Sword of the Stars: Argos Naval Yard Interview

[Seboss]

Honest Gamers have put up an interesting interview with Kerberos CEO and lead designer Martin "Mecron" Cirulis about Sword of the Stars and its latest expansion Argos Naval Yard (available now):

HG: Sword of the Stars has a lot more in common with the early DOS strategy titles than more contemporary ones. Was this a deliberate move by Kerberos?

Martin: [...] A lot of the slow slide into spreadsheet levels-of-detail in space 4X has generally be driven by the fact it is easier to present and move large amounts of data around than it is to actually open up gameplay to modern control and presentation standards. [...] It is this sort of thinking that led us towards opening up space combat both in terms of graphics and control while cleaving away some of the strategic micro-management that has become the de facto standard in space 4X. [...]

HG: Sword of the Stars has been splitting critical opinion down the middle for as long as it's been around. How do you feel about the games' reception?

Martin: Overall, we are pretty pleased. Oh sure, there was some surprise at how hard a couple of knees jerked initially, but that’s to be expected when you take a few chances and are not shy about the things you think might be broken in the status quo. All in all, the initial release of SotS was refreshing and brave but even I would have raised an eyebrow over giving it a perfect score. The important thing was that the reception made it very clear, love it or hate it, something new had come to the genre.

[...]

HG: Moving on, what can we expect from Argos Naval Yard in June?

Martin: Argos Naval Yard is meant to be a big gift box of mayhem. Basically it is all the things we wanted to put into other expansions, but just didn’t fit thematically and all that combined with a few of our favorite fan requests. So in it you can find a bunch of new ship sections for all the races as well as specialty single section ships like the Propaganda cruiser that can raise morale on your worlds or help crush it on enemy worlds to race-specific ships like the Zuul Devourer and the Liir Protector. Alongside all this heavy metal comes a handful of new weapons with exotic effects and, of course, the tech to support them.
[...]
As to why it’s a micro-expansion instead of a full-price racial expansion is because Sword of the Stars already has the 2 new races that were planned on in the beginning. If we were to cram a new one in now it would seem just like that, putting it in for the sake of upping the price, and I think our fan base has come to expect more from us.

Nice. Now that you guys have milked Sword of the Stars to death, how about working on a ... I dunno .. a new game maybe ? (Hint: North Star)

 

[The Dude]

I've stated time and again how much I love this game, but Argos is leaving me a little underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, it's great value for money compared to most other DLC and it's always fun to have new toys to play with, but I think it's missing that Kerberos touch. The brilliance that made the previous expansions not mere addons but parts of a well thought out whole is missing. They know it though, as evidenced by this interview and they said it when they announced the addon, but I still hope their design philosophy regarding expansions doesn't change.

And yeah, Northstar will be totally droolworthy if it lives up to its premises. I'm unsure how their pipeline looks though. Fort Zombie is often stated to be the next finished project but it's been awfully quiet around that game lately, and there's even less info about that than there's about Northstar. Maybe they put it on the backburner or cancelled it to go full speed ahead on Northstar, I dunno.

 

[Seboss]

Yes, I'm not a regular of their forums but the Kerberos guys, and especially Mecron, seems like a weird bunch.
It's rather difficult to evaluate where they stand on anything.

Anyway, SotS has been fairly successful lately and that's pretty nice for them, but I hope they won't postpone North Star in favor of SotS 2.

 

[The Dude]

sadly I don't think we are going to see nstar this fall...SotS has just been too damn popular :D :D

That makes me a sad panda. I've really been looking forward to North Star but it looks like SotS 2 takes precedence. It's probably healthy considering the current economic climate, but still...

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

How does this compare to Sins of a Solar Empire, because I wasn't too wild about SoSE.

Oddly enough I would consider myself a fan of the 4x space genre, but I only really liked MOO 1 and 2. Galciv2 and SoSE irritate me.

 

[Seboss]

It has as much connection as TW has with any RTS.
The strategy map is turn based and only the battles are real time and can be auto-resolved.

It's more accessible than most 4X and it mostly focuses on research, industrial output and tactics.
The planetary management is pretty straightforward, you don't have to micromanage buildings or population demands. You merely have to play with a handful of sliders (research budget, industry budget, overharvesting, terraforming and trade) to control the industrial ouput and growth of your planets.

Battles generally involve 40 ships at a time (+ reinforcements) and last 240s by default. You have to carefully choose your weapons and scanner loadout depending on the enemy's. Bringing the biggest gun available is not necessarily your best choice.
Battles are won by outmaneuvering and smart subsystem targetting rather than lassoing the bulk of your fleets at the enemy without a second thought unlike SoSE and most RTSs.

Many 4X fans think SotS is too shallow but I think that's its streamlined gameplay is its main strength actually. It's one of the few 4X that doesn't require to spend 75% of your time looking at spreadsheets and hauling thousands of numbers around.
While a large map requires only a couple of evening sessions to complete (or get obliterated), the 6 different races have enough difference in strategy and gameplay to provide a fairly good replayability; again unlike SoSE which three races are too similar to provide enough variety in the long run.

 

[Jeff Graw]

How does this compare to Sins of a Solar Empire, because I wasn't too wild about SoSE.

Oddly enough I would consider myself a fan of the 4x space genre, but I only really liked MOO 1 and 2. Galciv2 and SoSE irritate me.

MoO1 > MoO2 > SoTS == BoTF > SoaSE == MoO3 (heavily modded) > Galciv == Space Empires > MoO3 (vanilla)

That's about where it slots in. Worth a shot for sure.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Sounds like a lot of SotS love around here. Might grab that complete pack on Steam for $16, then. The battles actually looked a bit more exciting than SoaSE's for being realtime. SoaSE tended to devolve into "Move into maximum firing range and shoot while holding still", whereas SotS looks more dynamic.

And hell, you saying mentioning Total War is a pretty good sign. Only drawback is it looks like SotS doesn't have heroes, and watching generals and kings evolve with the traits system in TW is half the fun.

And oh shit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsbBfwvNddc
Just googled up that quick gameplay video. Even that small battle is more exciting looking than SoaSE. Hmm!

 

[ricolikesrice]

...

i ve been looking for a strategy game in space with capital ship battles lately. bought Nexus - Jupiter Incident but well .... aside from great graphics (especially for a 2004 game) there s not much to talk about... pretty shallow gameplaywise. downloaded sins of a solar empire demo but it doesnt really appeal to me either, as the poster above already said ... space battles look pretty stupid with the ships just "standing there" .

this looks failry interesting, i remember i already looked up on SotS but was immediatly scared away by screenshots of buttugly spaceships that looked like some 4 y old painted them with way too much colour. but after checking some vids on youtube it doesnt look THAT bad (although a bit too colourfull for my liking still ).

anyways, i ve seen there s a demo for this - does that demo offer a good view on the game ? quite often there s demos that make games look worse then they actually are, thats why i m asking, especially seeing SoTs got quite some patches/addons already, aye ?

 

[Seboss]

Only drawback is it looks like SotS doesn't have heroes, and watching generals and kings evolve with the traits system in TW is half the fun

True and it's not possible to upgrade ships either. This means you're not able to have a 'flagship' which you'll get through numerous battles and keep up to date with latest technology.
In SotS, ships are meant to die in battle, burn in a planet atmosphere or eventually be scuttled once you're done with them.

Make sure to check out some TARs on Kerberos forums. This one is pretty fun and interesting for a new player.

 

[someone else]

Re: ...

i ve been looking for a strategy game in space with capital ship battles lately.

Have you tried Battleships Forever? Free but only tactical combat:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/games.php

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Some impressively bad voice acting, but this is a good game thus far. I actually enjoy that the strategic map is more... General, than most 4X games. Instead of going to every planet and saying "Ok, you build a space granary, and you build a space barracks", you just adjust the sliders to say "STOP MAKING MONEY START MAKING SHIPS". Iron fisted space emperors should give orders, not micromanage the serfs.

Also enjoy how the best way to do play the battles is more general, too. Seems like your primary contribution is the makeup of your fleet and the formation they're in, and it's generally best to give them a general order of "Stay at range" or "Get close" than to individually micromanage them.

Happy thus far. Spent $10 on Sins of a Solar Empire and $16 on this, and this definitely seems to be the better of the two. Did take me a while to fully figure out redesigning my ships for each upgrade though. Would be nice if they automatically updated your "Base" designs with the latest tech, but no biggy.

 

[Zeros]

Also enjoy how the best way to do play the battles is more general, too. Seems like your primary contribution is the makeup of your fleet and the formation they're in, and it's generally best to give them a general order of "Stay at range" or "Get close" than to individually micromanage them.

Sometimes, yes. But other times you might need to target specific subsystems (to recover an asteroid monitor special encounter for example) so holding fire on certain weapons or moving around the ship to avoid the enemies' firing arcs while keeping them on your own is a better idea.

Also some races tend to have different firing arcs on their ships, so you can take advantage of that and set up proper lines/walls, at least from time to time during a battle.

Autoresolve is fairly trustable, if you get around to having way too many (unimportant) battles on a turn. I have the impression that it mostly takes into account firing power while ignoring distances, so if you are fighting with certain weapons pay attention to that. I refer principally to missiles, which let you bang them enemies from a good distance if you can maintain it.