Posted on: May 23, 2025

imperialus

Games: 231 Reviews: 1

One hell of a game.

Whew... This is a game. Like most the folks who have reviewed this on release day I'm one of those who played it back in the day. Steam only shows like an hour and a half, but that's not even counting the 6 or 7 hours I racked up in the demo last week and I couldn't even save nevermind the hours I have sunk into it over the years. Emperor of the Fading Suns can be a bit of an overwhelming game. I think the best way to explain it is to just say how it plays, so I'll try. It starts out as a weird little hex based wargame where you take cities from grey coloured units with what look like WW2 tanks on some random planet while wondering what the heck is going on with the galaxy map and why you have a star cruiser in orbit. You're not entirely sure why you are researching psychosocial engineering, but it sounds neat. Then by the time you figure out the basics of combat on your homeworld you suddenly get thrown into an election for Regent. Somehow, now you are also in charge of something called the "Stigmata Garrison" and now control a bunch of other dudes on a different planet fighting against alien pod people... oh, and their kit is way cooler than what you have. Some of these guys even have Power Armour and some big scary looking tanks too. Maybe you could yoink a few of them... Stomp the rebels a bit quicker. You keep plugging away, using your starships to start ferrying your troops to another planet, building labs and factories and other stuff on your homeworld. You figure this regent job sounds pretty cool so you offer stuff to the other houses in exchange for votes. While all this is going on you continue to expand, researching new tech, pumping your troops full of combat drugs, building fancy new tanks, that sort of stuff. Eventually you are compressing crystals into fusion cores and making singularities so you can build new starships. You go to war with the Hazat and steal the scepters that they need to vote with. Then you declare yourself Emperor...

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Posted on: April 14, 2021

sgallaty

Verified owner

Games: 36 Reviews: 4

My all-time favorite.

Tell me where you can find a game anywhere else that you can research forbidden technologies to turn corpses into super soldiers, go to war with the church, your competing houses and both alien menaces at once and then reconquer earth and capture and convert a church inquisitor in lost-tech battle armor to lead your Grimson Legions. It has warts no doubt, but the scale and richness of the game is enormous. This game needs a reboot, and truly deserves it.

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Posted on: November 23, 2024

Ankylon56

Verified owner

Games: 49 Reviews: 13

One of a kind

The game features a compelling setting, serving as a prequel to the TTRPG Fading Suns. It shares similarities with Dune and Warhammer 40k, portraying an era of space feudalism in which five great houses compete for power alongside the merchant league, all overseen by a seemingly monolithic Universal Church. Besieged by rebels and the abominable Symbiots, trapped in what appears to be a galactic stalemate with the other houses, the player, embodying a noble house, must navigate their way to claiming regency then the Imperial throne. All the while, the initially friendly Merchant League builds up its forces to declare its rule over the Third Republic, and the Church enforces the technological restrictions imposed on the houses. This game features numerous moving parts and operates on a large scale. Players begin from a single planet and expand into a sector of space with dozens of planets. For each planet, players must carefully industrialize and maintain their rule, on that scale the way it plays is not too dissimilar Civilization II. Another dimension of gameplay is space travel. Initially, jumpdrive-equipped spaceships are a rare commodity not to be wasted, as they enable the transport of troops, personnel, and cargo from one system to another through the mythical Jumpgates linking one planet to another. Byzantium II, the capital planet, Here, nobles from the various houses, under a ceasefire, periodically gather to cast their votes for the Regency. The political landscape is fraught with intrigue and backstabbing; eliminating an opponent's noble prevents them from participating in the vote. Assassinating all of the opposing nobles can also serve as a potential victory condition. When it comes to the game's drawbacks and unrealised potential, it's the AI. It's incapable of making good decisions and may be prone to be exploited. It also doesn't adhere to the same logistical limitations as the players. Additionally, the game's interface is understandably archaic.

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Posted on: June 27, 2021

evild4ve

Verified owner

Games: 184 Reviews: 21

It runs on Wine

This used to be a nightmare to install - one of the worst ever. You needed patches, and there were different versions of them. The GOG installer worked out of the box with Xubuntu 20.04, PlayOnLinux 4.3.4, Wine 6.0.1 - no 'Installed Components'. Nvidia 970GTX with the proprietary 390 legacy driver. So I would say it deserves the Linux-Compatible tag. As to the game, I found it online in around 2005 and haven't played it as much as others but would second all the people saying it should be professionally tidied-up and reissued. This GOG release could have done with a note to say exactly what version it is - iirc there were official patches that needed to be applied, and these addressed (serious) technical issues and then you would choose a fan-patch for game balance.

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Posted on: April 1, 2024

sidhos

Verified owner

Games: 29 Reviews: 1

Was really excited, but then....

I can't even begin to guess how many hours I have playing this game in the original form. I was very excited to see GOG bring this out. Unfortunately, they did something to the church and it is banning the most simplest of technologies, even the very base technologies, effectively shutting down an entire third of the tech tree in one early turn of the game. Not only that, but it is banning a technology almost every single turn. So far, I haven't made it past turn ten in any game without the church sending ships/troops to destroy my lab(s). Still, at the price, the game is a bargain, IMO. Maybe there are some mods or fixes for the church going nuts.

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