A planet type, either rock, gas, or ice, which determines what type of colony ship can land there, an atmosphere, which determines what races can use the full planet, and a condition, which determines the population growth rate on the planet. Planets each have three different attributes that are important when deciding which to colonize. Ships and facilities are queued up in one convienient screen. The extent to which you can customize your race is amazing, and even now few games can claim to match it. In the unmodified game, your population is basically either peaceful, warlike, or isolationist. The happiness type is what determines how your populations react to the various diplomatic states that exist between you and other empires.
After that, you’re presented with a long list of different aptitudes you can adjust, followed by more advanced traits which include access to special technologies, and then a culture and a few other qualities like demeanor and a happiness type. You start out by picking a portrait and shipset, and then the preferred planet types of your race. When customizing your race, you are presented with a huge number of options that may intimidate players new to the genre. You can also setup the game so that all players start out with empires at a certain level of development. There is also a wealth of other options during game setup that can be altered, such as research speed, random event rates and severity, victory conditions, and more. There is a scenario editor included in the Gold version of the game for those who want to specify exactly what they want their galaxy to look like. A preview of the galaxy can be generated so that you have a better idea of what the game is going to look like. There are plenty of ways to customize your race.įor the game itself, you can randomly generate the galaxy to fit a number of different templates and sizes. This is an area where SE4 really shines, and a wealth of customization is available. Read on for a more in-depth review.Ī quickstart option is made available to players, so that you can jump right into the game with a prebuilt race, but more veteran strategy gamers are going to want to customize their race and the rest of the game to their own liking. Although it is beginning to show its age by the time of this review, it is still one of the best space strategy games out there.
Space empires iv races series#
This is a game that can be completed in one sitting!ġ-4 hours to play depending on the scenarioĪRT DIRECTOR/PACKAGE ART: Rodger B.Space Empires IV Gold is the most recently released version of the long-running Space Empires series by Malfador Machinations. Many aspects of the game can be completed simultaneously by the players so that there is very little downtime. Scenarios can be customized in length and some can be completed in as little as an hour. Multi-player scenarios have the option for team play, including 2 players against 1 in a 3-player game.
There are Multiple Scenarios for both solitaire and 2-players. Your fleets will actually feel like fleets! Building only the largest capital ship is not a good idea. Combat is simple (there are no complicated charts), but rewards good, balanced fleet construction. This is where your technology and fleet decisions will be proven. The competing empires quickly come in contact and vie to eXterminate each other. This infrastructure must quickly be eXploited to build a fleet from up to 10 different classes of warships and researching critical technology from among 50 levels of advances at your disposal. Players then eXpand their empire by forming colonies (long term, steady growth), harvesting resources (quick income), and building a merchant fleet (trade income). Terrain is important as it impacts both combat and movement, as well as how you will build your empire. Each space can reveal any of 12 different terrain effects like asteroids, nebulae, and planets. Almost 20 years in the making, many elegant solutions have been developed to remove complexity and make the game intuitive.ġ to 4 players eXplore the random map. Despite that, the rules are Incredibly Simple.
Carriers, fighters, mines, cloaking, dreadnoughts, merchant shipping, colonization, mining, terraforming, shipyards, black holes, warp points, non-player aliens, Doomsday Machines - everything an Epic Space Opera needs. Space Empires 4X is a game in the finest tradition of 4X space games - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.