And, if it does come down to war, there is a wide range of ships you can build, and weaponry you can research to power your forces up. As you meet more species, even if you form friendly bonds with them, you’ll be scrambling to maximise the size of your empire before they can envelop you and lay claim to all those resources first.
You can also “claim” star systems that might not have habitable land by constructing frontier outpost to orbit that system’s sun. As you do that the borders of your empire will grow. Just as likely, however, is that the scientists will run into hostile aliens (that operate much like barbarians in Civilization), or other species – and when they do encounter another species, once both sides have figured out how to communicate with one another, the diplomacy starts.Īs you find new habitable planets, you can send colony ships over to start a new community. Or perhaps they’ll bump into a harmless and placid space squid that will float on out of their way. Perhaps they’ll find a new habitable planet. To grow and expand your galactic empire, you need to send scientists out to explore systems. Stellaris is that experience distilled into a 4X strategy.
When I realised that humanity taking to the stars in any meaningful fashion is well beyond the scope of my lifespan I gave up on that dream, but of all the science fiction that I’ve watched and played – be it Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect or No Man’s Sky, it has always been that moment when intrepid explorers arrive at a new planet, and the potential for what they might see or do down there, that has captured my imagination. After all, between the mathematical balancing of the spreadsheets that power them, the layer upon layer of interlocking systems that determine diplomacy, scientific discovery, the outcome of war and cultural development, and the scope that these games tend to have, it can be easy to push consideration for the storytelling element right to the background.īut to me, the best strategy games are also great storytelling experiences, and Stellaris tells a cracking yarn.Īs a kid I wanted to be an astronomer, and it was the idea of exploring new planets and – potentially – meeting new intelligent species that was the draw of it. One of the features that people don’t talk about much with regards to strategy games is the stories that they tell.
0 kommentar(er)
