Sword of the Stars: Complete Collection

A turn-based strategy game of space-empire building, terraforming, starship design, trade, and real-time tactical combat. Sounds good so far, right? Well, you also get: * Alien species that you can't communicate with, even after you get the tech that says it lets you communicate with them * Alien species with their own terraforming ideal, that changes with every new game - and not just from +400 to +350, from +400 to +40 * A tech tree that is never the same twice * Some techs on that tree that say you can build X with technology Y, but 75% of the time doesn't actually let you build X * Ridiculously destructive random events that occur EVERY TURN even if you've got the frequency of random events set to 1% Ladies, gentlemen, and others, I give you Sword of the Stars. Unplayable.

Well, I wrote a lengthy review I had to shorten multiple times because of the 2000 character limit and when I finally submitted it it simply disappeared. Short version: I'm a 4X veteran all the way from the first Master of Orion looking for a worthy successor and while I hoped I could find it here, I didn't. I've put 40 hours into the game and I can't figure out how to get even the most basic stuff right. Every single opponent outranks me in colonies, technology, production, fleet size etc. no matter what I try. Looking up instructions or tutorials didn't help and the game gives me no feedback as to what I'm doing wrong. I wish I could like this title but I can't. The expansions added new gameplay mechanics and further complicated existing ones, but I can't even reroll to the base game.

. . . go on YouTube and look up a series entitled Let's Play: Sword of the Stars - it is for the Complete Collection too. A video in this case is worth a thousand words. Watch episodes 1 and 2 and then an advanced episode or two - when many systems are already colonized. If you do as I suggest, you will find that: - The 3-dimentional galaxy map, where you spend 90% of your time doing your turns, is a convoluted mess of giant text labels, excessively wide travel routes and tiny planets where it is very hard to orient yourself, especially when a dozen travel routes by several civilizations are highlighted - Each race has only 3 classes of ships: destroyer, cruiser, dreadnought, and ALL ships for a given race look identical regardless of configuration except for their size, e.g. cruisers are identical to destroyers, only 3 times bigger - Real-time space battles are painfully slow as your ships take forever and a half to do what you tell them to, and you must wonder if your orders matter . . . and half the time it looks like they don't - Auto-resolve battles is broken - you can lose your huge fleet without even scratching the enemy or you can destroy the entire enemy fleet without losing any ships - The Tech tree is great: technologies are meaningful and the tree is dynamic - it changes from game to game, BUT it is not quite usable because it is a race to bigger ships and guns, and you are unlikely to research 90% of the techs, such as Translate X language. As the result Diplomacy does not exist. It consists of telling your allies to defend or attack something - There are no planetary invasions - No amount of planetary defenses will stop the enemy from destroying your planet - Colony management is nearly non-existent This game has many good ideas which are poorly implemented. Low price does not make a good game. The problem here is not paying for it. It is wasting time to learn the hard way what I described above. Save time and money. YouTube it.

I am sorry I did write this negative review, something which I usually avoid doing. In this case the noise of fan boys and girls claiming this game is one of the best 4X games ever made, made me chip in my handfull of dimes. I was guided by those raving reviews (that hardly ever go into the gameplay or describing the experience of playing the game, but will take you down on a trip of someone's memory lane) into buying the game and it was a major league disappointment. Some people compare this game to Master of Orion (1 and 2) or the Total War games, which is a downright insult to the both in my opinion. The worst: the graphics and the colourscheme used. They will give you a headache of gargantuous proportions and leave you with damaged eyesight. Next: the voice acting is infantile, stupid and downright aggrevating. The meeeh: in today's 4X world this is not a 4X game. Exploration is simplistic, planetary management onlyvery basic. Most of the time you'll be watching lines and circles indicating warp lanes and planets. The core gameplay consists of doing research and building ships, however building a sizeable strategy minded fleet is impossible. You can only bring in five ships at a time and battles have a time limit. A time limit! A time limit which can't be switched off and leaves no room for strategy, only tactictival gameplay. Conclusion: the developers of this game force you into doing things the way they think is right. You will have no freedom whatsoever to develop your own playstyle, working out your own ideas. And you'll be left with a cursing headache.

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