Visiting a planet that is not part of the player’s federation triggers a space battle. The strategic portion of Starships takes place on a hex map of space filled with planets to discover. Energy is used to build and repair ships in the fleet. Science is used to conduct research that improves the quality of starship systems like weapons, engines, and stealth technology. Metals are used to build improvements on those worlds, like special factories that increase energy production or the installation of planetary defense craft. Each additional city improves resource production levels on the planet. Food allows the player to build cities on worlds. The four basic resources in Starships also resemble the basic resource management scheme in the Civilization games. You can win by conquering the capital worlds of all the other empires, reaching a goal population size, building the most Wonders, or having the most scientifically advanced empire. You can choose whether some or all of the potential victory conditions are in play. You also select one of eight leaders, all of whom carry different bonuses and traits. Players choose between one of the three Affinities, or the guiding principles of the aforementioned colonial civilizations, introduced in Beyond Earth: Supremacy, Harmony, or Purity. ![]() The trappings of the Civilization franchise are most strongly felt in Starships during the setup phase, when you select the size of the map and the number of opponents to face. ![]() Starships presumes that many of those missions were successful, and now the space-faring civilizations that blossomed from those colonies are coming into contact with one another. It’s terribly underwhelming, and it all came to a boiling point where I took the time to realize that at any given moment, you only have control of a lone fleet of starships, which seems at odds for a game about conquering space.Sid Meier’s Starships takes place hundreds of years after Civilization: Beyond Earth, which told the story of how humankind spread from Earth to form new colonies elsewhere. There are upgrades, tech trees, and even remnants of the diplomacy system from the core Civilization series, but it’s all been gutted and skinned to the point where there isn’t much choice or freedom in how you go about playing. Unfortunately, however, Starships is restricted to single-player sessions only, and while this might be suited to those looking to hone their strategic skills, it quickly becomes dull after so many hours.Īside from the AI, which is easily exploitable once you come to recognize how it operates, the game never gets in-depth enough to warrant coming back to it. ![]() While I’m sure many potential gamers will be just fine playing on their own, much of the enjoyment of strategy games comes from taking your skillset and testing it out against another human player. It’s here that I quickly realized one of Starships‘ biggest flaws: the absence of any sort of multiplayer. Planets can be controlled by paying for them or by completing various objectives, all of which raise your influence, allowing you to expand your civilization even further. While you start out with one planet, it’s your overarching goal to venture forward into space, and bring other planets under your control. While the Civlization games tend to focus on victory through the advancement of your society (through science, building, and military control), Starships tilts towards victory through map control. However, games that are developed with mobile devices in mind don’t always make the transition to PC with their dignity intact the Steam front page is a reminder of that fact, with plenty of titles being hastily ported just to make a quick buck.Ī few hours in, it became quite clear that while Starships does have some connection to the recently released Beyond Earth, it is by no means a transposed, or even distilled version of the in-depth strategy games that many have come to know and love, not to mention sink hundreds of hours into. On the contrary, some of my favorite games from the past few years found life on iPhones and iPads, and there are plenty of stellar indie titles which have made the jump (successfully) from PC to the mobile space (including Sid Meier’s own Ace Patrol, which is another PC/mobile release). ![]() A quick Wikipedia search confirmed my suspicions, though I should take the time to clear the air I don’t have a problem with tablet and mobile games.
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