Sword of the Stars II: Lords of Winter Q&A - Galactic Advancement

The Lords of Winter are back. It's been 100 years since the events of the original Sword of the Stars, and now, these intergalactic troublemakers have returned for another round of genocide, enslavement, and whatever else they can produce. Fortunately, the other races of the universe have not been sitting idly by during these past years. Technological advances have led to massive galactic empires and the new Leviathan-class star ships. For more details about this strategy sequel, we tracked down Martin Cirulis, CEO and lead designer at Kerberos Productions.

GameSpot: We understand that Lords of Winter will be introducing a new race. What can you tell us about the Suul'ka and how they differ from the other six races?

Martin Cirulis: Well, apart from the fact the Suul'ka are the Lords of Winter (the direct translation from the Liir of Suul'ka is WinterMind), much of what can be said about them is still top secret. We would like players to have a real sense of holy c*** when they install SotSII and watch the intro sequence. What I can tell you, though, is that the Suul'ka will be part of a hybrid faction; one part Lords and the other their Zuul servants. The player will have access to both the old Zuul node-carving drive tech, but also be able to use the new Suul'ka drive system for times when stealth or mass deployments are needed.

And, as some may have deduced from the historical interaction between the Lords and the Liir, Morrigi, and Zuul, I think we can safely reveal that the Suul'ka will be very familiar with the new psionic tree in the SotSII tech forest.

GS: Instead of having a single health bar, ships in Lords of Winter take damage to individual sections? Could you give us some examples of how this system works? How do different weapon types damage each ship?

MC: In the original game, ships were built out of three sections, and each one of those sections had its own function and hit points. When those hit points reached zero, the section was reduced to wreckage and all special functions related to the section ceased. When two out of three sections were reduced to zero, the ship was destroyed. SotSII adds another layer of detail to this by getting rid of the simple real-time strategy-style hit points model and replacing it with a 2D armor matrix and then an internal structure that generates critical hits once that armor is punctured. Apart from the effects of critical hits slowly degrading ship and section performance, the other most noticeable aspect of this system is the fact that different weapons will remove armor from the matrix in different patterns.

This creates a whole new layer of weapon detail as a laser may make a four-point hole straight in from the top of the armor block, but a gauss round, while also doing four points of damage, makes a wide shallow gouge. When you combine this with the concept that a weapon only has to penetrate the abstracted armor block in order to damage the internal structure of a ship, it opens a whole new tactical realm to the game and makes things like loadouts and maneuvering to cover your ship's weak side all the more important in SotSII.

GS: On the topic of combat, we understand Kerberos is making some changes to the playing field in Lords of Winter. Could you tell us more about how the three planes of combat will function and what other changes you have planned for combat?

MC: The three planes will allow players to not only change the altitude of a ship with the press of a key but also allow players to create fully 3D formations; something they have been asking for since the original game. Other combat features will be a whole set of preset combat maneuvers, like jinking and strafing, as well as movement modes that will allow ships to travel faster tactically at the cost of scanning distance and weapon rate of fire. This means players will be able to drive hard and fast for their objectives deep in a system but will have to take into account things like being ambushed.

GS: Let's talk about the new Leviathan-class ships. Are they more than just "bigger dreadnoughts?" How will this new ship type change the flow of battle? What unique advantages will they have over other ships?

MC: Leviathans are far more than just bigger dreadnoughts to be sure. First off, each one is large enough to be its own command ship. Leviathans just aren't part of a fleet; they are the center of it. Also, while a Leviathan may be specifically dedicated to carrying battle riders, even a battlewagon class LV will still be able to carry small numbers of riders for recon or target-painting purposes. And speaking of LVs, DNs and Riders, it is an awesome sight to behold as a Liir LV class carrier flickers into existence at the edge of an enemy system and launches three Zuul battleships into combat.

GS: Could you go into more detail on how the government system works. What affects your governing style in the game and how will that change your experience later on? How will that affect your diplomatic relations with other civilizations? Will other races look more or less kindly on players who pursue certain government types, for instance?

MC: Unlike in other grand strategy games where players simply pick which government type or philosophy they would like their empire to follow based on a simple list of advantages and disadvantages, SotSII keeps track of a large number of decisions you make economically, militarily, and diplomatically and uses them to eventually tell you what government type you have become. Some choices may move you toward the libertarian side of things, while making hard calls may lean you toward a plutocracy or even a junta-style government. The political spectrum of SotSII runs along a two-axis system and allows for eight possible government styles, in addition to the middle-of-the-road social democracy.

When it comes to diplomacy, it means you not only have to take into account species, but government types as well. And, of course, the synergy between the two means that even in a game with two factions of the same species, they can have considerably different agendas. And, of course, this doesn't take into account the impact of full-on civil wars, should you fail to meet the expectation of your people given the path you have chosen.

GS: The randomized research trees were one of the most interesting aspects of the original Sword of the Stars. Will they be making a return in the sequel? How will they be improved?

MC: The randomized tech tree is considered a core feature of the whole SotS experience so you can have no doubt it will be part of Sword of the Stars II. This time around, players will be able to see more of the tree at once but not be able to tell ahead of time if a tech branch is viable for them or not. You may see damper beams on your tree, but after commissioning your scientists to do a feasibility study for a few turns, they may come back with the bad news that they see very little chance of this technology ever coming to fruition. Of course, you may decide to chance it anyway and fund full research on the hopes they were overly pessimistic or go with their recommendation and pursue a tech more likely to come through for you.

In addition to this, your empire now has a much more effective scientific database and information-storage facilities. This means that while you may not be working on rapid fire missile racks at the moment your salvage ships uncover important wreckage, those points of information will be stored until you are ready to research that tech.

GS: Instead of just conquering everything in your path, we understand that you can now declare lesser civilizations as colonies under your protection. What do colonies add to Sword of the Stars? What are the advantages of colonizing rather than conquering?

MC: Independent colonies are now not only made up of splinter colonies of the established races but also whole new minor (meaning non-faster-than-light capable) alien races. The independents not only add more detail to the SotSverse, but they also allow players to expand their empire and influence in different ways. There will be an entire set of minor races that will appear randomly from game to game, and while they will always have the same core attributes each time, they will also have some random features that will keep them from being completely predictable. While conquering an independent will certainly get you access to the world as quickly as possible, it may be possible to peacefully incorporate this world into your empire using diplomacy. The trade-off here is that while you may improve your diplomatic status with the major empires by showing a subtle hand and you might gain access to the minor races' special abilities, the downside is that their money will mostly be their own and they may make decisions about their own world that may not mesh too well with your agenda.

GS: Tell us about how the diplomatic game in Sword II is being improved over the previous game's options. Are there any new ways to interact with other races or players?

MC: The SotSII diplomatic suite assumes the SotSverse has fully entered the age of empires, and hence, there are more things to discuss and bargain for than during the gunboat diplomacy era of the original game. Now, players can negotiate treaties, as well as alliances based on borders, fleet size, and even technologies. You can also expect an increase in diplomatic feedback from AI players, as well as more espionage options and opportunities.

GS: The original SotS featured multiplayer that supported a drop-in mode that lets players seamlessly swap in AI characters for players who needed to drop out. Could you give us an update on SotSII's multiplayer development? What improvements are being added to the game?

MC: SotSII will continue to use the drop-in multiplayer system we pioneered in the original game while working on improving communication and shared info between games. We would like you to be able to not only chat to the people you are playing with in a game but also to receive messages from people on your friends list that may be playing in other SotSII games. We are also looking into ways to send out alerts when you are starting up a game and for ways to improve the stand-alone SotS server we offered as a free update of the original game.

GS: Are there any other points you'd like to highlight about Lords of Winter?

MC: Other than thanking you for the chance to talk up our baby here, I suppose what I would like to point out is the fact we are not just making another strategy game sequel with the same old gameplay dressed up in prettier graphics. SotSII is a logical and thematic evolution of a game set in a galaxy that has advanced 100 years since the first game. If you played the original, we want you to feel comfortable with the elements you loved best, but we also want to thrill and challenge you with new gameplay and mechanics that let you feel like you are playing in a new era. And for those of you out there who may not be space gamers but are interested in strategy, we want to offer you a game that is doing exciting things in the genre so that when it's time for the SotSII demo, you have a reason to stop by and check out what we have been up to.

GS: Thank you for your time.