Stars!

Without a doubt Stars! is one of the best strategy/empire building games I have ever played - despite the fact I remember playing it as far back as 1996!

The basic premise of the game picks up where a lot of Empire Building games (like C-Evo) seem to end; you have just achieved the ability to colonise other worlds - you start the game with an unmanned probe and a colony ship commanded by a race of your own design - with pro's and con's according to what traits you choose (examples of which are "Inner Strength", "War Monger" and my person favorite "Space Demolitions"). It is then your duty to colonise other worlds, research technology to aid you in this noble quest, build up a trade infrastructure and build fleets of custom designed warships and planetary defenses to protect your newly forged empire against the rampant AI - which have amusing sci-fi satirical names; such as the Turlindrones and the Kirks.

Stars! is highly customisable; you can set the "win parameters" to be many things; colonise 100% of all planets, wipe out all other races - there is a great degree of customizability within Stars! right from get go up through to actual combat. Every aspect of the game can be altered from map size to planet and player positioning criteria - you can even create "Battle Plans" for your combat units to refer to when engaging specific enemy targets. You can also set the difficulty (easy, medium and impossible effectively) and traits of the AI; some "hyper expand" some hide within small but well defended Empires - some wander around rather aimlessly. You have to get to know your enemy within each individual game. Hardcore stuff.

One of my ship designs, I called it a Battlestar, you see what I did there?

Stars! features some of the most strategic in depth game play I've ever be drawn in by; wars can last weeks playing a few hours a day, and long term battle plans have to reflect this. But at no time does it ever feel 'forced'. You plan because you need to, and the planning remains just as enjoyable as the final alien annihilating big push.

You can also play it with friends via email.

So, this game sounds great huh? Well, there are two problems. The first, it looks like this:

Fear my Empire... That's the bits behind the blue lines and er... blue dots.

Second of all, it's almost impossible to find on-line for download. Indeed after writing this review we couldn't find a link for it at all... Doh.

Summary

Fantastic game.

Where Can I Get It?

We can't find a download site online, but drop us an email and we might be able to send you the original shareware version.

SGR Rating


95%

C-Evo

C-Evo is billed quite simply as a freeware empire building game for Windows. In my opinion that sells it somewhat short. This is a great game.

As with other empire building games you start with a small settlement and some eager manly outdoors types willing to go and make you another one. You improve your technology and eventually progress to "space travel and the colonisation of other planets" which is the eventual goal of this game.

There is a wide variety of technology to be developed and explored - I am pretty sure I had steam powered nuclear attack cruisers at one stage in a game. On top of this there are a number of political systems to implement - each with their own pro's and con's. You can even create your own 'tribes' (including the in game graphics for them) allowing personalisation of your nation; which just adds to the longevity.

The creators of the game would probably like me to now go on and on about how great the AI is and how it "doesn't play to the player's actions" but has "it's own agenda and plays as another human player would" - I am not going to do that despite the fact that they seem to think that that's this games main 'selling point'.

If you want to win, I suggest making a starting position like this one.

Indeed I am of the opinion that the fact the computer 'plays like a human' makes the game extremely hard for a casual gamer to get on with. News flash for developers; the computer has the ability to make 45,933 (et al) choices per turn for each and every one of it's cities and units etc; most humans, can't be bothered! This life fact gives the AI somewhat of an advantage over all but the most hardcore gamer and is likely the reason that a lot of empire building games adopt the 'reactive' AI over the 'human like AI'. I digress...

Regardless of it's difficulty C-Evo is a very entertaining game. You can even make your own maps to play on; designing the geographical features of a whole world which you can then march all over with fascist boots or liberate in a girly democratic manner. It's up to you.

Summary

Great game if you like empire building. Don't get too attached though for reasons best known to the developer there is an arbitrary 3000AD time limit - you lose your empire no matter how well you are doing. Doh.

Where Can I Get It?

http://c-evo.org/

SGR Rating


85%