Genre: Scifi Turn-Based Strategy	Developed By: Lighthouse Interactive
	Sword of the Stars is different from other space strategy games as it simplifies gameplay and allows you to conquer a galaxy uninhibited.

Overview

Sword of the Stars is yet another space strategy game in a long line of such games. However, unlike its predecessors, it strips anything that could be seen as cumbersome, including diplomacy, and allows you to conquer the galaxy pretty much uninhibited. You have four races to select from, and each brings its own advantages and disadvantages that will affect how you play the game.

Economy

The economic system doesn't burden you to decide which building to build when or on which planet, but rather lets you specify your general strategy using sliders. You'll use a handful of sliders to determine how much you want to spend on research, terra forming, infrastructure, and shipbuilding. Planets are rated by size, which determines the population they can support, as well as the amount of resources on them, which makes it easier to determine which planets will provide what kind of resources and plan your expansion accordingly. The game then presents you with only the important information you need to know, such as how many turns it will take to complete researching a particular technology. While this has its advantages in terms of making your empire easier to manage as it grows, it removes an element of fun and strategy from the game. During the early stages of the game you’ll find yourself hitting ‘End Turn’ repeatedly waiting for research or construction to complete.

Research

Speaking of research, the game features a pretty large technology tree that allows you to unlock more powerful weapons, larger ship classes, and different components that can be designed into your ships.

While this sounds pretty vanilla, Sword of the Stars has a great feature which randomizes the tech tree each time you play so you never get the exact same technologies or in the same order. This makes the game more ad hoc and forces you to really think about the research you’re doing and the advantages it will bring. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though selecting different races unlocks certain technologies. In fact, the game never really bothers to provide any background to any of the races which means you’ll have to learn through trial and error.

Fleet

Sword of the Stars has a great ship design feature that allows you build and customize your own ships. While the graphics are a little behind compared to other games today, the sheer number of different ship designs translates into a lot of fun. Fleet management can be a bit cumbersome since you need to build a mix of different vessels to successfully defeat your enemies. You need to build tankers for support, landing ships to land infantry onto enemy planets and of course destroyers to destroy the enemy’s defenses and ships. Once you've designed a ship class, the shipyards can then crank them out. However, it takes a while to figure out what additions will do what to your ship as tool tips and help are hard to come by.

Battles

Combat is both the strong and weak point of the game. Battles take place in real time, and it's very hands off for the most part. You issue commands to your fleet and then sit back and watch the action. However, this can be particularly annoying when you see opportunities to destroy your enemies but can’t take them and have to watch your fleet make pretty vanilla maneuvers that the enemy easily fends off. You have the option of playing each battle or having the computer simulate the results, but it's far too easy to accidentally end up watching battles that you don't want to watch. Each battle can take up to several minutes to resolve, so the pace of the game can quickly slow to a crawl. There's no way to exit out of these combat situations early and let the computer resolve them, though this is promised in an upcoming patch. Additionally, there is almost no strategy to most of the battles. Other than making sure your fleet consists of the right mix of vessels, there isn’t more you can do other than telling your fleet to attack an enemy.

Final Word

Sword of the Stars really simplifies galactic conquest when other games are making it more complex and brings a new level of creativity to strategy games. Usually, this works in its favor, allowing a short learning curve and lots of action. However, die-hard strategy fans will find the game lacking and the battles incredibly boring. Finally, the lack of any storylines means you don’t really have much to play for. While the game is well thought out and fun to play, all too often it feels like one of those mini games you get on a Wii.