Until the core version of Falling Stars: War of Empires is released (which I will remind you is FREE!), it's hard to appreciate some of the major things we are introducing to our game and the 4x genre. The extended preview I linked above does a good job of going over the general flow and mechanics of the game, but each of those features have very deep strategic purposes.
So, why did we feel this particular game needed to be made when there are a plethora of other 4x games out already, or coming out soon? The simplest reason is that we wanted to offer a game that has as much strategic depth as many of the current games have vast complexity. To clarify, I think complexity is a great thing. Distant Worlds does an amazing job of giving you so much content and so many different moving pieces that it really feels great when you get it all working in perfect harmony.
But to me, strategic depth is what happens when in a single round, you are faced with a decision tree that forks off into dozens, if not hundreds of different directions, each having vastly different long term outcomes. There is no micro management in Falling Stars, plain and simple. Every decision is an important one, and it's key we make that distinction off the bat so players know what kind of game we're getting into. It's going to kick your butt the first few times you play. The AI will effortlessly choose pretty good strategic paths that have long term goals, while you're still struggling to decide which ship you should purchase for your fleet in a far off system.
But as you continue to learn about the game, your decisions will become more rewarding and your ability to plan ahead will increase. This is precisely where our "Strategic Actions" come into play. Every round, you get to choose a one-time game-changing effect that can steer you out of danger, help you discover another planet to get an edge on the AI, or make technological advancement a breeze. Even better, it allows you to gain an increased advantage if you consistently choose that particular Strategic Action. Players who like to win by pounding other empires in the ground can do that. Players who want to exploit the galactic council and win via political authority can do that. So how exactly do these "Strategic Actions" work?
Before each round of play, you choose one of 6 Strategic Action paths. Each of of these give you a boost in a particular area. "Warfare" will allow you to engage with one of your fleets multiple times in a turn, when normally you can only attack with them once. Every time you use that particular action, you unlock another step of "Supplementary" actions. These allow you to choose from another bonus that gets added to your strategic action. Each supplementary you unlock is stronger than the one before it, and there are 4 to unlock. but you can choose 1 of any of the 4 to add, so you don't get all of the bonuses but you also don't have to pick the "strongest" one. It really depends on what your current situation is. So while the most basic supplementary gives you a few small fighters added to your fleet during the battle, the most powerful one allows you to ignore diplomatic relations and attack a previously allied empire.
So that's a lot of text to digest, and I'll leave it at that for now, but there is much more I could talk about with Strategic Actions, or another of the many unique features we have in the game, but if you want to see this in action, there is a quick overview at the 4:20 second mark in the video above.