Stars!

[Dralix]

Just wondering if anyone here has played, or still plays Stars!

For those that don't know, Stars! is a space strategy-colonization-smite your enemies type game. Originally published as shareware, it was later picked up by Empire Interactive. A long awaited sequel, Stars! Supernova Genesis, is mostly complete, but in need of a publisher.

I played it years ago, and played one PBEM last year that lasted several months. Now I am thinking about joining another game. Is anyone interested in starting one? Or if I start one will others join? Or am I the only one who plays such an antique of a game?

[Dell19]

I no longer have it installed sadly. It was quite a fun game and I did play it multiplayer with two friends but in the end it took a long time for people to have an opportunity to attack one of the other empires. I could try and get stars off someone I know at school but after today I might not see thm again which could make it difficult to arrange.

[Fun-gi]

It was a good game for its time, deep strategy and infinite replayability. The graphics sucked, tho. When is the new one due?

[Dell19]

Since its in need of a publisher, probably never.

[Dralix]

Fun-gi you're right about the graphics, but also about the strategy and replayability. I will always choose a product with good gameplay and lousy graphics over flashy graphics and lousy gameplay.

You can get the latest information on Stars! Supernova Genesis at the official site here or at Starbase Delta

In particular, check out this thread at Starbase Delta. It seems that one of the regulars has a friend who came into a lot of money last year, and might be interested in helping with funding (IIRC they have considered self publishing, but lack the funding to do so). In this thread, someone quotes Jeff McBride from April of this year:

There is something going on but we're not prepared to say anything about it yet

Now, having said all that, I'm afraid I agree with Dell19. I've basically lost hope, although I check out the Starbase Delta forums every now and then, just in case.

[Furry Spatula]

thanks, i played this game many many many years ago. I was always trying to find it since but i never could. This is it. It brings back memories. I liked it, only had the demo i think though.

[Mariusz]

I've had that game a few years ago. I remember that I read the manual, which took me a few hours, but when I finished I played the game for about half an hour and I lost interest in it. I have no idea why. Definetely not because I don't like this kind of games, I liked Master of Orion 2 for example.

[Dell19]

The only problem I had was with the difficulty levels as they seemed to be too steep, unless you played on a small or tiny map.

[Dralix]

On larger universes, the Hyper Expansion AI can be very difficult to kill. Multiplayer is really the way to go. The AIs will do things that no human ever would, and you can do things against them that you would never do against a human. A big shortcoming with the single player game is the lack of diplomacy with the AI. But then again, half of the fun in the game was diplomacy with other people: border treaties, alliances, wars, etc.

Sigh. All right, now you've all done it. Tonight I'm going to try to tweak my race a little, then off to The List to find a game to join.

[Dell19]

Wow! So its still possible to play Stars online? How does it work? Do you submit a turn each day like a succession game or do you have to be online at the same times?

[Dralix]

Years ago they had "Blitz" games that were played over IRC. You were all online at the same time and you had a time limit in which to submit your turn. I never played one of those. I preferred the play by email, so I can take my time.

Play by email worked with one person being the host, who would generate the new turn after receiving all turns from players or after a set period of time had elapsed. I imagine that this is how PBEM works in Civ III as well, but I have never played that either.

Now, there is Autohost which basically does all the hosting stuff automatically. You upload your turn on the Autohost website, and when all turns are in or the force gen time arrives, the new turn is generated and emailed to you.

[Dell19]

Yep thats basically how a succession game works, but it must have took quite awhile to finish a large game...

[Dralix]

The last game I played took a few months, with daily gens. Just completing your turn gets time consuming after that long. Some games I see now do multiple turn gens for the first 20 or 30 years, then switch to 24 hour gens, then to 48 or 72 hours as the game progresses. Playing a huge universe with three days between gens would take very long to finish.

But I can think of worse ways to spend a few months.

[Dell19]

Yes there would be worse ways but I wouldn't describe that as being a fun way to spend the time. I would sadly get quite tired of a game that lasted so long unless it was about football

[Dralix]

I guess that's where we differ. I became completely engrossed in my PBEMs. I would think about the game all day, get home and load the new turn with anticipation, then excitedly scroll through all the messages and check the scores to see how good I was doing. Playing the new turn involved not just giving orders, but simulating battles, testing different ship designs, etc.

Maybe I'm just a freak.

[Dell19]

I would get excited for awhile and then get annoyed of waiting to see whether my moves had been successful... At least with chess the opposition knows that you are bored of waiting and you can keep on putting them off until they make a move