Neptune's Pride is 4X Perfection

Gobbledygook5000

Chieftain
Joined
Apr 2, 2020
Messages
29
So, I've been playing this phenomenal game off and on since like 2011. It's essentially a 4X game boiled down to its bare essentials. It's online only and browser based. You can play it from your phone, tablet, computer, anywhere you have your browser. I play through Firefox.

The game has a sci-fi theme, and very simple board-game style graphics. You start with a few stars and start moving your carriers. You choose your research and you invest in Economy, Industry (just make more ships), and Science on each Star. There are 7 Techs to choose from.

The catch is that the game plays out quite slowly. A nearby star might take 5 hours, real time, to reach. A far-off star (once you upgrade Hyperspace, Range) could take 20 hours to reach. So, a 32-player game can take at least 4 weeks to play out, and usually 6 weeks or more. (Jump gates speed things up a bit in the mid-to-late game.) The game only moves forward and calculates actions & results every "tick," which is each hour on the default setting. The clock/game begins when all players have joined. Production occurs every 24 hours (but 20 hours in a 32-player game) and that's when you get paid.

But a lot of the real meat of the game, like with any online strategy game, is the diplomacy. Communication is key to winning, especially in the big games. Talking to other real-life players and trying to form an alliance, people getting tricked and back-stabbed, former enemies teaming up to take out the big threat, etc, all this stuff can make things very juicy. However, the strategy element is fantastic too, especially once you figure out the math of all the systems and how to best exploit a situation down to the very last tick of the game clock.

Once you know what you're doing, you only need to check in a few times a day to program your fleet and spend your cash. Even so, I find myself becoming so totally absorbed with my galaxies that I'm waking up in the middle of the night to make moves! And that's why I often have to take a break from this game for months at a time, lol. :crazyeye:

The game has a dedicated fan-base, and it's free! (Outside of a few custom player made games.)

Anyone interested can check it out here: https://np.ironhelmet.com
 
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