Games | PC | Space Empires IV: Galactic Pesticide
Article by Aaron Littleton? | September 9, 2010
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Space Empires IV Developer: Malfador |
The bug people came out of nowhere, and we’re no match for them. I don’t know what we did to them, but they’re angry, and they’re not stopping. Our fleet, stretched too thin across the new systems we’ve just discovered falls back and forms up at a wormhole leading to the inner systems of our empire. Their ships are bigger, better armed and there’s more of them.
A lot more.
This might be game over, I don’t know. I’m playing Space Empires IV, an example of what is commonly known as the 4X genre of strategy games. Chiefly concerned with the growth and advancement of, what else, the player’s space empire, the game has absolutely captivated me with its customization options and depth of strategy. If I lose here, it’s going hurt on a really personal level. No scenario is pre-programmed, and I know there’s no FAQ or guide that’s going to tell me how to handle this situation. I’m on my own.
Though my ships make a valiant stand at the wormhole, there’s simply no stopping the bug people, whom I now know as the Xi-Chung. Their forces are simply too great this early in the game and I don’t have any allies I can trust to stand with me against them. Their ships cut through my pitiful armada at the gate and they’re suddenly threatening my soft underbelly. My empire, such as it is, branches in two directions from the system they’ve just swarmed into; south to the home planet of humanity, and northeast toward my other main world. I try giving the Xi-Chung gifts, I try groveling for peace. It doesn’t work. They want blood, and there’s no stopping them.
Space Empires IV gives the player every opportunity to make their empire their own. Every single ship that rolls out of the shipyards is fully designed by the player. Make a new ship design, give it a name, and have the docks mass- produce it. There’s no simple upgrade scale here -- each ship can be tailor-made to the unique specifications you feel is the best tool for whatever job you’re going to give it. You can even name every individual ship. And that’s why, with each smoldering husk of a spaceship the Xi-Chung leave in their wake, I feel a real sense of failure. These aren’t the vast and nameless armadas of trashy sci-fi, whose sole purpose is to look good exploding, but vital links of my empire’s survival and history. There goes my first scout ship, hastily retrofitted with basic combat accoutrements to bolster the ranks. There’s the dedicated defense ship of a certain planet, left behind as more of an afterthought than anything else. Good ships, but not exactly designed for this kind of fighting. In an instant they’re gone, leaving behind only empty space while the Xi-Chung move on.
What the bug people don’t know is I’ve got an ace up my sleeve. Just before their assault began, I developed a new piece of technology that allows me to close wormholes. It has to be fitted to a ship and activated over the wormhole I want to close, but it can be done. The good news is that I’ve already got a ship in production and that my home system only has one wormhole exit. If I can close that gate, I’ll be able to effectively shut myself off from the rest of the universe for a while and rebuild at my own pace. It’ll take some time though, and I’m going to have to try everything possible to slow the Xi-Chung down.
I spin up production at my factories and start producing as many ships as I can in as short of a time as possible. I have my planets build ground-based weapon platforms to harry bombarding Xi-Chung fleets. I sit clouds of weaponized satellites over wormholes, forcing the Xi-Chung to stop to take the time to clear these nuisances out. None of this manages to substantially damage the invading armadas, but precious game turns are wasted as my home planet throws all it has into building the ship that would be our salvation.
I didn’t just happen upon this wormhole-closing technology; Space Empires IV has a dauntingly complex tech tree. I had been warned by a friend that the game can be difficult even at the easier settings, and that this particular technology can be a good way to give yourself a little extra breathing time. There’s probably little chance I would have found it without a bit of a suggestion in what to research. It’s halfway up a particularly expensive branch on the tree; one that gives little benefit until it starts producing gems like the wormhole device. I could easily see myself blindly bypassing these upgrades entirely in favor of a new level of gun or shield.
One of the Xi-Chung fleets has made its way into the Sephis system, my second-most-developed system and major staging point for the eastern half of my empire. Sephis is the Constantinople to my Rome, and losing it will be devastating. I muster the defense forces as I have in each system before this and prepare to make a stand. I name the gathered fleet “Sephis’s Shield” and prepare to defend the planet. I have little hope to win, but I have to give it a shot. Like each time before, my ships are outgunned and outnumbered. They inevitably fall and the Xi-Chung swarm the planet. My outpost is gone. Another turn ticks by in game.
There’s only one system between the Xi-Chung and my home planet. My forces are nigh exhausted, and the wormhole-sealing ship isn’t quite done. The last of my defense forces are a pathetic lot; outdated, aging ships dragged from mothballs and set out to act as little more than speed bumps. The Xi-Chung are relentless, and refuse to give quarter, though I beg each turn for an end to hostilities. Yes, beg. I’m not above it when the fate of my entire civilization is on the line. They never even consider stopping. I make a vow that if I survive this, I’m going to come back and wipe these guys out with total impunity in the worst way possible. That’s a big if.
A turn begins and I get an innocuous little message in my usual array of updates—the wormhole ship is done! I’ve still got to get it to the gate unharassed and deploy the device as quickly as possible. It’s helpless on its own, as I had included no built-in weapons or defensive capabilities in order to expedite its construction. This is going to come down to the wire.
The Xi-Chung make their move and are breathing down my neck; the bulk of their attack force is able to move to just beyond the other side of my home system’s wormhole. My last-hope ship, which I have hastily named the Aether 1, is barreling with all possible speed toward the wormhole to close it for good. Just one false move on my part, one suboptimal choice, and it’ll all be over.
Somehow, miraculously, the Aether 1 zooms into place over the wormhole and closes it up, the swirling blue energies collapsing in on themselves, winking out and leaving only the darkness of space behind. I’m cut off from the everything, the marauding Xi-Chung fleet included. All is quiet in my home system, the Aether 1 the only ship in the fleet still in service. Whole classes of ships have been destroyed, existing now only as blueprints. Judging from the timing there at the end, not a single sacrifice was in vain.
I’m emotionally drained and I save this game and shut it down, the snappy interface closing like I was exiting a basic spreadsheet, not a universe spanning strategy simulator. Did I have a chance to mention before that this game is very light weight on the processor? No? It is. It’s also very engrossing, so much so that its kind of hard to find time to appreciate the speed at which the program opens and closes. Such a nice aspect shouldn’t be overlooked, especially in an age where most games tend to send one’s hard disk into a fit of grinding and unresponsiveness should they have the audacity to try and minimize the game in mid-play. It’s just that this sort of detail has a tendency to fall to the wayside when you become engrossed in your own fully customized space empire.
Later on, I went back to my empire, and began to plan and build for humanity’s great return to the stars. I was unhindered as I gathered my forces, built new and devastating technologies and ships, and prepared to exact harsh revenge upon the Xi-Chung for their bloody, unprovoked war against me. Eventually I was a technological and military powerhouse and all that was left was to decide the most fitting punishment for our old enemies. I opted for opening up wormholes directly into their systems and exploding every single one of them with black hole bombs that destroyed everything in them.
It was quite satisfying.
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