the thing materializes better, I'd definitely like to have someone who knows marketing on board and how to make a successful kick starter. If you know anyone like that, let me know. I even have a use for a marketer now if they know how to get a quality match-3 game popular.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[mjwx]

Touch pad is perfect for those turn based games like that.

Said no gamer ever.

Sorry, but if you think touch is good for Turn Based Strategy games you haven't tried to play a touchscreen game for 3 hours and for a good TBS game, 3 hours is a short session.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I wasn't going turn based... But yes, the sessions are planned to be many hour events, but you don't need to play the whole thing. When you're not on, there's a small penalty in addition to custom AI taking over.

Touch pad is perfect for games where you make choices in drop down menus like a turn based strategy game, or a game like Final Fantasy. The touch pad generally fails for action oriented reflex/twitch video games as the controls aren't crisp.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[Algan]

Erlang. Write your game server in Erlang. It's made for stuff like this - look it up. A lot of high availability, very scalable server side stuff is written in Erlang. Including the servers for Clash of Clans. Did I mention that you should write your game server in Erlang? you really should :)

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[gl4ss]

you could just do the communication part in c/c++ if you really had to... a really minor thing in the big picture of things. and really minor compared to your choice of using AS3 for the game itself...

you might be well better off just learning qml and javascript and doing it in that if you want use something like that which compiles nicely to a osx/ios/android/windows (qt has a nice c++ ide too..) application.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[Anonymous Coward]

What? What? Uh.. what? Turn-based games are perfect for touch. Every time I read about a tablet or touch based game, someone chimes in that x-genre is horrible on tablets, even if it's literally the genre touch work with wonderfully. RPGs and strategy games, for example, are always thrown in, as if turn-based menus somehow conflict with a touch screen. If anything, it's the opposite, and it's real-time action-based games that have difficulty using touch controls because of the need for accuracy, the major drawback of touch. As it is, you just sound like a disgruntled customer of a touch-based game with a badly designed UI who makes far too many sweeping generalizations.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[TheRaven64]

If it's a hobby project, why not open source it? You can chose which patches you accept, so you retain creative control, but you might find that some people like to work on the bits that you find boring.

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[Wintermute__]

So it's a good thing that touch interfaces can have modal features like menus that appear when needed instead of every button having to be on the screen all the time...

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you read my comment on homelessness? BTW, can you tell GARRIOTT he DID get the RIGHT NAMES in Worlds of Ultima - the Savage Empire ? (Basically he called Felipe my aunt, In-Tanya says Felipe was with his nominal half sister/daughter, as per typical gossip; and ay-ella means WE ALL got Garriott! If you know what I mean...). Yeah, I also want a space game, though the theme itself is arid... But... they would NOT be using some weird notes about cubes and the like for vehicle design, would they? The inspiration came from a spatial paper-rock-scissors themed game on DS, though those particular diagram notes seem to have been stolen along with the other seven booklets stolen-from-me... In any case the more they can make it identical to the original Civilization, the more success they will get, no doubt... which makes me ask: CAN THEY PLEASE RESTORE THE ORIGINAL CIVWIN DOWNLOAD? I cannot find it anymore, I purchased the game twice then got the downloadable version (copmuters stolen from me, you know), then went to CivIII, made the web-based scenario editor, was robbed from me too, now I am again in Civ III second purchase and about to use CLIPS for the scenario editor despite its trigger language deficiencies... and STILL want to play the original CIVWIN game! Or the DOS version which I also purchased in its time, obviously. GREETINGS Sid - DJB

Re:I don't like to hear about competition

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I'm not skilled as an open source project manager or working on any open source project. So I'm afraid I don't know how that works. There's really not a lot of code that needs to be written either. There's only like a year of code or so, and then a year or so of play testing, tweaking, and features to add.

I mean if some of you guys wanted to collaborate with me because you think the idea sounds neet, leave me your reddit.com ids here or some way to contact you. Like I said in my original post, I could really use someone who knows how to communicate from JavaAS3(Flash) via sockets. But I can also use artists, and beta testers too.

So, in Sid's view restrictions...

[EzInKy]

...as to what platforms you run will still influence the direction of the human race? The man has to beyond the pursuit of pure profit by now. Shouldn't the legacy he seeks be about beneficence, not personal gain about now?

anything has to be better than beyond earth

[Virtucon]

I've been gypped with Beyond Earth.. It's definitely crap at this point. Sorry Sid, the magic is gone.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[mjwx]

I've been gypped with Beyond Earth.. It's definitely crap at this point. Sorry Sid, the magic is gone.

Its been bad since Civ V.

Civ IV: Beyond the Sword was the high point of the Civ series, it's now in decline thanks to Firaxis chasing the casual dollar. The fact this new game is coming out for Ipads is a clear warning it's going to be seriously gimped. I dont think Sid Maier has much, if any input on the current games that carry his name, a lot like Tom Clancy.

I took a pass on Beyond Earth because Civ V was so horrible. In fact I'm still playing Civ IV BTS over Civ V.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[Anonymous Coward]

When the lead designers for Civ5 point to numerous problems (cities too close together, poor diplomacy) with the game, and, get this, fail to address any of them with updates, you have a problem. When that engine becomes the basis for Beyond Earth, still without any fixes, you have a questioning of motives. And when they sell it as the spiritual successor of Alpha Centari, but it plays more like an expansion to a flawed Civ5, you've lost all credibility.

Civ5 could have been the crowning achievement in the Civ series, introducing new mechanics that really freshened up the game.

Instead they forced Steam down everyone's throats (yes, let's have that argument again) for a flawed game they refused to fix, telling everyone to fuck off as they laughed all the way to the bank.

4 different attempts to fix it. All of them failed. You think anyone besides the most diehard is going to trust those assholes again?

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[AquaDuck]

Especially with the better mods fans have made. I'm currently addicted to the Caveman2Cosmos mod. You start out in 50,000 BC not even knowing language yet. It's under continuous development and improvement, so I'm practicing up on my coding and modding skills in hope of being able to contribute.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[qeveren]

I'm still bewildered that Firaxis actually cannot find a way to make a turn-based game function in multiplayer. I'm pretty sure like every other developer on the planet has managed this feat, but somehow not Firaxis.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[Zedrick]

> I took a pass on Beyond Earth because Civ V was so horrible. In fact I'm still playing Civ IV BTS over Civ V

Same here. Civ V was the last game I bought without at least downloading a cracked copy and testing it myself - it was such a huge disappointment. I still suspect the reviewers were bribed somehow, or perhaps tested the game before it got radically dumbed down, just before release?

It's not until recently that I dare buy games again, after watching reviews on youtube so I can see it for myself. I will never trust Firaxis or "professional" reviewers again.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[aod7br]

Yeah, CIV4 BTS was the pinnacle. And they killed it closing GameSpy servers, we cant play it online now! Check Realism Invictus MOD

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[moonlandingchap]

bought BE on a preorder as civV was so much fun, but found BE just a poor change of units mod for civV. gone back to playing civV again as it's better than BE. after wasting money on a game that doesn't get played, really thinking twice before buying another title in there lineup any time soon.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Civ 5 sure has problems, but it is a hell lot better than civ 4 mechanically. The abolition of the stacks of doom made the game so much more enjoyable.

Honestly my main grip with all civs are the crappy AI, after you master the game mechanics the game either becomes too easy in the easier difficulties or unfair in the harder difficulties (requiring you to find the exploits the game tech tree and enemy AI).

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[Daetrin]

I still suspect the reviewers were bribed somehow, or perhaps tested the game before it got radically dumbed down, just before release?

I think the glowing reviews of Civ5 are explainable without resorting to bribery or shenanigans by the developer as the cause.

I am a long term but relatively moderate Civ player. I've been playing since the first Civilization and have played all of them since then. Including Civilization: Call to Power and Call to Power 2, plus Alpha Centauri. And all of the Master of Orion games (including 3, regrettably) Master of Magic, and GalCiv and GalCiv2.

I am not an expert however. I can't beat any of them at the highest difficulty settings, with the exceptions of the original MoO, mainly due to Sulla's recaps and videos.

When the initial Civ5 news stories came out i was wary about how the one unit per tile thing would work, however when i first got the game i have to admit i quite liked it. It was simple and easy to get into and it was very pretty. And i've always liked one city challenges, it it made those really easy!

It took time to realize that perhaps it made one city challenges _too_ easy, and did so at the cost of making other styles of play (anything involving more than three or four cities) prohibitively difficult/unrewarding. Doing the tactical combat was kind of fun at first, it took a little while for the problems with the combat to become more clear. I did notice the dearth of interesting buildings and how long they took to complete much earlier, but i didn't really make the connection to 1UPT until it was pointed out by Sulla and others. I'm sure those problems were immediately apparent to the real experts, but for the rest of us it took a little while.

Reviewers generally don't have that much time to invest in playing a game for review. They saw the pretty and got to experience the first dozen or so hours where it was fun and easy, but with enough choices available that it seemed to present the kind of strategic depth that would allow for a great deal of replay. They never got to the point of realizing that most games end up being the initial rush to build your first two or three cities and then just sitting back and hitting "next turn" a lot.

So they gave their reviews and left it to the Civ community to do the in-depth analysis and rip it a new one.

But those initial reviews were probably correct for a lot of people. Civ5 _is_ a great game for people who want to put in a few dozen hours without facing a serious challenge and then move on to the next game. Or people who like dumping in a lot of time into a game that's at least moderately entertaining in order to pick up achievements. (I confess that i got sucked into that for longer than i should have.)

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[WuphonsReach]

One unit per tile (1UT) sucks on the Civ5 maps because the hexes are way too large for the scale. The only way 1 unit/tile would have worked well would have been to subdivide the hexes into 7 smaller hexes while keeping the cities the same size (taking up multiple hexes).

The other major issue with the series is that instead of simply improving upon the Civ4 series (by adding hexes and fixing the stack of death issues and doing work on the AI), they brought in a brand new designer who threw out all the lessons of the past in order to put his mark on the product.

The result was a poor product with numerous bugs and many balance issues and a definite downgrade from Civ4's quality.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[cheesybagel]

I think his last really good strategy game was Alpha Centauri and it was Brian Reynolds who did most of the work.

Beyond Earth is one of the worst he did. Trash. I thought it was even worse than the much maligned Pandora: First Contact that came out shorty before BE.

Firaxis has done some good games though. Like XCOM. But once again its another rehash of an old game. Can't they think of anything new?

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[cheesybagel]

I thought Civ5 was a lot better than either Civ3 or Civ4. At least it tried to be different in terms of the rules and for the most part it actually worked. Beyond Earth seemed like a rushed job and was poorly put together. The 'random' tech tree was pointless and sterile. Ascendancy did that a lot better.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[cheesybagel]

There was a time when Sid Meier was known for coming up with new games in a serial fashion. I mean you had Shogun, Pirates!, Civilization, Silent Service, F-15 Strike Eagle, Railroad Tycoon, etc. But that time is long gone. His name is put into endless recycles of Civilization and old Microprose game while the actual development teams of the sequels range from good, to crap. His last really new game was SimGolf which most people did not even bother playing at all.

Then again he did so many good game concepts while he was at Microprose that he can probably work on sequels of those until he dies.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[cheesybagel]

Sorry I meant Sword of the Samurai. Shogun was by someone else.

Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth

[kamapuaa]

I prefer civ 3 but civ 5 is way better than 4 if you have the mods. I understand civ 5 was borderline unplayable when it first came out and of course that sucks, but it's since been taken care of. If that's the reason you left give it another try... Leonard Nimoy's voice is the only thing I miss from 4. Not that 4 was 5, just 5 has similar, clearly superior gameplay.

A Boom in Civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers? This is patently absurd (though perhaps fun in a game). Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space? Or is this war thing predicated on humans being out there?

We are entrained to believe wars are inevitable, due to differences in opinion or scarcity of material. May I once again posit that war is not a natural result of being human, but rather one put upon mankind by strong, selfish, sociopaths that profit from it?

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers?

Because if you look at previous phases of human exploration, they all involved lots of fighting, too. There's no reason to think that exploring space will be any different - there's a lot of empty nothing out there, punctuated by a few hospitable pieces of rock. The first person to land on and claim a given rock for his own purpose damn well better be prepared to defend it from the next 30 guys who try to land and claim it for their purposes.

Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space?

Yeah, I'll go set off a dozen large thermonuclear devices somewhere in the universe - no cheating and telling you which direction to look - you tell me when you spot them, okay?

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[juanfgs]

May I once again posit that war is not a natural result of being human, but rather one put upon mankind by strong, selfish, sociopaths that profit from it?

Can you provide a proof of that? us vs them mentality has driven men to war from the stone age to this day. We always found a way to hate and kill each other, mainly because of our primal instinct of protecting our people from the unknown. Or in some cases war has been justified as a legitimate means to end some sort of injustice.

What you say sounds very nice, and I bet it felt good to write it. But fear and violence are part of our most basic programming, and it's something that we slowly started to drive off in most advanced societies (mainly because most of our primary needs are being satisfied).

Space traveling doesn't mean that we had found a way to end scarcity (probably being colonists on new planets mean that we have other issues and problems worth fighting for), or to evolve beyond our capacity to hate each other.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[blackbeak]

Think about it, war is extremely unlikely among interstellar species. With that level of technology, you're not gonna be hunting for food. Nor will scarcity of materials be a problem. Come on, you can travel among the stars, and you're gonna find one particular solar system that you just gotta have, right? Because this one system is just soooo cool, and there are no others out there like it. So, you figure "I'll just kill off the other interstellar species using the planets there and it'll be all mine!"

Or maybe it's the other scenario: Some insect-like aliens are gonna scour the universe just to hunt down other life forms, just 'cause that's what scary lookin' (by human standards) aliens do.

Anyone who believes inter-species battles is likely to be encountered in space needs some serious help.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[blackbeak]

Previous phases of human exploration had a number of common or frequent driving elements that space exploration is not likely to have. Such as: zealous religious missionary activities, conquest at behest of the king, racist judgement and condemnation of indigenous cultures, imperialist overreach into another country for minerals, slaves or other goods, etc. Most of that ideology is driven by the social thinkers/drivers at the top (or the powers behind the throne) and the privileged class just below that, not by the average citizens who prefer to just raise their families in peace. Humans will probably not even make it into the "interstellar community" if the species can't shake off the rule of sociopath oligarchs.

If we can assume we've evolved enough to travel among the stars, we would have solved a number of social problems (anger management?) and tech ones as well. I would expect we'd be way, way beyond playing "Billy Goat's Bluff".

Ok, there's plenty of space out there. We might miss a few battles just looking up from earth.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Arguably, the question of whether there will be war 'in space'(as opposed to space travel, along with some messy little ground wars on inhabited planets and any sufficiently large habitable constructs; but minimal involvement between the two), depends pretty strongly on what assumptions you bake in about travel speed and cost, as well as those about the difficulty and cost of exploiting tricky objects like gas giants or very low density clouds of gas and dust.

If travel is fast and cheap, the universe is huge, so you'll really need to be emotionally involved to take much risk on protecting this rock when there are trillions of other rocks just like it(though if Berzerkers break out, their travel will presumably also be fast and cheap, and then you have issues). If travel is too slow, war gets less likely because the offense is at a substantial disadvantage: even if you can build 'generation ships' or similar that can survive journeys in the decades to centuries range, the locals will be decades to centuries ahead of where they were when you started out, while your ship will be decrepit at best. On occasion, you'll get lucky and the locals will have nuked themselves into the ground shortly before you show up; but barring that it will hurt.

It's only really when travel is cheap and fast enough that you can viably send the fleet to somewhere; but slow and expensive enough that borders, resource pockets, and assorted other points of interest are highly valuable, that there's really a good case for something that actually looks much like terrestrial war.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Jeremi]

Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers?

Nobody assumes it's mandatory for space travellers.

Lots of people assume it's mandatory if you want to make a profit selling your space-themed video game. And they're probably right about that.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[swb]

Because this one system is just soooo cool, and there are no others out there like it.

Well, you could say that about the Middle East vs. the Gobi Desert -- because that ONE patch of sand has something and no others out there are like it.

As it turns out, some patches of sand in the Middle East turn out to actually have something no others out there like it have and that something (oil) turns out to be hugely important for managing and maintaining your inter(steller)national empire.

Who's to say the same wouldn't apply to outer space? Maybe there's some unobtainium material out there that just turns out to be very rare AND very useful either to interstellar space travel or use on some home planet. It's not like it's not a recurring theme in tons of scifi books, from the "spice" in Dune to dilithium in Star Trek.

It might be a fair argument to make that interstellar travel presupposes the ability to produce useful energy in unlimited quantities and mastery of such energy production also presupposes the ability to create materials and refine raw materials on a virtually limitless basis.

OK, but we really don't yet know what kind of materials make this energy harnessing possible and maybe those materials don't exist with some uniform distribution or in the quantities necessary for interstellar travel, making acquiring such materials or elements critical for maintaining an interstellar civilization and hence making it necessary to use military force to maintain supplies.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[david_bonn]

Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers? This is patently absurd (though perhaps fun in a game). Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space? Or is this war thing predicated on humans being out there?

We are entrained to believe wars are inevitable, due to differences in opinion or scarcity of material. May I once again posit that war is not a natural result of being human, but rather one put upon mankind by strong, selfish, sociopaths that profit from it?

There is so much we don't know that we can't really assume one way or another. Face it, we don't even know if interstellar travel is even possible (and it is not at all clear that it is possible with our present technology, and reasonable travel times require technologies that we don't know about).

The Earth seems to be at just about the minimum size needed to have plate tectonics, which is needed to keep the planet habitable long enough for complex life to arise. If that is the case most of the "habitable" planets out there are quite a bit more massive. The downside to that is an intelligent species on even a slightly more massive planet will find space travel of any kind to be quite a bit more technically challenging than even we find it. They might even find it challenging enough that they cannot or will not even try at all. So even with us finding lots of "Earth-like" planets we still might not find extraterrestrials. So I'm not so sure we'd have located those extraterrestrials.

In a similar sense, while planets are probably common, really nice planets (with the right combination of reasonable gravity, low axial tilt, a big but not too big hydrosphere) might not be that common at all. They might, in fact, be damned rare. Certainly in that case such planets would be worth fighting over. Yes, if we have super-advanced technology, we can probably terraform a planet. But I'd hate to watch the terraforming process that would create reasonable 1 gravity on a world that was twice as massive as earth. And even a terraformed planet wouldn't be as nice a place to live as Earth still is.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[barc0001]

> Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space?

Why would you think that? Let's open with a quote from Douglas Adams:

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
  Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Our own galaxy is 200,000 LIGHT YEARS across. This means it takes light 200,000 years to cross from one side to the other. It's friggin' enormous. And what we can observe is only relatively large energy sources like stars. Let's presume for a minute that there are some ETs happily engaged in armed conflict with each other 500 light years from us, tossing around 20 megaton nukes all day long like they're NBA players at a strip club making it rain. Assume that they are using 10,000 of such warheads against each others ships every day engaged in action around a star system. That's a total energy output of 200 GT (Gigatons) per day. The STAR in that system if it's a star like Sol will be putting out 7890000000000 GT per day of energy. How are we even supposed to detect 200GT more on top of that load? That's like going into Giants stadium at night and staring at the light arrays from the pitchers mound and trying to pick out someone flicking a lighter for a half a second in the midst of one of the arrays.

Secondly, I mentioned the "space is big" thing, right? Suppose these races developed doomsday devices that could actually kill stars and are happily wiping out each others' systems with nova-bombs. But they're fighting 500 LY away from us and their war only got really going 200 years ago. It's still going to be 300 years before we start seeing evidence of their handiwork.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[EzInKy]

It is just that war is a natural state for humans. Just look at Europe today. No matter how open and welcoming a society can be, there will always come along someone who demands subservience to the will of their sky pixie.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[qeveren]

To anyone for whom interstellar travel is feasible, 'limited resources' isn't a thing that exists. There's literally nothing to fight over. Well, realistically speaking. A game in no way has to be (or should necessarily be) realistic.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[inqrorken]

"Let's assume, that the human race manages to balance birth and death, just right to fit its own planets, and thereby becomes peaceful. What happens? Soon (about next Wednesday) the Bugs move in, kill off the breed which 'ain't gonna study war no more' and the universe forgets us"

Though the best argument made in the novel is, 'juvenile delinquent' is an oxymoron.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[rossdee]

While it is unlikely that 2 different races would meet with similar levels of technology (at least similar enough to have a war rather than a massacre) Its more likely that humans could end up fighting other humans. Think of Star Wars )rebels trying to break away from the Empire)
And habitable planets seem rare enough to fight over so far.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[rossdee]

I thought our galaxy was only about 100,000 LY across
Wikipedia says 100,000 to 120,000

But maybe Samsung will come out with a bigger one

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers^H^H^H^H^H all organisms of all species whatsoever that anyone has ever observerd?

Fixed that for you!

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[gl4ss]

because it makes for a better space strategy game if you include the option for war between the factions.

it's not simspace you know.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[phantomfive]

Most of that ideology is driven by the social thinkers/drivers at the top (or the powers behind the throne) and the privileged class just below that, not by the average citizens who prefer to just raise their families in peace.

You under-estimate the desire of the average citizen to have his country win.

To Godwin this thread immediately, consider that Hitler didn't have to convince his country to go to war.....he merely went along with a desire that already existed in his countrymen. This also goes along with his irrational hatred of the Jews.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Sloppy]

May I once again posit that war is not a natural result of being human, but rather one put upon mankind by strong, selfish, sociopaths that profit from it?

It's a natural result of life, apparently. Go look at some pictures of floppy-eared puppies, or fluffy kittens or fish or trees or algae or fungus: awwww, what cute warlike sociopaths. "You're eating my food, competing for my mate, or claiming my turf? Fuck you. DIE!!" Humanity is the only thing I ever heard of, who sometimes isn't sociopathic.

One can hypothesize a space empire without war, but it would require some extreme creativity. If you have an idea for a warless game, that's awesome, but do you really think war is a far-fetched assumption on someone else's part? I know what planet you grew up on, earthling, so quite pretending you're from some other alien background.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That's why 'travel speed and cost' are such important variables. If travel is relatively expensive, 'this rock' is valuable even if there are trillions like it; because the trillions like it are somewhere else. If travel is extremely cheap, you pretty much have to enjoy risk of violent death and social disapproval, or reproduce at geometric rates until even trillions of rocks are a scarce resource, in order to bother fighting over a specific one.

(Also, unless your travel mechanism posits something super-handy for travel; but magically without broader implications for energy production and density and mass acceleration and delivery, 'assumptions about travel' quickly turn into 'assumptions about availability of hardware that would beat up today's thermonuclear weapons and take their lunch money. Unless the mechanism is 'magic clean teleportation that for some reason isn't good for telefragging, covertly removing the core of an opponent's planet and/or inserting a singularity to devour it, and doesn't destroy the very concept of barriers', it probably involves heroic energy, extraordinary velocities achieved by relatively massive objects, and/or dubiously sensible manipulations of spacetime. That would be the other...disincentive...toward violence. If space travel is too slow and difficult, the attacker will generally lose because of impossibly long supply chains and a tendency to be years or centuries behind by the time they arrive. If space travel is fast, so is sending a kinetic kill vehicle large enough to exterminate an entire planetary ecosystem, or leaving an off-the-shelf unobtanium reactor rigged to blow if somebody messes with your rock.)

Barring radically exotic/indistinguishable from magic travel techniques that aren't 'accelerate in the right direction, keep doing that until it's time to start decelerating', estimates are that nuclear propulsion is on the painfully low end of potential viability for travel within reasonable time. In a hypothetical scenario that features downright practical space travel, your potential combatants are probably going to be jumpier than Cold War game theorists about what will happen if anything gets out of hand.

For extra fun, of course, unless FTL communications are available, all diplomacy takes place with a substantial time lag, since most nontrivial objects are multiple light years from one another; but if travel is supposed to be practical, you'll be able to deliver a doomsday kinetic kill weapon almost as quickly as you'll be able to exchange a single hail and reply(possibly faster, since the weapon only needs to go one way, while dialog is a round trip, so anything that posits mass delivery at .5C or better but no FTL communication implies that the guy on the other end of the line can be a smoking crater before you even receive his response, if you so choose. And, since you'll both have several years of boiling public hysteria and gnawing panic as to whether or not he shot first, and there's a low-radar-profile asteroid with your name on it; there's plenty of room for two cultures to make contact and dispatch a first strike before they've even had time for a friendly chat. For further additional fun, preserving 'second strike' capability in the face of such destructive power would involve a whole class of rather nasty and well hidden systems, potentially with deadman's switches primed centuries ago, just waiting for a misunderstanding.)

Your basic "Naval Battles of WWII; but with space lasers!" is really the starry eyed optimist's space war.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[swb]

Most of that ideology is driven by the social thinkers/drivers at the top (or the powers behind the throne) and the privileged class just below that, not by the average citizens who prefer to just raise their families in peace.

Organized human civilization has been around, what, 10,000 years? How do you suppose bands of humans dealt with some new group that showed up and wanted their fishing spot or their hunting spot or women? Pretty much everyone had some stake in the outcome and hiring a "conflict resolution facilitator" wasn't really an option.

Even a lot of Roman military activity up to about the Marian era wasn't necessarily expansionist but considered defensive against various Gallic and Germanic tribes who made incursions into Roman areas. The Romans were seriously concerned about the risk to Rome itself from these tribes it was several serious defeats that led to changes in the organization and makeup of the Roman legions known as the Marian Reforms. Prior to those reforms, poor citizens couldn't even join the army.

Plus I'd argue that most of your arguments really boil down to economics or economic pressure on existing civilizations even if some of the rationale seems explainable by religious or ideological motivations. It seems unlikely that pure political ideology was any kind of motivating factor until late in the 19th century.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[moonlandingchap]

go edit wiki then, it's all guess work measuremments anyway. they don't even know how big the solor system is yet as they keep finding new things orbiting the sun further out.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[CrimsonAvenger]

No matter how open and welcoming a society can be, there will always come along someone who demands subservience to the will of their sky pixie.

Which no doubt explains Ukraine and Russia nicely.

Or not...

Hint: most wars aren't about religion (though religion is often an excuse for war), they're about power. See WW1 and 2 for examples....

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Just Some Guy]

EVE seems to be doing OK, and while there's war to participate in if you want to, there are plenty of people making money from mining, research, logistics, and so on.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[WuphonsReach]

EVE seems to be doing OK, and while there's war to participate in if you want to, there are plenty of people making money from mining, research, logistics, and so on.

All activities in EVE (other then agent-driven mission running) are PvP. Selling on the market? You're PvPing against the other sellers who want to undercut you and sell their product faster. Mining? You're competing to harvest before someone else comes and harvests the resource.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[ultranova]

You under-estimate the desire of the average citizen to have his country win.

That need not manifest in the form of war. Think of sports, for example.

To Godwin this thread immediately, consider that Hitler didn't have to convince his country to go to war.....he merely went along with a desire that already existed in his countrymen. This also goes along with his irrational hatred of the Jews.

Really? So all those speeches were really just because he loved his own voice? Not to mention the rest of the Nazi propaganda.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[phantomfive]

Really? So all those speeches were really just because he loved his own voice?

Well, if you'd actually like to understand how politics works, you can start by realizing that people aren't going to vote for him if they don't A)know who he is and B) think he can accomplish what he promises.

Surely you at least realize that the age old trick of politicians everywhere is to tell people what they want to hear.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Just Some Guy]

PvP is a lot different from war, though. Almost every board game ever made is PvP by that definition, and I don't think I'd consider Chutes and Ladders in the same category as Battlefield 4.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Kuruk]

Because it is a game and Beyond Earth micro managing dozens of trade convoys is boring as hell.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[ultranova]

Well, if you'd actually like to understand how politics works, you can start by realizing that people aren't going to vote for him if they don't A)know who he is and B) think he can accomplish what he promises.

Surely you at least realize that the age old trick of politicians everywhere is to tell people what they want to hear.

And so you've set up a nice non-falsifiable circle of logic. Hitler didn't have to convince Germany to go to war or persecute Jews. Every instance of him doing just that - making noises about getting living space or getting rid of subhumans - is really just an instance of him telling people what they already believed and/or wanted to hear. And of course this works for every other case of someone persuading someone else of something, or cause and effect in general.

It doesn't matter as long as we're talking about people long dead, but when the topic shifts to the inevitability or preventability of war, it might be best to demand more rigorous arguments. We wouldn't want to give up and accept defeat if victory is in fact possible, after all.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[phantomfive]

And so you've set up a nice non-falsifiable circle of logic. Hitler didn't have to convince Germany to go to war or persecute Jews.

If you actually knew history, you would see that it's true (and if you knew logic, you'd see that it's falsifiable). Persecution of Jews in Europe happened long before Hitler came around. King Frederick the great, Martin Luther, Richard Wagner.....look what happened to Mahler just because he was a Jew. Despite the fact that he was surely the greatest conductor Vienna had seen within half a century.

Furthermore, we can see that the persecution continued, even after Hitler was gone. The Jews didn't leave Poland because of the concentration camps, they left because of what happened after the concentration camps.

Re:A Boom in Civilization

[Jeremi]

EVE seems to be doing OK, and while there's war to participate in if you want to, there are plenty of people making money from mining, research, logistics, and so on.

I wonder how well EVE would be doing, if its creators had decided on day 1 to not allow war in their video game? My guess is, not so well.

No, no and no!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not installing this! Out of respect for my starved turtle (RRtycoon), ex-girlfriends (Civ 1 to 4),...

ugh

[kelemvor4]

If it's cross platform to iOS then it's almost guaranteed to be a bit lame for PC. Good for sid mier's bank account; bad news for PC gamers.

Linux support?

[Eythian]

No Linux support? What is this? 2014?

Re:Linux support?

[Eythian]

Humble Bundle per-platform stats would disagree. Linux users tend to pay the most, followed by OSX users, with Windows users in the rear.

Re:Linux support?

[Eythian]

AIUI, the Monument Valley stats are incredibly badly done. For example, me buying it, installing it on my phone, tablet, upgrading my phone and installing it there, and so on would count as one purchase and multiple installs, and so a large inaccurate piracy rate.

I am aware that the Linux market is small, but it does have steadily accelerating support from vendors.

Personally, I won't buy it if it doesn't run on Linux (or android depending on the game), as it would be a waste of money. But I'm a fairly small demographic in that respect.

Re:Linux support?

[Eythian]

You're changing your point.

> and you Linux guys are all about the free?

Demonstrably not true.

Re:Linux support?

[tlhIngan]

Humble Bundle per-platform stats would disagree. Linux users tend to pay the most, followed by OSX users, with Windows users in the rear.

They pay the most per individual. But there aren't many individuals.

It's sort o like the adage where you take a smaller margin on a product but make it up in volume - Windows users may pay less, but given they are 2/3rds or more (likely under-represented) they get the most money from them. Ditto OS X and Linux - they pay more, but there are less of them.

Now, if you charge enough, you can make it up. E.g., iOS - if you create a paid app on iOS, you'll make more money than if you make it free and show ads. However, on Android, if you show ads (and rape and pillage user data) you will make way more money than if you sold it. In fact, if you add it up, selling in-app ads means you can roughly equal or exceed the amount of money you made selling it ad-free on iOS. Of course, you had to rape and pillage your user's data and show them obnoxious ads in the meantime, but hey, Android makes money.

As for Monument Valley, 10M installs and 3M paid is not all piracy - though 2.7M iOS and 300K Android sales seems a little... off. They do admit that a lot of it is multiple installs, so if we assume most users probably got it on their tablet and phone, and maybe a third device for the kids, that's about 9M installs that are legit and legal.

But still, 2.7M people paid for it on iOS, vs. 300K on Android (and of that, about 20% or 60K were FREE from Amazon). That shows you how willing iOS users are to paying for apps. I can't tell you how many are pirated because well, it'll just be a guess. And as any Android fanboy points out, Android outsells iOS 4:1, and in the US, it's around a 3:1 ratio (75:25% marketshare split).

Hence showing that selling apps on Android is a losing proposition if so few people buy it on Android, or why it should be free and with ads (rape and pillage).

Re:Linux support?

[tlhIngan]

AIUI, the Monument Valley stats are incredibly badly done. For example, me buying it, installing it on my phone, tablet, upgrading my phone and installing it there, and so on would count as one purchase and multiple installs, and so a large inaccurate piracy rate.

I am aware that the Linux market is small, but it does have steadily accelerating support from vendors.

Personally, I won't buy it if it doesn't run on Linux (or android depending on the game), as it would be a waste of money. But I'm a fairly small demographic in that respect.

Which is why the installed rate included people installing it multiple times (phone, tablet, etc), family sharing (iOS), and unpaid downloads.

If you take it that the average person installed it three times - say on their phone, tablet and their kid's device, then 3M sales would be 9M installs that are legitimate.

As for Linux support - that probably comes later - the milk money is on Windows and OS X and iOS. Linux probably comes next, and once they figure out the ad model, Android (the only model that works on Android is ad-supported).

Re:Linux support?

[aliquis]

That being said, obviously this leaves the market fairly open to developers that are willing to make the effort to develop for and support games on Linux. My own game studio simply doesn't have the resources to support it, so our titles will likely never see the light of day on Linux.

Isn't it the case that one(?) guy(?, team?) is behind many(?) of the ports over to Linux?

Not in a game such as this I guess but simpler ones.

I don't know if it's all that many in percent but quite a few titles at least?

May just be things on say Unreal engine or such though, maybe/likely not among all the field.

Re:Linux support?

[aliquis]

Doesn't matter since he say "we want it for free" which clearly we don't require. At least not in the case of HB.

However one could argue HB is close to free and maybe more Windows users buy their games over on say Steam sales or such whereas more Linux users watch HB because they wanted Linux games.

Then again it's "beat the average" for the extra games and there's no reason to over-do it unless you want too.

And Linux users may do it more.

However HB also used to have two tiers and now often have three and the lower level was even PWYW including $0.01 (still is but with no Steam keys) and since in reality it could be the case the upper tier games wasn't for Linux (or the other way around) that could affect things, or how much the individuals wanted each tier, or in the case there was bots / greedy people who just bought a bunch really cheap and those just happened to run Windows.

Whatever.

I'd say things are more pricey and people seem more willing to pay on the Apple platforms.

Whatever actual price is all that important for Linux users I don't know. Windows is used by a lot and lots of kids who may pirate more whereas Linux may draw a little more mature crowd who can also more easily afford paying (same as with users of Apple products.)

Re:Linux support?

[gmhowell]

Humble Bundle per-platform stats would disagree. Linux users tend to pay the most, followed by OSX users, with Windows users in the rear.

I bet starving people would pay more for a meal than a fatted American like myself.

Re:Linux support?

[bulled]

Aspyr (the company that has handled Mac and Linux ports for 2k) has been having a rough time keeping games in sync with the Windows release. Borderlands suffered for all of Decemeber and Beyond earth was broken for about a week. I wouldn't surprise me if that relationship has soured.

The continuing sync problems between the versions of other games has got me questioning if I would even buy this game if/when it was available on Linux.

Re:Linux support?

[cheesybagel]

You're talking about Ryan Gordon I guess.

Re:Linux support?

[Eythian]

If it's any consolation, my stats for Civ 5 count towards linux :) Also the X-COM game that I'm terrible at...

Re:Linux support?

[Tough Love]

It does seem more than a little idiotic to omit Android considering which way the market share wind is blowing.

I got the perfect title for it

[funwithBSD]

Master of Orion!

Re:I got the perfect title for it

[__aaclcg7560]

My roommate loved that game (MOO2). His favorite tactic was to hold his enemies at bay long enough to build out 36 Death Stars that would systematically vaporize all the enemy planets. Having 36 Death Stars firing at once is enough to bring the CPU to its knees. He never got tired of wrecking the interstellar neighborhood.

Re:I got the perfect title for it

[qeveren]

I was always fond of playing the Scumbag Humans(tm), sucking up all friendly-like to whoever was in the lead and 'helpfully' placing 'defensive' fleets (strangely consisting entirely of planetary bombardment designs and troop transports) around my ally's planets. __

Re:I got the perfect title for it

[aod7br]

Yeah, MOO2 was the best galatic civilzation game ever. MOO3 was too complex and missed the point.

Re:I got the perfect title for it

[cheesybagel]

You only need like one or two Death Stars to win the game though.

Re:I got the perfect title for it

[__aaclcg7560]

One or two Death Stars didn't help the Emperor win in Star Wars. ;)

Re:I got the perfect title for it

[cheesybagel]

Well these Death Stars don't have the exhaust port design flaw.

Protect planets?

[Okian Warrior]

In the game, you control a fleet of starships as you journey through the galaxy to complete missions, protect planets and their inhabitants, and build a planetary federation.

That seems to be targeting only a subset of consumers(*).

What if I want to build a totalitarian empire? Subjugate and control planets, turn their productive output towards my ever-growing fleet of interplanetary destroyers? Drive my enemies before me, hear the lamentation of their women, yada yada.

Sort of like Ronan from Guardians of the galaxy?

Not all of us want to have good, clean, wholesome fun, 'ya know...

(*) I'm reminded of the children's holodeck game from Star Trek, where the "correct solution" was to broker a truce between the tree person and the water person. Made me want to puke.

Re:Protect planets?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It could turn out to be even worse: the description you quote sounds very similar to the hype for the unforgivably dreadful Spore's space stage. That was so awful that even genocide couldn't break the tedium, though it was possible.

No linux eh?

[future assassin]

I'm no Linux zealot but I guess I know where the money I could have spent on this game will be going, to a nice selection of European beer while I play the free Xonotic game.

Re: We built this city?

[fyngyrz]

All those moments will be lost in time ...like tears in the rain.

MOO

[Vrallis]

*Please*, please, please...let this be what I always hoped Master of Orion would become...

A turn-based game?

[BarbaraHudson]

A turn-based game? Flaw number 1.

Re:A turn-based game?

[BirdBrained]

A turn-based game? Flaw number 1.

Not if you name it "Worlds with Friends"

Re:A turn-based game?

[BarbaraHudson]

It's one thing to play a turn-based game with everyone gathered around the table, so you can talk to each other while waiting for it to be your turn again, and quite something else to just be staring at a screen doing nothing except waiting for your next turn. Only one of them is actually fun.

Re:A turn-based game?

[Tough Love]

Civilization is amazing, even for shooter addicts.

Re:A turn-based game?

[ketomax]

Only one of them is actually fun.

Pocket tanks sure is a lot of fun.

Re:Old stuff.

[Dahamma]

FTL is great, but this sounds more like MOO than FTL.

Gotta say, I hope they keep the ship design/customization relatively straightforward. In theory in MOO/GalCiv/etc was cool, but the tech tree/dev was so fast paced I always felt like ships were obsolete by the time you finished building them.

Re:Old stuff.

[cb88]

Urquan-Masters...literally is Star Control 2. They even upgraded it some I think in the sound department...

Now if you mean new material in the style with with the level of cooky inspired awesomeness that is SC2 then yes... totally yes :D

Starships exploring the universe?

[argStyopa]

With detailed diplomacy, exploration, colonization....so, basically, Distant Worlds Universe?

Seriously, I've always liked Sid's games and I've been playing them for 30 years. But hey, DWU pretty thoroughly has that niche covered.

Re:Starships exploring the universe?

[argStyopa]

Obviously not, it would be rather stupid to assume only one entity can exist in a commercial space. We have McDonald's and BK, we have WoW and (umpteen other clones of WoW).

My point was that it's perhaps not the best sense economically to make your foray into a different marketplace one in which there is already a very strong competitor that does everything you claim you want to do. Better to perhaps seek something novel instead of re-tread already worn ground?

Really from his mind?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

How much of this is really from his mind, vs just being paid sufficient sums to allow his name to be stamped on it?

Re:Old stuff.

[gl4ss]

Master of Orion comes to mind..

first moo was pretty good. the sequels.. were missing something somehow.

a decent master of magic remake would be nice.

Spore

[Jarik C-Bol]

Sid Meier is just re-making spore as 3 games, and skipping the weird creature creation stage. Seriously, at this stage we have a 'conquer the world' game, a 'conquer nearby star system' game, and now we have a 'conquer you local galactic arm' game? sounds like spore, only without the insane promises.

Re:Spore

[T.E.D.]

Hopefully he skips the rootkit "copyright protection" scheme too.

Re:Spore

[Jarik C-Bol]

Well aware. Clearly, based on your response and several others, I left the joking tone out of my post.

Anyone remember Spaceward Ho!

[Anonymous Coward]

It had starship Design and combat - planetary values mining vs population etc all in a turn based package - thank you Delta Tao

Re:Anyone remember Spaceward Ho!

[LokiFoo]

I probably still have a copy in the attic somewhere, but I don't think I have any hardware that can run it anymore.

Re:Old stuff.

[Wraithlyn]

MOO2 was pretty good too.. the only thing I remember disliking compared to the first one was the number of ships you could build were more limited due to different supply mechanics.

MOO3 wasn't evan a game, it was a fucking spreadsheet. Never been more disappointed in a game. And I've played Daikatana and DNF.

Re: We built this city?

[ihtoit]

Time... to die.

Spore

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're very, very, very young? The Spore "civilization stage" was, if anything, a really, really bad and over-simplified Civilization. There was no Beyond Earth equivalent in Spore (Civ in Space), and this game sounds far more like classics like Masters of Orion or Galactic Civilizations than Spore's "space stage".

Re:Old stuff.

[DrXym]

Sounds more like Stardock's Galactic Civilizations although that was influenced by MOO too but with more emphasis on the AI. Anyway FTL is owes more than a little to Sundog which was an ancient top down spaceship sim/rpg from... FTL Games.

Re:Old stuff.

[ConaxConax]

Sounds more like Sid Meier's Pirates! except in space.

Star Traders?

[mknewman]

So it's a Star Traders knock off?

Re:Star Traders?

[mknewman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re:Star Traders?

[knarfling]

I LOVE that game!! Don't want to be a trader? Try being a smuggler!
Don't like smugglers? Be a Bounty Hunter!!
Fighting not your style? Play an Explorer!
Maybe intrigue between factions is more your thing. Play a Spy!
There are many ways to play Star Traders.

Come to think of it, I play Star Traders on Android, so maybe that is why this new game is only for Windows, OSX, or iPad. The market already has this game (or a better game) on Android.

Re:Old stuff.

[MachineShedFred]

Was thinking the same thing. Or Pax Imperia.

Re: We built this city?

[fyngyrz]

Perhaps.

But we rock and rollers burned so very, very bright!

Sounds like Cluster II (Traveller)

[WillAffleckUW]

Yes, I am the Celtani Federation that sold you all those Ford starships and sent the CDT on missions against you.

Did you like my robots? Wasn't it a surprise when the Tech 15 starports from the CF were everywhere and the 10 ton battleship killers lay in wait in the outer orbits and set off nukes inside your armor in kamikaze attacks?

UQM

[PincushionMan]

IIRC, you can even have the voices and music that was developed by Toys For Bob (the company behind SC2) for the 3DO. Also, some of the original MOD files have been resampled and updated by modern mixers. I prefer the original MOD files, but it's cool that it has had updates, even 20+ years on. Many thanks to Toys for Bob for releasing the source *and* content.

Spaceward Ho!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish someone would redo Spaceward Ho! Loved that game, especially the network play

Re:Old stuff.

[cheesybagel]

In other words it is like Star Control or Homeworld.

Re:Alpha Centauri is still the best

[cheesybagel]

Beyond Earth is trash. Avoid it like the plague.

Re: We built this city?

[ihtoit]

according to "Dangerous Days", Hauer adlibbed that entire scene, including the dove.

I just hope the UI doesn't suck

[harryjohnston]

Civ 5 was fine; you just hit the "strategic view" button as soon as it starts up and you're golden.

Beyond Earth took that away, apparently because they needed the button for satellite view and it was too hard to add another button.

The 3D view just makes it way too hard to see what's happening.

Simcity

[DarthVain]

The last Simcity I think really tarnished their reputation. They may have a hard time reclaiming their fans.

That said, if they do a reasonable approximation to MOO2, they will come flocking back. It is a fine line between a Game and a Sim however. MOO3 was the only game I ever pre-ordered (and last) for that reason. It was more Sim than it was Game. In that it wasn't really any fun. Something to be careful of if you are known for making Sim type games.