Hi all,
I've been writing a single player, space-based 4x game for a while. It's free to play and can be found at
https://diaspora-exastris.com/
Its raison d'etre is that I wanted a game where logistics were a key component of the game, rather than crudely represented by limitations on the number of units you can own or similar. You cannot build a stack of killer ships and cruise around the map willy nilly and expect to win, they must remain supplied or will be degraded and destroyed.
In order to avoid becoming micromanagement hell another key feature of the game is a configurable implementation of AI agents, based roughly on the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) model. You configure agents to automate your supply chains and leave you to do the exploration etc.
The game graphics are intentionally pauce, looking more like real-life tactical displays (i.e. iconified) rather than "realistic". I've enjoyed many roguelike ASCII games in the past and loved the way it let the imagination take over, so tried to capture that freedom in this game. Your "space stations" are simple icons in the game so you're free to imagine them as anything: Death Stars, Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, Vavatch Orbital, etc.
Note that there are no in-game tutorials, an online manual can be found at
https://diaspora-exastris.com/manual/ which includes a step-by-step "getting started" section that should give you everything you need to start a thriving civilisation.
Note that the game starts with asymmetric powers. You are arriving in an already-established star-cluster with many large and powerful existing factions. Do not expect to be able to start wars against major factions in the early game and have any chance of success, you need to build and consolidate your supply chain first.
Whilst mostly a sandbox game, your arrival in the cluster acts as a catalyst for political upheaval and re-igniting of tensions between established major factions. The storyline will advance after certain timed intervals (you will receive notifications when something major happens). The early game will be relatively stable as you build out and slowly expand, but later on conflict will arise between major factions. You might decide to avoid these conflicts altogether, or provide aid to one side in the form of supplies to try and change the balance of power, or go direct action and join in. The "extermination" of 4x is technically optional and its possible to avoid direct conflicts and still have a satisfying game.
The game is fully featured right now, although I am looking to add more configuration options to suit other playstyles. Right now it mostly suits builders/turtle types and the pacing may be considered too slow by others. I intend to allow a configuration option that will speed up build times and feed into the timings of political development of the cluster (i.e. everything would happen faster).
As originally written, the storyline was littered all over the substantial codebase. I've started making inroads to abstracting this away as much as possible from the core game so that alternative storylines could be implemented and potentially make the game moddable, but that's a way off at present.
Cheers,
~Sorabain
