A turn-based grand strategy game in space, set in the near future: Defend Earth against an alien invasion from the edge of the Solar System and expand your campaign to push them back to their base.
Positive
24 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
just.. boring
Awesome hidden gem! Wish It would still be worked on, or a DLC of sorts.
I often read "xcom-like" about games that just have soldiers running around. Solar war is XCOM-like in the ways that matter despite being a completely different genre. The nations of earth support you (so long as they're happy) as you wage war across the solar system against an alien menace while building your infrastructure and technology base. Now that's X-com!
The UI and graphics aren't much, but I have yet to find any other game that scratches that particular itch: a sci-fi wargame that heavily focuses on the military aspect, with interesting strategic and operational choices and a real feeling of being a military leader.
this game is extremely fun in my opinion
Amo esse jogo, o conceito é ótimo e gosto de como a interação com outras facções foi implementada. Mas é bem de nicho e poderia ser melhorado em alguns aspectos de gameplay, estética e novas mecanicas.
I love this game, the concept is great and I like how the interaction with other factions has been implemented. But it's very niche and could be improved in some aspects of gameplay, aesthetics and new mechanics.
A fun game with strong focus on tech choices, ship design and crew management.
You take the role of a Fleet Admiral who is tasked with the defense of Earth and eventually retaking the Solar System.
Every single officer you assign to each of your ships matters, as their performance affects how their ship handles. The crew present on the ship also influences things a lot. They are your most valuable asset. If you lose vessels, you can certainly rebuild, but if you lose your best crew and officers, they are gone for good, and it will take a very long while to train anyone to be as experienced... perhaps too long.
How you design your ships and compose your fleets is also very important, as you need to find different weapon and equipment combinations that work best for each situation and type of enemy. Brute force also works at times, but it comes expensive.
Meanwhile, you have to keep the Earth nations who sponsor you satisfied, clinging too much towards one might make the other feel disregarded.. need to find proper balance!
If you like getting down to the little details in your strategy, this game can be great fun.
For me, at least, it covers a niche I did not even know about until trying this one out.
Don't be fooled by the simple graphics, the gameplay is there and you get a serious, hard-science strategy game here. Think the WW2 Pacific War, but in the near future.
One of the only games that scratches my itch for a primarily logistics and personnel management based wargames. Plus the cool as hell intersolar conflict theme, this game is as unique as it is competently excecuted.
ok
An excellent strategy game : not too complicated and full of interesting features, like crew management, colonization, enemy ships boarding, U.Nations sessions, realistic planets/moons, etc... A great sci-fi experience. In fact, i noticed it was the EXACT "independance day 2" adventure !
Unpolished, quite short, but very interesting concept. I recommend to try this game, especially if on sale.
There are several concepts close to X-com (managing country relations, grand strategy and tactical combat), but game puts emphasis on ship combat, ship design and ship personnel management. And basic colony management.
Some portions of the game are not balanced well, in some phases you will find yourself either on the brink or extinction or totally OP. Mine rates are very questionable, you will never have enough resources to use special components, but game can be beaten without them.
Still, recommended to try something different and definitely a game deserving next installment.
This game is great, has in-depth micromanagement and strategy, And a great satisfaction when your fleet of starships are conquering alien invaders. Quite Similar to the Master Of Orion games, an intense strategic and management challenge.
It has a bit of a learning curve, but is really fun once you learn the mechanics of the game. Definitely worth $20, without a doubt.
If you're sick of the typical "modern" space strategy game, Solar War may well be your game.
Many modern space strategy games are designed around the principle of adding eye candy while removing mechanics. Solar War goes the opposite direction, using fairly minimal graphics while, at the same time, focusing on creating meaningful strategic and tactical decisions.
Here are just a handful of the things that happen in Solar War:
-Planets orbit at different speeds, so attack paths naturally open and close over time.
-Sometimes the heat sinks get shot off your ships, and you'll have to decide what systems to keep active, and how long to keep them active for, so that your ship can keep functioning as well as possible without overheating.
-Who gets the command position: the most competent person, or the person from the nation that contributes a lot of your funding and is thinking of cutting it?
-There's an enemy ship behind you. You designed your ship with front arc weapons, armor concentrated at the front of the ship, and thrusters optimized for speed rather than maneuverability. Now what?
The focus here is definitely more on tactics and ship design, with economics more of a consequence of battle outcomes than anything else. The economic game is not trivial by any means; the typical "build everything everywhere" strategy of many 4x will not work here, and the officer management and internal Earth politics sometimes require a good bit of thought. But it is in the ship design and the (turn-based, tactical) combat that the game really shines.
No, it's not flawless. Replayability is limited compared to more heavily randomized games, there's no multiplayer, and there are some cheesy strategies that the opponent has a hard time dealing with. And yes, it does look like what you see in the screenshots-- you can pick from a few things, but the overall appearance is pretty minimal. But, despite its flaws, it manages to be what many modern space strategy fail to be, namely, interesting.
Oh, and: if you thought the Antaran fleet in MoO2 was a bit of a letdown as an end-game boss fight, try taking down Solar War's alien mothership in direct combat. It's a pretty crazy fight.
I tried the demo and I was surprised at how much I like it. The demo will give you two hours with the full game, so it's absolutely worth a shot.
It's a different kind of game from the typical Space Cowboy or 4X sci fi games that it superficially resembles. It's a lot like X-Com, but from a space navy perspective. Aliens are attacking Earth and you need to build up and manage your fleet (including officer development and crews) with more typical kind of 4X research, combat and ship design. You've also got to keep the nations of Earth happy with your performance.
If you like X-Com and like fleet-based 4X games, you'll probably like this too.
I like this game very much.
I play it more offline than online, that's why I don't have that much hours on it yet.
This game for me is a simple combination of Master Of Orion ][ and Xcom Apocalypse. And when I say simple, I am talking about how easy it is to use, how simple but still beautiful and functional the graphics are, and also how much extra work could (and maybe should) be put into this game.
But the game is not simple when it comes to depth: you have a wide research "tree" and the game even takes visibility between planets and moons while they rotate around a sun or eachother into account.
The tactical part of the game however is a little bit too simple at the moment and I hope the developer will implement some or more of my ideas, or better ones :-). At this time, the tactical game is more or less shooting at eachother and coming closer to eachother. The only real tactical part of it is that you can choose which weapon you fire at which enemy. You don't need to fire everything at onces at one enemy (which the AI does if you use "AUTO RESOLVE"). An that makes the tactical part a bit boring at the moment. You need to play it yourself (not let the AI take over) or you lose too much, but it's not very exciting.
But I am sure the developer will improve this, as this game really looks like a piece of love and dedication on which "making money out of it" doesn't make it the real reason to create it. The game shows real passion and dedication to create a masterpiece in the genre(s) and for some parts, the developer (one person btw) has already succeeded.
So yes, I absolutely recommend this game (there is a demo, not on stream tho at the moment) and I really hope it will still be improved but it is already worth a lot of your time and money.
"So you've kicked alien invaders off Earth dozens of times, but always wondered what the next step would be?
Solar War gives you that scenario in a turn-based strategy game, combining some novel ideas with familiar concepts from different subgenres of classic strategy games. In the game, you will lead the effort to protect Earth from the aliens and battle them for control over the Solar System."
This actually sums it up pretty well. You play as the leader of earth's defenses, and your mission is to take over from where the Xcom boys left off.
Some good combinations of ideas here. The majority of the game takes place in a quasi-4X style strategic map that actually reminds me a lot more of Xenonauts or the older version of X-Com's strategic map than an actual 4X game. You have to get Earth's nations to provide you funding by meeting their needs (the U.S. likes you to be on the offensive all the time, Japan likes research, some nations only care if you put their officers in charge of ships, etc.), as well as building ships and defenses.
Fighting in done in the style of Master of Orion 2 (turn based, with a great deal of control over ship movement and weapons firing order), which is great, and also makes thinking about your ship and fleet designs important. It's a little management heavy initially (not so much once you get things set up), but that's something I kind of expect from games that play like this, so it's not much of a negative.
As everyone else has said, there aren't really any graphics, and there is no sound at present. I personally think the graphics fit the theme really well (you're a general looking at a map), though having different graphics for the ships would be nice - I don't mind the basic-ness of the display because it fits the game, but if you're going to have actual ships instead of representative radar dots, then there should be a bit of difference between how they look. I didn't really mind the lack of sound either because I usually play with it off unless required anyway - it's not exactly a demanding game on your system, and you can always play music in the background if you need some.
There's a few little menu things lacking (don't pay too much attention to what you find on youtube though, the UI has been made a bit friendlier since then), and a the tutorial just kind of drops off after giving the most basic of rundowns (though you can look most stuff up on the in game manual), but it's not really that hard of a game to get into from a 4X standpoint, or from a turn based tactical point of view either. It IS rather slow paced (I think, anyway. I feel like I'm perhaps not understanding the pacing properly), but that's not really a bad thing for this game and doesn't ruin the enjoyment.
All and all, it's probably the best 4X-lite tactical game I've played (maybe the only one). Only thing I'd really caution prospective buyers about is that this does not support all intel graphics setups - it is right there in the system requirements, but not something I noticed, and for the price, it's worth mentioning. That said, it's working fine on my intel laptop, but you may want to go try a demo or something to be sure before you buy,
I'm going to not recommend this game on a preliminary basis, not because I'm not enjoying it -- I am -- but there are some significant caveats that need to be said, or a number of people are going to be wasting their money.
First of all, there is no sound whatsoever in this game, which is very jarring. Secondly, the interface leaves much to be desired; controls don't always work as you might wish (in particular, the space bar sometimes acts as "pause" and sometimes acts as "click", meaning that for a while, if a popup happens, you may reflexively hit the spacebar and accidentally select whatever the default action is in the popup). Also, there is a fair amount of burrowing down and popping back up through popups, especially when shuffling officers around.
And there's a lot of that. This is the primary caveat: thus far, the game feels more like the logistics exercise of deciding who to promote and generally how run the admiralty, rather than the tactics of space combat. In other words, it plays a bit like dinking a spreadsheet. The thing is, I'm enjoying that process; so far, at least, there are enough interesting bells and whistles on the individual officers for me to want to build the perfect crew by proper career guidance. In that way, it reminds me a little of the class XCOM, more than it does of, say, Master of Orion (there is no exploration in this game).
One particular element that is unusual and highly satisfying to me is the mechanic of actual orbits. The entire battleground is simply the solar system, but there is no instantaneous travel (thus far?), meaning that the location of, say, the Earth relative to Mars or Jupiter matters, and changes over the course of the game. I don't know how realistic it is, but it's novel and adds a feeling of "reality" to the game that is often lacking in many similar games.
In general, the whole thing is lacking a lot of polish. I'm finding it a possible diamond in the rough -- satisfying, at least -- but I suspect that many people won't. Anyway, given that every last one of the reviews currently present is positive, I thought it best to add a note of warning to this. At the very least, buying this game should be done with eyes open.
100% approved. I was hesitant at first looking at the high price and primitive looking graphics, but I am thankful that I decided to take the plunge and buy this.
Amazing game:}
love the game it reminds me of the classic x-com that was in space
great game, needs a lot of improvements but very addicting
When I first found out about Solar War, it immediately reminded me of the now obscure early 1990's Japanese series Regional Power by Cosmos Computer. With elements from early-type Romance of The Three Kingdoms and Civilization, the Regional Power games had left me wanting more of the same. So when I came across Solar War, it was with some excitement and trepidation - had I finally found a game I had been wanting to play but that had either not existed or lain undiscovered?
+Unique gameplay
+Highly moddable
+/- One-man developer
-No music & minimal graphics
-High price
The best element about it is the unique gameplay.
First and foremost is the officer and crew management.
You assign officers to ships in one of four designated roles: captain (Leadership), tactical, navigation, or engineering. All officers have stats in those four categories, and are enhanced or adversely affected by the captain's leadership.
All the officers have ranks and can be promoted, and their rank enables/disables certain roles. They can also have skills and be awarded, amongst other things.
Ships also have a crew, separated into several ranks, that gain experience and can be reassigned.
You manage relations with the countries on Earth, research technologies, build and outfit ships, bases and colonies, not to mention battling aliens.
Another element that is very well done in Solar War is the moddability of the game.
It is accessible and wide in scope - just about everything is available within the xml files.
You could add new countries, random officers, unique officers, technologies, or make new scenarios, to name a few things.
However, for me at least, there came a point when the game rang a little bit hollow and this is probably due to the fact that Solar War is a one-man operation.
First off, there is no music whatsoever in the game.
Second, the graphics while serviceable in quality are minimal in quantity. For instance, the inclusion of officer portraits and battle scenes would have increased the entertainment factor by many times.
And third, the officers can end up just becoming a bunch of names. There are a lot of them, but they die easily and have no official histories.
To conclude, Solar War has well-made and unique core gameplay mechanics.
However, it is an almost ascetic experience lacking the luxuries that makes a game what it is.
If you at all like turn-based strategy and sf, then I recommend it despite the high price just because there really are no other games like it currently for the western market.
Very adictive, much like a cross of X-com and a Stragety, could be optimised with many places that could use automation. Basic graphics, put i love it anyway.
