On Distant Worlds: The 4X that Masters of Orion 3 should have been

What? Talking about (or advertising) some obscure game that's NOT available on Steam for my first game-talk-about? But of course! Well, to be honest, Distant World's exposure to the public is a bit lackluster right now, which is a darn right shame considering how much depth is in the game. Code Force, the New Zealand-based developer and Matrix Games are the guys behind this little gem which manages to strike a pretty good balance between depth and ease of use. Sure the game's interface is based on the .NET Framework 3.5 (which makes the game feel a little, umm... Windows-y), but it works well as an homage to the good ol' days of strategy gaming (think of the MOO series, XCOM and what-not).

The game has a small but vibrant following over at the Matrix Games forums for Distant Worlds which you can find here. Thanks to them, the game is constantly being updated and new features are being added (recently, the ability to retrofit entire fleets of ships is now enabled, where before you had to single-click through every ship to upgrade them. Yay!). While this blogthor will be using up a few blog posts to give my two cents about the game, you definitely can't go wrong with seeking a few more opinions from OTHER people who've also played the game.

I might even do an AAR (After Action Report) on this blog post! Won't that be exciting?

Anyhow... The big reason why I enjoy Distant Worlds is because it has a very flexible learning curve. Flexible learning curve, you ask? Yes, you can, through the options menu, tell the game which aspects of your galactic empire you'd like it to handle, to give suggestions about, or to leave entirely to your own grubby micro-managing hands. In essence, you can make the game as simple or as difficult as you want to and focus on whatever it is about 4Xs you enjoy. Like the colonization and exploration part of the game (for which Distant Worlds provides a lot of stars and planets and moons to explore; the largest setting has an astounding 1,400 stars for you and your rivals to play with)? Then tell the computer to bugger off while you take care of your exploration and colonization ships, snuggling them into the bosom of the stars and habitable planets of the galaxy. Life in the space navy more your thing? Then let the computer handle all the wishy-washy economy stuff (which it does fantastically well) while you move your ships all over creation.

I can get into a lot more great things about the game like the ease-of-use of the Galactopedia in explaining all the somewhat-complex game components, the interplay between your empire's state ships (your exploration, colonization, construction and military ships) and the private sector (the transports, mining ships and things that make your economy tick), as well as the epic overarching exploration story that can change every time you play (though it's usually along the lines of Mass Effect's Prothean-Reapers-esque conflict, still interesting to have in a 4x though!).

Here's a few screenshots of a game I'm currently playing. It's a small one, with only (only, hah!) 100 stars with me and another faction in a very restless and pirate-y galaxy.

Here's a screenshot with most of the galaxy shown. It's close to the start of the game and I still only have a few planets in my home sector, though you can see a bunch of ships flying out everywhere. The diamonds on the outer rim are my explorer ships, while the circular ones private sector freighters couriering resources between my gas planet mines and my home sector. Despite the fact that this is about half an hour into the start of the game, there's already a bit of action going on here!