Sid meiers starships tips series#

They give players the time and space to always be planning ahead.Īn interesting twist in Starships turn-based combat system lets you detonate torpedos several turns later, to blow up enemy ships or destroy asteroid fields to give you a new route through a battlefield. He doesn’t want players only reacting to what’s happening in the present, which is why he prefers turn-based games. Good strategy games, according to Meier, are the ones that keep your mind on the future.

The idea is that when you finish a game, you’ll always have an idea in the back of your head about how you’re going to play differently next time. “These range from the affinity you choose, to your faction, to the starships you build, to the difficulty level you choose.” “There are a lot of different choices you can make,” says Meier. The road to a victory will be different every time you play the game. Take too long to reach your own victory and you’ll lose the game. And finally there’s the Population victory, achieved by having a large amount of people in your empire.” Like Civ, you’ll be alerted when other factions make progress towards these victories. The Science victory is won by unlocking three level six technologies. There’s also the Wonder victory, where you control seven wonders. Here you win by taking out all the other factions. “There’s the traditional Domination victory, which carries over from Civilization. “There are a number of ways to win,” says Meier. You can still play how you want to play, a freedom that’s a crucial part of all of Meier’s games.īut no matter how you decide to play, you’ll always have one thing on your mind: victory. But your choice of affinity won’t restrict you in any way. Then there’s Supremacy, who are leaders in technology and construction, and start the game with a random wonder. Harmony fleets focus on the interrelatedness of all living things, and their bonus is repairing their ships at half the cost. Purity admirals are diplomats, and their emphasis on the heritage of humanity gives them double mission rewards. “The idea is that the affinity you choose is the affinity that led you to victory in a game of Beyond Earth, and now you’re ready to move outside your world, out into the rest of the galaxy.” “We use the affinity system as a way to customise your federation,” says Meier. Affinities, returning from Beyond Earth, will inform your play style. Replayability is something Meier and his team are striving for. That rolls together very nicely and is a lot of fun.” This creates a loop where victories in combat give you more strategic capability, which in turn makes you better at combat. “The strategy systems and what happens outside of combat directly feeds into your fleet and its capability. “Combat is really the heart of the game,” says Meier. Just like in a game of Civ, conflict is often unavoidable, and combat will be a big part of the Starships experience. Upgrades play a significant part too, and includes fine customization not only of your ship, but individual modules within it.It may be possible to exist peacefully in this galaxy, but it’ll be difficult.

Signals are received from outlying planets that determine available missions, the completion of which allows you to recruit new worlds and take advantage of their unique resources and abilities. Not unlike a Star Trek origin story, perhaps, although as you can see from the video below, the aesthetic isn’t so much Roddenberry as it is Battlestar.ĭifferent factions have formed that you can choose from (known as affinities), with different leaders available that you can put in command of your new fleet. Nope, you’ll be in command of an entire fleet, with the weighty, yet noble objective of establishing an interplanetary federation. It follows the adventures of those who set off into the galaxy in a different direction, and shows what happened to the outer fringe of humanity in the far reaches of space.īeing Meier-designed, this isn’t just a case of getting in a spaceship and flying around completing missions. And in much the same way, it looks as though Starships will take the strategy franchise off on another, equally mind-blowing, tangent. Starships apparently follows on from Civilization: Beyond Earth, which in itself is most commonly thought of as a spiritual successor rather than a direct sequel.

Sid meiers starships tips series#

Famous for creating the turn-based strategy series Civilization, he took to the stage and casually blew our minds by demonstrating how he’s expanding on his incredible creation. In a newly recorded video from last week’s the PAX South expo, Sid Meier has been wowed gamers by finally revealing his latest game: Sid Meier’s Starships.