Posted on: October 20, 2020

mecirt

Games: Reviews: 3

Very atmospheric game, very unfinished

EFS is a very conflicted game - it has absolutely amazing setting and atmosphere, and the gameplay is also awesome - at least during the first turns. You play as one of the five noble Nouses who are trying to recolonize a galaxy that has fallen into chaos. There are 30-40 planets to settle and fight on, each with a Civilization-style map. Each planet holds a variety of resources, you can build cities, roads, and a wide variety of units, ranging from simple militias to huge tanks, genetically modified soldiers, and spaceships. Religion plays a major role - Earth has became Holy Terra, and the Church will send powerful inquisitors to burn down any labs researching technologies that the Church deems dangerous for humanity. And then, there is a threat of the Symbiots, mutated (and very poweful) creatures that relentlessly conquer cities and planets ... Regent elections between surviving nobles are held periodically, and a regent can assign control of powerful fleets and units to Houses of his choice. This all sounds amazing, so, why only three stars? Simply - the game is unfinished and unfocused. The AI is almost non-existant, unit balance is all over the place, and crucially, the game gets way too bogged down in micromanagement after the first ~50 turns. Fan patches improve units a lot, but unfortunately, not much can be done about the AI or the micromanagement. Micromanagement is truly the worst - things are easy while you have two or three planets, but as soon as you conquer or build some cities on 10+ planets, it becomes pretty much impossible to keep track of things. There are no build queues, no city governors, no anything - every turn, you get a series of popups from random cities, asking what unit to build there next - good luck keeping track, you'll be hard-pressed to even figure out which city is which (there is no naming option). In conclusion, the game has amazing potential and is probably worth picking up, but expect a lot of rough edges.

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Posted on: November 27, 2022

Schukow99

Verified owner

Games: 80 Reviews: 1

25 Years later and a new patch

This is a game i played very casually for around 20 years and to which i could always come back. I dont know if it is the atmosphere of the game or the mechanics which make it fairly unique and oh so compelling...... and now now 25 years after it hit the shelves these madmen of developers patched it to Version 1.5! Okay, so what to expect? - Pretty unique universe (based on the fading suns RPG) with a heavy influence of Dune. Expect feudal nobles with swords, tanks, starships, OP-aliens, shapeshifting symbionts and the spanish inquisition thrown together in one setting. - Manyfold game mechanics. Sadly the AI cannot use all of them to their full functionality (which means some of the are reserved for Multiplayer). Want to assign your ally or yourself the imperial fleet and curbstomp the fleets of the enemy houses or blockade their planets? You can do that. Want the church and inquisition to go after a enemy house and raze down their laboratories, crippling their research? You can do that too. Dont want a enemy house to vote for the wrong emperor (or voting at all)? No problem, sent some spies or assassins to byzantium secundus and eliminate the voting noble. In short: The tactics allowed by the mechanics are mindboggling. - Great soundtrack. Seriously, you can listen to it on youtube if you dont believe me. Fits the dark age theme perfectly. - Modding. This got even easier with 1.5. You can change almost all of the parameters with a text editor. For example: I always change the engineer unit to be only producable in palasts. On a sidenote: This is recommended, it makes for a slower game and prevents the AI from plastering all their planets with cities in the first 50 turns. So for the negative side of things: - As i already said, the AI cannot use all of the mechanics., - Some of the mechanics have almost no effect on the game. This got better with 1.5, but is still kind of a issue. - Graphics: It came out in 1997. So what do you expect? 4.5 of 5 Stars.

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Posted on: February 19, 2023

doncon11

Verified owner

Games: 75 Reviews: 4

All Time Best 4x

As it is said "They don't make them like this anymore". Combine Dune and 40k and put it into a 4x Turn Based Strategy game with great Diplomacy, Resource Management and Combined Arms combat across Land, Air, Sea and Space and you get Emperor of the Fading Suns. My play time on this title is more than Stellaris, Endless Space 2 and Galactic Civilizations 3 combined. All of those titles are good but they suffer the great fault of almost all "modern" games - the lore and immersiveness is paper thin. EFS pulls you in from the first moment that the intro movie plays all the way to becoming Emperor of the Known Worlds. And now after 25 years HDI is actively developing and supporting it. Truly a good time to be a 4x gamer !

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Posted on: October 31, 2020

savefarris2004

Verified owner

Games: 11 Reviews: 1

A flawed masterpiece

I love this game. The basic version with the 1999 patch is what is sold here. You can add the Reality mod on top of the game to improve the experience as a sort of 40K Dune hybrid. If you like Total War's Warhammer, but wish you could also have an excellent grand strategy game for Warhammer 40k as well, this is as close as you can get to it with the atmosphere their galaxy's "know world's" basic Civilization like planets. It's got 4X space and Civ planets. Perfect for the space marine trying to purge the galaxy of xenos and help their house rule over all as the new Emperor of man. Very cool dark age in space feel with inquisitions, ruling houses, guilds, and forbidden techs by edicts from the ruling patriarch on holy Terra! It's so damn good and tied altogether with ancient jump gates. No warp here, but this a monstrous alien race consuming worlds while the houses compete for leadership (votes are held every ten turns). So good. However, it was made in 1997 and is heavily glitchy and flawed as it stands. As I said, the Reality mod cleans it up and their is another solid mod called Emperor Wars that adds all the flavor a die hard fan could ask for, but it's a bit overwhelming to start already in control of multiple planets with perhaps a hundred different and new units to micro manage from turn one. Reality is more of a slow burn crawling out of the dark ages that addresses some of the flaws and glitches in the original game. Highly recommend just starting with the Reality mod and ignoring the vanilla for the best experience. Buy it here for the in game videos and excellent music. This is also the model game that a real 40k grand strategy should be based on. Regardless, the lore of Emperor of the Fading Suns stands alone as most excellent scifi dark age lore to compete with both the Dune and Warhammer 40k universes.

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Posted on: September 3, 2021

Thar

Verified owner

Games: 235 Reviews: 15

Ambitious, but almost unplayable vs. AI

The game's scope is simply stunning, especially given the fact it was released in 1996. You get a strategy map of about 40 planets, each having their own custom civilization-like map. Planetary assault means transporting real troops via transport ships, landing them on the target planet and fighting a separate campaign on the planet's map. I don't know any other game with similar mechanics. The lore and feel of the game are also great - it's been followed by a fully fledged tabletop RPG system and, as others mention, the universe feels like a mix of Warhammer 40k, Frank Herbert's Dune and Isaac Asimov's Foundation. It's a huge treat for every sci-fi fan out there. Unfortunately, the game becomes almost unplayable after 30-40 turns. It's playable in technical terms, though crashes do happen and you should get in a habit of saving your progress often (no autosave!). But the gameplay itself is totally broken. The AI completely ignores unit costs, which means it's building capabilities are only limited by the number of buildings. Since it's also programmed to spam buildings, you find yourself against an enemy that is dumb, but almost unrestricted in terms of industrial power. It turns the gameplay into a clog where you have to slowly burn through dozens of enemy units. There seem to be cheats available for human player, but game mechanics make it very hard to manually manage vast quantities of units, so even if you get on par with the AI the amount of micromanagement will be too much to handle. Perhaps the game shines in multiplayer - which is quite unusual in modern age, since it's implemented via e-mail - but if you're looking for single player fun, you'll be disappointed.

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