#Sid meiers starships on steam upgrade#
#Sid meiers starships on steam series#

Listen for long enough and you’ll have the usual fare of synth-based eerie melodies and rousing exploratory crescendos. Much like the mission structure, the game’s soundtrack is satisfactory but not exceptional. It’s a formula seen a thousand times in MMOs and the grind becomes monotonous very quickly.

#Sid meiers starships on steam upgrade#

You can then use these to upgrade your ships and take more missions. Gain enough and the planet will join your federation, providing you with science, credits and other bonuses. Finishing missions and going on shore leave expands your influence with planets.

How you achieve these, though, is never really explained. Victory conditions for the game consist of the very familiar “domination, scientific, diplomatic” options that players are given in previous Meier games.

Following victories your crew will level up and gain fatigue, which can be recovered by taking “shore leave”, effectively an end turn button. Unlike the grand strategy that takes place during games of Civilization, most battles consist of moving your ships close to the enemy and then exchanging fire until one of you dies. The battles and missions take place within a flat space, which is thoroughly disappointing considering the fact that space is perfect for multi-plane combat. While there are many bells and whistles to the overworld – displaying resource collection, science accumulation, trade, buildings and other information – none of it is explained well enough for the player to really know what’s going on. With little in the way of tutorial the player is bombarded with information from the get-go.

These can range from escort duties to straight out space battles, all taking place in a flat arena consisting of hexagonal spaces. With these ships you can begin your journey by interacting with surrounding planets and starting a variety of missions. With your initial bank of currency you can choose to upgrade these craft with better weapons (in the form of torpedoes, plasma beams and lasers) or defences (like shields, armour and stealth). You start with three starships, each stylised according to your choice of culture. However, after a number of hours in the game it’s hard for me to tell you exactly how much these bonuses really affected my game. Each provides different bonuses and effects on your civilisation. As is to be expected, there is much grandeur and pomp in how the story is set out but as the gameplay kicks in you're left feeling a little deflated.īefore you start your journey you must choose, first from the three types of culture you can attain in Beyond Earth (Purity, Supremacy and Harmony) and then from a selection of ‘commanders’. Curious as to the status of other human cultures that fled to the stars, your civilisation sets about exploring the galaxy. In Starships you take on the role of an already-established civilisation that has prospered on an alien planet following the events of Beyond Earth. Yet, despite showing a glimpse of promise, the game falls disappointingly flat. A tactical turn-based space sim, you’d be forgiven for getting overly excited at the prospect of Meier returning to the type of game that made Pirates! so beloved. Now Meier has sought to expand the universe he created in Beyond Earth with his new release Starships.

#Sid meiers starships on steam series#

That series was followed by sci-fi spinoff Beyond Earth last year which, while certainly having many of same mechanics, fell short of its predecessor’s glory and of matching Meier’s much-loved Alpha Centauri. None more so than his magnum opus franchise, Civilization. Known as a developer who plays his games over and over until he deems them fun enough to launch, many of his myriad of releases are instant classics. The name of Sid Meier has attained a godlike status amongst strategy gamers and, it could be argued, for very good reason. Reviews // 10th Apr 2015 - 8 years ago // By Alex Hamilton Sid Meier's Starships Review