Recent reviews by Jimbot

Sid Meier's Starships is a classic 4x strategy game, that plays very cleanly, and is very well thought out. The first thing this game reminds me of is the old Master of Orion series. It's planetary checkers with a touch of management thrown in. With starships there is also tactical combat, which is where the player spends the majority of time. That's fine because this phase of the game is also well balanced.

I sometimes shy away from starting up a Civilization game (been a fan of the series since it's inception) just because I don't always have 3 days to spend to play through my own space epic opera. Starships has just the right amount of story, drama, combat and fluff to keep me hooked, but I can finish a game in a couple of hours.

By fluff I mean this game has components that draw you into the story. Each planet has a personality, and each empire mirrors what it's planets produce. Because you are limited to a single fleet, you become very familiar with which ship has which capabilities, and they become a team you care about. I find that the intro, the voice acting throughout, and the score really add to the immersion.

While this game does remind me of MOO, I think many improvements in gameplay have been included, such that instead of making this the most complex simulation possible, its actually the most balanced and fun to play one that I've seen. A single fleet at first seemed like a limitation, but it really only limits how long your turn can last, which means the game progresses quickly and smoothly. Tehcnology tree is very streamlines, but it just makes it very clear that you need to spend your research points wisely. Planet management includes one wonder option for some planets, and a standard set of upgrades for everyone. You choose very quickly how to customize each planet, which for me, means you speed up gameplay.

Tactical combat benefits from slick, randomly generated systems, almost always with a plethora of asteroids to hide behind and navigate through. Along with each combat, you are usually running a mission of sometype for the local planet, which helps give a purpose to the battle. There is almost a rock paper scissors between beefy slow dreadnaughts, fast fighters, long range lasers, etc. that combined with random terrain and mission objectives works really well to deliver a unique and changing play environment, while still keeping it familiar with your fleet. You can customze your ships entirely (at a resource cost of course) so you can build out what you need to defeat a particular foe, or try to hold the upper hand with your technology and wonder advantages.

Overall I'd say Sid Meier's Starships is a great, fast paced, space epic that you don't need a whole weekend to get through.