Sid Meier's Starships

Is it worth $3.75 to troll Brian Rubin? That’s a personal question that each of us will have to decide on our own. But yes. The answer is yes.

I still liked it. Its not up to Sid’s own high standards but its a fun time in its own right. I got a lot out of it as a professional just dissecting Sid’s decisions here and how they differed from his other work and guessing why.

Anyways I still occasionally look at this game but its definitely more “Floyd of the Jungle” in Sids games history than a more important work like say Silent Service of something.

tldr: Its a decent but light.

Put me down as a Sid Meier’s Starships apologist as well. Some really tight design decisions made for a snappy tactical space combat game, even if it was a light on personality. I might go reinstall it now just to spite some of y’all.

-Tom

Starship was one of Sid’s better recent games. Let’s face it his early work was better.

So long as you don’t expect more than a couple of hours out of it, it’s a lovely little game. Virtually any price for it by itself is too high, but it would be fine as a freebie or part of a 500 games for $5 benefit bundle or something like that.

$3.75 for a couple of hours of gameplay? Sold. Sorry @BrianRubin. :)

Your loss

Beats the hell out of that bloody car game you love. :)

I mean, who would have thought? Brian Rubin, King of the Space Games. Driving around upon the dirt of a planet. Sounds like he finally met an alien race that took over his brain. Blink twice if you need help buddy. I’ll get a ragtag group of Qt3 members to rescue you. Hell, I’ll even use the Bill Dungsroman light.

The hero we need now.

#savebrianrubin #andhiscats #ohyeahwifetoo

Now seriously. And not to piss off Brian. But I’m rather enjoying the game. Sure it’s like a Civ 2D map of space, but the gameplay is rather well done. And hell, $3.74? Would I have been happy if I bought it at full price? Hell no. But less than four bucks? Hell yes.

Made a good first impression on me, too. It’s a boardgame! There’s four or so currencies, and four things to spend them on. The ship battles have been super easy so far, which I’m totally fine with. A slightly better tutorial would have eased the the entry, but I feel like I’ve figured out almost everything. Seems like I game I can vibe with!

I’m really enjoying this. The parameters that create the universe are decent. The game is fast. The ship building is pretty simple.

I just found out that putting extra fighters into all of your ships means that you wasted money. Because fighters count towards the total number of ships in the battle. The first time I got a ‘ship limit reached’ message I was pissed.

I keep losing to the AI on easy, but I don’t care. I play it like a roguelike. I recently actually read a guide and now I know what I’m doing wrong. I make a massive fleet full of weapons and armor and shields. And I lose. Because I was thinking wrong. I need to actually try for the stuff that wins. :) I’ll be playing this for a long time.

Link to that guide?

Avoid the comments as usual. :)

In my first play through on moderate difficulty as Purity and guy whose name starts with B with four opponents large galaxy, so take this for what it is worth. The game ended so quickly I don’t think knowing all the synergies with planets mattered. Once I had five planets my fleet was strong enough to crush the other AIs.

For some reason I thought you could only have four capital ships so I maxed them out.

I will try hard setting next and maybe knowing which planets to specialize will be necessary.

This is a fun game for what it is. A brief summer fling.

Playing this makes me want to try SM’s Ace Patrol.

I feel like Ace Patrol is similar: A bit wobbly, but a fun core dynamic at the center, a la Sid.

The first Air Patrol is really good. It’s similar, sort of, to Starships, but elevation and maneuvers add a lot to the game play. What held it back is the management side is really weak. It would have been nice to have a bit more depth there, but overall its worth the money. The second one is fun too, but just more of the same.

They were great iPad games, but of course were killed in the great 32-bit purge.

I love the SFC vibe and the away missions feel of the game. I’m still awaiting a game with a more robust adventure away missions generator with managing crew and ship, but this comes closest that I’ve played. My 2nd play through, and will play it again till something comes closer to scratching that itch.

I’m worried that Brian will have a seizure seeing this at the top of the recent topics though…

I’m pretty sure he’s muted it by now. For the sake of his blood pressure. :)