Sword of the Stars 2 Previewing

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There's a brief <a href="http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/sword-of-the-stars-2" target="_blank"><strong>Sword of the Stars II</strong></a> preview up at <a href="http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/swordofthestarsii/376/preview.html" target="_blank">Strategy Informer.</a>
<blockquote>The only other big thing to talk about is the galaxy map. In a move similar to what Creative Assembly did in Empire: Total War, Kerberos have made a similar trade off: The galaxies themselves will be physically smaller, but each Star now has a whole system to explore. There will be a sun, planets, asteroids and other objects to control and interact with, which will do wonders for the strategic element of the game. How can you have front lines when you may not even be able to control a whole system, and the enemy can just go around you? Chris was showing off a tech demo of the system at GamesCom as well, and it looking impressive, but we'll need to see how it handles. This "Size to Detail" balance will need to be carefully tweaked so that games aren't too small.
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This is the game that might make me buy a new PC.

Let's hope for :incline here.

 

Moving from an old PC to a new one really so much improved the SotS experience for me that I only hope that I won't have to upgrade *again* for SotS2. If the battles take just a second or two to load then I'm not afraid anymore to have three or more per turn. And if 5minutes battles really means 5 minutes, and not 15 because the PC can't keep up then I'm suddenly able to finish a few turns per gaming session as opposed to finishing just one.

The trailer on that website was fun. Especially its clear references to Battlestar Galactica all over the place...

 

good to know that they have solar systems now, 1st game was totally dumbed down in this area

 

They present it as quite an amazing leap forward for something which has been around since even MoOII was just a twinkle in its designers eye. Meh, I disliked the first and don't have very high hopes for this one.

 

Yeah, I couldn't get into the first at all.

 

I liked the battles in the first, but planet management was too simplistic.

Actually, the only space 4x games where I liked planet management were MoO 1 and 2 and the Space Empires games. Most others I tried were just way too simplistic.

Good to hear they want to improve that element.

 

What about EoFS? How dare you say simplistic.

 

Ah, I didn't play that one yet.

 

Planetary assaults: They have 400 units, air and naval superiority, we can deploy about 8 units. Reinforcements would be unlikely to arrive sooner than in two turns, and they can mount a surprise assault with torpedo bombers. So lets win.
BTW naval ships are toast when someone has control of the orbit, even with anti-orbit weapons.

While AI is relatively benign, it shows some real aspect of space warfare.

(Increase tech cost 10x, and increase time until first elections.)