And a lot less micro than MOO2 when it comes to planetary development. Another plus for me
@BrianRubin and @orald , thank you for the thoughts about Interstellar Space Genesis! It sounds like a hidden gem. I also just noticed it’s gone on sale since I first looked at it on Steam. So, unless this Das Tactics ep1 play through scares me off, it looks like I will be celebrating Memorial Day weekend remembering all of our Space Force service people who have made the ultimate sacrifice.*
*I’m just being tongue in cheek about a new (to me) game, an extended weekend, and the extremely new branch of the military. I mean no disrespect to fallen, or serving, military personnel.
Wonderful, I do so hope you enjoy it. :)
Oh god yes very much so.
I really tried to like Stellaris and more recently Distant Worlds 2, but I am at heart a turn based strategy guy.
In addition to Interstellar Space: Genesis, I have played Stardrive with the Blackbox and Combined Arms mods and enjoyed that as well. Worth a try, IMO, and I did not find it difficult to make them all work together properly.
Starpoint Gemini Warlords is a game I recently purchased in a bundle and I am going to try that out as this weekend appears to be a rainy one. Haven’t tried a space sim before so don’t know how hard it will be to fly and shoot and scoot. Old dog, new tricks and all of that
You might like that one. It’s less of a space sim and more of a space adventure game with real-time ship combat and light 4X elements.
Oh yeah! I have meant to retry Star Drive with the Blackbox mod as that seemed much more my pacing. How would you compare Interstellar Space Genesis to Star Drive with Blackbox?
ISG gets off to a slower start than SD.
Here is a YouTube from Nookrium that gives a good idea of how SD with mods plays
SD is also a different beast as you’re also an in-game character via your flagship.
ISG is fun and addictive! It does get off to a slow start, and for the first few turns I wondered if there would be enough to do. But that changed, as all sorts of interesting systems started becoming relevant. I really like the leaders: they’re not wonderful at everything, and some have significant drawbacks. Also, the turn-based combat looks like it will be fun. (So far I’ve just fled space monsters.)
The tutorial is fine, but is there a manual or a galactopedia?
My main complaint is the UI size. Even with scaling set to 125%, various UI elements are too small for me to see. E.g., the contents of the colony overview (outliner?) on the left. I did max tooltip size, and that helps with those. I can live with it. I may try changing resolutions.
But other than that, this game seems like a winner. I sat down to play for an hour and next thing I knew, 3 hours had whizzed by.
Yay!!!
Yeah it’s a misleadingly-named setting that doesn’t do much, it just increases the map icon/label size a bit. Yet on the Galaxy View those things become massive.
I’m gritting my teeth with the small stuff atm, but I guess the nuclear option is to drop res to 1080p or something.
Heh, I’m playing at 1280 x 800, and the fonts are still too small for me to read easily. But it’s okay. There are usually alternative ways to find the same info.
I built my first survey ship, and I wasn’t quite sure how to use it. I think I get a one-turn remote-exploration benefit by just parking the ship in the sector I’m exploring, right? Does the ship have to be docked, or can it be in flight? So far I’m not sure it was worth the investment, but it’s nice to have.
Just found my first source of Helium-3, and I liked that I had to decide which techs we might research to use it. Good, interesting decision. Now I’m trying to design my first ship. More interesting decisions. Lots of goodness here.
I’m really enjoying ISG also - my first reaction was a meh MOO2 clone, but there’s much more to it, and I really like the way they’ve evolved the genre while keeping faith with it. NOICE! Thanks QT3 hivethingy!
It also, I believe, has a chance to find stuff in ruins so you want these flying around.
I picked up ISG too and I am quite enjoying it.
It’s been taking me a while to get used to the game’s tendency to offer situational choices, though. For example, i just researched a wonder that gives you every tech known by 2 other civs… only to find that not only did I not meet the conditions required to build it, my two best governors wanted me to build it in their systems anyway. I LIKE the choices it forces you to make, i just wasn’t expecting this one (and in retrospect would not have researched the tech if I understood the downsides.)
Finally spent some time with ISG. The remote exploration is a nice twist. Initially ot seemed like the map was very small, especially after playing things like DW and Stellaris, but with the exploration adding systems it helps. I have 2 space dragons and 1 space amoeba on my immediate area. Not sure how tough to crack they will be. A flotilla of 3 destroyers ran away from a dragon, so It looks like it will need to be more.
Thinking about picking up ISG with the new expansion. How is the tutorial/documentation?
I’m a known idiot and I had no problem picking it up.
Sold! Downloading now