Category:Races

From SOTS

Sword of the Stars includes distinct races each with their own technological, cultural and political differences, as well as different ways to travel between star systems, and differing preferences regarding environment on planets. The variety between the species contributes greatly to ingame strategies, how each AI race behaves and overall gameplay.

This category holds the backstory of the races. For gameplay and tactics information, see Category:Tactics.

Foreword from Arinn Dembo

Traditionally, the "races" in ANY game of this genre have not been a design priority. Sure, you could have ten or fifteen or thirty of them — but the reason you could have so many is that there were really no fundamental differences between one race and another. The only thing that really made one race different from another was a choice of icon and a few number variables: "Race A = –1 research, +2 industrialization". Making your own race under these conditions was a good feature — you could assign your own variables within the plus and minus parameters, pick an icon and ship style, and you were done.

The exception to this general rule would be games like Starcraft, in which there are three different races — which are genuinely different from each other. They represent three truly different experiences in terms of gameplay.

This is what we are going for in Sword of the Stars. Each one of the races in this game — the Humans, the Tarka, the Liir and the Hiver — is truly different from the others. Their ships look different, but that's not just cosmetic — if you examine the design carefully, you can see that different races place their armor, turrets and weapons differently. Those decisions dovetail with the "personality" of the race, their philosophy and their goals — it isn't random.

These races look at the universe differently. They have different modes of travel which will force the player to develop different strategic approaches. Each race has a different approach to the Master Tech Tree of the game, which leads to different ship designs: those differences are going to have a big impact on the tactics that work for each race in battle. And being truly different is the standard that will be met by the new races that are added with expansion packs or sequels to the game.

Every race in SotS is going to be a challenge to the player. They all have advantages — they all have disadvantages. Learning to use the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of each race will be a game unto itself. So when four players open a battle map, playing each of the four races, each of them will be playing a different game — and trying to beat the other three. And when you're playing on–line, and you run into a player whose ships are sporting the Four Race Champion Badge? You'll know you're facing someone who knows how to win with — and how to beat! — all of the races of the game.

The design philosophy of each different race will be an issue when learning how to use their ships to the best effect, both strategically and tactically. The two aspects of gameplay do mesh in the game, because where and how you can get reinforcements to the next fight can make an enormous difference when battling over any given system. Not every conflict can be resolved in one round of combat.

Each race also has certain psychological quirks when played by the AI, naturally. And certain advantages in reseraching certain technologies, while others may be harder to come by. But in simple practical terms, it doesn't matter much whether you lose a colony to torpedos or bio–warfare missiles. A world lost is a world lost — the only difference might be how much the enemy gains when they take over.

When a human player assumes the helm, of course, all bets are off — that empire is going to act like there's a whacky monkey in charge, regardless of what race the rank and file may be.

If you buy SotS (and we hope you will!), you won't be getting one game with four costumes to wear while playing. You're going to get four games.

—Arinn Dembo, Kerberos Productions

The Offical SotS Races Section (Kerberos Forums)

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"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." H.P. Lovecraft

The original content of the following pages was written by Arinn Dembo.

ALL CONTENT HEREIN IS © (COPYRIGHT) KERBEROS PRODUCTIONS.

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