Sid Meier's Starships |OT| Space: The Final One More Turn ($15 PC / Mac / iPad)

CzarTim

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Developer: Firaxis Games
Price: $15 (Steam, Humble, GMG, iTunes)
Platforms: PC, Mac, iPad

Announcement Trailer
Sid Meier Plays Starships (Livestream Archive)
Sid Meier Plays Starships Again (Livestream Archive)
iPad Gameplay (Livestream Archive)
Sid Meier & Jake Solomon Discuss Game Design (Livestream Archive)

Take command of a fleet of powerful starships in this adventure-driven strategy game from legendary designer Sid Meier. Travel to new worlds, completing missions to help save and protect the planets and their people from dangerous Space Pirates, to powerful Marauders and other hostile factions. Build a planetary federation as you strengthen your fleet and secure your homeworld as you attempt to preserve intergalactic peace and your vision of humanity. Set in the universe of Civilization: Beyond Earth after the age of the Seeding, Sid Meier’s Starships offers sci-fi/strategy fans a full stand-alone game experience that also features cross-connectivity with Beyond Earth, expanding the depth of both games. See if you have what it takes to rule the universe!

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  • Tactical Space Combat: Encounter unique tactical challenges in every mission, with dynamically generated maps, victory conditions, and foes.
  • Fully Customizable Starships: Create an armada that fits your tactical plan with modular spaceship design.
  • Diplomacy, Strategy, and Exploration: Expand the influence of your Federation and gain the trust of the citizens of new planets. Use the unique abilities of the each planet to enhance your fleet and Federation, and keep your opponents in check. Build improvements on worlds to increase the capabilities and resources of your Federation.
  • A Galaxy Of Adventure: Explore the galaxy as you lead your fleet to distant worlds and complete missions to help the citizens of these planets. Fight pirates, protect colony ships, destroy rogue AI, and more.
  • Multiple Paths To Victory: Will you win by conquering the greatest threat to the galaxy? Or will you unite a plurality of worlds in your Federation? Perhaps you will lead your people to push the frontiers of science. Each choice you make carries consequences on your path to victory
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FAQ

What is the "gameplay loop," my fellow "core gamer?"
Similarly to Firaxis' XCOM, there is a strategic level and a mission level. Missions are turn-based on a hex map and range from straight combat to objectives like survive five turns, navigate a maze, and escort missions. In the strategic view players navigate their single starfleet between planets in the hopes of influencing them enough to join their faction. After players rest their crew (i.e. ending the turn), the opposing factions controlled by the AI attempt to influence planets in the same way players do.

Is there multiplayer?
No.

What is the connection between Starships and Beyond Earth?
Aside from being set in the same universe, you will be able to optionallty connect your games in some way as seen in this screenshot. It's unclear what the connection is at this point, but I'll update as soon as it's known. You'll need to login to your my2k account in both games; this also unlocks an exclusive map in Starships.

How long is the game?
"Play Starships on its smallest map, and you’ll likely finish the game in a couple of hours according to Meier. The biggest map provides 15-20 hours of gameplay. Except like all his previous titles, this is designed to be replayed regularly, testing out different craft and tactics."

Will there be any microtransactions?
From Sid himself: “We want to emphasise that there are no micro-transactions: none of that in the game. It’s a single price, and you get the whole game for that.”

Are there any differences between the iPad and PC versions?
The gameplay is the same, but expect lower quality textures.

Android???????????????
No word yet, sorry! Civ Rev 2 made it there eventually, so I'd expect it at some point.

What are the minimum requirements on PC?
Windows
OS: Windows Vista SP2/ Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 8800 GT or better, or Intel HD4000 or better integrated graphics

Mac
OS: Mac OS X 10.9 or higher
Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB nVidia 8800 GT or better, or Intel HD4000 or better integrated graphics

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Reviews

Eurogamer (Christian Donlan) - Recommended
If you were expecting a full-blown follow-up to Beyond Earth, in other words, this isn't it. And that doesn't really matter, because instead this is a wonderful knockabout timewaster, with matches designed to eat up an afternoon - or a succession of bus trips if you're playing on iPad - rather than a whole weekend. It's one of Firaxis' fabled Sid Projects, too: Meier's listed as both designer and a programmer here, and the end result has much of the cheery playfulness you may have found in Ace Patrol (another recent Sid Project that straddled both iPads and PCs). It's not a throwaway game by any means, it's just one that's built to plug very specific gaps in your life

PC World (Hayden Dingman) - 4/5
Starships condenses Sid Meier's knack for turn-based strategy into a short, two-to-five hour burst of board game-esque tactics that's as satisfying as it is approachable.

Pocket Gamer (Peter Willington) - 9/10
Those concerned a deep strategy game won't work on a portable format like the iPad can rest easy too, as while whole games may take hours to complete, each turn is over quickly and the game automatically records your progress in case you need to stop.

Sid Meier's Starships is an empowering gameplay experience that simultaneously makes you feel like the President of an entire space-faring species, and the Commander at the head of a fleet of combat-ready ships.

And it does it in an endlessly replayable manner that's as strategic and devious as you want it to be.

The Guardian (Stuart Dredge) - 4/5
Starships: a new game from veteran designer Sid Meier that you’ll love if you grew up with his Civilization, but feel a bit lost amid the sheer scale of its modern sequels. The setting may be deep space rather than land and sea, but this game’s genetic link to the original Civ is undeniable – and that’s a great thing.
 
Watched Angry Joe play the desktop version earlier today, looked pretty barebones. Might be a pretty competent mobile game though.
 
Looks neat. And fun. Funneat. Like something I'd want to play. The BE universe somehow appeals to me for some reason.

Also, how did this fly past me?

Now, what should I delete off my iPad for this. Ugh. Dammit, I should've sprung for the 32GB model back then.
 
Watched Angry Joe play the desktop version earlier today, looked pretty barebones. Might be a pretty competent mobile game though.

That's my worry really. Does it feel like a proper PC game or just a slightly too shallow to be worth your time like many (most) mobile games are. I guess we'll see soon enough.
 
Is there cross save between PC and iOS?

Because that would be an easy reason for me to double dip (if I get hooked on the PC version of course).
 
This looks like it might be excellent on the iPad. Will probably get it there instead of the PC. That way I can play it on the go as well. Or more likely in bed, because one more turn....
 
This looks like it might be excellent on the iPad. Will probably get it there instead of the PC. That way I can play it on the go as well. Or more likely in bed, because one more turn....

Agreed. For this style of game the iPad is the best gaming platform. I'll wait for a few more reviews, but this looks to be a good purchase.
 
Wow, this game has virtually no options. A few sliders to adjust the volume of various things, a tick box to enable fullscreen or windowed mode and another tick box to enable tutorials. That's it. When you run it fullscreen there isn't a UI element to close or exit the application.
 
Probably get this later on down the road because I'm a Sid Meier junkie. It looks good from the screenshots.
 
Oddball question - does anybody play this on their macbook and if so do the fans spin up? If they do I'll pick up the ipad version instead - but sort of want the cross-play and steam save game support :P
 
"Sid Meier's Starships |OT| Space: The Final One More Turn ($15 PC / Mac / iPad)"
Reads like a mishmash of words trying to get my attention. Made me chuckle.
Looks interesting. Hoping the impressions keep coming in.
 
Wow, this game has virtually no options. A few sliders to adjust the volume of various things, a tick box to enable fullscreen or windowed mode and another tick box to enable tutorials. That's it. When you run it fullscreen there isn't a UI element to close or exit the application.

From what I read on the steam forums, the game is actually running in a borderless window when in full screen mode and isn't actually full screen.
 
Enjoying it so far. Bit easy on the default settings. Going to restart on higher difficulty.


Wow, this game has virtually no options. A few sliders to adjust the volume of various things, a tick box to enable fullscreen or windowed mode and another tick box to enable tutorials. That's it. When you run it fullscreen there isn't a UI element to close or exit the application.
From what I read on the steam forums, the game is actually running in a borderless window when in full screen mode and isn't actually full screen.

Unfortunately it's all too common occurrence with tablet games on PC.
 
I heard the PC version wasn't so great, so I might hold off on that until a good Steam sale. Might double dip and get the Android version too though.
 
Anyone know if the PC version has touchscreen support?

I'm installing it now on my Surface Pro 3. I'll let you know how it goes/performs.

EDIT: Yes, there is Touchscreen support. In fact, it's one of the incredibly few options the PC version has. There's no apparent regular Fullscreen mode either. Only Fullscreen-Windowed mode (ie - the taskbar is still visible).
 
Having a blast with the PC version.

It's pretty simplistic, but I've played a couple of hours and like what I'm seeing.
 
Man, if Firaxis is going to push support for SteamOS, would it kill them to add controller support?

Maybe I'll get this on a sale. I'm still not really clear what the point is, but maybe I just need to watch some trailers and such.
 
Maybe I'll get this on a sale. I'm still not really clear what the point is, but maybe I just need to watch some trailers and such.

It's a 4x-lite with tactical combat. I'd say the combat is the big draw for me, as the 4x stuff is a bit too simple.

Honestly wish this had been a $50 title with an appropriate budget. There are a lot of neat ideas in there, and I find myself wanting more. For a $15 game, it's a blast though.
 
Always good to see that there are still devs with enough decency not to change extra for the same game on PC.
 
So I'm enjoying the game so far, Very fun.
However the PC version needs more attention.

For example there's no Exit button.

Also there's a 30 fps cap.

Choosing my resolution would be nice. I would like to supersample just to get a little bit more sharpness on the models.

There's no Steam cloud either, I would like my save files backed up if possible.
 
Not a fan of turn-based, if this was real-time like Grey Goo then that would have been better.
I'm actually the opposite. Stuff like this is my jam, because going turn based gives you enough time to think things through without rushing to counter the AI's moves.
 
Any impressions of the game on an iPad 4? Haven't yet encountered any games that run like shit on it but I figure that has to start happening pretty soon here.
 
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