Star Dynasties – Crusader Kings In Space

[Axioms]

I went back to check out what has been added to this game since I had last played, and I was very disappointed to see that they had stopped development for the base game and actually had the audacity to release as a DLC improvements that should have been improvements added to the base game.

I was willing to purchase the game despite its limited content based on how the developer seemed to be continuing to work on adding new features.

And not only did what should have been a normal update get released as a DLC, but the developer appears to have stopped all development within 5 months of the release of the DLC, which definitely makes it look like nothing more than a cash grab that didn't even go towards raising funds to continue working on the game.

I can understand that a small indie developer may not have the time and resources to continue working on a game, especially if it doesn't sell well, but I strongly got the impression that the developer was planning on fleshing out this very bare bones game based on what I had seen them write about it. If this was all it was ever going to be, I feel the developer dropped the ball on communicating that before hand.

My understanding, and I talked to the dev a lot on discord, is that basically the money isn't there. And the potential playerbase rejected key principles in the design. In that sense it was the opposite of a cash grab, he refused to compromise on a pillar of the design knowing that meant the game was dead. Sometimes a game comes out that would do amazing with a single large change and maybe some small ones, and companies like Paradox give no fucks, they'll change anything for dollars because they are lead by soulless executives. Imagine EU4 but the players truly and concretely, rather than just whining and still shelling out for 20$ DLC, revolted against mana and demanded something else. That is what happened here. But the dev didn't have the built in masochist fan base who would buy the game no matter what.

 

[darkpatriot]

I went back to check out what has been added to this game since I had last played, and I was very disappointed to see that they had stopped development for the base game and actually had the audacity to release as a DLC improvements that should have been improvements added to the base game.

I was willing to purchase the game despite its limited content based on how the developer seemed to be continuing to work on adding new features.

And not only did what should have been a normal update get released as a DLC, but the developer appears to have stopped all development within 5 months of the release of the DLC, which definitely makes it look like nothing more than a cash grab that didn't even go towards raising funds to continue working on the game.

I can understand that a small indie developer may not have the time and resources to continue working on a game, especially if it doesn't sell well, but I strongly got the impression that the developer was planning on fleshing out this very bare bones game based on what I had seen them write about it. If this was all it was ever going to be, I feel the developer dropped the ball on communicating that before hand.

My understanding, and I talked to the dev a lot on discord, is that basically the money isn't there. And the potential playerbase rejected key principles in the design. In that sense it was the opposite of a cash grab, he refused to compromise on a pillar of the design knowing that meant the game was dead. Sometimes a game comes out that would do amazing with a single large change and maybe some small ones, and companies like Paradox give no fucks, they'll change anything for dollars because they are lead by soulless executives. Imagine EU4 but the players truly and concretely, rather than just whining and still shelling out for 20$ DLC, revolted against mana and demanded something else. That is what happened here. But the dev didn't have the built in masochist fan base who would buy the game no matter what.

Was it the combat? I seem to recall some dev diary or post where the dev stated he specifically went for minimalist combat to de-emphasize that part of the game, even though it was a major complaint players had and it could have been improved significantly without moving the focus away from the diplomacy/intrigue/etc...

I guess it could have also been the economy, also. The economy was also pretty bare bones with not much going on and not many significant decisions to make.

 

[Axioms]

I went back to check out what has been added to this game since I had last played, and I was very disappointed to see that they had stopped development for the base game and actually had the audacity to release as a DLC improvements that should have been improvements added to the base game.

I was willing to purchase the game despite its limited content based on how the developer seemed to be continuing to work on adding new features.

And not only did what should have been a normal update get released as a DLC, but the developer appears to have stopped all development within 5 months of the release of the DLC, which definitely makes it look like nothing more than a cash grab that didn't even go towards raising funds to continue working on the game.

I can understand that a small indie developer may not have the time and resources to continue working on a game, especially if it doesn't sell well, but I strongly got the impression that the developer was planning on fleshing out this very bare bones game based on what I had seen them write about it. If this was all it was ever going to be, I feel the developer dropped the ball on communicating that before hand.

My understanding, and I talked to the dev a lot on discord, is that basically the money isn't there. And the potential playerbase rejected key principles in the design. In that sense it was the opposite of a cash grab, he refused to compromise on a pillar of the design knowing that meant the game was dead. Sometimes a game comes out that would do amazing with a single large change and maybe some small ones, and companies like Paradox give no fucks, they'll change anything for dollars because they are lead by soulless executives. Imagine EU4 but the players truly and concretely, rather than just whining and still shelling out for 20$ DLC, revolted against mana and demanded something else. That is what happened here. But the dev didn't have the built in masochist fan base who would buy the game no matter what.

Was it the combat? I seem to recall some dev diary or post where the dev stated he specifically went for minimalist combat to de-emphasize that part of the game, even though it was a major complaint players had and it could have been improved significantly without moving the focus away from the diplomacy/intrigue/etc...

I guess it could have also been the economy, also. The economy was also pretty bare bones with not much going on and not many significant decisions to make.

Actually no. Also the economy got a large content boost later. In relative terms anyways.

There were several unpopular design choices but the most unpopular and the one the dev refused to back down on was color coded action probabilities and lack of player diplomatic agency. Blue? 100%. Red? 0%. Yellow? 1%-99%. Additionally you can't propose marriages, or any other diplomatic actions, like paying money, only the AI can suggest it. You can spend 5 of you 12-18 AP on some action like asking a planet to join you and if it is yellow maybe you never even had a shot.

The dev originally refused to listen to feedback asking for a family builder as well. He *really* wanted to stick you with a random family.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

sounds like he rooted for all the wrong choices.

 

[Norfleet]

Was it the combat? I seem to recall some dev diary or post where the dev stated he specifically went for minimalist combat to de-emphasize that part of the game, even though it was a major complaint players had and it could have been improved significantly without moving the focus away from the diplomacy/intrigue/etc...

The problem is that while de-emphasizing combat, he didn't make any of the OTHER elements of the game good either. Everything about it just looked like shit.

 

[Axioms]

Was it the combat? I seem to recall some dev diary or post where the dev stated he specifically went for minimalist combat to de-emphasize that part of the game, even though it was a major complaint players had and it could have been improved significantly without moving the focus away from the diplomacy/intrigue/etc...

The problem is that while de-emphasizing combat, he didn't make any of the OTHER elements of the game good either. Everything about it just looked like shit.

Eh, I enjoy minmaxing it. Plenty of the elements are average, but then he did the whole spend 30% of your AP on an action and you can't tell if you have a 1% or 99% chance of success thing. Woops.

 

[Norfleet]

Eh, I enjoy minmaxing it. Plenty of the elements are average, but then he did the whole spend 30% of your AP on an action and you can't tell if you have a 1% or 99% chance of success thing. Woops.

I would have gone with a red-to-blue colorcode where red actions are certain failures and blue ones are certain successes, and the chance would then be reflected by the position of the color along the spectrum, if I were hellbent on hiding the percentage.

 

[Axioms]

Eh, I enjoy minmaxing it. Plenty of the elements are average, but then he did the whole spend 30% of your AP on an action and you can't tell if you have a 1% or 99% chance of success thing. Woops.

I would have gone with a red-to-blue colorcode where red actions are certain failures and blue ones are certain successes, and the chance would then be reflected by the position of the color along the spectrum, if I were hellbent on hiding the percentage.

Yeah that is probably my number one complaint with the game. AP is heavily restricted and therefore so are actions per turn. Spending 5AP on something without even knowing the odds is just a no-no. And then say you have 5 yellow options to ask dukes to be your vassal, well in many cases all 5 of those dukes want your heir to marry someone. They'd be red without that.

 

[Gostak]

This game is criminally underrated IMO. Especially because there is nothing really like it apart from the Crusader Kings games (of which I never played one or three yet, mind you).
Too bad it did not attract a crowd and kept people adding to it (it's got modding capabilities which appear to not be stellar but at least decent and available as tooling to fans).
A few got created and I can see myself toying around with the tool at some point in the future.

I might have missed the meta to steamroll acquiring systems after systems each turn as Axiom described he was capable of somewhere.
But he also said he restarts if the starting position does not suit him and might have been playing an older version at that time ...

At least if you accept what you are given you can have a great time here for sure.
There will be fewer instant gratifications and more actual grand strategy-y things with patient planning, setup and flawless lucky execution at best.
There are meaningful choices to make here for sure. Most things are pretty transparent and you can make educated choices.
Things generally make sense and the modelling of the characters is pretty marvelous here, especially in contrast to the much, much more shallow one of Crusader Kings II (also no instant travel for your marshalls to star in battles miles and miles with no end apart but only separated in time by a day or two...).
The interface is a little bit clunky but not bad really.

Sure, asking for a bit too much money in addition to some suggested deal when both parties would have been fine with a bit less money in addition feels a bit fourth wall/ immersion breaking.
But otherwise there is plenty where this game shines!
It's all the more impressive that to my knowledge it's mostly(?) the work of a single developer.

I do not mind the red 0% yellow 1-99% but you can only guess or attempt to deduce and blue 100% indications for options you can invest some of your AP into for the turn which represents six months in game time.

I'm a huge fan for sure as evidenced here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/your-top-9-games-2023-edition.147815/post-8733105

Definitely recommended wholeheartedly.

EDIT:
One warning, though: The game seems to run your system hot for no good reason (I voiced that it might be missing something like this:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/high-cpu-usage.581494/#post-3876277
Being a Unity based game IIRC, that might get helped with e.g. dnSpy)

 

[Axioms]

This game is criminally underrated IMO. Especially because there is nothing really like it apart from the Crusader Kings games (of which I never played one or three yet, mind you).
Too bad it did not attract a crowd and kept people adding to it (it's got modding capabilities which appear to not be stellar but at least decent and available as tooling to fans).
A few got created and I can see myself toying around with the tool at some point in the future.

I might have missed the meta to steamroll acquiring systems after systems each turn as Axiom described he was capable of somewhere.
But he also said he restarts if the starting position does not suit him and might have been playing an older version at that time ...

At least if you accept what you are given you can have a great time here for sure.
There will be fewer instant gratifications and more actual grand strategy-y things with patient planning, setup and flawless lucky execution at best.
There are meaningful choices to make here for sure. Most things are pretty transparent and you can make educated choices.
Things generally make sense and the modelling of the characters is pretty marvelous here, especially in contrast to the much, much more shallow one of Crusader Kings II (also no instant travel for your marshalls to star in battles miles and miles with no end apart but only separated in time by a day or two...).
The interface is a little bit clunky but not bad really.

Sure, asking for a bit too much money in addition to some suggested deal when both parties would have been fine with a bit less money in addition feels a bit fourth wall/ immersion breaking.
But otherwise there is plenty where this game shines!
It's all the more impressive that to my knowledge it's mostly(?) the work of a single developer.

I do not mind the red 0% yellow 1-99% but you can only guess or attempt to deduce and blue 100% indications for options you can invest some of your AP into for the turn which represents six months in game time.

I'm a huge fan for sure as evidenced here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/your-top-9-games-2023-edition.147815/post-8733105

Definitely recommended wholeheartedly.

EDIT:
One warning, though: The game seems to run your system hot for no good reason (I voiced that it might be missing something like this:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/high-cpu-usage.581494/#post-3876277
Being a Unity based game IIRC, that might get helped with e.g. dnSpy)

To be clear, rerolling was to find the absolute fastest possible win time. It is also possible to win the game without rerolling in far fewer turns than the developer intended. You can do basically anything you want and win the game on turn 50 or so, often before your first character ever dies.

Star Dynasties absolutely could have been a hit if the dev didn't make several key mistakes, some of which he was 100% personally committed to, like color coding. I understand his reasoning but I also understand the need to not go broke and shut down development.

Star Dynasties runs your computer hot because it is a Unity game, the same reason it has weird hitches in the UI at times for seemingly no reason and also the same reason it has a massive saveload memory leak. All 3 of this problems are also present in another recently released Unity game, Millennia. The reason basically every single Unity game in existence runs hot is apparently related to devs not setting a framerate cap and letting Unity spit out an insane FPS for games that are not shooters and therefore don't ever need to be faster than 30 or 60. But Unity is letting it hit 250 sometimes. And even more so, when you are paused or in a menu, the framerate doesn't have to wait for gamelogic, and the image isn't changing, allowing these games to hit well into the 100s for literally no reason.

 

[Gostak]

I guess if you use the DLC to design your starting dynasty to be blessed with some OP trait combos or whatnot, rerolling for a convenient starlane network and know some OP snowball meta
thing you might win in 25 years (50 turns), I still find it hard to picture, though.

"I would also like the player experience to be focused on navigating a branching narrative that rewards strategic thinking, with less administrative micromanagement tasks such as troop movement"
I'd say he accomplished that with flying colors.

 

[Axioms]

I guess if you use the DLC to design your starting dynasty to be blessed with some OP trait combos or whatnot, rerolling for a convenient starlane network and know some OP snowball meta
thing you might win in 25 years (50 turns), I still find it hard to picture, though.

"I would also like the player experience to be focused on navigating a branching narrative that rewards strategic thinking, with less administrative micromanagement tasks such as troop movement"
I'd say he accomplished that with flying colors.

I mean in the original game your family was random. Which was hilarious. One time my sister rolled as an archon and then just became my vassal with her 32 starting planets.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Alliance of the Sacred Suns is coming out soonish and it just seems like this game but better, downside is you're forced to play as the emperor i suppose. Stellar monarch 1 and 2 are similar in that regard.

 

[Axioms]

Alliance of the Sacred Suns is coming out soonish and it just seems like this game but better, downside is you're forced to play as the emperor i suppose. Stellar monarch 1 and 2 are similar in that regard.

Yeah the holy trinity of dune-likes. AotSS is a quite different game from Star Dynasties though, all the way back to when it was called Imperia 5X in like 2015-2016. And Stellar Monarch 1 and 2 are different from both. Much more difference among the 3 games than something like Old World/Millennia/Humankind/Civ are different.

AotSS has higher production values but also they heavily limited the game as far as what you can do. An example being only having one character as you said. And a strong narrative element and static map.