Endless Space Preview
 

Endless Space, the 4X game from Amplitude Studios to be released this Summer, brings back fond memories of genre-defining games such as Master of Orion wrapped in an attractive new package in StrategyCore's preview.

I like that we have presented here a game in space where space is beautiful. I'm not sure anyone's done an explicitly 'space is beautiful' game before. It's always been kinda bleak.

Beyond that I won't play this game for two reasons:

1. The deal breaker: turn based. Just not my genre, not knocking it, you guys have fun.

2. The implicit assumption of the player himself as dictator.
I reject that assumption as immoral. I don't want to be dictator. SimCity and Civilization are equally ruined for me :P

I'd rather play a game like WoW, whose play-style is predicated on Individualism, where I control myself and no other. No one mind can be as knowledgeable and capable as a million minds left to decide for themselves:
It's the same problem communism and centralized economic planning faces in real life :P And it will never solve it, because one or a few minds can never out-think millions of minds. Capitalism has long since won that argument (even the Chinese capitulated).

I suppose some might accuse me of injecting politics into something that's 'just a game'--well maybe. Or have you just never thought about things in that way before.
It is just a game, and maybe it's fun to be dictator of an imagined universe for a while, after all don't we sometimes kill representations of people in games too? Well, yes, but we also tend to frame that in a moral context as well. I suppose I've grown out of that then, or am too sensitive to moral issues now to enjoy even a consequence-less simulation of immoral acts. So, again, I'll leave you all to it and your own conscience.

I just so happen to be a turn-based dictator!

I'm getting the new X-Com. But that's for the survival of our race! And on individual decisions, you just take the role of members in the squad. On-topic though... this looks good. I enjoy the occasional turn-based strategy game.

:)

I give them props on creating a beautiful space game. I think that's an important step forward for that setting-genre. Mass Effect had hints of it, but it's really been lacking in others. Like the Tie-Fighter game and its derivatives, space was blah. But they didn't have the tech to make beautiful space back then.

Turn based, dictator?

This is probably exactly what i was looking for! Thank you for disliking everything about the title that I love Anenome.

TIE fighter with modern tech would be my wet dream - beautiful, fully-textured space, planets, and ships, massive battles -- and I'm spent

I knew if I didn't say something this one might have got lost with zero comments. You're welcome! ^_^

You can get this game right now on Steam and join the alpha / beta tests. Players can also vote on certain design decisions and the devs seem to be a nice bunch of guys. :-)

All in all, this looks like a worthy successor to Master of Orion. I will try it as soon as I get home from work.

Because what we need are strategy games where the computer can randomly overrule any decisions you make just for the hell of it.

You could've just said "I don't like any strategy games". No chess for you, I guess.

Anyone looking for a description of what war in space might actually look like would do well to read this article. Yet another reason why I won't be playing this game, as I have a minor obsession with realism in games that aren't explicitly premised on absurd themes :P

Actually, I offered the counter-example of games where you control yourself and no one else, and act in concert with other players (or NPCs), such as WoW.

You cite chess--chess reflects an Old World European mindset of warfare, sacrificing pawns to protect kings. How do you think the pawns feel about that?

Modern warfare reflects the influence of individualism. We don't march in lines under strict command anymore, each soldier makes his own determination on the best way to do something within the overall plan laid down by superiors, for which he has the power to ignore if the situation demands.

Etc.

I'd think modern means of communication makes for soldiers with less autonomy than old world European soldiers (Chess wasn't originally European, btw), but that's sort of unrelated, isn't it? A strategy game is a game where you command an army or pieces or whatever. The word 'strategy' itself comes from the Greek for 'generalship', and that's the idea here.

If you're not in command, it's not a strategy game. The pieces should have little or no autonomy, otherwise they're playing the game for you. It'd be similar to having the car decide how to handle certain turns in a racer. That wouldn't be a racing game, it'd be a passenger game. Driving defines a racer title in the same manner that command defines a strategy title.

You mention WoW, but WoW isn't a strategy game. I could throw out other random titles, like Soul Calibur, Forza, and Doom, if you like. Every game has some elements of planning and action, that's what we call gameplay. The gameplay that makes a strategy game is being the guy in charge, and you have to be in charge of something beyond yourself. Strategy elements in WoW would involve players taking on roles as leaders and commanding other players. Kinda like the Commander and Squad Leaders in BF titles, which issue orders to squads and squadmates respectively. Note those are elements, they don't suddenly change the game's genre.

Sure, you can play 'strategically' by yourself, or try to 'strategically' work cooperatively with teammates, but that alone doesn't make it a 'strategy game'. Otherwise, every game would be a strategy game. Prolly some layer of the concept of tactics vs the concept of strategy in all of this. It's a pain that we use them interchangeably and they don't quite mean the same thing.

All I'm saying is, I'm so offended and angry about the concept of people playing 'strategy games' in real life by becoming dictators of entire countries, ala communist Russia, Hitler, modern China, what Hugo Chavez wants to be, Castro, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, etc., that I can no longer play a game that simulates that sort of dictatorship in any way.

I can understand a bit the idea that the two are not perfectly analogous--it's just too close for comfort.

Thats funny because I abhor games that have democracy. Imho every time I let up the tyranny in MOO2/GalCiv/Civ my beautiful empire turns to shit due to the idiotic desires of the masses and I end up being more tyrannical than before reasserting my power base.

Funnily enough, in real life I don't really believe in the democratic system working as the current populace is not informed; thus you have a system that legitimizes mob rule and at the same time tries to rein in the damage.

Guess Tropico isn't a big hit for you :)

Hated it! :P

I wouldn't exactly describe individualism as leading to democracy per say. In a pure individualist state, every man a sovereign. Democracy let's the individual exercise meager political power in a single vote once every year or so... We've never had a political structure that reflects individualism (actually, I'm in the midst of trying to create one right now).

Largely due to the game's mechanics, nothing else. In a real economy, it's exact opposite. Capitalism represents economic control without any direct control, coordinating the market via price relationships. No human intervention needed, and all people make distributed economic decisions based on prices, and it's far, far better than any centralized system.
I agree. The system is screwed up. I'm working on something I hope will be better. My working thesis is that in a system where each individual's decisions have much more political force to decide their own living situation, that there'd be far more incentive to be informed. Like if you could only read once a year, there wouldn't be much incentive to learn to read. But if you have a full library, internet, newspapers, magazines--suddenly it's valuable.

Anyway, I have a whole thread on that elsewhere.