Amongst the armchair generals in the world, is there any with loftier ideals than responding rapidly with an ever-expanding battle fleet, eventually conquering the universe itself?
Foomer's Solar Conquest leverages the BYOND platform expertly supporting up to 8 players and continuing the fine tradition of the Space Empire game.
Perhaps the first thing you will notice about Solar Conquest is that the interface is remarkably well-realized. The visual star of the show is a gorgeous stellar map that can be resized as a click. Can you click and drag? Then you know everything you need to know to relocate your fleets from one planet to another.
The action is mostly reminiscent of Neptune's Pride, a game that attracted a lot of attention in Rock Paper Shotgun lately, in that you're primarily moving ships from planet to planet with timing and informal agreements with other players being the primary factors to success. Of course, there's many subtle differences. Primary among them:
Also noteworthy is that Solar Conquest includes an artificial intelligence option, thereby allowing players to play while waiting for more competitors to log in, or even supplement a player on player match with additional computer opponents.
Critiques
Praise delivered, I wouldn't be a curmudgeon of 25 years of gaming experience if I wasn't able to nitpick games with all the ferocity of a woodpecker on steroids, and even the progeny of hard-working one man bands is not spared my irrational demands for godlike perfection.
While the game plays quite well for the most part, there's generally not a whole lot of depth, leading to balance issues here and there.
While the presentation is excellent, there are more than a few little qualms.Foomer's Solar Conquest leverages the BYOND platform expertly supporting up to 8 players and continuing the fine tradition of the Space Empire game.
Perhaps the first thing you will notice about Solar Conquest is that the interface is remarkably well-realized. The visual star of the show is a gorgeous stellar map that can be resized as a click. Can you click and drag? Then you know everything you need to know to relocate your fleets from one planet to another.
The action is mostly reminiscent of Neptune's Pride, a game that attracted a lot of attention in Rock Paper Shotgun lately, in that you're primarily moving ships from planet to planet with timing and informal agreements with other players being the primary factors to success. Of course, there's many subtle differences. Primary among them:
- Solar Conquest has three kinds of ships: Fighters, Cruisers (worth about 4 fighters), and Dreadnoughts (worth about 4 cruisers).
- Planetary upgrades can occur every turn after there has not been an upgrade. Options are:
- Terraforming - which increases the planet's population cap.
- Defenses - which improves defending ship's odds in combat.
- Warp Gate - which improves the speed of ships leaving that planet.
- Scanners - which allow the player to detect incoming enemy ships at a greater range from the planet.
Also noteworthy is that Solar Conquest includes an artificial intelligence option, thereby allowing players to play while waiting for more competitors to log in, or even supplement a player on player match with additional computer opponents.
Critiques
Praise delivered, I wouldn't be a curmudgeon of 25 years of gaming experience if I wasn't able to nitpick games with all the ferocity of a woodpecker on steroids, and even the progeny of hard-working one man bands is not spared my irrational demands for godlike perfection.
While the game plays quite well for the most part, there's generally not a whole lot of depth, leading to balance issues here and there.
- Of the planetary upgrade options, it's fairly obvious what needs upgrading and (other than the flexibility to choose something else next turn).
There's no [apparent] benefit to choosing not to upgrade, so it becomes a small but unnecessary chore to flit between every planet in your ownership keeping things upgrading.
[If you read the help file, you will see there is the advantage in that you will not produce ships while a planet is upgrading. (Looked at on a larger scale, if you're constantly upgrading, you'll produce at half-capacity - once every two turns - no wonder I was able to get away with upgrading constantly.)
However, this introduces another basic balance problem. The planetary production is measured in points when it comes to producing combat units, but planetary upgrades are not measured at all (one turn = one upgrade) when it comes to planetary upgrades.
(Although perhaps this is not a problem, so long as you don't mind planets with large amounts of production points being penalized for upgrading, as that makes smaller planets more valuable for this purpose.) ] - The ship distinctions between Fighter, Cruiser, and Dreadnought seem a bit redundant because there's no real difference in role (at least not one which is immediately perceptible to the player).
It begs a certain question: once you have a planet up to producing dreadnoughts at a reasonable rate, what reason is there to produce anything else?
[What's not at all apparent is that different units attack in different order, granting smaller units an incentive advantage versus larger units. However, this is completely hidden to the user - the combat results are not verbose enough to generate a good sense what an optimal fleet build is.
Consequently, it makes what should be simple tactical judgments difficult. "How many fighters do I generate to beat that number of Dreadnoughts before they can launch a counterattack?" It's a mystery. Such answers may be won through trial and error, but they would need to be painstakingly disseminated from overall casualty lists.] - It seems the general rule of thumb in combat is "either completely overwhelm the enemy or don't bother showing up."
Take, for example, the outcome in the above fight. 19 fighters, 6 cruisers encounter 11 enemy fighters, 4-6 enemy cruisers (depending on if Iole fought Aristodemos) and 1 dreadnought. In the end, only 7 fighters were lost.
This is a very common result. Though there is the occasional exception, battles involving little to no losses for the winning side are much more common. I believe this hurts the concept of attrition by penalizing anyone who dares split their fleet. [Whether or not the user is aware of something like the order in which units attack, I really should have lost more than 7 fighters in that scenario.]
The problem is exaggerated somewhat by the players' complete inability to recall or redirect their ships the turn after they have left the planet. While I can understand the strategic necessity [if attackers could change course at the last minute it would make defending very difficult] it just seems there's a great deal of digital men and women in Solar Conquest who are overly eager to needlessly throw themselves on the bonfires of war.
- At times, you may not notice notice enemy ships and their destinations because you are zoomed out too far and they blend into the background too well.
- There's a need for automatic fleet movements on building in order to eliminate the chore of having to click through each one of your planets which has produced a ship.
[Apparently, there is a waypoint system, but when I looked for it I was unable to find it. It turned out to be elegantly hidden behind a method unconventional to most Windows users: you need to drag from planet to planet with your right button instead of your left.] - You could say the sounds in Solar Conquest are canned and simple. (Granted, this is an excellent improvement over BYOND games that lack any sound at all.)
As far as originality is concerned, Solar Conquest is certainly no anime knock-off, but for that matter it did not try to reinvent the wheel either. Its main claim to originality, aside from the original artwork, is most likely to be found in the novel mechanic of allowing the planets to move in their orbits around the star at the end of every turn.
Overall, Solar Conquest is looking pretty darn good for version 0.964. I recommend everyone who's even slightly interested in the space strategy genre give Solar Conquest a spin.