)The last few days I played 3 4x games, SiS Beta, SD2 and today classic MOO2.
I have to say the oldest game of the 3, MOO2, was inferior in graphics and screen resolution but it blew the other two out of the water. Most fun ever! Second best was SiS and SD2 was last. I would like to compare my experience of the 3 games what I liked and what not.
Graphics and music - in this SiS wins outright (its grahics are phantastic and a real piece of art), then comes SD2 which graphics are good and workable and of course the 3rd place goes to MOO2 which graphics are antique.
Economical system comparision
Star Drive 2: its economical system is 90% like that of MOO2. You have little people icons which you can put on science, industry and agriculture production. You can put them on freighters and carry them to other planets. 1 Population cost 1 freighter till it arrives on the new planet Its like MOO2. You have a production line on every planet and alot of different buildings you can buy. Unfortunately SD2`s version does not feel that as well designed than MOO2. SD2 lacks its balance and precision. Many planets have different planetary specials (like helium or spice) which are so many that you dont remember them where they are, so this little deviation to the MOO2 rules contributes rather to the chaos than bring much interesting choices.
SiS: well its quite abstract and very simple. You have only 3 types of buildings, (factory, labs and defenses) but can build them multiple times. In the beta this system is workable but it does not seem to give many interesting choices for advancing your colonies. It fades into the background. I am not sure if the dev intend to bring more buildings and specials like mineral rich or lowG for planets in a later version. (I hope so) But one new rule is great in SiS: its possible to send freighters to trade which brings immediately money. Thats a very good idea.
Race construction
MOO2: the classic and best way to create races with a negative and positive pick system and a transparent description how they effect the race ingame.
Star Drive 2: its like that of MOO2 a, simple 90% copycat only with different race names.
SiS: there is none. Maybe we will see a system one day.
Tech system
MOO2: again well designed. It has a classic tech system where you can choose one out of 3 techs in one area and the other two are lost. Very simple and elegant. Also it is transparent and has good short description what each tech does. Addtionally you always can look what comes ahead so you can plan several steps in advance. Tech system at its best!
Star Drive 2: again its a 90% copy cat of MOO2 but badly implemented. Intransparent nebulous descriptions which dont give a hint what the tech does is normal. Very unfun.
SiS: it has a different approach to technology. I confess that I like that of MOO2 better. For me SiS tech is quite a mess and not very transparent. To plan ahead is diffcult, the descriptions are lacking. Everybody seems to have the same techs in the end because everybody have access to everything. Where is the strategic subgame in this? It seems that this system could be better if portrayed grapically as a clear "tech tree" like that in Civ and not like a line where one have to permanently scroll to look the specs for a specific tech.
Ship design system
MOO2: You have max. hull points and systems/weapons which each cost a certain amount of these points. If you have 30 hull points and include 2 mass drivers with each 4 points and a shield 2 with 12 points, 10 hull points are remaining. Again this is a great system, but a little bit more complex than most people like. (not me of course)
SiS: SiS has a VERY good ship design system. I really love it and I like only that of MOO2 slightly (but not much) better than that of SiS. Its simple and very well thought out. It does a wonderful job. You can drag and drop modules into predefined slots. Each ship class has its own slots. So far the best improvement I saw in SiS!
SD2: well at the first glance its quite good. You drag modules of a certain shape in a ship hull and fill out the rest with pd cannons, energy and small armor modules. Very grapical. Not bad but alot of unnecessary micromanagement. Nonetheless its maybe the part which I found in SD2 most interesting.
AI, Diplomacy, spy:
MOO2: phantastic and classic. Nothing beats the moment the Darlocs steal a high technology from you every 10 turns because you had no spy defense.
The AI is quite good for such an old game and makes surprising diplomatic efforts. The ship design is not as good as your own, but sometimes could still whip your ass till the late game if you are not attentive.SD2: AI is mediocre to bad after you got your empire running you will not have much problem to kill the enemy defenses. Spies are for purchase but really not necessary- at least not in my games. Not very convincing.
SiS: In my beta game there have been not much resistance from the AI. AFAIR there has not been a spy system. I fought and destroyed a couple of cheap enemy destroyers and cruisers and then I won. But its beta. I hope it will be better in the final game.
Ground Combat/bombarding:
MOO2: short but nothing special. A simple subsystem, but well designed and integrated to rest of the game.
SiS: also very short and simple. I really like the Bombard button and the Invading button. But its not perfect because it has no feedback. An improvement could be to kill also attacking soldiers not only defenders. In my test game I never build more than 5 or so troop transporters and never refilled them because it was not necessary.
SD2: what a crap ground combat system. You play on a square grid like xcom. But its a crappy, tedious and laggy version of old xcom. If you press auto you loose half of your troops. If you fight the combat you loose nearly none. Addtionally you have to equip EVERY single soldier you have. A micromangement nightmare. I hated it.
Space Combat:
MOO2: The classic combat system for 4x space games. A dozen ships against a dozen ships. Great explosions, turnbased. What else to say?
SiS: Its like a 90% copy of MOO2 but with much better graphics. I love it of course because I love the original also. Well done, devs!
SD2: its so bad that I dont want to write about it. its real time and automated and you just have to look what your designs are doing. Of course noone does know why the ships are doing this or that. You have no control about one of the central elements of a 4x space game - the space combat. What a crap!
Interface:
MOO2: Again very good. Simple to manage. In the late game it could be quite tedious to manage all these colonies, though. For this the colony managenment windows has been developed. It helps alot. Unfortunately the shipyard button is a little bit hidden.
SD2: Planets, galaxy and button are beautiful to look at, thats true. But you have to scroll in a slow way permanently from one edge of the galaxy to the other to do you colony stuff, which quickly becomes tedious. The rest is quite standard and workable, but nothing special.
SiS: super interface ideas but not fully ready for play in the current beta yet. Very easy and intuitive to work with. I can see that this is superior to the one in MOO2. And the graphics are really a piece of art and a please to look at. I would wish for more relevant information about the planets. I am not interested in the average temperature and solar day. I have not found this impacting the industrial output of a planet. you should not freely mix such irrelevant informations with important ones like the planet type. Thats confusing. Also the buttons in the building menu are too big. Everything in the building selection should fit on a single screen layout without the need to scroll down. In the moment the player has to scroll constantly down till he gets to the lower buttons. Thats time consuming and unnecessary. The rest is great (I really like the question marks in the middle of a planet - super idea)
