Разработчик: Kerberos Productions Inc.
Описание
It is the year 2405, and human scientists have discovered a new technology that allows travel from star to star at speeds faster than light. But tragedy strikes, as Earth is ravaged by an alien force. The dawning of a new era was stymied by a grim, new reality...
Sword of the Stars:
- 4 distinct races - Human, Hiver, Tarkas and Liir
- A powerful state of the art engine delivers breathtaking graphics and robust game play
- Each race has a unique mode of transport between star systems, creating very different styles of play
- Over 150 distinct technologies to research on a dynamic tech tree
- Over 40 weapons from six different weapon classes
- Players can design and build ships from three size classes - Destroyer, Cruiser, and Dreadnought
- Up to 8 players can play against the AI and one another over LAN or online
- Choose from a variety of scenario campaigns to play alone or with friends
- Play as the merciless Zuul Slavers with over 90 brand-new ship sections and their unique drive system – the Tunnel Drive
- Over 25 additional technologies
- 15 more weapons you can add to your ship designs
- New ship sections for the original four races, including: War, Projector, Boarding, and a new type of defense satellite – the Torpedo Defense Platform
- 4 additional galactic encounters, a new grand menace, plus 3 unique scenarios and 6 original maps
- New game features, including Slavery, Trade Routes, and Diplomatic Communications
- A New Sixth race – The Morrigi
- New Ship Sections - Over a dozen new ship sections
- Unique ‘Grav Flock’ Drive System for Morrigi
- 15 new weapons
- 27 new technologies and the new Xeno-Cultural and Drones tech tree
- Drone carrying ships in all three size classes
- Construction ships, a variety of orbital stations, spy ships, police cutters, and more
- A whole new set of GUI enhancements and additions
- 19 new technologies
- Over 75 new ship section to build
- 10 new weapons / 3 New Scenarios
- Single Player / Multi-player with co-op scenario maps
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
- Processor: 1.5 Ghz Intel® Pentium® or equivalent
- Memory: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista)
- Hard Disk Space: 3 GB Available
- Video Card: DirectX® 9 compliant video card with 128MB RAM
- Sound Card: DirectX® 8.1 or better compatible
- DirectX® Version: DirectX® 9c
- Internet Connection: at least 56k modem
- Multiplayer Requirement: Gamespy key (provided by publisher)
Отзывы пользователей
:3
A friend of mine once described this game as the only legitimate heir to Master of Orion 2.
Having played it a fair bit now, I agree. If MoO2 was a favourite of yours and you can handle a game that takes a bit of time to understand and get in to, you might have a lot of fun with this.
It is a great game series. The problem is the Steam version. it only runs for about 250 turns in a single game, before crashing hard, which is not nearly enough for big fleet battles or galaxy conquest. I wish Steam would fix it.
Yup
yes!
This game has everything other strategy games should have and don't. In a better timeline, the devs took all of the great ideas and design choices in this game and turned out a sequel that capitalized on all of them with a bigger budget to really get attention across the field and inspire a new wave of strategy games that are actually fun to play. Instead, for a sequel we got a buggy mess of even more new ideas that just didn't pan out as well. And... they never remastered the game, they never made another sequel, they just made other things in the universe. Which is cool, but it's not what the gaming industry NEEDS from this game.
Sword of the Stars has six different playable species that actually feel different in meaningful ways. The gameplay is fundamentally different and creates a soft rock-paper-scissors situation between races that shifts over time as technology develops. The very method of travel is unique for each and fundamentally changes the feel of playing each race, making each threat more varied and each playthrough more rewarding.
Every species actually has a basic explanation for its biology and culture, and the details come through as you play. Each command you give, you hear your scientists or your captains or your engineers respond, and you get a feel for the attitude of your people, the way they live, the way they think and see the universe. The voice acting is a little goofy sometimes, but it's full of heart and well-directed to give you what you need: the feeling you're actually directing a people, not just some empty ships flying between rocks in the void.
I love this game, and I hate that it is so obscure. Any other strategy game I play, I never feel this kind of connection with the people I command. I never get so excited to try another game as another faction. This game might be janky, but the fact that it has not been a greater influence on games as a whole is a crime. We need more games like this. We need a proper sequel to this game, direct or spiritual.
To be perfectly honest, I play it in a way most people would probably see as boring. I skip (autoresolve) basically every single actual battle-- all the "flashy" stuff you see with the ships actually moving around on a battlefield. I don't care for that. I just love building an empire up from one or two planets, forming fronts and piercing them, pushing the advantage of my race and shoring up its weaknesses, actually employing real principles of strategy for once in a strategic game, all while the people I command call out to me that they're ready for my next move. Even decades old, when we have to get Hamachi out to play it together, this game still hits a sweet spot for folks. I've gotten many of my friends hooked on it, and I'm proud of it. This game deserves so much more, and we deserve so much more of it.
If you're debating, please give it a shot. It can be confusing at first, but there's a great satisfaction and charm in this game that I haven't found anywhere else. And if nothing else, I want more people crying out, like I do, for another game like Sword of the Stars 1. For a hundred more.
Verdict
Game is a cult classic well worth the $10 bucks. If you like Stellaris or Total War, there's no reason not to pick this up and try it, especially on sale. $10 USD isn't even a meal at most fast food restaurants now a days.
Background
I first bought Sword of the Stars when it was brand new way back in 2004, and never looked back. Every time a new Expansion Pack (DLC but on a disc) was released, I would make sure I picked it up. The number of hours on steam fails to encapsulate the number of hours that my childhood friend and I have dumped into this game. We've probably each racked up thousands of hours across hundreds of games, and six computers. The fact that we still play this game so many years later is no accident, and we each payed the retail prices on release. If you don't feel like reading the full review, here's my verdict: this game is a cult classic, and definitely worth the retail price. As such I'd like to think I can speak with a small amount of expertise on the subject.
What is Sword of the Stars?
Sword of the Stars is a combination of Turn Based 4X and Real Time Strategy broken into two phases. In terms of the breakdown between the two game phases, it's a lot like Total War. However, the way empire management works actually has more in common with Paradox games generally, and Stellaris in particular. Indeed, you could consider Sword of the Stars (SotS) to be Stellaris' great-great grand uncle. Not a direct ancestor, but pretty dang close. I'll be breaking down the game into two phases: Empire Management and Combat.
Empire Management
On the galaxy map, you manage planets, set research priorities, design and build ships and stations, and direct fleet movements. These fleets will then perform tasks from colonization and mining to exploration and combat depending on the ships you bring with you. Research you perform unlocks new modifiers for ships and planets, and new ship components. This is also where you perform diplomacy and manage planetary economies. Unfortunately, both the economics and the diplomacy are rather weak points of the game being on the simple side. The only resources are money and time. Money comes in the form of taxes (planetary income) and trade. Don't forget to defend your trade routes. Piracy is an option, although it's a mechanic I (a Human main) generally don't use, so my knowledge there is a bit limited as the Human Faster than Light drive sucks for piracy. On that note, every faction has their own unique method of FTL with advantages and drawbacks.
Research
The research system for SotS is unique in that you aren't guaranteed to have access to a given technology every time you play, and each species is more or less likely to get access to a tech on a given playthrough. The Liir are more likely to get access to the best shields and energy weapons, but less likely to naturally develop the advanced forms of armor and physical guns. The Hiver are the reverse. This doesn't mean you're locked out of a given technology. Joint research projects with allies and salvaged ships can offer you the opportunity to research technologies you yourself lack. This excludes each species' unique techs.
Ship Design
Hoo boy. What to say about ship design? If you've played Stellaris, you have some experience with the basic idea. As you develop new technologies you can unlock better weapons, engines, and new modules. This much is the same. But SotS does this on steroids. You aren't just taking a hull and slapping on modules to increase stats and provide abilities. In SotS you actually have the ability to mix and match parts and choose individual weapons turrets. The ship designer is incredibly detailed, and I probably spent a quarter of my time setting up individual designs, testing weapons placements and combinations etc. But you don't have to use it. The AI will autodesign ships if you let it meaning all you need to do is choose the basic layout and let the game do the rest.
Combat
Combat begins when your fleets encounter an unknown entity or a hostile fleet. You can choose to autoresolve, or fight the battle yourself. Combat itself centers around a planet or in deep space, and is what I'd call 2.5D. You give commands on a flat plane, but your ships can and will automatically maneuver up and down to avoid collisions. Like the Total War games, you are limited to the ships you bring with you. You don't build ships mid battle, although you can call in reinforcements if your fleet is too big to deploy all at once. You can have a fleet of 50 ships, but if your command ship can only coordinate 10, you'll be replacing losses piecemeal. Given when the game was released, I assume this was done to limit the strain that too many objects might have on the game and computers of the day.
Oh, and orbital bombardment is a core mechanic. Whether it be glassing the surface with lance batteries or nuking the planet from orbit, you can blast the place until it's all smoke and ash. Or you could research the xenos language and accept their surrender, I guess. Beware, there are monsters in the deep black that can and will seek to end your civilization besides your rivals.
Factions
Finally, let me briefly go over the factions. Each faction has their own quirks that you will either love or hate depending. They all have different design philosophies and unique FTL engines.
Tarkas
The Tarkas are the most standard, and a great place to start. They're a very balanced faction with a penchant for forward firepower. Most inexpensive cruisers in the game.
Hivers
The Hiver have the slowest travel time to new systems, but their stargates make them terrors on the defense, and if you let them open a gate in your system, be prepared to fight half the Hiver navy.
Liir
Liir are the best researchers, and tend to have a tech advantage. They are especially skilled with energy weapons, shields, and bioweapons. Their FTL is called Stutter Warp. It works through millions of tiny teleportations per second. The further from a gravity well the Liir are, the faster they go. Because their ships aren't actually moving, they can change direction on a dime, and advanced versions of the drive, can time a teleport to allow enemy shots to pass through the ship.
Humans
The Humans have a very strong economic base, and the fastest straight line speeds for most of the game. Human Node Drive is like using railroads to move your ships, which comes with unique strategic concerns. Humans don't specialize in any particular tech field, but have less expensive dreadnoughts.
Zuul
The Zuul are perhaps the hardest species in the game to play. They're aggressive, rely on slaves, and use an unstable variant of the human Node Drive. Heavy hitting but fragile, not for new players.
Morrigi
Finally, the Morrigi are crows or dragons depending on who you ask. Their unique FTL gets faster the more ships fly together, but their ships are very slow alone. They specialize in trade as a way to make money, and sport the most advanced drone fighters/bombers of any species.
Final Thoughts
If you're still here reading this, then this game clearly piques some curiosity. Again. At $10, you're getting the complete game and all "dlc." Albeit old, the game is a cult classic for a reason. If you aren't willing to buy it for $10, check it out when it's on sale. Oh, and if you do play the game, be very careful with AI research. Just saying.
Good on it own, but a good mod to play is BSTOS
Actually a great game but it doesnt work right. late game is so slow you cant load battles up before you can do anything else.
8.5/10
For many players, Sword of the Stars is one of the best sci-if 4X games ever made. It does a lot of things very, very right, and it has served as inspiration for parts of games that ultimately became more popular, such as Stellaris.
SotS is, at it’s heart, a combat 4X. The pausable real-time combat, the technology tree, and the ship design are at the focus, and the other mechanics and systems are more abstract and exist primarily to serve combat or fuel your war machine. This is not a complaint; the game focuses on what it does best, and simplifies the rest.
The ship design and combat and combat are deeply satisfying. You get a huge range of options to mix and match. Ships are made of of three sections (bridge, mission, and engine), and these allow for hundreds of different combinations, before you get into things like weapon placements and various hull upgrades. It’s a lot of fun to research new techs, find what options they open up for your designs, and fiddle around until you have what you think is the perfect design for the role.
Combat itself finds a good balance between hands-off and full control. You can set your fleet or individual ships to various stances (such as stat at max range, or close in), and confidently let them do their thing. You can autoresolve battles, and the resolution tends to be fairly accurate. Or you can manage the battle more directly, giving ships movement and facing orders, directing them to target specific ships, specific sections, or even specific turrets.
The different weapon techs you can research are varied, including everything you would expect from this kind of game, as well as more interesting options. For every laser or missile or auto cannon, there are also a few variants, to say nothing of things like the grappling hook, area denial weapons, lightning emitters, giant plasma “shotguns”, or oversized ballistic cannons that sends enemy ships spinning out of control and out of range.
the tech tree itself is interesting. You start with limited options and unlock more as you go down the various branches, but the techs you have access to partially determined by your race, and by a little bit of RNG. There are core techs that everyone will have, but there are alternatives, variants, or higher level techs that you might or might not have access based on some rolls made at the start of the game. (Although reverse engineering these from the broken remains of enemy ships is often an option). So there are games where you just won’t have access to shields, but you might have superior cloaking technology or very accurate point defense.
But where the game really, really shines is in how unique each of the 6 races feel. Not only does your choice of race influence what techs you can access, but it determines your FTL drive, which can fundamentally change how, and how quickly, they move about the strategic map. Humans, for instance, use pre-existing warp lanes to move about the map incredibly quickly, allowing them to expand fast and making them almost impossible to intercept between systems. But they are limited to traveling where these lanes lead, making them the most susceptible to choke points, and if you figure out where their warp lanes are, you know which directs they will come from. Humans are not a Jack-of-all-trades or vanilla race in SotS. They’re a rush race who need to create an early game lead in order to stay competitive long term.
The insectoid Hivers are by far the slowest, with ships that essentially lack any sort of FTL drive at all, which greatly limits there expansion. But they can build warp gates that allow instantaneous teleportation between controlled systems, making them a defensive powerhouse, and later on can research a technology that allows these gates to essentially slingshot fleets across the map and behind enemy lines. This is a race that starts slow, benefits from turtling from cooperating with other races to expand their gate network, before getting to the point where true offensive strategies become viable.
The Crows, meanwhile, have an FLT drive that gets faster the more ships they have in the fleet, encouraging you to use fewer, but larger, fleets.
Each race’s individual ships also exude flavor. They look and perform very differently, even when using the same sections. A lot of the character and design philosophy of the races is communicated through their ships. The reptilian Tarka are a no-nonsense race that likes to face the enemy and fire devastating barrages, while the psychic dolphin-like Liir build advanced but fragile ships that prefer 360 degree weapon coverage. Their ships often have protruding sections that extend turrets out from the hull, allowing better firing arcs.
For example the Tarka’s hammerhead section has a large profile, is loaded with additional armour and larger weapon mounts, allowing for a ton of forward facing firepower. But the Liir’s hammerhead section focuses more on adding additional smaller weapon mounts with wide firing arcs and overall ship agility, allowing their general technological superiority to shine through the use of high end, specialized lasers and point defense turrets, and having a better ability to control which side of their ship faces the enemy.
These differences extend to every ship section, and really help present who each race is. The Liir favor lots of smaller weapons, great for protecting against missiles and drones with point defense, and their agility gives them allows them swarm around and attack enemies from their vulnerable sides, trying to disable ships to make up for their paper-thin armour. Hivers lack ship-based FTL drives traverse the strategic map slowly, but use that extra space for more armour and weapons, making them incredibly tough, further leaning into to their turtle strategy. Add to that their rounded hills (and high odds of specialized armour techs) and they are the best in the game at shrugging off ballistic shots, which are more likely to simply bounce and ricochet off their hulls. Their greater density also means they don’t get pushed around as much by hits from kinetic weapons.
The Reaver-like parasitic Zuul ships look like the cast-offs and wreckage of other races’ ships—because they are. They bristle with lots of large weapons, allowing them to punch above their weight class, but they are held together with duct tape and hatred, emphasizing just how little they value life. Peace, for Zuul, means stagnation and death. This is a race that is constantly consuming it’s own worlds and populations, and therefore needs to conquer enemy planets and abduct their citizens to keep their empires going. The Human’s exceptionally fast FTL speed comes at the cost of very large, and very fragile, engines, that often get hit by shots that miss some other part of the ship. It’s not uncommon for them to come out of a battle with multiple ships dead in space and in need of repair.
It’s just a lot of fun. The game benefitted from having a fantastic lead writer, who did a wonderful job giving each race their own identity through some incredibly in-depth lore, and helping the rest of the team ensure that everything from the technologies to the art assets for each race for their identity.
Buy this, play this.
This isn’t your average turn-based strategy game—it’s Sword of the Stars, where you meticulously plan your empire’s moves in turn-based fashion, then jump right into the thick of real-time space combat, personally commanding every ship in your fleet like a wannabe Admiral Ackbar. The thrill of maneuvering your custom-built fleet to flank an enemy destroyer is only topped by watching your perfect strategy unravel when that same destroyer rams one of your cruisers into a fiery death spiral.
The game’s got one of the most unpredictable research systems out there. Want to develop AI to help boost your economy? Tough luck—this time the tech gods say no. And honestly, good for you, because nobody wants an AI buddy anyway. They always end up turning on you at the worst possible moment. But when you don’t get access to some key research, it’ll feel like you’ve been thrown into a boxing match with one arm tied behind your back. And, well… that’s just life, isn’t it? Sometimes you just don’t get the tech you want because your scientists aren’t smart enough to figure it out.
But then—oh joy!—you start a new game, and suddenly your Hiver empire has unlocked a tech that eluded you last time. Now you’ve got missile shields, or a fusion cannon, or—wait, what’s that? Cloaking technology?! Time to watch your enemies flail in confusion as your invisible fleet shows up where they least expect it. It’s that variation that keeps every game feeling fresh, even when you’re going up against the same pesky alien empires.
Speaking of empires, each race has its own flair and quirks, so expect to constantly tweak your strategies. You’ll go from the lumbering tanks of the Tarka to the sneaky cloaked fleets of the Liir, and every race’s playstyle feels genuinely unique. The randomness of research only adds to the replayability—what worked brilliantly in one game could completely fail in another because this time the Zuul have somehow figured out how to fry your ships with tech they should not have.
And the combat… oh, the combat. It’s the real star here. The thrill of positioning your destroyers just right, sending out torpedo volleys, and watching lasers carve through your opponent’s hulls is downright addictive. Each skirmish is a real-time ballet of death, explosions lighting up the void as ships spin out of control or tear each other apart. The stakes are always high, and every mistake feels huge—but every victory is so satisfying. And best of all, it’s even more fun with a friend.
If you’re looking for a 4X game with deep strategy, randomized tech trees to keep you guessing, and real-time combat that’ll have you holding your breath as you try to outmaneuver your enemies, then Sword of the Stars is a classic that still holds up. Just remember: if you see AI research pop up… just don’t. Trust me. (Now I know your gonna do it).
I have been playing this game since it came around in 2005. It was great then and still holds up. The only snag was multiplayer was tied to an old multiplayer system(Game Spy) which went belly up. You can still play LAN mode though. This game with all the expansions is worth the price even after all this time. Simple and fun with real time tactical combat, turn based light planet management. Its all about the war baby!!!
If you see SOTS2 that was a mess and a half and while playable has some flaws that were never addressed. Its not bad but a different gameplay than the first and a little buggy so buyer beware.
I used to own this game, and WIN this game but however they "tweeked" it has made it anything but fun. First, perhaps they should get a dictionary out and look up the definition of the word, "EASY." I have played it over 100 hours and most of the time, LOST. The planets start to rebel and I can invade a planet with a 10 to 1 ratio of forces and it will take me over a dozen turns to grind them into dust. Sorry, I do NOT recommend this game.
I've play 100x that many hours over the years, long before SotS came to steam, and I've modded it for decades. It's a ground-breaking title which continues to shine even today (though the technology is very long in the tooth, and you may have to manually configure your display.ini to get it to show up correctly - and set that file read-only so that the game doesn't constantly bork itself).
It doesn't play well with big maps -- that will kill your end-games. I like 15 ish stars per player, which for a full 6 players (one of every race) remains entirely viable. More, and you're asking for problems.
The UI is "special" in a way only a mother can love - but once you learn it - it is very functional.
I wish it wasn't locked in IP purgatory - a genuine refresh would be amazing - with the right team (NOT Kerberos, who proved their duplicity in the Sots ][ debacles).
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Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Kerberos Productions Inc. |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 24.01.2025 |
| Metacritic | 75 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 89% положительных (485) |