Reviews

• 

  Ohio9

  Jan 21, 2022

  Stars in Shadow is so similar to the original "Master of Orion" series I'm surprised it wasn't made the same people. Fortunately that's not a bad thing. It resembles the old series for all the right reasons. Constantly expanding your empire, building up your fleet, and fine tuning your planets to give you the maximum amount of resources can be loads of fun. Unfortunately there are two crippling flaws that really make this game hard to recommend. The first is the bare-bones diplomacy system. Basically once a faction is on good terms with you, you can get them to agree to almost any deal. They'll never say no if your standing is high enough. Perhaps because of this, the creators put a severe limit on your diplomatic options. The main thing lacking is the ability to convince factions to break alliances with each other. Want to go to war with a tiny faction, but can't because a much larger faction is allied with them? Tough luck. There's basically no way you can break that alliance. The original Master of Orion game was much better at making AI factions less predictable and ensuring they wouldn't agree to everything based on standing alone, and that came out in 1993! But the real thing that hinders the game is the lack of limits on fleet sizes, the same thing that crippled Master of Orion 2. There's no limit to have many ships can be in one fleet. So in a long game, it's pretty common for an AI fleet to stuff 100+ ships into one fleet. On any difficulty level above easy, the AI factions can support way more ships than you, even if your empires are the same size, so they can often just build one huge super-fleet that you simply can't produce the numbers to defeat. Even if you can produce enough ships to defeat their super-fleets, it makes the game take forever, as battle become multi-hour slogs. Even worse, the lack of fleet size can actually crash the game. In my latest playthrough, I was going for a "conquest" victory, but I ran into a faction that had a fleet with about 200 ships in it. So after spending over a dozen gameplay hours building up my Empire large enough to support an equally large fleet to defeat it, I went to war with them, only to discover the game simply couldn't handle it. Every time I tried to start the battle, the game crashed before going to the battle screen, or within one turn of the battle itself. I couldn't even auto-resolve the battle. The game still crashed every time. The lack of fleet size had literally made the game unplayable. So I was forced to give up going for a conquest victory and settle for the boring council victory even though I already had the achievement for that. It made a 30+ playthrough feel like a complete waste. Until they put some kind of limit on the fleet size, every playthrough is done with this risk.
• 

  Stork6

  Sep 16, 2016

  Overall, and especially for an early release, this game is excellent. It feels very much like a greatly updated Master of Orion II in terms of space combat. I applaud you for the way you handled boarding actions in particular. I like the way that resources have been set up, and the option to become a trade magnate by building a fleet of transports is enticing. The tech tree is massive, and each race has its own wonderdful feel tech-wise (played a couple of hundred turns on three so far) The way that race has its own unique ships and roles was well done. (Particularly fond of the Orthin escort cruiser) And even being on the receiving end of Gremak energy torps was enjoyable, if only for a few seconds, simply because they felt unique. Diplomacy feels a bit lacking, but I have great hopes that that will be fleshed out as updates are sent out. A final, and somewhat minor note: I was very pleasantly surprised when I noticed that my military transports were not "consumed" when used in a planetary assault. This makes a star-to-star assault a great deal more viable. What else, oh yes, the artwork is outstanding. I followed Outsider until the author sort of dropped it to complete this, so I am not at all surprised by the quality of the work. Well done all around!
• 

  Galactic Origins

  Sep 17, 2016

  I only have good things to write about this game. It plays more like MOO2 than even MOO2. That is how good it is. Still in Early Access, some things are not finished but it is way fun to play. Economy is simple to run. There are Farms for Food (and all food is shared between worlds provided you have transports in the trans pool), Mines for Minerals, Labs give a lot of Research and Factories build things. Most worlds I do not put factories on but the AI does. Also, as the population grows on a planet, resrouces are increased. Ship design is easy and fun. It seems the different races have a few ships that are unique to them. I played a race that had Battlecruisers but another race had an even larger ship, a Battleship. This is pretty neat. Technology! I never did get thru all of the techs in my longest game. There are a huge number of great techs in this game. Most of my worlds never stopped building stuff. I had any building transports for the transport fleet because it generated money. Oops. Forgot. Yeah, there are Markets to bild for money. Ships do not seem to have a huge upkeep, which is neat because you can build large fleets that way. The size of the galaxy is around 50-88 worlds. I played on a 50. Once finished, this will be a great 4X title! It is playable even now ...
• 

  Pherdnut

  Oct 13, 2016

  ========= The Review: ========= It's nowhere near done but it already scratches the MOO2 itch better than any other space 4X game to date, including the recent remake which was 'meh and didn't really feel like it was designed by somebody who really understood what made MOO2 the game we can't let go of but also the game that many of us would have liked to have seen improved on by a sequel or spiritual successor that didn't drift as far away from the good stuff as most did. For the record, I am one of those nerds who has not stopped playing MOO2 since it came out with 2-3 binges a year in more recent years. I've also tried a lot of other 4x space games hoping they'd match up or provide an equally worthy but totally new experience. So far I've been most impressed with Sword of the Stars which I loved for a lot of reasons but found it lacking on the longevity factor. So trust that when I say this is the MOO2 foundation with improvements you, or at least I always wanted that it is for realz. =============== And now for the TMI =============== Acronyms: MOO/MOO2 - Master of Orion 1 & 2 - bothe excellent 4x (civilization-style) galactic expansion strategy games but with MOO2 widely regarded by many as the best ever MOM - Master of Magic. Developed by the same company as the above way back in the day but more of a fantasy Civilization-ish game with a brilliant mechanic where you mixed the sort of wizard you were with your starting and ultimately conquered races and other advantages/disadvantages that all layered very nicely to make for a ridiculously replayable game. What the game borrows/retains from MOO2: * Graphics: 2D sprites + some 3D here and there (mostly the planets). Speaking as a programmer and a former pro game reviewer, I love this. It keeps the team small, independent and free of publisher stupidity, which are all great things when they're clearly as well-dialed in on what made MOO2 great and also see all the neat stuff worth lifting from more recent space 4x games. * Extermination/Combat: Pretty much the same deal + new tech to play with and cool music, effects, and fun. * Expansion/exploration: Same exact wide open exploration and colonization scheme with fuel limiting distance you can explore from your colonies but no starlanes, or any of that jazz. At least not yet. The dev/designer is inspired by SoTs apparently, which excites me and I can already see some of that influence. * Exploitation/industry and economy on a planetary and galactic scale. But with many enhancements/improvements. Improvements Over MOO2 * Colony improvement: Now you build generic structures (factories, economy, mining, industrial, research, agriculture) on improvement slots which very from planet to planet I believe on the basis of max pop. Smaller planets have as few as four. My largest planets so far seem to have 6-8ish. I assume you can improve this with tech. The six generic structure types can improve with tech but they auto-upgrade and always represent the same generic function. They also operate to varying degrees of efficiency depending on how much pop is freed up to operate them. There are no food guys, research guys, and labor guys to drag to differents specialties. Colonists in the current iteration of the game appear to do everything all at once, I assume, to varying degrees of efficency based on the race they represent with the structures adding a nice bonus - it's possible I'm not 100% correct about this. * Resources and production are no longer a glued-together abstraction: Resources are something you have to build up through mining (if there's a name of the vanilla/generic resource, I don't recall atm) and currently matter a great deal to early-game fleet-building. With a ton of resources you can build large fleets fairly rapidly even at early tech levels in the current iteration of the game. The cool thing is that your largest colony can be lousy for farming and mining but still a great place to build a ton of factories to be the ultimate ship-builder that relies on sipping that other stuff in from smaller more specialized worlds. That also makes for a lot more strategy to consider in times of war. Do you go for the factory planets or that one awesome mining planet that appears to be providng the bulk of what they need to build those fleets in the first place? * The freighter system: Now you can build freighters and also use troop transports to ship colonists or troops around manually or you can set them to trade, vanishing them from the map and making them more like MOO2's behind-the-scenes freighters which can be used to transport pop or handle food. However, unused trade freighters contribute to your economy through automatic trade so there's incentive to keep planets reasonably self-sufficient for things they're good at providing for themselves when they can. Being able to convert the troop transports to civilian needs is a nice touch making them feel like less of a waste of space when wartime is over and less of a liability when it makes sense to start building them when war is on the horizon. * Racial balancing: Races have a lot more unique traits that would be hard to break out into a 100% customizable race scheme which I find agreeable. I'm only 10 hours in but every planet has multiple biome types and every race is optimal on those biomes to highly varying degrees, making it a huge advantage to diversify colonies when you get the opportunity to. Also, each race has its own unique tech options and ship hull types which I believe can be traded/stolen. It also just adds a crap-ton of new things to think about when faced with the prospect of going to war (so you can diversify your races for optimal colonies) or selecting one colony over another. I haven't seen this level of incentive to get one of everybody that synergizes well with your race since MOM. * Art/Design: They weren't weak in MOO2 and I'm still torn on one of the font-choices but the music and the art direction overall are both surprising and very very cool/welcome. I can't believe this game is just two guys and as a programemmer ex-game-reviewer/avid strategy game player I could only dream of working with people this talented and with instincts this good. Criticism? I have none at this time. Although I hope it moves a little slower in the final version. That seems convenient for now.
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  Jolly

  Jan 20, 2017

  As some others have indicated, this game is very MOO2-like, which is a good thing. It has many similarities to MOO2, some nice twists, a good UI, and is an overall solid game. An excellent all around space 4X. I saw soemone post a negative review based on the simplistic planetary development but I actually think that's a positive feature and something that makes the game a bit different. That level of abstraction saves you from building a bazillion of the same facilitiy on every planet, or feeling like you need to establish X amount of industry on a world before you can do anything with it. So it's kind of like you have a bit less micro and can focus on the big picture more. I'm not against the micro typically involved in the genre, but seeing a different take on it is nice and yields variety.
• 

  Bankipriel

  Jan 20, 2017

  Fun. Pure and [strike]simple[/strike] strategic. Stars in Shadow is easy to learn, fun to play, full of great tactical warfare, and has just enough micro to allow for customization and meaningful choices. If it's not the "best" space 4X of the last few years, it's definately the most fun. This game is sleek, beautifully illustrated, and full of easily-grasped systems that enable meaningful short- & long-term strategy without a steep learning curve. But while the systems are easily grasped, the depth of strategy possible in this game is outstanding. Some players might not enjoy the small number of terrestrial buildings. I think it's very close to the sweetspot between micro-intensive planet-customization and stream-lined empire management. Each planet can support 3-6 buildings (usually) depending on size, S,M,L. Choosing what to build, when, where, has a huge impact on the early game, allowing for a focus on population growth, industry, research, or wealth. Planet quality also influences these resources, and while a huge, core, industrial planet can switch from farming to reserach to commerce with great ease once it's developed, back-water planets can take so long to develop, that early choices and well considered diversification and focus can be vital to late game. Planet management is fun, simple, yet meaningful, and a sense of identity and importance develops around key industrial worlds, centers of commerce or reserach, and worlds with rare and unique charactersitcs. The alien races have particular strengths and weaknesses. Players will, I think, find a favorite race that boosts their preferred play-style, or one that is weak in their preffered style and offers a greater challenge. The tactical combat is a particular strength of Stars in Shadow. As most reviews have noted, it's a cornerstone of the game, and players who want to utilized ship construction and formation combat will find a lot to play with. Ships can be customized in very profound ways, allowing for long range missile cruisers behind mid-range gun-boats behind heavily shielded point-defense screens ... or whatever. The range and efficacy of all the weapons can be brutally effective and effectively countered, so a war against two alien neighbors could require some very different fleet compositions. For those who don't want to fiddle with lots of ship designs, focusing research on a few techs can work well against most enemies .... most of the time. The recommended "huge" map size feels small at first, but 99 stars with all the factions in play creates a very big game. If your computer can handle it, you can play on a map with hundreds of stars ... but it will lead to a very long end-game where everyone has all of the techs researched. There are some nice customization options, along with map size, including distance between stars, likelyhood of habitable planets, speed of tech/building, and a few others. All together, these options can make for some very different games, increasing even further the replayability of SiS. If you're still reading, then I would also recommend this game over Stellaris and Distant Worlds, because what Stars in Shadow does, it does very, very well. What it lacks in scope compared to Stellaris, it makes up for with excellent combat, meaningful ship customization, and actual strategic gameplay. What it lacks in size, detail, and lenght-of-gameplay compared ot Distant Worlds, it makes up for with sleek, easily grasped systems that don't require either automation or a huge investment of micro-management and constant structural fiddling. If you think you might like this game, chances are very good that you'll love it.
• 

  jason.gill

  Jan 21, 2017

  First review. I really like this game, but can't recommend it at this time. It has a great 4X feel, but there are two primary problems with the game as it is now. 1 - Like most 4X games there is a technology component. Like Civ games, it unlocks like a tree. However, currently, SiS does not have a way for players to visualize this tree. So, you are left going back and forth through techs trying to figure out how to best progress. It's incredibly tedious, and after playing through two campaigns I'm still not sure how certain brances unlock. 2 - In the campaign there are major factions, which can be chosen, and minor factions which are random, and pirates. The minor factions and pirates always have wepon tech that is always mid-game advanced, if you run into them in early game there's no good strategy - you either pay gold you don't have or lose your ships. When setting up your campaign you don't have an option to remove them from the game. In fact, I interacted with the minor factions and pirates much more than with the major factions. Again, there's a lot to like, but these two issues are really rough edges in a game that already needed polish.
• 

  jjm319

  Jan 22, 2017

  If you liked the original MOO this is the game you are looking for. I always liked MOO 1 better than MOO 2, but MOO 2 got all the attention and remakes. MOO 2 made the strategic layer too cluttered and too much time is invested each turn fiddling with populations and planet buildings. Moo 1 had a simple strategic layer with fun turn based tactical combat, Stars in Shadow stays faithful to that formula with a simple clean interface, simplified strategic layer and turn based tactical combat. Games are much quicker than Gal Civ III when you are constantly tuning the buildings and strategic layer. This game has done more to scratch my 4x itch than any recent release. I found most recent releases such as Gal Civ III and Stellaris to be too slow to play. Stellaris is a fantastic and complex 4x game but I find Stars in Shadow to be more enjoyable to play. At the date of this review the game still has some bugs and could use more flavor text, game events and exploration events. I would like to see a technology tree implemented and a list view of colonizable planets in range. The developers are still working on the game and i hope to see these implemented.
• 

  The Walkin Dude

  Jan 23, 2017

  Stars in Shadow is *wait for it* another space 4X. BUT. A fun one. I've got about 50-60 hours in Galactic Civilizations 3 with most campaign and scenarios completed, about close to 30 hours in Stellaris and likewise with Distant Worlds and the new MoO CTS, so I've definitely played a few "space 4X", maybe not as much as other die hards with over 400+ hours on some titles but enough to know the genre. After 1 hour of gameplay I can tell I've fallen in love. This game is fun and has character, something many other 4X's are missing. So for the individual components: [b] Research system: [/b] while different from a standard tech tree, isn't too bad, maybe this will change in the future? I've gotten used to it and don't mind it for the most part. Items are explained fairly well and contain links that lead you to the additional tech that each item unlocks. It's a little tedious but not the end of the world by any means. [b] Combat/Battles: [/b] Fantastic. It's simple yet strategic enough to give you some depth in this department. You can move your ships only so much per turn and only fire so much so effective flanking, ship speed and components actually play a really big part. Unlike GalCiv3 in which is just a game of card counters really. I mean I actually looked forward to combat for once in a space 4X. The UI needs more work in this area but it's workable and I still really enjoy it. [b] Diplomacy: [/b] There are some different ideas here in that you need to build diplomacy points in order to advance relations with another race you encounter. You start off with 100 points and you can establish embassies which then foster growth of diplomacy points (along with other things). So who you decide to interact with on the first encounter can be a difficult decision. I also REALLY liked the fact that as humans, one race I came across were attacked by human pirates, and as we were the same race it lead to immediate bad relations. But also see the negatives... [b] Expansion: [/b] Nothing I haven't really seen elsewhere, it's a little more streamlined which makes it fun as you don't get bogged down deciding which adjacency bonus you want more. One feature I did like is that planets have a limit as to what upgrades/buildings you can build, so maximizing a planet means you will need to sacrifice something, adding to a macro strategy feel in the long run. However things do snowball, especially if you are a fast expander and have all your planets specialised to match the discoveries on the planet. But taking advantage of a planets unique discovery is still important. There are also native species that you run across on planets which can be used strategically as they come with bonuses that are quite handy and exploitable. [b] Negatives: [/b] [i] First [/i]: Is the turn processing. Out of many 4X's in general this has turn processing that tends to be somewhat longer then the instant button spam I can achieve elsewhere. So hopefully seeing as it's early days the devs can work on improving this. There is also a performance warning for when you try to create a game with over 99 stars, I've set my first game up with 80 and found that it's too small and you run into other races far too quickly. So I then started a second game at 'epic' pace and planets less frequent with 150 stars. To be honest it felt like there was no difference in performance from 99 to 150. When getting to stardate 1500 turns are taking about 15 seconds to process, not too bad really. [i] Second: [/i] Lack of game set up options. You can't turn on and off particular victory conditions (there are three according to the achievements), so it would be nice to see the ability to customize the game a bit more and of course more races, as there aren't that many in reality. This does feel a little like Stellaris in that victory conditions do focus on some form of domination. There's no ascension or tech victory in anyway. This means that unless you are going for an allied victory of some sort or Galactic Council based victory then it's combat all the way baby. [i] Third:[/i] No multiplayer yet. Which is a shame as this is the kind of game that would lend perfectly to it. If you aren't going to support multiplayer just yet then the single player experience needs to more then make up for it in my opinion. Thankfully it does very well. [i] Lastly: [/i] Diplomacy needs a lot more oomph. Deals are too easy to make as long as you have the "points" for it. You can't send gifts and you can't trade tech. There is also no spying or diplomacy related tech you can research to improve your deals. In my opinion this is really the weakest part of the game. [b] Bugs: [/b] Although there aren't game breaking bugs there are a few annoyances here and there such as overlapping text and achievements not working. These have been reported and should be addressed as patches come out. [b] Overall: [/b] Stellaris, GalCiv3, Distant Worlds and NuMoO are all great games in their own way (and are also fun) I'm not going to compare them any more then I already have, but for the *instant fun* factor, great bright and colourful graphics (Plus it will run on a potato, so great for taking it with you on the go.), character and game mechanic innovations then maybe give this a go. EDIT: Updated 30/01 @ 6hrs game time.
• 

  Bonaventure

  Feb 13, 2017

  TL;DR: A very enjoyable successor to MOO2 with great art, a polished interface, superb shipbuilding, and a sharp eye for refining and improving what made its predecessors great! There have been at least a dozen AAA attempts to recapture the magic of Master of Orion 2 -- a game that was simply amazing for its time and still holds up today. I've enjoyed many of those attempts, but ended up disappointed with all of them. Stars in Shadow is wonderful. For once it retains the bedrock elements of the MOO2 experience. (100% TURN BASED! SPRITES SPRITES SPRITES! NO AWFUL 3D STARMAP!) And instead of trying to graft weird new systems onto the formula, it simply tries to *make MOO2 better.* And in most ways, it does! The art style is fantastic -- far more vivid and colorful than MOO2, but not "silly." The writing, also, is straightforward and competent. It takes its own technobabble seriously, which I require. And it's never just goofy or campy. (For some reason, a lot of games in this genre -- I'm looking at you, Galactic Civilizations -- have terrible fourth-wall-breaking text that ruins the whole experience for me.) You might be disappointed at first that there aren't more factions, and that they're not customizable. Me too, a little? But these factions are *different* in more than mathematical ways. I'd rather have seven different playing experiences than twelve or sixteen identical ones. Races get access to different abilities, different hulls, and different starting positions. The Phidi, traders who build flimsy warships but can hire cheap mercenaries, and Humans, who are Galactica-style refugees, really stand out. All have very distinctive art styles for their ships and avatars. There's a lot more variation in the galaxy than you'll find in MOO2. Plenty of minor factions that can grow quite powerful, planetary specials, etc. As with the races, what's here is extremely well-done, and there's room for a LOT more. This game cries out for DLC and expansions and I hope we get 'em. The $25 price point is very fair. This is a game with a professional level of polish. Don't get me wrong: I can put up with a lot of slapdash indie bumbling. But, good gravy, is it refreshing NOT to play a game that's chock-full of it. If you loved MOO2, you're looking at a real good time. Don't wait for a sale, just buy the darn thing! It's worth it.
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  ❗️❗️ Annex ❗️❗

  Mar 28, 2017

  I really wanted to enjoy this game, put a good number of hours into it hoping to find a gem. Sadly there are just too many elements that dont work well here. In no particular order: - Managing your empire is tedious. There is a ton of micro management here, very much like Gal Civ 3. Every time you unlock a new tech that affects your worlds you need to go visit them one by one. You will spend more time managing than fighting/strategizing - Combat is just weak. The game tries to duplicate Master of Orion 2 and fails at it. Ship movement much too slow for any strategic depth. You just move forward. Weapons are too powerful resulting in many one shot kills. Troop transports like to hang out in the middle front of your forces instead of at the rear. - Ship designer doesnt work well. There arent enough ways you can meaningfully tweak your ships and there is a clear one or two "best" loadouts - Diplomacy feels like a place holder and is just for the AI to ask you for stuff which you can use to appease them and keep them from going hostile with you. - Exploration is pointless beyond the initial few turns. The AI however loves to build endless amounts of exploration ships, even hundreds of turns into a game. - The independant/pirate forces are terribly unbalanced. They get battleships seemingly before anyone else and put up a bigger fight than the regular AI races as a result. Since when do pirates get top of the line tech? - It is better to bombard an enemy colony out of existance and then settle it yourself than it is to conquer it and have to deal with stacking lots of ground forces to prevent it from going into rebellion. - The UI is lacking. There doesnt appear to be a button for diplomacy short of clicking on an AI world and initiating from there. Planet listing doesnt highlight which world you are currently on. Selecting a planet doesnt take you to the building panel, instead shows a pretty useless picture of the planet that you then need to continue past to get where you want to be. Unnecessary tedium. - Research fun while it lasts, but once it ends all your research buildings are useless and have to be torn down and replaced manually, one planet at a time. These gripes and many smaller ones add up to one thing: this game is lacking in a great many places and it simply gives nothing to the 4X genre at this time.
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  BlueBangkok

  Apr 20, 2017

  I don't understand why Steam still doesn't have a "maybe" option - this is a game that would deserve it (in its current state). It's a nice little 4X based on the legendary Master of Orion 2 (MOO2). It has a solid (if flawed) gameplay and is a lot of fun most of the time. However, there are some questionable design decisions, simplification of some aspects of the game, and technical problems that drag the overall experience down. The Good: - Planet building has been simplified. You no longer build dozens of structures on each of your planets. You have simply 6 base buildings (factory, mine, research lab, market, farm, and defense) which get upgraded for free once you discover relevant technologies. This is great, in my opinion, as it eliminates the tedious micro-management when you have a lot of colonies (there is still some, but nowhere near the "late game MOO" level). - Every race not only has its own splash screens, but also ship models, leader banter, and some techs. It's a nice touch and increases immersion. - The game has that "just one more turn" feel to it. - AI is actually quite capable strategically - it researches and builds fast, expands very fast (perhaps too fast - see below) even on lower difficulties. - Unlike the recent official "remake" of MOO, this one has tactical turn-based combat. You can win even if you are outnumbered and outgunned, if you play your cards right. The Bad: - This is one of those fake "full releases" - despite posing as a full release, it's still very much early access quality. LUA script errors are everywhere (this was partially eliminated in the latest patch but still, the game was released in this state and I cannot overlook it), CTDs to desktop are a thing on huge maps in late game, game balance is a mess. - Ship design has been simplified, being slot-based instead of weight-based. Meaning that you can never fit more weapons on a ship that the devs intended. On one hand, this is good, because you cannot cheese by building a warship from hell (but you can cheese in other ways), on the other hand, it greatly reduces variability. - It's unbalanced. Railguns rule the mid/late game. Strike craft and missiles rule the end game. Railguns are simply OP here, having highest range, no range dissipation, shield piercing, AND top damage of all of their counterparts. Rails put even some higher tier weapons to shame. AI, no matter the faction, always spams heavy cruisers and battleships with railguns and PD cannons, simply because it's the most effective way to design ships with direct-fire weapons. Weapon range is everything in combat because bigger ships are painfully slow. This makes above-mentioned weapons stupidly powerful and short range weapons almost useless. It also invalidates alternative tactics (boarding, disabling, etc.) once you get far enough in the game. - AI is crazy about expansion and if you ally yourself with an AI player he will instantly send swarms of colony ships into your space and colonize all unclaimed worlds in your sphere of influence. For this reason, you can never go into an alliance until you've secured every single planet you want. This is insane and should be removed - your ally shouldn't steal worlds from you just because he can (manners?). - AI is strong in some regards but is dumb as a rock in combat. - Late game battles aren't epic but tedious - this is mainly because of slow combat animations. It seems like a small thing but it really adds up when you have a fight with dozens of large ships. Such battles can take over 10 minutes, 9 mins 40 seconds of which is waiting for animations to finish. Now imagine that when war breaks out in the late game you fight 2-3 such battles every turn... "Faster animations" option in settings doesn't seem to do much, if anything (again, I smell rushed release here). Autocombat is even more useless than it usually is in this type of games because it always makes you lose about 3x more ships compared to what you'd lose if you fought manually. I am giving this a thumps-up because its core gameplay is pure old-school goodness. If you love MOO and don't mind flaws that SiS has, get it, it's worth it. It will be even more worth it once devs squash the bugs and balance things out.
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  BenWish

  Jun 28, 2017

  The makers of this game have been playing Master of Orion 2. The look is nearly identical and the tech tree, game play, and even tactical combat are carbon copies. It was a great game to be inspired by. Let's see how they did... The good: The graphics are an upgrade. It's more challenging than MoO2 was once you figured things out. There are more indigenous races and they're quirky and interesting. The ships can be auto-upgraded. Every race can get every technology (which always annoyed a completionist like me in MoO2). You don't have to build so many things to get a colony functioning, which speeds up the game. The "go back" button is simply genius, in that I don't have to save my game every turn to avoid stupid and avoidable mistakes. The bad: The music is forgettable. The races' back-stories mean they can't be customized. The MoO2 antagonists (the Antarens) are space pirates here, but don't seem dangerous and almost never happen (encountered once in three games). Diplomacy is missing a large number of actions (threatening them to get out of your territory, asking them to surrender, asking them to surrender a planet or system, surrendering a planet or system to them (possibly for peace or reputation), and the trade doesn't seem to work with anybody but the mercenaries and slavers...in which case, why offer it for normal races?). This game, slowed down and on a large galaxy, could take days or weeks on normal...nevermind hard or very hard. The weapons for auto-upgrading ships can be very paper-rock-scissors and you can easily get pwned without seeing it coming. It's the strategic equivalent of putting platforms off the screen on a platformer game and requiring a leap of faith...and hoping you won't die. I guess you really need that "go back" button after all... The ugly: This game simply doesn't pop. It's not bad, but neither is it great. In 50 years or longer, I'll never forget MoO2. I own a CD and now use a DOS emulator when I get nostalgic. I once saw a computer running MoO2 in a video game museum. My wife even asked if this was that old-fashioned space game that I used to play when she saw it. This game is a worthy effort, and kept me up for a few nights, but in the end this game seems like exactly what it is: a copy of a great game using current graphics and systems to seem better. Super Mario 2 may have had better graphics, but it wasn't the massive improvement over Super Mario Bros. that SMB was over, say, Atari. My final word: They gave it a shot. This game is worth the try. But it won't stand the test of time. If someone asks me about in in a year, I won't know what they're talking about. That being said, if you never played MoO2, and don't want to pirate an emulator copy or buy a CD so you own a license, then this game is worth trying. It is a decent space game and carries the best of MoO2 over, with some new innovations. There are better games, but also many, many worse. I give it 3.8 out of 5.
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  DocMooncalf

  Sep 28, 2017

  Compared to other modern 4X games (GalCiv 2/3, Endless Space 1/2, Stellaris) Stars in Shadow (SIS) feels rather light. Most core features are all there, but everything is simplified. You could call it streamlined, if you want to give it a more positive spin. The elephant in the room is Masters of Orion 2, to which everybody compares SIS and rightly so. SIS does not offer much improvement or any game changing ideas to the grandfather of space 4X. But on the other hand, there is a reason why MOO2 is considred one of the best 4X games ever made, and as clones go SIS, is one of the best. The biggest weakness of SIS, in my opinion, is the AI. While tactical battle AI is OKish, the strategic AI is just not up to modern standards and prone to very poor decission making. Still, SIS offers a enjoyable, slightly more casual 4X experience. It is definitely recommendable, especially during any steam sale. PS: The DEVs seem to be quite friendly and respond frequently to questions and requests in the (steam) forums. I'll gladly support anyone with that attitude,
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  War

  Mar 7, 2018

  Excellent indie successor to Master of Orion (any of the MOO iterations). The interface requires additional efficiencies -- one has to click a significant amount to do otherwise simple actions as even simple actions tend to be nested. Combat is enjoyable be it manual or automated. However, large scale battles are unstable. If there is a sufficient volume of ships, missles, fighters et al. the game has issues processing/tracking all the data/outcomes efficiently. This typically results in either the game actually freezing/becomming unresponsive or having the appearance of such and the user manually closing the game down. The AI seems reasonably responsive and diplomatic options are viable in my playthroughs to date. However, if going for a conquest style victory, due to the larger scale battle issue noted above, I would recommend either blitzgreiging the AI or dancing around the AI's "Doomstack" and picking off their planets instead of a direct confrontation. Overall, Stars in Shadow(SIS), is a fun traditional 4x with an enjoyable/retro artistic style. If you are a fan of the original MOO's then you will be a fan of SIS. Definately worth a buy when on sale and, with some additional patching, worth purchasing at full price.
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  Draba

  May 22, 2018

  The game is very close to MoO2 in base mechanics and I like the overall feel, but there are too many imbalances/minor annoyances to deal with. [b]Information isn't available/is hard to reach[/b]: [list] [*]Design screen doesn't tell you the range dissipation of weapons [*]You don't know the base cost of components until you install them, same for reactor output [*]Not explained exactly how missiles/PD interact [*]Old research screen doesn't have a clear "this is what the tech does" summary, need tree view hover for that [*]Many other minor things, mostly in the ship design view [/list] [b]There are really obvious balance oversights that shouldn't make it into a finished game[/b]: [list] [*]Ship upkeep is virtually free, makes snowballing even easier [*]Rapid fire mod makes lasers the objectively best direct fire weapons in the game while it matters, later on they also get armor piercing(and base kinetics lose their 50% shield piercing). [*]Spammed missiles/fighters are too good, even against things that are completely decked out in RF PD turbolasers [*]Races are completely out of whack, and the AI can't play against the strong ones. Yoral gets a great industrial start with decent research and somewhat useful specialization, +gets their "I win" torpedo destroyer tech for peanuts. Phidi amasses money like there's no tomorrow, you can spam early heavy cruiser mercenaries and completely steamroll everyone. These 2 will stomp brutal AIs no matter what start they get. On the other hand Orthin gets bad growth, a minor research bonus and to get their meh artillery they would have to wade through the completely useless ion tech. [/list] The basics are very nice, a bit more varied weapon effects and some balance changes would help a lot. Better AI would also come handy, but it's notoriously hard to do in the 4X genre. Overall I did enjoy a few games and the final release is much more polished than the old EA versions, but don't see myself revisiting this one.
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  :)

  Jan 18, 2019

  The only game ever to come close to MOO2. The only one.
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  Professorkid

  Feb 6, 2019

  I started out really liking this game but I'm gradually becoming more & more disenchanted with it. It's got some serious balance issues and the RNG will ream you hard. I played on "Beginner" and won a diplomatic victory while hardly even trying so I upped it to "Normal" for the next game and have been unable to complete any of 3 games as I end up in a death spiral where all the AI opponents are way ahead of me tech wise and have many more ships while I'm clawing to hang on to what I've got. It doesn't help that my AI allies will drag me into wars I can't fight and then give me little to no support. The AI advantage isn't the only problem, the RNG conspires against you also. One game I start exploring from my home world and the first, nearest system I explore has a harpy force blocking colonization. Keep in mind this is the beginning of the game and I have no warships and am very far from being able to effectively build any. That game 4 systems to one side of me had pirates, harpies, or some other random adversary basically preventing any expansion in that direction. Meanwhile the AI opponents are building expanding and hemming me in to the other sides to where my resources are restricted and I can never catch up, much less ever get ahead. If they didn't have so many random encounters and left more open systems it would help give the player a chance to establish an effective base. This last game I researched Heavy Beam weapons as quickly as I could, to where my ships pretty much outgunned all the AI ships, but when my AI ally pulled me into his war I was forced to defend one of my outlying systems from the AI opponent. My ships trashed most of the opposing fleet except for a "Command Cruiser" that single-handedly proceeded to smash half my fleet and capturing the rest while my ships could barely scratch it. So there I was with no fleet and no way to recover as my resources dwindled as the AI aggressively moved in on me. Another issue is the diplomacy game play is a little quirky. In one game one of my AI allies got in a fight with another AI ally and they both wanted me to drop the other. I choose to remain neutral and accepted the negative hit to their opinion of me, except then EVERY turn they kept making the same request and every time I refused I had to take a hit until I had to either drop one and lose a lot of diplomatic prestige or end up with them hating me and losing it anyway. I just think the amount of times the request came was excessive and unfair and perhaps there should have been more time between requests once I gave them my answer the first time. Other than these balance issues and "random encounter" issues I like this is a very fine game. The UI is straightforward for the most part and the "tutorial" messages are informative and help bring you up to speed quickly. The game play is deep without being overwhelming. The tactical battles are a little twitchy with selecting a ship for action being tricky since if you click on a unit too many times multiple units can be selected, forcing you to clear and try selecting again. Also the last unit selected will be selected at the start of your next turn but if you select "Move" or "Attack" your area of operation will NOT display unless you click on another unit and then come back to the first. This can make tactical play very tedious, yet Auto-Combat is not effective as the AI will retreat your fleet at your first lost ship no matter how big your fleet resulting in a loss. All in all a game with a lot of potential and some good design ideas marred by an unbalanced AI and RNG BS. It IS fun to play up to a point but if you want to try it, definitely wait to get it on sale.
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  Jaduggar

  May 2, 2019

  This is yet another of those games where I find myself wishing there was an "in-between" option for recommendations, because I don't outright hate this. You can see from my playtime that I have spent a good chunk of time playing Stars in Shadow. The problem is, I have ended every single campaign that I have started in disappointment, and each time that I start a new one thinking I have finally figured out how to make the next match satisfying, I have come back to the menu unhappy, again. The thing about this game is that the mechanics are fun, at first, and the empire building is really satisfying, at first, and the races all seem really cool, so you can't wait to see what's out there and how they all interact... at first... but not for long. Everything starts out all sparkly and cool, but once the paint starts to chip, you find that you are picking it off in chucks as more and more problems become obvious, and soon enough it's ruined. This is in no small part because the balance is horrid and the AI is among the worst I've ever seen in a 4X game, but mostly it's because none of the cool ideas are really implemented all that well. Empire building seems diverse, but you soon learn that you can feed your entire empire, dozens or hundreds of planets, depending on how big you like your maps, with only a few specialized farming planets and one or two farms here or there. You soon realize that money solves every other problem, and that you can get away with building almost no industry buildings at all, as long as you max out your markets and have two or three planets building transports on repeat. You soon realize that missile spam defeats every other combat build, and suddenly half the tech tree becomes superfluous. And so, what seemed at first like a complex strategy game with huge empires to manage, soon enough becomes copy/paste planet management and flooding your enemies with waves of identical missile destroyers. The combat is flat-out *bad*. I'm not even really sure how to explain it... it just feels like they didn't know what to do with it, so they cobbled something together and called it good enough, even though most players are going to see it as a core element of the game. I have never found myself looking forward to it, and I have passed entire campaigns just autocalcing everything. Not that it matters, anyway, because on Normal difficulty the AI is a complete push-over. No matter how far into the game you get, they never field anything larger than cruisers, and half the time you're swatting off scouts with your Battleships, while walking all over everyone. On the other hand, if you kick the difficulty up even a tiny bit, the enemy immediately starts fielding fully decked out Assault Cruisers and Heavy Carriers with high level weapons and shields before you've even finished unlocking your first ten or twenty technologies. So you're either waltzing about the galaxy with all these wasted ships that you spent hours designing, wishing there was something cool to shoot with them, or you're clinging to life at turn 100, wondering how the in the Hell the AI can have Dreadnaughts *and* Hellbore cannons, already, when you don't have either. And while we're on the topic of designing ships, while it seems like a cool feature, it is just not done well, like anything else in this game. There aren't really that many modules or systems to choose from, despite how it appears, because most systems either only work in very specific cases, or they are just linear improvements over older parts. Really, they might as well have just dropped the whole thing and focused on making a better combat experience, overall, instead of trying to half ass it. Plus, there are countless items and features that aren't explained well, or aren't very practical to use. For example, I think I must have gotten a hundred hours into this game before I realized that you had to INDIVIDUALLY ENABLE every tech-tree upgrade to weapons, on EACH weapon in your roster, before they took effect. Like, say you unlock a "rapid fire" upgrade for laser weapons... the tech description says it doubles the rate of fire of laser weapons. For the longest time, I simply assumed that I researched it and then it just took effect. Nope! You have to go into your ship editor, look at the list of weapons down the lefthand side, and... do you see those little two-letter acronyms listed under each of them? Turns out clicking those 'enables' the upgrade on a weapon by weapon case, for each ship, if they were built [i]after[/i] you turned them on. There is no trade off, by the way, other than a nominal increase in power cost that you won't even notice, so they are just [i]better[/i] and you [i]always[/i] want to turn them all on. It's just an odd little tedious hoop that you have to jump through each time you unlock a new upgrade, and nowhere in the game does it point out that it has to be done. Diplomacy isn't great. It has gotten better with several patches, and I've seen worse, but it's still not great. Nothing much to speak of except for the fact that you can befriend the roaming neutral baddies and buy slaves from them; actual alien populations they got from attacking your AI neighbors, and they'll get mad about it if they find out. [b][i]THAT[/i][/b] is pretty cool, so... kudos on that. Otherwise, it's just weird how some things seem to matter, but other things don't, and the game does a poor job of making you feel like your interactions with your neighbors are based on anything other than random requests every five to ten turns. You can look at a rivals faction and see that they have hundreds of surplus gold, food, or metal production, but suddenly they'll send you a message saying they're having a famine (no they're not) and they want you to send them X food per turn, which is always conveniently about 80% of your current income, because it's a timed event that scales to your production. Kinda lame... Also, alien interactions are either non-existent or nonsensical. You can stick two different races on the same planet, and even if they are generations-long enemies (like the Ashdar and the Gremek, for example) they'll just buck up and get along with each other, digging ditches for the empire. But don't you *dare* bomb that planet full of centaur-plant people that's eighty parsecs away, or they'll both make sure you know how they feel about it. Did you enslave a human population? That's gonna piss off the human faction, for sure, and [i]every single citizen of your empire[/i], to boot, no matter how they feel about humans. Did you gut an entire human population, replace their organs with computer parts, and turn them into robotic zombie workers? Meh... that's cool. Why would that bother anyone? In the end, races are really only different from one another in nominal ways, except for the biome thing... basically, each race likes one or two types of planets, and the only way to max out your systems is to get a half dozen different species integrated into your faction, which is pretty easy to do. I would have really loved to see more conflict and diversity, here, it would have added a lot to the game; definitely enough to make me forget about the terrible combat, but... ce la vie. Plus, it's yet another thing that only the player can do, and the AI will never try, so it just makes you stronger than them in another subtle way. Don't worry, though... touch that difficulty setting, if you dare, and the AI will make up for it with pop growth rates that would put rabbits on Clomiphene to shame. If you can't make the AI smart, just buff the living Hell out of everything, right? Man, do I hate that... don't add a feature to a 4X game, if the enemy factions won't use it. *Sigh*... so, in closing... this isn't a good game. But there are so many good ideas that very nearly made it awesome, here. If they make a sequel, I'll be back for it, but... this game isn't, err... "done"? It needs more work.
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  Boisegangpc

  Jul 26, 2021

  Let me say that if you have this game or get it on sale, it's a perfectly fine addition to a steam library. But if you're looking for that one game to play a lot of, there are a lot better games out there. There's no customization in the factions, and whatever uniqueness they have comes down to the slightest gimmicks (one faction gets carriers in the early game, another gets the ability to mount a ship with a BFG, and another gets the ability to build frigates and unique types of destroyers). The AI is probably one of the cheatiest, most frustrating ones I've come up against. And I'm playing on the easiest difficulty. While I'm sure I'm making mistakes, it feels more like the AI is pulling these massive warfleets out of its butt and doesn't really need to care about its economy. The amount of game settings customization is extremely lacking. Stuff like independent and marauder empires has the barest amount of "customization", with three settings. Maps can seem huge with over 80+ stars on "large" ones but that often just leads to bordergore that's a pain to look at. Furthermore, the only game speed settings are normal, epic (long), and marathon (longest). There's no way to adjust certain resource costs such as ship construction, technology costs, etc. Maps with more than 6 empires on it can often spiral into complete bordergore fests that aren't fun. Also, no multiplayer, which might not be a dealbreaker for some, but for a game with as little content as this, it's a major issue. Warfare itself is a major problem. In short, it's not fun. The ability to pretty much travel anywhere within range and the fact that combat can only take place above planets means that intercepting enemy fleets is practically impossible, and there's no way to create choke points or turtle. While some might like that challenge, the lack of any sort of "terrain" to mix up the strategy layer makes it very one-note and boring. The tactical combat is turn-based and uses a sort of "timeline" system that I can't really fully grasp my head around how it works. The ship design is alright, but very, very limited and somehow both too generalized and too specialized at the same time. There's not a lot of variety in the weapons, and combat mostly boils down to just outnumbering and out-tech'ing your enemy instead of any clever tactics that could come from the turn-based nature of it. Whatever narrative this game has is very, very lacking. It's the equivalent of someone trying to read out a wikipedia page. There's no events that fire off to mix things up beyond the most basic, mechanical ones of other empires going "hey here's a technology" or "I don't like this guy anymore". Whatever story there is remains locked behind a single research technology, and it's usually something you can't pick until mid-game. I wish I could call this a hidden gem, but unfortunately, it's really not. There are some fun ideas, like how insane some of the late-game techs can be, but you'll rarely get to them. I've played 40 hours and I either get a victory or just give up because the game becomes extremely boring. This game has somehow managed to make the trip to researching absolutely massive warships and battle-moons boring. [b] TL;DR - The problem isn't that this game is bad. It's that it's just okay, and doesn't really do anything better than any other space 4X on the market. Unless you absolutely need to play every single 4x game in existence, give this a pass. You're not missing out on much. [/b]