A good space civ games/mods

Bluewolf · Post by **Bluewolf** » 2008-07-18 05:43pm

After playing a lot of Civ IV: Beyond the Sword I have the increasing urge to find mods or games dedicated to these two themes:

1. Space civ games.
2. A near furture Earth with climate change affects, peak oil etc

I just like the two themes. Though Civ IV kind of touched on both through the mods that game with the game; the space theme was too short and basic and the second one did not take itself seriously nor deviate much from the normal game of Civ. So now as said I am looking for any games/mods that do those themes better. It can be in real time or turn based, I do not mind. It needs to be on PC and nothing over taxing, graphics wise.

Thanks for replying.

Ohma · Post by **Ohma** » 2008-07-18 05:57pm

There's Galactic Civilizations 2 for the space civ theme. Even the basic game is pretty damn good/fun.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-18 09:50pm

There's also Supreme Ruler 2010/2020 for near-future badness. They're pretty indy (ie, zero budget) games, but very complex and allow lots of interesting shit. I can play AU states against each other in post-collapse warlordism, and that's pretty cool.

GalCiv 2 has it's flaws, but it's pretty much the only space strategy game worth playing for a decade... except no multi. OH MY GOD, ACTUAL AI.

Bluewolf · Post by **Bluewolf** » 2008-07-19 07:49am

except no multi. OH MY GOD, ACTUAL AI.

Don't mind that at all. I have plenty of games that have multiplayer so its good to hear of a game where the AI is not so retared.

Is SM:AC as good as people to make it out to be? I hear a lot of people saying its one of the best "Civ" games don't and how it managed several concepts like civics better then Civ IV. Its another game I may want to have a go with and I faintly remember playing the demo years ago.

Supreme Ruler 2010/2020 for near-future badness.

Game sounds pretty good then. Civ IV's Next War mod essentially had this concept but as said; it was too close to a normal game of Civ and it just did not take itself seriously. The premise is great really. A military build up between several large super powers, new techs being researched and used, world surviving off what resources it has left with life adapting to that. The thing was that it was treated all like some kind of zany soft Sci Fi you would see in a 1970's film. Leaders acted like little children waving their best toys around (this is a problem with the leaders in civ imo, they acted like children), saying to "Feeeaaar them!!!. Some descriptions of new techs and weapons were mucked up (mechs being bought because they were "cool" to leaders. I could understand the intimidation factor but cool?). Other stupid concepts existed such as a nuke war cracking the planets crust which was in the end just a way to stop spamming them.

In the end I probably expected too much from it but the premise its awesome. I would love a proper Civ games were you are struggling to survive in a changing world, having to adapt and get your nation through hard times, part of the reason I am asking here. Maybe I should join SD Net world.....

Argosh · Post by **Argosh** » 2008-07-19 11:50am

Space Empires III with B5 ships. I had a game where my Vorlons ruled the galaxy.

Bluewolf · Post by **Bluewolf** » 2008-07-19 04:28pm

I will do some google foo on that as well Argosh.

There needs to be more games for both themes. Theme 2 could really be a gameplay hit if done right and not rushed. It fits with the general culture atm. I would expect to see it in some kind of incarnation of Red Alert with Soviets rising to power again.

Oh well, we can at least help.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-19 06:48pm

There's no market for strategy games. The market for climate change aware strategy games would be a tiny fraction of zero.

Argosh · Post by **Argosh** » 2008-07-20 05:21am

Space Empires III is old though, you'd get more fun with SE IV/V.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-07-20 10:58am

While not a real sim, I would reccomend Startopia: its more like another sim, but its still fun and occasionally even funny ("This is your God").

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-20 05:29pm

That's not even remotely a sim, it's a management game. It's DK2 in space. It's Theme Space Station.

Zixinus · Post by **Zixinus** » 2008-07-20 05:38pm

Okay, but its still fun to play.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-20 05:45pm

So's Audiosurf but it's not relevant.

Then again, the whole strategy thing is so dead it's hard to have a whole thread about it. I found the Space Empires games to be bland, buggy piles of crap that were only good in multi (given their awesomely flexible dip system), I guess there's Sword of the Stars (which is fine until you get more than 10 colonies at which point the UI no longer scales and it becomes really fiddly). Those Supreme Ruler games area cool idea, but they're really overcomplicated and have a very strange UI that makes it really hard to play. GalCiv2 is a good game, but there are plenty of niggles that will piss you off that Stardock have no intention of fixing (like letting you set a transport to 'zero pop' when the only possible response to that is to not let you launch it).

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2008-07-20 06:18pm

What about Master Of Orion and Master Of Orion II?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2008-07-20 06:50pm

MoO is so old it's unplayable, even for me, and MoO2 is so broken it's not funny. Terrible AI, no balance, no diplomacy, it's a definate product of the 90s 'kill em all' strategy style. Aside from tactical combat (which was useless because the AI couldn't play it anyway), GalCiv2 does all the same stuff better.

Except the 'I have a cruiser so your whole planet just joined me' level unbalanced stuff.