Star Ruler 2

[tgb]

Officially released...   anyone playing?

I am, and I like it so far.  There's a bit of a learning curve.  It reminds me a bit of Endless Legend in that while it plays like a standard 4X game, the mechanics of some of the elements (colonization and diplomacy) are unique enough to make it feel fresh.

The biggest problem is horrible documentation. I haven't even been able to find out what the victory conditions are.

[Huw the Poo]

Officially released...   anyone playing?

It's right at the top of my wishlist but I probably can't justify it after just buying a whole new PC.  It looks fantastic though, I can't wait to get it.

[sandman2575]

Easily justified!  What's $25 after blowing a few grand on a new pc?  A rounding error. Sales tax. Shipping costs.  :)

Anyway, I caved and bought (along with Pillars of Eternity, sigh) last night, but haven't had a chance to play. Looking forward to spending some time with it tonight...

[Yskonyn]

Very interested to read more about this.
If it actually is a good game then I'll jump in and if enough people here like it maybe we can throw together a MP game as well?  O0

[Huw the Poo]

Easily justified!  What's $25 after blowing a few grand on a new pc?  A rounding error. Sales tax. Shipping costs.  :)

Haha!  You've done this before! ;)

Anyway, I caved and bought (along with Pillars of Eternity, sigh) last night, but haven't had a chance to play. Looking forward to spending some time with it tonight...

Splendid!  Looking forward to reading some impressions!

[mikeck]

I like it and it has a lot of interesting concepts. As with the star ruler 1, my only problem is that eventually I can build tens of thousands of chips or I can build a ship the size of a star just a bit ridiculous.... I mean come on. Now I choose not to do so myself, but my AI opponent comes attacking me with like 800 ships I have to do the same thing

[Sparhawk]

My biggest complaint with the first Star Ruler was controlling territory. It might only be efficient to colonize 1 planet in a given star system and the AI would come in and colonize the others, so I would end up having to colonize every rock out there just to exclude an opponent I may not desire to battle with yet. Is Star Ruler 2 the same way, where you must colonize everything to keep opponents at bay?

[sandman2575]

Only played through the tutorial last night, but my impressions are definitely positive. My recollection of Star Ruler the original is hazy, but SR2 seems like a completely new game to me, and that's all to the good.

Graphics seem very much upgraded (sorry to start with the superficial, but guess I'm superficial  8)).  Hated the low-poly-count, blocky shipsets in SR1. These look a lot more polished, and I'm intrigued by the ship design mechanics, which seem reasonably deep.

Sounds like you do have to expand pretty relentlessly in order to keep up with the AI. Not thrilled by that, but I'll have to play more to see what it means in practice.  Here's a pretty thorough (and very positive) review of the game --

http://www.explorminate.com/#!Star-Ruler-2/c15kj/551447ff0cf215f35a1c3507

Man, my dream space 4x would be to merge the mechanics and UI of Distant Worlds with the 3D universe of a game like this...

[bbmike]

Well, I didn't want to read this in the review:

Diplomacy
As I noted, Star Ruler 2 is a combat-driven title, and the diplomacy system is no exception.

Why, why can't we have more 4x games where there is actual, meaningful diplomacy?  :-\

[Huw the Poo]

I bought Star Ruler 2 this evening and will have to echo Sandman's comments; I too have only played the tutorial thus far (which was pretty good) and I'm feeling fairly positive about the game.  A built-in wiki helps, and I'm really pleased to see that in-game IRC is back.  I hope the devs hang around in there a lot like they did with the first game.

Some completely random initial thoughts:

The interface scales really well; planets and fleets are replaced by icons as you zoom out, and rearrange themselves intelligently in the display.  All the most important information about a particular entity is easily obtained with a single click, and at no point did I feel like there was any clutter (except from the tutorial box itself which obviously won't be there in a proper game and can be moved around at will).

Graphically this game wouldn't have been state of the art ten years ago.  It matters to some extent so I thought I'd mention it.  Certainly not a deal-breaker to me, and to be fair there is the occasional nice effect, like the FTL jump.

Sound...I can't remember much of this at all, suggesting there was very little, unfortunately.  However the soundtrack is pretty nice and there's even a choir piece in the mix.

Controls...everything we've come to expect.  Zoom in/out to cursor, edge or middle-mouse-button scrolling.  Left click things to select, right-click things to do.  As in the first game, you can right-click an entity to get a context-sensitive menu.  One splendid use of this is colonisation; instead of struggling to remember where you built that damn colony ship, just right-click your target planet and choose "colonise this".  Presto - the nearest colony ship will make its way, or the nearest planet capable of building one will kick into gear.  I really appreciate this feature.

Anyway, just got time for a bit more before I go to bed.  I'll post more impressions in the coming days.

Thumbs up for now!

[Anguille]

Well, I didn't want to read this in the review:

Diplomacy
As I noted, Star Ruler 2 is a combat-driven title, and the diplomacy system is no exception.

Why, why can't we have more 4x games where there is actual, meaningful diplomacy?  :-\

Yeah...my problem as well.

[Huw the Poo]

Pfft.  Read the rest of the review.  Diplomacy is a hell of a lot deeper than, say, the card-based combat you get in Endless Space - and what's more, it makes more sense.  How many 4X games have you played in which diplomacy consists of "propose treaty X with player Y and sweeten the deal with just enough gold to get the slider to reach the tipping point"?  Oh, and how many of them have AI players which then go on to renege on the treaty five minutes later anyway?  Diplomacy is, historically, spectacularly weak in player vs AI 4X.

In Star Ruler 2, diplomacy (from what little I've seen of it so far) is much more involved.  You get your usual "offer treaty X to player Y" options, but on top of that is a whole different layer.  An empire begins by making a proposition, such as "host galactic senate building" which would confer certain influence bonuses to that empire if the proposition is passed.  All empires are alerted to the event and a timer begins.  Empires can vote yes or no by playing cards which are more or less effective with differing costs (in influence).  They can also play cards that have other effects on negotiations.  They can offer rewards to empires voting in certain ways.  They can add "riders" to the proposition to piggyback on its success should it pass.  Each card played adds a little to the timer to give empires a chance to react, so there's no sneaking in a winning vote at the last second.  It's actually quite thrilling.  The diplomacy screen even has its own separate chat box (for multiplayer games obviously) for players to discuss the voting.

"Combat mini-game" is a gross mischaracterisation of Star Ruler 2's diplomacy, and I would argue that it's a far superior system to that offered by 99% of 4X games.

Here is the wiki article.

[bbmike]

Okay, I have hope again.  8)

[Huw the Poo]

My biggest complaint with the first Star Ruler was controlling territory. It might only be efficient to colonize 1 planet in a given star system and the AI would come in and colonize the others, so I would end up having to colonize every rock out there just to exclude an opponent I may not desire to battle with yet. Is Star Ruler 2 the same way, where you must colonize everything to keep opponents at bay?

Kind of.  You'll want to colonise them all, since every (colonisable) planet produces some kind of resource which the rest of your empire can use.  Some of these planets can also be levelled up which results in higher-tier resources which can, in turn, be used to level up your core worlds.  Also, I don't remember how it was inefficient to colonise every planet in Star Ruler, but in Star Ruler 2 the only cost is in population.  You don't explicitly build colony ships so there's no production cost of any kind.  Also it couldn't be easier to do - just right-click the planet and select colonise; you'll automatically start sending colony ships from the nearest suitable planet.

(Disclaimer: I only just got the game so it's possible I've missed something, but in the short time I've played a proper game I've been able to colonise every world I encounter with ease)

[Sparhawk]

Thanks Huw, maybe my expectations were off playing Star Ruler. I am used to other games like Distant Worlds where territory is established when colonizing a single planet in a system. I enjoyed Star Ruler otherwise and am interested in this one.