Space Game General All-Platform Thready Discussy Thing :)

How about a tenner?

I kinda remember that the creator of Ascendancy was working on a sequel a long time ago. But never heard anything again. Surprised no one has made a remake/clone. I wonder if Ray Fowler is a fan?

I think because The Tome Rebellion didn’t really do well kinda killed The Logic Factory, sadly.

Tone Rebellion. Weird game, but I liked it. Those guys were really good at a specific flavor of weird, I miss their sensibility.

I tried to get into it. I TRIED, because I loved Ascendancy so much. I was so sad when I couldn’t click with it.

It was very much its own game, that’s for sure. The two had literally nothing in common beyond Logic Factory weirdness.

Did Ascendancy really release in the Fall of 1995? I’m trying to think of a space game that would’ve been 1994 or spring 1995 because I played it at someone’s house while still stationed at Ft Hood, TX. That means I played it no later than April or May. It wasn’t MOO, which I owned, and nothing else on the Wikipedia 4x list from that timeframe is it from what I can tell.

Could you try to describe more of it?

Unfortunately I don’t really have much of a memory of it other than it being some space strategy game. Imperium galactica was much later right? I’ll have to go poke around on mobygames and see if I can figure it out. I’d say that box art s part of the reason I was thinking ascendancy, but likely that is in my memory from seeing that over the years since then.

Yeah the first Imperium Galactica was '97.

Maybe it’s Warpath?

http://www.synthetic-reality.com/warpath.htm

If not, check this Wiki I built, maybe something will jog your memory.

https://www.spacegamejunkie.com/wiki/index.php?title=Primary_List_of_Released_Games

I wonder if it was Maelstrom.

Edit: Another possibility is Supremacy: Your Will Be Done / Overlord, in particular that planetary info screen looks familiar.

From 92? Good one.

Yep, I’m pretty sure Overlord is the one. Looking at this back cover art, I’m certain this is the one.

I guess I played that game a long time after it came out. Your list solved the mystery. SpaceGameJunkie is the best ;)

I’m trying to remember the name of a 4X space strategy game, circa 1991 or 1992. DOS, of course. I remember buying it for $50 at EB, which is like $110 today.

Wish I could remember more.

@Woolen_Horde Any of these ring a bell?

Reach for the Stars from SSG would’ve been out in 1989
Stellar Crusade from SSI was 1988
Spaceward Ho
Armada 2525 is 1991
Did VGA Planets have single player?

VGA Planets 3 had no single player.

There was something called CPLAYER that could run a turn for a player if they didnt submit a turn (I believe this was fan created). It was very minimum.

I always like Spaceward HO.

I remember that Reach for the Stars had a sequel but it did not do well. As I recall fleets could attack any planet with no sensors to warn and a lot of the fan base didnt like that aspect as it was hard to defend against (at least as I recall). I think they tried to do something about it but the game never became as popular as the first iteration.

I picked up Cosmoteer and I think I need to go to space warship engineering school to learn what to do!

I think there were 3 of them in total. The original was early 80s, then the one in 1989, and finally Matrix put out a version sometime in the first decade of this century which was buggy and didn’t do well.

I think part of the problem also was it was a rather simple game. In a lot of ways it was a port of the boardgame Stellar Conquest to the pc, which worked in the 80s but was lacking after what came after in the next 20 years.

What game do people think has done tech research the best? The Sots games had unique techs right, at the very least the ftl technology. I know Stellaris originally tried that, but couldn’t get the ai to handle all the different options and dropped it. I need to go play the original Sots. Could you salvage the tech from opponents and learn it?

I’ve always liked how in the MoO game you focused on research areas, and the setback/breakthrough mechanism. I’ve always wished there was something better than sitting there looking at the tree and picking okay next we will invent the wheel. I understand why it has been that way, but wish there was a more interesting way to do it that really captured how progress really happens.

Also if it is possible to have more unique tech lines, but I don’t know really what that would look like. In the end you are basically ending up with directed energy, kinetic, and plasma weapons of some form right? Just something I’ve been thinking about the last day or so, thinking about what could’ve been with MoO3 if the reality had matched the hype. Stellaris boils it down to the most basic thing where it is all the same generic techs for everyone pretty much IIRC.

I found this website for the person that did the moo3 patching: Master of Orion 3 Patcher

Reading through the fixes, apparently they renamed a file related to Diplomacy before release, but the name wasn’t updated in the code. I’m surprised they didn’t at least clean that up in the official patches. Reading some of the fixes though it was quite a mess: Ground combat modifiers for races not having an impact; ai unable to invade worlds more than 1 turn away due to transport fleets disbanding; signed 32-bit value for your treasury causing it to go negative when it gets too high and bankrupting your empire.