Does anyone know "Stars!" ?

[Meithan]

The other day I was remembering how fun I used to have playing a really old game named Stars!. Does anyone here know it? It's a 4X turn-based sci-fi strategy game for Windows. It's really old, so the graphics are completely 2D and very simple. What the game lacks in graphics, though, it compensates in strategic depth. I think it's the best strategy game I've ever played.

Multiplayer was usually done by email, with one turn being played per day. This made games last a couple months. I remember being in high school constantly looking at my watch, continually reviewing in my head my current situation, what options did I have and what possible outcomes there could be. I just couldn't wait to get home and play the next turn. I'd bite my fingernails wondering: had my attack fleet made it past that enemy minefield? Would the defenses on the target planet have been any different than my last intelligence report suggested?

Well, anyway. If anyone ever played it, it would perhaps be cool to play a simple game, for old times' sake.

 

[Meithan]

Come on, anyone?

 

[Z3N]

There was a similar online version I believe.
When you signed up you were given a planet and randomly located in a galaxy with 12 other people.
Then started building home defense then attack cruisers.

Loved it.

 

[Meithan]

Perhaps you mean OGame?

I played that for a few weeks, then dropped it. It's fun and all at the start, while you're in "noob protection", where only players with similar scores can attack you. But after that, it's pure abuse. One day after going out of noob protection a player with easily 1000 times my score (and power) erased my homeworld from the map. I didn't stand a chance. That was it for me and OGame.

No, no, Stars! is far better than anything else I've ever played. Plus the game is very balanced. There's a steep learning curve at the start (because there's just too much info) but after that, it's all pure strategy.

 

[Z3N]

Sound like fun.

 

[Deathawk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

Looks pretty cool. ;p

 

[Meithan]

Haha I hope that wasn't sarcasm. Yes, the graphics suck, even for its time (Master of Orion was way prettier). But this game's whole essences rests on a simple concept: pure, clean strategy. There's a bit of resource-gathering and micromanagement involved, but it can all be automated to a certain extent, so that you can focus on actually playing the game: making decisions about your fleet's movements, negotiating with other players, scouting the galaxy to gather intelligence, bombing worlds from orbit, etc.

I played Master of Orion 2 and (demo of) 3 and these games get boring really quick, because of the insane amount of micromanagement needed to keep competitive. At the later stages it ceases to be a game about galactic conquest and becomes a space-based Sim City.