Sid Meier's Starships

[Shelldrake]

Very good and spot on.
O0

+1

Nicely done review!

[tgb]

You know, I've been giving some thought to some of the criticism I've read about the game that seems to be aimed at Sid Meier personally - i.e., he's "gone soft", he's "sold out", he should "hang it up", Starships is "not worthy of the name", etc.

I've been in this hobby long enough to go back to his first titles like Hellcat Ace and Floyd of the Jungle.  Seems to me he designs games to fit whatever he's interested in at the moment.  He's 25 years older than when he started developing Civilization, and not the same man.  I know as I've grown older and real life has gotten more and more in the way, I no longer have interest in flight sims or strategy games that require reading a 300 page manual, and I'm guessing he doesn't either.

I went back and put together a list of his games, and most people would be surprised to see how few fit the pattern of what people think of when they hear the name "Sid Meier". I've only listed the games on which he is credited as lead designer - not the branded titles.

Oh, and here's a fun fact - the only PC Civilization game on which he was lead was the first.

Spitfire Ace    1982    
Hellcat Ace    1982    
Floyd of the Jungle    1982    
Chopper Rescue    1982    
NATO Commander    1984    
Solo Flight    1984    
Kennedy Approach    1985    
F-15 Strike Eagle    1985    
Silent Service    1985    
Crusade in Europe    1985    
Decision in the Desert    1985    
Conflict in Vietnam    1986    
Gunship    1986    
Sid Meier's Pirates!    1987    
Red Storm Rising    1988    
F-19 Stealth Fighter    1988    
F-15 Strike Eagle II    1989    
Sword of the Samurai    1989    
Covert Action 1990
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon    1990    
Sid Meier's Civilization    1991
Sid Meier's Colonization    1994    
Magic: The Gathering    1997    
Sid Meier's Gettysburg!    1997    
Sid Meier's Antietam!    1998
Sid Meier's SimGolf    2002
Sid Meier's Railroads!    2006    
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution    2008
Sid Meier's CivWorld    2011    
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol    2013    
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies    2013    
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution 2    2014    
Sid Meier's Starships    2015

I've left off CPU Bach for the Amiga since that wasn't really a game.

33 games - of which 2 could be classified as deep 4X games (I'm giving the first Colonization the benefit of the doubt). Compare that to 6 "light" casual/mobile/facebook games, 6 war games, and 9 flight and sub sims.

Chew on that next time someone brings up what is or isn't a "Sid Meier game".

[Steelgrave]

^ Sid's the guy who loves what he does so he never has to work a day in his life. And you hit it right on the head....Sid has said before that he makes the games he wants to play. More often than not, they are the games I want to play as well.

[W8taminute]

tgb that is well stated.  Knowing that now makes me understand why I love to hate the guy so much.  It's because he makes the games he wants to play not the games I want to play.

[Cyrano]

Thoughtful comments.

If I have a regret with this game (yeah, I bought it, you guys are the worst), it's that it leaves me wondering what Sid could do if he were tasked to do his version of SFB.

Then again, maybe he doesn't want to play that...

[glen55]

-> snip
Spitfire Ace    1982    
Hellcat Ace    1982    
Floyd of the Jungle    1982    
Chopper Rescue    1982    
NATO Commander    1984    
Solo Flight    1984    
Kennedy Approach    1985    
F-15 Strike Eagle    1985    
Silent Service    1985    
Crusade in Europe    1985    
Decision in the Desert    1985    
Conflict in Vietnam    1986    
Gunship    1986    
Sid Meier's Pirates!    1987    
Red Storm Rising    1988    
F-19 Stealth Fighter    1988    
F-15 Strike Eagle II    1989    
Sword of the Samurai    1989    
Covert Action 1990
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon    1990    
Sid Meier's Civilization    1991
Sid Meier's Colonization    1994    
Magic: The Gathering    1997    
Sid Meier's Gettysburg!    1997    
Sid Meier's Antietam!    1998
Sid Meier's SimGolf    2002
Sid Meier's Railroads!    2006    
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution    2008
Sid Meier's CivWorld    2011    
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol    2013    
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies    2013    
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution 2    2014    
Sid Meier's Starships    2015
<- snip

Let me just say, what a wonderful list of games.  The first ones I played were F-15 Strike Eagle and Silent Service.  I had such a blast with both of those.  I think Silent Service is still my favorite sub sim, at least if you could get it to work now.  And I didn't even remember Sid did Red Storm Rising!  I was just thinking about that game 3 or 4 days ago, and wishing there were a modern port.  I played it over and over.

Civ, the original Civ, has to be the most influential computer game ever.  And Pirates?  Wow, for a 1987 game, that was a game!

I think it's true that he isn't the blazing innovator he was in the 1980s, but he has made quite a few excellent games since then, and very few you could call dogs.

[Gusington]

Gunship too, eh? One of my top games ever. Didn't know he was involved with it at all.

[BanzaiCat]

NATO Commander was the first one of his I ever played, on my granddad's Apple IIc.

It was a precursor to Crusade in Europe, Decision in the Desert, and Conflict in Vietnam, all games I absolutely loved playing (on the Apple as well).

[DoctorQuest]

I think Silent Service is still my favorite sub sim, at least if you could get it to work now.

SS1 and SS2 are both available at gog.com

I want gog.com to get a hold of Sid Meier's Civil War.

[jomni]

NATO Commander was the first one of his I ever played, on my granddad's Apple IIc.

It was a precursor to Crusade in Europe, Decision in the Desert, and Conflict in Vietnam, all games I absolutely loved playing (on the Apple as well).

These are RTS games. Lol!

[FarAway Sooner]

What's interesting also is that his 3 most innovative titles all came out within a 5-year span:  Pirates in '87, Railroad Tycoon in '90, and Civilization in '91!!  He's done a lot of other good games, but I don't think any of them broke new ground as decisively, or brilliantly, as those 3. 

I also didn't know that he wasn't the lead on Alpha Centauri.  That one was little more than a brilliant spin-off of the Civilization idea, but the idea of creating unique factions that played so differently was not something that had been executed half that well by any other 4X titles, with the possible exception of Master of Magic.

[tgb]

Brian Reynolds was the lead designer of both Civ II and Alpha Centauri.

[ArizonaTank]

I have to say I like the game.  Some of the "wonders" allow you to implement tactics that completely change strategy.  For example, the wonder that allows fighters to fly through asteroid debris.  After getting this, I could mass a group of fighters, hide behind asteroids, then wave assault a target, and disappear back behind the asteroids.  Great fun.

But I do see that replayability is somewhat limited, at least for me.  The game gets somewhat "samey" by the 2nd or 3rd play through. 

[Steelgrave]

I have to say I like the game.  Some of the "wonders" allow you to implement tactics that completely change strategy.  For example, the wonder that allows fighters to fly through asteroid debris.  After getting this, I could mass a group of fighters, hide behind asteroids, then wave assault a target, and disappear back behind the asteroids.  Great fun.

The wonders in the game add a lot. I won a game, then turned around and started another to try different tactics. I embraced the Romulan way, creating fast, stealthy warships loaded with torpedoes that packed a wallop and short range weapons for knife fighting. Early on I grabbed the planet that allowed me to build invisible torpedoes. So I've got overpowered, invisible torpedoes....hell yeah!

I bulldozed two competitors in short order, then as I was eyeing my nearest and baddest enemy....he built the wonder that makes his starships invulnerable to torpedoes and declared war on me!

That's where I'm at now. Be it luck or good AI, I admire the tactical challenge that's been thrown my way. By the end game, you may well have a maxed out fleet with maxed out everything, but before you get there you have some design choices to make, which, if you're smart, will include trying to grab up the wonders that allow you to optimize your choices.

[tgb]

I just won a Wonder victory on Normal, and it was surprisingly easy.  I built nothing but cities and Wonders and was able to cheese out a win by first conquering the Marauder home world, and then buying and selling in the marketplace until I had enough metal to purchase my final two wonders for the win.

AI was disappointing on both the strategic and tactical level.  At one point I was at war with the yellow faction, but they never attacked any of my worlds, despite being a single jump away. In a couple of battles, not only did the AI not use the asteroids for cover, but they actually flew into the middle of a spread of torpedoes.

I normally suck at this kind of game, so for me to win so decisively my first time out says something.  I'm willing to give it another shot on Hard, because I did enjoy most of the time I spent with the game, despite it's drawbacks.