Star Dynasties
NEW DLC OUT NOW
About the GameHumanity had just taken its first tentative steps in space, when the catastrophic destruction of Mother Earth plunges the galaxy into a new Dark Age. Centuries later, those few surviving colonies have stabilised into a simple feudal society, unable to comprehend or advance the technological artefacts they use to survive. Internecine fights between an aristocratic elite decide the fate of the scattered fragments of human kind.
As the leader of a faction of star systems, you must seek to ensure the survival and prosperity of your dynasty. Expand your empire, herd your unruly vassals, build political alliances, and navigate a web of agendas, political intrigue and social obligations, to emerge as the dominant power of the galaxy.
Forge Your Dynasty – One Generation at a Time
Your campaign will span through generations of your bloodline. Customise a faction leader and launch your quest for galactic domination. Even if you set out as a benevolent upstart duke, your great-grandchild may be cruel and vindictive. You’ll have to be ready to adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of your descendants.
Star in Your Own Space Opera
A feudal society is built upon strict rules and values. It will be expected of you to defend your vassals, protect your family and respect your neighbours. Act honorably and you can seduce the court of public opinion. Ingratiate yourself with others by throwing lavish feasts and solidify your alliances through marriage. Then strike ruthlessly when you can get away with it. Depose your unruly barons, threaten and force concessions from other dukes, and blackmail other characters to get what you want. Unearth the secrets of your enemies to ruin their political standing in a galaxy where reputation is everything.
Experience a Rich Galaxy of Emergent Characters and Storylines
You’ll be kept on your toes by a procedurally generated cast of hundreds of characters, each one trying to achieve their own personal goals. As events transpire, the choices you make can have a major impact not just on you; but on your heir, your house, and the fate of your empire.
Reign Among the Ruins of a Forgotten World
The remnants of humanity live inside structures which they cannot build, and travel inside machines whose workings are unfathomable. Expedition Events can grant you a piece of pre-Collapse knowledge; from the relics of a previous age of exploration, to the mysteries of the here and now. Improve your colony by repairing the pre-collapse buildings and installations you encounter to provide your people safety, food and other necessities.
Game Discussion
Steam User 38
"Duke Jurgen Ylvan inherited Ylvani Shogunate in his late 30s. An upstart realm was no different from similar realms but the Ylvan family was strong, honorable, and inspired loyalty. Within 20 years the domain doubled in size and became an empire. And while vassals were backbiting and feuding constantly, the empire was growing.
The only issue the Shogunate faced was the question of succession- heiress Anastasia Ylvan was a disgrace: hunting commoners for sport, fornicating, and failing two times at usurping her father.
The prospects were bleak but during the 25th year of Jurgen Ylvan's rule, an ancient bioengineering facility was discovered on a newly acquired planet. After research, it was revealed that the old machines were used to create perfect humans. With that, the Emperor decided to create his perfect heir- through questionable bioengineering methods, the 4th Empress gave birth to Yuropa Ylvan, a perfect being destined to be the future Empress.
At this point, nobody opposed the Emperor's decision to change the line of succession but it was suspected things would get worse after he died- the child was not able to rule on her own yet and someone from close relatives would need to step in as a regent. But will the regent yield his seat when the heiress comes of age?
It turns out the Emperor died 3 years too early before his heiress came out of age. Her uncle, one of the most despised people in the Empire, given his predicament, did well holding onto all assets- not losing anything but also not progressing anywhere.
Yuropa ascended to the throne after 3 years of interregnum, taking charge of the realm that was tearing itself apart. Within 1st year of her rule, three vassal lords decided to raise against her, branding her as incompetent for losing 1/3 of the territory. Her step-sister tried to assassinate her and usurp power for herself. Neighboring rulers declared war, smelling easy gains.
But she was engineered to perfection. The first wind of change blew when she singlehandedly defeated an assassin by knifing him from the shadows. She banished her step-sister. Bombarded rebellious vassals, refusing to parley and deposing them eventually. The invaders were repelled and territory regained once the civil war was over."
And that's just in one playthrough.
Steam User 11
So people are saying this game is Crusader Kings in space? Well, that's exactly what it is!
If you enjoy the CK series then you will definitely find some enjoyment in this game. The overall mechanics and interface feel exactly like CK2 so if you've played that game you will find yourself slipping easily into this game. Similar to Crusader Kings, you control a family House and your main aim is to expand and strengthen your House.
I think the biggest difference in game play; is that this game is turn based rather than real time. Each turn you get action points and have to decide what choices or decisions you would like to make with each action costing points. This system may sound strange compared to CK's game play but I think it works well. It has a lot of freedom and you are not compelled to spend points or make choices if you don't want too.
Another big difference is this game does not particularly focus on warfare, in fact you can expand your borders largely through peaceful means. With over 46 hours playing, I only declared war a few times. The combat however isn't very exciting, unlike CK there aren't units you move around and nor is there a real visual representation of them.
The combat is a static turn based system with each side picking an attack or defence tactic. Going back and forth until there is a winner. I would say the combat is fine but not very engaging. Personally, I think the game needed a more visual component to the warfare, the game does not use 3D models, so it would have to be done with some sort of 2D art, which would still be good.
In terms of visual style, I would say this game visually looks like the actual Paradox Space game Stellaris, just without the 3D models. The galaxy map looks very much like the Stellaris Galaxy map and overall it's colour scheme matches it. The art in the game is very beautiful, it's all 2D art but there are some great looking event art pieces.
Overall I would definitely recommend this game, I really enjoyed it for what it is. It's not as in depth as Crusader Kings and I feel after 40 hours you will have experienced the majority of what the game has to offer, it does have entertaining and fun events but you will soon see repeats. I should note, I played the base game without the DLC, the DLC says its an events based expansion so it might make the game considerably more enjoyable.
For the money, I spent, the game was definitely worth it and I recommend it!
Steam User 12
This is a laughably great game, especially for the $11 that I paid for it on sale. However, this is just my opinion, so please check my profile to get an idea of the kind of games I own. Also, there is a demo, which is highly recommended.
I usually don't do tutorials - not because I am smart - but because I often lack the patience to trudge through them. But I played the tutorial in this demo three times with no issues. This should convince most people if the game is for them or not.
It is sort of like a scaled-down Crusader Kings III in space. And is in some ways, more complex and sophisticated than Paradox's mega game. This game is so tool-tip friendly, I can hardly believe it. There is almost nothing in the UI that doesn't have a tool-tip explanation. And for a dullard like me, this is a great help.
As the game states up-front, this is not a paint-the-map, grand strategic combat sim, but is chock full of detail nonetheless. Being me, what I love the most about this game is the ability to call up a dev mode and play with the simulation. Almost anything goes here, and I would also recommend the DLC, as it allows one great freedom in creating a new game, plus other nice options.
Truth is that I'm an old man and a wargamer at heart, and a stingy one, no less. But because this game offers unlimited replayability, even a cheapo like me would consider paying full price.
Distant Worlds 2 is certainly a step up from this game (and has an awesome, in-game editor), but good luck picking that one up for less than $20. This game is more bare-bones - or should I say "streamlined" - with much less focus on combat than empire management. But it will run on a potato, takes up 1 gig or so, and I haven't run across any bugs myself.
I'm really impressed overall, and it's one of the better games this reviewer has picked up in quite a while.
Best wishes!
Steam User 12
Simple, yet hard, extremely hard. And insanely fun, but of course, not for everyone.
I have already had a few playthroughs, about five. No 'win' yet, meaning conquering half of the systems on the entire map, but insane fun. The game is a flood of endless politics and backstabbing, filled with intrigue and lots of betrayal. The AI is simple, as it mostly reacts based on how much characters like your House and your characters, but the massive web of Houses and characters make it extremely more intense and complicated, which is amazing. Good design, I will say, personally. I've been playing on Easy, and I dare not up the difficulty, but I am considering trying custom - aka 'sandbox' mode, which allows for easier access to your family's starting loadout. It's just a top tier game for me, but again, not something everyone will enjoy.
If you like endless war and conquest, do not buy. Was is costly and not the central focus of the game, and you get punished for it if you do not combine it with espionage, politics and arrangements. You can't just conquer the map in a single sitting (unless you have tons of experience with the game and its mechanics, I suppose), and it's overall a slow process toward victory. What I am saying it, the purpose of the game is to be slow, with each generation of your family dealing with a ton of internal AND external affairs and issues. My goal is slowly expanding my Kingdom-Turned-Empire while dealing with countless warring vassals, political arrangements and devious rivals. Civil wars and infighting is a huge part, so do not expect all of your domain to agree with your moves. But that's what makes it amazing.
I rarely leave reviews but I wanted to toss a coin to the devs, wherever they may be. This game is right what I love. Just again, get it on sale or not at all if you are not a fan of a slow experience: Cause if you're not a 200 hour veteran, it will -probably- be a slow way to victory, with a lot of defeat on the way!
If you are my type of person: Just get it. Trust me.
And that's my personal review!
Steam User 4
If SD were to get the attention it deserves, it could develop into a strong competitor fo Paradox games. I'm surprised a small developer can pull something like this off, it's quite a bit of work.
Quality and design wise, it's right up there competing with PDX games... maybe better actually. It is smaller relatively, in terms of the scale and diversity of content, but it's not exactly fair to compare it to something built with a huge team either. Hopefully the developer will be able to continue the work at some point, or even produce a sequel built on this same code base.
A few suggestions I would make if the dev ever reads this:
-- The number of popups and notifications can get pretty excessive. A system that lets you slience certain types of notices, and instead puts them into some kind of game long or turn report that isn't in your face would be a big improvement.
-- Building on the item above, we really need the option to auto-deny certain things. The biggest offender is other rulers asking you give them a colony. 99% of the time I'm pretty sure the answer is going to be NO--GET LOST! An exception would be if there's a THREAT and they'll go to war if you say no, of course. But if it's just a polite ask, we should have an option for the UI to poliitely decline and drop a notice in a turn log.
-- There seems to be a bug where your inactive council members don't show up as "IDLE" when you view your House (left panel shown when you click your House flag). You do get the idle notifcation with the colored 'suggestion/hint' icons, and council members can do tasks even though they have a council job, so I'm pretty sure this is a bug.
-- It'd be nice if we had some type of global "search" feature which lets you search through all known characters. Something like the marriage planner dialogs in some Paradox games. It should let you view character skill levels, sort by high/low stats, optionally filter by marriage status, and optionally filter by gender. Reasoning: sometimes marriage candidates are a little lacking, and a less ethical Archon may feel the need to find a better match and "help" their spouse get into a convenient "accident".
Steam User 7
I absolutely love this game. Make the feudal family of your dreams to rule over the stars, and watch them fall apart with bickering, cheating, lying, assassination, incestuous encounters, and betrayals.
It's Game of Thrones in space, and I'm here for it 100%.
Steam User 5
The short version for the people "in the know".
Basically Stellaris meets Crusader Kings and both of them are in their Alpha-Beta stages no DLC's and the DLC that they offer is the basic that should have been included in my opinion. I give it thumbs up for unique blend BUT I'm of a mixed opinion. Buy when it is on sale. Otherwise it's boring and bland 14 hours were the max for me.
The only "edge" you can get is the "Bloodline"(aka research or in CK terms dynasty traits).
Out of those 14 hours, 9 of them were without cheats with one family other hours were with cheats with the other family to test the game and boy it completely ruined any drive to continue playing after understanding that it is a loop system with road block elements. (Many games have it but without much to do and constant spam of legal issues it grows on you fast).
I've bought it at around 10 euro, stellaris vanilla can be bought on sale for almost the same price if not less and offers more features(Same applies to CK). But i'm content, 12 hours were ok, where i live it's 2 bottles of beer and a pack of chips that would make me content for 2 hours max.