As much as I loved SotS, I think the different FTL modes really get a bit more nostalgic love than they perhaps deserve. Tarka had generic warp, Liir and Morogi had situationally faster or slower warp based on geography/fleet size, Humans had hyperlane, Zuul had a more annoying micro-heavy version of hyperlanes, and Hivers had the jump gates. Out of all of them I really only remember the Hivers FTL dramatically changing how you played the game.
The biggest differences between the races were really the tech-weightings and race-specific ship sections, from a gameplay perspective.
That being said, the Hiver FTL gates were really cool and made them by far my most played SotS species.
Maybe people should stop dusting off their nostalgia and set up a MP game of SotS. ;)
Personally, I really enjoyed the game, but I disliked the implementation of the tech tree. It sounded great in concept but had a few flaws. There was one early key tech you could be just missing. You could aim towards the techs your race was expected to get, but then there’d be a surprise gap in the tech tree and you’d have to spend ages working up a different branch and hope there weren’t gaps there, just to have a chance of reaching anything more effective than you already had.
The original MoO still has one of the best tech tree implementations, imo.
The Liir also had a big difference in that their ships (with operational drives) wouldn’t have trouble with inertia due to the way their drives work. So in combat, Liir ships wouldn’t “drift” when maneuvering. This coupled with the fact that they were faster in combat away from gravity wells made them the best “interceptor” race in the game by far.
There’s a lot of subtle things about the races that goes well beyond the FTL drives.
I have been following the development of AotSS for a very long time… I look forward to further updates, but I understand that TexasHawk76 has a day job and a real life to manage. I thought the project was done for good when one of his collaborators departed, but to my surprise, the whole thing got rebooted.
I root for him, but still the “game that plays itself” syndrome is something to watch out for.
These two bits are indeed something I wish PDX took inspiration of. Associating module and tech research to the “traits” system is a missed opportunity at integrating the game systems and make the game feel tighter and more cohesive. Even if that could cause some high pitched whingeing about “content gating” and “I can’t get to see everything on one single playthrough”.
Let’s recall too that PDX was SOTS only publisher in Europe for a very long time (through GamersGate, the online game store, if anybody remembers that), and they published directly SOTS2. I’d have find surprising that PDX didn’t appreciate SOTS too.
Also, there’s now a Canadian working on Stellaris development… that must be a sign <G>
I posted this in this very thread almost 2 years ago. It feels appropriate to bring it back now, since the feeling I got is that Paradox saw Stellaris as a “Sword of the Stars 3 on overdrive” of sorts. Back then, I really hoped it would be that. But then it wasn’t.
I wonder if they genuinely felt like the game they were developing was a successor to SotS in terms of philosophy and design?
I would argue that it isn’t and that their implementation of the systems inspired by SotS suggests they didn’t really understand the subtlety and nuance of said systems!
I think they were trying something new (for them) and took a whole lot of inspiration from SOTS, which was clearly a game they appreciated. And then they whiffed on the execution and couldn’t figure out how to integrate certain features (notably FTL) into a Paradox grand strategy game.
@kedaha and @kevinc : yes, I think they thought of Stellaris as both an evolution of Sword of the Stars and a new step in the evolution of the classic PDS gameloop.
And like you both, I feel that Stellaris absolutely fails as a Sword of the Stars 3, because it doesn’t really understand what made Sword of the Stars good (or how to make it work in the PDS structure). Which is mainly my big problem with Stellaris.
Now, it seems Paradox is moving Stellaris away from the “SotS evolved” view into its own thing (and if Stellaris is going to be a new classic someday, that’s the only way they can go). Maybe they’ll get it right, but that means I still want a Sword of the Stars 3. ;)
