Space Empires vs Stars. Need advice.

[Claymore Righ]

Hi all,

I have been along time player of Stars, and have been waiting patiently for Stars! Supernova Genesis.

I stumbled across SEIV but accident. How does SEIV compare to the original Stars!?

Is it even more complex? That would be good, as I am into complex.

Thanks,

Claymore

[capnq]

I've never played Stars, but there's a free demo for SE IV available for download here .

It allows you to play the first 100 turns, and should give you a pretty good idea what to expect. The demo hasn't been patched up to the current full Version, though, so there may be a few discrepancies.

------------------
Cap'n Q
My first SE IV mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Aristoi]

I was a long time player of Stars!, which I enjoyed greatly. I discovered SE3, and I havn't looked back since. SE4 is a far better game in most ways than SE3, too.

I've actually gone back and played a game of Stars! and I really didn't like it anymore. I think it gets really micromanaging and while with SE4 you can have huge games with just as much depth and detail, I never feel like a paper pusher. It's always interesting.

So, I am a former Starts! addict who is now an SE4 addict. Hopefully that helps. Do try the demo, also.

Aristoi

[shino6]

I've played about a year of Stars!, and now after a few months of SE4 I feel reasonably knowledgeable to present the pros of both.

Stars! Pros:
1. Interface - Stars uses real floating windows rather than graphical dialogue boxes. This makes a huge difference toward middle and endgames, when usually you have to track a lot of data. Space Empires 4 interface is maddening at times, and very click driven.
2. AIs - More Challenging. I've played a lot of 3rd party SE4 AIs out there on hard and to me they don't hold a candle to the Stars races. This is partly because Stars has different race/empire options (I really despise spores and massdriver empires) but also due to game dynamics.
3. Victory Conditions - more numerous and flexible. I cannot understand why SE4 doesn't have multi-empire victory conditions.
4. Better Tutorial and Help files.

Space Empires 4
1. More overall customization - This was the #1 thing that drew me to the game. Want to play Federation? Galactic Empire? Klingons? Galactica? You can do anything...
2. Better play balance - I give kudos to the designers for their choices. There are very few useless techs (sorry, boarding parties ARE useless when everybody uses 100% reliable self-destruct devices) and quite of lot of really cool things to find. There are no super-weapons, no quick fixes to galactic domination (in Stars, build missile ships and go to town... point defense? What's that?).
3. More political options - SE4 is better suited to multi-player games and political situations. That being said, I wish they would fix that "1 message per empire per turn" limitation.
4. Ministers - this is a mixed bag. Some of them are REALLY helpful because they automate a lot of the game. Others are just downright idiotic (sending colony ships from halfway across the galaxy when another colony ship is right next door).

Overall, I give Space Empires 4 the higher marks. Stars is a more straightforward gameplaying experience and is a lot of fun, but SE4's customization and overall gameplay make it the best in my book.

- Shino6

[Cyrien]

I have also played Stars! and SE2, SE3, SE4, and just about any other space based type game of the genre you care to name with only a few exceptions.

I tend to see SE4 and SE3 (which still to my mind has a few features better than the SE4 Versions, oh well) as being better than Stars! I played that one for quite awhile and it is a great game. But I simply think that overall SE4 has the better system. I won't guarantee that YOU will like SE4 better than Stars. But I would say give the demo a try at least and based on that you should get a pretty good idea as to whether or not you will like SE4 as a whole.

[Claymore Righ]

Thanks for all of your comments.

I am playing the demo now. So far I like it.

Claymore