Grand Strategy Stellar Monarch: Turn based 4X space empire builder

[Beastro]

 

[Torrasque01]

LordArchibald No more posts here? I saw you released in full and renamed to Stellar Monarch. Grats.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Watch the video. The voice over girl...well, you'll see.


http://store.steampowered.com/app/446000/?snr=1_4_4__128

Basics:
Turn based, 4X, empire space builder, singleplayer, asymmetric, Emperor focused grand strategy.

Core features/promises:

• You will feel like the Emperor (assassins, imperial court, granting audiences, rebels, imperial officials)
  
• No micromanagement (no moving individual ships around or constructing boring farms, you deal with more important things)
  
• Unique mechanics (if you are bored with other games and wanted to see something fresh, you won't be disappointed)

The premise behind the game.
You are the emperor, not a logistics officer. You don't deal with low level stuff like building farms, factories or individual ships. Instead you focus on the grander scale of things. You grant audiences, make edicts, appoint imperial officials, deal with court factions and assassins, crush rebels, decide on production quotas and priorities.

In the game there is no micromanagement, late game does not drag on forever. You can play a relatively fast paced game on a huge galaxy without late game slow downs. You own hundreds of planets, thousands of ships and all this is managed on the high level by edicts and a hierarchical fleet system. The whole premise was to make the player make only the important and interesting choices leaving everything else abstracted.

Another important feature is the asymmetric nature of the game. The AI plays by different rules, and does not try to win the game. Aliens are more like creatures living in the galaxy than computer controlled players. Sometimes they can be valuable assets worthy of protection and sometimes an obstacle to overcome. Aliens are not created equal, some are primitive beasts that shall be cleansed from the face of the galaxy, some are fellow humanoids inferior to Terrans of course but considered sentient and worthy of compassion.

In short it's a fast paced turn based space empire builder with no micromanagement, asymmetric mechanics, and focus on you as the emperor.

 

[Trash]

Huh. The guy who made this posted here about it for awhile. Pretty awesome he actually got this thing on steam. Gives me quite an Empire of the Fading Suns vibe. Which I dig. Will keep an eye on this.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...x-space-empire-builder-feedback-needed.98458/

 

[Sranchammer]

This is scratching an itch...

 

[oscar]

Anyone dipped into this? The concept sounds very cool.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

LordArchibald No more posts here? I saw you released in full and renamed to Stellar Monarch. Grats.

Yes, the game was released in December, also I have renamed it, the previous name sounded too much like a mobile game.

Thanks people for all the feedback, it was quite helpful!

 

[Galdred]

LordArchibald No more posts here? I saw you released in full and renamed to Stellar Monarch. Grats.

Yes, the game was released in December, also I have renamed it, the previous name sounded too much like a mobile game.

Thanks people for all the feedback, it was quite helpful!

Glad to see you back there!

 

[anus_pounder]

"I am strictly single player."

Too many Multishit games nowadays.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Has anyone tried this yet?

 

[Demo.Graph]

I've tried it. A god sim in a setting that is close to Fading Suns? Yes, please!
So I’ve began to play. And after a couple of turns I began to suspect that something is wrong here. Let me elaborate.

I play as a royal, so I do have a court. You know, the one with ministers and generals and feuding feudals and embarrassing relatives and a jester and an occasional whore?
Yeah, right. But in this game your court looks like this.

Spoiler

These 18 guys fill 18 slots in your cabinet. The highest row consists of your ministers, two lower rows of their aides, one punier than the other. The cabinet is generated randomly at the beginning of the game. If you don’t like where those guys turned out to be, you can spend “political points” to move them around. 1 point to switch them horizontally or vertically (arrows) or 3 points to draw a red line over their face and throw 'em out forever. You get 8 political points in the beginning of the game and 8 to 15 (I guess) after every Audience (I’ll get back to it in a bit). When you fire a guy, he’s replaced with a random one... and that's it, there're no more consequences of throwing someone's nephew to the woods. Also, if you want to move someone from, say Foreign Affairs to Treasury, you have to shift them through the intermediate positions in Justice and Internal affairs, changing people's jobs there in the process.
Each guy gets 3 stats: competence (how good he is) as well as loyalty and corruption (how bad he is), he also has a party affiliation. Each chair also has a weight for calculations: 5 in a highest row, then 3 then 2. To get a department’s efficiency you calculate a weighted average of competence for those 3 guys (for ex. In defense department it’s (2*5+11*3+8*2)/(5+3+2)=5.9 Same weights are applied for faction influence (5 numbers in a top left corner of the pic) and all other calculations where applicable. Game creator wants all factions to be balanced (for each one to have a weight of 20%) otherwise the penalties turn on – the limit is pretty lax, though. On the picture you can see me firmly in favor of the botanists (the green guys) and it’s still ok. When a department has a high efficiency, you get positive random events from time to time (otherwise they’re bad).
This’s basically it.
Can you see the problem already? Instead of the court full of artificial persons with relationships and positions in life who belong to different aristocratic families, fight for what ideas are important for them and maybe some money (and an occasional whore), we’ve got a game of “rearrange the cards on the grid to maximize shit” a.k.a. the solitaire. And this is your court. And this is a disgrace (even without the whore).

The second instrument of your rule is called an audience. You get it on the second turn and every 12 or so turns afterwards. After each audience you get more “political points” to alter your court. So it basically allows you to rule the people, because there’re not that many ways to do so. The audience is a series of events that you click through while choosing stuff. Some of these events are generated by the ministries, some by the timer-based plot, some are just random. You can force only one event (summoning one of your admirals to the palace to give him a reassuring speech or a good beating).
The problem with the audience is the same as with the court. It’s forced on you by the engine (while you’re supposed to rule, as a, you know, ruler), it alters several in-game counters and it's over. No planning or real meaning involved.

Spoiler

The game itself revolves around counters that tick to several almost predetermined events that you’re forced to react to. There’re two main story plots, there’s an imminent rebellion, there’re 2 or 3 alien nations that get triggered by the timer and begin to run around killing everyone and you (there’re also several AI empires who tend to expand around and do stuff who serve as a kind of timer as well).

Spoiler

To handle these things you improve economy and build fleets. Economy is based on planets that are connected by hyperlanes (“just like in EOFS”). Each planet has a picture, several stats and another meeple in a chair of governor THAT YOU CAN DO NOTHING WITH!

Spoiler

See this fucker? He’s in a system only two jumps from Earth, he hates me and steals my money and he’s barely competent to boot (not that it really matters in a grand scheme of things but whatever). And I can’t do anything about him. Because reasons. Well, I can wait another dozen of turns and hope for an event that would allow me to carpet bomb all governors with high corruption and/or low loyalty. Until then I wait and pray and watch the timers ticking. But I, the emperor, can’t order my fleet to nuke his shit from orbit, can’t send him to an epic quest to a graveyard or promote him to some shit-infested corner of the galaxy (or, for that matter, reward him with an occasional poisoned whore).

Yet, I still can rule this empire. I can tax stuff like I could in Civilization 1 while my pops get tax breaks from corruption. I can research like in good old days. Note, however, my 88 RP/turn (1st game turn) and a tech price in hundreds; keep in mind that techs have only a limited effect, something like +10% to production of one resource or +1% overall.

Spoiler

I can also pull the switches called “edicts” that give me +10% to some thing or another as if Civ Beyond Earth hadn’t had it ad nauseam.

Spoiler

I can also build fleets and point and click them to victory!
By the way the interface for fleets is disgusting, with buttons of random sizes, overall sloppiness and custom names that you give to fleets and never get to see anywhere. See, I’ve spent about a minute in paint and managed to free about half of the screen space.

Spoiler

Still, I can send the fleets to victory! After all, AI empires are there only to be punched around as there’s no meaningful diplomacy. And when the ships meet the enemy, I can watch them in cool 2d turn-based auto-battles. They’re okay, even if copy-pasted from the Stars! (you know, that 23 years old PBEM game). The graphics are sufficient and on the plus side the battles don’t have some random shit wrapped in dem shaders all over the place (I’m looking at you, Endless Space; actually, I don’t, never again).

Spoiler

But still, still. If I wanted to play a simplistic economic sim or capture-the-graph-nodes mobile game, I would go and play them.
I launched this game to be an emperor. To take the fiefs from people I don’t like and give them to the ones I do. To run a courtly intrigue with Borgias and Windsors. To manage affairs of a spiritual matter (like heresies and tithes) and promote trade leagues. To invite barbarians to the senate and get stabbed by my adopted son. To punish peasants who rose in rebellion not because the stars were right but because my jester was a faggot to them. To fuck with the said jester (and an occasional whore).
And I can’t.
So fuck this game.

Actually, it is not all bad. The game is fast, straightforward and resembles “10 minute space strategy” in its approach to game mechanics. It simply fails at being an emperor sim.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

See this fucker? He’s in a system only two jumps from Earth, he hates me and steals my money and he’s barely competent to boot (not that it really matters in a grand scheme of things but whatever). And I can’t do anything about him.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

shame, i always hoped it'd have been the unknown, underrated gem but i never mustered enough courage to actually try it. probably i knew it would have sucked but didn't want to accept it.

 

[oscar]

Brilliant concept, let down by tedious aspects of its execution (ironic as the game explicitly acknowledges that microing the development of 55 different planets is fucking boring). One of those games I've said I'll go back to one day but haven't yet.

 

[Chris Koźmik]

So, after Legends of Amberland release is done ( https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...mberland-oldschool-open-world-blobber.121565/ ) I'm free to make the long, long time ago promised expansion to Stellar Monarch
Actually, I have it like half done already (I was doing it "in the menatime"). The expansion will focus on technologies & science (in a very broad sense). Planned release 2019.

It's a semi official early announcement (because you were supportive to my projects and I kind of like you, even the black sheep among you :D).
Here is a Steam discussion about it: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SilverLemurGames/discussions/0/1651043958646365804/
Here is more detailed info on my website: http://www.silverlemurgames.com/2019/08/23/im-working-on-the-first-expansion-for-stellar-monarch/

 

[Chris Koźmik]

The expansion got a Steam page You can wishlist it now.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148180/Stellar_Monarch_The_Age_of_Technology/

 

[tindrli]

done

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i know i tried this for like 5-10 minutes, no longer, but i can't remember if i put it aside because i had to check it later with more attention or because it was an unbelievable turd. the fear it was the latter stops me to go back and check again.

 

[tindrli]

well check now

 

[fastjack]

I think it deserves a second chance at least, very fun game imo and different from the usual space 4x fare.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

 

[index.php]

The Age of Technology, the first expansion for Stellar Monarch is out!




ABOUT THE EXPANSION:

The Age of Technology expansion focuses on technology and science. New optional research mechanics (random technologies, hidden technologies, additional technologies), terraforming mechanic, new alien races, astro engineers, construction of megastructures and a few minor additions.

There is an option to disable the expansion for people who prefer to play without it and an option to enable only some of the features of the expansion, so everyone can customize the gameplay to his/her own taste.

MAJOR FEATURES:
* Research mechanics improved (hidden technologies option, random technologies option, new technologies)
* New asymmetric alien races (Hyberians, Mechatrons, Exotrians) activating at random
* Astro Engineers who can construct megastructures and terraform planets
* Megastructure: Imperial Battlestar (fearsome mobile battle station to stregthen your defences to ensure internal security)
* Megastructure: Homeworld Reconstruction (turn Terra into Megacity planet)
* Megastructure: Subspace Inhibitor (deal with those pesky The Hive once and for all)
* Terraformation mechanic
* Satellites mechanic
* New planet types (Toxic and Steppe)
* New Scientific Glorious Achievement

 

[mondblut]

I thought that by now people have learned that when they are being offered "a macromanagement strategy where you don't need to bother building farms and controlling units", they are being offered a screensaver turd with no gameplay present. "Macromanagement" means watching the map paint dry and counters to tickle, nothing else to see there.

Don't like microing 50 planets? Play a map with 40.

 

[Norfleet]

Still, I can send the fleets to victory! After all, AI empires are there only to be punched around as there’s no meaningful diplomacy. And when the ships meet the enemy, I can watch them in cool 2d turn-based auto-battles. They’re okay, even if copy-pasted from the Stars! (you know, that 23 years old PBEM game).

Calling this combat copy-pasted from Stars is simply offensive, because Stars had an ACTUAL COMBAT SYSTEM that you could do things in, by directly designing your ships and setting their tactics in battle, even if you didn't directly control the battle because synchronous multiplayer is a bitch. This is, frankly, the RIGHT way to do combat in any kind of multiplayerable strategy game, because it quickly becomes a logistical nightmare to get multiple independent entities to have overlapping uptimes simultaneously, even with extremely high uptime chances.

I launched this game to be an emperor. To take the fiefs from people I don’t like and give them to the ones I do. To run a courtly intrigue with Borgias and Windsors. To manage affairs of a spiritual matter (like heresies and tithes) and promote trade leagues. To invite barbarians to the senate and get stabbed by my adopted son. To punish peasants who rose in rebellion not because the stars were right but because my jester was a faggot to them. To fuck with the said jester (and an occasional whore).
And I can’t.

Yeah, it needed to be Crusader Kings in SPACE!

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Watch the video. The voice over girl...well, you'll see.


http://store.steampowered.com/app/446000/?snr=1_4_4__128

Basics:
Turn based, 4X, empire space builder, singleplayer, asymmetric, Emperor focused grand strategy.

Core features/promises:

• You will feel like the Emperor (assassins, imperial court, granting audiences, rebels, imperial officials)
  
• No micromanagement (no moving individual ships around or constructing boring farms, you deal with more important things)
  
• Unique mechanics (if you are bored with other games and wanted to see something fresh, you won't be disappointed)

The premise behind the game.
You are the emperor, not a logistics officer. You don't deal with low level stuff like building farms, factories or individual ships. Instead you focus on the grander scale of things. You grant audiences, make edicts, appoint imperial officials, deal with court factions and assassins, crush rebels, decide on production quotas and priorities.

In the game there is no micromanagement, late game does not drag on forever. You can play a relatively fast paced game on a huge galaxy without late game slow downs. You own hundreds of planets, thousands of ships and all this is managed on the high level by edicts and a hierarchical fleet system. The whole premise was to make the player make only the important and interesting choices leaving everything else abstracted.

Another important feature is the asymmetric nature of the game. The AI plays by different rules, and does not try to win the game. Aliens are more like creatures living in the galaxy than computer controlled players. Sometimes they can be valuable assets worthy of protection and sometimes an obstacle to overcome. Aliens are not created equal, some are primitive beasts that shall be cleansed from the face of the galaxy, some are fellow humanoids inferior to Terrans of course but considered sentient and worthy of compassion.

In short it's a fast paced turn based space empire builder with no micromanagement, asymmetric mechanics, and focus on you as the emperor.

Son, if You really playing this, you must have been abducted by Aliens and you have some kind of analprobe somewhere deep inside. Get outside or play something for adult people without damaged brain cells.

YES YOU ARE SON!