Разработчик: Arkavi Studios
Описание
Take command of one race to join the struggle for supremacy in the galaxy. As the leader of your empire you are tasked with exploring the stars, colonizing new worlds, managing your empire and conquering whoever dares to oppose you.
The galaxy is full of secrets and dangers: Discover ancient ruins and artifacts, repel or befriend pirates, promote a general to guide your fleets to victory. Concoct complex plots with your allies or use your intelligence services to uncover weak spots on that threatening empire whose leader has vowed to destroy you.
Make sure to keep your population happy or be prepared to face protests against your rule, or in a worst case scenario, rebel factions within your empire.
Only the mightiest rulers can prevail in the depths of space. Are you up to the task of becoming a Lord of the Black Sun?
Key features:
- 8 major races each with their own ship designs, technologies, unique traits and unique abilities, meaning playing with each race is a different challenge and offers new ways to approach the game.
- Big, living universe: In addition to the major powers, independent races and pirate clans also claim the galaxy as their residence; their existence can be an annoyance, or a blessing if you can take advantage of them.
- Deep economical and political layer: War isn’t the only way to weaken your rivals. Diplomacy, inteligence and trade can be one of many powerful tools that, if used properly, can be very effective as well.
- Tactical Turn based combat.
- Create and customize your own ship designs.
- Generals: These unique and powerful units evolve as they battle and if used well can be the difference between defeat and victory.
- Randomly generated universe, tech tree and units: You will never play the same game twice.
- Empire shattering: Unrest might lead rebels to start a civil war which in turn might lead to the creation of a new, independent empire that might grow to rival your own.
- Plotting: Secretly finance a war against your rivals in order to weaken them or prepare a surprise joint war along with your allies in a bid to destroy that frighteningly fast growing empire.
- Human-like AI that doesn’t cheat and plays by the same rules as human players, while presenting a constant challenge.
- Play Multiplayer and Hotseat online via LAN or IP/internet.
Поддерживаемые языки: english, german
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1
- Processor: Dual Core 2.0 Ghz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 256 MB graphics card
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1150 MB available space
- Sound Card: Integrated
- Additional Notes: There is a known issue with people using ATI cards on Vista so if you are one of those we recommend you skip the game until a fix is found
- OS *: Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1
- Processor: Quad Core 2.0 Ghz
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: 512 MB graphics card
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1150 MB available space
- Sound Card: Integrated
Отзывы пользователей
This game is the reason I will never again buy games in early access. It looked promising while still in development but the "finished" product had very little to do with what I saw in early access. Oh, and I learned the hard way that Iceberg Interactive is notorious for abandoning published but unfinished games.
It's about as bad as everyone said it is. I actually preordered it back when it had a different name (similar to galactic civ I think) and finally got around to playing it. Only 2 win conditions, the game crashes if you alter the starting conditions too much, and (based on steam achievements) only around 5-10% of players have ever even finished a game.
This game was never finished by the developers, the fact that they have it in the store selling for $30 is atrocious.
Buying into a game in early release is always a gamble so I'm not really upset that it crashed out. However, leaving it for sale at a high price point is quite tacky.
I've got nothing to add the other reviewers haven't already mentioned. Boring, stripped-down 4x game that belongs on a mobile phone (if anywhere at all). Don't waste your money.
Last update was 2014. Game had amazing potential, but poor execution and even poorer bug resolution has killed it, don't waste money on this shell. To Steam: Take this down as it is simply a money pit with no direction.
Another short review to hopefully save a few dollars. This game is really very basic and poorly executed. Many other grand scale space games to be had and this is not one of them. Move along folks. Nothing to see here.
When trying to even play the game for achievements I would get random crashes well after release.
*Sigh*
I wanted to play a 4X game with a futuristic space-setting so I tried this. (Also named "Starlords"?)
This seems like an earlier version of Endless Space without the better graphics and user-friendly interface.
I found the ship-design and fleet battles much too simplistic.
There also seemed to be a few glitches/bugs when many fleets were given orders at once.
Still... I played it twice to get all the achievements and to give it a decent chance before I wrote criticism.
(That 15 hours I should have been doing something else...)
My opinion: get ENDLESS SPACE instead... a much better game that Lords Of The Black Sun seems to be just a rough, early design of.
A very disappointing addition to the 4x Space Strategy game genre. I love the genre, and it seemed to look very nice, but the actual product was not as good as expected from the description, screenshots, and video. It seems to lack polish and actually seems somewhat unfinished, with plenty of bugs and lacklustre dev support.
On to the one pro I've found so far for the game... the hex-based, turn-based space combat is actually a quite interesting addition to the 4x space genre, and one that I quite like. Admittedly, it can turn into a bit of a chore once the participants have large fleets, if you can get to that stage... but I do like the idea.
However... the game is plagued with a multitude of crashes, which makes any sort of progress, especially in multiplayer, very frustrating. Even when you're lucky enough to not encounter a Crash to Desktop, the gameplay itself is not quite up to scratch. The tech tree and units are somewhat disappointing, and there are many better games out there if you want to customise your own space ships as part of your plans for galactic domination - which brings me to my next point - the galactic maps are pretty sub-par. It doesn't look nice, the travel is boring (there are no restrictions or wormholes or gravity wells or any other mechanic) between systems. There is an arbitrary limit on which systems you can travel though, in an expanding circle, but I have not been able to figure out how that works, but apart from that, you can travel to any system without any changes.
And the economic and diplomatic options are both also disappointing. This combos with the 8 "different races" you can play as or against - they don't look or feel different, and the bonuses and "unique generals" aren't very noticeable. In combination with the lack of options, and a lack of descriptions of the various pre-game setup options... it just doesn't make for a compelling experience.
Especially for the asking price, you can do so much better if you are after a 4x space strategy game.
Under no circumstances should you buy this game. There are plenty of other 4x space games out there that are a) actually finished, and b) a hundred times better than this game.
It is a shame because during early access it did show some promise. But then one day the developer decided it was finished and it went from early access to released. "Abandoned" version would be a more accurate term for what we got. There have been no updates for months now, and it doesn't look like we'll get any - indeed at the time of writing this review the website for the company behind the game is no longer there.
It would be less of a waste to just burn your money rather than buy this game.
Buyer Beware!
I bought the game during early access, participated in the forums and suggested ways to make the game more thematic. The Devs responded with a "yea...but" claiming money and etc as a limitation. What they managed to put together is not a finished product and is by all means an early access build. No polish, no depth or immersion and absolutely no support post release. In recent posts, the Devs cited financial difficulties and made empty promises for upcoming updates. There are NO updates for more than a year now and their website is dead...In the meantime, the game is plagued with the same bugs and CTDs that it had in earlier builds. You want to open trade routes? Crush. You want to play a long game? Crush on random turn and crush again later on.
Another Early Access scheme: promising the impossible and blaming bad finances for their complete and utter failure to deliver. An almost formulaic approach to risk-free-failure: promise A, receive payment for A, deliver B with promises of A but without the means of delivering A…Classic bait and switch tactics under the grey area of Early Access.
When not encountering bugs or crashes this game feels half baked, childish and bland. A asking price of $30 is a complete joke when I wouldn't give this crap to someone for free.
Developer has seemed to abandoned it now even after talk of grand plans.
Check out the game forum before making the decision on to buy or not and see for yourself.
This is no MOO2 Plain and simple. MOO2 was created in 1996 with limited computer graphics and tech and was a huge success. This game LOTBS has no excuse. There exists now all the computing power and tech available to make anything needed and then some!
PROS - Has really nice intro (PROMO) graphics found only on the product page thats totally deceiving, making you think your are really going to buy something special.
Oh, and nice borrowed game ideas...
CONS - The game crashes all the time. The graphics promised are not there. Mostly made up of place holder graphics. The game play 'depth and complexity' is just not there.
This game is no where near being complete. If the team just spent half the time they obviously spent making the trailers, they'd actually have a really good game! This is one example of so many that give struggling developers a bad name. I say finish the product first so you have a really good product to offer then ask the price it is worth (wow new concept). I paid $45 for MOO1 (the original) and $65 for MOO2 and would gladly do it again to keep buggy, unfinished stuff like this off the market!
The developers have been at this game since at least mid to late 2014, roughly 6-9 months (or longer)... There are really good games fully and completely (Oh, whats the words? Oh yeah, finished!) out there for less money. This game costs way too much for what is actually offered. I am returning this game for a refund and will not endorse this gaming or the firm any further.
PS - In my line of work and in most peoples daily jobs (in which you work hard to earn our money) you must deliver, there is no room for 'just getting by'. And yes there is such a thing as 'stand and deliver'...my advice to the makers, try it...
God I want to like this game.
MoO2 is in my top 2 games of all time.
The problem is that this game is ALPHA. Not Pre-Release, not Released, not Finished / Supported.
So many bugs, so many crashes, I can't load from a savegame, so every game is "rogue-like". Seriously! A Rogue-like 4x game.
The Devs have all but left this game. Even at 75% off, it's just not worth it. Plenty of 4x games on steam and GOG has MoO 1& 2.
Steam should be ashamed to have pulled this out of early release and the publisher should be strung up for asking $5 for this game, let alone $20+.
1/10 for potential but worth $2 at most.
This game has taught me to read through the reviews before buying. I'm afraid this game doesn't have much going for it. Stability issues, gameplay is awkward, balancing issues - just overall not much redeemable about it.
Once upon a time, an intergalactic warlord colonized a planet with their species. This game is the result.
It's not often my lead-ins to my reviews are so short, and it's not often that I review a game prior to spending at least 24 hours in-game with it, but this game isn't one I can recommend, for various reasons.
First things first - "Lords of the Black Sun" is a space-based 4X game, where you attempt to conquer the universe, Cid Meyer's Civilization-style. You build installations on planets, create colony ships, build pre-defined military vessels, and can even create custom units. Units stack, and space battles take place in a sort of Final Fantasy Tactics cut-out battle scene.
All of this sounds like a strategy gamer's dream, so why do I sound so against it?
First, the interface is horrible, and I'm not merely talking about the presentation, though that's pretty awful. The UI isn't optimized for a player's experience; it's hard to see even a neophyte developer looking at the UI and thinking, 'the players are going to love this.' Most of the menuing takes more actions than is really necessary.
Second, the game itself feels utterly soulless. It feels like someone started by taking a look at Cid Meyer's Alpha Centauri, then proceeded to put it further into space, but instead of hiring a writer, gave it to someone's nephew. The result is an experience that doesn't capture the wonder of interstellar colonization, or galactic politics, but is rather an experience that it's hard to care about for even a single session.
Mechanically, the game is sound - as stated above, it's the sort of thing strategy gamers claim to love and want. The execution is so terrible, especially given the $30 asking price, which is entirely too much for what you're getting. Firaxis Games, these guys ain't.
PROS:
- Mechanicallly sound game
- Great space visuals
- Interesting fleet-to-fleet combat
- Good custom unit creation system.
CONS:
- Uninspired, forgettable writing and scenario
- Ugly UI that impedes the player
- Forgettable music
- Unstable game - the end of my expeirence came after the game just crashed for no apparent reason.
[*]Way too expensive for what you're actually getting.
Verdict: Avoid it. The developers need to do some serious work on this game and lower the price for this game to be worth it. If they will do this, I will take a second look and re-evaluate my review.
The game just feels bland. I was excited when I read obout this game, kept an eye on it as it was being developed, and hungery grabbed it when it was released as a "full game". I have heard that there is still some development and work still being done on the game, wich I truly hope there is because if this is the final product then this is embarassing; as the game is buggy as all hell.
Bugs aside, the gameplay itself is boaring and unispired. Every aspect of gameplay feels like it was half finished and left in it's most basic form. Nothing about this game felt good, why did I waste my money?
seriously? i played 9 hours, and in that time i managed to win multiple games, and doing all achievments...
this game claims to be a 4x game, and it might well be, but make no mistake of comparing it to any serious veteran of that genre... if you are used to games like space empires IV, galactic civilisation III or lo and behold, Master of Orion II, then you will find this a heavily diluted 4x experience indeed....
Minimalistic tech tree, ship building that acutally doesn't deserve being called that (all you get are 4 different hulls you know from the start with a fixed tonnage of stuff you can squeeze in, no chance on improving that in any way...), "tactical" combat that is too small and too limited in options (the lackluster techtree might play a part in that as well) without much variety and a relly simple interaction with other races really sum up this game perfectly....
Have a smattering of bugs and exploits on top of that (i still find it ridiculous how you can loan any alien race money, even if they are at war with you, and at like 100% interest...)
so, all i can say, if you search for a good 4x game..... keep searching, you won't find that with this title...
As of 14 Sept 2014 -
This game is not terrible - just very very bland.
You will not find anything really new in here - all of it exists in other, better made games such as Distant Worlds or GalCiv2.
There are still some major bugs that have not been taken out - I can't even open the trade menu without a crash to desktop.
Ship design is weak - from the start, you get 4 hulls that go from tiny to small - with only no improvements available to increase what you can fit in them. The techs for ships don't provide any options - the missiles, beams and lasers are essentially the same. There are no fighters or bases.
Tactical fights are available but not terribly exciting - nor does it provide any depth as all weapons are in essence identical.
Many of the "management tools" are absent or in very basic form - you can't rearrange build queues, set up rally points, understand how much science, industry, or trade any particular action is going to generate. It's weird how you have to close an empire menu before opening the next one rather than switching between them.
The tech tree is pretty minimal - maybe 50-60 items in total. It gets boring in the 2nd part where you get solid lines of 3-4 consecutive "industry +1" or "research +1". It rarely opens up new abilities, just improves your starting ones.
Minor races have no interaction, except for pirates. You can send a trade ship there, tho with the game maxing out at 4 trade lines, it's not clear why you should bother.
What is working in this game is relatively fine. It just seems like they ran out of time to fine-tune and tweak the content in fun and interesting ways. Perhaps updates wil improve this solid, but it is currently an extremely bland X4 experience.
Verdict - unless you are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for x4 games, skip until a few updates.
If I could refund this game, I would. I watched a review of this game from several months ago, and it looked promising. More than promising actually, it looked like it could be an excellent game that combines many of the aspects that I love. Overall, it appears to be something like Sins of a Solar Empire crossed with Civilization crossed with Democracy. The issue was that it was not a finished game.
Jump forward to now, and it is on the front page of Steam, announcing that it is a finished game. FAR FROM IT. I should have looked more at the fine text, but the developer says that even though it is moving out of early access, it stills needs patching. This is evident from the start. The intro splash took quite some time to load, even on a fairly powerful computer and locked my screen to the program until it finished. Typos and grammatical errors are common, even on the first few small text boxes of the tutorial. Additionally, the textures are rediculously poor on higher zoom levels, even on max graphical settings. What sealed the deal for me though was the frequent crashing brought about by this game.
Again, though this game has promise, it is not yet ready. I feel as though I was tricked into buy an incomplete game. The saddest part of it is that if this game came out in a ready state, I might have loved it. But my initial play has only served to frusturate me.
Competent but uninspired. There's nothing here to really make the game stand above any of the others available in the genre. It's playable and accessible, but that's about it.
Edit: I don't mean for this to sound as though it's a bad game. It really isn't. It's just not a bad game in the same way that a Nissan Bluebird isn't a bad car; sure, you can get to work in it, but it's no Shelby Cobra.
The game feels very simple and basic. There is nothing to this game that I wouldnt expect from any other x4 game, and this is still on the light side of 4x games. It does not get very in depth with any game mechanic. Combat is mediocre, Diplomacy is mediocre, research is very limited with a relatively small research tree compared to other more recent 4x games. All in all, the game is just bland and sub par. Honestly, it feels like playing a unity based game in a web browser. I would expect to find similar mechanics and gameplay from a free game site.
Its also not stable. When creating a game, picking certain map settings could cause a crash. First battle I lost, caused a crash. Within a period of 30 minutes just to check out the full release version, I had 3 crashes.
I really love the sci-fi space based 4x genre, and I wanted this game to be good because there are so few games in this genre that can hold a candle to what MoO2 was for its time. This game does not get close. I would not recommend this game to anyone, not even casual players.
Star Lords Alpha Build - Pre-release Review
Star Lords, by Arkavi Studios and Iceberg Interactive is a deep and complex turn based 4x sci-fy strategy game. This is about the only informations you get from the get-go once you boot the game for the first time. Once you start a new game, you will be asked to select from a group of 8 original races and customise the "game board".
Once the game begins, you'll immediately take control of your chosen race and you can start using your scout ship to explore your surroundings. You also get a home planet, which will be used as a main hub for initial development.
The game leaves a pretty good first impression, with very nice and clean graphical information. The UI is functional and simple, but can become a bit overwhelming for starters, but all in all everything is pretty intuitive. But, being this an alpha build, i must stress the importance of the creation of a structured tutorial, so players can learn and try the base mechanics before being sent into the wild.
Once the game starts building up pace, you will meet other civilizations, which you will need to either crush with military prowess or outsmart through diplomacy and espionage. Overall, the AI is pretty solid, even though other races can be tad temperamental towards your actions
The game map, even though presented in a very simplistic fashion, works very well and offers a ton of graphical variety. Planets look pretty good, and so does spacial debris and other celestial bodies, such as moons and stars.
The game still lacks a bit of clear indicative elements, such as an "it is now your turn" prompt, or some audio feedback on research completion but, as it is in alpha, hopefully these elements will be added at some point.
Veredict: There is room for a lot of improvement, specially in the fine details, but as this is just an alpha build, i will be eagerly expecting the finished product, and i am glad to be supporting it!
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Arkavi Studios |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 25.12.2024 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 22% положительных (263) |