Sword of the Stars

By CSL
August 24, 2006 10:16 AM PST
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Thanks to their previous work on Homeworld: Cataclysm, we had high hopes for British Columbia based developer Kerberos' Sword of the Stars. But alas, high hopes have a way of dashing themselves along the shores of reality.

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The three most important words in fleet combat are formation, formation, formation

In an attempt to shine new light on the familiar 4X (eXploit, eXplore, eXpand, eXterminate) space turn-based strategy formula-first made popular by old school titles such as Master of Orion-Kerberos eschews the micromanagement aspect for what is usually a tacked on feature: tactical fleet combat.

Wages of War

Perhaps Sword's most important feature is the lack of the usual micromanagement fluff that bogged down similar games in the past. Instead of delving into the micro-level issues of planetary colonization, Sword focuses the player's attention on warmongering. In order to achieve this goal Kerberos has put together one of the nicest playing fields yet assembled in this genre, one which includes a fully 3D starmap that can field hundreds of star systems. Making war on this playing field are four races - the Humans, Hivers, Tarkas, and Liir. Perhaps the largest difference between each side is the fact that all have access to different propulsion systems that dictate their ability to navigate the starmap, an impressive system that works nicely. Otherwise the four races differ little aside from minor species specific bonuses.

Poor defense satellite never had a chance

Making a killing

Because of Kerberos' previous experience with tactical combat, our initial expectations for the combat aspect of Sword was high. There are only three different classes of vessels - destroyers, cruisers, and dreadnoughts - and while this may seem skimpy in comparison to other games in the genre, the developers make up for it by giving access to dozens of potential weapon systems ranging from low-powered gauss cannons to nuclear weapons and capital ship lasers.

Unfortunately, due to the poorly conceived interface, there is little to no information regarding weapon statistics or anything else for that matter. Designing ships therefore becomes an exercise in guesswork - should you use lasers or gauss weapons for point-defense? Which does more damage? Does one recharge faster than the other? None of these questions are answered satisfactorily and players will find themselves constantly mixing and matching weapons to try and find the best combination for any given scenario.

The tech tree and planetary colonization efforts are also aimed at one thing - blowing stuff up. It's made abundantly clear early on that you only need to ask yourself one question before you research or build something - how is this going to help me kill my opponent? Players looking to engage in cultural or diplomatic victories will need to look elsewhere.