Sid Meier's New Game Is About Starships 227
jones_supa writes: The next game from the mind of veteran strategy and simulation game designer Sid Meier has been revealed. 2K and Firaxis Games have announced Sid Meier's Starships, a turn-based interstellar strategy game scheduled to arrive in early 2015 for Windows, OS X, and iOS (iPad). In the game, you control a fleet of starships as you journey through the galaxy to complete missions, protect planets and their inhabitants, and build a planetary federation. As you trek through the stars, you will be challenged to expand your federation's influence and reach. You shall also amass futuristic technology and take part in combat using a deep roster of customizable ships. When designing Starships, Meier was intrigued by the idea of exploring the next chapter in the story of Civilization: Beyond Earth. "What happens after we colonize our new home and eventually build starships to take to the stars? What has become of our long-lost brothers and sisters from the planet Earth," Meier asks. "My goal was to create an experience that focuses on starship design and combat within a universe filled with interstellar adventure, diplomacy, and exploration."
We can only hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
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AMD Phenom X4 9850 (ca. 2008)
nForce 4 based motherboard (ca. 2007)
GeForce 275 GTX (ca. a while back)
4 GB ddr2-800 main memory
Starting to get dated now, but Beyond Earth runs very smoothly on it.
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I just tried Beyond Earth (free on Steam - wuhu).
Seems smooth, but manages to be more glitchy than Civ5 - has several of the same issues, but throws in a few extra (incl being not-stable).
Overall: Good game, shame they forgot to fix things.
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Next step: Endless Legend. Go try it, you'll likely be impressed.
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Just edit Wikipedia and it should fix itself, right? :)
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Some cities were owned by different empires at different times. Could that be the issue?
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Wot? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Gal Civ series is part of a long-existing genre of space-based 4x games. We even had them back in the day when we used ASCII characters for the graphics (stars of course represented by asterisks), and the games were typed in by hand from BASIC source code in books.
The same goes for Civilization of course. At its heart, that series is just a re-imaging of classic Empire [wolfpackempire.com]. The trick is what new things can be done with the genre, and can it be made more fun. Sid's got a good track record with that, so it
I don't like to hear about competition (Score:3)
My theory was that with all the fame of games like Clash of Clans, why not take competition one step further to games like Risk, Civilization, or Master of Orion?
Touch pad is perfect for those turn based games like that. They're just a bit more challenging to write since you need to write a custom active server since P2P would just invite hackers to ruin your day.
I could talk more on this project, but its so early in development that it isn't anything more than a hobby affair. I was thinking of taking my time on this one, sculpt it just right, and have good polish on it for 2-4 years out from now. One of the things slowing me down is that I can't seem to get Java to communicate with AS3 via sockets. So it is looking like I'll probably have to write my game server in C/C++ which will be a challenge without garbage collection, nice arrays, debugging, nice strings, an ide, and so forth.
Re:I don't like to hear about competition (Score:4, Informative)
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Said no gamer ever.
Sorry, but if you think touch is good for Turn Based Strategy games you haven't tried to play a touchscreen game for 3 hours and for a good TBS game, 3 hours is a short session.
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Touch pad is perfect for games where you make choices in drop down menus like a turn based strategy game, or a game like Final Fantasy. The touch pad generally fails for action oriented reflex/twitch video games as the controls aren't crisp.
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So it's a good thing that touch interfaces can have modal features like menus that appear when needed instead of every button having to be on the screen all the time...
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Erlang. Write your game server in Erlang. It's made for stuff like this - look it up. A lot of high availability, very scalable server side stuff is written in Erlang. Including the servers for Clash of Clans. Did I mention that you should write your game server in Erlang? you really should :)
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you could just do the communication part in c/c++ if you really had to... a really minor thing in the big picture of things. and really minor compared to your choice of using AS3 for the game itself...
you might be well better off just learning qml and javascript and doing it in that if you want use something like that which compiles nicely to a osx/ios/android/windows (qt has a nice c++ ide too..) application.
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If the thing materializes better, I'd definitely like to have someone who knows marketing on board and how to make a successful kick starter. If you know anyone like that, let me know. I even have a use for a marketer
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anything has to be better than beyond earth (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been gypped with Beyond Earth.. It's definitely crap at this point. Sorry Sid, the magic is gone.
Re:anything has to be better than beyond earth (Score:5, Informative)
I've been gypped with Beyond Earth.. It's definitely crap at this point. Sorry Sid, the magic is gone.
Its been bad since Civ V.
Civ IV: Beyond the Sword was the high point of the Civ series, it's now in decline thanks to Firaxis chasing the casual dollar. The fact this new game is coming out for Ipads is a clear warning it's going to be seriously gimped. I dont think Sid Maier has much, if any input on the current games that carry his name, a lot like Tom Clancy.
I took a pass on Beyond Earth because Civ V was so horrible. In fact I'm still playing Civ IV BTS over Civ V.
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I'm still bewildered that Firaxis actually cannot find a way to make a turn-based game function in multiplayer. I'm pretty sure like every other developer on the planet has managed this feat, but somehow not Firaxis.
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Same here. Civ V was the last game I bought without at least downloading a cracked copy and testing it myself - it was such a huge disappointment. I still suspect the reviewers were bribed somehow, or perhaps tested the game before it got radically dumbed down, just before release?
It's not until recently that I dare buy games again, after watching reviews on youtube so I can see it for myse
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I still suspect the reviewers were bribed somehow, or perhaps tested the game before it got radically dumbed down, just before release?
I think the glowing reviews of Civ5 are explainable without resorting to bribery or shenanigans by the developer as the cause.
I am a long term but relatively moderate Civ player. I've been playing since the first Civilization and have played all of them since then. Including Civilization: Call to Power and Call to Power 2, plus Alpha Centauri. And all of the Master of Orion games (including 3, regrettably) Master of Magic, and GalCiv and GalCiv2.
I am not an expert however. I can't beat any of them at t
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The other major issue with the series is that instead of simply improving upon the Civ4 series (by adding hexes and fixing the stack of death issues and doing work on the AI), they brought in a brand new designer who threw out all the le
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Civ 5 sure has problems, but it is a hell lot better than civ 4 mechanically. The abolition of the stacks of doom made the game so much more enjoyable.
Honestly my main grip with all civs are the crappy AI, after you master the game mechanics the game either becomes too easy in the easier difficulties or unfair in the harder difficulties (requiring you to find the exploits the game tech tree and enemy AI).
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I think his last really good strategy game was Alpha Centauri and it was Brian Reynolds who did most of the work.
Beyond Earth is one of the worst he did. Trash. I thought it was even worse than the much maligned Pandora: First Contact that came out shorty before BE.
Firaxis has done some good games though. Like XCOM. But once again its another rehash of an old game. Can't they think of anything new?
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I thought Civ5 was a lot better than either Civ3 or Civ4. At least it tried to be different in terms of the rules and for the most part it actually worked. Beyond Earth seemed like a rushed job and was poorly put together. The 'random' tech tree was pointless and sterile. Ascendancy did that a lot better.
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There was a time when Sid Meier was known for coming up with new games in a serial fashion. I mean you had Shogun, Pirates!, Civilization, Silent Service, F-15 Strike Eagle, Railroad Tycoon, etc. But that time is long gone. His name is put into endless recycles of Civilization and old Microprose game while the actual development teams of the sequels range from good, to crap. His last really new game was SimGolf which most people did not even bother playing at all.
Then again he did so many good game concepts
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Sorry I meant Sword of the Samurai. Shogun was by someone else.
A Boom in Civilization (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers? This is patently absurd (though perhaps fun in a game). Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space? Or is this war thing predicated on humans being out there?
We are entrained to believe wars are inevitable, due to differences in opinion or scarcity of material. May I once again posit that war is not a natural result of being human, but rather one put upon mankind by strong, selfish, sociopaths that profit from it?
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Because if you look at previous phases of human exploration, they all involved lots of fighting, too. There's no reason to think that exploring space will be any different - there's a lot of empty nothing out there, punctuated by a few hospitable pieces of rock. The first person to land on and claim a given rock for his own purpose damn well better be prepared to defend it from the next 30 guys who try to land and claim it for their purposes.
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Previous phases of human exploration had a number of common or frequent driving elements that space exploration is not likely to have. Such as: zealous religious missionary activities, conquest at behest of the king, racist judgement and condemnation of indigenous cultures, imperialist overreach into another country for minerals, slaves or other goods, etc. Most of that ideology is driven by the social thinkers/drivers at the top (or the powers behind the throne) and the privileged class just below that, no
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Most of that ideology is driven by the social thinkers/drivers at the top (or the powers behind the throne) and the privileged class just below that, not by the average citizens who prefer to just raise their families in peace.
You under-estimate the desire of the average citizen to have his country win.
To Godwin this thread immediately, consider that Hitler didn't have to convince his country to go to war.....he merely went along with a desire that already existed in his countrymen. This also goes along with his irrational hatred of the Jews.
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That need not manifest in the form of war. Think of sports, for example.
Really? So all those speeches were really just because he loved his own voice? Not to mention the rest of the Nazi pr
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Really? So all those speeches were really just because he loved his own voice?
Well, if you'd actually like to understand how politics works, you can start by realizing that people aren't going to vote for him if they don't A)know who he is and B) think he can accomplish what he promises.
Surely you at least realize that the age old trick of politicians everywhere is to tell people what they want to hear.
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Most of that ideology is driven by the social thinkers/drivers at the top (or the powers behind the throne) and the privileged class just below that, not by the average citizens who prefer to just raise their families in peace.
Organized human civilization has been around, what, 10,000 years? How do you suppose bands of humans dealt with some new group that showed up and wanted their fishing spot or their hunting spot or women? Pretty much everyone had some stake in the outcome and hiring a "conflict resolution facilitator" wasn't really an option.
Even a lot of Roman military activity up to about the Marian era wasn't necessarily expansionist but considered defensive against various Gallic and Germanic tribes who made incursions
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If travel is fast and cheap, the universe is
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(Also, unless your travel mechanism posits something super-
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To anyone for whom interstellar travel is feasible, 'limited resources' isn't a thing that exists. There's literally nothing to fight over. Well, realistically speaking. A game in no way has to be (or should necessarily be) realistic.
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Think about it, war is extremely unlikely among interstellar species. With that level of technology, you're not gonna be hunting for food. Nor will scarcity of materials be a problem. Come on, you can travel among the stars, and you're gonna find one particular solar system that you just gotta have, right? Because this one system is just soooo cool, and there are no others out there like it. So, you figure "I'll just kill off the other interstellar species using the planets there and it'll be all mine!"
Or
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Because this one system is just soooo cool, and there are no others out there like it.
Well, you could say that about the Middle East vs. the Gobi Desert -- because that ONE patch of sand has something and no others out there are like it.
As it turns out, some patches of sand in the Middle East turn out to actually have something no others out there like it have and that something (oil) turns out to be hugely important for managing and maintaining your inter(steller)national empire.
Who's to say the same would
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While it is unlikely that 2 different races would meet with similar levels of technology (at least similar enough to have a war rather than a massacre) Its more likely that humans could end up fighting other humans. Think of Star Wars )rebels trying to break away from the Empire)
And habitable planets seem rare enough to fight over so far.
Re:A Boom in Civilization (Score:5, Informative)
Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers?
Nobody assumes it's mandatory for space travellers.
Lots of people assume it's mandatory if you want to make a profit selling your space-themed video game. And they're probably right about that.
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All activities in EVE (other then agent-driven mission running) are PvP. Selling on the market? You're PvPing against the other sellers who want to undercut you and sell their product faster. Mining? You're competing to harvest before someone else comes and harvests the resource.
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Why is war an assumed mandatory condition for space travelers? This is patently absurd (though perhaps fun in a game). Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space? Or is this war thing predicated on humans being out there?
We are entrained to believe wars are inevitable, due to differences in opinion or scarcity of material. May I once again posit that war is not a natural result of being human, but rather one put upon mankind by strong, selfish, sociopaths that profit from it?
There is so much we don't know that we can't really assume one way or another. Face it, we don't even know if interstellar travel is even possible (and it is not at all clear that it is possible with our present technology, and reasonable travel times require technologies that we don't know about).
The Earth seems to be at just about the minimum size needed to have plate tectonics, which is needed to keep the planet habitable long enough for complex life to arise. If that is the case most of the "habitable"
Re:A Boom in Civilization (Score:5, Interesting)
> Don't ya think we would have already located some extraterrestrials if there were wars going on in space?
Why would you think that? Let's open with a quote from Douglas Adams:
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Our own galaxy is 200,000 LIGHT YEARS across. This means it takes light 200,000 years to cross from one side to the other. It's friggin' enormous. And what we can observe is only relatively large energy sources like stars. Let's presume for a minute that there are some ETs happily engaged in armed conflict with each other 500 light years from us, tossing around 20 megaton nukes all day long like they're NBA players at a strip club making it rain. Assume that they are using 10,000 of such warheads against each others ships every day engaged in action around a star system. That's a total energy output of 200 GT (Gigatons) per day. The STAR in that system if it's a star like Sol will be putting out 7890000000000 GT per day of energy. How are we even supposed to detect 200GT more on top of that load? That's like going into Giants stadium at night and staring at the light arrays from the pitchers mound and trying to pick out someone flicking a lighter for a half a second in the midst of one of the arrays.
Secondly, I mentioned the "space is big" thing, right? Suppose these races developed doomsday devices that could actually kill stars and are happily wiping out each others' systems with nova-bombs. But they're fighting 500 LY away from us and their war only got really going 200 years ago. It's still going to be 300 years before we start seeing evidence of their handiwork.
Re:A Boom in Civilization (Score:5, Funny)
I thought our galaxy was only about 100,000 LY across
Wikipedia says 100,000 to 120,000
But maybe Samsung will come out with a bigger one
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It is just that war is a natural state for humans. Just look at Europe today. No matter how open and welcoming a society can be, there will always come along someone who demands subservience to the will of their sky pixie.
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Which no doubt explains Ukraine and Russia nicely.
Or not...
Hint: most wars aren't about religion (though religion is often an excuse for war), they're about power. See WW1 and 2 for examples....
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Though the best argument made in the novel is, 'juvenile delinquent' is an oxymoron.
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because it makes for a better space strategy game if you include the option for war between the factions.
it's not simspace you know.
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It's a natural result of life, apparently. Go look at some pictures of floppy-eared puppies, or fluffy kittens or fish or trees or algae or fungus: awwww, what cute warlike sociopaths. "You're eating my food, competing for my mate, or claiming my turf? Fuck you. DIE!!" Humanity is the only thing I ever heard of, who sometimes isn't sociopathic.
One can hy
No, no and no! (Score:3, Funny)
I am not installing this! Out of respect for my starved turtle (RRtycoon), ex-girlfriends (Civ 1 to 4),...
ugh (Score:2)
Linux support? (Score:5, Insightful)
No Linux support? What is this? 2014?
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Humble Bundle per-platform stats would disagree. Linux users tend to pay the most, followed by OSX users, with Windows users in the rear.
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They pay the most per individual. But there aren't many individuals.
It's sort o like the adage where you take a smaller margin on a product but make it up in volume - Windows users may pay less, but given they are 2/3rds or more (likely under-represented) they get the most money from them. Ditto OS X and Linux - they pay more, but there are less of them.
Now, if you charge
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Humble Bundle per-platform stats would disagree. Linux users tend to pay the most, followed by OSX users, with Windows users in the rear.
I bet starving people would pay more for a meal than a fatted American like myself.
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You're changing your point.
> and you Linux guys are all about the free?
Demonstrably not true.
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AIUI, the Monument Valley stats are incredibly badly done. For example, me buying it, installing it on my phone, tablet, upgrading my phone and installing it there, and so on would count as one purchase and multiple installs, and so a large inaccurate piracy rate.
I am aware that the Linux market is small, but it does have steadily accelerating support from vendors.
Personally, I won't buy it if it doesn't run on Linux (or android depending on the game), as it would be a waste of money. But I'm a fairly small
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If it's any consolation, my stats for Civ 5 count towards linux :) Also the X-COM game that I'm terrible at...
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You're talking about Ryan Gordon I guess.
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The continuing sync problems between the versions of other games has got me questioning if I would even buy this game if/when it was available on Linux.
I got the perfect title for it (Score:4, Funny)
Master of Orion!
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I was always fond of playing the Scumbag Humans(tm), sucking up all friendly-like to whoever was in the lead and 'helpfully' placing 'defensive' fleets (strangely consisting entirely of planetary bombardment designs and troop transports) around my ally's planets. __
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You only need like one or two Death Stars to win the game though.
Protect planets? (Score:2)
That seems to be targeting only a subset of consumers(*).
What if I want to build a totalitarian empire? Subjugate and control planets, turn their productive output towards my ever-growing fleet of interplanetary destroyers? Drive my enemies before me, hear the lamentation of their women, yada yada.
Sort of like Ronan [wikipedia.org] from Guardians of t
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No linux eh? (Score:2)
I'm no Linux zealot but I guess I know where the money I could have spent on this game will be going, to a nice selection of European beer while I play the free Xonotic game.
MOO (Score:3)
*Please*, please, please...let this be what I always hoped Master of Orion would become...
A turn-based game? (Score:2)
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Starships exploring the universe? (Score:2)
With detailed diplomacy, exploration, colonization....so, basically, Distant Worlds Universe?
Seriously, I've always liked Sid's games and I've been playing them for 30 years. But hey, DWU pretty thoroughly has that niche covered.
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Obviously not, it would be rather stupid to assume only one entity can exist in a commercial space. We have McDonald's and BK, we have WoW and (umpteen other clones of WoW).
My point was that it's perhaps not the best sense economically to make your foray into a different marketplace one in which there is already a very strong competitor that does everything you claim you want to do. Better to perhaps seek something novel instead of re-tread already worn ground?
Really from his mind? (Score:2)
How much of this is really from his mind, vs just being paid sufficient sums to allow his name to be stamped on it?
Spore (Score:5, Interesting)
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Star Traders? (Score:2)
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Don't like smugglers? Be a Bounty Hunter!!
Fighting not your style? Play an Explorer!
Maybe intrigue between factions is more your thing. Play a Spy!
There are many ways to play Star Traders.
Come to think of it, I play Star Traders on Android, so maybe that is why this new game is only for Windows, OSX, or iPad. The market already has this game (or a better game) on Android.
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FTL is great, but this sounds more like MOO than FTL.
Gotta say, I hope they keep the ship design/customization relatively straightforward. In theory in MOO/GalCiv/etc was cool, but the tech tree/dev was so fast paced I always felt like ships were obsolete by the time you finished building them.
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Master of Orion comes to mind..
first moo was pretty good. the sequels.. were missing something somehow.
a decent master of magic remake would be nice.
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MOO2 was pretty good too.. the only thing I remember disliking compared to the first one was the number of ships you could build were more limited due to different supply mechanics.
MOO3 wasn't evan a game, it was a fucking spreadsheet [realmsbeyond.net]. Never been more disappointed in a game. And I've played Daikatana and DNF.
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Was thinking the same thing. Or Pax Imperia [wikipedia.org].
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Now if you mean new material in the style with with the level of cooky inspired awesomeness that is SC2 then yes... totally yes
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Yeah it's the same song played with different instruments.
So what, it's a damn good song.
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Sounds more like Sid Meier's Pirates! except in space.
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In other words it is like Star Control or Homeworld.
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All those moments will be lost in time ...like tears in the rain.
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Time... to die.
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Perhaps.
But we rock and rollers burned so very, very bright!
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according to "Dangerous Days", Hauer adlibbed that entire scene, including the dove.
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Beyond Earth is trash. Avoid it like the plague.