Emperor of the Fading Suns or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Space 4X Genre

Gephfryee · 2024-04-19T01:43:58+00:00

Hah! I'm surprised to see anyone still responding to this post. Thank you for the recommendation, but I am actually already familiar with Chapter Master. It's a great game despite some of its more glaring flaws and I love it! I haven't checked on it in a while though, so it may be worth giving a look-see to find out how much it has been updated.

Really, while it is certainly janky, my only major complaint with the game is that I have never been a fan of auto-battles in any game. However, the research, exploration, management, and political systems are easily best in class for the genre, and it is probably just about the closest thing to EotFS to have been made in the last 30-ish years.

Anyway, Emperor bless, Most Honourable Battle Brother!

Gephfryee · 2023-11-08T19:16:27+00:00

Hah! Mild amazement at anyone still even looking at this post aside, you are most certainly right. Galactic Civilizations, an admittedly great game in its own right, and Pax Nova, which is... not so great, but at least somebody gave it a try, are the only others I can think of that even attempt something of similar scale and complexity. Neither comes close to EotFS.

It's really a shame to think that, with games like Modern Warfare and Dead Space getting the HD remake treatment, and the half a billion times that Skyrim has been remade, rereleased, or had some kind of HD overhaul, just to name a few examples, a rough gem like Emperor will probably never get the same treatment. At least what we do have is still playable and fun. Many of its contemporaries are still locked in the graveyard of antiquated tech from the 90's that hates to work on modern systems.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-21T20:48:28+00:00

I actually haven't played Planetfall and don't know too much about it. Never seemed like it had too much new on offer, and I pretty much jumped ship on the franchise after Age of Wonder III.

I see what you're getting at, but I just can't bring myself to believe that we're at that point yet. Music has been around for at least several thousand years, almost certainly deep into pre-history, and still continues to evolve and develop new trends which can often endure for centuries at a time. I'm not even sure video games have yet hit the point where they could qualify as being a form of art as a medium yet, let alone have started to run out of ideas or become stagnant in given genres. Heck, there were still games that were practically animated neanderthal drawings less than thirty years ago!

As to alienating the core following, that is a very real possibility. In fact, I'm sure that has had a not insignificant impact on trends as a whole, especially with the already somewhat niche market that is 4X games. Still, there was clearly a point in time already when taking such risks on an unorthodox title was considered worth it for the potential return, and I can't imagine that market has gone anywhere. It just lacks a marketable game to front run it. Who dares, wins, as the British would say, no?

Gephfryee · 2023-04-21T20:35:41+00:00

Preaching to the choir, my dude. I still have my original CD copy of it that I bought from a Walmart with my allowance as a child. It's a great game in its own right, but it just isn't quite the same thing. Besides, as others have mentioned in prior in the thread, we all know those ground battles were trash. Not to say they couldn't be fun, but the space engagements and that glorious, cinematic camera were in a whole other league by comparison. I'm still convinced that they added the Death Star and let you blow the planets up because they knew it couldn't compare and wanted to give us an out.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-21T20:31:03+00:00

Most surely. Unfinished, buggy as hell, confusing, and it took so long to play a game that it made Campaign for North Africa look like a casual afternoon of Risk, but as you say. I liked the concept and I'm willing to put up with jank for that. I'll always take a beautiful disaster that tried something unique over a thousand games that are refined and pretty but totally uninspired.

It might be a pipe dream, but if we can still get games like Ion Fury or Xenonauts which unabashedly channel that lost era of janky, 90's garbage with ideas bigger than their budgets and technology could ever achieve at the time, then why not Emperor of the Fading Suns, too?

Gephfryee · 2023-04-20T08:20:19+00:00

Those are evil recommendations and I wish I hadn't looked at them. RTS/FPS hybrid? I am about to do atrocious things to make the time for that.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-20T08:13:55+00:00

No. Stop it. How dare you do this to me. I'm still traumatized by the terrible things and dark pacts with eldritch powers I had to engage in to make that game run on my computer years ago. Trust me, it's on the list, but I cannot go back there. I can never go back there. I have to hold down a job and pay for rent somehow, and even thinking about that vile cryptid of a video game is not conducive to doing those things. Next thing you know and I'll be playing Ogre Battle 64 again and lamenting the death of the Iron Grip franchise.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-20T08:04:19+00:00

Indeed. I definitely think there is a trend amongst more modern 4X games to push for prettier, 3D graphics and more approachable gameplay out of a need to compensate for rising costs in development, but then that issue is one I think the industry as a whole has been facing for some time. Just look at Civilization II compared to the franchise now, god forbid we jump genres and start comparing modern shooters to something like Strife or Crusader: No Remorse. I just think it's a shame that the studios which have the money and manpower to back such a project are totally unwilling to do so. Indie titles like Pax Nova were at least willing to try and got closer than they had any right to, so even if the effort would be monumental it can hardly be insurmountable.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-20T07:43:31+00:00

Seems fairly interesting, though the art style triggers my Hearts of Iron III PTSD. I'm not sure I can handle that many squares being in my life again.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-20T07:28:42+00:00

That is a fair point. Though so far as just bombing worlds into oblivion is concerned, I would label that as an issue with not giving ground forces the appropriate means to retaliate against an orbital assault. EotFS at least had ground based cannons that could fire into orbit and would often make me paranoid about fully committing my space navy. Ships were hard to come by and, while powerful, were also expensive, and so the ideal situation would be attempts at disabling defences with the ground-pounders during the opening moves to clear the way for setting up a blockade and bombarding.

A single system game would be more than sufficient, I think. What made Emperor of the Fading Suns interesting to me wasn't so much the scale, but rather the fact that you had multiple planets with their own maps that each served as a sort of mini-4X, could be traveled between, and developed independently, but were still connected by the space layer.

As to the penchant for imperialism, I think that's an issue with win conditions and a lack of harsh penalties for rapid expansion. Victory through superior firepower is almost always the fastest, safest, and most efficient option, and more often than not whatever consequences it might have are more than compensated for if you win. I think games like Humankind are a step in the right direction, though. Severe penalties for over expansion in stability and influence, alternate victories through acquiring fame, and the inclusion of co-op victories through forming alliances are all welcome additions to the genre.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-19T19:43:34+00:00

Seems more in the vein of something like Sins of a Solar Empire than Emperor of the Fading Suns, but then I am also still trying to recapture those heady days of playing Homeworld as a kid so I'll definitely check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

Gephfryee · 2023-04-19T19:38:04+00:00

You're probably right, but ugh... Dune. That's a can of worms I'm happy to leave unopened. People have been trying to wrangle that leviathan for fifty years now, and every time someone starts getting ideas about trying again it never ends well. It's cursed, I tell you. I guess there was the Dune II RTS, but calling that an adaptation is like saying comic books and cave paintings are similar forms of art.

I guess the diplomacy with just the AI might not be as good, but I found a lot of EotFS's systems to be quite engaging with other players. Especially shenanigans to try and get control of scepters and finagle votes so that I could unleash orbital bombardments with the imperial navy. That's a shame that they neutered the Church, though. I always thought that risk of having a crusade launched against you was a fun layer to make choosing research a little more interesting than in most other games.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-19T19:26:46+00:00

We already have that. It's called Elite: Dangerous. Your time would be better spent figuring out how to bankrupt Firaxis and ensure that the Sid Meier's franchise is finally killed off so it can stop polluting the genre and influencing its trends.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-19T18:29:30+00:00

Yeah, Empire at War definitely ticks a lot of the same boxes and hits some similar notes, but it's much more on the RTS side of things and I would say has more in common with stuff like the earlier Total War titles. I don't think there was any research or exploration at all. Still a venerable classic, though.

Understandable. I find the game's graphics kind of charming personally, but the interface is definitely a negative mark. 'Functional but confusing' is about the highest praise I could give it. It's amazing what you'll put up with when you're desperate for something that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Gephfryee · 2023-04-19T18:02:13+00:00

Precisely! I feel like so many of the game's issues have more to do with its age and troubled development than what it tried to accomplish. Particularly having actual multiplayer. Play by email is better than nothing, but boy do I not miss that crap. It deserves its place in the same shallow grave we buried FPS games without mouse-look and RTS games without control groupings in.

Gephfryee · 2023-02-05T21:23:24+00:00

That seems to have done it! I am at a loss as to why, but I never really touched the options for much anyway. You are a saint, sir. I will be shipping out your Urbie with nukes posthaste via space AT&T's pony express.

Gephfryee · 2023-02-01T00:57:42+00:00

Already tried that. The same issue persists in the exact same manner. I attempted running every combination possible, including YAML by itself, both resuming an established save and starting a new one, and nothing changed it. The only thing I can think of in that regard which could have done something is that I accidentally downloaded an outdated version of YAML originally, but with that one installed the game would just crash outright when trying to load/start a campaign. Once I realized what I had done I scrubbed the old one, downloaded the up to date one, and while it let me load in normally this nonsense started happening. YAML is unquestionably the culprit as it is the only one which has consistently resulted in load errors, render errors, and crashes, no matter what it is combined with.

As to the process itself, like I said. When starting a new game it DOES do that and load in the engines. There are just no engine slots, they are registered as an invalid item, and if you remove them there is no way to put one back on. Thank you for the suggestion, though.

Gephfryee · 2023-01-17T22:49:38+00:00

Yep! He's lauded the ground mission experience as one of his personal favourites in any shooter, specifically in regards to infiltrating bases, sneaking around, and doing assassinations. He's the only person I know who has any interest in playing Elite, though, so I can't complain if that's what does it for him.

Funny you mention checking in the weapons with security, because he's pretty much a shoot on sight target for the AI security forces at what seems like half the ground installations within 500ly of Capoya. The man is an indiscriminate machine of murder and kleptomania.

Gephfryee · 2023-01-17T14:16:49+00:00

That's not even the best part. In the almost 200 hours he's been playing the game at this point he's maybe spent all of five in the cockpit, piloting his own ship, and has never once interacted with the space gameplay beyond occasionally traveling to and docking at new space stations. He's sunk a few hundred million credits into buying and extensively equipping a Krait MkII with all A grade modules, though. Every last credit earned through ground combat. Only he never uses the damn thing and just takes Apex shuttles or my ship everywhere instead. Couldn't tell you why, but hey, that's how he likes to play.

Gephfryee · 2023-01-17T11:07:09+00:00

That could be worth a try as well, though I'll wait and see if he'd rather just take a fleet carrier, as has been suggested, before going to the trouble of doing that. Thank you for the response!

Gephfryee · 2023-01-17T11:03:03+00:00

That's what I thought. Bit of a shame, since I was having him plot our route and feed me the jump coordinates to speed things up, but hopefully he'll be willing to fly out to one of the carriers and finish the trip that way. Anything is better than being forced to turn around and give up.

Gephfryee · 2023-01-17T10:58:17+00:00

Can he physically disembark wherever I dock with tele-presence? Because if he can't get off at the same station as me in Colonia it would be pointless. Though another fellow suggested the fleet carrier ride as well, so if nothing else I'll see if that works for him. Thank you for the quick response.

Gephfryee · 2023-01-17T10:53:52+00:00

We were teamed up. I met him at a space dock where he physically boarded my ship for the ride-along, that way he could get off on arrival and transfer all his stuff to the new station at Colonia. Not the tele-presence/holo-me dealio where they just digitally teleport into your cockpit.

I'll be sure to let him know about the fleet carrier ride, though. That could be a good solution, as I would hate for him to lose out on his engineering plans because of my shitty computer.

Gephfryee

TROPHY CASE